Sunday, October 31, 2004

color me retarded.

color me retarded.

i've had shitass couple of days now.

- i worked 12 hours yesterday, missing the fucking parade because of it (despite the fact we were TOLD we could go to it.)
- i thought my car was stolen because i was so tired, and i had to file a stolen car report, only to realize i had been looking on the wrong goddamn street.
- i am up at 6 AM, so i cant go out tonight in good conscience (i dont want to be hung over as balls tomorrow when i'm working the fever pitch re-shoots).
- the pats lost for the first time since last september. like 2003 september.
- i'm getting sick.

i hate halloween.

posted by b, 10/31/2004 07:49:00 PM | link | |

Thursday, October 28, 2004

thank you. my life is good.

So.

My life is complete. Time for some thanks. These are thanks outside of people from the Sox.

Thanks to Mom for making me keep the fath during ALCS Game 4.
Thanks to Dad for being up after they won tonight. I could be loud.
Thanks to Kara for crying and being so goddamn hardcore.
Thanks to Cuch for being such a fuckin' fan.
Thanks to Owen to taking me to my first game. And for watching game 6 and 7 of the ALCS w/ me.
Thanks to Hugh for being my best friend through it all, Red Sox and not.
Thanks to Jon Lehman, Abby Hammett, Mo Johnson, and all the BCDS crew who went to the game w/ me vs. Yankees.
Thanks to Lesley for dealing with me last year, and frankly, this year. You supported me more than most.
Thanks to Perry, Josh, and Kevy. You let me punch a wall last year, and this year, when I see you boys again, I'll have a bottle of champagne for you.
Thanks to Deuce. You're a Sox fan from outside the area. You appreciate the game so much more than most people. and you GET IT.
Thanks to Garlick, Mike, and the other kids at 9 Aberdeen during G1 of the World Series. You made my homecoming amazing. Seeing the Sox win G1 with kids who appreciated made my night. Scotty, Cuch, you're in there too.

Thank you Theo. You're the best. Get ready for a statue. Mr. Henry, I love you.
Thank you Pedro, Curt, Manny, David, Foulke, Derek, Johnny, Timlin, Wakefield, Mark, Doug, Pokey, Bill, Youks, Bronson, Embree, Belli, O-Cab, Dougie, Pokey, Superjew, Millar, Nixon, Leskanic, Myers, and well, Davey Robs.

posted by b, 10/28/2004 04:38:00 AM | link | |

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

homecoming, my article, and my set list

Thanks to everyone for an unforgettable homecoming. So much fun on so many levels. World Series Game 1 at 9 Aberdeen, Ritual, the Football game, both nights at Clark Hall Pub, and everything else. Just awesome. This was my best homecoming weekend, better than any of the five I had when I was still at Queen's. Shazam.

I also have my article in the Queen's Journal coming out today. I have no idea what headshot they used of me.

The set list from tonight. God willing I'll get to play there again. I think I have a decent shot at it.

900:
Mott the Hoople - All the Young Dudes
The New Pornographers - My Slow Descent into Alcoholism
Hot Hot Heat - Talk to Me, Dance With Me
Grand Funk Railroad - We're An American Band
The Strokes - Automatic Stop
915:
The Cars - Just What I Needed
The Vines - Country Yard
Radiohead - The National Anthem
The Beatles - Come Together
Franz Ferdinand - Jacqueline
930:
The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go
The Strokes - Soma
The Police - Every Breath You Take
The Hope of the States - The Red, The White, The Black, The Blue
945:
Elvis Costello - Pump It Up
Mark Ronson feat. Rivers Cuomo - I Suck
Fleetwood Mac - You Make Loving Fun
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil
1000:
The Mooney Suzuki - Alive and Amplified
The White Stripes - The Hardest Button to Button
Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
The Faces - Ooh La La
U2 - Bullet the Blue Skies
1015:
The Streets - Give Me My Lighter Back
Hot Hot Heat - No, Not Now
The Vines - Sunshinin'
The Who - Pinball Wizard
The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
1030:
Paul Simon - Me & Julio Down By The Schoolyard
Modest House - Float On
The Yeah Yeah Yeah's - Maps
Steely Dan - Do It Again
1045:
Talking Heads - Burning Down the House
The Dirtbombs - I'm Through With White Girls
The Hives - Main Offender
The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter
1100:
Blackalicious - It's Going Down
Deltron 3030 - Mastermind
Mark Ronson feat. Ghostface Killa & Nate Dogg - Ooh Wee
Talib Kweli - Sharp Shooters
1115:
Atmosphere - National Disgrace
Dilated Peoples - Right & Exact
The Streets - Fit But You Know It
Jurassic 5 - World of Entertainment
1130:
Mos Def - Sex, Love, or Money
Talib Kweli - Work It Out
Dizzee Rascal - Jus A Rascal
N.E.R.D. - She Wants to Move
1145:
Ghostface Killa - Fat Booty 2
Atmosphere - Trying To Find A Balance
Jay-Z - Encore
Blackalicious - Deception (Part I)
1200:
U2 - Vertigo
Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Interpol - Slow Hands (Britt Daniel Remix)
The Rapture - House of Jealous Lovers
1215:
!!!'s - Me & Guliani Down By the Schoolyard
LCD Soundsystem - Yeah
1230:
Go Home Productions - Ray of Gob
Hot Hot Heat - Bandages
Radio 4 - Dance to the Underground
The Strokes - Hard to Explain
1245:
The Von Bondies - C'mon C'mon
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
The Music - Take the Long Road and Walk It
The Cars - My Best Friend's Girl
100:
The Clash - Rock the Casbah
Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime
Big Country - In a Big Country
Neil Young - Heart of Gold

posted by b, 10/26/2004 02:48:00 AM | link | |

Thursday, October 21, 2004

to be a sox fan.

a long story. the sox won, 10-3 tonight, doing the most incredible comeback in sports history. INCREDIBLE. AMAZING.

after talking to friend, who is now the editor for the queen's journal, i ended up writing an article about being sox fan. this the unedited, untouched version of it. it's not great, but hey. it should be in friday's edition, sweet christ, please.

by the way, photos coming soon.

I was born in Boston, Massachusetts. I was raised no more than a 15 minute drive from Fenway Park. I was raised Red Sox fan. What does this mean? Suffering. Pain. Loss. Bad luck. I was at Queen’s for five years, and I dealt with plenty of Leafs fans. Here’s the thing: you guys have a championship since World War I, and you haven’t been losing to the same guys for the last seventy-five years. It’s one thing to won in the last sixty years; it’s another thing to have been losing to the same team the entire time.

Being a Red Sox fan means being a fan twelve months a year. When the Patriots were in the process of winning 10 in a row last winter, the Red Sox still had the front page of the sports section around here. The Red Sox are essentially, a religion in this part of the world. Not winning a World Series for eighty-six years will do that to you (mind you, they haven’t won it this year either). What it won’t do is cause you to give up hope. I have literally spent my life adoring this team. I have forced girlfriends to watch games, only to find them caring about who this “Nomar” is and why he seems to have an obsessive-compulsive disorder. I have called people at 2 AM to ask scores when I’ve been out of town. I have spent countless hours on Internet message boards like SonsOfSamHorn.com trying to get a handle on what it’s like in Red Sox Nation. I have seen Bucky Dent (who hit a fly ball for the Yankees over the Monster in Fenway Park in 1978 in the last game of the year to beat the Red Sox) and Aaron Boone (another Yankee, who hit a home run in the 11th inning of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS) torture friends and family. I have changed my clothes in the middle of a game because my team was not winning. I have gotten phone calls from friends’ parents asking about “how many different pitches does Keith Foulke throw?” We are a strange breed, Red Sox fans. We have a history of losing, but we’re not losers. We have the third best winning percentage of any franchise in baseball in the ESPN era (since 1979). We’ve been to the playoffs in 1986, 1988, 1990, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2003, and of course, 2004. It’s also just close, but not enough.

Last year, in October of 2003, I was constantly on edge. My grades dropped. My job became secondary. I stopped shaving (you know, playoff beard). I became noticeably irritable when someone didn’t understand what OPS (On-Base Percentage plus Slugging Percentage) was. I bought a bottle of champagne, praying, hoping. When Aaron Boone’s home run off Tim Wakefield hit the outfield bleachers, I lost it. I punched a wall. For days, friends (both non-fans and Yankee fans alike) were coming up to me saying things like “… are you okay?”, in a tone that implied that someone close to me had died. I was depressed. The whole city of Boston was depressed. Another year, another truly heartbreaking loss for the Red Sox and their fans.

Last November, the Red Sox went out and made a deal for pitcher Curt Schilling. Curt made his decision to be traded based partially on talking to Red Sox fans on the internet. By mid-December, when everyone else was studying for exams in Stauffer Library, I was keeping an eye on SonsOfSamHorn regarding the possibility of Alex Rodriguez, the best all-around player the game, going to the Red Sox in a trade. I spent hours not studying for my exams and instead refreshing my internet browser to see if we would get the covered shortstop. After the deal fell through, he ended up going to the Yankees. It was another victory for the Yankees over the Red Sox; a coup that basically showed why the Yankees always win, and the Red Sox always lose. We were the losers again, and of course, once again to the Yankees. After a long season, with the Red Sox making the playoffs and beating the Anaheim Angels 3-0 in the ALDS, we were faced once again with our continual enemy, the New York Yankees. Some people say the Red Sox and the Yankees have a rivalry; but when one team has won 26 championships in the last 86 years and the other has won 0, how much of a rivalry is that? It’s about as much as a rivalry between a hammer and a nail.

This brings us to Sunday. The Red Sox, despite being favored by Las Vegas, were down 0-3 in the the ALCS versus the Yankees, and had just suffered the worst loss in playoff history, a 19 to 8 beating at home, in Fenway Park. Only 2 teams in the history of professional sports had come back from an 0-3 deficit, the 1942 Maple Leafs and the 1975 Islanders; in other words, no baseball team had done so, and only 5 teams had even made past being swept. On Sunday, David Ortiz hit a two-run homer to win the game, making the series 1-3. I was so enthralled with how they had done, I ended up purchasing a ticket for Game 5, which was also my birthday. In the longest game in postseason history, David Ortiz (or, Big Papi) had another hit to give the Red Sox a win, making the series it 2-3. After the heroics of Curt Schilling and his sutured ankle, the Red Sox had won Game 6, making the series 3-3. The Red Sox had done something no team in baseball history had done – they had survived being down 0-3 and made it to 3-3, forcing a Game 7.

Game 7 was to be played on Wednesday, October 20th. I made it to the Baseball Tavern, a bar about one block from Fenway Park. After what felt like hours of torture, the Red Sox beat the Yankees 10-3. This was, and will be, one of the top five moments of my life – when Ruben Sierra grounded to Pokey Reese to end the ballgame, I hugged probably two-hundred strangers and high-fived another two-thousand. I cried a bit. My twin sister and I just hugged and screamed. The guy I grew up across the street from (and whose father took me to my first Sox game) and I jumped up and down screaming at the top of our lungs. This wasn’t just a win – this was an exorcism. This was the greatest comeback in sports history (let’s face it, those hockey teams didn’t have a national media press on their backs for their game 7’s). This was the greatest choke job in sports history, but not by the Red Sox; no, this time it was by the New York Yankees, the “winningest franchise in sports history” – normally it was the Red Sox who choked, this time it was our bitter rivals. As the bar poured out onto Boylston St and the thousands of Sox fans converged on the area, I just sat there, taking pictures and shaking my head. I had seen my team make the most improbable comeback in sports history. This had transcended the game though – I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. But do you know what the funny part about all this is? There is still a World Series to be played, yet I still feel like the Red Sox are a winner, no matter what. Go Sox."

Go.
Sox.

WHY NOT US, MOTHERFUCKERS?!!?!?!?!?!?!??

posted by b, 10/21/2004 04:25:00 AM | link | |

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

okay.

okay.

okay.

i went to the game tonight.

game 5 at fenway.

it's my birthday so i figured, blow a few bucks, see a game. see my first playoff game.

it was. A. MAZE. ING.

they won in 14. it was fucking amazing. i will scan my ticket if you do not believe me. this game. . . big time, baby.

i made a few friends, i drank a few friends, i kept score on my scorebook.... i mean.... fuuuuck.

fucking awesome.

AWESOME. IN. EVERY. SENSE. OF. THE. WORD.

WHY NOT US?!?!?

posted by b, 10/19/2004 02:40:00 AM | link | |

Friday, October 15, 2004

a few days, a few songs to check out.

How about that Bill O'Reilly? He's a class act. What a prick.

A few songs for you to download and to listen to. Enjoy. And so on.

spitalfield - five days and counting - My friend Matt had this song in his MSN name so I downloaded it, and boy howdy, I did NOT regret it. It's pop punk, it's... kind of mean. There's something about this song that really hits me. It's better than any of the nfg/yellowcard stuff. By the same token, check out...

fall out boy - tell that mick he just made my list of things to do - I don't think I've ever encountered a band with more original song titles as Fall Out Boy, such as "Sending Postcards from a Plane Crash (Wish You Were Here)", "The Pros and Cons of Breathing", and "Reinventing the Wheel To Run Myself Over". Clever girl... Anyhow, they are fast. And they're whiny. But, isn't that what we love about the "pop punk" music?

The Vines - Ride (Go Home Productions Rabbit Hole Mix) - Go to the site to get it. He makes "Ride" a very enjoyable song (although I enjoyed it before.)

Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For? - Here's a better version - i.e., no radio crap. It's actually (truthfully) the first mp3 I've ever paid for on iTunes Music Store. There, I said it.

Ken Jennings - What's a Ho? - Wow. WOW. WOW. Fucking awesome. I just laughed my ass off.

posted by b, 10/15/2004 01:14:00 PM | link | |

Monday, October 11, 2004

WIN.

IT.
IS.
ON.

I have never been more excited, more ready, more pumped for any single sporting event than this one. I am so @#%$ ready for our boys to win this series. I cannot wait for the first pitch. I have trouble sleeping (hence being up at 2:30AM) because of this series. Tuesday can't come any sooner.

Go for the throat. Don't get pretty. Don't pull your starters when you're up by 6 runs. Use your best pitchers when you can. Use Pedro/G38 in relief if you HAVE to. Don't use Mike Myers when you shouldn't, but when you should, goddammit, use him. Be mean. Throw inside. Get in their faces. Sheff says Pedro shouldn't say/do anything to him - so friggin' do it. Hit him if he's on the plate. Wipe the smiles off their faces.

Win in 4, so we can sweep.
Win in 5, so we can win at home.
Win in 6, so we can win in the Toilet in front of their stupid fans.
Win in 7, so as to get rid of last year's memories.

Just.
Win.

It.
Is.
ON.

posted by b, 10/11/2004 02:25:00 AM | link | |

8 wins, baby

all we need now is 8 wins. thats all. 8 wins in 14 games. we can do this. that's 4 wins in 7 games. thats not so bad, thats practically .500.

my birthday is next monday. i'll be 23. why do i mention this, other than for attention?

well i've been trying really hard to get a job djing at this new lounge in cambridge. like, calling the guy all the time, especially since he e-mailed me saying that my demo was real good.

so i go tonight to check out the place, and i talk to him. here is our conversation, more or less:

ben: so i was wondering about if you had any work possibly?
jason: well, we're not really sure right now. i'm really busy right now still trying to get things going.
ben: i see. do you have any idea.. you know, if there's a chance?
jason: again, i'm not sure yet.
ben: look, i'll work for free.
jason: well that changes things a bit. what do you have in terms of music?
ben: about 75-100 records and a ton of cds.
jason: what kinds of stuff?
ben: well, hip-hop, rock, indie stuff, and a lot of classic rock/soul stuff.
jason: what kinds of hip-hop?
ben: you know, deltron 3030, atmosphere, j5. the classic rock is beatles, stones, the standards. but its all good.
jason: you know there's a big gain difference between cds and vinyl, right?
ben: yeah, i know. (there isn't REALLY, by the way)
jason: okay, well... okay, how's this: come in next monday, be prepared to play an eclectic set.
ben: (stunned) uh, okay.

i e-mail him asking for what time i should show up at and for long my set will be. he responds with:

"9pm - 1am. Your perstitence paid off, good luck, see you next Monday."

wow. okay.
wow.

this should be interesting. that being said . . .



current music: Spitalfield - Five Days and Counting

posted by b, 10/11/2004 01:30:00 AM | link | |

Thursday, October 07, 2004

whoo

what a fucking game. i mean, wow.

the ups, the downs, everything.

i actually got a chance to chat online w/ curt schilling the other day, which was real cool.

pedro was very... good. he wasn't vintage pedro, but he was just good enough, and i think he pitched better than his numbers indicated.

the good guys are up 2-0, going to fenway. i'm smelling a sweep.

posted by b, 10/07/2004 01:08:00 PM | link | |

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

This is unreal.

Here's how it works.

At SoSH, for every game, a thread is started to, you know, comment on the game as it goes along. Who starts the Game 1 of the ALDS thread?

CURT. FUCKING. SCHILLING.

Now, why does this make me excited?

Because of this. I actually called Schilling starting the thread.

Wow.

Fucking wow.

Oh, and enjoy my new best friend:

shake it, shake-shake it!

posted by b, 10/05/2004 01:19:00 AM | link | |

Monday, October 04, 2004

whoo been a few days

yo.
been a few days.

since then i've:

- driven to canada and back. that's 890 miles in two days.
- had a fucking awesome time on saturday night hanging out with lista, kerri, vanya, and joe. i miss all those great players kids a ton. and getting to see a-dumb, ronnie, aaron, steve, anna, and everyone else at the scherzo was really cool.
- decided that green day's new cd is one of the best i've heard since the beginning of 2003, up there with speakerboxx/thelovebelow, deja entendu, and a few others.
- decided that sum 41's new cd is only ok. but it's different than their old stuff.
- brought back ALL my records and my turntables, which is fun.
- prepared for the playoffs. tomorrow at 4 pm, my life sort of stops until the red sox are no longer playing. i just hope it goes better than last year. (my prediction: bos3-1/min3-2/hou3-2/la3-1/bos4-2/hou4-3/bos4-3, for what it's worth)
- rocked out quite a bit with my cock out. jammed out with my clammed out.
- i forgot how much better some canadian gums are. alpine gum is goddamn delicious.
- i also bought 40 aerius pills, a canadian antihistamine. they dont sell it in the states, and its fantastic. seems like its the only thing that does the job sometimes. 24 hour non drowsy fun.

more to write, but i'm tired.

posted by b, 10/04/2004 11:49:00 PM | link | |