Chinatown Bus Running Diary

Prologue: I am taking the Chinatown bus to go visit some friends in NYC for the weekend. I am expecting a weekend to see some Christmasy sights in the city (as typical frustrated Jew), drink a lot (as typical young professional), and watch the Patriots maul the Jets with some friends (as a typical cocky resident of Titletown). Due to the aforementioned goals and the fact that I have to work til at least 2 PM on Friday, I have decided to risk health, sanity, and comfort and "let it ride" with the Chinatown Bus.

I went to buy my ticket from the small agency yesterday. This should have been where I got a little wary about the events of the future. Lets just say I was second in line behind two police officers that were responding to a call that all of the bags had been stolen off the bus on the way down to DC that afternoon. This would have been an omen for most people, but not me, I’m the edgiest sheltered white suburbanite I know! I decided to only buy a one-way ticket.

Lets get to the action:

Friday Afternoon (notes were taken on the bus, once it was too dark to see, I used my cameraphone light)

2:30 I thought the bus was supposed to leave at 2:30 but apparently my intermediate language lesson wasn’t enough to realized that departing in Chinese really means boarding in English.

2:32 Firstly, I’d like to dispel any rumors that the busses smell like chicken coops. They most definitely are filled with odors more likely found at a stale aquarium or a polluted pond. If this is a coach bus, it’s fashioned in the Isiah Thomas line of coaches.

2:45 The bus still hasn’t left yet but on the bright side there are lots of empty seats still. I wasn’t expecting leg room but it would be a nice little plus.

2:52 First minor heart attack of the day: a seemingly scatter-brained yet official-looking Asian woman gets on the bus. I may get off the bus if they are telling me I must put my life in the hands of an Asian woman driver. How had I not considered this a possibility? Turns out she’s just doing a headcount, which she does very quickly, of course.

2:56 A woman who turns out to be the last to board sits down next to me, there goes the no-no. I really thought I was pitching the perfect game here; head down, earphones in, muttering, taking notes. In the future I think I would go with sneezing and maybe not showering.

2:58 Doors closed. Commencing countdown, engine’s on. Check ignition and may God’s love be with you.

2:59 Ironically we have driven one block and just drove by a synagogue. I should pray for my life.

3:40 I wake up from short nap with dry mouth, crick in my neck, a funny smell. Am I in a POW camp?

3:43 I cant figure out where we are. I only see smokestacks and powerlines, it must be Baltimore because there’s not enough litter to make it New Jersey.

4:09 We’ve stopped in Baltimore to pick up more people. The LA riots had better organization than this ride so far. Its not so comforting when the people getting on the bus look surprised that they go picked up.

4:40 The two college girls behind me have finished their SECOND 20 minute conversation about texting. You know that debate about whether or not cell phones cause cancer? I may have to start rooting for cancer here. I am that frustrated already.

4:47 I’ve been working on a crossword puzzle that has turned into a little league game. It was going well and I was about three quarters of the way through before it was called due to darkness. I know I could turn on my overhead light, but on this bus I don’t wanna cause a stir. Its like jail and I want to blend in, not draw any unnecessary attention.

4:56 Just passed Ripken Field in Aberdeen Maryland. I wonder what kinda of Ironman record there is for these bus trips. I don’t want to meet the record holder.

5:20 Conversation topics between the two girls behind me thus far:
-Texting (see 4:40)
-Dave Matthews Band ("I hate when Dave plays music without singing in live shows, its like just play another song")
- Chapstick ("Look I don’t want to share… its just… gross)
- Boys (No quotes here, it wasn’t funny or interesting enough)
Way to shatter those stereotypes ladies.

5:39 Who had Delaware in the pool for state in which we would have our first screeching stop where we all go flying?

6:00 Apparently the next stop is Philadelphia. Thanks for enlightening us on all of the trip details. This bus should be called Washibaltidelphiyork.

6:03 We just passed a strip club called Show + Tel which sounds a lot like the place my mom used to work, Show & Tell. Surely, you cant make this stuff up, and don’t call me Oedipus. I am now nauseous for a whole new set of reasons.

6:54 Welcome to the New Jersey Turnpike, the national syringe cemetery.

7:13 We have stopped again, this time on the New Jersey Turnpike at a gas station. This is the tipping point. Anyone who read Malcom Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point knows what I mean, especially since all the book does is restate the same point over and over and over again. Ironically chapter three of that mindless crap was my tipping point.

Anyway, I have now been on the bus for almost four hours and I am not even close to New York City. Me knees feel like they belong to Barbaro, my nose has ingested more waste than either of the Olsen twins, and there is a strong chance I will end up as the suspect of a double homicide of two teenage girls. My choices are stranding myself on the turnpike (which surprisingly doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea right now), knock my head against the window until I shatter the window or knock myself out, OR turn up my iPod, pull my hat down over my eyes and hope I sleep.

8:48 I am awake and everyone is getting out in Chinatown, for better or worse, I made it.

My Favorite Mistake

I woke up this morning with an odd feeling; I couldn’t place it. I knew it was a feeling I’ve woken up with before. Immediately it felt a lot like regret, and after four years of college I knew the how to check for the warning signs of a bad late-night decision. A quick walkthrough of my apartment and I realized I was alone BUT there were some empties on the coffee table.

The mystery in the air could be cleared up with one final test: the checking of the cell phone. Who did I call or text last night in the wee hours or morn (Technological patent idea- I wish my phone had a Breathalyzer device on it like DUI offenders get on their cars. Where I must blow less than a .08 to place a call or text). When I got to the inbox, it all made sense:

Received at 1:01am from Brother: I cant breathe right now. Gagne? Whyyy?
Sent at 1:06am to Brother: Did Jon Lester die? Why is Gagne coming in?
Received at 1:13am from Brother: I cant watch this anymore, its not healthy.

And so I was right and wrong. It was a late night mistake, egregious to the very core. It was a familiar mistake, although not the kind I was expecting.

Why was this happening? Terry Francona isn’t stupid; we always talk about how he’s a good coach. Yet Francona brought in Eric Gagne in the 11th inning with guys like Jon Lester, Javier Lopez staying cold in the bullpen. Granted both Lester and Lopez stunk, but they were brought in with inherited runners and against Indians who had momentum up the Wahoo.

Gagne had less chance to succeed than the gawd-awful looking movie The Comebacks. First, he had pitched the night before against the same first two batters he was faced last night. Why would we give them a pitcher they had just seen? Second, he had throw 25 pitches the night before, allowing a hit and walking two. Thirdly, what has he done for us this season? Not much besides allowing runs in 7 of 20 appearances and sporting a 6.75 ERA and a WHIP over 1.8. He sucks, the end.

Meanwhile, I remember the pangs of this mistake in the past. On September 18, the Red Sox, or should I say Eric Gagne, blew a game to Toronto, during the pennant chase. After the game, Francona defended his decision to bring in Gagne (who let up walk, single, walk, walk, double in the loss) over Papelbon by saying that he had to find out if he could trust Gagne in the end of the season. Don’t believe me? Check it out.

So who is to blame? Gagne doesn’t just blow games now, he blows, period. For Francona it’s a "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" situation. I don’t know who is worse.

However I am a solutions-oriented guy so lets finish vomiting, rinse with mouthwash and move on. Besides hoping that momentum hasn’t complete shifted in the series, the Red Sox can only make one logical move. Thanks to a new rule this year, teams can remove a player from its roster and replace him. The caveat is that the replaced player may not return for the next series, if the team moves on. With that said, goodbye Gagne, welcome back Bryan Corey. The easiest way to stop those late night mistakes is making that person impossible to call on, lets remove Gagne from our contacts, from our bullpen.

I Used to Want to Be an Athlete

Now I don’t think it would be so cool. With every age I think there’s a reason that once seemed logical. Looking back, I was dumb, but I was younger and I’m so smart now that it’s really not fair to compare. Today I am really smart, like really smart. I’d say I get about 2 out of every 5 Final Jeopardy answers in a given week (I said smart, not cool).

Here’s the breakdown through the years…

Age 2-5
Bouncy balls were fun. Getting dirty was fun. It didn’t matter if I won or lost, just how I played the game. Every season ends with a pizza party. Basically I was retarded; I was just in the dark. Lets call these the Dark Ages and forget they ever happened.

Age 6-7
I used to want to be on baseball cards; in fact I think I used to only like sports because of baseball cards. How stupid is that? These were overpriced pictures that were mostly boring and if you were lucky, unintentionally funny. Why would I want my picture in the hands of hundreds of other people? I don’t even like seeing my own picture now; I can never smile right. (Maybe because I’m not an athlete)

Age 8-11
Remember when athletes used to be cool? Remember when I didn’t know they were sleezeballs, drunks, egomaniacs, wifebeaters, etc. Maybe it’s one of those things that’s cooler when you’re actually doing it... but its kinda hard to justify the sleezing, drinking, wifebeating, and etcetera-ing… even if I am currently drunk.

Age 12-14
By the age of thirteen I had just won the lottery called a Bar Mitzvah. More euphoric than playing ball was the feeling of having loads of money (enough for boxes of baseball cards). I think was about the time that points per game stat began to take a backseat to contract size. I was 14 in 1998 when the Red Sox stiffed everyone’s favorite player, Mo Vaughn. He went on to sign a 6-year 80million dollar deal with the Angels. Money mattered, trophies didn’t, loyalty didn’t.

Age 15-16
What does any guy think about in these years? I could be very R-rated crude and anatomical but I might get a girlfriend who can read, so I’ll just leave it at "girls." And the jocks always got the girls in high school, and I knew that Wilt Chamberlain was very ‘extracurricular,’ Chris Webber was dating Tyra Banks, and I had seen the SI Swimsuit issue with Phil Mickelson’s wife in a bikini (a watershed moment for any teenager). I was only as far as high school math at this point in my life but according to my calculations, I figured that I could probably turn a lefty lay-up and a 16 foot jump shot into at least a solid 7.

However I never figured out if girls wanted guys who had good bodies and that athletes just happened to have those, or if athletes had good bodies and that’s why women were drawn to them. More recently I have realized that it doesn’t even matter because having a good body is really freaking hard. I like eating fried stuff, and going to the gym is a lot of work. Plus did you know it takes way more than 100 crunches to get 6-pack abs? (What’s up with that?) You realize later in your life that there are plenty of jobs that don’t require rippling arms and pecs… or at least you find a fall back option.

Ages 17-18
This was a weird age. I think I still wanted the money, I think I still wanted the girls. I definitely wanted to be on TV and be famous so I could have the money and the girls. This was an era where my eyes were too big for my stomach. I wanted everything I didn’t have and didn’t want anything I had.
I wanted to move to a big city because I lived in a small town. I didn’t realize the agony of public transportation.
I wanted everyone to know me because sometimes I thought even my friends were calling me by the wrong name. I wanted to be huge and have everyone know everything I do. In actuality, that’s what most athletes hate about being athletes.
I wanted to bypass 4 years of college because I was struggling with 4 years of high school classes. Who knew how much fun college would be besides everyone who has seen Animal House? Old School wasn’t even out back then!! 4 years of lessons like 'you can actually drink beer from a funnel' and 'it’s pretty easy to sleep through fire alarms.'
I wanted to have no curfew because, well, I had one.

And now I’m 23 and I don’t want to be an athlete anymore. I’ve felt this way for a few years now and am satisfied with calling these years the age of enlightenment. There are surely perks to being a professional athlete but these aren’t exclusive to athletes. You can be involved in sports without ever leaving the comforts of your resting heart rate (become a bookie). You can live lavishly without huge ups or leadership skills (become a Congressman). And you can’t buy happiness anyway… unless you’re in Nevada or Montreal. And the biggest lesson may be that any Joe Schmo can score the ladies without sporting tight bodies and accolades of any sort (Just go to any Karaoke night in America and find those drunk girls who are a little too into Kelly Clarkson’s lyrics, and introduce yourself).