What doesn't kill us makes us stronger

When you're the father of two little people, you generally don't get a chance to enjoy as much cinema as you'd like. That said, there were a pair of movies that I really enjoyed this past month. One of them was available by the miracle of Netflix, and the other one was viewed through the traditional means of a theater. The films were dissimilar except for one common theme -- they both had Minnesota as a backdrop. The first film was "Juno" written and directed by Diablo Cody. I'm sure you all know about her background so I won't go into that, but suffice to say that this was the best movie I've ever seen that was written by a woman who rubbed her pubis mound on my leg for $10. 'Nuff said. The main character Juno, played by Ellen Page, was adorable. I haven't fallen for a young female character like that since Parker Posey in "Party Girl". The witty dialogue (courtesy of Cody), and Juno's relationships with her friends, parents and boyfriend (played by "Arrested Development" co-star Michael Cera), had a very authentic and hopeful feel. Taking the would-be tragic premise of teenage pregnancy and turning it on its head, the film's exploration of this theme was phenomenal. By no means did it glorify the decisions or take lightly the subject matter, but Juno's attitude toward her plight and the way she took people's attitudes in stride gave the whole film an optimistic feel.

Another film that I recently watched as "Sweetland" directed by Ali Selim, who won a Spirit Award for Best Independent Film in 2007. I don't know what connection Selim had to Minnesota, but he captured the setting (rural Minnesota during the 1920s) perfectly. The story was about an immigrant Swedish farmer who orders a mail-order bride to bring to his homestead in Minnesota. Once she gets there, they realize that she isn't Swiss but German, which is an issue since the U.S. had just finished a war with Germany and there was a great deal of prejudice against German immigrants. The movie's themes about ignorance, intolerance, perseverance and love made this a memorable film. The life that these two farmers created, after being thrown together in tough circumstances, gives everyone hope in a more complicated but equally prejudiced society today. I'm not sure there are many connections between these two films, but I think the one that stands out is this: there is an underlying moral code that we need to live by. Not one that's dictated by organized religion, or the expectations of others, but a real, tangible, understood set of codes that we live by in the face of obstacles and life's trials. Our winters in the heartland make us stronger mentally and force us to rely on one another. Maybe we have more time to consider our place and our body of work that we leave behind, but regardless of why, those values act as a bedrock that a lot of us rely upon when tough circumstances arise.

Dr. Love and the art of beating up kids

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OK, I think I've reached the acceptance part of Kubla Ross (or is it Kubla Khan's) stages of mourning. This, of course, over No. 4's decision to hang it up. So, in lieu of reading about my favorite football team -- and definitely in favor of doing the job that I'm paid to do between 8-4 -- I took to the Internet to do a little surfing the past week. I'm not sure if there is a thematic string between the two sites I found, other than Armageddon .

When I was growing up, KISS was one of the baddest bands in the land and Gene Simmons was the baddest of the bunch. Seven-feet tall with the bottom of his tongue cut loose so that he could better enjoy the company of women, he was bad-ass. We all have heard the stories about Mr. Simmons' penchant for women. Now, I've seen clips of an aging Willie Mays botching fly balls in his last season as a Met, and I've seen a decrepit Johnny U in the powder blue of the San Diego Chargers, so it shouldn't have surprised me when someone sent me a link to the sex tape of Gene Simmons and the only feelings I had were sadness and revulsion.

Dr. Love, who is in his mid-60s now, is shown on the video having sex with some blond. The quality is BAD, and the sight of a shirtless Simmons with his pants down to his ankles having relations with this prostitute is only enjoyable for the shock value. Simmons is frighteningly out of shape and his performance reminds me of someone in the throes of a NyQuil buzz. On two different occasions he leans down to kiss the woman and she turns her head on him. Bottom line is this: not all celebrity porn is worth watching. (Editor's note: Alas, the host of the video, Blabbermouth.net, has removed the video over the protests of Simmons thereby depriving everyone of watching some one's grandparent having sex.)

The other site that has attracted my attention is the survey website "How Many Five Year Olds Could You Take in a Fight". Based on a scenario in which you're in closed confinement with a number of incensed kindergarten children, how many could you fight off? My favorite question in the survey asks whether or not you'd be willing to use one of the kids as a weapon to swing at the others. The results (shown above) indicate that I could kick the crap out of 12 rugrats. I have to call B.S. on this one, though. I've seen some pretty psycho kids and if one of them kicked me hard in the sweetbreads, I may just fold pretty quickly. If you take the survey, please report your score. And please be sure to stay away from my kid's Montessori.

AF-1: After Favre Day 1

Some notes on the day after the funeral:

The Vegas odds for the Packers winning the Super Bowl before Favre: 14-1. The odds after No. 4: 20-1.

The odds for Favre-successor Aaron Rodgers:

His total over/under yardage total for 2008-09: 3,250

Over/under for TD: 19

Over/under for INT: 15

Other misc. notes from the day... I sat down with Nicolas (aka McLovin) last evening and talked to him about Favre's retirement. It went something like this:

Dad: Nicolas, Brett Favre decided that he wasn't going to play football anymore.

Nicolas: Why?

Dad: Well, he felt that he was too old. When you get older it's tougher to do some things.

Nicolas: Is he gonna die now?

Dad: Well, I don't think so. He's daddy's age, you know.

Nicolas: Is it 'cause he's too fat?

Dad: Huh?

###

Editor's note: Nicolas wanted to know if Brett could play for the Gophers. If not that, then maybe he could coach his team when he's able to play next fall.

It's official: We're growing old

The first time that I ever saw Brett Favre throw a pass is implanted on my mental hard drive. I was sitting in some girl’s flat in London with my friend Chris watching a 30-minute NFL recap with a couple English broadcasters and a former kicker who was doing the color analysis. It was the first football we’d seen in several months while traveling the continent with our backpacks. In the game, Favre hit Kitrick Taylor (or was it Sanjay Beach) with a laser to beat the Bengals in the final seconds of their regular-season game. I looked at Chris and said something like “I hope Majikowski isn’t hurt for too long.” Also indelible in my memory was that we were summarily kicked out of that London flat a day later and had to spend the rest of the week in a crowded hostel. (Editor’s note: The fact that I broke the host’s toenail clipper while trying to cut my unseemly talons was just a small factor in her decision.)

The Majik Man never saw the field again for the Packers. Instead, Favre played for the next 17 years.

I can pretty much pinpoint the points in my life and what I was doing with various Favre moments. The playoff win against the Lions in which Favre’s last-minute (is that getting redundant) pass to Sterling Sharpe resulted in a huge hogpile on the floor of the bar, Fowl Play. The Halloween victory over Chicago in a driving rainstorm; the Raiders’ game that featured the first Lambeau Leap by LeRoy Butler; the game I took my then-girlfriend, now wife to – the Yancey Thigpen drop that gave the Pack the division title; the NFC Championship win over Carolina – I snuck into the game without a ticket and sat in the aisle; or this past January when a snowstorm hit us during the Seattle playoff game. Of course the Super Bowl victory receives the top billing: I remember my roommate and me spending several hours before the game creating our own version of the Lombardi Trophy. The “trophy” was a Nerf football on the top of an empty Miller Lite case, ensconced in aluminum foil. It looked ridiculous but there wasn’t one person at the party who didn’t want their picture taken with it after the Patriots had been dispatched.

All of those were pretty great memories that will stay with me until I die or dementia sets in. I would prefer the former rather than latter.

When I heard about the retirement, I tried to think back to any of the other retirements of Wisconsin athletes that had a similar affect. Robin Yount retired from the Brewers in 1993. He was special because I went back with him to the mid-1970, when sports still had a special magical quality. The only other retirement that I think comes close was Al McGuire’s retirement from Marquette University in the 1977 season. I remember I was home that afternoon and watching my mom cry during the press conference. I had a vague sense of who he was, but anytime you see your stoic German mother in tears it’s a pretty big deal for a 7-year-old. I guess we hold our icons pretty close to us in the heartland.

My 4-year-old, Nicolas, has become a big sports fan. He calls me his football buddy because I watch games with him and take him to games when possible. His favorite player – guess: Brett Favre. He has imitated Favre’s post-touchdown dance, the one with the index finger raised and running in a circle with hip thrown out to the side. In fact, it’s become his signature move after he scores in t-ball, soccer, and hockey. Minutes after hearing the announcement my brother called to commiserate. We were discussing how to break the news to our little guys. His 5-y-o cried for a half-hour after the Packers’ loss to the Giants, about 30 minutes less than his old man. Both Nicolas and his cousin are still in the stage that their sports heroes don’t get old or stop playing.

For Nicolas, his scoring dance has become habit. I imagine that in five, 10 years that he won’t have a clue where it originated from. That’s when his old man will pull out the DVDs – or whatever format is in use at the time – and remind him of when he thought his heroes were magical.

It's so nice here, why would 'they' want to leave?

Leslie and I returned from our trip to Cancun last week, after a week of enjoying the sun, ocean and copious amounts of drink and food. It was a nice respite from the sub-zero weather that we've been suffering through in the Midwest. (A local TV anchor said that this was the harshest winter, temperature-wise, in 12 years). Anyway, it was 10-below when we left and it was 83 when we landed in Cancun. That's a plus/minus that I can live with. (Unfortunately is was 4 degrees when we returned to the Twin Cities).

I'm sorry to say that we didn't spend much time outside the all-inclusive complex. We considered taking a bus to the Mayan ruins, but the 2.5-hour drive in one direction kind of steered us away from that. We stayed specifically away from any sort of culture while we were there. The closest that we came to the native culture was their beer and tequila. All of the staff members were tremendously polite and responsive to everything. "Hello, front desk? This coffee here sucks. Bring us up a carafe of some good stuff. Oh yeah, bring us some of those croissants and juice while you're at it. OK? Goodbye." 5 minutes later. "Front desk? Yeah, this is room 3939. When you bring up the coffee et al, don't forget some beer and some of those good cigars. And hurry."

No complaints from the staff, just "My pleasure, sir." I was wondering if deep down if they were justing hating our guts. During our last day or so, Leslie and I were sitting poolside and half-listening to this boorish, overweight couple from Boston (judging from their Patriots and Red Sox gear) berate a little cocktail waitress. I can't write a Boston accent, but it's sufficient to say that I was burying my head in the book as the bloated one with a beard (the man, I suspect), yelled out specific drink instructions and added some when she was 20 yards away. Nice touch. I didn't see a tip exchanged when she came back with their drinks. Nice touch, sir.

The golf course -- a Jack Nicklaus signature -- was immaculate and literally killed our foursome. The first nine was on The Dunes, which resembled a lunar landscape. The back nine was called The Jungle and had dense foliage with a 15-yard swath of fairway in between. We ran into a large crocodile on the front nine. According to the beverage cart driver, the croc's name was Carlito Jr. We didn't get a chance to see Carlito Sr., but that was a big reason why I didn't get near the jungle to retrieve any of the nine GB Packer logo balls that I lost in the woods. I ended up playing with a florescent 'Easter Egg' on the final two holes. (I didn't have a camera with me on the course, but I'll post a photo of the critter a little later.)

Like I said before, we experienced absolutely no culture when we were there. The irony was that upon returning to Minnesota, we went to a fundraiser at our church for some young people who are heading to Central Mexico this year for charitable reasons. There was a group of Mexican dancers for entertaining. Leslie aptly noted that we had to go 2,000 miles from Mexico to see any of that country's culture.

The shocker in the Minnesota bu-caucus

Double entendres aside, yesterday’s Super Tuesday was a
massive event in which the public turnout dwarfed all expectations. For the
record the black dude beat cankles to take the Democrat race and the Stormin Mormon topped Hanoi Hilton in the Republican race that amounted to little more than a beauty contest.

The flip side of the question, “What if someone held an election and no one came?” is “What if someone held a caucus and too many people came?” That was the reality of the caucuses throughout our frozen state last night. Masses of people braved the weather to fit into various elementary schools and churches to voice their opinions. In the caucus situation, their voices are often unheard as a result of political party stalwarts dominating the action. It was probably disappointing for those wonks to see the turnouts of people who normally don’t attend these functions as their control and domination of topics and tenor isn’t as clear. In my local caucus, I sweated through a 40-minute line to finally arrive at the front of the line and find
out that there were no more ballots available. Good thing I brought a notebook to fill out my national and local candidates. Once there the topics that people were trying to get on the ballot were guaranteed pension funds for school teachers and the rights of undocumented immigrants.

I encourage anyone who has never attended one of these caucuses to take in the spectacle if they can pull themselves away from the Hungry Man dinners and reruns of CSI. Like I said before, the caucuses are set up to be run by the zealots who feel their importance towers over the unwashed masses that have other interests outside of politics. I didn’t win too many friends in the zealot community when I had the temerity to question the appropriateness of guaranteed pensions considering they're going away in the private sector. I suggested that much more far-reaching changes were needed – particularly in secondary education – and the steps and ladder method of paying teachers was too much of an obstacle for younger teachers just entering the field. A 30K job with student loans and a car payment doesn’t allow much to set aside in the 401K, and I made that abundantly clear. The pay issue for newbies is an impediment to people who might start a secondary career in teaching after spending much of their lives in the private sector. A few hisses and furrowed eyebrows emerged from my comments.

What I love/hate about the election cycle is the inability of candidates to be honest with people. In order to get elected, candidates are everything to everyone. Even when not in candidacy mode, our elected officials can’t turn off the bliss faucet. Except for those people who have had family members sent to Afghanistan or Iraq, has anyone really faced any sort of sacrifice for the “conflict” that we’ve been involved with for six years. At least in previous war periods we’ve had to collectively tighten our belts. Not so much this time.

Which brings me to this idea: This country is up for some pretty harsh comeuppance. We’ve grown fat and lazy and have no idea how hard the scrubs in India and China are working to kick our ass. Read Tom Friedman’s “The World is Flat” to understand how the developing world is chomping at the bit to get at our bloated carcass. Between the people who insist that it’s government’s job to keep us financially secure and make sure that my idiot kid goes through 13 years of school and gets a degree without the ability to read critically or write coherently, and the waterheads in their McMansions who plan on dying with their greenbacks sown into their shorts, I think we’re in the deep stuff. Here’s an analogy for what it’s worth. A state rep in Louisiana was working on a bill that would fine restaurants for serving obese people (by serving I don’t mean that they are the main dish). Of course the bill won’t make it out of committee and it’s a clear violation of rights, but the point that we’re entitled to unrestricted gluttony is obvious. On Sunday I went to the Gopher/Wisconsin basketball game at Williams Arena. The venue is one of those old, dated places with wooden bench bleachers – no seats. When my friend and I arrived after spending a couple minutes too long in the local watering hole, the bench was completely taken up by butts. My seats 13-14 were taken by the people in 15-16 and respectively down the line. After about five minutes of looking annoyed I finally announced to the group, “Listen, you got 15 inches of ass room on this bench and if you need to take more, then buy another ticket. Now sit on your numbers and move the hell down.” There were more than a few evil stares – of course this is Minnesota and no one would actually confront me – before a great shuffling ensued and the tubby lady on the end put the pop and the popcorn down by her feet so we could sit.

I’m not bigoted to heavy people and understand the issues that they face every day, but it points to something larger. Our bloated, single-issue voting, entitled, what’s-in-it-for-me population is going to face some tough belt-tightening choices in the next couple years regardless of who’s elected.

Oh yeah, and the Gophers got their asses handed to them by the Badgers.

Where is "Old" Ulm?

New Orleans has Mardi Gras and Rio has Carnival, both of which are OK if you like beautiful people in exotic locations and tons of public nudity. But, if you’re more in the mood for drinking bock beer outside in freezing temperatures in nowhere Minnesota, well then New Ulm’s Bockfest is the location you’re seeking. Granted the aforementioned other festivals have their charm, but where else can you see a wide variety of overweight Midwesterners wearing animal pelts and being greatly over-served?

For the second straight year, the Herkimer Bar sponsored the bus ride from Uptown to New Ulm – about a 90-minute drive. We filled up two buses and couple of beer kegs brewed by the Herkimer’s finest.

The plan once we got the fairgrounds was simple. Get beer tickets, wait in line for beers, get in the line for the bathrooms and repeat. The highlight of standing outside drinking is getting, er, “poked”. In the middle of the grounds is a bonfire and those attending the fire have large iron pokers that they stick into your beer. The result is a carmelization of the beer. As far as highlights, though, it isn’t much of a highlight.

After about three hours of drinking with the folks from Mankato, LeSueur, St. Peter and Owatonna, we got back on the drunk bus and head back north on 169. En route back to the city we stopped at the “Crow Bar” – several drunks on the bus were quick to note the double meaning of the bar’s name. You can’t beat it when 150 drunk idiots descend upon a bar in the middle of nowhere. A bartender at the bar tried to get us to take some drunk home who had been left there by another group stopping by. Apparently this individual was “from the cities” and it was natural that we would want to take this guy home with us and find out where he lives. I imagine that this guy was pretty pissed off at his friends for leaving him when he woke up on the floor of some bar Sunday morning 100 miles from his house. With friends like that, who needs enemies.