DAAAAAY-VAD, LEEEEEEE

I went to my first professional basketball game with the hoop-savvy Mugwatch on Wednesday night and I'm still wondering why the New York Knicks employ the Monopoly guy as their court-side announcer.

(in monocle and top hat): "A THREEEEE POINT-AH! NAAAAAAAATE ROBINSON!!!!"

followed, of course, by:

"AND REMEM-BAH TO BUY WAR BONDS AND BEAT BACK THE NAZZIES!!!"

Also, I'd like to point out that of all the major sports, I know the least about basketball. Despite my lack of knowledge, I could still make out that the Knicks stink on ice. To be honest, I was wondering when the JV squad was going to hit the showers and the varsity Knicks were going to stop fucking around and come out to entertain us.

Needless to say, the plight of the Knickerbockers (which is a great name for an animated film...or a porn) has put the fans into an incredibly bad mood. They boo EVERYTHING at a Knicks game. Even if, let's say, you were part of the Make a Wish Foundation and your DYING WISH was to take a shot from the foul line at Madison Square Garden, you had better PRAY that you make that shot.

(insert here the sickening woosh of an airball)
"WHY DON'T YOU DIE TOMORROW, KID!!!"

And speaking of fans taking shots, during the halftime show a small collection of thugs urban youths were allowed to take a half-court shot and guarantee their spot as a 15 minute pariah when they invariably missed. However provocative this would seem, the Knicks announcer did the crowd one better by introducing one of the contestants as a self-proclaimed Celtic fan.

CROWD: BOOOOOOO!!!

ANNOUNCER: And, he's wearing a Red Sox jersey! (which he was)

CROWD: BOOOOOOOO!!!!

The only additional factoid that the announcer could have POSSIBLY mentioned to get the crowd four seconds from a massive, sweeping lynching is include that the young man also LOVES 9/11. Regardless of this glaring omission, the largest cheer of the night occurred when the Red Sox-loving Celtic fan missed his shot. The crowd occupied themselves throughout the rest of the game with chants of "Fire Isaiah" and "THROW THE T-SHIRT."

One last thought: all of the food vendors at MSG look like Rick James.

Plane of woe

Achy and chocked full of Mexican food, I took my seat on the Jetblue flight out of Tucson and nervously awaited takeoff. As is custom in my travels, I will invariably be seated next to the saddest, most desperate person on the planet. A woman in her forties sat in my row, turned to me, and asked:

"Are you from New York?"

Ugh. Go fuck yourself. I guess we're talking now and I don't really want to get into the technical stuff like the fact I'm from Pennsylvania nor do I want to get trapped into answering obscure New York trivia for a tourist just before a four hour flight, which would no doubt open up the floodgates for more questions until I find myself telling this woman where to go for the best Brazilian pedicure.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well, my father just died and my mother is suicidal. How long do you think it would take to get up to Connecticut if I drove from JFK?"

Wait...wait, what? There are definitely TWO separate thoughts here. It had a strange blend of personal tragedy and an SAT question:

Jake is on a train traveling north at 4 meters per second. Paul is leaving from the same location, traveling south, at 3 meters per second. If Paul runs out of steam three minutes in, how could you do this to me?

"Uh, well, considering we'll be arriving at 7:30 AM, you'll probably hit a fair amount of traffic. I'd add an hour to whatever you were expecting."

And then I stared at my personal TV screen embedded in the headrest in front of me. Were we done? She didn't want to TALK about this did she? I'm ill equipped to deal my own tragedies, much less the woeful despair of others. I pretended to be enthralled with Animal Planet until I saw her vanish from my periphery. For a long time. So long that it appeared that, maybe, she went into the bathroom to open her veins 30,000 feet above the United States. (It turns out she found a row all to herself in the back of the plane in order to, one would hope, work on her tact in broaching sensitive subjects to complete strangers. Most likely, however, she used the time to figure out how to get into the cockpit and let the pilot know about her father's death, in case he wanted to make an announcement or something).

I suppose some things are so incomprehensible, so devastating, that you can't help but spill your guts to everyone you meet. Or, people can smell my awful fear of awkward situations.

The Tucson Marathon kicked my ass

I am sunburned and in pain and it took six hours to complete the Tucson Marathon. However, Arizona is beautiful to look at. I might not try running here again, though.

A full video blog to follow when I return Thursday or Friday.

Can you dig it?

Latest video blog here. I'm going for higher production value, clearly.

And I don't cheese in a bucket

Hanging out in the "Ho - Hy" receiving section after yesterday's New York City Marathon, I observed an entire team of runners from Holland. They were batshit insane. If anyone who reads this blog is familiar with old Dutch adages, could you let me in on what this one means?:



The only thing this suggests to me is something I've suspected for some time: the Dutch are high ALL the time.

A-Rod is Available, Pricey

New Fanhouse blog here. I can't wait for the pithy comments of teen deviants hopped up on Jolt cola.

That's not shocking

I called it after the All Star break: the Yanks offered a five year extension to A-Rod and he told them to go fuck themselves. And they deserve it.

This, after winning the Aaron Award AND having been voted most "clutch" player. The press in New York should all jump in the East River.

Dane Cook is a delight

I'd hate to keep harping on it, but I love Dane Cook. And his Superfinger. The latest video from Fanhouse TV.

Great Dane!

Thanks to Mike Solomon's tutorial, my dream has come true. This simple video test makes me so happy, previous descriptions of joys by even the greatest odists cannot possibly touch my level of ecstasy. Look for this to be implemented in an upcoming Fanhouse vlog.

Thank you, Mike Solomon. Thank you.

Happy Trails, Joe

Joe Torre was offered a five million dollar contract to return as manager of the New York Yankees next year (with the possibility of an additional three million) and he turned it down. A friend at work suggested that this offer was a public facade to cover up the fact that the Yankees were simply firing Torre and wanted him to be able to save face.

Truth be told, it's a shame that Torre won't be around for the post-Steinbrenner years (which ostensibly begin next year, if reports about his sons taking over are correct), because while the Boss was in charge, it honestly doesn't matter who managed that team. It's funny, I recently rented ESPN's miniseries "The Bronx is Burning" and it paints Steinbrenner as a pigheaded jerkoff. I tend to agree. Even Billy Martin, who was more strong-willed and obstinate than Joe Torre could ever be, had to kowtow to the Boss's authority and watch, handcuffed, as Reggie Jackson was brought in to an environment that had madhouse written all over it. Steinbrenner ran the team like a television network. It wasn't just about winning, it was about drawing people to the stadium with larger than life personalities. Reggie Jackson, Ricky Henderson, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez. Each of these players brought with him a name both famous and infamous. Steinbrenner's looking for pennants and championships insofar as they yield ratings. It was a circus in 1977 and it's a circus thirty years later.

Baseball managers have a tough job these days. In fact, with owners and general managers doing all of the meaningful negotiating, it's amazing that they have any pull in the clubhouse at all.

All that being said, however, the idea of Tony La Russa coming in and taking the reins is a good one. But ultimately, does it really matter?

Oh, and as much as I love Don Mattingly and regard him as my favorite player of all time...I question his readiness, as he himself did, to take over as manager. Plus, it can be painful watching him talk as a manager. Yeesh.

Don't tell Ellen DeGeneres

I'm gonna wash that puss right out of its hair.

Ad Hack

New Fanhouse post here. In it, I come off like a mincing shithead. I really should stop talking in public.

Classic FODJ moments

Seeing as the previous iteration of this blog was destroyed, I thought I'd post a bit I retained (to celebrate the 18,000th hit):


HIPPY BUDDHIST VISIBLY PISSED ABOUT ROBBERY

Dayton, OH - Video store employee Carl Tawny, a practicing Buddhist and humanitarian, became uncharacteristically aggressive today following the robbery of his downtown studio apartment last night.

"I am trying extremely hard to remember that the idea of possession is an illusion, an earthly distraction from true happiness" says Tawny, 33, standing at the window of his meager home, which houses eleven of his friends. "But they took the XBox, and that fucking sucks."

"And what about those autographed pictures of Tina Fey I got at the Mean Girls premiere?" Tawny continued, huffily tossing an empty hommus container at his cat, Phishface. "I mean, those fuckers don't grow on trees, although, I guess, spiritually, it doesn't matter."

"I hope nothing but a busy, cluttered lifestyle on those stupid cocksuckings," he awkwardly swore and finished filling out the police questionnaire.

Humans are wonderfully simple

A video my sister Gillian posted on her MySpace page:

Dental UPDATE

Nothing is as symptomatic of the plague that is "blogging" than posting an update about my teeth. Let me tell you about my upcoming oral surgery, because it's fascinating. Seriously.

In a mouth without even a SINGLE cavity, there exists a rogue molar hell-bent on revenge. If a movie were made, I want my molar to be played by a tough, loner type. Like Charles Bronson. Or, I want it played by an asshole. Like Dane Cook.

The dentist's office assistant informed me that the oral "care" for which I was scheduled would total $3500. I laughed at her. She then told me I had horrible dental insurance, a fact I could have let her in on before any of this farce began. She laughed at me. Then, we laughed together and I told her I would seek my surgery elsewhere.

So, I've decided to throw my dental plight at the feet of the student doctors of New York University. After what I'm expecting to be seven clumsy man-hours hammering away at my molars, the deed will be done at a substantially lower rate. For awhile, I entertained the idea of having them replace the old tooth with the tooth of another animal. Like a beaver or sabertooth tiger. I figure as long as it's cheap...

About average

I am wonderfully and perfectly average. I am of average height, and for that height, I am the average weight. There are six possible genotypes for the eye color brown (as opposed to a mere two genotypes for blue and green), and, as my eyes are brown, I'm in the majority. There is nothing remarkable, rogue, diverse, interesting, shocking, eye-catching, breathtaking, novel, or exceptional about me. I'm the consummate Everyman.

And yet, despite how boring that may seem, I feel incredibly lucky. Most things we encounter every day are catered to the average person. I can slip into a subway seat perfectly and when I have to stand, the overhead bars are at just the right height. Clothing stores always have my pants size. I can remain anonymous at almost every thinkable social gathering. I can be subsumed into the masses. I can disappear.

And yet, in the face in the comfort this gives me, I am constantly fighting this anonymity. I want people to look at me. I want to be exceptional. I want to leave a gaping hole in my wake when I leave the room. I want people to notice.

Still, regardless of how much I might struggle and flail and dig and shout, the most I could achieve, the most anyone can achieve, is to be slightly above average. Only slightly.

That makes me smile.

A little bittersweet weekend

My pal Amanda played Chet Baker's rendition of "I Get Along Without You Very Well" on her Wednesday radio show and I had completely forgotten about how much I love Chet Baker. For me, he's that voice that as soon as you were introduced to it, you devoured every song you could find until you were fat and bloated on the stuff. Having spoiled your appetite, you forgot about him only to rediscover him at the perfect time in your life. Or, reminded of. Thanks Amanda.

Beautiful

I was watching an episode of House when I heard this rendition of Cristina Aguilera's "Beautiful" coming from Hugh Laurie's iPod headphones and I thought "that's Costello. That's Costello's voice doing that cover." I searched and searched and searched and I never found a copy. At long last, Fox released the soundtrack and thankfully, the cover is on it. My obsession grows by the minute:

**UPDATE** I added some other songs from the soundtrack.

The whole tooth and nothing but the tooth

I have a pristine set of teeth. When I was a mere boy and a beardless youth, our family's dentist would shower me with accolades and present my mother with a modest bill. Unfortunately, as the pressures of life's incessant barrage of trouble wore on my now adult mind, I began to grind and clench my teeth while I slept, no doubt my subconscious mind's way of reminding me that things are not, in fact, "okay" and that everything's going to shit. All of this jaw gnashing resulted in a solitary fracture in one of my bottom right molars, which I had clumsily repaired by an Israeli dentist in the autumn of 2004. The tooth never really felt "fixed," but having been handed a bill to the tune of $1,200, I was hesitant to ever set foot in a dentist's office again, for fear of losing all of my possessions because of a single tooth.

I avoided medical attention successfully until a few weeks ago, when my molar decided that it had had enough of this shit and unleashed a full out attack on my dumb mouth. The ensuing infection produced mind-numbing pain and a blister on the gum line. Defeated, I went to the dentist yesterday and he assured me I had nothing to fear. Then, he said he may have to perform two root canals and secure a brand new cap. Unless I miss my guess, that sounds like $2000 worth of work. Seeing as my insurance is a cruel joke one wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, my "out of pocket" expense (the term "out of pocket" makes me laugh every time. Who carries around $2000 in his pocket?) will be astronomical.

So, I have a small dilemma to overcome. Living with pain is not exactly a strange phenomenon in my life, but it would be foolish to proceed with it voluntarily. On the other hand, I was just starting to corral my finances into a workable routine and this will rend all of the progress I've made to shreds. Still, it's life. You know?

Ah, to be a replicant:

The Kid From Brooklyn makes a point

If you haven't checked in on the Kid from Brooklyn, you're missing out. He's passionate: