Car racing is actually the most boring sport.

Baseball is the greatest sport. Yeah, I’m throwing it down just like that. Sure, it lasts from March to October, and sure, the teams play 162 games, which is a lot to keep track of, and there is generally very little tackling in baseball, but I assure you, there are many things to love.

First: Baseball is intriguing as hell. To the naked eye, it looks like a bunch of doofuses trying to hit a ball. You hit it, you run, if you make it, you’re safe. If you don’t hit it, it’s either a ball or strike, depending on what the umpire says. If you’re standing on a base, you should run, usually when someone else has hit the ball, but sometimes even if they haven’t. Team with the highest score wins. But within that really simple premise is the whole mental game between the pitcher, the catcher and the hitter, the skippers of both teams, and then the beautiful, sometimes unpredictable variants of physics and wind velocity that can turn home runs into a long out or an excuse-me swing into a legitimate double. These guys have to be on top of their shit at all times, like twitchy little meth addicts, eyes darting back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to see what’s going to happen at any moment.

Second: Arguably, the most reviled man in baseball is Barry Bonds. Why is Barry Bonds considered such a disgrace? Because he allegedly took drugs that were not criminally illegal at the time but were banned from baseball, and he’s ruder than baseball people think he should be. I’ll give his detractors the benefit of the doubt and even submit that Barry Bonds may be a bit of an asshole. This is the worst guy in baseball. Compare him to the worst guy in football: OJ SIMPSON!!!!! Second place: Dog Torturer Michael Vick. The worst guy in basketball? Rapist Kobe Bryant? Jayson Williams? Bonds MAY be an asshole (personally, I think he would be my friend. I mean, not friends all the time, but sometimes. He’s a great talent, you know) but he never killed, raped or electrocuted anyone. Don’t even make me bring up professional hockey players.

Next: Baseball seems like a game that normal people could play. Let’s get real, here. To be a professional basketball player, a guy has got to be at least 6’4”, have long arms, and be able to jump. Sort of a very specialized body type….a guy who’s 5’6” and pear-shaped, regardless of how much he practices, is likely NEVER EVER EVER going to make it. Same with football. Offensive linemen all look like Hagrid from Harry Potter – giant and tall and squarish. Defensive linemen are even more special, because not only are they tall and muscular, those men are fast like scary evil demons. Hard to find people to meet these qualifications for the pros. Professional baseball players: they look like the guys who live down the street from you. Have you ever seen CC Sabathia? He is a fatass. Remember David Eckstein? I could probably take that guy in a fight, except he looks like he’d be a hair puller. Although athletes, baseball players seem more like the kind of athletes that you and I would be if we went to a really good gym. And baseball players seem like nice guys, too. The kind whose family you would want to invite over if you were going to have a barbeque. Except A-Rod –he might be a dick. He’d probably hit on your wife. Just don’t take your eyes off of that one.

Last but not least, baseball is the only sport in which the manager gets suited up, just like the players. Like, just in case he make one too many double-switches, Tony LaRussa might just try to sneak in himself. And they do it all, right down to the knee-high socks and the tight little pants. On Joe Girardi, it looks good. On Bobby Cox…..you can judge for yourself. I think it’s precious, and I adore the fact that the managers dressing the same as the team serves no purpose except to respect the fact that it’s always been done that way. Bill Belichick could hardly get out of his pajamas to coach a football team. Pat Riley would be nothing without his thousand dollar suits. Imagine trying to coach a hockey team in that hockey getup. I don’t even think those guys can go to the bathroom by themselves. Hockey uniforms are GIANT.

So, it’s almost August. You still have time, friends. Catch a game. Eat some nachos and sing in the 7th inning stretch. You’re gonna love it.

You Talkin' to Me?

I am not a big movie-goer, I admit it. If I have a chunk of two hours available, I usually don’t want to spend them in a cold, dark theater, especially with my obsessive popcorn-eating habit. For a while, I was refusing to go to a movie theater unless a guy asked me to go to one on a date, so as you can imagine, that was a dry-spell for me, movie-wise. I can’t watch movies that are scary, sad or violent, so that pretty much cuts everything out. So don’t ask me about Precious, or The Wrestler, or Million Dollar Baby because I’ve never seen them and probably never will. Of the movies, I have seen, however, my feeling is usually this: hated it! Here are the movies I like: The Natural, Dave, Heaven and Earth, Giant, Radio Flyer, Life is Beautiful, Murphy’s Romance, Jungle Fever, Household Saints, Once Around, Birdy, Eddie and the Cruisers, Fletch and My Chauffeur. I can’t think of any more.

What I can think of, however, are the movies I hate. Naturally, I hate the movies that you hate: the pretentious, the crass, the poorly acted, the poorly written and the self-conscious. If there is a big star playing the role of a cop gone bad, I probably hate it. If Jerry Bruckheimer is in any way affiliated with it, I hate it. Winona Ryder? Hate it. Sensitive homeless people? Oh my God, I hate it. Good Will Hunting? I’ve never seen it, but I can already tell that I’d hate it. With all this hate, as you can imagine, it must be hard to top the list. But these five have done it. So here you go: your Top 5 worst movies ever.

5. Crash/Traffic – Technically, these are two different movies. But I honestly don’t know what either one is about aside from being stupid as hell. In one of them, Catherine Zeta Jones makes giant statues out of cocaine, or maybe heroin. In one of them, Matt Damon grabs Thandie Newton’s hootch ‘cause he can. Somebody gets shot, but ridiculously doesn’t die, and Benicio Del Torro is hot. Both films are shot with a mock guerilla approach to give them a sense of reality, but reality my ass. These are both movies about how white-middle class people see the world. If you want to see some gritty shit about race, see Do the Right Thing. Not Sandra Bullock having a freakout because she’s coming to grips with the fact that she hates black people. Thank god she found that black guy in Blindside to make up for it.

4. Edward Scissorhands – Don’t pretend that you liked it either. Here’s how I recall this movie: Johnny Depp makes topiaries with his stabby hands, and everyone is alternately repulsed by him and enthralled with his artistry. First of all: there are worse things than scissorhands that are happening in this movie. Why did Johnny Depp have to wear so much makeup? He’s like one of those stupid goth kids who wear giant earlobe stretching earrings, sport a purple mohawk, pierce their cheek and then bitch about people always looking at them like they’re freaks. Mr. Scissorhands, stop wearing a leather unitard, and maybe you’ll feel a little more accepted. Don’t you know there are kids in Africa who don’t have hands at all? They’d LOVE to have scissors for hands. There are a lot of things to cut in Africa.

3. Pretty Woman – There’s so much wrong to this movie, but nothing wronger than the fact that women actually think this is romantic. To recap: Richard Gere wants a hooker. Julia Roberts is a hooker. By that alone, they probably both have a LOT of social diseases. Oh, but wait, Julia Roberts is awesome because she never lets men kiss her on the mouth. She just lets them put their indiscriminate ding dongs in her skanky-ass babymaker. And, by the way, he picked her up on a street corner. Do you know who stand on streetcorners? Crack hos. CRACK HOs. Why didn’t they just set this movie in the men’s restroom at the Waffle House? Dumb story, bad acting, Richard Gere’s ridiculous hair, snails, George Costanza…..it’s just awful.

2. Rainman – This movie would be so much more interesting if Raymond had scissorhands. But no, instead, we get MORE hookers and Tom Cruise. Newsflash: women are not prostitutes because they love sex. They’re not prostitutes because they are kindhearted, and want to help provide men with an escape from the pressures of their daily lives. Women are prostitutes because they need money for crack. CRACK! Tom Cruise sucks in this like he sucks in everything. Dustin Hoffman won the Academy Award for this movie, but I am highly convinced that this was a mere make-up for him not winning it for Tootsie. Ben Kingsley won that year for playing that stupid jerk, Ghandi. I don’t remember Christopher Cross writing a theme song for Ghandi.

1. Dances with Wolves – Here’s what I remember of this movie: Eldin from Murphy Brown was in it, but once he killed himself, the movie went downhill fast. I saw it in Manhattan with my sister, and before the movie we had wisely gone to a candy store and gotten a GIGANTIC bag of candy. I know we got a lot of gummi candy and giant lemon drops. For the last hour and a half of that movie, the only thing keeping me in that theater was that giant bag of candy. I have blocked the movie out of my mind because it was so awful, but I remember: scalping, Mary McDonnell wearing a stupid outfit, Kevin Costner being a bad actor, and some character named Wind In His Hair who was obviously the inspiration for Tyra Banks. Wait, I’m looking on IMDB right now: “Lt. John Dunbar befriends wolves and Indians, making him an intolerable aberration in the military.” This is another movie that would have vastly benefitted from scissorhands. Have you ever tried messing with someone with scissorhands? And a musket? Very difficult.
So, there you go. The five worst movies of all time. Just missing the cut: Titanic, Risky Business, Home Alone and Girl, Interrupted.

The Last Time I'm Going to Say This

For most of my adult life, I have had an unusual and consistent talent: I can get almost any man to mention his wife within one or two sentences of our first conversation. Well, usually it’s a wife, sometimes a girlfriend, and usually it’s stated with a weird, panicked undercurrent, like if they don’t tell me RIGHT NOW, they are going to find themselves in some weird tapas restaurant with me, ordering martinis and trying to work in how they read poetry in their spare time.

Lest you believe that this has anything to do with me smiling, flirting, or even smizing (thanks, Tyra!), let me provide an example of a typical scenario. Picture this: there is a man standing at a row of microwaves, wearing chinos that are belted under his gut, giving him an interesting eggplant shape, wearing a generic button down, with a balding head, thick glasses and some kind of stubble that is probably not purposeful. Basically, picture Judah Friedlander without the hat. A woman approaches the microwave. “Yum, that smells good,” she says, putting her food in the microwave. His response: “Yeah, um….my wife picked it out.”

Really? Was that important for me to know? Does small talk at the microwave about your burrito really look like me wanting to take this to the next level? Well, perhaps, to him, it does. I recently heard of a study that concluded, essentially, that men think that any woman who looks or talks to them, for any reason at all, are attracted to them. It specifically mentions that men believe this even of women who are paid to interact with customers, like waitresses and cashiers at the grocery store. So I would like to set the record straight with you, married men of the world, for the last time: I am not interested in you.

Here are a few things that should clue you in: Number 1: you are married. I totally got that when I saw your hand. You know, the one with the ring on it? And, by the way, you look married – like you completely stopped trying at that “making the best of what ya got” thing right around your second anniversary and/or child. Believe it or not, I do not go to the gym five times a week so that I can meet you. In case you haven’t looked in the mirror lately, you have the hips of a suburban woman, you’re wearing a Livestrong bracelet, your shirt’s too long and your pants have pleats. I’m glad you found someone to love you, but don’t worry, it’s not me.

Number two: I do not know you! True, Mr. Security Guard, when I entered the building and said “Hi,” and then you proceeded to say, “My wife!” as a response, that might have seemed necessary at the time, but if you carefully deconstruct what I said, and then what you said, you will find that the two communications actually do not go together AT ALL. “Hi,” if you didn’t know, is really just a more polite way of saying, “Excuse me while I walk past you without saying anything more, person I will probably never see again or remember.” It certainly isn’t the same as saying, “Hello, I dream of one day making a difference in the world and I fear my own death. I love dogs, nature and chocolate, and I dislike green beans, ignorance and am terrified of guns. I want to know you and everything you are about. I dream of our future together.” Don’t you just think that, before you pull the wife/girlfriend card out, you should get beyond the basics of courtesy?

Number three: Complimenting your shirt is not the same as complimenting your ass! I do a fair amount of public speaking in my work, and a lot of my sessions are preceded by walking around, introducing myself to people and briefly talking to them. There are only so many times you can ask about the weather or traffic, so I am liberal in the use of, “I like your shoes/bag/shirt/tattoo/jewelry.” Women respond as follows, “Thanks, I got it at _______.” Every man: “Thanks. My wife/girlfriend likes it too.” Awesome! Who cares? In reality, even though your sweater is cute, complimenting is not tantamount to saying, “Damn, your ass is fine; I want to slap me some of that!” You are five-foot-five, you have a bushy moustache, and if I was, in fact, going to try to get me some of that, I probably wouldn’t do it at 8:30 in the morning in a room full of middle managers.

So, to recap: if I mention the following topics: weather, traffic, your tie, your health, your job, or, apparently, the burrito you have in the microwave, your marriage is SAFE. Got it, friends? Good.

My big fat benevolent dictatorship

If I ruled the world, a couple of things would change. Nothing major at first, because honestly, I just learned this year that China and Mongolia are TOTALLY DIFFERENT COUNTRIES! But some minor things that I think would make the world a better place. I’d like to run them past you and see what you think:

1. There would be a waiting period on tattoos, just like there’s a waiting period on guns. And there would be a written test for the tattoo, just like there’s a written test to carry a gun. On the written test, there would be questions like, “Do you speak or write Chinese? If not, why do you want to get a Chinese symbol on your arm?” and, “In twenty words or less, please describe what the barbed wire tattoo means to you.” Also: “Really? A scorpion? Really?”

2. There would be a mandatory cookie break every day.

3. Tiaras would be outlawed, except for queens and beauty pageant winners. I know, they are a symbol of…..something….maybe something having to do with getting married or having a birthday or a bachelorette party? I just think of starving children in Africa, and then I think of American girls wearing tiaras to symbolize that they are super-special for a day, and the two don’t go together. So no tiaras. Sorry.

4. PUPPIES would be the official symbol of the world! Here’s why: puppies are cute, friendly, they have adorable puppy breath and they would look great on a flag. My vote is for a Shiba Inu or St. Bernard puppy on the flag, but I am thoroughly open to suggestions. Mean people would be subjected to the “puppy treatment” where they are required to watch puppies frolicking for approximately one hour. The airing of the Puppy Bowl will be a national holiday. It will be great and you will love it.

5. Anyone who acts like an asshole in a parking lot will be sent to driving school (and asshole school). Obviously, people will be subjected to the puppy treatment, but they will also learn when it’s appropriate to claim a handicapped spot (any guesses here?), when to cut in front of someone to claim a spot (never), how you should treat innocent pedestrians walking through the parking lot (do NOT run them over), and how to perform the Thank You Wave.

6. Hockey jerseys will be forbidden, unless one is actually playing hockey. Here’s a quick observation: no one looks good in a hockey jersey. Not even hockey players. They are shapeless and square and the colors are generally jarring and upset my digestion. Those who currently own a hockey jersey will have it replaced by a cute and comfortable long-sleeved henley. Their necklines are flattering on almost everyone.

7. So You Think You Can Dance will be on year-round. There will be some changes, of course….there will be an international cast, Nigel will have to stop making lecherous comments to young girls, Mary Murphy will not be allowed to scream, Mia Michaels will have to shut the fuck up with her crazy talk, and Cat Deeley will have to announce on every show that she is my best friend. But seriously, people, dance is a beautiful way to bring worlds together. It lifts the spirit, it inspires me to do a lot of crunches, and it is a language that everyone can speak. This is non-negotiable.

8. Wind will be forbidden when I am out on a run. I know, this might be flaunting my power as ruler of the world, but I am not backing down on this one. I’ve had to put up with wind on my runs for far too long, and I am sick of wind getting in my face. All I want is an hour or so to run in peace, and I don’t need to be running in a wind tunnel the whole time. Okay? So, whatever, wind engineers or whoever knows about this stuff, make it happen.

9. The world needs to learn a little bit about Woody Hayes.

10. Last but not least, and I’m still working on this one, everyone is going to have to hold hands with a stranger. That’s right, a total stranger, and say, “Tell me about yourself. I would like to learn about you.” And then listen.