Tuesday, November 2

KEYS TO THE ELECTION

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE ELECTION.

1. Jose really wasn’t planning on doing this. He doesn’t have time, he doesn’t want to alienate his dozens of fans by getting too political, but you the people demanded it, and let it never be said that Jose doesn’t know which way the wind is blowing.

Had Jose written this last night, they would be very different KEYS, but since then, Jose has been subjected to seemingly scores of exit polls each slightly different. This one has Kerry up three in Florida. This one over here has Bush up one. And that one over there? That one has Adlai Stevenson elected president in 1952.

Yes, the exit polls look good for Kerry so far, but remember exit polls are a lot like exit wounds. They’re both messy and hurt like hell. Or was it exit polls are a lot like exit signs? You never know if they’re accurate until it’s too late.

2. Jose is a life long Democrat and has been a Kerry supporter since early in the primary process (Note: Though he jumped to being an Edwards supporter, a Gephardt supporter and a Clark supporter before coming back to Kerry. You have to admire Jose’s sticktuitiveness) and he has always felt that one of the Senator’s best qualities was his judgment. But for the first time today, Jose has seen something to make him doubt that. Apparently Kerry had his election day lunch at The Union Oyster House. He had lunch at a restaurant that peaked 150 years ago and today is an overpriced tourist trap. Not a good sign.

3. There had been much speculation that the Bush team would wrap up the campaign season with some sort of October surprise. What we got was the Bin Laden tape, which presumably had nothing to do with the Bush campaign and didn’t really seem to sway anyone’s vote. Count Jose as disappointed.

Maybe Jose wasn’t expecting Bush to announce that they’d captured Osama, but he was expecting something. Maybe that the Marines had captured Bigfoot in the mountains of Afghanistan, or that they had found proof linking Saddam Hussein to the McKinley assassination or evidence that John Kerry once gave a stick of gum to Ho Chi Min in Paris. Jose was just expecting something. Frankly, Jose continues to believe that Karl Rove is evil, but he is starting to doubt that he is a genius.

(Note: Are you happy now? You got one good KEY and two mediocre to poor ones because Jose felt like he had to do something.) (Additional Note: According to exit polls, Jose is now exiting his office.)

I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO THE ELECTION.

Sunday, October 31

KEYS TO THE PARADE

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE PARADE.

1. Let’s see, Jose’s October 30 included losing a nice polar fleece sweater, losing his watch (Note: Though he’s pretty sure he’ll find it) and losing yet another argument with his old arch enemy the demon rum, and yet it still couldn’t have been a better day.

Jose’s office is right along the parade route, and there is a big front conference room with windows overlooking Boylston St., so Jose went in with is brother and the Melendezette and watched the parade from there. Jose’s employer is moving in two weeks, so the timing couldn’t have been better. Jose even put up a "Jose Melendez Salutes the Red Sox" sign. (Note: Jose is such a shameless self-promoter.) The great thing about being in a second story window, aside from being out of the cold and the rain and not having to mingle with the plebians, (Note: But seriously, Jose loves the plebians also the little people and the masses) was that players would look up to read the signs, thus giving Jose the opportunity to actually grab their attention. Easily the highlight of the day was doing "six shooters" with David Ortiz. Jose can safely say that was even better when he had his head personally crushed between the thumb and index finger of the Kids in the Hall’s Mark McKinney at the Berkley Performance center. (Note: If the Herald were to write a story on this the headline would read:

LOCAL MAN: "BEING SHOT BETTER THAN HAVING HEAD CRUSHED"

2. The other highlight was when Jose’s all time favorite Red Sox Tim Wakefield came by. Jose was wearing his Wakefield jersey as usual and got the idea that he should take it off and hold it up to the window so Wake could see that he is appreciated. Jose got Wakefield’s attention, but when Wakefield saw Jose unbuttoning his shirt (Note: Jose had a T-shirt on underneath) he got a little freaked out and looked away. Jose thinks that Wakefield thought that some random guy was going to flash him and got nervous. Needless to say, Jose backed off and left his shirt on.

3. After the parade Jose went to a Halloween party in Cambridge. At the party, a guy Jose knows claimed that the Red Sox World Series victory led him to spontaneous sexual climax later that evening. Jose always viewed himself as a really hard core Red Sox fan, but this has him second guessing himself. Jose loves the Red Sox, as do we all, but this guy, who is straight, well, it seems like he really, really loves the Red Sox.

Actually, the whole thing sort of reminded Jose of a short story he contemplated writing in the darkest days after last year’s ALCS. (Note: Though he didn’t write it, of course. Back in those days, Jose would think of lots of thinks to write, and then not write them. Now with KEYS, Jose usually can’t think of things to write, and yet writes them anyway. The result, of course, is the mediocre product you see before you.) The story was going to be about a masochist who finds that being whipped and beaten no longer gets him off, so he searches for a more intense form of pain to feed his lust. He settles on purchasing a ticket for the game 1 of the 2003 World Series at Fenway that never happened, and then using it along with tapes of game 7 of the ALCS to excite himself. Of course, this story remains unwritten and is now completely moot. Jose does have an idea though. If there’s a Yankees fan who would like to buy the rights from Jose and then write a story about a masochistic Yankee fan who gets off on tickets for the 2004 World Series at Yankee Stadium and video of Dave Roberts’ steal of David Ortiz’s game winning homer, Jose will listen to offers. After all, you Yankees fans are the masochists now. Following a team that hasn’t one the world series since 2000? Jeez…it’s like you people enjoy pain.

I’m Jose Melendez and those are my KEYS TO THE PARADE.