Dear Anonymous: Holliday vs. Rollins

Dear Anonymous,

Just so you know where I’m coming from, I am by no means anti-Philadelphia. How can I possibly dislike a city responsible for Hall & Oates, cheering Michael Irvin’s temporary paralysis, and the magnificently bizarre syncopation at the end of The Roots’ “You Got Me”? I couldn’t hate Philly if I tried.

And I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need a tissue. Dodgers fans, maybe. Mets fans, most certainly. But in my nineteen years of being a Cubs fan, I have spent approximately six days thinking we could win the World Series. The first six. Like many Cubs fans, I operate under the assumption that we will never go to, let alone win, the World Series during my lifetime. Rooting for the Cubs is like rooting for Charlie Brown to kick that football. Even if Lucy held the ball and Charlie Brown split the uprights, I’m sure it would have been brought back on a holding penalty, or Mike Shanahan would have called a time out right before the kick. I understand that. Chicago Cubs just don’t go to the World Series, and for some reason, that is the life that chose us.

With that out of the way, allow me to explain the reasoning behind my Matt Holliday comment: I threw that out there out of a jokingly antagonistic curiosity, and nothing more. It’s like how I said “Phillies” was a stupid name, except I absolutely think that’s true (I get the alliteration and what not, but if you want to be a horse, why not just be a Colt or a Stallion? Why go out of your way to specify that you are a female horse? It’s like the Orioles changing their name to the Baltimore Bitches. Kinda.). Being new to the blog game, I wondered if anybody read it, and furthermore, if anybody reading it even cared about the Phillies and Rays, or baseball in general. With that in mind, however, it doesn’t mean Jimmy Rollins deserved the MVP award. I don’t know either way, maybe he did. Let’s take a look, in a few of my MVP categories.

Bat

Holliday led the league in batting (.340), RBIs (137), hits (216), doubles (50), total bases (386) and extra-base hits (92). His 36 home runs were fourth in the league.

Rollins batted .296, had 212 hits, 38 doubles, 20 triples, 30 home runs, and 94 RBIs. His total bases (380) and extra-base hits (88) are records for shortstops.

Granted: Holliday plays in Coors Field, with a reputation that prompts his numbers to be automatically discounted a bit (he only received one of his first-place votes from an NL East writer, compared to seven for Rollins). With that in mind, it certainly doesn’t help that there was a huge disparity between his home (.376 BA, 25HRs, 82 RBIs) and away (.301 BA, 11HR, 55 RBIs) statistics.

However: Having allowed 241 home runs during the season, the most hitter-friendly park in 2007 was Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park, not Coors field (Coors was ranked 5^th according to ESPN). Also, Holliday’s away batting average and on base percentages were still better than Rollins’ numbers at home, away, or combined.

Feet

Jimmy Rollins stole 41 bases. Matt Holliday only stole 11. Rollins had 139 runs (a record for shortstops) compared to Holliday’s 120.

Granted: Rollins is a 160-pound leadoff hitter. He should steal a lot of bases and score a lot of runs. Holliday is 6’4”, 235lbs and probably doesn’t see a lot of pitchouts when he’s on first.

However: That’s still a ton of runs, and 41 steals is pretty impressive in the post-Rickey Henderson era. You have to give credit where credit is due.

Defense

In 2007, Rollins had the second-highest fielding percentage of NL shortstops, committing only eleven errors on his way to his first gold glove.

Holliday had the second-highest fielding percentage of MLB left-fielders, committing three errors on his league-high 306 chances.

Granted: Rollins plays shortstop, perhaps the most difficult position in the field, and plays it remarkably well. Conversely, Holliday plays left field, the dumping ground for crappy outfielders like Manny Ramirez and Barry Bonds.

However: Sometimes MVP voters just don’t care that much about defense. Greg Maddux won 20 games and a gold glove in 1992, and finished 11^th in voting. Ozzie Smith won 13 gold gloves and never pulled down the MVP, coming close only one time. On the other hand, Alex Rodriguez has three MVP awards, and Bonds, who couldn’t throw out 62-year old Sid Bream, has seven.

Intangibles

Once you graduate from middle school, nobody should give you an award for being “a vocal leader” or “the heart and soul of the team”. Grown-ass men making millions of dollars shouldn’t need someone to “rally the troops”, or “pep up the locker room”, or any of that other garbage that sportswriters love to say about their favorite players. Intangibles are stupid. I award no points to either competitor.

Hat

Jimmy Rollins wears a hat that says “P”. Matt Holliday’s hat says “CR”. In my opinion, this is clearly no contest. How is it that I don’t walk around in a Rockies hat all day? I really need to start doing this. A bit off-topic, I admit, but still.

So who wins? Well, obviously Rollins won, but did he deserve to? I don’t know. It’s like getting in an argument about which game-show host was better, Alex Trebek or Marc Summers. They’re clearly asked to do different things, yet their job titles are the same. The stupid (and equally fantastic) thing about MVP voting is it’s ridiculously subjective. People can spend their entire lives arguing over the award, and all sides can have perfectly valid points. Upon statistical review, I think the award should have gone to Matt Holliday. However, I will concede that he was not “robbed”, as I jokingly said before. Jimmy Rollins had a fantastic season, and makes for a non-terrible choice for 2007 National League MVP.

Anyway, if you happen to read this and would like to comment back, I’d certainly like to hear your opinion. Thank you for writing, and congratulations on your inevitable 2008 World Series championship.

Sincerely,

Chris Rosenthall

Let's go Rays!

So I’m watching the Phillies – Dodgers game the other night over a big-ass bowl of pasta. Manny hit .533 in the series (pretty good, but certainly no Mark Grace and his .647 in the 1989 NLCS), but other than that, the Dodgers pretty much stunk up the place. Anyway, this isn’t about the Dodgers. No friends, I got no quarrel with the L.A. Dodgers. My real problem lies with my new least favorite collection of humans, the Philadelphia Phillies.

I realize most people don’t really care either way about the Phillies. I never did, and I was a huge baseball fan growing up. But here’s the thing: As soon as they got to around the 7^th inning of that Dodgers game, the announcers on Fox started going crazy about how, with a win, the Phillies would return to the World Series for the first time since 1993. How they’d ended years of futility and frustration. How the fans have had their hearts broken so much since 1993. Oh man! 1993, huh? Boy, that’s tough. All those years of struggling. Well here’s the thing, Philadelphia Phillies: I’m a Cubs fan, and you can all go screw yourselves.

If you don’t follow baseball, a brief summary: The Cubs never win. Ever. They haven’t won a World Series since 1908. They haven’t even been to one since 1945. And for some reason, I’m supposed to be happy for those poor Phillies and their devastating World Series drought.

Anyway, after the announcers took turns pissing me off, they had the nerve to interview shortstop Jimmy Rollins and ask him about his struggle to finally make it to the big game. He got to the majors in 2000, won the 2007 MVP (Matt Holliday got robbed, by the way) and look at him now, in the World Series. Hell of a struggle. Let’s look at some Cubs legends: Ron Santo played for 14 years. Ryne Sandberg played for 16 years(and if you dare mention that he played his first 13 games with the Phillies, I’ll kick your teeth in, swear to God). Ernie Banks (11-time All-Star, 2-time MVP) played for 18 years and never even got to the playoffs! So I’m sorry if I don’t have much pity for poor Jimmy and his struggle.

And how does this team even dare complain about futility? The Phillies have won four NL pennants since they won the World Series in 1980! They’re complaining about that? Four pennants in 28 years? That’s not bad at all. It’s not super-common, but it’s not rare. It’s cicada common. Cubs fans like myself would kill for cicada common. I’m not joking. Tell me who I’d have to kill. I won’t think twice.

And let’s get back to this for a second: they won the World Series in 1980! Many of us were alive then. I’m pretty sure you weren’t around when the Cubs last won one. You know how many people alive today were alive back in 1908? Like six. And they probably didn’t care about the Cubs winning the World Series. They were probably busy worrying about things like Indian attacks and dysentery.

Like baseball itself, I’m sure this is very boring to most of you, so I’ll wrap it up: Philadelphia Phillies (by the way, that’s a really dumb name), I hope you lose to the Tampa Bay Rays, and I hope you lose badly. I hope you get swept by a combined score of 148-3.

Hmm… it turns out the Phillies just won the first game of the Series. Well that’s even better; getting swept wouldn’t be heartbreaking enough. I hope it goes seven games. And with two outs and a three run lead in the bottom of the 14^th, a recently signed Joe Carter strolls up to the plate and sends a hanging curveball into the upper decks for a grand slam. And I hope you spend the next 60 years waiting to go back to the World Series. Then (when I’m 88 and the Cubs have won 23 more championships) you may come crying to me. But not a moment sooner, and certainly not this year.

Once again, go screw yourselves.

Sincerely,

Chris Rosenthall, Surly Cubs Fan.

My Brand-New Blog

So I finally sat down and created this blog I’ve been talking about. I would’ve done this weeks ago, but I just couldn’t think of a good name, which has been very difficult due to my crippling fear of permanent accountability. It’s the very reason I don’t have a tattoo. Or a senior quote in my high school yearbook. Eventually I forced myself to get past that fear, and I dedicated all of my brainpower to thinking of a great blog name.

Funny thing about naming a blog – everything is already taken. Here are some websites that have already been created on blogspot.com:

Okletssee
blogname
letstry
Chris
Rosie
22
Toocommon
howabout
Heavydandtheboys
Charliebrown
Charlieblue
Charliegreen
Iambald
Iamhairy
Iamharry
Partyandbullshit
Partynobullshit

and lastly,

Icantthinkofablogname

As you can see, quite a few have already been taken. I thought about it for weeks, throwing all sorts of suggestions on a piece of paper I kept at work. I got a few suggestions from you guys, all which were appreciated and considered. The best suggestion came from my brother, who wrote:

“You should name your blog Chinese Democracy Detox. Blog seems like a great idea, that people will really look forward to. But instead of doing it and making people happy, you will just talk about it forever and never do it.

This is because as every day passes you will try to work on it, but it will never be good enough because every day will also bring more pressure for it to be perfect.

Then you will show up on the VMAs a shell of your former self, with all new friends, blond cornrows for some reason, and a guy with a fried chicken bucket on his head.

I've seen it a million times.”

With that in mind, it finally hit me: why not call it chrisrosenthall @ blogspot? Not only is it easy to remember, but it’s a preemptive strike against domain name squatters who register celebrity’s names and charge them a ton of cash for their naming rights. Apparently those guys haven’t gotten to me yet, so I better act fast. And so I did. Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present my blog. Old stuff, new stuff, poems I perform, random crap that will make you dumber having devoted a second of your life to reading, etc. Hope you enjoy.

The Life & Times of S. Boy

Prologue

I consider myself a student of popular culture. I read the magazines, I watch the shows, and I watch the clip shows that make fun of those shows. I've devoted an awe-inspiring (and equally depressing) amount of time to learning all there is to know in the world of entertainment. With that in mind, I'm going to go ahead and throw this out there: I can honestly say, without a shadow of a doubt, that Soulja Boy is the most important artist of the 21^st century. Or else he's the least. I'm not sure which one, but he's definitely one or the other. And so, in tribute, I proudly present a look back in the career of Soulja Boy¹.

Vol. 1: Dawn of an era

We're currently in the midst of a little something called the "YouTube generation", in which any a-hole with a video camera can become a celebrity. You don't need to spend money on agents anymore, you don't need to audition, you don't even need any discernable talent (which I'm not saying Soulja Boy doesn't have; however, he doesn't). Just record something and post it online for the world to enjoy. Here's an example of the power of YouTube: for no reason whatsoever, I just visited the site and typed the words "puppet rap". Over 500 videos. Here's one that's gotten over 200,000 views. You're welcome.

Where was I? Oh yeah: Soulja Boy is the personification of the YouTube generation. He came up with a song, gave it a dance, and 165 million views later, here we are. Thanks to our recent advances in technology, it's perfectly reasonable to say that Soulja Boy created the most popular song we've ever heard. And how did he do it? It's simple. When creating "Crank Dat", Mr. Boy followed the "Macarena" recipe precisely:

1. Take a chorus, and make approximately 92% of it fairly indecipherable.
2. Make the remaining 8% of your chorus something you yell with complete clarity.
3. Add a silly-ass dance.

Follow at least one of these steps and you've got yourself a hit. For a while, every song on the radio featured step 3 (don't forget "chicken noodle soup", or we're doomed to repeat it). But Soulja Boy, and only Soulja Boy, met and exceeded each step. He even took it further and followed the optional fourth step: mix catchy music with wildly inappropriate lyrical content. While "Macarena" is essentially about a girl who bangs her man's friends while he's out of town, "Crank Dat" is about, well, it's pretty much about ejaculating on people.

This is common knowledge by now, right? If not, let's have the people at urbandictionary.com clear this whole thing up:

"Superman: When you are mad at your girl for not having sex with you. So when she falls asleep you masturbate and cum on her back. After that, stick the bedsheet on to her back and when she wakes up it's stuck to the cum and she has a cape like Superman!!!"

"Robocop: ejaculate semen into a bucket and invert it on to your lady friend's head"

Yup. There you go. And yes, he also says "super-soak that ho". And no, I'm not looking that up.

Hey, here's a fun little trivia fact for you: In 2003, Lil John topped the charts with "Get Low", which means if you graduated from high school last year, there's a good chance that the most popular songs at your freshman and senior dances were both about ejaculating on people. Is this what the kids are into these days, running around with their bling bling, leaning with it, rocking with it, and ejaculating on people? Somewhere Luther Vandross is rolling over in his grave.

Now about these terms: I understand the superman, (comprehend, I should say, because I don't really understand it) but the Robocop is completely beyond me. Is this something everyone involved is supposed to enjoy? Is it some sort of summer camp-ish prank? If you know for sure, email me and tell me (actually, don't tell me the answer, just tell me that you know, so I can add your name to a list I'm starting).

And I'm not trying to disrespect anyone's hobby here; how you spend your free time is entirely up to you. But here's my real objection: is this, ladies and gentlemen, how we honor two of America's greatest crime fighters? That's just not right. These guys save lives, bring criminals to justice, and this is the thanks they get? Imagine how awkward it must've been when Robocop, bragging about his shout-out, was informed by his friends that his name had now been reduced to a filthy, filthy verb. Just not right.

Vol. 2: Something for the ladies

Potentially beginning with LL Cool J's "I need love", the following rule has applied: if you rap long enough, you're going to end up making your sensitive love song. Soulja Boy met that requirement early on, with his second single, "Soulja Girl". It wasn't particularly interesting. At all. Let's move on.

Vol. 3: Soulja Boy hates your guts

Hip-hop essentially revolves around a series of egocentric, materialistic clichés (if you write me and tell me how I'm wrong because Mos Def this, or Talib Kweli that, I'm going to kick your teeth in, swear to God). Rappers spend the majority of their time discussing money, clothing, or why they are hot (and, if applicable, why you aren't). There is, however, one more, much lesser known (yet equally prevalent) staple in hip-hop: personal space. For some reason, rappers absolutely detest having their comfort zones violated². Ed Lover sang "Back up off me". TI said "You don't know me". Onyx titled an album "Bacdafucup". Ludacris went so far as to release the singles "Get back" and "Move" (as in, "move bitch, get out the way") just so there was no confusion regarding his approachability. Sure, there's the occasional exception (most notably Chubb Rock), but don't be mistaken: there is nothing rappers (and the Dixie chicks) hate more than your broke ass interacting with them. Apparently it's already reached this point for Soulja Boy, who in his song "Yahh!" complains about being repeatedly approached by his ugly fans. In the chorus, he yells "Get out my face" 16 times in a row. I ponder the ironic dilemma a fan faces when telling Soulja Boy how much they enjoy that song. On the other hand, that may be a bridge that no one thought would be crossed.

Epilogue

In conclusion, let's take a look at Soulja Boy's stats: Three million song downloads. Five million ringtones sold. Over 30 million views on YouTube. A grammy nomination. One silly-ass dance song. One "I love you" song. One "Get the hell away from me" song. He accounted for practically all rap clichés (if he releases another album, even money says he'll be a crack dealer) and he did it all on just one album. He lived the entire rap lifespan in little over one year. Never before has an artist done so much, yet done nothing in particular. So what's next for Soulja Boy? Hopefully nothing. Honestly, it all depends on whatever somebody else decides to do first. And what do you call arguably the most parasitic artist in arguably the most self-parasitic art form in existence? A hack? A genius? Both? For this very reason, Soulja Boy, of all people, is the most important artist of the 21^st century. Or else he's not. But definitely one or the other.

¹Some may say that, after only one album, it's a bit premature to break out a retrospective of his entire career. Eh, that's a chance I'm willing to take.
²I suppose the same can be said of The Dixie Chicks, who sang "Wide Open Spaces" and "Ready to Run".

NFL Action: It's Fan-Tastic!

Two weeks (and a cowboys loss) later, I can finally write about the Redskins. I actually started writing this the day after their loss to Seattle, but since discussing it made me feel like someone kicked me in the chest, it had to wait a while. Oh, but that damn game. That heartbreaking damn game. The single-most depressing sporting event of my life.

The toughest part about this game has been forgiving myself for what may have been a horrible mistake: I didn't wear my jersey. The Santana Moss jersey my brother bought me hours before the Skins beat the Cowboys. I didn't wear it, and I may have cost them the game. Allow me to explain: I figured that since it was an away game, I should leave the White jersey at home and go with my gray Redskins t-shirt. A part of me swears that if I'd worn that Moss jersey, he wouldn't have given up on that pass that Seattle intercepted and ran back for a touchdown. The other part realizes that there's a significant chance Santana Moss has never based any of his life decisions on what shirt I was wearing at the time. About three days ago, the latter part finally overtook the former, and I'm proud to say I've forgiven myself, whether I deserve to or not.

I will bring my Redskins season to an end by telling a little story of my always-rewarding fan experience. This particular story takes place on a lovely November afternoon. The skins were hosting the Eagles. We'd been playing a great game, but Brian Westbrook suddenly broke free for a long touchdown run. The woman sitting next to me, a Philly fan rather bovine in nature, jumped out of her seat and cheered. Suddenly I heard a splash, and noticed some food and liquid on my pants leg, next to my feet, and on the backs of those seated in front of me. At first I chuckled, thinking a fellow Skins fan threw something at her from a few rows back. Then I noticed this woman (no longer cheering, by the way) wiping off her chest and quietly sitting back down. I looked closer at the mess. Oh, it wasn't food. Well, it had been food at one point in time, just not when I saw it. That's right, friends, this woman threw up on me.

If you've never raised a child or gone to Mardi Gras, there's a decent chance you've lived your life without someone vomiting on you. I'd made it a good 26 years, 10 months. Maybe it was just my time. And before I go any further in this story, I feel it's important to mention a few things about this woman: first, she was stone cold sober. Hadn't had a single thing to drink. Second (equally concerning, yet twice as disgusting), she didn't do a single thing post-yak. Didn't go to the bathroom, rinse her mouth out, or anything. Didn't even apologize. And that's what made this all so very odd. She just sat back down and acted like, well, she acted like she hadn't just vomited on me.

Imagine you come home from work, walk in your house and catch your wife having sex with the Hamburglar. Not a look-alike, but literally the Hamburglar, dressed in full Hamburglar garb, going to town on your wife. You'd probably call her a whore, storm out of the room and take about three steps before stopping dead in your tracks and thinking: "wait, hold up: the fuck just happened? Was that the Hamburglar?" That equal blend of rage and confusion is pretty much exactly what I was going through. It felt like the Hamburglar nailed my wife. And it didn't go away, because as I said, the woman just sat down and went about her business. I sat there for about ten minutes before I finally confronted her. And even in my state of rage, I was a perfect gentleman: "Excuse me, ma'am?" I said, "Did you happen to spill something over here?" She calmly turned to me and said "No". Huh. Well then. So, I turned back around and resumed watching the game. What else was I supposed to do? Pretty much everything else hinged on that answer going just a bit differently.

For the next 30 minutes or so, it was all I could think about. Finally I couldn't take it anymore. I gave her one more chance. "Excuse me, ma'am? Are you sure you didn't spill anything earlier?" This time she got all indignant. "I said no!" she yelled, downright insulted that I dare accuse her of spilling something. Again, I turned back around, choosing to spend the remainder of the game in a blind rage. Somebody passed, somebody ran, touchdowns were scored, who cares. The point is, this bitch vomited on me, then repeatedly denied it.

At the end of the game, my brother stepped in and decided to say something. "Excuse me, but I've sat here the entire game, waiting for you to do the right thing, and you never did, so now I have to say something. Look, we saw you vomit, we saw you cleaning yourself off, and you didn't do a thing about it. And even when my brother asked you if you did it, you just denied it!"

"No," she said defiantly, "he asked me if I spilled something." I'm not making that up; that was her serious answer.

"You vomited on him!" he said, "You don't think that counts?!"

Her husband then stepped in, curious as to why two young men were yelling at his wife. He asked what the problem was, so I informed him that his wife vomited on me and never even apologized. Only when he confronted her did the wall crack a bit "Well, I did get sick," she admitted.

Faraji chimed back in with his last bit of editorial: "I'm just saying, act like a grown up, and take responsibility for your actions. The way you just sat there and acted like nothing happened was incredibly offensive!"

"Well!" she said (still a bit upset about the accusation), "sorry for offending you!"

"Hey, while we're handing out apologies," I said, "how about you apologize for vomiting on me?" And then she finally said it. After all of that, she said she was sorry.

And so my story comes to an end, officially bringing my fan season to a close. In only about seven months, we'll begin our run to the 2009 Super Bowl. And when we do, I'll be at every game wearing my Santana Moss jersey, screaming at the top of my lungs, and praying I make it through the day without some bitch vomiting on me.

It Takes a Nation of Children

The recent weeks have brought two of the finest reality shows of all time (The Pick-Up Artist and Rock of Love, of course) to an end. Fortunately, a new, differently (yet equally) moronic show came along just in time. That show? Kid Nation on CBS.

On paper, Kid Nation is the greatest television show of all time. If you haven't heard about it, here's the deal: CBS somehow gets their hands on 40 children¹ and dumps them all alone in some wild-west ghost town for 40 days. No parents, chaperones or anything. Then we watch them like an ant farm as they run their own government, break up into cliques, get into fights, and (I'm assuming) burn the whole place to the ground.

Remember when you were a kid and your teacher left the room for a minute? Sure you do. Now, just imagine your teacher left tomorrow and didn't come back until Thanksgiving. These kids are going to stay awake for 2-3 days at a time, they're going to forget to take their medications, it's going to be an absolute crime scene. They're going to catch all sorts of random-ass diseases like scurvy, some diptheria, maybe some measles, who knows. Can you catch polio? Well, somebody's getting it.

We're about three episodes in, but before the show started, I made a few predictions that I'm still standing by. Out of these 40 kids: 12 will get salmonella, 5 will lose at least one body part (28 if you count teeth), and I'm thinking 2 or 3 will get pregnant. But here's the big one, the one of which I'm absolutely certain:

One of these kids is going to die.

Now, CBS isn't saying this, I am. It's bound to happen. Be it heatstroke, poisoning, malaria, or (my personal front-runner) piledriver, one of these kids isn't going home. They might not even show it, and just never mention the person again like they did the little sister on Family Matters, but it's definitely happening. When I first heard about this show, I thought somebody would die. Now that I've seen the show? Oh man, I've never been more sure of anything in my life.

If you haven't seen the show, and think I'm exaggerating about this, there are two important pieces of evidence to support my claim.

1. Seeing as that there are no adults, these kids have to cook all of their own meals. And while I probably would've just forged on my own, some of these plucky youngsters are cooks, preparing meals for all of the other kids. And they're not heating pre-made food; they're really fending for themselves. Two weeks ago, they killed and ate two chickens. How are some 10-year-old morons supposed to prepare healthy meals for 40 people? I can barely cook for myself, and I'm 26. And a super genius. On second thought, change my salmonella bet to 14. And give me two for E. coli.

2. For some reason, CBS is trying to kill these children. I assume good old Darwinism would have taken care of this, but apparently the network doesn't have that kind of patience. An example: during a town-wide party, a guy and his friend were having a friendly contest to see who could mix the best-tasting drinks for the campers. Among the random ingredients he threw into his concoction: bleach, conveniently stored in the kitchen in an unmarked bottle. Unmarked bottles of bleach? In the kitchen? Don't you dare tell me CBS doesn't want to murder at least one of these kids. $50 side bet says these kids stumble across a loaded gun during sweeps. Who's in?

If you haven't been watching this show, there's still plenty of time to hop on the Kid Nation bandwagon. You should really watch at least once, just to see the old-timey sweatshop conditions they put these children under. Not only have their water pumps already frozen solid, but a dust storm recently swept through the town, leaving the community outhouses (that yes, they are in charge of cleaning) overturned. But the real reason to watch: you want to be there when (not if) one of these kids dies. Frankly, I can't wait. I've never rooted so openly against the well-being of a group of children. Well, there was one other time, but that's between me and the original cast of "Saved By The Bell: The New Class". I don't want to talk about it.

¹ They don't explain how they got parents to sign off on this. I'm guessing the network adopted or kidnapped them.

Day of the Transformers

Today is an exciting day. Just how exciting really depends on when you were born, and how much you've got going on in your life right now. If you answered "late 70's-early 80's" and "not a whole lot", respectively, then this just may be the biggest day of your year. Maybe your whole life.

As I'm sure you know, today is the day "Transformers: The Movie" comes out. I know a lot of people are excited about this, but sadly I'm not one of them. I would be excited, but I'm too nervous. I just know they're going to screw this movie up. This is how parents must feel as they drop their kid off at college: all these new people, money flying all over the place, you know your baby's coming home all effed up and crazy, and it's completely out of your hands.

Before we continue, it's important to note the somewhat misleading title of this movie. As you may remember, there already exists a "Transformers: The Movie". It was a feature-length animated movie, it came out in 1986, and it was awesome. The highlight of this movie, a sentimental favorite in the Rosenthall household, is the unexpected profanity. Nothing catches you off-guard like a cartoon robot yelling "damnit!" or "oh shit!" when his plans go wrong. These things aren't officially ranked, but when it's all said and done, a robot swearing in a children's movie may be the funniest thing ever.

Anyway, back to my problem: I'm pretty sure they're going to screw this up, for two main reasons. ¹

1. Bumblebee. You've seen the commercials, right? That's not Bumblebee. I can't stress this enough. That. Is. Not. Bumblebee. They shouldn't even call him that. That should've just called him Frank or something, and said he was Bumblebee's cousin, like when they replaced the original guys on "Dukes of Hazzard." Think I'm making too big a deal out of this? Okay, well how about this: I'm making a movie with the Miami Heat. Instead of Shaq, I'm just going to hire a Puerto Rican midget² and hope nobody notices. Same thing?

It's extremely easy to mess this movie up. Why? Okay, I'll tell you. But first, take a deep breath and relax, open your mind. Okay. Ready? Here goes:

2. Transformers is a really stupid idea for a movie. Seriously.

Okay, caaaalm down. I knew this would happen. Let me explain. I'm not saying it was a stupid show, because it obviously wasn't. The show? Awesome. The concept itself? Very, very stupid. Say I made a movie that I want you to see. Here's my pitch to you: "Okay, there's these giant space robots, right? They fly down to Earth for some reason, and they fight each other. Also, they all have the ability to turn into various modes of transportation, like jets, cement mixers and what not. I call it 'Car-bots'. Taa daa!" See? No way in hell do you see that movie. It's all in the presentation. I could (and in all likelihood, probably did) write one of the dumbest songs ever. It really sucks. Give it to say, Mariah Carey, get the Neptunes on the beat, and next thing you know, "When we gonna start humpin?" is certified 5 times platinum. See, you just need the right people taking care of your project.

Like I said, I'm certainly nervous. But I'm excited too, and I'll definitely be in the audience as soon as the movie is out. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep tonight, but luckily I spoke with someone who helped me put things in perspective: my mother. I told her how worried I was, how I wish they hadn't even made the damn movie. She wiped the tears away from my cheek, sat down, and said "Honey, I'll tell you exactly what I told your father the day you were born: 'It doesn't matter what you want; it's here now, and you need to get over that shit'". In just one conversation, good old Mom took care of that issue for me. Might've created some new ones, but we'll deal with those later.

¹There are actually three reasons, the third being the mere presence of Anthony Anderson.
²This was originally going to be much funnier, but a Google image search of "Puerto Rican Midget" was quite fruitless. Thanks a lot Google. Dicks.