Your Whitehouse Correspondent

Do you remember that episode of Star Trek-Next Generation when the android “Data” was summoned to his home?  His creator had inserted some circuitry that would make him drop everything and return, at all costs?

That’s kind of what happens to me every summer.  Sometimes I go in May, other times in July, but once a year, I just have to go back.  I leave the modern conveniences and high-energy life of the city…

…for the rustic environs of Whitehouse Ohio.  (Population WTF?)

See that picture?  That was downtown Whitehouse on the afternoon I arrived last year.  It was so funny because we drove up the bar eatery in town, hopped out of the car, and there was just NOTHING.  No cars moving… no people walking… just nothing.  Welcome home Bluz!  I might have even seen a tumbleweed.

 Same shot, other direction.

OK, technically, Whitehouse wasn’t home, but it’s where my buddy lives, with whom I’ll be staying.  My other buddy lives in the thriving metropolis of Waterville.  I consider Waterville the thriving metropolis because it has TWO bars and a Little Caesar’s. (oops... Little Caesar's is gone.)

My old town was smaller than either of those, unless you count acres of open fields.  The Monclova “business district” consisted of an elementary school, a gas station, the post office and a flashing yellow light.

Our primary activity while I’m visiting is standing around John’s garage (aka The Dad-Cave) drinking beer and shooting the shit like you see in the opening credits of King of the Hill.

Yep.

Grilling is the other pastime.  John is a real Grillmaster.  I talked to him last week and learned that he has a new grill and has thus far planned to grill a brisket, a pork loin, chicken quarters and steaks.  There may also be various potatoes or vegetables involved, which I consider merely diversionary.  The more others fill up on veggies, the more meat for me.

The nights out there are incredibly quiet.  Away from the glare of the city lights, I can reacquaint myself with the stars.  That picture at the top of the post?  That’s right across the street from where John lives.  It’s all just so peaceful.

We have tickets for Friday night to go see the world famous Toledo Mudhens. 

Toledo’s most famous export, besides Tony Packo’s hot dogs.

Naturally, the only time rain is in the forecast is Friday and Saturday night.  But we didn’t have any choice on the game… Friday night is the only time the Hens will be in town while I’m there.

One of the things I love about going back home is the bar prices, especially in comparison to Baltimore. 

For example, when John picks me up at Detroit’s airport (flying Southwest to Detroit is about half the price of flying directly into Toledo) we head straight back to a local bar back in Waterville or Whitehouse.  John’s dad usually joins us, as does Rik.  We’ll each get lunch, along with 2 or 3 beers apiece.  The bill comes to like $25-$30.   I just cackle like a fiend and grab it.  In Baltimore, lunch for 2 in my customary downtown bar, with NO drinks, costs about the same.  Going home lets me be all Big Spender!

Domestic bottled beers are usually around $1.50, all the time.  Dinner specials are great too… all you can eat fish, 25-cent tacos, $5.00 hamburger and fries (for a burger the size of your head)… if we’re not grilling out, we’re eating a bar somewhere.

At least once while I’m there, we try to do a little pond fishing.  (With permission, not like the time in this story.)  Last year, we caught a few nice bass, but mostly pulled out nothing but small bluegills, so we just caught and released. 

Another activity will be holding the Whitehouse Cornhole Championships.  Now before you get your eyebrows all raised, by “cornhole”, I’m referring to the beanbag-toss game, as opposed to anything else that may have happened in the movie “Deliverance.”

I’d never heard of this game until about 5 years ago, when I visited my sister in Cincinnati and this game was all the rage.  The name comes from how they stuff the tossing bags with dried corn, and try to throw it through a hole in a board from 30 feet away.  It’s like horseshoes, without the chance for serious injury.  We love playing Cornhole, mostly because you can play it with a beer in your hand.

John, throwing some Cornhole, while Bluz Sister awaits her turn.  OK, so the beers weren't in hand, but they were close by.

Now, you can see people playing Cornhole in stadium parking lots all over the country, and even order your own equipment in football team colors.

Speaking of Cincinnati, we may try to take a road trip to visit my aforementioned sister, to take part in the Intra-State Cornhole World Series.  Two years ago, my sister and I destroyed Rik and my brother-in-law something like 10 games to 1.  It was brutal, especially the way my sister rubbed it in on Rik.  Losing to her (and me) at anything bothers him down to a molecular level.

So yeah, I’m really looking forward to this year’s trip.  Now about the blogging…

I had this blog last year when I went out there, but what I didn’t have were readers, so I didn’t have to worry about posting.  This year I’m going to try to post some updates and pics and stuff from my buddy’s computer.  He has a Mac, so that should automatically make my posts more hip, dazzling and graphically pleasing, providing I can work the damned thing.  There’s a lot of “down time” out there, like mornings before it’s time to start drinking.  Anyway, I’ll make it up as I go.

As if I haven’t been doing that all along…

The Elf and the Leprechaun

This Friday, I’m making my annual pilgrimage back to the farms of Northwest Ohio, where I grew up.  I’m going back to see my best buddies… the guys with whom we started The Barn.  It’ll be a nice long trip, going out Friday, staying the week and returning the following Sunday.  It’s a total “Guys Week”, which is something I need once in a while.  Sometimes you just have to get away to drink, burp, scratch yourself, drink some more, see ballgames, play some Wii, do some fishing and grill every meal.

 Three old men, in their natural habitat: L-R Bluz, Rik, and John.

Both of the guys I’ll see out there, John and Rik, have families.  When I first left town, John’s two boys were very young.  I pretty much missed seeing them grow up.  Even though I was relatively close by in Cleveland, my life was just jammed with working.  My few vacations were usually spent visiting my parents, so I didn’t get back to Ohio very often.  It was worse, once I moved to Albany.  I probably only saw the guys twice in 7 years… when they came out for my wedding, and when I went back home for Brill’s.  It was too far to drive and I sure didn’t have the cash to be flying back and forth, especially after getting married.

Once the marriage ended though, I was determined to reconnect.  By this time, Rik had two young daughters.  I may have missed John’s boys growing up, but I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen with Rik’s kids too.

When I first went back in 1997, Rik’s oldest, Kia, was a 6 or 7-year-old leprechaun.  She was a redhead, like her dad, and was likewise self-assured and fearless.  Rik told me a story of looking out to their field one day, when Kia couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4, and saw her standing on top of one of their horses (a gentle old mare) reaching to pick an apple out of a tree for the both of them to share. 

Outside of from when she was a baby, I first saw her at Brill’s wedding the year before.  We got along splendidly, even sharing a dance to Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”.

Kia and I at Brill's wedding in 1996.  Notice the two cups full of  little angel ornaments.  Kia and another girl were picking them all up off the tables because they thought they were unwanted.

The younger one, Kyrie, was a little 2-year old elf with white-blond hair.  I saw her at the wedding too, but she was barely a toddler.  She didn’t remember me, of course, but she saw that her sister paid me a lot of attention, so she did as well. 

 The girls, from my first visit in 1997.

Those first couple times I went out to visit, those two girls climbed me like a jungle gym.  I don’t think Kyrie’s feet touched the ground the entire week… she was always either on my lap, on my shoulders, or riding on my hip.  The both of them had me completely wrapped around their little fingers.  I’d show up with presents for them, usually CDs or videos of Brittney Spears or the boy band du jour.  Their dad told me it would take him a week to reprogram them after one of my visits.

 Same visit in 1997... Uncle Bluz plays with the Gar-Girls.

I didn’t care.  I would leave there every time with my heart all filled up.  It’s like, when a little kid gives you that blast of love, it’s just so pure and unrestrained that it just knocks you for a loop.  If you’re a parent yourself, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.  I bet it’s what keeps you going during the crabby, crying, stressful times.

The Gar-Girls, as their dad called them, were smart enough to know that they could get away with most anything when I was there.  I remember that first year, they had me sleeping on a foldout couch in the split-level den, right off the kitchen.  Early one morning, (like 8-ish, which is early when you’ve been up drinking and carousing all night) I heard a noise and opened one eye.  I could see, backlit from the kitchen, the little elf peering down at me from between the dowels of the border railing.

I waved to her and she came running down.  She put on the TV and hopped into the bed beside me. 

“Uncle Bluz,” she said, (my buddies and I are all “uncles” to each other’s kids), “can I have some cereal and watch cartoons?”

I said, “Is that what you usually do?”

She said, “Yes.”

It was fine with me, so off she went to grab a box of cereal.  She returned with it and we sat up in bed to watch TV.  Shortly, the leprechaun came down too, and hopped into the bed on my other side.

Now this was Living Large… sitting there with two adorable little chilluns snuggled up to me, munching cereal and watching cartoons, the very picture of family happiness.

Then the mama came down.  “Kyrie!  What are you doing with cereal downstairs???”

Uh oh.  Busted.  Apparently, she wasn’t exactly allowed to have cereal down there.  Tricked by the Gar-girls, I was.  Live and learn, the mama said.

I never knew how much fun it could be to be around little kids.  Every time I visited, one of them always did something that just slayed me.

I used to always show up there wearing my Steelers stuff… shirts, hats, whatever.  One time we were visiting at John’s house and Kyrie found a Steelers pillow there.  She brought it over to me and said, “Uncle Bluz, he-ews your pillow.”

I said, “That’s not my pillow, that belongs to Uncle John,”

She said, “But it’s got the staws on it…”

Later, she asked me, “Do you wear hats all the time because you’re bald?”

OK, I get it… kids will say anything… no filter.  But sometimes it’s just so damned cute!

That same trip, I learned that they call cinnamon gum “hot gum.”  So I was chewing some gum of my own and Kyrie asked if she could have some.  After checking with Dad, (Uncle Bluz learns fast) I said "of course".

She asked me, “Is it hot gum?”

I said “no.”

She said, “Well is it warm?”

I was no more good…

The Gar-girls were as different as night and day.  Kia, as I mentioned, was always the independent one, bold, brassy and the world's foremost authority on everything, ever since she could talk.  She was also expert at work avoidance, with more reasons than you can imagine for why she couldn’t possibly do her chores at that particular moment. 

When she was 10, she was allowed to fly out visit me in Baltimore for a couple days.  I swear, we did more things in town than I’d done in the 4 preceding years I lived here.  We went to an Orioles game, the National Aquarium, the Inner Harbor with the ESPN Zone and Hard Rock Café, bowling, ice-skating, swimming with my brother’s family… I was worn out, although not so worn out that I agreed to her request that we take a cab to go the (mere) 5 blocks from the Harbor back to the subway.

So as we were sitting at the airport, waiting for her return flight to board, I asked her, “So, what was your favorite part of the trip?”

She said, “Staying home watching movies.”

Now, she tells me.  Hell, I could have saved about $200 and just rented some videos.  Actually, I think her favorite part was that she got to come and her sister didn’t.

 Kia was a born horse-girl.  This is from 1999 when she was competing in the county fair.  She did well, if not as well as she expected.  She ascribed the lack of a clean sweep of wins on her part to a complete lack of evaluation skills on the part of the judges.

Sister Kyrie was another story.  This child was the drama queen and fashion plate from day one.  The kid was a natural poser.  I used to take a lot of pictures when I came out and both girls loved to have their pictures taken.  But Kyrie used to pose like she’d been modeling for years.

I did not pose this child.  I picked up the camera and this is what she did.

 Who knows where she picked this stuff up, at age 3!

Kyrie had a willful streak as well, but if you ever raised your voice to her, she would just dissolve into tears, looking like you just killed her puppy.  It was quite an effective defense mechanism… on me, anyway.  I think her folks got past it pretty quickly.

Sadly, Kyrie never got to come out for a visit… 9/11 occurred shortly after Kia’s visit, so that put the kibosh on any more plane rides for the following years.  Then the next thing you know, the girls went flying past that age where the grownups just aren’t that interesting any more.

So on this year’s visit, like my visits of the last several years, the girls will come by for a quick visit, then they’ll be off to hang out with their friends.

This is Kyrie, last fall, with Daddy Rik.

Kia is off on her own now, but unfortunately there is some bad blood between her and her family.  I probably won’t see her this time.  I suspect that willful streak has something to do with it.  

Kyrie is 15, but could pass for much older.  They have a brother now too, Jake, who is a big, strapping 10-year old, who can also pass for older.  The boy doesn’t say much, but I ascribe that to not being able to get a word in edgewise for most of his life.  Kid’s going to be a hell of an athlete though, like his old man.

All the kids seem so grown up, but I swear, no matter how old they get, I can’t help but see them like this:

From 2001, at our Barn Reunion.  This shot was in their actual horse barn, while we're sitting in front of the bar from our old Barn.

As I have more pictures I wanted to use than I had ways to work them in, I’m just going to run them.

She's ready for her magazine cover, I guess.

She's got hops, too!

Playing dress-up with a friend's Jasmine costume.

Playing "Cornhole" last year with Uncle John.  And winning.

Beauty and the Beast.

Bad Moon Howling

Pinky spent the night at her place yesterday so I had the night to myself.  After catching up on all the crap I had DVR’d while hockey games were on, I decided to put on a movie.

As you may know, I love horror movies, especially monster movies.  It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen one of my all time favorites in quite a while:

Note:  If you have never seen this movie and you do have plans to, stop reading right now, because I will be discussing dialogue and plot points.  By all means, see it!  It’s freakin’ brilliant.  And I can’t be too concerned about spoilers when the movie’s been out since 1981.  

As much as I love horror movies, Pinky hates them.  She gets squeamish any time someone dies on a TV show, or God forbid, they show a dead body.  It’s kind of hard to have a scary movie without those.

But still I try to find an angle to get her to watch the good ones with me, like American Werewolf in London.  So I’m thinking, “Maybe if we just zap the first killing, (which is by far, the worst one), she’ll go for it.”

The thing I love about this movie is that it is as funny as it is scary, so much so that it John Landis couldn’t get it made until he became a big enough director.  It wasn’t until he made Animal House and The Blues Brothers that he could persuade the movie execs, who didn’t know how to market the movie, that it would draw. 

So I figured I’d watch this movie I love, with an eye towards whether I can self edit it enough to make it Pinky-Palatable. 

The premise of the movie is that a werewolf attacks 2 young guys backpacking across England.  One guy, David, (played by former “Pepper” David Naughton) is wounded while his friend, Jack, (played by Griffin Dunne) is killed.  As everyone knows, those that are wounded by a werewolf are destined to become one.  So at various intervals, Jack appears to David to try to convince him to kill himself. 

One of my favorite lines comes right at the beginning, when David is in the hospital.  Two nurses are lingering in his room when a very proper British doctor comes in and wants them to go on about their business:

Doctor:  Surely you perform some function here at the hospital?

Nurse:  Yes, Doctor.

Doctor:  Then get on with it.

I used to actually use that line when I was a store manager and my staff was loafing, but unfortunately, it didn’t come off nearly as much “dry wit” as it did “me being a prick”.

When Jack first comes to visit David, he appears in the state he was in immediately after he was attacked.  In other words, pretty much shredded.  It is an incredible make-up effect.

It’s funny because the actor, plays Jack so cheerfully, even when he looks grotesque.  And all you can do is focus on that one little wiggly piece of flesh hanging off his neck.   Nope, there’s no way Pinky could handle the wiggly piece.

The nurse that ends up taking care of David is played by the very yummy Jenny Agutter.

According to the commentary track to the DVD, both young actors had it bad for Miss Agutter, but apparently she wouldn’t give either one the time of day.

She patiently tells him that he’s dreaming and his dead friend couldn’t possibly be talking to him.  Which brings me to the dreams… David keeps having these bizarre dreams, the worst of which involves his family getting killed by a horde of Nazi-themed ghouls while he is forced to watch.

Nope, can’t have Pinky watching that one… I’d have to edit that one too.  Which is a shame because it sets of one of the best bits… As David wakes with a start from that dream, he finds yummy Nurse Alex at his bedside.  She decides he needs a little sunlight and as she pulls the blinds open, another Nazi Ghoul pops out and stabs her repeatedly.  Then he wakes up again, saying, “Holy shit!”

First time I saw that sequence, it was a huge shock, but it was brilliantly done.  David wasn’t the only one going “holy shit!”

Nurse Alex takes David home to her flat… I wonder what kind of HMO he has… I want some of that…  Then it’s time for the love scene.  The music they used for it, “Moondance” by Van Morrison, was perfect.  Believe it or not, seeing the movie was the first time I’d ever heard it.  I was still on college radio at the time so I started playing it regularly after that.

After the lovin’, Jack appears to David again.  He’s still shredded, but this time he’s starting to turn green.  Again, he tries to get David to kill himself, before he kills others.  This is when David comes up with my favorite line in the movie: “I will not be threatened by a walking meatloaf!”

The high mark of the entire movie comes when Alex leaves David at her apartment while she goes to work, and that evening, he turns into the werewolf.

The transformation scene is breathtaking.  Every scrap of the change was done right there, physically, on screen under bright lights.  Remember, this was 1981, there was no computer-generated animation.  You see his hand and feet elongate, the hair sprout, ears pop out, and most nauseatingly, the nose push out into a snout. 

And even amid all this, they still bring the funny.  As he’s changing, David looks up at the Micky Mouse doll Jack had been holding earlier and says, “I didn’t mean to call you meatloaf, Jack.”

Now we’re onto the montage of werewolf attacks.  This part, I think Pinky could tolerate.  For the most part, all you see is a quick cut of the wolf’s jaws, then you’re off to the next scene.  Although there is a rather harrowing sequence in the London Tube, but it is not bloody.  Then the next thing you know, David wakes up naked at the zoo, in the wolf cage.

Escape from the zoo is funny, as the naked David pinches some balloons from a young boy who is wearing an Angus Young schoolboy suit.  The boy then goes up to his mum and says, “A naked American man stole my balloons.”

OK, that’s not really funny unless you see it.

David doesn’t remember anything from the night and is alarmed when he hears that there have been 6 horrible murders across London.  He approaches a bobby to try to get arrested, but surprisingly, the copper won’t arrest him.  He tells him to watch his language though.  Figuring this was his ticket to a nice secure jail cell, he starts yelling to the crowd:

“Queen Elizabeth was a man!

Winston Churchill was full of shit!

Shakespeare’s French!  (I love that one…)

Fuck!  Shit!  Fuck!  Shit!”

But the cop won’t arrest him.  Finally, he ditches Nurse Alex and spots Jack waving him into a porno movie.  By this time, Jack is nothing but a skeleton in a parka.

The movie is hilarious… horrible 70’s music and style, bad porn ‘staches, and in the middle of the darkened theater sit all 6 of the people David just killed… all are a slashed up bloody mess.  Now David is being tag-teamed by all 7 of them, happily suggesting various ways to kill himself. 

David facetiously thanks Jack for this “meeting”.  The subway guy turns and says, “This isn’t Mr. Goodman’s idea.  He is your friend, where as I am a victim of your carnivorous lunar activities.”

It’s all so perfectly buttoned up and British.  How is it that the British are able to speak without moving their jaws?

Turns out, David is still too much of a wuss to kill himself and later that night, goes werewolf again right there in the porno theater.  At one point a bobby goes in to investigate the disturbance and finds the wolf gorging himself on a bloody lump of human remains.

Ewww.  There’s another non-Pinky moment.

The bobby exits immediately and slams down the roller door outside the theater.  As a crowd forms and more bobbies appear to help hold the door, the wolf breaks through and immediately bites the head off the police inspector, which goes bouncing off the hood of a car and into the street.  OK, going to have to edit that too… Pinky is not down with the rolling heads.

Now all hell breaks loose as the wolf runs free across Piccadilly Circus, initiating some epic car crashes and carnage.  The cool thing is that they really did this right in Piccadilly Circus, filming from 2-4am.

The final scene plays out in a darkened alley where the wolf has been cornered.  Nurse Alex breaks through the police line (the police aren’t having a very successful night, are they?) and runs down to talk to “David.”

Tearfully, she tells him she loves him.  You see the wolf’s snarl relax just a bit, as if all the anger has left and he’s about to curl up in a corner.  An instant later, he roars and lunges for Alex, as shots ring out from the police.  Alex melts into tears as the camera reveals David’s bullet-riddled body.  Then…

Jump cut to the credits, as the most cheerful versions of “Blue Moon,” ever, is played.  (The doo-wop version by The Marcels)  In the theater, you’re just sitting there going “WTF?”  You just saw the guy you’ve been rooting for during the last 90 minutes get killed right in front of his girlfriend.  No wonder the movie execs didn’t know what to do with this flick.  It goes against all the rules of storytelling.  But that’s what makes it great.

Not for Pinky though.  I realized I won’t be able to sell this one in a million years.

The Pinky Version:  Two guys walk across northern England.  David is in the hospital.  Cut to the love scene.  Now David is naked at the zoo.  He calls home from a phone booth and goes into a porno theater.  The End.

One last story… I saw this with my buddy Brill when it first came out.  It was a damp, foggy day and when we got home, Brill had to walk two lots down to his house.  There was a big abandoned field in between and it was all overgrown.  For a moment, I had this wicked thought that I should quietly run around behind the lot and creep up into the field.  When Brill walked by, I would howl, like in the movie.

Then I remembered Brill’s heart condition… probably wouldn’t have been the greatest idea.  Poor Brill would have keeled over right there.

Cue The Marcels… "Bow ba ba bow ba bow ba bow bow, dang-a-dang dang, da  ding-a-dong ding Blue Moon…"

Breaking News: Fault Accepted in Penguins Playoff Failure

Scene: Press Conference at the Darwinfish2 Offices

At the Podium: Penguins fan known as “bluzdude”.  He is wearing a dirty, torn Penguins tee shirt and a Penguins ball cap, which is askew.  Though freshly showered, he appears to have a 2-day beard growth, a bad mullet and looks haggard.  Girlfriend “Pinky” stands just off his right shoulder, looking glum.

Full Text of the Prepared Statement:

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, members of the blogosphere, Penguins fans everywhere and the players and coaches of the Pittsburgh Penguins,

As you know, on the night of May 12^th, the Pittsburgh Penguins lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Semi-finals to the Montreal Canadiens.  I stand here today, before you, to state unequivocally before you, that I alone accept the blame for this tragic turn of events.

Some may say that it was poor goaltending that led to this playoff ouster.  Other say it was a lack of scoring by the Penguins’ young stars.  Still others point out a lack of defensive responsibility.  But I’m here to tell you that the Penguins lost because of my lackluster effort in Mojo Execution.

While it has always been my intent to represent the Penguins organization with class, attention to detail and devotion, I admit that I was off my game for this series.  I allowed myself to be put into positions where I was doing what was best for me and what felt good at the time, instead of focusing on what was best for the team.  I was out performed, out rooted and out mojo’d by the Montreal fans.  That is something that just can’t happen and I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my days.

I’ll take your questions now.

Reporter: What did you do to cause the playoff collapse?

bluzdude: First of all, I admit that I was completely irresponsible for celebrating too hard over the loss of the Washington Capitals.  There was smiling, giggling and even the posting of jokes on my own blog.  This just can’t be allowed to happen.  And I know better than that!  I know that celebrating a foe’s defeat, especially a defeat to your future opponent, is a complete invitation to the Hockey Gods to produce a karmic smackdown.

Reporter:  What actions are you taking to prevent such an outbreak in the future?

bluzdude:  Immediately following this press conference, I’m checking myself into the Pat Robertson International Clinic for Kicking Schadenfreude, more commonly known as “PRICKS”.

Reporter:  Were there other areas you can specify where you were responsible for the team’s failure?

bluzdude:   During the Montreal series and even going back to the Ottawa series, I was not able to properly identify game jersey or tee shirt trends.  I went to the well too many times with the same jersey where I should have been able to better read the data and make adjustments.

Reporter:  What about in-game adjustments?

bluzdude:  In-game apparel changes never work.  The only recognizable effect comes from pre-game preparation and I have to admit that mine was severely lacking.  I should have been able to spot that each jersey I wore was only good for one win.  Our losses came when I tried to wring a second win from the same jersey.  It was a rookie mistake and I should have been able to read the tea leaves there to make game-to-game adjustments.

Reporter:  Was there anything else?

bluzdude:  Yes, probably the worst thing.  (heavy sigh)  I was unprepared for the start of Game 7.  When the puck was dropped, I was still at my computer, pecking away on my puny little blog.  Then during the time I was in my room, putting on my jersey, Sid took that boarding penalty.  And when I went into the kitchen to pour my night’s libation, Montreal scored their first goal. 

I know it was only 30 seconds into the game but that, my friend, is a lack of preparation on my part and like I said, it’s something that I just can’t allow to happen.

Reporter:  Is it true that you improperly touched your Penguins Gnome before the Pens’ first home loss?

bluzdude:  No, that’s enough for right now.  My agent will have more for you in the morning.  All I can say right now, to the boys in the locker room and the entire Penguins Nation, is that I’m sorry.  I know better than to behave like this and I will do everything in my power to make it up to you next season.  Thank you and goodnight.

The Sitcom - Ballpark Edition

Last night I went to see the Baltimore Orioles/Seattle Mariners game at Camden Yards.  (That’s why it took me so long to answer your comments from the prior post.  I can’t access Blogger comments from work.)  Normally when I want to see a game, I just walk down after work and get tickets at the window.  But last week, my friend Kelly said she had a pair of tickets from her mother’s workplace and asked if I wanted to go.  These seats are 10 rows behind home plate, so of course I wanted to go.  There’s nothing like a baseball game on a nice, crisp, spring night.

With the Orioles current record in mind, even the Oriole Bird is about to jump.

But on the other hand…

Shot from inside my rain poncho.

This was not a nice, crisp, spring night.  We had rain all afternoon, then off and on all night.  What better kind of weather is there to see a couple of doormats have at it?  It was also a good chance to see Ken Griffey Jr. before he finally retires and Ichiro Suzuki, before he actually smiles.

Griffey at the Plate.

Little known fact:  Ken Griffey Jr. is the only player to have hit the famous Warehouse in right field.  He did it in 1993 during the All Star Game Home Run Derby.  No player has ever hit it during a game.

As always, I was hoping to snag a foul ball, but nothing was anywhere close.  (For full details on my other home run/foul ball catching attempts and exploits, see this post from last June.)  It was just as well… it’s hard to catch a ball with a poncho over your arms.  Perhaps I could have just made a big apron-basket out of it and hope it didn’t plunge right through and break my toe.  I tell you, it may have kept me dry, but wearing that thing was like being in a full body-condom.

Not amused.

It wasn’t the most exciting game ever, but we have ways of keeping ourselves amused. 

First, I noticed that the Orioles have two guys named Miguel Tejada and Ty Wiggington batting back to back.  A guy named Chone Figgins was playing for the Mariners.  I then posited that the O’s should trade for Figgins, for no other reason that he can bat immediately before Miguel and Wiggington, so that the lineup card can read, “Figgi, Miggi and Wiggi.”

My friend Kelly is the same person with whom I’m collaborating on stories for a prospective sitcom based on her life.  I wrote about the development of one of our stories in this post from March, the one about the “bacon-wrapped kittens.”

Because just about everything we do ends up as a sitcom idea, it wasn’t long before we started brainstorming ideas for ballpark-related things we could have her TV clone “Kelly” do.  This is what we came up with:

• “Kelly” becomes a beer vendor.  Makes one trip up the stairs, gets tired and begins working on the beers herself.  Also tries selling them to the players in the dugout, especially the cute ones.
• Tiring of vending beer, “Kelly” attempts to return her unsold, unconsumed-by-self beers and while looking for a place to stash them, finds the costumes the people use for the famous Hot Dog Races.  (In fact, Camden Yards does the Hot Dog Races on the scoreboard, which we consider lame; although not as lame as the Giant President-Head Races they have in the Washington Nationals’ park.)  

All parks should do like they do in Milwaukee and have giant racing hot dogs, sausages and brats.)

Kelly gets into one of the costumes and gets onto the field for the race.  Except she doesn’t really race, she kind of chases the cute shortstop around the infield.  The other sausages start chasing her around and they all end up in a giant sausage pile.  (Cassie, you can play a sausage, if you want.  I know how you want to act.)  Then the cops show up and she runs to elude them, until they tase her.  It doesn’t work, of course.  She just picks the darts off her giant sausage costume and continues running, finally disappearing through an outfield wall door.

• “Kelly” then finds herself in the stadium sound booth.  She watches as the dude plays appropriate song snippets for players come up to bat.  Dude says, “Hey do me a favor, just stay here during the inning change, until I get back.  I have to take a leak.”  “Kelly” agrees, but the next inning starts before the dude gets back.  So “Kelly” starts playing completely inappropriate songs… “Muskrat Love”, “Dancing Queen,” The Carpenters, the complete Justin Bieber catalog…  The possibilities are endless.  Players are completely freaked out.  No one wants to go up to bat with Celine Dion singing, "Cuz I'm your ladyyyyyyyyyy!"
• “Kelly” spots a telephone in the sound booth, labeled “Bullpen”.  So she calls down to the bullpen to chitchat.

“Hey, how’s it going?  Whatcha up to?  Eh, I’m just hanging out…” 

Meanwhile the team’s manager is trying to call down to get someone to warm up and keeps getting a busy signal, begins smashing shit in the dugout…

I figure that’s enough for one episode.  I don’t know how we’re going to get all that done on our budget.  (Our Budget = 12 cents, a subway pass, the iron from a Monopoly game and a donut.) 

But since we’ll never actually make this thing, why not dream big?

Apology:  For those uninterested in anything sports-related, let me direct you to some Bluz Classic from March 2009, i.e. The Time of No Readership.  I did a two-part series on great movie villains:

Part 1 – Monsters

Part 2 – Comedic Villains, Character Villains