Posted 11:46 AM by Brian K

From The Brain of the Giant Head

Peanuts! Popcorn! Collective Bargaining Agreement!

Ever see the movie "The Sandlot?" It’s about a young lad named Smalls that finds a group of kids who love the game of baseball. They never stop playing the game. Rain, shine, sleet, tidal wave, whatever...they play because they love the game. And while Smalls isn’t perfect and makes mistakes, he still goes out and plays every day -- no matter what.

Aside from my family, friends, and Nacho Cheese Doritos, Baseball is the number one love of my life. I’ve been hitting balls and fielding grounders before I could even say ‘multimillionaire,’ and while I’ve tried to avoid writing about the possible labor strike, I figured with the Walkout Day less than a week away, it was finally time that I covered this dreadful topic:

Millionaires fighting with billionaires and screwing the average person.

Generally a pessimist, I thought from day one of the season that players and owners would sit down and hammer this thing out as quickly and efficiently as possible because 1) It’s in their best interest and 2) I didn’t think they’d be stupid enough to replay the ’94 season. People haven’t forgiven them for that year. Just ask the 10 people that still attend games in Montreal.

Let’s address the problems:

Problem 1: Money. It’s not because players are complaining that $10 million a year isn’t enough, they just want the right to be able to make $25 million a year. It’s not because the owners don’t want to pay $25 million a year, it’s that they don’t want 8 clubs going bankrupt in the process. What the players don’t understand, which, for the first time ever the owners do, is that they can’t charge people $273 per ticket, $9.75 per beer, and $5 to use the bathroom and still expect people to frequent the ballpark.

Problem 2: Competitive Balance. In baseball there are currently four economically categorized types of teams:
Small Market Teams
Middle Market Teams
Large Market Teams
The Yankees
No team in baseball can compete with the Yankees. They have unlimited funds, a monopoly on championships, and an owner willing to cut off his left testicle to win. He’s even willing to throw in the left testicles of other owners if he has to. If you don’t think there’s a competitive imbalance in baseball, find out which team had won 25 out of 100 possible championships in the 1900s. I can promise you it wasn’t the Montreal Expos, Minnesota Twins, or LaSalle Lancers, all of which are economically challenged.

Problem 3: No Cheerleaders. I know this has nothing to do with the labor issue, but it sure would be a nice addition.

Problem 4: Drug Testing. Players say it is against their rights. Using illegal drugs is a ‘right’!?! If I was an owner I’d just walk around the clubhouse grabbing everyone’s package -- if it feels small, he’s probably on steroids. Even if he isn’t, tell the player it feels small and he’ll own up to any excuse you want him to. (Girls, this also works on husbands.)

Are the players and owners going to agree on anything ever? Probably not. Are they stupid enough to not learn from there past mistakes? Most definitely. Will they lower prices so fans can still attend games? You have a better shot at physically sticking your head into a shot glass. So that brings up the real question: Will there be a players strike? I reckon so.

And when they come back from another labor stoppage, will I continue to go to baseball games and watch it on TV? Of course I will. I love the game too much to turn my back on it like the players and owners. Did I mention I also have ‘Sucker’ written across my forehead?

I don’t love the game of baseball because of the players. And I certainly don’t love baseball because of the owners. I love baseball because of the game played between the foul lines, a game where size doesn’t matter and anyone can be a hero. A game I can watch while reminiscing about baseball’s past with my friends. A game where a hot dog tastes better than any other place on earth.

A game meant for kids on the sandlot.

Posted 1:29 PM by Brian K

From The Brain of the Giant Head

Elvis Is Remembered, Though I Don’t Remember Him

Every generation has many musical and celebrity influences with one entertainer standing 200 feet above the rest. In the 80’s, hair bands might have ruled the day, but Michael Jackson was the King of Bad Hair-dos and the artist that everyone tried to listen to but couldn’t cause their ears were covered by ugly hair. In the early 90’s, flannel shirts and corduroy pants covered every skinny and tubby that walked down the high school hallways thanks to Nirvana. In the late 90’s, also known as my generation, spiked blue hair, eyebrow rings and massive hatred for pop culture was the new pop culture influenced by (my favorite band) Green Day. And today, the kids have, um ... Eminem. What he actually stands for, I'm not quite sure, but I guarantee it's just as important as my breakfast decision: Fruit Loops or Wheeties?

This week, another former pop culture icon was honored for having a 25th anniversary. While the anniversary isn’t a happy one, I'm sure our dark haired, blue-suede shoe wearing hero is wiggling his pelvis from his home six-feet under.

Elvis has entered the building.

See, most of you don’t realize how easy we have it. Back then, parents were up in arms over his shaking crotch on TV. These days you can shake your crotch, stick it in a light socket, and fall down and convulse on MTV and most of us will laugh, shrug, then turn on ESPN's World’s Strongest Man Competition. How times have changed.

I don't remember Elvis cause he died before my giant noggin was born. And I don’t know what the appeal was because his tunes were musically inept, all 342 of his movies had the exact same plot and he never once smashed a guitar (the weenie). His butt was quite sexy, I'll give his followers that, but eventually it turned into two sexy butts, then three sexy butts, then one tub o' lard, the two tubs o' lard, then Rosanne. It was one ugly metamorphosis.

While I didn't travel south to Graceland to celebrate the anniversary of the death of this reckless rock star, I read about it in practically every newspaper known to man, including the National Enquirer which claimed he is still alive and gave birth to a two-headed alien named "Pug." What really confuses me, though is why he would name a child Pug?

Now I'm too lazy to celebrate the anniversary of any celebrity’s death, just as I’m too lazy to change the channel when Days of Our Lives is on the tube (I swear, I’m only watching it out of laziness), but I can sympathize. I once lost a rock star myself. And while Vanilla Ice didn’t actually die, his career sure did, and I mourned for at least 3 years. Every once-in-a-while I even used to shave lines in the sides of my hair in his honor, but I have grown into my laziness and those days are long past.

So, I say to all you Elvis fans, "Let the King be dead." He's been celebrated more than Jennifer Lopez’s breasts, and that is just wrong. He had his time and now that time is over, so let it go. I’m sure the King is up in heaven with a Coors Lite in one hand and a pound of dope in the other, smiling on us all and hoping we get on with our lives and attend to more important things.

The Brain has left the building. And is driving home to catch the last half hour of Days of our Lives...um, I mean Terminator 2.

Note From the LGB: Let us take this moment to remember our dear departed Elvis. Let us also take this time to thank each other for not making the pilgrimage to Graceland with all the other loons to stand out in the rain, overnight, while holding a candlelight vigil. We must fight back our tears of sorrow as we eat our fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. He would have wanted it that way. Elvis left the building 25 years ago...GET OVER IT!!!

Posted 4:52 PM by Brian K

From The Brain of the Giant Head

Don’t Visit The Future Hole of America

Have you ever had one of those places where you dreaded going? Like heading to that corner Payless so your mom can buy a new pair of heals or to the over-crowded bar with expensive booze or to little Johnny’s house because his parents think TV is the devil and refuse to buy one. Everyone has a place that they loathe. I am no different from the masses, and I, too, have a destination that I dread more than going bald.

I hate Indiana.

While I’ve never spent much hanging-out time in the state (for good reason), I’ve driven through it more than 2 million times and can assure you that if you’ve never been there, you’ve never experienced hell. The nicest highways are held together with duct tape and paste. Hugging both sides of the road are dead grass, cell phone towers, and tractors probably built sometime around the Truman presidency. And never, I repeat never, stop anywhere to pee.

The rest stops along the highway are more like outhouses with a pop machine that sells Check Cola and has signs that say, "You Are In Indiana." Thanks for the help, Indiana, as if the puke-colored skies didn’t give it away. Aside from the "Wet Floor" sign that hasn’t moved in three years and the sketchy character that will offer to help pull down your pants, the rest area isn’t much different than other rest areas. (And by ‘not much different’ I mean ‘COMPLETELY different.’)

A few times I have been known to skip the rest area altogether and stop at any one of the finer Indiana gas station establishments, such as ‘Barney’s Gas and Anchovies’ or ‘Honus’s Fill-Um-Up and Move-Um-Out.’ While rumor has it that at least two dozen have died from the toxins of the manure stench roaming in the air, my guess is that the estimate is quite low. The clerk at the counter always has a mullet and wears a filthy Dale Earnhardt T-shirt with paint stains on the sleeve. If you’re lucky, maybe one of the patrons shopping in the gas station speaks a form of English you can understand and can translate to the worker.

Good English: I’d like ten dollars on gas pump number five.
Indiana English: I’s takin these many nickels worth on dat pump done over-dare.

Good English: Do you accept credit cards?
Indiana English: Can’s I pay wid a cow?

And so on.

After thinking about it time and time again, I believe it’s time to begin campaigning what I believe would improve our blessed U.S. of A.

I think we should get rid of Indiana.

Think about it. Do we really NEED 50 states? That always sounded a bit excessive to me. The number ‘49’ has a nice ring to it. What has Indiana done for us, anyway? Sure, the state produced Larry Bird, but do you think he lives there now? And name one other accomplishment Indiana can take credit for? Haystacks? Cut-off jeans? Inbreding? They kicked out Bobby Knight, which, in and of itself, is enough proof to pick Indiana up and throw it in the Atlantic. Or maybe we could use it for economic gain and sell it to the British, because we all know they are dumb -- just listen to Ginger Spice talk.

Am I crazy? I don’t think I am. If the government is willing to waste its precious hours debating the start time of Halloween and whether or not Martin Luther King Day should be a national holiday, then I feel I am fully within the realm of proper topics. And the more people I get to jump on my bandwagon, the more likely I can get Indiana dumped somewhere off the Florida coast.

While I know many people may be concerned with having a giant, gaping hole on the eastern side of the mid-west, I see it as an opportunity to rid us of the most boring state in the country. It would also solve our land-needed-for-garbage-sites problem, as we can throw our trash in the hole and let China deal with it. I’ve now killed two birds with one stone.

There may be some people who fight my quest. There may be others that want more incentives and want me to cut deals to get my legislative notion passed. And I’m not completely unreasonable and I would cut a deal.

I’m willing to throw in Wyoming.