This is almost as good as “I’m on a Boat”:

I don’t know what this umpire is doing, but i want to learn these steps for my next night out.

Can’t seem to embed. Click Here

PS. Sorry about this space increasingly becoming about sports and/or completely silent. I’ve been rendered almost completely catatonic about the state of American politics and the current position of our country. I would rather keep my thoughts to myself then lend my vitriol and anger to the already poisonous levels of rhetoric that currently infests this landscape. It’ll be back, just don’t know when. Until then, enjoy dancing umpires.

I don’t know how, but Gus Johnson always gets the craziest games to call. This is one of my newest favorite things. It’s DVR-ed, “Save Until I Delete Status”:

Note #14 – 9/16/2008 – 10:34pm – “I’m not nearly as stupid as I seem,” said the fist to the drywall.

Note #13 – 3/18/2007 – 3:15am – Las vegas is a soulless place full of track homes and evil people. Smoke and mirrors, deullsions of grandeur, retirees, smokers now asked to leave the room to smoke and the only town in the world where a high school dropout routinely makes more money than the PHDs from the nearby college.

Note #12 – Ongoing - I have a dream of being the best lead singer of the best cover band in the best bar in a small town in the mountains, somewhere. This is our set list, which is not in order and is always being added to:

Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell (in a weird acoustic way that makes it sound totally different)
Scene from an Italian Restaurant – Billy Joel
Only in Dreams – Weezer
Mrs Potters Lullaby, Friend of the Devil – Counting Crows
I Fought the Law – Social Distortion
Right Now – Van Halen
The Entertainer – Billy Joel
Sending out an SOS – The Police
Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana (but in a slow, quiet haunting Tori Amos way)
Walk with You – Dispatch
Anything, Anything – DramaRama
Glory – The Rent Soundtrack

Walking after Midnight – Garth Brooks
Same in the End – Sublime
Space Odyssey – David Bowie
Friends in Low Places – Garth Brooks
Fire and Rain, Sweet Baby James – James Taylor
Kodachrome, Slip Slidin, 50 ways to Leave your Lover – Paul Simon
Better than Love, Guy that Says Goodbye to You – Griffin House
Boy Named Sue, Folsom Prison Blues – Johnny Cash
Four Horseman – Metallica (country blues style)
The Road Goes on Forever – Pat Green
Turn the Page, Night Moves – Bob Seger
Whiskey in the Jar – Thin Lizzy
Fool for a Lonesome Train – Ben Harper
Angel from Montgomery – Tom Prine

Note #11 – 3/23/2009 – 9:35pm – Freedom isn’t free but there would seem to be a point where it costs too much.

(See Note 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

Note #10 – 3/17/2009 – 5:07 – For the longest time, I lived my life on my own terms. My own friends, my own principles, my own morals. I knew what I wanted, and I knew what I didn’t and I didn’t let anyone change my mind about that.. Somewhere along the lines, that went away.

(See Note 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Note #9 – 3/23/2009 – 9:35pm – If you’re pissed that you have to press 1 for english, blaming Mexicans may be misguided. Blame the American companies that are catering to them while they outsource your job.

Note #8 – 3/7/2009 – 4:15pm – We can’t save the planet. The earth will be fine. We’re the ones that are fucked. We’re just another failed mutation.

(See Note 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Note #7 – 10-23-2008 – 10:00 am – There’s a girl with an Obama sticker on her car pouring about a gallon of water out on the street.

(See Note 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Note #6 – 9/19/2008 – 12:04pm - Because there’s no I in “Go fuck yourself.”
(See Note 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Note #5 – 2/13/2009 8:02 am -There is no amount of madness I can have at myself for not working hard enough that would actually make me work hard enough.

There’s no amount of wanting to be home on the couch with my girlfriend to get me to do my work and get home to that couch. There is no army, no boss, no pills, no god worth noticing to get me to focus on one task at a time, complete it and then know what is next and repeat the process again.
(See Note 1, 2, 3, 4)

Note #4 – 4/19/2009 – 10:01 am – The first thing I do when I wake up every morning is to doubt the sincerity of everything I’m going to experience that day. Family, friends, news, govt., music, movies…everything. They all have ulterior motives and less than genuine intentions.

(See Note 1, 2, 3)

I’m often struck with inspiration, funny/clever thoughts, emotions that i can suddenly put into words, etc. during the times that i’m furthest away from a computer or pad of paper. Thankfully, i’ve had a smartphone for the last 2 years that has a Note function, allowing me to quickly write whatever is rattling around my brain. I’m thinking that all of these saved up will end up as lines in “The Book That I’ll Never Write” (it’s a working title…) but for the next couple of days i’m going to post them here, one-by-one, Post-Secret style with no editing, explanation or context about where i was, what i was doing, who i was with or what my Blood Alcohol Level was. I will provide the date and time when it was written. Some of them are happy, some sad, some meaningless, some plagiarized, some depressing…all of them probably way too personal to be sharing.

I’m not looking for sympathy or encouragement or commentary per se, but i would love is to hear what that line or sentence or thought made you think, feel, meant to your own life, etc. I think it could be interesting collection so please share.

Note #3 – 9/16/2008 – 10:34 – An airplane is the only place where people from different towns, cities, states and lives pay to sit that close to one another. In that few hours, you can be anyone you want to be, make up any story or perception you want and people believe you because that’s what you do on planes…tell the truth.
(See Note 1, 2)

I’m often struck with inspiration, funny/clever thoughts, emotions that i can suddenly put into words, etc. during the times that i’m furthest away from a computer or pad of paper. Thankfully, i’ve had a smartphone for the last 2 years that has a Note function, allowing me to quickly write whatever is rattling around my brain. I’m thinking that all of these saved up will end up as lines in “The Book That I’ll Never Write” (it’s a working title…) but for the next couple of days i’m going to post them here, one-by-one, Post-Secret style with no editing, explanation or context about where i was, what i was doing, who i was with or what my Blood Alcohol Level was. I will provide the date and time when it was written. Some of them are happy, some sad, some meaningless, some plagiarized, some depressing…all of them probably way too personal to be sharing.

I’m not looking for sympathy or encouragement or commentary per se, but i would love is to hear what that line or sentence or thought made you think, feel, meant to your own life, etc. I think it could be interesting collection so please share.

Note #2 (2/24/2009, 5:10pm) -Selfish ignorant citizens vote for selfish ignorant politicians.

(See Note 1)

I’m often struck with inspiration, funny/clever thoughts, emotions that i can suddenly put into words, etc. during the times that i’m furthest away from a computer or pad of paper. Thankfully, i’ve had a smartphone for the last 2 years that has a Note function, allowing me to quickly write whatever it is that is rattling around my brain. I’m thinking that all of these saved up will be lines in “The Book That I’ll Never Write” (it’s a working title…) but for the next couple of days i’m going to post them here, one-by-one, Post-Secret style with no editing, explanation or context about where i was, what i was doing, who i was with or what my Blood Alcohol Level was. I will provide the date and time when it was written. Some of them are happy, some sad, some meaningless, some plagiarized, some depressing…all of them probably way too personal to be sharing.

I’m not looking for sympathy or encouragement or commentary per se, but i would love is to hear what that line or sentence or thought made you think, feel, meant to your own life, etc. I think it could be interesting collection so please share.

In totally random order:

Note #1 – 9/16/2008, 10:34 AM – In guitar there’s a hand position that I could never do automatically…so I just never did it. A little practice, a little work and I probably could have done it. But nope. Never did. Metaphor for my entire life.

I’m somewhat of a guerrilla-sociologist when it comes to all of the various social media that has reached massive adoption over the past 5 years. I like saying things and watching how people act and react. I like seeing how relationship proximity has been redefined by Facebook. For instance, on your birthday you used to expect a call from grandma, grandpa, mom and dad, maybe an aunt or an uncle. Brother and sister would shout out on speaker phone and maybe 3-5 friends would take time to call you while 10-20 might work up the effort to come out for a party, if it was something fun….These days, your grandparents and parents still call, your brother and sister probably text, your first-adopter friends reply to you on twitter, your closer friends write private messages to you on Facebook and 40-50 other people write something on your wall. I don’t know if it’s better or worse…i’m just saying it’s different that it used to be. Anyway, in my “study” of social media, there’s one thing i hadn’t experienced…at least until tonight, and honestly, it broke my heart.

Last night, an rookie Anaheim Angels pitcher, fresh off a scoreless 6-inning outing, was killed by a drunk driver in a hit-and-run accident. The sports media picked up on it instantly and i was aware of it from the get-go. The article mentioned 2 other people who were killed in the accident, but they weren’t baseball players, so their names weren’t at the top of the article. I grew up with, and still follow the career of, a friend who also plays for the Angels and i was immediately relieved that he wasn’t the one in the accident while still being acutely aware of how close he or any one of us could be to that type of situation.

Fast forward to tonight and i start noticing quite a few wall posts and status updates from friends of mine on Facebook who are saying things like “RIP Henry” and “Hank, you’ll be missed.” Somehow, i knew the two stories were connected. I check back into the story on ESPN.com where details have been added and about half way down, the names of the other two people killed have now been released. One of them is Henry Pearson.

I was not Facebook friends with Henry but since we had 15 mutual friends, i know that we stood in the same living room on Don Carlos road in Tempe drinking our mutual friend’s keg beer. I remember meeting him and saying hello to him when i saw him. We both went to ASU, so i was allowed to see his Facebook profile. Scrolling down, there are many, many messages of remembrance and condolences…like a chain-link fence or a grave site used to be 5 years ago.

The extremely haunting part occurs around the time the news of the accident was being released. Friends of his, that knew of his relationship to the Angels player who was killed start writing on his wall: “Call me when you get this.” and “Please let me know you’re ok.”  A new social media paradigm: Death…in real time.

Much love goes out to Henry, and all of his friends and his family, who are all no doubt suffering right now.

In the last year, i have:

1. Changed jobs three times, including the failure/shutting down of my own business.
2. Missed my sales goals at my new job 6 times in 6 months.
3. Cracked a rim on my car
4. Replaced said rim with $500 new rims
5. Ran over curb, bent brand new rim, popped brand new tires, shattered shock mount.
6. Replaced brand new rim for $250
7. Replaced two $180 tires
8. Replaced $300 shock mount
9. Replaced a $2,000 clutch
10. Replaced a $400 car stereo
11. Replaced a $300 cooling hose
12. Replaced a $500 coolant system
13. Realized i had spent $5,000 on car maintenance and my check-engine light is still fucking on.
14. Accidentally shattered a bedroom window
15. Spent $400 to fly to LA for a meeting only to have it canceled while i was on the train to the meeting, and then find out that the entire  marketing department of my biggest client was fired.
16. Spent $400 to fly to LA for a meeting only to have my sample bag lost on a 1-hour flight, then found, then delivered to me 6 hours after it was found…and then arrived at the meeting and was given 20 minutes to present 30 ideas i had spent 2 weeks and countless dollars getting together.
17. Found out that the ASU budget cuts forced them to cut 100 spots in their nursing school and that my girl still only missed the cut by .1%
18. Found out on January 26th that BlueCrossBlueShield had canceled my health insurance in September due to a clerical error and then due to another clerical error, had neglected to notify me.
19. Been prescribed medication to deal with anxiety and attention-deficit disorders
20. Lost 70% of my stock portfolio.
21. Lost my confidence (20,000 times)
22. Lost my roommate (and only source of income)
23. Lost my grandfather (today)

Today, i still have:

1. Roof over my head
2. Food in my stomach
3. Family, friends and a woman that love me
4. The ability to wake up and believe that it has to swing back the other way soon.

I make no secret of my fandom of Seth Godin…everyone who reads this has probably gotten an email from me with a link to something he said…let’s be real, my dad made me read one of his books in high school.

So today’s post is an excerpt of an interview he did about the music industry…and well, it’s spot on.

Read it here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/02/music-vs-the-music-industry.html

While the airline industry has a long and storied history of fucking over the consumer and then getting bailed out by the taxpayer (who they seem to think are two different people), i’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything quite like this current situation before. If you described to me a restaurant who used to charge one price and include everything with your meal and then that restaurant suddenly changed their model to everything being a la carte, even the water…well, they better have an incredible new chef, amazing ambiance and butt-massaging chairs. In other words, if you change your business model, you’d better change your business.

In the case of everyone but Southwest Airlines, the opposite has been the case. Everything is  a la carte, things that used to be free (or at least hidden in the amoratized price of the ticket…) now cost additional. You now have to bring more change to the airport then you take to the laundromat. And, for all of these price changes, you would think that they had done at least something to warrant them, such as new seats, better accomodations, faster planes or at least ONE thing that was different from before. They didn’t. We’re still flying the same planes we flew 30 years ago, in the same seats, with the same peanuts and the same leg room. No technological innovations, no improvements. NOTHING. In that same 30 years, we went from listening to music on vinyl albums purchased at the record store to listening to music on a credit card-sized mini-computer that can pull your new music out of the fucking ether…and some of them even make phone calls too, i’m told. Have you heard any news about the newest, most modern airliner that will revolutionize travel as we know it? No, you haven’t. Because that thing isn’t being built, or even thought of. There’s no need. They have us and our tax dollars by the balls. Why improve if nobody makes you?

All of this is one giant buildup to the following point: I’ve flown Southwest a lot lately. I make lots of short trips to Denver, Los Angeles and Las Vegas and as such, i fly a semi-smaller, cheaper carrier that gets me to those places quickly and effectively. Southwest is in the same recession that everyone else is (yes, it’s true that they were able to sidestep the fuel increases last summer because of fortunate timing, but that shouldn’t be a huge issue), but in the past few months, i have noticed improvements when i fly Southwest. They have installed banks of tables and chairs at the gates with electrical chargers and USB ports for all of us to charge our gizmos or get some work done while waiting. They have adjusted their seating process to be more convenient and eschewed the cattle car loading that was the joke of the industry for so long. They have not charged bag fees. And on the last few flights, i have ordered an adult beverage with every intention of paying for it, and had the flight attendant smile at me and say “Thanks for flying with us.” and brush away my waiting, credit card-filled hand.

Business is all about finding opportunity. Being succesful in business means not doing what everyone else is doing. Sometimes making an extra buck during an economic downturn means not squeezing the fuck out of your customer at every step but instead treating that customer right and letting them bring their extra bucks to you voluntarily.

Last year, i posted this and it was a big hit. Esquire did it again, so i’m doing it again. And, as always, these aren’t necessarily things i agree with or words to live by verbatim…just thoughts by other people that i think should be heard, judged, considered, pondered, etc.

“I remember going to a huge waterfall on a glacier in Iceland. People were there on a rock-platform overlook to see it. They had their kids. There was a places the wasn’t sealed off, but it had a cable that stopped anybody from going past a certain point. I said to myself, ‘You know, in the States they’d have that hurricane-fenced off, because they’re afraid somebody’s gonna fall and some lawyer’s going to appear.’ There, the mentality was like it was in America in the old days: If you fall, you’re stupid.”
- Clint Eastwood, actor, producer, director -

“I’m a t-shirt guy now. But wifebeaters won’t go out of style, not as long as bitches keep mouthing off.”
- Eminem, rap artist

“As i’m chatting with Obama, the moderator says, ‘Governor Richardson, what do you think of that?’ And I look at him like a deer in the headlights. I was about to say that i hadn’t heard, when Obama puts his hand over his mouth and says, ‘Katrina.’ So i gave my four-point plan on Katrina. When i was done and the debate moved on, i looked over and said, ‘Thanks, you’re okay.’ He said, ‘Nothing to it, Brother.’ It confirmed to me that this guy was something special.”
- Bill Richardson, Governor, NM

“In World War II, Russia lost about ten million, Germany lost five million. We lost fify-five hundred of the best marines in the world on Iwo Jima. Those guys, they’re the ones who ran out of the trenches, flew the airplanes, fought the wars. That was a two- or three-hundred-thousand-year-old gene pool getting killed. They would have been the grandparents of the world leaders today. And that’s my analysis of why there aren’t any great world leaders out there today.”
- Warren Miller, filmmaker

“When we did ‘School’s Out,’ i knew we had just done the national anthem. I’ve become the Francis Scott Key of the last day of school.”
-Alice Cooper, showman -

“Because of my last name and the way i look, some people think i’m a spoiled brat. But i’m not like that at all. I’m one of the most down-to-earth people i know out of anyone in Hollywood.”
-Paris Hilton, blond-

“Natural Born Killers is a really misunderstood romantic comedy.”
- Woody Harrelson, actor-

“You practice and you get better. It’s very simple.”
-Philip Glass, composer-

“Making gay marriage partly means not having a nongay person lording over you, deciding for you what you can and cannot have.”
-Gus Van Sant, Director -

“You cannot buy farmers at a farmer’s market. It’s super-confusing.”
-Dwight Schrute, paper salesman-

“I don’t like terminology Left/Right, Republican/Democrat, because you’re swinging an awful wide loop there, and you’re liable to catch some people in it you don’t want to.”
- Charlie Daniels, singer-

“I’ve found that for most artists, the art they produce is the most natural aspect of their life. If they had taken the time to consider what their motive was for doing something, they would have done something else for a living.”
- Chuck Klosterman, writer-

“Wouldn’t it be great if all the world were democratic? Gee, well, let’s do it. Okay, what are the consequences if you try and don’t succeed? We are now living in a world that is partly a result of that particular experiment.”
-Brent Scowcroft, Elder Statesmen

“I would never vote for somebody who had never changed their mind on anything, because i know i was not crafted perfectly at age 18.”
- Phil Bredesen, Governor of Tennesee-

“When you get past Ninetieth Street in Omaha, it literally repeats itself. It’s like: Home Depot, Chili’s, McDonald’s, ten more blocks, same thing. What’s scary is that people don’t even notice.”
-Conor Oberst, songwriter-

“A liberal is arrogant enough to think he can do you a half-assed favor. He is superior enough to think he can give you something that you don’t deserve. A liberal will cut off your leg so he can hand you a crutch.”
-Jim Brown, athlete-

“When i started singing ‘Red, White and Blue,’ the lefties attacked me. And then the Right came in with heavy support. The righties said, ‘You’re a red Republican, right?’ I said, ‘No, i’m a Democrat.’ And you could smell the brakes and clutches locking down. Whoa! All of a sudden you don’t get Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity and the Fox stuff no more. But i don’t see things right-left. I see ‘em right-wrong. I don’t have an agenda.”
- Toby Keith, singer-

“Unequal school funding will not end on the day of Barack’s inauguration.”
- Jesse Jackson, public conscience-

“I keep my amputated toe in the refrigerator to remind me of everything i went through. You know, don’t be stupid anymore.”
-Rulon Gardner, olympic wrestler-

“The biggest fight we had about Dumb and Dumber wasn’t about any joke. It was about the scene in the beginning when Jim is trying to talk Jeff into going on the trip, and he wells up. And the studio said, ‘What are you doing? This is a comedy.’ We said, ‘No, no, you need this. Because in two minutes, he’s selling a dead bird to a guy in a wheelchair.’
- The Farrelly Brothers, directors-

“We have a very good law in Maine: When you catch a female, you carve a notch into the tail and throw it back. The industry has grown under that law. It proves if you take care of the female, she’ll do you good business.”
-George Johnson, lobsterman-

“Facts are good things to have when making decisions. Sarah Palin didn’t know that Africa was a continent, i think that’s information that people could have used.”
-Shepard Smith, journalist-

“If our employees are not challenging people in authority, they’re not doing their job. If they’re not using their knowledge to help us make better decisions, what good are they? We might as well have empty chairs.”
-Charles Koch, CEO Koch Industries, America’s largest private company-

“Last time i sae Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other down on it, and he comes down with one note.  And it was the greatest note i ever heard in my life.”
-Les Paul, father of the electric guitar-

“There’s gratification in making somebody laugh. It’s a wonderful sound. I find myself, to this day, doing it, wanting to make people laugh.”
-Bob Newhart, comedian-

“A good hardware store has no rhyme or reason to it. Things should be falling everywhere, tons of shit, you don’t even know where to start. So you have to ask.”
-Steve Zahn, actor-

“Sinatra didn’t have any gray. He either loved you or rolled over you with a truck in reverse.”
“Cherish your mistakes and you won’t keep making them over and over again. It’s the same with heartbreaks and girls and everything else. Cherish them and they’ll put some wealth in you.”
“When you chase music for money, God walks out of the room.”
-Quincy Jones, producer-

From the always-genius FailBlog

This video is amazing and this pilot definitely deserves a shitload of credit for saving people’s lives…but we’re so quick to annoint a new hero when there are heroes around us every day. Single moms working 2 jobs and still finding time to raise their children right, people who pursue jobs in the public sector where they help people everyday, not because the money or recognition is great, but because they love to do it, it is their calling (Sam, Ron, Kev and Kelli are on this list amongst many others).

I have many pilot friends and the one thing they all agree on is that the guy who safely landed this U.S. Airways plane wasn’t so much of a hero, as he was a terrific pilot with a healthy sense of self-preservation. A quote from one of them: “Pilots don’t want to die any more than they want to see their passengers die. They have wives and kids of their own. It’s the pilots who don’t want to live you want to watch out for.”

Video is amazing:

I think i’ll post some more resolutions that i will never ever follow soon, but in the meantime, a message about New Year’s Eve from Will Leitch:

“I hear people complain about New Year’s Eve, that it’s always made into a big event that ultimately disappoints, that they feel pressured to have some kind of momentously fun time. These people are sad, really, incredible dullards and whiners. Pressured to have fun? Hey, I’ll take that kind of pressure every time, no problem. I wish I was pressured to have fun every day, rather than pressured to pay the bills, pressured to hold onto my job, pressured to keep my head above water.

If you can’t relax and have fun on New Year’s Eve, well, you’ve got more problems than this column can solve, so there is no hope for you here.”

Read the rest here and have a happy New Year.