The All-Star Home Run Derby and Willie Loman

I am in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love and alcoholic business travelers.  I just spent the better part of an hour sitting in the hotel bar watching the All-Star Home Run Derby and eating the largest jerk chicken quesadilla ever captured in the wild.  While I gorged myself on flattened poultry and watched Albert Pujols rip line drives at third graders Major League Baseball had stupidly placed in the outfield to shag fly balls, I listened to one half of the most bizarre phone conversation ever.  The guy sitting behind me was obviously drunk, crazy, and a bevy of other adjectives I am too stunned to even think of right now.  I didn't pick up on him screaming into his phone until well into the whole affair, as I have an uncanny gift that allows me to completely tune out anything I am not interested in, but I picked up on enough of it to tell you it was epic.  In addition, the people with me filled in the rest.

I will now present excerpts from his conversation.  Imagine it all slightly over-enunciated and drawn out just a little too long, almost as if he were trying to conceal the fact he had been drinking.  I swear to you that this is very nearly exactly what he said.  The capital letters and pauses are to indicate his speech patterns, not tto indicate any kind of emphasis on my part. Enjoy:

"...I'M IN PHILADELPHIA, AND I'M GONNA DO SOME BUSINESS HERE...YEAH...I MET THREE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN HERE TODAY.  I MET THIS BLACK WOMAN AND SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL.  YOU KNOW WHO SHE LOOKED LIKE?  REMEMBER THAT WOMAN ON THE COSBY SHOW?...NO, NOT CLAIRE...YEAH, THAT ONE!  AND I MET THIS RUSSIAN WOMAN, JUST BEAUTIFUL...THEN I MET THIS OTHER WOMAN WHO IS THE HEAD OF THE LARGEST, MOST PRESTIIIIGIOUS DESIGN FIRM IN PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY AND NEW YORK--WELL, NOT ALL OF NEW YORK..."

"...YOU KNOW, I MET THIS AFRICAN GUY TODAY...FROM AFRICA...HE WAS A DIPLOMAT...FOR AFRICA...AND I THINK I CAN DO SOME BUSINESS WITH HIM...HE SAYS HE CAN GET ME DIAMONDS...DO YOU NEED ANY DIAMONDS?..."

So this idiot is going to totally get mixed up in some blood diamond ring and end up having parts of himself mailed home to family members as a warning.  I can't say I'm too concerned for his well being at this point.

"...WHAT YOU NEED TO DO IS JUST STEP UP TO THE PLATE AND BUY HER RING ALL ON YOUR OWN, BECAUSE NO MATTER HOW POWERFUL A WOMAN IS, THEY LIKE A MAN WHO TAKES THE LEAD...IF YOU JUST STEP UP TO THE PLATE AND BUY HER A RING, THEN SHE'LL HAVE NO REASON TO NOT LIKE YOU..."

"YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS BUT I WAS IN CHICAGO ON THE 2ND, AND I SAW THE MOST BEAUTIFUL...VIVACIOUS...ORCHID THAT YOU HAVE EVER SEEN...YEAH, AND I'VE BEEN CARRYING THIS PLANT AROUND WITH ME TO PHILADLEPHIA, THEN NEW JERSEY, NOW I'M BACK IN PHILADELPHIA...YOU SHOULD SEE IT...VIVACIOUS..."

I can honestly say that the last noun I ever expected to emerge from this cretin's gullet was "orchid."  It is a rare moment when we are truly surprised by another human, and this was one of those moments.  At this point, the people I am with inform me that the plant is, indeed, sitting right in front of him at the table, and it is, in fact, vivacious.  The flower alone is the size of his head.  I do not dare to look, because I will not be able to keep from bursting into laughter.  His call continues:

"LOOK, I CAN--I HAVE TO CALL YOU BACK.  THIS IS HER...(He takes another call.)...SUNSHINE!...ARE YOU HERE?...I'M JUST GOING TO LEAVE THE PLANT AT THE FRONT DESK AND YOU CAN GET IT THERE...LISTEN...I HAVE TO ASK YOU A QUESTION...ARE YOU DOING THIS BECAUSE YOU'RE REALLY INTERESTED IN MY PLANT, OR ARE YOU JUST BEING NICE?...VIVACIOUS...I GUESS I DID IT BECAUSE THIS PLANT IS LIKE THE BEAUTY...AND THE EXCELLENCE...OF NATURE...AND I WANTED YOU TO SEE ME IN THAT WAY...YEAH...WHOA, THAT WAS SOMETHING...DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT I JUST SAID?...SAY IT BACK TO ME..."

There's more to it than that, and I wish I could convey how this guy sounded.  The printed word has limitations in its ability to convey the nuances of human interaction.  Suffice it to say that this whole exchange was gut-wrenchingly human, and I nearly bit a whole through my right cheek just trying to survive hearing it.  I can only imagine what the guy must do to himself to survive living it.  I resisted the urge to look back and see this guy, because no reality could live up to the picture of him in my mind. 

Somewhere in Philadelphia, a walking tragedy sleeps alone.

July 4th, Freedom and the Pony that Will Kill Us

My wife, son and I just went to the Taste of Minnesota Festival on Harriet Island in Saint Paul, Minnesota.  It is a festival predicated on Minnesotans having extremely low expectations, and it never disappoints when it comes to disappointing.  For those who have not attended this tribute to mediocrity, I will describe it for you.

Taste of Minnesota is held on an island so you cannot escape.  It is essentially a culinary Alcatraz.  Upon your arrival on the island, you discover that you cannot buy food with money, but instead you must trade your cash for sheets of tickets that can then be exchanged for food.  This is all in an attempt to establish an abstract barter system in hopes that your brain won't recognize that you just spent $18 for an ear of corn.  You then tour through a series of booths that fall into three categories:  food booths that supposedly represent Minnesota cuisine, sponsor booths manned by underage malcontents hawking goods and services for large corporations, and tiny booths manned by people selling crap.  On top of this, you have the opportunity to see free concerts given by bad cover bands from San Francisco, Whitesnake, Judas Priest, and for reasons only he truly understands, Elvis Costello.

The food is remarkably average.  It always tastes exactly one standard deviation worse than you expect it to.  However, if you would like to spend $8 to find out what an authentic Minnesotan falafel tastes like, this is the place to do it.  This country was built by immigrant labor, and what better way to celebrate our independence than by eating their food while they sweat profusely in poorly ventilated food service torture-boxes.

As I mentioned before, the sponsor booths are manned by our nation's future.  They have been called upon to sweat it out while handing out sample boxes of Honeycombs or small cups full of cinnamon chipotle rubbed pork.  One booth offered the promise of adventure while small children scaled inflatable climbing walls in order to learn about the virtues of Lunchables.  Another offered the promise of love through computerized compatibility testing.  Another had puppets.  You know the youngsters signed up to man these booths months ago when they were still in school and had no hope, and the idea of working on Independence Day seemed like it was so far away that it would never actually happen.  Then, reality encroached, and they were forced to accept the consequences of committing to something without thinking it through--an American tradition. 

It is also obvious that they were all given the same instructions:  "Give out samples until there aren't any left, then you can go listen to Whitesnake."  People were practically throwing samples at us.  When I was offered my second cup of pork, I informed the young man I had already been given one.  He said, "I don't care.  Take more.  Take as many as you want."  My walked up a to a cereal booth and asked fora sample box.  The plasticene jailbait day-laborer disgustedly shoved six boxes across the counter.  She was determined to go home early.

The crap booths sell crap of many different varieties.  An odd occurrences this year was that multiple booths were selling Egyptian cotton sheets.   I cannot think of anything more ridiculous than walking around in the blazing heat and suddenly deciding, "Hey!  Let's shop for bedding!  I want to snuggle up for freedom!"  A more savvy booth operator was selling sunglasses and cursing the gods for the cloudy day that signaled his own glare-free recession.  I bought exactly nothing from any of them.  I am the reason our economy refuses to recover.

In an effort to excite children and depress adults to the point of suicide, there was a pony ride.  A group of dead-eyed, soulless, future glue sticks were tethered to a large, spoked wheel--much like Arnold Schwarzenneger in the first scene of Conan the Barbarian.  I imagine that they are being weeded out in the same way as the non-Schwarzennegers in that film, and in a few years there will be one incredibly muscular pony left that will be shipped to Asia to learn the ways of war from the ancient masters:

Vaguely Ethnic Chieftain:  "Buttercup!  What is best in life?!"

Incredibly Muscular Pony:  "Crush your enemies!  See them driven before you, and hear the       lamentation of the women.  Also, take their sugar cubes."

I chose the pony I thought looked most likely to survive the wheel, and I seated my son atop him.  Upon closer inspection, the animal was a horse in the loosest sense of the word, but he would never defeat Thulsa Doom.  The handlers had somehow genetically eliminated its spirit through generations of selectively interbreeding the equine equivalents of Sylvia Plath.

All in all, it was exactly as much fun as I expected, or maybe a little bit less.  And when you think about it, that's what our forefathers fought and died for:  for our lives as Americans to be so great that food festivals with performances by former superstars, multiple boxes of free cereal and pony rides are disappointing.  I can think of no greater tribute to those who worked so hard for us to have it so good. 

Happy Independence Day.  For at least a moment, think about it.