Well, at least we know now...nothing...that's what we know.
Because those who knew didn't need to know, and those that didn't know will never know.
Let me clear it up with a Venn Diagram I made. My fourth grade teacher would be so proud.
I wasn't annoyed that one side screamed, "Where's the Birth Certificate?!" I was annoyed they screamed, "If you want to end the issue, just show the Birth Certificate."
We all knew that wasn't the case.
But the other side wasn't any better. "Don't show it. You're just backing down to their insane demands."
That's just as crazy to me. If you really thought showing the B.C. would end the debate, why would you keep the debating going for the silly pride reason of "not backing down to there demands."
I think most people were like me, in the middle going, "He's a citizen. Don't show the B.C. because it won't matter anyways and this has already been proven. Oh yeah, can we get jobs so we can buy food."
If you have the time, check this out, it sums it up perfectly (and is funny).
Last night, my show, "Sumukh Torgalkar and Friends...Who Look A Lot Like Sumukh Torgalkar" took place at Kafe Kerouac in Columbus. It was an opportunity for me to bring together all the characters that I have done at the Columbus Halloween shows and at "Monday Night Live."
My first character ever was Clarence Filthbuster, a janitor who wished to clean up Columbus comedy. For the first time in four years, Clarence returned to a Columbus comedy stage to say the he no longer wished to bury Columbus comedy but rather to praise it. In expressing his love and appreciation to Columbus comedy, he developed the "Columbus Comedy Dance."
This is for the comics of Columbus and our wonderful supporters.
The Indians are killing it. 1st place in the Central and rolling. Peyton Hillis just became the next Madden Football videogame cover athlete. The Heat, while prospering in the 1st round, look to still be showing the nagging problems that hampered their regular season slightly. (I use this in place of a Cav's positive. Same.)
It's a good time to be a Cleveland sports fan.
For now.
The image burned into every DB's nightmares.
I know by September I'll be (hopefully, as far as the NFL goes) watching an 0 and 3 start, one loss divisional, amidst a cast of poorly selected draft picks and new/bad coaches. And the Indians will have been bumped from the wild card spot in the playoffs by a late season slump and some sweeps by the Yankees and Chi Sox of the world.
But who cares.
I used to worry about that stuff. I used to call people who got excited idiots. "How can you not see that it never works out. I'm not pessimistic, it's just reality when it happens every time!" Well, I'm not pessimistic, it does (and probably always will) happen every time. And those people are idiots.
But I see it now and am glad to be an idiot.
When you're a fan of shitty, but more importantly disappointing, team you have only one other option. Give up. My dad has given up. But how can you blame him. He's in his 50's. I can't even compete. '97 sucked. He was AT Red Right 88. He watched The Drive and The Fumble LIVE. But he refused to give up on his team. Then they moved his team. So you can't say he didn't try. He's just had enough. And I respect that.
But I'm not ready to give up. So why be realistic? If I was really realistic, I'd stop carrying rather than berate the idiot. While an idiot, he's rooting for a team that he has hopes for. At least his logic makes sense. I'm rooting for a team I have no faith in that I know will let me down and leave me feeling full-time shitty. Shitty when they lose. But shitty when I think they'll lose, look like they'll lose, or do any other half-assed lose-ish shit. At least the idiot can claim happiness in the "winning" of hypothetical wins and success.
So, I'm ready to be an idiot. Because I like baseball in the spring. I like waking up and checking the ticker of a late west coast game I couldn't stay up for and seeing a W. I like seeing Grady come back and hitting .300. I like watching the last few innings of a game I wasn't planning on watching at a bar I happen to be at and catching that late inning comeback I wasn't even invested in per se, but it just amped my night up a bit. I like seeing good players get the cred they deserve (especially over shit human beings like Vick). I like a Brown on the tongue of national broadcasters in a positive. (gross?) And I don't care that it might end. I'm happy now.
I'm Justin Golak. I'm a Cleveland sports fan. I'm an idiot.
I like to play sports. Sometimes, I play sports in recreational leagues. But, according to many people mostly my teammates (including Golak), I'm a “dirty” player. I don't agree with this labeling at all and I would like to address this accusation by explaining the circumstances that have led to me being referred to as “dirty.”
Most of “dirty” Sumukh comes from my time playing in flag football leagues. For a couple seasons, our team was not very competitive in the league. Other teams looked at us as an easy win. That's fine. We weren't as talented nor had the chemistry of some of the other teams in the league. It's one thing to beat us and play with class, but it's another thing to beat us and then not show respect or sportsmanship. If that happens, then yes, in my mind, it's necessary for me to “send a message” to protect and honor my team. I've done that and there hasn't been an incident, but let me bring up some misunderstood moments.
There was one instance where on an interception, I took a guy's legs out. This was completely accidental. He was a nice guy. He was just really huge and fast, and when I totally whiffed on grabbing his flag, my whole body went into his legs.
Did I pants (or de-pants) a guy? Yes. Again, that was purely accidental. I was going for his flag. In the process, I only got the top of his shorts, and they came down. To his credit, he didn't seem too angry about it. He said, “You gonna play me like that?” and I said, “I was going for the flag.” We continued on with the game. If anything, I can be faulted for being a poor tackler or him faulted for the way he puts on his flag. In the heat of the game, it was a moment. Now I look back on it and I laugh my ass off. I pantsed him!
There was an incident where on a jump ball I basically had no chance of catching it against a guy several inches taller than me. When he out jumped me and grabbed the interception, I wrapped my arms around him and began punching at the ball as we both went to the ground. I have no excuse for that. That was dirty. But, that was my one and only time.
The other reason I am called dirty is because I play physical. In basketball, despite the fact that I'm 5'9”, I find myself being the one playing in the paint or getting scrappy and going after loose balls. Again, I seem to find myself on undersized teams to begin with. So, if I'm 5'9” and I'm going up against a guy a few inches taller than me, am I going to try to push him around a bit? Sure. There are no fouls going on (okay, maybe there are but they are not getting called), and you're the bigger man. You can't deal with a guy my size putting an elbow into you for leverage? I think one of the most pathetic examples of this was during flag football when a guy that was double my size was defending me. He claimed that I pushed off on him on an out pattern, which I then caught for a 2-point conversion. Did I push off? Yes. Should he be complaining about it? Hell no. You weigh 250 to 300 pounds and you can't deal with a push off from a guy half your size? You can't stay with me? That's your fault. Learn how to play D.
I think what irritates my opponents even more is that, other than these factors, I'm a good guy out there. I help guys up or congratulate them on a good play. Hey, I was a 3-time sportsmanship award winner in high school for tennis. Yes, tennis – a game where you have to be a complete maniac to violate rules of sportsmanship.
So, all in all, I'm just an undersized player on teams that normally get disrespected, so I get physical to make a point. Is that dirty to you? I don't think so. If that's dirty, then this isn't America anymore.
I was back up in Cleveland, my hometown for the first 17 years of my life, for a couple days this past weekend visiting some family. I moved to Columbus when I was 17 to attend The Ohio State University and have lived here ever since (9 years total now). I love Columbus bunches. It's a cool town (I know that sounds lame, but I think you Columbus lovers will get it, so I'm ok with it) with lots to do and see and plethora of great areas to live in and visit. However, I will always love Cleveland. I don't think that's a unique statement among Cleveland-born transplants. There's lots of little things that I miss, and they really get highlighted every time I visit. Because of that, this could be an reoccurring entry, but for now I'd like to centralize the focus. One thing I realized I missed about Cleveland during my most recent visit is -- Local Celebrities.
Now, while I've been in Columbus for 9 years, I'm not immersed in "Columbus culture" as much as someone who lived here their whole (or most of) their life. So, feel free to share your C-bus memories in the comment section, but for me, it seems like that local celebrity stable Cleveland has, Columbus is lacking. And keep in mind, I don't think you can count most Ohio State athletes. When I say "local," I don't mean celebrities from your locale. I literally mean someone who would have little to no cache outside of your surrounding city limits but carries mad weight around town. Archie Griffin, Eddie George. Great celebrities FROM Columbus, but are quite recognizable outside the outerbelt.
I'm talking about people like, the guy that got me thinking about this post this weekend, Dick Goddard. Dick Goddard is 227 years old, and has worked as a Cleveland weatherman for almost all of those years. Really? No, not really, but it feels that way. I was watching the local news with my dad this weekend and said, "Man, he's been doing the weather since I was a kid." My dad replied, "I think he was doing the weather when I was a kid." Everyone knows him. He loves animals and has looked the same since 1987. He's part Cleveland-Bob-Barker, part Cleveland-Dick-Clark. Just hearing Wollybear Festival gives me a little Cleveland-boner. I just don't know if C-bus has that kind of hard on for the Jym Ganahl's. Maybe I'm wrong.
And he's not the only news person. Wilma Smith. She does the news, and has been for quite some time, but she made news in '94 when she went from ABC to FOX. Oh Shit, son! Seriously though, I actually remember my elementary school teacher at the time talking to our class about this. It was big shit. It was Wilma fucking Smith and she was moving to FOX! It was so big, I think LeBron's thing should have been called "The Decision 2" to give Wilma her deserved cred.
I'd still hit it.
Or what about Carl Monday. Been douche-ing it up for years. Remember this going viral at all?
Carl Monday. Cleveland golden boy. The jerker. Well, just check the sweatshirt. Sorry 614. (Kidding)
News people could fill up this whole blog. But there's others. Big Chuck and Little John (small Italian guy, not "to the window, to the wall"). Or Big Chuck and Houlihan for my pop's generation. They would show old movies and run a studio show with sketches during the breaks. The Norton's Furniture guy. Kind of a new one. Even our fans. Big Dawg. The Drum Guy from Tribe games. You can YouTube those all if you wish. But I think it was really cemented in the "We Are LeBron" video released in the Decision-era. Now it got a lot of bagging for being lame and desperate. I couldn't agree more. But as a Clevelander, I watched it about 5 times just to see all the local celebs. It was crazy. It's like my childhood was singing me a song. I wish they'd just gotten together to do something non-LeBron related so it wouldn't have that baggage. Because fuck that guy. For me, and I think all Clevelanders, it was less about a plea to LeBron and more about, "Holy shit, is that Bill Martin AND Otto Orf!"
Recently, Golak and I went to Golden Corral. It was the last weekend before Easter, so the final possibility for us to take advantage of the Seafood Lovers' portion at the Golden Corral buffet. If you're a Seafood Lover like myself, then I would suggest you not go to the Golden Corral. Then again, if you're a person with self-respect, I would suggest you not go to the Golden Corral. Regardless, their Seafood Lover area was unimpressive. The tilapia was covered in a displeasing brown sauce of some kind. They had some type of puff pastry that did not seem to even have any seafood in it. I hurried away to the regular fried shrimp and just enjoyed what I could.
When we arrived at the Golden Corral, we were greeted by an attractive cashier. Then, I noticed she had a lazy eye. Then I realized she didn't have a lazy eye at all, and I was just seeing things at the wrong angle. But then that begged the question, can a woman still be attractive with a lazy eye? I say yes. If Lauren Hutton could be a top model with a gap in her teeth, why can't someone else model with a lazy eye? Why not in a Golden Corral commercial? I can now chalk up Lazy Eye Liker along with Seafood Lover in my book.
As I looked over at that packed restaurant, I realized that the Golden Corral is just a building that is America. There is something particularly hilarious about two idiot comedians sitting across from each other talking about whether a lazy eye is attractive or not while at another table is a hillbilly family sitting across the table from an African immigrant family. You could see them judging one another, yet it didn't matter. An old man walked by nearly running into the immigrant couple's young boy. He smiled at him and jostled his hair. It nearly put a tear to my eye or that may have been the side effects on the brown sauce on the tilapia.
There were people of all races, ages, and classes (well, not the upper class – thank God – we don't need those arrogant pricks in our Golden Corral) sharing meals and conversations. Children hounded the claw crane machine hoping to get a stuffed animal from the early 2000s after stuffing themselves with macaroni and cheese. The staff of the Golden Corral even fit that – everything from a classy looking Indian man (which made me think, “What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be a Physics professor?”) to a possibly unbalanced white woman (which made me think, “What are you doing here? The cats need to be fed!”). It gave me a special feeling to be an American surrounded by so many different people in a place with so much different food that we could all just gorge ourselves on for the afternoon.
I'm Sumukh Torgalkar. I'm a Seafood Lover. I'm a Lazy Eye Liker. I'm an American.
Be sure to check out Sumukh and Golak performing stand-up at this year's Columbus Comedy Festival.
The festival runs Thursday, April 14th-Sunday, April, 16th at Wild Goose Creative. Each night starts at 8PM.
Sumukh will be performing stand-up on Friday night and Golak on Saturday night.
Thursday night, and the festival as a whole, will kick off with "Comedy Revolver", a variation of stand-up that has one performer on the mic with a panel of comics behind him that have the ability to chime in to his or her act.
Sumukh and Golak were fortunate to participate in a Comedy Revolver in the past. Check out the footage below to see what you can expect. It's going to be a great night and a great weekend!
Even though "Throwback Wednesday" is no more, here is a little bit of one. This is a sketch I did with Morgan Ferretti when he hosted last month's Monday Night Live.
Morgan takes over the Aesbestos Crew sketch comedy group, and subsequently the show, and I try and show him that being a dictator isn't just about what you do, it's about how you look.
SAGAttack will be debuting a brand new video sketch (and a few live sketches) tomorrow at Monday Night Live! Show is April 4th at Wild Goose Creative at 8:30PM.
If you just can't wait until then for some new content, then check out this brand new video shot at February's Monday Night Live! when Sumukh and Golak hosted.
