Bum Update

After weeks of fretting, I had my second follow up with the surgeon yesterday. Lately I've been dismayed by the amount of time it's taking to heal from the fistulotomy, and things were starting to seem like they were before I had the surgery. I was dreading going in to see the doctor, expecting him to announce that things weren't going the way they were supposed to and we were going to have to take another swing at it with a different surgical method. To my great glee, he said everything looks like it's supposed to and it's healing up just like it should. Hooray for ass health!

Another Of My Fashion Icons

How Do I Act So Well?

What was that deadline again?

"Could I have so many baby puppies today for my birthday some other time on Wednesday?"

Oscar, Schmoscar

Well, the Oscar nominations were announced today, and they were, as usual, completely unrepresentative of the best films of the year. Granted, I'm not really the best source, as pretty much the only films I saw all year were cartoons and super-hero movies, but I'll wager Iron Man and Kung Fu Panda were better than Benjamin Button and Frost/Nixon (even the nicest reviews of which have dubbed meandering and unnecessary.) As an alternative, I present to you the nominees for the first annual Sean Michael Henry Awards For Excellence In Films That I Saw Last Year, heretofore known as 'The Babas'.

Best Actor In A Motion Picture:
Robert Downey, Jr, Iron Man
Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Jason Siegel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Best Actress In A Motion Picture:
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Frances McDormand, Burn After Reading
Amy Poehler, Baby Mama
Kristin Scott Thomas, I've Loved You So Long

Best Director:
Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler
Jon Favreau, Iron Man
Michel Gondry, Be Kind, Rewind
David Gordon Green, Pineapple Express
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight

Best Picture Of The Year:
The Dark Knight
Doomsday
Igor
Iron Man
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Gran Torino
Kung Fu Panda
Man On Wire
Pineapple Express
Tropic Thunder
WALL*E
The Wrestler

And The Baba goes to ... ?

My Neighbor, Mr President

My goodness that last post seems awfully bitter! I apologize - I really do not despise dealing blackjack quite that much (though under certain circumstances it probably is the most unpleasant thing I have to do at work.) And after the events of today, cynicism and bitterness are so far removed from my mind ...

Well. I'm sure you all heard the news that my neighbor is now officially President Of The United States Of America, which is awesome. I'm a little bummed that I didn't get a chance to watch the whole inaugural ceremony and only got to see part of the speech. Actually, I was mostly upset that people were still playing craps and not standing and watching the televisions in reverence of the march of history. But it happened and now he's President Obama, and he lives in Washington, D.C. in the White House, and not in Hyde Park/Kenwood in a big house that Tony Rezko helped pay for.

The mood at work did seem a little lighter today, despite business being slow and the weather being borderline misterable. And though the stock market didn't soar and the snow is still on the ground, I do feel better today about my future, and my little girl's future, than I did yesterday.

20 Below

I freaked out a little when I pulled up the temperature on the computer and it read "-20". That's cold. I forget every year that there is a difference between 20 degrees and -20 degrees ... a lot of the time once it gets to 20, I just think, Man it's cold, better wear some mittens. But there is huge difference. I sat in the car this morning, desperately praying for heat, and thought it out: -20 is almost 50 degrees below the freezing point. And fifty degrees above the freezing point is 82 degrees, which is a subtropical temperature, which is what human beings are naturally adapted to function in. So 20 below is almost 100 degrees below the temperature nature prepared us for. And yet, here we are, going to school, going to work, going to the grocery store, instead of huddling in caves around fires and eating leftover mammoth.

See, it's so cold I'm starting to get a little delirious ...

Somebody Call My Mama

I watched The Wrestler last night. I was very excited to see it. As some of you may know, I have been, in the past, quite the afficionado of the professional wrestling. In the early days, I was intrigued by the spectacle, but later, after I started following it closely on wrestling websites and fan discussion boards, I found the far more interesting aspect of the business was the bizarre and often tragic personal life led by the average pro-wrestler. This is a business where even when guys are at the top and really successful, they're wrestling four days a week, getting dropped on their heads and backs and whatnot, all year long with no off season, and making less than an entry level major league baseball player. And when they're not at the top? Well, they're trying to do the same thing, only without getting paid.

The Wrestler focuses on the life of a grappler whose day in the sun has come and gone. It does a good job of portraying many of the issues these guys face - chronic injury, disastrous personal lives, and the addiction to the spotlight - but it doesn't really touch on the current state of wrestling, in that there's no mention of Vince McMahon who is, honestly, one of the most monstrous human beings in America today.

McMahon is the person people probably associate most with wrestling after the big names like Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin, and he has more influence over the entire business than anyone else. His WWE (I still miss calling it the WWF; way to go pandas.) is really the only name in wrestling. Sure, there's TNA wrestling, and Ring Of Honor (which appears in The Wrestler), but the WWE is the only place to go if you want to make any money or be considered a success. To his credit, he took a sideshow business and made it a mainstream success, but the heyday has come and gone and where one could previously acknowledge his 'vision', now it's his personal shortsightedness and unwillingness to relinquish creative control that is bringing down both his television programs and performers. Not only that, but Vince's personal opinion on what a wrestler should be has been incredibly devastating to the average man trying to make it the business. Vince wants every wrestler to look like a bodybuilder, so everybody, everybody, takes steroids. (Ok - one exception: Chicago's own hometown hero CM Punk, the Straightedge superstar. Ed note: Punk is also known as Phil Brooks, and is a good friend of my good friend Steve Lund.) Steroids and growth hormone abuse combined with the incessant travel and performing have led to innumerable wrestling tragedies - countless early deaths from heart failure, life long mood disorders, drug addiction brought on as a result of self medicating mood disorders, death from drug and alcohol overdoses, and incidences of violence, including most horrifically Chris Benoit and family.

The Wrestler does paint a portrait of a man whose health has been significantly abused by the wrestling lifestyle (he wears a hearing aid, consistently wraps parts of his body in tape, and, oh yes, has a heart attack.) But mostly it's about his failed personal life and the dichotomy of life inside and out of the wrestling ring. Mickey Rourke does give a magnificent performance and there are some terrific moments (I think my favorite is his 'entrance walk' to the kitchen.) It is well worth seeing, and I hope it does well, because I feel that the subject matter is a realm full of many more stories that need to be told.

And after talking about The Wrestler, here is a clip from ... a totally different movie! Jules Dassin's The Night And The City (1950) which is in part about the shift from real (shoot) wrestling to the phony (work) wrasslin' of today, and is one of my all-time favorite films.



By the way, today's title comes from the catchphrase of Ernest 'The Cat' Miller, a former WWE performer who appears in The Wrestler.

2009: The State Of Sean

One week into the new year, I think now is as good a time as any to present the annual State of The Sean report. I'm not fully familiar with my blog readership at this point - I know I have one 'follower', and Margo has me in her Google reader, and Pops Coleman drops by regularly, but other than that, I'm always surprised who turns up on the comments. Old high school friends, casino buddies ... it's a wide range. And since very few people interact with me often enough to keep abreast of all the nonsense in which I'm involved, I feel it wise to post an account on the status quo of my life as we go into this new year.

Work: I am still employed by the Horseshoe Casino of Hammond, IN, Chicagoland's finest gaming establishment ("Where entertainment knows no bounds.") I am currently in the position of dual-rate supervisor, which means on any given day, I may be scheduled as a table games dealer or as a table games supervisor. Business needs dictate what role I shall perform, and sometimes I may do both in one day. I enjoy the diversity, and as a dual-rate, I have a great deal of seniority, which has allowed me to keep my current day shift schedule (even if I did lose my Saturdays off.)

We have experienced a number of drastic changes in the last four months, as I imagine most businesses have. We had a number of layoffs, and our supervisory staff had quite a shake-up as an entire tier of management was eliminated and redistributed. This has meant a lot more work and a lot of new tasks for me to learn, but honestly, I welcome the challenge - I was starting to get a little bored.

Home: Well, as you may have heard, our most famous neighbor moved. Apparently, his job is not one that's open to a work-from-home, telecommute sort of arrangement. I offered to pick up the mail and water the plants while they're in Washington, but the Secret Service informed me that those duties "aren't the concern of ... civilians." A shame, as I was really looking forward to seeing if the Obamas get the same YOU HAVE WON A FREE CRUISE!!! junk mail that I get.

Our apartment seems to be handling the winter better this year than last. Heidi covered all the windows with that transparent plastic stuff and the heater has only broken down once. But the pipes haven't frozen, the streets get plowed regularly, and we're well stocked for blankets, comforters, sweaters, heavy coats, boots, hats, scarves, and mittens.

Family (Elsewhere): Over New Year's, I flew out to Los Angeles to see Grandpa, and Mom and Dad. Grandpa had his 92nd birthday this past August, and I believe I have determined the secret to his longevity: don't smoke, have a gin martini every day, and put Tabasco sauce on EVERYTHING. Other than the fact that he can't hear very well, he's doing pretty darn good for a man in his nineties. Actually, he's doing pretty well for a man in his mid-to-late seventies, if the old white guys I see at the casino are any indication. Then again, those guys are clearly not getting enough Tabasco.

As good as it was to see Grandpa, I was more invested in seeing Mom. I haven't seen her since she started chemo and I've been really worried. But this visit filled me with confidence that she's going to make it through this thing just fine. As of now, her hair is gone, and for about a week after every treatment (actually, a week after two days after the treatment) she's absolutely miserable, but then she seems to bounce back pretty quick. I've never doubted that she was tough as nails, but I've also never seen her challenged quite like this. I'm more filled with hope now than worry and dread ... by a small margin, but nonetheless, the balance has shifted towards hope.

Dad's doing great. Lost about sixty pounds since the beginning of the year. Looks sixty (which he turned in October) but looks healthy and happy with himself (though I'm sure he's more worried about Mom than I am, seeing her on the day-to-day.)

Family (Here): The biggest news from the homefront family is that Daisy was accepted to the University Of Chicago lab school, and will begin classes this summer. Next stop Sitwell Prep! Just today she had a placement audition (at Lab, not Sitwell) to figure out where she'll be (with three-year-olds or a mix of three and four.) In other Daisy news, Santa heard that pink was the color de rigueur of Princesses in Chicago, and everything this holiday season matched appropriately, from new bike to magic wands to dresses to candies to kitties to bunny ornamented helmets for aforementioned bike.

Mama (sometimes known as Heidi) is still dividing her time between the University Theater and the Live Oak fellowship. And applying for doctoral programs. And teaching classes. And developing the U of C arts center. And of course, raising a three-year-old. Rinse, repeat. Though justifiably exhausted, Mama maintains high spirits and home, and is more often than not the leader of the evening dance party, and still the best cook in the house.

Facial Hair: I have managed to keep the handlebar goatee, but the casino's appearance guidelines dictated that I shave the sideburns.

My goals and ambitions for 2009: A career might be nice. Going back to school. Finding a winning lottery ticket on the ground would be o-k (Hey, I found a hundred dollar bill, didn't I?)

This is an important year to get some things accomplished, I think. I've used a number of excuses the last few to keep from setting some goals and taking any steps toward achieving them, but I think this is going to be one of those 'crux' years where I have to either make things happen or they're going to happen to me in ways I don't particularly care for. Let's just hope that superstitious dread is enough to motivate me.

Well, that's where I am at the beginning of 2009. I hope you (whomever you may be, friend!) are doing well and are happy, healthy, wealthy, and chock full of moxie and vinegar and all that good stuff as we begin this, the penultimate year of the first decade of blah diddy blah blah.

Hogs & quiches,
SMH

The Nicest Thing Ever Said By Anyone, Ever.

"Baba, I think you are the mostest beautiful king."