Going to live music shows means dealing with audiences that are sometimes unpleasant. I have gotten frustrated with audiences in the past for one reason or another. For instance, there are the people that inexplicably decided to go to a music show in order to chat about things while the singer is trying to sing. Or cases of fan-girls going gah-gah and embarassing themselves over an attractive singer. The guy who doesn’t see the “no smoking” sign. And I’m sure there are those that would complain about me obstructing their view.

In only one instance have I been so frustrated with an audience person that I wanted to throttle them.

Shane Cooper is a folk-type singer in Delosa that I stumbled across due to a particularly clever song about Buddhist monks, bubble gum, and bad luck. I listened to more of his stuff and heard a sensitive, insightful, descriptive, and humorous singer. Despite his vocation that puts him on stage in front of crowds every night, Cooper is a serious introvert. It’s hard to get him to talk at all either in person or on stage. I wonder if he took up songwriting because it was the only way that he could communicate.

One time Cooper and this other guy named Max Knowles were doing a show at a local sit-down bar. Knowles was a songwriter who has had songs taken up by Willie Nelson, Dollie Parton, and others that you’ve heard of, though Knowles himself was a guy I’d never heard of until that night. He had a bit of a chip on his shoulder on how some of the songs that were taken up by big artists were reworked and bastardized and he was not shy talking about it. I found it all kind of interesting, but I could see how some might get irritated. Nobody ever said anything to him about it, though.

Cooper, meanwhile, chose this particular night to finally open up. He started actually talking about a song that he wrote about a family friend that took him hunting when he was 10 or so. It’s not my favorite song, but it has more depth than most. The attention to detail and sort of feel of the song told you that this was one of those that was based on something real. And there he was, at the club, actually talking about it. I couldn’t have been more excited.

Then… out of nowhere… at that precise moment, some drunkard in the audience told him to just shut up and sing. Cooper did just that, post-haste. He didn’t need any more excuse than that. The rest of the night the audience tried to prod him into talking again, but he would say “By popular request, I’m just going to shut up and sing.” And he never talked about his songs again.

My brother Mitch, my father, and I went to a Colosse Canes baseball game. It worked out perfectly because they already had tickets and it gave Mitch and I the opportunity to spend some time together. My other brother Oliver has a wife that’s giving birth in the next week or two has since given birth, so he’s sort of tied up at the moment.

I hadn’t realized that I would be going to a baseball game or else I would have bought down my precious Canes baseball cap (precious because it’s a size 8, difficult to find). I don’t have any shirts or anything else, but as luck would have it my father has one that he goes running in and so I was able to be appropriately attired.

I was a bit conflicted as to how to cheer. I haven’t really been a fan of the Canes since leaving Colosse or really for a while before that. I mostly bought the cap out of regional pride. I wanted to buy the cap from when I followed the team, but alas the most current was all they had available. But the real reason I was conflicted was that the starting pitcher for Queen City was a fellow alum of Southern Tech University. Not that I knew him or anything, but he pitched for our team.

The game did not stay close for long. The Trumans make a point not to get bored at baseball games and we never, ever leave early. So we entertained ourselves with talk of the league. A while back I created a spreadsheet with all of the markets for the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Mitch and I talked about where the MLB would expand to if they took my advice. I quizzed both Mitch and Dad on which market is the biggest without any teams in those three leagues and which market is the smallest to have a team in any of those leagues (anyone who wants to hazard a guess is free to do so* - using real-world city names, of course).

Dad was really proud of himself for having taken a plastic knife with him. I didn’t understand why until we got our chili dogs and I struggled to part mine up with just a fork. It’s amazing how times change. There was a day when Dad would die rather than spend $7 on a hot dog. Or I would die rather than spend $8 on a beer.

Budweiser is apparently running a deal where if you agree to be a designated driver they will buy you two free soft drinks. Dad took them up on that, but I declined. I figure I don’t get to go to games very often and a beer at a game was something I wanted to do. As with my previous experience with alcohol when I was stranded in Meriwether, it didn’t take much to get me inebriated. Mitch and I drunkenly discussed the future of college football on the way home.

* - Update: Since a couple people are actually taking a stab at the questions, I figured I would post a bit about the methodology. The answers are in the comment section, so don’t read through the comments if you intend to guess.

The most important is that if a city is within a 90-minute drive of another city with a team, it’s considered too close. That bumps up to 150 minutes if the cities do not both have teams in any league. So Green Bay and Milwaukee are considered the same market, as are Orlando and Tampa and San Jose and San Fransisco. Raleigh and Charlotte (and LA and San Diego) would be different cities.

Yeah, the rules are kind of arbitrary, but I needed a formula for what I was working on at the time. I was aggressive about coupling markets together, but that was to deprive the person I was debating with of an easy argument (”You list all of these potential markets but some don’t count because they’re too close to other markets and therefore I am going to conveniently ignore all of your other points!”). It was related to this.

The numbers are taken from the MSA from the census. In the event that there is an “anchor city” (Milwaukee to Green Bay, San Antonio to Austin) we’re looking at the population of the MSA. The original census numbers I was looking at were from a few years ago, though I’ve done some spot-checking to see what’s changed (ie New Orleans, Oklahoma City getting a basketball team, and so on). Feel free to challenge if you think I missed something.

There are two cities of any significant size near Callie, Alexandria and Redstone. Redstone is a little closer, so when I need a “big city thing” like a Walmart, I go to Redstone. My doctor’s appointment, however, was in Alexandria. A lot of people prefer to drive the extra distance to go to Alexandria anyway. I am coming to prefer Redstone and all of is decrepit rustic authenticity to Alexandria’s yuppie charms.

I will say this of Alexandria, though. Toenail polish here is kept to a minimum. Maybe only half the women in open-toed shoes (common in this season) seem to be wearing toenail polish. I applaud this development. Callie has more in the way of nail polish than I would have guessed. Deseret didn’t have it nearly as much and Callie is only a couple hours away from Mocum. I was thinking, hoping, that it was a western thing. Nail polish was less frequent in Estacado, too. It’s nigh-universal in Colosse and Delosa, alas.

I had to drive Crayola, my almost-teenager of an economy car. Since taking on my Census Route, I have been driving Ninjette, Clancy’s fully-teenager (but really quiet and smooth) full-size. Unfortunately, she had to visit a doc in Redstone the same day I had to visit a doc in Alexandria. Since I was the one that arranged this little inconvenience, I volunteered to drive Crayola. It’s good to get some quality time with him before we swap him out in August (we think/hope), though I had gotten quite used to (a) cruise control and (b) the ability to accelerate.

But I’m not really thinking about that as I drive. Instead, I am thinking “Man, I wonder what happens next?!” Tom Clancy audiobooks will do that.

A while back, Herb Kohl (D-WI) was wanting the government to get involved with NBC’s (mis)handling of the Olympic Games. To which, James Joyner responds:

The Olympics are not a public good. There’s no right whatsoever to see them unless you’ve paid for a ticket.

The initial problem here is that the Olympics proclaim themselves to be something of a public good. It’s not really a private affair. While NBC has the right to do with its broadcasting rights whatever it wishes, if the Olympics were what they proclaim to be, they would make sure that clauses included not just gobs and gobs of money, but also a certain level of accessibility. But the Olympics simply isn’t what it claims to be and there’s not much to be done. I’d leave it at that if Joyner hadn’t gone on to say:

Nor, for that matter, am I a fan of exclusivity deals. It’s annoying, for example, that the only way for me to watch Dallas Cowboys games that don’t happen to be on my local FOX affiliate is to subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket, which in turn requires me to be a DirecTV customer. But, again, the NFL doesn’t owe me anything. I’m free to choose to take what they give me for free or to be held hostage to a single television provider; I’ve opted for the latter.

Here again we have an organization that proclaims itself as a public good when it’s convenient but then gets to nitty-gritty profit protection even at the expense of what would benefit the public. When it comes time to hold a team for ransom unless the taxpayers foot the bill for a nice new stadium, we get to hear about how much good the NFL does a community or a city. But then when it comes to cracking down on fans that use slogans not invented by the NFL or churches that fund-raise with Superbowl parties, well we all have to understand that they are a private business. Which, of course, they are. They are not the public good that they represent themselves as being.

The difference between the NFL and the Olympics, though, is that the NFL (along with MLB and NBA) relies on government and the people to do what they need to do. From the people they demand money for new stadia. From the government, they demand and receive broadcasting anti-trust exemptions. For them to demand anti-trust exemptions, in my mind they have certain obligations. By that I don’t mean “Give away all your games for free!” but I do mean that they ought to stop restrain from using their position as the nation’s premier football league in order to maximize profits at the expense of access in virtually all cases.

Exclusivity deals are a part of that. I half-believe that we’re headed to a future where the Superbowl is going to be a PPV event. They allow us to watch some games for free on network television and through various providers we can watch even more games with cable. Increasingly, though, the real money is with exclusive contracts. Not like with NBC and the Olympics, where nearly everybody gets NBC. And the same really goes with ESPN. The issue is with DirecTV, who pays a fortune not just to be able to show all the games, but to be the only one that is. Offering games on networks and cable is win/win because it increases availability and profit. The NFL’s arrangement with DirecTV increases one very much at the expense of the other.

The games have to be played on some network(s), but the availability of the network in question should be as much a factor as dollars and sense if they are to be a public good. The benefit that the consumer gets from the NFL’s relationship with ABC is pretty concrete. The benefit of their relationship with DirecTV only works if you believe that what’s good for the NFL is inherently and always good for the NFL fan.

Beyond that, the NFL’s restriction on the number of teams it has is another example. Right now there are 32 teams in a nation of roughly 310 million. That is the worst ratio the NFL has ever had and at every decade marker since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970 that ratio has gotten worse. This despite the fact that there are more avenues than ever for games to be shown on television. Cities considerably larger than NFL host cities were when they had teams do not get a team (and no, I’m not just referring to Los Angeles). Even now, there are cities without teams that are notably larger than cities with them (and not just New Orleans or Buffalo). In fact, there are between 7 and 10 markets larger than the bottom five current host cities. So why do the host cities still have those teams? In some cases because they got them when they were more vibrant locales (New Orleans, Buffalo) and or because of an intense potential fan-base (Jacksonville)

I see very little reason to believe that the NFL could not expand by a good half-dozen teams and maintain profitability. It’s not hard to figure out why they’re not itching to do so. The fewer teams, the less competition. The less the big market teams have to subsidize smaller-market teams so that the latter can stay competitive or split their own market. The easier it is to blackmail cities into building them stadiums or else they’ll move. The model is working for them. That doesn’t mean that it’s working for us.

I pick on the NFL mostly because it’s the most profitable. The others have pretty good excuses. The NBA is hemorrhaging money at the moment, the NHL learned the hard way how regional their sport is, and Major League Baseball has other problems on its plate. On the other hand, adding a half-dozen new teams would take a lot of the focus off of… other goings-on.

I’ve never been remarkably good at pool. I’m not terrible so much as terribly mediocre. And that’s for an amateur. Put me up against someone that knows how to play and I’m doomed.

Kendra Hofstadter was no amateur and she was far from mediocre. In fact, she had previously won a statewide pool contest and scored third-place in the national-regional contest. She and I met online somewhere and before long we were talking on a daily basis. Back then, when I met someone online outside of the personals, I typically left it up to them to agitate for a meet. The psychology here was I guess analogous to “game”. It allowed me to come to the meeting from a position of relative strength and a little confidence. I got away with it in part because, however socially awkward I can be in person, I was a skilled online conversationalist (make of that what you will).

And so it went with Kendra. It didn’t take three weeks before she started agitating for a meeting. She was somewhat backhanded about it, too. Less asking if I would be interested in meeting and more pouting that I apparently had no interest in doing so. For reasons that escape me, I told her that I would probably be stopping by at such-and-such after work and if she wanted to she could stop by as well. Maybe we could shoot some pool and I could beat the state champion, I said. Except that I knew she wasn’t 21 and wouldn’t be able to. I figured I would shrug it off and put things back a couple of weeks. As it happened, I had a date that Friday night. I figured that it wouldn’t take but a date or two for me to screw that up and then I’d have Kendra in the bullpen. That’s the best I can do in assembling a rationale.

It didn’t work, though. She said that she would see me there. She mentioned the 21 thing, wondered if I made the suggestion on purpose (busted!), but said “no worries” because she had a fake ID.

And so we met at a bar and it turned out that she knew the bar better than I did. The bartender knew her by name. Well, by the wrong name, “Kay”. Her “fake ID” was her sister Kelly’s. They looked noticeably different or at least I thought so. They both did, however, have a cleft chin that probably served to distract. Kelly was a touch heavier than Kendra and their hair color was different, but if you assume that hair color changes on women and a little bit of lost weight as well as relative indifference on the part of the ID checkers, I could see how she could pass with such confidence. To avoid confusion, she went by “K.K.” or “K” or “Kay.”

I noted that they seemed to know her there. She said that this was one of her prime pool hangouts. She took me to a trophy case where there was a plaque with the name “K. K. Hofstadter” on it three times. That was when she told me about the state championship and regional bronze. She asked me if I had any interest in playing. I told her I wasn’t very good but that I lose with an entertaining style.

And so we played. I geared up to lose with entertaining style, but I was actually on a bit of a roll. Much to my shock, I won the first game. She asked if I wanted to play again. I told her that no, I had just beaten one of the all-time greats and that I would retire with my perfect record against state champions in tact. She laughed more than my joke was worth. Then she looked at me like a coward instead of a comedian. So I figured that I hadn’t actually used my entertaining loser guise yet and why not. I didn’t really have time for any guise the second game as she completely and utterly destroyed me. I can’t say whether I had a good game or a bad game because while I only sank two balls, I only had five turns.

I laughed it off. “Best two out of three?” she said.

I wasn’t so good on the third game, but neither was she. And… I won. I took the reigning state champion best out of three.

I chose to ignore the overwhelming likelihood that she let me win.

When I wrote previously here and on Ordinary Gents about playoffs, one of my objections was that a small playoff would become a large playoff and would render the regular season meaningless. I would not object too vociferously to an 8-team playoff, but anything beyond that and you’re letting in 9-3 teams. Since Division I-AA has 16 teams, I just cannot imagine that I-A would not get there in pretty short order and perhaps beyond. Playoff proponents argued that this does not necessarily have to be the case and that 8 will be enough. So I have to point out a couple things:

First, starting soon the I-AA will not have 16 teams. They’re upgrading to 20. This adds a whole other week to their playoffs for the inclusion of a measly 4 more teams. But at that level, nothing matters but the playoffs. So why not?

Second, college basketball, which had admirably stayed at 64 or 65 for quite some time, is now looking at 96. It’s hard to imagine that 128 is not far behind.

A few years ago, when we were living in Deseret, we were visiting its capital where there was a guy talking about… well, I can’t remember what now but I heard every word. He was very loud. Someone at another table commented, also with a voice loud enough that I could hear, “You know, there’s one at every table.” I laughed, they saw me, our tables acknowledged each other, and we all collectively rolled our eyes at the really, really loud guy at the other table. Ever since then, “There’s one at every table” has become a staple of the sort of long-term couple private dialogue that occurs between Clancy and I.

Clancy and I were eating out at a restaurant on our move out here to Arapaho when there was one at the booth behind us. It was a guy talking about… well, everything. He was talking disapprovingly about sluts and waxing philosophical about the failures of his generation and the poor prospects of marriage out there because of all of the sluts. To be fair, he was disapproving of guys that sleep around a lot, too, though I don’t remember what word, if any, he used to describe them.

He was sitting at the booth behind Clancy and was alone with a young woman. He looked to be somewhere in his early-to-mid thirties. He apparently dated a girl for quite a while. One night, she went to a party that he didn’t go to because he had to work and the next day she broke up with him. He thinks that she had perhaps been unfaithful. He thought she was a promiscuous sort - or at least had taken a step in that direction while he was working. That seemed to be his defining story. He talked about her alot.

The young woman was more attractive than he was. She wasn’t stunning, but looked like of like Aubrey Plaza with less even skin. He was a stocky - but not fat - fellow. But he was kind of funny looking. Sort of like his face was put together by an 8 year old on one of those rudimentary face making applications on the web. His nose was a little too big. His eyes were a touch too close together. Something… off. Not ugly, just… ah, well, the words escape me.

And there was something about how his story, and the way he told it, and the way he looked, and the way he looked while telling it, all failed to match up quite right. It sort of felt like the guy was trying to invent a personality and was failing. It was impossible to tell whether he was on a date with the Aubreyesque young woman or whether it was just a dinner out between friends, but he seemed to be putting on a show of sorts. Either trying to get a date or a second one. In a Michael Scott sort of way, he struck me as a guy with a certain, sad darkness in him trying like hell to compensate and just be… normal. Not even spectacular. Just normal. Well, sometimes to be impressive and sometimes to be normal. You get the feeling that at first he wants to be accepted but then the second he is, he wants to be admired.

She got maybe 100 words in all night. The conversation was completely and entirely about him. Not just his previously failed relationship, which itself took up half the conversation, but about his thoughts of sluts, sexual promiscuity, marriage, and so on.

After we left, Clancy and I speculated as to whether it was a date or not. She said it sure came across to her like one and I couldn’t disagree. I said that if it was a first date, though, it was one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen. I then cited that in addition to being something of a bore, he also completely overlooked the cardinal rule about never dominating the conversation too much or talking too much about yourself on the first date. She and I related some of our experiences. I talked about a couple of opportunities that I really fouled up. She told me about a couple of dates that couldn’t end soon enough for her.

She also told me about several years ago with this one guy she’d recently met that drove her to Pontchartrain once who wouldn’t stop talking the entire way and how she thought, “Gosh, this guy sure talks a lot.” Thankfully, she said, it didn’t stop her from eventually marrying the guy.

The dollar theater is an interesting place. I guess it takes an interesting business model to be able to make it by seating people for a dollar or two. I still don’t entirely know how they make their money. You would think it would be through the concessions, but those are relatively cheap, too. You can get a hot dog for a dollar, which I frequently do. And of course it’s an interesting crowd that goes. Back in the dollar theater near where I grew up, the common theme was that it was really, really cheap babysitting. I guess as a product of the movies that I see, that’s less the case out here. Instead you get an odd mixture of cheapskates, enthusiasts, and poor people.

Back when the weather was colder, that last bit was kind of a problem for a little while. I didn’t mind that homeless people would consider a dollar or two for a few hours a good way to get out of the cold drizzle, but it was obnoxious how they snored.

The place has been going downhill. I hadn’t entirely realized that it was possible, but it seemed that each time I went there, something else was gone. The ticket-taker was replaced by a combo concession/ticket cashier. The bathrooms would lose their soap dispensers. Eventually they just tore the carpet out and decided that the uneven concrete beneath wasn’t really so bad.

Yesterday was my last trip to the dollar theater before we head out to Arapaho. It was a pretty uneventful affair. Not so much a few weeks ago when I went to see an action movie. I’m not generally an action movie sort of guy unless it involves capes and cowls or maybe aliens, but I’m also not much of a theater guy. The two go well together.

So I went to see my action movie and it was not a very good crowd from the start. It wasn’t the worst I had been to, but it wasn’t far from it. There were a couple of people near the front bickering a bit about something. It sounded like one guy was not as conscientious as the other guy would have preferred in terms of making noise. As the movie progressed, the loud guy in a red hat got worse. He was mumbling at the screen. The guy behind him in the hoodie told him to be quiet. This would happen periodically.

It was about the time the movie was reaching its climax that it all came to ahead. The guy in the red hat said one too many things and the guy in the hoodie told him to shut up one too many times. The guy in the red hat darted up and the guy in the hoodie got up and backed up. I would call it a “fight” but it wasn’t much of one. Red Hat lunged at Hoodie who was in a defensive posture. One punch and Hoodie was down. Red Had said to a stunned crowd. “Yo. I’m out. Enjoy your movie.”

This is the part where, if I was braver or more stupid, I might have done something. Not confront Red Hat, but something. Maybe alerted security (while they had fewer ticket-takers, they did add a security guard). Instead I just sat there. It took a couple minutes to process that Hoodie was not getting up. But even then I wasn’t sure what to do. Someone else went and contacted the security guard, who came in with his flashlight. It was impossible to watch the movie at that point. He woke Hoodie up and walked him out. I followed them to say that I had seen what happened. No surprise, Red Hat was long gone by this point. But he knew exactly who I was talking about when I described him. In other words, had I done something sooner, he might have been stopped. Or I might have been knocked unconscious, too.

From there it got a bit murky. The problem was that the people that reported to him initially and I had two different version of events. Theirs was basically that there was a fight. Mine was that there was a one-sided assault. The guard asked us both to wait for the cops to arrive, so we did. In the meantime, Hoodie started getting really antsy and wanted to leave. The security guard tried to calm him down, in effect saying that since he was bleeding profusely (Red Hat was wearing a ring, apparently, and Hoodie’s cheek was gushing through onto a rag) and the other guy walked away that he had nothing to worry about. Even so, Hoodie wanted to go home. I was anxious to get home, too, though I wanted to tell the cops that it was a pretty one-sided affair and that the other guy was disrupting the movie. Considering that I’d let the guy bleed all over the theater floor, it was the least that I could do. Hoodie was acting pretty weird at this point. I wondered if maybe he was high or something. If he was something, it wasn’t drunk. I also wondered if the combination of the punch and hitting his head on the wall from the force of the punch had done a number on him.

When the cops arrived, they pulled Hoodie over and asked him some questions. The next thing I know, Hoodie was in handcuffs. The security guard came over to me and the couple that initially reported the incident to him and told us that we could go home now. I asked what happened and they said that it turned out that Hoodie had a warrant out for his arrest. At this point, the fight didn’t really matter anymore. And with that, they took Hoodie away. To the hospital, I assume, then to jail.

Hoodie had a very bad day.

And I did not enjoy the rest of my movie.

The League of Ordinary Gentlemen were kind enough to give me a platform to explain my opposition to a college football playoff system. A follow-up discussion occurred at the Fourth Estate.

The LoOG title suggests that it’s a defense of the BCS, which I am frankly not in the mood to defend. I’ll take the BCS as an alternative to a cumbersome and season-marginalizing playoff, but there’s a lot to dislike about it. I’m in the “mend it, don’t end it” camp.
(more…)

8:30: “Ready to eat? I am. Let’s drive around downtown Gemini Falls and see what’s out there? If we don’t find anything, maybe we’ll eat at one of the city’s four Thai places. Surely we will run across one of them.”

8:45: “Hmmm. Okay. Maybe we’re missing something. Let’s consult the GPS.”

8:46: “Why is the GPS acting so buggy lately?”

9:15: “I swear, I’ll find my way out of the university one of these days. Did you happen to notice when we actually entered the university?”

9:35: “Down that way is a Dark Road. Having already been down two Dark Roads tonight, let’s not go down that one.”

9:55: “Hey, there’s our hotel. How did we end up back here? Okay, so no Thai place. Let’s see if there’s anthing that appeals to us.”

10:05: “Ssshhh… if you listen really closely, you can hear our culinary expectations shatter.”

When I heard about this video, I was under the impression that some sort of fight broke out. I have to confess that I was smitten with the idea of Mormon soccer girls gone wild (except with punching rather than the Hammy tearing off of their shirts), but the BYU girls were the victims over and over again. and there really was only one transgressor that was just mowing everybody down.

If this type of thing were more common, college girl sports would be much more popular.

I have an article up on MANzine about the dearth of black coaches in college football and how the kvetching media shoulders some of the blame for it.

Back when I was single and living in Colosse, I used to frequent music bars. My most common hangout was The Stockpile, a country-music bar that lined up the best regional country musicians around (as well as some national acts). It’s nice having your own bar, where, in the immortal words of the Cheers theme, everybody knows your name. Well, the bartenders knew my name and my drink-of-choice so they were great about, when I was waiting in line, passing a beer off to me even while I would a couple people back in line. And regular fans of the kind of music that played there knew who I was, even often as as “That tall guy.” And I often “got to know” the people there insofar as I saw them on a regular basis, had an idea of which of the acts they liked, and what to talk about if a conversation got struck up.

The bar wasn’t a particularly good place to pick up women. At least not for me, insofar as I never succeeded and rarely gave it a whole lot of effort. I almost succeeded once with a surprisingly hot girl. She and I were exchanging glances and smiles and when the conversation finally occurred, I blew it somehow. I think I know what the issue was and I think it was one of the reasons that I didn’t get very far even when I did make a sort of effort. Namely, it’s not good to go to shows alone as I almost always did. Being that guy who stands by himself and hangs out by himself is rather off-putting. Said hot girl was exchanging glances when I was sort of in a group of casual people, but it became clear in the midst of our conversation that I was there alone and the guy that had sort of introduced us was a guy that I had actually just met. Then I probably said something stupid. But to the extent that I was there to pick up women - and I generally wasn’t - being there alone was a Really Bad Idea.

Even though I knew the chances of my making a move on anyone were slight, and even though I knew that I was rather fundamentally incompatible with a good portion of the women there (I like country music, but I’m not a Country Music Person), I did always keep my eye out. And, just by virtue of going to the same place one to three nights a week, I got to know the people that went there (male and female) person by person even if I never learned or promptly forgot their names. I was enough of a fixture that I felt reasonably comfortable walking up and talking to strangers in that environment. If nothing else, we had a point of conversation: the music. The exception was, well, single women. They were harder because, well, it’s just different walking up and talking to unescorted ladies. So the people I probably should have talked to the most, to the extent that I was looking to pick people up, were often the ones I did so to the least.

In all of this was a group of young people that were there about as much as I was. I’ve long-since forgotten their names, if I ever knew them, so I will call them Jerry, Chrystal, and the gang (JC&tG). Jerry and Chrystal were centers of attention in part because they were both very skilled dancers and would tear up the dance floor together. They weren’t a couple, though. Jerry would frequently come with other dates and go back and forth between dancing with his date and dancing with Chrystal. Chrystal was probably a 6 or so (upper Station Three) with a nice body though a pointedly plain looking face. I can’t say that I wasn’t at all attracted, but it was a passing attraction at most. I never really harbored illusions that there were any romantic possibilities, though, for the main reason that with some ladies you can kind of close your eyes and imagine something happening and with others you generally can’t. Even if they weren’t romantically involved, it seemed like her standard was set by Jerry and the other guys in the gang and that was a standard that I did not meet. Jerry wasn’t a remarkable looking guy, but he came across as extremely affable and had that big-belt, snuff-spitting college-educated frat boy succeeded at places like The Stockpile.

One night at the bar I was feeling more chatty than usual and decided, in between the opening act and the headliner, to talk to sit at their table and introduce myself. I had introduced myself to others, though this was one of the first times I had really gone out of my way to do so. So I did. Jerry was pretty cool and I talked to him and some others in the gang. I tried to talk to Chrystal, too, but she was unbelievably cold. Like, if she were in a comic strip, there’d be icicles hanging from her word balloons. Jerry, despite the two of us being pretty radically different people, was much cooler. But to Chrystal my existence was limited to that as irritant and interloper or something of the kind.

That was the only time I really talked to JC&tG. I realized afterward that unlike with others at the bar, including Jerry as best I could recall, Chrystal never held the same standard of friendliness in casual non-encounters. Most of the people, when you smile or smile and nod out of familiarity or the recollection of those times when you stood face to face and couldn’t figure out who was going to walk around whom and how, none of that had ever occurred with Chrystal (the same way it had occurs generally without regard to gender and age). After that whole encounter, I noticed it a lot more. I was truly invisible to her. There is something viscerally disturbing about being invisible that makes you want to say something in reference to a female canine whenever it is a woman that does it. Of course, if I was invisible to some guys there, too, I probably wouldn’t have been nearly as likely to notice.

It genuinely wasn’t the case that Chrystal was this really attractive woman who was ridiculously out of my league. I’d dated women more attractive than she. I found my wife more attractive when I first not-quite-met her even as she, too, snubbed me. And given that I had made an effort (a modest one for most, a big one for me) to get to know the regulars of The Stockpile, it didn’t feel as though I were simply wanting to talk to the hot chick. At the same time, though, I probably wouldn’t have gone as far out of my way to talk to that group had she not been a part of it. I never talked to Jerry again (except nods and smiles) after that even on nights where she wasn’t around. Had a guy behaved as she did, I wouldn’t remember it these years later.

I attribute the rudeness to a couple of factors. First, looking back, I don’t think that she was a particularly social person. I don’t recall her talking to very many guys outside of the Gang at all. Though Jerry knew a lot of the same people that I did at The Stockpile, he seemed to talk to them independently. I attributed that to his affable nature, but it’s probably also the case that she didn’t because she is the opposite of affable. The other factor to which I attribute the rudeness is that I was a guy to whom she was utterly incompatible and any sort of warmth in my general direction could have given me the wrong idea. It’s unlikely that it would have, but she didn’t know that. And I couldn’t say for certain as I am the dope that asked out the barmaid at the Stockpile that was much warmer to me even when there off-duty (and thus I was not impervious to getting the wrong idea). The last possibility is precisely what, if anything, was going on between her and Jerry and maybe I was monopolizing the guy since he was the one I talked most to. I had sort of had the impression that to the extent that they weren’t dating it was because he had better options than her rather than vice-versa.

The last time I saw her, Evangeline and I were on a pseudo-date at a different bar catching a show together. The tables were full and there was no place to stand, so we found a couple benches in the little hallway to the pool table and restroom in back. As she walked to the back, so paused, smiled, and said “Oh, hi!” and walked on. It was the nicest she had ever been to me. Eva, with whom all was not particularly good at that point, kind of coldly asked “And whoooooo is that?”

“Good question,” I replied.

The notion of Instant Replay is somewhat controversial in football. On one hand, you have the importance of accurate calls. If the video cameras catch something the refs missed, then shouldn’t that be corrected? On the other hand, you have pure pragmatism. There are all sorts of things that the refs always miss. There are plays that are simply too close to call. A three-and-a-half hour game could easily be stretched to five or more hours with too liberal an instant replay rule. Coaches could use replay challenges as defacto time-outs, which is precisely what happened when the NFL first tried instant replay (they’ve changed the rules since). So the leagues came up with their rules. Nobody is really satisfied with them because, well, what it would require for them to be satisfied with them changes from week to week and play to play depending on whether the rules favor their favored team or the opposing ones.

Several years ago, there was an NFL playoff game between the Tennessee Titans and Buffalo where what appeared to be a forward lateral was thrown in a play that determined the game in favor of Tennessee. The refs did not call a forward lateral and though it appeared to be one in the replay, it was not deemed conclusive to reverse the call. And so the Tennessee Titans went to the Superbowl. Bills fans remained bitter and many suggested that they should reverse the result or if they win the Superbowl there ought to be an asterisk or somesuch. Titans fans argue that it wasn’t a forward lateral to begin with or, if it was, it doesn’t matter because that’s just how the ball bounces sometimes. Both stances have their merits. Teams should not win because the refs make a mistake. But there is also a point where you have to move on and accept that life is not fair.

However, one would imagine that had the circumstances been reversed, Bills fans would have been talking about moving on and Titans fans about the importance of the rulebook. There’s really no question about this. That doesn’t stop each team’s partisans from getting on their soapbox and saying that it isn’t about this particular game it’s about fairness or being an adult and accepting the unfairness of life.

Of course, sports are a multibillion dollar exercise in frivolity. It doesn’t reach the same importance as, for instance, public policy. Or the makers of public policy.

The Massachusetts State Legislature recently enacted a law allowing the governor to appoint a temporary senator until the next special election. The All Important Factor in this was that Massachusetts should not be denied representation between now and the election simply because a senator died. Several years ago, the same legislature passed a law denying the governor the right to make appointments and creating special elections with the All Important Factor being that appointments are anti-Democratic. Of course, that there was a Republican governor in office the same year that there was a good chance of a vacancy being created back then and that there is a Democratic governor and an important vote coming up in the senate now is hardly a coincidence. But in each case, they dressed it up as a matter of principal. Democracy, on one side, and pragmatism on the other. Both are valid arguments.

Republicans, of course, point out the inconsistency and charge that the change of heart is {gasp} politically motivated, but they themselves have rather suddenly embraced Democracy when it’s prudent. In 2002 in Texas, when they won the state legislature, suddenly it was undemocratic to have a majority-Republican state represented by more Democrats than Republicans. Throwing all of their supposed allegiance to tradition in process out the door, they created new districts that, quite astonishingly, lead to more Republicans in congress. But… they did have a point about a Republican state being represented by Democrats in congress. And the Democrats had a point about the bald partisanship involved as well as the dangers in changing congressional districts at the drop of a hat. But neither position was particularly in-keeping with their philosophy so much as it was politically expedient.

There are times when abstract philosophy and political expediency meet. For instance, even setting aside partisan factors, it is extremely likely that Democrats would support as many recounts as possible to get the “most accurate” result. Likewise, Republicans are, in general, more likely to say that if somebody didn’t fill out their ballot correctly they forfeited their own vote. So when the 2000 election hit, everybody lined up in their “proper” formation. When it was inconvenient, of course, the Democrats had no problems tossing unfavorable ballots and Republicans had no problem accepting a Supreme Court verdict they would have abhorred if it had gone the other way. And these reversals were genuinely considered fair and proper. Sure, in some cases it was cynicism, but there were two valid sides to this argument and each side found it pretty easy to clutch to the side that was most convenient for them and believe it.

The list really goes on and on. Parties out of power suddenly gain all kinds of new respect for the Filibuster while parties in power suddenly feel reverence towards pragmatic democracy. Consensus and democracy are both important concepts. Protests that are scary and immature when your side is in power are suddenly importantly protected free expression when your side is out of power and vice-versa. Protests are both immature and importantly protected free expression. The entire notion of freedom itself is constantly under review. When talking about smoking in bars, some people will wax philosophic about the importance of freedom. Then, in a discussion about insurance companies, the exact same person will demand that the government step in and sort everything out to make things fair for the “little guy”.

It’s a lawyer’s job to defend his client in court. He is expected to do this (within certain parameters) whether he believes in it or not. An uninterested party, the judge or a jury, are supposed to take both sides into consideration and come to a conclusion on whose interpretation of justice, facts, and the law is correct.

I used to be a political blogger and I used to discuss politics quite frequently with anybody that would listen. I still follow politics closely, but rarely discuss it anymore. The main reason for this is that almost everybody that is anxious to talk about politics is a lawyer at heart. They are discussing things with you to Make Their Case and that’s pretty much it. The balancing of valid points of view is rarely given much heft. The notion that there are competing ideals that provide a solid basis even for views that you are ultimately unsold on is extremely hard to establish. Instead, the right and wrong of a situation come down, more than anything, to allegiance to political party and political philosophy.

Not that there’s anything wrong with partisanship. It’s a rather necessary function of democracy. Just as lawyers are a necessary function of our court system. What exasperates me, though, is that the legal maneuvering seems almost never to end. And the uninterested observers are actually apolitical “moderates” and “independents” who are among the least educated and least thoughtful voters out there. And even in cases where they are neither of these things, they typically “hate politics” and are always in search for some “middle ground” that doesn’t even exist were it not for two sides pulling the rope feverishly. So you’re left to talk politics with the lawyers, and that’s as much a cross-examination as it is any sort of actual discussion. Where the stakes are more important than a Titans-Bills football game, but the discussion ultimately isn’t.

-{If your response to this is to say “It’s really the people that disagree with me that do this. The people on my side rarely do.” or a quest to prove that even though both sides do it the other side is much worse, please don’t bother.}-

I’ve driven from Soundview to Union City the last couple days, first to watch a movie and second to retrieve my lost cell phone (yay!). There is some very, very weird smell eminating from Soundview. When I was driving back last night, I was afraid I’d gotten some excrement on my shoe or something, but then when I got to downtown the smell seemed to go away. When I passed through the same part of the city, near the Soundome sports facility, the same smell was there. I stopped at a gas station out there and just breathing was a very unpleasant experience. As longtime readers know, this is despite my generally-atrocious sense of smell. Unfortunately, that poor sense of smell prevented me from identifying exactly what manner of foul odor it was. Smelled a little like manure, maybe.

Awake.

On our way to the bus stop.

Arrive at the bus stop and find the parking garage nearly empty. We wish that we had thought of the bus yesterday. The thought had actually crossed my mind after my successful adventure on the bus on the way home from the airport on Tuesday, but I figured that the chances that I could convince Clancy to haul our heavy luggage from one place of transport to another were pretty slim. On my way back from Shaston, I didn’t have the heavy luggage. She would have said that taking the bus would be completely unnecessary and really I couldn’t have disagreed with that. Neither of us saw the parking thing coming. If I had thought about parking I would almost certainly would have thought that maybe the main garage would be full, but it wouldn’t even occur to me that all of the private lots would as well. The bus was completely unnecessary.

We discover that the parking lot I parked in was only for commuters and the private lot next door was by-day only. I know that there is parking around here somewhere, but at this point I figure that the safest place to park is actually the Amtrak lot down the road. There are signs that it’s for Amtrak people only, but my experience on the Shaston trip was that they really didn’t seem to keep track of it. So I set Clancy up at the stop, drove down the road, and walked back. The bus was arriving as I was driving away. We’d catch the next one.

The next bus arrives on schedule. We lug our stuff aboard.

This time we’re three hours early, but that works out because we have a connecting flight in Los Puertos, California, that’s through a different airline. This gives us the opportunity to wait in the Transcontinental Airlines line after getting our bags set up at our primary airline, Northern Airways. Unfortunately, Trancontinental won’t give us our seat numbers. Both the Trancontinental and Northern Airways reps say that there should be someone from Transcontinental waiting at our gate to take care of us. That seemed unlikely, though. At first this is a mild irritation, but as the morning would wear on it would become fear-inducing as the reality of the situation set in: They overbooked.

Airborne.

We arrive in Los Puertos and there is nobody waiting at our gate for us. When we got to the Transcontinental Airlines ticket counter, Clancy is curtly told that they were taking passengers on the late-running 9am flight and not our 12:05 one. They’d be concerning themselves with that at 10:00 or so, they tell us.

Nobody is at the kiosk. We know that there are absolutely no more flights out of Los Puertos today and that if we miss this one, we’re either going to have to connect somewhere else (with more risks) or we’re spending Christmas night in California. Clancy decides that she’s just going to stand at the counter until someone shows up and she takes her book with her.

A woman shows up and Clancy tries to flag her down, but she shrugs it off saying vaguely that the flight is overbooked but that she is sure that it will all work out. At this point, I expect nothing to work out. She’s gone as fast as she arrives. Things are not looking good. If they can’t get us on this flight, I decide that I am going to put my foot down and we are going back to Cascadia.

The curt guy from before makes a reappearance. Perhaps sensing Clancy’s anxiety, he helps her out immediately. We’ve got seats. All is right with the world.

Airborne.

Land. Get our luggage. My father is waiting for us at the airport. That’s one form of transportation that we have no reason whatsoever to doubt. That’s a really nice feeling.

We’re eating Christmas dinner.

Awake.

On the road.

We’re at the airport, trying to find the parking lot. The only thing we can find is $26 a day and we can’t believe that’s right. That must be the hourly lot and we need to find the long-term parking lot. Honestly, though, I am so anxious that we decide that $26 a day is worth it just to make sure we get on that plane. The problem is that the parking lot is full from near-top to bottom. I say “near top” because the uncovered roof was closed to parking due to the snow. So now we set off to find off-airport parking. There were plenty of lots that we passed and most charged under $26 a day.

Nearly every lot we see appears to have signs about it being full. No matter, though, because we have time to take a longer shuttle from a farther-flung parking lot. We stop at a couple lots that don’t have signs about being full only to find out they’re full to.

We manage to get our car stuck in a hotel parking lot trying to turn around. This is just what we need. It takes us a good 10-15 minutes to get out.

We come to the determination that there is literally nowhere that we can park. If we had thought about it sooner, we could have gone all the way out to a Park’n'Ride, but we didn’t know where any were and by the time we got there it would be too late anyway. And so it was that on the day where Clancy consented to the earliest arrival she has ever consented to in her life, we still missed our flight. Devastated, we make our way home

We call the airline and cancel our seats. They say that they can get us out late the next day (Christmas) if we upgrade to first class, but we’re not willing to. I wish I had realized that Clancy’s reluctance was the belief that she could find us something sooner or better priced because I would have disabused her of that notion really quick. I thought we had just given up. Instead, she spent the next three hours trying to arrange something. I am simply exhausted from attempted travel and have ideas that we might just spend a quiet Christmas together. She disabused me of that notion quickly as it became apparent that if we were stuck here over Christmas, she would spend most of it wishing that we were in Delosa. So when she found an extremely expensive flight out the next day, I consented and we decided to spend Christmas day in transport.

Wake up, walk to the train station.

I get my hopes up that the train line that runs straight to the airport is working this morning. There are no messages either on the intercom or the lightboard about taking alternate routes and shuttles as I had to do yesterday. But when the next train arrived, the conductor said that everybody needed to get on and gave the dirt on the alternate routes and shuttles that I took yesterday. I had the vague feeling that the uncertainty here might come back to bite my rear.

A guy from the local Fox affiliate flags the guy next to me for an interview. It’s apparent from the get-go that he doesn’t particularly care to be on the news. He answers the reporters questions in one or two word responses and when the reporter asks “So what’s your story?” trying to get him to elaborate, he replies “I just told you.” There’s a 50/50 chance that I will be on the local news bobbing up and down to keep warm in the light wind and increasingly heavy snow. It probably would have been better for all involved if he’d interviewed me. I could have said something about having plane tickets, train tickets, and trying to get a flight out of here so that I can catch another flight out of Zaulem. I had the story that the guy next to me did not seem interested in telling.

We’ve been waiting in the wind and snow for two hours waiting for a shuttle bus to get there. Apparently my earlier premonition was correct. The train-plane line should have been running and wasn’t. So they had to scramble to find the shuttle buses to take us to the airport. Everyone waiting is getting irate and every twenty minutes or so a train comes by to drop off more people. It’s becoming apparent that there are too many people to fit on a single bus and there is no telling how much longer it will take the next bus to arrive. The Metro guy is saying that one should be coming by any minute now and that another will come by 20 minutes after. The problem, he explains, is a shortage of buses. Apparently, a dozen or so buses had gotten stuck in the snow, scattered around Shaston. Whatever other hardships I was facing, I was quite glad not to be on one of those buses. The long-awaited bus arrives, but the poor Metro guy is stuck in the position of telling us that even though it’s here and that we need to get to the airport, we’re going to have to wait another thirty minutes for reasons he’s not sure of. I’m wondering if there is about to be a riot.

I am getting increasingly anxious as to whether or not I will get on the bus and whether or not the next bus will be on time for my 7:30 departure. I want to tell everyone when my departure time is so that I can be sure to get on ahead of the people that have later flights. That’s when I find out that there are people with flights at 6:30, 6:45, and 7am waiting as well. At this point I’m not sure if I can even get on the bus with a good conscience. A young woman tries to organize everybody so that those with the earliest flights get on first. I’m game even if it may be to my disadvantage, but it quickly breaks down the second the doors open. Feeling awfully bad about it, I make my way on the bus as I mentally apologize to anyone that might miss their plane on my account.

A guy on the bus has unlimited data service on his cell phone and becomes very popular. He keeps checking on everyone’s flight. One woman talks about how worried she is about making her flight. Then she says something like “I know I’m being paranoid because the flight isn’t until 10:45, but I’m just worried.” 10:45?! I want to scream at her and throttle her. Her flight wasn’t for over four hours and she butted her way on to the dang bus ahead of people that now may miss their flights. If my flight had even been as late as 8:30 I would have waited. I wanted to call her nasty names, but instead I quietly seethed.

We arrive. I check the board and see that my flight is still listed as “On Time”. I’ve got my ticket printed out from the night before so I go straight to the security line. I’m feeling pretty good about my chances of making the flight. Several people from earlier flights ask if they can cut in front of us. We ask to see their ticket and when they show it to us we let them. The line is moving very quickly. I had forgotten what that feels like. A line actually moving. Because of the rush and staffing shortage, there is no pretense that anyone is going to be pulled aside and not a single bag is investigated thoroughly. This is good because I seem to always get caught up in these things.

Boarding.

Airborne.

Land.

Got my luggage and after a wait at the bus stop, it arrives and I board.

I arrive at the Sounddome, which is the bus stop that happens to be right across the street to the Amtrak station where my car is parked. I wait in the Amtrak line and get my two train tickets canceled. The Amtrak guy was really great about it. Then a woman in the parking lot loaned me her shovel so that I could get my car out of the snow and the parking lot. Things are suddenly going really well and working out. I am not sure what to make of this.

The main roads in Soundview have been shoveled and all that and since I live on a main road that works out great. The back alleyway to our parking area is completely iced over, though, so I park off the street in the front. There is some snow and ice in that area, but I figure I’ll be okay. I figure wrong. I can tell immediately that my car is stuck. I have another flight to Colosse tomorrow, so my first two hours spent after the initial euphoria getting home is spent desperately trying to free up my car so that we can drive it to the airport.

The car is not coming out. I’ve managed to move a lot of ice and snow around, but it appears to be doing almost as much harm as good. More than ice-free, it’s important that everything is even. It’s hard to keep that amount of ice even and no matter what I do I keep getting stuck. My car gets further and further out on the street to the point that it’s impeding traffic, but I can’t get it out. Fortunately, a woman with three very large sons stops and sends her team of kids out to help. They get it out with little difficulty. I take my car and find a side street that’s covered with ice but not much snow and park my car there, hoping that I can get it out in a few hours when I find a way to completely clear my street parking spot.

I go around from neighbor to neighbor asking if anyone has a snow shovel that I can use. I had previously been using an ice scraper because it was all I had, but I realized that I needed a bona fide shovel. Nobody answers or if they do they don’t have a shovel. Then I notice as I knock on my neighbors’ door for the second time that she has a shovel just sitting there on her porch. She is probably the neighbor that I am closest to and I don’t think she would mind if I borrowed it, but I’m not sure. I decide to knock on the door again after work hours. In a stroke of luck, I run into her in the back yard. She has apparently been around all day but is not in the habit of answering her door. I get a snow shovel, which is great because now I can dig out my parking space. Yay. I get to dig out a parking space.

The parking space is cleared. Clancy is home. Now laundry, packing, and a bunch of other stuff so that we can make it out to the airport tomorrow morning. She asks what time we should arrive at the airport and tells me that she is willing to arrive as early as I want. I tell her that I really want to go to the airport tonight and spend the night there. At this point, despite a light uptick in my luck, I don’t want to take any chances. She laughs at the prospect. As early tomorrow as I want. We decide to get up at 6am for our 12:30 flight. Getting Clancy up at 6 is quite the concession.

-{Previously Installment}-

“This is a message for {pause} William Truman {pause} from Amtrak Rail. Our records indicate that you have a ticket on the train leaving {pause} Shaston, Shasta {pause} at {pause} Six {pause} fifteen {pause} PM {pause} and arriving at {pause} Soundview, Cascadia {pause} at {pause} Eight {pause} forty-five {pause} PM. {pause} This route has been {pause} cancelled. {pause} Please call our customer service to schedule a new appointment.” -An automated call from Amtrak

I finally get ahold of Amtrak. They don’t have any trains leaving until Wednesday afternoon. The problem is that I need to get back to Soundview by Tuesday night so that Clancy and I can leave by plane on Wednesday morning.

I’m looking at renting a car. The cheapest I can find for a one-way rental is around $200, all included. I don’t think that I have a whole lot of choice.

Clint’s girlfriend finds me a plane ticket for 7pm, which I snap up immediately. I had considered getting a flight out but had decided that if the trains weren’t running then the planes probably weren’t taking off. But it looked like I was wrong because Northern Airways was still taking flights.

Northern Airways has cancelled all flights leaving Shaston. I call NA, but it’s busy.

Attempts to reach Northern Airways fail.

I decide that maybe I need to go back and look into renting a car. The problem is that the authorities are requiring tire chains and I’m not positive if the rental agencies have them. So I call to ask. The national agency says that I need to contact the local location. The local agency’s phone lines are jammed so they refer me back to the national agency. I do some looking into it and not only do rental car agencies not keep tire chains on them but they prohibit you from putting your own on their cars.

Attempts to reach Northern Airways fail.

I reach Northern Airways and am placed on hold.

Clint and his girlfriend are about to go out and eat. I tell them that I can’t go because I need to wait to get a hold of the NA representative. Right before they leave, I get the rep. Much to my surprise, they have me on a flight at 7:30 the next morning. I’m initially excited to have an early flight that would get me back to Soundview in time to hang out with my wife, though I do some time backtracking and realize that I would need to aim to get at the airport at 5:30 in the morning. I have no idea how I’m going to do that.

I start trying to contact cab companies. First one is busy. Second one is busy. Third one has a message saying that they can’t answer right now. Fourth one is busy. Fifth one sends me to an answering machine message. Sixth one sends me to an answering machine message. Seventh one answers. I ask if I can set up an appointment for 4am the next morning. They tell me that they’re not taking appointments and I’ll have to try to just call a couple hours before I need it.

I call the Seventh Cab Company and am told that they’re fully booked for the next couple hours and are not taking reservations beyond that.

-{Next Installment to be posted on Sunday}-