The million-pound shithammer

Internets, in these dark and terrible times in which we live, all of y'all should be reading Fear & Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72, by the immortal Hunter S. Thompson.

It's his coverage of the 1972 presidential race for Rolling Stone (back when they didn't put teenage hunks of chicken who were in "High School Musical" on the cover), and kids, I would not lie to you -- it's incredibly entertaining and an absolutely crackling read, really a damn great book, but at the same time, given all the parallels between 1972 and current events, can be incredibly depressing and is likely to engender a sense of doom and foreboding in what I imagine to be the DKGOML reader's heart.

So, do read this excellent book -- but first, lay in a supply of whatever food, booze, or Other that comforts you in times of need ...

Don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out!

On second thought -- DO let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out.

La la la la laaaaaaaa! Commence double-barreled bird-flippin insane happy dance! A-Rod is gooooooooone! Some other unlucky car-chasing bastards are gonna pay all their lunch money for this useless choking motherscratcher and we are RID OF HIM!

Good luck peddling this second-rate piece of ass around the league, Scott Boras, you fucking douchebag. You two deserve each other. And may he never win a World Series ring as long as you both shall live.

CELEBRAMOS!

Breaking everything she sees

Ohhhhh, kids.

I may be old, but you best not say I ain't Hep.

Because tonight -- tonight is happenin. Jesus & Mary Chain show at the fuckin Fillmore! Bitterness, dirty dirty guitars and a few dangerous megastacks of amps -- what more could a girl want out of life?

Haircut 100

OK, so, I was able to go get a haircut yesterday, thanks to the MIL watching the baby.

Why is it that after six years of loyal patronage of this downtown SF establishment -- which place I never leave without passing the three-digit mark in terms of moneys rendered to them (the cut's kind of expensive but worth it because you would not BELIEVE how hard it is to get someone to do right by my stick-straight hair, plus I am a slave to their many fabulous haircare products) -- why is it that they stick me with a new chucklehead stylist every single fucking time?

The Great Lisa -- she of few words, excellent scissor technique, and shampoo scalp massages worth fighting a war for -- has left the salon, and now I'm assigned at random to this or that know-nothing razor-happy chat-monkey, to whom I have to start at the beginning and explain everything I've learned in the course of 33 years about my hair and how I want it cut. Goddammit.

All the leaves are brown. Waaaaaaaah!

So I was in the city yesterday getting some semi-emergency dental work done (a tiny piece of my front tooth, long eroded by my admittedly terrible habit of eating salt-dipped lime quarters the way normal people eat normal fruit, broke off, and the result, while not painful, looked so hillbilly that it made me laugh in my own face every time I looked in a mirror, so the dentist bonded the chip and charged my insurance for a filling, woooo!).

Walking past some jerry-rigged little sidewalk cafe (why anybody wants to do that in this city is beyond me, especially on Market Street, with its bum/psycho population and constant mini-tornadoes of street garbage), I had occasion to hear one of my Most Hated Songs Ever: "California Dreamin."

Jesus H. Shatner, do I hate that fucking song. Get some motherfucking antidepressants, you couchbound muumuu-wearing bunch of hairy assholes! Draggy vocals, the whole bullshit thing about how everything in California totes rules (especially L.A., which, by the way, Grammar Police says the line should be "wish I WERE in L.A.," not "WAS in L.A." so nyaaah), a neverending Giant Tragic Flute Solo -- BALLS. I would like to punch every one of those douchebags in the throat, but I'd have to travel back in time to do it BEFORE they record this fucktacular song. Haaaaaate.

Mourning in America

The Cleve is dead to me. Do you hear me, Internets? Dead.

Why, the Yankees could've pulled a choke-job like that (and, in fact, they have, recently, and more than once, the bastards) -- gaaaaah.

Guinness, congrats and all for keeping the faith, but I know you'll understand when I say: Go Rockies. [Shakes fist weakly at sky, wanders off to find out when NCAA basketball starts.]

When Only One Room in Your Texass House Has A/C ...

Movies You've Seen a Million Times, If You Were a Kid in the 80s and Your House Had HBO*:

The Beastmaster
Breaking Away
All of Me
Just One of the Guys
Max Dugan Returns
Turk 182
Weird Science
Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
Red Dawn
Gimme an F
Teen Wolf
Brewster's Millions
Mr. Mom
Looker
Micki & Maude
Children of the Corn
Rocky IV
Valley Girl
Kidco
Irreconcilable Differences
Poltergeist
The Toy



*Horrible Body Odor - har!!

Tidbit Thursday

--Underdog, schmunderdog - who could possibly root for a team owned (partly) by ClearChannel? The Rockies, jeez. Boooring. I'd have to root for the Cleve in the World Series (much better story, 1948 was a long time ago, my well-documented obsession with Major League) and hope that this incredible hot streak cools off in the Rockies' long hiatus.

--So the Repiglican presidential candidates are trying to "out-conservative" one another -- wotta big surprise. Which of y'all's got the bigger swinging dick? Such a fascinating question, and so very good for our country to watch this shitty little hatemongerama play out to its vile, choking end.

--How bad a mother do you have to be when they won't even let you VISIT your kids? Holy flaming Shatner, that's disgraceful. Could somebody please get Britney some help for her increasingly obvious mental illness? There's really only one way this highballin freight train is going, and it ain't the way that pulls into the station safely and on time.

--South Park: Guys, you're as brilliant as ever, but please, PLEASE, dial back the fecal humor a little ... I change a dozen or more diapers a day, and perhaps consequent to that, I'd like my televisual entertainment to be as shit-free as possible, thanks!

Hot MILF Action

So the UPS guy totes just saw me breastfeeding, in a major way. Yeah, that was great. To his credit, he pretended like he didn't see nothin' through the open blinds of the big living room window right next to the door -- just left the damn box and went on his way ... but still. Oi.

In re: Bionic Woman: Three eps in (or is it four?), I'm still kinda meh about it, although I'm liking it enough to keep watching (obv). But about this most recent episode: I'm not buying any $170 jeans for a 15-year-old either (although, boo! to her for caving), and also, no 15-year-old needs the butt-beautifying power of $170 jeans in the first place. It's called the Advantages of Youth, little girl -- enjoy this phenomenon while it lasts, cause in about five years, that whole area's gonna blow. Take pictures. You'll miss it when it's gone. (--Tina Fey, in re: Britney Spears c. 2001)

Riggins 33 RULZ!

OK, so, I'm getting a little worried about Friday Night Lights. After I stuck my neck out so far, recommending it -- well, all right, slobbering about it to anyone who would listen -- I'm concerned about a couple of the storylines I'm seeing so far this season. If you're watching, I bet you know what I mean -- the Tyra/Landry Soap Opera Express, and the Saracen Live-In Home Help Plus thing ... worrisome, Internets, most worrisome. The whole point of this show was its realism, and I'm worried they're going in these directions to attract more viewers ... which will only alienate the loyal core of evangelists like myself and ultimately ruin the whole gig. The rest of the stories are still pretty damn great, and of course none of this changes how fucking awesome the first season was, but ... I don't know. I'm going to try to have faith. Are you with me?

Oh, also: The Wire. Great show -- do rent the DVDs if you've not done so already. Good times.

So -- anything going on lately?

Heh. A lot can happen in a week, y'all ... here's the story so far, with pics to follow as soon as Mr. Gleemonex shows me where they are on our computers (I ... can't ... process .. . the, like, Internets? right now?). Enjoy!

---------------

We were scheduled to be induced on Tuesday, but I could not get to sleep Sunday night, and by 3:30 Monday morning it was clear we weren’t going to need the induction appointment. At around 6:30 a.m. I was admitted, and yada yada yada GIVE ME DRUGS, MAN. Which they did. Nearly 24 MORE hours of labor followed; we watched the frickin Yankees suck wind and die once again, which at least provided some distraction (one doc just about died laughing when I came up out of the pain + druggy haze to say something like “Jeezus, 0 for WHAT in the series? That asshole can’t BUY a hit!”).

At long last, lil’ stubborn came into the world at 5:44 a.m. on Tuesday, October 9 – 8 pounds, 4 ounces, 21 inches long, a baby girl with a full head of dark hair and the sweetest dark blue eyes you ever saw. And seriously – this is going to ruin my gangsta rep here, but – LOVE, y’all, nothing but love.

It took us another whole day to narrow down our list of first names to one of our longstanding Scandinavian front-runners, and when we realized that October 9 was John Lennon’s birthday, which she had apparently waited two extra weeks to hit, well -- we had a middle name too.

Anyway, we brought Kid Gleemonex home Wednesday night, as soon as we were allowed; we could’ve stayed an extra night, but she was doing great, and as awesome as the Kaiser people were (every doctor, nurse, anesthesiologist, consultant, aide, and random person we saw was FABULOUS, I mean it!), it just felt like time to get on home. She was (and is) mesmerizing – we just couldn’t take our eyes off of her. Still can’t. In fact, gotta wrap this up – gonna go watch her sleep some more. Best show we’ve ever seen – she’s worth every minute of the wait.

Requiem for a Boxcar

You guys! Is Grampa Jim about to go to that Great Hootenanny in the Sky?

And am I wrong, or do I see Iris actually contemplating the idea that sometimes, indefinitely prolonging a person's life is not necessarily the best for that person? That is way, way deep (no kidding around) ...

They supa-cool to the homeless

OK. Internets, have any of you ever been to San Francisco? I know some of you live here, and/or work here, and you're gonna know what I mean even if you disagree with me, but I also want a check-in from visitors to this filthy burg.

So, here's why I ask: Today's sfgate has a story about a new plan from Mayor Gavin "Tad" "Chaz" "Blaine" Newsom's office to deal with the rampant, festering problems created by homeless/bum/vagrant types in the downtown area.

The problems created by these people in this area -- which is full of office buildings such as the one in which I work, shopping meccas, movie theaters, restaurants and touristed thoroughfares -- include but are not limited to the following:

--Top-volume screaming, for hours at a time
--Lunging at people
--Aggressive panhandling (like, following you for BLOCKS, calling you bitch and worse)
--Masturbating
--Urinating
--Defecating
--Collapsing in drug-induced stupors in the middle of sidewalks
--Smashing empty MD 20/20 bottles on the ground
--Vomiting on innocent tourists' shoes
--Fucking

And this is EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. It's degrees of magnitude worse than anything I ever saw in NYC in the early nineties (not a bright spot in NYC's history, FYI). Many of the offenders are very seriously mentally ill, and the rest are generally the chronic homeless; it's to the point where your standard quiet wino, sitting with his back against the Bechtel building, swigging some wine "hidden" by a paper bag, looks like right pleasant company, compared to the shrieking, lurching, smell-him-from-four-blocks away curbside urinator down the street a bit.

So, Mayor "I Heart Teens" Newsom's plan for dealing with this intractable problem:

The city will send teams of outreach workers and police officers to offer social services to any homeless person caught littering, camping, trespassing, urinating, defecating, blocking sidewalks or publicly intoxicated.
If the homeless people refuse the services, they will receive a citation and will be told to appear in traffic court in 45 days. If a person is caught committing another quality-of-life crime within the same 8-hour period, he or she will be taken into custody.

I read this, and thought -- well, it's a little weak, but at least it's SOMETHING, and the social services angle might even help some people -- good going, Gav! But just a couple of paragraphs down, the goddamned tiresome bullshit begins -- the same tiresome bullshit that is forever being trotted out in this town:

some members of the Board of Supervisors and advocates for homeless people smell a re-election shift toward criminalizing homelessness and sound as if they are prepared for a City Hall showdown if the administration doesn't change course.

And there you have it, folks -- San Francisco in a nutshell.

Two-bagger. Heh.

Ohhhhhhh, kids -- baseball playoffs start this week!

First things first (this one brought to my attention by the commercials we zipped past on the YES Network): Does anybody for one minute believe that Derek Jeter actually drives any automobile made by Chevrolet? Cause, seriously -- bitch, please.

Moving on ...

Jeeeezus am I glad the Yanks don't have to play the fuckin Angels in the first round. WHAT a disaster, again. I feel like we have a shot against the Cleve, CC Sabathia included (or ok, maybe we'll drop that one, but he and Chien-Ming Wang are about as evenly matched statwise as pitchers can get, so I think it'll at least be a good game).

And more importantly, this series is going to be on TBS!!! Yes, entirely on TBS!!! Watching that interminable angsty Padres/Rockies game last night, I became a true believer in one session.

Because people, I fucking HATE Fox's baseball coverage with a fiery, fiery artery-choking hate. All those fucking WHIRLING! GRAPHICS! WITH SOUND! All those preciously "casual" CELEBRITY! SIGHTINGS! of Fox show personnel! All the fucking useless bullshit short-attention-span, game-ignoring ON-FIELD COMMENTARY! All the Fox SHOW PROMOS taking up half or more of the screen, even when we got a motherfuckin situation in progress! Not to mention the super-partisan anchoring they always get ("Now, the Yankees, whose payroll topped FOUR BILLION DOLLARS this year, just beating up on the downtrodden, poor old sad-sack beggars, the Red Sox, who can't even afford jock straps for their players, most of whom are recruits from local junior highs and polio orphanages blah blah blah,"), which frankly, does not serve the fucking game -- it's one thing if you're calling it for your own network (YES, NESN, etc) but quite another on a supposed neutral network (which Fox, laughably, insists it is).

The TBS people, Shatner bless 'em, kept it quiet and sane, didn't babble pointlessly, and just, you know, showed the fucking game. So refreshing, so quaint and charming! My blackened heart-cockles were warmed, y'all.

So, baseball: BRING IT. I can't fuckin WAIT!