Appealing the Balk

Letters to 1L - Part 2

2006-01-29T15:21:00.000-05:00

Sam says:

Congratulations 1Ls! Grades are out, and for most of you, the feelings of self-doubt and hopelessness you battled for the last month have been confirmed. I bet at least half of you feel stupid. Well, be honest with yourself, you’re not stupid. But, you might be terrible at law school. I know, I know, there are still 5 semesters left to rectify you’re grade. But that won’t really happen either. Believe me. I’ve spent two semesters doing math to determine what I need to do to get my GPA to what I think it should be. At this point the calculation sounds something like “If I get a 4.0 each of the next three semesters I’ll sit with a solid...” It’s downright pathetic.

Now that grades are out, people need to know how they did compared to everyone else. That number next to your name means nothing without some context. But getting this information is actually impossible. 1Ls lie to each other about this stuff. And the lies are bundled up in convoluted ambiguity that is impossible to crack. So you won’t find out how well you really did by asking around. Don’t waste your time.

More importantly, you probably don’t want to know. See, getting grades destroys everyone. Those who did well start to think about becoming gods. Dinner conversations contain nuggets of joy like “I wish I could find out who the asshole that beat me in torts is.” The unceasing rush to the top makes those who did well miserable. See, for many of them, doing really well most likely means that they should have done better. And because they could have done better, they’re angry. And no one likes an angry and successful law student.

For the mediocre student, the misery is quiet and personal. The self-doubt that borders on humiliation is reasserted with every unaccepted job application, failed interview, and sense of defeat. Many of us spend hours upon hours only to end up pissed off at ourselves for fighting what feels like a futile battle. I’ll never forget the classmate in Core last year who approached the prof and basically said, “Why should I try, all I’m gonna get is a B”. It’s exhausting.

Now, I’m not gonna tell you that grades don’t matter. They do. About 20 years ago my father told me that the only way to learn is to make mistakes. If that’s really true, I am well ahead of the curve. But the thing is, law firms don’t hire you for making mistakes. They hire you for getting good grades. So, while people will tell you that your grades do not define you, they’re wrong. They do define you. But they only define a part of you. And why shouldn’t they? We came here to learn, achieve, and start careers. Grades must be a good indicator of potential success or the people who have gone before us would have changed the system. It just sucks that they are so hard to change after the first semester.

The thing is, whether you do well or poorly, you all need to chill out. Of course, if you are happy with your grades, you should be proud. But if all you ever think about is your grades, well, chances are you haven’t made a single friend… and if you did manage a friend or two, you might as well kiss them goodbye now. The forecast? They do not like you. I mean, who wants to be around someone who sees everybody else as his competition, anyway? And my condolences to those who didn’t do as well as hoped. But seriously, nobody likes the sore losers, either. Grow up and go get a beer. Or two. OR three… You just can’t let school get to you that much. If you do, then the school wins, and nobody, I mean, NOBODY wants the law school to win.

Ku says:
I was walking out of a day-long interview session. Through a half-shut door, I saw one of the other candidates with his long wiry copper hair and a tweed jacket with an elbow patch (didn't see a bow tie -- I'm sure one of those would have landed him the job), sitting at the edge of the seat. His hands were on his knees with his arms stretched out. Most strikingly, I will never forget, he was smiling as though he was a display in a wax museum.
His eyes were fixed on the interviewer, never wavering, answering questions, still with the smile. I wondered if I looked like that. I got the job, sans bow tie, but I turned it down for a more "lucrative" job, a decision perhaps I still regret. Anyway, more lucrative just means a few thousand dollars more a year -- something many of us will make in a week, sooner or later -- when you are talking about a Latin teaching job at a Northeastern prep school.
Four and a half years and countless interviews in three different languages later, I was sitting with a roomful of 1Ls from all over the country in one of the oldest firms in Boston. Some were lifelessly serious and others were way too busy making impressions. I chuckled to myself thinking not so flattering thoughts about the roomful of law students. Still, I wish them well, landing their big-firm jobs and security they are looking for. When they saw my grades, I never heard back from the firm.
Let's revisit the first day of orientation, shall we? A professor asked the whole class why we chose law school. I answered something in the tune of civic duty - one part truth, one part cover-up for the fear that I might have chosen law school to hide away. Before I knew what went on in a law school, and I still don't, I thought of law school as something more than a vocational school. Besides, I never thought I wanted to practice law other than maybe prosecuting or doing something with the Constitution. But mostly I was thinking about the think tanks in DC. That was until I discovered Torts.
But the first semester grades came out, and the madness ensued. I forgot why I in the first place entered a law school. I was determined to find a job with a large firm doing who knows what. I just wanted to be back out East in a city making enough money to live comfortably. Of course, I was not wanted, what with the grades I had. After countless hours of pulling hair over countless bottles of beer, I began to remember why I got here in the first place.
I don't look at large firms and the hiring practices disparagingly. I won't lie. Although I have not yet worked in the corporate world, I have applied to and been offered large corporate jobs. And sometimes I think to myself, I could be in Madrid, looking onto the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, instead. I suppose the best part would be that I wouldn't be in a law school. Just kidding. And yes, I still click on eAttorney to see if I might get an interview just in the off chance that the hiring partner is blind or drunk, or hopefully both.
Lest you think I think life down at the bottom is all rosy, I do wish I had a job to look forward to, offering my life some stability. Getting an interview seems exponentially harder down here. The prospect of paying off the debt grows dimmer each passing day. Sometimes I don't know how to respond to those who already have jobs when they start talking as though having cushy summer positions is the norm. Worse yet, the parents won't leave me alone, comparing me to my sister's best friend who's at Yale Law...
The funny thing is, I am glad I did not do as well my first year for myself. Perhaps it's just my escapist fantasy, but the missed opportunity at those large prestigious firms (along with some reality-check) made me think about the world the way I used to think about when I entered here. Now I wish that I had gone to the quilt exhibit that Ms. Kostritsky beseeched us to go the first semester. There seems to be a lot more room (not to mention the unpayable debt) in my life. Yes, yes, yes. You don't have to remind me. I am still jobless, and I still babble on about nonsense in classes.
But if the old law school adage -- those who get As become professors, those who get Bs become lawyers, and those who get Cs become judges -- has a grain of truth, the worst you can hope for is to become a judge, and that can't be that bad, right?

CORE III or FPS?

2005-11-12T15:26:00.000-05:00

Sam says:

The second year of law school brings with it exciting changes. You’ve been given two semesters to really solidify your GPA among the highest ever recorded in the history of law school. And with such stellar numbers supporting a resume Kofi Annan would be honored to call his own, the excitement of getting a job kicks into full gear. As the breathless and invigorating interview process gives way to the uncomfortable and always awkward determination of which large law firms you must reject, law school reaches an apex that will be maintained for the following two years. Apparently, you also become proficient at lying through your teeth...
In addition, second year brings with it the freedom to select your class schedule. And this class choice extends beyond the substantive law classes to also include a very important choice in the mandatory CaseArc program; a program that guides us through our education and offers us a taste of future occupational challenges.
The inevitable question thus becomes, should I take Core III or FPS. Admittedly, both are required in your second year, so the choice is more a “when” as opposed to an “if”, but it is nevertheless important. Since being a law student seems to require complaining about everything, there is also the inevitable battle over which class is worse. Having gone through nearly 3 months of FPS, I have a word to the wise….FPS is the bomb.
It’s right up there with Monday Night Football, happy hour, foot massages, and a really good game of “Connect Four”. I love it. It’s like a perfectly ripe pomegranate -- not only is it tasty, but good for your heart! Core III, on the other hand, is miserable. I’ll defend the CaseArc program ‘til I’m blue in the face, but Core III is the bastard stepchild of the modern American legal education. Contracts…who wants to deal with contracts? No one reads those things anyway. Let’s be honest, FPS is where it’s at.
FPS stands for something: Focused Problem Solving. Core, on the other hand, that’s the part of the apple you throw away. Furthermore, there are two ways to interpret what one does in FPS. We either solve “focused problems” or we focus on “problem solving”. Nothing signals fun in law school like multiple ways to interpret a text. FPS has that covered for you. Core III does not. FPS is like every holiday the various faiths celebrate during the month of December rolled into one 2-hour class each week.
Need I ask if it gets any better than this? Why, yes I do, because we also get to do simulations. And the simulations are taped for future viewing by the members of the class. It’s awesome. These videos extend the fun and sharpen the learning process. Maybe that’s where the focus comes in? From just one tape of myself, I learned that I really need to get some sun, and that I say “ummm” every three seconds. It was quite annoying. But after becoming aware of such a nasty habit (by watching the DVD video), I have dropped my “ummm” incidence to a paltry one every ten seconds. If you don’t believe me, just watch the DVD on file in the library. It’s marked #61. It’s all right there for you to see. It’s ummmm…spectacular.
No such thing happens in Core III. While Core III has the simulations, they are business school-like: all group work and only negotiations. And, they don’t even tape the suckers. Lame! In FPS simulations, we write client letters, and do client counseling, and do client interviews, and (drumroll please), WE ALSO DO NEGOTIATIONS! Snap! Take that Core III. It’s no wonder that the Core III students drop their heads in shame when met with the vaunted members of the FPS clique. I would be embarrassed too. I am already planning for the post-partum depression that my FPS-less second semester will bestow upon me. At least I’ll have the videos of times passed to help me through the pain.

Ku says:

Picking between CORE III and FPS definitely understates the thrill of picking the lesser of the two evils. And the answer is CORE III. I know. Some of you can't possibly imagine why FPS would be worse than something that bears those four letters, C-O-R-E. After all, three letters have to be better than four, right? Wrong. FPS is a post-modern nightmare. And no, I don't really know what that means.
It is not that I love CORE... in fact nobody seems to love it all that much. But then again, to like CORE is like liking getting a flu shot. It may be that you like the potential benefits of the flu shot. You might avoid the flu season unscathed or at least you will stop hearing from your mother asking you whether or not you've had your flu shot. But nobody can possibly like a flu shot for what it is... especially considering that it might do you no good. And that is just how it is with CORE. You might benefit from it if you get a legal job, except that your CORE grade can get in your way of getting even a non-legal job, so...
My mother never calls me to ask if I wrote my latest paper for CORE, though sometimes, it might do me some good. But apparently we are adults and we are supposed to be on top of things like getting your paper done on time. And that is my point. FPS treats you like you are in middle school all over again, completing the middle school experience for the insane that is law school.
Do you remember middle school? It is the cruelest time of one's life. And since you made it to law school, chances are, you were on the receiving end of the cruelty. And you were happy when more cruelty came your tormentors' way in the form of detentions. Actually, even if you were the goodiest two shoes, it seems that the teachers made sure you get some detention time just so you know the pain.
Do you remember the agony? As if it was not good enough to have to eat your lunch with the fat bald science teacher who wore a toupee, he made you do something incredibly humiliating. No, it has nothing to do with his toupee. He made you write what you did wrong and why it was wrong. In pencil, so you can correct your mistakes. All the while, he's going about his own business, cleaning beakers and test tubes. You hated him. You never hated him more than any other human being for that 30 minutes you were locked away... from your tormentors.
Luckily, you get to relive that agony with FPS. Oh yes. You do your simulation, somebody tapes it, you get to watch the tape, and you get to write a self-evaluation. You get to list so many things you did well, and so many other things you did poorly. And you get to say why. Just the mere thought of it... I can still smell the pervasive sulfur in that science room. Mr. Buday staring down, saying, "Ku, two points off for talking in class." Oh, his voice and intonation... it was like a witch's chant, sending shivers down my spine. Anyway, how could I have been "talking" when I didn't even know English then??? Stupid 8th grade never made any sense to me.
Honestly, I don't perform well when I know it's fake, so maybe my views on FPS is slightly tainted. At college, I took the American Sign Language class. I was very good at signing for the amount of time I spent signing, but when it came to the "oral" exam, I was never too good at it. My bashful nature overtook my ability "to talk." I can't even imagine the horror of being taped while pretending to care about a fake person's fake problem.
But it gets worse, like a bad chapter that Joyce threw away while writing Finnegan's Wake. Not only do you get to write a self-evaluation, but you also get graded on it. Granted, it's pass or fail, but the very notion that you might fail self-evaluation makes no sense. What if I'm a narcissist and I just love watching myself stuttering in front of fake clients? I'd be up where sun never reaches. I might actually fail self-evaluation. OK. Check minus instead of a check. Whatever. The effects are the same in this perfect bell-curve world.
The whole notion of self-evaluation presupposes that you have some standard to which you aspire. The instructor is not there to impose a certain way of learning or performing. You can figure out what works for you and all that. Incidentally it is a great pedagogical tool. But self-evaluation never makes any sense because there is an objective standard to which level you are to perform.
If you chat with your "client" for 30 minutes without asking what might be the problem, you'd probably do poorly. You're just supposed to know what it is that you're supposed to learn already before you get into the class. It's like taking a class on how to play nice when the class requires that you know how to be nice already. And, you get to decide if you played nice, and someone else gets to say if you were right about whether or not you were nice or even whether or not what you mean by "nice" is good enough. The reality of self-evaluation defeats the very purpose self-evaluation intends to serve.
No, CORE is not stellar. It has nothing on Jazz Poetry Writing Seminar. But you learn something concrete - how to write a contract. You get to use words like "whereas." And you can expect some measure of "normalcy." After all, I am still told I don't really know how to write. So that can't be too bad, right?
Don't get me wrong. I like post-modernism. Or at least I think I do to the extent that I understand it. And I certainly do not understand Finnegan's Wake. But then again, if you like post-modernism, does that turn the "post-modernism" into something less than post-modern? Anyway, I don't think it is unreasonable for me to desire that my real life be minimally effected by post-modernist grading. Whatever that means...

America the Beautiful, Part 2/2

2005-10-15T15:29:00.000-04:00

Sam says:
Have you ever smelled something so bad that you just have to smell it again? I know you have, I’m certain that everyone has had that occur at least once in their life. In a nutshell, that is what shows like Laguna Beach and My Super Sweet 16 are: really bad smells that compel you to just take another whiff. They are the entertainment equivalent of a train wreck or a particularly brutal car accident. That is why we watch them.

I cannot believe that I’m going to my birthday party in an Acura!?”
-Amanda (italics convey disgust)

Part of me feels guilty for hating the 15 (at the beginning of the show at least) year-old girls that are the focus of MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16”. But the fact of the matter is that the girls are wretched human beings. They are selfish, manipulative, and hell-bent on getting what they want because, well, they get what they want. Carlysia demands an $80,0000 car, Janelle expects the tab on her party to be “around $125,000” and Amanda, well she likes to go to other people’s parties and steal the spotlight by dressing like a maid that needs sex. Great.
The thing is, they get what they want. Carlysia got her Mercedes, Amanda’s party only cost $203,000, and Janelle had her Princess Diaries 2 party. So I guess I hate their parents too. And this isn’t some run of the mill hatred nurtured inside of me as I watch My Super Sweet 16. It runs much deeper. And some of it seems to turn on me for being unable to change the channel. I just sit there and scream at these insipid children who spend their half-hour time slot ruining the lives of their friends and classmates while they prance around in designer clothes and smile for the camera.
Laguna Beach and its cast of characters is a bit easier to swallow. But that doesn’t mean that I think the people on it aren’t nauseating. This, supposedly, real depiction of what it’s like to be 18 years old in trendy and seaside Laguna Beach reminds me of my senior year quite a bit...only I had parental restrictions, a job, no car, no credit card, schoolwork, a difficult time acquiring alcohol, and no facial hair. I did have a “hot body” though. The show has the feel of Melrose Place. Seriously. The kids seem older than they supposedly are and travel up and down the California coast as they decide where they want to live and spend money. It’s fabulous. It’s surreal.

“You are all idiots”
-Janelle, to her “friends”

“No nerds are invited. Only cool kids are coming to my party!”
-Janelle, handing out the invites

But the most disappointing and upsetting thing about My Super Sweet 16 is how mean these kids are to each other. And yes, I know high school kids, particularly girls, are notorious for being miserable to one another. What bothers me is that these kids seem to enjoy it. Janelle’s friends, and her mother get off when they kick some hangers-on out of the hotel where the extravaganza is held. Amanda intentionally ruins other people’s parties, and Janelle calls her closest friends dumb when they don’t learn how to waltz in sync with one another in record time. It is still unclear whether Carlysia has friends. Although, if she did, I’m sure she would berate them. She spent a good portion of the show demanding presents from people…On the tour bus with her dad, at the car lot with her mom, from anyone who came within a ten foot radius on her birthday, and from the people waiting in line to get passes to her party and a copy of her monstrous first recording “Dats Wassup”. “Beyonce, watch out.”
The kids on Laguna Beach can be despicable to one another, but at least it seems natural. They are living life and the interactions are at least more realistic. Similar to most people, they are two-faced, they lie, and they hurt one another’s feelings. Sad as it might be, I think that’s part of life. But, they don’t seem to get the glee from it that the 16 year olds do, it’s more fatalistic and tinged with anomie.
What’s most uncomfortable, and nearly bizarre, about Laguna Beach is that the kids don’t seem to like one another. They are all so self-involved that they don’t listen to one another or care much about anything other than self-preservation. Having a (relatively) deep conversation with your friend about the person you’re attracted to virtually guarantees that your confidant will in turn hook up with your “crush”. Parties seem like a chore and the somersaults involved with creating the perfect guest list seems to drain the kids of any joy it might bring. Finally, the over-the-top quality of everything they do seems to sap the life from them. Yet they plug along, never cracking under the pressure of the camera and one another, as they disparage how everyone else handles life. While it might make you jealous, Laguna Beach also makes you sad.

That “party got an A plus…plus another plus.”
-guest at Carlysia’s Party

So what’s the verdict on these shows? And why should I care that the world has to deal with them? Because the lessons these shows give kids are different than the lessons that would be extracted by, say, their parents. Parents and adults probably see satire and something ridiculous. Kids, they see where they need to be, and stat. And I’m just gonna go out on a limb and say that there aren’t many parents tuning in to these programs.
My guess is that the kids on Super Sweet 16 watch programs like Laguna Beach and determine that that is the way to live life. You’ve gotta be cool, and jaded, and get what you want regardless of anything. Self-centered is the way to be. Materialism is king. And while that will never change, particularly among kids, if you really watch Laguna Beach, you’ll notice that most of the kids just want a hug. They aren’t happy. Their lives are affectionless, with the exception being a desire for revenge.
But, the sweet 16ers don’t see that. They see cool ways to invite people to the prom. Cool parties at cool houses with cool cars in the driveway. No parents, no school, no problem. “Let’s go eat dinner on the patio of some trendy bistro”. For the teenage viewer, all the misery that sloughs off the kids in the OC like sunburned skin becomes a necessary aspect of being truly cool. Being mean is a way to display your status. Being generally ambivalent about anything other how you appear to others is the only way to go. And so they emulate and regurgitate (often literally).
The result? Well, aside from a bunch of bratty kids running through Prada spending their parent’s retirement on something they won’t be seen with in 3 months, you get kids who’s self-esteem is created in a board room and has a price tag. And it can get tragic for many of the 99% who simply cannot financially, physically, or emotionally afford the behavior of the top 1%. Behavior portrayed as a goal, and in some cases normal. The thing is, the top 1% can’t sustain it either. Just watch Laguna Beach. These shows suck the childhood from kids. The kids love it, at first. But I bet their adult behavior will have adult consequences for a lot of them that they’ll spend their whole lives trying to recover.

Ku says:
Brekekekex ko-ax ko-ax. That is the croak of a poetic frog in Ancient Greek. So, let's talk Greek for a moment. Go ahead. Say it out loud. It is rather fun, isn't it? Now you can say it's all Greek to you... Aristophanes' comedy The Frogs won the first prize at the Lenaia (Athenian comedy festival) of 405 B.C.E. The play is harshly critical of war and war makers. Athens at this point was at war with Sparta. Six months after Aristophanes' victory, Athens would lose the war and forever take the back seat in Western history.
Ribbit, ribbit. That, obviously, is the mundane American croak. Last week, I compared American TV programs such as Super Sweet 16 and Laguna Beach to Greek Comedy, an unseemly claim at first, though most of you thought my TV watching habit more incredulous. Well, I did some homework and watched Super Sweet 16 and Laguna Beach. While I remain in part disgusted, I am not waving an inch away from my position that these programs are good for America.
Brekekekex ko-ax ko-ax. Greek comedies were crass and poignant. At the performance, the Athenian leaders would be sitting at the front while the play satirized everything under the sun. In the middle of the play, the actors would break into an ad lib insult comic routine and engage these politicians, making fun of them ruthlessly. Tthe rest of the city, drunk, sat behind the politicians and laughed at the jokes. Then the play continued, and in the end, the powerful and the common shared laughters because the conflicts of the characters, who were rich, young and beautiful aristocrats, captured something so timelessly human.
Ribbit, ribbit. So, if the TV has offended, think but this, and all is mended. Perhaps a weak and idle theme, but certainly an apt depiction of reality. Just as their Ancient Greek counterparts, the rich, young, and beautiful of Laguna Beach and Super Sweet 16 share something so intrinsically human with us, especially about being teenagers: The pettiness, jealousy, fallibility, frailty, sense of invincibility and the raw emotions that most of us would sooner choose to forget, a perspective adults all too often too easily have forgotten yet still dwell in.
Brekekekex ko-ax ko-ax. Gratuitous, you say? In The Frogs, one of the main characters sticks his buttocks towards an oar, while making fun of Kleisthenes and talking about eating too much baked bean. Kleisthenes was the architect for the radical Athenian democracy 100 years before Aristophanes' time. Incidentally, he enjoyed being on the bottom while engaged in same-sex sex, a grave taboo even in 5th Century Athens. In another play, Lysistrata, all the women go on a sex-strike in an effort to make men stop the war. Actors who played the horny men would don enormously protruding props under their garbs.
Ribbit, ribbit. Good theatre, I say. Of course, I found the characters from both the Super Sweet 16 and Laguna Beach vexatious and loathsome. All the money in the world, yet all the same petty and provincial youngsters they are. But still, I sympathize with Janelle's 14-year-old desire to be perfect. And Jessica's self-confidence shaking drama of high school years resonate with me, certainly not because I am incredibly rich and beautiful 18-year-old, but because those basic emotions are the stuff that we are made of.
Brekekekex ko-ax ko-ax. Consider, the much heralded 5th Century radical Athenian democracy had its roots in distrust of power and absolute freedom of expression. If you look up the word "ostracism" the dictionary would point to you to a Greek word meaning a shard of earthenware as its etymological root. Each year, the citizens of Athens would write down an excessively powerful person's name on a piece of pottery, and if there were sufficient number of votes, that person, no matter who, would be banished from the city for 10 years. Along with the social commentaries the comedies offered, these outlets helped the Greeks to maintain a democratic balance.
Ribbit, ribbit. Of course there are the First Amendment and other institutionalized safeguards to our democracy. But the safeguards alone cannot help us be honest with ourselves. Sure, we don't like being reminded how vulnerable we are by the TV programs, but yet (and perhaps because) they portray an acute picture of our present society. After all, what is the difference between the Jessicas and Kristines of Laguna Beach and the John Stewarts and Jay Lenos? Aren't they all beckoning us to take a step back and see the absurd mess we live in? So I beseech you, leave your jealousy and prejudices behind, and see the programs as what they really are. A candid reminder of our lives. And maybe, just maybe, without these reminders, we might risk our democratic sensibility. After all, it isn't just all Greek to us.

America, the Beautiful, Part 1/2

2005-10-08T15:45:00.000-04:00

America, the Beautiful, Part 1/2

Recently, a girl killed herself. In her suicide note, she claimed that her guilt of telling a TV station how ugly her sister was was a cause for her taking her own life. This event compelled us to talk about the bevy of issues surrounding TV and the pop culture. And we have devised a 2-week long project around some TV programs that we think are particularly troublesome (or entertaining, depending on which end of the spectrum you fall). We are still in the middle of our "research" as the Part 1 of the two part series publishes.

Ku says:
Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it. My email often ends with this little jewel from C.P. Scott, who was an editor of The Guardian. Indeed I do, albeit gingerly, admit that no good ever came of it. I also begrudgingly admit that there is a fine line between the "no good" and something like validity, a raison d'etat beyond "because there is an audience." In fact, to say that there was a ready and willing audience is to say no more than that people wanted to be entertained. Indeed, as I will explain next week, there is a need for it, and that can not be bad.
Personally, I have a very confused relationship with my television. I display a dubious and skeptical disposition towards the pop culture, whatever "pop" means. On the other hand, I pay upwards of $100 for my cable services (including cable modem and tax) per month. But then, I might watch about two hours of television each month. With the time spend in front of the tube watching sporting events in October, then the figure might go up nominally.
Aside from the dual nature of my relationship with the television (one would think that if it costs me nearly $50 per hour per month to watch TV, I'd cancel it), I labor an even more complicated discourse with the internal structure and content of the TV programing. What the heck did I just say, you ask? Notwithstanding my disdain for TV, I wanted to take a course on Critical Theories of Television my senior year in college. Then I saw the assignment - you must watch a lot of TV. I turned right around in favor of Semiotics and Social Linguistics.
Two of my college classmates are in the business of making TV happen. One is a big shot producer (she is the arbiter of taste, deciding what hair rock bands make it to the VH1's top 100 most awesomely bad music videos and such) for the VH1, and the other edits documentaries for PBS, most recently the program on the fates of Chinese American immigrants.
Jason the TV purist contends that he is helping to document important social events in American history or other interesting academic or scientific development. He says he adds content and substance to otherwise anemic line-up of pop nonsense that is TV... with a hesitating smirk. Bex the VH1 diva says she provides endless mindless entertainment for the masses who just came home from their mind-bogglingly boring workday. She accepts that she is the creator of programs that people love, but ultimately adds little social value to the world at large... with a proud smile. I think they are both legitimate.
TV churns out so much trash. Not only did the video killed the radio star, but it is holding our collective sense of irony hostage. Irony and reality somehow became synonymous. Racial stereotypes are hyped and sold as comic relief. Women are beyond objectified at this point, it looks like we live in some weird apocalyptic Mad Max type world. Gays? Forget it. That's for ridiculing and enacting unsavory sexual fantasies.
For a cheap laughter or eyepopping sensationalism, we are willing to sell our best friends' grandmothers in a market in Mongolia. News took a back seat to all the reality shows. In fact, I think CNN is resembling more and more like one of the thousand and one reality shows that are out there. Fox News is uncontestedly at the vanguard of this questionable movement. More ruefully, if you are beautiful, you get to do silly and awful things on TV... and worse yet, if you are ugly, you get fixed up so you can do silly and awful things on TV. I am sure American Dream is turning in her grave for these poor sobs.
But here I am, willing to accept it all. My metamorphosis came when a friend accused me of being an uninformed oaf after having received an email from me with C.P. Scott's little witticism attached at the bottom. She knew I did not own a TV at that point. Her argument is simply that to harbor such disdain towards pop culture, I'd actually have to be informed of the details of it. And she was right. So my average TV watching time went from 0 hours to something more than 0.
Yes, I turned away from a college course because the homework was to watch as much TV as possible, but I am ready to proclaim that this TV cultural irreverence is healthy. Yes, boys and girls are throwing up their lunch in the bathroom all across United States middle schools. Yes, we made no cultural or social advances in terms of civil rights since Michael Jackson's umteenth plastic surgery. But more importantly, we as a collective conscience can now discern more or less academically a manic depressive person from a psychotic maniac, a person with adult attention deficit disorder from just plain old scatterbrain. We understand your pain.
And yes, my disposition remains sour towards TV, but I wholeheartedly say, kudos to America. I thought the godless counter-culture revolution of the 60s were going to make us all cynical and suck out the proud 2,500-year-long Western tradition of irreverence and bigotry for a good fun out of our mainstream. How wrong was I? Be proud. After all, we are just reintroducing Greek comedy back to our culture, and that, my friends, is the stuff that this democracy is built upon.

Sam replies:
Mr. Yoo, you are wrong. The television that is out there today is bad for America. It's bad for people outside of America. It makes me ill and I think it is destroying people's lives. You've got women out there killing themselves after making statements about how ugly their sisters are. While that might not seem too unusual, keep in mind this was in response to a makeover show's need for compelling reasons to accept potential contestants (is that even the right term??). Enter a sibling who goes on record and admits that her sister is in sorry shape, add some post-confessional guilt and the result is tragic. While TV might not be liable, it should certainly share some blame for inducing people to do things they would never dream of.
Mr. Yoo, we need to sit down in front of some truly tragic TV and see what happens. You, Mr. Yoo, especially need to get off your soapbox and see it as it truly is. As you admitted, how can you claim to "accept it all" while you watch two hours of TV a month? I suggest some Super Sweeet 16, Laguna Beach, and America's Next Top Model. We'll see how you feel about it. It is setting us back. In fact, that's what I'm gonna do right now -- watch some bad TV.

Stay "tuned..."

Goons, Brushbacks, Glory Days

2005-09-24T15:10:00.000-04:00

Sam says:
When I returned home after my freshman in college, I was actually kind of excited to spend some time with my family. I hadn’t seen them since January and I missed them. I also wanted to get back to messing with my 14 year-old brother. Integral to accomplishing this was the implementation of random and arbitrary “beat downs”. Any older sibling knows what I’m talking about. While they were never brutal, and things rarely reduced to tears, I knew it would be necessary to reassert the pecking order in a family that had been without its most important member- me.
The problem was that the pecking order had apparently shifted in my absence. My brother had joined the wrestling team that winter. Unbeknownst to me, when you join the wrestling team, you learn super powers of pain application. Before I even considered starting the first fraternal slap fight, my brother had grabbed my hand, told me that he joined the wrestling team, and then dropped me to the floor like sack of potatoes. (For those who are curious, he, somehow, used my thumb against me.) I, in a manner exceptionally similar to the way he once did, begged and pleaded for mercy. He smiled over me…..and twisted a bit harder. Retaliation, so short and sweet, was his. We don’t really fight anymore.
The sporting world is rife with retaliatory rough justice. And with this behavior comes the armchair analysis of whether it has a rightful place in out national pastimes. Traditionally, the discussion revolves around the role of fighting in the NHL and the incidence of brushbacks and beanings in MLB.
The case for hockey getting rid of fighting, on the surface, looks like it would be the easiest to argue. Simply put, no other major sport allows its players to fight. How can hockey get away with “punishing” those players who fight by letting them sit down for five minutes?
Baseball, on the other hand, has this thing called the brushback pitch. It’s beautiful in its simplicity. If a batter is consistently effective against an opposing pitcher, or if he “crowds” the plate, effectively reducing the pitcher’s strike zone, the pitcher simply throws the ball “at” the batter. To avoid being hit, the batter must dive. As you can imagine, this may result in the batter getting kissed by the baseball.
I really like the brushback. As a pitcher, it’s your job to make sure that batters don’t get hits. Obviously, if one specific player has a high level of success against you, then he’s too comfortable. Taking him out of his comfort zone is the pitcher’s job. Throwing a ball at them is a pretty good way to accomplish this. Then, there are those guys (Bonds, Carl Everett) who pretty much stand in the strike zone when they’re at bat. In this case, the pitcher has a right to drive this guy to the dirt, the batter’s standing in the pitcher’s territory. I have particular disdain for the second group of guys just mentioned. Like Bonds, most of them wear a ridiculous amount of protective gear on the side of their body that faces the pitcher. So, getting hit means nothing to them, and they continue to crowd the plate. It’s not fair. The pain and fear of injury being hit by a pitch delivers should not be reduced through additional protective gear. No wonder Bonds hits so well…..
Fighting in the NHL also has a purpose. It serves as a very real and necessary check (ooh…a hockey pun!) on players becoming overly aggressive with one another. That’s right, NHL players pretty much fight fighting with fighting. Typically, hockey brawling occurs between the “enforcers” on each team. Their job is to protect the star players on their team. So, the thinking goes, if you make the unfortunate decision to go for a cheap shot on my star player, you’ve got it coming sometime soon. Enforcers will also go “an eye for an eye” against other teams. It’s a very effective “extra-leagl” means of ensuring that no one does anything too aggressive to another on the ice. There is the very real fear of future retaliation.
In fact, that is exactly what happened with the Todd Bertuzzi debacle that occurred in March of 2004. While I don’t condone the amount of force that the Canuck’s Todd Bertuzzi used when sucker punching and driving to the ice, Avalanche forward Steve Moore (He broke three of his vertebrae and potentially ended his hockey career), it was retaliation for Moore (a rookie, no less) knocking unconscious the Canucks captain, Marcus Naslund, with an open ice shoulder hit to the skull. A hit that received no repercussions from hockey officials, yet garnered national (international, I guess) attention for its brutality. Bertuzzi was rightfully suspended 17 months from hockey for his actions. But also and importantly, it served to warn all NHL players of the potential repercussions your less than savory behavior can bring upon yourself. Nasty-yes, fair- not really, effective- for sure.
Like I said, my brother and I no longer fight, he kicked my ass and I learned my lesson. I shouldn’t have engaged in the “beat downs” that dotted our childhood. I, in short, got what was coming to me. Maybe athletes learn the same lessons when they receive retaliation for their questionable behavior.

Ku says:

A dear friend of mine was a starting high school quarterback and a ranked junior chess player. His college career in either endeavor was reduced to taking a knee at the end of a football game against Middlebury. Anyway, in one football game during his PG year playing in a rather pretentious New York-Connecticut prep-school league, he was sacked. While on his back, the opposing player stood on top of him, grabbed his helmet by the facemask, spat on him, and yelled "stay down there, Jewboy" or something equally crass. The next play, he called 11-on-1. All his players went after the anti-Semite, and he limped off the field. Poetic justice, School Ties stuff.
Or how can you forget diminutive Pedro Martinez with his long fingers threatening Jorge Posada, then only to throw down Don Zimmer to the ground moments later? The Red Sox swear that that was a team building moment en route to their eventual World Series Championship. I certainly will never forget Brendan Shanahan nonchalantly clotheslining Pat Roy center ice as McCarty was pummeling at Claude "the turtle" Lamieux for an illegal hit he made, for which he was never punished, on his friend which ended with Chris Draper having to reshape his face altogether a year before. The passion of Detroit (and the suburbs) winter rallied around that game. We happily welcomed the vision of Steve Yzerman hoisting the Stanley Cup.
Obviously, we judge the differently what happens on the playing field. If you throw a baseball at your friend's head horsing around, and he gets a concussion so bad to knock him out for a year of his law school career, you are in trouble. All his career, Pedro Martinez went after the batters' heads like you might at the concrete filled coke cans at a town fair... just to knock'em down. And we cheer for him. Likely we'd complain if he weren't allowed to thrown "inside" that some complexity of the game will get taken away without excused retaliations.
Many of us think of professional athletes separate from the morass of daily banality of life. For whatever reason, you dress up people funny and put them on a flat surface with some lines and circles and give them rules, we don't treat it like it's real life anymore. Somehow, these sorts of artificial competition excuses and even justifies violence, even if it occurs outside of the boundaries of the rules. In some games, this happens so much so that it is the norm. Baseball's bench clearing brawls are another exciting part of the game, much like the suicide squeeze. Then there is ice hockey whose rules encompass fighting. 5 minutes fighting major, 10 minutes misconduct, and dismissal from the game for instigation.
Now, I am not going to lie to you. Of course, I love watching Lou Piniella blowing his top off arguing with the umps. Brushbacks are an integral part of the game. But fighting? In the end, fighting is just plain dumb. Adam Deadmarsh, a wonderful hockey player, just called it quits at a tender age of 30, because of post-concussion syndrome. How did he get his concussion? From fighting. I certainly don't want to see a baseball player missing some time because he hurt himself in a brawl. Worse yet, I'd hate to see a batter missing time because of a ball to his head.
I don't buy the argument that some intricacies of a game get lost when you disallow fighting or come down hard on a pitcher for throwing it at the batter's head. Is there much of a point in NASCAR for the drivers to go at each other driving as fast as they could? Sure, you get to see grown men lose it. And yes, violence is entertaining. But then, you could just go watch the professional wrestling.
I don't buy the lessons learned argument, either. I've been beat with just about every athletic equipment known to men, including badminton racket. I can tell you, the old hickory field hockey stick is the worst. At any rate, ask me what I learned. Nothing. Just a messed up right thumb -- that was a fishing rod. That and, well, field hockey stick really hurts a lot. More than a baseball bat. Besides, these athletes, they have super human pain tolerance. Somehow I doubt some nominal pain would "teach" them lessons. After all, it's just a part of the game, right?
I am hoping the culture of professional athletes to change to something resembling life. After all, not much was gained when Todd Bertuzzi just about ended another player's life.

The Market Theory

2005-09-05T20:39:00.000-04:00

Ku says:
My money is on the Oakland A's to win it all this year. I know I said the Cards will win it all this time last year, and I want to say that the Red Birds will win it all this year, again, but no. It'll be the A's. Why? Because they are smart. So smart, in fact, their way of thinking finally broke the "curse" and allowed the Red Sox to win one last year. So, who better than the original trailblazer?
But the discrepancy is obvious. There are the "Yanks" and the "'Sox," and then there are the other teams. While the Yanks and the 'Sox (and the Dodgers, and the Orioles, and the Angels, and the Metz, and the...) continue to bloat their payroll somehow, some of the lesser teams have continued to win without the payroll resembling the housing market in San Francisco.
Let's not kid ourselves. We love the Yanks and the 'Sox (and the Dodgers, and the Orioles, and the Angels, and the Metz, and the...). They have all the players whose name every casual fan recognizes. Last fall, all baseball worlds were divided into three parts: Those who rooted for the Yanks, those who rooted for the 'Sox, and those who detested both. Do you even remember who played in the World Series? Even if you don't remember, I bet you remember which actors were in the movie, Fever Pitch.
This trichotomy is easy to explain. The Yankees were the win-it-at-any-cost number one spending team. In recent memory, they have won four World Series in a row. Red Sox, trailing as number two in spending by about 50 million dollars last year (the figure is at 80 million this year), which is nearly as much as how much the A's spent this year, couldn't win for some 86 years. People clung on to the idea of pitting the sure-bet winner against the never-quite-make-it underdogs. And those who saw that together they spent more money than Canadian government did on its military were disgusted by them.
I don't necessarily hold some romantic notions about the purity of the game, but the wily and intelligent underdogs are sure fun to watch. Home grown talents are somehow more fun to cheer for, and these small market teams must rely on their farm talents. Teams like the A's continue to be successful even though Yank's pay more for its middle of the lineup (or the top of their line up, or the broken pitchers they have) than does the A's for the whole team.
In fact, "small market" model (you draft smart and develop young talents and build your team through your farm system) baseball wins. Since the lock-out season of 1994, seven of the ten World champions in some capacity did it the "small market" way. Yankees won five times with Jeter, Posada, Williams, and Rivera to name a few who were at the core of the Yankees dynasty. In fact, had the Yankees kept their young players, their infield right now would be Jorge Posada, Nick Johnson, Alfonso Soriano, Derek Jeter, and Mike Lowell (yeah, he's dogging it this year).
Atlanta is another success story, having won the division as long as Bobby Cox has been alive and having been to the World Series three times since 1994 with one championship, no thanks to Jeff Meier, who by the way worked for me for a summer. Consistently the Braves have had one of the best farm system, and it continues to pay off. 2003 Florida was another team led by superb young arms. I know I mentioned the Angels as one of the big spenders, but one of the biggest reasons why the Angels, a team filled with over-paid and over-hyped players save Vlad, won in 2002 was their young players, most notably K-Rod, coming up and shining in the fall.
The other three? Boston, whose farm system as barren as Chernobyl in recent years, last year finally rode the underdog/fraternity mentality all the way. While we are on the Red Sox by they way, I hope Nomar hits 500 more home runs just to spite the 'Sox management -- what is with Boston's fear of older (read: over 31) players? Nomar, Boggs, the Rocket (and look what he's doing in Houston)? No wonder they never won. "If you don't think too good, don't think too much," Ted Willams said. I think he was talking about the old 'Sox.
I don't understand why Cleveland couldn't beat the Marlins (as far as I'm concerned, it wasn't the Marlins who won) in 1997. But then, nobody does. 2001 Arizona team was entirely fueled by Schilling/Johnson duo, no thanks to Byung-Hyun Benítez. When you've got 2 best pitchers in the game, winning four out of seven, I hear, becomes easier.
So you see, the A's are no fluke. They do their homework. Scout, scout, scout, study, study, study, develop, develop, develop. And it pays off. A's are yet again at it in their year of supposed rebuilding. They are tied together with the, yes, Yanks, for the lead in the AL wild card race. Naturally, my money, then, is on the A's.

Sam says:
So Mr. Yoo thinks the Oakland A’s are gonna win the whole thing. That’s cute. Provincial thinking has gotten the best of him. The A’s will not win the World Series. I guarantee it. I mean, I’ve made some silly bets in the past. Right now, I’ve got $100 riding on the Philadelphia Eagles doing no better than 9-7. Not exactly a slam-dunk…but I still think it could happen. The A’s on the other hand….I am positive that they cannot, and will not, win the World Series. They just don’t have the players. As a Red Sox fan, I am can spot a team capable of letting down its fans, and the A’s will levy let down on its fans yet again.
The A’s and their small market status….I’m sick of it. In 2003, Michael Lewis wrote Moneyball, and immediately everyone began looking at the A’s in a completely different light. Suddenly, they were MLB’s version of David, fighting off and overcoming Goliaths every weekend series. They are renowned for their small budget and amazing moves. Well, that’s simply not true. The A’s spend just under $56 million. There are 9 teams in Major League Baseball that spend less than the A’s do. There are an additional 6 teams that spend between $56 and $62 million. That pretty much puts their salary just below the league average. So, while the A’s certainly aren’t Goliaths, the universal praise the baseball cognoscenti have thrown at A’s GM Billy Beane isn’t quite justified. And might I remind you that the A’s have not won a playoff series since 1990, 8 years before Beane took over. Yeah, they’re good, but I have doubts they’ll even make the playoffs. You (and Yoo) should too.
An example of Goliath hangs out in the Bronx and is fueled by pretty boys named Jeter , Rivera, and Rodriguez. The Yankees also spend money like it’s going out of style. I hate them. I hate them so much. They, however, will make the playoffs and are my pick to represent the AL in the World Series. Many point to the money spent by the Yankees ($208 million this year) and see a sign of the impending apocalypse. Yeah, it’s ridiculous and Steinbrenner should have his head checked, but I think it makes sense.
You see, the Yankees also have the highest attendance figures in the game. So, why shouldn’t they spend money to make their team better and the fans happy? In fact, if you look at the league in general, you’ll see that salaries, attendance figures, and winning, all appear to be related. Teams that spend money also win. And all of this depends upon having fans. I think that’s the way it should work. Why should Milwaukee have a winning team? The few people that go to those games are most likely there to drink and watch people dressed up like sausages race one another.
Cleveland is a perfect example of the ups and downs of the baseball marketplace. Right now, their fan base is lacking and their salary is a paltry $41 million. But in the mid-nineties, they were the first team to sell out every one of their home games prior to the start of the season. And they did it for 4 years straight. Only one other team, the Red Sox this year, has ever accomplished that feat. Not surprisingly, when Cleveland was selling those tickets, they were also winning. But then, the team didn’t sign their big name players (Ramirez, Thome etc.) and began losing fans and games. You see, fans want to have a team that they recognize. The annual merry-go-round that takes place during the off-season in many towns is not only destructive to team unity, a highlight of each World Series champion of the last 10 years, it destroys the relationship fans establish with their team. No one wants to spend thirty bucks to watch players they don’t know hit a ball.
Right now Cleveland’s doing an admirable job, and they’re in the playoff hunt. But, it won’t last if they don’t keep the big guns in town. The fact of the matter is that you will not win baseball games if you won’t pay high salaries to the players that deserve them. Teams is general can pay. Just look at what the Nationals, Diamondbacks, and Padres have done. They put up the cash, got some players, and are in the playoff hunt. Is it any surprise that they have increased attendance rates. By paying the salaries, you get fans in the seats and make money. It has nothing to do with small markets.

Letters to 1L

2005-08-29T19:45:00.000-04:00

Heartbreaking Words of a Staggering Law Student (Ku)
There is a point beyond which a broken heart does not recover. Once said Rilke, loosely translated. He did not know this, of course, when he wrote those poignant words, but he was referring to us law students. And you've all heard it a thousand times before you even applied to law schools -- your first year is brutal. It will break you. Even in a rare chance that you are not already a self-centered monster yourself, you will become one before you can remind yourself that you decided on law school to save the world.
Abandon all hope ye who enters here. Sam and I have covered many forms of competitions ranging from the World Series to the annual staring contest that happens in Pensicola, FL, in this column. By far the most deranged competition of them all however is the first year law school. The whole year is this dance you do to avoid stepping on each other's foot while wearing cement boots. Sadly, we are all drowning in our own self-importance, or self-pity, depending on which side of the top x% you fall, wearing the custom made cement boots. You, yes you, will be no different.
Show, don't tell. It turned out though, being surrounded by over-weight, overly neurotic and self-centered people was the best part of my first year. I used to have this job where I got paid to wine and dine with folks rich and poor, young and old. It was fabulous. I lived in a part of a country where believing in income tax over sales tax didn't automatically label me a marxist. Then I had this idea that I was going to try to save the world. By studying the law, no less. Did I mention the beautiful and brilliant girlfriend? Right. I had one of them, too.
Lawrence v. Texas. I had read this case back when. I was fairly confident I knew what the case was all about. Besides, it was the orientation week. Homework? What homework? I glanced over, and there were a lot of words and stuff. So I went to sleep without reading it carefully. The first "class," which I didn't even know it was a real class, began something like this.
Mr. Yoo! Woe is my name. Mr. Katz, who might be the professor with the scariest first classroom impression, calls on me and asks me what the hoopla was about in Lawrence v. Texas. It is 8 a.m. I have no problem discussing inappropriate or uncomfortable subjects. But Am I allowed to say the word "sodomy" at 8 a.m? In Ohio? And that's how my law school career began. Stumbling and stuttering onto the word "sodomy" in front of my classmates, hung over, wearing pink polo shirt with my collar popped up, being stared down by Lou Katz through his tinted glasses, sitting in the front row.
What becomes of the broken hearted? Enter law school. There is the debt. Then there is the eternal search for the right study group, which, in the end, matters for shit. Then there is the looking for some semblance of sanity among your peers. Then there is the endless reading. And the CORE professors telling you how you don't know writing. And the conversations at "bar reviews" are always about law professors, law school, and law students. So the beautiful and brilliant girlfriend, she's entirely bored with my new social life. Beautiful and brilliant turned quickly to bitter and brokenhearted.
Oh, and while the king was looking down, the jester stole his thorny crown. One night during the finals, my girlfriend -- I was living with her -- was nowhere to be found at 2 a.m. I called her many times, and she answered none of the calls. I finally got a cryptic text message around 5 a.m. (I hadn't slept yet, driving all around Cleveland and the campus looking for her) saying she felt bad that she wasn't home yet but that she was safe. This repeated throughout the finals, except she had her phone off starting around 11 p.m. Three days after the finals were over, she told me she was leaving, staying with this guy, a juggler, I had met. I think I saw her once since then... during my college reunion, which was about a week after the finals were over, where she told me she was sleeping with this juggler now. Worse yet, I know there are other law students waiting to one-up my story.
How should I greet thee? -- With silence and tears. I remember my freshman year in high school, a recent Princeton grad teacher, told us that SAT scores did not matter, that the college you attend did not matter in the end. We derided and laughed. It was the most risible thing I had ever heard. There he was, a Princeton grad, telling us it don't matter. Did it ever really matter, though?
When a lovely flame dies smoke gets in your eyes. And law school is a lot like that, I reckon. The successful and the professors all tell you it don't matter, that in the end you will find a job and live a good life. But I am not sure, being on this side of the bar exam and first employment, hearing those words of comfort really is comforting. After all, perspective cannot be told and given. Still the worst part is, we all chose to come. So, we all get broken. We all get remade. There never was a disclaimer to the law school application. But that's us. Law students.

Glass is Half Full (Sam)
The Glass is half-full. Remember that. If at any point you feel that the glass is half-empty, and you will, you are taking this whole law school thing too seriously. Yes, it is important. Yes, it is hard. Yes, at least five of the people you sit next to in your three substantive classes are assholes. But, you must remember that the glass is half-full.
Aside from that, the most important thing to remember about the first three (or thereabouts) months of law school is that every day is Halloween. All of you fellow classmates will be running around pretending they are something they’re not (most notably… mature) while everyone is force fed candy. You might not believe me, but it’s true. So get a toothbrush and learn to deal with a 23 year old who thumbs his nose at you because you don’t have an opinion about tort reform. And then chuckle to yourself because you know his opinion is really his dad’s.
It’s easy to let the little things get to you. For instance, week two at bar review I was told that my nickname was “Tweek!”. It was an obvious tribute to my in-class demenaner…I’m usually about three tics short of a seizure….but still, a name that some might take the wrong way 10 classes in to the next three years of your life. But I embraced it, and eventually had my torts professor saying “Dig it!”, just like I did when I finally understood a concept. Chances are, you’re going to get a nickname. We had, among others: Squints, Schmedium, El Vende, AA (which to our gleeful astonishment became AAA when we found a third and final “A”), lumberjack, Mr. Kevin Carter, Juggs, Gramps, La Machina, K-Red, Ku (actually, that’s his real name, it just seems nick-namey) and plenty more. Rarely are they cruel and frequently they serve as a bond among the 80 or so people you’ll spend a considerable amount of time with. Have fun with ‘em.
Psychologically, I place the beginning of my law school experience in the hallway outside my dorm-like apartment just off campus. I had lived there for about two weeks and it was early (like 5:30) in the morning. I was also completely naked, in sore need of a toilet, and locked out. I can’t really explain how it happened, I sleepily walked into the bathroom and found that I had chosen the wrong door. It was awful. After securing clothes from a confused neighbor three hours later, I traipsed off to the law school to procure the extra set of keys I had divinely left in my locker. (Hint Hint Hint) On the walk back home, sans shoes and glasses, I had the chance to say good morning to my contracts professor.
True to its reputation of being like a high school fueled by alcohol and ego, an astonishingly large number of people knew of my escapades 8 hours later. I told three people, yet here I am, at a bar, with strangers asking me about passing Kostritsky earlier that morning wearing someone else’s spandex. (Still don’t know how spandex became involved. But, to whomever added that little nugget…nice touch.) I took it all in stride and let my next-door neighbor know that if he ever needed anything, I was his go-to-guy. I never saw him again. I guess that’s what happens when your breakfast is interrupted by a naked stranger banging on your door, begging you for your clothes.
I mention that anecdote because I think it’s a good example of how to go about enjoying your first year. Initially, I was concerned about what the story would do to my “reputation”. Would my uber-serious law school compatriots consider me a fool and dismiss me after a simple mistake? Would I become an outcast before I even got to know the people around me? Well, as it turned out, I answered the questions, laughed incredulously with the people so floored by what I was telling them, and everything blew over. It became a joke, a great story, and something to smile about.
What I am trying to get at is that you can’t take things too seriously or you’ll be a miserable human being. If you can’t laugh at yourself and the things that go around you during your time here, you will crack…or get straight A’s. Very few people get straight A’s. So smile, enjoy yourself, and realize it’s only school. Otherwise, you’ll end up like Mr. Yoo. The glass will be half-empty.

Spring Training Predictions

2005-02-27T17:59:00.000-05:00

NL (Sam)
I hate this time of year. We’re mired in the post-Super Bowl pre-Final Four abyss of February and March. This year is even worse without hockey…. actually, I take that back. I don’t think that anyone cares. But, there is a light at the end of the tunnel: Spring Training has begun and the baseball season is just a month away. To give you a sense of what the season has on tap in the National League, here is my preview. The standings at the end of last season are in parenthesis.

National League West- (Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Rockies, Diamondbacks) I’ve always thought that this division is weird and intriguing. Unpredictable and on so late at night, it’s tough for me to get a good sense of what to expect from any of these teams.
The Dodgers spent a lot of money on questionable players J.D. Drew and Derek Lowe. They also lost breakout star (and future monster) Adrian Beltre, along with Shawn Green, and Steve Finley. If I sound a little concerned about their off-season moves, that’s because I am. But they have the best closer the game has ever seen in Eric Gagne and a solid pitching staff in a pitchers park. No team won fewer close games last year and they always seem to put together a trade at the right time to put them over the top. They will make a run for the title but ultimately lose out because of injuries and not enough offense.
The Diamondbacks got the off-season trading and signing period off with a bang when they acquired Troy Glaus and Russ Ortiz for ridiculous sums of money. It’s tough not to think this will haunt them. They also picked up pitcher Javier Vazquez, who had an awful experience with the Yankees last season. They do have some young talent in Chad Tracy, Scott Hairston and Brandon Webb and cagey veterans Shawn Green and Luis Gonzales. While most everyone expects them to improve over last year, aside from big years from pitchers Webb and Vazquez, I see little for Diamondbacks fans to be excited about.
The Giants Barry Bonds finally got some protection in the line-up from Moises Alou, arriving from the Cubs. However, this will not be sufficient to get this team back in the playoffs. They are too old. Their pitching begins and ends with Jason Schmidt, who may be the best hurler in the league but was over-pitched last year and resulted in a late season slide. Anyone who saw what happened to Vazquez, Halladay, and Sheets last year knows what too many innings can do to a subsequent year’s performance. Expect something similar, but maybe not as dramatic from Schmidt. This is bad news for the Giants.
The Padres are my pick for the division winner. Something about this team just grabs me. They have the right balance of age and youngsters in the right places. With established veteran pitchers in Brian Lawrence and Woody Williams and the underrated and improving Adam Eaton 10 years younger at 27, the pitching staff in this pitcher’s park is highly underrated. In the field they have ’04 ROY candidate Khalil Greene and 3B Sean Burroughs along with a gaggle of highly productive but little known hitters like Phil Nevin, Brian Giles, Ryan Klesko. Finally, Mark Loretta, the premier 2B in the league, rounds out a team I think doesn’t get the respect they deserve. They will surprise a lot of teams and eek out a division win with their defense.
The Rockies need to continue rebuilding. While they arguably have the game’s best first baseman in Todd Helton and their young outfielder Matt Holliday is coming along nicely, Preston Wilson is starting to look like an overpriced and underperforming albatross. If he returns to the level he was playing in 2003 things could look up for this young team but I don’t expect him to be healthy. Therefore, he should be replaced with a younger prospect or moved to a team willing to take a chance on him. Pitching is downright impossible in the thin air of Colorado. Particularly when you have no talent….like the Rockies. So don’t expect their staff to do anything but throw meatballs. The clear-cut favorite to reside in the basement, the Rockies stink.

National League Central- (Cardinals, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Pirates, Brewers) Recognized last year as the deepest division in baseball, I think it will suffer this season as personalities and talented players have left these teams for greener pastures.
The Cardinals are the team to beat in this league. Last season was great, but I think they will drop off significantly this year. They should win the division, but the Cubs will give them trouble. Losing SS Edgar Renteria and 2B Tony Womack will hurt them immeasurably. Those two anchored the infield with Rolen and were the only source of speed on the team. Additionally, no team benefited from the injuries to pitchers Wood, Prior, Petite, and Miller more than the Cardinals did. With the healthy return of other team’s aces this season, the Cardinals bats cannot expect to produce like last year.
The Astros are the biggest question mark in the NL central. They lost the bidding war for Beltran to the Mets, let Jeff Kent ship off to the Dodgers, and will be without underrated outfielder Lance Berkman for at least part of the seasons with a knee injury. They kept Clemens around, paying him an outrageous $18 million and will see Andy Petite healthy for the first time as an Astro. But were does all this leave them? I think in third place wishing they had done more to recoup the lost bats, particularly as Biggio and Bagwell do nothing but age.
The Pirates set the tone for the season when their owner publicly griped about the salaries some teams (read: Mets, Yankees, Diamondbacks) paid for mediocre talent. He thought it set the market in favor of the player and the rich teams, leaving teams like his high and dry. And he’s right. But the Twins and A’s succeed as small markets; vigorously building players in their farm systems and making ground in areas of the game other teams overlook. They are also exciting to watch, with young talent like Jason Bay and Craig Wilson holding things down. Additionally, closer Jose Mesa is always a treat as anything is possible when he takes the mound. If they go .500, I’ll be surprised.
The Brewers are lost. Forget about them. I think they made some trades in the offseason, but it doesn’t really matter. They will start strong and then begin their 4 month fade in mid-June. Yes they do have some good young talent. No I don’t know their names. Oh wait, pitcher Ben Sheets is frequently mentioned as a hot young prospect. But in order to maintain the buzz he will have to pitch with authority in the second half of the season. But, it is interesting that under new ownership this team has broken past ticket sales records. Maybe things will start to turn around.
The Reds are tough to predict. With hitters like Kearns, Casey, Dunn, Griffey Jr.and Pena, they are young and talented. But they have some trouble staying healthy. Add to that their ability to strike out (Kearns and Dunn have real trouble not swinging and missing) and there is little expected from these guys right now. Their pitching staff is decent but underwhelming and they play in a hitter’s park. Like Milwaukee, I expect them to come out strong and then fade once we reach the summer months.
The Cubs had an interesting off-season. They traded Sosa to Baltimore, lost Moises Alou to the Giants and signed Nomar Garciaparra and Jeromy Burnitz. They also lost pitcher Matt Clement to the Red Sox. The general sentiment is that they have taken a hit offensively, but should still produce relatively good numbers. The big question is their pitching staff. When healthy they are legendary. It’s just that they have failed to be healthy. I think they are playoff bound as a wild card, landing second in this league to the Cards. Look for Aramis Ramirez and Derek Lee to anchor a team that is a closer away from being dominant.

National League East- (Braves, Phillies, Florida, Mets, Nationals)- I think this should prove to be the most competitive league in baseball.
The Mets have created the most buzz and will continue to get the most press. GM Omar Minaya went gonzo, and spent tons of money. He rewarded Mets fans with pitcher Pedro Martinez and outfielder Carlos Beltran along with first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz. The team has a young, talented infield, a pitching staff that should be above average, and a first year head coach. So, all signs are pointing toward a late season let down that would make even the most tortured fans feel like they had the wind knocked out of them. They will be good, but not this year.
The Braves have won this division for like, the last decade. While they should make a run for it again this year, I don’t see them pulling it out. Last season they got some above average pitching from mediocre pitchers. It won’t happen again. Though they did acquire Tim Hudson, the former staff ace for the A’s, they lost J.D. Drew to the Dodgers and promoted their devastating closer, John Smoltz, back into a starting pitching role. That last move will fail. I guarantee it. (Byung-Hyun Kim anyone) With MLB problem child Raul Mondesi (ok, maybe that should be Milton Bradley) in right and less than consistent Brian Jordan in left, their bats are lacking.
The Nationals have moved from Montreal to the DC area. They also lost the name “Expos”. Jose Vidro plays second and he’s pretty good. The same can be said for their starting pitcher Livian Hernandez. That’s about it for this team. They will bring up the rear and frustrate Orioles owner Peter Angelos whose team plays next door in Baltimore. He thinks they will steal tickets from him. We’ll see.
The Marlins will be the team to beat in the east. Their late season run fell short last year and they had a simple and productive off-season, signing Carlos Delgado from Toronto. Their first five bats rival any other five in the league. They can and will run on other teams. The young pitching staff, when healthy, has the ability to pitch against anyone. Add to this a strong defensive infield and you have the winners of the east and a darkhorse World Series member. All of this assumes they will stay healthy, but if they do, they are the best team in the NL.
The Phillies, like all Philadelphia teams, are a tortured organization. Prior to last season they made a flurry of moves that were supposed to get them to elite status in the division. It failed and by the third week of the season the fans were cheering for the Flyers at Phillies games. While I hope for a more consistent effort from them this season, the significant steps taken by the Mets and Florida will prove too much for these guys. They have some powerful bats and decent pitching but I expect the lack of focus that plagued them last year to continue.

AL (Ku)
Let's start with this. I believe Jose Canseco. There. I said it. Why wouldn't I? Anyway, 'tis the season. Finally. Yes, NASCAR season has begun... that and Spring Training. Season of hope and much more. Unfortunately, no truth to the rumor that Barry Sanders is coming out of retirement to be the pinch runner for the Tigers.

Which reminds me, for those of you who are big poker fans, one late drinking poker night, we have come up with a game called Bo Jackson. What is it you ask? It's a combination of Baseball and Football (those are types of poker games for the outsiders), where you'd have 3, 4, 7, and 9 all as wilds. I wouldn't bet unless I have high 4 of a kind, and even then... Try only when your table is losing spirit but well inebriated. Perversity at its best.

Back to Baseball, then. American League baseball where all the current fireworks are. The opening day clash of titans in the House That Ruth Built is promising more hoopla since the Greatful Dead sang the American Anthem in San Francisco oh so many years ago.

What's more, a NY lawyer won a bid to rename the Fleet Center (whose lease with the said bank has been over for a little while) for a day on eBay wanted to rename it the Derek Jeter Center. The officials of the Center formally known as Fleet Center has deemed this act obscene and disallowed. The NY lawyer was in good spirit. Personally, I think it was the 6th E in its name that caught the attention of the officials, but this reporter could not verify this rumor.

Down further on I95 in our nation's Capital, Peter Angelos, the owner of Baltimore Orioles have been on a tear since they decided to move the failing Expos from Montreal to D.C., renaming the Nationals, thus making it the Nationals of the National League. The Orioles since signed a disgruntled Sosa amidst the biggest controversy in baseball since the strike-out season. And Rafi Palmeiro is threatening to hire Peter Angelos (lawyer) to sue Canseco.

Speaking of steroids, nobody seems to care about the fact that Babe Ruth was a connoisseur of various bootlegs available then or that he was caught using a lacquered bat, or the spitballs and shineballs that pitchers used to throw which are illegal now, or Phil Niekro and his nail file which is a subject of light-hearted laughter, or that the 70s and 80s baseball was jacked up on amphetamines, or... you get my point. Again, I believe Jose Canseco until proven otherwise.

While Tampa Bay stays in its anonymity, it may be the most exciting team in the entirety of baseball. They are fast and they are young. They are a throwback team to the early 80s baseball. Speed, speed, and more speed. I am still angry that someone at the last minute took away my highest bid in SPILF auction for Indians/Tampa game. Whoever you are, if you have doubts about that ticket, I'll buy them from you.

Last in AL East is Toronto. Toronto. No, not the Maple Leafs. Supposedly, a Billy Beane protégé has taken over the team, but the results have not yet been showing. Of course, how can you compete in a league where 3 of the top 5 payrolls are?

AL Central promises a season of exciting baseball in its own way. It's considered to be the weakest division, yet last season, both Cleveland and Detroit were some of the more exciting and offense oriented teams. They both have young teams with Cleveland having a upperhand due to its outfield. By the way, Coco Crisp? You've got to be kidding, right? You are welcome to shoot me if I name my kid something like Sue. Both Detroit and Cleveland has young and electric pitching staff. High risk, high return. Look out for Jeremy Bonderman in Detroit. If he starts hot, I expect him to compete for the Cy Young.

The Twins are another story all together. They have signed a pact with the devil. How else would you explain their deep farm system? In the past 3 years, they have let go of David Ortiz who hits bombs and crushfies balls for breakfast and Doug Mienkiewicz, only the best defensive first baseman, because they thought they had better prospects coming up.

Chicago has always been an enigma to me (read: I don't have a thing to say about them). The south side of Chicago had its famous son, LeRoy Brown. Badder than the junkyard dog, so says the legend. All I know is, their staff ace, Mark Buehrle, may have a huge year this year.

Last and the least is the Kansas City Royals. They may have the most exciting pitcher to come through any system since Greg Maddux or Roger Clemens. His name is Zach Greinke. His repertoire of pitches range 30mph from his fastest pitch to his slowest, and he was able to hit 25 of the 28 speed zones in a game he pitched in last fall. Last I heard of him, he was working on a knuckleball, which would stretch the range of speed. Just to give you an idea, during Pedro Martinez's best years, his pitches went from about 75mph to 98mph, and he was unhittable. This kid is going to be something special, barring injuries.

I don't like AL West. Angels just rub me wrong. Them and their stupid rally monkey... That and their new name, which goes something like Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. That's like saying, Cleveland Heights Angels of Parma. But the Angels in the outfield are good. They may have the best outfield in the business. Finley, Guerrero, Anderson.

Well, AL West, if you see their colors, is very bright and pretty. Red, green, yellow, blue, and lighter shade of blue. But that's about it. Oh, and they have 4 teams instead of 5 in or 6 in NL Central.

Texas and A's are polar opposites. Texas batters are known to be the most aggressive whereas the A's batters walk a lot. Patience is the virtue in Oakland. On the other hand, since other teams have gotten into the BB market, A's started buying defense, or so that's the word on the block. Big news was their trading away Mulder and Hudson. Now they have very very very inexperienced pitching staff but best batting since Jason Giambi who was a juice head. At any rate, Billy Beane is a genius, and if he says he'll start Sam's mom, I'll believe that she will do well.

Mariners? I like Ichiro. They acquired Beltre who led the league in HRs last season. Jury is out whether or not that was a freak season or if he's finally arrived at his potential. Ask Sam about Adrian Beltre and fantasy baseball. Really though, Ichiro is the man in Seattle. I'll watch a baseball just so I can watch him bat 4 times and potentially throw someone out at home or third.

And, yes, I believe Jose Canseco is telling the truth. And you with that Tampa Bay tickets, I'll buy it from you.

Would that Barry Sanders would come out of retirement...

Eyes on the Prize... Don't Blink

2005-01-24T11:06:00.000-05:00

KU SAYS:
Not all looks are created equal. The way I look at it, there are looks and there are looks. You know what I'm talking about. The looks. You knew it since you first tried to refuse to eat the mystery green stuff on your dinner plate. You either got the look of non-intervention (sometimes with a hint of hopeless defeat) or the look that made you believe temporarily that green meant tasty. You know... when one of your professors tosses her blank stare at your section, you hide behind the flipped up laptop screen and all your muscles cease, hoping that if you don't move, she won't see you?
Then there are looks to defy all looks that have ever been. It ain't like the looks that Barry Sanders used to get when the whole stadium knew he was carrying the next ball. Not the look you get from Roger Clemens from the mound with 2-2 count, staring you down to decide if he wants to play you a little chin music, or to make you look silly by messing your swing up with his fork ball.
Pensacola, FL is now the mecca of the look; the only look that counts when it comes to Pensacola, FL. It's not the look that the Pensacolans had when they saw the 4th hurricane land on Florida last season. No. It's all about the staring contest; super human staring contest. This year, the winner of the contest goes by the name of Wiggins. Dave Wiggins, with 22 minutes and 5 seconds of staring down his opponent. He's been the winner 3 of the past 4 years.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, "OK, fine. They are not blinking...no big deal. It's probably like holding your breath or something, right?" Not quite. Let me just capture the physiological metamorphoses that happen during this contest. And metamorphoses they are...
First, the initial phase. You casually stare at your opponent. Second, the minor twitches. Third, the dry eyes phase. Maybe your vision might get blurry -- I don't know since I can't last this long. Just ask my girlfriend.
But sure, we got a little bit of gumption. You bite down...fourth is the redeye phase. Bloodshot. It's just the opposite of Visine commercial on TV. Right, Bueller? You might even be sweating. Your brow is tense. You are controlling and minimizing your twitching. It might feel a bit painful, but if you've lasted this long, what's a few more minutes?
Fifth, the bulging eye stage. That's what I said. Bulging eye. Your eyeball wants to come out of the socket because you have tensed up all the muscles around your eyes a la Total Recall.
Sixth, convulsion phase. Now it isn't your face that's twitching; it's the muscles in your neck, then the traps, then god knows what else. All you're hoping at this point is for your opponent to give up and blink.
How serious are the contestants? In the infancy of the competition, the whole array of doping is allowed, though no steroid use has been yet reported. But everything from the wacky tobacchi all the way to prescription muscle relaxants are in documented usage. In fact, one of the contestants fell asleep because he took a muscle relaxant and that's how he lost. Stupid you say? Determined, I say. Oh, and as a final thought, I don't suggest you get into a staring contest with your professor during a class. That's like playing chicken with life. Not to mention, the doctors don't recommend either activity.

SAM SAYS:
It was some time last week when I started doing the research for this article. I had consumed maybe four or so beers and although I was tired, I couldn’t sleep. The conditions were perfect and I thought I would give it a try.
Ku had brought up the topic the day before as a possibility and I immediately thought it was perfect. Often, I like to engage in the forms of competition we write about (or at least try to empathize with the competitors) and so I set off to the bathroom to give this one a shot. I mean, how hard could it be. I turned on the light, let my eyes adjust, looked in the mirror, and it was on...
In the past few years, staring has jumped back on the radar. The epicenter is Pensacola, FL and the competitors are adults. Not a locale known for its vibrant social scene, it seems people here are so bored at night that staring has become something to do. More than just a simple hobby, the skill has become a true-blue sport. And it’s traveling.
Having successfully conquered the West Coast and scheduled to head over the Atlantic to challenge the willpower of Western Europe, staring might be the next “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” Technically, it’s called “Staremaster” and there’s even a documentary about one weekend of competition. I have yet to see it, but believe me, it’s on my list, right after “Caligula.” I am most definitely intrigued.
As I’ve gotten older, it’s been disheartening to realize that exercise is work and that sports require exercise. In short, sports have become work. However, this staring thing is different. It involves not doing something.
As I thought about these staring contests, I couldn’t help but believe that I can do (or at least be good at) “not doing” something. Since blinking isn’t hard, it should be damn easy to not do it. After one minute in front of the mirror last week, I realized that I might be even worse at these sports of omission.
As you would imagine, the rules are quite simple. For the first two minutes, you just have to maintain gaze with the opponent you’ve been paired up with. To ensure this, there are judges and cameras and fans. There is also music; reportedly “Eye of the Tiger” is particularly inspiring, though maybe this was a joke I didn’t pick up on...
If you can’t keep eye contact for two minutes, you’re hopeless and an embarrassment. Medication is most likely in your future and things like reading are probably troublingly difficult for you. If you can maintain, the conclusion of the two- minute period kicks you into the “Dry Eye Death Phase.” Blinking is outlawed, along with pretty much everything else that isn’t staring...here’s a taste from the rules as posted on the website: NOTHING is encouraged - SOMETHING is prohibited. Officials have absolute power over the distinction between SOMETHING and NOTHING. Arguing with officials is grounds for disqualification.
As Ku indicates, the people who are good at this are truly special people. 22 minutes without blinking is a form of torture that I can scarcely imagine. I think it might be harder to keep your eyes open than it is to hold your breath. Just try it. This might explain why the competitors frequently drink and/or take drugs for the experience. How else could you actually engage in behavior where training requires, as one competitor remarks, “10 to 12 hours of looking at [your] computer screen”? Everyone has engaged in the staring contest. In fact, I just got off the phone with Stevie Wonder and even he acknowledged engaging in such behavior. Admitting that he “sucked at it,” he still said he liked it.
And, like spraying as much Binaca under your tongue as possible (another of my insane childhood time-killers), it hurts like hell. But is it really worth the training and the rules and the correlates of structured sport? Have adults ru- ined another childhood joy that was simple and pure? Have we taken from the kids something that was exclusively theirs? It bugs me that these competitions take place in bars, beyond the reach of the people who made staring the fun that it was.

Iron Chef Extravaganza!

2004-11-21T16:01:00.000-05:00

Everybody knows wherever there is a competition, Sam and I are there. And if you have been out with us, you know we love to drink and eat. OK. We might value drinking more when we go out. Anyway, our next stop is so obvious... Iron Chef?

We've got three bottles of wine hanging out here with us in my living room: A bottle of petite sirah, pinot noir, and zinfandel. The zinfandel is corked and it tastes something between a Welch's grape soda, terrible balsamic vinegar, and little bits of wood. Awful. We disliked the finish of petite sirah, although after about 20 minutes, it rounded out more. And contrary to what Sam said of the purchased pinot noir, it still has that essential pinot noir nose reminiscent of an unmentionable body part that goes so well with a serious red meat.

Sam and I are making predictions before the competition begins. Sam picked the Iron Chef French with duck. I picked Iron Chef Chinese with onions. I actually know it'll be potatoes, because I looked online when I was checking the TV schedule, but poor Sam doesn't need to know that, does he? He's got enough to worry about.

To facilitate this project, even though we are sitting side by side, we are not talking. We are IM-ing each other. Anyway, no matter what he says, what I'm telling you is what happened. Don't believe what he says. I know you will heed my call.

10 58pm
Ku: Sammy-san. Today's match-up is looking good, eh?
Sam: Yeah, dawg.... but the stuff leading up on the Food Network is garbage.
Ku: I agree. Total garbage.
(The preceding show is one of those home improvement shows. Sam reveals that he likes multi-colored tiling on the kitchen counter. Have you seen his sweaters?)
11:00pm
Sam: I love the Invincible Men of Culinary Skills.
Ku: You ever watch them Japanimations? The creator of Iron Chef looks like he belongs there.
Sam: Man....the guy who enslaves the Iron Chefs has no idea how to dress.
(The challenger is introduced.)
Sam: Ooohhh a canuck
Ku: Here is why the Iron Chef Chinese will win. Never trust a skinny chef. And that Canadien is too skinny.
Ku: A french chef from canada...Michael Noble
Sam: This is like Bryan's Story
Sam: Bryan's Song
Sam: This is so inspirational... I think I'm going to break into tears... Hand me over the tissue, dude.
Sam: Did he just bite a pepper? Poor pepper... I think I'm going to cry some more...
Ku: Yeah. Yellow one at that.
Sam: look at all the chefs he owns.
11:05pm
Sam: Like puppies... Oh... I love puppies. I think I'm going to cry. Where is that tissue box?
(This is the first commercial break. An ad for Food Network Special Holiday show is on.)
Sam: Man Rachel Ray sorta sold out.
(When you walk into Sam's house, you will notice he's got Rachel Ray's book on the floor. Just as a side note, she's been on an FHS magazine, posing on her knees in French maid's outfit in front of an oven. Sam also has served Rachel Ray's father down in New Orleans.)
Ku: She's got streaks, going to the tanning salon, lost about 15 pounds... She sold out.
Sam: oh my god, my first Christmas commercial. I think I'm going to cry...
Ku: Hallmark.
Sam: Whaddya know...Hallmark made it.
Sam: Pepsi Holiday Spice....yeah that's gonna sell like...well like OK Soda
Ku: 'Tis the season to be jolly, falalalalalalalala.
Sam: Pepsi Holiday Spice? What the hell are they thinking? Soon they're gonna come up with cinnamon Pepsi. I'm so upset, I think I'm going to cry.
Ku: Two words: Pepsi Clear. Right now. OK. Four.
Sam: Oh Ku, we forgot to mention we're drinking for this.
Ku: Bottles of wine. Don't try this at home, kids.
Ku: This guy's getting old. The chef slave driver.
Sam: Man I told you people from Canada think they're lumberjacks. Even Japan makes fun of Canada
Ku: I've seen enough of Roots hats and berets being all Canadian.
Sam: Why did he dress like Paul Bunyon meets 20th century?
11:10pm
(Noble picks Morimoto, the Iron Chef Japanese, the man who thinks it's till early 90s and he's a rock star...)
Ku: Morimoto! We lose.
Sam: the owner of all the Chefs wears weird gloves inside his Kitchen Stadium.
Ku: Morimoto was stretching his hammies, dude.
Sam: Neo Japanese Cuisine... With potatoes....man it's like they might as well do crackers...or cereal.
(Sam's crushed, and he's crying. Maybe I should have let him in on the fact that it was going to be potatoes.)
Sam: Both of them look pissed off.
Ku: 4 types of potatoes. Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, and potatoes.
Ku: I must say, the chefs will have a tough time trying to make potato be in front and center.
Sam: Quison.
(Quison = Fukui-san. Sam never got that it was someone's name... Poor Sam.)
Ku: Spudsville.
Sam: Yukio Hashii... I love his fake voice... he chose well.
Ku: Doc's up.
Sam: Oh man the Iron Chef is the first to use meat. That's so upsetting...
Ku: Is he frying lamb in peanut oil?
Sam: The canadian is just cuttin' up potatoes
Ku: Poutin. I want the Canadien to make poutin.
Sam: Oh quison...yes, this is lamb.
Sam: Quison, the iron chef is using beef....
Ku: Beef and potatoes.
Sam: Duh.... Iron Chef Japan is using beef and potatoes... stew....so boring.
Ku: Well, potatoes, dude. Potatoes. Are you crying, again, Sam?
Sam: How do you grill in an oven? The play-by-play guys suck.
11:15pm
Ku: That thinly shaved potatoes? Pasta-less lasagna.
Sam: Man...they have slo-mo.....potatoes for lasagna you say?
Ku: Yup.
Ku: You know, different potatoes have different starch content and makes it different texture.
Ku: I was wrong.
Sam: Mayquin Potatoes are similar to Canadian potatoes... That's what I'm gonna take away from this.
(Overjoyed, crying, says he.)
Sam: Trash talking has begun.
Sam: Ohhhh....the guy from our attic says he's refined.
Ku: Smoke salmon is cheating.
Sam: Man they're talking shit about each other.
Ku: Wrap-job.
Ku: sounds dirty.
Sam: Quison... Quison...it looks like they like to use Saran Wrap.
(Commercial break)
Ku: We're neglecting drinking.
11:20pm
Sam: okay first commercial break. My first impressions: What the hell is "Quison"? The Iron Chef, does he have home field advantage?
(As I said, second commercial break. Sam still doesn't get it. Poor guy...)
Sam: I can't believe Old Navy hasn't gotten a new ad campaign.
Sam: Do they (the chefs) just have every conceivable ingredient available to them... Could I be like "Quison, I need Skittles, Chloraseptic, and unwaxed dental floss??
(The show starts, again)
Ku: Butter, butter, more butter. Beating the potato like that will bring gluten out and the mashed potato will be like glue... unless you use a ton of fat with low-starch potato.
Sam: Oh the Iron Chef is using milk and butter and milk and butter....oh and milk and butter.
Sam: Quison...the iron chef is making super rich plain mashed potatoes.
Sam: Oh...did I mention they're using milk and butter in the mashed potatoes.
Ku: You can grill it, you can boil it, cook it in a pan or a pod... it's still a potato.
11:25pm
Sam: Okay....the guy (one of the judges) from Japan who looks like he tortures people admitted Japan doesn't have veggies.
Ku: See, tuna, lamb, beef... where is the potato?
Sam: Quison...the iron chef....is spending a lot of time on mashed potatoes.
Sam: Quison...the challenger put the holes in the potatoes.
(Noble shaved a potato very thin, then he punched two holes on the potato sheet)
Sam: what the hell is bonito broth?
Ku: Akiko the actress says this Canadian is like Morimoto.
Ku: Tuna.
Ku: Bonito is a type of tuna, I think, Sam. But I'm not entirely certain.
Sam: Who is the guy helping the canuck?
Ku: They are both using wasabi?
Sam: oh...so surprising the iron chef is using wasabi.
Sam: Man...the chefs of the world love frying stuff...
Sam: Fried lamb roll.
Ku: Lamb potato sausage... How about some potato!!!
Ku: Maple syrup and cod.
Sam: Ohh waddya know the canuck is using maple syrup.
Ku: I've had a chestnut-wild-boar sausage, much like that sausage the challenger's making in a Belgian restaurant, actually.
11:30pm
Ku: Mascarpone, salmon, caviar... I think I'm going to puke.
Sam: Quison, quison, quison, caviar.
Sam: Bold and chunky beef and potatoes... man, I'm transfixed. I need a tissue to wipe off my face. Where is the box?
Ku: This was a bad idea, dude. I'm hungry. You've gone through a whole box of tissues. I'll get you a new one.
Sam: Cmmercial Break #2 Impressions: Quison, it appears as though both guys know what they're doing.
Ku: I'd like to try the potato-smoked salmon napoleon with mucho caviar.
Sam: But...I think they get more time than we do...if Rache Ray can do thirty minute meals...something tells me Iron Chef Oman wouldn't be able to do a good job in only double the time...
Sam: I want to see an iron chef do Rachel Ray in 30 minutes.
Ku: Are we allowed to say that?
Ku: Wait. I take that back. We're on the Docket. Nobody's reading it.
Sam: Quison... it appears as though he is going to take her from behind....and then
Ku: I find Rachel Ray annoying.
11:35pm
Sam: You think she's annoying?
(Suddenly, I felt threatened. Man, Sam's touchy about this. He's welling up...)
Ku: Yeah man. Her laughter kills me.
(OK. Back to the show.)
Sam: Man, the iron chef is using meat for a sauce.....what a poser!
Ku: That's some gravy, I'll tell you.
Sam: Broccoli... I shoulda known when they told me they know nothing about veggies.
Sam: And again with the frying
Sam: well...I guess it is potato
Ku: Chopped giblets?
Sam: chopped giblets????
Sam: Quison....the iron chef gave me a list of the ingredients while he was cooking 13 things at the same time...this show is a farce.
Ku: That balsamic vinegar.... that alone is like $10.
Sam: Quison....man that guy's on coke.
Ku: 3 sauces for one dish? I don't know about that.
Sam: Potatoes and bonito soup... Oh and again with the milk...
(Inexplicably, Sam breaks into tears...)
11:40pm
Ku: Anyway, that potato's been beat so much that all the gluten came out, and make it all sticky gooey.
Sam: Man...the Japanese guy with the ear piece is creepy.
Ku: That chef Canadien looks like he's doing some Belgian food plus.
Ku: I was hoping for some poutin.
(For your edification, poutin is french fries, melted goat cheese, and gravy. It's Quebecois.)
Sam: 15 seconds
Ku: Over...
Ku: I'm going with the French Canadien.
Ku: Mille feuille? And I thought it was napoleon.
Sam: Potatoes and salmon mille feuille, tune sate and potato soup, Mashed potaoes and cod saute Lamb and potato roll
Ku: I'd much rather have the Canadien dude's meal.
Sam: Iron Chef? Potato appetizer Japanese style, fried potato noodles, mashed potatoes, Kyoto style... Beef and potatoes, NY style.
Ku: That beef and potato with three sauces is where he loses.
Sam: Sweet potato dessert.
Sam: You'd think the iron chef's translators could do a better job naming his stuff.
11:45pm
Sam: Commercial Break #3: the Iron Chef won...if it's cold out. Everything he made was soup.
Ku: The translators use words like awesome. That's not bad. Not NY, but not bad.
Sam: Ku likes the Mexico commercials...they make him feel warm and fuzzy.
(You know the super cheesy commercials. About the caddy or the little kid on a bicycle, or the resort owner calling... I was just trying to reach down to Sam's emotional level.)
11:50pm
Sam: all of these people tasting seem to be saying not so subtly... I'm so important and knowledgeable.
Sam: Man....the iron chef is gonna win. He gets to narrate his dish and what not. Home field advantage. And because if he doesn't the judges are gonna be dropped in boiling hot water by that owner man in a creepy costume.
(Another commercial break, and Rachel Ray is on, again)
Ku: Nothing blows your fantasy like Rachel Ray standing next to Bobby Flay.
(Bobby Flay is another TV chef who does a lot of Southwest stuff. He owns a few restaurants in Manhattan, and he thinks he's the shit. Neither Sam nor I like him. And Sam's crying because Bobby Flay seems to be talking to Rachel Ray in that 2 second bit.)
11:55pm
Sam: We should have American chef...with Affleck, Stallone, Courtney Love, and Anne Heche...oh wait, no , Gary Busey.
Sam: Citibank, if there's more to life than money...then why do I owe you money Citibank?
(Oh, stop crying, Sam. It'll all be alright.)
Sam: Why don't we write off my debt? Where is the new box of tissues?
Ku: Man, I'm not emptying out the trashcan.
(The show's on)
Sam: Dude the guy who owns the chefs is definitely beating them. Poor chefs. God, I think I'm going to cry...
Sam: He's like the guy who steals children in "Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang."
Ku: Fukui is his name.
Ku: Fukui-san.
Ku: ...Quison.

Remembering Ken Caminiti

2004-11-01T18:21:00.000-05:00

KU SAYS:
Can you hear the drums, Fernando? This story is about Iliad, the greatest story ever told, and the first anti-war story, before All Quiet on the Western Front or Full Metal Jacket. Sitting in the Greek war camp on the shores of Asia Minor, Achilles was contemplating about his life. To be the hero who wins the war and be slain or to abandon the war and live a full life; that is the choice... only this time, we're talking about steroids, crack cocaine, baseball, fame... Caminiti's death.
Well, I know that highway like I know my hand. Every hero must prevail against the trial; that's what makes a person a hero. Of course Barry Sanders enduring Wayne Fonts era Lions... that's beyond heroic. Anyway, back thousands of years ago, you'd have to have a parent who was immortal to be a hero, but we've long since been in agreement that that was an unfair standard. Even with the default I've-got-an-immortal-parent pedigree, some heroes were given options others were not. La vie est dure.
Just like an old time movie about a ghost from a wishing well. But even now the analogy stands; some of the heroes of the Heroic Age, very few, if any, had been given the chance and knowledge that Achilles was given - be the king of the dead or live a humble life.
It's time we stopped pretending things are real. The trend is changing once again. At least some are given the option to become a hero running into an almost certain doom in the course of becoming the hero. Caminiti, once a heralded hero, was one of a few who was given that choice. A life of a professional athlete in modern day harkens back to the old shame culture. Simply put, more bling, the better.
I guess I shoulda known by the way you parked your car side ways it wouldn't last. A professional athlete's shelf life is short and a single injury could end his/her career. Think for a minute before you shed your tears for the harsh conditions that these folks have to suffer, and ultimately Caminiti, our boy of the week, endured. He was given the choice, and he knew it. He knew the risk and danger involved. Before I go on, let us not forget that Caminiti's death likely came about from his use of steroids and crack cocaine.
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Now, lest you go on and think that I have only one didactic agendum to share, I want you to think of the choice and put yourself in that position. Perhaps Caminiti was not contemplating the choices with such epic consequences. He probably was not thinking, "if I don't go on this cycle of steroids, the Padres will not make it to the World Series."
I took my trouble down to Madam Ruth; you know, that Gypsy with a gold cap tooth. But I bet you; at the very least he knew his great performance aided by a performance enhancer meant something good for the team, and the proximate benefit of bigger salary, perhaps. And what did he say? About a half of the big leaguers were using steroids? Still the choice is this - do you take the chance of inflicting harm onto yourself for the chance of collective and personal glory or are you satisfied with being mediocre?
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat, I'd give it all gladly, if our lives could be like that. A Woody-Allen-esque response might be that mediocrity never seemed so attractive, especially when mediocre means that you are one of the handful best to make it out. But Caminiti was a pro-ball player surrounded by other excellent, always-been-the-best players.
The hero is exposed when his crimes are brought to the light of day. Hindsight affords an easy justification and even swifter condemnation. But the initial choice has always been constant from the days of the aristocracy created by having immortal parents to multi-millionaire athletes spitting tobacco juice and swinging a wooden bat: Whether to lead an extraordinary life at a cost or to be content with the "now."

SAM SAYS:
The baseball season is almost over. In both leagues, the championship series went seven games; inducing many to rejoice that we’re in the midst of the greatest postseason ever. The game is back on top. Finally baseball purists and progressives can sit together and bask in the beauty of a game they both love for different reasons. The Red Birds are playing the Red Sox and life is good.
But just under three weeks ago baseball lost one of its most intriguing former players. Ken Caminiti, aged 41, passed away. A heart attack, resulting from years of chemical abuse, was the apparent cause of death.
Caminiti, a third baseman, was the unanimous choice for the national league MVP in 1996 after a monster year for the San Diego Padres. In 1998, he led the team to the World Series. Many remember Ken as a warrior, legendary for his competitive nature and ability to play through tremendous amounts of pain. In fact, the year he won the MVP he played with a torn rotator cuff for most of the season and still hit 40 home runs with 130 RBI. The Padres won their division.
But the biggest reason people remember Ken Caminiti is for his admission of using steroids in a 2002 issue of Sports Illustrated. He blew the doors open on this previously rarely mentioned problem in Major League Baseball and indicated that at least 50 percent of ball players were using illegal performance enhancing drugs. By speaking this truth, he lost a great many friends in the baseball world. The players were upset with him for bringing attention to the problem. When he admitted what he had done, the people turned on him.
While many players still refuse to admit that steroid use is rampant in baseball, you’d have to be an idiot to believe them. Yes, the game may demand its players to be more athletic and stronger than it used to, but a look at the Phillies slugger Mike Schmidt in the 80’s and virtually any guy playing the game now will reveal a stark difference. The players are huge. I don’t think it’s something in the water.
Many fans are crying for baseball to do something about this problem. And like any institution, change is slow to come. Baseball claims that it is addressing the issue.
But what many fans are missing is that the problem isn’t with baseball or its players. It rests with them. Players aren’t doing steroids because they want to have beautiful abs and pecs….well, maybe Gabe Kapler would, but that’s a different issue. They are doing steroids because they want to be popular with the fans. The easiest way to do this is to hit home runs, and lots of them. So the players have responded by jacking themselves up. The baseball isn’t juiced, they are. And the fans respond by loving them and leaving them. We should be ashamed.
I guess I just feel bad for a troubled man that was pushed from doing the right thing by the fans. Fans who in turn want to blame everyone but themselves for the repercussions their desires create. While I don’t even know what my opinion of steroids in the game is, I do know that SportsCenter and the Home Run Derby and fandom in general has hoisted them into the training regimen of our players while at the same time claiming outrage that it’s occurring. I think that’s garbage and the problem isn’t going to disappear until the fans determine what their priorities are.

Yankees and the Red Sox

2004-10-11T18:17:00.000-04:00

Hey, Sahllie! Bring me anothah beeah. The game is about to begin!

Alas, I concede. With the Tigers having been playing something resembling AA ball club for the past so many years, I sought asylum in the Red Sox Nation. My excuse? Having lived for six years in Middletown, CT, which is literally halfway between Boston and New York, you have two choices: The Red Sox or the Yankees. I went with Pedro Martinez and the Green Monster.
At first, the dichotomy of the two cities is uncanny. Vernacularly, one city is the center of intellectual pursuit and the other, the pinnacle of commerce. The truth is, I have never been to the Fenway and not seen an under-aged girl getting kicked out for drinking; there is something cultish about it in the shadows of the Green Monster. And the Yankees' very own bleacher creatures; they are something else all together. I pity the centerfielders of the visiting teams. Poor caveman Johnny...
While you might think that the Appealing The Balk has not been around long enough to be self-referential, I must admit, I wept over writing that the Sox would eventually lose. There, I said it. Ah, the unbelievable lightness of being... As a longer-time Sox fan said to me just a few days ago, and even Sam hinted not so implicitly in his rant, I am not so certain if Boston and the "Red Sox Nation" are ready for winning the last game of the season for the first time in something like 86 years.
Be that as it may, I am here to tell you about the Yankees. Yes, the Yankees. Once again, the Yankees and the Red Sox will meet in the American League Championship Series. Yes, the Yankees. This is how it must be. Why? Because Luke Skywalker had to at least once face Darth Vader. Because otherwise, it ain't right. Because even though I'd like the Lions to win the Superbowl, it just won't be the same without Barry Sanders (as I fantasized) carrying the winning touchdown coming back from behind. Because the Red Wings had to go through the Avalanche after they were pummeled by the Avalanche in 1996; and they did. And justice was done. Because Michigan could lose all of the games for the whole season, but if they just win one game of the season, against "the" Ohio State, the season is vindicated. Everybody knows it.
Because Frazee sold his sluggin' pitcher, because the Sox won 5 World Series before the Yanks were even in one, because Bucky Dent hit that homerun over the Green Monster, because Buckner was one of the best players on that '86 squad, the goose egg notwithstanding, because someone called it the curse of the bambino (an illegitimate child of anti-Semitism, born after 1986 World Series), because Aaron Boone is a bum, because Nomar was traded, because A-Rod is a Yankee, because the Sox' enabled the Yankees to trade for A-Rod... because they are the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.
Don't be mistaken; the goal is for the Sox to go through the Yankees and win it all. If Boston indeed goes through the Yankees, heads will roll in the Yankees organization. And that in and of itself is entertainment. If Boston win it against the Yankees but lose the World Series, the government had better allocate some of the National Disasters Fund whenever they are playing each other next season, or make them play in Montreal as a neutral site. But if they do win it all, you will hear the collective sigh of relief from New England, and the victory, all the more vindicating and absolving. I mean, Sam might even start talking slower. But Red Sox fans, if they should falter, you always have the next year, and that's a luxury Yankees fans are without.

American Heroes and the True Meaning of Hotdogs

2004-10-04T17:46:00.000-04:00

Ku says:
I love hotdogs. I love hotdogs more than I love Barry Sanders. First of all, they have that certain quality of je-ne-sais-quoi. More importantly, they taste good. And they are a perfect form of food. First, you take the unwanted and nearly inedible parts of animals, and somehow, make this other form of food that, well, tastes so good, as my Southern neighbor would say, you'd wanna slap yo' mama. It transcends political and socio-economic borders. When my family lived in Korea and was not so well-to-do, it served as an adequate meal. And it tasted good.
Now that I am older and have finer appreciation for culinary wonders, I can appreciate the different types of hotdogs eaten with different types of mustard and other condiments that I may or may not approve of during a normal eating of hotdogs. Different types of 'dogs must be prepared differently to call it prepared to its perfection, but generally speaking, I like mine boiled in beer and then grilled. Within the common denominator of the hotdog hierarchy, a corndog may be better than a hotdog for its pure luxury value, coupled up with the fact that someone figured out how to serve a 'dog and the bun deep-fried together on a stick. Once you move into the upper echelon of 'dogs, you may not boil nor think of such atrocity as deep-frying.
While I am on a rant on the 'dogs, let me say something about the buns, since their relationship is perhaps more bound by a destiny forever and more that Al and Peggy Bundy. It used to bother me that people would buy the cheapest form of buns. You know what I'm talking about; the Giant Eagle (substitute your favorite local ginormous chain grocer here) brand that is basically the Wonderbread folded in two. Yeah, that. So, last summer, I did my research of buns to support my diatribe. Different types of buns. Potato buns, sesame buns, challah buns (I know some hotdogs are not kosher, but neither am I -- I like New England Clam Chowder. What can I say?), onion buns, you name it, I tried it. And my conclusion was that the general ignorance is well served. You see, you don't want the taste, texture, and the weight of the hotdog bun to intrude on your enjoyment of eating a hotdog. At the end of the day, it is the 'dog you want, and not the bun. You want your 'dog and mustard, and sometimes sauerkraut, to shine through. The bun is just a supporting cast that mediates the interaction between the other more flavorful ingredients. Wonderbread whitebread bun, in fact, may be my favorite form of hotdog bun. I am frankly a bit worried that the company is going bankrupt.
But here is the real issue. Kobayashi and his 53.5 hotdogs in 12 minutes. The idea is so crass, it is almost cool. It is so excessive that it is incredibly American, so much so that you might as well have a clause in Patriot Act as a way to determine if a suspect is truly an American or not. 53.5 hotdogs. Sounds even remotely like some timed record that Lance Armstrong set, doesn't it? Don't be fooled. That is 53.5 hotdogs that were wasted and those 'dogs will never be whole, again, I'm afraid.
You see, that barbaric act violates the sanctity of hotdog-eating holiness. Violates? It is the nadir of all bad media creations, handily surpassing X-Games Olympics and even the spousal trading reality TV show. First of all, when was the last time you just "ate" a hotdog? No, no, no, no, no. There is always a ritual involved with it. You go to the ball game, wait until the 3rd inning is over, and grab a dog. You had to have weighed the pros and cons of getting the jumbo dog, kielbasa, Italian sausage, or your regular garden-variety 'dog. The argument usually goes, 'if I get the cheaper 'dog now, I can get another after 4th inning, but if I get the bigger one, I think I can last until the 6th inning when I can get the curly fries.' Another common way you might eat a hotdog is your backyard barbeque session. You got beers in the cooler, and you are yelling at your buddies about the strike-zone rules of whiffleball. It's brilliant.
But then, we have this hotdog eating competition entirely based on speed and not eating. The man soaks his buns in water just so he can more easily "eat." Water. You know what that's like. Everybody knows it, when barbequing, your drunken friend knocks over the beer, water bottle, pitcher of margarita, or whatever, the first thing to grab is the buns. Why? Because a soggy bun is categorically, yes, categorically, gross. Worse yet, Kobayashi eats them separately. Who eats their dog and the bun separately? I suppose Dr. Atkins would have been happy that the buns weren't being eaten, but he wouldn't know the whole story since he died before Kobayashi shoved them down his gluttonous throat, dripping with water. It is a total disgrace.
Whether or not you know it, you feel it in your heart, and that's not just the clogged artery. Hotdog-eating is indubitably American, and its purity deserves to be protected. Kobayashi is just a poser, the competition is a hollow charade of infantilization of American psyche by the big business, and damn right, you heard it here first. And please, next time you are at the grocery store of some repute, stop by the deli and ask what hotdogs they carry (I'm not talking about the shrink wrapped ball-park franks, but the gourmet, upper echelon of hotdogs, which still costs under a dollar per 'dog), and try a few. And say that you'll love the experience for the rest of your life. America needs you.

Sam says:
I’m a competitive person. I’ve found you can turn pretty much anything into a contest; and frequently I do. For instance, you should see the satisfaction in my eyes when my time eclipses yours at the grocery store self-check…. and I started ringing after you, had 4 more items, and produce to weigh. Plus I was on the phone, and I still beat you. You should be embarrassed.
But that’s because I was raised in America; where success is measured by individual achievement. Cooperation is for the weak and needy. Unfortunately for sports, this means the “team” has taken a back seat to the “player”. Today, personal stats and endorsements are the true measure of success, and winning is only paid lip service. Respect (read: more money) for the athlete’s skill is what matters. In fact, team sports sole relevance may lie in producing the stats on which our fantasy teams depend.
For all of this, the spectators have no one to blame but themselves. Yes, I’m being dramatic, but things have changed for the worse. However, this does not mean sports are lost for the fan. I think we’ve just (de)evolved.
How else can you describe the recent explosion in popularity of “sports” like NASCAR, poker, billiards, ping-pong, (I’m sorry, ahem: table tennis) and the X-Games? Just as in the grocery store, now it’s mano-a-mano; may the best person win. I’m not too big on this recent shift in competitive spirit. It’s not as exciting, and true sportsmanship has been lost to the ego. Additionally, it’s just too easy to digest….with one notable concession.
Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi is a God. This guy has guts on par with astronauts and crippled rodeo clowns. He is a beast. For the ignorant, Kobayashi eats food, competitively, for a living. Once, he spent 15 minutes consuming 17.7 pounds of cow brains: a new world record! I shudder to think what it must feel like to lose in such an event. After all the training. The dejection you must feel as your spouse rubs your back while you regurgitate 13 pounds of losing effort in the form bovinal frontal lobe into a Porto-potty. Will she leave you? What’ll the guys say back at the slaughterhouse? Will they stop giving you the price discount?
But Kobayashi’s real talent is for hot dogs. He’s a four year champion in ‘Nathan’s Famous” hot dog eating contest: an event that has been held every 4th of July since 1913. The contest, and the ones like it all over the world are simple. You and your fellow qualifiers--yes, you actually have to qualify to get a stool at the table-- eat as many hot dogs (with buns) as you can in a 12-minute period. If anything comes out of your mouth, you’re disqualified. That’s it.
Last year William “the Refrigerator” Perry got a celebrity voucher to compete and ate four dogs. Kobayashi, weighing 132 pounds and standing 5’ 7”, ate 50.5, and he was disappointed. Still, I think he did an admirable job. This year he stepped up production (actually, I think I mean consumption) and put down 53.5 dogs, breaking his world record. His method of breaking the Hot Dog and bun in half (the Solomon Method) and shoving it in his mouth is the secret to his success. I also posit, with limited proof, that he has a triple jointed stomach. But I’m still waiting for the test results…..
Many athletes put their bodies on the line when they compete, but what’s one supposed to think about Kobayashi? In each event he gains roughly eight pounds and the ire of those with eating disorders.
Now for those of you thinking this is just one guy doing something stupid: you’re probably right. But he’s doing it with a bunch of other individuals who care just as much, if not more, thereby meeting the true definition of sport. His closest competition comes from Eric “Badlands” Booker a 400-pound American behemoth. And hanging tough on the outside is the “Steffi Graf” of competitive binge eating: Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas. She can eat 32 dogs in competition. Additionally proving she very well may be the most expensive first date in America.
Kobayashi has actually lost only one Hot Dog competition….to a Kodiak bear in one of the Man vs. Beast episodes. But I don’t think that’s fair. His stomach must have been in knots with fear of imminent death; who knows how a Kodiak would take a loss.
Further establishing itself as a fully legitimate sporting enterprise, hot dog eating is not without controversy. Each year there are claims of doping directed, as usual, at the sports premier competitor. It seems some think Kobayashi may be using muscle relaxants, enabling his freakish stomach to stretch even further. And of course, to meet the xenophobe quotient in fandom, there were those who claimed when Kobayashi burst on the scene 4 years ago that the man from Japan had two stomachs. Many have insisted that at least two of his wins have come despite some detritus escaping his mouth through his fingers—reminiscent of the old Play-Doh Pasta Maker—but “The Tsunami” and the judges say that’s just the sting of loss.
But it doesn’t get in Kobayashi’s head, or affect his game. It’s all in a day’s meal for “The Tsunami”.

Football vs. Fútbol

2004-09-27T17:36:00.000-04:00

Ku Yoo and Samuel Riotte
KU SAYS: 'Tis the season. All fans adorn their favorite team colors and head to the stadium, be it to eat, drink, make business negotiations, or be submersed in the rich tradition of fandom. What that means is quite a different thing, depending on where the Atlantic Ocean touches the shores of your continent.
Before I go anywhere, there is one reason and only one reason why anyone should ever watch football -- Barry Sanders. Granted, Michael Vick is making it pretty exciting, but we'll see. Now that we're clear on that, let me just mention that the proud traditions comprising this continent's football stems from the tactics of World War I. Remember, back in high school, we all learned about the British foot soldiers marching proudly toward the firing machinegun? Yeah, the game has monumentalized the futile struggle.
On the other hand, fútbol celebrates the zenith of humanity. It's patient, efficient, and intelligent. It's creative, explosive, and decisive. It's both deliberate and spontaneous. It tests the discipline and the ingenuity of each player. It awards the physically gifted and the mentally astute.
A player must understand his/her role within the team, yet a player is entrusted to play to the best of his or her ability, which may be that he/she roams outside of the formation. It is a constant display of chaos and order of Ovidian proportion, a tug of war between artful display and industrious efficiency, and an Augustan struggle.
The game of soccer may just be a game, but its course of history has inspired the fans to imbue the game with -- shall we say -- more civic spirit. What the hell am I talking about? Think back to 1980, Miracle on Ice. One of the biggest reasons why we still remember it as one of the biggest victory is because of the political rivalry between the Soviets and U.S.
Now with that in mind, think back to George Orwell, Ernest Hemmingway, Spanish Civil War, and Franco. Remember Franco, the fascist? While he was in power, he wanted to weaken the regional political and cultural identity. As many other European "city states" were, these regions were mostly autonomous, even after the advent of WWI style nationalism. One of the targets was the region of Catalonia, where Barcelona is. No region was allowed to display the regional flag, but the Barcelona soccer fans waved their flags incessantly during the game. Even Franco did not touch the sanctity of a soccer match.
Now that we are onto European soccer scene, let me just add another bit. You, the "average" American, should like the way Europeans conduct their player transactions. There is no trade to speak of. A club with enough money simply buys the contract right from the other club (who may also be money strapped or in possession of a dissatisfied player). Every once in a while, a right to a player is negotiated as a part of the whole purchasing package.
This is pure capitalism in the spirit of ruthless American efficiency. In fact, this should sound vaguely familiar: Real Madrid buys all the "best" (read: most famous, or if you prefer Spanish, los galácticos) players. Now, this might sound contrary to my romanticized civil struggle against the dictator-favored Real Madrid, but it makes the victory all the more... well... sweet. And unlike the Red Sox, the underdogs win enough that people who love that struggle are satisfied.
Listen, I don't want you to go away thinking that soccer fans are Gore-esque stiffs, walking around citing Marx or Keynes. These people frequently travel across many borders to root for their team, drinking from about 10am until 4am. And between 7-10pm, when the game is on, they drum away, chant and sing songs. If you can, next time you are in the Netherlands, I urge you to spend a whole day with the fans on a game day, especially if Amsterdam is playing Rotterdam. You will know then why it’s called “Dutch Courage.”

SAM SAYS: Any “sports guy” worth his weight in pretzels will argue about the X’s and O’s of athletics until blue in the face. Other conversation is just filler between convincing anyone who’ll listen that, say, there’s no way Bjorn Borg could play on the same court as Pete Sampras, or that the Dave Wannestadt is a crybaby who doesn’t deserve to play football video games.
I don’t even watch hockey but I could argue for hours that the defensive style introduced by the New Jersey Devils, while suffocating and effective, is bad for the sport. And like most sports guys, I’m evangelical about my beliefs. I will convince you I’m right. Otherwise, you can just go to hell.
So it is with a sigh that I approach the question of football or fútbol. Much like the whole Coke vs. Pepsi thing, it’s just too easy. Football kicks fútbol-soccer for the ethnocentric--squarely in the jaw.
Now keep in mind, when I speak of football’s superiority as a sport when compared to fútbol, it is from the spectator’s perspective. This is not an empirical question dealing with actually playing the sport. It is simply about watching the sport.
I played soccer competitively until I was 19. I really want to like watching it, but I think I’d prefer to watch the same episode of Kate and Ali during the 2 banal hours that normally encompasses your average soccer match. Or even the WNBA.
First and foremost, football involves individuals who are unquestionably insane. They are also freaks of nature. All of the players have spent the better part of their lives creating and channeling rage that is then focused on another human being. The ultimate goal is that you and ten insane companions manage to cross an arbitrary line with a ball while eleven other insane people try to stop you.
Football is little more than organized violence. These men are literally sacrificing their bodies in the effort. Football has made rules about tackling so that players don’t cripple themselves, and the players still refuse to follow them. When you have to legislate to prevent selfinflicted harm and the protected complain about it, you know you’re dealing with some compelling people and you just have to watch.
In contrast, soccer players use skill and athleticism with manners and grace that is impressive, but nothing more. Soccer players don’t give you the sense that something is at stake like football players do. Or, if they do, it’s because they might have changed their hairstyle. The game itself is just so hard to really get into.
Football also demands a certain level of education from its viewers. There is a structure to it that makes it more engaging to watch. Every 30 seconds or so, the game could become dramatically different. Each down is a battle and there is a clear winner and loser. Generally speaking, the more downs you win, the more likely the game will be yours as well. The viewer is forced to determine what went right or wrong for their team and analyze it; just like the coaches on the sidelines. There’s an interactive feel to watching a football game.
Soccer, on the other hand, has two, long “downs” that are timed. When the time stops, you look at the scoreboard and it will tell you who won. That’s it. There really isn’t anything more to say. It doesn’t have the endless stats that tell the story of the game; stats that the viewer has to comprehend to understand what happened. Yes, the flow in soccer has a certain purity to it; but purity doesn’t make for good viewing. It’s boring.
And therein lies my point. Soccer is boring. There are few moments in each ninety-minute contest that are truly thrilling. Yes, goals are electrifying, but they come with such paucity that they’re anti-climactic. Every time I see one, I think, “thank God, at least something’s happening.” In football, even a scoreless game has “Omigod” moments infused with drama and excitement. At the very least, someone’s health may be on the line; and that makes for good television.
No doubt soccer has a few redeeming qualities. Unfortunately, none of them make it any more interesting for the unfortunate soul who actually has to watch it.

Ken Jennings - Master or Monster?

2004-09-21T17:28:00.000-04:00

Appealing the Balk: Ken Jennings—Master or Monster?
Ku Yoo and Sam Riotte

SAM SAYS:
I know I’m different. Most people do not think “Jeopardy” is a sport. But it is. Or at least it should be.
I bet the average American didn’t grow up in a house where “family dinner” revolved around the television. I did. In the Riotte home, the daily battle for the best seat and the best calculator was epic in scope and determination. I wish you could hear the answering machine messages.
Eating was secondary to ensuring that you positioned yourself with a glare-free view of the TV screen. We gorged ourselves during the commercials and bathroom breaks were suicide. Not to be cliché, but in the family room you could hear a pin drop. Just picture four of us adding and subtracting our current Jeopardy scores with a calculator (hopefully) free of sticky FLA-VOR-ICE juice.
Now I’ m an adult. But, I still watch Jeopardy with a passion that is bordering on sad. For a while it was a daily ritual. I would remember the TV dinner days, beating people who were older than me, and mist up. Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit. I rarely beat them. But they did make me cry, quietly, into my pillow, long after sleep should have taken my prepubescent psyche to the set of Full House.
So, as an authority on the emotional impact of Jeopardy on childhood development, I say the following: Ken Jennings is the devil. He’s pure evil, tucked in and wearing tube socks. I find him repugnant.
For those of you living in a cave (you don’t even need cable to watch Jeopardy), Ken Jennings is the man-child who has conquered every Jeopardy contestant he’s faced in the last, like, three months. His winnings are up around 1.5 million dollars. It’s disgusting and he needs to be stopped.
I challenge you to watch him and not desire to beat the pulp out of him. He smiles. He’s polite. He’s deferential. He is unquestionably smarter than anyone you know; and he knows it. I am willing to bet that he wears saddle shoes and that he’s never had a romantic relationship in his life. He makes me want to capitalize both words in the phrase anal-retentive. I find him at more annoying than the late 90’s MTV VJ named Jessie who won a spot next Kurt Loder by dressing like Steven Tyler and acting mildly retarded.
To be honest, I don’t really hate him. It’s just that he’s too good. In fact, I think he is actually bad for the game. He’s ruining Jeopardy. He’s reducing each opponent to the same 11 year-old boy I once was during dinner. And while doing it, he has created a show that is substantially different from the one that aired just 6 months ago. He’s the equivalent of a contestant that only lands on $5,000 and knows the answer on Wheel of Fortune. The parity is gone, and so with it ends the entertainment.
The first problem is that he’s become too comfortable on the show. After 40+ consecutive episodes, do you think you’d forget to phrase your answer in the form of a question? Would you be nervous in the studio? Ken isn’t. He probably goes out for warm milk with Alex Trebek after the show.
What about the new contestants? They are pitted against an established veteran with experience never before attained and never really intended. I like the old days when it was 4 wins and you’re gone; “see ya’ at the tournament of champions!”
Additionally, people love Jeopardy because they believe they could do well if given the chance. Mr. Jennings doesn’t provide such wishful thinking. Every viewer knows he would wipe the floor with him or her. He gets things wrong and it’s a surprise. Shocking.
Ken Jennings has obviously become bigger than the game. Googling his name provides 396,000 web sites—many being “cults” devoted to him. While his success was initially a boon, it now threatens to alter an institution that has gone essentially unchanged since the mid 80’s. I am concerned that the longer he maintains his saccharine sweet hug on its viewers, the harder it will be for the show to succeed. It will be difficult to continue providing adults and children fond Jeopardy memories after he finally loses.

KU SAYS:
The word "athlete" in Ancient Greek means "one who struggles." Speaking of Greek, did you know that the word "school" comes from a Greek word (by way of Old English, yes the language and not the beverage) that means leisure? Do you find it relaxing to read about tax evasion and car crashes while on 4 hours of sleep every night? Well, I digress.
Back to the point in question. In modern times, we've stretched the definition of athlete quite a bit, making bridge (yes, the card game your Jewish grandmothers like to play around a tea table, if I may mix the two cultures together) a part of the Winter Olympics. At least, there was a talk of it. I’m not sure what the outcome was, but that’s a topic for a future article. Now, I'm an avid bridge player (I nearly failed out of college thanks to bridge and whiskey), but a part of the Winter Games?
So comes the issue of Ken Jennings to our attention. Clearly, Mr. Riotte and I agree that Jeopardy is a sport of some kind. The contestants in the post-modern and post-post-structuralist world are indubitably athletes. Good for them.
Ken Jennings, of course, is the best of them all. His smug and sly smiles, the way he strikes down and sweeps aside his opponents, and every small movement of his struggle on screen scathes Sam. It makes him wantonly scream, "Shut up!" at his mere countenance.
I understand it all. But that is indeed what the best athletes do. They invoke such strong emotions as jealousy, and a feeling of mere inadequacy. I do not dare to suggest so openly that my counterpart is subjected to these emotional effects. In the event that he truly is, I ask, who of us have not wished enviously that we could just know cold the answers to every Jeopardy question? Who would not want to be like Bill Murray in Groundhogs Day, with his demeanor so halcyon, after having lived the same day multiple times?
In fact, Jennings' dominance and struggle deserve a second, revisionist examination. His peerless stature, tearing asunder the records in the field of Jeopardy, is reminiscent of the magnificent days of Michael Jordan, the wondrous vision of Wayne Gretzky, the menacing power and awesome grace of Mohammed Ali, the gentlemanly Joe Montana's immaculate pinpoint passes, the strong yet supple movements of Barry Sanders, and even the calculated and callous tyranny of Ty Cobb.
One might even argue that this hegemony is rejuvenating the viewership of the Jeopardy and the whole genre of game shows much the same way Tiger Woods made golf so much more hip and less flabby.
I mean, admit it…Jeopardy was adding on the unwanted pounds by introducing such worthless ideas as "Teen" Jeopardy and "Celebrity" Jeopardy to name a few. So hideous was the idea of Celebrity Jeopardy, even the two bit comics who blaspheme the sacrosanct Saturday nights have made countless jokes about the forum.
Spartan mothers used to send off their boys to war with one simple saying: "either with it or on it." It was the custom to send back dead bodies on their shields. They wanted nothing more than victory or death in battle. If you just don't have it, at least be honorable and let the battle of Jeopardy decide your fate.
Is KJ ruthless? Maybe. But his dominance cannot be questioned where survival is the game. So I beseech you, my fellow citizens, ought we not put a just and swift end to this recalcitrant, irreverent, and vilifying polemics against one of the greats that history has ever known? I know you will heed my call.

On World Series

2004-09-09T17:19:00.000-04:00

Appeal the Balk: On the World Series
Ku Yoo and Sam Riotte
Contributing Writers

Ku says:
This is the year. The Tigers go on a win streak for the rest of the season, take the AL Central, and they are in the playoffs...ok, if Barry Sanders comes out of retirement. So... instead, Boston in the World Series. Game 7. It's gotta’ be. Game 6 is so passé…so 1986…so Bucknerized. So it is.
Game 7. Bottom of the 5th, Boston goes up 3-0, all thanks to back-to-back-to-back homers by Ramirez, Ortiz, and Nixon. Wicked pissa.’ New England is in frenzy, waiting for it to happen. Oh, "it" happens.
Top of the 9th, one out, runner on 3rd, Boston leading St. Louis 7-6, Keith Foulke pitches his “palmball,” a mistimed bat cuts under the ball, and knocks a blooper to left field. Manny runs in a circle around the outfield, and he drops the ball. The tying run scores. The runner is on 1st.
Next, an infield pop-up to 2nd base. Orlando Cabrera and Pokey Reese run into each other. The ball drops. Johnny Damon picks up the ball. The ump calls the in-field fly rule for the 2nd out. The runner still on 1st. Foulke pitches. It's a palmball. Pujols pulls it hard, the ball skips down in the 3-4 hole, Mientkiewicz makes an unbelievable diving catch. Foulke runs to the 1st bag to cover, the ball is tossed to him. Pujols runs like a freight train, Womack is rounding 2nd, and the ball rolls off the top of the wide open glove of Foulke.
It bounces off towards the home dugout along with the annual New England daydream. The 3rd base coach gives Tony the go ahead signal, and he's running. The pitcher throws the ball to the catcher. Varitek makes the catch. Tony slides. Head first. Varitek tags Womack's sliding head, but the ump calls it good. St. Louis goes up by one. The entire state of Massachusetts is struck with anger, and the Commonwealth secedes from the union, citing the national conspiracy against the wishes of the Commonwealthians.
The Republican controlled congress under a special consideration grants the secession, noting their relief to get rid of the communist state. The entire crew of the 2004 Sox team writes a memoir called, Broken Dreams, A-Rod, and Equitable Estoppel: Bud Selig Promised Us That We'd Win One -- Story of 2004 Boston Red Sox, A Players' Perspective. Pedro becomes an anger management guru, a la Jack in that movie with that other guy from Boston who acts as a…well…a Yankees fan. Millar is out riding his coconut horse around Boston. Johnny Damon gets a role in Encino Man 2. Dream Works scouts David Ortiz to make Shrek 4: Ogre In The Hood. And last, but not least, Dennis O'Leary says he'll quit smoking. The book is placed along with Pete Rose's memoir. There is always the next year for the Sox fans.

Sam says:
Sometime in late October, the Red Sox are going to win the World Series. There, I said it. It may pain many of you to feel the phrase “World Champion Boston Red Sox” rattle around in your brain, but get used to it for the next year. The team is too good, too late in the season, with too much momentum to screw it up this time. Terrorism couldn’t stop them. Actually, you could probably argue they’re such perennial underdogs to the extent that even terrorists root for them.
You may call me a jinx, a fair-weather fan, a hometown fan, or even an idiot and I won’t hold it against you. Just a year ago I would’ve parked my running car in a garage upon hearing myself say this. But in 2004, the truth is: the Red Sox will win the World Series. Q.E.D.
The team’s recent play has been awesome. While the baseball purist will argue that each game over the course of a season matters exactly as much as the next, the realist knows otherwise. The realist understands that the “dog days” of August and September are what separate the contenders from the pretenders. And during those days the Red Sox are 26-8; a torrid pace that has only gained momentum as they careen into mid-September.
In addition, the team has recently dismantled the vaunted American League West. They swept the Angels and the Athletics while taking two out of three from the Rangers; all teams that were in step with the mind-boggling pace set by the Red Sox prior to actually playing against them.
As for the players, they’re smiling AND winning. They’re actually playing as team this year. This concept of “team” was THE essential aspect of the last three World Series champs, and the Red Sox have it right now. Traditionally, this point in the season finds the Sox undergoing physical and emotional breakdown. Manny out drinking with opponents, Pedro less than healthy and on media sabbatical, bullpen fisticuffs, the manager already fired come the off-season. Fans would be doing things most snuff films save for the uncut version.
Not so in 2004. I would bore you with stats and anecdotes, but I’d be bragging. Trust me and place your bets, they won’t let you down. Even New York’s AL team (I won’t name them), having watched the Red Sox gain nine games since Aug. 15 seem resigned to the situation. Days ago, they begged for a forfeit from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays--a team that’s “cute” the way a three-legged dog is--because the Rays couldn’t seem to fly out of Florida during some thunderstorm named Frances. That, my friends, is desperation. Over the weekend their “big time” off-season acquisition (actually one of many…Steinbrenner buys a new team every fiscal quarter) punched a wall, broke his hand and looks to be done for the season. The N.Y. Times even wrote an article about the success of the Red Sox new shortstop, Orlando Cabrera, who replaced Nomar Garciaparra--a man once more synonymous with Boston than the Tea Party.
But I say this all as a true, and miserable Boston fan. Sure, it will be great when we beat teams with efficiency seen only in footage of Third World public vaccinations. But there will be no drama. No close or botched calls. No questionable coaching decisions. In short, there will be none of the stuff that has raised the truly unique beast that is the Red Sox fan.
Sure, we will all go crazy, burn stuff, cause damage, and wake up a week later with a hangover and some unexplained scabs. People will die, simply because the only reason they’re still alive is to see a World Series won by their Red Sox. It will be a dream come true. But I’m wary. Boston, I think, likes to lose and hasn’t considered winning as an option since The Great War. For baseball fans in Boston, bad news is good news. This win doesn’t make sense and “What Now?” will be the ultimate, so-so feeling.