Human Condition is Behind the TV Screen

The Human Condition is Behind the Television Screen
By Matt Thomas


My best friend Ben and I are bored out of our damn minds at his Spanish Harlem apartment on a rainy Saturday night, both still recovering from the absolute worst hangovers of our lives because of eight consecutive hours of tequila shots and Irish Car Bombs up until 4 AM. We were in no mood to go down to the East Village and do it all over again because when you reach 31 years of age, the recovery time for nights of temporary alcoholism and debauchery increases from the crack of dawn the next morning to the time between when the sun disappears beyond the horizon and the moon and stars offer a tiny semblance of natural light.
Ben’s headache was gone, but mine, even after popping a few Advils over the course of the day, continued to linger. He was ready to dive into light beer again, while all I wanted was a few gallons of water and a magic substance that would immediately eradicate any remaining pain, not temporarily subside it. A few other things happen when you nurse a hangover in addition to playing phony doctor. You feel lazy and you don’t want to get up from your chair, couch, or bed, or wherever your alcoholic ass planted itself for the final time the previous evening. You want to consume nothing but junk food, and you dabble in the opened bags of chips, cheese doodles, or whatever artificial substance was available on the coffee table or tray in front of you, regardless of whether they were stale or ripe. You are completely oblivious to the rest of the trash firmly settled on the wooden floor, with beverage leakage from a few beer mugs and plastic cups from the night before, or two, or three, or months before. Finally, as night falls, you refuse to turn on any lights in whatever room you are in, and you leave the flat-paneled high-definition television mounted to the wall tuned to whatever mindless trash one is willing to feast their eyes on. Like cable news, which makes concerted efforts to keep you in fear of your fellow human beings, to throw an inordinate number of red herrings and cognitive dissonance into issues that affect our everyday lives, and finger-pointing at those that make the inanest of mistakes? That shit is too depressing anyway, and it pretty much forces people like me and Ben, just trying to get through our boring, meaningless lives, to sift for as much entertainment as possible to evade the harsh realities of the real world, especially on the weekends after enslaving ourselves to pressure, deadlines, and marching orders for 40 hours.
Perhaps, if you’re by yourself, you’ll jerk off to a porno or your favorite actress or something like that, but if you’re with a friend or group of friends, you’ll channel-surf until you find something to watch that will entertain all present in the room. Perhaps if the TV is tuned to a movie you have seen hundreds of times over, you’ll either regurgitate the best or worst possible imitation of the film’s most famous lines, complete with the mimicked voice, inflection, and tone of the actor conveying it, or you mouth along silently to the lines as they occur. Then, later on, you’ll take those same lines, throw them into a bad joke to at least make the joke appear funny, and you’ll pat yourself on the back as if you had become the next Plato and your favorite movie quotes are the equivalent of the tripartite theory of soul.
At least, this is my own personal mindset. Ben, on the other hand, makes fun of me constantly for thinking so deeply. His philosophy on life is to just have fun and forget all the external and existential stuff. If he could party every single night and womanize, he would, but of course, he would risk losing his $80,000-per-year financial analyst job at a prominent Wall Street financial institution. $40,000 of that alone goes to nights out in Manhattan, along with weekend trips to America’s most famous nightlife hotspots like Austin, Nashville, or New Orleans. He does it because he can.
Me? I’m lucky if I can spend that much in a year. I work as a branch manager for a prominent commercial bank on the Upper East Side, making a measly $48,000 per year, and I live in a shitty basement apartment a few blocks away from Ben with two roommates that I barely communicate with or see. Ben’s weekend excursions make me jealous as hell because I can’t afford to take them most of the time! And I think about it. Deeply. A lot. And I also think deeply about life, about the real world, and the causality of human existence. Usually, if I channel my inner Freud and wax poetic about the inner workings of the Republican and Democrat parties, and Ben would write me off as a dumb liberal then change the topic. Ben is very conservative politically and socially, he accepts the world for what it is: depraved, dark, and driven by money, and he believes we should all just embrace and adapt to it and try to make as much money as possible in our lifetimes. I believe there is still good in humanity and that the world can change, and that if someone like Ben would just stop, take a deep breath, look and listen to a diversity of worldviews, that perhaps he would realize that there is more to life than making money.
Despite our differences in political philosophy, we have almost everything else in common. We love sports, have the same taste in music and movies, and we love working out at the gym and traveling. So, on nights when we are hanging out at each other’s apartments, we engage in the 21st century young suburbanite Americans’ favorite pastime: flipping through television channels and offering offbeat humorous commentary on whatever program strikes their fancy. This night, at Ben’s brick-enclosed bachelor pad which may as well pass for the most upscale fraternity house on the planet, we are sitting on opposite sides of his black leather sofa, complete with visible scratches and imperfections on the arms and back. Ben furrows his thick, black beard and adjusts his razor-thin bifocal glasses as he fixates his brown eyes on the 60-inch 4KTV in front of him. I run my flaky hands through my wavy, middle-parted brown hair which runs below my ears, then pick up the gray cable box remote to my left, fluff my black t-shirt, then click the guide button. It was 8 PM, and we had not moved from his couch for more than five hours, not even to piss.
“What are you in the mood to watch?” Ben asks in a semi-slurred monotone.
“Doesn’t matter to me,” I responded in a high-pitched nasally voice.
“You want to leave the room so I can jerk off to some videos of Scarlett Johannson?” Ben asks.
“What, you mean we can’t jerk off together on the same couch?” I replied, cackling.
“You fucking faggot,” Ben replied. “Jesus, Matt, are there any moments you don’t dream of jerking off to Scarlett Johannson while sitting next to your best manfriend?”
“You think that’s something,” I replied with a smirk, “you should hear about the times I’ve jerked off on your couch alone!”
“Asshole!” Ben shouts at the top of his lungs while he throws a handful of stale cheese doodles at my head. “Next time you crash here for the night I’ll cut your fucking nuts off! And that’s a legitimate threat!”
“Ha!” I shout, still laughing. “You’ve been saying that every single day for the past decade. It was an empty threat then, and it’s an empty threat now.”
“Just pick a goddamn thing to watch on the damn guide,” Ben stammers. “My balls are starting to get worked up.”
“Here you go! Magic Mike!” I shout. “Have fun! I’m going to go take a piss!” I laugh so loud it echoes the walls, and Ben proceeds to tell me I am not permitted to drink any more of his beer, at least for the remainder of the evening. If there is one thing Ben and I are really, really good at, it is engaging in competitive banter, especially insulting each other to the point of bringing one another to tears. The best part of all this is that I could call Ben an ethnic or racial slur and he wouldn’t flinch. Ditto me. And Ben is the type to not hesitate to reach deep down into his arsenal of insults and fire a bazooka barrage of witty put-downs.
When I returned from the restroom, Ben unsurprisingly had turned the television to a conservatively-biased news channel.
“Dude,” I said, reseating myself onto the sofa. “Why the fuck do you bother watching that trash? You know it’s bad for your mind!”
“Shut up, libtard,” Ben snapped. “It’s a lot less mind poison than those liberal trash stations that shove down your throat how you’re supposed to think, act, and identify 60 different genders!”
“Well, conservatard,” I reply, “I don’t need to hear how much conservatives worship money and guns.”
“Whatever,” Ben says, “you’ll learn someday.”
“I hope I do,” I say. “What the hell are they talking about anyway?”
“This shit about the ‘human condition’. The one guy is talking about how the scientifically cut-and-dry definition of the human condition is bullshit because every single human being is wired differently, with subtly different personalities. All this discussion is worthless anyway; all they need to say is that human beings are God’s greatest failure, and that we are the only species that would allow its fellow comrades to fall to their grisly deaths if we were standing on a cliff and the surface below us was collapsing out from under itself.”
“I get it, Ben, you’re a goddamn curmudgeon. Everyone knows that.” Every time Ben arched his upper lip over his lower one, you knew he was angry. Basically, mention the word “liberal” to him and he’s liable to throw the nearest inanimate object against a wall with the force of a tank crashing against a brick wall. The next thing you never want to mention to him is humanity. He may love his family and friends, but as far as any human being not dwelling within his inner circle? Well, he wouldn’t mind if a thousand atomic bombs were dropped on every corner of the earth tomorrow, and killed every evil little piece of flesh with a functional brain attached. Ben’s parents divorced when he was six years old, and it jaded him like you wouldn’t believe. His mother ran off and married some hedge-fund manager, and his dad, let’s just say some twelve-ounce cans were more important to him. Ben is a self-made man, and he worked his ass off to get where he is. He especially frowns upon anyone that doesn’t work hard, and as a result, it has made him very spiteful and hate-filled. Those, however, like me, who are in Ben’s inner circle, he will take a bullet for you without hesitation. Four years in the Marine Corps will do that to you. Oh, and by the way, Ben will never let you forget it.
“Hey asshole,” Ben growled, “I didn’t spend three years in Afghanistan to…” I mouthed along to every single world he said after three. That sort of thing always irked him, but he knew I was doing it with good humor.
“Yeah, jerkoff, I know,” I growled back, “but thank you for your service,” I said with a wink and a smile.
“Alright you bitch,” Ben said, “what’s your opinion on the human condition?”
“Well, I agree with you on one thing,” I replied. “Humans are the most complex creatures God ever created. His greatest failure? Okay, you can make a potent argument. But unlike what you believe, humans have both a dark side and a good side. The human condition is everything around us; our environment, our interactions, and our experiences which shape us as a species. One question we’ll be asking ourselves for as long as our species is upright and walking is what exactly shapes us as a species, and…”
“Bro, come on,” Ben scowled, “you know that shit sounds ridiculous! What have I always told you, man? You’re going to drive yourself absolutely insane if you spend the rest of your life thinking about that shit!”
“Why does that worry you so much?” I asked. “Wasn’t it you that said that each individual carries their own destiny within? If my destiny is to be all philosophical and shit, then shouldn’t you just let it be?”
“Alright, you got me there,” Ben grumbled. “My philosophy is: go fuck yourself!”
“You come up with that yourself?”
“Yes?”
“Bullshit. You regurgitated that quote from the movie we watched earlier!”
“Yeah, and you regurgitated that shit you just said about the human condition from some shit we saw on the History Channel last weekend!”
“You ever notice how guys like you and me, especially bored average Americans tend to utilize movie and TV quotes in everyday conversation as if they are the equivalent of Greek philosophy or the damn Bible?”
“Yeah,” Ben stammers. “We are pretty much living embodiments of that.”
“But, I mean, it’s not just us,” I stutter. “It’s everyone. Think about the college crew, our friends from high school and the conversations we had, whether while we were partying, chilling on the couch, or just out and about. About 50 percent of our conversations involved movie and TV quotes. Does it ever stop to make you think why?”
“Fuck no!” Ben replied. “Fuck off with the philosophical bullshit.”
“You mean to tell me you’ve never thought why?”
“It’s the American way, bro. We don’t think! We lead!”
“Well, what if I told you that it’s because of humanity’s constant thirst for entertainment that we are so numb to everything else that happens in our lives, such as why the fuck we still vote for Republicans and Democrats?”
“Yeah, I know how people pay more attention to their favorite reality TV shows rather than paying attention to the important issues. So what?”
“Right, and how about how half this country tunes into cable news, regardless of political persuasion, and hangs on the every word of the talking head on their television screen, begging for them to say what they want to hear? That isn’t being informed, that’s being entertained!”
“Yeah, and they have a right to, just like you and me!”
“I understand, but let’s consider last night down in the East Village? What did we do down there?”
“Get drunk off our asses!”
“Yes, but what else?”
“I don’t know.”
“We listened to music, and watched sports on the TVs, all in the midst of conversation in which we were doing…what?”
“Ummm, reminiscing about college and…”
“And?”
“Quoting Will Ferrell movies.”
“Bingo!”
“Alright, alright, I see your point, jackass.”
“Hold on, I’m not done. Let’s think about when we attend ballgames. You and I get loud, obnoxious, and rabid, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“But what about the casual fans? Those that are just ‘there’ to ‘be there.’ You think those phony stiffs are at the game because they like baseball? No, they’re there because they want to pretend to like baseball because they’re told its cool; therefore they are there to be cool. They don’t know the goddamn difference between a hit and a run, they care about looking good in front of the camera so their face could be on the jumbo Tron. Other than that, they immerse themselves in the side lounges, restaurants, and picnic areas, and all the while they completely forget why they just blew hundreds of dollars for admission into a goddamn baseball stadium! They’re not there to root for a team. They’re there to be entertained!”
“So, let them be entertained!”
“Yes, that’s fine, Ben, but why the hell would a couple or a family of four spend the equivalent of rent or a mortgage payment to go to an event they couldn’t give two flying shits about? I mean, you or I sure as hell ain’t spending hundreds of dollars to go to the fucking Opera when we have the same interest level as a vegan’s interest in eating meat!”
Ben glanced at me curiously. Finally, I had gotten him to think a little bit, and it is almost impossible to get that little curmudgeon to think deeply about anything besides money.
“Well, I guess that sort of makes sense,” he reluctantly replied.
“If you still don’t believe me, let’s get tickets for the game tomorrow, the cheapest ones. But instead of sitting our asses down in those cold, rock-hard, creased metal bleachers, why don’t we just walk around the stadium and observe the fans. Let’s see who cares about the damn game, and let’s see who cares more about getting drunk and making asses of themselves, and let’s see who cares more about being on television! Because, after all, I believe, and I have always believed this: the human condition is on television. People will do anything to get their faces on the damn idiot box, and what better place to test that theory than a damn baseball stadium to see 50,000 people portraying characters that would fit perfectly into hundreds of different programs spread across a shit load of different genres?”
“You’re a fucking pussy, man,” Ben growled. “You think way too damn much. But I’m in. I just want to laugh at people,” he said, smiling. Then, he vigorously shook my hand. “You know me too damn well.”
“Just trust me on this one, bro. You’ll be reminded why you’re such a fucking asshole.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence!”
And so, the next morning, we woke up around 7:30 to a clear and cloudless sunrise, and donned polo shirts and jeans, as if we were prepared to go to a damn art museum and not a sporting event. On this day, we were not interested in the outcome of a baseball game nor whether or not our team would earn their way into first place in the standings or any of that sporty shit. Nope, today was about our other favorite pastime: people watching. We went to our usual bagel shop down the block from us, got some coffee and a gourmet breakfast sandwich, then boarded the 4 train at around 10 AM. The subway ride to the stadium would last at least 45 minutes, so it gave us plenty of time to observe the fans wearing jerseys as we sat down on the dirty, curved colored seats to the immediate left of the double doors in the very last caboose of the train.
“Look at that group of four standing at the doors diagonally from us,” I half-whispered to Ben. “What can you tell me about them?”
“Well, the anorexic girl with the big ass with her back turned toward us…why the hell is she applying pink lipstick? To match the pink jersey numbers and pinstripes on her jersey, or make her short jean shorts shorter in order to give off the impression that she wants to get laid tonight?”
“Do you think she knows anything about baseball?” I asked.
“What, you mean like the infield fly rule?” Ben instantly replied. We both laughed like hyenas.
“But in all honesty, man, do you think she knows the difference between a base and a ball?”
“Fuck no.”
“There ya go. Now look at the man wrapping his left arm around her. Yes, he’s wearing a jersey, but he’s also wearing tight jeans and loafers. Typical hipster. Wants to look fashionable and cool but he wants to appear as if he is appeasing both the jock and the nerd crowd. He doesn’t realize he’s going to be made fun of by both, and he’s going to cry like a little bitch when he does.”
“Pfft, yeah, man, he probably votes Democrat, too,” Ben growls. “Doesn’t surprise me with that immaculately groomed beard.”
“Whatever,” I scowl. “He’s no more of a liberal than the guy standing to his right, who is dressing just like us, but he looks like he’s going to the library or some shit. And his woman, the chunky one with black hair wearing the gray jersey, actually looks like she actually may have knowledge about the game of baseball, if you can actually believe that. Either that, or like her friends, she just wants to dress appropriately.”
“She’s no more of a fan than the guys standing on the opposite side of them from the door,” Ben said. “They’re big, fat slobs; the types that are the most obnoxiously loud at sporting events. They spend their days in their mother’s basement, chatting away on internet message boards and trolling those with different opinions as if they matter, and then they go to games at night, getting drunk off their asses and drinking hundreds of dollars’ worth of beer and heckling the opposing players with the most hurtful insults one can concoct.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “Listen to how loud they are. At least they know baseball, they’re discussing statistics!”
“Fucking virgins,” Ben said. “Their dicks are probably pea-sized.”
“Go ask them yourself, you fucking homophobe!”
“Fuck you, asshole, ask them yourself! Speaking of homos, look at these guys that just entered. A mesh shirt? At 11 AM? And the other one? A man-purse? Please don’t tell me they’re going to the game. There’s no way.”
“If they are, they’re probably hitting up the martini bar, then checking in on Facebook to tell their sports-inclined friends their feigned interest in a baseball game, take selfies to portray themselves as the cutest couple possible, and then disappoint their sports-inclined friends later on when they can’t even tell them the final score of the game without looking it up on their phones. Meanwhile, they threw hundreds of dollars down the drain and they don’t realize why.”
“And why would they do that?” Ben asked.
“Probably because they saw a TV show or some talking head on the news that told them that taking selfies at a ballgame was the cool thing to do.”
“See the recurring theme here? They saw it on TV. Where’s their imagination?”
“It never existed before.”
“Nope.”
We arrived at the stadium at around 11:05 AM. Large crowds began to gather outside the stadium, many waiting to enter the gates, others standing around waiting for their fellow guests to arrive, and others scurrying about either looking for a place to eat or drink, or looking at their ticket stubs, oblivious to their surroundings, trying to find the right gates to enter. The humidity of the summer began gradually increasing, so many patrons were using their hands as makeshift fans, and others were wiping themselves with towels. As we filtered through the dense, blissfully ignorant crowds, we forged our way past the little league fields adjacent to the stadium and began passing a small auxiliary parking lot separated by a faded gray chain-linked fence. Suddenly, a baseball rolled in front of our feet. We stopped dead in our tracks, and a college-aged man, probably barely 18 years old, baseball mitt comfortably clad in his left hand, decked in a black baseball jersey, baggy cargo shorts, and combat boots signaled to us as if to request to pick up the ball and throw it back to him. Behind him, a group of about nine or ten men and women, surrounding a white fold-out patio table, all dressed in team gear, whether it was a jersey, t-shirt, hat, or shorts. As I picked up the baseball and handed it to the young man who gratefully obliged my good deed, I continued walking behind him. Not in a creepy, stalker-ish kind of way, but in a curious, let-me-prove-a-point-to-Ben type of way.
“Excuse me, bro,” I say to the kid. He turns around and glances at me with a slight grin, as if to suggest I wasn’t bothering him.
“What’s up, bro?” the kid asks. He stands about 6 foot 5, so I had to tilt my head upward as far as it could move in order to make eye contact.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” I said. “I have a bet going on with my friend here,” I said as I pointed at Ben behind me, who was reluctantly following. “And that bet is, we’re trying to meet as many people as possible at the game today that are actually interested in attending the game, or are just here either because they were dragged out here, they got free tickets, or any other silly excuse.”
“Well, I can tell you right now I’m here for the damn game!” the man exclaimed.
“And what about your crew here?” I asked.
“I’d say most of them are here to enjoy the ballgame,” he replied. “A couple of the ladies here are boyfriends of some of the diehards, and that nerdy-lookin’ fella at the end of the table that just flipped over his cup couldn’t care less about baseball.”
“So, why is he here?” I asked.
“I don’t know, ask him yourself, man. Hey Fred! Tell this fine young gentlemen here why the hell you’re here today!”
“Thanks, Vic,” Fred, a short, stocky man with thick glasses and a finely parted light brown hairstyle said. “I don’t like baseball, but this is what my friends do, so I’m just here to get drunk and have a good time. You know, just like those jocky guys on that TV show, I forget what it’s called…”
“ ‘Preciate it, Fred!” I shouted. I nudged over to Ben, who shot me a glance of unimpressed bravado. “See that, bro, there’s an example right there.”
“Well good for you, genius!” Ben snarled. “You finally proved your theory! Can we fucking go to the damn bar and have some shots now?”
“Fuck you, asshole, I’m not done yet!” I said to Ben. “Thanks, guys!” I shouted over to Vic and his crew. As we continued to walk along the perimeter of the parking lot, we passed by two more groups: one of two middle-aged men dressed as if they were attending a round of golf as opposed to a baseball game, leaning against a red Cadillac convertible, discussing junk bonds and other financial bullshit that Ben would understand more than me. But Ben was really keen on getting drunk, so he refused to make any conversation with the financial whizzes. Adjacent to the Cadillac was this group of four males, each looking like yuppies that decided not to shave on the weekends and were just interested in unwinding and enjoying their surroundings rather than Vic’s group, more interested in getting drunk and making asses of themselves. I approached the man closest to our vantage point, an six-foot ball of chunk wearing a white t-shirt accentuating his fatty crevasses. I asked the man the same questions I asked Vic. Then, the man, named George, said something quite intriguing.
“I mean, look,” he said in a thick New York accent, “we’re here to cheer on the team and everything, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not like the song goes: ‘if they don’t win it’s a shame’. It’s only a shame if you treat baseball like life and death. Me and my friends just see it as entertainment. If they lose, so be it. We see all these people in the stands whenever we go bury their heads in their hands when they lose, and frankly it’s kind of pathetic. We listen to sports talk radio just to laugh at the callers. Most of them are 60 years old and still live in their mother’s basement. Honestly, other than listening to Howard Stern or watching an old George Carlin comedy special, listening to how angry these callers get over nothing is the best entertainment we get.”
“So, baseball is just entertainment to you?” I asked.
“Hell yeah,” he said.
“Thanks for your time, man.”
Then, as Ben and I began to forge our way back towards the stadium and the bars across the street, the quotes began.
As we passed by yet another group, ten-deep, of college kids, tailgating, playing beer pong at a black folding table, one obese, scruffy man took a shot towards the end of the table closest to the sidewalk in which Ben and I were walking. The ball missed its target red plastic cup by about three feet. His opponent’s response: “could have been somebody!” To that man’s left: “juuuuuust a bit outside!”
“See what I mean now?” I nudged over to Ben.
“Fuck off, dude,” he said. “Let’s just go get a fucking beer.”
The bar, a small, cramped, dirty establishment loaded with baseball memorabilia adoring the white paint-chipped walls, flat-screen TVs suspended above the liquor displays above the bar, and obnoxiously loud hip-hop music blaring from the loudspeakers, was already jam-packed to capacity a little under an hour and a half prior to gametime. As Ben and I forged our way through the crowd to order our beers, a voice began popping his P’s and mouth-breathing all his syllables into a microphone.
“Attention fans! In just a few moments, we will conduct our raffle drawing for the autographed framed photo of Derek Jeter. If you haven’t purchased your raffle ticket already, please see my man Jimmy D towards the south entrance! Tickets are $5 each! Drawing is so, so…anyone else want to get in on it? Anyone? Bueller?”
“I know what you’re going to say,” Ben nudges to me. “I get it, alright?”
“And you still don’t think it’s a problem?”
“It’s a damn problem, ok?”
“Now, let me ask you another question. Why the hell are we in this bar drinking beer?”
“Because I want to get drunk, man! What else?”
“No, but think deeper than that? Why the hell are we so into binge drinking on the weekends in the first place?”
“Because we slaves ourselves to jobs we hate?”
“That, but think a little deeper. How did we come to be alcohol drinkers in the first place?”
“College?”
“Before that.”
“Watching our parents get drunk on the weekends?”
“Not necessarily? Were such shenanigans and debauchery passed down from them to the next generation? Probably. But why were they so keen on drinking, and why are we so keen?”
“Well…”
“Look no further than the TV in front of you.” I pointed directly to the center of the 32-inch flat screen at a 45-degree angle, and what was it portraying? A beer commercial. “Think about when we watch football on Sundays, and why there are hundreds upon hundreds of commercials stacked upon hundreds and hundreds of plays. What advertisements are being portrayed? Cars, insurance, and what else?”
“Beer.”
“Exactly! Subliminal messaging! It’s like how you constantly rail against the ‘liberal’ media! Because they supposedly plant ideas in your head, like a seed preparing to sprout into a tall redwood tree!”
“And it all started on the TV screen. You really cracked the code there, Matty Boy. Now you have to chug your beer!”
“Here’s to peer pressure and subliminal messaging!”
After clanking our mugs together and chugging our barley beverages, we ventured into the stadium and took our seats in the second row in the upper deck behind home plate. The competing teams were just completing batting practice, and the stands were still pretty sparse. Once the groundscrew began resurfacing the infield dirt and sprinklers were saturating the outfield grass, the massive videoscreen in center field began showing this obnoxiously long montage of baseball highlights, a carefully-crafted mix of bloopers and spectacular plays to mesmerize the paying customers long enough to get them through the time in between the end of batting practice and the time the national anthem is sung. The crowds began to filter through the corridors and into their seats as each minute passed, several of them in large groups. A group of about five or six took their seats behind us, and each started discussing the most recent episode of Game of Thrones, and reciting the episode’s most quotable lines. Soon after, a young couple in their 20s sat down in the row in front of us, and for the next five minutes up until the players took the field, they wrapped their arms around each other all lovey-dovey like and took enough selfies to fill an entire social media timeline before requiring a refresh. They barely even noticed when the remainder of the forty-plus thousand fans and entertainment-seekers stood up for the national anthem. Their last selfie was taken as soon as the letter O echoed throughout the perimeter of the stadium on the loudspeakers. It was a sad thing to see. Even sadder was after the national anthem ended. The couple immediately returned to taking selfies, especially after the first pitch was thrown. Their painstakingly pathetic lovefest was suddenly interrupted by Ben’s obnoxious hollering at, you know, the actual reason why 40,000 plus were gathered within $1.5 billion of concrete slabs and forty-five degree inclines: the damn baseball team playing on the field. Suddenly, in the midst of Ben’s rabid cursing and heckling, the woman, a dirty blonde wearing a pink jersey and tight, short jean shorts, turned towards Ben behind her, gritted her coma-white teeth, and grumbled, “bro, you’d better calm down.” If there is one fatal mistake that anyone can make when speaking with a guy like Ben, it is to tell him to calm down.
“Woman, you’re not even watching the fucking game!” he shouts. “What the hell are you and your man even doing here anyway?! You’ve spent the last hour making out and taking selfies! You’ve wasted your fucking money! You’re lucky I didn’t’ throw beer on you when you conveniently forgot to stand up for the damn national anthem, and you required a random visual cue to get with the damn program!”
The boyfriend had none of it. The tall, muscular military-type, who sure enough was wearing a Marine Corps dogtag over his plain white t-shirt, with black combat boots beneath his ripped jeans, with a buzzcut to boot, gritted his teeth and motioned towards Ben as if to say “shut the fuck up or I’m going to pound you where the sun don’t shine!” I grabbed Ben’s arm and I looked at the man and woman beneath us and apologized on behalf of my bitter friend. They continued to give us nasty looks as I escorted Ben away from our seats and onto the staircase that leads to the open corridor which leads to the concession area. “Let’s load up on a couple of beers,” I said to him, and it seemed to calm him down.
As a result of this near brush with unnecessary physicality, we missed a home run on the first pitch of the bottom of the first inning. We waited on a line for beer which stretched nearly 20 deep for almost 15 minutes, and, naturally, we saw the damn home run on one of the TVs suspended above the concession stand that simulcast the game happening beyond the concrete in front of us. But something felt off. Within our line of sight at a 360 degree axis from where we were standing, there had to have been at least 500-600 people either waiting on line to order food or drink, making their way to their seats or the restrooms, or are just loitering against the concrete walls chit-chatting with their friends. Only Ben, myself, and a middle aged-man standing three people behind us in line raised our arms in celebration and hooted and hollered at the home run. In fact, a woman standing behind the man asked the lady standing immediately behind her, “what’s with all the screaming? What happened?” Then, the other man that was hollering at the home run besides us turned to the woman, looked her dead in the eye, and said, “you didn’t see the home run on the TV screen up there?” Her response, bluntly, and I assure you, not sarcastically: “why is the baseball game on that TV? The game is going on out there! Why don’t they tune the channel to HGTV or something?” I turned to the woman and shook my head. She looked at me and Ben and retorted: “take a picture, it’ll last longer!” She heard that expression on TV, sometime, somewhere, I was convinced.
When we returned to our seats with our beers, sure enough, the large group sitting behind us had turned to quoting 90s movies such as Dumb and Dumber, Tommy Boy, and Billy Madison to attempt to reduce their boredom of watching a slow-paced baseball game in which they had spent an exorbitant amount of money to attend. When the crowd cheered or jeered, they quoted. Meanwhile, the lovey-dovey couple sitting in front of us continued their selfie fest. Then, something more disconcerting happened. To the right of the lovey-dovey dopes were another couple, who looked more college-aged or at least yuppie aged. Both were wearing baseball jerseys, but both were snuggled tightly together. But this couple was not taking selfies or making out. They were watching a television series episode instead of a baseball game.
“Ben,” I said, “look to your right. Can you believe this shit?”
“Wait, are they watching Walking Dead?” he asked, incredulously.
“Yep, they sure are,” I said.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Then, a loud bat crack. “Whoa!” Ben shouts. “Here it comes!” A foul ball was hit in our direction. Ten rows of people within a 30-foot radius around us all oohed and ahhed at the flight of the ball. Some stood up, some recoiled in horror to avoid getting hit. As the ball settled into the hands of a man who subsequently threw his arms up in jubilation, absorbing a wall of cheers in the process, the Walking Dead couple had not budged one inch. They continued to fixate their eyes on the 8/12 x 11 inch HD screen on a smartphone, completely nonchalant to the action surrounding them. If the ball had been traveling at maximum velocity at any of their heads, they’d still be tuned to the machine that seems to sustain human life in the 21st century, a byproduct of the machine that sustained human life for nearly six decades.
As the innings passed, the following occurred:
The cheers in our section were louder for when our faces were pixelated all over the massive video scoreboard in center field than it was for any game action on the field, including home runs.
In between the top of the fourth and bottom of the fourth innings, the videoboard depicted a game being played by fans seated in one of the lower bowls. You know what it was entitled? Name That Movie Quote. The correct answer was “Life is like a box of chocolates” from Forrest Gump. When the time came for the fan to select the multiple choice answer out of three other options, our entire section erupted in shouting and imitating the thick southern accent of Forrest Gump. Subsequently, when the home team led off the bottom of the fourth with a single off the first pitch, the only people within our 30-foot radius that stood up and cheered were me and Ben. Soon after, a woman, walking down the steps adjacent to our seats, decked out in team gear and everything, asked the following question: “there’s a guy on first base. Is that good?” Immediately after: “ok, everyone, gather ‘round for the selfie!” And a group of five woman huddled in front of the metal railing protecting the fans from falling to their grisly deaths below, took a selfie. When the picture taker decided her hair looked too frizzy, they took another. And another. And another. Another single is hit on the baseball field. Their selfie binge continues without flinching or turning around to see what the cheering in the sections below was all about. An inning later, their selfie was posted on the videoboard.
Finally, in the fifth inning, the home team hit a grand slam. The stadium erupted in cheers and screams, and the concrete beneath us began to vibrate. All the while, the Walking Dead couple continued to…well…watch Walking Dead! My curiosity was piqued. I just had to have the question answered. So, rudely, I tapped the back of the man’s shoulder.
“Excuse me, sir, I’m sorry to bother you, but…”
“What?!” the man snaps.
Startled, I recoiled in a moment of intimidation, but I instantly refocused. “Again,” I stammered, “I…I’m really, really sorry to bother you, but I had a question for you two.”
“WHAT?!”
“Well, um, I mean…it’s truly none of my business, and I know I’m being hypocritical, but may I ask why you guys have been watching Walking Dead on your phone throughout the entire game?”
“What the fuck do you care?” the woman asks.
“Well, miss, um, with all due respect, um…I’m really just curious why you guys wasted, what, a hundred dollars to attend a baseball game when you could have just stayed home and watched Walking Dead on demand your TV set.”
“A friend gave us these tickets,” the man said. “We didn’t spend a dime on them.”
“So then why get dressed up in baseball gear and go to the game?” I pointedly asked. “Why not just say no to the tickets if you aren’t interested?”
“Look, it’s all just entertainment to us, alright?” the man snaps. “Can you leave us alone now?”
“Good talk, guys, enjoy the game,” I said. “C’mon, Ben, let’s go get a beer.”
“Guys,” Ben said to the couple with a wide grin, “I just wanted to say that what I just witnessed was the best entertainment of the day!”
“You see, Ben?” I said as we began walking toward the corridor. “You’re entertained because that it something you would see on television, and said medium has manipulated your imagination to believing that only what you see on TV or in the movies is supposed to entertain you.”
“Let’s just go get a fucking beer!” he snapped. However, as we stepped onto the staircase, a deafening roar ensued throughout the half-dozen sections of seats above us, and it had nothing to do with the baseball game. A fight was taking place between two men, one of them wearing a jersey of the opposing team on the field. As the two wailed against each other’s faced with white-knuckle-clenched fists, hundreds of surrounding yahoos stood idly by and watched with giddy satisfaction as two of their fellow human beings bloodied each other into submission. No one dared bother to break up the fight before either got seriously hurt, as the hooting and oohing and ahhing suggested those that fixated their eyes on the makeshift bloodbath were having the time of their lives. It was all entertainment to them! They didn’t care if the two perpetrators died, so long as they had a story to tell their family and friends, and so long as a little 30-second mental file of the incident was implanted into their brainwashed minds. How did I know?
“They’re all just standing and watching, dude!” I said to Ben. “Do you think we should go break it up before security arrives? I mean, look at that blonde girl a couple of rows above us. Her phone is in selfie mode. She’s fixing her hair and furrowing her eye brows just to make sure she looks good in front of the camera. As soon as she’s satisfied, she’s going to shoot a video of herself commenting on the incident and catching the fight in the background, upload it to all of her social media accounts, then wait with baited breath for how many likes she will get in less than a half hour!”
Suddenly, a drunk man, reeking of weed smoke and alcohol, standing to my left near the corridor, drunkenly nudged me to the side and said, “dude, let them fight! This is fun to watch!”
“Like on television, right?” I asked the man.
“Hell yeah, bro!” he shouted.
Immediately, I glanced over to Ben on my right. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he nodded at me in approval, not as if to say I was right, but as if to say he had seen my point.
“You know something, dude,” Ben said, calmly, with a submissive monotone, “the people we’ve seen today? They really do regurgitate what they see on television. I mean look at the fight we just witnessed. Common sense dictates that it should be broken up, right? Well, instead, a damn boxing match broke out, and you’d think we were watching Ali against Frazier instead of a baseball game. How fucking sad is that?”
“No imagination, my friend,” I said. “We’re all guilty. How the hell did our forefathers survive without television?”
“They found a way,” Ben replied. “And the day television becomes obsolete, our children’s children’s human condition will be manifested through whatever medium sustains them.”
We pounded each other’s fists together with the force of two boulders colliding. It hurt like hell, but it felt exhilarating. And then, a short, toothpick-thin reporter in a red dress, accompanied by her cameramen, approached us in the middle of the corridor leading to the concession area.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, do you have a moment?” she asked.
“Why?” Ben asked.
“I’m a reporter for WAFN.com,” the woman asked. “My name is Debbie Bachman. And we’re doing a story on our site about the fan experience at sporting events? Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Well, for starters,” Debbie replied, “how passionate do you think the atmosphere at a sporting event is?”
I gave Debbie the biggest grin I had ever mustered in my life.
“Ms. Bachman,” I gleefully replied, “I will be honored to answer your question.”
As soon as the camera light turned red, the words flowed out of my mouth like water streaming from a showerhead.
“Folks, more than half the people in this stadium don’t give a shit about baseball. They are more interested in being on television. And that is the human condition these days. It is behind the television screen. People see their lives unfold not through the iris of their eyes, but through an artificial box. And through this artificial box, they are told how to think, act, and feel; and then they come to places like this, walk around blissfully unaware of the action they paid top dollar for, and then make every attempt to replicate, verbatim, complete with perfect tone and timing, what they see on this box. They attempt to live vicariously through the people they see on this screen playing pretend, like we are all trapped inside of it. And I guarantee someone is going to watch this interview online later, and say to themselves, ‘you stay classy, Mr. Asshole,’ then proceed to quote another movie or TV show. And that’s human nature these days, isn’t it? Well, let me say to whoever is watching: here’s a quote you can all repeat until you’re all blue in the face: You’re human, not a goddamn machine! Have a nice day!”
After a long, awkward pause, Ben jumps into the camera frame.
“Riiiight,” he said.
We both gingerly smiled for the camera after that until the red light turned off. Debra reluctantly thanked us and sauntered away.
And then we returned to our seats to enjoy the rest of the damn baseball game, you know, the thing we paid our hard-earned money for.
And we were not worried about being on television.
At all.
We were worried about enjoying life.