Strange rumblings

It's safe to say at this point that the Sox are going to the post-season, and they should be competitive, minus some cataclysmic collapse---similar to the "oh shit, the season is over" moment last night when Lester took the Melky (doesn't that name sound like someone with a breast-milk fetish?) Cabrera line-drive off the knee. They've had Anaheim hexed for the past decade, and then all bets are off in a seven-game series. Every year, it's the team that gets hot at the right time who goes the distance. Simple.

However, for the past couple of weeks, I've been hearing some strange rumblings from Red Sox fans, and not just The Pink Hats, who don't know a baseball from a testicle, or a suicide squeeze from a bout of constipation (think about that one). No. I'm hearing real Sox fans saying, with an usual amount of audacity, that The Sox are going to win it all this year. In fact, this arrogance is spreading quicker than the swine flu virus. And, yes, I have been infected, too.

Since opening a Facebook account, I have pretty much avoided any face-to-face human contact. Conversation, for me, just doesn't compare with posting what you have to say on someone's wall. These days, instead of whispering, I send people private messages. Full disclosure: I'm a total and complete Facebook whore. My point being, and you can verify this yourself if you're on Facebook (friend me! friend me, please!), yesterday I posted that the Sox are going to go all the way.

What the fuck was I thinking?

While I was jogging this morning, trying to exercise my body a bit before parking my ass in front of the computer to Facebook for the next ten hours, it occurred to me that what I've been saying is completely counter-intuitive to my Sox fan upbringing. Now, I'm not going to argue the existence of a god, but isn't it strange that as soon as Sox fans start getting a little too complacent, a little too sure of ourselves because we beat up on Baltimore (there are tee-ball teams that could compete with the Orioles), Melky "mmm, it tastes really sweet" Cabrera takes down our horse? Is this a cosmic sign to shut the fuck up?

So you will hear no more of this nonsense out of my pie-hole. Let's take last night as shot of reality. The Sox will need to get lucky to win this thing. But that's obvious. They need to get hot. That, too, is obvious. The hot team takes the trophy. It's always been this way in baseball. So, in the meantime, Sox fans, I think we need to collectively shut the fuck up.

Friend me.

P.S. I have some new poems on Thieves Jargon this week. Check them out.

P.P.S. The winner of the contest will be announced tomorrow.

We are Twenty!

9/22: I'm extending the contest until Friday. My
judge has first-grade to attend to during the busy
work week. Come on, people. I literally can't give away Crocker/Graziano. I understand we offend your sensibilities, but can't you at least use the chapbooks in your fire pit?

My friends, if you're one-one-thousandth as a neurotic as me (unlikely), you've noticed that my blog reached the coveted "20" followers today. I've been mouthing off about some big surprise forthcoming when we reached 20, but honestly, I got nothing for you. Therefore, I decided to ransack some old boxes and found some copies of Idiot Warriors and Men of Letters, chapbooks that I published with my good friend and heroin-addict Dan "The Big Flan" Crocker.

So here's the deal. I will mail copies of these chapbooks to the person who best answers the following question, posed by my 6-year-old daughter Paige:

What do all My Little Ponies have to possess in order to be authentic?

Post your answers in the "comments" section. The contest will be judged by Paige and close after Monday Night Football on 9/21. The winner will get their copies mailed on Tuesday morning. Good luck.

Note: Dan "Smell My Balls, They Reek Like Bleach" Crocker can't win.

After the Honeymoon

I'm a whore. Let me start with that.

I'm not a whore in the literal sense that I sell sex for money (I'm cheap), but the very nature of writing books and publishing in the small presses necessitates whoring your work. While traditional and romantic ideas of the writer's life might lead one to believe that writers emerge from their log cabins in the woods with a manuscript that goes directly to the publisher, via bike courier, gets published, and the next thing you know, you're signing books for a line of fans that stretches out the door of the Barnes and Noble, and later, you're knocking back drinks with Don DeLillo and Russell Banks. Maybe that happens for some writers (though I tend to doubt it), but for me, it's been over ten years of working full-time as a high school teacher and writing, much like I am right now, when the family is in bed with The Red Sox game in the background. Every few years, I have enough decent material to put together a manuscript, and so far, I've been fortunate enough to have a few of them published.

But it hasn't been glamorous---no book groupies, or hobnobbing with the literati , or reviews in major newspapers. It's been doing whatever I can to get my books in the hands of readers and working my ass off to try to make sure the publishers at least break even on their investments in me. So the publication of my new collection of poetry, After the Honeymoon, is, in many ways, bitter-sweet. While it's always a thrill to see your book in print, your labors materialized in front of you, I also know that if I'm going to sell any of books I'm going to have to whore myself; meaning, I will have to do anything in my power to get my work out there.

This means doing a book tour in October with my publisher, Dave McNamara. We don't have a publicity budget or any monies, for that matter. We're doing it by jumping in a car and hitting the road for three weeks. We're doing it with our shoulders to the wheel. You can look at my reading schedule and see for yourself: This trip is all about attrition.

While on the road, however, I will be updating this blog frequently. In fact, with it looking like the Sox "should" be playing in October, this blog is going to be renamed Nate Graziano's Big Baseball and Book Tour Blog. Depending on what the brackets look like for the post-season, I could possibly be infiltrating enemy territories during the games in October, friends. But I promise, regardless of where I am or where I read, I will be wearing my Red Sox hat.

Back to the book: While my book is a collection of poetry, and I understand that many people, much like myself, may get very frustrated trying to untangle a lot of the arcane metaphor and language gymnastics in modern poetry, my poems use common, straightforward language to deal with real life/gritty topics. I promise you won't need an MFA in poetry to understand it. As a writer, my goal has always been to communicate emotions and ideas using language that my family and friends, who are mostly not writers, will understand and appreciate. If a reader doesn't like my work or what I write about, I can understand that; it comes with the territory. But if a reader doesn't get what I'm saying, I feel as if I've largely failed in my endeavors.

Here is the information for purchasing my book, if you're interested. You can purchase it directly from the publisher here (preferable), or through Amazon.com here. The book will be on the shelves in certain bookstores, but if it's not at your local bookstore, you should be able to order it through them.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who takes the time to read this blog, follow this blog, or read any of my work whatsoever. I love hearing from you, so please don't be bashful to write me with your cheers, jeers, or fart jokes. Thank you, and namaste.

How's that for a rim job?

P.S. ALEX GONZALEZ, BABY! I'll definitely be blogging baseball in October!

The Time of Man

Right now is a wondrous time to be a male, to have a penis, to pee standing up, to look goofy naked, to grunt, to burp, to fart, to scratch your ass and smell your finger.

O me, O life, September is upon us, and the playoff races are heating up in baseball, and in a paltry two weeks, the NFL football season starts (if you're a college football fan, your mirth comes sooner). Ah, my brothers of the Y-chromosome, let us rejoice, celebrate, eat and drink and watch porno. Our time is now, the Time of Man.

Let me put aside the astract jubilation and put this in more concrete terms: It's Sunday morning on Sept. 27, 2009, and you're wondering whether or not to go ahead and make yourself a bacon and sausage omelet for breakfast. While sipping a cup of piping hot coffee and watching a well-endowed young woman jog by your house in a sports bra, you envision the day ahead. The pre-game show starts at noon. It's already 10 a.m., so you say to hell with showering and put on the same pair of smelling jeans you've been wearing for three weeks---the ones where you can faintly smell your crotch when you sit down---and you put on a beat-up sweatshirt with your alma mater's crest, trying to summon some long dormant fratboy inside you. You haven't shaved in a week, and your wife won't go near you, BUT the Pats are playing the Falcons at 1 p.m. You make the omelet.

As the Pats game draws to an end, you prepare to watch the 4 p.m. game, or if you have the NFL Network, your life opens like a pair of legs. You try to stay in the game's moment, try to remain Zen, but you can't quite suppress the restless excitement, a childlike giddiness gathering like a storm in your chest as you anticipate 8 p.m. and Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN where the Sox will play their final regular season game against the Yankees.

Look at your schedules, my friends, this is not a pipe dream...okay, maybe the omelet is over the top, but the rest will soon be our reality. Rejoice, rejoice, fucking rejoice with me!

As we move into September, a lot of questions surround our hometown teams. What will happen with Wakefield? Is Billy Wagner going to be worth a wag of the tail? Is Douche-K coming back, or is he complacent to get lit up by the New Hampshire Fisher Cats? Will Beckett stop tossing batting practice? Is Tom "My Man-crush" Brady's shoulder going to plague him all season, or will the Brady/Moss magic of 2007 propel them back to the Super Bowl? Right now, we can thank Teddy Bruschi (and Kennedy) and trust our genius in the cut-off sleeves has it all under control. Oh, there are so many things to talk about, to see, to anticipate.

All of these things, in their due time, in Man-time, will be answered. For now, September is upon us, and if you stop, scratch and sniff, you'll feel yourself getting lighter. Tis' the season, my friends.

Covers, cock-slaps, and more ephemera

After watching the Sox get cock-slapped by the Yankees last night, I'm having trouble focusing. My thoughts are coming in jabs: a pummeling of caprices. I just used the word caprices. I'm not well, folks. I'm a beaten man.

• If you still think the Red Sox are going to make the playoffs, you're not a Sox fan.
• Aside from my diligent work as an imaginary sportswriter, I moonlight as a poet. Here's the cover for my new book, After the Honeymoon, coming out Sept. 17. Be sure to buy a copy when it's made available. Make the Baby Jesus smile.
• Is it me, or does a sick human being deserve medical treatment? Think back to college and all of the indiscriminate sex you had. Now imagine if you got a case of the nasties and couldn't see a doctor at the campus clinic. It's horrifying, isn't it? Why not take the campus clinic model and offer it to everyone?
• Junichi Tazawa takes the hill today. Doesn't Fox have anything better to show? How about a Full House marathon instead?
• Watching the Yankees win makes my soul hurt.
• Thanks to Erin Ruttan and Dave McNamara for their work on the cover. My original idea of putting a picture of my ass in a pair of tight jeans didn't fly. Maybe next time.
• iTunes has revived numerous scratched CD's that I wrote off as dead. Right now, I'm listening to Black Sabbath's Paranoid. My wife isn't home.
• Brad Penny, you stink.
• Have you noticed that straight men feel unusually comfortable talking about Tom Brady's good looks? The dude is impossibly handsome.
• I have never tired of "War Pigs" and highly doubt I ever will.
• Thanks to On-Demand, I've been able to share my love for the ThunderCats with my son. I still think Cheetara is babe. For a cartoon, that is.
• JD Drew embodies everything that makes me sick about professional athletes.
• Does anyone own a copy of Dark Side of the Moon that isn't scratched; that hasn't, at some point, seen the floorboards of a shitbox car?
• Entourage is jumping the shark this season.
• iTunes and On-Demand and the cover of my book, there's a lot to be thankful for these days. Then there's the fucking Red Sox.

Sign Dalton

On Friday night, after the baseball game, my wife and I decided to watch a movie. We've been married seven years, we have two kids together, and for those of you riding this train, you realize, watching a movie is as good as it gets. When we were younger and without children, we went out to restaurants, went on weekend trips, lavished in each other's company. Now we watch movies. That's life.

Given this information, one might be inclined to think that the movie selection, our compromise as man and wife upholding our vows, would be paramount to the entire movie-watching experience. You would be wrong. Basically, we choose from the free movies On-Demand, movies that the programmers at Comcast realize no one, unless they're jacked up on crack, would pay to watch.

Friday's selection: Roadhouse starring Patrick Swayze as Dalton, a much-coverted Zen-bouncer who takes on an entire town of rednecks with guns and kicks all their asses, one by one, without ever messing up his mullet. If you've never seen Roadhouse, you're missing one of the most awkwardly written, embarrassingly acted, ridiculously conceived movies ever made. It's brilliant. Every single line in this movie is cliched to the point where I found myself cringing, recoiling in vicarious humiliation for the writers, actors, producers, and anyone who was within 20 miles of the set when this monstrosity was made. I loved it.

Fast forward to Saturday night. Again, I find myself cringing, recoiling, and vicariously humiliated, only this time I was watching the Red Sox play Texas, not Roadhouse. While I took ironic pleasure in Roadhouse's brutal badness juxtaposed with Patrick's ass-kicking mullet, irony eluded me when I was watching the Red Sox get spanked in Arlington. I was plain pissed.

It's fair to ask, What now for The Red Sox? When you take a look at the line-ups the Sox have been putting out the last couple of games---and, in fairness, Youk has been serving his suspension---and you see Varitek, Kotchman and Alex Gonzalez coming to bat in the next inning, there's cause to be concerned. In fact, you have every right to change the channel, watch a movie with your wife, grow a mullet.

To quote Dalton, the bouncer extraordinaire of Roadhouse: "Pain don't hurt." Dalton, you haven't been watching the Red Sox lately.

The 4 D's Method of Dealing with Yankee Fans

Listen, this is not the first time the Sox have been bitch-slapped by the Yankees. I hate to be the guy who says I told you this was coming, but it's posted below and you didn't have to be a clairvoyant to figure it out.

So it happened: the worst-case scenario. The Red Sox went into The Bronx and got swept. They've basically lost all hope of winning the AL East and The Wild Card is a big question mark. At least the Yankees gave us some variety in the ways they pummeled the Red Sox; they blew them out in the first game; strung them on for 15 innings before A-Rod ripped out hearts with a walk-off; we had a good 'ole fashion shut-out in Game 3, the Sox bats invisible again; and finally, after 31 innings without a run, The Sox get a lead in 8th inning, only experience the come-from-behind, late-game heroics of the Yankees, and more pie in our faces. If nothing else, the Red Sox have managed to show us how versatile they are at losing. Way to go, Boston.

As I said, however, this is not the first time Sox fans have been humiliated at the hands of The Evil Empire, nor is it the worst. After many years of being accosted by smug Yankee fans ready to gloat, I developed "The 4D's Method of Dealing with Yankee Fans" (admittedly, Sox fans are just as obnoxious, so these may be applicable to Yankee fans, or applied to any fan of a professional sports team dealing with humiliation). Pay attention, kids. You're about to learn the fine art of avoidance.

1. Defensiveness. This is fairly new one, seeing we had no defense until 2004, and it is not always the best approach because if you're careless and don't know your statistics, the defensive method will backfire. In short, you're attempting to lash out from the defensive position and try to get the Yankee fan flustered and off-topic. You're rechanneling the humiliation you're currently feeling into passive-aggression.

Example: A Yankee fan comes up to you at work and says, "That was a great series. The Sox looked good. How many games are they behind now? Is it 6.5?" Your response: That's fine. I remember in 2004, they were behind 3-0 in the ALCS. Who was that they were playing again? You know, the team responsible for the biggest choke in sports history?

2. Denial. There is nothing like denial in dealing with any crisis in your life. Denial is simple, and if practiced correctly---barring an intervention by loved ones---is basically bullet-proof. All you have to do is convince yourself that, despite all the irrefutable evidence to the contrary, the problem in front of you is simply not happening. It does not exist.

Example: A Yankee fan comes up to you at work and says, "That was a great series. The Sox looked good. How many game are they behind now? Is it 6.5?" Your response: It wasn't that big of a series. It's only six games in the loss column. I'm not worried. Everything is fine.

3. Diversion. You can avoid a conversation with Yankee fans by being prepared to launch into another unrelated topic. Topics that play off the human heart-strings are typically the best at deflating the buoyant Yankee fan. Comb the headlines for horrific current events, or you might invent a personal tragedy. Your goal is to divert the focus toward something entirely unrelated to baseball, which will simultaneously make the Yankee fan feel bad about bringing up something as irrelevent, in the grand scheme of things, as baseball.

Example: A Yankee fan comes up to you at work and says, "That was a great series. The Sox looked good. How many games are they behind now? Is it 6.5?" Your response: Did you hear about those typhoons in Asia? They're saying dozens are dead and hundreds of people are reported missing. I'd love to donate some money, but with economy, I can barely afford to feed my kids. Did I tell you my kids' puppy has cancer?

4. Diplomacy. For anyone who still believes in the Bush-Cheney approach to dealing with problems, i.e. bomb the shit out of people, this option is off the table. In fact, this is the most uncomfortable method because it involves exhibiting kindness, humility, and reason: all things that Red Sox fans struggle to practice in their own lives. Your goal, in a nutshell, is to kill the Yankee fan with kindness. It doesn't have to be genuine; in fact, you'll probably find yourself seething behind your smile, but it will immediately frustrate the Yankee fan looking to bust your balls and promptly diffuse the situation.

Example: A Yankee fan comes up to you at work and says, "That was a great series. The Sox looked good. How many games are they behind now? Is it 6.5?" Your response: You know, I did watch the series, and I think the Yankees have the better team this year. They're pitching was nearly flawless, and what a line-up. You must be really happy The Yankees got Texeira. It's looking like he's really worth the money the Yankees paid for him. Ditto Sabathia and Burnett. They're going to be a tough team to beat this year. Maybe I can take you out for a beer during the play-offs, and we can watch a game together?