Enough with the excuses already

OK boys and girls. Bring in the patio furniture and stay clear of your glass windows: it's ranting time!

I'm fully aware that not everyone likes hockey. And that's OK by me. Personally, I'd rather gouge my eyes out than sit through a tennis match. My loathing of tennis is such that I've deliberately refused to understand how the scoring works; every time someone's attempted to explain it to me, I tell them I honestly don't want to know. Tennis can suck it. And if you want to tell me that you'd rather watch back-to-back episodes of "My Name Is Earl" than sit through a period of hockey, that's cool.

But one thing I simply cannot take that I've been getting absolutely inundated with lately is the EXCUSE for not being a Bruins fan. People who tell me they don't like hockey are one thing, but when I meet a supposed Boston sports fan who's ready to fill my ear with "justifications" for having jettisoned the Bruins from their loyalties? I call bullshit. BULLSHIT, my dears.

As a frame of reference, imagine that you just met someone from Boston who claims to be a big sports fan, but doesn't like the Red Sox. Doesn't make any fucking sense, does it? That's how I feel about these everything-but-the-Bruins fans.

Here's a sampling of some of the excuses I've been getting lately (to be read aloud in the whiniest voice possible -- and no, I did not make these up):

• The season is too long!
• I haven't been able to watch since the strike!
• I haven't been able to watch since the Joe Thornton trade!
• There are too many goalies!
• The front office doesn't know what they're doing!
• I don't know any of the players!
• I'd rather watch the Celtics!

and the absolute, bottom-of-the-barrel worst:

• They're just going to lose anyway!

*deep breath*

Some of those excuses are just patently stupid. Don't know the players? Well for pete's sake. Stop reading Fleshbot and click your way on over to the Bruins website, which, SURPRISINGLY, has information on the players! Got issues with the strike? Well, buddy, the NHLPA isn't the first group to call a players strike -- and all the guys you see playing today are playing under the salary cap without complaining. So why the hell should you care?

My real issues, however, lie with the excuses that seem to imply that a franchise that is not flourishing does not deserve fans. They only serve to validate the #1 criticism of Boston fans: that we are bandwagoneers who distribute our loyalties according to the most recent championship or blockbuster trade. NO NO. PLEASE NO. I suffered through too many flop Red Sox seasons, too many games with Parcells on the sidelines, and too many disheartening press conferences with Chauncey Billups. The fact that every other Boston-area team is super nasty good right now is all the MORE reason that the Bruins should get fan support. Being a fan should involve investment: a commitment to hope, perhaps even to the point of suspending your disbelief, that your team will do well. You're not investing anything by giving your support to a defending World Series champion, a 3-time Superbowl winner, or a best-in-the-league juggernaut. The team to invest in is the Bruins, and the time to do it is now.

Yes, I'm going to say it: If you are a Boston sports fan, YOU SHOULD WATCH THE BRUINS. That's it. Plain and simple. If not, you're not a Boston fan, and that's the goddamn truth.

Is there a way to burn Facebook down to the ground?

Of course I'm on Facebook. Of course I'm addicted. I'm a recent college graduate with friends in countless different parts of the world (not to be confused with "hos in different area codes"), and I like keeping in touch with them. Plus, if there's a better tool for obsessing over cute boys, I haven't seen it.

But oh, I loathe so many, many things about Facebook. The tacky "applications." The games idiot people in idiot relationships play with changing their "status." And, above all, I hate the groups. "Haha you guys, let's make an automatically generated online page with an inside joke on it so it can occupy a line of text on the lower left corner of my profile and let the world know that I can enjoy the same jokes that 10,000 other dipshits do!" Kill me. Slowly and painfully.

Still, the typical inanity of such groups aside, I stumbled across this group today (which, I am sorry to report, two of my friends appear to have joined). Billing itself as "Young People AGAINST Barack Obama for President," the group appears to be a message board on which ultra-conservative young folks (god, I went to school with so many of those) can vent their poorly-constructed and empty arguments against the Liberal Left. I believe my favorite argument is the one suggesting that a vote for Barack is a vote for Hitler:

I agree with all of the supporters of Obama who cite the fact that he is a masterful orator. However, so was Hitler. So is Ahmadinejad. The dangers of his semantics and speeches enraptures the less self-aware and politically conscious electorate.

Really? The LESS self-aware and politically conscious? Oh, but not to worry -- there is a solution (a Final Solution?):

As disgusting as the idea sounds, we must ensure that Clinton receives the Democratic nomination.

I didn't realize college kids could sound so EVIL. "[We] must ensure..." Yikes! This group is just one more example of what I always experience when I read or listen to right-wing rhetoric. The kind of thing I might say while parodying such rhetoric (while twirling my moustache, wearing my tophat, and looking shiftily out through my monocle) is what people like this ACTUALLY SAY.

Now, all my good friends know me to be an ardent Clinton supporter -- in fact, I've devoted many hours to working on her campaign. Still, I like Obama a great deal, and would happily give him my vote were he to earn the Democratic nomination. And hot damn does this group make me mad. Madder than when I see a douchebag in a Yankees hat at the Cask & Flagon. Madder than when people walk slow on the sidewalk in front of me. Hell, even madder than when I rant about Jose Canseco. If anyone is friends with someone in this group, I highly encourage you to, like, not be.

Um, sports! Right.




Ahhhhh. That's better.

Jose Canseco is a douchebag

Talk about pleonastic headlines.

This story is about a week old at this point, but I had to say something about it. Apparently, Jose Canseco is planning a sequel to his book "Juiced," in which he revealed the shocking truths that a) sometimes baseball players take steroids, and b) he is a pathetic washed-up ballplayer desperate for one more shot at the limelight. God, there are so many things about this story that piss me off. For one, the idea that Canseco, a man who should have absolutely no credibility in the world of baseball whatsoever, is somehow being led to believe that his word alone is enough to indict other players and call their accomplishments into question. For another thing:

Disappointed by the Mitchell report, Canseco hopes to publish "an unjaundiced view, without the rose-colored glasses" of steroid use in baseball, Saunooke told The Post.

The mangled attempt at figurative language here is slaying me. Are we talking jaundice (condition in which your eyes turn yellow) or rose-colored glasses (presumably pink)? What does this even mean? Moreover:

"The book is basically going to be -- I don't want to say an attack -- but it will be a clarification of why certain names should have been mentioned [in the Mitchell report] that were not mentioned," Saunooke said of the new book. "We had hoped that the Mitchell report would have been more revealing. It basically ended up being nothing more than [Mitchell saying], 'I talked to a lot of people, some people wouldn't talk to me and it's up to the commissioner,'" Saunooke told The Daily News.

So, I'm sorry... Canseco's issue with the Mitchell Report is that it's too honest and doesn't grossly overstep the bounds of its credibility? How dare you create a report in which you merely summarize the facts and cede authority to the acting commissioner of baseball, George Mitchell? Good steroid reports should clearly be a series of exaggerations, accusations, and half-assed attempts to drag others down into the reeking cesspit of failure and self-aggrandizement your own career has become. Conducting objective research is for bitches.

Yep, this story actually has me defending the Mitchell Report. That's how mad it makes me.

It's funny. Ordinarily, I'd feel bad for a guy who went from Rookie of the Year to laughingstock after he blew out his arm PITCHING (of all things) to playing for crappy minor league teams. But seriously, Jose? I hope you die.