It Would Be My Honor To Accept...

What follows may contain political undertones. I don’t agree with myself on many points, so if you disagree with what I have said here, it is likely that I agree with you on that point. If you agree with what I have said, it is likely that neither of us know what we’re talking about - - which segues nicely into a discussion about politics, since maybe they don’t know all the time either.
The Democratic National Convention is coming to Denver, where I am currently trying to figure out how to close down a summer of Desert-Dodging, Writing, Writing Footwork, and way too much travel. You’d think I could close all this down by not doing any of those things, but as I am still in Denver and need to travel to Scottsdale after finishing a new copywriting project for a marketing firm downtown, it seems that the only way I can "close it down" is by Writing, doing Writing Footwork, and Traveling. If my mother had anything to say about it, I would do less Traveling and more "Yard Work." I just so happen to have the chromosomes for digging holes and fetching yard mulch.
Anyhow - the Democrats are coming, and recently it was announced that Hilary Clinton would accept an honorary nomination for the Democratic Presidential Race. In her capacity as the honorary candidate, she will give speeches, encourage Democrats to vote for the Democrat running for the office, raise money, and may (if she’s lucky enough to get more honorary votes than the honorary republican nominee) get elected as honorary president. . . wait. What?
It is with this spirit that I have decided to appoint myself Honorary Silver Medalist at the Beijing Olympics. And since I only have Honorary status, I’d also like to include my very own event: this event will be called The 1M Underwear Wedding Springboard Diving Competition.
And I will take home the Honorary Silver. The Honorary Gold, and all the honor that goes with it, will be awarded to Brad Nelson who performed seven consecutive quarter-rotating, appendage-flailing, whoa-shit gainers. A gainer is not what Brad actually completed, as a gainer is a back flip while moving in the opposite direction.

So now, while considering the quality and control that a traditional gainer encompasses, consider the absolute lack of respect for the human body that Brad’s performance included. Consider also that this event took place at midnight, in his underwear, in the olympic-sized private swimming pool of an enormous mansion. I’ll take the Silver medal behind that performance any time.

Medal Ceremonies aside, there is apparently still such a strong faction of Clinton supporters that are "mad as hell" that the honorary and symbolic gesture of including her as a nominee is necessary to remind them that writing Hil’s name into the ballot, same as writing in Tito Puente or Marcel Marceau, is a wasted vote and will only aid the opposition party (for stubborn Democrats this would be the Republicans as I understand it) in clinching the White House for another four years. Doesn’t that sound like something a bewildered herd of Democrats would do? In their stubbed pride, they’d unknowingly sabotage the chances of their own party being elected to office. It’s a shame we can’t elect a mob, they’re almost never wrong. This from the mind of a person who thinks it’s a great idea to take off your pants and throw your body through the darkness into an unlit pool. I should run for office, maybe I’ll see if they have any more honorary spots open. . .

Dear Brett Favre

Dear Brett Favre -

It’s me, Mat. I wanted to drop you a quick note, tell you I support your choices. I wanted to say, Don't Cry, Be Strong. It’s not easy having to leave something you love, and I guess now we both know how hard it can be to come back again.
It’s the same thing that happened to me when I retired from high school soccer my senior year. My family stood by me, just like yours, and I had a lot more time to focus on my homework. But the thrill of being prepared for calculus was nothing like the thrill of sprinting down the sideline. Every time I looked out at the fields between classes, it being my senior year and all, well I felt empty.
I didn’t quite leave the legacy that you left, let’s be honest. I played JV for three years, scoring only a handful of goals each season and I was often mildly injured. But like you, I played with pain, I laced up when even lacing up hurt. And when my senior year came around, and it was time to go, I got on that train and I left that station.
They offered me a severance to stay and to keep me involved in the organization. It wasn’t $20 million dollars over ten years, but being the equipment manager carries a lot of responsibility and I could still lace up for practice if I wanted to. Someone has to keep those soccer balls inflated, it’s an integral part of the game, but it wasn’t for me.
That’s why I support you standing your ground and leaving your retirement to play for a few more seasons. Sure you’ve already got a Hall of Fame bid locked down, you’ve got a legacy young players (and even some of the quarterbacks in the NFL currently) try to model their careers around. They grew up with you, we all have.
Plus that jet has to be expensive. I know how that goes too. I have a ‘95 Ford Explorer with 204k miles on it that turns heads whenever I pull it into the parking lot of Wal-Mart. I’m not trying to be flashy, but the car speaks for itself. It’s expensive to keep something like that up and running, especially with the gas so expensive and the miles per gallon on that dream-machine hovering around eleven. I have a friend who flies jets like yours, so I know what that’s all about. I could sit in one if I wanted to, but the front seat of my Explorer is where I’m most comfortable.
You and I, we’re both about being comfortable, Brett. You know what was uncomfortable? Trying to play soccer in college after taking a year off from it. I threw up on several other players, Brett, and while my hustle and never-say-die attitude was something that the coaching staff admired, my inability to actually play soccer was something we couldn’t, collectively, get past. I fell subject to fear, Brett. I was scared that I had left too soon and when I watched red gatorade and vomit come screaming out of my nose, my chest heaving and my legs like jelly - I knew that I’d never be able to come back to the sport.
But fear is helpful too, isn’t it? It’s one of those things that is both great and uncomfortable. Fear is what brought you back to the NFL, fear that you’d miss it too damn much. Fear is what took me away from soccer in high school too, the fear that if I wasted three months of life at age 17 that I’d never get laid. If your prospects with the New York Jets end up like my senior year in high school, I think we can both agree that following your heart is the best way to go. I’m glad to have you back. Good luck in New York.
It's New Jersey, actually huh? Well. Double the luck then, New Jersey’s kind of a crazy place to be in general.


All the best,
Mat Snapp

I Now Pronounce You Finished With Weddings

Weddings are sometimes the most joyous and special occasions in a person’s life. Sometimes they are small and quiet, sometimes they are loud and illegal, and sometimes there is a tidy little mix of all of those things to make what one would call the perfect nuptial ceremony.
The problem with searching for that perfect wedding is that the searcher, in this case, me, has to attend a lot of weddings. I think I had five slated for 2008 and its entirely possible that I’ve forgotten one at some point. And none of them have been too similar, save for those ironclad wedding touchstones that must be included to have a great wedding experience.
Usually the mothers don’t get along.
Someone on the groom’s side of the wedding party will lose his clothes, perhaps his dignity.
The cake gets up the nose, no matter how classy or covert, a bride and groom bent on sophistication get a hand full of cake and realize that this might be only one of two or three marriages they’ll have, they should take the opportunity to shove cake in the other person’s face.
If there is a little girl in a white dress somewhere at the party, her parents will allow her to eat only sugar and she will dance harder and longer than ten other guests, after which she will wail and cry and sometimes fall asleep with parts of her dress over her head.
The brides will look beautiful.
The grooms will look relieved.
The celebrant or priest will leave his microphone on and share with the congregation every guest’s favorite thing-to-hear from someone in charge: "Okay, what are we doing next?"
Every speaker giving a speech seems to be "Not good at speaking in public."
Everyone with a heart in their chest cries a little during the Father of the Bride dance.
In short, it’s a wedding. For an unmarried person peeking around the corner at thirty, I’d say I’ve been to more than my fair share. With some people I know getting married twice (I don’t have any thirds yet) I’ve seen enough to know what I like and what I don’t like. Having worked catering events for another twenty or so weddings, I know what should happen and what shouldn’t - -

IE there should not be blended drinks at a wedding with more than four people.
IE whoever is in charge should assume the party will go two hours longer than planned
IE in the event that the groom is quite drunk, only female caterers should attend to the bride.

This most recent wedding was located in Ohio and featured my girlfriend’s little sister. This meant, by proxy, I was to be on the front lines of this event - included in box carrying and errand running but without any real responsibilities to speak of. This also meant I could wear what I wanted, disappear for short periods of time without anyone wondering where I’d gone, and be included on the short list for the Father of the Bride’s 15 year-old single malt scotch. I did get this conversation at least three times during the evening:
"I know you," someone would say.
"Yes, hello."
"You’re Krissy’s boyfriend and you have a funny name."
"Ahh, that is true on both accounts."
"I’m (relation)(first name) and this is (relation)(first name)."
"Nice to meet you both, I’m Mat."
"Well that’s not that funny," perplexed, drinking wine, dancing in the grass.
"Yes, you’re referring to Snappy, my other name."
"That’s what it is, I thought someone said Slappy, but I couldn’t understand why anyone this handsome would be voluntarily called Slappy."
"Yes, Snappy is long for my short last name, Snapp."
"Well, we’ve heard only good things so far, and they weren’t kidding about the handsome."
"Yes, I know."
"I mean really, I was just saying to (relation)(first name) how the rest of Krissy’s boyfriends have been downright slovenly, and you, well I’ll just say it again, handsome. Don’t you think he’s handsome (first name)."
"Yes," (first name) says, shaking my hand in a fatherly manner. "Handsome," (first name) and (first name) sigh together.

(I’ll paraphrase like that when the conversations get long like that one was.)

The major thematic points are there, so we’ll stop. My name isn’t Mat anymore, its Snappy. I neglected to tell the gathered extended family members that Snappy was actually short for Snappy-Pants, a name that I am apparently resurrecting for the moment.
While being handsome was my primary achievement at this wedding, it also marked the first time since grade school I’ve been scolded by a priest, the first time I’ve had a bloody mary in a plastic martini glass, and in the aftermath, the first time I’ve been involved in the making or drinking of a punch-bucket.
The bride in this wedding is too young to have as much grace as she has. The groom is too old to have his mother tell him how to wear his sleeves in his wedding pictures. They both held it together admirably, and as I sat in the church, looking handsome, I began mentally dictating vows that I’d like to hear instead of the ones that I always end up hearing.
Wouldn’t it be nice, for example, if one attended a celebrity wedding and heard the following.
"I, Famous ActorMan, take you, Famous ActorLady, to be my private-life co-star. I will love and honor you while our movies are being released, I will cherish you in public until you end up in the What’s Not or Summer’s Biggest Weight Gains section of the tabloids, I will be your husband and soulmate for a little while or until we’re old enough that no one remembers we’re still married. Just look at Al Pacino, people forget that Beverly D’Angelo is married to him, but she is. They share a sink, can you even imagine that? Sharing a sink with Serpico? What if you burn the eggs, do you think he yells with the veins in his face popping out while Beverly D’Angelo makes eggs? I bet he doesn’t. Maybe she yells, maybe that’s where Pacino got it and we’re all in the dark about it. Till death or ratings do us part. Amen."
And likely even more hysterical would be if the celebrant had these new honest vows ahead of time and would coach the bride and groom through them.
"Place the ring on the bride’s finger and repeat after me," the priest would say. "I Groom give you this ring."
"I, Groom, give you this ring."
"Because you, Bride, love diamonds and also diamond jewelry..." the priest leads, his voice solemn, penitent, holy.
"Because you, Bride, love diamonds and also diamond jewelry..."
"And because without this ring..."
"And because without this ring..."
"You’d likely not take me with you to Puerto Villarta..."
"You’d likely not take me with you to Puerto Villarta..."
"Or wear that new lingerie that I found in your carry-on luggage," the priest leads, his timbre so soft, his tone so marital.
"Or wear that new lingerie that I found in your carry-on luggage."
"Or do that one thing you promised you’d do on our honeymoon, that thing that you did that one time when we were staying at the Bellagio."
"Or do that one thing you promised you’d do on our honeymoon, that thing that you did that one time when we were staying at the Bellagio."

Right? Talk about your entertainment. Much more entertaining than having the priest ask for a quiet audience at the rehearsal and then threaten to "kick you out of the wedding" if he thinks you’ve been drinking alcohol. Sure, I was so drunk at the rehearsal I didn’t hear him, but someone told me later - and boy I’ll tell you - if he’d have been at the rehearsal dinner (wait, he was at the rehearsal dinner) I’d have taken my goddamn cocktail (you two drank a scotch on the balcony of the restaurant, he’s pretty cool actually) and poured it into his smug Priesty face, and how!!
Unfortunately for the gathered masses, the only one who didn’t heed this warning seemed to be the organist. That little water bottle she always had with her wasn’t suspicious until she absolutely slaughtered that musical interlude of the Lord’s Prayer. As an organist, in a church, at a wedding, having played organ for likely half of her sixty years on this earth, you’d think that the Lord’s Prayer would be one she could handle with her eyes closed. Maybe someone spilled crazy glue on her keyboard. Maybe someone taped her fingers together.

And then we’d have the bride’s giving of the rings. . .
"Place the ring on the groom’s finger and repeat after me," the priest would start. "I Bride give you this ring."
"I, Bride, give you this ring."
"As a symbol of ownership," the priest says.
"As a symbol of ownership," the bride echoes, her voice cracking with sweetness.
"To keep at bay all those twenty-three year old hippie sluts."
"To keep at bay all those twenty-three year old hippie sluts."
"And whores," the priest reminds.
"And whores," the bride says, nodding, smiling.
"That seem to practically live in your office building."
"That seem to practically live in your office building."
"And always show up at your happy hours."
"And always show up at your happy hours."
"I will love and honor you."
"I will love and honor you."
"Despite what my mother says about the men in your family."
"Despite what my mother says about the men in your family."
"And I will definitely do that thing that I told you I would do on our honeymoon, that same thing that I did that one time when we were at the Bellagio," the priest says, closing his book.
"And I will definitely do that thing that I told you I would do on our honeymoon, that same thing that I did that one time when we were at the Bellagio."

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you for the very first time. . .

Congratulations to Francesca&Casey, Scott&Angie, Alex&Diana (good luck to Caitlin&Matt) and all the other Brides and Grooms that 2008 has brought together. . . I leave you all with advice.
1. Change your locks - a new life should start with a new set of security rules.
2. Give up something important to do absolutely nothing with each other.
3. You’re married, sure, but don’t share a toothbrush. Gingivitis is never sexy.
4. Buy an apron, and never cook the bacon naked.
5. You may prepare baked goods naked, as bits of chocolate are fun to find.
(These bits of advice may also apply to Empty Nesters who can’t seem to cry about it)