Happy Halloween, Everybody...

A few random thoughts on this, perhaps my favorite of all holidays...

-I realize that my point of view is skewed, since I only sell tickets at one theatre rather than the thousands of locations being tallied, but as of late, I can honestly say I have no idea what's the deal with the weekend box office report. The latest numbers are that "The Grudge" was #1 this weekend, "Ray" was #2, and "Saw" #3. I dunno, at my theatre, there was only one movie that sold out multiple times, and that was "Saw." Now, granted, "Saw" on Friday was in two of our smaller theatres, so selling out wasn't as big a deal, but they corrected that mistake on Saturday and moved it into one of the big 500-seat venues, and there, for the 10 p.m. show, it came within 50 seats of filling the place. I'd guess it averaged about 150-200 people per show for the day. Meanwhile, "The Grudge," in two of our biggest theatres, never even came close to selling out and at best averaged about the same. Now, it was close between the two, no doubt (mainly, it seemed, because a lot of the teenage audience that was trying to see "Saw" and not able to because of its R rating, then changed their minds and saw the PG-13 "Grudge" instead), but "Grudge" gets 22 million and "Saw" only 17? Nearly a quarter more business? Not based upon what I, um, saw.

-Heading up to BG to see some friends and, hopefully, watch a little MST3K for the holiday. That was always one of my favorite things to do on the 'Ween, and I recall fondly the experience of gathering in the Black Hole that one year, when it got too damn cold to stay at my Grandma's barn, going back there and watching "Werewolf." I've never seen a video tape get applause before.

-Doing a little digging, I came across an old friend in my folks' office - the Head. Think I'll be taking it up this year to BG as a pseudo-costume while I say hi to everyone. (The actual pronoun, based upon the way Al Snow addressed Head when he played the character, is "them" - Head was the symbol of all the voices in his head, you see - but I didn't want to throw a "them" into the previous sentence and really confuse the crap outta people.) I've had that mannequin head for nearly six years now, buying it when I decided to go as Al Snow for Halloween in 1998 (the year where Al's ECW schtick made him a superstar, and the same year where the WWF's stupid booking of him made him a bit player again). I found it at a beauty supply store for the low, low price of $50, but at the time, considering my devotion to getting the costume right, I considered it a good purchase. And the weird thing is, I still don't regret it. That silly mannequin head has always been there as a useful prop, both at the Hydro (I took it there every year, and sat it on my DJ stand a few nights, and it always got a laugh) and at Halloween parties (want a quick-and-easy costume idea? Go as "guy carrying a mannequin head"). And also, it's a great momento of one of my favorite wrestling characters of all time, from one of my favorite eras of all time. When I see the Head, I can't help but smile in memory of the great moments Al was a part of in ECW, and think of how much I miss that organization, the Rocky Horror Picture Show of wrestling. I recall writing about how much I missed that era in a column on Rantsylvania.com once upon a time, and got a TON of letters back on how much people missed the glory days of Al, with one writer even saying that, at that time, he had been going through a very serious bout of depression, and Al's endlessly-entertaining antics were one of the things that helped pull him out of it. So yeah, I'll be holding onto that silly old mannequin head for a while, thank you. Because it reminds me not only of a great era in an art form I care a lot about, but also because it reminds me of how something so little can mean more than anyone ever knows.

Happy Halloween!

The only REAL choice...

You know, a scant hour ago I supported John Kerry in this election 100%. But now, I have found a candidate that I believe Americans can REALLY get behind. A man who not only has at LEAST as good a grasp on the true state of our country as George W. has, but also has a much bigger vocabulary of words that he uses incorrectly in speeches.

Ladies and gentlemen...VOTE BACKLUND!

Why Roger Ebert is My Hero

Check this out.

First he promises to back his fellow Guild members if a strike is called. Then, when the man who is being accused of embezzling millions of dollars from the paper tries to impune his moral stance, Roger responds by gently undercutting every single point he made in his letter, ripping him a new @$$hole in a quiet, dignified manner, and then directly bringing his politics to the forefront. One of the most remarkable exchanges I've seen outside of the old Algonquin Round Table.

All of which brings to mind the question: $500,000? That's all Roger makes? Geez, I woulda figured he was easily in the 7-figure range...

I'm noticing a pattern...

This is weird. All my life, I had kinda become used to a certain idea. An idea of how things had to be, and the way things went. An idea that set me up for a life of relative disappointment.

Except...

-January: The Patriots win the Super Bowl over the somewhat-reveiled Panthers, in one of the best games I've ever seen.

-February: The one Oscar I really cared about seeing won, Charlize Theron for her brilliant work in Monster, does indeed happen.

-March: Chris Benoit, the best wrestler in the world and the one guy who everyone thought would NEVER get a chance with the strap, is given the belt at WrestleMania XX. After the match, he and another favorite, Eddie Guerrero, celebrate in the ring as the two highest-ranked champions in the company.

-June: The Detroit Pistons, underdogs and, by default, the good guys in the situation against the Lakers, win the NBA title in convincing fashion, shocking most of the basketball world in the process.

-August: I only watch one night of Olympic competition closely - the Men's Gymnastic All-Around finals. Paul Hamm, in one night, completes one of the single most dramatic comebacks in Olympic history and wins the (sadly disputed) gold.

-October: The Sox.

Thus far this year, in pretty much every sport and/or competition, the team/person I really wanted to see win, did. (Granted, the wrestling thing ain't exactly a pure example of competition, but I felt as strongly about that as anything listed here.) This is a complete 180 from the way things usually seem to go for me - I mean, none of these are a lifelong dream come true (like, say, the Indians winning), but they're all things that I really, really wanted to happen, and they did. Which usually doesn't happen for me. I mean, I'm always the bitter one mumbling about how disappointed I am. But this year...there ain't been much to be disappointed about.

I'm not offering theories, or asking why it's happening...I'm merely noting that it is, and hoping like hell it keeps up. :)

The Curse is Dead, Long Live the Kings

For the record, I have never believed in curses, much less curses applied to baseball. I've always felt that if there are grand cosmic forces in the universe, they would pay attention to more significant things than a game where grown men whack a ball with a stick.

Also for the record, you'll notice that I carefully avoided revealing these beliefs in my blog, or even uttering them to anyone, lest I jinx the Sox. :)

At long last, the superstitious wing of baseball's fanbase have few if any outs left. Sure, Chicago has had a longer draught of titles, but no one ever seemed to bring up their curse as often as Boston. I mean, why should we? Boston's is connected to the most famous player of all time, Babe Ruth. They disrespected Babe and sent him packing. Ergo, somehow, Boston has earned 86 years of misery. Never mind that the Yankees pretty much treated Babe like garbage at the end of his career, as well, and he finished his days with, if memory serves, the Braves. The curse of the Bambino made a good story, and we stuck with it. And hey, fans either pro or anti-Boston clung to it...Sox fans as a way of reassuring that the team's losses weren't really their fault, and for everyone else as a cornerstone of mockery and self-reassurance. "Well, we may have lost, but at least we ain't CURSED!"

Until now. The curse has gone the way of the dodo, and if baseball fans are a consistent lot, we'll never have to hear of it again. Down 3-0 to the Yankees, they come back to win four straight in the greatest series I've ever seen, and then beat the best team in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals, in four straight to sweep their way to the title. Again, I say, if ever there has been a more effective exorcism in the history of sport, I've missed it.

Man, does King have a hell of a story to tell, or what?

Congratulations to the Sox, but also congratulations to every team and player who participated in this postseason - easily the best I've ever seen as a fan.

"We believe," indeed.

"Yawn...well, we'll always have Paris!" - a commentary by Heather Shannon

Hope she doesn't mind me posting this here, but Heather wrote me an e-mail outlining her own thoughts on the Paris Hilton discussion, and I found them interesting enough to share with the rest of ya...

Okay, the trip about Paris Hilton is that she's as close as America comes to having royalty....PUT DOWN THAT HATCHET AND THINK ABOUT IT! Not like Queen Victoria, more like Prince Philip. (Remember him telling the British students studying at a college in China not to stay too long or they'd "go all slitty-eyed"? I always liked him talking about how the working class complained about not having any free time, then complained about being fired: that people just couldn't make up their minds.)

Royalty demands respect, but "civilians" watch them for the exact opposite.

See, America cast off the idea of "direct" royalty when George Washington refused the title of King. The "royalty" became (with a few notable exceptions) the wealthy. You'd look at them on the street and giggle, knowing how helpless they would be without someone to empty their chamberpots. Starve without a cook. Most couldn't even mount a horse without a flotilla of help. And the stupid things they say! See, they weren't really better than you, were they?

Money stayed the "king" maker, I believe until the invention of photography. True, there were illustrations in magazines and newspapers of the notables of their day, but most weren't enough that the average person could identify a performer on the street. Oddly, I think that changed around the time of the Stanford White murder. There were the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, the Thaws, and Stanford White, their trusted architect like a knight of the realm. He built their castles, attended their parties, and did all he could to make them look like monarchs. Then was murdered by Harry Thaw of the realm of Pittsburgh for defiling Thaw's wife, Evelyn Nesbitt, the fashion model.

Suddenly, a measure of the "royal" scrutiny began to fall on those who's claim to the spotlight came from something other than cash. But cash never left the picture. Look at Howard Hughes, the Kennedys (who were on the society pages for generations before going into politics), and the current twin terrors: Branson and Trump.

Conrad Hilton was well known by the gossip columns long before he married a Gabor. The few that have at least a minimum of talent and brains (like Queen Victoria or currently Branson) we grudgingly admire, make a few cracks, but in general we don't mind them. The ones that only have bank accounts and names (like Paris) we unload our ridicule on. They have all the cash they need to humiliate themselves on a phenomenal scale and we eagerly await the latest blunder.

Will age back it off? When gravity discovers a few body parts, will the fervor die down? Not a chance. Sorry, mein freud, you're probably stuck with her for life. Even if she tries to go into seclusion, she'll be followed, just like Garbo. Will she break Liz Taylor's wedding record? Will she get fat and dumpy? Will she end up like Howard Hughes? Think like Anna Nicole Smith: no matter what, someone will watch.

That answer it?

Excellently put, my friend. I especially find thought-provoking the paragraph about how these modern royals are on their pedestals simply for the rest of us to knock them off. Modern media has turned any and all celebrities into non-stop targets of ridicule, with wise-ass remarks and ego-bruising barbs replacing substantial commentary and discussion. I bet more people talked about how Ben Affleck's latest film went belly-up than they discussed the fact that we've lost a few hundred tons of explosives in Iraq.

Hell, I'm as guilty of it as anyone. Look at my first two Paris Hilton posts - I started out of a genuine curiosity, because I didn't know what she was famous for. And even though my question was born out of a simple lack of understanding, even I couldn't resist taking a few shots at her in the space of my post. Relatively weak shots, yes, but shots none the less. By implication, I ridiculed a woman who I've never met, never seen perform, and know almost nothing about. Why? Instinct, I guess. My instinct as a student of pop culture.

Which brings me to another question - what the heck is with the big deal over Ashlee Simpson's lip synching on SNL? So a technical foul-up caused her problems, and in a panic she blamed the wrong people. That may show a lack of class on her part, or more likely, a lack of maturity. But people can learn from their mistakes, and they do mature. What gets me is how so many people are so readily jumping on the bandwagon to crucify her for it. She had a foul-up on the second musical segment of SNL, with maybe 10 people watching at the time, and suddenly she's our new target du jour. Hell, the guys on ESPN's talking heads shows were ripping into her, as well, and last I checked, Ashlee has no connection to sports whatsoever. But she IS a pop figure, and she DID make a mistake, and now it's open season.

All I can say is, we in society have to be careful who we so quickly ridicule and scorn, and how we do it. Over the past few days the comparison I keep hearing is Milli Vanilli. Yes, Milli Vanilli did lip synch on their album. They then faced years and years of non stop mockery and public shame. Never again to be taken seriously as human beings, they became nothing more than an eternal punchline. Rob Pilatus decended into a life of drugs and arrest, and was found dead in a Frankfurt hotel room at the age of 32.

Maybe next time any of us, myself included, thinks of taking a cheap shot, maybe we should consider the lasting, and damaging, power those words can have.

The showing

Can't really say much about the showing...we went, we stood in line and hugged my aunt and the rest of the family, then we went home. I told them how sorry I was and offered my condolances once again. Everyone seemed to be doing okay, and my cousins were both doing well. I so rarely see either of them now that it was a bit of a shock to note how much of a grown man Mike has become. But everything was lovely and there were tons of mourners - if the impact of a man's life can be measured in the number of lives he touched, Mr. Shull lived a very full life, indeed.

The Slacker Uprising Tour

It was a political-rally-as-rock-concert. The damnedest thing I've ever seen in my life.

I wasn't even sure I was going be able to go to Toledo to see Michael Moore until this afternoon. Abby had volunteered to reserve tickets for us a few months ago (for which I still have to pay her back) and it was gonna be me, her and Heather heading to the Seagate. Problem number one: until this afternoon, my screwed up body clock kept telling me that the event wasn't until TUESDAY.

So I was convinced that I was going to have to bow out on going, since I just found out that over the weekend, my aunt's father-in-law sadly passed away, and his showing would be tomorrow, right when I thought the show would be. (I never really knew Mr. Shull, only meeting him a couple times in passing, but from what I knew he was a very nice man who loved his family dearly, and stayed a big part of the lives of my aunt and her two children even after her husband tragically passed away 10 years ago. My sincerest condolences to them and his whole family.)

So I'm sure that I won't be able to make it, and hope that Heather will still wanna go with Abby, when I get an e-mail from Heather herself, telling me she's sorry, but she won't be able to go...tonight. Que? A quick check of Michael's website reveals that, indeed, the Tour hits the Seagate tonight. And that's where the day degenerates into a series of phone calls: call to Abby's voice-mail asking her what's going on and informing her of Heather's choice. Call from Abby letting me know that the event had slipped HER mind, too, and telling me to call and see if anyone else wanted the empty seat. Calling a few peeps to see if they're interested. Hearing back from the peeps and finding out they ain't free. Call from Heather asking how I am, and allowing me to ask her if she's sure she ain't going. During that call, call from Abby telling me the tickets are all in place and that Abby's BF Loren is interested in coming if we can't get anyone else. Call back Heather, tell her what's up. Call back Abby, set up meeting time. And then...we drive.

After that fun little series of events, and paying only 4 bucks for parking (a mere bag 'o shells compared to Chicago's rates, but still higher than I paid in Cincy), we were there. I thought we'd see a huge number of protestors there, as has apparently been the norm for the tour, but was greeted with a simple group of three, and they were there, in a bit of comedic brilliance, to PROTEST PROTESTING. Really funny.

We arrived about 15 minutes before Michael came out, but the show had been going on since 8, and we came in at the tail end of Gloria Steinem's speech. Yep, one of the foremothers of modern feminism was there, as Michael Moore's lead-in. What I caught of her speech was informative and interesting, but not exactly polarizing. That would come later. We get seats in the upper left section, and the Seagate isn't completely packed (there are still seats available in either corner of the auditorium), but it's as full as I've ever seen the building.

Finally, the man himself arrives, and it's like Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Rock both come out simultaneously to a crowd of wrestling fans. The place is coming unglued, they are all standing and cheering. A few lone folks remain seated (a group of four Republicans apparently were right in front of us), but for the rest of us, it's long standing ovation time. I don't know what I was expecting from Michael's appearance, in terms of content. I figured a 45-minute or so speech intercut with multi-media or something, given the large screen behind Michael to project things onto. But it was only used twice - once to show a photo of the White House with a UHaul in front of it (Michael offered to pay for the truck himself) and once to show a series of "pro-Bush" campaign ads "attacking" Kerry in the manner of the BS Swift Boat ads. Pretty funny.

The rest of it, though, is pretty much Michael talking, and folks, this is a guy who know how to keep an audience. For Michael's aw-shucks demeanor and look, he's an extremely intelligent and engaging speaker, discussing the importance of the election and how crucial Ohio was. He knew when to go for a dramatic moment, he knew when to make us laugh, he knew how to get people cheering. And we cheered a LOT. In fact, when the night ended, and it turned out to be about 11:15 or so, I was stunned. It sure as hell didn't feel that long.

Now, to be sure, he wasn't alone up there, as there were several "special guests" that came out at random intervals and spoke for about 10 minutes apiece. First was Roseanne Barr, of all people, who proceeded to give a short comedy piece playing an ignorant voter who'd gotten all her news from the Fox News Channel. It was kinda funny, but Roseanne's speaking style has never done it for me, and her joke about how George W. "would NEVER allow terrorists to attack the U.S." did NOT go over at all. But still, she was done before she became bothersome.

Then it was Tom Morello, lead guitarist of Rage Against the Machine, who came out and spoke a little before singing a few songs, the first a Union anthem, the last an anti-war ballad. The crowd clapped and cheered and stomped for him, and that's when I first began to feel this amazing sense of...well, wonder, about what was happening. The crowd had a lot of younger people - T-shirts and jeans everywhere. But there were older folks, too...middle-aged women and men who stomped and clapped along with them, to a guitarist from a band they'd probably never heard of. And when the beautiful ballad ended, they stood as one and gave him a standing ovation. This group of people, this perfect cross-section of society, united in passion, united in purpose. And with a volume that'd knock your socks off.

Last guest speaker was Lance Corporal Abdul Henderson, who if you saw F9/11, you know as the soldier who said that he wouldn't go back to Iraq. He was easily the least polished of all the speakers, which was to be expected, but the crowd still listened with rapt attention as he provided more facts about the war and shared his experiences with us. When he finished, the crowd gave him a standing O as well.

And then, the part I was SURE wouldn't be happening, after the charges in Michigan had been filed. But it did - Michael promised to give free Ramen noodles and/or underwear to any "slackers" who didn't vote in the last election, but would vote in this one. You'll notice when he gives these out, he isn't saying he'd give 'em stuff if they vote for KERRY, only if they just VOTE. Now granted, by implication, he WANTS 'em to vote for Kerry, but his key plea is simple: get out there and vote, and do your part to get others to do the same. Because those in power LOVE it when the public is ambivalent about the political process - it means, more often than not, they keep what they have.

That's Michael's biggest gift, and what he's really doing for this election season - he's making people care again. I wasn't sure that, after the debacle of the 2000 election, the American public would believe enough in the democratic process to get off its keister, get passionate, and get involved. But no matter what you think of him, no matter whether you love him or hate him, Michael has galvanized people. This time, it feels like it MATTERS. This time, people actually CARE, and are getting involved. They're watching the news. They're registering to vote. They believe that they can make a difference.

And no matter what your political beliefs may be, that cannot be a bad thing.

P.S. - I really hoped Michael would hang out afterward, so that I could get an autograph. Not for me, for a special friend of mine, who still cannot be convinced that it's crucial that she get out on the 2nd. How I would have loved to come back and presented a piece of paper which simply said, "To Heather - Please Vote! Love, Michael Moore."

;)

The Capitol Steps!

In this tumultuous and anger-filled election season, maybe what we all need is a good laugh. So...

http://www.capsteps.com

If you have never heard of this merry band of Washington crooners, you're in for a treat. Some of the funniest and most insightful political commentary out there comes from this group of "current and former Congressional staffers" who run a regular musical comedy revue and occasional radio show in D.C., lambasting pretty much everyone in town. Plenty of soundbites available on the website, all of them well worth the download. I especially recommend the John Kerry ballad "Fakey Purple Heart" and the ad for "Votagra" - "See your doctor if election lasts more than 72 hours."

On the Road Again...

It twas off to Cincinnati to see the lovely and talented Melissa Bennett in the Clear Stage Cincinnati production of Romeo and Juliet yesterday. For those of you who have no patience whatsoever, let me summarize the following post in a simple series of words: show - good, seeing Mel - better, Cincy streets - confusing.

The production itself was very well done, performed in a shockingly small theatre before an even more shockingly small crowd. Imagine the Joe E. Brown cut in half with a couple of balconies added and you've got the general idea of what was going on. But even then, the performance was only about half full, with no one sitting in the balconies. Talks with Mel afterward revealed that publicity has been pretty weak for this production, as well as crowds being drawn toward, of all people, Patti Lupone performing in the big theatre next door. (I've never forgiven that woman for totally ruining the Sweeney Todd in Concert with her sub-par Mrs. Lovett. Give me Angela, or give me anyone but Patti!)

Even finding the theatre might be another issue. The driving directions I printed offa Yahoo Maps seemed too simple too be true, and darned if I wasn't right...after an easy 3+ hour trip down to Cincy taking 75, it took another hour of circling the streets and two or three calls from Mel to get myself parked and inside. Then again, it might just be my ineptitude at navigation at work - when Amanda called to let me know that she was about 50 miles away, an hour before the show, I said she'd never make it in time. 50 minutes later or so she arrived, found the same garage I was in, and made it to the theatre in only about five minutes, tops. I bow to your superior driving skills, mi amiga.

As said, the show was good overall, and brought to my attention some aspects of the show I had never even considered before (which is good, since contrary to popular belief I find R&J to be one of Willie's weakest pieces). The most disappointing part, sadly, was what Mel was given to play with as Tibalt. I know I'm Mel's friend, so my view is naturally biased, but it seemed as though, through strong focus on undercutting her character's importance and by demeaning her, the show managed to make the main villain of the piece seem virtually insignificant. Name me another production of R&J where Tybalt is slapped on the butt by Mercutio three times.

Afterward, Mel, Amanda and I hit Arnold's bar with quite a few of her castmates, who all seemed like very good peeps. (Shout-out to Ruth, who rode with me in the car post-bar, as we went to a diner to grab some grub. See, I remembered your name!) Then it was off to Mel's beautiful home, for a good night's sleep, after a long late-night convo between me and Mel about the show. (Amanda, sadly, could not join us, as she had to be on the road earlier than either of us and just went to sleep almost as soon as we arrived.)

On the whole, a very good trip, and if anyone happens to be swinging through southwest Ohio next weekend, I would highly recommend checking the show out. For more info, head to:

http://www.clearstagecincinnati.com

Hey, anything I can do to help out the publicity campaign... :)

P.S. - Thanks again, Mel!

I Love My Friends!

-James Williams is the coolest guy alive! He has a beautiful wife and child and deserves all the happiness in the universe!

-Melissa Bennett is one of the most wonderful friends a guy could have! I owe her more than I could possibly repay!

-Lindsey Ruehl is an amazing person and terrifically talented! I'm grateful and proud to call her my friend!

-Heather Waterfield ROCKS! She's a tremendous human being and an great conversationalist!

See how it works? Post a message or contribute to the blog, and I shower compliments on you in it. :)

Just kidding - I do love you all and thank you very much for reading and writing! Hope I keep hearing from y'all!

Paris Hilton...REVEALED!!!

Think that headline will get me a few more hits from the Blogger database? :)

Anyway, the lovely and talented Heather Waterfield was gracious enough to send along a few explanations of Paris's notoriety...

-She's rich
-Her boyfriend "accidentally" posted a tape of them having sex on the Net
-She dated a Backstreet Boy

Hmm. Well, that certainly explains a lot. Um, yeah. Our nation REALLY needs to get out more.

The public's continued fascination with her still puzzles me - if she's not doing anything new to warrant current interest, save for starring in a reality show where she continuously comes off like a snobby b*tch, why are people still interested in her? Best I can tell, she does nothing, displays no discernible talent, and has become an icon. If that's all that's required, dang, my ascent to stardom should be a cinch! Look out world, the Mac Attack is Back! Except I was never there before. Um, well...yeah.

Well, this post fizzled out pretty quick...

Okay, I'll ask...

It's like I turned my back and pop culture sprung a fast one on me. So I'll ask - what the heck did Paris Hilton do to deserve being, well, EVERYWHERE?

I must have missed something. She did the Simple Life on Fox, a reality show whose promos convinced me to never even accidentally allow my remote to stop on the network during that time period. But the impression I get is she was "known" before that. As far as I can tell, she ain't a singer. She isn't an actress, either. In fact, I don't think I've heard her say word one in an interview yet. Every time I've seen her in televised footage on VH1 or whatever, she's strutting on a red carpet in a evening gown with that "I'm-too-good-for-this-red-carpet" look on her face. But now she's on the cover of every magazine, every tabloid, and now, for pete's sake, apparently she has MEMOIRS coming out. MEMOIRS OF WHAT?

I mean, Britney, Jessica and so forth at least have pseudo-credibility as pop culture figures because of their musical careers. Best that I can tell, Paris is a figure based upon nothing. Yeah, she's hot, but there are a ton of hot women in the world. There has to be more to it than that. Doesn't there?

Any help?

We Believe

I am so full of joy right now, it makes no sense.

I'm not a Red Sox fan. I grew up in NWOhio, which meant I had one of two choices: the Tigers or the Indians. Being that my dad was a Cleveland fan, and that my thought process was loyalty to state rather than geographic proximity, my devotion went to the Tribe. And they have remained there, through good times and bad, my whole life. No other team has ever threatened to take that away.

So why, then, does the Sox's most impossible of impossible comebacks cheer me so? Why does this team, which I have never been a big fan of, beating the Yankees and becoming ALCS champions, staging the single most incredible comeback in baseball history in the process, make me so glad to be alive?

Is it Yankee hatred? No, not really. As much as I razz Heather for her devotion to all things Yankee, I don't really hate the club. I find their fans in general to be a little annoying, but I think that may be a sheer spite issue on my part - because they always seem to take such glee in crushing everyone else's dreams. So yeah, there's a little schadenfreude (pardon if my German is off, but there's no English word to cover it) in my glee at seeing the Yanks go down.

Is it admiration for the Red Sox as an organization? Yeah, in part. They have always been a very important baseball franchise - one of the cornerstones of the league. However many years without a title, the Sox are an anchor for the entirety of baseball - it's as impossible to imagine the game without Sox as it is to imagine it without, well, Yankees.

Is it the glee of seeing the whole silliness about "the Curse of the Bambino" finally, hopefully, get shelved? Yeah, a lot of it is that. Now, granted, if the Sox don't win the World Series, we'll probably keep hearing about the stupid curse stuff for another however-many-years. But being down 3 games to none and becoming the only team in the history of the sport to come back and win the series, and winning it IN Yankee stadium, no less? In my book, that's a pretty effective exorcism if there ever was one.

No, I think the reason the Sox winning means so much is simple: it was, dramatically, perfect.

Did you know that Stephen King is co-writing a book about this year's Sox? He started at the beginning of the year and has been following them ever since. If King had somehow had carte blanche to write the script of this season himself, even HE couldn't have come up with the climax we got tonight. No one would have bought the book - the plot is just too absurd. It was, almost literally, impossible for what happened to have happened. But it did.

When the Yanks won 19-8 on Saturday, everyone, myself included, took it as a given that it was over. Yanks in the Series, again. Sox fans heartbroken, again. Another year added to the decades of anxious waiting and misery, with names like Dent and Mookie popping up painfully in the memory like the eyes in the soup in Temple of Doom. As a fan who has waited his whole life to see the Indians win a Series, I knew the pain. The Marlins loss still stings, a lot.

But then, game 4, I started noticing these signs all over the place in Fenway: "We Believe." At the time, it seemed a rather quaint gesture, the fans saying that even though all logic said they were going down, they still were there. And then, the improbable win in extra innings in Game 4. Then again, in Game 5. All the way, the naysayers (me included) treating these wins like prolonging of the inevitable. They're sending Schilling to the mound in game 6? The guy whose sock is soaked in blood? They got no one left, they're screwed. Except Schilling was brilliant, and they took Game 6. And then, tonight.

"We Believe," indeed. At some level, we all want to believe like that. We want to believe that the underdog can come back against incredible odds and win the whole thing. We want to believe that, but in real life, that ain't the way it works. The underdog gets stomped more often than not. Dreams fade. Reality hits us like a punch to the gut. And belief just ain't enough.

Usually.

But when it comes through, and the dream comes in for someone, and the impossible happens - for real - it makes you damn glad to be alive.

It ain't over, of course. There's still a World Series to be played. But for me, it almost seems like an anticlimax, practically irrelevant compared to tonight. Whether they win or lose the Series, the Red Sox and their fans have a hell of a moment, one that'll last for years to come.

And those of us who believe - no matter what or who we believe in - we do, too.

Yo.

For all those who wanted me to get off my duff and update my old blog, well, sorry, but that one's gone the way of the dodo. Say hello to the new digs. Nothing much here yet, working on it. I can't promise regular updates, but I do promise to throw something on here whenever I can. Check back tomorrow for more stuff. And who knows, some trademark ranting may be in order.