The Starbucks Stalin buff

After 90 minutes in Union Square and an hour stay in the Strand bookstore today, I went with my visiting parents to a nearby Starbucks.

The place was packed at 3:30 in the afternoon, as people still apparently aren't over this Starbucks fad. I eventually found a small, round table near the back, just below an exit, and we settled in for what would likely be a half-hour stay or so, a chance to recuperate from a long day on our feet. My dad mentioned that in Strand he'd seen a couple of interesting books on Stalin. We talked a bit about the dictator and his dirty deeds. The conversation sparked a memory of a superb novel I recently read called Child 44.

Set in Stalin's Russia, the book centers on an officer pursuing a serial killer, despite the best efforts of the government to cover up the fact there is someone killing children. It's a great read, if extremely depressing, and shines a light on that time and that place, even if it's not a history book.

As the conversation ended, a man standing on the walkway above us said, "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation about Stalin. I've got a great book for you to read."

Great. A friendly New Yorker, offering book advice. He'll give us the name, then return to his coffee. He started talking again.

Ten minutes later, I was searching for a way for us to escape. The only words I'd said the entire time since he began talking were, "Uh, huh. Wow. Yeah" and, "I know." After a minute or two it became obvious that the guy - middle-aged, glasses, Yankees cap - was a bit off. He was extremely nice, but gave off the vibe that he might have previously spent some time on a corner or a subway loudly talking about God and conspiracy theories. Now he talked slowly, and deliberately, sometimes struggling to find the right word.

We never did get the book title that started his side of the conversation. But that didn't matter. Whatever troubles he has operating smoothly in society, the man had brains. And he was a man who had obviously read a lot of books. And he had passion for his subject.

He took us through much of Stalin's history, as my parents sipped their coffees and politely offered their ears for his lecture. Stalin killed Lenin, this guy believes, most likely with a mushroom that's readily available in Russia. Stalin probably used a pharmacist ally of his, and even though countless people said it wasn't murder, it probably was. Stalin surrounded himself with people who were willing to kill anyone, whether it was citizens of any age or his own advisers. These people would kill without thought or mercy, and it's amazing Stalin had that type of power over people.

The guy was a buff. Of Soviet history. Of Stalin. And Lenin. Of medicine. He had fascinating information, even if the delivery dulled the effect.

Being that there were two-and-a-half Minnesotans sitting at the table, no one had the gumption to interrupt the dissertation. If we had let him, he'd probably still be talking, and by this time - nearly 1:30 in the morning - he'd be into Gobachev's reign and glasnost. By 6 a.m., maybe he would have gotten to Putin.

Eventually I put my sweatshirt on, hoping he might take it as a hint that we were getting ready to leave. His ensuing comments on the way Stalin used concentration camps indicated he didn't pick up on the sign. Finally I said to my parents, "We should probably get going," and we started to leave. I thanked him for the information and he went one way as we left another.

Out on the street, a tough-looking guy who appeared to be homeless, yelled out, "Hey, Freddy!" Freddy stood a few foot in front of us. It was our guide through the dark years of Stalin's ruthless reign. Freddy's face lit up as he greeted his friend.

I don't know what Freddy and the other guy talk about during their long days in Manhattan. For all I know they do talk about politics and the past. Maybe his friend is as captive an audience as we were. But if they don't talk about those things, and instead focus perhaps on their neverending struggles, I'm glad we were there to listen to him today.

Imagine being a street smart and book smart person, a guy who's probably read thousands of books. Your mind is filled with knowledge and perspectives on some of the most important events in the world's history. But the only people you get to spend a lot of time with aren't interested in your theories about Lenin's death. And even if they are, they might get sick after the 100th telling of the same story delivered in the same monotone voice. There's no outlet for your knowledge.

For ten minutes at least, Freddy had a new audience. But he gave as much as he got out of it. He did have an encyclopedic knowledge of a subject that does interest me. He taught me some tidbits I'd never heard before. Like all good teachers, he inspired. Back home tonight, I looked up some information on Stalin and Russia.

There are countless Freddy's throughout the country. But New York is probably one of the few places where he can bring a little Stalin to a Starbucks and deliver his lines to people who are willing to listen, if not as eager by the end of the discussion.

Wherever Freddy is tonight, I hope he has a captive audience. Even if it's just for 10 minutes.

When Catholic schools pretend to not like each other

This Saturday, my alma mater, St. John's, faces St. Thomas in a key football game that will likely decide the MIAC title. More importantly, it's a renewal of the Tommies-Johnnies rivalry, which has been playing out on the football field since 1901.

Students of both schools use the game as a prime chance to mock the other institution. St. Thomas students love wearing crude T-shirts that often reference the fact St. John's is an all-male school, and if it's only guys there at the secluded university in the middle of Minnesota, and there aren't any girls around, then, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, the students at St. John's are...well, you know. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. No one ever accused St. Thomas grads of having the comic subtlety of Steven Wright.

To counteract those barbs, St. John's students sometimes sport shirts that politely question the beauty of St. Thomas's female students, while also predicting fine futures for Tommie grads that will likely include tours of duty behind the counter at various fast-food franchises.

On the field, St. John's almost always wins. The Johnnies are unbeaten against St. Thomas since 1997, and St. John's is a perennial national contender, led by John Gagliardi, college football's all-time leader in victories. Most years, St. Thomas is nothing but a purple punching bag, more prop than competitor.

Tommies hate Johnnies and Johnnies hate Tommies. Oh, we hate those swell Tommies. Generation after generation of graduates learn those lessons, and they're nearly as important as anything their professors teach in business class or a chemistry lab.

Ultimately it's all pretty harmless, although there are those who really do get worked up if a child chooses to go to a different school than the parent. But, like most rivalries, especially in college, it's all fairly ludicrous. Rationally, it hardly makes sense for there to be any disdain, as the schools are the same in countless ways.

They're both Catholic institutions, but both schools have many students from other faiths. Both have stringent Catholics and those who can already be called "lapsed." St. Thomas is named after St. Thomas Aquinas, while freshmen at St. John's live in Tommy Hall, also named after the favorite theologian of Catholics everywhere. There, as first-year students, they're indoctrinated into why even God agrees it's all right to hate St. Thomas - the school, not the man. Maybe that was part of my problem. As a transfer student from a community college, I never got the early propaganda and only built up a dislike over two years.

Average class size? 21 at St. Thomas, 22 at St. John's (score one for the Tommies). The student/faculty ratio at St. John's is 12:1, compared to 15:1 at St. Thomas (score one for the Johnnies).

Many who attend St. John's seriously considered St. Thomas, and vice versa. For many, including myself, it's the location of each that helps seal their decision. St. John's is located in Collegeville in central Minnesota, situated in peaceful surroundings, with woods and water providing picture-perfect moments.

St. John's seemingly exists in its own world, about 70 miles from the Twin Cities. St. Thomas, meanwhile, calls St. Paul home, perfect for students who prefer their college life in a real city, giving them the types of opportunities unavailable to the St. John's kids going to school in the country. The odd thing about many St. John's people who denigrate the city existence of St. Thomas is that many come from the Twin Cities, while those who ridicule the isolation of St. John's now that they're Tommies are veterans of the rural life.

And St. Thomas - the largest private university in Minnesota - has nearly 11,000 students in its undergraduate and graduate programs while St. John's has an enrollment of 4,000. That's the enrollment with its sister school, the College of St. Benedict. While St. John's is, indeed, still an all-male school, in many ways that's in name only. They're partner schools. Men and women share classes, libraries, campuses, and carnal relations.

St. Thomas and St. John's have much in common, siblings nearly themselves, right down to the nicknames of each. Add an extra consonant and "ies" to the end of the name and slap it on the uniforms. Disliking one just because you go to the other seems almost like an act of self-loathing. But then, it's like that with so many rivalries. Harvard-Yale. Michigan-Ohio State. Army-Navy. The similarities of the schools and student bodies dwarf any perceived differences.

St. John's hating St. Thomas is like America considering Canada to be its biggest rival and most dangerous threat.

What's a real rivalry? With real reasons for hatred? How about the India-Pakistan cricket battles? Here you have two nations who threaten each other with nuclear destruction. When the athletes meet - Hindus vs. Muslims - it's for a bit more than bragging rights.

"The phrase sporting event can't begin to contain the religious extremism, unforgiven deeds and rabid jingoism that swirl around each India-Pakistan cricket match; the game is haunted by battle dead, and the air is charged with the ongoing dispute between the two countries over control of Kashmir."

Yeah, but do the fans wear T-shirts with witty sexual innuendo?

So, rationally it doesn't make sense for St. John's and St. Thomas to be such rivals. Where's the enmity come from, and why?

But this is sports and specifically football and rational thought doesn't have much to do with it. I see the purple of St. Thomas and my stomach churns, even if in high school I did contemplate what life would be like on the St. Paul campus. I listen to a St. Thomas graduate and I hear an arrogance that seems unique to Tommies. I see their T-shirts and read their insults about St. John's and pity the thinking that passes for creativity at St. Thomas.

If St. Thomas actually does what it never does and beats St. John's this Saturday it will ruin part of my day, in a way a loss to any other team wouldn't.

It's illogical, nonsensical.

In the end, that doesn't matter. It's the Tommies, and they're not Johnnies, even if they are alike in so many ways. It's the Johnnie-Tommie game, with the winner being the favorite for the conference.

A rational rivalry, no. But what fun would that be?

Sounds of the city

We live on Broadway, although our apartment sits in the back of the building and that shields us from much of the noise on the bustling street below.

Still, as of 11:30 tonight, this is what I've heard outside in the last couple of hours:

*In the top of the seventh of the Twins-Yankees game, I thought it was safe to get up from the couch and hit the fridge. Kate Hudson's paramour had just predictably drilled a game-tying homer and 49-year-old Jorge Posada was coming to the plate. As I closed the refrigerator, I heard four loud claps and a scream, a whoop actually, from our next-door neighbor. Very nice guy, great family man. He works at Yankee Stadium. Avid fan. Indoctrinates his small, pliable children into the Yankee State. In the elevator they're always wearing Yankee hats and Yankee jerseys and Yankee socks. If this guy's clapping, and screaming this loudly, and if his boys are also yelling at a softer but more annoying decibel, something bad has just happened to the Twins. And it can't just be a replay of A-Rod's blast. But what could have happened just during the trip to get a drink?

I hurry back to the TV in time to see the replay of Posada's opposite-field home run. Two and a half innings remain in the game, but it's over. I know it, and the full house in the Metrodome for the final Twins game realizes it too, even if, as Minnesotans, they're too nice to say it out loud. The celebration next door starts about an hour later. Those damn kids should be in bed.

*We listen to the continued cries of a woman from a nearby building. Off and on for the last day, she's been yelling, "This is not the life I wanted! This is not the life I wanted!" Best guess is that she's an emotionally disturbed person who is apparently living with another troubled soul, because her anguished cries are answered with a man yelling, "And this isn't the life I wanted!" Back and forth they go, each repeating the same mantra. We hear it through our open window in the living room. I'm somewhat surprised their neighbors haven't called the authorities, unless they're just used to the tormented shouts. Knowing nothing about her circumstances, it's still sad to hear her struggling like that. It's not the life she wanted, and you wonder just what kind of life it is.

*Every few minutes a 1 train rolls to the 215th Street stop, headed south or to the Bronx. Our previous apartment overlooked Broadway so we did hear everything, from the cars below to the trains above. We're both used to them at this point and it actually seems stranger when there aren't any trains and we only hear the cars rolling by. Around midnight each night - but sometimes earlier like tonight - one of the trains comes through at about a mile an hour, slowly rumbling through the stop. Not sure if it's one of the garbage trains or what, because I don't think it's carrying any people. Visitors definitely notice that one, and in a few days, when my mom and dad are visiting, I'm anticipating there might be a few complaints as it awkwardly and loudly meanders through northern Manhattan.

*Three separate car alarms have gone off. I'm assuming no vehicles have been stolen or even been in any danger of being stolen. Anything can set them off. If the car's parked under the elevated tracks, a passing train can lead to the incessant blaring. If someone honks their horn, a nearby car might light up and start its sound show, to the annoyance of everyone on the block. It'll go for 30 seconds or so, sometimes longer. It's noise pollution, but there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. Maybe they could throw bricks at the car, but that would just start it all up again and the vicious cycle continues. The only good thing about the car alarms is that I don't have to visit hell because I already know what it sounds like there:

Let's go to the videotape

Fall cleaning, primarily in preparation for my parents' arrival in New York this week, inspired me to properly pack up some of my most cherished possessions: my videotapes. That doesn't mean throwing them away, which has been suggested at various times by another member of the household. Instead, I separated them into sports and non-sports, longingly caressed tapes from the 1987 NBA Finals, and fixed some faulty labels that were peeling off like a bad paint job.

While I also own a healthy number of DVDs, I cling passionately to my dozens of VHS tapes. I've been collecting them over a span of 22 years, ever since mom and dad brought home our first VCR, which back then probably cost something like $500 ("And you can tape in either SLP or EP mode!"). And I also add to the collection every year. I don't TiVo, I tape. Few events merit the next step, earning a label on the tape. Every Lakers playoff game gets labeled and saved, as do many classic sports events that pop up on ESPN Classic, MLB Network or during rain delays of tennis or golf events - "Hey, it's the final round of the 1986 Masters with Nicklaus, get a tape." A good movie can still earn a white strip too.

They're not kept around simply because I can't throw them away and suffer from a hoarding problem. On the new A&E show about hoarders, appropriately named Hoarders, people with real problems are on display. Some struggle with tossing away old meat. Meat. Compared to spoiled beef, refusing to part with a 19-year-old tape that has Turner & Hooch and Rainman on it doesn't seem so bad. Plus, I actually do watch the damn things quite often. Many are still in remarkably good shape, compared to some of my new DVDs that have a scratch or a smudge or a piece of dust lodged somewhere that's causing pausing and skipping and swearing and frustration.

Tapes teach patience. Forget scene selection on the DVDs. If I want to watch Leslie Nielsen umpire in The Naked Gun, I have to fast-forward through five hours and 30 minutes of action. Think how much more you appreciate a scene when you have to win a war of attrition with the entertainment system to get there.

Tapes promote attention to detail and put your eyes to work. Forget HD. If I want to watch the Cowboys hold on against the 49ers in the 1993 NFC Title game, I have to peer through the fuzziness and haze that descends on the tape toward the end of the game.

Some of them I was afraid to touch. One that's home to Stand by Me and a Richard Jeni special had stains on it from three separate decades. That went to the bottom of the box, as I'm actually leery of putting it in the VCR, no matter how badly I want to watch the Barf-o-Rama.

Three or four tapes were just labeled "Letterman." Even though I discovered them hidden away in a dark corner, the content had nothing to do with extortion, but were simply old NBC shows and some early CBS ones.

The 1992 Final Four takes up a couple of tapes. The Twin Cities hosted the event that year, as Duke won its second straight national championship, a week after Christian Laettner hit perhaps the most famous shot in college basketball history to defeat Kentucky. While I don't have that classic game on tape, I do have the semifinals and finals. Instead of starring in those games, Laettner foreshadowed his future time in Minneapolis with the Wolves by playing poorly and pouting despite having the best hair on the court, although Duke still won handily over Indiana and Michigan.

Here's a tape with the original V series, when the Sci-Fi channel re-aired it in the early 1990s.

Many aren't labeled at all and those can be the most exciting ones. Pop it in the VCR, hit play and whatever comes on is a surprise. Ah, here's a random episode of Cheers from 1989. And then a KARE 11 newscast from 1991. Followed by the series finale of Cheers. What's on this one? Okay, why was I taping Jake and the Fatman episodes?

There's lots of sports. Probably too much sports. It's like a poor man's - and poorly organized - NFL Films. There are Super Bowls - the Cowboys' victories in 1993 and 1994 - and eighth-grade football games. Our eighth-grade team was one of the more dominant squads in football history, thanks to our adult-sized star running back, who stood about six-feet-tall and ran the 40 in about .45. He ran like an in-his-prime Earl Campbell.

One of the tapes has a game from that season, where he looks like Gulliver rampaging over helpless 13-year-olds in ill-fitting pads and helmets. The tape also contained three eighth-grade basketball games. On them I appear to stand 5 foot, 2 inches tall and everyone's shorts were basically indecent. But, hey, I had a decent jump shot even back then.

Anytime I want to I can watch Magic Johnson pull his hamstring in the 1989 Finals against Detroit, and since that's never that tape probably hasn't been watched more than two times since that awful June night. I'll put that one at the bottom of the box too, right next to the stained tape.

I've got dozens of Seinfeld and Simpsons episodes recorded, even though I now own many of the same episodes on DVD.

"So why can't we throw the tapes away?" Louise asks.

"For the original commercials," I respond. "Those are classic."

I'll never throw those episodes away. And, unless they deteriorate too much or the material actually begins dissolving or VCRs are forever banned, I'll probably never dispose of any of the tapes. They'll stay safely tucked away, so company doesn't have to be confronted by their ugliness or the poor handwriting on the labels. Someday, actually, I'll come back into possession of about 75 more VHS tapes. Many of my old ones never made it to New York, but instead still reside in my parents' basement, just waiting for their chance to be played. Who knows what poor-quality treasures await.

I can hardly wait. Even if Louise can.

The ghost of Armen Terzian

I didn't see the Twins game tonight. Perhaps I should have guessed the outcome on the subway ride home, when two youths in Yankees gear boarded, grinning. No one looks that happy getting on a subway. Instead of asking them for the score, I assumed the Yankees won easily, maybe 5-1, or 10-4.

Oh if it only that was so. Turning on ESPN News, it took about 10 seconds for the score to appear: Yankees 4, Twins 3 (11). Damn it. Maybe the Twins were down 3-0 in the ninth, rallied for three off of Rivera and then lost it on a double and a single in extra innings. Yeah, they'd still be down 2-0, but at least it wouldn't have been a crushing defeat.

What's this, Joe Girardi and his horrible haircut are first to talk at the press conference? Ok.

Questioner: Did you see a replay of the Mauer hit?
Girardi: No, I didn't.

I think his eyes darted to the left when he answered. Isn't that a sign someone's lying?

Goes on to say they got a break, it's one of those things that happens. Okay, what's that mean?

Finally place the call to Minnesota, get dad on the line.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said.

He had to because I hadn't seen the game, but by the end I wished he hadn't. I could have gone on with my own story of the ending in my head and not have to deal with the reality, which I then saw in the highlights. Gomez falling down. Nathan. A-Rod. A-Rod. A-Rod. Mauer's double. Uh, Mauer's single. So that's the replay Girardi didn't see (of course he didn't). Bases loaded with nobody out. Seventeen runners left on base. Texeira. 2-0.

The Twins havent' won a playoff game since Game 1 of the 2004 ALDS, when they beat the Yankees in Yankee Stadium. In Game 2 that year, they were set to take control of the series when Nathan allowed a double by...A-Rod in the bottom of the 12th to tie a game the Yankees won a few batters lately. Twins haven't won a playoff game since.

Before I moved to New York, I never cheered for the Yankees. I do now, provided they're not playing the Twins. The city really is alive, though, when the Yankees are playing well. At least that's what I've read. Since I arrived in New York in 2004, the Yankees have won a single playoff series - the one against the Twins. They followed that up by taking a 3-0 lead against the Red Sox, and then...I'm not sure what happened after that. The Bloomberg administration - with an assist from the Steinbrenners and Winston Smith - systematically erased the memories of that series from every New Yorker's head. In 2005 the Angels hammered the Yankees, as did the Tigers in 2006 and the Indians in 2007. Now this year, and they're again facing the Twins. This time it seems the Yankees are again the favorites to win it all, and maybe I'll actually get to experience what life is like in the city during a Yankee title run.

It's surely one of the most crushing losses in Twins history. It's not like they have a lot of postseason disappointment to choose from, aside from the World Series in 1965. That Game 2 in 2004 was probably a more upsetting loss than this one even, since a 2-0 lead was just an inning away. Other losses that come to mind immediately are the 10-0 blown lead in 1984 in the final week against Cleveland - a feat they somehow managed to replicate against Oakland this year - and the game in 1992 when Eric Fox - Eric Fox! - hit a game-winning three-run blast in a crucial July series against the A's. The win put Oakland in a tie with the Twins, who faded the rest of the season.

How crushing was that defeat? It basically ended the 1990s for Minnesota, just three seasons into the decade. The team didn't contend again until 2001 as the Beckers, Cordovas and Stahoviaks of the world took the Twins to the bottom of Major League Baseball, while glaucoma finished off Kirby's career.

When's the last time a referee or umpire's decision had this kind of impact on a loss for a Minnesota sports team? Someone with a better memory than me might have a more recent candidate, but you might have to go back to the 1975 NFL playoffs, when Drew Pearson allegedly pushed off against Nate Wright, leading to the completion of the Hail Mary pass as Dallas upset the Vikings.

As upset as Twins fans surely are with Phil Cuzzi - the umpire who blew the call on Mauer's double, er single - they won't have the chance to enact revenge, like a hooligan did in that 1975 playoff game against Armen Terzian. Moments after the noncall on Pearson, a fan hit Terzian in the head with a whiskey bottle, a horrendous act certainly, but also a throw that's more impressive than anything Tarvaris Jackson's done the last three years. It knocked Terzian unconscious for a brief time.

If this game had been in the Dome, maybe some drunk and disappointed fan would have fired something onto the field. In Yankee Stadium, I'm just surprised the fans didn't carry Cuzzi triumphantly off the field, like the French hauling Lindy around after his famous flight.

The series isn't over, of course, and the Twins have made a habit of improbable comebacks this season so they've still got a chance of taking two in the Dome and returning to the Bronx for a Game 5 victory.

Yeah.

Hemingway knew what he was talking about

It's not quite as exciting as elimination night on Dancing With the Stars, but another contest announced its winners recently: the Nobel Prize. On Thursday, a German writer named Herta Muller won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The New York Times wrote that Muller's work explores "exile and the grim quotidian realities of life under the dictator Nicolae Ceasescu," and that will certainly have the masses running to their local bookstore. Quotidian realities? Move over, Dan Brown.

A few weeks ago I watched a documentary on Ernest Hemingway, who won the same prize in 1954. He won the award, in large part, because of his book The Old Man and the Sea, which many people remember from their high school days, when their English teacher almost certainly assigned it over the grumbles of bored students, who were probably still recovering from Romeo and Juliet or Great Expectations.

At the end of the film, Hemingway's recorded voice came on, delivering the speech he gave in accepting the prestigious award. He actually didn't give the speech at the event. Illness prevented him from attending, so U.S. Ambassador John C. Cabot read Hemingway's words. Later, though, Hemingway did record what he wrote. It's brief, just over two minutes long. But in it he delivers some of the best explanations of the writing life that I've ever heard. And it makes sense that one of the best to ever write is also one of the best at vocalizing the challenges and triumphs that writers experience, even if he does conclude it by saying "A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it."

Here's the speech, delivered by the man himself:




And here's the complete text of his speech, which is as tightly composed as most of his sentences.

As a nonfiction writer, I can't identify completely with some of his statements, as I do think fiction writers have the more difficult challenge and I'm sure most of his words were directed at them. And any fiction writers out there should print out a copy of his speech sometime and place it above their computer. When the blank screen stares back at them, it could provide some inspiration.

"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day. ...He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then, sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed. ...How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way that has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him."

The Old Man and the Sea was Hemingway's final published work in his life. He committed suicide in 1961. For a long time I didn't know much about Hemingway, or his work. I was one of those students who initially grumbled about reading him in school, though I did enjoy the book. Over the years I've read most of his books, liked a lot of them, disliked a few. And I read a lot about his later life, when he fought mental illness, a battle he ultimately lost.

I know a lot about Hemingway's life, and probably too much about his death. I know a lot about his work. But I hadn't read my favorite words of his until I read those lines above.

This will be great weather for some outdoor baseball

Twin Citians could see the first snowflakes of the season as soon as Friday. That guarded prediction was issued by the National Weather Service today, based on the fact that the coldest air of the autumn will move into the region this weekend. Low temperatures will plunge into the 20s, with highs "struggling into the 40s," according to the weather service.

Cue up those Minnesota stereotypes, snow's coming. Ya, ya, it's a cold one, ya know. Uff da.

There are many times when I miss Minnesota. The pace, the people, friends, family, driving, small towns, saying pop instead of soda, not having to explain what hot dishes are. Then there are times like this, when just reading the forecast for Minneapolis - which is the only city many people east of Milwaukee and west of Fargo know in Minnesota so it's really the only city that matters to the rest of America - leaves my body shivering and my head shaking.

Often I insist to skeptical people that "winters there aren't that bad. It's basically just like New York." They rarely believe me, even when I tell them stories of unbearable humidity, heat waves, perfect springs, and summers spent on the lake under a bright sun. To them Minnesota is just another name used for Antarctica, in the same way Bombay is now Mumbai but it's still the same city.

Certainly the weather is the primary stereotype people unfamiliar with Minnesota hold about the land of 10,000 lakes and 100 blizzards, followed closely by the idea that everyone there speaks like Sarah Palin or a Coen brothers creation (those are two different things).

"Just how cold does it get?" they might ask, with the earnestness and curiosity of strangers asking Neil Armstrong what life was like on the moon. If I say something like, "Oh, sometimes like 20, 30 below," they'll cringe, and that's before I add the punchline, "and that's not even including the wind chill factor." Like all Minnesotans, I complain about the state's weather - even halfway across the country - while simultaneously taking some strange satisfaction in it, as if our ability to survive and sometimes even thrive in such conditions somehow speaks volumes about our strength and integrity. That's when I'll switch, and go from downplaying the terribleness of the weather to playing it up, in order to make my 28-year stretch there look as impressive as Edmund Hillary's trek up Mount Everest.

It's times like those when Minnesotans make it sound like the rest of the world has fallen for the lie that people can't control the weather. We do control it. And we like it cold and windy and snowy and miserable, and, hey, watch our breath freeze in midair as we talk and we love when our tears freeze to our cold faces too. We could make it warmer but we don't want to. And we like it because it proves how much tougher we are than West Coasters and Southerners and even, yes, New Yorkers and their average January highs of 39 degrees. Compare that to Minneapolis's average January high of 22 degrees.

No wonder people around me have misconceptions about the state, when I can't even keep straight whether the state's weather is just like here or a test of a person's mental strength and physical endurance.

So it is a bit colder, but not terribly so. It's not a barren land, unfit for human life. And being that I don't ice fish, snowmobile or ski cross country or downhill, I don't miss winters at all, even if scraping my car's windows in subzero temperatures did somehow make me feel like more of a man.

To be fair, New Yorkers don't have a copyright on believing in regional stereotypes. If big city folk on the East Coast believe housing options in Minnesota include igloos, many people back home picture New York as either a den of sin or a place that's slightly less dangerous than Baghdad. Actually, New York has the lowest crime rate of the 25 largest cities in the country.

A few years ago we were back home and went to a concert in downtown Minneapolis. We emerged shortly after 10 p.m. and the streets looked like Janesville's after midnight. Only a handful of people milled about and there weren't many lights. It felt more ominous there than it has ever felt in New York. Most of the time in New York, no matter if you're uptown, midtown or downtown, you'll be surrounded by people, and there's safety in numbers.

We were, of course, fine in Minneapolis and the only ominous things there that night existed in our minds. New York's safe, too, my Midwestern brethren. Maybe even safer. And certainly warmer. But Minnesotans might be tougher. Let that comfort you this weekend, as the temperatures plummet and the snow falls.

Best sports theme songs - no, not Hank Williams Jr.

I rarely watch NFL pregame shows, but I caught parts of the CBS one and the FOX yukfest today. I guess they get fans in the mood for bone-crushing football. But they don't really inspire, do they? It might be the music's fault.

CBS should give a nod to fans stuck in the past, ahem, and bring back the old NFL Today theme song. And while I know he now works for ABC, Brent Musburger needs to return and just announce four simple words at the start of every show: "You are looking live." Derek Jeter has long said he wants the recorded voice of legendary Yankees PA man Bob Sheppard to announce his name when he comes to the plate. I want my Sundays to start with Brent, and, more importantly, with this song:



The old NFL Today theme song is one of the great ones in sports television history, but I wouldn't consider it the best. Here are the other candidates.

Another football, the classic Monday Night theme. It's hard not to listen to this without picturing Tony Dorsett running 99 yards against the Vikings, the fat Fridge running over the Packers in 1985 and...OJ Simpson being part of the broadcast booth.



It's almost impossible to choose the best NBA intro song ever. John Tesh's beloved - the only time the word beloved is usually used in relation to John Tesh - NBA on NBC song is generally regarded as the superior version. But the CBS version from the 1980s, while not written by a former TV reporter with great hair, is just as memorable. I actually prefer the CBS song, although it has little to do with musical appreciation and more to do with the fact it was played before five Lakers titles while Tesh's song dominated the 90s, when the Lakers sputtered before regaining their spot at the top of the league toward the end of the decade.

Here's Tesh's song, with a classic Marv Albert intro during the Bulls-Knicks series in 1993. Tesh's music kicks in at the one-minute mark:


And now CBS, narrated by...Musburger, who was the announcer on 99 percent of all CBS broadcasts during the '80s. This was before Game 4 of the 1987 Finals, the game famous for Magic Johnson's hook shot with two seconds left to win it:



Wimbledon is known for the white outfits the players wear, the grass courts, and great music from NBC. There are actually two songs that NBC trots out for the classic tournament. This one opens the broadcasts, as Americans wake up at 8 a.m. to watch Martina vs. Chrissy or McEnroe vs. Connors.



And once the championship match is over, and Pete Sampras is holding up the trophy while his vanquished foe looks on and Dick Enberg wraps up the action with a solid essay, they'd play this. The most famous part begins at 30 seconds.




Like Wimbledon, This Week in Baseball utilized a couple of different songs, each made better by the presence of Mel Allen. I miss TWIB notes.



And here's the more inspirational song, the one used to close the show. Imagine Ozzie Smith doing his flips or hitting a homer off of Tom Niedenfuer in the 1985 NLCS.



For the patriotic set, it's tough to beat the Olympic song. As great as this one is, it only appears every four years so doesn't quite measure up to the weekly offerings. Although this is inspirational; hearing this, I want to compete in the heptathlon, climb a pommel horse and boo a Russian.



ABC's Wide World of Sports has a great song, but is made much better because of Jim McKay's narration and one of the more famous highlights in sports history: the ski jumper who tumbles before his jump and suffers "the agony of defeat."



Before listening to all of these again, I would have listed the NBA on CBS song as my personal favorite. But now I'm going with the closing of This Week in Baseball.

The worst? So many to choose from, from ABC's recent NBA presentations to, yes, Hank Williams Jr. But as much credit ABC used to get for its Monday Night Football opening, it should get just as much scorn for its old Major League Baseball on Monday nights introduction. Not even Brent Musburger could have saved this one.

Booked to Cape Town

After scouring online for weeks, searching the most popular - and unpopular - travel sites for the best deal, we finally bought our tickets for a January trip to Louise's home city of Cape Town.

The tickets cost a bit north of $1,500 each, which provided a jolt when we hit the purchase now button. But considering a two-hour flight for the two of us can easily cost $600, paying $3,000 for a trip that takes nearly an entire day doesn't seem too bad. It will take 19 hours to get to Cape Town, while the return flight will stretch for an excruciating 23 hours and change.

Louise actually leaves two weeks before me and will spend a month back home, while I'll be there for two weeks. We travel apart but come home together. For now, our seats on the return trip are a row apart, something we hope to rectify before the flight. In an emergency and assuming Sully's not onboard, we want to be able to just lean over and cling to each other in panic. Having to reach way back or lean forward while strangers crowd next to us just seems like such a hassle.

By the time my weary body arrives in Cape Town in January, it will have been three years since I've been there (Louise made it home in 2008 for a month). In 2006 we spent six weeks in the city. The thirty-six months away from Cape Town is at least 30 too many, but the cost and distance serve as dual challenges that make it difficult to make routine and regular trips.

And it's too bad, because Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and is also a world apart from the United States, not just 20 hours away. Nestled against the famed Table Mountain and not one but two oceans, the city is a photographer's dream and a beachgoer's paradise. The weather is San Diego-like, which is just another way of saying nearly perfect. We were always within 15 minutes of a beach and had our choice of the warm waters of the Indian Ocean or the cool waters of the Atlantic.


Table Mountain overlooks the city and it's flanked by the breathtaking and cool-sounding Devil's Peak and Lion's Head.


One of the main tourist attractions is Robben Island, where countless political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, were once imprisoned. A visit to the island showcases the depressing conditions the prisoners had to live in, which surely broke countless people. The fact it didn't break the spirit of many more - including the future president Mandela - is a testament to the human spirit.

On our last trip I visited many of the main attractions of the city, including Boulders Beach, where penguins frolic and even swim with people.

But as great as the sightseeing and tours and history of the city were for a wide-eyed newbie like myself, the best reason for visiting has nothing to do with oceans, mountains, wildlife or weather. No, the main reason for going - and the main reason it's so tough being so far away - is nearly all of Louise's family still lives in Cape Town.

From her mom and stepdad to her brothers, niece, grandma and aunts and uncles, they're all in the city, a big family that's been missing a big part of it for 10 years now: Louise. We go for a month or more so she can spend as much time as possible with those she left when she came to America in 1999. I'm forever grateful she made that choice, but it doesn't make her any less lonely for her home and her family.

And they're of course my family now, too. For some people, having their in-laws stuck on the other side of the world would be a dream, but not for me. Trips to Cape Town serve as a reminder of how much I'm missing by being 24 hours away from these people. Louise's mom, Patricia, was the only member of her family who was able to make it to New York for our wedding, so we had been married nearly three years before much of her family saw me.

I can imagine their thoughts when they saw us finally stepping off the plane.

"So this is the guy who took our daughter/sister/granddaughter away from us. Kill him!"

But any awkwardness disappeared a half hour after we met each other. Now my relationship with Louise's siblings Daniel and Anthony has become a cliche, one I embrace: they're the brothers I never had. Her stepdad, affectionately known as Uncle Mike, is in his 70s but seemingly has more energy than this 34-year-old. January will be my first chance to see Anthony's 17-month-old daughter Madison. Two weeks won't be enough time there, but I'll squeeze every possible second out of those 14 days.

When most Americans think about South Africa the first word that comes to mind is probably still apartheid. For me, even though I'm not from there and even though I don't live there, the first word I think of now is, home.

New York's Bravest to the rescue

We woke up this morning to the sound of our carbon monoxide detector going off, signaling one of two things: danger or defect. Fortunately we weren't in harm's way, it simply needed new batteries. Easy solution.

It was a different story four years ago, when the same sound jolted us out of bed and convinced us death was lurking. In the weeks before, there had been a couple of tragic news stories about carbon monoxide poisoning. They described in depressing detail how several members of a family died from "the silent killer." Everyone's heard the warnings: odorless, tasteless, toxic, but we never thought we'd be confronted by it.

With those stories lodged uncomfortably in our minds, the shrill beeping of the detector at 6 in the morning on a winter's day sparked immediate concern.

Louise heard the beeping and woke me up and I then heard the fear in her voice.

Nothing pulls you out of a slumber quite like the fear of a quick, painless death.

Had we come close to never waking up from our sleep?

We stared up at the detector that was apparently detecting invisible poison. I didn't really think we were in trouble, figuring there was a malfunction with the recently installed device. Still, I called the city's information line, 311. At that point I didn't think there was a need for 911, even if panic was slowly filling the apartment along with - possibly - toxins.

The operator asked what the issue was and I calmly explained that the carbon monoxide detector was going off but I didn't think it was an emergency but could you tell us what to do so we don't die and end up as a six-inch story in the Daily News that's subsequently referenced whenever city officials talk about the importance of installing detectors?

"I'm patching you through to 911."

Nooo, waaait. It was too late. A new operator, a 911 one, asked what the emergency was and I again detailed the situation, stressing that I didn't think it was anything serious. She'd heard enough and patched me through to the neighborhood fire department. For a third time I told them of our detector. The calm dispatcher said trucks were on the way.

Trucks? Plural? But no, wait, can't you just send a single guy to check out the environment?

I told Louise they were sending help. She did what anyone would do in such a situation: hid her jewelry.

"What are you doing?" I wondered, still trying to get sleep out of my eyes. I thought we should check for nausea, dizziness, headaches. Instead she drafted me into joining her quest to find her most valuable jewels. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, heirlooms, gifts. She squirreled them away in a locked box, proclaiming them safe.

"From who? The firemen? And they're not going to burn up, we're not on fire."

She looked at me like I was the most naive man in the city and didn't understand how the real world worked.

"You just never know," she said.

"Know what?"

"Something could happen to them."

Two minutes later she emerged from the bathroom after taking the quickest shower of her life. Instead of asking this time, I simply gave a quizzical look.

"I want to be clean, whether I'm found dead or alive."

A minute later, the sounds of fire engines and their sirens pierced the silent morning. I glanced down to the street and saw at least two large red trucks hugging the curb outside our building.

"That's them," I said.

Moments later four firemen barged in, completely decked out in FDNY gear. Boots, helmets, jackets, courage.

And they carried giant Tin Man-type axes that I'd probably struggle to lift but they handled like toothpicks. I guess they'd ax us to freedom and fresh air. These burly, barrel-chested firefighters looked like poster boys for FDNY propaganda films. One stood about 6-6, the others had the grizzled looks of seasoned warriors. If poison had infiltrated the apartment, would they repel down the side of the building with us in tow?

One of them pulled out a little reader to check for carbon monoxide. Nothing. Then he grabbed the detector, stared at it for a couple of seconds and said, "Your battery. It's low. That's how it beeps when you need to change it."

Oh.

We sheepishly apologized for the commotion, but they were fine with the non-call to duty. They said it happens quite often and it's always better to err on the side of caution. It's not like they're disappointed when they don't get to battle a five-alarm fire.They probably like the change of pace that comes with just pointing out the stupidity of a frightened apartment dweller. And we couldn't help but be impressed by the response time, a reassuring example of how quickly they would spring into action in a true emergency.

Now when we hear the detector go off it acts as a call to arms: I head for our box of batteries, Louise grabs her jewelry. Because you never know.