It's a Day to Celebrate Love

So how come I hate the cards?

There I was. Again. The place I visit three times a year and three times only, birthday, anniversary, Valentine’s Day, hunched over, knees fully bent, eyes g(l)azing at the display before me.

Cards.

Specifically, Valentine’s Day cards.

Before me towers a six-foot-high array of written slop, fake mirth and pictures of monkeys. Lots of monkeys. A very long and regrettable time ago, some human decided man’s deepest emotions could best be expressed by a chimp-on-cardboard.

There is only one word for this and it is Ugh.

I don’t like greeting cards. I think the people charged with creating them got their diplomas at Insincerity School. I believe they laugh hysterically at work, crafting their rhyming couplets and saying, “Can you believe some dork will actually hand this crock to his wife?’’

But there I was, that dork. Again.

Cards never say what you want them to say. The best are merely suggestive of disingenuousness. The worst are drenched in it, like cheap perfume. “Darling’’ on a Valentine’s card is the most mendacious; “Babe’’ is just garden-variety pretense.

Either works fine as sarcasm. Not as an expression of affection.

Unless, of course, a chimp is saying them. Or a dog.

Getting your Sig Other a V-Day card with a dog on the front mainly indicates how manipulative you are. Beware the husband/boyfriend bearing a Valentine’s Day card with a golden retriever puppy on the front, barking “Darling’’ or “Babe’’ in red letters. That guy’ll be outta your life by the end of the month. After he’s stolen your jewelry collection. But. . .

That’s still better than Sensitive Guy, who loves those cards with words in flowing cursive (usually written in glitter) and a caricature-d man and woman ballroom dancing. Sensitive Guy is doing the Brownie-points addition in his head. . .

But even he is better than Rhyming Man, who honors his darling babe with slices of iambic pentameter a monkey could write in red lipstick.

I love you like a rose

From my head down to my toes

If the feeling ever goes

My heart will die of woes.

(Thank you, Curious George. You can go now.)

I haven’t been that insincere since the last time I told my wife how much I loved the manicure.

The green matches your eyes, darling.

My eyes are blue.

I don’t mind getting cards. I’ve saved several over the years. And of course I understand it’s the thought that counts. As in, “What are you thinking, Paul?’’ as I hand them to my wife.

I do like some cards. Those cards that feature old people cracking wise can be funny. Profane cards often work well. Cards that knowingly imply that cards are stupid. I like them. They’re smart. Also hard to find.

Meantime, here I am again, ckinout the Hellmark section at Kroger.

Got any chimps?

Now, then. . .

LEBRON PASSED KAREEM LAST NIGHT. . . Honestly, the last time I was this interested in LeBron James, and the NBA in general, the Roger Bacon boys were taking out James’ team in the state championship game. But good for him, nevertheless, though the OG in me still says Jordan was better.

ESPN.com:

It was a fadeaway jumper -- not a skyhook ode to Abdul-Jabbar or one of his signature power dunks -- with 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter of a 133-130 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder that sent James to the top of a mountain that Abdul-Jabbar stood on for more than 38 years at 38,387 career points.

And. . it aiin’t braggin’ if it’s fact, yeah? James went on to describe himself as “a guy that's been able to transform his game over the course of 20 years, be able to play any position in this league, excel at any position. I can play 1 through 5. I've led the league in assists. I've been able to do whatever it is this game has wanted me to do and also transform my game as well."

AS FOR THE BEARCATS. . . Difficult L at Tulane Tuesday night. Phinisee out for the year. Lakhin TBD with what looks like a significant ankle issue. A big, blown, 2nd-half lead for the second game in a row. The Bearcats survived the first, not the second.

It’s no mystery why Tulane was able to rally for the OT win. UC stopped making deep jumpshots. And as well as Oguama played, the ‘Cats still lacked sufficient inside punch. And lordy, but we do get tired of watching Davenport and A-Woods jacking up errant threes.

At winnin’ time, please see to it that Nolley and DeJulius have the basketball.

YET ANOTHER CLUSTER in the final 2 minutes of a college basketball game. I dislike replay in all its forms in any sport, but there’s a special place in Loathing Hell reserved for replay in the last 2 minutes of a quasi-am hoops contest. As if the final two weren’t endless enough already.

Here’s a thought: Roll with it. Ban the trips to the monitor in the final two. Extreme? Yep. So is the coma I fall into trying to watch the last couple minutes of any close game.

And BTW, Tulane, shake some damned hands when the game’s over. You’re not All That. and even if you were, that wouldn’t excuse you from basic civility.

WHY WAS THIS NECESSARY? My pal Kevin Necessary left as the Enquirer’s cartoonist yesterday, after the paper informed him it would be cutting his cartoons from every Sunday to every other Sunday.

Kevin’s a talented guy. More than that, his work gave the paper something that set it apart.

It’s a sad happening for a business too full of sad happenings. It’s sad for the rest of us, too. Like the media or loathe them, they’ve been vital to the functioning of our republic. An informed citizenry makes informed choices. Perusing social media for sites whose ideas you agree with doesn’t qualify as informed.

I feel for the folks still working at the Enquirer. I’m beyond grateful I was able to leave the business on my terms. I fear that won’t be the case for the people working there now. If I were 40 now, or even 50, I’d be applying to law or business school or finding a new career.

I stopped advising college students to become journalists. That was 20 years ago. The advice is still good.

OF INTEREST ONLY TO ME, BUT IT IS MY BLOG. . . The lords of Augusta National are lengthening the best hole in golf by some 30 yards. That’d be the par-5 13th. They’re tired of seeing pros play fairway wood-mid-iron into the green. That has all but eliminated the risk-reward shotmaking that is part of the Masters appeal.

In some cases, heavy hitters have begun driving the ball over the trees on the left, eliminating the right-to-left dogleg altogether. That is not what Mr. Jones and Alister MacKenzie intended.

Hopefully, at a reasonable 535 or so yards, players will again be forced to choose between safe pars and go-for-it birdies.

AND FINALLY. . . A movie theatre company is pricing tickets like an athletic contest. NYTimes on AMC’s move:

The seats in the front row of the theater will be the least expensive and seats in the middle of the theater will be the most expensive, the company said. However, new prices will not affect showings before 4 p.m. or tickets sold at a special discount on Tuesdays, AMC said.

Movie theaters have been experimenting with new tactics to boost ticket sales in response to two decades of weakening attendance, shutdowns during the first years of the coronavirus pandemic and the widening availability of digital streaming of first-run movies.

I’m trying to remember the last movie I saw at a theatre. I think it was the 2nd Top Gun movie. If J. Thinwallet has to pay more to sit center-middle at a mostly empty matinee, he just might have to show some middle finger to AMC and its theatres.

What say you?

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . I met a German girl in England, who was goin’ to school in France. . .