Double Rainbow Kind of Day

It wasn't a crazy "double rainbow," meme-ish thing, rather at two dioffeent times and places in the same day, I saw and took pictures of rainbows. 

It makes a certain sense, since rainbows are the result of specific weather conditions---recent rain, patchy clouds and incoming sunlight---and we got all that.

In the early afternoon, and then the later afternoon, at home, from the balcony:

Weather phenomena remind us that we're all just here, watching light bounce around.

Thanksgiving in Solvang

This year we went to Solvang to Auntie Anne's and Uncle Val's to celebrate Thanksgiving. My cousin Jake---two weeks older than me---and his wife and son also ascended to the southern portion of the Central Coast for the days, as did some more-removed family units from further afield. Katia and her brother Benny live San Diego way, they joined us with Benny's girlfriend Caspar. Kat and Benny are in the same generation as Cass, Camille, and Jackson (Jake's son), but are under 30, and their great-grandmother was the first cousin of my---and Jake's---grandmother.

Anne and Val know them quite well, dating back to when they were kids in New Jersey.

Anywho, I cooked the meal, and while we had a smattering of vegetarians and a vegan, I think there was enough food for everyone. I do think I overcooked the turkey, but that's me being hard on myself. Uncle Val showed Cass how to play Call of Duty, and Cass's FPS sills are pretty damn good.

I crashed pretty hard after finishing dinner on Thursday, and needed to rest, having fended off sickness for two weeks by then. But as I chilled in the recliner, as Cass and Camille and Jackson settled in, Uncle Val put on the Crystal Skull Indiana Jones movie. I missed a fair amount of it, but now I'd like to put eyes on it again. It wasn't so terrible!

I really only got pictures of the rad sky over the Central Coast.

The storm never hit us, but the sky looked very interesting.

Cass made quick friends with Anne and Val's new puppy, Logan:

And Camille liked being silly for the camera (as is the case most always):

It was a grand time with family, and while Anne and Val don't have kids of their own, they got to play grandma and grandpa for a few days, and that's always fun.

The Last Tube (Pour some out for the homies...)

Yikes:

This is the last tube of Trader Joe's toothpaste in our possession. We would normally buy four or five at a time. It's the best stuff out there. The store's been out for months as our supply dwindled. "In November," one worker there told me. 

Now it's December and the only word is from Internet sleuths and TJ managers saying that the company has changed vendors. Often times these changes lead to differences in the product, and we fans all hold out hope tat it will remain the best.

Something for the Boy

Take your pick...

Something may work...

The, uh, what? The NCU

So...Corrie was watching a Rom-Com the other day, and I thought I recognized one of the supporting character's actor. The story seemed like it had characters from a different movie I remember her watching, but it seemed like it would be, like, the sixth act of the story. I mentioned that and she laughed, telling me it was actually the sequel to that first movie I mentioned.

Before I go on, I feel like mentioning a few things about watching habits. Specifically, our solo watching habits, Corrie and me. Corrie, when taking a few moments to put eyes on something and vegetate, tends to put on rom-coms, and until this holiday season came along, had a stable of a few repeaters that highlight the continent of Oceana, strong-willed ladies, and Adam Demos. I, on the other hand, used to put on The X-Files, but since that's gone, I lean towards Chernobyl, The Sopranos, True Detective (first season only), or other nifty bad-vibe movies---think Zodiac, Shattered Glass, or even Nightcrawler. Basically, movies Corrie would never put on herself, but so what, since I'd be hard-pressed to put on a rom-com if I was by myself. 

Anywho, the movie looked like it was all shot on location, as the exteriors were of a grand palace, while the interiors were too spectacular to be from a sound stage, and made me think of Versailles. As I paid a modicum of attention to the movie, I kept wondering out-loud: "Where was this filmed? It's beautiful..." Once it ended, I perked up and asked Corrie to re-center the credits on the screen. I was going to try and look at the names and see what I could see...maybe I could suss out where it was filmed by checking the names of the crew. 

It took me about five seconds past the main actors names to make an educated guess. (I was totally right. I guess there are weirder and even less useful superpowers, but here we are.) Take a look at a screen grab from IMDB:

Do you see it? European, forested, palatial grounds...near the end of the credits, the producers thanked the "Benevolent Graces of King Michael the 1st."

I was like, really? My guess had nothing to do with any monarchy. That lead to a deep dive.

Those names there are all the Thracian remnants you'll find in today's Romanian population. King Michael was the last sovereign monarch of Romania. He ascended to the throne a few months before his 6th birthday in 1927, reigned until 1930, and then again in 1940 until 1947. During that time he was part of a staged coup against the Hitler-allied dictatorship, and eventually forced into abdication by Groza's communist movement, moved into exile in Switzerland as the monarchy was abolished and all of his palaces were nationalized. They were returned in the late 1990s after a protracted legal battle, and now serve as both museums and filming locations.

While looking all this up, I learned that the actor I thought I was seeing was not whom I thought it was. But I did learn that this sequel was the middle movie of a trilogy. As Corrie marveled at my name-to-place-recognition skills, she started the third movie.

Something that caught my eye as I scrolled through the detail list was that these were the first movies of the extended Netflix Christmas rom-com universe. The first of the trilogy was the first of the extended universe, but the second in the established timeline...and it went on like that for a few more lines. 

WTF?

Corrie giggled at the jokes and hackneyed writing as my brain reeled. THERE IS A CONNECTED ROM-COM NETFLIX UNIVERSE? WITH AN ESTABLISHED TIMELINE?

I found this more fascinating than A Christmas Prince 3, which is what Corrie was watching. There are, by today's count (Winter 2024...and I can't believe I'm writing it like that) I believe 18 movies in what is affectionately called the NCU, for Netflix Christmas Universe, anchored by two trilogy series: A Christmas Prince; and The Princess Switch.

I can't vouch for too many of these movies. I did see plenty of the third Princess Switch movie last night. Those three movies are basically a showcase for Vanessa Hudgens, as she plays two separate characters in the first film, and three separate characters in the second and third films. At different times, she plays a character trying to impersonate one of the doppelgängers, and as contrived as the story sounds (and it is obviously so contrived) she does a reasonably good job embodying the three distinct ladies, and then those ladies learning how to impersonate each other. It's a nice mix of stupid and marvelous, and would be total dreck if she couldn't act at all. 

Those movies I've seen enough of. I caught possibly half to three quarters of the last two Christmas Prince entries. Supposedly characters roam all over the NCU, which interconnects fictional Central Europeans kingdoms, fashionably named Aldovia, Penglia, Belgravia, and Montenaro.

This seems like the thing to do now, as regular, non-rom-com fans like me perk up and start telling other people about it: this NCU is having a moment.

These aren't links, but you can check them out if you'd like:

Let's careen towards critical mass.

How Small Can You Get?

I just learned about micro wasps. Parasitic wasps find other insect eggs to lay their eggs inside of, because just setting your egg on the buffet line to hatch and pupate and develop is a pretty good idea. But because of this, the wasps are SO FREAKING TINY. Like...holy hell:

Courtesy of the Interwebs

Here is one next to a paramecium and an amoeba TO SCALE! Those are single-celled organisms! 200 microns is one-fifth of a millimeter. Their wings are more feather duster than proper insect wing. Their brains have only 7,400 neurons, and most have lost their nucleotides.

I dunno...this world remains endlessly fascinating.

Best. Halloween. Ever.

I like Halloween, I guess.

I'm not a gung-ho, holy-crap-it's-finally-October, horror-movie-marathon kinda guy. People where I work ask me what my costume will be, and I'm like, "Eh...same as last year, maybe? Chef gear? Or whatever my daughter wants us to dress up as...?" I just don't care that much. Plus, I spent so many Halloween nights working that I kinda lost the internal drive to care. The same thing happened with the Super Bowl.

Anyway, I have a nice Indian suit---like a nice dressy suit from India---that Corrie brought home from her trip 20+ years ago that I wore this year. People where I work said, "Eh, what're you supposed to be, Sherwood?"

I answered, "I'm a cultural appropriator." Half the people I told that to said, "Huh?" They other half laughed uproariously and said, "Good one!" That was worth it just for that.

But this year marked the first year since the kids were born that we had to figure trick-or-treating out for ourselves. Each year so far we've just taken part in Linda's Daycare trick-or-treat event, which tended to be on, like, October 28th at the sunny hour of 3:30 pm. The kids would walk up and down Nipomo Ave (where the home daycare resided) and knock on the obviously-pre-arranged neighbors' doors and that would be that. Now that Camille and Cassius are at the same school, we kinda had to figure it out.

Before the real festivities of the evening occurred, there was the "parade" at school, where the kids can dress up fully in their costumes (masks too, whereas masks are otherwise verboten) and walk around the grounds and be cheered on and photographed by parents. I missed this, Corrie was there to snap a picture of Cass, wearing both his normal costume (Ghostface, from the movie Scream (which he's yet to see)), as well as showing off his love for the newly vanquished:

Corrie wasn't really feeling up to it, but we pushed through. It got dark enough by 6, and we corralled the babies just well enough to get their costumes ready and them into the car. See, we can't trick-or-treat around our place, since we live in an urban hellscape environment with very little obvious front-door action. That was just another reason to keep going to Linda's for as long as we did.

So instead of our neighborhood, we drove up Atlantic to Cal Heights, a nice neighborhood where Corrie has some clients:

The drive was about ten or fifteen minutes. Corrie took the right turn into the zone and we slowed down. "Do you seen any groups of kids?" she asked. After slowly rolling through a few intersections, we spotted some walkers, Corrie pulled a nearly reckless U-turn and Ace Ventura-ed her Subaru up to the curb. "Let's do this!" she exclaimed as the kids' excitement was just beginning to burble.

All of a sudden, it turned out, we were surrounded by a few hundred people, clogging all sidewalks on all streets around where we'd parked. We just got out, started right at that house, and it was on. 

We followed the few houses before heading left with the sidewalk, and followed it all the way to a school. Nearly every place was decorated and buzzing. The air was just cool enough to feel like Fall, but not to where you'd be chilly.

Some houses had displays that were unmanned, like the witches coven above. Corrie took all of these photos and I grabbed them from her. There was so much color and charm and music and excitement all along the entire street and, really, all the streets in Cal Heights on this evening that it made me long for that kind of thing for our kids. Raising urban, city-kids is cool and all, but you'll never get THIS kind of excitement. 

Anyway, one house had a whole group of adults handing out candy like they were waiting for the bus:

Cass ditched the jersey (on the left)

As we were walking away, we asked Camille, "What do you say?" She got back into line, but not to get candy, arther to say 'thank you' to each person individually. The last person was laughing so hard he gave her another handful of candy.

Pretty soon after this, Camille was tearing ass from house to house, leaving us in the dust, screeching as she went along, "They gave me MORE candy!" and soon after, "I HAVE SO MUCH CANDY!"

This skeleton is at least 10' tall

It was hard enough work keeping up with her. Eventually I trailed her as Corrie and Cass brought up the rear. Camille is at an age and gender that is socially allowed to disregard social etiquette when it comes to queuing for candy. Since it was so crowded, the littlest, blondest girls were kinda allowed to run amok, despite their own parents' protests.

I was not in costume at this time, but I did have on my large union affiliated hoodie, and I got plenty of compliments and shout-outs, which was very nice.

The whole thing took less than 20 minutes. We went a few houses, turned left with the sidewalk, went up a few blocks to the school, came back down the opposite side, crossed our first street, and went up and back a few houses and absconded to the car. Hit almost all three of the Tao of Steve's rules.

We got home just after 7, put on some Treehouse of Horror episodes, and sifted through SO MUCH CANDY, to quote the littlest blond one, for what we all liked.

It was easily my new favorite Halloween.

[[Totally unrelated aside: (as seen in the map above) notable Poly High alums: Billie Jean King, Tony Gwynn, Snoop Dogg, and Cameron Diaz, amongst many others.]]

"It's a kind of chicken, daddy."

My daughter, reciting a long-standing children's rhyme: One, two, buckle my shoe.

Three, four, shut the door.

Me: Nice.

Five, six, pick up sticks.

Seven, eight, lay them straight.

Me: For sure. Gotta organize 'em.

Nine, ten, a big hat fen.

Me: (Raises eyebrows)

Her: It's a kind of chicken, daddy. A hat fen.

That Was Over Fast

Dodgers in 5, just like in 1988. Dodgers end game 1 with a walk-off with two outs down at least a run when a hobbled hitter parks a shot to center-right, just like 1988. The only difference was this year Freddy Freeman crushed a grand slam (the first walk-off grand slam in WS history).

I watched that first game standing almost the entire time. When we scored in the top of the 10th without getting the ball out of the infield, I was sure would steal a game in LA. Joke was on me.

Congrats to the Dodgers, whose relentless nature and conquest of the fundamentals proved to be the undoing of my Yankees.

Yankees! Dodgers! Game 1 Tonight

When I started this blog it was 2009, and the last time my Yankees made the World Series. So that's eh, 15 fifteen seasons. That's as long a drought as for the Yankees as the 1981 to 1996 drought, or the years when I was a kid and my dad was a young father.

It's like, you have a two year old and a new born, and the next time your team makes the world series is when your oldest kid is a senior in high school. For me, I went from living in Brooklyn and shilling dairy and writing to living on an opposite coast, being a veteran in my gig, and with two kids of my own, both at the same elementary school.

But Cass gets to see his team (yay Yankee fandom!) in the World Series at an impressionable age. Cool.

Also, I like the Dodgers. I grew up rooting for them in the National League (thanks mom!) and I'd claim them as my favorite NL team. 

So this year, either Ohtani wins the chip is his first year as a Dodger (hell yes to that narrative) or MY team wins the chip! Hell yes to that narrative, too! I'm comfortable with whatever outcome because I've seen so much success in the recent past with my sports teams: from 1996 until 2022 with the Yankees, the NY Giants, and the Golden State Warriors (representing Nor Cal, but I like the Kings, too), it's been a wild time.

Superstar time, though, for sure: Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton for the pinstriped goons from the Bronx; Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman for the boys in blue form Chavez Ravine. Gerrit Cole, Clayton Kershaw...There haven't been this many future Hall of Famers and MVPs in the same World Series since probably 1996 (Jeter, Rivera, Time Raines, Wade Boggs for the Yanks and Maddux, Smoltz, Glavine, and Chipper Jones for the Braves).

Way to go baseball, for grabbing the collective consciousness. As much as D-Backs/Rangers was a good matchup of sound teams, c'mon! Dodgers/Yankees! Pennant number 41 for the Yanks! 15th meeting between these times, most ever! The narratives write themselves.

Go Yanks!

(Sigh) My Game's Finally Ending

The message I've been readying myself for a few years now came:

This is the message that Electronic Arts supplied us players of their phone game, The Simpsons: Tapped Out. It essentially says that on January 25th, the servers will be turned off and the game will cease to function. After all these years...

Here's an in-game image of the literal sunsetting of our Springfields:

TSTO, as we degenerate players called it, was a sims game. A "sims" game is a game in which you simulate things: you have characters who can assign quests for various lengths of time and be rewarded with types of currency that helps you build your town. All of us TSTO players were little civic planners, civil engineers, mayors, and lords of electronic fiefdoms. I played this game a lot.

It was a few things to me. One: it was a way to feel more connected to The Simpsons, arguably the greatest show ever made. Two: it was the most involved I'd been in any video game since the N64's Ocarina of Time. Three: it was a connection for me and my good buddy Tony, something we would regularly update each other about over the years. And years is the right framework, as I played this game a lot.

When I started playing, it was March 2012, and the game was a few months old. The maximum level a player could reach was 21. You started with Homer and Lisa, and would quickly unlock Cletus and Flanders, and as each of their quests or tasks would get done, you'd be rewarded with game cash and experience points (XP). Enough XP and you'd level up. By the time I reached the game's max level, that level was 35, and it was the Halloween event in 2012, after about six or seven months of playing. Now the max level is 939, which incidentally is the same as Puerto Rico's area code. Like I've said, I've played this game a lot.

Leveling up was just another way to keep engaged with the game play. That changed over the years, the engagement factor. While I did play a lot---I jumped awake when we were deep in the "Keep Cassius Alive" phase of his life and asked Corrie if my game updated (her response was "How tf should I know?"); I'd jones for Wi-fi codes in Laos and Cambodia to log in an keep my Christmas event going while traveling abroad in 2013/14---I was emotionally ready to quit the game a few years ago.

I had over 600 characters, thousands of "skins" (outfits for existing characters), I reached the edges of my space and, because of my city-planning decisions, I had most of my town full. I had maxed out the in-game currency (over 4.2 billion game-bucks), and by farming the premium currency, I had over 15 thousand donuts, which meant I could purchase any item in the game they offered, unless they sold a character for real money (which they did from time to time).

When I first put down the Simpson's house, I tried to place it strategically (for me). I thought it would look cool at the end of tree-lined esplanade. It wasn't what I was looking for, and after placing the Flanders house next door, I questioned my reason for even playing it. It wasn't until I separated their homes by water that I realized what I was really trying to do: I would recreate my Springfield as Venice. And I would essentially place everything in a spot that wouldn't change over the years of playing. I made a forest, and eventually had to fill most of it in. I once had a large bay gashing my town, but it needed to be filled in as well. If only...

And I mostly kept to that over the ensuing years. When looked at in it's totality, my game is an artifact of updates and releases, including when I started farming donuts and buying all the premium items. 

And I made my town into a veritable Venice, with waterways everywhere.

EA did a few things to keep engagement up in recent times. They made it possible to spend large chunks of game currency, which made clearing everyone have a purpose beyond just staring at your phone. And they made it possible to take photos of your entire town and save them. Here's an early one from my town:

It's hard to make out what's happening, but with zooming while looking at it on your phone, it the resolution gets down to playing the game size. That picture above is the first one I took, and I'll post the last one I'll take, the one I'm going to print out large like a poster. We should have guessed something was up when EA essentially doubled the available space in the game, opening up an enormous block to the "west" of the mountain range. Then they made the announcement of the sunsetting of the game by January and started to release many items that hadn't been released in years, and started selling the one-time cash-dependent characters for donut currency.

It's the last flailing about of our little pocket civilizations. We were, each of us, as players, mayors or despots, lords of our realms, civic planners and town designers. Some hasty, some petulant, some loved water everywhere.

I'm really only playing still so I can finalize my town for my poster-sized picture. That final picture will be coming in a few weeks or months, but here is one of the later ones showing off how much area is open. I finally got my ocean and will be getting my forests as well:

It was a good long run. I loved playing it, and having four months (we were told on September 25th that January 25th was the last day) to finish up and process losing it has been helpful. I was nearly done a few years back, so I've mostly made peace with it.

Viva Tapped Out! Thank you EA for all the years, and I don't regret not ever paying for anything. I know y'all as a company may disagree with that stance, but that's how it was. Halloween events; Christmas events; the terrible bickering between players on the fan sites (thanks tstoaddicts.com!) during the pagan winter event right after the election of 2016; the glitches and broken panes and integrity issues with the game elements...all of it, the warts and issues, I'd say were all worth it. The Stonecutters event still probably reigns as the best event...maybe the Monorail (I'm biased against the Monorail event because it broke my game for a few months). I don't regret playing, and while I'll miss it, I'm comfortable with moving on.

"You know my son's name, right?"

On the weekends when we make our weekly trip to the comic shop, we'll pick up the freebies that both DC and Marvel give out, essentially catalogs for what'll be out in two months time, as a way to drum up excitement and anticipation.

I usually peruse them and then toss them, but not until after the kids have had a huge fight about who gets which freebie. The trash ultimately claims them.

Anyway, DC recently re-released one of their most famous collaborations from the late '70s:

When I was telling the comic shop owner dude that I wanted it, he was like, "You, uh, know it's fifteen-bucks, right?" "Well," I told him, "my son's name is Cassius." He nodded and smiled, "Fair enough."

I remember the cover, front and back together, had celebrities drawn in there. I remember thinking oh, hey, that's Jimmy Carter and Lucy right there on the front. They even leave a message down on the back cover to check the legend inside to see how many you could name:

Only, the legend shows just how many actual people are depicted...

...so freaking many! And I love that many of them are staffers at DC Comics and Warner Bros.

Anyway, the only way it's possible to make everyone out is the fact that the product is SO BIG. The comic shop guy was like, "Well, that;s how big it was originally." Like, eh, okay...check it out laid up next to a regular magazine, which is already bigger than a regular comic book:

And then the story...is definitely from the late '70s, but is exciting.

I was trying to tell Cass about this...like, this is Ali, man! Superman isn't some comic character, he is the superhero: he can fly, he can shoot lasers from his eyes, bullets bounce off his body, he can punch someone's face clean off their body. He's older than everyone, including Batman. He's handsome and humble and is an invulnerable Boy Scout. He's almost too powerful for proper storytelling.

And people were like, "Eh...Superman vs Ali? Sound about right." Because you KNOW that somehow Ali was gonna win. Ali may lose to Frazier, and the unjust governing bodies of American boxing, but NOT to Superman. He wasn't gonna go kill brown people in Vietnam, and he wasn't gonna lose to Superman. 

Not only does he win, but Ali kicks his ass. He even protects him as they leave the ring:

It's definitely an artifact from a different time. It's big and beautiful, and Ali and Superman, however contrived their boxing match, are fun are to see working together. Also, it's always great to see Ali kick the asses of all comers, Superman and the extra-large Scrubb, Hun-ya.

Opening the Box?!

My wife doesn't like clutter. Hates it. Her feelings stem from growing up in a big chaotic family and household where the homes for the random household items were rarely, if ever, found by those items. "Everything has a home," she tells our kids.

But our kids are also my kids, and while not quite being a hoarder, I do exhibit mild hoarding tendencies. I am a packrat when it comes to paper waste--I'm perpetually collecting artifacts for some artistic display later, and my kids share this tendency with me.

Over the years I've gotten better at tossing stuff and clearing out my loads of crap. Sometimes the things aren't crap, but clunky yet. Sometimes they may be able to be sold. And sometimes my kids want to play with them.

Lately, I've said, "Aw, the hell with it..." One thing I had in a box labeled "Pat's Collectibles" was the following toy:

It turns out Carles Barkley was the only non-MJ player to get a figurine. My son said, "Can we open it and play with it? I know you love the coyote..." He does know me well. I told him once I checked the value of selling it eBay, if it wasn't crazy high, he could definitely open it and play with it.

It's now being played with by my son while I regale him of stories of Chuck's game. 

I figured it made it easier to be one step closer to the trash, which would make Corrie happy.

Other items were duplicate bobble-heads---one set are being played with and broken in my house while one set stays in the "Collectibles" box---of, get this, Lance Berkman and the fictional Rojo Johnson, a character played by Will Ferrell, when he came to the Round Rock stadium one random night in 2010. 

One step closer to the trashcan...

Little League is Upon Us

When I was a youngster, I played two years of little league baseball. Technically it was not Little League, with the capital letters, and any team I was on would never make it to the Little League World Series. I played in the Pony League, which was an organization that was big in Sacramento in the '80s.

I played one year of "Coach Pitch," and one year of "kid pitch." I don't remember too much from Coach Pitch, but I do remember walking a whole lot in Kid Pitch...and getting hit a lot, too. I remember only getting a single hit, and making contact twice in the same at bat, fouling a pitch off before lining a single to right-center. I think my OBP (on-base percentage) was in the upper .800s. I remember just wanting to swing for a change...

Anywho, Cass has joined a fall-ball league, and around here (Long Beach), fall ball is a short season with kid pitch until ball four, then coach pitch, and they switch turns in the field after the fifth batter no matter what. These are a couple of good rules. This way no one get's too zoned out out in the field and there's not an avalanche of walks.

This is also not technically the Little League, this is the Long Beach Cal Ripken League. But both Little League and Pony Baseball have a presence here, too.

I love that Cass and I can talk about baseball, and watch baseball, and have meaningful conversations about my baseball cards that he's claimed. Check him out above: rockin' the high socks and Don Mattingly's number.

The other day, Saturday, he found a collection of DVDs I bought years ago, my Yankee dynasty collection, a series of sports programs and year-in-reviews for 1996, 1998, '99, '00, and '01. There's also pivotal games from each year as well. Last Saturday we watched Game 4 of the 1996 World Series. There were no commercials, but it wasn't a series of highlights. It took a few hours. I showed Cass how to read the box score, so he knew which innings had the action, like Leyritz's homer in the 8th. 

I've been showing him Jeter highlights, too, like the flip play against the A's (RIP A's, pour some out for the homies) or his many tumbles into the stands.

Cass even caught the first pop-fly of the season for his team while manning 3rd base. So glad we spent all that time talking Mike Schmidt and George Brett.

Anyway, funny enough, all this baseball talk on my dad's birthday...so, happy birthday dad! Playoff's start today, too, with the Yanks getting a bye in this first round.

Shohei Ohtani: Prepare for Hyperbole

Whoa.

I've written here in the past about baseball things. In 2012 I lifted a bunch of lists of eras with Hall of Famers who were in their under-25 year old seasons. (I should revisit that gimmick...) I once explored a conversation my dad and I had about Derek Jeter being the greatest shortstop ever. I even once pontificated on books about Pete Rose and A-Rod in a post I didn't remember until right now.

I once added a half-joking meme to my Hank Aaron remembrance about how he should have been in the conversation for Greatest Of All Time. The end of this Hank Aaron piece is something like: I'm looking for arguments to who's better than Henry, and if you're arguing for anyone not named Willie Mays or Babe Ruth, you can kindly fuck off. 

But it's obvious I was wrong. Well...now it's obvious I was wrong.

I was thinking of a few things earlier this week. What if back in September of 1994, a month after the STRIKE ended the season and the days were dark for baseball fans, someone came to us (er, baseball fans) and said: Look, I know this sucks, but in 30 years, there will be a dude who'll---get this---go 50-50! And us baseball fans would've said, What, like 50 homers and 50 doubles? I think this Albert Belle guy can get that next year (as long as they play). 

But the futuristic person would say, No! Seriously! I mean 50 homers and 50 stolen bases! And we'd say, You're insane! And then they'd say, And...AND...when healthy this dude will ALSO be the best pitcher in baseball! We'd then tell this person to get the fuck outta here with all that noise.

And they'd say, No! Seriously! The most tantalizing player in the game is a power threat, hits for high average, can steal a bunch of bases, AND can throw 100 mph and can strike out anybody, even his own Mickey-Mantle-clone-teammate in the highest stakes international competition.

We baseball fans in 1994 would stare at this person with confusion on our face. And then the person would say: And, now get ready for this: people seem almost more interested in a 5'10" former first-pick quarterback getting benched after his 18th game.

Shohei Ohtani came into tonight's game on the precipice of an all-timer baseball mark. He entered tonight's game with 49 steals and 48 homers. On September 19th, this is shockingly close to baseball immortality: he had a real chance to reach an unheard of reality: 50 homers and 50 stolen bases. Enter tonight's game against the Miami Marlins.

What's Shohei's line? Just a little 6 for 6 with 10 RBIs, 3 homers, 2 steals, and a double. That's 16 bases and 4 runs scored, to go with those two steals.

He goes into September 20th, 2024, with 51 homers and 51 stolen bases.

And...and are we ready for a 40-40 guy with 20 wins? How is anyone better than Shohei? He's the best hitter and the best pitcher. Is he not the GOAT? I know...I know...it's not the longevity...and we're prisoners of the moment...but HOLY HELL, DO YOU SEE THIS GUY? What if Frank Robinson could give you 150 innings of Cy Young Award-caliber pitching? What if Tom Seaver or Steve Carlton moved to the AL and could produce 30-30 seasons as a DH/pitcher?

Vandalism with a Purpose

Calling this "vandalism" kind of misses the point. The artist in question called it guerrilla public service.

The situation was this: for years, in Los Angeles the freeway signs were, eh, unhelpful. The spur I-110 passes right through the west part of downtown LA's center. The connector to I-5 was a left exit, but the only sign saying so was nearly a mile before, and small, and on the right side of the road.

Angelino, sign maker, and artist Richard Ankrom got fed up. He decided to take matters into his own hands. If you click on the link above you'll be taken to his documentary, "Guerrilla Public Service." He documented himself making a very high quality freeway sign, actually exactly the same as the California Department of Transportation, down to the paint and reflectors. He even purchased an outfit to look like a public worker, and installed the sign in the middle of the day.

The whole endeavor is proof of "look like you belong and no one will bother you." The movie shows all of this, and he didn't release it until the statute of limitations was up on his "public sign 'defacing.'" 

This "vandalism" was left unchanged (it was pretty helpful) for 8 years. 8. Years. Hell yes.

Eventually the DoT came and took the rogue sign down, and replaced it with one of their own. I realized that when I was staying in the hotel in DTLA back in August, I could see the replaced sign:

And there it is: the I-5 marker showing the left lane exit next the 110 marker. (That's the point where the road splits: north of that point and it's CA HWY 110; south and it's spur I-110.)

Of course, I took the picture before I realized I had the sign in frame...here's the original pic:

This is from the elevator landing on the 20th floor. I was familiar with the documentary and realized later that I may have captured the new sign.

Anywho, the documentary is weird and, eh, Lynchian, I guess you could say. As in David Lynch...if a documentary about making and secretly---in the bright sunlight of day---installing a freeway sign can be like a David Lynch project.

I read an essay about it recently, and a point they were making was: wasn't there anything better to do? Like, making a legit traffic sign, and installing it? Nothing better to do? And the answer was...no. This was in August of 2001. It was a month before the 9/11 attacks, with the US at the height of it's global position, invincible and where messing around with trifling things was a totally passable thing to be involved with.

Seems like a distant memory now.

Labor Day with Family

Back in June in Denver we made a date to spend Labor Day with my Auntie Anne and Uncle Val, my dad's sister and her husband, who live in Solvang. Solvang is a Danish town in between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo that has become a kitschy tourist town. A trio of Danes founded it back in 1911, when they bought 10,000 acres of land in the Santa Ynez Valley.

My mom told us stories of visiting it back when the majority of language you'd hear was still Danish.

I wish I had better pictures of the picturesque towny atmosphere, but this is what I have. It's always been a little hokey for me, but I get it, and the kids thought it was cool. 

Earlier that day, Auntie Anne took us to the Ostrich and Emu Experience in town. I guess it's not exactly "in town," but everything is five minutes apart around there, so...why not just call it?

Anyway, once you got inside, if you elected to purchase the feed, you could get closer to giant birds than you thought you'd ever otherwise get:

The emus made the best noises: like a large hollow rubber ball was being hit with a croquet mallet. We were there at the best time: the marine layer was still around, so the temperature was mellow, and it was before the crowds showed up in earnest. On later days we'd drive past and see just how crowded the parking lot could get.

We even drove out to Jalama Beach, a small SB County campground and park outside of Lompoc. We took Anne and Val's dogs, and they enjoyed the hell out of it:

That's Cass off in the distance

One of the few things I felt nostalgia for was, maybe weirdly, the way the morning air smelled. Turns out I missed the smell of the morning air on the Central Coast. Also, once that marine layer burns off, the green rim that surrounds nearly all views in the area is back in view, clearly seen from the front yard space at Auntie Anne's:

There place was very nice and cute, and the kids loved being there.

Ann and Val never had kids themselves, so for our kids and for my auntie and uncle, this was like a grandparent visit. It was very sweet and special, and our kids got so much attention and gave so much attention and love of their own.

Uncle Val put on loud action movies (Dead Reckoning: Part 1) and showed Cass how to play Call of Duty.Val shared with both kids cowboy hats and sunglasses. They loved Camille's flight's of imagination-fueled stories, chatted up Corrie about work, and helped out in the kitchen, absorbing a few tidbits I offered.

The drive back, on Labor Day Monday, was less than three hours, which was remarkable considering the day and drive (US 101 to I-405? Seriously?), and added to the magical time the visit really was.

Love you guys, and can't wait to do it again!

Found in our Underground Parking Garage

What bizarre stuff awaits us in the bowels of our building? Mostly soot and gasoline fumes, galvanized rubber odor and the sounds of a creaky chain-operated door.

I park up against a chainlink fence, but next to Corrie's Subaru. It was a trade off: you can park next to each other, but it also means that you won't be able to get in on the passenger side. We worked it out.

Anywho, each day when I reverse into my spot, and each day when I drive away, I glance over at an old Star Wars poster right behind the chainlink fence:

On the top it reads: "The Original is Back," which I took to mean that it was an advertisement for a re-release of the OG Star Wars. The poster is on cardboard, so...cool. Maybe it's worth some cash, but being exposed to the quality of air in the garage is probably less than ideal. 

But eventually I had the time to read the gray slashing marquee on the bottom righthand corner:

Can you read it? Do you see it? The original was being released to keep attention high for the upcoming third installment called "THE REVENGE OF THE JEDI."

This poster was made back before they'd changed the name from REVENGE to RETURN. Lucas decided that Jedi wouldn't be seekers of revenge, so he opted to change the name.

So...this poster would be worth even more...? I'm guessing? I just don't have the energy to pursue anything like that...and to do it for my nominal landlords would be annoying, because I wouldn't be ripping them off...

Anyway, pretty wild little bit of history that I'd been looking at for years before realizing what exactly it was.

Last Bookstore Discovery

On my days staying in downtown LA I made sure to swing by the Last Bookstore. It's LA's baddest biggie indie bookstore (like Powell's in Portland or The Strand in New York) and as such, as a personal rule, I tried to find something to purchase. This visit I made with about twenty-five minutes before closing, so walking around was mostly rushed.

I came to a spot and saw the following binding:

Stars...of the New...Curfew? I read sideways. Ben Okri, as the author's name, had me thinking Africa, and I pulled it off the shelf.

It was slim and inexpensive, and Ben Okri was a celebrated Nigerian-British author whose works were finally getting published in the US (the blurb said---this book was from 1988). I'll say...Ben Okri is now Sir Ben Okri, a poet, screenwriter, novelist, and activist, and winner of Booker Prize in 1991 for The Famished Road. (The Booker Prize is the one other writers perk up for.)

That was all research done after I had read the stories contained inside. Where has this dude been, and why am I only finding out about him now? I guess that's true of so, so many fantastic writers, but still...

The stories take place in and around Lagos and some cities in the interior. The city is war torn, people are hungry, angry, and desperate, and a connection to the occasional magical realm is natural and realistic. In the second story after a car crash things go so sideways in Okri's descriptions (people's feet are on backwards, their arms bend the wrong way, the huts in the village all have mirrors on the outside, et al) that you start to think it's turning to sci-fi. It doesn't, but it opens the world up similar to Murakami.

In the titular story, Stars of the New Curfew, there are occasional sub-headings. The first is "The Nightmare of Salesmen," in which our narrator explains how his nightmares came about: he sold fake meds to needy people that mostly mad them worse-off. Another section's subheading is "The Salesmen of Nightmares," in which the new wonder drug he's selling causes a wild, placebo fueled fracas on a crowded bus, with a bus driver---on the new drug---racing another driver and sending the bus off a bridge and into a river, drowning seven passengers. After this the narrator flees to his home village, only to encounter the ongoing and escalating feud between the town's two richest families. This 60-plus page story goes all over the place in surprising and enjoyable ways.

I'm waiting for some time to pick up The Famished Road. New post-Modern fiction is always exciting, and from Africa! Hell yes.