jimmy

To help keep myself sane, I decided this year to cut down on college football coverage on LAist. So instead of doing the rankings there, I’m doing them here. Don’t worry if you don’t follow that logic. I don’t follow it either.

I have long said that preseason polls and the first four weeks of polls are bunk. You can’t judge a team based on their performance the prior year. Take USC last year. They were the preseason no. 1 after going 10-2 the prior year. USC crapped the bed to go 7-6 including the loss to Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl. Yeah, good going.

Also, in the first few weeks, there are a lot of cupcakes being played. Can we really judge Oregon on how they played Nicholls State? Is Alabama the same monster they are after beating Georgia State 45-3? Did Louisville strain a finger while playing Eastern Kentucky?

Here’s the new AP poll and below is my rankings

Anyone who knows the Dodgers knows the man on the right. Sandy Motherfucking Koufax. After the Dodgers win last night, he walked into the clubhouse with Lon Rosen*. He wanted to congratulate Clayton Kershaw on his performance, but he didn’t want to overshadow the champagne celebration that was going on.

* Mr. Rosen is best known as being Magic Johnson’s agent. He also tried to get the Dodgers to hire cheerleaders and a mascot back in 2004. He is responsible for trying to phase out Dodger organist Nancy Bea Hefley and bringing in the in-stadium emcees to scream at the fans before the game and try and convince everyone of how much fun they should be having.

So the story I wrote last night on LAist about the game did sound a bit wistful. I apologize for that. See, it’s the last Dodger game I’m covering this year because of credentials and MLB and shit.

I fall prey to the pitfalls of covering games a lot. I get jaded. Oh it’s another baseball game. Set up, go downstairs, get dinner, watch the game, write, go downstairs, file, go home. Considering I am at over 100 sporting events per year, it can become routine.

But last night was different. Perhaps it’s being out amongst the fans in the aux box. But when Juan Uribe hit that home run, it was one of the biggest moments of awe I’ve had doing this.

When I got downstairs, I did my best to avoid the splashing liquids. I was mostly successful. It’s a fun environment. When the Dodgers clinched the division in 2009, I got caught up in everything. Last night, I was a bit more aware.

It is pure chaos and joy in there. The music is blasting, guys are screaming, you can’t hear anything that’s being said. I put my voice recorder out there and just hope for the best. It’s a bit like this:

So that’s it. I’ll still dutifully write about the Dodgers, but since I won’t be at the games I’ll compensate for that by being bitchier. It’s a win for the readers. It’s a win for me. It’s probably not a win for the Dodgers.

The playoffs are a whole different animal. For one I’m in the “aux box”, a couple of rows in Section 3 of the Reserve Level that’s for the overflow media. I wish I could cover games from up here all year long, actually. The fans are all around us, we can hear their energy. It’s so much better.

Of course it would be great if I weren’t still trying to get over this cold. But this is the lot I’m dealt with. Yadda yadda.

Just like in 2009, MLB denied my credential request of the NLCS and the World Series. The PDF document they sent me doesn’t allow you to copy and paste, so I’ll do it old school style and type it out.

On behalf of Major League Baseball, I would like to think you for your coverage fo our sports and for your interest in covering the 2013 MLB League Championship and World Series.

**Please disregard this letter if the team you applied to cover has already been eliminated from contention**

As I am sure you are well aware, the League Championship and World Series received tremendous media interest. Unfortunately, because of limited space at all of the ballparks, we can credential only a fraction of those that apply.

Please be advised that due to severe space restrictions we must deny your application for working media credentials for the 2013 League Championship and World Series. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.

Video and audio footage from all LCS and World Series press conferences will be available via satellite free of charge at ***. We encourage you to take advantage for this opportunity.

Sincerely,
John Blundell
Senior Director, Public Relations

It sucks, but since I expected this it’s not that big of a disappointment. Yeah, I’m bitter that some stupid morning zoo fuck radio show will be allowed to come over and ask their litany of inane questions while I am holed up wherever I am trying to write about the games.

But I’m not part of the Baseball Writers Association of America so I have no recourse. Besides, it’s cool that the Dodgers allowed me to crash the first round since they have control over the credentialing. So yeah.

I’ll still write about them as far as they go, but I guess I get to be meaner. Which is great for everyone involve I suppose.

Now for the real things that are sucking. I do have a lovely cold that has gotten a bit worse, and the power is scheduled to be turned off in my apartment from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The Dodgers start at 3:07 p.m., so it should be interesting where I wind up writing my story tonight.

I started feeling a little bit of something yesterday: fatigue, a little tickle in the back of the throat that felt nothing like a penis. This morning I have a little bit of congestion and feeling tired. It’s not a full-blown cold, but enough to annoy the piss out of me. Then again, everything annoys the piss out of me so I guess everything is normal. ?

This past weekend seemed to take more of the piss out of me than I expected. I initially was going to not write anything on Monday, which I didn’t, but it extended to Tuesday. I only wrote a little preview piece of the Dodgers-Braves series last night, so I guess it’s time for me to get my act together.

I finished reading The Dreyfus Affair last night, a love affair between a shortstop and a second baseman. The premise is good: a gay love story amongst players on a baseball team. I found almost all of the characters deplorable, and there is a sudden plot shift in the middle of the book when their love affair is exposed, it felt like a bit of a stretch.

I’ll write a little more sports here. I’ll do some college football and NFL stuff here, stuff that doesn’t really belong on LAist. (hint: I’ll do my college football rankings here starting Saturday night.)

I didn’t expect to be too busy today. All I had to do was go to Dodger Stadium at 1 p.m. for a presser on the Kings-Ducks outdoor game in January and write that up.

But I woke up this morning to the Dodger fan stabbed to death in SF. I wrote that up quickly. Then more surprises when I was asked to help fill in due to sicknesses. So I wrote about jersey sales, bike share programs and homophobia in pasta.

I left for the presser and came back just in time to tutor my cousin who needed help in chemistry and US History.

Got home. Cooked chicken. Since I can’t fill in tomorrow, I wrote some pieces to help fill things in tomorrow. Oh, and I wrote the hockey at Dodger Stadium bit. I’m happy that commissioner Gary Bettman didn’t laugh at my question.

So that was a good 12 hours of running around which was cool. Beats sticking my thumb up my ass I suppose.

Tomorrow is gay day at the Ravine, and I haven’t a thing to wear!

My fantasy football team, the Titsburgh Feelers, is just about as good as the actual 0-3 Pittsburgh Steelers are. They’re awful, and lord knows if they actually win a matchup this season.

So much for my triumphant return to fantasy football after a three-year hiatus.

I am participating in a weekly Pick ‘Em league that uses confidence points. And it is here where I will pat my own back, kiss my own ass, or whatever. Yes. I am winning. First place. Sure it’s only a six-point margin, but I’ll take anything I can get. Besides, we all know that picking games is nothing more than a lottery toss up.

Did I really know that Kansas City was going to beat Philly? (I changed my mind three minutes before kickoff.)

But as far as real victories go, for me those are very few and very far between. So I will take my victory lap.

 
In the last week I posted two fake stories. To be honest those were a couple of scraps that have been lying around for years. I’m writing some new ones and realizing that most of the filth that spilling forth is an exercise in nostalgia.

I might throw up.

 
Does anyone have any personal blogs that they read regularly and that update somewhat regularly? I’ve been spending time on people’s blogrolls on a hunt for interesting reads.

One word of advice. I know I use a black background here, but most of the text is gray so as to not burn images on the retina. Please don’t use white text on black backgrounds. It hurts.

I wonder how these things get approved, but it seems clear that no gay man was in the line of approvals for this monstrosity of a helmet.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are awful. They are a shitty team in a shitty city in a shitty stadium with shitty fans. Now they have an equally shitty helmet to show the world just how shitty they are. Doesn’t it look like it was dropped in a vat of paint before they put the Jaguar decal on the side?

I harp on this over and over again, but sports teams should really hire gay men to have a say in matters like these. No fag in his right mind would allow anyone to wear a helmet like this or stupid camouflage jerseys (I’m looking at you San Diego Padres.)

Silly breeders.

Grantland staff writer (and Pitchfork Media contributor) Steven Hyden wrote a piece entitled “The Loneliness of the Alt-Rock Anniversary.” The subline: “Twenty years later, why Counting Crows’ August and Everything After is as meaningful as Nirvana’s In Utero.”

I damn near threw up.

To lift the curtain behind the scenes, most of the time the author of a story do not write their own headlines or sublines. There are copy guys and editors who will write them. Most of the time headlines will sum up a story pretty well, but sometimes they don’t. And the author has no control over it.

But after a lot of exposition, eight graphs into the story we get the real stomach-churning meat of the piece. Hyden writes:

I was a huge fan of both records in ’93 — and still am in ’13 — and I know I’m not the only one. August and In Utero existed in essentially the same context — their videos were played during the same Alternative Nation segments on MTV, their singles were heard on the same radio stations, and many of the people who bought the Nirvana record also bought the Counting Crows record.

No. No no no no. No. No.

They might have existed in the same period of time, but they did no exist anywhere near the same context. Nirvana laid down the foundation for the marketplace in which Counting Crows were able to swoop in, pick up their shekels, nab their Friends girlfriend and live a nice quiet life while still putting out the Starbucks classics.

Here’s another bon mot in the ninth graph:

August was actually more popular than In Utero, eventually selling 7 million copies. The album’s big hit, “Mr. Jones,” is arguably better known than any Nirvana song with the exception of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

So?

Counting Crows epitomized everything that was disposable in the ’90s from Sha-La-Las of “Mr. Jones” to anything they have done afterwards.

I’m glad they made their money. Good for them. But to call their music anywhere in the zip code of Nirvana’s is utterly laughable.

As for Mr. Hyden, I inferred from the story he’s a year older than I am. I loved Nirvana and could not stand Counting Crows, the Wallflowers, Candlebox, Gin Blossoms and all of the other “alternative” bands of that era. I hated the shows Friends, Seinfeld and ER.

We came of age in the same era. So it just amazes me that he could justify what he’s trying to sell.

So here’s “Beeswax”

People call the skies gray, but it always looked purple to me. Perhaps purple connotes something more colorful and vibrant rather than the malaise that comes with gray.

The weather says it’s overcast and 67 degrees just about an hour before high noon. It’s quite the change from the weather a couple of weeks ago that involved tittie sweat and pheromones. It was really the only heat spell we had here in Los Angeles all summer long.

With so little butt-sniffing season, it’s a little sad to see autumn come so soon. Of course, it’s in September and October that we tend to get the hottest weather in Los Angeles with the santa ana winds, the wildfires and all around horniness. So I’m holding out hope for that. Or it could just be SAD.

 
I’ve been trying to find more personal blogs written by gay dudes, but most are:

• defunct
• politcal
• pop culture
• filled with porn and pictures stolen from other places
• very poorly designed

So I’ve been going on the archives and reading what I think is the best personal website ever made: Dante Woo.

It’s forcing me to make an effort. I’ve done some things here and there. Or, to put it bluntly, I’m stealing stuff directly from Dante Woo. I would feel bad about it normally, but his blog is completely defunct and he has a lovely job at the Wall Street Journal.
 

Fuck you.