Follow the money

Bowl season, the most exciting time in college football. It’s all about those who have worked and sacrificed to be the best meet on the field of combat to determine who attained championship status. It’s the epitome of sport that the true believer awaits, confident that the purity is ensured by the preceptors of our academic institutions.

Kicking off the extravaganza a few days ago, Temple and Wyoming squared off in a battle of titans, as did powerhouses Ohio and Utah State. Wait a minute, these teams are supposed to be the cream of the crop, right?

Well, at least we can look forward to the Music City, Meineke Car Care and Gator Bowls. Six teams at 6 and 6. That is, not a winning season among them.

In a rare display of candor in the world of academia, you have the Fight Hunger Bowl, pitting a team with a five hundred record (Illinois) against UCLA, boasting credentials of 5-7. That’s not a typo. The featured players are a breakeven team going up against a loser. A loser ascended to Mount Olympus, albeit one from a large media market. At least that unmasks the true purpose behind all of this.

The only thing more sincere would be to hold the Who Cares? Bowl, as in, “Who cares who plays, as long as we can find sponsors with cash?” I propose that the combatants be the teams with the worst records and largest media markets.

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For the man who has everything (except sense)

I’m skipping a review of the ludicrous Christmas gift catalogs because I’ve about done them to death. However, Brookstone does have one item that cannot pass without mention.

That would be the desktop missile launcher. Just hook it up to your computer, acquire target and commence the launch sequence. You’re fully equipped to irritate anyone in the room with up to four projectiles. And, you have remote access, so you don’t even have to be at home to attack your loved ones. But wait, it gets even better (or, more inane).

It is also capable of being controlled by anyone on your “buddy list.” So, you can enable you friends to shoot at you or your family. No isn’t that a good use for a handful of sawbucks?

I’d guess they have their engineers working on a way to send a potent current through your mouse for next year. Get on the waiting list, now.

Sounds

As I’ve written before, odors are one of the most potent evokers of memories and emotions. Each generation has its own set. Mine includes burning leaves and Ditto machine documents.

But sounds also have the same capacity, especially in music of an era. Last week, I had the pleasure of one of those moments.

I was cruising the back roads of rural southern Illinois, a bit lost in thought. I was jarred back to attentiveness by the blare of a klaxon horn behind me and the peripheral blur of a vehicle passing. An ah-oo-gah horn? When was the last time I heard one of those?

The car streaked by and into my main field of vision. Holy crap! A lead sled! That would be a Mercury, circa 1949-51, usually heavily customized for a low and menacing appearance. And, just as likely, the customizer yanked the flathead V-8 and substituted a screamer with eight jumping pistons.

That was clearly the case here as I enjoyed music to me ears; the banshee howl of a large bore quad on a high rise manifold. There’s nothing in the world like it (“Pedals to the floor hear the dual quads drink…” from “Shut Down” by the Beach Boys). You don’t get that from a fuel injected engine (damn the EPA, anyway).

Okay, Clyde, I’ll play. Let’s see if you’ve got the prunes for some real back road boogie. I reached to slam my Hurst Mystery Shifter back into third and oxidize a little latex. And, of course, it wasn’t there. My mind might’ve been in ’66 but the rest of me resided in the 21st century. I watched the rump of the big Merc disappear toward the horizon and strained to savor the last of its exhaust note. My pulse had jumped about 25%.

And speaking of nostalgic sounds and that number, this will be the 25th anniversary of Darlene Love appearing on Letterman’s show to perform “Christmas (Baby please come home).” If you can watch her belt that (http://tinyurl.com/23zcsu) out without a shiver running down your spine, you’re made of stone.

The fault lies not in our stars

The University of Cincinnati/Xavier basketball game ended in a brawl, sending all kinds of officials scurrying to place blame and address that situation. You solve a problem by identifying and dealing with it, not a symptom. And, be assured, the fight is symptom. Having the athletes stand up and apologize is like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

So where does the responsibility lie? It’s at the top and I place the turn of the tide in 1986 with the NCAA’s passage of proposition 48 that lowered the standards for admission of college athletes. They, of course, did this at the bidding of the administrations of the member schools. When the leadership of academic institutions states that academic performance isn’t that important, “Houston, we have a problem.”

The proposition was passed under the guise of providing equal or better education opportunity, but one would have to be exceptionally naïve to miss that the objective was to optimize prestige and revenues from the athletic departments. Review the majors of the players on the rosters of the Division I schools and the graduation rates if you harbor the notion it’s about education. And, was it really an endorsement of “All men are created equal” to say that you aren’t capable of learning so we’ll lower the bar? All races, genders, etc. are capable of academic achievement, so why not bestow the scholarships on those willing to make the effort? They’re the ones who deserve the help and will benefit from it.

If you want to blame someone, put the spotlight on the boards of regents. Ohio State has a history of bad actors on their teams and was recently rocked by disclosures of shenanigans that led to the dismissal of the football coach. The leadership of the university was so affected by that that they went right out and hired a replacement who had 30 player incidents in his previous program. On the heels of that travesty, the board of regents awarded the president of the university a six-figure bonus and a raise. What do you think their priority is? Surely, not player standards and behavior.

Getting back to the University of Cincinnati, there’s another Ohio school with player (and coach) quality issues, with the brawl being the most recent example. Its president also received a six-figure bonus and healthy raise. You get what you incentivize.

So, if you’re into the blame game, the fault lies not in our stars (star players), but in ourselves.

He was always so quiet

Isn’t that what they always say when someone goes over the edge? I don’t know why. The signs are almost always there.

What brings this to mind is a television news report. I was poised to click off the remote and there was a mug shot from a recent arrest on the screen. The guy had been pulled over for a traffic stop and flipped out.

I’ve kayaked with him several times and am not surprised. A couple years ago, I was tipping a beer with a few other paddling group leaders from the state. One opined that if we each wrote down the most aberrant people who had ever posted on our respective web sites, there would probably be at least an 80% overlap. He was right and this guy was one of them who came up. The signs are almost always there.

It’s doubtful any reporter will ask me about this. But, I wouldn’t be giving a reaction of surprise.

Fun with Dick and Jane

Early in the movie “Fun with Dick and Jane” (original version), the title couple find themselves in difficult financial straits and rob the phone company. The patrons waiting in line cheer them on. I could relate then and, almost 35 years later, am even more empathetic.

My real issues began about ten years ago when I allowed myself to be dragged out of my dial-up cave. I received a modem in the mail and assiduously followed the instructions to hook it up. No soap. I retraced my steps without success. Access denied.

I called customer service and navigated through the various levels of automation that ascertain who you are, what language you speak and what kind of problem you have. When I finally established contact with a human being, he walked me through the proper set-up, noting that they were still packing obsolete instructions with the modems. Wouldn’t it be cheaper and create more good will to revise them than to have frustrated customers call in? If they’re pre-packed, why not slap a sticker on the outside with the corrections?

I assumed they were at the tail end of a print run or something. Not so, two years later, I helped a friend set up his modem and had the same issue.

Since that time, I’ve ramped up the computer capacity and the connection appeared to keep pace. That is, up until a couple months ago. Download speed slowed and the connection became intermittent.

I called customer service and wended my way through the maze until I reached a tech with a heavy accent. Not a great match for my impaired hearing.

He put me through a series of exercises that mostly consisted of unplugging and rebooting various components. I protested that I had already tried that but he insisted. I’d already caught onto the fact that rebooting is the equivalent elixir to the hard slap on the cabinet of my youth. The exercise was futile so we scheduled an appointment. I was given a four-hour window so write off a good part of the day.

The tech arrived and took several readings at various points in the circuit. He replaced an exterior box and the ancient modem, splitting the lines that serviced the computer and the phone. We tested it and everything worked fine. But, then again, sometimes it did.

The system waited until he cleared the block before acting up again. In retribution for my attack, it spread the glitches to the phone line. I called customer service on my cell the next day.

I jumped the hurdles of the automated system and gave the tech the history of the problems. He said he was looking at my information and they had the wrong settings. Great. He did a reset and it was of little help.

He said he’d give me a repair appointment but would first change the settings again so I’d have less trouble. I asked if it would be slower. He paused to contemplate and replied that it wouldn’t actually be slower. Actually? What does that mean? It was more like it would be different. What does that mean? Not the same as before. Thanks for walking me through that one.

The repairman arrived and took readings. He acknowledged that it was slow. He called up something on a device he had and asked where a street was that began with an “M.” M? Yes, his handheld was giving him an address of a junction box but only revealed the address number and the first letter of the name of the street. This is the 21st century, isn’t it? I could think of two streets offhand and he took off in search of the box.

He returned an hour later. He said he went to the main box and saw that my line was adjacent to a high capacity commercial line. Sometimes there’s interference. You put them together or don’t shield them because? He switched me to another line. Then he went to the neighborhood box and switched that line. With the previous alterations, I was all new from the main box to the computer.

We tested the speed and it had about doubled. Halleleujah! It was fixed! But, you’re ahead of me, aren’t you?

This time, it waited a couple hours before crapping out. I called customer service. Instead of it offering me a choice of language, it informed me that it was forwarding my call for service. I received about twenty seconds of music that would make Mitch Miller puke and then it hung up on me. I tried again. Same result. This was repeated a half dozen more times.

But, I’m not ready to go down to the phone company, brandishing a pistol. Not yet.

Stoops

I was walking around the neighborhood and saw a young boy bouncing a tennis ball in front of his front porch. He looked record bored.

I walked up to him and held out my hand. “Let me have the ball. I’ll show you something.” He handed me the ball. “Now stand back there and catch it before it hits the ground. If it hits the second square of the sidewalk, it’s a single. The second, a double, and so on.” He looked puzzled so I went through it again.

He shrugged and trudged about halfway down the walk. I threw the ball against the steps, going easy on him and not using my accumulated storehouse of cunning in this field. It didn’t take long for him to catch the third out.

I flipped the ball to him. “Your turn.” He had no moves and went three up, three down. Time to go to school. I employed some of the more basic strategy and moved my men around the bases. He started to catch on and earned his bats again. I was happy to see him mimic some of my strategies. And, I was especially glad to see him get into it.

Third time up. The gloves are off. I ran him up, back and side to side. It was time he learned a lesson in life. He was at least ten. Take your victories where you can.

We were soon talking smack and laughing. I let him get close, but didn’t give it to him. No free lunch in life. We finished and I flipped the ball to him. He wanted another shot at me but I shook my head and tried to conceal my gasping. “Teach it to your friends.”

“What’s it called?”

“Stoop ball.”

“Stoop ball? What’s a stoop?” I pointed to the steps, but it’s a lot more than that.

I was born in a row house neighborhood. The most important feature was the stoop. Unless there was a blizzard, every evening, the adults and little children sat out on the stoop. Few had televisions. They’d also wander up and down the street, visiting and sharing leftover food and a little vino.

Pre-teens might be playing stickball, half ball (variation of stickball using half a ball – space was limited), soccer or football in the street. The games were periodically interrupted by an adult yelling about damage to the cars lining the curbs. The teens were hanging out in front of corner candy stores. (where the pinball machines dwelt), always wary for interlopers from other turf).

The games went on in the street (or in the alleys behind the rows, where wall ball was played) because the stoops were occupied. During the day was the time for stoop ball.

The stoops were a significant social factor. Everyone networked via them, although it wasn’t called that. Now, I barely know the people on my street, let alone the rest of the neighborhood. Back then, I knew everyone. And, they knew me. If something happened anywhere within the eight square blocks, it spread like wildfire. There were no secrets.

It was a different time.