Santiago (Paradiso), Chile

“One of my favorite places in the world.” – My wife

That’s the view from my Aunt Gloria’s apartment in Santiago. My wife and I found ourselves waking up to that view for one week in May 2013. My wife was five months pregnant, and some of our best friends in the world (The Korols) took over a year off from work to travel the world. The Korols were on the continent of South America in May 2013 and encouraged my wife and me to meet them in Santiago, where I have family, for our babymoon. They actually convinced us at a wedding in April in Austin, which was its own great time. But the week in Santiago in May 2013, with my dad’s family, and our Korol family, turned out to be one of the best weeks of my life.

It must have started when my family picked us up from the airport — Aunt Gloria, Natalia (cousin), and Paolo (basically cousin-in-law) — met us inside the airport with warm embraces and huge smiles. It was cold in Santiago, but warmth was a theme for the entire trip. I forget how loving my dad’s family can be, but am quickly reminded every time I see them. I miss that from him, and like being reminded of where it came from. The first night we went to an eccentric restaurant for dinner where the Korols met us. (NOTE: The Korols throughout our trip were impeccable — they met us whenever/wherever we said — and my family treated them like Aguirres). The food and drinks were wonderful, and there were antiques all over the restaurant. When the weather is nice, there are all sorts of interesting places to sit outside.

The next day we next took a trip to Valparaiso with Natalia (and Paolo), Felipe (and Diana), and Francisca (and Simon). A day-trip full of beautiful sites, chorriano, and cerveza. I remembered the colors of Valparaiso from previous visits, but they seemed brighter this time. We spent the rest of the week in various neighborhoods of Santiago. We went to the human rights museum that former (and now again) President Bachelet was instrumental in building, documenting the numerous injustices and abuses suffered by the Chilean people under the brutal dictator Pinochet. That was emotional for Paolo. We climbed the Cerro de la Virgen and then descended into the Bellavista neighborhood to eat steak and drink red wine. We spent time walking around Barrio Lastarria, shopping, eating and drinking. I remember fondly a rainy afternoon where we ducked into a bar, ordered two bottles of Chilean wine, had snacks, and talked to the Korols about everything.

One night, close to the apartment where the Korols were staying (thanks Air B&B!), we went to see one of Natalia’s favorite Chilean musicians — Jepe! She loves him, and I think Paolo loves Natalia enough to tolerate Jepe. I had been over-served earlier in the day, which led to me say some not-so-nice things about Jepe, which Natalia did not appreciate. But that show was at a local bar, which we never would have found without the knowledge of my family. Paolo and Natalia hosted us (yep, including the Korols) for dinner one night at their house — the house that Natalia grew up in with my Uncle Sergio. They cooked fish and multiple salads. It was raining and we were soaked from the walk, but nothing that some warm socks and wine couldn’t cure. The Korols also cooked for us one night in their rented apartment so Wilson and I could watch the Eastern conference finals between the Heat and Pacers. We had dragged everyone to a sports bar a few nights earlier to watch Heat-Pacers — the Chileans patiently navigated all the soccer games to find a channel showing the basketball game. We visited a vineyard close to Santiago, brought back a bottle of wine that we shared with the Korols months later in DC, and had an incredible brunch on our last day. Paolo also introduced us to the Terremoto (a cocktail) at one of his favorite bars, La Clinica.

Before going to the airport on our last day, we spent time at Felipe’s apartment with wine and food. We packed our bags and Felipe played Lana del Ray in the car as we drove around Santiago. I did not want to leave. Neither did my wife. I hadn’t felt that way in a while.

I’m sure I forgot several things in my recap. But once we got back, I told my wife something that I wanted to share here: that week had everything I want. I was surrounded by people that I love — my wife, the Korols, and my Chilean family. We explored together, we ate together, we drank together, we experienced together, and just spent time together. And the entire week we were all collectively wrapped up in that warm embrace that was delivered upon arrival at the airport. Plus, I felt my baby (boy) kick for the first time in Aunt Gloria’s apartment. My wife said she felt a cultural familiarity to how she grew up. She liked that, and I liked that.

So this is not only an opportunity for me to reminisce, but to say thank you, to my Aunt, my cousins, Paolo and Diana, and all of their gorgeous children, for allowing my wife, the Korols, and me to spend a week in paradise with them. We will all no doubt be back.

Being A Sports Fan

Being a sports fan matters to me.  I’ve been thinking about why, and I decided that the reasons are only partly due to the actual sport.  Hear me out.  I remembered attending a beautiful wedding last summer just outside of Manhattan, only because it was the weekend Adam Scott blew the 2012 British Open.  I remembered the one-year anniversary weekend of my perfect bachelor party because it was the weekend of the 2012 PGA Championship.  I know exactly when I took a golf trip with one of my best friends in Atlanta this past Spring because it was Sweet 16/Elite 8 weekend.  It’s true that I wouldn’t have forgotten these experiences if I didn’t have the sporting event to remind me.  But the sporting event, in combination with what was happening in my life, created a richer memory.  Some of my experiences have been alone (more on that below), but usually not.  And not all of my memories are good.  After going through the exercise of thinking about my top sports memories, what I figured out is that, for me, being a sports fan is an anchor for significant memories.  It takes me back to hanging out with my Dad and my brother, or friends that are often closer than family to me.  It reminds me of first feeling the exhilaration of victory or the depression of defeat, and sharing those feelings.  It reminds me of being a kid and the house I grew up in.  It reminds me that I enjoy witnessing greatness.  Below, I will let each experience/game expound.  And I want to hear from others about why being a sports fan matters.

**One note about how I wrote this post.  A lot of what I want to convey is how I recall the events.  I’m doing minimal research to make sure I have the basics right, but I could have some of the details wrong.  But that’s how I remember it happening.  So here are my top five sports memories, in descending order from 5 to 1.

#5)  The Infield Fly Rule Game:  At the time, I called it the worst call in sports history.  Today, I still think that. Look at the image to your left.  LOOK AT IT!  Digest it.  Now…In 2012, the MLB tried out a one game play-in for two wildcard teams, and the St. Louis Cardinals traveled to Atlanta to play the Braves. Baby Maddux (Chris Medlen) had not lost all season.  You read that right.  It was Chipper’s last season, and potentially his last game at Turner Field.  [Quick tangent:  I remember watching Chipper his rookie season, 1995, making diving stops against the Rockies in the playoffs, and just being overall clutch.  We won the World Series that year.  We never won again with Chipper.]  The Braves looked tight.  Baby Maddux pitched ok, but was hurt by a two-run throwing error by Chipper.  It looked like the Braves were playing with all sorts of playoff baggage.  But they hung in the game.  As I remember it, the Braves were down 3 runs in the bottom of the 8th.  There was one out, and Braves on first and second.  A pop fly went to the OUTFIELD, where the Cardinals shortstop and left fielder mis-communicated, and the ball dropped in the OUTFIELD grass in between them.  I was probably on my fourth Jack Daniels at this point.  The playoff-added umpire in left field, you know, the one that is stationed in the OUTFIELD so they don’t screw up calls, was close to the play.  I saw his arm go up the split second before the ball dropped safely in between the Cardinals players.  I yelled, “Nooooo.”  I knew what had happened.  Instead of bases loaded and one out, the umpire called an automatic out using the infield fly rule, making it two outs, runners on second and third.  I had never seen a ball fall to the ground under the infield fly rule.  I felt anguish.  I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this way about a sporting event.  The normally tame, disinterested, and often times absent Atlanta fans went crazy.  The stadium was full that night (sad that I have to make that point clear).  Bottles, debris, stuff, started raining down onto the field.  Both teams were cleared for safety and clean-up, and a 30-minute delay ensued.  I have never been prouder of Atlanta fans.  They weren’t trying to hurt anybody.  They were reacting to mediocrity.  They were showing displeasure for blatant injustice.  Umpires make mistakes.  Balls and strikes are tough to call.  Swipe tags are quick and sometimes plays are bang-bang.  But this was the administration of a rule in an improper way that directly affected the outcome of a do-or-die playoff game, a team’s season, and fans’ chances to watch one of their franchise players play again in his home stadium.  Some mistakes are bigger than others.  In the realm of the bizarre, the Braves played the rest of the game under protest.  In case you are even in this situation, to indicate you are playing the game under protest, the manager informs the head umpire, who then walks out onto the field and draws a big P in the air.  Yep, I’m not making that up.  Baseball, in 2012, still has procedures in place that require umpires to draw big letters in thin air.  I finished watching the game, drank more, and convinced myself that the call was the worst I had ever seen.  I think it was.

#4)  Game 6, 2013 NBA Finals, Spurs @ Heat:  More heartbreak.  I have pulled for the Spurs ever since Timmy and Pop teamed up.  I never liked the Admiral much, but Timmy was always stoic, patient, and definitely not boring.  I used to start arguments at parties by asking people who they would take to start an NBA team, besides Jordan, and I would always say Timmy.  This infuriated people, especially Lakers fans.  Timmy probably should have 6 titles, instead of his 4.  That Derek Fischer prayer,  and then the 2013 Championship eluded Timmy.  The Spurs-Heat final this year felt like it was about more than basketball.  It was good vs. evil, authentic vs. fabricated, fundamentals vs. glitz.  And the wrong side won.  Despite my bitterness, Game 6 of this series was the best basketball game I’ve ever watched.  The whole series was special.  When two great teams (or individuals) play each other, the intensity level is infectious.  The Spurs-Heat series had this quality.  The best way I can describe it is to remember Sampras-Agassi tennis matches — every point, from the first game, matters.  Mistakes are punished with impunity, often times impossible to come back from no matter when they occur.  A lack of focus at anytime can cost you a game (and a series). And every minute of this series mattered, starting from the first in game one.  So having a series like that was special.  There are so many things I remember about Game 6.  The Spurs could have won it five different ways.  Kwahi Leonard missed a free throw, and Timmy not being on the floor to get that key rebound stand out.  The Spurs were a better team.  I believe that.  The Heat had better players on the floor.  OCD Ray Allen hitting a back-up corner three was obnoxious.  When the Spurs looked like they had the title won, Lebron was looking around, with that lost-child-desperate look he still gets.  Or as I like to think of Lebron, he had that look of a lost child because he thinks that is what he should look like in this moment.  [TANGENT:  I think Lebron experiences life one layer removed from reality at all times.  I don’t necessarily blame him for it, but he’s not one of us, on the  basketball court, or in real life.  It’s like Tiger — he’s been a superstar for so long, that his reality is not actual reality END TANGENT].  Timmy’s first half performance in that Game 6 was epic — one of his best in a finals ever.  And he’s getting old.  I really wanted the Spurs to win, for basketball’s sake and for the general well-being of the universe.  I watched the end of the game in my living room, dark, with the sound down.  My pregnant wife was asleep so I reacted with jerky body movements and jumps off the couch, all in silence.  I hope Heat fans that left early feel bad about themselves.  I take that back — if you’re a Heat fan, you should feel bad about yourself.  Because you cheer for evil, fabricated, glitz.  I will end this by saying that I’m actually a Hawks fan — if this had happened to the Hawks, against the Lebrons, I would be sick.  I’m sorry Spurs fans, but you do have 4, and the player that I would take above anyone else (other than Jordan), to start a franchise.  You guys had an incredible run.  I’m envious.  Let’s hope you have one more left.

 #3)  2002 World Cup Final; Brazil vs. France; Seoul, Korea:  One more heartbreak, but of a different sort.  Having the 2002 World Cup in Seoul meant that games were televised live on the east coast in the U.S. around 3am.  I was 23 years old and at my parents house to watch the 2002 World Cup final.  In fact, my brother and I had decided to sleep on the floor of our parent’s bedroom (this room is where my top 3 sports memories occur) and set an alarm for the start of the game.  My Dad was home sick and in a hospital bed.  He had been battling terminal lung cancer since 1999, wasn’t in great shape, but wouldn’t miss the World Cup final for anything.  So the alarm goes off, my brother and I were incredibly groggy, Dad woke up, and off we went.  My parents had a fairly uncomfortable fold out couch that my brother and I were sharing.  I don’t remember much about the game, except that Brazil won 3-0.  The events of the game became overshadowed by my Dad suffering a seizure in the second half.  But it wasn’t an instantaneous seizure.  He slowly began to slip off the left side of his hospital bed, but never said anything, trying to pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary.  His left hand began to shake.  We asked him if he was ok, and he said he couldn’t control what was happening to half of his body.  It was all very slow.  We called an ambulance.  During the wait, Brazil scored its third goal.  I remember my Dad, sagging off the left side of his bed, his left hand shaking, screaming “goal!!”  He was still watching the game.  His reaction in that moment meant, to me, that he still wanted to experience what we all came there to do as a family — despite his (and our) fear.  And that was watch the 2002 World Cup final. Because that is what we loved to do.  We loved to get together and watch games.  It’s how we passed time with each other.  It was the topic of a lot of our conversations.  And we shared those times no matter what else was happening.  So sports means different things to different people — but in that moment and forever in my memory, it meant the best times with my Dad and brother.

#2) 1998 NFL Playoffs; NFC Divisional Championship Game; Atlanta Falcons @ Minnesota Vikings:  Crystal Chandelier (Chris Chandler) led the Atlanta Falcons to an NFC divisional championship.  And I watched it in my parent’s bedroom, from that same floor, with a healthy Dad and brother.  I was home from college on a Sunday to watch this game.  The Falcons potentially making the Super Bowl was huge news for me.  I was 19 and grew up with Steve Barkowski, Billy “White Shoes” Johnson, sprinkled with some Jerry Glanville and Andre “Bad Moon” Rison.  (What’s up with all the nicknames??)  The Vikings were heavy favorites, with Randall Cunningham leading the purple and gold.  The Falcons featured Jamal Anderson at running back, who developed the dirty bird touchdown dance, and tore both his ACLs the following season because we ran him into the ground. We (like I’m on the team) were in Minnesota and here is what I remember about the game. It was tied and the Vikings were driving to win, setting themselves up for a field goal.  Their kicker was Gary Anderson, the one-barred helmet wearing kicker that had not missed a field goal all year.  Read that again.  No misses.  All year.  Cunningham drove the Vikings into Falcons territory, leaving Gary Anderson with what I remember being a very makeable field goal (40ish yards).  It was a dome.  NO MISSES ALL YEAR.  The kick is up, and it’s NO GOOD!  I couldn’t believe it.  The Falcons drove into Vikings territory in overtime, and the immortal Morton Anderson (the oldest player in the league at the time) made the game-winner.  My brother literally jumped into my arms in my parent’s living room in celebration.  It was our biggest embrace ever.  The Falcons were going to the Super Bowl.  We watched the game at home with Dad.  It was a wonderful day.  We felt like dancing.

#1)  1992 Divisonal Playoffs; Pittsburgh Pirates @ Atlanta Braves; Game 7:  I think a lot of people remember this game. Here is how I remember it.  I was 13 years old, and the Braves were back in the playoffs after going worst-to-first in 1991 but losing to the Twins in seven games in the playoffs. It was the most exciting thing to happen in my young sports fan career.  The Braves were awful as I grew up watching them on the SuperStation every night.  It was a staple in our house to have the Braves on every night, except for those awful nights (either Monday or Thursday) when they were off.  I actually cried when Skip Carey died a few years ago because I associate his voice with a very happy childhood growing up in Smyrna, GA.  So it’s game 7, and I’m allowed to stay up late to watch.  Dad and I are hunched together on the floor of my parent’s bedroom (yes, the same one!).  Mom was sleeping, so the lights were off and the sound was down.  The TV was on top of a tall dresser so our necks were strained looking up.  I remember being huddled on all fours as Francisco Cabrera came up to the plate.  I also remember feeling like we didn’t have a chance.  A pinch-hitter, with two outs, was too much.  Then Cabrera hit the dribbler between the shortstop and third basement, and Sid Bream was running as hard as he could…seemingly in slow motion.  He slid just under the tag, and Braves win! Braves win! Braves win!  My Dad and I went nuts, and woke Mom up.  She was startled but immediately went into supportive-but-time-to-go-to-bed mode.  My first legendary sporting moment is still my all-time favorite.  And I’ll always remember fondly the floor of my parent’s bedroom, growing up, and making incredible memories.

So now I’m 34 and trying to create more of those memories.  I’m trying to establish a regular Sunday BBQ to watch the NFL (modeled after Jimmy Kimmel’s Sundays), and my wife put in her vows that she would support my fantasy football team and me watching the NBA finals.  But the real treat is that now I have a son.  I get to try to emulate my Dad, and keep my son up late at night with me.  I get to experience firsts all over again with him, and recreate some of the emotions I remember feeling growing up.  Some good, some bad, but most of all, rich.

The Master of Nothing

My wife and I went to see The Master this past weekend.  The reasons were several.  First, Grantland had previewed a bunch of movies coming out before the end of the year and highlighted that Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and some others) wrote and directed it.  Second, Joaquin Phoenix was back properly acting instead of doing this.  Third, Philip Seymour Hoffman can carry a movie alone.  Fourth, we love Landmark E Street Cinemas and are trying to support it (and you can order liquor there — and not no paper cup — I’m talking a glass of Jack Daniels).  With all that being said, I was hesitant to take my wife because she can sometimes make snap judgments about movies.  For example, within 10 seconds of J Edgar starting, she leaned over and said, “I’m going to hate this movie.”  The stakes were even higher with my wife because she had picked The Perks of Being a Wallflower for us to see a couple of weeks ago, and it turned out to be the best movie I’ve seen in a while.  I knew The Master would be a slower pace.  I knew it was a risk.  And with the pressure on, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Phoenix, and Mr. Hoffman decided to take a shit on our Saturday night – like die on the toilet Elvis-style shit. 

The movie was about something, I think, but had no story arc.  Hoffman was The Master, basically starting a cult.  I read somewhere that it was about Scientology.  Here’s an idea – you could just come out say that you made a movie about the origins of Scientology.  I’m into that.  The unnecessary mysteriousness around something as basic as – this movie is about X – is ridiculous.  The pace was lethargic.  Amy Adams jerks Hoffman off while imploring him to stop boozing.  The booze in this case was homemade elixirs made my Phoenix that included paint thinner.  I’m being very negative, but I’m also not making any of this up.  I’ll try to talk about some of the positives.  Phoenix’s acting performance alone held my interest for about an hour.  He was gaunt, kept his shoulders shrugged, and the right side of his mouth always stayed a little bit more closed than the left side.  He genuinely seemed fucked up.  Hoffman sang monologues a cappella and delivered a nice performance.  A couple of memorable (and beautiful) scenes were when both men got arrested and have a heated confrontation in two jail cells side-by-side, and the scene when Hoffman takes Phoenix, his daughter, and son-in-law to the desert to ride motorcycles as fast as they can to an undetermined, but specific, point in the distance.  I sort of get it, but not really. 

Which brings me to my last point – I might be done with the overly artistic movie that is allegedly so smart that it is not obvious what it’s actually about.  I mean, I like to think.  I do it every day, and my job demands I think about *big* stuff all the time.   But now I’m THINKING that maybe I don’t want to see movies that make me work really hard to piece together some semblance of a story.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower was about being in high school.  I remember that, and can relate my own experiences to it:  easily and enjoyably.  (That’s why I love Superbad so much too).  Perks was a wonderful story about being a teenager, and wanting to be accepted.  I mean, even Drake knows about that (for best Drake verse ever, go to 2:05)  Maybe I buried the lead, but The Master was about a screwed up drunk who wandered onto a boat one night and was manipulated by an up-and-coming cult leader.  Is that interesting to me?  Not really.  Can I relate to this?  Nope.  Did I remember my best times at the beach of making sand-females and then finger-fucking them?  STILL NO PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON.  The most positive thoughts I could walk away with came from the acting of Phoenix and Hoffman.  The aforementioned jail scene was a powerful duet.  But that was an isolated experience.  I would have preferred to go watch those two act random scenes together in some sort of actor’s studio workshop.  Did I mention that The Master is 2.5 hours long?  HELP!!!  So damn you Paul Thomas Anderson, for putting a stench on our Saturday night — one that we couldn’t even comprehend.     

With Friends Like These

My boys threw my bachelor party in Chicago last weekend, and in a short phrase, it was perfect.  It was full of booze and sports, and a 1700 sq ft suite looking out to Lake Michigan.  I want to live there.  Derek Rose apparently does, which was confirmed by two of my friends seeing him in the elevator on the way to the gym.  He didn’t have a knee brace on…#faking?  But more than whiskey, wine, shots, baseball, golf, and the olympics, it was a stark reminder of the strength of brotherhood that meant the most to me.  Upon reflection on Monday back home, which I took off from work to de-tox, I watched the Big Chill.  The first time I watched the Big Chill I was probably 8 years old, and I only remember something sexually awkward happening, but not much else.  Maybe some drug use.  Watching it this time was different.  The Big Chill is about old friends, optimistic and hopeful youth, and nostalgia.  The characters are only brought together because one of the crew commits suicide and all are brought back together under the same roof.  I related to it in some ways, and not others.

Harkening back to the good old days is usually an exercise in focusing in on the good times and blocking out the bad.  It’s easier that way.  But my bachelor party weekend reminded me of something else; something that I am proud of.  It’s more than being proud of the accomplishments of my group of friends, which I would hold up against any set of 10 guys in the world.  I mean that.  But I’m proud of the relationships that I’ve maintained, and proud to be associated with a group like this.  In the Big Chill, the characters bemoan losing touch with Alex (the guy who killed himself).  I completely understand how it happens.  Life gets in the way, whether it’s work or kids or something entirely different.  But for me, losing touch is an excuse, and a weak path to walk.  I think you have to work for (and sometimes fight for) the positive influences in your life.  There is plenty of negative out there in the world grasping at you to pull you down.  And it is your responsibility to recognize the good and shed the bad; no one else’s.  I have made it a choice (and a priority) to stay close with this group of guys beacuse of their positive influence on my life.  And something that I couldn’t quite articulate to my fiance when I came home happens every time I’m around this group of guys (or a subet of them).  So I’ll try to explain here, using the Big Chill as an aid.

Trump

Champagne Campaign

Can a playa get just a little bit of help?

There’s no sense in softening it: dating as a thirty-something in 2012 is terrible.  Maybe I don’t hang out in all the right places.  Maybe I devote a little too much of my time and energy to my work life and not quite enough to my personal life.  Maybe I just haven’t met “The One.”*  But we’re not going to talk about those things right now.  Instead, we’re going to talk about one–and only one**–pretty terrible but pretty significant dynamic of dating in your 30s: short-term vs. long-term attraction.  Or put a little more scientifically, being hot vs. being interesting.

Realistically, the thirty-something dating pool is completely skewed.  I would divide them into four categories: 

My 180 Dark Twisted Fantasy

I have a confession.  I downloaded Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy almost immediately when it came out in the fall of 2010, and I hated it.  I downloaded the whole thing because I liked “Power” so much.  “Power” was on my workout, running, and party playlists.  I vividly remember running to “Power” on the National Mall, looking at the Capitol, and thinking that this whole city, that building, all these people, are seeking the power that Kanye is rapping about.  The people of our nation’s capital are fueled by it.  Needless to say, I was thrilled to listen to the WHOLE album.  My first listen was on a long walk I had to the grocery store.  I started with “Dark Fantasy” and quickly started skipping to search for “Power.”  Listened to it.  Awesome.  Then I ran into “All of the Lights”  — damn that track was tight.  Then, um, I hated every other song.  I remember getting impatient and skipping after only hearing a few seconds of a few songs.  Then, and I can’t really remember why I did this, I decided that I was extremely disappointed and hated the whole album.  I never even gave it a second chance.  Well, until I did.  But only after inexplicably hating the album for over a year, making fun of Kanye for being a jerk and crazy, really disliking Watch the Throne (which I still do), and agreeing with our President when he said this.  What finally pushed me to give it another shot was not the 2,456 Grammies Kanye won, or the fact that “All of the Lights” had replaced “Power” on multiple playlists; but it was my fiance hearing “Dark Fantasy” and “kind of liking it,” and my sister’s boyfriend (music producer) telling me over and over again how good the album was.  Fine.  I’ll listen to it again.  Here is what happened over the past several months, song by song.  And maybe the other dope boy will finally give this album its first real listen.

Mr. Belding In The House

So I was in Atlantic City (for the first time) last weekend for a bachelor party, and we went to the Harrahs pool party on Saturday night.  We bought a table, drank bottles, and saw no models.  But, we did see Mr. Belding.  When we walked into Harrahs and sat down at our table, our private screen was showing old re-runs of Saved by the Bell; like Zach convincing Kelly to come study at his house and Jesse and Lisa climbing through the window to ruin Zach’s plans to slow-dance with Kelly instead (so innocent) re-runs.  Of the 11 guys I was with, most of us really enjoyed having the show to watch, but a couple guys looked puzzled and asked why the show was on?  I embraced the randomness, but eventually we put ESPN on so we could watch highlights.  Don’t worry though, the projection screen above the DJ kept playing SBTB.

Then, everything made sense.  Mr. Belding (Dennis Haskins) was introduced on the DJ stage.  I thought this was awesome, and hilarious.  But then, I looked a little closer at Mr. Belding, and got incredibly sad.  When he made the rounds and I shook his hand, I got an up close and personal look at what I was afraid of.  Mr. Belding looks like he eats only burgers and pizza, drinks every single day and night of the week, and permanently lost his Golds Gym membership card.  I wondered how many kids at the pool party even knew who he was.  Someone in our party said that they were convinced he had diabetes.  So seeing Mr. Belding reminded me of a couple of things that I’ve thought about before — the length of a celebrity’s career, and what they do when it’s over.

When Mr. Belding was on stage, I pictured him waking up that day in his hotel room, hungover, chest burning, and the lump of his belly covering his waist and blocking the view of his legs.  I’m sure he was slouching.  I imagined what was going through his throbbing head — was he looking foward to his guest appearance at Harrahs pool party?  Does he consider this his job?  To make a buck I guess you do what you have to, but I don’t think Mr. Belding aspired to make appearances for wasted teenagers, I mean, 21 and ups, at an Atlantic City casino.  But, what else is Mr. Belding supposed to do?  His career as an actor is over.  If you can’t act in anything anymore, but you’re an actor, what do you do?  Same goes for musicians — like Bruce Springstein confirmed at his Super Bowl halftime appearance a couple of years ago — when it’s over, you do Super Bowl slides.

But seriously, if you build your career to do one thing, and you can’t do it anymore, what do you do?  I guess if you make enough money, you do whatever the hell you want to do.  You don’t need to work for money, but ambition certainly doesn’t disappear, does it?  But now we’re veering off into personal motivation.  This article is also veering off a bit.  I guess the non-celebrity version of Mr. Belding’s ending is called retirement.  But there is something especially sad about a public figure completely losing his or her appeal, publicly.  It’s a deterioration that reminds me of getting old.  So thanks Mr. Belding for bringing me down at the Harrahs pool party on Saturday night.  But to be honest, I watched Shame on the train ride into town, which could have been the true contributing factor to this melancholy post.

Going For A Walk

The other dope boy wrote a little over a week ago rather poetically about his upcoming spring break trip to Arizona.  I have been a poor partner and just read the post today.  The post is emotional, beautiful, and thought-provoking.  Reading it made me want to unplug completely (ironic as I’m writing this), stir an alcoholic beverage with my cell phone (did that in college — the phone breaks), and WALK (more on this in a second) immediately out of my office into the sun.  But, all of that being said, I do want to take issue with one part of Spring Break 2012:  the “hiking.”

Spring break 2012!!

Recently, I was explaining to a group of 20-somethings why the 30s are so much better than the previous decade.  They were skeptical.  The full exposition is for a later post, but here’s a teaser: one reason that your 30s are so much better than your 20s is that you have the money to do more things that you want, like take sweet vacations.  And speaking of sweet vacations, I’ve been spending a lot of time these days thinking about my sweet “Spring Break” plans.  I’m not headed to Panama City to get wasted with some 20 year olds.  It’s not that kind of spring break (although I may or may not have just added that to my bucket list).  Instead, I’m taking advantage of a window of opportunity in mid-April and heading to Arizona for a 4-day solo jaunt in Saguaro National Park.