rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

man oh man. where has the time gone.

I haven’t looked at this blog in … over a month. I don’t even know what’s at the top of the page right now; something banal, no doubt. sometimes, it would seem, you just need a break.

so what’s been going on?

okay, well, I ran a marathon.

not well, by any I means. I just ran it — I kind of, sort of purposefully avoided using any training schedule beyond “run far on the weekends.” and having done so I don’t think there’s anything especially wrong with doing it this way. though I’m not suggesting that this, uh, open-ended approach to marathon training made me the fastest motherscratcher on the course. I finished in a little under four and a half hours, dying. and I had wanted to run a sub-four-hour race. shows what my opinion of myself was.

I just … I don’t know. the culture of running is a little grating sometimes. you should have heard the awful rap rock the PA system was blaring at the start of the race. and you should see all of the dumb athletic gear that people blow money on. and when the hell did running shoes get so goddamn expensive?

all of this, I will readily admit, I complain about while recognizing the fact that I am a curmudgeon and a cynic, even if my station in life shouldn’t position me to be. (I’ve got it pretty good.) but that doesn’t make it any less true.

because the best thing about the marathon was training for it. running a long way by yourself on a weekend afternoon when you’ve cleared away all of the other shit you have to do — that’s fun, or it is to me at least. all you have to do is run, and pay attention to the traffic. it’s a good way to get to know your city.

the marathon itself is simply the goal, and it’s one that cost $100 to sign up for, so you might as well run toward it. while it keeps you moving, it’s not like most of us will be setting any records on the big day. so appreciate what running that much over a drawn-out period does to keep your office-bound ass flexible and moving, and take what it gives you. you could be sitting on the couch, working on increasing your cholesterol count.

this is how I try approach running.

what else … I went on a business trip — honest to god, I did — to the bustling metropolis of Kalamazoo, Michigan, where we held a semi-successful press conference highlighting the short- and long-term economic benefits of support for early childhood education programs. are you convinced? if not, let’s go drink a cup of coffee and I will try and convince you. anyway, while there I got my own room at the Quality Inn, so I stayed up late and watched Skinemax. you would have too.

I grew a beard. I’m pretty sure Aarti hates it. and it kind of itches. I don’t know how long it’s gonna last. no pictures of it as of yet.

and, politics. In Washington, you have a bunch of recalcitrant assholes (Congress) have named some of the worst among themselves (the “supercommittee”) to come up with $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts over the next decade, or automatic cuts will affect programs that everyone holds dear. they’ve had a month or so now to figure out how to do that, and have gotten nowhere. they have two weeks until their deadline. don’t hold your breath.

while in Real America, this cartoon character is still somehow on top of the polls, despite blonde lady after blonde lady from sexual harassment claims past coming out of the woodwork. I feel bad for these women. when GOP presidential primary candidate Herman Cain began flailing around a few months ago, pleasing crowds of self-assured Bitter Clingers, his then-unknown accusers from his wild years at the National Restaurant Association must have made dour faces at the television– but reassured themselves, happy that he’s bound to be an also-ran. and when it became his turn to be Not Mitt Romney, these accusers probably brought up Cain’s depressing growth in popularity with close acquaintances and husbands, who probably felt just a touch of emasculation. and when it became clear that Cain was going to turn his 15 minutes in the glow of the spotlight into something like 30 or 45, and ridiculous shit from his past started to surface …

.
… they probably thought, “O Jesus Christ. when will the opposition research boys and Professional Journalists get to his on-file sexual harassment claims? it’s only a matter of time.”

and then it was here, a Sunday that the story broke. and there was Cain arguing with a press gaggle, flustered and unbelieving that this kind of thing would get brought up while he’s trying to Save America from Socialism and Wealth Redistribution. and his accusers knew it was only a matter of time before some media outlet broke rank and made their names public, even if they didn’t want to be named. (turns out it was TheDaily.com! what’s that, you ask? “The Daily is a category first: a tablet-native national news brand built from the ground up to publish original content exclusively for the iPad.” sounds serious.)

and now, the Herman Cain campaign is shitting all over these women, in an effort to disparage their characters, and therefore make their claims less … believable? that’s the plan, right? I wonder how that will go.

oh well. the cat’s out of the bag, and their holiday seasons are going to suck. all we can do now is wish the best of luck to Herman Cain. he’s got another televised debate with the other stiffs who are in the running for the GOP nomination in about … 20 hours. I’m sure none of this will come up. and he can focus on his flat tax horseshit, and mispronouncing the names of a few foreign countries.

… and that’s it. I’m sure that’s more than enough bullshit to get me back in the habit of vomiting up whatever’s on my mind. tomorrow is Wednesday. that’s only a day away from a new Beavis and Butt-head cartoon. cause we got that cartoon back. so yeah, I’d say we’re making progress, America. since you’re asking.

I am running the Marine Corps Marathon at the end of October.

I’m serious this year, serious as all get-out. last year, around this time, I blew a flat tire — what I’m assuming was a muscle tear or a tendon strain in my calf. funny I don’t even remember which one. but I wasted a lot of time on driving out to Fairfax City to see a chiropractor, and I bought a pair of incredibly tight, constricting socks that run up to just below knee in hopes of some dopey miracle cure. turns out, it made no difference, and I didn’t run the race. but I will this year, so help me …

I’ve been running like a horse, or as like one as my sloppy ass is liable to get. this does not mean I’m running well; a week or two ago I ran to the point of dehydration and, an hour and a half later, ended up vomiting into a garbage can on Date Night. and I’ve since bought a handful of these energy “goos” and a Camelbak — basically a backpack with a long straw snaking out of it so you can go a long ways with plenty of liquid. more purchases than necessary, I’m sure. but less of a boondoggle than last year’s chiropractor.

but I feel good. I just did a short run this evening, something just over six miles, and I’ll get in a legitimately long one this weekend. Aarti and I are going to Puerto Rico at the end of the month for a few days of goofing off, and I plan to take my shoes. I’m thinking about just showing up for a half-marathon the weekend before the trip that’s planned for Philadelphia and running without registering. I think this is called “running bandit.” and it’s like hopping a freight train, only much tamer.

like last year, I have signed up for the race through the nonprofit run by Aarti’s brother and sister-in-law. it raises money for researching a cure for neuroblastoma, a cancer that affects the nervous system and is found primarily in children. it sucks.

so I signed up to fundraise. and here is my fundraising page right here, in longform — because I’ve been away from WordPress for so long that they went and updated the publishing tool on me and I don’t know how to work it:

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/matthew-mcmullan/2011marinecorpsmarathonor10k

 so come on, man, be cool. it’s tax deductable!

I just baked two potatoes, and I’m hungrier than a mean son of a bitch. my attention is waning. but at least I got this much onto the blog this month, if only by half an hour. hello, September!

but seriously for a second: do you remember Van Morrison singing that song, ‘Gloria’? yeah. you’ve heard it before, becuase you grew up in America and have walked past a radio a couple of thousand times in your life. it’s pretty awesome. and you already knew that.

the scene: it is late. I’m watching – on the television, and out of one eye – ”Forbidden Planet,” and I’ve got no idea what’s going on in it. despite the hour, we’re still in hot-as-a-mug territory, and I can’t hear shit over these air conditioners.

a few months ago I noticed a restaurant up by Howard University Hospital that showed some promise as a breakfast spot — or, as much promise that a glance can provide anyway. so today, I went.
this place can be added to the short list of breakfast spots I’ve identified in the city. here’s a brief rundown of them — consider that I’m pretty easy-to-please foodwise, and I’m more impressed by ambiance and price. anyway, you’ve got:

The Capital City Diner, over on Bladensburg Road, which is about a mile from my brother’s house. it’s an honest-to-god silver bullet diner that the owner had trucked down here from New York state. the breakfast menu goes all day, and it’s open for nearly three days straight til the end of the weekends. also: while the coffee is mediocre, the food is good, and only slightly more expensive that it should be. and, bonus: it’s got a slushee machine.
as my brother has noted, the Capital City Diner in a shitty neighborhood without a lot of dining-out options, so success is a testament to how its mere presence is good for the surrounding community. but alas, that doesn’t make it a hidden gem; you’d hope that being out on Bladensburg would allow you to dodge white people bedecked in Wayfarers and the latest fads who hog the few booths with their laptops long after the table has been cleared, but this isn’t the case. if you scrap the wifi, the hipsters won’t come — it’s just like “Field of Dreams” said.

Trio Restaurant, at the corner of 17th and Q streets northwest, has been my go-to breakfast place since moving here. I think that’s because it’s always been sort of a landmark for me, owing to the infrequent late-night car tours I’ve taken with my brother over the years.
this place caters to a slightly different (gayer) crowd, and has a full bar. as such, you’ve got shit like eggs florentine and mimosas on the menu … neither of which I’m particularly drawn to, but I can appreciate all the same. Trio has been at this corner in northwest DC for decades — it’s the kind of fixture that I imagine the Capital City Diner will be in Trinidad if it stays put for a while –and I’m pretty sure some of the waiters there are lifers.
being a professional waiter in a place like Trio means you’re pretty attentive — they hook you up on coffee pretty regularly — and that you also might take your job too seriously — the maitre d’ once yelled at Aarti and made a big show of throwing a water glass into the garbage after the dog drank out of it. but it evens out. I think this place has wifi as well, but that works out okay because they’ve got plenty of seats. so you can take your time and read the paper. or check your email. or read a blog. jesus.

The Diner is not too far from Trio; up on 18th Street in Adams Morgan. it’s a goddamn zoo every time you walk in there. it never closes – which is its main draw – and is always packed. the food’s not bad, judging by the handful of times I’ve been in there. but despite having plenty of real estate, it always feels like its capacity is testing the limits of the city fire code.
this, I think, sucks balls: as mentioned before, the food isn’t bad, but it’s not cheap. that iss a knock. and, I don’t like bumping elbows with some other shlub when I’m trying to focus on the Metro section, and I don’t like being hot because of being in close proximity with too many of my fellow men. DC isn’t really that dense, population speaking, until you walk into a handful of places that make you rub shoulder to shoulder: places like Chinatown, the entire Metro system, and the Diner in Adams Morgan. and that is another knock.

Jimmy T’s Place on East Capitol and 5th Street is where you go, as Spencer said, “if you’ve got a copy of the Sunday paper and a couple of hours to kill.” I put that idea to the test a few months ago, and it worked out pretty well.
Jimmy T’s only takes cash. it’s a very small place, with a small counter and a couple of booths, but there was no line out the door to get in.  the food wasn’t too bad, and the coffee neither. to be fair, though, I’ve only been there the once, so I’m hardly an authority.

and then there was today’s restaurant: Torrie’s at Wilson, up across from Howard University Hospital. it was baking-ass hot this morning when I got there, and I wanted to read the paper so I could find out what the hell was going on in Norway (I didn’t; the Post’s story this morning was surprisingly bad, lacking in detail of what actually happened) and with the debt negotiations. I walked in with the intent to stay a while.  so I sat at the counter and ordered coffee, which the waiter kept refilling.  
this place isn’t going to float everyone’s boat. Torrie’s is a soul food restaurant, and judging by the scores of autographed pictures on the walls, the kind of place you show up to if you want to win a city government election or score a good photo op. I was the only white boy in the building for the hour I was there. the portions were big, the food was cheap, and there was plenty of room to spread out. also of note: they rolled a TV on a stand out in the back dining room so a couple of preschoolers could watch Saturday morning cartoons. legit.

other places I need to try:

Murray and Paul’s, up on 12th Street near Catholic, which I’m sure I would’ve gotten around to by now had I moved to Brookland;
the Florida Avenue Grill, which I find myself skeptical of; and …
I was going to say somewhere like Ted’s Bulletin over on Barracks Row, but I know I’ll hate it so I doubt I’ll ever go. it’ll be too expensive, and too crowded. so: you got any ideas?

well. I’ve ignored this thing long enough to slough off all of the hangers on, the fakers, the only marginally interested. that should be all of you.

I am in my new apartment in Washington. my very own. it’s of decent size … I’ve got a couch, a television, and an internet connection. my shower curtain has a map of the world on it. the unit i’s on the second floor of the building, and it looks west into wide alley. the view sucks and the neighborhood is iffy, but the silence is golden. I’d put pictures up, but let’s be honest: I’m not going to get around to that. so use my poor description, and let your imagination fill in the rest.

onward! the family church in Indiana turns a century this year, and like all churches do, they’re producing an anniverary book. I convinced my poor, trusting mother to allow to me to take a first pass at the brief biography of the parish’s longest serving priest, Benjamin Kedrovsky, who spent 47 years of his life as pastor there. from 1911, to 1958. that’s a long goddamn time, man. I can barely hold down a job for a month.

anyway, for a man who spent nearly half a century as the pastor of a small church,  he lived a pretty interesting life. so here is his bio that you would only be able to read should you purchase a 100th anniversary book from St. Mary’s. but you won’t, understandably, because you don’t go to church there. I left out the descriptions of his brothers’ missionary work in the Aleutian Islands at the turn of the century, and the allegations of him being a socialist sympathizer and drunk who didn’t properly venerate the czar in his hymns, because it’s that kind of detail that a church anniverary committee is looking to avoid, but now you know — so keep that in mind when you consider his early years. and please, read on:

Benjamin Kedrovsky was born in the village of Votcha, Totemskii district, Vologda Oblast in the Russian Empire on August 28, 1888. The Kedrovsky family’s home parish was St. Michael the Archangel. Benjamin’s father, Nicholas Kedrovsky, was a deacon in the church. As was customary at the time, young Benjamin and at least three older brothers followed their father into the clergy.

In 1902, he entered the Vologda Ecclesiastical Seminary to begin his study for the priesthood. but in the fifth year of his studies, Benjamin was expelled. In correspondence between his brother and a church superior, it was explained that Benjamin’s association with student activists during this tumultuous period in Russian life — and his reluctance to identify his classmates to administration — led to his dismissal from seminary.

Eager to continue his education and to continue on the path toward priesthood, Benjamin emigrated to the United States on July 3, 1909, at the age of 21, Three months later, the young man was working as a choir director and reader at an Orthodox parish in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Within a year, Kedrovsky moved across the state to Pittsburgh, and in October of 1910 began serving as choir director at St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Church on Reed Street while continuing his studies.

It was here he met who was to be his wife. Born in Pittsburgh in 1892 to Galician immigrants, 19-year-old Julia Dmitrievna Varnovskaya and the new choir director courted and were married on August 4. It was then only three months before Julia’s new husband concluded his studies, traveled to New York City, and was ordained into the priesthood on October 29 in St. Nicholas Cathedral. Eleven days later, Father Benjamin Kedrovsky arrived in young city of Gary, Indiana. It was November 9, 1911.

Fr. Benjamin assumed pastoral duties over Gary’s newly formed Russian Orthodox parish on November 22, 1911. He would go on to serve as the priest at The Protection of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church for 47 years — during which time the congregation constructed a church building at 17th and Fillmore streets in 1912; purchased the land for the parish cemetery on West Ridge Road in 1919; renovated and refurbished the church in 1922; and expanded at an almost exponential rate, much in the same way that the city itself boomed. Into this church the Kedrovskys raised four children of their own — sons George, Victor and Vladimir, and a daughter, Vera. Fittingly, to quote Fr. Benjamin himself: “Once could say that the city of Gary and the parish grew up at the same time.”
 
Fr. Benjamin was very involved in the faith. He was very active in the church school, held in the basement below the rectory built on church grounds, where he promoted an understanding of Orthodox faith and of greater Russian culture. Notably, he served as president of the Midwest diocese’s Chicago Deanery from 1917 until 1958, and was also a regular contributor to the American Orthodox Messenger.
 
Fr. Benjamin’s efforts at promoting Orthodoxy culminated when Gary declared a “Russian Orthodox Day” in October of 1928, when the nation’s Metropolitan, as well as the bishops of Chicago, San Francisco and Canada arrived to celebrate Divine Liturgy.
 
Hearkening back to his time as a choir director, Fr. Benjamin was especially proud of the parish’s excellent choir that won renown after placing first in the 1930 and ’31 Gary and Chicagoland Music Festivals. And In 1931, upon the 20th anniversary of the parish’s founding and during Gary’s silver jubilee, he published a book: “On God’s Field,” a history of St. Mary’s and his observations of a life doing God’s work. 
 
In 1951, after decades of service and on the parish’s patron saint day, Fr. Benjamin was elevated to the rank of Right Reverend by the Holy Synod of Bishops and granted the honor of wearing the mitre. He continued to lead the parish until his retirement in 1958, just before its move to its longtime location at 45th and Maryland streets in the Glen Park section of the city. At his retirement, the congregation named him Pastor Emeritus for his nearly 50 years of faithful stewardship.
 
On Nobember 25, 1968, not long after the church celebrated its 57th anniversary, Benjamin Kedrovsky passed away. He was 80. But his contributions to the early success of the Protection of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church cannot be understated; Fr. Benjamin left an indelible impression on the parish’s life and its growth, and that of the city of Gary, Indiana, itself. May his memory be eternal!

from the above book:

The racers were ready at dawn. Fine sunrise over the desert. Very tense. But the race didn’t start until nine, so we had to kill about three long hours in the casino next to the pits, and that’s where the trouble started.

The bar opened at seven. There was also a “koffee & donut canteen” in the bunker, but those of us who had been up all night in places like the Circus-Circus were in no mood for coffee & donuts. We wanted strong drink. Our tempers were ugly and there were at least two hundred of us, so they opened the bar early. By eight-thirty there were big crowds around the crap-tables. The place was full of noise and drunken shouting.

A boney, middle-aged hoodlum wearing a Harley-Davidson T-shirt boomed up to the bar and yelled: “God damn! what day is this–Saturday?”

“More like Sunday,” somebody replied.

“Hah! That’s a bitch, ain’t it?” the H-D boomer shouted to nobody in particular. “Last night I was out home in Long Beach and somebody said they were runnin’ the Mint 400 today, so I says to my old lady, ‘Man, I’m goin’.” He laughed. “So she gives mea lot of crap about it, you know . . . so I started slappin’ her around and the next thing I knew two guys I never even seen before got me out on the sidewalk workin’ me over. Jesus! They beat me stupid.”

He laughed again, talking into the crowd and not seeming to care who listened. “Hell yes!” he continued. “Then one of ‘em says, ‘Where you going?’ And I says, ‘Las Vegas, to the Mint 400.’ So they gave me ten bucks and drove me down to the bus station . . .” He paused. “At least I think it was them. . . .

“Well anyway, here I am. And I tell you that was one hell of a long night, man! Seven hours on that goddamn bus! But when I woke up it was dawn and here I was in downtown Vegas and for a minute I didn’t know what the hell I was doin’ here. All I could think was, ‘O Jesus, here we go again: Who’s divorced me this time?’”

He accepted a cigarette from somebody in the crowd, still grinning as he lit it up. “But then I remembered, by God! I was here for the Mint 400 . . . and, man, that’s all I needed to know. I tell you it’s wonderful to be here, man. I don’t give a damn who wins or loses. It’s just wonderful to be here with you people. . . .”

Nobody argued with him. We all understood. In some circles, the “Mint 400″ is a far, far better thing than the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby and the Lower Oakland Roller Derby Finals all rolled into one. This race attracts a very special breed, and our man in the Harley T-shirt was clearly one of them.

Dallas won the NBA championship tonight. a more entertaining finals I cannot recall — and that’s nothing to say of the readymade villain Miami offered up.
in honor of IU grad Mark Cuban’s accomplishment, I’d like to offer up the Bundy tenets:

A Bundy never wins, but a Bundy never quits.
A Bundy never eats.
A Bundy never learns.
A Bundy never cares.
A Bundy never dies.

keep rolling, blog:

there’s a story bannered across the Washington Post’s website right now:

“Among GOP, an ironclad anti-tax orthodoxy”

it discusses how almost every congressional republican has signed a pledge not to raise taxes, ever. this creates problems, as electives to our federal government struggle with ways to reduce the burgeoning deficit. 
this is something that I’ve come to notice recently, what with my incessant workplace reading of economics blogs — but its something more, I think, when it’s a featured story in the Washington Post.
how did such a hardline ant-tax policy come to dominate Republican politics? the article delves into that, explaining that the GOP of the 50s and 60s kept taxes high as a way to fight deficits, inflation, and pay for wars they supported, and it notes how the party recognized the power of anti-tax sentiment as a political tool in 1970s California, and how Reagan used this to fuel his election campaigns in the 80s – despite his policies’ stupifying economic effects. 
but the real gem of the article is undoubtedly the Americans for Tax Reform chieftan Grover Norquist’s recollection of the early beginnings of his anti-tax pledge:

The germ of the pledge came to Norquist, he said, when he was 14 and thinking about a teacher’s comment that no one knows who their congressman is. If Republicans were known as the party that never raised taxes, he recalls thinking, they would be spared spending “millions of dollars explaining to you who they are and what they stand for.” They could just “stand up and say, ‘I’m the Republican.’ And you go: ‘He won’t raise my taxes and he won’t steal my guns. Got it.’ ”

and here we are. $14.3 trillion in the hole, and one of the two major parties in American politics has slowly let its economic policies come to be governed by a brain fart Grover Norquist had while in the throes of puberty. so that we are prepared for the government’s collapse under the weight of so much concentrated and willful stupidity, I suggest we all learn the Hobo Anthem:

in the big rock candy mountains, all the cops have wooden legs,
and the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs.
the farmer’s trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay.
oh, I’m bound to go where there ain’t no snow,
where the rain don’t fall and the wind don’t blow
in the big rock candy mountains.

it’s been a hell of a national holiday. I hear Rolling Thunder was in town. I got to a baseball game with Aarti and a few relatives this afternoon. Had a pretty good time. and with that being said, I think that’s as good a reason as any to draw the eye back to one of the greater moments in professional sports history.

you can read, I know. but an introduction is in order: this is William Ligue, Jr.
on a balmy September night in 2002, Mr. Ligue, attended a baseball game in Chicago between the White Sox and the Kansas City Royals. and at some point in the game (and after what had to have been a dozen beers), Mr. Ligue decided he had had just about enough lip from Royals first base coach Tom Gamboa, the asshole know-it-all son of a bitch. …
so he and his similarly shirtless 15-year-old son rushed the field, clobbered Gamboa from behind, and gave it their all to deliver upon him a stomping worthy of the best that White Trash America has to offer … before the visiting bench descended upon the pair and beat them stupid.
so. god bless alcohol abuse, bad parenting, and America. I hope you are all sleeping okay out there.

everybody’s got a blog these days, and nearly without exception they’re better than mine. these people get paid to do this shit, after all.

here’s one I just read:

Last Friday, the sixty days that the War Powers Act allows for a President to carry on military action before getting Congress to sign on expired—turning the President’s prediction of “days, not weeks” into months—with about as much effect as the end of the seven thousand years Harold Camping calculated between this past weekend and Noah’s flood. Jay Carney, the White House’s spokesman, tried to explain:

Q: Do you have a legal justification that you can share with us to sort of—that you guys have sought on this, just to make sure—MR. CARNEY: As you know—

Q: I know you’re not a lawyer.

MR. CARNEY: —I’m not a lawyer.

Q: But can you share something—

MR. CARNEY: There is a—there has been a long debate about—in this country about—and which we do not need to replicate here because the amount—the stuff written about the War Powers Resolution over the years could fill this room and none of it would be conclusive.

a couple years ago, I got a headline into the Progress that read “Man suffers gut wound.” I was very pleased with it – it was to the point; nice, tight; had “gut” in it. really, all the pieces were there. 
this is all to say: after effectively spending four years of my life slacking off, barely getting paid and writing headlines, I appreciate an amusing headline – or “hed,” in industry parlance for all you copy-editor groupies out there — when I see one.
so here’s a headline I just stumbled upon on ESPN dot com: “Ray Lewis says crime will rise if season lost.” 

I guess there’s only so many ways to write that, a hed describing what must be the most interesting tidbit to arise from a wide-ranging interview with the veteran middle linebacker and violent ape under contract with the Baltimore Ravens. but however you cut that cheese, you’re obviously gonna come back around to recalling Mr Lewis’ much ballyhooed run-in with the law back in 2000. oh yes, obviously.
this fact is not lost on the crack journalists at the cable network who make money like men posessed for The Mouse, which is why it’s the headline. after all, I’m sitting up at 12:15 on a monday morning writing some bullshit about their editorial decision. no doubt my actions would make them happy. I mean, it’s not even really a story; Ray Lewis is just a stone moron who said something stone stupid in front of an ESPN camera, and yet I’m compelled to pontificate upon it anyway.
I don’t even know what I’m trying to say here. maybe something about the simple science behind writing an enticing headline. but I don’t think that’s it. more likely it’s that Lewis isn’t even my favorite player on the Baltimore defense. it’s obviously Ed Reed. everybody loves my man Ed. everybody. and obviously.