yesterday was a busy day of me getting my car diagnosed and summarily fixed. after leaving my car to get a new water pump installed and walking back to the manse, i saw this music doll orphaned on the sidewalk. when i was little we had a couple of these dolls in our living room. after you wind up these dolls, the head rotates slowly as a music box plays “it’s a small world” or some other song of that ilk.

i never realized how spooky these things actually looked like, so i just left it right where it was. when i walked back to pick up my car about four hours later, it was gone. i wonder if it is possessed by some evil child. who knows?

fridays are acupuncture day, and today i asked him to take out blood higher up on my leg rather than just on the foot. he obliged and was surprised at how much of the coagulated blood came out. as gruesome and barbaric as it might seem, my foot and ankle are a lot better.

i got through jack womack’s first novel ambient the other day. it’s one of those dystopian cyberpunkish novels that i’d been meaning to read since the late 90s. there were some awfully great romantic lines.

I wished we could hug until we’d crushed each other’s bones.

“You look good enough to beat,” she said, winking.

Here is something religous, also:

The Q documents-discovered by a team of Israeli and American archaeologists-were the long-lost original gospels. They detailed how Jesus, a trusting sort, was hired by Pilate to spread confusion among warring Jewish factions; how Judas found out and so betrayed his betrayer; how Jesus, pulled from the cross in time’s nick by those wishing to use the affair for their own effect, recovered and was by accident seen by his horrified followers; how some of his followers were so horrified that they wished to kill him-again; how Jesus escaped with his wife, Mary Magdalene; how he died, at an advanced age, somewhere far from Gethsemane. You can infer the rest.

i do sometimes wonder what the world would be like if we fagolas grabbed it by the balls and took over. surely we can’t fuck things up any worse than the fucking breeders we have in charge right now.

i woke up this morning to the news that a malaysia airlines flight with 280 passengers and 15 crew member were shot down by russian separatists in eastern ukraine. maybe. regardless, all 295 were killed. there are reports that armed russian separatists won’t let anyone near the crash site. there are reports that the airspace was open. there are reports that the airspace is closed.

after my run, saw the news that israel was going to begin a ground invasion of gaza. so perhaps israel is after more than killing four kids on a beach in gaza? then again i could just be spreading hamas propaganda.

the problem i have with all of this is that i have no idea what information to believe. everything i wrote could be just mere bullshit used to anger one side of the issue to the point of violence.

i want to take all of the world leaders and lock them in a room and tell them to deal with their bullshit. don’t think about restitution, debt, money or anything like that. just deal with the bullshit we are seeing or just die in the room.

not helping my mood is hearing elaine stritch died. and sometimes i realize how futile everything i described above is when we’re just going to be a dead sack of bones and blood anyhow. so fuck it, right?

did the ocean trails/trump trails/whatever-the-fuck-its-name-is which i really enjoy. sometimes there are cute guys without their shirts. today no such luck though. i think there are tons of fishies just off the shore because the pelicans and the sea gulls were flying very low skimming the water. the dark stuff in the water you see above aren’t schools of fish. they’re kelp beds. mmmm! seaweed.

i didn’t watch nor care about the all star game yesterday, but i guess they said a couple of words about glenn burke, the former dodger and athletic from the 70s and 80s and supposed creator of the high-five. yes, he was gay and al campanis and that shitbag turned manager turned mascot tommy lasorda didn’t like that jettisoning him to oakland because of it. so after soccer, the nba and the nfl got an openly gay player, baseball is finally getting around to confronting their own homophobic past.

i also heard the broadcast didn’t mention tony gwynn. very fucking classy.

speaking of circle jerks, it looks like the espys are tonight. anyone who cares about this should be automatically sterilized.

i still go once a week for acupuncture on my left foot. as you can see, they bleed me which sounds barbaric but it helps. i’m back doing my little hikes as before which is good.

while out on the trails today, several drops of sky water hit me on the noggin. i’m told that the monsoonal moisture that usually hits arizona and new mexico has seeped its way to california. so there it was, the first bits of sky water seen since march 2.

just purchased the domain name for the podcast, thebandjpodcast.com. brendan and i will need to adjust its bits and dangles. i guess i should start by creating a twitter and facebook account for it?

This podcast marks the return of sound effects!!! I apologize that they tend to drown out some the words we say, but most of our words are rubbish anyway. I will make sure to fix that in the next podcast.

This episode showcases my love for Courtney Love and Hole. The opening song is “Asking for It” with Kurt Cobain doing duet duties. The closing song is “Turpentine”, one of the first songs Hole wrote and recorded.

We talk about:

* The Tata Tops – bikini tops that look like exposed breasts
* Israel v. Palestine
* The Emmys
* The problem with Aaron Sorkin
* LeBron James
* The 35th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night and House music.
* Brendan’s newsletter

You can subscribe to the podcast with the RSS feed or on iTunes.

I’m not saying this because I’m happy LeBron James is returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Hell, I could care less where the hell he was to take his talents to. But the way LeBron James has subverted the normal “means of production” makes him a folk hero in my eyes.

LeBron James is the most powerful man in the NBA. Not the commissioner, not the owners, not the broadcasters. An employee — the worker in the classic Marxist archetype — has the power to ground all business to a halt, which is what LeBron has done for the past several days: Chris Bosh had to wait for the decision which in turn halted any business the Houston Rockets could do; Carmelo Anthony had to see where LeBron wound up so he could fully weigh his options which affected what the Lakers and Knicks could do; and let’s not forget the Chicago Bulls.

Hell, the weight of this decision even had the power of what ESPN would air: naturally once he makes the decision no matter the hour, they would have to drop everything and air a 72-hour special all LeBron all the time.

Which singular athlete has this much power?

Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo, Barry Bonds, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin? None of them has the power LeBron does to paralyze a league to a halt while waiting for him to choose where he wants to play.

In the classic Marxist analysis of capitalism you have the the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the owners and the workers. Marx supposed that the exploitation of the workers would create a revolution leading to a socialist paradise. We have seen the results of these revolutions abroad and have not seen a similar uprising here in America.

But here is LeBron completely subverting this relationship of exploiter and exploited. He has garnered power by his superlative play on the court to exploit the exploiters. He ground their business to a standstill for days. He forced an apology and groveling from an NBA owner. He indirectly programed the most powerful sports media disseminator.

Now, the NBA isn’t a perfect capitalist enterprise, but the greed by the owners as exhibited by the lockout a couple of years ago certainly echo those of the hypercapitalists that have put our economy in the state that it is.

Even if you don’t buy this Marxist interpretation I’ve laid out, you’ve got to appreciate LeBron for getting an owner to see the error of his ways (Dan Gilbert, Quicken Loans) and send another owner into a depression (Micky Arison, Carnival Cruise Lines).

As a side note, I was amused by the lots of people who were mad at LeBron for the media circus that surrounded him the past few days. It should be noted that LeBron didn’t say anything — most of the noise was generated by the basketball media in a way to justify their own existence.

San Diego Padres third baseman Chase Headley fouled off three pitches from Clayton Kershaw with two strikes in the sixth inning. Headley did the same thing in the first inning only to strike out on an 88 mph slider, so there was no real sense of doom or foreboding here.

Kershaw was one out away from recording his 42nd consecutive scoreless inning. He still was quite a ways from Orel Hershiser’s 59 scoreless innings, but with each pitch and each inning that was coming more and more real. In a way all of this seemed appropriate. When Hershiser broke Don Drysdale’s record of 58 consecutive scoreless innings in 1988, Drysdale was a broadcaster for the team. Now, Hershiser is a broadcaster for the team.

As in the first inning Kershaw threw an 88 mph slider to Headley, and this time Headley did not miss it. The groan from the 50,332 fans as the ball came of the bat was clearly audible. As the ball flew towards the pavilion seats in left-centerfield, the groans turned into an urging for the ball to stay in the park, as if the crowd were trying to will Kershaw’s scoreless streak to remain intact by their sheer will.

But no chance. The ball cleared the wall, and the disappointment was heard loud and clear. But rather than wallow, the fans stood up and cheered in appreciation of the 41 scoreless innings. Kershaw had no choice but to shake it off.

“Headley is a good hitter,” Kershaw told Alana Rizzo after the game. “He put a good swing on it.”

I said on the latest episode of the B&J Podcast that Clayton Kershaw would go down as the greatest pitcher ever. Whether or not that actually happens, we are witnessing a pitcher having one the most dominant stretches ever seen.

Kershaw was just selected for his fourth consecutive All Star game. He won two of the last three National League Cy Young Awards, coming in second to one-year wonder R.A. Dickey in the other year. For three consecutive seasons he led the Majors in ERA.

And, much to the horror of hitters around the league, Kershaw may be having his best season yet. Just take a look at his WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched). Last season he lead the Majors with a 0.915 WHIP. Prior to this game he was at 0.870 which would put him in the top 25 single-season WHIP ever.

Despite missing more than a month, Kershaw has already amassed 126 strikeouts. He’s striking out 11.9 batters per nine innings, the most in the Majors. He’s only giving up 1.2 walks per nine innings.

In other words you can’t hit him, and he doesn’t give up walks.

Perhaps there was a sign that Kershaw’s quest would come to a screeching halt. There was a snafu to the Hello Kitty travel mug giveaway that was supposed to happen tonight. According to Jill Painter:

Those who didn’t get the mug were given vouchers to pick them up at a later date.

This is Frank McCourt-esque levels of bumbling. Moral of the story? To channel the great Clan of Wu Tang, Hello Kitty ain’t nuttin’ to fuck wit’.

With the 2-1 win, the Dodgers take a one-game lead over the Giants who lost to the Athletics 6-1 earlier in the day.

yesterday a kid went cliff diving off of inspiration point, close by where i take my hikes. you can see it in the above picture, the promontory closest to the center. we’ve had rip current warning here in southern california for the last week or so. right as the kid dove, the waves overpowered him and he’s been missing ever since. the la times described him as a “weak swimmer”. how can you enjoy diving off of cliffs and be a weak swimmer?

i remember back in 2010 espn pulling arash markazi’s piece on partying with lebron james. it sounds like nike killed another profile piece that was written back in 2011. they said it was cynical and negative. i didn’t think so. but then again for several years i wrote about sports on a regular basis.

oink oink. yup, it took me 30 minutes to kill half a watermelon. now i’m pissing like the mulholland fountain for the rest of the day.

someone came to this website using the search term “need to be castrated”. should i be scared? intrigued?

i’m listening to hole a lot this week. the rage on the early stuff is pretty fantastic. “i know all you bitches by your christian names” “i can really fuck you up / cuz i’m the demon buttercup”

there is some bullshit going on about prince fielder posing nude for the cover of espn: the magazine’s body issue. some is good. i ain’t no fan of the motherfucker, but kudos to him for doing it. besides most people with bulging muscles and carapace-like torsos only have it for show. basically functionless muscles like the colorful plumage of peacocks.

it’s always thought that the waters in southern california are brown and polluted, that people swim and surf in a toxic sludge that causes infertility and the growth of redundant appendages. but while hiking/jogging today, the ocean looked so colorful, so blue, so clean. sure, it doesn’t mean the water is any cleaner. a third arm may still grow from swimmers. but it sure looks purdy, don’t it?

“homestar runner” might be returning which is probably the best news i’ve heard in a long time.

sarah palin wants obama to be impeached. it reminds me of a joke i heard on vice’s video series “kids telling dirty joke”. what’s the difference between sarah palin’s mouth and her vagina? only 1/5 of shit that comes out of her vagina is retarded.

speaking of vice, monica heisey interviewed auntie angel the sex teacher on vice. she is doing great woman doing god’s/cthulu’s/buddha’s work. give her a medal or something. if you don’t know angel, you might remember her teaching folks how to give head with the aid of a grapefruit which includes some impressive “sound effects”.