(Dramatic silence)

(Possibly followed by large explosion – though only applicable for Jerry Bruckheimer films)

To the only man who could leave 20 voicemails for a girl and probably still lock it up – we will miss you Don LaFontaine.  While there are certainly the proud few who can continue his legacy… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRtuxdfQHw

…the deep familiar voiceover “that sounds like a seven foot tall man who has been smoking cigarettes since childhood”, will be missed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzrerZ0133c

Had the man been a telemarketer – we’d all be poor.

So, I want to tell all those kids out there–the ones born after 2005–that they’ll never know how hard we Gen Y’ers had it.  I hope this website is still up when these kids are old enough to read.  I think I need to do this FJM style.

When I was a kid we didn’t have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

Children of tomorrow, you don’t know how bad it was.  We used to have to LEAVE THE HOUSE, go to the library, search the digitized catalog, and then go find the book on the shelf!  We couldn’t use Google’s vast eBook database to search the text of every single publication on earth.  We had to FIND THE RIGHT PAGE.

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter … with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

First, I should admit that I thought people stopped writing letters shortly after the First American Civil War.  Second, children of tomorrow, do you realize that we used to have to set down at our computers to write emails?  We couldn’t type them on our smartphones as we rode our hoverboards to the spacepark.

There were no MP3′s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

Back in my day, we used to have to search by the individual song that we wanted and hope that someone else on the peer-to-peer network had it.  We couldn’t search the vast landscape of the entire Internet for full albums and TV seasons, and we couldn’t use torrents to download from multiple people at once.  Downloads sometimes took HOURS.  And we could only fit 2,000 songs on our iPods, which couldn’t always remote control your house.

We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that’s it!

Get a load of this: Some phones only had 2 lines when I was growing up.  And they showed just the phone number and name of the person calling.  Not a customized holographic photo like your phones do now.

We didn’t have any fancy Sony Play station video gameswith high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like “Space Invaders” and “asteroids” and the graphics were horrible!

The video games we had when I was growing up were like Neanderthal tools compared to the shit you kids have today.  3D images had to be SIMULATED on a two-dimensional flat-panel HDTV, and you had to hold a controller full of buttons in your hands and different buttons corresponded to the various actions you could perform.  And only 4 people could play at a time, instead of 32 like you’re used to.

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating!

I have to take a moment to fill you in here, because this must sound very foreign to you.  Before the advent of 4320p ultra HD and petabyte Internet streaming, people used to have to go to a place called a “theater” where new movies were shown for a fee.  You didn’t pick them from the on demand list, you had to show up for a scheduled showing of the movie, and the floors were very, very sticky.

You never would have lasted 5 minutes in 2000, kiddo.  And you’d only be able to download half a song in that amount of time.

Count the internet sensations!

Ok… the truth of course is that Indie Rock has come to mean something entirely different. You can go ahead and google the sh*t out of the term looking for some semblance of a definition but it is simply a genre of music with distorted and blurred boundaries which work out quite nicely for the “real fans” who are free to subjectively judge which artists have or haven’t sold out according to their unfounded, elitist point of view.

How do you know if you’ve run into an indie rock elitist?
1. You’ve just been informed that your favorite bands are all sell-outs and so fake.

2. It has come to your attention that you’re just a part of the corporate machine**

3. You’re enduring an argument about the legitimacy of Neitzschean nihilism from a guy in his late 20s who runs the soundboard for Mercury Lounge and supplements his income as a barista at a coffee shop in Williamsburg because Starbucks is just so fake.

4. “Dude, you’re so fake”

**This may also be a hippie, the differentiating factor would be whether or not they have showered.

Meanwhile, enjoy the link below as Zach Galifianakis interviews the “most indie rocker” of our time… in the form of Michael Showalter.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/05/galifianakis_showalter_strive.html

If poker and NASCAR are sports, than so too is beerpong/beirut. And as I was shoving 50 books about raising twins into 50 envelopes, I thought about this, and realized it’s a lot like baseball.

Top 20 Reasons Beerpong is Like Baseball

1. Homefield Advantage.

The tables are always different sizes, much like all the ballparks are shaped and sized differently. Tables and ballparks alike are often judged by their character, tradition, and nearby food.

2. Bouncing is the DH of beerpong.

Some teams play with it. Some don’t. If beerpong ever became professionalized, surely this would separate the National League from the American League. And for the record, I think players that only bounce should still be illegible for the MVP, even if they don’t play defense¹.

3. Good teams nail the little things.

Teams like the White Sox and Cardinals² are credited with always executing the little things. They don’t commit errors turning double plays. Outfielders hit the cut-off man. Good beerpong teams execute the little things. They don’t knock over their own cups. They always protect their drinking cup. They never lose the ball under a couch. Missing the little things will kill you in both games.

4. Most games are played at night.

Day games, however, are often the most enjoyable.

5. Players have routines, superstitions, and unique in-game personas.

We all know about the ridiculous things that baseball players do before they can step into the batter’s box. But beerpong players are just the same. Some people make practice shots, others stare down the table to focus. I know a guy that licks the ball before he throws it. And swings are like shots. Some players have sweet, fluid throws with nice high arcs. Others throw bullets. Some people bend at the knees. Some people move only their forearm and wrist. Some guys throw from the right side of the table, others from the left. Some are switch.

6. Defense is overrated, but useful.

In baseball, a team full of Gold Glovers will not get you to the World Series, but having good defense can make the difference in those 1-run games. If you’re playing with a girl and she knows how to blow or swat away any and all bounces, being able to save crucial cups can help you win close games. But mostly, it’s best to know how to hit shots.

7. The pressure situations are unrivaled.

Baseball has the bottom-of-the-9th, 2 out, bases loaded, full count situation. Beerpong has the “they just hit your last cup and your partner missed so you need to hit this last cup to send the game to overtime” scenario. It can get very lonely at that table, even if you’re surrounded by friends or fans.

8. The winner drinks heavily.

The champagne tradition for teams that make the postseason and win playoff series is admittedly more exciting than the winning beerpong team which is rewarded with 3 more cans of Natty Light.

9. Clutch performances are praised and envied.

The guy that specializes in hitting the last cup is the guy everyone wants to play with, because he’s got ice in his veins (sport cliché!); pressure situations and comebacks don’t affect him. Same with baseball. Every baseball team wants a lock-it-up closer and a guy they can rely on to drive in runs in late innings.

10. Walk-Offs.

The most exciting play in baseball: the walk-off HR. The most exciting play in beerpong? Two balls, one cup.³ Walk-off. (Or the much more rarely seen shot into the drinking cup, which I guess is pretty much a walk-off grand slam.)

11. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

If you plan to be any good at beerpong, you need to be ready to win upwards of 6 or maybe even 8 games in a row. You don’t want to waste it all in the first game. You gotta grind it out, play through injury, and, if necessary, sneak a pee into a plastic cup.

12. The best players can’t speak English.

Well, not good English anyway.
13. Team chemistry is a must.

Ever won a game of beerpong teaming with someone you hate? Unlikely. You have to develop a rhythm and know your partner. Otherwise plays like the simultaneous shot-and-bounce are impossible. You need to know where he is. Who’s gonna shag the ground balls? Who’s gonna swat away bounces? Chemistry.

Normally relaxing to watch, both sports can become very intense.

Most of the time, people watch beerpong like they watch tennis, heads swiveling back and forth, back and forth. But if a game gets close or if a team can sink two in a row, suddenly you’re into it.
15. Rallies and comebacks are a crucial part of the game.

In football, if a team goes down 21 points, it’s pretty much over. In baseball and beerpong, you can be down 2 cups to 6 and it’s still really anyone’s game. A bounce or two hits in a row can make the game a heck of a lot closer real fast.

16. The games are not timed.

Traditional baseball games go 9 innings, no matter how long it takes to play those 9 innings. Beerpong goes 6 (or 10, or 15) cups, no matter how long it takes to hit them.

17. Streaks and slumps are unavoidable.

Sometimes one guy can go on a hot streak (or he’s just that good) and it doesn’t matter how you play. You’re going to win, because you’ve got that guy that hits 6 of 9 shots. But there are slumps too. Those games, those nights, those weeks, when you just can’t find the cup. They bounce of the rim or they just sail wide to the left. But no one’s immune.

19. Bench-clearing brawls!

One questionable call, one spilled cup (intentionally or otherwise) can lead to retaliation and even a good old-fashioned brawl. Some versions of the game even encourage this in the rules.

20. Asians are surprisingly good.

I know. I’m shocked too.

¹ This point was made after the 2005 season when David Ortiz was up for MVP. I stand by it today.

² Remember, it was 2005. I guess now it would be better to say the Indians?

³ This predates and has nothing to do with the similarly titled YouTube video sensation.