So Here's to You David Ortiz, Our Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to You...woo woo woo

Author's Note: What I am about to conjecture and pontificate (Triple Word Score!) within this little rant is going to be seen as blasphemy. Know that the questions I am exploring are real to me, and deserve to be treated with the utmost respect. As a manchild that was born and raised in Massachusetts, I know how sensitive this topic can be, and will try to conduct myself in a manner most befitting a grave subject such as this.

What if it was for the best that the Red Sox don't win the world series?

Now I know that there are some who are decrying that question as treason, a form of thoughtcrime within the Red Sox Nation State. I ask that you bear with me while I deliberate on this question.
Red Sox fans are the best fans in the world (and think, if I was on a stage or just in front of people I would have about 5 minutes of applause here while people clap for themselves). They are the abused wives of MLB -- not that I'm advocating that people engaged in spousal abuse are good people or healthy; they're not. But neither are Red Sox fans. Year in and year out they file into their local bars or Fenway park and root for their favorite team while mangling the English language and getting pretty buzzed off beer ("bee-ah", to the uninitiated). They scream and curse and cheer on each member of the rag tag group; they say such classically optimistic lines such as "this is the year", "all the way, baby", "team of destiny", "Fuck the Yankees." And so the Red Sox do well, fighting their way through the regular season until emerging into the post season rarin' for a fight, and then severely choking or merely getting knocked the fuck out when said fight rears its ugly head. And so the Sox fans put out the fires of rage and dashed dreams with the cooling sprinkler system of beer and console themselves that Next Year will be THE YEAR. And so it has gone since time immortal (or 1918) and will continue ever onwards...Or will it?

We stand now on the cusp of a possible Red Sox Pennant. Insane, I know. And I'm not saying that they are definitely going to win, or that they are definitely going to lose. Maybe they'll choke. Maybe they'll sweep the Cardinals. Maybe Jesus will finally abdicate his throne to the amazing ManGod that is Curt Schilling...I don't know, I'm not a theologian. But now, with the Sox winning 11-9 in the first game of the World Series, it is a definite possibility that they could win the whole thing this year. This could most definitely be, THE YEAR.

And I ask you all: Is this a good thing?

Sox Fans are the die hard fans. They are the most Kierkegaardian of fans in all of the world. They even put most fanatic religious people to shame...With the exception of Muslim Extremist Suicide Bombers cuz those fuckers got to believe in SOMETHING and STRONGLY...Or else they just don't understand the plan. "I push this button and I get a lot of candy? AWESOME!" But I digress...Red Sox Fans have emotionally, financially, and spiritually leapt with every fiber of their being each and every season for their team. Kierkegaard once wrote, "I can swim in existence, but for this mystical soaring I am too heavy." Red Sox fans are paper thin when it comes time to soar for their team: everything in the past suggests that the Red Sox will not do well and will inevitably break their fans' hearts. And yet, every season, Red Sox fans come out in droves to cheer and yell out devotions and proclamations of assured victory. Red Sox pride and the beloved place they hold in the hearts are one of the few shining examples of faith that exist within this cynical and dreary world. The average member of Red Sox Nation has practiced more willing suspension of disbelief than an entire theater of 12 year old boys watching a Jerry Bruckheimer action movie ("Dude, you can totally survive an Atomic Blast if you just jump at the right time!").

So is it a good thing to take it away this last bastion of faith?

The Red Sox are always a scrappy team made up of good players that seem to really function best as a team than as a grouping of Star Athletes. They pay their dues and manage to claw their way to the top, or else silently implode to meet the rest of the nation's expectations. They are the underdogs, complete with their own mythic curse and evil archenemy, and a sad record of the last time they won a pennant that hangs around their necks like a flock of narcoleptic albatross. And of course, they are due. They are perpetually due for another championship title. They have worked hard for it, and to see them finally come out on top of all the other teams and emerge from history victorious would be great. An 86 years long version of Rocky or The Karate Kid (complete with Torre's direction for A-Rod to "sweep the leg" of Arroyo). It would be a joyous occasion that every fan of the Red Sox, baseball, sports, and America in general would always remember, because it's been with all of us for so long: The Red Sox will Lose and Life Goes On; There's Always Next Year. But suddenly that would no longer be, and the Red Sox would finally be seen the world over as champions.

But at what price victory?

Now they would no longer be special, no longer would they have this huge obstacle to overcome, this century of bad luck and bad ball games would no longer weigh in on every game the Red Sox play. Anytime that the faith is questioned, one only has to look back a few years and say "Oh Yeah, they already did that." Manifest physical proof is not necessary nor that good for a person's faith. The Red Sox would move from being symbolic and exist only in the real and rational world. Just like any team that has won a pennant since Post-War America, the Red Sox would just be another group racing for that title. Gone would be their hook, their example of undying faith in the drunken hearts of the proud Bostonian Flock. Sure, there's the Cubs, but do you really want to side with Jim Belushi, America? Are you prepared for that?

Wile E. Coyote should catch the Road Runner. It's nature, that's how it works; Survival of the Fittest, the Food Chain, yada yada yada. It would be the ultimate, the culmination of years of plotting and injury and a horrible credit report due to his activities with the Acme catalogue. But would anyone want to see that? I mean, for a moment it would be satisfying...But then what does Wile E. Coyote do? Get a real job to pay back all of those bills for that pair of rocket skates that sent him flying into a rock like a jackass? Keep nostalgically thinking about the great times before he caught the Road Runner? Look for a new Road Runner to chase after, always aware that it's not as great as his original quarry? There's nothing entertaining about a Coyote full up on Road Runner meat trying to hold down a job at the local Starbucks. Well...It's a little funny. But not nearly as comical as watching him trying to fly with an umbrella, or do amazing feats of jumping with those slinky coils on his feet.

I'm still going to root for the Sox. I still want them to win, just for my dad if nothing else. I'm not sure if it'll be good for the city (everyone will be drunk for a week, mass rioting and looting, death toll approaching Zombie film levels, and a possible drunken siege on Yankee Stadium), but it'll be great to see everyone get drunk and teary watching them finally win, finally take down the Kobra Kai. I'm just curious if when they win, will it ever be the same again? Will baseball, America, and the souls of all concerned ever be as rich for having the Red Sox win the pennant?

I don't know. All I know is that Ben Affleck cannot be, should not be, and never will be the voice of the Red Sox. And the fucker is dating Jennifer Garner now? Son of a bitch! Still...he was the bomb in phantoms, yo.

Borrowed Wisdom

I've got plenty of other rants to post, including one about the popularity of the Red Sox (Go Sox!), but before that, here's a list of excellent quotes beginning with my rationale behind them, as found in American History X (yes, I'm using a quote to show why I'm doing quotes...how very meta of me...it makes me sick):

"Derek says it's always good to end a paper with a quote. He says someone else has already said it best. So if you can't top it, steal from them and go out strong."

Without Further Ado...SOME WORDS OF WISDOM:

Remember when we were young: we looked forward to things. I can't WAIT to drive. I can't WAIT to get a boyfriend. I can't WAIT to graduate. Etc., Etc.
Now it's remember how great high school was. Or nothing compares to the feeling of first love. Life was so much better back when we were young.
Somewhere between anticipation and nostalgia we should have been happy.
--Too Much Coffee Man's Parade of Tirade by Shannon Wheeler

"A pirate's work is never done..." Fluke by Christopher Moore

"You are your only master
Who Else?
Subdue Yourself
Find Your Master"
-- Buddha

"KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" -- Admiral James T. Kirk, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.
Sam: I still feel at home in my house.
Andrew Largeman: You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this right of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is: A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.
-- Garden State

In the din of fireworks and native drums, of colored lights in the doorways and the clamor of the crowd yearning for peace, Florentino Ariza wandered like a sleepwalker until dawn, watching the fiesta through his tears, dazed by the hallucination that it was he and not God who had been born that night.
-- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“Salvation is for the feeble, that’s what I think. I don’t want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the superb. If the gods would tax ecstasy, then I shall pay; however, I shall protest their taxes at each opportunity, and if Woden or Shiva or Buddha or that Christian fellow--what’s his name?--cannot respect that, then I’ll accept their wrath. At least I will have tasted the banquet that they have spread before me on this rich, round planet, rather than recoiling from it like a toothless bunny. I cannot believe that the most delicious things were placed here merely to test us, to tempt us, to make it the more difficult for us to capture the grand prize: the safety of the void. To fashion of life such a petty game is unworthy of both men and gods.”
-- Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

…I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
-- On the Road by Jack Kerouac

every man is guilty of the good he didn’t do. -- voltaire

And Lastly Here's a Great Poem by Robert Service, a guy famous for funny little poems about oddballs in the Yukon:

The Men That Don't Fit In
by Robert Service

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.


That's all for now. Enjoy!

Listening to: "Revv Me Up" by Jasper McVain (found at www.venturebrothers.com), the I Heart Huckabees Soundtrack (especially "Knock Yourself Out" by Jon Brion), Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, Has Been by William Shatner

Watching: Arrested Development Season 1, Team America: World Police, Shaun of the Dead, Hellboy: Director's Cut, Lost, The Venture Brothers, Scrubs, Playoff Baseball, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jon Stewart Flipping Out All Over Tucker Carlson's Bow-Tied Ass

Reading: Little Children by Tom Perrota, Sex Lives of Cannibals by Maarten Troost, Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: Best of McSweeney's Humor edited by Dave Eggers, et al.

Tom Brokaw is a Cyborg...Or a Zombie...A Zomborg, if you will. Will You? Will You?

Have you ever noticed that newscasters never sneeze? Ever. Not once in all of my pathetic years of watching any news channels or broadcasts have I ever seen a reporter sneeze. Or scratch their face or nose. Why is that? I mean, I know why that it is...Apparently we can't take a source seriously if we think they are prone to attacks from dust mites and other figures from the allergy lobby. TV news reporters are meant to be cardboard cutouts--2D figures that simply regurgitate factoids like giant Pez Dispensers giving us stale pieces of chalk that will eventually give us ass cancer. Theirs is a life covered by the same curtain that hid that Old Kook the Wizard from the judging eyes of a Furry, a guy in a Water Pot, and some Midwestern Ho-ma.

Never can we see behind that curtain, see that they are fallible, for once they expose a weakness (like, say, being itchy or sneezy or some other Dwarf) their competitors will pounce:

"CHANNEL 4 News takes time out of their broadcast to sneeze; do YOU have time to waste like that? Tune in to CHANNEL 8...Plus check out our hilarious Morning Show with The Giggler and His Hilarious Morning Zoo Crew!"

And maybe it's just me, but every time I'm engaged in some activity where my hands are pre-occupied with some annoying habit, or else everyone's eyes are on me, suddenly I have to furiously scratch a spot on my body like Yasmine Bleeth after Tailhook (HI-YO! Yes, I've broken the blogger code of silence involving Yasmine Bleeth. Finally, someone's taking it to the Bleeth). But not even a cursory pass by on the air for Brokaw or Rather or any of them. Maybe these guys are just a bunch of tough sumbitches who sit through their raging Sneezing Attacks and Infernal Itches just to talk about the latest failed relationship/movie involving Ben Affleck.

We're supposed to trust Newscasters because they are this group of people above the petty nuisances of having foibles and problems, just Talking Heads giving us the same soundbites they did 24 hours previously, except this time with EVEN MORE danger attached to them. But I submit that if we saw newscasters sneeze, scratch, burp, or even hiccup it would be endearing. Gross and disorienting, but endearing nonetheless. We would look at the screen and see ourselves reflected, and let's face it, we're the nation Narcissus built.

To contrast this view, I submit to y'all The Odd Couple; specifically, the character of Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau/Jack "Quincy" Klugman). Now here's a slob. Covered in hot dog leavings and various stains that seem almost purposely placed upon his wardrobe. Not just that, but he smokes discarded stogie butts...I mean, who does that? Clearly this guy's a huge, gross slob; a guy that belches, and scratches, spits, swears, and I'm even willing to bet he has the occasional attack of the sniffles. But what is Oscar's profession? He's a reporter for a newspaper. Newspaper writers are allowed to sneeze and be gross; it's hilarious and endearing, especially when juxtaposed against an effeminate man with a rather sad case of OCD. The point is, no one cared what Oscar did just so long as he delivered his gems of sports reporting. He could be a syphilitic meth addict with a lazy eye, but so long as his articles are popping and on time, his audience loved him. Why can't we go back to those days, people? As a nation, have we truly lost our way that much?

Where have you gone, Oscar Madison, our nation turns its glazed over eyes to you...