Freamon: A life, Jimmy, you know what that is? It's the shit that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come.

Moments that never come. Yeah, I've spent a lifetime waiting for moments that never come. Every day I wake up and I think my one-way ticket to fortune and fame is waiting on my doorstep, delivered by the gainfully employed civil servant, who wears shorts in the summer and earmuffs in the winter. Becoming a civil servant was never a dream of mine, though my mother thought being a mail carrier might be the right job for me. Mom also thought I would be the ideal candidate to operate a Boston Duck Boat and regale the tourists, from destination nowhere U.S.A., with clever anecdotes about Boston. (If you've seen Vince Vaughn in the Break Up, you get a picture of where my life could be heading.)

What is a life? I wake up every day and check my three fantasy baseball teams and that gets the blood moving in the morning. Man, that's a life right there. Back in the thirties, jamokes like me would check the racing form, now we check our fantasy baseball teams. I'm not saying my standing in fantasy baseball leagues define who I am, or constitute a full life, but it's a start. I picked up Florida Marlins second baseman Dan Uggla off the waiver wire this year - that's a story to tell the grandkids.

Can a life be defined as knowing that The Godfather II is better than The Godfather? Have I lived a full life by refusing to watch Godfather III? I hate to see beauty destroyed, and watching The Godfather III might obliterate my reverence for Francis Ford Coppola's masterpieces.

Can a life be measured by wealth and stock holdings? Is my 401K percolating? What is my debt to asset ratio? (Why is it I always see people carrying the Wall Street Journal, but I never see that many folks reading Rupert Murdoch's latest purchase?) Is Suze Orman your prophet or do you have the Next Big Idea for Donnie Deutsch?

I don't have a Costco, BJ's or Sam's Club card. Do I have a full life?

I've enjoyed the Happy Meal, I've ravaged The Whopper without cheese and I've devoured a Wendy's Spicy Chicken sandwich. Does that constitute a full life?

When the Mets clinched the division versus the Cubs in 1986, my brother and I ripped turf from Shea Stadium. We planted the piece of sod in our front lawn right next to our driveway/former hoops court. If I request to have my ashes buried at court side in the general area of the Shea sod, would that be a life?  

I've seen The Stones and I've seen the Blow Monkeys. In our pop culture lexicon, who looms larger? More people have seen the Stones than ever witnessed the pop sensibilities of the Blow Monkeys. Obviously, only cultural elites were into the the Blow Monkeys.

Blow Monkeys

Does a full life require me "making love" to a Wilt Chamberlain number of women or a Gene Simmons sample of the opposite sex? Should I start having three-ways before softball games like mixed martial artist Chuck Liddell? What type of life have I carved out without these experiences?

I've never been to The Louvre, but I've been to Murphy's Bleachers in Chicago.

I've never read Proust, but I just finished L.A. Rex by Will Beall. Think of Colors meeting Training Day, which is then combined with Lethal Weapon. Is that a full life? Have I sated my thirst for literature?

Maybe a full life is best explained by Willie Nelson's Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down :

On a Sunday morning sidewalk I'm wishing Lord that I was stoned
Cause there's something in a Sunday makes a body feel alone
And there's nothing sure to dying half as lonesome as the sound
On a sleepy city sidewalk Sunday morning coming down

Well I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad so I had one more for desert
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I shaved my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stair to meet the day
I'd smoke my brain the night before with cigarettes and songs I'd been a picking
But I lit my first and watched the small kid cussin' at a can that he was kicking
Then I crossed the empty street and caught
The Sunday smell of someone fryin' chicken
And it took me back to something that I'd lost somewhere somehow along the way
On a Sunday morning sidewalk... [ guitar ]

In the park I saw a daddy with the laughing little girl that he was swinging
And I stopped beside a Sunday school and listened to the songs they were singing
Then I headed back for home and somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing
And it echoed through the canyons like the disappearing dreams of yesterday
On a Sunday morning sidewalk...
Coming down coming down coming down coming down