TALKING ABOUT YOUR GENERATION:
Well, this is going to offend some good people, but it has to be said. In trying to figure out what’s wrong with current culture, I stumbled on an easy answer: it’s because of my kids. Not them, per se, but their generation.

My generation, such as it is, is sandwiched between the “Me” generation of the Sixties and the Reagan kids that are a bit younger than me. I consider mine to be a miscellaneous generation that essentially accomplished very little and has no notable identity. But I can say proudly of my generation, “at least we did no wrong.” Unless we’re counting giving birth to my kids’ generation.

The screwy generation of my children may have been sired by my generation, but they were raised under the guidance and feelings of the Sixties generation who were running the schools and the television programming back then. When one examines the fact my kids were given “good try” grades instead of letter grades and that everyone got a trophy even if their team stunk, it’s directly attributable to our current condition of a hysterical sense of fairness. This ultimately devolves into the government interpreting “fairness” into taking a larger portion of wealth from the producers and sinking it into Obama phones, solar energy boondoggles and PBS.

I'm not opposed to fairness, per se. It just gets kind of muddled when fairness is confused with equality and that equality of outcome is considered fairness. The notion that all people should have what everyone else has, whether earned or not, is far different than everybody starting out equal. I'm familiar with the notion that not everyone's born in an advantageous situation. However, the most common way to correct that problem under a fairness argument is to bring those with advantages down to the level of those who are starting with socioeconomic hardships. That route may sound really nice and really fair in an After School Special, but I'd rather make sure the barriers to successful starts are eliminated so achievement is easier for everyone.

There is also a belief in this generation that those with handicaps or social differences who have a modicum of success are stories to be on, well, an After School Special. It's the old "Good Try" theory come full circle in which the country decides to support a team like Louisville in the NCAA Basketball Tournament merely because a player averaging 3.5 points a game suffered a horrific, freak injury. Or look at the accolades Oscar Pistorius had bestowed upon him, along with a free pass to be a caveman, followed by surprise when he turns out to something of a flawed man.

We don't vet people beyond the length of a Twitter statement and nowhere is this more true than our current president. In this politically correct world, this may seem tactless, but Obama was elected based on the color of his skin and white guilt over centuries of racism by our long dead relatives. It certainly wasn't based on weighty votes in a brief and obscure Senate career or his occupation of being a community organizer. Sure, he had great 10-second ad hominem, but the vacuity of what we could learn about the man and his designs for the country appealed to emotion and kept their distance from reason. Likewise the entire debate on gay marriage under review by the Supreme Court is based on fairness and not on the limits placed on the Court that states have their own rights. Certainly this generation would need a collective sedative if the Court ruled gay marriage unconstitutional. It doesn't seem to occur to them that nine imperfect people in robes make bad decisions, too, starting with the Dred Scott decision that kept slavery alive and led to a civil war, or in Korematsu in which the Court declared it was legal for President Roosevelt to lock up all Japanese Americans in internment camps, or even Plessy v. Ferguson, which kept segregation lawful until Brown v. Board of Education until 1954. Relying on the courts as an end-all demonstrates the generational impatience of big societal change. Demanding the balance of the population get there, and get there now by virtue of five Court votes, is like asking mom to demand equal playing time for their loser of an athlete kid.

This generation doesn't get that sometimes the seal pup with the broken flipper bites. Much better to do an After School Special on saving the baby seal instead of considering how much money could be made off the fur. Logic seems to always be trumped by feelings. And so it should be no surprise that a few million people change their Facebook profile photo to the marriage "equity" flag in the misguided view that the sheer emotion of the empty gesture will be picked up by the Court where Justice Kennedy will say, "Wow, if that many people changed their Facebook profile photo, I need to vote with the sentiment and not the law!"

I’d love to hear from this tatted-up, pant-sagging, backward-hat-wearing, bi-sexual, un-shaven, t-shirt, sweater-wearing and tight-leged pant wearing, pierced up, Lulu-Lemon, social-networking generation and tell me where I’m wrong. In the meantime, stop fucking up my country. That feels much better…

Where Have You Gone Woodward and Bernstein?

My friend who goes by the moniker Agent 69 thinks I’m an interesting person. If anyone thinks I’m interesting I tend to want to hang out a bit more with them because, well, I don’t get that reaction very often. Although I must say it does bring to mind the Groucho Marx line of not wanting to be part of any club that would have him as a member. Nevertheless, I had a lunch with him today and, as often is the case, we grumbled about various political banalities. To our mutual credit, very few swear words were used in this session.

The subject came up about the political class and the media that write about them. Specifically, about the strange relationship of media and how it is billed as our guardians of truth and yet have a cozy relationship with the people we need guarding from. It was in evidence this weekend when President Obama was having a going-away party for administration hatchet man David Axelrod who was leaving to run the reelection campaign for the president. First, let me state my bias and pray that Mr. Axelrod is a complete and utter failure in his revised role. At any rate, as Egypt and much of the Middle East was burning, our tirelessly-working president was goofing off with his staff and a number of invited elite journalists.

It makes one scratch the balding side of the head to get around the idea that supposedly objective journalists could maintain that objectivity and still make the A List for future parties and sleepovers at the White House. If a reporter were to write a slightly critical story about the president, would he or she be taken off the invite list? The worry of losing the status – and the access – in this manner could make any reporter give pause about what they’d write.

When I was a lowly paid sportswriter, there was a definite dividing line about consorting with the athletes we were writing about. It was almost a point of professional pride that we could care less about hanging out with the athletes, invited or not. And, the bigger the name, the less we wanted to seem star-struck. The reporters who cover the White House these days seem to feel just the opposite and can’t wait to write in their diary about how the president remembered their name. In fact, there is a big snit going on from the reporters who weren’t invited to the White House soiree.

Back when it was cool to be an aloof sportswriter, I had a story lead that went, “The Texas Rangers stink, and Mike Hargrove was the stinkee.” I was proud of that line and proud that I had called out the Rangers’ only all-star player. With my chest puffed up, I proudly went to the Rangers’ practice field the next day and was talking to manager Bobby Valentine. As we were discussing what Valentine might do when he became a former manager, a baseball whizzed by my head and I could feel the wind of the ball as it missed my nose by an inch. Valentine looked down and tried to hold off a chuckle. I looked around and couldn’t tell who had thrown the ball, although my great deductive skills had narrowed the field to Hargrove, who was about 50 yards away. A moment later another ball zipped by my head and, putting two and two together, I figured Hargove was throwing the ball at me. So I said, “Skip, I think Hargrove is trying to hit me on the head with a baseball!” Valentine said, “Naw, if he was trying to hit you, he would have.” The next day, Hargrove went 0-4 in an 8-0 loss and I wrote of the Ranger’s star player, “Hargrove looked about as sharp as white sox and a black tuxedo, but he sure can throw the ball with great accuracy.” The 6'-4" Hargrove grabbed me in the clubhouse the next day and asked me to autograph my article. So much seems to have changed in the relationship with reporters and the people they report on. It’s also true that much has changed in the expectations placed on the reporters by those they’re covering. And that’s sad.

Years ago, I was traveling with a few old political hands and they were having fun telling me about all the dirty little secrets of California’s elected legislators. Republicans and democrats both had skeletons that needed to be nailed shut in the closet. One maintained a collection of child pornography in his office and another once punched his wife in the nose because she met the pizza guy half naked. Another was found in a hammock with a 16-year-old babysitter, another was considered the cocaine dealer for the Senate and its staff. Most were alcoholics and few had anything resembling scruples. But they had one thing in common: they were protected from any of this information coming out by the Capitol dome.

While we are led to believe that republicans hate democrats and vice versa, the simple truth is that they don’t hate each other enough to engage in mutually assured destruction. So the details of the frailties of our elected mortals stays in the family; in part because they are aware of their own frailties and in part because they are protecting the image of our elected officials as servants of the public and the essence of truth and justice. The real story couldn’t be farther from the truth.

And this is where we have to give the stink-eye to the media. If I know these stories, imagine what the seasoned journalists know. I once asked undoubtedly the most important political reporter why he didn’t write about the dirty secrets in the Capitol. He told me if he did, it would be the last story he’d write and he’d be out of job. While I know politicians have stirred us into a rough employment environment, I wonder what happened to the days when an editor would give a reporter the boot for sitting on a story that was far more in the interest of the public than remaining on the A list for party invites. Woodward and Bernstein, where are you when we need you?

Better Than Me

Well, as usual, someone said it better than I did. What hurts about this is, it has come from someone who doesn't live in the U.S. and is not written in her native language. To make matters worse, she is not living in her native country and therefore has at least three languages rolling around between her ears (I also think she speaks French, so maybe four).

She decided to be long-winded on a comment to my post What Is Wrong With The World?, and wrote her response on her own blog. It's worth reading and poking fun at her misspellings and getting her to explain her yoghurt and soup metaphor. I will also link to her blog on the right column because she always has something to say and, occasionally, it is interesting and usually well-written.

Bailing Out The Big Three

Just a quick thought on hypocrisy and perception. Last month, CEOs of the Big Three automakers came to Washington in private jets to explain why they should be able to gobble up a big share of taxpayer largesse. All had received multi-million dollar bonuses for losing billions (I’m sure their bonuses were minor in comparison to the cost of the mistakes they all made) and each came with what seemed like a chip on their shoulders as they appeared to be demanding money.

They offered Members of Congress little more than threats of the imminent demise of the domestic auto industry and the loss of potentially millions of jobs (and, by implication, millions of votes). At no time did they offer a concrete plan on how they would rebuild their companies to turn or profit or even produce a product Americans want.

Since they were asking the taxpayer to take a stake in their company – and I’m still a taxpayer (for the moment) – it would have been nice for them to be a bit better prepared and give us more of a plan and fewer overt threats. I certainly couldn’t go to a bank and ask for a bailout on the basis that I would go out of business without their help. In fact, because of the actions of companies like the automakers, I can’t consider asking the bank for even a free toaster anymore.

Predictably our representatives in Congress used the Capitol pulpit to preach austerity to the CEOs, chiding them on wasteful spending, lack of leadership and poor planning. Just to be clear, weren’t these lectures coming from the same people who tacked on $160 billion in pork to the “bailout” bill and who seemingly have a blank check to spend our money buying up every industry that hasn’t moved to China? Isn’t this the same group that built the Capitol Visitor Center because Senator Reid had difficulty with “smelly” tourists visiting his office with an original price estimate of $71 million and a final cost of $650 million? Who are they to lecture, and who do we complain to when they blow our money like an alcoholic on pay day?

Eventually the automakers were shamed enough that they regrouped, huddled with their lobbyists, and went through a crash course on how to grovel with panache to elected officials who think they own the country. Two of three CEOs promised they would take only $1 in salary next year, which would leave them to have to live on the $30 million in bonuses they received the previous year (memo to self, let three of the maids and two butlers go to make it through the pay cut). On the second visit to beg for money, the CEOs chose not to fly their private jets – even went so far as to say they would sell them – and instead drove to Washington from Detroit (no details yet on whether or not they were chauffeured and if they ate breakfast at Perkins along the highway heading south).

Despite their new etiquette, it looks like it won’t be enough. Predictions by Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi indicate they don’t have the votes for a bailout of the domestic auto industry. It should be noted that Speaker Pelosi, who spared little sarcasm in her attack on the wealthy CEOs, doesn’t drive to out-of-town meetings or take the Metro to work. She flies on a taxpayer-funded Gulfstream G3, the same make and model flown by the automaker CEOs. Her reasoning is that the president and the vice president get their own planes to shuttle them around and, since she’s third in line to the presidency, she can’t be bothered going through security and sitting on JetBlue to fly between San Francisco and Washington. I’ve seen plenty of Congressional Members sipping wine with me in first class to Washington and even saw Janet Reno stuck in economy. I think Pelosi will be fine flying like the rest of us, and even picking up some frequent flyer miles for a really cool vacation!

In some way, I am interested to see what happens if they don’t get the money. It may tell us a lot about the use of taxpayer money to bail out any industry, including the banking industry. There are no visible signs that the financial services bailout has done anything for the average person and it would likely be a safe bet that the world will continue to spin on its access if the Big Three were forced to shut down or reassemble in a leaner, meaner fashion. It may tell us that the financial services sector should have been forced to do the same thing. I say, Let ‘em squirm.

What Is Wrong With The World?

It’s an old cliché but maybe it’s so old because the question is still on the table: What is wrong with the world?

Recently we’ve been witness to vicious attacks on innocent civilians in Mumbai, perpetrated by hate-filled and cold-blooded killers. Of course these attacks are more noticed because the international press is all over Mumbai and we were able to see graphic photos of the attacks and read even more graphic details as the killers methodically picked their targets throughout the city.

But the 60 hours of fighting in Mumbai is just the tip of the iceberg in other parts of the world. Untold numbers of people have been killed and displaced in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since hostilities between government forces and rebels broke out in 1998, more than 5.8 million people have been killed, the most in any war since World War II. Following a brief break in the fighting, the killings began anew in September and there are no good estimates on the number of people killed recently.

In Nigeria, as many people were killed last week – and the week before – as were killed in Mumbai due to ethnic and religious struggles that have plagued the region for decades. We hear little about the all-too regular Nigerian violence unless it interrupts the flow of oil.

Just 30 miles to the south from where I am writing this, sensational murders between rival Mexican drug gangs are in the dozens each week. Police have also been targeted and many executed in recent months. All of this is due to the fact that Colombian drug lords decided to outsource drug sales into the U.S. and now it’s probably safer for an American to take a stroll down a street in Baghdad than it is in most Mexican border towns.

But this is the macro. Evil has been present in some form since the first bite of the apple. We in the U.S. don’t often meet the face of such evil that those in the rougher neighborhoods of the world do. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were a rare exception. Instead we have to look at a more civilized evil, if you will, one that can turn perfectly well-adjusted people into self-preservationists with a kill or be killed attitude.

The recent financial meltdown is an interesting sociological experiment. How people are responding to it says more about who they really are than how well they behaved when money and toys were piling up. This recession is scary, don’t get me wrong. But will it be remembered for a store clerk being trampled to death so shoppers could save a buck, or will it be remember for how millions handled pressure with grace and charity? The jury is out still, but it doesn’t appear we have come close to finding our bottom and so many people seem so restless one must wonder how long before they all begin to snap.

Tough times have come to people I love and cherish and there is one thing I know of them: they are the kind of people who will face the challenges that lie ahead with perseverance and a respect for the needs of all. I believe their Judgment Day, if there is such a singular day, will be kind to them during this time of uncertainty and maybe they will lead us to the point when we’ll no longer have to ask the question, What is wrong with the world?

Living On A Thin Line

This is a difficult thing to write about but even more difficult to keep bottled up. Lately I have been lamenting (yes, Lazlo laments) about the personal affect the economic downturn has had on me. Sure, I get the macro and even have my own villain’s list, but that aspect of the mess seems so trivial when it touches your own life and the lives of the people you care about.

Over the past few months I have had to lay off friends and associates to stem the bleeding in my own business and have seen others I care deeply about lose their own jobs. With very little in the way of employment prospects out there right now – made even more troubling by the fact that most companies don’t consider hiring leading up to the holidays – it’s very depressing for those without jobs. Add to the fact that most of the people I know who are looking are in professional fields or fields hit the hardest by the economy, and it is very bleak indeed.

It’s so difficult to watch people I know and care about go through this, and it has been very painful for me to make my own economic-based decisions that I know affect the lives of some very good friends and hard workers. It has offered me no solace that I know what it feels like to be on both sides of this equation; just anger. I can never say I am sorry enough to those whose jobs I took by putting my own financial needs ahead of their own. I will suffer through this more than people will ever know because I know it is due to my own failures to be a better steward of my business that caused it.

Most of us were raised with the understanding that we had to fend for ourselves, create our own opportunities, become educated or trained and, especially, be responsible. I think we’ve all been aware of the downside of failing in these areas. Lately, however, there has been a subtle shift in many people’s thinking and what they expect of themselves. I sense there has been a growing expectation that we’re all working with a safety net and others are ready to catch us if they happen to fall, even if they fall out of their own carelessness. Once someone gets to this way of thinking I guess you expect the safety net will get as large as necessary.

It has become far too easy to walk away from responsibility lately. The ability to walk away from one’s problems with little debris left in the way may be the hallmark of the first decade of this century. I know far too many people, responsible people, who have walked away from their homes and businesses; some who could have either avoided the underlying problems that pushed them to their decision or who made bad choices in the first place. I don’t pretend to know what went on in their minds as they made their choices or how agonizing their decisions were. I am sure it has not been a picnic to lock the door in their empty house for the last time. And far be it for me to chatise them when I have walked away from some of my employees.

I guess where I get selfish in my own thinking is that these decisions, when added together with so many similar decisions by others, begins to bring the rest of us down in this slow death spiral. When one house gets taken back by the bank and sold at a hugely reduced price, it causes all the other houses in the neighborhood to lose value. When you get too many houses being sold by banks that are under no pressure to get top dollar, suddenly the whole area sees a drop in home values. Naturally this has a negative impact on the economy in general, causes governments to bail out banks who made these loans (many unsound loans, mind you) and tightens credit to the point that it is essentially unavailable.

And here’s the part where it gets personal: The safety net is now gone for me and my family. Our retirement account has been devastated by the stock market crash, my business has been nearly shut down due to a collapse of personal and corporate wealth and now the one area where I thought I could always count on as a nest egg, my home, is losing value so quickly that I am panicked.

OK, so woe is me. I get it that there are people worse off and many who didn’t want to walk away from their homes. But the fact that it has been made so easy and in such large numbers is trickling up to those of us who took out a fixed rate loan and have (had) 40 percent equity in our homes. The message almost seems to discourage people from keeping their job and their house; the government will be there to pick up the broken pieces. The same is true for businesses. Why should anyone work at keeping a business afloat when a bailout is around the corner? I guess the part that troubles me and worries me to the core is, what happens when there is nobody left to hold the safety net, and are we almost there?

Bad Taste

So this is what now passes for journalistic excellence. This “cartoon ,” drawn by Lee Judge of the Kansas City Star, a formally well-respected newspaper, is in such poor taste that it is amazing it made it to print. While the media frets about what Don Imus meant about two-bit loser Pac Man Jones, this special editorial comment slips by all of them.

There can be no mistake in the cartoonist’s message: if God was being fair, Rush Limbaugh would have died of a sudden heart attack instead of Tim Russert.

Why is it such fashion to attack right-wing pundits with such elementary school taunts? It seems if someone wants to say something about a conservative, they can get away with whatever they want. Say something like this about a liberal and wait for the riots to start.

When Al Franken wrote a book bemoaning Limbaugh, he entitled it “Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot.” Limbaugh has 20 million listeners and Franken couldn’t keep his show on the air and ended up owing a huge amount in back payroll taxes to his employees. Really now, who’s the idiot?

Politics and punditry are messy affairs, but it sure would be nice if the discourse could at least reach junior high school level. Just disgraceful.

Great Website

I found a very good website that I wanted to share with you all. It’s called Hulu and it looks like it’s NBC and Fox networks teaming together to offer streaming video of some of their most popular TV shows. There is no cost to watch shows like The Office, Arrested Development, The Simpsons, 30 Rock, and even some older shows like WKRP in Cincinnati (Sladed, remember that one?), Married With Children and the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The shows are free to watch, you only have to wait through one commercial during the normal break for several commercials (and, no, you can’t fast-forward through them, I already tried).

It was a bit confusing when I first saw this website advertised on Yahoo! I couldn’t figure out why they were making at least the current shows available in such a manner. Putting them online must run counter to their desire to sell packaged seasons of shows on DVDs. Then it occurred to me that there is no cost to put these up other than to host the site. No need to produce the DVDs and create and pay for packaging and no reason to split the profits with distributors and retailers (or e-tailers). And, perhaps most of all, I suspect there is no need to share the wealth with actors, writers, producers and crew either. It essentially is just another bite at the apple for us to watch the shows again with new advertising revenue.

I hope the idea works for them because it has been great to watch while away from home. I can only imagine how great it is for people on extended trips out of the country. If you get the chance, check it out (but not at work).

Raped By Realtors

There is an old lawyer joke that is in need of update. It used to go something like, “what do you call one million lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.” I think the time has come to amend this slightly to include Realtors.

We just got so utterly squeezed by the buyer’s criminal agent and our part-time real estate agent on the sale of our estates in Virginia, that one wonders if any laws were broken. Just being told every day that “it’s a buyer’s market” and doing to us what Clinton had been doing to Monica is no way to earn a 6% sales commission. At least that’s my opinion. In fact, you’d have to have little pride in your industry to look someone straight in the face and say your industry deserves this commission – a supposedly negotiable percentage.

On second thought, there may be laws being broken by the agents. Take a look at the current housing market. We hear at least one story every day that the market is slowing and values are plummeting. Who says so? Realtors, of course. And what do Realtors have to benefit by a market in full plunge? Faster sales. So these so-called experts tell us what price to market our house and then let offers come in 20 percent below asking price and urge us to take it. I think there is collusion going on and should be investigated. It's tough being a commissioned sales agent, but have some respect and collectively advise your sellers to hold the line, not drop the price through the basement.

This is not just the comments of someone who ended up on a bad end of transaction, but someone who is seriously challenging whether or not agents are purposely driving down the price of housing to ensure more and faster real estate sales. Yes, I know there are people who made bad investments and got teased with teaser interest rates who unfortunately need to sell. But that is just more of the ginned-up sales cycle that real estate agents urged us to buy into. “Interest rates are the lowest in 40 years,” one ad would say, implying that if you don’t buy now and buy often, you’re a moron. And, naturally, let a Realtor navigate the tricky waters of buying something that ended up at the top of the market.

Whatever happened to the old investment advice of buying low and selling high? And whatever happened to real estate agents advising their buyers that they were purchasing at the top of the market? I suspect they were too busy trying to catch a quick wave that they didn’t pay attention to the sales figures.

Using the Virginia Estates as an example of the chicanery in the industry, we agreed upon a list price that was below our tax assessment. We were told up front that it was a good price. When we entered the market there were two other similar homes for sale and their asking price was about the same as ours. Within days of us entering the market, each dropped their price $30,000, no doubt urged by their agent to do so to make their properties more attractive. I sneered at their willingness to drop so readily, but after several months of no activity, we lowered our price to match them. Once again, within days, they dropped their prices another $20,000, again no doubt at the urging of their “it’s a soft-headed-market” real state agents.

So we have a running of the bears in the real estate market fueled by the chutzpah of real estate agents and the frayed nerves of the people to whom they provide counsel. In unison, it seems, we all became nervous that the value of our homes was plummeting and it would be years when the current value would return. Sell now or face worse choices, we were told.

When we finally got an illusive offer – from a young woman whose mother happened to be an agent – it was so depressing that we nearly rejected it without a counter-offer. Our part-time agents suggested a counter-offer that we normally would never consider. But we did and it barely budged them from their initial offer. To make a long story short, we did reach an agreement, but there is no joy in the end result. Sadly, when we go to buy in San Diego, we will find the meanest, nastiest buyer’s agent possible and do to others what has been done to us. Of course we will probably be told by our agent that it is now a seller’s market. Seems to be our dumb luck, anyway.

We Need Another Hero

Some of you may read this and think, “Oh crap, he’s writing about sports.” But this is about more than sports; it’s about the intrusion of sports into modern culture and taking a look back at how professional athletes used to fit into our society.

Barry Bonds is chasing a milestone that up until 1974 was believed to be unreachable. That year Hank Aaron surpassed Babe Ruth’s career home run record of 714 dingers. Now Bonds is within six homers of tying Hank Aaron’s record of 755 and there simply isn’t any excitement out there. At least there isn’t the excitement Aaron generated – both good and bad – in his run at the record in 1973 and 1974.

During the end of the 1973 season, the news media hounded Aaron and television cameras were everywhere to record the record-breaking home run. An America still steeped in racial bigotry was also present as Aaron received thousands of letters of hate mail because a black man dared to break a white legend’s record – never mind the fact that the white legend was a legendary cad.

Now that Bonds is nearing the record, it seems there is a collective ho-hum from the media and fans. It could be because the old Roger Maris record of 61 home runs was shattered three times by supposed steroid-filled hitters Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa and then Bonds with 73 home runs. Or it could be that Bonds is not liked by fellow players and is silent to the media. Perhaps it is the swirl of controversy emanating from the BALCO scandal that implicates steroid use by Bonds, though he has never admitted using steroids nor been found guilty of their use. For all his current 749 home runs, nobody knows how many were hit before his alleged use of steroids, how many during or how many after, so we’ll always wonder where his legitimate talent ended and was overtaken by performance enhancing substances.

It’s likely baseball fans are yawning at what should be a major achievement for all of these reasons. And that’s what’s wrong with athletes and sports these days. Putting aside all the arguments that Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron hit in smaller ball parks, batted against pitchers whose arms were dead from overuse and never had to face a split-finger fastball or a slider that fell off the plate, Aaron was easy to celebrate because he endured the attention and handled it all like a gentleman. One gets the feeling Bonds has become driven to break the record simply because he can and gets no enjoyment out of it. He knows once he breaks the record it will forever come with an asterisk, which will say more about the man than the towering home runs and his remarkable baseball longevity.

In many ways, it’s too bad Bonds is the bad guy in this. However much he has been rumored to be pumped up on steroids, he is hitting against pitchers who are likely steroid users and that’s only when they actually pitch to him. He draws a walk nearly twice as often as the next hitter and nobody is saying it takes steroids to have a good eye. This means he gets half as many attempts to hit a home run and even fewer good pitches to take a swing. Basically, he gets a home run every time a pitcher makes a mistake by throwing near the plate. Still, all is not right in Mudville.

I was talking to The Boy the other day and was lamenting (yes, Lazlo does lament) that he never got the chance to see Magic and Bird, the old Knicks and Lakers from the 1970s, Jim Brown, Gayle Sayers and the Bears and the Lombardi Packers. I wish he could have seen the old baseball players like Bob Gibson, Carl Yastrzemski and Al Kaline, the first Major League player to be paid $100,000 per season. Perhaps it’s just faded memories, but it seemed like they all played for the joy of the game and not the fame that has suddenly become greater in importance off the field and off the court than on them.

Much of the problem lies in the money today’s athletes earn. Outside of Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan, nowhere does someone get paid more for having so little talent. Third rate short stops are earning $10 million per year, aging point guards $18 million per year and pot-bellied golfers (sorry Ber) are getting millions in endorsements to stretch into their stretch pants. But what they are paid is not everything. It’s the whole illusion of fame and the fact they have it thrust upon them at such a young age. You can find a website today that will tell you who the best 5th graders are at basketball and a 14-year-old basketball player just verbally committed to USC before he decided which high school to play for (hat tip to Nicholas on these tidbits before he desecrated my cell phone).

Sports is also covered differently today than it was in the past. We now have ESPN 1-8 with 24-hours of news to fill and a magazine to fill what’s left. Flip on any sports show tomorrow and you’ll hear more about the NBA draft than you ever heard about the military draft. Sure, I enjoy watching ESPN more than I do CNN, but all the coverage seems to go to the athlete’s heads, making sports more about the “bling” and $4,000 suits than getting the privilege to play a sport that most of us would do for minimum wage.

There was a time (sadly, during my time), that sports writers were the stars. Everyone knew and worshiped Red Smith, Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice and Jim Murray. Their stars were bigger and brighter than the players they covered and they were beloved because they too could do things few mere mortals could: bring the color and texture to sports before it was on television. These writers were paid more than most, if not all, of the sports figures they covered and the players looked up to them and hoped to get a mention in their columns.

After Curt Flood’s legal test brought about free agency and players salaries began to rise to 10 and 20 times that of the average sports writer, a certain economic and social status began to separate the two. Players and writers were no longer invited to the same parties and what they did have in common – the love of the game – began to fade away as the disparity in economic conditions drove a wedge between them. Today sports writers are often overly cynical of athletes and athletes do much to confirm an image of a coddled and protected super class of the modern star. When a minor football player like Pac Man Jones gets nearly as much air time for his third arrest as Paris Hilton did for hers, it’s saddening to see where sports has crossed over to the worst of our modern culture. And while film stars would love to get Paris et al off the cover of the tabloids, so we sports fans look for a throwback to a time when we looked up to our athletes both on and off the field. I suppose in both cases Tina Turner was wrong – we do need another hero.

A Nation Of Whores

I’m real sorry about the content of this post. The words are not mine; I don’t even know what half of them mean. These are the lyrics of three different rap artists and what they have in common is they are all produced under CBS’s Columbia Record label. As we all now know, this is the same CBS which fired the always less-than-polite Don Imus from his radio show for boorishly referring to the Rutgers woman’s basketball team as “Nappy-headed hoes.” If you want to skip past the lyrics, I don’t blame you. But, for those who want to hear what passes for music – at least to CBS executives – please feel free to read on:

The words of Three 6-Mafia:
Yeah, run bitch. Run hoe! Ya nice motherfuckas!
Y'all jealous ass bitches!
You know what I'ma call y'all? Some Jello niggas.
Cuz y'all jealous of us, bitch.
Every motherfucker in our camp ridin clean, nigga.
Y'all know the motherfuckin score.
And this one right here is dedicated to you [censor beep].
It's dedicated to you, nigga.

More from Three Six Mafia:
Well all them hoes that used to be down with me
I signed a deal, made some money, now you bitches downin me?
Bitches tryin ta blast at me,
or am I dreamin the motherfuckers be after me?
Why you tryin ta be like me? You labelled as a wanna-be.
You ghetto hoes, you need to read a bonus Gangsta Boo
Cuz you might find a tip, bitch, that can help you.
I'm a down chick
Niggas be wantin ta crown chick
Stay around chick
Whenever, however, it's goin down, bitch.

Pearls from Lyfe Jennings:
Im from a place where them niggas dont talk a lot
License suspended so we walk a lot Always been a thug since i was a young cat
Breast fed by Godzilla mix my Similac with cognac whoa
Now i cant even pray no more
Cuz i done did so much dirt and smoked so much dro
Im afraid God will be like what you calling here for
Dont be tying my line up asking me for shit no more, whoa.

DMX at their best:
Song titled What These Bitches Want
Aiyyo!! Dog, I meet bitches, discrete bitches
Street bitches, slash, Cocoa Puff sweet bitches (WHAT?)
Make you wanna eat bitches, but not me
Y'all niggaz eat off the plate all you want but not D (UHH)
I fuck with these hoes from a distance
The instant they start to catch feelings
I start to stealin they shit
then I'm out just like a thief in the night
I sink my teeth in to bite
You thinkin life, I'm thinkin more like - whassup tonight?
Come on ma, you know I got a wife
and even though that pussy tight I'm not gon' jeapordize my life (aight?)

Now, back to something resembling normalcy by comparison. Over the years I have listened to Don Imus. He’s sometimes pretty funny, sometimes not. After a few years and several fruitless searches on my local radio dial for his show, I gave up on him. I never thought of him until the recent flap and predictable hypocrisy pushed him into the limelight.

It didn’t take long for those in the race trade to inject themselves into the middle of this show of bad taste, and the cameras followed. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who each have uttered enough racial slurs to begin their own rap group, demanded Imus and any other white bigot pay a price; cash in a suitcase preferred. Sharpton even got Imus to make a trip to kiss his ring in the hope of absolution that wouldn’t come.

What has our sense of perspective in this country come to? CBS throws a fading radio talent under the bus in the name of racial sensitivity and then rakes in millions off the misogynistic rap artists it produces. Jackson and Sharpton have been working off the same tired script for years, setting themselves up as the racial arbiters of our time and yet don’t have an ounce of the moral authority to lead a congregation, little alone a nation.

These two men are the real whores in this story, doing anything to move their own agenda forward. It just so happens that their agenda is the same as their plantation owners, the democrats. The debate will surely shift to the coarseness of words on talk radio and it won't be long before the Fairness Doctrine will be invoked and a movement started to put an end to talk radio (or at least conservative talk radio). Words don't usually scare the average person, but it can scare a democrat if the words cost them an election. Sure, Imus is nominally a liberal, but he can be sacrificed if he serves a larger purpose.

Rather than helping salve the wounds of racial tension, the hypocrisy and hidden agenda are so overwhelming and obvious that it will have the opposite effect. And that will end up being the sad ending of this story.

A Veritable Age Of Unreason

When one gets a few years past middle age there are certain rights bestowed upon them. One is the right to be a curmudgeon. There are perhaps lesser rights such as loss of embarrassment and control of certain bodily functions. But for the moment I will dwell on the former rather than the latter.

Of late, Italiphil and I have been complaining about the general rudeness in business today. Common courtesy has disappeared and an ugly rudeness has taken its place. We grumble on about it a lot. Less enlightened and younger readers may say we’re fast approaching curmudegery, if there is a word, but we still remember a day when a phone call was promptly returned and a person’s handshake really was his bond, not just a Cameron Crowe line

When you’re in the midst of curmudgening, you tend to wonder how it has come to pass that the world has gone so wrong and how very smart you have become over the years. This, naturally, leads to being more pissed off.

Our parents had to put up with the Beatles, long hair and a confusing set of differing values. It seems our lot has to endure with smart little boys with bright ideas – like derivatives, start up ventures and the convenient parsing of certain sexual acts not being sex at all. Or at least our generation can’t get that final notion past our wives. We also have to put up with rap, which as near as I can tell is the sound of one man yelling while others throw trash cans down a flight of metal stairs. But I can live with these affronts. What Italiphil and I have struggled with is the loss of appreciation for what our age and experience has brought us. Certainly years of toil should mean something to the smart young people nipping at our heels to get a piece of what we have.

In my business there are a number of people who have entered it presuming they would begin at the top. The old adage of doing what I am doing while their mammies were wrapping their butts in diapers could never be truer. And yet it doesn’t stop their conceits and where they believe they fit in the world. This isn’t to say that some of these younger people aren’t clever, it’s just we don’t want to feel that our time spent blazing the trail for them was wasted.

When Pete Wilson was lured from the Senate to take the lowly job as governor of California, he brought with him much of his young Senate staff. One never met a bunch of more cocksure twenty-somethings. We used to call them the “Penny Loafer Boys” because they wore the uniform of DC and Ivy League training: blue blazers, starched blue cotton pin-point Oxfords and, of course, penny loafers. They came to Sacramento believing they actually knew what they were doing. Within a few months, Willie Brown had them twisted into so many Rubic’s Cubes that they were passing tax increases and extending rights to gays – not exactly what the conservatives had in mind when they dialed Pete’s number.

So Italiohil and I wonder, if we’re not sounding too old and out of step, is it too much trouble to return our phone calls promptly, as a point of taking another task off your Blackberry list if nothing else? Or, what if you ask us to write you an urgent proposal and to have it in your e-mail inbox by the morning, that you actually read it and say thanks? How about giving us some credit for knowing what you think you know, only we actually knew it when we were your age? Perhaps you could just give us some credit when you’re stealing our ideas or re-inventing what we already invented?

It would really be appreciated if you youngins could do this for us. Then we can stop being a curmudgeon and matriculate to being dirty old men. We could use the change of pace.

Revenge Of The Nerds

Last month Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law that will require people who talk on their cell phones in their car to use a hands free device. For those of us who have driven behind some nimrod chatting away on his phone at 15 mph, this will come as welcome news.

In fact, I know I pay much less attention to my driving while I am on the phone. And it’s gotten worse since I now have all my contact information in my phone, leaving me to scroll through my phone to look for a number to call. I also get e-mail and text messages while driving and it’s very tempting to sneak a peak at the latest nonsense sent to me every time my little phone beeps telling me there is a new message. Not sure how the new law will deal with those bad habits, but I know they haven’t invented a hands free device to satisfy my message-based curiosity.

I only have one problem with the new law. I don’t mind hands free devices as a practical matter, but I am bothered about how goofy they make you look. How many times have you seen someone walking and wearing those ear-piece microphones, seemingly talking to themselves?

There is nothing fashionable about the headsets, either. As near as I can tell, they were designed by computer geeks who had watched one too many episodes of Star Trek or Star Wars movies. I think it is a very clever ruse by these techno-nerds as they get us all to look nerdy just so they can live out their Star Trek fantasies. And now it’s becoming law, forever requiring us all to look like a big dufus.

I can’t wait for voice activated cell phones so we can just speak commands and the phone will dial who we ask it to. Then we’ll be rid of the Star Trek and Star Wars microphone gear as we say, “Computer, please call Sladed ….” Wait a minute! That’s another Star Trek gadget! Life will never be the same.

A Pet Peeve

I have been in a lot of airport men’s rooms lately. OK, resist the temptation to make the jokes about that. Anyway, the business traveler can be the most annoying person on the planet, especially the ones who have the weird-looking cell phone ear piece sticking out of their heads. Forgive me, but I don’t consider creating a tool that makes it appear as if you’re talking to yourself to be a technological breakthrough.

I don’t know if it’s the same in the lady’s room, but I am getting pretty tired of people talking on their cell phone while in the bathroom. Can they not give it a rest while they – and the people around them – take their call from Nature instead of the accounting office? It’s an invasion of my privacy and I highly doubt the bathroom noises are very interesting to the caller on the other end. Frankly – and I hope I don’t sound like a curmudgeonly old man here – I think it shows absolutely no class or taste to carry on a conversation in the bathroom. Hell, even the acoustics are bad.

I’m all for personal rights, but I’m more for maintaining my personal space. Give it a rest in the restroom!

The "Death" Of Customer Service

Be sure and cancel your credit cards before you die. This is so priceless, and so easy to see happening, customer service being what it is today. A lady died this past January, and Citibank billed her for February and March for their annual service charges on her credit card, and then added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance, which had been $0.00, now is somewhere around $60.00. A family member placed a call to Citibank and this is approximately how it went:

Family Member: "I am calling to tell you that she died in January."
Bank: "The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply."
Family Member: "Maybe, you should turn it over to collections."
Bank: "Since it is two months past due, it already has been."
Family Member: So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?"
Bank: "Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to the credit bureau, maybe both!"
Family Member: "Do you think God will be mad at her?"
Bank: "Excuse me?"
Family Member: "Did you just get what I was telling you - the part about her being dead?"
Bank: "Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor."

Supervisor gets on the phone:

Family Member: "I'm calling to tell you, she died in January."
Bank: "The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply."
Family Member: "You mean you want to collect from her estate?"
Bank: (Stammer) "Are you her lawyer?"
Family Member: "No, I'm her great nephew." (Lawyer info given)
Bank: "Could you fax us a certificate of death?"
Family Member: "Sure." (fax number is given)

After they get the fax:

Bank: "Our system just isn't set-up for death. I don't know what more I can do to help."
Family Member: "Well, if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her. I don't think she will care."
Bank: "Well, the late fees and charges do still apply."
Family Member: "Would you like her new billing address?"
Bank: "That might help."
Family Member: "Odessa Memorial Cemetery, Highway 129, Plot Number 69."
Bank: "Sir, that's a cemetery!"
Family Member: "What do you do with dead people on your planet?"

When the Cow Bells Fall Silent

(Editor's note: I apologize to my fan that it has been so long since my last post.)

When I was struggling through my first adolescence during my high school years, I heard stories of real-life girls my age who were called a tease. Except quite often there was a word and a hyphen placed before the word tease. Many late hours did I scheme to meet such a creature. To no avail and little surprise, I never got the hyphenated girl. Regrettably there is a balance in the universe that dictates that a 16-year-old male with gentlemanly habits well beyond his years and hormones gets approximately the same from the opposite sex.

During my college years while my brothers were burning the midnight oil (and quite nearly my parent’s garage) with hyphenated women of all sorts, I did meet Mrs. Laz who had to beg for a goodnight kiss on our first date. The fact she agreed to a second evening out with me on the basis of a quick peck on the cheek may say more about her than me.

The reason the tease comes up is due to sports. The female tease causes a certain kind of frustration not easily requited in a crowded house with no locks on the doors. A sports tease is worse. It takes the whole body prisoner and doesn’t release it until all hope of being liberated back into normal society has vanished.

My sports tease, my never ending lost romance without any return on investment, is the Sacramento Kings.

Sure, there were moments when the Kings took me to the brink and then left me without as much as a good-bye peck on the cheek and cold shower. They have been able to keep me close and monogamous, sports speaking, by simply promising to give me what I want: a championship. I feel so cheap because I’ve been believing their promises for so long. Like the enabler I am, I continue to wait them out. The waiting may be over and I think I have finally mustered the strength to start talking about a break-up.

The Kings and I had our first real date six or seven years ago. It was a magical eveing – more than a peck on a cheek. I was tempted to take the risk and date the “pretty one” because of a trade for Chris Webber, a free-agent signing of Vlade Divac and the drafting of Jason Williams. Three pretty maids all in a row and they were all mine for the season; or so it seemed.

They were collectively so good looking that I missed key danger signs. Webber was damaged goods from several previous relationships and reluctant to get into another so soon, especially in a cowtown like Sacramento. But his rugged, muscular body and wink in his eye made all his suitors weak in the knees (which, ironically, turned out to be his weakness). Vlade, despite the fact he came aboard at age 50, brought along his skills from previous relationships, including many with much older Europeans. He had the guile of a worldly man and the playfulness of a youngster to keep it interesting. And Jason, flashy, impetuous Jason, came with a swagger and bad-boy attitude, just like those girls smoking out behind the high school gym.

It was a relationship that you knew was bad for you and one your mother would warn you against. But it all felt so good. For the first time, you were in the midst of a winning streak so it was easy to overlook the frayed edges. You could even envision settling down with them and exchanging Championship rings every year.

After a few years, our relationship went down hill. Webber kept the twinkle, Divac the finesse, but Jason stopped calling. For months I’d wait by the phone hoping against hope he’d just say hello or go through the motion of tattooing my name on his spindly arm. No such luck, however. I heard he moved to Canada and then to Memphis and later to south Florida. Someone who once dated him heard he was doing well in Miami but I don’t care anymore. I’ve shed enough tears over him, I promised myself I wouldn’t do it again. Besides, there was a new face in town with better pedigree and a far more stable personality. His name was Mike Bibby, and after never knowing where I stood with Jason, Bibby’s steadiness was far more appealing than J-Will’s style.

Now there was more promise with the core of Divac, Webber and Bibby. It felt even better when we traded an under-sized power forward named Corliss for a defensive stalwart name Doug, allowing a young Serbian sharpshooter the chance to play at the three. I never gave a moment’s thought that Doug came with the baggage of a relationship that was embarrassingly clingy.

There were no longer just the three to keep my fantasy going, there was a full five stars to watch. You knew there would be children and grandchildren to bring up with this bunch. And the bench? Oh, the bench could have outplayed nearly all of the others with Bobby and Hedo, and Gerald, and Jon. We called them the “Bench Mob” and between them and the five stars, never had so many white guys outside of Boston caused so many hearts to flutter.

Did you ever have one of those relationships where there were so many good things happening that it just had to be wrong? Twice these guys took me to the brink of the Championship altar and twice they left me there in a tuxedo and a real bow tie, not just the kind you clip on your collar. Suddenly my stars couldn’t perform. These missed the gimmies one year and said they felt it best to wait for another year. The next year they stumbled down the aisle, one with a bum knee the others with that glassed-over look as if they were searching for the church exit and hoping the priest got drunk in the confessional with an altar boy and wouldn’t show up. I knew in my heart it just wasn’t right. They were forever damaged goods and no amount of vases full of flowers or awkward poetry would work anymore (although the chocolates had me for a while).

I admit it, I started over. I said good-bye to all of them except for Peja and Mike and told them to come around every now and again and I might take them out for a drink if I was feeling charitable; no hard feelings, it just didn’t work out between us.

Now there is a new bunch surrounding the remaining two – the two I had only half a heart for, Mike and Peja. There’s a new guy named Shareef who never had a good home and seemed to fail no matter how hard he tried, but he’s so good looking on the outside that you had to take him. There are no plans to make much of an investment in him, though. Another guy just started hanging around named Bonzi. He’s on his best behavior right now, trying to fit in and feel loved and escape his past. I’ve heard about it; the drug use, fights, no heart. It’s easy to tread cautiously with him and not be swept away by a few pretty quotes in the paper and a strong desire to please. Even Corliss came back (unfortunately not Corliss Campbell), and, you know, it’s not too bad having him around as long as you don’t have to think about him that much.

For the past few years there has been a simple country boy named Brad at the arena. One moment you want to love him but there are too many times he chews tobacco and burps whenever you bring him home to your parents. He sometimes puts in a big effort but too often he sulks when things aren’t going his way. I just don’t have anything left for malcontents.

Peja’s become distant, protecting himself from the pain of playing the game. You wish he would just drop the pretty-boy persona and put more heart and energy into our relationship, but I’m learning that you can’t start out expecting to change the man. Poor Mike. He has a faraway look in his eye. I suspect he’s lonely now that all his friends are hanging out in LA, Philly, Detroit and Houston. It seems he’s just going through the motions of our relationship and it’s tough to bear.

I tune them out now. There are times when I know they’re on TV and all I can think of is heading for the bedroom with a bottle of Ambien stolen from my daughter and watching Will and Grace re-runs. Some days I wish I was Will, or even Grace; I don’t think it matters anymore my heart is so beat up.

Don’t get me wrong, they have their moments. They won three straight in fine fashion after dropping five straight. I’m too jaded now and I’ve learned when a tease is just a tease. I’ve been there before and I just won’t go down that road again.

I have my eyes open on a new bunch in Philly who seem to have a heart if not a lot of wins. There’s a steady bunch in San Antonio and Detroit. They have occasional flash of personality but always in the context of doing what’s best for the others. I think about them a lot, but following the words of JB, “I had a lover, it’s so hard to risk another these days." If only JB was Jon Barry….

Internships On Offer

There's a keen observer of modern culture who writes for www.espn.com named Bill Simmons, AKA The Sports Guy. Under the guise of writing about sports, he sprinkles in the impact the NBA, NFL, and MLB, among others, has on modern culture and sometimes the other way around. How else can one explain the tortuous route he took to find the best quotes of the movie Anchorman and squeeze comparisons about NBA teams and players out of it?

One of the best intern jobs in the history of non White House-related internships, is the Sports Guy’s internship. His job is to scan the internet and look for funny or sometimes odd internet sites. Here’s a sample of a few sites:

http://saabbumper.blogspot.com/ (read from the bottom up.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/links/050901

The Sports Guy’s favorite is unintentional humor, which can best be described as someone acting as they normally do (usually a celebrity) and being funny. Unintentionally. Does that make sense? Better still, here’s a good example: A few days ago I read a story about Cindy Sheehan and rather than the story quoting her, it’s quoted her spokesperson. The unintended humor of this is that she started out as a lone voice in the wilderness carrying the “absolute moral authority,” as per Maureen Dowd, of a mother who lost a son in battle, and now she has a PR team to help her convey her simple story in a more complicated way. That’s funny. And unintentionally so.

So I have a job offer for anyone out there other than Skip (who has too much on his plate – Sorry Skip, but you need to give full effort to your family and other projects). Lazlo’s Lament is looking for an intern to supply this site with funny and weird websites that may classify as unintentional humor. Now’s the chance to break into Big Time journalism – or at least have an excuse to search the internet instead of doing your homework. Applicants will be screened on their dedication and family lineage.