jimmy

Yesterday the starter in my car died. One minute I’m putt-putting around town. The next minute I’m trying to start my car in a parking lot and nothing. Initially I think my battery mysteriously died, so I asked for a jump. I turned the key, still nothing. Fuck.

I called my cousin for his AAA card services, and an hour later the car was towed to my auto mechanic who agreed with me that my starter was dead. I might be good with fixing cars and stuff, but I can sure diagnose the sons of bitches. It turned out my battery needed to be replace which sounded right since it was quite a few years old. A lot poorer, here I am.

I have this fantasy, even back to when I was driving my Honda, that when a car of mine dies, I drive it off the cliffs here in Pedro for a proper sendoff. I didn’t do it with my Honda, but I was very tempted to do it yesterday to this shitty Camry.

While waiting for the tow, my cousin and I talked about his Manchester United, how they suck, and how they spend the pretty pretty money for attackers and forwards but neglected their backline. I mean, one look at their 5-3 loss at Leicester City was evident. With my increased interest in the Premier League, I’m quite happy to see that ability to talk about it is getting better.

Here’s an interesting bit on the African termite and how its guts are on the outside(?)

The last thing I told Brendan yesterday was, “This is the most socialization I’ve done in a long time. I’m going to be sore tomorrow.” I am.

Of course, yesterday, Brendan and I recorded the latest podcast. I was already feeling a like my nodes or whatever were a bit achy in my throat as if the first signs of a sickness were about to rear its ugly head.

When I got to his apartment, he mentioned that Yuko wanted to meet up with us for some beers and what not, so why not? It’s been years since I’ve seen Yuko, and I forget how dirty she is. It’s funny because we met when I needed to hire a part time helper for the post-production company I worked for in Burbank. I put an post out on Tribe.net, and she was one of several who replied. I hired her, and history. Who knew that she was a part of an extended set of friends from UCSB?

Anyhow yesterday Brendan, Yuko and I had beers, played shuffleboard and shot the shit about her vacation in France, her lost luggage and how she learned how to live life as a gay man. Of course if I had recorded all of this, it probably would have been more entertaining than the podcast. But whatever.

I’ve been going so retro lately. I’m taking it even further. I want to redesign all of this from scratch. Not tinker around with already-made WordPress themes. From each { to div command to php markup, mine mine MINE!

California was taking it to Arizona in Tuscon last night. The air-raid offense seems to have finally taken hold, and they took a 28-6 lead going into the half. It was shots fired by Cal to the rest of the Pac-12 trying to stake their claim for respect and relevance.

After three quarters it was a 31-13 lead for the Golden Bears making the Wildcats look like they couldn’t “bear down” on anything much less this game. But, of course, there are four quarters played in a football game at a minimum, and to borrow from Kings head coach Darryl Sutter, you don’t win anything for three quarters.

I was busy paying attention to Oregon and their struggles at Wazzu, and I glanced at the scores and realized that Arizona made a game of it! All of a sudden they were down 45-42 with the ball on Cal’s 47-yard line with a chance to win on the Hail Mary. These plays rarely work, but when they do they’re unbelievable.

Holy shit. It worked!

The Wildcats completed their comeback thanks to a field goal and FIVE touchdowns they scored in the fourth quarter alone. I guess Cal isn’t experienced enough to realize that when you have an opponent down, make sure they stay down. And Arizona won’t give up.

And this is why I love the Pac-12. Here are the Napkin Rankings this week:

1. BYU (9 points)
2. MISSISSIPPI STATE (8 points)
OKLAHOMA
4. TEXAS A&M (7 points)
5. PENN STATE (6.5 points)
UCLA
7. ARIZONA (6 points)
AUBURN
EAST CAROLINA
GEORGIA TECH
NOTRE DAME
OREGON

Slowly yet surely they’re starting to look accurate.

After about a week of stewing in the heatwave, things cleared up yesterday in which I immediately took off for Portuguese Bend to get some form of physical activity. I ended up taking less than two hours for a five-mile jaunt which I guess isn’t bad considering I had to wring out the sweat from my shirt when I was done.

Tonight I’ve been going retro in my music listening. Started out with some DJ Shadow, then veered over to Aphex Twin to Orbital to UNKLE’s Psyence Fiction. Yeah. I went late 90s tonight. Listening to UNKLE took me back to driving in the dead of winter 98/99 (I don’t remember, really) from Atascadero to Santa Barbara going back to school after New Years with friends. There is something of being caught in a David Lynch driving scene going down the 101 while blasting “Rabbit In Your Headlights” in my 87 Honda Accord hatchback. Damn, I miss that car.

Think back, I wonder what happened to the blogs I wrote then. Of course those were days before they were called blogs. It was before I could just type text into a box, hit publish and voila it looks all pretty. No. I had to write things in a text editor, make sure all the formatting looked all right, upload, check in both Internet Explorer and Netscape. When I had to design stylesheets myself or cheat by using tables. Actually, I should know better than to be wistful about that shit. I can read the old LiveJournal entries I exported onto this thing.

* This is the temperature reading at 10 a.m. i live about a mile away from the port of la waters and about 2.5 miles from an actual beach. And yes, that is a heat index you see. In motherfucking Southern California. Look, I’m a huge fan of hot weather. But when humidity enters into the equation, that’s where I have to draw the line.

Last night I was up late trying to deal with the heat. Nothing is worse than turning in the bed and feeling a cooled pool of your own sweat on top of the duvet. As unsexy and uncomfortable as I was feeling, I get a message from one of the hookup sites I’m on.

“will love to play with your ass sexy.”

Isn’t that sweet? Of course, the picture that accompanies this particular profile is me in doggy-style clad only in a jock. So maybe he’s turned on by me “winking” at the camera. Don’t worry, I won’t post any nudie pics of me on here quite yet. But you probably won’t have to look that hard in order to find them.

Anyhow, I’m sure nothing will come of this, but I think it’s awfully nice that this person was so moved as to message me. It really does wonders for one’s self esteem at 2 a.m. as I can’t fall asleep and just want to fill my bathtub with ice water and just lie in it.

* Around 12:30 I tweeted that it had been a bit quiet, but that it was time to FIRE ROGER GOODELL. Minutes later Brendan tweeted me this statement from Anheuser-Busch:

We are disappointed and increasingly concerned by the recent incidents that have overshadowed this NFL season. We are not yet satisfied with the league’s handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code. We have shared our concerns and expectations with the league.

I guess that’s something, right?

* On Thursday, Marlins slugger Mike “Call-Me-Giancarlo” Stanton got in the face by an errant pitch by Milwaukee Brewers starter Mike Fiers. He dropped like a sack of potatoes with blood pouring out of his face. He took to Instagram to update his progress.

I have to say, the first time I encountered him in person was as he was walking towards the Dodgers clubhouse to use the weight room as I was leaving to head onto the field. Back then, the only weight room was by the Dodgers clubhouse, and per MLB rules it has to be open for both teams if the visitor’s clubhouse doesn’t have the facilities.

Anyhow, I see him approaching but didn’t recognize him. I just saw this towering hulk of a man striding towards me. As he past me I got a look at his face and did a gasp. Holy shit. Mike Stanton is motherfucking huge. I could feel my knees start to shake a little as they instinctively tried to get to the ground like a good little gayboy. I could also feel my jaw start to open all by itself, as if Stanton had uttered the phrase “Open Sesame”.

* This June bug is not happy:

* The Dodgers will simulcast the final six games of the season on over-the-air channel KDOC Ch. 56. The new Dodger channel SportsNetLA has been met with a carriage dispute — the only major cable or satellite carrier offering the channel is Time Warner Cable. Only 30% of LA have been able to watch games that were not carried by ESPN, Fox or Fox Sports 1. So everyone in LA who wants to can watch the final series against the Giants and Rockies can do so.

It makes me wonder: how much is KDOC is paying for these six games, and how much are they charging advertisers for 30-second spots?

* Adrian Peterson issued an apology today. After saying that he didn’t intend to hurt his four-year old son,

But deep in my heart I have always believed I could have been one of those kids that was lost in the streets without the discipline instilled in me by my parents and other relatives. I have always believed that the way my parents disciplined me has a great deal to do with the success I have enjoyed as a man. I love my son and I will continue to become a better parent and learn from any mistakes I ever make.

So if you parents were racists fucks but you became a success story, then it makes it a-ok for you to be a racist shit yourself? Fuck you Adrian Peterson. Not only did you leave welts and blood and bruises on your FOUR-YEAR OLD son’s legs, butt and lower back, you also got him on the scrotum.

And the Vikings reinstated him today, so fuck the Vikings, too.

* This is quite a happy story about a photograph found on 9/11 and the search for the owner.

* Christy Mack was damn near killed by her apparently needledick ex-boyfriend, an MMA fighter who styled himself as the “War Machine”. Here she is updating her recovery from a couple of days after the attack until last night. As she posted in the caption of this Instagram photo:

2 days, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and last night. I’ve had several dentist visits to make eating more comfortable and make my smile look more normal. I still have a few more dental visits to go. I’ve had my eyes checked out and made aware that I’m very lucky to have my vision where it is, since the muscle is tethered by the fragments from the blowout fracture in my left eye. My multiple nose fractures will be fixed in the next couple of months. While they’re fairly symmetrical, my nose is shifted on the inside and out causing breathing issues. (I also make everyone feel how my bone sticks out on the left side because it feels so weird.) My top lip will regain movement in less than 6 months… looking forward to using straws again. My liver seems to be alright. I was admitted back to the hospital shortly after I was released the first time for some minor treatment, but I did not have to have surgery. While my face is starting to look decent again from the swelling going down, it is still not my own. Cutting what was left of my hair off, and losing 15 lbs(it’s a lot when you’re 5’1″) made me feel even further away from myself. It’s hard to look in the mirror every day and see someone you do not know. After having makeup done and dressing up for yesterday’s charity event, I felt much better about how I look now. It made me feel more normal, and beautiful for the first time in a very long time. The event that I went to was for Face Forward. A non profit charity that funds surgeries for women and children that have been in horrible situations that require them to have reconstructive surgery. They are not funding me, my surgeries are being donated by other doctors. I met many wonderful people and look forward to working more with them in the future.

As I keep track of this, I’m really starting to question this more and more. Again, here’s the methodology. If a team beats a FBS team it gets a point. A win against a Big 5 Conference team (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC) gets another point. A “dominant” win gets another point. Playing on the road gets a point. A loss gets a negative point. A loss against a FCS team gets a negative point. Neutral site win only gets a 1/2 point. Neutral site loss gets -1/2 point.

I’m doing this because I’m tired of the subjectivity of the polls and as an experiment to see how close a mostly unbiased poll would match up against these polls. It’s still early, and some of the results have been strange. The top four teams this week are BYU, UCLA, Notre Dame and Penn State. Really? I hardly think these four teams will be the ones in the playoffs.

I know these numbers will play out as these teams start conference play. I’m hoping they start to look more like what I perceive reality to be. I mean, how crazy is it that the only SEC teams represented in the top “five” are Mississippi State and Texas A&M?

And speaking of UCLA, just what do we make of this team? They barely got through Virginia (who actually turns out to be halfway decent) and Memphis with Brett Hundley at quarterback. They lose him in the first quarter with an elbow injury, and somehow that galvanized the entire team to realize the couldn’t rely on Hundley and play like they should have all along. UCLA beat a very unimpressive Texas team 20-17, but somehow this win impressed me the most. Also I thought it was pretty sweet to see Jerry Neuheisel be lifted on his teammates shoulders after the victory. This was pretty cool, too:

I know UCLA probably won’t National Championship this season, but I don’t know if this is a really good team or a tediously mediocre team. I guess we’ll find out as they start playing conference opponents. Meanwhile, here’s the rankings:

1. BYU (7 points)
2. UCLA (6.5 points)
3. NOTRE DAME (6 points)
4. PENN STATE (5.5 points)
5. ARIZONA STATE (5 points)
MISSISSIPPI STATE
NC STATE
NORTHERN ILLINOIS – really?!!!!
OKLAHOMA
PITT
TEXAS A&M
USC

i had to turn off espn and any sort of news outlet. just to have something playing in the background that could help my anger from spilling over, i tuned my television to the weather channel.

there has yet to be confirmation, but adrian peterson will reportedly be indicted on charges for beating his four-year old son with a switch. the boy was left with cuts and bruises on his legs, lower back and butt from the beating which peterson told authorities as a normal spanking.

so a four year old got a 6’1″, 215-pound 29-year old NFL running back so mad, the only recourse was to beat him to the point of bleeding? really? what can a four-year old do that is so wrong that he, in the eyes of his father, DESERVES to be beaten to the point of bleeding?

i have already seen people say that peterson should be free to “discipline his child” as he sees fit, that the reason our society and children are so out of control is because parents don’t whoop their children anymore, that because they were beaten as children it’s okay to beat their own children. spare the rod, spoil the child.

bullshit.

i still have so much anger towards family members who have beaten me as a kid. when i was little my mom would beat me with the metal handle end of a flyswatter if i brought home a test grade less than an “a” while telling me she would send me to an orphanage. as i got older and my mom left my dad, my uncle would assume the “father-figure” role in my life and he would punch me as i became a teenager including punching me in the head.

and, what probably pisses me off the most, being the eldest of all of my cousins, i was told to keep charge of them even though i was myself a kid. and, because i didn’t know any better, i would also hit my cousins until i realized how wrong it was by the time i was in eighth grade. i’m still racked with guilt for that. even though they’re all adults, seeing them brings all of that back up for me, and i get really mad. really mad at my uncle, my mom for teaching me that abuse was okay. that when you can’t control something, you just hit and yell and let the consequences be damned.

[i have to note i didn’t get it anywhere near as bad as some of my cousins which also fills me with guilt that i couldn’t shelter him from that.]

i don’t know if that’s why i am incapable of having a relationship. if that’s why i need to feel a bit of pain in order to feel truly satisfied from sex. if that’s why i do think of offing myself from time to time. if that’s why i’m so damaged.

but i’m sure it doesn’t help any.

and that’s why i saw red when i heard this story today. so fuck adrian peterson. fuck anyone who tries to defend his action. fuck the nfl. fuck my uncle and my mother. you don’t beat your child. period.

i really fucking hate the phrase “never forget” when used in conjunction with 9/11. that’s not to say i want to forget that day. i understand the need to remember what happened on that day. watching those two buildings come down before i even got to work is something i’ll never be able to shake.

and i don’t think many other people will be able to shake those images.

the “never forget” tagline is one of the more insulting ones i can think of to use on this day. it assumes that we are all imbeciles, that we will never remember what happened on this day in 2001, that we don’t understand the impact of what happened.

i was there. i remember. i remember feeling helpless, feeling helpless to what was going on, to the inevitable war to come because i knew that the only solution america had in mind was to blow shit up in some country far far away. little did i know it was going to entail this:

Section 2 – Authorization For Use of United States Armed Forces

(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

that these words would still be used to justify bombing things in yemen even though we’ve never declared war against that country. that it will be used to justify the upcoming bombings in syria and iraq. sorry. justify isn’t the right word. it’s more like the president won’t have to go to congress in order to declare these little wars. but there it is.

it was at that point the american public begged congress and the president to toss away their civil liberties in order to feel safe. funny, i don’t feel any safer now than i did on 9/10/01.

“never forget”? whenever i think of the so-called wars we’re raging, i remember. whenever i have to go through some idiotic ineffective tsa checkpoint at an airport i remember. whenever i hear “god bless america” sung at a ballpark, i remember.

so don’t tell me to “never forget”. i don’t think i could even if i wanted to. just fuck off and have your own pity party in your own corner.

Man, did the Big Ten take a beating yesterday. Surprisingly enough, it was not because of its two new teams. Maryland surged in the fourth quarter to dispatch South Florida on the road, and Rutgers held on to the lead as Howard tried to surge back late in the game. Illinois needed a rally to beat the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, and Minnesota held on to beat Middle Tennessee and Iowa came back to beat Ball State.

But we should have known how bad of a day it would be when Nebraska had a dog fight on their hands to unhusk McNeese State. Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State had early season measuring stick games — the games that lets you know where your team stands in the whole scheme of things.

Michigan and Notre Dame was just a bad game for the Wolverines. The Catholics drubbed Michigan 31-0 — if only they were on the road they would have gotten all four points in the Napkin Rankings. I didn’t watch any of this game because, well fuck Notre Dame.

Now Michigan State going into Oregon was interesting, a brave bit of scheduling for the Spartans even when they made that decision several years ago. Maybe they were thinking Oregon and their really stupid uniforms would be dead by now? But they aren’t, and it made for a most thrilling game. It really looked like Sparty’s hitting was going to lead them to the win in the second quarter.

But after halftime the Ducks’ defense seemed to go back to basics, and it worked. Quarterback Marcus Mariota led his team to score the final 28 points of the game for the 46-27 win, and the Ducks showed they’re still a force to be reckoned with. But really, that’s not a loss for Sparty to bemoan. They actually lost to a good team.

I’m still wondering if I can say the same thing for Ohio State. I can’t say what Virginia Tech showed us on offense was all that impressive, but their defense was pretty remarkable. They look like they can at least hang with Florida State for a little while.

But the Buckeye offense looked like garbage. At home. Before over 100,000 folks at the Horseshoe. That was a shocking 35-21 loss, especially when the final seven points they scored were helped by a fumble by Hokie quarterback Michael Brewer on his 15-yard line early in the fourth quarter.

Actually that was the most surprising part of the game. It seemed that from that point when Ohio State tied the game at 21-21, they had finally found their footing, shook off the rust, whatever hackneyed cliche you want to use for this, and they would take control of the game. I figured the Buckeyes would score three more times in the quarter, and we’d look down on the ACC with a bemused smiling shake of the head.

But no. Brewer calmly took his team on a six-play, 65-yard touchdown drive to retake the lead. The Hokies defense kept rushing the passer, and the Buckeyes offensive line broke down. Now, instead of questioning the ACC, we are all questioning the Big Ten. Finally, after years of knowing the truth, the results have come to bear.

THE BIG TEN HAVE FINALLY SHOWED TO THE WORLD THAT THEY ARE GARBAGE. The rankings:

1. BYU (6 points)
2. USC (5 points)
3. NOTRE DAME (4 points)
TEXAS A&M
UCLA
6. OLE MISS (3.5 points)
7. ARIZONA (3 points)
AUBURN
CENTRAL MICHIGAN
KANSAS STATE
LOUISIANA-MONROE
MISSISSIPPI STATE
NORTHERN ILLINOIS
OKLAHOMA
PITT
RUTGERS
TEMPLE
VA TECH