Hall of Fame

When I was a young lad still living in Detroit, I just knew I was destined for bigger and better things than living in Smith Homes Housing Projects (that's right boys and girls your beloved Dr. Monkey is from 'da 'hood') the rest of my life. At first I thought my ticket out was going to be with the Detroit Tigers. I was sure I was going to grow up and play second base for my hometown team.

And not just play for them mind you, but win all sorts of Gold Glove awards for my stellar fielding as well and maybe win a batting title or two just for good measure. And I knew that all of my years of great play for the Tigers would be remembered forever and I would be inducted in the MLB Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Why, I'd be so well thought of that they'd put my plaque right next to Al Kaline's.

As the years went on my skills diminished, I made the JV team but since there was no other JV team in our area, I had moved to southwest Virginia by then, we never played a game. I never made the varsity team due to the fact that I could not hit or field worth a damn and because I deep down inside hated the other guys on the team, I thought they were insensitive assholes who degraded any one or any thing that was the slightest bit different than them.

Slowly my dream of making the MLB Hall of Fame died. But as it did and as my baseball playing skills flew the coop I discovered I had something that not a lot of other people had and certainly the asshole jocks did not have. I discovered I had a sense of humor and the intelligence to know when to use it. It was exhilarating and empowering to know that I could make people laugh and not just by telling the same old stupid jokes that they told in the locker rooms, but by coming up with witty one liners, by making jokes about topical events, by pointing out hypocrisy, and by doing accents and impressions.

As I progressed through high school, college, and life in general I read more and more. I paid attention to the current events of the day and I developed the skill to think for myself. All those things contributed to my sense of humor.

When I joined an improv comedy group in Knoxville TN, I thought that my humor skills were finally put to good use. I performed with the improv group for about ten years and I must admit I held my own with the best members of the group and I contributed more than my share of one liners, characters, and off the cuff jokes that made our shows good.

Then one night in August of 2004 my improv days came to an end when all those years of eating fatty foods, smoking Marlboro Lights, and not enough exercise caught up to me and I had a massive heart attack. A month later after my quadruple bypass I mourned to myself that I no longer had my comedy outlet. I had to content myself to cracking jokes to my girlfriend, which of course she became tired of and rightly so, to my friends via email, and to the house plants here at Casa de Monkey.

Then one day on Crooks and Liars I followed a link and it led to this post. I read it and laughed my ass off. I thought to myself, "Wow, is that the kind of things people do on blogs these days?" I had previously thought that blogs were for whiny self absorbed narcissists who wrote about their pedestrian thoughts, their inconsequential daily doings, and their plans for their most assuredly wretched futures. Dr. Zaius showed me that blogs could be funny and political and damn well worth reading every day. So a few weeks later and after a few less than stellar starts, I started this blog.

I use my sense of humor, my outrage, and my vast amount of trivial knowledge to come up with the things I post on here. And sometimes others find them as amusing or as insightful or as important as I sometimes do.

And sometimes some people find some of my posts to be good enough to be enshrined. I scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the first page of
the other day and I saw that Station Agent has his own blog post Hall of Fame. And I discovered that I was in there, not once, but twice. So my dream of being in a Hall of Fame has come true. And you know what? Being in this Hall of Fame is way more gratifying because I got there by using my smarts and my wit, the two things most jocks never use. And I proud of the company in the Ice Station Tango Hall of Fame, we all share the same progressive outlook and ideals, unlike most of the guys in the MLB Hall of Fame who were or are right wing reactionary Republicans.

So thanks Station Agent for making my dreams come true, you sir, in your Antartic fortress, rock harder than most anything else.