On my way home from work Sunday, I was discussing the Super Bowl with Paul. We both agreed a full review should have been conducted on Warner's "fumble." We both were cheering for overtime. He thought Ben played a really good game. I thought Ben was just OK until the last drive. Blah. Blah. Blah.
I then say that now it's time to focus on basketball season. Especially since there's no Arena League season to carry us over. Here's some of our conversation. Keep in mind that Paul has been a Suns fan and a LeBron fan for as long as he's watched basketball, which is four or five years.
Me: You gonna be a fan of the Knicks in 2010?
Paul: Why would I cheer for them?
Me: Well, they already have the old Suns coach, and then they might get Wade or LeBron or both in 2010.
Paul: Why would LeBron want to go there?
Me: Why you think?
Paul: Oh. Is he from there?
Me: No. He's from the Cleveland area.
Paul: Oh really? So then what's in New York?
Sigh.
THE TINA CURSING CORNER
My mom started watching the Super Bowl tape before I woke up Monday.
Mom: You see Jennifer Hudson?
Me: No.
Mom: She hit that fucking high note, man.
We start watching the Super Bowl coverage from the start of the game. "You see who Hudson is fucking engaged to?" I say no. "One of the guys from I love New York."
As I'm fast forwarding to the first set of commercials, mom breaks some big news to me. She says this in a sort of sing-song voice. "I won a fucking quarter." (Yup. Her numbers were 3 and 0, and she won the first quarter. A big-time $25.)
Mom got a new break tag today and wasn't happy with the person who did it. "I had to wait for the fucking pavement to dry before I got it. It wasn't even raining."
Mom was not impressed with Bruce's halftime show. During the first song, she yelled at him in not a nice way: "Play the fucking music."
I show mom all the good commercials and the big plays at the end of the game. Even she thought Warner's "fumble" was a pass. "That's a fumble, my ass."
Mom can see soap opera developments coming from afar. "Tell your friend Kelli to watch tomorrow because Sharon and Nick are going to fuck."
We're flipping through the stations. Mom watches 15 seconds of P.S. I Love You. Lisa Kudrow's character announces to her friends that she's getting married and that the wedding is on New Year's Eve. Mom's reaction: "Who the fuck would get married on New Year's Eve?"
Randomly, mom says to me: "You hear all the shit going on with the Travolta family? Some sick people out there. Taking pictures of his dead kid."
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that Larry Fitzgerald's dad is a sportswriter? It's true. He's covered every Super Bowl since 1981. Oh, you saw him in the press box during the fourth quarter Sunday like 10 times? I see. I saw that, too.
Every Super Bowl has its signature overblown storyline. Do you remember that Jerome Bettis is from Detroit and that Kurt Warner used to bag groceries? Well, Fitz's dad being a sportswriter was this year's version of those. You couldn't avoid hearing about that. They even did another piece on it during the pregame on NBC. Geez louise.
What I didn't learn from all the stories about Fitz's dad covering him in the big game is that the paper pops works for is little known in Minnesota. According to a chat I read anyway. He writes for an African-American weekly paper that covers community issues and major sporting events. Interesting.
I did feel sorry for Papa Fitz on Sunday. His son was out there putting on a MVP performance in the freakin' Super Bowl, but he couldn't cheer. Couldn't clap. Couldn't pump his fist.
That must have sucked. Would anyone have really blamed him if he did a dance after the 64-yard touchdown? I wouldn't have. It's not like he's writing for a big-city daily paper. It's a weekly with a specific niche. He didn't even have a laptop in front of him.
PARTING SHOT
On Super Bowl Sunday, I'm telling my co-workers about the time I was a national finalist for a reporting award because of a story I wrote.
Me: You know who I lost to? I came in third. The top two were done by entire staffs.
Jelly: That's what it takes to beat you.
Marcus: Yeah. He does the work of a whole staff.
JRap: A staff infection.
THE DAILY TOP LIST
My favorite five teachers at Rummel.
5) Mrs. Manning. 11th Chemistry.
I hated science. It was my worst subject. And I hated most of my science teachers. But Mrs. Manning rocked. Sure, she was a good teacher. She makes the list, though, because she was so darn easy to get along with. She knew where to draw the line, but you always felt like you were friends with her.
In senior year, I would go into her room after school sometimes and just chat.
4) Mr. Hayes. 10-11th Religion.
Sometimes it's hard to listen to someone preach about their faith and such when you can tell they've always been like that. It's much more inspiring and impactful when the person used to be a wild man. As in the case of Mr. Hayes.
I really liked his conversion story, and whenever I find myself slipping, I think of Mr. Hayes. He was awesome on senior retreat as well. Plus, he had a bad-ass beard.
3) Mr. Gomez. 11-12th Math.
You know that movie Stand and Deliver about the Calculus teacher? Yeah. That's Mr. Gomez. He cared about Math so much, it was funny. When people would miss class because of an extracurricular activity, (football, student council, etc.) he would get mad and yell: "No. Math must come first."
He once berated the announcement lady for buzzing into the classroom during his lecture to call a student out of class. I thought she was going to break down and cry. Seriously.
Mr. Gomez was so cool we never called him Mr. Gomez. We went with Tilo (his first name was Atilano, so Tilo for short) or Captain Math. He embraced that. I have a picture of our Calculus class and him huddled around his desk sitting on my mantle in my back room.
Tilo was the hardest teacher I ever had. He was good but really hard. He gave me my only C of my life. Hey, it was a C+ in the first quarter, and I pulled it up to a B- by the end of the semester.
2) Coach Paci. 10-11th Computer Science.
Some of my comedic influence comes from Coach. Once he had a formula on the projector (Bacon + lettuce + tomato = sandwich) to show something more complicated. After explaining that part of the lesson, he took his pointer and touched the word lettuce on the projector. Coach: "Let us continue." His other famous phrase was: "There's no such thing as dogs because they are small horses."
In 11th grade, his off period was the same as my lunch period. Sometimes, he would let me go in his classroom, and we'd turn on the Cubs game. How awesome is that?
1) Mr. Roso. 8th, 10th, 11th English.
His classes started me on the path of this journalism thing. My favorite subject in grammar school was Math (I still love numbers), but his classes made me switch to writing.
Mr. Roso's classes were a beast. The previous eighth-grade class before us had three out of 30 people get higher than a D. Those were some scary facts heading into high school. I put the most work of my schooling life into his courses. But I got so much out of them.
And he bought five squares in my Super Bowl pool I did in 10th grade, which I'm pretty sure was not allowed. I would have gotten at least a detention if caught. Probably worse. But in the middle of English class, there he was handing me five bucks for his squares. Of course, the bastard won two quarters. Next day in class:
Mr. Roso: Gene, you have something for me?
Me: Nah. How about I just let someone know you participated in such a thing?
Mr. Roso: OK. How about I let someone know you conducted such a thing?
Me: Uh. Here's your fifty bucks.
Mr. Roso: That wasn't so hard, now was it?
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