MY SIX QUICK PICKS
(What I'm endorsing this week)

By JOHN YOUNGREN

Can you feel the snap in the air? The chill in the night? The smell in the morning? The dew on the leaves?

The leaves on the lawn?

It’s fall, baby. That time again. The time of things ending and new beginnings. The time of anniversaries, the weather changing and cleaning out the summer wardrobe.

For whatever reason, I’ve always loved this time of year. I’ve always loved fall, because:

1. The TV Season Begins. Nothing was more thrilling than a trip to the grocery store this time of year, when – since I was a kid, and yes, I was an odd child – I’d go searching for the thicker-than-thick special Fall Preview edition of TV Guide, the bible of everything to look for (“Returning Favorites!” “New Shows!”) in the new fall television season. Geeky as this may sound, the TV Guide Fall Preview edition was like a Christmas catalogue of everything I was fascinated by and thrilled to anticipate as a new TV season began. Pictures of the stars were always so sexy, so creative. The write-ups on the shows (be they returning or new) were done with style and pith. I couldn’t get enough. Today – with mulit-media and blogs and youtube and mucho, mucho media previewing everything – I’m sure this all seems rather quaint, and there is no doubt that by the time TV Guide rolls around, I’ve pretty much already heard about much of the fall season to come; there are no surprises. Hell, even the fall season isn’t the fall season anymore – cable keeps shows coming all summer, and reality TV and other gimmicks have taken the sheen off the anticipation. Still, when TV Guide’s “Fall Preview” edition turned up (and I get it in the mail these days), I had to stop everything. It's still TV Guide. Time to soak it all in. Time to get serious about TV for the fall.

2. School Starts. Yeah, maybe this wasn’t so much fun when I was actually in school, back in the day. But you’ve got to admit – there’s still something exciting about all the crossing guards on duty again; all the kids with their new clothes and their new school boxes (do they still have school boxes?) and their new Trapper Keepers (do they still have Trapper Keepers?), heading up Lincoln Lane to begin another year of school. As I don’t have kids, I guess what school starting mostly does for me is inspire memories – snapshots of elementary, junior high, high school and college. I can still remember rushing to the pages tape to the window to see what class I was in. Wearing new fall clothes when it was still a little too hot outside. Catching a glimpse of the girl I left behind a summer ago, now looking better (or more grown up) than ever before. Sizing up new classes, new desks, new lockers, new friends, new schedules, new arrangements, new circumstances. Fall always does this for me, whether I’m in school or not. And a few years out of school has taught me that I shouldn’t have been in such a rush. School starts. Relish it. It's over too soon.

3. (Fantasy) Football Begins. And NFL and college ball, too. But I belong to three – count ‘em, three – Fantasy Football Leagues, and if you’re out there and reading this and don’t know what I’m talking about when I talk Fantasy Football, you’re about 20 years behind. This is when geeks like me draft fantasy teams – full of real players, who are going to score and do great things on the field over the next few weeks – and try to ride the individual players’ statistics to personal greatness, counting every (let’s say) Peyton Manning touchdown as one of my own as time goes by and I kick the shit out of my fellow Fantasy Football owners for points, glory and money (not necessarily in that order). One draft in one league, I’ve been doing for about 18 years now (though I still sometimes feel like a new guy). My second league is even more serious, and I’ve easily been involved with this group for eight or 10 years now. The group at my office just started a league this season, and of course I got involved. The funny thing is, back in the day, this all used to be so much more involved. You’d have to go to the bookstore weeks early to begin buying magazines and books about the football season to come, hoping against God that they weren’t printed too soon, or that there wasn’t too many roster changes to contend with between the publishing of the book and the drafting of your league, when you were pretty much guaranteed to always make an ass of yourself as you were choosing some player whose knee had just blown, or had just been picked up for a D.U.I. These days, “fantasy cheater” websites take care of all that – for a small fee, you can get the latest lists and breakdowns on players throughout the league. It gets to the point where, on draft night, you can practically predict who’s going to choose who next, as most of the participants in any given league are using variations on the same list. The advent of all this technology and services has truly made my life easier. But I’m not sure it’s made drafting any more fun.

4. RUSH Week. Maybe the epitome of everything I said above, RUSH Week is another rite of fall – and another pleasant memory, after all these years have gone by. I still can’t get to this time of year without thinking of that fall, all those years ago, on the University of Utah campus. That’s when I decided to dodge Sigma Chi and basically suicide Beta Theta Pi, because that’s where all my buddies were anyway. To this day (and living just a few blocks from the U campus, where it all happened to begin with), I can still see myself meeting new people, wearing my blue blazer and wondering who I’d meet and what would happen next. In later years, I can see myself, uh, rushing to the Beta house, throwing on that same blazer and reaching out my right hand to meet all those would-be pledges coming through. School’s up. It’s time for RUSH. Man, where do those years go?

5. Baseball's Finale. Major League Baseball hits the post-season in late September and throughout October, and there is nothing like this time of year for heightened celebration – no matter what anyone else says. This is certainly the case for me. I live and die for no other team, in no other sport, like I do the New York Yankees. In the ‘70s, the Yankees became my team – because I was a kid and didn’t know better. In the ‘80s, I stood suffering by – while big-name lineups with guys like Jack Clark and Rickey Henderson were all sound and fury. Many losing seasons went by. But now, I’ve had to great fortune to see the Yankees go to the post-season nearly every season in the past 15 years or so; I’ve seen them win World Series and avenge playoff losses and give up big leads and come back from lopsided losses. I’ve watched the games on CBS, NBC, ESPN and Fox. I’ve listened on the radio, tapped in on the internet and juggled my real-life events around enough to see the latest game on TV. I passed up love, for example, in the mid-'90s. But I don’t care. The bitch let me down. The Yankees always stood by me, strong.

6. The Weather Gets Colder. Yeah, I don’t look good in sandals. Even less so in shorts. Not much for a T-shirt. Not much for a dork.

So, no complaints. The damn weather will be getting colder than ever. And with jeans, boots and a jacket, I look better. Trust me. I know.

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ON THE DOT: Now back in business (with a modified rating system) the “John Youngren Dot Com” blog (once known as “Pop Stew”) should be updated regularly. And remember, as always, this is just an exhibition; it is not a competition – so please, no wagering. To contact John, e-mail johnyoungren@mac.com