There is a certain ignominy with being a Minnesota Vikings fan—as great a burden as there is to carry in professional sports today. They are virtually synonymous with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Sure there are other choke artists, but no one seems to lose games quite like the Vikings.

Despite the fact that I didn’t set foot in Minnesota until 1988, the team has been my cross to bear since early Childhood. And I cannot begin to count the number of times I have gone to bed in near tears due to their terrible play.

This season alone. (A little gallows humor for you.)

Today, the Vikings won their division, although nearly throwing the game away against a Giants team so rag-tag, that their fourth-string tight end was playing. And you know what? If not for a 50-yard field goal as time expired, Minnesota would’ve lost. Sigh.

Do we stand a chance of advancing in the playoffs? In short, no. We don’t. I have given up hoping that they will come through in the big game. For many years, I was Charlie Brown, preparing to kick the big field goal, believing that it was going to happen, only to have fate yank victory away at the very last moment.

Unlike other hard luck fans, however, I can pinpoint the exact moment that my faith was forever dashed. I lived through a loss so damaging to my psyche that even my prick of a boss felt bad for me; that I walked four miles back to my hotel with a 36-below wind-chill freezing the tears to my cheeks; that I swore that evening that my heart could never be broken again by a sporting event. And even when the bag of money called the New York Yankees beat my New York Mets in the 2000 World Series, my reaction was merely, “bummer.”

The year was 1998 and the Vikings, behind a record-breaking offense, a stifling defense and a kicker who did not miss a kick—extra point or field goal—for the entire season, pretty much crap-kicked the league to a 15-1 record. After a lifetime of waiting for the other shoe to drop, I had finally begun to believe. I attended three home games that season, sensing that something special was happening. And after they mashed up the Phoenix Cardinals in the playoff opener, I made my flight reservation to head back to Minny to see the Vikes play the surprisingly tough 14-2 Atlanta Falcons.

So what that I needed to fly from Newark to Cincinnati to Detroit to Minneapolis, a 7 1⁄2 hour journey that Homer would probably have balked at? I wanted to be there to soak it in. I felt as if my sacrifice would help steel my team. No really, I did.

The morning of the game, sitting in my hotel room, however, I was nervous, more so than usual. After bundling up against the January cold and snowstorm that had been crippling Minneapolis, I stepped into my hotel elevator and ran smack-dab into the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan, one of the great sportswriters of all time. I introduced myself—he had recently written a story for a basketball magazine I was editing—and asked him how he thought the game would go. What he said stopped me dead in my tracks:

“I have a funny feeling,” he began,” that the Vikings are going to lose because that kicker misses a kick.”

Preposterous, I thought, as I shook his hand and headed off to the stadium, my corner end zone seat awaiting me. He hadn’t missed a kick all season. There were many plausible ways for them to throw the game away, but that wasn’t one of them. Silly, silly man.

Not to give you the play-by-play, but that is exactly what happened. The Vikings kicker missed a chip shot that would’ve iced the game in the fourth quarter. And the Vikings lost the game. And my heart was broken.

So when the Vikings won today, and the people in Minnesota—as loyal a fan base as there is in sports—began to trumpet their chances in the playoffs, I had to laugh.

Because I refuse to cry. Ever again.

This season.

I am usually bored with celebrities interviewing each other, because I think that their egos invariably get in the way of letting someone else shine. Not to mention, many celebrities are vacuous morons who spend all of their time getting porcelain veneers and having their eyebrows woven (or whatever it’s called) and doing blow with Brazilian models at parties (at least in my dreams) and not enough time reading newspapers and watching the news. Or talking about anything other than their fitness regimen.

Interview magazine does this as well as can be expected, which is to say, not well at all. (Oftentimes, I have never heard of one of the people, and occasionally, both.) And, really, when you have Kate Moss interview Sienna Miller, are you really surprised that the crux of the interview is whether Miller waxes? No, not really

She doesn’t, incidentally.

Musicians are better than other celebs at doing it, although the really fine ones are either so loco they are rendered indecipherable (Dylan), incoherent (Keef), obnoxious (Ryan Adams) or woefully uncomfortable talking about themselves (Jack White), let alone someone else.

Very rarely do guys come along like John Mayer, who seems to be smart, clever and aware of the world around him. (His world involves lots of hot chicks, apparently.) Too bad he is a B- talent at music, however proficient he is at model-pulling.

The exception appears to be Elvis Costello’s new show Spectacle, where he conducts really interesting and revealing interviews with folks like Lou Reed, Jenny Lewis and James Taylor. Costello has the Irish gift of gab, and is secure in his place on the musical talent org chart. As Bill Clinton (another guest) would say, he could talk an owl out of a tree.

His preparation is impeccable, and his willingness to share his own personal experiences, and not in a “look at me” manner, make the interviews pretty engaging. And watching him harmonize and put guests on the spot with impromptu requests is really refreshing.

Anyway, it is on the Sundance Channel. And yes, I watch a shitload of television. Ho ho ho.

I have never understood the people who would rather have a lot of something mediocre rather than a small dab of something wonderful. We have friends of friends who live in a different and—of course—inferior American city. And whenever we visit, we feel obliged to see them and they take us to the latest hotspot, which is usually like the upstairs at Cheers. You know, sexy and daring.

But anyway, whenever we sitting down to eat, the husband always points out how much larger the portions are compared to New York City. I swear to God. Like last time we both ordered the pork chop and he actually said, “you don’t get that much pork in New York City”.

I assessed the situation and had to agree: “Probably not,” I said “That is indeed a lot of pork.”

My wife tried kicking me under the table and winds up smashing her foot on the metal leg. You could barely hear her yelp. But the thing was totally fat and gross and I have to sit there and listen to him go on and on about how the portions in NYC aren’t nearly enough. And so I think I am helping and blithely suggest, “when you come to the city, why don’t you eat something before you go out and eat dinner?” I’m a problem solver. My wife eyes me warily, but doesn’t kick.

“I don’t know, I’d rather have a shaving of white truffle than an entire black truffle,” I say. He cocks his head and looks at me quizzically, in that Sarah-Palin kind of way. I realize that my point was being lost. Because, for some people “generous portions” are all the enticement they need.

Nowadays, Pizza Hut advertises food by the pound. (McDonalds has always had the quarter-pounder, but I always figured out that they had just settled on that name when none other were apparent.)

I like to eat, needless to say. You don’t get to my size by nibbling on crudite. But I would never go to a mediocre restaurant because it cuts me a big piece of steak. Which is why I live on a tiny finger of land—Manhattan Island—that is no more than two miles wide at its widest point: because I would rather store stuff in the oven in Greenwich Village than have a walk-in closet in one of those outer boroughs that people are so fond of.

But that’s just me.

I don’t exactly sleep well. Like, ever, unless I am taking a pill, and even then, I have to dope myself up like Meat Loaf, to get some shut eye. I think I have sleep apnea, but I would rather go through life exhausted and irritable, than to wear what amounts to a gasmask to bed. Can’t do it. Won’t do it.

Like today, for example. I just “woke up”. It’s ten a.m. and I am already planning to take a black metal nap later. (My version of a “disco nap.”) About five years ago (as some of you may know) I had a relationship with Ambien. We were very happy together. It was cute. Vacations, family Holidays, the works. For about a year, I was rested and as happy as a generally semi-happy guy can be.

It all ended one day when I went to refill my prescription and my refills were empty and my doctor, who is one of my favorite people was away. And I panicked. “Isn’t there someone else you can call?” I asked. He had left some emergency doctor’s name, but this was hardly an emergency. Although in my eyes it was.

Miraculously, my doctor called in from wherever and they filled it. But my reaction told me all I needed to know. I was standing in a pharmacy at midnight (this is NYC, baby) amid guys who wanted clean needles and banged up women who wanted some hillbilly heroin with forged prescriptions.

It was then that I decided to “step down” as the celebrities say, from my use, and for the next two months I took less and less until I wasn’t taking any. I let the other four refills expire.

Consequently, I go through life bone-tired and drink coffee at far too prodigious a rate to be healthy. But I am cutting back on that too, now. It’s all part of my New Year’s Resolution to become less dependent on things other than my brain to get me out of whatever fix my exhausted body has gotten me into.

Wish me luck.

I heard the news today, oh boy. One of my most beloved television characters is making a triumphant return sometime this winter. I cannot say enough about her incredible presence and her ability to transcend race or sex or even dubious plastic surgery. She may not be the girl you take home to mother, but she is most certainly the one you take to Cozumel for long weekend. Best of all, her show has a catchy name: Daisy of Love.

Women, after gazing at her image, will find these words preposterous. Men, the smart ones, will be publicly scornful as well. But privately? They are imagining a Mexican adventure with a woman who, by all accounts, knows about nine English words. And it’s her first language. I present to you: Daisy de la Hoya, the runner up on Bret Michaels’ Rock of Love last season.

Fake hair, fake boobs, fake lips, not much of a personality, even less of a brain, Daisy nevertheless managed to become the emotional core of the ROL mansion. Okay, not really, but she did manage to become scantily clad and wildly drunk about fifty times in ten weeks.

And while she did project the depth of a puddle, and seemed to have more skeletons in her closet than Jame Gumm, Daisy nonetheless ensnared more than a few men in her web of confusion, cleavage and apparent willingness to do whatever to get with a baked potato like Bret Michaels.

Her appearance was that of a really hot blowup doll with mercury poisoning. Yet her lack of understanding or what was actually happening, you know, in real life, and her abject failure at following a conversation, was beside the point. If she has a passport and knows how to properly operate the seatbelt on an airplane, that is all she needs to know. Bless her heart.
Welcome back, Daisy. No, I’m talking to you. Yeah, Daisy is your first name. What? No, “Hey, you” isn’t a name. Okay, just forget it.

I have my faults, certainly, and you likely know what they are. The worst of these, I would say, is that I am too easily insulted. If I could change anything about myself (other than my inability to stay in shape while napping) it would be I wouldn’t be such a sensitive bastard about the stupidest things.

Like emails and IMs. I have some friends who are terrible at returning them. Like awful, or as they say in Rhode Island, “awful, awful.” As if my Blackberry is really just a tiny Ouiji board, and they are unwilling spirits being pulled from some alternate universe to converse with me about nothing of any importance anyway.

I have one friend who is so bad at returning communiqué that I once told her when I reach out to her, I feel almost hopeless; like I am shoving a note into a bottle and casting it out to sea, hoping that eventually it will land on her shores.

No, I said that. I really did. But I have to be able to chill out. People’s lives are far busier than mine, and since I am not exactly a friend magnet, I would imagine that some people’s devices are far more drunken with messages than mine. I need to cut them some slack for taking one, two days to respond to a ‘yes/no’ question. Am I right?

Get back to me on that. Sooner than later.

I was watching the tail-end of some crappy movie with Hillary Swank and hung around long enough to realize that there would be no topless scene, much to my private chagrin.

She was in Yankee Stadium. I said to my wife, GG, “I would love to take a leak on that pitcher’s mound.” I mean, I hate the Yankees so much it is not even funny. To me they are a bunch of Star Trek-looking characters (Jeter, Matsui, Damon, A-Rod, Abreu, Joba, need I go on?) and all bat, no glove douchebags whose owners buy their way into the playoffs every year. Except last year. And this one too. You heard that here first, ma’fu’er.

It was one of those moments when you realize that you’ve crossed some imaginary line between normal person and, you know, some sort of defiler, which is as creepy a word as there is.

She looked askance and I tried to backpedal furiously, like a cracked-up seahorse (trust me, they backup), and found myself flatly denouncing my own conduct. “I’m such a dick,” I began nervously. “I respect the game too much to do that. I was just talkin’.”

Like any good prosecuting attorney, she paused to let the jury ponder my statement and then pounced: “Wait a minute,” she countered. “Aren’t you the same guy who peed in the 50-yard line where the Bears play? Wasn’t that you?”

I have to admit: she had me there.

Here’s the abbreviated version: In ‘93 or ‘94, I went out to Chicago with a former writer of mine to hang out or interview or whatever with Michael Jordan, who was at Soldier Field at the behest of Nike, who were shooting a TV commercial. I can’t remember exactly what they were up to. What I do recall is that we had hours to kill…literally. Like eight hours of doing nothing. And it was a penetrating cold and pouring rain, as if Heaven was aware of what I was about to do, and was shaking its fist at me. Or maybe not.

So I wander off from the group, ostensibly to find a lavatoire. (Classy, right? Just wait.) It’s March and so the place it totally empty. I’d had a few beers (it seemed like the professional thing to do) and figured I would see how far I could walk toward that field until somebody stopped me. And that turned out to be never.

I should jump in here and say that I am a Minnesota Vikings fan, and there are two teams we hate above all else: the Bears and the—retch—Packers. Oh, I hate those teams. The Bears are big dopes, usually. Defensive encroachment, roughing the passer, too many men on the field. And the Packers used to be all bout that drunk Favre and now they have some crappy QB and are going nowhere fast. But I wasn’t at Lambeau Field, which would have been the Holy Grail for me. Still Soldier Field was second best. Anyway, I walked out to midfield, looked around again, and went about my business.

Now fourteen years later, my wife who remembers every little stumble in my conduct, but can’t recall how to turn on the TV, is calling me on it. And if there is one thing I hate, it’s a hypocrite.

Yes, even more than a defiler.

My apartment is awash with sounds I am unaccustomed to hearing at half-seven on a Sunday: giggling. And shouting. My sister-in-law and her two kids are in town, staying with us. The boy’s as well behaved and lacking in insolence as you can ask of a 14 year-old. The girl, 6, is a doozy. Like a true cross between Punky Brewster and a crackhead. (Her mother, who is cool as hell, would surely agree.) To the point where the kid’s jumping around my room and, through squinted eyes this a.m. I could swear that she was re-inacting Harvey Keitel’s dance during “The Bad Lieutenant”. (Yep. That one.)

She’s a whirr of motion in a typical childless New York couple’s apartment, a place akin to a museum filled with bullshit (frankly) untouchables like my Vikings bobblehead doll from 1960 and my mini-replica of Shea Stadium. Trying to explain to a continually-thwarted six year old why both of those things are untouchable, is like me trying to convince you of the existence of the Easter Bunny. Like “what the fuck are you talking about?”

We don’t have kids. Don’t want them either. Been married a dozen years. By now, we would know. But we enjoy seeing our friends’ children, especially the super well-behaved ones. My friend Scoop has some unbelievably well-behaved boys and GG’s friend Vicki has the same, only girls. And we are always so happy when we see them, because it seems like such an accomplishments in this day and age.

But no matter how much we like the tween-and-under set—which, frankly, you can probably guess—we are always happy when they leave. Our place gets back to normal. Although while they are here we cope pretty well, I think.

My play is always the same: find the oldest one and offer them some money to keep the others away. Total silence and lack-of-eye contact pays double. I consider the greatest moment in a child’s life when there is the recognition that they can be paid to avoid me. When they get old enough to have an actual conversation with, like the boy here, it is completely fine. But when they are still narcissistic bundle of pent-up energy and…fluids, they are kind of a drag.

I joke to my friends that I want to write a child-rearing book called “Who Wants Ten Dollars?” Because, in this economy, ten bucks can buy you a lot of freedom. Let me tell you. Which reminds me: I need to go to the ATM. Christmas is just around the corner.

I had two blogs. I think I have told you that. Yesterday, I killed the other one. It was more personal and I began to feel ladyriffic about much of my writing there, so I figured I would put it down. The backlash has been astounding. It’s as if I did it to be mean to people. Why did I do it? The overriding reason is that I was bored with the subject matter: my thoughts and feelings. Like really navel-gazing stuff. And also, because I felt like I kept repeating myself.

Not to mention,  I was neglecting this one and that wasn’t cool because I really respect the guys who put this on and I promised to blog for them and that doesn’t mean to show up every ten days for a little puppet show. So I’m going to try and write every day or two. Promise not to get sick of this one.

On the other hand, once you kill your first blog, it gets easier each time.

I am a habitually early person, to the point where I arrive at my desired destination about twenty minutes early and mill around outside. Like, right now, I am supposed to meet someone in 45 minutes. I am meeting them five minutes away. And I have my shoes on, ready to go.

My wife used to be habitually late. Like insanely so, but she has gotten so much better it isn’t even funny. What cured her? Once when we were dating, about a million-or-so years ago, we were supposed to meet outside the Astor Place subway station at 11pm for a night of drinking, dancing and afterhour-ing. (I was 27. That’s what people do, if I remember correctly.) And this was before everyone (meaning me) had cellphones.

At midnight, after my mind plays some pretty heinous tricks on me she comes strolling up. She lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, so I figured she there was a hold up at Customs or something. But anyway, I asked her if everything was okay. And she said “sure.” And I said “Okay, good night” and left her standing there.

Oh man, I was scared that she would dump my ass. Because she was (and still is, to a large extent) way the fuck out of my league. But it was either that, or resign myself to a lifetime of being the guy milling around trying to look busy. But it worked because, after that, we had no problems with punctuality. We’re still a few minutes late, but it’s never anything that bothers me terribly.

Anyway, I have to go now and meet my friend.

Later.