Random Photo Gallery

 Hey, check out what the Noisewater family has been up to via series of photographs, like in the old days when you went to somebody's house and they pulled out their damn slide projector. Hey, quick side bar (slide bar?) story - I remember as a kid we traveled to Florida and my dad got in contact with a very eccentric man that he used to work with. We were back at his house and he says, "Hey, you want to see my pictures from India when I went to the Sex Temples of Virupaksha?* No one said "no thanks" in time, so he giddily fired up that slide projector and up on the big screen came a series of shots of ancient sculptures engaging in kinky sex in a variety of positions and groupings. I was like 9-years-old. Learning a lot. Anyway, here are my very G Rated Slides. 

* That may not be the name of the sex temples he visited, but he knew the name of it. I just searched on Google, found a link for 7 Sex Temples in India and picked the funniest name.

** I copy and pasted the name of the temple and it changed the font and it made a weird highlighted thing over this section of the post. I tried fixing it and made it worse. Let's look at some pictures, shall we?

On Saturday morning I took Erik with me for a socially distanced yoga class that a friend teaches by the lake. She hits you with a lot of cardio and strength stuff, so you're really banged up when it's over. Plus it's a chance to sort of connect with people, even if you're not talking with them a whole lot. Erik got bored with the iPad, ran out of snacks, got bored of looking at boats, got bored with the three or for poses he attempted, and then at minute 40 of the 60 minute class I decided that he lasted a lot longer than most 3-year-olds would have given the circumstances, so we hopped back on the bike and headed out. 

For being such a good sport at yoga I rewarded him by finding a park with water sprayers. He's the guy with the mask. I would say about 2 out of 10 people at the park had masks on. Erik is a solid dude. Never complains about wearing it. And I think a lot of parents with more than one kid will tell you that when you give a kid some time with just him and a parent, they are so wonderful to be around. He isn't competing for attention with his brother, his mother, or anybody. We were just hanging, and he was a blast to be with. 

On Sunday we didn't feel like going anywhere, so we locked ourselves and the kids in our crummy little urban front yard area with bubbles, baseballs, a bat, a volleyball, a couple of chairs, and a couple of beers. That's Desmond in the picture. He is coming up on 1-year-old and can pull himself up to stand, as you can see. I thought this picture was funny because he looks like an exhibit at a zoo. The "yard" is mostly weeds and dirt, so he was a mess after crawling around there for the better part of an hour.

Mrs. Noisewater is most certainly the artist of the family, but by god if Erik wanted a rocket ship, I was going to draw him one. Notice the Transformers shirt. The kid knows his 1980's Transformers trivia, and it's damn impressive.

This is the whole Noisewater famn damily in our Chicago Blackhawks outfits ready for the big game. I have been so sports starved with everything cancelled that I am going absolutely batty, yes I chose that word on purpose, over my Hawks. They won the game that night and advanced to the next round, probably directly correlated to Desmond's Patrick Kane jersey with the belly flopping out. 

What's new with you, Seven Readers? Go ahead an answer one, two, or all of these: Ever been to the sex temples? Ever endured someone's vacation videos or slides? Got any sports teams you've been supporting? Got any exercise programs you have been trying to stick to?

Bend It Like Beckham Or Punch Him Like Sugar Ray?

Young Erik Noisewater is 2 and a half years old now, and we got young him in a soccer program. As much as I dislike the sport, it really is the best introduction to team sports for little kiddos. Believe it or not there are some toddlers in his group who you can already tell are going to be great athletes. Erik is just okay as far as the coordination and athleticism goes, but he makes up for it by being a great listener and rule follower. Each class has 10 toddlers, 2 coaches, and it is required that there is one parent per kid out there running around making sure everything goes a little more smoothly. But it's still pretty much like herding cats every Sunday.

I had to take him to a make up class on Thursday after work. All day at work I was hating everyone and pretty much thinking about how everyone seems to be deep down an asshole at heart, and believe it or not I couldn't wait until the soccer practice that afternoon to see play soccer with my great little dude - my little hope for humanity homie. But when I got there the weeknight coach was neither of the nice fellas I was used to from the Sunday class. He was a little weasely-looking, hunched over, eyes half opened and not appearing to be focused on anything in particular creeper who reminded me of a combination of Doctor Riviera from The Simpsons and Igor from the Frankenstein movies. I feel like I could not have been the only parent in the room to have that gut feeling like this maybe is not the best dude to be around kids. Let's put it this way: They give all the kids stamps on the hands at the end of the classes, and when I overheard a coach saying that they cannot put stamps on the kids' bellies anymore because a parent complained, I knew right away it had to have been after this dude lifted one too many kids' jerseys. I tried to describe his vibe to Mrs. Noisewater, and he is a guy who it is hard to say if he would be into men, women, or god forbid kids. It almost seems like he would check off the none of the above box because he is into getting romantic with animals or trees or something far more divergent.

Little of this

And a little of this. And that's our coach. 

So Tree-Humper, as odd as he may be, was running a pretty good class, but my supposed great listener and rule abiding son is completely doing his own thing. When it is time for little kicks, he is toe bashing the ball across the gym. When they are all supposed to wait in line, he is booking it to the other side of the room and trying to hop over the barricade. More often than not he seemed to be doing the exact opposite of what Doctor Igor was asking of him. I pulled him aside a few times to say, "We have to listen to the coach, Erik." There was a look in my boy's eye like, "That's not happening, bro." Who was this kid? I was used to him being one of the best in the class and feeling kind of bad for those parents who chased around their kid who seemed to have zero interest in what the activities were and seemed in their own world. And now my guy was that kid. He was the worst in the group. And I was so looking forward to this class after a crap day at work. Now I was stressed and needed a beer. Because of a 2-year-old soccer practice? Yes. And if I'm being honest with you this thought came in my head: I'm so disappointed in this kid. What? How shitty to say that about a 2-year-old? They are going to do terrible shit when they're in their terrible 2's, right? I know this. But I'm just being honest about what was in my stupid head at the time because you're my people and you're the folks I can be real with.

Out of his mind that day. But a winning smile. 

Then just as the class is wrapping up, when I can already taste the cold Apex Predator I'm going to need after this day of work and this kid wearing me out, the kids are all huddled up, putting their hands in for a big go team, and someone else's kid punches Tree-Humper square in the nose for no reason at all. Wham! A perfectly placed blow, and the coach is actually hurt, his eyes are watering, and he completely stops teaching and just tries to recover. One mom asks if he needs an ice pack. He declines. Maybe he is just being dramatic, but who knows. What we do know is that . . . in a last second buzzer beater turn of events . . . Erik was not the worst kid in the class that afternoon. I really shouldn't have taken pleasure from a toddler socking a creepy coach dead in the nose, but I was flicking thrilled. It was beautiful.

That's all I got, friends. What you got on tap this weekend? If you're like me you are going to clock this weekend in the beak with a right hook like Erik and his daddy's new favorite teammate. 

Sporty Texts. The Only Way To Go These Days

Around the time I started this blog, my best friends and I were out three nights a week doing three things:

1. Boozing

2. Trying to meet women

3. Doing stupid stuff

Even if we usually only accomplished numbers one and three on the list, those were some of the best days of my life and they were the best friends I'll ever have.

Those particular friends have since: 

1. Got married

2. Had kids

3. Moved to the suburbs

I have done zero of those things, which has caused us to not see each other nearly as much, but we still talk just about every day through text messages, usually about sports.  Sometimes a Chicago Bears game will be going on and the four of us will exchange 50 texts, which is pretty much the text rate of most middle school girls in America.  

These conversations are important because with them having babies and being in the burbs and all, it's not like they're out at the bar with me every weekend - so this my only means of staying in touch and remembering how funny these guys are and why they're my best friends.

For example:

James Douglas Morrison knew I was watching the Bulls game on tape when I got home from work, so he said:

JDM: Watch out for a giant boob chick in a Bulls jersey in the crowd who is undoubtably a stripper.  She's right after the lady who looks like the Kool Aid Man and just before the creepy Robert Englund guy with his arm around a kid.  

Now, without JDM, I would have fast forwarded through those crowd shots.  With him, I laughed my ass off at his dead on descriptions of these weirdos, and it's like we were watching the game together.  

How the hell did people stay in touch before text?  Christmas cards?  Phone calls?  Yuck.  I don't want to even think about it.  This is the only way to be friends with anyone.  I'm convinced.

Anyone have people they text with more than anyone else and you make each other laugh out loud all the time?

I was watching the Chicago Bulls game the other night and having a few IPA's, and longtime play-by-play man, Marv Albert, was saying how someone was trying to live down some bad decisions he made.  This prompted me to yell at the television, "Oh, shut up, Marv!  You were wearing crotchless panties, bit a woman's ass, reportedly forced anal upon a woman, and your toupee fell off.  We haven't forgotten that."

"Panties!  Yes!"

And it's true.  That's what is tough about being a celebrity.  If I paraded around in some crotchless panties, which no man looks good in (even me), I could still pack up and leave town and no one would know I dangled my junk out of a black lacy thong (not that I have a pair picked out).  We all have things we like to do in the sack, but we will never forget what Marv is into because we see him on TV every few nights describing slam dunks to us, and as hard as we try not to, we imagine that under the table he is still wearing those unsightly undergarments.

How about you, readers?  Who are some celebrities who have done something you'll never be able to forget when you see them?

"The 40-Year-Old Freshman," "Treading Death," and an Awfully Mean Coach

I had this dream that I was a college water polo coach, which is weird because I know almost nothing about water polo other than it's like team hand ball in a pool and it's hard to tread water for that long.  

What's also odd is that I had two celebrities on the team: Actor, writer, and funny-man Seth Rogen and Lars Ulrich, the drummer for the most successful metal band of all time, Metallica.  Perhaps they were going back to college and still had eligibility to play, even if they're old and out of shape, respectively?

It was a rag tag group of water polo players to say the least.  

"Back off me, toots.  I got a big game in the morning."

I really needed Seth in an upcoming match to be my outside wing offensive guy, or whatever, but he made a conscious choice to travel with the basketball team instead because he felt he needed to cheer them on.  This made me so mad that I was throwing projectiles at him at the next practice, and my violent tirade was filmed and aired on the local news, which probably would have gotten me fired if the dream continued much longer.  

"I'm the goalie because I'm always in charge even if I'm not all that good."

Lars was a goalie with some pretty quick reaction time and instincts, but what was bothering me was how short he was.  He couldn't even reach the cross bar to stop a high shot, and to be honest, I have no idea if it's an asset or not to have a tall/long armed goalie in water polo or not.  In the dream it was infuriating to have him in there, and I was whipping high shots at him over-and-over to demonstrate this.

I was a mean coach.  

What do you think, guys?  Throw Will Ferrell in here and we got ourselves a crappy sports comedy?  Or am I just totally nuts for having dreams like this one?

If you were a Bear fan in 1991, then you no doubt still have fond memories of Bears' receiver, Tom Waddle, and his series of unbelievable catches in a playoff game against the Cowboys, catching a series of passes thrown across the middle and getting absolutely creamed over-and-over.   I just watched his highlights again, and the poor guy was slow to get up after some of those hits, looked really woozy and disoriented, and was given smelling salts and sent back out on the field.  He caught what was then a Bear record for receptions with a late fourth quarter touchdown, but he just didn't look excited about it.  In fact, something looked very wrong with him.  As it turns out, he doesn't remember getting that touchdown or anything else that happened in the fourth quarter.

Waddle is a sports radio host here in Chicago, and when the often talked about NFL head injury issue came up, Tom's co host, Mark Silvernman, asked him about the concussions he had during that famous game.  Tom said that he not only forgot that quarter, he scared the hell out of his wife when they were driving to the hospital for tests together and he had no idea who she was.  Despite the fact that Waddle and "Silvy" have worked together for a number of years, seem to be friends, and have no doubt talked about this very game on and off the air numerous times, Silvy admitted on the air today that it's the first time he ever heard that story about him not knowing who his wife was.

Waddle was then asked if knowing what he knows now about traumatic brain injuries and their lifelong effects, if he would take that game back.  He seemed unsure, admitting that it didn't matter that much because they lost the game anyway.  But he did say that at 46-years-old, he can now put his ego aside and admit that the right call is for a doctor to make the call that a player can't return to the field in times like those because now what is important to him is spending time with his wife and kids and being able to have the brain capacity to have the memories of his family's life events.

Today was one of those days where I parked my car but stayed inside to listen to the end of this piece because I was so moved.  Waddle was a hero of mine as a kid.  He was a slow, blond, white guy around 6'1" and 185 pounds.  About the same description as me when I watched him play that game as a kid on my television in Chicago's suburbs, only now I'm an inch taller and afraid to say that I'm a little on the wrong side of 200.  I still idolize his gutsy performance from that playoff game, but like Waddle, now that I'm a little older and wiser, I now see the importance of protecting the players.  The game wasn't that long ago, and just give it a look.  Is there any way in hell in today's game that he would have been allowed to keep getting back onto the field taking those licks and looking the way he did?  I sure hope not.  Yes, I consider him a hero, but I'm also very thankful his brain weren't more damaged, and he still has that wit to make me laugh on my ride home from work in the afternoon.

Hey, everyone.  I woke up from a nap today and decided I needed to write this.  Hope you enjoy it.  Oh, and to answer the questions from the last post:

1. Yup.  Golf carts are everywhere.  Locals own them, but mostly it is the tourists driving minimal distances.  I would say there were more golf carts than actual cars out there.

2. The pigs were causing too many problems and were all killed off years ago.

3. The buffalo are still there, but you have to get way inland to see them.  They were brought there to film a movie a long time ago, but the movie's budget ran out, so they just left them there, where they have grown in numbers ever since.

4. Yeah, we said that a few times.  We also learned that Marilyn Monroe lived on Catalina for a while before World War Two, Natalie Wood drowned near there, and at one time most of the island was owned by William Wrigley Jr., also the owner of the gum company and the Chicago Cubs.  As a result, the Cubs used to play their spring training games there.

Okay, anyway.  Here's that story that I just wrote that I was telling you about.  Hope you like it:

My mood was that of a sour funk as I walked through the snow past the grades school I went to as a kid, when I slipped on something and had to catch myself with my bare hand, which landed directly into an inch or two of cold snow and concrete.  But there was something in my hand too, it was plastic, horseshoe shaped, and as I looked around, there must have been ten or twelve of them.  It took a second or two for it to dawn on me that they were plastic mouthguards for football and then another few seconds before I put it together that they were there because that class of 5th and 6th graders on the football team had thrown them on the roof at the end of their season, just as I had 20-something years ago.  Dropping that mouthguard into the hot water and popping that hot plastic into your mouth, you felt like a knight preparing his sword for battle, and whipping it up on the roof at the end of a hard fought seasons was an important ceremonial right of passage.  

Our coach back then was a little off his rocker.  He had a crazed look in his eye when he would yell at you where you would not be the least bit surprised if he suddenly wrapped his hands around a scrawny 11-year-old neck.  His rants were often tangental, and looking back, I'm not even sure if he remembered what it was he was mad about by the end of one his motivational browbeatings.  He would get so flustered and outraged at our lack of discipline and athletic ability, that he would get speechless; just angry stairs, looking around at each and every one of us for what seemed like thirty minutes at a stretch, but was probably closer to one or two.  

My hand and the rest of me wasn't even cold anymore, and after all that reminiscing about mouth guards, my coach, and wearing football pads for the first time with my girdle pad slipping off my ass as I tried to keep up during wind sprints, that just like that ranting and pausing coach so long ago, I wasn't even sure what I was mad about to begin with.  

Fantasy Points VS Hit Points

I was at the gym the other day, and in my section of lockers they were airing a show where guys talk about the value of different NFL players in fantasy football.  Do we need grown men on television talking about this stuff?  Yes, a lot of people do play in fantasy leagues, but can't these analysts talk about the implications for these athletes in terms of reality?

Why don't we just have Dungeons & Dragons analysts on ESPN?  After all, is there really that big a difference in ridiculousness and nerdiness between these two statements?

You can't expect to compete in a fantasy league without two number one receivers, a quarterback who will get 20 every week, and a running back who is good for a touchdown just about every game.

VS

You are dreaming if you are thinking you can just waltz into a dungeon to slay a dragon without a strong fighter, or better yet, a barbarian, and then you're going to need a cleric to heal up your party's hitpoints.

The Coruscant Heat

It seems like everyone in America is tuning into the NBA finals hoping for the Heat lose, but I wonder what a galaxy far, far away might make of this match up?  This got me thinking which star wars baddies would best represent a team that is such a "wretched hive of scum and villainy."

Darth Vader.  "That's game, bitches!"

LeBron James

             Equals . . . 








Explanation: I like this choice because no one hated LeBron when he was with Cleveland (The Rebellion) but then nobody could stand him when he sold out and signed with the Heat (The Empire).

                                         

Dywayne Wade

 Equals . . . 

Grand Moff Tarkin

                              
  









Explanation: Wade just seems like the kind of guy who would blow up your whole planet just to test out his new Death Star, just to show you what's up.  

Pat Riley.  "Kiss the rings, bitches!"

The Emperor

 Equals . . .










Explanation: Pat and the Emperor are both evil old duded running things from behind the scenes.  I bet you didn't know that under that robe, the Emperor's hair is slicked back.

"Sniff these ringless fingers!"

Selacious Crumb

Equals . . .








Explanation: Erik Spoelstra is that little weasel that no one listens to.  When you see him trying to draw up a play for his guys while they just talk amongst themselves, you just can't help but think he might as well be Selacious Crumb outlining a pick and roll.

Chris "The Ostrich" Bosh

Jar Jar Binks

      
                  Equals . . .

Explanation: There is nothing deeper here than 'dude just looks like Jar Jar Binks.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
And there you have it, people.  What do you think?  Anyone I missed or anything you would change?  Leave me a comment.                                                                                                                    

What the World Needs Now Is a Gay Jackie Robinson

I was watching "Real Sports" with Bryant Gumbel today, and they had a segment on Welsh Rugby player, Gareth Thomas, the only openly gay professional athlete on a sports team to come out during his career. Isn't that a sad fact that of all the professional sports teams all across the world, players are getting the same feeling, that the climate is such that coming out does not feel safe.

Jackie Robinson, the first Black Major League Baseball player, was hand chosen because they thought he had the right kind of character to respond to the bigotry and threats. This is what I think we need in all of our sports, a pioneer. After all, it isn't surprising that such a manly endeavor as sporting events has had a long history of intolerance of homosexuals, but I have found that even the least tolerant people can change their tune quickly when they are thrown into a situation where they have to become close to a homosexual - and find them to be just like anyone else.

On this same show, I was surprised to learn how widespread racism is in soccer, where Black players have bananas thrown at them at games, they are spit on, and people make monkey noises every time they get near the ball. They even showed entire sections of Nazi party people who hold up offensive signs.

Anyway, back to the homosexual thing, I think that guys really think that they can't have a gay man in the locker room because he won't be able to contain himself around all those naked men. Really? Get over yourself, guys. Your penis isn't all that great. Especially after all those steroids.