Random post on Steeler loss, women's march & sleeping with Madonna

So many topics to tackle on this day: Do I blog about Steeler loss? Madonna being outrageous? The marches? Yes! Yes! Yes!

Time for the ever-popular random item post:

• I can’t believe I’ll be 54 in less than a month and I still haven’t slept with Madonna. She was very boastful of her promiscuity when we were both younger, and promiscuous was something I aspired to be. I figured it would just be a matter of time before we hooked up. Really, I thought it would happen before I was 40. It could still happen. The week has just begun.

• My friend John’s a football coach. He texted me toward the end of the Steelers 36-17 loss that the result meant I had to admit the brilliance of Patriot coach Bill Belichick. He’s a great coach, sure, but will be forever tainted by episodic cheating. We know anytime the Patriots win, the Patriots cheat. We just don’t yet know how.

• I really hate the Patriots. How much? When I saw “Manchester by the Sea” with Val, she thought the movie was a tragedy because so many bad things were happening to people. I said it was a comedy because all the bad things were happening to Patriot fans.

• Politics aside, the transition is fascinating. I know if I moved into the White House, one of the first things I’d do wouldn’t involve comprehending nuclear codes or state secrets. One of the first things I’d do would be to have someone explain to me how to use the new TV remote. It’s the first thing I do any time I check into a hotel.

• A buddy of mine texted me last night that I should challenge the legitimacy of the Patriots win and organize a march on Washington. I’m thinking about it.

• I was unprepared for the size and planetary participation of the women’s march. It was truly monumental. But Trump’s right. I didn’t see that kind of passion during the election. But he’s a fool if he thinks he can be dismissive of what happened Saturday. 

• Saw “La La Land” with our 16-year-old last week. Loved it. Very entertaining. I’m really liking Emma Stone. She was also great in “The Birdman” and “Zombieland.”

• The funniest show on TV right now is “black-ish” (ABC, Wednesday, 9:30 p.m.) It’s a hilarious take on what black people think about white people and vice versa. The episode that combined elements of MLK Day with white and black reactions to Trump election was truly brilliant.

• I caught some of the Atlanta game with some buddies and while we were admiring their firepower, we struggled to name five people who’d ever played for the Falcons. I came up with Deion Saunders, Bill Fralic, Steve Bartkowski and Michael Vick. Atlanta in general, a city best known for its airport, doesn’t seem to have much personality. It’s the Jan Brady of major American cities.

• Still, I prefer Jan to Tom Brady so there’s no doubt about for whom I’ll be rooting. 

• My conservative friends say me writing about Trump infuriates them; my liberal friends implore me to write about him all the time. Me, I’m going to resist writing about him because I find myself being too careful, too thoughtful. If I say anything inflammatory I want to be sure I’m both factual and concise. That’s a lot to ask from a deadbeat blog I do for free.

• Having said that, I relish reading every other word avid Trump-bashers compose.

• And having said that, I was appalled by jokes about Barron Trump. 

• A lot of people were gleeful to see a protester sucker punch neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. I was not among them. I disdain seeing anything that justifies an escalation of violent incivility. Him getting punched just standing there is not funny. Having a piano accidentally fall on his head would have been.

• SNL, a show which I can go for decades without watching is in a golden era, a rare epoch when cast talent meets newsworthy hilarity. This, to me, is the most appealing and reliably hilarious cast since the heydays of Carvey, Hartman, Myers and crew. Aziz Ansari, with whom I’d not been familiar, was hilarious this week.

• My daughter attended a high school dance Saturday. She had a great time. One complaint: she said the music sucked. “It was nearly all rap,” she said. I had to be careful about how I said what I said next. “Honey,” I said, “this might put you in an awkward position, but I want to propose to the student council that your Daddy be in charge of the music at the next dance.” She reacted with angry scorn, but in her heart she knows I’d be a great DJ for kids of any age.

• For me, the biggest WTF moment of this weekend’s inaugural WTF gala was Trump entering his lame-o concert to the tune of the Rolling Stones, “Heart of Stone.” What’s the message behind that? Certainly not compassionate conservatism. If I was producing the show I’d have suggested the Stones ’94 rarity “Sparks Will Fly.” One way or another, it’s bound to be prescient. 

• I hope the White House TV remote isn’t carelessly connected to the nuclear launch codes.

• My Super Bowl prediction: Atlanta 56, New England 32. Those aren’t scores. Those are my predictions for the high temperatures in each city the day of the game.

• If I ever had the opportunity to sleep with Madonna, I'd follow the advice I give to young men as they leave for college: "Put condoms on everything. Put three condoms on some things."

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Shall I "just get over it?" Hmmm...

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I was surprised to see Donald Trump honoring the fallen at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

You’d think a guy who famously disparaged an American hero by saying he prefers people who weren’t captured would have little patience with the ultimate quitters.

Is that the kind of joke I’m supposed to suppress if I were to just get over it?

For me, that’s a pretty steep price.

Here are two Facebook posts from yesterday that led one friend to declare “Angry Chris is back.”

• “The self-loathing true conservatives feel at supporting Trump must be akin to what dying vegetarians feel when they realize about to turn zombie.”

• “I don't understand why my racist friends get angry when I point out they are racists. Does it bother me when they say I'm lazy?”

The second one doesn’t even refer to Trump but was seized by racist Trump supporters who resent being informed of possible racism.

Am I angry?

Should I have, in the name of Facebook civility, posted cheerful cat videos instead?

I don’t feel angry.

The American Psychiatric Association says the five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

I have my own and they have since November 8 been thus: drunkenness, concern, acceptance, bemusement, and sexiness.

Why sexiness?

Because I’m convinced we’re all screwed.

I’m kidding. I can’t resist leaving out even a stupid joke.

I know a lot of very good men and women who voted Trump for very good reasons. They’re sick of the partisan posturing in Washington and think an outsider businessman like Trump can truly drain the swamp. Who can oppose that?

But I also know many truly obnoxious assholes who voted for Trump because he campaigned like a racist, misogynist blowhard who promised he’d bring back jobs digging things like coal, something that made even people who run coal companies chuckle at the fantasy.

I’m hopeful -- honest -- and am enjoying being in the position of not having to defend a president who infuriates half the country.

No matter who won, today was bound to be more of a swearing-at than a swearing-in ceremony.

Under Trump, the country will either prosper or our worst fears will be realized and those of us who loath Trump will be entitled to one of history’s greatest I-told-ya-sos. It’s a win-win.

Really, it’s become like that with every presidential race.

We’ve become a very manic electorate. We’ve been since 1992 on a two-term whiplash. We elect the liberal then the conservative then the liberal then the none-of-the-above.

And, frothing at the mouths, we all press on.

Thinking back on those schizophrenic presidencies makes me wish Billy Joel would compose a 2017 sequel to “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” 

History set to music can be very catchy and that which panics timid adults today will in 10 short years be boring children in high school history class.

So I intend to watch the inauguration today because I think something funny is bound to happen, but I also plan to re-watch the brilliant Dave Chappelle SNL monologue from the week after Trump stunned the world.

I want to again see the part where he so eloquently talks about how much we’re going to miss the grace and dignity of Barack Obama and his family, a man whose legitimacy was so viciously questioned by the man who now takes prissy offense at having his presidential legitimacy questioned by others.

Oh, it all promises to be an irony connoisseur’s delight.

You ask me to just get over it?

I hereby decline.

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Obama hater spoils my breakfast, then my windshield

Friendly stranger says I'm inspirational

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I wonder if it’s too late for me to bid on any of the presidential likenesses from last week’s Gettysburg Wax Museum auction.

I’d like to acquire one of the cheaper, less accomplished presidents to occupy my office chair when I’m not here. The dummy — and I’m referring to the wax surrogate — would appear to thoughtfully gaze out the window overlooking the intersection at the town’s one traffic light.

I’m thinking maybe James Buchanan.

I intend to do this because it’s becoming increasingly apparent my office visibility has made me a sort of beacon for morning commuters as they pass the Tin Lizzy. Eyeballs are automatically drawn to the lone, brightly lit, third floor office and the unkempt man sitting there with his head bowed as if in prayer.

And there’s an element of prayer to everything I’m doing.

I’m praying I’ll write something great, that solvency beckons and that my entire career hasn’t been one big mistake.

Friends have told me they see me up here. So I’m aware I’m being watched and behave accordingly.

I try and project confidence, maintain good posture and I always step away from the window when nasal impediments require me to jam a farmer in the booger barn. I try not to look like a slob, or do anything anyone would confuse with inspirational.

It’s another failure because apparently that’s just what I’ve been doing.

I received this e-mail from a 24-year-old passersby who enjoys the blog.

“Most mornings on my way to work I see you in your office above the Tin. Shortly after, I find myself walking down a never-ending grey hallway to my small grey cubical surrounded by grey walls. Constantly inundated with idle grey conversation by middle aged corporate cogs who have harnessed grey as the fiber of their very being.

“If I spend another 30 years in a corp-landia, will I become grey as well? Will my real passions creep so far away until I can't find them again? Will my job title become the only way I define myself?”

He says he’s got a good, stress-free job, but “it is so damn repetitive and each second staring at a spreadsheet sucks a little more creativity from my body.”

“When I see you writing up in your office, it instills in me a sense of peace. I think it is absolutely awesome that you turned your passion into your job. Thank you for your writing!”

Well, when I hear anything as touching as that, I right away think of two people: Bob Dylan and my wife. Dylan wrote the most apropos line about what it’s like to do what I do, which is essentially squat:

If you don’t believe there’s a price

For this sweet paradise

Just remind me to show you the scars

Now, Val, she’d be more voluble, not to mention profane. Being married to me gives her anything but a sense of peace.

Am I inspirational? Would I do it all over again?

Absolutely.

I say that with the understanding that if it never pays off many will find me guilty of living a wholly selfish life.

I won’t see it that way. 

I’m not hallucinating the soulful reactions to my blog, my books and my talks. People really dig what I do.

And my life has been a near-perfect joy. The only thing missing is the one thing my grey-fearing friend has in spades: a stable income.

Of course, I know many men and women who once thought they had career stability and are being downsized into starting over — at age 50.

In my “Crayons!” talks, I always include the advice to “do something you love to do each and every day just because it’s something you love to do each and every day.”

It’s so simple, so accessible and so easy to overlook. It could be painting, playing with a cat, tinkering with a model railroad in your basement or reading a cheerful book to a tiny human being.

Life’s about finding balance, something I’ll apparently never experience because I have no intention of quitting what I’m doing or how I’m doing it.

I believe true success is just around the corner. I’ve believed that every day since I quit my last job in, gulp, 1992.

History proves there is undeniable merit when cheerful persistence combines with foundational experience.

Those are just some of the thoughts I intend to share with my new friend over many hours of philosophizing beers, something else I enjoy doing daily.

Either way, there’s bound to be a great big dummy in the window of the third floor at the Tin Lizzy.

And one of them might be wax.

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I think MLK would have become a Steeler fan

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I’m guaranteeing the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to beat the hated New England Patriots on Sunday and go on to win the Super Bowl.

Take it to the bank!

And the last time I felt this arrogant about a prediction was Nov. 8 when I assured everyone that on Jan. 20 Americans would be unified in celebration of the landslide election of President Hilary Rodham Clinton.

For what it’s worth.

But I have a good feeling about the Steelers. They haven’t lost since Nov. 13 (it was a bad week for liberal Steeler fans) and are riding a 9-game win streak into Foxboro. They are 5 1/2 point underdogs against the Patriots.

The Steeler dominance upends my custom of artificially rooting for teams based on on cities where I’ve enjoyed getting drunk or ones populated by women who were easy when I was single.

By that standard I used to think I’d one day write a glorious ode about why I was rooting for the Cleveland Browns to win the Super Bowl but it doesn’t look like that’s ever going to happen.

Rooting for Pittsburgh is in my blood. I absolutely love everything about the city. Oddly, it only meets one of my essential criteria for fandom.

Sure, it’s my go-to for drunken revels, something I’ve been doing with reckless abandon (is there any other kind of abandon?) since, oh, the fifth grade.

But all the Pittsburgh debutants I knew when I was single were way too proper and refined for my ambitions. Man, it took me years to find a girl loose enough to even consider letting me kiss her.

Know what I did next?

I married her!

I was 33.

I never kissed a girl from Boston, which is ironic because I feel like I’ve been screwed by people from Boston more than any city on the planet.

The Patriots cheat.

I’m not being rash. My source on this is the Patriots. 

In 2007, coach Bill Belichick agreed to pay a $500,000 fine for Spygate, and Tom Brady dropped his appeals and served a four-game suspension for playing with under-inflated footballs, a phrase bound to induce snickers among those of us with juvenile bents.

Coincidentally, I was recently watching football with my cousin and he predicted pretty boy Brady would be the next celebrity athlete to undergo a sex change operation, ala Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner.

It’s an interesting hypothesis, one that at the very least would silence sports talk radio critics who contend Brady’s been female all along.

As for the NFC, I’m hoping Green Bay wins. I had a splendid time in Wisconsin on a 2009 travel story. I like the people and know they’ll be having fun in Sobelman’s in Milwaukee, a saloon where I’ve never felt more at home for an out-of-stater.

I’ve driven through Atlanta, which given its historic traffic problems is like winning a Super Bowl. But I’ve never socialized there for even a moment — and airports don’t count.

I wrote about Atlanta in ‘14 and how two measly inches of snow turned the entire city into the snowbound Donner Party.

I revere native son Martin Luther King Jr., and he may have become a Falcons fan. Or maybe not. He died young, just 39, in 1968 and was blessed with wisdom and foresight.

Had he lived, I could see him becoming enthralled with the leadership principles of a young Chuck Noll as he led the Steelers to four Super Bowl championships in the ‘70s.

Had King not been murdered, he’d be 88 years old. I like to think he’d have eventually moved to Pittsburgh. I imagine him at a Steeler pep rally smiling and waving a Terrible Towel.

So I’m hoping for all these reasons the Steelers kick the Patriots butts this weekend and go on to win their 7th Super Bowl.

Because the Patriots cheat and the arc of the moral universe is long and bends toward Pittsburgh.

Steelers 35, Patriots 13.

I have a dream.

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Binge watch ... me! My new (and old) videos

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(Note, Jan. 23, 2017: Let me cut to the chase; because I did so badly on the new video, I'm going to submit this one until I can do another one like it, only snazzier. Thanks for reading!)

After previewing my most recent promotional video, I’ve made a directorial decision regarding the next one.

I’ve decided to cast someone else to play me.

The “new” Chris Rodell will be younger, have better posture and smile more vibrantly.

And she’ll be black.

I’m thinking of Danai Gurira.

Having the woman who plays Michonne on “Walking Dead” play me will really ring the old diversity bell, and she’s a terrific actress. She could use her katana to in mid-air sever a whole damn box of crayons.

(Unrelated fun fact: Danai Gurira, now famous for beheading zombies, was born on Valentine’s Day, 1978. Lovely!)

The people who are trying to secure me more big league keynote addresses suggested a 90-second promotional video would be helpful.

Luckily, I have an ace videographer who’s now twice graced me with his talents.

His video news segments have won Mid-Atlantic regional Emmys. He could be busy round-the clock fulfilling lucrative corporate work. 

Why people like him choose to squander precious time working on my behalf for just a few free beers, I do not know.

Maybe they don’t realize Straub American lager is sold in most every area beer distributor.

I rehearsed for about two whole days trying to ensure it looked totally unrehearsed. 

Filming a commercial about yourself and starring in it feels like an exercise in pure vanity, like a really extended selfie. I was conscious of this the whole time.

So I’ll be interested to hear the reactions. Here’s the link.

I’ve long said anyone who believes he is his own worst critic is either delusional or single.

Is that the case here? 

I like everything about the video except the parts in which I’m speaking, which is unfortunate because the whole point of the thing is to get people to hire me to speak.

I love the music, the asides and shots of me playing around in the office. 

It looks wonderful and I remain optimistic its message will work with its intended audience: meeting planners looking for speakers. I hope it conveys the mirth I feel about life even in tumultuous times.

I don’t think it’ll stand out the way I’d hoped, but it’s another foundational block in the now-sturdy structure that is my pitch.

And the next one will be even better because it’ll star Danai Gurira, assuming she’s willing to do it for a few free Straubs. I think she’ll go for it.

Something about her tells me she’s a real sweetheart.

I now have a video for nearly every occasion. Here are some of the others:

• “So what did you think of Chris (in 20 seconds or less)?” — I had a lot of fun with this one. Funny cameos include my mom, wife, kids, Arnold Palmer and Bill Clinton. 

• Greensburg Library ’14 — This is when I was just getting started and shows, I think, a really strong and conversational talk. There were only about 15 people here, but you can tell everyone’s having a good time.

• Bethel Park Speakers Series — As a commentator points out, this one appears disjointed because they failed to mic the audience. So it’s like an hour of me telling stories and basking in the laughter no one else can hear.

• “What the book’s about and why it’ll always be free” — Very nice. This is the first one my buddy Brian did for me. Has a nice polish to it. I used this as the main feature on my crayons page for several years.

• “Why ‘Use All The Crayons!’ is like the cure for polio” — It’s too bad the lighting renders this nearly unwatchable because it’s great reaction to a strong delivery. This was before the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association. It’s when the guy told me I’d cured his hangover.

• “‘Crayons!’ FAQ” — Hilarious. I had Dave from The Pond pose a bunch of questions about the book. Very cheesy.

• Quinn Fallon sings about me — What’s not to love about this? My rock star buddy sings the songs I inspired.

• “Chris drunk in church story” — Strong story. Great reaction. I’d rate this higher, but my emerging bald spot appears too prominent for my liking.

• Omaha intro — This highlights the humor I use to start my talks.

• “When men tell other men, ‘I love you’” — Depending on the audience, I sometimes read a story from the book. Nothing boring.

• “Greatest ovation ever” — That’s no lie. This one is pure fun. I send this link out with every pitch. This is my most-viewed video with nearly 1,800 hits. The recollection of the moment still leaves me tingling.