Ask a Douche Bag V

Dear DBH,

As a more-than-casual baseball fan, I’ve been following the World Baseball Classic (WBC) somewhat closely. After watching just two of the five games Japan played against North Korea, I have arrived at a conundrum of personal and national proportions: The true power center of baseball, a sport born and bred in the United States, has now clearly shifted to the other side of the globe. Not only was Team USA completely outclassed by its Asian counterparts, but American fans treated the entire event with the same interest and passion as the season premiere of FOX’s new television series Lie to Me (which may already be cancelled). I mean, a semi-final, elimination game pitting the defending WBC champion Japanese team against a resurgent Team USA failed to fill even half of the stadium…IN LOS ANGELES! It was a freaking home game for crying out loud. The next night, the thrilling, extra-inning championship game (featuring two Asian teams) filled not only Dodgers Stadium, but stadiums across Japan and North Korea, where the game was broadcast live via satellite (even with the day and a half time difference).

Am I wrong in interpreting the seeming indifference Team USA and its fans displayed towards an international showcase of America’s Pastime as a sign of America’s declining world hegemony?

(Also, it’s been over two months since the last DBH post…what’s the deal? I always figured whoever wrote The Douche Bag Handbook had no discernable social life and could post whenever he or she wanted.)

The Biggest "Douche Bag" Fan,
Ichiro SUCKS-uki

Dear Biggest Douche Bag,
First of all, DBH refuses to respond to criticisms of its social life lobbed haphazardly by someone with so much on his or her plate that he or she was able to dedicate any amount of time to watching the World Baseball Classic. In fact, DBH didn’t see any such person at Shadow Bar last weekend where DBH reserved a table and bought not one, but two bottles of Goose and was totally spitting all sorts of game at that one girl, Denise…or Dana or Danica or something…whatever…the brunette with that half-leather-jacket thing and the skinny jeans who totally would’ve gone home with DBH if her bitchy redhead friend hadn’t done nine shots of Patron and passed out in the bathroom.

The situation to which you are referring is not new. Every twenty years or so, Americans must be reminded of the tireless work ethic required to keep this country atop its rightful throne as the most badass nation in the history of the world (consistently edging out the Roman Empire which, while technically existing before the birth of the nation-state concept, remains the only recognized empire/tribe to methodically and radically adjust the pH level of another empire/tribe’s soil as part of an unbelievably over-the-top show of force).

This cyclical American lethargy is known as the “Gung Ho Phenomenon” after the 1986 cult classic film Gung Ho starring Michael Keaton as the fun-loving, mid-level manager of a flagging American car manufacturer recently bought out by its Japanese competition. Keaton must convince the new Japanese management team sent to rescue its acquisition from financial insolvency not to terminate all human life inside the Hadleyville, PA manufacturing plant and replace it with so many efficient and non-health-care-requiring robotic arms. (Check out the sequel to Gung Ho coming out this summer! Current working title: Detroit: 2009.)

Sure, Americans are reaping every bushel of the get-rich-quick, under-educated, under-motivated, and under-funded oats we have sown over the past twenty years, but there is something the rest of the world is forgetting. This nation thrives on something more tangible and wonderful than the dogged work ethic of its citizens: the dogged work ethic of the legal citizens of other countries (namely Mexico and Asia).

It is the very absence of a functioning work ethic and, consequently, the image of a universally enjoyed, worry-free American Dream incorrectly inferred by millions of potential immigrants huddled around their AM/FM radios in every corner of the world, that keeps America going strong. Without creating such an enticing ruse, America could never attract such a hard-working class of illegal aliens and would most certainly crumble into something that resembled a third Canada (the second being actual Canada, which is considered inferior to the idealistic, humorous Canada portrayed in the ground-breaking sketch-comedy series SCTV of the 1970s and early 1980s.)

Thus, as Gung Ho has taught us through the magic of the silver screen, when the going gets tough in America, the rest of the world will swoop in to the rescue, reluctantly spark budding friendships with their American counterparts made awkward by vast cultural and language gaps, have a couple cases of light beer, close the plant after the inferior American workers fall two thousand cars short of the agreed upon quota required to keep the plant alive, but then finally realize that the Americans’ desire to want to succeed (without actually accomplishing any of their assigned tasks) is more important than a viable economy.

So don’t you worry, my jingoistic friend. This kind of thing happens all the time. In fact, in about six years or so after the Asian baseball teams grow jaded from constantly housing their North and Latin American competition, they will forget the true meaning of baseball and will become disgruntled with their uptight, old-fashioned managers. The “Mr. Baseball Effect” will then sweep across Japan wherein its men will attempt to grow thick, bushy mustaches and its women will try to convince any Caucasian male that a soapy is a celebrated part of Japanese culture.

-DBH