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Leg #1: Phoenix >> Chicago >> Pittsburgh >> Steubenville
Leg #2: Steubenville >> Pittsburgh >> Charlotte >> Phoenix >> San Diego
Leg #3: San Diego >> almost Huntsville then Knoxville >> Atlanta >> Tiger
Leg #4: Tiger >> Atlanta >> Fort Meyers >> Ave Maria
Leg #5: Ave Maria >> Fort Meyers >> Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta >> Phoenix

People watching at Chicago O’Hare Airport

Getting up at 4am is not fun. The body is confused by three competing sensations: exhaustion, adrenaline, and anxiety. But somehow it’s a beautiful moment when you realize somebody loves you enough to wake up with you and drive you to the airport. I kissed Candyce goodbye at the curb. Two hours later, I was asleep on the plane to Chicago.

What do you do with four hours to kill in Chicago? People watch. Unlike like your local mall, you can gaze upon the hordes at the airport without feeling like a creep. While observing the foot-traffic patterns for a couple hours, I’ve developed two rules worth making into laws:

1. Walk fast or get out of the way. You may have some time to kill waiting for your flight, but most people do not. Nine out of ten people in an airport are zooming through the airport so they can catch a close flight. And that flight means a lot: there are loved ones and big business deals waiting at their final destinations. So save your leisurely stroll for your neighborhood sidewalks! If you are a chaperon of a group on a summer trip and you have to stop and regather, do it away from the lanes of hurried travelers. This common sense understanding of the reality of airport will save you from getting yelled at or punched in the face.
2. Do not walk and eat at the same time. This is not as civic-minded as the first rule; I just don’t like watching people who do this. Let’s break this down. If you are in a hurry and you are walking, you have an air of importance because you are alert and on a mission. I’m okay with this. Eating is an occasion for romance and friendship, and an opportunity to delight in a chef’s handiwork. I’m okay with this too. But when you try to walk and eat at the same time, you look unsophisticated and confused by surroundings. This can all be avoided if you get it to go and eat it on the airplane. (Exception to this rule: walking and eating Mentos.)

Buy Upright Roller Luggage with Caution

I think we all have to do our part to add dignity and finesse to the thoroughfares of the modern world. What would we do without young people with scarves zipping around our city streets on Vespa scooters? You all make me smile! My wife likes seeing guys carry bouquets of flowers up staircases because she knows love is in the air. Think about it, every neighborhood coffee shop needs at least one old guy wearing a barrette, and everyone feels safe and happy when cute young moms push baby strollers through neighborhood sidewalks.

This brings me to a modern atrocity known as “upright roller luggage.” But first, let’s review where we’ve been:

1. Grab life buy the handle. You can watch old black and white movies and admire men with hats and suit jackets carrying their luggage by the handle, the same way you’d carry a toolbox or a briefcase. You looked ambitious and ready for new opportunities. The film Catch Me if You Can would not have been the same without several scenes accessorized by handled suitcases.

Leo never looked so good.

As an added bonus, a handled suitcase can be used as a weapon.

2. Luggage on a leash. Using forensic evidence I’ve found at thrift stores from my childhood, somewhere in the 1960s, people’s arms got tired and they invented the first wheeled suitcase. These were hard-shell vinyl suitcases in dazzling colors like harvest gold, avocado green, orange, and occasionally turquoise.

If you are 25 or younger, you’ve probably never seen one of these. Here’s kinda how it worked…imagine lowering your hand-held suitcase onto four wheels and then fastening a short leash to the top front corner. Now drag it behind you like a stiff, reluctant dog. This invention was hardly an accomplishment: it was top heavy and prone to flipping and knocking over children when you made tight turns. Not even lusty retro lovers will buy one of these monstrosities at a yard sale. These are all decaying in American landfills next to first-run lava lamps.

3. Modern pull-behind luggage. This is the most functional type of travel bag you can find. It’s agile and rarely tips over. As an added bonus, you can stuff the bottom of a Starbucks coffee cup in the spot where the collapsed handle fits. And if you are trying to look cool, you will be happy to know that pull behind luggage adds to your swagger in the same way as carrying an umbrella ads to your peppiness. As an added bonus, the durable wheels inherited from Rollerblades glide across the floor with a rhythmic pulse. Humanity wins!

4. Upright rollers. It’s basically a looks just like the modern pull-behind luggage, except it rolls beside you on four wheels. The telescoping handle is used to steer the thing as you go. (Stay tuned for a diagram.)

The problem here is that you just can’t look cool with one of these things. You are as cartoonish as a sprinter running with his hands in his pockets. Or like you are dragging a really heavy purse on the ground next to you. I haven’t seen one tip over yet, but it looks built-to-spill like a waitress who balances a coffee pot on her head. I’m getting mad just writing about it, so I’ll stop here.

Franciscan University of Steubenville Welcomes Matt Smith

I haven’t been on the campus of Franciscan since the summer of 2003. I was happy to see that the dorms have been re-built to look more residential and less institutional (peaked roofs vs. brick boxes.) I enjoyed speaking at the conference and visiting with the students. The coffee shop at the center of campus made for a fun common grounds while the thunderstorms swirled through Ohio.

At the end of the day, I decompressed at the hotel watching jazz ensembles from the 1960s on PBS and Hip Hop v. America: Where Did the Love Go? on BET.

The following blog is rated PG-13 for a comedic response to adult themes.

Are you ready for some pop culture irony? All I need you to do is actually click on the links and listen to the music, otherwise, reading this is a waste of time.

Listen to Usher’s “Love in this Club” (2008)

Actually, it’s probably not necessary that you click that link because the song is already playing as you these letters on my website. Statistically, you’ve already heard this song three times before lunch. Every radio station is playing the song every seven minutes without any hesitation. This is notable because the lyrics leave no room for misinterpretation: “I wanna make love in this club…on the couch, on the table, on the bar, or on the floor…I wanna make love in this club.”

How can radio stations play a song this explicit without making people mad? For listeners, even the most vigilant parents are hypnotized by the prettiness. Even cautious radio program directors who live in fear of the FCC put the song in heavy rotation because it subconsciously reminds them of going to prom in the 1980s when life was simple and innocent, when they were forever young.

Listen to Alphaville’s “Forever Young” (1984)

- or for some more fun, watch their video on YouTube -

Watch Alphaville’s “Forever Young” (1984)

If you weren’t around in 1984, “Forever Young” is the song that first played at the school dance in the movie Napoleon Dynamite. The dreamy layers of synthesizers added the atmosphere that made that scene so memorable.

“I like your sleeves.”

I’m not arguing that Usher is doing a cover of Alphaville. There are notable differences in the two songs, the most obvious being that Usher’s song is better. Less subjective differences are as follows:

1. Usher is cool and Alphaville is not
2. Usher lays on a heavy hip hop beat where there was none
3. Alphaville used odd trumpets in the bridge, Usher selected the wheezy Young Jeezy to articulate what Usher really means to “make love in this club” (Probably to keep the song from sounding too pretty.)

In the end, the greatest similarity between the two songs is that these song will continue to play at school dances for the next few decades.

Here’s some more fun with decades:

Listen to Lil Wayne’s “I’m Me” (2008)

Listen to Moby’s “God Moving Over the Face of Waters” (1995) (The similarities start 45 seconds into the song.)

Like Usher, Lil Wayne grabbed the vibe of his song from someone else. Unlike Usher, Lil Wayne thought it’d be cool to make bird sounds in the first 10 seconds of his song.

Historically, these similarities won’t be worth recording in the story of hip hop. But it’s clear that the authentic hip hop formula of MC + DJ = Hip Hop is long gone. This is a music business, and the natural selection of the biz defines that biggest hip hop hits are made from notorious MCs that narrate a hip hop beat driving over a diverse collage of pop music, whether its 1980s New Wave or 1990s techno.

Yes. Hip hop is pop music.

There are some TV shows that you can watch without any explanation or disclaimer: Law & Order, Lost, or The Wire. Other shows require a brief introduction before you bring them up in conversation because you fear that people will judge you as shallow, stupid, or easily amused: The Real World, The Hills, The Real World.

As the title of this blog suggests, I’d like to talk about The Hills. Here’s my introduction:

“My wife’s sister goes to ASU. She’s busy studying and doesn’t have Tivo, so she records The Hills at my house. On Saturdays I’ll be in the kitchen remodeling while she’s in the living room watching The Hills…”

You get the idea.

Now I would like to offer some tips to all the young ladies how to be cute like Lauren, Audrina, and and Whitney. These 6 simple techniques will add a splash of cuteness to everyday life.

1. Dancing

When you are dancing, it’s critical that you dance with your arms above your head. Dancing with arms below the head can not pass as cute. Dancing is not limited to night clubs. If you want to communicate that you are having fun and you only have a few seconds to work with, lift your arms above your head. Smile. Rock and spin your hips.

Diagram 1a: Above head= cute

2. Conversing

At no point in your day are you allowed to speak to another with out touching your hair, face, earring, or necklace. Although there are many options for fiddling with your hair, it is best to adjust your bangs away from your face. Avoid tucking hair behind your ear. Although this will prevent your hair from flopping in front of your face, you’ll also rob yourself of the next chance to look cute by adjusting your hair.

Diagram 02a: In this rare scene, all three people adjust their hair. Lauren (top), JustinBobby (bottom left) and Audrina (bottom right)

Diagram 2b: Audrina knows how to be cute, especially when she’s on a date with a moron on a motorcycle. Clockwise from the top: Adjusting an ear ring, lifting her bangs, listening (see number 04), and twiddling of hair.

Diagram 2c: Below, Heidi and Audrina, adjusting their hair while taking turns talking…

Notice the subtitle read: “To hang out. Kind of stuff like that.”

3. Vocabulary

It is not necessary to use a variety of words to describe anything. (See above.)

4. Listening

If you are waiting for your turn to talk, continue adjusting your hair (see diagram 2c). But if it i clear that you will not be speaking anytime soon (herein defined as listening), it is best to adjust your hands accordingly: place your hand beneath your chin away from your hair.

Diagram 4a: Lauren’s trademark listening gesture…

The most glamorous way to listen is to make the shape of an “L” with your thumb and forefinger (think “Loser”). Now prop your chin on the thumb and press your finger against the side of your face. Occasionally nod your head and smile. This will give the perception that you are fascinated.

04. Not Listening

“Not listening” is a bold gesture used to signal to be used sparingly. Prop your elbow on the table and relax your fingers; they will naturally curl into a loose fist. Now rotate your fist back to expose the inside of your wrist. Avoid eye contact with the talker, and look around the room in search of something more interesting. This position is best used to communicate that you are uninterested in the conversation about Spencer.

05. Pronunciation

Words like “to” and “you” and “cute” should not be pronounced too and yoo and cyoot. That was so last millennium. Instead, aim for “yow” and “tow” and “cyowt.” Give it a lift as you are finishing the word, almost as if you were running out of breath. You might think this sounds odd, and it will, but it is cute. Cyowt.

06. Flirting.

Like any other conversation, it is important play with your hair. But flirting requires more attention to the details. First, position your body away from the boy that you like. Next, tilt your head to the side. Now rotate your eyes towards your boy and flick your eyes wider. Repeat if necessary.

While flirting with Steven from High School, she played with her necklace (left), then continued with her hair (center, right). Cyowt!

Summary:

So girls, there you have it! Tune into The Hills on MTV for how-to videos.

For all of you guys out there, I don’t have much advice for you. To grab the attention of the girls from The Hills, I’ve found no evidence that you must do anything right (see Brody, Spencer, and JustinBobby.) But I will warn you that adopting the persona of any male from that show will not increase your probability of impressing females. That stuff only works on TV. In real life, you need to be intelligent, charming, and responsible.

Introduction: Losing Sucks

I am discouraged by last night’s loss against the Spurs. It’s going to be difficult for the Suns to get out of the first round of the playoffs when we’re down two games to none.

But I will say this, in the past few years, there’ve been two teams that have climbed out of a hole this deep. The Miami Heat was down 2-0 in the 2006 NBA Championship series against the Dallas Mavericks, and the Heat went on to win the next four. The Phoenix Suns were down 3-1 against the LA Lakers a few years ago in the 1st round of the play offs. The Suns went on to win the next three and move onto the next round.

Why does this matter? Both of those come-from-behind teams were lead by two future Hall of Famers: Shaq (Heat) and Nash (Suns.) Now here we are in 2008, and the MVPs are both Phoenix Suns. If anyone can do it, it’s the Suns.

Having said that, lets talk about…

My Trouble with the Police

Last fall, Candyce and I were on our way to see The Darjeeling Limited in the theaters when I decided to swing by her brother’s house to pick up her jacket. (Lesson from first year of marriage: females get cold more quickly than males, especially in air conditioned movie theaters.) While she was inside digging for her jacket, I noticed two cop cars pulled in front of a house down the street. Candyce hopped back in the car and I opted to exit out of the neighborhood through the far gate just to see what the commotion was all about. I know this is messed up, to snoop in on neighbors like that, but curiosity is a powerful thing.

I rolled by the cop cars slow enough to see what was going on, but not so slow that I looked suspicious. Both cop cars gunned onto the street and followed me through the neighborhood. Great. As I sat at the exit to the neighborhood waiting for the gates to swing open, I told Candyce that I was going to get pulled over. “But first they’re going to follow me down the street and into the intersection so they can put on a big show with their flashing lights.” She started to panic, and I told her not to worry because we hadn’t broken any laws.

Twenty seconds later, they lit me up with the swinging blue lights. The whole intersection froze. The only cars that moved was my own, followed by two cops.

A young police officer walked up to the car and put his flashlight in my face. “Do you know why we pulled you over?” I was friendly but honest. “No officer, I don’t.” With the light still in my face, he told me that my license plates expired six months ago.

I did not know this.

He asked for some paperwork and we couldn’t find any of it in the glove compartment. As I handed him my driver’s license and an expired insurance card, I offered an explanation, “We got married earlier this year, and it’s been really hectic. I lost track of time.”

He came back to my car a few minutes later. He leaned into my door and held my driver’s license two feet in front of his face, skipping his eyes from my face to the photo on my license. As I am prepared to defend the authenticity of my ID, he tells me this: “You look really familiar.”

I have heard those four words assembled in that order more time than I can remember…those words have become a part of my life. Without hesitation, I casually told the officer that I was involved in local churches…that I live in the area…that I write for the Phoenix Suns…and that I was on The Real World… (This is my verbal resume for PHX Citizen of the Year, punctuated by a claim to fame.) His stern look of disapproval melted into a smile. “No way! I thought that was you!”

He turned away from the window and looked back to the second police officer sitting in his car. He waved his hand forward with enthusiasm. The second officer was too lazy to get out of his car, or maybe he thought I was a tool and didn’t want to waste his time. No problem.

The cop, Candyce, and I spent the next 20 minutes talking about reality television and the Phoenix Suns. He finished the conversation with a gentle reprimand for having an expired tag, but then told me what I needed to do to fix the problem. I told him I would send his wife an autographed photo. We shook hands and went on with our lives.

(Officer, if you are reading this, I apologize for not sending that photo. I lost your address and I feel really bad about it. If you email me, I’ll make things right.)

Welcome to the Department of Motor Vehicles

I’ve driven around town for the past four months understanding that I could get pulled over at anytime because of my expired plates. As illogical as it sounds, dodging cops all winter seemed like a better option going to the DMV.

You see, standing in line at the DMV is a humbling rite of passage into adulthood. It’s a memorable encounter with lifeless world of tax-funded bureaucracy. At risk of sounding melodramatic, it’s a two-hour experience that makes you feel like you’ve lost all momentum in life. Smart people will experience the DMV once, and then vow to avoid that place again.

Last week my friends made fun of me for my expired plates, and I defended myself be explaining the DMV is a leper colony. Jason told me to renew my plates online and avoid the DMV. It was a dream come true. I walked back inside and renewed my tags on the Internet in less than ten minutes. Just for fun, I played Chamillionaire’s anthem “Ridin’ Dirty” while I clicked through the site.

But what do you do when the stickers don’t come in the mail? You call them and ask what’s up. And what did the person on the phone tell me to do? Go to the DMV.

Sucker Free DMV

Since my last trip to the building, they’ve added a Time-Square like news ticker. In theory, this is a clever addition. The news lights up the screen brightens our spirits by connecting us to the hyper reality outside the walls of the DMV. But since all the news was bad that day, I just got more sad. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to get some spiritual perspective when I was jolted back to reality when they called my number.

I sat in a chair and spoke to the 20-something girl across the counter from me. I explained that I needed to renew my license plate… She nodded her head, and then spent two minutes in silence clicking around her computer. There wasn’t much for me to do in those awkward moments except to size up the gravity of the moment.

I pity the young people who work at the DMV. If you are in your 30s or 40s and you work at the DMV, somehow it doesn’t seem that bad. But if you’re in your 20s and therefore young enough to still want to be a rock star, then working at the DMV is a public admission of defeat. I know this because our entire generation was raised on The Simpsons. Marge Simpson’s repulsive twin sisters, Patty and Selma, work at the DMV by day, and chainsmoke and the lust over McGyver by night. They are the epitome of uncool.

The Springfield DMV Employees of the Year

She got angry at her computer, sighed, and then I got two more minutes of silence. I was searching for something to make the moment more exciting for both of us. So I just blurted it out: “Have you ever seen The Real World?” She nodded her head slowly, only mildly interested in my question. I bounced back, “Well, I was on that show a long time ago.” She instantly came to life.

She explained that she watched the entire season of RW New Orleans, and that she liked me then. She stopped with that statement–I liked you then. She looked at me, I suppose to figure out whether she liked me now.

I still don’t know if she likes me now, because she switched lanes. “You know, famous people come in here all the time…Mike Tyson is in here every other day. I saw Ice-T when I first started.”

Left: Mike Tyson, the boxing ear-biting psychopath.
Right: Ice-T, the aging gangster rapper/ misogynist and now tenured Law & Order star.

Here I was prepared to fill her up with stories from my own life, and she cut me off with stuff far more interesting. Why was Mike Tyson in the DMV all the time? She said it in the same way a waitress would claim to serve up drinks to Eddie Van Halen and his buddies every Tuesday night–trying to play it cool, but barely disguising the fact that she’s excited to host a celebrity.

She continued typing and I sat in silence trying to imagine these two pop culture characters from my teen years sitting in that same chair waiting for a renewed license plate. I was in scene of the Surreal Life at the DMV in Mesa, Arizona.

She slid my precious stickers across the counter with a smile. “It looks like you’re all done here. It’s been fun. You should come back and see us!”

I walked to my car utterly confused. Was she suggesting I renew my license plate more than often than required? Or was that an open invitation to swing by on my lunch break with a Subway sandwich so I could pull up next to her on the employee side of the counter? We could gossip about Mike Tyson’s dumb tattoo and his propensity for traffic violations.

Then I drove to Home Depot and returned a door threshold I purchased 18 months ago, a random object that has resided in the back of my car for just as many months. (Think about how uncool that is.) But married life has made my life hectic and things like this just don’t seem important. I’ve driven my Home Depot many times in the past 18 months, but never with enough time to wait in line. But today was that day. Who knows, I might run into Ice-T.

So The Denver Nugget’s star Carmelo Anthony was busted for drunk driving at 4 in the morning. You don’t have to think about this too long to understand this was an epic display of foolishness:

1. Drunk driving kills people. This is why our society has made it very clear that driving while intoxicated is socially unacceptable. A lot of people will tell you that celebrities always get off easy, which may be true when it comes time to sentencing.

What people don’t realize is that celebrities have a bigger judge outside the courtroom: the public. Millions of opinionated people spit venom on reckless celebrities. And this isn’t just from haters who are happy to drag someone down. There are many people who’ve had a loved one killed by a drunk driver, and they have no compassion for anyone who will swerve through life mowing down innocent lives. That means you, Carmelo.

2. You ignored your civic responsibility. Very few people on this planet are privileged enough to have fans. If you are one of these special people, it is critical that you understand that it’s not about fame and fortune–because these all pass–but more importantly, your role in this society at this point in history.

Professional athletes are the most accessible role models for children, especially young boys. No doubt, there were a lot of little boys who woke up yesterday totally confused by their hero’s behavior. But it’s not just a child’s fleeting disappointment that is really at stake here. These little boys will be the fathers of the next generation (we’ve all scene The Lion King right?) Each of these boys is looking for someone that they want to grow up to be like. If you are lucky enough to be a professional athlete, then it is your civic duty to be a good role model.

3. It’s playoff time, jackass. Let’s say you are so absorbed in basketball to really consider my first two points. Let’s suspend reality for a moment and just consider only how Carmelo’s DWI impacts the game.

Carmelo’s Denver Nuggets barely made the playoffs, and they need every break they can get to make it out of the first round in the highly competitive Western Conference. The entire team is built around Carmelo and depends on his leadership. These men have worked hard to get a chance at an NBA championship. How are Carmelo’s team mates supposed to trust him as a leader on the court when he’s a fool off the court?

Summary: Carmelo, I hope you do some hard thinking in the off-season. If you don’t get your act together, people will only remember you as irresponsible fool.