Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

More Cowbell!

Dreams ... I need an interpretation of a dream. It wasn't my dream; so, I don't know all of the specifics, like The dimensions and stuff like that. As it was related to me, I was a part of this dream. Here is the conversation I had with the dreamer.

*****

I had a dream that you killed Christopher Walken.

WHAT?

You killed Christopher Walken. He was laying on the dining room table ... dead.

Geez, why would I kill Christopher Walken?

I don't know. It was weird.

I guess so. Very weird.

No ... not that you killed Christopher Walken. That wasn't weird. He was laying there dead and had a huge erection.

[Laughter]

*****

What does it all mean?

A View of the World Series

I want to know what happened to the love of my life, baseball, of which I received my first competitive dose, when I was three-and-a-half years old, and my five-year-old friend, Stevie, was on my "team." I was engaged in my first-ever backyard whiffle ball game against the 6-year-old Steve and the 8-year-old Frankie (Stevie and Frankie were brothers of Sicilian heritage on their father's side and Virgin Mary heritage on their mother's side -- the Blessed Virgin spoke in tongues through their mother, you see.), when I found out that one team could be out in the field chasing the ball all over the yard for 2, 3, even 4 hours, it seemed, while the team batting could just keep going and going and going until there were 3 outs. It was a hard lesson. Mother fuckers. None of them became All-Americans; I showed them.

Anyway, I was watching Game Three of the World Series Tuesday night and into the wee hours Wednesday morning here in the eastern flatland time zone between the Houston Astros and the Chicago White Sox, which ended after 14 innings, with the White Sox winning and ... well, then they won on Wednesday night, sweeping the Series in 4 games.

With the game tied at one run each in the bottom of the ninth -- for those who don't know, the usual game is a nine-inning affair, an inning being a period when each side gets an opportunity to score runs (and if I have to explain how this is done, just e-mail me and we can have a dialog about it), the visiting team in the "top half" of the inning and then the home team in the "bottom half" of the inning -- the Astros put men on the corners, first and third bases, with one out and needed only to push across the runner on third to win the game by a score of 2 to 1, the most important game of the season for the Astros.

In the bottom of the eighth, the Astros tied the game when Jason Lane, which is not a baseball name of any note, doubled to score Morgan Ensberg, who hit 38 home runs in the regular season, but who went in the tank the last month or so because of an injury and was very disappointing in the World Series.

As an aside here, fast-forwarding to the 13th inning with the White Sox batting, after substitute catcher Chris Widger, who hit a less-than-stellar .241 during the regular season in a part-time role, walked on a full count (He would later walk again, this time with the bases loaded, getting a run-batted-in, plating the second run in the top of the 14th inning and sealing Houston's doom.), Scott Podsednik, an fairly-accomplished hitter, who led the league in stolen bases and is a very speedy runner, attempted a bunt with no outs to sacrifice himself and move Widger to second base, "scoring position" as it is known because a hit will usually score the runner from second base, a bunt being when the batter tries to just let the pitched ball hit the bat so that the ball rolls slowly into the infield, knowing he will be put out at first, but will advance the runner, who knows the bunt is being executed, to the next base. The bunt went straight down and bounced off the hard dirt, popping into the air, which the catcher, Brad Ausmus caught, and threw to second base, which would have put Widger out before Widger reached second base. The home plate umpire, however, called the ball "foul," meaning it hadn't entered the field of play; so, Widger was not out at second base, but had to return to first on the "foul" ball. Podsednik didn't run toward first on that bunt attempt, but decided that the ball was "foul."

I love watching catchers work, especially the better receivers, blocking errant pitches, taking the throw from the outfielder with a runner, lumbering toward home plate, intent on scoring by separating the ball from the catcher, who is about to grab the thrown ball with the mitt, just before being hammered with a forearm by the runner, or just moving behind home plate, trying to influence the umpire and set up the relationship between catcher and umpire, hoping to gain some slight benefit as the game progresses.

Now, from the time a boy (or girl) starts playing the game, the fundamental thing drilled into him or her by even less-than-mediocre coaches, while the young baseballers are being taught about hitting, is to run to first after hitting the ball, especially if it could be a fair ball, that is, in play. Now, Scott Podsednik is not an inexperienced baseball player, but a professional, paid according to his ability, at least several hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, not to mention another couple hundred a day for food and drink. Scott didn't come to the ballpark for the first time that day. He came to the White Sox from the Minnesota Twins and through the minor league system. He has come to play for the the White Sox after playing baseball since he was six or seven years old. His parents sent him to baseball camps; he played in high school; he played during the summer in an organized league; he may have played in college. On whatever path he traveled to the White Sox, he learned and knew with the core of his baseball being that he should have been running instead of watching the ball in that particular situation. It is, after all, as many a wife points out, not rocket science. He was lucky that the ball was caught in foul territory -- just a strike and another chance to hit or try to advance the runner, Chris Widger, with a sacrifice bunt -- he was taught a valuable lesson he should have learned many years ago.

Like I said, it's not rocket science, although, at times, it is more complicated than rocket science, especially when trying to hit a 100 mile per hour fast ball thrown by a guy who should be playing middle linebacker for the Bears, not playing for the White Sox. It's the game of baseball. And maybe there's the problem. The people who run the teams are caught up in the statistics, in the radar guns, in the stopwatches, and in the money. Is it a Sunday afternoon game? The manager has statistics on the players that cover their performance for Sunday afternoon games. Lost in all the statistics, speed guns, and stopwatches is the Art of Baseball. The money, the steroids, the statistics have all changed the game into something analyzed as if it is really a purely scientific venture.

Do you want to know how scientific the game is? In the 14th inning, a 205-pound substitute with the name Geoffrey Edward Blum, who barely hit his weight, which is a downright abysmal batting average, and who had not, for good reason, batted in a post-season game, let alone the World Series, crashed a home run to win the game for the White Sox. Show me some statistic that predicted that event. Ask each player about what he does to prepare for a game, what he does during a game, what he wears, who he talks to, where he sits, how many times he makes the sign of the cross, whether he touches any chalk lines or bases on his way out onto the field or into the dugout; then tell me about Science. Not only do the players do it, fans do it. And tell me about Science when the pitcher, in the seventh inning, is sitting at the far end of the dugout bench, smoking a non-filter cigarette cupped in his hand, hiding it from the powers-that-be because there is no smoking in the dugout, with nobody around him, with nobody talking to him, with nobody encouraging him, because he is throwing a no-hitter, pitching the game of his life, on account that doing so will jinx him and ruin the no-hitter.

Back to Scott Podsednik, our learned batsman, who is supposed to be performing, that is, playing a game, at the highest levels of his ability ... he's waiting for the pitcher to throw the ball, which he will again attempt to bunt. He gets his wood bat in front of the ball; and the ball, again, hitting the rounded bat on the part closest to Earth, goes almost straight down towards the Earth, hits the dirt and bounces up, which Ausmus, the catcher, wonderfully quick out of his crouch behind home plate, sticks the pancake he has on his left hand, the catcher's mitt, out in front of him and gloves the ball, this time a "fair" ball, and, lunging towards second base, throws to the shortstop Everett, who catches the ball and tags the base, retiring the runner trying to advance to second, and relays the ball to the first baseman Berkman, who reaches for the ball, foot on first base, and catches the toss, completing a double play ... two outs in one play, a 2-to-6-to-3 double play, a thing of beauty for me, a former catcher, to see. Mr. Podsednik, not having learned anything from the pitch before or from playing the game for most of his life, was not really running as hard as he should have been, apparently trying to use mental telepathy to tell the ump that this one, too, should be a foul ball, which did not work.

Returning to the bottom of the ninth inning with the score tied at one run apiece, and runners at the corners, maybe I'm old-fashioned, but Willy Taveras is the batter, who can handle the bat, who can bunt, a right-handed hitter, who will block the catcher's view of the runner on third base. And then you have him bunt ... a safety squeeze, if you're not daring. In a suicide squeeze play, the runner from third breaks for the plate as the pitcher makes his move toward home to deliver the pitch. If the batter misses, the runner will be out at the plate; if the batter does his job and lays the bat on the ball, it is another thing of beauty and the runner crosses home safely. A safety squeeze calls for the runner to cheat down the third base line towards home and then motor when the bunt is laid down. It's tougher to score than with the runner starting to the plate earlier, but it is safer in that the runner, if the batter misses the ball, isn't going to be tagged out at home by the catcher holding the ball just delivered by the pitcher.

But it seems that the bunt is out of favor. It is a hitting skill rarely used in major league baseball. Is it statistics that killed the sacrifice bunt and the suicide squeeze. Or is it steroids and the home run that have all but eliminated the bunt from the modern strategy of the game? The Houston Astros brain trust, hired to win games at all cost within the budget allotted them by the bottom-line-conscious owner (The Astros is NOT the Yankees.), lets Taveras hit away, the winning run a mere 30 paces from home plate ... and strike out. And that was the real end of the World Series ...

Intelligence is no longer required in the game of baseball. The subtleties of the game that were always lost upon the casual fan of the game and the owners of teams, but known to those intimately involved in the game, are now lost upon the players and managers. Like the third baseman who doesn't realize where he is supposed to be positioned because such knowledge is no longer one of the "skills" taught at lower levels of the game, the modern-day catcher is no longer trusted to call for the pitch he thinks will be best in the situation he is in. The modern catcher is merely a conduit to someone on the bench who is in charge of calling pitches. The "tools of ignorance," as the catcher's equipment is called, are just that at this time in baseball history. The catcher, in the middle of the action on every pitch, can see better than anyone whether the pitcher's fastball is moving or whether it is straight, whether the umpire is giving the black outline of home plate to the pitcher and expanding the strike zone as the game progresses or has shrunken the strike zone and refuses to give the pitcher a break. The catcher, consciously or subconsciously, realizes subtle changes in the hitter's posture, hand position, or kind of bat, giving him clues about the batter's ability to handle a particular pitch in a particular situation, something the guy on the bench calling the pitches can never know.

I sat in a classroom when I was 14 years old. The class was for pitchers and catchers. The high school pitching coach, a math teacher, was the instructor. There was no baseball, no bat, no glove, in the classroom. We studied different situations that might arise during a game from the very first pitch of the game, learning about pitching, learning about calling pitches, learning why certain pitches in certain situations to certain hitters would work and wouldn't work. We didn't talk much about specific pitches in the sense of fastball, curve, slider, or change-up; we talked about "best pitch" of the day, "best control pitch" of the day, making us understand that pitching is an evolving phenomenon, not static. The pitcher's fastball might not be as fast on one day as opposed to another, from one inning to the next, from one batter to the next. A fastball pitcher's best pitch of the day might be his slider. His fastball, which might normally move in on the right-handed batter, might be straight and flat and not at all "normal." Not many of the "students" in that classroom absorbed what was taught and did not understand the subtleties of locating pitches, of "wasting" pitches, of "purpose" pitches. The ones that did ... they played.

Speaking of "purpose" pitches, it troubles me that batters are given immunity to being pitched inside. I saw Carl Everett of the White Sox, up to bat, draped over the inside corner of home plate. He should have been bailing out of the batter's box on the first pitch, which should have been about six inches inside. This is part of the game of baseball, and to take this tactic away from the pitcher because a batter whines that the pitch was too far inside allows the hitter an unfair advantage. This is one of the subtleties of the game lost on modern players and managers. This is not throwing "at the batter." This is staking out territory. The batter is trying to force the pitcher to throw over the middle of home plate where he can drive the ball, trying to control the pitcher - hitter relationship, trying to intimidate the pitcher. The umpires shouldn't be interfering with the psychological battle. This is pitching and hitting; this is the essence of the game.

It seems to be gone. 21st Century baseball is a shadow of the game played even 15 years ago. This new generation of players has been coddled and pampered so that they think they are entitled to some deference because they make a lot of money, that they possess "skills," in the Napoleon Dynamite sense of the word. They play a child's game ... and not very well anymore.

Mediocrity is rewarded. Respect for the game and its traditions is not evident; and that lack of respect arises from the players' sense of entitlement. Most of them are not in touch with the notion that they are playing a game, in spite of the business of Major League Baseball. They play a children's game ... and they should feel pretty damn good that some dumbass owner is paying them a lot of money to do so, not arrogant, thankful that they are fortunate to have been blessed, either by intelligent design or chance, with skills that many others do not have.

Kill the Burger King

I used to go to Burger King. I was a Whopper-no-onion-no-tomato fiend. Two was not out of the question. But it's been a while. Losing a lot of weight and eating somewhat healthier will do that to a person. But now, I will never go back ... or let's just say that it will take some extraordinary thing to bring me back into the fold.

Why? They got a commercial with that creepy Burger King with the big-ass fake smiling fucking head cutting down trees with some lumberjack for no particular reason at all. What’s the point of that?

I don't know why the powers-that-be at BK think that this puppet-like abomination is going to sell more burgers or chicken or those fries with some kind of crappy coating on them than before.

BK has commercials playing during NFL games with the Burger King in his king robe and king pants and big smiley king head with a king crown on it running around the football field; so, BK must think they can convince people who watch NFL games to go to BK for their fast food fix.

In reality, what the hard-core NFL fans want to see is the Burger King, while heading for the end zone, get that stupid, fucking head ripped off by Ray Lewis or some other maniacal linebacker.

That's what I'm waiting for, and I'm not even hard-core.

BK would win me over if that happened.

Annual World Series TV Rant

I saw the tail end of Morgan Ensberg's home run a few minutes ago. It would have been nice to see the pitch and swing instead of a stupid television commercial I can't even remember.

In addition to the White Sox, I hate that AOL thing that throws and bats. Absolutely. Hate. It. Why? Is it to attract kids? Computer geeks? Is it supposed to be cute? It's not.

NEXT!

so many things going on. first of all, we’re ditching the suburban life for the city. we’re renting a cool loft apartment in the warehouse district of cleveland. a really neat area. it’s something we’ve always wanted to do. moving next week – bill’s having movers do it all while i’m in the hospital getting my other knee replaced. we’ll store what we don’t want to bring or can’t fit. if we like living downtown, we’ll buy a condominium loft in the same area. we are so excited! the building is very dog friendly, so dogs are coming, too. as if! dog walkers, dog sitters, fitness club in building, 13th floor apartment (yikes!) with an incredible view, a restaurant on one side, salon, cleaners, and market on the other side. more restaurants across the street. private underground parking.

as i mentioned above, right knee is bring replaced november 3. i’m so ready. i get to come home to a new place with only a couple steps up to the bedrooms. i think 3. piece of cake. my sister joy is coming to stay with us for a couple weeks to help me while bill’s working.

matty and mel doing and looking great. matty’s been dieting to get down to his high school weight. succeeded and looks fabulous. as does mel. mel loving and succeeding at her job, matt teaching and studying.

jax finished up enough songs in the studio to make a small demo. jeff: i’ll get you that copy this week.

last week mark had a bad scooter accident. not a motorized scooter. a kid scooter. wound up in the hospital for four days with a lacerated spleen and lots of scrapes and bruises. he’s out now. sounded pretty good the other day. i’m calling him as soon as i finish this post.

life is so cool, isn’t it? changes... awesome.

Golf, Runners, and Driving

Last night, my cousin called about playing golf this morning. He told me if it wasn't raining, he'd meet me at the course. It wasn't raining, at least not at the very minute he called this morning to firm up the 9:30 tee time. Overcast. 45 degrees F. And after raining, the ground is generally not dry. Yes, golfers are fucking crazy.

But there is something bothering me. While driving to the course, I saw a police car on the left side of the road. There were about seven or eight cars lined up ahead of me, a sure sign that someone drove into one of the deep ditches that ran parallel to the road on each side. I thought about turning around in the driveway, but the line of cars started moving slowly; so, I hung with it and didn't turn around. I thought we were going to start moving past the accident site, but there was no accident site. The police car was also moving. Didn't they know that I was going to be late for my golf date?

Damn! I could walk faster than the traffic was moving. Well, maybe not. To my left was a guy with a flat baseball cap, the stupid-looking caps that runners wear, in a running outfit, complete with a race number tacked on his tank top, jogging past the white Volkswagen Beetle with the black "The Who" and peace stickers on the back bumper.

What the hell! Stupid, fucking runners were clogging up the road ahead!

I may be a fucking crazy golfer, but I don't slow down traffic. And I don't play golf in a tank top and running shorts when it's 45 degrees F. and raining.

Predators

There are times when it is for the best that a potential client goes elsewhere. I met with the guy. Older. Well-dressed. Clean ... in the hygiene department, that is. Quiet. Executive with a large company. Married. House in an exclusive suburb.

I would have represented the guy, as distasteful as was his foray into the shallower depths of human depravity. I told him that I would represent him, but only if he was in therapy.

He was actually seeing me for a “second opinion.” He had a lawyer already, who didn't tell him to go to therapy.

Why didn't his lawyer tell him to go to therapy? Don't know. Different lawyers do things in different ways.

He didn't hire me. Probably didn't like me telling him he was sick.

I suppose I could have told him exactly what he wanted to hear: the cop entrapped him, that I believed it was his first time, that I believed he drove 150 miles to tell the 14-year-old girl it was dangerous to talk to strangers on the internet.

But I didn't. Why lie? Better that way.

Harriet Miers Uncovered!!

I notice that there is a big brouhaha in the news about anti-bacterial soaps. You read about that kind of stuff on this blog like ... so many months ago it's not even funny ...

And Reuters has this fuckin' article about nail polish for dogs. Damn, you saw pictures on Stacey's old blog of her manicured boxers ... what the fuck?

So, dude, you like want to know about Harriet Meyers Myers Meiers Mayers Miers ... I mean, totally know about her? It's like all there ... but nobody ... says like any of this shit.

So, time to like ... ummm ... weigh in, so to speak, on Harriet getting the big fucking nod ... it's like what every lawyer jokes about ... like your best friend gets elected president. Hah! Totally cool ... of course, and weird at the same time ... he like just one day up and appoints you to the Supreme Fucking Court. Awesome, dude!! Totally fucked up, don'tcha think? I mean, that's like what you dream about. The ultimate lawyer wet dream-joke!! Then what the fuck ... get away!!! You like wake up one morning, prolly after partying with the girls, and he like nominates you to the Supreme Fucking Court. Even forget to take off that fucked-up eye make-up, dontchaknow, that '70's Twiggy-look. Whoa, totally awesome ... back in the day, yo! Dude, thanks ... I never thought ... shit, man ... it would really happen like that and all ... but shit! It's totally fucked up, man! Fuckin' cool, though!! Gotta admit that. Fuckin' rocks!

So, here it is ... where I oh-pine about Harry-kerry ...

I like ... ummm ... skimmed over that 57-page test she got from the dudes in the Senate, the committee that like has that one old dude on it, ummm ... you know ... Orville Redenbacher, I think. I’m all fuckin' impressed by the things she's all involved in. I've like never, ever seen so much shit one person could do ... whoa ... really fuckin' blown away.

Man, Hah!! I like ... uhhhh ... play golf with this group of guys on Saturday mornings –- like ... ummm, what ... three times this year. What else? Can’t like think of anything else. Fuck me ... When does she like have time to do all this cool stuff for her like ... ummm ... y'know ... extra-curricular activities?

“Extra-curricular” cuz, y'know ... you like read these fuckin' notes she sent to George and Laura -- they are like the best, y'know ... and they totally sound like they're from this 14-year-old … makes me wonder about her ... like totally, dude. Whatever.

But I got her like ... ummm ... totally figured out. I like gaze at this shitload of stuff she's all caught up in doing ... y'know, like the Jewish award she made this big fuckin' deal about and I'm ... ummm ... like dizzy from it all ...

But here's like two really serious ... ummm ... big ... humongous fucking gaps in her ... umm .... credentials for being like the-e-e biggest fuckin' decision-maker of the goddamn 21st Century:

1) She’s never been married; and
2) SHE'S. GOT. NO. KIDS.

So, dude, she ... ummm .... is like totally lacking in some very seriously important life experiences ... I mean, fucking totally.

Like ... ummm .... I can't see it. Totally disqualifies her, man.

Dude, G.W., ... pick someone else ... Like that Suzanne Sommers chick ... she's like got some really good ... skills. She'd totally rock at the job.

Baseball Gloves

What I would really like to know is when were certain fundamental and inviolable rules changed by the people in charge of softball so that a batter is permitted only two strikes instead of three? And don't you think it would be a good idea that if you invite someone, namely me, to play for your team, then you tell the person, namely me, about this stupid rule so that the person, namely me, won't be embarrassed when the umpire rings the person, namely me, up after only two strikes?

And is there some kind of three foul balls and you're out rule. I heard the opposing pitcher say, "That's two fouls," at one point when one of our guys was up. So, I asked Greg, who invited me to play when I expressed some mild interest in playing, whether there were any more rules I should know, like whether sliding was permitted. "Yes, you should have let me know about the two strike thing. And if you tell anyone that I struck out, I'll kill you," I laughed. He didn't laugh. He probably heard the story about how I beat an opposing player, who slid into home plate a little high, over the head with my catcher's mask until he was senseless while I was in college. Of course, that happened before the sissy rules they have in effect now about not being able to slide high, trying to kick the ball out of a player's glove. It's better to let that story go uncorrected. It's pretty much true, anyway.

So, this game was not the same as the one I had played back in the day. In fact, I played baseball in the college alumni baseball game several times since I last played softball. I probably should have swung at a few pitches before the game, batting practice, so to speak; but I got into the groove rather quickly. Fortunately, I did not hurt myself.

"What's this? All the printing's worn off," he asked, looking at my baseball glove, turning it over in his hands, as if he had never seen anything like it before. I assumed that he knew it was a baseball glove and that he wanted to know it was a "Rawlings Model 1445," like that meant something to him.

"How long have you had it?" he asked.

"I don't know," I started, trying to figure that out. "Since 1983, I think," I added, that old angry feeling coming back. The glove may have been older than he was; I didn't ask.

"It's a great glove," he pointed out. I thanked him, but the feeling was still gnawing at me, the feeling caused by the guy at a law firm at which I worked who borrowed my Wilson A2000 baseball glove, then lent it to a mother fucker I didn't know, who never gave it back to me. Nobody fucks with another guy's baseball glove. Baseball gloves are a very personal thing, more than just a glove, at least when I'm from.

The first baseball glove I called my own when I was seven was a Ted Williams model from Sears, which I had until I went to college; but that's misleading because when I was eight, after the Minor Red Sox manager brought me up to play with the older kids after I crashed two homers in my first practice game with the PeeWees, I volunteered to take over for the catcher who broke his finger because I was sick and tired of playing two innings in the outfield. A catcher's mitt came with the rest of the tools of ignorance; so, I didn't use my baseball glove very much after that except on the school yards and the street. When I graduated from the Little League, I got my first catcher's mitt, a MacGregor major league model, that I used through high school, re-stringing it a few times on that path.

Before my first fall baseball practice in college, I ordered a Wilson A2000 infielder's glove from the Wilson distributor, whose brother I knew, in Garfield Heights. He supplied some of the Cleveland Indians with gloves, and I also asked him to get me a major league catcher's mitt, Model 2403, I think was the model number. In the spring, I caught only half the games because the other catcher was a junior (and he was having a good year at the plate); I played the outfield the rest of the time (I was having a better year at the plate.). During the following winter, I showered after an indoor baseball workout, foregoing the pick-up basketball game several of the baseball players always took part in. When I was finished (It took longer back then ... more hair on my head.), on my way out of the building, someone grabbed me and told me that Dale, the other catcher, hurt his ankle in the basketball game. I looked into the small gym, and Dale was writhing in pain on the gym floor, the bottom part of his leg laying askew on the wooden floor. He never played again.

I did. And I needed two more catcher's mitts to get through the rest of my college career. I suppose I shouldn't have turned down the invitation to spring training from the Texas Rangers, but knee pain has a tendency to make one re-think his priorities.

I still have my third, and last, Wilson catcher's mitt. The web needs to he re-strung again; but I'm not planning to use it anymore, since the boys are grown. And I did replace the A2000 ... with my Rawlings, Model 1445, red leather, by the way, more than just a glove, at least when I'm from.

Boys vs. Girls

I'm am pleased not unhappy dismayed by the report that girls are more prone to being injured while participating in sports than boys. I'm all for girls participating in sports, and I'm all for girls participating in sports against boys; but when a 5-foot-3-inch (or 5-foot-10-inch, for that matter), 130-pound girl gets checked in a boys' high school hockey game by a 6-foot-4-inch, 225-pound defenseman and gets hurt, please recall this article about 8 months into your daughter's rehab and ask yourself if it was worth it.

Horrors of War

I admit that I don't know George W. Bush personally. He hasn't proven to me that he is an intelligent guy. One can only get so far with a joking attitude, the stupid smile, and canned answers. His statement about "intelligent design" being taught in schools when American students lose ground to foreign students in science and mathematics with every tick of the clock was plain stupid. And the recent revelation about listening to the voice of his god is downright scary -- so, what is the real reason the U.S. went to war?

But the war goes on. We're in it. But the Smurfs aren't. At least, they weren't.

Now, they are.

I hope the ad is piped into the White House television. Maybe then George will understand what he's causing to happen over in Iraq and what his god wants him to do.

Interview

Is anyone else distressed that pesky scientists have recreated the Spanish flu that killed 50 million people back in 1918 from pieces of the virus taken from the frozen corpse of a victim of that pandemic?

Scene: Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (interview already in progress)

It was a very easy thing to do ... just take the virus from that old lady corpse laying over there that was frozen since 1918 and combine it with modern flu viruses we got from a dude that just got back from Hong Kong the other day. Voila, new flu virus.

What did you hope to accomplish by doing this?

Ah-ah-ah-ah-choo! Whoa! Excuse me, seem to have picked up some kind of bug somewhere. Well, we wanted to prepare for a possible future pandemic, learn lessons from 1918, so to speak. We thought it was important to do this, you know, to really understand the mechanism of transmission and stuff like that, so we could get a vaccine together and advise the public of other measures to avoid transmitting the disease.

This modern flu virus from Hong Kong ... is that related at all to the H5N1 asian flu virus we've heard so much about?

What do you mean "related?" It's the real deal. Bird flu. You see, we took the 1918 virus, the one that killed off 50 million people, and we combined it with H5N1 just to see what would happen ... in the lab, of course. It's all controlled. We know what we're doing. We're all, you know, into this bio-medical research and stuff like that. Advanced degrees and all. There's no real danger. We've taken precautions. Reverse air flow, washing our hands, dusting with DDT on the way out, you know ... all the precautions. We wouldn't want this baby to get out. It'd wipe out half the planet. Heh, heh ... pretty funny if it did ... dontcha think? That's an epidemiologist joke, heh heh.

I notice that the others are wearing ... errr ...

Bunny suits ... yeah, heh heh, they're being extra careful, but there's no real danger ... if there was, do you think I'd be talking to you with just my lab coat on? Well, pants and a shirt, too ... and one of those funky hats for my hair. Heh, heh. Ah-choo ... Shit, what the fuck ... damn, I'm catching my kid's cold. And yaknow, that's the real problem today in epidemiology ... too many kids in schools ...

What do you mean?

Well ... one kid gets it ... whammo! You can guess the rest ... pandemic, just like that. 3 ... 400 million dead piled up in the streets ... but the work we're doing here *ah-ah-choo* will go a long way toward figuring out how to prevent that from happening. We run the scenarios with these Department of Defense programs. We'll get it all figured out.

Well, thanks for taking the time out of your day to expose us to the important research you are doing. We'll go back to you, Ted, in the studios in New York.

On Building Materials

I'm building a bed, one with storage and shelves. I've decided that while Stacey "likes" MDF (medium density fiberboard) that has been made famous by all of the do-it-yourself-even-if-you-don't-know-what-you're-doing shows, I hate the stuff. Give me wood, or my mocha will end up being thrown against the garage wall.

So, there are the usual distractions when doing the old home improvement thing. This leftover from a Godzilla movie decided that sandpaper was a comfortable place to hang out. I was not about to argue.

It turned out to be a friendly spider.

Later, as I was hitting golf balls across the road during one of my breaks, I noticed something on the ground near edge of the creek. It, too must be a leftover from a Godzilla movie -- probably still radioactive.

What did I do with it? What anyone would do, of course. Put it out in the road to see what would happen when it got hit by a car going by.

What would you have done … acted all adult-like?

Advertising?

There's this fucking commercial that I hate. I do not use the product. If I ever need to use the product, I will refuse on principle. Now, they go and expand the theme of the advertisement, adding other "characters," and show this fucking commercial with increasing regularity. The people in the ad agency should be subject to slow torture and then death. If put in charge of that task, I would have to think of something really, really gruesome and painful, including watching the commercials repeatedly with the mouth movements out of sync with the talking in an unidentifiable foreign accent, eyes being held wide open by toothpicks.

The fucking commercial I hate with all of the fiber of my being is the Nasonex talking-with-a-phony-French-accent-low-level-moronic-computer-animated-yellow-and-black-bee commercial. I wish someone would take a bat and smash the little fucker. Now, they added low-level-moronic-computer-animated-people to a new commercial. For what fucking reason, I don't fucking know. It's driving me fucking crazy. I changed the fucking channel one night while watching a local professional sports team getting their fucking asses kicked and the same fucking commercial was on not one -- click -- but two stations. Oh, the fucked-up glories of cable advertising. I want to kill the fucking genius who thought up this idiotic fucked up commercial. What the fuck does a bee have to do with the Nasonex? Do bees fly in people's faces and spew pollen in their faces? Better yet, I wish the fucking bee would sting one of the fucking phony human computer-animated characters and fucking die.

Could they have been any cheaper in the way they made the fucking commercial? They could have, at least, paid a little more money and used something other than a 1995 computer animation program. Did they let a first grade class do the animation?

Nasonex -- computer bee. Really fucked up.

"It's Some Dumbass Calling Collect From Jail"

Okay, Miss, I think I understand your hype-ANN-thetical question.

If the bartender wants you to get out of the bar with your male friend because your male friend has been rowdier and more belligerent than normal, I suggest you just leave. With any luck at all, the police won't bother you if you're walking on the sidewalk minding your own business less than a block from home; and just because the police car stops and asks if everything is okay doesn't mean they are going to arrest you. If you tell them everything is cool, they will usually move on to more important things.

Now, I'm not going to tell you that it's against the law to tell the police officer to go fuck himself because it's not. You're right about that. But, legally speaking, you really fuck yourself by doing that. And in police lingo, "Go fuck yourself" is actually an invitation to stop the police car, get out, and ask you questions.

That's called a Terry stop. That's legal. But, of course, you think they're fucking with you. And you're absolutely right. They are fucking with you, but that's not illegal. They have the right to fuck with you because of what you said.

And when your male friend pukes all over one of the fucking pigs, as your male friend calls them, and they tell him he's under arrest for public intoxication, and then he goes into his stiff body routine he learned in some '60's how-to-protest instructional video and won't get into the police car, and, of course, the pepper spray comes out, it is my advice that:

No, absolutely not. Under no circumstance, should you jump on the big fucking pig's back and try to choke the living shit out of him.

That's not a good idea at all. Not a good thing to do.

So, if that ever happens, you'll be in big trouble. You'll get arrested. Now, could this have something to do with you calling me collect from a corrections facility?

Goldsmith

My good friend, DT, is enjoying his retirement from the teaching profession, having successfully eluded prosecution, and firing, at the very minimum, for keeping dodgeball in the fifth grade phys. ed. curriculum. Dodgeball has been outlawed by the state school board. Rather than submit to the authoritarian state, in quiet protest against the regime, he circumvented the rule by changing the name of the game.

DT and I found out that a guy who played on our college baseball team died recently. He suffered from a rare disorder called Pick's Disease. The dementia-causing brain disease attacked him before age 30, early by most estimates. He behaved inappropriately as a teacher in the classroom. Apparently, the disease first became manifest in his case by extreme outbursts of temper, aggression, and hypersexual behavior, from which sprang a preoccupation with sexual expressions, sexual jokes, and compulsive masturbation, which are not good traits for an elementary school teacher. He was run out of town for his strange behavior, but was eventually diagnosed and was able to retire from teaching due to his disability. His father stood by him before he was diagnosed. His father knew something was wrong with his intelligent and talented son and finally found the reason and that the disease was not curable. His father stood by him for the next 20 years, dealing with and witnessing continuing changes in his son's personality and impairment in his reasoning and memory.

When I saw Jeff about 10 years ago at the annual college Homecoming alumni baseball game, he didn't remember me. He didn't remember much of anything else, for that matter.

Why is expanded federal funding for embryonic stem cell research such a bad thing? New avenues of research into treatment for those suffering from brain- and nerve-wasting diseases would open up.

We've already shown that we, as Americans, are pretty damn good at exterminating people. Can we please show the rest of the world how good Americans can be at saving people?