October 22, 2008

It's too cold for people to sit outside at State Street Brats.

But it was very pretty passing by just as the Backstreet Boys were singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" to open the World Series.



Sorry for the wind (and bus) noise, but I love when you can hear girls exclaiming "Sounds like the Backstreet Boys," "Yeah, it is!"

ADDED: When I got home, I watched a bit of the game on HDTV, and I was shocked. Is it just the HD? The players look like hell! When did they stop wearing stockings and knickers? Those long pants look like pajamas. I remember tight pants. These are all baggy. What a bunch of slobs! And look at all that litter in the dugout. And all the nutshells in front of the dugout. Ugh! The aesthetics!

28 comments:

Meade said...

I must be smoking too much blog. I hallucinated.

MadisonMan said...

I took the #6 bus down State at 5 PM today, and there were people sitting outside -- was it at Michelangelo's? No, a bar -- smoking and drinking. Maybe at the Orpheum? ANYWAY, I thought to myself that you'd never see people dining al fresco in Florida when it's 50. Even I thought it was a little hardcore.

Anonymous said...

If I said I was curious it might give the wrong impression, NTTAWWT, but I'm wondering if "Backstreet Boys" is code for gay?

1775OGG said...

Someone in Madison should go visit cold San Diego and notice the wonderful infra-red propane heaters used by many outdoor restaurants. Customers sit outdoors under those wonderful heaters, enjoying their meal or what-have-you, not minding coolish weather. With an umbrella top, those customers are even protected from inclement weather.

Many those penny-pinching Madison restaurant "entrepreneurs" need to figure out what they're trying to pitch to their customers, using whatever brain power is left after all that Madison beer they've imbibed. Or, has Socialism thoroughly engulfed Madison these days.

Titusdoesntbottom said...

Couldn't the world series get anyone better than The Backstreet Boys? I thought they had dissolved.

Titusdoesntbottom said...

I have been to that bar but never had any of their brats.

But I have had my share of Plazaburgers, yum.

MadisonMan said...

The Backstreet Boys is not code for Gay. It's code for old.

MadisonMan said...

OldGrouchy, those propane heaters aren't green. Keep in mind that this street is near a University that is advertising that its Homecoming game this weekend is carbon neutral. I read that the University is planting a bunch of trees somewhere east of town as carbon offsets, but I doubt this will offset all the people who drive here for the game.

I think it's great that the University is planting trees. I think it's ridiculous that they're using the planted trees as some feel-good eco-hug nonsense.

1775OGG said...

So, those fools in Madison can feel "green" while they're blue from the cold or they can enjoy life and live it! Life can be great except it takes a Socialist state of mind to f#$k it up! Wonder how they deal with that mental condition out in Venice, CA?

MadisonMan said...

I am pretty sure that Fresco (a rooftop restaurant on State Street) has the outdoor propane heaters. Most of the street-level places don't, though. A big problem in using those gadgets here when it's cold is the wind that is seemingly always here when it's chilly. So the outdoor tables/chairs just get put away for the season.

It's.....Mrs. Hornblower ! said...

Khalidi, a Palestinian activist, was a director of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's press agency in 1982, according to The New York Times, when the PLO was still designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.

Obama spent time with Khalidi when the two were professors in Chicago, and paid him a special tribute during a farewell dinner for the firebrand professor in 2003, reminiscing about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, according to the LA Times.

Obama has distanced himself from Khalidi, whom he called an academic acquaintance. "He is not one of my advisers. He's not one of my foreign policy people. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy," he said during a campaign event.

Brad V said...

The cow, the cow. Merely chewing cud in the dark, contemplating its absentee ballot? Or a bovine biting of its hoof at the Backstreet Boys? Or stoic Wisconsin personified, eschewing such nonsense?

Seriously, though, the brats at Brats don't hold a candle to the real deal in Sheboygan.

Titusdoesntbottom said...

Is Paul's Club, with the tree, still around in Madison/

Eli Blake said...

It could be tough to try and get much press when you are in a celebrity dominated culture:

Headline in the Pittsburgh Tribune today:

Satan toils in relative anonymity.

OK, so it was a story about a hockey player who shares a surname with Lucifer. But I still busted a gut reading the headline.

XWL said...

I remember tight pants.

Nutsacks, not nutshells!

(the rally cry for the 'bring back tight athletic wear and ban messy snacks in sports' coalition)

Meade said...

How outrageous would it be for a professor to wear long baggy pajamas instead of knickers and eat peanuts, tossing the nutshells onto the floor during class?

Host with the Most said...

Honestly, Ann, you're starting to sound like an old farting grouch.

It's that Obama decision. It's making it hard for you to sleep at night, having sold out your country's future and all.

Alan said...

Some players still dress "old school," but they're a small minority on their teams. Usually only one or two players on a team will wear the knee pants and socks.

The shells and trashed dugout have always been part of the game. The bullpen pitchers will spit sunflower seeds all night long.

You may recall John Kruk's admonishment to a female fan who complained about his beer gut and slovenly appearence: "I'm not an athlete lady, I'm a baseball player."

Q. said...

Dear Ann,

I never watch your wonderful videos anymore because

1. They don't work in my browser
2. After that, no video of any kind will ever work in my browser, until I close down all windows and start again.

So, please please please, I beg you to provide a link to the Youtube video - in addition to including it on the page. That way I can just click over to Youtube and watch it there (which I can do).

Thank you.

MarkW said...

The biggest aesthetic problem with the series right now is the godawful ugly place in Tampa where the Rays play. It looks like an abandoned warehouse with artificial turf laid down and temporary stands erected.

Anonymous said...

Alas for the days when you could watch the players spitting in proper knickers!

Bob R said...

I think HD is a big part of the problem. Another is the carpet. The sunflower seeds don't look as bad on real grass as they do on the carpet. The pants are interesting. Baseball is far too working-class oriented for this - but it's almost as if the uniforms are evolving toward the old Bill Tilden tennis-in-long-pants outfit. I'm trying to figure out the Althouse preferences for men-in-shorts vs. men-in-pants vs. men-in-knickers.

froggyprager said...

The other day it was 30ish in the morning here in Madison and I saw a parking guy and a UPS guy out chatting on the sidewalk wearing SHORTS!

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

One reason for "baggy" pants is that any pitch brushing the uniform in any way is called as a hit batter, and most of the strike zone is down in the pants region. Even an ankle-high pitch brushing the pants gets a trip to first base.

Bissage said...

Things haven't been the same in baseball ever since George convinced the Yankees to switch from polyester to 100% cotton:

ANNOUNCER #1: And the Yankees take the field!

ANNOUNCER #2: What is with the Yankees? They look like they're having trouble running, they can't move!

ANNOUNCER #1: It's their uniforms, they're too tight, they've shrunk! They're running like penguins! Forget this game!

ANNOUNCER #2: Oh my God, Mattingly just split his pants!

JERRY: That's a shame.

Bissage said...

Ugh! The aesthetics!

Don't forget the chaw.

Disgusting!

Bissage said...

Oh, yeah.

I forgot.

Go Phils!

Trooper York said...

The craze for long stirrups and knicker like uniforms of the late sixties and seventies that you remember is just that:a fad. Like platform shoes and Oscar Gamble size afros. Baseball players would cut apart their socks and add material to elongate the stirrup and give the "knicker" effect. It was supposed to make them look longer and leaner. The current uniforms which are baggy and with long pants down to the ankle is the traditional way the baseball uniform was worn.

Of course you can not expect any sort of diginity or class from the current two participants as they are scrubs. You will have to wait till next year when the New York Yankees return to their rightfull place in the fall classic to get any dignity and class in the proceedings.