LCD at the El Rey

James Murphy singing at a ridiculously high pitch and a guy in the crowd without a shirt. 'Nuff said.

ch LXXIV: the sperm whale's head--a contrasted view through ch LXXVII: the great heidelburgh tun

The Whale kept me up.
Quite a sunrise this morning.
Late shifts aren't too bad.

-a haiku by Andrew McNally

free agency has ruined professional sports

remember baseketball? remember the message behind it? the corruption of pro sports by inflating contracts, egotistical athletes, and free agency? what a powerful movie. especially the part where jenny mccarthy sucked the chrome off of a trailer hitch.

but the point was that sports have become a business. this was inevitable, and i'm willing to accept that. but let me point you to a few key examples of how this has gotten completely out of hand:

exhibit A: alfonso soriano
this extremely overrated outfielder signed to my beloved Chicago Cubs with an astonishing eight-year, $136 million contract. why did we pay A-Rod quantities for decent hitter (.280 career average) who has only played outfield for one season and has been known for his somewhat loud-mouthed, me-first attitude? because last season he was the first player to have a 40-40-40 season. that's 40 HRs, 40 steals, and 40 doubles. yet he still couldn't break the 100 RBI mark. the cubs do not need another power hitter. they need a legitimate leadoff hitter. they'll put soriano at leadoff, he'll hit solo shots all year, and ramirez and lee will have no one to drive in because you fucking know mark derosa isn't getting on base in the 2 slot. in short, we overpaid for a big name who was an allstar last year in basically a fluke season. he's a decent, one might go as far to say solid, player, but is he the next A-Rod? only in how he'll choke to death under the expectations of his new team and new contract.

exhibit B: barry zito
as much as i would have loved for us to pay out the ass for zito on the north side, consider this headline: Baseball waits on Mets' Zito strategy. why is the whole of major league baseball waiting for this deal to go down? because this will determine the asking price for all free agent A-list pitchers for the next two years. this is baseball, not the supreme court. precedents do not need to be set. now, i love barry zito. in fact, i'm not one to watch baseball for the home run factor (hello, 1980s and 1998). pitching duels are far more interesting to watch than slugfests. home runs happen almost every game, but how often does a pitcher strike out 20, or throw a no hitter? anyone who watches sportscenter should know, not that often. but when i watch sportscenter, i want to hear the stats, not the numbers of some pitcher's contract. the amount of publicity that free agent signings receive in the offseason of any sport is borderline insane. actually, scratch the borderline. barry zito is a great pitcher coming off of a career year, and he deserves a good contract, but goddamn if i don't want him to STAY IN OAKLAND.

this brings me to my next point. team loyalty. sammy sosa (douchetwat that he is) stayed with the cubs for 13 seasons. trades have only recently become acceptable (much like the lincoln assassination has only recently become funny), but the rash of free agents switching teams between one year contracts is comparable to a vietnamese whore making the rounds at a rich businessman convention. zito has been with the A's since his rookie season, and i respect that, but when your contract is up, is it that easy to just pack up and leave the organization that made you? the flip-flopping of players, managers, coaches, GMs, and everything else from team to team is despicable. the only consistent factor in baseball are the agents.

the agents. much like the Matrix villains, they can sense when opportunity is near and spawn right next to the GM balancing his checkbook and sweet talk a deal big enough to make Steinbrenner blush. these evil programs are the main reason that baseball has gone the way of the stock market. agents advertise their clients "overall worth" as a fucking commodity. the player's best interests aren't in question, but their financial interest. now of course, seasoned veterans, the future hall of famers (a la Greg Maddux) have more say in where they go and who they negociate with. Maddux went to southern california (two different teams now) to be closer to his family in vegas, which is respectable. but in 20 years, who isn't going to look at his stats and say "man it would have been poetic if he finished his career in chicago. a prominsing start in the windy city, with 11 FANTASTIC seasons in atlanta, only to finish gracefully in the city that gave him his start." i respect the fact that maddux isn't ready to quit yet, but those two seasons at the end with LA and san diego just feel like a post script. back to zito, once his deal goes down (and it will go down HUGE), all hell will break loose. we're just lucky we already signed ted lilly.

players perform with more intensity in the last years of their contract because they know they'll make more money when the time comes. this dominating mentality is what has become of the professional athlete. yes it's a job, but it's also every little kid's dream. but now the dream is for a different reason. they want to be rich. gone are the fantasies of playing in a championship game, being the immortal hero of your sport, the hollywood, "The Natural"-style mythic moments that every little boy reenacts in his backyard when no one is looking. i suppose this could morph into a commentary on the attitude of today's youth, the spoiling of every child in america, but let's stick to the sports.

death to scott boras. death to george steinbrenner and ted turner (who had a part in starting all of this). baseball will never again be just america's pasttime. just wait till the MLB goes public.

for a better example of what i'm trying to say (and by a professional writer to boot), check out espn's page 2 article "Baseball's Silly Season."

southern california is for pussies

Seasons are nonexistent in Los Angeles. There is hot, sorta hot, and fucking freezing. Coming from a temperate climate (seriously, northern Illinois winters are the definition of fucked up), I should be used to sub-zero temperatures. But I guess I never really developed the hard skin from all those cool autumn days at the Pumpkin Patch/Apple Orchard, or those snow days in the middle of November. Here, the middle of November means mid-60s temps and t-shirts and jeans.

But then comes the Los Angeles winter, when temperatures drop barely below 60, rarely below 50, and out come the Ugg(ly) boots and the sweatshirt/scarf combinations and people bitching about how it's "fucking frigid" outside. And to be honest, I've found myself saying "It's freezing outside," despite knowing what freezing temperatures actually feel like. I am ashamed.

In short, southern California is for pussies. Seriously, there is a tolerance for cold temperatures, and 55 degrees is not it. We as a human race should strive to avoid warm climates like Florida and Texas and So-Cal, because they detract from the evolutionary chain of evolution. The human race will never learn to cope with above-freezing, but below-room-temperature temperatures if we all flock to this goddamn cornucopia of sin that is Southern California. Avoid it at all costs, my friends!

Of course, I don't mean avoid visiting me in Southern California. I only mean avoid living in it for extended periods of time, because those raised in cold climates will find themselves saying that sweatshirt weather is "unbearable" and "inhumane." I swear to God, if I hear one more PR from Campus Cruiser say "OMG, I was waiting for SO LONG in the FREEZING cold" I will slap them in their bitch faces and steal their Ugg boots and sweatpants with PINK embroidered across the ass while they're dazed. 50 degrees is not freezing. You took chemistry. I know you did, otherwise you wouldn't be in this fucking school. You know what freezing is. I challenge you to live in NORTHERN ILLINOIS for a winter and tell me that this temperature is actually cold. Why don't you actually see snow before you tell me that it's cold outside. God, I can't wait to go home and fuckin' tear shit up in the snow with my 4-wheel-drive vehicle. Fuck you all.

Lastly, I would like to extend my extreme grievances to Matt Gille's family. I never spoke to the guy, but I saw him in Guys and Dolls I think it was junior year. This is a complete shock to me, considering the RRStar spins it as a suicide. This really makes no sense to me. First a Boylan grad gets stabbed at a bonfire, then a very popular, seemingly happy Boylan grad supposedly commits suicide. I really, really, really pray for the Gille family; I know that Matt was a great person, loved by a lot of people, and suicide doesn't really make sense, but it saddens me nonetheless to hear that another Boylan grad has passed. God bless us all.

do they ghostride in hanoi?

So thanks to Eric Ambler, I saw this video on YouTube. Innocent enough right? It's a silly video that everyone should watch and enjoy (and if anyone watches Battlestar Galactica [which should be more people than it actually is] they should notice an odd similarity between Nate [in the green jacket on the car] and a certain Chief Tyrol. But I'm not a nerd.)



This may or may not work when this post is redirected to facebook, but it's easy enough to click "view original post."

Anyway. Hilarious video. Hilarious song. I watched over and over and over, giggling with delight every time without fail. But one time when I wasn't doubled over laughing, I noticed the website.

HUGE in Asia

So this goofy, car-dancing, fellow A's fan went to Hanoi?? After college?? That's a helluva long plane ride. But it's true. Nate and two of his friends have relocated to Hanoi, Vietnam to get some valuable life experience, teaching children, learning Vietnamese, and just having an all-around enriching experience. Jealous much? I know I am.

It reminds me of the Invisible Children movement, complete with a founded charity. A couple of guys go to Africa during college for some life experience and end up making a great documentary about child soldiers in Uganda and changing their own lives forever. Highly recommended.

I encourage all of you to read up on their blog (Huge in Asia: The Blog) as well as the video blog posted above. This is how life after college should be for everyone. Time to take off in a jet, go anywhere in the world with a couple of good friends, and just fucking scrap to make it. Just fucking LIVE man. I know it's corny, but for fuck's sake who doesn't want to do this?

I know I do. I've dreamt of a glorious college graduation ceremony and a quick CUT TO: me with a full beard slashing my way into frame through some tough vines with a fucking machete. Then maybe a montage of me interacting with some natives in their tongue, making a lean-to in some inclement weather. Finally I return home, burlier, scruffier, and, overall, a better person for going out and doing something, helping somebody.

Yeah yeah, I know, Indiana Jones romantic. And yeah yeah, I can help people here. But with a newfound respect for genealogy and heritage, I want to go see some things I haven't seen before, connect with some roots I didn't know I had. Sure I'm fucking white, but goddamn if I can't just fucking land wherever the fuck I want. If Dempsey can go to Ireland, why can't I? If Charles can backpack through Europe, why can't I?

I had considered a while ago studying abroad in New Zealand for a semester, which I had scrapped due to the seemingly good idea of declaring a minor. But minors are for people that have life goals that don't depend on entertaining the masses. I don't need a minor. I need life experience.

I guess the only question left to ask is, who's coming with me?

the secret machines are better than u2

that's right. i said it. i'm going back to the old-skool days of dissing on bands that everyone else likes, but i hate. i would hate u2 even more, but they are irish, and that deserves some respeck. needless to say, the secret machines are what u2 wishes they were from the beginning. u2 sucks so hard that even oasis couldn't keep up with them in a milkshake slurping contest.

i've been known for my "controversial" views on music (loyal readers may know what i'm talking about), but fuck popularity, fuck records sold, fuck tour dates. some music just sucks. the secret machines do not suck. u2 sucks. a lot. like worse than coldplay, worse than all the other shit that gets a music video spot on mtvU. u2 just sucks and there's nothing you can do about it.

now to change it up, i'm going to talk about how the secret machines are awesome. first off, they're from new york. well they were first based in texas (which is pretty cool in itself, the austin music scene is nothing to scoff at) but then they moved to new york, and made it big, which is what really matters. and new york is one of, if not the most badass city in the united states. i was born in new york. case in point.

the secret machines may have a very different style of music from u2, but it doesn't matter. the genre, sound, production, whatever you want to call it makes no play on my opinion here. it's bono's stupid face that makes me hate u2 so much. and his bracelets for AIDS or whatever, because you know, he's not a cha-millionaire, so he has to have his concert-goers pay out the ass for tickets so a portion can go to future celebrity adoptees in africa rather than give a little something out of his own pocket. what an asshole.

but as much as i don't like u2, dave matthews band will always be worse. if u2's suckitude is the earth, then dave matthews suckitude is antares, 15th brightest star in our sky. maybe even bigger.

the secret machines are better than dave matthews.


in conclusion, this was a test of the emergency facebook system. u2 doesn't suck as hard as suggested, but i don't like them at all. dave matthews's suck-ness is portrayed at 1/1000 scale in this entry. hopefully this will enlighten all of those interested on facebook to my formerly actively updated blog and find some excellent tidbits, writing samples, and just good ol' nuggets of wisdom in the archives. i would suggest the great dave matthews debate circa summer 2005. enjoy.

meditations on first dave matthews

it took two and a half semesters of college but i'm finally reading things that if people saw me reading them they'd say, "man that guy must be in college. and he's really fucking sexy too!" marx, wittegenstein, baudrillard, and my personal favorite, descartes. everybody reads marx, so he's not even really that impressive. but descartes...people know who he is, but they don't know what he's about. i could philosophize on this statement ad nauseum in the style of descartes, but i won't because cartesian philosophy is confusing. college has introduced me to words like weltanschauung, intellection, and pecuniary emulation, all of which are fancy words for things that can be said much simpler. i didn't need college for this. i needed college because i didn't have anywhere to go after high school.

in fact, i didn't need college at all. in reading descartes' meditations on first philosophy, i realized that i've already matched (if not surpassed descartes). yes, i am in fact referring to the now infamous dave matthews debate, which in the running timeline of my life occurred before college. descartes' process in this book is to ramble on (read: meditate, or philosophize) for a few pages, send out what he wrote down to a couple of other "smart" people who he didn't really think were smart and let them object to it. he would then call these people stupid and restate what he said before so the buffoons would understand. it's quite simple really. so what did i do? i posited a theory (dave matthews sucks), sent it out to the masses (who i swear i don't think are dumb) and let them respond. then i responded to their responses, told them why they were wrong, and won the argument. no argument there right?

the only real difference between what descartes and i were doing was that descartes was trying to prove that god exists and that soul and body were inherently separate. i was trying to prove that dave matthews is an asshole whose masturbatory guitarwork exposes his failure as a songwriter. and i think i succeeded. if you still think you're right, i have no further way to explain why i'm right and you're wrong other than suggesting you find a large, phallic object and proceed to shove said object up your ass. the way this will feel describes what dave matthews feels when he plays a sweet guitar jam for twenty minutes. dave matthews fucks himself in the ass.


in short, i don't need college to tell me how to think, i have my friends to do that. at least i'm going to be in debt for the rest of my life.




andrew's blogging again! is that gay?