I see ads when I watch television, or read a newspaper or magazine. I hear ads when I listen to the radio. The football stadium in my city is Invesco Field. The baseball stadium is Coors Field. The basketball/hockey arena is the Pepsi Center. When I surf the web I get hit with banner ads, pop-up ads, and an email inbox full of spam. Companies buy product placement in the movies I watch and the video games I play. I go to get the mail and come back with a fistful of credit card solicitations and other junk. I have to sign up for a no-call list to avoid getting a dozen telemarketing calls each day. There exists something called the "Insight.com Bowl." Billboards litter the landscape. When I pump gas, an ad on the pump handle informs me that candy bars are 3 for 99 cents. NASCAR... 'nuff said. Ads are stuck to the floor at the grocery store, spoken in pleasant tones over the sound system, and printed on the back of my receipt. An ESPN college football analyst casually refers to the late-December bowls as "Capital One Bowl Week". During the half-hour before movies, when people used to chat pleasantly, we are now shown continuous ads for soda and pop music. Blimps and airplanes pulling banners turn the heavens into ad space. A Super Bowl champion announces that he is going to Disneyland.

Am I worth anything beyond my ability to consume?

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/31/2003 04:42:00 AM

I remember that sometimes, when I was a kid and I was taking a bath, my father would come around and bang on the door. My dad was a stout, strong man and he knocked about ten times louder than anyone else; it was as if he was angry at you for daring to put him on the wrong side of a closed door. Anyway, he would knock on the bathroom door -- bang bang bang bang bang -- and shout, "Make sure you wash your crotch!"

That seems like a very strange thing to say to a six-year-old. I didn't even know where my crotch was. I don't think I've heard anyone except my father use the word "crotch" in my entire life. It's an old-fashioned word, the kind you should expect to hear from a man who uses Brylcreem and calls men's swimming suits "trunks." Speaking of which, he always wanted me to wear a jockstrap under my trunks. And once he nearly ruined Mother's Day when he lost his temper and insisted that I wear an undershirt.

He was a good father, in a lot of ways. I think he lives in Illinois now.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/30/2003 03:50:00 PM

Thinking people have different opinions about whether sports teams should name themselves after Native American tribes or terms, as in the Cleveland Indians, Chicago Blackhawks, and Kansas City Chiefs. But can't we all agree that outright racial slurs should not be tolerated? Isn't this an obvious case of common sense joining hands with common courtesy?

I'm speaking, of course, of the Washington Redskins, who are in danger of having their trademark revoked. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled four years ago that the team's name violates a 1946 federal law banning the registration of offensive trademarks. The team appealed that ruling, and recently U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly indicated that she will soon rule on the case. If she rules against the team, they stand to lose millions of dollars annually in merchandising rights, which would effectively force the team to change its name.

Attorney Robert Raskopf, who represents the team, argues that "what is ridiculous is the claim that the Redskins' [trademark] ridicules anyone. ... Do some groups think that our famous football team's name is disparaging? Apparently. Fine. They're entitled to their opinion. ... But it has to be a high level of Native Americans. It can't be 7, or 70, or even 1,000."

This line of reasoning warms my heart for two reasons. First of all, the team has apparently accepted that it is the members of a group, and not society as a whole, who have the right to determine what is and is not offensive to them. Second, "a high level" of Native Americans has already determined that the term "redskin" is a disparaging racial slur. I challenge anyone who disagrees -- this means you, Robert Raskopf -- to head out to any reservation here in the West, walk into a bar where you are the only non-Native American, and start tossing the term "redskin" around. Free advice: wear comfortable running shoes.

At this point, various empty-headed types start snickering and asking, "What's next? Will the Minnesota Vikings have to change their name? We don't want to offend Norweigians, don't you know." Don't waste my time. Neither Scandinavians, Catholics, nor Irish people find the team nicknames "Vikings," "Padres," or "Fighting Irish" offensive, generally speaking, meaning that those names fail the racial slur test as described above.

So if Washington loses the case, what should be the team's new name? Click here to read Tuesday Morning Quarterback's excellent suggestions.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/29/2003 06:48:00 PM

I won my last fight. This was in 1986 or so, when I fought E.J. on the playground of Jefferson Elementary School in Mason City, Iowa. E.J. had been teasing me in school because I was an outcast and he wanted to boost his popularity, so I challenged him to a fight. No punches were thrown. We wrestled and rolled around on the ground for a while, and then I got behind him and shoved his face into the ground, which is how you win a fight when you are twelve years old. The next day I was pleased, and a little scared, to see that his face was scratched and had little scabs on one side.

So I have not been in a fight for 17 years, and I will probably never be in a fight again, and I am certain that this is a good thing. But sometimes I think about how I would perform in a fight. Actually, I know perfectly well how I would perform in a fight, so I think about what it would be like to be good at fighting. I imagine scenarios in which I would have no choice but to fight, and then I see myself laughing and evading my opponent's punches, ducking and weaving with expert ease, landing blows and hurting the other man at will.

These are ridiculous fantasies. But still I wonder about the power that comes from dominating another man, from instilling fear and inflicting pain. I know that fighting solves nothing and proves nothing. But still I wonder.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/28/2003 11:18:00 PM

When I am I rich I will eat sausage every day. Who will dare to stop me? I will eat Jimmy Dean breakfast sausages every morning, the kind flavored with maple syrup. I will consume bratwurst and Polish sausage and cheese Wranglers. I will nestle my sausages in only the finest buns, baked fresh daily, and I will dip them in Heinz ketchup from those nifty glass bottles. Sure, plastic squeeze bottles are more convenient, but I will be so rich that I will be able to hire someone to pour my ketchup for me. "How is that one man eats so much sausage?" people will ask one another, their brows furrowed with the effort of unraveling the mystery.

When I am rich I will breathe better air. Why should I have to breathe common air stinking of common people and their cheap cologne and beer farts? I will breathe air imported at ridiculous expense from a mountaintop in Switzerland, from a glacier in Iceland, from a tulip field in Holland. People who made fun of me in high school will write me long letters asking my forgiveness for their foolishness and begging to breathe for just a few moments the fresh, fragrant air that rich people like me take for granted.

When I am rich my shit will no longer stink. I will have radical surgery performed on my bowels so that my excrement will issue forth in perfectly-formed white cylinders lightly redolent of peaches or dogwood blossoms. My bowel movements will be filmed live as they emerge from my anus and the images will be broadcast on all the major networks, as well as CNN and Fox News. Beautiful women will offer me sexual favors in exchange for a few grams of stool to wear as perfume to society events.

I can't wait to be rich.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/27/2003 04:29:00 PM

Everybody seems to agree that Ichiro is the front-runner for the American League MVP award. Can somebody please explain why?

Thank you. I am fully aware that Ichiro's .331 batting average leads the league by a commanding three points. But what about Ichiro's other statistics? Specifically, what about his on-base percentage (OBP), which baseball statheads have shown to be a better measure of offensive performance than batting average? OBP is an especially important stat for speedy, scrappy leadoff men like Ichiro, whose job it is to get on base by any means possible -- clean hits, walks, errors, bunts, or by legging out slow rollers. Due to his inability to draw walks, Ichiro's OBP is just .371, ranking him 19th in the league and well behind OBP leader Carlos Delgado at .431. How can Ichiro be MVP when the one thing he is supposed to do best is done better by 18 other players?

Ichiro's MVP candidacy looks even worse when you consider his lack of power; he's hit just 11 home runs and his slugging percentage is .454. Forty-eight other players -- led by Alex Rodriguez at .602 -- are slugging better. Even better: let's add OBP to slugging percentage to generate OPS, probably the best single index for gauging production at the plate. Ichiro's OPS of .825 is 33rd in the league, light-years behind Delgado at 1.021.

Huh? What's that? You say Ichiro is the most complete player in the league, wreaking havoc on the basepaths and making an impact in the field? Ichiro does run well. He scores a lot of runs and is tied for second in the league in stolen bases. But it's hard to bring too much fury on the basepaths when your don't reach base often enough, and 92 runs scored plus 30 stolen bases won't make up for the enormous productivity gap at the plate between him and Jason Giambi, or Manny Ramirez, or even his teammate, Bret Boone.

I have to agree that Ichiro is the best outfielder in the game -- his range and arm are amazing. Still, he's a right fielder, and no right fielder contributes as much to his team on defense as a Gold Glove-winning shortstop like, say, A-Rod, who also sports an OPS of 1.001.

Look. Ichiro is a fine player and a joy to watch and I wish he played for my favorite team, the Rockies. I just wonder why so many observers rank him at the top of the MVP race in spite of massive statistical evidence placing him as a top-10 candidate at best. Also, I wonder why nobody is considering A-Rod for MVP. Aha! you say, that one's easy: A-Rod plays for a losing team. It shouldn't matter -- and that's a post for another day.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/26/2003 04:07:00 PM

I cleaned out the cupboards this last weekend and found, in the back, behind the vinegar, a box of Arm & Hammer baking soda and a tin of Clabber Girl baking powder. Both containers were nearly full, because the only time I use them is when I bake cookies maybe twice a year.

What struck me is that I have bought baking soda and baking powder perhaps half a dozen times in my life -- usually when I move, because I never actually use the stuff up -- and I have never purchased any other brands. Even when I was a kid helping my mom decorate Christmas cookies, the baking soda and baking powder were always Clabber Girl and Arm & Hammer. I've never even noticed any other brands for sale; I guess they got driven to bankruptcy by Clabber Girl's and Arm & Hammer's ruthless price-cutting and dog-eat-dog monopolistic tactics. I can picture the Clabber Girl boss at Clabber Girl headquarters, fat and bloated like in a Thomas Nast cartoon, laughing maniacally as he stares out the the window, surveying his mighty baking soda empire.

Do you think Clabber Girl makes baking soda, and Arm & Hammer makes baking powder? That would be weird if they did. I would buy some, just because it would be so weird.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/26/2003 12:15:00 AM

I took my car in yesterday to have some maintenance work done and it ended up costing me $1040.91. Yikes. That's about what I take home twice a month, and now it's just gone. I handed over my debit card, and a few electronic flashes later, 90 hours of work disappeared from my account. I wish I had gone to the bank and taken out $1040.91 in twenties and change to hand over -- then I could have handled the money, smelled it, spent a few last moments with it before I counted it out to Eric the Midas Guy.

Spending money on car repairs is especially depressing because all it gets you is the ability to drive around, which is what you were doing before anyway. If I had spent $1040.91 on books or clothes or a standup Galaga video game, I would be excited and happy. Don't give me your crap about not being materialistic, either -- everyone likes new stuff, including you.

So on the way home from the Midas dealership, I stopped off and did the rational, logical thing -- I spent more money. Specifically, I stopped at the bookstore and bought a book I've been wanting titled Moneyball for $26.75. Why not? I just spent $1040.91, for chrissake! Did I mention that the book is a hardcover? I never buy hardcovers. Virtually every hardcover I own was a gift from my rich aunt.

So I went to the coffee shop and ordered an iced mocha with whipped cream and some coffee cake and I read my new hardcover book. It made me feel better. You should try it sometime.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/24/2003 10:11:00 PM

I'm really disappointed with the new Arkansas quarter. I wasn't expecting much out of Arkansas anyway, but this is really a letdown. Look, you guys: Alabama put out a really decent -- if silly, see below -- coin, and Maine's design was inspired. But then Missouri gave us a terrible quarter that not only wasted space on the ultra-bland-and-meaningless slogan "Corps of Discovery," but also showed the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition rowing toward the Gateway Arch, which wasn't built until 1965. Anyway, Arkansas, we didn't need a home run out of you guys, just a good, solid effort to regain some momentum. And this is what we get -- rice stalks, a diamond, and a duck flying over a lake, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Bad state quarters mostly share the same fault: they cram too many of their precious state icons into a space measuring 0.8 square inches, resulting in cluttered compositions and barely identifiable images the size of Dick Cheney's conscience. Inexplicably, many designers of bad quarters get the odd urge to include the outline of their state as a design element. Look, Pennsylvania, I know perfectly well what your state looks like. Just because you got held back a grade doesn't mean the rest of us need a geography lesson every time we buy a gumball.

Good quarters, by contrast, eschew state outlines and concentrate on a single concept: The Charter Oak, the Wright Brothers' first flight, Washington crossing the Delaware, or a boy drawing sap from a maple tree. These are coherent designs that succeed through simplicity and allow for larger elements with clear details.

What's that? You're wondering what's so silly about the Alabama quarter? "I don't think it's silly at all, not one bit," you are saying. "That quarter has a beautiful portrait of the heroic Helen Keller, whose courage continues to inspire abled and disabled Americans alike to this very day. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. And quit picking your nose!"

First of all... this is my blog, and I'll pick my nose if I feel like it. Second, I'm not trying to make fun of Helen Keller. The designers of the Alabama quarter, in a well-intended stab at inclusiveness, put Helen Keller's name in both English and Braille on the reverse. The silly part is that the Braille dots are way, way too tiny to be read by touch, rendering them useless to actual blind people.

Okay, Michigan, you're up. Show us what you've got.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/23/2003 11:04:00 PM

Do you ever get that really strange feeling sometimes where you look around and think: I am really here. This is not a dream. I really do exist in this world that I am currently observing, and if I were to die right now, this world would continue to exist even without me here to experience it. I had that feeling last night, just before I went to sleep. I call it consciousness shock. It's terribly hard to explain, but I bet you're nodding your head right now in recognition. I always go through a weird vertigo when I'm in consciousness shock -- a kind of doubling back on myself as I struggle to step out of myself and observe my own consciousness. It seems like the experience should be frightening or upsetting, but in fact I find it oddly gratifying.

On a related topic... why did the first man get circumcised? Maybe a couple of guys were pissing together behind the village a few thousand years ago, and they had this conversation:
Guy A: See this chunk of skin that we have to pull back when we urinate? I bet you could just cut that right off.
Guy B: Well, I suppose you could. But why would you?
Guy A: Maybe He Who Lives Way Up In The Sky And Is The Answer To All Of Our Questions Because We Haven't Invented The Scientific Method Yet wants us to.
Guy B: Yeah, and maybe He doesn't want us to. I think I'll err on that side of things, seeing as how it doesn't involve indescribable pain and weeks of agonizing recovery.
Guy A: Okay, let's compromise. We don't actually have to do it, but we'll start doing it to all of the young boys, before they're old enough to question it.
Guy B: All right, I'm in.

(I realize that there is currently a raging debate over whether or not to circumcise, and that many people make a case for circumcision based on health issues. But I doubt they were compiling penile cancer statistics 5,000 years ago, and in any case circumcision at that time would have introduced major health risks due to the lack of surgical expertise and the risk of infection. I still wonder what made that first man agree to let someone else slice into his foreskin.)

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/22/2003 05:21:00 PM

Today I was out on my usual five-mile run when I saw a dog running around on someone's lawn. Now... I like dogs, really I do, but at that particular point in my life I really just wanted to finish my run; I was not looking to establish a new relationship with some random dog. The dog thought otherwise -- it saw me coming from half a block away and ran out on the sidewalk to meet me. The owner failed to notice this, being immersed in the important project of staring at the ground. I hoped the dog would let me run by unmolested, but it was just a big puppy, maybe nine months old, and it started jumping up and down and keeping me from getting past.

Only then did the owner, a middle-aged woman, notice what was going on. "Here, Bailey!" she called, clapping her hands. "C'mere, Bailey!" Bailey, not being human and/or properly trained, could not understand what she was saying and dashed about in a few delirious circles before intercepting me again. Finally the owner got Bailey to heel and I was able to continue my run. But how annoying!

I get very angry dog owners who refuse to control their animals. Look, you guys, your pets are not people. They are animals, and they behave accordingly. You are responsible for not letting them frighten and irritate other people. Here are the rules:

1. Train your dog. This means that your dog actually obeys the commands come, sit, stay, and heel, not that you have mastered the ability to shout them at your uncomprehending dog while it runs around and shoves its nose into the crotches of innocent passersby.
2. If you're too lazy to train your dog, or if you can't or won't keep an eye on it, put your dog behind a fence or on a leash. The purpose of a leash, by the way, is to restrain your dog, so it doesn't count to buy a 30-foot retractable leash that allows your dog to do whatever it wants.
3. Get it through your head that "commands" like "Get away from that man!" do not work because your dog is not human and does not speak English.
4. Don't assume that everyone else loves your dog as much as you do.
5. If you are five feet tall and weigh 95 pounds, don't buy a 150-pound German Shepherd, for chrissake.
6. If you are too dumb or irresponsible to follow these simple rules of common courtesy, you don't deserve to own a dog.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/22/2003 12:32:00 AM

I like girls with big noses. I do not know why... I mean, I never look at a girl and think, Wow, she's got a big nose. That's so hot. It's just that when I think about the women that I find attractive, a suspiciously large number of them have big noses. So if you're a pretty girl with a big nose, please please please don't go to the plastic surgeon and get your face all hacked up just so you can be another anonymously attractive sorority-girl clone with a cookie-cutter button nose. Wear that nose with pride and smile. Someone has to look interesting in this world -- why not you?

I also like girls with small breasts -- B-cups are ideal. What's the obsession with big tits? They're not interesting in any way; they're just big and dumb and floppy, like a summer blockbuster action movie. Small breasts, on the other hand, have character and style. They're firm and taut and intriguing, like a smart independent film. Removing a bra to reveal a pair of small breasts for the first time is like finding a treasure. Who knew what was hiding under there? Big boobs, by contrast, are always a disappointment. You've basically seen them already, and so has everyone else. Ladies, if you're considering getting breast enhancement surgery, don't. If you want men to stare at your chest -- and I can't imagine what other purpose a boob job would serve -- just wear a tight shirt. Guys will be drooling, even if you're sporting AA's. Don't you get it? Men are sheep. Treat us that way.

The moral of the story: don't pay some quack to tear your flesh so you can meet some impossible standard of beauty that has nothing to do with you. Because, you see, someone out there thinks you're beautiful.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/21/2003 01:22:00 AM

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to hold up under torture. If I got captured by some mob guys, and they tied me in a chair and got out some implements of torture and started asking me questions, I would answer them right away, even before they did anything. I would probably do this even if my answers led to death for other people that I cared about. Does that make me a bad person? It does? Well, who the hell are you to say so! You think you wouldn't crack? Oh, don't give me that shit. If some hulking mob guy got out a pair of pliers and threatened to apply them to your genitals, you'd talk -- don't think you wouldn't. You'd start talking before they even asked you any questions, you pussy.

But wouldn't that be the smart thing to do? I mean, it seems to me that nobody could resist torture indefinitely, not if the torturer had time to spare and knew enough not to kill you accidentally. So if you're going to talk anyway, why not just talk right away and spare yourself the agony? That's not very noble, I guess, but if all nobility gets you is several hours of excruciating pain at the hands of The Nutcracker, then I don't want any part of it.

The bad thing is that, even if you talk right away, the mob guys might torture you anyway, just to make sure you're telling the truth. Or maybe the mob guys would ask you a bunch a questions you didn't know, and you would say, "I don't know," and they wouldn't believe you and would torture you anyway. Or maybe they're not mob guys at all -- maybe you got kidnapped by a deranged serial killer. That would be bad, because he would torture you just for fun and there would be nothing you could do about it. The best you could hope for in that situation is that maybe you would be his first victim, and he wouldn't know what he was doing and would mess it up and kill you before the torture got really bad. Alternatively, you could hope for Jodie Foster to bust in and shoot the deranged serial killer, but I think she's working on some big film projects these days and wouldn't have the time to save you. I can't blame her, really. If I was on some cool Hollywood set, making lots of money and hanging out with handsome, funny people and eating off the free buffet, I wouldn't risk my neck to save you from some sicko torture dude either.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/17/2003 11:56:00 PM

My friend D excels at hitting on women. For example: we went out drinking and dancing tonight at a local meat market, and I saw a woman I wanted to dance with, an attractive-but-not-intimidatingly-so woman in a red dress who seemed to want company. I did nothing about this. I left the floor briefly to get a drink and returned to find the woman dancing enthusiastically with D. "Way to go, D!" I yelled, in a glad tone of voice carefully chosen to indicate my delight at his good fortune. I added a cheerful gesture that said: I am not gritting my teeth against a wave of crushing frustration, nor do I intend to spend the next two days weeping with helpless anger, cursing myself for my weakness, and drowning in irrational self-hatred.

I can totally destroy D in Scrabble, though.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/16/2003 04:00:00 AM

I just got back from running five miles and I'm eating some delicious cheese bratwurst, which were buy-one-get-one-free at Safeway last week with my Safeway club card. I really do love that Safeway club card -- all I really do when I go grocery shopping is look for the yellow tags and I save, save, save. Last week I saved about 28% just by shopping smart and remembering to swipe my magic red card. I was so happy...

Something else I love: My body pillow. When you sleep alone -- and I do, 99.5% of the time -- you need something to snuggle up with so you can pretend that you're not as desperate and sexually deprived as you really are. Body pillows are also great for role playing. For example, let's say you have a crush on someone at your office, someone named Chris, someone good-looking and smart and carefree and just slightly out of your range, someone who would fall for you for sure, no doubt, if he or she would just take a goddam minute or two to get to know you, the real you, the you that's bright and funny and surprisingly sophisticated and not at all bitter or crippled with guilt and self-loathing. Anyway, you can hug the body pillow close to your chest and seduce it, just as if it were Chris lying in your arms and not a polyester fiber-filled cloth sack. "Oh, Chris," you can whisper fiercely, "you can't know how long I've wanted to hold you this way." Go ahead and give it a try sometime. The shame goes away faster than you think, trust me.

I also love this cheese bratwurst I'm eating. Think about it: it's bratwurst... with cheese inside it! Amazing! Outstanding! Remember back when, if you wanted bratwurst with cheese, you had to buy those Kraft pasteurized process cheese food singles, and drape them over the bratwurst, and half of it would melt on the pan, or fall into the grill, and the other half would sit unmelted on top? Remember how sometimes you would buy the Safeway-brand pasteurized process cheese food singles because they were 2/$4.00 with your Safeway club card, and that stuff wouldn't melt at all and tasted like plastic? Ha ha! What a lot of bullshit that was!

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/14/2003 09:57:00 PM