Today, Trot Nixon's 13-year run with the Boston Red Sox organization came to an end, as he signed with the Native Ohioan Peoples.

I want to bring up something that no one has yet, as far as I know. Take a look at the above perfectly accurate depiction of Fenway Park's main seating bowl. ("Seating bowl" is the funniest term in sports. Besides "puck." I use it whenever I can.) See the pine-tar colored area with the little Ts? What do these people have in common? That's right, the closest Red Sox fielder to their seat, for the better part of the last eight years, has been Christopher Trotman Nixon.

Now realize how big that portion of the crowd is in relation to the rest of the park. That's a good third of the paying customers. One in every three Sox fans at Fenway on any given day takes more pictures of Trot Nixon than any other guy. Out of nine guys.

The center fielder gets a nice chunk of the bleachers, but they start 18 feet above field level. Manny gets the Monster Seats, plus that whole side of the left field grandstand. Maybe you could say the first and third basemen have little rooting sections, and the people by the dugouts get to cheer everybody up close. But there may not be another player in the four major sports who has a bigger exclusive rooting section relative to the rest of the crowd than the right fielder at Fenway Park.

What else do all the people in Trot's area have in common? Just that. They're the common fan. i.e. shitty seats! He's got the bleacher bums. The college kids who say "woo!" a lot. The upper bleacher, "I can't even afford food because this was my last 12 bucks" crowd. The "Dunkin Dugout" aka "poor kids" crew. The "I thought row one would be good but the bullpen fence is directly in my line of sight" schlubs. The "ooh, right field box! Box=good, right?" folks who end up with home plate directly to their left and have to look over their shoulder, craning their neck while staring directly into the sun or some stranger's ear for four hours. The people who get stuck behind Pesky's Pole. The young families who get talked into grandstand seats that not only don't face the field, and are not only a hundred feet away from it, and about 500 from home plate, but are made of wood and were constructed in 1933. The ones who think everything's okay because their section's pole is not in front of them when they face forward, but when they turn 45 degrees to the left, another pole is right in the way of home plate.

These are Trot's people. I have a ten-game plan, and those seats are in Trot's zone. We kinda like this guy, is what I'm sayin'. I wonder if the front office thought of this. How can you replace Trot? He was the perfect guy for this segment of Fenway's population. Can JD Drew fill these shoes? I guess he could come out strong, hit a lot of massive dongs, and we'll cheer him out there. But he's never gonna be Trot Nixon. Wait, do we even have Drew yet? Who knows at this point...

New England will miss you, Trot. See you on Memorial Day--sadly, in a gray jersey, with a horrible stereotype on your filthy, filthy hat. That will be some ovation.

Now, we all know there's that whole white guilt thing with scrappy guys who get credit, seemingly because of their "normal" looks. I know this is a real problem, but sometimes you gotta realize that a guy is loved because he's just that awesome. I'd hope if Trot were black, he'd be just as loved. I know that in America, terribly, it wouldn't be that way. But as a person who doesn't judge people by the tone of their skin, I'm proud to say I love Trot. He'll be an inspiration to dirty hat wearers like myself for years after he's gone.


Above: The T-Zone. Below: Trot walks off the Fenway field for the last time in a Red Sox uniform.

Seller of old, used, smelly items sues old, smelly homeless people.

ARSFIPT caught up with store-owner Karl Kemp yesterday at Manhattan's world-famous 4th Street basketball courts.


"I can't talk about the suit, we're in the middle of a game here," a panting, goggled Kemp said.

The team knowm as KKA (after the store's name, Karl Kemp Antiques) was locking horns with the juggernaut from PS 226.

"Don't be fooled," Mr. Kemp said of his diminutive competition, "these kids can really ball. We're up by 35, but our goal is to humiliate them to the point of physical tears. KKA comes to play. That's our motto."

Billy McGee, 7, says he won't be intimidated. "I heard they were from an antique shop, so I thought we had a chance. But the height advantage is just too much to ovecome. Plus I'm used to a Nerf ball. If I do get a shot off, it usually falls way short of the rim."

After the game, Carrie Weiler, a teacher from PS 226 and coach of the 6ers, doesn't understand how KKA managed to register for the league normally reserved for 6- and 7-year olds. "We thought maybe they signed up so their kids could play. We get to the court and find five grown men in shorts, ready to take on our first- and second-graders."

A Lesson Learned

Weiler claims it's a good lesson for her students, though. "The parents are saying we should protest the game, but our kids don't want to do that. They gave their all out there today. I don't know what kind of satisfaction Mr. Kemp gets out of taking on and attempting to destroy helpless people, but it can't top the satisfaction we get from giving our all against an unbeatable opponent. Two of our kids are in wheelchairs. For them to put up the fight they did today says a lot."

PS 226's challenge of a game of video basketball was refused by the older squad. "KKA keeps it real, none of that e-bull****" Mr. Kemp said. "We've got to get up to the blind and deaf school for a 3:00 tip-off."


Okay, so the articles I've read about this case say that Kemp really cares about the homeless people, and that he's tried everything else to get them to leave. But it's the "suing them for a million dollars" part that I can't get past.

"If you're an act, what am I?" -- Colbert, to O'Reilly

That's right, "Papa Bear" was on The Report tonight. He had no chance. It was great to see one guy who's so against another guy, yet pretends he's his idol, interviewing that guy in character while both know how the other really feels. I don't know why Bill even decided to go on the show. Colbert was on his show on tonight, too, but I missed that one. I noticed the rerun of O'Reilly's show was on during Colbert, but I checked in too late. (I did notice moveon.org's anti-war ad was shown during O'Reilly. Nice!) So it was a home-and-home series. But I still don't know why O'Reilly would agree to it. He just kind of sat there and didn't say much while Colbert mocked the hell out of him under the guise of the guise of the guise of idolizing him. When Colbert held up O'Reilly's book, there was a B&N "30% Off" sticker over Bill's face. Then Colbert pulled out a picture of O'Reilly in S&M gear. It was some good viewin'.

Tonight, I was on the subway, and at 33rd Street, it stopped. For good. Everybody off. Right now. No idea why. You know what it was like just trying to get out of the station? Imagine a packed subway train, and everyone gets off at the same stop. Not good. Then I had to walk the rest of my journey in the rain in my holey shoes. I did get to see my first snowflakes of the season earlier in the day, though.

On my way back home, reading Chan's Onion on the train over his shoulder (as per our Thursday night, post-Mexican food tradition) I saw that Harry Shearer was speaking back downtown tonight. I too soaked and we were almost all the way home, so I opted against seeing Harry. I did get to see the end of his Letterman appearance tonight, though. Nice job by the master, and Paul played the SCTV theme for him.

Also in that Onion was a Ricky Gervais interview. The longer online version is here. I can't say enough about the guy. I was psyched to read that his heroes are mostly the same as mine. I also was inspired by his promotion of the dabbling lifestyle. It justifies my creative life, for sure. Thanks, Ricky. Also, Extras season two (possibly the last according to the interview) is underway, and it continues to be, in my opinion, the greatest show on earth.

My9, a part of MyNetworks, has added a new feature to their 10:00 news. It's called MyNeighborhood. Well, whoopdee-freakin'-doo. How did that get past the brainstorming stage? You mean to tell me they were sitting in a meeting, looking for a new name for this feature where you send in photos of your neighborhood, and not only that someone came up with "MyNeighborhood," but that everyone in the room agreed on it? How did every set of eyes in the room not roll toward the heavens? MyGod.

Oh no. "MyGod" made me realize something. Soon, churches will be using "my," if they're not already. MyJesus, MyPrayers...the possibilities are endless. Apparently "my" is the key to success, so look for a mass conversion to whatever religion jumps on the "my" bandwagon first. My70Virgins await you...or me...or whatever.

I wonder if it's just a game among corporations at this point: "I wonder how many 'my's we can use before they'll actually say something, heh heh heh."

Well, I'm starting a boycott. Any company that uses the word "my" in their advertising is dead to me from now on. They will insult MyIntelligence no longer.

Click here for MyPrevious MyRant.

Labels: POSTA POCKIES

What hasn't happened in Major League Baseball since September 26, 1971? Be specific.

[Clue, 1/24/07: It has to do with two players and their last names.]

[Clue, 2/4/07: It was the last time it happened in one game as well as being the last time it happened overall. The game in question is the Dodgers-Braves game.]

During the initial Dice-K mania, some people said, "It's totally worth it to spend all this money, because we'll make it back tenfold by getting into the Japanese market. Money will be falling out of of lollipop trees, and gumdrop rainbows of gold and jewels will shine on Yawkey Way forever."

Others said, "Dude, the money all gets split up, they won't make much more than they do now."

Well, now, a member of the Red Sox organization has come out and agreed with the latter theory.

What really matters is that Matsuzaka pitches well. If he does, we'll be happy. (The guy, senior vice president of sales and marketing Sam Kennedy, echoes this in the article as well.)

Have you heard about the girl who got beat up? This is amazing video. Check it out:

I'd had my eye on this gargantuan 7-UP mug for months. It lived in a thrift store up near Boston. This weekend, I dropped the necessary 2/5ths of a sawbuck and cleared a huge space in my glassware storage area, aka the cupboard above the sink. I've placed some of my past scores around the jolly green giant. Those are some pretty good-sized steins, but the Green Goblin beats them.

On the left is my 1988 A.L. East Champions glass. You don't see that every day. To the right is the '67 A.L. Champs glass, which was also for sale at the same thrift store, but I got mine somewhere else years before. Maybe at the Elephant's Trunk. I also put a pen there for scale.

The Entenmann's box in the background reminds me: I never did talk more about the letters in my logo. I cut that E right off an Entenmann's box. Another E is from the Circle Jerks logo. Most of them were cut out of that week's Village Voice. (Brian was the only one to notice the Circle Jerks E. I was hoping he would, since he's a big Keith Morris/Jerks fan.) The A, like I said, is from the Apollo logo. The D appears to be from the Tower Records logo. We know where those two I's are from. Another I is a piece of one of the twin towers that stuck up out of the ground post-collapse. And I couldn't tell you what any of the other ones are.

Craggy old white man tells black people to "get over" slavery. This is the type of person we elect into office?

Fortunately, people described what actually happened on slave ships:

They were manacled together in twos and threes. Their horror may be well conceived when they found a number of them in different stages of suffocation; many of them were foaming at the mouth and in the last agonies-many were dead. A living man was sometimes dragged up, and his companion was a dead body; sometimes of the three attached to the same chain, one was dying and another dead. The tumult they had heard was the frenzy of those suffocating wretches in the last stage of fury and desperation, struggling to extricate themselves. When they were all dragged up, nineteen were irrecoverably dead. Many destroyed one another in the hopes of procuring room to breathe; men strangled those next them, and women drove nails into each other's brains. Many unfortunate creatures on other occasions took the first opportunity of leaping overboard and getting rid, in this way, of an intolerable life.

Of course, it didn't end there. Stuff like that happened while these people were on their way to a world where they'd be owned by someone else. Maybe that old guy never learned how serious this stuff was. More likely, he just doesn't care. Soon he'll be gone. He and his ignorant kind won't be missed.

Not only do Chan and I not have cell phones, we've also got an old school answering machine. But that's not the point. We got this message last week. This actually happens quite a bit: The cold-caller gets the machine, is cued by the beep, and proceeds to start talking to the machine as if it's a live person, asking it questions.

Maybe they don't hear the message. Maybe they use some type of automated system that cues the person to talk when our machine's message and beep have concluded. That would explain the initial interrogation. But why don't they realize, after they're first question is greeted with dead silence, that maybe, just maybe, they're talking to a machine which can't talk back?

I thought this message was particularly funny, though. First of all, about the terminology: Could it be a call from the 50s that hung in telephone space, and just now reached our apartment? And doesn't it seem like she fully believes she's talking to a stubborn person who made the decision to answer the phone but just won't talk, right up 'til the bitter end?

Check it out. The Greenwell has nothing to do with it. Just thought it might be more interesting for you with him in there.

Labels: movies

I hate to plug Murray "To Each His Ass" Chass, but he wrote a piece about Devern Hansack recently. Gives a little more info about the guy, and Assy doesn't badmouth the Sox for a change. Unless you include his snide remark that starts "Lest we forget..."

The (forgotten?--not by me) game he describes in the article was one of my most memorable Fenway experiences. I guess now would be a good time to revisit it. To cancel the Chass plug, I'll plug myself: The Nixon-leaving-field shot and the Hansack on the hill shot both make excellent desktop wallpaper.

While searching "red sox" in the news, I came across this gem. It's always good to read things like this to build confidence in your own writing and satirical skills. I'm guessing this person is, well, frankly, twelve years old. Where do I even start making fun of this?

How about the picture: There won't be any games at Yankee Stadium in 2090, as it's scheduled for demolition more than eighty years prior to that date.

Andy only has one A.

If you're going to make fun of the Red Sox, and you've decided that despite winning the World Series, they're still a team that just can't win, well, at least be consistent with the history. (Again, the history which includes winning the fucking World Series, you stupid Yankee jerkoffs.) Say that the Sox will come close and have crushing defeats between now and then, don't just say we'll be shitty the whole time. Terrible job.

What's an internet rally?

These things and more can be found at the above link, written by a person who most likely is typing on a feces-covered computer. Again, I'd just like to say how happy it makes me to live in a world where Yankee fans can only make fun of the Red Sox through a fantasy world they've invented where the Red Sox don't win and the Yankees always do. They had their chance to make fun of us for all those years, and they took advantage of that time, as we know. But I just don't see why they can't admit that it's all over. The fake curse has been broken. It just proves my point that arrogant Yankee fans weren't arrogant because of the 86-year drought, they were just arrogant anyway.

I was up in ol' New England this weekend, and stopped by my parents' house for the 1991 World Series of the Smith Baseball League. This is a dice-rolling league my dad and I started in 1989 using real, mostly unheard of players from the Topps 1987 baseball card set. Every once in a while, we break out the league--a league with no walks and no third base. As you can tell, we've fallen behind, as we're only on the 1991, or third season of "the league." My division's Denver Rockies (named well before the existence of the current Colorado Rockies) just won it all, beating my dad's Nashville Tunes, 3 games to 1. The Rocks dominated this season, going 27-13, easily an all-time league record. They did it behind the stellar hurling of Ron Mathis and Skip Quinn. (Some players--"rookies" for years two and three--were taken from the 1970 Topps set.) I'm only noticing now that Quinn is actually Skip Guinn. You can see by the pictured card why we assumed the guy's name was Quinn. Guinn and Mathis appeared in a total of 70 games between them in real life.

Jim Pankovits and Ernest Riles were the hitting stars. Panky, a three year vet, is the face of our league, in my opinion. And now he's got a ring. Jose Uribe won the batting title this year, and then promptly died in real life. We've decided to name future batting title awards after him. Ironically, he could win his own memorial award next year, as he lives on in our league. Congratulations, Denver Rockies.

In other real life news, Pedro's got a 19-year old son who pitches as well, the Sox re-signed KySny, I finally saw American Movie (see it!), Cyn got up close and bronsonal, and O'Reilly's gonna be on Colbert Thursday night. Sounds like a don't-miss. Now I'm gonna go watch the second season premiere of Extras.

Labels: POSTA POCKIES