Colt McCoy-Legitimate Quarterback Star

I need to interrupt the fascinating three-part series on politics I've started

Oh, sorry, I fell asleep just then thinking about it.

Anyway, I'm interrupting the series to announce my new man-crush on Colt "Opie" McCoy, Texas' starting quarterback. I don't usually hop on the Heisman bandwagons like everyone else, mainly because the Heisman is such a joke. It goes to the biggest star on the most acclaimed team in early November each year. Gino Torretta?

But McCoy is different. I may get run out of Austin, but I think he's a more useful, and no question more complete, quarterback than Saint Vince.

1. There's no point blitzing Colt McCoy. He's going to get rid of the ball before you can get there, and will always hit his blitz recognition routes.

2. His defensive reading skills are far beyond even the average college star quarterback. He never checks into bad plays, and almost always checks into a play that runs away from the pressure.

3. He can't quite run like Vince, but the difference is when he begins to run, he still has the option to pass, and is still incredibly accurate passing while on the run. When Vince pulled down the ball, you knew he was committed to the run.

4. McCoy is virtually unparalleled at the ability to go to his secondary receivers. If Chris Simms had this guy's ability to check off, instead of gazing at his primary receiver run every step of his route before throwing, Texas might have won two national championships (2001 and 2002). I guess it was more important to throw four interceptions every year in the OU game. I think Roy Williams just picked off another Simms throw in the flat at the Cotton Bowl. Its good that I'm so over Major Applewhite getting benched in favor of that nimrod.

5. McCoy can put the ball through a keyhole. Several games this year, he literally has threaded the ball into the receiver through two and even three DB's hands.

6. Related to accuracy, he can make every pass on the field. He can hit the 5 yard West Coast offense outs, blitz control crossing routes, he can do play action, drop back, he can hit that Jordan Shipley 7 yard hash mark route all day, and he has the deep ball too. Every one of those passes is on the mark.

7. He makes big plays, and almost never makes bad plays. The fumble in the red zone yesterday near the end of the game is about the only one I can think of this year. This has been his biggest improvement. These last couple of years he's been prone to interceptions. Not this year.

8. Finally, this guy has poise. Texas has led in most games, but Colt has managed to keep the offense on target in tough games like OU when the Sooners got out to a lead. He's the unquestioned team leader, and manages the offense on the field.

Colt McCoy is a complete quarterback, and while he may lack size, he has superior ability to read defenses, the physical ability to run and pass, and the leadership skills to handle a #1 team. This year the hype is merited. Let's all enjoy watching this guy's season; he's performing at a level seldom seen in college, and certainly seldom seen at Texas.

The Most Dangerous Man in America

This is long overdue, but I think I’ll use this requested post on the “most dangerous man in America” to launch a three post arc on politics. I’d call it a trilogy but I don’t want to risk Star Wars or Lord of the Rings geeks picking up on this on some google search. Today, we’ll consider why Barack Obama has been called the most dangerous man in America. Next, I’ll explain to you why Congress is utterly incapable of passing laws that will actually have a positive effect. I’ll then conclude before the election with my thoughts on the candidates for President and Vice-President.

But for now, let’s ponder why have some called Obama the most dangerous man in America.

I don’t know.

I guess its because the Chosen One/Empty Vessel says he’ll personally negotiate with foreign leaders who’ve sworn to annihilate Israel, and who use their nation’s resources to fight Western values like democracy and human rights. Good call. Neville Chamberlain and France think that’s a great idea. No wonder Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has endorsed Obama for President.

But to say Obama is the most dangerous man in America requires us to ignore the obvious truth. Someone we all know is lurking in the dark shadows cast by the bright American flame, but are terrified to face. Someone who scares us, intimidates us, shames us in front of the cool kids at school while hitting on our mothers.

He is the one we fear most.

The most dangerous man in America.

John Mayer.

Oh yes, John Mayer.

John Mayer is so dangerous because his grunting mediocrity with a smile and middle of the road guitar chops make nice girls want to do bad things.

Because he somehow has managed to use relentness lameness, Doody from Grease looks, and farcical pretensions to Dylanness to slay more Hollywood starlet tail than Sinatra, Beatty, and Nicholson combined.

Because his not quite good enough to be the rhythm guitar player for Poco musical skills somehow have made an entire generation of music fans who don’t know any better think that’s what excellent guitar playing sounds like.

Because he has a blog where he sometimes uses words with more than two syllables to feed his delusions of intelligence and perpetuate the myth of “John Mayer, sensitive thinking man rocker,” when he is in fact not thinking and not a rocker.

Because to deflect criticisms of his douchosity, he decided to tat up like some Kid Rock wannabe, only confirming what we already knew.

And finally, because he sets an example for the young that mediocrity garners rewards.

He is the Ryan Secrest of rock and roll. The Pee Wee Herman of manhood. The Chico Marx of intellectual rigor.

He is, simply, the most dangerous man in America.

Next up—why Congress doesn’t work.

Hook ‘em Horns!

One Year Gone

My mother died one year ago today. She was, fittingly, talking with a friend she'd just run into on her way to go walk when it happened. A good part of every day of her life was spent talking to friends or family, or running into people that knew her.

I'm at home today with Dad, and we are all thinking not only of her but my brothers and sister-in-law are thinking of Dad as well. He and I are going to the cemetery in a couple of hours.

I want to again thank everyone who has prayed for us, thought of us, brought us food, sent flowers or cards, came to the funeral or reception, visited us, donated to the Don and Birdie Reeder Fund, told us stories about Mom, or otherwise helped us over the past year. Its been a really big help, and reminded us again how many people care for us (and how many thousands of friends and admirers Mom had).

If I could ask one more thing of you, please continue to think of and pray for my Dad. He is strong, but he suffers greatly.

Thanks again.

September Madness

Latest thing making the internet rounds. Click on the picture to enlarge.

The whole bailout thing is disgusting. If Ed's Cleaners makes bad investments and takes foolish risks, Ed goes bankrupt. That serves as a lesson to everyone else to be cautious. But more importantly, Ed bears all the risks-he is the only one that his unwise decisions hurt, and the only one to reap the rewards if it works out. If you're a Wall Street banking house tired of making chump change on actual loans, and decide to start playing the ponies with higher return investments, you get government to bail you out. Or if you're an auto maker in Michigan, employing lots of union workers, and you make cars people don't want to buy at three times the cost of your competition (who makes cars that people do want to buy), you also get goverment to bail you out. Put another way, you and I get to be partners in corporate losses, but don't get any share (except taxes) of the profits.

Who was asleep at the switch to let things get to this point? Answer-everyone in government. Let's brook no Pelosi hectoring about Bush policies causing this-Congress has significant oversight responsibilities over the securities markets, and passed deregulation laws allowing the investment banks to get into all these other markets that are now bringing it down. Democrats have had control of the Congress for a majority of the last 30 years, and the Presidency for about a third of that time. Though, let's not forget who appoints the members of the SEC and the Fed, who runs the Treasury, and who appoints the Attorney General who prosecutes securities fraud. This is a bipartisan failure.

As for Bracketology, here's my picks: Congress' slow-down offense and tenacious defense will take down Obama, as platitudes seldom translate into policy and Democrats like to eat their young (signed, the Clinton Health Care Reform Bill). I see Congress taking JP Morgan chase as well; Nancy Pelosi's post up game, combined with Harry Reid's three point shooting and control over bailout funding ultimately takes down JPMorgan's heretofore high scoring offense to make it out of the East Regional. Over in the Southeast Regional, the Queen of England's strong inside game and deep bench should overcome Lloyd's disaster- and investment- depleted reserves (and lack of outside shooting), and Barclay's will lack sufficient liquidity to stop the Buckingham Express. Take the Queen and -7. On the other coast out at the West Regional, I see Bank of America winning in OT over Citigroup, with BOA using its broader market position, Federal Reserve backing for its Wachovia buyout, and its full-court pressure to make it to the Final Four. BOA +5. Goldman has no shot, as its right behind Lehman in the row of investment house dominoes. Finally, in the Southwest regional, this is the easiest side of the tournament to handicap, as the Fed will easily move past the fledgling FHFA, based on its still vast reserves and its multiple offensive weapons. In the Final Four, I have Congress taking the Queen rather easily, capitalizing on its powers to declare war and to score inside the paint. Congress +10.5. I have the Fed narrowly beating Bank of America-the Fed's superior reserves and scoring talent being depleted is the only thing keeping this one close. Fed +1.5. In the championship game, I see it as fairly close, but have Congress by 6. The Fed is in a weakened state, and even though Congress is running for re-election now, the Democrat majority is safe in both houses, and with Steny Hoyer's rebounding and Barney Frank's back court scoring (I'm far too immature to resist the Barney Frank/back court crack, and if you've read this far, so are you), the Fed will be out of this by early 4th quarter.

Uh, its late. Sorry for this entire post.

Curt and Kim Get Married, Carrie and Jeremy Stay Married

As I’ve written before, I normally don’t read other people’s blogs for the same reason I don’t “instant message.” You and I may be friends, but I really don’t care what you did last Friday, or if you’re out of Q-Tips, or if your husband sometimes makes you feel not cherished and special, or if you’ve written a poem in tribute to Barack Obama while you cried over your afternoon chamomile tea and your cat Mr. Snuffers nuzzled your bare feet.



Sorry, I fell asleep just then thinking about that.

Having said that, I’d like to tell you what I did two weekends ago. That was the weekend I went to Kim and Curt’s wedding in the Amish Country/Southern Pennsylvania Arts Belt. Then I traveled south to Virginia, not unlike Lee retreating after his own Northern invasions, to visit Carrie and Jeremy. Wedding photos, for those of you who haven’t already seen them, are on my flickr site (see link to the right).

As many of you know, Curt and Kim have been involved for quite some time, but have faced some unique challenges not of their making in being able to reach this point, so their wedding culminated a dedicated and patient time of working through those challenges and building a stronger relationship.

OK, even I'm not sure what that meant.

But it was time to party hardy.

I flew into BWI on Thursday night, and picked up my rental white Hyundai Sonata with XM satellite radio around 7:30, making the drive up to Lancaster in the dark. This was a vast improvement over the purple Ford Probe I was assigned many years ago by the rental place in San Francisco while visiting Kimberly. Near Union Square, two extremely attractive women crossing an intersection pointed at the car and started laughing at me in my purple Probe while I was stopped at the light. So this was a vast improvement. After somehow figuring out my wrong turn just as I could see the Baltimore skyline, I rocked on past corn fields and McDonalds’ turnoffs in the night, listening to Fox Sports Radio.

I arrived at the Lancaster Arts Hotel around 10, just in time to catch the tail end of "legal secretary meets insurance salesman happy hour" at the John J. Jeffries restaurant downstairs. Now, this is quite the unusual establishment. Its in a renovated old red brick warehouse building, in a cluster of other such buildings near downtown Lancaster. Its an “arts” hotel, meaning that everything is geared around creativity, or as they put it “inspiration.” Every hall is filled with paintings, as are the walls in every room. Each room has a flat screen HD television, a wine cooler, and other fancy touches. The guest services book is printed in the form of a paint sample book, the front desk is called the “inspiration station,” and the maids are referred to as “room stylists.” And they serve breakfast burritos at breakfast, which is where I first happened upon Steven Salzman, our mutual friend from school and college, who of course looks as if though time has stood still for him.

Naturally I had work to do the next day before the 5:30 wedding, so, it being a beautiful day and all, I made the quick trip over to Franklin and Marshall College, a small liberal arts school founded in 1787. This is the second time I’d been on its small but pleasant campus; you’ll understand my attraction for it if you see some of the photos . After walking for a bit, I found a spot in the main mall area and started reading testimony for a few hours. Kind of weird doing that, as the students walked by on the hour between classes. But no less weird than the college mascot. They are the Franklin and Marshall “Diplomats.” Hey Diplomats. Let me explain the whole team mascot concept to you. Its supposed to be something that in real life is kind of menacing, like tigers or bears or, I don’t know, tax accountants. Something to give you some kind of imposing identity as your team hits the field. You get worried having to play the Steelers, or the Giants. But the “Diplomats”? Not so much. What are they going to do? Negotiate a treaty with you? Enter into a joint communiqué outlining a mutually agreeable fourteen point peace plan? Yeah, you people may want to come up with some other mascot.

Attending the wedding itself turned into a typical Chris Reeder enterprise, meaning that I was late and ill-prepared. I told Suzanne that I’d give her a ride, and of course hadn’t managed to get good directions either to her hotel or to the church, requiring phone calls first to her hotel front desk, then to my secretary back in Austin for directions. Even with all that, we got there about 20 minutes late. I think we saw more than we missed. In my defense, we still weren’t the last ones there. On the bright side, we caught all the legalities, missed Craig’s poetry reading, and apparently still got credit from the bride for full attendance (so, keep it to yourself). The downtown church, a Unitarian church, appeared to be an interesting old converted Episcopal church. I missed most of the self-written vows (too far away from the action), but the crowd within ear shot appeared moved. Mrs. Nobbs, Matron of Honor, was radiant. Everything was dignified yet elegant, as you would expect from Kim. We were gratefully spared any contrived drama or production, and everyone appeared to enjoy the ceremony.

After the ceremony and receiving line, we walked over to the reception hall together. This appeared to be some sort of converted arts space, with a small reception area where she served wine and cheese, and a larger room where we had a pasta buffet dinner. Patrick and his buddy Miles were the “emcees.” Somehow I missed the cake cutting (I think that’s right around the time that the young woman I was seated next to started showing me 364 photos of her fiancée, reminding me once again to always, ALWAYS, bring my hari-kari knife), and thankfully Kim and Curt spared us the ordeal of the throwing the flowers and garter (really, is there a more tired tradition, I mean, other than the Cotton Bowl?), but I did get to enjoy Mrs. Nobbs’ and the best man David Trimble’s toasts. Both of Kim’s parents looked incredibly happy, and seemed to be having a great time. Her brothers too. Check out the photos there too. You’ll notice I looked magnificent, rocking the hotel assistant night manager look in my sweet baby blue blazer and ill fitting dress shirt. Some other woman at my table made the remark that York, Pennsylvania was in "the South." Honey, that would be cute if it weren't so offensive. I'm going to write some more about this at some point, but if your town lacks barbecue, sweet tea, pretty girls, friendly people, crickets at night, picnics, and "y'all," you're not in the South. If snow is piled high on your main street half the year, if you're wishing the girls in your town wore more, not less, clothes, if you have to dodge grackles all year long and if your town cheers for Penn State and the Pittsburgh Steelers, you are not in the South. Hell, in Lafayette, they think if you're north of Opelousas, Louisiana, you're a Yankee. (Everyone with sense, however, knows the boundary is closer to Cottonport). Of course, everyone wanted a piece of the bride and groom, so my time visiting them was limited. I did, however, get to spend a good bit of time visiting with Steven and Suzanne, which I enjoyed greatly (kind of a weird time warp thing too-I kept thinking “Shadow Box” was going to break out any second and Betsy Clark and I would find ourselves alone in another booth. I know there’s only about five people who have any idea what I’m talking about but trust me that was funny).

The next morning I briefly ran into Curt and Kim at the hotel, who strangely looked not completely wiped out after the big event. They hosted a noon reception at their house, which I had to miss because I needed to head to the next stop on my Summer 2008 tour-Alexandria, Virginia to visit Carrie and Jeremy. The trip through the Pennsylvania and Maryland corn fields on that sunny morning and early afternoon was made kind of surreal by the tribute to the newly deceased Rick Wright, keyboard player for Pink Floyd, who I found out passed away that Monday. One of the XM channels (“Deep Tracks” or some such) did a career retrospective going all the way back to the first 1967 album with Syd Barrett, which basically meant that I was listening to songs like Interstellar Overdrive and Astronomy Domine while looking at cows, sheep, and corn hurtling past the Great White Hyundai Sedan. Somewhere near Catonsville, Maryland when I pulled over for my usual travel fare of grilled chicken salad to go (“para llevar,” as I’ve learned), I thought I was seeing iguanas and lizards flying through the sky (like the beginning of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). Turns out it was really just local high school kids at a charity car wash.

New and important Washington energy lawyer Carrie and her actor husband Jeremy live near “Old Town” in Alexandria in a pleasant neighborhood near a high school in a red brick building. There’s some road construction nearby, but all in all, Alexandria is much more of a town than I remembered. Its just across the Potomac from Washington, and when I went for a run on the trail that runs alongside the south bank, I could see the Washington Monument coming in and out of view the whole time. They have a number of very pleasant parks near the river which were filled with people out enjoying the nice weather. Alexandria also has a rather bustling main street (the name of which I forget), which appeared to have lots of people walking on either side, going in and out of shops and restaurants. It was a little funny being in Alexandria, Virginia. I lived in Alexandria, Louisiana for a year, and whenever I mentioned it to anyone they just assumed I meant the one in Virginia. Having spent a little time in both now, I can safely say they have little in common.

When you spend time with Carrie and Jeremy, its always action, Action, ACTION! Right! Huh! Yeah, we basically ate and then couched it on Saturday night. Never let it be said that there’s a party I can’t ruin (or a room I can’t clear out). They took me to a great little Italian restaurant about four blocks up the street (weird to be walking from your house to a restaurant but there were several in walking distance). After enjoying a really excellent seafood dish, we walked back through the neighborhood and parked ourselves on the couch to watch Texas scrimmage Rice, but mainly to watch the LSU-Auburn game. Tigers vs. Tigers. Those “War Eagle” idiots were having a “blackout” which is where everyone in the stands wears the school color of black, so the stands look black. I guess this was intended to freak out LSU or at least make some key players have seizures. I’m starting to see more of this on TV, especially in NBA playoff games. Folks, this is just stupid. This is the 21st Century’s “wave.” The Pet Rock thinks this is a ridiculous trend. Happily, LSU managed to pull out the game, after sputtering a bit, despite the blackout factor.

The next morning we managed to squeeze in a really pleasant brunch at a place called the Carlyle. I had a memorable crab cake/eggs benedict dish, and enjoyed meeting some of Carrie’s lawyer friends who joined us. We had Jeremy outnumbered five to one, but these were young lawyers, so they hadn't totally lost their personality yet.

That’s pretty much it. I beat it back to the airport and came home. Exhausted. Ran into my orthopedic surgeon, of all people, and his wife coming back from Annapolis where they were visiting their son who attends the Naval Academy.

For some time thereafter, I had trouble knowing exactly where I was when I woke up in the morning. But I'm recovering, sort of.