Chan & I went down to NYC tonight. So many Red Sox hats! Amazing. I'd say the number of yankee hats I saw tonight over a four hour period spent mostly walking around streets jammed with people was down about 80% from the pre-choke, pre-team-they-said-could-never-win-because-their-uniforms-say-"Boston"-(unlike-their-team-whose-uniforms-say-"S"-for-Superman)-just-won-the-World-Series-and-there's-nowhere-to-hide-even-in-their-own-city days. Conversely, the usual one or two Red Sox hats has turned to double digits. And I only counted one person that I considered to be a "new" (wink wink) Sox fan. It was a kid with baggy pants, and his backwards facing Sox hat had a 0% sweat content, unlike the 94% of mine. But everyone else seemed legit. They're just out of the closet now, as Chan said. And the eye contact I got from yankee fans, once again, was exactly none.

I tried giving people the "Yeah, Sox!" routine, but New York city is just so damned loud, I think a lot of people just didn't hear me. So I only got a few responses. Or maybe it was because people, especially tourists, aren't expecting strangers walking by to just yell in their face, and they kind of block out all voices that aren't those of the people they're with. You know, to avoid getting hassled by some guy with fliers for the strip club, or worse yet, assaulted. Then again, it could just be because there are so many Red Sox fans in the city (like there are everywhere) that it's no big deal for an NYC Sox fan to see another Sox hat. It also could very well be that a New Yorker, Sox fan or otherwise, just doesn't want to be bothered. I'll do some further research on this next week, since I'm going down there twice, once for another Brian Regan show, and again to see The Life Aquatic, which opens down there before it does up here.

And go to Bullshit Memorial Stadium, an awesome blog by a Sox fan in the heart of pinstripe territory, for a brilliant anti-yankee rant. Here's a teaser: "Show of hands- how many people would love to corner Michael Kay to ask him which was worse- the 'disgrace and disrespect' shown by Johnny Damon's hair (his words), or the use of illegal steroids by two Yankees?"

Uh, both hands way up over here. That also reminds me of something I never mentioned on here. On Halloween night, I was driving home after my band, Ruato, played our Halloween show. I was listening to the news, and they said that the annual Halloween parade was about an hour from starting up down in NYC, in Greenwich Village. If you don't know about it, it's made up of people who, on every other day, wear what a lot of people would consider a Halloween costume...dressed in what they would call a Halloween costume. In other words, it's a really cool place to be on Halloween. I thought, I'm an hour away from the city, I should go down there. But I decided against it. The next day, I was listening to my arch-rival, Michael Kay, and he said how he "accidentally" was down in the Village when the parade came by. After a giggling, homophobic exchange with his producers about why he was at this gay-positive event, he told us how one guy recognized him and said "You're Michael Kay," to which Kay responded, "No, this is my costume!" (Yeah, I'm sure you're that quick, Mike.) Anyway, the point is, had I gone to the parade, I actually could have seen Kay, which is my dream, because I've got lots to say to the man.

I also never mentioned how at Game 3 of the ALCS, I wrote "Micheal Kay Has A God Complex" on a piece of paper, and held it in front of me while standing right behind the dugout during BP. There were lots of camera people on the field, naturally, and I thought maybe one would think it was funny and get a shot of it. A bunch of cameras were pointing up into the seats, but I think they were more interested in little kids with big signs than some guy with five days' growth on his face on top of a pointy goatee holding a tiny handwritten (with a pen) sign. But it was worth a shot.