Catcher in the Fries

My all-time favorite baseball player is Carlton Fisk.  

Not pictured:  His gigantic balls

Carlton Fisk was an old-school, hard-assed baseball player who unfortunately played the first half of his career in Boston but thankfully played the last half of his career for my beloved Chicago White Sox.  Sure, he might be most famous for his clutch, off-the-foul-pole home run in game 6 of the 1975 World Series:

but to me, he will always be a hard-core baseball junkie who ended up catching more baseball games than any other man in baseball history.  His knees must be like jello now.

A few years ago, the White Sox had "Carlton Fisk Day" at Comiskey.  Before the game, they dedicated a life-size statue to him on the center field concourse.  

The statue is cool.  It's a fine, bronze testement to one of the most popular White Sox players of all time.

Now, while I was unable to attend that game, I was lucky enough to be present at "Carlton Fisk Replica Statue" night a few weeks ago.  During a bachelor party.

My good buddy Jimmy Freund is joining me in the exclusive "Married to a woman who can do much, much better" club.  A few Saturdays ago, a dozen or so of us went down to Comiskey to drink entirely too much beer and eat fatty foods all day.  While the party never got out of control--I was home by midnight--we did tie one on pretty good.  

At the end of the night, we found ourselves at Daily Bar and Grill in Lincoln Square for some much needed dinner.  At the table, we were joined by our new buddy Carlton Fisk.  

He was new to the group and didn't really know anyone at the table.  Thus, at first, Carlton was a bit shy.  

He seemed nervous.  He kept hiding being a beer bottle before warming up to us a bit.  He eventually moved out from behind that Budweiser to join us until something spooked him and he hid behind the ketchup for a while.

However, as things tend to do at bachelor parties, the liquor started flowing and Carlton really hit it off with us.  

In fact, when the waitress came by a short time later to check on us, he was the first guy to jump at another round of drinks.

It didn't take him long to warm up to us.  Pretty soon he was laughing, telling jokes and he felt comfortable enough around us to order the most disgusting thing on the menu: a big ol' plate of chili cheese fries:

He was laughing and telling us stories about the 1975 World Series and all the tail he used to get in Chicago in the early 80's.  We are enjoying his performance so much, we almost didn't notice when he upped the ante on us and sparked up:

Carlton was clearly in it to win it.  In fact, he suddenly claimed that he "won" Jimmy's bachelor party.  We're not even sure where he got it but he suddenly put on his "Championship belt" and demanded that we all kneel and respect his triumph.  

Then, after slapping the waitress on the ass for the 13th time in the night, he said he had to "take care of something" and proceeded to rub one out at the table.  Who knew little Carlton Fisk was into auto erotic asphyxiation?

Clearly, the night had taken a turn for the weird.  I almost felt sorry for him when he started to vomit into his own glass.  

It turns out that that sudden shot of humility brought Carlton back to reality.  After that, he was all fun and games again.  Dude does a mean Dumbledore impression:

He then ran around the table asking guys if they were "The Gatekeeper"

Things got pretty meta when he posed for a picture next to a picture of himself.  

At this point, things were winding down on the evening.  Carlton, however, would have none of it,  He wanted to keep the party train rolling, suggesting we go all Roman and have a toga party orgy with the waitress and a group of ladies at the next table.  He was prepared.

Our group had golfed earlier in the day then followed that up with a series of 22 ounce beers at Comiskey followed by bar hopping...we were wiped out.  But Carton wanted to keep going.  We were quite impressed by his stamina.  Honestly, we didn't know from where he was getting all his energy.  

Alas, all good things must come to an end.  I was exhausted and I calmly explained to Little Fisk that it was time to go.  He was pissed because he was going home with me and not the waitress but he said he understood.  We finally placated him by crowning him "King of the Bachelor Party":

He and I hopped in a cab and headed back to my wife.  Carlton woke up the next day feeling like shit, as you might imagine.  Don't worry about him; he says he learned a valuable lesson that night about moderation and is back at work, standing guard, ever vigilant over our wireless router

His time to shine will come again.  Oh yes, it will come again. 

In Absentia

One of the things about unemployment that no one ever tells you about is that it is sooooo boring.  Sure, it sounds nice to wake up at 11 every day and not really move or shower until the later part of the afternoon, but there really is only so much TV you can watch without going a little stir crazy.  As such, I find there isn't an awful lot to blog about that my devastatingly sexy readership of 7 would find remotely interesting.  If I made an effort to give daily updates on my couch sitting style and hygiene, it would not only be incredibly boring but also sorta disgusting.  "Haven't showered in 3 days.  Watching Sportscenter again.  Have eaten nothing but tacos."  That's just not good reading.

However, when I start getting texts from friends complaining that I haven't blogged in a few weeks--thank you very much, Mary Kate--it's time to dust off some ideas that have been rolling around in my lately-not-so-creative brain.  Over the next couple of days, be on the lookout for some seriously random blog entries.  We can share in these moments together.

Lawn Care Overkill

Of all the things in the world my readership won't give two shits about me complaining, this probably tops that list.

So, I was trying to sleep at 12:15 this afternoon (before you get all pissed off at my freedom, keep in mind that I have no money and I've spend the last three days in a melancholy funk watching Gilmore Girls and wondering if I'd ever work again.  It hasn't been fun.).  The last few nights, I hadn't slept well so I chugged a bunch of Target-brand Nyquil at about 2am in an effort to finally get some rest.  Damned if I didn't sleep hard-freakin'-core.  So hard core, that when Krishni woke me up this morning to make pancakes, I went back to sleep at 11:30.

However, shortly after I did so, the leaf-blower guy showed up.

I guess this is as good a spot as any to say we hate our management company.  We live in a condo so we have to pay silly association fees so that our "lawn" will be mowed and our sidewalks will be shoveled in the event of snow.  Unless of course they don't feel like coming out and we do all that shit ourselves.  Anyhow, once a week our eastern-European property manager will arrive and instead of raking the leaves and twigs that have fallen on the various 5' x 12' plots of grass, he will enthusiastically strap-on a back-pack type leaf-blower and go to town for an hour.  Every Tuesday morning at 8 am, we're awakened to the jet-engine sound of a guy too lazy to buy a rake.

"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwwwRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwww..."

He'll fire that bad-boy up for 10 seconds, let it idle, fire it up again for 5 seconds, let it idle, fire it up again for 10 seconds, let it idle...on and on until every last helicopter seed has been blown onto the street. 

These used to bring such joy to my childhood.  Now all these little fuckers can go to hell.

Ok, so I get awakened once a week by a lazy, leaf-blowing asshole.  No biggie, right?  Well, with the advent of summer, our management company has hired a team of these guys to come every Friday morning to our property and go to town on our tiny little plot of grass.  Which brings me to this morning.

It rained all day yesterday and it was still raining this morning while I nodded in and out of sleep.  I didn't care.  I love rain.  Rain kicks-ass.  However, it does not kick ass when the crack landscaping team arrives to leaf-blow the shit out of our 5' x 12' plots of grass.  If there was ever a time for a rake, this was it.  Wet grass?  A leaf-blower aint gonna work.  But damn did this guy try.  For over an hour, he stood directly outside our bedroom window revving and idling, revving and idling, revving and idling.  AND, when he was sweeping the sidewalk, he took his leaf-blower off his back and left it running on the ground outside our building.  Because, apparently, he wanted to be murdered by that sword my Godfather bought me when I was 12. 

But that's not all!  The crack lawn team--thinking this alone couldn't be enough to drive me to murder--brought along an industrial lawn mower that they probably use at Wrigley Field to mow our "lawn".  Now, keep in mind that our little stretches of grass are roughly 5' x 12', with a tree in the middle of each plot.  Not a lot of room to maneuver an industrial mower.  Check it out:

Smile, Pedro!

How much overkill is that lawn mower?  It's half as big as the plot of land he's mowing! He would struggle with that thing to get it onto each little plot, then sort of bump it up against the building twice, struggle to move it to the other side of the tree, bump it up against the building again and move on to the next plot of grass.  And while you may not be able to see it, that is an incredibly loud engine on the back of that thing that ROARS in our courtyard. 

Seriously.  Fuck these guys. 

I'm having some wine.