So, you're saying it starts with an earthquake, birds, snakes, and an aeroplane?

To be honest, the “how” of society’s downward spiral has never really interested me.  Listen, if you want to know how Republicans are ruining everything, read the New York Times.  If you want to know how Democrats are ruining everything, read the Wall Street Journal.  If you want to know things and get a side of topless women, read the The Sun (UK).  If you want to know more about any of the Kardashian sisters, kill yourself – you’re part of the problem.

That said, I’ve always been fascinated by the potential end results of that downward spiral, be it physical destruction or totalitarian control.  Post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction have always had a prominent place on my bookshelf.  Among my favorites:

‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ – George Orwell

Yes, I know this is the predictable top of the list.  There’s a good reason for that: over fifty years after its publication, its relevance and poignancy have only grown.  Try naming books that can make that claim.  You won’t come up with many.  I’ll get to ‘Lord of the Flies’ in a minute.  ‘Ender’s Game’ might be on its way, but needs a few more rings around its trunk (and an intergalactic war to break out).  Semi-related, has anybody done a scholarly paper comparing the military training of select gifted children in ‘Ender’s Game’ to the AAU basketball circuit yet?  We need to get some English major / sports fan on that one.

‘A Canticle of Leibowitz’ – Walter Miller

Is that obscure enough for you, person who was snarky about my “predictable” mention of ‘Ninteen Eight-Four’?

‘Fahrenheit 451′ – Ray Bradbury

(Suck it, predictability-complainer-guy)

Two complaints about people my age: Amidst a surge in anti-intellectualism, we’ve quickly forgotten that, even within the past decade, people still really, actually, physically burn books.  We’re not nearly as evolved as we’d like to think.  (Yes, I will get to ‘Lord of the Flies’ in a minute; I promise).  Second, we don’t give Ray Bradbury nearly enough love.  There was a time when the sci-fi / fantasy genre had not yet been flooded with a bunch of mediocre tripe about hormonal werewolves and vampires, and the still more hormonal teenage girls who find them preferable mates to teenage boys.  People told stories that gave readers things to think about other than which of the monsters that met Abbot and Costello they’d most like to bang.

"Screw Team Edward AND Team Jacob; TEAM FRANK, BITCHES!"

Bradbury told great stories – ‘The Illustrated Man’ alone has a bunch of really good ones.

He even wrote an episode of the original ‘Twilight Zone’.  I love the old ‘Twilight Zone’ episodes.  Are they often preachy and/or dated?  Sure.  Still, there are some really good stories in that series, which has become as much a fixture of my New Year’s Day as my hangover.

‘Lord of the Flies’ – William Golding

Kids who borderline-enjoyed high school English seemed to fall into two distinct camps: ‘Catcher in the Rye’ and ‘Lord of the Flies’.  I know this is blasphemy in some circles – like pointing out just how much pandering Bruce Springsteen does to a New Jerseyan – but, how was this even a debate?  Real Talk: ‘Catcher’ is about an angst-y teenager coping with a messed-up world.  It’s dog-bites-man.  I wonder if it remains perennially popular for the same reason that horrendous “Tonight’s gonna be a good night” song has become ubiquitous – because it tells people exactly what they want to hear at exactly the time they want to hear it.  I’m guessing the general perception of the book would be much different if people read it for the first time in their adulthoods, rather than tenth grade.

"We would totall f--- those Hunger Games punks up"

Plus, with the recent popularity of ‘The Hunger Games’, it bears repeating that ‘Lord of the Flies’ was an OG of kids-killing-other-kids stories – and in ‘Flies’, they didn’t need the construct of a “game” to do it.  It’s easy to say that kids would go around off-ing each other if the big, bad grown-ups made them.  It’s a much harsher (but no less true) look at human nature to say that, absent adult supervision, they’d probably get around to it on their own.  While I’m on that, how has nobody mentioned that ‘Hunger Games’ is a blatant rip-off of ‘Battle Royale’?  I’m not one to knock the hustle, but I’m just saying…

‘The Stand’ – Stephen King

If you can’t stand the brevity of ‘Lord of the Flies’, try ‘The Stand’.

Question: With the surge in nerd-chic, where comic books and ‘Star Wars’ have gone very mainstream, is it now “cool” to be a Stephen King fan?  Or would people who have a mint-condition copy of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man Meets Bat-Man #2′ look down on me for having read the entire ‘Dark Tower’ series?  You might be thinking “No such comic series existed” or “Idiot, one of those is Marvel and one is DC”.  The next time you look down on my taste in books, I want you to remember that you thought those thoughts.

‘The Road’ – Cormack McCarthy

I recommend this with some pause, and not just because it was featured in Oprah’s Book Club.  ‘The Road’ is a brutal book – not just in terms of subject matter, but also matters of form.  It’s a difficult read.  McCarthy often loves run-on sentences, and hates punctuation.  Also, if you’re the type of reader that needs every question to be answered and every loose end to be tied up by the last page (not that there’s anything wrong with that), don’t bother with this one.  McCarthy doesn’t even tell you the main characters’ names.  Caveats and qualifications aside, I thought this was a really rewarding, albeit exhausting, read.

‘The Giving Tree’ – Shel Silverstein

“But, Dave, ‘The Giving Tree’ isn’t about the end of the world.”

Try telling that to the tree.

"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road..."

With a “Good Riddance” from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (the derisive kind, not the kind that was everybody’s graduation song circa 1998), the former New Jersey Nyets ended their affiliation with the Garden State and took the Goethals / Verrazano over the Brooklyn.  I hope their experience on the Staten Island Expressway was as rage-inducing as every one I’ve ever had.  Seriously, the SIE is the most misnamed roadway in the country; there is NOTHING “Express” about it.  But I digress.

Sadly, my home state is, once again, bereft of professional basketball.

Or is it?The above photo features professional basketball being played in Newark, New Jersey.  Many of you may be confused on a number of levels, so let me answer a few of the questions you might be pondering.

• “I vaguely recall something called the WNBA.  That’s still around?” – Apparently, yes.
• “I think there was a New York team, but I don’t remember a New Jersey one.  The NY-Metro area can support two WNBA franchises?” – Of course not.  Madison Square Garden, the home of the New York Liberty, is currently undergoing massive renovations.  The Knicks and Rangers print money from the Fall through the Spring, leaving only the Summer months for major construction.  This posed an issue for the Liberty, as the WNBA now plays its schedule from May through September.  The Liberty decided to move the party, via PATH Train, over to Newark throughout the three-year MSG renovation process.
• “Hold up.  You’re telling me a New York team with an advertisement for a Connecticut casino on its jerseys is playing in New Jersey?” – It doesn’t make sense to me either, but, yeah.
• “So this is only temporary?” – Yes.

But does it have to be?

New Jersey has a rich basketball history.  We’ve bred some great NBA players, from The Big Aristotle to J.R. Smith.  We’re also (begrudgingly) home to Snooki, possibly the only person alive more eager to take as many shots as possible than the aforementioned J.R. Smith.  In fact, if the Liberty stick around, we could even re-name the team the New Jersey Snookies – a much more intimidating team name than the ‘Mystics’ or ‘Sparks’.

(Confession: I had to go to Wikipedia to come up with two team names.)

I’m not sure I could deal with headlines reading “Liberty Leaves Garden State”.  What’s next?  “Freedom Flees Garden State”?  I can do this alliteration thing all day.  Justice jets.  Unity Un-Friends.  All day.

So the Nets’ Russian owner wanted to move closer to Brighton Beach.  That was out of our hands.  Maybe, New Jersey can unite and convince the Liberty to stick around.  For all of the flack it takes, Jersey does have some advantages over New York.  We have pork roll.  Our gas taxes are much lower.  The mayor of Newark, the city in which the Liberty currently play, is a superhero.  It’s not even a contest between Mayor Booker and that other mayor.

How about it, Liberty?  Keep basketball in New Jersey!

Alright, then.  Well played, Mr. Hudak.

You can follow Andy on Twitter @AndyHudak.

"What? Me worry."

You know things are going poorly for a sports franchise when its ownership is being sued for a billion dollars, and its fans desperately want those owners to lose the lawsuit.  Such was the case for the Mets, the Wilpons, and the recently settled lawsuit with the Madoff Trustee.  With a week until Opening Day, there is a dearth of optimism in Flushing.  Jose Reyes is no longer a Met.  Jason Bay still is.  Team doctors diagnosed one of the team’s young stars with an affliction that may or may not even exist.  The team hasn’t posted at least 80 wins since George W. Bush was still President.  As a Yankee fan, I’m able to step back and look at the situation objectively.  Things may not be all sunshine and puppy dogs in Mets-Land, but the situation might not be as dire as Mets fans are inclined to think.

If You Can Pitch, You Can Win

Don't Mess With The Johan

And the Mets might be able to pitch a little bit, shaky bullpen notwithstanding.  The Mets initial starting rotation last season was Pelfrey, Niese, Dickey, Young, and Capuano.  Compare that to this year: Johan Santana is back, and has looked pretty good in Port St. Lucie.  Niese was inconsistent last year, but has shown some signs of improvement.  You know, more or less, what you’re going to get from R.A. Dickey and Dillon Gee.  Pelfrey is going to be pitching against the back end of other teams’ rotations, instead of their aces.  Yes, their bullpen still has a bunch of guys who might be in Witness Protection.  Still, even the prohibitive favorite to win the NL East (Philly, -225) can’t hit.  Especially in the Senior Circuit, I feel like the Mets have good enough starting pitching to keep them in games.

You Can’t Move the Goalposts, But You Can Move the Fences

Mistakes were made in the construction of Citi Field.  The Wilpons were so hung up on owning the Brooklyn Dodgers that one of the Mets’ greatest players ever autographing a wall was viewed as Lexington and Concord-style revolutionary.  Architects conveniently forgot the kerfuffle that culminated in the Detroit Tigers moving the cavernous Comerica Park fences in to more “reasonable” depths.

If you’ve watched any Mets Spring Training, you’ve likely heard somebody mention “Field 7” – the practice field with fence depths that mimic the new-look Citi Field.  Fences in both gaps have been moved in, and hopes are this will throw a bone to players – most notably David Wright – who struggled within the confines of the more pitcher-friendly dimensions.

Bang, bang, bang on the door? No, I was thinking of a different B-52...

Plus, the Mets might end up having some good, young hitting.  Despite egregious mishandling by the Mets training staff, Ike Davis looks like he’s going to be a very good player, on both sides of the ball.  Lucas Duda has shown the potential to hit BOMBS.  (Side note / prediction: If the Mets are completely out of contention at the trade deadline, Duda will end up going to an AL team in need of a left-handed bat.  His defense is suspect, at best, and he has greater value to a team that can use him as a DH.)  A middle of a line-up with some combination of Wright, Davis, Duda, and Daniel Murphy has a chance to produce some runs.

Depth is going to be a problem for the Mets.  Justin Turner is solid, with added value because he plays about as many positions as the Kama Sutra, but the Mets bench is fairly weak.  Even worse, a bunch of the young guys who came up from the minors, played decent ball, and helped the team weather last season’s injury problems (i.e. Duda) are now with the Big League club – the guys on the roster now are, pretty much, it.  If Mets start dropping in any meaningful number, look for Citi Field peanut vendors to get ushered out of the stands and into the bullpen.  This is a very serious concern for a team whose medical staff thinks ‘Valley Fever’ is a real thing.

At Least They’re Not the Pirates

Listen, I get it.  Mets’ fans haven’t fully recovered from 2007.  Or 2008.  Or this.  The only way team ownership could have displayed more ineptitude would have been to hire Isiah Thomas.  Things have been rough, and, as the Gin Blossoms said, “If you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down.”  Still, from where I stand over in the Bronx, the Mets have legitimate Major League talent.  Their Vegas-projected season win total (71.5) seems excessively pessimistic.  I’m not saying the Mets are going to win the pennant, but they could be fun to watch.    They do still have Ron, Keith (if it isn’t a day game), and Gary.

And, hey, only 24 more years of paying Bobby Bonilla.

1. Lists create a false sense of comprehensiveness, especially when the number of items in the list isn’t a multiple of five.  The only rational reason that a rundown of ‘Thirty-Seven Hot Young Volleyball Players’ would exist is that a thirty-eighth could not be found.  This is coming from a guy who never sets an alarm or microwave to any time ending in a five or zero.
   

   Ugh. I'd rather read '50 Worst Rolling Stone Lists'.

2. Lists treat questions of opinion as if they were matters of fact.  How many lists have you seen claiming to outline the ‘Greatest’ and ‘Best’ band, album, movie, baseball player, dog breed (German Shepherd and English Bulldog in a first-place tie, in case you were wondering), ice cream flavor, vacation destination, IPA, or lie to help get you out of work with as few questions asked as possible (two words: Explosive Diarrhea)?  If you really want to know what the best Bible verse is, steal a Bible – you can find one in every hotel room in the country- and get reading.  Form an opinion.  Stop letting any self-important asshole with a keyboard tell you what’s cool and what sucks. (…)
   

   78 WAYS??!? How about 'Remove Clothing'? Trust me, it'll work.

3. Lists complicate simple things.  I blame Cosmo for this one.  If a person were to venture to try out all of the ‘Ways to Please Your Man’ Cosmo has thrown out there, it would take no less than a year-and-a-half.  If any female has that aspiration, I have a lot of spare time and am easily found via Twitter and e-mail.  That said, it’s totally overkill; everybody knows that list is only four things long.  Related: Go to a newsstand today, and I’ll bet you that Cosmo will feature some iteration of ‘Ways to Please Your Man’, Men’s Health will have a way to ‘Lose Your Gut’, or both.  This happens as sure as the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
4. Lists often feature repetitive or extraneous items for filler.

Lists are fine for trips to the grocery store, but there’s no reason for them to make up 36.4% of all blog posts.  There’s a vast wealth of things to be written, recorded, and Photoshopped out there.  Let’s mix it up a little bit.

There has to be a point where reading makes you dumber... right?

I don’t even know where to start on this.

‘Twilight’ has spawned an entire sub-genre so depressingly vast that it warrants, not only a titled section in the book store, but a second titled section reserved for its most recent attempts to catch on with a demographic that has handed millions of dollars to Justin Bieber.  What the hell is their definition of ‘New’?  In literary terms,’Twilight’, itself, has been around for about eight minutes.

I don’t begrudge the rush to fill market demand for girl-on-ghoul chick lit.  I also understand that, whenever something works once, there will be an inevitable mad rush to do the same thing, but slightly different; frankly, I’m a little bit stunned that we never saw a few episodes of ‘Law & Order: Mall Cops’.  Still, this is ridiculous.  Shouldn’t society be a little bit concerned about an apparent bumper crop of aspiring necrophiliacs?

"I love dinner dates, just like it says on my Match.com profile."

Listen, I understand that many teenage girls deem vampires and werewolves more desirable mates than teenage boys.  That’s their prerogative, and arguments can be made to defend that position.  But, where does this end?  With the recent success of ‘The Walking Dead’, zombies have to be next, right?  ‘Zombie Romance’ would almost certainly develop a cult following among middle-aged women, intrigued by the notion of men actually willing to put a little bit of effort into eating them.

Oh God, I hope I didn’t just give anybody any ideas…

The nexus of dollar coin evil

There are a number of bad ideas with which America and its component States regularly flirt: Federal involvement in the BCS, treating sugar like booze and tobacco, Esperanto.  We take certain bad ideas, and dive in head-first – “The War on Drugs”, making the NJ State Song a track featuring the lyrics “It’s a death trap / It’s a suicide rap / We gotta get out while we’re young”.  We take some good ideas, and completely ignore or ridicule them – the metric system, widespread implementation of 24-hour time.

Aside – Can anyone give me one good reason that we don’t all operate on 24-hour, military-style time?  Do you know why the military uses 24-hour time?  Because it’s less prone to screw-ups.  Nobody has ever woken up at 1900 hrs, panicked that they were going to be late for work.

As generations of Americans get progressively dumber and dumber, why are we burdening our decaying brains with additional questions as to whether the next episode of whatever nonsense Kardashian TV show gets trotted out starts at mid-morning or late-evening?  How much ink and paper and computer memory is wasted on those two completely unnecessary letters, “AM” or “PM”?

Think about this: Computers were designed to understand that a “19-” prefix was implied in all years input in dates, just to save a little bit of computer memory.  If everything operated on 24-hour time, we would have saved the two characters that then could’ve used in dates, and would have avoided a slew of apocalyptic Y2K predictions.

Don’t give me any BS about a clock face being set for 12 hours – if we can make a face for 12 hours, we can make one for 24 hours.  This is the most common-sense change that nobody bothers discussing just because the way it is, is the way things have been done.  It’s not difficult.  I use 24-hour time on my phone, computer, watches, and everything else I own that has time options.  I’ve adjusted fine.  The day that I am unable to subtract twelve from a full number to figure out how to relay a time to others, I have much greater issues.  Rant over.

Anyway, recently I read this:

Sens. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa), John McCain (R., Ariz.) and two colleagues Tuesday are introducing legislation that would kill off the dollar bill in favor of dollar coins, touting the move as a way to cut costs over the long run.

I feel like this gets proposed every few years, and, thankfully, goes away after a few months.  With all of the money the government wastes on assorted BS, THIS is how we’re going to pinch pennies?  You’ve got to be shitting me.  Right off the top of my head, here are five reasons why widespread dollar coin use is a horrible idea:

1. Americans Don’t Want Them – According to the WSJ article quoted above, the Treasury said that 40% of the current crop of dollar coins are returned to the US Mint as “unwanted”.  UNWANTED MONEY.  Short of spraying money with an anthrax / syphilis cocktail, I can’t think of any way to make money “unwanted”.
2. Logistical Issues- One of the main reasons people don’t want to deal with dollar coins is that they’re not as convenient to carry as dollar bills.  Twenty bucks in singles is much easier to slip into a billfold than twenty dollar coins would be.  Singles have their uses (more on that in a minute), and their portability is key to their usefulness.  We live in a society where people who keep their phone on a belt clip are looked at with suspicion and derision (partly because a lot of them are our bosses).  Do we really want to open the door to everyone walking around with those train conductor change-dispensing belts?
   

   "Hold up, let me get you a couple bucks for that."

3. Europeans DO Want Them – One of the pillars of America’s national identity is our desire to not-be Europe.  We’ve banned smoking pretty much everywhere.  Men don’t carry purses (minus my buddy Bry).  Our music isn’t exclusively designed for people who enjoy doing Ecstasy.  We’re not okay with losing wars.  We hold firm to the belief that images of nudity are far more damaging to fragile young psyches than images of graphic violence.  We hate soccer, except for about two weeks every four years.  It’s ridiculous to even kick around this proposal in the afterglow the New York Football Giants being crowned champions of the sport that Americans, hating soccer so much, created to hijack the name “Football”.  Europe loves higher denomination coins.  Dollar coins would just be one more step towards the streets of America running magenta with bad track suits and personal grooming habits that would make even the cast of ‘Jersey Shore’ shudder.  Well, maybe not the JS cast… but, everyone else.
4. It Really Wouldn’t “Save” Much Money- We have an annual Federal budget that has been hanging out just north of a trillion dollars.  The reported savings from switching to dollar coins is about $5 billion over thirty years.  Just to recap, the thirty-year savings from this move represents less than one-half of one-percent of one year’s Federal spending.  I’m not saying that it doesn’t save much, so you shouldn’t do it, but this is ridiculous.  If you were to present this as a serious cost-cutting proposal to a Fortune 500 company, you would be fired before finishing your opening sentence.  It’s like blowing thousands of dollars a week on strippers, and saying you’re going to cut costs by switching from Coca-Cola to your grocery store’s generic brand – it will save money, but is blissfully ignorant of much greater issues.
   

   Without singles, this might no longer be possible.

5. Negative Impact on Stripper Economy – Speaking of exotic dancing, dollar bills are the oil that keeps the engine of the stripper economy humming along smoothly.  Pardon the pun.  Or don’t pardon it.  Doesn’t matter to me.  Listen, there are a lot of people who love staring at scantily clad-to-naked women.  It’s understandable – the female form is one of God’s / evolution’s grander accomplishments.  People may enjoy looking on excited and partying with their friends, half in-the-bag and slack-jawed leering, or using every ounce of their self-control to appear as unimpressed as possible.  Singles keep this party going.  Without $1 bills, how are young, attractive women going to “put myself through college”?  And can you imagine the bloodshed the first time an enterprising, aspiring hip-hop artist ventures to “make it hail”?

In addition, it’d make the title of the 1997 Limp Bizkit album ‘Three Dollar Bill Y’All‘ that much more confusing.

If you want to tell me that inflation has had quite a run since we started using one-dollar bills, I’m willing to listen to that as an valid issue.  However, just because you’ve identified an issue does not automatically mean your prescribed solution holds water.  I mean, why not just shift capacity over to making more two-dollar bills?  What about eliminating the penny?  What the heck are those good for, beyond tossing into fountains and garnishing lace-less shoes?

Dollar coins are a horrible idea.  I think I’ve made my case.

– What other horrible ideas have you heard floating around out there?  They don’t have to be political.  A 6.0% ABV LIGHT beer sounds like a pretty bad idea, concocted completely inside the private sector.  I’m always looking for stupidity to ridicule, so feel free to shoot me a note.  If you have your own long-form debunking of a horrible idea, I might even be willing to post or link to it (with attribution, of course).

Oh, and do you guys remember over the summer, when everyone was getting on Eli Manning’s case for saying he felt he was in the same “elite” class of QB as Tom Brady, Drew Brees, etc.?  To quote the philosopher, Rasheed Wallace: “Ball don’t lie.”  Congratulations to the 2011 – 2012 New York Football Giants.  Great game last night.

I’m super-psyched for the big show THIS THURSDAY.  Come hang out and enjoy what’s sure to be a great time.

Tommy Hugo said his final moment of inspiration came during President Obama’s speech last night.

"I believe... whatever you believe!" ~Tommy Hugo

“I watched the Republican debates, and I read the text of the President’s State of the Union – I have a distaste for all of the sitting / standing after every point he makes.  I saw those things and I thought, these guys are all just like me.  A guy like me could be President!” Mr. Hugo said.

Mr. Hugo gave an impassioned speech in front of supporters at the Cleveland JC Penny he calls home, detailing his campaign platforms.

“My positions?  I’m pro-life.  And pro-choice.  Life is pretty awesome, but, you know, so is having choices.  I don’t think you should have to pick between the two.

“I believe that some people should start paying their fair share of taxes.  No, of course I don’t mean any of you guys watching me now or reading this in the paper or blogs and what-not.  Don’t be silly.

“It’s time to beef up the border.  I keep hearing that ‘just building a fence’ isn’t feasible.  I say, ‘Bull-droppings!’  With my extensive experience in manufacturing, we can not only build a fence, but build a bigger fence behind that fence.

“It’s time to make the Wall Street fat cats play by the same rules as the Main Street… umm… skinnier cats!  I propose that we open a Chinese food restaurant on Wall Street.  That’ll stick it to those fat cats.

“Green Energy?  That sounds racist.  I propose funding research of Colorblind Energy.

“We need to support our soldiers at home and abroad.  I heard they had a problem with vests.  I am uniquely qualified to fix that problem, and ensure that our young men and women defending freedom around the world are both adequately and stylishly equipped.

Mr. Hugo At a Relay for Life Event

“Freedom is the cornerstone of our democracy.  I support freedom, and will work to ensure that people are free to do whatever they want, except the stuff you don’t want them to do.  We can put the kibosh on some of that noise.  God, Yaweh, Allah, Budda, Odin, and Darwin Bless America!

“And any other god I forgot, too.”

Mr. Hugo will be seeking the nomination of the little known ‘Sunshine and Puppies Party’, noting that only heartless bastards could vote against sunshine, or puppies.

Mr. Hugo’s opponents, citing his slightly draped appearance, have asked for the immediate release of his label as proof that he is not Italian, and, is in fact, American.  They have also unearthed decade-old claims that he was once caught in a compromising position in the ‘Intimates’ section of his JC Penny.  His campaign released a statement decrying these claims as false and slanderous.

DHC News asked Mr. Hugo about his thoughts on the other candidates.

“I really like Governor Romney and President Obama.  I like their styles.  I see a lot of myself in Speaker Gingrich, too.  Ron Paul worries me a little bit; he could really use a good tailor, and it sounds like he actually believes the stuff that comes out of his mouth,” Mr. Hugo said.

“Santorum?  That guy’s still around?  Seriously?”

While the GOP is sorting out their eventual nominee, Mr. Hugo announced a cross-country bus tour, where he will meet with Americans from coast-to-coast, in the Heartland.

“People are really receptive to things they want to hear, so that’s what I plan to tell them,” Mr. Hugo said.

Heads-up to my Central Jersey locals (and people who don’t mind taking a little trip), this is going to be a great show.  Dublin House feature shows have consistently been a really good time, and this one shouldn’t be any exception.  Bonnie is tremendous.  I know Chris and Kevin, and both of them are super-funny dudes.  It might be worth showing up early for this one.

You have to put up with me doing my thing for a bit, but still, that plus ten bucks is a small price to pay for the show you’re going to get.  Feel free to hit me up with any questions, and I can’t wait to see some of you guys on the 9th.

Since my previous blog post, a few of my runner-friends have come out of the woodwork to offer advice and encouragement (thanks for that, guys).  They invariably ask, “So, what race are you training for?”  I explain that, at this point, I have no race aspirations.  They, almost uniformly, respond, “You will.”  That’s typically followed by an even creepier, unshakably confident assertion that one race would inevitably lead to another, and another, and another…

Even being just ankle-deep in my foray into running, one thing is already clear: runners are a cult.

"How about a 5k, Dave?"

Running becomes not just a hobby, but a fundamental aspect of their personalities.  It quickly is a critical part of how they identify themselves.  The run is a never-ending pursuit.  They talk about “runners’ highs” in terms that would garner head-shakes from the most ardent religious fundamentalist.  They don ceremonial short-shorts garb that wouldn’t be socially acceptable anywhere except running or Europe.  They’re confident enough in their beliefs that the last sentence doesn’t phase them a bit – I’m the one who “doesn’t get it”.

I don’t want to pick on runners exclusively, because they are in no way alone in spiritualizing something to an extent utterly baffling to outsiders.  For example:

Wegman’s Shoppers
I wish I could get a list of the number of people who read that and immediately said or thought, “Aww… I love Wegman’s.”

My grocery store loyalties go as far as my laziness – most of them carry the same stuff, so whatever is closest will do.  Not so for the Wegman’s shopper.  An extra 45-mintues in the car, each way, is of no consequence to a pilgrimage to their mecca.

It’s not like Whole Foods, where the main draw is talking about all of the organic, free range, gluten-free food you bought in between sniffing your own (organic) farts.  I get that.  But, people love Wegman’s just because it’s Wegman’s.  All I’m saying is this: if Wegman’s ever produces its own brand of Kool-Ade, avoid it like the plague, because, it might contain the plague.

Eagles Fans
I have a sneaking suspicion that human sacrifice would be socially acceptable to these people, so long as the offering was wearing an Eli Manning jersey.  If that doesn’t scream, “CULT!”, I don’t know what does.

Drunk People
Similar to human sacrifice, any group that deems it socially acceptable to yell all of the words to ‘Sweet Caroline’ at 1:30am has serious cult potential.  “But Dave, what if there’s a long rain delay at Fenway Park, and the middle of the 8th happens around 1:30?”  Please.  By 1:30am, “People at Fenway Park” are a subspecies of “Drunk People”.  If you drew that out as a Venn Diagram, one circle would completely encompass the other.

Prior to 2004, Sox fans, given their unwavering beliefs in fatalism and piano-based curses, would’ve been a great candidate for “cult” status.  It’s a shame that had to change.

Bikers

If one more picture in my post about cults features a dude with a beard, I might have to shave

Whenever you see bikers, they’re always in groups of eight or more.  If you see just one, you know he’s only going somewhere to meet up with the other seven.  Plus, the only people more infatuated with skulls than bikers practice Voodoo.

That said, props to bikers for their unabashed fondness of scantily clad women.  Also, one of the best barbecue joints north of the Mason-Dixon Line is a biker bar, so they have that going for them.  Now that I think about it, as cult-ish groups go, bikers are one of the cooler ones.

Doctrinaire Conservatives
Is there anything more annoying than listening to someone spout woefully uninformed vitriol they heard on a cable news channel, verbatim, in an attempt to sound knowledgeable about the state of the world?

Doctrinaire Liberals
Is there anything more annoying than listening to someone spout woefully uninformed vitriol they heard on a cable news channel, verbatim, in an attempt to sound knowledgeable about the state of the world?

Beer Snobs
It pains me to say this, but beer is slowly adopting all of the worst airs of wine.  There is a growing class of people out there who look down on those of us that drink the occasional Budweiser.  Screw these pompous ass-clowns.  It used to be that men would head down to the local Elks Lodge to discuss local sports teams, bitch about politics, get away from their wives, and drink beer so generic it just says “BEER” on the label.  Now, you can’t throw back a brew without describing, in painstaking detail, the different berries you taste to the people around you, most of whom could care less if you detected hints of goat sperm in the drink’s “bouquet”.

The hoppiness is really balanced out by the infusion of snozberries

Well, if someone could accurately detect a “hint of goat sperm” with their nose, I’d be impressed – disgusted and confused, but still impressed.

How did we let this happen?  Listen, I’m not saying that all beers should be mass produced swill better equipped to hinder the central nervous system than to stimulate the taste buds.  My favorite beer is Guinness.  It tastes good, and goes down smoother than [insert your own gross and/or sexual standard-bearer for smoothness here].  But, just because one beer is good doesn’t make another automatically bad.  Looking down on Bud because I found a “craft” beer that I like is tantamount to thumbing my nose at pizza because I just ate a delicious Ribeye; it’s retarded.  The Beer Snob’s rigid adherence to views of “good” and “bad” beer, a really subjective arena, have a hint of Cult in the bouquet.

– Week two of the running program is underway.  If I start speaking in tongues or buying short-shorts, bring an old priest and a young priest to my basement immediately.  Big show announcement coming Thursday – stay tuned.