My mother informed me today that the Chicago Cubs are playing with pink armbands on today. Not to be outdone, their opponents--the Milwaukee Brewers--are playing with pink baseball bats.
Why? Because it's Mother's Day, silly!
Oh, Hallmark, what manner of hell hath thou wrought? Your profit-driven machinations have spun out of control like so many dastardly sentient robots.
Is nothing sacred?
For every woman out there watching the game, cooing about all the manly men adorned in pink in their vague honor, I hope to vomit at least once.
I am aware that will require me to spend the entire day vomiting--nay, perhaps the entire year--but I am okay with that.
I needed new teeth anyway...
_
3 comments:
no, charlie. nothing is sacred. however culpable Hallmark may be in propagating a vapid culture, the holidays for which they are responsible are just as arbitrary as any other. i mean, hell, you start a holiday card company and then manage to inculcate, on an international level, a set of brand new holidays at which the giving of cards is among the only customs, i say good on ya. as much of an overhyped, wallet-draining nuisance as these holidays are, and as rarely as many mothers/fathers/valentines are actually worthy of celebration, fair play to the bozos at Hallmark for figuring out and taking advantage of our programmable, cyclical consuming habits and our useless, incessant infatuation with gaudy, superficial significations of 'celebratory' moments in our lives that mostly only feel worthy of observance by virtue of the ritual spending that is programmed to take place. on the other hand, Hallmark does kinda suck donkey balls - i hate everything it stands for and can't believe i just spent multiple sentences defending it - so good on ya taking them down a notch. i suppose i am just impressed at how ambitious and innovative they've been in spreading their vile, superfluous garbage.
if its the brief and subtle emasculation of the immensely overpaid, over-nurtured, sophomoric pituitary disorders that comprise our beloved Major League Baseball league with which you take issue - which is likely a poor, but not impossible, interpretation of your post - gotta say, i side with the cooing women on that one. if you ask me, baseball sold out long ago, and their observance of mothers day at this Chicago game, particularly given the befittingly trivial manner with which they implemented it, is no surprise nor slight on its supposed honor or sanctity. i mean, of all the outrage and controversy surrounding baseball over the past decade, THIS is what really gets to you? it was probably presented to players as a means for them to honor their own mothers during play, which some of them likely appreciate, despite being sacred macho warriors who never risk their precious manly integrity on inane commercial expression. also, sure, the mere existence of the holiday is atrocious and embarrassing, but where's the harm in letting people eke what little enjoyment there is to be had from it? an innocuous gimmick designed to add thematic flavor to a televised pro baseball game seems too routine and expected to make me want to vomit. perhaps i am just a drone who can't see beyond the commercial indoctrination i'm unwittingly beginning to embrace, but most of the time the crushing self-loathing and dizzying incredulity at the state of the world at large make it easy to not worry too much about pink bats.
well, jambone, you make some good points. perhaps my post made me sound more outraged than i really am about the whole affair.
i stopped caring about baseball around 1994, post-strike. i even stopped playing baseball, as part of my own wholly ineffectual protest.
so there is no sanctity left in the game to defile, as far as i am concerned; and yet, something about the pink bats (less so the armbands) really struck me as shockingly ridiculous.
what's next, santa claus batting helmets? a baseball painted like an Advil caplet?
it's just sad is all...
I was at a Reds v. Cardinals game on Mother's Day in Cincinnati, and the players on both teams had pink armbands, too. It was also somehow related to breast cancer, which brings to mind those completely pointless "Livestrong" type bracelets you can buy at Walgreen's--you know, to accessorize with compassion. It's the same exploitation of stupid people that's behind those "Support the Troops" ribbon magnets on the bumpers of SUV's. What exactly are you supporting when you convince yourself to buy this shit? It's probably not the troops or AIDS research. I have no facts to back it up, but I doubt the proceeds from this schlock go anywhere but into the hands of shitty entrepreneurs who capitalize off of terminal illness and misplaced patriotism.
Somewhat relatedly, Stephen Colbert's "Wriststrong" campaign? Hilarious. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/213934/december-15-2008/the-wriststrong-saga
And there was an interesting (kind of) history of Mother's Day in the recent issue of BUST magazine--can't find a link, but it's a pretty new holiday that was started by a woman who really loved her mom, but it didn't take off as a national shindig till some department store guy took up the cause and manipulated it into a day to buy crap your mom probably doesn't want.
The desire to prove your devotion to cause or person by buying useless gifts is probably what truly makes us American, yeah? I mean, that's what Pres. Bush was saying when he told us to go out and buy stuff after 9/11, right?
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