Bill Pullman for President

I apologize for temporarily suspending the Froo Froo and not being your moral compass during the past month. The bottom line is I thought Dan Rather was doing a very good job, but then he started crying all over everything. I want the Dan Rather who called Bush's margin of election victory "shakier than cafeteria Jell-O," and noted whoever lost that election would be "madder than a rained on rooster." I mean, what's the frequency, Kenneth?

If you picked up a newspaper last month, you'll notice that all the headlines have been dominated by an earthshattering event on September 11 - the release of Bob Dylan's new album. It's very good.

In all seriousness, some people say that we took things for granted before the attacks, but I’m not sure that’s true - I think we knew we were truly blessed to live in a world where the biggest concerns were stem cells, possible deficits, and Gary Condit. Personally, my biggest concern upon waking up the morning of September 11 was that “Easy” Ed McCaffrey, wide receiver for the Denver Broncos, had broken his leg the night before and effectively killed my entire fantasy football season. I know I shouldn’t be concerned with fantasy football now but I was right - my team is now 1-4 and promising to get worse. I’ve got a Patriots running back on my team for God’s sake.

The "Everything Is Different Now" mentality is starting to wear a little thin. A lot of things are different now, no question, especially for the families of the 6,000 fellow Americans who were killed. Here in the DC-metro area, the road by the Pentagon has just reopened, the same road my wife uses to get to work. It’s clearly impossible to drive by it and think anything but how different things are. (By the way, if you’re thinking of coming to DC, please don’t come to have your picture taken in front of the wreckage. I can’t tell you how pissed I get when I drive by and see some slack-jawed yokel smiling and pointing to where 188 innocent people were killed just so he could tell his inbred brethren back in Tuscaloosa he “done seen the Pentygon.”) And, as you know, DC is also one of the places that’s being a little more cautious about its mail these days, for obvious reasons. All that means for me, really, is that my mail-order porn is taking a little longer. But on the whole, things really aren’t all that different. One of the reasons we all love this country is it’s astonishing ability to persevere. We’re still playing the World Series (go Diamondbacks), we’re still playing football (except the Redskins - no one is quite sure what the hell they’re playing), my fantasy football team still sucks.... life is going on. So everything is not different. Here’s some other stuff that happened.

-- The biggest story in the Washington Post in early September was Mia Hamm’s appearance at an Orioles game, where she was rooting for reported love interest Nomar Garciaparra. I was sitting a mere ten rows or so behind her, though I’ll admit that I had no idea who the hell she was before little kids started approaching her for autographs. It was after asking a few folks around us that she went from “that small chick with the nice rack” to “world renowned soccer legend Mia Hamm with the nice rack.” As she was leaving, my friend Josh and I asked for her autograph, and she signed baseballs for us, despite the fact that I dropped a sharpie on her friend’s foot. However, the following day, the Washington Post gossip section featured an article detailing a fan’s anger that Hamm had virtually ignored his daughter when the daughter asked for an autograph. So I sent an email to the gossip column and said I had the opposite experience. My comments were printed in the Post, and I felt justified that I had once again made the world a safe place for female soccer players with nice chests. (I always thought that the first time my name appeared in the Washington Post it would be preceded by the words “billionaire financier,” “reputed mob boss,” or perhaps “wealthy gadabout.”) But it didn’t end there - the Post printed the comments of several other people who said they had unpleasant experiences with Hamm. It could have gone back and forth for weeks, if real news hadn’t come along to show us how pathetic we really were.

You could make solid arguments about autograph hunting either way - that celebrities and athletes have a right to privacy, especially when at a ballgame trying to enjoy themselves, or that they’re obligated to be accommodating with their fans and sign autographs no matter where they are. Bottom line is I got a kick-ass baseball signed by Mia Hamm and Rick Dempsey, who besides being the 1983 World Series MVP, invented that rain-delay tarp slide. A true baseball pioneer. It also led me to the Great Hockey Card Experiment, which you can read about here.

-- Capitol Hill has been a truly interesting place to be the past few weeks. There are concrete barriers up everywhere, and big signs that say “Congressional Employees Only” on certain streets. The Capitol police seemingly have no interest in enforcing this rule since they know that it’s illegal to tell people that they can’t walk down the streets their tax dollars pay for, or walk into the public buildings their tax dollars help to heat. But it provides for some interesting conundrums. Mayor Anthony Williams testified at a hearing a few weeks back that it’s very hard to convince people the city is 100% safe when there are Humvees full of soldiers at every corner and all the roads are barricaded. I know I feel safer walking around the city with that much firepower, but I work here. I don’t think out-of-towners are going to enjoy checking out the National Gallery of Art while GI Joe stares them down through the sites of an M-16. (There’s a considerable lack of enforcement of the signs that say “NO PHOTOGRAPHY” at the Pentagon, however. I know I keep harping about that, but it really friggin’ jerks my chain.) At another hearing, representatives of the airlines, travel agencies, cruise lines, and rental car companies were giving testimony about how they could assure the American people that everything was safe, and that there were no perceived threats. When they finished, the Chairman of the committee said he appreciated their testimony but there would be no questions because all House buildings were being closed for anthrax testing. Again, it’s very hard to give people that warm fuzzy feeling when lawmakers run screaming for the hills at the first hint of perceived threat. Not to make light of a serious situation, but it is funny when a cruise line rep informs a House committee that a transatlantic cruise on the QE2 is only $1500 per couple, and the House immediately closes and leaves town. I’d like to see last week’s QE2 passenger manifest.

-- I turned 27 two weeks ago. I’ve reached the point where I refer to hockey players as “kid,” as in “That kid can really skate for a young whippersnapper.” It could be worse, I suppose - my brother is an ancient 30, my grandfather turns 91 this week, and my great-grandmother-in-law will be 102 in February. But I’m inching ever-further from that coveted 18-35 demographic, and now when I hit on 18-year-old girls or Mia Hamm I look like a pervert and not a “classy older gentleman,” although it could be argued that I’ve never been labeled as classy, or a gentleman. Now I’m just older.

Well, like GW said, it’s time for Americans to return to their lives, because everything is going back to normal. So I’ll put on my rubber gloves and gas mask, walk past the armed guards in front of my office, get my mail from the decontamination chamber, close my office door, and sleep. It’s my patriotic duty.