January 2013
2 posts
Dear Luke: A Letter to Lance Armstrong’s Son
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Dear Luke: I don’t know you, I’ll probably never meet you, and I realize right now that, as a 13 year-old, you’re probably in the middle of a hectic and ridiculous year that is the 8th grade. But, in light of your dad’s confessions to Oprah Winfrey over the last two nights, I want to say the following things: Thank you. Yes, thank you. Because it appears...
Lance and the long, uphill climb.
[[MORE]]Lance “won” 7 Tour de France titles on the strength of his performances on long, steep, unending climbs like Alpe d’Huez, Ventoux, the Tourmalet, and Col du Galibier. That kind of long, torturous climb is what he’s chosen to engage in again, after his confession of doping and other sins to the high priestess of public justice, Oprah Winfrey.
The big question is whether he’ll ever again...
February 2012
1 post
Why you shouldn't "fall" in love.
As a singer/ songwriter, I spend a lot of time thinking about romance.
Hell, I spend a lot of time in romance.
And a lot of it winds up in my music—songs about falling for someone, songs about breaking up with someone, songs about wanting someone back.
Time and time again, it hovers around the experience of falling hopelessly, overwhelmingly in love with someone.
I fall in love quite a lot,...
January 2012
3 posts
Billy Cundiff and the art of manning up
The other night, more than 25 million people watched the NFL AFC championship game end in infamy as the New England Patriots narrowly defeated the Baltimore Ravens.
Did the game end with a triumph of sporting brilliance? A testament to human willpower? A staggering display of athletic prowess?
No. Sadly, it was mostly decided because one guy made a lousy kick.
It was the kind of kick we’ve...
Your soulmate isn't who you think it is
We all have our own romanticized notions of what it will be like when we find true love. How it’ll go. What it’ll feel like. What he or she will look like, sound like, act like. Even kiss like. And every once in a while, we actually meet that person. There they are! In the bar standing next to us! Or down the hall at work! Or in the line at the bookstore! They’re perfect. Everything we imagined....
Why the world needs more Teds than Barneys
I’ll admit, I’m a huge TV fan these days. Not the reality-show garbage, but the ones with genuinely well-crafted writing. The last few years, I think you could make the case that there’s better writing on TV than on film, and actors like Alec Baldwin, Keifer Sutherland, Glenn Close, Steve Buscemi and Holly Hunter seem to agree, based on the roles they’re choosing. Here, the human condition is...
December 2011
1 post
How to get dumped by a Hollywood starlet.
First, be sure to have recently gone through a tough breakup. That way you’ll have no interest in meeting anyone new, which of course women can sniff a mile away and are insanely attracted to, especially women who are rising actresses and used to having men chasing them like rabid dogs.[[MORE]]
Then, be on your way to meet an old friend for dinner to talk about said breakup. Better yet—make...
November 2011
1 post
A Ski Academy Grad Looks Back 20 Years Later
[[MORE]]In the fall of 1983, I did what many of my friends would liken to winning the lottery: I convinced my parents to let me go to a ski academy. It was something no rational family would consider back then. We were a ski family, but not a ski racing family, which seemed a questionable breed of extremists. But my parents took a chance sent me off, and I still look back on it as the best thing...
September 2011
8 posts
Removing a rat from your apartment. The hard way.
Here’s the short version:
A rat was living in my house.
So I brained it.
And afterwards, I drank the rat’s blood for spiritual strength and to pay homage to the ancient God of redemption, Sháktü-tiki-tä.
Ok, I made the last part up.
But most of it is true. It went like this:
To begin with, let me say I’ve never really had any animosity towards rats. My dad’s a doctor, my mother a science...
Becoming a Boss fan at Giants Stadium
Now, I’m somewhat of a Springsteen fan, but by no means a superfan. At least until tonight. Sure, I had “Born in the USA” as a teenager (who didn’t?), and loved “No retreat, no surrender” and “My hometown,” but Glory Days and the title track never grabbed me. But I lucked into some last minute tickets to see him on night #1 of his final run at Giants Stadium in...
Dealing with my closet.
We all have problems we put off dealing with.
Issues that we know need our attention, messes we know we need to clean up, patterns that we know are unsustainable if not corrected. But we just can’t seem to find the motivation to tackle them.
For me, it’s my closet.
It’s a sprawling, ugly, chaotic, unorganized, unmanageable disaster area, and a testament to my lack of organization and inability...
In defense of small-breasted women.
[[MORE]]Call me crazy, but I’ve never been a big fan of big boobs.
They’ve just never done a whole lot for me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know.
In a culture that glorifies the likes of Pamela Anderson and the Swedish Twins, surely I’m gay, right? Or at least in dire need of glasses?
Alas, no. I assure you I’m a visual horndog for the fairer sex.
But it just seems that whenever I fall...
How George Lucas lost his Obi-Wan.
(On the importance of having a “no” person in your life.)
If you’re a Star Wars fan, chances are you’re mostly a fan of the first three Star Wars films, and either barely tolerate or have extreme anger towards the last three. The “prequels,” as they have been labeled, were unilaterally dismissed as lacking any real character development, or emotional engagement. They were...
How to break up with a girl (from a guy who's done...
One of the most difficult ordeals a guy can face is the delicate matter of ending a relationship that his girlfriend still wants to continue, especially if he still cares for her. There are some good ways to go about it, but infinitely more bad ones, and I’ve certainly plumbed the latter category more times than I’d like to admit over the years. So in there interests of sparing men...
Luck, fate and the conservation of energy law.
I’m not a big believer in fate.
But I do a put a lot of stock in science.
One of my favorite laws of the physical world is this one, the conservation of energy law, or first law of thermodynamics:
“Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change forms.”
For instance: Atoms in the sun undergo fission, the energy from which creates sunlight, which then heats our planet, which helps...
A lesson on manhood, courtesy of a Special...
This is a story about that tender, coming-of-age moment in every young man’s life: his first kiss. And how, for me, it in no way, shape or form resembled the one I’d hoped to have as a young man. But, like many things in life, sometimes it’s the unexpected turns that have the most to teach us.
The story begins in the hills of Maine, where I grew up ski racing. Ever heard of Olympian Bode Miller?...
