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tony i want to send you to the World Series
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Dear Tony, Will you be wearing Cubs colors to Dodger Stadium?
Longtime reader Ralphy 999 says: It appears you are taking the Cubs thing serious. That’s OK, but please don’t wear your Cubs hat and shirt out in the parking lot at Chavez. It could get you seriously hurt. Some of the Dodgers fans are meaner than rattlesnakes. Especially those from the barrios. They take it just as serious as you do. As they have shown in the past.
Dear Ralphy,
Almost every day I wear my Cubs hat. When I don’t I wear a Cubs shirt. Tonight I might even wear Cubs condoms.
I appreciate the energy of Dodger fans, but if anyone understands respect it’s my amigos from the barrios.
Cub fans represent. We may not have tattoos, but we sport the colors. For over a century we have lost so that others may win.
If fans want to forget that very recent history, I will gladly remind them. If they want to throw down, well, I wouldn’t recommend them squaring off against a former XBI agent, especially during the playoffs.
But yes, of course I will be wearing my Cubs hat and my Carlos Zambrano jersey. How would anyone be able to positively I.D. me if something unforeseen goes down?
Speaking of, if someone gets a lucky shot in and that’s it, make sure they play this version of this song at my wake.
a trio of Ask Tony questions appeared on my Facebook
chris asks, Whats the protocol for calling BS on friends of friends racist posts?
it’s so interesting that you ask this because im about to finish reading the bible for the 3rd or 4th time (but who’s counting?) and Sunday i read this line in 2 Timothy that totally reminded me of Facebook
23Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
Here St. Paul (the author of the letter to Timothy is Paul) starts off by saying “just totally ignore the haters because you’ll end up in a flame war, and those are for sucker MCs.” but then he says if we are really going to try to be good Christians we have to be super chill with everyone, totally patient, and if you are going to correct someone do it in the smoothest way ever. which in a way is the opposite of a flame, and eventually it’ll work out.
Personally i have never seen a racist stop being a racist because of words on a Facebook wall. my experience of racism is it is the culmination of years and years of ignorance that starts with someone’s parents and friends and is fertilized over time by a fucked up environment. so i dont see where even the coolest exchange of facts, hyperlinks, and well-turned phrases could undo what years of bullshit formed. so i don’t even try very much any more, even though it can seem so tempting to jump in there.
Instead I think there are far better places to place ones energies within Facebook, namely the good people in your life who, for whatever reason, Facebook hides from you because you haven’t engaged with them very much. Chill with them instead.
Peter asks: Is it too soon for Brangelina jokes?
on one hand, it is super sad whenever any couple breaks up, especially those with many kids, because divorce affects some kids very emotionally – not to mention the once-happy couple.
on the other hand, Comedy Is Not Pretty. some of the funniest jokes are dark, tasteless, rude, foul, biting, and OMG WHAT?
but we need comedy, particularly when we see ourselves in others who apparently are having it worse than we are.
the problem with bashing on Brad and Angie is for all apparent appearances they’re really sweet people. Brad built houses in New Orleans for the poor after a couple of those hurricanes. he produces films that tackle tough issues in artistic ways (The Big Short, 12 Years a Slave, The Normal Heart, Selma, etc)
And Angie’s list of charitable endeavors was so long that the Academy gave her a humanitarian award a few years ago where even her acceptance speech was selfless, touching and inspiring, focused on her mom who taught her early on that all of us who live a safe, healthy life are extremely fortunate and downright lucky because we could have just as easily been born in another part of the world devoid of clean water, plentiful food or peace. so those of us whose head is above water should help those who aren’t.
so since there are plenty of more deserving people to make fun of, i will be aiming my barbs at those who are far more selfish and foolish and worthy of my incredible barbs. perhaps you will feel the same way.
Asher asks: If Tony is at Wrigley Field for the Word Series, how does he react to the national anthem?
First of all, aint no way I’m going to be at Wrigley for the World Series. The cheapest tickets are going for close to $9,000 and even though i love the Cubs with all of my heart and wear a Cubs hat almost every day and have dozens of Cubs gear, and have lived this way my whole life, i’ve never had $9,000 laying around for such a thing and i sure as hell don’t now.
But let’s say a miracle ticket comes my way and there i am in the bleachers and someone great like Billy Corgan or Cheap Trick or Bruce Springsteen starts singing The Star Spangled Banner: as much as i am angry and dismayed by so many innocent victims of the police murdering black men, i don’t see how one blogger in a sea of 40,000 Cub fans kneeling or raising my fist would impact anything in the slightest other than making my fellow Cub fans around me feel uncomfortable.
What has made this protest so fascinating and powerful is it is coming from the players, most of whom have the cameras pointed at them. Because of these players the protest has gained momentum and kept the conversation going. Even if 1,000 fans knelt, the odds of the cameras catching it are minimal, especially on Fox, who will be broadcasting it, who care so little about the game or the viewers that they insist on having Joe Buck ruin it for everyone.
So no, for once in my life, I would not be trying to change the world. I would be entirely focused on watching my little Cubby world change.
keira-anne from canada-eh asks what the heck
keira-anne writes: What the heck? You were holding out on me. I had no idea there was a Dodgers Mickey at Dodger Stadium!
there isnt. and there never was. it was all trick photography.
but there once was…
in the year 2010 major league baseball’s all star game was played in anaheim stadium, which is a few miles away from a certain Land.
circling the stadium were Mickey Mouses painted in the colors and logos of all of the teams.
vandals destroyed all but two of them: everyone’s favorites, the Cubs and
the extremely suspicious Dodgers.
the Cubs donated theirs to a Chicago-area children’s hospital
and the Dodgers tucked theirs away in the basement of the Alamo.
weirdly, the basement of the Alamo has a Higgs-Bottom escalator that runs directly into the basement of Dodger Stadium
and the other night after the Guns n Roses show, my buddy Chris and I were roaming around the basement of Dodger Stadium and remembered about this superfast escalator to Texas and seeked it out.
sure enough, right behind a door that said Next Week’s Dodger Dogs was a hole with a ladder that brought us to the Higgs Bottom transporter and in less than 10 seconds we were in the basement of the Alamo.
Chris brought a beer with him to see the effects of beer after particle transfer travel: it turns flat, but gets colder
after rummaging around the Alamo we took a picture of the birthday boy, took a picture of where Ozzy peed on the Alamo (not pictured), took a picture of where Pee Wee took a tour of the Alamo, and then we zipped back to Cali.
heres what i can tell you. youd think the Alamo would be cooler. also, youd think a Dodgers Mickey Mouse would be displayed like all the time.
are the Dodgers and the Mouse mad at each other for some reason?
do kids just lose their damn minds when theres a Mickey Mouse statue right in front of their eyes?
is the Dodger Mickey Mouse super bad luck and thats why they shipped it to Texas in the middle of the night?
none of these questions will ever be answered, sadly. but the next time youre in San Antonio, you’ll know how to get to LA in seconds.
de nada
dear tony, what the hell is this Cub fan doing?
the reason the Lord loves us is unknown, but one thing that’s evident is this world is filled with mysteries.
without surprises and oddities we would be so bored with life that we would not find any pleasure in growing old.
goldfish often drown themselves out of boredom.
little known fact.
my role as a blogger is to entertain, inform and delight.
which, curiously, is the same job as a Cub fan’s right hand.
even when surrounded by a couple of dozen of young Asian ladies trying to figure out how they can get on the world famous busblog.
mystery is one of the things i like the most in life because i get so easily bored.
so i will not research this too hard.
i will just let it slide.
though i will acknowledge it and interesting.
and then, just leave it there.
dear tony, where’s your jungle fever?
Detective Diana asks, Why don’t you date black women? I’ve seen millions of pictures of you with women, women in your room, on your bed, in your arms, at your table, by your side, and none of them is black! (Your family doesn’t count!) Have you ever gone out with a black woman or do you have a “thing” for skinny white bitches with long (bottle job) blonde hair? And damn it, whyyyyy?
i know it might look like i blog Evvvvvvery part of my life, but even at my most prolific i was only writing four times a day. take the most boring man and in his day theres way more than four things to talk about.
heres the deal with me and nubian princesses.
when you are the only black kid in town, when you are going through puberty and all you see are white faces, thats what you are going to be attracted to.
meanwhile when the only time you see faces that look like yours at family picnics and christmas and reunions and stuff, youre probably not going to be attracted to them because they look like your cousin or grandma or sister or auntie.
but thanks to the world wide web of love and particularly blogging, the world famous reached across the sea
and one day i caught the eye of a young lady in Holland who wrote a blog called Just A Girl.
she was funny and smart and one thing i loved (and still love) about blogging is learning about other peoples cultures and food and weirdnesses that happen ANYWHERE ELSE but in the USA.
which is probably why its no surprise that i have been such a huge fan of Canadian blogs.
anyways JaG and i would link to each other and email and leave comments and one day
the Dutch Government
reached out to me and offered me a vacation in Amsterdam, all expenses paid, including hotel, bicycle, museum pass, and everything.
i said whats the catch?
they said no catch just put this little button on your blog and promise us that you will write ONE thing about your trip to the land of the nether
i said done and done and i wrote JaG and i said America is about to invade
and she sent me back this very picture
and i flew to europe and she said something about a possible new boyfriend
and i said something along the lines of hos in different area codes and she said i dont know that phrase
i said, if you meet me IRL and you love me
you must follow your heart.
at the time i was working for Buzznet, which was Flickr before Flickr was Flickr
it was also a great community of people from all around the world.
i said baby im gonna have a Buzznet party and i want you and Bicycle Mark to come and everyone else who
loves to party and she said done done done
and i said no pressure but if we fall for each other you will be the first black girl i ever kissed
so its a good thing you have this fake bf because you really should practice your kissing before i get there
she laughed and said dont get your hopes up
so we met and it was beautiful and we hit it off immediately and a party was thrown
but it was i who was super nervous and i drank too much and i smoked too much and i ate too much and
soon it was alllll being hurled into the spectacular amsterdam canal
and i was all now ive blown it, who wants to kiss a guy with vomit breath
and she escorted me to my five star hotel and she waited for me to brush my teeth and mouthwash my mouth
and when i got out of the bedroom
there she was
and let me tell you this, detective,
that girl had definitely practiced.
two years later we reunited in canada
and thats a story for a way different question.
tony, why bother having sex?
Becky with the good hair asks:
What is the purpose of sex? Be brutally honest and please leave LOVE and procreation out of your answer! I’m talking about the physical act of sex; I’m just going to assume you love every single woman you’ve ever boinked *eye roll* Why bother having sex? Is it a) to get yourself off; b) to get your partner off or c) to get yourself off, thereby getting your partner off? Please don’t tell me what you think sexy babes want to hear or risk ruining any shot you might have boinking them!
every once in a while you’ll meet someone who magically clicks with you
you dont have to think about what to do, you dont have to worry about what youre saying, everything is perfect
its like all of a sudden you know how to swim
or youre fluent in italian
everything she does is bella and for some bizarre reason everything youre doing she loves.
there have been three women in my life where every single time
it was the most wonderful
thing.
it didnt matter what our emotions were going into it or where we were or what time of day or night it was
it didnt matter what we were wearing or how much we had to drink
it was the most beautiful movie or book or dance marathon, but deeper.
to me it was the clearest proof of the existence of a soul.
its not something you know is going to happen
or who can deliver it
it’s a blessing.
pure luck.
a unicorn.
it doesnt exist except for every time
and each time feels like a dream.
thats why.
tony, how are we supposed to feel about the new Cubs closer Aroldis Chapman?
tony, besides being ridiculously handsome, and strong, and funny, and talented and wise beyond your years, you know a lot about baseball, particularly about the Cubs, who just traded away their #1 minor league prospect and two other minor leaguers for Aroldis Chapman.
Chapman is a unicorn in baseball, a tall, strong, lefthanded hurler whose fastball has been clocked as one of the fastest in baseball history
of the last 61 fastest pitches recorded over the last two years, how many do you think Chapman threw?
all 61, tony. ALL 61.
but because nothing comes easy for the Cubs, their signing came with a catch. two of them actually. the first is easy, his contract ends at the end of this year, meaning he could fly away to another team at the end of this season and the Cubs would have merely “rented” him for this home stretch.
but the second isn’t so easy. he comes with baggage. Aroldis Chapman was accused by his girlfriend of choking her. he denies it and she never went forward to charge him. but he also admitted to and was later suspended by Major League Baseball for firing his pistol at trashcans inside his garage, alone, after a dispute with his girlfriend (who was inside the house at the time). the police came out but nothing ever was made of it.
until now that he is in Chicago. some within the Friendly Confines say this “taints” the feel good squad that includes the bromance of Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant (and his dreamy eyes).
what say you? how do you feel that someone accused of being a girlfriend beater is on your favorite team?
Curious But Skeptical
well thats an odd way of framing it, but I’ll bite.
the last time i checked we still live in the United States of America where not only are you innocent until proven guilty but once you are formally accused you have the right to Due Process, meaning you go to court, and all the evidence comes out and a jury decides whats what.
the interesting thing about court cases is they sometimes bring about omg facts that were missing in the original account of the alleged crime.
if you think i am being soft on Chapman because he is a Cub and is probably the missing ingredient for my beloved Cubs finally winning the World Series, you would be way off.
i was raised in a house of three people: my mom and my sister. if i found out that any man, including a left handed closer with a 105 MPH heater laid hands on either of them I would probably murder the man. on Periscope.
likewise I think condemning someone without Due Process is also evil. we have a process. it hurts me that more battered women do not always participate in that process, and i do understand why they dont, but we do not have a justice system of “Fuck It He PROBABLY DID IT”. other civilizations have that one and it’s a way bigger nightmare than ours.
because this is a sensitive situation and we do have SOME evidence, let’s review it and see what we can see.
Less than a year ago cops came to Chapman’s home in Florida. Lots of people were at his house including his girlfriend and her brother.
When police got there the girlfriend said that she FOUND SOMETHING ON HIS PHONE that they started arguing about
he retrieved the phone and walked to another part of the house. she followed him, still arguing — all of this is her testimony.
finally he pushes her against the wall and her brother separates them.
she runs off, hears one gunshot.
ok from that account is that domestic abuse? domestic violence? or something a little less horrible?
luckily we have his take too
he agrees that they were arguing about his cell phone and its contents.
he says he poked her pinched her and she dramatically fell to the ground and started yelling, which prompted the brother to come in and push Him to the ground.
Chapman got up and wanted to drive away but his friends wouldnt let him leave.
so in the passenger seat, he grabs a gun, locked himself in the garage and starts shooting inside in the garage.
his friends lock him in his room and the cops came.
things he’s guilty of:
you should never put your hands on a woman
you should never have things on your phone that your girlfriend is gonna get pissed at
you should never own a gun in florida because those are known to go off – especially during heated arguments
why are you shooting at things in your garage? bullets ricochet!
things he is not guilty of:
when we think of domestic abuse, none of what was written in the police report rises to the level of domestic violence.
unlike me, Cubs President Theo Epstein is a genius and cares just as much about Team Chemistry as speed of a fastball.
i seriously don’t think that with all of the talent that the Cubs have to trade for a strong arm that Theo would have traded for Chapman if he thought a) Chapman could actually become a domestic abuser b) thought Champan ever did anything illegal or immoral to his girlfriend or c) is emotionally unstable
Indeed here is what the young man said yesterday about his girlfriend, who STILL is his girlfriend and who still lives with him
so enjoy this team and enjoy the Cubs march to many years of triumph.
tony, how do you feel about ppl who delete tweets and blogs?
i have known people who were chronic Deleters.
while on one hand it’s perfectly fine to change one’s mind, on the other hand its a foolish attempt at control.
you don’t control anything when you delete things on the web. it’s a web, what you put out there sticks. people screenshot it, people cache it. the web caches it.
but most importantly people remember.
and deleting things helps them remember because it brings more attention to it.
i loved a girl a while ago who started blogs, twitter accounts, facebooks, and would regularly delete them. turned out she was bipolar and refused to treat her condition.
it also turned out she was not being totally honest with the people in her life and her digital footprint often outted her for being less than truthful with some who trusted her.
from that experience i concluded several things, top of which was people who chronically delete things should probably seek professional help because their vain attempt at control is a symptom of something much deeper rooted in mental health.
the good news is these things can be treated.
the bad news is the catch 22: most people with mental health issues don’t realize the depths of their own illness and will fight against the very treatment they would benefit from.
so the best we can do is pray for them and constantly nudge them in the right direction.
sometimes it does truly take a village. so if you care about the village, do your part and nudge your loved ones.
tony why, damnit, whyyyyyyyyy?
Felicia from Reseda asks: Why are you such a fucking slob? Are you really THAT lazy or does life just have NO meaning for you? Do you not care what others think of you because YOU don’t give a rat’s ass about yourself? Do you have self-respect? Do you LOVE TONY? Is eating right and exercising and grooming yourself and dressing NEAT (not necessarily nice or sexy!) THAT much of a CHORE/EFFORT? Or, does all that shit take up too much of your valuable time and keep you from blogging and social networking?
time is the most valuable thing we have. that and our blogs.
am i a slob? to some. but it’s a messy thing, not a dirty thing. theres no mold. the maid takes care of the dirt and germs.
me, i love print products: newspapers, magazines, polaroids, paper plates, plastic cups, and the like.
me, i dont love wasting my days hiding things. hiding things in rows, in boxes, in clear cubes, in closets. me, i like finding things. and if they are on the floor, awesome. if i can find the camera, for example, and two pretty girls are on my bed pretending to be bored outta their gourds, then hi, click!
does life have NO meaning to me? i have a feeling felicia youre gonna hate this answer, but when you read the Good Book you will see it taught many times that this life does have meaning, but it’s merely a stepping stone for Heaven. our riches, our treasures, our real meaty substance that you probably also yearn for is not here. it cannot be organized from goods at the Container Store. i cherish the friendships and miracles that i experience with my friends and loves but they pale in comparison for what this is all leading to. and on my gravestone i doubt it will ever say, he kept a tidy room or omg you shoulda seen his closets.
do i not care what others think about me because i dont give a rat’s ass about myself? excellent question. early in my life i learned that i could care deeply about what others thought of me OR i could not give one crap about that. i chose the latter, precisely because i care about myself. perfect example: when i was but a lad i saw mr. bruce springsteen write and perform one of the biggest most touching records ever: Born in the USA, a show where he sold out the LA Coliseum 4 or 5 times over. thats like a half million people just in LA loving him. he took time out of the show to bring up volunteers from the LA food bank, he performed an anti-war song, and he spoke sincerely and deeply about love, loss, and pink cadillacs. he played each show for four hours and tickets were only like $30.
and still when we got out of the show there were protesters, on the radio there was hate, and in the paper there were articles about the Springsteen Backlash. it taught me very clearly that no matter what you do or say or sing, there will always be haters. you cannot win over everyone. so simply do your best to win over the Lord. and Jesus don’t care if you have old bottles of beer on the wall. he just wants your heart to be pure.
do i have self-respect? probably
do i love myself? frequently
is eating right and exercising and dressing neat that much of a chore? yes and it’s boring and a waste of money. if someone loves fat bald tony with clothes from target they probably love my heart, not my smoke and mirrors, which is way better because theres gonna be another train coming through with better smoke and mirrors any minute now.
dont be fooled by the outside, young skywalker, close yr eyes and feel the force.