matthearn.com

I think I need to start carrying a purse. A “manbag,” if you will.

You’re probably sitting there wondering, “Well, obviously. Matt’s finally coming out of the closet.” To which I respond, “You, many gay men, and the entire world’s female population, WISH!” No, I need to start carrying a purse so I look a little less like a Russian speed skater and a little more like Paul Hamm. Or at least Mia Hamm.

The issue at hand is that I lost like 40 pounds over the course of the year by careful dieting, periodic exercise, and a serious morphine habit, so I’m having to buy new clothes; I was able to buy a couple pairs of pants at Old Navy in size 36×34, which I haven’t worn since my sophomore year of college. I’m extremely stoked to be wearing these sizes, except that when you get to wear smaller waists, you also have to deal with less room in the pants for your butt and thighs.

And despite my loss of poundage, I still have the basic bone and muscle structure of a starting defensive lineman for the Steelers, so having less room for Tha Booty leads to the following unfortunate occurrences:

• Mild constriction on the junk. It’s not painful, but it’s a constant reminder throughout the day, and every time I stand up I have to discreetly make minor adjustments, which is pretty much impossible, because there’s simply no way to ensure that one’s yambag isn’t twisted upside down without having to do that little dance. All the guys reading this are nodding their heads. (All the girls reading this are throwing up into their mouths.)
• Anything that’s in my pants pockets sticks out rather dramatically. “Hey Hearn, is that a cell phone in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?” Well, both, Dad!

I figure the first problem is pretty much unavoidable; those of us who are, shall we say, “gifted,” just have to put up with a certain amount of pressure. The second problem I think I can do something about, if I just start carrying all my personal possessions in a little bag. You know, something I can put in my desk when I get to work, along with the sneakers and socks I wear to get into the building because these pumps are horribly uncomfortable.

I’m hoping someone out there has some suggestions for what sort of bag. Should I just get something simple, like brown leather? Should it have tassels? Should I pick up something with lots of sequins to go with my evening-wear? Decisions, decisions.

I love Wikipedia. LOVE it. If you aren’t in the know about it (because you live in a well and like to make disturbing videotapes and show up 7 days later and kill . . . uh, nevermind), Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is constantly updated and edited by regular folks like you and me! In fact, you can read the plot synopsis of Brigadoon I submitted here.

In the past few days, I have learned all about:

• The Holy Prepuce (Foreskin)
• Josef Mengele
• Endlösung
• Stonewall Jackson
• Turandot

It’s amazing, the amount of well-written information you can find there. I’m considering sending in an article about myself, but I’m not sure how best to describe myself. (Admittedly, most of my friends would have no problems describing me, and in very strong words, frequently using the words “ego” and “needs a frickin’ off switch.”)

In other news, the play is coming along nicely! Get full details about it over at the Chapel Street Players website, where you can get tickets, and get directions to the theatre, and whatnot. We open Friday, and I can safely say I remember 90-95% of my lines! I’m all kinds of amusingly seductive. Plus I wear cool pants.

Update: I found a great picture of your mom on Wikipedia!

In which Comcast finds itself on my s**tlist and redeems itself

Subtitle: Also, Stefan leaves me a rude message on my cell phone.

I’m watching TV th’other day, minding my own business, when suddenly I see it: commercial. For Comcast. Who is offering DVR (Digital Video Recorder, like Tivo) cable boxes. For $10 a month. So I quickly changed my shorts and trotted downstairs to get online and order.

The ordering process was simple; I entered my account name and some other info to verify that I am the actual Matt Hearn of whom the angels frequently extol greatness, clicked a bunch of stuff, and voila, I had printed out receipt saying that a technician would select from the mornings of 9/8, 9/9, or 9/10, I’d start getting charged $10 a month, with no startup fees.

Which is why I was surprised when I received an email from Comcast saying they would be stopping by on Sunday, September 12th, and I was going to be charged a $21.02 service fee.

Long story short, I wrote back, dropped the words “fraud” and “Better Business Bureau,” and they rescheduled me for this morning, plus dropping the set-up charge. Sure enough, just about 11am, a nice fellow stopped by and installed my new DVR, just in time for football season to commence. To say I am stoked by this turn of events would be rather an understatement.

Mmmm…user-controlled instant replay.

In other news, Stefan T. called me today from Korea to alert me that on his birthday last month, I failed to post a lengthy ode on how kickass his home country is. He intimated that I must remedy that situation post haste or risk losing his friendship for all time. I respond well to terroristic threats, so here you are, Rojo, in the style of e.e.cummings:

canada is cool
canada is cool
that big maple leaf reminds me of tepid sugar water
aunt jomama
pouring it over thick waffles with canadian bacon
and scrapple
mustn’t forget the scrapple
or hearnwife will cut me
          cut me deep

i also like rush
they are a hell of good band
          i am changing my name to geddy lee

i have never actually been to canada
so all i know of her people are those i see on tv
and stefan
who is an angry drunk
he drew on my face when i passed out in his bed
so hearnwife cut him
          cut him deep

I’m going to have a seizure.

The only time that blogger screws up is when I forget to cut and paste my work to a text file before posting it.

Lengthy, largely unfunny column lost to a java exception. I mean, you really aren’t any worse off for not getting to read it, since it was about the most boring thing I’ve written since that time I drank a six-pack of jolt cola and filled 3 spiral notebooks with poems entirely written in binary code:

0110110110100010110.
0101; 0101110111?
01101110111100100! 01010101!
       0110! 0110, 0100110111!!!

Number of girls I was dating when that occurred: zero. And I’m sure you’re surprised.

So, it’s now September 7th, and I haven’t posted since August. Still, you gotta admit, considering in the past I’ve let you down for months (being a matthearn.com reader is kinda like being a Philadelphia sports fan), I think getting weekly updates of boring crap is a pretty major accomplishment. Even if most of my posts are explanations of why I never post. But that’s gonna change, I promise you! I’m taking October off from most of the stuff that keeps me hell of busy, so I should be able to write more frequently. Of course, my life will be so boring I won’t have anything useful to write about, but it’s not like you come here for quality prose.

Other website-related stuff: apparently one of my various readers came here the other day and got a pop-up ad for a marital aid of some kind. I haven’t signed up to have anybody install pop-ups in my joint; has anybody else experienced this? I hope nobody hacked my jaunpiece. I’d hate to have to choke somebody.

So on Labor Day (yesterday, remember? Yeah, you were drunk. Admit it) my sister and I were going through old family albums to laugh heartily at such amusing things as:

• My father’s perm, circa 1979. Someday I’ll scan those pics in for all to ridicule.
• My mother’s Farrah Fawcett-Majors wispy flip things from approximately 1981.
• My sister’s mullet from about 1982.

Oddly enough, my hair always looked magnificent.

Speaking of Labor Dabor festivities, this here is the conversation of the week, which occurred yesterday afternoon at my parents’ BBQ. It’s paraphrased because I can’t afford to be recording everything people say to me all the time just in case something is funny.
David T: We’re going to revoke your father’s “Straight Man License.”
Me: Why?
DT: Straight guys are supposed to know all about grilling. That’s what they do, operate grills. And yet your father turned off the grill without cleaning it first!
Me: So what you’re saying is, a gay man would leave it unclean as well?
DT: No, gay men have the same grilling skills that straight men do. Except afterwards, we garnish.

It’s all about presentation.

No apologies this time. I’ve been unable to write due to severe writer’s block, and I refuse to apologize for something that is not my fault. I don’t really have anything good for today either. So what you’re going to get is a rambling, meandering column, and while this may prove difficult to read, it probably will not be funny, either.

No, I’m not drunk. It’s only 1pm! And it’s a Monday! Okay, that doesn’t really mean anything, but nevertheless, I’m sober.

I figured I could probably discuss the Olympics, and really catch the crest of that wave, but then all the American athletes headed back to the states to be on the MTV Video Music Awards. So there’s not really a human interest story left, particularly since people from other countries are rarely humans, and are definitely not interesting. GAIJIN!

My weekend was festive; we went to the Stone Balloon on Thursday night, with all the attendant revelry and offensive touching. Depressingly, I didn’t get hit on by anybody, despite my new svelte form. I can definitely see how people become anorexic. Must constantly get ego boosts from friends and coworkers!

Friday night we had the Ychromes fantasy football draft, which featured a few highlights:

• Fitzy and Rece consistently trying to pick players who had already been drafted.
• Jared drafting over the phone from a Richmond hotel room (he was filming this weekend) and putting his cousin on the phone just as Courtney handed the phone to me, such that I got very confused as to when Jared’s voice dropped an octave.
• Aaron pestering me to show him what picks he had already made until I yelled “EASE UP OFFS MY GRILL!” at him, followed by merely shouting “GRILL!” every time he bugged me, much to the amusement of Ungaskfajslssky.

Saturday I watched TV, as there was a college football game on. I nearly wet my pants. I have missed football so much. Also, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won at Bristol, and I’m pretty sure I did wet my pants there. Yes, it was a soggy weekend at HearndomII! Luckily, the fried chicken we ate was hell of crispy.

Sunday consisted of rehearsal for a play I’m in, which I haven’t mentioned before because I’ve been too busy rehearsing for a play I’m in. It’s called “Living Together,” and it’s part of a trilogy of plays collectively entitled “The Norman Conquests.” I play Norman, and I get all the chicks. <QUAGMIRE>Aw right!</QUAGMIRE>

The show opens 9/17 and runs for three weekends, with two Sunday matinee shows. Come one, come all! I’ll try not to suck.

It’s been a few days since an update, and I had one all set up for yesterday afternoon, until my computer lost it. ::sob:: I’ll try and have something for tomorrow. Meanwhile, sign this petition. And no, it’s not something about getting Bush out of office, or getting his Joseph-Merrick-lookalike opponent in. It’s for an cause with actual worth!

Sorry for no update yesterday, but I had a horrific herpes breakout, and spent all day in my doctor’s waiting room with a bowl of disinfectant (you know, for dipping) and some steel wool.

I mean, uh, I was, um, tired. That’s it. That other stuff was, um, a typo. Yeah, that’s the ticket, a typo! Ignore the previous paragraph. I was merely sleeping under my desk at work, periodically pausing to frantically scratch my groin and whimper.

I mean, um, get a drink of water.

Moving right along.

HW and I spent the weekend in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, as guests of our friends Steve and Ariann, who have a condo out there. A brief chronology (in list form, since I enjoy using that, mainly because it takes up space and makes me look organized):

• 6pm Friday: Arrive at Stone Harbor, only to discover that Ariann and Steve have not yet arrived. Found a bar. I know, this is out of character for us, but we figured we’d get into the whole “vacation” theme with a drink or 3.
• 7:30pm: Return to Ariann and Steve’s, dump our stuff off, and head to Sylvester’s for grub.

  A word about Sylvester’s: delicious seafood, and it’s BYOB, which makes it relatively inexpensive. We showed up with 3 bottles of wine, and stuffed ourselves with crabcakes, mussels, clam chowder, shrimp (aka skrimps), and mildly overdone french fries. We love food so much.

Okay, perhaps a chronological form isn’t going to work, because I lost my watch a few weeks back, and since the wine was flowing heavily, dates and times become a little hazy. After Sylvester’s we went to a bar, the name of which escapes me, and enjoyed a great deal of conversation and a large amount of booze. After that we went home and went straight to bed.

On Saturday I had to do work at 8am, which of course meant that the system I use to connect in to work was broken. I was, luckily, able to have my highly kickass coworker Matt do the stuff for me, and then we went out for bloody marys, followed by a few hours lounging on the beach. I even got some color! (Mostly red. Very red.)

Then we grabbed some lunch at a bar, followed by lounging at the condo, followed by meeting for dinner at some delicious restaurant (the whole building was quite tasty; I spoiled my dinner by filling up on stucco), and then: the club.

Oh MAN. You have not lived until you’ve seen the City Rhythm Orchestra. (I say this with my tongue planted so far in my cheek it’s about to plunge through my flesh like in “Species”.) It’s a “wonderful” band consisting of 2 saxophones, a trumpet, a trombone, bass, keyboards, drums, guitarist, and lead singer.

Oh, the lead singer.

But we’ll get to that in a moment. First, the guitarist. Looked like Beck, sounded like freck, thought he was John Mayer. Really kinda sad. He was no better a guitarist than I am (which is one way of saying he sucked), and definitely not as strong a singer. Clearly I need to get a band.

But the lead singer. He SO wanted to be Tom Jones! It was kinda sad. Tanned skin, all black outfit, bopped around like something from 1964, mainly because 1964 was the last year this guy was young enough to be the lead singer for a band in a dance club. He was easily 55-60 years young, and had enough gold chains that we really hoped he would start yelling “I PITY THE FOOL!” and “DON’T MAKE ME MAD! RRRRRRRR!”

We lasted about 8 songs before we went back to the house to play scrabble. HELPFUL TIP FOR BANDS: if, while you are playing, patrons of the club go home to play board games, you might need to improve in some areas.

Let’s talk about urinals. (Great lede, huh?)

The men’s bathroom on my floor of our office building has two urinals. A short one, and a tall one. This produces many a mental quandary when using the facilities, as when one enters, you have to weigh the various options and make a decision based on these factors:

1. Avoiding urine splashback on the hands: Gotta go with the shorty here.
2. Avoiding urine splashback on the knees of one’s trousers: A powerful burst into the urinal cake of the short stack results in spatter all over one’s khakis. Definitely the tallboy wins this one.
3. Feeling like a big man: Obviously, an adult male would use the taller urinal. Because to do anything else is unAmerican.

Obviously, if you are rather miniature, all of this discussion is moot. However, we don’t really have a lot of 8 year old children working in my office, and I haven’t seen any midgets¹ enter the building either. Additionally, assuming you wash your hands, #1 isn’t really that big a deal, unless you are friends with Bob.

Unfortunately, the problem I run into is “concern for others.” Meaning, should I take the lowrider so that the guy coming in after me can have the joy that is “the big boy urinal?” Or should I take the upperdecker so that should a short guy happen to come in after me, he won’t have to wait for me to finish with the mini-man pisser?

See, these are the kinds of mental exercises men miss out on if they refuse to use urinals and only pee in the poopers. Also, you should probably know that you will be the first people I have beheaded when I become emperor. It’s nothing personal; you all just REALLY PISS ME OFF.

hehehe I said piss

This edition of Fantasy Sports Expertise is brought to you by Scratcho-brand Anti-Itch medication! Just rub it anywhere, and ignore the permanent scarring!

It’s time for me to share with all of you why I am the fantasy football king. Okay, I haven’t won a championship since 2001. Okay, I’ve been steadily getting worse and worse every year. (I expect to finish roughly 17th in our league, which only has 14 teams, because of a variety of penalty appoints associated with stealing draft picks from people because I built the web application that handles the draft. Hehe, just kidding, guys! As far as you know.) And sure, my draft so far this year has been less than stellar, mainly because of Brigadoon related lack of preparation.

HOWEVER. The fact that I have finished an average of 2nd place for the last three seasons means that I am completely qualified to dispense advice, particularly in my area of expertise, The Draft. I’m kind of like Mel Kiper, Jr.! Only without all the amphetamines, ESPN contracts, access to players, research staff, and money. Anyway, here we go:

• The standard practice in Fantasy Drafts is to go for running backs first. The rationale behind this is that there are a very few top tier running backs in the NFL, and a great number of decent QBs and wide receivers. In the immortal words of Jet Li in some crappy Kung Fu movie, “That . . . mumble mistake.”

  Watch Sportscenter some time. How many highlights do you see of running backs? Maybe one or two per week, when some random guy manages to punch through a defense and score a fluke 97 yard touchdown. Do you know how often that actually happens? Well let me tell you: almost never! On the other hand, how many highlights do you see of guys like Randy Moss making a spectacular catch, sprinting 50 yards for the touchdown, and then running over a traffic cop on the way home with weed in the glove compartment of his Bentley? Roughly 39,473 times per week.

  Nobody uses running backs anymore, except in the college game, and then only in the “option offense,” which you’ll note has not won an NCAA Championship game since 1877, just like the Wishbone and the dime defense. What you want are wide receivers and quarterbacks, and lots of ’em, closely followed by as many tight ends as you can pack on your bench.

• In the middle to late rounds (like round 2 or 3, maybe even as late as 4) it’s probably a good idea to start looking for sleepers. You know, guys like Donte Hall, who usually got picked late in fantasy drafts, and then scored on kick returns in something like 47 straight games (for 5 different teams) last fall.

  My favorite kind of sleepers to find are recent retirees. The NFL is very much like prison: a lot of drug use, frequent rape, and, most importantly, a great deal of recividism, which is a hoity-toity term for guys that get out of the NFL/state penitentiary and go straight back in, either because they killed a rival drug dealer, ran out of money, or just couldn’t handle it on the outside.

  Look for Ricky Williams and Shannon Sharpe to be picked up by teams with a lot of salary cap space by week 4 or 5. Technically, because they filed their retirement papers, they wouldn’t be eligible to return until 2005, but technically, Ricky Williams is high on weed right now! So go with your best instinct there.

• Defenses aren’t even worth drafting, not even the really good ones like the Bengals and Jets. The reason for this is that with even a good defense, every time they allow a touchdown you LOSE points! Don’t draft them, and FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE PLEASE DON’T START THEM. You’ll thank me when your opponent posts a negative score for the week when the vaunted New England Defense loses 73-2 and the Texans defense you didn’t even bother to draft does nothing to hurt you!
• One thing you have to be careful to plan for is injury. For example, Fred Taylor was picked up by one of my leaguemates late in the first round; a strong pick if Fred stays healthy, which I believe he will. Many people were concerned that Fred’s groin will be injured again, as it has been in almost every season except the last, but the way I look at it, hey! He’s had it operated on, what, 7 times in the past decade? It’ll be bionic at this point! It’s gotta be stronger than ever!

  In a related story, the thought of having a doctor poking a sharp implement at anything within 15 miles of my own groin has caused me to throw up into my sinuses.

• Another thing that you have to try and balance with your team is how many crackheads you want. From one perspective, a crackhead is good to have on your team, if only because if he’s freshly smoked up he’ll be 3 times faster than anyone else on the field. (Michael Irvin, despite his advanced years, was recently clocked at under 3 seconds in the 40 because of residual cocaine in his system that he snorted off Troy Aikman’s wife’s butt in 1992. And by “40,” I mean he drank a 40-ounce bottle of Olde Englishe in under 3 seconds.)

  On the other hand, if your crackhead player forgets to inject another man’s urine into his bladder before each drug test, or screws up and injects urine containing steroid byproducts, he may be suspended for as many as two quarters of the following game and fined something like .05% of his monthly income for the rest of the season. And that could lose you some points on game day.

• You may have heard things about Peyton and Eli Manning, but if they get snatched up by greedy leaguemates in the early rounds, don’t be afraid to pick their equally-talented older brother Archie Manning. His lifetime stats are simply beyond compare, and despite a few decades of not performing, he’s still a solid pick.
• While we’re on the subject of brothers, if you miss out on Todd Heap, his younger brother Uriah is another great pick, even as a rookie. He may be playing backup now, but he’ll be a starter by midseason.
• Michael Vick will be on the sidelines in a full body cast by week 4, have no fear.

Well, that’s about all the advice I have for you this week. I don’t want to give too much away, or I’ll find everybody beating me! And that would make me cry. So don’t do it.

What the hell is up with USA basketball? I watched most of the game yesterday against Puerto Rico and it was like Carlos Arroyo just squatted down in the middle of the floor and made the American squad roll around in his eliminations. Truly horrific. From what I remember, our heroes were something like 3/26 from beyond the three point line. A three point line that, you may recall, is something like three feet shorter than then the NBA one. We should’ve sent a WNBA team over, with Vince Carter or something so people would buy tshirts.

While I’m on this subject, I noticed a few interesting things (oh yeah. Another unordered list. Love it):

• What was up with all the hispanic cleavage? The Puerto Rican jerseys have scooped necks cut lower than a sorority sister’s bar crawl top. All they needed were long necklaces and some glitter. Eye-catching, and very disturbing.
• Did somebody dip Tim Duncan in something? I always assumed he was mostly a white guy, but now he’s as dark as Iverson’s tattoos. He caught an inbounds pass and made a great little skyhook, and I got very confused when the announcer mentioned him by name.
• I’ve never watched a lot of international-rules basketball, so I gotta ask: what the hell is with the trapezoidal key? For 2 quarters I thought my TV was broken. Is it a new rule? I should think I would have noticed in the last Olympics, although my ability to remember things from 4 years ago is negligible. I can barely remember 2 minutes ago.
• Did LeBron play? Was he in the game at all? I must’ve been blacked out when he was, because I never saw him on the floor, even after half the team had fouled out. I don’t quite get Larry Brown’s reasoning, not having Duncan (a very dominant big man) and LeBron (the most athletic player and talented passer on the floor) out there for 48 solid minutes. I mean, I’m no expert by any means, but if you didn’t bother to bring anybody who can hit a three point shot, you need to start finding any means of getting the ball to your bruising big guy that you can. If your inlet passer can also create his own shot and can play any of three positions, well that’s a nice bonus, isn’t it?

  (No, I didn’t just lift that entire graf from Bill Simmons, but the fact that you think I did warms my heart.)

Speaking of Bill Simmons, you should head on over to this column he wrote a few weeks back about USA basketball and why we won’t even medal. He’s both smarter and funnier than I, and obviously knows more about hoops.