Neighbors

As my friends know, a few months back I got married. And my wife is wonderful; there is no doubt that I married up. Dawn’s inclusion into my life has brought a number of positive influences to it, and one in particular –

I have met my neighbors.

I am not very sociable when I am at home. After a day of work in the bustle of downtown Miami, I just want to retreat to my little slice of Gringoism where I hear no Spanish & no one cuts me off in traffic. This city is crazy, so I prefer my home time to be relaxing with as few outside influences as possible.

But Dawn moved here from a rural area of Alabama knowing no one but me. She had to make friends, and I am happy to report: She has. And, through that, so have I. Now, you would think that, this being Miami, she has met a bunch of Cubans. Not true. By my count she has only met one – the elderly lady who lives around the corner who doesn’t speak a lick of English. But besides her, here are some bios of her, I mean our, new neighbor friends –

Ricardo – Ricardo is a 24-year old University of Miami student from Venezuela, where he and his mother fled from when Chavez assumed power. There are a lot of Venezuelans here in Miami who did the very same thing. Ricardo is nonstop chatter, and very gay. Friendly as hell, with a wide-eye sunny view of the world. I smile whenever I see him.

Ahmed – Ahmed is a 23-year old UM student from Saudi Arabia. Chain-smokes. Very thick Arabian accent, and when he talks on the phone with his mother, it sounds like Jihadists plotting a terror campaign. But Ahmed is anything but. Ahmed is a bit reserved, and avoids eye contact, but when you engage him he blossoms with talks of his dreams. His main dream is to have sex with as many American women as he can. And when we talk about, well, whatever, you can tell that America is influencing him. A typical Ahmed rant is something like, “I call to order pizza. Dees fucking Cuban on phone say he can’t understand my English. I tell dees asshole same thing.”

Molly – Molly is the elderly German lady who lives upstairs. She has been here in the apartment complex for 23 years. Very thick German accent that has obviously never left her. She is very hard to understand, and her sentences are peppered with “und” instead of “and.” Molly stays up all night watching Fox News and conspiracy shows. She is convinced that Armageddon is around every corner. But she brings us food. So that’s nice.

Scott – Finally, an American! Scott is, well, he’s Scott. He has been everything and knows everyone. Says he used to play guitar with Jimi Hendrix. Has written novels. His father founded Burger King. His dream is to move to California and sell his screenplay to Hollywood executives. Hey, go big or go home, right?

Brenda – Another gringo. Brenda is originally from Michigan, but has been in Miami for a very long time. This is evident by her leather-like skin that is about ten shades too dark for a typical Caucasian, and straw-like bleach-blond hair. Brenda lives at the pool. Molly says she uses the pool to bathe herself.

So thank you, or curse, you, my lovely wife for introducing me to these people. But given that they all live within a nine iron of where I rest my head each night, I guess I need to know these things.

Which reminds me. I have to go give Ahmed a golf lesson. There are no golf courses in Saudi Arabia.

This should be interesting.

My Brain on Yoga

So I have written a couple of stories over the past few months regarding my newest obsession – yoga. What I have found out is there are a number of misconceptions about it, the first of which is that it’s some kind of incense-burning, chanting, group meditation communal get in touch with your inner child lovefest.

Uh, no.

It’s exercise. Somewhat strenuous exercise at that. No, it doesn’t involve bench-pressing compact vehicles or swimming across large bodies of water, but make no mistake. It is exercise. You will discover muscles and tendons you did not know you had. And once you discover them, you will rue their very existence as they are contorted in ways you thought were only the purview of ladies who make their living spinning on vertical poles with dollar bills jammed in their G-strings.

Then again, I bet they do yoga.

Anyway. I now do yoga twice a week, Monday and Thursday nights, the 5:30pm ‘Hatha All Levels’ class led by my Yoga Hero, Lee. She’s beautiful…

ANYway, for those that have not experienced what a typical yoga class is like, I am going to walk you through one from the point of view of my mind:

5:15pm: I arrive at the yoga studio with my mat, towel and bottled water. I am excited for the upcoming hour, as the stress of work has manifested itself usually in my neck and shoulders. I walk into the studio, shuck my shoes, roll out the mat, silence the phone, and get into some semblance of a lotus position on the mat.

5:20pm: Others arrive, mostly women. I am usually the only guy in the class. And I’m good with that.

5:25pm: In comes Lee. She’s beautiful…ANYway, she greets everyone with her empathic, warm, gentle soul greeting. It’s all a mirage. She’s about to go Drill Sergeant on our asses.

5:30pm: Class starts. Lee takes us through a few minutes of breathing in order to attune our mind and body. We are usually in Child’s pose or some other restful position. I call this my last respite before hell.

5:35pm: Into our first Downward Dog of the night. DD is a staple yoga move, where you basically shape yourself like an upside-down letter V. I’ve gotten better at DD & can hold it for upwards of ten seconds now.

5:40pm: First Vinyasa. A Vinyasa is a movement through various yoga poses, usually from a low lunge position, to a plank (think push-ups) position, to body on floor to raise your front torso up (Cobra), to plank to Downward Dog. “Meditatively move” is Lee’s entreat to us. “Don’t pass out” is how I translate this instruction.

5:45pm: Time for twists! With one knee on the mat & the other bent (picture Tebowing), Lee instructs us to place our hands in Namaste (picture praying hands), and then to take the left elbow and place it on the outside of the right knee. It hurts to even type this, let alone to do it. I get there, and my spine is now wondering what it did to get punished. This gets repeated for the other side (right arm over left knee), but not before another…you guessed it…Downward Dog.

5:50pm: I am now cursing myself for showing up. The thought enters my mind to ditch class early, feigning some kind of lame injury. All it takes to snap me out of this is to look around the room & see all the women gracefully moving through the poses. The Alpha Male in me kicks in. I stay.

5:55pm: I am hyperventilating

6:00pm: I am hyperventilating.

6:05pm. Still hyperventilating.

6:10pm: Time for inversions! When I was a kid we called this standing on your head. And when I was a kid I could do it instinctively. At 53, it requires an act of Congress. I place my head on the mat with my hands, palms down, on either side for support. Every brain cell is screaming ‘Do this and you will be in traction the rest of your life’. Alpha Male says ‘Don’t be a wuss, you…wuss.’ I inch my feet towards my hands, raising my torso in the process. Body weight shifts from my hands to the crown of my head. I am picturing my neck snapping like a dried out twig. Lee is imploring, “Keep the weight balanced between the head and the hands, lift up!” For a nanosecond my feet actually leave the floor. Two seconds later my brain realizes this and defense mechanisms kick in, which means I fall over like a Jenga tower.

6:20pm: More Downward Dogs.

6:25pm: More hyperventilating. But the end is now in sight, as the best part of the practice is only five minutes away. It’s called Savasina, and I probably misspelled that. What it means is, rest.

6:30pm: Rest begins. I am prostrate on my mat, arms and legs splayed out like someone who just landed on the pavement after dropping from the twentieth floor. Just draw a chalk line around me.

6:35pm: Lee comes by and places a peppermint-scented cold washcloth over my eyes. It is at this point I want to marry her.

6:40pm: Rest ends by Lee slowly bringing us out of our reclined positions and up into a seated position. A couple of light stretches of the arms, and then we put our hands together at our chest, turn to one another, bow, and say Namaste. We are done.

6:45pm: I leave, but on the way out I tell Lee I cannot wait until the next session and to keep up the peppermint-scented cold washcloths.

I love yoga. But not before I go through hating it each time I am there.

An Orlando Primer

So I have now lived in Orlando for over three years, which is an ample amount of time to get a good feel for this place. And to not get lost anymore. Trust me – it is very easy to get lost in this town. I will get into the reasons for that shortly. So I decided to impart the things I have learned about this town on all y’all.

That’s redneck plural.

I love Orlando. I was excited when I first moved here in 2009, and it has just gotten better and better. So many things to see and do. Something always going on. My pet phrase is, if you are bored in Orlando, you just want to be bored…because it is not due to a lack of things available to do. It’s due to your unwillingness to get off your butt and do them.

But it is also a city with a seamy underside. And if you visit, you can certainly stay in your comfy room at the Grand Floridian on Disney property and take the monorail over to Epcot and have a swell time. But if you are feeling adventurous and want to see the city that over two million of us call home, well, read on.

Disney Ain’t Orlando

Nor is Universal Studios. Or Sea World. Or Wet ‘n Wild. Those are our major attractions, and what brings in tourists from all over the world. But that’s not Orlando. The world has gotten a view of the other side of Orlando recently – Casey Anthony, Trayvon Martin. Point being, we are like any other metropolitan area with over 2.3 million people – we have our issues.

So unlike other cities, we are not defined by how we are perceived. This isn’t Cinderella’s Palace or The Incredible Hulk roller coaster. We are a large, sprawling, teeming city filled with excitement…and danger.

Sinkhole City

Orlando likes to boast about all the lakes we have. And we do have a bunch of them. But you want to know what they really are? Sinkholes. Orlando is built on unstable land in the middle of a peninsula. A very high water table, which means there’s a reason we don’t have basements – because they will turn into indoor swimming pools.  And every now and then the land just gives up and falls in. Voila – a sinkhole. And after one of our summer rainy seasons that sinkhole turns into a lake. And two years afterwards, half-million-dollar homes are built with a sinkhole, er, lakefront view.

What the sinkholes also cause is windy, curvy roads. Nothing is in a straight line here. Therefore it is very easy to get lost, and your sense of direction gets compromised – ‘Let’s see…I was heading east, but now the sun’s in my eyes and it’s 7pm….how in the hell did I get headed west?’

Avoid I-4

Traffic is hideous in this town. Anywhere you go – from Winter Garden to Bithlo to Sanford to St. Cloud, there is traffic. Lots of it. And we only have one Interstate – I-4. Now, we do have other highways, but they are toll roads – the Florida Turnpike, 408, 429, 417. So if you want to get anywhere and you don’t want to go fishing through your pocket for change, sooner or later you are going to be on I-4.

I am telling you now. Try not to. At time it’s unavoidable – hey, I-4 is my daily work commute because there’s no other way to get from where I live to where I work. But if you have other options, use them. Please. For the rest of us.

All Cici’s Aren’t Equal

I mentioned earlier that the attractions of Disney, Universal and so on aren’t Orlando. But they are a section of Orlando – the section that we refer to as ‘The Attractions Area’. This is roughly defined as the area southwest of the city, northwest of Kissimmee. This also includes the International Drive (I-Drive) area. I-Drive is a cool place…to visit. But it’s not a place to spend an inordinate amount of time at. Because you will eventually get hungry.

Not that there aren’t places to eat on I-Drive. It is loaded with them, providing any culinary sojourn you care to endeavor upon. The issue is, they’re mostly tourist rip-offs, so expect to pay $15.99 for a cheeseburger. The biggest example of this is Cici’s Pizza – that wonderful chain of all-you-can-stuff-into-your-fat-face pizza buffets. I got two Cici’s within a 10-minute drive of my apartment, one of which is less than a mile from my yoga studio. $4.99 for the buffet.

The one on I-Drive with the exact same selection? $8.99.

You Got A Walmart? We got 10 of them

One of the things that blew me away about O-Town was its proliferation of urban amenities. Whenever I move to a new area I have to identify my amenities – the closest dry cleaner, Chinese take-out restaurant, driving range. Much to my surprise and pleasure, there are about 6 of each. Within 10 minutes of my place.

We also have damn near any restaurant you have where you live, and most likely, multiple locations. Fan of deep-dish Chicago pizza? We got Unos. You a New Yawker that likes his pizza thin and foldable? Good God we got about 150 pizza joints claiming to be ‘authentic New York Style’. Cajun? Try Tibby’s in Winter Park. Vietnamese cuisine? We got a whole section of town – East Colonial – tailored to your palate. Mongolian barbecue, fried catfish huts in the middle of the ‘hood, sports bars, Hooters, Spanish cuisine, Puerto Rican cuisine, Mexican cuisine (each is different), Thai…we got it all.

You want it, we got it. Guaranteed.

Cool Free Stuff To Do

Universal City Walk, Downtown Disney, Leu Gardens, Orlando Historical Center, Wall Street, Lake Eola…to name a few. Believe it or not, you don’t have to spend scads of money to have a good time here, and in many cases, you don’t have to spend anything.

So enjoy your time in Orlando. The City Beautiful.

And stay off I-4.

Guilty Pleasures

We all have them. And I got mine.

Now sure. Some of a more prurient nature that I won’t get into here, and please, keep yours to yourself too (unless I am part of them). But we all have those things we do that, deep down, we are not really proud of, as we feel if they were found out it would somehow lessen how people view us.

Well, I am getting too old to care about such fronts. I yam what I yam. And here are a few of my guilty pleasures that may make you view me differently. I’m ready for the fallout.

Cici’s Pizza

Being half Italian, I may get disowned for this. Some of my more distant ancestors would likely give me a Youngstown Tuneup over the revelation that I occasionally frequent a place where their ‘Italian food’ as about as Italian as French Fries are French.

Sue me.

I subscribe to the theory that pizza is like sex - when it's good it's very good, and when it's bad...it's still pretty good.

C’mon $5.99 for all the pizza, pasta, salad, breadsticks I can eat? So what if it’s pimply teenagers making the pies instead of Mario? And so what if it’s not authentic? It tastes pretty good and there’s plenty of it. Look, there’s a half zillion pizza joints in this town, and if I wanna go plunk down twenty bucks so some sweaty Vito makes me a triple meat authentic pie I can. And I do. But more often than not I cruise over to Cici’s for a nice thirty minutes of shoving as many types of kind of okay pizzas as I can into my mouth.

And the coup de grace with Cici's is two words:

Dessert pizza.

I rest my case.

 

Techno Music

This is definitely going to get me branded as a hypocrite, given the tomes of stories I have written about rock music, what bands rock and which ones are lame-o-matic. I have certainly set myself up for criticism as I have painted myself as a Rock Snob.

Well, I am. When it comes to rock I like to think I have high standards and a discernment over what has integrity/talent and what sucks canal water.

Fortunately Techno isn’t Rock. It’s my diversion from it. And yes, I know it is a manufactured sound, something concocted in a studio replete with over-dubs, drum tracks and synthesizers. Something that cannot be duplicated on stage, but only on a computer.

But I loves me some FatBoy Slim. And Crystal Method.

Sorry.

 

Celebrity Apprentice

Donald Trump is a major assbag. A tool of the highest degree. But for some reason I get a vicarious kick out of watching celebrities chuck each other under the tires in the boardroom, trying to permanently attach their lips to The Donald’s backside. I don’t give a damn about the first 90 minutes of the show, but I must tune in to see if Dionne Warwick or Gary Busey goes sideways. The last half hour is must-see trash TV.

Plus Ivanka is smoking hot.

 

Wal Mart Socks

Actually, lemme alter that. Wal Mart undergarments. No wait – stuff from Wal Mart.

Seems like whenever I go to Wal Mart I check out with a typical Wal Mart slate of purchases: Fruit of the Loom underwear, orange juice, motor oil, an Alumina-wallet, some crappy DVD from the three-dollar bin, plums, Q-tips.

And socks. I don’t know who George is, but he makes good socks. Three pair for 8 bucks. Unless they got the price slash thing going on, when I can score three pair for 6 bucks. I’m talking argyle, reinforced heel and toe, office attire sock that I gladly wear under my $300 suit for special work occasions, like preventing unemployment or sucking up to the boss.

If he only knew.

But then again, now he does.

What’s Your Sign?

Every now and then, when I am in the middle of a, say, work conversation on a technical matter, I will preface a statement with “Well, the Virgo in me wants to know…”

The reason I do this is, according to the day I was born, I am supposed to be cerebral, pragmatic and inquisitive. I am also supposed to be anal retentive, critical, and generally a pain to be around. I would make a good accountant but a lousy chef. I am able to balance budgets but cannot get more creative than adding two plus two. Virgos are meticulous perfectionists. Supposedly.

Guess I better straighten up around here then in case the Zodiac Police drop by.

Look, I don’t want to poo-poo astrology, but the, ahem, Virgo in me has a hard time believing that your personality is predicated on what day you were born on. And further, that every single person on the planet that was born between August 23 and September 22 has the same traits. And if you were to go with the Chinese zodiac, they go by years (Happy Year of the Dragon, y’all). So in their system everyone born in a specific year have the same traits. So everyone born this year, 2012, will be like this:

The key to the Dragon personality is that Dragons are the free spirits of the Zodiac. Conformation is a Dragon's curse. Rules and regulations are made for other people. Restrictions blow out the creative spark that is ready to flame into life. Dragons must be free and uninhibited. The Dragon is a beautiful creature, colorful and flamboyant. An extroverted bundle of energy, gifted and utterly irrepressible, everything Dragons do is on a grand scale - big ideas, ornate gestures, extreme ambitions. However, this behavior is natural and isn't meant for show. Because they are confident, fearless in the face of challenge, they are almost inevitably successful.

Sounds like we’re gonna have a glut of porn stars in about 20 years.

I was born in the Year of the Dog. So maybe if we mix the traits of a Virgo with the traits of the Dog, we can get a bit more specific. Yeah, that may work, since now we’re talking about September 1958, 1970, 1982 and 2004:

Dogs can be a bit overwhelming, due in part to their attentive natures. They can march in and take control of a situation, even when it doesn’t involve them directly. This can lead people to think Dogs are nosy or gossipy, but in reality, he just means well. Money and status don’t matter to the Dog. He is more concerned with the welfare of his family and friends and will do whatever it takes to help them out of a tight squeeze or a rough spot.

Hmmm….so the Virgo says I am critical…but the Dog says I am concerned for the welfare of others. Yeah, okay – I am concerned over your inability to know bullshit when you see it.

Did I mention that Virgos are also known for their sarcasm?

I don’t believe in this astrology stuff. But I have to admit that it is interesting, and I find many things I don’t believe in interesting. Like the Tea Party. But I digress. I readily admit that talking about personality traits tied to astrological signs is great party conversation. It even has a certain fascination, as we tend to assess our personalities against what the zodiac says they should be. Invariably we find similarities that could make one conclude hey, there may be something to this. I find this happens when they talk about the ‘positive’ traits of their sign, but as soon as the negative traits are listed, they tend to go Oh no. That’s not me.

So people get what they want out of it. Hey, I’m down. Whatever works. But please – to let it run your life or plan your day? "Oh I can’t take Aunt Harriett to the store today…my eighth moon in the fifth phase of the third house says I’m gonna wrap my Prius around a tree.”

That’s a bit obsessive. Sounds like you were born in September.

Further, the signs say whom we are supposedly compatible with. Hey, many people believe that their mate must have a compatible sign lest the marriage degenerate into a miniature hell on earth. In my case, being a Dog, I am supposed to avoid Dragons. So all you 12-year olds are safe out there. But you 24, 36 and 48-year olds, watch out. We are supposedly oil and water.

Dang. And there’s some hot 24-year olds I would like to get to know.

But alas, I can’t. Not because I am old enough to be your father (shut up), but because your Dragon will devour my Dog. Which actually sounds kinda hot.

But I digress again.

Anyway, if you want to believe in this stuff, who am I to say you shouldn’t. It’s my nature to be skeptical. After all, according to the stars I am a vain, cold, unemotional automaton who falls asleep while making love. Virgos are supposed to make good bus drivers or pimps.

So don’t get on my bad side.

Phrases That Tick Me Off

I can sometimes be kind of picky when it comes to the English language. Don’t get me wrong – I have my set of quirks, such as ending sentences in a preposition, as in ‘Where are you at?’ I am not referring to those kinds of practices, although I am sure many cringe whenever I let my Midwesternness come out with those kinds of verbal tics.

What annoys me are clichéd or misused phrases. Especially when used by people trying to appear smart when they really aren’t. Yeah I know, that targets me as grandiose or better-than, but at least I try to be what I am. I would just ask the same in kind – if you don’t know what a word means, please do not act like you do, okay Sarah ‘Refudiate’ Palin?

Anyway. Here is the first phrase that makes me go cold whenever anyone says it –

“The fact of the matter is…”

First off, the phrase is “The fact is…” to add in ‘of the matter’ is some lingual infusion in an attempt to relevantize the issue being spoken of. What it really is is redundancy. Further, I highly doubt the person using that phrase has any idea what ‘the matter’ is anyway. But beyond the awkwardness of the phrase is the assumed hubris of the person using it, because what usually follows is their opinion. Not fact, let alone fact of the matter. Opinion. Think about this – how many times have you heard someone say ‘Well ya know, the fact of the matter is, monkey can indeed fly out of my ass.’

Okay, probably never. Work with me here.

Politicians use ‘The fact of the matter is’ often as a precursor of their stance on a given issue. They are about to launch into how the feel or think of a situation. Those aren’t facts! Ah, but a politician’s job is to convince people that what they say are indeed facts, whether they are or whether they are pulling shit out of their ass. Chances are good it’s the latter. So in summary, ‘The fact of the matter is’ can be translated into ‘I am about to give you my opinion framed with a fancy pretense so you’ll hopefully duped into thinking that I truly am stating some irrevocable truth of the universe. Vote for me.’

Well you know what? The fact of the matter is, you’re ignorant.

Next –

“At the end of the day…’

Arrgh. This hits 10 on the cringe factor. Some use it as an attempt at finality, as an attempt to get people out of the weeds of a discussion and to fast-forward to the endpoint. As in ‘At the end of the day, we are all in this together.’ Gee thanks so much for your insight, Gandhi. Can we now go back to giving each other verbal wedgies? Cuz that was kinda fun.

But really, it is just an attempt at predicting where things will go. In other words, giving your opinion couched in a fancy-sounding precursor. Save us the tea-leaf reading and come get dirty with the rest of us.

Here’s what I do at the end of the day. I go to bed.

NEXT! –

“Basically…”

How many times have you heard someone start an answer with this word, then launch into a five-minute dissertation that can be called any of a number of things such as complex, circuitous, grandiose, mind-numbing, or making you want to jab pencils into both eyes? Their answer is anything but basic. Therefore it cannot be categorized as basically. So stop it.

Because basically, the fact of the matter is, at the end of the day I want to filet these people like a legal-sized snook and use their skin as protective clothing and their bones as drumsticks.

But maybe that’s just me.

Confessions of a Dweeb

I have trampled on this planet for 53 years now. And while I have hardly been a world traveler, I have been around a little bit. Grew up in northeast Ohio, lived in Houston, Miami and Orlando. Have done some cool things in my life but have not partaken in many others – for example, I highly doubt I will ever jump out of a perfectly good airplane. People that know me consider me, generally, as a nice guy that’s kind of cool and with it.

It’s all a façade. 

I am a geek.

I was born a geek and I have been a geek ever since I was old enough to realize that I loved Lost in Space and wanted to be Will Robinson because I wanted a silver space suit. While other kids were aspiring to be football players, I was building model rockets and launching caterpillars into low earth orbit. When puberty hit me violently hard and late at age 15, I thought the girls would be impressed by my Hot Wheels collection. I played professional Putt-Putt golf. At one time I wanted to be a ventriloquist. In school my favorite subject was math and reveled in understanding L’Hopital’s Rule. Google it.

Or not. Cuz it is about the most uncool thing ever created.

When I got to college and starting rifling through calculus, I discovered drugs and alcohol, which was wonderful at the time, because it mainstreamed me into society but also landed me on academic probation – which was considered actually kind of cool. Girls paid attention to me, because after a few Budweisers I dropped the geektense and was able to ooze out smooth comments about their hair or butt. Comments like ‘You have nice hair and a nice butt.”

Suuuuuuu-ave.

During this time I let my hair grow out and by virtue of having grown about 6 inches in three months, was rail-thin. I looked like a Q-Tip. But for 1978, that was tres cool. And it was also the time of Disco, and being an aspiring head-banger (which was after being a geek fan of The Monkees until my really cool brother assured me they were a fake band of actors), I was able to at least understand that girls liked to dance and they didn’t like Led Zeppelin. So I pretended to like the Bee Gees. These actions were able to sufficiently suppress my inherent geekiness so I was able to get laid.

But I was not being true to myself. I looked cool. I acted (more or less) cool. But I was never cool. It was manufactured coolness with the aid of tight fitting pants, polyester suits, platform shoes, and marijuana. The geekness went into the closet, but it never went away.

My brother, bless his ultra-cool heart, tried to school me on coolness. He tried to impart upon me that girls didn't care about the capital of South Dakota or whether Johnny Miller won the 1973 US Open with a final round 63.  He tried to impart a modicum of bullshit into my persona in order to impress. For example, rather than saying I played miniature golf professionally, say I was a professional golfer. Or just flat-out lie to them. Say I was the bassist in Supertramp. They weren't going to check it out, and even if they did, it would be after I was able to tap that ass a few times.

I tried, I really did. Problem was (and still is), I am a terrible liar. That's another habit of geeks. The truth eventually comes out, usually about five seconds after the lie - "Hi. Yeah I'm a roadie for Zeppelin....no I'm not."

So here I am, 35 years later and much too old to care about such pretenses anymore. The problem is a re-re-programming to get back to my geek roots. This story is part of that process. Getting back to my true essence – reveling in knowing the last 50 US Open champions, understanding the value of regression analysis in determining transit ridership trends, and working on limiting the movement of my left foot in the backswing in order to keep from swaying off the ball. None of those things are impressive to anyone else. None are going to get me laid or invited to where the cool kids go. But I am too old to care now.

I am letting my Geek Flag fly.

Life Is Just a Fantasy

With the start of the NFL season just a few days away, it is time for my annual rant about what has become a mega-million dollar industry. No, I am not talking about the actual football games themselves, I am talking about an offshoot of the games that has contributed mightily to the popularity of the sport:

Fantasy football.

Most everyone knows what fantasy football is, but for those unfortunate few that have lived their last twenty years in Croatia, I will burn a couple of sentences explaining: You draft your own ‘team’ of NFL players that competes weekly against other such drafted teams. You may have the Jaguars Quarterback, the Dolphins Running Back & the Raiders Kicker as your team (and if you do, I feel sorry for you if you have to try to win games with Luke McCown, Reggie Bush & Sebastian Janikowski as your skill player but anyway…) and these players get points for your team based on how they perform - a Touchdown throw may be worth 4 points, a Field Goal three points, and so on. Add up all the points your players scored and hope it’s more than your opponent for that week. Lots of fun.

The reason it has drastically increased the interest in NFL football is twofold. One, it has pulled in the interest of people who otherwise would not give a rat’s rump about football. Secretaries who once thought Benjarvis Green-Ellis was a law firm now know he’s a damn good pick up in the sixth round. Secondly, for fans that root fervently for one team, fantasy football gives them a reason to watch other games. What used to be a groan of “Dang. The four o’clock game is St. Louis at Atlanta” has turned into “Oh cool. I got Roddy White and Sam Bradford on my team.”

And this is why the NFL has done a delicate dance with fantasy football. It is technically gambling, as teams usually pony up money that everyone plays for, and the NFL abhors gambling…or at least pretends that it does. But fantasy football has opened up the game to the masses that otherwise would not care about the game so the NFL does not want to squash anything that doesn't put more money in the owner's pockets. And honestly, even though there is money on the line, it is not in the raw, base form of calling your bookie to lay three and a half when the Ravens visit the Browns. Heck, NFL players play fantasy football, and many times they draft themselves. And further, many fantasy leagues are “free” wink wink nudge nudge…

I was playing fantasy football before it was even called fantasy football. Seriously. I started a league in 1988, back when it was called ‘Rotisserie Football’. This was before the internet, fantasy football magazines, cheat sheets and the like. Preparing for the draft consisted of buying a Street & Smith’s NFL preview magazine and writing down team’s depth charts. You then had to make a judgment call on whose running back would have a better year. So, my sheet may have Emmitt Smith listed first, yours may have Kevin Mack. Totally subjective with little rationale other than whom I liked. As a result, draft nights were major clusterfucks, with guys drafting Bubby Brister in the second round. These days that doesn’t occur, as everyone just shows up with their copy of the cheat sheet from their favorite fantasy mag.

As I was Commissioner of the league I had to calculate the results of the weekend’s games. This was done by getting up very early on Monday mornings, about two hours before I would normally do, put on a pot of coffee, grab the newspaper that had the box scores from the Sunday games, and do the math - “Let’s see…Troy Aikman threw for 221 yards and a score…that’s 12 points…”In other words, all you soft internet babies out there, no website did the work for you. It was paper ‘n pencil, and lots of revisions.

Which brings me to my final point. I know this game. So this is a gauntlet throw-down to anyone that thinks they can outsmart a guy that’s been doing this since before many current fantasy football participants were born. You think you know that Mike Vick is a stud? Why - cuz your precious Fantasy Mag said so? Ha. I laugh at you. I fart in your general direction. You only think you know, because some source is telling you something that you are too lazy to find out on your own.

Back in my day we used to eat dirt.

I just did 3 fantasy drafts this past weekend, and frankly I love all my teams. I made a couple of eyebrow-raising selections, but you watch - Mike Shanahan is gonna run the legs off of Tim Hightower in Washington, and Beanie Wells will be the main cog of Arizona’s offense. Got them in the fifth and sixth rounds respectively.

See if your precious fantasy magazine tells you that, Posers.

Bus Chucking, and Other Colorful Phrases

The English language is, arguably, one of the most difficult to master. Us proud Amurricans seem to think that any foreigner that sets foot on our soil should have an honorable command of how we speak and be able to converse with those of us who have been here all our lives.

Sorry to tell ya Bubba, but that dog won’t hunt.

That phrase brings me to the subject of this story. American colloquialisms. Those idiosyncratic phrases that just roll off our tongues and usually elicit chuckles from those that understand, and quizzical looks from those that think we’re off our rockers (there’s another one). Our language is loaded with them: ‘Whatever floats your boat’, ‘That’s a horse of a different color’, ‘I’m down with that’ …to name a few. It’s no wonder people think we are weird. Because we are. But my favorite (or perhaps least favorite) colloquialism has to be -

‘He threw me under the bus.’

Hey, I work in the transit industry. I can walk out of my office right now and take the elevator down to the street level, walk over to our main terminal and witness about forty buses pulling in and out. I have yet to see one person brazenly chucked under the rear tires.

Yeah I know. It’s just a phrase. But it sucks.

I want to know where this phrase originated. Is it a mobster thing? Did Jimmy Tree Fingers back in the thirties face-plant some shy under the Number 14 Line in Brooklyn for not paying him? Or perhaps it’s just an urban thing; you know, you’re standing at a bus stop and as it approaches some sociopath wants to get his jollies so he plants a shoe in grandma’s back just as the bus is passing? I don’t know. Educate me.

We even use the phrase in my business - ‘Hey Jerry, how did the meeting go?’ ‘Ah was fine until Frank threw me under the bus.’ Which, if you think about it, being used by transit professionals, is akin to cannibalism. Or something. Do airline executives say ‘He threw me into the turbine blades?’

Nope. Poor transit gets picked on again. On a given day on a given street in a given town, ten thousand vehicles can whizz by of which maybe a dozen or so are buses. Does anyone ever get thrown under a car? A taxi? A goddamn rickshaw?

Nope. Always a bus.

Shit Rolls Downhill

The family dynamic. Oh, the volumes that have been written to describe issues such as “Middle Child Syndrome” or “Is your twin Satan?” or whatever. Psychologists have lined countless bookshelves with tomes on why your big brother made you smell his farts under the bedsheets or why little sister microwaved big sister’s Barbie doll. For my family, there was a very simple explanation for this behavior –

Shit rolls downhill.

Yeah, I am the youngest. We were born girl-boy-girl-boy, which I have categorized as my family’s version of the rhythm method. So I have two older sisters and an older brother. And this is going to be a story about the family dynamic from the viewpoint where it seemed most of the shit settled.

The timing of our births tells a lot. The oldest, Barb, was born in 1950. Then in rapid succession came Kenny and Patty in 1953 & 1954. There was a four-year lag (where mom had to rest up I am sure) before I was born in 1958. Picture two bookends with two volumes – The History of World War I and World War II – in between, and you get a rough scope of the dynamic.

I do not mean that as some kind of slap to Kenny & Patty. They were stuck in the middle, and stuck together. They were the team. Barb and I were separated by age from this cabal. Now, in Barb’s case, being the older one, she was mostly above the fray. While Kenny & Patty were plotting overthrows of small countries – or at least of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio – Barb was off to Wendy Ward Charm School, learning how a ‘lady’ walks and which side the salad fork goes on. She got married at age 19, and was gone.

That left Kenny, Patty…and me. Two against one. And that ‘one’ was five or four years younger than them. So picture a 14-year-old Kenny, a 13-year-old Patty…and a 9-year old Jerry. They had pet names for me. Kenny called me Nimrod, and Patty lovingly referred to me as Ricky Retardo. At that point in time, at least 6 city blocks were under their control, and their empire was spreading. I was just trying to figure out which end was up. And not surprisingly, I tailed them around. That did not go over well. Often, three would leave the house and two would return, and mom would ask, “Where’s Jerry?”

Tied to a telephone pole at Harrington Field would have been a good guess.

Patty, being the next-youngest, was often saddled with the task of babysitting me. THAT did not go over well either. Her actions at the time, which I took as abject hatred towards my very existence, were resentments for being separated from her friends in order to watch me. Of course, I did not realize this at the time – “Why does Patty hate me?” was a common refrain. The answer – because I was there. It wasn’t her fault – but it became her responsibility. And as I have come to find out, the worst thing you can do to a 13-year-old girl that wants only to talk on the phone & squeal at the arrival of a piece of fan mail from the Dino Desi & Billy Fan Club, was to babysit Ricky Retardo.

Kenny. Oh my. My CPU will give out long before I can keypunch out our dynamic. But roughly, it was this – I looked up to him for all the wrong reasons. Reasons, to this very day, affect me. But at the formative time of our teen years, Kenny was the man. He got the girls, was naturally cool, confident. I was none of those things - I was nervous, fidgety and a total dork. I wanted to be Kenny. The lesson, some thirty years later, is I cannot be what I am not. Because, to Kenny, they were natural. He didn’t learn them – he was them. And I have slowly learned to be not Kenny’s Little Brother but my own person. Our relationship, to put it midly, has been a combustive one.

Also not surprising are how our personalities have evolved from these formative years. Kenny and Patty are very social creatures. I am not. When Patty turned 50 her friends threw a surprise birthday bash for her. When I turned 50 there were no parties. Because I do not have a large group of friends. Patty plays in a Monday Night golf league with 30-odd friends. I play golf alone. I am not trying to elicit pity - it's just the product of our personalities and where we fit in the family dynamic.

So I write this with a bit of a ‘back through the looking-glass’ mentality. I could never understand why there was shit, why it rolled downhill, and why I was at the bottom collecting it all.

As I found out, the answer was simple.

Because someone had to.

Neurotic Browns Fan interviews Browns Head Coach Eric Mangini

Browns head coach Eric Mangini sits down to talk with Neurotic Browns Fan -


NBF: Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule of remodeling the practice facility to speak with us.

Mangini: Uh, you’re welcome. Are you referring to the relocation of the Browns mural?

NBF: YES YOU INTERLOPER! HOW DARE YOU BESMIRCH THE PROUD HISTORY OF THIS TEAM! BELICHICK MUST DIE!

Mangini: Your passion is commendable. Also a little creepy. But don’t worry – I have only relocated it to an area where the public can see it. Have you ever seen the mural?

NBF: Are you being condescending? We pay your salary, bub.

Mangini: Actually, Mr. Lerner does tha…

NBF: LERNER!?! You mean that tea-sippin’ soccer-loving rich boy that cannot fathom the pain we have lived with all these years?

Mangini: Uh, yeah, Randy Lerner, the owner.

NBF: I know who he is! Now you’re insulting my intelligence. You’re not endearing yourself to us, Mangelichick.

Mangini: Well, since you mentioned him, you know that I got my start with the Browns when Belichick was head coach here. I was a go-fer, I broke down film, basically did anything that was asked…

NBF: So you supported the decision to cut (cue the choir) Bernie Kosar?

Mangini: Uh, actually, I didn’t have anything to do with that decision. During that time I was ordering pizza for the press corps that was gathering to attend the press conference…

NBF: I deliver pizzas for Hungry Howie’s.

Mangini: Uh…good…good for you.

NBF: That doesn’t mean I don’t know my football though, Mangoofus. Don’t try me. I once delivered a triple anchovy pie to (cue the choir) Dave Puzzouli. He sacked Elway during The Drive.

Mangini: You must have been proud.

NBF: YOU DON’T KNOW ME!

Mangini: Uh, okay. Anyway, I am real excited about being the head coach of this great team, with its proud history and tradition. It is my goal to bring a championship to this great city and to you fans. You all deserve it.

NBF: What about the Steelers?

Mangini: Uh, what about them?

NBF: My God, are you as blockheadedly obtuse as your former boss, Beliprick? Are you going to beat the Steelers?

Mangini: Well of course. It is my goal to beat whichever team the Browns play on a given week…

NBF: Ya gonna instruct your players to disembowel Roethlisberger? Maybe face-plant him like (cue the choir) Turkey Jones did to Bradshaw? Maybe yank Polamalu’s hair until it rips the flesh off the top of his head exposing his brain matter to the frigid Cleveland air causing him to die a slow agonizing death? Cuz that would be cool.

Mangini: Uh…yeah. Look, my team is going to play tough, nard-nosed blue-collar football, but we will also play within the rules.

NBF: You’re a wuss.

Mangini. Noted. Anyway, the ultimate goal is a Super Bowl win, right?

NBF: No. Beat the Steelers.

Mangini: Pardon?

NBF: BEAT THE FREEKIN’ STEELERS!!! What’s this “Super Bowl” thing you talk about?

Mangini: Uh, it’s the championship game of the NFL, played every year.

NBF: Oh. Do you get there by beating the Steelers?

Mangini: Actually, you get there by making the playoffs & winning all your playoff games. Technically, the Browns could lose twice to the Steelers and still make it.

NBF: I don’t like that then.

Mangini: Sorry to hear that. Anyway, look – I gotta run. I’ve got a ton of evaluation to do on the current players & get ready for free agency & then the draft. There’s just not enough hours in the day, you know?

NBF: Yeah right. You need to go buy some more white paint. I get it. Not enough time for the FANS WHO PAY YOUR SALARY AND WHO YOU SHOULD WORSHIP, YOU FRAUD!

Mangini: Yeah. Anyway, have a nice day.

NBF: DON’T LEAVE BEREA!

Ode To The Semicolon

I have always rooted for the underdog, which would help to explain my devotion to a team that has never made it to a Super Bowl in their existence. But now I am going to take this cheering to a level of subliminty heretofore not expressed. I am going to talk punctuation.

More specifically, the misuse of punctuation. It truly shocks me the pervasion of sloppiness in writing. With the proliferation of e-mailing, texting and other 'shorthand' versions of writing, a subculture of punctuation paucity has flourished. And don't even get me started on texting acronyms like lol, roflmao & gtg (Question: Does anyone truly 'roll on the floor laughing their ass off'?). But aside from this bastardization of the language for brevity's sake (or to save money on texting charges), proper punctuation seems to have become a lost art.

I see you rolling your eyes. Stop it.

Punctuation, when used properly, delivers the message or the story in the proper timing; in the way the writer intended it. If not used properly, the message gets garbled, or worse, misunderstood. Hey, wars have happened over misunderstandings, so let's not trivialize punctuation, mmmkay?

Which brings me to the bastard stepchild of punctuation. The semicolon. It's sort of a colon, sort of a comma. And totally misused, or worse, ignored. Semicolons are very important in writing. They are used within a sentence to express a shift in thought yet still having connection to the initial thought, like the following: "I like to eat cows; however, they don't like to be eaten by me." Alas, such sublety is lost on many.

But let's talk about the poor semicolon for a moment. First off, it's a terrible name. Semicolon. It doesn't even rise to the level of a full colon; it's existence is to be only partially like a symbol that has the same name as the body part that carries human waste. How sad. "All I want to be is sort of like the punctuation mark named after the duct for carrying feces from the body."

Such humility.

We could all take a lesson from the humble semicolon and try to emulate its acceptance as a forgotten punctuation mark. The semicolon has been dealt an unfair hand, but it still sits there, ready to be used in its proper place. In fact, look at your keyboard right now - note that the semicolon shares a key with the colon (right side of the keyboard, next to the L). But a closer look will reveal that you do not have to hit the shift key to attain the semicolon, but you DO have to in order to get to the colon. What are the QWERTY creators telling us? That the semicolon is more important than the colon perhaps? That's how I choose to understand it.

So next time you are searching for that right punctuation mark, give the humble, underused and totally misunderstood semicolon a try.

But if you misuse it I will rof and lmao.

Hurts So Good

Don't worry, I am not going to take you on another trip down nostalgia lane by invoking long-lost cheesy rock songs. Polls show that I went over the head of 87 percent of my audience with the Aldo Nova reference a few weeks back.

But you are now humming that John Cougar (after he was & before he became again Mellencamp) aren't ya? "C'mon Baby, Make It Hurt So Good..."

All right All right...I'll get to the point. In the NFL, injuries happen. And I realize that every franchise that drafted Tom Brady has now nominated that for the Most Inane Comment Of The Year.

But my point is, for every Tom Brady that goes down, a Matt Cassel emerges. This is what makes fantasy football such a hair-pulling exercise in vice avoidance...and waiver wire scouring. We are now heading into Week 11 of the NFL season & names like BenJarvis Green-Ellis, Tyler Thigpen and Ryan Torain are cascading off the lips of snake-bitten fantasy owners everywhere. Heck, these guys may even be the players that make the difference in making the playoffs for some fantasy teams.

Tune in this week to FANTASY FOCUS this Thursday, November 13th on Prime Sports Network. Our guest co-host this week is Paul "Crimson Tide" Bogin, a veteran of over 15 years of the fantasy football wars...with the scars to provde it & we're gonna talk about these unsung heroes & how they are reviving the snuffed dreams of fantasy team owners across the globe.

Join us at 6pm! Just go to the Prime Sports Network website -

www.primesportsnetwork.com

and click on the Listen Live link. Call in with your fantasy football questions, concerns & dilemmas. Hum a little 'Jack and Diane' and we'll give you bonus points.

- Jerry "Rozelle" Bryan

Phil Hellmuth is a Dick (This is for you, Sandra)

Okay, let me first say that anyone that has won the championship of his profession eleven times is: a) Pretty damn good, and b) Deserves respect as a result. Fine. I respect Phil Hellmuth…as a poker player. As a human being he’s a 100% Grade A USDA Prime Turdburger.

Yes I know, he wears that ‘Poker Brat’ label proudly, but unfortunately he has spawned a generation of ‘entitled’ poker players through his table histrionics. If you’ve ever played Texas Hold-Em at a bar or casino, you know this kind of player.

Say you got 7-8 off-suit & Hellmuth Wannabe over there raises pre-flop & you call. The hand plays out & you end up cracking his pocket kings with two pair. Instead of a half-hearted ‘Nice hand’ from DickHead, you’re met with an explosion of Vesuvian proportions – “I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU CALLED ME WITH 7-8 OFF!!! WHY DON’T YOU LEARN TO PLAY THIS GAME YOU DONKEY SUCK-OUT!!!” as he chucks his card & chips into the middle of the table & does a spastic, apoplectic Watusi dance reeking of cheesy fake incredulity.

See, here’s what these so-called ‘professional’ players are thinking: When they pre-flop raise, they are expecting you to fold your 7-8 off. The pre-flop raise is a strategic maneuver to weed out players – like you – trying to make their hands on the flop. So when you call the pre-flop raise, you have thwarted their strategy. Now, if you’re a novice player, you may not know this. If you’re an advanced player, you recognize this, but are willing to risk chips by calling the raise in the hopes of making your hand. In other words, you know HellBaby over there has a pocket pair and you’re trying to beat it with the flop.So the flop comes, say it’s 4-7-8. You’ve made your hand. Now we’re playing poker my friend. You can see the color drain out of Soon-to-LoseMuth over there. He checks angrily. So do you. Turn card – check/check. River – check/check. Cards exposed, rage ensues.

I heard someone once say that any chips put into the middle of the table are AT RISK. Period. I’ve seen 2-4 off beat pocket aces. That’s why they call it gambling, and those that try a strategy of pre-flop raising have to understand that the strategy may blow up in their face. Because the random element of any poker game is the other players, getting upset that they didn’t conform to your strategy is not their fault, but yours. So sit your crybaby ass down – and post the big blind, Jackhole.