jimmy

I want to go storm chasing. Anyone want to come with?

It only took several hours to get through the 317 pages of Pedro Martinez’s simply titled memoir Pedro, and it was really fun to read. Take for instance:

I knew [Don] Baylor didn’t know anything about pitching when I heard him speak. He should have known that [Andrés] Galarraga had an open stance that he closed up as he stepped into his swing — he stepped into plenty of pitches and the fact that he wore those pussy pads on his elbows only made it easier for a pitcher like me to locate in the inner half of the plate when he was up to bat. [emphasis mine] p. 100

But as with any other ghostwritten memoir comes the same dilemma: how much of the book is the subject and how much is it the ghostwriter? Pedro may have read through Michael Silverman’s copy thoroughly before approving it and sending it off to the printers, but that gnawing question never goes away. And I’m not saying that to denigrate Pedro. I thought the same thing while reading Joe Torre’s The Yankee Years back in 2009 which was ghostwritten by Tom Verducci.

The same thing crept into my mind earlier this year when I read 1Q84. How much the of gorgeous prose was Murakami and how much was the translators?

I really don’t know if I like this book. I’m really leaning towards really liking it. I want to love it.

This is a concept book about May 10, 2014, rainy day (although no rain fell on that day in Los Angeles where a bulk of this book is set.) The main story is about a 12-year old girl Xanther who has seizures and is going to get an Akita puppy with her stepfather. There is also a story involving a gang member in East LA, a EDM-phile in Singapore, some folks in Texas, Mexico and other arcs which do seem disposable. Here are some pros and cons about this volume.

+ The Xanther story. I call it the main story since most of the pages are devoted to her, and it is well written. You get the insecurities of her mom Astair, stepfather Anwar, all of it.
– The bulk of the book is dreadful. There are some 880 pages or so, but because of the layout, text art and what not it is more like a 300-page book.
– There are many characters in this book that don’t intersect, and some of these folks are not fully explored and thus you don’t really care about them.
+- There is a lot of dialect used. Some of it works. I think I’m one of the few people who liked the Singlish (as you can see above). But there is an Armenian taxi driver character which was pretty bad. The East LA gang member was also pretty bad.
+ Text as art. Danielewski is a master in this, and he’s not afraid to show it.

Mark Danielewski has 27 volumes of this planned with the second volume due out in October. Maybe some of these folks will get more attention in the next volume. But it definitely has me intrigued.

After sweltering this weekend in near-triple-digit heat, this cooled down remarkably yesterday for me to do normal things like doing laundry and climbing up hills and such. So laundry was done and hills were climbed. It was a very productive Monday for the most part.

Today I had lunch at Tampopo Restaurant which of course reminds me of the 1985 movie Tampopo which is an excellent movie. They have a special on what they call their Tampopo Set, their ramen, a small plate of fried rice and 3 gyoza for $7.99. I then headed across the street for an iced coffee at Caffe Bene which plays the worst music imaginable. Think Richard Marx, Bryan Adams, Celine Dion and the like on repeat. Fucking Koreans.

Here are the most recent search terms for this little website: anal blowjob, hotsexymessages, jimmy garoppolo bare chested, jimmy garoppolo girlfriend, hand job blow job video.

I found myself in the middle of an existential crisis last night. Sweat was beading down my brow and I was on the verge of tears. Sure, it was a hot night and I was watching Project Runway. But still. Here I am: an unashamed liberal who believes the Affordable Care Act didn’t go far enough, that CEO salaries and bonuses are outrageous and leading to the death of the middle class. But here I find Donald Trump and Ann Coulter absolutely charming.

I read Mitchell Sunderland’s profile of Ann Coulter in the new sub-Vice Broadly last night. It’s filled with great bon mots from whom liberals call Satan’s spawn:

“My main reason for opposing gay marriage is once your friends get married, you lose them.”

“The angry gays don’t like me, but the angry gays don’t like anybody. My theory on the angry gays is they’re not really gay: They just hate their fathers.”

“Gays are right wingers who like butt sex.”

I’ll be honest. I don’t think too much about talking heads. I know what I believe in and don’t need anyone to tell me what’s good and what’s bad. So I really do tune a lot of this noise out. But before I learned how to do this, folks like Coulter would drive me up the fucking wall.

So I was shocked when I kept laughing throughout the profile. Not ha-ha-she’s-so-backwards, but ha-ha-that’s-a-smart-crack. And that’s when the crisis set in.

ohmygod am i becoming a conservative? oh no i think donald trump is funny too. does that make me a bad liberal? do i now have to wear ugly pleated khaki pants and have sexual desires for 14-year old girls?

Thankfully the crisis didn’t last long. No, I’m not becoming a conservative. No, I don’t agree with the majority of what Coulter or Trump believes. No, I won’t ever wear pleated khaki pants. No, I will never have sexual desires for a 14-year old anything.

I reminded myself of something I watched earlier in the day, a relic of the 60s when Woody Allen had his own talk show and invited conservative superstar William Buckley.

They don’t agree in politics, but they seem to be having a good time here. They seem to like one another. Why must we hate people we don’t agree with?

Just listen to the hatred on a particular gay subreddit:

“She’s not a gay icon. She is, quite frankly, a complete bitch who, to top it all off, apparently strongly opposes equality for her friends.”

“Sadly, the fact that gay men voluntarily hang out with her is proof that we are not automatically smarter than our straight counterparts.”

“She’s trying to be popular by being edgy, and that Junior High mentality isn’t getting you anywhere in my opinion.”

Such pearl-clutching responses a la Helen Lovejoy from The Simpsons is pretty funny. This is why I want Trump in the presidential race for as long as possible because it’s hilarious to see people lose their shit.

So crisis averted and logic has returned. All of you assholes can now return to being smug sanctimonious jackasses.

I’m listening to someone named Melanie Martinez and a stream of her debut album Cry Baby because Vice sounded very enthusiastic about it this morning. With its music box keyboards and toddler themes evident in song names like “Sippy Cup”, “Training Wheels” and “Dollhouse”, it’s like a record a pedophile would get off on which is a bit unnerving as a 36-year old gay man.

You know that Ms. Martinez is edgy because she has a filthy mouth (“They call you cry baby, cry baby/But you don’t fucking care”. “Fuck all your ABCs/I’ll fuck that boy.”) along with her breathy vocal stylings. She has the look that Tina Root knocked down pat in the mid-90s with Switchblade Symphony. The music is a more diluted version of Bjork at the turn of the century.

I guess as pop music goes it’s just fine, but is this inoffensive sanitized mediocrity really what the kids are listening to now? Is this what counts as “youth rebellion”?

I always assumed that as generations progress, music gets more and more offensive. Elvis Presley and his hips were the devil. The Rolling Stones and the Beatles were filth personified. Bob Dylan was a commie. Madonna was (and amazingly enough still is) a slut and a whore. The stuff I grew up on — Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, PJ Harvey — was noise and garbage. So I was waiting for the day when I could say that the music the kids listen to was garbage and a bunch of noise.

I’m still waiting. Music is dull as shit, and the only way to seem edgy and dangerous is to sell sex. Take all the sheen away from this album, away from Rihanna’s “Bitch Better Have My Money”, you have music that could cure insomnia.

I guess for a 20-year old who became famous for being on a television talent show called “The Voice” a few years ago, this is fine. But as a culture, shouldn’t we expect more? Much like presidents, I guess we get the art we deserve.

The Dodgers 8-3 loss to the Washington Nationals last night was less than inspiring. Heading into a presumable playoff run, the game was hardly anything to inspire confidence for fans still waiting since the confetti cleared up in 1988 for that World Series coronation.

It had been a week or so since I last caught a Dodger game, so I decided to watch them open a home series Nationals. After all, a month ago when my emotions exploded all over the place with the travails of my grandmother, the Dodgers were in DC. It was a battle between first-place clubs and what was being billed as an NLCS preview. For once I gave in to the hyperbole and allowed myself to escape what I was dealing with for a few hours.

Since then it’s been mostly about new routines, living with what we are given, etc. My therapist would be so proud of me. Thanks to having last weekend off, my emotions are steadier than they were a month ago. In other words I can deal.

With the first-place Dodgers, though, that’s another story. After a rough weekend in Pittsburgh, they came home to face what used to be the first place Nationals and presented this lineup:

1. Jimmy Rollins, SS
2. Jose Peraza, 2B
3. Yasiel Puig, RF
4. Scott Van Slyke, 1B
5. Kiké Hernandez, CF
6. Alberto Callaspo, 3B
7. Alex Guerrero, LF
8. A.J. Ellis, C
9. Brett Anderson, P

I didn’t think I could deal with the spring training feel of that lineup, but what the hell do I know? I’m not covering and watching all the games anymore. Maybe Don Mattingly was doing what I’ve heard managers say all the time even in the face of lineups like this and “put out the best lineup they think will win on a given night.”

Against Gio Gonzalez, this iteration of the Los Angeles Dodgers had no shot. The Dodgers lost 8-3 and didn’t score until a Carl Crawford pinch hit three run homer in the ninth off of Doug Fister with the help of an error to get an extra out.

With the game being a tire fire for the Dodgers, other thoughts creeped in. Watching Gio Gonzalez make his pitches and Bryce Harper make fantastic catches out in right field, I remarked what a sexy team the Nationals are. If I had to get gangbanged by a Major League team, I would choose to let the Nationals have a field day with my orifices.

Let’s face it. Gangbangs are hardly a thrilling proposition for the person getting banged. It’s like going to a buffet. While there are a large variety of dicks involved, you hardly ever get a grade-A fuck. But still, you want to get your money’s worth so you make sure to stuff yourself full until you can’t handle anymore dicks. When it’s all over, there is a tinge of regret for what just happened. There are aches and pains and you wind up walking funny for a little bit.

And these are my thoughts while watching the Dodgers suck it up for several hours, and I realize that I really need to get laid.

Here is something I came across from the awesome world of Reddit. (It’s up to you if you want to insert any sarcasm into that sentence.)

please

According to the artist tohu va bohu,

These things have been taking a lot out of me. For those of you who can find enjoyment in it, then great, I hope you never have to experience these things. For those of you who can relate to it, I’m sorry. I wish this was a gimmick, I wish it were about fame, I wish it were about satisfaction and fulfilment. I wish I were an actor, I wish your pity mattered to me. The plain truth is that I’m addicted to making these things. These aren’t good for my mental health. I know mental health on reddit is either joked about or treated too seriously. This shit’s coming from a real place. I’ve been in a really horrible, nightmarish living situation over the past couple of months and these have been the product. I used to be happy. I used to write, I used to make beautiful poetry but over the past little while these things have been taking over my room, they’ve been haunting me. I’m dying to get rid of them. Please send me a pm and we’ll talk about it at the very least. I’m not necessarily interested in money. I think that the best way to get rid of these is to know that they meant something to someone.

This might be complete horseshit. This person could have stolen these images (I haven’t been up in the art world for quite some time, so that could be possible.) But the pictures are purty especially #2 (self loathing) and #4 (anxiety).

Well the landslide will bring it down.

A photo posted by Jimmy Bramlett (@jimmybramlett79) on Aug 5, 2015 at 4:49pm PDT

Thanks to Dallas Aunt coming for the weekend, I had the weekend off. Which meant JIMMY GONE WILD!!!!

What’s depressing is the difference between JIMMY GONE WILD at 36 versus JIMMY GONE WILD at 26. At 26 anything could have happened including drugs, sex and whatever would make a republican get a hard on then blush then react with indignant anger about god or wrath or quaint guilt-based mythologies that people use to excuse mass murders and wars.

No. This is what JIMMY GONE WILD at 36 entails.

Friday night I caught up with Madd. While I’ve been going through my grandmother saga, she’s been going through the death of a good friend. I hadn’t seen her since my birthday in March, so this was long overdue.

For some reason, our fallback option when we can’t think of anything creative or new to go to is Culver City. We wound up at Public School 310 and spent a whole lot of time gabbing and catching up. It felt so great to be able to get out into the world and pretend to be human again (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). It makes me wonder just how much I’m missing while I’m holed up taking care of the Grandmother. Well, perhaps “wonder” isn’t the right word. “Sad”? “Forlorn”? I don’t know. I guess I’m a little scared that once the Grandmother finally kicks the bucket, I won’t know how to enjoy myself outside. Hell, I’m already a pretty awkward in social situations. So who knows?

What I do know is I used to make fun of people who would be bright-eyed and excited about a weekend night out. And here I am. Bright-eyed. Excited. And just purely happy that I’m out eating at a restaurant. Taking pictures to show proof that I was out and about and enjoying life. Yup. This is what my life has become.

So while JGW at 26 would involve (lots of) drinks and (lots of) cigarettes, JGW at 36 involves getting iced coffee after dinner sans cigarettes and more gabbing. Still I got home after midnight, so I guess that made it a success.

Saturday was lunch with Cathi and Ben. Which, of course, means spending the day with little Emma. For a three-year old, she is remarkably well behaved. She actually listens and obeys to her “Uncuh Jimmy” which actually blew me away.

After lunch at an Asian seafood buffet in Glendale and a trip to Michael’s and Cost Plus, Ben took off. So I spent a good chunk of the day with Emma while Cathi and Tyson worked on their respective projects. While she is as well behaved as one can expect from a three-year old, goddamn she is hyperactive. It makes me happy that I don’t and won’t have children.

I got home at around 9 pm sore and tired and stinky from sweating from trying to keep up with a three-year old. It made me sad that my freedom weekend was coming to an end.

Now I’m not really depressed that JGW is over. I’ve accepted that this is my life, and I’m fine with it. But one thing I will have to start doing is to take days off. Cousins will be called so I can take a day off here and there.

Another thing that is pretty shocking. Usually most of my crushes has been guys older than me. That age is starting to decrease. I AM getting older. And, evidently, I need gel.