Only Saps Click on Rogue Facebook Apps

Sorry for the lack of posting, all you readers out there ... all almost none of you. Been meaning to revive the blog -- for one thing, it's a refuge from the increasingly intrusive and, frankly, disturbing Facebook (and aside from the title and this parenthetical gripe, that's the only relation this post has to The Blob That Swallowed The Internet) -- but my excuse du jour is that I'm nursing a cold or some other form of yucky virus. And, uh, laziness.

Tomorrow is the first televised White Sox spring training game, if I recall correctly. So maybe I'll throw together a pre-season post, including some thoughts on the PECOTA software's dire predictions for the '09 season.

But for now, I'm gonna keep it simple and play another game of "Books the Cats Knocked Off the Shelves Last Night." Without further ado and in no particular order, here is a list of the books that the cats knocked off the shelves last night:

• Ape and Essence - Aldous Huxley
• Letting Go - Philip Roth
• The Roar Devil - Kenneth Robeson
• The Partridge Family #5: Terror by Night - Vic Crume
• The Toynbee Convector - Ray Bradbury
• Island - Aldous Huxley
• The Assistant - Bernard Malamud
• Incident at Exeter: UFOs Over America Now - John G. Fuller

I suspect the only one they were really after was the Partridge Family novel:

DOWNBEAT FOR DANGER!

The Partridge Family is all set for a great vacation.

But fun soon turns to fear when night comes to their lonely beach house on the New England coast.

Somebody or some thing is out to get them ... and when Keith tries to find out why, the rock stars' vacation becomes a nightmare ...

Eff yeah ... I bet you want to read it now.

Finally, this blog has something in common with Joe Biden -- Plugs!

Well, a couple plugs for other people. Which Biden might have, too.

Pitchers and catchers have reported, which heralds a new season with the crew of the Palehose, as imagined and rendered by Carl Skanberg. There's also ordering info on the site for Carl's new book, Three Years on the Palehose. I already ordered mine, so get going! and now it is sold out. Better luck next printing, slowpokes.

Next, not to be outdone, Otis Ball has a Cafe Press store up and running. T-shirts and caps, you bet! Including new new new merch promoting YouTube phenoms Uncle Tiny Tim and Gilly. Woooooo!

Blogging? Nobody blogs anymore. These days, all the cool kids are over by the Book Face

Yeah, I know it's dead here. In the meantime, here's a Chicago joke.

Man's sitting at a table in a Chicago restaurant. Calls over the waiter, sez, "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup."

Waiter bends over to look. Straightens up and sez, "I'm sorry, sir, but that fly is a real estate developer, and he's allowed to go wherever and do whatever he wants."

"But that's my dinner!"

Waiter leans over to look at the bowl again. "Well, it is a TIF district, sir."

"I'm paying good money for that soup!"

"Now, sir, you know you can't stop progress."

The argument continues for a while, until finally the waiter subpoenas all the man's friends and relatives, who convince the man to give up and go home.

All right, my friend. Now you laugh. Or my associate Rocco here maybe stops over by yer house for a little chat later on tonight. Maybe he brings his pal, Louisville Slugger.

OK, that's better.

Harry Subterranean Homesick Nilsson Blues

More Luv for Lux

Fine rendition by Gus and Fin of my favorite Cramps tune:

Boogie Stop Shuffle

OK, so I didn't blog for a week, got kinda perturbed by cosmic vapors, thought about kicking it in entirely, but let's do non-that, let's just blog every crazy thought that creeps toward my skull bone, such as, as follows ... a fine rendition of a Charlie Mingus classic by Chadbourne and Zu, by the title of "Boogie Stop Shuffle." It enjoys me, and it might enjoy you as well.

Hot Rock n Roll Obits Stove Report

Lux Interior of the Cramps has died.



Also passing this week, Chicago radio legend, Ed Schwartz. More to come on Ed soon.

Subterranean Governor's Mansion Blues

Apologies to Zimmerman.

Patti's in the basement
Cursin' Cubs management
Blago's on the pavement
Runnin' the government
Blago in his track suit
Woke up, no joke
Takin' Blago to the poke
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
Fitz knows when
And you're doin' it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend
The man from Kankakee
In the big pen
Wants eleven packs of smokes
You only got ten

Blago comes fleet foot
Wig full of black soot
Talkin' that the heat put
Rahm into bed but
The phone's tapped anyway
Sam Adam says he can't say
Easter Bunny knocks in early May
Orders from Oba-may
Look out kid
Don't matter what you did
Jog on your tip toes
Don't go on talk shows
Better stay away from those
That wear support panty hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don't need the Skilling clan
To know which way the wind blows

Hair thick, clothes black
Tap Burris for your hack
Talk smack, Reid's flak
Democrats are sure to crack
Try hard, get barred
Get jailed, make bail
Quote some poets, you can't fail
Look out Trib
You're gonna get hit
But users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around Springfield
Lawyers and their steno pool
Won't represent a big fool
Meanwhile the leaders
Privatized the parking meters

This thing's gold, won't fold
The fuck you say, no way, pay to play
You schmuck, get fucked
This teat is here to be sucked
Please me, please her, demand gifts
It's not stealing, not a grift
Six years in office
And they give you shitty short shrift
Look out, Quinn
You'll be the next one done in
No one'll light a candle
Good luck avoidin' scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
Pinched between the cheek and gum
Machine still works
Same old vandals turn the handles

Dirty Politics

"Stimulus package." Think about that for a minute.

Heh heh heh.

And presidents. We've had two Bushes and two Johnsons. That's a good even number. When there are more johnsons around than bushes, trouble could erupt at any time.

Heh heh. "Erupt."

But I think the dirtiest president was Harding. Hard. Ding.

Heh. Heh heh.

Yeah, he's got a package for you. And it's already stimulused.

(This has been my throwawayiest blog post ever.)

Screw the hot stove -- spring's about to sproing; I can feel it

After last week, this week's weather -- with sunny days in the 20s -- has felt like, well, warmth. Which puts me in the mood for ... you know what. And also too as well -- baseball.

I'm hype-averse (plus, hey, I had actual work to do), so I did not watch any of the inauguration festivities, but I caught wind of the massive "na na hey hey goodbye" chorus with which the crowd serenaded Ex-Commandante Bush. And I do proclaim that to be excellent. It will be good to have a Sox fan in the White House.

In that connection, I have a very small suggestion for President Obama, which I think will go a long way toward cementing the success of his first year in office. That suggestion is as follows: Issue a proclamation making the following the official song of the 2009 Chicago White Sox season. Yes, it's Finnish, but we've only just begun.



Eläkeläiset - Humpatkaa (Thunderstruck)

HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE:

In re: "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye," Wikipedia sez:

The song was transformed into a stadium anthem during the 1977 Major League Baseball season. Chicago White Sox organist Nancy Faust had played the song many times before when opposing pitchers were relieved or when the Sox had clearly won the game, but without much reaction from the Comiskey Park fans. During a critical series with the Kansas City Royals, however, the crowd began singing along with the tune, and a tradition was born.

My very first White Sox game attended in person by me was in 1977, versus the K.C. Royals. I don't have specific recollection as to whether that game was during the above-referenced critical series, but I do recall much joyous na-naaing and hey-heyying (not to mention good-byeing) taking place, and that commotion being one of my favorite things about the night.

"I am what you call a 'controversial figure.' People either hate me or they despise me."

Quick pop quiz. Who said the above?

If you guessed Rod Blagojevich, you're wrong. But you're close.

The 40-somethings among us in the (peanut-free, allergies being what they are) gallery may remember a charming little man (probably best-known for his frequent appearances in the Retching '80s on Late Night With David Letterman) named Brother Theodore. To jump the gun just slightly, I happen to believe that Brother Theodore and Rod Blagojevich are one and the same ... or twin brothers. Well, there is a certain temporal dysplasia between them, so perhaps they are better described as dutch uncles and nephews (or nieces or cousins or shirt-tail relatives of some other taxonomic designation, I don't know what, exactly).

At any rate, they're both deranged fellows with crazy hair and a fine sense of fashion. Can you dispute the resemblance? For the sake of my thesis, here are two depictions of Brother Theodore as a young(ish) man:




To complete my argument, two recent photographs of Governor Theodore, er, Blagojevich:




I might have mixed them up. I ... I'm not sure. So ... look-alike-able. So ... indistinguishable.

Through all of Governor Blago's travails, all his Kiplingings, all his Roland Burrisings, his "I will fight, and fight, and fight and fight and fight, fight fight fight, fight fight fight, the Itchy and Scratchy show" self-defense vowingsings ... I keep seeing nothing and nobody but the ghost(s) of Brother Theodore ... the Ghost of Theodore Past, and the Ghost of Theodore Yet To Come.

Yes. Yet to come. The Governor may be down, but don't count him out. When he gets a little bit of what my old law-firm boss used to call "gray matter" on his poufy head, don't be surprised if you find Rod B. turning up on late-night talk shows and in dingy store-front theaters, acclaimed as a genius. Perhaps, even, THE genius of our time.

For a preview of that, watch these. Squint a little, and ignore the slight Germanic accent, and you may be able to imagine what low-rent TV will be like 25 or 30 years from now. (First a short one that captures the gist of my case, and then a longer one, enticingly titled "That Itchy Chick.")





BONUS BASEBALL-RELATED THEODORE:

Here's our man riffing on a little "Who's On First" action with Sammy Davis Junior (Billy Crystal) in an old HBO special (featuring Chris Guest, and with Eugene Levy doing very little.)

Mingus and Piper's Book Club

At some point during the night or morning, the cats knocked a single paperback book from the bookcase next to their food dishes. I wonder if they're trying to tell me something.

That book: Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy.

Meanwhile, in the Aleutian Islands ...

My goodness, it's cold. It's so cold I can't even work up the gumption to swear. Let alone write -- or even think up -- a blog post. Forget it. I'm hiding under blankets until further notice.

ICONOGRAPHICAL POSTSCRIPT: I did manage to create this nifty fascistic personality-cult poster over at Paste Mag (even though they're getting crippling traffic & the site isn't working properly, so I had to make a screen capture to save it).

The moral of that story: STDPM DON'T TAKE NO GUFF FROM NO MACHINERY!!!

Hit Steve Gnaws?

Sorry for the garbled title, but my ears are ringing from being overloaded with incessant and shrill news coverage of the Cubs' acquisition of Milton "Silly Name, Too Easy to Mock" Bradley.

I was going to say I didn't care about it, but I guess I am looking forward to the remote possibility that Bradley will get in another fight with a racist, moronic umpire. I respect the beauty and majesty of the game and all that jazz, but I do enjoy a good fight now and then. Especially if an ump is involved. We're not big fans of "The Man" here at CBRAT HQ -- where we don't care which way the flags are pointing in the outfield, daddy-o, because you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows. Or something. Plus, since we're underground, wind is not really an available factor in our weather forecasts. But I digress.

Speaking of digressions, did you know that Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers are both brand names owned by Hasbro? And here I thought they were different companies. Huh. And Hasbro owns a Japanese subsidiary called Kosuke Fukudome, but the outlook is not particularly good for that line of toys. Market research shows that once Kosuke Fukudome board games are purchased -- at extremely high prices -- consumers tend to play with them once or twice and then put them away in a closet, toy box, cupboard, or even a dugout, where they are forgotten forever ... except when the monthly installments have to be paid. Plus, the translator takes up a seat on the plane that could be put to better use. Like, for storing Lou Piniella's booze. (That joke would work better if the Cubs were managed by Tony La Russa, but you play the ball as it lies, I guess.)

Meanwhile ... down at 35th and Shields, the sound of crickets. Which is no mean feat in January, when all the crickets are sleeping -- hibernating in their little caves, like the grizzly bears, mountain lions, and Ligues.

The top headline on the White Sox home page today is: "Sox rotation questions similar to 2008." Can you beat that for excitement? Yes, you can. Even if you are incredibly boring.

The story does contain an account of Don Cooper being questioned about a rumored possible not-gonna-happen-but-there's-nothing-else-to-talk-about trade of Gavin Floyd for Brian Roberts -- but that would be so much more entertaining on TV or radio. Because Don Cooper always cracks me up. And his thick NYC accent is a nice contrast from that of local sports radio hosts, such as, say, "jerk off" Mike North. In a written story, I have to imagine it, which is fun enough, but it usually leaves me wishing that sports writers could get away with phonetic spelling of dialogue.

Anyway, I would think that a Floyd-for-Roberts trade would raise totally different questions about the rotation from any that characterized the 2008 season. Such as -- "How exactly are the Sox going to replace Floyd in the starting rotation?" Because adding a hot leadoff hitter -- while a worthwhile thing to do, in itself -- doesn't exactly accomplish that task.

One (two-part) question about the Sox rotation from '08 that will go pleasingly unasked in '09 is, "Does anyone honestly expect me to believe that Jose Contreras was born in 1971? Don't they have the last two digits inverted?"

OK, that's enough Hut Stiff Noobs for now. Keep it warm, but keep it.

"Hot Stove" News: "Everybody Get Yer Hankies Cuz We Only Talk Wankees"

So ... one thing has already happened this year. The newest bastard child of Bud Selig -- the MLB Network -- a whole channel about professional United States of American baseball, in case you hadn't guessed -- or noticed it, since it's way way way up in the five-digit channel numbers, right next to such powerhouses as "The Albanian Folk Dance Channel," "The Arts and Crafts by Mutes, for Mutes, Network (TAACBMFMN)," and "C-SPAN 2" -- has finally sprung into life on the cable television, over by there. If you call that living. I guess I could wait until the season starts before I start bitching about it, but why? I'm not waiting until Inauguration Day to bitch about Obama's rocket-powered Cannonball-Run-like "drift" to the right. And I see no reason to treat pre-baseball MLB-related television programming any differently.

Of course, their current pre-actual-baseball-season flagship programme is called "Hot Stove." I haven't gotten any cease and desist letters or any other forms of threat due to my mockery of the trademark, but maybe if I try real hard, I will.

Anyway, here's my impression of MLB Network's "Hot Stove" (cable) televisual showcase:

This just in! Derek Jeter had Chinese for lunch today! This just in! Hank Steinbrenner farted this morning and made his personal assistant take the blame! This just in! Joe Girardi was spotted at a Manhattan nightclub last night with a booger in his nose that he didn't seem to realize was visible, and nobody felt socially bold enough to tell him!

This just in! Yankees, Yankees, Yankees!

YankeesYankeesYankeesYankeesYankees!!!!!
YankeesYankeesYankeesYankeesYankees!!!!!
YankeesYankeesYankeesYankeesYankees!!!!!
(huff huff huff huff ... deep breath)
YankeesYankeesYankeesYankeesYankees!!!!!

Oh yeah, and something called "Red Sox" exist, too. Strange world we live in.

But, mostly ... YAANNNKEEEEEEEEES!!!

(Then the out-of-breath sports-dork host drops dead on the spot, and an old Arte Johnson looking dude in NYY pinstripes waddles onto the set and sweeps his body up. Credits. The end.)

The best thing about it is that it's re-run about six times a day, so -- in case you missed their in-depth coverage of every waking moment of every employee of the New York Fucking Yankees, and every inch traveled by every penny of every one of the uberkaboodleplex million dollars they will spend in 2009 -- you have plenty of chances to catch up.

CATCH UP ON THE HOT STOVE NEWS ABOUT THE NEW FUCKING YORK FUCKING YANKEES!!! EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR, PLUS AGAIN EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES, OVERLAPPING!!! FUCK YEAH!!!

In short: No sir, I don't like it.

Hey, who spilled bubbly on the Hot Stove News?

One last post for 2008, but just a quickie, cuz I gotta take a post-work nap before heading over to a par-tay next door. But the Cubbies have been busy today, huh? Mark DeRosa traded to Cleveland for the standard "three guys nobody has heard of," where I guess he'll be joining good ole Kerry Wood (how we hate him). Aaron Miles picked up from the Cardinals to, I guess, fill DeRosa's (f)utility role. And it looks like Jason Marquis will be going to Colorado in exchange for Luis Vizcaino, which seems like a fairly even crap-pro-crappo deal to me.

OK. Here's wishing everyone a cup o' kindness and all that. Happy New Year to you and yours.

Year Out, Year In -- Auld Blog Syne

Here's my wrap-up on 2008:

Sucked.

Here's my forecast for 2009:

Gonna suck even worser.

Late Letter to Santa Claus

Well, since the temperature surged up into the 20s today, I organized a sortie outdoors to see how entombed my car was within a plow-induced igloo of frost. And the answer is lots. Lots entombed.

I took a snow shovel to the icy gift-wrapping surrounding my mighty 4-cylinder Japanese sleigh, and the shovel bounced off the rock-hard snow-mass twangily, and I tried again, several times, and then I started to sweat and exhibit signs of an impending heart attack, so I went back inside.

So I might be spending at least Christmas Eve, if not Christmas Day as well, here, in the apartment, with the kitty cats. Which I won't mind. Although the food situation here is not as good as it will be at the folks' house. I won't starve, but I'll be bored. Maybe I'll be able to move the car later on in the week, or over the weekend.

And maybe not. I'm just about fucking disgusted with the futility of owning a car in winter in this town.

But then if there's anything I'm overly excellent at, it's being fucking disgusted. At everything. All the time.

I'm not just colicky. I'm super duper extreme colicky. And even I find me irritating.

Anothing thing about me that I'm irritated by is, why do I waste so much time reading so many liberal blogs? Especially ones that spend most of their time and space bitching about whatever insane shit the asshole conservative blogs are yapping about?

I mean, I've done a great job of avoiding the pajamas people, whoever they are, and the little green footballs, and even the National Review Online. I've never even seen Ann Coulter on TV once, but every time she spews a vile turd of right-wing outrageousness, I end up reading all about it online. Feh and fooey.

I don't want to know. I know those people are nuts -- I have heard every single tired argument and slur spewed by ultra-conservatives, and they haven't changed in 20 years. Yes yes yes, poor people, unions, and minorities are responsible for every single problem in America, not to mention teh gheys.

Doesn't (what passes for) The Left have anything better to do than exchange endless fusillades with their counterparts on the alleged other side of the continuum?

Somebody must find it really fun to fire up The Tubes and find out what creepy, disgusting nonsense so-and-so has cooked up this morning, I dunno. But I don't.

So why do I keep visiting these (purportedly) lefty blogs?

Because I am an idiot.

Please, Santa, if you're reading this -- I've been a pretty good boy this year. I drank too much too often, and I engaged in lots and lots of sloth. But, really, my list of middle-aged sins for 2008 is rather boring. Which, in my opinion, counts as good.

So, Santa, can you bring me some sense this year? Can you drop me off a little sanity?

If so, I just wanted to let you know that I might be stuck here at CBRAT Central on Christmas morning, so if you can swing by in your magic flying chariot and check, I'd appreciate it vastly.

Thanking you in advance, Santa.

Love,

Stronger Than Dirt

Chestnuts suck, who don't think so?

Friend of the blog, Foojang, over by Portland, Oregon, writes as follows, and I respond as follows that, and that's what this post is, and it's too fucking cold for me to type anymore. Cheers.

Whelp, the weather has been mizherable here for over a week now,

Me and you both, Sahib. Today the warmest it got was -3. Fahrenheit.

I thought I had my xmas shopping done, but I realized tonight that I bought the same damn stuffed moose from the Swedish museum for the same damn person last year. So now I have to account for that error. I think I can juggle the "who gets what" and make it work. If not, I have to shop more, and .... fuck, I hate that.

Plus, it's supposed to snow like a fuckass on xmas eve, and I don't want to miss Italian beef sammitches for lunch that my mom is serving for the annual hectic mayhem thing with the deranged relatives.

My cousin _____ will be visiting on leave from Iraq, where he has been volunteering to go along on bomb defusing missions for extra money. So ... that's Sanity Claus for you, ho ho ho.

My sister's boyfriend _____ might sit it all out, because he's pouting. His _____ is in jail, and his _____ is a nut, and _____ is pouting because my sister's family is "perfect." Yeahhhhhh. The Mosses. Of Gurnee, Illinois. Perfect. I wasn't aware of that definition of the term. But anyway, _____ is having a major snit of self-pity, giving my sister the business about "You never had to live on wheels!" etc.

This is how the world ends. It's ending now. It fucking better be.

Don't Touch That Stove; That Stove Is Hot -- Another Cubs Report

While everyone is exercising themselves over the transformation of Wrigley Field to hockey rink containing facility, Jim Hendry's Cubbies have signed speedy fast-ster Joey Gathright to a one-year, $800,000 deal. That pooping sound you hear is coming from Reed Johnson's pants.

And that's about as exciting as I can make that non-story.

Meanwhile, reporters report that the Chicago Hockey Blackhawks have the top attendance record this season in the National Irrelevant They Still Play Hockey? Professionally? League, improving from 29th out of 30 last season. Just goes to show what can happen when an unpopular owner goes the way of all flesh. Or what can happen when there's no place to go but up.

Hockey. I still have contusions and peculiarly warped limbs from my efforts to play at that game during my stupider, teenage years. And I still have the skates. I'm sure they still fit, although I haven't strapped them on in over a decade, and all signs point to that record remaining unbroken forever.

Stove is hot. Clear down range. Ken Williams? Your move. Been a long time since any White Sox news happened. And Darrin Jackson moving over to radio -- completing a media swap with Steve Stone -- doesn't count.

"We are confident Ed Farmer and Darrin Jackson will partner to provide White Sox fans a solid broadcast experience," said Mitch Rosen, WSCR 670 AM program director.

A solid broadcast experience. Very well. For a medium consisting of intangible waves, that's something. Not sure what. But something.

Maybe he just means the tower will fall on us. That would be solid.

Stay tuned. The gas bill is paid up, the knobs have been taken off this sucker, and all burners are blue jets of awesome off-season baseball fascination.

Cue the theme song.

Hot stove news! Hot stove news! Hot! Stove! News!