The Business of Sports

Over the years professional sports has been more and more business like and less loyal to players and fans. Salary caps are huge, and salaries are disproportionate with reality. This has turned what was once something players did for the love of the game into a multi-billion dollar a year industry.

It used to be that your team drafted a player and he was your guy for years to come. Most of my pro sports memories from childhood are Detroit related, but I think the experience holds true across the board. Steve Yzerman played his whole 22 year career with the winged wheel on his chest, Joe Dumars retired a Piston and moved into their front office, Barry Sanders retired from the lions (albeit early and on bad terms, but one team none the less).

Now it seems you can hardly get used to a guy on your team before he gets caught in the business dealings that have become all too common. Today, the Tigers traded Pudge Rodriguez to the Yankees for a pitcher who used to play for Detroit. A couple of years ago Ben Wallace walked away from the Pistons to take more money from the Bulls (how did that one work out for ya big fella?). The Lions cut starting running back Kevin Jones (a money move) and have been through more coaches in the past decade than some franchise's have had since their inception.

The result? I have a growing stack of jerseys from my favorite players hanging in my closet that I no longer wear because they don't play for my team anymore. A friend of mine is a Marlins fan and loves Pudge Rodriguez. He spent big money on a sweet authentic Pudge Marlins jersey during their heyday. What happened after FL won the World Series? Fire sale. Traded away all of their big talent. Pudge eventually wound up in Detroit, my friend’s jersey collecting dust in his closet. As it turns out, he is also a diehard Yankees fan so now he has his boy back behind the plate. I wonder…will he spend any money on a Pudge Yankees jersey?

Now you can say that the players are just as guilty as the franchise, and I agree with you. When you have $100 million dollars you are not likely to starve (**he takes a shot at Latrel Sprewell who infamously turned down millions in an effort to get more money to quote 'feed his family'**). Sometimes the franchise just has to mitigate risk as Detroit did with Pudge today. The contract was expiring and they were likely to get nothing in return as Ivan would have bolted this summer.

I don't blame GM's for playing the game because they have no choice. What I would like to see is these whiny, rich beyond my wildest dreams, ordinary men with gifted physical ability, shut up and play the game. Be loyal to the fan who can hardly afford the inflated ticket prices teams charge to pay your ridiculous salary. Not to mention you make a stupid amount of money to play games while some of us struggle just to stay employed at $10 per hour. When was the last time you had to sweat over paying $4 a gallon so you could get to a job you hate? Suck it up and take that paltry $60 million to play a game you claim to love.

A tutorial

I have been married now for four of the most spectacular years of my life, and I am one of the lucky few who has truly found my soul mate. I can't describe how it feels to be blessed enough to have the rest of my life to spend with my best friend at my side.
Having said that, I felt I should disseminate everything I have learned about women over the past few years. Here it is for your edification, everything I know about women:






Did you get it all? Thats right, nothing. I know nothing about women. They remain as mysterious and hard to figure out as ever. Just when I think I know what I am doing, WHAM! Wrong!
I guess that is what makes life interesting. If they were easy to figure out it would be boring...

Movie time!

At lunch today the conversation veered into movie land. I am somewhat jaded by Tinsel Town as of late, and my personal take is that they are running out of original ideas worth making a movie out of. Look at all of the dusted off old ideas that have been regurgitated in the last couple of years; Batman, Die Hard, Indiana Jones, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, just to name a few.

Some of these remakes are good; some of them should never have been touched. *see also The Incredible Hulk*

This got me to thinking about movies I have loved over the last decade or so, and I have compiled a list of "If you missed it, you should go check it out" movies.
(Editors note: I am by no means Roger Ebert, so these are just my non professional thoughts, observations, and ideas, so take it with a grain of salt)

1) The Comedy selection: Anchorman
Granted, Farrell is an acquired taste, but if you love his style check out the movie that gave us such memorable quotes as:
-You're a smelly pirate hooker. Why don't you go back to your home on Whore Island?
-I'm in a glass case of emotion!
-Sex Panther, 60% of the time, it works every time!
-Look, a glorious rainbow! Do me on it!
-and the list goes on...
Not to mention the classic scene of Farrell describing to his buddies what it's like to be in love by leading the gang in an A Capella version of 'Afternoon Delight'. Good stuff!

Honorable Mention: Superbad, a hilarious coming of age tale from new comedy genius Seth Rogan.

2) The Fantasy/Action Adventure selection: Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl
This was such a well told story with fantastic original characters and great visuals. I remember seeing this in the theater and thinking, "now that is how you make a great movie!” Johnny Depp takes the character 'Captain' Jack Sparrow to epic heights and anything Producer Jerry Bruckheimer touches turns to gold. The two sequels are worth seeing, but the magic of the original is never recaptured. Favorite quote, "Why is all the Rum gone?"

Honorable Mention: Star Wars III, Revenge of the Sith, easily the best of the 'prequels'

3) The Drama selection: The Good Sheppard
Brilliant casting, an edge of your seat thriller, and the best post WWII story I have seen. This one is a little bit hard to follow at times, but if you pay attention you should get it in the end. I love Matt Damon in this, because you never quite know what to think about his character. He keeps you guessing and as you find out throughout the film that has been his job since he was a college lad.

Honorable Mention: Reign over Me, Don Cheadle and surprisingly Adam Sandler turn in great performances in this post 9/11 life goes on story (I say 'surprisingly Sandler' because it is in my opinion his only serious role that he pulls off aside from maybe 'Spanglish'). Gripping scenes with Sandler recalling 9/11 and how it changed him forever.

4) Animated tale I saw before I had children that gave me a built in excuse: Finding Nemo
You have to love the voice cast in this and the animation was stunning. I was not an Ellen Degeneres fan before this movie, but Dory was an unforgettable character that still makes me grin. "Hi, I'm Dory. Have we met?” When she reads the 'escape' hatch as EsChaPeh and postures that it must be French, I just can't help but laugh. Then she says, "hey, that’s funny it’s spelled the same as escape". Brilliant. I still use the "Good feelings gone" quote from when the monster fish sneaks up on them in the abyss and love to sing and dance to "no eating here tonight, uh, no eating here tonight, you on a diet"!

Honorable Mention: Meet the Robinsons, a great flick about a boy genius who invents time travel. I know someone who reminds me of Yagoobian, but I won't say here...

Can a man really have too many toys?

Recently I have begun to renew my zeal for guitar, rediscovering my love of classic rock in the process. This is due mostly to the fact that a friend of mine bought a drum set and we have begun working on a few songs for a possible cover band or open mic night appearances.

Taking stock of my guitar collection, I noticed it consisted of three and a half pieces; an old entry level $100 Takamine Jasmine series acoustic (which I believe has a sound way richer than most guitars two or three times the price, but I digress), a Fender Squire Strat that my father-in-law bought on e-bay that needs a new rheostat (it only plays with the sound nob delicately tuned to somewhere around 7 and 7/8), and a 1974/75 maroon Gibson Marauder that belongs to my father-in-law. The one half piece is the Gibson's accompanying amp that is showing its age and has no inputs for an ipod. Seriously, how can any budding musician be expected to deal with such archaic equipment as this?

So I needed at the very least a practice amp, which is where all the trouble started. I am only thinking of my wifes sanity, as the old amp is also missing an output jack for headphones. Thus I went to my favorite place, Guitar Center. I know some die hards out there are thinking that is a joke. GC is sort of akin to WalMart. It is the musicians bargain bin, but hey, I am on a budget.

I found a neat little Crate practice amp for $70 that includes some distortion overdrive effects and an input for my mp3 player, or more importantly, my laptop (I love anything that allows you to plug in a laptop).

My wife was none too happy about this purchase as we are on a tight budget with the baby and all. I think she understood, but from her perspective she sees a pile of equipment and I am by no means a professional making money off of it, not that most professional musicians out there are making money off of their equipment either. While I was at GC, I played an Ibanez amplified acoustic six string and loved it. My preference was for a Martin satin top that just blows your mind with its rich deep tones, but that thing is around $900 on a good day and I was already seeing the writing on the wall about my dream there.

What pleased me the most about the Ibanez was the price tag, a mere 1/3 the price of the Martin. Still, I hung it back on the wall knowing I can only test my wifes patience so much in one month. After jamming with my friend and working on a couple of classic tunes from Bob Seger and Bad Co., I could not help remembering the sound I was getting out of that Ibanez. "Man, how cool would that sound with an acousitc?" I would say. I could not help myself.

So I vowed I would raise the cash with some side IT work, and I told my wife the plan. She was very accepting, save for the "you already have three guitars, why in the world do you need another?" comment. She had a point, but guitars are like people, each of them has their own unique personality and they all have different situations that they work best in. You don't play Metallica on a straight six string acoustic, a Fender works best for most 80's rock, a Gibson has a specific sound you find in Clapton and others, and you just can't play Seger's 'Night Moves' alone on electric.

Having hashed it out with my wife I decided to move forward and get the guitar. By chance I just happened to check e-bay and found the exact model I was after w/hard case and leather strap, at an opening bid of $100! It was in good shape and I put in a bid. Three days later I was paying $20 shipping on a winning bid of $148. I saved over $200 on buying all that stuff new and the wife seemed pleased by this.

So, to make a long story even longer, I don't believe a man can have too many toys. I am collecting finely crafted small works of art. These are not toys to me. They are tools that I can use to brighten a room with, bring smiles to faces, and burn off a little after work stress. Now to convince my wife that even though I have a 30th anniversary edition Mustang GT convertible, I still need to get my hands on a '68 GT coupe to rebuild...that is a battle for another day I guess.

Sick of this war!

Today I read an article that breaks my heart. Found on CNN.com, 'It's gonna be a bloodbath' sort of brings light to the reason I chose not to enlist in the armed services.

Let me break here to say that I support our troops. Not the reason they are there mind you, but I support the hell out of the brave men and women fighting for our country. This topic is usually a hot button issue and I don't mean to touch off a debate over the merits of our political agenda in the Middle East, but it really grinds me that we are still there.

Each of our young men and women who have signed up for duty did so of free will (undue influence of pushy recruiters, miserable home conditions and family disputes aside). To a certain extent you cannot say they were 'victims' or walked into this blindly. To a certain extent.

Having said that, I just don't understand why our military continues to repeat the same mistakes. This example comes from Afghanistan...Where you say? Afghanistan...you remember, the place we landed first all those years ago to rid the world of terrorism and spread democracy, irregardless of whether it was wanted or not. We were supposed to have won victory and crushed the Taliban into oblivion just before we left for big oil in Iraq (I'm sorry, that is why we went there, plain and simple).

Now we have reports that on July 13th, a handful of America's finest were 'scouting' for a remote outpost in what they described as the 'most dangerous part of the world'. Needless to say, the outnumbered brave soldiers were overrun by a group of Taliban numbering in the hundreds. It was the highest US military fatality rate in three years.

Why are we playing cat and mouse games with an enemy that has continuously proven a desire to bring the fight to us anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances?All of the political stuff aside, what makes this worse is among the dead are several soldiers who were in the last days of a 15 month tour of duty. Tell me how it makes any sense that these people, who were about to rejoin their families, were sent out in what even the soldiers new was a bad situation?

I have read my share of gut wrenching tales about young men and women dying without ever meeting their newborn children, or leaving behind young spouses and other beloved family members. This one makes no sense because these soldiers were in an area that was clearly not secured. They weren't hit by a roadside bomb, or an RPG. They were attacked by a group of people who have nowhere near the level of sophistication and technology that we are supposed to have.

Either we occupy an area and clear it of all threats using superior technology and numbers, or we move on. What is with the 'outpost' thing? I am so sick of hearing us declare victory over an enemy only to be smacked in the face a couple short years later.

My heart goes out to the family of our fallen soldiers. I hope they all come home soon. God bless.

Since becoming a father...

Since the day I became a father in April of 2008, I have noticed that there are three basic types of people in this world; the kind that already have kids, the kind that want kids, and the kind that despise kids.

You can tell if a person has kids when you tell them that your baby has colic. The look on their face shows the battle scars and lets you know that they feel your pain. If you say ‘colic’ to a non-parent, they are likely to give you a blank stare and say, “gee, that’s too bad”. When you say ‘colic’ to a parent, their face gets all scrunched up and they say something like “you poor miserable soul, is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all? We can watch baby for a while, or cook you a meal, or do the shopping. You name it and we are there for you! We can get through this together!”

Colic is basically a title that doctors have created to say your baby is going to scream her head off for three straight months, there is nothing we can do about it, and we have no idea why. As you can imagine, this is great news to a scared stiff new parent. Something like one out of every four babies goes through it. I think if they really want to solve the teen pregnancy problem in this country, make 14 year old girls watch my daughter overnight. They will stay as far away from the boys as they can!

I have also noticed that people get stupid around babies. They are all experts and know exactly what you are doing wrong, and they aren’t afraid to tell you. Unsolicited advice has been thrown at us from every angle, so much so that I sometimes cringe to even tell people about our daughter. People say stuff like, “My little Susie was never outside without a bonnet on her head”, or “You have to breast feed her until she graduates from college to get the best benefit from mother’s milk”. Idiots.

We have been greeted with some much needed and intelligent advice, though it has been far and few between. While I appreciate everyone's desire to help, I find myself wishing people would just keep their ideas to themselves unless asked for them. Maybe it just comes down to my favorite saying from Charles Swindoll which I shall paraphrase here: "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."

Right on Chuck! I guess I just need to take peoples advice with a grain of salt. Being a parent does not come with an instruction book; you just figure it out through trial and error. So far so good, so I guess I cannot complain. What is that old line from Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh? "I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. Life's been good to me so far..."

To hyphen, or not to hypen?

The opening entry of my blog brings my first preponderance. Should 'Semi Coherent' be hyphenated?
From Merriam-Webster (which is hyphenated by the way) we have this definition of 'Coherent':

Main Entry: co·her·ent

Pronunciation: \-ənt\

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle French or Latin; Middle French cohérent, from Latin cohaerent-, cohaerens, present participle of cohaerēre

Date: circa 1555

1 a: logically or aesthetically ordered or integrated : consistent <coherent style> coherent argument> b: having clarity or intelligibility : understandable coherent person> coherent passage>2: having the quality of cohering; especially : cohesive, coordinated coherent plan for action>3 a: relating to or composed of waves having a constant difference in phase <coherent light> b: producing coherent light coherent source>

— co·her·ent·ly adverb

A quick web search, using Google of course, turns up several definitions of how/when to use a hyphen. I still don't know if I need one in the title of my blog or not, which leads me to leave it out due to my subscription to the school of 'when in doubt, leave it out' writing.

Having said that, the definition provided above helps me to define what my blog is all about; almost, but not quite, coherent ramblings. I am not an English major, and I will make mistakes. Logically and esthetically ordered it shall be, but correct and intelligible I cannot guarantee.

So, caveat emptor, I make no promises in my blogging content. My only hope is that you can enjoy my stream of consciousness writing and can relate to what I am spewing into blogland. If not, at least maybe you can get a laugh or two.

Thanks for reading; I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

Signed,
Semi-Coherent Mad Man