Notes on "the running back" (Anthology of Days)

My dad loved football.  When I tell my story -- the heretofore still short and unfinished long form -- I sometimes begin, in the style of Tristram Shandy, prior to my conception.  If it wasn't for family in-fighting and Paul Brown's bromance-style break up with Art Modell, I wouldn't have been born.

When the team debuted in 1968, the Bengals' uniforms were modeled after the Cleveland Browns. When Paul Brown was fired by Art Modell, Brown still owned the equipment used by Cleveland so, after the firing, Paul Brown packed up all his equipment which he then used for his new team in Cincinnati. The Cleveland Browns' team colors were brown, orange, and white, and their helmets were solid orange with a white dorsal stripe over the crest.  (Wikipedia)

When I tell the story, I mention as an aside that Paul Brown lit out of Cleveland in the middle of night with a truck full of Cleveland uniforms -- which has more flourish than saying he actually owned them and carried them off as much out of legal right as spite. Most people don't remember, and even more don't care, and there's only so much back story I'm willing to give in this the Age of "The Internet of Things."

I was never great at sports, though I did try. But I did grow up loving football, if for no other reason than my dad did. And even after he died, I found that watching football was a way to maintain my connection to him in some, almost ritualistic way.  And when I started hearing stories of former players with neurological issues, saw the doping scandals, starting with the death of Lyle Alzado, I started to wonder what it was all about. Recently, the neurological impact of the sport on its players has gotten more attention.  In both cases, someone points out at some point that the players made the choice to enter the sport; and while I think that's true, I think it ignores the socialization of athletes starting in junior high and up into college, as well as the economic urgency athletes from poor families have to "make good" on their talent.  

And today is 9/11, and I'm supposed to mention it because that's what we do. We rehash the day, talk about where we were, what we were doing. This 9/11 happens during a pandemic in which nearly 190,000 people have died, millions are infected, and every single one of them is erased as a statistical blip, or worse, a lie under some heretofore unfounded "conspiracy." Today, we honor 2,977 dead while whitewashing the suffering of those who survived -- all while we shrug our shoulders at not only the death and suffering in this pandemic, but using it as an excuse to ignore the suffering that happens everyday. My brother-in-law, who runs a 5K everyday and keeps a go bag packed, calls this "compassion burnout."  

A better word for it is "powerlessness."

The running back is just one more sufferer whose suffering is being largely ignored today. He asked me to help read his letter from the Metro Housing Authority because he had trouble finishing it. He needs glasses, he told me. The letter informed him that while he qualified for housing, because of the extreme need for available housing, he would have to wait. I tried to pitch this more optimistically by saying it meant he was further ahead in the que.  I think we both knew that was probably more for my benefit than his; but he accepted it graciously.  That, a temporary chair, and kind optimism was all I had to offer him. And true, I don't know his full story... there's no Wikipedia page link for that. And even if I did, I don't know that I'd tell it here, if only because maybe once upon a time he did decide to play a sport that breaks people and puts them back together like a badly glued ceramic mug. Maybe he wasn't poor and had few options. Maybe he wasn't puffed up his whole childhood to "make good" on his talent. Maybe.

Or maybe a better word for it is "Capitalism."

Read "the running back" here.

My Bengals Loss, or: my Buddha Belly, My Body, Myself

hipsters: the ultimate in fetishists...

The good and the wise lead quiet lives. - Euripides

"Come on," he said. "One bearded guy to another?"

I was there to watch the Cincinnati Bengals play, and Amanda -- who has no interest in "sportsball" of any kind, loves me enough to feed my need to cheer for the football team I was destined (and doomed) to be a fan of. I grew up watching the Bengals. I think of them in athletic and literary terms. In athletic terms, the Bengals are a team with historic low self-esteem and an owner who has contributed nothing to the sport other than convincing his dad, Paul Brown, to escape Cleveland (by night) with truck load of uniforms to start another team.

In literary terms, the Bengals are canonical -- as in Greek Tragedy. Sophocles has got nothing on Paul Brown's brain child.

After the best start since the last time they made a Superbowl appearance, the Bengals managed to make it back to the playoffs. Because I'm a lifer, I know better than to get too excited. After all, I lost $5 on them when they lost the Superbowl to the San Francisco 49'ers in the last 11 seconds. If ever there was a team that could, through sheer hubris, lose a lead in less time than it takes to exhale, it's the Bengals.

This game was no exception.

The bar was busy, though not because of the football game. When we got there, well into the first quarter, all the TV's were on a college basketball game no one cared about since it was neither Louisville nor Kentucky playing.  Getting the channel changed was an ordeal, because the bartenders were swamped. Getting to listen to the game was also an ordeal, because once the channel was changed, one of the owners came out, turned the sound down and turned the juke box volume way up.

Saturday night is not usually a bar night for me. I'm usually a happy hour week day inhabitant of my neighborhood watering hole. Happy hour regulars hold down bars so that on weekends, people can drive in from the east end,  downtown, and the Highlands when they feel like slumming it by not having to pay extra for the atmosphere when ordering whatever cocktail is trendy at the moment.

There was an odd vibe, too. At least three drug deals*, one sketchy chick with meth-head shakes pacing back and forth looking for purses or cell phones to palm, and more than several not-so-casual trips to the unisex bathroom** that made me not want to pee there. It's not that I'm shy, and there was a stall clearly marked MEN so that only the most drunk would be confused. But I didn't want to walk into someone's Saturday night special. Listening to the sound of people trying to screw in a bathroom stall or that odd gurgly suctiony sound from a drunk sloppy blow job makes it difficult to pee.

I drank a few cocktails and watched the game. Amanda followed enough to cheer at appropriate spots and tolerated my sound high top coaching tips (that Marvin Lewis ignored).  The air was stuffy, and the crowd was just odd. I noticed a face I knew, though I doubt he remembered me. He's the son of a local evangelist who appeals to bikers with instant redemption and 2nd Amendment proclamations.*** I sat in on a service once because I was going to write an article about them for the the local alternative dining and band guide^. I ended up not writing the story because the managing editor wanted a cheeky culture/make-fun-of-the-rednecks piece and I was more bothered by what seemed to be a take on the old tent revival scam.^^

The bar isn't downtown, but that part of the South End is bit too downtown and too close to a busy immigrant neighborhood for him to patronize on a regular basis.

Jackyl

And then some fat bastard walked in, plays Jackyl on the juke and proceeded to act like he owned the bar. He walked bowlegged and stooped, like his designer jeans will drop at any moment. Or like he was still getting used to the cowboy boots he was wearing. They let him behind the bar, where he started mixing drinks and shouting that he's selling shots for a dollar. Amanda and I were distracted from the game by all this noise. Luckily, we were sitting far enough back that we didn't get the view when his pants actually did fall down and everyone who did had the opportunity to see why fat guys should never go commando.

Fajita Mike: Reality TV Personality and sketchy bartender

Amanda thought she'd seen him somewhere, but we both knew it wasn't at the bar. After one of the owners, looking like she was worried she let loose the black plague in her bar, came over and talked to us a bit, we found out who it was. Apparently he's on some reality show set in a bar in Sturgis that's only open during Bike Week.

I've never been much of a reality TV fan. There's not been much to convince me I'm missing something, either

The game was teeter tottering. The Bengals were one point up and there was less than 2 minutes on the clock. They were in the final stages of completely unraveling on the field. Fajita Mike had, by that point, started wandering the bar in search of people to impress and drum up interest for the brand of legal moonshine^^^.  He even stopped by our table after asking the bar if anyone was watching the game and I said I was. He was, I think, looking to bet on the game; but since my aforementioned loss, I never bet on football again. So, he kept on mumbling, kept on hiking his pants up, and wandered off. After that, I understand he exposed himself -- probably on purpose -- and tried to tongue a late night regular, a tall, wide-shouldered woman who always seemed to me to be playing for a different team than any Fajita Mike would have luck with.

There were some patrons there who had driven in to catch a view of Fajita Mike's Brown eye. They were obvious. Hoodies brandishing the name of the reality show "Full Throttle." A few sculpted beards and form fitting flannel shirts.

I was on my fifth bourbon on the rocks when I switched to a beer and shot. Neither Amanda nor I were feeling the mood, and the ball game wasn't breaking down well. Even when I can sense the loss coming, I hate to stick around for it. It's just too heartbreaking to watch my favorite football team lose to the only team that ever really defeats them -- themselves.

And that was when one particularly skinny east end kid brandishing a meticulously sculpted beard, baby-blue fitted flannel, skinny-baggy jeans with a pointless wallet chain, and a too nice to be punk Social Distortion jacket -- who was probably trying to impress his very uncomfortable girlfriend, asked what I would do if he reached over and rubbed my belly.

"Would I let you?" I repeated.

He nodded his head, quickly, like he was trying to seal the deal. "Yeah. I mean, would you punch me?"

Of all nights to ask me that, I thought. If there was one night I could probably get away with punching some east end idjit for being handsy with my Buddha belly, it was that night. I probably could've gotten free drinks out it, blamed the outcome of the game, and scored some low grade coke, if that was my thing.

Shit. Sometimes it's a struggle to not punch people. I swore off physically hurting people 20 years ago, and I haven't thrown a punch since -- in spite there being more than several occasions when I desperately wanted to. I didn't need some fetish+ addicted stylisto to point out that I, like Fajita Mike, am fat. I see it every time I see a picture of myself. What can I say? 2015 was both a happy and stressful year. Amanda and I got married, but I lost two jobs I excel at because while I don't physically hurt people anymore, I don't mind using my words in the slightest. But I do tend to eat and drink when 1) I'm very happy, or 2) I'm very stressed.

Moderation has always been a problem for me. But, like all creatures, even Fajita Mike and the Skinny Fetishist, I am a work in progress.

But how to respond? Not having an enormous amount of direct experience rebuffing advances from grabby hipster guys that didn't include a solid punch, I tried to imagine what someone else with more experience might do.

What would Wonder Woman do in this situation? 

The problem with that was she probably WOULD have punched him. Besides, I am clearly no Linda Carter. I'm not even that major with the super-white teeth that every boy who watched Wonder Woman tolerated just to see her.

So, like the Bengals, I tried for the two point conversion.++

"The only person who gets to rub my belly is her," I said, pointing to Amanda. I showed them both my wedding ring. "She paid the freight."

That was enough to make him laugh and to make his girlfriend breathe a sigh of relief. I paid the tab just as the preacher's son was making another loop from the bar to the backroom with a gaggle of girls with low-self esteem trailing behind.

_________________________________
* Spotting a drug deal in public is sort of like spotting a cockroach in your kitchen. You see one, you know there's more you're not seeing.
** The bar owner has been trying to get the restrooms redone. During the day, the unisex bathroom is never a problem. Apparently  a rainy Saturday night means running out to the car or, to a fine hourly establishment is out of the question. 
* You can find him on YouTube, cradling an AK-47 and talking about Jesus.
^LEO Weekly. There's not a better source -- except maybe Yelp -- for restaurant suggestions.
^^ The minister wasn't there that day. But one of deacons led the service and talked entirely about how much the preacher needed money to keep the lights on. This church, by the way, also runs a bar on Saturday nights. "Jesus died for you but the preacher loves you most!" Consequently, the managing editor was not interested in that kind of story, as it was hard hitting and not the sort of story that downtown hipsters can read and use to make fun of anyone who doesn't sculpt their beards into the shape of a pair of swans giving birth.
^^^ You know. Everclear. If it's legal and taxed, it may be corn liquor, or maybe even overpriced bathtub vodka. But ain't moonshine.
+For those who haven't read their Marx, fetishism is a symptom of late-stage capitalism. If you think I'm being unfair, look at a hipster sometime and tell me it's not a fetish. Come on. I dare you. 
++They didn't make it. They rarely do. It's probably one of the stupidest coaching calls next to hoping for a safety (also 2 points.)

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The Three Tenses: Some thoughts on 9/11, Football, and The Sacred Long Memory

I rolled out of bed this morning to get some work done before the Cincinnati Bengals play their first regular season game against the Cleveland Browns -- because, in fact, all work does stop for me when there's a football game on. I realize this relegates me to a stereotype, but I don't really care. That I was never an athlete doesn't change the fact that I enjoy being a spectator. That the Bengals are trying to recover from a lousy season, the departure of a whiny quarterback, and an owner who's head is permanently planted up his own ass doesn't change the fact that I'm wearing orange and black today. In spite of the past, in spite of everything, life and faith goes on.

After feeding the cats and taking a shower and making coffee, I made my way upstairs to my desk. The weather is starting to cool off enough that I will be able to spend more days up here, writing. (Old house, the physics of heat, and the inability to afford an air conditioner all played a role in what I am now thinking of the Ennui '11: The Summer That Nearly Killed My Soul.) I need this space -- some kind of space -- where I can simply sit and write and be alone with all the muck that goes on in my head. This morning, part of that muck means doing the day job. Tomorrow morning's newspaper deadline is looming already, and there are public officials to expose, lampoon, and embarrass into doing the right thing. (Save all your objective media bullshit, please. The Fourth Estate is rarely objective. And when it is, no one reads it, listens to it, or watches it, because it's as dull as the list of contents on the back of a box of Hamburger Helper. You want your journalists to be honest, ethical, and merciless, not objective... which means that Fox News is not really a news outlet, but a well-funded propaganda machine -- since they've proven they are neither honest nor ethical.)

The thing I am faced with when I get online, however -- because I have to check my email and Facebook before I can do anything... damned digital age -- are people's thoughts, remembrances, and tributes to 9/11.

And while I remember precisely where I was and what I was doing when I heard about the planes flying into the World Trade Center Towers, I will not pine about that here. Any attempt on my part to insert myself into a momentous and tragic historical event would be pointless.

The focus of such remembrances should be on the people who died, their families, and the subsequent  responders and Ground Zero workers who have and continue to sacrifice a decade after the event. The focus ought to be that even though it has been 10 years, that we shouldn't lull ourselves into junking the events of September 11, 2001, into some kind of convenient decade package -- which is what pundits and pseudo-historians tend to do. Decade packaging is a myth. The events that shape us as individuals and as a society do not stop and start at 10 year intervals.

Remembrance is not a word I use lightly. The very word itself has a kind of religious resonance for me. It reminds me of the religious zealotry I hid behind in my youth. "This do in remembrance of me," was what Jesus said, according to Luke 22:19, as he ate with his disciples at Passover. And while I have since rejected the metaphor for God and spirituality I was raised on, that specific word retains a particular resonance that never fades.

For me, though, remembrance continues to take on a larger, longer, and deeper view. Responses to the 9/11 attacks are a part of what I have come to think of as The Long Memory. This collection of stories, songs, and poems provide the permanent under current that keeps humanity moving. The Long Memory exists above, beyond, below, and outside of history. History is an abstract collection of events that are generally told with a specific narrative in mind. The Sacred Long Memory -- indeed, it may the one and only sacred thing -- ties together the past, the present, and the future. This Do In Remembrance Of Me. That is the purpose and the meaning: ensuring that the past stays with us and informs our present, and takes us into a better future.

The tragedies and travesties that have occurred as a result of the those horrific events are as much a part of the event as the planes flying into the towers and into the Pentagon and the crash of United Flight 93. Wars and rumors of wars. Torture, the silencing of dissenting voices, the xenophobia and all too familiar brand of Nationalism (think Hitler and Mussolini) that some people mistake for patriotism and "defending democracy." The soldiers who have sacrificed life and limb to keep Halliburton in business and to maintain the high price of a barrel of oil are just as much a part of those events as well. Gitmo Prison, Abu Graib, and the various crimes against humanity committed in our name are a part of those events, too.. and they continue to this day. President Obama has managed to continue most of the same war tactics that horrified rank and file Democrats during the Bush II regime. We're still fighting an expensive war in Afghanistan that no one talks about. We're dealing with a lingering recession here -- that, admittedly, Obama inherited -- but given the intransigence of the GOP, the tomfoolery of Tea Baggers, and the sheer spinelessness of the Democratic Party, there's no end in sight that doesn't hurt the poor.

And when I speak of remembrance, I also speak of the fact that 3000 + people died on 9/11 as a direct result of years of hawkish and exploitative American foreign policy. (Don't forget, Osama bin Laden was CIA trained to be our proxy during the Cold War to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Also, maybe one of the reasons the Bush/Cheney regime was so sure Saddam Hussein had WMDs was because WE GAVE HIM SOME when he was our proxy against Iran, which was backed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.)

These things, and the stories and songs and poems that have come as a result, are all a part of the Long Memory.

There are those who would make 9/ll a national holiday, and I can see their point. But it's not an idea I support.  How many people really know why Memorial Day is a holiday? Or Labor Day?  Did we immortalize December 7th, 1941 with a day off of school and work? (The answer is no. After all, it's too close to Christmas, the high and holy day that celebrates consumerism and egg nog.)

Remembrance means moving forward and carrying the Long Memory with us every single day. Adding to it every single day. Passing it on every single day. This Do In Remembrance Of Me. Part of engaging in Remembrance means that life and faith -- faith that some good can still happen -- must go on.

And the last time I checked, "to do" is an active verb. It means to perform a specific act, as in DIYDS. (Do It Your Damn Self.)

Essay: Of Love and Football

I can't believe you did this to me, she said.

My wife and I sat through the last quarter of the Steelers/Bengals game feeling the same hope and excitement mixed with shame, anguish, and disappointment that seems all too familiar to the Bengals Nation. My wife, like every dedicated fan, has her list of people to blame; we talk about it. Sometimes it's the Bengals' cadre of wide receiver divas. Sometimes Carson is still playing like he's worried about being hit. Sometimes the offensive line plays like they're working for the other team. Sometimes the defense plays like they haven't been playing football since they were old enough to support a helmet and shoulder pads. This year, and part of last year, our post-game conversations have focused on the half-life that is Marvin Lewis's career in Cincinnati.

Without reservation, I blame Mike Brown. I always blame Mike Brown.

He tinkers with the team the way I tinker with my chili recipe – except my results get better over time. Mike Brown suffers from the same delusion that another micro-managing football team owner – one Jerry Jones, owner and GM of the Dallas Cowpokers – suffers from. Each of them had one idea that worked once upon a time; and now they believe they are football geniuses. Jones gave us professional cheerleaders – though, as my friend and fellow scribbler Jose recently pointed out to me over Facebook, knowing that guys who watch football will also watch hot chicks in skimpy uniforms isn't really an inspired idea; it's more like common sense.

And for those of you who don't know or remember, Mike Brown's one good idea was to start the Bengals franchise in Cincinnati. It was, I admit, an inspired idea, and one that I am bound to be grateful for. If little Mikey Brown hadn't gone to Daddy Paul and whispered the name “Cincinnati,” the Bengals might have been playing in thrown away Browns' uniforms in some other city – which means that my Dad, who was content to live in Florida until he heard that Cincinnati was getting a professional football team, would have never moved home and married my mom. But one good idea – and a business idea at that – in no way qualifies him to micro-manage. Mike Brown is the brain behind the stadium deal that nearly soured the team's relationship with the city – a relationship salvaged by Marvin Lewis and the no huddle offense. Mike Brown has narrowly avoided being run out of town by the grace of a once solid defense and the fact that other than people he's related to or people he pays, Mike Brown doesn't have any people physically close enough to actually lay a hand on him. He lives in a germ free bubble at some undisclosed location in Indian Hills (where the Nati Affluent guard themselves from the hordes of rednecks and displaced downtown blacks that have the audacity to question terms like “gentrification.”) and only speaks through coded transmissions from a ticker-tape machine.

And while the season isn't over yet, any chance of a post-season appearance is as dead as the fish that get washed ashore from the Ohio River. Last night's edition of the Cincinnati/Pittsburgh grudge match had all the elements I have come to expect; I liken it to Greek Tragedy. Think Oedipus Rex. No, the Bengals didn't fuck their own mothers; but they sure as hell set themselves up for doom, failure, and to wander around blindly. For the next 8 weeks, at least.

The problems aren't new ones. People will talk about Carson's injury and wonder whether he'll ever really “get his swagger back.” Talking like that is about as idiotic as people talking about whether Obama “got it” from the recent mid-term election... only at least swagger is a bit more specific than “it.” When I was 13, “it” meant sex. And while I think Carson Palmer came back from that injury a different quarterback, his swagger isn't the entire issue. The real issue is that the Bengals organization has nearly worn him out, and the only real question I have is the same one that my wife posed last night: so if Carson Palmer were to leave Cincinnati, would his brother Jordan leave too?

I've also been wondering about Marvin's fate. I'd hate to see him go, but maybe it's time. If Marvin goes, though, then there's some other deadwood that needs to go, too:

• Paul Alexander, Assistant and Offensive Line Coach: He's been a coach longer than any of his players have been playing the game, and has been in Cincinnati through several Head Coach changes. My only thought is that he must get on bended knee ever year and give Mike Brown one hell of a blow job … no small trick through a germ-free bubble. That's the only way I figure that he's been able to keep a coaching job.
• Bob Bratkowski, Offensive Coordinator: This guy's Cincinnati career can be clocked with an egg timer. The fact is, he does have an eye for talent, but not an eye for stacking the offensive side of the ball to account for inevitable injuries. And his play calls are predictable. My wife pointed out several times during the game last night that if she could read what the Bengals offense is going to do, then the Steeler's defense must have precognitive knowledge of it.
• Kyle Caskey, Offensive Quality Control: From what I can tell, this guy's a glorified intern. Unsure of what this position actually entails, I did what any dedicated researcher would do. I googled it. And according to the only source that sounded at all reasonable, Legion at finhaven.com posted in a forum two years ago that basically someone in Caskey's position prepares game film, gets the coffee, and has something to do with the scouting team. I guess Caskey's responsible for getting the hookers.

If it seems I'm picking on the offense... well, I am. The defense has problems, but it's player related. Injuries and inexperience have hurt us on both sides of the ball; but with the offense, it's rooted in a coaching structure that's become predictable.

The only way that the Bengals have ever had solid seasons is when they run the ball – which they haven't been able to do this year, in spite of having talent like Cedric Benson. Running Backs are always the most under-appreciated and most critical players on the offensive line. They carry the weight. But this year, with our dual divas, T.O. and Ocho, the offensive strategy has been to throw the ball. And while I will admit I was wrong about T.O. as a talent, I am sick and tired of all the Batman and Robin bullshit. And if something doesn't change, Ocho will get sick of it too. Last night he looked several times like he was suffering from ball envy. And Ocho doesn't like it when he can't show off. The only upside to a break up of the friendship between T.O. and Ocho is that there will be fewer reality tv shows to ignore. Play football, guys, if you want to play ball. If you want to have VH1 reality shows no one will watch, go with god and get out of the way.

When the game was over last night, my wife said the same thing to me she always says when they lose: I can't believe you did this to me. Her claim is that I somehow turned her into not only a football fan, but a Bengals fan. I did no such thing. I only wanted to be able to watch football in peace. The fact is, though, that if we were able to go to home games, she would be one of Those Fans – the face painting waving at the tv camera and trying to psyche out the visiting team kind of Fan. And I love her for that, among the many reasons I love her. I try and tell her that the years of frustration makes for a True Fan; if you can love your team after watching them self-destruct season after season, when the the golden years come – and they do – then you've earned the right to be as obnoxious as you want to be. And my wife, I can tell you, is no bandwagon fan. And while the rest of the season will drown in the rhetoric of trying to “end the season with their heads held high”, the Bengals will disappear from the conversation until next year's blooper reels. Maybe Caskey puts those together, too.