The Redemption of Aaron Rodgers

You made an enemy out of me long ago, Aaron Rodgers.  I remember the day very clearly, because it was actually two days.  In September of 2003, you quarterbacked the Cal Bears to a triple-overtime victory over my beloved USC Trojans.  That’s more than enough to put you squarely in the Book of Ross (I have no idea why that’s capitalized) as an enemy of the state, along with the likes of Tiger Woods, Jim Gray, and the people who sell those ion bracelets.  Thirteen months later, you almost beat them again, and in dramatic fashion, by completing your first 23 passes -- and it scorched my insides to watch.  You were so efficient, so methodical, so precise, so.... - excellent - that day, and I despised you for it.  You don’t get to do that to my team and not incur the wrath.  The battle was begun....

Consider this my surrender, Mr. Rodgers.*  I’m sure that you crave my respect and adoration, so here it is.

I can’t pinpoint a single instance when I stopped hating you.  It must have happened subtly, like how I’ve aged.  But I think I became a fan for the same reason your name was written in the book: excellence.  You completed 23 consecutive passes against USC in November of 2004.  It was like watching Norm Abram build an armoire from scratch, conjuring beauty and functionality out of pure tree.  The state of fervor that I was in at the time didn’t allow me to see it that way; I saw it as an affront to my team, an attack on my vicarious living through USC, even though we won that game.  

Then you went to draft day 2005, to discover your football destiny. You sat and watched as the San Francisco 49ers lay one of the great NFL draft turds in history by selecting Alex Smith with the first pick.  You took that with grace, and sat and waited some more (probably the better part of two hours) until you were chosen by a team that didn’t need you.  I was positively flummoxed when the Packers picked you with their only first round selection, because no quarterback situation has ever been less in doubt than the Packers and Brett Favre.  So why pick a backup quarterback that early in the draft?  It didn’t make sense, but as my therapist once said, it doesn’t make sense to you, but it makes sense to someone.  (Believe it, or don’t, but that double-talk makes incredible sense.)  

So you went to Green Bay, and for three seasons sat and watched as the Great Brett Favre** sucked the love out of the frozen tundra of Lambeau.  But patiently.  Patiently waited for Brett to start self-imploding.  Retrospect tells us Favre was already on the way to being run out of Wisconsin, looking forward to retiring several times and playing both the best and indescribably worst seasons of his life.  And while he was doing that, you were just getting better.

On Sunday you finished it.  You won the Super Bowl with the world’s most beat up team around you.  You were unflappable in the presence of your brick-handed receivers.  You weren’t dazzled by the bright lights of The JJ-Dome, or the bizarre and horrendous halftime show (seriously, the Black-Eyed Peas need to go away; the SB Halftime show is becoming a swan song.)  You were not in the least frightened by the vaunted Steelers defense; in fact, I think you could tell they were too old to catch you.  Overall, your game wasn’t flawless, but it was without major flaw.  It was the epitome of excellence.  

It occurs to me now that I became a fan not because something about you changed, or that you’re more likeable now, or that you renounced your allegiance to Cal.  I’m a fan now because something in me changed: I appreciate excellence like I never have before.  We live in an age were average is good enough for most, including me.  But I can’t watch excellence in action and still believe in mediocre, not anymore.  

So here’s to you, Aaron Rodgers.  You’re my favorite player...

I just wish you were a Cowboy.

rossnation... salutes you.

*Don’t think for a minute I don’t see the funny.

**Denotes extreme sarcasm and hyperbole.

Life as a Bell Curve: Theories that Kinda Make Sense

I don’t know that there’s any reason to try and put the mysteries of life into words.  Finer writers than I have given that a go (Balzac, Hemingway, Clancy, Grisham, etc.), but we’re never really going to do better than “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”  I’m gonna give it a shot anyway, just because that’s how I do.  And also I noticed an intriguing correlation the other day, which I will share herein.

I bought a new bed on Friday, and this is only remarkable to me, but for several reasons.  To begin with, it was time, and we’ll leave it at that.  Beyond that, I’ve never owned a brand-new bed, at least not since it was my responsibility to provide it.  They’ve all been hand-me-downs to some degree, and nothing to write home about (but a column, clearly.)  My new bed?  It deserves a few words, because it is... bizarre.  

I suppose you don’t really get a good look at the mattresses on the showroom floor; as it turns out, they’re just a tad bigger when you get them home.  School lesson for the day: a “tad” is a technical term, used in engineering and creative writing, whose exact value is 10 times.  So picture in your minds eye a monstrosity of a bed that fills up half of my tiny little bachelor bedroom.  And I don’t mean half of the square footage, I’m talking the whole three-dimensional space, cubic feet.

I should also mention that I’ve never owned an actual bed, with a headboard and a footboard, a truly adult piece of furniture.  So the bed and the mattress form a mass about the size of a double wide trailer.  This bed is pushed up against one wall, leaving about two feet on the other wall, just enough to fit my tiny night table and the set of dog stairs that I’m gonna have to put there.  They’ll be for me, not my nonexistent dog, because the bed is also 4 feet tall.  I climb into this bed, quite literally.  And this is the apex of the bell curve -- the 5 or 10 years when someone can have a bed the size of a Datsun.  You certainly can’t have one when you’re young; that’s the kind of parenting that’ll get you in the papers.  And giving an Old person a bed of this magnitude would be cruel.  And hilarious.

There’s much to be said,

From the size of one’s bed.

Whether tiny or skinny or plush.

The short and squat,

Perfect for the tot,

And also for old and flush.

The monstrous berth,

Right for large girth,

But not the feint of heart.

Only young and spry, 

With a gleam in the eye,

Should fork out six hundred bucks for a bed that’s too tall to fall into when they’re exhausted after work or have had too many adult beverages.  That’s just not good business.

So it’s not exactly Ezra Pound, but the spirit of the poet is in the air, hovering over my gigantic bed.  

And I know what you’re all thinking; yes, I do have a very strange apartment.

strangeapartment... out.