When I was a kid (around 4 or 5 years old) I wanted to be Evel Knievel. I still have some of the scars. Once my uncle decided to pull me on a skateboard behind his bike. I laid down on the board and he tied the rope to his seat. He started pedaling and we took off. It was great. That is until a crack in the sidewalk appeared. The skateboard stopped but I kept going. I face planted on the concrete. For some reason I didn’t let go of the rope. Now I have a scar under my lip.
Evel had retired by the time I was that age, but he was still an icon. Now the legendary daredevil is dead. You would think that with his lifestyle a stunt gone bad would’ve taken him long ago. Yet he lived through them all. Here’s a little video to remember him by:
I haven’t mentioned it here because I didn’t want to jinx it but I applied to the University of Texas. I was hoping to get in for the spring semester. I was supposed to hear something by mid-November and still hadn’t heard anything as of today. I decided to check the application website to see if there was anything posted yet as my "official correspondence" hadn’t arrived yet. I logged in and saw what I had been suspecting and dreading all along:
"
After careful review of applications from a highly-competitive pool of applicants, the
Admissions Committee at UT Austin is not able to offer you admission at this
time."
It wasn’t really a shock. I had been preparing myself for this when I received no word by Thanksgiving. It still stung though. This was a school that I had wanted to attend all my life. When I did go away to college, I compromised what I wanted and went to the place that offered me the best scholarship. This time I was going to go where I wanted to go. I thought for sure I’d make it in. My previous grades weren’t bad. I wrote a decent essay. I had life experience. I really thought I was a shoe-in. I guess not. "Approximately three times as many students apply each year as we are able
to enroll." Right. It makes me wonder how all these air-headed sorority sluts and dickhead fratboys get admitted. I guess their standards aren’t so fucking high. "What starts here changes the world." Yeah. Good luck with that, assholes.
But all is not lost. Phase two of my assault on higher education has been initiated. Kristin checked the deadline on Texas State’s admissions. It’s December 3rd. I fired off a quick application to them. I requested transcripts from former schools. Everything should be in order. We’ll see how this one turns out.
I was outside taking a smoke break this morning. A woman was dropping her husband off at work. She calls out to me, "Great hat! And great sticker! We thought we were the only Jews in town!". I was wearing a New York Yankees hat. I have a Kinky Friedman for Governor sticker on the back of my car (complete with Star of David). New York Yankees + Kinky Friedman + somewhat large nose = Jew? Shalom my sister. Shalom.
Tonight was the night. The last night to qualify for the finals at Mother Egan’s trivia night. The Sundance Kids were on their last legs. We were down two members. Calamity Rach was out. Alison had her parents in town and was out too. It was not looking good.
Round one started off fine. We were rocking and rolling with a perfect ten. No problem. Then came round two. We normally get anywhere between eight (on a bad night) and ten questions right. Tonight…seven. No one could remember where the international headquarters of the Red Cross was located. Everyone knew it was in Switzerland but no one could come up with the city. I think we named every city in Switzerland except the correct one (which was Geneva if you are playing along at home). I couldn’t come up with Muhammad Ali’s first professional loss. I thought demoralizing round had come early.
Fast forward to round four: theme round. This is where Kristin stepped up to the plate and swung for the fences. Tonight’s theme was collective nouns for groups of animals. They gave you the term, you supplied the animal. With basically no help from anyone, she got nine out of ten (I did throw in correct answer for a convocation, which is eagle). Definitely an MVP performance. She pulled us to within a point of third place with her clutch performance. Kristin has the most amazing memorization skills. It’s uncanny really. Sometimes it scares me.This revitalized the team. We started to believe we could do it. We weren’t that far out of third. The two teams in first and second had already qualified. We knew that last spot could be ours.
Round five: typically the demoralizing round. Tonight, we made it our bitch. We scored nine points that round. We were still two points out of third. In round six we only got six of ten right. We really thought we were done at that point. I could feel the wind go out of the sails. Then came the leaderboard announcement. Tied for third place with 50 points: Sundance Kids! We were in third place! We could really pull this out!
Round seven didn’t go so great. We only got six out of ten in that round as well. I knew we probably didn’t have a shot at third place anymore. We sat waiting to find out where we stood. We didn’t make it in the top three. We all sat there dumbfounded. Another week of coming so close that we could taste victory. If someone were to write a book about our last few weeks at trivia they would have to title it "Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: The Sundance Kid Story". Normally we would get up and leave but all of us just sat there. Kristin lit a cigarette. I think DJ said "Well played guys, well played." I said "I guess we’ll all take a needed break next week". Then came a voice over the speakers. "Sundance Kids have qualified for the finals. Someone from your team come to the answer area". It felt like time shifted into slow motion for a few seconds. We all cheered. Jana and I took off running for the inside. We had finally made it to the finals. Wish us luck.
Sometimes I watch movies from the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s and wonder where all the style has gone. Granted, I am not a stylish person, but I wish I lived in the days of fedoras and overcoats, typewriters and cigarette boxes, elevator operators and doormen. You put on a suit and tie nowadays and someone asks you if you’re going to a funeral. In my line of work and with the hours I keep it would be silly to dress up. Pointless really. I like the fact that I can wear jeans and a t-shirt to work. But there’s a part of me that wants something more.
I tend to start feeling like this mostly in the fall. Especially on nights like tonight when the weather is crisp. I want it to be this way all the time. I’m a pretty snappy fall dresser.
Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought maybe the person you see is in some alternate reality? I sometimes think maybe that person picked the opposite in a yes or no situation. They wear the same clothes, live in the same apartment, etc. but there is something just a little bit off. Perhaps they read more than you.
Or maybe I’m just extremely tired and bored at work.
Well. I feel like the Sundance Kids are destined to be fifth place trivia contestants. We scored higher than ever before last night, 61 points, and still couldn’t finish in the top three. Another measly two points and we would’ve placed (and for that matter qualified for the finals since the other teams already had). There’s only one week left to qualify. I think we need a ringer.
Speaking of trivia, Kristin and I think we should make a documentary about the plight of the Sundance Kids. It has everything you need: the scrappy underdog, the hated villains, a burning desire for victory, allegations of cheating. It has it all. Now I need a camera and money.
Best TV show I watched: The Office was hilarious this week. There were so many lines that were t-shirt worthy. I should get on that (that’s what she said). I also enjoyed: Weeds was awesome. Mary Louise Parker is my TV girlfriend.
Best Thing I read: I’m back to reading The Maltese Falcon after a week layoff. Film noir private detective is on my list of things I would want to be when I grow up barring time, money, and reality.
Best Music I heard: The iPod has been on random shuffle lately. I like playing "Story of My Life" by Social Distortion on Guitar Hero. That Killers song is fun to play too. I can’t remember for the life of me what it’s called and I’m too lazy to look it up to find out.
Best Movie I watched: I rewatched The Big Lebowski for probably the 8 millionth time. That movie never gets old.
Trivia at Mother Egan’s this week was ridiculously hard. It was probably the hardest night we’ve been to since we started going regularly. It got to the point of me drawing a picture of the bar burning down on the answer sheet.
We’re getting to be somewhat known there. The waitress knew our drink orders. The trivia guy (who’s name I can’t recall) knows who we are and is apparently rooting for us. At the end of the night, as we were walking out, one of the trivia guys came running out and presented Jana with a $10 gift certificate. I called it a mercy fuck certificate to keep us coming back. It was nice though. Regardless, we’re still languishing in the upper middle section of the teams. We can’t quite break through. It’s always the same teams near the top. This week the winner scored 63 points out of 70. They AVERAGED 9 points per round. I suspect cheating. To me that’s the only reasonable explanation.
Saying all that, I’m not ready to give up. I have to win. It’s this burning competitive feeling deep inside me. I don’t give a fuck about the prizes. I just want to hear my team name declared the winner. It’s funny because I don’t have that drive in my everyday life. I don’t care about getting a promotion at work. I don’t have to be the best at my job. I do, however, have to save the Princess. I have to play a song 100% correctly on Guitar Hero. And I do have to be validated by being declared the best at trivia.
