Fear and Mourning.

I was so depressed this morning to wake up to the news that the great Hunter S. Thompson had killed himself. He took the Hemingway way out, with a shotgun.

I don't have many heroes, but he was one of them. His savage originality and his fierce commitment to destroying hypocrisy are something I've always aspired to, and I like to think that he's been a significant influence on my writing (not that you can tell given how infrequently I update this blog, but go with me on this one).

Like Frank Zappa (another hero), his was a unique voice that perhaps wasn't fully appreciated in his lifetime. But he offered an unvarnished view of American life that was a tonic we sorely needed -- and still do.

(You know, if our impending child is a boy, we were planning on naming him Hunter, just as much in honor of Thompson as for the fact that it's a family name on my side.)

What a sad day. Not only will we not see anymore of his fine prose again, but it also feels like the bastards are one step closer to winning.

That Apocalypse Is Right Around the Corner, Folks.

In the latest news from the "Signs of the Apocalypse" files, two of the famed "Dogs Playing Poker" series of paintings just sold for record price at auction. And it's no surprise that the buyer wished to remain anonymous.

It's so heartening to see the world of fine art supported in this way....

Karaoke For Jesus and Cuckoo for K-Sly.

You know, I really love traveling to the far reaches of my television dial, where I can find all sorts of offbeat programming we don't normally watch.

Like last night, when I flipped through EWTN (you know, the Catholic channel) during their "Life on the Rock" show. First of all, even if you're not Catholic, you've gotta love a talk/variety show hosted by a monk in full traditional monk-style regalia. But to make it even better, last night Father Francis Mary's guest was musical parodist Nick Alexander, who performs popular songs karaoke-style with new lyrics he's penned about the finer points of Catholic teaching. He did two numbers, the oddly S&M-tinged "Repent" (his version of Aretha Franklin's "Respect" with the killer line "R-E-P-E-N-T/Get down on your knees for me") and my favorite, "We Want to Stand United" (a version of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" about various medieval theological debates, including the Arian Heresy and Nicene Creed). And just check out the track listings on his site. Now, THAT'S entertainment!

Then we followed up Nick's dynamic performance by discovering on one of the local channels a show called "Dance 360", which is sort of a modern hip-hop version of one of my favorite childhood guilty pleasures, "Dance Fever." The runner-up (thankfully he didn't win) was a guy whose specialty seemed to be an endless number of variations on The Robot. It's fellows like him who give us white guys a bad name. Anyway, in addition to the dancing, the best part was the fabulous DJ K-Sly.

Mmmm... K-Sly...

Yogi's O-Face.

You know, I used to think "Sex and the City" was bad enough. (I never knew a show about hot chicks talking about sex could come off so shallow and boring, but I was wrong.) But now they've crossed the line with their new ads which raise the image of having sex with Yogi Berra. <*shudder*>

Thankfully, the man himself is fighting back. But if he wins, do the rest of us get any damages for the pain and suffering of having to imagine Yogi naked and making his orgasm face?

Gack!

A Great Day for Reggae.

What a beautiful day it is today. High 70s... Not too hot... Clean air... Crystal clear, not a cloud in the sky... Just enough snow left on the mountains to create a nice little vista... Gorgeous enough to make you forget about all the other shit in the world right now. (And gorgeous enough for me to post about it and rub it in for all of you snowbound easterners....)

So, when Bob Marley's "Is This Love" came on the radio while I was cruising around, the moment became perfect.

It's the Love Sac, Baby!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... the Love Sac! Not only do they look cool, but you've gotta love any product with a name like that.

"Hey, baby... Wanna check out my Love Sac?"

(Sidenote: It's enlightening what you can find doing a Google search for "Love Sac" under it's various spellings. Particularly this, which is a cause I'm sure many of us can get behind. I mean, you know you're doing it anyway, so why not apply it toward a good cause?)

Brain Fart.

Last night, I answered the phone and found myself the subject of a public opinion poll. It doesn't happen often (maybe only ever two or three times before for me) so it was a nice opportunity to, in some small way, let the world know just how badly some of us think the Bush administration is fucking up the world.

There were a lot of questions and things were rolling along smoothly until the pollster got to the question, "For which presidential candidate did you vote in the last election?" For some reason, my brain just froze. I don't know if it was the fact that I've been a little under the weather lately, the fact that it was late and I was tired, or the fact I've tried to block any thought of a Bush victory out of my brain. Whatever the case, I "um"ed and "uh"ed for what seemed like an eternity before I could finally get my brain to spit out the name of whats-his-face... you know, that guy... the Democrat... um... oh yeah -- John Kerry!

Sheesh. I must've sounded like a complete idiot.

More Military Mischief.

I suppose you could toss this foolishness in the dustbin next to those old CIA plans to assassinate Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar.

Although, given the tenor of the current administration, it's hard to imagine them passing up the chance to develop the "turn-the-enemy-gay" bomb. Maybe they thought it would be promoting that darn "homosexual agenda" again.

Geeks on the Court.

Calling it a "beat down" would be too kind.

Last night, ULV's women's basketball team opened up conference play against the SCIAC's perennial whipping boys (and girls), the Caltech Beavers. Games against Caltech in any sport are always a trouncing (except maybe in tennis, the one sport the geeks can play fairly well), but this one was especially bad.

The final score? 74-10.

Freshman sensation Lindsay King led the Beavers' "charge" by scoring eight of those 10 points -- the only starter to score at all. They shot a dismal 11.4% from the field, were 0-for-8 from three point range and 0-for-4 from the free throw line. They only sank one basket the entire second half.

I know Caltech has a long record of futility and doesn't exactly attract the best athletes. But still... How does a team get nearly shut out in a basketball game? I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one...

It's Meme-a-licious!

Over at the somewhat insular, yet still interesting Live Journal community there's a new "year in review" meme going around that I decided to crib from the lovely and industrious Kass. Basically, you create a post from the first sentence of the first post you made for each month of 2004. Since I only started this blog back in August, mine will be a little shorter than theirs, but here it goes anyway:

"While we're all waiting for me to get this blog up and running -- here, enjoy this picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head. With the nation deteriorating daily under the leadership of George W. Bush and his neocon henchmen, the future is indeed looking bleak. After a pretty miraculous run, the 2004 season has finally ended for my beloved Dodgers. Damn, what a disappointing election that was. I haven't done any sort of conclusive survey of the rest of the nation, but here in SoCal, Christmas lights sure have changed a lot since I was a kid."

Well, then. I don't know why, but that cracks me up.

Happy Birthday to Me.

I turned 34 over the weekend. Here are some of the highlights:

• Sarah got a cold. She's been a little trooper in between all the sniffling and coughing, but even though the fussing has been kept to a (relative, for a toddler) minimum, she still needed constant attention and affection. Poor dear.

• On Saturday morning my jaunt to the shower was interrupted when I slammed my foot into a door frame and stubbed my toe (the middle one, left foot). It hurt like a mofo, but I've stubbed my toes many times before (the by-product of have such big feet and gangly digits) so I sucked it up and went about my day. Later, after a few hours of limping through the grocery store, I came home and took off my shoe to find it swollen and black. Since I can still move it, it's not broken, just really, really fucked up. A lot of time with an ice pack and my foot elevated (not to mention lots and lots of Tylenol) have helped it feel better, but there's still some healing to be done.

• While at the supermarket (a Vons in Claremont that was celebrating its grand re-opening) we stopped at the KOST-FM booth where they were doing a remote and got to meet one of Southern California's leading kings of smarm for the past two decades, Mike Sakellarides. He gave Mary Ann a KOST compact mirror, a KOST bookmark, a tube of KOST lip balm, some KOST stickers, and -- the piece de resistance -- an autographed bio/headshot. He gave me a hearty handshake and told me I have a beautiful daughter. He told Sarah to "have a nice life." I suppose this encounter will have to do until we get to meet Shatner or Adam West someday.

• On Sunday (my actual birthday) the torrential downpours we've been having for weeks knocked out our power for close to 12 hours. Since that meant no electric stove, Mary Ann couldn't cook that big birthday breakfast she promised me, or anything else for that matter. We have to eat whatever we could straight from the package. With an electric thermostat, no power also meant no heat and just a tinny little Hello Kitty radio for entertainment. But since several people have lost their lives to this storm already, I suppose it could have been worse.

• My dad gave me a new car stereo to replace our current piece of shit. Of course, this doesn't do anything to change the piece-of-shitness of the vehicle surrounding the stereo (Have you ever heard Adam Sandler's "Ode to My Car"? It's kinda like that.), but at least we can pump the tunes without worrying whether the CD will play or not, and actually be able to see the display as well.

Anybody got any Tylenol?

Those Darn "Anonymous Groupies."

You can always rely on the New York Post to give you the news you need...

Speaking of the New York media, the Daily News gives us this, one of the all-time best headlines.

Anybody up for a weiner and one-liter Pepsi?

Commentations.

Those sharp-eyed readers among you will notice that I've added Haloscan comments to this blog to replace Blogger's less elegant comment system. However, little did I know that doing so would also erase all the previous comments. So, if you've commented on something before and feel strongly enough that your comment needs to be restored -- well, there's not much I can do for you at this point. But feel free to leave that comment again and I'll promise to do my best not to erase it again.

Two More Signs of the Apocalypse.

1) As if the low-carb dieting craze hasn't gotten you worried enough about counting carbohydrates, Halls is now introducing a carb free version of their cough drops. 'Cuz, you know, you don't want getting well to make you, like, fat and stuff.

2) The Discovery Wings Channel, the arm of the Discovery Channel empire dedicated to aviation-related programming, is set to become the Military Channel. Of course, you could argue that the History Channel is already the Military Channel, what with all its exhaustive WWII documentaries, but still...

Yankee Imperialist Trash Talk.

If you've been keeping even half an eye on the sports pages lately, you'll know that the three-team mega-blockbuster baseball trade that would've sent Randy Johnson to the Yankees, and has been dragging on for weeks, is finally dead because the Dodgers pulled out. Here's the reaction from Yankee president Randy Levine that's being widely circulated today:

"The Dodgers reneged on the deal that was agreed to last Friday, unequivocally and with no contingencies except for a window for contract extensions and physicals," Levine said. "For some reason, the Dodgers over the weekend started to backpedal. Why they would break their word is only something they can answer. It sure is disappointing, and we'll have to think long and hard before ever doing business with the Dodgers again."

Oh, please.

Dodgers GM Paul DePodesta has been saying ever since the deal was first reported that he was reluctant to pull the trigger unless a contingency plan was in place to replace the players that they'd lose. Add to that the reports that Yankee pitcher Javier Vasquez threw a petulant fit about going to the West Coast and refused to take the required physical, and it's no wonder the deal fell apart. If the Yankees didn't see this coming, then their hard-on to acquire The Big Unit must be blinding them to the reality of doing business in baseball. Because, frankly, the deal was a wash for the Dodgers and they would've lost a lot more than they would have gotten in return. The Dodgers' participation would've just been as a tool to help George Steinbrenner to land his latest big prize. The Dodgers didn't need that.

If there's any "villain" in the whole deal, it would be the Arizona Diamondbacks, whose unreasonably high demands in exchange for Johnson are what have drawn the trade talks out for nearly a year and necessitated the participation of a third team. A basic Yankee package of Vasquez, Dioner Navarro and Eric Duncan (the package that would've gone to the Dodgers), along with possibly the addition of recently-unseated second baseman Miguel Cairo, seems plenty fair in exchange for Johnson. However, the D-Backs seem intent on wanting to use the deal to gain a bunch of frontline starting pitchers and position players to restock their dismal lineup. It's just not going to happen. They need to lower their unrealistic expectations so that they can get the deal done one-on-one with the Yankees and spare the rest of the baseball world from having to hear about this little drama anymore.

And as for the Yankees never wanting to do business with the Dodgers again, so what? It's not like the Dodgers need what the Yankees have to offer anyway. We'll just have to be content with watching the Dodgers beat the Yankees on the field again, like they did in interleague play this past year. (Man, watching Gagne making Jeter and A-Rod flail around like little girls while striking out was classic....)

Lights of Old.

I haven't done any sort of conclusive survey of the rest of the nation, but here in SoCal, Christmas lights sure have changed a lot since I was a kid. Gone are the strands of individual lights -- each tear-shaped bulb a different color -- that were ubiquitous. Fewer people decorate their houses now. And those who still do it, do it with a vengeance -- covering every eave, bush and tree possible, then adding all sorts of animatronic reindeers, inflatable snowmen and the like.

And beyond all those extraneous doohickeys, the lights themselves have changed. They are now small bulbs (similar to the kind made for indoor Christmas trees for years) and all one color -- white. What's more, they are usually of the popular "icicle lights" variety, which feature little strands dangling down, meant to mimic icicles forming on the house's eaves. What a hopeless, pathetic attempt this is to recreate the look of a "traditional" white Christmas here in sunny Southern California. It doesn't snow here, people! Get over it already!

Which leads me down another tangent -- so many folks' slavish devotion to the iconography of what a "traditional" Christmas is supposed to look like, which is basically the imagery associated with Victorian-era holidays in England. You might be able to get away with that stuff in New England or Northern Europe, but everywhere else it just looks forced and unnatural. There are so many ways to celebrate and decorate for Christmas (or the winter holiday of your choice) across this widely diverse planet of ours that it feels wrong to be forced into such geographically and culturally narrow iconography. Mele Kalikimaka, dammit!

And, oh yeah -- power to the old school lightmasters and their multicolored strands!

Announcement Time.

Time to take a break from the politics (and laziness in updating) to bring you the following important announcement:

We're having another baby!

Around about mid-July next year, Sarah will be a big sister. We're excited! More updates to follow, of course...

New America, Anyone?

Damn, what a disappointing election that was. I can't say I'm surprised by the outcome, but I had certainly hoped we'd finally get that bastard Bush out of office.

Looking at the exit poll data, the biggest difference seems to have been the Republicans' ability to mobilize its evangelical Christian support base. This is the demographic that Bush/Cheney/Rove have catered to the most with their disastrous policy decisions -- and they were rewarded yesterday with a huge show of support. Evangelical Christians accounted for a larger increase in voter turnout than any other demographic group (an increase of approximately 4 million voters, which is significant when you consider that the difference in the popular vote was only about 3.6 million). And in an election year in which terrorism and the war in Iraq were expected to be the biggest issues for voters, it turns out that a majority of voters interviewed said that moral values were the most important issues to them.

What all this seems to indicate is that the extreme right wing coalition that emerged with Reagan's "Morning in America" in 1980 is evolving into a potent political and social force. (Perhaps the fact that they made "The Passion of the Christ" such a huge box office hit earlier this year should have been a warning sign.) And don't forget that these are the same people who think that gays deserve to die of AIDS, school prayer should be compulsory, and that abortion is murder. And they're not going away anytime soon -- you can expect them to turn out in similar numbers to vote for a Cheney presidency in 2008.

This nation is become a theocracy right under our noses. And since we can't just sit around and wait for a massive heart attack to spare us the agony of a President Cheney, we need to do something a little more proactive. Actually, a lot more proactive.

I consider myself lucky to live in California, a state that -- despite its myriad problems -- is still largely insulated from the president's cultural jihad. Like the rest of the West Coast, California went solidly for Kerry yesterday and has consistently voted in favor of progressive social policies (the most recent being the approval of Proposition 71, a massive stem cell research plan that the Right has fought hard against on the national level). In fact, except for our governor's star power, the Bush administration has shown almost no interest in anything coming out of California, or the whole West Coast for that matter.

So that's where this call to action comes in. It's a thought I had after Bush stole the last election, and I'm even more convinced of its necessity now.

California needs to secede from the Union. We can take Washington, Oregon and Hawaii with us, too, since they seem to be good eggs. (Heck, if we could get Las Vegas in the deal, too, that would be even sweeter.) This would create a left-leaning, economically powerful Pacific Rim nation with the potential to be a strong player on the world stage.

It would be a hard sell, even to most of the people living here, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and the marginalization of one of the most populous and economically viable regions of the U.S. must stop. I'm completely serious about this. The time has come to fight for our rights and reclaim our sovereignty, by force if necessary. This is do-able, people. We just have to band together to make it happen.

What would the name of our new nation be? My choice would be New America, with its connotations of progress and rebirth, but I'm also open to suggestions from anyone else.

Fight on!

The Rise of Our Robot Overlords.

We got a strange call this morning. After I said "hello," there was a pause -- just like the pause that accompanies one of those telemarketer autodialer machines that then proceeds to play back a pre-recorded sales pitch. Except, instead of a sales pitch, I heard the robotic female voice say, "I'm sorry" and hang up.

Did the machine actually know it had dialed a wrong number, and apologize?

The automatons are taking over the world, my friend!

Requiem For a Season.

After a pretty miraculous run, the 2004 season has finally ended for my beloved Dodgers. It's not too surprising, really, since they had the poor luck to get paired with the St. Louis Cardinals -- easily the best team in baseball this year -- in the first round of the playoffs. But the important thing is that they provided a lot of exciting performances along the way and re-energized their fan base here in L.A. Finally, after years of being laughingstocks among the baseball faithful, Dodger fans are staying to the end of the game, showing up wearing blue and making some serious noise. Heck, even the celebrities have started coming out to games again. Even the wildly unpopular Lo Duca/Mota trade wasn't enough to stop the Dodgers from replacing the Lakers as the No. 1 pro sports team in town.

And although it's disappointing to see them get eliminated so early from the postseason (and in such commanding fashion) there are still reasons to be proud of what they accomplished this season. They made the playoffs for the first time in eight years, won their division for the first time in nine years and won their first postseason game in 16 years -- all of which provide a solid foundation for an even more successful 2005.

First, here are my personal favorite moments from the season:

• Steve Finley's magnificent -- even historic -- walk-off grand slam to clinch the division championship. It was a blast for the ages, to be remembered alongside Kirk Gibson's pinch-hit homer in the 1988 World Series, and the fact that it came at the expense of the Giants made all the sweeter.

• Jose Lima's inspired pitching performance against the Cardinals in Game 3 of the NLDS. After getting blown out in both of the first two games, it was just the kind of pick-me-up both the team and the fans needed to redeem the season before their inevitable elimination. It also was enough to cement Lima as the fans' new working-class star (replacing the sadly departed Paul Lo Duca). The man's comeback has been unbelievable.

• Jayson Werth's bone-rattling catch against the left field wall in Colorado. His emergence as an everyday player has been a wonderful surprise and the fact that he was able to stay in the lineup and continue to produce while nursing two broken ribs from that catch just confirms his drive and work ethic.

• The ascendancy of Adrian Beltre. After such a banner year, it's hard to single out any one performance of his. But after six years of unfulfilled potential and promises that his piss-poor hitting was merely a prelude to greatness, it was something of a shock to finally see him deliver -- and while playing the whole year with bone spurs in his ankle, no less! He definitely deserves the MVP.

• The thunderous ovation the fans gave Eric Gagne after his consecutive-saves streak came to an end against the Diamondbacks. Never was a blown save so warmly -- and deservingly -- recognized.

• Robin Ventura's scoreless inning of relief pitching against the Angels (which provided welcome fun in a blowout loss) and his grand slams against the Mets and Diamondbacks (which moved him into a tie with Willie McCovey for third on the all-time list). Just today he announced his retirement after 16 solid years in the majors. Goodbye, Robin -- you're one of the classiest guys around and we'll miss you.

• Alex Cora's colossal 18-pitch at-bat against Matt Clement of the Cubs. After working the count to 1-2, the light-hitting Cora fouled off 14 straight pitches before sending the last one into the right field bullpen for a home run.

• Speaking of Cora, his spectacular defensive play along with Cesar Izturis has been a joy to watch all year. They both deserve Gold Gloves, and I'm looking forward to more acrobatics next year.

• And, lastly, the team's reaction after being eliminated by Cardinals last night. Not only did they come out as shake hands with and congratulate the entire St. Louis team (something that unheard-of outside of Little League), but they also gave the fans a group ovation from the dugout steps and then lobbed hats, gloves, sweatbands and whatever else was handy into the crowd for souvenirs. Gagne even tossed his signature goggles. It was the classiest possible way to say goodbye for the winter.

But even with all those great memories, it is now time to look ahead. If I was running the Dodgers, here's what I'd do over the winter to prepare them for an even bigger 2005:

• Open the wallet wide to re-sign Beltre (who will be a free agent) and offer Gagne a juicy multiyear deal (to avoid repeating this spring's nasty arbitration experience). Also re-sign two other valuable free agents, Finley and Lima.

• Rebuild the starting rotation. It was a little shaky, at best, to begin the year and downright pathetic by the end, ultimately handing the NLDS to the Cards. GM Paul DePosdesta tried to revamp midseason by trading for Brad Penny, but Penny's injury derailed that plan. (In fact, after seeing the starters' performance in the NLDS, it's obvious that Penny's second start, when he ran off the mound in pain, was the real turning point of the season for the team.) The new rotation should consist of Penny, Lima, Jeff Weaver and two newly acquired arms. Edwin Jackson should return to Las Vegas so he can get some regular work without pressure (unless, of course, a fifth starter can't be found, in which case the job should be his -- just so long as he can get regular work). The costly deadweight -- Odalis Perez, Hideo Nomo, Kazuhisa Ishii, Darren Dreifort, and Paul Shuey -- should be jettisoned immediately. Provided, of course, anyone can be found to take them off the Dodgers' hands.

• Find a real catcher. The platoon of David Ross and Brent Mayne haven't added up to half the player Lo Duca was. Ross' subpar offensive season was especially disappointing, but he has enough potential that the Dodgers should hang on to him in a back up role until he matures. For the starting role, there are some solid catchers on the free agent market this winter, most notably Jason Varitek. (Or, dare we hope, even Lo Duca himself?)

• Get a more reliable situational left-handed reliever. Tom Martin was shaky in that role before he was traded, and Mike Venafro and Scott Stewart didn't do much to improve the situation later on.

Sorry to ramble on so long, but it's going to be a long, hard winter for me with no baseball. But at least there's a bright spring waiting ahead in Vero Beach...