New gig.

Cool news from my end: I've been asked to be one of the front-page writers over at Pats Pulpit, a New England Patriots fanblog. Those of you who enjoy my writing about American Gridiron can chase me over there for at least one post a week.

Sorry, though, to those of you who are bored/disinterested/hostile to my football writing, 'cause I'm going to continue to post random thinks on this site as well--if it's in my head and socially acceptable, chances are it's going to show up on this site sooner or later.

I've already got a couple of stories up: Running Down the Line is a snapshot of where I think the Patriots' offensive line stands at the beginning of training camp; Camp Rules is an admonishment to hardcore fans (yes, sadly, like myself) to take pre-season reporting with a grain of salt.


My screen name over there is JohnHannahRules. When I was growing up in Giants country (Connecticut south of Hartford), John Hannah was one of the only things the Pats (then "Patsies") had going for them. Since it was already pretty clear that if I was going to do anything on the football field it was going to be in the trenches, he made a good football role model. I had a poster of him on my wall.

You can find a link to Pats Pulpit under the sports links, right.

Ruby, AK 99768

1911-1917
click to enlarge




July 17, 2008
Click to enlarge.

I did not expect that.

Huh. Sox finally traded Manny Ramirez. Sox give Manny to the Dodgers, pay the last $7million of his contract and give Brandon Moss and Craig Hanson to the Pirates in exchange for Jason Bay. Dodgers also sent some prospects to the Pirates to complete the deal. I don't really care about the Dodgers or the Pirates (if you couldn't tell), so I'm just going to look at this from the perspective of a Sox fan. (Plus, it's a good opportunity to bone up on html for tables.)

Bay is pretty good at Pittsburgh, especially compared to the 2008 regular season Manny:

Stats	Bay	Manny
BA	.282	.299
HR	22	20
RBI	64	68
OBP	.375	.398

That compares pretty well. Big Question: can Jason Bay hit as well against AL East pitching as he has in the NL central? Doubtful.

Even so, there's no way Bay is anything but an upgrade in the field, adjustment to the Wall included.

On the other hand, Manny is unquestionably a clutch post-season hitter and one of the hardest working at the art now in the game.

On the other hand, Bay isn't going to be slugging your traveling secretary, or sulking in the dugout during the Yankees series, or demanding to be traded every other year.

Manny is going to hit well out there--probably put on a show, even though he'd be better off as a DH in the AL than an outfielder in the NL (though the pitching over there is worse).

How will Big Poppy react? We can provide good lineup protection for him with Youk, Drew, or even Mike Lowell. If Bay maintains his production, this looks like a pretty clear case of addition by subtraction. Plus, Bay is about a third as expensive as Manny, freeing up some cash (creatively) to go after what we really need: some middle relief.

On Manny's parting words: Yeah? That's straight from his script. See? It says right here: player with noted exceptionalist streak expresses self-importance in tones of a righteous lover, daring the abused spouse to walk. Tra-la, tra-la, we walked.

On the Manny Era: I never had a problem with the guy, really. He was a flake, and if you took him on those terms, all the stories about "Manny being Manny" were boring, bordering on tiresome. When he was happy, he was the best hitter in the game--he even became a decent left-fielder in Fenway. And he very clearly loved playing (when he was playing), which is always joyful to watch. But this was bound to happen. Ever since we got rid of Pedro, Manny's had a hair across 'is arse for management.

So long, Manny. Thanks for the rings, you came as advertised, but this is the right thing for all of us. Kisses.

And you, dear reader, may think this is corny, but it makes perfect sense and I can't get it out of my head. In the words of Green Day,

For what it's worth,
it was worth all the while.

It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

That's en-ter-taaaaaain-ment!

I've been recently captivated by DVDs of an animated series called The Venture Brothers. The fact that it's been out for two years tells you just how "Now" I am. Anyway, if you ever ill-spent your childhood Saturdays watching Johnny Quest and appreciate just how hokey it was, I have a hunch you'll find the Ventures pretty funny.

There's a great essay by David Foster Wallace called "Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness From Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed" that hints at some of what I love about this show.

First of all, you've got to be the kind of person that thinks the title of that essay is a little funny all by itself. Then, you've got to be the sort that thinks Kafka's writing is also funny. If you're American, you probably qualify this by saying "Kafka is funny, but in an unfunny Frenchish way." And only to your friends when you think the DHS isn't listening.

Of course, you also have to be the sort of person who can seriously discuss an animated sit-com featured on Adult Swim by the light of Kafka and David Foster Wallace.

Anyway, the hint is as follows:

It's not that students don't "get" Kafka's humor but that we've taught them to see humor as something you get--the same way we've taught them that a self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home.

So, if you're the sort who finds that very premise "funny" in a (duh) Kafkaesque way, then you'll really appreciate The Venture Bros.

Or you'll just think it's kind of funny.

As everyone knows and Wallace points out, there is no quicker way to kill a joke than to explain what makes it funny. So I'll just give you the premise:

Dr. Venture (pictured above) is a "super-scientist" in the Saturday morning mode. But he's a failure: the no-account son of a truly great super-scientist. Venture has two sons, Dean and Hank, both stupid and caught in a post-50's mindset. It's not entirely their fault, we discover, as they're actually clones -- the "blanks" for which Venture keeps locked up for use as the boys get killed. Which they frequently do.

Venture also has a bodyguard named Brock Sampson, an agent assigned to him from the "Office of Secret Intelligence" to protect the Venture family from the enemies of Venture's father. Sampson is especially hilarious in the second season -- I think the writers caught on to the fact that they had a great foil. He's the only one who seems aware that he's caught up in a very stupid farce. His lines become a kind of exhausted, eye-rolling recitation of the obvious -- which everyone else is missing. Very ably voiced by Patrick Warburton's lugubrious monotone.

Central to the story is Venture's wanna-be nemesis: The Monarch. As in butterfly. He directs his henchmen -- another hilarious side story is the existential dilemma of "henching" -- against Venture for no reason other than he's determined to be someone's nemesis and has picked Venture (with whom he went to college). The Monarch is ever in peril of having his heart broken by Doctor Girlfriend (pictured), a smoking hot (and actually competent) Jackie-O look-like with a disturbingly deep voice.

The show is peopled with all kinds of villains and other wannabe's, mostly farcical representations of Saturday-morning staples, but including a cameo by an Uncle Duke/HST doppelganger. As an example of what I find funny:

The Monarch has been imprisoned and his henchmen cast to the winds. We catch up with Henchmen #21 and #24 (the only ones with names, sort of) at a support group: "Men Before Henchmen." They can't kick the henching habit, and 21 unintentionally subverts the group by encouraging another sad-sack to keep hope alive: his master might not, in fact, have been sucked into a jet-engine.

If you think that's funny, rent the vids. As Zissou says, "If not, then yes."

Like an Addict, I'm back...

Damn it. I feel like Brokeback Ledger saying, "I can't quit you."

Football season is right around the corner, and like a junkie, shaking and scratching, here I am again: completely incapable of staying away. Even after the sickening absurdity of last season, I still bend down (way, way down) to drink at the firehose that is the American Sports Media Machine.

It has begun. Camp, that is. Coaches love it, fans love it, players hate it with great hate. As SI writer Stefan Fastis discovered, it is a way of life and a living, but the joy is in competition and camaraderie. The everyday, the grind, the lack of security, constant self-doubt, the discomfort and, by about the third day or so, pretty much constant pain--it's not so fun.

And as a conscious individual, I am of course aware of the incredible waste of resources represented by the sport at all levels, not to mention the dubious effects it has on young people.

Yet, here I am, right on schedule.

So, camp. Here are the smartest men on the team:



I'm not kidding. By position, NFL offensive linemen are the smartest guys on the field. As a matter of routine, since about 1970, NFL teams administer a modified IQ test called "The Wonderlic Test" to all players before signing them. (It's named for its developer EF Wonderlic, you perv.)

Because the NFL incessantly quantifies all quantifiable things (and is constantly on the look-out for a means to quantify qualitative things like "heart" or "character" or "desperation"), the scores have been maintained.

Before you get to feeling too high and mighty, here are some average scores for non-football professions:

Chemist: 31
Programmer: 29
Newswriter: 26
Sales: 24
Bank teller: 22
Clerical Worker: 21
Security Guard: 17
Warehouse: 15

So that's your range. Now, as to the beefy guys in the picture? Here are their scores:

Matt Light (LT): 29
Logan Mankins (LG): 25
Dan Koppen (C): 28
Stephen Neal (RG): 31
Nick Kaczur (RT): 29

That's right, smarty-pants. Stephen Neal has the same average Wonderlic score as a chemist. Keep in mind that they take the test during the scouting combine, after a full day of physical evaluations--running, jumping, shuttling, benching, squatting, etc. and etc. Of course, the smart agent has his client prepare for the test. But just as when folks prepare for the SAT, LSAT, GRE, or MCAT, some do better than others.

Big tip o'the cap to Ben Fry, the data visualization genius who does these kinds of representative graphs and charts both in his sleep and for fun, for putting together a revealing graphic on the topic. You can find it here, together with a discussion. I'm swiping the best one to post and beg his indulgence. Offense in blue, defense in red:

Back.

Howdy. I've been back for about a week and I've got a long, long story about my trip. I don't know if I'm going to put it up all at once or serialize it. We'll see. I'm leaning to the all-at-once, though that's usually better for long-form journals than the web. But hell, I'm not going to publish it. If you'll read it, you'll read it together. The internet never forgets--you can always finish it off later. I want to pretty it up with links and pictures, and that's going to have to wait until tomorrow as I'm all tuckered out right now and it's past bed time.

But just to show you how much I love my gentle readers, and let you know you're not forgotten (no, not ever), I'm going to leave you with a poem that I uncovered in my Alaska reading. I can't even express how relieved I was to find this poem.

Cheerio.

The Men That Don't Fit In

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

Robert Service, "Songs of the Yukon"
1907

Lighting out for the territory.

I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.
--Huck Finn

Borrowed Suits will be observing at least 10 days of radio silence as your corresp. heads out to the great northwest. I will be leaving from Boston's Logan airport tomorrow morning early headed for Ruby, Alaska. The flight will go from Beantown to Coffee Town (Seattle), to Fairbanks. I'll layover one night in Fairbanks then hop a bush plane to Ruby. From ruby it's about 5 miles downstream on the Yukon River to the home of the future Yukon River Lodge. Hopefully I won't have to swim.

The YRL is a project started about 2 years ago by Sam and Tamara Clark, seeking their own version of Dick Proenneke's "Back and Beyond."



Sam and Tamara haven't gone that extreme. They're building a lodge on the river to cater to sportsmen and outdoor enthusiasts looking for a spot tight against the Nowitna National Wildlife Refuge. The Yukon enjoys good salmon fishing, among other things.

Even though they're relatively close to Ruby, there are no roads to their place but the river. During early freeze-up and before ice-out, this means the place is as isolated as can be. In the winter they get to town by dogsled and snow machine; in the summer they rely on boats.

I don't expect to be doing too much sightseeing -- though the place itself is beautiful. The time will largely be devoted to building.

Food cache, YRL

I met Sam's parents through my work. Once they discovered that I used to be a nail-banger, they asked if I ever wanted to go to Alaska.

Well, yeah. But I could never afford the ticket.

"Not to worry," they said, "we have plenty of air miles built up. Why don't you come up this summer and help us build?"

I doubt I'd ever get a better offer, so I'm taking it. Expect a full report upon my return. In the meantime, you can check out this quicktime photoessay they've put together and nose around their site for pictures and descriptions.

See you soon.

D'oh!

Lazy blogging means more clips. But I'm guessing that more clips means more happy "readers." So here's a clip, reader:

The Simpsons Voices