culture schlock

when not dreaming of stunning female serial killers I am dreaming of attending an exhibition of fat pin-up paintings. Ah if only that dream came true! Not the serial killer one, even though she was hot.

In the meantime, I found this fat pin-up, which is rather marvelous. If I could paint/draw/do art in anyway...

I dreamt last night that I'd been given a full time job by our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. I went in day after day to give in my details so that I would be paid but each time people wouldn't know where to send me or would ignore me. I kept saying, 'I know he's probably very busy but could I see Gordon Brown and talk to him about it?'

I was annoyed that each day I was coming in to do this was lost wages... and talking of 'lost'... on the final day that I went in, Jack from Lost was there, with his Big Beard, as was Beth Ditto. I wanted to talk to Beth and was trying to persuade Jack to introduce us. He was too drunk and spaced out to do so.

This doesn't take a qualified analyst to work out what was going on here. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all my side projects at the moment and really want to just get on with my PhD. I'm supposed to be writing about Beth Ditto for the PhD (and a book, and a paper) and want to contact her about the book I'm editing. And when I should probably have been doing all this work, I've been watching far too much Lost on DVD.

Not quite sure where Gordon Brown comes into it all though. Do I want a Scottish Holiday perhaps?

The wonderful Ms Beth Ditto

Big-Bearded-Fox. Actually in keeping with the Face Furniture theme of the previous blog entry, which is nice.

Because there's been a resurgence of 'staches recently - most prominently in the world o' baseball, cf. Giambi, Lengel - I dedicate this blog post to the World of Face Furniture.

Apparently, according to the oracle that is Amazon.co.uk, I Love Lucy Paper Dolls are Running Accessories. Can't think how to use them but next time I'm out on a run I'll figure it out I'm sure

Apart from tennis (and to be honest that just stemmed from a youthful crush on Boris Becket) I never considered myself to be someone into sports. I found them dumb. I was easily irritated by people who assumed you should be into something – into football if you are a boy, into wanting the team/player from your country to win because you happened to have been born on the same island. I don’t like assumptions like that. But being a ‘baseball widow’ who for a number of years, on or off (depending on how well we could get a signal for Channel Five and if we could record it), I slowly absorbed something about the world of the game. Usually I wouldn’t bother watching it but busied myself with other things whilst my loved one watched the several hours of taped game. He seemed sullen if a team he didn’t like won. Sullen if a team he did like lost. That’s partly why I stay away from sports – who want something so arbitrary dictating your mood?

However I did once get so involved in whether or not Mr Becker hit and ace or missed a drop shot. But that was then right? When hormones were raging for those white shorts and a birth mark on his leg just like mine.

Well no.

Because slowly but surely – ok it took about ten years – but I got into the game. However it wasn’t that simple. The game was pretty secondary. First I got into the programme; the programme of Channel Five Baseball. You see it has a magical element in that it is presented by the deeply delightful Jonny Gould. At first (when we watched) it was co-hosted by ‘pundit’, The Toddmeister (not his real name but that escapes me after all these years. And who needs a real name when you are known as The Toddmeister?). This man offset the slightly silly enthusiasm of Gouldy and every so often their late night lightheadedness would produce a real televisual gem.

Then came The Chetwynge. Ok I do know this man’s name. Because Josh Chetwynd has been the ‘pundit’ on Channel Five Baseball for some time now. He’s a baseball aficionado with a particular genius for British Baseball – isn’t that a talent to have. He also looks like he could be in the Beastie Boys and has an impossibly thick head of closely cropped hair. And again, his solid-knowledge, keeping-it-together-when-necessary nature balances Gouldy’s tendencies to get silly or talk about Fantasy Baseball a bit too much. Together The Chetwynge and The Gould Fish (one of many monikers for JG.) present a perfect TV duo that actually makes the programme. They come first in importance and delight to the thing itself they are there for – The Game.

Why The Gould Fish? Well you see at times Mr G can be a bit forgetful. And he’s full of moments where he says something and it turns into smut or a surreal adventure. In fact these Gouldisms have become the stuff of legend so that there are web pages dedicated to them. And drinking games have grown out of catch phrases and golden (or Goulden?) moments. But then it probably doesn’t take much for people prone to drinking games to invent a drinking game.

But there is something about the game (baseball, not drinking), something about either watching the games ‘offtape’ (because they are on at stupid o’clock in the morning when sensible folk are in bed as it’s a school night) or live (because you’re – ‘HARDCORE!’). Something about sharing those moments where it all falls apart and the sleepysillies hit the boys or Josh gets cross with Gouldy. Something about hearing the strange logic and exclamation that can erupt from the enthused Gouldfish. And it’s something that got me watching and made me a bona fide Baseball Fan. Slowly but surely over those many years of it being on and me only really paying attention when the game got to a break and Gouldy and Pundit came on the screen, slowly but surely I eventually managed to watch the game as well and work out most of what the heck was going on. Oh and occasionally you see Weiner Racing – that is grown people dressed like hotdog sausages HAVING A RACE. Isn’t that the most fantastically wonderful thing you’ve ever heard of?

My team, by the by is the Boston Red Sox. I may not be a dyed-in-the-wool member of The Red Sox Nation from way back, but I am not a fellow traveller, hot on the coat tails of their 2004 World Series Win (a year when we couldn’t get Channel Five). This is a slow burning love that grew over time. It started when Sam Malone walked around Cheers with his Red Sox jacket on (he was supposed to be a retired player. I thought the name of the team was made up because would a real team be called ‘Sox’ and have a logo that was a pair of socks? I find that adorable now). And then when Ally McBeal would fantasise that THIS was the year that the Bambino Curse would be broken and actually got to play pretend ball in Fenway park because of a boyfriend knowing someone who worked there. And because I’ve always felt that Boston was possibly my spiritual home (even though I haven’t been there yet). And because those boys who play for the Sox are such characters, such determined and brilliant athletes who never do a dull game. And who seem like a lovely family of mates who really want to do well for each other, the fans, the game and not just for the money or to be a jock. And in the year when I fell head over heels for the game, the Sox and the whole B-ball world they won the series again with me staying up live to watch it with the Marvellous Phill Jupitus slotted between JG and JC…Such a blooming treat! I am very grateful that I put down my sports prejudices and that I allowed myself to be courted, romanced and finally pulled by the game. But it never would have happened if it hadn’t been for two men – Jonny Gould for his TV brilliance and my sweetheart for loving the game for more than twenty years and dedicatedly watching it. When we managed to get the signal.

LET’S GO RED SOX. Thank you.