A lot has happened in those six weeks. There was an awesome wedding, a good trip to the beach, a nice weekend with an old friend and the World Cup took up a good portion of my days. I went to some new places, tried some new things, and had a lot of good experiences. Like 4th of July...
Happy Birthday America!
This song has little to do with Independence Day, but it kicks ass and so I share it with you.
To celebrate this the most American of days, I took in a baseball game. With some Canadians. Hey, Canada Day was July 1st. But first we had to have some hot dogs and hamburgers, because why not. So The Crew and I went to the Midtown Vortex, which is the sister site of The Vortex from last weekend's Doctor Visit. It's newer and bigger and filled with more tacky decorative crap. We agreed that the Little 5 Points Vortex's melting pot of awful decor is great because it was clearly built up over time into a tiny place. With the Midtown location it's clear that the place opened with all the stuff put there at once, that they had too much space to do it right, and that they tried too hard. But so long as the food is good, the decor doesn't matter too much. At first it seemed that The Vortex's way of celebrating America's birthday was with an onslaught of 80's power ballads, such as Cinderella and Poison. But then, in-explicitly, they started playing British music. The Who, Led Zeppelin and Dire Straits all found their way over the air. They also played Bare Naked Ladies. Don't they know what day it was? I think they realized the error of their ways when, towards the end, they cut off The Who for Rob Zombie. Okay then.
Road Warrior ordered a 9 inch hot dog, but he didn't want mine. Mouth Beard, who is vegetarian, ordered the Elvis Burger which has peanut butter, fried bananas and bacon, we got him to give us the bacon on the side. Nice guy. Someone, I think The Canadian, ordered the Yokahama Mama Burger, which is just a ridiculous name. Equally ridiculous of a name is Cap'n Larry's Porkin' Pirate, which was also ordered.
I ordered the Double-Dawg Dare-Ya. I do not recommend it. Not because it isn't good--it is--but because you simply won't be able to eat it all. It's two hot dogs that are split down the middle and conjoined with each other to make one. Then they wrap it in bacon and deep fry it, fusing the bacon to the hot dogs. It's put on a bun with chili, cheese and even more bacon.
Don't fill up on tots! Or the pickle.
The Canadian: I'm genuinely worried for you.
Mouth Beard: Where are you putting that?
Me: Up your ass.
I had to surgically remove one of the hot dogs in order to eat it.
After slowly consuming as much of that as I could, it was time to head down to Turner Field. It was a 5:05 start time, and thankfully we had seats in the shade. It was also of course 4th of July, so they busted out this monstrosity of a flag:
I want to know where this flag goes the other 364 days of the year. Probably a car dealership.
As for the game, Tim Hudson got himself into a jam in the first and luckily escaped with only two runs given up. Hanley Ramirez, maybe the best loafer in the majors, grounded out to the pitcher and didn't take a single step out of the batter's box. Pathetic. Brian McCann hit a HR to right, and when Chipper Jones pinched hit late in the game, the place went nuts. We tried, unsuccessfully, to get a USA! chant going after McCann's HR. You would think that with Chipper Jones and Troy Glaus both sitting, that super-utility man Omar Infante would get a start. He did not, although he pinch hit. I point this out because for some reason he was named to the All Star team. It's one of the worst selections ever. Good job Charlie Manuel. The Braves lost 3-2, no thanks to Matt Diaz, Yunel Escobar and Melky Cabrera all being in the same lineup. Mouth Beard brought a flag and bought, outside of The Vortex, a giant inflatable stars and stripes baseball bat. It got him on the jumbotron for the 3rd time in 2 games. After the game was fireworks. But between the game and fireworks, to kill time as the sun goes down, we were treated to a concert by a local band called Yacht Rock Revue. They're not bad, and they get major style points for looking like something out of the 70's. They played stuff like Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs, Hall and Oates, stuff that a variety of people and ages can groove to. Then they played Phil Collins. I just couldn't get away from the British music.
Finally, the fireworks came. I used to be of the opinion that with fireworks if you've seen 'em once you've seen 'em all, but I came to realization that fireworks are things that explode in the air and I like things that explode. So I'm back on the wagon. There were your usual patriotic songs of course, but then a song came on that made all the griping about hearing English music on this, the day of our independence from them, seem trivial.
They played "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue" by Toby Keith. I wanted to stab someone.
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