Full of Shit

Is everybody full of shit?

The latest shattered public narrative is that of Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame who admitted his girlfriend, who he said died of cancer a few months ago, did not actually exist. I have been oddly fascinated by this. The media had extensively reported on the existence of the dead long-distance girlfriend but I had never before heard of this story (probably because I don’t follow college sports).

I don’t buy it that Te’o was the victim of some hoax. I think he was in on it. He appears to have changed his tune about whether or not he ever met her. There are cynics who say Te’o made this whole thing up to aid his campaign for the Heisman Trophy and some other people think he made up the girlfriend as a beard since he was intimidated by coming out. Maybe he’s just a young, single guy who made up a hot girlfriend who lived somewhere else and then one lie led to another and it got out of hand. (Then why kill her off in dramatic fashion? Why not just say “we broke up” and lose track of her?) I don’t know what to make of this soap opera.

What I do know is that I don’t feel betrayed by this deception because I never bought into the story, since I had been unaware of the story until yesterday. I feel bad for the guy because he’s been so humiliated over something that doesn’t really affect the public that much. What I do feel betrayed by is the concept of accurate reporting, which does have ramifications for the public. Here are some questions:

In the whole time numerous mainstream media outlets reported this guy and his girlfriend, nobody thought to look her up and interview her? It’s not like she lived on the moon. You can track down anybody these days but nobody bothered.

Nobody looked into the inconsistencies of the given dates of death of his girlfriend and grandmother? Some accounts said they died hours apart and some said the girlfriend died days later. If you were Te’o or his family, wouldn’t every detail of those deaths be seared into you, especially that this was only a few months ago? I remember the dates and sequence of events surrounding my grandparents’ deaths, including just what was happening when I got the news and I’m sure most other people remember such details.

I don’t know why nobody dug deeper. Maybe it’s due to a lack of resources at media organizations. Maybe nobody in the media wanted to doubt the story — guy’s girlfriend dies of cancer the same day (roughly) as his grandmother dies and guy goes out and kicks ass on the football field — since it was “too good to check,” as the journalism saying goes. Maybe Notre Dame went along with the feel-good fiction to cover up the fact that they have (ahem) a football player rape scandal.

Any way you play it, it’s embarrassing to the industry that no reporter at any venerable institution was diligent enough to check on these details until Deadspin did some phenomenal reporting work.

A liar who offends me more is Lance Armstrong. What bothers me wasn’t so much the fact that he doped because other cyclists were probably doing the same. What bothers me is that he lied repeatedly about it for years, going so far as to sue and intimidate people who tried to blow the whistle on him. He intimated to Oprah that he had sued so many people for accusing him of doping that he couldn’t remember them all. What bothers me is that he was an asshole about it for years and used cancer as a shield against criticism.

I’m sure Livestrong did do good for cancer but that doesn’t mean he’s not still an asshole. One person can do right and wrong at the same time and the contradiction shouldn’t blow people’s minds. People can contain multitudes.

The next time we debate “are athletes role models” or “where have the heroes gone,” that’s a key point to keep in mind: People can be heroes and villains. Nobody is as perfect as you want him to be.

Please Select Entrée

The scene is Brian and Steve’s wedding reception. The toasts have ended and dinner is about to be served. A waiter brings over a tray of hot dogs and sets them before the grooms.

Steve: Uh, what’s this? Is this a joke?

Brian: You’re serving us hot dogs?

Waiter: Don’t you remember? You told us you both wanted the hot dog entrée.

Steve: That isn’t right. I’m a vegetarian.

Brian: And I just can’t stand hot dogs. I never could.

Waiter: Maybe this will help whet your appetite.

The waiter sprays a liberal amount of ketchup onto both hot dogs. Steve starts to gag and falls out of his chair.

Steve: So this is what a stroke feels like …

Brian: Oh God. Oh God.

A waitress walks up to the table carrying a plate of a certain steaming green vegetable.

Waitress: I have a special treat for you, Brian. I’ve brought you …

Brian: Oh no …

Waitress: … a special dish …

Brian: Please, Lord, no …

Waitress: … of spinach!

Brian: Aaaaahh!

The waitstaff and all the guests laugh maniacally. Lightning flashes. Thunder crashes. Suddenly, the scene shifts to Brian’s bedroom.

Brian: Aaaaah! (sits up in a panic) Oh God, don’t tell me …

Brian rushes to his office and over turns piles of paper. He rips open a sample wedding invitation and checks the RSVP card.

Brian (reading the card to himself): “Please select one of the following entrees: Crab cakes, steak or vegetarian.” Oh, thank God. It was just a dream.

Suddenly, Steve bursts in the room, covered in ketchup.

Steve: Or was it?!

Lightning flashes, thunder crashes and they both scream.

Bang Bang

What was almost funny (for want of a better term) to me in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting was how some people kept saying “it’s not the time” to talk about gun control but everyone else ignored those people and talked about gun control anyway. The people who didn’t want to talk about gun control after the shooting will never want to talk about gun control. They’re hoping people will keep quiet during the mourning period (because as 20 parents buried their first graders during Christmas, God forbid America had to endure the monumental faux pas of a conversation about how to spare another 20 parents from burying their kids) and when anyone brings up gun control after the first mourning period expires, more shootings occur in public places and the mourning periods overlap and it’s never polite to raise one’s voice above a whisper about guns. Of course, you are right if you said it’s not the time to talk about gun control. The time to talk about sane solutions for keeping guns from insane people was years ago.

Rather than trying to repeal the Second Amendment, I think we should put public pressure on gun manufacturers and retailers to limit the manufacture and sale of guns and ammunition that are designed in quantities only made for killing people. This would respect the rights of responsible gun owners who want simple revolvers to protect their families against intruders and would be an extra-Constitutional means of keeping guns away from people who would shoot up schools or movie theaters.

Not many people talk about the gun companies in general or the way those companies profit indirectly from gun massacres. Whenever there’s a Sandy Hook or Aurora shooting, some National Rifle Association members freak out that Obama is coming for their guns and they run to buy more guns and ammo. (It was always odd to me that people assumed Obama would take their guns because through his whole first term, I don’t remember him saying one word about restricting Second Amendment rights.) I saw some data that gun sales did rise after Newtown. Why not pressure such companies that have made a ton of money after some nut used their products in such horrifying fashion?

I understand that the Supreme Court has interpreted the Second Amendment as an individual right to own firearms. But just because someone has a right to arms, that doesn’t mean it has to be easy for them to acquire submachine guns that can hold large quantities of ammo without reloading. There should be public pressure on such manufacturers not to make such insane weapons available to the general public. This would not violate the amendment. You’d still have the right to high-level firearms but they would be rare and that would hopefully keep them away from the crazy and/or evil. Arms would undoubtedly still fall into the hands of mass murderers but isn’t it worth trying this before we just declare that it will fail?

I liken this to the First Amendment’s protection of art some people find offensive. You have the right to watch a movie with the vilest filth imaginable but that doesn’t mean every movie theater has to carry that movie. You just have to search out that content. Just because the Constitution gives you the right to something, that doesn’t mean everyone has to lay out the red carpet to give you the easiest possible access to it.

We could also pressure retailers to put policies in place to deter potential mass murderers from getting hold of guns. This would also respect the Second Amendment because it wouldn’t be a law that would bar certain people from guns — it would be Wal-Mart’s policy. It’s like how a 10-year-old has a First Amendment right to play a violent video game but game manufacturers have voluntary rating systems to discourage that, all due to societal pressure.

I read a lot of commentary during the gun debate by people who reflexively said, “No, that won’t work” when anyone proposed any gun control of any type. How do we know these things won’t work? After watching elementary school kids led with their eyes closed past the bodies of their classmates, don’t you think it might be worth, you know, giving gun control a shot?

Don't Try This at Home

Once in awhile, I get a reminder (aside from the gray hair and paunch) that I’m getting older. Many of these reminders leave me glad to be older.

For instance, I can’t laugh at videos of people hurting themselves. If it’s a video of someone getting hit in the balls or the cinnamon challenge, it’s harmless and I know the person isn’t hurt so I can laugh. I’m not so old that I’m too mature to enjoy people doing stupid shit.

What’s not so funny to me anymore is some videos where the person might be seriously hurt. On Tosh.0, they showed a video of someone who had wiped out on a motorcycle during some kind of race. While the rider lay on the ground, another motorcycle plowed into him. Both motorcycles then left the frame of the video so we don’t know how he ended up. He might be OK or he might be dead. That just isn’t funny. There was another video of someone blowing out birthday candles when his friend slammed his head into the cake. The birthday boy then just lay his head on the ruined cake, motionless. His friend picked his head up and the head fell right back down again. This person was probably unconscious. It just wasn’t funny.

Meanwhile, the studio audience is just yukking it up. Maybe shows like Tosh.0 have a disclaimer that nobody got seriously hurt but I’ve never seen it. There’s usually a disclaimer of “don’t try this at home,” but it’s still too elliptical for me to find funny.

I also am increasingly verifying that drugs have zero appeal for me, every time I read an article by someone on drugs or who got off drugs. There’s this former magazine editor Cat Marnell, who quit her job so she could smoke PCP and sit on a roof looking at the stars. This is literally what she told a magazine. I’ve read some of her memoirs of smoking PCP and running around at all hours and that lifestyle has no appeal to me. It’s not in the least glamorous. When people write recovery memoirs, even though they detail the horror their lives became, they still acknowledge the fun side of drugs that led them to addiction. I just don’t see the fun side in any of it. It sounds sordid and undignified. Every depiction of drugs makes me glad I don’t do them. Whenever I see an episode of Breaking Bad, I am thrilled that I never got into meth or anything else because the high isn’t worth it.

So I’m never going to look back and wish I had misbehaved more. I may have led a boring life but at least I have a house, a steady job, a mind that isn’t addled and I don’t look 10 years older than my age. I’ve seen what drugs can do and I’m quite content to sit home and read a book, thanks.

Getting Shit Done

If you suddenly felt bereft of jollity last Saturday afternoon, that was just me officially ending Christmas for everyone. Once I put the last string of lights back into its box to lie dormant for the summer, the holiday season had ended for everyone.

I celebrated the 12 days of Christmas, thanks to unused vacation days combined with company holidays. My vacation was a mix of family stuff, sitting around relaxing and getting shit done.

There was the three-day trip to Ohio for Steve’s family Christmas party. It was fun and we left with our Yankee swap gifts of a rubber chicken and a toilet paper holder shaped like a bear. The eight-hour drive each way did leave me beat so it was nice on Christmas Eve to relax at home and just stare at the blinking lights on the tree.

I had a few days after that to sit around the house in the afternoon and stare at the aforementioned lights. It was therapeutic after running around the previous few weeks with Christmas preparations and staying late at work for over a week, since we were on deadline and had to send the issue before the holidays. I did have some work to do on our website while I was off but it wasn’t onerous.

That’s one of my favorite parts of using vacation time the week between Christmas and New Year’s: Sitting in the living room and having the time to listen to my new music and read my new books. I so rarely get the chance to do so that I feel like a kid when it happens. Just half a week of that is enough to recharge me.

I also continued to get our shit together for the wedding. The main thing was finalizing the design for our favors, which will be glasses with a secret special design. We also wrote the ceremony, sifted through the invitations list and looked at some rings. Steve says we seem to be on track, at least according to the timeline by the good people at the Knot.

Most importantly, I took care of the fun part: I booked our honeymoon. Five nights in Fort Lauderdale, where we will sit by the pool and relax. Not that the wedding itself isn’t fun, but after the flurry of planning stresses me out, I will really need a few days to stare out at whatever body of water and concentrate on nothing more than reading a book.

Run!

I killed our treadmill. After nearly three years of enduring my constant footfalls, it died last month. It had been making noises and the conveyor belt finally just went askew and snapped. We’re not going to replace it (there are other financial priorities in the next few months and we’d like to redo the basement anyway) so for now it’s folded up downstairs. It had a good run and so did I.

For now, I’ve been running outside. It turns out that it’s noticeably harder to run on the sidewalk than it is on a treadmill. I thought I was a badass for running 2.5 miles four times a week but I am now winded when running a fraction of that up and down Kirkwood Highway. I started a route but have to alternately run and walk it since I can’t run that distance yet.

It’s also a lot colder outdoors than it is in our basement, especially in January. Who knew, right? I was out Wednesday night in below-freezing temperatures and my hands were numb. It’s harder to breathe in that type of cold and when I alternate between walking and running, I also alternate between sweating and shivering.

This is because I don’t have the clothes for running outdoors. I was used to running at home and would just wear shorts and no shirt because why wash extra clothes? I’m not running shirtless in public under any circumstances so I got some moisture wicking shirts. But they’re short sleeves so I still have to wear something long sleeve over them. Track pants were too bulky so I bought those running tights to wear beneath shorts. I didn’t wear gloves but maybe I should have. I also didn’t wear a hat because I hate hats. I’m wearing of wearing accessories because I knew I would just start to sweat halfway through the run. Do I want to be too cold or too hot? Luckily, once it warms up, this won’t be a problem and I can just wear shorts and a T-shirt.

I probably looked like a freak in my hybrid, half-assed running outfit. But it was dark and I don’t care what I look like. I never understood the impulse to look fashionable at the gym because working out is one place where you should prize utilitarianism above all. I probably also looked like a freak the other night: Some guy running down the street on the first day that New Year’s resolutions usually start.

The New Me

New Year’s resolutions officially begin on Jan. 2 because New Year’s Day is a holiday. But why go full force into a year of self-improvement? Let’s ease into The New You, much like one eases into drawstring pants, rather than expending the truly herculean effort of putting on pants with a real button and zipper just to leave the house. Here are some resolutions that will be easy to keep.

Turn 39

Eat at least two meals a day, every day

Walk (sometimes)

Go to work and do some work

Continue not smoking

Read something, anything

Check my email

Watch a little TV

Listen to some music

Pay my mortgage

Drive

Not eat butter by the stick

Edit things

Turn off the shower when not using it

Get at least four hours of sleep a night

Cut down on vodka

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