A Dispatch from Dallas: Final Four Edition

Well, consider that line item crossed off the Bucket List - although, after that experience, a new line item might have to be added: "Attend every Final Four". The fact that the three games were held in AT&T Stadium (aka JerryWorld, home of the Dallas Cowboys, and the site of a previous Dallas trip to witness Michigan get shellacked by Alabama) only made the trip more grandiose.

When they say everything is bigger in Texas, they aren't lying. The video-replay screens (40 yards wide!). The VIP special guests (see photo below). The egos (see Jerry Jones-related comment above). The steaks (and the bills, although on that I can luckily only assume).

Amongst the trees: me with Artis Gilmore and Bill Walton

It's probably easier to list who wasn't there than to go through all the celebrities and sports-world dignitaries who were. Nestled snugly between an endless build-up of NFL Draft hype and the revered and stately launch of Masters Week, the Final Four is the center of the sports universe for a three-day bacchanal of excitement, drama, last second three-pointers, and heartbreaking near-misses.

The media were there: Mike Lupica, John Feinstein, Kenny Smith, Bonnie Bernstein, Rachel Nichols, Jim Nantz, Doug Gottlieb, Jay Bilas and Dan Shulman all strode past us at one point.

Basketball dignitaries were also in the house: coaches being honored were Tubby Smith, Roy Williams, Jim Larranaga, and Jim Calhoun, while former Michigan coach Bill Freider was just wandering around aimlessly; players being honored included Grant Hill, Alonzo Mourning, and several other, anonymous ones (yes, there are famous sports figures even I don't recognize!); NBA legends glad-handing in the VIP section (which led to such surreal experiences as a giant presence looming over my shoulder and in a deep voice insisting I take a picture with him. I turned around to see Bill Walton sitting down next to me. I meekly told him I enjoyed his broadcasting, which was literally the first thing to come to my mind, and he retorted that I might be the only one who does. He then chased down fellow Hall of Famer Artis Gilmore to join the two of us in a photo. As we were leaving the VIP to navigate our way back to our seats across the stadium, another large man flagged me down and insisted I take a photo with him. He turned out to be Hall of Famer Moses Malone. Like I said, surreal.)

Moses Malone

Other celebrities in attendance: Kentucky super-fan and extremely famous rapper Drake was sitting approximately 15 feet from us. Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, was also right there in the Kentucky section. Marcus Camby, who played for Kentucky coach John Calipari at UMass in the mid-90s, was sitting right behind us, looking about 40 pounds heavier than his playing days...which ended last year. Other former Calipari mercenaries, er, players were there - John Wall, Anthony Davis. The UConn section featured Ray Allen and Rip Hamilton. On the big screen they showed Johnny Manzeil, who elicited a chorus of boos, and Bill Clinton sitting next to George W. Bush in a luxury suite, which elicited a chorus of cheers. Sitting in front of Clinton and Dubya was Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo; amateur lip-reading determined that Clinton quipped, "They're clapping for you, Tony", when that motley trio was on the forty-yard wide screen. A welcome change, I'm sure, for Mr. Romo, after the last few Cowboys seasons.

Did I mention we sat court-side?

Nice seats!

The entire experience was supremely memorable. My lone gripe - c'mon, Michigan! Don't lose the game before! I want it to be maize and blue confetti next time I'm lucky enough to attend.

Phil Knight...could I get some free Nikes?

Court-side

What up Grant!

Drake in the building

Congrats to UConn, my adopted team for the weekend and 2014 National Champions

Richard Leakey at the World Affairs Council of West Michigan

Richard Leakey, the Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician, gave an engaging, hour-long lecture Wednesday night at Aquinas College. Leakey, who along with his archaeologist parents Louis and Mary Leakey was selected as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century, was the guest of the World Affairs Council of West Michigan, and the much anticipated presentation did not disappoint.

Leakey's talk focused on a similar topic as his seminal 1995 book The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind: Earth has had five major extinctions in its existence, and is currently in the midst of its sixth thanks in large part to man-made environmental degradation and climate change. He defined an extinction as at least 80% of plant and animal species ceasing to exist; at the rate it is occurring now, a unique species dies out every 20 minutes. Climate and environmental changes are happening faster than their inhabitants can evolve, making it impossible for some to survive.

Regardless of the inherent and controversial politics of the topic, by using a potent mix of scientific fact and emotional appeals to the packed house's common sense and decency, Leakey made a compelling argument. He told the story of a pride of lions that experienced a huge decline in numbers, a die-off that was eventually linked to a pesticide working its way from crops to smaller animals to the lions. It turns out that that particular pesticide had previously been banned in North America and Europe, but with laxer regulations in Africa, the manufacturer was able to sell it there. Only when the infected meat of chickens and ducks started showing up in village markets and killing people did the government eventually act to ban it. But wouldn't you know it, that exact same pesticide is now back in Kenya, only under a different brand name. Mitt Romney would say corporations are people, but in this specific instance, those people don't seem very nice.

Turkana Boy, the most complete early human
skeleton ever found, was discovered by Leakey's
team in 1984. It is 1.5 million years old.

He joked that he is comforted by his own mortality, because he won't have to deal with these huge problems the world face. Another example - he explained how one hundred years ago, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hovered around 250-280 parts per million; now, in 2014, that number is around 400 parts per million. At 450 parts per million, the wheat crops growing in our fields, the basis of most diets around the world, will begin to suffer a precipitous decline in its nutrition and caloric value. So we've got that going for us...which is nice.

He was quick to add that it's not too late to reverse this trend, but that it will require a combination of strong leadership at the top of government and a democratic, grass roots-led movement to demand tougher, smarter decisions from our elected officials. So far, we have neither. And with the third-world undergoing their own industrial revolutions, on an even quicker scale, these emissions stand to increase even more without some sort of drastic action. 

An audience member asked him during the Q&A if the great asteroid that struck down in the Yucatan 65 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs with its resulting changes in climate and environment, was an analog for the situation we find ourselves in today. Leakey replied that the analogy only worked if you consider the human race an asteroid with no means of changing its collision course. Our crash landing is not inevitable, even as it grows more and more likely.

He shared one last example of the negative effects of these environmental changes. Malaria, even with everything we know about it and the strides we've taken to eradicate it, is spreading across the Atlantic into the equatorial areas of South America. The high altitude areas there, which used to get cold enough to kill off mosquitoes, now serve as an ideal breeding ground during the rainy season. 

Leakey's advocacy hasn't come without a price. As he ambled up to the podium Wednesday night, I noticed he had an odd gait, kind of rocking back and forth as he walked forward. In 1993, a plane he was piloting crashed, crushing his lower legs beneath him and requiring their amputation. Foul play has long been suspected, but never proven. Undeterred, Leakey goes on sharing his message, trying to get the world to wake up before it's too late.

A Dispatch from the Desert

In the middle of March, we escaped the never-ending Michigan winter, fleeing south for a much-needed week in Tucson, also known as The Land with No Grass. Although there are many bikers. And at least one bear. I'll explain.

At the Desert Museum.

The first thing you notice when you touch ground in the desert is that it is flat. We're talking see-your-destination-when-you're-still-60-miles-away kind of flat. It's very disorienting. We emerged from the Mesa airport (yes, the Mesa airport - apparently discount airliner Allegiant, which charges $2.00 for a can of Coke (credit only!!!!!) isn't bourgeoisie enough to fly into the highfalutin Phoenix airport) into the sunshine we had nearly lost faith actually existed, jumped on the highway and headed south. But to the right and left of us weren't trees or hedges or subdivisions; geez, even a curve in the road would've been a welcome relief. Nope: in Arizona there's no mystery. You can see exactly where you're going, making your destination seem so tantalizingly close when it's really no closer than it was when you last looked 10 seconds ago. It's the ultimate buzzkill. As they say, a watched pot never boils. But even the person who said that has never driven sixty miles in a perfectly straight line behind a car of retirees from Milwaukee with only misshapen cacti for entertainment.

At least we could listen to March Madness on the radio. That was the theme of the first four days of the trip, Thursday thru Sunday: non-stop hoops. With the occasional Fox News program thrown in for educational purposes (Fair and Balanced!). But after dissecting every possible lead and theory related to Malaysian Flight 370 ad nauseum, mercifully it was back to basketball. Both Michigan and Arizona won their two games of the tournament, ensuring pleasant moods for the balance of the trip, although the Geezer Squeezer's beloved Oklahoma State Cowboys dropped their second round tilt to the plucky Gonzaga Bulldogs. (Sorry Thelma!)

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If I may make one suggestion: don't travel directly from a wintry hellscape to the sunniest place on Earth without packing some industrial strength suntan lotion, and then, when presented with the available suntan lotion options, turn them down in order to "get some color". Upon arriving back in said wintry hellscape, you will acquire the nastiest, itchiest case of sun poisoning the world has ever known, requiring gallons upon gallons of Cortizone. This happened to a guy I know. What a dumbass.

Don't worry: this bear is dead.

On two occasions we braved the disorienting Tucson streets for excursions, the first a winding jaunt up the Santa Catalina Mountains to the top of Mount Lemmon, the second a trip across town to the Desert Museum, which is basically a zoo. But a fun one!

But first we stopped for the best fast food in the land, In-N-Out.

The scenic drive to the top of Mount Lemmon took us from around 2500 feet up to nearly 9000 over the course of thirty minutes of switchbacks, roller-coaster worthy inclines and declines, and intrepid bikers who were in the mood for some serious cardio. Every thousand feet or so we would enter a new ecological band, starting with the majestic saguaro cacti and continuing into small and large conifers and what seemed like never-ending varieties of shrubbery. My favorite road sign came just after the 8000 ft. mark, and indicated an alternate route of descending the mountain: "Caution: Primitive Road Ahead". Not wanting to put our acrophobic (look it up) driver (my dad) or our rickety rented Dodge Caravan (no power doors or windows? C'mon - this is 'Merica!) through what the swashbuckling locals would deem to be primitive road conditions, we decided to descend via the civilized route. 

Our adventure to the Desert Museum involved much smaller changes in elevation, but similar amounts of gawking at the scenery. The saguaros in Saguaro National Park line up like soldiers marching up and done the various ridges and hills, making the smaller, rounder, fuzzier prickly pear and teddy bear cholla cacti...the soldier's dogs? We experienced the flora of Arizona up close and personal during a "short cut" we took through the park, a seven mile long slice of hell Google erroneously convinced us was a good idea. Fifteen miles per hour on a gravel rumble strip can darken even the brightest of desert suns. Those German tourists who said we were almost there when we most certainly were not did not help matters. Danka schoen, Rolf and Helga!

Looking on the bright side, our interminable journey through the national park felt almost nostalgic, like a cowboy experiencing the wild Sonoran desert in its original state. Until of course we arrived at the museum and emerged into a crowd of yelling schoolchildren. That broke the illusion pretty quickly.

Our trip back to The House on the Hill (aka Thelma's Palace) was less eventful and thankfully more direct. (When told by our navigator that she had everything under control, I should have dropped a classic Geezer line: "That's deja poo." (Translation: Shit I've heard before.)) The ride home offered even better vistas of the thousands of saguaros lined up in formation, and the frustrations of the heat, the circuitous route, and the clueless Germans melted away as we headed back across town toward the mountains.