I'M OPEN!
I have shows coming up and I will tell you all about them. BUT, before we get there, I want to talk about how you tell a story, or in this case, how you don’t, or just knowing that you are in the process of telling a story.
I do not follow sports. I’ve never been able to feel whatever excitement or tension other people get out of it. Lack that gene, I suppose. I have tried, especially with baseball, but I just simply cannot be made to care. All of this to say that I was not invested, at all, in whether Lebron James stayed in Cleveland or didn’t or dropped everything to join the cast of The Real L Word.
But what did peak my interest was the amazingly failed theater of the whole thing and how James, and apparently everyone associated with him, so completely missed the narrative they were creating. This was when they strayed into territory that I found interesting, and when they crashed like a truck full of drunk rednecks through a tavern window, I got the same feeling you get when watching people get whacked in the balls on YouTube. Because sports narratives are hard to fuck up. Sports writers and historians are ridiculously purple in their prose and they hack out tired cliches and treat each one like it was the Passion of The Christ meets Schindlers List, with a full Celine Dion soundtrack for the melodrama trifecta. The fact that James couldn’t follow that indicates nothing good about his basic reading and comprehension skills.
The opposing through lines were easy: Staying in Cleveland = Hometown hero puts loyalty first. OR. Leave Cleveland for a better team = Hometown hero turns his back to pursue bigger fortunes. In neither one of those scenarios do you have to become the villain. Until you hold a multi-million dollar prime time special to announce you are ditching the hometown to head off to the sun and strip clubs and Championship prospects of South Beach. I’m not saying he should have stayed. I’m saying, if you are going to play the hometown hero you do an hour long special, and you shoot it in Cleveland. If you are moving on, you issue a press release and give a sit-down interview two weeks later, most of which you spend talking about how much Cleveland rocks and how sorry you are to go.
Like I said, sports narratives are almost mindless in their simplicity and, still, really popular. Anyone, certainly any manager or agent, should be able to pull it off. But, James’s crew couldn’t. Which is just so odd. And that is the part that has had me paying any attention at all. So, I guess the thing was successful, in that they got someone who doesn’t care about pro sports of any kind thinking about their client. The problem is that, what I now think, is that he might be illiterate.
Ok, so fuck the rich sports stars, because tonight is about rock n’ roll, being drunk, and people who can tell a story right. And probably naked people. And for myself, I am getting a slice of pizza, too. So, blow me, Cleveland, ITS BTK NIGHT!
Yes folks, Horsetrade once again brings our inappropriate antics to Under St. Mark’s theater. If you have been there, then I assume you are already in the relevant support group, if you haven’t I cannot adequately prepare you for this. Peter is borrowing my cape. The line up of guest singers tonight, besides me, is Adam Wade, Sara G, and Sharon Mama Spell. Joe Yoga is opening up and we will have Go-Go by Dangrrr Doll and Veronica Vroom. That is at nine and remember you can catch Adam Wade at 7.
This is Veronica Vroom, she will be at the show tonight. This picture of Veronica, along with several other amazing shots from Cherry Pop Burlesque are being featured over on our sister site And I Am Not Lying.com. Click to go there.
Man, these posts are getting long. All right, future postings will concern shorter ranting and the upcoming Hotsy Totsy show on the 20th, Service Not Included on the 22nd, and The Standard Issues on the 27th. Assuming I survive tonight. And we will have a long talk about my upcoming appearance on the Moth Podcast.
