May 20-22, 2013

Kansas City Royals (20-20) vs. Houston Astros (12-32)

Minute Maid Park
501 Crawford
Houston, TX  77002

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SCHEDULE
• Monday May 20, 2013 — 7:10 p.m. CDT
• Tuesday May 21, 2013 — 7:10 p.m. CDT
• Wednesday May 22, 2013 — 7:10 p.m. CDT

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TURN ME ON, DEAD MAN

I reached over and flipped up the hinged cover on the console, and felt around for the Ziploc bag full of blue-and-clears. I was trying to find it entirely by feel, so as not to take my eyes off of the road. At the time, I was doing 85 miles an hour or so, down some two-lane Chambers County farm-to-market road; in my Camaro, in the dark, and I was severely fucked up, too. So keeping a close eye on the road was beyond imperative. My plan was to pop a couple of blue-and-clear capsules, hoping a jolt of amphetamines might lend some clarity to my situation.

We were headed for the beach, kind of. At three o’clock in the morning, in mid-December.  It was 35 degrees outside, I had three drunk-ass girls with me, and the car had just done a complete three hundred and sixty degree flip, in mid-drive.

Well, that is what it seemed like.

I had been sound asleep at the townhouse – passed out, actually – after a long, wild party to celebrate the end of the fall semester, my first semester at college. I was sharing a townhouse with a friend of mine who had a scholarship to play tennis. It was a pretty nice setup – two bedrooms upstairs, and living area downstairs. Immediately after we’d rented it, we installed an electric keg refigerator in the kitchen, and a local beer distributorship came by once a week and switched out kegs for us. We kept frosted mugs in the freezer in the kitchen, and many of our friends would come in and, before even saying “Hello”, would grab a frosted mug out of the fridge and draw themselves a cold one out of the keg. It was a natural act, like hanging up one’s overcoat.

Then there’s this Welsh rabbit wearing some brown underpants
About the shortage of grain in Hertfordshire
Everyone of them knew that as time went by
They’d get a little bit older and a little bit slower but

My roomie and I were eighteen years old, and the first in our crowd to have a place of our own. So whether we wanted it to be, or not, our townhouse was de facto Party Central for all the other kids in our social group.

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PITCHING MATCHUPS
Monday May, 2013 — 7:10 p.m. CDT
KANSAS CITY – Jeremy Guthrie, RHP (5-1, 2.82)
HOUSTON – Dallas Keuchel, LHP (0-1, 4.82)
 

Tuesday May 21, 2013 — 7:10 p.m. CDT
KANSAS CITY – Wade Davis, RHP (3-3, 5.98)
HOUSTON – Bud Norris, RHP (4-4, 4.32)
 

Wednesday May 22, 2013 — 7:10 p.m. CDT
KANSAS CITY – “Big Game” James Shields, RHP (2-4, 2.45)
HOUSTON – Jordan Lyles, RHP (1-1, 6.63)

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“I fuck you with my hand, yes?  It’s nice.”

I rolled around in bed last night, with that quote repeating itself in my head, for quite awhile.  I was restless, and I kept thinking about the first time I’d heard it, back when I was in college.  It was delivered to my friend Brian by a member of the womens swim team, an Eastern European girl who was no doubt female, but not necessarily obviously so.  She had shoulders broader than mine, for one thing, and a deeper voice.  Steroids.  When she pushed herself in next to me and Dirt (Brian’s universal nickname) one night at the bar in the Cactus Lounge over on Park Street, and bought us a pitcher of Michelob, and told us of her plans to take one of us home with her that night, I cannot say how Dirt felt about it, initially.  Me? I felt all weird inside.  Another friend, sitting on the far side of Brian, overheard all this and told us we’d better get the hell out of there, right away.

“She’ll grind your dick to dust,” he said.  I didn’t have any doubt about that.

It’s all the same thing
In this case manufactured by someone who’s always/umpteen
Your father’s giving it diddly-dee
District was leaving, intended to die
Ottoman Long gone through I’ve got to say, irritably and

Floors, hard enough to put on, per day’s
MD in our district
There was not really enough light to get down
And ultimately slumped down Suddenly …

I was compelled to flee, and Brian may have been, as well; but he was hindered by a couple of factors.  One, he had been in that establishment for most of the night, drinking and commiserating with college friends, and his usually cat-like flight-or-fight reflexes more closely resembled those of a banana slug by that hour.  Also, the thought of being raped by a girl who physically intimidated him was, he told me later … in a weird way, it was kind of, well, thought-provoking.  Also, this girl, and a friend of hers, had us bracketed.  The girl had put her arm around Dirt’s midsection and was squeezing him pretty hard, it looked like.  I could feel my back begin to be rubbed by the swimmer’s equally physically intimidating friend. By then, the friend was leaned into my back hard enough that I had to make a bit of an effort to avoid being shoved face down into my pitcher of Michelob Light.  If I was going to get away from her, it had to be right away.

So I did a quick spin and pivot at the bar. I feinted my left shoulder toward the swimmer’s friend, then cut to the right, leaving her with an armful of nothing. That was a move I had perfected as a left halfback in the Wishbone offense in high school. Even after my hit-and-miss football career ended, I always felt like that feint move might come in handy again, somewhere down the line.

I had evaded the swimmer’s friend. Now all that was left to do was run down the right sideline (actually a shuffleboard table), cut left to avoid one last defender (a wall), and then paydirt (the exit door of the bar.)

I’d barely made it out, once again.  But I had.  Brian/Dirt was not so lucky, I am afraid. I heard later the two East German swimming buddies bought him several more drinks, until he was basically non-ambulatory. Then they picked him up – literally. The last anyone saw of him that night, he was being carried out of the bar.

I asked him later what had happened to him that night, after the Cactus Lounge.  He said that it was unspeakable. And I guess it was, because he never did tell me. It was left to me to imagine it.

So there I was 30 years later, lying wide-awake in bed one night, thinking about those swimmer (sort of) chicks, and my poor friend Dirt Dauber.

I don’t remember most of what I learned in college, but I damn sure remember that night. I’ll bet, as much as he has probably tried to forget it, Dirt does, too.

Who’s to know?
Who wants to know?

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People ride, people ride Ride, ride, ride, ride, ride
Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9
Ride! Ride! Ride! Ride! Ride!

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I read the news today, oh boy
A burnt-out sportswriter with an axe to grind
And though his paper’s on the skids
He thought we’d give a shit
Some people just don’t get it

He said the lineup is subpar
He doesn’t like the makeup of the pitching staff
The team’s GM doesn’t have a clue
But we’ve read this shit before
Nobody’s really sure
If the owner is a weirdo or just isn’t pure

I heard a show today, oh boy
Some Midday Mongoloids were ranting on
A crowd of people called in to say
Just what was on their minds
What a fucking waste of time

I’d love to tuu-uurn yooooou ooffff. . .

… it was located on ______ Ave. near the college, across the street and tracks and down to the southwest a bit from the Cactus Lounge. It is hard to remember where exactly, but it was generally in the area of the Tex-Joy warehouse, the old 7-Up bottling plant, and the old Sunbeam bakery.

In contrast to the Cactus, which was cramped and crowded and sort of reminded one of being in a somebody’s backyard storage shed, ———-’s was like a large open barn. The was a bar all along the north wall, an open area/dance floor in the middle, and restrooms at the back. The décor was sparse, and women scarce (I don’t believe I ever saw anyone actually dance in there.) To tell the truth, it was kind of a biker bar.

I can say with some confidence I never set foot in the place myself with a blood-alcohol content of less than .15, or before about 12:30 A.M. …

Call him Joba Chamberlain
He won’t answer you again
Not the washed-up Yankee starter
Who’s been demoted to the ‘pen

Gather ‘round me people there’s a story I would tell
About a youngster from Nebraska you might remember well
From the land of the corn-husker
A proud but boring state
Who went off to New York City to pursue his fate

He was pitching for his college when he got the news
The New York Yankees had chose him in the draft
Well, the first thing you know, Joba was a millionaire
But he was headed for the minors to work on his craft

Now, Joba’s momma was a drug-head
And his daddy’d never been around
So when the Yankees called, Joba just said, “Yes”
He’d pitch anywhere they had a mound

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Rogue doctors have brought this specimen
I have nobody’s short-cuts, aha
With the situation
They are standing still

The plan, the telegram
Number 9, number …

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Woke up, fell out of bed,
Brushed my teeth and took my meds
Got online and checked the schedule out
At home vs. the Royals in the middle of May

Downed a fifth of Tangueray
That’s my breakfast nowadays
Found my way downtown to the Minute Maid Park
Bought a ticket and a program and I passed out into a dream

Aaaaah –aaaaah-aaaah-aaaah …

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Discovery Channels Launches A Line Of Alcoholic Beverages

•Alien Ale™ – Brewed in the Nevada desert, glowing reviews attribute this fine ale with an out of this world taste.

•Bermuda Triangle Rum™ – Produced on Walker’s Cay in the Abacos Islands, Bahamas, this tasteful rum possesses a kick that will cause your interior navigational instruments to malfunction; drink enough of it, and you might even disappear entirely, at least for awhile.

•Bigfoot Beer™ – Brewed in the American Northwest, the heart of Bigfoot country, and filtered through. . . well, you don’t want to know what it is filtered through.

•Chupacabra Tequila™ – A cheap mescal made from surplus maguey cactus plants, and distilled at a refinery outside of El Paso, Texas; drink enough of this “tequila”, and you will believe in the legendary Mexican goat-sucker, and just about anything else anyone tells you.

•Mothman Moonshine™ – A rough tasting “white lightning”, 190 proof and distilled in a hollow somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains (we cannot divulge the exact location, for legal reasons), this stuff may not be the smoothest to cross the palate, but it does the trick. . . in addition to causing visions of a giant moth with red eyes, it will assuage the pain of living in a crappy house trailer in West Virginia somewhere, sans teeth.

•Tunguska Vodka™ – Distilled in the legendary Tunguska region of Siberia, where the alien spaceship crashed in 1908; this vodka will not only give you an inner glow, but will also set off any Geiger counter in the vicinity, a sure indicator of a quality spirit.

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I saw the game today, oh boy
Two runs and four hits off Jer-em-ee Guth-three
And though the score was rather small
The Astros scored them all
Now we know how many runs it takes to make Guthrie scream and punch a fucking wall

 I’d love to tuu-uurn yooooou ooffff. . .

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One recent morning, I was attempting to get my slug-a-bed child up and ready for school. I tried gently at first, then more firmly. But nothing was working. So next, without thinking, I stood in the hallway in my briefs and started singing “Figaro” at the top of my lungs. That got him up. Hell, I’ll bet the neighbors could hear it.

I was pretty satisfied with myself. Hey, whatever works, right? Then all of the sudden I realized what. . . oh, goddamn it! Son of a BITCH.

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The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.

Dark star crashes
Pouring its light into ashes
Reason tatters
The forces tear loose from the axis

Searchlight casting
For faults in the clouds of delusion

Shall we go, you and I
While we can?
Through the transitive nightfall
Of diamonds

Mirror shatters
In formless reflections of matter
Glass hand dissolving
To ice petal flowers revolving

Lady in velvet recedes
In the nights of goodbye

Shall we go, you and I
While we can?
Through the transitive nightfall
Of diamonds

Spinning a set the stars
Through which the tattered tales of axis
Roll about the waxen wind of never
Set to motion in the unbecoming roundabout
The reason hardly matters
Nor the wise through which the stars
Were set in spin

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Astros lose the series, 0-3.

Love stands opposed to death. It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death. Only love, not reason, gives sweet thoughts. And from love and sweetness alone can form come: form and civilization.  We, when we sow the seeds of doubt deeper than the most up-to-date and modish free-thought has ever dreamed of doing, we well know what we are about. Only out of radical skepsis, out of moral chaos, can the Absolute spring, the anointed Terror of which the time has need. The body, love, death, these three are just one. For the body, this is the disease and exquisite delight, and this that does die, yes, they are carnal both of them, love and death, and thus their terror and their great magic!

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Dear Mr. TZ dweller, will you read my post?
It took me four minutes to write, maybe five at the most
It’s based on a preview by a man named Raup
And I want the fame, so I want to be a game recap writer,
Game recap writer.

It’s the sorry story of a sorry team
And the bandwagon fans don’t know what it means.
I don’t want to a column like Noe or Zipp,
They have the glamour jobs but I’d rather be a game recap writer,
Game recap writer.

Game recap writer (game recap writer)

It’s fourteen lines, give or take a few,
I can write another in a day or two.
I can make it longer if you want to pay,
I can change it ’round and I want to be a game recap writer,
Game recap writer.

If you really like it, how I turn a phrase,
You know, like “Fuck the Cubs”, or maybe “Sting the Rays”.
You can move me up to doing series previews
But for now I’ll be your game recap writer,
Game recap writer.

Game recap writer
Game recap writer …

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It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright

April 22-24, 2013

Seattle Mariners (7-13) vs. Houston Astros (5-13)

Minute Maid Park
501 Crawford
Houston, TX 77002

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SCHEDULE
• Monday April 22, 2013 — 7:10 p.m. CDT
• Tuesday April 23, 2013 — 7:10 p.m. CDT
• Wednesday April 24, 2013 — 1:10 p.m. CDTRead More

The dinosaurs are all dead and gone now, deader than fuck … or, as my friend C-4 would say, they were never here at all; which is kind of stupid, since C-4 existed amongst the biggest T. Rex’s and Stegosaurus’s of all … but anyway, what the fuck? … can’t say anything bad about C-4, he was my favorite out of all of them — for a brief, shining time … anyway, where was I? … Oh, yeah … the dinosaurs are all dead and gone, having fallen victim to some kind of catastrophic event, a big-ass bang or explosion or something … right now, there is nothing running around out there but a bunch of cockroaches and centipedes and shit … Read More

HOUSTON Astros (53-106) vs CHICAGO Cubs (60-99)

October 1-3, 2012

Wrigley Field
1060 West Addison St.
Chicago, IL  60613-4397

CHICAGO (SnS) – If there has ever been a less meaningful season-ending series than this one, you’ll have to tell me about it. Two 100+ loss teams – two pretty unlikeable teams – going absolutely nowhere. Facing off against each other, with lineups full of unknowns, of wannabes and never-wases, of has-beens.Read More

Houston ASTROS (41-93) vs. PITTSBURGH Pirates (70-63)

September 3-5, 2012
PNC Park
Pittsburgh, PA

Monday September 3 (Labor Day) – 12:35 p.m. CDT
Tuesday September 4 – 6:05 p.m. CDT
Wednesday September 5 – 6:05 p.m. CDT

PITCHING MATCHUPS
Monday
Edgar GONZALEZ, RHP (0-0, —-) vs. Jeff LOCKE, LHP (0-0, 0.00)
Locke is a recent call up to the Pirates bullpen, getting his first MLB start. Gonzalez is currently in the Federal Witness Protection Program, having testified against the Sinoloa Cowboy cartel in a recent trial. The Feds figure he is as safe to remain anonymous in the Astros rotation as anywhere else.

Tuesday
Jordan LYLES (3-10, 5.46) vs. Wandy RODRIGUEZ (9-13, 3.86)
Wandy had a good outing against the 3rdinals last time out.  Lyles is 21 and still trying to figure out how to pitch in the big leagues.

Wednesday
Fernando ABAD (0-2, 4.83) vs. Kevin CORREA, RHP (9-8, 4.40)
Correa is back in the Pirates rotation after Jeff Karstens went down, and he has pitched well. This is game 2 in the Abad-as-a-starter experiment … it is not necessarily a terrible idea, but it is kind of like mixing together two volatile chemicals, just to see what the reaction between them might be. You might get OxyClean or super glue, or you might blow up the laboratory.

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This is not a series preview, actually; or rather, just the bare bones of one. You can find this stuff anywhere on-line, and in a better format than this. So don’t waste your time here.

Football season is here, further reducing attendance at the Astros home games, from 250 per outing to roughly 12-15 or so.  The team itself has started axing TV broadcasts, under the no doubt correct assumption that the audience for those has dwindled down to the hardy few. You can only drive by gawking at train wrecks for so long, before the blood and offal start to get to you.

In other words, no one cares anymore, not this year, anyway. The only vaguely interesting thing about watching the games now is to see just how bad the Astros can be; and, if one has been a true fan of the team over the years, that is a game for suckers. And I’m not playing it anymore.

This is going to be a great Labor Day weekend. We are all moved into the new house, garden home, whatever. Also, my ex recently moved out of state, in the pursuit of happiness (I wish her well), and she left my 15-year-old back with me, presumably permanently. I smile broadly every time I think about that. The hurricane didn’t come here. And, oh yeah, I found a new thing to barbecue – thick cut “country” pork back bone, specially cut for me by the butcher at the Market Basket on Calder and 23^rd. Marinate ‘em for a couple of days in a brown sugar-based rub, then put ‘em on the cooker with a trimmed brisket and 10-12 bone-in chicken thighs, throw on a handful of Zummo’s Party Time links at the end. Fucking awesome. The back bone is tender and juicy and tasty – smoky, and vaguely sweet. Goddamn, I’m fired up about that.

Finally, I really like these new Miller Lite 16 oz. aluminum bottles, the ones that come in a nine-pack. Okay, I can hear the sneers from here. Tell you what – I’ll drink the classy stuff, out of glass and with my pinkie out, when the elite crowd is around, and I am sitting in the air conditioning, discussing passionately the relative merits of Bon Iver and/or Grizzly Bear or Edward Sharpe. When I am at the beach with the ‘Stones cranked up to 11, or out in the yard (what there is of it now, I am living in a fucking garden home, fellas), barbecuing meat with the Black Angels turned up so fucking loud my new garden home neighbors are whipping out their lists of deed restrictions with one hand while dialing 9-1-1 with the other, I’ll be slamming down the Miller Lite 16 oz.-ers, thanks. My neighbors better get used to it.  Love the Black Angels. And fucking awesome, those aluminum bottles.

The unusual nine-pack configuration means I have to brush off the old math skills, too; which can only be a good thing. Let’s see … I currently have 26 29 27 of those kick-ass motherfuckers iced down in the cooler on my back porch, getting nice and cold for daddy.  And they should all be gone by the time this weekend finally peters out, many hours from now. Fucking awesome.

I was driving to work one day this past week, and I was pretty bummed out, more so than usual.  The weather was shitty, for one thing. My neck hurt. I was pissed off about something at work, and it had been distracting/gnawing at me for a couple of days. I was a bit out of sorts, to tell the truth. That is not me, and I was really screwed up by it.

I was idly listening to the XM, the Underground Garage channel, and Andrew Loog Oldham was prattling on about something … something about “todgers”, I believe he was saying, whatever the fuck … Keith had a big todger, Jagger’s was not so big … it was annoying, and I thought, “How much more fucked up can this day get?” Then Oldham finally gets back to the music, and plays Leon Russel’s “Stranger In A Strange Land.”

“God – fucking – damn!” I looked through the windshield at the low, scudding, grey clouds moving by, remnants of the far outer reaches of Hurricane Isaac. I thought about my son, who I had just dropped off at school, being home with me again. And I thought about my girl and how lucky I was to find someone like her at this late date. Who gave me my human edge back, who made me smile and laugh and love unconditionally … who reawakened me after I had been sleepwalking through the dark for so many months. Who made me think I wanted to live in a fucking garden home, for Christ’s sake.

I thought about all that, while meanwhile this gorgeous song was booming out of my truck’s speaker system. A stranger in a strange land – it sounds quaint, but I suppose I have sort of felt like that for a long time, at least a little bit. Tell me why, the song says. I don’t know why. But listening to it, and thinking about all the things it made me think about, made me realize that I will never really understand it – not in this life, anyway.

In a way, I have always known that. What has always made me happy is just riffing on being here at all, slowing myself down and watching it all unfold, however it will. That is what makes me feel so good. I just have to remind myself sometimes.

Or be reminded. I looked up at those clouds again, and said thanks. To who or what I cannot say for sure. I have heard all the arguments against some of the things I believe in, and they are compelling on a certain level. But in my truck on the way to work the other morning, there is no way in hell you could have convinced me my gratitude was misplaced. Sometimes, you just know.

Simple things, simple things. The best things in life are free, and simple. I am disappointed that the baseball team I have followed practically all of my life is no longer one of those pleasant, simple things that make me happy. But it is all right. Thank you, anyway; for all the years that it was.

I won’t find much happiness at Crawford and Texas anymore. But there are plenty of other places still out there where I can. Thank you so much for that.

Thank you.

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