Deaf Folks Descend On The Bar

I was looking through Rotten Tomatoes a bit ago and came across a film that got a 0% fresh rating. That's right, 0%. I'd never seen a movie with a 0% fresh rating before. Even the unwatchable Lindsay Lohan epic I Know Who Killed Me received a 9% fresh rating. The name of the 0% fresh rated film is Last Ounce Of Courage. I read up on it. Evidently an extra from the unwatchable movie Roadhouse plays a small town mayor who fights against a perceived assault on American values by liberals. Or something like that. It sounded like a whole lot of religious propaganda by bible thumpers. So, I checked to see if the movie is playing in Greensboro. And by God, it is playing at Friendly Center. I'm gonna make it a priority to get over to watch this Last Ounce Of Courage in person soon. It might be the only chance I ever get to see a movie so bad that it didn't receive a single favorable review in the entire known world. I'll let you know how bad it is later in the week. I am pumped.

Speaking of Greensboro, the City Council passed some harsh new ordinances last week regarding panhandling around town. I've mentioned my run-ins with hobos before on this blog. They stand at virtually every busy intersection up and down Battleground every day. I'm all for bums doing whatever they need to do to make an easy buck to buy the much needed 40 and pack of Newports. I really am. But I don't like to actually see them standing there with their little cardboard signs that say something like - Down on my luck. Any help appreciated. God Bless. Granted, the word appreciated is rarely spelled correctly, but you get what I mean. The City Council has made all these guidelines about where these derelicts can beg for change. I'm just waiting for the next City Council meeting when all the hobos show up to gripe about how the new ordinances are cramping their style. Hell, I'd love to go that City Council meeting myself and take notes on the complaints from these panhandlers. I may try and do that. The only problem is that I'm not sure security would let me in the meeting. I've mocked just about every member of the City Council in the past on this blog and imagine my name is on some Do Not Let Enter list. You can't really blame them for wanting to bar me from the meetings, as I'd laugh and laugh and laugh.

Speaking of laughing and laughing and laughing, last night I almost keeled over dead with laughter. I had a bet on the Seattle Seahawks on the money line at +150. Seattle was down 5 points. I needed a touchdown to win. Seattle's quarterback, noted Rockies' 2nd basemen farmhand Russell Wilson, heaved a ball into the corner of the end zone as time expired. A Green Bay defender jumped and intercepted the weak pass. Then noted Golden Domer Golden Tate grabbed some of the ball from the Packer defensive back as 4 or 5 players toppled to the ground. The back judge, some brother, starts waving his arms signalling a touchback, Packer ball. Game over. I lose. Then out of nowhere another official runs toward the pile of players from the pylon and signals touchdown Seattle. After several seconds of utter confusion, the referee decides to go ahead and call the play a touchdown. That's when I started giggling. Then I went outside to smoke. Then I really started laughing uncontrollably. It's the first time I have ever covered a bet on an interception that awarded 6 points to the team that just threw the pick. Many NFL fans seem all bent out of shape about that call and the officiating in general to start the season. I say, keep using them. I love the replacement refs. Those are my main men. I'm not sure how many 10's of millions of dollars changed hands on that call last night. All I do know is that a losing bet became a winning bet for me. And how could I possibly be upset by that? It even got a little better for me when I remembered that one Matthew Dammann, the noted homophobe at the Maryland State Department of Education I mentioned a few weeks back, was a Packer fan. You gotta love unintended consequences.

Speaking of the NFL, I was out Sunday at the infamous Kickin Chicken for Sunday Ticket, same as always. Only things were decidedly different during the 4 o'clock games. Why, you may wonder? Because the back bar area was filled with deaf people. Seriously. At the friendship table near the bar I noticed about 11 or 12 folks waving and making odd hand gestures to each other. Being that I was at the Kickin Chicken and the Steelers & Eagles were playing at the time, I didn't think anything of it. After about 10 minutes Brandon tells me he thinks the folks making the hand gestures and flailing their arms around are deaf. And that had a ring of truth to it. Then I noticed that a handful of other tables in the back bar also were packed with deaf people communicating through bizarre hand gestures. There were 3 or 4 guys at the bar to my and Brandon's left. They were mainly there following their fantasy "teams." But were okay guys nonetheless. Well, as you can imagine, I had these poor fellas falling over laughing and spitting out their iced teas mid gulp. I noted that now I finally know what it's like to be a minority because we were surrounded by deaf folks. I kept asking everyone if they thought the deaf people were making fun of us and we were clueless because we didn't know what all the crazy hand posturing meant. I asked how long they thought a fantasy football draft would take if the deaf people had a league. My guess was all night. I mean, can you imagine that? 12 deaf people trying to draft and all the confusion over the Johnsons in the NFL? One guy thinks he drafted Calvin and another thinks he drafted Chris and the confusion, arguing, and inevitable fighting that would ensue as the communication problems deteriorated into mayhem? I kept telling Brandon and the 3 or 4 other fellas that if you ever wanted to do a deaf chick that you'd better go for it now, because this might be the only time in your life that there are more than a dozen deaf babes all in the same place as you at the same time. I wondered aloud if the deaf babes express an orgasm using hand gestures. Then I started speculating what an orgasmic signifying hand gesture might look like. One gentleman, sporting a #43 Steeler jersey told me I was going to hell. But he was laughing as he said it. I told him, "Hey, man. Don't worry about it. It's not like they can hear me anyway."