Out of the Inkwell

I couldn’t help myself this week. I actually made fun of the fact that I’m NOT a Red Sox fan despite living in Massachusetts. In fact, I don’t care for baseball period.

It didn’t go over too well at work.

We all want to be members of a tribe and we are all members of multiple tribes. I just don’t care about the Red Sox tribe.

Naturally many people don’t understand this.

A lot of folks at work wear their Red Sox shirts every time they play a World Series Game. And they analyze each game, each play. Their love of the game transcends just an appreciation of a sport. I understand a little of what it’s like being a different religion in a nation dominated by a single faith.

And if you admit your non-Red Sox status, people look at you as if you’re a freak. I willingly admit my freak status about my own stuff, but they view themselves as “normal.” I wouldn’t mind the Sox Nation attitude if folks just admitted how geeky it really is.

Ninety-nine percent of the people who come into my office never make a comment of the memorabilia on the shelves that symbolizes my tribes: the tribe of animation fan and historian; the tribe of Max Fleischer; the tribe of Tom Tyler; the tribe of Rudy Ray Moore (he signed the still “to Mike a bad m.f.” sigh!); the horror film tribe; the local history tribe, etc.

It’s one of the first things I do when meeting someone at their home or place of business. One way to get a conversation started is to see if there are common denominators.

Well, it’s Halloween, the one time of the year when being a horror fan is looked upon with some favor and I want to attend the “After Dark Eight Films to Die For” fest which is coming here to Springfield’s Entertainment Cinemas. I’m sure some of the eight films will suck, but I’m in the mood to fly my freak flag as the kids call it these days!

© 2007 by Gordon Michael Dobbs