Straight scorn

I still don't forgive them, and I'm not sure I ever will.

While the Superbowl is too painful to talk about---hence, my conspicuous silence following said event---I've decided to report earlier than the pitchers and catchers this season and start by saying this straight out: I hate these goddamn Red Sox.

I hate this team. Even watching Tim Wakefield's retirement speech, an event that would have/should have had me weeping like a widow yesterday, I couldn't fight through my utter disgust when The Keystone Cops (Beckett, Lackey, Lester) showed up in their shades and respective nightclub outfits, feigning to care about a fellow teammate---or someone other than themselves. I was surprised they didn't crack Bud Lights and split a bucket of Popeye's during the speech because, you know, they weren't required to do anything else. I would've thought that they would be winded six minutes into it and running to the clubhouse for cover.

Assholes, straight up assholes, that's what these guys are.

What you're reading right now, folks---and may I be presumptuous enough to say I'm speaking on behalf of all true Red Sox fans---is pure, unfettered venom. Yet, here's the thing: despite the fact that they've behaved so badly, used and abused me as a fan, I'm running back to them as always. Unlike these phony prima donnas on the pitching staff, I still care about the outcome of this season.

However, for the first time in my life, I'm questioning whether or not I'll be able to fully forgive this team for their lay-down-and-die routine last September. And there is nothing I can say about the lack of professional accountability that Mazz hasn't already said far more eloquently and articulately in his Globe column.

Here's what I would like to see happen, and this would serve as proper vindication:

I want to see the ownership---mainly The Crypt-Keeper, The Wimp, and The Dick---give out 35,000 free tickets on Opening Day to fans who can prove, via an extensive exam on the team and its history, that they ARE NOT Pink Hats. I want us all to tank up at the bars surrounding Fenway, where all tabs will be picked up courtesy of the ownership that has been ass-raping fans in ticket prices for the past decade. Then, tanked and belligerent, we will pack that shit-hole on Yawkey Way so that the players from last year's team will have to look us fans in goddamn eyes when they're announced on Friday the 13th of April with the team who took their playoff spot last September watching from the opposing dugout. As they're announced, we will boo their sorry asses like it is our job to jeer, just so The Beer and Chicken Shit Crew can see what it means to actually DO YOUR JOB! Finally, en masse, we will file out of the ballpark and leave them to play their home opener in an empty stadium.

Somehow, I doubt this will happen. But that's what it will take for me to forgive this team.

Either that, or they go out and win a World Series this year. That'll do, too.

I hate New York City

I hate New York City.

There, I said it. I hate the Yankees. I hate the Giants. I hate the Jets and the Rangers and the Knicks (although I don't follow basketball), and if I didn't pity them so much for having to live in their obnoxious older brothers' shadows, I'd hate the Mets, too. I even hate the Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants for having their roots in New York City.

I hate the Empire State Building, mostly because I'm afraid of heights. I hate Broadway and musicals, mostly because I can never get past the plausibility problems of people singing and dancing through their entire days. I hate traffic and crowds and things that are overpriced and pretentious. Admittedly, using that line of logic, I should I hate Boston, too. But this isn't about Boston. This is about New York City. And I hate it.

And holy truck-load of shit, I hate it when my wife watches reruns of Sex in the City.

I especially hate the athletes who represent the New York franchises. I hate A-Rod and Eli. I'm pretty sure even New Yorkers hate Rex Ryan, but as a non sequitur, I hate The New Yorker, too. I hate Jeter and Fatty McGee (a.k.a Sabathia) and Jacobs and Nicks. Truth be known, I grew up a Giants fan, and I hate myself for that.

I hate the stupid way the crowd chants the Yankees' players' names in the first inning of each home game, and I especially hate the goddamn "Cruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuz" call whenever Victor Cruz makes a catch. I try to convince myself they're yelling, "Yooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuk" and sometimes it works. But mostly it doesn't.

However, let me make this much clear: I do not hate the people who root for New York. In fact, I love them for hating our teams. It's what makes this coming Super Bowl so rich. It's what makes each of the 18 regular season Sox/Yankees games breathless. It's the reason a relatively meaningless Bruins/Rangers game on Saturday afternoon in January will still pack the sports bars. While it only takes ten minutes of listening to sports talk radio to realize some people use their allegiance to their teams as a platform for blanketed hate, make no mistake, those people---to put it bluntly---are complete fucking morons.

Listen, I have a lot of friends and family who are New York fans. One of my good buddies, who I lived with for a year, is a New York fan. My cousins and uncle are New York fans. I have colleagues who are New York fans. Hell, my agent is a Yankee fan. And the list goes on. So while I can understand the primordial need to want to see the opposing team not only stomped, but humiliated, it's nothing that should ever become personal. If you find yourself physically assaulting someone in the stands at Fenway or The Meadowlands (MetLife, whatever), or harassing someone on the subway in NYC or the T in Boston for wearing the enemy's hat or jersey, you're not a fan, you're a thug.

Yes, I hate New York City, but without it, I'd have a lot less to love.

Go Pats!

Inventory

Yesterday, I had my cell phone replaced due to the fact that I couldn't hear the callers unless I put it on speaker phone. This had been going on for three months, and it created some awkward situations in restaurants and other public places. Therefore, I stopped talking on the phone and sent text messages to people instead. On Thursday, I finally hauled my lazy ass to Verizon and had a replacement phone sent to my house yesterday. Seeing that nothing in my life goes off without a hitch, in the process of switching over phones, I lost all of the phone numbers for my family and friends. Now, I realize I could call Verizon, wait on the line for forty years, and then talk to someone in India about the problem, but I have beer to drink and a tap-dancing routine to choreograph. I'm a busy man.

While meditating on the problem, however, I also realized that my lost contacts provided me with a chance to take some personal inventory (How's that for optimism? From now on, call me Sunshine). The truth of the matter is that I only talk to a handful of people with any regularity, and my number hasn't changed, so if someone wants to get in touch with me, they can. And there's always the "bitch" button...

So I started thinking (always a bad sign for Sunshine) about New Year's and taking inventory. If nothing else, New Year's is an opportunity to look back at what you've accomplished, failed to accomplish, and ignored over the past 365 days. So the one thing that I've been meaning to do all year, have failed to, and will now accomplish is post Frank Zappa's 'Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?".

Done, done, and done. Happy New Year, kids.

Merry Christmas!

This year was a veritable train wreck for The Red Sox. In many ways, the 2011 atomic collapse of The Best Team Ever was the worst experience of my life as a Red Sox fan. Sure, the chokes in 1978, 1986, and 2o03 bred a generation of nihilists, but those collapses could not be attributed to a lack of character and gumption. This year's Red Sox, however, represented professional athletes at their most detestable and has made it difficult to rally behind these guys looking forward. But, alas, come spring training, we will.

So on this holiday season, I'm choosing to remember the good times. This clip of the Sox completing the total evisceration of the Spank-jobs in 2004 warms my heart with holiday joy. Enjoy. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my imaginary blog readers.

Go Pats! Go B's! And, yes, go Sox!

Holy shit, Bobby V. It's Christmas for Boston smart-asses.

Today, the Red Sox officially hired Bobby Valentine. This seems almost too good to be true. Not good because Bobby Valentine is some kind of panacea that can bring health to all of the lame in The Crypt Keeper's clubhouse. Oh hell, no. The Red Sox could have named Jesus Christ as their next manager, and Beckett still would've cracked a beer in his face and said, "Who the fuck do you think you are, buck?"

No, Bobby Valentine brings with him better qualities than the ability to heal the sick: He's brings with him a Broadway personality and an ego that makes John Lackey look like Anne Frank.

If you haven't seen this list yet, it's well worth checking out. Bobby Valentine was, among his other venerable life feats, a "pancake eating" champion at 18 years-old. The fact that you can Google his name and find out that a 61 year-old man won a pancake eating contest when he was 18 years-old tells you everything you need to know about him.

So what do you think of Bobby Valentine's appointment to be the next manager of The Boston Red Sox? asks one blog reader...okay, it really wasn't a blog reader. I never get questions from blog readers. Ever. In fact, I'm still fairly certain that nobody reads this blog, so I'm forced to turn to my imaginary blog reader, who is a 23 year-old slutty calendar girl, built like a roller coaster, with nothing else to do all day but wait for my updates and masturbate. So my imaginary blog reader asks: So what do you think of Bobby Valentine's appointment to be the next manager of The Boston Red Sox?

Listen, I think all of the changes the Red Sox have made so far this off-season have been good ones. After the shit this team pulled last September, they needed to gut the management and try something else (while, granted, Lucchino should have gone out with them). There are a lot of things that sports fans can forgive. Red Sox fans forgave the team's epic collapses in 1975, 1978, 1986, and 2003. But one of the things that is simply irreconcilable for any sports fan is watching their team quit on the season. And this doesn't forgive the players, who quite frankly still owe us fans an answer, and that answer must come next season. So it's Bobby V.'s job, at very least, to ensure that these beer-guzzling, fried-chicken munching dick-hats either play like professionals or sit their fat-asses on the bench.

Other than that, I expect Bobby V. to be entertaining. I understand that the Red Sox didn't hire Jim Leyland or Tony LaRussa, someone great enough to nearly assure a turn-around next season. Bobby V. is a band-aid who can't really lose while the Sox wait for Farrell's contract to come up in 2013. Bobby V. is not the greatest manager out there, but, goddamn, the guy can eat some pancakes.

Fare thee well, douche bag.

If the title of this post is somehow ambiguous to you, let me air my thoughts on Jonathan Papelbon leaving Boston without any trace of equivocation: See you later, asshole, and don't let the door hit you in the ass.

Sure, on paper Papelbon is unparalleled in Red Sox history. He owns the career record for saves. He was the only closer in major league history to reach 35 saves in his first three full seasons. He was lights out in 2007 and, more importantly, he owns a ring. However, I am going to ask any real Sox fan sentimentalizing over his departure and playing your Dropkick Murphy's CD's while crying into your Bud Light one question (and someone is feeling the colon today; no pun intended): Did you ever feel completely comfortable with Papelbon coming out of the pen these past three seasons?

Let's forget his goofy attempts at intimidation with that stupid stare into home plate and be completely honest in our assessments. He was never that scary to hitters. He has one pitch, and if he can't locate the fastball---and as he ages the zip will wear off it like mattress tracks on a whore's back*---he's going to get shelled. Early in his career, Schilling tried to show him the splitter, but it never took. Granted, in closer lore, all you need is fastball. Right. Assuming you're Mariano Fucking Rivera and no one on the planet can hit your cutter. Papelbon is no Mariano Rivera. He's no Trever Hoffman. He's an above average closer who is being overpaid on a Lackey-level.

And, Red Sox fans, don't buy this guy's bullshit. He never planned to come back to Boston. This guy's career path---and, yes, it's a business and you can't fault him for this---has been crystal clear from Day One. He's been playing for the payday, and he got it. He never signed long term with the Red Sox because he wanted to get back on the market when his contract was up. He said as much. So let him choke on his cigars and dance his dumb-ass jigs in Philly. Like most of these guys, he was a mercenary in Boston. Now he's gone. Big deal.

Finally, let's remember Papelbon by his last games in a Boston uniform in both the regular season and the post-season. His last post-season game was against Anaheim in the ALDS where he coughed up three runs, blowing a lead in Fenway, and sending the Red Sox home for the season. His last regular season was in Baltimore last September, where he had two outs and a chance to give the Red Sox a puncher's chance at the post-season. Papelbon gave up three hits, two runs, and again sent the Red Sox packing.

Enjoy it, Philly. In the immortal words of Kenny Powers: you're fucking out, Papelbon.

*How about that simile. Someone has his A-game today.

Getting my Led out

As an adolescent, growing up in Rhode Island in the early-90s, on the local rock station, 94 HJY, each day they had an hour of programming called "Get the Led Out,"devoted to the worship of my rock gods: Led Zeppelin. And each day, I was tickled fucking pink. Mind you, by this point, John Bonham was already a decade dead, and the band's last album, In Through the Out Door was an afterthought (note: I don't count Coda as a real Zeppelin album; it was swag thrown together to honor a contract). As Pearl Jam and Nirvana and grunge began to replace the hair bands of 80s, Zeppelin was already being considered a relic, a staple of your rock diet, but definitely not hip. Jimmy Page was working with David Coverdale of Whitesnake, and Robert Plant had yet to tap the hot indie/folk chick musician market, yet Led Zeppelin was still very much alive in my baked teenage eyes.

As an adolescent, my bedroom was papered with Led Zeppelin posters. When my door was closed, I quietly dreamed of being skinny enough to wear Jimmy Page's jumpsuits with the Oriental snakes and moons and stars and black magic allusions embroidered on the leg. I lusted for Robert Plant's hair---as most women I know, to this day, still do. My wardrobe consisted of torn jeans, flannel shirts, and black Led Zeppelin concert t-shirts, although I did own a couple of Pink Floyd and Guns N' Roses shirts, as well. And I took heed of the advice from Fast Times at Ridgemont High about playing Led Zeppelin when you were alone with your girlfriend. Consequently, I'm sure my high school girlfriends throw knives at their husbands when a Led Zeppelin song plays in the background.

In short, I was all about Led Zeppelin.

I'm now 36 years-old, and I've kicked my unhealthy obsession with Led Zeppelin to cyber-stalk the Red Sox, and, oh, and I have a wife and kids and all that stuff, too. But some days, I just need a taste of my old smack and this morning, when I woke up with a lingering headache, I knew the only way to resolve the problem was to get my fucking Led out.

Earlier today, I asked my close and intimate Facebook friends the question: What Led Zeppelin song would have to be included on the consummate Zep playlist? I limited my list to 15 songs and knew I'd have some tough decisions to make. So I listened to others, drank a lot of beer, and ultimately arrived at the following:

1. "Bron-y-aur" (from Physical Graffiti, not "The Bron-y-aur Stomp" from Led Zeppelin III)

2. "Good Times, Bad Times" (Led Zeppelin I)

3. "Hey, Hey, What Can I Do?" (a B-side of "Immigrant Song" from Led Zeppelin III)

4. "In the Evening" (In Through the Out Door)

5. "Night Flight" (Physical Graffiti)

6. "Nobody's Fault But Mine" (Presence)

7. "The Ocean" (Houses of the Holy)

8. "Out of the Tiles" (Led Zeppelin III)

9. "The Rain Song" (Houses of the Holy)

10. "The Rover" (Physical Graffiti)

11. "Tangerine" (Led Zeppelin II)

12. "Ten Years Gone" (Physical Graffiti)

13. "Thank You" (live version from The BBC Sessions)

14. "Travelling Riverside Blues" (a Robert Johnson cover released as a single)

15. "Whole Lotta Love" (Led Zeppelin II)