La Chingada

Another day, another billion dollars, another night, another meltdown, it would be so much easier to spit venom solely about the goddamn disaster that's Jonathan Broxton right now but with so much more going on, something of such importance drowns in the cesspool that is the 2011 season. The good news, I suppose, could be Ethier's hitting streak but it has also become irrelevant in the face of all this other good news.

While it's mildly entertaining and even more mildly fulfilling to see Frank McCourt be universally exposed as a failure, it doesn't help with the sinking ship. It'd be more fulfilling if he would be beaten and robbed and the people owned the team but I know the limitations of victory in this life. It's a perpetual, metaphorical 2009 NLCS.

Our proud owner can't meet payroll, which in the scheme of the present economical climate for most people is insipid as fuck, and not being a Pittsburgh or Cleveland market, no offense to those cities, this is just sad. And all the other tragedies suspended in Dodgertown this year are just a likely, predictable result of people at the top not having their shit together. And just like any instance concerning your owners, landlords, employers, etc. chances are it's not getting better for you. The worst thing to ever happen to these bloodless motherfuckers is an embarrassment, a slap on the back and a pay day somehow. Even McCourt not being as wealthy as everyone thought only means he's a multi-millionaire not invited to the Billionaire's Club. Cry into this collective dick, Frank McCourt. Nobody cares about you and your Quaddafiesque ranting to the media. We hate you. Move aside so some other bloodless motherfucker can own us and make our quality of life just a little worse than ever.

Month down.

It's a vow of silence or else a vow of perpetual bluntsmoke until the season ends. I'd like to enjoy this corroding world without stupid shit like baseball fucking my head up. But it doesn't always work like that.
One month in and it couldn't be better. Once again I exaggerate my predictions and expectations so that I won't be too suicidal when we can't score more than five runs and when we do, blow a five run lead or when even more positions become "platoons" or "by committee" or more injuries and meltdowns and shitty parking lot beat downs with the light shed due only to public relations bullshit, media ignorance and the ubiquitous baseball soft spot everyone feigns. Fuck it all. And we didn't even mention Bud Selig the repo man. Which I'll only be happy about if it results in the Frank McCourt parking lot stake burning I spoke of months ago. It all kind of sucks and I don't care as much as I thought. But the chemical burn inside my chest is just flammable enough to keep me watching and cringing and writing and dying.
Ethier hits the ball every game and Kershaw can't get run support and if Matt Kemp could multiply, we'd be just fine.
I went to the excruciating 12 inning win against the Braves last week. It was ok. The Police State was in full effect but not too many people showed up. Should be good for revenue. I parked at Elysian Park and smuggled in some alcohol.
It was half off day, noon game, Thursday but due to recent events, beer was full price. Which everyone knows, charging ten dollars for Pabst curbs gang violence. Studies at USC have been done, google that shit. This is sarcasm. It's about all I got left.
Mediocrity is worse than being complete shit sometimes. It provides the illusion that maybe it will work out. Long enough to get you spending your money on said Pabst and Jerry Sands jerseys. And what the fuck is going on with Brox Ton?
My head is a mess. I haven't even written an e-mail in weeks. I'm full of anger and rust. Maybe it's because they played so goddamn bad on Jackie Robinson Night. That was terrible. Or the next night. Or the brittle bones and muscles of Rafael Furcal. Or it's probably just a smaller, more manageable tumor in the great failure epidemic of these states and these times. Something we can deal with a little more tangibly. It sure seems this way but it's all connected. It's the same fucking mess.
Hard times in the junkpile of good times, an eve or two before Chevron and Blackwater team up to protect the mansions from the apocalypse, which means no words from me or you or anybody. Until then, we'll be smoking chronic and holding up middle fingers, wondering why it's gotta be so hard.

First place!

All the suspended dread along the path toward Opening Day, more than ever it was out of sight and mind but I'll admit I had no other plans but to watch the shit. A more immediate problem than the Dodgers probable lack of offense and the perpetual frustration merrily carried over from last season was the fact that ESPN had to market this shit in primetime because the Giants are defending champs. What's more stupid than Opening Day at Dodger Stadium being at 5 pm instead of 1 pm was that Vin wasn't calling the game. Cue three to four middle aged, former player talking heads who do nothing but talk shit to each other while we wonder what the count is. A little unnerving but I had the radio on and the TV on mute, which had a two second, or a one pitch, delay but it was worth it. Vin laying it down with ease, with grace, I could close my eyes and see the game and then watch a replay on ESPN soon after. For some reason, Vin calls the first three innings and for this special occasion the last three, which I'm sure there is some bullshit, contractual explanation but I'm too lazy and furious to research that fact. I'd rather sit here and say 'fuck that' because I could completely guarantee that nobody, not one motherfucker, in Los Angeles or elsewhere would rather hear Steiner and Monday tranquilize them in traffic than Vin Scully paint the picture he has for over 60 years. So, this sucks too.

Clayton Kershaw was really fucking good. He, like last season but without any run support, out-pitched Tim Lincecum. It was a classic, National League ballgame. 2 to 1 was the final, the offense looked about as good as expected and so did Jonathan Broxton, where he gets the save but it doesn't sit well yet. Not until he strikes out the side in a one run game. Just once, please. Not a bad series. The Dodgers won a tight one the next day, rested half the line-up (?!?!?) and lost 10 to 0 and then won on Sunday in another shaky but victorious outing. Matt Kemp looks very pre-Rihanna out there, defensively and offensively, there are still a bunch of dudes I can't believe are starting and Clayton Kershaw looks like he'll end the season with a record of 8 wins and 12 losses with an E.RA of 2.00. No run support but if the rest of the N.L. wants to take a cue from dickface Aubrey Huff and make 53 errors, it will help Dodger pitching immensely.

We're only four games into this bitchseason, I'm sure it will be interesting and terrible. It's been a good time smoking dozens of blunts and having innumerable beers on ice, listening to Vin, wearing Dodger gear. The beginning of the season is in itself a fat blunt laced with hope and dreams and jaguars and unicorns in or atop of some lowriders surfing giant waves of psychedelic rainbows as they all crash gracefully into the center of my heart.

Fuck the world.

Fantasy Metal

Although I was never interested before and will continue to talk shit about it, I will sail the tempestuous seas of fantasy baseball this year. Or at least flow through the murky shitflood, holding on to some makeshift flotation device.
I was always against it because I have a life. Which is not true, I found out, so there's no dissuasion there. Also, I always figured I had enough problems with real sports and most of those said problems were superficially stupid enough. But here I am. If anything, it will distract me from more pressing problems, baseball and otherwise. And the league isn't a bunch of whitecollar, whitefaced, dickheads who have power lunches and say things like, "Gonzo is off the hook, babe."
This league is with some homies from Riverside and the team names include "Marihuana Cigs and Beer" and "California Lopez" among others. I currently fake own and manage the Dome Valley Bluntwrapz. And I'm going straight to the top!
Probably not. My biggest concern besides never having played fantasy baseball and being increasingly disillusioned with bullshit like this anyhow, is that I'll be too high or drunk to remember the draft date. Then I can end up with Jay Gibbons and A.J. Ellis in my line-up. Hey! Just like real life.
So maybe I can rant about two different threads of my life weaving through the shitstorm that surrounds us all.
Dome Valley Bluntwrapz. Y que?

Heaven and Hell (reeled in and gutted like the rest)

Well, Major League Baseball has done it again. Extracting my funds in return for poor service, occasional black-outs and a visual document of seasonal disappointment. I only have a subscription to MLB TV because I'm living in Oakland and need to hear Vin Scully's voice to remain sane. I'm not the kind of baseball asshole who gets excited about watching A-Rod reach some bullshit milestone. I want to cancel it, I don't need it. Fuck the Dodgers, etc. But I'm going to be reeled in and gutted like the rest.

The fact that they just access my money, take 25 fucking dollars out so I can watch Gabe Kapler pop out to end the 3rd inning of some bullshit game in Arizona, is some bullshit. It's the same old, reliable, cyclical, masochistic bullshit I put myself through every year about this time. So I'm an asshole. This year I don't think I can afford it and care less than I did last year. Someday Bud Selig will die and nobody will truly care. Maybe it'll be this year. Selig going straight to hell, which only exists in my mind for people like him to go to(I don't subscribe to religion,) is more likely than the Dodgers winning the World Series in the next decade. So, maybe I could save the 25 bucks and buy drugs with it, throw a party when he dies. I'll keep the three or four people who read this posted on this situation as it develops.

Another long season lies ahead. Don Mattingly is tight. Frank McCourt is not. And Vin Scully, who by the same non-religious, figurative afterlife I mentioned, is going to heaven. In fact, he is God. So, 25 bucks to the devil every month so I can hear God call a losing season, with grace and impeccable beauty. But the fact remains. Godless world, Bud Selig owns you, the Dodgers are nearly limbless in their pursuit of a championship and Orange fisherman hats were purchased in bulk last October, not before but after. "Not to mention, I put shoe polish in my already ironic hipster beard! Next up, Christian tattoos!"

Fuck the world. And baseball. I'm going to make some bomb-ass breakfast while I still can.

Re-runs of shit TV.

So I didn't kill myself. Or anyone else yet. And here we are now, Spring Training around the bend I could really give a fuck. This season should provide plenty of material for stabbing myself in the face with a butter knife, because I'll be eating pure butter with a knife, hopeful I'll die of cardiac arrest before the All-Star break, but something tells me that, with a ready weapon in hand, a tenth consecutive 1 to 0 loss will put me one toke (of PCP) over the line and the butter knife will have punctured my skull multiple times...
Unless Jay Gibbons hits 35 home runs. Or that all nine players "platooning" three different fucking positions will all have really incredible seasons. This looks like a disaster. But last season they looked good and played for shit. So, I never have any idea what will happen but usually it doesn't look good, it's fun for a minute and then we witness countless dickmoves and don't win the World Series.

Fuck Frank McCourt. Gotta say it again and again. It's nothing new but I can't help thinking about another swindle by some swine. Some despotic rich dickface strolls into town, buys our shit up, charges us more money than ever, fucks it all up and sells it back to Fox. Slumlords need to be burned alive in the stadium parking lot while we're deep into a case beer and on our fifth pregame blunt. And when the Narcs come around in their black SUV, "just enjoyin' drivin' around the parking lot," we can tell them to get fucked and move along. Or else get burned.
Class war aside, I am excited for another season of failure and the eradication of my soul. It's an inexplicably hopeless cause. At least, Vin will be there to tell it straight, lay down the poetry and remind me that the canopy of blue sky above Chavez Ravine is certainly a sight to see.

OMG FUCKOFFANDDIE LOL OMG

There isn't anything to say. It had to be this way. Like any catastrophe, there is nothing to say. Moving on, etc. The last twelve months or so of sports has been a soul-castrating mess. Fuck it. My last and only complaint, in two parts, is that it's really fucking lame when somebody adopts a hometeam at age 30, doesn't watch many games until the playoffs, doesn't get upset when they lose and then cheers "Yay!" and twitters how happy they are. Bust out the chardonnay, we'll stick to malt liquor and memory. Ready vices to welcome the apocalypse.