Predictions for the Super Bowl & Beyond

• I predict the Steelers will win Super Bowl XLIII by a score of XXXIII to X and that Ben Roethlisberger will be the game’s MVP. The QB believes he has something to prove after his terrible performance during the Steelers victory in Super Bowl XL. After Sunday, he’ll be considered the best in the game.

• I predict Bruce Springsteen will sing, in order, “The Promised Land,” “Working on a Dream,” “The Rising,” and “Born to Run,” and that we’ll see neither of his nipples during the performance. And that’s too bad because I’ll bet the Boss has some beauts.

• I predict cars of the future will have no reverse gear and will look like that crazy “Push-me-Pull-you” animal from the movie “Dr. Doolittle.” Drivers will pull head first into a parking space and the seats will all reverse when he or she gets in to leave. The car will have two fronts. It wastes a lot of gas and causes a lot of accidents for people to be doing any driving backwards. And going in reverse is just such a pain in the, well, rear.

• I predict within V years years we’re going to see tabloid reports of a woman who’s had breast implants inserted below her shoulders to encourage her breast-obsessed boyfriend to spend more time slow dancing with her. The love of breasts and dancing are two dominant themes in American culture and this trend will confirm it.

• I predict the Steelers will win the Super Bowl in 2010, giving them three championships for the decade and the right to be crowned team of the decade. True, the New England Patriots will have won three also, but let none of us ever forget, the Patriots cheated.

• I predict one day about six months from now, one of the sleepwalking Republicans in the U.S. Congress is going to wonder aloud if Rush Limbaugh’s back on drugs or if he and all his 176 Congressional colleagues have begun consuming too many of them.

• I predict that sometime in the second quarter of the biggest football game of the year my 8-year-old daughter will complain that we’ve seen enough football and for the good of the family we should turn off the game and watch “Mamma Mia!” for the LXVII time.

• I predict that within VI years, the pompous jackasses who run the NFL will cease using these these ridiculous Roman numerals and none of us will have to puzzle it out that Super Bowl XLIX is simply Super Bowl 49.

• I predict that, even if the Steelers win convincingly, this winter still won’t go as quickly as the one three years ago when the Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks in Detroit. Winter 2005-2006 may go down in history as the greatest winter ever. First it was mild early. Then the Steelers started winning and any time that happens in your city, it cuts winter off at the knees. Then just as we were getting into the most dreadful part of the season, the part when cabin fever has everyone acting like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” Dick Cheney accidentally shot that guy down in Texas and that’s something we all enjoyed. Well, everyone but the guy he shot.

• I predict I will for the rest of my life avoid typing a sometimes pejorative word describing nomadic, scarfe-draped and bejeweled fortune tellers from Eastern Europe because of what happened this week. My last blog entry included the need for the noun that begins with and includes in order the following letters: “g - y - _ - s - i - e - s.” For some reason, the instant after I innocently typed it, my always reliable iBook froze up solid. I walked away and fretted for an hour. It revived, but some of the story disappeared and I’m convinced I was unable to recover its previous zing. I’m not superstitious, but if I ever type that word again it’ll be on a computer belonging to someone I hate.

• I predict you’re going to see a lot more of these idiotic prediction posts from me. They’re just so easy. No one remembers if you get ‘em all wrong, but if the Steelers win 33-10 or some moronic woman runs out and gets boobs on her back, I’ll have incontrovertible proof that I saw it coming.

Pop historian ponders The Middle Ages

I’ll be 46 next month. That’s about 24.3 in Mars years and that sounds about right.

When people tell me I’m middle aged, I feel like asking if they can correctly predict that evening’s winning lottery numbers. Calling me or anyone middle aged is a god-like prognostication.

I try and eat healthy and do a bit of no-sweat exercising, but predicting I’ll live to 92 seems like a bold stretch. My father died suddenly at 76, just about right on the money for what the actuarial tables calculated for a man of his generational dispositions.

My maternal grandfather, however, died this past summer at the age of 97 and he enjoyed a sturdy constitution right up to near the end. In fact, he was driving solo up until the age of 95. Sure, most of the safety-conscious residents of DuBois, Pennsylvania, knew he was out driving from 8 to 10 most mornings and stayed secure in their basements until about 10:30, but that doesn’t diminish the feat.

Me, up until just a few Earth years ago, I’ve always felt sort of Martian.

I felt like I was born 12. But soon after that age I started sneaking beers and felt immediately about 16. Then I endured all the adolescent hallmarks of a 16 year old -- no money, awkward around the girls, lived with my parents -- until I was about 24.

And that’s the age I’ve felt for the past 21 years. Really, just like when I was 24, I have no money in my checking account, I’m sort of looking for a job (not really), and figure if things don’t work out here in the real world I can still move back in with Mom who’ll no doubt have to cajole me to shovel her walk in exchange for an advance on that weekend’s beer money.

One of these days I’m going to get around to writing a story questioning when historians will stop pessimistically calling the epoch from 500 BC to 1600 BC, the Middle Ages.

I do lots of unpublished stories like that -- not because I believe anyone’s ever going to pay me to do them. That’ll never happen. I do it because it makes good conversation whenever I’m talking to an attentive 24 year old in a bar or classroom who for some misguided reason mistakenly believes age has earned me wisdom.

But when exactly did they start calling the Middle Ages, the Middle Ages? Are those the middle ages for the planet or the entire human race? By some mathematical interpretations, it could mean the end is nigh.

I don’t believe it. For all we know, the doomsayers could be wrong. Maybe earth is on the verge of a profound renewal where future historians begin referring to what we call the Middle Ages as something like the Puberty Ages.

Back when I was 24 Earth years old, I worked at a Nashville newspaper -- and for the purposes of this story let’s go ahead and call it The Daily Planet -- where I had to be at my desk at 6 a.m. I quit after a couple of years when I became convinced that the only things that got up that early ought to be milked.

During those pitiless pre-dawn mornings when roosters were still snoozing, it was often my job to write about the daily doom befalling numerous central Tennessee men and women. I often wrote about people who were expiring in what people called their middle ages. Their obituaries revealed their middle ages had been two decades previous.

I remember thinking, “Well, it’s a shame that drunken farmer stumbled into that rusty combine. But, hey, the guy was 46. He lived a good full life.”

Now, I’m nearly 46. I’ve lived a good full life.

Yet, I’m hopeful that when the demographers classify me as middle aged, it’ll one day turn out to be true. Despite these hard times, I really enjoy my life, my family, my friends and the odd little things I do to occupy my time while other middle aged men and women are at work fretting about the latest shower of pink slips.

Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll finally start feeling my age. There are some indications of advancing maturity. For instance, I decline all invitations to go out on Mondays because I prefer be home sitting on the couch watching one of our favorite television shows.

Coincidentally, the show is called “24.”

I have absolutely no fear of death. Just as long as it doesn’t have to hurt.

In my dreams, I thrive to be about, oh, 92 when I imagine myself skipping off a sidewalk and getting creamed by a speeding bus I never saw coming. I’m hopeful some 24-year-old news reporter will arrive at the scene and get quotes from startled eye witnesses who’ll swear they saw my soul shoot straight to heaven. And that my soul wasn’t wearing pants.

In the meantime, I’m going to insist that only scarfe-draped fortune tellers call me middle aged, and that your true middle ages -- no matter how old you are today -- remain many happy Martian years from now.

A beef about cow flatulence

I’m alarmed by trends showing a steady increase in vegetarians because I wonder what we’re going to do with all the cows once we’ve all stopped eating meat.

And that’s going to be a real problem because they’d make terrible zoo exhibits. They’re not entertaining like monkeys. They’re not exotic like gorillas. You can’t race them and although I’ve never attempted it I imagine trying to ride one would be like spending time sitting on a stalled school bus.

When you think about it, the only thing a cow’s really good at is devoting its every waking moment to trying to make itself tastier for people like me who enjoy a good steak once in a while.

But while cows are thriving, it seems we meat eaters are being systematically culled from the herd. A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says one in 200 teens now identify themselves as vegetarians.

It’s a lifestyle I admire, but won’t succumb to, which is about how I feel about people who get and go to work everyday. I eat lots of delicious salads, gorge on seafood and try not to eat too much red meat.

But sometimes nothing satisfies like a big juicy steak or cheese burger. I’m a Weber Grill man because I love the ritual involved in cooking the meals. I think it dishonors a really good steak to just slap it on a frying pan or singe it in a broiler.

In high summer Weber men like me devote nearly a full hour of beer-sipping preparation to the eight or so minutes it takes to cook a good steak. When it’s done to medium rare, I summon the family out on to porch. We say a little grace thanking God for the food and always ask that He get some grub for those without. We don’t get all political and specify that He give them healthy things like broccoli or carrots.

Just, we pray, fill up their bellies.

I’ve wondered if I should say a little prayer for the cow that gave its life for us to eat it, but I never do and won’t until someone persuades me we’re praying to a cow God.

One of my favorite philosophical bumper stickers reads, “If God had intended man to be vegetarians, why did He make animals out of meat?” It’s a good question.

I consider myself somewhat of an expert on cows because I frequently travel by train from my western Pennsylvania home through miles of rich farmland to New York.

If you’ve never taken Amtrak, you need to understand that there are often hour-long episodes where the locomotive is perfectly still. Sometimes they explain why, often not. During these times of tedium, I read, type on my laptop, chat with my seat mate, doodle on a notebook and wonder what kind of insanity makes me want to travel by train instead of airplane, bus or pack mule, all forms of travel which must be speedier than Amtrak.

And more often than not, I’m stuck staring at the ample backside of a cow. I contemplate its existence. What must it be like to be a cow?

It seems perfectly boring. They just stand there chewing the grass. But who am I to judge? Sometimes the cows look up at me and my fellow passengers and they must think our Amtrak existence is perfectly boring.

I’m always fascinated by stories that relate how cow flatulence is among the leading contributors of methane gas that’s wreaking havoc on our ozone layer. Or is it reeking havoc?

Anyway, one recent study says each cow emits 200 to 400 quarts of methane gas per day, or 50 million metric tons per year (times are tough, but I hope I never get the opportunity to put “cow fart counter” on my resume).

Thus, it’s not a stretch to say meat eaters are on the front line of helping to limit the amount of deadly flatulence in the air, at least those of us who don’t include a big plate of beans on the side.

And what would happen to all the cows if we stopped eating them? The farmers who tend them would let them go free. They’d roam the countryside. They’d wind up clogging the highways and parks. We’d be overrun with cows.

So it’s probably all for the greater good that the natural order is maintained.

The last thing any of us needs is to have a big stupid animal lazing around the property doing nothing but polluting the atmosphere with his big piles of outrageous bullcrap.

That’s my job.

My wife for President

Our 8-year-old daughter wants me to become POTUS because she thinks it would be fun to live in the White House. I agree.

News stories about the Obamas new digs show what a wonderful place it must be to call home, especially if you have children like Malia, 10 , and Sasha, 7, who travel under the endearing Secret Service code names Radiance and Rosebud.

One report this morning told about how the girls will have access to the White House movie theater, the bowling alley, the pool and how the Bush twins urged them to spend play time sliding down the solarium banister.

What most struck our oldest daughter was how acts like the Jonas Brothers would come to visit and perform for things like birthdays or sleep overs. I’m thrilled to have Obama as my president, but if he allows his daughters to even so much as listen to the Jonas Brothers I’m throwing in for Palin and The Plumber in 2012.

So I, too, would love to live in the White House. It’s bound to be a blast.

I just don’t want to be president.

Still, I hate to disappoint my little darling so I’m nominating my wife, Valerie, for president. She’d be great.

On domestic matters, I’m confident she could balance the national budget with just one week’s worth of coupons from any Sunday newspaper. Her feeding our family with so little income and so many coupons always reminds me of what Jesus did with the loaves and the fishes.

Her foreign relations track record on keeping warring parties from spilling blood is worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. I’ve been mired in cold war with her family for more than 15 years while she’s patiently played Kissinger. She’s brokered an uneasy peace that persists despite their belief that I’m a good-for-nothing layabout and my despising them for their honesty.

And, like Obama, she’s a take charge sort. Rather than waiting around interminably for me to get around to painting the bathroom, she said to hell with me. She’ll do it herself. It’s a brilliant strategy because she knows I’ll be shamed into helping out on a job I’d rather do in 10-minute increments over the course of two years rather than in one hectic weekend.

See, she knows how to find work for even the laziest members of our society.

Me, I’d be perfect for the First Gentleman role. I know how to entertain (juggle and recite from memory dozens of filthy limericks) and I know what it takes to throw a really great party. That would be a giant slingshot.

A few years ago I strung up nearly 50-feet of surgical tubing between a high split in a towering backyard apple tree and -- voila! -- giant slingshot! We spent an unforgettable night blasting spray-painted potatoes, pudding balloons and one unfortunate stray cat more than 500 feet across the field at our hillbilly neighbor’s trailer.

I’d be there to greet the Pittsburgh Steelers whenever they won the Super Bowl (Pittsburgh 33, Arizona 10). And I’d tell my pals in the NSC to fog all the lenses on all Bill Belichick’s cheater spy cameras to ensure the only “patriots” who ever win the Super Bowl work for the great Dan Rooney.

One of my ambitions has always been to get high on the White House roof with Willie Nelson. He famously did it when Jimmy Carter invited him for a presidential barbeque. As First Gentleman, I’d do it daily. With Willie. And John Cusack. And Bob Dylan. And, yeah, what the hell, Larry King can come, too.

As an old news reporter, I’d be chummy with the press. I’d meet them in a friendly little tavern nearly every day for Happy Hour. We’d talk about events of the day and I’d give them not-for-attribution bits of gossip about what’s going on in my life and the things I’ve heard (I ritually do this nearly everyday now, but instead of my old buddies from the paper, the reporters would now be guys like Wolf Blitzer and Bob Schieffer).

The point of all this would be to finally be in a position to do something useful for my darling wife. My antics would keep her approval ratings sky high as she’d be popular with regular guys for being so tolerant of me, a regular guy who prefers joking and laughing to things like painting bathrooms.

She’d get points from female voters who’ll sympathize with a sister who had the misfortune of marrying badly.

Of course, it wouldn’t be all fun and games for me. I’d be responsible for hiring nannies and the guys whose job it would be to keep all 31 White House bathrooms in fresh coats of paint.

Val’s going to have her hands full.

Just slightly less so than she does now.

Inaugural oath goof and right wing crazies

I’m going to spend the day listening to far right radio to hear if any hosts or callers think the Obama/Roberts inaugural oath goof is a potentially disqualifying technicality.

Some casual news readers may not know it, but there was a flurry of bona fide lawsuits, a couple of which actually wound their way to the Supreme Court, that still disputed Obama’s citizenship. They said his election should be nullified because they incorrectly believe he doesn’t have an authentic Hawaiian birth certificate.

Many commentators shook their heads in collective amazement. How desperate can these people be, they wondered.

Of course, it didn’t surprise me at all.

I’ve been a front line soldier against the lunatic right since shortly after Linda Tripp started shopping for electronic spy gear in preparation for girly chats with Monica Lewinsky.

Then came Ken Starr and the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I’d been a comparative moderate before that, but the foaming-mouthed hatred of Clinton turned me into a knee-jerk liberal whose knee jerks most liberally anytime it’s near a conservative’s crotch.

That’s why it’s not going to be easy for me to, as our new president so graciously requests, put down my rhetorical weapons and come in out of the jungle. Some of us -- right and left -- are so used to partisan combat that we’ll probably bivouac deep in the woods the way some never-say-die Japanese soldiers did decades after World War II ended and Sony and Toyota began was winning victories the Nippon Army never could.

Really, I’m eager to try. I’d much rather argue about sports or movies than the bitter tribal feuds that stem from political passions. And with Obama’s approval ratings in the high 70s, it’ll be easy to dismiss any haters as irredeemable crazies or mere lunk-headed racists.

Their reaction in the days to come will be revealing.

Truly, the inauguration slip was a fascinating gaffe between two super intelligent and poised men. It shows even polished public speakers can crumble when the pressure's on.

I believe Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, is an outstanding Supreme Court justice. He meets the one litmus test Bush skipped when he tabbed starry-eyed flunkey Harriet Miers.

The man is smart. That’s all I want from my top judges, no matter their party backgrounds. I disagree with most everything Antonin Scalia writes, but it’s always reasoned.

That’s why I’m eager to read more about how Roberts goofed administering the oath to Obama. It was the first time Roberts ever conducted the ceremony and the first time any Supreme Court justice administered the 35-word oath to a senator who’d voted against his confirmation.

To me, the most amazing aspect was, with all he has to think about, Obama precisely knew the oath and knew to pause and prompt Roberts that he was stumbling.

Had it been most anyone else in the world it, we would have simply aped whatever Roberts was saying, and it would have turned into the scene from “Animal House” when Delta pledge master Hoover, playing the Roberts part, awkwardly says, “I, state your name . . .”

And the dimwit pledges numbly reply, “I, state your name . . .”

It didn’t matter. They all became Delta pledges. Beneath the slapstick humor, the movie is at its heart a morality tale about how the carefree Deltas triumph over the uptight, holier-than-thou Alphas who think they are so superior they can dictate how the rest of the world should behave.

For those who’ve never seen the movie the whole way through, the dippy Deltas go on to fulfilling and mostly distinguished careers. Heck, one of them even becomes a U.S. Senator.

As for the hated Alphas, well, they’re probably spending today dialing into right wing talk shows to nitpick about constitutional minutia.

Jump the Query Shark!

I disagreed whenever my late father used to tell me I had a real talent for writing. It’s a character defect, I’d argue.

A talent is something that leads to lucrative fulfillment and widespread affirmation. A character defect is something that impedes those things.

Those with real talent enjoy robust professional obligations. Those with character defects squander hour after hour in lonely self-indulgent pursuits with no perceptible results.

Kind of like those of us who regularly blog.

I used to consider this blog the journalistic equivalent of a lemonade stand. Then one day it dawned on me that even stupid kids don’t give the lemonade away for free.

I always tell my students that I know I’m not working hard enough unless I receive at least a rejection letter a day. If that’s the proper measure, then I’ve been working my tail off since 1992 and have been on a real roll since September.

It has me once again wondering if it isn’t time to do something less yoked by near-constant rejection and more likely to lead to actual income. Something like, you know, sell lemonade by the glass.

This occurred to me over the weekend when my pitch letter for my rejection-magnet of a novel was critiqued on the “Query Shark” blogspot. It’s agent Janet Reid’s popular and useful writer’s website that gives professional feedback to wannabe authors like me who’re seeking agents or publishers.

To me it’s like sending your heartfelt best stuff to Simon Cowell on “American Idol.” The feedback can be brutal.

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on here . . . You’ve lost me . . . This is a confusing mess,” are some examples.

Now, I understand that may seem like pretty tame stuff to those of you who work in factories, the military or for all I know cupcake bakeries. Remember, I’ve only had three real jobs my entire life and one of them was at Pizza Hut.

But I know writers are notoriously thin-skinned and have enormous dirigible-sized egos when it comes to our work.

Take me, for example. Every single time I turn in an essay, assignment or book proposal, I become exactly like like Ralphie in the scene from “A Christmas Story” where he turns in his theme. I imagine the editor dancing across the room euphorically singing, “A-plus! Plus! Plus! Plus! Plus!”

It’s never happened and it didn’t happen with Query Shark. Here’s a key paragraph from my query:

“The Last Baby Boomer” is my 209-page novel about the life and death of the last baby boomer, Martin J. McCrae. Because his impending death will symbolically tombstone a generation known for selfish excess, the 117-year-old McCrae agrees to be part of a lottery ghoul pool. Contestants pay $25 to be in a museum suite with him for 15 minutes. If they are present when he expires, they win the multimillion dollar jackpot. One problem: McCrae won't die.”

Gripping stuff, huh? Here’s what she thought:

"Word count, not page numbers. Always . . . Tombstone is not a verb. Not now, not in the future, not ever . . . If the novel is simply waiting for him to die, you'll need something else to hold our interest.”

To which, I find myself stammering in retort, “But . . . but . . . C’mon, just give it a chance! It’s wonderful! It’s funny! It’s poignant! I work for six packs!”

I was most stung by her grave comment that tombstone cannot be used as a verb. For you non-writers out there, “symbolically tombstone” is one of those phrases writers coin with such self-satisfied glee that we immediately begin twirling around the room in our purple smoking jackets whist taking deep soulful snorts from our Tiffany brandy snifters.

Because that’s just what writer’s do

But on this day, there would be no retort. The Query Shark moves on. I’m invited to rewrite the query and to resubmit for consideration. Some of the reader comments were wonderfully kind and supportive and a few even appreciated my controversial use of tombstone as a verb.

I’m deeply grateful to them. May hot cigarette ash never singe their purple smoking jackets!

I’m in one of those professional troughs where I feel like giving up. There’s little hope and even less work. I used to pray that I’d be successful. Now, I have to fight off the urge to pray that God will just slay all my ambitions.

I cannot give in to those defeatist impulses. It’s too late for me to do something sensible like enroll in plumbing school. I will presevever. I will rewrite my query and hope anew that the valuable insights I’ve gained will lead to publishing success.

Besides, any writer would be foolish to let one perhaps offhand remark tombstone an entire career.

Hero pilot looks like a hero, bummer

Well, I guess we can all surmise the identity of this month’s US Airways employee of the month. It’s Chesley B. Sullenberger III.

I prefer my heroes to be a little more offbeat. Sullenberger looks exactly like a heroic pilot's supposed to look.

But come to think of it, most every cockpit cowboy I’ve ever had looks just like him, too. They’re tall, handsome. They’re males. And that’s stereotypically generally very reassuring.

In fact, if I boarded and saw a wormy little pilot who looked all jumpy and nervous I’d strap myself in and immediately demand the flight attendant start bringing multiple shots of high-test liquor -- for me and the pilot.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the pilots we see when boarding were all actors hired to reassure passengers that the real pilot wasn’t some nerdy little twitch. And I’d be fine with that.

I’ve long argued airlines should plant on every flight actors dressed as clergy to say heartfelt prayers as we taxi down the runway. I flew with a nun once and she said a wonderful outloud prayer about a safe flight and the requisite bit about forgiveness before takeoff. I was immediately reassured. I knew with her on board, the Big Guy was our copilot.

Plus, I spied an opening in her pitch for manifest forgiveness. I saw it as a sort of license to sin and spent the entirety of the flight boozing and roguishly hitting on the poor flight attendant. It was a great, fun flight.

For me, at least.

A couple of the early news reports about the miraculous flight are intriguing. First, it apparently took just 90 seconds to empty the entire plane, an often painstaking process that usually consumes 10 minutes when the plane lands on terra concreta. That’s why I’m hoping pilots will implement Sullenberger’s urgent, “Brace for impact!” before even the most routine landings. It would speed things up.

Second, I heard a couple of passengers were, of course, gumming up the emergency procedures by retrieving their stuff from the overhead bins.

The knee-jerk reaction is to castigate the self-important bigshots who dawdled over their laptops and whatnot as Hudson River water started splashing against the ankles of the peons back in coach.

But who are we to judge?

Maybe, like me, they were simply tidy passengers. I retrieve even the peanut wrappers rather than leave them for the overworked flight attendants.

I tried to think of what I’d linger to retrieve and came up near blank. I travel light, rarely taking even a laptop with me. I do have a computer bag to make myself appear important, but its contents are usually some magazines, a banana and a Louis L’Amour book from the local library.

I’d probably dig around for the library book, but only because our librarian’s a tyrant.

So, it’s a wonderful and blessed day. We should all feel better about ourselves knowing we share seminal DNA with men and women like Sullenberger, the first responders and the passengers themselves who could easily have turned on one another but didn’t.

Still, I’m a little chagrined when the hero isn’t someone more unexpected. Like the guy we remember from Puerto Rico to Virgin Gorda charter flight a bunch of years ago. He was perfectly oblivious to the world as I contemptuously studied him as they were preparing the rickety little six-seater for take off.

He looked like a guy who rarely bothered to bathe. His hair was a vulture’s nest of scraggly dreadlocks. He swayed as if the Caribbean breezes were blowing exclusively for him. Maybe it was my imagination, but I swear I could see fresh marijuana haze wafting off his tie-dye T-shirt.

I was quietly calculating the odds he’d wind up being my seat mate when he shocked us by hopping up into the cabin and began expertly flipping switches.

Ya, mon, he was da pilot!

I was rooting it was him when I heard a heroic pilot had just saved 155 lives and inspired a nation with his cool-headed actions. I love it when an atypical guy like that just smashes all our stereotypes of what a hero is and how he or she is supposed to look.

I just don’t want to sit next to him.