Finding The Balance

I've never had an easy time balancing best friends and girlfriends. I want to say that I've always been the "bros before hoes" kinda guy, but in reality, it's always been the girl over the guys, and luckily for me the guys that are still my friends understand that and accept/respect it.

But the situation I find myself in lately is that between me and The Lady, there's the RM. Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal, only the RM has ... no one else to hang out with. All his other friends are the guys we work with, and he's not of age to go hang out at a bar or anything. Basically it kinda becomes baby sitting.

...it's kinda sad when The Lady and I retreat back into my bedroom to have some private time together that he kinda follows us. And I feel like a total heel closing the door on him. IAt the age of 26 and 23 it's like we've become the parents to a fully grown 19 year old.

I realize I'm under no obligation to hang out with him or even be nice to him, but the poor bastard is pretty much my best friend here on the Hook. We laugh our asses off at stupid shit and he's a genuine kinda guy. This all adds up to me feeling like an asshole for wanting to blow him off to spend time with the girlfriend.

I present this case to the court: The RM wants to go to Fenway tomorrow afternoon to get some Military-only Sox tix to see them play the Brewers at 1905. Normally this would be a no brainer, and we'd go. Only thing is, that A) I'm pretty burnt out from this week. B) I have barely spent any time with The Lady, who's stressing out over "life shit" and really could use my physical support right now. 3) I can only stand the RM for maybe a handful of hours before I want to slowly choke him or hold him under water in a porcelain tub until the bubbles and thrashing stops. 4) It's going to make for a long day (in hindsight, this should've been "C"), The RM wants to get to The Fens at like 1300 and get a bite to eat and walk around Boston for a bit, where we'd do nothing but WALK, because he can't get into a bar. And by the time the game's over and we're back on The Hook, it's going to be probably after midnight, providing the game runs it's usual 9 innings and nothing spectacular like extra innings goes down.

Plus I have a doctor's appointment here in town, AND, I want to do some work on my bike and maybe try to get in a ride before the weather turns to shit this weekend, as it's being forcasted to do.

So what do I do? If I take my RM up on his plans, I shirk The Lady and my own physical/mental well being. If I pass, I look like a douche to the RM and to Red Sox Nation.

Argh, I'm building a fort in my bedroom and never coming back out.

Running Mix for the Week of 5/9/08

Here's what I'm listening to as I pound the pavement in my Nikes... in case anyone's interested..

"Don't Stop Believing" Journey
"Gimmie Shelter" The Rolling Stones
"The Game" Disturbed
"Burn My Shadow" UNKLE
"Life Is Beautiful" SIX A.M.
"You" Candlebox
"Freya" The Sword
"Killing In The Name" Rage Against The Machine
"(Rock) Superstar" Cypress Hill
"No Sleep To Brooklyn" The Beastie Boys
"Working For The Weekend" Loverboy
"Umbrella" Rihanna
"I'm Shipping Up To Boston" The Dropkick Murphys
"Smoke'em" The Fun Loving Criminals
"Bombin' The L" The Fun Loving Criminals
"Side 2 Side" 3-6 Mafia
"As You Already Know..." Kool G Rap
"Icky Thump" The White Stripes
"Beat It" Fall Out Boy with John Mayer (Not as gay as you'd think...)
"Speedin'" Rick Ross
"Riot Maker" Tech 9
"The Beast" Tech 9
"Snitch" Obie Trice
"The Trooper" Iron Maiden
"Guns and Roses" Jay-Z
"One Horse Race" Tom Vek
"Needy Girl" Chromeo
"Walcott" Vampire Weekend
"Aerodynamic" Daft Punk

Seriously, write your own joke....

This story, taken from (I think Reuters?), is probably the most articulate description of a New York Yankees fan, ever published. Go Sox.

BOOSH.

Danica Patrick

It's been three years since Danica Patrick broke the "gender barrier" in Indy Car racing. For those of you - like me - who don't really care, I guess it's something like breaking the "color barrier" in NASCAR? ...Something like that?

So after three years of racing, she's yet to win a single race. Yet, every time there's a commercial on ESPN or ABC for an Indy race, she's got top billing. In essence, she's become the Anna Kornikova of left hand turns.

Honestly, I don't care about Danica Patrick, and probably most of America would concur with that sentiment. So I think, after three winless years, we can probably allow Ms. Patrick to slowly fade into mediocricy, a sports figure-also ran (literally and figuratively), a gimmicky flash in pan to revitalize a sport no one in this country cares about.

Other members of the "Who Cares" All-Star Team include:

Previously mentioned Anna Kornikova
David Beckham
Barbaro the horse/roast beef sandwich
Bam Margera

Maybe they can all sit around watching highlight reels that don't feature them.

Trends of the Last Century Present: ESPN

If you're like me, between the years of being in middle school and up until now, ESPN's been apart of your morning. You might leave it on in the background as you go through your morning routine of getting coffee and getting dressed. Also if you're like me, you've probably noticed how different ESPN's become over the years.

ESPN sucks now.

Sadly it's true, from the top down, the "World-Wide Leader in Sports" has a heavy crown to bear, and I believe the weight is slowly breaking the network's own neck.

Gone are the days of Rich Eisen (The NFL Network) and Keith Oberman (MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Oberman) manning the helm of SportsCenter, cutting through highlights with one liners that you'd take to school or to the office with you and use all day. What we're left with is the one leftover from those days, Stewart Scott - an analyst as lazy as his own left eye.

It's true, the analysis of ESPN's desk people is shallow and uninspired at best. I routinely watch "Baseball Tonight" with Chris Burman and his panelists, and listen to the scraped-together facts provided by some statitician in the bowels of the ESPN Complex in Bristol, CT. For instance, "Baseball Tonight" panelist, and former first baseman John Kruk grunted and pushed out this gem a few nights ago:

"The Red Sox have such strong hitting in the middle of their line up with Ortiz, Ramierez and Lowell. You can't pitch around Ortiz without having to face the power of Manny or Mike Lowell's ability to bring in runs."

What the hell is that? I'm not getting anything that I couldn't readily figure out for myself by browsing the stat section of my local sports page.

I don't necessarily blame ESPN though, I think the problem mostly lies in the fact that ESPN has gotten too big. Literally, the network is a monster, and it has to be, because they claim to be the "World-Wide Leader of Sports" and that means something. That means, if there's a cricket match in Bombay, ESPN's there. If there's F1 Racing in Germany, ESPN's there. If there's women's basketball playoffs, ESPN2's there. They even cover competitive eating, I shit you not.

So with all this coverage, of course analysis has to be shallow. The longest SportsCenter of the week comes on for two hours on Sunday. After all the highlights, score updates and recaps, the obligatory interview with some sports writer from some local town where something's happening, and a soft feature piece with some retiring college coach/NFL star giving back to his crack-addeled community/recently outed gay high diver, there's little room left over for in-depth sports analysis.

Of course if you're a fan of a huge, well known team say as the Red Sox or Yankees, The Patriots or Eagles, Tony Stewart or Tiger Woods, sure there's going to be just enough coverage of your team to sustain you. But what if you're a Padre's fan? Or a Bangels fan? Or a proud follower of the Montreal Canadiannes? You're just shit out of luck.

Also, the rest of the line up at ESPN are these adversarial topic shows, such as "Pardon The Interuption" or PTI as it's referred to, where two assholes scream over each other to the tick of a clock counting down before they have to move on to the next subject. It's literally like taking two drunks from a bar, giving them a list of talking points, and running an egg timer. I should also mention that they have two or three other shows that use this same format, one of which lovingly comes with a mute button (Around The Horn), thank god.

Again, if I want to watch a pack of dickheads yell at each other, over each other, about today's sports topics, I'll grab a stool down at Mulligan's, where someone will eventually get punched in the side of the head, and no one's wearing a pretentious-looking suit.

I really wish ESPN would back it down a bit. Not everything in the sports world needs 24/7 coverage. If you miss a Busch Series race or a college football game here and there, so what? Don't bear the burden on yourselves, hand off some to the local area sports networks like NESN or New England Sports Network (that is, if you're reading this and live in New England). I'm sure other regions have similar networks in place.

Go back, ESPN, to your roots of just doing highlights with witty commentary. Get rid of the college interns/boss's sons who sit behind their desk on set and read from the paper, sounding as if they're actually reading from a paper. Put a little heart into the shows you're putting on the air. And for the love of Christ, no one cares about those soft little feature pieces on the handicapped karate instructor or the Iraq War Vetrans Vollyball League.

Turn back before it's too late.