Is Bigfoot a Vegetarian?

I sure as hell hope so!

Me and Mortgage Partner are gearing up for the Big Day...and hence, the Big Week to follow. Our post-ceremonial vacation (what is commonly referred to as "the honeymoon") should be spectacular.

We head to the great Northwest the day after the Big Gig...to northern California and southern Oregon. For three of our seven days, we will be immersed in the heart of Bigfoot country. Though (like the god-thing) I do not consider myself a believer, neither am I so closed-minded as to be a staunchly rabid sceptic (from the greek: skeptomai, to look about, to consider).

An ancient myth dating back at least 400 years in North America (the term sasquatch is a Native American word for "hairy giant"), no hard evidence (bones, skulls, genetically distinct hair) supporting their existence has ever been discovered. It doesn't help the believer's cause that A) two hoax films have been uncovered, B) a corpse known as "The Minnesota Iceman" raised more questions than it answered (it's a great story, involving J. Edgar Hoover, The Smithsonian Institute, a carnival owner and an eccentric millionaire), C) people have been caught creating false prints with special boots that have large wooden feet on the bottom, or that D) a company even mass-produced strap-on feet so that you could prank friends and family.

I think the best story I've run across yet is that of Albert Ostman, a Canadian lumberjack. It was 1924. Albert was prospecting for gold when he claims to have been captured by a family of Bigfoots. The held him hostage for a week before he finally escaped. He didn't tell anyone about the incident until 1957 because - get this - he didn't want people to think he was crazy! My favorite part of Albert's tale is that the Yetis are apparently a progressive bunch, shunning traditional roles: Father and Daughter guarded him while Son and Mom prepared the meals. (Or maybe the boy was just a good cook and the daughter was a great softball player :).

Okay...maybe that's NOT the best story about Bigfoot...maybe THIS one is: Mortgage Partner agreed to marry me because she found out my college nickname was "Bigfoot" for a reason!

Q: Is Hell Freezing Over?

A: No...I just finally came to my senses.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that phrase in the past month or so - ever since I went public with the news that Mortgage Partner and I will be pulling the trigger on this relationship thing. (Not to be confused with "pulling the plug..." In my cartoon head, "pulling the trigger" is akin to "finalizing," whereas the former is more like "abandoning." Yeah: I am a cheesy romantic sap - I know.)

Some of the more memorable verbal reactions:

"Get the fuck out of here! Cranial Midget is NOT getting married!!!" I heard this one through the phone line, as a good friend's wife (who probably knows me better through "reputation" than through reality) was told of the news.

"Excuse me?" said a co-worker. He then turned around so his ass was facing me, and said, "Could you tell me if pigs are flying out my butt?"

"Well, I guess we can finally put the door back on its hinges," said an old friend, referring to a semi-public facility where - a long time ago, when I was in my late-teens/early twenties - I would often go to have sex. Seedy stuff: it was the back room of a gathering place and the table, which took up most of the space in the small room, was just the right height. The old crusty bass turds who ran the place (and who weren't getting laid) were jealous and decided to take the door off its hinges.

And, just last weekend, I was given this gem: "Can I tell you something? Something my mom always sat me down and told me whenever I had been dating a boy for more than a few months?" asked a friend. "The fucking stops and the fighting starts when you get married. Don't ever get married, darling. That was about the only advice my mother ever offered me...now I offer it to you."

"Wow. That is so awesome! I never thought I'd live to see the day...she must be pretty special. You two must have a lot of fun together," exclaimed one of my less-jaded friends.

Yeah...yes she is. And yes - yes we do.

Having Mortgage Partner in my life is like getting a whole new box of crayons and a brand new coloring book, adding dimensions to my existence I never knew...opening my eyes to colors I didn't know were there.

And: she doesn't mind the fact that I still can't (won't?) draw inside the lines! (Although she prefers it when I do.)

Keepin' the Streak Alive

Movie Quotes:

"There are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary. And there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance."

- - Bull Durham

"A good friend of mine used to say, 'This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.' Think about that for a while."

- - Bull Durham

"Well I can't rightly say which player hit the ball hardest, but the home runs Babe Ruth hit got smaller quicker." - Walter Johnson in Ken Burns' "Baseball"

Good Ol' Yogi:

"You give 100 percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough in the second half you give what's left."

"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."

"I made a wrong mistake."

"I didn't really say everything I said."

American Zen:

"See if you can notice when you're hitting and not paying attention. The way to learn to pay attention is to notice when you're not paying attention."

- - Jeff McKay, founder of Be Your Own Coach Baseball Camp

The Mexicutioner

Classic All-Star Game Tuesday night.

Old Yankee Stadium (built in 1923) grudgingly said goodbye to the national spotlight. (Since the Yankees aren't having a very good year, it's unlikely they will get to the post-season - making this the last time "the nation" will be focused on The House That Ruth Built). Being a true Yankee-hater, I'm not shedding any Royal Blue tears over this...

Nonetheless, it was pretty awesome watching George Brett give the pre-game pep talk to the A.L. players, seeing Yogi Berra throw out the ceremonial first pitch - and, best of all, getting to see our boy, The Mexicutioner, take the mound with the game tied in the 11th.

Did I mention that the 9th inning began at the stroke of midnight - seriously. That's one reason I LOVE baseball - there are just so many odd things that happen - almost enough to turn a hardball atheist into a softball believer (whatever that means).

This is just one of my favorite examples: In 1961, on the last day of the season, Roger Maris broke Mickey Mantle's single-season home run record by hitting his 61st homer in his 161st game of the season.

(As an aside, after the 1998 season, a mathematician recognized a mathematical property BECAUSE OF the home run chase that year:

A mathematical property is named after Maris, along with Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. Two numbers form a Maris-McGwire-Sosa pair if they are consecutive numbers such that when you add each number's digits to the digits of its prime factorization, they are equal. Engineer Mike Keith named this property after the sluggers because he noticed that the numbers 61 and 62 have this property, and McGwire and Sosa both hit home run number 62 in 1998, both passing the record of Maris, 61.)

Baseball is America in microcosm. Our history of race relations, immigration, labor vs The Man, popular culture and patriotism, wide open spaces...it's all in there.

Americans began playing baseball in the early 1800s, using local rules. But it wasn't until Cartwright formalized the modern rules of the game and formed a "league" (consisting of two teams) in 1846 that it started to become our "national pastime."

Think about it: A ballpark brings together total strangers. Since that first recorded game, baseball has blurred the social barriers of age and race and language and social status. It unites people in highly vocal rivalry (known as "heckling" and also referred to as a 2-party Democracy). It’s an urban game played on a wide open, grassy field. And: it is a game that's as much about the mind as it is the body. Whitman would be proud!

Just look at all the words and phrses we use every day that come from baseball: "In the ballpark" or "a ballpark estimate." "Batting a thousand." "Big league" and "bush league" (the latter has a whole new meaning since the Idiot-in Chief took over, eh?). The term "Charlie horse" was first used in association with baseball - and may have been coined by ballplayers. "Cover all your bases." The media threw him a "curve ball." "Way off base." "Rain check." "Pinch hit."

And then there's sex: "Getting to first base," "Getting to home" or "Striking out." "Switch hitter," "Pitcher" and "Catcher"...the lexicon goes on and on...as can a baseball game (or a blog entry)!

Seriously, though: a baseball game can, in theory, go on forever. There's no time limit and no limit put on the number of extra innings - adding to its "spiritual" or supernatural (outside the limits of time) quality. (A couple of double A teams hold the official record: the game began on Saturday, April 18, 1981 and continued through the night and into Easter morning before the league president was reached by phone and made them suspend the game.)

If you pay attention, watching a ballgame can truly be a zen-like experience. Many Americans have developed ADD and therefore think the game is too boring. But there is always some titillating match-up or strategy or sleight-of-hand going on...you just have to be aware.

Anyway, we're getting into the late innings here. The 15-inning, 5-hour mid-summer classic was a thing of beauty. The House That Ruth Built just wanted to keep that light shining on her as long as she could. Can't say that I blame the old gal.

All of this has just been a drawn-out way to give a shout-out to our boy, Joakim Soria, aka, "The Mexicutioner." He is the Royals closer and, just 24-years-old, is arguably the best at his position in baseball.

Me and Mortgage Partner thought we were in a tiny fan club of Soria-obsessed geeks. Then we saw the above illustration - which a company recently printed onto T-shirts. After pitching a flawless 11th inning in the All-Star game, it seems everyone knows him now...

...well, everyone except my friend, LT - self-proclaimed Royals fan who didn't even recognize Soria's name when I mentioned him earlier today! Oh well, let that be a lesson to each of us: we ALL need to pay a lot more attention than we do. Heck, MP had to tell me I was rooting for the wrong team one time!

Survival of the Santas

What do a bunch of grown men who spend their lives perpetuating a fairy tale do when they gather and have too much free time?

They form an organized religion, of course!

I jest.

In this case, they formed the group, Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas. I shit you not.

And, they happen to be in town this weekend - or, what's left of them is in town.

The group started back in the 90s when 100 of them were hired to do a commercial for a German mail-order company. The filming lasted from 3:00 in the afternoon until 5:00 the next morning. Red-suit delirious and sleep-deprived, they decided to form a fraternal order and get together once a year.

Back-stabbing, infighting and just general "unsanta-like behavior" ensued...leading to a major schism in the fraternity and reducing their numbers from the hundreds to several dozen. Splinter groups have formed, lawsuits have been filed, and there are even threats of sabotage as the original group gathers this weekend for their annual convention.

Ahh...brotherhood...peace on earth and good will toward all.

I say we settle the matter by getting them all together in the Octogan of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, include their elves, put it on pay-per view, and let them decide the matter like real Saints - may the biggest-bellied, strongest son-of-a-bitch in red tights win!

(Kinda like the Inquisition.)

DOE! DOH! DOUGH! DODO!

DOE! As in...earlier this week, I had an experience that seemed to transmigrate my being straight into a French Surrealist movie from the 1920s (or maybe a David Lynch or Paul Thomas Anderson sequence). In a pre-caffeinated stupor, I went outside to retrieve the morning paper, like I do every day of the week. Only this time, an odd sound struck my ear just as I was taking the first of 13 steps off the front porch, beginning my descent to the sidewalk. It sounded a bit like horse's hooves hitting asphalt. A brown blur caught my eye. A flash of white. Understand this: I live in the 'hood - I mean, really: the 'hood. We are two miles from the heart of downtown KCMO. Eight minutes by car to the west and you are in the new Power & Light District. So I literally didn't believe my senses when I finally focused on a deer ("a female deer") running up the sidwalk across the street. I looked away, shook my head and looked again. It had stopped at the intersection of a (not busy) street three houses up. It then turned around, crossed the street and ran past me, into a neighbor's backyard. I went to look...but it was gone-daddy-gone. The apocalypse is nigh.

DOH! As in...wow. My dear (get it?) friend Elizabeth shook me out of my blogstupor. Will it last? I doh!no - but I applaud and appreciate that someone even noticed my absence from the blogworld.

Dough! As in...mmm...someone brought in Lamar's Donuts to work today...and shared!

DODO! As in...I have allowed the Hopeful Curmudgeon to go the way of the friggin dodo bird... it's become extinct or obsolete, it's fallen out of common usage or practice, it's become a thing of the past.

Will the resurrection sustain itself?

HA! I guess (if anyone is still checking) you will have to check back in (again) to learn the answer!