Sweet Memories

I know I'm supposed to be hard at work here on this New Years Eve. But there's nothing really going on so I'm actually watching the Brut Sunbowl. Who knew there was still such a thing?

I'm talking about the cologne, not the college football game. Brut used to be that really cheap stuff we bought Dad for Christmas from the drug store. He never wore it and we had the nerve to be mad about it. I thought perhaps it had (mercifully) gone the way of all flesh.

You see, back in the day, Brut was just a step above that O.G. (as in Original Gangsta) manly smell known as Aqua Velva--as in "There's something about an Aqua Velva Man." Pete Rose was an "Aqua Velva Man." Need I say more?

If you really wanted to impress the ladies you might learn to whistle that Old Spice tune or master that Hai Karate, but the true ladies man went straight for the English Leather. They had a great line. "All my men wear English Leather, or they wear nothing at all." Oooh. Sexy. At least it felt all risque back in 1973. English Leather actually smelled pretty good. But it was strong. Use too much and your date might suffocate before you could roll down the windows on your Cordoba.

Back in the day when you could have 5 or 6 different bottles of cologne on your dresser for a total of about 20 bucks, Brut (by Faberge--Ha!) definitely moved to the back of the stack. But now they're sponsoring a bowl game. Who'd a thunk it? Maybe I'll have to give it another chance. But I won't have to buy it. Hey, Dad, you gonna use that....?

The Road Not Traveled

In 2007 there were a lot of blogs written that never saw the light of day, and as I look back over them--mostly it was for good reason!!



Some just weren't particularly funny, like this lame effort to make fun of the President's annual pardon of the Thanksgiving turkey. Its so darn silly as a news event I've always thought there was a lot of comedic potential there.





Today we once again run the annual Thanksgiving story of the President pardoning a turkey. So is he having tofu in Crawford? I don't think so.

Turns out the picture was about the funniest thing about this idea. Then there was this bizarre entry:

The Doctor. The Black Doctor. The Mighty Black Doctor. It is a name that inspires fear, yet restraint. Respect, yet total human desire. Who is this man?

Take it from me, the less said about this the better.

Sometimes, the idea is decent but I just couldn't pull off the execution. Like the time I tried to explain how stories have a mind of their own and we go where the story takes us regardless of initial perceptions...blah blah blah..

This was supposed to be one of those 'fun' stories. The last thing I expected was an expose.It was caffienated soap, for Godsake! One of those novelty things that only deserves a story if the reporter can make it funny or at the very least "cute."

I didn't even post any pictures before I gave up on that one. I could go on. But even I'm getting bored. I'll leave you with a failed holiday blog which tried in vain to convey the struggle over getting holidays off work in a newsroom where the jobs must be done on December 25 just like any other day.

Here at WUSA, as we go through this special time of year and reflect on the true reason for the season, we are all reminded of one universal truth: Mess with my days off and I'll kill ya--except then I might have to work your shift.

I was trying to riff comically on the situation but everything I wrote just read like I was complaining. And nobody wants to read that.

Recant

"I hope they lose, so we can dispense with this ridiculous talk of 'The Playoffs.'

I actually had that thought 3weeks ago after the Redskins fell to the raggedy Buffalo Bills, right after the funeral for Sean Taylor when my spirits were sagging. Heck, I came that close to saying it to Bret Haber during the 5pm news.

No excuses. I had pretty much lost the faith.

I was among the apostates reluctantly calling for the end of Gibbs Era II. The old guy just doesn't have it anymore, I thought.

Never have I been happier to have been so wrong. This little playoff run...this struggling, beat up group of guys playing their hearts out have given us the greatest Christmas present a Skins fan could ask for: A final game with everything on the line. A chance to go to the playoffs and to do it by beating the hated Dallas Cowboys.

Joe Gibbs always praises the Redskin faithful as being great fans. But the fact is, a lot of us gave up on him. Oh, we had good reason. But the difference is even with ample cause, Gibbs never gave up on his men or himself. That's why he's in the Hall of Fame and we're all just watching from the sideline.

Now go out Sunday and beat those #$%$% Cowboys!!!!!!

Abominable Snow, Man

You know you're getting old when you're (the

only) bald Black man in Vail, Colorado, and you

absolutely fail to intimidate anyone.

More likely, its just that the folks there are very, very friendly. This is my odd way of saying I had a great time on my ski vacation, even though I got sick and didn't figure out the deal on the free hot chocolate and cookies until the last day. But more on that later. First...

Ski trails. They've all got names. The 'green' or easy slopes get comforting sobriquets like Hunky Dory and Over Easy. Its just another way of saying You Really Can't Ski So Please Go This Way, So We Don't Have to Come Up Rescue You.

But it really gets interesting at the top of the mountain where the trails are the ominous sounding 'black diamonds.' Even if I was a really experienced skier I might hesitate to head down something called 'No Way Out' or 'Dragon's Teeth'. And no resort is complete without the requisite memorial trail...called something like "Face of Hal", and in smaller type, "This trail is in remembrance of Hal Johnson." That's all well and good, but I'm thinking what happened to Hal, and more importantly where did it happen? Yeah, you get my drift. No pun intended.

And let me throw this little figure at ya: 9 degrees Fahrenheit. As in that was as hot as it got last Saturday on Vail Mountain. But before you call me a weather wimp (Topper!!) you should know I stayed out there all day and now everyone says you can still live a good productive life with only 7 toes.

Then early Sunday morning, my stomach took a ski trip without leaving my body. Lets just say I was in the room all day and it wasn't 'cause I was watching football. (But did anyone see that Pittsburgh-Jacksonville game??)

It is good to be home..where snow is only good for getting the day off from school, backing up the traffic and scaring the dickens out of folks who watch the news.

And the Bad News Is....

Robert Hawkins was a sad twisted young man who wanted to kill others, die and be famous. Sometimes I wish we didnt' have to make his final dream come true.

Hawkins said he wanted to 'go out in style' before he went to the mall in Omaha with murder on his mind. He knew he'd get what he wanted. All he had to do was watch the news. From Columbine to Virginia Tech..we in the media make names and faces of guys like Dylan Klebold and Seung Wi Cho famous.

Now we get still pictures of Hawkins opening fire on helpless shoppers and I wonder--should we be showing this? Is it somehow encouraging some other troubled loaner go out in a blaze of murderous glory? We don't report suicides for this very reason.

It would be crazy to advocate ignoring a story like the attacks in Omaha or at Virginia Tech. I'm talking about where we draw the lines. Is there a place where solid coverage rolls over into irresponsible sensationalism?

Certainly there is. I guess a more important question is...where is that border?

Do It To Me One More Time

Repetition is great-- if you're talking SuperBowls. In our business its almost always a disaster. Notice I said "almost always."



Today I got an email from our good friend Jerry in Waldorf. I call him "our good friend" not because we've ever actually met, but because he's been emailing McGinty's Mailbag ever since this show came on the air--so I feel like I know the guy.

In any case, Jerry said this:

We're receiving our first snowfall this morning in the MD/DC/VA area, there is hardly ANY accumulation, and already there are lots of accidents on the major thoroughfares and on bridges. If people knew about and mounted WINTER tires, the incidence of accidents would be so much lower.
True WINTER tires mounted on all 4 wheels provide much more traction, handling, and stopping ability.
I urge everyone to buy and mount genuine WINTER tires and shed those slippery all-season tires until next Spring. You may complain about the cost, but how much is even ONE lost life worth?

Jerry in Waldorf


This isn't a bad story idea, except for one thing: I did the exact same story last year. So let me ask you. Did you see that story, and even if you did should we do it again? Would we really be potentially saving lives? Or just boring you?

The Hard Goodbye

There were some sniffles on the WUSA news set this afternoon
as we covered the funeral of Sean Taylor. They were mostly (I think) mine.

How could you not weep when Taylor's girlfriend's sister came to the podium and cried for 5 minutes straight while she thanked Taylor and her sister for demonstrating the greatest feat of unconditional love she'd ever seen?

On the other hand, you had to laugh when Taylor's high school teammate and friend Buck Ortega mentioned that when the two first went spear fishing together, and Taylor seemed to be able to dive deep and resurface without blowing the water pressure from his ears, it was "the first time he knew "Sean wasn't totally human."

And how could you hold it back when a desperately shaken Lavar Arrington took the stage to speak his regrets about the things he never said enough to his friend Sean--and then went on to tell his former Redskin teammates how much he loved them?

After a week of mostly just talking about the death of this promising star football player, today we got the up-close-and-personal on what he meant to those who really knew Sean Taylor..described by his agent as a soft, loving man.

Yes, we could have done without Jesse Jackson's football metaphors for our overly violent society. ("Somebody got around our line and killed our safety!") Or, honestly, Joe Gibbs' proselytizing.

But heartfelt sentiments from people with broken hearts are what funerals are supposed to be about. To me, it didn't matter so much that thousands turned out to say goodbye to Sean Taylor. What counts is that Sean Taylor was well-loved, and those who knew him best cared enough to share just a fragment of that love with us today.