Here’s the newest podcast using a name suggested by Dominick. I play with sounds and fall in love with the dance hall airhorn. We talk about the end of True Detective, what I should do for my birthday, my recent hikes, how shitty Brendan’s week was, the Dodgers in Australia, how fun the Dodger drama will be this season, and me having sex with lumberjack mascots.
I think we also have a new theme song which opens the show: Fly Young Red’s “Throw Dat Boy Pussy”.
The other music selections include Leaether Strip’s “Spellbound”, a cover of Siouxsie and the Banshees, surtur13 (aka Derrick)’s “Mirage”, not a Siouxsie cover, and Josie Cotton’s “Johnny Are You Queer”.
You can listen below or, better yet, subscribe to the feed.
Today I decided to walk nonstop from my manse to the top of San Pedro Hill. I’ve been to the top of the hill before but never from my abode. So I figured, why not? It seemed like a good idea.
8.72 miles later, aching feet and body later, I guess it was still a good idea. Despite making it 1,400 feet up there, my enthusiasm has muted with each electro-chemical neural transmission within my body.
It was a gloomy day as you can tell from the photo above. The fog still lingered, and there was quite the breeze in the air. I was wearing only a t-shirt and shorts, and I could feel the chill of my sweat-drenched shirt each time a gust blew. But it really wasn’t that bad. As I passed Marymount College and turned to Crest Road, I realized the win was freezing my hands. I had to keep clenching my fists to try and keep them warm. I really wished I had mittens at the point no matter how silly they would have looked.
What was pretty remarkable when I got to the top was being able to see the Manse from such great heights. It’s located in the parking lot you see towards the bottom-center in the picture above. Here’s the zoom:
Well, that’s not really the precise location of the Manse, but it’s close enough should you want to stalk me. For what it’s worth, the Manse’s elevation is just under 300 ft while the top of San Pedro Hill is just over 1,450 ft.
As you can tell, there are some rich bitches who live up there. I guess they don’t blink an eye when the lose a shoe.
I knew the Dodgers had three runs. I knew somehow that they won. But I didn’t give a shit because I needed sleep, and a game that started 2 a.m. PDT didn’t stand a chance.
Thanks to a spot of rain, a first pitch that was scheduled at 1:45-ish a.m. got pushed back. SportsNetLA had to fill time, so there was John Hartung and Orel Hershiser talking about how Clayton Kershaw would handle the occasion considering his bad spring and awful start against St. Louis in the final game of the Dodgers playoff run. For the fourth time in an hour. (John just asked the question. Orel was confident Kershaw would turn it around.)
As this droned on, it’s not that hard to imagine why sleep would win.
What I saw was Kershaw getting into a jam in the first inning, back-to-back one-out singles by Aaron Hill and Paul Goldschimdt making things sticky. But I’ve seen Kershaw negotiate his way out of these situations, and it was no different in this case.
I saw that Scott Van Slyke hit a booming shot to left field in the second inning. D-Backs left fielder Mark Trumbo jumped at the fence to make a play for the ball, but the ball hit the base of the wall about ten feet away towards centerfield. Everyone thought it was a home run except for the umpires. They correctly saw it was in play.
That’s really about it.
Since anyone can read a box score we can see that Kershaw pitched into the seventh inning giving up only a run, that Yasiel Puig went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts, that Van Slyke went 2-for-3 with a walk and an actual two-run home, that the Dodgers are 1-0 with the 3-1 win. And, most importantly, the game lasted two hours, 49 minutes, a sportswriter’s dream.
At the end of it all, however, fuck everyone involved. I know there are plenty of people happy and thrilled that baseball has returned. And yes, I do agree with that. I too still love baseball, but who the fuck schedules a real game that counts in the standings that starts at 2 a.m. in that team’s market? This 35-year old dealt with a grandmother who got a touch of food poisoning and diarrhea, so staying up until 5 a.m. is out of the question. Even though I did try, though in hindsight I should have realized it was a losing proposition.
And, most of all, fuck the Dodgers and Time Warner Cable. There are those who are more than happy to stay up through the late night hours to watch a baseball game. But because a lot of fans don’t have Time Warner Cable, they were not able to watch the game without the combination of an MLB.TV account and a VPN.
We know about the $8 billion television deal with TWC. We know TWC wants an outrageous $5 per subscriber or so for the Dodger-only channel. There are people who do want to watch, feel the need to watch. But they’re shit out of luck.
“Things will eventually work themselves out,” we are told by the Dodger brass.
Gone are the days of the-customer-is-always-right ethos. Welcome to the 21st century where the bottom line reigns supreme. Mo’ money! Mo’ money! Mo’ money! Fuck the 99%, the rich need to get richer.
So until then, you the Dodger fan who they are saying they are trying to serve will just have to twiddle your thumbs. Fuck you.
I am a fortunate one. I do have Time Warner Cable and this channel. I get to see that stupid hashtag “#INEEDMYDODGERS” burned on the top left corner of every broadcast, retarded if you ask me since I already have the damn channel so the need is quenched.
I don’t know when other providers will pick up the channel. But hey, Champion Broadband picked it up so there’s momentum!
It’s really hard for me to reconcile the reasons I love watching college athletics yet despise the NCAA. I truly believe college athletics is a modern day plantation with the so-called student-athletes being the free labor. Sure, they say that the kids are getting an education, but when a scholarship can get cut when they have a career-threatening injury, that’s hardly a free ride.
Hell, I’m not even getting into the issue of athletics taking precedence over academics with most of the money generated going to sustaining the athletic programs with almost none going anywhere else.
Yesterday Jill Painter-Lopez of the Daily News tweeted:
Damn. Just got told I can't do videos of news conferences at #NCAAs. Right before #Arizona coach Sean Miller comes up. #HETOUCHEDTHEBALL
That shows you the extent the NCAA will go to grab their money, none of which goes to the “student-athletes”, the people who make the NCAA what it is. As San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher said, the NCAA requires teams that lose to immediately go home no matter what time of day (or night, as it were) it is. Like this is a twisted version of America’s Next Top Model.
The NCAA can afford to let the kids have another night in town and leave in the morning. But no. The profit making machine has to squeeze every penny out of the blood of the unpaid athletes.
I’ve always said that the NCAA is one of the most corrupt cartels this side of the Medellin drug cartel. It should be killed, maimed, murdered, whatever. It’s time to end this and pay the athletes.
So why the fuck am I awake at 9 am to watch a 3-seed Duke struggle against a 14-seed Mercer and continuing to be a part of this injustice? Hell, why the fuck do I wake up 9 am on Saturdays during football season to go on a day-long watching spree? I keep the two issues separate, and I really enjoy college sports. I’m not perfect.
Duke struggling against Mercer was indeed the upset of the day, the Bears from Macon, GA making Nancy Grace proud with the 78-71 lead. Again I found myself rooting for Mercer despite having Duke going all the way to the championship game. Deep down I know the feel-good story trumps my inane predictions that are doomed to be wrong.
Secondly, Stephen F. Austin State made a splash with their lumberjack mascot:
Abbey Mastracco of Fox Sports West told me that he had a mullet which is hard to see in these pictures. I told her to tell Mr. Lumberjack that if he gets rid of the mullet, I’d give him the night of his life. Sure SF Austin needed a four-point play at the end of regulation to get the win in one of most amazing sequences possible in the Tournament, emphasizing the “Madness” in March Madness. But I will always remember that lumberjack. Their win means three of the four 12-seeds have advanced. Like I said yesterday, this happens so frequently it’s hard to consider this an upset.
Although Coastal Carolina didn’t become the first 16-seed to beat a 1-seed despite leading by as many as 10 points over Virginia, I did learn their nickname is the Chanticleers, a rooster in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Their mascot is named Chauncey.
As for my bracket, thanks to Duke it’s completely fucked. Since the drama decreases with each round of the Tournament, my viewing will be sporadic over the weekend. In other words, sorry. No more diaries of the Tournament. Besides, in several hours I have to watch the Dodgers season opener. Ugh.
But one question remains: where is Mr. Lumberjack right now?
At some point early on in the Tournament, we are given a lesson in the futility of filling out brackets. After filling them out, everyone is smug with all of their picks. They got the upset no one else has. Hell, I did it too: I have 16-seed Cal Poly beating the 1-seed Wichita State as the first ever 16-seed victory over a 1-seed. (Nyah nyah nyah.)
But it looked like humility would be upon us very soon.
Early on in the first game of the day between 6-seed Ohio State and 11-seed Dayton, it looked like the Buckeyes wouldn’t have a problem with the Flyers. But then Dayton started hitting their shots, Ohio State missed theirs and things weren’t looking good. Dayton took a 33-30 halftime lead.
Almost more incredulously was what was going on in Milwaukee between the 2-seed Wisconsin and 15-seed American. Halfway through the first half, American had a 13-10 lead. Of course things got back to normal as Wisconsin despite being down 17-10 came back to take a 32-22 lead at the half.
Meanwhile in the Dayton-Ohio State game, the Buckeyes took a 10-0 run to retake the lead midway through the second. Things were returning back to what was expected. Except that no one told Dayton that they were supposed to fade away. They stood face to face with Ohio State and made a thrilling finish.
After Dyshawn Pierre made three free throws to give Dayton a 58-57 lead with 26.3 seconds, off it went as you can watch in truncated form below.
Dayton got the 60-59 upset win, and the first blows for humility rang down from the heavens.
It’s funny what happens though. Sure, I had Ohio State marching on in my bracket. But as the game went on, I found myself cheering for Dayton. When Vee Sanford made that bucket with 3.8 seconds left, there was a very audible sound of cheerful disbelief that escaped from me.
Back in Milwaukee, all that can be said of American University is that they had a good 10 minutes. Wisconsin thoroughly outplayed American 43-13 in the second half for the 75-35 win. But those 10 minutes in the first half gave a lot of hope to the likes of Star Jones, Judge Judy, Danny Glover, Ralph Nader and Jordan Belfort (aka The Wolf of Wall Street).
After the morning four games, things cooled down. The urgency to be glued to the television became less severe. Besides with all of the commercial breaks it could drive one mad. Besides I needed to go for a jog, take a shower, go to market, cook dinner, etc. Or, as most normal people would say, live their lives.
But the games were always on the background. There was the 12-seed Harvard “upsetting” the 5-seed Cincinnati in the last morning game. There was the 12-seed North Dakota State “upsetting” the 5-seed Oklahoma in overtime in the late afternoon game. 5-seed St. Louis holding on against 12-seed North Carolina State in overtime despite trailing by double-digits in the second half.
I really don’t count the 12-5 victory as an “upset”. In 119 games between the 5- and 12-seeds, 43 have won, or 36%. Since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, only three times have there not been a 12-seed to get through the first round.
As things were going chalk (with the exception of the 12-seeds, obviously), there came the 13-seed Manhattan and the 4-seed Louisville. On Selection Sunday, everyone was in near agreement that Louisville got screwed with their 4-seed. How dare they disrespect the defending champs? Despite this quite a few people have them in the Final Four.
Manhattan is lead by head coach Steve Masiello. Masiello was a walk-on for Kentucky in the late 90s when Rick Pitino was the head coach. He was an assistant for Pitino in Louisville from 2005-2001 before getting the job at Manhattan.
The game was tied 60-60 with just under two minutes left. That’s when Louisville’s Luke Hancock took over. Hancock stole the ball, got fouled and hit both free throws for the two-point lead. If that wasn’t enough he hit two three-pointers to seal the game as Louisville escaped the gym with a 71-64 win.
As for the most important thing, my bracket, I managed to avoid disaster. Ohio State losing hurt since I had them going to the Elite Eight against Florida. I also didn’t realize that I picked 15-seed Wofford over Michigan. What the fuck was I thinking?
Tomorrow will bring another set of games, more chances of my bracket going the way of a road strewn with landmines.
Last year my bracket was dead after Day 1. Let’s see if I can survive a bit longer this time around.
As you can see I have Florida, Iowa State, Creighton and Duke in the Final Four with Florida beating Duke in the Championship Game. Unlike almost everyone else including the Prez, I did not pick Michigan State to make the Final Four much less the whole thing. I guess East Lansing will be burning down in a couple of weeks.
Another note of interest: I have Cal Poly beating Wichita State becoming the first 16-seed to beat a 1-seed ever. Go SLO!
After a couple of weeks of fruitlessly trying to get my fatass up a 17% grade for about 2/3 of a mile, I finally did it. Sure my shirt was soaked in sweat, sweat dripping on my glasses, my lungs and legs aching. But I stood at the top and took a moment to bask in the achievement.
Byproduct of my accomplishment: you won’t hear from me about 17% again.
Now in a perfect world I could have connected a trail that would have taken me to the FAA radar towers at the top of the hill. But since Rolling Hills Estates cuts in on the trail and it being a gated city, it was a no go. Fucking cunts. (Although if I was feeling less pussy-ish I could have just trudged on. But I didn’t have a good feeling about doing that. So meh.)
Unlike Monday when many a shirtless sweaty guys were jogging along the Ocean Trails as I traipsed along, there was only one ornery old dude walking down the trail. I smiled, made eye contact and said hello as I usually do. He just walked past. I hope he has a heart attack.
There was a 4.4 earthquake centered in the Santa Monica Mountains between Encino and Westwood early this morning. Geologists say that it was the biggest recorded earthquake in the Santa Monica Mountains ever. Of course when an earthquake hits, your first reaction isn’t wondering where its epicenter is. It’s to not die. Like the news anchors above.
These anchors have been given a lot of shit for their reactions. But they did the right thing. If you’ve never been in a studio, you’d not know how many lights are dangling right above the anchors. They say it’s safe and the lights won’t fall, but you never know.
I was at Hulu when the 2008 Chino Hills earthquake hit, a 5.5-er. This wasn’t anything like the Northridge Quake, the Big Bear Quake, the Landers Quake. Growing up in LA in the late 80s to mid 90s, things were quite active seismically. This quake became a blip.
It first felt like a truck driving past our building shaking it. But it persisted. That’s when I knew it was an earthquake. It got stronger, but the shaking was never violent. I was cool with it, but there was one problem: I had an old school CRT tv hanging from the ceiling right above my desk. As the shaking continued, I decided I was going to value my noggin. I ducked underneath the desk until the shaking stopped.
When you have things dangling above your head, you make sure you protect yourself.
Here in the Pedro in the Manse, I didn’t wake up. Then again, I didn’t wake up for the Northridge Earthquake until the very end of it, but that’s because my mom was hollering. Bitch.
It’s pretty clear that I’ve been a bit more active recently. Trying not to be as sedentary and such. I’m trying not to be a complete cunt about it saying looking-at-me-I’m-exercising or other motivational bullshit that makes me want to kill others.
Since a heatwave was supposed to start up today, I decided to go for a jog a bit early (10 am instead of 11 am.) I put my headphones in listening to Leaether Strip (old industrially goodness from Denmark) and started. I was getting ready to cross the street, the light turned green, my walk indicator was on walk and I dashed out into the intersection.
An old lady in a Honda Civic was saw her left-turn light flashed to red, but she was determined to make it so she wouldn’t have to wait the extra minute for it to turn green again. For the first time in my life I had to make an athletic Matrix-like move to avoid being hit by her in the intersection.
“Sorry! I didn’t see you,” she yelled out to me before speeding away into the Ralphs parking lot.
“What the fuck,” I muttered as I jogged away.
I’m a hard person to miss being a pretty expansive person. It was a pretty loud reminder for me: make sure I am dead before I get old and senile. Oh yeah, and old people are evil murderous bitches.
As for my jog, it’s actually the first time I’ve jogged in quite some time. I’ve been hiking and climbing hills and such, so it was something different for my system. Hopefully next time I won’t nearly get killed by going for a jog.
Blake Griffin’s put-back jam off of a missed three-pointer by Danny Granger. (Screengrab)
After watching the Clippers dispatch the Golden State Warriors 111-98 last night, they convinced me they are championship material. Not that they will win the title, mind you. But they are one of the few teams that actually have more than a prayer of winning the final NBA game of the season.
Early in the season, they were a team in flux. Sometimes it bordered on shitty. Like how they lost at Cleveland 88-82 in December. Or how they lost in Orlando in their fifth game of the season. Or that embarrassing opening night loss against the Lakers. Their offense was off kilter with the additions of JJ Redick, Darren Collison and Jared Dudley, looking a shadow of their high-flying thrill ride from last season. And the defense promised by hiring Doc Rivers as the head coach looked like a project that would take years to build.
So even as they started piling up wins, the jarring memories of those three losses couldn’t be erased. Sure they were scoring a lot. It’s hard to ignore those Blake Griffin highlights. I know Charles Barkley has proclaimed the Clippers as the best team in the West. But the defense?
Last night in the fourth quarter, it showed up. For three quarters it was a back and forth game with 21 lead changes and 12 ties. The Warriors led by as many as seven points, and the Clippers ended the quarter with a 84-79 lead — their biggest lead of the game.
They never looked back.
There were two blocked shots and four steals. They held Golden State to 30.8% shooting. The Clippers outscored the Warriors 27-19 in the frame, and I finally bought in to what Charles has been selling.
The Clippers are a great team. They’re starting to look like what we think of a Doc Rivers team: skilled yet tough. They have incredible depth — after the trade deadline they managed to nab Glen “Big Baby” Davis, Danny Granger and Hedu Turkoglu. And they can turn misses into this:
