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Putting on my best Howard Beale voice: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002075/
I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's depressing. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Terrorism is running wild around the world and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster (like Willets Point) and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone.
I got assigned to write another KTE about the Phillies. I said I didn’t want to, but my name showed up again next to this series on the assignment list. The World sucks, it is true. But all I wanted to be was left alone. And now THIS.
Yes, I know, the Mets took two of three from the Phillies last week. Then they took two of three from the Yankees while the Phillies were getting swept by the Red Sox. And I should derive some solace from that. But we had to depend on Kaz Ishii to win a game in order to win the series. And we had to count on Hernandez to strike out Met-killer Pat Burrell to protect Kaz’ win. And their quiet Met tormentor Rheal Cormier didn’t vulture a win. Are those things going to happen again real soon? You might as well wait for the next sighting of Haley’s Comet. I should have been glad that the series is over and I wouldn’t have to deal with the team that has been murder on the Mets since the days of Roy Sievers, Ray Culp and Larry Jackson. And Jimmy Rollins keeps getting key hits against the Mets like Bobby Wine used to. And now a suddenly reheated Jim Thome is coming to Shea, where the prevailing left-to-right wind can only help a lefty power hitter. Considering the way the Phillies have mal-treated the Mets over the years, I wouldn’t be surprised if pitcher Randy Wolf jumps off the operating table where he is having reconstructive arm surgery and rushes to the mound and throws a shutout. And to add insult to (a weird on deck) injury, Mientkiewicz is out and Jose Offerman has been called up.
And who do we have to depend on to pull us out of our post Yankee loss funk? Its inconsistent Victor Zambrano (3-6, 3.97), who will be going up against either Robinson Tejada (1-0, 2.02) or Corey Lidle (6-6, 4.12). That’s who. And after that, it will be John Lieber (8-7, 4.95) against Kaz Ishii (2-6 5.25) and Vicente Padilla (3-7, 6.83 against Pedro Martinez (8-2, 2.72). And the only thing worse is that I have been assigned to write another KTE about that team.
I’m mad. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman, or Edgy, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the terrorism and the crime in the street and forcing CPF-ers to do something they don’t want to do. All I know is that first you've got to get mad.
[shouting] You've got to say, '62’s a HUMAN BEING, dammit! His life has VALUE!'
So does my time. And yours does, too. Should it be wasted doing something you don’t want to do?
I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
[shouting]
'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis and the mandated KTE assignments. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:
[screaming at the top of his lungs] "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
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