Byline: Nathan Graziano

There is such a man, and he goes by the name of Herman McDerman. But I must also mention to you that Herman McDerman is not a man, rather an eraser and a character that I created when I was in the fifth grade. 

Almost nightly now, for months, I’ve been vicariously living through the characters in the show, arguably one of the most successful sitcoms of all-time. There is something about “Cheers,” more than three decades after the series concluded in 1992, that still speaks to our collective understanding of comradity, conviviality and community.

So when Netflix dropped the docuseries “The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox” on April 8, I couldn’t wait to dive into it. Not only have I been a Red Sox fan since birth, but—as aforementioned—I’m “a fan of the game.” 

For the young male, there have always been multiple warring factions within him, raging hormones battle with the dictates to be kind and respectful; a certainty in his own omniscience faces off with his ignorance; his dreams try to thrive while reality smacks him in the face.

Next week, I turn 50 years old, completing a half-century of spinning around the sun. And I’ve noticed that many of the things that once shined bright in my youth have lost their luster. Many of the things that I valued and enjoyed—some of which I masochistically enjoyed—are no longer that important, or that much fun.

What I truly admired about these Romantic poets, however, was the fact that it didn’t seem like any of these dudes had to work real jobs. While Keats did train to be a surgeon, he died before he could practice medicine, and guys like Lord Byron didn’t have to put aside “Don Juan” to scrub dishes. 

When I was 12 years old, my cousin and I were racing our bikes on the street in front of my aunt and uncle’s house. We were gliding, neck and neck, toward the finish line at the end of the curb, when my cousin pulled ahead, and my front tire clipped my cousin’s back tire, launching me over the handlebars, face first, onto the cement. 

It took a glorified carnival barker and his billionaire buddies, led by one of the most soulless and reprehensible people on Planet Earth, putting our democracy in grave peril for me to realize that, other than voting and writing a few op-eds along the way, I have not given much to a democracy that has given me everything, mainly my freedoms. 

Aside from being one of the most viewed annual sporting events worldwide, the Super Bowl is primarily a celebration of everything American—gluttony, debauchery, consumerism, violence. 

While journalists were seldom recognized at restaurants, the literary landscape had also changed. With the smartphone assuming its role as the slavemaster for most Americans, fewer and fewer people now had the attention span necessary to sit down and read an actual book.    

There is “something” about staring down the barrel of a half-century on Planet Earth that has set changes into motion for me.