The Mind Gone Mad

Why I never thought of this sooner is beyond me. What’s just as bad is that no one suggested it to me either. Not one of us remembered this series of lines that was hilarious then and still hilarious now whenever it is brought up. This doesn’t necessarily sum up the year, but dammit it is definitely quote of the year. Here goes:

There’s fucking gum on my seat! It’s on my leg! There’s fucking gum on my leg! What the fuck?! There’s fucking gum on my leg, dude! Who puts gum on the seat?! Dirty, fucking Canadians! I hate Canada! Put gum on my seat! There’s gum on my fucking leg!
Do you have a razor? You’re a girl, girls carrying razors to shave their pits. I have gum on my leg. Can I barrow your razor to shave this gum off my leg. Fucking Canadians left gum on my seat and now its on my leg. I hate fucking Canada!!

-Drunk teenage guy in Toronto at the Yankees-Jays game.

OK so in this case it is more of a paraphrase of the year. Well that guy kept just going on and on for at least 5 innings about the gum on his leg! I can’t remember it all word for word. But that really is the gist of it. He had gum on his leg, he blamed all of Canada for it, and he truly believed that all women carry shaving razors around with them. Man, I love watching drunk people.

I can’t sleep. Been having sleep issues for a while now. Don’t even know why.

I feel like I’m in the middle of some important task that needs to be finished and my mind won’t let me rest. I just finished my Abnormal Psych class, but these last couple of weeks I wasn’t going back to sleep when I got in at 9:15am like I had been doing all semester. I would just stay up and do….nothing really.

With work, I’m usually in bed by 3am at the latest. Lately, I’ve been up until 4:30 without even feeling the slightest bit tired. I’d say my sleeping has gone down – on average – by 2 hours a night these last few weeks. And yet….I have no idea as to why. So as the clock ticks just past 3:24, I am going to ramble on and perhaps get an idea as to why.

I’ve recently let go of graduate school. That’s right. I’ve decided not to apply. It’s not that I don’t what to. I just don’t want to right now. I want to instead work more, get back to some personal art work, and perhaps do some volunteer work. When will I start thinking of grad school again? I don’t know. But it is definitely in my future. I just don’t know when.

Losing touch. I feel like I’m growing apart from several close friends of mine. Denise, Owyn, Andy. Haven’t been able to talk to them in a good long while. Haven’t been able to sit back, relax, and just shoot the shit. Is this the dreaded adult life I’ve heard so much about? Where a personal life goes to die? Is that what this is? So it means I have to sacrifice those I care about in order to “live.” Well fuck that. I don’t want to live if that is what living means. Or perhaps I’ll just have to change what it means to live. Hmmmm.

Pain. My leg hurts. The left one. I’m not even making that up or trying to be random. Whether its the knee or just this dull ache that comes and goes, this sucker keeps bothering me. I wonder if that has anything to do with sleep though?

I want out of this house. There. That’s probably the biggest reason, if not the reason. I don’t work enough (yet) to be able to live in my own place. I’d have to work full time in order to be on my own. Or increase my hours if I wanted to live with a roommate or two. Any takers? Who else wants out of his/her living situation? Let’s go look for a place. I’m gonna up my hours anyway. Plus, quite a bit is saved up. So I’m good for it.

Ugh…all kidding aside. I do need a change. Some how, some way. Maybe a vacation. A real good one. Bunch of friends, laughing, messing around, not caring. That be good stuff. Oooo….maybe I can arrange a trip down to the condo for some of us. Who wants to hit Florida for 4 or 5 nights in February? No joke either. That’s some good stuff. I’m gonna have to give that some real thought now. Gimme feed back!

Some may have noticed that I haven’t narrowed down or starting the voting for quote of the year this year. The reason for that is simple…they all kinda suck this year. Last year we had so fecking many great ones. This year….eh. Nothing jumps out. A few are funny, but it ends there. So I’m gonna revert to how it all started and just really sit down and try to remember as much of the crap said in random conversation this year and pick whatever I think is good. Whatever I feel sums up the year nicely. And why do I get to pick? Because it’s my made up award! That’s why! I’m small and insignificant, and this is all I have! Lemme alone!

Went and saw I Am Legend last night. And it was good. I did enjoy it.

In particular, I enjoyed the movies take on little things that will be different in just two years time. For instance, gas prices were up well over 6 dollars, Shaq won’t be retiring until 2010, and there will be a Batman/Superman movie. Each of those and more were several little details scattered throughout the movie that I’m sure many people took pleasure in both thinking up and creating. I know I would have.

The movie itself though….I dunno. Too short for me I guess. I had a lot of little questions that I thought they could have answered, but didn’t. I guess as a means to add to Will Smith’s character of being without human contact for 3 years. The only time the guy talked was either to his dog or to the mannequins he put around the stores he visits to make it seem like their is still a society. But I still feel they could of had him talk to himself as a means to answer some of the questions that were clearly lingering. I’m not a fan of the “just because” excuse.

But it was still good and worth going to see.

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The other thing that intrigued me was one of the previews. This was for the new Batman move, The Dark Knight.

Now its not actually the movie that intrigues me, but rather Heath Ledger as the Joker. The Joker is a complete lunatic. A sociopath. A madman in every way possible. And he does it all with no remorse and a smile on his face. I’ve read several books and have seem many, many different movies, and to me, the Joker is the quintessential villain. He’s multi-dimensional, and so far no actor has been able to meet level when portraying him. Not even Jack Nicholson (in fact, he sucked in that role). The animated version and Mark Hamill’s take on it had it’s moments, but was never consistent enough. So for a little while now I’ve done some reading up on what Mr. Ledger might offer this role and Wikipedia offers the nicest description I’ve found:

The Joker marks Ledger’s first villainous role. To prepare Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character’s posture, voice and psychology. While he initially found it difficult, Ledger was eventually able to generate a voice which did not sound like Jack Nicholson’s take on the character in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film. He started a diary, in which he wrote the Joker’s thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance, and he also looked at the books Batman: The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. Ledger also cited inspiration in A Clockwork Orange and Sid Vicious. Ultimately, “there’s nothing that [is] consistent”, as his main objective was to frighten the audience. Playing the role put a strain on the actor’s sleeping patterns.

This is why I am intrigued. Especially the nothing is consistent line. Because that is precisely how one would have to portray the Joker. To never do the same thing twice except for scare you. The Joker looks like a clown, but he isn’t one. Plus the reference to The Killing Joker brings it all home for me. Though I’ve never read the book, I know it well. It’s an issue from 1988 that gave one version of Joker’s origin, but also dealt with his insanity on a fairly deep level.

So if Heath is really up to the task, I might just give that movie a try. We’ll see.

This whole Mitchell Report. What a fucking waste of time.

First, it took 20 months. I know. It’s an investigation and they do take that long. Got it. But come on. When you have something that lasts that long, you are going to get a lot of hype the more time that passes and that is exactly what happened. A few days ago when it was announced that the report was finally going to be released, I was half expecting a list of 200 something names of current players in their prime. Guys everyone knows and has heard of. Guys that are on Sports Center every night. Were there any of those types? Yes. But way too many of the other names were guys who were retired. And not for one or two seasons, but for 10 years in some cases. What the Hell?! So all that time and all you really have is something that went on a decade ago. Yeah real good there, George.

Second, nothing was new! Almost every single name, if not every single name, was a name that had surfaced in the media at one time or another. Mitchell had said time and time again that he had names of players that no one was going to expect. People that were never even mentioned before. So when I saw the list of names, not one shocked me. I heard them all before. So that’s the best you got? You stupid old man.

Third, you contradicting, hypocritical, motherfuckers. You know, I’m tired of everyone getting on top of Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa, and all the others in this “steroid era” and here is why: those fecks saved baseball!

Why did everyone all of a sudden choose to forget the baseball strike in ‘95? That was something that pissed off every single fan. Even the most die hard fans said “Fuck this” to baseball. It nearly crushed the game. Hell, I know people who it still pisses off. Then in 1998 these two guys called McGuire and Sosa start having this amazing race towards the home run record, and it was everywhere. These guys would hit one almost every day and the tally kept growing and growing. And as they got closer, more and more people started to watch. Before you knew it, there was a renewed spirit for the game. Especially when McGuire broke the record. And everyone cheered and loved it when it all happened. People couldn’t get enough of it. They helped save the game. And all the while, MLB knew what was going on. They knew steroids were involved. Don’t kid yourself about that. They knew and didn’t care. Whatever got asses in the seats. That’s all that mattered.

Now there are plenty of asses in the seats. Each season, MLB breaks its attendance record. Now that the fans are secured, MLB decides “OK, let’s fix our mistake by going after the guys who saved our asses.” Doesn’t work that way….or apparently it does. It isn’t right.

And then you are hearing names of guys who never failed a single drug test. Roger Clemens was named for using steroids. OK. Where is his failed test? Oh wait….you don’t have it? Because there isn’t one? It’s just the claims of some guy. Oh in that case, I saw Curt Schilling take a double injection just before the “bloody sock” game, Mr. Mitchell. Oh no, I swear it. Because I’m saying it, it must be true right? Or are you just not going to care because your are in fact a director for the Boston Red Sox and your biased through this whole investigation has been painfully obvious. Why else was Paul Byrd’s named leaked by your own investigation team during the playoffs when the Red Sox were facing elimination? Don’t tell me that is a coincidence, you fecking idiot.

Oh don’t give me this “Well you’re a Yankee fan, that’s why you’re saying that.” Bullshit! If anyone were to conduct such an investigation, he shouldn’t be linked to any team. Hell, the guy shouldn’t even be a baseball fan! He should just be a really good fucking investigator. A completely unbiased individual whose intentions are to find the truth. I don’t believe that was George Mitchell’s intention at all. This guy wanted to help bring up ideas for newer, more strict policies for drug testing. But he couldn’t just do that. He needed an angle so everyone would pay attention. And what was his angle? An investigation where great players get a slap in the face. That is how his damn report reads. First its the players named then its his ideas of what should be done in the future.

I don’t care about the testimony and the copies of checks. Bring a real smoking gun to the fucking table! Bring the test results! Not until you have that do you have anything. Testimony is nothing more than a person saying something. People lie! You fucking schmuck, understand that! I’m not saying they did lie, but the fact remains, you really don’t have anything!

You want to fix all this Mr. Selig and Mr. Mitchell? Then ignore the fucking past and look for ways to make sure it never happens again. No player should have ever taken steroids or any other performance enhancing drug. That is something that I truly believe in, but the fact remains that it did happen. The fact also remains that you all facilitated the process. Everyone in MLB is accountable for this. Not just the few players named by one old moron’s pathetic investigation.

End rant!