20 Questions: July, 2010
How about a mid-summer edition of 20 Questions? I’ve been promising this column for weeks/months, so let’s get right to it. As a reminder, these are all questions that may or may not have an actual answer, but they’re all things that I’ve thought about recently.
1. Isn’t being the T-shirt cannon guy at a sporting event the worst job you could possibly have? You only have at most 50 shirts to give out. So, if you’re in an arena with 15,000 people in it, approximately 99.7 % of the people in attendance will be mad at you for not shooting them a T-shirt. Aren’t those really sucky percentages? It sounds like a drag.
2. Are we all underrating the greatest ironic last name of all time? Brian Cashman is the GM of the Yankees, the team that spends the most money of any team in sports. He’s the guy that signs players to big contracts. He’s literally the cash man. Yet nobody ever talks about how hilarious this is. Why isn’t this talked about more?
3. What’s the appeal of bubble tea? Everywhere you go in New York City, but mainly in Chinatown, people are selling bubble tea, as the most refreshing drink to have on a hot summer day. Here’s what it is. You get some sort of iced tea that has a certain flavor, and it has milk added. It’s all well and good. Kind of like a drink at Starbucks. No issues. Then, through the middle and at the bottom, are dozens of ‘bubbles’ that are actually little balls of tasteless starch. What in the blue hell are the points of these? They taste like NOTHING, and then instead of having the comfort of a refreshing sip of your tea drink, you have to chew on these little flavorless balls until you’re annoyed with them, swallow, and are then thirsty so you need to take the next sip of your drink. The process continues forever. They taste a bit like Dots, otherwise known as The Worst Candy Ever Invented, if Dots had absolutely no flavor and were every bit as chewy and disgusting and stayed in your teeth even longer. What the hell, bubble tea? And I’m not even as mad at the institution of bubble tea as I am at the douchey people who continue to insist that it’s the greatest drink ever. You are playing into the torturous game that these evil makers of this tea want you to play. You can never get the bubble taste out of your mouth, so what do you do? You buy more tea. And it goes on and on and on. And it’s all your fault, hippies who think this is the next wave of great drinks.
4. Why do people continue to take pictures of the field at baseball games when they’re sitting in the upper deck? Do I really need to see pictures that, if I look really closely, will show me Derek Jeter playing shortstop? Can’t I just watch TV for that? Whoa, that’s what I watched on TV, but only now it’s 1,000 times harder to see! Awesome!
5. If only kids from the age of 8 and below read Highlights magazine, can’t they just repeat their magazine every 8 years and get away with it? Do they do this already, but I’m unaware of it because I’m not 8? Am I unlocking a conspiracy here? You can’t tell me that Goofus and Gallant have had unique adventures for 50-plus years. There’s got to be a rerun in there somewhere.
6. How did the term “Don’t touch a black man’s radio!” come into play? I’m a white man. Don’t touch my radio either! That’s my radio! It’s universally uncool to touch the driver’s radio. How did this become a race thing? I can’t imagine anyone being completely fine with the passenger just changing whatever’s on the radio. Not cool at all.
7. This might be my most important question: How did the makers of Coca-Cola come up with the flavor of cola? Hear me out: virtually every flavored thing in the world comes from a natural source. Orange Soda tries to duplicate the taste of an orange; even though it may taste nothing like an actual orange, it has a foundation in which the flavor is based around. The same for Sprite, a lemon-lime drink, and basically every other artificially flavored food there is. Cocoa puffs are supposed to taste like chocolate. Trix are supposed to taste like a few different fruits. Jell-O comes in different flavors that represent fruits. I could go on for days. But Coca-Cola decided to play god and come up with a totally unique flavor based on absolutely nothing that the world would decide to embrace. After extensive research (note: there was no research, I just daydreamed a lot), I came to the conclusion that the only things in the world that were specifically invented to fit the taste buds were cola and bubblegum. I considered including Dr. Pepper, but they say that it’s a blend of 23 flavors that make up the taste, so clearly it’s based on something as well. But what was the invention process? Did scientists come together and figure out the exact right combination of substances that would make for a refreshing drink? This is fascinating to me.
8. I was watching a commercial for an auto-repair store, possibly Pep Boys, when the person in the commercial’s car battery wouldn’t start, and the guy went “Not now…this is the worst time!” This made me think, is there ever a good time for a car battery to die? Whenever you enter your car, you’re going to a destination. Has anyone’s car battery ever died and the person thought, “Well, at least this is a perfect time for my car battery to die!”?
9. I’m always one to defend baseball from its detractors, because I love the sport and enjoy watching it on a night in and night out basis. But can it really be considered a sport when the players chew gum through the entire game? Can you possibly imagine a player in any of the other 4 major sports chewing gum while playing their game? Wouldn’t they choke on it or swallow it within the first minute of playing?
10. Isn’t a whiteout the sports version of a tramp stamp? It’s cheap, it’s easy, and afterwards you can never have the same level of respect as a franchise. It’ll be with you forever, and just makes you look unworthy. And if I really wanted to distract the visiting team, how about a pink-out, or a rainbow-out? Wouldn’t they spend the first five minutes of the game wondering why the hell the entire building was dressed in pink, or how they managed to coordinate it so that the building looked like a gigantic rainbow?
11. Is the phrase “That woman’s accent is so thick, she sounds just like Rosie Perez” now more famous than Actual Rosie Perez? What has she done in the last decade besides making Pineapple Express 17% worse?
12. How old are the jockeys that run in the Kentucky Derby? I couldn’t give you an approximation within 20 years. If you told me that Calvin Borel was 30, I’d believe you. If you told me he was 20, I’d believe you. If you told me he was 60, I’d believe you. Absolutely no clue.
13. Do people still use washboards? The term “washboard abs” is still in the lexicon, but does anyone in America not have a washing machine? When’s the last time that someone actually used a washboard? I know what a washboard looks like, but only because I’ve seen Fiddler on the Roof multiple times. What percentage of the GTL-ing part of the country has ever actually seen a washboard? How do they know what to make their abs look like?
14. Going right along with the washboard abs idea (as in, going as far away from it as possible), how much would it cost to get Lou Bega to come hang out with me? We’re not talking more than 20 to 100 bucks, right? Maybe more on the weekends?
15. How come we can’t have more of a sense of humor at sporting events? When Matt Kemp comes to the plate in a visiting stadium, how come they can’t play a Rihanna song? Everyone would get a kick out of it, and would he really get that offended? It’s so bad to play a song by the girl he’s dating? We need to find more ways to make it fun to be at the ballpark, and that wouldn’t hurt. Speaking of that relationship…
16. Doesn’t Matt Kemp have the smallest shoes in the world to fill when dating Rihanna? Nowhere to go but up.
17. We hear about no-nonsense managers and coaches all the time. Do nonsense managers exist? Are there managers that just let everyone have a grand old time, and don’t bother with any punishments? If guys come to a game late, are they just okay with it, because they’re a nonsense manager? How do their pre-game pep talks go? “Guys, I want you to give it your all out there. And if you don’t, I’m not really gonna care.”
18. How do you riot? Each time a sports team wins their title, I hear about cities rioting afterwards. What’s the process for this? Who starts it? Is there a riot leader? Does he just punch somebody to get it going, almost like lighting the Olympic torch? Do people really get a kick out of throwing trash cans? And would I really be able to set something on fire? I barely know how to work a lighter, so I don’t think torching cars is in my repertoire. I don’t think I’ll be rioting any time soon.
19. Time for a guest question! My friend Brian, of occasional podcast fame, asks this:
What’s the deal with “weather records”? Does anybody out there want to be a part of this?? And why am I supposed to care about being involved in an “historic record breaking day” when it’s either ridiculously cold or ridiculously hot outside?? Is this among the dumbest and least sought after records ever or what? Is this something I’m going to tell my grandkids about?? Are there going to be any grandparents sitting around talking to their grandkids about living through a record breaking weather day?? “Your grandmother and I were a part of history. I remember back in July of 2010 when we were involved in the all time heat record in NYC on a July 8th. We were all a part of something very special that day.”
20. To wrap it up, I’m going to start a new feature called “The One I Found an Answer To”. Whenever I watch Family Guy, in the opening credits a writer by the name of Cherry Chevapravatdumrong is listed. Is this an actual person, or was Seth MacFarlane playing some sort of elaborate joke on the audience? Could someone with this long and crazy of a last name actually exist? I don’t remember anyone ever having a 6-syllable last name, or 1 syllable longer than my entire name. Well, after some quick research on Google, I learned that Ms. Chevapravatdumrong has been a writer on Family Guy since its fourth season, and has written 7 episodes. She was born in Columbus, Ohio, was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan (How’s that for a college football debate?) and went to Yale. She’s written two young adult novels (under the name Cherry Cheva…tough to put that entire name on the cover of a book) and was recently promoted to co-producer on Family Guy. Good to know! Don’t you feel smarter now?
That’ll do it for today’s 20 Questions. As always, thanks for reading, and if anyone has a question that they’re dying to get out there, send us a message here at Storps and I’ll think about adding it as a guest spot for the next edition.
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