Why my job is cooler than yours

I don’t feel that my previous and rather nebulous description of my new job is sufficient enough to completely describe the awesomeness thereof.

Last Saturday as I was showering, my good brother Ian knocked on my door and said, “Dude! I’ve got the perfect job for you!” So, after getting dressed, I went to his room to see what the entire hubbub was about. It turned out that he had seen an advertisement on the Dunedin Blue Jays’ Web site about a need for a mascot. And here’s the kicker, folks: no experience was necessary.

So, after pacing around and dialing six digits like a little schoolgirl who just wants to breathe heavily into the receiver and hear that cute boy from English class answer the phone, I called a contact with the team and left a message regarding my interest in the position. I hadn’t heard back from them for a few days, so I assumed they had found someone more favorable for the position.

Therefore, when I got a callback on Wednesday of last week, I was adequately surprised. The good folks from the Blue Jays wanted to meet with me that evening before their game against the Lakeland Tigers, an offer which I immediately accepted. I met my contact with the team and we had a nice interview in the box office of Knology Park.

I returned on Thursday’s game against the Tampa Yankees to learn the ropes from Dave, a freelance mascot who knows what he’s doing. It was a good thing, too. I wouldn’t have had any idea how to do the mascot thing.

Then, on Friday night, it was my turn. I donned the outrageously warm blue fur and proceeded to mess with each and every person in the stands at least once. I raced a kid from first to third base after the second inning. He smoked me. After the last out of the third, I participated in a game in which I threw rubber chickens into the air and two kids with giant clown pants tried to catch them in their festively colored garments. By the time the fourth inning rolled around, I was atop the dugout and entertaining the cozy Dunedin crowd like there was no tomorrow. And when the game encountered the seventh inning stretch, I led the masses in a stirring rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

And by the end of the eighth, I was out of costume and restoring my original body temperature in the stands while watching one of the better extra inning ballgames of my short existence. And the best part of it all was that in normal clothes, no one in the stands was wise to my alter ego as D Jay, the happy-go-lucky Blue Jay.

I had a lot of fun last night. The only downfall of the job is its heat factor, but other than that, it’s a veritable perk machine. Free drinks; free baseball; the opportunity to say, “Hey ladies, I’m a mascot” and a schedule that mandates only 2.5 – 3 hours of work whenever I’m scheduled to appear. And the kids love me, so that’s nice too.

But the best part, my friends, is the fact that I am the first kid I know to actually be on the front of a real, live baseball card. One day, I’ll get some and sell them autographed for $19.99 on ebay.

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Here's looking at you, Lord Durham

Today, I’m attempting an unprecedented career move in which I will never, ever have to make the use of inferential calculus or epistemology. My vast knowledge of Canadian history might come into play, though.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you will be aware soon enough if it’s meant to be that way.

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Thor is dead

About “eight months ago”:http://sociallyconsciousbird.com/wordpress/?p=81, I outlined the reasons for my faltering loyalty to 107.3 FM and took up my cross to go hang out with the folks at Thunder 103.5. I can honestly attest to its superiority in every facet: talent, programming, promotions, and commercial placement.

However, it seems that now I’ve upset the Gods that have been sending their rays of love down in the form of megahertz waves for the larger part of a year. Without warning and without any consideration of the devastation to which a large portion of us classic hit aficionados would succumb, the bigwigs down at Clear Channel Communications took away the compromise between The Bone’s hard rock and The Eagle’s mindless droning of softer stuff by Elton John and Jim Croche. My friends, the worst thing happened Thursday morning that I can possibly even consider: I woke up to a country station.

And so, that leaves to those of us who appreciate the music that shaped society as we know it roughly three stations. We’ve got The Bone (102.5 FM), which, in my humble opinion, has some sort of bass and screaming fetish. We still have The Eagle (107.3 FM), which has been far less impressive since the name change from The Bay on 1 January 2004. Nowadays, its play list is tiny and repetitive, sort of like Ross Perot. I reckon that leaves us with The Point (101.5 FM), whose inclusion in this list is debatable because I’m not sure the eighties can be considered a markedly impressive era for rock and roll.

That’s it, folks. This kind of thing happens with no warning, either. I think had Ledge called my house and let me down easy like a fat Prom date, it would have been okay.

“Hey, uh, Casey? Yeah, hi. This is Ledge, you know – that DJ from Thunder? Yeah, well, I just wanted you to have a heads up on this. Starting next Thursday, we’re going to be a country station. Just wanted to let you know. Bye.”

That’s all I would have needed. Then, I could have weaned myself off of the addicting drug known as Thunder 103.5 by going back to The Eagle or The Bone for a certain allocation of time daily. But as it stands now, I am very, very shell-shocked. And mad.

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It's Baxter!

A few years ago, when my 17 year old cat named Sam died three days after my dog, the Peterson family was reduced to owning and caring for one cat. And at first, it was alright. It was nice to have an animal around the house filling my Miniature Chelty’s role as resident furry thing that poops.

Mind you, however, that I brought this cat, Lucky, home from preschool. That would make him 12. Sixty four in cat years. That’s old. And it’s showing.

Since about four years ago, Lucky’s had a very demanding nighttime schedule that, luckily, I am not responsible for maintaining. Each morning at about three, his high-pitched squeal that has devolved and can no longer be considered a meow rings throughout the house, waking my poor father, consistently and without fail. Then good ole Pop gets out of bed, letting the cat outside to do whatever cats do in the wee hours of the morning.

Then, I get up at five and ignore the mindless droning of feline desire so that I don’t have to deal with the morning feeding chores – particularly because I have no idea what to feed this thing. Enter my father, who’s been through the regiment morning after morning for years. My mother is very particular about her cat; she’s outlined a system concerning what food the cat eats at particular junctures that is more intricate and complex than most women. And, my friends, women are enigmas.

And so, upon allowing entrance to the most annoying animal God decided to put on this green earth, Dad has to feed it the food prescribed by the mandate of the matriarch of the household and wait until its next session of crying, whereupon someone lets the cat outside only to be forced to let it back inside again.

When everyone leaves the homestead to attend to their daily affairs, the cat sleeps the day away atop the back of our blue recliner, which is nice and peaceful. Until it has to poop. Then, it goes and squats in the same place every time. Every time. And I clean it up every time. Every time.

Unbeknownst to my mother, I’ve proposed that we kill the cat. However, by posting it here, the secret’s out. Therefore, I guess I can’t get away with it. On the other hand, it would be an absolute travesty Lucky accidentally disappeared. A real tearjerker, let me tell you.

I’m currently accepting bids on the job.

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2020

Having officially proven my worth as a mediocre gifted student with my 2020 on the new SAT, I’ve decided that I’m not going to apply to, say, Harvard. Or Yale. Yale’s out, too.

It’s great to be a Florida Gator…

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The most disgusting entry to date

Last night, I didn’t want to deal with the daily hassles of teenagerdom, so I escaped all of that by vowing to high-tail it out of this town and to not answer my cell phone. So, if I ditched you last night, I’m sorry. The same goes for if I didn’t pick up your call. I needed it.

To escape from the perils of Pinellas, my brother and I trekked down to Sarasota, where we used our last minute concert tickets. The act? Art Garfunkel.

You know, the tall, quite one with froofy hair from Simon and Garfunkel. He’s lost a bit of his hair by now, seeing as how he’s like a billion years old and all. The show was pretty good; he has quite the pretty voice and can really belt out a love song.

But I think his career is really going downhill. He couldn’t even sell out a small performing arts venue. And we got front row tickets from a scalper for $45 for the pair. That isn’t very good when the tickets have a face value of over $40.

Maybe his lack of support is a product of the way he puts on a show. He’s very queer about every thing he does on stage. During the long instrumental bridges in the songs, he would pretend to play the instruments that were being played by the band. A little air guitar here, some imaginary drums there, and a whole heck of a lot of fake piano playing everywhere else.

Another thing I noticed, and pardon me for being the biggest hypocrite in the world after razzing Art for his gaity, was the fact that *Art Garfunkel is hung like a HORSE*. He wore the tightest pants he could find on the clearance rack at Ross and, I swear to you that it was two entities singing to us last night: man and beast.

It was like hitting two birds with one stone while at the same time getting more bang for your buck. That’s two acts for the price of one!

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