Witz Pickz: Party Night Quotes, Acrophobia, and More

Sometimes you stumble through life confused, baffled, and lost, wondering why you are where you are any given moment of any given day-- and then something reminds you that life is awesome, ironic, and completely random.

Saturday night, My Friend With A Pool and I were riding our bikes home from a late night party on a university campus. As we got to a corner, a drunk guy, dressed entirely in silver and walking with a girl jumped out in the street in front of a pickup truck and put his hand up in a "STOP!" motion. The pickup floored it, and the guy moved out of the way before the truck got to him. My Friend With A Pool and I half-laughed, half-shocked, and watched this unfold:

"Fuck you, dude!" the Silver Man...
"What? Fuck you, n%@er!" Pickup Truck Owner.
"Fuck you, man, what's your problem?" Silver.
"Fuck you, you fucking f@$#ot!" Wildly Intelligent Stanford Party Goer in Truck.
"I'm a f@%$ot?" Silver-- walking towards truck, needing to impress his girl.
"Yeah, motherfucker!" Guy In Truck, proving I feel ok writing "motherfucker" but not other things.
"If I'm a motherfucker, how can I be a f#%ot?" says Silver, losing credibility.
"I'll keeeill you, motherfucker!" says Exemplary Defensive Driver in Pickup.
"Fuck you, dude," Silver, getting back to basics.

And then the kicker, solidifying the genius of the night and ending the argument.

"You're lucky I'm drunk, motherfucker!" The Dirty South announces, and peels forward onto the main street, reminding me why we stopped to gawk and not try crossing in front of him.

Does it honestly get any better than that? An argument in the street, a guy dressed entirely in silver, but still completely incapable of covering up his douchiness, a girl standing by saying nothing, but forcing Silver to act "manly", a drunk bigot in the cab of a pickup doing his best John Cougar Mellancamp impression, another person in the truck so he can't backdown, and me on a bicycle, watching it all, and all I can think is "This is oooooouuuuurrrr cooooounnntry!"

That's a good night.

Here's another thing that's fun. Acrophobia, possibly now known as AcroChallenge, is a game where you can go on and play against other people. There are rounds, they give you letters, and you make up what the letters stand for. Then people vote, you get points or don't, and eventually, there's a winner. Then you go online, type that for people to read, and feel like a big nerd-- ONLY HERE'S THE THING: The people take it reallllly seriously. So if you go on and goof around, and make up amusing acronyms, you'll lose, but you can alienate an entire group of people in under an hour. Fun stuff.

Extended Sports Narratives: Why do sports matter? Why do I care so much about baseball? Because aside from emotional investments and distractions, sports stories are the longest story arcs and narratives on television. A hundred years of history and counting for baseball, sports kick the crap out of Ken Burns and whatever documentary he can throw at us-- and for a real sports fan, you don't need the narratives neatly packed into 9 installments. Sports, and in this case baseball-- have never-ending details, history, emotions, character plots, twists, shocking endings, beginnings, and middles. A no hitter can get thrown in May. A team can comeback from being down 3-1 in a seven game series to win 4-3 as happened last night. Can you imagine a tv show or movie or book where Kenny Lofton, a forty-something who's NEVER won the World Series, being ONE GAME AWAY FROM GETTING THERE AGAIN, and then LOSING?? That's the Cleveland perspective. From the Boston perspective, a team with the slightest of pulses, turned everything around, dramatically came back to beat Cleveland and go to the World Series. From Colorado's perspective, a young team with nothing to lose won 21 of 22 games, has gone undefeated in the playoffs, and is going to the World Series as a fated team for the first time in team history. But it doesn't end there. Each team has 25 or more players with individual stories, personalities, and arcs. For 164+ games. For up to the last hundred years. That's insane. Pain, joy, redemption, defeat, victory, failure, tragedy, cheating, and human brilliance. These things are all in sports. They are all in baseball. The more you learn, the more you watch, the more you read, the more you'll love and appreciate the stories. And it's the best studio audience in the world. That is why sports are important. That is why they can teach us the same lessons as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Betrayal is having your former hero hit the winning RBI for the other team in extra innings at home. Redemption is hitting a grand slam in the playoffs after playing terribly all year long. Crime is using steroids, and Punishment is breaking the single season and all-time home run records and having the majority of people not care because they remember that you cheated. It's all there. Starting Wednesday, another chapter in the Story That Doesn't End ("Neverending Story" is trademarked) will unfold in Boston and Colorado-- in baseball, and in sports. And I can't wait.

Andy Rooney Was Never This Inspiring,
Witz