All posts by Matthew Callan

Baseball, The Worldwide Leader

Down with Dope, Up with Hype!

During Monday night’s Home Run Derby, Josh Hamilton hit some of the most impressive moon shots ever clubbed within the confines of the House that Ruth Built. And as we all know, anything accomplished at Yankee Stadium is at least 10 times more important than anything accomplished anywhere else.

The only things bigger than the home runs Hamilton hit were the lengths to which the ESPN talking heads went to praise him. You see, Josh Hamilton’s a recovering heroin addict–perhaps you heard about it when you weren’t too busy not living under a rock for the last year.

Granted, Derek Jeter wasn’t taking part in the Derby, so ESPN had to find someone else to verbally fellate. But their unblinking love of Hamilton–a man they couldn’t pick out of a lineup before the night began–was so embarrassing, it was approaching near Favre-ian levels.

Continue reading Down with Dope, Up with Hype! →

Boob Tubery, Pointless Nostalgia, The Funny

The Warp and Woof of Ruining Your Child’s Life

You will warp your children. It’s an inevitable byproduct of the parenting process, just like how you can’t make a hot dog without two or three rat turds finding their way into the mix.

Some warping is a good thing, in the long run. A completely unwarped, innocent child would grow up to be one of those scary, infantile grown ups who’s way too into Harry Potter. If you’re lucky, you warp your child so that they have a healthy skepticism about The Ways of the World. If you’re unlucky, they grow up to collect other people’s skin. But in all likelihood, you won’t know how you’ve warped your child for good.

I can trace my own warping–positive and negative–to a lot of things. But I know that parental TV viewing played a major part. Particularly, my dad’s fondness for Monty Python. He never forced me to watch it, but it was on in the house often, back in the days when Python was a PBS staple.

I remember liking it a lot when I was way too young to know what I was watching. I had to ask my dad to translate certain Britishisms like pram and lorry and explain allusions to historic events I hadn’t learned about yet. But I liked the really weird cartoons, and the fact that in any given episode you’d probably see some boobs (PBS was the best friend to a kid without cable in the 80s).

Was I destined to be a nerd anyway, and annoy the shit out of my friends by repeating sketches they’d never see? Yeah, probably. But the fact that I could recite “The Lumberjack Song” at age 7 definitely sped up the process. Was it my father’s intention to bruise my fragile psyche with anagrams and cross dressing? I doubt it. Still, it happened.

Continue reading The Warp and Woof of Ruining Your Child’s Life →

Baseball

A New Role Model for Reyes

manuel.jpgJose, we can’t have you throwing tantrums out on the field. You’re a grown man and you can’t act that way anymore.
reyes.gifI know, coach, I just get so emotional about this game.
manuel.jpgEmotion is good, but you
can’t let it get the best of you. That’s why I brought in a New York
baseball legend to set you straight. He’s an expert in learning how to
control your emotional impulses.

reyes.gifWow, four-time world champion Paul O’Neill!

oneill.jpgThat’s FIVE time world champion, you ASSHOLE!
/rips off batting gloves, flings them across clubhouse

reyes.gifOh yeah, I forget you won one with the Reds.

oneill.jpgHow could you forget that?! We swept the A’s!! I mean, C’MONNN!!
/takes off batting helmet, bounces it off ground 12 feet in the air

reyes.gifI’m sorry, I was just a little kid when that happened.

oneill.jpgAnd it woulda been SIX if stupid Mariano could’ve shut the door on the fucking DIAMONDBACKS!! JESUS!!
/bites knuckles until bloody

reyes.gifWhoah, that’s not fair. Mariano Rivera is, like, the best closer in the history of time.

oneill.jpgYou don’t know what you’re TALKING ABOUT! That ball was nowhere NEAR the plate!
/yanks jersey out of pants, pops three buttons

reyes.gifBall? What ball?

oneill.jpgYeah, exactly–it was a BALL!! I don’t take strikes, okay? I CRUSH THEM! If I don’t swing, that means IT’S NOT A STRIKE!
/bashes water cooler with Louisville Slugger

manuel.jpgYou see, Jose? This is the way a professional athlete acts.

reyes.gifIt looks more like the way a whiny crybaby acts to me.

oneill.jpgWHAT?!
/puts hands on hips, rolls eyes skyward

manuel.jpgNo, you don’t understand. He’s showing passion!

reyes.gifDoes “showing passion” include kicking his cleats off and eating them?

oneill.jpg/gnaws on Nikes

manuel.jpgYes, it shows he’s fiery! That’s how he led the Yankees to four World Series titles!

reyes.gifI thought it was because he was a good hitter in a lineup full of other good hitters. Plus all their pitchers were on steroids.

manuel.jpgWell, yeah, that too.

oneill.jpgWhen you put on the pinstripes, you have a duty to uphold the legacy of Ruth and Mantle and…OH, YOU GOTTA BE SHITTING ME WITH THIS STRIKE ZONE, UMP!!
/rips open sunflower seed pack with teeth, swallows entire pack, spits it out onto floor

manuel.jpgYou see, Jose, you have a long way to go before you can be the kind of inspirational leader that Paul was in his prime.

reyes.gifSo if I wanna act like a spoiled brat, I have to be old, white, and on a winning team that’s not full of broken down veterans.

manuel.jpgPretty much, yeah.

oneill.jpgGOD, I will EAT your CHILDREN!!
/pulls leather strings out of fielder’s mitt one by one with his teeth