Monthly Archives: December 2009

The name of the team is the Friars. The rest is without commentary

Today I got to play the best of all possible games. Husband tennis.

Husband Tennis is when I get to play tennis against my husband. He is stronger, faster, and taller than I. In a real match I’d never stand a chance.

When one plays Husband Tennis you get to hit the ball as hard as you possibly can, and it is always returned, mostly to the middle of the court. When one plays Husband Tennis you get to serve with every bit of might in your body, and the ball is always returned. In Husband Tennis, the Husband always serves his second serve and you get his alleys too.

When you’re really tired during Husband Tennis you can take a water break and get a kiss too.

We also had the kids playing pool, football and charades. Unfortunately when the word “old” arose they just pointed at Doc and everyone burst into gales of laughter, which runs the clock out pretty quickly.

Best part of the day? Husband Tennis without a doubt.

I’m taking a lot of flack for thinking that a teenage boy shouldn’t paint his face black for a football game.

Servite is a High School in Anaheim, CA. They have a very good football team and (I now find) a less than stellar reputation.

High School Athletics in California are still left to teachers. Teachers in California (as opposed to Coaches in adulthood) are responsible for turning out well rounded young men and women. Ideally a school will also teach kids that they are lucky to be part of a community and they can add great things to it.

Perhaps I wasn’t completely clear in my post last night.

When a High School Football Coach sees a child paint their entire face black (eye black or not I don’t care) that coach has an obligation to the child to take him aside and explain to him what painting one’s face black used to symbolize. The coaches failed the children. The coaches failed the parents, whose money they gladly accept.

If the point of High School is education, then Servite is a failure. If the point of High School is playing football games, Servite has been magnificent.

I realize some NFL players use eye black in an excessive and decorative pattern, but I’ve yet to see an NFL player cover their entire face in eye black. The argument that this child is imitating NFL players is false. There has never been an NFL player that has completely covered his face in eye black.

Chris Hovan is well known for wearing excessive and “menacing” eye black. Does this look like he’s painted his entire face?

The real issue is that this is High School. Ostensibly athletics are there to support academics. I’m curious if a history teacher was on hand, and if they gasped a little when they saw their student?

Last night I was scrolling through the channels and landed on Prime Ticket. There was a high school football game on TV that caught my eye.

A Servite High School Football Player was wearing blackface.

I don’t have it saved on DVR, but last night Prime Ticket aired the game. On the field were a gaggle of coaches, and not one of them stopped the child who they were charged with educating to tell him that it was wildly offensive.

Here’s a screenshot of what the player looked like after the game. See the video here.

Servite isn’t in my community, but those boys will be. Send them a message, educating young men is a honor that comes with massive responsibility and allowing a child to wear blackface is a failure.

Typically I wouldn’t have much to say about Kim Kardashian. She operates in a realm separate from mine. Today, however, I’d like to talk a little bit about Kim Kardashian and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission).

According to Ad Week, Kardashian has signed a deal to “sex up” Carls Jr. Well, I guess after the Paris Hilton video, we can expect Carls’ Jr. to hire every celebutard with a sex tape hot young girl out of Hollywood?

Here’s what’s interesting. The Kardashian girls were recently on Howard Stern talking about making $40,000 to show up at a nightclub. Forgive me if I don’t recall who was speaking, I was busy making mental notes on how to not behave in public. Ad.ly is a great little company, and they list a tweet with Kardashian (of sex tape and reality tee vee fame) as having a $10,000 value.

What was this?

Is it a sponsored post? Is this a part of the deal she recently inked with Carl’s Jr?

Maybe she legitimately is excited to eat a salad. Kim looks like the kind of girl I often see in fast food restaurants, right? Oh, no, you’re right, it’s totally out of character.

According to the FTC, the fine is $11,000. If Kim Kardashian made $10,000 for this tweet, pays $11,000 in fines and gets her name absolutely everywhere again for just $1,000 I’m going to be green with envy.

Seriously folks, my secret hope and prayer was that I’d be the first blogger to get hit with an $11,000 non disclosure fine. Why? Because I always disclose and I would have welcomed the inquiry. I could’ve had the ass kickiest lawyers you know defending me for free and our names would have been in every paper.

I could’ve renamed my blog Jessica Smartypants Gottlieb.

Although I’m very interested in seeing how this pans out, I’m even more curious who the 2.7 million people are who follow Ms. Kardashian on twitter.

Before the FTC guidelines were released I wrote about disclosure, and here I warn you a little bit about people like The Kardashians.  Make no mistake, every part of their lives is sponsored, and I do think that disclosure will be difficult for them, but the good news is that they make more than enough money to pay any fine with great ease.

When I heard that Ken Wheaton had penned a novel I immediately asked for a review copy. The review copy arrived and then I used it to beat myself. What was I thinking? Why would I want to review Wheaton’s novel? What if it sucked?

I knew Ken was from Louisiana, even with a column in Ad Age (a far cry from fiction), you can hear the storytelling in his voice. I can thank my lucky stars (and never request a press copy again) while I tell you that The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival
is a joy to read.

If you’ve ever had someone outside your family care for you, you’ll love Miss Rita. Heck, if you’ve got a soul, you will love Miss Rita. Miss Rita embodies every wacky caregiver we all had. Father Steve Sebille is the goofy guy next door, turned Priest, Miss Vicky is a little bit of all of us.

I can’t review each character. Much like Capote, Gaines and Toole, Wheaton brings characters to life, and the plot (though important) plays second fiddle. The richness, the vibrancy, the humanity of each of the characters Wheaton shares with us, fairly leaps off the page.

Here’s a blurb from Amazon:

Welcome to Grand Prairie, Louisiana – land of confounding accents, hard-drinking senior citizens, and charming sinners – brought to hilarious life in a bracing, heartfelt debut novel simmering with Cajun spice…Father Steve Sibille has come home to the bayou to take charge of St. Pete’s church. Among his challenges are teenybopper altar girls, insomnia-curing confessions, and alarmingly alluring congregant Vicky Carrier. Then there’s Miss Rita, an irrepressible centenarian with a taste for whiskey, cracklins, and sticking her nose in other people’s business. When an outsider threatens to poach Father Steve’s flock, Miss Rita suggests he fight back by staging an event that will keep St. Pete’s parishioners loyal forever. As The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival draws near, help comes from the strangest places. And while the road to the festival may be paved with good intentions – not to mention bake sales, an elephant, and the most bizarre cook-out ever – where it will lead is anyone’s guess.

The bottom line is this. Once I hit the halfway mark, I read this book at the rate of about two pages a day. Why? I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to savor it. I wasn’t ready to be done with Father Steve so quickly.

A fabulous read. Enjoy it.

I have one issue with the book and it’s a teeny tiny bit of a spoiler so don’t click through if you don’t want it.

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