Things I've Noticed About Football

Let me start by saying I love football. I really only love a couple of teams, but I love watching football on Saturdays and Sundays. Back in the day, I owned the Bruce Weber football books. And by "back in the day," I mean back in the day when Danny White was the Cowboys QB.

Anyway.

As I get older and watch more football, I notice things. I shall share, in the hopes that someone can explain these things.

1. Football announcers love homoerotic terminology. Forget the fact that large grown men jumping on top of each other and slapping asses is inherently gay. I'm talking about the announcers here. I can't count the times I've heard them say something squirted out, popped out, was driven into or came from behind. As manly as the sport is, the announcers are so much girly-manlier.

2. You can't make an ass in uniform look bad.Show me one player — just one — with a less than stellar ass. Something about shiny tight pants works. Take note, straight men looking to catch a girl's eye.

3. Every other player is named Reggie.Reggie Bush. Reggie Wayne. Reggie Brown. Reggie Williams. It goes without saying that if you hope your kid grows up to be a football star, name him Reggie.

4. If your name isn't Reggie, you'd better hope it's odd.Peerless. Samkon. Keyshawn. Alge. The only players who don't have odd names are the kickers. And, really, are they even players?

5. Token girl reporting from the sidelines is never categorically hot. What happened to Jillian Barberie? She at least was fun to look at. Now, it's like they brought in a bunch of butch females that are attractive to Joe Namath only.

6. Head coaches never look like just regular guys. Bill Cowher looks like the evil sensei from a future Karate Kid installment. Mike Holmgren or Andy Reid? I'm surprised they haven't been questioned for offering candy to kids they don't know. They also look like Santa Claus' younger brothers. I thought Lovie Smith made enough money playing J.J.'s dad on "Good Times" — I wonder how he finds time to coach AND star in "Men in Trees" nowadays. Jim Mora: Isn't he just a 'roided out August Busch XIVVIX from the Anheuser-Busch ads? And so on. Point is, they always stand out much more so than the players.

7. Ocho Cinco is pure entertainment.This guy needs to be the creative force behind a struggling ad agency. Need a new slogan? 85 is your man. Looking for a gesture that needs no words? Look no further than the Chad. He'll pump new life into anything, including that football in the end zone.

8. The only reason they moved Monday Night Football to ESPN is because Hank Williams Junior is too scary for the masses. I swear one day he's going to pull off his mask and reveal he's really Michael Jackson. Regardless, if your name is Hank Williams and "Senior" or "III" is not your suffix, you probably need to stay off of prime-time network television.

That's all (for now). Agree? Disagree?

"The Protector" — Makes My Jaa Drop!

This weekend I saw "The Protector," or, as I like to call it, "How to Break 297 Arms and Other Body Parts in 297 Different Ways."

Now, until I was standing at the box office staring at a picture of Tony Jaa, I thought this movie was the new Scorsese film, "The Departed," which I believe is the remake of the Hong Kong movie "Infernal Affairs." It's not.

What "The Protector" is is a thinly veiled remake of "Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior," except this go-round Tony Jaa is protecting an elephant instead of a Buddha head named Ong-Bak.

Same story line otherwise: Dirty men steal a prized village possession, causing Old Man Village Head to charge Tony Jaa with its safe recovery and return to the village.

I wonder if Thai films — specifically Tony Jaa films — search for the most obscure item, worthy of death and dismemberment to those who seek it, to recover. I fully expect the next Jaa movie to involve his quest to find the sacred vegetable sieve in order for the villagers to rinse their garden cucumbers again.

Either way, Jaa makes watching action movies fun again, from the minute he sets off on foot to faraway lands. And it really doesn't matter that he looks like he's always just finished a marathon through the desert. If he can do stunts without wire harnesses and CGI, he deserves to be greasy and sweaty at all times.

Thinking back, though, I can't quite remember how he got from a Thai village that uses elephants for transportation to Sydney, Australia. Hmm. Those would be some bloodied feet if he walked and swam across coral reefs ...

Since Quentin Tarantino presented this movie, I suspect the gore and bloodshed was amplified from its original intention. Think Kill Bill, specifically that scene with the schoolgirl and the chain, except without all the special effects and twice the queasy factor.

At one point, Jaa takes overdrive to a whole new gear by breaking the arms (and other body parts you never knew you had) of at least 40 idiots who just keep coming after him. The crunch-break noise, repeated over and over and over and over and over, was much like that of stepping on a stack of Pringles. I intend to start working on my own low-budget sound effects after an impromptu stop at the Quickie Mart.

Oh, and yes, I did have to close my eyes for a brief minute or two when the tendon slicing of the beefcakes began. Doesn't help that we'd just finished dinner at the hibachi grill, where slicing and dicing is an artform, much like Muay Thai in general. Hmm, and our hibachi chef was named Tony, now that I think of it. Seriously. He threw shrimp at inappropriate places that were not my mouth, too, but that's a different blog.

So, point is: Tony Jaa is a stud. I'll watch the same damn movie plot 50 times if I can watch him practically fly and kick people through doors all day. "The Protector" is standard Jaa fare, but I gotta say, I give it two big elephant bones strapped to my forearms. Well worth the adrenaline rush.

Why Every Company Could Use a Brand Consultant

Michele and I were driving back from Target today, and I looked at the truck stopped next to me. The magnetic sign on the truck door said "Johnson Erection Company."

The Femmes Concert: Better Than People Watching at the Airport

Several people have asked that I post this recap to my blog. So even though the concert happened back in March 2006, I just found the recap in my mail. Memories last forever.

Many of you know Andrea, Stephanie and I attended the Violent Femmes show last night. Not just a show. A 25th Anniversary Tour. Completely sold out. Sardine-packed fans of middle-aged beer bellies, male pattern baldness, and even a mullet — on a female, no less!

The show was classic, not just for the incredibly simple rhymes and three-part music we all remember from the 80s and 90s, but for the spectacular crowd. I've never been to a show where, for the entire two hours of play time, you could hear the crowd singing just as loud as the band. It's what I imagine heaven sounds like, without references to burying your loved ones in a deep black well or asking for just one f*ck.

I learned a few things last night — a few things I'd like to share since most of us are Femmes fans from way back when. So join me on my journey, won't you? I discovered that ...

• I was a minority because I didn't know every single lyric to every single song. Our Guinness-shirted, ski-capped friend was practically traumatized because none of us knew which one "Country Death Song" specifically was until we actually heard it. He gave us a booster by saying, "If you see me convulsing on the ground, that's the song." OK.


• It's ok to dance like the devil and the Holy Spirit are warring within you ... because everyone else is possessed, too.
  
• It's ok for heterosexual men to sing, "Why can't I get just one kiss?" to each other and not be considered homosexual.
  
• Strange men shimmying down a "pole" (in this instance, I was the "pole") is acceptable behavior because you're so caught up in the Add-It-Up moment. It was ... horridly amusing.
  
• The Maggie Gyllenhaal look-alike made an inappropriate toast that was somehow considered funny because we were at a Femmes show! "To getting drunk and hopefully molested!"
  
• Andrea's a really good dancer. And not in a possessed sort of way ...
  
• Andrea has an uncanny ability to get everyone around her talking. She acquired a wingman, the drunken Michelle, who was determined to get five men to buy her a birthday drink. Didn't matter that Andrea kept saying she didn't find them attractive. Michelle was on a mission.
  
• Apparently Michelle and I are going to Memphis together this weekend. At least, that's what she shouted to our crowd neighbors. That was right before the show started, and right before she almost got into a brawl with someone. Security talked to her and calmed her down, though. Whew.


• Inexplicably, mosh pits — actual, mean mosh pits — form at crucial points, like when "Black Girls" comes on.


• Crowd surfing also begins, though you don't have far to go before you're in the hands of a bouncer. This WAS at the corporatized House of Blues, after all ...
  
• It's rather endearing when the previously mentioned Guinness Ski Cap Man would predict the next song, then throw out the disclaimer that he has no control over what his body does if that song actually is played. He was definitely a flailer. A good one, though — considerate not to accidentally beat his neighbor with his limbs.


• It's not cool, Stephanie, to tell a rotundish drunk man in his mid-40s that your friend is a bigger party animal than you are, simply to deflect him. Good thing I was holding water while you were holding a beer. He knows what he saw, Stephanie. Or should I say, Paris Hilton ...


• It makes complete sense to keep giving all manner of "fives" — high fives, low fives, uncategorized fives — to a strange guy for no apparent reason except we're at a Femmes show. Between me and Stephanie, we had to have handed out 20 of those blasted fives.

Ah, the Femmes. Doesn't matter that it was all potbellies and middle aged adults reclaiming their youth for a few hot minutes. These people haven't forgotten what a good time is. Oh no, no way ... : )