My Hero
I sure can pick em’. After waxing on about how the Red Sox would be the saviors of the bar business, I sat and watched them lose. This sets up the dream match-up of Philadelphia vs. Tampa Bay. I’m sure there’ll be a Frontline documentary on the range of motion of John Mc Cain’s arms that night getting higher ratings. At least for the last game of the season the Red Sox faithful brought a good crowd.
I wouldn’t call our Pub a sports bar. Although it’s a great place to watch games, we only have five TVs. Compare that to a place like Barney’s where the ratio of TVs to customers is around fourteen to one. At the end of last football season, a storm sheered off our DIRECTV satellite sending us to cable. With the advent of the new season, we went back to DIRECTV getting a couple of HD receivers. The problem with the HD signal is that it takes a couple of seconds longer to process the signal. So if all the TVs in the main room are on the same channel, the standard definition TV viewers see everything first. Personally, I can’t watch a game that way. I don’t want peoples’ cheers or boos causing me to whiplash my neck. I changed the big screen from high def to standard def, so we could all be on the same page. This upset Mary Kate quite a bit. She requested that I change the channel on the standard def TV, to which I replied, “Yes, there are other people in the bar watching the game.”
That’s the tough part about TVs in bars. The rule pretty much is: whoever gets there first, gets dibs. Personally, unless there’s a presidential debate or election returns, I only want sports on. I walked in on Friday and saw a couple of customers watching the Ellen Show. Don’t get me wrong. I love the Ellen Show. For full disclosure, my dear friend Mary is the executive producer on it and I’ve had many a steak dinner, steaks the size of toilet seats, at her house, because of the blood, sweat, and tears, she contributes to that show. With that said, I don’t want it on in my bar. Once in a while on a slow night, I’ll catch the kitchen staff or a bar back flipping channels. My favorite employee, Chino put on some animated program the other night. When shit like this happens, I try and explain calmly in broken Spanish which always devolves into harsh English. It goes something like this: “Chino, por favor, change the fucking channel! I don’t give a shit if Flocello wants to watch Thunder Cats! Put on Sports Center!” (Chino just laughs at my tirades. He really gets me.) Telenovelas, Discovery channel, you name it, I’ve asked them to change it.
I wish I can tell you something exciting happened on Sunday, but I’d be lying. It was just a good night all around. But the best part of the night happened when I got home. How many of you have masturbated with a velvet glove? Just kidding. I’ve been watching Meet The Press pretty religiously for the past year. It is such a shame that Tim Russert died. He was the best. In any case, Colin Powell was on. I haven’t heard much from him since he fell on his sword a few years ago, but here’s a guy who worked in the Bush administration, not only endorsing Obama, but calling out his own party. He mentioned that he’s heard senior party officials say that Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist, which shocked him. But the best thing he said was, when constituents mention that Obama is a Muslim, a good answer is, “No, he’s not a Muslim. He’s a Christian.” He goes on to say, “But the best answer is, ‘but so what if he is.’” In an age of a partisan politics and negative campaigning, here’s a guy who tells it like it is. Colin Powell is my hero.
