This will only take a moment.

The Baseball Hall of Fame voters are fucking morons, and their decisions reek of stupidity and bullshit.

That is all.

Notes From The Chapel

Hey Yo.

So, Keith's wedding is later today. I'm his best man (apparently, the term "best" is being thrown around like confetti these days). I don' t really have a toast figured out yet, but I'm not too worried. I'll figure something out. I'm very, very, very tempted to steal Michael's toast from Phyllis' wedding on "The Office" ("Webster's defines 'wedding" as the fusing together of two metals...")

It came to me that the album I forgot to mention in my little list was Nine Inch Nails' "Year Zero". It's my favorite thing Trent Reznor has done since "The Downward Spiral". Actually, if you include his production of the Saul Williams album, and his guest appearance on what might be my favorite song of the year (El-P's "Flyentology", particularly the "Cassettes Won't Listen" remix") it was a pretty good year for Trent.

I finished the second season of "Lost" through the Netflix. I began watching the show mainly because Dwight Schrute likes it, and he was right about Battlestar Galactica. (For most people, that would be a joke, but I sometimes do make decisions based on things like that. I'm not sure if that's a healthy instinct or not). And I like it. But I do want them to, at some point, explain the fucking polar bear that attacked the castaways on the tropical island in the first episode. This show is worse than the X-Files at giving the viewers new mysteries before explaining the last two or three mysteries. I think that when I finish watching the third season I'm going to give "Heroes" a chance, if only because Jeph Loeb writes for the show.

The picture is of everyone's new favorite steroid user. I'm still of two minds about the Rocket being a cheater. On the one hand, it makes complete sense that the guy in his 40s with an ERA below 2 was juicing. It would actually be more surprising if he wasn't, if you really think about it. On the other hand, the notion that the greatest pitcher this side of Sandy Koufax was/is a steroid user is unquestionably jarring. I've accepted that the best hitter of all time who's name didn't start with "George" and end with "Herman Ruth" was/is a user, and to further have to expand my notions about this era and its defining players is vexing. I guess Clemens being an (alleged) user might be described as utterly credible and yet still so...disappointing? That's such an obvious statement that it borders on worthlessness, but it might be the best I can do at the moment. Of the rest of the names, I always disliked Andy Pettitte and Eric Gagne and Paul lo Duca, so I feel like the report just made somewhat irrational emotions suddenly become nearly rational. Which works for me.

No Alternative to Steroids

So last night, when I was trying to fall asleep, I was flipping through the channels. And I happened to come across an informercial for a new boxed set of cds, being pitched by the lead singer from noted shitty 90s band Sugar Ray (you might remember them from such terrible songs as that one about wanting to fly [but not the terrible R Kelly song about wanting to fly] and that one about "every morning there's a something around something" I don't really remember the lyrics to it, but I do remember a not funny Jimmy Fallon parody of it on Weekend Update). The set was being billed as a collection of the best "alternative" songs of the 90s and early 2000s. As you might guess, I took quite a bit of umbrage with the selections being presented. The quality of the songs varied from pretty good songs that most of us wouldn't classify as "alternative" such as Sublime and "Monster" era R.E.M. to insipid one-hit-wonder acts like Fastball. However, the closest to alternative that I noticed was Britpop (Oasis's "Live Forever'" and Blur's "Song 2) and Hole. Granted, defining alternative is problematic (is it just music in the style of 80s "College Rock" like Sonic Youth or the Replacements? Is it stuff inspired by the Pixies? Is Grunge alternative? Damned if I know) but Third Eye Blind was certainly not "alternative".

Now, I realize that it is silly to be offended by something like this (so I'm only a little offended) but it did strike me as an example of how the history of popular music is constantly being shifted and redefined by people who don't really care about it as an art form. "Classic Rock" radio stations have all but written out acts like The Kinks and Sly and The Family Stone and Love and The Seeds in favor of Pink Floyd (nothing against Pink Floyd, but we can all admit they were never as good as people seem to think they were. The Clear Channel computers could at least put some Syd Barrett era stuff on the radio instead of endlessly playing "Another Brick in the Wall part 2" and "Time") and fucking Steppenwolf in their playlists. I'm always intrigued by informericals for 60s music collections, where Time Life or whoever obviously couldn't afford or attain the rights to acts like Dylan or the Beatles, so bands like Strawberry Alarm Clock are presented as the shining examples of what was probably rock music's greatest decade. Call it a form of Wikiality, maybe.

Oh, and the Mitchell report is about to be released. I've seen one list purporting to be the actual roster of names to be released in the next few hours, and Chipper Jones was not on it. Beyond that, I'm mostly just curious. If guys like Clemens (who apparently will be on the list) and Pujols and Bagwell are in the actual report, I'll be a little disappointed, but I can handle it. I think the sheer number of names who used steroids will be a little surprising to a lot of people. Those who want to start tossing around asterisks like so much confetti might be very, very busy this offseason.

Okay. I just watched the Mitchell press conference and read a little bit of the enormous PDF. It turns out to be pretty boring. Most of the speculated names didn't show up (Pujols, Bagwell, Prior and so forth). Clemens seems to be pretty fucked, though.

The picture is of Cash with Nixon. Everyone's seen the pictures of Nixon with Elvis, but this one seems to be less iconic. For obvious reasons, I guess. Something about that Elvis/Nixon shot seems to sum up so much about America.

Sign Of The Crossfade

I woke up this morning and my back seems to be getting better. It's not one hundred percent yet, but it's getting close. Remind me never to take being walk upright granted again. Anyway, I have a quick announcement or two. Or maybe five.

1. Six tracks into my first concentrated listen of the new Buck 65 album, and it already feels like the fifth contender for album of the year (if you're taking notes, the other four are El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead, Brother Ali's The Undisputed Truth, Radiohead's In Rainbows and Pharoahe Monch's Desire.) This album does seem much more hip-hop then his last stuff, which had more folk/blues/Tom Waits-ey stuff on it, but his writing is still on a completely different level than almost anyone else in music. Buck's ability to recast cliches and idioms into new meanings at times vaguely reminds of Dylan's stuff in the mid-60s. Which is not to say that I think Buck is as good a lyricist as Dylan (Obviously I'm not going to put anyone on the same plateau as Robert Allen Zimmerman) but I think there is a similarity there. If the world was a fair place, he would be the biggest name in underground/alternative music.

2. Extras is probably better than Curb Your Enthusiasm (and this season of Curb is pretty damn good, especially for a show that seemed to end last season). I just finished the first season through the Netflix, and I'm very disappointed with myself for waiting this long to watch the show. If you haven't heard Patrick Stewart's idea for a movie starring himself, you are missing out.

3. If the Dodgers think that Joe Torre is what that team was missing last year, then I don't know how to help them. This is a team that had no one hit more than 20 home runs last year, as far as I can tell. Their (excellent) closer is 37. Juan Pierre starts for the team. A manager is the least of their worries.

4. I like the Sarah Silverman Program, but last night's episode was something of a chore to get through. Actually, now that I think about it, Silverman is probably the one show that I genuinely like that is fairly consistently a chore. Unfortunately, when it is funny, it's brilliantly funny ("I believe the Holocaust was completely uncalled for", for example). But Sarah is probably not the best judge of her own material, at least as long as she thinks jokes about excrement are the height of comedy.

5. House was fine on Tuesday night. But please, please, please get rid of at least one of the unbearable women doctors/contestants. The new Foreman/House dynamic looks to be a good way to go. After about two more weeks I think I'll be done with the reality show/contest angle.

6. Slate has a good piece up about how bad Sports Illustrated become. I'm a subscriber, but it has become a shell of what it once was. For me, things really began going wrong when high school football got a regular section, and the fantasy football coverage began taking up more pages of space than most real sports.

Mostly Baseball

The Braves traded Edgar Renteria (pictured, in what would probably have been a better picture if I wasn't so lazy as to grab the first picture on Wikipedia that I could find) to the Tigers for a couple of prospects. We picked up a pitcher named Jair Jurrjens, who made a handful of starts for the team this season, and a minor league outfielder named Gorkys Hernandez. This would make Yunel Escobar, who had a good season as a backup for Renteria and Chipper Jones (119 OPS+ over 94 games), our primary shortstop, which should be okay, but I liked Edgar's time in Atlanta, and I'm sorry to see him go. Still, the team is on a budget now, and if this shores up our pitching rotation it's all to the good. I'm fairly sure that Mark Teixeira gets a pay raise through arbitration this off season, and we need to find a replacement for Andruw Jones.

I'm ecstatic that Alex Rodriguez is all but certainly done as a Yankee. The man more or less single-handedly took the team to the post season, and still got shit from the Yankees fans for not being Scott Brosius (a true Yankee). I'm curious about where A-Rod will wind up. For Ralph's sake, I'd like to see A-Rod with the Giants (I shudder a little at the thought of him in the National League). At least the Yankees are said to have offered their manager job to Joe Girardi instead of the more heart-warming choice of Don Mattingly. Still, without Rodriguez's bat I can't help but think that the last season in Yankee Stadium won't be a pleasant one.

Obviously I don't get too much credit for predicting that the Red Sox would win the Series. The cover of SI described the Series as "The Red Sox have Beckett, The Rockies have the magic", and anyone with half a brain knows which of those to choose. (Although a disappointing number of sportswriters would undoubtedly still opt for "intangibles" over "tangibles".) The Rockies playoff run was unexpected, and unquestionably impressive, but we could all see that the Sox were the better team. It was disappointing to get another boring World Series (the last World Series that was interesting as a World Series, rather than being interesting for external factors such as a supposed curse or Kenny Rogers cheating, was the Yankees/Marlins series, and that one wasn't all that great)

Living for giving the devil his due...

Hi kids (note that I say "kids" despite the fact that to the best of my knowledge, no one younger than me reads this with anything approaching regularity.)

I've been meaning to put more stuff up, but I've been busy watching baseball (You had to figure Cleveland would eventually remember that they were Cleveland EDIT: I wrote that when Boston had gone ahead early, but now in the fifth inning the Indians have closed in a little. The Indians might just ruin the plans of Fox executives who want a profitable World Series yet), pouring my hours into my PS2 (Beyond Good and Evil, Kingdom Hearts and College Hoops 2K5 mostly- it just occurred to me that I have no idea if one should italicize video game titles. I mean, if you think of video games as art, which I do, [The real question is whether or not video games are good art] shouldn't one italicize the titles? But I can't remember ever seeing someone do that.) re-reading Terry Pratchett novels (in an attempt to slightly brighten my worldview without sacrificing any of my trademark cynicism) and using the Netflix to catch up on movies I really should have seen by now (Walk the Line, Jacob's Ladder and 300 thus far, although I'm halfway through 300) all the while still trying to find a proper job.

James and I went to NC State's embarrassingly named "B-Ballin' at the Old Barn" on Friday night. It was basicly just an open practice for the men's basketball team, along with a few shooting competitions. The highlights were seeing J.J. Hickson for the first time (this kid is going to be really, really good. I just wish that there was a better chance we'd get him for three years) and seeing Chris Corchiani, who is my absolute favorite basketball player of all time. Between that and the ECU game, it's been a pretty good weekend for NCSU athletics, which is something of a rarity this time of year.

However, because life simply will not allow me to go through a single weekend without something that threatens to drive me to resorting to violence, I did read a rumor that Michael Bay is working on a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Now, The Birds is my least favorite of Hitchcock's major films (hell, I like Spellbound more than The Birds) but still, Alfred doesn't deserve this. Even Tippi Hedren doesn't deserve this. It's bad enough that by the time I finish writing this Hollywood will have finished green-lighting remakes of all of my favorite 70s horror films, but now they're going to start working through Hitchcock? I always figured that the one good thing to come out of Gus Van Sant's attempt to remake Psycho in the late 90s was that it would cure the movie industry of any impulses to touch Hitchcock's back catalog. Of course, this made the key mistake of assuming that Hollywood has the capacity to learn from mistakes. I just can't wait to see how he explains why birds start exploding.

Bah

Another year, another Nobel Prize in literature, another wrong answer from Stockholm.

Doris Lessing (pictured) won, denying Philip Roth the award once again. In an interview, she admitted she "couldn't care less" about winning the award, which actually kind of makes me respect the decision a little more. According to a rumor I read, apparently Al Gore is a front-runner for the Peace Prize, instead of the clearly more deserving Chipper Jones. (I'm just saying what we all know is true).

The Emmys now officially have more credibility.

The bad news keeps coming. Super Smash Brothers Brawl, the Wii game that I've been looking forward to the most has been delayed until February.

John Schuerholz, probably the second greatest General Manager in the history of baseball (behind only Branch Rickey, who invented the farm system and brought Jackie Robinson into baseball) is stepping down as GM for the Braves after a tenure that included 14 straight division titles, five pennants and one World Series championship. He's staying within the organization, but will no longer be GM.

Oh, and the big Ninth Wonder show at the Cradle last night was something of a train-wreck. We wound up waiting for the doors to open for more than an hour because all of the talent felt the need to make a grand entrance in limousines. Jean Grae's set was only one song. Murs only did 2 and 2/3 songs. The whole evening had the potential to be something really special, but wound up being something less.

But there's hope for the future. Buck 65 is headlining a show at the Cradle in November, the Yankees lost in the playoffs, and it looks like any possible World Series matchup will be good baseball. Oh, and the new Radiohead album is pretty damn good. And the Boondocks is back on television. And we might be getting a new puppy. Everyone loves puppies. But it turns out we might not be getting a new puppy. The comment on the essential lovability of puppies remains valid.

Baseball and Schadenfreude

These playoffs have the chance to be among my favorite ever. The Phillies are being beaten down. The Yankees were humiliated today (although this means that A-Rod will continue to be abused for his own excellence, which is vexing). If the Cubs lose tonight, things will be well on their way to returning to the natural order. For the kind of baseball fan who is only happy when much larger groups of baseball fans, especially casual baseball fans, are unhappy, this is great so far.

Playlist

Nirvana- Oh Me (Unplugged)
The Byrds- Going Back (Notorious Byrd Brothers)
Replacements- Alex Chilton (Pleased to Meet Me)
Buck 65- All There Is To Know About Love (Cretin Hip Hop Mix Tape)
Kanye West- Stronger (New Single)
Big Star- Thirteen (#1 Record)
Bob Dylan- Blood In My Eyes (World Gone Wrong)
A Tribe Called Quest- Can I Kick It (Peoples Instintive Travels...)
Sonic Youth- the first four tracks off of Daydream Nation
Talib Kweli- Going Hard (The Beautiful Struggle)
Elvis Presley- King Creole
Elvis Costello- Tokyo Storm Warning (Blood and Chocolate)
Ramones- Pet Semetary (Brain Drain)
Neil Young- Shots (Re-Ac-Tor)
The Pretenders- Back On The Chain Gang (Learning To Crawl)
Bauhaus- Bela Lugosi's Dead

Oh. And if you've read any sports coverage lately, you might have noticed that every article about Tom Glavine winning his 300th game (I'm glad Tom made it, but every Mets win is a small dagger in my heart at the moment) mentions the possibility that Glavine will be the last pitcher to win 300 games. Do not believe this. This is not true. Another pitcher will win 300 games. It might not be very soon, but it will happen, and in most of our lifetimes. People said the same thing when Maddux won his 300th (and it just kills me a little that both Glavine and Maddux hit this milestone in uniforms that were not Braves uniforms). Yes, it is harder to win 300 games in the era of specialized relief pitching and the five-man rosters, but it is not impossible, especially as we see more and more pitchers going strong into their forties. If I had to pick a current pitcher to win 300, I'd take Dontrelle Willis, especially if he winds up with a team that is consistently good (we'll see if the Marlins ever enter a period of sustained winning, instead of the sporadic championship success surounded by periods of low budget overacheiving mediocracy that has characterized the franchise.

Anyway, that had been bothering me.

Let The Lamp Afix Its Beam

And lo, let it be written that those who have held fast to the true faith of Chipper Jones and John Smoltz will be rewarded. So it was written of old and so the covenant has been upheld. Today, true believers, we have truly been rewarded- Mark Teixeira has left the sweltering plains of Texas and joined the chosen flock in Atlanta.

With his career OPS+ of 127, Brother Mark is exactly what Atlanta needs, especially since it seems that brother Andruw is about to depart our flock for wealtheir pastures. And the best rumors also suggest that the Braves are on the verge of maybe acquiring Octavio Dotel from Kansas City to further solidify our Bullpen. Suddenly, another NL East title seems to be within our grasp. The fact that Mark has Atlanta ties, being a former Yellow Jacket, suggests that this is nothing less than destiny.

Update: Atlanta just traded Kyle Daives for Octavio Dotel. This should be good.

Affirmation, Baby!

The number one album on iTunes? The Traveling Wilburys collection. There just might be a sliver of hope for the future of music, even if it has to come from nearly twenty years ago.

Anyway, New York. I'm not sure when I'm going to feel up to writing up the whole deal, so I'll give you the thumbnail. Spamalot=funny but not quite as brilliant as I'd hoped
Yankee Stadium- saw the Rocket himself in the bullpen talking to Pettite. Pretty cool, that.
Central Park is the best reason I can think of to justify New York's existence.
Virgin Megastores are awesome, even if they are probably evil.

More later, maybe.

I just don't know what to think

So, the Braves get hammered by the Sox in the first game today- real ugly, Matsuzaka handled the team easily and Boston wins 13-4. So I'm pretty bummed. Then, in the second game, Smoltz pitches a gem, and the Braves score 14 runs while the Red Sox don't score at all. Talk about good news, bad news, yeah?


Anyway. I finished Thomas Pyncon's V. a few minutes ago. And I'm still confused. The book, as I've mentioned, is really good, and maybe one day it will all click, but I'm afraid I would have to re-read it to really begin to approach the book's mysteries, and I'm not sure when I'll get around to doing that. It's not the easiest read, and it's not the shortest book. Right now I'm torn between Nabokov's Pnin and Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth. It's pretty much a coin flip in my mind between the two, at the moment. When I have made my final decision, I will let all of you noble bastards in the infernal book club know.

And I went ahead and made a reservation for three nights in a hotel in New York City. I can still wriggle out of it, but it's begining to look a lot like Manhattan for your humble narrator. And my plans for the city are begining to take shape more clearly in my head. I think I'll probably try and see Spamalot the night I arrive, and a Yankees game my second night there. One day I'll probably devote to Central Park. And I'll definitely try and find a good cd store that sells some of the bootlegs I'm dying to own copies of (most importantly, a complete Basement Tapes compilation).

Stop the Planet of the Apes I Want to Get Off

Oh. My. Gods. I was just flipping through the chanels, and on MSNBC I was subjected to something called a "News Pop", a little infographic on the bottom of the screen, above the crawl, informing me that "Al Gore won the 2000 popular vote but lost the election. That's it. I give up. My discomfort with the news/entertainment matrix has just slid into outright disdain. I hate everything. And everything keeps begging for me to do so. You all deserve whatever is coming.

So, tonight the Braves, fresh from being embarrased by the Nationals, of all teams, have to go into Fenway park to play the sickeningly good Red Sox. I'm not particularily optimistic. However, I do have to admit that I'm intrigued if Saturday's matchup is Dice-K against John Smolz (assuming Smoltz is healthy after that tagging injury.) Granted, the Sox' huge lead in the AL East owes something to how godawful the division has suddenly become, but the Sox are probably the best team in the game right now, whatever division you might put them in. Unless they get hit with a real plague of injuries, it's hard to see them not playing in the Series (and winning, in all likelihood). Unless they remember that they are the Sox.

So I've pretty much decided to visit the Big Apple in June. Yankees v. Diamondbacks- I really hope that the Unit pitches, cause I'd love to see his return to the Bronx. Anyone reading this who wants to join me is welcome. (Yeah, like anyone is reading this...Or wants to spend that much uninterrupted time with me).

I'm into the closing stretch of Pynchon's V. I still am not entirely sure what it means, but it's an amazing achievement, particularily for a first novel. If you have the free time and an agile mind, you should probably read it soon. I'm not positive what I'll read next. I have put the Billy Martin biography on the back burner, and I'll probably get back into that, but I'm not sure what novel is next. Maybe Nabokov's Pnin.

I feel bad for the NBA. First, it fucks up the only interesting series going on due to David Stern's raging narcissism and lack of imagination, and what do we have to look forward to? Spurs/Jazz in the Western finals and Pistons/Cavs, probably, in the East. Wake me up when it's over. The best outcome in the West would have been Warriors/Suns, and the East is so bad that I doubt a really intriguing matchup was possible.

The Anatomy of Boredom

I already miss Christopher Moltisanti.

I'm half-watching 24, which I'm begining to believe might not actually be a very good show. I amused myself by reading the iTunes review of the audiobook for the new Christopher Hitchens book, God Is Not Great. I love the negative reviews that consist of nothing but poorly worded attempts to refute Hitchens' atheism. I actually still haven't read the book, but I intend to very soon. I love Hitchens, I love evangelical atheism, it's win-win, baby.

Words cannot express my loathing for this Diet Pepsi commerical that tries to be ironic/retro/cool by referencing Beverly Hills 90210. Irony -or rather, shallow irony or faux irony-is usually a poor subsitute for humor, and in this case this faux-hipsterism is unbelievably irrititating. Argh. I just want to hurt someone on Madison Avenue very badly.

I'm toying with the idea of using the money that people were far too nice in giving me for graduating only three years behind schedule and going to New York for three or four days in June. But I'm worried that the idea is appealing largely as a result of my incredible boredom. I've got to start looking for a proper job, just to save my bloody mind.

Sorry this post was so self-indulgent, but that's how boring tonight's 24 is. And this is supposed to be part of the climax for the entire season.

Update: Argh! The Braves lost again while the Mets won. This drops us into a close second place, if I'm not mistaken. Who knew that Washington had a pitcher who could take a no-hit bid this deep? And is it just me, or has there been an unsual number of near no-hitters this season? After that long stretch without one that lasted from Johnson's perfect game (5/18/04, against the Braves, which I had the misfortune of watching on television) until Anibal Sanchez's no-no last year (9/6/06), it seems like there has been a deluge of nearly no-hit games so far (along with Mark Buehrle's actual no hitter). And Smoltz had to leave the game early after hurting his hand tagging out a runner. If we lose Smoltz for a stretch of time, we're in a little trouble, especially with how well the damned Mets are playing.

Top 5 Things I would do in New York:
1. Go see a Yankees game before they build a new Yankee Stadium
2. See Spamalot on Broadway, despite the extravagant ticket cost
3. See the Brill Building
4. Pilgrimage to former site of CBGB's.
5. Central Park- the Obelisk and the reservoir and the zoo.

The Word of Chipper

I've never trusted interleague play in Major League Baseball. It simply ain't natural. But now, I know it's wrong. Because our favorite prophet/messiah/MVP Third Baseman Chipper Jones has pointed out how wrong it is that the Braves have to play our "rival" BoSox while the Phillies get the Blue Jays and the Mets get the Yankees.

Loyal Chipperians, you have heard the words of your prophet. We must now take up arms against the abomination.

Amen.

Props to Signal to Noise for providing a platform to the one true prophet.

Everybody Drops The Dime

This week your humble reporter is dispatching live from the beatfiul terror that is the city of Dis, located with a beatiful view in the sixth circle of the Inferno. And how have you been my blue-eyed sons?

The World Wide Leader has managed to irritate me twice in one day, first with the new graphic on the side of the screen during Sportscenter, then by not showing me Stump the Schwab reruns at 1:00 PM. I have few small pleasures, but the great pleasure of being home at 1:00 in the afternoon is watching Schwab. This will not stand. None shall pass.

And the coverage of Clemens' return has displeased me. I want more focus on the wisdom, if that's the word, on paying a million dollars a start to a 45 year old man who can go five or six innings a start. Anyone who thinks that the bastards of the Bronx just wrote the check that, when cashed, will buy them a seat in October is sorely mistaken, methinks. If the Rocket had returned to the Dirty Water of Boston as a third or fourth starter, I could believe that the playoffs were beckoning brother Roger, but that team in Gotham is too flawed for even the return of the best pitcher of our era to redeem. You heard it hear first.

The Sopranos, now. And boyos, the claret is begining to flow. Brother Christopher has finally snapped, and that's nothing but good news for the audience. My concerns for the last season have been proven mercifully unjustified. David Chase deserved not my skepticism.

As an example of how good I am at outsmarting myself, I managed to spend 70 dollars on Free Comic Day. Apparently, Alan Moore and Transmet trades weren't covered under the Free Comic heading. Ah well, I needed to pick Transmet up again. It's nothing less than a sin on my part to have lapsed from the true faith of Spider. Yes, we will build Jerusalem on America's granite and steel lands...

Brother Ali is tomorrow night. The truth is here, ladies and germs, and although I would dispute it, I eagerly await it. If only I had some idea for my plans for the rest of the day.

Mother's day is coming up my lads and lasses, do you remember that? Because she is unaware of the existance of my signal fires that I light on the interweb, I'll let you all know what I have procured for my mother dearest, and I highly recommend all three of you beg borrow and steal to obtain the same item- the new Van Morrison collection of his movie songs. Van Morrison is an authentic Irish Seraph disguised as the most heartbreaking voice in rock n roll and we are all lucky to have been graced with his genius. Consider this.

I have spent the day watching Boogie Nights for the first time in a couple of years, at least, and reading Transmetropolitan. I can already tell that I'm going to lose my mind, and soon, without something to do. Employment never seemed so lovely. I can go ahead and warn you imaginary, magnificent bastards that the posts are going to begin coming faster and thicker, trying to save my mind by poisoning yours. I still have no idea what I'm doing tomorrow and it is bothering me more and more with every passing moment.

It's probably wrong of me to continually edit posts instead of posting new ones, but that just how I roll. I now know what I'm doing tomorrow before the Brother Ali concert. Expect a full write up of the show if you like. Hell, expect whatever you want. But there's a chance you'll actually get the write-up.

Oh, and anyone who gets the specific allusion that the title of this post is making, then I both salute you and worry about you. I know that you won't get the answer from the first page of google results...

Keith has told me that you can get the answer through google. It's completely unfair if you use rudimentary knowledge of how search engines work against me.

Braves play San Diego tonight. Chuck James is pitching, and we're tied with the Mets for our first place birthright.

Whoa.

My PE grade was finally posted. I passed. I knew I was going to, but I still wanted, needed the proof. I am going to graduate in eleven days. A terrible mistake has been made.

While I was killing time before the 1:30 AM or so posting of the grade, I went to amazon to see how the season 2 of Venture Brothers was doing. And people need to be ashamed of themselves. Ahead of the funniest show on television (yeah, I said it. What are you gonna do about it?) are, among other things:
-The Girls Next Door Season 2
-Something called "Shirley Valentine"
-A Tyrone Power box set
-Dancing With The Stars: Cardio Dance
-Dinosaurs-The complete third and fourth season (I don't care what Keith says, that show was god-awful, and ripped off the Simpsons in ways that Seth McFarlane could only dream of)
-The Full Screen version of Happy Feet
-The Will and Grace Seasons 1-5 Bundle
-Will and Grace- Season Six
-Beverly Hills 90210-The Second Season
-About three different editions of Night at the Museum
-A self help video called "The Secret"

Who the hell is buying these things? Just when I think I don't understand people at all, something like this happens and I discover that I really don't understand people. Who is going out of their way to purchase the Full Screen editions of movies? It's amazon- they lead you to the Proper edition automatically. For example, I just searched for The Departed, and the full screen version was the fourth result, behind the two disc version, the one disc version and the soundtrack. You have to go out of your way on amazon to purchase the full screen version. I realize that this is probably even more the fault of the studios and Hollywood for not educating people about how they are getting screwed over.... you know what, nevermind.

Warriors lost, and I missed the game (just as well, I want to see the Mavs lose that fourth game and get bounced) and the Braves lost even though Chipper went yard twice (He's hitting them out at a really impressive pace). The Mark Redman retread experiment isn't working. Clearly, Roger McDowell is not Leo Mazzone, and doesn't have the magic to turn any third rate pitcher into a 4 or 5 starter.

A Hungry Feeling/Came O'er Me Stealing

I haven't been able to watch the news for the past thirty-six hours. It's just too much to handle. Guns are evil fucking things, and when evil fucking people get their hands on them, then evil fucking things happen. Tragedies too intense and immense for anyone to be able to being to deal with. I can't even being to imagine what all of the people in Blacksburg are going through. I...What the hell else can anyone say? Words are the most powerful tool I can imagine, but even they fail sometimes.

I hit Schoolkids today because, for reasons I can't entirely explain, I felt a strange need to buy the album "A Nod Is As Good As A Wink to a Blind Horse" by the Faces. (Allmusic has something to do with it, and after discovering the divine Big Star because of the site, I decided to grab another album they seemed to keep recommending) You might not know who the Faces were, because rock and history is constantly tortured and distorted by the so-called Classic Rock radio stations. The Faces were an English band that grew out of the Small Faces. The lineup included Ron Wood, who would go on to replace Mick Taylor in the Stones, Kenny Jones, who would join the Who after Keith Moon died, Ian McLagan, who did session work for Dylan and Springsteen and the Stones after the Faces broke up, they were produced by Glyn Johns, who worked with most everybody who is anybody in the rock pantheon. The front man was a guy named Rod Stewart, who you might have heard of.

After buying the album, which I have yet to listen to, I felt the need to buy Stewart's "Maggie May" off of the iTunes. (I also bought "Same Old Song" by the Four Tops, which was kind of the theme to the magnificent film "Blood Simple" and Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale", which just plain kicks ass.) The song is so damned good. How the hell did Rod Stewart go from that kind of genius to being, well, Rod Stewart? It's kind of like how Stevie Wonder went from "Superstition" to "I Just Called To Say I Love You" (although Wonder is far better than Stewart and we should all spend more time thinking about just how great his 70s masterpieces are)

I also bought the re-issue of the Ben Folds Five album "Whatever and Ever Amen", one of my absolute favorite albums in high school. My copy was irredeemably scratched, plus this version has a bunch of sweet bonus tracks. I'm still pissed off that I had to miss their show at the Cradle in 1999 because I was forced into being a "junior marshall" for senior night. The band broke up the next year, and I never saw the local heros.

On Saturday, I was at Schoolkids (there's a pattern here, if you look closely) and finally replaced my purloined copy of Radiohead's "Kid A" album. I have no idea why you would want to know this or why I am telling you this. I think I still don't really have any idea what I'm doing with this blog thing, other than killing time and emptying some of the words that are always cluttering my brain. I do have to watch myself a little though- I've discovered that one person actually reads this damn thing, and I'm in danger of repeating my insights in conversation that I had already blown here.


The Braves won tonight- Smoltz is still the man. The Nats (who we beat) wore VaTech caps tonight, so I kind of wish we could have won last night and lost to them tonight. One thing I do love about baseball is that the Nats were allowed to wear the VaTech caps. It seems obvious that a team would be allowed to offer such a simple tribute, but I guarantee you the NFL would never have let something similar occur. After Pat Tillman died, his former teammate Jake Plummer wanted to wear a sticker with Tillman's number on his helmet and the NFL wouldn't let him. Another example- on Sunday baseball withdrew the league-wide retirement of Jackie Robinson's number for any and every player who wanted to wear number 42. In the NBA, Jerry Stackhouse (a hated Tar Heel, but apparently a very good person) who wears the number 42 as a tribute to Robinson wanted to wear the name "Robinson" on the back of his jersey, but David Stern and the Brass turned him down. Further proof that baseball is the one true pro sport. Now if only the AL would get rid of the DH and purity was returned throughout the sport.

The post title is from the first lines of Brendan Behan's song "The Auld Triangle" (Also known as "The Royal Canal") The Pogues recorded a great version of it, and Dylan and the Band played it on the Basement Tapes (it's not on the official ones, but I have it on a two-disc bootleg. I really need to get the complete bootleg, which I think runs to five discs) There is no real reason why I typed it in the "title" space.

Oh, Keith- I just checked Wiki. The Mission Hill pilot aired 9/24/1999.

It's time for another top 5 list.
Something easy.

Top 5 Western Films

1- The Searchers
2- The Wild Bunch
3- Unforgiven
4- My Darling Clementine
5- The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, edging out Red River

Destroy All Monsters

So.

I jotted an outline for a post titled "Last Thoughts on Don Imus" (note the semi-obscure Dylan reference), but what's the point? What is there to really say about something so ridiculous and inevitable? I hate the things that Imus said, but I'll miss watching his show in the morning when Sportscenter is talking about Nascar or Jeremy Schaaf is doing a fifteen minute report on something I don't care about. I guess I'll just be watching (or lightly dozing through) the commercials on ESPN from now on. (I'm fairly certain that I won't be watching Mike and Mike on ESPN2 or a cable news channel). Really, this whole incident has just reaffirmed my ever-increasing animosity towards the twentyfour hour cable news cycle. Last thing I have to say is a Rage Against the Machine quote that I haven't been able to get out of my head since I saw the video of people actually bothering to take to the streets about this whole mess,

"Godzilla- pure muthafuckin' filler. Keep your eyes off the real killer"

It's from "No Shelter", which was on the soundtrack for the abominable 1999 American Godzilla movie, which means that a lot of people, even some Rage fans, probably never heard it.

Shit, I didn't even mean to write that much. How cool was Felix Herandez's one-hitter against the Sox tonight? Dice-K will be a damn good pitcher, but this kid in Seattle has the chance to be one of the all-time greats (I say, instantly dooming him to the land of Dwight Gooden, Kerry Wood, Rick Ankiel and so on). I wish the Braves could play the Nationals every night. They are the kind of team every other team wants in their division, except for having to play in the hellhole that is RFK Stadium. I saw a game there last year, and that park is awful- and I saw games in the old Riverfront park in Cincy and Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. You kids need to appreciate how amazing all the new parks are, and how bad baseball/football stadia used to be.

Seriously, why would anyone want to read this?

I just made myself sad.

Woke Up This Morning...

The Sopranos is back tonight. Which rules everything. Not that I'm raising my hopes to unrealistic levels or anything... I mean, how hard can it be to sum up six seasons of the greatest television show ever made into nine episodes while at the same time offering up epic and deeply meaningful conclusions to a set of characters who mean more to millions of Americans than their acutal family? Eh. At least it only has to be better than Godfather III to satisfy most of us. I wonder if we're going to see a body count rivaling the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan, but I kind of doubt it. I don't know why, but I have this feeling that Tony will someone wind up still standing (even if it's standing by himself in Arizona like Ray Liotta at the end of Goodfellas...)

The Braves won again today. This puts them into first place for the first time since, like, 2005. God it feels good to be back where we belong. If Mike Hampton hadn't hurt himself again I would be pathetically optimistic by now. Johan Santana is still God turned into a lefthander, Pujols broke out of the doldrums that Baseball Tonight (oddly on this morning while I was skipping church) reported on. And I have no fucking idea why Major League Baseball schedules games in Cleveland this time of the year. Why the hell did Tampa Bay get a team if they aren't going to be used for a warm-weather stadium early and late in the season? God knows it wasn't so they could play baseball.

I read that Grindhouse had a disappointing opening weekend. Who the hell did the studios expect to see a three hour inside joke? I mean, I have to personaly represent two or three percent of the intended audience, and I didn't make it to the theater this weekend. (I still have every intention of seeing this movie, but I'm not sure who I can con into seeing it with me.)