Doug Reveiws the NFL

I don’t know anything about Jovan Belcher except that he is now, the Tuesday after he murdered his girlfriend, committed suicide, and orphaned his baby girl, old news.  Go to ESPN.com and you might find it difficult to even locate his name. He is just another broken football player whose life ended in tragic and confusing violence, and we got a new news cycle to focus on.

Oh, by the way, Belcher didn’t start a few weeks ago because of a head injury he had suffered in the previous game against the Bengals. He was experiencing short term memory loss, coupled with head and neck pain (But I’m certain none of this had anything to do with his shocking murder/suicide).

He got back into the lineup the following weekend though, because let’s face it: in the NFL, you snooze, you lose. Right, Alex Smith?

NFL players will do whatever it takes to keep their position in the lineup. One nagging injury and a guy is right there, eager to take your spot (and your paycheck). One bad injury and you are a step closer to opening a failed restaurant in Galveston. One more persistent injury and you are out of the league and broke. So don’t tell anyone about your fuzzy vision, ok?

Oh, did you think the league would provide you with workman’s comp insurance? Hahahaha. Yeah right, injuries are a part of the game. Guys getting injured and facing a lifetime of minimum wage are just collateral damage. You have to crack a few eggs if you want some of the billion dollar NFL Omelet…ouch, poor use of the word “crack” right there. We wouldn’t want to call attention to all the cracked skulls, brains, spines and knees, would we?

Before we jump on the dumb-jocks-that-made-their-choice bandwagon, let’s try to remember that these “dumb jocks” all spent more time and energy preparing for their job than any of us did to get our jobs.

The NFL may not be worse than ancient Roman gladiator games, but then again, it might be. I mean, sure, the participants aren’t prisoners and slaves…

…but they are predominantly black men;  bought, sold and traded from team to team, risking their health (and even their lives) in order for their white owners (yes, NFL teams have owners) to increase their billion dollar empire. And once their strength is gone and we find no use for them? Owners simply discard them to make way for the new young batch of “participants.”

I love football and I want to continue watching it. But the NFL has got to get more serious about protecting the players. If that means less viciousness in the hits defensive players lay on the offense, I will have to accept that. As it stands, the NFL business plan is doomed. You can’t have a business that murders, maims and destroys its own product.

The league has bloody hands. Unfortunately, so do you and I. We are all a little bit responsible for promoting, purchasing and praising an organization that vindicates violence. The lives of Junior Seau, Steve McNair, Jovan Belcher, and the thousands of other impacted players have to be more valuable to us than the momentary pause for silence no doubt held at Arrowhead stadium two days ago.

In order to have any effect at all, these ever increasing moments of silence must to be followed by something more than the Star Spangled Banner and business as usual. Come on, NFL. Do the right thing.

Doug Reviews Life of Pi

Ugh. I’ve tried to write this blog five times. It just isn’t happening. A friend of mine recommended I write about Life of Pi. It is one of my favorite books, and now after seeing the movie yesterday, on my top movies list as well. I am now simply lost in trying to review something so meaningful to me at a personal level.

Christmas time, five years ago, my brother introduced me to a book he had just read called Life of Pi. He has impeccable taste in literature (I mean, he’s read virtually everything, so he ought to have an idea of what does and does not suck). I bought the book and read it over the course of about four days. The story spoke to me in a way I’d been searching for. You can imagine my excitement/trepidation when I learned the book was being made into a movie.

Excited to see the story in film, nervous that like so often is the case, the translation to the big screen would lose the most important essence of the book.

The book touts itself as a “story that will make you believe in God.”  

The story is basically a two hundred plus page build up to a single point.  A quick Google search will show no shortage of interpretations of that one point. I once heard Rob Thomas (lead singer of Matchbox 20) explain that the power of a great song is often that it means different things to different people, and I think that explanation might hold up with Life of Pi.

But I’ll try to give you the real interpretation…

I should say here that I will do my best to avoid spoilers, but it will be difficult to not give some things away while discussing the book/movie. If you have not read the book or seen the film, maybe you ought to before reading this post.

Piscine’s name is important to the book. His nickname, Pi, is critical to the representation of life the main character plays. He plays all of humanity. He plays the numberless, infinite, irrational, imperfect and indescribable role of existence that we all face, just like his mathematical counterpart, p.

Pi introduces us to his life in Pondicherry, his experience growing up in a zoo, and his fascination with religion. Then, his family closes the zoo, sells the animals, and sails to Canada on a Japanese cargo ship. The ship sinks, and from there we are told two wildly different but eerily similar stories.

The first story is one of adventure and magic. It is an inspiring story of optimism and survival, of the promise of something better, and the assistance of heaven through mysticism and the supernatural.

The second story is much bleaker. It tells of the depths one must go to in order to survive. It speaks of shame and loneliness and the brutality of existence. There was no assistance from on high, just random luck, a fierceness to survive and a tiger like ferociousness necessary to overcome the hopelessness of existence.

At the center of it all is Richard Parker. In one story, he exists as a real life tiger to aide Pi in his survival, keep him company, ensure he is on constant alert, and provide him with a purpose. In the other story, Richard Parker exists only as a deep and primal part of Pi, an imagined embodiment of Pi’s strong instincts for survival. Whether in the boat or in Pi’s mind, Richard Parker is real enough to keep Pi alive.

The men interviewing Pi are asked the question, “Which story did you like better?” To which they reply, “The one with the Tiger.”

And so it goes with God. Even my Calvinist and Determinist friends will agree, we each get to choose the story we like best.   

There is a great quote early on in the book that was absent from the movie. In fact, the movie completely dropped the first Mr. Kumar, the teacher who professes to Pi his atheism. For me, Mr. Kumar’s role is crucial to the plot.

As Pi is adopting more and more practices from each of his religions, he discusses also the closeness he feels toward his atheist brothers and sisters. He then addresses agnosticism and doubt. For those of us who wrestle with doubt, he claims doubt is useful and we must all face it at some point. But then he says something that has stayed with me, to the point I don’t even need to look it up:

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

Regardless of which story we choose to believe, we must keep moving. That’s why I choose the story with the tiger. 

Doug Reveiws Thanksgiving

Disclaimer: This post is written for an open minded audience. It is written to be entertaining, not enlightening or accusatory or informational. It is written lightly, if you feel this is not the kind of thing for you, I hold no hard feelings if you pass on reading.

 I once had an idea that I would write a short story about an ancient king named Golumba. In my story, Golumba would be a good and decent king. The people throughout his land would love and respect him. Peace and harmony would reign.

Soon enough, however, barbaric savages would invade from the south. They would start by cutting off supply trains and eliminating the ability for the kingdom of Golumba to do any sort of trade. Then they attack small villages, raping and murdering every resident.

The savages would send messages to King Golumba, with the severed heads of his faithful subjects serving as the container carrying the messages. The message was always the same, one of death, destruction and a bloody end to the kingdom.

Eventually, through laying a horrible siege to the imperial city, the savages would obtain their victory. King Golumba would be forced to watch as his wife, children and grandchildren were all ravaged and brutalized before being tortured and eventually murdered. He could do nothing. The savages would not let him die.

Worse than death, they wanted king Golumba to live with the pain and misery of their actions. These savages would be completely unredeemable in my story. They would banish the king to the sea. Golumba, so wise and peaceful, would turn raw and maniacal during all these events. He’d become bloodthirsty and swear an oath upon the heads of the savages.

Now to King Golumba, an oath is the most sacred of things. For 400 days he would drift alone on the open seas, all the while plotting his revenge. He created parchment from his torn and tattered clothes, and wrote the history of his people on the parchment with his own blood.

After the 400^th day at sea, King Golumba would strike land. He would put his plan into action immediately. He began to rebuild. He created a small bit of wealth and married a young girl. She would give birth to a son. King Golumba would tell his son the story of his people, and pass on the sacred parchment of blood, asking his son to swear the same oath of revenge.

The king would grow old and die. His son, however, burned with the oath he had sworn to avenge his family. He would marry and have a son, to whom he would pass the story, the parchment and oath.

This would go on for two thousand years, as each new Golumba son would take on the oath, the plan, and the parchment. One day, King Golumba’s five hundredth great grandson, Cristofer, would finally put the plan into action. He went before the queen, asking for money, supplies, armies and boats, under the guise of finding new trade routes to India.

At sea, his men would notice the increasing madness of Cristofer Golumba, and the fragile parchment he grasped constantly between his fingers.

After  many days at sea, the call of land being spotted would draw Golumba starboard, where he would see for the first time the land he had been told of so many times. He would look out at America, look down at his parchment, and then under his breath he would grumble the words, “Now I bring a great plague of men, armies, sickness and destruction upon this land. Now I will avenge my forefathers.”

And fade to black. We know the rest of the story.

Anyway, I had plans to write this story, really fill it in with details, and use it as a way to sort of revise history to help me somehow come to grips with the destruction of Native Americans in this land. If somehow we could rewrite the history to make it seem like they had it coming, it would make what we’ve done to Natives a little easier to swallow, right?

But now it is Thanksgiving time and I’m white. I usually like to celebrate the season by making friends with as many Native American families as I can find. I try to get close enough to them that they feel comfortable with me inviting them over for Thanksgiving dinner.

Here’s where it gets really good. The night before Thanksgiving, I give them the wrong address to my house. The next day while they are out searching for my fake home, I sneak into their double wide and steal all the good stuff I can find and then burn the stuff that appears to have no value. Finally, as a peace offering, I leave them a case of Jack Daniels and a box of small pox spiders.

Each year, this puts me in the holiday spirit and makes my turkey taste a little juicier.

Okay, obviously I’m exaggerating. I don’t really do all those things. It would be silly, because Thanksgiving is not actually the day we celebrate the complete destruction of Native American life and our dominance over them as a race. No, we celebrate those things every day of the year.

I’ll stop now. I’m unfairly grouping all white people into taking the blame for the actions of some really crappy white people. But the facts remain, and this creates an annual conundrum for me. I am now forced to do a lot of really good and enjoyable things while skillfully blocking a lot of suffering from my mind.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Doug Reviews Influence

There is an eerie experience that some people have every day of their life that I have had only a couple of times, ever. It’s actually pretty cool. Let me tell you about two recent instances. The first time, what happened was I made a joke that I thought was worded pretty well and captured both the essence of a common experience we all have, but also painted a vague enough picture that the person hearing or reading the joke could insert their own unique imagination to make it humorous to them. I made the joke through a text message to a friend.

A couple of weeks went by, and suddenly, during a conversation with another friend, the same joke was told to me as if I was new to it. I laughed and marveled at the way good content gets around.

Then recently, I came up with something humorous and posted it to the social news site Reddit. I won’t tell you what it was and I won’t reveal my Reddit username. I like the anonymity afforded to me there. Anyway, a few days ago while browsing Facebook I saw a friend had ‘shared’ a humorous post. To my surprise, it was my original post from Reddit, now making the Facebook rounds. When I saw all the likes and replies to the comment, I was thrilled. I felt I had influenced, if just for a moment, the thinking of some folks on both Reddit and Facebook.

The experience got me thinking about the circle of influence we each have. There are certain people for me, in real life and online, that if they make a recommendation there is no way I am not following up on what they suggest. I trust the judgment of these people so much, I buy/watch/read/listen to/participate in whatever they suggest. Some of you reading this are specifically the people I’m talking about.

Imagine if we could all be assigned an influence score. The score would be based on the level of influence we each have as a percentage of the whole. You would essentially take the size of potential influence a person has, how active they are in attempting to influence members of their pool, how successful they are in actually affecting the consumer behaviors of their circle, and then compare it against their similar sized peers and create a stack ranking, assigning an individual influence score. Every single person would have a score.

Obviously, very little would change: big celebrities would get big bucks to endorse certain products or services. Trained actors would be in commercials peddling their employers’ wares. Vince would continue to sell the Slap Chop.

But what about on the micro level? Wouldn’t marketers be interested in finding the highest ranked influencers in smaller subsets to endorse their products, promote their politics, spread their religion, etc? Wouldn’t potential employers want to see these numbers and actively recruit the most influential people? I know that in my capacity as an “employer” I would find this metric to be extremely fascinating.

It’s basically taking the concept I frequently tease (Facebook Diet Shake Salespeople) and applying it to everything that generates any form of income or increase. I make fun of those Facebook Sellers, but obviously what they are doing is working. Obviously they are getting more people to buy their shakes or attend their fitness classes. Why not tap into that same influence model, pay ordinary citizens for the impact they can have and use that model for everything?

And instead of paying citizens, it seems like it would be possible to create a global “rewards program.” Instead of rewards for being a member of some club or a frequent flyer, why not use data from each person’s influence score to provide discounts based on the impact that person has on goods and services?

“Privacy! Rights! Protect the children!”

Bullcrap. If you think you have those things, you are naïve. Based on my spending habits, web-browsing history, voting records, income, tax returns, court records, and borrowing patterns I am an open book to anyone with the right access to that information.

Look, this is already happening to some extent. You know those ads that show up on the sidebar of your email account? Those ads are there based on the content of your emails and the history of websites visited. Why not simply attach all of my personal information to my secure consumer profile, factor in my influence score and give me discounts based on the success I have getting other consumers to use certain products?

It would work like this:

1)      Doug posts something on Twitter about how his family uses Huggies Diapers because they are so much more absorbent and easier to put on than Pampers.  

2)      This information is immediately added digitally to Doug’s profile with Huggies, which sure enough, checks out. Doug buys a thing of Huggies every three weeks.

3)      Over the course of the next few weeks, Huggies adds new customer profiles to their database based on new purchases. A small percentage of those new profiles fall into Doug’s circle of influence. The computer generates Doug’s influence score and applies the algorithm to his profile.

4)      The next time Doug buys Huggies, the computer automatically processes a $2.47 discount because Doug is such a good little diaper salesman.

5)      Repeat this process for every product ever made.

At first, this would cause an increase in the asinine referrals made by all of us in our respective news feeds. However, the economics of content and interest would soon balance that out so that we would only recommend great products and not risk being unfollowed, defriended, or otherwise shunned by the digital community.

Or maybe I’m just tired of buying diapers.

Doug Reviews the Election

This post is about politics, and America, and freedom, and the American Dream, and the election. If those things make you sick by now, I don’t blame you and I invite you to move on. I won’t be offended.

I rarely write about work, and for good reason. I don’t like mixing my work in with  what I try to do here, which is the sharing of myself with you. But today, I am going to draw some similarities.

Occasionally, my job obligates me to terminate the employment of another person. I hate doing it, and really, it’s the worst aspect of my job. But here’s the problem: I’m very good at doing it. Isn’t that something to be ashamed of? I’m so good at it, in fact, that  I am often asked to sit in with others when they are letting someone go. No, I’m not asked to sit in…I’m asked to take the lead. My secret? I am kind and efficient when firing someone.

Many times, I will be discussing the “firing meeting” with the other person sitting in with me and they will start talking about all the zingers they want to use. If the person being fired is argumentative, the firing manager will tell me all the things they want (or wanted) to say to that person. They will recite a long list of one-liners that they feel would really put the person being fired in their place.

 Every time this happens, I respond with the same boring old philosophy: We are already doing the worst thing we could be doing to this person. We hold all the cards. Why rub that in or say more than needs to be said? For Pete’s sake…we are already firing this person, what more do you want to do?

I then calmly and pragmatically invite the person being fired into the office, explain to them what is happening and why, let them know we wish them luck, and encourage them to take action that day in their effort to find a new job. Then I escort them out and it’s done. No arguments, no blow-ups, 5 minutes, done.

I tell you this because of the comments I heard on the radio this morning while I exercised (I will not be posting on Facebook the type of exercise I do or how good I feel or pictures of my triceps). I’ll get to the message, but first, let’s discuss some reactions to last night’s election.

To read Facebook chronologically was pretty epic last night. For my wide range of politically affiliated friends, it was funny to see one side posting about the literal end of days, the destruction of America, and a desire to move to some foreign land. Equally disturbing were the posts from the other side filled with desperate relief, as if we had just successfully fought off an invading horde of Robotic Rape Demons.

One post in particular caught my eye, saying something about America being even stupider than the poster had thought possible, and now we are all going to have to get what we deserve, indicating we deserved a visit from the aforementioned Robo-rapists.

What I found odd about this person’s post is, I know him, and I know that in the four years Obama has been in office, this individual has taken two new jobs, each one offering a raise and promotion. Has Obama really destroyed his family’s future?

Another post talked about sleeping better now that we are past the nightmare of Mitt Romney buddying up to his rich friends, destroying the middle class and taking women’s rights back 100 years. This person has also posted their despising of Mitt Romney for his money.

Hypocrisy has got to come to an end in America. Just so you know, despising Romney for his hard-earned wealth is kind of silly. Because it’s all a matter of scales. The fact is lower middle class Americans are to the average Bangladeshian what Mitt Romney is to lower middle class Americans (and the poster in question is much better off than “lower middle class”). Unless that person is selling all they have, quitting their jobs and giving everything to Bangladesh or Africa or Mexico…I’d say it’s time to stop judging.

I know you want Mitt to pay more in taxes…but he’s paid millions in taxes. That’s pretty admirable, even when you tally all the taxes I’ve paid and add in my volunteer hours and money I give to charity and money I donate to my church. Mitt has me beat, so maybe my friends and I should do more and worry less about Mitt.

Which brings me to, my original story about firing people. This morning, one of the liberal talk show hosts I listen to was pontificating about all the reasons Mitt Romney didn’t win the election. He was chastising Mitt and the republicans. More specifically, he was rubbing Obama’s victory in Mitt’s face, talking about what a failure of a campaign Romney ran.

You know that mantra I live by, “We are already doing the worst thing we could do to this person by firing them, why take it any further?” That’s what I thought this morning. Romney lost the election. He knows why because he knows how he ran his campaign. Isn’t that enough? Do we really spend the next few weeks preaching how stupid those with different opinions are?

If everyone who voted for Romney is a soulless idiot, and everyone who voted for Obama is an ignorant moron…where does that leave us?  

And back to the Romney supporters (including me, I voted for Romney). Look, the guy we voted for didn’t win. The only way that becomes the end of the world is if we actively destroy the world. The thing to do now is rededicate ourselves to the country and the president. We need to give the guy in charge our full support and do whatever we can to make President Obama the greatest US President in history!

The fact is, it will take the greatest to bring us out of this global rut, so if anyone can lead us to a brighter future, it starts today, it starts with the President we elected, and we all need to join forces to create that future.

You know what will happen if we don’t come together and push this nation forward? Nothing. The same nothing that has been happening for years, the same nothing we blame congress and the president for. It is not the government’s fault, it is our fault. So let’s all do more.

I’m not writing to the 20% of Americans that pay all the taxes and finance this country’s endeavors, and I’m not talking to the 20% that give of their time and energy as volunteers to improve the lives of others (by the way, about 7% of those two groups are the same people).

No, I’m writing this now to my fellow 66ers. I mean the 66% of us in America who give the least amount of our money and time possible to make the country better. The 66% of us who would rather watch our nightly television lineup than be bothered to actually give a damn.

Let’s rise up, ol’ 66. Let’s start a revolution of the purple politics we hear so much about. We 66% are pretty much half conservative, half liberal, and half who gives a crap. Let’s keep the first two, but let’s actually start giving a crap.

Today, I am going to the Boys and Girls Club of America. I will sign up as a volunteer to help out and tutor underprivileged youth. I hope my resolve sticks. I hope I can do more for this country than sit around and bash the other side. I hope we can, as a united nation, come together and stop bickering. Most importantly, I hope someday you’ll join me, and the world will be as one.

Lunch Break

I am back at the sandwich shop for my lunch break. Only this time, instead of the Italian BMT, I went with the Cold Cut Trio.

On my walk over here, I stopped to talk to a hobo named Walter. I didn't say much, but here's what I learned about Walter.

1) Walter has 12 kids. When speaking of them, ages 32-19, his eyes welled up with tears and he asked me, "What the H am I doing with my life?" He actually said "H," which I thought was funny because of the litany of actual F-words he said leading up to this exchange.

Anyway, his voice cracked as he told me to be a goo father and don't mess up my kids' lives like he did to his.

2) Walter has had tests performed on him. He has an IQ of over 297, and has been told he is one of the four smartest people on the planet. He told me he thinks that might be BS because, again, look what he is doing with his life.

3) Walter has been to war, and has a range of 2,917 Meters. At this point, the tears returned as he asked me why they made him kill? He explained that he never wanted to kill anyone, and he despises himself for it. I didn't really know what to say, so I reminded him he was doing what he did under orders and thanked him or his service to our country. That's when he told me he loved me for the first time.

4) Walter is some sort of Neurosurgeon/engineer. He told me he has fixed the brains of many people with brain damage. He has to keep it under wraps though, because if the government found out he was still doing it, they'd kill him.

At this point, Walter had to get to the social security office and I had to get to Subway, so we exchanged emails, I gave him a $5, we told each other we loved one another and parted ways.

Now, Walt was pretty drunk, so I don't think he was completely honest with me...but on the off chance he was completely telling the truth, was I just in the opening scene of the most intriguing movie ever? Are they filming and I just don't know about it?

Doug Reviews Guilt

This morning I spoke with the Paul Pfeiffer to my Kevin Arnold (if I could use a Wonder Years reference). Actually, I’m probably the Paul to his Kevin, because if they made a TV show about our childhood, I imagine it would probably focus on him… but now we are arguing semantics. The fact is, if you are telling a story about me from my own personal wonder years, you have to include him and vice versa. But for the purposes of today’s story, I’ll call him Kevin.

Before I go into detail about our conversation, let me give you some background. During my high school days I was probably popular. I say “probably” because I never considered myself popular (actually I considered myself a loser who was terrified of girls, teachers and my father). However, looking back and comparing how easy my high school experience was when compared to others…I didn’t dislike anyone and I am unaware of any enemies, so I guess that makes me at least mid-level popular.

In high school, you sort of are who your friends are. There were many people I was friends with, but really there were only five guys I considered my actual true friends. One of them was killed so let’s call it four. There are on this planet four human males I consider to be crucial to the shaping of my existence, for dictating who I would become, and who I am today. We had the traditional friendship, the vulnerable kind where they knew everything  about me, and I them, including the most embarrassing and shameful parts. When you can sit in the same room with a guy and attempt to watch the scrambled soft core “Action Channel” together…that is the highest or deepest level of friendship.  Your friends matter.

You move on, though. You go to college, you get married, you have kids. Your interests change, your surroundings change, your friends change. And it’s ok, because that is the same life we all face. But you never forget. You never lose those feelings for the ones who got you through.  

Anyway, “Kevin” and I were talking, reminiscing as we tend to do. We live on opposite sides of the world and only see each other once or twice a year, but the natural rhythms, the laughter, and the roles we each play in one another’s lives come as naturally to us as tears to a military funeral. Our conversation this morning, though, went to a new place of shared guilt and regret for what growing up does to a man.

One of the friends from the above named group of four lost his father to cancer last year.  Incidentally, this father was among the villagers responsible for raising me. He was my first basketball coach. I watched my first R-rated movie (The Silence of the Lambs)  in his den, unbeknownst to him. He went from basketball coach to basketball fan, watching and cheering for me as I played up through the school system. He bought a pool table, and at once became equal parts billiards coach/billiards heckler to our group of friends. He was the “buddy’s dad” who owned a golf cart and would buy us pizza pretty much whenever we wanted it. He was a pillar in the foundation holding up the walls of my youth. And he was ravaged and decimated by stupid, heartless cancer.

During our conversation this morning, Kevin asked me if I had spoken to our friend since his dad passed. I crinkled my brow, thinking back to the funeral I didn’t attend, and responded, “No, I texted him my condolences when his dad died. That’s the last I’ve spoken to him.” Kevin admitted he had left our friend a voicemail, but that was the extent of his reaching out. There was a brief pause in our conversation as we both attempted to come to terms with our shame, and then I cracked a joke to avoid bursting into tears. We spoke for a few minutes longer and ended the call.

All day I’ve been thinking about that conversation. It has distracted me. This is what I’ve become? Now I’m the guy who sends a text to one of my closest, most valuable friends when he goes through the pain of losing his father? Are the rest of us this cold, or is it just me? Once again, the convenience of technology has allowed for me to fake actual human interaction, while completely avoiding it. Shame on me.

There are moments in life that matter. Our friends matter. I have failed a good friend of mine during one of these moments. This happened a year ago. To call him now would be pointless and awkward. I need to find a way to make it up to him, to show him that regardless of what happens or the distance between us (figuratively and literally), I still care. I just don’t know how. Dave, if you ever read this…I’m sorry, man. I failed as a friend.

Doug Reviews Songs

There are thousands of awesome songs out there. Thousands! So a week ago when I started thinking, “What are my favorite song lyrics of all time?” it seemed an impossible task. I felt like I might as well attempt to climb Mount Everest rather than compile a list of top ten song lyrics. Impossible!

But you know what? My cousin recently reached the summit of Everest. He is a huge inspiration to me, so I decided to give it a try. Going in, I set up some rules for myself:

1.       Context doesn’t matter- These have to be lyrics that can stand alone without hearing the rest of the song to get their meaning. They can’t be self-referencing or story based.

2.       Only one entry per musician- This is to broaden the scope. I could sit here and quote Pink Floyd, Pearl Jam and Bob Seger all day, but I want to get the best lines and remove body of work as a criteria. This opens the door for anyone, rather than only the most famous bands and songwriters of all time (although none of my “One Hit Wonder” submissions made the final list).

3.       It has to be my list- I could very easily have gone with all the old standbys based on cultural popularity (which I did, in some cases) but instead the lyrics have to make a personal connection with me, enough that I can write a small piece of how the lyrics impact me.  

4.       The song doesn’t matter- These lyrics all come from great songs, but not necessarily my favorite songs. Sometimes, they don’t even come from my favorite song by the artist I am quoting! In fact, a couple of my favorite bands/singers don’t even show up on this list.

I feel like I did some pretty good work here. Consider today’s blog my own personal Everest. The following is a list of my top ten song lyrics of all time. This list only applies to me, so feel free to add your own favorites in the comments.

10) “You can choose a ready guide from some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path that’s clear: I will choose free will.” Rush, Free Will

I don’t want to turn this into a philosophical discussion debating the concepts of Free Will versus Calvinism/Determinism. But I cannot deny is there is no better song to crank in the car when I am down on myself or frustrated or helpless.

The way the chorus sneaks out the first few lines as it secretly ascends through its progressions is genius. The final declaration is one any song singer worth his salt can deliver with the deepest of convictions. Just hold the “choose” a quarter of a beat longer than it seems like you should (don’t worry, Neil Pert will take care of you), and announce to the world, “I will choooose free will!”

What a liberating song. I dare you to go out in your car, crank this jam and not emerge feeling like you can destroy small cities with the awesomeness of your air guitar skills.  

9) “I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life. I know you’ll be a star in somebody else’s life. But why, why, why can’t it be mine?” Pearl Jam, Black

This line (and the way Eddie delivers it) has a peculiar power: It creates a make believe person in my past that I actually can feel strong emotions for. I have to come clean; I have never been through a messy break up. Sure, I’ve been dumped and I’ve probably broken a heart or two along the way, but I don’t have that person in my past that makes me wonder “what if?” Somehow, this line from this song invents such a person in my past. It builds a feeling of longing and despair that there is someone who you just couldn’t work it out with.

(It doesn’t hurt that Eddie Vedder could sing the ingredients on an Altoids tin and make it sound like there is pain behind the lyrics)

8) “We’ll make the air with music ring, shout praises to our God and King!” -Mormons, Come, Come ye Saints

Sorry, you know I had to get all Mormon up in here at least once, right? I can’t imagine being an early pioneer. I can’t imagine being forced out of my home and made to trek west in a great modern day exodus, searching for a resting place and a place to escape the religious persecution they faced. I can’t imagine the hardships, the death, the lost children and loved ones, the despair... I don’t think I could do it.

That’s why this line gives me chills when I hear it. It starts off with what sounds almost like a marching beat, as if you can feel the resolve to get through the sentence. And just as poetically, it ends with immediate self-fulfilling prophesy; rather than sing the line, one quite literally shouts praises to God and King while describing their intentions to do just that. Thrilling.

7) “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous. Here we are, now entertain us.” -Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit

From one religion to the next, we review the most famous work of demigod Kurt Cobain. This line somehow speaks volumes of mine and probably most teenage generations. It is not what lurks in the shadows that scare us, but the monster of reality staring at us in broad daylight. I hear this line, and I am reminded of the relative anonymity that exists when the light go dark.

Simultaneously, isn’t the second line the epitome of teenage hypocrisy? Indicating that “here we are” as if they are forced to be there (and let’s face it, teenagers feel forced to be anywhere), and now it is the world’s job to provide entertainment. How do people write this stuff? I can’t break down in two paragraphs even one portion of what Cobain said in 13 little words.   

6) “The best thing you’ve ever done for me was to help me take my life less seriously. It’s only life, after all.” And “There’s more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line. The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine

I’m breaking a lot of rules here. First of all, most of you bigots are going to probably accuse me of “lezzing out” with this pick. Secondly, it is a scientific fact that women are not as good at writing songs as men are, so the Indigos shouldn’t even be on this list. That’s a given. And finally, I broke my own rule by putting two separate lines into one pick. Bush League, it is Bush League all around.

Having said all that, I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand here and let you disparage this song, and especially these lyrics. We all go through moments where we want to give it all away and become free spirits, glowing nymphs dancing in a moonlit forest. And if I’m honest? This song does just that for me. No matter how I feel before this song plays, afterwards you can bet I will always feel more content and at peace with myself and the world.

And I’ll be even more honest with you: I had a tough time narrowing it down to only two lines from this song. It is so freaking good.

5) “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind.” Bob Marley, Redemption Song

This is my go to song quote. If I were to get a tattoo of a song quote on my ribcage, it would most likely be this one. Obviously it is a beautiful quote and deep and poetic. But even more than that, for some reason knowing this line makes a perpetually nerdy white guy like me feel somehow a little cooler. It’s like, by knowing this quote, I can scoff at all the poser Rastafarians who don’t truly understand what Marley was all about, man.

Also, the song itself fills me with a generous helping of white guilt, so it keeps me honest.

4) “Here comes the sun and, I say, it’s alright!” Beatles, HereComes the Sun

Are you getting to see a bit of a pattern here? I like feel good tunes. And there is no better feel good song than Here Comes the Sun.

Did you know George Harrison wrote this one? Did you know it is him singing? Did you know he wrote it while wandering around the garden at Eric Clapton’s house? Did you know he wrote it after a winter when he did a brief stint in rehab, and this song is quite literally about the sun breaking through the clouds on a wintery spring day?

So I’m sorry if I don’t clap along to it like a barking seal when I hear some peppy, generic version of the song.

3) “I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue. I’d go crawling down the avenue. There ain’t nothin’ that I wouldn’t do to make you feel my love.” Bob Dylan, To Make You Feel My Love

Bob Dylan wrote it, Garth Brooks mastered it, and Adele devoured it. It was written sweet, made perfect with cowboy sadness and then belted out by the best songstress of this generation. Pretty timeless  hit, and one that is particularly special for me. The Garth Brooks version of this song is what my wife and danced to for our “first dance.”

As we swayed back and forth, the emotions and dreams and visions for our future swirling all around me, this line penetrated into me, and at the time I thought there might not ever be a better moment of my life, and there might not ever be a better description for the way I was feeling for my wife that night.

Even now, typing this, I reflect on the enormity of creation and wonder how I found her. I have a lot of cool things, a great job, and the best friends in the world. But I would give it all up at once if it meant staying by her side.

2) “I don’t need to fight to prove I’m right. I don’t need to be forgiven.” The Who, Baba O’Reilly

You know how people will describe to you those “A-ha!” moments they’ve had in their lives? Well, this line provided one of those moments for me. I was on my motorcycle, it was cloudy and nearing dark, and I was listening contently to the best of The Who.

I won’t go into detail, because the moment is mine and I wouldn’t share it with the world, but it certainly has stuck with me. I feel it has made me less prone to anger, less of a fighter, more peaceful and more whole with my existence. Thanks a lot, Who guys.

(For any of you worried about the legacy of the Chambers boys, relax. You still can’t mess with one Chambers brother without facing the wrath of the other. We are like a tiny little two-man Mexican family)

1) “Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.” -Bob Seger, Against the Wind

This is the greatest song lyric of all time. I’ve never met anyone this didn’t resonate with. The line has been often duplicated and borrowed by other musicians, simply because of the purity it maintains. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and all of us like to look back at who we were and use it as a guide for who we are and who we want to be. This line invokes the opposite greed; it is directly opposed to using knowledge as power. It speaks to the majesty of wide-eyed wonder and the optimism the future holds for all of us.

Each time I hear it, I remind myself to be happy, knowing that even the hardships we have coming up will be valuable to us. They will teach us things we probably don’t want to know, so we might as well go blindly forward, because not knowing is the only thing that keeps us trying.

Doug Reviews Jurassic Park

The following is my first ever attempt at a parable. It is inspired by a friend of mine, we will call him “JT.” Jesus taught in parables. Here’s the thing, I’m no Jesus, so be patient with me. It’s my first try. Usually I over state my point, making it very clear what I am trying to discuss. This one is different. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

There was once a wealthy man obsessed with dinosaurs. He dedicated all of his vast resources, time, energy and sanity to the possibility of seeing dinosaurs once again roam the Earth. He hired all the best minds to help him achieve his goal.

Finally, a breakthrough. A prehistoric mosquito was found mummified inside a nugget of fossilized amber. Inside the mosquito was a tiny drop of dinosaur blood. This scrap of DNA was enough to apply to the cloning procedure the wealthy man had developed and at last, his dreams came true: the rebirth of dinosaurs in our modern age!

The wealthy man wanted everyone to marvel at his creation. He wanted to share the majesty of the dinosaurs with the rest of the world.

He bought an island on which the dinosaurs would live. He went to great lengths to secure the island, ensuring the safety of the people who would come. He built large, heavy fences and electrified them. He built ditches around the fences to prevent the dinosaurs from getting through. He built walls and escape routes and emergency shutdown procedures and Plan C’s to back-up Plan B’s if anything were to ever go wrong.

Well, “best laid plans”, and all that. The wealthy man soon discovered what happens when you try to cage a dinosaur. The dinosaur will only stay happy until it discovers the cage. It will roam and eat and kill and live a fulfilled life, until someone puts up an obstacle blocking the path of the dinosaur.

Upon discovering said cage, a dinosaur will typically react by saying, “What the eff is this? They are trying to cage me in, limit where I can go and what I can do? Don’t they know I am a mother effin dinosaur?!”

Dinosaurs will typically follow this statement by tearing down the cage, rampaging through the island, and killing all the humans, even the ones who didn’t want to cage them.  Occasionally, some humans will survive. But these are usually the ones who knew going in that dinosaurs are dangerous and perhaps not to be trifled with.

And so it is with us. If we are hell bent on bringing dinosaurs to our island, we need to know going in that none of the intricate plans we create to box in the dinosaurs will work forever. A time will come when the dinosaurs reach the limits of their cage. And they will not react positively to the realization that they have been in a cage all along. Hopefully, when that day comes we are all huddled together in the helicopter flying us to safety instead of dropping a two in the outhouse, just waiting to be eaten.

And so it is for all men who attempt to cage a dinosaur.

Doug Reviews Cheating

Author’s Note: I just read through this post, and it took me in a direction I was not expecting. After my last few blogs, you may feel like you are an audience member to the live unraveling of my sanity, post by post. Don’t worry, I will ensure my next post is filled with toilet jokes and cleverly crafted insults toward celebrities.Enjoy!

What if I told you Osama Bin Laden was a fraud? What if I had videos that showed Bin Laden renouncing Islam and accepting Jesus as his personal Savior? What if every terror attack orchestrated by Bin Laden was performed under false pretenses? Would you care?

I didn’t think so. The fact is, you and I don’t care why Osama Bin Laden did what he did, and we don’t care what he had to do to rise to the top of Al-Qaeda. The only thing we care about is that he planned and executed attacks that directly led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people.   We don’t care about the means in this situation; we only care about the end.

With that concept in mind, check out the following data: Since its inception, the Lance Armstrong “Live Strong” Foundation has raised over $470 Million dollars, 81% of which has gone directly to help fight cancer or support cancer patients.

I’m no mathematician, but I think 81% of $470,000,000 is over $380 million dollars that has been raised to fight cancer! All thanks to those douchey little yellow bands.

But wait, there’s bad news!  Lance Armstrong, the head and founder and spokesman and reason for the foundation’s existence probably used performance enhancing drugs on his way to his remarkable 7 straight Tour de Francevictories. How can we forgive this monster? He is a cheater and a fraud. He had the audacity to win bike races against all the other guys who were using PED’s(which, by the way, is not a made up statistic. In some cases, you have to goto the 24^th place finisher to find a guy that wasn’t racing with drug assistance).

I’ll be honest, I’ve never really been a big Lance Armstrong fan, and I was among the first to assume he was guilty years ago when the accusations first started to fly. I find it interesting that I am here defending him. But the fact is, it is hard not to admire the guy for his public bouts with cancer and the work he has done to fight cancer. Just as Bin Laden’s actions led to death, Lance Armstrong’s actions led to life, care, and hope.

And no matter what is and isn’t false about Armstrong, the hope he created is real.  

Disclaimer here, I’m not a very good litmus test for this type of behavior. My favorite comic book hero of all time is Captain America. Cap’s whole premise is that he was a wimpy (but good hearted) guy who was injected with performance enhancing steroids and then started going around saving the world. No one seemed to care that drugs gave him his powers.

So forgive me if I don’t hop aboard the condemnation express to speak out against the fallen hero, Lance Armstrong.

Steroids saved baseball in the late 90’s. If it weren’t for Big Mac, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds breaking homerun records, Major League Baseball might have wilted and died in the post-strike era. And by the way, when a batter using steroids hits a homerun against a pitcher using steroids…isn’t that like a double negative, where it cancels itself out?

If it weren’t for steroids, professional wrestling would be nothing more than skinny guys in singlets doing that awkward wrestling that your weird friend did in high school.

Maybe this one might hurt a little more. If it weren’t for drugs, we wouldn’t have The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who,Led Zeppelin or any other band or musician since. One of my favorite songs is “SheTalks to Angels” by the Black Crows. The song is very literally about a woman addicted to Heroin, yet I hear it and I close my eyes and I develop an emotional attachment to this girl.

All because of drugs.

Look, I am in no way condoning illegal drug use of any kind.Those of you who know me know that not only have I never touched a single illegal drug, I even get a little woozy from more than three Advil. But who amI to judge? My whole life has been filled with one amazing lucky break after another, from child birth to the typing of this word. I have never needed to escape from my reality, because my reality is awesome.

Some turn to drugs, and that’s part of their journey. I wish they wouldn’t. I’ve seen friends and family, some who have come back, some who haven’t.The pain and grief drug addicts put their families through is real and(speaking from experience) kind of selfish.   

So no, I am definitely not condoning drug use. On the other hand, I am not condemning it either. Especially since we as a nation hypocritically worship the ground our most famous drug users walk on. If the message to kids is “Say No to Drugs,” than we sure as hell don’t tell them why.Kids are smart enough to figure out at a pretty young age that everything is not as drug free as it seems. The idols we force upon our youth are often the same drug addicted bullies we create campaigns to stop.

Sorry to cross comic universes here, but there is a line I love in the Dark Knight, where Alfred is arguing with Bruce Wayne that perhaps they don’t quite understand the Joker. He tells Bruce a story about the attempts he once made to find a bandit stealing precious gems in the jungle. He ended the story with an incredible quote, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

You know what? Most of us are more like the Joker than like Batman. We sit happily by with front row seats as we watch the world burn. We speak out against the injustices in the world, we talk about a drug free society, we shake our heads in disgust while radio hosts tell us what a shameLance Armstrong is.

Once we are done condemning, though, we sit comfortably on our couch. We pull out our iPads made by slave laborers in Asia and listen to music performed by violent junkies. We turn the TV on and watch the NFL, where enormous men spend three hours crashing into each other at full speed, leaving lasting lifetime health issues. We cheer them on, then act shocked and outraged when they die young or kill themselves.

The world is burning all around us. And I am just watching and laughing. Now someone in the media wants me to get riled up because some jerk who only raised a measly $380 million for cancer victims injected his own blood back into his body?

Please.

Doug Reviews Talking to Strangers

I am writing this blog on my phone, in a small sandwich shop during my lunch hour. Amazing!

Walking around downtown Vancouver today, I started taking notice of people's reactions to me. By nature, I smile and often say, "Hi" to strangers when I pass them on the sidewalk. I get 1 of 3 reactions:

1. Guy glances at me like I asked him to suck snake venom out of my upper thigh. He quickly averts his gaze and looks down at the sidewalk, while suddenly picking up his pace.

2. Girl immediately assumes I am hitting on her and makes a "who farted" face. This always sort of makes me feel bad. Look, I know I'm no Kevin Costner, but jeez ladies, if the thought of me hitting on you is that repulsive, your standards are too high. I mean, the fact that I am freshly bathed, wearing a suit and evidently employed should give me a leg up on the competition, right?

3. Person smiles and says hello back. This happens once a week, so maybe like 2% of the people I say hello to.

So obviously, I was feeling a little blue when I sat down to my Italian BMT.

But then I started thinking, what are these encounters with me like for the other person? Let's review the evidence:

A 6'4", 230 pound white man dressed in an ill fitting suit walks up to you and barks, "Hi!"

He follows this up by staring at you expectantly with an enormous smile and judging eyes, like a maniac planning his next murder.

Suddenly, by looking at things from that perspective, I can understand the discomfort displayed by most strangers on the street. They aren't the psychopaths, I am. Who struts around town smiling and greeting everyone other than politicians and crazies?

Upon coming to this conclusion, I picked up my phone and started typing, and now here we are.

What would happen if I went through other aspects of my life and applied the same principle of viewing the world from the perspective of others instead of using my same old judgements and biases?

What would my marriage be like? What about work?

What about presidential debates? What kind of posts would show up on Facebook if everyone did this? Would we remain a nation divided, willing to die on each and every hill of our own moronic and limited opinion?

I don't know. I'm really just wandering around in my brain right now. Sorry about the lame post. I'll put something up to bury this soon, maybe tonight.

Doug Reviews Looper

If you could travel back in time to confront Hitler as a youth, would you kill him?

Would you be able to live with yourself for murdering an innocent child, simply because in our version of reality the little boy grows up to be a monster? What about the people who would most definitely try to stop you? Are they unwitting instigators of the Holocaust, or are they defending a child from the most horrible of monsters, a child killer?

These are some of the questions Looper tries to investigate. I won’t spoil the movie for you, but basically, Looper dares to ask (and delightfully fails to answer) any of those questions. It is good without being great.

In case you haven’t seen the previews, Looper is the story of Bruce Willis time traveling back to his younger self in an effort to set the world straight. His younger self is played by Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, who does his best throughout the movie to make classic Bruce Willis disgusted faces and say classic Bruce Willis things. His attempts at recreating a young Bruce Willis are noble…but not very believable.

Gordon-Leavitt has an interesting career. He is a huge talent, a great actor, and yet I feel ho-hum toward his acting. Why is that? Maybe it’s the curse of the child actor. I watch him acting like a complex adult and talking tough and saying swears, but all I see is the doofy kid waving his arms to let Danny Glover know there were angels in the outfield (sorry, I know 3^rd Rock from the Sun should be the go to reference here, but I like the reminder that there was once a movie where angels helped decide the outcome of baseball games).

Back to the movie. Looper is entertaining. It does a good job of stating the facts about time travel without trying to confuse the audience. It’s a smart move. Most movie audiences are as stupid as I am, and all we understand of wormholes, time travel, and the space-time continuum we learned from Marty and Doc. Looper tells us, “Look, time travel is possible for the sake of this story, and we aren’t going to trot out Stephen Hawking to try to validate the science behind it.” It is refreshing and helps the movie suspend disbelief.

No spoilers, but I’ll recommend you see it. It takes you to places I didn’t expect from the trailers, and the movie ends in a way that seems both startling and inevitable. Bruce Willis does his usual thing of being unimpressed with analytics and sort of punching his way through tough situations.

If you go expecting a highly intelligent exploration of the concepts and theories behind time travel, eh, you’ll probably be able to poke holes in the plot and leave with more questions than answers. However, if you want the rare movie that at least tries out an original take on an old genre, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Oh, and for me, the answer is I’d let little Hitler live. But not before I take his eyes. Does that make me a monster? I mean, you can’t hate the Jews you can’t see, right? Don’t judge me, he’ll still be successful, just more inspiring and less hate mongering. I mean, it’s like Helen Keller once said, “ojnwrefjnweAOU v;’/ohfei8owrf ;LJFOPWIEFHNn sdkjfnkjnrfuj.”

Doug Reviews Politics

I’m really looking forward to tonight’s debate.

I’m totally dreading tonight’s debate.

There is a debate tonight!

The election has been on my mind a great deal lately, and to be fair, at the end of this post I will tell you who I am probably voting for. But first let me tell you why.

To start, let’s all back off the idea that either of the two major candidates for president are trying to _(fill in the blank)____ the very fabric of __(fill in the blank)__.    Too many of us think either candidate for president will drag us down into the depths of slavery and bondage. They aren’t the problem, we are. So can we just stop sending each other the emails filled with hateful rhetoric about the hidden opinions and motives we like to project onto our favorite political villain?

My daily commute takes about 22 minutes. Every morning I listen to conservative talk radio and every evening I listen to liberal talk radio. No difference. Sure, there is some change in the tired old arguments each side trot out every day, but when I say no difference I mean there is not one speck of open-mindedness from either side of my radio dial.

Just this morning, I heard a conservative talk show host claim that anyone who votes for a liberal is a “mindless sheep that doesn’t think for themselves.” Then, ON THE VERY SAME DAY, I heard a liberal talk show host accuse every conservative of being a “moron incapable of processing logic.” People, this isn’t some made up bull crap to make my point, I heard these two comments today!

Do you really believe one of them is right? If so, I really feel like you’re not giving your conservative/liberal friends much credit. My closest and most respected friends disagree with me on many political subjects, for that I should assume they are mindless morons?

Why do we have to over politicize every topic? It’s like anything that could ever happen to you falls into the old “there’s an app for that” commercials.

iPhone or Droid? There’s a party for that.

Chicken or salad? There’s a party for that.

Star Wars or Star Trek? There’s a party for that.

Red Sox or Yankees? There’s a party for that.

But what about the growing number of us out there whose answer to the questions above is “neither”?

Look, those of you reading this are much smarter than me. And most of you have stronger opinions on the matter. You can quote to me precedents and stats and numbers and things other people have said, and I will totally agree with you and support you in your opinion. But I am supporting you having the right to have an opinion. I am not supporting any old opinion you throw out there. Opinions are a storyteller’s romantic version of facts. Luckily, we all love the story more than the facts and get to discuss our opinions.

Can you imagine my blogs if they contained no opinion? The blog would be even less bearable to read than it is now.  It would be me describing the rules of a game show and the outcome of said game show. Who wants to print that off at work and take it to the john to read?

I’m sorry, Republicans, but you’re being unreasonable and crazy. All democrats are not socialist anarchists looking to destroy America one unfortunate circumstance at a time. They don’t all want to elect Barack Obama as Muslim King of Earth and bask in his anti-American platforms.  

No, the liberals I speak with simply feel like there is a wide gap on this continent between the haves and the have nots; they believe the causes for this gap are socioeconomic circumstances that are perpetuated from birth. They feel we as a society, and the government as the head and representative of that society, is tasked to take the reins to ensure all citizens are given opportunity to pursue and obtain the same liberties and basic rights of food, shelter and care that the rest of us enjoy.

Don’t celebrate too soon, Democrats. Just settle down and stop being such a bunch of name calling pansies. Republicans do not hate and want to destroy the poor and less fortunate. They believe most of the same things you do. Their feeling, however, is that the US government has proven time and time again that it is not the most efficient administrator of the programs you feel all should partake in. But be careful accusing them of being heartless. Many of the “Christian Right” believe in donating to charitable causes even more of their money than what the government automatically takes for social welfare programs.

Tonight, do me a favor. Watch the debate and as soon as it is over, turn off the TV. Try to strip away all biases and make an effort to analyze what you heard. Don’t leave the TV on for the pundits and experts and “Fox News Contributors” to tell you what to think. Don’t let MSNBC fool you with their outrage that the Republicans had the audacity to send forth a candidate. Don’t buy in to the religious fervor of the day that is American politics. Just think.

I told you I’d let you know who I plan to vote for. The truth is, I’m not sure. I want to watch the debates and make my decision based on them. I won’t lie, I feel like a Republican Congress has blocked President Obama from getting much done, and will continue to do so. Romney would have more luck taking action and getting that action through congress. Something needs to happen, so for now, I am probably leaning toward the guy that at least has a chance of success. Sorry, I’m kind of pragmatic that way.