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You know what I need? Better hair products. I have acres, nay, bushels of various mousses, pastes, gels, and sprays, and not one of them really makes my hair do what I want it to do consistently. I’m sure many of you feel the same way, right? Right?
Rudolph Valentino's Greasy Coif
Back in the day, men used hair pomades, thick, greasy stuff made from pig lard and wombat tears. Look at this guy:
That’s Rudolph Valentino, heartthrob, actor, peritonitis victim, and all-around man-about-town. I’m not sure when that picture was taken, but it probably was in the early 20s (since he died in 1926). I guarantee he hadn’t had to comb his hair since he put in a fistful of Murray’s in it in 1914.
Why can’t I get that stuff? I want that slick, sleek look.
On second thought, Valentino was able pull of the sleek look because he was handsome; it’s in everyone’s best interests that as much of my hair be in front of my face as possible. So, uh, nevermind.
So the Phils have quietly and sneakily crept back into first place with last night’s win over the Natinals. Well, maybe not sneakily; Monday’s win was effected via two, count ’em, two grand slams, one from Ryan Howard to tie it up early, and then another from Raul “RBI” Ibañez in the bottom of the eighth to take a 13-11 lead. So not sneaky, but quite loud.
The offense has been en fuego for the last week or so, getting on base, hitting huge bombs. They’re getting on base 35% of the time, 5th best in the league, and slugging .472, topping the league. Most importantly, they have 118 runs, third in the league but only one behind the tied leaders. Woo!
On the mound, however, we have a different story. In 19 games, starters have gone 7 innings only twice. The bullpen is performing admirably (aside from Lidge blowing his first save as a Phillie last week), but they’re getting worn out. Hamels is off to a disastrous start, with an ERA over 7, and while he allowed no runs last night, he only faced 18 batters over 4 1/3 innings before spraining his ankle while fielding a bunt. He says he’ll be okay to pitch again next Monday, his next scheduled start, but frankly I’d rather they 15-day DL him so he can make sure he’s back to full health. The team is good again this year, and has a strong chance of defending last year’s title; I think it behooves them to make sure their ace starter is healthy, rather than risk injury on a game in May.
On a positive note, Raul “RBI” Ibañez is close to joining Chase “Sloppy Splinter” Utley on the official “Matt Hearn Would Go Gay For These Men” list. They’re neck-and-neck in the stats: Utley’s batting .357, with an OPS of 1.142, and Ibañez is batting .355, and his OPS 1.143. Utley started hot like this last year but was slowed by his hip injury, but whichever of them can maintain a pace like this is your NL MVP, and I guar-on-tee it.
Well, that’s not true. What I’ve figured out is why a pure free market economy, with no regulation, has no hope of working. Or rather, I’ve figured out a way to explain it in terms that makes sense to me.
(I guess I haven’t figured out a damn thing, if I had to be honest. Still: this makes sense to me. It makes sense to me! That counts for something, right?)
Here’s how I break it down. The free market economy is like a car. Back in the 40s and 50s, cars were simple. Drum breaks, carburetors, rear-wheel drive, manual transmissions; anybody could work on ’em, and most folks did. Anybody could change the fluids, gap and replace spark plugs, tune the engine, etc. You might take it in for the really complicated stuff, but I think my father once told me he replaced the piston rings in an old Mustang he had, hardly a simple job.
Along the same lines, for most of history, investing was simple: you found somebody you trusted who needed money to start a business venture, and you gave ’em a few bucks and hoped to double your money. After a while, it was formalized into stocks and bonds, buying and selling. Pretty tame; you bought a stock, it paid dividends, the price went up or down. Hard to predict, but easy to understand, and over the long term, things tended to go up.
After a while, cars got complicated. Front-wheel drive, automatic transaxles, fuel injection, computer-controlled ignition. I’m pretty mechanical-minded, but all I can do with my Saab is change the oil and brakes. There’s something wrong with the turbo; don’t know how to fix that. Check engine light is on; I could probably get the code, but Lord knows it’s probably an oxygen sensor buried deep in the engine that I can’t get to.
Same deal with financial products: around the turn of the last century, people started “selling short,” which means betting on stocks to fall. This isn’t particularly dangerous on its face, but the problem is if you’re buying stocks, you can only buy as much as you have money for. When you’re selling short, you basically BORROW the stocks and then sell them to someone, and buy ’em back to return ’em to the guy you borrowed ’em from. (It’s slightly more complicated than that, but that’s the gist.) The problem is, unless there’s a regulation preventing it, there’s no limit to the amount you can short sell, because you don’t have to actually own the stock to do so. End result: October 1929. Stock market crash. Depression. Immediately after this, regulations were put in place such that you can only sell short a certain amount, based on how much cash you have laying around.
And then again, in 2008, after years of deregulation, banks are allowed to move money around in ways few people understand. Lenders are allowed to make loans to people who are high credit risks, because they can then turn around and sell the risk off to some investor in a credit default swap. No average person can be expected to understand all this himself, so he hands his money off to an investment professional, just as the average American takes his car back to the dealership for basic service.
Now here’s where the analogy breaks down: imagine you paid your mechanic and got your car back after service, and a few days later the entire car fell apart, Bluesmobile-style. You would, rightly, be very angry with the mechanic, right? You would expect him to repair your car, and probably get you a rental to drive around for your trouble, right? Of course you would.
Unfortunately, if you give your money to an investment professional, and he blows it all on credit default swaps, he can blame it on an economic downturn. All the while, he’s taking his usual commission.
If your car starts acting funny, you know it right away. The check engine light comes on, or the brakes squeal. Something like that. You know to get it fixed right away. With your investments, you mostly have to rely on our investment professionals to tell us, something that they are loathe to do because they know if we knew how incompetent they were, we’d take our money away. Sure, they send out quarterly “statements,” but most Americans throw them into the trash unread. Why would they worry? They’re years away from retirement! So most Americans had no idea what was going on until they watched the S&P 500 lose 50% of its value and called their money man to ask, “Hey, I’m doing okay, right?”
Um…no.
I guess what I’m saying is that giving money to unregulated investment professionals is like giving a Ferrari to these guys. I’m all for the free market, and whatnot, but perhaps maybe just a little government oversight? Maybe? You think?
[Disclaimer: I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. Take all of the above with a grain of salt the size of my head.]
I’ve decided that my name should be a pejorative adjective. For example: Man, how clumsy do you have to be to cut your finger on a piece of fashion jewelry? You’d have to be Matt Hearn clumsy to do that.
(Indeed, I managed to cut my thumb on silver ring my wife bought me for our anniversary last year. You may be interested to know that the ring in question is not worn on my thumb. Nor is worn on the hand belonging to the thumb that was cut. Why yes, I do often have bruises and small cuts all over my body from walking into [walls|trees|fences|interior linebackers].)
Another good one: how dumb do you have to be to mow the lawn on a 90-degree afternoon? Man, you’d have to be Matt Hearn dumb. (Or perhaps Matt Hearn busy.)
The weekend was full and overstuffed. On Saturday, Charles and I spent all morning doing yard work in a vain effort to tire him out so he’d have an early nap. We dug, and mulched (“melched,” as Charles puts it), and trimmed, and planted. The “early nap” plan was an utter failure, of course; he went down at 10:30, talked to himself until noon, and finally get maybe an hour’s sleep before we woke him to go to a party.
Luckily, sleep or not, homeboy is always up for a party. We met a bunch of our musical theatre friends at one of their homes, out in West Chester, where we got our barbecue on and watched as the Flyers gained and lost a three-goal lead in a deciding playoff game. There was much anger, which was calmed by drinking large amounts of Canadian beer.
On Sunday we were able to sleep in a tiny bit, then got some breakfast at Bob Evan’s, followed by a trip to Sarah’s old church for the baptism of children belong to some old high school friends. I spent the afternoon mowing the lawn in temperatures approaching 90 degrees, and then sitting around drinking water so that I could stop looking like a dessicated husk. (Is it just me, or are temperatures in all seasons getting a little crazy? It’s not unheard-of to have 90 degree days in April, of course, but it seems like year after year we got a bunch of really hot summer days, a bunch of really hot winter days, but we also get some oddly chilly days in early August, and of course last winter there were at least five separate days when I had to chisel frozen saliva from my lips just by walking from my car to the office. That was a really long sentence, which will stay in place because I have no editor. Huzzah!)
After making the lawn look reasonably tame, we went to the in-laws’ for the brother-in-law’s birthday, at which I ate so much chicken-fried steak that I couldn’t effectively breathe for the rest of the day. I tried to stuff some birthday cake in there but it wasn’t happening. I went to bed 4 hours later in a semi-coma, still thinking there was no way I’d ever eat food again.
My day so far: Charles woke us at 6:15 by falling out of bed and initiating Maximum Tears. Then on the way north I got the bird flipped at me by some dumb broad from New Jersey who was in the left lane holding up traffic all the way through the city. So let’s star the day off with a dose of awesome:
Did you meet anybody new today? A little boy, named Curtis, who is in Charles’s preschool class.
What are you craving right now? A beer.
Do you floss? No. I know I should, but I hate tooth maintenance. I wouldn’t brush my teeth if my breath didn’t smell of elderberries; I hate the lingering taste of mint. It throws off all my meals. And I love meals.
Are you emotional? I think the survey would say X.
Have you ever counted to 1,000? While I do believe I have a mild case of Asperger’s Syndrome, I haven’t quite gone that far.
Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it? I lick it, but keep in mind my tongue is large and can slurp off a lot of frozen dessert in one lick.
Do you like your hair? I like the color, but it’s too fine to do anything with.
Do you like yourself? Mostly. I wish I wasn’t so lazy.
Would you go out to eat with George W. Bush? Let’s put it this way: I never like being the smartest person in a conversation because I can’t learn anything. I think a conversation with the former President would make me feel so superior I might start funding eugenics research.
What are you listening to right now? Thomas the Tank Engine, being played on the TV while no one pays attention, but of course if it were to be turned to the Phillies game there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Are your parents strict? Not particularly. I never really had much interest in stretching the boundaries; I was quite the boring fellow.
Would you go sky diving? Sure, if someone else paid. It’s just another expensive pursuit, I can’t afford the hobbies I already have.
Do you like cottage cheese? No, it’s like eating cold bone marrow.
Have you ever met a celebrity? A few U.S. Senators and other politicians, that’s about it.
Do you rent movies often? I almost never have 2 hours to sit and watch anything, so no. About once a month, I’d say.
Is there anything sparkly in the room you’re in? My wife’s bracelets.
How many countries have you visited? 8, I think; St. Kitts-Nevis, Iceland, Norway, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France (for a quick afternoon), and the UK.
Have you made a prank phone call? Nah. Seems like juvenile humor to me, and while I am a connoisseur of the tasteless joke, prank calling involves picking on random people for no good reason. This is also why I skip the portions of “Jackass” where they’re just being rude to people or taking dumps in toilets displayed at hardware stores. I’m more amused by them injuring themselves.
Ever been on a train? Road the Strasburg Railroad a few times, and last summer took a train home from Manhattan.
Brown or white eggs? We buy white, but I don’t really care. My grandmother used to cook the brown ones, they taste the same.
Do you use chap stick? Only once my lips are too far gone to be saved.
Do you own a gun? A couple airguns, but sadly most of my income is spoken for by electronics.
Can you use chop sticks? Being a yuppie WASP, of course.
Who are you going to be with tonight? A bunch of theater friends! Who has two thumbs and is excited? Moi.
Are you too forgiving? Depends. To their face, I let people get away with stuff. But then I hold a grudge and talk about them behind their back. I’m like a 13-year-old girl, down to my bizarre fixation with Miley Cyrus.
Ever been in love? Constantly.
What is your best friend(s) doing tomorrow? We’ll be going to dinner at her parents’ for her brother’s birthday.
Ever have cream puffs? Yeah. Made ’em myself! They were…so…awesome.
Last time you cried? Probably earlier this week, watching the Harry Kalas memorial service I’d taped.
What was the last question you asked? I do not remember.
Favorite time of the year? Whichever time is coming up. In winter, I want spring. Spring: summer. I’m never happy with what I’ve got.
Do you have any tattoos? I plead the fifth.
Are you sarcastic? <SARCASM>No, not at all.</SARCASM>
Have you ever seen The Butterfly Effect? I saw a few minutes of it and threw up in my mouth.
Ever walked into a wall? My torso is something like 3 feet wide. Doorframes are not made with me in mind. I constantly bang my shoulders into them. I’ve been known to knock the frame out of plumb.
Favorite color? Blue.
Have you ever slapped someone? I’ve spanked my son a few times, and instantly regretted it each time.
Is your hair curly? Hell no.
What was the last CD you bought? I downloaded Jim Gaffigan’s latest effort yesterday evening. Actual disk? Jeez…I think it was a Celine Dion album for the wife.
Do looks matter? Of course. I look fabulous!
Could you ever forgive a cheater? Depends on the particular action.
Is your phone bill sky high? Yes, only because iPhone bills ain’t cheap. But if this supposed to mean “Do you talk on the phone a lot?” the answer would be oh hells no. I hate talking on the phone. That is why the Good Lord Sweet Crying Baby Jesus invented texting, email, and Twitter.
Do you like your life right now? Reasonably so. I’d like to be further advanced in my artistic endeavors, but one does what one can.
Do you sleep with the TV on? Only if I fall asleep watching baseball.
Can you handle the truth? I believe I’m entitled to the truth.
Do you have good vision? Very good, actually, which is annoying because in most other ways my body is very defective. I have something like 20/10 vision, but of course my hand-eye coordination is abysmal so I can’t, say, hit a fastball.
Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people? Probably, but I try not to dwell on it until they bug me.
How often do you talk on the phone? Maybe once a day.
The last person you held hands with? Charles, walking across the parking lot from Home Depot.
What are you wearing? Camouflage shorts (in case someone tries to hunt me), tan-ish tshirt, brand-ass new New Balance kicks.
What is your favorite animal? Anything feline. Large rodents are a close second.
Where was your default picture taken? Since this came from Facebook, you can’t see it unless you are my frien’, so check it. We were at a picnic at Breck’s Lane.
Can you hula hoop? For approximately .08 seconds.
Do you have a job? Yes; I work for AIG21st Century Farmer’s Insurance.
What was the most recent thing you bought? The aforementioned kicks.
Have you ever crawled through a window? Sure. Cars, homes, morgues, you name it.
If you have a pair of dress pants with elastic in the waist, you probably have considered eating Cheetos for breakfast.
If you have a bumper sticker that says “Pay no attention to my car, my treasure is stored in Heaven,” you probably believe in horoscopes.
If you think Golden Corral is haute cuisine, you probably collect Mickey Mouse memorabilia.
If your car’s rear windshield has a decal memorializing a dead relative, your career prospects probably top out at “Manager of Payless Shoes.” Also, one of your many children is probably going to spend some time in prison.
If you watch TMZ, you probably think an omelet and a frittata are the same thing. In your defense, 98% of the people making “omelets” at supposedly high-class brunch buffets think the same.
If you name your daughter Madysin, she is probably not going to be appointed a Federal Circuit Court Judge. There’s an outside chance, though, that she might be named to the cabinet of a particularly horrid U.S. President.
If you once Didn’t Know You Were Pregnant, you probably shave your chin more frequently than the average person of your gender.
If you are a huge Neil Sedaka fan, you probably buy all your brassieres at CostCo.
If you are reading this, you are probably either a relative of mine, or have seen me take my pants off at a social event. Or both.
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