The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

The best Saturday Night Live skit in the last 5 years was on a week ago when Jack Black hosted the show. It was called a "Digital Short" and was entitled "Lazy Sunday". It starred Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg and it was a hardcore rap about them going to see The Chronic What?-cles of Narnia. Check out the video here.

I was telling Brian and some other people about this yesterday and he pointed out that it's a telling statement that people get excited when there's a funny skit on SNL nowadays. Although I think SNL is still pretty funny, this particular skit is just really original and inventive.

SNL is, by and large, not as good as it used to be, although people have been saying that since 1980. I started watching SNL when I was in like 7th grade, which would have been around 1990. I enjoyed it a lot then and I do feel like they his some lean years in between then and now. Today I think the show is not at it's zenith by any stretch, but they do have the potential to throw down a funny skit. The Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell types of guys were consistently funny and there were at least 2 or 3 good skits on every show. Now they potentially have 1 or 2 good skits on each show, so they are no longer consistently funny. When it's good, though, it is very good, but they just don't do it consistently nowadays.

The current cast is pretty good, and is somewhat ironically really female driven. Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, and Maya Rudolph really carry the show on most nights. Chris Parnell is funny as is Kenan Thompson. A couple of the new guys, Andy Samberg and Jason Sudeikis have been pretty good this year, too. I'm not giving up on the show like most people have. It's great to tape it on the DVR and then just fast forward throught the absolutely witless stuff they do sometimes.

Back in August I told you that I started to read Bill Clinton's book. That motherfucker was 968 pages long and just yesterday I finished reading it. So I read it from basically the beginning of August until the end of December.

It was enormously informative and interesting. I enjoyed reading more about the time before he was president rather than the time that he was president. The stuff dealing with his presidency was really all policy stuff and not much personal reflection. Even the Lewinsky parts were about his press releases and strategy sessions, rather than what he really did on a day to day basis.

I got the probably biased slant on the Whitewater investigation and even though I tried to read through the lines, it seems like Ken Starr really overstepped his boundaries. It was clear even before he took over the investigation that there was no wrongdoing in the actual Whitewater part, and Starr took it over to look into anything that he could dig up that would damage Bill.

A guy I work with saw me reading it one day and he said, "Well, he wrote all of it himself so you know that it's not true." I'd bet that the accounts of the scandal type things are probably slanted in his favor and even probaly just false in some cases, but for the most part the book seems pretty genuine. I did enjoy reading it, even though I'm not generally into the biography type books.

By the time I finished reading it the book was in 12 different pieces. The book is now in basically 100 page chunks and the cover is completely off. It really didn't hold itself together at all.

I finished a sentence like this:
Never in my life: have I had the desire or the courage to do anything really out of the ordinary.

Joe asked me this:
Per the 31 sentences meme ... what would you have wanted to do, but weren't brave enough to make happen?

My answer:
I can't really point to one thing. I don't know if I've ever sat around thinking, "I want to do X, but I'm too big of a wimp to do it." Really I'm just risk averse. I don't really ever stray out of my comfort zone, which is relatively small, I think. I generally prefer to stay home or to just go see the people I know. Things like that. I think both "the desire or the courage" kindof go together.

Some examples might be things like my dealings with girls before I met Kathy, or not messing with drugs, or really doing any illegal things. I'm just not all that exciting, but I think there's probably something behind that I'm not really tapping into.

Lots of people went to study abroad and I never had a desire to do so. At the same time, I don't want to visit a part of the world where people don't speak English, because the idea of being out somewhere and not being able to talk to people is offputting (Unrelatedly, it's also I think disrespectful to go somehwere and expect people to speak English).

I think I need to feel a certain amount of control over my universe and the easiest way to do that is to keep it narrow. Branching out is not a prospect that really motivates me.

Daffy asked me:
Why did you get so upset at the guy guarding you in the Sunday morning basketball game? If he was fouling you every time, why'd you get mad at him? Isn't the onus on the refs to call the fouls. He was just doing what he could get away with without being whistled for fouling.

Maybe it was just all the frustration of us getting our asses kicked up until that point (and after that point also, incidently) that finally erupted?

My Answer:
Let me tell the story first. We were playing basketball and we were losing pretty badly mainly because we weren't as good as the team we were playing. That being said, I drove the lane 5 or 6 times and the same guy would reach around me and hit my arm every time and I wouldn't get the foul call.

The next time he did it was really egregious, so he and I both fell down and they called a foul on him. I got up and started to yell at him while he was still on the floor. If I remember right, I said, "You reach in on me every goddamn time and you need to stop. You need to stop doing that right now." There may have been a third sentence that was a repeat of the first two. As I said it, I was walking towards him and pointing sortof menacingly.

Basically I did it for the effect. I wasn't all that mad at the guy and I didn't say a word about it for the rest of the game. I wanted two things to happen. First I wanted him to stop reaching in on me so I could go around him more easily, and second I wanted to point out to the refs that he was in fact fouling me without bitching to them. It was a calculated move and it worked for the most part. The guy didn't even come near me the next couple of times and I got two or three open shots because he backed up when I came near him.

I think you misinterpreted the situation, Daff. There was no way the situation was going to escalate beyond me yelling at the guy. I had no intention of hitting him or anything, I was trying to gain an advantage at that point, and it sortof worked except I didn't actually make any shots and we still got killed.

Another one from Daffy:
"I'm really excited to have children because I've never met anyone that I'm actually related to."

Is there news you want to whare with us? Or is that just a general statement?

My Answer:
No specific news, so more of a general statement. We are planning to have kids in the immediate future, but nothing to report as of yet. The thought I expressed was one I've had for a long time now, beyond the context of actually trying to have a baby.

Here's a question from J:
I'm interested to know if your parents had had a somewhat open adoption, where you could find out who your bio-parents were when you were 18....would you have?

We're struggling with some issues surrounding how our kid might feel if we use completely anon. donor vs: known at 18. Thanks for your input.

My Answer:
I don't know if I could answer the "would you have?" question because it seems unanswerable in that context. The decision is not for the baby to make, obviously, and I wouldn't be able to make the decision 18 years after the fact. I guess you're asking if I would have liked for something like that to happen. That seems to violate the spirit of adoption from the parents' standpoint. Both the biological and adoptive parents. Similarly the spirit of being an anonymous sperm donor. Do people donate sperm and then say, "let me know when I have a kid," or if something like that were to happen would you ask someone who you know to be the donor?

I feel like I'm a part of my family, and no one is questioning my place in it, so I don't need to look elsewhere to fit in. Your situation (J) seems to be one that will be a close knit whole family unit that will be inclusive to whoever comes into it. From that perspective I don't think a baby would be lacking support or a feeling of belonging. I don't know if my input is any more relevant than anyone else's on this issue, though. Personally, I'm content with the limited information available to me.

I really don't think about it on a day to day basis. I don't have a recollection of not knowing that I was adopted, so there wasn't a moment that I found out or anything like that. My father told me that when I was like 2 years old and I was mad I would say, "I'm going back to Boston." I don't ever remember doing that, so I must have been pretty young.

I never thought of my parents as not my parents. I think that stems from them being up front about it from the beginning. I hear about a lot of adopted kids feeling unwanted or like they're not really a part of their families, but I can't say that I ever did. The only time I even felt unwanted was as a teenager and it was by the kids in high school and not by my family.

Having the doctor ask me about my family's medical history and not being able to give an answer is hardly embarrassing, but I hope I don't ever develop something that would be much easier to diagnose if the history were available.

I'm really excited to have children because I've never met anyone that I'm actually related to.

I've never really had an interest in finding my biological family. I guess it would be an interesting story, but I'm not really too concerned about it. I suppose my biological mother decided that it would be best for me to be adopted and it certainly seems to have turned out pretty well, so that's good. From time to time I've thought that I probably could have just as easily ended up being aborted rather than adopted and so I don't think I believe in abortion.

I am actually biracial and so I assume a special effort was made to place me with a biracial family. That was nice of them. I guess I'm not a "real Jew" in the technical sense, but I can live with that.

When I was like 17 I found a file while I was looking for a tax return or something that was labelled "Adoption" and had all of this information about the details surrounding me being born and adopted. I read the entire file for about an hour standing in front of the filing cabinet in my cold basement. It was obviously interesting from my standpoint.

I can't say that I'm more or less than what I would have been if I were born into my family rather than adopted into it. That seems to be the best measurement. Wondering what it would have been like to be kept by my biological mother or adopted into a different family is a fruitless endeavor, in my opinion. It's really a moot point, anyway.

Is anyone interested in my thoughts on anything? That question is not as deep as it sounds. Is anyone looking for me to blog about something?

I guess this is sortof a rehash of the "Ask me anything" fad from a while back. So I'm doing that again. Come to think of, Joe asked me what it was like to be adopted, and I never did answer him. I'll do that one first, but if you've anything you were wondering about me, or if you've got something that you'd like my thoughts on, let me know. Really anything, I'll be kindof hurt if I don't get any responses, so if for no other reason than the sake of my ego, ask me something.

I stole this from Joe

1. My uncle once: stayed at my house with his daughter for a whole summer.
2. Never in my life: have I had the desire or the courage to do anything really out of the ordinary.
3. When I was five: I didn't understand why my pre-school teacher wouldn't let me answer every single question, even if no one else knew the answer. I feel like I had thoughts at five years old that were on some levels way more interesting than most of the thoughts I have now. I remember really pondering on several occasions if a vase that fell over when no one was home would actually make a sound. I don't recall If I was familiar with the "if a tree falls in the forest..." thing, but I guess I must have been. My conclusion, by the way, is that it must make a sound. It's a lot more fun being a curious 5 year old than a curious 27 year old.
4. High School is: really what you make of it. I know that now that I go every day with an objective look at it. If every high school student realized how important it was, then we wouldn't have to discuss the failing educational system.
5. My parents are: both gone. Both from cancer. My mother was capable of doing 10 things at once. And all really well. I've probably idealized her at this point, but she really seemed to have been all things to all people. I realized when I was in college that my father was a really great person, but not great parent. Once I realized that I loved him a lot more. He was a pretty good parent, but he had some failings.
6. I once met: Jimmy Fallon walking on a street in New York with Brian and Rick. We were coincidentally all on our way to the same bar, so I think Jimmy thought we were following him.
7. There's this girl I know who: is too afraid of people in general to be in a relationship. At least that's my take on it.
8. Once, at a bar: I was one of two people still on the dance floor at 3am. We were on complete opposite sides of the floor.
9. Last night: I ordered a pizza, sat home with Kathy, and fell asleep right after the monologue of Saturday Night Live.
10. Next time I go to church: I hope it's for a wedding and not a funeral.
11. When I turn my head left, I see: out of the window into the courtyard of my little apartment complex.
12. When I turn my head right, I see: the turtle.
13. How many days until my birthday? 225 is what I came up with in my head.
14. If I was a character written by Shakespeare I'd be: one of those bit players. Mercutio, maybe Guildenstern. Shakespeare's main characters have way too much drama in their lives to accurately resemble me. I'm pretty impressed by the people who know all about Shakespeare, incidentally. Mainly because I feel like it's something not really worth knowing about unless you're an actor or something. As someone who's pretty interested in useless knowledge, I'm impressed that people would learn things even I consider useless.
15. By this time next year: I hope to be a father. We'll see how it works out.
16. A better name for me would be: Jerry Charles Edward Gardner, rather than Charles Jerry Edward. It would avoid a lot of confusion. Here's the story of my name. I was adopted by my parents when I was 9 months old. Before then I lived with a foster family in or around Boston and they called me Jerry. My parents intended to name me Charles Edward Gardner after both of my grandfathers, but I guess decided not to stop calling me Jerry since I already responded to it, so they made it my middle name.
17. I have a hard time understanding: Committed Republicans. It's something I've struggled with for a while. I try to be open minded to all schools of thought. It's not that I'm unwilling to believe that there are Republicans, but I really don't understand any of the logic behind it aside from the selfishness. What's the point of government that doesn't look out for ALL of the peoples' best interest?
18. If I ever go back to school I: will get 30 more credits to get to the top of the pay scale. I'm seriously considering getting an administrative degree that would allow me to be an assistant principal, even though I don't have any intention of being an AP.
19. You know I like you if: I make fun of you. Some people don't understand that right away.
20. If I won an award, the first person I'd thank would be: whoever it was that was most instrumental in my receiving it. I can't imagine what I'd win an award for.
21. Take my advice: calm down, don't break the screen. Whatever you're dealing with is probably not worth getting as upset as you are. Also dealing with your problems head on with seems to be the most effective way. That's something I have trouble with myself, even though I realize it would just be better if I dealt with it.
22. My ideal breakfast is: Eggs over easy with home fries and toast. Ketchup on the eggs and the home fries. Orange juice and coffee, sugar and half and half. I'd eat this for breakfast every day if my cholesterol weren't so high. In fact I did eat this for breakfast on most days before I ever had my cholesterol checked.
23. If you visit my hometown: go to Bischoff's and get a mint cookie crush sundae. Teaneck is not nearly as cool as it used to be. I don't think I'd want to grow up there now, though I enjoyed it as a kid. I'm reminded of a line from a Tom Waits song, San Diego Serenade: "...never knew my hometown, 'til I stayed away too long. Never knew the melody 'til I needed the song." That's a great song, incedentally, if you've never heard it.
24. Why won't someone: realize that their religion was created to bring all the people together, rather than make us different. How many people have died in the name of God? From the crusades and the inquisition to the holocaust to the suicide bombings and terrorist attacks to things like the Branch Davidians or the Kool-Aid suicide people. Under no rational interpretation of whatever religion you belong to does God want humans to kill other humans. If you kill someone in the name of God, then you are in the wrong. If God wants people dead, he'll do it himself, just ask Noah or the Sodomites.
25. If you spend the night at my house: you can have your own bedroom, since we have an extra one at this point.
26. I'd stop my wedding: well, I missed the boat on that one.
28. I'd rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: well, I wouldn't go out of my way to do it, but really that doesn't seem so bad. That answer violates the spirit of the question, so let me think of another one. I don't particularly enjoy being social, but I'll do it if the situation calls for it. It's not really debilitating, though I don't really talk to people unless it's necessary. That's hardly a good answer either.
29. Paper clips are more useful than: staples. They hold more and they're reusable. I use lots of paper clips. I'm tempted to say something like paper clips are more useful than organized religion, but I guess that's a matter of perspective.
30. If I do anything well, it is: keeping my temper. Some would say to the point of irrationality. Perhaps over-rationality is a better way to say it. The only person who can make me lose my temper is my sister. She does it surprisingly well when she puts her mind to it, given that no one else can.
31. And by the way: you're not as cool as you think you are. No one is. Words to live by.

Recently all the teachers in New York City got a pay raise. My salary is now probably 2/3 of what you make as opposed to 1/2 of what you make. Anyhow, part o the agreement was that they would give us retroactive pay for the time between when our contract ran out and the time the new contract was enacted. It didn't end up being very much for me, despite the fact that the contract had run out even before I started working for the DOE.

I can only assume the check I received in the mail today was a part of that back pay process, even though all my back pay was supposed to have been in my last check, which I also received this week. I got a check today from the DOE for $1.99. After they took out taxes, though, it was only for $1.78. Fucking government.

Honestly, I don't know what it's for, and the description just says "adj", which I can only assume means adjustment, rather than adjective or anything else. Nice to know that I'm appreciated, in any event.

Walt Clyde Frazier is the color commentator for the New York Knicks local broadcasts, in case you didn't know. He was a former Knick in the 1970s and has been announcing Knick games on the radio and then on TV for years now. He's known for his arbitrary rhyming and unnecessary use of big words.

Here are some of my favorite all time Walt Clyde lines. I'm only going to include ones that pop directly into my head:

**best one ever** - "I like Ewing's doings. He's been a real juggernaut on the boards."

"Harper makes the pass and, ooohhh...Serendipity by John Starks"

"That one was vintage Marbury. No hocus pocus, only focus on that drive."

"Yeah, so apropos that Allen Iverson is here on Halloween with his bag of tricks and treats."

"The Knicks doing a lot of dishing but not much swishing here in the third."

Recently he's had some great ones dealing with Nate Robinson, the Knicks rookie guard who stands at a robust 5'9". Things like, "Great energy on that play from the Lilliputian."

If I remember the story correctly, Clyde was a really talented player who was accused of being a generaly stupid guy, in particular because his vocabulary was lacking. He made it a point then to improve his vocabulary to prove everyone wrong and show that he was an intelligent guy. Then he started to use big words in tangentially related context.

Some cop near Detroit tasered his own partner after an argument over stopping for a soda. This fucking clown got mad at his partner and tasered her. I guess we should be glad that he had a taser so he didn't have to shoot her. Good gracious.

The Knicks record doesn't really reflect the steps forward that the tem has taken in the last hafl year or so. Joe says that Knick fans are playing the half full game when we talk about their potential, but I think it's more than that. At this point, though, it's clearly just potential that we have to be hopful for.

But let's take a look at that young crop of gies. The most impressive of all of them is Channing Frye. Larry Brown does not easily play rookies (see Milicic, Darko), but Channing is not only playing, but has earned a couple of starts in the last few games because of his good play. He's got a nice shot and plays fairly consistently, which is pretty good for a rookie. I can see him being a player in the mold of Chris Webber, making outside shots and smart passes. Playing for Larry Brown would seemt o be a good sign for his defensive ability, so I'm optimistic about that.

What is somewhat disconcerting at this point is not necessarily the team's inconsistency, but rather Larry Brown's inconsistency. There's an article in the New York Post today about that inconsistency and some of the weird moves he has made. At least 6 or 7 guys have rotated between the starting lineup one game to a DNP the next game to the inactive list the following game and back again. Some examples, Penny Hardaway started the season on the inactive list and the last two games has been the 6th man. David Lee looked like a promising rookie and at one point early in the season he was the team's leader in rebounds and also in hustle plays. Larry Brown praised his play and his hustle. Recently he hasn't played and has in fact been on the inactive list. Matt Barnes went from a starter a couple weeks ago to a guy who got cut from the team altogether.

The one guy who's not playing up to his potential is clearly Stephon Marbury. He's been enormously inconsistent and has looked really bad at times. He hasn't dominated a game this year at all, while there have been games where Jamal Crawford has taken over and a game where Channing Frye took over. It's conceivable that Brown is fucking with his head and that Brown's inconsistency is making it hard for Steph to know what to do. Not that Marbury is a winner to begin with, but he at least used to take over games in the 4th quarter.

Every game at this point is a toss up. If they win it's a surprise and if they lose then they invariably just look like they haven't gelled. I think Brown's odd roster decisions have played a part in that. I do like their potential, though. Crawford seems more under control this year. Curry looks good when he's not hurt or in fould trouble. Nate Robinson has been a spark plug, and will contribute more if he calms himself down and stops trying to drive the lane on the Ben Wallace's and Tim Duncan's of the league. I'm going to withold judgement at this point until the end of the season.