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Hope springs eternal
By briantologist | October 21, 2004
People, I generally shun the practice of overly mystifying terrestrial events. But for cram sakes, if the freakin’ Red Sox can pull a comeback like that and defeat the second-evilest Empire in our nation, my god, is anything really impossible?
My relationship with god is shaky at best, nonexistent at usual. But decades of semi-forced churchgoing in my youth built a god-structure that I haven’t ever been able to tear down — it’s basically the same as an abandoned amusement park. I can’t ride the rides anymore because the owner (belief/faith) packed up and left town. But sometimes out of habit, I wander in through the cyclone fence and stand there and look up at the deserted Zingo, peer into the darkness of the deserted Phantasmagoria. Sometimes I can’t shake the feeling there’s something in there, even if logically I know it’s kind of a ridiculous idea.
All of which is to say that sometimes, when I’m feeling way, way, way, way down, I visit the abandoned amusement park and climb the Ferris wheel, and basically ask for stuff. I firmly believe that a big reason man invented god is so s/he’d have someone to talk directly to when making unreasonable requests, and if so if I, or any other disillusioned former churchgoer still use the god-park for that, well, we built it for a reason, didn’t we? No harm, no foul.
It is not, therefore, in any sort of religion-espousing way that I say this: Sometimes, when wondrous events happen, I feel like maybe there’s some sort of spark deep in the bowels of said Phantasmagoria. If I had to put a name to it, I’d say it was the last couple embers of my belief that sometimes humans can still do good things, in spite of themselves. Which is perhaps why the idea that the Sox can beat the Yankees goes hand in hand, for me, with the idea that John Kerry can send that fucking coward/idiot/liar in the White House back to the state he’s not really from.
End of sermon.
Topics: Reflections From the Bottom Rung | 9 Comments »
October 21st, 2004 at 10:42 am
Oh dear lord, Amen, hail Satan, and Allah bless the Phantasmagoria. That bus horn shall ring in my ears eternal as the moment I had a non-relational girl touch the nether regions of my pants. It shall forever be a holy site.
And I might actually hear the deep rumbling of the decrepit Zoltar machine in my heart should that dipshit be cast back into the 5th circle of Texas from whence he psuedo-came.
October 21st, 2004 at 11:03 am
Amen on both counts, Trogdor. Baseball usually isn’t my cup of doctored tea, but I think even Yankee fans had to feel a connection to something greater than themselves after last night’s Sox win.
On the other hand, much like Yankee fans, Republicans and fundamentalist Christians don’t know they’re wrong, which is going to make them harder to convert to the idea of having a rational, intelligent president who isn’t quite as focused on bringing us to the apocalypse.
October 21st, 2004 at 7:06 pm
The Cheat agrees. A Boston win over the Yankees is enough, in my belief system to upset the rotation of the earth. Just imagine what a World Series win would do.
Babe Ruth would never be mentioned again (thank God) and that would truly give John Kerry a fighting chance I think. Also, I would like to add this idea… insteand of John Kerry, how about David Ortiz. His nickname is Big Papi for god sakes. I would vote for that guy in a second.
Go Sox, beat Bush.
October 21st, 2004 at 8:50 pm
I’m totally convinced this entry was an excuse to link to an animated version of the Phantasmagoria on the internet. Being a Tulsa native, that was one of the coolest things I’ve seen. Are there other Bell’s Amusement Park rides hiding on the internet of which I’m not aware?
October 21st, 2004 at 10:45 pm
Dude, I don’t even know. Perhaps an animated Zingo simulator that kills a rider every third year? The mind boggles.
October 22nd, 2004 at 9:06 am
“I think even Yankee fans had to feel a connection to something greater than themselves after last night’s Sox win.”
Oh, if only that were the case. Being surrounded by Yankee fans when the Yankees lose BIG has been an eye-opening experience. Remember in Game 6 when Yankee fans started pelting the field with baseballs and other debris, after a call didn’t go the Yankees’ way? That’s been the general attitude ever since Boston started winning.
The Yankee fans I know are calling on the powers of Satan, cursing the natural order, and the like. They’re rooting big for St. Louis–just to see the Red Sox get clobbered–and they want firings in the Bronx. They’re pissed, and they hate the Red Sox with an even more fiery passion.
In short, Yankees fans here in NYC are sore losers. I expressed a sentiment similar to the one above to a close friend yesterday, and he became seriously angry. I’ve learned not to mention the Series around the die-hards…they’ll freak out on you.
October 22nd, 2004 at 10:19 am
Sounds like the goddamn OU fans around here. Remember how whenever OU’s winning, it’s suddenly got fans coming out of the woodwork? Fans that were mysteriously absent during, say, the Schnellenberger era? Jesus.
October 22nd, 2004 at 11:00 am
Yeah, and there’s an even more virulent strand of OU fan to be found as you get closer to Norman. People to whom two car flags and a wind sock seem…understated.
We’ve got a pair of designers here who got so riled up after last year’s Big 12 loss that one broke down in tears and had to leave for the night and the other (who has never set foot on campus) refused to put the picture of the loss above the fold, despite a direct order from the editors.
October 22nd, 2004 at 2:43 pm
As soon as the riot police came onto the field in game six, I knew the Yankees were going down. They’ve got lousy karma, and deservedly so. President Chimpy’s karma is SO MUCH WORSE. He’s going down, too. Like the damned Yankees, he’ll go down ugly; but good lord willing, he’s going down. Cosmic justice appears to be in force this season, and it demands his immediate dispatch.