Category: Sports

  • Bracket

    So, you know, they announced all the teams for the Men’s NCAA Basketball tournament yesterday. Just about every guy I know is filling out their bracket. I will fill out two; the first one will be my honest but completely ignorant choices, and the second one will another completely honest but completely ignorant choices. (I have no real reason why I do two, other than the ESPN app I use makes it really easy to make multiple brackets.) I never have picked the National Champion, and my bracket is normally busted by the Elite Eight. But, it’s that time of year, and I guess the Tournament is just another mile post on road that is each year.

    I found out recently that over March Madness is when most men get and recover from the vasectomies. Makes sense. If you are going to have to sit at home with a bag of frozen peas on your nuts, might as well spend all day watching basketball. Things you find out from friends who had vasectomies.

    Anyway, I never really gave two craps about the Tournament until I got in college, and the guys in the theatre department (yes, you read that correctly) had a Bracket Pool thing. You’d chip in five buck, fill out a bracket, and whomever got the most wins won the pot. It was fun, and made watching some the games interesting. Pretty much after that, it became something to do when this time of year rolls around.

    I’m going with Gonzaga. This will be my second year in a row picking them, but my thought is that it’s got to land eventually. Right?

  • ODDS and ENDS: Tottenham Woes Continue, Mushroom Stock, and Explaining War

    Tottenham lost their FA Cup match against Middlesbrough on Tuesday. (I head you saying, “Who did what now?”) Doesn’t matter. Tottenham should have won that match, it’s embarrassing, and I really don’t think there is any hope left for this team to make it back to the top of the rankings to at least make it to the Champions League for next season. Who knew that Mauricio Pochettino time as manager would be the high watermark for this club?

    Why is mushroom stock so hard to find? It used to be that we could easily get it around Thanksgiving, but over the last few years, it’s disappeared. I looked it up on Amazon, and I can either by a 12 pack for $48, or buy a single 4cup box for $3 but get charged $5 for delivery and $5 for a driver tip. I am also fully aware that I can make my own mushroom stock rather inexpensively and quickly, but I still wonder, why is this item so hard to find.

    This week the wife and I had to have a very serious conversation with our daughter. We had to explain to her that war is bad. And even when the good guys win, that still means a lot of innocent people had to suffer to get there. It’s not fun and games. A war is an awful thing.

  • Super Bowl Reflections

    I like football, and I also happen to be the worst kind of football fan; a Dallas Cowboys fan. So, for those two reasons, I watched the Super Bowl, but didn’t enjoy it. (In fact, the real Super Bowl was Kansas City v. Buffalo. Am I right?) Good for LA, but if it went the other way, I would be saying good for Cincinnati, right now.

    The only thing that made this Super Bowl memorable was that my daughter was excited about it. Not that she cares about football, though she did try to sit through a quarter for the purpose of trying to understand how to play the game. Her conclusion; too many rules.

    Now, what the kid was really excited about was the gluttony, commercials and the halftime show. The gluttony part made sense because Thanksgiving is our family’s favorite holiday. We made guacamole, and queso with Ro-Tel and Velveeta. We had hot wings, nachos, and mozzarella sticks. The kid was not impressed with any of the commercials, and I have to agree. They used to seem inventive, but the commercials feel predicable; the “surprise” celebrity cameo, the quirky comedy, and ya-da ya-da. As for the halftime show, the kid thought it was cool, and I agree with that. What I took away from the show was that rap and hip-hop are now embedded in American mainstream culture.

    And when it was all said and done, it was just okay. I know a good part of that had to do with not having a team to root for, but the other side of it was that the whole thing felt removed from what is happening around this country. Like it was living in another fantasy world where everything was normal. I am aware that was what the NFL was trying to sell everyone, but it also felt a little hollow. Maybe that’s what makes the Super Bowl such an American holiday; it’s fun if you don’t look too hard at it.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Job Hunting, St. Ann’s Puppet Lab, and Super Bowl Halftime Show

    (Stuff and other stuff.)

    This morning as I was doing the Alt Side Parking Dance, waiting for the sweeper to go by, on a whim, I decided to see if there are any theatre job openings in the City. For the past year, anytime I looked for a theatre admin job, it just ended up turning my stomach. But, I also know that we are just getting by financially, and getting ahead would be a better situation to be in. Hence why, on a whim, I decided to see what was out here. And I saw something that didn’t turn my stomach, and was also kind’a right up my alley. I’m now thinking about submitting my resume. If I did get the job, it would mean a huge change to the life we have been leading for the past two years. But, getting out of debt would be nice. I don’t know yet. I’ll take the weekend to think it over.

    One thing that I do need to get on top of is figuring out if I can make it to St. Ann’s Warehouse for Puppet Lab next weekend, 2/17 to 2/20. I got friends who run it, and I also got friends who are in it. That right there makes it totally worth going. Then, there is the fact that I haven’t seen a live show in three years, which I would like to remedy. A long, long time ago, I took part in a piece in the Puppet Lab – I think it was the first theatre gig I got when I moved to NYC – so I have a soft spot for this series. The Puppet Lab is a two-year program where puppet artists create and develop work with support from the people in the program, as well as St. Ann’s Warehouse. The performances are the culmination of this long process, and showcases inventively creative and experimental puppet works. Shows like this I find exceptionally inspiring.

    And this year, we will introduce our daughter to the world of nachos and hot wings, commercials and halftime shows. But most importantly, she will learn that Prince’s halftime show was the greatest halftime show of all time. It’s a fact.

  • SPORTS

    I just want to get this out of the way; it really rubs me the wrong way when “artists” hate on sports. From making a Mitt Romney type joke – “I like sport,” – to the playing dumb – “I hope our team makes more homeruns then the other team,” – to outright hostility – “A bunch of dumb jocks, and your dumb for liking it!” I know some of it comes from the fact that most “artists” went to schools where the arts were pitted against sports, and that resentment never went away.

    I come from a very competitive family, and my dad had a rule which was that we had to play a sport or have a physical activity until 16. After that age, we could do whatever. I played team sports up to seventh grade, mainly basketball and baseball, but that’s when it became very clear I didn’t have to coordination, nor the killer instinct, that was needed to be successful an athletics. For the next two years, I took tennis lessons, and I was pretty good, but it wasn’t anything that I had a passion for. It was just fun. Anyway, by the time I was 16, I was theatre nerd, and in a sense, I was part of a different team sport.

    When it came to watching sports growing up, I always found it pretty boring. But as I get older, I seem to find myself reminiscing on fond memories of being around my dad, and sports being on the tv. During summers breaks, Wimbledon would be on NBC, and I remember watching that with the old man. And March Madness, that was one that he looked forward to. And when the Cowboys were really good in the 90’s, that was another moment when we would watch Troy, Emmitt, Michael, Jay, Moose, and Alvin.

    And then there was my grandfather and his never-ending faith in the CUBS, while watching them on WGN.

    The other thing I find true about myself is that I like sports because it can tell a dramatic story; Underdog and GOAT, rookie and veteran, superstar and utility player. You have to believe that your team can win, and complain about the owners.

    Anyway… sports.