Dressing age appropriately is a constant problem in our society whether it be young girls dressing like older (and probably slutty) girls or old guys dressing like they are still in high school. I understand that this isn't a crushing problem like unemployment or lack of health insurance yet it preoccupies me a great deal of the time. One item of clothing brings out my wrath more than anything else though; hats shaped like animals being worn by women over the age of 12.
I am well known for my feelings of animosity toward children (and I consider everyone under 26 "a child") but even I can admit that seeing a little tike wearing a black and white hat with panda ears on top is adorable. I may even throw out the word precious depending on the initial cuteness of the child. Precious is not the word I would use to describe the middle aged woman rocking the same hat while reading Chicken Soup for the Soul on the bus last night, instead I would opt to call it pathetic. Possibly idiotic, asinine, daft, inane, moronic or preposterous. I could go on but I think I have made my point pretty crystal clear.
I think it would be a pretty safe assessment to say that I don't dress my age and I'll freely admit that. I dress for maximum comfort. There is nothing in my life to compel me to wear anything other than t-shirts, hoodies, cords and Converse so why should I dress up? When the occasion calls for it I can look dapper in a suit and tie, my life just doesn't demand that I do that often. It would seem pretty silly for me to wear a suit to make the arduous two room trek from my bedroom to start work for the day. My only "co worker" that I come in contact with walks around naked all day (she is a cat) so I don't really have anyone to impress. Yet there is a huge difference in what I wear compared to animal hat lady. If anything I'm trying to turn back the clock no more than 5 years with my stylistic choices while she is trying to skip roughly 35 years of aging. When I wear a band t shirt, cords and Sox hat out to the store it doesn't raise any eyebrows but I can be damn sure everyone would be staring if I wore striped Osh Kosh overalls and a Thomas the Tank Engine shirt. Does this woman not know that she dresses like a toddler?
I can (barely) handle when grown women choose to dress like teenage girls. When I see a woman dressed like a sultry Catholic school girl it just creates a humongous clusterfuck in my brain. First off I think it's hot. Then I think that's it's wrong that I think it's hot since she's dressed like a teenager. Then I rationalize that it wouldn't be that wrong since teenagers who dress sexily know what they are doing and that doesn't even matter because this woman isn't a teenager anyway. Then I start to wonder if I'm even attracted to the actual woman or if I'm just attracted to the potential of going back to a simpler time. Then a red light goes off in my head and I think the only reason that I am remotely attracted to this woman is because she looks like a teenager and I must be a pedophile and that I should probably just go to the police station and turn myself in to avoid any potential problems down there road. Lastly my brain tells me that this is all silly and that I have nothing to feel badly about because the woman was in her thirties and everything is cool. Once I have processed this all in my brain I am 5 stops past where I was supposed to get off the bus and completely frazzled.
All of that comes from a woman dressing a few years younger than her age. I can't even begin to imagine the moral quagmire that would be created if I was attracted to a woman with a toddler's hat on. Although I don't see the likelihood of that happening any time soon because there is no possible way a grown woman with an animal hat will ever look anything other than ludicrous.
I'm not even asking that people dress their age, I'm just saying can't we all keep it within a 10-15 year window? That doesn't seem too much to ask. And that goes both ways as well. I'm sure that this woman would look just as ridiculous wearing a moo moo, orthopedic shoes with her hair dyed white. There is no way in hell anyone under the age of 70 would go out in public dressed like that. Please understand that from the point of view of this angry bystander that you would look far less ridiculous dressed like a 70 year old than you would wearing one of those absurd hats. Plus, moo moos are kinda sexy.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Karaoke Rule Number 1: If you can sing stay the hell out.
Saturday night I went out to a bar in Wrigleyville for some live band karaoke. A friend of mine knew some people in the band and was going to be singing Knowledge by Operation Ivy so I felt that it was something to be seen, especially since the same friend used to sing Knowledge with my crappy ska band back in the day. I'd never been to live band karaoke but I assumed it was similar to regular karaoke except that the band might mess up the songs a little bit, which to their credit they did not. The crowd seemed to be on the same wavelength as far as musical choice as well so there was a lot of alternative/punk songs along with a few oddities thrown in. The crowd went nuts when someone sang King of Wishful Thinking by Go West which sort of threw me for a loop, if you have the time I highly recommend watching the video from this song. I really miss the period of the 80's when singers in music videos felt the need to shake as if they were having a seizure as they sang, but I digress, back to the karaoke.
About halfway through the night a girl walks up to the stage and announces that she is going to be singing "Piece of my Heart" by Janis Joplin. Immediately I was terrified. One of the pitfalls of karaoke is that there are a few artists that people insist on imitating and rarely can they even come close to doing the song justice. This is why I stick to songs by people who aren't very good at singing in the first place, like Dylan or Danzig. Men always tend to pick Frank Sinatra songs and butcher them, women tend to gravitate toward destroying Janis Joplin songs. 9 times out of 10 it is atrocious due to a lack of singing talent or lack of Southern Comfort and sometimes a combination of the two. It's infuriating to hear great songs completely butchered but it's part of the risk you take by going out to see karaoke.
As I was prepared for some horrible warbling it turns out I was wrong, this girl could really sing. In fact I would go as far as to say that it was a dead on perfect rendition. She was so good that I almost didn't believe that it was karaoke at all. You would think that I would be ecstatic that I was hearing the first ever good version of a Joplin song sung at karaoke but you would be terribly mistaken. I was enraged. This broad had a fantastic voice and she should be in a band somewhere singing her heart out. Instead she decided to show up at karaoke and make everyone else who sang that night look like complete amateurs who are horrible at singing. Of course, everyone else who sang was a complete amateur but that's the whole point of karaoke. It's so those of us who aren't talented enough to sing in a band get to live out our rock and roll dreams and maybe, just maybe, get the Japanese businessman in the back to give us a nod affirming we did a decent job. A talented singer doing karaoke in a bar is the equivalent of Mike Tyson sparring with a 6 year old. There's no doubt that he'll knock the kid out but should he really be puffing out his chest and feeling good about it?
Even though I was awed by the talent of Janis Joplin Jr. I was furious about the way she showed up everyone by being talented. I'm sure part of the reason is that I was jealous since I have the kind of singing voice that makes Tom Waits sound like Dean Martin and I know that on stage I would freeze up and forget the words to Happy Birthday, but isn't that the point? There's no chance in hell that I'd be singing on stage in any other situation. When I go to karaoke my drunk ass gets to belt out tunes for a room just as drunk and tone deaf as myself and we all live under the delusion that we rocked. When someone talented shows up it puts us back in our place and kills those delusions.
Luckily a singer or two later my palette was cleansed by someone who understood that karaoke isn't about singing a perfect song, it's about being a drunken buffoon. And as he stripped his pants and climbed onto a chair while screaming incoherently I couldn't help but think that the situation had been fixed and that all was right with the world.
About halfway through the night a girl walks up to the stage and announces that she is going to be singing "Piece of my Heart" by Janis Joplin. Immediately I was terrified. One of the pitfalls of karaoke is that there are a few artists that people insist on imitating and rarely can they even come close to doing the song justice. This is why I stick to songs by people who aren't very good at singing in the first place, like Dylan or Danzig. Men always tend to pick Frank Sinatra songs and butcher them, women tend to gravitate toward destroying Janis Joplin songs. 9 times out of 10 it is atrocious due to a lack of singing talent or lack of Southern Comfort and sometimes a combination of the two. It's infuriating to hear great songs completely butchered but it's part of the risk you take by going out to see karaoke.
As I was prepared for some horrible warbling it turns out I was wrong, this girl could really sing. In fact I would go as far as to say that it was a dead on perfect rendition. She was so good that I almost didn't believe that it was karaoke at all. You would think that I would be ecstatic that I was hearing the first ever good version of a Joplin song sung at karaoke but you would be terribly mistaken. I was enraged. This broad had a fantastic voice and she should be in a band somewhere singing her heart out. Instead she decided to show up at karaoke and make everyone else who sang that night look like complete amateurs who are horrible at singing. Of course, everyone else who sang was a complete amateur but that's the whole point of karaoke. It's so those of us who aren't talented enough to sing in a band get to live out our rock and roll dreams and maybe, just maybe, get the Japanese businessman in the back to give us a nod affirming we did a decent job. A talented singer doing karaoke in a bar is the equivalent of Mike Tyson sparring with a 6 year old. There's no doubt that he'll knock the kid out but should he really be puffing out his chest and feeling good about it?
Even though I was awed by the talent of Janis Joplin Jr. I was furious about the way she showed up everyone by being talented. I'm sure part of the reason is that I was jealous since I have the kind of singing voice that makes Tom Waits sound like Dean Martin and I know that on stage I would freeze up and forget the words to Happy Birthday, but isn't that the point? There's no chance in hell that I'd be singing on stage in any other situation. When I go to karaoke my drunk ass gets to belt out tunes for a room just as drunk and tone deaf as myself and we all live under the delusion that we rocked. When someone talented shows up it puts us back in our place and kills those delusions.
Luckily a singer or two later my palette was cleansed by someone who understood that karaoke isn't about singing a perfect song, it's about being a drunken buffoon. And as he stripped his pants and climbed onto a chair while screaming incoherently I couldn't help but think that the situation had been fixed and that all was right with the world.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
The perils of having a hairless face
This past weekend I decided to shave off my beard for 3 reasons.
1. For my Halloween costume. I dressed up as one of my friends and he is what those of us in the beard community refer to as "a sissy" as he is sans facial hair.
2. I've decided to participate in Movember and grow a mustache while trying to raise some money for cancer research. I shall be a complete shill and leave the address at the bottom of the blog.
3. Curiosity.
I was a bit curious as to what my face looked like under all of that hair. I've spent the better part of the last 9 years with a beard. I decided to grow a beard for the same reason that I make most of my fashion decisions, laziness. The only thing that is ever successful in combating my fashion/grooming laziness is my desire to impress the ladies, in 2002 I had an opportunity to take a sabbatical from that task as my girlfriend was spending a semester abroad. The night she left I went on a bit of a bender with some friends, as was to be expected. We drank White Russians with Kahlua Especial (75 proof instead of the regular 40 proof) out of pint glasses all night and things got a bit sloppy. I woke up in the morning with a wicked hangover and the faint memory of promising to be in a band with someone. After completion of the first two of the 3 S's (shit, shower, shave) with an additional V thrown in for good measure I spent a little bit of time staring at myself in the mirror. I glanced between my reflection and my razor a couple of times. Finally I looked at the razor and said, "Fuck it." Charlie's beard was born right then and there.
Since that fateful morning I have been bearded except for a few special occasions; hanging out in the South or going to Vegas prompted me to sculpt it into "an Ambrose Burnside," one summer I rocked the Hulk Hogan look for a little while and for a few Halloween costumes I have been forced to discard the beard. Over the last couple of days I have realized why I rarely do away with the beard, being beardless sucks.
First off I have a weak chin. Well, sort of. If chins were judged in the way armies are then my chin would be very strong due to the extra chins lying in reserve, sadly this is looked upon as a negative when judging male attractiveness. This is the least of my concerns though, what is of great concern is the comfort issue. I live in Chicago and in the words of Eddard Stark "Winter is coming." We've barely gotten down to freezing and every damn time I go outside my face is cold. My poor face has been wearing a fur coat for the last 9 years and it hasn't had to deal with the harsh winter, in fact it reminds me of how my entire body felt after moving to the midwest from California. It is horrible. Since I wear glasses I can't walk around with a scarf around my face without fogging them up and wandering into traffic so I need to get growing quickly. I will admit that this was an expected problem as I shaved on Saturday so it's manageable. Which brings us to the most severe affliction I face now that I am beardless.
The Drooling. I guess that I have been drooling in my sleep for many years without being aware of it. My beard and mustache had served as a dam so that the drool never passed beyond the immediate area of my mouth and was thus never detected. Now that the floodgates have opened I am soaking every surface I sleep near with copious amounts of slobber. When I woke this morning my pillow was damp as if I had left it in the rain, the amount of saliva was awe inspiring. Looking at my face in the mirror I could actually see the path that the drool had taken over night, it looked like a dry riverbed running down my cheek. This now makes me without a doubt the worst person to sleep in the vicinity of. I sleepwalk, have night terrors, snore louder than a locomotive, rub my feet together vigorously and now my mouth is like a fire hydrant broken open in the summer. I am a disgusting beast. There is only one potential remedy as far as I can tell, to grow my beard back as quickly as humanly possible. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to puff my cheeks out as hard as I can to enhance the growth until my face is once again covered with a nice layer of chin hiding, warmth giving and drool stopping hair.
Before I accomplish that I'm going to continue working on a bitchin' mustache for Movember. If you would like to throw a little money to help with cancer research specifically aimed at fighting men's cancers follow this link: http://mobro.co/CharlieConnell Thanks a lot!
1. For my Halloween costume. I dressed up as one of my friends and he is what those of us in the beard community refer to as "a sissy" as he is sans facial hair.
2. I've decided to participate in Movember and grow a mustache while trying to raise some money for cancer research. I shall be a complete shill and leave the address at the bottom of the blog.
3. Curiosity.
I was a bit curious as to what my face looked like under all of that hair. I've spent the better part of the last 9 years with a beard. I decided to grow a beard for the same reason that I make most of my fashion decisions, laziness. The only thing that is ever successful in combating my fashion/grooming laziness is my desire to impress the ladies, in 2002 I had an opportunity to take a sabbatical from that task as my girlfriend was spending a semester abroad. The night she left I went on a bit of a bender with some friends, as was to be expected. We drank White Russians with Kahlua Especial (75 proof instead of the regular 40 proof) out of pint glasses all night and things got a bit sloppy. I woke up in the morning with a wicked hangover and the faint memory of promising to be in a band with someone. After completion of the first two of the 3 S's (shit, shower, shave) with an additional V thrown in for good measure I spent a little bit of time staring at myself in the mirror. I glanced between my reflection and my razor a couple of times. Finally I looked at the razor and said, "Fuck it." Charlie's beard was born right then and there.
Since that fateful morning I have been bearded except for a few special occasions; hanging out in the South or going to Vegas prompted me to sculpt it into "an Ambrose Burnside," one summer I rocked the Hulk Hogan look for a little while and for a few Halloween costumes I have been forced to discard the beard. Over the last couple of days I have realized why I rarely do away with the beard, being beardless sucks.
First off I have a weak chin. Well, sort of. If chins were judged in the way armies are then my chin would be very strong due to the extra chins lying in reserve, sadly this is looked upon as a negative when judging male attractiveness. This is the least of my concerns though, what is of great concern is the comfort issue. I live in Chicago and in the words of Eddard Stark "Winter is coming." We've barely gotten down to freezing and every damn time I go outside my face is cold. My poor face has been wearing a fur coat for the last 9 years and it hasn't had to deal with the harsh winter, in fact it reminds me of how my entire body felt after moving to the midwest from California. It is horrible. Since I wear glasses I can't walk around with a scarf around my face without fogging them up and wandering into traffic so I need to get growing quickly. I will admit that this was an expected problem as I shaved on Saturday so it's manageable. Which brings us to the most severe affliction I face now that I am beardless.
The Drooling. I guess that I have been drooling in my sleep for many years without being aware of it. My beard and mustache had served as a dam so that the drool never passed beyond the immediate area of my mouth and was thus never detected. Now that the floodgates have opened I am soaking every surface I sleep near with copious amounts of slobber. When I woke this morning my pillow was damp as if I had left it in the rain, the amount of saliva was awe inspiring. Looking at my face in the mirror I could actually see the path that the drool had taken over night, it looked like a dry riverbed running down my cheek. This now makes me without a doubt the worst person to sleep in the vicinity of. I sleepwalk, have night terrors, snore louder than a locomotive, rub my feet together vigorously and now my mouth is like a fire hydrant broken open in the summer. I am a disgusting beast. There is only one potential remedy as far as I can tell, to grow my beard back as quickly as humanly possible. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to puff my cheeks out as hard as I can to enhance the growth until my face is once again covered with a nice layer of chin hiding, warmth giving and drool stopping hair.
Before I accomplish that I'm going to continue working on a bitchin' mustache for Movember. If you would like to throw a little money to help with cancer research specifically aimed at fighting men's cancers follow this link: http://mobro.co/CharlieConnell Thanks a lot!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
I'm a Junior Hoarder
Moving sucks. It's been a month since I moved in with my special lady and I am still recovering. I had lived in the same place for 5 years and let's just say that I'm not the tidiest person on Earth. OK, I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a slob. I'm definitely a pack rat and I hate throwing things out. Now, I'm not talking about garbage, I throw out food and food remnants without hesitation, that's not the problem. The problem lies in all of the other stuff that I obtain as I bumble through life. This problem was especially bad when I was a daily subscriber to the Chicago Tribune. My apartment looked like I was potty training a small chow or about to kill Paul Allen. Friends of mine used the ample amount of newspaper as blankets when they would spend the night. It was bad. As the move date approached I would have little panic attacks at the thought of even beginning to rummage through everything, but eventually I soldiered on and did it.
As I packed up my shit I threw out an obscene amount of stuff. I filled two dumpsters and part of the alley with my horrible furniture. Some of the things I found were completely inexplicable. I had a ticket stub from a Red Sox game in the summer of 99. Presumably this ticket went from Illinois (where it was mailed to me) to Boston for the game, back to my parents house, to Lafayette for school, back to my parent's house and finally to 3 different Chicago apartments. It wasn't signed and it didn't have any specific sentimental value, I just refused to throw it out. Sanity finally prevailed as I tossed it in the garbage but I would be lying if I didn't consider retrieving it a few times. That's when the sad truth hit me, I'm a hoarder.
Now, I don't think I have reached full hoarder status yet. I do not have a collection of dead animals in the attic or a cellar filled with mason jars of urine. My apartment was not condemned. I did not try to physically assault anyone trying to convince me to throw things out. These are the signs of a true hoarder and I'm not quite there yet. I like to think of myself as a Junior Hoarder. I am a Cub Scout to the Eagle Scouts that you find on the television show. I still have a long way to go. As I was throwing out mountains of crap it was a bit difficult for me. I kept thinking that I had tossed out something that I needed. I think I even convinced myself that I may have hidden money in some old trinket because, yes, I am the "hiding money" type, although that's probably a blog post of it's own. It was completely stupid and irrational. I was able to fight the urge and threw it all out. I got rid of all of my VHS tapes which led to the best part of the week, seeing what movies had been scavenged out of the box each time I returned to the dumpster. Grosse Point Blank, Ferris Buehler's Day Off, The Godfather III, and a couple of "adult features" disappeared. I knew the porn would go quickly but Godfather III, really?
I saved only what I considered to be absolutely essential, or so I thought at the time. Now that I am unpacking boxes I am coming across nonsense that I have no clue why I saved them. For example: a little plastic lion playing a guitar birthday cake holder. WHY THE HELL DID I SAVE THIS?! I remember where it came from; it was on my birthday cupcake at the Gingerman when I turned 29. Why did I even take it from the bar? Or keep it on my computer desk since then, let alone why did I move it as I attempted to throw out all the junk in my apartment? There is no good reason why I did not throw it out 100 times before but here we are and it is staring at me with dead plastic eyes as I type this blog.
I'm sure the lion doesn't even make the top ten most useless things that I brought with me yet it symbolizes the reality of my hoarding skills. I'm sure somewhere in all of the boxes currently sitting in storage I have notes from a high school girlfriend, ticket stubs from concerts by bands I don't even remember any more, and clothes that haven't fit me since I turned 8. Next time I move I should really just incinerate all of my possessions and start from zero, if nothing else I'm sure my girlfriend would be happy to be rid of it all. I'm just afraid that I would dive into the incinerator to save my Fryin' Bryan Garbage Pail Kid.
As I packed up my shit I threw out an obscene amount of stuff. I filled two dumpsters and part of the alley with my horrible furniture. Some of the things I found were completely inexplicable. I had a ticket stub from a Red Sox game in the summer of 99. Presumably this ticket went from Illinois (where it was mailed to me) to Boston for the game, back to my parents house, to Lafayette for school, back to my parent's house and finally to 3 different Chicago apartments. It wasn't signed and it didn't have any specific sentimental value, I just refused to throw it out. Sanity finally prevailed as I tossed it in the garbage but I would be lying if I didn't consider retrieving it a few times. That's when the sad truth hit me, I'm a hoarder.
Now, I don't think I have reached full hoarder status yet. I do not have a collection of dead animals in the attic or a cellar filled with mason jars of urine. My apartment was not condemned. I did not try to physically assault anyone trying to convince me to throw things out. These are the signs of a true hoarder and I'm not quite there yet. I like to think of myself as a Junior Hoarder. I am a Cub Scout to the Eagle Scouts that you find on the television show. I still have a long way to go. As I was throwing out mountains of crap it was a bit difficult for me. I kept thinking that I had tossed out something that I needed. I think I even convinced myself that I may have hidden money in some old trinket because, yes, I am the "hiding money" type, although that's probably a blog post of it's own. It was completely stupid and irrational. I was able to fight the urge and threw it all out. I got rid of all of my VHS tapes which led to the best part of the week, seeing what movies had been scavenged out of the box each time I returned to the dumpster. Grosse Point Blank, Ferris Buehler's Day Off, The Godfather III, and a couple of "adult features" disappeared. I knew the porn would go quickly but Godfather III, really?
I saved only what I considered to be absolutely essential, or so I thought at the time. Now that I am unpacking boxes I am coming across nonsense that I have no clue why I saved them. For example: a little plastic lion playing a guitar birthday cake holder. WHY THE HELL DID I SAVE THIS?! I remember where it came from; it was on my birthday cupcake at the Gingerman when I turned 29. Why did I even take it from the bar? Or keep it on my computer desk since then, let alone why did I move it as I attempted to throw out all the junk in my apartment? There is no good reason why I did not throw it out 100 times before but here we are and it is staring at me with dead plastic eyes as I type this blog.
I'm sure the lion doesn't even make the top ten most useless things that I brought with me yet it symbolizes the reality of my hoarding skills. I'm sure somewhere in all of the boxes currently sitting in storage I have notes from a high school girlfriend, ticket stubs from concerts by bands I don't even remember any more, and clothes that haven't fit me since I turned 8. Next time I move I should really just incinerate all of my possessions and start from zero, if nothing else I'm sure my girlfriend would be happy to be rid of it all. I'm just afraid that I would dive into the incinerator to save my Fryin' Bryan Garbage Pail Kid.
Friday, October 28, 2011
God probably isn't a baseball fan, Thor on the otherhand. . .
Last night the Rangers and Cardinals played one of the most astonishing World Series games ever. People seem to be praising it as one of the best games ever, which I disagree with. Of course this may be because sports writers tend to believe that the game that they are assigned is always The Greatest Game of All Time! The last 5 innings or so of last nights games were amazing with the lead flip flopping and the Cards coming so close to elimination, but the first 6 innings were sloppy and badly played. We need to calm down a little bit and realize that, as a whole, that game can't even come close to game 7 of 1991 for example. I digress, back to last night. Josh Hamilton hit a potential Series winning two run home run in the top of the 10th inning. I was surprised that he was able to do it. He had been on a huge homerless drought, is playing with an injury, and he had been having a pretty lousy Series overall. You know who wasn't surprised? Hamilton. He knew he was going to hit a home run the entire time. How did he know this? It wasn't because he was supremely confident in his skills, it was because God told him he was going to do it.
Few things in this world piss me off as much as when I hear an athlete say that God is the reason they hit a home run, made a sack or won a curling bonspiel. I understand that faith is very important to many people and I'm not trying to attack said faith, what I'm saying is that God doesn't care about sports. There are 7 billion people in this world, that's a heck of a lot of sporting events for God to pay attention to. I'm an only child and my parents had a hard time making it to my little league games. It seems amazingly narcissistic to think that God cared so much about you that he gave the ball a little extra push on it's way out of the stadium, and more so that he did so to spite everyone on the other team. Baseball isn't played in a vacuum, it's played by two teams against each other. If God helps a player achieve something it means that he is also actively making another player fail. So is it that God is a Hamilton fan or does he have some sort of grudge against Jason Motte? And if He wanted Hamilton to hit a home run and succeed why did he still let the Cardinals win? Oh, I know why, because God had nothing to do with it.
The thing that made what Hamilton said slightly different than other athletes is that he said that God told him he would hit a home run. Usually athletes just praise God and thank him, Hamilton said that he had an actual conversation with God guaranteeing his homer. This made me wonder a couple of things. First, what would have happened if Hamilton didn't hit a homer? I'm sure that he would have never mentioned anything to the press, no one ever talks about how God made them hang a curveball after giving up a walk off, but would it shake his faith? Usually if God tells you something you assume that he isn't lying, so if that ball only traveled 399 feet for a very loud out would Hamilton have become an atheist? Secondly, what if God had told Hamilton he would go 0-5 with a couple of errors and cost his team the game. What's Hamilton to do in that situation? Do you go up to the manager and tell him you need the day off? Lastly, if God decides to actually affect the outcome of sporting events why isn't his fandom more evident? I guess you could make the argument that he must be a Yankee fan because they have won the most championships but to me that is just proof that the devil has more pull over sporting events. Sports fans by nature are selfish. Every year our team doesn't win is a failure. Thus I would think if God was a sports fan that he would definitely have a favorite team and they would win (almost) every single year. Unless of course God is one of those sports fans who doesn't have a favorite team and just likes players, which means that God is a horrible sports fan who nobody likes.
I realize that I'm taking a pretty flippant tone while talking about God here but it's not like I'm talking about life and death or morals, I'm talking about sports. Recreation. Every day roughly 35,967 more important things will happen in your life than a sporting event. I would especially think that a person who has gone through all of the horrible things that Josh Hamilton has would have a little perspective and realize how insignificant 1 at bat in a fairly important baseball game is given the grand scheme of things.
The only thing we can really be sure of is that God is most definitely not a Cubs fan.
Few things in this world piss me off as much as when I hear an athlete say that God is the reason they hit a home run, made a sack or won a curling bonspiel. I understand that faith is very important to many people and I'm not trying to attack said faith, what I'm saying is that God doesn't care about sports. There are 7 billion people in this world, that's a heck of a lot of sporting events for God to pay attention to. I'm an only child and my parents had a hard time making it to my little league games. It seems amazingly narcissistic to think that God cared so much about you that he gave the ball a little extra push on it's way out of the stadium, and more so that he did so to spite everyone on the other team. Baseball isn't played in a vacuum, it's played by two teams against each other. If God helps a player achieve something it means that he is also actively making another player fail. So is it that God is a Hamilton fan or does he have some sort of grudge against Jason Motte? And if He wanted Hamilton to hit a home run and succeed why did he still let the Cardinals win? Oh, I know why, because God had nothing to do with it.
The thing that made what Hamilton said slightly different than other athletes is that he said that God told him he would hit a home run. Usually athletes just praise God and thank him, Hamilton said that he had an actual conversation with God guaranteeing his homer. This made me wonder a couple of things. First, what would have happened if Hamilton didn't hit a homer? I'm sure that he would have never mentioned anything to the press, no one ever talks about how God made them hang a curveball after giving up a walk off, but would it shake his faith? Usually if God tells you something you assume that he isn't lying, so if that ball only traveled 399 feet for a very loud out would Hamilton have become an atheist? Secondly, what if God had told Hamilton he would go 0-5 with a couple of errors and cost his team the game. What's Hamilton to do in that situation? Do you go up to the manager and tell him you need the day off? Lastly, if God decides to actually affect the outcome of sporting events why isn't his fandom more evident? I guess you could make the argument that he must be a Yankee fan because they have won the most championships but to me that is just proof that the devil has more pull over sporting events. Sports fans by nature are selfish. Every year our team doesn't win is a failure. Thus I would think if God was a sports fan that he would definitely have a favorite team and they would win (almost) every single year. Unless of course God is one of those sports fans who doesn't have a favorite team and just likes players, which means that God is a horrible sports fan who nobody likes.
I realize that I'm taking a pretty flippant tone while talking about God here but it's not like I'm talking about life and death or morals, I'm talking about sports. Recreation. Every day roughly 35,967 more important things will happen in your life than a sporting event. I would especially think that a person who has gone through all of the horrible things that Josh Hamilton has would have a little perspective and realize how insignificant 1 at bat in a fairly important baseball game is given the grand scheme of things.
The only thing we can really be sure of is that God is most definitely not a Cubs fan.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
My man card was declined
I'm a drinker. Every once in a while I've been known to imbibe an adult beverage or 12. I thoroughly enjoy alcohol. I like all the different varieties, I like the feeling of satisfaction I get for being knowledgeable about different wines/beers/whiskeys, and I like the way booze makes me suave and sophisticated in the eyes of the fairer sex.
One of the interesting things about drinking, especially out in public, is that there are connotations about the drinks that you choose. If I was sitting at a sports bar sipping a Cosmo I'm pretty sure everyone in the joint would be making fun of me or at the very least drawing some conclusions about my sexuality. Likewise if you offered to buy a girl a drink at a bar and she asked for a boilermaker you would come to some quick conclusions about her, most notably that she's not a lame girly girl and that she probably has a drinking problem. It is pretty well established that there are "girl drinks" and "man drinks." Examples:
Girl Drinks: Cosmos. Flavored vodka. Champagne with a strawberry. Anything frozen. Smirnoff Ice. Any shot that sounds like a dessert.
Man Drinks: Scotch. Boilermakers. Bourbon. Everclear. Irish Whiskey. Malort. Canadian Whiskey. BEER. Any shot that is lit on fire.
Please note, I did not say light beer and I sure as shit didn't say Bud Light Lime, I said beer. This is why I am particularly enraged at the recent Miller Lite commercials. In these commercials you will see a bunch of fellas hanging out and one of them makes the horrible social faux pas of ordering a generic light beer. Then his friends belittle him for being less of a man since he didn't order a Miller Lite by saying it was the second unmanly thing he did. At this point the commercials show a guy on a scooter, a guy freaking out on a rock wall, or a guy crying while leaving his girlfriend thus proving that he was less of a man. In order to regain his manliness he will order a Miller Lite and then everyone has a good laugh. I'd hate to break it to these fellas but I have some bad news for you, YOU ARE ALL PUSSIES.
Drinking light beer is one of the least manly things you can do because light beer does everything it can to taste like nothing. Water has slightly more flavor than Miller Lite does. Let's look back at the list of girl drinks and man drinks, do you notice the common thread binding them all together? The girl drinks do everything they can to hide the taste of alcohol. Man drinks taste like booze, or in the case of Malort, jet fuel. If you are going to drink a beer drink an Arrogant Bastard from Stone; it has a bitchin' name, amazing flavor and I'm pretty sure it puts hair on your chest. No one is going to question your manliness when you have a 22oz bottle of something called Arrogant Bastard in front of you. (I'm hoping I can land a Stone endorsement deal from this blog.) Yet these so called "men" stand around looking like they just came out of a J Crew catalog sipping their Miller Lites. Those are not men. Men have facial hair. Men drink outdoors in the winter. Do you think that Teddy Roosevelt would cool down after boxing a bear with a refreshing light beer? NO. He drank pure grain alcohol after pouring it on his wounds to disinfect them.
I have found that these ads have influenced me in the polar opposite way than they were intended to. I want to do everything I can to not be like the Miller Lite sipping morons. So if they frown upon riding scooters I'm going out to get a scooter. I'll scream my head off on a roller coaster if it means I don't have to stand around being smug about my (barely) flavored beer substitute afterward. The ad that bothered me more than any of the others was when the guy is mocked for asking his friends to come to the bathroom with him, it hit particularly close to home. I often ask my friends to come to the bathroom with me when we are out at a bar. Not to gossip or fix our hair like women. No, we go to the bathroom as a group to drink single malt scotch out of our flasks and shoot dice because we are MEN, something a bunch of Miller Lite guzzling sycophants will never be.
One of the interesting things about drinking, especially out in public, is that there are connotations about the drinks that you choose. If I was sitting at a sports bar sipping a Cosmo I'm pretty sure everyone in the joint would be making fun of me or at the very least drawing some conclusions about my sexuality. Likewise if you offered to buy a girl a drink at a bar and she asked for a boilermaker you would come to some quick conclusions about her, most notably that she's not a lame girly girl and that she probably has a drinking problem. It is pretty well established that there are "girl drinks" and "man drinks." Examples:
Girl Drinks: Cosmos. Flavored vodka. Champagne with a strawberry. Anything frozen. Smirnoff Ice. Any shot that sounds like a dessert.
Man Drinks: Scotch. Boilermakers. Bourbon. Everclear. Irish Whiskey. Malort. Canadian Whiskey. BEER. Any shot that is lit on fire.
Please note, I did not say light beer and I sure as shit didn't say Bud Light Lime, I said beer. This is why I am particularly enraged at the recent Miller Lite commercials. In these commercials you will see a bunch of fellas hanging out and one of them makes the horrible social faux pas of ordering a generic light beer. Then his friends belittle him for being less of a man since he didn't order a Miller Lite by saying it was the second unmanly thing he did. At this point the commercials show a guy on a scooter, a guy freaking out on a rock wall, or a guy crying while leaving his girlfriend thus proving that he was less of a man. In order to regain his manliness he will order a Miller Lite and then everyone has a good laugh. I'd hate to break it to these fellas but I have some bad news for you, YOU ARE ALL PUSSIES.
Drinking light beer is one of the least manly things you can do because light beer does everything it can to taste like nothing. Water has slightly more flavor than Miller Lite does. Let's look back at the list of girl drinks and man drinks, do you notice the common thread binding them all together? The girl drinks do everything they can to hide the taste of alcohol. Man drinks taste like booze, or in the case of Malort, jet fuel. If you are going to drink a beer drink an Arrogant Bastard from Stone; it has a bitchin' name, amazing flavor and I'm pretty sure it puts hair on your chest. No one is going to question your manliness when you have a 22oz bottle of something called Arrogant Bastard in front of you. (I'm hoping I can land a Stone endorsement deal from this blog.) Yet these so called "men" stand around looking like they just came out of a J Crew catalog sipping their Miller Lites. Those are not men. Men have facial hair. Men drink outdoors in the winter. Do you think that Teddy Roosevelt would cool down after boxing a bear with a refreshing light beer? NO. He drank pure grain alcohol after pouring it on his wounds to disinfect them.
I have found that these ads have influenced me in the polar opposite way than they were intended to. I want to do everything I can to not be like the Miller Lite sipping morons. So if they frown upon riding scooters I'm going out to get a scooter. I'll scream my head off on a roller coaster if it means I don't have to stand around being smug about my (barely) flavored beer substitute afterward. The ad that bothered me more than any of the others was when the guy is mocked for asking his friends to come to the bathroom with him, it hit particularly close to home. I often ask my friends to come to the bathroom with me when we are out at a bar. Not to gossip or fix our hair like women. No, we go to the bathroom as a group to drink single malt scotch out of our flasks and shoot dice because we are MEN, something a bunch of Miller Lite guzzling sycophants will never be.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Old Balls
Somewhere between 1980 and now I decided to become fat. I blame it mostly on my discovery of the cookie in the winter of 1983. Recently my father has given me recipes for bacon infused bourbon and meatballs that include a miraculous ingredient called "bacon paste" so something must be done to fight the massive caloric intake in my future. I would like to, at the very least, wait until my 40's for my first heart attack. This is why I go to the gym.
Going to the gym is a pretty hellish experience, although this is for reasons other than what I had anticipated. I assumed that the fact that I haven't moved quickly since 8th grade would make the act of exercising abhorrent. I have been delighted to learn that this is not the case. As long as I have angry music piercing my ear drums I push through my lack of fitness and I feel pretty tremendous afterwards. There is a certain misery to a workout and I sweat like a stuck pig but it's not intolerable. Unfortunately the gym is not a solitary experience, in fact, it is usually packed with people.
Often in my life I think of the great words of Jean-Paul Sartre, "L'enfer c'est les autres." If you chose to take a useful foreign language instead of French that means "Hell is other people." I feel that if ol Jean-Paul had to go down to the local Bally's to get his exercise in that he would have altered that thought to "L'enfer est testicules d'autres personnes." I'm confident that I don't need to translate that for you.
I understand that the locker room is a place where the rules of polite society are cast aside. Any time that people are changing clothes and taking showers there is an expected and acceptable amount of nudity. I'm not a prude by any means, hell, I like a good bit of nudity as much as the next fella. While I have been described as "an Adonis" and "a physical specimen" I try to save my nudity for a few special occasions; with my lady, at the doctor, and after a six pack of Four Loko. Other than in those few instances I try to take my clothes on and off in a swift process. Yet for some damn reason people parade about the locker room swinging their wedding tackle from side to side for all to see. Not only are these men putting themselves on display it's that it is impossible to avoid. I have had to stop taking my shoes off at all lest I be forced to sit on the bench to tie them, where inevitably I always come eye to eye with a septuagenarian's sagging balls.
I have come up with a theory pertaining to this. It seems that the older the gentleman the more prolonged the nudity. One would be quick to assume that this is because old people do things more slowly. Not so fast my friend, that is not why they are naked longer. When they actually decide to cover themselves they move at a normal pace to do so, so that's not the explanation. Instead it seems as if they have complete disdain at the idea of having to put their clothes back on. They air dry themselves, have conversations and wander about the locker room aimlessly naked as the day they were born. I imagine that after 70+ years of having to wear clothes every day one might get sick of doing it and that's what I assume is the case here. They have decided to relish this brief nude respite for as long as possible before they return to the monotony of being dressed. I guess it's kind of sweet when you think about it. . .
NO, IT'S NOT SWEET. IT'S GROSS. I don't want to have to stare at your wrinkled, old ass while I'm getting dressed. I'm not forcing you to take a prolonged gander at my ample posterior, you can at least do me the common decency of returning the favor. I'm sure that your old friend can recap the Matlock you missed with his junk covered by a towel instead of wagging in my face. For the love of God just get dressed and get the hell out of the locker room as quickly as possible, please. Although I guess I should thank the naked old men for helping me lose weight in an unexpected way, once I leave the gym I don't have an appetite for hours.
Going to the gym is a pretty hellish experience, although this is for reasons other than what I had anticipated. I assumed that the fact that I haven't moved quickly since 8th grade would make the act of exercising abhorrent. I have been delighted to learn that this is not the case. As long as I have angry music piercing my ear drums I push through my lack of fitness and I feel pretty tremendous afterwards. There is a certain misery to a workout and I sweat like a stuck pig but it's not intolerable. Unfortunately the gym is not a solitary experience, in fact, it is usually packed with people.
Often in my life I think of the great words of Jean-Paul Sartre, "L'enfer c'est les autres." If you chose to take a useful foreign language instead of French that means "Hell is other people." I feel that if ol Jean-Paul had to go down to the local Bally's to get his exercise in that he would have altered that thought to "L'enfer est testicules d'autres personnes." I'm confident that I don't need to translate that for you.
I understand that the locker room is a place where the rules of polite society are cast aside. Any time that people are changing clothes and taking showers there is an expected and acceptable amount of nudity. I'm not a prude by any means, hell, I like a good bit of nudity as much as the next fella. While I have been described as "an Adonis" and "a physical specimen" I try to save my nudity for a few special occasions; with my lady, at the doctor, and after a six pack of Four Loko. Other than in those few instances I try to take my clothes on and off in a swift process. Yet for some damn reason people parade about the locker room swinging their wedding tackle from side to side for all to see. Not only are these men putting themselves on display it's that it is impossible to avoid. I have had to stop taking my shoes off at all lest I be forced to sit on the bench to tie them, where inevitably I always come eye to eye with a septuagenarian's sagging balls.
I have come up with a theory pertaining to this. It seems that the older the gentleman the more prolonged the nudity. One would be quick to assume that this is because old people do things more slowly. Not so fast my friend, that is not why they are naked longer. When they actually decide to cover themselves they move at a normal pace to do so, so that's not the explanation. Instead it seems as if they have complete disdain at the idea of having to put their clothes back on. They air dry themselves, have conversations and wander about the locker room aimlessly naked as the day they were born. I imagine that after 70+ years of having to wear clothes every day one might get sick of doing it and that's what I assume is the case here. They have decided to relish this brief nude respite for as long as possible before they return to the monotony of being dressed. I guess it's kind of sweet when you think about it. . .
NO, IT'S NOT SWEET. IT'S GROSS. I don't want to have to stare at your wrinkled, old ass while I'm getting dressed. I'm not forcing you to take a prolonged gander at my ample posterior, you can at least do me the common decency of returning the favor. I'm sure that your old friend can recap the Matlock you missed with his junk covered by a towel instead of wagging in my face. For the love of God just get dressed and get the hell out of the locker room as quickly as possible, please. Although I guess I should thank the naked old men for helping me lose weight in an unexpected way, once I leave the gym I don't have an appetite for hours.
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