Andrew (Andy) Pagana

I am working on a ‘video project’. I hate ‘video projects’ especially when they’re for someone else. Even more especially when they are for someone else and I am not getting paid. I charge a lot of money to do these types of projects. It consists of shooting some lame event or taking pictures someone has given to me on a disc or to be scanned and edit them and put them to music so they can watch at some event and give away to the people that are in the damn video. 

I stopped doing these projects a long time ago. I have done HUNDREDS, literally HUNDREDS of them over the past 15 years. I swore I would not do one again for someone else unless I am HIGHLY COMPENSATED. Even then it is debatable. That’s how much I hate them. NOW, so often these projects are for weddings, parties, funerals, religious rights of passage, and other social crap but every once in a while I get something involving sports. AND I HATE SPORTS!!! No no no no no. Let me make this CLEAR. I EFFIN HATE SPORTS. I can’t understand them and I hate everything I can’t understand. What is the point to playing them? I don’t get it. And worse, actually, I’m not sure it’s worse, but what the hell is the point of watching them? These athletes all seem so angry and self centered to me. (I hate self centered people. They should be centered more on me). Have you ever met a professional baseball player? They are the biggest group of… well, that’s not what I am here to talk about.

I am here to talk about a video I am doing. A SPORTS VIDEO. One I have to do for my job. Can you believe it?? A job in which I am supposed to be directing a children’s show. That is what I was hired to do. Andyway, I can’t talk about how I had this gig thrust upon me but lets just say I have to take this one for the team. And despite hating sports I am a team player. Now, another thing, I hate little league. I have always hated the little league. When I was a kid I was FORCED to go where there was NOTHING for me to do. AHHHHHHHH!!!!! And why do all the little league stadiums look and feel and smell the same? The crooked fences and wooden bleachers with the pealing green paint… I am getting angry and anxious  just thinking about it. Reliving those horrid days of my otherwise wonderful and magical childhood. Just the sounds of a little league field cannot be copied anywhere else. I hate the sounds of it. Did I say it makes me tense? and anxious? And Moody? It does. 

Well, guess what? For this job I actually found myself taping a little league baseball game recently and for the first time stepped out onto the field during a game. (Actually that is not true. I had a comical couple of weeks as a little league umpire but we’ll get to that another time!) And I got to hang out in the dug out which I never did before. Well, none that matters. What I found even more disturbing than all the general sports and little league things is that at one point I heard the coach shout to his team “Okay Kids, back up. The good hitters are coming now!”

Whaaa??? What a terrible thing to shout. What about the poor loser kid that can’t hit that just swung out?? Doesn’t he feel bad enough without you yelling it to the world? Don’t you realize how that effects a kid???? Seriously, let his teammates and friends and enemies put him down, his peers… but not a grown up in what appears to be an authoritative position. For crying out loud! Now, I don’t think we need to coddle these kids. And if they stink… they stink, that’s fine, they know it already. And if you have to tell them, tell them quietly, but good gravy man, don’t shout it. See, I don’t have a problem telling kids the truth. Or given them a harsh bit of reality. (Sometimes for fun I even tell them they stink, just… well, just because…) but something seemed particularly cruel about this little baseball episode. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just another reason I can say that causes me to hate sports. After all, that kid was really bad.