NCAA Liveblog 7: The waitress' view

My waitress here at Jocks & Jills is a lovely woman named Teri. You think you pull long hours? She signed up for a double shift today to make a few extra bucks. So productivity is down in offices all over America because people are watching the games, but on the other hand, waitresses get a windfall. So maybe it's a wash.

My mom was a waitress, which means two things: 1) I'm a big tipper, and 2) when I was in high school, my allowance was always a stack of dollar bills. I was the only 14-year-old in town fully equipped to go to a strip club.

Anyway, I watch waitresses. Teri is good. She regularly checks in but she never hovers. She'll tell you what's good on the menu and what's not. And she always calls you "hon."

She normally works the night shift because day-shift customers are stingy tippers. She pulls out a ticket that came to more than $50 and looks at the tip: $4.53. "At night the tip would be twice that much," she says. "We routinely get 15 or 20 bucks."

It's almost 3:30 p.m. and the crowd has thinned a little but it's still fairly crowded -- way more than a normal Thursday afternoon. Even better, Duke plays tonight. Big tips await.

Score updates: Marquette leads Kentucky by 2. Purdue leads Baylor by 2. UNLV pounding Kent State, 18-6. Pitt up 2 on Oral Roberts.

In case the games get boring, here's a diversion: my good friend Joe Posnanski's greatest screw-ups. Everyone in the newspaper business has some of these stories. Maybe at some point I'll devote a post to the greatest headline in Charlotte newspaper history. It involves the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.

UPDATE: I can't believe I didn't ask Teri the key question of the tournament. But she came back around and I had a chance for the follow-up.

So who tips better, Carolina fans or Duke fans?

"Carolina fans," Teri says. "No question."

NCAA Liveblog 6: Pleasure units

Scott Adams, the guy who draws "Dilbert," has a theory in one of his books that people survive on pleasure units -- that we all get pleasure out of certain things, and that we arrange our daily lives to accumulate the number of pleasure units we need to get us to the next day.

My alma mater gave me a big old stack of pleasure units today.

Georgia didn't win -- they went down 73-61 to Xavier -- but they led most of the game, and they made an incredible run just to get to the tournament, and they made us proud. (Georgia basketball is not exactly a proud tradition -- we're the school that gave our basketball players quizzes such as, "How many points in a three-point basket?")

For so many of us, sports is a big source of pleasure units. It's almost better if you know that the score really doesn't matter in the scope of the real world; not mattering means you can cheer as loud as you want and scream at the refs and fall on the floor in a heap when your team makes the shot at the buzzer. Loving sports means letting yourself go. And not much in the world is more pleasurable than that.

The first set of games is over -- congrats to Xavier, Kansas and Michigan State. And congrats to those of you who had all three in your pool (which would be pretty much everyone but me). The next slate of games has already started. Sit back and enjoy.

NCAA Liveblog 5: Us and our teams

So I'm sitting here rooting my guts out for a group of young men that I've never met and most likely never will meet.

All we have in common is that they are attending the University of Georgia, where I went to school more than 20 years ago. I don't have a clue if they share my values or my political views. I have no idea if we would get along for five minutes in the same room. But for the 40 minutes of this basketball game, they own my heart.

It sounds sort of pathetic when I say it like that.

But of course most of us have our teams, and they matter way more than any rational mind would think they should. In fact I'd say that our home teams matter even more these days, when we're all so spread out and everybody moves around so much. When I lived in Augusta, rooting for UGA was fun. Now that I'm two states away, it's more than that. It's something that draws me back home.

Already today I've heard from people living out in Arizona and out in L.A., where the games started at 9 in the morning. And I know as I write this that my buddy in Indianapolis is watching this, and probably my buddy in Japan too, although God knows what time it is over there. And if Georgia should pull the upset, we'll all be in touch and it'll be just like that night in our freshman year when we beat Kentucky and stayed up all night.

Well, WE didn't beat Kentucky. But you know what I mean.

Scoring update: Kansas up by 27. Michigan State up 15. Dawgs up by 7 with nine minutes left. Gulp.

NCAA Liveblog 4: Working man's lunch

Based on a quick survey of outfits, I'd say about 90 percent of the folks here in the sports bar are here on a workday.

I see lots of company ID badges on those cloth lanyards that are part of the 21st-century corporate worker's daily ensemble. But in a sports bar, nobody makes fun of you for having to wear an ID badge on a lanyard. Just the opposite -- it's a badge of honor. You're the guy who stuck it to the Man by sneaking out to catch some basketball at lunch.

Those guys, like me, are drinking soft -- tea or water or Cokes. The guys at the bar are wearing track suits and knocking back Bud Lights. Let's be charitable and say they probably work the night shift.

I think I mentioned that I can see 36 TVs from my post here at Jocks & Jills. Most of them are showing the three tournament games currently being played. A few show various channels from the ESPN universe. One TV is tuned to CNN. I'm not sure who would come to a sports bar to watch CNN with the sound off. I'm also not sure I'd like to meet that person.

Your scoring update: Kansas up 23 at halftime -- bye-bye, Portland State. Michigan State up nine on Temple. And your Georgia Bulldogs up 35-26 on Xavier. I am now officially afraid to watch the second half.

NCAA Liveblog 3: Hanging in there

Portland State is sort of hanging with Kansas -- they're only down six. Wait, now it's nine. Somehow six qualifies as "hanging" but nine does not.

Is there anything better in the tournament when the little school keeps the game close, then all of a sudden there's maybe 5 minutes left, and some kid who will never again play competitive basketball beyond his church league somehow drains a three, and the crowd is into it and the announcers are into it and you think this is it, it could really happen?

There are so many places in life where the underdog never wins, where the underdog basically CAN'T win. This is one of the reasons to love the tournament. Because sometimes the underdog does win. And in these first two days, game after game, the little guys hang in there.

Of course, in the time it took me to write that, Portland State went from down nine to down 18.

But in other news, Georgia leads Xavier by three near the end of the half.

Live the dream, baby.

NCAA Liveblog 2: Timeshifting

Right on the dot at 12:20 p.m., CBS shows The Montage: Jim Valvano looking for a hug. Christian Laettner making The Shot. That coach for Hampton wiggling like a bug as his player lifts him off the ground.

Goosebumps.

Jocks & Jills is two-thirds full and I can see three guys with laptops and half a dozen on their cell phones. I've heard that people occasionally wager on these games. Not anyone that I know, of course, but maybe you know someone.

We also have a case of the Sports Bar Time Shift, which happens when one TV is showing the over-the-air broadcast of a game and another TV is showing the satellite feed. There's about a three-second delay from one screen to the next, which is really weird if you can see them both. And the screen on the delay is also the big, hi-def screen -- so you end up either watching the tiny screen where the action happens first, or twisting around in your seat so you DON'T see it.

Forget those investment-firm buyouts. This is the sort of thing the federal government should be trying to fix.

Your first score update: Georgia 11, Xavier 8. I really should just leave right now.

NCAA Liveblog 1: Christmas in March

From where I'm sitting I can see 36 TV screens. A nice woman keeps bringing me sweet tea. My NCAA bracket is spread out before me. And the first games of the best two days in sports are about to begin.

Is this heaven?

No, it's a sports bar.

I'm in the Jocks & Jills on Tyvola Road, across from the old Coliseum (or, to be exact, the pile of rubble that used to be the old Coliseum). I'll be here for the next six hours or so, liveblogging two sets of games.

The good things about this gig:

-- Somehow, I'm getting to paid to do this.
-- Plus I think I'll get to expense out some chicken wings.

The bad things about this gig:

-- Charlotte Observer policy won't let me drink beer on the job.
-- Charlotte Observer policy definitely won't let me expense out beer on the job.
-- Charlotte Observer policy most definitely won't let me expense out tequila shots on the job.

So, as you can see, I am suffering here. That's OK. I can take it. The first games are about to begin, starting with my beloved Georgia Bulldogs facing off against mighty Xavier. Of course I have picked the Dawgs to win, because one of the great things about the tournament is that insane picks are always encouraged and sometimes rewarded. We shall see.

I'll be posting regular updates, so keep dropping by. Also post any NCAA thoughts in the comments, especially on the broadcasting -- I'm not sure I'll be able to hear the announcers here. Which is not such a bad thing unless the announcer is the brilliant Gus Johnson.

And if you're somewhere near Tyvola Road, come see me. I'll buy you a drink. But probably not a tequila shot.

Mock my bracket

This was the do-not-disturb card at the hotel room in Boston where we were staying over the weekend. (Click on the picture for a bigger version.)

I'm going to hang this on my door every March for the rest of my life.

Thursday and Friday -- the first two days of the NCAA tournament -- are the best two days of the sports year, and I will brook no argument about this. If you check back here on Thursday, I'll be liveblogging the day games (roughly from noon to 6) from a sports bar somewhere in town.

Some days this is not a bad job.

You can pick the regional winners and national champ on our Web site here. In the meantime, here are my picks, ready to be ridiculed. To cut down on space, for the early rounds I'll just name the upsets.

EAST

First round: St. Joe's over Oklahoma (11 seed over a 6 seed), South Alabama over Butler (10 over 7).
Second round: St. Joe's over Louisville (11 over 3).
Regional semis in Charlotte: UNC over Washington State, Tennessee over St. Joe's.
Regional final: UNC over Tennessee.

MIDWEST
First round: Kent State over UNLV (9 over 8), Kansas State over USC (11 over 6), Davidson (homer pick!) over Gonzaga (10 over 7).
Second round: I really want to pick Davidson over Georgetown, but Georgetown has a center named Roy Hibbert who is 7-2 and 275 pounds. I'm pretty sure Davidson has never had a player in its history who was 7-2 OR 275 pounds. But I am picking Clemson over Vanderbilt (5 over 4).
Regional semis: Clemson over Kansas (5 over 1!), Wisconsin over Georgetown (3 over 2).
Regional final: Wisconsin over Clemson.

SOUTH
First round: Oregon over Mississippi State (9 over 8), St. Mary's over Miami (10 over 7).
Regional semis: Pitt over Memphis (4 over 1), Texas over Stanford.
Regional final: Pitt over Texas (4 over 2).

WEST
First round: Texas A&M over BYU (9 0ver 8), Western Kentucky over Drake (12 over 5), Baylor over Purdue (11 over 6) and Georgia over Xavier (14 over 3). Every bracket needs one insane pick, and Georgia beat three teams in two days, plus a tornado, to make the tournament. Plus I went to school there. So I'm not about to pick against the Dawgs. At least in the first round.
Regional semis: UCLA over Connecticut, Duke over Baylor.
Regional final: UCLA over Duke.

FINAL FOUR
UNC over Wisconsin, UCLA over Pitt... and UNC beats UCLA in the final, 76-66. Ty Lawson is the MVP.

Mock my picks in the comments -- and add yours so the mocking can go both ways. Mocking all around! And more chicken wings!

Spring has splattered

Well, you know spring is coming because the daffodils are starting to bloom, and some mornings it's warm enough to sit on the porch, and birds have crapped all over my car.

I'm not sure what I have done to the bird kingdom. We have a feeder in the backyard and occasionally even fill it. Last year we let doves make a nest on the porch. We have several CDs by the Jayhawks (although none by the Eagles*).

*I'm totally stealing this footnote-in-the-blog thing from my friend Joe Posnanski, who probably stole it from David Foster Wallace or any number of other famous footnoters. OK, there probably aren't any number of other famous footnoters. The point is, does anyone really need to own an Eagles record? If you need to hear the Eagles, just turn on a classic-rock station or a country station or an easy-listening station and wait 15 minutes. One of the VH1 family of channels is probably playing the Eagles reunion show at this very moment. Yet the Eagles' first greatest-hits record is still the best-selling album of all time in the U.S. -- 29 million copies. That's an awful lot of people who just have to hear "Witchy Woman" RIGHT NOW.

It's possible that a bird perched outside our window might have seen me laugh at this story that compares Barack Obama to Bugs Bunny and Hillary Clinton to Daffy Duck. So it's possible that word got around the bird community that the guy in the green Camry was laughing at Daffy again.

Birds stick together.

Whatever the reason, this was not just the work of one bird. This was a whole squadron. They nailed the hood, the windshield, the windows, even the doors. I'd think it would be hard to hit a door from such a high angle. Maybe some birds are like those trick-shot artists in pool.

If you have ideas for keeping birds from dive-bombing your car -- ideas that don't involve a shotgun -- pass them on in the comments.

Oh, and I guess it goes without saying that I just got the car washed last week.

My new favorite comic strip

It's "Garfield." OK, not exactly "Garfield," but a better version -- addition by subtraction:

"Garfield" minus Garfield.

It's like a Greek tragedy designed by Andy Warhol. And a million jillion times better than the real "Garfield."

This gives me an opening for my comics rant (which our features editor has already heard about 100 times already).

I read the comics every single day -- it's a low-grade addiction, like chewing on pencils. I got hooked when I was growing up and now I can't shake them (the comics, not the pencils). But by the end of my life I'll have spent months of my precious time on comic strips that maybe, if I'm lucky, make me laugh once or twice a year.

The problem is that the people who love bad comic strips love them with the passion of a thousand burning suns. You can't touch those strips without getting furious letters from readers whose lives are ruined because we quit running "Beetle Bailey," never mind that "Beetle Bailey" hasn't been funny since, I'm guessing here, 1962.

"Family Circus" is untouchable -- untouchable! -- even though it has spent the last half a century rotating five Sunday ideas:

1. Follow the dotted line as the kids ramble around the neighborhood.
2. The kids ask a bunch of questions to an exasperated Mom and Dad.
3. Little Billy draws the strip!
4. Family ghosts comment from heaven.
5. Wisdom from Grandma.

(I would never recommend or link to any sort of vulgar satire regarding "Family Circus," but if you happened to Google the phrase "dysfunctional family circus," I would be powerless to stop you.)

I've told folks here at the paper that we need to have a Monday Morning Massacre -- one Monday, without warning, all the comics deadwood is gone. "Hagar"? Dead. "Cathy"? Dead. Neidermayer? Dead. (Sorry, lapsed into "Animal House" mode there...)

I'd keep "Zits," "Dilbert," "Doonesbury," "F Minus," "Frazz," "Baby Blues" and "Pickles." I'd put "Get Fuzzy," "Pearls Before Swine" and "Lio" on probation -- they have some promise but are mostly too clever for their own good.

My one nod to tradition would be keeping "Dennis the Menace," because he's drawn by Marcus Hamilton, who lives in Mint Hill and is a really nice guy.

Everything else goes in the recycle bin. Even "Peanuts," which is a great strip but violates my First Rule of Comic Strips: It's time to stop running a comic strip when the creator is dead.

OK, end of rant. Feel free to defend "The Lockhorns" or your other favorites in the comments. And if you have strips you like that we don't run, pass 'em on. I'm wondering how cool "Blondie" might be if you took Dagwood out...

Oscar picks (please, no wagering)

Every year I'm slightly handicapped in my Oscar picks by the fact that I rarely see any of the movies. This leads me to pick in sort of the same way that certain women pick football games by choosing the team with the best helmets.

Last year, however, was proof that even a blind hog gets an acorn now and then. I came in second in my friend Leigh Dyer's Oscar pool and won an "Animal House" DVD, which led to a few days of unsolicited movie quoting. (Dean Wormer: "The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me.")

My wife and I got Netflix for Christmas, which in theory should have caught us up on the best of 2007, but instead we've been watching stuff like "The Wizard of Oz." I am fully prepared to make Oscar predictions for 1939. Not so much for this year. But let's give it a shot anyway.

By the way, I'm only including categories where I can make a reasonable guess. I have NO idea who's going to win for best live-action short film, and if you do, why are you reading this?

Best Song: "Falling Slowly" from "Once"; "Raise It Up" from "August Rush"; "Happy Working Song," "So Close" and "That's How You Know" from "Enchanted."

"Once" was the only one of these movies I saw AND it was my favorite movie of the year. Plus the trailer for "August Rush" featured Robin Williams as a scruffy street musician. That's the moment I knew we wouldn't be seeing that one.

Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"; Ethan and Joel Coen, "No Country for Old Men"; Christopher Hampton, "Atonement"; Ronald Harwood, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"; Sarah Polley, "Away from Her."

Here's the problem with this category: To cast a legitimate vote, you'd have to see the movie AND read the book it was adapted from. Do people in Hollywood read books? They take meetings, they have lots of long lunches, but I don't think they actually read books. So I always pick the book that I figure most of them have at least heard of. Most of them have probably heard of Cormac McCarthy. So "No Country For Old Men" is the pick.

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"; Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, "No Country For Old Men"; Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"; Jason Reitman, "Juno"; Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell And The Butterfly."

To me this is a degree-of-difficulty category: Which movie was the hardest to put on the screen?

"Michael Clayton" -- George Clooney in a suit. Easy.

"Juno" -- Teen comedy with great supporting parts (Jennifer Garner, C.J. from "The West Wing," the guy who was the psychiatrist on "Law and Order"). Easy.

"There Will Be Blood" -- Just point Daniel Day-Lewis at the camera. Easy.

"No Country For Old Men" -- On the plus side, Tommy Lee Jones; on the minus side, nobody understands what it all means. Pretty hard.

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" -- Told from the point of view of a main character who can communicate only by blinking his left eye. Ladies and gentlemen, your winner.

Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, "I’m Not There"; Ruby Dee, "American Gangster"; Saoirse Ronan, "Atonement"; Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"; Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton."

Obviously, if you've read this far, you can see that I have no business giving anyone in Hollywood career advice. But here's Amy Ryan, nominated for an Oscar, and there's also Amy Smart and Amy Adams playing the same type of supporting roles. I have no idea which is which (although I liked whichever one was in "Junebug").

Amy is a nice name. But I might go with Amy-Lou or A.J. or something just to break out of the pack.

Anyway, Amy is not going to win. Every year the Oscar grants one unofficial lifetime achievement award, and this year it goes to Ruby Dee.

Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"; Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"; Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild"; Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Charlie Wilson’s War"; Tom Wilkinson, "Michael Clayton."

Here's the rule for supporting parts: If people who didn't see the movie know about the role, that's your winner. I didn't see "No Country For Old Men" but I know that Javier Bardem is the crazy killer with the cattle gun. He's a lock.

Not to mention that there is NO way you get an Oscar when you can fairly be described as "the less successful Affleck."

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"; Julie Christie, "Away from Her"; Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"; Laura Linney, "The Savages"; Ellen Page, "Juno."

Oscar voters don't always pick the most popular movie... but I'm guessing "Juno" has made more money than the other four movies combined, plus critics like it enough that voters can justify voting for Ellen Page while never revealing that they skipped the others for reruns of "Project Runway."

Best Actor: George Clooney, "Michael Clayton"; Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"; Johnny Depp, "Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"; Tommy Lee Jones, "In the Valley of Elah"; Viggo Mortensen, "Eastern Promises."

Look. I know Daniel Day-Lewis is a great actor. He's going to win the Oscar, no question. But here's the poster from "There Will Be Blood":


And here's a photo from his last big movie, "Gangs of New York":



Looks like the hat and the mustache are doing an awful lot of the work there. I'm just saying.

Best Picture: "Atonement," "Juno," "Michael Clayton," "No Country For Old Men," "There Will Be Blood."

Let me stop here for a second (as if this post isn't long enough already) to remind you of one of the great underdog moments in history -- "Rocky" winning Best Picture in 1976.

Now... "Rocky" is a GREAT movie. I could watch it a million times (and probably have, if you piece together all the times I've caught 30 minutes on late-night cable). I forgive Sylvester Stallone "Rocky V," "Rocky Balboa," all the "Rambo"s and even "Rhinestone" because he came up with the original "Rocky."

But there were four other nominees for Best Picture in 1976. One was "Bound For Glory," a Woody Guthrie bio that you probably didn't see. Here are the other three:

"All the President's Men."
"Network."
"Taxi Driver."

Those three movies make a lot of lists of the 20 greatest movies of all time. Yet somehow "Rocky" beat ALL THREE in the same year. This is a much bigger upset than Rocky going the distance with Apollo Creed. In fact, you can make a case that it's the biggest upset of all time:

3. Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32 (2007).

2. David b. Goliath, first-round TKO (approx. 600 BC).

1. "Rocky" over "All the President's Men," "Network" and "Taxi Driver" (1976).

I will say right off that "Juno" is the only Best Picture nominee I've seen (and just last weekend at that). It's great. But this has nothing to do with my highly detailed analysis.

From what I've heard, "Atonement" and "Michael Clayton" and "No Country For Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" are fine movies. They are also all dark and depressing dramas. Then there is "Juno," a smart and bouncy comedy.

One of these things is not like the others.

"Juno" it is.

Add your picks (and your rationale) in the comments and save me from myself.

Sum up Charlotte in six words

The story goes that Ernest Hemingway once claimed his finest work consisted of six words: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

The people at Smith magazine took that idea and ran with it, asking readers to send in six-word memoirs. They're now collected in a book, "Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs From Writers Famous and Obscure."

Some samples from the book:

Cursed with cancer, blessed with friends.



I still make coffee for two.



I like big butts, can't lie.


(Threw that last one in there to let you know they're not all bittersweet.)

So here's your challenge: How would you sum up Charlotte in six words?

Here's a few to get you started:

We tore that down years ago.

Don't go to church? Really? Hmmm....

Where Buffalo comes to get warm.

OK, this is harder than it looks. You can do better. Six words, no more, no less. Show us what you've got.

Ric Flair mash-up

I swear, this is not intended to be the Ric Flair tribute blog, but this is too good not to share. Introducing the Nature Boy as West Coast rapper:



(Created by the amazing Poodleface, found via the brilliant college-football blog Every Day Should Be Saturday)

The end of the affair

If you're under 30, or not a sports fan, I won't be able to get across to you just how big a deal it used to be when Sports Illustrated showed up in the mailbox.

My freshman year at the University of Georgia, Herschel Walker -- the greatest college football player of all time, and I will brook no argument about this -- announced that he was leaving school a year early to join the new United States Football League. On campus we talked about it for days, in shock, but it wasn't real until that Thursday afternoon when SI arrived and there he was on the cover in that freaking New Jersey Generals uniform.

No big sports event was over until you read SI. It was like talking about the concert on the drive home -- that's how you digested the event, savored it, figured out what it meant. I have never loved a publication (except for the ones I worked for) as much as I loved Sports Illustrated.

Which is why I've waited so long to admit that it's over.

I've found reasons to keep stringing it along. The photography is still fabulous. Gary Smith is still one of the top sportswriters in America. My wife still wears the SI sweatshirt we got for subscribing a few years ago and it's holding up pretty well.

But the Super Bowl clinched it for me.

My issue came Thursday and the coverage is just fine -- a solid game story, great photos, a meaty sidebar on the Giants' final drive from legendary NFL writer Paul "Dr. Z" Zimmerman.

But that was Thursday. The game was Sunday. And between then and now I've seen hours of ESPN's postgame shows, our paper's coverage, Bill Simmons' melancholy take on the loss of a perfect season, many startled takes on the sudden heroism of Eli Manning, a hundred replays of the miraculous play that turned the game around, and one story of how a Giants fan sneaked onto the team bus and into the locker room on the day of the victory parade.

In the 24/7 ESPN and Internet age, I'm not sure Sports Illustrated could've done anything to make the Super Bowl experience more interesting or rewarding four days after the fact. It's a keepsake for diehard Giants fans and that's about it.

This is an example of the problem most print publications are going through these days, especially the ones that make a living by making sense of last week's news. Time and Newsweek are in the same boat. Every issue starts out behind, and even when they're great, the collective wisdom of all the talk shows and newspaper pieces and blog posts is almost always better.

I realize, of course, that you can say the same thing about the newspaper I work for. We do have some advantages (journalistic if not business-wise). Our print product is daily, so it's fresher. We have a higher percentage of material you can't get anywhere else. And of course we're out here on the Web, like SI and everybody else, trying to figure out how to do good work and turn the kind of profits that magazines and newspapers are used to.

Sometimes we can make the whole thing work and sometimes we can't. But I can't imagine how hard it is to come out once a week, writing about sports, and still try to be relevant.

The little address sticker on my copy of SI -- it's not a sticker anymore, but you know what I mean -- shows that my subscription expires in December. I've subscribed for most of the last 30 years. But I'm not sure what's left to salvage at this point. Honey, I'll always love you, but we've grown apart.

The Panthers' Super Bowl

After watching them this season it seems like 10,000 years ago that the Carolina Panthers were in the Super Bowl. But I went back and checked the calendar and, yep, it was just four years ago that the Panthers lost to the New England Patriots 32-29 in the most exciting Super Bowl ever played.

How good was that game?

-- The two teams combined for five touchdowns and 37 total points in the fourth quarter. (The Panthers scored 19 points in the quarter; this past season they averaged just under 17 points a game.)

-- Jake Delhomme's 85-yard touchdown pass to Muhsin Muhammad was the longest play from scrimmage in Super Bowl history.

-- The Patriots' Adam Vinatieri kicked a field goal with 4 seconds left for the win.

-- Oh yeah, and Janet Jackson flashed her breast to the entire civilized world.

That was also the first and only Super Bowl I've been to -- the Observer sent, I'm making a rough guess here, 175 people to Houston to cover the game.

Three quick stories.

Story #1: I think I might have told this one in the paper before... So many media people come to the Super Bowl that there's no way to fit them all in the press box, so they turn a couple sections of stands in the upper level to media overflow. That's where my seat was. So I'm there an hour or so before the game, and another media guy scoots by me on the way to his seat, and a couple of minutes later I look down the row and notice that the guy is standing and gesturing. Apparently somebody is sitting in his seat.

They argue about it for a little while, pulling out their credentials and checking section numbers and so forth, and finally this bent-over old man gets up out of the seat and heads away from me and down the aisle. He totters down the steps -- his seat is God knows where -- and I can't help but feel sorry for the poor guy just trying to find his seat and cover the game. Then he turns his head and I can see his face.

It's Andy Rooney.

Did you ever notice that people don't like it when you sit in their seat at the Super Bowl?

Story #2: The great untold story of the Janet Jackson Wardrobe Malfunction is this: Most of us inside the stadium had no clue.

A lot of the fans were at the concession stands. A lot of the media people had their heads in their laptops. And a lot of the people watching the halftime show were looking at the field from hundreds of yards away; from there, Janet J. and Justin Timberlake were about the size of beetles. Nobody in my section had any idea that a live nude breast had appeared right in front of us.

Then, about 10 seconds after it happened, everybody's cell phone started ringing. And you could hear 70,000 people having the same conversation:

"Hello? See what? Her WHAT?"

Story #3: I wrote from Houston that whole week but had one last story that never got published.

You know how, seconds after every big sporting event, people at the scene are walking around with newspapers that say "RED SOX WIN" or something like that? Those pages are made up in advance -- they're not entire newspapers, just a front page -- and the hometown papers of both teams have them ready to go in case their team wins. It's great publicity for the paper and a cool souvenir for the fans.

The Observer had done up a front page that had a giant headline, a big photo and what we call a copy block -- just a few paragraphs under the photo. I had written the copy block -- which had to celebrate the Panthers' win without being able to describe any actual details of the game.

If I remember right, we had 10,000 of those ready to pass around the stadium if the Panthers won. I guess they got mulched. I still have one somewhere -- the front page that never got published. If I can dig it out I'll post it here sometime.

I don't know if this year's Patriots are the best team of all time, but they're going to win the Super Bowl -- they have the best players AND the best coach, and that's a rare combination. I can guarantee only one thing. It won't be as exciting as the Pats-Panthers Super Bowl. Not even if Tom Petty flashes a breast.

A Kays Gary moment

(FYI: I'll have a bonus post or two on the S.C. primaries today on the Primary Source blog... a little something on yard signs and maybe an early take on the pre-debate prep at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.)

On Wednesday I stopped in the fishing village of Little River, S.C., to talk to folks about the South Carolina primaries. I got out of my car and walked down to the docks and an older guy waved me over. His name is Tommy Long and he's the unofficial mayor of Little River (there's a little more about that in my column today).

I told Tommy that I work for the Charlotte newspaper and his eyes lit up. "I know a man from the Charlotte newspaper!" he said. "You ever hear of Kays Gary?"

Have I ever.

So many people in Charlotte are newcomers that most of you probably haven't heard of Kays. He was simply the best columnist in the history of the Charlotte Observer.

Kays wrote columns for the Observer from 1956 until he retired in 1986. Along the way he quit three times but he couldn't stay away -- he even wrote occasional columns from his place on the coast for years after he retired. He was so popular and so generous that people literally lined up in front of his desk every morning to talk to him. He died in 1997, leaving a connection with readers that none of us who have done the job since him could match.

The best compliment I get is "You remind me of Kays Gary." The comment that stings the most is "You'll never be as good as Kays Gary."

It turned out that Kays had come to Little River some 50 years ago to do a story and ran into Tommy Long. Tommy never forgot.

I wish I could link to a bunch of Kays' columns but there's not much on the Web. Last year, though, we reprinted his column on Dorothy Counts, the girl who helped integrate the Charlotte schools in 1957. It's his best-known column and an amazing piece of deadline poetry. Check it out.

Because of the Web I guess you could say all newspapers are global now -- who knows, you might be reading this in Beijing. But in print we (and most other large newspapers) have cut back our reach. I'm sure this makes business sense. But it used to be nice to know that you could find an Observer box in every mountain holler and every outpost on the Outer Banks. And over the years, Kays traveled to just about all those places chasing down stories.

Which is all a way of saying I wasn't surprised that a random guy in a tiny fishing village on the S.C. coast would say he used to know Kays Gary.

Resolutions the Seinfeld way

I've never been good at New Year's resolutions. Every year in my teens and 20s I made a resolution to dunk a basketball. Even back then I had the hops of a Galapagos turtle. And I didn't exactly acquire more hang time as I got older. So that resolution is pretty much dead unless I buy one of those Fisher-Price goals.

This year I approached the resolution thing a different way. Here are my three resolutions for 2008:

1. Exercise 30 minutes every day.
2. Eat healthy every day.
3. Write at least 500 words every day.

You notice the common thread of "every day." I used to have resolutions like "write a novel" or "run a 10K," but those are long-term goals and easy (at least for me) to give up on somewhere around, let's say, the second day of January. This year I'm going to try to accumulate small changes over time and hope they turn into something big. Sort of like throwing a few bucks every week into an IRA.

The way I'm keeping track is through a Seinfeld chain, which (if the story's true) comes from the way Jerry Seinfeld puts together his material. Every day that he writes something, he marks it on a calendar. Eventually the marks make a chain. And then the goal is not to break the chain.

This isn't an original idea, of course, but it's simple and effective -- if you don't break the chain, you're almost guaranteed to succeed at your larger goals. (A free printable Seinfeld chain is here -- make sure to get the leap-year version for '08.)

So what are your resolutions? And if you've actually kept any over the years, how'd you do it? Educate us in the comments.

The best of '07

Here's a list of the 10 things that stuck with me this year:

1. "Once." It's not a musical, even though the characters sing -- it's a movie about music, with characters who break into song in real-life situations. It's small, intimate, and unbelievably powerful. It played only a couple of weeks in Charlotte, but it just came out on DVD. See it.

2. Stevie Wonder at Bobcats Arena. Beyond all expectations. And worth it just for the country version of "Signed, Sealed & Delivered."

3. Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Joe Ely and Guy Clark at Ovens Auditorium. Four guys with acoustic guitars sitting around and trading off one brilliant song after another.

4. Joe Posnanski's blog. The UNCC grad and former Observer sportswriter supplements his prizewinning work at the Kansas City Star with this blog, which is mostly about baseball but a little bit about everything. Full disclosure: He's my buddy. He's also the best sportswriter in America.

5. Elvis Costello at the Blumenthal Center. Another acoustic show -- just Elvis and keyboardist Steve Nieve. Two-and-a-half hours and I could've listened to twice as much.

6. "Stardust." Another one of those low-expectations moments -- I went in not knowing much about it and came out charmed. For all those people who still watch "The Princess Bride" at least once a year.

7. "Cross-X," Joe Miller. I was a high-school debate geek, so this book is right in my wheelhouse, but I think other people will love it, too -- it's a study of brilliant, profane, infuriating and uplifting kids trying to blossom in an inner-city high school.

8. "The Simpsons Movie." My wife had no idea she liked the Simpsons until she went to this movie. Now she's a fan. "Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig, does whatever a Spider-Pig does..."

9. "Terry's Song," Bruce Springsteen. I didn't even know the name of this song until I just now looked it up -- it's a hidden track on the "Magic" CD. (It's the one with the chorus "When they built you, brother, they broke the mold.") Apparently Springsteen wrote it for his longtime friend Terry McGovern, who died in July. It's old-school Bruce -- simple and clear and wraps both its hands around your heart.

10. Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32. I had to work that Saturday; on the way to the office, I found the game on the radio and discovered App State was ahead. I came to the office and found my boss. "Did you hear about App State and Michigan? It's 28-17!" I said. "Wow, that's great," he said. A few minutes later he walked over to my desk. "Wait," he said, "you mean they're AHEAD?"

The game wasn't on TV and we couldn't go to a sports bar. So five or six of us at the office went online and logged on to the ESPN GameCast, which shows a little cartoon field and an update after every play. It was like finding out about the World Series via Morse code. But somehow that made it all the more exciting as App State lost the lead, then got it back, then blocked a field goal at the end for the huge upset. We ran around the room high-fiving and basically acting like goobers.

Sometimes the best moments are the smallest.

What's your list of favorite things from 2007? Let's see 'em below.

Panthers -- what a deal!

I'm not technologically advanced enough to copy the whole thing into this post, but I got an e-mail from the Panthers that shows just how much they have their fingers on the pulse of the Charlotte sports fan.

The e-mail offers a "rare sports experience" for the Panthers' game against the Dallas Cowboys in two weeks. Here's what you get:

One ticket in the corner of the upper level -- basically, the worst seats in the stadium.

A pass to the hospitality tent with free food, beer and wine for two hours before the game.

Appearances by the TopCats and Sir Purr.

So how much do you think the Panthers are charging?

...

(nope, higher...)

...

This great deal can be yours for only $285.

That's right. TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FIVE DOLLARS for an upper-deck ticket, some chicken wings and a quick peek at the TopCats.

I'm not sure I'd pay $2.85.

So here's my question: What, at this point in the season, would motivate you to pay $285 for a Panthers' ticket? Somehow I think the chance to see Matt Moore throw a pass -- and Keary Colbert, possibly, catch one -- doesn't quite cut it.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part -- it's $20 extra for parking.

More on the sheriff's race

I would not classify the reaction to my column today as "overwhelmingly positive." The word "idiot" has popped up several times in my e-mail -- OK, that always happens, but today even more than usual. Jeff Taylor, in his always-interesting Meck Deck blog, has pretty much the same reaction in a more nuanced way.

So let's look at some of the criticisms of how this all played out.

It wasn't a vote of the people. Well, it wasn't a general election, but it wasn't a bunch of politicians either. The 300-some people who voted were mostly precinct captains -- their main job is keeping polling places straight on Election Day. I saw a couple of people I knew at the meeting last night, and I had no idea until that moment that they had anything to do with local politics. Believe me, by and large, they're not insiders.

Also remember this: Jim Pendergraph got this ball rolling by leaving his job with three years left on his term. This process, screwed up as it was, was already in place. If we want to change the law to require a general election to fill unexpired terms, fine. But this was a fair and clean vote under current state law.

(By the way, if the sheriff had been a Republican, the same thing would have happened on the other side -- Republican elected officials and precinct officers would have picked the new sheriff. Somehow I think they wouldn't be so upset with the process then.)

Mackey's not qualified for the job. He's clearly not as qualified as Chipp Bailey was. And if we want to start appointing the sheriff like we appoint the police chief, fine with me.

But people vote for (and against) candidates for all sorts of reasons -- party affiliation, positions on one or two key issues, unfounded rumors, good hair. For example, Pendergraph took a strong stand against illegal immigration, and Bailey promised to carry out his policies. If you're in favor of fewer restrictions on immigration, wouldn't you have to consider Mackey?

And if qualifications for office were the sole factor, how would Bush v. Gore have turned out?

Mackey's crooked. This is the part that's hardest to shake -- he clearly was in some trouble when he was a Charlotte cop. The Observer went to court (and lost) in a fight to see his personnel file. You can expect us -- as well as all the other publications, TV stations, talk-show hosts and bloggers in the area -- to be watching him like a hawk. No sheriff in this county has ever been under the microscope that Nick Mackey is about to be under.

It's all about race. I'm not sure that's true -- as I said in my column, I talked to black committee members who planned to vote for Bailey and white ones who planned to vote for Mackey. The process was so confusing that I'm not clear even today if we'll be able to parse who voted for which candidate, which would make any racial breakdowns more clear.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that Mackey and his supporters worked the system to make sure a candidate of one race got this important job, and the candidate from the other race got shut out.

Where do you think they would have learned such a thing?

Have at it in the comments.

Some thoughts on Bruton, Slick Ric

I'm not sure I've ever seen a better "you write the caption" photo than the one on the front page of today's paper:



"My name is Bruton Smith. I just whined and threatened my way to 80 million bucks of government incentives. I'm gonna make a ton of money and the taxpayers are gonna foot the bill! It's great to be a billionaire! Whee!!!"

Three quick things before this story mercifully goes away:

1. Ronald Reagan used to talk about "welfare queens." So does Bruton qualify as a welfare king?

2. When Mecklenburg County spent millions of bucks on the Bobcats Arena, it was against the will of a lot of voters. But at least they got to vote.

3. How, exactly, is what Bruton did any different from what George Shinn did?

******

This might be the saddest paragraph I've written in a month. Ric Flair wrestled on the WWE card in Charlotte last night. He appears to have a comb-over.

Go here and skip to the second photo. On second thought, don't. It's too depressing.

My dad and I bonded many an hour over Mid-Atlantic Wrestling on TV. My athletic role models growing up were Hank Aaron, Dr. J and Ricky Steamboat. Which probably explains a lot. I never loved Ric Flair -- mainly because he was always the bad guy -- but even as a kid I understood how special he was. No one in has ever been so good on the mic AND in the ring. Ric Flair is, without a doubt, the greatest wrestler of all time.

So it is with love and respect that I say this: I hope he retires. Soon.

Last night he came to the ring in a suit, supposedly to announce his retirement in front of the hometown fans. But instead -- wrestling is full of swerves -- he vowed that he'd NEVER retire. Then the evil CEO Vince McMahon came out to say that the next time Ric loses, his career is over. Then he had to face WWE champ Randy Orton. Of course Flair won (although it wasn't for the title). He finished Orton off with a bolo punch to the gonads, then pulled the trunks for the pin.

I have the 3-DVD Ric Flair collection, so I can say this with some authority: It was a horrible match.

In the spirit of the season, I'll throw out this out there for free -- a storyline that will let Ric go out with dignity and style.

He announces that he's going to make one last run for the world title. Evil Vince McMahon makes him start at the bottom, wrestling the worst of the roster. He has trouble beating even those guys. (Remember, one loss and his career is over.)

But he works his way up the ladder, getting stronger with every win. Every so often we see a training video of Ric getting into peak shape for this one last run and talking about how much the title means to him. Through all the obstacles -- interference from the champ, a hand-picked thug brought in to stop him -- he keeps winning.

Finally, on pay-per-view, Flair gets his last title shot. And at the end of a grueling match, after escaping sure defeat half a dozen times, he locks in the Figure Four for the improbable win. (Wrestling is full of improbabilities.)

The next night on TV, he comes out to a standing ovation. He gives a tearful speech. And then he hangs it up, retiring as champion.

After that he can wear his hair any way he wants.

Give thanks here

This is sort of an open thread to say whatever you're thankful for this year. I'll start, briefly:

I'm thankful for Alix, my favorite wife of all time. I'm thankful for Fred, the best dog there ever was. I'm thankful for all our family and friends -- we both hit the lottery on those.

I'm thankful for the Tosco Music Party and late-night omelets at the Landmark and cool summer mornings on the front porch.

I'm thankful for readers.

And I'm thankful for Charlotte, which used to be the place where we lived, but over the years has turned into our home.

I'm thankful for about six million other things too, but the rest of this space is for y'all. Jump in and fill it up. And have a great Thanksgiving.

First impressions of the Lynx

This morning the Charlotte transit honchos had a media day so newsfolks could ride the Lynx train and, of course, give it some publicity. Because you probably didn't know that we had a new light-rail line about to open.

In other breaking news, the Panthers are pretty bad this year.

I'll have a column Sunday that takes more of a big-picture look at what light rail means to Charlotte. But in the meantime here are some quick first thoughts:

-- They're going to be working on the line right up until opening day a week from Saturday. We couldn't go all the way uptown today because crews were still doing electrical work.

-- The seats are comfortable and roomy, although a few spots -- at the front end of the car and right by the doors -- might be a squeeze for the big-n-tall among us.

-- There are 15 stops, so there's not much room to pick up speed, but the trains can go 55 mph and there's some open space on the south end of the line. I was surprised how fast the train was moving in a couple of spots.

-- Dress warm. The stations are open-air and if the wind's cutting -- like it was this morning -- there's nowhere to hide from it while you wait.

-- CATS must have outsourced the recorded voice that announces the stations. As we approached the Tyvola Road station, the friendly voice told us we were approaching "TIV-uh-luh." (In case you just moved here, it's "ty-VOLE-uh.") Within seconds, one of the honchos was calling the office: "Car 103 is still saying 'TIV-uh-luh.'"

Maybe we should just leave it. Great way to confuse the tourists.

So here's a quick poll about light rail. Are you inclined to:

1. Ride a lot to commute to work
2. Ride a lot for pleasure (Panthers games, etc.)
3. Ride sometimes
4. Ride occasionally
5. Never ride because you don't need it
6. Never ride out of principle (we're spending too much money on it, etc.)

Have at it in the comments. We'll have much more on the Lynx in the paper and online this weekend. Click here for a downloadable Lynx station guide.

Do election calls work?

It's 5 p.m. on Election Day and the phone rings -- a very nice woman named Patricia, who is supporting the school bonds and just wanted me to know I still had time to get out and vote. This marks the last of approximately 62,584 phone calls we got at our house this election season. I'm starting to hear Robin Hayes' voice in my sleep. Believe me, of all the voices I would like to hear in my sleep, Robin Hayes' does not make the list.

That was on top of the vote-for-me cards we got every day in the mail -- an identical pair for each candidate because my wife and I were on the mailing lists separately. If we'd stacked all the cards they would've been three feet high, or nearly half as high as the stack of cards begging us to get Time Warner digital phone service.

We'd listen to a couple of the calls on our answering machine early on, but there were so many toward the end that we deleted the message as soon as we heard a recorded voice. It's possible we won $10 million in a sweepstakes and deleted the call. We can live with that as long as we don't have to hear the mayor checking in with us again.

I do give props to City Council candidate David Romero, who at least called in person. We chatted for a good 20 seconds. I wanted to get off the phone before he offered to come cook us supper.

Here's my question: Does any of this stuff work? Did you learn anything about the candidates or the issues from the phone calls and mailers? Did any of this stuff make you vote a different way? Or do you wish there was a do-not-call list for politicians? Opine in the comments below.

(And by the way, if you're reading this before 7:30 p.m., Patricia's right -- there's still time to vote.)

Your best Halloween story?

I've always loved those round-the-campfire stories people tell at Halloween (or in other dark and scary moments). Ever since mankind figured out it was kind of fun to be scared, we've passed down these stories. I'm sure the Neanderthals spent long nights talking about the legend of the Headless Mastodon.

For me, the shortest stories are often the creepiest because they let your imagination fill in the blanks. I still get a chill when I think about sitting in the library in high school and watching the short film of Shirley Jackson's horror masterpiece "The Lottery." (The story itself is even better.)

So for this Halloween, here's what I want from you: Your best Halloween story, in 50 words or less.

My favorite ultra-short horror story is one I ran across in the preface to a Stephen King collection -- it's part of the story "Knock" by Fredric Brown. The story goes like this:


The last man on Earth was alone in a room.

There was a knock on the door.

There's only one story I can think of that's more scary:

The Panthers have to choose between a backup quarterback with a bad back, or a third-string quarterback with a bad foot.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

Post your tales of terror below.

Vegas, baby. Vegas.

Spent a little R&R time in Las Vegas last week. This was my second trip and so far I've managed to come back alive, unindicted, and still able to pay the mortgage. This time I even came back a little ahead, not because of any skill on my part but because of a lucky royal flush on video poker.

(That's my Official Gambling Tip: If you can draw a royal flush, by all means do.)

I'm not a big gambler but Vegas is still one of my favorite places because of the unparalleled people-watching and the five-star eavesdropping. (I overheard two conventioneers at a blackjack table seriously discussing whether they should hit a strip club or see Celine Dion.)

So I've been wondering what Charlotte could learn from Vegas, assuming that we're not going to install slot machines up and down Tryon Street anytime soon. Here's a few thoughts:

1. Create a central spot people HAVE to see. Vegas is a huge, sprawling city -- much like Charlotte -- but if you visit there you have to hit the Strip. There's nowhere here that people feel like they have to see. Uptown is a lot more lively than it used to be, but it's still spread out. We need an entertainment district that draws in tourists and locals.

2. Give people something to do when they get there. There's a lot to do in Vegas even if you don't gamble -- you can ride rollercoasters, play carnival games, even pose with terrifyingly lifelike wax figures. In uptown Charlotte there's not all that much to do, unless you're a kid at Discovery Place. We need stuff for people who like to do more than watch. (If there's not some sort of driving simulator at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, those guys are morons.)

3. Make parking easier. Time and time again I've heard people from the Charlotte suburbs say they don't come uptown for events because it's too hard -- and too expensive -- to park. In Vegas all the casinos have free parking decks. Maybe that's an option for our parking decks after 5 and on weekends.

4. Provide options at every price level. In Vegas, you can buy a $50 steak or a 99-cent hot dog. You can play the slots for $500 a shot or a penny a pull. Charlotte isn't as accessible across the board. It's harder to get cheap tickets to good events. We maximize our dollars -- a Charlotte virtue -- but we lose out on a little funk and fun. Plus, Vegas understands that a cheap meal (and a free parking space) is a loss leader.

5. Don't be afraid of shameless commerce. In Vegas, the glitzy billboards and flyers for various, uh, services are part of the scenery. In Charlotte, street musicians have to get permits and they won't even allow ads on city buses. Sometimes a little selling out is a good thing.

6. Wayne Newton. I don't really have anything to add, just, Wayne Newton.

Any other ways we could learn from Vegas? Or do you just have a good Vegas story? Add your tales of woe and blackjack in the comments.

The Friday Five

Some links to take with you this weekend:

1. The best commercial I've seen all year. You will never hear Phil Collins the same way again.

2. Seeing Elvis Costello the other night led me to this Elvis wiki with enough to satisfy a fan for days. (Here's the setlist from the Charlotte show.)

3. Scott Price is one of the best writers left at Sports Illustrated. In his college days, he wrote sports at UNC Chapel Hill at the same time a kid named Michael Jordan played there. This piece for the Oxford American talks a little about that, and more about what it's like to be a writer, especially a sportswriter. Mighty fine work.

4. I'm doing some work on a story about the Spongetones -- the Charlotte pop band that was huge here in the '80s and still plays to devoted crowds today. Their MySpace page is incredibly detailed -- it's like an encyclopedia of the band, complete with music and video.

5. Those of us who follow SEC football are obsessed with Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, one of the most hyped QB prospects ever -- it is quite possible, although he has never done so in a game, that he can simply vanish from the field and materialize in the end zone. I went to Georgia -- Florida's hated rival -- so of course I want to hate Tim Tebow. But he's making it really hard. This New York Times piece reveals him to be an interesting and (it hurts to say this) decent guy.

If you've run across cool stuff you want to share, link away in the comments. Have a great weekend.

Elvis review: Do lyrics matter?

Last night we saw Elvis Costello (with his longtime keyboardist Steve Nieve) at the Belk Theater. Tremendous show. Elvis is mellower now, even sort of charming, although the angry Elvis came out in the antiwar comments he sprinkled in between songs. Most of the crowd cheered, but he did get a few boos -- possibly the first boos in Belk Theater history.

Pretty cool to see that he can still stir people up.

But for most of the night I was thinking about lyrics. I'm a former music writer, and I will be sent straight to music-critic hell for saying this, but here it is: Most of the time, lyrics don't matter to me.

What moves me about music is the melody, the groove, the arrangement, the way the sounds blend and clash. Lyrics are part of that, but mostly for how they sound, not for what they mean. I was on my fourth R.E.M. album before I could understand a word Michael Stipe said. But that mumbly voice, paired with that music, was perfect.

Bob Dylan, on the other hand, is overrated. (Definitely going to music-critic hell now.)

I bring this up because Elvis Costello is an exception. He's such a gifted writer that you can parse his songs like a poem, but they also fit in with the sound of the song. Plus he has one of my two favorite couplets in rock history, from "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes":

I said "I'm so happy I could die"
She said "Drop dead" and left with another guy...

My other favorite couplet, from the Ramones' "Teenage Lobotomy":

Now I guess I'll have to tell 'em
That I got no cerebellum...

As you can see, I'm not exactly an intellectual when it comes to this stuff.

Got your own favorite lines? Reviews of the Elvis show? Or any Dylan fans out there who want to defend their guy? Fire away in the comments...

A Dot, and a Pearl

It's a busy Friday but I wanted to point y'all to a couple of things:

-- On Sunday I'll have a story in the paper about a momentous day in Charlotte history -- the day Dorothy Counts (now Dot Counts-Scoggins) integrated Harding High School. As of now (2 p.m. Friday), there's a slideshow on charlotte.com that serves as sort of a preview. On Sunday we'll have a story in the paper, plus photos, video and other extras online.

We'll also be running other stories this month about the events of September '57, including updates on the other three black children who integrated the Charlotte schools that day.

-- On a different subject: Back in 1986 I wrote a story on a guy named Pearl Fryar, who lives in Bishopville, S.C., and does amazing topiary work with the trees and plants in his yard. Pearl is one of my all-time favorite people. Well, now there's a documentary about him -- "A Man Named Pearl" -- and it's showing in Charlotte this week at the Regal Stonecrest 22. Larry Toppman, our movie critic, reviewed the movie in today's E&T (three stars!) and wrote about the filmmakers for Wednesday's paper.

I've seen the movie. It's great, and you will love Pearl Fryar. Go check it out.

School overcrowding -- old news

Lately I've been combing through a bunch of old Observers from 50 years ago. (It's for a project that will show up in the paper in a few weeks; that's the reason I haven't written as many columns lately.)

The front page of the paper from Sept. 4, 1957, has a story with the headline "Area Schools Expect 52,000." That's less than half the size of the Char-Meck school system today.

Here's a couple of paragraphs from the story:

"Five new schools and additions at 13 other schools are now open or will soon be completed in an attempt to relieve pressure of the ever increasing pupil load.

"Despite this, double sessions and staggered sessions will still be necessary at some schools both in city and county."

School overcrowding in Charlotte is a lot of things -- divisive, contentious, frustrating, damaging, painful.

The one thing it's not is new.

It's so hot in Charlotte...

On Monday I was down in Columbia to hang out with some of the fabulous folks at The State newspaper. We talked a lot about the heat.

As many of you know, Columbia is the hottest place in the South and one of the hottest places not located directly on the surface of the sun. Today in Columbia it was a balmy 102 degrees. The good news is, there's also humidity. You can leave a live chicken and a can of Crisco on the sidewalk and come back to find an 8-piece box.

So in honor of the heat (and in tribute to Johnny Carson) The State asked readers to finish the sentence: "It's so hot in Columbia that..."

You can see the results here. And although a couple are fairly funny, I have to think the intelligent and sophisticated residents of Charlotte can do better.

And it was 100 degrees here today, so you don't want to be going outside, right?

So let's hear it in the comments: It's so hot in Charlotte...

Bonus points for local references, of course.

Time to make some trades

If you follow sports you know that this was a big week for trades. In the NBA, the Boston Celtics traded half their team -- and, I think, the old Boston Garden parquet -- for superstar Kevin Garnett.

The baseball trading deadline was also this week, and a bunch of deals went down -- the main one being in Atlanta, where the Braves traded one hard-to-pronounce player for another.

It's always fun to fantasize about sports trades. But here's your challenge for the day: Come up with a Carolinas trade that DOESN'T involve sports.

For example: We went to Baltimore a few weeks ago. I'd trade uptown Charlotte for downtown Baltimore in a heartbeat. Baltimore has a harbor, a fabulous aquarium, a neoclassic baseball park, and the beautiful and disturbing American Visionary Arts Museum.

Our uptown is a lot better than it was 10 years ago. It's an up-and-comer. But downtown Baltimore is a proven veteran. I'd make the deal.

Sports trades have two unofficial rules:

1) You trade value for value. Nobody's going to give you Paris if you're offering Pineville. Sometimes you have to throw in a little extra -- if we're swapping downtowns with Baltimore, maybe we have to toss in SouthPark to sweeten the deal.

2) Having said that, you want to get the best of the deal, but you want the other guy to think HE got the best of it.

So that's the idea. Would you trade our mayor for some other leader of roughly equal value? Our trees for some other city's nightlife? Would you give away a great Carolinas barbecue joint for somebody else's crab shack?

Start dealing below. And justify your trades. The commissioner (um, me) has final authority over all transactions. Don't make me start testing for steroids.

Dying in threes?

Every newspaper I've ever worked for, or known much about, subscribes to the same legend -- that the deaths of famous people always come in threes.

Whenever a couple of celebrities die on the same day, somebody in the newsroom always wonders who'll be the third to take the fall. (Newspeople have the same strain of black humor that you find among EMTs, social workers, cops -- folks who see the dark side of life up close every day.)

So when I checked the news Monday morning and saw that Ingmar Bergman and Tom Snyder had died, my reflex thought was: "Who's next?"

Bill Walsh obliged.

(That's an interesting group, by the way. I'm not highbrow enough to know much about Bergman, except that one of his famous scenes was ripped off in one of the "Bill & Ted" movies. Tom Snyder I knew a little -- mainly because the theme to his show was the flip side of one of the first singles I ever bought, the Brothers Johnson's immortal "Get The Funk Out Ma Face." And I hated Bill Walsh when he coached the San Francisco 49ers because they CRUSHED my then-beloved Atlanta Falcons for, like, eight years straight. Plus he trained George Seifert, who later led the Panthers to a 1-15 season. Maybe we should just move on.)

I'm sure that those of you who are statistically inclined could say that famous people die all the time -- especially if you're willing to stretch your definition of famous people -- and so we've just conditioned ourselves to notice them in groups of three.

Can't argue with that.

But I think life is better when there are mysteries. One of my old college roommates swore that there was some weird electrical pulse in his body that made streetlights go out when he walked by. And, in fact, I saw this happen at least half a dozen times. Of course, I've seen streetlights go out at least 100 times when he wasn't around. But I'm still gonna go with that pulse thing until I hear different.

Noticed any interesting stuff that you can't quite explain? Speculate away in the comments. (But stay away from UFOs. I mean, at this point, who hasn't seen a UFO?)

Shed a tear for Bat Boy

Sad news from Florida -- the Weekly World News is going six feet under.

If you don't know the Weekly World News, clearly you have not spent any time over the last 20 years in a supermarket. The WWN used to sit in the rack near the checkout of every grocery store and Jiffy Mart in America. It had the eerie ability to leap right off the rack and into your hands. I swear, sometimes I'd get home and unload my bags and find it hiding in there, next to the Wheaties.

Sample headlines:

WORLD'S SMARTEST APE GOES TO COLLEGE

BIGFOOT KEPT LUMBERJACK AS LOVE SLAVE

PHOTO OF ELVIS CURED MY CANCER!

As you can see, the Weekly World News held itself to the highest journalistic standards.

The WWN actually had a Charlotte connection -- Eddie Clontz, who was the editor for years, grew up here. His brother, Derek, also worked for the paper. Eddie died in 2004 -- devoured by the Loch Ness Monster, I'm guessing.

The Weekly world News' greatest story was the continuing saga of Bat Boy, a (duh) half-bat, half-boy who was discovered in a cave in 1992. He turned up every year or two -- in fact, people who didn't read the WWN might not know this, but Bat Boy led U.S. troops into Iraq in the War on Terror. He also became the subject of an off-Broadway musical.

(Believe it or not, that last sentence is true.)

The paper also checked in regularly with a space alien who endorsed presidential candidates. The alien endorsed George W. Bush in 2004. So there's still hope that aliens might not be smarter than us after all.

Apparently the Weekly World News will remain on the Web -- good news for the people who need a regular dose of columnist Ed Anger. But it's easy to see why the print edition is shutting down. The WWN had to compete at the checkout rack with People, Us and Entertainment Weekly.

And frankly, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears are battier than Bat Boy ever was.

Got a favorite tabloid story? Add favorite stories, UFO sightings, etc., in the comments.

Which sport do I watch now?

When I was a kid, I wasn't sure what I was going to be when I grew up, but I had it narrowed down to three things:

1. Professional baseball player.
2. Professional football player.
3. Professional basketball player.


OK, so my worldview was sort of narrow when I was a kid. (Actually, my real dream was "Professional kickball player," but I never could find a kickball game on TV, not even on "Wide World of Sports.")

Even then I knew that sports weren't all pure and beautiful -- I think a couple of the pitchers in my Little League years were already paying child support. But when you were watching a game -- or, especially, playing one -- you could escape the real world for awhile.

So let's take a look at my childhood dream jobs.

-- In baseball, the home-run record -- the most important record in sports -- is about to belong to a guy (Barry Bonds) who almost certainly took steroids to pad his stats.

-- In football, one of the game's best and most popular players (Michael Vick) is accused of setting up a dogfighting operation -- and killing the pit bulls that didn't measure up.

-- In basketball, a referee (Tim Donaghy) is accused of betting on games and giving big gamblers key info to help them beat the odds. It's a small step from there to the idea that he changed the outcome of games by calling fouls -- or not calling them -- at key moments.

I really try not to be one of those fogeys who talk about how much better life was back then. Mainly because I don't think it's true.

But July 2007 is a crappy time to be a sports-loving kid.

A Harry Potter confession

This will probably not do much for my street cred among writers, book lovers, and especially the folks chewing their nails waiting for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" to land in their hands at 12:01 Saturday morning.

But here goes anyway.

I haven't read a single Harry Potter book. Not one page. Not one line.

My wife loves them, and we've been to see the HP movies together, and I like those just fine. But I can't quite make myself crack open one of the books. Even though roughly 171,000 people have told me how great they are and how my life will not be complete without them.

I can't explain how a professional writer has managed to miss out entirely on the most popular books in the last 50 years. I have three lame excuses:

One, I tend to resist things that people tell me my life will not be complete without. (I've never watched "Lost," either.)

Two, we're always bringing home books -- from work, bookstores, the library -- and I always find something I want to read just a little bit more. (This week's diversion: "Can I Keep My Jersey?", a smart and funny tale of life on the fringes of pro basketball by journeyman Paul Shirley.)

And three, the Harry Potter books are so popular that they're floating around in the ether -- they're in the news all the time, part of the chatter at the office, etc. You know all the basics without even picking up the books. They're so much a part of daily conversation when a new one comes out that millions of readers spent this week trying to AVOID hearing about it, lest they hear spoilers.

(Where did that "lest" come from? I'd never use "lest" in a real conversation. But it seems right for wizardry chat.)

Anyway, we've got the books, and we'll be acquiring the new one this weekend, so I'll probably take a vacation sometime and tackle the whole series end-to-end. But this leads to a question:

Is there some cultural touchstone that you've just never gotten around to touching?

Never seen "The Wizard of Oz?" Never listened to "Sgt. Pepper" all the way through? Never read any of Oprah's picks?

'Fess up in the comments.

What did you walk out on?

Generally, I'm a stay-to-the-end guy. Doesn't matter if the game is boring or the movie makes no sense or the lead singer can't hit a note with a tennis racket. Sometimes it's more fun to watch bad stuff than good stuff. Sometimes you might leave just before something great happens. And I've never cared about beating traffic.

Still, this Chicago Tribune blog post about walking out on movies made me go back and remember. I can think of two things I walked out on.

-- When I was in high school, the movie "Tess" came out. Here's the imdb.com description: A young strong-willed peasant girl, becomes the affection of two men, in the end tragically falling into the arms of one.

Just the kind of movie your typical teenage boy would love. In hell.

Best I can remember, I went for two reasons: 1) I had a crush on a girl who worked at the theater, and 2) The movie starred Nastassja Kinski, and I thought there was a chance she might get naked. I never found out about 2) because I fell asleep about 15 minutes in. When I woke up, men in Victorian wear were giving long speeches. So I left.

-- The other event I walked out on was in 1995, when my beloved Georgia Bulldogs played our hated rivals, the Florida Gators, in Athens. It was a special event because the teams usually play on a neutral field in Jacksonville. It turned out not to be a special event when Florida went up 35-0 in, I think, the second quarter. By then I was already halfway to my car. The final score was 52-17.

It hurt just to write that.

So... Have you ever been to something that was so bad you walked out? Or did something make you walk out for another reason (too scary, too loud, etc.)? Add your candidates in the comments.

Go see this movie

My wife will testify to this: I don't cry at movies. (Maybe "Brian's Song," but hey, I was 10.)

Sunday night we went to see "Once." I misted up about a third of the way in. By the end, we both had to just sit there for a few minutes before we could breathe. And I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

I've seen movies that were more polished, better-acted, probably even movies with better music. But I can't remember another movie that hit me this hard.

The plot is simple. An Irish street musician acquires a fan -- a Czech immigrant girl. It turns out she's a musician too. They play together and discover a connection that goes beyond words -- and beyond their complicated personal lives.

It's a musical, but not in any traditional way. The characters don't suddenly, artificially break into song; they're musicians, so the songs rise naturally out of whatever they're doing at the moment. The lead actors (Glen Hansard of Irish band the Frames, and Czech singer Marketa Irglova) wrote and sing the songs.

And the past two paragraphs don't even come close to describing how powerful this movie is.

To me there's no stronger artistic force in the universe than a great three-minute song. "Once" is full of them, and as they unfold in the movie -- as you get to know the characters and root for them -- every chord change matters.

It's rated R, which blows my mind. The characters know and love the F-word, but I promise you, there is nothing else in the movie that's offensive in any way. The lessons from the movie are so rich that, if I were a parent, I'd take my teenager in a heartbeat.

At work today, those of us who've seen it have formed a little cult. "And then the scene at the music store..." "And then the scene with his dad..."

Now that I've read all this I realize it sounds like a mushy love letter. Sorry about that. But after "Once" was over I went home, read about it online and downloaded the soundtrack. It's on my iPod right now. I can't recommend the movie highly enough.

Go see for yourself. Then come back here and tell me what you thought.

In the meantime, here's a YouTube of the two leads playing a song from the movie at the Sundance Film Festival.

Disappearing Charlotte icons

This month marks 18 years since I started at the Observer. (I was 7 when they hired me. Labor laws were different then.)

I was thinking the other day about how many Charlotte icons from back then have already disappeared. Charlotte has always been Churn City -- we do more reinventing than a plastic surgeon -- but when I started writing things down, I was amazed how much has vanished in less than two decades.

I'm not even talking about the big stuff, like the Coliseum or the PTL Club. I'm just thinking about little touchstones that meant something to me for one reason or another.

Here's a quick list:

10. The Bootery and Bloomery

When I got to Charlotte, if you headed out of uptown on Independence Boulevard, you came to a hard left just past the John Belk Freeway. Right in front of you as you made the turn were two stores -- a Krispy Kreme and the Bootery and Bloomery.

Krispy Kreme you know about. The Bootery and Bloomery had display windows that featured lots of lingerie and fishnet stockings. Let me tell you, there were no stores like that where I grew up. At one time they apparently had live models in the display windows. I always wondered how many teenage boys wrecked their cars in that spot.

9. The Scoreboard

This was a giant sports bar further out Independence, almost to Matthews. It's been about eight different things since the Scoreboard closed. When it opened, it was the first sports bar I'd ever been to with little speakers at every table that you could tune to whatever game was on. Plus the seats at the bar swiveled so you could check on five or six games at once. It was like I had ordered the place direct from heaven.

I was with a group of buddies at the Scoreboard in 1992 for Duke-Kentucky, the greatest college basketball game ever played. I didn't have a dog in the hunt -- I went to Georgia -- so I decided to root for Kentucky, my fellow Southeastern Conference school. A Duke guy across the bar picked up on this and started talking trash my way. Actually, he was talking trash everybody's way. It's possible, based on Duke's demographic statistics, that he might have been from New Jersey.

With 7.8 seconds left, Christian Laettner made two free throws to put Duke up 102-101. The Duke guy jumped up in his seat, screamed for joy and flipped me a bird. But then a Kentucky player made an absurd running bank shot with 2.1 seconds left to put Kentucky up 103-102.

Duke called a timeout. Duke Guy was distraught beyond words. He silently got up and left the bar.

HE LEFT THE BAR.

You probably know what happened next: Laettner caught a full-court pass from Grant Hill, took a quick dribble, and drained a fallaway at the buzzer to win the game for Duke.

I think I would have given the contents of my checking account at the time ($27.63) to see the look on that guy's face when he heard the screams from inside the bar.

8. Hello Henry

Henry Boggan was the evening talk-show host on WBT radio from 1979 to 1996. He was moderate, folksy and kind. He listened more than he talked. He would have absolutely no shot at a job in radio today.

7. Random wrestler encounters

As Tom Sorensen wrote Tuesday, Charlotte used to be a pro wrestling town. Some wrestlers still live here -- led by Ric Flair, of course -- but you used to see them everywhere.

One day in Rock Hill I was getting gas, a blue Cadillac pulled up to the next pump, and Ivan Koloff got out. I stalled a little when it came time to pay so I could walk in behind him. I craned my neck the best I could, but I never could see if IVAN KOLOFF was stamped on his MasterCard.

Once he was the most evil of all the evil Russian wrestlers.

These days, Ivan does weddings.

6. Newsstand International

OK, this is getting long so I'll pick up the pace. Newsstand International used to be the only place in town you could get out-of-town papers and obscure magazines (I mean in the non-pornographic way, but if I remember right they could help you out there too.) The first place I found it was in a shopping center tucked into an apartment complex off Providence Road. Then it was on Independence for awhile, then it moved to East Morehead, then it closed. Too many Barnes & Nobles.

5. Andersons

We wrote 372 stories on Andersons when it closed last year, so I won't linger on it, except for two things:

-- I met Peter Gorman for breakfast there after he had been in town a month, and the waitress already knew what to bring him.

-- A Starbucks is going in there. Then again, a Starbucks is going in everywhere.

4. The Shrine Bowl

This is a high-school all-star game, North Carolina vs. South Carolina. For years they played it at Memorial Stadium next to Central Piedmont Community College. The Carolinas always have a few major-college prospects, so going to the Shrine Bowl was always a fun way to blow a Saturday.

In the early '90s I saw a Spartanburg High running back named Steve Davis fly past N.C. tacklers. Years later, as Stephen Davis, he starred for the Carolina Panthers.

They still play the Shrine Bowl but now it's in... Spartanburg. Steve Davis must have REALLY impressed the Shriners.

3. Repo Records

Not only was this the coolest record store in town, not only did it have the weirdest cashiers, not only was it the place where I first heard Southern Culture on the Skids, but it was also the place where I sold some used cassettes for gas money before I got my first Observer paycheck. So I'll always be grateful.

2. Kenny Gattison

I know it's hard to believe, with all the yawning empty seats at Bobcats games, but Charlotte was absolutely insane about the Charlotte Hornets. Lots of people loved Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning and Muggsy Bogues. I loved Kenny Gattison.

In his NBA career (including six years with the Hornets) he averaged 8 points, 5 rebounds, 3 personal fouls and approximately 19 scattered bodies a game. It seemed like every time he went up for a rebound, the opposing forward went down to the floor. Which explains all those personal fouls.

He was not blessed with a lot of natural gifts, but he worked and hustled and bulldozed his way to success. Which is pretty much the way I think of Charlotte.

1. The Pterodactyl Club

I went there all the time when I first got to town. Some of those nights I don't remember. Some I didn't recall even as they were happening. The Pterodactyl was over at Morehead and Freedom Drive, and there were always sketchy characters in the parking lot, and since this is meant to be a tribute, we won't talk about the bathrooms.

But it had lots of room and cold beer and great bands. I saw They Might Be Giants in there one night and it changed my life.

Geeks like me, dancing.

OK. This was a long list. I'm whipped. What Charlotte icons do YOU miss?

Back at the paragraph factory

So how y'all been?

I'm back at work today after taking a few weeks off to relax, visit family and friends, do some quality porch-sitting with Fred the hound dog, that sort of thing. I also spent a few days in Memphis, checking out the great Stax Museum and playing cards with the brilliant sportswriter Joe Posnanski, who... well, let him tell it. And buy his book.

Toward the end of the vacation I got a little antsy and spent a couple hours redesigning the blog. You should have seen it -- cool green palette, funky fonts, the whole deal.

It turns out this was a very bad idea.

Along the way I erased some of the code that our Web staff uses to count visitors, display the Charlotte.com logo, send you spam from Nigeria, etc. It is also possible, this being the Internets, that I might have unintentionally launched a nuclear missile. Sorry, tech folks, and sorry, North Korea.

I did keep a new photo and blogroll and such. Of course, now that I've done all this work on how the site looks, I guess I should actually POST now and then.

So to get things started, a few links that I browsed while on vacation:

-- This guy does astonishing things with an Etch-a-Sketch.

-- This guy is my favorite author in the world right now, and his latest book kept me up until 2 in the morning last week.

-- This guy knows the (unfortunately) true secrets of a lot of journalism these days.

-- And these guys just put out a really good record. Go buy it. (And they're playing Ovens on Wednesday!)

One more thing: I'm still looking for folks who were students or teachers in Charlotte when Dorothy Counts and other black students integrated the schools here in 1957. Give me a holler at 704-358-5227 or ttomlinson@charlotteobserver.com.

So what's on your mind these days? Comment below. It's good to be back.