Apologies for that last bit of pissery... so... It’s May and raining in Chicago, and too much alcohol & baseball will lead to those maudlin blog entries, which reminds me...
It’s now around about 1/4-1/3 of the way into the baseball season, depending on who you are, and c'mon, you know who you are if you're me. (Wait. Do we know I am if you’re me?) So that makes it pretty solidly 1/3 if you’re us, give or take, which makes it pretty fucking late to be providing any sorta useful public services for my fellow Cub fans out there, but hey, I've watched the games, or at least way, way more than I wish I had. And if you're a Cub fan, I'm sure you can say exactly the same, even if you've only watched only 1! 'Cuz if you're a Cub fan, you know as well as I do that if you picked a single game to watch, it had to be the one where hotshit rookie Starlin Castro committed 3 errors in one inning, thus blowing the lead and initiating a 5-3 loss, in which only one of the Colorado Rockies’ runs was earned, right? Right.
Well I’ve watched substantially more than 1 game, god help me, but you know what's great about Cubs baseball? It's on TV! And mostly, you don't need more than basic cable to watch it--this being an important concern, since if you're a Cubs fan, you may well be so depressive and/or alcoholic--there's this real chicken-n-egg-n-rooster cock question here as to what causes what when you begin mapping out the complex dynamics of booze/depression/Cubs baseball--that you long since ran outta cash for luxuries like the Playboy Channel, air conditioning or hot water. But hell, with the Cubs? If you're really strapped for cash, you can crawl back into your ancestors cave, lug an antenna onto its rocky surface and tune in around 60% of the games, listening to the rest on yr. radio. And for the games you can't tune in, (or even better, for the ones you can't stand to watch,) if you have an antenna, you can tune in all sortsa other shit that's just as compelling and uplifting to watch.
'Cuz but you know what's great about Cubs baseball being on TV? You can change the channel! Yeah, yeah, I know! I know! We're Cub fans... We're screwed. We can't, like, watch a good baseball team play or something like that, (unless they're in the process of humiliating us,) because that would be disloyal. But sometimes you need a break. So I've picked out some stuff you can usually find just down the dial for you. And in the interest of helping you maintain your Cubbie spirit while you take a break, I've picked a ballgame's worth of programming (assuming there are commercials) that reflects one of the key pieces of the team--one selection each for starting pitching, catching, infield, outfield and bullpen. I tried to stick with basic cable stuff, but Californication and the bullpen are just too eerily simpatico to not go hand-in...uh...vu-jay-jay w/ one another. Go out and buy a Roku or something and you can still watch it without cable though. So w/o further ado, here’s some you can watch when you’re thinking of you’re pals on the North Side, but either can’t look at ‘em or just can’t stand to. (Works on the off-season too!) Here goes...
STARTING PITCHING ROTATION: TWO EPISODES OF ER CHOSEN AT RANDOM OR YOUR DISCRETION
At first this seemed like a gimme: We’re based in Chicago. We have an undistinguished ensemble cast--its veterans growing ever duller, its shiny youngsters growing ever more interchangeable. and a neverending focus on injury and recovery--the season-opening loss of both our #4 & #5 starters being only the most recent example of this fine Cubs pitching tradition. Hey! As I’m writing this, our #3 starter just went on the 15-day DL with a bone contusion! No kiddin’! Get me 50cc’s of Old Style! Stat!
Drumroll please... My viewing suggestion is two episodes of E.R.!!! Except but for that, it isn’t. For one thing, I can’t think of 2 episodes of E.R. to suggest. I’m not gonna pretend I never watched it. Just, whenever I did, it was because I was bored, there was nothing better on to whack off to than George Clooney or Noah Wyle or that bald guy they got later who had/was cancer on the X-Files. I mean, E.R. was a slumming show, as it were, for when I was drunk, depressed, stuck at home with nothing better to do, and eating microwave or delivery food. In other words, I could’ve watched it almost every night, but it was only on once per week, thank god. But the thing was, it’s hard to tell you what episodes to watch anyway--not just because I was comatose from alcohol, saturated fats and emotional murk, (tho these factors and the mulchy writing of the show do kinda make the story-lines just glop together,) but because I didn’t even watch it every week. Like I said, it was just the sorta show I found myself watching like that--it fit that sorta passive need perfectly, except for one small, but absolute flaw--a dainty crack in a diamond, a burst blood vessel in an angel’s hymen: it was often boring enough to make me turn the channel even when I was in a state of apathy that was as terminal as the one I describe here. Which means, given the choice between it & a Cubs game--even a bad 1--I’d usually go with the Cubs game. Usually. On second thought, you probably should too.
CATCHERS: THE BRADY BUNCH, EPISODE 41, "WHERE THERE'S SMOKE," AND EPISODE 61 "THE NOT-SO-ROSE-COLORED-GLASSES," EPISODE 101, "GETTING GREG'S GOAT"
I'm sure that any Cubs fan who is also a Brady fan--and I suspect this is a quite healthy demographic BTW, as the misery of the one quite naturally might lead you to the insane escapism of the other in your most blasted (in terms of both substance abuse and of spiritual desolation) moments, which is to say at those blue-lit moments in the early-AM, when some lost extra-innings west coast matchup has barfed you out into rerun land and you have not the will to flip past but a few channels, so that first remotely interesting piece of tail, be it Marcia or Alice or Mike or Sam or Tiger or whatever fits the bill catches your eye before your ability to animate your thumb for the purposes of changing channels entirely fails you and you find yourself melting sickly but warmly into a Very Brady Semi-Catatonic State... wait... I never finished that sentence... Well, I think that proves my point.
Which is that being a Cubs fan, like watching television, is an experience that is often reminiscent of wandering through a vast wasteland. (Lest you think I'm using 1 of those dumb empty metaphors, lemme point out: I've done all 3 things--cf. Hawaii entries about wandering around all that lava--except for but that makes me realize the 3 things aren't really alike, because wandering in a wasteland is sorta cool. Shit. Man, I hate you sometimes. Asshole imaginary reader.) Let's pretend that parenthesis didn't happen.
But sitcoms are all meaning... shallow meaning, and The Brady Bunch is the most archetypal sitcom of all. C'mon, what else holds a candle? Cosby? But a multicultural afterthought. Van Dyke? A rudimentary proto-thought. Bundy? A post-modern de-construction. Brady, man. It's all Brady.
So if Brady is the Most Sitcom, it is, by the transitive property, the Most Meaningful. And the most shallow. But you knew that already, cuz you are quick as a whip crack, which gives me a hard-on in so many ways, except, unfortunately, in the literal one. And, obviously, that's exactly like the 2011 Chicago Cubs catching staff: shallow, but full of meaning.
What do I mean? Well, shallow in that the talent's very limited. In 2008, everyday catcher Geovany Soto was National League Rookie of the Year, and the Cubs sailed into the post-season. In 2009, he began making bizarre calls and miscues, put on around 50 pounds, and dropped around 50 points from his batting average. He also got caught puffing on ye olde Wackee Tabackee, aka cannabis aka hemp aka Mary Jane, etc. Now while I'm all for recreational drug use within reasonable parameters, some people started drawing all these a=b causal connections or whatever and throwing arbitrary suspicions around, which immediately, along with how cool and sexy both he and Greg Brady are, led me to think of the Brady Bunch episode “Where There’s Smoke” wherein cigarettes and suspicions lead to a real witch hunt that nearly crucify the eldest Brady sib. Well worth watching--prob. a lot more than most 2011 Cubs games, esp. now that Geo's on the disabled list with a groin pull. On the plus side, maybe he'll get some of the really good medicinal shit, eh? And what's more, I don't think he'll have to worry about manager Mike Quade giving call up Wellington Castillo any playing time while he's gone. He seems pretty committed to letting backup catcher Koyie Hill step in.
Speaking of Koyie, think of how thrilled Jan Brady would be if alla sudden the spot light were flickering offa her gilt braces! Remember how in “The Not-So-Rose-Colored-Glasses” ol' Jan managed to stop whimpering and accept her disability, thus allowing the whole Brady kid team to unite and score a big victory by restoring the framed family portrait she'd broken whilst riding around, blind as a bat, without those new, ugly-ass glasses? Well do ya?
How do ya think ol' Koyie Hill, backup catcher extrodinaire, (if such a thing exists) felt, when he hacked four of his fingers off with a table saw in a bizarre accident? I mean seriously? Not only does that reduce options for foreplay, assplay, etc., the dudes a catcher! I mean, what's he gonna dangle beneath his ass, like the testes of an aging basset hound, when he wants a backdoor slider? Huh? How's the pitcher gonna know what he wants?
Well, like Jan, Koyie learned to embrace adversity. She finally put her ugly-ass glasses back on, and he put his ugly-ass fingers back on--with some surgical thread. And now he's flashing signals at pitchers pretty much everyday! And never mind that he can't hit! Or commits all sortsa errors! So does everyone else on the team! Let's applaud his heroism! And Jan's!
Meanwhile, there's probably an episode of The Brady Bunch on out there right now, and you can laugh at it, if you're really that lame, but remember, if you're a Cubs fan, also out there right now, The Goat is laughing at you as well.
INFIELD: STAR TREK (THE ORIGINAL SERIES) - EPISODE 21, "THE RETURN OF THE ARCHONS" (STARDATE 3156.2) AND EPISODE 32, "THE CHANGELING" (STARDATE 3541.9):
Well in terms of character and physical presence, I think it's pretty obvious what we're looking at when we're looking at the Chicago Cubs infield. Three dominant forces. (Plus whoever's playing 2nd base.) James Tiberius Kirk.
Who's on first? I don't know, but he's got Jim's chiseled good looks--that round, meaty jaw--that speaks of leadership that is both firm and warm--and, well, of sensuality. What's the guy's name on second? (Well actually he’s playing short, blocking my view of the guy on second.) Beat's me, but he shows the cockiness and athleticism that'd lead him to hurl a flying kick and a two-fisted punch at an opponent twice his size--or, say, to hit two triples in a single game! And you'd have to possess those sorta cojones if your middle name was Tiberius, right? Now who's playing third base? Well, urm, uh… Ida know, but he's pretty sturdy, isn't he? He displays the steadfastness of a real veteran, whose presence should put you at ease. It really should, with a name like Kirk. In this case tho, his name is Aramis Ramirez. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about that one.
But. So. Like. Let's quick fill in the blanks there: 1st - Carlos Pena. SS- Starlin Castro. (OK, I was being a prick about 2nd. Rookie Darwin Barney there, and he shows some promise. But we're talking Trek, not Flintstones.) And along with A-Ram, they are the Kirk triad ascendant.
But like I didn't just pick Trek re-runs for you to watch here cuz these guys are a sorta trinity of Kirk with all their power hittin' and masculine struttin'. I mean, what, like 33.3333% of screen icons embody that whole masculine splurt squirt stuff, am I right? Granted, Kirk's one of the best, one of my personal faves, and really does fit these guys, but nope, I picked Trek, 'cuz these two episodes have a really special connection to this very special Cubs infield. If you haven't seen these episodes in a while or -gasp!- ever… just wait till the end of each of 'em, when Kirk argues with the bad guy, omnipotent computer. In each case, his kung-fu logic is better than the computer's, and it starts squawking "error! error! error!" before short circuiting in a spectacular pyrotechnic display! (Wow my dick gets hard every time!) Then the whole analogy I’m drawing will make sense to you.
And well, I mean, sure, these episodes are derivative of each other, but so are all the Cubs games. So when you get tired of watching Pena trying to dig out another one of Castro's volleyball servings or Ramirez tripping over a ground ball rolling lightly past third as he wanders back from the hot dog stand, these episodes'll give you something fun to do for the rest of the game.
OUTFIELD: ANY TWO EPISODES OF SEASON THREE SOPRANOS IN SYNDICATION (YR. PICK, CUZ I LIKE YOU):
Actually, I don’t know if Season 3 is best. After Season 1, the show is just this kinda blur to me. Maybe that’s incipient alcohol abuse. Maybe that’s Meadow getting way less hot or AJ getting less hot or whatever or who cares? Eh? What am I? An asshole? Or something.
Anyway. The Cubs. Remember them? Me neither. Well, they have an outfield, apparently. And it’s composed of: Alfonso Soriano, LF, (where he shall stand long after the Great Old Ones wake, caper and go back to Sleep, thanks to the most ludicrous contract in all of major league baseball history,) Marlon Byrd, CF, (who can easily cover all that territory because he’s physically large enough to literally cover all that territory and yet frequently manages to miss the occasional routine fly ball,) and ?Kosuke Fukudome? ?Tyler Colvin? ?Reed Johnson? ?Lamont Cranston? ?Lon Chaney? or whatever chameleon our overinflated bench coach decides to prop up out there that day.
What I like best about our outfield is how many ways it works around the word Fuck. Think about it: Byrd. Flip the bird. Johnson. Fuk U Do Me. Hilarious. How’d they orchestrate this shit? Millions of dollars spent to line that brilliant gag up, and you’re mad because we haven’t gone to the World Series since 1945, nor won it since 1908? Where’s your sense of humor? Which is what brings me to The Sopranos. You know what’s fun about watching it in syndication? I mean aside form the fact that watching only 2 episodes will get you through an entire baseball game thanks to all the commercials? The many creative ways in which they dub out the word fuck. They always take the high road and never bleep it out. They somehow get Gandolfini n’ pals, who ask for a continent’s worth of cash per episode, to come in and badly post dub some fuck-like homonym. It’s a truly noble endeavor.
Reminds me of this time I watched some really shitty heist movie--pre-24--with Kieffer Sutherland playing a psychopath member of a bank-robbing gang--multi-ethnic, of course--and at one point they actually dubbed in “monster truckers” for “mother fuckers,” and, get this, “Latinos and African Americans” for “niggers and spics!” I shit you not. Some sound editor was obviously just having a big ol’ laugh at that one and it didn’t fit at all! Hilarious!
About as hilarious as watching the Cubs outfield stumble around dropping softly hit balls left and right, then complaining about wet grass or whatever. Don’t worry, they’ll get up and whiff at the next 9 or so straight pitches, stranding the middle infield, who do at least usually get on base, like they’re supposed to. And hey! you can’t get much more multi-ethnic than our outfield, unlike The Sopranos, who were always bitching about “Latinos and African Americans” and what monster truckers they were.
BULLPEN: CALIFORNICATION - 4 EPISODES OF YOUR CHOICE
Wow, I had a hard time with this one... I mean, the thing about the 2011 Cubs bullpen is that it’s really pretty boring, but not in an alienating way. It doesn’t really make you want to turn the channel in any active way. It’s watchable. Usually, it doesn’t even lose the game.
For a while there Jeff “Shark” Samardijiza was a profound exception. When that dude came in--mullet a-fluff behind him--you just knew the ball was gonna leave the strike zone. And the batter knew it too. Four times in a row. Then it was gonna do the same thing for several more batters. Then it was gonna leave the park. And well, you get the picture.
(Incidentally, wikipedia sez good ol’ Shark got his nom de choke cuzza his elongated nose. I always assumed it was his grotesque jagged grey teeth, which I’m pretty sure I’ve glimpsed multiple rows of. Anyway, as we all know, wikipedia’s made up of user-contributed content so I’m sticking with my answer and I encourage you to do so as well. I mean, c’mon--anybody who gets paid millions of bucks per year and can’t fix teeth that look like that has gotta be a fucking shark. Or something.)
Anyway, Shark’s hitting his points now, not giving up so many runs, and like pretty much everyone else in the bullpen is pretty efficient. Meaning this is the only part of the 2011 Cubs that really works--not spectacularly, but pretty well.
So you see my dilemma. What’s efficient, OK to watch, but nothing to write home about? A lotta stuff! But who cares? And who wants to think about it? Even if you try to, your mind goes blank. Mine does anyway. Here, watch:
OK. Where were we? Oh so but then I realized that, like a male prostitute, this was one of those opportunities I was missin’ because I was looking at it backwards. Instead of trying to come up with something that cleverly links up to the bullpen in some thematic way, why not just cynically throw some stupid shit out there and pretend it has some thematic link to the bullpen? Wouldn’t that be hilarious???
So I thought, OK what’s the best thing on television? Well that’s easy, right? Californication. It’s got everything. It’s really embarrassing, because you have to hear David Duchovny say “clit” or “vu-jay-jay” every 30 seconds. (Not embarrassed by either word/expression, ‘tho I find the latter irritating, but somehow, he manages to make them so, esp. since he can’t stop repeating them. Is it his deadpan delivery? His dead-blank eyes? Ida know.) Maybe it’s the fact that, whatever your sexuality, the show is 1 big ego-booster. Like, if you’re into chicks, it offers the re-assuring fantasy that no matter how old n’ dumpy you become--or how ugly you were to begin with in the case of the Artist Formerly Known As Spooky’s sidekick--gorgeous women with enormous breasts will always throw themselves at you. What’s more, they will straddle you and do all the work, so you can just sit there and fondle their breasts and be as outta shape as you like! Merry Xmass, Bedford Falls! It’s a Wonderful Life!
Now while it’s not immediately obvious, Californication also offers something to the part of its audience that’s into dudes, and that’s the notion that men are utter idiots. It’s good to know, so that if you want to seduce and destroy them, you can feel confident about doing so. You’re only limited by yr. imagination, once you get ‘em thinkin’ w/ their wee-wees. Well, actually, you’re also limited by your conscience, and that’s what always comes back to bite all the women in Californication in their hot asses. Duchovny or that Pop n’ Fresh guy blink n’ look cute, and they go aw shucks, and don’t castrate ‘em or whatever, but hey! That’s TV, right? In real life, our conscience is way-hey-hey less of an impediment! So let’s get at those guys! Who’s with me?
Anyway, as there’s probably some rationale by which this all applies to the 2011 Cubs bullpen, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it is. If you can, feel free to write and tell me about it. I’d love to know!
In passing... a final word... I wrote a lotta this a while ago--back when the season was still pretty young. There have already been some changes, largely for the worse. (Good ol' Marlon Byrd just took a fast ball to the eye socket this weekend, for example, & is really pretty fucked up.) I'd've liked to've gotten it up... (countless times...mmff...snicker...) uh... earlier, but y'know, I gotta lotta balls in the air. If you could only see how many balls I got in the air right now... actually probably best you can’t. FCC’d be shutting this blog down pretty quick, prob.
But. So. For the moment They/it/whatever haven't/hasn't. Whatta rebel I am. So I'll be back atcha Hawaii/NYC. Don't go nowhere. Or if you do? Take me with you. Please?
