Which "Men of a Certain Age" character are you?, Sick of the term "Collective Bargaining"

Hello,

After watching several episodes of "Men Of A Certain Age", I've noticed a similarity between Freud's id, ego and superego theory. Thanks to wikipedia.org for this dumbed down take on both a great show and Freud's theory. I claim no expertise on Freud or his psychosexual theory. I'm just writing this blog as I noticed the similarities.

So which "Men of A Certain Age" character are you? Here's your choices:

Are you Terry Elliot (Scott Bakula)? He very well represents the id of Freud's theory. The Id operates on what Freud calls "the pleasure principle" (not to be confused with the Janet Jackson song). The Id seeks to avoid pain or things that are unpleasurable. It also wants instant self-gratification. Obviously this is how we are start out as babies and usually what happens the first time we leave the home. This is a stage that we should grow out of fairly quickly. Terry represents the Id with his fear of commitment, his lack of maintaining a job, his constant sexual hook-ups. That may also be one of the reasons that Terry enjoys with women much younger than him. Terry is all about Terry. He chases after those things with seemingly little thought almost laughing at any potential consequences. Obviously Terry has lived a charmed life and he hasn't needed to grow up. I don't care how fun that life choice may seem, it's a dead end.

Terry and the Id are pretty close to being the same. The other two comparisons are a little more problematic. But I'm doing this just for fun, no one should base any life decisions on this.

Are you Joe Tranelli (Ray Romano)? He loosely resembles the ego in Freud's theory. The Ego seeks to please the Id's drive in realistic ways that will benefit itself in the long-term rather than bringing grief. This is where the concept of defense mechanisms also comes in. From wikipedia.org concerning defense mechanisms. (I've cleaned up the writing a bit on the following): "The defense mechanisms aren't done directly or consciously. They lessen the tension by covering up our impulses that are threatening. Ego defense mechanisms are often used by the ego when id behavior conflicts with reality and either society's morals, norms, and taboos or the individuals expectations as a result of the internalisation of these morals, norms, and their taboos." The ego also rationalizes.

Joe is so full of defense mechanisms. He's always checking with his two compatriots on post divorce dating etiquette, what to do when running over a possum etc. Obviously the show plays to this for its humorous aspects. Both he and Owen try to pull Terry out of his id phase. Metaphorically they are the struggling parents to a willful child.

Are you Owen Thoreau Jr. (Andre Braugher)? He loosely resembles the superego in Freud's theory. The Superego aims for perfection and it works in contradiction to the id. It also houses the spiritual goals and conscience (which Freud called psychic agency). "The super ego strives to act in a socially appropriate manner." (Thanks to wikipedia.org) This is also where we learn right or wrong and how to act properly socially. Also the superego contains the idea of the Oedipus complex, one of Freud's most well known ideas.

Owen embodies the Oedipus complex very much as he slowly tries to take over for his father at Thoreau Chevrolet. Metaphorically he's trying to kill his father and prove he's the man that can take over for his Dad. It's only when he truly stepped up did his father begin to turn the dealership over to him.

Obviously the above is flawed, but I thought it was a fun exercise.

I'm so tired of hearing about collective bargaining in relationship to sports. NFL owners have locked out their own players for 106 days now. For a second think about that sentence, the NFL owners have locked out their own players. To me that's so mind boggling. Some people are optimistic that the owners and the NFLPA will reach agreement in two or three weeks. The last I heard the dollar amount separating the two sides is $200 million. Will the lockout hurt the NFL? Maybe a stubbed toe at the most, but no more than that. The NFL stands as the top sport amongst all sports. It reigns supreme and I don't see any sport, or this lockout, seriously threatening it in the next several years.

As soon as tonight the NBA owners may lockout their own players, it's almost certain. If so that will be 2 of the 4 major leagues in lockout. The NBA is considered fairly strong, but certainly not as strong as the NFL. With some people projecting that the entire NBA season may be wiped out, that could really hurt the NBA. It has been in my life-time, in fact the early 80's, the NBA playoffs were shown on tape delay as there was so little interest in it. Then thankfully for the NBA Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entered their prime. That propelled the NBA to the monster it is now. I hope both sides of the NBA don't take their fans for granted. They wouldn't do that would they? Of course.

Although it's still a few months away, there's a possibility that Major League Baseball may have it's own lockout or strike. The MLB collective bargaining expires on December 11th. We may have three pro sports in a work stoppage at the same time. Granted its such an extreme long shot that it's highly likely that will happen. Of course, baseball in 1994 lost its entire postseason due to labor issues. It was the first cancelled postseason since 1904. Not even the Black Sox scandal caused the cancelation of the postseason.

Following 1994's lack of postseason, it was several years for MLB to bounce back to what it has become. That rebound in part was spurred by the epic home run battles of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Later we found out their prodigious numbers were aided by steroids, but that's for another time. Any sort of work stoppage could be extremely damaging to MLB. I'm hopeful they are smarter than the other two leagues.

Maybe in MLB's next collective bargaining the Red Sox should push for themselves to be excluded from inter league play. The Boston Red Sox continue to struggle with National League teams as they lost to Philadelphia yesterday 2-1. It's probably little consolation Boston lost to the team with MLB's best record. Don't the Phillies have enough phantastic pitchers already? Yesterday Vance Worley (Vance Worley?), pitched 7 strong innings. Worley, filling in for Joe Blanton and Roy Oswalt, goes to 3-1 for the Phillies. Philadelphia has now won the first two games in the three game series with Boston. The Red Sox were so desperate for offense they had David Ortiz, who usually plays designated hitter, play first base. They did that so he could get 4 at bats and not just a lone pinch hit. Unfortunately for the Red Sox that didn't work, Ortiz was 0 for 4 in last night's game.

Thankfully Atlanta won last night to stay within 4.5 games of the Phillies in the NL East. Over their last 10 games Atlanta is 8-2 and Philly is 7-3. Philly and Atlanta have the two best records in the National League. You might be wondering like me, when is the next time that Atlanta and Philadelphia play. Atlanta goes to Philadelphia for a 3 game series from July 8th to 10th. That will end the first half of the season for both teams.

In MLB overall, the teams with the 5 best records overall are 1) Philadelphia 51-30 2) the hated Yankees 47-32 3) Atlanta 47-35 4) Boston 45-34 and 5) San Francisco 46-35. The four best teams in all of MLB are in the AL East and NL East. The defending World Series Champs, the San Francisco Giants, represent the NL West.

A couple of more quick things: has anyone else been having iTunes oddities? Over the last few days in the store section of iTunes occasionally there's been a fourth folder titled Downloads. Both times I clicked on that folder, it said I had songs that were available to download. Both songs were songs that I bought previously and then they disappeared from my iTunes. That was probably due to my changing computers and hard drives. That's part of life with digital music. Has anyone else noticed anything similar?

I love the convenience of digital music, but I don't have a way of backing it up. Even when I did there were complications that came from that. Usually when I lose digital music, it's gone. That's why I usually buy CD's (remember those?). If I lose a song from a CD as I transfer music between hard drives or computers I can always download the songs from the CD again. (Although from a little reading I've done Apple claims when their iTunes in the cloud is fully operational that one can download "past music purchases again at no additional cost. Currently iTunes in the Cloud is in the Beta stage. Hmm.)

An example of me losing digital music, back in April I bought several songs. I had gone to a dance club the night before and was reminded of several great songs that I didn't have. I bought 4 or 5 of those songs. One of the songs that I bought was Lou Bega's "Mambo # 5". I looked for that song last night but for some reason it's no longer on my iTunes. However the other songs I bought at the same time are still on my iTunes. "Mambo #5" is just gone. iTunes is helpfully giving me the chance to buy "Mambo #5" for only 30c if I upgrade to a better quality MP3.

Also the next bookclub selection for themusicaddict's bookclub is Brady Udall's "The Lonely Polygamist". It features a very Don Draperish cover. I will post some questions to get your mental juices flowing either later today or tomorrow.

themusicaddict