Baseball: A Love Story

My very good friend and I discuss baseball:

Stephanie - So as background noise, I put on game 7 of the 2004 ACLS. HUGE mistake. I've been crying for an hour. Is it bad that I can recite the commentary, and know when the bat will hit the ball like a downbeat in my favorite song?

Allen - Ugh, Baseball. "It's the 3rd day into the 7th inning and not one goddamned thing has happened. Wait! Wait! Trainers are on the field... apparently the Center Fielder is suffering from Trench Foot after not having moved since it rained three weeks ago..."

Stephanie - Allen: this makes me forget that I love you.

Allen ‎- "The Sun has just used up the last of it's hydrogen. It's time to move to the bottom of the 8th for this season's first game out of 5x10^27 games left to go till the World Series.

Stephanie - I've just lit your birthday present on fire.

Allen - You set yourself on fire!?

Stephanie - In the fashion of Tibetan monks in protest. I cannot stand for an assault on the national pass-time.

Allen - Past time, way past it's time. Comparatively, golf looks like a rave.

Stephanie - You have to appreciate the dance, Allen. It's not for simps with short attention spans. That's football.

Allen - What dance? People move when they dance. "And some dude throws the ball at the guy with a stick for the 1000th time while a couple other guys watch and............ jack shit happens again." Wait, wait, he'll throw the ball again. Maybe this time... fuck it, I'm going to go see if the grass has done something radical in the back yard, like grown.

Stephanie - Oh I'm sorry! Run 3 yards and fall is exciting?!

Allen - It's not just football Steph, competitive dishwashing would be more fun to watch.

Stephanie - You're watching it wrong.

Allen - Yeah, you're probably right. I've always tried doing it while awake.

Stephanie - GODDAMN IT ALLEN!

Allen - CAPS LOCK!!!

Stephanie - Socialist.

Allen - Fascist.

Stephanie - Jesus would have played baseball, just not Friday night games or Saturdays.

Allen - Contrary to popular belief, Jesus was not crucified. He was sentenced to watch a triple header between Pittsburgh and Kansas City.

The Father, The Son, and The Holy Toast

Holy, Revered, Sacred, this one looks like Joseph Smith. These are words I have never used to describe a Corn Flake. I’ve only been mindful of the equation (c + m) * t = soggy, (where c = Corn Flakes, m = milk, and t = time). Now, after over thirty years of dietary habits devoid of spiritual rumination, I wonder; “have I ever eaten Jesus’ head?”

According to a slew of documentation, deities have been turning the mundane into miracles for many years. Not content with traditional bleeding statues and wailing walls, many of the world’s most sacred beings have apparently developed their own guerilla marketing campaigns. Monday morning brings Pope Urban II on a Pop Tart in rural Alabama; meanwhile, a butcher in Tehran discovers that the name Allah has been written in the fatty marbling of a goat shank. No matter where you are, what you’re doing, or what you’re eating, stay alert. A miracle, or something kind of resembling one if held at the correct angle in low light, could happen to you.

I do admire the attention to detail these pious pioneers display. Their ability to spot a Baloney Moses from across the deli takes a high level of religious situational awareness most people do not posses. As carefully as I may study my slice of pizza I can never be absolutely confident that a Hindu, two tables down, is not observing in silent horror as I consume a burnt cheese depiction of Vishnu.

The dedication of these food fundamentalists aside; I just can’t bring myself to worship a tree fungus that someone has declared looks like Jesus, but only if you stand back far enough and squint just a little. Without very much visual documentation, all we really have to go on is he grew up in the Middle East, he had long hair, and had a beard… maybe. I would dare venture that over the millennia there are a lot of longhaired men that have died. That fungus amongst us could be Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, or someone’s late cousin Rick on the side of a Maple. Call me a Doubting Thomas, but I need more than the endorsement of an eighty-year-old woman with cataracts and dementia before I make the leap to calling something holy.

Besides a case of mistaken identity, a lot of these Discoverers of The Divine seem to have no problem parting with a sacred object if the price is right. It seems a bit strange that a person who has faith in the authenticity of their Peanut Butter and Buddha sandwich would be willing to let it go for five hundred dollars. Maybe it’s just me, but I would be hard pressed to part with an object I thought to be blessed by the divine power of my creator. Also, I can’t imagine any god would be very happy if they went through all the trouble of appearing to someone in an egg white scramble only to find out three days later they had been sold to a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum.

However, my largest skepticism regarding the authenticity of these burns, blobs, and squiggles is reserved for the poor production quality and lack of style. The majority of these miraculous images have all the wow factor of showing up to work late with a hangover. The return of celebrity religious figures is often depicted as an event unimaginable in size and scope. The end of time itself. There are horn sections, dazzling light shows, dead rising, etc. After thousands of years, I would hope there is something bigger in the works than a sausage skillet appearance at a Waffle House in South Carolina. Call me a heretic if you like, but I believe the only miracle my toast can perform is landing butter side up.