Actor Neil Patrick Harris Reveals He's Gay

I just read that and thought "Wow, MacGuyver's gay." Then I figured out they were talking about Doogie Howser.

Is MacGuyver gay?

'til Borat! I am psyched.

I remember it like it was 1993. Because it was. I had just gone off to college. It was a Saturday afternoon. I was on the phone with my parents back in Connecticut. We must've timed it so they could give me the live update of the end of the Red Sox-Yankees game, as I couldn't get the games in the midwest. I remember my friend Vicky was over there, visiting my parents and watching the game. She was a Yankee fan from The Bronx. Specifically, Riverdale. Why my mom thought it was so funny how she'd call it "Rivadel," I don't know. I mean, it was kinda funny. Not that big a deal, though, I thought.

So my mom is saying to me, "Okay, we're one out away from the win...and it's a fly ball, yes!" And then I heard a commotion. First my parents were clapping and cheering, but then suddenly Vicky was. Like, cheering and laughing that arrogant Yankee fan laugh. I'm sitting there in Nebraska, highly confused. Apparently, what happened was, well... I looked up the game on the internet, and found an account of it on BaseballLibrary.com:

Saturday, September 18th
IN THE NEWS: The Yankees defeat the Red Sox, 4-3, because of a fan who runs out on the field. With NY trailing, 3-1, with two outs and a man on 1st in the 9th inning, Mike Stanley hits a fly ball to left that apparently ends the game. Umpire Tim Welke, however, had called time when the fan bolted onto the field, giving Stanley a second chance. He singled on the next pitch. That was followed by a hit by Wade Boggs, a walk to Dion James, and a single by Don Mattingly which drove home the tying and winning runs.

I've thought of that game a few times in the last 13 years, wondering if I dreamed it up. But it's true. Another underrated chapter in Yankee cheating history.

There was also a play where a kid reached over the right field wall at Yankee Stadium and gave a Yankee an undeserved game-winning home run. No, not that one. This one was in 1993. I actually taped the Len Berman news report where he interviws the kid (who's called a "hero," and given free shit by Mattingly, who hit the ball). I'll have to post that someday. Ah, those cheating Yanks. What would we do without them? Oh, right, live peacefully for all eternity. You can't win 'em all.

To all you Connecticut people who enjoy Jere's blog--a political message from his Mom.

One of the largest donations ($60,000) to Joe Lieberman was from Sempra Energy, a company that owns and operates tankers carrying liquid gas; offshore complexes that turn the liquid into energy gas; and that lays the pipelines. The Cheney energy bill that Joe voted for (the only Democratic member of Congress from New England to do so) included the building of a liquid natural gas complex called “Broadwater” to be floated in the middle of Long Island Sound. The complex will be far larger than the Titanic and at night it’ll be lit up by tens of thousands of light bulbs. The whole operation will be more flammable than lighter fluid; if there is an accident or if a little boat the size of the one that blew a hole in the USS Cole crashes a terrorist’s load of explosives into Broadwater, innocent people will die, and Long Island Sound could well end up a dead sea. Joe brags that he opposes Broadwater but he voted for its creation and took $60,000 from the company that will build it. Joe must go.

This morning, Derek Jeter woke up and was given the Chevy Wakey Wakey Award for best-smelling AM Pee, as determined by fans.

He went downstairs for breakfast, where he was presented with the CareerBuilder.com Fast Break Award, for his dilligence in consuming three eggs over easy. Reporters from each major league city overlooked the fact that two of the eggs fell on the floor, but cited his general overall egg leadership.

As he headed over to the gym for his workout, Derek tripped over his shoelaces, which he'd tied together (ironically just a day after winning the Hallmark Best Shoe-Tie Award). Upon righting himself, he was lauded by fans and media alike with the iMac Presents American Recovery of the Year Award, unanimously taking both the fan and media vote.

After accidentally dropping this award into an open manhole cover, after straying into a restricted area--a move that garnered the shortstop the M&M/Mars Chocolate Thunder Out of Bounds Prize--the village of tiny rodent-men that lived in the manhole bestowed upon Derek the Raid Underground Player of the Year Trophy. Miguel Tejada's handmade system of decorative pipes for his Santo Domingo mansion surprisingly didn't win over any votes. "I was going to give my vote to Tejada, actually," said a Sacramento Bee rodent-man reporter, "but at the last second, Derek Jeter showed us all what it's like to be a leader when he dropped that other trophy down the manhole."

You can take it from there. "Manhole" can provide a nice segue, should you choose to use it.

What announcer's catch phrase is the same as the network he works for?

Note: Quiz III has not been answered yet. Unlike John McElroy's 5th grade predictions, I won't be going by the "one has to end before the next can start" method, as I have in past years of quizzes. If you're curious, McElroy's first prediction, "Dwight Gooden is on drugs," came very true, at which point he predicted that the Danbury Fair Mall in Danbury, Connecticut, which opened in September of '86 and was built on swampland, will "fall down." We are still waiting. I mean, I'm just rooting for it to see what the dude's next prediction will be.

You may have heard that Comedy Central very unfunnily took down a lot of vids of theirs from YouTube. Mine survived. After I heard about it, I changed my keywords so they'd be harder to find. Today, one of the two got taken down. There's a big, thick line between "stealing" and "paying tribute to." The stiffs at Comedy Central are too businesslike and stupid to see it. The ones I put up were just some random things from 1997, which CC is never going to use. Why people would want to keep their creations, that were free in the first place, locked away for no one to see is beyond me, but, hey, they have that right. To be idiotic. And mean.

I sincerely apologize for giving you free advertising, Comedy Central. I hope you waste a LOT of your precious time continuing to sift through websites. The stuff I do on this blog, for example, is all here. If I did some awesome thing, but then didn't have the means to keep it up on this public space, I wouldn't have a problem with someone who captured it at the time posting it somewhere a decade from now, as long as they didn't try to pretend it was their work. I'd rather have it be out there than hidden.

It's interesting, because TV networks never really had a place for old stuff, except dusty old vaults and "best of" episodes. This is a case of the public beating the networks to the punch. The technology exists for people to make video widely accessible in an indexed and archived setting. So we went ahead and started doing it. The networks have their DVDs, but everything else they ever did (the stuff too new or not good enough for home DVD release) was just sitting unused. Those who taped that stuff at home simply provided a service for those networks, taking credit only for being the one who taped and posted it, which I think is okay. And the networks said, "Uh...uh... yeah, we, uh, meant to do this but we, uh, just haven't gotten around to it so we're taking down your five second clip from 1995 that we'll never, ever use, so that we can one day, uh, continue to hide from everyone." None of those actors were going to get any royalties anyway. And, like I've said, I'm quite certain an actor who appeared once in their life on TV would rather have someone be able to see it (hence, they'd be fine with it being on YouTube) than get a twelve-cent royalty check.

I think this is a good time to post the lyrics of a song I wrote once. I stole the line "music is free/play it yourself" from a homemade T-shirt made by someone I know (who gave me her blessing at the time). It's about the whole copyright thing, specifically referring to music (and also art as a "job," and people who think technical skill is more important than heart, that kind of thing), but it applies to all art:

I don't need to get permission
To be a rogue musician
And I'd take the heart of Ian MacKaye
Over the chops of Steve Vai

If you had worked at CBs
Back in the 70s
Would you have told The Ramones
To go and get degrees?

This is not my job
I am not at work
I think one boss is enough

Music is free
Play it yourself
Don't ever let it sit on a shelf

Music is free
Play it yourself
Don't ever let it sit on a shelf

Music is free
Play it yourself
Don't ever let it sit on a shelf

Music is free
Play it yourself
Don't ever let it sit on a shelf

I'd rather have my songs make new friends
Than get a check for two cents
I'm only payin' tribute to you
You want my money, too?

Why the hell would you write
All of those friggin' songs
If you had no intention
To let us sing along?

If this was my job
I'd steal all the Post-Its
And make flip-books all day long

Music is free
Play it yourself
Don't ever let it sit on a shelf

Music is free
Play it yourself
Don't ever let it sit on a shelf

Music is free
Play it yourself
Don't ever let it sit on a shelf

Music is free
Play it yourself
Lend me some sugar
I am your neighbor

Just after I wrote this, I watched Colbert do a "The Word" segment on Comedy Central taking down their stuff from YouTube. Pretty funny...

The late Ken Coleman is up for a Frick Award yet again. He was the Red Sox announcer I grew up with. You can vote once each day for three announcers at redsox.com or any other mlb site. Please consider throwing in a vote for ol' Ken.

And Bob Montgomery!

from baseball-almanac.com

Amazing Larry, one of the two official cats of ARSFIPT.

From redsox.com:

Baseball America today announced that the publication has graded the Red Sox' 2006 First Year Player Draft as the best of the 30 major league teams. The 2006 Draft Report Cards are included in the latest issue of Baseball America, which went on newsstands today.

Boston signed 27 of its 54 selections from the 2006 draft, including each of the first 13 picks. Red Sox players cited by the publication included RHP Josh Papelbon (named one of the top five second day picks) and 1B Lars Anderson (named one of the top five power hitters).

A power-hitting first baseman named Lars. Now there's a sentence I've never written before. Chan was elected president today. There's another for good measure.

The entire sky was painted pink for a few minutes as I walked to the subway after work. This is looking down 2nd Ave. It was really cool. I wish I'd had the digital camera. These are all video stills.

I met up with Chan at Union Square, and we followed my secret plan to go to the end of the parade route.

It worked. We were at the corner of 21st and 6th, where the parade finished, and marchers turned onto 21st. These acrobats were part of the pre-parade entertainment.

A lot of the same stuff as last year. Including horses.

That gnome got the royal treatment.

That coach of the Tampa Bay Bucs or whatever.

Remember this drummer dude from last year? He had the "Dead Sox" jersey. I guess he was a little too depressed to even dress up this year.

I'm glad it's finally a mainstream thing to actually question the "official" story of what happened on 9/11.

Not a great version of the Ghostbusters outfit and not a great shot by me, but, come on, it's Ghostbusters.

I knew what this was gonna be right away...

Yup. And you thought the Steve Irwin costume was "too soon"!

I guess this is supposed to be (the great) Jimmy Carter. As a peach. Impeach. Peach. I guess. [Edit: Okay, I see the apostrophe now. "I'm Peach Bush." It's Bush as a peach. But also...forget it.]

Following in the footsteps of me when I was, like, six. The Greatest American Hero.

This baby was enjoying this baby's self.

Classic. The loner. The rebel. And Velma.

These were supporters of
Brad Will.

More Will stuff.

Evel Knievel turns around to take a picture of...

ZZ Top.

I thought this shark was wildly grabbing at peanut butter. I didn't know sharks like peanut butter. Then I realized the flailing arms coming out of the shark's mouth were the arms of someone getting eaten. I'm smart.

Gay marriage supporters.

Alien dog.

Costume of the year in my book. The effin Utz girl! (But with no red blush marks on her cheeks. TJ.)

That old dude who walks around Yankee Stadium annoying everybody. Or someone dressed as him. But the sign looks like an authentic "Freddy Sez," so it was probably him.

Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone.

Just last night I found out that KISS would be the grand marshalls of the parade. Nice!

I was psyched when they finally came into view. Turns out if was just Paul and Gene (and some Kiss-dancers).





Awkward moment alert: They weren't playing instruments, but Kiss songs were blaring from their float. Right before they reached us, a song that was playing abruptly stopped. Like, "This is the end of the parade, shut it off." Gene folded his arms as if to say, "I didn't authorize that..."



Unfortunately they were turning away from us when they passed us. Still got some nice shots thanks to my zoom. There's something about being in the presence of Gene Simmons that makes one glad to be alive.

At that point, I didn't need to see any more. But I did, as we left the "official" route and went east on 21st, with the marchers alongside. Here was hate and homophobia in individual coffins. I guess the tangible versions of "hate" and "homophobia" are roughly adult human-size.

A big group of people had sperm-looking things on their heads. So it looked like they were swimming along the top of the crowd. I didn't see an egg. Too bad I didn't get a good shot of this, but I got some of the individual sperm.

Speed Racer.

There was Utzie again, on the sidewalk! She looks happy here, but a second later she realized I was taping. She got uncomfortable. Terrible job, Utz. On the cheeks, and on being uncomfy. You're lucky I gave you COTY.

Al Gore and an astronaut.

The mob scene at 21st and 5th.

Borat hugs a sperm

The ESB.

Happy New Month, everybody.

Update, 11:41 AM the day after: TJ by me for not mentioning what a beautiful night it was. 60-something degrees, perfectly comfortable. And the estimated crowd there, I read today, was 2 million.

I am god. Well, not the god. A god. A god of guesstimating. Whatever elementary school teacher taught us (made up?) "guesstimating" would be proud of me tonight.

The scene: A corner window table at a diner. The players: Chan and I.

We'd just come back uptown from the Village Halloween Parade (pics to come), and Chan said, "there aren't enough people in costume up here."

I replied, "Eh, there's probably 20%."

I started to count. The rule I made was that I'd count only people who walked over the corner of the intersection right outside the diner's window. After a perfect 1 of five people passed in costume, Chan asked what the sample size would be. I told him we should get 50 people by the time our meals arrived. (Chan got his usual Western omelette, and I got a veggie burger.) That's what I love about New York. If I want to go to the convenience store, at any time of night, I cross the street to get there, and people are out and about. Even at 15:00 PM.

I kept the running tally.

"1 out of 9, but a dressed-up couple puts me ahead of my projected pace."

Chan's eyes lit up. My hypothetical couple appeared before his eyes behind me.

"7 for 30. I'm still gold."

The projection was looking perfect.

When we hit 9 costumes, 47 people had gone by. It was a lock. Gimme 3 non-'stumes and I've nailed it. The meals arrived. But I wasn't eating until that 50th person passed. An old dude, and two more nons, and I was the grand champion. 50 people. 10 costumes. 20 per cent.

Sam Killay said it best. I don't remember his exact quote, but it was something like, "I'm amazingly talented at things that will never make me rich or famous."

So I'm clearly a god. Chan knows he's the only one who can verify my story. He said he might actually come here and comment. We'll see. Needless to say, he didn't seem very impressed with my talents.

Everybody's mad about Timlin coming back for another year. I didn't throw any parties when I heard the news, but I was kind of glad. Think of it this way: If we'd gotten some other guy to fill that eighth-inning-ish role, who would it be? I'll tell you exactly. "Oh, we got this guy. He was pretty good with San Diego. Had a great '05 season, but then had an arm injury. But he's back from it now, and all signs point to him having an absolutely amazing year if everything falls into place. But yet somehow no other teams saw these signs, so we scored big time. Look, I can't explain why you've never heard of him, just trust me."

Timlin may have had some (a lot of) difficulties recently, but I'd take him over Mystery J. Reliever any day. Why? Because he's been here, he's part of the team and town already, has a shitload of experience, has proven he can get the job done, and he's the ovaries. He wants to win, so of course he's going to try to fix his problems. I think I want a guy like that on the team.

Would I hang out with the guy? Nope. He'd probably shoot me with one of those arrows just for saying that I don't eat meat. Then again, even the least hunter-ish baseball player wouldn't want to hang out with me--what would we do, play a dice baseball game I invented together? "Okay, here's the dice. First batter this inning is...you! Literally. Isn't that awesome? Huh? Where are you going? No, I don't know where Scores is...hello??"

People may say, "You just want to hang on to '04," like they said when I said Arroyo should stay. Look, you're missing the point, Hypothetical McGee. If a guy helps win you a World Series, what's wrong with wanting him to stay? Not because of tradition's sake, but because he showed the ability to pitch in big games and take his team as far as they can go. Which is what we want. It doesn't make me an unintelligent fan for saying we should keep guys that have gotten it done in the past. It's not like I'm saying we should dig up Smoky Joe Wood and start him on Opening Day. Timlin's still a living, breathing pitcher, and I usually feel good when he's on the mound.

You know, with the bases empty. But the bases are often empty, people. The bases are often empty.

I'm totally shocked and pissed that there's even a chance Gonzalez won't be back. I've said it before, but his defense is worth whatever he does at the plate. Every hit the guy gets is a bonus.

Okay, there's a Brian Cox movie that has a scene that's almost identical to a scene in another movie. The actor in that other movie's version of the scene was in yet another movie in which A. a US president's name was mentioned to him in a conversation, and B. featured an actor who had the same name as that president. Name this movie.

Current quiz standings/results here.

Clue, 11/13/06, 11:16 AM: The Cox movie also had Bill Murray in it.

The Red Sox have announced that 80 percent of seats will remain the same price as last year, with only the premium seats' price going up. Great news for us, the non-rich. I noticed this line at the end of the article about it on the team's site:

The club will also keep its special offer of $7 for tickets for active military personnel.

What? I never heard of that! And I pay pretty close attention to all things Fenway tickets. (By "pretty," I mean "obsessively.")

Why do I care? Well, surprisingly, I have a friend in a certain branch of the military that people usually don't think of when they hear "military." And hoooo-ee does he love to throw that discount around. In fact, this very laptop was bought...well, I shouldn't say any more, really. Except that I may be getting some cheap seats next year! Now if only my dad would get on that Jeremy Kapstein connection that he actually has...

My girlfriend and I were talking about Carl Everett last night. (We both were totally pro-Carl when he arrived on the Red Sox scene.) In our discussion, she brought up the fact that Carl apparently threw a party for the team at the end of one season, and nobody showed up. She added, "You'd think at least Jose Offerman would've gone for the free food..."

I was in the so-called "North End" last night for the first time. And, like Stew Petersen, it lived up to its hype. Whenever I'm in Boston, I always have to ask, "Yeah, I know this is the Fenway Park-ish area, and this is the [insert college] area, and this is the Common area, but where's the city?" The North End's cramped streets with all the commerce packed in made me feel more...at home? But that doesn't make sense because I've only lived in a major city for a little while. And I like all forms of human dwellification--everything has something for me. Even a wide open field with nothing for miles at least would be nice for sunset watching and stargazing and shutting the hell up for a second. But I'm just always wondering when I'll be in Boston and come across a hundred numbered streets in a row all completely filled with people and stores and crap like that. Seems like it's just not like that. More like a million little unique neighborhoods all spread out. Which is like Manhattan, only in Manhattan, there's no in between. If you're walking from NoHo to SoHo, you'll either be in one or the other or on Ho itself, to use the most basic of examples.

The point of this was that I really liked the North End. I give it four and a half Chans out of five.

I think a...way to wrap this all up is with a quote from my uncle, who I talked to on the phone the other day. I've never heard anyone say this before: "There are two places I don't go: New York...and Boston."