It's baseball season which means, of course, that the perennial debate must begin anew: which team has the best fans? Personally, I have had this discussion far too many times. So I will now put it in writing for all to see and hopefully never have to speak of it again.
The first question that has to be asked when taking on this issue is what is meant by "best"? Are the best fans the ones who support their team through thick and thin? Sell out every home game? Cheer the loudest? Boo the loudest? Are they the ones who have actual knowledge of their team, its players and the game of baseball or are they simply the ones who throw the most shit on the field in the course of the game?
It's a tough question. Seriously. I mean its quite a homefield advantage when your fan base is a bunch of braying jackasses who are more than willing to publicly humiliate themselves in order to heckle the other team. On the other hand, having a stadium packed with those same morons can have a negative impact on the home team as well [see every big name free agent the Mets ever brought in. Or the Albert "Joey" Belle (definitely in my top 5 sports psychopaths) My favorite is the incident in which shortly after he completed a program for alcohol and drug abuse (and subsequently changed his name from Joey to Albert in a totally bizarre and never really explained move), one of his own fans was taunting him about having a keg party over at his house. In response to the heckling, Belle picked up a foul ball, turned, and threw the ball as hard as he could into the fan's chest. The guy had to go to the hospital and Albert was suspended for a week. Brilliant, Mr. Belle. I don't know how you came up with that stuff. By the way, if you aren't familiar with his greatest hits, check out this site - http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ballplayers/player.php?name=albert_belle_1966 - focusing on the first four paragraphs. It reads like this guy is writing about a character he made up - the biggest douche bag ever to play America's sport]
For the purposes of this post, I'm going to say the best fans are the loudest, drunkest, and most disruptive. I'll be basing my judgments on my personal experiences. And by personal experiences I mean everything from actually firsthand knowledge, to seeing stuff on television, to unverified stories I heard from some guy that swears his buddy was there. Since this is how I get all of my information on which I make major life decisions, I see no problem with using it here.
TOP TEN "BEST" BASEBALL FAN BASES
10. San Francisco Giants
California fans generally don't get a lot of respect. And I won't be giving them much respect here, either. But I will say this; there is no fan base more absurdly loyal to its players than Giant fans. If you've ever had a conversation about Barry Bonds with a Giant fan, you'll immediately know what I'm talking about. I happen to know a lot of Giant fans and I may have once or twice insinuated that Barry Bonds may or may not have taken a lot of steroids. Man, you should have seen the look on their faces. It was like I'd just punched their grandmother in the uterus. They get insane! They refuse to apply logic or listen to rational arguments when it comes to Bonds. Giants’ fans literally turn into a team of attorneys whenever Barry Bonds is mentioned. They require you to prove to them beyond a reasonable doubt that Barry Bonds used steroids (I think we can all agree that their doubt is unreasonable at this point). I had one of my Giant fan friends demand that I show him evidence that Barry Bonds is guilty of using performance enhancers. As if I'm Federal prosecutor and I've got some exhibits on me as we're drinking at a bar. "Just wait a second while I produce blood test records from 2003." Get a hold of yourself. The man's head grew at 37 years of age! His head! Grew! Whatever. I'm not going to beat a dead, bloated, large headed, cheating horse. I'll just say that any fan base that can be that ridiculous about its players deserves some kind of recognition for their efforts. I mean, take a look at the #3's fans and remember how fast they turned on Sammy Sosa. Good job, San Fran.
Oh, also, I went to a game at Candlestick in the middle of August and it was negative 10 degrees and windy. I seriously considered urinating on myself to keep warm. Any fans willing to endure that to see a game deserve to make this list.
9. Milwaukee Brewers
Brewers’ fans aren't generally considered to be rowdy or obnoxious, but that's only because the Brewers aren't generally considered to be a baseball team. Let me tell you from personal experience that these people get absolutely ripped at their games. Is this shocking to anyone? They're sponsored by a beer company. They sell Miller Lite and MGD for around 30 cents at a stadium called Miller Park. They're named the Brewers for God's sake! They're literally daring their fans to try and remain sober.
And their general drunkenness is nothing new. When I was a kid, I went to see the Brewers play the Orioles at the old County Stadium (if Cleveland hadn't built that abomination which was officially called Municipal Stadium and was unofficially known as "The Mistake by the Lake," then County stadium would be the ugliest, dirtiest, and stickiest place I've ever seen a baseball game). I have to be honest with you; I don't remember much of the game because the guys next to us made a bigger spectacle than the players on the field. These guys got piss drunk by the third inning and proceeded to heckle Eddie Murray for the next two hours or so. "Eddie!" "ED-DIE!!" and "Murray sucks!" were loudly slurr-screamed in my ear for the entire game, no matter who was at bat, no matter who was in the field. Just a constant "Edddddd-iiiiiiiieeeee!!!" intermixed with a more subdued "Edd-ddiee" when they got a little tuckered out. The funniest part about the whole thing was that Eddie Murray wasn't even in the game. In fact, he didn't even play for either team. He'd been with the Dodgers for 4 years by the time these two decided to heckle him mercilessly. But you know what, even if my dad and I had told them that Eddie Murray couldn't hear them because we were in the upper deck and he was in Los Angeles, I don't think that that would have mattered to these guys. They would have let him have it anyways because, frankly he deserved it, in their estimation, and it was about time someone did something about it. Now those are great fans.
8. St. Louis Cardinals
This is Budweiser's contribution to baseball fan douchebaggery. And just like with their beer, their product is a little bitter and a little hard to swallow, and still marginally better than Miller's. I'm speaking of course about the fact that the Cardinals are sponsored by the Budweiser family of beers and consequently, Cardinal fans get just as drunk as Brewers fans. And, of course, with drunken fans comes inappropriate behavior. I have to confess, I've only been to one Cardinal home game when I was about 12 years old. But, man, was it a doozy. We were watching the Cards take on the Braves and I'm a Braves fan (don't worry, I'm not biased, as you will see from the fact that the Braves are not on my list of great fan bases) so of course, I was wearing my Braves gear. The game had just started and my dad and I were hitting the men's room before we took our seats. While I was waiting outside of the bathroom for my dad to finish up, two beefy Midwestern guys came up to me chuckling as they looked over my hat and replica jersey. Then one of them got right in my face and yelled "FUCK YOU, KID!!!" and then they walked away. I spent the rest of the game in my seat hunched over in fear, imagining that my dad and I were seconds away from being carried off and ritualistically slaughtered by a pack of huge men with bad haircuts and stupid looking mustaches. It was utterly traumatic for me. And I learned something that day. I learned to respect Cardinals fans. If you are truly a good fan, you don't let some stupid kid enjoy a baseball game if he's rooting for the wrong team. NO! You gotta scream some profanity in his face, for God's sake! You gotta rattle his cage! "There are no free rides! Not in our house!" That's right. Welcome to # 8, St. Louis.
7. Chicago White Sox
Sox fans make it to this spot based solely on this: In 2002, during a Sox- Royals game, an irate father and his 15 year old son rushed on to the field and proceeded to beat the ever-loving crap out of the Royals first base coach, Tom Gamboa. For full details of the incident, read this article - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/news/2002/09/19/royals_whitesox_ap/ . My favorite part - where the dude is like "He got what he deserved." Priceless! That is white trash at its best, folks. Just absolutely unapologetic for their transgressions.
I've never read anything that adequately explains what the hell happened here, but I imagine it went something like this:
White Trash Dad: "Hey, Gamboa, you suck! Your team also sucks! You can barely coach first base!"
Tom Gamboa: - - -
WTD: "Gamboa, how many outs are there? Bet you don't know!"
TG: - - -
WTD: "Hey, Gamboa, what are you, some kind of Italian?"
TG: - - -
WTD: "Hey, Tommy, is Gamboa Italian for giant queerburger?!"
TG: "What?"
WTD: "Did you hear that, Son? No one says that about the Ligue men! Let's get him!"
Son: "Right behind you, Pa!"
6. Detroit Tigers
I went to the old Tigers Stadium the season before they tore it down (or more accurately, allowed it to fall down like God intended) and never have I felt so close to being in a riot. They lost to the Yankees that night and I was convinced that we were seconds away from tear gas and burning cars.
I also went to the new Comerica Park which is a very nice, huge, clean park. But we walked from our hotel downtown to the park and it was like taking a walking tour of Baghdad. I need no other proof that those people are hard-ass. That goes for the fans living out in the burbs too. Anybody willing to drag his family through that living hell to catch a game is a diehard in my book.
5. Boston Red Sox
I think we're all familiar with Red Sox fans at this point. Yes, they used to be whiny. And yes, they suddenly got unbelievably cocky. Despite all that, you've never experienced anything funnier than 30,000 people screaming "Fack you, Gay-Rod!!" in unison in their ridiculous New England accent.
4. New York Mets
A few facts for you: Fact 1 - Shea Stadium smells more like urine than urine does. Fact 2 - No one is more abusive to opposing players than Mets fans. Pouring beer on players' heads, screaming what I can only describe as imaginative profanity, chucking batteries - they have the whole bag of tricks. I know all of this from personal experience. First, I've peed all over that stadium and its surrounding parking lot. I feel honored to be a part of history. And second, I've heard, and, yes, participated, in many a brutal heckling. I once sat by the opponent's bullpen and watched about 10 native New Yorkers psychologically break down a middle reliever until he was pile of mush. Poor Pat Mahomes (pronounced Ma-Homes, except in New York where it's pronounced Faggot). I don't know if you see the humor in the name Pat Mahomes, but they sure did. They started there and grew progressively worse until by the time this guy had to go into the game they were describing an elaborate sodomy scene with the 10 of them and Momma Mahomes. Two pitches into his first batter, he gave up the game winning three run homerun. No one in our section was a bit surprised.
3. Chicago Cubs
They're number 3 for 3 reasons. 1) Saw a guy get kicked out of the bleachers for funneling a beer. 2) Saw the entire crowd at Wrigley field boo a 10 year old kid when he didn't want to throw back a homerun ball hit by the visiting team. After about 10 minutes, he finally tossed the ball weakly into left field and then broke down crying. Amazing stuff. 3) Sat through a half hour game delay because the third base ump called Derek Lee out on a check-swing and about 40,000 people lobbed their bottled waters on to the field. I was shocked. "Cubs fans don't drink water!," I said to myself. An inning later, they didn't like another call on a close play at second base, so out go the water bottles. It was ridiculous. Where the hell were these people getting all of these water bottles?!? It's like they brought them just to hurl them into the infield.
Oh, and also, the Cubs haven't won a World Series in, like, a hundred years or something. And those people still show up to the park to get drunk. So you have to give them something, right?
2. New York Yankees
They're number 2 for 2 reasons: 1) I saw them mercilessly boo a semi-retarded kid. Seriously. I was there and it happened. The team had invited a few "special" kids to be honorary ball and bat boys for the night. So they put this one kid down the first base line, gave him a glove and his own Yankees jacket (and, of course, there was a regular person there to take care of the foul balls). So this kid just sat there all game rocking in his chair, smiling away. Happiest kid you'll ever see. At some point, around the sixth inning, someone hits a ground ball right at his chair. The guy sitting there can't make the play because the ball was hit hard and he'd have to go through the kid to get it. So the kid kind of half gets out of his chair and awkwardly sticks his glove out. Of course, the kid misses it and the ball ricochets off the wall and into right field. And Yankees fans booed. Booed! A retarded kid for not making a diving grab! Biggest a-hole move I've ever seen. I know that Yankee fans boo their own players. That they even booed Derek Jeter, for God's sake. But to boo a mentally challenged kid for missing a ball that Jason Giambi regularly boots is beyond the pale.
2) I was sitting in the bleachers and I witnessed the following exchange between two drunken Yankee fans:
Yankee Fan 1: "Go, Mattingly! You're the best!"
Yankee Fan 2: "Whatta ya mean?"
Fan 1: "Whatta ya mean, whatta I mean?? Mattingly's the best!"
Fan 2: "What about Mickey Mantle?"
Fan 1: "What about Mickey Mantle?"
Fan 2: "Don't you ever fuckin' say that!!" And then he punched the guy right in the ear. Then the entire section started beating each other. 40 people were removed from the stadium at the end of the day. 5 guys were arrested and at least 4 people ended up in the hospital. All because one fan didn't give the Mick enough respect. That's gone beyond loyal fan to sociopath. That's Yankees fans, folks.
1. Philadelphia Phillies
I think everyone knows about Philadelphia fans with their booing and their fighting (they had to build an entire courtroom and jail underneath old Veterans Stadium for all of the people arrested for disorderly conduct every game). But here's one about Phillie fans that is guaranteed to shock you: A diehard Phillie fan decides to take his young son to his first baseball game. So they're sitting in the upper deck enjoying the game. They end up sitting next to a group of dudes who proceed to get blitzed during the game. Around the eighth inning or so, while the father was distracted, the guy sitting next to the boy stands up and starts peeing on the kids head. Yes. Yes. A grown man urinated on a small boy's head in the middle of a crowded stadium. Needless to say, that kid's first game will be memorable. Never have I heard of anything that epitomizes both drunken inappropriateness and abject douchebaggery in such a way. I guess this motherfather could have rooted for any team. But he didn't. He was a Phillie fan. Philadelphia should be proud.
If you disagree with any of my judgments, feel free to comment and let me know.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Weekly Top Ten: Part II
I've decided to do my book review later. Instead, here is my ode to Fall.
Top 10 Things You Will Learn in the Coming Months, But Only After It’s Too Late
As the memories of a summer spent drinking shirtless by a pool and screaming “Whoooo!!” at anyone who will listen begin to fade, we are all reminded of two things: 1) God’s glory reflected in the magnificent changes occurring all around us, from the changing colors of the leaves on the trees, to the crisp morning air that fills our lungs as we set out on our busy days, and 2) just how much we hate God.
Yes, Fall is upon us again, my friends. As we all know, Fall is a time of introspection as the colder weather forces us to spend more time indoors considering the year that has past. Chances are you will learn a lot about yourself during this time.
In fact, through scientific observation and careful examination of available statistical data, I’ve been able to develop a list of the most common revelations that you are likely to experience before year’s end. So, without further ado, I present the list that will change your life:
By December 31, 2007, you will learn that:
1. In all likelihood your assumption was wrong and that wasn’t a swinger’s club, but, in fact, a graveyard like the sign said.
2. The worst part of publicly urinating in a pair of nice dress pants isn’t the stain or the embarrassment; it’s the amount of running you have to do to evade the store security guard who wants you to pay for those soiled, overpriced pants.
3. You and Harry Potter have a lot in common. You don’t have any magical powers or facial scars, but the old man who has taken such a deep interest in you is, in fact, gay.
4. The Maxi Pad Comfort-Flex with Wings may be enough to most women’s heavy flow, but they’re not strong enough for you. Because you are a man and that is feces.
5. When they say that time heals all wounds, they are only speaking proverbially. You really should see a doctor about that thing.
6. All of the humorous misunderstandings that you’ve been experiencing lately have been caused by the reemergence of your long-lost identical twin . . . but his years in that coma have turned him EVIL!
7. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can prepare you for the moment you discover the purpose of the male nipple.
8. The blood-soaked T-shirt, the skin cells found on the nightstand, and the semen on the bedspread can lead to only one inescapable conclusion: you should seriously consider hiring a maid service.
9. When you discover, weeks afterward, that it was, in fact, on the endangered species list, it will increase your guilt over what you’ve done, but somehow it will also increase the deliciousness.
10. Child Services apparently does not have a sense of humor about that sort of thing.
Top 10 Things You Will Learn in the Coming Months, But Only After It’s Too Late
As the memories of a summer spent drinking shirtless by a pool and screaming “Whoooo!!” at anyone who will listen begin to fade, we are all reminded of two things: 1) God’s glory reflected in the magnificent changes occurring all around us, from the changing colors of the leaves on the trees, to the crisp morning air that fills our lungs as we set out on our busy days, and 2) just how much we hate God.
Yes, Fall is upon us again, my friends. As we all know, Fall is a time of introspection as the colder weather forces us to spend more time indoors considering the year that has past. Chances are you will learn a lot about yourself during this time.
In fact, through scientific observation and careful examination of available statistical data, I’ve been able to develop a list of the most common revelations that you are likely to experience before year’s end. So, without further ado, I present the list that will change your life:
By December 31, 2007, you will learn that:
1. In all likelihood your assumption was wrong and that wasn’t a swinger’s club, but, in fact, a graveyard like the sign said.
2. The worst part of publicly urinating in a pair of nice dress pants isn’t the stain or the embarrassment; it’s the amount of running you have to do to evade the store security guard who wants you to pay for those soiled, overpriced pants.
3. You and Harry Potter have a lot in common. You don’t have any magical powers or facial scars, but the old man who has taken such a deep interest in you is, in fact, gay.
4. The Maxi Pad Comfort-Flex with Wings may be enough to most women’s heavy flow, but they’re not strong enough for you. Because you are a man and that is feces.
5. When they say that time heals all wounds, they are only speaking proverbially. You really should see a doctor about that thing.
6. All of the humorous misunderstandings that you’ve been experiencing lately have been caused by the reemergence of your long-lost identical twin . . . but his years in that coma have turned him EVIL!
7. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can prepare you for the moment you discover the purpose of the male nipple.
8. The blood-soaked T-shirt, the skin cells found on the nightstand, and the semen on the bedspread can lead to only one inescapable conclusion: you should seriously consider hiring a maid service.
9. When you discover, weeks afterward, that it was, in fact, on the endangered species list, it will increase your guilt over what you’ve done, but somehow it will also increase the deliciousness.
10. Child Services apparently does not have a sense of humor about that sort of thing.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Weekly Top Ten List: Part I
Okay, time for another installment of the Weekly Top Ten. Sorry it's taken me so long to get to posting this, but last night I drafted my fantasy basketball team. It's an intense league that's been around for over 15 years, so my preparation obviously had to be pretty thorough. It entailed a few days of learning the basic rules of the game (like, did you know that the players can shoot from anywhere on the court and don't have to dunk the ball on every possession? You really lose a lot just watching highlights on ESPN) and then spending 4 hours during the draft pretending to know and/or care about professional basketball. It worked out well, though. I spent about half of my budget on Shaq, but it was totally worth it. With him playing on the same team as Kobe, he's assured of being League MVP, and they'll probably win the Championship, again. I didn't draft any guards, though. But I really don't think that will come back to haunt me. There should be plenty of quality guards on the waiver wire, right? And I picked up Charles Oakley and Detlef Schrempf for practically nothing. So, yeah, my team should be pretty good.
Okay, okay, no more fantasy basketball jokes. Instead, let's make fun of kids and books, shall we? For this week, I've decided to make it a double Top 10 list. I'm not sure of the math on that, but I'm guesstimating that it's like a Top 80 list or something. Someone check my numbers on that. Anyway, here we go.
First, now that the mania of Halloween has past and the Week of the Permanent Sugar High is upon us, I'm dedicating the initial Top Ten to candy. Yes, candy is awesome. Sure, it gives you that burst of energy and caffeine you need to make it through a day at your soul-crushing job or sit and listen to your spouse yammer on and on about your obesity and impotence or bills or whatever. But did you know that candy has some negative aspects as well? For instance, did you know candy is not a substitute for proper nutrition? I didn't. And did you know that candy is the #1 cause of gunshot wounds in this country? Actually, that one's probably not true. But if it was - I mean - wow, huh? Makes you think. How could we be so careless?
Also, did you know that candy will make a child run in a circle, screaming for going on 2 hours now? And did you know that an adult can only take about 15 minutes of screaming before he begins to die inside? (Seriously, Olivia is bouncing off the friggin' walls right now after spending the morning eating all of the best candy out of her stash. Here's my plan: around 6 pm, I'll jump out of the hall closet in a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses and then chloroform her. That way she'll get a good night's sleep and the only cost is that she'll think there's a murderous stranger living in her closet. It's so perfect; I'd be insane not to do it.)
The other drawback of candy - some of it sucks. Seriously, some candy is just bad. Which is surprising, because, I mean, how can you screw up mixing fat with sugar? You could leave a bag of fat and sugar in a dumpster for a week and it would still be pretty good if you coated it in milk-chocolate. But some manufacturers just don't get it. Year in and year out they produce sub par candy that somehow makes it way into the hands of the shut-ins and Morons of the world, and then on to your children's mouths. It's a horrible threat to our national security and our national deliciousness. Therefore, I want you to be aware of the top threats facing you and your children today:
THIS YEAR'S TOP 10 WORST HALLOWEEN CANDIES
1. Birth Control Pez
2. Willie Wonka's Kettle Cooked Pork Rinds and Such
3. Hershey's Whole-Mess-A-Chocolate: "The same great Hershey's chocolate flavor without the inconvenience of a wrapper."
4. Dr. Mrs. Naptime's "Lil' Bag of Ritalin"
5. Peanuts, Peanuts, Peanuts and Peanuts! - Don't let the name fool you. It's just a bag of peanuts.
6. Jizzum Fizz'em - poprocks gone horribly, horribly wrong.
7. Homemade Soup Balls - Actually this one was my fault. I forgot to buy candy for the trick-or-treaters, so I just ladled out handfuls of soup . . . some of the poorer children seemed to enjoy it.
8. Figz!!: "All of the goodness of fruit combined with all of the excitement of figs!"
9. International Lesbian and Gay Association's Funnilingus Pops
10. Phillip Morris' Menthol Candy Cigarettes - Sure, it's got the same full flavor of the original and the unparalleled smoothness of menthol, but studies show that they are 10 times harsher than regular candy cigarettes.
(But seriously, do they still make candy cigarettes like when we were kids? What an awful, awful product. "Hey, kids, been a long day on the playground? Well why not relax with a candy Chesterfield and a glass of Jim Beam's Butterscotch-Scotch?")
Okay, no more candy ever again. Olivia just ran headfirst into a wall, bounced off, and started running again. I think they’re putting amphetamines in candy these days because that impact should have stopped a bull. Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I'm going to go gorge myself on candy, jump up and down, and scream at the top of my lungs. It looks like a super load of fun!! I'll write Part II after I'm done. Just a warning, it might be totally unintelligible. But then again, would that really make a difference?
Look for Part II coming later on tonight or tomorrow.
Okay, okay, no more fantasy basketball jokes. Instead, let's make fun of kids and books, shall we? For this week, I've decided to make it a double Top 10 list. I'm not sure of the math on that, but I'm guesstimating that it's like a Top 80 list or something. Someone check my numbers on that. Anyway, here we go.
First, now that the mania of Halloween has past and the Week of the Permanent Sugar High is upon us, I'm dedicating the initial Top Ten to candy. Yes, candy is awesome. Sure, it gives you that burst of energy and caffeine you need to make it through a day at your soul-crushing job or sit and listen to your spouse yammer on and on about your obesity and impotence or bills or whatever. But did you know that candy has some negative aspects as well? For instance, did you know candy is not a substitute for proper nutrition? I didn't. And did you know that candy is the #1 cause of gunshot wounds in this country? Actually, that one's probably not true. But if it was - I mean - wow, huh? Makes you think. How could we be so careless?
Also, did you know that candy will make a child run in a circle, screaming for going on 2 hours now? And did you know that an adult can only take about 15 minutes of screaming before he begins to die inside? (Seriously, Olivia is bouncing off the friggin' walls right now after spending the morning eating all of the best candy out of her stash. Here's my plan: around 6 pm, I'll jump out of the hall closet in a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses and then chloroform her. That way she'll get a good night's sleep and the only cost is that she'll think there's a murderous stranger living in her closet. It's so perfect; I'd be insane not to do it.)
The other drawback of candy - some of it sucks. Seriously, some candy is just bad. Which is surprising, because, I mean, how can you screw up mixing fat with sugar? You could leave a bag of fat and sugar in a dumpster for a week and it would still be pretty good if you coated it in milk-chocolate. But some manufacturers just don't get it. Year in and year out they produce sub par candy that somehow makes it way into the hands of the shut-ins and Morons of the world, and then on to your children's mouths. It's a horrible threat to our national security and our national deliciousness. Therefore, I want you to be aware of the top threats facing you and your children today:
THIS YEAR'S TOP 10 WORST HALLOWEEN CANDIES
1. Birth Control Pez
2. Willie Wonka's Kettle Cooked Pork Rinds and Such
3. Hershey's Whole-Mess-A-Chocolate: "The same great Hershey's chocolate flavor without the inconvenience of a wrapper."
4. Dr. Mrs. Naptime's "Lil' Bag of Ritalin"
5. Peanuts, Peanuts, Peanuts and Peanuts! - Don't let the name fool you. It's just a bag of peanuts.
6. Jizzum Fizz'em - poprocks gone horribly, horribly wrong.
7. Homemade Soup Balls - Actually this one was my fault. I forgot to buy candy for the trick-or-treaters, so I just ladled out handfuls of soup . . . some of the poorer children seemed to enjoy it.
8. Figz!!: "All of the goodness of fruit combined with all of the excitement of figs!"
9. International Lesbian and Gay Association's Funnilingus Pops
10. Phillip Morris' Menthol Candy Cigarettes - Sure, it's got the same full flavor of the original and the unparalleled smoothness of menthol, but studies show that they are 10 times harsher than regular candy cigarettes.
(But seriously, do they still make candy cigarettes like when we were kids? What an awful, awful product. "Hey, kids, been a long day on the playground? Well why not relax with a candy Chesterfield and a glass of Jim Beam's Butterscotch-Scotch?")
Okay, no more candy ever again. Olivia just ran headfirst into a wall, bounced off, and started running again. I think they’re putting amphetamines in candy these days because that impact should have stopped a bull. Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I'm going to go gorge myself on candy, jump up and down, and scream at the top of my lungs. It looks like a super load of fun!! I'll write Part II after I'm done. Just a warning, it might be totally unintelligible. But then again, would that really make a difference?
Look for Part II coming later on tonight or tomorrow.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Weekly Top Ten List
I've decided to do a weekly segment of top ten lists. Why? Because they're easy and fun for me to do. Why do you always have to ruin it with your constant questioning?
In honor of the World Series being played right now by the Red Sox and Rockies (by the way, to all the people calling it Sox v. Rox on Fox, please stop. It's embarrassing for everyone involved and it sets a dangerous precedent. We all know how network people are. Once they get something catchy, they beat it into the ground for the next decade or so. Every World Series will have to rhyme or something. I don't want to have to suffer through Tim McCarver trying to rhyme D-Backs and White Sox anytime soon (You know you just said Backs v. Sox on Fox in a some kind of f'ed-up Chicago accent just now, didn't you?). And the prospect of a division series of the A's v M's on E! is terrifying. Don't buy into to the whole Rox or Rocktober thing. It's just what they want you to do!). Anyway, in honor of the World Series, this week’s list will be on my favorite sport, baseball, and its fabulous announcers.
Baseball announcers have a tough job. On average, a baseball game lasts about 3.5 hours. That's a lot of pointless babbling and pontification on useless statistics. Now imagine doing that upwards of 50 times a season. Yeah, that is a mountain of BS that a normal person would be buried under. But somehow these brave men do this year in and year out, happily spewing their inanities for hours at a time for the entire world to hear.
But with such prodigious efforts, you figure one or two nuggets of actual information or honest opinion is going to slip out right. After a few hours in that booth, those guys are on the razor's edge of sharing with us all what they actually think. Just look at what happened to Mike Patrick during the telecast of the Georgia v. Alabama game this year. When the game went into overtime, his brain melted on national television. If you missed it, check it out here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZUB3eJOTos - It's tremendous! And poor Mike was literally only minutes into the overtime session. If Georgia hadn't scored the winning touchdown so quickly, we all might have been treated to a sobbing Patrick breaking down in tears and confessing to some experimental cross-dressing in college or something. You never know.
In that spirit, here's this week's Top Ten:
TOP TEN THINGS I'D LOVE TO HEAR COMING OUT OF AN ANNOUNCER'S MOUTH DURING A BROADCAST
1. "Holy Titty-fuckin' Christ! Did you see that!?!"
2. "Seeing this group of guys pull together like it has . . . seeing the camaraderie of this team. It reminds me of when I was with Detroit and we had just beaten Oakland in the playoffs. We all went back to the showers and just got all gay with each other. Really amazing stuff."
3. "Hold on. What's today, Tuesday? Fuck! I gotta call my parole officer. I'll be right back."
4. ". . . and Reynolds makes the catch to end the third. I'd like to take a moment here to say a few words about my charity event scheduled for this Thursday at the Tri-City Convention Center. I'll be there with some of the team's greats, past and present, to meet the fans and sign some autographs. All the proceeds will go to my charity organization, Boats for Peter, which is working to help out Peter Ross, a young man from my hometown of Scottsvale who works as an electrical engineer there and who has always dreamed of owning a boat. So come on down - Thursday the 4th."
5. ". . . . . . . . . . I'm sorry. I was a million miles away. I was day dreaming about Derek Jeter in Game 3 of the 2001 ALDS. Now that was a playoff game. Not like this clusterf*#k we have here."
6. "This reminds me of my days playing in Cincinnati. We had a guy, Eddie Wilson. "Fast" Eddie Wilson. Eddie was just a little fella. Nervous sort. Kind of erratic. When we were on the road, no matter where we were stayin', Eddie would call up a hooker. And he'd have her meet him at the hotel pool. But by the time she showed up, Eddie would be finished, you see, and he'd just go on up to his room and fall asleep. That's why we called him "Fast Eddie". Well, one day we're playing the Giants and Eddie gets into it with our third baseman, "Wild Bill" Hadley. We called him "Wild Bill" because he had this big ole thick patch of pubic hair. So Bill and Eddie go at it. . . . . . . . .Uh . . . Later on, Eddie took a dump in Harmon Killebrew's batting helmet. Boy, that Harmon Killebrew was some kinda hitter. . . . . . "
7. "I don't say this very often, but he is a beautiful, muscular man."
8. "It's popped up and drifting foul behind the 1st base dugout. No wait; it's caught by the second baseman! Check that, it's over the fence for a home run! Someone scores! No, it's a double play! Nope, sorry, it's high and outside for ball 2. . . ."
9. "From all I've seen, I'd just like to go on record now - and I'd like you to note that this is before any allegations have been made by major league baseball or the media and before any kind of evidence or report has come out - but I'd just like to say that that man is unmistakably and unequivocally on steroids. And his mere presence on this field is a black mark on the game of baseball."
10. "Wow, these fans suck! Listen to them. They're completely obnoxious. Can we get a close-up of some of these people? Look at them - they're fat and ugly! It's disgusting. Look at how fat and gross they are. Look at this guy eating a hot dog. Look at 'em. Jesus! If I was going to switch professions, I'd become a cardiologist or a pastry chef in this city. Or maybe I'd run for mayor and put a tax on fat, stupid people and then I'd take all the money and move to a better city to get away from all their grossness. Christ Almighty!
And just for fun, and because I really hate Tim McCarver, Bob Brenly, and Joe Morgan:
"Nothing in all of my years as a player or as a broadcaster leads me to believe that I have anything of relevance to add at this point."
Good luck to both teams and their fans. But please do not, under any circumstances, Rock-tober, Rock in October, Rock-the-tober, or anything of the sort. I'm begging you!
In honor of the World Series being played right now by the Red Sox and Rockies (by the way, to all the people calling it Sox v. Rox on Fox, please stop. It's embarrassing for everyone involved and it sets a dangerous precedent. We all know how network people are. Once they get something catchy, they beat it into the ground for the next decade or so. Every World Series will have to rhyme or something. I don't want to have to suffer through Tim McCarver trying to rhyme D-Backs and White Sox anytime soon (You know you just said Backs v. Sox on Fox in a some kind of f'ed-up Chicago accent just now, didn't you?). And the prospect of a division series of the A's v M's on E! is terrifying. Don't buy into to the whole Rox or Rocktober thing. It's just what they want you to do!). Anyway, in honor of the World Series, this week’s list will be on my favorite sport, baseball, and its fabulous announcers.
Baseball announcers have a tough job. On average, a baseball game lasts about 3.5 hours. That's a lot of pointless babbling and pontification on useless statistics. Now imagine doing that upwards of 50 times a season. Yeah, that is a mountain of BS that a normal person would be buried under. But somehow these brave men do this year in and year out, happily spewing their inanities for hours at a time for the entire world to hear.
But with such prodigious efforts, you figure one or two nuggets of actual information or honest opinion is going to slip out right. After a few hours in that booth, those guys are on the razor's edge of sharing with us all what they actually think. Just look at what happened to Mike Patrick during the telecast of the Georgia v. Alabama game this year. When the game went into overtime, his brain melted on national television. If you missed it, check it out here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZUB3eJOTos - It's tremendous! And poor Mike was literally only minutes into the overtime session. If Georgia hadn't scored the winning touchdown so quickly, we all might have been treated to a sobbing Patrick breaking down in tears and confessing to some experimental cross-dressing in college or something. You never know.
In that spirit, here's this week's Top Ten:
TOP TEN THINGS I'D LOVE TO HEAR COMING OUT OF AN ANNOUNCER'S MOUTH DURING A BROADCAST
1. "Holy Titty-fuckin' Christ! Did you see that!?!"
2. "Seeing this group of guys pull together like it has . . . seeing the camaraderie of this team. It reminds me of when I was with Detroit and we had just beaten Oakland in the playoffs. We all went back to the showers and just got all gay with each other. Really amazing stuff."
3. "Hold on. What's today, Tuesday? Fuck! I gotta call my parole officer. I'll be right back."
4. ". . . and Reynolds makes the catch to end the third. I'd like to take a moment here to say a few words about my charity event scheduled for this Thursday at the Tri-City Convention Center. I'll be there with some of the team's greats, past and present, to meet the fans and sign some autographs. All the proceeds will go to my charity organization, Boats for Peter, which is working to help out Peter Ross, a young man from my hometown of Scottsvale who works as an electrical engineer there and who has always dreamed of owning a boat. So come on down - Thursday the 4th."
5. ". . . . . . . . . . I'm sorry. I was a million miles away. I was day dreaming about Derek Jeter in Game 3 of the 2001 ALDS. Now that was a playoff game. Not like this clusterf*#k we have here."
6. "This reminds me of my days playing in Cincinnati. We had a guy, Eddie Wilson. "Fast" Eddie Wilson. Eddie was just a little fella. Nervous sort. Kind of erratic. When we were on the road, no matter where we were stayin', Eddie would call up a hooker. And he'd have her meet him at the hotel pool. But by the time she showed up, Eddie would be finished, you see, and he'd just go on up to his room and fall asleep. That's why we called him "Fast Eddie". Well, one day we're playing the Giants and Eddie gets into it with our third baseman, "Wild Bill" Hadley. We called him "Wild Bill" because he had this big ole thick patch of pubic hair. So Bill and Eddie go at it. . . . . . . . .Uh . . . Later on, Eddie took a dump in Harmon Killebrew's batting helmet. Boy, that Harmon Killebrew was some kinda hitter. . . . . . "
7. "I don't say this very often, but he is a beautiful, muscular man."
8. "It's popped up and drifting foul behind the 1st base dugout. No wait; it's caught by the second baseman! Check that, it's over the fence for a home run! Someone scores! No, it's a double play! Nope, sorry, it's high and outside for ball 2. . . ."
9. "From all I've seen, I'd just like to go on record now - and I'd like you to note that this is before any allegations have been made by major league baseball or the media and before any kind of evidence or report has come out - but I'd just like to say that that man is unmistakably and unequivocally on steroids. And his mere presence on this field is a black mark on the game of baseball."
10. "Wow, these fans suck! Listen to them. They're completely obnoxious. Can we get a close-up of some of these people? Look at them - they're fat and ugly! It's disgusting. Look at how fat and gross they are. Look at this guy eating a hot dog. Look at 'em. Jesus! If I was going to switch professions, I'd become a cardiologist or a pastry chef in this city. Or maybe I'd run for mayor and put a tax on fat, stupid people and then I'd take all the money and move to a better city to get away from all their grossness. Christ Almighty!
And just for fun, and because I really hate Tim McCarver, Bob Brenly, and Joe Morgan:
"Nothing in all of my years as a player or as a broadcaster leads me to believe that I have anything of relevance to add at this point."
Good luck to both teams and their fans. But please do not, under any circumstances, Rock-tober, Rock in October, Rock-the-tober, or anything of the sort. I'm begging you!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
"Trick or Treat!! I've done you the favor of dressing up in a $3 Power Ranger costume and traipsing through your yard, now give me some candy!"
I feel like I am obligated to post another comment solely to get the Sex Offender Registry and Battered Women's Shelter ads (that my comment on David Copperfield apparently inspired) from appearing on my site. Damn you, David Copperfield. Damn you to the bowels of Hell!!
So I figured I'd lighten the mood and talk about something fun: Halloween. I guess I've lived in cities too long because I'd forgotten how nuts suburbanites get about their Halloween decorations. Seriously, once that first leaf of autumn hits the ground, these people are in their yards glue-gunning everything that doesn't move in orange and black. As I was driving the other day, I saw this guy on a 15 ft ladder adhering a giant bat to the front of his house. The thing was as big as him. The teenager in me wanted to stop and yell "Commissioner Gordon, the Joker's escaped from Arkham again!! He's running amuck in downtown Gotham!!" on the chance that he'd turn around to see who the moron making Batman jokes on a busy street was and possibly fall. But I didn't because frankly, as far as yelling random crap out of a vehicle, that's pretty lame. Very few people are going to appreciate a good Commissioner Gordon joke. Especially not after a hard day, like this guy clearly had (you don't volunteer to risk your life stapling a bat to your house unless the wife's cooking up a shit storm in that kitchen of hers, right fellas? Like I always say, if she could work that oven as good as she works those lips, we wouldn't be in this mess! Ha ha. Misogynous. Zing!) If I'd had the time to think, I might have said something hilarious like "Hope it doesn't have rabies!" or "My God, the bats in this neighborhood are HUGE!!" or "Queerpants!!", but, damn it, I just didn't have the time!
Anyway, back to the things that didn't happen solely in my imagination. There's this family in my sister's neighborhood that, I suspect, spent upwards of $5,000 on their decorations. I was walking Camilla to school and saw this Halloween extravaganza going up in their yard. Seriously, these people had specialty lights being put up and a surround sound stereo system being hidden in the bushes and trees. They had gravestones and witches' cauldrons. They had ghosts and goblins, and, I swear to god, they're paying some dude to stand perfectly still in their yard dressed as the killer from Scream on the off chance he might make a little kid crap his pants a week from now. That thing looks so life-like, I'm tempted each day to walk over and punch it in the crotch to see if it's real.
I don't get it. To make that kind of effort, you either have to really hate kids and want to scare the bejesus out of them (which I don't understand. Granted, children's shrieks of terror are pretty amusing, but otherwise, kids are little treasures) or you have to really love them and want to give them a special, special Halloween (which I don't get either. Kids aren't "all that." All they do is waste 40 minutes of your time explaining the plot of the Care Bears Movie that they've seen 37 times before or tell you this endless story about what they would do if they were a pony. Got some bad news for you - you're not a pony and you never will be!!). For that matter, I just don't get the Halloween thing in general. I've always seen it as the worst of all the holidays (and yes, that's including Arbor Day). First of all, it gives grown men free license to say "Spooooky!!" which has always creeped me out. But more than that, it's just an artificial creation of the candy and costume conglomerates to sell products of some nature (I'm not really sure what I'm saying here. I read it on some website once and it sounded really smart. I don't think I'm telling it right.) I mean, Halloween used to be about something - worshipping our Dark Lord. But now it's too commercial. It's all about eating candy corn until you want to puke and running around dressed as Hannah Montana until you're asked by everyone at David Lucas's party to please leave. Screw you, David Lucas! And screw you, Halloween!
Sorry, I kind of lost my track there. Point is, in all seriousness, I've somehow lost my love of Halloween over the years. But most people still have it. Not just the kids, either. Even people my age still get excited about dressing up (you know who you are, Nick). So I guess this post is for all the people who feel left out on All Hallows Eve.
Looking back, I can see how the love of Halloween was slowly and painfully smothered inside of me. It seems that ever since I can remember those last few days of October have been one train-wreck after another in my life. Here are a few of the more formative Halloween experiences that have made me the bitter, bitter man I am today:
1983, Age 5, Atlanta, GA: My grandparents (my dad's parents this time) take me, my sister and my two cousins to a local haunted house. Apparently good judgment is not a strong suit in my family because this trip was destined for some kind of calamity from the start. First, my grandfather has never, in the time I've known him, been in good health (several kinds of cancer as well as several strokes and heart conditions). Second, this haunted house wasn't some mom and dad in lame costumes making you put your hand in a bowl full of spaghetti. This was a hardcore operation run by a bunch of college students. I guess we should have figured it out from the hour long line and the people drinking from a keg on the front lawn. But there we were, a bunch of young kids and our senile companions waiting along side the varsity volleyball team.
Looking back on it (and I don't know if this is just the effect that time has on the memory) but this haunted house was the single scariest experience of my life. The people who put that thing on were geniuses and I salute them. As you got closer to the house, all you could hear was terror-filled screaming. Men. Women. It didn't matter. Everyone was screaming like little girls. So the anticipation and anxiety grew. When you finally got to go into the house, you entered through the kitchen. There an old lady stood by the stove, stirring a huge pot. She asked us if we'd like some of her soup and beckoned us to come and look. Inside the pot was a real human head. It opened its eyes, looked right at me and pleaded for help. Boom, right there, it's already the scariest thing that a five year old can handle. My grandparents, aghast at what they've just seen, hurry us out of the kitchen into the hall. Big mistake. The hall is pitch black. Then all of a sudden, a strobe light kicks on and, I kid you not, a maniac with a chainsaw comes at us from out of nowhere! This guy, wearing the Leatherface mask, pops out of the living room and starts waving a real, running chainsaw at us! A real chainsaw! Of course, they'd taken the chain off, but we didn't know that at the time and you don't stop to ask questions when you're a little kid and your grandparents have just delivered you into a den of hell! "Hey, are you guys operating within the relevant state and local safety requirements?!" Nope, when you're that age, you cry and run like hell. That's what we did. It was pandemonium. All of us kids ran for it in different directions. My grandparents just stood there in disbelief (or having massive heart attacks. Frankly, I didn't care. It was every man for himself.) I'm not really sure what happened to everybody else because I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. All I know is that I stood there shaking, sweating and gently weeping for quite a while. Apparently they had to close down the entire house to look for me. I remember a bunch of people angrily banging on the door saying "Kid, are you in there!" but I wasn't answering. Not today, Demons! I know your tricks! Anyway, finally my grandparents came and claimed me and we all left that place of great evil. Lessons learned? 1) young southern men are very scary. 2) never trust your grandparents. And 3) being terrified was never going to be fun again.
1984, Age 6, Norfolk, MA:
We had just moved to Massachusetts from Georgia a few months prior to Halloween and as yet my sister and I were still attempting to make new friends. Let's just say that this Halloween did not help that effort. My mother, God bless her. She's the sweetest woman you could ever meet and she means well, but some times she just misses the boat on certain things. At the time she was going through this health kick (she'd given up eating meat, she was baking her own bread, she wouldn’t allow us to have sugar cereal and the only soda in the house was Tab. Yes, I know. You don't have to tell me. Our group meets on Tuesday in the basement of the town rec center if you'd like to join us). So we're the new people in the neighborhood. All the kids are excited to see what the new people will bring to the party. Will they give out those lame Dum-Dum pops. Or will they be like the Metzgers and give out whole Snickers bars and cans of Pepsi (We really had a house that did this every year. Voted best house in the neighborhood 25 years in a row) Nope, not us. The new people, well, we're taking the long view. We're looking at the bigger picture. So this year, kids, we're handing out little boxes of raisins and packets of sugarless gum! Hurray for cavity prevention and essential nutrients!! Long story short, we woke up the next day with raisins and gum strewn all over our yard and zero friends. Lessons learned: 1) to avoid picking raisins out of your tailpipe for the next three years, always give out the good candy. And 2) I was going to have to make friends the hard way - bribing them with my best GI Joes. Thank you, Sergeant Slaughter and William "The Refrigerator" Perry limited edition action figures. You've done your country proud.
1989, Age 11, Norfolk:
My parents were never much into Halloween. We always had pathetic decorations. Our pumpkin looked like it was carved as a warm-up for some future and more adequate pumpkin. And we only ever hung up two things, both on our front door - a cardboard spider-web complete with smiling spider and a happy cardboard skeleton whose limbs could be positioned in any number of whacky arrangements, but who only ever hung there limp and defeated. Also, he was missing his left leg at the knee. I liked to pretend that the spider took it and was only smiling due to her ghoulish amputation, but I don't think that that was the obvious storyline for most people. Instead, I think it said to most people, "It's this the gayest door you've ever seen?" And about our family, I think it said, "Hey, we're totally non-threatening! Come and knock on our door! This is a happy home which may or may not have candy inside. Come on, take your chances! You could get Blow-Pops! Or you could get pamphlets on the dangers of sugar on a child's development! You never know! It's whimsical!"
Point is, I think that's what it takes for a child to really enjoy Halloween - parents who are super into it. It's genetic in a way. Like high-blood pressure or racism. And the gene definitely wasn't passed down to me. Nowhere was this more apparent than when it came to costumes. We weren't big planners in my house. Most costumes were concocted the night before and tended to be more abstract conceptions of costumes than costumes themselves.
"What do you want to be?"
"I don't know."
"Let's see. . . .I have a tablecloth. You want to go as that?"
"What, a table?"
"Ooh, that’s it. You could carry a basket and go as a Picnic! That's perfect!"
Other years, no effort was put in whatsoever. One year I wore a garbage bag and an old-man mask. We didn't even bother naming it. And to my shame, no one asked me. I guess it was just too pathetic to even be curious about. "Oh, what are you dressed as, the Product of a Broken Home?" "And what are you little boy, the embodiment of shattered childhood dreams?" This particular year, for some reason my mom got really psyched up for Halloween (maybe my school called her in to talk to a counselor or something). She handmade my costume weeks before Halloween. She spent days putting it together. It was hand-sewn and really nice. Unfortunately, it was a scarecrow costume (you know, from the Wizard of Oz) with big, fat felt "representations" of straw, a pair of overalls with big, fat cuffs and a big straw hat. The ensemble was completed with some red make up for the blushing cheeks. This would have been adorable if I was 5 or 6. As it happened, I was 11 and everyone else my age was dressed up as Freddy Kruger (with the realistic glove with knives) or Robocop. It was completely humiliating. We had to wear our costumes to school that day and everyone just kind of ignored me. For the first time I understood what it must feel like to be one of the weird Turkish kids that went to my school and had to be excused anytime we watched a film strip or went to recess. But even those kids had a better costume that day - they were dressed as weird Turkish kids (They really nailed it. The authenticity was amazing!) It was one of the most awkward days in my life - from having my cheek rouge smear after bobbing for apples to getting in an imagination fight with one of the Robocops in which he used his machine gun and I had to explain to him how I was using the "power of straw" to defeat his metal body armor. Lessons learned: 1) straw will very rarely beat titanium body armor, and 2) dressing up for Halloween sucks!
1991, Age 13, Long Valley, NJ:
I had given up on dressing up or trying to be cool. This year was all about candy. It was my last year of trick-or-treat eligibility. I was almost to high school and therefore almost to the cut-off when it stops being cute and starts getting very, very creepy. But I put all of those concerns aside because we had moved into candy heaven! The year before we'd moved to the town adjacent to Hackettstown, New Jersey, home of the M&M Mars manufacturing plant. A ton of the people in my town were employees M&M Mars and, as such, gave away such ridiculous portions of candy it should have been criminal - like if a crack dealer just pelting passersby with crack rocks and handmade pipes. They gave away every M&M product under the sun. And we're not talking the mini size. We're not even talking regular, human being size. Every family, it seemed, was handing out king size Twix, MilkyWay, Snickers, Whatchamucallits, Butterfingers, you name it. And what made this year doubly exciting was that M&M had had a test product on the market that year that hadn't caught on, so they discontinued it and gave away the entire stock to its employees. What was the product? You probably don't remember this one, but it's engrained in my head like the first time I saw Star Wars or my first boobs (Austria, 1985 - thank you, loose European moral standards!) - The PB Max! Aww, it was great! If you don't remember it, it was peanuts and peanut butter on a cookie and the whole thing was covered in chocolate. And it was huge (thus the Max part). It was like the size of a cheeseburger. God it was awesome! My favorite candy of all time. People still talk about it. Google it and you'll see conversations of lonely, desperate people still longing for its pound and a half of deliciousness.
So, anyway, they discontinued it so families brought home box after box of these things and they were giving them away by the arm-full. I tell you, people, it was the perfect storm. I had perfected my trick-or-treating (Can we stop calling it this, please? It's stupid and too hard to write. Can we just call it what it really is, candy grubbing or sugar extortion?) at this point. I didn't carry the retarded plastic pumpkin basket (which is full after, what, like 5 houses) or even the paper bag (which is too prone to ripping) like an amateur. No, I went with the biggest pillow case in the house that could go a solid 6/7 hours and still not be close to capacity. And I didn't bother with big, bulky costumes that only hinder a serious extortionist. I just put some baby powder in my hair and went as an older version of myself. I loaded up, my friends. And my neighbors were happy to oblige. Those people had been gorging themselves on PB Max's for two or three day at that point and were happy to unload what they had on us. I had a guy, towards the end of the night, just hand me an entire box. He didn't even say a word. We just looked into each other's eyes and we both just knew what was happening.
Long story short, I have what doctors like to call "a lack of self control." I went bat-shit crazy with those things. I ate so many that my heart started palpitated. So I drank a soda and continued on. It was brutal. By the end, I had taken three things that I loved dearly in this world, chocolate, peanut butter, and cookies, and made a travesty of them. I made myself violently ill and I couldn't even stand to look at them for months afterward. Lessons learned: 1) I cannot be trusted, and 2) candy was never going to be the same.
And it wasn't. Since that day, I've never really rediscovered my love of candy. Don't get me wrong, I'll eat it. I'm no deviant. But I just don't go out of my way for it anymore. That's how all of Halloween is for me. If I run into a Crackel, you best believe I'll be putting it down. And if I run into a trick-or-treater, I'll do my best to push him to the ground and steal something from his person. But I'm not going to go out of my way to do it. Point is, you'll probably never find me in my yard saying to myself "If I put it here, will the ghost block the view of the vampires from the sidewalk?"
If you’re like me, just try to humor those around you. Some day they’ll learn their lessons too. And if you're one of the one's who loves it, then I hope you can keep that love and pass it down to your annoying, spoiled little kids. And they theirs. Either way, have a Happy Halloween.
So I figured I'd lighten the mood and talk about something fun: Halloween. I guess I've lived in cities too long because I'd forgotten how nuts suburbanites get about their Halloween decorations. Seriously, once that first leaf of autumn hits the ground, these people are in their yards glue-gunning everything that doesn't move in orange and black. As I was driving the other day, I saw this guy on a 15 ft ladder adhering a giant bat to the front of his house. The thing was as big as him. The teenager in me wanted to stop and yell "Commissioner Gordon, the Joker's escaped from Arkham again!! He's running amuck in downtown Gotham!!" on the chance that he'd turn around to see who the moron making Batman jokes on a busy street was and possibly fall. But I didn't because frankly, as far as yelling random crap out of a vehicle, that's pretty lame. Very few people are going to appreciate a good Commissioner Gordon joke. Especially not after a hard day, like this guy clearly had (you don't volunteer to risk your life stapling a bat to your house unless the wife's cooking up a shit storm in that kitchen of hers, right fellas? Like I always say, if she could work that oven as good as she works those lips, we wouldn't be in this mess! Ha ha. Misogynous. Zing!) If I'd had the time to think, I might have said something hilarious like "Hope it doesn't have rabies!" or "My God, the bats in this neighborhood are HUGE!!" or "Queerpants!!", but, damn it, I just didn't have the time!
Anyway, back to the things that didn't happen solely in my imagination. There's this family in my sister's neighborhood that, I suspect, spent upwards of $5,000 on their decorations. I was walking Camilla to school and saw this Halloween extravaganza going up in their yard. Seriously, these people had specialty lights being put up and a surround sound stereo system being hidden in the bushes and trees. They had gravestones and witches' cauldrons. They had ghosts and goblins, and, I swear to god, they're paying some dude to stand perfectly still in their yard dressed as the killer from Scream on the off chance he might make a little kid crap his pants a week from now. That thing looks so life-like, I'm tempted each day to walk over and punch it in the crotch to see if it's real.
I don't get it. To make that kind of effort, you either have to really hate kids and want to scare the bejesus out of them (which I don't understand. Granted, children's shrieks of terror are pretty amusing, but otherwise, kids are little treasures) or you have to really love them and want to give them a special, special Halloween (which I don't get either. Kids aren't "all that." All they do is waste 40 minutes of your time explaining the plot of the Care Bears Movie that they've seen 37 times before or tell you this endless story about what they would do if they were a pony. Got some bad news for you - you're not a pony and you never will be!!). For that matter, I just don't get the Halloween thing in general. I've always seen it as the worst of all the holidays (and yes, that's including Arbor Day). First of all, it gives grown men free license to say "Spooooky!!" which has always creeped me out. But more than that, it's just an artificial creation of the candy and costume conglomerates to sell products of some nature (I'm not really sure what I'm saying here. I read it on some website once and it sounded really smart. I don't think I'm telling it right.) I mean, Halloween used to be about something - worshipping our Dark Lord. But now it's too commercial. It's all about eating candy corn until you want to puke and running around dressed as Hannah Montana until you're asked by everyone at David Lucas's party to please leave. Screw you, David Lucas! And screw you, Halloween!
Sorry, I kind of lost my track there. Point is, in all seriousness, I've somehow lost my love of Halloween over the years. But most people still have it. Not just the kids, either. Even people my age still get excited about dressing up (you know who you are, Nick). So I guess this post is for all the people who feel left out on All Hallows Eve.
Looking back, I can see how the love of Halloween was slowly and painfully smothered inside of me. It seems that ever since I can remember those last few days of October have been one train-wreck after another in my life. Here are a few of the more formative Halloween experiences that have made me the bitter, bitter man I am today:
1983, Age 5, Atlanta, GA: My grandparents (my dad's parents this time) take me, my sister and my two cousins to a local haunted house. Apparently good judgment is not a strong suit in my family because this trip was destined for some kind of calamity from the start. First, my grandfather has never, in the time I've known him, been in good health (several kinds of cancer as well as several strokes and heart conditions). Second, this haunted house wasn't some mom and dad in lame costumes making you put your hand in a bowl full of spaghetti. This was a hardcore operation run by a bunch of college students. I guess we should have figured it out from the hour long line and the people drinking from a keg on the front lawn. But there we were, a bunch of young kids and our senile companions waiting along side the varsity volleyball team.
Looking back on it (and I don't know if this is just the effect that time has on the memory) but this haunted house was the single scariest experience of my life. The people who put that thing on were geniuses and I salute them. As you got closer to the house, all you could hear was terror-filled screaming. Men. Women. It didn't matter. Everyone was screaming like little girls. So the anticipation and anxiety grew. When you finally got to go into the house, you entered through the kitchen. There an old lady stood by the stove, stirring a huge pot. She asked us if we'd like some of her soup and beckoned us to come and look. Inside the pot was a real human head. It opened its eyes, looked right at me and pleaded for help. Boom, right there, it's already the scariest thing that a five year old can handle. My grandparents, aghast at what they've just seen, hurry us out of the kitchen into the hall. Big mistake. The hall is pitch black. Then all of a sudden, a strobe light kicks on and, I kid you not, a maniac with a chainsaw comes at us from out of nowhere! This guy, wearing the Leatherface mask, pops out of the living room and starts waving a real, running chainsaw at us! A real chainsaw! Of course, they'd taken the chain off, but we didn't know that at the time and you don't stop to ask questions when you're a little kid and your grandparents have just delivered you into a den of hell! "Hey, are you guys operating within the relevant state and local safety requirements?!" Nope, when you're that age, you cry and run like hell. That's what we did. It was pandemonium. All of us kids ran for it in different directions. My grandparents just stood there in disbelief (or having massive heart attacks. Frankly, I didn't care. It was every man for himself.) I'm not really sure what happened to everybody else because I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. All I know is that I stood there shaking, sweating and gently weeping for quite a while. Apparently they had to close down the entire house to look for me. I remember a bunch of people angrily banging on the door saying "Kid, are you in there!" but I wasn't answering. Not today, Demons! I know your tricks! Anyway, finally my grandparents came and claimed me and we all left that place of great evil. Lessons learned? 1) young southern men are very scary. 2) never trust your grandparents. And 3) being terrified was never going to be fun again.
1984, Age 6, Norfolk, MA:
We had just moved to Massachusetts from Georgia a few months prior to Halloween and as yet my sister and I were still attempting to make new friends. Let's just say that this Halloween did not help that effort. My mother, God bless her. She's the sweetest woman you could ever meet and she means well, but some times she just misses the boat on certain things. At the time she was going through this health kick (she'd given up eating meat, she was baking her own bread, she wouldn’t allow us to have sugar cereal and the only soda in the house was Tab. Yes, I know. You don't have to tell me. Our group meets on Tuesday in the basement of the town rec center if you'd like to join us). So we're the new people in the neighborhood. All the kids are excited to see what the new people will bring to the party. Will they give out those lame Dum-Dum pops. Or will they be like the Metzgers and give out whole Snickers bars and cans of Pepsi (We really had a house that did this every year. Voted best house in the neighborhood 25 years in a row) Nope, not us. The new people, well, we're taking the long view. We're looking at the bigger picture. So this year, kids, we're handing out little boxes of raisins and packets of sugarless gum! Hurray for cavity prevention and essential nutrients!! Long story short, we woke up the next day with raisins and gum strewn all over our yard and zero friends. Lessons learned: 1) to avoid picking raisins out of your tailpipe for the next three years, always give out the good candy. And 2) I was going to have to make friends the hard way - bribing them with my best GI Joes. Thank you, Sergeant Slaughter and William "The Refrigerator" Perry limited edition action figures. You've done your country proud.
1989, Age 11, Norfolk:
My parents were never much into Halloween. We always had pathetic decorations. Our pumpkin looked like it was carved as a warm-up for some future and more adequate pumpkin. And we only ever hung up two things, both on our front door - a cardboard spider-web complete with smiling spider and a happy cardboard skeleton whose limbs could be positioned in any number of whacky arrangements, but who only ever hung there limp and defeated. Also, he was missing his left leg at the knee. I liked to pretend that the spider took it and was only smiling due to her ghoulish amputation, but I don't think that that was the obvious storyline for most people. Instead, I think it said to most people, "It's this the gayest door you've ever seen?" And about our family, I think it said, "Hey, we're totally non-threatening! Come and knock on our door! This is a happy home which may or may not have candy inside. Come on, take your chances! You could get Blow-Pops! Or you could get pamphlets on the dangers of sugar on a child's development! You never know! It's whimsical!"
Point is, I think that's what it takes for a child to really enjoy Halloween - parents who are super into it. It's genetic in a way. Like high-blood pressure or racism. And the gene definitely wasn't passed down to me. Nowhere was this more apparent than when it came to costumes. We weren't big planners in my house. Most costumes were concocted the night before and tended to be more abstract conceptions of costumes than costumes themselves.
"What do you want to be?"
"I don't know."
"Let's see. . . .I have a tablecloth. You want to go as that?"
"What, a table?"
"Ooh, that’s it. You could carry a basket and go as a Picnic! That's perfect!"
Other years, no effort was put in whatsoever. One year I wore a garbage bag and an old-man mask. We didn't even bother naming it. And to my shame, no one asked me. I guess it was just too pathetic to even be curious about. "Oh, what are you dressed as, the Product of a Broken Home?" "And what are you little boy, the embodiment of shattered childhood dreams?" This particular year, for some reason my mom got really psyched up for Halloween (maybe my school called her in to talk to a counselor or something). She handmade my costume weeks before Halloween. She spent days putting it together. It was hand-sewn and really nice. Unfortunately, it was a scarecrow costume (you know, from the Wizard of Oz) with big, fat felt "representations" of straw, a pair of overalls with big, fat cuffs and a big straw hat. The ensemble was completed with some red make up for the blushing cheeks. This would have been adorable if I was 5 or 6. As it happened, I was 11 and everyone else my age was dressed up as Freddy Kruger (with the realistic glove with knives) or Robocop. It was completely humiliating. We had to wear our costumes to school that day and everyone just kind of ignored me. For the first time I understood what it must feel like to be one of the weird Turkish kids that went to my school and had to be excused anytime we watched a film strip or went to recess. But even those kids had a better costume that day - they were dressed as weird Turkish kids (They really nailed it. The authenticity was amazing!) It was one of the most awkward days in my life - from having my cheek rouge smear after bobbing for apples to getting in an imagination fight with one of the Robocops in which he used his machine gun and I had to explain to him how I was using the "power of straw" to defeat his metal body armor. Lessons learned: 1) straw will very rarely beat titanium body armor, and 2) dressing up for Halloween sucks!
1991, Age 13, Long Valley, NJ:
I had given up on dressing up or trying to be cool. This year was all about candy. It was my last year of trick-or-treat eligibility. I was almost to high school and therefore almost to the cut-off when it stops being cute and starts getting very, very creepy. But I put all of those concerns aside because we had moved into candy heaven! The year before we'd moved to the town adjacent to Hackettstown, New Jersey, home of the M&M Mars manufacturing plant. A ton of the people in my town were employees M&M Mars and, as such, gave away such ridiculous portions of candy it should have been criminal - like if a crack dealer just pelting passersby with crack rocks and handmade pipes. They gave away every M&M product under the sun. And we're not talking the mini size. We're not even talking regular, human being size. Every family, it seemed, was handing out king size Twix, MilkyWay, Snickers, Whatchamucallits, Butterfingers, you name it. And what made this year doubly exciting was that M&M had had a test product on the market that year that hadn't caught on, so they discontinued it and gave away the entire stock to its employees. What was the product? You probably don't remember this one, but it's engrained in my head like the first time I saw Star Wars or my first boobs (Austria, 1985 - thank you, loose European moral standards!) - The PB Max! Aww, it was great! If you don't remember it, it was peanuts and peanut butter on a cookie and the whole thing was covered in chocolate. And it was huge (thus the Max part). It was like the size of a cheeseburger. God it was awesome! My favorite candy of all time. People still talk about it. Google it and you'll see conversations of lonely, desperate people still longing for its pound and a half of deliciousness.
So, anyway, they discontinued it so families brought home box after box of these things and they were giving them away by the arm-full. I tell you, people, it was the perfect storm. I had perfected my trick-or-treating (Can we stop calling it this, please? It's stupid and too hard to write. Can we just call it what it really is, candy grubbing or sugar extortion?) at this point. I didn't carry the retarded plastic pumpkin basket (which is full after, what, like 5 houses) or even the paper bag (which is too prone to ripping) like an amateur. No, I went with the biggest pillow case in the house that could go a solid 6/7 hours and still not be close to capacity. And I didn't bother with big, bulky costumes that only hinder a serious extortionist. I just put some baby powder in my hair and went as an older version of myself. I loaded up, my friends. And my neighbors were happy to oblige. Those people had been gorging themselves on PB Max's for two or three day at that point and were happy to unload what they had on us. I had a guy, towards the end of the night, just hand me an entire box. He didn't even say a word. We just looked into each other's eyes and we both just knew what was happening.
Long story short, I have what doctors like to call "a lack of self control." I went bat-shit crazy with those things. I ate so many that my heart started palpitated. So I drank a soda and continued on. It was brutal. By the end, I had taken three things that I loved dearly in this world, chocolate, peanut butter, and cookies, and made a travesty of them. I made myself violently ill and I couldn't even stand to look at them for months afterward. Lessons learned: 1) I cannot be trusted, and 2) candy was never going to be the same.
And it wasn't. Since that day, I've never really rediscovered my love of candy. Don't get me wrong, I'll eat it. I'm no deviant. But I just don't go out of my way for it anymore. That's how all of Halloween is for me. If I run into a Crackel, you best believe I'll be putting it down. And if I run into a trick-or-treater, I'll do my best to push him to the ground and steal something from his person. But I'm not going to go out of my way to do it. Point is, you'll probably never find me in my yard saying to myself "If I put it here, will the ghost block the view of the vampires from the sidewalk?"
If you’re like me, just try to humor those around you. Some day they’ll learn their lessons too. And if you're one of the one's who loves it, then I hope you can keep that love and pass it down to your annoying, spoiled little kids. And they theirs. Either way, have a Happy Halloween.
Friday, October 19, 2007
"I Can Easily Escape From Standard Issue Handcuffs. Just FYI."
David Copperfield's warehouse/living quarters were just raided by the FBI in the course of an investigation stemming from accusations of the magician's "sexual misconduct." Wow. Is there anyone in the world you would expect this from less than David Copperfield? Lurking in the bushes outside a young men's juvenile corrections facility? Yes. But sexually assaulting a woman? No way you saw that coming. He truly is the master of the misdirection.
Now, I don't know all the details, but I'm pretty sure it started like this:
"Hello, Madam, would you be so kind as to help me with a little illluusion?. . .I'm David Copperfield. . .Copperfield. Like copper and field. . . I'm a professional magician. . .Really!? I'm pretty famous. . .I dated Claudia Schiffer. . .Nevermind. It doesn't matter. Would you like to be a part of a trick?. . .Okay, could I have a personal item, a watch or a bracelet?. . .A handkerchief, fantastic. Now I'll just breathe deeply of your handkerchief. . .that you've had in your pants all day. . .as you did your shopping or walked to the store in. . .possibly to buy loose-leaf paper or cotton swabs. . . . . . . . . .Sorry, got lost there. . . .So now I breathe in your scent. . . . Aaaah yeah. . . .Okay. . . One more. . . .Good God!. . . . Okay, now I'll just put this in my pants pocket. Now I want you to close your eyes and concentrate. Concentrate very hard on your handkerchief. I want you to create a mental image of the handkerchief right here in my left pocket. Right here pressed against my thigh. . .Alright, do you have a mental image in your head? . . .Okay, now can you describe it to me?. . . .No, wait. Do it in a lower voice. . .and do it slower. . . Okay. . .Yes. . .Now, open your eyes. Is this the underwear that you were just wearing!?! Amazing, right!?!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Can I. . .Can I touch your boobs?. . ."
But seriously, can you imagine anything creepier than having David Copperfield coming at you with his black, soulless eyes, silk shirt, and bouffant? That is the stuff of nightmares. Horrible, magical nightmares.
Good luck in prison, Davey-boy.
Now, I don't know all the details, but I'm pretty sure it started like this:
"Hello, Madam, would you be so kind as to help me with a little illluusion?. . .I'm David Copperfield. . .Copperfield. Like copper and field. . . I'm a professional magician. . .Really!? I'm pretty famous. . .I dated Claudia Schiffer. . .Nevermind. It doesn't matter. Would you like to be a part of a trick?. . .Okay, could I have a personal item, a watch or a bracelet?. . .A handkerchief, fantastic. Now I'll just breathe deeply of your handkerchief. . .that you've had in your pants all day. . .as you did your shopping or walked to the store in. . .possibly to buy loose-leaf paper or cotton swabs. . . . . . . . . .Sorry, got lost there. . . .So now I breathe in your scent. . . . Aaaah yeah. . . .Okay. . . One more. . . .Good God!. . . . Okay, now I'll just put this in my pants pocket. Now I want you to close your eyes and concentrate. Concentrate very hard on your handkerchief. I want you to create a mental image of the handkerchief right here in my left pocket. Right here pressed against my thigh. . .Alright, do you have a mental image in your head? . . .Okay, now can you describe it to me?. . . .No, wait. Do it in a lower voice. . .and do it slower. . . Okay. . .Yes. . .Now, open your eyes. Is this the underwear that you were just wearing!?! Amazing, right!?!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Can I. . .Can I touch your boobs?. . ."
But seriously, can you imagine anything creepier than having David Copperfield coming at you with his black, soulless eyes, silk shirt, and bouffant? That is the stuff of nightmares. Horrible, magical nightmares.
Good luck in prison, Davey-boy.
Top Ten List: Movies Currently Playing Inside My Head
1. Summer at Camp Sodomy
2. The Grass is Always Greener
When faced with the closing of some kind of factory and/or mine, the irrepressible citizens of a small village in Wales or Ireland or somewhere band together and plan some kind of humorous and crazy event that flies in the face of their otherwise small-town sensibilities. You won't believe how far they'll go to save their town! Seriously, it's un-fucking-believable!!
3. High School Musical III: Brutal Reckoning
When several students are molested by one of their teachers and the local authorities ignore their pleas for help, the students of East High take justice into their own hands. In one of the bloodiest, most exquisitely choreographed dance/death scenes ever captured on film, your favorite high-schoolers mete out their own brand of vigilante justice. The violence is shocking, the songs are addictive and the dancing is really, really queer. You'll love the savagery and hypnotic motion of High School Musical III: Brutal Reckoning!
Highlights:
"Hey, could you guys cool out with the singing and dancing? I'm going through some pretty real sh*t here."
"Tie him down! Get his hands! What do you say now, you motherf#%ker!?! Huh, you like hurting kids now, you sick f#%k!?!"
"Oh my God, you guys, I can't believe we're graduating! I'm gonna miss you all so much!!
4. In Order of Appearance: A Collection of End-Credits From America's Greatest Films
Do you know who the Assistant Executive Producer was on Raiders of the Lost Ark? Can you name the gaffers on Steel Magnolias? Who catered Matrix Revolutions? Learn all of this and more in what critics are calling "3 short hours of magic and wonder." Did someone say best boy? In an exclusive bonus feature: we give you over a thousand best boys from over 700 top American films.
5. Lepers! Lepers! Lepers!
6. Frosted Tip of the Iceberg: A Brave Metrosexual's Struggle for Equality
7. Too Many Butt Plugs!
Mild-mannered accountant, Harold Stevens, lived a simple, but solitary life. That is until he receives a mysterious package from his long lost uncle. Now his life has been turned upside down. Because Harold Stevens never planned on having so many butt plugs!!
8. Snakes on a Plane II: Snakes on a Cross-town Bus
"Hey, Man! Who the hell brought all these snakes on the bus!!"
9. Free-Spirited Girl Meets Uptight Boy And Teaches Him the Joy of Life, Then Dies
10. Chimpandemonium!
Chimpandemonium, a hilarious look at the life of zoo monkeys, is being hailed as a "new American classic" and "one of Disney's best films in years." When young Pambo is taken from his habitat and transferred to another zoo, the monkeys of Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo team up to fling their excrement and shriek wildly for a solid hour and a half. It will have you rolling in the aisles!
Hear what critics and audiences are saying:
"A Masterpiece! Disney has done it again! The artistry of the animated feces was exquisite. It was so life-like, you felt like it was the audience being pelted with monkey waste, not those groups of unsuspecting tourists and school groups. Truly amazing!" - Dan Heilman of the San Jose Chronicle.
"I laughed so hard, I peed my pants and soiled my popcorn! Those monkeys were going totally apeshit! Literally!" - Anonymous
"Disney got it just right. They really nailed what it's like to deal with monkeys in a zoo. They are erratic and vicious animals." - Rick Dorffman, retire zoo keeper and survivor of two chimpanzee attacks.
2. The Grass is Always Greener
When faced with the closing of some kind of factory and/or mine, the irrepressible citizens of a small village in Wales or Ireland or somewhere band together and plan some kind of humorous and crazy event that flies in the face of their otherwise small-town sensibilities. You won't believe how far they'll go to save their town! Seriously, it's un-fucking-believable!!
3. High School Musical III: Brutal Reckoning
When several students are molested by one of their teachers and the local authorities ignore their pleas for help, the students of East High take justice into their own hands. In one of the bloodiest, most exquisitely choreographed dance/death scenes ever captured on film, your favorite high-schoolers mete out their own brand of vigilante justice. The violence is shocking, the songs are addictive and the dancing is really, really queer. You'll love the savagery and hypnotic motion of High School Musical III: Brutal Reckoning!
Highlights:
"Hey, could you guys cool out with the singing and dancing? I'm going through some pretty real sh*t here."
"Tie him down! Get his hands! What do you say now, you motherf#%ker!?! Huh, you like hurting kids now, you sick f#%k!?!"
"Oh my God, you guys, I can't believe we're graduating! I'm gonna miss you all so much!!
4. In Order of Appearance: A Collection of End-Credits From America's Greatest Films
Do you know who the Assistant Executive Producer was on Raiders of the Lost Ark? Can you name the gaffers on Steel Magnolias? Who catered Matrix Revolutions? Learn all of this and more in what critics are calling "3 short hours of magic and wonder." Did someone say best boy? In an exclusive bonus feature: we give you over a thousand best boys from over 700 top American films.
5. Lepers! Lepers! Lepers!
6. Frosted Tip of the Iceberg: A Brave Metrosexual's Struggle for Equality
7. Too Many Butt Plugs!
Mild-mannered accountant, Harold Stevens, lived a simple, but solitary life. That is until he receives a mysterious package from his long lost uncle. Now his life has been turned upside down. Because Harold Stevens never planned on having so many butt plugs!!
8. Snakes on a Plane II: Snakes on a Cross-town Bus
"Hey, Man! Who the hell brought all these snakes on the bus!!"
9. Free-Spirited Girl Meets Uptight Boy And Teaches Him the Joy of Life, Then Dies
10. Chimpandemonium!
Chimpandemonium, a hilarious look at the life of zoo monkeys, is being hailed as a "new American classic" and "one of Disney's best films in years." When young Pambo is taken from his habitat and transferred to another zoo, the monkeys of Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo team up to fling their excrement and shriek wildly for a solid hour and a half. It will have you rolling in the aisles!
Hear what critics and audiences are saying:
"A Masterpiece! Disney has done it again! The artistry of the animated feces was exquisite. It was so life-like, you felt like it was the audience being pelted with monkey waste, not those groups of unsuspecting tourists and school groups. Truly amazing!" - Dan Heilman of the San Jose Chronicle.
"I laughed so hard, I peed my pants and soiled my popcorn! Those monkeys were going totally apeshit! Literally!" - Anonymous
"Disney got it just right. They really nailed what it's like to deal with monkeys in a zoo. They are erratic and vicious animals." - Rick Dorffman, retire zoo keeper and survivor of two chimpanzee attacks.
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