Bryan Joiner

January 29, 2008

Gummy Bears

We have a giant bag of gummy bears in my office. I like eating them, though I’m not sure they could be any worse for me — I can just imagine a gelatinous sac growing inside me with each one, like The Blob for my tummy. (While we’re at it, I’ll mention that I was absolutely terrified, terrified of The Blob when I saw it at the age of 8 or so). Still, I like the gummy bears and I always get the theme song from the early 90’s cartoon stuck in my head when I eat them:

Gummy Bears
Bouncing here and there and everywhere
True adventure that’s beyond compare
They are the gummy bears
They are the gummy bears!

I’m working on another baseball essay now, this one about Bonds and Clemens. The problem is, a lot of people are also writing about this. (That last one requires a baseball prospectus subscription). One passage from Simmons’ column was particularly spot-on for a particular idea I was pinning down:

The stunning turn of events didn’t leave me as satisfied as I thought it would. Whenever people write about the Steroids Era, they always focus on numbers. After all, the combination of numbers and history makes baseball unique. We crunch them, compare them, memorize them, and eventually they become living, breathing entities. The Steroids Era has made it impossible to say which numbers are genuine, so fans worry that we can’t compare generations anymore. I’d argue that every generation has mitigating factors that affect the numbers, and in time we’ll learn how to weigh those factors from the past 15 years. We just need time.

But here’s what we won’t figure out: how to reconcile our own memories with everything we know now, after all these revelations.

I mean, I have some statistical-based stuff that’s not in Bill’s column, but he pretty much nailed that one, IMHO.

Last night I went out with the editors of Last Exit to a brand-new speakeasy bar in the Village. I talked a lot about the presidential election. Then I spilled beer on my pants and left.

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January 28, 2008

Time to get personal, computer

There are three things I damage with regularity: cars, computers and my liver. I’ve tried to minimize the first problem by living in New York, where a car is not really necessary, and the last one I treat with antioxidants, vitamins and such.

The middle one is pesky. I haven’t had a brand-spanking-new computer since I went to college, and that one broke in about six months (it was also a PC, so fuck it). Since then, I’ve lived off a steady diet of office computers, girlfriends’ computers, friends’ computers and hand-me-ups from my brother. My last two laptops came straight up the genetic pipeline, first a MacBook, then a ThinkPad from Grantlesworth. They were both serviceable. The first one kept malfunctioning but was covered under an Apple warranty until it wasn’t, and was shown the door, and the second broke on and off until July when I really destroyed the thing by putting it in my checked luggage on my 15 1/2 hour trip to Hong Kong. That’s more like murder than anything else, so we’re best not to speak of it. Since then, I’ve been computer-less except at work, where my ample free time has been a nice complement to my non-computer-owning habits. But as a “writer,” this was a temporary fixture, and for my 30th birthday, someone who shall remain nicknamed NILS, KINS, NILES CRANE, THE CRANE, THE CREEZIE, etc. was kind enough to purchase me a brand new MacBook, which I am in the uncomfortable position of trying not to kill. Finally, a computer of my own that might actually last a while. It’s very strange, and I’ll adjust to it eventually, but to show you how kid-gloves I am with it right now, I’m typing this from work. Or maybe that’s because all my computer time at home is reserved for [deleted].*

* “Playing Scrabulous,” which a large percentage of work is reserved for, actually. (Mom, Scrabulous = Scrabble on Facebook. Facebook = nevermind, I’m sure you know by now, right?)

3 Comments

January 23, 2008

The Huckster

My essay The Huckster is now up on Last Exit Magazine.

If you like the stuff up there, please sign up for their mailing list. They promise not to spam you, and more of my stuff will be on there in the future.

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January 22, 2008

Yay

I am told my essay on Alex Rodriguez will be posted tomorrow on this site. I’ll post here again when it is. In fact, this is just to jog your brain to remind you that even when there’s a lack of Boston sports news, bryanjoiner.com is open for business.

Yes, there was a joke in the last sentence.

January 18, 2008

Kudos to Glen Johnson

Y’all may know of my less-than-appreciative feelings for Mitt Romney. Here’s a video clip of him being challenged by an AP Reporter. For those of you under the age of, say, 23, this may be a foreign concept, that of a television reporter doing their job.

4 Comments

January 14, 2008

Today is the last day of my 20’s

My twenties began with a trip to the Old Country Buffet at the Ford City mall in Chicago (it was funny then, and it’s downright hysterical now), and will officially end tomorrow with a trip to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I’m not sad. Here are some notable moments form the last decade:

Trip to Old Country Buffet on 20th birthday

New Year’s Day, 2004 at “The Spa”

The Snow Game (with Grant)

Getting my first real job

Seeing the Red Sox, Patriots and Cubs win World Championships

Going to outdoor Radiohead concert in Vancouver

Dollar “pots” of beer in Melbourne, Australia

Dating Natalie Portman

Family moving to Alaska and Arizona

Directing “No Country For Old Men”

Finishing the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle

Doing the 5 Borough Bike Tour and Tour de Bronx

Driving the Pacific Coast Highway

Meeting lots of nice and nice-looking people, occasionally women

Becoming a grandfather

Meeting Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barry Bonds, Michael Bloomberg and Benjamin Goldfein

Writing this list

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January 9, 2008

My Sporting Clothes

Since I haven’t posted anything in a while, here’s a short essay I wrote that I’ve cleaned up for publication here. Hope you like it.

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In the mid-1990s, tearaway pants were invented. They looked cool and had buttons on the outside of each leg, so basketball players could remove their drawers with a flick of the wrist. One second, the pants would be there, and then — POOF! — they would be gone, folding away into the air like origami.

I cannot tell you where I was when I first learned of this product, but I was floored. I could tear away my pants. Soon, I was at the store buying a pair. They were made by Nike and cost $30. This was it: this was the future. This was the new me.

I still own a pair of tearaway pants. I wear them to bed and to softball games in which I play. I do not like them.

They will unbutton during a hasty trip from first to second base, or on a more leisurely journey from one side of my bed to the other. They, very much, do not want to stay on.

In the rare cases that I am able to see this creation to its apotheosis, it comes with a stinging depression. If I want to wear them again, I will have to re-button them. I can never find all the buttons, and almost always snap them in the wrong places.

Given my druthers, I will usually stick to the take-your-shoes-off-before-removing type of athletic wear that has work for, you know, decades. If I’m going to expel labor in the name of sports clothing, I’ll do with for a product that doesn’t let outsiders get the occasional sneak peek at my boxers. That’s right: not only is this worthless product difficult to assemble, everyone can see your undies.

I have two pairs of athletic pants that I really like. One is a pair of “traditional” wind pants, and the other the American sweatpant. I bought each of them for $10 and could not be happier with them.

After running through these guys, I will turn to shorts, longjohns, old jeans or khakis before I will call the tearaway pants into duty. Despite having been scrupulously buttoned prior to their stowing three months earlier, several of the buttons will be unhinged when I put them on, and, when forced to bend over and re-button them, a few more would pop off. It is maddening. If NBA players had to re-button the pants themselves, this entire species of pants would go extinct in an instant. We could send them to a museum. Our nightmare would be over.

Instead, we find them on clearance racks across the country, beckoning to shoppers in faux utility. The tearaway pants never really caught on after their high-profile launch, which is why they are the most plentiful items on the sale racks at athletics stores everywhere. You can find them in every size and every color. I can match my alma mater’s maroon, the Patriotic colors of Foxboro or the black-and-gold of the Boston Bruins. Which leads me into temptation. And before you know it, there I am, against my judgment, buying another pair.

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January 7, 2008

History Comes Alive!

January 4, 2008

A Great Night For America

I’m trying to stay politics-neutral, but this cuts across party lines.

Last night, the Democrats handed the most important primary of the year to Barack Obama, a black man. That’s history of the best kind.

Last night, the Republicans handed the same primary to Mike Huckabee. That’s great too, and here’s why:

After 8 years of Bush/Rove campaigning under the evangelical banner, there are many who equate the Christian movement in America with bad people. And that’s sad. I’m not a practicing Christian by any means (or a practicing anything), but I cringe whenever my friends attack someone for being ‘religious.’ It’s not inherently a bad thing. Mike Huckabee is an actual ‘compassionate conservative,’ which is why he doesn’t have to use it as a slogan. Everybody knows it. And whatever his more extreme views, compassion is good. He won’t win the nomination and he won’t become President, if only because his foreign policy intelligence is substandard (and there are other reasons, even faith-based one) but it’s nice to see him win Iowa on the basis of being a decent person against Mitt Romney — the only person who I will say is disgustingly unqualified to be President and a phony in every possible way — give me him a hundred times over. The Iowa voters made good choices.

3 Comments

December 26, 2007

Required Reading

Playing Through The Pain