Things that Robert is thinking about that keep him from accomplishing anything.

 
Good Santa
I went to see Bad Santa last night. When I saw the ads, I figured this had to be a terrible movie, but when I saw the decent reviews and the director's (Terry Zwigoff) pedigree (e.g., Ghost World, Crumb), I decided to take a chance. It's been quite a while since I had this much fun watching a movie. It's kind of like a live action South Park. Go shell out your money, pronto!
posted by RSaunders at 12:12 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Can You Spell P-R-E-E-X-I-S-T-I-N-G C-O-N-D-I-T-I-O-N?
Bioethicists and consumer advocates everywhere are wetting themselves over this news from USAToday, and published in the current issue of Science: scientists have found a defective gene that causes heart attacks. Not "increases your risk of heart attack," but rather "causes heart attacks," presumably with 100% certainty (assuming you don't die of something else beforehand) based on the wording of the USAToday article.

I think the good news in this is that as scientists discover more genetic causes for disorders, the strong economic incentives to exclude people from health insurance coverage may create sufficient political pressure for universal health care. As it is now, so long as you can keep from revealing your genetic cards, you don't have much incentive to help pay for someone else's medical treatment. But, if genetic testing becomes widespread, as sufficient numbers of people face their own mortality and the certainty of high medical costs, you may see change. You wonder, however, where all the healthy people will move to avoid paying.
posted by RSaunders at 11:58 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Bridging the Generations
Last weekend I went to visit my grandmother in Northwest Alabama. My mother drove down from Maryland on Wednesday evening and left Saturday night for the 13 hr return trip. This confirms her need for treatment of a serious mental illness. But, the three of us had a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving because somehow this worked into everyone's schedule better than the 4th Thursday of the month. Kind of like having Christmas on Christmas Eve or five days later when that weird friend of your family arrives who you only see every other Holiday season and you pretend it's Christmas all over again.

The weekend was nice nonetheless. The highlight was when I asked my grandmother to teach me how to play bridge. I can't believe I never asked this sooner. I've known pretty much since I hit double-figures in age that she played bridge regularly. It's like she had waited her whole life for me, or anybody for that matter, to take an interest in the game (or was it her?).

So, after my day at the Alabama Music Hall of Fame (a subject for a future post [Ed: No, I haven't forgotten the Reno information, thank you. I'll get to it.]), we settled in for the lesson. We ended up playing with all hands visible, and she showed me the basic principles of bidding, and after 4 hours I had finally if not mastered at least comprehended the basic strategy for playing.

It's probably the most continuous conversation I've had with my grandmother at once, including the time we made the 13 hour trip to and from Maryland together. She learned to play in 1941, the summer before her junior year of college. She went in for a job interview at TVA for the secretarial pool, and the first question was not, "How many words can you type?", "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?", or "How would you handle a conflict with a co-worker?" The first question was, "Do you play bridge?" And so my grandmother played for an hour at lunch every day for next thirty-odd years.

She told me her regular game has been playing together every week for about forty years, which sounds impressive until she tells me a group at her country club has been in continuous operation since 1943! It's hard to imagine doing anything sixty times without interruption, much less 60 consecutive 52 week meetings. And to see the same people for that long? I only like about a half dozen people, and what keeps them liking me is rationed contact with me.

The lady who leads that group is 93. My grandmother was invited to join the group about fifteen years ago after they had kicked out one of the regulars for teaching bridge lessons for a fee at the country club. "That just doesn't sit right with us," the mother hen had said. Granny chose not to become embroiled in the politics, but she sits in with them occasionally. She also plays in a monthly bridge tournament at the country club, what she calls "Party Bridge." She has been the top player for the past two years. The bridge and the wisdom to stay above the fray probably explains her good health at the age of 81.

In fact, Granny had missed this month's Party Bridge to host my mother. We had lunch at the club, and while I choked down chicken-shrimp-and-tuna salad sampler--I was with a bunch of little old ladies after all--I watched as these eighty-something women recounted the previous night's bad beats. After watching and reading all my gambling movies and books, I wanted to hook them on Texas Hold 'em.

Granny said they're social now, but at the table it's all business. They're playing for points and other intrinsic rewards, but they're also playing for pennies, and they're serious about those pennies. There's no, "I'll owe you" or "Carry it forward to next week." You pay each penny, and they take losing each penny quite hard. Imagine if they were this hard nosed with telemarketers and scam artists.

In fact, it can be so hard core that sometimes nobody is allowed to talk at all. Apparently there is a silent bidding system often used in Bridge tournaments so that other tables cannot hear what you are bidding, and I guess to prevent your voice from becoming a tell.

Saturday we forced my mom to play with us for a few hours, and Sunday Gran took me to get a good intro book to cement my knowledge. She also gave me my own starter set of bridge cards from sets she's accumulated through the years. It took a while because each set she came upon was one that she really, really liked and didn't want to give away. The family resemblances reveal themselves eventually, don't they? We settled on a twin pack featuring the Mission at Santa Barabara.

There's something very civilized about the idea of playing bridge. It's simple, and it's cheap. The previous weekend I had gone with my girlfriend to Smith's Variety in Birmingham which features all sorts of crazy kids games, toys, baby stuff, and so on. It's where I got my Pocket Electronic Yahtzee. But, while we were there it was a demonstration day, and the salespeople were hawking the latest board games for grown ups. All the crappy games you only get out at the Holidays or on family vacations or when your relationship is so desperate for outside social contact that you subject yourself and your significant other, not to mention some other equally desperate folks, to the ignominy of a game night. Like Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, Taboo, and Cranium. I don't even know this year's $30 thievery. Maybe Ghettopoly will catch on?

I'm not sure what advantage these games have over Bridge. Bridge may have ruined many more marriages than Pictionary, but only because it has been played longer and by more people. Pictionary ineptitude kills much more quickly and efficiently, and it usually has a bigger audience since people only play with groups of six or more. Trivial Pursuit? I guess this lost fascination for me when I spent a whole summer reading the whole deck of 1000 cards. Knowing the distribution of cards, not the content of the cards, is what makes Bridge perpetually interesting.

All you need to kill 3 or 4 hours is a deck of cards, a flat surface, and your own wits (snacks optional). Sounds like a winner to me. Thanks, Gran.
posted by RSaunders at 12:47 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Welcome LasagnaFarm-ers
Greetings to guests who linked to me through LasagnaFarm.com. Here are a selection of links within my archives that may be of interest to you, a greatest hits, if you will:

• Details of my barium enema (other articles around this time may be interesting, too)
  
• Some Weekend Update-y jokes (other articles as you scroll down recount my visit to Annapolis);
  
• Some notes on watching ESPNClassic.

Enjoy!
posted by RSaunders at 3:01 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Post Show Critique
Well, I'm back from Al Franken's speech at Vanderbilt. Shockingly, very few Dittoheads in attendance. No protests to speak of. I was on the aisle, and I was plotting out my Rosie Grier scenario in the event of any untoward activities.

I'll be writing about my experience getting to interview Al Franken. The blog is about me and the things I do to keep from getting real work done, for those of you who don't recall, so that's what this will be about. For those of you who want to hear about the speech, feel free to read the book or watch his current speech on C-SPAN whenever it airs. It's funny, and it gives more light to the fun side of the book, which can be a little earnest. If you're reading the book, my suggestion is to picture Al reading it to you and then laughing in the right places. The Vanderbilt difference is that you get Tipper Gore in the audience. So insert her into your mental picture.

I worked my way into the press pool before Al's speech by connecting through his book publicist, who connected me to his assistant, who connected me to Vanderbilt's events coordinator. So, I got to be one of the dozen or so media folks who got to ask questions before his speech.

As exciting as it sounds, I've decided, based on the responses and the subsequent speech, that these interview sessions are a chance to practice the material before the speech. Not that it needs practicing, but it gets the juices flowing. Like batting practice.

Some other wag beat me to the punch in asking about the Al Franken Decade, and I didn't get to do a follow up about the Joe Franken Decade. A few standard questions about Rush and the Democratic nomination process. Perhaps I've been under a rock, but apparently people want Al to run for the Senate from Minnesota. Not that I think he'd do a terrible job; in fact, I think it'd be great and great fun, too. Just find it odd to be planning that far ahead. I mean, he'd have to move back to Minnesota from New York, and then, ugh, move to D.C. if he won. I'm not sure the job pays enough to be worth that.

I asked my question, with Bush-esque articulateness, about whether political point of view can get in the way of comedic point of view to the point where the material isn't funny and you end up being a liberal P.J. O'Rourke. I'm sure he thought, "What a douche bag," and probably thought I was being critical of his book as not being funny. I didn't think it was unfunny, just dangerously close to becoming unfunny. But he answered politely, and moved on to a question from the legitimate media about FCC rules and such.

After he was given the warning that he had to go next door for the speech, I asked whether he would be available for an email interview about comedy writing and such, because I'm a nerd for this kind of stuff, and he said email would be terrible, so why don't you walk with me over there and ask what you want.

So now I'm on the spot having to recall all the questions I wanted to ask but never thinking I'd get the chance to ask during the next five minutes as we wander through the Vanderbilt labyrinth to what passed for a green room. Al was great to let me come back stage with him and stand up to the VU coordinators to let me ask my ridiculous questions.

I seem to approach interviewing like I'm going to be hosting Later with Bob Costas, only I end more like Inside the Actor's Studio, with even worse results. It goes like this: Prefatory statement or clause; qualifying clause; convoluted question; and, expectant lean in for Wisdom. Invariably the response is, "Yeah, I guess so" or "I'm not sure I understand that" or "No, it's nothing like that." Whatever the response, it always reveals what a suck up wannabe the questioner is and how absent of insight the questioner is in spite of his supposed knowledge. This is pretty much how my experience with Neal Pollack went, though I got to spend enough time with him that he was friendly to me and gracious about my wannabe-ness and I got some great stuff from him.

So, I proceeded with the same m.o. with Al, despite my previous failure. I asked about getting started at Brave New Workshop and what he felt he still carried from that time, and he had good stuff about that. I let him go to the bathroom, and then he gave me a few more minutes in which to ask a little more about writing ("I don't understand the question"), the differences in writing in early versus more recent SNL seasons, and the evolution of Dennis Miller.

My new motto is to prepare and forget, then rely on instinct instead of preconceived questions. Of course, I already know all this. I do it all the time for presentations. I used to do it for improv, but somehow I want this to be different and under my control. I want to just download the wisdom from these folks rather than suffer through my own inarticulateness.

Anyway, having probably more than overstayed my welcome, I made my way out, he shook my hand, and I snuck into the auditorium to watch the speech. It's definitely not the experience that anyone else had at this speech, and I'm grateful that Al was so good to help me out.

Post Script: I was thinking about this some more while going to sleep, and I realized I'm not half this obnoxious when I'm interviewing people I don't know about or have any pre-existing interest in. So, I'm probably just inept in the areas that I'm most interested in.
posted by RSaunders at 8:11 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Delinquent
Hi, I know I'm late with my Reno update. Kind of catching up on work after being out of town. Also, a little distracted because I'm preparing to interview Al Franken tonight on campus. I'll have more to share there.
posted by RSaunders at 11:33 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Back in Town
Hola! Que tal? I'm back from Reno, and I'll have a full update in the next day or so. The short version is, I'm down about $80. My presentation went alright: my audience of 20-25 shattered my previous record of 4 at this conference.

In the news: it looks like President Bush has a plan to bring our troops back from Iraq...one body bag at a time.

Also, there's a new Slant out last week.
posted by RSaunders at 12:13 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Updates
Hey gang! Sorry I've been incommunicado for so long. I'm getting a presentation ready for the American Evaluation Association's annual meeting in Reno this week, and I've had to redo my analyses several times in the past 5 days. But, it's finally coming together. Now I have to get a grant application out the door in the next 36 hours or so.

Since I will be in one of the few "gambling permitted" states, please feel free to email me your favorite gambling tips related to blackjack, poker, or sports betting.

Since I probably won't get to write for a few days, I'll also let you entertain yourselves with a question: who is the celebrity you are embarrassed to admit you have a serious desire to bed? Email me your responses and reasons why..

I'll go first. I confess to harboring a special lust for Kelly Ripa. Why am I embarrassed? I don't find her especially talented or bright or in any way interesting, yet I still crave her. What embarrasses me is that even knowing all this about her I am still interested in her simply because she ignites carnal desires in me, which makes me more animal and less rational than I imagine myself to be. If anybody knew, I'm afraid they'd think I'm a bad, shallow person.

O.k., now I'm really procrastinating. Toodles!
posted by RSaunders at 10:31 PM ⇒ (0) comments