Category Archives: Decrees for My All Encompassing Dictatorship

Decrees for My All Encompassing Dictatorship

Decrees for My All Encompassing Dictatorship: No Bragging About Ignorance

Within the last few weeks, as World Cup fever has gripped (most of) the globe, I’ve seen numerous wags on the internet tweet/facebook/smoke signal about how they would never watch soccer in a million years. Especially here in America, where soccer is still seen as something decadent, European, and vaguely effeminate, kinda like…the rest of Europe, I guess. Never mind that the World Cup is literally the most watched thing on the planet. You and your small circle of friends don’t care about it, and it is therefore not worth your time.

I can’t stand this Me-Centric attitude that celebrates ignorance. When people say things like this, they are declaring their pride in how much they don’t know. I despise when people declare I’VE NEVER WATCHED/LISTENED TO/READ [BLANK] with pride, as if they’ve passed some endurance test the rest of us poor slobs failed. “It took all my strength, but I never watched a single episode of Lost. You poor saps will never know what you didn’t miss!”

I’ve always felt that there is nothing to be gained from not knowing something, because everything is an experience, whether it’s listening to a symphony or watching American Idol. And yes, Idol sucks hard, but I know it sucks hard because I’ve actually watched it a few times.

When you say I WILL NEVER WATCH/LISTEN TO/READ [BLANK], you are saying I AM WILLFULLY CLOSING OFF MY MIND TO CERTAIN THINGS I SUSPECT I WON’T LIKE. And that is fine, if that is what you choose to do with your brain. Just don’t act like this decision makes you more evolved than everyone else. And certainly don’t act like you can comment on the qualities of something you’ve already chosen to ignore.

Under my benevolent despotism, if you choose to not see/listen to/read something, all you should be allowed to say about it is. “I haven’t seen/listened to/read that. It doesn’t look like something I’d be into.” And that’s it.

Those who violate this rule shall be locked in a solid white room with no windows for a full week, where they will be able to enjoy the stimulation-free nothingness that they seem to crave so much.

I have spoken.

Decrees for My All Encompassing Dictatorship

Decrees for My All Encompassing Dictatorship: No More Mystique

yankee_stadiums.jpgThis morning, my day was immediately dampened (as it often is) by WCBS Radio. The first words I consciously heard–seriously, the first words–came from the sports update. The announcer (whose name escapes me, but I know it wasn’t the usual guy, Jared Max) says, “I guess the aura and mystique followed the Yankees over to the new stadium.” That’s when I ran off to the bathroom to vomit.

What mystique are we talking about? The mystique of being able to blow everyone else out of the water with their deals for CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Mark Teixeira? Or the mystique of making a new stadium with short porches and wind streams, so high pop ups by Derek Jeter plop into the left field stands for home runs? Or the mystique of playing against an emotionally and physically drained opponent with less than 1/3 your payroll and who’s also missing their second best slugger?

Look, I don’t hate the Yankees. Honestly, I don’t. Not the team. It’s pointless to hate them. Living in New York, hating the Yankees is like hating pigeons. They’re everywhere and they ain’t going away, so deal with it or move.

What I do hate is the holier-than-thou bullshit the team wraps itself in–or which writers/commentators wrap them in when they can’t think of anything else to write about. As if spiritual superiority and unflagging patriotism is the key to their success, and having more cash than God squared has nothing to do with it.

I don’t begrudge the Yankees having so much dough. I do begrudge them perpetuating the myth that their success comes from The Land of The Great Baseball Beyond on a chariot led by Babe Ruth and Joltin’ Joe. And that they have their own channel which propagates this myth 24/7.

The fact that the Yankees are able to buy any free agent they want, and the fact that there’s not a true level playing field in baseball the way there is in other sports–that’s Bud Selig’s fault, not the Yankees’. They’re just taking advantage of a dysfunctional system. I have no right to bitch about that when the Mets have benefited from the same system (at least in the “signing players” department, if not the whole “winning games” thing).

So just own it. Yankees fans won’t care, and everyone else is going to dislike you anyway. And sportswriters, stop bending over backwards to shoehorn this mystical nonsense into your dumb pieces. Just say, “They’ve got a shitload of money and they spent it on awesome players.”

The “mystique” angle is especially galling when you consider that the Yankees just built a billion dollar monument to themselves and left The House that Ruth Built to rot across the street. You can’t have it both ways. Either you stay in the old Yankee Stadium and revel in history and tradition, or you move to the new one and get padded seats and your own steakhouse. Sorry, but you don’t get to invoke ghosts when you abandoned the place they used to play in. Unless you’re talking about the ghosts of the Hard Rock Cafe.

My decree is that any sportswriter who now mentions “ghosts”, “aura”, “mystique”, or any other variant thereof in connection with the new Yankee Stadium will be sentenced to covering the Washington Nationals from July through September.

I have spoken.

Decrees for My All Encompassing Dictatorship

Decrees for My All Encompassing Dictatorship, MLB Division

sterling.jpgThe Wife has our clock radio tuned to WCBS, which is the Yankees’ radio station. So naturally, their sports updates lead with Yankees news whenever possible. This also means they play tons of John Sterling audio.

John Sterling’s home run calls are the lamest ‘comedy’ bits you’ve ever heard, but they’re even worse when the Yankees hit two homers in a row. Because that’s when John Sterling belts out BACK TO BACK, N’ BELLY TO BELLY! Skin crawling.

If you ever think you might have eaten something poisonous and you need to induce vomiting, just think of that. You’ll be blowing chunks in no time.

The Yankees have hit back-to-back home runs in each of their last three games, an impressive feat. Except that the first thing I’ve heard when I woke up the last three mornings is that buffoon, A GROWN MAN, screaming this in my ear. How am I supposed to have a good day after that, I ask you?!

Under my benevolent regime, the Yankees shall not be allowed to hit
home runs by consecutive batters. If such an occasion arises where two
batters in a row hit balls out of the ballpark in fair territory, the
second shall count as a ground rule double.

This totally unfair burden on the Yankees’ ability to score will be imposed until such time as they fire John Sterling as their play-by-play man and exile him to some foreign nation. Preferably one where no one plays baseball, so that he may not sully their airwaves, either.

I have spoken.