Yesterday I had five-hour lunch with a couple of sportswriters in Long Beach. Yeah, it took that long to catch up on things. We are a chatty bunch, and I’m sure we would have felt bad if the restaurant were busier. There were tales of being on the road, drunkenness and former players still living up their glory days. Tales of former glories and current frustrations.

Usually the only real conversation I have is with Brendan when we record our podcast every Saturday. I’m not a good telephone person, so that’s about it aside from small talk here and there with neighbors and family. So that’s why it was nice to be in real conversation yesterday.

It was nice to be away from the news of the day, the “hot takes”, the outrage. Most of you people are obnoxious.

For years I heard our national anthem. I’ve heard great renditions of it. I’ve heard mediocre renditions of it. I’ve heard it butchered so badly I wanted to throw canned hams at the singer. I’ve heard it vamped beyond recognition by a bunch of talentless nobodies who thought they were Whitney Houston. A few times when a Canadian team was in town, I have heard “O Canada”.

It needs to stop. If we need to be reminded at sporting events what country we live in, we’re in worse trouble than previously imagined.

Oh. Above is this week’s Handjob, Blowjob and Anal.

Firstly I forgot to post this bit here, so here it goes. One of these days, “Handjob, Blowjob and Anal” will be semi-good.

Secondly, I saw my therapist for the second time yesterday. There I was crying like a little baby. I don’t know if it’s normal to be crying like that on meeting number 2, but there I was.

Thirdly, I’m on a new water pill for my blood pressure, so I’m pissing a lot more than normal.

Fourthly, my eyes have improved. From -5.50 in both eyes, now my left eye is -4.50 and my right eye is -5.00. So yay me?

Okay, I’m not the best in the selfie game. I’m trying to look nonplussed here. I end up looking like I had just sucked off a gargantuan elephantitis cock and gotten my jaw unhinged and dislocated. Or tried to eat a very big slice of pie.

This morning I got my obese fucking ass out for a jog. Halfway through the run, it feels like there’s an eyelash in my left eye. Part of my vision in my left eye goes blurry. So I drag my fat ass back home, take the contact lens out and see that there was a rip down the middle. Great.

The modus operandi is to throw both lenses out and open up a new pair. Except I was on my last pair. And being the lazy asshole I am, I totally overextended these lenses trying to delay going to an optometrist and getting an eye exam. Naturally the earliest available appointment is next Thursday. So it will be a week of glasses for me!

On the upside, I shaved my balls yesterday so at least I have that going for me.

Last week’s handjob, blowjob and anal. Fun fact: I’m not wearing pants in this video.

Here is a mixtape I made several weeks ago that can also be found on MixCloud:

1. Dear PMRC – Karen Finley
2. Rebel Girl – Bikini Kill
3. Such a Beautiful Girl Like You – Pizzicato Five
4. 보라빛 향기 (Violet Fragrance) – 강 수지 (Kang Su-Ji)
5. Satisfaction (I Can’t Get No) – Otis Redding
6. Good Vibrations – Psychic TV
7. Teenage Lightning 2 – Coil
8. We Fenced Other Houses with Bones of Our Own – Liars
9. Glory to Jesus, I Am Free – Rev. Utah Smith
10. Baby’s Insane – Diamanda Galas
11. Crackhead Waltz – RX
12. Like a Little Bitch – Mu
13. Salvo – Skinny Puppy
14. Ten Pounds of Shit in a Five Pound Bag – Retox
15. Love Comes in Spurts – Richard Hell and the Voidoids
16. Price Yeah! – Pavement
17. Fucking Hostile (Biomechanical Remix) – Pantera
18. Fabulous Muscles – Xiu Xiu

There are movie clips in there too from Female Trouble, Billy Jack and lord knows what else.

For those of you who are illiterate, here you go.

Bless their hearts. Koreans try their best to drive like normal people, but something in their DNA makes this impossible. The kids think they’re speed racers with their stupid fucking mod-ed rice rockets, and their parents don’t pay attention to anything around them when they drive.

Twice a week I take my grandmother to the acupuncturist in a Korean plaza in Gardena, and I know that I’m taking my life in my hands each time I enter this plaza. From drivers going the wrong way of traffic and ignoring signs written in both English and Korean, it’s a wonder I haven’t died at the hands of Kim Jong-somethingorother by now.

So you see the photo above? Let’s see it annotated below:

Sure, the building is not the best designed building. In fact, I’m convinced both the architect and the owner both require soft helmets while riding a short bus. But this asshole White Lexus thought it was okay to drive over a CLEARLY MARKED WALKWAY for a handicap parking space and park in the unmarked no-man’s land. Just like that.

This is probably not the most outrageous thing I have seen in this plaza, but this is the first one I documented. I’ll do more to show people why the Koreans, like the Armenians, should all have their drivers licenses revoked.

Upon leaving, there was a lady in a Honda Accord attempting to park in a marked parking space. Hey, she’s got one leg up on the competition there. However in attempting this move, she parked right next to a Jeep Cherokee that was parked correctly in the marked space. RIGHT next to it, as in she scraped up the Jeep.

I love my peoples.

And that is exactly what a bow tie says. Not that you’re powerless, but that you’re impotent. People offer to take you home not because you’re sexy but because you’re sex-less, a neutered cat in need of a good stiff cuddle.

— David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, “Buddy, Can You Spare a Tie?”, 2008, p. 62.

Reading
– The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
– The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
– Bitter Orange by Marshall Moore
– Watch Me: A Memoir by Anjelica Huston
– Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
– Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon
– Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris

Music
– Nine Inch Nails
– Ladytron
– Sonic Youth
– Depeche Mode

Watching
– I’ve been watching more and more sports recently now that playoff season has arrived. The first round of the NBA playoffs was mostly rubbish, but now they’re getting interesting. I guess I’ll write more about that.
– I watched the original Star Wars movie for the very first time. What a painfully mediocre movie. I don’t quite understand how people lose their shit over this movie. Barbarella was a far better movie.

Here are random pictures of a shoe, a gopher snake and clouds.

I’m a grown-ass man. I covered baseball, specifically the Dodgers, from 2009 to 2013. Yet here I am watching the Dodgers home opener completely excited and enthralled.

Of course with Clayton Kershaw pitching for the Dodgers, it had the making of a perfect day. I still remember the home opener in 2013 against the Giants as he dueled against Matt Cain. They exchanged 0s for six innings when Cain parted for George Kontos in the seventh inning. Kontos got through one inning unscathed. In the bottom of the eighth inning with the game still a scoreless tie, Kershaw led off. The first pitch he saw, Kershaw deposited it over the centerfield wall opening the floodgates. The Dodgers scored three more in the inning to support Kershaw who pitched the ninth for the complete game shutout.

I didn’t quite envision that happening today, but I certainly didn’t expect to see Kershaw’s slider being an enigma. The reigning Cy Young and MVP winner looked mortal, and it was a bit unsettling as the new-look Padres kept fighting off pitch after pitch they saw. Perhaps it’s because it’s so early in the season, but Kershaw didn’t have these hitters under his spell.

Matt Kemp, now wearing a different shade of blue, had a single and double off of Kershaw and was responsible for driving in the three runs the Padres scored. Meanwhile the Dodger hitters were kept under control by James Shield. While his game wasn’t big, his only hiccup came in the fourth inning when he gave up a homer, triple and double to Adrian Gonzalez, Howie Kendrick and Carl Crawford respectively that gave the Dodgers their two runs.

With the bullpens entered in the seventh inning, it’s ridiculous that I felt miffed by the 3-2 deficit. Again: grown-ass man, sportswriter’s cynicism. I shouldn’t be getting so grouchy over one game that wasn’t even over. I know better than this!

Then the newcomers did their job. Kendrick doubled home Gonzalez in the seventh to tie the game, and the palpitations stopped for a second. And in the eighth inning to save the fingernails of all of us in the Southland, Jimmy Rollins — who killed the Dodgers in 2008 and 2009 in the playoffs alongside his Phillies teammates — puts the game on ice with a three-run bomb to right field for the 6-3 lead.

I stood up and cheered. And even though this was the first time since 2005 I wasn’t in attendance at Dodger Stadium for the home opener, there were plenty of folks in my ‘hood who were whoopin’ it up just the same.

In 2007 when I started writing for LAist, I was a big Dodger fan. The more I covered them, the closer I got to them, the more I saw how the sausage was made, the more cynical I became. There’s plenty there to be upset about. The new television deal that has heaped tons of money upon the team but has ripped the team away from 70% of the televisions in the Southland. Lon Rosen’s decisions in hiring shrill deafening in-stadium hostesses for between-inning entertainment, for getting mascots “unique performance characters”, for continually reducing organist Nancy Bea Hefley’s workload year after year against her wishes.

But there I was in the eighth inning cheering that MY DODGERS had the 6-3 lead. The Dodgers are more than Time Warner Cable, more than Lon Rosen, more than any individual or issue. They are the blue, the team of Jackie Robinson, of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Don Newcombe, Fernando Valenzuela.

Not only did the Dodgers win the game, they have won me back as a fan. This is going to be a fun season.