Pessimism Totally Pays Off

History was in the making last night as the Boston Red Sox, inning by nerve stripping inning, got The Nation to Game Seven.
It hadn't been done before, no, no one has ever come back from the brink of elimination by winning three consecutive games after dropping the first three in the seven game series. I paced my apartment, alternately looking away and staring intently at the TV screen, fearing with each passing moment that it would all evaporate. I stood watch, unable to sit let alone relax as Arroyo and then Foulke tossed the ball over the plate in an attempt to stay for one more set of Nine in the Bronx. So many things happened last night, but one really just gets the ol' hackles to stand at attention. No one seems to have the stones to come out and say it in the main sports media so I'll do it here: A-Rod is Goddamn cheater. His efforts to sheister his way into a wimpy base hit and an RBI by INTENTIONALLY thwacking the ball out of Arroyo's paw inspires pure vitriol in the breast of the Bostonian. He should be brought to trial Ashcroft style and sentenced to stand in Kenmore square with a sign around his neck stating simply: I hate Ted Williams. How long? How about until Spring Training starts...or at least until he agrees to leave the Bombers and go play Single-A ball in Toledo or some such place. He deserves no quarter.
As anyone who also had their heart torn out in the immediate moment after Game Seven 2003 knows well, nothing is sure. For the ardent Red Sox fan, the wounds are still fresh from that injury, that total shock to the system. Keep the Faith? Well, only those who repressed that day in a fit of Post Traumatic Stress would approach this without a hefty amount of cynicism. I was burned last year and was desperate to protect myself from the pain of defeat in this years iteration of How The Curse Gets Brung. And I'm glad. I think it sent the right message to the Diamond Gods. You can't just make us salivate and then leave us without a meal. We're not gonna come to the table so easily this time just because you ring the bell.
I am heartened but wary.

The Paranoia is Real

Do you feel it? It's beginning to sink in slowly, deliberately.
There was a time in my life when the count-down to election day was characterized by a mix of simple curiosity and the jumpy anxiety of pleasant anticipation...like before a first date or that first turn of the new ski season. The outcome of the election would be cause for celebration if my guy pulled it out. Or, if it went the other way, it would set off a chain of reasoning mostly focused on how well Saturday Night Live would riteously lambast the victor.
That time in my life is so far gone that the tailights are a distant echo in the retina. You look into the blackness and think there's something there. No mas.
Well that's happy isn't it? Holy shit, I need to elevate the mood or else the first poor bastard who reads this musing, you know, fifteen years from now or something, is going to just lose hope and jump off the nearest precipice. Or roof. We all can't be in the Swiss Alps when the desire to check out comes.
OK, Forget mood enhancement. This is seratonin re-uptake-inhibitor-free time. All I want here is the unvarnished truth. Or at least some kind of outlet for the fears that are collecting in me and making me nervous.
There is a general desire amongst the people close to me for November the Third to be the here and the now. Election Day over. The New Boss installed. Same as the Old...well you get the picture.
The upshot of all these bad vibes creeping around the Republican as well As Democratic enclaves in this fractionated country is that everyone is just waiting for the next really bad thing to happen. From various flavors of election fraud to unspoken as well as overt fears of terrorist disruption of the voting process, the feeling is that no matter who wins in a couple weeks things are still going to be wrong and unsettled. There is no joy in the run-up to this one. Just foreboding.

Baseball is becoming a bummer

The Boston Red Sox have managed once again to put us all in The Nation on notice. Defeat is imminent. The Sky is Falling. Our desires and hopes wound us up tighter and tighter as we came nearer the ALCS. The string that bound us to the possibility of victory over the hated Yankees was stretched to its extent and then Pop! goes the tendon. The Hair. The Animal House references. It was all just too COMFORTING, wasn't it? It lulled us into delusion. Dennis Leary was right when he said that every year we are destined to get close, and yet never prevail. Enjoy the ride and expect the pain, he said. The only solace that can come our way is that the Yankees are ultimately beaten witless and left stammering in a side alley of St. Louis. Or Houston. The venue of the Series is no way near as important as the humiliation of the Bombers.
The dread happenstance, accident of Nature, curse direct from the sweaty frontal cortex of Beelzebub himself has taken so many forms over the years, though many times the shit goes down within the confines of the infield. At least Schillings name does not begin with a "B" or rhyme with something easy to chant. Oh wait...then can certainly do clever things with "killing", can't they? Swilling? Or maybe not. Let's see what shakes loose tonight for Game Three.

There is something unsettling about the fact that Kerry is also from Boston. He is tainted. Can he win with the stench of a curse hanging around on his wool blazer like cigarette smoke? The tea leaves are suggesting doom. Four More Years. Egad.

Maybe I've given up too soon. Well at any rate, at least there's always Next Year for Boston Fans.

Toe in the chilled stream

The foray into the realm of the public is the most curious move a human being can make. It is by nature the most surefire way to invite criticism and scorn. It is also an immeasurable way to really find out if the ideas in ones own mind are as crazy as they seem in the warmth and security of private notation.

So now I add to the pile (it grows exponential, and how!) and yield up these Dispatches from the Universal Affairs Desk

With a nod to the Greats unsurmountable that write before the author, this Desk is established to recount the encounters and analyse the events that swirl around and around in the mind of anyone who sits back for even a moment and bears witness to the nature of humanity in these extraordinary times. The desk is located wherever the author finds himself. The Desk, as it were, could easily be a park bench in The Common or a slab of rock in the peaks of Vermont. It could be a beach in California or a forest in Washington. This idea of a moveable base of operations is not my own. The inspiration comes from the famous National Affairs Desk at Rolling Stone, occupied time and again by one madman who needs only be mentioned in monogram: H.S.T. I carry the tradition on now in hopes of being able to, for myself and for others, write and therefore come to grips with all the stories and issues that bear down on me with such regularity that it is almost becoming something that I rely on, like coffee or whatever form of alcohol comes my way. Why not just keep a journal you say? Well, why not indeed. This is of course a manner of journal, but each entry will take the form of an essay or a story instead of just a random screed. Or maybe it will just be screed and therefore in no way distinguishable from a journal. So be it. It’s all about directionality, as I see it. Journal entries are just that, they go in and stay in and are never let out again except in the dark hours of early morning when the drink is fully on and the past is ill-reconsidered or reflected upon though the fog. Dispatches were always meant to be out there, for all the world to see and that is what I am striving for here. I want to have the feedback and the pressure that comes with disclosure. I want to know that these things are not merely my own. Mr. Pilgrim Says: So it Goes. I concur.