Garcia Media Life

We poor saps in the Nation’s Capital suffered over three decades before we could get a professional baseball team. After a decades-long wait, we now anxiously hope for a professional football team. Until then, though….we have the Redskins.

Many fans of the burgundy and gold could have been forgiven if they thought there might be a shot at an 8-8 season. After their 3-1 start, some foolishly dreamed about making the playoffs. After watching the 23-0 drubbing at the hands of the Buffalo Bills, coupled with the two previous losses that preceded that debacle- it is time to reassess our goals for the season.

Many knowledgeable fans look at the schedule and can’t find more than maybe three additional victories, max. I, for one, have given up on the concept of wins and losses. In all seriousness, I am wondering if they will ever score again. If I took a shot of whiskey for every 1st down they get, I couldn’t even get tipsy.

After recording 4 QB sacks though the entire season, the Bills notched 9 against the Skins Sunday. At this point, I’m even feeling differently about interceptions. I find myself being grateful whenever a Redskin quarterback remains upright, period. And even if it’s to the other team, hey- a completion is a completion. You take your small victories where you can get them.

You do have to admire how the players are taking their team’s collapse though- with complete and utter selfishness. I like the way our newly fabulous tight end, Fred Davis, celebrates late-game, garbage touchdowns against prevent defenses; like he just made a game-winning catch in the Super Bowl. But then again, that was back when we used to score points. We don’t have to worry about that anymore.

And LaRon Landry celebrated after tackling a Buffalo Bills player who had just gotten a first down. Apparently he thoroughly impressed himself with the vicious hit he put on the opponent.

But what about the injuries? Oh, that’s right. I forgot for a moment that the Washington Redskins, curiously enough, are the only team in the NFL to have suffered injuries this season.

You know what? Winning is overrated. When you root for a team this bad, this shallow, this steeped in total incompetence from owner, to coaches to players, one must take a twisted, macabre joy in watching the weekly car accident that is the Washington Redskins. How bad can they get? Can they set a new franchise record for sacks allowed? Can they set new standards for fewest offensive yards? How many consecutive games can they run the ball ten times or less? What more wonders will we behold from the results of the “Shanahan System?”

So near term, what do the Skins work on this week ahead of the 6-1 San Francisco 49ers? I mean besides tackling, pass defense, blocking, running, throwing, attempting field goals without getting them blocked and kick returns that go beyond the 15 year-yard line?

I would work on their celebrations more. There should be complete unit-wide, choreographed strutting and kick-dancing like the Rockettes. After every single tackle, no matter how mundane, no matter how many yards have just been given up, all the Redskins should take LaRon Landry’s lead and put on a friggin’Christmas show after every play.

The offensive players should all work on the Santana Moss football-spin move. This is where after you make a catch, you spin the football on the turf like a top or a gyroscope. This should happen after every play, regardless of its outcome.

And as long as we’re paying that expensive NFL entertainment dollar, I want to see Mike and Kyle Shanahan dressed in pink, polka-dot dresses with bright red heels on to match their lipstick. And Dan Snyder should come out of the owner’s booth schmoozing with his high-fallutin’ celebrity guests and sit on the bench with the team instead- wearing a clown nose and gigantic Bozo the Clown shoes. At the start of every game, Snyder can drive a tiny burgundy and gold clown car to the 50-yard line as player after player emerges from the circus vehicle wearing bright orange wigs.

As long as you’re going to be a laughingstock, dear Redskins, at the very least, make us, you know- laugh.

It’s not even Wednesday yet and there’s a new I-phone I won’t be buying, another non-Presidential candidate no one will be voting for and a country music star making headlines whose political opinions no one cares about.

The New I-Phone

Maybe it’s because I recently spent $200 on an I-Phone 4 and Apple announced today it’s now going to be reduced to $99. Maybe it’s because the new I-Phone is 7 times faster at playing games and I use my phone mostly as a…phone. Or maybe because it was touted as the I-Phone 5 and it’s actually the I-Phone 4s.

But, no, I will not be shelling out $300 for this new “thing.” I cannot keep up with all the new “things.” Often, new “things” don’t work all that well. Somebody let me know when the I-Phone 10 comes out.

The Latest Version of “No”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had to call a news conference today because the media did not believe him the previous 107 times he said he would not be running for President. So everyone gathered in Trenton this afternoon to hear him say it again and the non-event is going to be leading newscasts all day today.

Note to political pundits desperate to spice up the increasingly bizarre Presidential race- when a politician says over and over and over and over again that he is “NOT READY” to be President, he knows that’s something that could be used in a campaign ad against him and he is definitely not interested in running for President.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

Actually, no. I had absolutely no interest in Monday Night Football this week because who cares about the 0-3 Indianapolis Colts when there are baseball playoffs that actually matter? So, I missed that ESPN dropped Hank Williams Jr.’s opening song because the country music star made a comment recently comparing President Obama to Adolph Hitler.

Now conservative bloggers are reportedly outraged that ESPN is outraged at Williams who seems to be quite outraged about Barack Obama still being in the White House.

Ok. Why do we care again what Hank Williams Jr. thinks about anything?

Let me make this clear. I expect country singers to sing, athletes to play sports, Hollywood actors to act and politicians to make things up. Don’t confuse me by mixing up your roles in our lives. I’m already confused about what I-Phone to buy and what non-candidate not to vote for.

There is a card for every occasion and so it seems only appropriate Hallmark is tapping into the recession market to offer a little sympathy to those suddenly facing unemployment. I’ve been there.

Some of these cards are fairly amusing.

“Don’t think of it as losing your job….think of it as a time-out between stupid bosses.”

Or: “I just dare somebody to steal my identity now.”

There are somber ones too, though I think the humorous ones would have been nice to get while I was in my own state of panicked limbo just a couple of years ago. This does open a fairly large potential arena for other cards that address all the possible nuances of economic distress people are feeling these days.

There’s also rampant underemployment:

“So sorry about your new job as a Wal-Mart greeter!”

“Now you can have fries to go along with that new, tiny little paycheck!”

There’s the long-term unemployed:

“Don’t worry! Congress is working on the off-setting cuts to pay for your extended unemployment benefits…in between fundraisers and golf outings with lobbyists!”

There’s the couple hundred thousand folks who were ripped off by Bernie Madoff:

“Oooh. Heard about that whole Madoff thing…join the club! Price Club!”

There’s losing your job to outsourcing:

“Sorry your job went overseas! Have you considered moving to suburban Shanghai???”

And two all-purpose recession-oriented sympathy cards dripping with irony:

“Imagine someone trying to make a profit from your unemployment! If you’re reading this- we just did!”

“Look on the bright side, you could be writing Hallmark Greeting cards!”

The conventional wisdom is that the fight for the Republican nomination is really down to two: Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. And damn, they have great hair. I can see either one in the pantheon of Presidents.

John Huntsman, who, based on the Washington Post’s instant blogging last night, is the one Republican Democrats would most want to vote for, should not be ignored. He was also nicely quaffed.

Michele Bachmann, however, had a very bad hair night. The hairdo was inexplicably gigantic. Big hair. Huge hair. Helmet-like, even. Most analysts seem to have reached consensus that she failed to stand out from the pack and then fell into the second tier of candidates. I think it is possible her standing has fallen, but she absolutely stood out from the pack. Same week Ed Rollins steps down from his role as her campaign manager she has the rotten luck of having a bad hair night. Coincidence?

Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul both sport the grizzled, veteran, white-hair look. Perhaps coincidentally, they both seem a little grumpy to me. Newt’s greatest applause lines come after his hyperbolic attacks on the given debate moderator of the evening. I like that whole scary, white-haired, angry Uncle thing. It works for him.

Ron Paul, we learned, wants to cut off air conditioning for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan- but not to be mean. As I understood it, this would make the entire U.S. military intolerably hot, and they would just pack their bags and go home. I could go with that. Leave it to the crazy white-haired Uncle to find a formula for world peace.

I like Herman Cain. I like his 9-9-9 plan. He hardly has any hair, like me, which is another reason I like him. I can’t recall the details of the 9-9-9 plan, but I do like the symmetry of it and I have always been partial to the number 9. And if it fails for some reason, he can always go to the back-up 9-1-1 plan, in which people come rescue you.

And that leaves Rick Santorum who also has a very nice head of very dark hair, though not quite as spectacular as the Romney/Perry combo, which takes the competition hands-down for the impressive thickness and body. And these guys are no spring chickens either.

Tonight, it’s President Obama’s turn in the national spotlight. He’s got a great smile, if unfortunately, not much to use it for these days. But the hair situation with Obama is getting increasingly predictable and, frankly, a little boring. Grey. More and more grey.
I’m with the critics who are urging the President to come out big and bold tonight. Just For Men. And an earring. Blow their socks off, Mr. President.

Yes, we streamed out of office buildings. We had some traffic jams. People pretty much freaked out because we’re not supposed to feel what we did today. It feels like everything is kind of shaky these days.

We barely survived the debt default scare, the financial downgrade and Wall Street’s convulsions. And now there’s a hurricane coming. So I was not the least surprised to feel the earthquake. If I am carried off by a swarm of locusts in the morning, I will simply accept this as the new normal.

It’s kind of interesting if you think about it. I mean how many generations of earthlings have passed before us- but we are the ones that get to see the end! Imagine being the first generation to not be able to tell our grand kids about all we went through- because we’ll be gone! So we just need to relax and watch this all unfold.

And we East Coast people are not complete, total wimps! Geologists say the rocks we sit on here in the East are kind of cold, dead things that allow the energy from an earthquake to spread really far without being dissipated. Here’s a Geologist who talked to the Washington Post. His name is Graham Kent. Dr. Graham Kent:

Even though it’s a 5.9, it’s a lot bigger deal than a 5.9 would be in California or Nevada. You might see damage further away from the epicenter than you might expect.

So there- you West Coast people who were laughing at us today. And you New England types who mock us, particularly in the Washington area, for closing schools when there’s an inch of snow—well, well….I guess you got us there.

Anyway…we are survivors here in ‘ol DC. We’re used to being hated for gridlock and taxes. Our highways rival LA and NY’s for their endless congestion. We don’t have a single escalator that works in our subway system. We have Augusts that compare to any horrible month anywhere in the world with miserable heat and humidity that will buckle your knees. We panic, have 9-hour traffic jams and crash into each other in winter storms. We haven’t had a sports team win a championship in nearly 20 years. What’s a little earthquake?

I laugh at earthquakes. The locusts, however, are going to be a little disturbing.

The only recently successful one I remember was Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s bus trip shortly after the 1992 convention. It seemed a relatively low-tech, novel, charming little trip that actually stirred up interest and fairly sizeable crowds.

Now we have Sarah Palin’s on again-off again bus tours that enable her to essentially party-crash wherever some big Republican event is happening. And then there’s the President’s “non-political,” “non-campaign,” three-day bus tour in a scary looking super-fortified shiny black bus that looks like the kind of vehicle Darth Vader would have used if he decided to go on a listening tour.

The best moment of the Sarah Palin Iowa visit came when ABC News Correspondent, Jake Tapper tried to ask a couple of questions and the former Alaska Governor put him off because she had an appointment with a heifer in the nearby dairy pavilion; proof she really was there to pet the animals and was not seeking media attention.

Following the Sarah Palin mob scene at the Iowa State Fair, the media pretty much forgot about her as only NBC chose to keep covering her “bus tour” as it veered off into Ronald Reagan country with visits to the Gipper’s childhood home in Dixon, Illinois and his alma mater of Eureka College. That was followed by a stop at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, Illinois. It must have been an odd and empty feeling for the Palin’s to see the media mob gone, their attention sucked up by Texas Governor, Rick Perry and President Obama’s own bus tour. It actually turned into a real honest-to-goodness Palin family vacation, which I’m guessing was a somewhat unexpected development for them.

As for President Obama’s “regular guy,” “non-political” bus tour; it is immediately being followed by what has now become a controversial vacation for ten days in posh Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Critics from the left and the right are saying the Martha’s Vineyard “optics” don’t look good with all the economic misery out there and what not.

Perhaps the First Family should forego the Vineyard and just hang out on the big shiny, fortified black bus for the next couple of weeks. Given all the anger permeating the nation, it may just be the safest option- plus it reportedly has really cool flat-screen TV’s.

Don’t accidently meander into Texas though, Mr. President. I hear it can get ugly down there for Federal Reserve Board Chairmen and presumably other government types as well. Then again, you can probably launch nuclear missles from that thing, can’t you?

I need to see a psychiatrist. BPSMW syndrome has gotten the best of me. Doctor, I keep glancing at MarketWatch and Bloomberg every three minutes. I can’t take it anymore.

When the Dow drops 600 points, I get all depressed and panicky and want to come home and kick the dog. When it rises 423 as it just did today, I get all giddy and happy and skippy (that’s a condition in which you start skipping suddenly, rapidly and uncontrollably).

I’ve tried to wean myself off the market cold-turkey. It’s not working. I pass a TV and shoot a quick, secretive glance to see if there’s a red arrow or a green arrow in the corner of the screen. I actually now hate anything that’s the color red.

I’ve started enjoying long meetings at work because I have, as of yet, not loaded any market-alert apps on my phone and suddenly three hours go by and I remember what life used to be like before my life savings and supposed retirement evaporated before my eyes every other hour.

When the market goes in the crapper, I slap myself for not having taken my money out and invested in gold bullion. When it rockets upward, I congratulate myself for being so calm and level-headed when the truth of the matter is I am actually suffering from Bi-Polar Investment Paralysis, a secondary condition characterized mostly by extreme fear and uncertainty of doing anything remotely financial.

A friend of mine recently recommended Chart Therapy. This is where you pull out a ten year chart of Wall Street’s gyrations and realize these current antics are but tiny little blips even though they look like gigantic Swiss mountains when you’re monitoring them by the minute.

This I know. I am exhausted and weary and I trust those poor men and women on the floor of the exchange must be as well. I think by now we are all longing for the magic words, “The Dow Jones Industrial Average today, was unchanged on low volume and no particularly newsworthy events.”

I took a week off to do nothing but read, take leisurely dog walks and catch up on my premium channel favorites. Nancy’s back to dealing pot on Weeds, witches are now in full battle with werewolves, shape-shifters and vampires on True Blood and what a great week to stay indoors and in the AC.

Except for the three times a day I walk Suki the Dog. At 10am this morning in Washington, D.C., it was 94 degrees and the “humiture” was already 110 degrees. I love these “wind-chill” and “heat-index” stats. Not only do they tell us what it “feels” like but it gives you better bragging rights. I mean 110 sounds a hell of a lot worse than 94. And braving -10 degree wind chills is so much more impressive than bundling up against a mere 15 degrees.

Suki the Dog, by the way, does not need the heat index. She well understands that unlike humans, dogs only sweat through their footpads leaving panting as the only real way they can cool off. Accordingly, we just had the most efficient walk in modern dog history (at least since dog-walk record-keeping began in 1887).

By the end of the first 100 yards, she was already panting. At one point she looked up at me as if to say, “Yo, dude, this is wrong. As your dedicated man servant, I intend to make this walk brief but effective.” I love that look.

She was a peeing and crapping machine. She compressed her marking routine, spritzing delicately but quickly every 30 feet or so. No lingering at some mysterious patch of grass where no doubt another canine had attempted to claim ownership of the dog park an hour earlier. And there was no dilly-dallying on the major mission either. This was the kind of no-nonsense, no-frills, military-precision-like walk a Navy SEAL dog would have taken. Actually, this was a walk not as much “taken,” as it was “conducted.”

If I am estimating somewhat accurately, all the business “conducted” in a 20-minute walk was condensed to approximately 540 seconds.

The 3 o’clock walk should be real interesting. By that time the actual temperature is expected to be anywhere from 99 to 104 degrees and the heat-index will be 9 thousand degrees- hotter than the surface of Venus. I’m thinking we’ll cut off another 3 or 4 minutes in another commando power walk before high-tailing it back into the air conditioning and her well-deserved organic dog bone treat.

Me and Suki- we’re going to get through this.

I have mixed feelings about women grunting.  As I sense a suicidal situation if I elaborate much further- let me contain my remarks on female grunting to tennis in particular.  I had no idea about the extent of the problem until I read today that Wimbledon officials seem to be fed up with the practice.

The UK’s Telegraph explains the situation here.  I did not know people were measuring tennis grunting but they are.  The record is held by one Maria Sharapova, whose grunts at the 2009 tournament reached 105 decibels.  Rustling leaves, for example, can reach 40 decibels.  Your average traffic noise comes in at 85 decibels.  A rock concert reaches 110 decibels.  So Ms. Sharapova’s grunts fall somewhere between what you’d hear on New York’s West Side highway or Washington’s GW Parkway and Peter Townsend and the Who. 

Equally important as loudness, however, is the length of the grunt.  The prime offender here is Victoria Azarenka of Belarus who has been referred in several publications today as a “serial grunter.”    Ms. Azarenka has reached 95 decibels but the average length of her grunts each and every time she hits the ball has been recorded at over 1.5 seconds.

The public seems to share my mixed feeling about how bad this problem is.  The Washington Post has deemed it an important enough matter to conduct an internet poll.  As I write, 56% of those who took the time to answer this survey say all grunting should be banned from tennis.  But there are 44% who would oppose such draconian measures.

I am completely torn over this issue and will reserve judgment until after I have watched a few rounds on TV this coming weekend.  But I don’t think grunting is something that can be stopped.   Our serial grunter, Ms. Azarenka, is quoted as saying that she is not alone; 70% of the women’s tour grunt as well.  She says she’s been doing it since the age of 10 and that it helps her put more power into the ball. 

Ultimately, it is the players themselves who can put a stop to it and I don’t mean by exercising will power or something.  The opponent of a serial grunter can complain to the umpire if it gets too overwhelming or distracting.  

Certainly, I am now officially adding tennis grunting to the things I worry about; a growing list that now includes sleep apnea, allergic reactions to peanuts, global warming and the shrinking number of Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets in America.

I know that was weird but I had to end this damn article somehow.

We make too much of this Sarah Palin Bus Tour business. She’s just taking a little family vacation. Who hasn’t taken a summer to load the kids up in a garishly-painted bus with mom’s signature next to the preamble of the Constitution of the United States?

Regrettably for the Cravitz family of Columbus, Ohio, they also decided to take an RV tour across the country at the same time. Organizers of the Memorial Day Rolling Thunder event looked puzzled as Mrs. Cravitz emerged from their vehicle in her curlers asking about their placement in the parade of Harleys across Memorial Bridge.

The Cravitz family trip to the National Archives building was, frankly, a disappointment. Some important lady was in the Archives building at the same time, and the usually lengthy crowds snaked around five blocks instead of the usual two. With temperatures nearing 100 degrees, they pretty much gave up and decided to drive to Gettysburg National Battlefield Park instead.

While visiting the battlefield they ran into a colorfully painted bus in a parking lot and toured that and then it was off to New York City. There, they saw several buildings named Trump, drove down to Times Square, but for the life of them could not find a seat at La Famigilia Pizzeria, which was just as well because they sensed something odd about the place when they saw a man with orange hair and a woman with a beehive hairdo eating pizza with forks.

The Cravitz’s were last seen headed toward Boston but almost got in an accident when they had an uncomfortably close call with a colorfully-painted bus, followed by another bus with big red letters that spelled ‘CNN’ and 10 or 12 other vehicles that looked like vans with big metal poles on top of them.

“Hey, wasn’t that the bus we toured at Gettysburg?” asked Mrs. Cravitz. “Yeah, I think these people are following us.” responded Mr. Cravitz. “Why would anyone want to follow us on our family vacation to historic places along the East Coast?” queried Mrs. Cravitz. “It’s insane, I tell you.” said Mr. Cravitz. “Let’s get the heck out of here and go to a couple of places nobody goes to in the summertime….New Hampshire and Iowa!”