PatrickGCain

Things I dislike…

You think to yourself, well Pat’s just a fan of everything, right? No. You don’t. If you do, you really haven’t hung out with me enough to know I’m an 83-year old italian man in the body of a soon-to-be 30 curmudgeon. So I thought let’s get a few things straight and air them to the world because What-Would-Carrie-Bradshaw-Do is how I apparently live my life. So here’s 10 things that irk me…

1. Sex In The City.  - Yes there are cheap laughs. Yes there is a high production value. But beyond that, it’s really kinda the lowest common denominator. “Oh I’m a woman and (insert cliche)” That’s the basis of every episode. Thankfully the writers had four different women so that they could hit on each and every stale carousel of attributes. 

2. Men in fedoras - If my friend Jason, an-Olympian-male-model-who-has-women-come-up-to-him-in-bars-and-buy-him-drinks struggles to make it work, you can’t do it. I mean he does, but you can’t. You certainly cannot, so stop, because you look ridiculous. 

3. Pit Bull’s face - This man is the epitome of gross smarm. Maybe it’s his pencil thin mustache. Maybe its goatee. Maybe it’s the bald head. Or likely, it’s the combination of all of them,  but good god, he’s a musical butter face. I have to imagine he’d be huge if photography had never been invented - or at least he’d have 1 more fan.

4. Encores - Stop it. Stop stop stop. Don’t go off stage and pretend it’s over just to be placate the audience with song that was on your set list to begin with. When you walk off stage and you haven’t played your big hit, guess what? It’s not an encore. It’s a five minute breather for the musicians. Also encores are meant to reward the audience in by saying you’ve been exceptional, let us do one more for you. If you do it every time, it loses its meaning. Play your set, walk way. Encores are dumb. 

5. Trucks with high suspensions - how is this legal?! If you hit me in a car or even in my truck, your bumper will go through my face. Bumpers were meant to hit each other, there by putting vehicles all within the same height range. Truck nuts make more sense to me than needing a ladder to get into your ride. 

6. “Jesse’s Girl” - Why is this song still being played? 

7. Martini glasses - I’d like to punch the person who engineered this masterpiece in the face. What’s the function of this shape other than to make you look foolish and have to precariously walk everywhere as if the ground were shaking nonstop. 

8. All ages shows - What genius who clearly never had a daughter ever thought mixing under age kids with 20-something guys was a good idea. Gross. 

9. Personal Facebook posts - I don’t want to know about a death in your family. I don’t want to hear how sad you are about your break up and good god, you look horrible when just gave birth. Can FB please make a filter for this?

10. When I’s don’t come before E’s.  - Fuck you English. Fuck. You. 

1 year.

To the hour, it has been 365 days since I realized what good was. What caring meant. What utmost endearment felt like. Sadly it took 2 more months after that for me to accept it. In that time, good went to bad. Caring went to unhinged. Endearment went to what I know now was constant reoccurring lying. 

To one year of learning. To one year of living. To one year of being older. Need proof? Well, I’m writing coherent thoughts. Last year that was absolutely impossible. Adulthood, here we come. 

Good writing

In journalism classes across America the following question is asked about a million times each year: “Why don’t people buy newspapers anymore?”

And, realistically, for each time you ask the question, there could be a new valid reason, but the one word answer of “Internet,” does the trick. But bias fully in effect, let me suggest, it’s because people enjoy to read writing that is sharp, witty and all together not boring. Or well, maybe that’s just me, you know, a newspaper writer. 

This is good writing. And why this isn’t moving more copies of GQ is beyond me. All I know is if newspapers allowed their writers this much freedom, or their writers could even write with such gravitas, then I’d be subscribing to more than two papers and my peers would subscribe to more than 0.05. That might be a high estimate. 

GQ’s Sean Flynn story about the West Memphis Three…

(background…John Fogleman was the original prosecutor in the case who has since become a judge in the area)

“When a prosector argues a bullshit case to a jury, he typically does so for one of two reasons: Either he is not terribly bright or he is cravenly amoral.

Fogleman would not speak to me on the record, which means I cannot report what he said. But my impressions are fair game. John Fogleman is pleasant, charming, and oddle forthcoming. He is also perfectly bright.” 

For the rest of the story, click the link below. And while you’re at it, subscribe to the magazine - your brain and wardrobe will thank you.

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201112/west-memphis-three-trial-story-sean-flynn-gq-december-2011

Keeping Up With The KarPATcian

It’s not that I like to think of myself as a dirty needle in your arm, just your daily fix. Fortunately for you, your hunger isn’t getting satisfied daily, rather, whenever I get around to remembering I have this blog. So let me catch you up on some rad stories of the past month. Eventually I’ll even add these to my multimedia clips section too.

There’s a little of something for everyone: travel stories about tropical places, a nostalgia pice for the X-Games crowd and a tale of Mr. Brainwash and Banksy…all under the ESPN umbrella. Yes, ESPN is awesome for running all three. And just you wait, another video should be coming soon featuring grade-A nerditude. 

1. Here’ a the video of Kite Jam in the British Virgin Islands (Necker and Anegada Islands, specifically). Highlights include Richard Branson using me as a crutch, literally, without me he’s a three-legged chair. 

2. A story about Airwalk, its fall from grace and its best Fawkes impression possible.

3. Whether he is real or not, Mr. Brainwash is in trouble. The artist whose studio is down the road from my house (stalkers take note!) was deemed a copycat. But, safe bet is he’ll still be filthy rich even after he pays whatever damages are handed down from the court.

And heck, here’s a special bonus: Over at FanGraphs.com, hands down the dominant baseball blog out there, I’ve started a new series called “Inside The Baseball Studio.” Here I take James Lipton’s questions from “Inside The Actor’s Studio” and ask them to baseball players while they look at me like I’m a crazy person whose press pass should be revoked. Their assessment isn’t necessarily far off. 

So until later, enjoy. Soon, I hope, there’s going to be a few really cool stories put up from completely new magazines.