Blog Posts for Chris Rodell

Grinnin' at the mammogram commotion

Chris Rodell — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:51:49 -0800

I smiled this week at the intense reaction to the scientific study that said too frequent mammograms cause unnecessary stress and can be safely reduced. It was a beautiful smile, too. The mostly straight ivories look like rows of surfboards left to bleach in the summer sun. It’s a contagious sort of smile. I’ve found people nearly always smile back when I smile at them. In fact, the only ...

Obama's bow wow

Chris Rodell — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:28:32 -0800

President Barack Obama is returning from an overseas diplomatic mission in which he’s now being criticized for being too diplomatic. Yes, it’s true. His courtly bow before Japanese Emperor Akihito was deemed demeaning by that Miss Manners of international relations, Dick Cheney. Cheney said it “showed weakness” for a U.S. president to observe such formality with one of our closest allies, ...

Mom struggles with new remote

Chris Rodell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:16:18 -0800

My mother stared at the new cable remote the way the ancients must have stared at a solar eclipse. For a minute, I thought she was going to run into her bedroom and slam the door. But the powerful demands of another glowing pagan god, the 42-inch Toshiba flat screen, exerted an even greater pull and my Mom is convinced she’ll perish without Diane Sawyer in the morning. Thus, we began the ritual ...

My day in court

Chris Rodell — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:16:32 -0800

I selected my best duds, tidied up an ugly tangle of stray nose hairs and took steps to ensure I wouldn’t be too hungover for the big day. That left only one item on the big to-do list: watch a taped “Green Acres” marathon. You can take Perry Mason or Arnie Becker. For me the most persuasive television attorney of all time was Oliver Wendell Douglas. He was the erstwhile New York lawyer who ...

Sammy Sosa's turning white

Chris Rodell — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:20:37 -0800

When I heard that former Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa was getting lighter I expressed enthusiastic support. Good for him, I thought. We could all afford to lose a few pounds. I was disappointed when Sosa got caught illegally corking his bat and cheating with steroids so to hear him crusading about the importance of fitness was refreshing. It sounded like Sammy was becoming cool again. Then I ...

John Muhammad & a real killer bar

Chris Rodell — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:31:23 -0800

When news of the execution of D.C. sniper John Muhammad, people every where recalled a three-week reign of terror as diabolical as anything conceived by bin Laden. Not me. My first thought was of a warm, friendly tavern in the far northwest corner of the country. It was the Waterfront Seafood & Bar in Bellingham, Washington. It’s a place where everybody knows your name and the odds of one ...

Reject me, please

Chris Rodell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:18:13 -0800

I’m nostalgic for the days when I used to gauge my how hard I was working by the frequency of my rejection letters. I knew I wasn’t working hard enough unless I was getting at least one rejection a day. This made sense because if the rejections were coming with regularity it meant that my stuff was being considered elsewhere and would by the law of averages produce a positive result. These ...

Perfect matches for imperfect people

Chris Rodell — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:01:48 -0800

In the future, newborns will be implanted with forehead bar codes that can be scanned with iPhone apps to eventually reveal things like name, astrological sign, political disposition, cereal preference and current level of sexual arousal. And, dammit, guys like me will still struggle to get laid. I’m so far removed from the horny dating scene that I should be restricted from ever commenting ...

For Boss fans only: A Springsteen career review

Chris Rodell — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:50:16 -0800

While other writers are triumphantly engaged in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), in which they try to in 30 days write 50,000-word novels, I will write about what it’s like to listen to 318 consecutive Bruce Springsteen songs in chronological order over 23.5 hours. I’m not like other writers. And Springsteen, 60, is not like other artists. He’s in the midst of an historic run of ...

"Look, ma! No hands!" A pilot's story

Chris Rodell — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:29:18 -0800

I have yet to write United Airlines complaining about mistreatment during a recent free flight because I’m fearful they might respond with another free flight. And I don’t think I could take that again. The airline industry is today thrilled they can scapegoat Northwestern pilots Richard Cole and Thomas Cheney for using personal lap tops while they should have been devoting their full ...