Foolish Games- Jewel (21)

Foolish Games.

Jewel is the tits. Awesome artist, great songs.

A culmination of events over the past three or four weeks have revealed to me the fact that if I were to hate anything more than I hate liars, foreigners, emo kids, lil wayne, or a number of douche bag athletes (bonds, armstrong, williams sisters, lebron, favre...) it may in fact be the game of golf.

The subtle yet most important word in the previous sentence is "game". There seems to be an abundance of confusion amongst most people on the planet regarding the definition of a sport. Centuries have come and gone and yet no one has ever developed a straight-forward answer. I took the liberty to look up "sport" in the dictionary searching for guidance: an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

It appears that Mr. Webster would include my physically taxing, mid-afternoon, unnecessarily competitive yelling contest versus the lady friend and mommy dearest at a pre-recorded game show of lingo to be a sport. Even inept intellectuals such as Antonio Cromartie would object to a statement of such ignorance (I think...) My point being that this definition is complete bullshit and the author of the dictionary was obviously a 120 pound, anxiety-ridden ass-wipe that will avoid confrontation at all costs (I digress...)

Upon further exploration, however, I found it more difficult than I thought to form the perfect definition of "sport". I mean there are certain instinctual aspects to the underlying meaning to the word sport that some people have and some people don't. The best metaphor I could come up with is the concept of pocket presence in an NFL quarterback. So when it comes to understanding what the essence of a sport really is, there are two types of people in the world, the Tom Brady's and the Jamarcus Russell's. The Tom Brady's have pocket presence. Similar to how Brady can sense a backside linebacker storming around the corner without ever looking, these people just seem to understand that Nascar, cheerleading, and most Olympic games aren't really sports. It's just a God-given understanding. Then there are the Jamarcus Russell's of the world. To put it nicely they are just large, mindless, pseudo-retards that lack a general sense of awareness. I mean you can teach them all you want but they just keep holding on to the ball until they get broken in half by other pseudo-retards like Shawn Merriman.

Now I mean absolutely no offense to anyone by stating the fact that some people just don't get it (well, except for Jamarcus Russell, Shawn Merriman, and Antonio Cromartie you should be very offended.) The thing that people just can't seem to wrap their heads around is that by saying cheerleading, Nascar, and sprinting are not "sports" in no way demeans the skill necessary to compete in said activities. Look I will never be able to do a back hand-spring, nor would I want to drive in circles at fast speeds surrounded by hundreds of thousands of hill-billies, and if I were to break an 8 minute mile tomorrow I would be ecstatic. I understand. You have a skill. But the pre-requisite of skill in a competition of interest doesn't by any stretch of the imagination warrant the connotation of sport. Sure, you can have "competitions" or "games" but you need some additional quintessential conviction in the perception of the very fundamental make-up of your contest that goes above just the ability to win or lose (which many consider the only guideline for defining a sport- the ability to win or lose). A "sport" is deeper than that. Like I have the skill to fucking nail 95% of the Lingo words before my mom but that doesn't make beating her at fake Lingo a sport. Sure it takes skill and I can win but it is not a sport. Period.

So now that I've built enough suspense to thoroughly disappoint with whatever definition I could ever come up with trying to encompass everything holy about the sacred entity of "sport" ....here goes nothing.

Sport: a competitive conflict with defined rules that you would not be embarrassed to admit your first born son plays.

Wow makes things really cut and dry when you look at it that way. Sports: football, baseball, basketball, hockey, rugby. Not sports: a)Competitions: track, cheerleading, Nascar, ballet. b)Games: Lingo, board games, thumb-wars, grab-ass.

The previous escapade defining the word sport was just a fun exercise laying the foundation to the real issue at hand: Golf. Golf, soccer, and tennis have always been the three games that I have had trouble categorizing. They're kind of mainstream but on the fringe (hilarious pun) when it comes to being a sport. For now let's allow soccer and tennis to remain a personal opinion as to whether or not you would comfortably allow your son play. But over the last 4 weeks or so, golf has slowly made clear that it is most certainly a game and not a sport.

It all began with the Dustin Johnson bunker penalty fiasco. Golf has so many stupid fucking rules. Like all sports need rules, but non-sense like this "bunker rule-violation" literally cost him a chance to win a PGA championship and is just unforgivable. And hitting the pin is 2 strokes or some shit? What the fuck?

Next up are the stupid "golf code of ethics" or whatever. No referees. Just all golfers are held to some honesty policy to be noble and not lie and shit. This is laughable. You can't trust anyone yet alone motherfuckers who wear golf cleats and michael jackson gloves.

Lastly is just the way some people win golf. It's like being cautious and boring is rewarded. Tell me what is competitive or fun about "laying up" and "playing safe" or "trying to force a tie". This attitude is not acceptable in sport. It's so gay. All I can liken it too is the fucking loser that finds ways to cheat the system to win by being the annoying motherfucker no-one likes to be around: a la the guy that holds his air hockey paddle directly in front of his own goal until the other guy scores on himself and then is so satisfied that he won it's pathetic.

This post has nothing to do with the fact I suck at golf and all of a sudden most of my friends are good at it....golf is the most frustrating thing to do in the entire world.

Repeat Offender: You Were Meant For Me (98), Break Me (76), Down So Long (111)

BRYtunes Genius Recommendation: Barely Breathing- Duncan Shiek (23)

Newport Living- Cute Is What We Aim For (54)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K22qAu5s_Wo

Life is inevitably unfair. The world is the antithesis of sound moral order in which liars, thieves, and cheaters paradoxically raise the ladder while the honest are left at the wayside. There are no rules in life. I understand this. The sooner you do too, the better off you will be. Hell, over the years I've come to embrace this fact...I am going to make shit tons of money selling drugs to dumb Americans. Most of these drugs I wouldn't even consider putting in my body but to each their own i guess. You want you're son on Adderall XR so he can do better than his friend on his SATs? Okay, $149.19. You want your teenage daughter to take a beta blocker to ease her anxiety before her big musical performance? Ninety 200mg pills of Toprol XL, $255.22. You can't fall asleep because you are a dishonest bastard that hates what they have become? Thirty tablets of 10mg Ambien, $173.46. I'm not going to judge you and I expect you no to judge me for being a hypocritical prick either. I was raised to value honesty over all else and I most certainly do support free market competition but there is a significant difference between being a liar and a hypocrite (believe me, I've embraced the difference). I hate liars and will openly tell you about any of my life decisions (good or bad) with such frank blatancy it will make your head spin. Cue the hypocrisy...

Steroids have ruined baseball. Oh but what about "don't judge people" or "do anything to get ahead" so on and so forth? For the record, I firmly believe in all of my previous arguments and will stand by each until death. Baseball, however, is not the real world. Baseball is a game. Baseball has a simple set of rules that all must follow.

Think about how awesome the concept of baseball is. Baseball allows men to compete in a game on a level playing field. Competition at its finest with the prospect of not only fame but also fortune (ridiculous, more than some countries make, snoop dogg type fortune). Its like war but minus all the dead people. It tries to civilize the instinct, cut-throat, win at all costs mentality that spans generations back to the Roman Empire and before. It's like WWF but not scripted. It doesn't get any better than this.

It is really simple at its core. All men follow the same rules. You can't cheat or you are forever banned. It's a world that even God can't create.

This awesome simplicity (theoretically) allows for the measure of greatness across generations. Statistics are the tell-all. You perform against peers of similar abilities and amount a career that paints a picture of your talent. Legends can be created. When you mess with the purity of this cut and dry system, fuck you. Fuck you Bonds. Fuck you Sosa and fuck you McGwire. I'd like to give a nice fuck you to all steroid users (for performance enhancing purposes) at all talent levels. From Alex Rodriguez, to Jeremy Giambi, to the all of the cocksuckers who played with and against me at UMaine.

You are all cowards that have ruined baseball for not only me but for everyone in its history. You have tainted the untaintable (i possibly created the best word ever..). Generations of statistics are worthless. And the worst part of all is that you don't have the guts to admit it.

"Everyone was doing it"... No, not everyone was doing it.

"I did it to recover from injury"... No, you didn't. You did it to get paid.

"It doesn't help that much"... This is the most ridiculous statement of all.

Barry Bonds was a hall of fame baseball player regardless, I am not taking that away from his undeniable talent. But you're expecting me to believe that a man at the age of THIRTY SEVEN years old all of a sudden hits 23 more home runs in a season than any other season in his life, 12 more than any other player in the history of baseball from its inception to the 1990s, and 3 more than other cock-sucking cheaters of the late 90's and 2000's? Bonds jumped from 49 home runs (an incredible number also boosted by PEDs) to 73 home runs!!!!!! Seventy fucking three. In the history of baseball (or most any sport for that matter) when have the best years of your career come after the age of 35? I'll tell you who it has happened with. Bonds, Sosa, Sheffield, Clemens, Pettitte and other cheaters. 73 home runs. That is stupid. It is ludicrous to believe that taking steroids doesn't help increase your stats. Just dumb. I will be perfectly content never talking to you again if you believe that they don't because you are fucking wrong. It's so obvious it is painful.

In 2001 there were 8 hitters that hit 40+ home runs (3 at 49), 2 with 50+, 1 with 60+ and 1 with 73. In 2009, one year after the steroids testing policy was implemented, there were 5 players who hit 40+. None even reached 49. No 50's, no 60's, no 70's. That is an unmistakeable drop off. Not to mention these 40+ home run hitting players could still be on the undetectable human growth hormone.

Amidst all of this, boy do I love watching home runs. I am a hypocrite, but I am not a liar...

Repeat Offender: Curse of Curves (22), Risque (39)

BRYTunes Genius Recommendation: A Walk Through Hell - Say Anything (88)