hoarse birdmad went to my first baseball game today got into it shouted and cheered when i thought the home team might do some good...no such luck but in all i had fun and it was a nice change from being cooped up in the office final score from bank one ballpark in excruciatingly sunny downtown phoenix: (thank goodness for reatractable domes) Montral Expos: 1 AZ Diamondbacks: 0 (i guess what i always heard as a kid was true, it is more fun to see a game in person - god knows i can never sit thru one on TV) 010802 ... raze i lost my voice for the first time when i was nine years old. i saw the ultimate warrior wrestle in toledo. that was what did it. i loved professional wrestling, for a few years at_least. i think on some level i knew it was fake. it was ridiculous and overwrought, but i didn't care. i loved it for the same reason i loved stephen king's books growing up. it was the sort of soap opera that let me believe good might not always triumph over evil, but it could at least put up one hell of a fight. i liked jake the snake and andre the giant, but the ultimate warrior was my favourite. that was my guy. there was something raw and animalistic in him that appealed to me. one of my favourite childhood toys was a soft ultimate warrior wrestling buddy. i used to wrestle with him on the front lawn. we threw each other all over the place. i punched him in the dick so many times, if he had a real one it would have turned purple and fallen off. when my dad took me to see him wrestle live, i lost my mind. papa shango put a spell on the ultimate warrior and paralyzed him in the middle of the ring. i screamed at the top of my lungs, "no! ultimate warrior! noooo! snap out of it! you can do it! don't let him beat you!" i screamed and screamed and screamed. he fought through the spell and pinned papa shango. he did it. he won. it took about a week for my voice to come all the way back. i loved it. i wore my hoarseness as a badge of honour. it was even better than the time justin elbowed me in the face without meaning to when we were shooting hoops and i got a black eye. at lunch recess, on my first day without much of a voice, i wore a black t-shirt and acted out an action film with denny and scott and a few other friends. we were all heroes, but i was the hero with a bruised voice, and that gave me a depth those other guys didn't have. i think i still have those ticket stubs in a photo_album somewhere. 210924 what's it to you? who go blather from