Snuggie Magic

Christmas came early this year. Priya discovered the package before I had a chance to hide it. Actually, I guess I didn't look at the package very closely before I handed it to her and asked her what she had ordered. My mind is like a dying star in a lonely galaxy far far away.





It's like being hugged to sleep.







What fun! What fun! For the dogs too!




Wait a second, do I have this thing on backwards?

Notes on Marc Murray

My good friend Marc Murray recently reminded me of what an odd fellow he is. During a conversation about his daily alcohol intake he brought up a movie called 28 Days staring Sandra Bullock. 28 Days is apparently about a woman going through rehab. I think Marc was attempting to relate his situation to the main character or something, but I cut him off before he could get too far. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: "Wait a second. You're a huge Sandra Bullock fan aren't you? I totally forgot about that."
Marc: "Well, I was until she started making the Miss Congeniality movies."
Me: "You didn't actually see the Miss Congeniality movies, did you?"
Marc: "Only the first one. I was too disgusted to see the sequel."

Now, as far as I can tell, Marc is not gay. Despite having seen Miss Congeniality willingly and not because some chick he was dating made him see it -- because he truly thought it would be an entertaining movie to watch -- Marc is not gay, as far as I can tell.

Marc has actually dated more than his fair share of women over the years. I say "more than his fair share" not because Marc is a bad looking guy but because of his remarkable and almost sadistic capacity for honesty when a white lie is the only reasonable option. During college Marc dated a girl named Nicole. One day Nicole was in our room and Marc, out of the blue, said, "You know, you're starting to grow a little bit of a mustache. You should consider waxing that." It was a jaring statement for both me and Nicole.

Not to mention -- can you imagine being told that you need to wax your upper lip by a man who grows foot long beards? Yes, Marc grows foot long, caveman beards. And he surfs and plays the electric guitar. And he's Christian...and I mean he's a real Christian...not like the Sunday morning Catholics I grew up with. And when Marc's not bossing people around at a contruction site, he's watching Sandra Bullock get married over and over again. It's all very confusing to say the least.

In attempting to understand Marc, I think it's imperative to note that Marc is the son of a beautician. My guess is that because of his mother's profession, Marc is more apt to notice and be bothered by things like unibrows and a couple days worth of leg hair on a woman. But at the same time, he feels the need to rebel against the carefully groomed neck lines of his youth and so he grows long caveman beards.

Does that begin to explain his taste for Sandra Bullock chick flicks? Of course not. I'm still trying to figure that one out. But some people would probably say that Marc's just a contrarian. And indeed there is support for this hypothosis. When everyone else in college was huffing drano and getting blasted on Special K, Marc was a good, sober Christian. And though, during our four years of college together, Marc could have gotten more tail than the proverbial toilet seat, he generally preferred to play chastity mind games with his confused female counterparts.

And when everyone else decided to sober up and settle down, Marc picked up binge drinking.

So maybe "Miss Congeniality" is just Marc being the constant provocateur, the perennial contrarian. I sure hope so.

Because otherwise it seems pretty gay.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

More Violent Dreams

I'm not a violent person. In fact, I'm a pacifist in ideology and in temperament. But for a while now I've been having particularly violent dreams. I don't know what's causing them, possibly stress from work. Or maybe my two years of dabbling in medical malpractice etched some deep morbidity into my sub-conscious and I'll never be the same again. Who knows. I don't entirely mind them, because it's nice to wake up from bad dreams and experience that feeling of relief as you realize that it isn't real.

Last night I had a whopper of a nightmare. I dreamt that I was walking down a dark alley in some city. There were two kids walking behind me. Although they were just talking to each other and joking around, it suddenly occurred to me they were going to mug me. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a gun pointed at my head. Before I could say anything I heard the gun go off and I felt the bullet go through my brain. My body went limp and I dropped to the ground. Everything started fading to black and I knew I was going to die right there. I couldn't move and my only thought was how terribly sad it was going to be when Priya found out. She wouldn't understand how I could be shot dead on the street for no reason. After a few seconds, was dead. I looked down on myself as I started to float away.

Then I woke up. My heart was pounding and I was breathing hard.

I lied there for a couple seconds and then rolled over and kissed Priya and Maddie who were both lying next to me. Priya didn't really wake up but she rolled over and put her arm across my shoulder.

When I was thinking about the dream today it occurred to me that I actually was mugged once, or almost mugged really, by two kids in a dark alley. It happened in New Orleans, only two or three days before I moved to LA for law school. I was walking around the French Quarter at about 3 am on a Wednesday night. I had been out late with some friends and was trying to remember where I had parked my car. At some point I realized that two guys were following me. One was just a kid. The other was older and looked like a criminal. He had a full grill and short dread locks. He looked pissed off. At some point the older guy told me to hold up. Although my gut told me to just start sprinting away, I reluctantly stopped. The guy asked me for change for a bus fair. I told him I didn't have any change and kept walking. I turned a few corners and walked couple blocks away, but they cut me off at one intersection. I started walking up another street and maybe got ten yards away when I heard one of them running up behind me. I turned around just as the older guy was taking a wild swing at my head. The punch just glanced off my face and knocked my glasses onto my head. I thought the glasses had landed somewhere on the street and I didn't realize they had stayed on my head until the episode was over.

I had managed to push the guy past me in the direction that his wild swing was taking him. But then he got back in my face and started yelling, "So you ain't got no change huh, bitch?" or something like that. I put my fists up -- seriously, I did -- and said, "I don't have anything for you." The younger kid watched us from about ten feet away. He looked nervous and I felt like he wasn't going to bother me. But the other guy was threatening me, staying now a few feet away.

My friends had told me stories about having guns pulled on them in the French Quarter. It had literally happened to two or three of my co-workers, all late a night when no one else was around. No one else was on our street. So I was expecting the guy to pull a gun out at any moment. In fact, I was sure it was going to happen. I was just waiting for him to pull it out and I was going to give him my money. (Yes, I realize how gay that sounds.)

But he didn't pull out a gun. In fact, after a couple seconds of him staring me down, I just turned around and walked away. I had no idea if the guy was going to follow me, but he just walked away too. I never saw either of them again.

I was told later that the tactic is to surprise people with a punch and knock them to the ground. But muggers don't want to risk fighting someone straight up without an advantage. Apparently the guy was trying to stun me and then they were going to pile it on.

After I got a couple blocks away from the guys I realized that I still had to find my car. With no police officers in sight, I went back to where I thought my car was parked, peering around corners before starting off in a direction. Eventually I found it, locked the doors and went home. The next day I had nothing to show for the incident except a slightly red cheek. I wasn't sure if I should even tell people about it. I told my boss and I think he thought I was making it up. Oh well.

It's been a while since I've thought about that night in New Orleans. My dream last night rekindled the same feelings I had had that evening. Mostly, the feeling that I was going to die alone on an unfamiliar street because of someone's random act of violence. It's a terrible feeling for sure.

Anyway, the point is that I hope I'm always lucky enough to be able to wake up from such violence and enjoy the love and comfort that only a half-asleep wife can provide.

Comparing the NFL to the NBA

Last Monday night I was flipping back and forth between the Monday night football game involving the Kurt Warner led Cardinals (the old Jesus freak is apparenlty still at it) and the Shaun Hill led 49ers (I don't know who he is either), and the Celtics/Raptors game. Both games were dubbed "great" and even "classic" by the post-game space fillers. For me, the two games epitomized how I feel about the NBA and the NFL.

Lets start with the NFL. I've never been a huge fan. I've always watched it, but I've never cared too much about it. I've never fully invested myself in a team, except that I genuinely hated the 1990's Dallas Cowboys dynasty. Despite my dislike for the Cowboys, the home team of my youth, the Redskins, never really compelled my rooting interest. Why? For starters, growing up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I never associated myself with Washington DC or anywhere else on the "western shore," as it should be known. In fact, I was taught to believe that people from the western shore were all helpless idiots who we tolerated in our little towns for the sake of making a few bucks off them. But they were Baltimorans and Washington dirt bags -- all helpless fools who would die quickly in a state of nature. Now I could have been pulled into the Skins had they had a particular player that I cared about. I loved the O's because they had Cal Ripkin and, for a while, Harold Baines, who was from my home town. But the Skins have always had boring players. When they won the Super Bowl in 1991, they were led by Mark Rippen and Art Monk, two of the most boring players in NFL history. Can you remember anything about either of those two guys other than Mark Rippen's crater face? Me neither.

Now, rooting loyalties aside, the NFL has always struck me as an impersonal game where the stars hide behind helmets and frequently come and go before you can really get to know them. The only avenue for self-expression is annoying and contrived end-zone dances that stopped being fun in 1984 or thereabouts. It's also a game that's bogged down by drive-killing penalties and conservative play calling. I can't watch a game with Priya without her getting all indignant about failed run plays up the middle. "That's so stupid," she says. "Why didn't he just run around those guys?" she says. "Because he would have taken a loss," I tell her. "It was better for him to just go nowhere."

So the NFL a game of risk avoidance and clock management that is occasionally punctuated by incredible displays of athleticism. But those displays of athleticism tend to involve familiar things -- a breakaway run, a great catch, a great throw, a big hit, an interception run back for a touchdown. Rarely do you see anything that makes your jaw drop.

In the entire 22 or so years that I can remember watching the NFL, there has been one player that excited me to the point of jubilation (no, not Tom Brady): Barry Sanders. Barry Sanders was a virtuoso in the backfield who ran like a gazelle among a field of retarded water buffalo. He did things with the football that made you laugh and giggle. He took risks that no other running backs could afford to take and frequently took big losses as a result. But even if he took a loss, even if his team was never that good, Barry's brilliance always made him fascinating to watch. Not one player in the NFL today has that quality.

That brings me to the Monday Night game. It was a game that ended with a goal line stop as time ran out for the Niners. The final was 29-24, Cardinals. If I remember correctly, the Niners had four plays and about 45 seconds left to get the ball into the end zone from 5 yards out. The first play was a spike. The second play was a run that fell two yards short. Then the Niners let about 30 seconds run off the clock before spiking the ball. The final play was a run up the middle that fell short again. Game over. The Niners lost, having wasted a down and calling a horrible final play. This supposed climactic finish capped off a game that had 20 penalties called for a total of 160 yards lost. One penalty brought back an interception that was returned for a touchdown.

It was a terrible game. Poorly played. Poorly officiated. Frustratingly slow. Like so many NFL games, the outcome was determined by penalties, poor clock management, and poor play calling. But since the game came down to a goal line stop, it was deemed a classic of Monday night football. When it was over, Kurt Warner thanked Jesus 47 times in one sentence and Stewart Scott continued to embarrass black people everywhere. And I said to myself, "This is why I hate the NFL."

Now, lets contrast that with the Celtics/Raptors game. Despite the NBA season just having kicked off, the Celtics/Raptors game was indeed an instant classic. It was a surprisingly chippy game from the get go and by the third quarter it felt like the 7th game of the Eastern Conference Finals. In the 3rd quarter, Kevin Garnett, who had worked himself into rage coming out of half-time with the Celtics down by 12, decided to cover the Raptor's pointguard, Jose Calderon. Just think about how ridiculous this is for a second. A 7' man guarding a quick, 6' point guard all the way up the court? KG is probably the only 7' man alive who is quick enough and athletic enough pull it off. The funny thing is, KG didn't just pull it off, he terrorized Calderone, nearly poking the ball away several times with his long arms.

Not to mention that as he hounded Calderon up the court, Garnett clapped his hands, pointed a finger in Calderon's face and shouted obscenities at him. After Calderon passed the ball off and a whistle blew, Calderon got back in Garnett's face and shouted back. To his credit, Calderon didn't back down. But Garnett had clearly gotten into his head. Garnett walked over the bench with a smile on his face for the first time all game.

But the real story of the night was Paul Pierce rallying the Celtics back from the dead by scoring 22 points in the 4th quarter. The Truth did it in classic Truth fashion -- he got insanely hot, hit about three heat-check jumpers in a row, and spun, spun, spun his lanky body to the hoop. He claimed the lead for the Celtics with less than 2 minutes left. It was a complete 4th quarter roll of the Raptors who walked off the court with their heads down, presumably saying to themselves, "If we only had someone like Paul Pierce to finish games for us." The amazing thing is, Pierce did it all with a sprained wrist. It was something I wasn't even aware of until I read about it the next day. Though it's not at all surprising.

Paul Pierce was stabbed in the neck, chest and face 11 times before the 2000-2001 season. He had to undergo lung surgery to repair the damage. You would think that that would have screwed with his game a little bit? Well, the Truth was in the starting lineup for the first game of the season -- less than two months after the incident -- and started all 82 games that season. He had a great year and has never said much about the stabbing. To say that Paul Pierce is a gamer or a tough dude doesn't begin to give him justice. He's a warrior from another era, a guy you would want beside you on the battlefield for lack of a better cliche.

But here's the great thing about the NBA: If you were to rank the most compelling and interesting players in the league, Paul Pierce probably wouldn't crack the top five. Though it's known as a league of prima donnas, it's really a league of warriors, phenoms and virtuosos. There are so many superstars who have risen out of troubled pasts, take Iverson and Carmelo for example, or Loul Deng who happens to be a Sudanese refugee, that it's easy to forget about a guy like Paul Pierce who was once stabbed 11 times. The NBA is also a league of freaks and curiosities, like Yao Ming and Nate Robinson. There are also villains like Kobe Bryant, Bruce Bowen, Ron Artest, and Tim Donaghy, and good guys like Tim Duncan, Shane Battier, and Derrick Fisher. And then there are heros like Lebron, Pierce and D-Wade. They all have something different to offer but they all, in their own ways, will make you giggle.

So I've always loved the NBA. It's soap opera, sport and mythology all colliding before your eyes. It's a sport where the athletes shine and improvisation and creativity abound. As David Thorpe says, if football is played with military precision, basketball is jazz. Great teams like great bands, have the right mix of complimentary musicians. And when the mix is right, the results are a joy to behold.

Those are my thoughts. Let me know what you think.

BABY ROSIE!

Had to post this cute picture of my baby niece, Rosalee, with Nan, her great grandmother. We get to see Rosie this Christmas and can't wait! Hopefully we'll get to see Nan before too long as well.

Tahiti and Moorea

So Priya and I recently got back from our romantic getaway to Tahiti and Moorea. We were in Tahiti for three days and then took a ferry over to Moorea for another four days. Here's a brief description of our trip and the islands.

Tahiti is the largest and most populated island in French Polynesia, though, by comparison, it's a little smaller than Oahu and considerably less populated (175,000 people compared to 800,000 people living on Oahu). The first thing you notice about Tahiti is the dramatically steep, green mountains that rise up into the clouds.














This is a picture of Papeete, Tahiti's largest city, as seen from our ferry returning from Moorea. Despite the few big hotels you can see in this picture, it's actually a quaint city...reminds me of a mix between a much larger Avalon (on Catalina Island) and New Orleans' French Quarter. It has sidewalk cafes, an open air market, and a certain sleaziness that would probably turn off some American travelers. Of course, everyone in Tahiti speaks French and/or Tahitian, with English being a widely spoken third language.

Papeete was cool but this vacation was all about relaxing on the beach.















Tahiti has almost entirely black sand beaches as it is a volcanic sort of place. (I wish I could say that I took this photo but I actually downloaded from Wikipedia...we somehow managed to not take any pictures of the black sand beaches.)

Our resort had one of the few non-black sand beaches on the island. We spent lots of time lying on the beach and around the pool at our resort. Tahiti is the kind of place where you can shamelessly lie around for days because, frankly, there isn't a whole lot else to do. It's a guilt free beach vacation in paradise.















Here's another picture of the same view at sunset. The island that you see in the distance is Moorea, which means yellow lizard.














We did manage to go on a half-day 4X4 tour up into Tahiti during which we saw some cool waterfalls and swam in a beautiful river. Here's a pic from that excursion.
















After our time in Tahiti we took off on a ferry to Moorea. Physically, Moorea is distinctively paw shaped with two nearly symmetrical bays on the northern side of the island that are separated by a mountainous peninsula. Here's what I'm talking about:













This aerial photo shows the two bays. You can also see them in these next two photos.














This is Cook's Bay, named after Captain Cook who, as we were told a thousand times, actually landed in Oponohu Bay and never went to Cook's Bay. Cook was not the first European explorer to reach the island but rather the third behind fellow Brit Samuel Wallis and Frenchie Louis Antoine de Bougainville, both of whom arrived in the 1760's. Wallis was ill and didn't stay long enough to make much of an impact. Bougainville and his men, however, had a good old time. They were greeted by the natives with outrigger canoes filled with fruit and women, the implication clearly being that the men were to each choose a woman of their liking and make sweet love. Bougainville's men happily oblidged. Many of them actually abandoned the captain and ran off with their native girlfriends. Surprisingly, Bougainville appreciated that the Tahitian's didn't have an "ownership society" like we got here in America, and tolerated a good amount of theivery as well as the looseness of the women.

Cook, however, was not as liberal-minded and destroyed some of the villagers' homes after a goat was stolen from his men. He also locked up some of the island's chief's in order to get back a few of his men who had run off with their own native girlfriends. While Cook didn't seem to enjoy the people of Moorea, they were apparently amused by Cook and often stole things from him only to give them back a few days later. It must have been love-hate relationship because Cook returned to the island twice and was warmly welcomed on both occassions, or so we were told.















In this picture, taken from the same spot, you can see Oponohu Bay.

Moorea is maybe 1/3 the size of Tahiti and has only 16,000 residents. It takes about an hour and half to drive the one road around the entire island. Actually, there is one other road that goes up to the lookout from where these pictures were taken. From there you can hike out into the island's jungles. We did exactly that and found some cool stuff, including ruins of several old temples and this monstrous banyan (or banyan-like) tree. It's hard to judge the size of the tree from this picture but it was easily 30 feet around. I climbed it a little before Priya made me get down. Oh to be a kid again.















Okay, so the interior of Moorea is cool, but the main attraction is the warm turquoise waters that surround the island and all of the cool stuff that lives in the water. The picture at the very bottom of the blog is the view from the end of the dock near our bungalow. This next picture is of Priya looking serene on the "dock" of our bungalow.













The little buoys in the water are marking a coral garden so that kayakers don't bump into it. There was great snorkeling all around our bungalow. Priya even got into it and she generally doesn't take to swimming.















This is another picture of our resort in Moorea. Again, not a bad place to lie around.

Other highlights of Moorea included feeding sting rays, swimming with black tipped sharks and eating some delicious fresh seafood.














The rays are not at all afraid to swim right up to you. In fact, they hover around like pigeons waiting to be fed...like demonic water pigeons.

All in all, Moorea is one of three most breathtakingly beautiful places I have ever been. (The other two being Kaua'i and Rocky Mountain National Park.) I would live on that little island for the rest of my life if Priya would come with me. Maybe if McCain wins I can convince her.



Someday.

RIP Scott Bailey

Got some bad news this weekend. An old friend from college, Scott Bailey, died last week after being hit by a car on his bicycle. Sadly, he leaves behind a wife, Terri, who was also a college friend, and a new baby, Paul. Scott was starting his second year of law school at Wake Forest.

Scott was as talented of a person as I have ever known. He was a great all around musician; he could sing and play all variety of instruments including piano, guitar, mandolin, banjo, and drums. Scott eventually become a music teacher -- something I'm sure he enjoyed more than teaching the LSATs, which, incidentally, he was also qualified to do. Scott was also a great athlete, being a former #1 on the VWC tennis team and a nasty basketball player who could easily dunk at about 6'1". Moreover, he had an extremely deep and inquisitive mind. Scott liked nothing more than to sit around and talk music, philosophy, psychology or whatever was attracting his interest at the time. And unlike most college kids, Scott didn't spend hours in front of the TV. He used his free time to write songs and poems, learn new instruments, and read interesting books. When it came to those things that he was passionate about, he wasn't just driven, he was an unstoppable force of nature.

Scott had been playing music with my good buddy, Marc Murray, when I first met him during my freshmen year. We hit it off pretty well -- probably more as friends than as musicians because he was much much better than me back then -- and Marc and Scott invited me to join up. And so we formed the "The Sultans of Swing." The Sultans played every Wednesday night for a good two years at a dive bar in Norfolk called Batterson's. Usually, we made just enough money to cover our bar tab, but it was more fun than I had ever had in my life. And Scott was our leader. He taught us all the songs we played, organized most of our gigs, and assumed the responsibility of nodding at us (usually me) when the bridge or chorus was coming up. Scott was also our unquestioned speaker between songs, yet another thing that he was a natural at due to his confidence and sense of humor, but also because he had a great deep voice. Scott's personality was infectious. When I started college, I was painfully shy and reserved, but being able to hang out and play music with Scott, who was so naturally cool and confident, and Marc, who was equally confident if not as cool (at least not in the traditional sense), made it easy for me to come out of my shell.

I remember that during the first few months of playing music with Scott, he could be quick to tell me or Marc if we were screwing up, but he became much more patient as the years went on. By his senior year, he seemed to be much happier with himself and his life. Thinking back, I'm sure the change occurred when he started dating Terri. He adored Terri and it showed.

Scott and I corresponded by e-mail last year when he started law school. He had found my profile on my old firm's website and was joking about my goofy picture. I was looking forward to calling him up one day and addressing him as counselor. I'm sure he would've already had something to teach me about law. He was a good teacher and an even better friend.

Bullet Points

My old pal and fellow blogger, Jason "The Hitman" Hart, of TBSP fame, likes to blog in bullet points. So, in honor of him, or, really, because I saw it on his blog, here are some less than interesting bullet points for you many many readers to ponder:

Wii Love

We just got a Wii. It's the first gaming system I've had around since my parents bought the little Howell boys the original Nintendo back in 1989 or thereabouts. All I remember about that thing is that you had to blow into the games about 50 times before they would actually work. Brother John eventually stomped it to pieces. Not totally sure why but I think Nate had been hogging it and John decided to teach him a lesson in sharing. John was good at lessons.

Anyway, here is my analysis of the Wii. The swinging controller action is nifty and surprisingly accurate. It makes the games much more fun than if you were just pushing buttons. The Zelda game is particularly fun and not too difficult for someone like me who could never come close to beating the original Zelda. But the coolest thing is the Wii Fit, which is a game that walks you through various exercises with a digital personal trainer and keeps track of your progress by calculating your weight and BMI. You basically stand and work out on this electronic board that is synched to the Wii so it knows where your center of gravity is, if you've done a pushup, etc. The funny thing is that the game tells you to stand on the board and then when you stand on it goes, "Ohh," in a little girl's voice, every time. Not sure what that's all about but I guess it's a Japanese thing.

Do I feel guilty for playing a video game when I could be doing something productive? Of course. Am I embarrassed to own a video game at 28 years of age? Absolutely. But when you get home late, and you're tired, and you just want to sit down and unwind...it's not that bad, right? Anyway, it was totally Priya's idea to get it. Seriously.

Seattle

We're going to Seattle this weekend for a wedding. If anything exciting happens there, I'll blog about it. Looking forward to trying some of that famous Starbucks coffee that I've been hearing so much about.

Olympics

I haven't watched one basketball game and will be in Seattle for the medal rounds. Very sad about that. And they don't show any damn highlights on ESPN. What the hell is that all about? From what I've read, D Wade has been the best player. I'm looking forward to watching him when the season begins.

# 9 The End... At Least For Now

There were a number of tools in the old shed that could have been utilized as instruments of mayhem. For example, if Laszlo had looked over at the work bench, he would have seen a hammer, a railroad spike, several wood saws, and a hatchet. Even closer to him, lying in an open shelf near the ground, was an large mallet made of wood so hard and dense that it would actually sink in water. (This fact was something that the boys had learned one day after Erogenous threw the mallet into the creek trying to hit a pair of swans that happened to be paddling by. The mallet was reclaimed a couple weeks later at low tied by Joey who was mucking around for glass bottles. When Erongenous saw Joey with the mallet he accused him of stealing and punched him in the side of the head. And "'Oh shit' is right!" yelled Erongenous after the knock. "Take it again and I'll bash your damn nuts!")

Now Laszlo reached over and picked up the mallet. He stood up quickly and with a new sense of confidence that owed largly from the piece of hardwood in his hand. "You miserable little bastard!" he shouted before taking a wild swing at Erongenous' head. "Jack...Ass!" he screamed with another flailing lunge. The swings were all wiffs and the momentum of the pendulating mallet nearly carried Laszlo onto his butt. Nevertheless, it was enough to cause the boys to retreat towards the house. "Enjoy your gay marriage," BB yelled from well out of striking distance.

Laszlo returned to Joey who was smiling broadly. "Sit still while I undo this tape, Joey," he said. Joey smiled even wider and began purring like a cat again. "Oh fuck, please stop that," said Laszlo. "For Christ's sake." But Joey kept on purring and even pressed his cheek against Laszlo's hand as Laszlo attempted to unwrap the rope that Erongenous had tied around Joey's neck like a noose.

"It's not your fault, I guess," said Laszlo. "Your family is even more fucked up than mine."

Joey bounced his knees as if he were wagging his tail.

Laszlo finally got the rope loose enough for Joey to wiggle out. "You're free," he said. "Get up and go home."

Joey stood up sheepishly. He looked around the shed and then peered out the door to see if the boys were still around. He then pointed at the mallet and said something like "please, fuckface, please?" Laszlo nodded and handed Joey the mallet.

Joey cheered and jumped in the air. He then ran full speed from the shed all the way to his house, houling and cussing with glee, and smelling like piss and shit the whole way.

Meanwhile, Laszlo had crept into the house through the side door and scampered up the stairs. He had slipped into the bathroom and locked the door. He was now writing in his journel that he kept behind the toilet of all places.

"Today I saved the farting dogboy from near certain death at the hands of Erongenous. Maybe someday he'll save my life, though I seriously doubt it," he wrote.

After a few minutes, Laszlo put away the journal and got in the shower. He turned it on and washed the clumps of dogshit from his hair.

#8

Yes, Laszlo's initial thought was that he would smear Joey with the dogshit. That would be the simple way to end this game. Joey would bark like a crazed dog and the brothers would howl along with him; but then they would let him go and perhaps Laszlo would no longer be Joey's "girlfriend."

So, with that in mind, Laszlo extended the handful of crap towards Joey's chest.

"Rub it in his stupid face!" Erogenous yelled.

Laszlo paused but then slowly raised his hand so that it was just under Joey's nose. Now Joey was staring down cross-eyed at the smelly fist.

Erongenous was hopping up and down with excitement as Joey began to mumble. The boys pulled in closer to hear him speak.

"Uhhh....n-n-no...." began Joey, "...n-n-not hungry now..."

The boys exploded with laughter. "He thinks your gonna feed it to him, Laszlo! Make him eat it! Make him eat it!" they yelled.

Laszlo returned his eyes to Joey who met his gaze with a doleful stare. It caught Laszlo by surprise and he retracted his fist.

Joey's mouth was still quivering as if he hadn't finished his sentence; the boys became silent again in anticipation.

Joey then looked up with a pathetic face and began to meow in soft but agonizing voice.

The boys again broke out in laughter. They chanted: "Put some the shit on the kitty..." and so forth.

But Laszlo couldn't do it. He shook his head and turned back towards the door.

"What's wrong," Erogenous sneared, "you don't want to rub dogshit on your future wife?"

"No, this is stupid," Laszlo responded.

"Leave then," yelled Erogenous, who now had his hands behind his back. "We don't want any gaywads here anyway."

With that, the other boys stepped to the side and cleared a path for Laszlo to exit.

Laszlo only made one step for the door before Erogenous sprung forward and dumped the entire pale of dogshit on his head. It knocked Laszlo completely to the ground. He coughed and gagged as the boys howled and danced around him.

"Mother fucker," hissed Laszlo as he tried to wipe the shit from his eyes.

He immediately heard the phrase repeated to him by Joey, who was still tied down, but was now doubled over with laughter. "Mother fucker! Mother fucker!" shouted Joey as he pissed his pants. "Holy shit, mother fucker!"

Random thoughts on Dick Vitale

Dick Vitale got inducted to the hoops Hall of Fame this year while several other deserving candidates got left out; most notably, Dennis Johnson. This caused many basketball purists to get upset.

Charley Rosen wrote of Vitale's induction: "The Mouth That Roared, a.k.a. The Shill That Shrilled ... his induction only proves how much the game has been sullied by hype."

Mark Kriegel wrote: "Dick Vitale wasn't a player. His coaching career — culminating with a 34-60 record for the Detroit Pistons — was a failure. And while the Hall recognizes media members with its Curt Gowdy Award (a distinction Vitale has already won), one cannot be enshrined as a mere broadcaster. So, again, how the hell did he get in? Is he insightful? Thoughtful? Provocative? Courageous? No, no, no and no. He's loud. He's a salesman."

Personally, I think Dicky V deserves to be in the hall because he's been such an incredible salesman for the college game. Seriously, who's done more to promote college basketball -- essentially an unwatchable sport until March -- than Vitale? Sure, he's kind of a clown, but his image, which is also one of passion and positivity, has become synonymous with the college game. And that's a good thing.

I actually have a funny story about Vitale. He used to own a restaurant on Siesta Key in Sarasota, Florida. I think it was called the Broken Egg or something. One time I went there with my parents and we sat at a table directly next to Vitale and his wife. He seemed extremely gracious, smiling and shaking hands with people as they occasionally came up to his table to say hi.

When people weren't coming up to him he was reading the sports page of a paper and going over the box scores of some college games. At one point I heard him say, "eleven rebounds, this kid's gonna be amazing, amazing..." to his wife, who never looked up from her magazine. And that went on for about ten minutes -- Dickey V scouring the box scores, gushing about players, and his wife ignoring him. It was hilarious, but also endearing.

So I'm glad Vitale got into the hall. He's truly passionate about the sport and its players.

Of course, the fact that Dennis Johnson didn't get elected is just awful. Really just unforgivably awful.

The Phoenix Also Rises # 7 (from Hart)

As Laszlo entered the shed he was immediately overwhelmed with the pungent stink of shit. He immediately assumed that Joey had emptied his bowels, a reasonable assumption given Joey’s propensity for clothed defecation and certainly understandable given the dog-boy’s current predicament. However, as he acclimated to the stink of sweat, oil and feces, Laszlo realized that the most potent source of the stink lay to his left. He turned his head and noticed a white plastic five-gallon bucket. As he looked closer Laszlo noted that the bucket was brimming with what appeared to be collected piles of dog shit in various states of decay and petrification.

“Fuckin-A right, Bitch!” screeched Laszlo’s youngest brother, BB. “Took us all fuckin’ weekend ta git all that turd! We figured since yer little doggy-boy girlfriend likes turdin’ on ‘imself so much we’d help ‘im out an jus cover ‘im in all kinda turd!”

At the thought of this, BB’s excitement boiled over and he started leaping from foot to foot. “EEEEEWWWWWEEEEEEE! TURD BOY! TURDY TURDY! YOU GONNA LIKE IT TURD DOGGY! YOU GONNA LIKE IT!” he screamed at Joey in what could only be described as the frighteningly oblivious squeal of a prepubescent sociopath.

“Cool it, fag!” screamed Erogenous. Though he was less than a year older than BB, Erogenous had the eerie calm present in those for whom the abuse of others is not a diversion, but a calling.

“So, what’s it gonna be, freak?” he asked Laszlo, “you gonna get in on this shit and show dog-boy who’s boss roun here, or you gonna jus stand there sweatin’ and lick yer little girlfriend clean after we give her a little bath?”

Laszlo looked to Joey. Joey was no longer barking with any volume, his whimpering constant but barely discernable. His ankles and wrists quivered rapidly against the thick strips of duck tape that bound him to a steel chair. His eyes conveyed hopeless fear and bewilderment.

Laszlo had a choice to make, and that choice cut to the very heart of the existential dilemma he battled every day—to act or to observe? Would his action (or lack thereof) even have an effect on what happened to this pathetic little boy? To his brothers? Most importantly, to himself?

As for Joey’s fate, Laszlo was confident that the boy was about to be tortured despite any protestations or attempts at rescue. In fact, any attempt to intercede in the act would likely only result in an intensification of the abuse. A friendly intervention on Laszlo’s part would only serve to alter Joey’s perception of the events, and Laszlo didn’t really give two fucks about what Joey thought. At least, he hadn’t…

As for the brothers, Laszlo had decided long ago that their minds were warped beyond repair. His only hope regarding them was that he might endure long enough to see society take its role and sweep them into the corrections system. It was only a matter of time.

Laszlo’s own fate was much cloudier. Would his actions today have repercussions beyond the moment? Would allying himself with his brothers release him from their subjugation, or would it make him more vulnerable to their machinations? But again, that spoke to the effects of today’s acts on his brothers. What would happen to him—gentle Laszlo, wise Laszlo? Would the torment of a weaker human harden him? Would it free him from a sometimes overwhelming feeling of bondage and debt to his fellows? Would it show him that he could seek his destiny with pure and complete self-interest? Perhaps. Or, would it steal his purity? Would flinging shit at a harmless and helpless retard lead him to an existence where his only source of validation came in the dominance of others? Would he lose his self-sufficiency, his ability to self-gratify? Would the calm and confidence of his thoughts and his journal be replaced by a maelstrom of guilt and uncertainty? Further, what would be the consequences of making a stand against this violence and humiliation? Would there be any at all!? He would soon find out.

These questions ran rapidly through his head, and as he struggled to answer them, Joey made his decision. As he did so, he blinked three times rapidly, but his face did not change. Stone faced but with quivering hand, Joey bent to his left, reached, and grabbed a fistful of moist, steaming turd.

League of Champions

I've been thinking of this idea called the League of Champions ("LOC"). It's a silly basketball fantasy.

Basically you take five players from each team in the league. They don't have to be starters, but each position has to be represented. For each current player you combine the skills and athleticism with the game of one player that played that position in team history. On top of that, you assume each player on the roster is playing in his prime.

So for example, the Celtics starting five in the LOC would be Sam Cassell (in his prime)/Dennis Johnson, Ray Allen/Havlicek, Pierce/Bird, KG/McHale, and Perkins/Russell. So, the KG/McHale player, for example, would have the athleticism, defense, and outside shooting of KG but the low post game of McHale.

Obviously, that team would be awesome. But would they beat Lakers LOC team: Magic/Fisher, Kobe/West, Odom/Worthy, Gasol/McAdoo, and Bynam (in his future prime)/Kareem?

I would be interested to see if anyone can make an argument for a LOC squad to would beat either of these two teams. The Pistons would have a nasty team.

#6

Laszlo felt is stomach quiver. His voice was hollow with fear. "I don't want to help you," he whispered.

Erogenous sneered and grabbed Laszlo by the collar. "Come on pansy pants, come see what we're doing to your girlfriend, Joey." Erogenous pronounced "girlfriend" as if he were a giggling little girl.

By way of background, Joey lived down the street in a dilapidated mobile home with his grandmother, Nancy. The most noteworthy thing about Joey, other than the frequency with which he shit his pants, is that he had a very limited vocabulary, even for a twelve year-old. This was partially because Nancy had lost her tongue in a car accident before Joey was born, and so Joey was raised by a woman who couldn't speak discernible English, and partially -- more partially even -- because no one gave a crap about Joey to make sure he could talk like a normal boy. It's also true that Nancy was too poor to buy a working television set. But even if she were able to afford one, there was no place in the mobile home to put it. Back when Nancy had a working tv, back before Joey and all of his crap, she had put it up on an ironing board in her "kitchen" and watched it from the toilet seat through the bathroom door. Now, the television and the ironing board were part of a large pile of rust in the "backyard."

And so it was that Joey was raised by a mute who didn't own a working television and who, for many years, welcomed no visitors. Still, Joey learned some words, like "hungry" and "shit" and "fuck" and "fuckface," mostly from Laszlo's brothers who were always cussing. When teased by other kids, Joey would commonly say things like "Shit fuckface, shit shit," and so on. He would also make farting sounds with his mouth, which he sometimes meant to be insulting, but which also made out of boredom. Joey's favorite sounds though were animal noises because they got the best reactions from people. Sometimes he would bark like an angry dog at the kids who would ride bikes past his house. Sometimes, when spoken to by an adult, he would simply meow like a cat. He actually learned that from Nancy who could sill meow like a cat without her tongue.

To finish up with the background, Laszlo once happened upon Erogenous and the other boys as they were throwing rocks at Joey's mobile home. Laszlo was sure that they were all going to get in trouble and so he told the boys to stop. He really didn't give a crap about Joey, who was actually two years younger than him and seemingly retarded. But from that moment on, no matter what Laszlo said or did, Joey was his "girlfriend." For example, if Laszlo was mean to Joey, the boys would say that they were having a lovers' spat or that Laszlo was just mad because Joey wouldn't kiss him. And so, and after a while, Laszlo began to resent Joey. In fact, later that day he would refer to Joey as "the farting dogboy" in his journal.

Getting back to the story, Laszlo knew that something serious was being done to Joey in the shed. Joey never, and I mean never, ventured anywhere near Laszlo's house. This meant that Erogenous and the other boys had captured Joey and brought him back to the shed so that they could torment him with impunity. And yes, as Laszlo drew closer to the shed door, he could her Joey barking like a very scared little dog. Whimpering even. He also heard "Shit fuckface, shit shit" and so on.