Off Topic: Curtain Soon to Close on Shea Stadium; Nobody Cares

OK, I can't help but razz this a little bit -- I just read over on the Mets' website that fans have voted Bill Buckner's error in the 1986 World Series as the "Number One Shea Stadium Moment," or words to that effect. I can't argue against that being a huge baseball event, and very memorable ... but isn't it kind of weird that the biggest thing to happen for Mets fans at their home park was an error by an opposing player? Wouldn't you rather have it be something great that, like, a Met did there?

Apparently I was a little bit too level-headed and kind last night

OK, now I gotta say that the White Sox don't just need a new bullpen.

They also need new starters.

Kansas City is beating Minnesota at this moment, which means the agony could be prolonged for another day.

But I'm going to just go ahead and declare this season ovuh.

I'd like to say I'm happy the Sox did better than I expected them to do this season.

But I'd be lying.*

Watch for a new "Cubs" look for this blog soon. As in, blue background, and new song lyrics in the sidebar, along the lines of

We love our favorite team
They're the Chicago Cubbies
We love teddily bearses
And cuddly things
And pissing on lawns again and again
Like drunken Teletubbies
And centuries devoid
Of World Series rings

It's a work in progress.

---

* Do you dig my use of the Rick Telander "paragraph break after every short declarative sentence" technique?

I think I've mastered it.

Don't you?

Suspension of the State of Non-Hiatus

OK, you know what? Someone send me a note when the White Sox get a fucking bullpen. Until then, they're dead to me.

POSTSCRIPT: One O. Ball sez the following -- a slightly bitter and alcohol-influenced email from me to him late last night -- would have made a much better post. And I think he's right.

Washington Mutual fails tonight. Which, although it was pretty much expected for a while, is the biggest bank failure in U fucking S his fucking tory.

So what does the Trib website have up for its top story? Yep, of course. White Sox swept by Twins and blow first place. Almost certainly to miss the playoffs.

I have two responses. Fuck you Tribune. And fuck you to hell White Sox. Fuck you with the fuck power of a thousand fuck suns.

They desperately needed to improve the relief pitching. So what did they do? Sure. Sign Ken Griffey Jr. An aging, way way over the hill power hitter who can't hardly hit a ball out of the infield anymore at his advanced age of approximately 974 (ok, 38, which is the same thing, in baseball years).

The White Sox relief pitching staff has blown more games this year than Andy Dick has blown dicks. Which isn't even possible, because Andy Dick has blown even more dicks than the number of people who have been born since the dawn of time ... but somehow it is true anyway.

Therefore, they can gnaw upon that which pees in my toilet. Gnaw and ruminate, you cow-like retarded fuckers. I take shits into the mouths of your unborn children. And you don't even want to know what I do to your already born ones.

Bah. Everyone can eat shit and get cancer. I'm going to bed.

Don't stop now -- this joke has only started getting funny, and it has infinite potential

Bloomberg say:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion plan to buy devalued assets from financial companies is "a joke" because it doesn't go far enough to calm markets, said Kenichi Ohmae, president of Business Breakthrough Inc.

Ohmae, nicknamed "Mr. Strategy" during his 23 years as a McKinsey & Co. partner, called for a $5 trillion "international facility" to be made available to financial institutions.

These finance boys ... they need to stop thinking small. As Burnham said, "Little boondoggles lack the monkeys to make barrels fun again and thus suck boneless chicken dicks." Or ... something like that.

Anyway ... Why not eleventy trillion? Twelvety ann-jillian? Blurve-blivvity squabunderglassinabalsamicreductionillion? These numbers are completely meaningless anyway. Why not just say we'll need $Universe?

Infinity money! Plus one!

In the parlance of our times

I am suspending this blog until Congress gives me $700 billion.

The banks! The banks! The banks are on fire!

We don't need no water!

Let the motherfuckers burn!

A brief reflection on late-season baseball in Chicago 2008

So the Cubs have clinched the NL Central Division, and the Sox are still 2.5 games up in first place in the AL Central, so there's a good chance that both clubs will be in the playoffs, which hasn't happened since, I think, 1906, which was the year they faced off in the World Series (Sox won). Not that I think that will happen this year, but it's a lot of fun to have this much "meaningful" baseball this late in the year.

Especially during late September, baseball starts to feel like hanging onto summer for dear life ... fingernails ... toenails ... teeth. The longer baseball lasts, the longer summer lasts.

Which is why I'm always glad when either team makes the playoffs (in my lifetime, that's 1983, 1984, 1989, 1993, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2008), but, both ... that's like double reprieve. That's like, summer hasn't ended at all. Both teams in town are still playing.

Feels almost like June.

In the future, far awayWe will live in outer spaceThere will be a cure for cancerThere will be one race

And the North Siders come one step closer to the unthinkable.



The Cleaning Ladys - When the Cubs Win the World Series: Punk Gospel Rendition

Friday Nite Veddeos: Not Dedicated to Ike the Hurricane Edition

No baseball no damn where tonight.

Man, did Roger Bossard look pissed off earlier tonight or what? And Ozzie in his stupid kelly green "Halfway to St. Pat's Day" or whatever hat. That's a hella snazzy red tarp they got now, though. I gotta admit.

And, as the Cubs fans out there know, Houston is soon to be inundated by some form of cyclonic vicissitude, and I'm tempted to dig for a good YouTube version of Jimmy Webb's "Galveston" and post it up, but it seems too obvious.

So, instead, here's some veddeos that aren't intrinsically related to anything, with parentheticals describing the disparate categories they fall into.



Slade - Look Wot You Dun (category: favorite Slade song of the moment)



M.I.A. - Paper Planes (category: favorite college radio hit of 2008)



Gugug - Outdoor Miner (Wire cover) (category: Gugug)



Harry Nilsson - One (category: Nilsson: the best)



Blondie - Union City Blue (category: States: New Jersey)



Bongwater - Nick Cave Dolls (category: nostalgia for the year 1990, which was a pretty good year)



Big Black - The Power of Independent Trucking (category: '80s)

Driving and Rocking: Report from the Commute

Yesterday morning on the Edens, on the way to work up above the Arctic Circle, I heard the following one-two combo on the college radio, in the following order, over by dere. I'm still enjoying it. I love to listen to Brian Eno rock songs when I'm driving fast. And Bauhaus kicks ass here, too.



Bauhaus - Third Uncle (Eno cover)



Brian Eno - King's Lead Hat

Bill Meléndez, RIP

Somehow I missed it until today, but Peanuts animator José Cuauhtemoc "Bill" Meléndez died last Tuesday at the age of 91. The Peanuts specials often get slagged for being low-rez, jumpy pieces of work, but I think Melendez did a great job of interpreting the comic strip. It certainly would have been incongruous -- if not downright jarring -- if they had been lush, 3D, "uncanny valley"-transgressing Disneystraganzas. Also, TV was TV. Budgets were budgets. The classic Peanuts specials were great, and I won't tolerate contentions to the contrary!

OK, so maybe the Saturday morning cartoon shows weren't quite as good, but it's still hilarious in Portuguese:



"ISN'T THERE ANYONE WHO KNOWS WHAT CARNIVAL IS ALL ABOUT?!"

*sigh*

So long, Bill. Thanks for everything.

Because Exene Cervenka is the antidote to Sarah Palin ...

Because she is.



X - Under The Big Black Sun



X - Devil Doll



X - We're Desperate (Get Used To It)

What's this noise I hear about some kind of "foot" ... "ball"? Is that some kind of Republican stunt?

Fall is a mixed bag for me. For the most part, I love it. But it has a couple of drawbacks. For one thing, the leaves fall off the trees (coincidence? I think not!), which is a drag. For another thing -- the one-two punch of college and professional football seasons starting.

My one-word assessment of football: Ecch.

OK, that's only recognized as a word by Mad magazine's editorial style manual. And I watch more than my share of football every fall and winter. Actually, one game -- one play, even -- is too much, but I watch a lot more than that. I get bored after baseball season ends, and Sunday afternoons in the winters here are very conducive to ingesting a few alcohols and being bored to death by a game that should be called "Pause Ball." People say baseball is slow and dull -- people who are WRONG, that is -- but watching football is like watching C-SPAN. Minus the action.

The average football play consists of 11 gigantic armored freaks of nature running about one-and-a-half feet into 11 other gigantic armored freaks and then falling down. Then they all get up and gather together in New Agey discussion circles and talk about it for approximately two days. Then they line up and collide into each other again. Sometimes the ball gets thrown, and once in a while, somebody catches it. But then some guy dressed like a convict sticks his head in a contraption that looks like one of Matthew Brady's original Civil War cameras and they have a Constitutional Convention to decide whether the receiver's foot touched a line or didn't touch a line, or whether his socks match, or don't match, or whether the marching band's drummer was off-beat, or just too hip for the room ... etc.

And every year they change the fucking rules. Although the rules that get changed usually are rules I didn't know existed anyway -- because there appear to be about 700 million rules in football, especially pro football. The NFL rule book must be thicker than the Internal Revenue Code and all the tax regulations put together. So when they enact a new one that says something like,

"A tackler who tackles the quarterback on his mother's birthday must send the quarterback's mother a nice birthday card -- and not one of those 'funny' ones. It must be one of those mushy ones that will make the quarterback's mother cry with happiness, so as to forget the fact that her Number One Son has just been pummeled into the turf with the force of the Tunguska Explosion,"

you can't hardly notice the difference, I guess.

So ... anyway ... I'm told that we have our own professional football team in Chicago. OK, I guess I knew that, since my hometown was (and is) totally riddled with players from that team, temporarily living there, for some damn reason. Pro football players can't afford to live in Lake Forest? Or Highland Park? Or even Libertyville, or some other decent Lake County village? Maybe some of them do, but Tank Johnson used to live in my old neighborhood, and Fridge Perry used to live in a crummy aluminum-sided cookie-cutter box in a very mundane subdivision in Mundelein, so ...

But I digress. The fact is that I'm not much of a Bears fan. When I used to like football -- in the late '70s -- I was a Steelers fan. The Bears were bad. I'd watch them because they were local, but they sucked. Then they were good for a short while, but managed to be completely irritating the whole time -- what with the Super Bowl Shuffle, that imbecile Coach Ditka, etc. -- and then they sucked again. Somehow they ended up in the Super Bowl a few seasons ago, but that was just the kind of fluke that makes me hate football even more.

So I'm no Bears fan. But if you're interested in the semi-comedic rantings of someone who kind of is a Bears fan -- check out this new tour de farce by puppet-master Des and his cast of incomprehensible characters -- Captain Silas Redbeard's Bears Preview. You won't get it, per se, but it might weird out your brain in a manner that you can do something positive with, karmically. That's up to you.

And, in the general jugular vein of football comedy, here's a timeless classic that everyone knows, but that is worth a re-listen:



Andy Griffith - What It Was, Was Football

Blogpourri: Some bad news, some more bad news, and some videos

First of all, let me be the latest (but far from the first) to opine that Firefox 3 stinks like Charles Bukowski's abscessed taint. Slow fucking crash-prone resource-gobbling swirly loaf of soft-serv corn-studded fecal matter of a browser. OK, that's a little overboard. It has some nice features, but it is a slow memory-chomper. Granted, I'm using XP on an old machine, but fuck that. Fuck that excuse. Fuck it. Fuck it till it chafes and politely asks you to stop, then freezes up and mutherfucking dies.

Can you tell that I'm trying to quit smoking again? Yeah, I'm up to 72 hours now. Not quite past the hair-trigger rage phase as of yet.

Second -- god damn it. Just when I was allowing myself to feel good for a second about Our Favorite Ball Club, Carlos Quentin Tarantino-Crisp apparently injures himself via spazmattack tantrum, seemingly taking himself out of the season. He might still win MVP, only this "MVP" will stand for "Most Velvety Pussy." Oh man, that was totally uncalled for. I'm sorry. Especially since as of right now, the White Sox are beating the Angels 5 7 to nothing. Woulda been nice if they coulda done that at the only game I managed to get to this season -- at which the Angels beat them 3 to zero -- but, hey, you can't have everything. Or, in my case, anything.

Second and a half -- in slightly hilarious news, the Cubs are getting their panties raided and handed back to them in knots by the mighty Cincinnati Reds tonight. Not to exhibit ill-will toward my fellow Chicagoans, but -- HAH!!!!

And now, the veedeos. For no reason at all, I'm in the mood for some loud testosteronated semi-obscure '70s guitar rock crap. So here's a few of those. Rock till you can't stand it (or those nearby can't stand you, whichever comes first).



Captain Beyond - Dancing Madly Backwards (On a Sea of Air)




Bloodrock - Gotta Find a Way



Flower Travellin' Band - 8mm footage


OK, that should do it for now.

Putting aside the fact that Palin kind of looks like Stacy Peterson, if she had been allowed to exist for another 20 or so years ...

... McCain's choice for sidekick certainly gets beaucoup Novelty Points. Not that "things" were boring, veez ah veeeee this election campaign (emphasis on the "pain"), but they could get much more interesting soon. And by "interesting," I mean "slapstickutacular."

I predict that at the veep debate, Joe Biden bites his palm like Lenny and Squiggy when Sarah Palin takes the podium. OK, maybe that won't happen, but it's a sure bet that some dude, on either or both sides of the contest, is going to say something inappropriate about her purported hotness. If it's a Republican, he'll recover with the Nigel Tufnel retort, "What's wrong with being sexy?" If it's a Democrat, he'll throw himself under a bus -- literally.

I bet some GOP attack ads get aired with Obama saying "Sweetie" a thousand times in some kind of Negativland-esque tape-loop ("Sweetie. SweetieSweetSweetie. SwSwSwSwSweetie. SweeSweetSweetie. SweetieSweetieSweetieSweeSweeSweeSwee- SweeSweeSweeSweeSweeSwee. Christianity is stupid! Communism is Sweetie!"). If that hasn't happened already.

There's about a 20% chance that McCain will call Palin "a fine piece of tail," which will be good for a laugh -- but I bet he'd get away with it, and Palin will get credit from the press for being a "good sport," unlike those sourpussed feminazis in the Donkey Party. I also predict that by Nov. 4, the term "hockey mom" is going to induce projectile vomiting in me. Actually, we can revise that date to Sept. 4.

Regardless of what happens, it's sure going to be strange to have an election without any Southerner on either ticket. When's the last time that happened? And Alaska is about as far from Dixie as you can get without actually leaving the atmosphere.

Which raises the question -- if Cokie Roberts so insistently and persistently believes that Hawaii is an "exotic" locale, what about Alaska? Sure, it's technically on the same continent as America, but it's closer to Russia (i.e., zero miles, if you count the maritime border) than the contiguous United States. RUSSIA!!! They even have Orthodox churches in Alaska, with onion domes and everything. Hell, Alaska used to be Russia. There are still Russian-language documents in state legal archives. So, I wonder, what's Comrade Palin's viewpoint on South Ossetia?

ILL-ADVISED POSTSCRIPT: I've been tempted to make a "Dead Parrot Sketch" joke, by the way, but I'm not sure I'd want to do that in a public forum. I don't need to dork myself up even further, and Monty Python is way, way up there in terms of sheer dork quotient. (Although I guess I just did. Actually, the truth is, I couldn't think of a good one.)

So, in lieu of that, how about this?

Ohhh, she's a lumberjack, and she's OK!
She sleeps all night and gives birth all day!

Cuz ... see ... she's got so many kids. So ... many ... kids. OK ... maybe not.

POST-POSTSCRIPT: Allegedly, Palin returned to work the day after giving birth to her daughter, Piper. Well, there's some traditional Waltons family values for you. But I don't mention it because of that. I mention it to dispel any notions that I am biased in favor of Palin because I have a kittie cat named Piper. Any and all resemblances between Piper Palin and Piper Moss are purely coincidental. Although I didn't take any time off work when I acquired her, either. But then I didn't extrude her from the base of my torso ... so ... again, not comparable, I guess.

Mariotti Quits, Swisher Searches in Vain for Unaltered Hair to Wacky-Up in Celebration

I know it's been a while since I've written anything about the White Sox (or anything about anything, but in my defense, summer has never been a productive season for me, creatively), but I'm trying to be teh funnay hyah, and it's hard for me to write jokes smartass remarks when things are going well. I mean, Nick "Swishy Knickers" Swisher has suddenly become some kind of home-run hitting guy, Paulie seems to be shaping up, Crede is back (his back got better about a week back, thanks very much, try the veal), and Carlos Quentin and Alexei Ramirez continue to be ... awesomely awesome. The hosers are a game and a half up in first place, as of this writing, and ... until a few seconds ago, the Mariners had a two-run lead over the Twins. Damn, you, Twins! Identical upper-Midwest flies in my baseball ointment! But still, it's kind of hard to mock the White Sox right now. Even Juan Uribe.

And now Ozzie Guillen gets a nice Chreestmoose present in August: Jay Mariotti is leaving the Sun-Times "to pursue other opportunities." Yeah, I'll leave it unspeculated at this time what those "opportunities" could be.

Obama '08: Making the Politics of Failure Work Again (in a Changed Yet Believable Manner)

I don't think the Democrats know how to fight anymore. Apparently that twisted mutant Carville was the only guy who could. Anyway, today they're hammering McCain on the "I don't remember how many houses I own" thing, and I'm not sure what they're going to get out of that. What's the message, that McCain is filthy rich? That's not a negative -- people in this country fucking LOVE rich people and identify the hell with them. If they didn't, they'd never watch football or baseball.

If they're trying to play the "elitist" card, they're failing. Being rich doesn't make you "elitist," in the parlance of the conventional punditry -- eating arugula does. Being able to read and spell at a 9th grade level does. Knowing that Pakistan does not share a border with Iraq does.

I think that when Biff Nascar and Britney Hatesgays hear that McCain has so many houses that he's lost track of them, they're just going to react by saying, "Hot damn, that guy's good! I wish I could get me some a them there houses! And a new couch for every front porch! And I will, too -- soon as I win the lot'ry! Pick Four! Easy Money! Superball! Yee hah! I love Nascar! I hate gays! McCain's got more houses than a Monopoly game! I love being a Republican!"

Staycation, all I ever wanted ... staycation, had to not get away ...

Long time no post, but I've been on staycation this past week, and staycationing just did not include blogging, until now.

Some people seem to enjoy taking on extra jobs during their time off regular work, whether for the money or the fun of it. I used to work with a guy who likes to go pretend he's a trolley conductor during his time off work. But I won't comment further on that.

I'm not interested in taking on a temp job for money, but sometimes I think it'd be fun to find a little fantasy gig to get away to from time to time -- and then to get away from after a very finite span.

In fact, every summer I find myself wishing, every so often, I could spend a day at the old golf course again, cutting grass, changing holes, chasing gophers -- you know, greenskeeping. I know if I tried to do that job again I'd probably croak -- I'm old, I'm way out of shape, I have bad feet, I'm lazy as fuck, and nowadays I'm fat and can't handle the hot weather very well -- but it's fun to pretend.

So here's my idea (patent pending): Fantasy greenskeeper camp. You show up, some sunburned jerk wearing Frye boots and camo pants yells at you for being late, throws a rake at you, and then you go have a bloody mary at the 19th Hole. If you feel like it, you can rake some sand, too. Or drive some gnarly equipment around for a while, maybe a front-end loader or one of those smooth greens mowers with the zero turning radius and hydraulic everythings. Or you can just hide behind the bushes along the Number Five fairway and smoke a jay, no big deal.

Now, I know there are a few problems with the idea. Commercial viability of the enterprise, business-wise, might be one of them. And most of your demand may well come from "Caddyshack" fans who have a real skewed idea of the greenskeeping discipline. Bill Murray's character, Carl Spackler, is probably the image most people have of greenskeepers. Which is a shame. I mean, we all love to laugh about "killing the golfers" and "total consciousness," but greenskeeping is not all featherbed bent and Cinderella story.

Which is why I'd like to introduce my candidate for Head Greenskeeper of the Stronger Than Dirt Pete Moss Fantasy Greenskeeper Camp (tentatively opening 2009) -- Greenskeeper Don. If you will indulge me by watching this short clip, I think you'll see why fantasy greenskeeping is going to be the craze of the Late Zeroes, and I think you'll all be lining up with your checkbooks to invest.



OK, that one is not entirely fair. Here's Greenskeeper Don in a more triumphant moment.



Kick ass, GD, that's some fine turfgrass!

And to really seal the deal, here's just one more, in case you thought the life of a greenskeeper lacked drama. Lemme tell you, when those cute little buggers grow up, they could bite your leg clean off. (Bonus greenskeeper porn: Check out the tantalizing glimpse of that greens mower ... looks like an old Toro. Anyway, charp chariot, ese.)

White Sox Fail to Acquire Kathy Griffin ...

[insert Photoshopped image of Kathy Griffin wearing Sox uniform and blaming string of GIDPs on Jerry Seinfeld here*]

... Settle for Ken Griffey instead. Junior.

Yeah, I know that was last week's news. But you might have missed the total evisceration of the Trib's Mike Downey by Fire Joe Morgan's Ken "Some Call Me Mose" Tremendous. Which is also from last week (Friday), but ... we move slow in humid weather here at CBRAT World HQ. Although I'm not sure if complete static refusal to budge is "movement," technically. Too hot to argue. Throw me the idol, I throw you the whip. Anyway, maybe it's just because I'd have been more excited if Ken Williams somehow had managed to pull a star relief pitcher out of David Blaine's pruny, perennially submerged tuchus [insert Photoshopped image of the reincarnation of LaMarr Hoyt emerging from David Blaine's magical butt here] than an ancient, crippled bat-diva [insert Photoshopped image of KG Jr. dressed as Adam West sending back a meal here], but I found it funny.

POSTSCRIPT: Damn that's a lot of "Kens" for one tiny little blog item. Three, in fact. Ken, Ken, Ken. Ken't hold onto a goddamn lead -- that's what the White Sox ken't do lately! [insert apology for terrible, albeit true, joke here]

_____

FOOTNOTE:

*[suggestion: dip into library of Paul Konerko photos for source material -- is the resemblance not uncanny?]

Who are you?

I am Bat Cat!!!

Climbing the everythings of Gotham Apartment in a never-ending quest to rid its streets and sidewalks (I mean -- catwalks) of my most despiséd nemesis -- the house fly -- and to eat their tiny crunchy bodies, I am Bat Cat.

Armed with nothing but a soul-warping desire to cleanse Gotham Apartment of buzzy mobile bug-objects and my super-powers of: reckless extreme climbing ability ... dogged monomaniacal persistence ... and the kind of amoral willingess to mix comic-book metaphors with a sheer disregard for logic possessable only by a mutant fly-fighting feline -- as I've already said twice before (but with slightly different emphasis), I am Bat Cat.

OK, OK, you're Bat Cat. Sheesh. I'll tell you -- never bring a kitten to an Imax show. They have no sense of perspective.