Nobody 739

Sunday, April 13, 2008
Nobody # 739

Nobody Asked Me But:

Theological note: If there really were a God, ice cream would be a fiber food.

"When you say a coach is 'stubborn,' that means he won't do what you think he should do." Jay Bilas

“When will we ever stop playing this shell game in which politicians rise to power promising prosperity without pain, even as working folks and retirees pay through the nose?” Steve Lopez

“It is especially painful when narcissists suffer memory loss because they are losing parts of the person they love most.” David Brooks

This will be my last regular Nobody. Like an out-of-town guest, I feel that I have lingered too long and have run out of new things to say. I thank you all for being good hosts, and, with your permission, I may return on occasion but only for short visits.<<<

But this is now, so let’s get to San Antonio.

It was a good but not great trip, and that is unusual in that almost all of our vacations fall into the latter category. What went wrong?

The Bruins lost. That’s not the main thing. They also lost in Indianapolis and Atlanta, but it would have been easier to take if they had played their A game. They might still have lost, because they matched up poorly with the speed and size of the Memphis players, but they should have played better.

HOWEVER, I have nothing but respect and affection for the season that these Bruin’s produced. They gave me 35 winning, wonderful experiences and 4 losing, lousy ones and an amazing third straight Final Four. And through it all they were great young men who made their school proud.

Reserve center Lorenzo Mata-Real is an example of what I mean. This summer he will be the first member of his family to graduate from college. He worked hard for that just as he worked hard every time he stepped on the court. A starter for two years, he had to come off the bench this year playing behind freshman All-American Kevin Love. He never complained. He never gave anything less than his best. When it was all over, here is what he said:

"I can't win a title with UCLA. That was my dream and I thought we'd have the chance this season. This has been the best four years of my life."

Although we will not be in Detroit for next year’s Final Four, I will not be surprised if the Bruins are.

The other down was the great NCAA rip-off. The organization required each school to pay for 470 rooms for four nights and 3,750 tickets, most of them in the upper levels AND to pay for a $32,000 party in a ballroom reserved for them -whether they want the party or not.

So our seats were first level but not great, and we attended two pre-game bashes “catered” by the San Antonio Convention Center where the best food was the packages of Fritos. No, I am not kidding. The buffet entries were little puffy, mealy corn dogs and rubber chicken strips. But, to be fair, they also had some tasteless chili that you could pour over the chips and some white stuff, gravy perhaps, to put on God knows what.

I sometimes think that the NCAA is almost as arrogant as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Before we left, we had pretty much decided that, other than a special place or circumstance, this would be our last Final Four. With the NCAA insisting on larger and larger arenas our seats will be worse. And, in addition, we don’t want to always plan every spring around these four days. This experience solidified our decision.

ON TO THE GOOD STUFF

The games. Although you can see them much better at home in HD, being there gives you a special feeling. And the championship game was very exciting.

The camaraderie. We are not big on social but just being around other Bruins, familiar faces from Pauley, makes for shared excitement.

The police escort. Two cops on motorcycles escorted our bus from the airport to our hotel.

The River Walk – too many people but still beautiful and fun.

Hoop City – Barb in a Coke bottle. Jim making three of four bean-bag shots. Does it get any better?

Starbucks. My number 435 is the largest in the U. S. (5,969 sq. ft.) and one of the best. Beautiful views from upper and lower terraces of the River Walk just below.

Driving to Austin on Sunday to see my brother.

Back to the bad. It was not only the party food that was bad. With two exceptions it all was. Take the first night. We ate at on the RW at what was supposedly one of SA’s best seafood restaurants. Neither of us could finish our terrible shrimp – or perhaps they were mock shrimp made out of some tough, dry artificial substance.

The exceptions were the Mexican food in Austin, and a mocha malt made from ½ Blue Bunny and ½ Blue Belle ice cream.

GO BRUINS!!

If you have Hillary’s ear, you should listen to Penn and Teller that he is still working for the campaign.<<<

Ancient wisdom: A bedspread covers a thousand wrinkles.<<<

In John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee books, still the greatest crime novel series of all time, McGee’s friend and resident intellectual, Meyer, always reminded Travis that you most often do what is right when you choose the hard way over the easy one. I am reminded of that when I think of America’s response to human rights violations in China.

The easy way – boycott some or all of the Summer Olympics.

The hard way – stop doing business with China.<<<

Holding the price line: When Time Magazine started publishing in 1923, the price per issue was 15 cents. It wasn’t until 1946 that the price was boosted to 20 cents.<<<

The Stella Awards – taking the just out of justice.

Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, who won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.<<<

Here is the doubletalk award for last week:

"I've told him (Petraeus ) he'll have all the time he needs," Bush said, while also emphasizing that the war "is not endless." SAY WHAT?<<<

“Why is it, after all we have given — 4,024 American lives, gone; more than half-a-billion dollars spent; all this for the Iraqi people, but it’s the Iranian president who is greeted with kisses and flowers?” Barbara Boxer<<<

I love this from David Brooks’ Friday column. The subject is 21st Century memory overload, and he is describing an encounter with someone who knows you but who’s name/identity you cannot recall.

“A decent human being would sense your distress and give you some lagniappe of information — a mention of the church picnic you both attended, the parents’ association at school, the fact that the two of you were formerly married.” But the Proustian bully will give you nothing. “I’m good. And you?” It’s like trying to get an arms control concession out of Leonid Brezhnev.

Your only strategy is evasive vagueness, conversational rope-a-dope until you can figure out who this person is. You start talking in the tone of over-generalized blandness that suggests you have recently emerged from a coma.

Sensing your pain, your enemy pours it on mercilessly. “And how is Mary, and little Steven and Rob?” People who needlessly display their knowledge of your kids’ names are the lowest scum of the earth.

You’re in agony now, praying for an episode of spontaneous combustion. But still she drives the blade in deeper, “That was some party the other night wasn’t it?”

You lose vision. What party? Did you see this person at a party? By now, articulation is impossible. You are a puddle of gurgling noises and awkward silences. After the longest of these pauses, she goes for the coup de grâce: “You have no idea who I am, do you?”

You can’t tell the truth. That would be an admission of social defeat. The only possible response is: “Of course, I know who you are. You’re the hooker who hangs around on 14th Street most Saturday nights.”

The dawning of the Bad Memory Century will have vast consequences for the social fabric and the international balance of power. International relations experts will notice that great powers can be defined by their national forgetting styles. Americans forget their sins. Russians forget their weaknesses. The French forget that they’ve forgotten God. And, in the Middle East, they forget everything but their resentments.”

From George:

Which historical Roman leader is the most similar to the following contemporary politicians and why?

a. Bill Clinton: A far shallower version of Cicero - great orator and master politician.
b. Hilary Clinton: Aggripina - the patron saint of ruthless female politicians.
c. John McCain: Pompey - the aging ex-military hero in way over his head.
d. Barack Obama: Vespasian - a conciliatory pragmatist who stabilized the Empire after a period of intense partisan strife.
e. George W Bush (say Nero, c’mon say Nero!): Sorry, I gotta go with Commodus - the failed brat son of a relatively benign Emperor. The beginning of the end…<<<

In “The Mental ABC’s of Pitching,” sports psychologist H.A. Dorfman has an important reminder for us all:

“Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear — and doubt.”

Which is why it is never too late to grow up. That I have so often wasted my time by posting on Internet or newspaper message boards does not reflect well on me. I have done so out of a way-misguided God complex - “I will give those posters the truth and show them the way.”

BUT NO MORE!

Here's a quick guide to those pictures below that are not self-explanatory:

The trees-River Walk shot is looking down from Starbucks.
The fountain shots are taken in Hemisfair Park across from the Alamodome. The park was created for the 1967 World Hemisfair.