Even Steven

You know, life really is about managing the ups and downs. You get down and frustrated, then you're up and become happy again.

Last week was terrible for me. I got a year older (and I'm beginning to feel REALLY old these days), there was that whole election thing (I relaize now the part that has chafed me the most is the gloating by the Republicans. I heard one pundit call it the greatest day in America this past half decade. Huh?). Then the coils keep dying on my car (VW owners know about the dreaded coils). It's also become clear that George Clooney will NOT win best actor. Instead he will lose to Jeff Bridges playing the music version of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (Clooney should just play an autistic, alcoholic, gay, mathematician, who is dying of AIDS which he contracted during the years he had his heroin addiction... That would probably get him the award...). Finally, it also appears that the extremely overrated Avatar (Or, as I like to call it... Titanic II: Blue People Playing Jack And Rose... But don't worry Molly, I didn't hate it enough to blog about it.) is going to win Best Picture over Up In The Air , Inglourious Basterds and The Hurt Locker. Then Brad and Angie split which frankly, didn't even bother me as much as I thought it might because I am now convinced that no famous person should ever, EVER be in a relationship of any sorts. Or maybe that's just me being bitter.

But needless to say, the Big G world has been crumbling (I mean, it's almost as bad as a Detroit auto worker who has lost his job, home, and family, no?).

But then today came.

I should have known today was going to be a good day. For some reason, I was less irritated than I am most Mondays. I was happy with my outfit, enjoyed my Eggo waffle breakfast, and pulled out a victory in my fantasy basketball league. So things were looking up.

Then I hit the internet, and things REALLY came together!!!

First there was this...



I mean, did you just see that? In case you didn't, let me explain what it was.

A COMMERCIAL FOR A STAR WARS LINE OF ADIDAS SNEAKERS AND SWEATSHIRTS!!! WITH ONE OF THE MEMBERS OF THE BIG G KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE IN THE COMMERCIAL!!! WITH A REMIX OF THE IMPERIAL MARCH AS THE MUSIC!!! AND YES, THAT WAS EVEN THE D-O DOUBLE G!!!

Yes. Star Wars. Sneakers. Sweatshirts. Remixes to The Imperial March. Endorsed by David Beckham.

And you know what else? While I was immediately skeptical, some of the stuff is actually pretty awesome. Here's a few of the highlights...













And my personal faves and absolute purchases...





Pretty cool, no? Click this here link to see the whole collection, plus a great video of the Death Star lighting up Hanscomb Air Force Base (they must have been using the Death Star laser on low that day because it didn't blow up the whole planet).

http://www.adidas.com/campaigns/deathstar/content/Default.aspx?cc=us&site=adidasus

But that can't be the only thing that turned my life around on a rainy Monday in January, can it?

You are correct. It is not.

Today I see a save the date email from my sister and why do I have to save that date?

The National. Boston. House of Blues. June 2nd. New York two weeks later on the 16th.

Suddenly, I forgot about hokey James Cameron scripts and lost chances for a second Clooney Oscar.

Just like Jerry, I'm Even Steven! Bunch of bad things set off by Star Wars, The National, Beckham, shopping and the thoughts of warm June nights, drinks, and mid week sick days.

Who's Jeff Bridges again?

PS- Just in case you forgot who The National are or you just stumbled across this site, here you go...

I'm So Sorry For This , But I Couldn't Help Myself

"I was thinking about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. I stayed up half the night thinking about it and then something occured to me and I fell into a deep peaceful sleep and haven't thought about you since. You know what occurred to me?"

That's what Sean said to Will nearly thirteen years ago after Will disrespected (my favorite high school boy word) Sean's wife and Sean nearly killed him. I can now imagine how Sean felt because that is how I felt last night (actually, I starting feeling this way about a week ago when I realized that Martha Coakley was the political candidate version of Calvin Schiraldi) when Scott Brown beat Martha Coakley and essentially ended the really, long four month run of people liking Barack Obama.

After the news was made official last night, I stayed up the rest of the night tossing and turning and being as tense as I've been since Pedro let up that Posada bloop double in '03 (I tore of my favorite t-shirt like I was the Hulkster... I didn't do that last night).

But then I woke up this morning and like Sean, I realized something. And today hasn't been that bad.

Like Sean realized that Will was just a kid and didn't know anything, I realized that Scott Brown had Doug Flutie, Fred Smerlas, and Curt Schilling stumping for him. And hearing that made me proud.

Why?

Because I am proud to not be associated with a forty-something year old men who have blonde mullets, wear their gold chains outside of their mock neck sweaters, and bring their baseball glove's to Fenway in the hopes of catching foul balls.

Once I realized that the Republicans have to tap racist, suburban, out of touch, millionaire, mustached, has beens to stump for them (my party? Well... We got Clooney... 'Nuff said), my coffee tasted better, I felt a little better about my receding hairline, and I played the best game of old man basketball that I've played all year (9-20, with zero turnovers as opposed to the 5-31 with 11 turnovers that I usually have).

With all that said, I'm still slightly irritated. Not nearly as irritated I was last night when I was threatening to blow up every single person I know with a blog post (I type with purpose), but still irritated. Here's what makes me so irritated about recent events in our filled way more than you think with white trash state...

1. Martha Coakley ran the worst campaign I have witnessed a politician run in my lifetime. She made George McGovern and Mike Dukakis seem as savvy as JFK. She wouldn't have won the condo president of Del Boca Vista with that campaign.

2. Women. I would like to start this off with a 250 word disclaimer about how I really don't feel this way about women and blah blah blah. But I must come clean. Quietly, I places that are sans mixed company, I have had a ongoing and well thought out theory that all women hate each other. While I haven't exactly done New England Journal of Medicine style research on this, I do have a few examples to back up my thoughts.

Take Survivor. On at least ten of the 15 seasons of Survivor, there have been more women than men when there is seven members left. Each and every time, I scream at the TV, "LADIES! TAKE BACK THE GLASS CEILING! GET TOGETHER AND BOUNCE EACH ONE OF THESE GUYS UNTIL IT IS JUST THE 4/5/6 OF YOU REMAINING AND THEN TAKE THE MONEY AND GO!!!" But they can never do this (there was one year it was four v. one with the one guy being the biggest white trash hick around. He made it to the final). Why? Because they hate each other. That's just one example. There are many others, but I'm working to keep my first ever political rant on Three Days Is Kinda Money under 10,000 words. But, let me just give you one more. Having worked in a high school for fourteen years (fuck, I'm old), I have seen countless occassions where a guy screws over/attempts to date two women (this also happens on The Real World and Road Rules all the time as well as on a show called The Bachelor, where not just 2, but 25 women backstab and hate other women for the love of a fat, Christian rock singer named Bob). What do these two high school girls do? They fight each other. Why can't they get together and kick the crap out of the boy? How legendary would this be? it would be bigger than the Pill. These girls would be high school legends forever.But rather than be legends, they want to fight each other. For a kid that wears a tilted, white Polo hat and 13 year out of style carpenter jeans.

And I hear what some of you women are saying. "I love my six girlfriends... We hang out all the time and go on trips and yada yayda yada." Well, when you are on those trips and three of you go to pick up more ice and it is just three of you sitting together, how fast are you talking about one of the three who just left? Before the car starts? Or after the screen door shuts? I'm saying the talking starts the second the last girl has her first flip flopped foot on the front porch. Of course you're quiet in case someone forgot their sunglasses and has to come back in to get them, but you've still started. While you're gossiping though, know the three in the car are talking about you too.

My point? Two girls can't get together and agree that a 17 year old boy is worthless, so how the hell do I expect 2 million registered women to get behind the female candidate? It isn't gonna happen. Maybe ever. And politicians need to start being aware of this. No, it will never be talked about in a public forum, but I'm right. Ladies, I've got to say, the only chance a woman has of winning is if she is running against another woman. There is no way in hell women are putting aside their cattiness to make history. It's just not in your DNA. I wish it were, but it's not and you have to start examining yourselves as to why this can't happen.

3. Mike Capuano. In relation to what I wrote above, he would have killed Scott Brown. It feels like the Dems are ALWAYS fucking up the primaries and they fucked up royally not nominating the man who has some Ted Kennedy in him (even if for no other reason that they shared the same congressional seat).

4. Health Care. I get it. People don't want it. This is not because of the cost as republicans say. It is because it is an Obama idea. I can't get into the ins and outs of it, but there will be no free coverage for illegal or death panels. No one has the facts and they don't want it simply because it is an Obama idea. But how moronic do you people have to be to see that the system is flawed? Do you see what comes out of your paycheck every month for health care? Do you know how much COBRA is? Do you see your co-payment increases? Do you hear what doctors say about insurance and how difficult their jobs have become? The system needs to be fixed. Soon. Stop hating it just to hate it. And don't talk about the cost. Do you see the limited choices? DoDo you know what "tax increases" REALLY cost you (ever notice your check when taxes go up? Your life is completely unaffected. And when taxes go down, trash fees and excise taxes and sales taxes and luxury taxes go up. It's a simple mathematical formulakids. You can't have more going out than coming in. Our taxes will always go up. If you don't like that, protest the Osprey, not health care. Idiots.)? Nothing. Also, don't talk about what "might" happen because you sound stupid. Remember what was "going" to happen six years ago when we allowed gay marriage to happen? People were going to marry cows. What was the reality? it affected your life in no way and as it turned out, gays hated marriage just as much as straight people, so if anything, we got more people to commiserate with. And please. I dare someone to give me the argument of "I don't want the government controlling my health care." I can't WAIT to go OTT on that one.

5. The Obama Backlash. I didn't think this would happen this quickly. I really didn't. Silly me. I've been saying for years that everything from immigration to jobs to health care to the economy to who we love as athletes is about race. So how could I miss this? Republicans DESPERATELY want Obama to fail. As did all the racist republicans (which is redundant... The two words are synonyms). They claim to love this country so much, but they cannot get behind a SINGLE Democratic ideal (here's another reason why I am a Democrat: No matter how much the GOP blasts us for being crazy liberals, we are free thinkers who make up our own minds. The proof: In 2002, 374 members of congress voted FOR the War In Iraq. A mere 156 did not. We know now that there were no WMDs, there were no Sadam/al Qaeda links. But some Democrats so believed in our President, in our cause, and in our nation, that they voted FOR a war that was INVENTED- did they learn this from Wag The Dog?- by a Republican administration. They did not vote strictly along party lines. They did not stubbornly try to embarrass a President because they wanted him to fail. They voted for the War in Iraq because they BELIEVED in it. You mean to tell me- c'mon Olympia Snowe!- that not ONE Republican believes that health care could use some fixing? Please. What a disgraceful, disgraceful party... Again, I'm so happy I'm not a part of it). And I keep hearing my Republican friends ask, "what's he done?" Well, truthfully, not much. But he's been in office 364 days and he is laying a foundation. It's tough to get ANYTHING done when you have the opposition making up complete stories (Palin: Death Panels) to the dumb, scared people of this country to sway their vote. Listen, I get politics and how it works. I do. I get that it gets dirty. I do. But for all the complaining that Republicans do about liberals and how they act and vote, I say shut up. You are the biggest bunch of hypocrites I have ever met. You claim to love this country, yet don't support the President because he's from a different party than you. It's absolutely pathetic. Just pathetic. Back to the "what's he done?"

Jon Stewart handled this beautifully last night. He can't win either way. He says he is going to close Guantanamo and he loses points for that very idea. Then he doesn't, so he loses DOUBLE the points (so Republican, I ask you? Did you want it closed or not? Stop Ordwaying this!). He wins the Nobel Prize- a great honor for him personally and also for the country these Republicans say they love- and he loses points for that. He sends troops to Afghanistan, but loses points for waffling and not sending enough. Is Fox News really THIS powerful or are people really THIS dumb. I'm going with the ladder, but that's just me.

To close this point, let me say what Obama hasn't done...

He hasn't let 3000 American die as two planes crashed into the landmark buildings of the countries most famous city (I really don't think this is Dubya's fault, but this happened on HIS WATCH!!!!! AND HIS APPROVAL RATING SHOT TO 90%!!!!! I get the mood the country was in, but if this happened right now with Obama, the Republicans would burn down The White House in rage that it was all the black guys fault). He hasn't started and then not finished two wars. He hasn't hired Donald Rumsfeld. He hasn't bailed out private banks when the country DIDN'T WANT THAT (same thing you clowns say about health care). He hasn't overseen a mortgage crisis (again,on his watch). He hasn't let Enron happen, grant all illegals full citizenship status a month before his election, let an iconic American city look like a third world country after a hurricane. He hasn't flown a "Mission Accomplished" banner, hired a Department of Homeland Security head who had an illegal alien as a nanny, sat in a classroom for 15 minutes as our nation suffered its worst attack in 60 years. He hasn't lost the huge surplus the previous president accrued, tortured people, created The Patriot Act, or have the most iconic and brilliant military mind since Eisenhower quit on him and bad mouth him at every turn. But hey, he's got three more years to accomplish all of this.

So, there are my five rants. Those, along with my Ray Allen like game this morning and sweet new scarf, have calmed me down. So much so, that there is some good. Like...

All the places I want to live in Massachusetts voted OVERWHELMINGLY for Coakley (the fuckin suburbs... You people...). Once people see the comedy act that is Scott Brown, he's gone (go Capuano!). The economy will recover, Barack will get re-elected and the racists will have four more years to melt down.

As Lou Gorman once said, the sun will rise, the sun will set. And I'll have lunch.

And if you thought this rant was bad, wait until the one on March 8th when Clooney loses the Oscar to Jeff Bridges for playing a drunk. Because that's real hard.

That was just the tip kids. Just the tip.