Ladies in Red...Tap Dancing All Over My Brain

"OH NO! The fight's out
I'm 'bout to punch yo...lights out
Get the FUCK back, guard ya grill
There's somethin' wrong, we can't stay still
I've been drankin' and bustin' two and
I been thankin' of bustin' you
Upside ya motherfuckin' forehead
And if your friends jump in,
'Ohhh gurrlll', they'll be mo' dead
Causin' confusion, Disturbin Tha Peace
It's not an illusion, we runnin the streets
So bye-bye to all you groupies and golddiggers
Is there a bumper on your ass? NO NIGGA!

I'm doin' a hundred on the highway
So if you do the speed limit, get the FUCK outta my way
I'm D.U.I., hardly ever caught sober
and you about to get ran the FUCK over."
-"Move Bitch," Ludacris

Excuse the vulgarity, but I just love that damn track. And the bold section relates particularly well to my own driving tendencies. Me and Luda, yo, we just connect, ya know? The moral of that track is, sometimes you just gotta vent, even if it is in rhyme. Play on, playa.

Anyway, on to my thoughts for the current time being. Got a birthday coming up on Saturday, so that's something. The big double deuce has arrived. That's right, my last true year of young stupidity has passed and now I limp full-on into the slow death march that is adulthood. It's really rather depressing. 22 is such a nothing birthday; I mean what do you have to look forward to once 22 hits? Driver's license? Come and gone. R-rated movies? A novelty of the past. Legal to smoke? Check. Legal to vote? That too. Legal to drink (for all that it really matters outside of bars)? Oh yeah, been there. There are no more rites of passage associated with the relentless passage of time from here on out. Other than the often overrated golden birthday which will finally arrive in two years, after this you're just celebrating that another year has passed that you haven't been caught by one of the limitless ways you can die on this rock we call a home planet. No wonder my parents hate their birthdays so much. I know I have come to hate them as well. I like to think my parents are the toughest people to shop for in the world. It's not that I don't know what they like, it's just that, really, how many 40's movies can I buy my dad? How many occasions can I rely on John Grisham to put out a new novel so I have something to get my mom? I'm not much better. I like to think that anyone who knows me knows what I like. I'm easy to please. If it has something to do with wrestling, sports (excepting soccer and NASCAR), music or comic books, I'm happy as a clam. Only problem is, I have a strict policy against asking for specific things for my birthday. Frustrating as it is to those whom I'm actually lucky enough to get gift inquiries from, my penchant for not making specific requests is deep-seeded and not likely to break anytime soon. At least, I thought it was. Until I discovered the wonder that is the Amazon. com wish list.

It's no coincidence in my view that Borders bookstores have a working agreement with Amazon. com. Because of all the stores and websites in the whole of the world, there's one of each in particular where I could literally spend all the money I ever earned and still find something cool to buy. Nowhere else in the world save for maybe Best Buy can you find so many quality products that encompass the list of interests I mentioned above. They are the perfect combination. If you go to Amazon.com, you will find that you can browse through a plethora of media-related items simply by typing in a keyword. Their seemingly limitless database includes goods from years in the past to the latest releases, and if any of them are to your liking, you can simply click a tab and add them to a list of items that anyone can view which you would like to have. You can then attach your own shipping address to this list so that anyone shopping for gifts can buy them with credit cards and have them sent directly to you. No muss, no fuss, no pretentious gift wrapping, just cold hard gimme-gimme-gimme. It makes the greedy little action figure monkey within me--who was supposed to die when I abandoned wish lists--weep for joy. At present, I believe my wish list has over 50 items on it, and it would be far more if I had been able to spend 12 hours in the computer lab that day. Sadly, I had to go home at some point, but I still left any potential giver plenty of options.

Immediately after my crazy commercial lust subsided, I began to weigh the consequences of my actions and the motivations that gave them existence. I was disturbed to discover that in truth, I had been mentally preparing this wish list for quite some time before I finally got an outlet on which to to dump it. In fact, I'm still doing it (just remembered I have to add the Mallrats DVD to the list). So is there something more to the malaise of turning 22 than I anticipated? Has the fact that I have no more "fun" birthdays to look forward to made me regress to some infantile, morally devoid stage of my progression in which my only desire is for more material possessions than I can even comprehend? Maybe. But in an effort to look at the problem logically and save myself from self-condemnation, I think I have to consider another angle. Namely, there's a lot more cool shit out there that I'd like to buy than there has been in a really long time. Not since the video game console wars of the mid-to-late 90's have I been so motivated to want shiny new stuff.

I chiefly blame the emergence of the DVD industry over the past few years. Thanks to this revolutionary new technology, more visual input is available to me than ever before. Movies I love are not only readily available, but available in increased quality with extras galore piled on like so many maraschino cherries on a sundae. And what greedy little kid doesn't love those cherries almost more than the sundae? TV series that I never thought I'd see in syndication again are now available IN THEIR ENTIRETY for me to watch anytime I want. You have no idea how much it blows my mind that I could spend an entire afternoon watching nothing but old episodes of Danger Mouse without stopping. And not only Danger Mouse. Moonlighting, Quantum Leap, Night Court, Degrassi Junior High (okay, that one's not mine, it's my girlfriend's, but the point holds)--the list of entertaining crap I thought long forgotten is endless! Best (or worst) of all, wrestling matches on video are easier for me to get my hands on than ever. When you combine the infinite number of DVDs I would buy in a second with the always expanding number of cool must-have gadgets, paperback comic book collections and CDs that were already there, it's just a cavalcade of consumerism begging for me to set it free. It's not me, it's a condition of society, I tell ya. The scary part is, America is all about supply and demand. All this purchasable crud is only there because somebody, and not just me, wants to buy it. That means whatever sickness I have is a confirmed epidemic. And most people, whether they can afford it or not, simply give in to the plague rather than fight it. So the question remains, what do I do? Do I continue to struggle, to rage against the money-hungry machine while accepting my unfulfilling gifts of socks, underwear and Notre Dame-related collectibles with a smile? Or do I give in to the capitalist impulses within me that (arguably) are exactly what made this country great in the first place? I dunno.

For those of you rooting for me to "damn the Man," you'll be happy to know that I didn't send out an email or any other type of notice alerting people to the presence of my wish list (well, until now. D'oh.). I told my mom about it, but she's not exactly the computer savvy type (try as she might), so I don't think she'll have much luck finding the list much less directing anyone else to it. On the other hand, she seemed to think it was a really helpful idea since my aunts, uncles and grandparents are always asking me what I want and I can never tell them anything without feeling greedy or retarded (consider the kind of stuff I would be asking for. I mean, what 22 year old says to his grandfather with a straight face, "I would really like the complete first season of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys on DVD, please?") So who knows how this story will end? All I know for sure is my parents are buying me a used car to replace my gas-guzzling truck, and that's more than enough gift for me. Much as I'll miss Kota, at least I know she'll stay in the family, and I really can't afford to keep her anymore. And when I do celebrate, I plan to alleviate the no fun 22nd birthday problem by simply having a "21st birthday, version 2.0" party. After all, I didn't get nearly drunk enough on my 21st, so I think God will grant me a second chance to get utterly wasted without dying all as a matter of occasion. And if not, at least I don't have to deal with my 40th birthday. I hear those are hell.


This just in (slightly shorter-winded thoughts on other matters in my mind)...

-The White Sox lost 8-0 to the Indians tonight at the Big Cell Phone. I really don't know what to say about this that hasn't already been said. Except that if the Pale Hose's inferiority complex as it relates to the Cubs has extended so far that they feel the need to stage a collapse even more epic than the 1969 Banks-Jenkins-Santo team, I may have to move to Atlanta. At least there I would know that my baseball team will win 95 games and the division before they screw everything up each year.

-The Bears recovered quite nicely from the embarassment of week 1 by tubthumping the Lions 38-6. I never know what to take from games like this, though. Sure, the Lions beat the Packers in week 1. But then the Packers lost to Cleveland. Which means that the Lions' win over them looks much less impressive, thereby making the Bears' win over the Lions much less impressive as well. And sure, it's good to blow out teams that aren't that good--those are the kind of games you are expected to win. But you can also say that about beating quality teams. If you want to go far in the postseason, you have to beat other teams that will be there at the end. So what's more important in the long run? Blowing out the Lions, or beating Cincinatti by any margin this week (And yes, folks, I am implying the Bengals will make some noise in the playoffs this year. They're for real.)? The big win was nice, but it might get the teams hopes up since the Lions may not be a contender. And even if they are, they may have just had an off week. They did have plenty of injuries. And beating the Bengals in a close game would seem to show guts and character, but it might produce a letdown after the dominance of week 2. And it might also be a fluke that gets the team and its fans' hopes up. The point is, that it is entirely too frustrating trying to analyze the impact of wins and losses in sports, because someone will always counter with the exact opposite of your argument. The best thing to hope for is that the Bears play the same way in week 3 as they did in week 2 and continue beating up on everybody for the rest of the year. But the reality is that they will probably be an amalgam of week 1 and week 2 all year long, and that may not get it done. But come on, the 20th anniversary of the Monsters of the Midway is as good a time as any for a repeat performance. And I personally am in love with the idea of Muhsin Muhammad doing the Super Bowl Shuffle. So I predict Bears 22.5, Bengals 13 in a defensive drubbing that hopefully puts Carson "The ND Killer" Palmer in the training room with a large block of ice strapped to his head.

-Notre Dame lost to Michigan State 44-41 in overtime. I, by a strange twist of fate, watched the whole game from the MSU cheering section of Notre Dame Stadium. One part of me was really glad that I didn't miss a chance to see such a classic contest in person. And I was filled with pride that the student section was not only noticeably dotted with green shirts, but louder than I have ever heard it before. Another part of me, however, died a horrible death from having to hear, "Go Green! Go White!" chanted in my ear all game long by students wearing t-shirts that read "Rudy Sucked" only to have those same disrespectful visitors erupt in elation when the game finally ended. Not to mention that any fleeting national title hopes have gone by the wayside without us even playing Boston College yet. Oh well, guess I'll have to go back to resenting Charlie Weis' success. Which brings up an interesting point: who exactly will I be rooting for when Ty's old team plays Ty's new team? Odds are that tuition fees will weigh more heavily on my loyalties than anything else, but I can't say I won't have something to cheer about no matter who wins.

-I have a friend who is married, working full time, and now pregnant. And she's younger than me. No wonder I'm in denial about what birthday it is this year. But seriously, congrats to her, and may God's blessings be upon her new family.

-Sin City was really, really good. I watched it on a small TV with the lights on and I still thought it was pretty. I can't say I was surprised, though. The truth is that I'm a sucker for Bruce Willis as a downtrodden badass. The names and the hairpieces can change, but for me it always comes back to "Yipee Ki-Yay, mother fucker."

-I love it when WWE makes a free cable show into an event that feels just as important as a pay-per-view. They are trying to do so with the return of Raw to USA on Monday, Oct. 3. Since I last wrote, they have added not only hall of famers but other "legendary" favorites from the 80s to the cast of characters expected to appear. I can't say as I'm too excited about seeing Hacksaw Jim Duggan again, but Koko B. Ware? That's freakin' cool. I hope he comes out to "Piledriver," that was the best original entrance music ever. Besides that, they're extending the show to 3 hours and 5 minutes long, which is technically 20 minutes longer than a pay-per-view, and starting at 7:55 eastern time so as to get a jump on SpikeTV's new TNA show. That says to me that they are concerned about competition for the first time since they used to pull that junk with WCW Monday Nitro, and that can only be good for business. Best of all, they've given the show its own name--WWE Homecoming--and are already announcing matches for it. The Edge vs. Matt Hardy ladder match should be great as long as both guys aren't stoned or just plain lazy that night. And while I'd much rather see John Cena face a real wrestler rather than Eric Bischoff, at least that match extends what I think is a a decent storyline with Bischoff trying to ruin Cena's title reign. True, it's all part of a weak attempt to mold Cena into some kind of Rock/Austin hybrid, but I dig Bischoff's heel boss character, and as long as it leads to another Kurt Angle title shot, I'm on board. The only bad thing I foresee comes from the potential Ric Flair vs. Chris Masters program. Expert internet reviewer Scott Keith may be right after all. Flair's recent success as a face looks only to be a setup for a swerve that will introduce Carlito and Masters as the newest members of Evolution along with the Nature Boy and the returning HHH. And worst of all, Shawn Michaels is the strongest candidate for victim of the swerve, and that might lead to yet another snooze-worthy HHH vs. HBK conflict. I hope against hope that Flair gets to stay Intercontinental champ as a face for a while and somehow break away from HHH. Not that Flair should be wrestling full-time, I just think he's wasted as "The Game's" lackey boy. If not, I hope Cena somehow gets put in the mix as the new Evolution's first victim, just so we can get HHH vs. Cena out of the way and move on. Just one provision: if Flair retires with less World Title reigns than Hunter, I think I may just boycott WWE again. And I will mean it this time! Oh, and what the hell happened to Shelton Benjamin?

Think that's good for now. Brain feels good and empty. Enjoy your autumn, it's here and now. Go Sox, go Bears, go Irish! Go to sleep, it's late and you have a big day tomorrow.

~Jakeman