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

 
Hold Your Horses
As the baseball playoffs begin, there is much talk about a possible Cubs-Red Sox World Series. It reminds me of an article I wrote in June 2001 when the Cubs and Red Sox were both in first place in their divisions. As I reread it, this looks it was a draft from May of that year, but you'll get the gist. I'm reposting it now for your amusement:

Cubs, Red Sox to Continue World Series Boycott
Fans must wait indefinitely

MILWAUKEE – In a recent letter to the Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox have announced their intention to continue their boycott of the World Series.

“So long as the only criterion for going to the World Series is winning baseball games, our organization will continue its boycott,” said Cubs President and General Manager Andy MacPhail.

Red Sox General Manager Dan Duquette echoed those sentiments, “History and tradition should count for something. We’re two of the oldest organizations in professional sports. We deserve a bye to the World Series,” he said.

Presently, the World Series participants are selected through a “playoff system.” The three Division winners from each of MLB’s two leagues, plus one additional team with the best regular season record compete in a tournament. In the first round, or Divisional Series, teams must win 3 of 5 games. In each of the subsequent rounds, the League Championship and World Series, teams must win 4 out of 7 games.

The two clubs have taken somewhat different approaches to enacting their boycotts. The Red Sox have chosen to make an effort to earn a bid to post-season play, but underperform in the playoffs, losing World Series in 1967, 1976, and 1986. Meanwhile, the Cubs have chosen to avoid the playoffs in all but five years since 1906.

“Winning merely creates expectations for more winning. And when we don’t meet those expectations, everyone feels bad. People lose their jobs because of it,” said Cubs manager Don Baylor.

“Sure, we may make the playoffs. Heck, we may even go to the World Series. But, as Bill Buckner demonstrates time and time again on ESPN Classic, we will do whatever it takes to sabotage the winner-takes-all playoff system,” said Mr. Duquette, alluding to the 1986 World Series. The Red Sox were one out from winning the World Series, when Buckner committed an error that allowed the New York Mets to win Game 6 in extra innings, extending the series by one game, which the Mets ultimately won to take the title.

Fans of both teams were still in shock after hearing the news. They had hoped that the teams’ first-place records signaled a change in philosophy. Chicago leads the National League Central division by 3 games. Boston leads the American League East by one game.

“This is really crushing,” despondent Ameritech sales representative and season-ticketholder Craig Warshawski said. “When [Cubs owners] The Tribune Company agreed to pay Sammy [Sosa], I thought, ‘This could be the year.’ Maybe if the pitching holds up through the All-Star Break, they’ll change their minds.”

“The Sox are awesome! When Nomar gets back, they’re gonna win it all,” screamed Sean Curran, 31, a longshoreman, before punching a passerby in the head.

Not anytime soon, if these organizations have their way. “Baseball is a game of tradition. No franchise has better tradition than us or the Cubs,” said Red Sox CEO John Harrington. “We have the oldest, dirtiest stadium in baseball. There’s not a stall to be seen around any of our toilettes. Do these things count for nothing anymore?”

MacPhail nodded in support. “We have the most liberal alcohol policies and the most lax security force. Our commitment to daytime baseball has been a beacon of hope to the unemployed and lackadaisical everywhere. Baseball needs to get its house in order.”

posted by RSaunders at 10:04 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Know When to Fold 'em
Those who have been by recently saw I had referenced Poker Nation as a book I'm currently reading. One of the heroes talked about in the book was Stu Unger, who is the subject of a new movie, Stuey, made by a Nashville filmmaker, A.W. Vidmer. It's a fine movie, starring Michael Imperioli of The Sopranos.

I love gambling movies and books for some reason. Maybe it's because I secretly long to be able to make that huge money, because I believe I could stop when I was ahead, because I like the idea of risk rather than the reality of risk. I don't know. Whatever it is, I know I'd be a big loser. So, I guess I'm making the smart move by not playing at all.

Oh, I have a guppy update: we have baby fish! Looks like about a dozen or so. I knew I should have set up a camera to film the births. Oh well. Everyone seems happy for now.

My write-ups on Neal Pollack should appear in The Tennessean this week. I'll link to it when it goes online. It's kind of disappointing because I don't have much space. I'm going to have to find a magazine to take my longer info. Or just post it here.
posted by RSaunders at 4:35 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Finger on the Pulse of the Telecom Industry
A new Slant is out this week. You'll notice an article by moi about the FCC's "do not call" list. Wouldn't you know, today there is a legit news item about the list. My article provides the ultimate solution, don't you think?
posted by RSaunders at 9:41 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Sidewalkin'
Finally got back today from Birmingham, home to the Sidewalk Film Festival. A really super film festival. I saw a mostly comedy shorts segment, a dramatic shorts segment, a set of animated shorts, and 1 feature, the festival jury prize winner, Melvin Goes to Dinner, by Bob (Mr. Show) Odenkirk.

Melvin was definitely a fun film. Cameos by David Cross, Laura Kightlinger, and the director himself don't interrupt the flow of the film, even when 350 people all turn to whisper "that's David Cross" to one another. It's basically a Gen-X version of My Dinner with Andre. The basic plot is: Melvin is in a shitty state job and while trying to make plans with his lover, accidentally calls an old friend he hasn't seen in a while and ends up going to dinner with him. So, it's Melvin, Joey, and two lady friends. I won't give away more. The conversations at the beginning don't flow too well, but after they move to about the second or third topic, they get on a roll and it becomes really fun.

I wish I could report more on Melvin, but I was fighting off a sinus headache, fever, and heat exhaustion in the basement nightclub-cum-movie theatre where it was screened.

Turnout was pretty impressive. I couldn't get in to The Real Old Testament, an improvised parody of the The Real World set in the Book of Genesis and, in a Bible belt surprise, the audience prize winner. The shorts at the Carver theatre were nearly packed, and even the 1500 seat Alabama Theatre was pretty full for the last shorts and animation blocks.

So, if you're looking for a good festival to send your next film or want to see a good selection of films, plan for Birmingham in September 2004.
posted by RSaunders at 3:39 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Parking
I'm actually not riding quite as high as I just posted because I just spent the past 30 minutes driving figure-8s around the block looking for street parking. You see, there's a fair bit of free 2-hr parking in the neighborhood, and they don't check very often, so it's cheaper to pay parking tickets for a year than to buy a parking permit for work, where sometimes you end up parking even further away than if you parked on the street. Yes, I'm a cheap bastard.

But today it seems the rest of campus was onto my game. And now I'm going to stop it. No, I'm not buying a sticker. Instead, I'm cutting some off-white card stock, typing some random numbers and letters on it, and placing it on the windshield of about 7 cars. This may not deter the people who get the fake tickets (they'll see they're not tickets), but it may scare them a little. More importantly, it will deter people who walk or drive by from staying too long the next day.

Yes, I think Poker Nation has gotten into my wiring. All I need is a dose of Ayn Rand, and I'll be set.
posted by RSaunders at 11:43 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Always Be Closing
I'm riding a wave of pride right now. I'm about the most spineless person you know. Some might prefer to call me "accommodating," but they're just trying to butter me up to take advantage of me in the future. Am I paranoid or is Poker Nation seeping into my brain?

I'm brimming with pride because I negotiated a discount at the Jiffy Lube today. Already significantly overpriced for an oil change, they offered to replace my transmission fluid and clean my fuel injectors. What would be a $18 job at my usual place--which I'm not at because they pissed me off yesterday when they said the crew was about to take lunch for 30 minutes--that's right, the whole crew was taking a break simultaneously with 4 customers in the lobby and me about to be 5--has now become $130-ish visit.

Maybe it's the decongestants talking, but it came to me: why not ask for a discount. I even looked in the person's general direction for it instead of at the floor and speaking into my chest. Not only did I ask, he offered $10 without hesitation. So I said, "Well, is there any way you could go to $20 cause I just went from a $30 oil change to looking at about $120 in extra stuff." He didn't just buy it, he gave me the oil change free!

Holy crap! This is way better than the $50 I got out of Circuit City in exchange for the 3 hours I spent there on a computer exchange. They were nice, so I didn't push it. Anyhow, with that $80 plus my freelance dollars, I've just about covered the rest of my expenses for my trip to Austin. Some of you may be saying to yourself, "Yeah, but you just blew $100-something you didn't plan to. Who out negotiated whom?" To that I say, you enjoy undermining me, don't you mom? (Apparently the Al Franken book has taken hold as well.)
posted by RSaunders at 11:38 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Persistent Vegitative State
Hey gang! Sorry I've been incommunicado the past few days. I've developed a lovely sinus infection, and my meds have made me an even fainter shadow of my usual shadowy self.

My reviews and profiles of Neal Pollack should be published over the next two weeks. Oh, wait, that was supposed to be a surprise. Like I said, I'm in a drug-induced haze. It's all I can do to procrastinate this much. But, yes, it is true. I get to do legitimate celebrity journalism, the ne plus ultra of oxymorons.

What else is going on? Don't you think it's a bit extreme that ABC killed off John Ritter just to save a few bucks on producing "8 Simple Rules." These studio execs need to realize it's the talent that brings in the bucks. What I don't understand, though, is why they're having him die on the show. I understand Ritter is actually dead, but why can't they pull a Bewitched and use a second John Ritter? It just seems odd to take what is at best a lukewarm comedy hit and create a major league maudelin story arc. I know it probably seems insensitive, but there are other sitcom actors out there who could play the role. The formula is still there. Instead, America will be doomed to tearful "Dad would have wanted us to go on" and "Dad would have been so proud" moments on what should be a happy, funny series.

O.k., I got that off my chest. Now I'm going to go collapse.
posted by RSaunders at 10:46 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Growin' Up
A sad moment at my house last night. Sad in the kind of way when you're looking forward to going to the pool on a hot day and when you drive by it's been closed by the Board of Health kind of sad. You'll get over it, but it's disappointing kind of sad.

I'm reading Al Franken's books and thinking about how it's more earnest than funny and Jimmy Kimmel is just about over (after vaguely listening to him, Conan, and Dave) and I see Extra. They're talking about John Ritter and Johnny Cash's deaths. That's not the sad part.

The sad part is who was announcing. None other than Brian Unger, former Letterman writer, Daily Show correspondent (in the early Kilborne days), and most recently on Oxygen with the great show O2Be, a parody of Regis and Kelly starring him and Daily Show creator Lizz Winstead. I suppose there is truth in the old adage, "Brotha's gotta get paid." Let us all bow our heads in silence.

Thank you.
posted by RSaunders at 2:58 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Piping Hot Comedy Now Available
The latest issue of The Slant is available for your reading pleasure. Or, you can read how Howard Stern's radio show was deemed a "bona fide news show." I know now that my years spent writing for The Slant means I can look forward to writing rulings by the FCC.

Also, it looks like Alabama has recommitted itself to plummetting to the bottom of every major measure of social well-being.

Finally, Vanderbilt has eliminated its Athletics Department and folded the teams under the university's Vice Chancellor for Student Life. The news came as a shock to the Vanderbilt community which had thought the Athletics Department was disbanded decades ago.
posted by RSaunders at 11:37 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Lost in Austin
I'm back from my sojurn at the lovely Holiday Inn - Town Lake in Austin. I had a lovely time seeing the sights and sounds of Longhorn Nation. Some quick thoughts:

• Austin-Bergstrom airport is pretty damned nice. Really compact and easy to get through.
  
• I wonder how much Southwest Airlines has meant to the economies of the cities it serves? It looks like the Texas Department of Transportation has invested a good deal in redesigning the I-35 and TX-71 to accommodate more traffic. I was reading about how Ft. Lauderdale is starting to boom with six new hotels as it has faded out its spring break reputation and courted more upscale guests who have the decency to throw up in the commode rather than on the carpet.
  
• I can't tell if it's a matter of design or an attempt to make contracts larger for some road builder, but:
  
  • for the length of I-35 they have a frontage road running parallel for almost the whole length of town (it actually reminded me of driving through St. Louis);
    
  • the exit ramps run for a long distance, merging with the frontage road, before getting to the actual labeled-street;
    
  • getting onto the interstate is relatively smooth, but you have to make a quick dash through the appointed entry slot;
    
  • the interstate splits as you get to downtown, with two lanes below and two lanes above, each with their own sets of exits, which seems like an efficient use of space, but probably unnerving for an out of towner in a hurry to find someplace and not expecting it.
  
  
• The weirdest thing I noticed is all the stop lights are rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. I'm trying to figure out a reason why. I wondered if it had something to do with wind or weather. Maybe it's just Texas being Texas.
  
• I understand now how Austin has earned its cycling reputation. I drove around the northwest section of TX-360, and it seems like the whole road was built as a giant velodrome with several dozen Lance Armstrong wannabes, and even some racing/training teams scooting through downtown. Also, having driven around the UT campus, I realize how important having a bike would be. Christ, you could walk a long damn time to get to classes, and there's little parking.
  
• The state capitol building is impressive. It looks like a clay replica of the US Capitol before being put in the kiln.
  
• I always thought of Austin as being smaller than Nashville, but I'm wrong by a good bit. Nashville may have it beat in terms of MSA, but Austin has about 100k on Nashville as a city. On top of that, Austin's age distribution is much more heavily centered on folks ages 20-34, with twice as many 20-24 year olds and about 50% more 25-34 year olds. Consequently, it has a much more active nightlife. Driving around (and stopping in a few places), there's several blocks worth of clubs filled up compared with Nashville's small, barely-filled honkey-tonks and cavernous chain clubs (e.g., Hard Rock). It helps to have a huge public university in town, but I'm not sure that accounts for all the difference.

That's about it for now. I need to get my articles written up this week. I will redirect you as they get published.

Update: Oh, I almost forgot:

• H.S. football is a BIG deal. The radio stations took calls from kids saying "Go Team!" in between songs. There's some competition between parts of town for the biggest, nicest stadium as Red Rock, TX (home of Dell) has constructed a new 11,000 seat stadium to keep up with a rival school.
  
• I got to witness sorority pledges riding around campus forced to do cheers a la "Dazed and Confused." This seemed a bit more good natured than the Chicago high school hazing. Still, I wonder about the ritual. I guess they're designed to be meaningless to outsiders, but I can hardly imagine that people will look back in fondness for the time they sat at a stop light in the back of pickup truck and clapped Miss Susie Had Steamboat-esque cheers.
  
• Texans love their strip clubs. I saw several billboards and heard several more radio commercials for strip clubs. In addition, driving back to my hotel Friday night, a mobile billboard unit (a truck with lighted posters that drives around town) advertised for Penthouse's strip club. Even the Holiday Inn's in-room magazine contained a full page layout opposite a "Local Attractions" page. I refrained from sampling any however.
  

posted by RSaunders at 8:54 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Upcoming Plans
Greetings all. I'm headed to Austin for my first freelance writing gig for the Tennessean. Yes, their standards have reached heretofore unimagined lows with my arrival. I'll fill you all in on details after I get back so I don't jinx myself.

In the meantime, you can amuse yourselves with this article from USAToday about CD prices and reminisce about my previous entries on downloads: ipods and albums and digital movies. I include these not because they are relevant to CD prices, but because it seems obligatory in blogs to reference your own work. I'm slowly learning...

Is anybody looking forward to this NFL Kickoff crap? I think the NFL has misunderstood the male demographic. We don't want to see, much less hear, Britney Spears sing. We want to see her humping Lisa Guerrero on the sidelines. After her fling with Madonna at the VMAs, we expect nothing less.

Actually, if they were smart they'd have a pregame show set in a Las Vegas casino talking to oddsmakers. In fact, this will be the subject of a future column. One of my favorite aspects of the football season is listening to radio gambling shows/advertisements. Have you heard these? On Saturday mornings, in lieu of original programming, the sports radio station plays hour-long infomercials for a sports handicapping service in the style of a typical radio show talking football. They're the best. My favorite moment last year was when they guaranteed the winner on the coin flip in the Super Bowl. Since they were wrong, I'm sure the guarantee amounts to some sort of automatic payout that you are free to lose on some other wager. Very entertaining alternative to Car Talk.
posted by RSaunders at 12:37 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Cap Moves
I am still trying to understand what it is the National Football League Players Association does for players. Each year, teams sign their big stars to "huge" contracts with lots of upfront signing bonuses (that are pro-rated for the length of the contract) and agree to relatively less huge annual salaries. Then, within a year, faced with actually having to pay the money and the league's salary cap, teams look to the players for cap relief by redistributing salary, typically by pushing money into the future. The only money guaranteed in the deal is the signing bonus.

Case in point: the Tennessee Titans at the February cut-down point waived Neil O'Donnell and his $X million salary. (I can't find offhand the original prices, but it was over $1m.) However, the player and the team both wanted each other, so O'Donnell passed on offers from Minnesota and New Orleans to stay with the Ttans for about $755k. Now, after a pre-season in which the #3 QB, Billy Volek, proved he can be the #2 (for $605k), the Titans cut O'Donnell, and they can use a rookie QB, Jason Gesser, for the league minimum, $225k. $605+$225 is less than $755+605 by about $500k, which they can use for roster moves during the season or to put into a new contract for oft-injured and unproductive DL Jevon Kearse. That's on top of what they saved to get O'Donnell down to $755k.

Such adjustments help the team because it can use that "new" money (or pool it with money given back by other players) to sign new players to help the team or to finance new "huge" contracts to other stars. This can only happen so many times because as time goes on a player's skill level declines relative to the increase in salary price. As a result, teams waive the players. Based on the timing of those waivers, the team takes less of a cap hit than if the player stayed with the team, freeing up more money in the future to perpetuate the cycle.

Of course, they use this strategy on all contracts. I say "huge" not just because of the irony that players never actually see all the money they signed for. They're "huge" in the sense of relative value, the discrepancy between a player's future skill level, their future salary, and the value of a replacement player. In the future, there will be an undrafted free agent, maybe a couple years into the league, who will play for the league minimum and play his position and probably on special teams, too. He likely won't be as good as the player released, but he will be cheaper. The ratio of marginal cost to marginal benefit will be closer to 1, possibly even below 1 if the player turns out better than expected.

In theory, players agree to these givebacks because if they refuse, they'll get cut sooner; the giveback postpones their eventual waiver, and players prefer the certainty of a job to the uncertainty of the free agent market. Also, if enough players refused the givebacks and took waivers, they would flood the market and lower the price, presumably below the value of the renegotiated rate.

Are these not the practices the NFLPA should be working to avoid? It's bad enough that marginal players and aging players end up subsidizing the new contracts for first round rookies and superstars entering the prime of their careers. Apparently players suck it up and avoid much class warfare. If the union functioned properly though, they would protect the earnings of all their players and stop feeding the egos of the elite players and their agents, even to the point that the players would strike for changes to the operation of the waiver/cut-down and cap process. (Although we've seen how successful the 80s strikes were: they produced this ridiculous system.)

What is really disgusting is that Gene Upshaw, Hall of Fame OL of the Oakland Raiders and president of the NFLPA, is the highest paid union leader in the country. The labor rights of the man's union members are treated only marginally better than a Wal-Mart employee.

For Titans fans, all I can say is, look for Eddie George on the waiver wire come 2004.
posted by RSaunders at 8:51 AM ⇒ (0) comments