We Can Do Better Than Donald Trump, Can't We?

America, this is your wake up call! Pay attention. Stop sleeping. Urgent action is needed.Donald Trump has a 22-point lead in the Republican primary. Twenty-two points! Somehow 41% of Republicans support Trump for president. How is this possible?This is Donald Trump we’re talking about. The hair. The divorces. The gold seat belt buckles. This is a man who believes that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States.Can’t we do better than this?I’m a proud liberal, so I always think that Republicans have bad ideas, but they’ve really outdone themselves thus far. Donald Trump for President. Seriously?He’s like your know-it-all neighbor who thinks that nothing’s as good as it used to be, and if we could just get rid of everyone who isn’t like us or doesn’t agree with us then everything could be great again. In his mind, there’s only one point-of-view that matters in this world, and it’s his.His recent statement that he could stand on Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot somebody without losing any supporters is an appallingly tone-deaf thing to say in a country where mass shootings are a regular occurrence. He claimed that he was joking, but gave no explanation as to why he thought it appropriate to joke about shooting someone.Trump has proposed many backward, idiotic ideas. Should we expect him to suggest a return to using duels to settle disputes? Maybe he can be a modern day Aaron Burr.A return to dueling is an asinine idea, but it doesn’t seem completely beyond the pale with Trump. He’s suggested so many ridiculous policies (banning Muslims from entering the U.S., building a giant wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and making Mexico pay for it) that dueling almost seems to fit right in.Why is anyone listening to anything this guy has to say? He’s a businessman with a television show. If he lived 100 years ago he’d be a carnival barker trying to convince us to come inside the tent to see the lion-faced man.And 41% of Republicans want to make him President of the United States?Perhaps this is a reflection of our entertainment. Reality television has permeated every aspect of our lives, so why not our politics and government? Voting became part of television when we started choosing the next American Idol or bestowing the mirror ball trophy on Dancing with the Stars, so why not let television infiltrate our voting in presidential elections?Why not? Because then we end up with Donald Trump for a presidential candidate.We can do better than Donald Trump, can’t we? Even the Republicans, with their dozen-deep pool of presidential candidates this cycle have to admit that Donald Trump isn’t the best choice. I wouldn’t be too excited about any of them, but someone has to be better than Trump, don’t they?Can you imagine a President Trump comforting the families of the victims in the next mass shooting after joking about shooting people on Fifth Avenue? Or what if he visits Hamtramck, Michigan, the first majority-Muslim city in the United States, after calling for a ban on Muslims entering the country?We can do better than President Trump, and surely the Republicans can find someone else to nominate. Ted Cruz might be just as bad as Trump, and he’s in second place, so the Republicans are going to have to dig deeper.The good news is that with Trump and Cruz in the lead, Americans will get a good long look at them, and see just how disgusting they are. And with some luck, they’ll tear each other apart as they scramble for votes, and someone slightly less crazy will emerge victorious.Neither Trump nor Cruz will be the nominee, I suspect. At some point, the madness will end, other candidates will turn out more of their voters, and we’ll look back and marvel that either man stuck around for as long as they did.But until then, Trump will continue his over-the-top rhetoric, and keep “telling it like it is” and some of the voting public will love it. As with all things Trump, his campaign is go big or go home.Here’s hoping that he goes home.Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.

PREVIOUS POST: More Recess Won't Make Your Kid DumberIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Juicy Presidential Affairs

More Recess Won't Make Your Kid Dumber

Will your child do better in school if they have more recess? That’s the question posed by a segment on The Today Show this past Monday.I didn’t see the segment, but a similar story appears to have aired on the same program ten days earlier. It focuses on an elementary school in Texas where, beginning this year, students have four 15-minute recesses per day. They used to have one 15-minute recess per day.Some teachers and parents at the school claim that more recess has made the kids more focused, better listeners, less restless, and better able to follow directions.It seems a little presumptive to say that those changes are due to extra recess after just a few months, and it’s obviously counterintuitive to think that more recess would lead to more learning instead of less learning, but in general, I come down on the more recess side of the argument.Maybe Texas is on to something. (I can’t believe I just wrote those words. I always assumed that Texas liked being its own country so much back in the 1840s that they’d decided not to progress since then. They’re on the verge of proving me wrong! What’s next for the Lonestar State, science?)Much has been made of the need for testing, and standards, and new teaching theories, and blah, blah, blah in the past couple of decades. We think that our kids are getting dumber—or at least not as smart as when we were kids, or not as smart as the rest of the world—so the easy answer is to stick those kids in a classroom for as long as possible and make sure that a good teacher is teaching them things.And if our kids are spending all of this time in school and we’re holding teachers accountable, and we’ve got a bunch of new, better ways of teaching, and every kid has an iPad, then surely our kids are getting smarter, right?Well, I don’t know. My kids are smart. And I’m sure your kids are smart, right? It’s all of those other kids—not mine and yours—that we have to worry about. They’re not learning enough. They’re not meeting expectations. Their test scores aren’t fabulous.So what do we do about that? We maximize the time they’re in school and we get rid of stupid things like recess. That’s a good idea, right?Again, I don’t know. Not to sound like an old man, or some cynic who thinks things will never be as good as they once were, but until fourth grade I attended an elementary school in Springfield, Illinois, at which we had a short recess before the school day even started, then got a mid-morning (10:30ish) recess, a lunch (12:15ish) recess, and an afternoon (2:00ish) recess, before ending the day at 3:00. (At least this is the way that I remember it. I could be wrong. Romanticism and stuff.)That’s a whole lotta recess. Yet I learned a thing or two. (For one, I learned that lotta isn’t a word. But then at some point I also learned that as soon as you learn the rules of writing and grammar, you can begin breaking them!)I’m not arguing that I’m smart because I had so much recess. I think there are so many other factors that affect a student’s education that whether a student has 15 minutes or 45 minutes of recess every day probably isn’t going to make much of a difference. When factored over the course of a school year, that’s an extra 13 days of school spent at recess, which sounds like a lot.However, after a kid leaves school for the day, he’s probably got about five hours before he goes to bed. And factored out over a school year, that works out to 129 days.My point is that—like with so many other things related to kids—what happens at home is more likely to make or break a student than an extra 30 minutes of recess.So before you complain about schools giving so much recess, ask yourself if you’re doing everything you can to help your child succeed at school. Because if you’re not, those extra 13 days a year aren’t going to help anyway.A good school is nice. A good teacher is fantastic. But only rarely can either one help a child overcome bad parents.Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.

PREVIOUS POST: The 939 Saturdays of ChildhoodIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: My Daughter Graduated High School?

The 939 Saturdays of Childhood

I’ve written often about my obsession with time, and my hope that if I’m conscious of its passage that I can somehow slow it down. Or, if I can’t slow it down, at least try to appreciate it. There are many things in life that we can’t get back once they’re gone, and time is near the top of the list.When we die, few of us ever say, “I wish I had more money right now.” Or “I wish I had more stuff right now.” But near the end, most of us will probably say, “I wish I had more time.”Nothing we can do about that though. When our time is up, it’s up. The best we can do is to make the most of the time we have until The End.A year or so ago I saw a post on Facebook stating that we have fewer than a thousand Saturdays with our kids from the time they’re born until they turn eighteen. I thought of this a few days ago as I contemplated weekend plans.I did some math and looked at calendars, and figured out that we actually have either 939 or 940 Saturdays from when our children are born to when they turn eighteen, depending on the year and the day of the week they were born.That’s not many Saturdays.My oldest daughter is eighteen. We’ve already used all 939 of her Saturdays. We’ve used 591 of my oldest son’s 939 Saturdays, which means there are only 348 Saturdays left until he turns 18. My younger son has an extra Saturday, so there are 447 Saturdays left until he turns 18. And my daughter, who’s in preschool, has 665 Saturdays until she turns 18.No, 939 Saturdays aren’t many at all.So what are we going to do with those Saturdays? We better figure it out, or they’re going to be gone, and we’ll have nothing left except a longing to recapture those days we wasted.It’s easy to say that today doesn’t matter. After all, it’s just one day. But our entire lives are created out of a collection of Just One Days. If today doesn’t matter, then how do you decide which day does matter?So if you’ve got kids, don’t waste a single one of those 939 Saturdays. It’ll be hard enough to make the most of each Saturday even if you try. But if you don’t try, then the days, and months, and years will pass and you’ll ask yourself, “What happened to the time?” And you’ll overflow with regret.Luckily, this is an easy fate to avoid. All you have to do is: anything.Anything is the answer.Take them out to breakfast for dinner. Talk to them—don’t just ask them, but engage with them—about their day. Play a board game. Wrestle with them. Ask them to teach you how to play a video game. Paint their nails. Let them paint your nails. Go to the park. Have a water balloon fight. Read to them. Have them read to you.You don’t have to travel to Disney World every Saturday to make sure that you don’t waste the day. We all have memories of those monumental events in our lives, but the small stuff counts just as much, if not more.Kids are smarter than us. They know what we’ve forgotten, even if they don’t know it.While no kid will turn down a bunch of awesome presents for Christmas or their birthday, what they really want is time. Our time. So stop making excuses, and start making time.We’ve only got 939 Saturdays to work with. Days to go for a hike, to bake cookies, to go swimming, to have a snowball fight, to color together, to make a paper airplane. Only 939 Saturdays to shape their childhood, to create memories, to help make them who they will be.Sure, you have other things to do. We all have other things to do. But when you think of those 939 Saturdays, all those other things seem rather insignificant, no? So prioritize time for your kids.939 Saturdays.Some of those Saturdays are lost. But some remain. Make sure you'll be able to look back on those Saturdays and say that they weren’t lost, but rather lived.PREVIOUS POST: I'm Back After Quitting the InternetIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: My Daughter Graduated High School?

Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.

I'm Back After Quitting the Internet

I’m back on the Internet. Did you miss me? Probably not, I suppose.Although actually, I didn’t desert the Internet as intensely as I had planned when I wrote Why I’m Quitting the Internet a couple of months ago. It’s safe to say I used the Internet less than you did though.So if I didn’t desert the Internet, what did I do?I picked and I chose.I didn’t read any blogs, so no doubt I missed some great ChicagoNow writing. I didn’t visit Longform—one of my favorite websites—so I missed out on some great non-fiction writing.I didn’t read any news. I can’t tell you how refreshing it was. Three or four days passed before I knew the Paris terrorist attacks had happened. I’m fairly out of the loop on the presidential campaign. And I’ll undoubtedly have a moment months from now when I hear that some celebrity died during my Internet blackout and I didn’t know it.I even avoided sports news, which means I’m going to be very surprised to find out where all the baseball free agents ended up. I did hear that the Cubs signed Jason Heyward, and I spent a few minutes looking at his statistics, sure that I must be missing something that explains how he’s worth $23 million per year. It’s still a mystery to me.But perhaps the biggest avoidance during my Internet blackout was Facebook. I went fifty-two days without signing into my Facebook account. Note the careful wording of that sentence. I’d like to emphasize MY Facebook account. I did sign on a few times to a fake account I created years ago, just to check on a few things. That account only has eight or ten friends though, so I couldn’t see much.It’s weird not being on Facebook. The first few days I had to stop myself from signing in every morning since it had become such a part of my daily routine. But soon, I’d practically forgotten about it.And no offense to my Facebook friends, or you, Dear Reader, but I didn’t miss you guys very much.Facebook itself missed me terribly though.A funny thing happens after you leave Facebook for a little while. I think it takes a week or ten days. But at some point, Facebook starts sending you e-mails asking you to sign in again. They’ll tell you how many notifications you have, how many groups you’re part of that have new messages, and when you get a friend request.I guess this makes sense. Social media doesn’t exist if people aren’t being social, so of course Facebook wants its users to participate.I watched in amusement as the number of notifications increased in each day’s e-mail. “Brett, you have 74 new notifications…83 new notifications…96 new notifications.” They really wanted me to login to check those notifications.But when that number reached 99, Facebook stopped counting. For the last month of my Facebook exile, I received a daily message informing me that I had 99 notifications. Facebook can bring together hundreds of millions of people from around the world, but they can’t count past 99.So what did I do on the Internet?I used it for anything work related. I used it to look at travel websites. I played fast and loose with my self-granted personal wellness exemption. I ordered presents. I looked up recipes. Amazon. Maps.Gosh, now that I write it out, it seems like I barely did without the Internet at all. I did though, really!No Facebook, no news, no sports, no podcasts. That’s a lot.And did I learn anything?I learned that even though much of the time Facebook isn’t all that interesting, and I didn’t miss it, I still signed in on the first day after my exile ended. I learned that not knowing what’s going on in the world is a nice feeling. I learned that I don’t need to know what the weather’s going to be everyday.I learned that when I don’t write a blog post for two months, I’m rather rusty and the finished product sucks.And unfortunately, you’ve just learned that, too.But I’m back now. My next entry will be better. I promise.PREVIOUS POST: Why I'm Quitting the InternetIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Vegan for a Month: Lessons Learned+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.

Why I'm Quitting the Internet

Most people tend to be creatures of habit. Things we do today are probably the same as the things we did yesterday, and they’re probably the same as the things we’ll do tomorrow.This kind of consistency can be very important to us. Our days would be much tougher if every day were different. Doing things the same way day-after-day gives us stability, and lessens chaos.But on the flipside, our habits can work against us as well. Sometimes we end up doing things for no other reason than they’re the way we’ve always done them. We don’t think about what we’re doing. We don’t question whether there’s another way to do things, or whether we even need to do what we’re doing. We become intellectually lazy.What’s more habitual for us than the Internet? How often do we login to Facebook or go to some other website simply because it’s what we always do? The habitual nature of the Internet is the reason smart phones exist. How often have you seen someone on their phone finish doing whatever they were doing, put the phone down, and then pick it right back up thirty seconds later?Did anything change on their phone in that thirty seconds? Probably not. Yet they refresh Facebook or Instagram or whatever else and look at the screen as if they expect to find something new. Instead it looks almost exactly like it did the last time they looked at it.They’re staring at their phone because they always stare at their phone. It’s habit.And that’s why I’m quitting the Internet. To break the habit. To make myself think about what I’m doing. To make conscious choices instead of letting minutes, hours or days slip by without thinking about what I’m doing.We’ve come to accept that the Internet it so ingrained in our daily lives that we cannot do without it. I suppose that might be true to some extent. And by doing without the Internet I’ll discover the extent to which it has become ingrained in my life.How much of my Internet usage is because I have to use the Internet, and how much is because I used the Internet yesterday?Here’s what I have in mind.Beginning at noon, on Monday, November 9, 2015, I’ll do without the Internet as much as possible until January 1, 2016. However, since the Internet is ingrained in our lives to a certain extent, I must make exceptions.First, I’ll use it for anything required for my work. I’d prefer not to become unemployed as a result of this experiment, and if I say, “Sorry, Boss Guy, but I can’t do my job because I’m trying to do without the Internet,” I don’t think it’d go too well.Also, I’ll use it for any personal wellness need. I don’t want to tell my family or myself that I can’t be helpful in a time of need because I’m not using the Internet.I'll use it for e-mail, and personal communication with my immediate family.I’ll also use library websites to find books to read, bill payment and banking websites so my creditors don’t get angry at me (I don’t think they’d understand), and the NORAD Santa tracker on Christmas Eve. I’ve gone back and forth on whether to use it to buy Christmas and birthday presents, and I’m still undecided. I’m leaning toward using it just so my loved ones aren’t punished as a result of this exercise, but I’m still thinking about it.Other than that, I’ll do without. No Facebook. No news, sports, entertainment, travel, or whatever other websites. No ChicagoNow, which means that I’m taking a break from this blog. This is the last post of the year. Look for me in January. I suspect my first post will be a status report on how it went doing without the Internet for almost two months.Until then, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. I hope you hold up well over the next seven weeks or so.Let me know what I miss. I’ll let you know whether I missed it or not. Unless life without the Internet ends up being too good to give up. Then maybe I’ll never return from the disconnected wilderness.Oh the horror!PREVIOUS POST: Why You Shouldn't Stop TryingIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: 2015 Will be my Year of Doing Without+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.

Why You Shouldn't Stop Trying

There’s a song whose lyrics include these: I’ll keep taking punches/ until their will grows tired.I think of that song and those lyrics often. Something about the determination in those words speaks to me. Inspires me. Makes me want to do better. Be better.I’ve written before about persistence. That quality in people that makes us continue no matter the odds. However, there’s persistence and there’s relentless persistence. There are those who try, and those who never stop trying.Whenever I think of relentless persistence I think of those old clown punching bags. Every kid has tangled with a clown punching bag before. They’re three feet tall or so, and no matter what you do, no matter how many times you punch it, no matter how much force you put into every punch, that punching bag bounces right back up. Sure it’ll hit the floor, it’ll wobble, it’ll look like it’s staying down, but then it bounces back up, ready for more.Indefatigable.The clown punching bag bounces back up and asks for more because it knows no other way. That’s how it’s made. When given a beating it can’t do anything other than to brush it off and ask for more, all with a smile on its face.We can learn a lot from those punching bags. We’ve all been knocked down. Sometimes it just seems easier to stay down on the floor. Chances are you won’t get hit again if you stay on the floor.But you’ll never get what you want if you stay down on the floor either. And if you’re on the floor you might get stepped on, walked over, buried. And as bad as it sucks to get knocked down, I’m sure it sucks even more to get buried.So pick yourself up off the floor. Yes, you might get hit again. Sure there’s a good chance you’ll end up on the floor again. But if you do, just get back up. To paraphrase the great Henry Rollins, when life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Take a big bite out of those lemons, and say, “I love lemons, what else you got for me?”There’s a scene in Rocky IV where the badass Soviet, Drago, is exasperated because he’s hitting Rocky with everything he’s got, punch after punch after punch, and Rocky takes it and keeps fighting. “He’s not human,” Drago says, “he’s like a piece of iron.”He’s like a piece of iron. You can sense Drago’s wild frustration just from those six words. Rocky’s like nothing he’s ever seen before. He doesn’t crumble. He doesn’t wilt. He doesn’t collapse. He takes Drago’s punches and comes back for more.And not to ruin the film, but guess who wins in the end? It ain’t the Soviet.When I was a kid I had a sign on my wall that read, “If at first you don’t succeed, quit. No sense being a damn fool about it.” I liked that sign because I thought it was funny. The message was unexpected, and nothing’s cooler to a twelve-year-old boy than hanging something on his wall that contains a cuss word.I must have read that sign five thousand times during my childhood. Luckily, its lesson didn’t make an impact on me. I don’t mind being a damn fool one bit. In fact, I’ve discovered that there are few things more fulfilling in life than persistence. At some point, persistence usually wins. Much in this world can be accomplished by the sheer force of will.And a reward gained by persistence is much sweeter than one gained easily.So don’t quit. Don’t throw in the towel. Take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. Be just like those damn clown punching bags and keep on getting up, asking for more. And just remember, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over. You can do better, because you’re not dead yet.I’ve used a few hundred words to prove my point. William Ernest Henley said the same thing in much fewer words in his poem, Invictus:

Out of the night that covers me,Black as the pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tearsLooms but the Horror of the shade,And yet the menace of the yearsFinds and shall find me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate,I am the captain of my soul.

PREVIOUS POST: Matthew McConaughey, Wanna be my Friend?IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Views from Mountaintops and Valleys+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.

Matthew McConaughey, Wanna be my Friend?

Dear Matthew,You don’t know me, but that doesn’t really matter. None of us know anyone until we know them, right? Everyone’s a stranger at some point. But take my word for it, you should get to know me.I’m looking for a new friend (I’ve been hemorrhaging friends lately), and you seem like a pretty cool guy, so I thought maybe you’d like to be my friend. Not just any old friend though. Best friends.So what do you say, do you want to be my best friend?This may seem a little unusual. I mean you don’t even know who I am. So allow me to introduce myself. My name’s Brett. I write this here blog. And I’m in better shape than you. One of those previous three sentences is false. I’ll let you guess which one.Now, before I explain why we should be best friends, let me start off with a confession. (Honesty’s a good trait for a best friend to have, right?) A few years ago, no one could have paid me to be your best friend. I mean you had a whole series of horrendous—really horrendous—movies. Failure to Launch, Fool’s Gold, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Are you kidding me? I hope you fired the person who advised you take those roles.And judging by your success over the past few years, I’d say you probably did fire them. You’ve been on quite the roll over the past four years or so. I saw you in a movie called The Paperboy and you were great. Then Killer Joe, and Mud, and even Magic Mike and your small part in Bernie. All of the sudden you became a good actor. A serious actor.I wish time travel existed because I’d love to go back to 2005 and tell people that Matthew McConaughey would win a Best Actor Oscar ten years later and watch those people laugh at me and call me an idiot.Who’s laughing now, assholes?Anyway, Matt—do you mind if I call you Matt? Actually, Matthew is probably cooler, isn’t it? Maybe not. Sounds a bit pretentious to be honest. Not as cool as Rooster, your older brother’s nickname. That’s what you need. A nickname. What’s a good nickname for you? Hmmm. How about Colt? That’s a cool name and it goes along with your Texas roots.So Colt, let’s be friends. Best friends. I don’t want to sound like one of those celebrity stalkers, but I think you’re pretty badass. The roles you’ve played in your last five or six films are amazing, and your Oscar speech was one of the best of all time, and your personal motto—Just Keep Livin’—just oozes coolness. Good God, you almost make it seem cool to drive a Lincoln. No one else could even come close to that.Before becoming a kickass actor, you were probably most famous for that incident when you were naked and playing bongo drums outside your house. That’s some strange stuff, Colt. I like it though. I mean it makes sense to me. After all, I’m a grown man and the picture on my blog shows me in a bathtub with a hair dryer and a rubber ducky, so that kind of nonsensical shit seems perfectly legit to me.I know what you’re asking yourself right now. “Hey Mr. Dry it in the Water, I know I’m awesome, but why the hell should I be friends with a twerp like you?”Well, first of all, I just gave you the coolest nickname ever. From now on when someone mentions Colt, they’re going to think of you. Like Cher or Madonna or Pele. You’re welcome. Second, we have the same catchphrase. For years I’ve been saying “All right, all right,” when something happens that I agree with, or when someone tells me something I understand. All you did is add another all right to the end of it. Of course it’s cooler when you say it, but really, I’m probably just one all right from being that cool.So what do you say, Colt? Are you looking for a new best friend? Are you dying to hangout with a practically unknown, marginally talented, rather unfunny blogger with not much to offer in the way of charisma? If so, drop me a line, or give me a call. Maybe we can go out for a beer, or on a run or something. We’d have a good time, I’m sure.By the way, you can ignore the fact that I had to Google the correct spelling of your last name. I’ve got it memorized now.Besides, everyone know how to spell Colt.Holy crap! It just occurred to me that if we become best friends we can be know as Cobre. Colt and Brett. Get it? Cobre. Like cobra, only cooler.High five, Colt!This post was written as part of Blogapalooz-Hour, a monthly exercise for ChicagoNow bloggers in which we're given a writing prompt, and challenged to produce a post in one hour. Tonight's prompt: "Write a letter to a celebrity (rock star, politician, athlete, movie star, etc.) convincing them you should become best friends"PREVIOUS POST: I've Hated the Mets for a Long TimeIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Sometimes Lost Friends are the Best Friends+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.

I've Hated the Mets for a Long Time

Just for the record, I hate the Mets. And this has nothing to do with the ass-whooping that they’ve dished out to the Cubs in the last three games. (None of the games have been as close as the scores would indicate.) No, this hatred has a 29-year history. It has waxed and waned during that time.It’s waxing right now.In 1986 I was eight years old. The Mets played the Red Sox in the World Series. My baseball fandom was still in its infancy. I watched the World Series the year before and cheered as the Royals beat those bastards from St. Louis, and I’ve rooted for the Royals ever since.But 1986 was a watershed year. It was the year I developed baseball-related hatred.And holy shit, there was so much to hate about those 1986 Mets. There was the way Doc Gooden dominated the Cubs, my favorite team. The way Gary Carter—God rest his soul—used to tilt his head and look up at hitters to make sure they weren’t stealing signs. There was Lenny Dykstra with the ever-present chewing tobacco in his cheek. There was Mookie Wilson whose name is Mookie.And Ray Knight. God, how I hate Ray Knight. I hated him when he played for the Mets, and I hated him years later when he managed the Reds, and I hated him when he was a commentator on Baseball Tonight.Ray Knight is the devil.Don't get me started on that stupid big red Mets apple that used to light up every time they hit a homerun.The problem with my Mets hatred back in 1986 was that my grandparents lived in New York. My mom grew up in New York, and my grandparents lived in Queens, which is where the Mets play.I vividly recall talking to my grandma on the phone during the 1986 World Series and her asking me if I was rooting for the Mets or the Red Sox. I told her I was rooting for the Red Sox, and she told me she was rooting for the Mets, and I thought, “How can my grandma be rooting for the Mets? I didn’t know she was evil!”Turns out, my grandma wasn’t evil. She was just a Mets fan. Much to my surprise, the two aren’t synonymous. No one wants to think of their grandma as evil.The 1986 World Series was extra cruel. During Game 6 it appeared as though the Red Sox were going to win the World Series. At least twice they had the Mets down to their last strike. But those assholes came out victorious, with the King Asshole, Ray Knight, scoring the winning run for the Mets.Then the Mets won the next game and the World Series. And eight-year-old Brett cried in his bed. I remember lying there in the dark, crying. Fucking Mets!The Mets haven’t won a World Series since then. I cheered when they lost to the Dodgers in the playoffs in 1988, and when they had bad years after that. I’m somewhat ashamed to say that I didn't feel bad when Dwight Gooden had problems with cocaine, and Darryl Strawberry had problems with alcohol.I was a teenager, give me a break.These days I actually own a Mets shirt. My mom bought it for me a few years ago. It commemorates Shea Stadium’s final year, and I wear it from time-to-time. It’s been easy to wear because the Mets have sucked the past few years. Now that they’re good and they’re beating the shit out of the Cubs, I sort of want to burn it.But I won’t.This new breed of Mets aren’t quite as hate-able as the Mets of my youth. They’re not so dominant. But I loathe Daniel Murphy, and David Wright, and Jeurys Familia. Loathe with a capital L.Still, they’re not as bad as Wally Backman, Tim Teufel, Keith Hernandez, Sid Fernandez, Jesse Orosco, and the rest of those 1986 assholes. I don’t understand how anyone can be a Mets fan though. My grandma wasn’t evil, but I’m not sure about the rest of them.It won’t surprise me if the Mets win game 4 and sweep the Cubs. I haven’t been too excited about any of this Cubs playoff mumbo jumbo because I’ve been a Cubs fan all my life. I’ve come to expect disappointment.But losing to the Mets seems extra cruel. Like extra salt in the wound, just for me.I hope the Royals—or less likely, the Blue Jays—kick the shit out of the Mets in the World Series. Maybe then eight-year-old Brett will feel some tiny bit of satisfaction.To quote a 1980s commercial, what the hell is a Met anyway?PREVIOUS POST: Fuck Your GunsIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: What I Believe, Crash Davis Style+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.