Author Archives: Ty

Me Myself and Ty, Sports

My thoughts on the Super Browl

One of my friends who doesn’t follow pro football very closely asked me who I (and, by association, she) want to win the game, since we’ll both be at the same Super Bowl party Sunday for kickoff.

I couldn’t respond in a text, so I promised an email. Then I remembered I have this handy blog that I’ve been neglecting so I can disseminate my pseudoknowledge to the masses! So here it is.

First off, why is this year’s game bigger than most? In a word, Broaches. OK, so that didn’t work out as well as Joe’s “Super Browl” moniker, but the story angle every sportswriter is taking on this year’s game is the fact that Jim Harbaugh (who coaches the 49ers) and John Harbaugh (who coaches the Ravens) are brothers from the same mother. What makes it even more interesting (to me, at least) is that Jim has taken a team to the Super Bowl in just his second year of coaching and took the job in San Francisco just four days after winning the Orange Bowl with the previously laughable Stanford Cardinal football team. He was also a hell of a quarterback with the Colts in the mid-1990s and but it’s a common perception that while Jim was the better player, John is the better coach.

Also, both the 49ers (5-0) and the Ravens (1-0) are undefeated in Super Bowl games.

Now, as far as who “we” should want to win:

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Me Myself and Ty

Ripping into one

The Guinness beers we ordered weren’t going down as quickly as usual.

Our conversation was hardly engrossing either, with both of us looking around at the seemingly lifeless pub while our beers stared at us as if they knew something. As if they were waiting for my phone to ring.

Richard and I had pounded beers at The Flying Shamrock dozens of Friday nights before, but the atmosphere was sterile that night, even though there was a live band and a crowd of people around us.

It was only about 10:30 p.m. when my phone rang and before I even checked, I knew who it was and why she was calling.

It was my mother.

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Journalism, Me Myself and Ty, Politics

The gigantic microcosm

(Editor’s note: Rape is a serious issue. I am ignoring the political issues of this news item to make a more theoretical argument, which, I hope, will show that the weight of ending sexual assault in this world rests solely on the shoulders of mortals, 90 percent of whom are men.)

Gigantic because it has made national news.

A microcosm because it brings to the forefront some of the most widely accepted and hotly debated theories of our existence in the finite vehicle of our national dialogue while those theories are embarrassingly exploited by our flippant 24-hour cable news channels as pundits talk for hours about how it will impact the one election that matters because the hell with Congress, everyone knows there’s nothing more important than Romney/Obama.

I’m referring, of course, to Richard Mourdock’s comments concerning rape, although if I had written this a week ago, you could rightly assume I was referring to any of 30 dozen other mini flare-ups of political discord leading up to Nov. 6 like so many acne breakouts before the big dance.

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It's in the vault, Journalism, Me Myself and Ty, Music

Ten Eleven Twelve

Today is a day I’ve been looking forward to for about 11 years.

I remember being in the 8th grade and writing an interesting date. Maybe it was Feb. 2, 2002, maybe it was 7th grade and it was March 2, 2001. I don’t feel like looking it up, because the important thing is, whatever date it was led me to think of all the cool dates I had to look forward to as this century was getting started.

9/9/09, 10/10/10, then 11/11/11 and finally 12/12/12.

I realized that would be the end for the repeaters, so I tried to put together an ascending date, one that counted up and immediately realized that one of them, Oct. 11, 2012, would be my 25th birthday.

I had no idea then that by now I would spend that day writing for a living at a newspaper, driving (driving!?) my convertible Mustang across town to meet a friend for a lunch/interview, listening loud to an artist with a dollar sign in her name and cursing like crazy, wearing a tie (how do you even tie one!?) with a pirate ship on it and an Oriole tie pin, because goddammit, it might be October but the Orioles are playing on your birthday and as soon as you get done watching the vice presidential debate (boring!) you’re going to go to a bar (drinking is a sin!) with your friends and watch the game.

I’m in love all right. With my crazy beautiful life.

That’s who I am. And I plan to do my best Ty Johnson impersonation today.

So take a second to enjoy my birthday. Write the date down just so you can say you did. By my 8th-grade figuring, today, Nov. 12 of next year and Dec. 13, 2014 are the only ones like this for a while.

And none of those are even my birthday.

Cheers!

 

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It's in the vault, Me Myself and Ty

Buck the condomnation

In one of Seinfeld’s cold openings, when Jerry is doing standup, he talks about how purchasing condoms should be done through giving a knowing look with the pharmacist, who then places the goods into an opaque bag and rings you up.

It’s a clever solution to one of the most commonplace of problems.

At times, even buying tampons at a store has seemed easier because the narrative isn’t as interesting.
The cashier or other shoppers see you with the feminine products and make one of only a handful of essentially domestic conclusions: picking them up for your significant other because you’re whipped or picking them up for your significant other/sister/mother because you’re a good person.

Regardless, the unspoken question is “Why are you here buying these?” With condoms, it’s “What are you going to do with these?”

One of my friends at work was telling about how she was behind a man who was buying a pack of condoms and the cashier couldn’t get them out of the plastic box they were in. He made the most of it, though, making a few jokes about it before a supervisor finally came over to help.

It was then that it occurred to me that the condom purchase is one of those obligatory moments in life where anecdotes are plentiful. Continue reading →

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Me Myself and Ty

Not all treasure is silver and gold

It was a painfully familiar feeling, but not as painful as it used to be.

I’m long past hangover headaches and I pretend it’s because I’ve begun to take better care of myself, hydrating properly, eating well and taking vitamins to ensure I can bounce back each morning. That’s definitely not it, though.

More likely it’s because my brain cells have grown used to the morning exercise when all they want to do is rest from the debauchery of the night before, but I digress.

In this particular instance, the extent of my hangover was a tinge just behind my left temple, but it was further aggravated by the fact that I had slept on the ground the night before and had been stirred awake at 7 a.m. by older men who, somehow and for some reason, always manage to wake up way too early.

I put my uniform on and walked, barefoot again, to where breakfast was being provided. I badly needed a soda, but was still resisting them as part of a personal challenge developed a few weeks before, so I had tea.

Breakfast was free and much more than a muffin and coffee. Sausage, a biscuit and gravy were welcome sights during this blurry trip to the dock, but there was a weird aroma and flavor to the sausage. The texture reminded me of the new ADA-approved playground surfaces.

In the middle of chewing I learned it was deer sausage.

It’s not that I’m against eating deer. Actually I’ve developed quite a hatred for deer recently, but the texture and taste didn’t ease the tension in my head, it just added a bit of nausea to the experience.

I returned to our Civil War-era campsite and laid on one of my fellow campers’ cots.

I dipped my tricorn hat over my eyes and tried to sleep it off as the sprinkling rain pitter-patted on the roof of the tent. Ordinarily it would help me sleep, but this time it just pricked at that sensitive cavity behind my temple.

I was roused eventually for the battle reenactment and a couple other skits, but when I returned to the campsite, I was tired.

I told those I was camping with that I was heading home. The constant throbbing behind my temple, lack of substantial food and Monday’s advance had me convinced I wanted to sleep in a bed that night.

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Me Myself and Ty

If I can make it there…

I won’t pretend that I’m the first person to write about New York’City Subway. I won’t even pretend that what I have to say is particularly enlightening, but I’m weirdly turned on by efficient public transportation systems. It makes me want to write like this:

There’s a roaring monster below New York City. It pitches and careens through caverns.

It wears its innards like a badge of honor. Exposed hoses, wires, pipes, nuts and bolts hang out for all to see.

In a world where every word out of our mouths is expected to be politically correct and each public utility must meet Americans with Disabilities Act specifications, the NYC Subway system thrusts its unmentionables in your face like a drunken exhibitionist.

The paint is chipped. The signs are outdated. The seats carry the same color scheme as they did when the cast of Seinfeld sat on them more than 20 years ago (when he sat across from an exhibitionist on his way to Coney Island).

It’s like an organism that evolved to its peak physical condition in the mid-1990s and decided it would just maintain at that level forever. Like older men who wear the clothes that were en vogue during their glory days for the rest of their lives.

“Yeah,” the Subway says, “I’ve seen the elevators and guardrails and waiver agreements of your generation, but I don’t care. I’m the NYC fucking Subway and I’m the greatest public transportation project that was ever conceived.”

Sure, there have been advances. There are mobile applications that help you time your trains and displays that count down the stops, but these amount, essentially, to handing a cell phone to Big Jake and asking him to call you from time to time to check in.

It’s easy to argue that the raw, antiquated innovation of the NYC Subway is what’s lacking from the world today, so I will. The closest that government comes to most citizens across the country today is when their house is broken into or burned, but in a handful of cities across the United States, the government allows us to descend into earth’s depths and subsidize each other’s travel.

Actually, maybe I just like the NYC subway system because the Ninja Turtles live beneath Manhattan… Continue reading →

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It's in the vault, Me Myself and Ty

A pirate’s life for me

*CLICK*

Members of my crew advancing on the town I was to protect along with a handful of other members of the militia — thrown together, I imagine, like most militia units would have been during the time period.

To about a thousand spectators, it’s so anticlimactic they don’t even notice it.

The gun you’re holding didn’t fire, but you’re not surprised in the slightest. The blunderbuss you just aimed at the handful of pirates across the improvised stage was never designed to fire, which is why you’re not at the end of the firing line, with all the “real guns.”

So you pull your toy back into your chest and begin spectating.

It’s terribly disorganized. Well, at least the line you’re standing in is — in front of you there are a handful of actors who know what they’re doing, wielding swords and whips and talking pirate. It’s a wonderful show.

So wonderful, actually, that you realize you’re smiling from ear to ear.

It’s fine that you’re enjoying yourself, but your side is losing, so wipe that smile off your face!

The show goes on and your militia finally beats back the pirates, although you have to assume it’s only because the invaders don’t know that of the 16 members of the militia, only four have guns that truly fire.

Hell, you don’t even have shoes. A well-placed buccaneer boot onto your toe would probably be enough to convince you to surrender — especially since you wanted to be a pirate anyway, but that’s out of your control.
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