You Have To Stay Strapped In, Man

I am a passenger

And I ride and I ride

You've been there. You've gone a few drinks over the limit. Hell, more than few, and you are waiting for the bomb to drop. Or you took that extra tab because the first one wasn't working, and it's just tickled your cortex and said "Here's, Johnny!"  The shit hasn't hit yet, but it will, and you know it won't be good. You'll stumble around, unable to talk. Or you'll curl up in a ball and yip like a puppy if someone strays near you. And the aftershocks--something mild, like a dry-heaves hangover, or a little more fun, like temporary psychosis--will come, too. And you know this, and it feels real bad. And you're stuck. Fucked up. Hella fucked up, with no place to go but down someplace worse. That feeling, that dread, that "what have I done to myself?" moment has got you by the short hairs and you just have to ride it out and take what comes.
 

I am a passenger

I stay under glass

That feeling I was talking about? That's what tonight's game felt like. Every moment was one of fear, and loathing. Matt Cain looked ready to implode on every pitch. He lasted only five innings, his shortest start of the season. Every Met got pitches to hit and pitches to laugh at, and got lots of them, over and over again, and every inning recapitulated the entire season in a comic opera of great pathos and sensitivity. Every half inning, that is, as the Giants worked on their offense-minimizing strategies to great success, and the batting thing moved along briskly and didn't interfere with the rest of the show.

We'll be the passenger

We'll ride through the city tonight

See the city's ripped insides

We'll see the bright and hollow sky

It's a commitment. You have to stick it out. There are going to be games like this. Again. And again. This isn't the last time you will want to gouge out your molars with a Leatherman tool rather than watch another batter. So get over yourself already. Enough with the melodrama. We're grownups here. Professionals. We don't do those stupid adolescent stunts anymore. When we go over the line, we know it, we plan it, we live it, we love it. Cinch up the harness, mates, you ain't goin' nowhere.

Oh the passenger

He rides and he rides

He looks through his window

What does he see?

Fer chrissakes, Giants, win the next fucking ballgame.

--M.C.



p.s. Thanks to Iggy Pop for inspiration.


He sees the stars and hollow sky
He sees the stars come out tonight
He sees the city's ripped backsides
He sees the winding ocean drive . . .