Christmas Past visits Mr. Irvin

Yeah, I'm feeling lazy and un-blog-like, so here's the column I did for this week. I wound up feeling pretty pleased for the Ted Nugent simile.

Christmas Past
visits Mr. Irvin

By SPC. IAN BOUDREAU
Turret Sports Editor

Christmas season is here. You can tell because people have been standing in line outside Wal-Mart, trampling old ladies on their way to the sales.

Friday afternoon I was listening to the radio, and based on the hourly news reports it seemed like anarchy had broken out at department store franchises across the country. At one southern Circuit City, for example, police were called in for "crowd control."

Indeed, the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future will soon be here - although they might be a few hours late since they'll likely be stuck in traffic near the mall.

One of these ghosts - Past - managed to catch up with former Dallas wide receiver Michael Irvin this week. The retired player was pulled over doing 78 mph in a 60 mph zone, but was booked on a misdemeanor charge for possession of drug paraphernalia. Arresting officers found a marijuana pipe in a Versace sunglasses case in Irvin's car.

Bear with me now as I take you, gentle readers, down a rather convoluted rabbit hole. Irvin said the pipe (and the plastic baggies containing marijuana residue, which were also found in the sunglasses case) belonged to a friend of his who was battling drug addiction.

This friend apparently came over to the Irvins' place for Thanksgiving dinner, where the normal custom, it seems, is to pat down guests before letting them in for turkey. This search allegedly turned up the pipe and baggies, which subsequently found their way into Irvin's car.

Instead of, say, the trash.

After that, it just sort of slipped his mind to get rid of the pipe.

Okay, so maybe I'm being a little too Ebeneezer-like for the holiday season. It would certainly be in the spirit of Christmas to extend the benefit of the doubt to poor Irvin, right?

Unfortunately, Irvin doesn't exactly have a great track record to fall back on as far as drugs are concerned. He was arrested in 1996 and pled no contest to a felony cocaine possession charge, and again for drugs in 2000.

Besides, "benefit of the doubt" is leaving the vocabulary of sports fans faster than animal rights activists fleeing Ted Nugent's private property.

Rafael "Never, Ever, Ever Done Steroids" Palmeiro already left us a huge lump of coal this year after testing positive for the very substance about which he testified before Congress, essentially saying that he hadn't even heard of it.

I'm really not all that worked up about Irvin's drug possession charge. He's paid the fine and will go back to work. I just think it's hilarious that he came up with such a weird story to go along with it.

It's not as if he's helping to ruin America's pastime, unlike certain Viagra spokespersons I could name.

The happiest people to hear the news, though, must have assuredly been the good people at the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative in San Francisco. Yes, on hearing about Irvin's arrest, BALCO could finally cheer, saying, "Finally! A professional sports-related drug charge, and it doesn't involve us!"

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UPDATE: Open Post at Mudville!

Meme-o-what?

I've been tagged by Recon over at Monkeys For Helping. It seems there's a "meme" going around, and it's spreading like avian flu. Anyway, I'm to fill in the blanks on this little questionnaire, and maybe that way everyone can learn a little bit more about the not-so-mysterious entity called BroGonzo.

Before I get started, however, I thought I'd share a little bit of research I did on memes. The only word I could think of that could relate to "meme" originally was "mimeograph," an ancient machine used for making copies. This made a certain amount of sense to me, but as it turned out, memes and their study have a long history...

...which I won't bother repeating for you. If you're interested, check out the Wikipedia entry here.

On with the show.

Ten years ago:

I was 15, carefree, and hadn't a clue. I was spending a lot of time at home, since my parents made the rather incredible decision to home school all five of us (the chain was broken when my youngest brother, BroAnimal, hit high school and proved to be even more of a pain in the ass than Rizzo or I could ever have managed. He turned out okay, though).

The downside of this was that I didn't get out a whole lot, other than for church and scout-related activities. The upside was that I got a damn fine education, and around this time was reading Greek classics, starting with Homer's Illiad and Odyssey and moving right on up through Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato.

Five years ago:

I was attending university. One semester's worth of biology classes had cleansed me of any remaining desire to put in the time required for medical school, and I switched to journalism. I've never regretted that for a second.

One year ago:

I was probably sitting somewhere pretty near to where I am now, in the single soldiers' quarters on Fort Knox. I'd recently finished a year in Korea with the 2nd Infantry Division, and was learning the ropes of sportswriting. I'd started to feel my way around the idea of having a weekly column, and I was starting to like the gig quite a bit. I was one of seven soldiers in the Public Affairs Office.

Five Delicious* Things:

Pesto

Orange juice (not from concentrate)

Bourbon

Pasta Carbonara

Philly Cheesesteaks

Five songs I know by heart:

"Hook," Blues Traveler

"We Didn't Start The Fire," Billy Joel

"Franco UnAmerican," NoFX

"Black," Pearl Jam

"Jump," House of Pain

Five things I would do with a lot of money:

Pay off the startling amount of debt I've accumulated from college, car, etc. No, that isn't fun, but it's something I'd do.

Book the next flight to Australia.

Acquire a pet monkey, which I would train to smoke and give high-fives. Also, during parties the monkey would wear a sombrero filled with tortilla chips and guacamole, which it would distribute to guests.

Hire a hit man to finally take care of Carrot Top. Maybe some other people, too.

Finance, design, and build an expansive timber-beam lodge someplace secluded, not unlike the place my family and I stayed near Lake Placid this fall.

Five things I would never wear:

Lingerie.

A fedora.

Bling.

This T-shirt.

Any piece of Baltimore Ravens gear.

Five Favorite TV shows:

The Sopranos.

Monday Night Football.

Voltron.

The Family Guy.

Frontline.

Five things I enjoy doing:

Writing.

Watching movies.

Sipping bourbon and coke.

Reading.

Photography.

Five people I want to inflict this on:

BroRizzo.

Jan Korda.

Finch.

Greg.

Salemonz.

---------

*Recon changed the wording of this question, as he said he is declaring Blog Jihad on the word "yummy," which also appears on my List of Words One Must Never, Ever Use.

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Uniform fun

The Army has officially (at least here at A Healthy Alternative to Work) entered the "Make Your Own Uniform" phase. This phase exists between the beginning of the issuance of the ACU ("Advanced Combat Uniform") and the wear-out date for the old BDU ("Battle-Dress Uniform"). It's a strange period, and it pretty much means that it's a crapshoot as to what exactly the next soldier you come across is going to be wearing.

Basic trainees began recieving the ACU on Oct. 10, or so says my new roommate, who recently graduated from AIT at Fort Leonard Wood. Drill sergeants here all wear the ACU. Some sections in Headquarters Company have the ACU, others don't. Most deploying units now recieve the ACU.

For the rest of us, there's no real telling when we'll wind up getting a set. For the uninitiated, there are some crucial differences, in addition to the new trousers and blouses:

1) No-shine, rough leather tan boots.

This seems to be the sticking point for most people. Some of the new guys streaming into the barracks who got to Basic too early to be issued ACUs have decided that their first order of business, once they've gotten their rooms set up, is to head out to U.S. Cavalry and buy new pairs of desert boots -- which normally go with the DCU ("Desert Combat Uniform," which you've no doubt seen in the news) and with the new ACU.

These they wear with their BDUs, which have, up till now, included a set of black, polish-until-your-finger-is-covered-in-indelible-black-Kiwi boots.

It looks pretty dumb. But more and more, soldiers here in the States are wearing the desert boots with the woodland-camo BDUs. I've heard different rumors as to what the "rule" is; apparently it was initially allowed for soldiers returning from deployments that required wearing the DCU, and now it seems anyone's allowed to wear the desert boots.

Plus, new guys love new uniform stuff, so they're snapping up ACU-patterned accessories at the Cav Store -- ACU caps, ACU CamelBaks, ACU backpacks, ACU gloves, etc., etc., etc.

Me, I'm the only soldier left working here at the paper, so no matter what version of the uniform I wear, I wind up feeling a little bit like the guy at the office who likes paintball way too much.

I suppose we could call this phase "uniform puberty," where it looks awkward and ugly and isn't quite sure of what to do with itself. Eventually, though, things will even out and the transition to uniform adulthood will be made. Then, we can go back to looking basically the same -- like, as they joke in other services, "expendable trees."

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Comics: It's time to retire some material

Since I downloaded iTunes, I've pretty much ignored my music collection and have turned instead to Internet radio. Included in the channel lists are several comedy stations, where they play entire sets from comedians of pretty much every stripe, from "You Might Be A Redneck" stuff from Jeff Foxworthy to live readings by David Sedaris.

I've started to notice why standup died in the last decade. There are themes that keep cropping up and jokes that just get told over and over.

For instance: There were a lot of black comics whose routines centered almost exclusively around the differences between blacks and whites. It was funny and edgy when Richard Pryor was doing it, but by the time it got around to Martin Lawrence, the premise was hack. That well is dry now, people -- come up with some new ideas.

Added at 7:20 p.m.: One of the most galling things here is when someone starts out for a call to stop racism, and then proceeds to ennumerate the reasons why we'll never get along. Thanks for the helpful information, jackass.

Probably half of the female comedians I've heard are lesbians. Please stop making jokes about the differences between lesbians and everyone else.

The rest of the female comics I've heard make jokes about the differences between men and women. Stop.

They're not the only ones -- a lot of male comedians talk about the differences between men and women, and it's still not funny. Worse, they almost always make the requisite butt-kissing remark about how "women are smarter than men." Quit it. That isn't true, and it's a transparent attempt to get cheap applause from the women in the audience. Cut the crap, I'm sick of it.

We only need one comic who uses the "Southern" shtick, and I submit that Ron White be the only one allowed to continue. Every time I hear someone say "Git-R-Done," I wish to myself that Larry The Cable Guy would drown in his bathtub. The "You might be a redneck" routine is played out, and besides, the rest of us have no problem spotting them without the help. Bill Engvall is almost an exact clone of Foxworthy, just sappier, and we don't need that either.

I have no problem with comedians who take a political bent, but only as long as its funny -- that's sort of important for comedy. Apart from violating the lesbian rule above, Margaret Cho's political rants aren't funny, just shrill. Come on: I'm listening to hear funny stuff. If I wanted hell-bent, uninformed activism, I'd be reading the comments at DemocraticUnderground.com.

More subjects that need to be left alone for the next 20 years: pornography, airline travel, masturbation, George Lopez' family, airline travel, your kids, the weather, and airline travel. All the funny jokes about these things have already been made. Look elsewhere.

Finally, don't finish up with some sentimental, poignant ending, unless you've got a joke to make it all sort of a wink and a nod. I don't need to leave inspired, full of hope, or with warm feelings about humanity. All I want out of a comic is a bunch of laughs from jokes I haven't heard before. I don't need a heart-warming story or a reason to live. Make me laugh, and then go away.

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At the game.

Carnival time!

Boy-howdy, I'm featured in the latest "Carnival of Comedy," over at Immature With No Conscience. I submitted the Extreme Golf column, and the carnival organizers seem to think I've got a point. Head on over and check out some of the other Entries of Hilarity.

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Muhammad Ali Center opening

A couple photos I shot at the opening of the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville this past weekend. Above is a display of Ali's boxing career, left is the Champ with friend Kris Kristofferson.

To make America the greatest is my goal
So I beat the Russian, and I beat the Pole
And for the U.S.A. won the Medal of Gold.
Italians said, "You're greater than the Cassius of Old.
We like your name, we like your game,
So make Rome your home if you will."
I said I appreciate your kind hospitality
But the U.S.A. is my country still
'Cause they're waiting to welcome me in Louisville.

-- Cassius Clay, 1960
"How Cassius Took Rome"

Read the story here.

An opportunity knocks?

Yesterday, my first sergeant called me to his office at company headquarters to give me some news. Apparently, a tasking is coming down for two 46Qs (that's the Army's designation for soldiers whose occupational specialty is journalist -- i.e., me) to spend six months in "the desert."

Whether that means a deployment for me is as yet uncertain, and my feelings about the possibility are mixed. The idea of going to Iraq is at once terrifying and exciting, and my perspective on it is perhaps a little different than it might be if I was in a different Army career field.

The negatives are apparent at once: it means going to the warzone. I don't care what you may have heard from others -- anyone who says he "can't wait to go and fight" isn't telling you the whole truth. A man who claims to have no trepidation about going to a place where instant death lurks around every corner and in every pile of refuse on the highway needs to have his head examined.

But as one point in the entire spectrum of possibilities for the rest of my time in the Army, this particular deployment might be an incredible opportunity, and here's why.

First, the tasking is specifically for journalists. That means they're looking for someone to shoot pictures and write stories, not drive trucks or pull security (although those tasks will most likely figure into it at least in a tertiary way). The experience I'd undoubtedly get from being in theater and reporting on the war would definitely serve me well when it came time to show potential employers my resume.

Second, the tasking is for six months. There's a huge difference between six months and a year. I'd leave from Fort Knox, return to Fort Knox, then finish out my time (currently, that's about 20 months, minus leave).

Finally, when all of this is over and is left for the history book writers, I'll have felt better about my own little contribution for having gone. It's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with the war -- I'd just rather not remember my time in the Army as a prolonged period of hanging out "in the rear," safely at home in the United States.

At the same time, it feels as if I'd be catching the tail-end of the war. Soft, fat politicians are crowing on Capitol Hill about "exit strategies" and troop withdrawls. Will we be there long enough to be able to leave with any honor? Will we get a chance to leave Iraq a different and better place than when we found it?

I suppose that, in and of itself, is story enough to tell.

Note to relatives and friends: Please don't freak out yet. This is by no means certain yet, my first sergeant just let me know that the tasking is out there. I don't know how many other soldiers in the region are jockeying for or trying to avoid this assignment. I'll let you all know when I hear any more news on this.

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UPDATE: Open Post at Mudville!

Fashion = What?

I look at the fashion industry in much the same way I do the stock market -- seemingly important things go on there, but how and why is a complete mystery.

I started this post for two reasons: one, I wanted to write the preceeding sentence; and two, I just read an article in the latest issue of GQ about how fedoras are "coming back."

The article, as all articles on fashion are, is accompanied by several photographs; in this case, they're used as evidence of the re-emergence of the fedora. There are photographs of: Pete Doherty in a fedora, Kid Rock in a fedora, Mos Def in a fedora, and Babe Ruth surrounded by reporters in fedoras. Smaller photos of three male models -- DKNY, Dsquared, and Givenchy -- also feature fedoras.

Seriously, I cannot remember the last time I saw anyone on a runway wearing anything that looked remotely acceptable for public use. Most of the time, models (male and female both) are decked out in get-ups that would be more appropriate for the Elton John backup dance team, especially if he were making a video set in, oh, I don't know, an alley on the moon in the year 3065.

And here's the thing -- celebrities like Mos Def and Kid Rock and Pete Doherty actually do pull off the fedora pretty well. But the problem is that Mos Def is a rapper, and rappers can wear anything they want and still basically look good (see Outkast for evidence of this -- in the video for "Hey Ya!" Andre wears lime-green pants and a huge Burger King crown and he's still cooler than anyone I know). Kid Rock still looks like a hillbilly, but this time he looks like a hillbilly who's rifled through his grand-daddy's crawl space and found and artifact from 1947, and Pete Doherty looks like he's in line to try out for Road to Perdition II.

In all fairness, the article does finally ask the essential question: "Should you be wearing one?" And, inexplicably, the answer seems to be yes: "Ultimately, it's like anything you wear -- as long as you wear it with confidence, it looks good."

That's a steaming pile of nonsense if I ever heard one. Back where I went to school, there was a weird kid who, very confidently, wore a chicken hat every day. This wasn't a baseball cap with a chicken printed on it, oh no. This was a hat made to look like a chicken. It had long chicken-like legs that dangled down on the sides, a tail of stuffed-animal feathers in back, and a sad, limp, chicken head that poked out from the front.

We made fun of that kid, and once, we stole his hat. We didn't see him outside again until we gave it back.

So even if Edward Chai, co-owner of a "stylish menswear store in New York's East Village" says "there's something very stylish about a fedora," don't go out and buy one. I love all the Indiana Jones movies (even Temple of Doom, which features what might be the absolute worst performance by an actress ever -- and that includes John Waters' Pink Flamingos), but I'm not going to let the fact that Harrison Ford looked incredibly cool in a leather fedora trick me into thinking that I would, too.

About halfway through writing this, I realized that I wear a black beret to work every day. Damn.

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UPDATE: Open Post at Mudville!

Which team loses every time?

I went by the post hospital today to take pictures of the MEDDAC Thanksgiving ceremony and meal they held in the cafeteria. While I was obliviously snapping away, a gentleman sitting at a nearby table said, "Base newspaper?"

I ignored the fact that in the Army we have "posts," not "bases."

"Yes, sir..."

"You write for the sports section?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"I see your picture every week in the sports section..."

I get this comment every once in a while and have to suppress the urge to congratulate the speaker on his observational skills -- my picture, indeed, is on the first page of each week's sports section; it's not that I asked to have it put there, but S.O.P. for columns in our paper is to have a mugshot of the author run with them.

"Yeah, regrettably so," I shrugged, unsure of where this was going. The man seemed cheerful enough, though.

"You're biased!" he said, like it was the punchline of some weird joke that I didn't get.

I thought for a moment. Biased toward what? The Steelers? Well, yeah, but I try to be tongue-in-cheek about that. Against dance and cheerleading? Absolutely, I'll cop to that any day. I figured I'd best be straightforward and ask.

"Biased toward what?"

He tapped his finger on the table a couple times.

"Here," he said. "You know, 'Fort Knox dominated whoever.'"

This was strange. I'd never been chided for siding too much with Fort Knox. In fact, after one high school football road game this past season, a parent (who happened to also be a senior NCO) said that he'd had enough of the "negative headlines" in the paper, and that I wasn't doing anything to help the team out by printing that kind of language.

Again, I had to supress my initial reaction. It's not my job to help the team out, I thought. It's my job to let everyone know how they're doing when they go to places in BFE Kentucky where no one else wants to drive, and it's my job to write -- in at least an attempt to be interesting -- how it is they managed to have a record of, say, 0-9. Helping the team, I thought, is your job, oh protective parent. Maybe if Junior had more of a fire lit under his ass at home, he'd be more inspired to quit missing tackles.

But of course, I don't actually say those kinds of things. It might feel good in the heat of the moment, but in the long run it does no one any real benefit.

Back at the hospital cafeteria table, I was still stumped.

"Well, there was only the one game where they won," I said, referring to the high school's season-ender, which they won handily. "I had to be positive. Besides, the audience here doesn't tolerate anything less than a blatant bias toward 'our own.'"

The man said he was impressed that we came up with all our own material at the paper, said he worked at the hospital, and that his sister was a professional photographer, and I thanked him and left to take more photos of colonels distributing slices of turkey and roast beef to the long line of early Thanksgiving diners.

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TRADOC picks up Wallace story

It's always nice to get your copy picked up by the wire services. The story I did on Gen. William Wallace, the new TRADOC commander, is now available on the TRADOC newswires.

That's gratifying, since it gives the story a little more exposure and may mean other Army newspapers pick it up to run in upcoming editions. We'll see.

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Possible column

Hey folks. It's been a crazy weekend, and I'm slightly fried. We're pushing the layout up a couple days to make time for the Thanksgiving holiday, and tomorrow, I've got to send a couple stories to press that don't exist yet.

So I came up with this as a possible column tonight after working for a while on the story on the opening of the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville. See what you think.

Extreme golf

Every once in a while, a complete stranger learns that I work as a sports writer, and sometimes they'll say, "Hey, I've got something you should write about."

These ideas are uniformly bad. Most of the time it's something barracks-related, like "write an article about how the gutter above my room leaks" or "do a story about how the guy who lives next door to me plays his music too loud" or, pretty often, "write something about me."

However, I was offered an outstanding idea while sitting at a restaurant Saturday afternoon, watching college football.
"I've got a great idea for you," the stranger said. "You know how it's incredibly boring to watch golf on television? I know how they can make it more interesting: make it a full-contact sport."

It was one of those moments where the conversation around you immediately ceases, and everyone looks. This, I thought, was a brilliant idea.

It's not that I have anything against golf. I don't golf, but I can see how it might be enjoyable to play. However, it is certainly not enjoyable to watch on television. They have bass fishing shows on TV, too, and that's completely beyond me. I mean, these are pretty pastoral activities -- they don't make for very riveting television. Fishing's only fun to watch if the guys are fishing for sharks.

But think of mixing the violence inherent to one of pro football's offensive lines with the relatively boring action of golf. Those teeing-off moments would be a lot more exciting, right?

"Tiger Woods is setting up to tee off on hole three here at Pebble Beach... Oohhh! And he's sacked! Thats a two-stroke penalty, and Tiger loses 20 yards."

Plus, golfers would have to come up with some more multi-layered strategies. Instead of just watching their opponents putt their way to par, they'd be running interference.

"Michelle Wie is on the green now, but she better watch out for the blitz here or she could get into serious trouble."

Provided you don't use the motorized carts, it's possible to get a good walk in during a full round of golf, right? But imagine playing in a full set of protective pads! Just making it to the 18^th hole would be an athletic feat. Golfers would have to add a cross-training regimen to their slotted times at the driving range.

Also, the primary piece of equipment used in golf is called a "club." I think it's high time we started using it in a way commensurate with the name (has anyone else ever had the temptation to misuse croquet mallets, or is that just me?)

We certainly don't need to change golf. We'll leave the PGA alone. All these new rules could be incorporated into something like the abyssmally short-lived Extreme Football League. It would be the new, Road Warrior version of golf, and instead of a green blazer going to the winner, the Extreme Golf Association's highest award would be a beat-up leather bomber jacket studded with chrome metal spikes.

Purists will surely scoff at the idea of full-contact golf. But worse ideas have been successful and even made people fabulously wealthy -- aren't we on season 11 of Survivor?

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UPDATE: Open Post at Mudville!

More friday.

Friday.

A mortal enemy identified

Faithful readers, I have identified a mortal enemy. This is a person I cannot stand to be near, but somehow, tracks me down no matter where I've been in the Army, no matter what my living conditions have been.

This enemy is tenacious and tireless. He will not be dissuaded from his mission, which is to bug the shit out of me. He will not cease, surely, until either I or he is dead -- and defeating him is like cutting off one of the mythical hydra's heads: where one was, two more spring up to take its place.

This enemy is the private with the huge sound system.

I'm not sure where these guys get the money to buy speakers as huge as they do. But it never fails: a new guy moves into the barracks, straight out of training, and he pulls in with a pickup truck full of gigantic speaker cabinets.

I would completely understand if he was, say, a member of Rage Against the Machine or something. Then it would make sense. But it's not as if these dudes even have any musical taste to pump through their gigantic speakers. It's always genuine, certifiable shit they're blasting; usually Li'l John or Nickelback or Linkin Park or 50 Cent.

And they play it so loud that my walls shake (yes, they always live next door). In Korea, I could swear some days I lived next door to the practice studio for Run DMC and Stomp. This kid could shake the coins off the wooden sham that ran around the wall of my room.

Here, at least for a while, I lived in peace. But they're standing up a new battalion here, and the influx of brand new privates has brought with it an influx of brand-new Kenwood and Bose speaker systems, as well as multiple copies of the new Staind album, 50 Cent's latest offering, and, perhaps worst of all, more Linkin Park. They come into the barracks with the new arrivals like rats off a ship that's just reached the new world, ready to spread pestilence and disease across the virgin population.

Some Saturdays, I'll be lying in my bed, hungover from the night before, trying to hide from the light outside. But nothing I can do can protect me from the barrage of thumping bass beats that starts up when my next-door neighbor decides the community hasn't heard Li'l John scream "YEAH" for too long.

Look, all joking aside guys, it doesn't have to be that loud. It really doesn't. I love music -- loud bands like the Who and AC/DC and Rage Against the Machine and the Misfits and NOFX. But I don't need to make YOUR eardrums bleed in order to fully appreciate the experience of hearing "Stickin' In My Eye," okay? Turn it the hell down, you'll still be able to hear it, I promise.

Either that, or transfer to an artillery unit, where no one can hear a damn thing.

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