There was a time when watching a Sox game with me–and a Sox loss in particular–was like wandering into the last five minutes of Reservoir Dogs. Threats were made, snacks sent flying, nads kicked, walls punched, and, on at least two occasions, guns drawn.

“It’s one game,” they’d tell me as I offered to lay open their cheeks with a smashed Pabst bottle. But I didn’t want to hear it. Every time the Sox lost, whether it was a 14-3 blowout or a sack-grinding 7-6 squeeze-out, I became a walking plague, ready to get my John Woo on with anyone who’d try to inject rational thought into my poison mind. If a player made an error that cost us the game, I didn’t want to see any pie charts or Powerpoint presentations that proved conclusively that despite the error, the guy was still a productive rascal. I wanted his f@#king head on a platter, live weasels stuffed down his trousers and a greasy Pete Vukovich teabagging him into unconsciousness. F@#k that guy and f@#k the GMs who signed him and f@#k the manager who let him on the field and f@#k all you people who come into my house and eat all my Bugles and drink all my Pabst and have the nerve to tell me how I’m supposed to act when the Sox drop a game. Now, the fact that I was screaming this stuff to my parents and siblings just made it even creepier, I suppose, but the fact remains: I was the guy no one wanted to watch a Sox game with.

Last night, pre-2004 World Championship Red was back on the scene. Re-emerging from the shadows, from the dark recesses of my subconscious. He shook his fists at the sky, knocked the gas grill off the deck (my apologies, also, to Aunt Billie, who I didn’t know was standing two floors down beneath the deck having a smoke), threw beer cans at the TV and at least twice threatened to walk to Detroit to remove Julio Lugo’s spleen through his nostrils. I don’t give two horses what Lugo’s batting this year or how many fresh-baked pies he delivered to the homeless shelters last month. I wanted to see Papelbon stuff his useless ass in one of those Gatorade coolers, secure an iPod with Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk”–the preferred choice of professional torturers–on endless loop to his head and send it hurtling into Lake Ontario.

I have to say, it felt good to have pre-2004 World Championship Red back. And I believe that last night’s game–the most painful loss of the young season from where I’m sitting–was certainly deserving of a re-appearance.

It’s nice to know he’s still there. In case of emergency.

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Musical Diversion #328-d: From time to time, I’m known to force my musical tastes down other people’s throats. Lately, it’s been two of my favorite bands, Buffalo Tom and Was (Not Was). Part of the reason behind this is that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing both bands live over the past couple weeks. Today, I’m back on the WNW track. Check this song from their 1989 (!) disc What Up, Dog?: “Anything Can Happen” was the follow-up to the band’s biggest hit, “Walk the Dinosaur.” While this is, at least from my slightly warped perspective, a far superior song, it went nowhere. I can’t approve the silly-ass video, which was created to promote the Gene Wilder-Richard Pryor film See No Evil, Hear No Evil. But the song itself? It’s gold, Jerry. Gold!

Viva la 80s.