Item #25 - Visit the MOMA

Shortly after I first moved to Boston, Walter (who I moved to Boston with) and I went down to New York City for a weekend. I was pretty damn excited. I had never been, so how could I not be excited. Add in the fact that we had tickets to go see Conan O'Brien, and we had a nice couple days for us.

So that Friday, we indeed go see Conan. We spent WAY too many nights in college watching Conan (which was often followed by watching Don West sell baseball cards. That man could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves). We witnessed the birth of Triumph, Vomiting. Kermit and Pimpbot 5000.

He was in his heyday. Before the show, he came out, did 5 or 10 minutes of improv, and killed it. Legitimately funny guy (if you sided with Jay Leno in the Tonight Show debacle of last year, please stop reading this blog and go back to your reruns of 2 and a Half Men. I'm not sure we can be friends). If I remember correctly, Topher Grace was the main guest, and They Might Be Giants the band. Afterwards, we saw Topher Grace walking the halls of 30 Rockefeller. . . . I felt cool.

On Saturday, we hung out with my friend Debbie. I hadn't seen Debbie since the summer, when we kind of sort of maybe somewhat dated. But she was off to med school in NYC, and I was off to Boston, so it took its organic end, and we moved on like adults (I'm so mature!). We did some more New York-y things, and shopped 5th Avenue. For the first time, I stepped foot in an H & M, and my inner metrosexual side found a new friend. It was delightful.

Later on, the New York-y-ness continued. We went down to the Chelsea Piers for an invite-only artsy party on some old timey boats. This time, my inner hipster came out and had a drunkenly good time

Ironically, on this latest trip to NYC, while heading back to our hotel by NYU, Meg and I would be called "yuppies" by some drunk-off-his-ass trust-fund-baby hipster. It all comes full circle

Sunday, while we had an hour to kill before our bus left, I continued the New York-y-ness and headed over to the Empire State Building. Due to time constraints, and frankly, money constraints for a recent grad, I didn't go up. But I saw it, and I was satisfied. I was a hip, cool, big city boy now. Chicks will dig me.

So we caught our bus and went back to Boston that Sunday. . . . .Sunday, September 9th, 2001.

Two days later . . . well, you know.

Debbie was about the only person I knew in NYC, and she was fine, so obviously that was good. But after the dust literally settled, and I could look back at what happened, you know what the fucked up part was? . . . . I kind of wished I was there when it happened. No, not because I would have sprinted down to Ground Zero to help people out, and actually done something good for society. I mean, I would like to think I would be brave enough to do that . . . but I doubt when push came to shove, I would have had the balls.

No, I wished I was on Manhattan just so I could have the story of saying I was there. And like I said, that's kind of fucked up, and I'm sure anyone actually close to the action would want to punch me in the face. And I'm sure one look of the actual scene down there and I would absolutely change my mind (and this is coming from someone who's worked on multiple cadaver parts for his job), but for now, I still selfishly wish I had that horrific story in my arsenal. "Oh, I remember where I was on 9-11. I was fucking THERE man."  But I wasn't.  Instead, I just tell people that the first time I went to NYC was 2 days before 9-11, and try to somehow feel tough or special because of it, even though I have no right to.

My friend Aaron was recently in Japan for work. Yup, during the earthquake and tsunami. He felt the earthquake, but apparently wasn't anywhere that was in tsunami danger.  And once again, once we learned that he was OK, I thought "Man, that's a hell of a story to have." I have a screwed up head.

So anytime I head back to NYC, I think about how close I was to having one of the ultimate New York-y experiences. And while I still briefly think "What a cool story that would have been", I now realize how much luckier we were to actually get the hell out of there when we did. Adulthood will do that to you.

I still stupidly kind of want to be in a mild flood or earthquake though.  The flood seems cool because its like a giant swimming pool (though the swimming pool is filled with your priceless possessions and god knows how many diseases). And the earthquake seems cool because I've seen so many sitcoms in which no one gets hurt and comedy ensues. I mean, Mrs. Belding was even able to have her baby in the Bayside High School elevator. But again, if ever given the actual option of being in either, I think I'll be just fine being natural-disaster-less.

A couple weeks ago was one of those return trips to New York. I headed down meet my friend Meg for the US vs Argentina soccer game, which I would have liked to use for an item, but I couldn't. I've seen the US play before. And after the trip to Barcelona, I had already seen the world's greatest player before. And just saying "Visit the New Meadowlands Stadium" would be weak as hell. So, it was time add a little more culture to the equation, and before the game, we went to the MOMA and met up with our friends Aaron and Melissa. Some picture highlights:

 

This is Starry Night by Van Gogh. You may recognize it from the walls of half the living rooms on college campuses, put up by guys with little creativity in an attempt to show how cultured they are . . . . I really don't like Starry Night. (I'm far from an art geek, but I know enough to not pretend like I am).

 

Here's The Persistence of Memory by Dali (which you may have also seen on college walls). The surprising thing about this famous one was its size, which is basically the size of an 8 x 11 sheet of paper.

 

I don't know what this one was called, but it looked like Napolean Dynamite's liger, so I was amused. However, I also felt bad for the artist. Why? Because this painting wasn't so much in a "gallery" as it was in a "hallway" by the escalators. I assume that's where they put the stuff that's museum-good . . . but that THAT good. 'Oh, that's a brilliant piece Mr. Artist. In fact, its so good, lets not put it by the Picasso's and Pollock's. Let's put it by the escalators so EVERYONE can see it! You're special."

Maybe I need to see the movie Pollock but . . . . yeah, I still have almost no appreciation for the giant canvases of splatter. I'll take my art appreciation in baby steps I suppose.

 

They had a cool architecture section while we were there. This is a drawing from it, and not to bring the level of discourse down too much but . . . that is ABSOLUTELY a penis-shaped building. The architect behind it can argue whatever the hell he wants, but deep down, he has to know he made a penis.

This is Meg posing for an art school brochure. She has a thing for Picasso so . . . 

. . . she fed his goat.

So another successful trip to a museum that I probably otherwise wouldn't have visited, considering I would have likely spent the pre-game afternoon shopping to see what the Gap on 5th Avenue has that the Gap on Newberry St doesn't.

Item #24 - Join the 9-9-9 Club

"Because it's there" -George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest

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Why attempt the 9-9-9 Club? Because it exists . . . and because I like baseball . . . and because I like beer . . . . and because I apparently have a taste for large quantities of pig lips and assholes. 

What exactly is the 9-9-9 Club? Well, it's having 9 beers and 9 hot dogs over the coarse of 9 innings. You can have them at any time of the game, you just have to get all 18 down by the final out. Technically, it would probably be done at an actual ballpark. But I live in Boston, which I believe has the 2nd most expensive ticket in baseball after the Yankees. Add in $5 dogs and $8 beers, and we're talking about a $150 day. No thanks. 

So, Walter graciously decided to host the 9-9-9 home game (though not participate), as we grilled outside and watched the Sox take on the Yankees. Ryan decided to be the Big Papi to my Manny, as we attempted the Club in tandem. Below, the unedited and sometimes misspelled semi-live blog:

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1:15 - First pitch.

 

1:22 – 3 dogs down already for both me and Ryan. We figured it was best to sprint out of the gate with the dogs. We’re starting with turkey dogs, mainly because we don’t want to die from a sodium induced heart attack by the 9th. Their each 70 calories, and with 110 calorie buns, we’re talking about 1620 calories total . . . at least for the dogs. Add in 9 more delicious Keystone Lights, and we’ll be about 2500 calories deep for the game. Really, not as bad as I thought when we agreed to do it 

1:26 – Ivan Nova pitching in the bottom of the 1st for the Yankees. I think that’s a good thing. The Yankees-Sox games are usually a nice and robust 4 hours long. Hopefully some shitty pitching will extend that out even more. However, that also means extra time with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Dealing with those 2 may be worse than the 9 hot dogs.

1:29 – Buck and McCarver have their first round of “who can suck off Jeter more”

1:39 – Ken Rosenthal doing the sideline reporting. He’s wearing a bow tie. It’s awesome.

1:50 – Starting beer #3. Already feeling a little full. Not good.  That’s really what we’re fighting here. 9 beers in 3-4 hours really isn’t that much of a problem. We’ve done the Century Club multiple times before, which is about 8 beers in an hour and 45. And I’ve done Crazy 40 Hands a bunch of times, finishing 80 ounces of beer/malt liquor in around 90 minutes. So the alcohol shouldn’t be the problem (though considering I’m 31 and still occasionally doing the Century Club or Crazy 40 Hands, maybe it is the “problem”).  An inning and a half done.

2:06 – Its perfect weather. We’re at Walter’s house watching the game outside and grilling, just like in college. Perfectly clear day . . . and the moon is out. Not sure if that’s good or bad.

  

2:25 – Start of the 4th inning. 1 beer and 1 dog ahead of 1-per-inning pace. And frankly, the game is a little head of pace too. Just over an hour for 3 innings. That’s a little slow for a typical baseball game, but WAY too fast for a normal Sox-Yankees game. Damn pitchers duels. I want a slugfest!

2:33 – Just discussed the difference between Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi having sex. I think Messi would be a much more caring lover, while Ronaldo would probably last 2 minutes and only think of himself. He’d finish, and then put his hands in the air, tell himself how great he was, and leave the girl unsatisfied.  A – I’m not gay. B – The beers have slowly started to have an effect.

2:47 – Still the top of the 4th. Bucholtz just got yanked. Things are starting to slow down as I hit the halfway point. 5 dogs down, 4 and a half beers down. This is good. And Ryan just dribbled some beer on himself. Another good sign.

3:13 – “he’s dark skinned. I don’t know what flavor” – Matt on some guy named Xerxes

3:13 – “I wonder what the poor people are doing” –Walter\

3:14 – Granderson with a 2 run shot. I miss him. That’s a quality Tiger. Also, I have no idea who’s pitching for the Sox.

3:27 – Bottom 5. 6 beers down. 6 dogs down. Full, but not feeling like death yet. Though I do still want to punch Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.

3:31 – just had a bite or 2 of mac n cheese. Feeling cocky. I think the last 2 innings have taken about an hour and a half. Classic Yankees and Sox. This is going to be easy money from here on out. I think. Kind of wish we had a second TV outside here so we could watch the Masters.

3:45 – “of course I’ve seen his dong” –Me, talking about the Favre pictures

4:00 – Top of the 7th. 7 beers down. 7 dogs down. 3 hours gone. If I’m doing this during an NL pitchers duel, I’m screwed. I could have probably done all 9 of reach in a typical 3 hour AL game . .  .. but I wouldn’t be happy.

4:02 – “I don’t smoke enough. I really don’t” – Walter

4:10 – Just had a 5 minute discussion on Exit Through the Gift Shop about whether the whole thing a big mind fuck my Banksy or not. Way more philosophical discussion than I expected 7 beers deep into this. And I’m typing way too well. I expected a ton of gibberish by now. Either I need to drink more today, or I need to drink less on the whole and decrease my tolerance. Sigh.

4:16 – Wakefield’s in! I used to play MLB 2K all the time in college. I loved playing with knuckle ball pitchers. They’re a bitch to play against in computer games. If I ever have a kid, I think I need to teach him to throw a knuckle ball (if I knew how to throw one). Collect a MLB paycheck for like 25 years. That’s gold, Jerry!

4:23 – Seeeeeeeeeeet Caroliiiiiiiine. Bah! Bah! Bah! . . . . . . .. . . To quote Rachel Phelps from Major League – “I hate this fucking song!”. God damn pink hats. Seriously. I’m not even from Boston and I’m annoyed as shit with the majority of Boston fans. I actually wish the Sox would start sucking again and go back to .500 so I can get some goddamn tickets to the goddamn Tigers game when they’re here. Not that I’m bitter or anything. Bottom 8. 1 dog and half a beer to go. Hooray.

4:42 – “Victory tastes like a Girl Scout cookie?” -Angela
“No, like a girl scout” –Ryan
“That’s not right” –Walter

Aaaaaaand done. Wow. So full. Semi-drunk. But not feeling like death.

 

4:44 – Aaaaaand game over. JUST finished the last dog under the wire. Still counting down the seconds till the potential heart attack. If this were at a normal timed game, again, we’d be screwed. A Nice 3 hour and 35 minute long Sox-Yankees game. Long enough that I could have 9 beers and not type like a moron (I think?).

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Well, that was fun. . . . kind of. A nice drunken time, but filling as all hell. And today, the day after, my stomach and intestines, ummmm, regretted my decisions of yesterday. It was another beautiful 60 degree in Boston, and yet I didn't get out of the house until 4:00 when I had to make a run to Walgreens. Old. Tired. Lazy. Lethargic. Oh well. I'm in the Club*

*Yeah, the home game might be a little bit of a loophole, but cheating is ingrained in baseball. Corked bats, spitballs, steroids, and in the case of the crafty Eddie Harris, Vagosil, which will get you another 2-3 inches on your curveball. So let's just say this was done in the spirit of the game.

Item #23 - Do Hot Yoga

Last year I ran in the Reach the Beach relay for the first time. It's a 200+ mile team race that starts in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and finishes at Hampton Beach. Over the course of about 24 hours, your team winds its way through the hilly rural roads of New Hampshire down to the ocean. 12 people typically make up a team, with each person taking 3 different legs of the journey. At all times, someone on your team is running - weather, time of day and potential-for-Deliverance-like-backwoods-encounters be damned.

 Ready to run 5 hilly miles through the darkness while watching my behind

On our team of 12, I only knew 3 of my teammates beforehand. And of course, those 3 teammates ended up in team cargo van #1, while I ended up in van #2. Typically the vans only connect every 6 hours or so for about 15 minutes at a time, so I spent the majority of the next 27 hours that it would take our team to finish with 5 total strangers.

I spent about 2 of those 27 hours running, with 30 minutes or so of that running hills that don't exist in the Boston area. And all of the time spent running was spent without headphones, as they're not allowed on the course for safety reasons. This was the first time since high school soccer tryouts that I'd run without them, as I was stuck listening to the thoughts in my head. "How much farther . . . fuck I'm tired . . . . when does this goddamn hill end?!?"

I spent a whole 2 hours of those 27 hours sleeping on the back bench of a cargo van (and 5 minutes figuring out how to climb over the 4 benches in front of me full of sleeping teammates to go piss in the middle of the night). I don't think I ate anything that could actually be classified as a "meal", as all food ended up in "snack" form (bananas, Cliff bars, cheese and crackers, etc). Any bathroom break was spent in the cozy confines of a port-o-potty. And of course, any time spent in the van was spent with 5 other people who would go showerless despite running anywhere from 13-20 miles over the course of 3 legs.

Basically, there is nothing on paper about this relay race that should be fun. Stuck in a cargo van with smelly strangers for 27 hours with almost no sleep and no decent food while running hills in the middle of the night that make your fight back tears. Nothing fun at all.

But it was. It was more than fun. It was fucking awesome.See those people below? Those are 12 happy people that just ran 200+ miles as a team. Those are 12 people that immediately committed to run the same race in 2011 because they had so much fun together. Those 12 people drove an hour back to Boston, showered, and then met back up at the bar to get drunk and close it down at 2am, despite getting almost no sleep for the last day and a half,

So the idea of doing hot yoga with Katie and Sarah from work was kind of like running Reach the Beach. Take something I enjoy doing and tweak the atmosphere so that it's a more arduous experience. Expect to bitch a lot during it. Expect to finish it and then look forward to the next time. If it doesn't kill me, it'll only make me stronger.

The man in the picture below just finished 90 minutes of hot yoga.  This man. . . . is not a happy man.

This man is holding 2 drenched shirts that he used to constantly mop up sweat for 90 minutes (this man stupidity forgot to bring a towel). This man is wearing a t-shirt, shorts and boxer briefs that are as wet as they would be had the man just walked out of a pool. This man had to stop multiple times during the 90 minutes to rest in order to not pass out, despite guzzling down 40 ounces of water in an attempt to survive the absurd heat and humidity (probably 100+ degrees and 50% humidity). When asked by Katie and Sarah if he would do hot yoga again with them, this man said "ummmm . . . . we'll see."

Now 2 days later, and my answer is still probably an "ummmm . . . we'll see." It was brutal. And it's amazing how many different types of "in-shape" people can be. I could probably go out today and play 90 minutes of soccer in 90 degree heat, and I'd be fine. When I'm moving, and when I'm thinking about the competition, I'm not thinking about my stamina. Even during the lonely runs of Reach the Beach, I still was able to fall back on the "gotta keep moving for the team" mantra. Hot yoga was just me against my ability to avoid passing out. Get into a pose and stay there, as you watch sweat drip from your shirt at a rate of about a drop per second. I've already done yoga on my list, but this was a completely different beast, worthy of its own itemization. Yoga was me vs. my pseudo-ADD. Hot yoga was me vs. the need for an EMS.

Anyway, like the half-marathon I ran last year, I'm glad I did it. It pushed me to my limits . . . but I'm not sure I need to reach those limits again. A case of what doesn't kill me only makes me a disgruntled, exhausted sweaty mess.

And that navy blue shirt I'm wearing in the post-hot-yoga picture above? If you zoom into that little yellow logo, you'll ironically see the following:

• Thanks to Katie and Sarah for taking me along. Though it may be the same type of begrudging thanks I gave Danielle for Item #10