Tangentially about the World Series

The reason why that video is there is extremely esoteric, even for this blog. It has something to with the mild resemblance that the singer has with San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson, what with the eyes being too close together. It was either this or something about Spoon and Mike Fontenot. So that's one "storyline" to watch, somehow. But what else?

The Josh Hamilton situation. I am deeply ambivalent toward Josh Hamilton. His success can represent victory over terrible addiction that can occur when the crutches a person has relied on for life are yoinked out unexpectedly (ie, he descended into drugs after he moved away from his parents and lost the ability to play baseball because he got hurt). There are parallels to be drawn between him and giant-headed recovering addict Don Gately, my favorite character in Infinite Jest. Maybe later. But on the other hand Hamilton's story of redemption through not trusting oneself with bills larger than a 20 also reflects the deep financial inequalities that exist in America. Like, if this guy couldn't hit a baseball 450 feet, he'd be dead and/or homeless I suspect. He's a meathead. Not to mention the whole God thing he's got going.

-0-

The Giants haven't won in a long time. It is an interesting fact that the Giants have not won a World Series since leaving New York. They are kind of even cursed, I read the other day on ESPN.com, what with the WS earthquake and the terrible 2002 loss to the Angels and Barry Bonds. I should be more hostile toward them, considering they knocked "my" team out in a series of bitterly contested games that could have gone either way. And said defeat prevented me from seeing any playoff games live this year. I didn't even care if the Phils made the World Series, I just wanted to see Game 7! FUCK* Anyway, yeah, go Giants. National League woo! Witnessing a friend's pure joy at seeing the Giants in the World Series makes me realize how jaded the Phillies recent string of success has made this town. "How quickly does the world owe you something that you only knew existed 10 seconds ago?"

In closing, this sentence I read on Deadspin earlier today: "I've heard from pretty reliable sources that Pat Burrell dresses up as The Machine, in full gimp decorum before games." You're goddamn right he does.

*That ticket is so getting burned in some sort of ritual sacrifice at some point.

Check out this dog

I like to think the owner of this dog is like the Ukrainian guy from Everything is Illuminated. "Many women want to be carnal with me, because of my premium dog." You know who trains their dog to do parkour, or "freestyle walking" as I derisively call it? Ukrainian hipsters, that's who. You see what happens when you remove the oppressive Soviet boot from these people's metaphorical necks? YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS?!?

Gorillas were observed to play tag. Biologists said that gorilla taggers acquire some form of “advantage” by hitting competitors, and then preserve that advantage by running away, but it was not clear whether gorillas could be deemed conscious of the rules. Chimpanzees conducting border patrols kill the infants and seize the territory of other chimpanzee groups. Zoologists described two new species of pancake batfish living in the Gulf of Mexico. Cetologists found that female humpback whales seek out their girlfriends summer after summer. The death of as many as 500 million trees in the Amazon in 2005 was blamed on a single storm, and the recent death of as many as 500 penguins who washed ashore in Brazil remained unexplained. “What worries us,” said one Brazilian scientist, “is the absurdly high number of penguins.”

-guh?

It makes me appreciate the Phillies more somehow

Somehow because of the immense appreciation that already exists for the Phillies in my brain. With any luck they will be the most dominant hometown team a Philadelphia homer will ever see. Filled with great baseball, irrepressible and clutch and dirty and other adjectives. The Reds were called the Little Red Machine* this year but not any more. Also the Phillies color could also also be considered red, with the hats and all. Perhaps 'Little Red Machine' is a play on the actual team name and baseball history, but people who say that have never read The Giver.



The subject of the title of this post though is the prologue of Don Delillo's novel Underworld, and the raw enjoyment I derived in reading it. Delillo's prose is certainly more fun than 900 pages 15th Century Spanish in translation, i.e. Don Quixote. Anecdotally: I ripped through the 60 page Underworld prologue in one sitting the first time. And there is likely another reading coming before the end of the baseball playoffs. And then another some day in December when I really miss baseball. Televised baseball is everyday and then not at all, cold turkey.

Basic summary: Jackie Gleason vomits on Frank Sinatra's shoes while Bobby Thompson hits 'The Shot Heard Round The World' among other things. The other things include a kid who jumps the turnstiles and paper falling from the upper decks and J. Edgar Hoover. And now I've done more research, via a google image search, and the prologue was actually a separate thing, at one point, called "Pafko at the wall" until it became the Underworld prologue, at which point it became "The Triumph of Death" which is the name of the painting that J. Edgar Hoover is looking at because it fell on him while Gleason was vomiting.



Whatever, Delillo loves him his crazy style. And the ideas are funny/poignant. I'm no literary scholar, but I've certainly read enough to post about him on the internet. Airborne Toxic Event ain't just a LA indie band. So as jarring as it may be to jump from 1951 baseball to some broad painting 230 bombers in a post-cold war USA desert, you know its going somewhere. Like, I trust this author. There are going to be sudden changes in setting, and tangents about waste and sex and death and crowds and whatever else, but at the end, the audience is going to know what happens. Which really is kind of important when trying to tell a story.



*It's possible I'm remembering this wrong and the nickname was something less demeaning.

Recently learned there is something called "shoegaze" and the thing I don't like about it is that I like it. What I don't like though is the blatant unfinished nature of this video. What the fuck, have some professionalism YouTube user "ezekieldas" if that is your real name.

This guy

I've seen this before, it's internet old for sure. But now seems like the correct time to put it here. Most recently via something called internet k-hole.

From the archives 2

I was checking the tracker for the first time in a while and May 2007 is wildly* popular. So I clicked on it and it's a fair representation of this blog, like it is before I was aware of post-modernism.

But May 2007 was some halcyon days, I can admit drunk, what with the "deathmatch listoff" and the thing about Starship Troopers being underrated, with this lead:

The 1997 film tells the tale of Johnny Rico, Dizzy Ibanez, Doogie Howser, Denise Richards and Gary Busey's son -- among others -- as they travel across space to train for and fight the inevitable giant insect war of the 23rd century.

*4 hits

edit: Pistol whip foreshadowing!.

Important college football coverage

JUST AN VAUGHN

Now is as good a time as any to write about Northwestern University football. The team's record is 5-0 after escaping Minnesota's off-putting new outdoor stadium. Outdoor football? In Minnesota? On television? That shit fucking blew my mind into pieces.

Anyway, yes, the "cardiac cats" as they are sometimes known, less so now than before their coach died of a heart attack. Jesus, I always do that, with the Randy Walker jokes, anytime I try to write something about Northwestern's football team. Suppose it's better to put it out there now, relatively near the beginning, move on and possibly delete this graf later. "To let the weight off my spleen, as it were."

The team itself? I'm not sold, despite the record which has come against the likes Central Michigan and Vanderbilt. It will be fun to say things like "They won a game on the road against the SEC" out of context. QB Dan Persa, the pride of Bethlehem, Pa.*, has ably filled in as Mike Kafka's heir apparent, now that he (Kafka) is dealing with the inescapable bureaucracy that is the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback situation.

I think its very important to point out Northwestern's style of play on offense here. They play super fast, comparable perhaps to the old 90s Buffalo Bills of Jim Kelly and Super Bowl losses, shotgun spread. Which perhaps could help explain Northwestern's inability to win a Bowl game. Too much pressure on the defense and what have you. The aforementioned Kafka attempted 78 passes in the Outback Bowl last January, for example. Although convenient, I wonder why that game has a wikipedia page.

Hmmm, what else. Nothing really. Do the students still do the thing where they shake their keys before kickoffs? I always thought that was stupid, like, look at how affluent I am! I have keys! Anyway, I'd be remiss not to link to this after a win over Minnesota. Likely the weirdest thing I've ever published.

*Although, to be honest, he's no Jonathan Taylor Thomas or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

The tragedy—small in the scale of things, no doubt—of this film is that practically everyone watching it will miss this point. Practically everyone walking out will think they understand genius on the Internet. But almost none will have seen the real genius here. And that is tragedy because just at the moment when we celebrate the product of these two wonders—Zuckerberg and the Internet—working together, policymakers are conspiring ferociously with old world powers to remove the conditions for this success. As “network neutrality” gets bargained away—to add insult to injury, by an administration that was elected with the promise to defend it—the opportunities for the Zuckerbergs of tomorrow will shrink. And as they do, we will return more to the world where success depends upon permission. And privilege. And insiders. And where fewer turn their souls to inventing the next great idea.

-Aaron Sorkin is terribly overrated, unless you are over 40