The Barryfest Chronicles

Dear Alex,

When it comes to performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, nothing surprises me these days.  Long before the Mitchell Report was even commissioned, I had pretty much made peace with the fact that during the thousands of hours I spent watching baseball as a kid, either on the tube while eating sandwiches with my dad or live and in-person after shelling out ungodly amounts of money at Wrigley Field or Fenway Park, I was looking at little more than a rotating cast of circus-freak junkies with drug habits that would make Pete Doherty look like Robert Barnes.

I am far from a baseball purist so I will spare you a lecture on taints, but I will go on record as saying it really fucking sucked when I figured out the specific era I grew up watching will go down as one of the dirtiest stretches in the history of any professional sport.  It was juiced-up pitchers throwing to juiced up hitters in almost every game, so there isn’t a single statistic from the entire “steroid era” that is free from the influence – be it positive or negative – of the excessive amount of doping that was going on at the time.  It was a fantasy land of large foreheads and shrunken testicles where nothing was real.

Sure it hurt, but I eventually got over it.  I still love baseball, but it has been a while since I approached any allegation of wrong-doing in the majors with even a marginal amount of shock or skepticism.  A resigned “Sure.  Why not?” is about all I can muster these days.  Maybe a “Figures.  Asshole.”  if the perpetrator is a dick anyways,  but I am no longer capable of anything that even approaches excitement, melancholy or doubt when the latest rumblings hit the news wire.

That was, of course, until Sports Illustrated outed you as one of the players who pissed hot during the 2003 round of anonymous drug testing designed to investigate just how big a problem Bud Selig had on his hands.  As a die hard Red Sox fan who wishes nothing but occupational ill-will on the entire Yankee squad and a lifelong baseball lover who never though you played the game the way it was meant to be played, this year’s annual spring training steroid speculations saga got a rise out of me for the first time since Jose Canseco named names way back in Juiced.

And then came your Peter Gammon’s interview and the press conference, which each added an amazing new wrinkle to the whole situation.  Here you are – the highest paid player, a mortal lock for a spot in the Hall of Fame on your first shot, and the misunderstood hero that was sent to banish the evil Barry Bonds from The Elias Sports Bureau’s record books – not just being accused of using performance-enhancing substances, but openly discussing the allegations.

Fuzzy math, factual inconsistencies and my complete disdain for you as a human being aside, I’ll admit you’ve gotten as close to facing the music as anyone of your stature, and for that I think you deserve some credit.  Your candor, although staged, made me realize that I, too, once found myself immersed in a culture where the loosey-goosey use of any number of performance-enhancing drugs was rampant.  I, too, felt great pressure to perform at a high level.  And to get an edge, I, too, turned to illicit and banned substances.

It was a time in my life I like to refer to as “college.”  During those halcyon days of consequence-free youthful indiscretion, there is no way I can claim to have always been 100% sure of what I was putting into my body.  If I were to have failed a drug test at any point during my four year stint, I probably would not have been able to immediately figure out which of my many indulgences triggered a red flag, either.  And on the occasions that my degree of inebriation prompted a “What the hell are you on?” from offended bystanders, I wasn’t always up-front in describing the particular combination of intoxicants surging through my system.

Granted, I was just looking for something to help me crank out 25 pages on the sociology of complex organizations or heighten my enjoyment of Stop Making Sense and you were violating the public trust and tarnishing the reputation of our National Pastime, but our exploits have more in common than I would like to admit.  And even though you came off as a complete shitbird over the past week (a well-coached shitbird, but a shitbird nonetheless),  at the end of the day I am buying what you are selling.  Unfortunately, all you are selling is a glib cop-out story that still doesn’t really add up.

Given Major Leauge Baseball’s epic fail on all things steroid-related, I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on this whole ordeal and let you get on with your career, I just ask you please stop saying you are stupid or naive or sorry.  While you and I may or may not have explicitly violated any rules with our substance-abuse, we were both cheating and we both knew it.  And had you not been caught, I am sure you would be showing just as much remorse for your past behavior as I do for mine, which is to say none at all.

Dear Toby,

Whenever a new season of Top Chef hits the airwaves, it moves right to the top of the list of my favorite TV shows.  Everything else on my DVR queue moves down the priority list, even though it happens to be one of the few shows I have ever made a conscious effort to watch during live on a regular basis since acquiring time-shifting capabilities.  The program is nothing short of a masterpiece.

My fascination with cooking shows began back when I about six or seven and spent many Saturday afternoons watching The Frugal Gourmet with my grandpa, and then it was only a matter of time before I was sucked in by the scourge of reality-competition that saturated the airwaves around the turn of the century.  So when Top Chef was plucked from the ether – a reality show that exploited both my love of epicurean television and the guilty pleasure I take in watching people endure real-time criticism before being given their walking papers – it took approximately one quarter of one episode for me to get hooked.

Now, my taste in television is suspect at best, so just getting me to tune in doesn’t exactly speak volumes for any particular show, but anyone who has watched even a single minute of Top Chef can tell it easily rises above the fray of mediocre reality-competition smut that saturates the airwaves, and I think that the substantive and insightful commentary from the judges is a big reason why.  In a stroke of genius, the producers of the show bucked the trend of including a prickly British douche bag on the panel and instead opted for well-spoken industry experts completely devoid of any axes to grind.  That is, of course, until you took over for Gail Simmons.

You have been nothing short of a complete shitbird in your short tenure on the show.  To be honest, I didn’t really expect much from a guy who made his name bragging about how many people he pissed off while failing as both a magazine editor and a screenwriter, but you still managed to catch me off guard.

Something was different this week, though.  For the first time since arriving on the panel – and very possibly for the first time in your life – you weren’t a total dickhead.  For some as yet unexplained reason, you decided to dial it back and actually act civil towards the talented chefs cooking their balls off in a break neck competition.  Hell, you even indulged the batshit “taste the love” nonsense Carla throws around every time judges table rolls around.

This is a far cry from the trite one-liners you have been delivering for the past few weeks; generic one-liners that, to be perfectly honest, only served to make you sound like a total nerd.  I am not saying everyone should pull a Ben Lyons and lavish hyperbolic praise on all the I Am Legends of the world, but reciting condescending canned soundbites doesn’t offer any real insight into either your alleged intelligence or what, exactly, you found unacceptable about any particular offending dish.

Until recently, the only thing you added to Top Chef was a weird tension every time Tom and Padma were put in the precarious position of getting the conversation back on track after you talked out of your ass.  Now you seem to contributing something relevant to the discourse, which is probably a lot harder work than piling on with a biting metaphor that is neither creative nor funny, but I have to think it is also at least marginally more satisfying, right?

If there is one thing I have learned during my four plus years of maintaining a blog on an on-again, off-again basis, it is that topical, nondescript potshots are the currency of a bankrupt critic.  That was pretty much all you could find in the first edition of The Barryfest Chronicles, a site a I started around my junior year in college that did little more than answer the age-old question of “What would a drug-addled college student with nothing to really complain about complain about if given a forum to do so?”, so I know who satisfying they are to deliver but also how stupid they ultimately make you sound.

Anyone can hop on the pot and take a dump, but it takes skill and expertise to offer criticism while not simultaneously coming off as a piece of shit.

Top Chef is my favorite show on television and I just ask that you take what happened this week and build on it.  If I wanted to hear a snooty douchbag make himself look stupid by being a complete asshole to masters of the culinary arts, I wouldn’t turn off Iron Chef America everytime Jeffrey Steingarten grabs the mic.

Dear Kanye,

I spent Saturday night at my first holiday party of the season, so I unfortunately was not able to watch the original airing of the most recent Saturday Night Live, in which you were featured as the evening’s musical guest.  No worry, though, as I have been DVRing that shit since I first equipped my audio/visual set up with DVR technology almost two and a half years ago in my apartment back in Minneapolis.

I’ve always been a huge SNL apologist, keeping faith in the show even through the doldrums of the turn of the century with all it’s Jimmy Fallon-tainted misery.  Even then, when the majority of each broadcast featured Horatio Sanz in a variety of ill-fitting get-ups trying in vain not to break character and laugh while delivering terribly written lines, I found it amusing enough to keep watching whenever the mood struck and my schedule cooperated. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Sarah,

It wasn’t too long ago I declared war on you and the types of people that subscribe to your irritating brand of anti-intellectual populism.  See, after your reprehensible campaign antics spiked the enthusiasm already cursing through my veins with a toxic dose of vitriol, I went from simply supporting Barack Obama and his message of change to promising not to let any misinformed comment made by your uneducated, bigoted, racist followers go unchecked, regardless of the context or situation.  I was angry, and I was letting everyone know it.

But not only was I locking political horns with every Republican I could find, I also started flying off the handle in unrelated situations.  I was yelling at my neighbors when they asked me to turn down the Chromeo, and shattering empty High Life bottles on the sidewalk outside of Pat Fannie’s because they don’t allow indoor heaters.  You got me riled up, Sarah.  And my aggression was unfortunately extending beyond mere political discourse.

This type of militant liberalism and general douchebaggery was exhausting, for sure.  But ever since that Tuesday night when staffers banned you from the podium as John McCain was graciously conceding defeat in the presidential election, my blood has calmed. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Dan,

As I was headed to work the other day, I saw something that I might be of interest to you and yours.  That’s right.  The lot that I offered to you as a prime location for the newest Trader Joe’s location has apparently just been listed to the public.

Check out those stats:  over 39,000 square feet of building space and over 113,000 square feet of total property.  I wasn’t jerking you around when I told you this place had an ample parking lot!

I really think you should give the Talbot Realty Group a ring.  If you would like, I would be more than happy to put a call in to break the ice.  You know, tell them what a great operation you are running.

Just think about it, man.  I would hate to see this great opportunity pass you by.  I may not know much about real estate investment, but I definitely have a pretty good handle on how much I love Charles Shaw wine.  And I think this would be a great chance for me to be able to more conveniently buy that shit by the case.  That’s got to be worth something to an upstanding businessman such as yourself.

Dear Elizabeth,

I know there are a lot of reasons people choose their particular political affiliation.  Each party and candidate has to take a stance on a variety of issues, and I realize that different issues resonate differently with different people.  Some people vote based on their economic situation, others look to their views about foreign war, and some actually rely solely on their religious views.

Sure, it would make far more sense for voters to weigh the relative importance of all a candidate’s positions in regard to the current challenges facing our nation and make an informed decision based on all factors, but I get what an unrealistic prospect this is.  And I’m really okay with that, as long as people are truthful about their intentions.

If you are most concerned with protecting your wealth, just admit that you don’t want to cast a vote that will take money out of your pocket.  If you are a highly religious, just admit that you would never support a candidate who supports a woman’s right to choose. If you are a bigot, just admit that you favor discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Craig,

College was a wonderful time in my life.  I met some incredible people, had some great adventures and even managed to learn a thing or two about a thing or two.  It is also where I discovered your wonderful classified service know as craigslist.

It quickly became my first stop when I needed to acquire or get rid of literally anything in my life.  When I needed a cheap fridge to gut and turn into a kegerator, I checked craigslist.  When I wanted to get rid of my futon from freshmen year that was still in pretty good shape, I put it on craigslist.  And when I decided 12 hours before the doors opened that I would be willing to see Phil Lesh and Friends at the Chicago Theater if I could find a decent deal on some tickets, I searched craigslist.

I was constantly in awe of it’s simplicity, elegance and convenience.  But more than just providing a fee-free way to directly connect sellers and buyers, your creation breathed life into such commonly heard yet seldom understood and even more rarely practiced tropes as “trust your neighbor,” “think locally,” and “conserve.”  The revolution would not by televised, man.  It would instead be politely emailed between two strangers negotiating the price of an entertainment center and arranging for it’s pickup. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Dan,

Across the street from my apartment, there is a decent sized, stand-alone building that formerly served as a Robért Fresh Market but is now completely boarded up and dying for occupation.  Other than the two days the ample parking lot served as base camp for the cast and crew filming Carmen Electra’s new movie, it just sits there, an apparent casualty of the disorganized jack-o-lantern spattering of property revitalization that has been trudging along since the storm of 2005.

Don’t get me wrong, there is amazing work going on all over the city; in every single neighborhood and on every single block.  But there are some shocking plots of land that, for one reason or another, have just been left behind.  This is one of them.

I think it would be a perfect place to open a Trader Joe’s.

I mean, you’ve got stores in Minnesota and those fucking rubes make you jump through hoops just to grab a sixer of microbrew with your groceries.  If you were to open in the greater New Orleans area, there would be no need for that loophole exploiting pay-for-your-groceries-at-one-register-then-walk-through-the-antechamber-to-the-booze-shop bullshit I had to go through at the St. Louis Park location up north. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Scott Van Pelt,

I only became a regular listener to sports radio since I have come down here to New Orleans, as my morning commute changed from the six block walk I had in Minneapolis (a trip just long enough to expose you to the extremes of Minnesota weather but too short to help you fully shake off a hangover from the night before) to my current 15-20 minute drive to the office.

The only other time in my life that I regularly listened to any radio at all was back in high school, which was the last time I regularly drove before the invention of iPods.  And for a variety of reasons, I did not listen to sports radio back then.  In a major sports city like Chicago, the radio waves are full of local sports talk shows hosted by fat, obnoxious, bigoted homers hailing from the South Side.  You even find these fucking mopes for a few hours here and there on the ESPN affiliate, so there is really nowhere on the AM waves to hide from these shitbirds.  And besides, I was perfectly happy rocking out to The Drive, probably the best radio station on the planet (although WWOZ here in New Orleans gives it a serious run for it’s money). Read the rest of this entry »