America: Overfed and Overmedicated

I stopped Pizza Hut tonight to grab some dinner on my way home from the hardware store. There was only like a $2 difference between the large and the medium, so I went with the large. I figured I could have leftovers tomorrow. Then the guy tells me that because I ordered the large, I can get an additional medium pie for free. What the heck? So, now I’ve just ordered 15 pounds of pizza. Only in America.

Luckily we start playing ball again this week, so that should hold off the heart attack if only for a bit. Plus, the other day I went running with my dog. I’m pretty fast as humans go. My dog is pretty fast as dogs go. I decided to race him. I lost. I figured I had lost because he has more feet. But when I tried to race him on all fours, I lost again. It was at this point that I decided to cheat. I figured he would tire himself out by running and jumping through the woods, so I waited and waited. Then, towards the end of our walk, he got distracted by a squirrel and I bolted. I figured I could get a decent head start before he realized what was going on. I was right. But, he still beat me. If only I can find a way to have my opposable thumb be of advantage here…

Anyway, so I’m waiting for my pizza when I notice two things. First, I’m a little sketched out by the 91 health rating for this establishment. You’ve got to commit a pretty heinous act against humanity to be rated in the 80’s, and a 91 is teetering on the edge. Then I notice that the pen the waitress lent me is for prescription vaginal cream.

I sheepishly hand the lady back her pen and wonder if anyone in this county can go 15 minutes without being offered drugs or a hamburger. I also wonder what is to be done about this fact.

Alfred Sparrow May 1957

This is my first picture for this photo blog experiment. There’s nothing much in the way of art to the photo itself (sorry!), but I think the subject it pretty neat. I found it underneath the bathroom cabinet in the in-law-suite of my project house. There it hid in the damp darkness since the house was built. We’re the first humans to set eyes upon it in nearly 50 years.

The last person to see it was named Alfred. Only his mother called him Alfred. To everyone else, he was Al or Sparrow. He’s probably dead now. I’m almost sure of that. At one time, he built homes for a living. He may have layed tile. Or, maybe he built cabinets. Regardless, we know he was a tradesman, who worked with his hands. He did good work - really good, honest work – the type of work that he’d be proud to attach his name to at the end of a long hard day. And on that Spring afternoon, his back sore from a day’s labor, his calloused hands taking aim with that knife-sharpened pencil, Alfred knelt down, the barely audible clang of his lunch pail against ceramic in the background.

He thought his name would live for eternity, because Alfred build the home to stand forever. That’s how they used to do it in those days. Homes were built with sticks and nails, sweat and mortar. It was all done on site, too. Today everything is pre-fab. Cabinets, roofs, even whole houses themselves are build in factories and wheeled onto site. Back in Alfred’s time, a heap of raw materials – yellow pine, Douglas fir, and cast iron - would skillfully be orchestrated into a home right there before your eyes. For the neighbors, it was a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

But think about the name itself. Alfred Sparrow. What a burdened existence it must have been to live underneath a bathroom cabinet! Those 50 years would surely have seemed an eternal purgatory until salvation was delivered by my sledgehammer and wrecking bar, blue collared gods of thunder and lightening.

You could see the word “Alfred” recoiling from the light, his eyes having grown accustomed to the darkness, and, who, like a newborn, greeted this new place both with terror and awe. “Sparrow,” meanwhile, let out a big yawn and launched into a cat-like S T R E T C H that released him from the oppressive cursive by which he was bound for some half a century. As I depressed the lever on my photo-imaging machine, I wondered if “May 1957” could even recognize the strange world in which he found himself.

Photo Hunt

Basically what I do here is as follows. I write a story. I get ready to post the story and then realize that plain text is a bit boring. I hunt down a pic or two off google images to supplement the text. Cut and paste. Whammo, we've got something that's not so monotonous to look at.

This may appear to some to be an utter disregard for American copyright laws, because I did not gain license for the images. I would argue, however, that this falls squarely into the fair use exception of copyright law. Still, there is a bit of guilt that attaches to using someone else's work, even if I'm not making any suggestion that it's mine. However, while I have more time than most, I dont have enough time to take photos to match the stories and circumstances of my posts.

Time for a new strategy. I will take the photo first!

For the next 7 days I will carry my camera around all day and try to capture something visually interesting each day. I'll post the pic and fill in the story afterwards. That way, it's all my work. Plus, I'm intrigued by a photo-blog format. While I dont have the desire, patience, or equipment to make this an all-photo blog, I'd like to try on the hat for a week.

Let's hope this doesnt totally suck...

Leaving the World Like I Found It

Sorry I haven’t been posting with more regularity. My days are busy lately, so I can’t take my leisurely lunch to blog. Tonight, I’ll try a new strategy, which is to blog myself to sleep.

Donkies, donkies everywhere! When I was born, there was three-and-a-quarter of me. I’ve decided that there should be the same when I die, too. I’ll spend the next few years trying to make that happen. The bad news is that, at present, there are fewer me’s than ever before. The good news is that, take heed, I’m making a comeback.

Let me explain. They say that parents and children share 50% common genetic matter. (Btw, if my science is off, please, someone with better than a high school science education, correct me.) So, I’m a full “me.” My parents, each being a half-me, together make up another full me. Siblings share 25% genetic matter (I think), so my brother is a quarter-me. My grandparents are also quarter-me’s. When I was born, I had 2 parents, 4 grandparents, one brother, and, of course, myself for a total of 3.25 me’s. This is what we’re shooting for on the back end.

Unfortunately, but as with life, I’ve lost 2 grandparents due to old age. So, I’m at an all time low with only 2.75 me’s. Btw, we’re only going vertically up the family tree. I could go sideways and count cousins, but the math gets tough, especially since I have so many friggin cousins. For the same reason, I won’t bother with fractions less than .25 either. Anyway, during the first quarter of my life, we’ve seen me-ness drop from 3.25 to 2.75. Oh the humanity!

If I take inventory again at another quarter-century, how many me’s will there be? Let’s assume that my parents are still around, but that their parents are not. That’s one me. My brother makes 1.25. I’m rocking my 50th Birthday Bash, hosted by Dick Clark and Mario Lopez, so that makes 2.25. And with me are my 3 kids, who all tragically resemble their father. I’ve always planned only to have 2, but let’s assume that one more slips by the defense for a touchdown. Each rugrat, multiplied at a rate of .5, would yield another 1.5 me’s, for a grand total of 3.75 me’s. Score!

What about at 75? It would be fair to assume that my parents have moved on. My brother, who now only eats pudding, and I are barely holding on. That’s 1.25. My three kids have miraculously survived my attempt at rearing, making it 2.75. (I think my diaper needs-a-changin. Nurse!) They each have their own kids. My three kiddies have made me the proud grandpa of 5 grandkids, or another me-and-a-quarter. I call all the girls “Sweetpea” and the boys “Armando.” Everyone will think it’s because I’m too old to remember their real names, but it’s really because I think their real names suck. And the fact that I give everyone a 3-pack of extra large tighty-whities is another private joke I have with myself every Christmas. Anyway, in my third quarter, I reach an all-time high of 4 me’s. FOUR FRIGGIN MES!! This period will later be referred to by historians as the Second Dark Age. Ah, those sarcastic historians, never cared much for them anyhow!

What about at 100? I’m dead. My ashes have been catapulted, as per my request, across the continent from San Francisco toward the Atlantic Ocean. But when the flying urn collided with a Canada goose in mid-flight, I landed in Trenton, New Jersey, where I will spend the rest of eternity. My 3 kids are still knocking around, if barely. Here's where I'll need a little luck. My youngest daugher, who I had locked in a closet until now to keep her away from boys, will need to undergo some fertility treatment in order to conceive her first child, Donkey Boy III. Lightening strikes and she ends up with twins, Donkey Boy IIIa and IIIb, pushing the grand total to 7 grand kids, all told. Hence, when I die, just like when I was born, the world has 3.25 me’s. Ah, the beauty of symmetry! Life is poetry! Jersey smells.

The Love Prognosticator

This scientist John Gottman, who I mentioned in my previous entry, says he can predict with 90% accuracy what will happen in a particular relationship in 3 years after observing the couple’s physiology and behavior during conflict resolution. This impressed me at first, but now I think it’s just a matter of mathematics. Interestingly enough, the title of the essay is “The Mathematics of Love.” Well, let’s crunch some numbers.

Let’s say I set up a booth at the county fair. I will have a big sign that reads, “Donkey Boy: Love Prognosticator.” It will be a hit. People will come in droves!

Here are the rules. I’ll charge each couple $20 and will predict where they will be in 3 years. If I’m wrong, they can come back in 3 years and I’ll give them $25. If
I’m right, I keep the money. I’ll have to deal in volume if I’m going to make big bucks, so I can’t wait around to observe conflict resolution. The county fair should be a happy place, so who wants to create conflict anyway? Instead, I will ask 3 multiple choice questions of each person, which will get to the root of the issue.

(1) If you were a dog, you would want your partner to be (a) a snausage treat, (b) a 5 lb rawhide bone, or (c) a fire hydrant
(2) Would you be (a) more, (b) less, or (c) equally attracted to your partner if he/she had a mullet? (If your partner already has a mullet, suppose it was bigger.)
(3) Do you like soup? (a) Yes (b) No or (c) Refuse to Answer


Using the answers to these questions, I think I can get pretty close to 90% accuracy. No matter what people respond, I will tell them that they will break up in 3 years. Let’s assume that a third of the people that come in are married and the rest are just dating. Given that half of marriages end in divorce (and most sooner rather than later), I’ll get about half of 33%, or 16.5% correct. The dating 66% remains. I tried to find some numbers on this, but I couldn’t. So, I’ll just have to make some stuff up. Let’s assume that the average person dates 15 people before they get married. For all these relationships that don’t turn into marriage, then, I’ll be right 15 out of 16 times. But remember, half of the people that get married will get divorced, so it’s 15.5 out of 16. That gives me another 64% correct. Point is, after asking people about their favorite dog toy, mullets, and soup, I can be right about 80% of the time.

All that fancy “pyschologizing” by Professor Gottman is only good for another 10%. Granted, some failed dating relationships will last longer than 3 years and some failed marriages will last longer than 3 years, so my actual power of prediction will be slightly less than 8 out of 10. Still, you get the idea. Of course, it’s also based on the assumption that 1 in 3 people that walks into my booth will be married. This is debatable. Most questionable though, is my assumption that the average person dates 15 people before marriage. This number may be higher or lower, perhaps significantly so. My accuracy rate may actually be greater than 8 out of 10.

Granted my method is of questionable validity, but it took my 5 minutes to put together, so give me a break. It does, however, cast some doubt on the statistical significance of Gottman’s predictions. Maybe his 90% accuracy says more about how people have relationships than how good his method is.

Safety First

I haven’t posted in awhile. I’ve been working on this really long post about destiny, but it’s looking like I’ll never finish it. It’s already at the length now that no one is going to read it. I just can’t seem to get to the end of the story. Maybe I’ll find some way to split it up. Maybe I’ll burn what I have and start over some other day.

I try not to talk about every day stuff that happens to me on this thing, but I’m making an exception because something exceptional happened the other day.

I drove a 2x4 through my windshield. I wasn’t sure how to write the story, so let’s try a couple of versions.

First, let’s try suspense. When you tell a story, I’m told that it’s best to build up to the climax. You give the audience an opportunity to fall in love with the hero. He can then either vindicate or disappoint them. The key is to only give them a little at a time. Build up. It’s all in the build up. If you give them too much, they’ll figure out where you’re going before you get there and then they will be bored. Keep them guessing.

Ok, here we go. It was a cold and dark winter evening. A crow cawed from the southwest. I drove a 2x4 through my windshield.

Much better.

Next, let’s try humor. The funniest thing happened to me the other day: I drove a 2x4 through my windshield. HA! The “Ha!” here functions like a laugh track and pressures the audience to laugh.

Now, let’s go with a moral story. People find pleasure in learning, so stories are good if they teach something. Yesterday, I drove a 2x4 through my windshield. You shouldn’t do that.

Or, we can give the narrator psychological transparency. I drove a 2x4 through my windshield. Boy, that was dumb of me. It will be easier for people to empathize with the narrator if they can listen to him think.

Mystery? A 2x4 was found driven through the windshield of a car. And I was the one that put it there. Muahahah!

In other news, I cut my head and dropped a window. I just hope that klutziness follows the rule of 3. I should take more safety precautions, like Darwin. Or this guy:

Who's Your Daddy?

I read an article by John Gottman on The Edge website and it will provide fodder for my next few blog entries. He’s a psychologist that works with couples on improving their relationships. But with a background in mathematics, he’s as much an empiricist as he is a therapist – a good combination, if you ask me. Anyhow, this article was basically a distillation of his research to date and a summary of what he hopes to accomplish in the next 10 years or so.

He pointed out that back in the 1950’s fathers were not allowed to be in the delivery room for the birth of their child. These days, their presence is encouraged and is growing to be the rule. This is just one sign that fathers are taking a more active role in the rearing of their young. Unlike in the past, a father’s duty no longer terminates at being a provider. There is growing social pressure to be a dad, too.

What will be the ramifications of this social movement? Gottman suggests that it will end wars. This position seems a little extreme, but not entirely implausible. The theory goes that fathers will be less reluctant to send their kids off to war, having invested so much time and energy into rearing them for 18 years. In the 1950’s, it was common for disengaged fathers to encourage their kids to be like Joe DiMaggio or Ted Williams and go join the war effort. They had only a small investment in the upbringing of their child, and consequently, less to lose. My dad, in contrast, who was very involved in my upbringing, would never encourage me to fight in a war. He’d be too afraid of losing me. Will this grow to be the rule? Not sure. At the very least, it’s a long shot, but wouldn’t that be nice?

What are some other things that might happen in the next 50 years if fathers continue to be involved in the rearing of their children? I’m coming to realize that there’s a profound rift between the sexes in terms of the way people express themselves, the emotions they feel, and the ways they interact socially. Some of these differences are biological and some are, undoubtedly, social constructs. As fathers take on larger roles with the rearing of their children, I predict that we might see a narrowing of the gap in terms of the socially constructed sex roles.

Indulge me while I play sociologist for the next few paragraphs. In the 1950’s, daughters would identify with their mothers and acquire their social roles through observational learning. But sons, without father figures to guide them, were left only to reject all that is feminine. The result was a man that was a caricature of masculinity. This caricature was reinforced as boys found their role models in the uber-manly characters of movies, comic books, and television. Sons and daughters grew polarized and the rift between them deepened.

But, with fathers taking an active role, daughters will start to prize the ideals of their fathers. Conversely, fathers will grow sensitive to issues faced by their daughters and will gain appreciation for women’s issues. They will then be able to pass on this knowledge to their sons. Fathers will care about the future of their daughters and push for greater equality in the workplace both in terms of leadership opportunity and pay. Also, sons will have a much better role model – their own more sensitive father. This will be a more realistic ideal than super-heroes from comic books and cartoons. In a way, girls will learn to be more ‘manly’ and boys will learn to be more ‘feminine’ and we will see a softening of the sexes.

The liberalization of society will hasten as a greater emphasis will be placed on education of our youth. Elementary school teachers will receive greater appreciation and more men will take part in this traditionally female occupation. As more money is poured into education, teachers will be paid better, too.

We’ll have less teenage pregnancy.

Cars will be smaller as men will no longer feel the need to drive larger than life vehicles like in comics or movies. Their dad’s station wagon will be big enough. Ha!

Athletes will not be paid as well. Little boys will no longer have to worship sports stars in place of their fathers. Every boy in an inner city will no longer see sports as his only mode of advancement. Being a ______, just like his dad will be ok, too. In fact, it will be better.

More and more people will have the suffixes Jr, III, and IV.

Rappers will no longer be all about the bling-bling. They’ll rap about hugs and ponies too.

Soap operas will have broader appeal. (Hey, it can’t all be good!)

"I Love Dad" tatoos will briefly become the fad and will replace "I Love Ma" as the preferred option among male sailors and bikers and female CEOs.

And finally, the cowboy boot will be replaced by more practical footwear.

Revenge of the Nerds

As I was stumbling and bumbling across the internet a few weeks ago, I came across this group that calls themselves “The Edge.” It’s basically like a really tough biker gang but the toughness, leather coats, and bikes are replaced with really nerdy people. They even went to the trouble of incorporating themselves for tax purposes. Fantastic. They describe their mission as follows: “to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society.” Wow.

I’ve just meandered through their site without any particular destination in mind. Pretty much everything I’ve clicked on has been fascinating and informative. I don’t have a particularly deep understanding of the hard sciences, so some of the material is lost on me, but I find a good deal of it to be penetrable. Truly, these folks are the brightest and most accomplished in their respective fields. It’s worth a look.


Every year, someone asks a question of the group to which each member responds. This year’s question is by psychologist Steve Pinker, who asks people to submit their most dangerous idea. (BTW, if you’re interested in evolutionary psychology at all, his book How the Mind Works is a good read.) Interestingly, more than anything else, people talk about God and religion.

Anyway, it’s a great site, from which I’ll be borrowing material, I’m sure. I’m presently working my way through an article by another psychologist about successful relationships. I’m sure I’ll have something to say about it tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Fill your cup!

"My Cup"
by Robert Friend

They Tell me I am going to die.
Why don't I seem to care?
My cup is full. Let it spill.

The Sexiest Man Alive

It’s the 12th day of January, 3 weeks into the dead of winter, and Chapel Hill, NC is rocking a high of 67 degrees. It’s a beautiful day to be outside and take a break from writing about the outside world and turn my attention to myself. That’s right, we’re digressing from ongoing theme here at the Clubhouse to celebrate a very special occasion: last night, I came to realize that I’m the world’s sexiest man.

People magazine recently voted actor and celebrated Texas Longhorn Matthew McConaughey the sexiest man alive. This just goes to show you that People magazine is not a magazine of the people, for if it were, that honor would have gone to yours truly. Let me explain.

It has long been argued that there is a strong correlation between beauty and symmetry. Even the ancient Greeks expressed this idea in the Pythagorean Golden Ratio and Aristotelian Golden Mean. More recently, the theory has survived the empirical scrutiny of numerous scientific studies. Most notably, a child in California submitted irrefutable evidence by way of his/her science fair project.

While it is clear that humans prefer symmetrical faces and proportionate bodies, there is still some debate as to why this is the case. Google Answers points out a possible link between symmetry and healthiness. Apparently, some ailments, if contracted during stages of development, cause asymmetry and disproportionate growth. In a sense, then, you wear your medical history. Lopsidedness is a red flag, whereas symmetry is a clean bill of health. There’s also some suggestion that symmetry is of reproductive advantage. While this source may be of questionable repute, please note that I’m the same person that cited a science fair project.

I tracked down a photo of Mr. McConaughey and put him to the photoshop test. Basically what you do is take a photo, cut it in half, and mirror the remaining half. You then compare this half-and-half to the original and the other half-and-half. As it turns out, he’s pretty darn symmetrical. His right-right photo is slightly more triangular than his left-left.






I did the same thing for myself. But for my desire to remain in relative anonymity, I’d post the photos. You’ll have to take my word that I’m more symmetrical than Matthew “Second Place” McConaughey. The upshot is that I’m now the sexiest man alive. The downside is that I don’t actually feel any different, except that I’ve had Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” playing in my head all day. Maybe beauty is a curse.

What’s funny is that just the other day I was telling somehow how I didn’t think I was that good looking. I’d have said I was a 7. Clearly, I’m an 11! And there I was thinking that I knew myself! Ha! I’m off to enjoy the weather and to revel in my newfound sexiness, but not before I forward my results to People, demanding that they print a retraction!

Pitchers and Catchers

Some friends and I went to see “Brokeback Mountain” the other day. It was pretty good, not great. Two things struck me. First, I found it odd that two men were making out. Second, it brought up some questions about how we as a society define sexuality.

When I say that it was odd, I don’t mean that it made me feel weird. I thought that it might, but it didn’t. I had suspected that watching such a movie might cause some kind of visceral repulsion rooted in social taboo, but it didn’t. On the surface at least, I knew I was socially liberal – people are free to contract to do whatever the heck they want - and that apparently won the day.

When I say that it was odd, I’m referring to the aesthetics of the physical act itself. It’s often said that men are functional while women are works of art. If that’s the case, it would follow that there’s beauty to be found in female-female and male-female relations. But a function-function pairing? Is that ever going to look good? It didn’t to me in this instance. Maybe the problem was that it was two hetero actors. Maybe the problem was that they were cowboys. Maybe it was the mid-western accents that I found distasteful. As it was portrayed in the movie, two guys making out has more to do with violence than beauty. I was constantly reminded of the line from a Ben Lee song, “Your body is a dream/that turns violent/and that’s the way I like it.”

But maybe my aesthetic sense is colored by my own sexuality. I think guys look silly when they dance, but maybe if I was gay, I’d think that of women when they danced. Come to think of it, I probably only appreciate the physical movements of guys when they serve a function. For example, a center fielder loping after a ball hit into the gap – that’s a beautiful thing. But would I still find it beautiful if it didn’t serve a purpose in a baseball game? Probably not. Would a gay man really find the opposite to be true? I find that hard to believe. Maybe our aesthetic senses exist independently of our sexualities, which would lead me to conclude that women are beautiful and men are not. To every rule, there are exceptions, however. More to the point, if sexuality and aesthetics function independently, it might not matter to a gay person if they didn’t find the act beautiful (like me), so long as it remained sexual.

The jury is still out on what I should make of my reaction and whether or not it is universal. The above are some possibilities.

The other question was raised by my friend, who asked, how many different types of sexuality exist in human society? The obvious answer would be two: heterosexual and homosexual. The two terms derive from the Greek words heteros, meaning other, and homos, meaning same. What blunt objects by which to define our sexuality! It’s like defining a rainbow as something blue and not blue. It’s accurate, yes, but not very descriptive. Can something so complex as human sexuality be reduced to binary terms – this and the not-this?

Freud wrote that human relations can be mapped on the scale of passive-aggressiveness. With particular regard to sex, he felt that women were passive, their physical bodies being ‘receptacles’ for sexual union. Men, who gave during the, ahem, hokey-pokey, according to Freud, were aggressive. (These are his words, people, don’t kill the messenger! And do keep in mind that he was far ahead of his time in terms of equal rights, though certainly not up to snuff by today’s standards.) Point is, Freud suggested a correlation between sexual function and sexual personality. Keep this idea in the back of your minds, we’ll return to it shortly.

One thing I noticed about the movie was that one character was clearly the giver in terms of the aforementioned hokey and even with respect to the pokey. I’ve wondered if this is always the case. That is to say, are gay men distinctly pitcher or catchers? Or do they play iron man, to borrow a term from another sport, and play offense and defense alternatively? I had never asked anyone, but luckily my friend had. She reported that a gay friend of hers said that there are distinct roles. You either give or you receive. If true, this would have profound implications for the discussion of defining sexual orientation, I think.

Let’s return to the original question. By what terms should human sexual orientation be defined? Same and other is probably inadequate. It’s certainly possible to say that gay-receivers have more in common with hetero-receivers than either have in common with givers. Freud says that the passive party, who receives during sexual union, will have narcissistic tendencies and will seek to be loved rather than to love. The aggressor, in contrast, seeks to be the lover. Maybe there are only two orientations, then, lovers and those loved. This would seem, at least, to be a far more descriptive and predictive label than ‘same’ and ‘other.’

Of course, this can’t be the whole story, either. What of bi-sexuals? And what’s to do with lesbians? Two is clearly inadequate however you slice it, but calling everyone pitchers and catchers would be conveneint. Maybe six will do: lover, loved, lover-male preferred, lover-female preferred, loved-male preferred, loved-female preferred. I’m either on to something or nothing at all.

Sniff Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me

The more time I spend at the dog park, the more I’m coming to realize that dog society shares much in common with human society. At the dog park, you have dominant dogs and submissive dogs. This resembles the hierarchies that we create in society. The big sloppy rottweiler humping the poodle is your boss. You, for these purposes, are the poodle. The poodle doesn’t particularly enjoy being mounted. In fact, he probably feels underappreciated, underpaid, and he certainly detests the long commute associated with the mounting. Still, he must grin and bear it, because that’s his position at the park or the office. The lab that growls over the stick when other dogs approach is in a position of power, too. His authority is not as obvious though. Maybe he’s a mother-in-law or a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Whenever a new dog shows up, all the other dogs must run to the gate and sniff its junk and lick its snout. This is like dating. New things receive a great deal of our attention in this manner. But after awhile, people tend to be more concerned about the rottweiler and the lab than anything else.

Barking is sometimes like complaining and some dogs do it more than others. At other times, barking is a request for attention, and again, some dogs do it more than others. You’ll find that little dogs bark the most, giving credence to the adage that often times one’s bark is worse than one’s bite. All of the above holds true for humans, as well. The smallest of the dogs – the Chihuahua – is the most obnoxious. The Chihuahua is the canine-equivalent to Napoleon. And don’t you think it would drive a big truck if it knew how to drive?

I often wondered whether dogs recognize when another dog looks like them. I once read that dogs don’t actually think of themselves as dogs, but as humans, like their owners. One day, this little Corgie showed up at the park. We don’t often have Corgies at the dog park, for one reason or another. But on this day, there happened to be a second Corgie already there. The new Corgie was caught up in all the customary sniffing and licking. But as soon as it saw the other Corgie that looked exactly like him, he stopped in his tracks, locked eyes and bolted for his twin. They spent the rest of the time only playing with .

More generally, young dogs play with young dogs. Big dogs with big dogs, small with small. Etc. This is like friendship. I’ve found that the greatest determinate of human friendship is age and physical attractiveness. If you were to take all humans and grade them on a scale from 1 to 20 in terms of attractiveness, you would find that each person’s friends tend to be within 1 or 2 points from them. I cannot think of any other measure that would be as predictive – intelligence, success, sense of humor, zodiac symbol, pulse rate, the quadratic equation, pH, whatever. Don’t believe me? Try it out for yourself. Rate yourself and your friends.

Welcome to the dog park called life. Watch where you step.

Me You And Everyone We Know

I saw Me You And Everyone We Know last night. It was fantastic! It's basically a series of vignettes about the love lives of group of neighbors. You get the sense that every flavor of love is present in this small circle from the most innocent, to the mature, to the bizarre and perverse. The soundtrack fit the movie perfectly. It really had that Indy feel that I love so much. It also confirmed my suspicion that I'm nuts. But at least I'm not as crazy as you (or the people in this movie). I'd like to write more about what I think it meant to me, but I'll give y'all some time to go watch first, should you so desire.

I'll also try to come up with a list of 10 movies or so that I really love. Stay tuned. But don’t be too excited, they all tend to be the same. I'm so predictable. But you knew that already. Ha.

Writer's Block

I’m finding it difficult to continue writing the Book. I realize that I have few important things to say. How am I supposed to make contributions every day? I can’t. If I can make 10 contributions each year for the next 50 years, I’ll have something worthwhile to pass on to my grandkids or whatever. I’ll shoot for 12, one a month, but if I can only get 10, that’s ok. I should at least come up with 10 good things a year. That’s do-able.

On to less important things…

In the Beginning

I didn’t know it at the time, but this book began when I was 18 years old. I could not have started writing it before that, because people are too self-absorbed during their high school days, too naïve during their middle school days, and too stupid during their elementary school days. And while I don’t think I was the epitome of the above progression, I don’t think I was its exception either. At the start of my freshman year, though, I had my feet under me enough to reach out for something more and I did.

Having been raised in a religious household, the first question naturally became, “Does God exist?” It was an attempt to either affirm or reject my upbringing. To date, I have yet to find an adequate answer for this question. As such, I cannot say with any conviction what someone should believe. Maybe I will learn in time. Maybe I won’t.

Here’s what I do know about the subject though. Everyone in the world falls into two categories. People either think there is something greater than themselves out there or they don’t.

The believers are better off. In terms of people’s happiness, it doesn’t really matter how you describe this ultimate power. Old Man. Hot Blonde. Big Tree. As long as there’s something – anything – out there to aspire to, to hold on to, to share life with, then it will be easier to deal with adversity. No matter how bad things get, there’s always something to help carry the burden, to soften the blow, or temper the sadness. And the good is better if you have someone and something to share it with or if it fits into some greater schema. The good will have more value if it feels aimed at, deserved, or destined.

In contrast, those who feel there are alone at the most fundamental level will always be at a disadvantage. Their spirits are not hopeful that things will get better. For them, tomorrow is sure to be like today. And soon, you will die. They feel cheated. They will ask the universe, why are you doing this to me? And they do not expect a reply. Even when things are good, they see it as a fleeting moment in time. For these people, the only thing that real is themselves and the world and they soon grow to resent both.

In the end, the non-believers will console themselves in believing that they are right. The Marquis de Sade wrote, “I write of the great eternal truths that bind all men together the whole world over. We eat, we shit, we fuck, we kill, and we die.” But what good is truth if it is of no good to you? Truth alone will not sustain you. You cannot eat it. You cannot be loved by it. The ancients knew this, so they wrote a story about God, or the gods, or the Forms, or Nature.

But even for the happy believers, there is an exception, of course. There are believers who put all of their stock in this ultimate power and who, consequently, can never appreciate this world. For them, life is just reaching forward, a quest that will forever be frustrated until they die and go to heaven or its equivalent. They will hate the world, but at least they will be hopeful. When taken to its end, though, it leads people to launch crusades and drive airplanes into buildings. Suicide bombers excepted, I’ll take these folks over the Nihilists any day, for at least they have hope, if nothing else. Too much hope may be dangerous, but having no hope is sure to kill you, eventually.

The ideal though lies somewhere in between, I think. You have to at once appreciate the importance of this world and embrace something greater than you. It is human to hope. Put your hope in something, anything. Family. Love. Virtue. God. Justice. You cannot have only yourself. The content of what you believe is far less important than the simple fact that you believe. And that's what I know about God and Man. Forizzle.

Living Life, for Dummies

If I want to get somewhere, I look at a map. Left to my own devices, I would never get to where I was going. Or, I would get there eventually, but long after my reason for being there had expired.

If I want to learn how to spell something, I consult dictionary.com. Actually, no, that’s not true. I keep trying to spell it repeatedly until spell check can recognize what I’m trying to spell and can advise me accordingly. If I cannot come close enough to where spell check can guess what I’m trying to spell, then I consult dictionary.com.

If I want to learn how to fix something, I refer to one of the books I have, I check out DIY network, or I ask the good folks at the local hardware store.

For biology, there are biology books, for chemistry, chemistry books. For the latter, they even have these nifty 3-d models that will help. For astrophysics, there are books, videos, lectures, etc, etc, etc. For math, there’s my good friend the abacus.

Of the above, I have use for some and no use for others. But should the need ever arise, I know just where to look for the information I need. Of course, for all of the above and pretty much everything else, there’s google.

But then there’s life, about which answers are not easy to find.

When I took summer courses in London after my first year of law school, I really hit it off with one of my professors. He was an Irish fellow, who, like me, was raised with a Catholic education for the better part of his life. Unlike me, he ended up signing up to be a priest. However, after a few years, he decided to drop out after he affirmatively concluded that God did not exist. Bummer, talk about a bad career choice! The story of a choir boy turned atheistic ethicist was fascinating to me. European professors are incredibly approachable, and after class he was happy to skip over to the local pub or coffee shop and discuss whatever was on my mind. We tended to talk about how he ended up being an atheist, Mill’s Harm Principle, and the Golden Rule. It was a relationship that, in my mind at least, harkened back to Ancient Greece. He was my Plato, and I was his Aristotle – his prize student, who ended up disagreeing with everything he said, but who valued their experience together nonetheless. But our time was short and on the last day of class, I asked for something to help me continue my quest back stateside.

Me: “Hey, I was wondering if you could recommend a book for me.”

Prof: “I can try. Do you have some particular topic in mind?”

Me: “Yeah, it would be book on ethics, one that functions as something of a how to manual.”

Prof: “What does that mean?”

Me: “Well, if ethics is the study of how man ought to conduct himself, has anyone written a treatise on how exactly the ideal man would do so and what steps one might take to actualize that ideal? It’s something idealistic but practical, too. It’s something that would give you guidance when you were stuck or explain how to fix something when it broke. You know, reference material for life.”

Prof: “I can’t say that I’ve ever come across the type of book you’re talking about. If you want to read such a book, you’ll have to write it first.”

Of this fact, and this fact alone, I am sure: before this book is complete, I will be dead; my failure is the only inevitability. I should have started 2,000 years ago. Let’s begin, shall we?

ESPN and The Wrong of Thong

I turned on the TV the other night because I needed some background noise. Not surprisingly, the channel that came up was ESPN. In general, ESPN is an incredible invention. And despite the efforts of many, its genius is yet to be replicated by any competing network.

Still, I sometimes find myself raising an eyebrow at their programming choices. For instance, at odd hours of the day, you’ll find televised pool tournaments or bass fishing. Sorry, those are not sports. (At least they have the good sense not to include such things on Sportscenter!) They’ve even extended their mission to include original movies or dramatic series about sports related people or themes, real and fictional. What’s worse is that every other commercial on the “family of networks” must, seemingly by law, serve as a plug for one of these monstrosities. Oh, and if I get one more update from Mario Lopez about who’s dating Anna Kournakova or sleeping with John Kruk, I may have to officially switch my allegiance to the Lifetime Channel out of mere principle. However, I cannot be too critical at these choices, because they did name themselves the ENTERTAINMENT and SPorts Network. However, I would argue that just as a rose is a rose, a sports network is a sports network, names notwithstanding.

True to their original mission, ESPN still televises sports out of the main stream, like extreme skateboarding and karate. And the success of people like Tony Hawk and Chuck Norris is owed, at least in part, to their early appearances on ESPN. And it is here, off the beaten path, that we find today’s morals. In my quest for background noise the other night, I discovered an international Sumo Wrestling Competition hosted in New York’s Madison Square Garden. If you’re unfamiliar with the sport, it’s where rather large men in small underwear try to knock one another to the ground or out of the circle. As far as I tell, the only rule is that you can’t grab your opponent’s junk. Fair Enough.

I watched some of this competition, all the while completely awe-stricken, and quickly concluded the following: (1) Men should not wear thongs; (2) Should the occasion arise where a man must absolutely wear a thong, it should not, at the very least, be during strenuous athletic competition in a public forum. Just as I thought this to myself, this American sumo wrestler stepped into the circle with what can only be described as Sumo’s equivalent to long johns. His opponent, a more generously-fed Eastern European with unclad buttock, quickly took hold of the supplementary undergarment, tore them in two, and deposited the modest American outside the circle. I then decided to add an exception to the above rules: (3) The above shall not apply where (a) the only available alternative would be a wear a pair of boxer-briefs under a XXXL thong-diaper and (b) when such an alternative would put the competitor’s health and livelihood in direct and immediate peril, in which case, such a competitor may wear a thong with the constructive approval of all spectators and without detriment to his dignity. With my respect for the sport thus restored, I then switched over to the Lifetime Channel.