Win Some, Lose Some...

It has been far too long since my last update. I choose to blame writers block, although long nights with my good friend Chianti probably has more to do with it. In the past four days I have struggled to find a topic for this entry, as we have been in Florence for almost a week now and there is simply so much to describe I sincerely have nowhere to begin. I have been to the Palazzo Pitti, an old palace occupied at different times by the Medici and Napoleon but now reserved as an art museum. Two days ago we made our way to the Santa Maria Novella, at 13th century Dominican church with works by Giotto, Masaccio, Brunelleschi and others. Then there is the Ponte Vecchio, or Old Bride, originally a covered bride that used to serve as a private passage way for the Medici and now is simply the best place to buy gold jewelry on the planet. And of course we have the colorful and unique people of Florence, with their unique charms and oddities. Any one of these would certainly make for an interesting blog post (fear not cultural swines, I will do my best to make my artistically centered submissions as entertaining as my other posts), but today I will share with all of you my experience watching the extremely upsetting OSU-Tennacheat regional semi-final game last night. While I realize this isn't probably what most of you would expect, I am still depressed and need to write this for cathartic purposes as much as anything else. Hopefully we can morn together.

Yesterday began for me around 8am when I was sitting in the living room, staring at my laptop with the previously mentioned writers block. Albert waddled his way into the room to start his day. Before he even sat down to have his morning coffee he declared it to be a day of rest. Phenomenal. Now I only had 16 hours to kill before the basketball game! We needed our phone turned on so I grabbed the beast (the phone we rented is literally the same model I used in high school) and made my way to the WIND store which is on the complete opposite end of town. Normally having such an arduous journey in front of me would inspire a negative reaction (see train station, Bologna), but seeing as how I had literally nothing to do all day I was actually brainstorming ideas to make my adventure even more time consuming. One such endeavor was to stop at the English Pub in the adjoining Piazza Santa Maria Novella to see if they got American television channels, i.e. the game.

Walking into this place was like entering bazaaro world. 150 yards from a 13th century Italian church was an English Pub where hardly a word of Italian could be spoken. In less vulnerable moments perhaps I would have viewed this as polluting the cultural integrity of the late-Gothic neighborhood, however I am a man of priorities and mine were to find a way to watch the Ohio State game. If this guy could help me, all the better.

The bartender was behind the bar (imagine that?) to the right as you entered, speaking to an extremely friendly Danish man and an English bloke easily older than the church outside.

Me: Parla Inglese? (not sure why I felt the need to ask this question, but it has become habitual)

Bartender: (Clearly amused) Lahashr' mehan' an' avou! 

This man was speaking English, I think, but his dialect closest resembled Brad Pitt circa his 2000 role of Mickey in the movie Snatch.

Me: Do you get American television?

Mickey: Mana' devegli' alon! Walen? (which I took as "no! why?")

Me: Basketball game.

Mickey: Enoa tha' beez' unn' puub' biiiiee' ee' Saiin' Cokkee' da' 'ass 'yaat!

I started to make out a few more words, which actually made it even more confusing. I looked at the Danish guy with the same look Billy Maddison gave Ms. Lippy when he walked in on her Dance Dance Revolution Party during recess. Fortunately, the Danish guy's half broken English was closer to what I use than Mickey's.

Danish Guy: There is a bar...near the Santa Croce...that gets American TV.

Well this was certainly a sight to behold. A Danish guy, translating English between two ENGLISH SPEAKERS... in Italy. I'm telling you people, every day it's something different around here. Apparently the bar's name is The Lion's Fountain. Odd name, but what the Hell did I care? Thankful for this useful piece of information, I stuck around for a while and had a beer. This beer took ~45 minutes to consume, during which time I was privied to conversations which included, but were not limited to:

• The old English fart explaining how he lost his sight in one eye. For those interested, it happened in Thailand and it involved a prostitute.
• The World Cup. They favor Spain. Think Denmark will go 3-and-out and Methuselah doesn't "fancy theee' yanks' chaunces because the goal is to kick theeee' ball arrrrroun' theeeee' goal keeper but into theeee' net!" whatever that means.
• Mickey's apparent love interest emerging from the back room, clearly on some form of narcotics, weighing the relative merits of sun bathing with her top off. Thankfully, for the sake of us all, she chose discretion. 

My stomach full and half buzzed (German beer, similar to Canadian beer, is like moonshine), I headed home with a small detour at the Lions Fountain to confirm the information I had received. 

The Lions Fountain was supposed to be near the Piazza Santa Croce, at the opposite end of the church. Of course, to my dismay, it was nowhere to be found. I tracked and retraced my way through every side street with no luck. Giving up, I began my stroll home in full Peanut strut (picture Linus walking home with his head down). Then.....like the North Star...guiding me to my Shangri' La...I saw it!

The single greatest influence in my life, which has always been there for me in good times and bad...

I mean sure we have had our up's and downs, but now wasn't the time to bring those up, now was a time for us to come together, again ...E...S...P...N!!!!!

ESPN!!!

ESPN!!!

I rushed inside to embrace the television, ran around in delirious circles not unlike this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysKAVyXi0J4

In a spat of good luck I had wondered past a restaurant named House of Sizzle, a name so ridiculous it could only have come from Italians with limited knowledge of English putting a phrase like Grill House into bablefish.com, but none of that mattered. There, in glorious high definition was....Sports Center! Fucking Sports Center! Never had the sight of Trey Wingo caused me to pitch a tent before. I looked to the left and they had a bracket on the wall, filled in and everything!! It was as if I had walked into any random bar in Columbus. I mean sure it was closer to a metrosexual Grandview bar than the Crown, but who was I to complain?? I mean as hot as Amanda and Chris are at the greatest bar known to man (The Crown for my readers who have never been), Contessa was a freaking dime! And a bitch! I was in love... (think Michael's first wife in Godfather 1)

The owner of this fine establishment, Francesco, spoke decent English. I asked him if he would have the Ohio State game on. 

"Certo!" or "of course!" he replied.

Me: How much is a beer around here? 

Francesco: "7 Euro" or essentially $10.

Whatever, it was worth it. I made plans to return around 11:30 pm. Went home, had dinner w/ the crew, took a nice nap till about 11 then headed back to HOUSE OF SIZZLE w/ Danielle in tow.

We arrived right on time and they had the pregame show on. We ordered a couple of drinks, only 14 Euro. Ugh... grabbed a menu and sat down. House of Sizzle, being located in the best region for food in the world naturally specializes in traditional Tuscan cuisine. By traditional Tuscan cuisine I mean cheeseburgers, hot dogs, chicken wings, onion rings and milk shakes. Danielle orders a BLT cheeseburger with french fries. I continue to pound 7E beers. We haven't been siting down for long when in comes a gaggle of douche bag frat boys, screaming at the top of their lungs and generally trying to draw as much attention to themselves as possible in a vain effort to compensate for their personal inadequacies for which I am sure they are all keenly aware of but they seem to believe they can disguise by pretending they are just SO FREAKING AWESOME they have to share their awesomeness with the rest of the world. Ugh...naturally they sit right next to me.

Game starts, one of them scream "O-H.."  clearly I was wrong, these are fine upstanding gentleman.

"...I-O baby!" I say enthusiastically.

"Fuck the Bucks!!!!" Douche bag number one says. Fuck him! Soon I discover that the one OSU "fan" was not an OSU fan at all, he was just the only person in the entire group who wasn't currently attending the University of Michigan. He was simply rooting for OSU to piss of his friends who were rooting for Tennacheat out of spite. Awesome, I travel half way around the world, find the only place in the city that has the Bucks game on and I have to watch it next to an Abercrombie and Fitch store of Michigan "fans" whose self worth has been so deterriorated by our domination the past DECADE that they can only regain a modicum of it by rooting against us. Fantastic. 

Douche number two chimes in: "We are 50-40 (btw, inaccurate) against you all time in football man, you gotta win every game for another decade to catch up!"

Awesome! Some fucking 20-year-old tool bag is talking trash to me about games played in leather helmets while he sips his peach Schnapps and tries to hide the fact that at party's he probably pores out his beer when nobody is looking and fills it up with waTer (that's for you Drew). As Cl. Jessup would say, "I have neither the time nor the inclination to defend myself..." It's game time!

Game tips off, all is well! OSU races out to a nice lead and looks to be the much better team. Tennacheat fights back, takes a lead but it is mostly on the back of perimeter jump shots or blown defensive assignments. I remain confident. Game goes back and forth till about 10 minutes remain in the first half when ESPN Internation decides to switch games to BAYLOR AGAINST ST. MARRY'S!! FREAKIN' BAYLOR??? ST. MARRY'S??? Baylor is in Waco, Texas which doesn't have much left to see after David Koresh burned half the people in the town up in 1993. I don't even know what state St. Marry's is in, and neither does anyone else. I mean half their team is Australian for God sake. Maybe that would be a good idea if we were playing rugby... or throwing boomerangs at kangaroo's. 

Fortunately, Baylor is good at basketball these days so the game got ugly quickly. At halftime they switched games and I remained confident. I was entertained by an informed Michigan fan (douche number 3) who attempted to explain to me why Evan Turner would not be a good NBA player. His argument: he turns the ball over too much to play point guard in the NBA. Fair enough, I mean the NBA hates 6-7 guys that can score from anywhere on the floor, play unselfishly, have vision in the full and half court, rebound on both ends and provide rangy defense against 4 positions. Yeah those guys suck in the NBA (Andre Igoudala and his $10m a year disagree). OSU regains the lead before half, I continue to remain confident.

Second half begins, I get another beer. What's another $10? OSU is not playing well but maintaining a lead quite frankly because Tennacheat isn't very good. Sean Pearl has a chance to get the Golden Sombrero, checking in with 0 points and 3 fouls with 15 minutes left in the second half (defined by Andy Eye the Golden Sombrero is awarded to any player which accomplishes 0 points and 5 fouls in one contest). Tennacheat retakes the lead, stupid deucher frat boys become more obnoxious (when does Michigan play again? Oh yeah, the Womens NIT plays on Monday nights) and I move to the floor below my table to escape the torture. Four minutes left, we trail by two baskets even though Evan Turner cannot be stopped. For the first time, I consider the possibility we may lose. Never a good sign.

Diebler can't make a shot to save his life. We continue to struggle, idiotic Michigan fans talk trash. One guy is classy enough to refrain, he is too busy talking about how many connections his girlfriend's father has in Hollywood and how he is going to write for Jimmy Kimmel when he graduates. Oh if only I had a Palestinean Sweater Vest right now I could make the world a better place....

We lose...we suck...good luck in the NBA Evan Turner...you are the best basketball player I have ever seen at OSU and, despite Thad Matta's best coaching effort ever, we lost to a terrible 6 seed who cannot make a perimeter jump shot because Kyle freaking Madson, formerly of Club Trillion fame, is one of two players post players in our rotation. Just sad...

Deucher 4, all 125 lbs. of him who had been staring me down the entire second half, walks up to me and unloads a rant on nonsequiters of which included: "Fuck Woody Hayes...Go Blue...Eddie George Sucks...I was at the basketball game at the Obama Center (Formerly known as the Chrysler center before He bought it) when we beat you this year!!!...etc..."

I kindly told him to go eat some curry with his Indian (dot, not feather) girlfriend, hire a real football coach and get the fuck out of my way. Seeing as how he was rolling 12 deep with 30+ ACT scores he got a big chest and decided it would be a good idea to push me. Those of you who have seen me melt down after traumatic OSU loses know this was an error in judgment on his part...

Deucher 4 got 190 lbs. of twisted steel and sex appeal in his grill. I'm not bigger than many people, but this bioengineering nerd is one person I am. Hand to the throat, driven into the wall...I was probably 30 seconds from staring in the next episode of Locked Up Abroad. Puffing my chest out like a peacock I made it clear to him that I was not entertained by the disrespect he showed towards THEE Ohio State University, informed him that I actually root for scUM in bowl games (when they make them, that is) and that if he didn't reciprocate my respect he best ought to keep it to himself. Astonishingly, the Bio-Chem 748 class he found at Abercrombie didn't feel compelled to interject.

As I left the bar the last thing I heard was Francesco, the owner of HOUSE OF SIZZLE, make a sincere attempt to console me by saying "maybe next year cowboy!"

Fuck him too! O mother fucking H!!!

**I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to my mother for this corse language. In future additions I will censor myself better assuming I don't have to watch OSU lose another tournament game with Michigan frat boys again**

Next post I will get back to Italy. Until then, please continue to post your comments. I love them all. Go Bucks!