jack grows old in a bar
Do you ever find yourself playing out entire conversations in your head before they even take place? It usually happens with one of those talks you don't want to have. You'll think, "OK, so I'm gonna tell the boss I need one more day to finish the Hanrahan report, and of course he'll be like, 'I already gave you an extra day,' so I'll say, 'yeah, but the time frame you gave in the first place was unrealistic, and a lot of other stuff came up,' and he's such a dick he'll inevitably say something like, 'stuff comes up all the time for all of us, that's no excuse,' and I'll be like, 'well it's not done, what are you gonna do, fire me?' and he'll be like, 'you're goddamn right I'm gonna fire you,' and I'll get fired. Shit."
Then you'll go into the boss's office and be like, "Um, is it possible I could have one more day to tweak a few things on the Hanrahan report?" and he'll be like, "Sure, take your time, turn it in when you're ready."
And you'll wonder why you wasted so much time thinking about stupid stuff.
It happened to me the other day. I was having a tough day, and to be honest every day has been tough lately. And I started thinking about how good to me Ma Bungle's been. And I decided, you know what? Ma Bungle could use some flowers. So I stopped and got her a nice little bouquet and I started walking home.
There is a little concierge service that handles packages and dry cleaning and stuff for Stuy Town and Peter Cooper and the surrounding neighborhood. It's a crappy little place but it's useful and all the guys in there are pretty nice. I had to stop by there to pick up a package after I had bought the flowers, and I was already dreading the inevitable small talk. I'd walk in with the flowers, and of course some comedian would say:
"So, what'd ya do?" (referencing the generally accurate belief that the only time a man gets his woman flowers is when he has fucked up badly)
I came up with what I thought was a good response line and walked in. To my disappointment, nobody cared about my flowers and nobody said anything. I got my package and headed home.
As I was entering my apartment building there were two guys who live on my floor (one about 50, one about 75) outside having a conversation. I nodded hello and walked past them.
One of them muttered something so I pulled off my headphones and asked him to say it again.
"So what'd ya do?" said the 75 year-old, eying my flowers.
"It's not what I did, it's what I'm GOING to do," I said, possibly winking although probably not. They both laughed knowingly at my vaguely suggestive joke. I was proud.
That thing I ended up doing was going to the terrible bar right outside Stuy Town and slurping down a few delicious Buds with Joe née Monkeyweb. It was cold beer, depressing clientele, and lots of baseball talk. Our conversation ended up spilling over into the rest of the bar, which up to that point had been engaged, apparently, in their own baseball talk.
There was an old Yankee fan there named Jack. Jack was probably 60, full of stories and trivia, and he seemed fairly certain that he was The Fuckin' Man. He was one of those guys who preferred that everybody gave him their devoted attention whenever he spoke, and if you did that, maybe you could throw in a few words of your own if time allowed.
He and a couple of other dudes were having a friendly debate about who was the most 'money' pitcher of all-time (loosely defined as the guy you'd want pitching if you had to win one game -- one guy said, 'you know, the guy you'd want to start game 7 of the world series,' to which joe replied, 'wouldn't game 6 be more important if you were down 3 games to 2?' which made everyone scratch their heads). They had the whole discussion sort of confused, though. Some guys were naming a pitcher and a year -- Hershiser '88, for example -- while other guys were talking about a pitcher's entire body of work.
Here were some names thrown around:
-Hershiser '88
-Guidry '78, my suggestion, and I quoted this rather amazing fact about that season for the 19th time: in the span of four starts in September of '78, with every game a must-win (literally, remember they ended up in a tie with Boston), Guidry pitched three 2-hit shutouts, including 2 against Boston.
-Bob Gibson
-Sandy Koufax
-I drunkenly threw in Babe Ruth
-Walter Johnson (I said something sarcastic when his name came up, like 'come on, he probably only threw 75 mph')
-Somebody said Gooden which seemed stupid
-Somebody said Clemens which also seemed kind of stupid
-I threw in Mike Scott '86
And there were a few others. The discussion slowly dissolved and talk turned to the 2007 Yankees. Jack had looked at the upcoming schedule and decided the Yanks needed to go 16-4 in the next 20 games to have a shot at the postseason. I drunkenly nodded. I made a mental note to get more into baseball for the rest of the year, with the Yanks hopefully making a push for the playoffs (or not).
Jack asked me his stumper trivia question, which I answered correctly on a guess, earning his lifelong respect, I believe. The question: when George Brett hit the pine tar home run, what Yankee right fielder watched the ball sail over his head into the seats? 12 GP's for a correct answer, one guess per person.
New softball recap is alive and kicking like Jim Kerr.
Then you'll go into the boss's office and be like, "Um, is it possible I could have one more day to tweak a few things on the Hanrahan report?" and he'll be like, "Sure, take your time, turn it in when you're ready."
And you'll wonder why you wasted so much time thinking about stupid stuff.
It happened to me the other day. I was having a tough day, and to be honest every day has been tough lately. And I started thinking about how good to me Ma Bungle's been. And I decided, you know what? Ma Bungle could use some flowers. So I stopped and got her a nice little bouquet and I started walking home.
There is a little concierge service that handles packages and dry cleaning and stuff for Stuy Town and Peter Cooper and the surrounding neighborhood. It's a crappy little place but it's useful and all the guys in there are pretty nice. I had to stop by there to pick up a package after I had bought the flowers, and I was already dreading the inevitable small talk. I'd walk in with the flowers, and of course some comedian would say:
"So, what'd ya do?" (referencing the generally accurate belief that the only time a man gets his woman flowers is when he has fucked up badly)
I came up with what I thought was a good response line and walked in. To my disappointment, nobody cared about my flowers and nobody said anything. I got my package and headed home.
As I was entering my apartment building there were two guys who live on my floor (one about 50, one about 75) outside having a conversation. I nodded hello and walked past them.
One of them muttered something so I pulled off my headphones and asked him to say it again.
"So what'd ya do?" said the 75 year-old, eying my flowers.
"It's not what I did, it's what I'm GOING to do," I said, possibly winking although probably not. They both laughed knowingly at my vaguely suggestive joke. I was proud.
That thing I ended up doing was going to the terrible bar right outside Stuy Town and slurping down a few delicious Buds with Joe née Monkeyweb. It was cold beer, depressing clientele, and lots of baseball talk. Our conversation ended up spilling over into the rest of the bar, which up to that point had been engaged, apparently, in their own baseball talk.There was an old Yankee fan there named Jack. Jack was probably 60, full of stories and trivia, and he seemed fairly certain that he was The Fuckin' Man. He was one of those guys who preferred that everybody gave him their devoted attention whenever he spoke, and if you did that, maybe you could throw in a few words of your own if time allowed.
He and a couple of other dudes were having a friendly debate about who was the most 'money' pitcher of all-time (loosely defined as the guy you'd want pitching if you had to win one game -- one guy said, 'you know, the guy you'd want to start game 7 of the world series,' to which joe replied, 'wouldn't game 6 be more important if you were down 3 games to 2?' which made everyone scratch their heads). They had the whole discussion sort of confused, though. Some guys were naming a pitcher and a year -- Hershiser '88, for example -- while other guys were talking about a pitcher's entire body of work.
Here were some names thrown around:
-Hershiser '88
-Guidry '78, my suggestion, and I quoted this rather amazing fact about that season for the 19th time: in the span of four starts in September of '78, with every game a must-win (literally, remember they ended up in a tie with Boston), Guidry pitched three 2-hit shutouts, including 2 against Boston.
-Bob Gibson
-Sandy Koufax
-I drunkenly threw in Babe Ruth
-Walter Johnson (I said something sarcastic when his name came up, like 'come on, he probably only threw 75 mph')
-Somebody said Gooden which seemed stupid
-Somebody said Clemens which also seemed kind of stupid
-I threw in Mike Scott '86
And there were a few others. The discussion slowly dissolved and talk turned to the 2007 Yankees. Jack had looked at the upcoming schedule and decided the Yanks needed to go 16-4 in the next 20 games to have a shot at the postseason. I drunkenly nodded. I made a mental note to get more into baseball for the rest of the year, with the Yanks hopefully making a push for the playoffs (or not).
Jack asked me his stumper trivia question, which I answered correctly on a guess, earning his lifelong respect, I believe. The question: when George Brett hit the pine tar home run, what Yankee right fielder watched the ball sail over his head into the seats? 12 GP's for a correct answer, one guess per person.
New softball recap is alive and kicking like Jim Kerr.
posted by hans q. bungle at 00:05
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