busblog

update: someone DOES think i’m fashionable

Rejoice!

He’s a catcher. Not a pitcher.

He hasn’t hit a home run in 5 years and hasn’t pitched in over 12.

Last night at Wrigley Field, 6 hours into the longest game the Cubs have ever played in their 100+ year history, John Baker was called off the bench to pitch the 16th inning.

And boy did he.

Not particularly well, compared to actual professional baseball pitchers, but he only walked one batter and promptly coerced the next batter to ground into a double play.

He ended his inning without giving up a run and when he came up to the plate at the bottom end of the inning, Baker drew a walk and eventually scored the winning run. It was an exclamation point at the end of a historic and wonderfully epic game that meant nothing to the last place teams, but everything to the players and fans who experienced it.

When it was over his teammates showered him with beer, chocolate milk, shampoo: anything they could pour on him.

“I think about all the guys I played with who are pitchers who are very good and never got  a chance to pitch in the big leagues,” Baker told reporters after the game.  “My hat is off to all those guys that grinded for so long and never got a chance to pitch.  It’s something I definitely will cherish for a long time.’’

See kids, that’s class.

Baker hadn’t pitched since his early days in the minor leagues and remembers that season fondly.

“It was the Cape Cod League,” he said. “I believe I had like a 27.00 ERA, but I was getting squeezed from what I remember.”

Last night, however, the exhausted umpires were more forgiving.

“I shook a split-finger (fastball) and yanked it a little bit,” Baker continued, noting a pitch that veered off closer to Indiana than to the strike zone. “So I just decided I was going to bang it and go with a straight 76 mph heater. That seemed to be the most effective pitch in the game.“

About 1,000 loyal fans made it to the end of the game and when the catcher/pitcher led off the bottom of the 17th he was greeted with hearty chants of his name.

Baker walked to lead off the rally in the 17th, he was bunted over to 2nd. he eventually made it to 3rd, and then Cubs star Starlin Castro hit a long drive to right. Baker tagged up and scored the winning run with a mighty slide at home beating the throw. The chants continued and quickly segued into the “Go Cubs Go” victory song.

“Any Chicagoan’s dream is to be standing at home plate with the remaining people at Wrigley Field chanting your name, so it’s something you’ll never forget,” Baker said.

i saw so many great movies at the IV Theater

and lectures and learned so much.

basically everything i know about art history.

a class i never enrolled in, because it was packed. but i went anyways.

too bad the apes took it over.

 

then i remember shes a ghost

clara bow first became famous when she won a magazine contest at 16.

some pretty girl thing in 1921 to find pretty girls.

as if that has ever been difficult.

that lead her to fame and fortune in the silent movie business.

clara became the original It Girl when she starred in the film It (1927) which was based on a kipling short story that included this couplet:

It isn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just ‘It’.
Some women will stay in a man’s memory if they once walk down the street.

Bow had it. at the peak of her career she was getting 10s of thousands of letters from fans a week.

even though talkies moved in, she was able to adjust, but she didn’t want to. she didnt like them. she found them limiting.

she got married in 1931 and retired from movies in 1933.

bow had some unfortunate health issues later in her life and received shock treatment for her insomnia and mental instability. that didnt cure her and when she died in her 60s of a heart attack the autopsy discovered she had a separate, undetected heart attack earlier in her life.

one of her pall bearers was the boxing champ Jack Dempsey.

despite being known for her beauty, bow should also be remembered for her struggle to be unique in tinseltown, which isn’t always easy for It girls.

“They yell at me to be dignified. But what are the dignified people like? The people who are held up as examples for me? They are snobs. Frightful snobs … I’m a curiosity in Hollywood. I’m a big freak, because I’m myself!”

yes, yes it is

as you know charlie and bonnie, the only people ive ever married, ran away to Berlin Germany

to form a Lou Reed cover band with their little daughters.

by law they have to come back to America once every other super moon.

so kim and os opened up their beautiful home to all of us. and even the children.

its fun watching the kids get bigger and the backyards become more magical

 

not to mention the guacamole become more zesty

i was all, kim, this pool, is that a kiddie pool over there or a hot tub?

she was like, thats a hot tub.

the mcilvanes had just returned from a baseball game or two, later greg played some of your favorite Hank songs

someone said hey its boba fett someone else said no its a clone

and then the rest of the day was spent talking about star wars

we have known each other so long it’s amazing.

before the internet.

before laptops

way before universal health care.

there were so many kids and theyre at the age where they are adorable and so well behaved

we know that will all end soon, but for right now all is well.

there was a taco station and best of all a Ben Sullivan Salsa Bar,

where ben paired the best toppings for you depending on your eye color, nationality, and political leanings

 

the sunken firepit was great in the day but when the sun went down it became the perfect spot for a Hootenany

the guitar was passed around and all these great old tunes came out sung by the gents who wrote them

some parts of the audience knew the words better than their creators which was sweet

inside the kids were playing new games together while on their phones. it was very sweet.

but ive gotta say it was way sweeter hearing the classics in the back yard.

a tagger had gotten trapped spraying graffitti on a sign above the 5 freeway

and he didnt wanna give himself up to the cops so he just sat in the small space

between the sign and the overpass.

the cops couldnt get to him because of some fencing put there to prevent taggers!

so they shut down the freeway and set up a cushion for the tagger to jump

but the guy wouldnt move: for hours

so apparently some guy had all the fixings for a taco stand so he set one up.

first customer talked crap about it on yelp.

deep down im a very old man. actually not that deep.

while in college i went hiking my freshman year with a bunch of new college friends.

they thought it would be funny to wake up, sprinkle granola bars with lsd

and give them to all of us sleeping amigos as the sun rose.

i knew something was up because who giggles and says eat this tony unless evil lurks.

it was quite a way to wake up, lemme tell you, and that whole morning slash afternoon i whined

why are we hiking? whats the point? why did we sleep in the dirt? black people dont do this!

and i realized that i was like a weird milk chocolate candy bar.

on the outside i was beautiful and smooth and delicious

and in the creamy center i was full of youth and sweetness

but right in the middle of that i was this hard old nut maybe a million years old.

which i was reminded up not that long ago when i woke up in a hotel suite with a pretty girl

who for some reason thought it was ok to put her tea service on our bed

when there was a perfectly good night stand right next to her.

she was all, shut up grandpa and read this to me as i fall back to sleep.

achieved a goal at real work.
ate an umami burger at lunch.
drove some cool people around LA.
ate a good turkeyburger at carls jr.

came home to the two fluffy cats waiting for me.
when its hot the bowls of water run out fast
they want that as much as they want the food
but they do this super weird thing.
they walk between my legs as if they Wanted to trip me.
they zig as i zag and if i stop they stop.
we both know we’re going to my front door to get the mail
and then get them their food and beers.
now they jump into my house and investigate as i get the grub.
then the shy one bounds out from under the house and circles my porch.

all of their meows are bizarre. not one of them has a normal one.
huge flying cockroach came outta the food bag and climbed up my arm.
i screamed like a 6th grade girl which super freaked out scaredy cat.
i hunted down that cockroachbeast, killed it, and kicked its guts outside
i know it’s dry out there fellas but theres plenty of food
and water and everything right behind the thai restaurant, seriously.

then remembered danielle had blogged for the first time in forever
and man was it good, but man was it sad.
give yr girl a shoutout the next time you say your prayers.