The Triumph of Dumb Luck

After a week of 5:00am and 6:00am wake-ups, I felt like fate was sitting on my chest while I lay on the floor, squirming but unable to move. Unfortunately, my plan to come home at 1:30pm today and take a nice long nap was side-tracked by my brother's own idea that I should help him move a heavy, awkward bookcase in his house.

Prior to actually venturing over there, however, I needed to take care of a few menial tasks -- not a lot of time, but enough time for my brother to keep calling home and asking me to bring this and that thing that he forgot. By the third call, I was pretty pissed, and when my father admitted that he had no idea where he would be able to find two Romex connectors and that I'd just be better off stopping by the hardware store on the way there, I was pretty much at the end of my rope.

I pulled up next to Jones' Hardware and, upon traveling through the door, was instantly transported to a different time, a time when you couldn't see the walls for all the crap hanging off the hooks, a time when two guys could stand at the counter and talk like men, cursing and blathering, bullshitting while another guy waited behind them, appreciating the candor and in no rush to interrupt.

But alas, interrupt I did, to get the pieces I needed. As Mr. Jones went to fish out my connectors, the young guy he was bullshitting with said, "Well, I gotta go, but see what you can do with these," at which point he deposited two blue pieces of paper on the counter. Piqued, I leaned in and took a gander at what they were.

Mets tickets. Two, to tomorrow night's game against the St. Louis Cardinals, to be precise.

(And I know, I know, I'm a diehard Yankees fan. But I do love baseball, and I have been meaning to see a game in Shea Stadium before it too gets the kaboom treatment.)

So I leaned in and casually asked the guy, "How much you asking?" Before he could answer, I had my phone out to call my brother and ask him how high he'd be willing to pay.

And before the phone could even ring, the guy looks at me and goes, "They're yours if you can use them."

At which point I responded, "Damn straight I can!" and snatched them off the counter.

I mean, none of this changes the fact that my brother is disorganized and doesn't manage his time well and needs to pull his head out of his ass when it comes to getting shit done around his house. But hey, at least I've got plans tomorrow night -- and baseball trumps naps any day of the week.

Joba Chamberlain: Reliever, Starter, ...Actor?

Within the last ten minutes, the YES Network has proven to me that, beyond the shadow of a doubt, I am going into the wrong profession.

I learned this by watching Joba Chamberlain in a commercial for some product. I don't remember the product -- I vaguely recall it may have had something to do with the Yankees chain/lanyard he strapped around his neck halfway through -- but I left the commercial thinking, "Wait a second. Someone actually got paid to come up with this crap? Probably a lot, too. Son of a bitch, what am I waiting for?!"

Here's the setup: our noble young phenom, sporting an untucked #62 jersey that probably has The Boss in a seizure fit right now, throws a baseball at a chalk outline of a strike zone on a brick wall. He, obviously, throws a strike. But for the good Hutt, this is not enough.

He straps on the aforementioned device -- go on, let that image sit in your head for a little while -- and throws again. Once more, a dead strike. But this time, the pitch goes clear through the wall, shocking the young children on the other side who look out the new hole, wide-eyed and radiant, and declare, "It's Joba Chamberlain!"

Not, "Hey Joba, why the fuck did you put a hole in our wall?" or "Hey asshole, why don't you throw at a brick wall in Boston if you're gonna bust shit up?" -- either of which I certainly would have said.

And how does Joba reply? With a huge, caricatured wink that instantly made me think of all the horrid late-'80s/early-'90s TV commercials hocking kid's crap that usually came in an assortment of violently neon colors.

So even though I can't remember what the product was, I came away with the following lessons:

1. If you're not knocking down buildings with your pitches, you're not throwing hard enough.
2. This product, even though it goes around your neck, will make you throw knock-buildings-down hard.
3. Just because you can throw a ball knock-buildings-down hard doesn't mean you can act worth a damn.

Perhaps Joba would be well-suited to look at other great examples of athletes-turned-actors that failed.

1. Michael Jordan -- He may have made the Looney Tunes' basketball team look like the Portland Trail Blazers during the game scenes in Space Jam, but in dialogue with Bugs Bunny, he made Mr. What's Up, Doc? look like freaking De Niro by comparison.
2. Shaquille O'Neal -- Steel proved that Shaq-as-super hero was almost as convincing a performance as Shaq-as-legitimate foul shooter.
3. Alex Rodriguez -- In his latest commercial for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, he pretends that he actually likes all the kids that surround him. Enough said.

Seriously, Joba, stick to throwing the high heat and being the big cardboard cutout that greets me with an enticing-looking iced coffee when I walk into my local Dunkin' Donuts. As for me, I'm off to go enroll in marketing courses.

Open for Business!

Welcome to A Tournament of Lies!

There's not much here yet, but feel free to poke around, make yourself comfortable, and take a gander around my other, more spare, less furnished corner of the Internet.

Here you will find me muse on things far different from those you're used to from A Rapturous Verbatim. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen, but I sure hope you enjoy what I try to do here.

One of my goals here, I confess, is brevity. And in the interest of proving that I'm committed to brevity, anyone who wants to know more about why I need another place to blather on stupidly should be directed here, where all your questions will be answered.

Let the dual-voiced mayhem begin!

I Wonder...

...what could this be?

Details forthcoming...