10. Illinois, Sufjan Stevens
9. Original Pirate Material, The Streets
8. Up the Bracket, The Libertines
7. The Blueprint, Jay Z
6. White Blood Cells, The White Stripes (or Elephant. Ask me again in ten years.)
5. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco
4. Funeral, Arcade Fire
3. Kid A, Radiohead
2. College Dropout, Kanye West
1. Is This It, The Strokes

10. Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel
9. The Office (UK +US)
8. Arrested Development
7. The Daily Show
6. Mad Men
5. Freaks and Geeks
4. Friday Night Lights
3. Curb Your Enthusiasm
2. The Wire
1. The Sopranos

10. Tie: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007)/ Fog of War (2003)
9. A History of Violence (2005)
8. The Squid and the Whale (2005)
7. High Fidelity (2000)
6. The Departed (2006)
5. Before Sunset (2004)
4. O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000)
3. Zodiac (2007)
2. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)
1. There Will Be Blood (2007)

It’s fair to say that I am somewhat fascinated with the 4th of July.  The all-day BBQs usually satisfy my carnivorous appetite, no matter how predictable or repetitive I am still a sucker for a sub-par fireworks show, and I become giddy with a genuine patriotic joy when I see those complimentary plastic American flag covering the majority of neighborhood lawns.

There is something quite marvelous and Rockwellian about the entire spectacle. (Note: I am currently sitting at a café and the barista just started to play Bruce Springsteen – Greatest Hits. I can’t tell if Mr. Barista’s selection is ironic or sincere but needless to say, his timely musical choice works pretty darn well with the weekends Americana-inspired ambiance.)

Yet, I would like to point out that this classic mid-summer production has a void; that is, the way most of us relate to its historical purpose. It’s not that the holiday doesn’t have a connection with the past. Indeed, far from it. The day commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and our freedom from those big bad tyrannical Brits on the other side of the Atlantic.

I have beef with the fact that most of us don’t seriously acknowledge the historical narrative (booo taxes! booo king! yay freedom!) when celebrating Independence Day. Think about it for just a moment: the birth or our country in America is covered in a-historic, let’s just enjoy the here and the now, clothing.

To a certain extent, it’s like this for most American holidays.: a vague understanding of a historical event or idea constitutes drinking and an extra long weekend. And for the most part, that’s good enough for me.

But there is something that specifically frustrates me about the way we separate our historical knowledge from the 4th of of July BBQs and firework shows. I think this vaguely has something to do with the fact that Independence Day occurs in the summer and kids aren’t in school to learn about the holiday. Or maybe that’s not the reason and I am just latching onto a half-ass theory I concocted in 2002.

Regardless, for the past two years, I have been on a quest to rectify our revisionist historical oversight by taking fifteen minutes on the 4th to read and discuss the Declaration of Independence. Try it yourself. (No excuses, here is a copy). While busting out this bad boy at a BBQ might qualify you as socially abnormal, there is a chance that reciting the line “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” is a turn on for at least someone.

If you don’t want to do this for me, then take a few minutes to read the DecofInd (yep, we are abbreviating!) to honor former President John Adam (better known as in some circles as the guy that Paul Giamatti played in that HBO mini-series.)  Number Two went as far to propose that Independence Day should warrant a celebration:

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

Without John Adams we wouldn’t have fireworks or a day off and without his cousin Sam, we would be stuck drinking PBR as the patriotic brew of choice.  And if that’s not good enough reason to sacrifice a few minutes and discuss the Founding Fathers and their collective brilliance, then gosh darn’t, you deserve to live under the crown’s rule.

With this oh-so enjoyable LSAT business on my agenda, I find myself at the public library about three days a week, trying to train my inherently illogical brain in the fine art of logic. (If A—>B, and B—>C, then C—>B. No wait, that can’t be right.) 

It comes as no surprise that I associate libraries with a certain sense of nostalgia. I have fond memories of my undergraduate days buried inside of UC Berkeley’s main stacks, where my masochistic yet focused and productive all-nighters brought out to bring out the best of work ethic.  

And yet, as I have realized in the past few weeks, public libraries don’t really work in the same manner.

Whenever I enter a public library, I frequently end up asking myself the same basic questions: Does anyone else think the Dewey decimal system is rather inefficient?  Why is that man shaving in the bathroom? Do they just throwaway the old card catalogs or are they stored in the basement in case a virus wipes out all of the computers?  Oh, and I don’t really get the whole sexy-librarian fetish. Something about being shushed just seems like a condescending turnoff.

Particularly in the midst of America’s favorite recession, public libraries across the country have become a safe haven for the young and recently unemployed: kill a few hours, read a book, apply for a job or two, people watch, or, as I seem to be doing at the moment, try to figure out if the correct answer to standardized test question happens to be A, B, C, D, or E.

Keep in mind that in my specific case, we are dealing with Los Angeles, a city that, with the exception of a few scattered parks and beaches, lacks a coherent semblance of public space. And the last time I checked, no one was really hanging out at City Hall, so I guess by default, public libraries in Los Angeles have become a hot-spot of sorts. 

My local library has transformed itself into the (very) frugal-hipster’s alternative to the coffee shop. (Which makes sense to a certain extent when you take into account the fact that at libraries you are not forced to shell out $3.50 for that latte and endure unbearable sounds of the barista’s I-Pod.) In fact, this particular biblioteca seems to have a surplus of aspiring screenwriters, cool-than-thou-art graphic designers, unemployed academics, and painters, painting pictures with paint…. and a paintbrush. 

The problem is, the public library cannot possibly be everything to everyone all at once. And consequently tension ensues.

I recently witnessed a quarrel between two patrons. One was a Hollywood type, chatting about a prospective script with his friend while chomping down on what seemed to be a delicious tuna sandwich. Sitting at his table was also a frustrated 45-year-old academic, who was trying to read Goethe but was obviously distracted with the talking writers. The Goethe-fan obviously wanted to tell the chatterboxes to hush up but instead asked the tuna eater to throw away his sandwich. I was lucky enough to be sitting at the table and witnessed the verbal brawl:

Goethe fan: Excuse me, can you please dispose your sandwich?

Tuna eater: Why? Food is allowed in this library.

Goethe fan: Oh.

(Tuna eater keeps on eating his meal. The Goethe fan starts shaking in his chair.)

Goethe fan: The smell is just unbearable. Please have some respect. I am trying to do some work. 

Tuna eater: Umm. Can’t help you there buddy.

(Goethe fan is raged at this point.)

Goethe fan:  What is your problem? You are stinking up the scent of this room with this dead fish scent and you and your buddy have no respect, chatting up a storm. So please, throw out your sandwich, shut the fuck up, and let me read.

Tuna eater: You know what? I don’t….

Goethe fan: What?

(Goethe fan takes the tuna sandwich walks over to the trash can and throws it out, comes back to the table and presume reading Goethe like nothing has happened.)

As the primary witness to the occurrence, it’s safe to say that the tuna eater was somewhat inconsiderate and the Goethe fan lacked the basic tenants of tact. But instead of placing blame on any one individual, I just figured to write this very-awkward encounter as yet another victim of the recession.

It’s become apparent that public libraries are their own beast and I am not really sure how to navigate this seemingly comforting but entirely disorienting setting. So much for serenity and concentration. But as long as a complete stranger doesn’t decide to throw out my sandwich, tuna or not, thrown out, I am OKAY with this sense of the unknown.

Durer's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Definitely a favorite of mine.

Like most cautious folks, I have a tendency to pre-plan; call it a chronic fear of the unexpected. Generally speaking, this means checking the weather before I go out for a bike ride or ordering movie tickets online to guarantee a seat for myself. And more often than not, I prepare talking points for social interactions, which might surprise those of you who assumed that this wit and charm was a natural god given talent. It is safe to say that spontaneity is not my strong suit.

In many ways, this so-called devotion to readiness explains my obsession with the apocalypse (the end of the civilization) and the post-apocalypse (the world itself following culmination of civilization).

The truth is, I spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about the end of civilization. This is not to suggest that I am looking forward to it. For the most part, I like the current state of civilization. I can’t imagine another world where you would never have to pay a $523.23 fine to the public library and still get to check out an unlimited amount of books.

But like I said, I am pre-planner and have a tendency to prepare for the worst. I don’t want to end up in some underground hell-hole with a tuna fish void are killed and I forget to pack an adequate supply of BumbleBee beforehand.

Despite these worries, I don’t actually spend my free time imagining doomsday scenarios. That’s just not my style because I don’t really have a hyper-imaginative mindset. I didn’t spend my childhood creating fictitious worlds and alternative universes.

Instead of coming up with such situations, I just turn to the experts. If a movie, book, song, graphic novel, painting, or even a vaudeville show has anything to do with the apocalypse or post-apocalypse, I am game.

For good reason, whenever I approach a work within the apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic genre, I take copious mental notes. In some cases the genre has produced notable works of pop art and subversive social commentaries, but  I also tend to see such works as precautionary tales that provide darn good practical advice for survival. Here are some examples of what I am talking about:

Watchmen – Be nice to any hyper-intelligent, Alexander-The-Great-obsessed meglomaniac.

The Road – Keep on telling myself I am a good guy. (I can do that!)

Apocalypse Now – Some will say this movie doesn’t count but I beg to differ. Regardless, dodge that draft.

The Day After – You know what? I am okay if I don’t make it through this one.

28 Days Later /Any George Romero Flick – Practice long distance running.

Book of Revelations – Start believing in Jesus. Immediately.

The possibility exists that the end of world is going to look nothing like we expect it to,
and the hundreds of books and movies are completely off. Or that matter, the world
(hopefully) will not end at all. In either case, I probably should have spent more time
pre-planning conversation-points for potentially awkward social interactions.

Baumgarten at Peace in Anza Borrego

It would be convenient to say that my appreciation for nature was sparked once I moved to New York: landing in the big bad city without a tree or a patch of grass in site, I became nostalgic for a California that I never completely took advantage of when I lived in the Bear State anyway. 

But this narrative isn’t entirely true. I don’t know when I actively started to enjoy the camping. It’s not like I ever had a fear of camping, hiking, or any associated activity. It just wasn’t the first activity to pop up on the Max Baumgarten radar. Yet for some reason I can’t entirely explain why this outlook changed.

And so last week I had my latest one nightstand with the great outdoors. This rendition of slam, bam, thank you sand was spent in Anza Borrego State Park, an ecological dessert wonderland that’s more than just gigantic rock formations and sunburns.

While we are at it, here are a few fun facts about Anza Borrego: it is one of the 55 California State Parks with wi-fi access, it hugs the Mexican-American border, and it’s haunted with ghosts (according to this YouTube gem).

I headed out to Anza Borrego with two friends. While we were only in the park for about 24 hours, we tackled the basics that constitute a successful camping trip: a long beautiful hike where we sort of get lost, sunscreen in the eyes causing temporary blindness, beans, some solid photo ops, and awkward Brokeback Mountain references. Call us team checklist.

By no means do I consider myself a camping virtuoso. In fact, far from it. But I have been camping enough times to know that I am a bona fide fan. Truth is, I am the sort of urban dweller that needs a time out from civilization every once in awhile. As I have come to realize, a night or two under the stars is all about healthy self-reflection.

On this last trip, I arrived at a few major breakthroughs about my professional goals and my current emotional disposition.  We will leave those loaded thoughts for another place and time because, god forbid, I become too touchy-feely with BeingBaumbastic. But take my word for it – breakthroughs happened.

Yet I am willing to share a few fluffier realizations.  Did you know I really like granola bars? I forgot about that until I was chomping down on a Trader Joe’s Chocolate Chip Chewy Coated Granola Bar in the middle of Anza Borrego.  Delish. I also learned that I prefer SPF 48 to SPF 30. Who knew? Not I. Not until recently at least. 

A little rejuvenation on a camping trip goes a long way. I reentered civilization a stronger, healthier, happier person With that, I guess you can say my experience in Anza Borrego is similar to that of Billy Crystal in City Slickers. Which is good because now I know how I am going to handle the inevitable midlife crisis. Phew.

Back in Los Angeles.

My first four days home mainly consisted of organizing my room, watching Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist with ma and pa, going to the dentist to get a tooth bonded, and taking a diagnostic LSAT. 

Yesterday around 2pm I get a call from a college friend who is visiting Los Angeles just for the day and wants to meet up for some LAish activity. Keep in mind the weather was all sunshine in the mid-seventies and I am equipped with a god-given knack for playing tour guide. Besides, this would give me the excuse I needed to reintroduce myself to the City of Angels.

So we decide to head on over to Venice Beach and take my dog Roxie for a stroll on the boardwalk. “Pleasant” is the best way to describe the first half of the outing: walk on the path for about twenty minutes, head down towards the water for a bit, grab a beer and some snacks at a boardwalk café overlooking the Pacific. I even had one of those “I don’t know why LA gets such a bad rap” moments. Like I said, everything up to this point was pleasant. Very pleasant.

Around 4:45, it’s time to leave Venice. My friend has a play to catch and I have dinner plans with father Baumgarten. Right as we are exiting the boardwalk, a pit bull on a leash approaches Roxie in what seemed to be one of those I-am-a-dog-you-are-a-dog-let’s-sniff-each-other-sessions. But instead of a good-old sniff fest, the pit bull just starts biting Roxie’s left ear. (While I never caught the pit bull’s name, from this point forward, I am going to refer to that dog as Mike Tyson, the boxer who notoriously bit Evander Holyfield’s ear off in a match.)

Holding Roxie’s leash, I try to pull her back. Tyson’s owner tried to do the same with her dog. Neither of us are having any luck in this tug-a-war match. Thirty-second into the Tyson-biting-Roxie’s-ear-a-thon, the owner tries to physically remove the dog’s jaw from Roxie’s ear. My out of town guests sticks his hand in there as well. In the process, the pit bull bites both of them.

I should note that it was rather crowded in Venice and about twenty spectators accumulate around us to catch a glimpse of the big show. One on-looker throws water on Tyson; another tries to kick him. But goddamn Tyson is still latched onto Roxie’s ear and from where I am standing, still trying to pull my pup back, Roxie’s blood is dripping all over the sidewalk.

About a minute into Tyson’s feast, some stranger sticks a finger up Tyson’s butt hole. At the moment of penetration, I kid you not, Tyson immediately stops chewing on Roxie’s ear. Who knew that the combination of anal penetration and bestiality would be such a life saver.
———————–

The aftermath of the brawl was a surreal experience in and of itself.
I run with Roxie to the nearby police station to get some help, but the it happens to be closed. My friend tries to exchange information with Tyson’s owner, only to have her husband call us later in the day and threaten to press charges against Roxie. We filed our own report with Animal Control; this should be a fun legal battle.

Onto health matters. We ended up rushing Roxie to her local vet where she was treated within 45 seconds of our arrival. Thankfully she didn’t suffer any major damage, just an ugly ear. The rather eccentric vet gave her a few shots and antibiotics; currently she is stumbling around the house high on doggie Vicodin.

As for my friend, the vet recommend we take him to the E.R. to get his bitten finger looked at. It took us three hours to see a doctor, which I guess is typical for the emergency room, but I do find it worrisome that animals get quicker treatment than humans. Anyway, my friend had x-rays taken, got a few shots, and the doc says that as long as he didn’t catch rabies, which is very unlikely, he is going to survive this episode.

What a homecoming.

Generally speaking I try to abide by the established grammatical rules of the English language. It’s not like I am one of those notorious, red-pen happy, sentence correcting, self-appointed grammar policemen. But, as I see it, the rules are there to provide writers and readers, speakers and listeners with the proper tools to engage in a standardized and efficient communicative experience. 

If the powers that be decided that we should capitalize the first word of a sentence, so then gosh darn it, you aren’t going to see me begin a BeingBaumbastic blog post with a lower case letter.  When it comes to following such linguistic principles, I see myself more as a lemming, not a rabble-rouser. Well 98% of the time at least.

 Yet, I have to confess I cannot in good faith support the prohibition of the double negative. In case you need some brushing up, you arrive at a double negative when two negations occur used in the same clause.  The lyrics of one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs ‘Satisfaction’, (I can’t get no….. ) is a classic double negative, and so is the title to that 90s high school comedy Can’t Hardly Wait.  Which, for the record, I watched last week on either TNT or TBS and doesn’t really hold up that well. Ten years later Preston Meyers just comes off as creepy.

Anyway, while double negatives are deemed kosher in some languages, Bishop Robert Lowth pulled a Joseph McCarthy and placed them on English’s grammatical black list way back in the 18^th century called with his book A Short Introduction to English Grammar with Critical Notes.

Lowth reasoned that tag-teaming negatives simply equates to a positive and is consequently repetitive and unnecessary.   And supposedly, employing the double negative suggests that you are uneducated. Oh the stigma!

Recently the double negative has been creeping into my sentences. While, I am writing this post, I am mid-air on a Delta flight from JFK to LAX. I just got back to my seat after trip to the bathroom and the facilities on this flight are not NOT clean. Whoopsies, did I just use a double negative? Yes, in fact I did. I guess I could have said just transformed the two negatives into a positives and said, the bathroom are clean, but that’s not exactly true. There was some toilet paper lying on the ground and the sink could use a good bleach treatment.  As I see it, the double negative provides a specific description for the bathroom; it captures certain ambiguities that the singular positive can’t necessarily cover.  

While we are on the subject, here are a few other of my favorite double negative phrases:

• There isn’t a reason to not (insert random activity here such as go biking or socialize ).  For what its worth, this is the way I go about my decision making for the day. Yep, it’s tough being me. 
• I can not barely sleep. Usually my roundabout response when someone asks me did I get a good night’s rest. Sure it might sound confusing but you got to keep the masses on their feet. 
• He’s just not NOT that into you . The title for my non-existent screenplay. 

You get the idea. Besides, the double negative ads some Baumbastic-esque spunk and personality to the  aforementioned clauses. That’s something that Lowth character can not take away from me. Clearly I am going to keep on fighting the good fight and am not not going to start a revolution over this. Who is with me?

I would like to discuss a personal experience. I consider it personal experience, not in the sense that it was private or for that matter solitary event. In fact, we are dealing with quite the opposite here.

You might be thinking, “What are you getting at here Max? Why the pseudo-cryptic bullshit?” Which is, indeed, a fair enough question. But when you are dealing with the social wear-and-tear of being a fantasy baseball owner (which is what we are tackling here today) nothing is ever that straightforward or simple.

I have participated in fantasy baseball leagues for the last few years and I am not embarrassed to say that I buy into the stat-based hoopla. And I think I am pretty darn good at it. I make the right trades, I waive the excess baggage, and I pick up undervalued studs. I was born with a competitive streak and fantasy baseball is as good a place as any, on the Internet at least, to channel this type-A energy.

Like knitting, calligraphy, or actual baseball for that matter, fantasy baseball at its core is a hobby. But unlike more traditional hobbies, loved ones rarely care to hear about your fantasy baseball experience. I guess bringing up the fact that you snagged Carlos Delgado in the fourteenth round of your draft (oh how the once-mighty have slipped) isn’t considered an acceptable dinner conversation. Or pillow talk for that matter.

I sort of understand the distinction between traditional hobbies and fantasy-induced obsessions to a certain extent. To someone on the outside looking in, knitting a blanket is cute and endearing, staying up until 3:01am to scoop up a recently released free-agent is, dare I say, weird. Something still bothers me about this dichotomy though. My parents showed up to every single one of my sister’s community theater performances but never once bothered to sit in on one of my drafts. Now that is going to leave a psychological scar.

About seven million Americans participate in fantasy sports on an annual basis. With my oh-so keen eye, I have came to the two following conclusions: while the overwhelming majority of fantasy baseball owners want to talk about their fantasy experience, very few fellow owners actually want to hear about someone else’s experience. Blame it on narcissism.

And this is what bothers me about fantasy sports culture. There is no actual support system. Sure there might be Yahoo messages boards or 12 hour ESPN chats but offline, it is a pretty bleak and asocial landscape. And I guess you can have a conversation with the fellow owners in your league about your respective teams, those conversations usually devolve into hyper-masculine bragging sessions. You rant about your team’s low WHIP the other guy goes on and on about his squad’s batting average, but neither of you really listen to each other. Not. Very. Productive.

I would like to see fantasy baseball talk be accepted as an everyday social discourse. I truly believe with that stamp of a social approval, the fantasy owner’s lot would be a happier chipper and bunch. In the ideal alternate reality, the following scenario will occur at a local cafe of sorts:

Me: Hey, can I get the usual?
Local Barista: One small latte, coming up. So how is that fantasy baseball team of your?
Me: OhMyBaumgarten – that is our name. Yeah, we are doing fairly well. Teix is having on heck of a week. And how is your squad?
Local Barista: We have seen been times. Mid-season injuries are killing us.
Me: Well you know what, I heard about some hot prospects, I will e-mail you the insider info when I get home.
Local Barista: Thanks man – you know what? This latte is on me.
Me : Very much appreciated. Give the wife and kids my best.

—————-
I am not asking for too much here – my goals are fairly reasonable. (Maybe?) Let’s accept and embrace fantasy baseball talk, one conversation at a time.