Hot, But Not Bothered

I had lunch at Swing Thai today. Drunken Noodles with chicken, medium spice. I'd been told never to order food "hot" at a Thai restaurant, and even though I like spicy food I haven't had the guts to ignore that advice yet.

My dad didn't care for ethnic foods like Mexican, Indian or Chinese -- he said he'd worked in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant once and that was enough to make him never want to eat at one again. But he still ate some hot stuff. Specifically, cherry peppers straight from the jar. What was funny was how he'd insist they weren't hot, despite his face turning crimson and dripping sweat.

I've been doing some informal training for Buffalo Wild Wings Blazin' Challenge -- 12 wings in their hottest sauce in less than six minutes. Zak and I go sometimes after his Friday soccer practices. I'm up to eating six wings in their second-hottest sauce with no problem, so I feel like in another couple of visits I'll be ready to give it a shot. I'm sure my mother will be proud.

Zak's showing an impressive tolerance for spicy food at a young age. I double-dog-dared him to try some Green Pepper Tabasco Sauce at Qdoba once and he agreed. But when I grabbed a chip to put some on he shook his head and stuck out his tongue. So I poured a few drops right on it and he was pretty unfazed.

I offered him a dollar once to eat a chili pepper from an order of P.F. Chang's Kung Pao Scallops and he did that without blinking an eye, too. Then he promptly asked for his dollar. We're apparently raising quite a little capitalist.

Zak and my dad will unfortunately only meet in my head until we're all together in Heaven, but the thought of them sitting together on the couch sharing a jar of cherry peppers does make me chuckle.

Can Our Kids Really Be Too Safe?

It's amazing any of us made it through childhood alive, given all the things in widespread use to keep kids safe today that our parents never made available to us. Things like car seats, bike helmets and bottled water. My sister and I used to enjoy riding in the back of my dad's pickup on the highway, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't secretly hoping we'd somehow bounce out.

We went to visit my mom's family in upstate Vermont regularly when I was a kid. Some of my fondest memories involve playing in an old gravel pit behind my grandparents' house. I used to imagine I was commanding a band of special covert operatives that included everyone from Han Solo to Captain America in an endless variety of missions. Running through rotting wood and rusty nails to rescue a damsel in distress. Sliding down steep embankments to sneak into enemy territory. Except for the tadpoles I'd sometimes catch in rainwater puddles, it was usually just me and my imagination. And I had an absolute blast doing it.

Some of my neighbors and I were talking tonight about the types of things we did as kids that we'd never dream of letting our own children do now, like playing in that old gravel pit. I read a great article on the subject recently by Lenore Skenazy, an op-ed columnist at The New York Sun. She actually has an entire web site devoted to the premise that we're not letting our kids truly embrace life and learn to make tough decisions which I highly recommend checking out if you're a parent with young children. Whatever your position on the topic, it's thought-provoking stuff.

In her article Skenazy observes that "these days, when a kid dies, the world — i.e., cable TV — blames the parents." She stops there and doesn't go a step further to suggest that protecting OURSELVES -- however subconsciously -- may be part of the underlying motivation for today's acceptable standards of protective parenting rather than just protecting our kids. Protecting ourselves against the potential guilt, shame and grief that would come from anything happening to our children, to the point where we see virtually NO risk as acceptable. We buy into the same flawed logic that champions of some causes hold that if something saves just one life it's worth it, with no consideration of the cost.

But Skenazy believes passionately that there is a cost associated with our increased standards for what's required to keep our children safe -- a cost in independence, freedom and decision-making that our kids need to prepare themselves for later in life. An interesting parallel to some of the sacrifices in personal liberties we as a nation have made in recent years in the name of security, regardless of what Benjamin Franklin said.

This is becoming a bigger and bigger issue for Danelle and I to deal with as Zak and Taryn grow older. I hope we employ the right balance of common sense and caution as we make our decisions, and that our kids benefit as much as possible from whatever our decisions are.

Fortunately for Zak and Taryn, Danelle's mom just has another patio home behind her house and not a gravel pit. Or unfortunately, I suppose.

UPDATE: Skenavy e-mailed me with the following message:

I really do think fear of blame is terrifying us parents as much as fear for our children's safety. In a society that supposedly has gotten beyond "blaming the victim," we still feel ready -- nay, eager -- to blame the PARENTS of a victim: "Why did she let him cross the street?" "Why wasn't she in the same room with her?" "Why did she blink?" Anyway -- great blog and great points. Your fellow tree in the forest -- Lenore "Freerangekids.com" Skenazy

It's Always Better to be "The Hammer" Than the Nail

Texas Ranger Josh Hamilton's amazing performance in last night's Home Run Derby is a storybook tale of redemption -- a former heroin addict turning his life around and and becoming a Major League All-Star. I was saddened to learn courtesy of Deadspin yesterday of another such tale involving another Texas sports figure who's ending has yet to be written, that of former SportsRadio 1310 The Ticket host Greg "The Hammer" Williams.

I was living in Dallas when The Ticket launched in 1994, and like many who tuned in I was immediately hooked. The locker room humor, the frequent forays into pop culture, the great feeling that you were part of a community of like-minded idiots individuals who were also "in on the joke." And all neatly tied together by the twine of sports! Just tremendous stuff.

I dragged Danelle to the inaugural Ticketstock at the Dallas Covention Center, essentially a glorified autograph and memorabilia show. The station had a promotional Hummer they called "The Panther," so I dubbed my 1996 RAV-4 "'Lil Panther." When my co-worker Kevin Prescott and I spotted morning show co-host George Dunham at the Southwest Conference baketball tournament, we yelled his name and proudly gave him the "Ticket Salute" -- essentially an upward extension of one's middle finger.

I listened to the morning show pair of Dunham and Craig Miller more regularly than Williams' midday show. Dunham & Miller's shtick had more to do with mock interviews with personalities like Ribby Paultz, a phony "draft expert" patterned after ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. who made up terms like "arm coefficient" for his analysis. They also had "the fake Jerry Jones" on regularly to discuss the Cowboys. My friend Adam Hill and I still laugh about their Reader's Theater bits which included very-un-PC characters like "freaky homicidal cop Johnny Hernandez" and his vows that he "will keeeellll the Playmaker!", based on Michael Irvin's bizarre saga of cocaine and Penthouse Pets.

Writing about this stuff doesn't do it anything remotely resembling justice. It was usually hilarious, and it definitely formed bonds between listeners.

During one of my first NFL drafts with the Broncos I was discussing the Cowboys with some of the media folks, and I dropped a line that "the fake Jerry Jones" used, complete with the bad impression. A voice behind me exclaimed, "That's YOUR car with the Ticket sticker!" And that's how I met Blake Olson, who had joined KUSA in Denver as a sports reporter after five years in Dallas with KTVT. Like I said, the stuff formed bonds.

Williams' show with co-host Mike Rhyner, "The Hardline," probably had the most tight-knit community of listeners within the larger Ticket family. Many callers became personalities themselves. There was Herman in Oak Cliff who called Rhyner and Williams "Mahmoud and Abdul" in reference to the NBA player who went by the name Chris Jackson before his conversion to Islam, and the provocatively named Naked in Bed. The conversations between callers and hosts sounded more like something you'd overhear between friends in a sports bar than the condescension and air of superiority other sports radio hosts gave off.

Rhyner played the part of the crotchety contrarian. He tried to dismiss all the fawning over Tiger Woods that had already begun with a dismissive growl of "What has he ever won?" I remember him ranting about being tricked into taking his daughter to a No Doubt concert when he heard "Don't Speak" and assumed all their songs would be mushy ballads, only to find a pierced, manic Gwen Stefani bouncing around the stage to the band's ska-punk repertoire (Editor's Note: I saw them open for Fishbone in 1992 before they got big. Phenomenal.).

Williams, for his part, was Everyman. A blue-collar good ol' boy and drinking buddy. One of my favorite pieces of Hammer wisdom -- though not one I subscribe to -- was his explanation of why he always sought out chain restaurants like Ruby Tuesday when eating on the road. "It ain't gonna be great, but it ain't gonna suck," was his defense. That sort of logic was Hammer in a nutshell.

The one Hardline bit I loved was a weekly competition of sorts simply called "Y'know." They played a short snippet of an interview with Cowboys linebacker Dixon Edwards where he said "y'know" about a zillion times -- sometimes twice in a row and even a few "rare triples." Then they played another interview clip with somebody else and scored it based on the number of verbal pauses that person used -- "um," "like" or whatever. Edwards was never defeated. Again, something that probably doesn't seem that funny when you read about it but was absolute hilarity to hear.

More than his actual commentary I remember some of the advertisers Williams shilled for. Like North Main Barbeque, home of "the great Ray Green." "Don't forget that $10 bill," Williams would say, which was the price for their buffet. And Maury Lowry of Dalworth Auto Electronics, the "King of Free." My buddy Adam had to stop me from going there one day not too far before Christmas to take advantage of one of their too-good-to-be-true car stereo specials because he knew Danelle had already bought me one. And the Big Apple Sports Cafe in Arlington, where Rhyner & Williams did a Rangers' postgame show and Adam, my best friend from high school Dan Gibson, my dad and I gathered to watch the Rangers clinch their first playoff appearance.

The fact that Williams' wounds are mostly self-inflicted doesn't prevent me from feeling empathy for him, especially given all the joy he and the rest of The Ticket brought me. He may not be able to hit 500-foot home runs, but I'm hoping he continues down a similar path to Hamilton and gets another chance to do what he loves and excels at.

Stay hard, Hammer.

Sadly, My Tolerance Never Really Got Much Better

Zak has one of his little friends over for a sleepover tonight. The basic agenda doesn't seem to have changed much from when I was a kid -- eat, play, eat, play, turn a movie on, eat, talk about how you're going to stay up all night, then promptly fall asleep.

I remember my last sleepover. It was sophomore year of high school, February break, Kevin Alvaro's house. We were probably too old for sleepovers in the same way we were too old for trick-or-treating, but that didn't stop us from ending up with bags full of candy on Halloween. Simpler times.

I had volleyball practice early the next morning but my dad agreed to pick me up and take me on his way to work, so I was in. It was the same quartet of us that had been hanging out together since third grade -- me, Kevin, Tommy Sand (of monster ball fame) and Jim Bourdeau.

We spent the night down in Kevin's basement, like we had for years. But this time there was one extra ingredient -- some of Kevin's dad's beer.

Yep, we were pretty cool. I think I polished off an entire half a can all by myself before passing out deciding to go to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning for practice I was NOT feeling well at ll. I somehow managed to get myself together, gave Kevin's mom a mumbled decline on breakfast and made it to my dad's car when he arrived.

He must have noticed the lovely shade of green I was wearing, because he asked if I was all right. I assured him I was fine -- just a little tired. He didn't press the issue, and we drove the remaining few minutes to the high school in silence. He had a pretty big grin on his face when I got out of the car, though.

I practically sprinted to the locker room, threw open the door to one of the stalls and emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet. As I knelt there clutching the bowl our coach came in. He put a hand on my shoulder and simply said, "Sucks, doesn't it?"

I spent the entire practice just lying on one of the locker room benches. I was supposed to see some movie called The Breakfast Club with a few friends after practice, but that was definitely out. So one of the other players gave me a ride home. But not before insisting I roll my window down and stick my head outside the whole way.

And thus ended my sleepover career, in less than glorious fashion. That was one of the last things the four of us did together, too. As we got older we made new friends, developed new interests and so on. But we had more than our share of good times before we drifted apart.

Zak may only be seven, but I still make sure he sleeps in the family room for these events. And I don't keep my beer in the basement, either.

I wonder if that Breakfast Club movie was any good...

When They Invent a Rice Cake That Tastes Like a Whopper, I'll Probably Be First in Line

I just got back from my physical, which went pretty well with a couple of exceptions. One was the nurse practitioner making quite a production of putting some KY and a pair of surgical gloves out for the doctor, and the other was my cholesterol being a little high.

I first got my cholesterol checked a couple of years ago, and was pretty upset to learn that it was 222. This put me squarely in the "borderline-high risk" category. Compounded with my dad's history of heart problems that eventually led to his early death, I was a little freaked out.

I'm pretty physically active and I don't smoke, so the area where I could most effect a positive change was clearly diet. And there was an easy target within my regular diet -- fast food. I went cold turkey with it and got my cholesterol down into the "desirable" zone at 191 just a few months later.

I've definitely backslid in the ensuing two years to the point where I probably have a fast-food meal two or three times a week, and now my cholesterol is back up to 209. My LDL or "bad" cholesterol level is 136, another "borderline high" number and "a better gauge of risk than total blood cholesterol" according to the American Heart Association.

My doctor said she'd like to see me try and correct this on my own over the next couple of years, then consider medication once I turn 40 if my numbers aren't where they should be. There are probably genetic factors involved that may make this something I can't do on my own. But the real question now is how much am I willing to try?

I know fast food is horrible for you. I saw Super Size Me, which probably would have been more effective if Spurlock hadn't taken his fast-food eating to unrealistically excessive levels. His point became dangerously easy to dismiss when he was doing things like eating multiple entrees at one sitting. But even setting portion control aside, I don't think anyone would argue that a McGriddle and a Coke is as healthy a breakfast as a bowl of high-fiber cereal in fat-free milk with a glass of pomegranate juice.

It comes down to a classic struggle -- sacrificing short-term and direct benefits for long-term, indirect ones. Fast food is convenient, cheap and generally tasty (curse you, MSG!). The benefits of eating healthy are things you may or may not end up getting, and that will also be influenced by a lot of other factors -- better overall health, higher quality of life, longer life and so on. And your stereotypical "healthy" food like a salad can't easily be eaten while driving, is likely to be more expensive than a burger and doesn't excite basic taste sensations like salty, sweet and umami (don't feel bad clicking the link; I had to look that last one up, too).

We face these kind of questions all the time in our lives. Should I play outside and get some fresh air and exercise or just watch another music video? Should I study for that exam that might help me raise my overall GPA to where I get that interview for that great job in a few years, or should I just go to that frat party and get tanked? Should I stay late to finish up that project at work that might help me get a raise and promotion someday, or should I just go home and watch the big game?

Long-term benefits may be harder to quantify, harder to get and feel a lot less in my control. But when I take the time to really think about them, I generally realize they're much more worth having. Is eating that BK Stacker worth the risk of not being around to bounce my grandchildren on my knee? No contest. I just don't often take the time to think about things in those terms, and I don't think I'm unique in that regard.

So I'll try to say good-bye again to Guacamole Bacon Burgers and Spicy Chicken Sandwiches. Sure, I could get hit by a bus and all the sound diet and exercise choices won't matter. But however I eventually go out, I'd like to believe I was mature enough to make sensible choices and set a good example for my kids along the way.

Besides, if I didn't believe in doing things with no direct short-term benefits I probably wouldn't be blogging.

It Was Probably A Lot Warmer In There, Too

Whenever my dad came to my high school soccer games, he wouldn't sit in the stands with the other parents. He'd stay in his car and do paperwork.

That used to really bug me. Being different wasn't cool in high school, and that included my folks being different. Why couldn't he just sit in the stands like everybody else?

It never occurred to me that if he didn't multitask by doing his paperwork at the game he wouldn't have had time to come at all. My dad started his own business selling and servicing industrial scales when I was in second grade. He HAD to make sure things like the paperwork got done.

He wanted to name the company Yankee Scale, but someone advised him that you wanted to show up early in the Yellow Pages listings so Action Scale it was. My mom worked with him, too. That provided flexibility for her to be home when we finished school each day and over summer vacation -- something else I just sort of took for granted.

He'd sometimes take me along with him on business trips. Not glamorous golf outings in warm locales -- 4 1/2-hour drives to places like Ogdensburg and Massena in the dead of winter for repair calls. But it was a chance for us to spend time together.

He never pressured me to take over the family business, but there was always work I could do if I needed to earn some extra money. From cleaning the bathrooms to organizing the parts lab to crawling around cleaning truck scale pits. Action Scale put food on our table and a roof over our heads, not to mention putting Dawn and I both through college.

Like I've written before, my dad passed away back in 1998. My mom eventually sold the business. All that's probably left of Action Scale now is a polo shirt and a couple of screwdrivers she sent me when she moved away from Albany a few years later.

I don't believe he enjoyed trying to do paperwork on a clipboard propped up on his steering wheel while he watched us get pummeled by Shenendahowa. And I don't believe I ever thanked him enough for doing it.

Happy Father's Day, dad. And thanks for being there.

Thanks, Mike Piazza

Former catcher Mike Piazza retired a couple of weeks ago. He's widely regarded as one of the best hitting catchers of all time, but I'll alway remember him for another reason.

My dad was a huge Los Angeles Dodgers fan. He grew up in northern New Jersey when they were still the Brooklyn Dodgers, and after the team moved to California he continued to follow them.

When Danelle and I moved to Dallas in 1992 I started to follow the Texas Rangers. They had a good young catcher named Ivan Rodriguez. Piazza came up late that same season with the Dodgers, then in 1993 he went on to win Rookie of the Year in his first full season.

Neither my dad nor I could resist a good sports debate, so we'd regularly argue which of the two was better. Like most sports debates, there was almost no way to really decide on a winner. Piazza was a great hitter, especially for power, while Rodriguez was tremendous defensively and excelled at throwing out would-be base stealers.

The debate never grew old, even after we left Dallas and moved to Denver in 1997. Then my dad passed away from a heart attack in the spring of 1998.

A few months later I was driving to work when I heard on the radio that the Dodgers had traded Piazza to the Florida Marlins. The first thing that crossed my mind was how I needed to call my dad and ask him how great he thought Piazza was NOW. The mighty Dodgers didn't even want him any more! Finally, an edge in the great debate!

Then I remembered that I couldn't do that.

I knew my dad was dead, of course. I wasn't in any sort of denial or anything. But right then was when it really hit me.

So good luck with whatever else life holds for you, Mike Piazza. And thanks for always making me think of my dad. :)

What's Up With the Shirt?

As a kid in upstate New York in the late '70s, you were pretty much a free agent when it came to forming your sports allegiances. A three-hour drive from Boston, three hours from New York City and 4 1/2 from Buffalo. There was no real "home team" so my pro sports affiliations were mostly influenced by my parents, but in inconsistent ways.

For example, my mom was a Bruins fan and a Red Sox fan, so I was, too. But something weird happened with football and basketball. My dad liked the Steelers, my mom liked the Giants, so I chose to cheer for...the Cowboys. It probably didn't hurt that they were always on TV, and that their cheerleaders were on The Love Boat.

My mom didn't care much about basketball, but my dad rooted for the Celtics. So I became a 76ers fan. I'm sure a therapist could have a field day with all of this stuff, but for now let's just accept that it is what it is.

The Celtics got the best of the Sixers more often than not, but that was all right by me. They had their one shining moment in 1983. I even won a dollar betting Sheila Kleinmann that Philly would beat the Lakers in the NBA Finals that year. The little snot paid me with a Ziploc bag filled with 100 pennies, but I still got mine.

I really hated those '80s Celtics teams. That little punk Danny Ainge. Kevin McHale, some weird mix of Alan Alda and Frankenstein. Dennis Johnson and his freckles (God rest his soul). Robert Parish, even scrubs like Scott Wedman and Greg Kite. And of course, Larry Bird. Man, he bugged me -- the mullet, the total disdain for anything remotely athletic, and the fact that he was really, really, really good. I rooted for the Lakers to beat them when they met in the Finals, and the Pistons to beat the last remnants of that team when they met in the playoffs in the latter part of the decade.

I've held on to some of my old sports animosities. Even though I live in Denver, I don't like the Avalanche in part because they used to be the Bruins' old rival, the Quebec Nordiques. And because Patrick Roy was their goalie when we moved here and they acquired him from the Bruins' other rival, the Montreal Canadiens. And I think I'll always have a special place of loathing in my heart for the Yankees. But over the years I've softened on the Celtics.

Maybe it's because they became pretty bad and irrelevant for a while, and it's not as much fun to root against a team when they stink. Maybe Jerry Seinfeld was right that with free agency resulting in so much player movement, at the end of the day you're just rooting for laundry. Maybe it's because since my dad passed away back in 1998 I haven't had a Celtics fan to debate with and keep a degree of personal competition afloat. But once again, it is what it is.

Here's the real twist in this story -- I'm absolutely rooting for the Celtics to not only beat the Pistons tonight, but to win the NBA Championship. And I think the single biggest reason for that is the addition of Kevin Garnett.

Garnett's always been an appealing personality to me since he did his ESPN The Magazine and Nike commercials in his early years in the league. I like his nickname, "The Big Ticket." I like his intensity on the court -- ESPN writer Bill Simmons actually refers to him (affectionately, I believe) as TCIKG for "The Completely Insane Kevin Garnett." And I think for most casual fans, he's put himself into the category of "athletes you'd like to see win a championship before they retire." The sports media tend to like those types of stories -- see Jerome Bettis with the Steelers a few years ago.

Now, I'll admit I'm starting to get a little oversaturated by all the hype around "The Big Three" of Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. Overexposure could result in a backlash (David Beckham, anyone?). And don't get me started on how the NBA completely ripped off their "There can only be one" playoff ad campaign from Highlander. But for now I'll keep pulling for the C's.

Well, for Kevin Garnett anyway. Danny Ainge is now the Celtics general manager, and he's still a little punk.

Maybe sports hostility never completely dies after all...

UPDATE: Garnett scored 33 points -- his most in this year's playoffs -- and hit a pair of free throws in the closing seconds to put the game out of reach in Boston's 106-102 win last night. I'm officially declaring being featured in this blog the anti-SI Cover Jinx.