The Old Man And The Punk

Living in West Virginia, the vast majority of strangers I encounter regard me with great disdain. They take one look at me and decide I'm the scum of the earth. For this reason, I make it a point, when in public, to conduct myself with the utmost kindness and politeness so that maybe the next time they see some guy with blue hair, a bunch of tattoos or anything else of the sort they might think twice before writing them off. That, and it's just the right thing to do; pausing a moment to hold a door for someone or picking up something they dropped only takes a second or two of my time but it could make the difference between them having a good day or a crappy one- it really is all about the small things. About an hour or so ago I walked to the store to get a coffee and spotted an elderly man struggling to change his tire. As I approached him he snapped "I don't have any change!" "No, sir," I replied, "I was wondering if you could use a little help with that." He eyed me suspiciously before muttering "alright" and I commenced to make quick work of what would have been quite arduous for him. After I finished, he offered to pay me and I declined- this really caught him off guard. "You know, buddy, I had you wrong" he said and we shook greasy hands. It felt very satisfying not only to help somebody out but also to hopefully put a dent in decades of prejudice.

Blanks Walks Off And So Do I

My favorite moment of this season so far is still Li'l Tony's pinch-hit walk and subsequent winning run on the day we acquired him (all of which happened while I was on mushrooms, I should probably add), but each of the past two games are definitely in the top-five. I watched Blanksy's walkoff job Monday night on the front porch since I was out there smoking when the rally started and I wasn't about to get out of my seat and eff it up. When KB parked that ball out in left, I went friggin' nuts; there's a good possibility I may have woke a neighbor or two up. One neighbor who was still awake without my assistance shouted across the street "What you wilin' out about, nigga?" so I tossed my computer inside and went over there to explain myself and do a little socializing. This, my friends, is where it gets really bizarre. A few neighbors and some skanktastic girl I'd never seen before were holding it down, doing pretty much the same thing as me at that point which was drinking crappy beer. So far, not weird at all. Then he starts telling me how he's gonna start a strip club/ brothel out of his house "but only on the weekends" to which another neighbor responded that "nah, you neeed to have them hoes up in here on a Sunday cuz that's when my old lady's out of town". He then asked the skanky girl to "let me see how you do" and she queried "You got any bills?" His response was "No, but I got some pills" and without even asking what kind of pills they were, she immediately began walking inside. I was speechless and disgusted although not one bit surprised. I remained outside, talking to my next-door neighbor who is surprisingly a semi-decent human being- surprisingly because of the company he keeps- and getting hammered. And by hammered, I mean full-on Drama goes to DC hammered. Not too much later- or hell, maybe a lot later for all I know- pimp guy calls up another skankariffic girl with the intentof her and the other one "putting on a show". As soon as she got there and it was clear that everyone was going inside to participate in the degrading of women, I excused myself. I was then asked "What, you gay, nigga?" Since there's no point in explaining my stance to someone who's enthusiastic about exploiting human beings and treating women like a combination of product and garbage, I just said I was tired. All in all, it was pretty effed up and I know where I'm not gonna be hanging out ever again.

P'n'E Book Review: "The Code" Is A Load

Dear God, what a horrible book. This steaming pile is proof positive that you can get anything published as long as you know the right people. The premise of the book is baseball's unwritten "code" as far as retaliation, brushbacks, respect, hard slides, so on and so forth. Good idea, terrible execution. The "author" of this excuse for literature simply cobbled together quotes from a few current and a lot of former players, the vast majority of which were Minnesota Twins. What you wind up with is a million variations of "yeah, sometimes you gotta drill a guy- but you never go for his head". It's broken down into chapters including Excessive Celebration, Showing Up Hitters, Sliding Hard, et cetera yet every subject concludes with "if somebody does that, you gotta drill him- but you never go for his head". I always wished they'd make a book version of "Groundhog Day", now I realize they did. Jeez. Another thing about this hardbound colostomy bag that really grinds my gears is the insistence to awkwardly tack the phrase "the code" into nearly every insipid quote. I could go on and on about every shortcoming this literary equivilant of herpes has but I really don't want to think about it anymore.