My Sick Mind

I'm in the middle of disposing myself of just about every stupid thing I ever collected or bought in my life. I think part of the reason I held onto most of the stuff is because I never had an efficient way of getting rid of it - without throwing it in the trash. That would have been efficient, but difficult. I always think I'll "need" something or that it is some sort of commemorative item that I would be stupid to toss. So I carried them around for about 30 years until something efficient and easy came along. And this is the thanks I get - Ebay . I have to take pictures of all this crap and make up an ad that makes it look like what I have is what you want. I've sold some old camera lenses for more than I thought they were worth and some books and CDs for much less. Maybe my ads are not attractive enough? As you could imagine, I stay away from the flowery language and exaggerated descriptions. It's a Pearl Jam CD. These are the songs. This is the price. CDs ...

I am a complete emotional prostitute. Everything I do or say has one focus. Can I blog about it? I have found that over the past year and a half that the things I do fall into two distinct categories... Can I or can't I blog about it? If I can, I am more reactionary, since I wish to continue the story to its logical end and I need an ending. If I cannot blog about it, I tend to let it slide. What's the point if I can't use it for the blog? The Blog Whore. Since the good stories involve encounters with strangers, they never know that they're being inspirational, which is a shame because I never get to thank them. The Blog Ranger. They ride into town, do something stupid while engaging in an otherwise innocuous activity and get picked apart like lint from a sweater. If they could only read about themselves, they'd never get over it. I think there'd be a Jerry Springer kind of thing going on if I could arrange that. The White Trash Blog Show. Sometimes I get a lit...

The Scene: A fancy dinner party. Mingling guests munching Hors d'oeuvres and drinking champagne out of those thin weird glasses that make you look like an alcoholic when you have to drink the last bit. And cheese. Lots of cheese. A conversation ensues: ME: Hi. I'm Anthony, I couldn't help but notice your jeans. REMSEN: I'm Michael Remsen. ME: Of the " Premium Remsen Low Rise Straight "? REMSEN: The same. ME: It's an honor to meet you. I was just talking to Baxter... REMSEN: ...the " Baxter Low Rise Slim Boot ". Hack. ME: That's what I told him. I said, 'Your cliche'd faded legs are so ... out right now.' REMSEN: Nice. What did he say? ME: Oh, like he never heard of Remsen. I said, 'You couldn't tear a pair of jeans for Remsen!' REMSEN: Then I bet he went into that whole bit about 'I was tearing jeans when you were suckling your mother's teat!' thing, right? ME: So totally. REMSEN: Call me a ...

"I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows." - Bart Simpson The Phillies ... oh, never mind. Soon, my evenings will be free. And theirs, too. If you ever wonder whether you live in a more phucked up town than Philadelphia, there is a current story that would tell you, "No, I do not." Other than the fact that it's called a "Commonwealth", which should speak volumes about its nature, there is this: HARRISBURG - After months of wrangling, state senators have crafted a viable draft of a bill that would change where and how Pennsylvanians buy beer. Although it has a ways to go before becoming law, the measure could make it possible for consumers to easily pick up a six-pack virtually anywhere in the state . You can re-read that if you'd like. I'll wait. [tapping foot] In case you're unaware, Pennsylvania has this State Store system and some other wacky deal about buying alcohol. There are distributors and ...

A good day for baseball was spoiled by a lackluster effort from our local 9 on Wednesday. True to my word, we did arrive in plenty of time, although our seats were in dead right field and we had to deal with the sun for 4 hours, since the cloudy skies originally promised by the weather guessers did not materialize. There was little or no drama this time, so I'll spare you the multi-part posts. One thing aroused my interest, outside of the game itself. They told us that it was the second-largest crowd in Citizen’s Bank Ballpark history – 43,655. The place supposedly holds 43,647. I wondered how sell-out’s could have different numbers of fans in attendance. Apparently there is no maximum number. In the National League, they count tickets sold, not asses in the seats, so I would expect th e sell-out number to be identical every time. The top 10 crowd figures range from 45,102 to 45,755; all sell-out’s with a range of 653 tickets. They probably could have sold more tickets if they wa...

I'm one of those weirdos who stays and reads the credits after the movie is over. Sue me, I like to know where it was shot and what the names of the songs are that were part of the soundtrack. Occasionally, I'll get a little bonus, like when I saw The Great Outdoors - which needed as many bonuses as it could hand out. The movie ends (don't ask me how, but I think Dan Aykroyd and Annette Bening moved in with John Candy and Stephanie Faracy) and the credits are rolling. My date and I (hey, it was 1988) sat transfixed on the list of co-stars and the exotic filming location. Right after the part where that little seal comes up signifying the end of the reel, there's a vignette with the raccoons that spent most of the film rummaging through Candy's garbage. There's some joke, I forgot what it was, but afterward I looked around and we were the only two patrons left in the theater. One usher looked over at the other and said, "I won. There were two people left,...

As the game wore on, it became obvious to even the towel-wavers among us that the Mets were going down to defeat. All the Phillies needed to do was to win and they were the Division champs. With the score 6 to 1 in the seventh inning, we started counting the outs. The Phillies half of the inning was the more excruciating part. Never mind all those pitching changes and base hits, we just want to get 9 more outs and get on with the playoffs. Somebody tell the Nationals to stop trying to win this game, or worse yet, make it look like they were trying to win – which is a waste of everyone’s time. A small group (including my friend) had retreated to one of a TV near an empty concession stand to watch the last 3 outs of the Mets/Marlin game. As the Marlin squeezed the final out, the ballpark quickly got the news and the place erupted. By then, Brett Myers was on the mound closing out the game for the Phillies, with their 6 to 1 lead virtually insurmountable. The place was about to erupt ag...

I don’t mind standing. I think we sit entirely too much, and as long as the scenery is good, standing is good. I can move around, and since I’m taller than most, I can usually see pretty well. When I do mind standing is when the people in front of me are standing while the rest of us are sitting. Early in the game, I realized that the two kids in front of me were “standers.” You know the kind - the ones who have to jump up out of their seats every time something mildly exciting happens. It’s great for them, but Hell for the rest of us. My general opinion of people like that is that they have no self-awareness. Their world extends to the boundaries of their hands and feet, with no regard to the world of the people around them. For great stretches of time, they would stand; chatting, looking around, and forming a little human wall. It’s sort of like being stuck in traffic behind a big truck. For miles, all you can see is the back end. Before it got out of hand – sometime around the sec...

I have three basic tenets that you need to know to fully understand my perspective on sports. First, I do not believe that ones affiliation with a team identifies who or what they are. Second, I view sports as entertainment much in the same way as I do a movie or television show. Third, as Dennis Quaid says (as Gordon Cooper) in The Right Stuff , I try to “maintain an even strain” when it comes to dealing with emotional issues that do not directly affect me or my life – like sports. The combination of those three things made me feel a bit out of place at the ballpark on Sunday for the Phillies division-clinching game against the Washington Nationals. I was greatly outnumbered by people who would disagree with all three of those ideas. What I do enjoy is absorbing mood, taking things in and good baseball. It’s part of the reason I kind of enjoy attending events by myself. I can come and go as I please, and I don’t have to feel like I have to indulge anyone else – because I don’t. Sund...

Before the Phillies ever took the field on Sunday afternoon, the buzz was thick around the ballpark. The Mets/Marlin game had started twenty minutes earlier, and before long, the scoreboard started the count. Four -nothing Marlin. Five -nothing Marlin. Before we were warm in our seats, the Mets were trailing 7 to nothing, and the biggest September collapse in the history of baseball had begun to wind down. What we knew and certainly what the team knew was that all it would take would be a win against the Nationals for the local nine to be National League Eastern Division champions. 1993. Fourteen years ago a group of hard-nosed players won our hearts with an improbable run to the World Series. Even today, after the loss to Toronto, the team is loved by Phillies fans, and with good reason. They gave us everything they had and gave us a season to remember. 1964. The Phillies blew a six-and-a-half game lead with 12 to play. Until this week, it was the biggest September collapse in baseb...