Monday, July 12, 2004
Bruce Springsteen and Kevin Arnold's Dad
I should take anything written on ESPN.com's Page 3 with a grain of salt (did they even need a Page 2?), and I don't want to overstate this, but...you have to be fucking kidding me. They have a list of the "15 'coolest' celebrities" and my first clue to just walk away should have been the fact that coolest is in quotes. I'm not sure exactly why, but I think it has something to do with this sentence:
Which begs two important questions:
1) Should one accept judgements of cool from someone who is "grooving"—I'm sorry..."groovin'"—to a band?
2) What band brought together Dan Lauria and this guy? My guess is it wasn't the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And I will place money on that. If I had to go with a genre, I think it would be a band that plays jazz featured on CDs you buy at Starbucks.
And did he approach the guy? Did they talk?
ESPN writer: Hey, how you doin'?
Dan Lauria: My wife's takin' pottery classes at the community college, my oldest son's an idiot, my daughter is livin' with some hippie in a VW bus (I think she's pregnant), and Kevin, he's asking me about sex. I just want to have a nice cold beer and watch Namath and the Jets. I hate the 60's.
ESPN writer: Uh... you know they cancelled The Wonder Years a while ago?
Dan Lauria: Go fuck yourself.
Anyway, Springsteen is 12th on this list. Twelfth. Who's number 11? Alex Rodriguez. Yeah, great baseball player, maybe the best shortstop ever, but he doesn't exactly ooze charisma like gravy from Star Jones' purse. (That's right, I made a cheap "Star Jones is fat" joke. All in my plan to bring her discount-shoe-selling, daytime-talk-show-having empire crumbling to the ground.) And 10th is Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. Because, according to the last line, "This gal is chill."
How can you put Springsteen 11th on a list where goddamn Derek Jeter is first? Maybe on the "clutch shortstop" list, but even that would come down to a tie-breaker, because I hear Bruce absolutely carries the Freehold beer league softball team he's on. He steps into the batter's box, tells the catcher "Don't you feel like you're a rider on a downbound train?" and lines a shot over the centerfielder's head. He then writes a song about it, gives it to Patti for her album, and passes out king-sized Rollos for Halloween, never giving any of this a second thought. The man is everything we want to become, a—and I can say this without shame—handsome man in his fifties, well-respected across multiple generations, well-spoken, talented, and surrounded in a luxurious home by a loving family. He runs around for 3 hours, singing his heart out, hanging upside down from a mic stand, grasping the audience in the palm of his hand. Me, I can't get the groceries into my apartment with using the elevator. Twice. He could turn us all into Manchurian candidates by the end of his set. "Thanks, hope you enjoyed that 20 minute version of 'Jungleland,' now go burn Dick Cheney's house to the ground." Yes Bruce. Whatever you say Bruce. "And buy a shirt on the way out. My son's talking about going to an Ivy League school."
It's getting to be ri-goddamn-diculous that Bruce comes in 11th on a cool list, behind Brad Pitt, Charlize Theron (I don't care how many songs were written about her on the last Third Eye Blind album. It's Third Eye Blind. I wrote 20 songs about my high school girlfriend, and she's not on the list), and Tobey Maguire. I really don't care if you write for the 3rd or 26th Page on ESPN.com, there has to be some rule about being a dope. And saying "groovin'" when talking about watching a band.
Just recently, I was groovin' to a band in New York 10 feet from the guy who played the dad in "The Wonder Years."
Which begs two important questions:
1) Should one accept judgements of cool from someone who is "grooving"—I'm sorry..."groovin'"—to a band?
2) What band brought together Dan Lauria and this guy? My guess is it wasn't the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And I will place money on that. If I had to go with a genre, I think it would be a band that plays jazz featured on CDs you buy at Starbucks.
And did he approach the guy? Did they talk?
ESPN writer: Hey, how you doin'?
Dan Lauria: My wife's takin' pottery classes at the community college, my oldest son's an idiot, my daughter is livin' with some hippie in a VW bus (I think she's pregnant), and Kevin, he's asking me about sex. I just want to have a nice cold beer and watch Namath and the Jets. I hate the 60's.
ESPN writer: Uh... you know they cancelled The Wonder Years a while ago?
Dan Lauria: Go fuck yourself.
Anyway, Springsteen is 12th on this list. Twelfth. Who's number 11? Alex Rodriguez. Yeah, great baseball player, maybe the best shortstop ever, but he doesn't exactly ooze charisma like gravy from Star Jones' purse. (That's right, I made a cheap "Star Jones is fat" joke. All in my plan to bring her discount-shoe-selling, daytime-talk-show-having empire crumbling to the ground.) And 10th is Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. Because, according to the last line, "This gal is chill."
How can you put Springsteen 11th on a list where goddamn Derek Jeter is first? Maybe on the "clutch shortstop" list, but even that would come down to a tie-breaker, because I hear Bruce absolutely carries the Freehold beer league softball team he's on. He steps into the batter's box, tells the catcher "Don't you feel like you're a rider on a downbound train?" and lines a shot over the centerfielder's head. He then writes a song about it, gives it to Patti for her album, and passes out king-sized Rollos for Halloween, never giving any of this a second thought. The man is everything we want to become, a—and I can say this without shame—handsome man in his fifties, well-respected across multiple generations, well-spoken, talented, and surrounded in a luxurious home by a loving family. He runs around for 3 hours, singing his heart out, hanging upside down from a mic stand, grasping the audience in the palm of his hand. Me, I can't get the groceries into my apartment with using the elevator. Twice. He could turn us all into Manchurian candidates by the end of his set. "Thanks, hope you enjoyed that 20 minute version of 'Jungleland,' now go burn Dick Cheney's house to the ground." Yes Bruce. Whatever you say Bruce. "And buy a shirt on the way out. My son's talking about going to an Ivy League school."
It's getting to be ri-goddamn-diculous that Bruce comes in 11th on a cool list, behind Brad Pitt, Charlize Theron (I don't care how many songs were written about her on the last Third Eye Blind album. It's Third Eye Blind. I wrote 20 songs about my high school girlfriend, and she's not on the list), and Tobey Maguire. I really don't care if you write for the 3rd or 26th Page on ESPN.com, there has to be some rule about being a dope. And saying "groovin'" when talking about watching a band.
