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”.

We are back! Brendan went missing last week having gone camping last week rather than spend an hour or so talking with me. Since I’ve been in a pop mood, we opened with Annie’s cover of “Two of Hearts” and ended with MU’s “Paris Hilton”.

We talk about:

* Go Girl, the female urination device
* Snowpiercer and The Host
* Grieving Koreans
* Brendan’s adventures in Sequoia
* Hobby Lobby and the war against women and the Affordable Care Act
* What if Christians chose the wrong religion?
* Power bottoms and how easy it is to mock fundamentalist Christians
* My illiteracy
* Shia LaBeouf and performance art
* Menstrual blood and its use in protest
* Fuck the Human Rights Campaign
* Two minutes of sports (which became 10 minutes)

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

most everyone knows my general distaste for children, but this one seems to be evil enough to have blown past that wall. after all, when she says, “uncuh jimmy,” how else am i supposed to react?

she also has some habits that are near and dear to my heart. for example, she doesn’t like wearing pants. pants off dance off!

so this little shit was a little terror about me this independence day. then again, some of it was my own fault. i did instigate her a little. after all what sort of “uncuh jimmy” would i be if i didn’t influence her in a bad way?

it was a good independence day. tons of meaty meats, pasta salad, fruit salad (cannibalism!), apple pie and stuff. tons of illegal fireworks set off by neighbors. not bad, really.

i had some time to kill waiting to pick up my aunt from lax today since her flight was delayed. somehow, i found myself in manchester square.

i just wanted to find a spot to park and read, and as i drove around i noticed a lot of fences. a lot. then i remember reading about ghost towns recently popping up lately because of proposed lax expansions that have gone by the wayside over the years. i thought this was supposed to be an expansion of the north runways of lax.

it turns out there really hasn’t been concrete plan for this neighborhood. as dan weikel wrote in the la times on oct. 27, 2013:

Nancy Castles, an airport spokeswoman, said the city developed a voluntary purchase program in 1999 to replace soundproofing after a majority of Manchester Square property owners filed a petition with LAX officials. The approach, she said, has provided flexibility during the planning process and made land available for future airport projects.

Airport officials acknowledge that no plan to reuse the land has ever been finalized. During the administration of Mayor Richard Riordan, a cargo facility was discussed. Mayor James Hahn later proposed a giant transportation/check-in center, part of an ambitious LAX master plan challenged in court.

Planners are now eyeing other possibilities, such as a consolidated car rental facility, additional parking and a public transportation hub to accommodate light rail trains and a people mover to serve passenger terminals. Construction could be at least a decade away, assuming those plans proceed at all.

so it was cheaper for LAX to buy out the residents one-by-one rather than mitigate the noise from the airport.

also, as curbed pointed out, the neighborhood was used as a setting for a disaster movie.

some surprising things:

* there is still street sweeping. in the still occupied part of the ‘hood, i was looking for a place to sit and read. because i didn’t want to make a u-turn or three-point turn, i kept driving further and further into the heart of what was once a neighborhood.

* they just repaved. when i finally turned around as i was taking some of these pictures, i noticed by tire marks what seemed to be newly-laid asphalt. i didn’t and still don’t know what to make of that.

it sounds like there will be plans for this ‘hood after all. as laura j. nelson reported on the la times on june 26, it will be the rental car hub of the newly-approved $200 million light-rail station and spur for the airport.

manchester square is far from the eerily picturesque seaside ghost ‘hood of surfridge which is just west of lax. but that abandonment in the ’60s and ’70s, a long period of time according to our collective unconsciousness. but manchester square started in the last 20 years and is still in the process of happening which i find fascinating.

it’s been nice getting back into a hiking rhythm again. i basically took last week off since after fisting class last saturday i came down with a really bad migrane while driving home. the pain shifted all over the right side of my head last week. that probably means i’m going to die or something. one can only hope.

now that the us is out of the world cup, the sports media/shouters are having their quadrennial debate about whether soccer has finally made it in america. who cares? if you like soccer, keep watching it. if you don’t, don’t. it’s almost bad as the fucking retards who spent the entire world cup so far on twitter just bashing the game and the round-robin format of the group stage. we get that you love [insert favorite sport] above any other sport that others may enjoy. no one really cares, really. you just end up looking like a cunt.

i think i’m going to use flickr more than instagram. i like the editing capabilities of flickr more than instagram.

just because it’s now july doesn’t mean june gloom has left us yet. it’s still clinging on, and for some reason it feels like it’s been more humid lately than it has been in past summers. i can’t wait for august and september when the pure heat starts and this humidity vanishes. hopefully.

but the gloom is a bit appropriate. mexico was ousted the other day in the world cup. today the us bows out. so there is a bit of that in the air.

The long-standing practice at these AMBOPEDIA get-togethers is to visit literal geographical borderlines, a different one each year. – Ch. 2

…Giuliani and his developer friends and the forces of suburban righteousness have swept the place Disneyfied and sterile… – Ch. 5

There is also her mostly unavowed fascination with Latrelle Sprewell and his history of coach assault, on the principle that Homer strangling Bart we expect, but when Bart strangles Homer… – Ch. 16.

…a steamy August evening out to Queens to a strip club called Joie de Beavre. – Ch. 20

once you get past the fact this is pynchon, the book is enjoyable. it reads like 41 different short stories that have the same plot thread unifying them. it’s certainly not as obtuse as gravity’s rainbow, and you can get through the book fairly quickly.

of course with the story set in 2001, i was constantly going back to the state of the web back then. and as futuristic this story may seem — a tech-ish mystery caper novel — it’s also quite retro. it reads like film noir

as you may have heard on the latest podcast, brendan and i attended the fisting class hosted by his employer stockroom and presented by damon holzum. there was an adorable boy wearing the t-shirt pictured above.

the first hour was instructional filled with information and guidance about lubes, toys, opening up the ass. the second hour was the live demonstration where we saw damon stick his fist in aaron’s ass. hearing aaron’s moans and watching him tremble in the throes of body orgasms — plural — was the real turn on.

there was nothing nefarious about it. the actual fisting was very gentle and loving, and it was a very sex-positive environment: there was a nice mix of old and young, straight and gay, boys and girls, top and bottom. if everyone could have this sort of sex education, the world would probably a bit nicer to exist in.