Archives for October 2004

My friend Peter, whom I previously thought was the only living Conservative working for the City of Toronto, sent me an interesting photo today. The backstory: Someone told Pete they saw a Bush/Cheney sign in the office window of a city councilman. Reeling from disbelief, Pete sought out the window in question and after an exhaustive search through hostile territory (Toronto City Hall) Pete located the politician in question.

I’ll let Pete name the aforementioned gentleman in a comment if he so desires. Barometrically speaking – for my American readers – the discovery of this rare breed of Canadian conservative is akin to a Nepalese sherpa stepping in Yeti doodies. Fair play to you, sir. You’ve got balls. Not to be confused with Yeti balls, which are generally covered in a shockingly white, light peach fuzz. Don’t ask me how I know that.

Yet another small batch of photos from last night that have made their way to my inbox. This should be the final set, but it’s going to be a very busy couple of days down here and I’m sure this site will be rife with images of Boston barfights and buggery spanning the rest of the weekend.

Comment from Kyle: “I just like the fact that Dave was the only one not drinking, but looks more liqued than anyone else“. I like it too – It seems I really don’t need alcohol to have a good time. Just plenty of clown porn and amphetamines. Have a look at the photo on the top left: In case you were wondering why the Red Sox won so easily, it’s because I’ve been rubbing my “lamp” all week. Oh… And that candle that was on the table at Tiernans, too.

And here we all are in the middle of the mess that was Faneuil Hall. I’ll be glad when Halloween is over, because I’m tired of looking like Jason Priestly on steroids. I need a haircut, a shave and a reason to stop TiVoing 90210.

How hideously unproductive is your office or place of business right now? So far this morning, I’ve gotten 58 Red Sox related e-mails and probably as many instant messages. My boss is bleary-eyed and incoherent, our sales guy has failed to show up for a meeting and God forbid we talk about a client rather than the victory parade on Saturday.

I say we all pack it in and meet up on my roofdeck for beers and BBQ. How anyone is supposed to concentrate today is beyond me. Oh yeah, they’re called professionals. Know any?

I won’t recap tonight’s game. I won’t repeat what I wrote last week about Red Sox Karma and deserving to win. I don’t need to delve into how much I respect Boston Baseball fans, who after being served up steaming hot disappointment for 86 years straight, still report for duty every spring as the most fanatical, faithful and fervent fans known to the sport. What I will do is share a few photos I took tonight for anyone wondering what it was like to be in the city of Boston the year the Red Sox finally reversed the curse, and won the World Series. I am surprised I made it home without being open mouth kissed by another man, hit over the head with a trash barrel or stomped silly by a police horse. Because that’s what usually happens to me on Wednesday nights.

Here’s Ris, Me, some old guy who kept trying to sneak into our photographs screaming about booze and hookers, and Ted. Or maybe it was Ris screaming about booze and hookers. I was caught up in the moment and don’t really remember. Six Diet Cokes will do that to a guy.

There’s Chrissy flying her colors in Tiernans where we all watched the game. I have a great video clip of the place erupting after the last out which I’m going to try to compress and post. Then there’s a guy sitting on someone’s shoulders waving a broom in Faneuil Hall. Get it? If the specifics of broom humor (I must have seen 30 people carrying them tonight) needs to be explained to you, Bob Saget might be more your speed.

What major sporting event championship would be complete without the obligatory “arsehole up the flagpole” photo? I’m sure this guy was dragged down and beaten by police like a flatulent stepchild shortly after this blurry mess was taken, but alas – my camera is absolute shite in the dark. I’ll post some better photos tomorrow as they’re e-mailed to me. And there are Ted and I amongst the swelling sea of ‘Revere Rickys’ screaming “fuck yeah dood!”.

What really struck me about tonight was an overwhelming sense of unity. Fans of all creeds and colors – with no personal connection to each other other than they were all simultaneously out of doors – high fiving, screaming in people’s faces, knocking each other over for a good dry-humping. And no one was killed by a stray pepper-spray packet which is always a bonus. It was all very touching. Jesus, there was a lot of touching.

The parade is Friday, and it’s going to be a long weekend of revelry – Boston championship style. See you all at The Big Haunt.

I am more of a hockey fan, but every fall I’ll get just a little fairweather and start watching Sox games if situations get interesting – and let’s just say it’s been a long week of TV. If you want to read a great Red Sox Blog, there are none finer than my friend Kent’s who has kept the faith remotely for years, all the way from Atlanta. So I’ll leave the excrutiating post-game analysis to people like him and just make a few high-level comments on why I think the Sox were able to mete out such a brutal pennant-winning, arse-whipping to the Yankees last night.

In a word: Karma. God, the powers that be, Miss Cleo, the Universe… whatever you want to call it… finally had had enough of Jeter’s snide expressions, A-Rod’s 22 million dollar blueberry yoghurt lips, pompous fans who forget that their now-toppled dynasty was bought rather than built and… um… that smug little Jeter bastard again. The looks on the faces of the NY crowd after the last out were just savory. It’s been so, so easy to be a Yankees fan for the last few years. And we were all so, so sick of you.

I remember in particular a shot of Billy Crystal in one of the luxury boxes, his face still pressed to the glass in disbelief a good 5 minutes after the game had ended. You can’t win all the time, Bill – I know it hurts. But I guess you already learned that lesson way back when The Legend of Curly’s Gold was released. Crystal is a great symbol for Yankees fans in general: Sitting high on their perch, looking down their noses at other teams instead of cheering their own, never dreaming they’d soon be unsurped by one of the greatest underdogs in sports history.

Popular Red Sox credos like “Keep The Faith” and “Cowboy Up” turn the attention and the onus inward. They’re meant to inspire and motivate the team and faithful fans alike. The best the Yankees can muster is “Who’s Your Daddy?” which just encourages people to dismiss and insult the opposition rather than root, root, root for the home team. And Jeter’s response to curious reporters last night? “It’s not always the best team that wins.” It’s not always the best team that comes back from a 3-0 series deficit to then whup the opposition by nearly double digits, either. Oh wait – you know what, Derek? It probably is. Sorry, I got caught up in the undertow of your ginormous ego there for a moment.

Too bad, so sad. What comes around already went around, and you lads get to spend the rest of the fall polishing your Bentleys. While the Red Sox Nation spends it showing New York that millions of dollars are never a match for perseverance, unity, character and class. Of course, I DID pass a guy on the way to work this morning wearing a “Jeter Swallows” T-Shirt. But for the sake of this article, let’s just keep that between us fairweather Sox fans.

There’s definitely a theme developing on Pye in the Face this week, and I apologize if you’re not fully into the aquatic motif. But as soon as terrifying and weird-ass forms of new sea life stop washing up on beaches around the world I’ll get back to the breast jokes.

This story comes to us from New Zealand, where some sort of behemoth from the hockey puck genus washed up near Farewell Spit on Sunday. It measured 3 meters across and the estimated weight was somewhere around a ton. A Department of Conservation worker noticed it on the beach while out for a bike ride, said it was a good specimen and “did not smell” – which unfortunately precludes me from any serious attempt at a Michael Moore joke.

The creepiest thing about this beast (which New Zealanders apparently call a Sun Fish), is the expression on it’s face and – Jesus – it’s mouth. Look at the lips on the damn thing. If I stumbled upon it while jogging down the beach late at night, I might mistake it for Angelina Jolie. Or an inflatable E.T. sex doll. In either case, the jog would then come to an abrupt halt in favor of push-ups.

I’d like to suggest that scientists around the world start wandering the beaches with Geiger counters or begin looking for whichever North Korean nuclear facility is firing pucks of uranium into the Pacific. Preferably before my petty daily financial and work-related stresses are replaced permanently with Godzilla.

More squidiness for those of you who still can’t believe that I spent last Saturday night writing about defunct Disney World rides. Over 1,500 Humboldt jumbo flying squid washed up on Long Beach Peninsula, and have been doing so in British Columbia and Washington as well. I guess that’s squid pro quo being under attack from soggy suicide bombers. OK that was a new low.

They’ve become so commonplace off the West coast in the past week that, in typical human fashion, people have started contemplating eating them. “I sure wouldn’t eat them. It would be like eating a deer on the side of the road,” said Greg Bargmann, a marine fish manager with the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department. “But if you catch them live they’d be good.” Hoo wee! Them squid’s good eatin’! Forget about roadkill possum sandwiches, let’s take a couple of shotguns down to the beach and catch us an eight-legger then go back and watch the Nascar. Whoops, wrong coast.

But what if these things were washing up on the East Coast – say, in a seafood crazy city like our own Boston? The Barking Crab would immediately become “The Flying Squid”. Harpoon would begin brewing Squidtoberfest, Fenway would begin serving Flying Franks, Humbolt chowder would become all the rage at Legal Seafood and a new nightclub would open up in the Alley called “Tentacles” which would attract patrons from as far away as Pawtucket.

Here’s a gallery from the website of a guy who apparently spends more time obsessing about giant squids than even I am capable of. Note in particular the photo of the two humbolts laid out beside a cooler to add scale to the image. Make that a large calamari to go. I mean, to run screaming.