Thursday, May 10, 2007

Recap for Long Beach 5/6 Tournament






Last week’s recap was given by Sung. This week we have a new presenter. Boys and girls… Ladies and gentlemen of all ages… I now introduce the incomparable Graham!! (applause, applause).

 Just as last week, the audience again quickly falls silent. Graham quickly darts out from behind the red curtain on the stage. As Sung did, Graham stops directly in front of the microphone. He peers out to the audience with that sheepish Graham-like smile… “Hello!” The audience responds back, “Hello!” Alongside the microphone is a stool with one tall eight-ounce glass of Poland Spring Vodka… one of the finest products distilled and distributed out of the foothills of southern West Virginia. If you ever get the opportunity to visit… just remember one thing… to “squeal like a pig.”

Graham sights the vodka, “oh, my favorite.” He takes a small sip from the glass. Chokes for a second as his eyes immediately begin to glaze. As he recovers he says, “Recap… right.” “My name is Graham,” he says. “Hello Graham,” replies the audience in unison. He reaches for the glass again, and takes another sip, “mmmmm… vodka good…. Right… recap.” He begins.

Graham’s Recap:

It's cold.
I hate the wind.
I hate the wind.
I hate the wind.
The wind is my best friend.
I hate the wind.
I was wrong, pizza is a good lunch at the beach.
I hate the wind.
The wind is my best friend.
I hate the wind.

It was a windy, nice, windy day. Carolina and Matt won! They beat Miami Carla and Long Beach Chris. It was fun to watch.

Graham finishes, “Have fun.” He quickly walks off stage. A few seconds elapse and Graham returns with the same quick pace. He retrieves the glass of Poland Spring vodka and then makes his way to go off stage. Just before he gets to the curtain he stops and looks out to the audience, “Pluto is not a planet,” he says, and once again departs.

Ahhh… right to the point, yes. I’m willing to bet that most of you wish that our recaps were always that short in length, right? Not to be a roiling sea of swirling rhetoric. As thorough as Graham was, I will take a moment or two to fill in a few of the missing “event” pieces.

Tournament Highlights:

• It was really windy.
• It was really cold.
• Leah left the tournament in the second round after falling ill from eating a Twinkie. She was informed by Tammy that the yellow cakelets have ingredients that are mined from deep within the earth. Ingredients such as a drop or so of petroleum, a smattering of coal tar, a skoosh of carcinogenic benzene, and a topping of chlorine used to bleach the flour. The shelf life of a Twinkie according to Tammy is somewhere between 25 to 50 years…. Nummy, nummy, nummy. The good news is that they are still tasty… and will hold you over in your underground bomb shelter for the entire two decades of the nuclear fall-out and holocaust.
• It was really, really windy.
• It was really, really cold.
• Darlene caught her own serve. “It was the craziest thing!” she said, “ it went up to the net, and then blew all the way back to me,” she added. The opposing team was not impressed by this feat and considered the “serve and catch” ploy as an actual serve and not just an errant toss. A side-out was awarded to them.
• It was windy and cold.
• Jerry Garcia… some of you may have heard of him… used to be in a little stage band called the “Grateful Dead.” Yes, no? They were an obscure group. Anyway, his musically inclined distant cousin, Freddy Garcia, has teamed up with Eric LeCain, whose stage name is Cherry, to record their first album together (I Love Chocolate and Cherries) to be released this June. Until then the “Cherry & Garcia” duo will be touring malls throughout Long Island and in northern New Jersey. Rumor has it that Freddy will be performed his smash hit, “Serendipity,” which is a song that features 12 minutes of pure entertaining silence! Feel free to e-mail these two for more touring info.
• The final was really fun to watch.
• Long Beach Chris and Miami Carla have been teamed up twice now in the playoffs, and have advanced all the way to the finals in both occasions.


Sunday evening “Stink & Drink:”
Everyone went home to have soup and to warm up.

Other upcoming tournaments:
Our abbreviated spring season is quickly coming to an end. We have two more tournaments that we want to run prior to the summer months. Next week will be a hiatus week in honor of all of our mothers out there. The week after (5/19), we are considering the rebirth of the “Shot” tournament. Please weigh in and let us know if you would be interested in that.

The second tournament is on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. It will be following by a “gi-normous” party at Sung’s palatial palace to celebrate Andrew’s 40th birthday party. I don’t know who he is, but it sounds like it’ll be fun with all of the talk surrounding clowns, balloons and pony rides.

11 comments:

Matt said...

I thought clowns were pretty much standard equipment at our gatherings...present company included...featured, in fact.

Anonymous said...

It wasn't cold, but it was a bit windy.

Anonymous said...

Drink Carlton Draught!

Anonymous said...

It was too cold. I was a bundled up ball whose bathing suit never got to make an appearance.

I say no for shot tourney. I'm in if it's not.

And, peeps, choose "other" for identity when you comment, then you can put your name.

Matt said...

What's another word for windy?

Rick said...

I can't believe it. I held off flying over to France so that I could play this weekend and Todd takes a "Mother's day break"???? I didn't even realize these Long Beach players had mothers. Well, I'll be playing grass out on LI at the Cantiague Park tourney (as a consolation). Hope to see some of you there! http://www.volleyballinthepark.com/regpmtnosub.php

Matt said...

Blustery.

Todd Serad said...

Breezy or gusty...

Matt said...

Draughty!

Todd Serad said...

Or drafty...

Matt said...

Carlton Draughty.