Note to TBS: I Hate You.

I had a show last night. Last night was also the first game of the playoffs. Not a problem… bars have tvs, right? I told my friends to come early. We could watch the game, have some drinks and then I would rock their souls with some music.

So, I show up at the bar. That’s funny, the tv is tuned to ESPN and they’re interviewing Brett Favre’s wife. I look at my watch and the game started a few minutes ago. Even if the game didn’t start on time, shouldn’t they be talking about, oh I don’t know, some baseball? I flag down the waitress and ask her to put the game on. Kristian says, “you didn’t specify which game” and I remind him that this is playoff baseball in Boston… there is no other game that doesn’t involve the Red Sox. Duh.

Welp, they change the channel to NESN and they’re showing a Bruins game. Did they really not understand what I meant by “the game?” The mind boggles. Are there people in Boston who still watch the Bruins?

I flagged down the waitress again… “I’m sorry to be a pain, but can you please have them put the Red Sox game on?”

(mentally adds a couple bucks to her tip so that she doesn’t spit in our drinks the  next time we’re there)

It turns out that the game was on TBS and only TBS. The bar didn’t get TBS. Of course.

(bangs head on the bar, wonders exactly how unprofessional it would be to up and leave a show)

As if to add insult to injury, NESN was playing an old Bruins game and they were losing! So, we sat there at the bar and listened to the guy who usually plays a few song to warm the crowd up. He just kept playing and playing. And playing. And playing. Finally, I asked the waitress if there were any other bands booked for that night. It was pretty much just us and an elderly couple in there. Perhaps the other musicians were all in the bathroom doing blow and watching the game on a smuggled in tv?

It turns out that everyone else had canceled. At the last minute. Kristian said, “they probably called ahead to see if the game would be on.” My witty reply? “This is Boston. And the Red Sox. I might as well have called and asked if they were going to be serving any beer.” I love that man, but he is not a sports fanatic. Or a Red Sox fanatic. NESN would probably bump the Bruins in the Stanley Cup to show a Red Sox pre-season game.  They’d be cool about it though… Rem Dawg would give a score update during the 7th inning stretch.

Anyways, long story short, I couldn’t take it anymore and we went next door (to their sister bar) to watch the game. It was totally worth it, as Josh Beckett was just awesome (even if I missed pretty much all of the Red Sox scoring).

TBS is totally not equipped to adequately broadcast playoff baseball games. At one point, the announcers would. not. shut. up. about the fact that the Globe sports section had twelve pages dedicated to the playoffs yesterday. Oh, the horror, Boston fans really like baseball. Twelve isn’t such a horrible number. Jesus had 12 apostles, and he throws like a girl (zing! Johnny Damon reference!). It would be nice if the paper would dedicate 12 pages to global warming and genocide in Darfur…. but nobody would actually read all 12 pages, so all of those trees would have died for nothing.

Anyways… the Sox won, my set kicked ass and I sold a cd. So life is good.