All posts by Matthew Callan

Baseball, Sean from Massapequa

Sean from Massapequa: Reyes Some Concern

Today, Sean from Massapequa graces us with his presence to discuss Jose Reyes’ sudden medical woes. He told me he preferred to address the audience directly, unlike previous posts where we had a dialogue. So without further delay, here’s Sean.

seanfrommassapequa.jpgThey say Jose Reyes has got a thyroid problem. Yeah, and I’m the mayor of Five Towns.

I’m not, just so you know. There is no mayor of Five Towns, cuz it ain’t an actual town. Just like Reyes ain’t actually hurt. We all know this guy fakes injuries, like he did last year so’s he could take more salsa lessons.

How do I know that? Ask yourself this: Has he ever denied it? I rest my case.

There ain’t no such thing as a thyroid. You ever seen one? I didn’t think so. A thyroid is one a them things doctors make up so’s they can prescribe you expensive medication. Like ADD, or your appendix. It’s all just a scam. They say you got some disease, charge your insurance for the pills or cream or whatever, and you get some workman’s comp cuz you got sick on the job somehow. That’s what they call The Circle of Scam.

You get to be my age, you see the shit I seen, you realize everything’s a scam. Congress. Santa Claus. The Pope. Cold fusion. The Post Office. All scams. Makes me sick just thinkin about it.

Listen: you go to the right doctor, you can get him to say you got anything. Anything. And if you go to the really right doctor, you can get him to write you a scrip for anything. Speakin a which, if you need that type a doctor, lemme know. I might know a guy. Just sayin.

Take my buddy Joe, f’rinstance. Works for the Parks Department supervising landscaping work. Easiest job in the world. Guy works like 15 hours a week, and half that time is replacing the string in the weedwhackers. Of course, Joe had to get greedy and try and get disability. So he goes to this one doctor I know in Fresh Meadows, doctor “diagnoses” him with “lawnmower lung”.

reyes_st_2010.jpgThe City said there was no such thing, but Joe threatened to squeal about the no-bid Soilmaster contract, so they gave him what he wanted. Now the guy collects a paycheck while sittin in a hammock all year. Even in the winter, two feet a snow on the ground. Guy loves his hammock.

I bet that’s where Reyes is right now, swingin in his hammock, sippin a lemonade. I bust my hump on the job three days a week, and all I wanna do is watch some spring training baseball in the middle of my five day weekend. Now that’s all ruined cuz Reyes don’t wanna do spring training drills. Life ain’t fair.

Look, Reyes, just get your ass on the field and all is forgiven. I need you back on the diamond so’s I can scream horrible things atcha every time you don’t hit a triple.

Interweb

Everybody’s Crazy for the Weekend!: Doll Warrior and “This American Life” (Not Really)

Friday’s normally the day for YouTubery Friday (because, duh), but this week I haven’t stumbled across anything overtly awesome in the moving picture vein. I did, however, find a couple of items that put the “crazy” in *that weird index-finger-flapping-your-lips crazy noise*.

One of my brothers works in the fabulous world of film production. There are awesome, glamorous aspects of this job, of course. Like any other job, there are also bad things about it. In the latter category: the sheer amount of kookadooks who seek you out because their Crazy Voice must be heard. It may be hard to believe, but the prospect of fame occasionally attracts unhinged persons. The kind who write pitches that start out THE MAGIC JESUS SPACESHIP IN MY BRAIN HAS THE BEST IDEA FOR A SCRIPT EVAR!!1! I’VE WRITTEN IT ON THIS KNIFE I’M HOLDING AGAINST YOUR THROAT!

Earlier this week, my brother told me he received a movie pitch via fax (always a good sign; 99 percent of all faxes are sent by robots or the criminally insane). He sent me a link for this movie pitch for something called Doll Warrior, without comment. Because really, what else can you say? Other than several variations on WTF?!!!, which is what we did for the next hour.

Finally, I received this email from an email address at “This American Life”. Something tells me it’s not actually from the fabled NPR show. Keep in mind, this is just a small chunk of a very, very long rant that doesn’t even begin to make sense. Brevity and crazy-ity don’t often go hand in hand.

tal.jpg

Parental Guidance

The Terrifying Brangelina Boy-Making Machine!

lifenstyle.jpgA tweet by Onion scribe/artiste Maria Schneider (aka @writtennoise, auteur of Pathetic Geek Stories) pointed me to this hideous cover of a recent issue of Life and Style. As you can see, it’s a “before-and-after” shot of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s daughter, Shiloh. In the before pic, she looks like a typical little girl. In the after shot, she has short hair and is wearing a cardigan. The cover screams WHY IS ANGELINA TURNING SHILOH INTO A BOY? and laments the fact that Shiloh has “No girlie things”! “IS IT HARMING THE 3-YEAR-OLD?” ZOMG!

Despite being a magazine aimed at a largely female audience, this publication has forgotten one very important thing: You can’t force a three-year-old girl what to wear anything she doesn’t want to. Trust me. I am legally required to clothe a three-year-old girl, and I know that they have no qualms about letting you know when they’re unhappy with your choice of outfit for the day (or anything else, for that matter).

At this young age, kids simply like what they like. It has very little to do with the peer pressures that emerge later. For whatever reason, Shiloh likes dressing this way now. The chances of her wanting to dress this way for the rest of her life are about as slim as her watching Dora the Explorer when she’s in college. How many things do you do/like now that you liked/did when you were three? And if she does grow up to wear “boy” clothing, it’s because she wants to, not because Crazy Angelina Jolie “made” her that way.

When I found The Wife and I were having a daughter, one of the first things I thought (other than PANIC) was, “I’m not gonna have any of that princess crap in my house!” Because I associated the whole Princess Phenomenon with a mindless philosophy of entitlement and passivity that’s resolutely anti-feminist.

But somewhere along the line, she got exposed to Princess Stuff, and she likes it. She’s not super into it, like she wears a tiara to day care, but she does like it. So she has some princess-y toys and some princess-y outfits, and the world has continued spinning on its axis. Hopefully, if I raise her right, she won’t turn out to be a Kardashian.

She also likes some non-girly stuff, too. She often makes me play Spider-Man–of course, I always have to be Venom and get wrapped up in her webs and carted off to jail (which greatly resembles our bathroom). As I type this, she’s watching an X-Men cartoon, which she asked to see (screamed, actually). Her love of these things has nothing to do with me. I have never forced her to watch any of them. I learned very early on that when you force a kid to watch something, 99 times out of 100 they will hate it.

Even so, every now and then, she will say of something–even if it’s something she likes, like Spider-Man–“that’s for boys!” As if she shouldn’t watch/play with it. I have no idea where she gets this idea from. She certainly doesn’t get it in our house.

But she has to leave our house sometime. And when I see things like the garbage linked above, I realize she must just get it from the air, living in a world that tells her from infancy that there are certain things she can’t like or do or think or be. I could have kept every item of princess-iana out her hands and sight, and she’d still be exposed to caveman attitudes like this.

Thanks, world.