SEASONS IN HELL, VOL. II, NO. 1

April 23-25, 2010

Pirates (7-8) vs. Astros (5-10)

Pam Gardner’s Boudoir Brick House
501 Crawford
Houston, TX 77002

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REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL, Part 33. They are 4-2 recently, but the Astros started 2010 by going 0-8, which is fucking scary, I don’t care what anyone says. Will they ever win again? Are they a lot worse than even my low pre-season opinion of them? Jesus Christ!

To answer those questions, yes, and maybe. They finally won, and then went on a 4-game winning streak, but I still suspect this Astros team is really, really bad. I think what struck me most about the sorry start was how Lee and Pence totally folded without Berkman in the lineup for an extended stretch. Thanks, guys, for showing what you’re really made of.

The Astros are now back on track for their 65 wins or whatever, but I will not soon forget the stark wake-up call the first eight games of this season turned out to be.

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An 0-8 record to start the season is kind of like waking up on Monday morning and stubbing the fuck out of your toe on the way to the bathroom to take a piss. You knew you should’ve shoved those boots further up under the edge of the bed when you took ‘em off last night, but. . . Goddamn, it’s painful, and you’re thinking, “What a way to start the week, this is probably a vivid precursor to the next five days. Motherfuck!”

After several minutes of impressive if pointless anger directed at inanimate objects, the pain begins to recede a little, and you start to get your perspective back. The stubbed toe is going to be tender well into the coming week, but it doesn’t hurt anymore on its own. Just have to make some adjustments until it heals, and deal with it. Only a pussy whines for very long about a stubbed toe.

A 0-8 record to start the season is sort of like lying in bed asleep at night, and feeling a familiar stirring in your loins. “Oh boy, we’re about to have a sex dream,” your unconscious mind tells you. “Sweet. I wonder who it’ll be this time?”

Will it be an old girlfriend from college? Maybe the really wild one you loved so much even though everyone you knew told you she was wrong, wrong, wrong for you? Will it be the older lady at your church, who always smiles at you and finds socially acceptable ways to put her hands on you whenever you meet? She is very pretty for fifty-whatever, and your secret fantasy is that she is also very uninhibited, once you get away from the Divine Mercy thing your parish is having and find yourself alone with her somewhere. Or, will it be the neighbor down the street’s wife, the one with the sizeable endowments who is always doing something out in the yard, planting hibiscus and shit, and flashing major cleavage, thus spinning you off in a confused mix of lust and guilt every time you see her?

Your sleeping head sinks back into the cool, goose-down pillows, and you wait for your interior movie to start. You’ll happily take any of those options for this evening’s entertainment. Imagine your dismay, then, when you open the bedroom door in your dream and you see lying there, reclining in white silk sheets and staring at you intently, none other than Houston Astros Chief Financial Officer Pam Gardner, clad in a red silk bustier, black garters with snaps, black thong panties, and sheer black hose. A smile steals across her lips as she spies you, and she heartily beckons you to join her in her bed. “Come hither,” she warbles, in a distinctly baritone voice. “Come and get what you have coming to you, boy,” she says, as she luxuriates in the sheets and bats her eyes in your direction. Against all your instincts and all your will, you feel yourself being sucked inexorably toward that bed, and the hideous thing occupying it, who is ready now to satisfy your every desire, even if you really, really would rather she didn’t.

Hey.  It’s a fucking 0-8 record to open the season, baby, and no one ever said it would be pretty.

I went out last night and I got messed up
When I woke up this morning
You shoulda seen what I had in the bed with me
She comes up at me out of the bed
Pulls her hair down over her eyes
Looks at me like a dying can of that commodity meat
And she says, and she says
Woo ee ah ah! [1]

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PITCHING MATCHUPS

Friday April 23, 2010
Game Time: 7:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FISH-HEAD
Promotion: The first 10,000 fans get a 45th Anniversary Blanket, which actually looks pretty cool, only there is no size listed; so don’t be surprised if it turns out to be more like a 45th Anniversary Hand Towel. But the question I have is, 45th Anniversary?? For whatever reason, the franchise is apparently intent now on pretending the first three years of its existence never happened.
Matchup: Pittsburgh – Paul Maholm (1-1, 4.58) Maholm (Mah HALL um) is a decent-looking lefty, a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter like every team needs. If he is ‘on’, he will be hard for the Astros to score on. Of course, pretty much everyone is hard for the Astros to score on. Houston – Roy Oswalt (1-2, 2.37) Roy-O has pitched better his first three starts this season than I can remember in awhile. He’s been the victim of poor run support, but don’t let the W-L record fool you. Oswalt is pitching like the old Oswalt, and that is a very good thing.

Saturday April 24, 2010
Game Time: 6:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FISH-HEAD
Promotion: First 10,000 fans get a Jose Cruz bobble head, which is definitely worth making the trip out to the ballpark for. My only complaint is they didn’t get Cruz’ hair quite right. It’s not nearly big enough.
Matchup: Pittsburgh – Chris Jakubauskas (0-0, 0.00) It is described that his body was discovered by a Brother of the Order, in a perfect state of conservation, 120 years after his death (which occurred in absolute secrecy) – as had been predicted – in a chamber erected by himself as a storehouse of knowledge. It is described that on the sarcophagus in the centre of his crypt were written, among other inscriptions the words, “Jesus mihi omnia, nequaquam vacuum, libertas evangelii, dei intacta gloria, legis jugum,” (being in translation, “Jesus is everything to me, by no means a vacuum/a vacuum by no means exists, the freedom of the good news/gospel, the inviolate glory of god, the yoke of the law”) testifying to the builder’s Christian character. The crypt, according to the description presented in the legend, seems to be located in the interior parts of the Earth, recalling the alchemical motto VITRIOL: “Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem (“Visit the Interior Parts of the Earth; by Rectification Thou Shalt Find the Hidden Stone.”). Houston – Wandy Rodriguez (0-2, 4.67) After shaky outings in both his first two starts of 2010, Wandy pitched well last time out, in Chicago. He is 4-4, 4.60 in 11 career starts vs. Pittsburgh.

Sunday April 25, 2010
Game Time: 1:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FISH-HEAD
Promotion: Some bullshit family day discounts, whatever.
Matchup: Pittsburgh – Charlie Morton (0-3, 16.55) In addition to this season’s horrific start, Morton is 0-2, 7.88 in three career starts vs. the Astros. Talk about adding salt to the wound. When it rains it pours, I guess. Houston – Brett Myers (0-1, 4.05) By the late 1970s, his use of cocaine was becoming a serious problem. It affected his ability to maintain an erection. To support himself and his drug habit, he ventured into crime, selling drugs for gangs, prostituting himself to both men and women, and committing credit card fraud and petty theft. In 1976, he met a 16-year old girl who became his girlfriend. After he fell on hard times, he prostituted both her and himself, as well as beating her in public.

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TRANQUILITY LAKES BLUE(AND CLEAR)S, Part 1.

Sam Houston Beltway
Ridin’ on a wet day
Beneath the San Jacinto
Out where the great ship channel flows

Driving past the stadium
I’ll never get in
Listenin’ to Mr. Ray or Mr. Doe
Mindless drivel on the radio

Hey, Pam Gardner, please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me

Maybe you got a dish
Maybe you got a package on your PC
The only thing that I got
Is the AM in this Mercury

Hey, Pam Gardner, please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me

In the wee, wee hours
I don’t know what I’m living for
Radio relay towers
‘Sposed to transmit me the final score

But the radio’s jammed up
With talk show dickheads
Just give their take, take, take, take
Who won the game? They never said

Hey, Pam Gardner, please don’t stop me

Hey, somebody tell McLane
Who’s driving his choo-choo train
A Nazi dyke with an MBA
Gonna drive me fucking insane [2]

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INJURIES

Pittsburgh
•Andy Van Slyke, Van Der Sloot La Roche (3B) and Ross Ohlendorf (RHP) are both out with back spasms. At the same time. Hmmmm. (NTTAWWT)

Houston
•Alberto Arias (RHP) – Decent-looking righty relief pitcher, IIRC Cooper overworked him at the end of last season. He is on the 15-day DL with right rotator cuff weakness, and still down in F-L-A trying to work things out. Thanks, Coop!

•Yorman Bazardo (RHP) – Erratic starter/reliever has a strained shoulder, which landed him on the 15-day DL. He should have begun rehab assignments this week.

•Sammy Gervacio (RHP) – Still another right-handed reliever, he of the spastic mound presence. I like having Sammy G. around. He is fun to watch. Too, there is always the chance that, after another of his singular gyrations during and after a meaningless 2-1 pitch, an opponent will stride purposefully out to the mound and kill him. He has been on the 15-day DL with a strained rotator cuff, and is currently rehabbing in Round Rock.

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TRANQUILITY LAKES BLUE(AND CLEAR)S, Part 2.

He will bring happiness in a quote
To him everything is just a joke
And apart from that he’ll hit the ball
Fifty feet over the wall
Yes, he will

Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time
Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time

He’ll go the other way with the pitch outside
Back up the middle if he’s of a mind
Then lay his bat down on the ground
As the bases he circles ‘round

Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time
Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time

He’ll knock in the run with a single thru the hole
Or with a drive off the Chick-Fil-A pole
Puts so much backspin on the ball
It accelerates over the wall
Yes, it will

Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time
Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time

He’ll bring happiness in a quote
To him everything is just a joke
And apart from that he’ll hit the ball
A hundred feet beyond the fucking wall
Yes, he will

Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time
Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time

We’ll be flying at an altitude of thirty-nine thousand feet
The Big Fat Puma at your service [3]

**********

DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. The dregs of the NL Central meet up this weekend for a three-game set at MMPUS which will decide absolutely nothing. These games make up the middle section of a home stand which will likely mark the last time until late September – by which time both these clubs should be tied for last, 56½ games out of first place – that Houston fans can watch a home game actually being played outdoors.

The Pirates played pretty well the first couple of weeks of this season, but they often do. Then along about mid-April, reality begins to set in. In fact, right now the two teams are streaking in opposite directions. The Pirates, after sweeping the Dickities at home last weekend, got taken apart by the Brewers. Not only did the Gay Swashbucklers lose all three games to the Gay Brewers in front of the home fans, they did so by the combined score of 1-36. Ouch. That’s some serious pipe-laying going on, there.

Meantime, after a truly horrific start (see above), the Astros have rebounded the last two series. First they dispatched the FTCs two-games-to-one last weekend in the Friendly Concubines; then they slapped the Fish down onto the old newspaper and cut them into filets this week at Minute Mermaid. Or something.

Truth is, I think I learned more about the 2010 Houston Astros during their 0-8 start than I have during this current string of mostly wins. As far as what to expect for the rest of this season, I mean. Maybe for the next several seasons.

This is the first team in the last several mediocre versions of the Astros that actually reminds me of what it was like in the 1970s and the late 80s/early 90s to be a fan of the Houston club. In a way, following teams like those can make one a better baseball fan. Knowing there is no point to it, one can completely shed the guise of the über home team fanboy and all the angst and sturm und drang that goes with that, and instead in a slightly detached way can get a better angle on the baseball itself. I know I have found myself recently appreciating the opposing teams more, and taking more than a passing interest in the other team’s players. While I would much rather be living and dying with a contending team, I am not really enjoying baseball in 2010 any less than I ever have.

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By the way, I can take or leave Bart Enis, but more and more I am thinking I’d like to go a few rounds with Patty Smith. Mmmmmm.

**********

I was settling in to watch the game the other night, but I was in more than a little pain – I’ve recently taken up tennis again seriously, for the first time in thirty years, and my knees and shoulders in particular are in open revolt against this decision. So I’d come home and gone through my wife’s bag of tricks, the one she keeps hidden in the back of the vanity in the master bathroom, and I fixed myself what she likes to call The Magic Cocktail – couple of Vicodin, backed up with Flexeril and Toradol, all of it washed down with an ice cold Heineken or three – and after awhile I realized how much I was enjoying just watching the game, even though the Astros were losing handily. And I remembered how many evenings I spent just like that back in the old days, under the spell of a sort of pleasant season-long somnolence, while the home team lost mostly, but the baseball was always good, anyway. I don’t think it was the pharmaceuticals – okay, maybe it partly was – but I had a feeling of peace and well-being wash over me the other night. I knew I was good to go for however long it took, watching baseball like this, waiting for the day when the Astros are contenders again, and I can go back to being a results-oriented, angst-ridden fool.

I look forward to that day, but in the meantime I’ll be just fine. And, hey, while you’re up, would you go to the fridge and get me another beer? Thanks.

**********

Astros get swept by the Gay Buccaroos, 0-3.

Mother, Mother Ocean, I have heard you call
I wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall
You’ve seen it all, you’ve seen it all

I’ve watched the men who rode you switch from sails to steam
And in your belly you hold the treasures few have ever seen
Most of ’em dreams, most of them dreams

Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothing to plunder
I’m an over forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late

I’ve done a bit of smuggling, I’ve run my share of grass
I made enough money to buy Miami, but I pissed it away so fast
Never meant to last, never meant to last [4]

THE WEATHER

[1] She Said
[2] State Trooper
[3] The Fat Angel
[4] A Pirate Looks At Forty

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SEASONS IN HELL, VOL. I, NO. 8

You’ve got to pick up every stitch
The rabbit’s running in the ditch
Beatniks are out to make it rich

September 18-20, 2009

Astros (70-76) vs. Brewers (71-75)

Drafty Leaky Collapsing Crane Park
999 Old Indian Burial Ground Rd.
Fat White People Scarfing Sausages, WI 13666

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Blue, blue, electric blue
That’s the color of the room
Where I will live

SOUND AND VISION.  I was maybe 10 or 11 years old, riding my bike home down our street one evening. It was late in the fall, not quite winter yet. The air was crisp, and the wind was making my nose run as I rode along. I had been at a friend’s house a couple of streets over, playing after school, and I was supposed to be home by dinner, which was usually around 6:15 or so. I wasn’t late yet, but it was going to be close. Thinking of that, I sped up my pedaling a bit.

Even though it was early evening, it was already dark out. I could see the light coming out of neighbors’ windows as I went down the street. They were probably already sitting down to eat, some of them. I sped up a bit more. Most of the houses had porch lights on already, and they twinkled in my eyes. The same wind that had caused my nose to run was making my eyes water a little bit, as well. “I wonder what’s for dinner?” I thought. “Am I late?”

As I leaned in and pedaled through the big curve around the Gibson’s house, three houses down from my own, I suddenly, instantly knew. Dinner was halupki, and yes, I was late. Dammit!

My mom only made halupki every once in awhile; but when she did, you could smell it halfway down the street. Halupki is cabbage rolls, basically. Pigs in a Blanket. My mother would brown ground pork and beef and onions and seasoning in bacon drippings in a heavy skillet, and steam a head of cabbage in tomato juice in a large stock pot; and then stuff the cabbage leaves with the meat mixture and put a couple dozen of the rolls back into the pot with more bacon drippings and onions and tomatoes, and a bunch of sauerkraut, and then let it all cook together for awhile. My mother’s mother, my maternal grandmother, was born in Austria-Hungary but was Czech, and my modern-ish 1960s mom would occasionally revert back to her ethnic roots and cook this Eastern European soul food for us for dinner, almost always in the fall and wintertime, which is when I suspect she got most nostalgic for the home of her youth (western Pennsylvania.)

I’m not a big fan of cabbage or it’s derivatives (broccoli, cauliflower, etc.) In fact, if you need proof that the sense of taste trumps smell, maybe for some argument you find yourself in, I think the fact humans enthusiastically consume cabbage-based dishes is as good an example as any. It is basically eating something that smells like garbage, at least going in.

Yet, given all that, I liked halupki all right. I don’t know how it evolved, but in our family it was the custom to scoop a couple of those cabbage rolls out of the big aluminum pot with a ladle, along with some tomato-cabbage juice and a clump of sauerkraut, and then dump it all on top of a mound of mashed potatoes you’d arranged on your plate previously. Mmmmmm. . . Czech comfort food. “Gut bombs”, my father called them.

It was a good idea to not have much on one’s agenda for the rest of the evening after a dinner like that. One wasn’t going to be very ambulatory. About the most one could manage would be a trip or two to the bathroom. Otherwise. . . about as ambitious as I normally got was sprawling out on the shag carpet in the den, in front of the console television set. I would get an hour or two of recovery time there before having to go take a bath and go to bed and to sleep, sometimes to horrendous dreams. . .

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PITCHING MATCHUPS

Friday September 18, 2009
Game Time: 7:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FSSW-HD
Promotion: Man, if you think the Astros game day promotions are chintzy, the Brewers give their fans coupons (pronounced kew puns). Tonight they get a sports authority coupon(?) and a Maytag gift card.
Matchup: Houston – Bud Norris (5-3, 5.44)  I’ve known two people in my life named Bud. One was one of my 9th grade football coaches and a physical science teacher, a white-belt-and-shoes-with-leisure-suit festooned, half-refined redneck of the type one ran into fairly often back in those days. He and I didn’t see eye to eye on very many things, let’s say. The other was a true wild man from south Louisiana who was my boss for a short while back in the late 1980s. They put a suit on him, too, but they couldn’t cover up the coon-ass, and the only thing that kept me from killing him at least once a week was. . . well, I don’t know what it was, but I am glad for it now, I guess. At any rate, neither one of those guys were my cup of tea, and I believe they have given me a strong prejudice against people who apparently don’t mind going around being called Bud. Of course, like most prejudices, mine is stupid and groundless, and I am sure there are some really terrific Buds out there. And I shouldn’t hold it against Norris, either. But I probably will. Milwaukee– Chris Narveson (1-0, 4.67) Narveson is a journeyman lefty, getting a few starts while Manny Parra is on the DL. The Astros last saw him in ’06, as a Co-ardinal.

Saturday September 19, 2009
Game Time: 6:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FSSW-HD
Promotion: Switching gears tonight, the teams hands out 2K sports coupons(?) to loyal fans. Oh yeah, it is Milwaukee Museum night (?), too.
Matchup: Houston– Brian Moehler (8-10, 5.01)  Moehler pitched well last time out, against Pittsburgh, but he has not had a very good second half, overall. He hasn’t pitched well against the Brewers, ever. Milwaukee– Jeff Suppan (6-10, 4.87)  Suppan has been a pretty good road pitcher this season, when not injured, but he sucks at home The Leaking Dump (2-7, 6.26 in 13 starts).

Sunday September 20, 2009
Game Time: 1:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FSSW-HD
Promotion: Today, the Brewers promotions department kicks out all the jams and gives away tens of thousands of bobble-head dolls. Of their general manager. Some guy named Doug.
Matchup: Houston– Felipé Paulino (2-9, 6.06) Paulino has been pitching really well lately, albeit with no run support. He hasn’t had much chance to go deep into games, either; Cecil Cooper seems intent on having all 15 guys in his bullpen end up with 70+ appearances this season, and the starters get pulled on a whim. Milwaukee – To Be Announced (0-0, 0.00) It is Gallardo’s turn, but the Brewers aren’t sure if they are going to shut him down for the season, or what. Ken Macha apparently knows less the fuck about what he is doing than Cecil Cooper, if that is possible. I’ve been thinking about that. Macha is on the hot seat in Milwaukee, and since Selig loves Cooper so much, maybe. . . well, I don’t want to jinx anything by saying any more about it.

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SOMETHING IN THE AIR TONIGHT. Naturally enough, most of us go through life using sight, sound and touch as our primary stimulatory senses. But I don’t discount smell and taste. Smell is especially, for me, quite evocative.  Especially off memories.

Believe it or not, 30-40 years ago even the upper Texas Gulf Coast had relatively distinct changes of seasons. Nothing as dramatic as further north, but by now there would have been a “cool snap”, a day or two where the high temperature had dropped into the 60s, just the very tip of some Canadian front that had dipped down into the area, just a hint that fall was around the corner.

In my neighborhood, as a kid, we only had two seasons – baseball and football. Once that first cool snap hit, we would put away the bats and gloves and get out the football. Our baseball season was suddenly, unceremoniously over. I remember having a bit of ambivalence, when I got that first whiff of fall in the air. I loved football back then, maybe even more than baseball, and I was always ready to play. But I guess I was a little sad, too, that I wouldn’t be playing baseball again ‘til spring; which at that point seemed really far off. I would carefully saturate the pocket of my glove with neatsfoot oil, put an old ball in there, and then tie it tightly closed with one of my mom’s dust rags. Then I’d put it under my bed, and not think about it again until the first “warm snap”, in February or early March, which would cause us all to shelve our football stuff and dig out the baseball gear again.

When I get a whiff of a cool snap now (maybe not until November), wow, it takes me right back to those days as a kid, stepping out the front door one Saturday morning and realizing, hey, baseball season just ended. Or, a little later in the fall, riding around the neighborhood on my bicycle to the smell of dried leaves burning in the front yards. Maybe the most evocative smell of all.

You know, the air has actually been a little cooler around here the last couple of days, mostly because it has been so rainy. But it has me thinking of ancient cool snaps, and of the end of the baseball season, just ahead.

I am actually even feeling a little ambivalent now, too. Strictly speaking, this has not been a season for the ages, Astros-wise. Still, on balance, I believe I have had more fun than not, following my team. Hell, I know I have. I wouldn’t trade this season, any season, for anything.

As a kid, I appreciated baseball on a very basic level. A tactile level. I loved the game because I loved to play it. Now, I am more visceral about it, I look at it more logically and with a bit more detachment, as my playing days are long behind me. I love baseball now because of the pleasure of just watching it. That is about as eloquent as I can be about it. If you get it, you know. If you don’t, there is no way I can adequately explain.

But still, even as I move more and more rapidly away from the pure joy of childhood play, I cannot quite let go of it. I am older now, yes; but I still love the idea of playing. If I can no longer go by all my friends’ houses and tell them to meet up in the schoolyard at 1:00, I can call or text message or e-mail them and tell them to meet up at 6:00 at my house, BYOB. Game starts at 7:00. Then we sit around the television set and, just like the old days, we gravitate into teams, factions; and we get loud and argumentative, and we laugh, and occasionally we marvel at what we see. And we while away the evening, playing at watching the Astros play.

When it is done, when the last empty cans are thrown away and the half-eaten bags of snacks are put up, I walk my last departing friend, who stuck around to help me clean up, to the front door. We step outside onto the front porch in the darkness, and we notice immediately how clear the night is. Stars everywhere. Low humidity. And just a bit of a nip in the air. “Fall is just around the corner,” I say to him.

Damn.

**********

INJURIES

Houston
•Pitchers Cooper fucked up

•Pitchers Cooper didn’t fuck up, but probably would have, given the chance

•Lance Berkman, who is day-to-day. (Guess what? We are all day-to-day.)

Milwaukee
•Bunch of panty-waists

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Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
How good, how good does it feel to be free?
And I answer them most mysteriously,
Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?

THE WATER LAND. One thing fall means in this area is the arrival of hunting season, and I hunt. Or rather, I used to hunt. Ducks, to be specific. Though, in this case, “hunt” is a rather misleading term, in the strictest sense. What I really did was hide myself in a bunch of tall reeds, or in a heavily camouflaged blind, in an area where I thought the ducks might be hanging out anyway, and then I waited for some to fly by.

The upper Texas Gulf Coast used to be on a branch of the main southern flyway for ducks traveling from Canada to Mexico and beyond for the winter. We’d see all kinds of waterfowl flying through here in the fall – from mallards to spoonbills, gadwalls to widgeons, “black” mallards to all manner of teal. Even canvasbacks, and more. Geese, too; mostly Canadas and snows and especially speckled-bellies. We almost always “limited out”, and usually quickly, so I rarely remember staying out in the marsh past about 10:00 a.m. or so most hunts.

I eventually grew out of duck hunting. Which is to say, as I got into my later teens, my increasingly demanding social life dimmed my desire to get up at 3:00 a.m. on a weekend morning and go sit out in a windy, freezing marsh, waiting for some birds to start flying around. Also, the flyway moved east, for various reasons I am not qualified to describe in any detail. It meant less ducks in this area, overall. The hunting experience is diminished somehow when one goes hours without seeing what one is out hunting for to begin with. Not that I was ever only out there for the shooting, mind you, but that is another story.

Like a bird on a wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried, in my way, to be free

I don’t think the virulent anti-hunting crowd quite gets it. They say hunting is inhumane, forgetting that humans, too, have their place in the food chain; and that for 99% of our existence, they way we ate dinner was to go out and kill it first. Hunting, like violence, is a useful part of our makeup, even if what we mostly are out hunting now is a good deal on brisket at H.E.B. But if everything blew up tomorrow, well. . . while the anti-hunters dithered around wondering what to do without a supermarket, there would be hundreds of thousands of people who would know exactly what to do – they’d pick up the shotgun and go out looking for something edible to shoot and bring home for dinner.

I am not one to argue the hunter’s cause, though. I’m a non-hunter nowadays, as I said, and in truth I have little sympathy for the real morons out there, who shoot and kill mostly for the thrill of it. The thrill hunters. These are the guys who make it onto TV and radio with their “outdoor” shows. They are the worst representatives for hunting one could imagine, and it is no wonder they drive anti-hunters crazy.

One thing you will almost always hear from hunting apologists, aside from bullshit like they are necessary to “thin the herd”, or they somehow benefit wildlife by pursuing and killing it, is that a large part of the experience is the joy of just being out in nature, truly in nature. And that without hunting, most people would not have this experience at all. That drives anti-hunters nuts, too; but, it is absolutely true. I know this from my own experience.

Shooting ducks was fun enough, but what I really remember vividly from my hunting days, over twenty-five years ago now, is not some great shot I made, but rather a dozen little vignettes of being out in the marsh when nothing was flying, and really experiencing nature like I never could anywhere else.

Shooting time was thirty minutes before sunrise, and to be safe, we would often be out in our blinds, ready to go, long before that. Some of my fondest memories of duck hunting were those times when I found myself all situated and ready for shooting time, with thirty minutes or an hour to kill before getting down to business. I would settle down into my blind, pull the Thermos out of the game bag in my jacket, and pour myself a cup of warm black coffee, maybe fire up a cigarette, and then just pay attention.

The marsh may not look like much from a distance, like nothing is happening there, but that is deceptive. There are a lot of things going on there, at all times. And in the minutes before sunrise, when the first light of dawn strikes, things really begin in earnest. The place suddenly comes alive, birds and bugs and fish (and nutria rats, and alligators) all in the commotion of living. It is literally thrilling to experience all that.

It was in my duck blind that I first realized one early morning that there is a species of water bug that can literally walk on the surface of the water. I don’t know what they are called, but they are small and apparently really light. They skitter across the surface of the water without ever breaking it. That is pretty amazing itself, but what really got me, when I looked closely, was that each step by each leg created a small indentation on the water’s surface. Each step would almost break the surface, but not quite. Those guys were designed to be just the right size and weight to almost fall through, but ultimately not to.

Whatever your belief system is, you can go ahead and praise the overseer for the genius of this design. I would thank God just for being alive and having the opportunity to be out in that marsh on that morning, at the start of another glorious day. And thank Him also for the cool little bugs, walking around on top of the water, just like they say Jesus used to.

Sometimes, after I grew weary of communing with nature, I still had some time left to reflect on my own little existence within it. This was a pretty natural thing to do, it seemed to me, in the peace and quiet just before everyone started blasting away with 12-gauges. I was still pretty young back then, not much more than a schoolboy really, and I usually had some burgeoning romance going on. So, I would sit out in the marsh and think about that, sometimes.

There was this one girl, Diane. At the time I was crazy about her, totally infatuated. I would think about her, and what she was doing at that exact moment (sleeping, probably), and what she would do when she got up, and if she would wonder what I was doing, out in the marsh. Just silliness like that, and it seemed to make the time pass quickly.

The time still passes quickly, I am sorry to say. But to this day, when I see a marsh, the first thing I think about is water bugs, and romance. That is mildy insane, I know, but for me there is no way around it. One of my enduring interior icons is a picture of me 20 years old or so, in my hunting gear, in the blind. My long hair is pushed up under a canvas Duxback hat. I am smoking a cigarette in the almost light, and cradling my 16-gauge Remington, armed to the teeth, and waiting. And, meantime, I am watching little bugs run around on top of the pond, and thinking about my baby.

If you arrive and don’t see me
I’m going to be with my baby
I am free
Flying in her arms, over the sea

**********

Astros are swept in the series, 0-3.

“Look in the mirror and what do I see?
A nine-stone weakling looking back at me”

THE WEATHER

Another fun season of composing Series Previews has come to an end.  I have to say, I think I enjoyed writing them this season more than any previous, possibly because of an increase in contributors, and consequently a lighter workload.  In any case, I want to thank Noe and Zipp for the opportunity and guidance; Craig, for being such a cool editor; and all my fellow contributors, for taking up so much of the slack.

And I would finally like to thank all the readers, and especially those who offered kind comments and/or constructive criticism.  They mean very, very much, and I will never forget.

Later,

‘s-r

**********

SEASONS IN HELL, VOL. I, NO. 7

August 28-30, 2009

Astros (62-65) vs. Diamondbacks (56-72)

Snakepit Stadium
401 E. Snake Street
Snakeville, AZ 85004

**********

I’M SO TIRED. I believe the first time I heard the word “ennui” used in a rock song – and probably the last time, too – was in a ‘throwaway’ tune off of one of Lou Reed’s early solo LPs, after the demise of the Velvets. At that time in his personal life, in addition to an indication of a strong predilection for opiates, I believe Reed was also exploring his feminine side. Or maybe it was his gay-ish side. Transgender-loving side? Whatever. I never quite understood, but I didn’t really care, either. Whatever Reed was up to then, it made for some damn good music. That’s what mattered.

But this song “Ennui” was never one of my favorites. It was too slow for my tastes, turgid almost; the lyrics basically conveyed how bored Reed and his then girl/boyfriend would get in between shooting up heroin. They were at best run-of-the-mill junkie existentialism, and not really my cup of tea. Anytime the song would come on my stereo, I’d put down the bong and pick up the stylus and move it to something more interesting – “Walk On The Wild Side”, or “Satellite Of Love”, or “Vicious”, or “Sally Can’t Dance”. Something like that. Reed made some good, if spotty, studio albums back then, between Transformer (1972) and Street Hassle (1978). But my favorites were the live classic Rock ‘N’ Roll Animal and the feedback-drenched “noise-music” double LP, Metal Machine Music.

I once took the latter, along with Robert Fripp’s Under Heavy Manners/God Save The Queen, with its “Frippertronic” guitar loops, and mixed them together using an early version of Acid 2.0. I ended up with a 2+ hour piece of surreal, sludgy, sometimes almost unlistenable trance music, which I used to play as background music at parties and get-togethers and, sometimes (in an edited version), while riding around in my car. But I digest.

The word “ennui” is just another example of how the French can make anything, no matter what it is, sound fey and effeminate and effete. Fuck it. If you are bored, just say you are bored. Don’t try to sophisticate it up by saying you are ‘experiencing ennui’. Fuck on-wee. Got it? Fuck The French, too.

And – oh yeah – Fuck The Cubs.

**********

Friday August 28, 2009
Game Time: 8:40 p.m. CDT
Television: FSSW-HD
Promotion: Post-game fireworks, provided by Gila River Casinos. In-game fireworks provided by Michael Bourn and Lance Berkman.

By the way, the Gila River, like its tributary the Salt (which actually runs through Phoenix) are both rivers that would naturally carry large volumes of water year round out of the mountains on the western slope of the Continental Divide, on their way to the Colorado River, which the Gila has a confluence with in Yuma, AZ, just north of the Mexican border (the Salt flows into the Gila southwest of Phoenix.) Except, of course, for diversion – for the municipal needs of the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, four million people living in a hole in the desert; and also for irrigation since, you know, of course you are going to try and grow stuff in the FUCKING DESERT. Consequently, both the Gila and the Salt are intermittent rivers, and dry streams the majority of the time, especially southwest of Phoenix, once they’ve passed through the great dam/reservoir systems in that area.

The casino, of course, is not named for the river specifically, but rather for the Native American tribe of the same name whose reservation the Gila flows through. Or, would.

Saturday August 29, 2009
Game Time: 7:10 p.m. CDT
Television: FSSW-HD
Promotion: Wild West Night, again presented by the Gila River people. With post-game fireworks again (yawn.) Apparently fireworks are a big deal in Phoenix. You’d think in the middle of fire season, they’d find a less potentially flammable diversion. Oh, also there is a post-game concert by Montgomery Clift Gentry, whoever he/they is/are. Another soulless, mundane “new” country act, perfect for the venue, I gather.

I’m talking out my ass here, but what passes for country music these days SUCKS. It is nothing but watered-down, twanged-up pop music, from what I can hear. I’m not a country fan, and never have been. But I used to respect it, and I guess I still do, the ‘real’ stuff. But the mainstream is just pathetic, someone big and rich should be ashamed.

Also, we’ve pretty much established here that New Mexico is a nice place, great scenery, cool people, nice restaurants. So, what happened to Arizona? Great scenery there, too; but my impression is, while the arty and intellectual set drifted into New Mexico, liked it, and stayed, the white trash just kept on going, until they got to the next state. You know, the one that won’t recognize daylight savings. The one that had to have the ML King Holiday forced on them, repeatedly, before they’d recognize it as a holiday. The place where Col. Robert Hogan got whacked, dammit. And they settled down there, built their trailer parks, dammed up all the rivers, upstream of the Indians. And apparently decided a big Saturday night out is to dress “Western”, go watch their crappy team in its hideous uniforms, then afterward watch some fireworks, and listen to Montgomery Ward Gentry. All right!

Sunday August 30, 2009
Game Time: 3:10 p.m. CDT
Television: FSSW-HD
Promotion: A Brandon Webb baseball cap. OK, this is more like it. Webb is the best player on the team, and even if he’s missed most of the season with injuries, it makes perfect sense to hand out this rather cool looking cap. Restricting it to the first 5,000 kids 12 and under seems kind of chintzy, but I digest. Maybe they just didn’t want to see every adult male in Phoenix wearing one the next day, which I can understand.

**********

INTO THE LIGHT OF THE DARK, BLACK NIGHT. SnS media polymath Andy Zipp described the ennui boredom surrounding the current version of the Astros very nicely in his most recent Day Off column, so well in fact there is no reason for me to try and expand on it much here. Zipp, who apparently dashed off his column last week in between radio and television appearances (he is scheduled to be on Larry King Live later this week, explaining his unique relationship with the celebrity troika of Michael Jackson, Miley Cyrus, and Dominick Dunne), writing a novel, and getting a Kundalini massage with an energizing mud wrap and cucumber facial at Massage Heights over on Westheimer, explained in detail why he was bored with the Astros – the team is not only not going anywhere this year, it is hard to be excited about the near future, either, since the near future will mostly be defined by the same guys who are taking the field now. Any help in the pipeline is playing A ball or lower this summer and is realistically two to three years away, at best. And there is no indication there is all that much help in the pipeline, anyway, even looking three years out. Gee, thanks for the monumental bummer, Mr. Zipp. Enjoy your massage and treatment, good luck with the novel, and please explain to Larry King when you see him that it appears he passed away or at least went brain dead two or three years ago, and he probably shouldn’t be doing a television talk show any longer, even on CNN.

At any rate, this is the first time I really remember being this bored with the Astros, myself. Ever. This indifference on my part – this utter lack of interest – is, in all the nearly 40 years I have followed the team, entirely new to me. Even at the lowest point in the early 1970’s, when GM Spec Richardson was trading away all the great young talent that had come up through the Astros’ system for mostly crap, the system just kept on producing good young players, faster than even ol’ Spec could get rid of them. Even at the nadir of the John McMullen ownership era, after McMullen had lost interest in the Astros and/or in spending much money on them, there were still good things going on, reasons to be hopeful – guys like Caminiti and Biggio coming up from the minors, the Bagwell acquisition, picking up all those good young players from the Orioles for a gimpy Glenn Davis. And so on.

But now? I don’t see anything nearly that good on the horizon at this point; and Astros fans are probably in for several more seasons of mediocrity – at best – after this one. Yecch! I am sure I will come out of this uncaring spell at some point, and start paying close attention to the team again, but for now I am pretty much overwhelmed with ennui boredom when it comes to the Astros, and looking forward to the offseason, one full of Ice Road Truckers reruns and endless episodes of The Deadliest Catch.

Not a good place for a person to be. Not at all.

**********

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Friday August 28, 2009
Game Time: 8:40 p.m. CDT
Television: FSSW-HD
Matchup: Houston – Yorman Bazardo (0-0, 4.50) Bazardo got blown out in his first appearance, just after being called up from Round Rock; though there were extenuating circumstances. One of those circumstances being Cooper brought him in on too little rest on a day he’d told Bazardo he would not be used. But Cooper had to because he had senselessly used up the rest of his bullpen already. Dude has pitched pretty well since that. He will not have appeared in a game in ten days, I am not sure if that is bad or good. Arizona – Max Scherzer (7-8, 4.12) Scherzer has not pitched well recently, including losing to the Astros last weekend, after getting off to a nice start. Still a pretty impressive young pitcher, though. Throws hard, piles up the strikeouts, doesn’t walk too many. He should shut down the inflammable Houston batting order with ease.

Saturday August 29, 2009
Game Time: 7:10 p.m. CDT
Television: FSSW-HD
Matchup: Houston – Bud Norris (3-2, 5.86) Well, the shine wore off this rookie phenom rather quickly, yes? To be sure, most people who’d seen him pitch in the minors were not exactly overwhelmed with his prospects anyway, but after his initial start against the Co-ardinals – a seven inning, two hit, no run gem – some of the less perceptive among us were enthralled. Unfortunately, Norris’ four starts since have got progressively worse, culminating in a blowout against the D-Backs in Houston last weekend, wherein Norris only lasted an inning and gave up six runs. Arizona – Jon Garland (7-11, 4.48) Garland was reportedly hotly pursued by the Astros this past offseason before signing with Arizona. He is a guy who piles up innings and usually stays in games long enough to get a lot of decisions. There isn’t anything particularly outstanding about him. Garland won 18 games twice several years ago as a White Sock, but those days pretty much behind him. Still, he should have no problem with the Cold Embers, a/k/a, what is left of the Houston offense.

Sunday August 30, 2009
Game Time: 3:10 p.m. CDT
Television: FSSW-HD
Matchup: Houston – To Be “Toobie” Announced (0-0, 0.00) Announced has one of the best ERAs and strongest arms on the Astros staff at this point, mainly because Cooper hasn’t figured out how to abuse him yet. It is not that the skipper doesn’t want to, just that he hasn’t been able to get a bead on Toobie to this point, being unable to grasp abstract concepts and all. Give him time, though; by 2011 or so, Coop should have it all figured out. Arizona – Dan Haren (12-8, 2.73) The big right-hander has really pitched well since joining the Diamondbacks before the 2008 season, and this year he stepped up into the #1 role when Brandon Webb went down, and has acquitted himself well. Haren has tailed off a bit lately – after going 9-5, 2.01 in the first half, he is 3-3, 4.59 since. Still, he is averaging nearly a strikeout per inning while walking less than 1.5 per nine innings. One tough cookie, he should shut down the fire-less Astros lineup easily.

**********

SHE’S NOT A GIRL WHO MISSES MUCH. As some already know, I got myself involved in a ridiculous bet with my next-door-neighbor recently. The primary result being I was not able to watch any television at all for awhile this summer, for roughly six weeks.

The original bet was for a case of Heineken, the national beer of my street. The wager was to see which of us could go longer without watching any television, and it was to last no longer than one month, regardless. At the end of that month – about two weeks ago – it was determined I had won. When I went next door to collect, my neighbor proposed a double-or-nothing renewal of the wager. I wavered, so he said, “What if I throw Annette into the deal, as well?” Or rather his wife, Annette, said that; she happened to be sitting in the room at the time, listening to us. To be honest, I am not sure now which of them proposed it first. But my buddy didn’t seem to have any problem with it. As for Annette, I looked at her and she didn’t seem alarmed about being the “prize” if I won the bet, either. Her husband said, “If you win, you get two cases of beer, plus Annette for one calendar day, at your discretion, for her to do what you want. How does that sound?”

I don’t know how it sounded. I remember being in a poker game once, at a guy’s house I didn’t know all that well. He was a friend of one of the regular players in our game. Anyway, the game had been going on awhile when the guy’s wife came in. Tall, slim girl, not wearing a whole lot. She’d been out partying with her friends or something, and was pretty loaded. She stood there by her husband for a moment, watching the game – we were playing 7-card stud. Then she reached up her short dress and pulled down a pair of pink silk panties, and threw them out into the middle of the pot. “Whoever wins this hand wins me,” she said. “I’ll be in the bedroom, waiting.” And then she walked off down the hall.

I think most of us were kind of stunned. I know I was. But the guy who was married to her acted like it was no big deal.

But, I had the sense at my neighbor’s house the other day that if I declined the bet, it would be an insult to my neighbor, and to his wife. And they are my neighbors, after all; and have been, damn good ones, for nearly twenty years. So, with some internal reservations, I agreed.

I felt kind of bad for having agreed to it right away. My damn conscience again. Too, I was thirsty and had been counting on that case of free brew. Plus, I had imposed an abstention from TV on myself for awhile longer. And, well, I had just entered into some kind of arrangement with my neighbor’s wife. Who also happened to be a pretty good friends with my wife, by the way.

I told my wife about the turn the bet had taken when I got home. I’m not crazy. I knew she’d be hearing about it pretty soon from someone, I thought it would be best if it were me.

She thought it was funny. “Annette? For a whole day? I would think you’d rather have the beer.” She was probably right. Annette is pleasant, good looking in a suburban housewife kind of way, and a genuinely nice person and all; but she is pretty much always an earful, no matter what. A little of her goes a long way. I rolled my eyes.

“So, what would you have in mind for her?” my wife said.

“I’m not sure. Right now, I am thinking maybe I’d have her clean the garage. That ought to kill a day, for sure.”

My wife can be pretty funny sometimes, whether she is trying to be or not. In this case, she put her hands on her hips and looked at me with this semi-serious look she has, the one where I am not quite sure if she is amused with me, or just vaguely pissed off. She said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not having Annette or anyone else out in our garage all day, shining your tools.”

I tried not to laugh, just in case she was serious. And now I had to think of something else to do with Annette, if I won.

ONE AND ONE AND ONE IS THREE. The funny thing is, what turned out to be six weeks without TV was a lot less of a deprivation than I thought it would be.

I usually watch television in the evenings for a couple of hours, usually something on History or Discovery or NatGeo. Or TMC. It wasn’t a big deal to give those up for awhile. I missed Shark Week, yes, but I’d probably seen all those shows before, anyway. Of course, this time of year I am usually watching more TV than normal because of baseball and the Astros. And here was my big revelation during all this – I really didn’t miss watching the ball games, either. Including the Astros.

Oh, I couldn’t tune it all out completely. I’d catch the scores and highlights on XM in the morning, on the way to work. I caught parts of several Astros games on the Houston Astros Radio Network. It was kind of nice, or at least nostalgic, having to rely on radio (and, OK, the internet) to keep up with baseball and my team (I don’t take the paper anymore.) I don’t think much of the current Astros broadcast team, any of them, but I tried not to let that ruin the experience. And it didn’t, entirely.

My love for the Astros (and MLB) hasn’t waned. Just my love for this year’s version of it. Somehow not having to actually see them made me feel less standoff-ish toward the team. Maybe this dumb-ass bet I’d got myself into wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

**********

INJURIES

Houston
•Boone, Brocail. . .

•Mike Hampton (LHP). 15-day DL, return unknown, torn rotator cuff – This explains a lot. I give Hampton credit for trying to pitch through the injury, but it wasn’t pretty to watch, mostly.

•Wesley Wright (LHP). 15-day DL, return unknown, shoulder strain – In the course of being blamed for the arm injuries he probably at least partly caused, Cecil Cooper is going to get blamed for some arm injuries he didn’t have anything to do with. They call that ‘ancillary damage.’ I have no idea if misuse by his skipper has anything to do with Wright’s current malady, but I am pretty sure some will think it does.

•Geoff Blum (3B). Day-to-day, return imminent, sore neck – Blum strained his neck trying to platoon at third and manage the team at the same time.

Arizona
•Eric Byrnes (OF). 15-day DL, return first of September, broken bone left hand

•Tom Gordon (RHP). 60-day DL, return possibly for this series, strained hamstring – Yes, that Tom Gordon. Still hanging on at 41.

•Conor Jackson (1B). 60-day DL, return 2010, Arizona Valley fever (coccidioidomycosis) – Valley fever is a fungal lung disease fairly common in dry climates. Jackson’s case is unusually virulent.

•Scott Schoeneweis (LHP). 15-day DL, return imminent, depression – Schoeneweis is a testicular cancer survivor. He has undergone and recovered from Tommy John surgery. His wife of ten years was found dead in their home in May. . .

•Justin Upton (OF). 15-day DL, return possibly for this series, strained oblique

•Brandon Webb (RHP). 60-day DL, return 2010, shoulder surgery

•Mark Reynolds (3B). Day-to-day, return imminent, flu-like symptoms – The Snakes Kingman-esque 3B missed a few games this week with what could be one of the first cases of “a flu epidemic that will eventually kill 200,000-500,000 Americans this winter, more or less.” – Centers for Disease Control

•Chris Snyder (C). Day-to-day, return imminent, left glute tightness – Snyder missed several games last season with right glute looseness, so you knew this was coming. The glute is an extinct flightless bird, native to the Peruvian Andes.

**********

BOY, YOU’VE GOT TO CARRY THAT WEIGHT. As it turns out, I won part two of the bet between my neighbor and myself.

I had heard from a co-worker that the Cowboys were playing an exhibition game in their new stadium last Friday night, and I knew my neighbor would not be able to resist that. That evening I went over to his house and walked in on him, sitting entranced in front of the 60″ LCD/plasmatic-whatever screen in his living room, intently watching his (and most of America’s) team.

One bet, won. I picked up my two cases of Heineken from his pantry and walked back over to my house and put them in the icebox in my garage. Then I went back to make sure we were still cool and everything. In between plays, my neighbor assured me we were, and told me to enjoy the beer (a needless directive, but a nice sentiment, all the same.) His wife walked me out, and on the way to the door asked me when I wanted to collect on her part of the bet. Did I have any idea yet what it is she would be doing for/with me? And so on. I told her I’d get back to her.

“Well,” she said, grabbing both my hands at the front door, smiling at me, “I’m pretty sure it’ll be something strange and interesting. And probably fun, too.” Then she lightly bussed my cheek and sent me on my way.

Within twenty minutes of me getting home, people up and down our street began calling the house, wanting to know all the juicy details. Apparently our little bet had been a subject of interest in the neighborhood over the last several weeks. I don’t know exactly how the details of it were getting out, but I have an idea. Anyway, I let my wife handle most of those calls. She was enjoying all the gossip as much as the neighbors were. In addition to being incredibly hot, my girl is an intelligent and worldly-wise woman; she sees this whole thing as being funny more than anything else. Which it is.

While she was fielding calls from nosy neighbors, I went out into the little shop I have in our garage. It is not much, really just a 4 x 10 utility room, but over the years I’ve built an L-shaped work bench and shelving and drawers, and put up a lot of pegboard in there. You’d be surprised how much stuff you can fit in a small area and still make it work and be able to use it, if you are organized. Anyway, I’ve also wired the shop for cable and have a 13″ TV in there, and I can wi-fi with the laptop if I want. I have two 20″ box fans mounted up high, aiming down, and a comfortable adjustable Craftsman workbench stool. It is not much, Bob Vila or Norm Abram would laugh at it, but it is functional; and when I need to think, my ‘shop’ is a convenient place to retreat to.

See, the thing about Annette, my neighbor’s wife, the one I ‘won’ in the bet, well – neither my wife nor I think my neighbor know it, but I’ve known Annette for a long time. A lot longer than we’ve lived next door to each other, and that is nearly twenty years.

When I was in high school, one of my friends dated Annette for awhile. Because she and my girlfriend at the time were good friends, we ended up double-dating a lot. That was a long time ago, but I have memories of all of us going out in my mom’s 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, this huge fucking luxury car, all tricked out with automatic this and precision-control that, with a front seat as big as my closet at home, and a back seat as big as my bedroom. I was nearly 6′ tall, and I could lay across the back seat fully, with the doors on both sides shut. Which is what made it attractive for dating, of course. My mom would let me borrow that land barge on date nights; I don’t know if she had any idea of the real reason why I liked that big-ass Caddy so much.

I remember one night being parked in that car somewhere, me and my date up front, my friend and Annette in the back. It seems kind of creepy now, but it was perfectly normal back then for us be doing our thing up front, while they did theirs in the back. That night at one point I was coming up for air and absent-mindedly glanced into the back seat and saw Annette, laying there in the altogether, while my friend did hideous things to her, which she seemed to be enjoying at the time. She and I locked eyes for an instant, then I dove back down into what I was doing.

Several months after that, at someone’s house party, I was in search of a restroom and walked in on Annette, naked again, with some guy who wasn’t my buddy (who she was still dating.) She and I again exchanged looks, this time as I was scrambling my ass back out of that bedroom.

And that is it, basically. Nothing was ever said about any of this stuff; not back then, and not since I found out, years later and somewhat to my pleasant surprise, that the couple who had bought the house next door to us was some guy, and his wife, my old friend Annette, who I’d lost track of years before. In fact, Annette never mentions the ‘old days’ much at all, nothing to me, anyway. I’ve always felt we have an unspoken understanding between us that I really don’t understand at all, but am happy with. In fact, I have never really even thought about it much, only occasionally.

Up to now. Sitting there in my shop, I decided whatever I was going to do with Annette, as a result of winning the bet, I should do right way. I didn’t want the whole thing bleeding over into Labor Day weekend, when we’d be having a block party, an all day and all night drunkfest during which all kinds of crazy shit usually happens. I didn’t want to be burdened during that by a bunch of gossip or speculation, and I didn’t want Annette to be.

Thinking about that reminded me of something I’d forgot, or blocked out; just a brief moment in time, from one of the block parties years ago (we have one every Memorial Day and Labor Day.) A bunch of us were standing around in someone’s backyard that evening, watching fireworks. Pretty much everyone had been drinking all day. . . I was standing next to Annette and at one point she kind of leaned into me and then when I didn’t recoil from her right away she put one arm around my waist and kind of felt me up at the same time. That in and of itself wasn’t really a big deal – stuff like that happens at those parties, and usually it gets laughed off and is soon forgot. What made that night stay in memory was that rather than immediately put Annette off, in a gentle, friendly way, as I should have done and as I would have done normally, this time I acquiesced for a moment. Before putting her off in a gentle, friendly way. I allowed myself to enjoy the clumsy pass, maybe even briefly entertained reciprocating, before I caught myself. It wasn’t Annette’s fault, she was just drunk and horny, and I was convenient. But why did I hesitate to rebuff her? I am not a philanderer, so what the hell was I up to? It bothered me for awhile. I finally decided I was drunk and horny, too (I was); and maybe not in the best possible shape at that moment to fight off a half-serious advance from an attractive woman I’d known and liked for most of my life.

And so it goes. I live next door to a woman I’ve seen naked twice, and who made a drunken pass at me one time, after we were both long married. We have never discussed any of it, and I have tried to never let those things affect the way I interact with her; and, as far as I can tell, so has she. But now here I was again, in that weird place, dealing with a half-serious offer from Annette to do whatever I wanted with her. Damn.

None of this would be much of note if I were able to forget things, like normal people. Especially when it comes to women. The consequences of this silly bet, on their own, could be pretty easily laughed off. Should be. But unfortunately, I cannot block out all the underlying history.

This past weekend I saw an old Western I cannot remember the name of now. The principal characters were played by Sterling Hayden and Joan Crawford. They had been lovers in the past but then had gone their separate ways, with apparently a lot of unresolved feelings about it all on the part of both. They met up again years later, and were discussing things in a saloon one night, between shots of whisky. At one point Hayden’s character asked Crawford’s, “How many men have you forgotten?” “As many as women you have remembered,” she replied.

Right. My problem is, I cannot forget any of them at all. They haunt me. They are all still up there in my head somewhere, exerting some kind of power over me, long after the fact. That is my curse, the weight that I must carry. Sitting there in my shop in my garage at my workbench, for a brief moment I imagined myself as Sterling Hayden, or rather his character, sitting at a bar in a saloon. Drinking shots of rye, instead of icy cold Heinekens. Thinking bitter sweetly, mostly bitterly at the moment, of all the time that has slipped by, and of the women and the brief interludes with them that went by with it.

It suddenly came to me what I should do with Annette, on the day (“one calendar day,” as my neighbor kept saying) I was granted temporary power over her. Yes, of course.

What would the consequences be, long range? Who knows? This whole life is just a crap shoot anyway, there must be some cosmic reason why I keep circling back to this woman I don’t really know that well and have never intended or wanted to ‘end up with’, in some deeper sense. I think my whole turmoil over this situation, if you can call it turmoil, has centered on the question: Will I put myself immediately back into orbit again, going out away from her, off into the dark nothingness. . . knowing that, even though I escaped her tidal pull on me, her weird gravity, once again, there is a good chance that sometime, far off in the future, I will, like Aeschylus, come wandering back? Or, will I not?

I smiled to myself as I knocked back the last of the bottle of beer I had in my hand. I pushed myself back from the workbench, scooting the tall stool on the concrete, and stepped down. Then I walked out, closed the door behind me, and headed back into the house. My wife would be been wondering where I was pretty soon, and I didn’t want to cause her any worries.

**********

Astros are swept in the series, 0-3.

“Nothing from nothing leaves nothing” – William Everett Preston (1946-2006)

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven
All good children go to heaven” – Lennon/McCartney

THE WEATHER

Once in a cycle the comet
Doubles its lonesome track.
Enriched with the tears of a thousand years,
Aeschylus wanders back.

             John G. Neihardt (1881-1973)

**********

SEASONS IN HELL, VOL. I, No. 6

August 7-9, 2009
Brewers (54-54) vs. Astros (53-55)

I can’t help about the shape I’m in
I can’t sing, I ain’t pretty, and my legs are thin
But, don’t ask me what I think of you
I might not give the answer that you want me to

OH WELL. For a little while there right around the All Star break, the Astros were playing like maybe they were going to do something weird this season, like hang around in the NL Central long enough to find themselves in some kind of pennant race. But after getting screwy in St. Looey this past weekend (the series loss there ameliorated somewhat by a gem of a debut – as a starter – by Bud Norris on Sunday) and then being less than defiant with the Giants, we are looking now at three days in the sewer with the Brewers, as life with the Lovable Mediocrities a/k/a Astros starts feeling again like it usually does, or has in the last few seasons, anyway – revving it up to 6000 RPMs at the starting line, going nowhere really, really fast.

We should be used to these ups and downs by now. This is a streaky team; but not so much ‘streaky’ in the sense they run hot and cold. More like streaky in the sense that a drunk driver is streaky about staying between the lane markers. He gets himself between the lines at times, but that is usually just on the way from one shoulder to the other.

Which leads us back, once again, to the captain of this ghost trawler of a team. It is hard to separate fact from fict what Justice and deJesus, et al, throw up against the sports page every day, to see what sticks; but we have heard over and over now, sometimes from pretty reliable sources even, that in addition to his puzzling managerial moves and then puzzling-er explanations for them afterwards, Astros Manager Cecil Cooper has long ago lost the respect and even attention of his players, maybe way back last season, even. That’s not good.

The whole recent scenario with pitcher Russ Ortiz is instructive. Cooper did not like Ortiz, as he made it plain. His reasons given were that Ortiz nibbled too much around the plate, but it is hard not to think there was more to it. I cannot blame Cooper for not liking a particular player – there is no way to have 25-30 highly motivated and egotistical people working for you, and like all of them. Despite the fact that from what I’ve read, many considered Ortiz the decent sort as ballplayers go – certainly no Shawn Chacon – Cooper should be allowed his personal preferences, like anyone else. What grates is his inability to conceal his distaste for Ortiz, which if nothing else lead to the common assumption that maybe it played into how Cooper used Ortiz as a player.

Puzzling early-season exile to the bullpen aside, the truth is Ortiz pitched himself out of a job. That was not wholly unexpected, and there was no real defense for him when he was unceremoniously released last week, after another bad start, this time against the FTCubs. What was troubling was that Cooper had allowed so much extracurricular speculation play into things at all, simply because he could not conduct himself with discretion when it came to clubhouse personality conflicts. If there is a quicker way to “lose” your team than allowing private grievances with individual players to come to light in the media, then you’ll have to tell me what it is.

**********

Friday August 7, 2009
Game Time: 7:05 p.m.
Television: FSSW-HD, MLB.TV
Promotions: Retro Workout T-Shirt. “Retro,” I guess, because of the vaguely 1970s-style lettering used in the Astros logo on the front. I was hoping for something more Jamie Lee Curtis in Perfect but, oh well. I guess, I wouldn’t mind seeing Mallory Conger in that T-shirt, though. Or maybe BudGirl, or BatGirl. . . Oh well, again. :sigh:

Saturday August 8, 2009
Game Time: 6:05 p.m.
Television: FSSW-HD, MLB.TV
Promotions: Craig Biggio T-shirt. The economy isn’t coming back quickly enough, an injection of Craig Biggio T-shirts is welcomed. We need more of those. Preferably attractively modeled, too. Girls?

Sunday August 9, 2009
Game Time: 1:05 p.m.
Television: FSSW-HD, MLB.TV
Promotions: Astros Back-To-School Backpack. Probably cheaply made, it’ll fall apart by Thanksgiving break. But, the price is good. I’m sure the first 10,000 kids 15 and under will be glad to be reminded back-to-school is just around the corner. And, you know, I wouldn’t mind seeing      insert name here      in a backpack, yes.

**********

Here they come
Skipping into town
9-17 in July
But on a roll just now

Hey, hey, they’re the Brewers
Gayest little team around
They get upset if your buzz them
And swing their little purses around

Hey, hey, it’s the Brewers. . .

GAY BREWERS. With an 9-11 record since the All Star break, here comes the new toast of the NL Central, the Milwaukee Brewers. Yes, they are fresh off a 2-1 series win in LA, albiet one where in the loss the biggest Brewer of them all went apeshit at being plunked in the ass, of all places – hard to miss that ass – and then in his anger tried to rearrange Dodger Stadium. Literally. At any rate, the Brewskies now find themselves in essentially in the same boat as the Astros, standings-wise. Each team has not played well enough, one would think, to be in contention for anything besides 4th place in the division, but each finds itself still theoretically still “in the hunt”, mostly because the division standard bearers, the 3rdinals and the FTCubs, haven’t played much better.

The difference is, one senses the Brewers could still possibly pull out of their recent mediocrity and make a run. Something like that is harder to imagine for the Astros.

Milwaukee’s main draw-down this season has been pitching. In fact, playing in a more pitcher-friendly park, the Brewers pitching is markedly worse than even the Astros is, if you can imagine that. Especially the starting pitching. Aside from staff leader Yovani Gallardo (10-8, 3.59), the Brewers rotation at the moment is comprised of journeyman Braden Looper (10-5, 4.84), disappointing propsect Manny Parra (6-8, 6.63), erstwhile reliever Carlos Villanueva (2-8, 5.98) (in lieu of Jeff Suppan, who is on the DL), and never-was Mike Burns (2-4, 6.06). That bunch collectively has a record of 29-33 with a 5.05 ERA. The overworked bullpen has done somewhat better, but there have been some ugly recent blowouts, the most recent Tuesday night in LA, when the Brewers had their asses handed to them, 4-17. In their last 10 games, the Brewers have given up 10+ runs four times, and gave up 8 in another. All the offense in the world is going to have a tough time overcoming a staff that hemorrhages runs at that rate.

In the longer view, the Brewers are in the midst of a run that their fans may live to really, really regret. They are into the fourth season, roughly, of a period where the organization has drafted, developed, and brought to the majors one of the best collections of young talent to come along in awhile – guys like Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks and Ryan Braun and Corey Hart and J.J. Hardy on offense, and Gallardo and Parra on the mound. And yet, save for a wild card berth and early exit from the NLDS last season, courtesy of the Phillies, the Brewers have essentially nothing to show for it, so far. And now it appears they may be regressing. They may still rebound and make a classic run and blow the ‘missed opportunities’ stigma away for good. For their long-suffering fans’ sake, I hope so. That is a bitter, bitter pill to swallow.

On the other hand, no I don’t. What do I care about Brewerfan? Fuck them. I hope they are stressing now about how all that young talent is piling up the service time, and moving closer and closer to arbitration and/or free agency. Too bad, suckers.

**********

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Friday August 7, 2009
Game Time: 7:05 p.m.
Television: FSSW-HD, MLB.TV
Matchup: Brewers – Carlos Villanueva (2-8, 5.98). Villanueva has made two starts since being inserted in the rotation for Suppan. Both were short stints, as he’s attempted to stretch out his pitch counts. His most recent outing, against San Diego last Sunday, was a good one; he held the Padres scoreless through five, allowing only two hits. Astros – Bud Norris (1-0, 0.90). This will be his first outing since last Sunday’s 7 inning, 2 hit, 0 run performance in St. Louis. Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how Norris follows that up.

Saturday August 8, 2009
Game Time: 6:05 p.m.
Television: FSSW-HD, MLB.TV
Matchup: Brewers – Manny Parra (6-8, 6.33). Parra has been pretty sucky all season, having fully earned the bad record and that ugly, ugly ERA. He gives up a lot of hits, a lot of walks, and a fair amount of long balls, to boot. And his legs are thin. Parra was supposed to be a mainstay on this staff, but I don’t see it, at all. Astros – Roy Oswalt (6-4, 3.61). If his back is okay – right now I guess it is about 50-50 that Roy will make this start. If he cannot go, it will likely be Hampton instead.

Sunday August 9, 2009
Game Time: 1:05 p.m.
Television: FSSW-HD, MLB.TV
Matchup: Brewers – Yovani Gallardo (10-8, 3.59). Gallardo got clobbered his last time out, giving up 10 hits and 9 ERs to the Dodgers on Tuesday, in 5 1/3 innings. That blew up his ERA; he had been the most consistently good Brewer starter up to then. The LA game was likely an anomaly, I expect him to be tough.  Astros – Wandy Rodriguez (10-6, 2.63). Wandy, recovering from a hamstring he strained running the bases on August 1, should be a ‘go’ for this start. If so, it will be his first since being named NL Pitcher of the Month for July.
**********

Loved girls all over the country
Even met a few around the world
One thing I’ll never forget my mama
Down in Houston, Texas
Ooooh, Houston, Texas

HOUSTON CHICKS. Let me say up front that I am very sorry I’ll be missing what is turning out to be the social event of the season, it appears; namely Andymas – Andy Zipp’s birthday party bash Friday night at 18-20 Bar in Houston, 7 p.m. until. Happy birthday Andy, fredia, Debbie, and Darrin, and whoever all else. RSVP.

I really like that bar, from what I can remember, so I’ll miss seeing that. I understand the jukebox that evening will be pumping out vintage Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd all night, with maybe a little Ronnie James Dio mixed in there for fans of midget Satanists. Sweet. I’ll miss that, too.

Plus, I’ll miss meeting up with all the guys I argue and laugh with in the TZ all the time, too many of them to mention here. I think most of all, though, I will miss meeting up with all the SnS babes. I understand BatGirl will be there, buying drinks for all her faves. And the newly saucy and aggressive BudGirl will be present, doing whatever it is newly saucy and aggressive girls do. Plus, hopefully additional members of the distaff side of this place will be in attendance, drinking some of the guys under the table, not giving an inch to anyone.

I worked the clubs in Galveston
I couldn’t have been more than fifteen
Went wild when one of those boarding house mamas
Said, ‘Little boy, come on to Houston, live with me.’
O-oo-oh, Houston, Texas

Whenever SnS-ers feel like self-flagellating – which is pretty damn often in comparison to the rest of the population, if you ask me, but that is another subject. . . but, anyway, whenever we feel like patting ourselves on the back for what a great a site this is, we talk about the TZ or the GZ or the Bus or the technical know-how of Noe, Waldo, etc., or the terrific things happening on the front page now, or the burgeoning multi-media career of Zipp. And all those things are definitely part of what makes this site so awesome and unique (flagellate, flagellate). But one thing I don’t always hear mentioned in these conversations, is our chicks.

We got the best fucking baseball-literate, two-fisted drinking, physically attractive contibutor babes of any baseball fan site on the internet. Bar none. That is what makes SnS really unique and great. I’ll bet there’s not another fan site on the planet with as high a percentage of women regularly contributing concise, funny and thoughtful material as SnS has. We are damn lucky to have it.

If I live my life over
Don’t you know where I want to be
Somewhere out on the outskirts of Houston
Houston girl, take care of me
O-oo-oh, Houston, Texas

I’ll miss seeing all you guys Friday night, man, woman and child. Even Limey. As Bon Scott or someone once said, have a drink on me. And, as an aside – to my personal critic’s section/fan club, The Terrible BGs – maybe next time. I promise. Okay, you’ve heard that one before, but. . .

Houston chicks
Get their kicks out of
Taking care, care, care
Of the man that they love
O-oo-oh, Houston, Texas

**********

INJURIES

Houston
•LaTroy Hawkins (RHP), placed on the 15-day DL on August 3, due back August 18, with shingles. I’ll be honest, I’ve never really known what shingles is. For me, it always fell somewhere between the almost make-believe sounding afflictions one got from reading too much Robert Louis Stevenson as a youth – scurvy, ricketts, stuff like that – and the archaic-named illnesses that are known as something else today – such as the vapors/manic depression, or consumption/TB. But, in the interest of medical science and my own edification, I looked it up: Shingles is a viral skin infection, related to herpes, which causes a painful rash, usually on one side of the body. I’ll bet it is even more painful if one sweats and has tight-fitting clothes rubbing on it, like a short reliever might. Hence, the DL.

•Darin Erstad (OF-1B), placed on the 15-day DL on July 19, due back August 3 originally, with a strained left hamstring. Erstad is on a rehab assignment in Corpus Christi presently, and may be back with the club in time for this series. He has had a rough time of it this season even when healthy, trying to make the adjustment to being a little-used bench player.

•Aaron Boone (INF), placed on the 60-day DL in spring training, due back September 1, after undergoing open heart surgery. Boone continues a pretty amazing comeback, starting a rehab assignment next week. One would assume Boone is at this point mainly trying to prove something to himself. If so, more power to him.

•Michael “Afterburner” Bourn (OF), not in the DL, but day-to-day after straining his groin on August 5, possibly can return for this series. Talking about groin injuries make me uncomfortable. For a guy like Bourn, whose game is based largely on his legs, it has to be debilitating to wonder, every time you take off, if your are going to feel that dull “pop”, followed by mucho pain. I am not going to talk about this anymore.

•Lance Berkman (1B), placed on the 15-day DL on July 20, due back August 7, with a strained left calf. It seems highly unlikely Berkman will be back Friday, as scheduled. He may in fact be out for quite awhile longer, adding to the Astros woes.

•Roy Oswalt (RHP), not on the DL, day-to-day after lower back pain forced him to cut short a start on July 28. Roy was reportedly discouraged after a throwing session Monday, raising fears there might be something more to his injury than originally suspected. He threw again Tuesday off of flat ground and felt better. His scheduled start this Saturday would have to be considered possible at this point.

•Wandy Rodriguez (LHP), not on the DL, day-to-day after leaving his August 1 start early with a strained right hamstring. He will throw Wednesday in the bullpen and, unless he has a setback, he is the probable starter for Sunday’s series opener.

Milwaukee
•Pitchers – David Bush (RHP), 15-day, June 20-August 15, arm fatigue; Chris Capuano (LHP), 60-day, 2007-2010, Tommy John surgery; Seth McClung (RHP), 15-day, July 25-unknown, sprained right elbow; David Riske (RHP), 60-day, June 1-next year, torn elbow tendon; Jeff Suppan (RHP), 15-day, July 27-August 10, left oblique strain.

•Players – Corey Hart (OF), 15-day, August 1-Spetember 5, appendectomy; Rickie Weeks (2B), 60-day DL, May 17-Spring, 2010, torn tendon in right wrist.

**********

JACK SUTHERFORD: TEACHER, ICON, CULTURAL MONOLITH. Jack Sutherford awoke from a dark slumber, to realize it was 6:45 am out. “Holey smokes!’ he thought, out loud. He had to hurry. For most folks, waking up at 6:45 on a weekday wasn’t reason to worry. They’d still have plenty of time to get ready and reach their boring, meaningless jobs on time or somewhat late but not too much so. Which, that didn’t matter anyway. But for Jack Sutherford, waking up at such a late time was nothing more than a major tragedy. For you see, Jack Sutherford wasn’t just any body, and his job was not just a boring, meaningless job. Jack Sutherford, standing there now, looking coolly out his window at the dawn rising over the sparkling dirty waters of Tranquility Bay, the filtered sunlight coming in and glinting off of the dark, chiseled visage of his hirsute naked chest, Jack Sutherford was something like a New American Hero. Jack Sutherford, you see, was a teacher; a teacher, through and through, and now, in the dawn’s early light, he quickly prepared himself for his daily task, his cross to bear so to speak, in fact that is a pretty apt metaphor, because, like Jesus before him, Jack went out each day, armed only with his wits and his hirsute, tanned and chiseled chest, and he COMBATED IGNORANCE.

As Jack pulled on a wrinkled pair of slacks he’d picked up off the easy chair across from the foot of his bed, he hoped traffic wasn’t too bad out on NSAA (National Space and Argricultural Association) Road 11. Which ran from close to his house to the interstate. As he tied the laces on one of his pair of cheap wingtips shoes, he thought, Boy, I hope I can get to Interstate 54 and go north up to Meyerland Island, which is where he taught, at a tough private Chrisitan school there, the Palm Christian Academy, without too much delay. Jack was late, and he didn’t like to be late. He didn’t intend to be. Its like his friend REDRyan told him once, “You shouldn’t have to worry about getting there politically correctly, as long as you get there at all.”

That’s how it goes when your COMBATING IGNORANCE, Jack thought, as he kissed his sleeping wife on the cheek on his way out the door, tying a shorthand Windsor knot in his paisley tie with one hand while pulling on the navy Perry Ellis sportscoat with the other, heading for his Ford Escape, his “urban assault vehicle” he laughed to himself, before climbing in to head for the mean streets of Meyerland. The air was thick and heavy, the clouds scudding across the washed out sky in military-like formations. “Ominous, ” Jack thought.

As he drove up the I-54 causeway across Tranquility Bay and into Meyerland, he passed Wiki Island on his left, Jack noting those a-holes from Wiki-Land, their kids thought they knew everything but half of what they knew was wrong or at least un-cited. People think teaching in a private Christian school on a sunny, tropical-like island to a bunch of wealthy kids is a cushy job, but Jack knew different. As he steered his Escape to the left and got on 16th Street, everywhere he looked were neat, well-trimmed lawns and nice houses, a lot nicer than Jack would ever have, on his $45K a year teacher’s stipend. “Damned morons,” Jack thought, idly. The world is really on its ear. This surburban gangland held hidden threats everywhere, and Jack was wary. He knew damn well the reason he had no tenure at all and had to scramble for a new job every summer was because he was out to upset the applecart, and everybody knew it, too. You can bet that. COMBATING IGNORANCE was a lonely, bitter job. Maybe he’d sit down and write a book about it one day, even self-publish it, if he had to. “As long you get there,” REDRyan had said, swigging back another shot of Viagra, “even if all your Yuku friends ban you, as long as there is still one person (or two, or three, or more, whatever) down inside you who thinks you did right, well. . .”

The massive SUV wheeled into the clean, tree-lined parking lot next to the school, and pulled smoothly into the reserved parking space. One thing Jack knew he had going for him was his super-intelligence, but also there was his athletic build, got from his years spent on the playing fields of Tranquility Lake and Allenville. Maybe not quite a legend in his time, he’d nonetheless been a better than average athlete and, who knows? If one or two things had gone differently here or there along the way, Jack might have ended up a professional ballplayer, privy to all that a professional ballplayer’s lifestyle brings. Wine, women, and song. And enough money not to care about anything, just you and your soulmate, sitting in a hot tub somewhere. . . Jack shook out of his reverie as he swiped his ID card through the security lock and entered the cool, wide, clean hallway in the west annex of Palm Christian Academy. He never made the pros, Jack thought, but he kept the athletic build. He pretty often caught the young teenage girls at the academy, the ones with the firm bodies and pretty legs under those old-fashioned schoolgirl skirts and blouses. . . he caught them looking away quickly when they saw him look up. They were checking him out, Jack thought I look pretty good in these slacks, even wrinkled. He bet more than a few had fallen asleep at night with fevered dreams of Mr. Sutherford in their heads. Jack laughed to himself, as he turned the corner and headed down the main hallway. His pleasant thoughts would be short-lived, today like everyday, because he would soon be in his classroom, getting ready for his first period class. COMBATING IGNORANCE was a thankless, grim undertaking, Jack knew. And he knew he was just the man for it. The cadence ran through his head as he approached and then unlocked the door to his classroom. Cultural Icon. Hero. Man of Importance. Monolith of Virtue. Jack Sutherford, Teacher.

**********

Astros win the series, 3-0, or – depending on how the starting pitching shakes out/shapes up – maybe 2-1.

I am just a cowboy, lonesome on the trail
Lord, Im just thinking about a certain female
The nights we spent together, riding on the range
Looking back, it seems so strange

Roll me over and turn me around
Let me keep spinning ‘til I hit the ground
Roll me over and let me go
Running free with the buffalo

~from “The Ballad of Jack Sutherford” (self-distributed through 3707 Records, 3707 Ardless St., Allenville, TZ)

THE WEATHER

Black are the brooding clouds and troubled the deep waters, when the Sea of Thought, first heaving from a calm, gives up its Dead. ~Charles Dickens

There’s always a period of curious fear between the first sweet-smelling breeze and the time when the rain comes cracking down. ~Don Delillo

Still falls the rain
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss
Blind as the nineteen-hundred-and-forty nails upon the Cross. ~ Dame Edith Stillwell

‘I love you,’ said the rain
Kissing the ground with her raindrop kisses
Embracing him with her dark, heavy, pendulous, sagging clouds
Caressing him here and there with her winds that she blew from her tiny mouth
Somewhere, a volcano was erupting with the force of a ten thousand megaton atom bomb. . .

~ “I Love You Said The Rain”, Jack Sutherford, from The Collected Poems of Jack Sutherford, D.I.Y Press, 1400 PacMo Blvd., Osteen City, TZ

**********

SEASONS IN HELL Vol. I, No. 5

Astros (44-44) @ Dodgers (56-32)

July 16-19, 2009
•Chavez Ravine, El Lay
•”City In The Smog” (On a clear day, UCLA)

Little fish, big fish
Swimming in the water
Come back here, man
Bring me a Dodger

VENTILATOR BLUES. The other day I was driving back from lunch, and I decided to take a short cut I knew down some side streets to get back to work. Soon I was sailing along, going over some figures in my head, humming a Marilyn Manson song to myself, driving through these little picturesque Old Beaumont neighborhoods, and thinking about how clever I was. . . I was just at peace with myself, really.

Then I came around the last turn before an intersection with a major thoroughfare, and I had to slam on the brakes. Parked along this side street, along the side of a strip shopping center, was a big McLane Trucking semi-tractor/trailer, with the back door part way up and a ramp down to the street. Two guys with hand trucks were unloading something going somewhere, just taking their time. There was traffic coming the other way, so I had to sit, because the street wasn’t wide enough for me and the oncoming traffic to pass next to this big truck.

As I sat there and waited, I was calm at first. I had just got finished singing the last verse of “The Dope Show” to myself, and realized with satisfaction I remembered all the words this time. But as the minutes crept by and the oncoming traffic kept on coming, I realized all the time I’d saved by taking the shortcut was being eroded away. I was being forced to give up an advantage I had secured for myself, goddammit it, through no fault of my own, and as I sat there staring at “McLane” in large bold letters on the ¾-rolled up back door of the this trailer, something in my mind snapped.

It didn’t help that Drayton McLane’s pro baseball team had just subjected us to another desultory series, playing half-assed baseball at home against the Nationals, the worst team in the major leagues; all this with a chance to get over .500 and make an emphatic statement about their second-half chances just before the All Star break, a chance at a psychological boost for the team and its fans heading into the brief mid-season respite.

But, no, I thought, how could that ever happen? Not with an owner who had himself a Nieman-Marcus team and then opted to go cut rate, bringing in a smiling, vapid Wal-Mart manager fond of motivational cheers and cheesy bromides; cheap knock-off Wal-Mart players who somewhat resemble the ones in the tonier stores, but cost a lot less; a cut-rate front office – hell, he even chintzed on the radio announcers, replacing quality with a couple of generic markdowns I still haven’t learned the names of after 4 or 5 seasons of them, nor do I care to. That goddamn McLane, I thought, sitting there in the heat, looking at the back of his goddamn truck – that motherfucker is personally out to cheapen the quality of my life, with everything he does. Well, not this time. I grabbed the gun from under the seat, and reached over to open the door of my truck.

I don’t know what stopped me from doing what I had every intention of doing that day – mainly, standing there in the street with my pistol, methodically blowing out every tire on that tractor and trailer that was sitting there with Drayton McLane’s name all over it, causing me so much annoyance. I’ll teach these motherfuckers. . . but then, I wasn’t really mad at the poor truck driver and his helper. They were proles like me, trying to make a living working for some rich bastard who picks his teeth with money while casually averring that us have-nots just need to learn to think like champions. Motherfucker. Then he foists a Wal-Mart baseball team on us and tries to act like it’s the real thing. It was Drayton McLane I was really shooting at, those 9mm cartridges ripping through the recap tires (of course) were really tearing through him and his cheap-ass, metaphysically corrupt philosophy of how to do things, and his fucked up ideas about just how gullible we all are. “Fuck you, McLane,” I was screaming, as I reached for another clip. People were gathering around now – at a distance – to watch. “This is the last fucking time you. . .”

But I didn’t do it. The mental image I had of me doing it, standing there in the street like fucking Dirty Harry, killing this truck, caused me to start laughing at myself. I was amused too by the idea of the poor driver, huddled down behind a nearby dumpster on his cell phone, calling 911: “Yes, ma’am, he’s wearing tan Dockers, and a casual short-sleeve button-up shirt, eggshell color maybe, kind of looks like a Hickey Freeman. . . yes, ma’am, he’s got a 9mm Beretta, yes ma’am. . . yes, every single tire on my rig. . . he keeps saying something about ‘another effing great idea by Pam & company’, I don’t know who ‘Pam’ is, no ma’am. . . ” Drayton McLane (and his truck) are just lucky I am a mentally healthy individual, more or less, and that I normally end up laughing at myself when I get really torqued about something stupid, instead of starting to shoot. But that is still no excuse for what he is running out there onto the field every night, at MMPUS and elsewhere, trying to make us all believe it is a real, contending baseball team. Um, no, it is not. McLane is the old man greeter at the door, Cooper is the department manager who smiles at your complaint but doesn’t really give a fuck, and this is really a fucking Wal-Mart team, put together in some sweat shop for 20 cents an hour overseas. American Cheaply made, should win the pennant break in a few months time.

**********

Thursday (16th)
9:10 p.m. CDT, FOX-Houston

Friday (17th)
9:10 p.m. CDT, FOX-Houston

Saturday (18th)
9:10 p.m. CDT, FOX-Houston

Sunday (19th)
3:10 p.m. CDT, FOX-Houston

**********

We live on the edge of a body of water
Warmed by the blood of the cold-hearted slaughter of the otter
Wonder how she feels? Mother seal?
It’s no wonder the Pacific Ocean is blue

PACIFIC OCEAN BLUES. I used to despise the Dodgers with as much venom as I do now the FTCubs. Well, almost as much. Of all the old NL West opponents, I think I hated the Dodgers the most, more than Atlanta, more than the Giants, even. Part of the reason was that the Dodgers were consistently good, and often took part in undoing the Astros hopes. The rivalry was probably at its peak in 1980 and 1981, when the Dodgers, fresh off of 2-3 NL West pennants and a couple of memorable World Series appearances, had the division wrested from them by the upstart Astros; in 1980 in a one game playoff in LA; and almost again in the screwed up, bifurcated 1981 season, when – the Dodgers won the “first half” of the season by virtue of being ½ game up on the division when the players were suddenly locked out the second week in June. The Astros won the “second-half” of the season (the Reds actually had the best record in the division overall and were the ones who really got fucked over royally in the deal. . . too bad, so sad, Dickities) only to lose to LA in an extra round of playoffs necessitated by MLB turning the post-season into a tee-ball league type round-robin tournament. Everybody gets to play, everybody gets a ribbon. Bud Selig did not have a hand in that particular mess – he was too busy selling used cars in Wisconsin at the time – but he should have.

Up above the sunny skies in South California
There’s a wounded rocket flying high, heading homeward
It came from a hollow, under a hill
And soon there’ll be nobody left to kill
In California

I also hated most of the Dodgers players, individually and collectively. I had a grudging respect for Reggie Smith and, to an extent, Davey Lopes; but, ooooh, the rest of ‘em. . . I hated Steve Garvey with a passion. And Mickey Hatcher and Rick Monday and Steve Yeager and Mike Scioscia (who I have since come to respect.) I couldn’t stand Don Sutton or whiny-ass Tommy John or the Aggie lefty they had for a few years, I can’t remember his name at the moment. And let’s not forget Dusty Baker, or the drunk-ass “Five O’clock” Bob Welch, with his drunk-ass buddy Rick Sutcliffe. Or Bill Russell. I especially hated Bill Russell, though I cannot remember exactly why. I think he started a fight one time or something. And all the rest who came and went. And then there was Tommy Lasorda. There aren’t words to describe my withering distaste for that fat-ass, self-promoting sack of crap.

On through the 1980s, the Nolan Ryan no-hitter, the 22-inning game, etc., the Astros-Dodgers rivalry festered and flowered. The Dodgers seemed to usually get the best of the Astros, which only made me hate them more.

Then in 1994 the NL reshuffled the divisions and, suddenly, half the old rivalries were gone. Evaporated. Still, it took a long time for my enmity for the Dodgers to subside. But it has by now. It has been over fifteen years since Houston and LA mattered all that much to each other, and the old feeling just isn’t there anymore. Most of the old adversaries are long gone. This recent batch of Dodgers is quick and successful and – dare I say it? – have become a team I grudgingly admire. They play something like the old Dodgers did, built on good pitching; with an offense based as much on speed and opportunism as raw power. They have been quite successful of late, pillaging in the Western provinces for a couple of years now; and they have even earned a bit of affection from me for completely fucking over and unceremoniously dispatching the HurriCubs in last season’s NLDS. I even like Charlie Steiner now, who has emerged as the voice of the Dodgers for many, since Vin Scully has basically eased into semi-retirement. To my surprise, Steiner is quite listenable. He just did not do anything for me back in his New York/ESPN days; but he has made a smooth transition to the West Coast. I hear him a fair amount on XM, and he is mostly pleasant to listen to, is informative, and calls a good game.

Last night, Captain Black went dancing at the Whiskey A-Go-Go
When a well-known groupie knocked him back, busted his ego
Stoned out of his head, he crawled off to bed
The following morning he went to the pad
The missile was standing, pointing to the skies of
California

However, the Dodgers being the Dodgers, they insured my nascent admiration for them would have a wet blanket thrown over it, by going out and acquiring Manny Ramirez mid-season last year from Boston, where he had entirely worn out his welcome. In baseball terms, it was a brilliant move. Manny had a fabulous last half of the season out in the El Lay sun, and was a large factor in the Dodgers success. In a way, Manny is kind of a modern day version of Richie “Dick” Allen, the extremely talented mercenary and sometime malcontent the Dodgers imported for a year in the early 1970s and dropped into their mostly Punch-and-Judy batting order in hopes of getting over the hump. It didn’t quite work for them then, but you’d have to say it has this time around.

Of course, Manny hasn’t had much at all to do with this season’s success, sitting out most of it on suspension for using performance enhancing drugs, some kind of Viagra or something, I never did quite get it straight. But he is back now, and I cannot think of any negative scenario his return means for the Dodgers. They’ve already been through the traveling freak show atmosphere that comes with employing Manny after bringing him in last year, and it did not hurt them any. Fears he would somehow negatively affect the Dodgers team chemistry did not materialize, either. If Manny gets back in and starts hitting anything like he did last season, wow. The Dodgers, currently 7 games up on the rest of their division, might finish 15 games ahead.

But before I get to effusive about LA, I would do well to remember that this team essentially sprung from the loins of the hated old 1970s-1980s Dodgers, after all. The fucking Steve Garvey Dodgers. The Kirk-fucking-Gibson Dodgers. The fucking Tommy fucking Fat-Ass fucking linguini-in-clam-sauce Lasorda fucking Dodgers. Those motherfuckers, the ones I used to hate so much. So, you know what? Fuck the Dodgers, these Dodgers. Fuck ‘em all (save for our old friend Brad Ausmus, of course; unless. . . my friend BudGirl might, well. . . tell you what, I’d better let her make any further comments on that aspect.)

The red balloon was flying high, watching the weather
Captain Black was trying hard to get it together
Immediate names came into his brain
A rocket from China, a Russian plane
He pushed the wrong button and soon there’ll be no place called
California

**********

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Thursday July 16 (9:10 p.m.)
Houston – Wandy Rodriguez (8-6, 2.96)
•”He’s so high, you can’t get over him
He’s so low, you can’t get under him
He’s so wide, you can’t get around him
Help me, somebody. . . ”

Los Angeles – Randy Wolf (4-3, 3.45)
•Wolf has been healthy in 2009 so far – this will be his twentieth start of the season, which leads the NL. He’s really a 6-inning pitcher these days, with Joe Torre tightly managing his pitch counts bringing in his relievers early and often. This results in a hell of a lot of no decisions, but in a very pedestrian sense, Wolf gets his job done – he keeps his team in games. The Dodgers are 12-7 when he starts.

Friday July 17 (9:10 p.m.)
Houston – Roy Oswalt (5-4, 3.85)
•”You thought you knew where I was and when
Looks like I keep fooling you again
You thought that you’d got me all staked out
Baby, looks like I’ve been breaking out
I’m a dark horse, running on a dark race course. . . ”

Los Angeles – Chad Billingsley (9-4, 3.38)
•Billingsley is 24 years old, and in his 4th MLB season already. He is tied with Wolf for the lead league in starts. A strikeout pitcher all the way; his K/IP ratio is down slightly from last season, but that is quibbling. He hasn’t had a win since mid-June, four of his last five starts were no decisions.

Saturday July 18 (9:10 p.m.)
Houston – Mike Hampton (5-6, 4.52)
•”The student body’s got a bad reputation
What they all need is adult education
Back to school it’s a bad situation
But what you want is an adult education. . . ”

Los Angeles – Clayton Kershaw (7-5, 3.16)
•Kershaw is 21 years old, a stylish lefthander in his second major league season. Out of Dallas, he is right behind Wolf and Billingsley in the games started category. He has won his last four decisions (in six games.)

Sunday July 19 (3:10 p.m.)
Houston – Russ Ortiz (3-4, 4.44)
•”Who could ever be so cruel?
Blame the devil for the things you do
It’s such a selfish way to lose. . .
But I know it’s nobody’s fault, nobody’s fault
But my own.”

Los Angeles – Hiroki Kuroda (3-5, 4.67)
•”My mama borned me in a ghetto
There was no mattress for my head
But, no, she couldn’t call me ‘Jesus’
I wasn’t white enough, she said
And then she named me ‘Kung Fu’
Don’t have to explain it, no, Kung Fu. . . ” *

* – For anyone who missed him, I pity you. Curtis Mayfield was a rock ‘n’ roll genius.

**********

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE. I am writing this series preview from the sunny climes of the beach, specifically from Caplen, on the Bolivar Peninsula.

I’ve written series previews down here once or twice before, and at least one was for a Dodgers series, too, I believe. Anyway, as I am sure I related somewhere previously, it is a tradition in my family to pack up the household and move to the beach for 2-3 weeks in the middle of the summer, to escape the heat back in town, literally and figuratively. This time is a little bit different than any others, though. This is our first significant time down on the peninsula since Ike came through.

The beach is so weird to me now. The landscape has literally been transformed. The Bolivar Peninsula is really just a big sand bar; big enough that your normal everyday weather doesn’t affect it all that much. What Ike did was move the whole fucking peninsula around. It eroded some beaches and built up others. Tons and tons of sand washed up onto the land and settled. One of the first things you notice is there is very little green anywhere. All the open marshland as well as the carefully cultivated lawns in the subdivisions are now covered with sand. The sand dunes that used to run from High Island all the way down nearly to Point Bolivar are entirely gone. You can see the gulf from anywhere on the peninsula now, which I actually kind of like. By the same token, I was looking out the north-facing windows of the cabin yesterday, one of the relatively few cabins that survived intact, and I realized that the tugboat and barges that appeared to be moving magically across the landscape were actually sailing up the Intracoastal. I’d never been able to see the ship canal from the beach side of the highway before. I’ve been coming down here all my life, and now it is hard to recognize anything. People have told me with all the landmarks washed away, they could not find their own property after the storm. It was just one giant sand pile. They were using old surveys and GPS to find the buried roads and streets. The whole effect of this lack of almost any significant landmark is kind of surreal.

Actually, though, I am amazed at how much has come back down here already, and there are numerous signs that the recovery effort is ongoing. There is heavy equipment everywhere, mostly Galveston County crews rebuilding the beaches. When I saw it a couple of weeks after the storm came through, I did not think Bolivar would ever be habitable again. But it is slowly coming back. Until the next storm comes through, anyway.

A couple of evenings ago me and the beagle were taking a walk down the beach, just before sundown. He was having a great time, sniffing out who knows what and running off in every different direction at once. He chased wading birds, and dug up a pair of bikini bottoms and brought them to me (I have no idea.) He is a pretty dog, all beagle but a mix between the standard breed, and a “lemon” beagle on his mother’s side. He is almost all white, with just a patch here and there of brown and black. He looks like a show dog, but he is not. What he is, is wild as hell. And he can pretty much run free down here (unlike in town), and he was enjoying our walk very much, and I was happy for him.

While the dog was doing his thing, the man was walking along, alternately staring out to sea and at the horizon and the setting sun, and looking ahead at miles and miles of empty beach before us. What a gorgeous scene, I was thinking. I was looking down, too, trying to avoid stepping on anything really sharp. This part of the beach, near Gilchrist, has always had a lot more shell than the rest of the beach down here, I don’t know why. As I looked down at millions of fragments of broken up seashells, it occurred to me that what really defined this picture postcard scene more than anything else, was death. Death loomed everywhere. In the broken shells, on the empty beach. Looking inland at the barren landscape that used to be full of beach houses and people drinking and laughing and barbecuing and shooting off fireworks. All gone. There were dead bodies, too. Most of those were found with everything else that used to be on this peninsula, washed up on the far shore of Trinity Bay, in southern Chambers County. There are many more, I am told, that have yet to be found.

I’d like to be really dramatic and say part of me died in that storm, too; but that would not be accurate. I am sorry for what happened down here, sorry for everyone’s losses, but I find myself strangely unmoved by the complete leveling of a place I spent so many happy hours, from childhood up to last summer. It just doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. It is still the beach, after all. Despite all the hell-raising and womanizing and surfing and whatever else I did down here for all those years, the truth is that all that ever really mattered to me was the beach itself, the wide stretch of smooth sand and then the ocean. That part is still here.

My life went where it went, but I always, always had the beach in the back of my mind. I still do. Just the physical act of sitting or walking on the sand and looking out to the gulf is so powerful. I can sit out there for hours and just stare at the horizon, listening to the surf. I took up surf fishing several years ago, not because I am such a fanatic about catching fish, but rather so I would have a cover when I wanted to come down here and just meditate. A guy sitting on the beach for hours staring out to sea with a fishing pole in his hands is one thing; a guy just sitting there all day looks a little weird after awhile.

But just looking was never really good enough for me, either. I was never more than a half-ass surfer, but I really didn’t care. I just liked the feeling of riding on a wave, the accompanying lifestyle, and the fact the pursuit caused me to spend every available moment on the beach, with people as inspired and crazy as I was.

But even more than surfing, my favorite thing of all is to swim in the surf, at night and preferably alone.

**********

INJURIES

Houston – Aaron Boone (heart condition), 60-day DL, 2010 – Thanks to Boone, I went and got my ticker checked. . . “Ticks just fine,” my doctor said, then he told me about his new boat; Doug Brocail (strained left hamstring), 15-day DL, early July maybe – Brocail has missed three entire seasons due to injury in his 18 years, and parts of two others; he has pitched in just 7 games this year.

Los Angeles – Ronald Belasario (RHP) (right elbow), 15-day DL, mid-August – former Magnum, PI and Airwolf producer blew his elbow out in a bar; Jonathan Broxton (RHP) (big toe), day-to-day, will linger all season – Just about anything gets you on the injury list these days; Hong-Chih Kuo (LHP) (left elbow), 15-day DL, return unknown – Whatever; Doug Mientkiewicz (1B) (right shoulder dislocation), return possibly mid-July – Wow, I had entirely forgot this guy; Eric Milton (LHP) (back), 15-day DL, out for the season? – He doesn’t really have a job to come back to, anyway; Will Ohman (LHP) (left shoulder), 15-day DL, return unknown, needs MRI – Deteriorating shoulder not a good sign; Xavier Paul (OF) (staph infection) 15-day DL, return unknown – Staph will kick your ass, no lie; Jason Schmidt (RHP) (right shoulder) 60-day DL, surgery scheduled, return unknown – Out since early 2007, his right arm is basically duct-taped to the shoulder; what a joke.

**********

INTO THE SEA, EVENTUALLY. I picked up the somewhat dangerous habit of swimming in the ocean at night when I was 12 years old. My scout troop was camping out at Gilchrist, not far from Rollover Pass. That was probably the best campout I ever went on. The surf was really rough that weekend, and we body-surfed all day long. Then at night, we sat around the bonfire we’d made from driftwood, and listened to our scoutmaster (who was a pervert, we later found out) tell stories that were either supposed to be funny or scary, I forget which. That got boring pretty quickly, and me and a friend of mine slipped away in the darkness and went down to the water’s edge. I wanted to go swimming, but he was too scared to. So I went by myself.

I have always been a strong swimmer. Not for speed – I never swam competitively – but I could swim all day and never get tired. And I had no fear. That spring, in order to qualify for Second Class scout, I’d participated in a mile swim. They would take all the boys to a spot on the Neches River, above Collier’s Ferry on the Jefferson County side, and we were to swim from there a mile downstream, to a pick up point on the far bank of the river, in Orange County.

A mile sounds like a long way, but actually it was a pretty easy trip. In the springtime the current in the Neches is pretty strong, one can almost float a mile as fast as swim it. In fact, the toughest part of the mile swim was getting across the river to the opposite bank before you passed up the pick up point. That current was strong. . . you’d be in the water and see big cedar logs passing you up, and sometimes a drowned dog, or a water moccasin. . . it is a wonder no kids drowned. I doubt seriously the mile swim is still conducted in this manner.

WE LIVE AS WE DREAM, ALONE. Anyway, that night at the beach I swam out into the surf alone, and it was the most incredible feeling of freedom and loneliness, I’ll never forget it. I was hooked. Since then, I have gone swimming in the ocean almost every chance I got. I like swimming at night especially, because no one knows you are out there. You are on your own. If you get fatigued and start going under, no one is going to save you. You’re fucked. On the other hand, knowing no one is watching over you, being your ‘lifeguard’, is part of the allure. People say, “I’m all alone,” all the time. But when you are out in the water by yourself at night, so far out the lights on the horizon from the beach highway are just tiny dots, you know you really are all alone.

I read a story once about Clint Eastwood. In his early 20’s he was in the military reserves, and one night he and another guy were flying from Alaska, I think, down the Pacific coastline to somewhere in California. About 2 miles offshore in northern California their plane shut down, and they ditched in the surf. The plane sunk quickly, and Eastwood and his buddy realized if they were to live, they’d have to swim 2+ miles at night, through the cold and rough Pacific, to the California shoreline. So that is what they did.

That story is just incredible to me. At that point Eastwood hadn’t even begun acting yet. He had his whole fabulous career and life ahead of him. But I am guessing he probably had his life-defining moment out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that night, when he was barely twenty years old. It had to seem like it was all downhill from there.

I DON”T KNOW IF I’LL MAKE IT HOME TONIGHT. I really got into night time surf-swimming in earnest in my twenties, and have continued up to today. I’ll just disappear for a couple of hours, no one knows. Usually, when I get to the water’s edge, I swim straight out against the surf for 750 to 1000 yards. Depending on the tides, that is past the third sandbar, the water is probably 25-30 feet deep. That is a tiring swim, so once I am out there I float for a little while and rest; then once I’m rested I swim parallel to the shoreline for a mile or so, then head on back in.

And that is it, really. A friend once told me that at dusk and just after is when sharks like to look for dinner. I hadn’t known that, but I will occasionally feel a sand shark ramming into the side of my leg with it’s snout. That is startling, and it scares the hell out of you, which is why they do it, I think. Sometimes I’ll come back in criss-crossed with welts from jellyfish; though I’ll admit that they usually look a lot worse than they really are. Mostly it is just stings from cabbage-heads, which itch more than hurt.

I’ve been asked, Why? Almost immediately I will hear Perry Farrell’s voice in my head. If you ask why, you’ve really asked and answered the question. Why? Because it makes me feel free. Because it makes me feel all alone. In short, why the hell not? I could (theoretically) get swallowed whole out there by the biggest sand shark in recorded history, there one minute, gone the next. Or I could huddle in the safety of my beach cabin, safe from a seemingly unthreatening hurricane that seemed unthreatening right up until the moment the giant dome of water it was pushing ahead of it suddenly showed up on my doorstep, and washed me away like so much flotsam and jetsam; only to wash up days later mangled and tangled up in a bunch of trash and debris on the shoreline of a remote marsh in southern Chambers County, where I might not be found for years and years, if ever.

Given a choice, I’ll take my chances swimming with the sharks.

**********

Astros split the series, 2-2.

California survives earthquake after fire after mudslide after drought, we get wiped out by one wayward, half-ass hurricane. Joe Niekro and Dave Smith are dead, Steve Garvey and Tommy Lasorda live on. I was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas Eve, when the New York Times said, “God is dead, and the war’s begun.”

I’ve got the revolution blues
I see bloody fountains
And ten million dune buggies
Coming down the mountains

I hear that Laurel Canyon
Is full of famous stars
But I hate them worse than lepers
And I’ll kill them in their cars

— “Revolution Blues”, Neil Young

THE WEATHER
It never rains in Southern California (but it pours, man it pours.)

++++++++++

Buddy, ain’t this LA? I’ve traveled such a long way
Buddy, ain’t this LA? I’ve traveled such a long way
And I still don’t know where I am going
But without my baby, I’d better not stay

++++++++++

When you’re out there, in this world alone
There’s gonna be many a night, you’ll miss your happy home
It’s gonna rain down tears, rain down tears
And you’ll need a shelter somewhere

++++++++++

Trip the light fantastic
Dance the swivel hips
Coming to conclusion
Button up your lips
Walking, walking in the rain

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