How Men Are

Last night I had dinner with part the PR machine for the Pacquiao vs. Mosley fight. Brener, Scotty, D-blaz, couple of PR girls, another Showtime dude and Lance from the LA Times. I've read Pugmire's stuff but this was the first time ever actually meeting him face to face. What a great guy. I met Counselor for a couple drinks at Seablue prior to meeting up with them at Fiamma for dinner so I was chattier than normal. I blabbed about how I've got a crush on a local radio guy. In hindsight, probably not the smartest thing to do - tell an investigative journalist and the head of Showtime PR who I've got a secret crush on - but who cares. It was fun listening to them scheme for me. I could have worse people working on getting me a date.

Last night at Seablue Counselor asked me when my parents were coming into town. I told him they arrived Monday and left on Thursday. Again we made plans for him to have dinner with us. It's a little strange. The only people I've ever brought to have dinner with me and my parents here in Vegas are 3 men - none of whom I'm currently dating or ever (technically) dated. First was Rodney. They love him. LOVE him. I think if they could choose, they'd pick him for me. Rodney's such a good guy. There's just no spark with us. We're truly like best friends, have been for 4 years. People used to think we were sleeping together. We knew it and played it up. It was fun fucking with people. Then there's J. J's good to take to dinner because the boy loves history and literature. He and my mom have that in common. He's good at dealing with parental units too. Must be from a lifetime of dealing with his. J's parents are boisterous, lively, adorable creatures. Mine are your typical Minnesota-nice couple. I used to joke, "Can you imagine your parents and my parents at dinner together." He didn't seem to think anything of it. I on the other hand am not sure my parents could handle his. Think Meet The Fockers. My parents adore both boys though and ask how J and Rodney are doing often. So pending a classic Counselor-flakeout it will be interesting to see what they think of him. I'm not a bit worried since Counselor is terribly charming. He puts M to shame in the charm department; one of his best qualities I think. And this boy can talk. He can talk to anyone, anytime, about anything for any length of time. He's so much like me it's scary. Or maybe the scary part is that I'm like him.

Nothing fight related scheduled today. Well technically we have the undercard press conference in the media center around 11.00a but I didn't give a fat rat's ass about the main event presser, I'm surely not going to sit thru the undercard. At some point though, I have to remember to catch up with Kieran Mulvaney so he can autograph my polar bear book. I'm still only on chapter 2. I just think it's cool that he wrote a book about polar bears. I don't know why. Tonight is the Press Dinner at Lupo at Mandalay. As I told DQ yesterday, I'll play the role of the Grand Garden Arena Ambassador (because I know he's not gonna do it; he doesn't like PR dinners). Twist my arm. I'll go be social around a bunch of men talking about sports, politics and life. Is there anything better than How Men Are?

So the plan is to get up, work off the 4 glasses of Pinot attaching itself to my liver, head in to work for the last day before we really kick it up a notch with the Pacquiao vs. Mosley weigh in and the fight on Saturday night. Talk about a circus. But I love this stuff. Am absolutely in love with it. 

The Great White Bear

The Great White Bear
by Kieran Mulvaney

I just got my friend Kieran Mulvaney's book The Great White Bear in the mail. I bought it on Amazon.com a couple days ago. I've been meaning to get it, not because I particularly want to read it but because I want to support my friend and I want him to inscribe something clever and thoughtful on the inside cover to me. Kieran's a great guy. Soft spoken Irish lad. He's one of my all-time favorite boxing writers who I didn't know until recently was primarily an environmental writer. It's probably a good thing I knew him as a sports writer first. I'm not big on saving the world.

I've also had a manuscript from a colleague sitting on my desk for about a month. I can't bring myself to read it. It's horrible of me to have it this long. I should care enough about him to want to read it but I'm just not motivated. I used to be ok with reading. I'd slam thru a Steve Martini book in a couple nights or on a long plane ride. But now I just don't have the patience, intent or desire to read page after page. Or rather, I don't have the will to actually start. Once I dive in, I'm sure I'll finish it but it's that first step of committing to reading that first chapter that's hard. Christ, you'd think I was talking about jumping out of an airplane. It's only a book for God's sake. But honestly, I'd rather go skydiving than read a book. I realize that's an unintelligent, classless thing to say and an even more idiotic thing coming from someone who's writing a blog - yeah, doesn't make much sense. 

But tonight at 11.59p I'm going to shut down my Mac and hop into bed with Kieran's book (how salacious). I'll put on my $20 Target reading glasses, not because I necessarily need them to see but because they make me feel smarter, more learned and maybe more inclined to get deep enough into his book that I'll actually finish it. 

I must respect this guy because he has no idea how much I loathe reading. This one's for you Kieran. Now where's that Jameson...