Sports Bars With Dance Music

If you would have asked we what the worst way to follow a baseball game was, I would have for sure said the radio. Hands down, would have guessed radio over anything. Anything. Being set on fire and watching baseball? Better than radio. Having to sit with your ex while she tells you about all the sex she's having since you broke up while watching baseball? Weirder than radio, but better. Fighting a tiger with a playstation controller while watching a manager run at the mound to make a pitching change? Harder than radio, but better.

Drove around a lot in September/October, and wanted to follow baseball. The option was listening on the radio, or driving while holding my phone on the dashboard, WHICH I HAVE SEEN MANIACS DOING ON THE HIGHWAY. LOT of criminals out there. Speeding down a highway while they have a movie playing on a small screen right behind their steering wheel. Went with option one, and listening to baseball on the radio is pretty great, actually. Screaming at someone you can't see to throw a strike? People driving around you probably think you're really going through it, but then again they're texting their kids in the back to stop kicking the seats.

I found the worst way to follow baseball. No tigers involved. Sitting in a bar, watching it on mute while Keisha or some pop song is blaring. Sitting in a place that calls itself a Sports Bar, while Justin Bieber goes through a break up to a beat as sports are a forgotten memory hanging on a wall. Any bar that has it TVs turned to sports and it's sound turned to dance music should have it's liquor license removed immediately. No questions asked. No room to debate it. Liquor commission comes in, rips the liquor license off the wall, screams 'This is what happens! YOU DID THIS!', punches a TV on the way out and grabs a wing off someone's plate.

I get it if there are a lot of games going on in a night and you pick one. You pick the one that the most people in the bar want to watch. So some people will watch their sport on mute, while the one that the most people wanted to watch will have sound. Okay. Even with that though, a lot of bars will play the game, and when there is a break, half time, whatever, and analysts come on to talk about the game that is playing IN THE BAR, the bar will turn off the sound, and play dance music. For. What. Reason? People are watching the game. Do you think they'll just HATE to continue to follow it during half time? Do you think that whenever people watch sports they want a dance party in-between breaks?

'Hey! Turn this trash off! The big men aren't holding any balls right now. It's just some idiot talking about the stupid game we're watching. Turn up the jiggle music! I want to jiggle, man!'

People who are watching a game will have NO PROBLEM listening to people TALK ABOUT THE GAME they are watching. None at all. People at home do it all the time. It's part of watching the game. Nobody cuts the TV off at home when a analysts come on. Just turn it off and jack iTunes all the way up. 

'Oh god, these people are talking again. If they sang their thoughts, I'd be in. But just talking? NOPE. Shut it off. Let's dance!'

What is the big fascination with dance music in a place where you can throw peanuts on the floor? Who in the hell is dancing here? Actually, I know who's going. People from small towns. In their town, an AppleBee's is Studio 54. No where else to go and dance except the place where you also take a lunch break. 

'Where do you want to drink tonight?'

'What do you mean 'where'? That a joke? We got one place! Captain Magillcuddy's. It's there or the woods.... Woods?'

Listening to baseball on the radio, you can hear the crowd. You feel as if you are somewhat apart of the experience. Watching the game on mute with Miley in your ear? You feel like you showed up to someone's party and begged to follow the game.

'Um, hi, I know it's your birthday and everything, but I really don't know you. I'm here because my friend wanted somewhere to hang tonight. I agreed, and here I am. Can I watch the game now?'

Why do bars do this? Why have sports on AND music? Are the sports for men? Is the music for women? Vice versa? Either way, no body is happy. Nobody wants to watch sports on mute, and even less people want sports to be on when they're trying to get in a dancing groove. Either way, I found the worst way to follow baseball. 

Twitter @nathanmacintosh

Black Storm Trooper

Someone told me the other day that there was a real man who committed suicide because he was so upset that during the first trailer for the new Star Wars movie, it showed a black Storm Trooper. Such a racist AND fan of Star Wars at the same time, that he killed himself after seeing this. Now.... over the top? Understatement. The most understated understatement of all time. Side note, it must be very hard to be racist and keep liking pop culture. GOT TO be hard. Just about every twelve seconds, you're going to have to throw away something you like. 

'You see this new movie? I loved it.'

'Oh yeah? You changing? It's director by a black guy.'

'Are you KIDDING ME?! Why in the hell did NetFliKKK recommend this to me?! Cancelling THAT subscription!'

Personally, do not care if a Storm Trooper is black or white. My issue? Is why is a Storm Trooper a human at all. Why? What was the point of that? I always assumed the Storm Troopers were mindless bodies just locked into helping the dark side no matter what. Like a zombie. They didn't really choose this, they just have to do it. Now we have to think of a Storm Troopers feelings? We have to think about their thought process in the morning while putting on the white plastic suit?

'You're just gonna go into work today, huh? It's your sons birthday and you're just gonna go into work.'

'Just go into work'. You here yourself? I work for an EMPEROR. You think a emperor who hates all things good is gonna give a Jar Jar's ass about our sons birthday?'

'Well couldn't you switch shifts with someone? Can't you ask Donnie to cover fo...?'

'Donnie was choked from across the room last week for taking an extra five minutes on his lunch break! Donnie is dead! DONNIE IS DEAD!'

'... Look, I know you're under a lot of stress, but please stop yelling.'

'Stressed? Stressed!? Janice... I can't even... Pass me my helmet.'

Why make them real people. More casting options? More roles to toss people into? 

'Hey, I want to put this guy in the movie.'

'All the roles are filled, man. No room.'

'Come ON! Make him one of the faceless drones out there.'

'... Sure, you're friends a faceless drone.'

'And have a scene where he takes his damn helmet off! I owe this friend a HUGE favour.'

Are we supposed to care about Storm Troopers now? When we see a Storm Trooper take a laser beam to the chest and fall into a bottomless pit, are we supposed to feel something?

'No! You can't slash that Storm Trooper in half! He's got a family! It's his sons birthday! I know he's wearing a mask that makes him look like a emotionless killer, but he's a PERSON! The Dark Side doesn't even have a good life insurance plan. There BETTER be a scene in this movie where other Storm Troopers go to his wife's house and telling her about their falling friend and her dead husband.'

Honestly, there are many other characters to care about who have stories that we follow. There is NO reason to make Storm Troopers people. Why not go back and show us that No Heart from the Care Bears was a loving Grand Father who was just trying to make a bear less world for his grand children who are horrified of them? Oh, it turns out that Scar actually donated to a lot of charities for the preservation of rare African birds. Mufasa told him once that was a stupid idea because the money doesn't ACTUALLY get to the birds. So now we're all conflicted. 

At the end of this WHOLE thing, HUGE chance that the man in the Storm Trooper suit in the trailer is NOT a Storm Trooper, but wearing one to break out of some sort of Dark Side Palace. It's a movie anyway. We're just talking.

Twitter @nathanmacintosh

Voting and Politics and Jokes and Whatever.

Voted against Harper the first time. I was in college at the time and people were yelling, 'He's going to make abortions illegal! He's going to sell vaginas to China!' Bunch of craziness, but I though, 'I don't like that, I'm voting!' As we know, he won. Does that mean my vote didn't count? No. Someone, somewhere, in a cold, dark room, where water dripped from the ceiling as they were being whipped by a mountie screaming, 'Count them!', counted my vote. It was logged somewhere.  It was counted, there just wasn't enough of them to beat the votes the other way. 

People say their vote doesn't count. NOT voting for sure does'nt count.

'My vote doesn't count.'

'Did you vote?'

'No.'

'Well then yes, you're right.'

Some don't want to vote because 'nothing will change', and sure, maybe things won't change too much. Maybe you won't be given a hundred dollars every time you leave your house, but some people are trying. Not to give you a hundred dollars every time you leave your house. That won't happen. What could happen though, is a movement towards a better country which you believe in. Some better things done with the place you live in. If you lived in an apartment building, and there was a vote to have the front of the building lit on fire constantly, and you could vote against that, why go 'I don't care? I live in the back of the building. Doesn't affect me.' It's your building! The whole thing! Not just the small space you live in. 

'Can you stop these people from pissing in the hallways?'

'Do you live in the hallways? No. Don't let them in your house.'

'But if they win a majority government, legally they could come into my house and piss wherever they wanted!'

'Already stopped listening! Door closed. And a good day to YOU, sir.'

If nothing else, vote so that you can join in the conversations that are GOING TO HAPPEN at your job, at your house, in a store, in the papers, WINNERS, libraries, A&W's, where ever. If you don't vote, you can't complain about what's happening in government. Just doesn't make sense. 

It's an interesting thing as well. People who are already benefiting from a system of government will continue to vote so that government keeps benefiting them. People who aren't benefiting from this government, will not vote because they are so beaten by the government that is in power they think their is no point. Won't vote when it could make things better for them, but WILL vote when the government is already helping them. Kind of how people believe in relationships if they've been in some good ones. If not?

'There's nothing out there for me. Sure, they want to meet up Friday. Yeah, but night three they turn into a murderer who instantly wants to move in with me. They cry, I cry, then we're both single again. What's the point? Alone forever, in the woods of 'do whatever I want' county. That's me. For life.'

People who have  come up with the conservative government will continue to show up and vote. Quick thing here, and barely to do with the party, the word Conservative is just a gross word. Conservative. Nothing fun, interesting, good, entertaining, enjoyable about that word. That isn't to say that SOME of their ideas are smart and just, just that the word, Conservative, woa. What a word. Doesn't work in a lot of situations. Conservative gambling. Conservative sex. Conservative fun. Conservative banking. Conservative Christmas. Conservative clothing. Not in a lot of situations. NDP doesn't work in a lot of those things either, just because NDP is an acronym, not a verb, so like, you know. New Democratic Party sex is also not a good time. 

Also, when we say 'Conservative Party', let's drop the party. Conservative people don't have parties. They have gatherings of stiffs eating cheese, wearing black shoes, stumbling from conversation to conversation with inane small talk. 

 'Hiiiii! Nice to see you! You having a good time? Okay, good. Right? LOVE the meat trays. Yep, having some wine. Don't have to ask me twice! Or even ONCE for that matter. Did you have trouble getting here?  I KNOW. This wind is batty.'

That is a Conservative 'party'. Just a bunch of old crows squawking it up. Change the name. Conservative murder. A murder of Conservatives. 

Voting is kinda fun as well. Go to a convention center you've never been in, wait in a line, meet some old people. Waiting in line at a convention center while meeting old people drinking Tim Hortons? Come on! Big day. Alright, it's not the most fun thing, but it's also not the least. If the options of your day are voting being hoofed in the bag by a Nautical winter boot, hope to christ you choose voting. Whichever party, which ever ideals, just vote. If you do not vote, and you start to say that the people in charge have no idea what they are doing, a hoof should go to your bag. 

Twitter @nathanmacintosh