Author: Gil

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Notes from Vegas: At the Copa

(Or just go to the slide show.)

I was not in a good frame of mind for my trip to Las Vegas last month. I’m not the sort to hang out in a bar alone, I don’t like gambling (except maybe for betting on football  or midseason basketball), most of my work-related pals weren’t attending the conference I was in town for, and Tom Jones was out of town. So I was pretty much on my own, but I didn’t have anything to do and wasn’t up for “going out.”

This made me weird and depressed. It wasn’t any sort of midlife frustration; it was just this sense of being totally in the wrong place. I missed my wife & my dog terribly (her more than him).

Fortunately, no matter how uprooted I felt, I was still able to appreciate some quintessentially Vegas aspects of Vegas. When I checked into my hotel, for example, I discovered that its headline act at the wonderful Las Vegas Hilton was none other than Barry Manilow! And he had his own gift shop!

During the conference, I talked with one of my less-close work-pals (a guy who works at a company that advertises in my mag, but with whom I haven’t had too many conversations with) about my sense of “eh, so I’m in Vegas, eh.”

He was staying up at the venue where the conference was, about 20 minutes from the Strip, and didn’t have exciting plans for his stay, either. He said to me, “Don’t worry about it. What do you like doing?”

“Hmm. I like reading, watching hoops, and not dealing with people.”

“Sounds good! Is there a game on tonight?”

There was. I spent that night with the awesome game 2 of Bulls-Celtics, followed by some Plutarch and some In-N-Out burger & fries (not animal-style, alas).

At the conference the next day, I told him that I’d had a pretty good night, all things considered, and that I had even better plans for tonight! During the drive up to the resort where the conference was being held, I’d seen a billboard for the Las Vegas AAA minor league baseball team. Turned out the Area 51s had a home game that very night!

Rather than subject myself to more woe-is-me-itude in my hotel room, I drove a few miles over to Cashman field (through the wedding district (!?)), bought a $14 seat about 15-20 feet behind home plate, picked up a beer, hot dog and pretzel (and some souvenirs), and watched a ball game with some locals and out-of-towners. I had a great time, relatively inexpensively, and got a whole new perspective on the pitcher-batter duel.

I didn’t have the stereotypical exciting/bleary/regretful/drunk Vegas trip, but I did have fun in my own peculiar way. And I brought back pictures with commentary!

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Oh, Canada! You scamp!

Hey! It’s a little photoset from our Toronto trip last weekend! (Amy has a bunch more great pix, but hasn’t processed & posted ’em yet.)

Okay. I’m sorry that I picked that one instead of one of my awesome cityscapes, but  isn’t that the best name for a store? Of any kind? Ever?

Anyway, I posted some more pix to that set from the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, so you should go back and check ’em all out! Repeatedly!

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What It Is: 5/12/09

What I’m reading: I read Chuck Klosterman’s Killing Yourself To Live during the weekend, and enjoyed that a bunch (not quite 85%, but still). I also read some of the comics that I bought during TCAF: Seaguy, Tales from the Farm and Swallow Me Whole. There are a whole ton more in the queue.

What I’m listening to: The Shepherd’s Dog, by Iron & Wine.

What I’m watching: The eh conclusion of Dollhouse, which had a couple of neat twists and turns but was never going to be able to match the impossibly well-crafted heel twist in the previous episode.

What I’m drinking: The lesser gins that they have at Lai Wah Heen, where Amy & I managed to eat 3 times in 3 days (Friday dinner, Saturday dim sum lunch, Sunday dinner after our evening plans fell through). We also had a nice wine (and fantastic meal) at Lee on Saturday night.

What Rufus is up to: Not getting into any trouble during his weekend with fellow grey, Tut! And spending lots of time at girls’ sporting events, since the family that was taking care of him has 3 daughters between 10 and 17.

Where I’m going: Atlanta next Monday for the BIO conference. My 3 nights will consist of a visit with friends in Decatur, a dinner at the awesome restaurant Bacchanalia with a client (and pal), and then the Rockies-Braves game, with more client-pals. The day before the trip, we’ll head down to Bridgewater (weather permitting) for the semi-annual greyhound picnic! In other words, don’t expect a ton of posts next week, either.

What I’m happy about: Having a nice getaway weekend with my wife. It was good to be in a city that we’d already visited and photographed; it made this visit much more about just relaxing and having some nice meals, instead of feeling like we had to get out and see the sights. Oh, and we were happy to see my cousin Andrew & his family!

What I’m sad about: That I had to tell numerous cartoonists that I either don’t know who they are or don’t know what they’ve published in the last few years. Still, most everyone seemed happy that I was willing to take their pictures for digital posterity!

What I’m worried about: Nothing I can think of, so yay!

What I’m pondering: Our next mini-vacation. We’re thinking of making the drive up to Montreal for a long weekend sometime this summer.

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KTFO day

I’ve got a ton to do before leaving on a mini-vacation tomorrow, but I’m all zonky and sleep-deprived. In other words, I feel like this:

Blech.

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This Week in Oh, No, He Di’n’t!

Last week, I goofed on Sports Illustrated for ignoring ongoing sports in favor of a Tolstoy-length profile of a guy who surfs.

This week’s “SI:WTF?” moment comes in the form of a Dan Patrick interview with Tony Dungy, former head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. Football season is, um, around five months away and Mr. Dungy is retired, so who better to interview?(?!)

Mr. Patrick asked Mr. Dungy about the latter’s plans to visit Michael Vick in prison. Let’s join in progress:

DP: What do you hope to accomplish?

TD: I want to go out there as a friend. I met Michael when we played [the Falcons] in Japan, and we’d always talked about going fishing together. I’m just going out there to talk about life and what he’s going to face. Most people are going to be against him, and he’s got to understand that. I’m going to talk to him like I would talk to my son.

At this point, there were three ways Mr. Patrick could have proceeded:

  1. “You do recall that one of your sons killed himself right before Christmas in 2005, right?”
  2. “Are you planning on bringing Andy Reid as support?”
  3. “If you were still coaching, would you take a chance on him?”

Unfortunately, Mr. Patrick chose “3”.

I’m very glad that this blog has such small readership that I can actually make a joke about the suicide of an 18-year-old and not feel like I’m going to get vilified too harshly.

But if you think I’m bad, Mr. Patrick is the one who seems to think Vick deserves a “second chance” because . . . guys with DUI manslaughter convictions are given second chances?

Just to prove I’m not making this up, here’s another excerpt:

DP: You could kill somebody and have a better chance of coming back [than Michael Vick, who bred dogs to fight to the death and, if the dogs didn’t “show enough fight,” killed them by “various methods, including hanging, drowning and slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground.“] . . .

TD: I’ve said that. I agree with you. We’ve seen it. It’s happened.

DP: [Rams defensive end] Leonard Little killed somebody with a DUI, and it’s not brought up. But Michael Vick killed dogs, therefore he doesn’t deserve another chance. [I DID NOT ALTER THIS LINE IN THE SLIGHTEST]

TD: Some people say, “That could have been me; I drink a little bit. So I can have empathy for that, because that could have been me. But I could never kill a dog, so we shouldn’t give this guy a second chance.” It’s a strange mentality. But that’s what Michael is going to be facing. And that’s what I want to speak to him about.

I have no idea what Mr. Patrick’s point about DUI is. If he’s angry that people aren’t complaining that Mr. Little killed someone while DUI, then he should probably get out and protest the opening of every Matthew Broderick movie (as though they could have worse box office). If he thinks that DUI in general is as serious as death, then he oughtta ban Charles Barkley from his radio show.

If he doesn’t have any coherent point, and just believes that athletes should be out on the field, regardless of their legal transgressions, then . . . he’s your standard idiot sportscaster, I guess.

But I’m more interested in Mr. Dungy’s response. See, he thinks it’s a “strange mentality” we have, not allowing a guy to make millions in the NFL just because he spent his money building a dogfighting syndicate and, in his spare time, killing his dogs in brutal ways. I find it interesting that Mr. Dungy strips all the conspiracy, the brutality, the ugliness of Mr. Vick’s actions and replaces it all with “killing a dog.” It’s amazing how far people will relax their standards when a star quarterback is involved.

ANYWAY: all of this brings me to a thought experiment about Michael Vick. A little earlier in this post, I linked to his indictment, which included graphic details of how Vick & his pals brutally killed some of their dogs.

Here’s my hypothetical: How would your opinion of Vick’s case change if they had killed those dogs with the same care and practice that a veterinarian uses when putting a dog down?

That is, how would you feel about Vick if his guys had gently euthanized their rejected dogs with an injection, rather than killing them by hand? Would it make any difference in how “forgivable” his actions are?

(Note: Do not read this heartbreaking SI cover article on the fate of Mr. Vick’s surviving dogs until after you’ve thought about that hypothetical, because this’ll likely redouble your rage.)

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Art, virtue, and dogs in sailor suits

Nine biographies into his work, Plutarch explains what he’s up to! See, each of the Plutarch so far has essentially dived into the biography itself. But with Pericles’ section, Plutarch instead begins by, um, decrying people who love their pets too much:

Caesar once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and monkeys, embracing and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask whether the women in their country were not used to bear children; by that prince-like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind.

Sure, I was a little insulted by this. It’s not like I dress Rufus up in a little sailor suit, but he does make a wonderful substitute kid for us, and he’s already lived up to his old man’s dream of being a professional athlete! Still, I get what Caesar was complaining about, even though he had to pass his power on to his nephew, rather than a son.

Anyway, Plutarch’s point is that our enjoyment of the sensual world is a betrayal of our natural spirit of inquiry, just as fawning over pets is a betrayal of our parental impulses. He goes on to contend that art — whether it be dyeing, perfuming, music, poetry or sculpture (note that art carried a stronger connotation of artifice than art nowadays does) — doesn’t enrich the soul —

He who busies himself in mean occupations [the aforementioned arts] produces in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use an evidence against himself of his negligence and indisposition to what is really good. Nor did any generous and ingenuous young man at the sight of the statue of Jupiter at Pisa ever desire to be a Phidias or on seeing that of Juno at Argos long to be a Polycletus or feel induced by his pleasure in their poems to wish to be an Anacreon or Philetas or Archilochus. For it does not necessarily follow that if a piece of work please for its gracefulness therefore he that wrought it deserves our admiration.

— the way reflecting on virtue does. Hence, writing these paired biographies of noble lives!

[V]irtue, by the bare statement of its actions, can so affect men’s minds as to create at once both admiration of the things done and desire to imitate the doers of them. The goods of fortune we would possess and would enjoy; those of virtue we long to practice and exercise; we are content to receive the former from others, the latter we wish others to experience from us.

Because I’m all about The Why (and secondarily about The Process), I’m glad Plutarch explored his rationale in this passage, even if my depiction of it makes the Lives sound boring or moralistic. They’re not, and I’m awfully glad I’ve made the time to read them.

On to Pericles and Fabius Maximus!

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Good Night, Sweet Captain Chaos

Dom DeLuise died at 75.

Obligatory joke: I hope Burt Reynolds doesn’t crack up laughing while delivering his eulogy.

(Sorry about the headline; Cannonball Run was actually one of my least fave of his roles. I never knew that his character in Blazing Saddles — “Don’t be surprised, you’re doing the French Mistake! Voila!” — was named Buddy Bizarre. Which is now my screen name on MSN, replacing MANCHOVY!)