No fancy introductions are needed for the 47th Hunk of the Week, who is:
Your dad's accountant! (a/k/a: Clark Gregg.)
You Don't Know Your Dad's Accountant Withoutyou have the ability to spot nondescript people in the side of or background to scenes. The great-but-defunct-website Fametrackerused to do a series called Hey! It's That Guy!, and if they were still around today, they'd pick Your Dad's Accountant as a Hey! It's That Guy! (Actually, I see that they did, but the link is down.)
Your Dad's Accountant is currently starring on The New Adventures of Old Christine, which itself was an early entry in the latest trend of "TV Shows and Movies That Require A Great Deal Of Explanation Before You Watch Them." (See also: Flash Forward, Fringe, When-In-Rome-The-Movie-That's-Not-The-Olsen-Twins'-Movie-Of-That-Same-Name)
In Christine, as Sweetie and I call it -- we boil all TV shows down to one word titles, if at all possible-- Old Christine was married to Richard (played by Your Dad's Accountant), but they divorced and Old Christine lives in her house with their son and with her brother (who maybe doesn't live there anymore), while Richard/Your Dad's Accountant moved out and met New Christine, a younger woman also named Christine. Oh, and I think Old Christine runs a gym, plus was once married to Barb.
All of that exposition really is necessary, because if you watch the show without knowing all of that, you're going to constantly be confused by the plethora of people walking in and out of other people's houses and sitting on their couches and otherwise interacting. It's a funny show, but it needs an introductory class to watch properly.
And if you watch it, you'll see Your Dad's Accountant, playing "Richard," who is simultaneously supposed to be very good with the ladies (despite looking like Your Dad's Accountant)
and who also is supposed to be very afraid that New Christine will dump him or he won't measure up because she's so young and hot, even though she's not really much of either of those:
So if you watched the show without taking "Intro To Christine 101" you'd probably not get that part, either, and you'd be saying to yourself (as I still do, sometimes) "Wait a minute... that accountant guy is great with chicks? And Ms. Blond-With-Big-Forehead is supposed to be hot? And why is that kid so annoying?"
I still do use the word chicks. I don't know why.
Your Dad's Accountant no doubt had a thriving career before he was Richard-The-Inexplicably-Contradictory-Character on Christine. Just looking at him:
You know that at some point in his past, he really did play an accountant. and also that he's probably guest-starred on at least three Law & Order type shows. And I typed that before I even checked his IMDB page, so let's see if I'm right. Wait here...
...interlude. Pleasant music playing. Music like this:
...okay. I'm back. The final results: He was only in one Law & Order... but, I said "Law & Order type shows" (it's true -- go back up and look, I did), and he was also in The Commish and The Practice and CSI:NY. And that's four, suckas.
I'm sorry. I really can't pull that off. I take back the suckas.Ahem. And that's four, people. Four.
Your Dad's Accountant also once hit the karmic trifecta when he played "Supernerd" in the movie Artificial Intelligence.
He was one of four "Supernerds" listed in the cast on that movie. Seriously, Steven Spielberg? That was the best you could do? You named four characters "Supernerd?" You couldn't even name them, say, "Muckle," which as the actual character name Your Dad's Accountant had in the movie Hoot?
Thing That Makes You Go Hmmm About Him: He's got serious amounts of talent, apparently, which is what you'd expect and I'll get to that in a moment.
When he's not being Supernerd and Your Dad's Accountant, Clark Gregg founded the Atlantic Theater Company with David Mamet and William H. Macy. Apparently, that's an acclaimed theater company among people who acclaim things. He then did off-Broadway acting and directing, which I don't credit for much because when I see "off-Broadway" credits for actors, I mentally fill in "waiting tables" and "starring in the Vicksburg Production of Li'l Abner."
But at the same time, Your Dad's Accountant wrote the movie What Lies Beneath, which I think [SPOILER ALERT! BUT PROBABLY NOT!] featured Harrison Ford as a killer, the guy that killed his girlfriend who looked exactly like his wife but she wasn't his wife, it was just that she looked a lot like his wife, raising this question: Why would you cheat on your wife with someone who looks just like your wife? That's like cheating on your diet by eating carrots, only a million times more likely to land you in divorce court. Or at the bottom of a lake doomed to haunt Harrison Ford forever.
So Your Dad's Accountant isn't just good with itemized deductions on Schedule C; he can also write movies that I'll (most likely) misremember the plots of.
Reason I Assume Sweetie Likes Him: I didn't really give much thought to why Sweetie likes him before I asked her why she liked him, last night, and then didn't think about it much again before I asked her again this morning because I'd forgotten what she said last night, leading to this exchange:
Me: Why do you like him again?
Sweetie: Because I like him and he's sexy...
Me: That's redundant.
Sweetie: You're redundant.
Me: I'm not sure you know what that means.
Sweetie: I do know what it means.
Me: You're being redundant.
Sweetie: You just said that twice.
Anyway, that's
Sweetie's Actual Reason For Liking Him: "Because I like him and he's sexy."
Point I'd Like To Make About Sweetie's Actual Reason For Liking Him: When I was a kid, I'd sometimes check records out of the library and listen to them on my record player. One of those records, about 30 years ago, was the soundtrack to the musical Lil Abner, and I've never forgotten one of the songs, Jubilation T. Cornpone:
Time to do a little something for the Earth, because it does so much for me -- so much, like "spin around, thereby creating gravity, so that I don't fly off into space and end up drifting aimlessly forever like those astronauts in that story from Ray Bradbury."
Or is it the spinning that creates gravity? I'm not sure. If the Earth's spinning doesn't create gravity, then what does? And why does the Earth spin, then?
And, more importantly, is that a gorilla in that picture of the soon-to-be-famous Glastonbury Festival Green Police?
Maybe that causes gravity. Maybe Gorillas cause gravity. They serve some purpose, I'm sure, and gravity might be it.
The Glastonbury Festival, as anyone who's not a total wanker knows, is the largest "Greenfield" music and arts festival in the world. It's basically the progenitor of all those lesser festivals YOU'VE been attending. It's got a tented city-state of freedom, letting people have a wild time and experience life, music, and art in their own way while letting loose the constrictive bounds of civilization -- but in a good way.
They've got rock, jazz, acoustic and more kinds of music all interspersed with art and set in the Vale of Avalon -- where King Arthur lived in the days before gravity.
And, Glastonbury 2010 is SOLD OUT. So you can't get in -- unless you become one of the Green Police.
The Green Police are going to be working Glastonbury this year, keeping the festival eco-friendly and people-friendly. They'll prevent public urination, encourage proper litter disposal and keep the whole thing fun and clean by working with festival-goers in a friendly and face-to-face manner: handing out "the rules" of the festival and giving out green bags.
So, if you're an enterprising young person (or gorilla) who likes music, art, telling people to pick up after themselves, and the Earth, go fill out a Green Police application today.
Weeks have passed by and lots of things have changed, All so instantaneous; his life's been rearranged. This isn't just a renovation, the furniture's been moved. The floor smells like varnish; The wallpaper new.
Not only is one room unfamiliar, the whole house is now a stranger. This is supposed to be his home, where he feels safe, no danger. Instead, he feels abandoned in some foreign land. With nowhere to go to, nor any permanent shelter.
The door's been recently painted, the windows recarved. the ceiling seems to be an unknown sky he's never seen before. He wants to help himself, be shown some direction; but he's simply standing in this place, which once used to be his haven.
He's staring at the walls, observing how they change, with every second he spends on his search. his long search for some answers. And while he sees his surroundings switch, from red to gray; from gray to green; he himself becomes different. No longer knowing the person he's always been.
So who's this boy there, whose identity is now lost? Not finding that joyful place that he had always sought? ___________________________________________________
Creates a rather stark image and a haunting set of possibilities, doesn't it? What's happened to the boy in the poem, a reader wonders. Did someone die? Did he get hurt? Did he just go away and come back? Is the house empty? The more I read and re-read it, the more intriguing it gets. Nice work, Renee.
Read more of Renee's poems and thoughts on her blog, Half-Baked Disillusionments. Got a poem in you? Contact me at thetroublewithroy@yahoo.com and I'll post it on Friday's Sunday's Poem. (Put FSP or something similar in the subject line, so I know to get back to you before I answer that Nigerian government official I'm going to help over the weekend.)
If you or someone you know has suffered a brain injury, you know that such things can be among the hardest injuries to bear. Brain injuries affect your entire life. Unlike a broken leg or thrown-out back, brain injuries can make it impossible to work under any conditions, because there are few physical accommodations an employer can make to work with someone whose short-term memory is gone, or who has difficulty controlling her emotions, or any of the other conditions caused by brain injury.
Dealing on a personal level with someone who has suffered a traumatic brain injury can be tough, too: it's admittedly hard to be married to, or the child or parent of, a person who suffers from the kinds of conditions that brain injuries can cause.
Often times, the victim and his friends and relatives are left scared and confused, wondering what is going to happen? What will my life be like? What options are there for help, and for medical care?
BrainInjury.net is one resource to turn to. Anyone looking for medical or legal infomration about catastrophic brain injury should start there. They can help you get organized and deal with the emotional, financial, and physical strain imposed by these kinds of injuries, giving you guidance into issues like how to find the best hospital care and rehabilitation services, what insurance might cover and dealing with those companies, and how to handle finances during these times.
In my practice, I come across a great many people who have suffered traumatic injuries, including some who have devastating brain injuries. That's not surprising, given that someone in the US suffers such an injury every 23 seconds, on average -- leading to 3.1 million Americans living with brain-injury related disabilities.
When I meet clients like that, I can provide only some of the answers and help they're looking for, and am glad to have a resource that can guide them in the right direction on the other issues that are important to them.
I can't believe it's Thursday... when inside, I want it to be Friday. Here's my 3 Good Things from yesterday.
1. The laptop is done being fixed! For almost a month now, we've had our tiny 'puter that replaced the laptop that went on the fritz on New Year's Eve. Almost two weeks ago the repair shop had said they could fix it but I hadn't heard from them as of Monday, so I began to wonder if maybe I'd gotten things wrong... had they said it was fixed, and I was just leaving it there? I called them on Monday, and the guy on the phone made me more nervous: after a few minutes, he hemmed and hawed and said I'm gonna have to have the tech call you on this. I figured the worst: My laptop had become the target of an Oceans-11 style ring of thieves who wanted to get at my collection of finished and almost-finished novels, and it was gone forever.
But, instead, the tech called up and said it's ready to be picked up, so not only do I avoid buying a new computer, but I avoid losing all the work I'd not backed up yet (meaning all the work, since I'd gotten lazy about backing things up.)
2. I'm pretty sure I did okay on the Jeopardy! online test. Once a year, I get to take the Jeopardy! test and dream of getting onto my favorite game show. Last night was the annual test, and I got Mr Bunches distracted for the 10 minutes it took so I could focus on questions like Who was the 2009 World Series MVP? and Which country did Israel get the Golan Heights from in the Six Days War? (I got both right!) So keep watching Jeopardy!, as my boss promised that if I got on and went on a Ken Jennings-style spree, he'd let me have all that time off of work.
3. I got interviewed by a TV reporter for another news story: Our local ABC affiliate, Channel 27, put me on the air back in December as an expert on store credit cards, and yesterday interviewed me about Wisconsin's lack of effort in enforcing consumer protection laws. So by the time I get on Jeopardy!, I'll probably have to appear on the celebrity version.
It's funny how certain things can trigger certain memories. Like how whenever I walk out of my office, I suddenly remember the opening to the TV show The Odd Couple, where Felix and Oscar were standing outside a building and Oscar throws his cigar on the ground, and Felix stabs it with his umbrella and picks it up for him? I think of that, and then I start to hum the theme to that show, and then I wonder Who carries around an umbrella all the time? And then I wonder what did Felix Unger do for a living?
Or, if I think about a moving company, I immediately start to hum the theme from The Jeffersons: Movin' on uuuupp... and then I begin to think What's wrong with me, anyway? Have I had any experiences outside of watching television? For Pete's sake, I didn't even watch The Jeffersons!
You know you've got a successful show when someone who's never seen it knows the theme song. And you know you've got a successful moving company when someone who doesn't live in the area you service is jealous and wishes they were in your area and had to move. That's how I feel whenever I come across anything that mentions Melrose Moving, aMoving Company Los Angeles is lucky to have.
Melrose Moving makes me want to live in LA not just for the beautiful people, beautiful weather, and chance of getting into the live studio audience for How I Met Your Mother but also because if I had to move -- and everyone has to move at some point -- I could move my home or office using Melrose Moving and get a free quote, professional movers, clean trucks, and the lowest prices around. They'll beat anyone's price for moving, and they'll do it while still exceeding any expectations you have of their service.
Melrose will pack your stuff, put it on their trucks, and get it to your new home or office and they'll do it not with day laborers picked up at the hobo camp, but professional, dedicated movers. They might be the only Moving Companies Los Angeles has that uses professionals to carry your valuable stuff, and that's important. But they don't charge you more; in fact, they charge you less than others.
We don't have anything like Melrose Moving around me in Wisconsin -- but you people in and around LA, don't look any further for your Los Angeles Moving Companies. Just call 1-800-431-3920 for your free moving quote. You don't even have to hurry -- they'll take last minute calls as cheerfully as the ones that come months in advance.
The only thing bad about a half day of work is the full day of work that follows it. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that lottery ticket I bought yesterday is a winner, so by tomorrow I may be 'puting from Hawaii. Here's the 3 Good Things from yesterday I'll use to keep me cheery today:
1. I'll lead with a classic: leftover pizza for lunch while driving home listening to sports talk radio. I had a deposition in Milwaukee -- the reason I got to come home early after finishing that up -- and the ride home allowed me to eat my lunch as I drove and listened to sports talk radio, combining two of my favorite things (sports talk radio and not working), plus lunch was leftover homemade pizza, which meant I hit the trifecta.
2. Mr Bunches and I found a third car that works on his Hot Wheels track. Mr Bunches got a double-loop Hot Wheels track for Christmas, and we regularly run his collection of Hot Wheels down it. Up until yesterday, only two of his nine cars made it through both loops on a regular basis, with the others crashing. But we found a red jalopy yesterday that also makes it through the loops.
3. I worked ahead on Sweetie's Tuesday Presents.Yesterday, I gave Sweetie her Tuesday present -- an "electronic" scented candle that's not really electronic. It's a candle-shaped and candle-scented and candle-feeling thing that has a light instead of a flame, so Sweetie can have all the romance of a real candle with none of the scorched-cat-fur smell of a real candle. I had that present early, and I was able yesterday to get next week's Tuesday present, so I'm ahead of the game.
This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of HealthyTuna.com. All opinions are 100% mine.
I've never been a big fan of fish as a food -- mainly because fish always tastes like fish, something I found unappetizing. But I do try to eat healthy (or at least to occasionally counterbalance the sheer volume of fried food and potato chips I put into my body during the day) and so that means that occasionally I have to try to eat fish, and specifically tuna.
Tuna is somehow simultaneously wildly popular and amazingly underrated; everyone eats tuna, and yet nobody knows how good tuna can be for you. Tuna is, it turns out, really really good for you: a healthy tuna diet can do wonders for your metabolism, even for pregnant women. (There was recently a scientific study that found that tuna can be essential in making sure that you have a healthy baby, pregnant ladies -- it's not all fish that you need to avoid, just fish high in mercury. Tuna's not high in mercury.)
So eating tuna is good for you, because you've got to get the omega-3 fatty acids your body needs, but can't get on its own. That left me in a bind, because I don't like the taste of fish. So I found a recipe that brings out the good flavors of tuna and lets me enjoy it a lot more than simply slathering it on some white bread. I give you "Tuna Bisque:"
Ingredients:
* 1 large can (12 ounces) tuna, drained * 1 tablespoon butter * 1/2 cup minced onion * 1/4 cup minced green bell pepper * 3 tablespoons flour * 1/2 teaspoon salt * 3 cups milk * 1 cup grated Cheddar cheese * dash cayenne * 2 teaspoons diced pimiento or roasted red pepper * 1 to 2 tablespoons sherry, optional
Once you've got all that, then do this:
Melt butter in a medium saucepan. Saute the onion and peppers in that, and then blend in the flower and salt. Stir in the milk, cheese and cayenne next. Once it's thickened up and the cheese is melted, stir in the rest.
My 3 Good Things from yesterday aren't strictly necessary today in light of the fact that I'm home from work and it's only 2 in the afternoon -- a half day! -- but I'm still going to list them because, well, that's the point of this. Today, I'm focusing on two comments left yesterday and also an amazing thing I found out while "working."
1. Petri Dish, this is for you:Petri Dish commented on Sunday's Nonsportsmanlike Conduct! -- proving that people read at least the first few lines of the sports post -- and said I shouldn't give readers that much power. Dance, monkey, dance, I was told, and I will:
3. Everyone, this is just weird: I may as well admit that I get about 98% of my knowledge from Cracked.com. Yesterday, I read their article on famous stuff hidden in other famous stuff, and the most freaky thing in it was the mention of constant artistic references to UFOs -- but the most musical freaky think in it was the fact that The Last Supper contains a musical work:
So why am I stuck changing batteries in the Babies!' Buzz Lightyear toy? What kind of world has adults wearing watches that never die, but lets children be sad because their dump truck no longer makes an engine sound?
Okay, so Brett Favre's Minnesota Vikings lost. At least it was a great game, and I've got the Saints in my annual bet with The Boy. And I've got my 3 Good Things from the weekend to help me start off the week with a positive attitude:
1. Mr Bunches and Mr F all but moved into the Wal-Mart toy department. Saturday I took the Babies! with me to run some errands, including a stop by Wal-Mart for some shoes for Mr F. We swung by the toy department because they were behaving and had earned a reward, but once there, both of them acted as though they'd been turned loose in their own playroom. They were trying to ride tricycles, pulling out action figures to play with, sitting on the floor trying out toys, rolling cars and trucks up and down the aisles, and generally doing all kinds of things that I kept laughing at and encouraging up until other shoppers came by, at which point I'd adopt my stern Dad voice and say "Now, come on, boys, that's not appropriate. Let's behave," and then, once the people were gone, I went back to letting them play until I'd picked out their new toys for the day.
2. Sweetie's Mango Drink on Saturday night was delicious and I wish I'd gotten one. Sweetie and I went out for a date night on Saturday, this time to Panera to have dessert and some drinks. I got the Strawberry Smoothie, accompanied by a cookie which I ordered before I noticed that they had French Toast Bagels, which I would have gotten if I'd known they existed. Sweetie got a mini Bundt cake and some kind of Mango Frozen drink that was great and made me regret my decision on drinks.
3. I finally got my subscription to the New Yorker magazine, thanks to Sweetie giving me a Kindle for a combined Christmas/Birthday present. Saturday night, I finished up the Malcolm Gladwell book I'd been reading, and got to order a new book on my Kindle -- and one of the things I ordered was a subscription to the New Yorker, so expect me to be much more erudite in the future...
... just as soon as I figure out what erudite means. (Some kind of frosting, I'm hoping.)
Where can you find Beyonce and Bucking Broncos all in one? Only at that most uniquely American of events, the Rodeo. Specifically, the Houston Rodeo, where Beyonce performed in 2007, marking an intersection of pop culture that most people would have thought would never happen. But it did.
Rodeos are, like I said, uniquely American. What other country has the US' history of cowboys, and the Wild West? What other country has our tall tales and bandits and sheriffs and Dead Man's Gulch and all the rest of the lore that has led to the cowboy being indelibly imprinted on the American psyche, and becoming the symbol of America in many people's minds?
No other countries. Just us-- the US. We're the Cowboy Country, and because of that, we have rodeos.
Every little kid ever has dreamed, at one point or another, of being a cowboy, (that's why the movie City Slickers existed) and I'm no different. I would have loved, at one point, to be a cowboy and live out west, riding the range and roping cattle and getting in shootouts and all that great stuff.
I didn't do that, though. I didn't grow up to become a cowboy. Instead, I sit in an office and type and think about getting Houston Rodeo tickets, because if I can't actually get out and fight a bucking bronco myself, I could at least take in the show and see others do that, riding the bulls and roping the calves and trick-riding and lariats and more.
Rodeos are getting more and more popular these days, as a great family event to attend. They're not as expensive as many sporting events and they offer a wider variety of action and excitement. Go to a football or basketball game and you end up seeing a lot of three-pointers or field goals. Go to a rodeo, and there's tons of different events going on, so that there's constantly something new for you and the kids.
Those are all the reasons why I'm thinking of going. And if I've got you thinking about going, too, click that link to get your tickets.
Time for some Nonsportsmanlike Conduct! But first, to suit Petri Dish -- who commented on my spaceholder post this morning -- here's an optical illusion to occupy yourself with while I gather my thoughts:
That's courtesy of Mighty Optical Illusions; and courtesy of Petri Dish: Remember, commenting on a post not only might win you a book (look to the left side of the blog for details) but I also slavisly do almost everything a commenter requests.
Also: If you stare at that, it'll look like it's moving. Weird.
Okay! On with the sports! It's NFL Playoff Time! And I love NFL Playoff time. I love almost everything about playoff time, and one of the things I like the most about the NFL playoffs is that with fewer games played, the TV networks and "analysts and sportswriters have to fill the same amount of time and print-space but have fewer things to cover.
That can be a detriment, in the sense that it leads to articles like the one written today by Dan Pompei of the Chicago Tribune; tasked with filling a bunch of column inches, Dan wrote about what he thought were hidden factors to look at in today's games. That would be a great idea, if only Dan (who I'm pretty sure gets paid for doing just this kind of thing) had actually found a "hidden factor."
Dan's article said he was going to look at "the less obvious... factors that generally are escaping notice." What less obvious factors did he pick out? The Jets' running game. The Vikings' receivers. Peyton Manning's ability to handle the pass rush. And the Saints' ability to run the ball.
Those aren't hidden factors at all. If you've listened to any coverage of any football game in the last few weeks, you've heard about the Jets' running game, the Vikings' receivers, Peyton's pass-rush mastery, and the Saints' ability to run the ball. Way to earn this week's paycheck, Dan! (Next week, Dan will examine some of the lesser-known facts about the Super Bowl, like this one I got from an exclusive sneak peak at Dan Pompei's pre-Super Bowl column: "Did you know the Super Bowl is played between the team that won the AFC and the team that won the NFC?")
I don't get paid for this. Okay, I do, a little, but not as much as you'd think. Instead, I do it as a labor of love, which is why I can't just phone in a hack column. I've got to come up with something that you'll want to read, and that means sharing my innermost, deepest, darkest secrets, secrets like the time in 8th grade when, on a dare from Fred Grabow I snuck down to that little grove of trees off behind where the softball team played and...
... or, I could just instead tell you what I'm thinking about today, which is not "hidden factors" (Dan: I found another hidden factor to talk about! Did you know that each team gets four downs, unless they advance ten yards, in which case they get another set of downs?) but instead, the good part of expanded football coverage, which is that it allows (sometimes) the lesser-known players to get some spotlight and some focus.
When you've got to cover 16 games in a week, there's only time to talk about a couple of people each week -- so we readers and listeners get a steady diet of the top stories, stories that remain the top stories all year. Peyton Manning is steady. Tom Brady still plays for that coach who cheated. Brett Favre is still old. That gets redundant. How much more can you possibly say about Brett Favre at this point? Or Manning? Or any of the super stars? Not much.
The playoffs allow reporters to expand beyond another Drew Brees is loving New Orleans story and instead talk to one of the other 52 guys in the locker room, or talk to assistant coaches who never get a chance to look up from their film studies and clipboards otherwise. The playoffs let the media -- and you and I -- focus on things that otherwise might escape our attention (because they're not covered the rest of the year.)
And my AFC/NFC Championship post is no different, as I'm going to give you:
Four guys who are reason enough to root for that team, and four reasons their teams should lose anyway.
Man, I love long titles. Let me explain this column, as most of my posts and theories need as much exposition as that movie When In Rome that may be coming out soon.
Have you seen the ads for that movie? I have, and I'm stunned by them. The first preview I ever saw for that movie was one in which the voice over explained, at great length, the premise of the movie. For two minutes, the voice over went on and on about how the main character ended up in Rome, how she ended up in a fountain, how the coins were in the fountain, why she picked up a coin, what happens when you pick up a coin in a fountain in Rome, what happens then when you head back to New York where you'll apparently run into the guy you met in Rome who was also there in Rome but is also from New York, too, and who threw a coin in that same fountain, requiring that you again explain the fountain thing...
Not only is the movie complicated,
but it stole the title from an
Olsen Twins' movie.
Paging Oscar!
Of course, that movie should not be confused with the classic song The Promise by When In Rome:
I'm in no position to criticize complicated ideas; my posts require at least as much explanation, and today's is no different. What I've looked at for today is not any hidden factor (Sorry, Dan! I'll quit now. Maybe) but instead, I've picked out four people, one from each remaining team, as a reason why you should root for that person and that person's team to do well today and advance to the Super Bowl.
I've looked at this not in a football sense, but in a football movie sense, which is why I've picked out the nonsuperstars. Who makes movies about superstars and media darlings? Nobody, and that's because there's no drama.
In layman's terms: Nobody wants to see a movie about the rich, good-looking kid who was always good at sports and grows up to be an NFL first-round draft pick and win a couple of Super Bowls and then goes on to a career as a combination underwear model/diplomat who helps avoid a confrontation with a suddenly hostile Australia, a confrontation he avoids by playing in a touch football game against the Australian prime minister, who remembered seeing the superstar on the telly when he was just a little kid throwing shrimps on the barbie.
Or, at least, nobody wants to see that yet. But I'll sell that script someday.
Until then, everyone wants to see movies about underdogs, nobodies, people who looked like they had no reason to win -- until they became the reason.
(That logline, by the way, is mine. "The Underdogs: They had no reason to win, until they became the reason.")
(I ran that logline by Middle, who liked it but said she'd only go see it if it starred someone she liked, like the guy from Avatar;
Not this guy:
But the non-CGI version of him:
And I ran it by The Boy, who said "That doesn't make any sense.") Which doesn't matter if it's a Hollywood blockbuster. Hollywood Blockbusters never make sense.
Instead, the kind of movie people want to see is the kind of movie in which someone who's got no business being there makes it there anyway -- an underdog who, against all odds, rises to the occasion and shows the world that he's got what it takes.
Or, at least, that's the theory. In reality, the underdog actually doesn't have what it takes. Think about it: Most underdogs in most beloved sports movies aren't any good. Rocky? [SPOILER ALERT!] He lost. Rudy only got into a game at the very end of the season in the very end of his college career, on a meaningless play. Crash Davis, if I remember correctly, didn't actually end up getting back to the majors. (I just checked; he didn't.)
And Vince Papale? The underdog from Invincible? Not only did he not make it big - -he played three seasons for the Eagles mostly as a special teamer and had one reception in three years -- but he also wasn't even really an underdog. Sorry, fans of Invincible. I hate to break it to you, but Vince didn't "walk on" in a public tryout. He was playing semi-pro football and was invited to a private tryout based on his career as a semi-pro player. The feel-good story you loved (and I loved when I took The Boy to see it) never happened.
(Not only that, but Vince has another knock against him: He was reportedly the inspiration for not just the movie Invincible, but for the famed 1998 Tony Danza flick "The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia Phenomenon.")
You can't make this stuff up.
Nor would you want to.
(Not only that, but did you know that there's actually a band called The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza? They're a metal band, so I've got no desire to listen to them, but I love that name.)
But there are underdogs, in real life, and those underdogs or lesser-knowns sometimes rise to the occasion and get a chance to shine, as in the case of my favorite underdog/lesser-known football player ever, Nate Poole.
Nate Poole -- the only football player I've ever interviewed, and a great guy -- was an Arizona Cardinal years and years ago. Nate was playing for the Cardinals in a game that meant nothing to Arizona; they were out of the playoffs and marking time until the end of their last game of the season, a game that happened to be against the Minnesota Vikings. At the time, if the Vikings won, they were going to the playoffs. If they lost, Green Bay would go to the playoffs.
Nate -- who'd been cut and then re-signed by the Cardinals that season, was in the game with little time left and the Cardinals down 17-12 to the Vikings. As time expired, Nate Poole caught a 28-yard TD pass to win the game for the Cardinals and send the Packers to the playoffs.
From that, Nate got a little taste of fame, being invited to Green Bay and given the key to the city, and attending the playoff game the next week as a guest of Green Bay's mayor with the fans chanting Poole! as he walked in.
I got the chance, a few years later, to talk to Nate in an interview that I never managed to get posted on my sports blog. At the time, he was going to go into Arena Football or coaching after a brief stint with the Saints. I haven't heard from him since, but I've never forgotten Nate Poole and his time in the limelight, and it's with that in mind that I now give you my look at four people who, I hope, will not only serve as someone for you to root for in today's games, but also hope will have a great game and go on to earn a little bit of fame and fortune and glory.
To balance out all that saccharin-y sweetness, though, I'm also going to give you a reason, in each case, to root against that person's team, so that you're free to choose what you want to think, a freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution (and guaranteed a little moreso today with the long-awaited striking down of McCain-Feingold [the bill, not the men].)
Also, to provide a counter-counter-point, I checked in with The Boy last night to see who he would pick if he were writing this blog, so I'll throw in his commentary, too.
First up is theJets. The Jets are the fun, exciting pick for sportscasters and "analysts" this week, as they hope for an exciting game and base their "analysis" on that hope rather than on actual fact.
Always remember this: Sports guys and TV guys want exciting games and they want to keep you listening to their shows and reading their columns. If they come on the air and say "The Colts are going to win, 40-0, so there's really no point in discussing it," they'd be out looking for real work faster than you can say Mark Sanchez (and you can say that pretty fast.) So they say things like I think the Jets could pull this out and here's how and pick the Jets because that makes things fun. Who doesn't want to root for an upset and a close, exciting game?
Anyway, that's not analysis, it's hope, and it may be entertaining but it's not intelligent. It's no more intelligent or scientific or thoughtful than when Sweetie was pregnant with the Babies! and we were on our way to find out whether they were boys or girls or both. We both decided that we were pretty sure it was one boy, one girl -- even though we had no basis for deciding that (and turned out to be wrong.) We decided that because we thought it'd be a good outcome, and then we looked for evidence to support that conclusion. My parents had three boys and one girl. There are an even number of boys and girls on both sides. Whatever justification we could come up with, we would.
Sports guys are picking the Jets for the same reason: They think it'd be a good outcome, so they pick the Jets and then shape their analysis to support that conclusion.
Wanting an exciting game is not a bad reason to root for the Jets, but it's not a good enough reason to, either. Instead, I like to look for a player or players or person to root for, and I never (well, almost never) pick the superstars. The Jets are no different, and there's lots of players on their staff to root for.
I was going to pick Jim Leonhard. Leonhard plays safety for the Jets and weighs in at 5'8" and 186 pounds. Leonhard is not just small, but he comes from a tiny town in Wisconsin, and had to walk-on most of his career at the University of Wisconsin -- a school he attended on his own dime after turning down scholarships to other schools, a school he went to because he dreamed of being a Badger. After wowing the UW fans, Leonhard has gone on to a distinguished NFL career that today will include his second consecutive appearance in the AFC Championship game; he went last year with the Ravens and is going this year with the Jets. (Leonhard also came into the league as a Buffalo Bill, so I'm very loyal to him.)
But Leonhard is a rising star already -- his story takes up about half the front page of the Sports section of the comically miniature-sized Wisconsin State Journal today. So I opted instead for Marques Murrell, a linebacker who played football at Appalachian State -- that's a division below the big boys -- and who came into the league with the Eagles in 2007, landing on the practice squad until November when the Jets signed him. He's been with the Jets since then, playing mostly on special teams. He forced a fumble last year against Tennessee, helping the Jets hand the Titans their first loss last year. Plus, he's the younger brother of a former Jets running back, Adrian Murrell, so even though he's an NFL football player, he's still probably picked on at Christmas time when the family points out that Adrian was a standout with the Jets from 1993-1997, Marques, when are you going to get off special teams?
Marques and his girlfriend just had a child in October, Harley.
The ideal situation for Marques To Shine is this: The Jets score with about 7 or 8 minutes left in the game to make it close -- they're down by, say, five points, and they kick off. The Colts begin to return the ball, and Marques lays a hit on the return man forcing the ball free -- a fumble that Marques then picks up and runs into the end zone to put the Jets ahead.
The Boy Thinks You Should Root For: Jim Leonhard, for the same reasons I was going to pick him. Except for the Buffalo stuff.
On the other hand, if you'd rather root against the Jets and don't find Marques' story compelling enough, here's your reason: The Jets aren't any good.
Sorry to be the one to break it to you, New York fans, but it's true. This year's Jets are 9-7, but they're a poor 9-7. They were 7-7 before they played two season-ending games against teams that didn't care enough to try (the Colts and the Bengals), eking into the playoffs because their opponents stopped playing in Week 13.
That 9-7 record is the exact same as last year's Jets, who missed the playoffs with a 9-7 regular season mark. That means that instead of the Jets getting better, the NFL got worse. Last year, 9-7 wasn't enough to make the playoffs in the AFC. This year, it was. The Jets were lucky to make the playoffs, and lucky to play two clubs that couldn't get their acts together in time to win a game against them.
Then there's the Colts, the team that nobody bothers talking about because, as I explained to Sweetie today, they're boring. What's to say about the Colts? Blah blah blah Peyton Manning. There: I just summarized every single Colts story for the past four years, and the next four years. The Colts win, and win enough to take off a couple of games every year, and then they win a couple of playoff games, and then they do it again.
If the Colts were an investment, they'd be one of those mutual funds that tracks one of the stock market indexes: Safe, predictable, generally a winner, and no fun. We don't want safe and predictable in our football teams, though. We want excitement! We want to invest in gold! Or diversified something-or-others. Or foreign markets! Do they still have those? Let's throw a lot of money into South American real estate!
So we do that -- investing in subprime mortgages or Beanie Babies and losing our shirts, while the stock market index funds dip a little and then go back to their slow, steady, predictable, money-making. And we do that in football, chasing the Saints and the Chargers and the Jets and thinking this team could do it! This Miami team with their Bill Parcells and their Wildcat offense could really make a move! And they don't; they fall apart while the Colts just keep chugging along.
Safe and boring isn't enough to get you rooting for the Colts, though, so how about a personal story of a man who needs your support and who you should be rooting for? How about Coach Jim Caldwell?
If you're looking for someone to keep your fingers crossed for, someone to hope has a really good game because he deserves it, someone who you hope will put his stamp on this game and march his team into the Super Bowl because of what he did, look no further than the head coach.
Jim Caldwell is a rookie NFL coach, just like his opponent today, Rex Ryan (which means that no matter what, the Super Bowl in two weeks will feature a rookie head coach on the AFC sideline.) Caldwell was the quarterbacks coach under Tony Dungy, who retired last season and handed the job to Caldwell.
In doing so, Dungy handed Caldwell a thankless task of sorts: Caldwell was taking over a very successful franchise, one that had recently won a Super Bowl and was in contention every year. If the team under Caldwell began to slide, Caldwell would be blamed for it (even though teams have their ups and downs and the Colts are getting older), but if the team performed well, Caldwell would get no credit for it. And that's panned out: Caldwell not only gets no credit for the Colts' appearance in the AFC Championship, but he actually speaks second, after Peyton Manning, at the press conferences.
Then, Caldwell took even more heat when he pulled starters against the Jets in game 15 of a season in which the Colts were 14-0; Caldwell pulled the starters even though it was the third quarter and even though the Colts were leading, giving up a chance at perfection and drawing the ire of fans -- and leading to Peyton Manning asking the fans to forgive the coach.
If Caldwell's team loses today, he'll bear the brunt of it no matter what. Manning could go out and throw five interceptions on his first five passes. The defense could stand up and let the Jets score. And Caldwell would take the heat. But if the team wins today, not a single sports writer or "analyst" anywhere in America will attribute an iota of that win to the calm coaching of Jim Caldwell.
Which is too bad, because Caldwell is, by all accounts, a good coach. He's coached many great quarterbacks, posted good records at tough-to-coach at schools like Wake Forest, and has helped turn the Colts into a classy organization by (among other things) banning trash-talk.
The Ideal Situation For Caldwell To Shine is this: he has to make a few key coaching decisions. Coaches make decisions all the time in games, but fans rarely realize it and only pay attention to the headline grabbers like onside kicks and going for it on fourth down. So Caldwell needs to have the Colts, late in the game, score a touchdown that leaves them down by four points. He needs to then order an onside kick and have the Colts recover - -and then he needs to have them go for it on fourth down in that drive to score the winning touchdown. Those decisions would be controversial, but would be so only if they backfire. If they don't, then Caldwell would be heralded as a calm, cool coaching genius who gutsily thought his way into the Super Bowl.
The Boy Thinks You Should Root For: Pierre Garcon, a wide receiver who had the job of replacing phenomenal wide receiver/handgun wielding madman Marvin Harrison, a job that's hard enough already -- but Garcon is also Haitian and has family there.
On the other hand, if you'd rather root against the Colts, there's this: They ripped you off. The Colts are an organization that exists to provide you entertainment, and entertainment in sports means, in a word, winning. The Colts won 14 straight games this year and had a chance to go 16-0, finishing up with winnable games against the Jets and Buffalo. That would have made them only the second team to ever finish the regular season undefeated, and given them a chance to go 19-0, proving once and for all that they're better than their rivals, the Patriots*.
Instead, the Colts wimped out. They threw in the towel on games 15 and 16, thereby hurting other teams' playoff chances and, more importantly, depriving you, the football fan, of a great game and a great finish to a season. Remember how exciting it was when the Patriots* almost cheated their way to 19-0, with only the upstart Giants between them and perfection*? That was a great season, and we could have had another one of them. Only the Colts decided they'd rather not even try.
Imagine going to a movie, a great movie, a thrilling movie, a movie that has you on the edge of your seat for 75% of it, and suddenly, just as you get to the part where Luke's X-Wing takes off for the Death Star, the screen goes to white and George Lucas comes on and says "I could show you the climactic battle between good and evil that this whole movie has been building towards, and which you're eagerly anticipating, but I didn't bother filming that because I really want to make a sequel and I didn't want Mark Hamill or Harrison Ford to get hurt before that. So, see you in a couple years!"
This is what you'd miss:
You'd hate him for that. There's no way you'd say Well, I hope that next movie is really good. You'd never see that next movie, and you'd spit on the ground when someone mentioned George Lucas or Star Wars.i
That's the Colts.
Next Up Are The Saints.The Saints are, these days, chock-full of superstars and are drawing stars as fans. Even Brett Favre is a fan. Said Favre about a talk with Saints' coach Sean Payton: I told him secretly I'm a Saints fan...We didn't think we were going to actually play.
The Saints are the fun-but-still-emotional pick. They're the team of Mardi Gras, but also the team of heartbreaking images of the aftermath of Katrina. They tug at our heartstrings, and then throw us a set of beads and tell us to show them our hooters.
In case you're not Joe Francis, you could opt to root for one particular person from the Saints, and that person is Deuce McAllister, who was my first choice for this slot, until I learned that Deuce would no longer be playing. Deuce was the longtime running back for the Saints who came close a few times to making the Super Bowl, but never quite did. Then, this year, when it all seemed to align for the Saints... Deuce was no longer on the team. Until last week, that is, when the Saints re-signed him to be an honorary captain. I was all set to root for Deuce to have to come in and carry the ball in today's game and earn a starting job in the Super Bowl, until I learned that Deuce retired last Tuesday.
So instead, I've picked Thomas Morestead, the Saints' punter, because punters get no credit, if you ask me. The only time anyone really thinks about a punter is when the punter screws up, which almost never happens, but when it does, everyone boos and the punter gets cut. Otherwise, you only hear a mention of the punter in the negative -- This game hasn't featured hardly any punts, announcers will sometimes say, which is great for the teams but not so great for the punter, who has to be the butt of jokes like "He won't even have to shower before he leaves."
Even when punters do good, it's not spectacular and doesn't win games. Punters don't get credited for "game-winning" field goals or plays. (The quotes are there because no one single play is ever "game-winning," but that's for another day.) They get credit for good hang-time and punts going out-of-bounds at the one... but I've never heard a punter being credited as most valuable player or having a major impact on the game.
If anyone can change that, it's Brian Moorman, the punter for the Buffalo Bills, the punter who might be the greatest punter of all time. But he's not playing today, so it falls on Thomas Morestead's shoulders -- or foot -- to Win one for the Punters. (They had no reason to win... until they punted themselves a reason.)
Winning one for the Punters would have a huge impact beyond this game; right now, everyone who can't think of anything else to do says let's punt. Punting is seen as the most desirable of least desirable options; it's the best of all bad worlds, and who wants that for a career?
The Ideal Situation For Morestead To Shineis also my favorite play of all time: The Fake Punt. Picture a shootout: It's 35-35, and the Saints have the ball, around their own thirty, on fourth-and-one late in the game. They call in the punting unit, ready to give their defense a chance to hold off Brett Favre's Minnesota Vikings and hopefully get another shot on offense later. The teams line up, the snap... And Morestead grabs the ball and heads for the left side! He's upright and has the first down, but what's this? He's still going! He's broken a tackle and is off down the sideline! The 50! The 40! The 30, 20, 10, TOUCHDOWN SAINTS! This stadium is going wild!
I got a little choked up just typing that. Honestly. And from then on, Let's just punt would have a whole new meaning.
The Boy Thinks You Should Root ForJonathan Vilma. Vilma, a linebacker the Saints acquired from the Jets. He's been Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2004 and made the Pro Bowl in 2005 -- but has been overshadowed this year by Darren Sharper, unfairly, according to The Boy.
Then Again, If You'd Rather Root AGAINST The Saints, you can feel free to do so because of one person: Brad Pitt.
Brad Pitt is all the reason you need to root against the Saints. He's a latecomer, bandwagon-jumping, gloryhogging, dead-bird-in-beard-having jerk of a person who dumped America's Sweetheart:
To take up with a scrawny, blood-drinking succubus who collects children in a desperate bid to stay in the headlines, and if that wasn't bad enough, Brad Pitt is an awful awful human being, the kind of terrible human being who, quite honestly, I would punch if I met him in person, because Brad Pitt is the kind of human being who gets a lot of headlines for claiming to do nice things like rebuild New Orleans or pay a hospital for renting it out for the summer (something I've never seen proof of him actually doing), but while Brad Pitt, horrible human being is claiming to do those things, spends $18,000 on a gerbil house for his kids, and $293,000 on a table.
According to Zillow.com, the average house value in New Orleans' Ninth Ward is $66,000. Brad Pitt could have bought nearly five houses for the cost of a freaking gerbil cage and table in his own house. Every time they show him on TV, boo.
And Finally, There's The Vikings.With all the focus on Brett Favre and on Adrian Peterson, you'd be hard-pressed to name another Viking.
You would be. I would not. I know a lot of other Vikings, like... um... well... like the one I'm naming as the guy to root for, Percy Harvin.
Percy Harvin is a rookie who's been having a fine season and has gotten some press already for doing so well, but he's hardly a household name or superstar, or wasn't until this week when Percy, in the midst of preparing for what will be his biggest game ever in his life (so far) got knocked down by migraine headaches, headaches so bad he couldn't practice and almost couldn't fly to New Orleans for the game.
I couldn't imagine how bad he'd feel if he had to miss the game and the team lost, or if he had to miss the game and Brett Favre's Minnesota Vikings won and the guy who filled in for Percy played well and Percy then didn't get to start in the Super Bowl. I mean, that'd be good for the fill-in but not good for Percy, and I don't know who the fill-in would be, so I'm rooting for Percy.
By the way: Here's a hidden factor for you, Dan Pompei: Did you, or anyone else in the sports world, know that Percy suffered from migraine headaches? I mentioned last week that nobody really knows what's going to happen, and the multitude of factors that go into how well a particular player plays makes it an exercise in futility to try to predict the games, and Percy Harvin's headaches show why that's true. Harvin has suffered from migraines since he was 10, and has missed practices and been questioned about the headaches during this season... but leading into the game against the Cowboys, and then for the first few days after that game, not a single analyst questioned whether Harvin's headaches might have an impact on the game, even though Harvin has said they affected him during games. Discussing the headaches and how they played into Minnesota's thrilling win over the 49ers earlier this year, Harvin said: "I got a little light-headed during ...(I) was a little drowsy, got a little tired at times, but like I said, I try not to let that affect me."
You'd think that with all this time to work and all the space to fill, sports writers would mention a medical condition a starting player has, especially if that medical condition was described, as Harvin's was, as being debilitating. By his coach.
But, then, that would be expecting sports "analysts" to work, wouldn't it?
The Boy Thinks You Should Root For: At first, The Boy wasn't going to pick anyone, as he hates the Vikings. But then he remembered Darrell Bevell, former UW Badger quarterback, Rose Bowl winner, and current offensive coordinator for the Brett Favre's Minnesota Vikings, and defender of Favre's. He's right: Bevell is a good guy who once signed an autograph for me when he was with the Packers, and who, with the right kind of success, might go on to be a head coach.
Then Again, If You'd Rather Root AGAINST Brett Favre's Minnesota Vikings, well, you're out of luck. I can't think of a single reason to root against them. Not one single... What? Favre did what? No, he didn't. He did? Say it ain't so!
You know that at some point in his past, he really did play an accountant. and also that he's probably guest-starred on at least three Law & Order type shows. And I typed that before I even checked his IMDB page, so let's see if I'm right. Wait here...
