b.rox

An ad just played on TV for an upcoming news report on the decline of baseball as a popular sport amongst African-Americans.
Just a couple minutes later, there are three kids (all African-American) playing catch on the street in front of our house, each with a mitt.
What makes this even weirder is that the kids around [...]

I notice I haven’t been writing about issues in the recovery of New Orleans nearly as much lately. That’s because my primary mission here is to write about what’s going on in my life, and my life has been more preoccupied by personal issues lately.
Nevertheless, I try to keep tabs on what’s going down in [...]

Today I went to see the Saints game with Michael. We rode our bikes to the Superdome. It was the first NFL game I’ve ever seen. The Bloody Mary was good and so was the alligator sausage. Pretty cool that the Saints won. That’s four straight wins after four straight losses, a crazy season so [...]

In anticipation of tonite’s massively hyped match between the Saints and the Colts, I’d like to draw your attention to ROX #82: The RCA State.
In this episode, we visit the famed RCA Dome, scene of tonight’s action. Note that this was shot back in 1995. But it’s still relevant, dammit. Watch it if you don’t [...]

Congratulations to my parents who both scored medals at the 2007 Senior Games.

Ray & Ruth Everson, Mooresville, competed in the Summer National Senior Games in Louisville, KY. Everson’s events included the 1500 meter track race walk in 9:31 earning him a Bronze medal in the 70-74 age group. Two days later he contested the 5K [...]

I was born around the time of the very first Superbowl, and my parents named me after a star player on the Green Bay Packers. Yet for 40 years our nation’s most popular sport has remained a mystery to me. I never understood the game of football. I never wanted to understand it. I was [...]

It is truly humbling to serve as a vessel for community outrage.
The speech I gave Thursday — that wasn’t me. That was y’all. I was just channeling.
I had a double duty that weighed heavily on me. I spoke on behalf of the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization, and also as a friend of Helen Hill’s. I felt [...]

Today is the day when the Saints return to the Superdome. I think everybody who lives in New Orleans is pretty happy about that, even football-skeptical folks like myself. It’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement, since so many people seem to pin so much on this team. But even as we [...]

The most interesting thing Xy and I did over the weekend was to attend the premiere bout of the Big Easy Rollergirls at Mardi Gras World. Good thing we bought tickets in advance: It was sold out.
Xy pretty much demanded that we go, and given that she’s generally too preoccupied with teaching to do anything [...]

Mike finished his 30th round of Scrabble yesterday. His final standing for the tournament: He’s ranked #118 in Division 1, having won fourteen games and lost sixteen.
That’s all for Mike. He and Susie hit the road back to Bloomington this morning. I enjoyed their visit. Of course XY found it a [...]

Miike won five games and lost three today at the Scrabble Championship. One of his opponents scored a triple triple with the word defiling. A triple triple is a word that stretches over two triple word scores. 13 (for defiling) * 3 * 3 + 50 (for playing all seven tiles) = [...]

Mike, my father-in-law, didn’t do quite as well today at the National Scrabble Championship. He won two games and lost five. Joey Mallick, whom I met briefly on Saturday, beat him 488 to 269, throwing down gantlope, nabe, smothery and peridia. Mike puzzled over all these, only challenging the last, but they’re [...]

My in-laws are in town, and Pops is playing in the National Scrabble Championship, which started today. I just checked the Web and saw his standings. He’s in the top division, and as of today he is #60 out of 173. He said his best word of the day was agapeic.