Game 2

I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to get tickets to Game 2 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium. Now, even though I've shown less than a passing interest toward baseball in the past, the Boston Red Sox are representative of home and being away from home, I've sort of latched onto them. Sure, I can talk about baseball just as well as I can about grocery shopping and astro physics but I usually only end up talking baseball with a bunch of lazy, child-molesting Yankee fans so it doesn't really matter that I don't know shit about baseball cause I always resort back to the Yankees Suck arguement. (All right, even I'll admit that it's unfair to call all Yankee fans lazy and also child molestors but let's just say that I wouldn't leave my imaginary child with ole Grabby McYanks Fan. That's all I'm saying.) And yes, this ESSAY will be filled with all sorts of unsubstantiated generalizations that have less to do with logic and validity as they do with humor and vulgarity. But I guess that's part of the fun of being a Red Sox fan (see? i've already started avoiding logic, validity, and even grammar.)

I went to Game 2 Yankee Stadium and felt about as welcome as Matlock at the Nuremburg Trials (You see, Matlock was a defense lawyer and the Nuremburg Trials were for Nazis and well...) There really is nothing more crushing than a Red Sox defeat at Yankee Stadium. It's one of those things where you just want to cry because it always feels like we're the sweet and innocent ugly monster toys from the hit film Small Soldiers and the Yankees are the shitty, evil Tommy Lee Jones toys. (Metaphors that don't make sense? I's gots two.)

I often argue with Yankees fans that they've won enough championships already. And since I only talk to people under 25 (It's a cool Teen People thing), they always say the same thing. "You know? The Red Sox won a whole bunch of World Series before 1918..." Before 1918? Excuse me if I find it difficult to take pride in championships my team won before women earned the right to vote (Bitches, I looked it up. Amendment 19 added in 1920. This analogy is sticking.) And how many teams were there before 1918? 6? (I didn't look this up.) Sweet. Not a real impressive dynasty when you're beating 6 teams with guys named Honus and Hopsworth in the starting lineups. Hell, black people couldn't even watch baseball back then without being blinded (Made up fact- just cause it's made up doesn't stop it from being fact.) "Hooray! Con-grat-ul-ations, champs! You won the baseball contest. Let's celebrate by going to the ole brewhouse and having us a round of alcoholic beverages and cholera."

26 world series titles! "But I was only alive for four of them" If you've been alive for 4 World Series titles, that's four more than any Red Sox fan has been alive for cause the Red Sox haven't won since 1918. Even if you could find somebody who remembers 1918, they're old! Everything they say is immediately suspect.

So... what did we learn from all of this?
Answer.... absolutely nothing. Because that's what Red Sox fans do. They do not learn. That's the only justification I can come up with for why we do this to ourselves each and every year. We're idiots... but good idiots. The kind of idiots that you like to hang out with year. The kind of idiots you like to get hopped up on goofy pills and oppress minorities with. It's Boston. If they ever won the world series, the whole city would burn to the ground.

Welcome to the W.H., bitch

I am a pop culture whore. I read US Weekly, People, Star, the National Enquirer, and any other glossy publication that is published with the sole purpose and objective of exposing the eating habits of celebrities. Granted, I have to read all these magazines for work-related purposes but what's stopping me from enjoying my work a little? I am a pop culture whore.

That being said, I watch very little network television. Sure, I could rattle off mundane trivia about the stars of One Tree Hill or According to Jim (Little known fact about Jim Belushi: He's not the talented one in his family). I could list the members of the cast, tell you who they're dating, and if pressed, probably tell you whether they enjoy chocolate or vanilla cake. Mmm cake.

But I can't tell you the plots or themes expressed in these 30 minute farces or 60 minute tragedies because I watch very little network television. For instance, I have never seen The O.C. (That's not entirely true- I have seen it but me and SG making fun of Traub-e for seriously watching The O.C. doesn't really count). Even though I have no knowledge of The O.C. or the nuances of the characters, I can say, with a 99.9 % guarentee, that it would be a completely different show if it took place in my current residence, the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. For starters, we'd probably have to change the name. The O and the C in The O.C. stand for Orange and County, respectively, and we're setting the show in Washington Heights so I think we would be perfectly justified in changing the title to The W.H. (the W standing in for Washington and the H for Heights).

So, change in title out of the way, now it's time for characters and situations. First of all, we can cut all that surfing that those O.C. kids seem to enjoy cause ain't nobody surfing in the Hudson River. The next thing to go is all the rich, white kids cause, well, this is The W.H., not The U.W.S. or The L.E.V. All the rich, white kids will be replaced by Spanish and African American youths, Spanish and African American old people, and a half dozen fresh from college white kids working low paying jobs who only moved to the W.H. to prove that the four years they spent earning a Communications degree from a $40,000 a year institution of higher learning wasn't just in vain. So, we've got a cast of characters and a location. Now all we need is a situation.

In the first episode, we meet all the college white kids. They all become the best of friends and go to trendy college parties at Columbia or NYU but at the end of the night, they all board the 1, 9, A, C, B, or D trains but mostly the 1 or the 9 cause they probably live off Broadway but then again they might take the A or the C cause they'll be done in the Village doing coke and taking E but then again again the B and the D are also equally reliable. Regardless, they get on a train and go home. And then at the end of each episode, the college white kids walk uncomfortably fast as they try to avoid any contact with the Spanish and African American youths and the Spanish and African America old people.

So let's break down this three act hour dramedy.
Act One (20 mins)- The kids from The W.H. do lots of drugs downtown.
Act Two (30 mins)- The kids from The W.H. try and figure out what train would be the most convient to transport them back to the W.H.
Act Three (10 mins)- The kids from the W.H. sprint walk back to their apartments, avoiding eye contact, and locking the 17 locks they installed on their door.

But most importantly, at the end of every episode, a different character will walk by a magical homeless guy asking for change. The homeless gentlement will press the character for change and when no change is given, the homeless fellow will mutter under his breath, "Welcome to the W.H., motherfucker." Of course, The W.H. would only play on network television so the fucker would be bleeped out but the audience would understand that the bleeped out word was fucker because the collective consciousness of America understands that fucker is the appropriate expletive to follow mother.

So there you have it. I think we might have a hit on our hands. I'm gonna send my treatment to the Writer's Guild toot sweet*

*toot sweet is French for immediately. Well, that's not how you spell toot sweet but whatever. It's my website. You can take your French and shove it, friend**

**We're not really friends.***

***Yes we are. ****

****No. We are not.