A place called B.L.O.G.

When six-year-olds get together to play sports, you can tell right away. There are two kinds: The kids who are naturally coordinated, who are competitive, and who seem like they’re in it because they want to win. These are the kids who will be wearing letter jackets and seeing their names in the newspaper in high school. Then there are the other kids. They are the ones who’d rather make up their own rules, who are more interested in drawing pictures in the dirt than watching what’s happening, and who are likely to have the ball roll right past them while they laugh and play with another like-minded kid.

I’ll just say that I don’t see a letter jacket in Jimmy’s future. Unless it’s for band.

He wanted to play soccer, so I signed him up for a neighborhood fall league. They play six games. No big deal. A chance for him to see if he likes it, get some exercise, maybe meet some kids who live nearby.

He had his second game this morning, and I’m learning that there are also two kinds of parents of six-year-olds: Those who politely cheer and encourage the kids but mostly are content to just let them run around and do their thing, and those who apparently think they need to bark orders and whip the kids into shape. The kind of person who would be played by Gene Hackman in a movie.

A guy at the game this morning (a parent on the other team, thank goodness) spent the entire time shouting things like “get back there on defense!” and “attack the goal!” and “she’s open, pass it!” He wasn’t as obnoxious as I’m sure many high-school parents are, and he wasn’t really being mean-spirited about it, but it was quite a different approach to youth soccer than I would take.

Jimmy, for his part, managed to get his foot on the ball a few times (and some of those times, he actually kicked it in the right direction). He did not attack the goal, he did not get back on defense, and he did not pass the ball to an open teammate. He goofed around with another kid and they pretended the bag of soccer balls was a net full of fish. After the game, he had a cookie and some punch and went home happy.

The thing I’m realizing is that at some point, the “attack!” parents are going to start getting pissed at the “bag of fish” parents because it’s going to get in the way of their kid winning. That kind of scares me.

You probably know that nothing is funnier to me than a grammar-related joke. Check this one out:

A gentleman wanders around the campus of a college looking for the library. He approaches a student and asks, “Excuse me, young man. Would you be good enough to tell me where the library is at?”

The student, in a very arrogant and belittling tone, replies, “I’m sorry, sir, but at this school, we are taught never to end a sentence with a preposition!”

The gentleman smiles, and in a very apologetic tone, replies, “I beg your pardon. Please allow me to rephrase my question. Would you be good enough to tell me where the library is at, asshole?”

You know what’s weird? Benefit concerts and auctions and stuff for victims of major disasters. It’s of course quite nice that all these people are concerned enough to want to raise money for victims of things like the New Orleans situation. But we’ve got benefit fashion auctions, benefit concerts, benefit book readings … there’s even a homeowner in my neighborhood who has been having a hurricane-relief garage sale for the past few weekends. This just seems odd to me. "No, I wouldn’t have wanted to buy this slightly stained heart-shaped throw pillow … but then I found out that a portion of my 35 cents would go to hurricane relief, and I was sold."

Like I said, good intentions are great and helping people is great. But wouldn’t it feel better to just donate money without getting something in return? You’re not supposed to get something in return. That’s why it’s called "giving." I think benefit concerts bug me the most. I just heard of one that’s happening in the Twin Cities featuring headliner the Violent Femmes. Hmmm. Nothing to put you in a charitable mood like singing along to lyrics such as "Why can’t I get just one fuck?" Are there really people out there who say "I’d love to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and I have this extra money lying around, but I just wish there was some way I could get some entertainment in exchange for my donation"? Like I said, just kinda weird.

This hurricane thing just keeps getting more surreal. Does anybody else wonder how they were at "K" with Katrina just a couple of weeks ago and are now arleady on "R" with Rita? That’s like a third of the alphabet. They say that they are likely to run out of hurricane names this year for the first time ever. And instead of starting over at "A" with "Arthur" or some such thing, they will instead just name them "Alpha," "Beta," and so forth. Weird.

I got to thinking today. There are two gravy-related expressions that involve modes of transportation. They are, of course, “gravy boat” (a long, low dish with a handle and a spout for pouring, used to serve gravy, sauce, etc.) and “gravy train” (a sinecure, subsidy, etc., that allows one to live luxuriously without much work). This got me thinking about other possible forms of gravy transport. What if we took this transportation-gravy link even farther?

I think the following gravy-related phrases should all take their place alongside “gravy boat” and “gravy train” in our cultural lexicon. Please start using them immediately.

x Gravy scooter: One of those little carts with the baskets that handicapped or really fat people use to putter around Wal-Mart.

x Gravy gondola: The depression in the middle of your pile of mashed potatoes, into which you pour the gravy (from the gravy boat, or the ladle if you’re not sophisticated enough to use a gravy boat, or the soup spoon if you’re not sophisticated enough to use a ladle).

x Gravy plane: An aircraft used to smuggle drugs or other contraband.

x Gravy on Rollerblades: A run of good fortune with the opposite sex.

x Gravy rickshaw: An outpouring of fawning and excessive admiration from an acquaintance, especially a subordinate at work.

x Gravy hovercraft: A highly implausible but nonetheless thrilling action-movie chase scene that involves two or more methods of transportation. Named in honor of the chase at the end of “Rumble in the Bronx.”

Observations from the past week:

1. Is there any thing in the world that can instantly destroy scenery as efficiently as orange snow fencing? Could they have made it any more ugly? They put a bunch of it up along Como Avenue near the fairgrounds because of … um … the fair. It’s really freaking ugly. Why couldn’t they have made it green or something? Why orange? It’s so ugly. I like the color orange, but when used for wobbly plastic fencing, it creates the perfect storm of ugliness. Yuck. I curse you, Phineas J. Goodfellow, inventor of orange plastic snow fencing.

2. Hey, guess what? I noticed something that I bet nobody else has. Gas prices are really high. Damn. So I drive along in my little Honda, thinking I am so superior to the jackass in the 40-ton pickup truck or the woman in the big old SUV, but the truth is that I’m not all that satisfied with the fuel efficiency of my little Honda. Even without running the AC (which I’ve not been doing on account of the gas prices), it gets about 25 miles per gallon. That’s it. Better than pickup boy or SUV girl, but still nothing to get too excited about. I need a Prius. Fast. Gimme some of that 60 mpg action. I think the government should give me a Prius. I obey most of the important laws and I pay my taxes. So, if you’re reading this, goverment, make with the freaking Prius. Otherwise, you could stand up to the oil companies and actually come up with an energy policy that weans the nation off fossil fuels and hastens a transition to a cheap and renewable energy source, but I’m not getting my hopes up. I think getting a free car is more realistic.

3. I should not be allowed to assemble anything, ever. I should be banned from even going to Ikea; in fact, they should get a restraining order keeping me 500 yards from the door. My screwdrivers should be confiscated and surgeons should alter my hands to make it impossible for me to grip one of those little hex keys that comes with everything that needs to be assembled. I say all of this because I cannot assemble anything without putting at least one piece in backward or upsdie down and not noticing it until it’s necessary to disassemble something to put it right. There is much cursing and much rending of garments when this happens. And the job takes about twice as long as it needs to. This is one of the many things I’m going to hire people to do for me when I’m rich. Assemble things. 

4. I have noticed vending machines that sell pop for $1.25. I have been dreading this for many long time. I knew they couldn’t hold the line at $1 forever, but where do you go from there? The soda companies knew that people would be annoyed if they had to fish out 25 cents every time they bought a pop from the machine. People like being able to just use a buck. The price has been creeping up in convenience stores and such for years, to the point where it’s at like $1.39 some places. Yet most machines were still just a buck. The companies were holding back. Until recently, it seems. They’ve finally decided they had to bite the bullet and go to $1.25, at least in some places. It probably won’t be long until it’s an across-the-board thing. Those of us who enjoy cold, refreshing carbonated beverages purchased from machines will be forced to either have change or to spend two $1 bills, then get 75 cents in return. I don’t like any of this. I want it to be a nice even dollar. Inflation stinks. Any economists out there? Can somebody explain to me why stuff can’t just stay the same price? I hate the economy. I hate the world, for that matter. It doesn’t make any freaking sense. Can I just be a caveman, please? Cavemen didn’t have to worry about inflation or having an extra quarter for the pop machine.

5. I don’t really have a number five, but five seemed like a better number than four. So, I’ll just fill up number five with They Might Be Giants lyrics.

I was working all night in my office

When a man I had recently killed

Called me up from a phone near my building

So I looked out the window at him

He had the same obsequious manner

That was the reason I had him killed

So to calm my nerves I sang this song to him over the phone:

Turn around, turn around

There’s a thing there that can be found

Turn around, turn around

It’s a human skull on the ground

Human skull, on the ground, turn around.