Sunday, August 10, 2008
Georgia On My Mind
What the hell is going on in the Caucases? Russian tanks are rolling into Georgia, South Ossetia is getting bombed into the ground, and journalists around the world are bumming that they don’t get to keep talking about the Edwards Affair. Oh, who am I kidding; they’ll keep talking about the Edwards Affair. Sex sells!
But they should be talking about Georgia, and I’ll do my damnedest to explain why.
Let’s begin with a history lesson. The year was 1989. Phil Collins had two songs on the Billboard Top 20. Batman was huge (even more so than today, if you can believe it.) And in a far away corner of the USSR, a little huddled mass called South Ossetia was yearning to breath free.
South Ossetia is a small territory in the middle of Georgia (the Soviet Georgia, not Hotlanta.) So, when they declared their independence, what ensued was a series of civil wars lasting well into 1992. When the Soviet Union finally fell, the former Soviet republic of Georgia became an autonomous and sovereign state, but inside the Georgian border little South Ossetia was not so fortunate. What they got instead was a three-party peacekeeping force made up of Russian, Georgian, and South Ossetian forces.
South Ossetia never let the dream of independence die. In 1993, they drafted their own constitution (hooray liberty!) In 1996, they elected their first president. All the while, Georgia refused to recognize them as a sovereign nation.
In December 2001, with the rest of the world’s attention occupied by Afghanistan, the good people of South Ossetia elected themselves a president who promised to break away from Georgia once and for all. His brilliant plan: to secede from Georgia…and join Russia. He figured trading the false independence of Georgian rule for the false independence of Russian rule was some kind of victory, or something. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but then again, neither do the last two American presidential elections.
The plan to join Russia never really got off the ground. The fires for the recent conflict really started burning in 2006, when South Ossetia held a public referendum on splitting from Georgia. The referendum passed overwhelmingly, and the response from the Georgian government was to call it a secret Russian campaign to provoke a war. What a crazy idea, that Russia would secretly stoke political discord in another country just to provoke a war it knows it can win. That kind of conspiracy theory is ridiculous; it’s not like Russia is run by a former KGB agent or anything….oh, wait.
In 2007, the Georgian parliament tried to create some kind of territorial government to control South Ossetia (presumably to usurp power from their pro-Russia president.) South Ossetia responded by claiming that Georgian forces were firing mortars into their capital, a claim that Georgia denied. Peace talks between South Ossetia and Georgia were attempted, but broke down in the fall of 2007.
In March of this year, after the US and other countries officially recognize Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, the government of South Ossetia started crying “me too!” Georgia was trying to get its NATO membership approved, and the Russian parliament started debating what to do about South Ossetia. Russia was worried that if Georgia got admitted to NATO, the pro-Russian South Ossetian government would disappear. The Russian parliament started urging the Kremlin to recognize South Ossetian independence.
In April, after Georgia’s bid to enter NATO was denied, the Georgian government decided to offer South Ossetia a power-sharing deal, apparently hoping that once this little issue was taken care of, Georgia would be a shoe-in for NATO. South Ossetia said no, claiming it wanted full independence and nothing else.
And that brings us to today. In the middle of ongoing negotiations between Georgia and South Ossetia, Georgia decided to launch a surprise attack. Their bid to retake South Ossetia militarily was met first by Russian scorn, and then by Russian tanks and bombers. South Ossetia has been leveled in the exchange, and 20,000 civilians have been forced to relocate. The Georgian army too was forced to beat a retreat after several days in conflict with the overwhelming force of the Russian army.
Georgia has since fully withdrawn from South Ossetia, and begged for a cease-fire. As of today, Russia has refused, claiming that the Georgian army has not retreated but merely regrouped. Russian attacks have been, by all accounts, wildly disproportionate to the Georgian threat. They have extended their bombing runs outside of South Ossetia, going as far as to bomb the main airport in Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi.
At first glance, it would seem that South Ossetia just wanted to be free, Georgia tried to prevent that freedom, and Russia has used the crisis as an excuse to flex its military muscle and maybe capture a little territory for itself. There don’t seem to be any good guys in this conflict, just two bad guys fighting over an innocent bystander.
The problem is, the American media is going to portray this as an attempt by Russia to take an Imperialist stance on the world stage, with no mention of how Georgia started it. Why would the media decide to pick sides in a battle between two wrongs? Maybe because Russia is easy to paint as a bad guy, given its history with the US, and therefore the media won’t have to explain anything or do any in-depth reporting. Maybe they’ll take Georgia’s side because Georgia is an American ally, whose president is American educated and speaks fluent English.
But what the media won’t talk about is what this war (and it will be a war, just watch) is really about: oil. The European Union gets most of its oil from the Caspian Sea. And all the oil pipelines that feed Caspian oil to Europe run through Russia--except for the pipelines that run through Georgia. So, it is in the West’s interest to keep Georgia free from Russian control. Likewise, it is in Russia’s interest to control all the oil flowing from the Caspian, to maximize their negotiating position with the west.
Georgia knows all this, of course, so they felt free to launch an unprovoked military strike to reclaim South Ossetia, knowing full well that the West would have to back them up. Russia has now used this attack as an excuse to invade and occupy Georgia, no doubt betting on the fact that NATO won’t want to take on Russia over a country that isn’t, technically, one of them.
What comes next is hard to say. The US is in no position militarily to do anything about Russia. If this is a signal of impending Russian aggression in the region, there is nothing the US can do about it. Thanks again, Mr. President, for tying our hands in Iraq.
The only solution (and it is a temporary one at best) is to remove the casus belli. If Russia is using South Ossetia as a pretext for occupying Georgia, then it is the responsibility of the Western powers to facilitate a negotiation between Georgia and South Ossetia that results in full South Ossetian independence and sovereignty. If South Ossetia has that, Russia will have no justification for a military presence in Georgia, and will have to withdraw. Then, the European powers will have to bust their asses to get Georgia admitted to NATO so that this doesn’t happen again.
This just wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t include some kind of political pitch, so I’ll close by saying this: if we’re going to confront the resurgent threat of Russia, we’re going to need two things. First, we need a flexible military force, one that isn’t tied up trying to occupy one country and fight a war in another. Withdrawing from Iraq will give us the resources needed to confront new and unexpected challenges, like Russia. Second, we need a president who can unify and rally the support of European leaders and the European people, and convince them to present a united front for our cause. So, maybe having a president who is a “celebrity” in Europe and America wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Yeesh, how many more reasons to vote for Obama does America need?
But they should be talking about Georgia, and I’ll do my damnedest to explain why.
Let’s begin with a history lesson. The year was 1989. Phil Collins had two songs on the Billboard Top 20. Batman was huge (even more so than today, if you can believe it.) And in a far away corner of the USSR, a little huddled mass called South Ossetia was yearning to breath free.
South Ossetia is a small territory in the middle of Georgia (the Soviet Georgia, not Hotlanta.) So, when they declared their independence, what ensued was a series of civil wars lasting well into 1992. When the Soviet Union finally fell, the former Soviet republic of Georgia became an autonomous and sovereign state, but inside the Georgian border little South Ossetia was not so fortunate. What they got instead was a three-party peacekeeping force made up of Russian, Georgian, and South Ossetian forces.
South Ossetia never let the dream of independence die. In 1993, they drafted their own constitution (hooray liberty!) In 1996, they elected their first president. All the while, Georgia refused to recognize them as a sovereign nation.
In December 2001, with the rest of the world’s attention occupied by Afghanistan, the good people of South Ossetia elected themselves a president who promised to break away from Georgia once and for all. His brilliant plan: to secede from Georgia…and join Russia. He figured trading the false independence of Georgian rule for the false independence of Russian rule was some kind of victory, or something. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but then again, neither do the last two American presidential elections.
The plan to join Russia never really got off the ground. The fires for the recent conflict really started burning in 2006, when South Ossetia held a public referendum on splitting from Georgia. The referendum passed overwhelmingly, and the response from the Georgian government was to call it a secret Russian campaign to provoke a war. What a crazy idea, that Russia would secretly stoke political discord in another country just to provoke a war it knows it can win. That kind of conspiracy theory is ridiculous; it’s not like Russia is run by a former KGB agent or anything….oh, wait.
In 2007, the Georgian parliament tried to create some kind of territorial government to control South Ossetia (presumably to usurp power from their pro-Russia president.) South Ossetia responded by claiming that Georgian forces were firing mortars into their capital, a claim that Georgia denied. Peace talks between South Ossetia and Georgia were attempted, but broke down in the fall of 2007.
In March of this year, after the US and other countries officially recognize Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, the government of South Ossetia started crying “me too!” Georgia was trying to get its NATO membership approved, and the Russian parliament started debating what to do about South Ossetia. Russia was worried that if Georgia got admitted to NATO, the pro-Russian South Ossetian government would disappear. The Russian parliament started urging the Kremlin to recognize South Ossetian independence.
In April, after Georgia’s bid to enter NATO was denied, the Georgian government decided to offer South Ossetia a power-sharing deal, apparently hoping that once this little issue was taken care of, Georgia would be a shoe-in for NATO. South Ossetia said no, claiming it wanted full independence and nothing else.
And that brings us to today. In the middle of ongoing negotiations between Georgia and South Ossetia, Georgia decided to launch a surprise attack. Their bid to retake South Ossetia militarily was met first by Russian scorn, and then by Russian tanks and bombers. South Ossetia has been leveled in the exchange, and 20,000 civilians have been forced to relocate. The Georgian army too was forced to beat a retreat after several days in conflict with the overwhelming force of the Russian army.
Georgia has since fully withdrawn from South Ossetia, and begged for a cease-fire. As of today, Russia has refused, claiming that the Georgian army has not retreated but merely regrouped. Russian attacks have been, by all accounts, wildly disproportionate to the Georgian threat. They have extended their bombing runs outside of South Ossetia, going as far as to bomb the main airport in Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi.
At first glance, it would seem that South Ossetia just wanted to be free, Georgia tried to prevent that freedom, and Russia has used the crisis as an excuse to flex its military muscle and maybe capture a little territory for itself. There don’t seem to be any good guys in this conflict, just two bad guys fighting over an innocent bystander.
The problem is, the American media is going to portray this as an attempt by Russia to take an Imperialist stance on the world stage, with no mention of how Georgia started it. Why would the media decide to pick sides in a battle between two wrongs? Maybe because Russia is easy to paint as a bad guy, given its history with the US, and therefore the media won’t have to explain anything or do any in-depth reporting. Maybe they’ll take Georgia’s side because Georgia is an American ally, whose president is American educated and speaks fluent English.
But what the media won’t talk about is what this war (and it will be a war, just watch) is really about: oil. The European Union gets most of its oil from the Caspian Sea. And all the oil pipelines that feed Caspian oil to Europe run through Russia--except for the pipelines that run through Georgia. So, it is in the West’s interest to keep Georgia free from Russian control. Likewise, it is in Russia’s interest to control all the oil flowing from the Caspian, to maximize their negotiating position with the west.
Georgia knows all this, of course, so they felt free to launch an unprovoked military strike to reclaim South Ossetia, knowing full well that the West would have to back them up. Russia has now used this attack as an excuse to invade and occupy Georgia, no doubt betting on the fact that NATO won’t want to take on Russia over a country that isn’t, technically, one of them.
What comes next is hard to say. The US is in no position militarily to do anything about Russia. If this is a signal of impending Russian aggression in the region, there is nothing the US can do about it. Thanks again, Mr. President, for tying our hands in Iraq.
The only solution (and it is a temporary one at best) is to remove the casus belli. If Russia is using South Ossetia as a pretext for occupying Georgia, then it is the responsibility of the Western powers to facilitate a negotiation between Georgia and South Ossetia that results in full South Ossetian independence and sovereignty. If South Ossetia has that, Russia will have no justification for a military presence in Georgia, and will have to withdraw. Then, the European powers will have to bust their asses to get Georgia admitted to NATO so that this doesn’t happen again.
This just wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t include some kind of political pitch, so I’ll close by saying this: if we’re going to confront the resurgent threat of Russia, we’re going to need two things. First, we need a flexible military force, one that isn’t tied up trying to occupy one country and fight a war in another. Withdrawing from Iraq will give us the resources needed to confront new and unexpected challenges, like Russia. Second, we need a president who can unify and rally the support of European leaders and the European people, and convince them to present a united front for our cause. So, maybe having a president who is a “celebrity” in Europe and America wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Yeesh, how many more reasons to vote for Obama does America need?
Thursday, August 7, 2008
State of the Mariners, Part II
Before I get started, I need to address two points:
1. To my good friend and loyal reader Troy, thank you for pointing out that Sony spells the name of its own product incorrectly. The “R” in “Blue-ray” should be capitalized, and I recommend a massive letter-writing campaign to get them to change it. I don’t care how expensive of a re-branding project it would be; I will continue to spell it “Blue-Ray” until Sony changes its ways.
2. Apparently, the Front Office of the Seattle Mariners are loyal readers of Hardly Worth Your Time, for a mere two days after posting my grumblings on the team, Jose Vidro was shown the door. The team also called up Wladimir Balentin and sent Brandon “Brenden” Marrow down to AAA to transition from Godly Bullpen Presence to Godlier Starting Pitcher. These moves would have totally been advocated in today’s piece, had the team not read my mind and beat me to the punch. So, I guess what I’m saying is, You’re Welcome, Mariners Fans.
In lieu of the recent roster moves, I’m scrapping my original plan. Instead, I'll use today's posting to give a cursory poo-pooing of the rotation, then I’ll hop in Doc Brown’s DeLorean and take a look at the future of the Mariners. There will be no Part III, which is good, because Part III is always the suckiest sequel (except for Rocky III, which is ten kinds of awesome.) For all my loyal nerd-readers who don’t give two hoots about Seattle baseball, I promise next week’s writings will be sufficiently geeky for you.
For starters, let’s talk about, um, the starters. This year, we’ve run out the following “pitchers:”
Felix “Woohoo” Hernandez: 136 IP, 3.04 ERA, 8.4 K/9
Erik “Special K” Bedard: 81 IP, 3.67 ERA, 8.0 K/9
Jarrod “Pride of the Yankees” Washburn: 128.2 IP, 4.76 ERA, 5.25 K/9
Carlos “Mas Tacos, Por Favor” Silva: 130.2 IP, 5.92 ERA, 3.86K/9
Miguel “Renaissance Man” Batista: 94 IP, 6.80 ERA, 5.65 K/9
RA “Butterfly” Dickey: 88.2 IP, 4.36 ERA, 4.87 K/9
Felix is the future, not just of the Mariners, but of all mankind. He is John Connor. He’ll give you 7 strong innings, give up one run on 3 hits, then take down the SkyNet complex and melt the T-1000, all in time hit the clubs in Pioneer Square and get his mack on. He leads the team in every relevant and irrelevant pitching statistic, he’s only 22, and I think he’s spearheading our nuclear proliferation negotiations with Iran. In short, I like Felix.
Special K, on the other hand, needs to eat his Wheaties. I want to go on the record as saying that I loved the Erik Bedard trade this off-season. I didn’t care that we were giving up too much; we needed to send a signal to both the players and the fans that this organization would no longer be a country club of under-achievers. We were going to win, and we were going to win now. Management was finally showing that they cared more about winning than marketing.
Boy, was I ever wrong. The players continued to treat the team like a country club for under-achievers, management foolishly jettisoned the manager instead of properly blaming the players, and the fans kept coming. The team pulls in 35,000 per game for every weekend series, no matter how often the team gets blown out. The casual Mariner fan keeps plopping down money to eat garlic fries, cheer for the Hydroplane Race, and watch losing baseball. I’m sure the fans would rather see winning baseball, but if losing doesn’t deter their interest, why should the team spend any money trying to compete?
But, let me get back to Bedard. He’s a talented pitcher, and a total head case. I know he doesn’t like the media, and that’s fine with me. I don’t like most of them either. But when someone as dominating as Bedard refuses to pitch with any discomfort or minor injury, and takes himself out of the game after 100 pitches, regardless of what inning it is or what the score is, I have to speak my mind. We gave away five players for Bedard, including two very good major leaguers, and in return we expected an Ace. What we got was a petulant, self-interested prima donna who has done nothing but tease us and disappoint us.
I’ll get back to Bedard in a second, but first I want to address the rest of the staff. Jarrod Washburn is a perennially mediocre pitcher who happens to be having an above-average year. He peaked last month, which would have been the perfect time to dump his salary on the Yankees in exchange for Melky Cabrerra. Instead, the M’s tried to bluff the Yanks into getting two major league talents, and the Yanks scoffed. Who can blame them? We’re talking about JARROD WASHBURN here. He’ll never be more than your #4 starter, and he’s making Ace money. The team has one hope—that Washburn clears waivers, and the M’s can dump him on the Yankees for a bag of balls and some pine tar.
Carlos Silva, unfortunately, is going nowhere. Not only is his massive contract unmovable, but he also exceeds the weight restrictions of most major airlines, making it very difficult to move him out of the Seattle area. Silva would be a decent #5 starter, if he had even an adequate defense behind him. He’s a ground ball pitcher, which means he’s only as good as his infield. Most of the year, his infield has consisted of the worst defensive 1B, 2B, and SS in the AL. So, yeah, his numbers aren’t good. Did I mention we gave him 4 years, $48 million?
Miguel Batista might be our most consistent pitcher. He’s giving up a .312BAA against lefties, and a .310BAA against righties. That’s the model of consistency. In Safeco, a pitcher’s paradise, opponents are hitting .331 against him, and his home ERA is 8.93. From these numbers, it’s safe to conclude that Miggy is not a good pitcher at Safeco, which is kind of an important thing to be good at if you’re going to be a pitcher for the Seattle Mariners. Maybe we should trade him… oh, that’s right, he’s making $9.5 million this year. Never mind.
What we can do, and have done, is send Batista to the bullpen and start the neatly-bearded knuckleballer RA Dickey. Dickey has pitched well of late, and I could stomach him as our number five guy in the future. Unfortunately, we’ve got three or four AAA guys, plus the Notorious S.I.L.V.A, who can all fill the #5 spot. Plus, Dickey is inconsistent (as are all knuckleballers not named Wakefield or Niekro.) Maybe RA has a future in the ‘pen, with Batista. Or, with a name like RA, maybe he can find work organizing Wing Events and enforcing Quiet Hours.
All this carping about the rotation doesn’t really do any good, so let’s get this blog up to 88 mph and talk about the future. Felix is in—we need to sign this kid to a 20 year contract and pay him the GDP of Guam. After the Guamese see him pitch, I’m sure they won’t mind.
If all goes according to plan, we can slot “Brenden” Morrow into the two hole. I have every confidence that Morrow will be a dominate force in the rotation. And yes, I am knocking furiously on wood as I type this. (A quick note on the “Brenden” thing; Morrow’s first name is Brandon. Everyone in the world recognizes this, and pronounces it accordingly. Everyone, that is, except the one man who spends the most time saying Morrow’s name, Mariners announcer Dave Sims. He insists on saying “Brenden,” and while it’s probably just an east-coast accent thing, I still find it more than a little annoying. Like, really, really annoying. Like, “where is the mute button” annoying. Ok, Diatribe over.)
After Felix and Morrow, I’m fine with slotting Bedard into the #3 spot. If he puts up good numbers in a low pressure situation next year, we can trade him to some team that thinks it can make a run, and is willing to mortgage the future to chase its dream. Kind of like the Mariners did, when they traded for him. So, cross your fingers and hope that KC, Cincinnati, or some other horribly mismanaged franchise gets off to a good start next year.
Fourth in the rotation would be a perfect spot for Washburn, but GOD DAMMIT he should be a Yankee by then. We need to dump his salary, and due to injuries, the Yankee rotation right now consists of Mike Mussina and the East Rutherford Intramural Softball All-Stars. So, assuming that deal gets done, we can put Silva in the 4 spot and pray the defense improves around him.
Number 5 would be a good place to stick a AAA guy, like Ryan Roland-Smith. When we eventually trade Bedard, we can move everyone up and slot in either RA Dickey or another AAA guy, like Jared Wells or Ryan Fierabend. We’ll have plenty of guys on stand-by for the eventual Silva injury (if he puts on any more weight, his femurs may actually collapse under the stress. It’d be a grotesque and fantastic sight.) By September of next year, we may be ready to call up Phillipe Aumont (the Canadian Randy Johnson, currently developing in the minors.) We’ll be all set to make a run in 2010.
That is, of course, if we can fix the lineup woes. We are a bad team, offensively and defensively. Ichiro will be good forever, but by having him in the outfield, we sacrifice a typical “power position” in the lineup. We need to address this in free agency by signing a masher to play 1B. Mark Texieria will be a free agent this off-season, and as much as I hate his name, his face, and every other irrelevant thing about him, he’d be a great fit for the team. We need to throw money at him. Vlad Guerrero will be a free agent as well, and if we can get him to DH for us, we need to make that happen. If not, we can always re-sign Raul and make him DH.
Wladimir Balentin will be a serviceable LF with some pop, and we probably can’t do better than Jeremy Reed in center. Beltre can stay at 3B, and hopefully Beatancourt can figure out how to take a walk now and then and stop showboating at SS. Lopez is progressing nicely at the plate, but he needs to consult Jenny Craig about getting his range back in the field. Clement will be a perennial all-star behind the plate, maybe as soon as next year. So, next year’s lineup may look something like this:
RF Ichiro
2B Lopez
1B Texierierierieriaiaia
DH Grrrrrrrrruerrero or Rauuuuul
C Clement
3B Beltre
LF Balentin
CF Reed
SS Beatancourt
That has the potential to be a solid lineup, 1-9 (or, at least 1-6.) Throw in Mark Lowe and Sean Green setting the table for JJ, and that roster has 82-82 written all over it. After a sub-.400 record this year, I’ll take it. All we can ask for is improvement.
1. To my good friend and loyal reader Troy, thank you for pointing out that Sony spells the name of its own product incorrectly. The “R” in “Blue-ray” should be capitalized, and I recommend a massive letter-writing campaign to get them to change it. I don’t care how expensive of a re-branding project it would be; I will continue to spell it “Blue-Ray” until Sony changes its ways.
2. Apparently, the Front Office of the Seattle Mariners are loyal readers of Hardly Worth Your Time, for a mere two days after posting my grumblings on the team, Jose Vidro was shown the door. The team also called up Wladimir Balentin and sent Brandon “Brenden” Marrow down to AAA to transition from Godly Bullpen Presence to Godlier Starting Pitcher. These moves would have totally been advocated in today’s piece, had the team not read my mind and beat me to the punch. So, I guess what I’m saying is, You’re Welcome, Mariners Fans.
In lieu of the recent roster moves, I’m scrapping my original plan. Instead, I'll use today's posting to give a cursory poo-pooing of the rotation, then I’ll hop in Doc Brown’s DeLorean and take a look at the future of the Mariners. There will be no Part III, which is good, because Part III is always the suckiest sequel (except for Rocky III, which is ten kinds of awesome.) For all my loyal nerd-readers who don’t give two hoots about Seattle baseball, I promise next week’s writings will be sufficiently geeky for you.
For starters, let’s talk about, um, the starters. This year, we’ve run out the following “pitchers:”
Felix “Woohoo” Hernandez: 136 IP, 3.04 ERA, 8.4 K/9
Erik “Special K” Bedard: 81 IP, 3.67 ERA, 8.0 K/9
Jarrod “Pride of the Yankees” Washburn: 128.2 IP, 4.76 ERA, 5.25 K/9
Carlos “Mas Tacos, Por Favor” Silva: 130.2 IP, 5.92 ERA, 3.86K/9
Miguel “Renaissance Man” Batista: 94 IP, 6.80 ERA, 5.65 K/9
RA “Butterfly” Dickey: 88.2 IP, 4.36 ERA, 4.87 K/9
Felix is the future, not just of the Mariners, but of all mankind. He is John Connor. He’ll give you 7 strong innings, give up one run on 3 hits, then take down the SkyNet complex and melt the T-1000, all in time hit the clubs in Pioneer Square and get his mack on. He leads the team in every relevant and irrelevant pitching statistic, he’s only 22, and I think he’s spearheading our nuclear proliferation negotiations with Iran. In short, I like Felix.
Special K, on the other hand, needs to eat his Wheaties. I want to go on the record as saying that I loved the Erik Bedard trade this off-season. I didn’t care that we were giving up too much; we needed to send a signal to both the players and the fans that this organization would no longer be a country club of under-achievers. We were going to win, and we were going to win now. Management was finally showing that they cared more about winning than marketing.
Boy, was I ever wrong. The players continued to treat the team like a country club for under-achievers, management foolishly jettisoned the manager instead of properly blaming the players, and the fans kept coming. The team pulls in 35,000 per game for every weekend series, no matter how often the team gets blown out. The casual Mariner fan keeps plopping down money to eat garlic fries, cheer for the Hydroplane Race, and watch losing baseball. I’m sure the fans would rather see winning baseball, but if losing doesn’t deter their interest, why should the team spend any money trying to compete?
But, let me get back to Bedard. He’s a talented pitcher, and a total head case. I know he doesn’t like the media, and that’s fine with me. I don’t like most of them either. But when someone as dominating as Bedard refuses to pitch with any discomfort or minor injury, and takes himself out of the game after 100 pitches, regardless of what inning it is or what the score is, I have to speak my mind. We gave away five players for Bedard, including two very good major leaguers, and in return we expected an Ace. What we got was a petulant, self-interested prima donna who has done nothing but tease us and disappoint us.
I’ll get back to Bedard in a second, but first I want to address the rest of the staff. Jarrod Washburn is a perennially mediocre pitcher who happens to be having an above-average year. He peaked last month, which would have been the perfect time to dump his salary on the Yankees in exchange for Melky Cabrerra. Instead, the M’s tried to bluff the Yanks into getting two major league talents, and the Yanks scoffed. Who can blame them? We’re talking about JARROD WASHBURN here. He’ll never be more than your #4 starter, and he’s making Ace money. The team has one hope—that Washburn clears waivers, and the M’s can dump him on the Yankees for a bag of balls and some pine tar.
Carlos Silva, unfortunately, is going nowhere. Not only is his massive contract unmovable, but he also exceeds the weight restrictions of most major airlines, making it very difficult to move him out of the Seattle area. Silva would be a decent #5 starter, if he had even an adequate defense behind him. He’s a ground ball pitcher, which means he’s only as good as his infield. Most of the year, his infield has consisted of the worst defensive 1B, 2B, and SS in the AL. So, yeah, his numbers aren’t good. Did I mention we gave him 4 years, $48 million?
Miguel Batista might be our most consistent pitcher. He’s giving up a .312BAA against lefties, and a .310BAA against righties. That’s the model of consistency. In Safeco, a pitcher’s paradise, opponents are hitting .331 against him, and his home ERA is 8.93. From these numbers, it’s safe to conclude that Miggy is not a good pitcher at Safeco, which is kind of an important thing to be good at if you’re going to be a pitcher for the Seattle Mariners. Maybe we should trade him… oh, that’s right, he’s making $9.5 million this year. Never mind.
What we can do, and have done, is send Batista to the bullpen and start the neatly-bearded knuckleballer RA Dickey. Dickey has pitched well of late, and I could stomach him as our number five guy in the future. Unfortunately, we’ve got three or four AAA guys, plus the Notorious S.I.L.V.A, who can all fill the #5 spot. Plus, Dickey is inconsistent (as are all knuckleballers not named Wakefield or Niekro.) Maybe RA has a future in the ‘pen, with Batista. Or, with a name like RA, maybe he can find work organizing Wing Events and enforcing Quiet Hours.
All this carping about the rotation doesn’t really do any good, so let’s get this blog up to 88 mph and talk about the future. Felix is in—we need to sign this kid to a 20 year contract and pay him the GDP of Guam. After the Guamese see him pitch, I’m sure they won’t mind.
If all goes according to plan, we can slot “Brenden” Morrow into the two hole. I have every confidence that Morrow will be a dominate force in the rotation. And yes, I am knocking furiously on wood as I type this. (A quick note on the “Brenden” thing; Morrow’s first name is Brandon. Everyone in the world recognizes this, and pronounces it accordingly. Everyone, that is, except the one man who spends the most time saying Morrow’s name, Mariners announcer Dave Sims. He insists on saying “Brenden,” and while it’s probably just an east-coast accent thing, I still find it more than a little annoying. Like, really, really annoying. Like, “where is the mute button” annoying. Ok, Diatribe over.)
After Felix and Morrow, I’m fine with slotting Bedard into the #3 spot. If he puts up good numbers in a low pressure situation next year, we can trade him to some team that thinks it can make a run, and is willing to mortgage the future to chase its dream. Kind of like the Mariners did, when they traded for him. So, cross your fingers and hope that KC, Cincinnati, or some other horribly mismanaged franchise gets off to a good start next year.
Fourth in the rotation would be a perfect spot for Washburn, but GOD DAMMIT he should be a Yankee by then. We need to dump his salary, and due to injuries, the Yankee rotation right now consists of Mike Mussina and the East Rutherford Intramural Softball All-Stars. So, assuming that deal gets done, we can put Silva in the 4 spot and pray the defense improves around him.
Number 5 would be a good place to stick a AAA guy, like Ryan Roland-Smith. When we eventually trade Bedard, we can move everyone up and slot in either RA Dickey or another AAA guy, like Jared Wells or Ryan Fierabend. We’ll have plenty of guys on stand-by for the eventual Silva injury (if he puts on any more weight, his femurs may actually collapse under the stress. It’d be a grotesque and fantastic sight.) By September of next year, we may be ready to call up Phillipe Aumont (the Canadian Randy Johnson, currently developing in the minors.) We’ll be all set to make a run in 2010.
That is, of course, if we can fix the lineup woes. We are a bad team, offensively and defensively. Ichiro will be good forever, but by having him in the outfield, we sacrifice a typical “power position” in the lineup. We need to address this in free agency by signing a masher to play 1B. Mark Texieria will be a free agent this off-season, and as much as I hate his name, his face, and every other irrelevant thing about him, he’d be a great fit for the team. We need to throw money at him. Vlad Guerrero will be a free agent as well, and if we can get him to DH for us, we need to make that happen. If not, we can always re-sign Raul and make him DH.
Wladimir Balentin will be a serviceable LF with some pop, and we probably can’t do better than Jeremy Reed in center. Beltre can stay at 3B, and hopefully Beatancourt can figure out how to take a walk now and then and stop showboating at SS. Lopez is progressing nicely at the plate, but he needs to consult Jenny Craig about getting his range back in the field. Clement will be a perennial all-star behind the plate, maybe as soon as next year. So, next year’s lineup may look something like this:
RF Ichiro
2B Lopez
1B Texierierierieriaiaia
DH Grrrrrrrrruerrero or Rauuuuul
C Clement
3B Beltre
LF Balentin
CF Reed
SS Beatancourt
That has the potential to be a solid lineup, 1-9 (or, at least 1-6.) Throw in Mark Lowe and Sean Green setting the table for JJ, and that roster has 82-82 written all over it. After a sub-.400 record this year, I’ll take it. All we can ask for is improvement.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
State of the Mariners: Part I
I love Seattle baseball. I just want to say that at the outset. I was 12 years old when Edgar ripped the double down the left field line that changed my life. I howled with delight when Luis Sojo hit his famous broken-bat single. I booed when we traded Randy. I cheered when we said goodbye to A-Rod. I wept in September of 2001 when, after clinching the division with a home victory, Mark McLemore grabbed an American flag and led the team in a victory lap around Safeco, before everyone knelt around the pitcher’s mound in prayer. I skipped classes to watch the Mariners lose in the playoffs. I was sitting along the left field line when Sweet Lou returned to Seattle as a Devil Ray. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, Lou’s included, when he gave his pre-game speech. And we totally kicked his ass that day.
All that said, the Mariners suck. Not the Mariners of my youth, or even the Mariners of last year. The 2008 Seattle Mariners are a bad team. I want to talk a little bit about why. In part two of this series, I will look at the pitching staff. And, because I’m an optimist at heart (or a fool; take your pick,) I’ll spend part three talking about where they need to go from here. Because let’s face it, no one want to root for a loser.
But today, I want to look at the ineptitude of the Seattle offense. The offense is bad. If you’ve seen even one Mariners game this year, you know that. If you’ve seen as many as I have, well, it haunts your dreams. Let’s look at the typical Riggleman-era line up:
RF Ichiro (woohoo!)
CF Jeremy Reed (woo-who?)
LF Raul Ibanez (Thank God the dugout has wheelchair access)
3B Adrien Beltre (too awesome for a silly nickname)
2B Jose Lopez (Joe Slopes: I could devote an entire blog to explaining this nickname)
DH Jose Vidro (The Crappy Jose)
1B Bryan LaHair (“The Hair”)
C Jeff Clement (the UberMensch)
SS Willie Bloomquist (Boom-Boom!)
Ok, one at a time: Ichiro is immortal. He has inside him blood of kings. He has no rival. No man can be his equal. Take me to the future, ONWARD!!!! Umm, if you don’t know why that’s funny, ask your favorite nerd. He’ll explain the joke to you if you explain to him who Ichiro is, or what baseball is.
Number two (appropriately) is Jeremy Reed. Jeremy Reed has really pretty hair. Maybe he and Bryan LaHair should trade last names. In fact, bam, they just did. Jeremy LaHair is an above average defender in centerfield, but he’s a AAA lifer who has never, NEVER contributed to our lineup. At least, that’s the impression I get. Let’s look up some stats.
Career BA/OBP/OPS: .254/.314/.363
Career OPS: .677
Career OPS+: 82
2008 VORP: -1.3
If you’re not a huge baseball stats nerd, none of that makes sense. If you are, you maybe just pooped a little at how bad a hitter Jeremy LaHair is, statistically.
Now, the big guns, hitter number three: Rauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuul. Ibanez. He’s a good hitter, maybe the best all-around hitter on the team (except for the “maybe” part.) I won’t bother putting his numbers up (if you can find this blog on the internets, you can find Raul Ibanez’s stats.) What I will do is tell you how good of a hitter Raul would be on the other 13 teams in the AL, keeping in mind that he is unquestionably our number one guy (in terms of his .807 OPS-- I’m not forgetting Ichiro here.)
Tampa Bay: Fourth best hitter.
Boston: Seventh best hitter.
New York: Sixth best hitter.
Baltimore: Fifth best hitter.
Toronto: Second best hitter (and Toronto SUUUUUCKS)
Chicago (WS): Sixth best hitter
Minnesota: Fourth best hitter.
Detroit: Sixth best hitter.
Cleveland: Fourth best hitter.
Kansas City: Third best hitter (better than Guillen: suck it, moneybags!)
Oakland: Second best hitter (see Toronto.)
Texas: Sixth best hitter. (BTW, Milton Bradley is having a helluva year.)
Los Angeles of Anaheim: Fourth best hitter.
So, that took about twenty minutes to look up, and maybe fifteen seconds to read. Point is, our best hitter in terms of OPS would not be the best hitter on ANY OTHER TEAM IN THE LEAUGE, and would only be the second best hitter in the TWO MOST ANEMIC OFFENSES OUTSIDE OF SEATTLE. That’s not to say anything bad about Raul; I hope I can play baseball that well when I’m 72. My point is this: yeesh, how bad is the rest of the lineup?
Cleaning up in the number 4 spot is Adrian “Appeal to First” Beltre. This cat can play some D. I will not speak ill of Adrian, so long as he keeps upping his walk totals and stops skipping morning BP (you’re setting a bad example for the kiddies, Shifty. And yes, I just changed your nickname from “Appeals to First” to “Shifty.” Sue me.)
The man following Shifty in the lineup is the great enigma, the young man who plays like an old man, the only player whose offense has improved at the same rate his defense has regressed. My man Slopes is tearing the cover off the ball, relative to the rest of the infield. But, his range in the field this year can best be described as “arm’s length.” If only baseball would get with the times and let Jose Lopez ride a Segwey, his defensive efficiency might improve from “horrendous” to “tolerable.” Until that happens, the team should consider removing his “free seconds” privileges at the clubhouse buffet.
Batting sixth is Carl Sagan’s favorite player, the living black hole of hitting. Jose Vidro, whom the superior bloggers at USS Mariner have dubbed “Turbo,” is the perfect example of everything that is wrong with the Mariners’ baseball philosophy. Vidro isn’t just the worst hitter on the team. Jose Vidro is the worst hitter in the American League. I wish I were exaggerating. Among the 95 AL hitters with at least 300 plate appearances, Vidro’s .610 OPS ranks 95th. That would make him last. Did I mention that Jose Vidro is the DH, a position that literally anyone on the roster can play? So, not only is he the worst hitter in the AL, he contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING outside of hitting. He doesn’t pitch, he doesn’t play defense, and he’s probably one of those fat, sweaty dudes who will completely destroy the only bathroom on the airplane right before you get into it. I’m just guessing.
Hitting seventh after Vidro (and therefore leading off a lot of innings) is Bryan LaHair, who was gracious enough to give Jeremy Reed his last name. So, let’s call him “Bryan NotSexson.” My favorite thing about Bryan NotSexson is that, um, he’s not Richie Sexson. My least favorite thing about Bryan NotSexson is that even though he’s a career minor-leaguer who projects to never be a serious threat in an AL lineup, he’s decided to go and hit the ball fairly well in his limited time with the ball club. Normally, I approve of minor-league call-ups hitting well. However, the Mariners need to get serious about finding a first baseman in free agency this off-season, and the last thing I want is for the owners and fans to fall in love with NotSexton and keep him around long after he’s regressed to the mean (sort of like the team did with Willie Bloomquist, Jeremy Reed/LaHair, Mike Morse, Bucky Jacobsen, and Ben Davis.)
Number eight is Jeff Clement. I won’t rag on Jeffy, even though the umps are pretty sick of cleaning up that huge shit he takes on the plate every time he comes up to hit. He’s just a kid, and this time next year, he’ll be the best power hitter on the team. So, let’s move on.
Number nine is Willie Boom-Boom, so named by Hall of Famer Dave Niehaus despite the fact that Willie went a CALENDAR YEAR without an extra-base hit. I can’t even say anything bad about Bloomquist. The man went 365 days without hitting anything bigger than a single. I think that says it all. He’s another example of the Front Office’s sheer ignorance; he hit .400 in his first month with the club, FIVE YEARS AGO, and he’s been on the team ever since. He is pretty much the only white guy on the team, so I don’t know, maybe it’s an Affirmative Action thing.
That’s it for part one. I don’t even want to talk about how bad of a year Yuni Beatancourt is having, or Kenji “Do You Still Work Here?” Johjima, or Miguel “Vidro Jr.” Cairo for that matter. Next week, I’ll bring you part two of this series, wherein I will give a double-handy to Felix Hernandez and Brandon “Brenden” Morrow while taking a shit on the rest of the pitching staff. Stay tuned, kiddies.
All that said, the Mariners suck. Not the Mariners of my youth, or even the Mariners of last year. The 2008 Seattle Mariners are a bad team. I want to talk a little bit about why. In part two of this series, I will look at the pitching staff. And, because I’m an optimist at heart (or a fool; take your pick,) I’ll spend part three talking about where they need to go from here. Because let’s face it, no one want to root for a loser.
But today, I want to look at the ineptitude of the Seattle offense. The offense is bad. If you’ve seen even one Mariners game this year, you know that. If you’ve seen as many as I have, well, it haunts your dreams. Let’s look at the typical Riggleman-era line up:
RF Ichiro (woohoo!)
CF Jeremy Reed (woo-who?)
LF Raul Ibanez (Thank God the dugout has wheelchair access)
3B Adrien Beltre (too awesome for a silly nickname)
2B Jose Lopez (Joe Slopes: I could devote an entire blog to explaining this nickname)
DH Jose Vidro (The Crappy Jose)
1B Bryan LaHair (“The Hair”)
C Jeff Clement (the UberMensch)
SS Willie Bloomquist (Boom-Boom!)
Ok, one at a time: Ichiro is immortal. He has inside him blood of kings. He has no rival. No man can be his equal. Take me to the future, ONWARD!!!! Umm, if you don’t know why that’s funny, ask your favorite nerd. He’ll explain the joke to you if you explain to him who Ichiro is, or what baseball is.
Number two (appropriately) is Jeremy Reed. Jeremy Reed has really pretty hair. Maybe he and Bryan LaHair should trade last names. In fact, bam, they just did. Jeremy LaHair is an above average defender in centerfield, but he’s a AAA lifer who has never, NEVER contributed to our lineup. At least, that’s the impression I get. Let’s look up some stats.
Career BA/OBP/OPS: .254/.314/.363
Career OPS: .677
Career OPS+: 82
2008 VORP: -1.3
If you’re not a huge baseball stats nerd, none of that makes sense. If you are, you maybe just pooped a little at how bad a hitter Jeremy LaHair is, statistically.
Now, the big guns, hitter number three: Rauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuul. Ibanez. He’s a good hitter, maybe the best all-around hitter on the team (except for the “maybe” part.) I won’t bother putting his numbers up (if you can find this blog on the internets, you can find Raul Ibanez’s stats.) What I will do is tell you how good of a hitter Raul would be on the other 13 teams in the AL, keeping in mind that he is unquestionably our number one guy (in terms of his .807 OPS-- I’m not forgetting Ichiro here.)
Tampa Bay: Fourth best hitter.
Boston: Seventh best hitter.
New York: Sixth best hitter.
Baltimore: Fifth best hitter.
Toronto: Second best hitter (and Toronto SUUUUUCKS)
Chicago (WS): Sixth best hitter
Minnesota: Fourth best hitter.
Detroit: Sixth best hitter.
Cleveland: Fourth best hitter.
Kansas City: Third best hitter (better than Guillen: suck it, moneybags!)
Oakland: Second best hitter (see Toronto.)
Texas: Sixth best hitter. (BTW, Milton Bradley is having a helluva year.)
Los Angeles of Anaheim: Fourth best hitter.
So, that took about twenty minutes to look up, and maybe fifteen seconds to read. Point is, our best hitter in terms of OPS would not be the best hitter on ANY OTHER TEAM IN THE LEAUGE, and would only be the second best hitter in the TWO MOST ANEMIC OFFENSES OUTSIDE OF SEATTLE. That’s not to say anything bad about Raul; I hope I can play baseball that well when I’m 72. My point is this: yeesh, how bad is the rest of the lineup?
Cleaning up in the number 4 spot is Adrian “Appeal to First” Beltre. This cat can play some D. I will not speak ill of Adrian, so long as he keeps upping his walk totals and stops skipping morning BP (you’re setting a bad example for the kiddies, Shifty. And yes, I just changed your nickname from “Appeals to First” to “Shifty.” Sue me.)
The man following Shifty in the lineup is the great enigma, the young man who plays like an old man, the only player whose offense has improved at the same rate his defense has regressed. My man Slopes is tearing the cover off the ball, relative to the rest of the infield. But, his range in the field this year can best be described as “arm’s length.” If only baseball would get with the times and let Jose Lopez ride a Segwey, his defensive efficiency might improve from “horrendous” to “tolerable.” Until that happens, the team should consider removing his “free seconds” privileges at the clubhouse buffet.
Batting sixth is Carl Sagan’s favorite player, the living black hole of hitting. Jose Vidro, whom the superior bloggers at USS Mariner have dubbed “Turbo,” is the perfect example of everything that is wrong with the Mariners’ baseball philosophy. Vidro isn’t just the worst hitter on the team. Jose Vidro is the worst hitter in the American League. I wish I were exaggerating. Among the 95 AL hitters with at least 300 plate appearances, Vidro’s .610 OPS ranks 95th. That would make him last. Did I mention that Jose Vidro is the DH, a position that literally anyone on the roster can play? So, not only is he the worst hitter in the AL, he contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING outside of hitting. He doesn’t pitch, he doesn’t play defense, and he’s probably one of those fat, sweaty dudes who will completely destroy the only bathroom on the airplane right before you get into it. I’m just guessing.
Hitting seventh after Vidro (and therefore leading off a lot of innings) is Bryan LaHair, who was gracious enough to give Jeremy Reed his last name. So, let’s call him “Bryan NotSexson.” My favorite thing about Bryan NotSexson is that, um, he’s not Richie Sexson. My least favorite thing about Bryan NotSexson is that even though he’s a career minor-leaguer who projects to never be a serious threat in an AL lineup, he’s decided to go and hit the ball fairly well in his limited time with the ball club. Normally, I approve of minor-league call-ups hitting well. However, the Mariners need to get serious about finding a first baseman in free agency this off-season, and the last thing I want is for the owners and fans to fall in love with NotSexton and keep him around long after he’s regressed to the mean (sort of like the team did with Willie Bloomquist, Jeremy Reed/LaHair, Mike Morse, Bucky Jacobsen, and Ben Davis.)
Number eight is Jeff Clement. I won’t rag on Jeffy, even though the umps are pretty sick of cleaning up that huge shit he takes on the plate every time he comes up to hit. He’s just a kid, and this time next year, he’ll be the best power hitter on the team. So, let’s move on.
Number nine is Willie Boom-Boom, so named by Hall of Famer Dave Niehaus despite the fact that Willie went a CALENDAR YEAR without an extra-base hit. I can’t even say anything bad about Bloomquist. The man went 365 days without hitting anything bigger than a single. I think that says it all. He’s another example of the Front Office’s sheer ignorance; he hit .400 in his first month with the club, FIVE YEARS AGO, and he’s been on the team ever since. He is pretty much the only white guy on the team, so I don’t know, maybe it’s an Affirmative Action thing.
That’s it for part one. I don’t even want to talk about how bad of a year Yuni Beatancourt is having, or Kenji “Do You Still Work Here?” Johjima, or Miguel “Vidro Jr.” Cairo for that matter. Next week, I’ll bring you part two of this series, wherein I will give a double-handy to Felix Hernandez and Brandon “Brenden” Morrow while taking a shit on the rest of the pitching staff. Stay tuned, kiddies.
Is 'On The Run' Music?
Spoiler Alert: Yes, it is.
Last night I bore witness to an intriguing debate. It started with the question of why a certain Pink Floyd fan I know doesn’t like Radiohead. The Pink Floyd Fan, or PFF, didn’t see the relationship between the two bands as strongly as did the Radiohead Fan, or RHF. PFF felt that Radiohead was too disjointed, too progressive, and they lacked the melodic consistency and emotional current of the Floyd. RHF, on the other hand, celebrated the occasional dissonance and dysfunction of Radiohead, and felt their inventiveness was on par with Dark Side of the Moon.
I left the discussion momentarily to take a phone call, and when I returned, the debate had changed. On The Run, an instrumental track from Dark Side, was on the stereo. PFF was arguing that On The Run was not a song, which RHF felt was ludicrous. PFF argued that, while the piece does convey emotion in the context of the album, it would be a meaningless cacophony of sounds when standing alone. RHF disagreed, saying the emotion of the piece was clear. What ensued was a debate of increasingly heated rhetoric, culminating in both sides essential having two different conversations. RHF was trying to talk about On The Run in terms of what music is or isn’t. He was arguing the vague and indefinable nature of music, like trying to define the color red. He made the point that music doesn’t necessarily need to have a narrative to be enjoyable, much like a sunset doesn’t need a narrative to be pretty.
PFF, on the other hand, was talking about On The Run in terms of what works or doesn’t work for him. He argued that music without narrative structure is just a bunch of sounds. As analogy, he talked about a helicopter. Is the regular beat of a helicopter’s spinning blades music? He said no. He argued that On The Run, outside the context of the album, was just noise, just as any one of its constituent parts would just be noise if isolated from the whole piece. When RHF compared On The Run to techno music, PFF argued that to him, most techno music is just noise. It just doesn’t ‘work’ for him.
To an outside observer, it’s clear these two sides were not arguing the opposite sides of the same question. RHF was trying to talk about what music is or isn’t. PFF was trying to talk about what works or doesn’t work for him, which is code language for what he likes or doesn’t like. At its heart, this debate is about defining art. Is the definition of art objective or subjective? If you consider something to be or not be art, can you be wrong or right?
For starters, there has to be more to the definition of art than simply what we like or don’t like. I’m not much of a Toby Keith fan, but I would never try to argue that Toby Keith’s racist, nationalist songs aren’t music. On The Run is not the best song on Dark Side, in fact, it’s probably my least favorite track. But I would never argue that it wasn’t music, in any context or no context at all. I define art as human creativity expressed in a medium or combination of media. Music, therefore, is human creativity expressed in the medium of sound.
That is a broad definition, and open to much subjectivity. But locally applied, it becomes obvious that under my definition, On The Run is definitely music. If you need to define music in terms of its common elements, we can do that too. The common elements of music, technically speaking, are pitch, rhythm, dynamic, timbre, and texture. Examining On The Run, you’ll find each of these elements. I’ll let you do that on your own time.
To the larger issue, does music have to ‘mean something’ in order to be music? Does it have to ‘work for you’ in order to be music? I say yes, but no. Yes it has to ‘mean something’ to be art, but it doesn’t have to mean the same thing to everyone. And for those who would claim that On The Run means nothing to them outside the context of the album, I would argue two points. First, who cares what it means outside of the album? It’s PART OF THE ALBUM, and therefore you’re arguing a hypothetical context. It’s like saying “Arizona would be a shitty place to live, if it were overrun with zombies.” Well, yes, but so what? It’s not (yet,) so your point is moot. Second, when you say On The Run means nothing to you outside of the context of the album, do you really mean it? Does the song, listened to in isolation, become indistinct from the background noise of everyday life? Does it suddenly lose its pitch, rhythm, dynamic, timbre, and texture? Does the emotional urgency and sense of breathless anxiety suddenly disappear from the piece, just because you didn’t listen to Speak To Me/Breathe immediately before it? By that logic, Nirvana’s In Bloom isn’t really a song if you don’t hear Smells Like Teen Spirit first. And don’t try to tell me that In Bloom is a bad comparison, because it was written to be enjoyable in isolation. That’s my point exactly: On The Run was written to be listened to IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ALBUM, and therefore any discussion of its musicality independent of the album is irrelevant.
And as for the techno analogy, let’s not confuse what we like with what something is or isn’t. I don’t like Raisin Bran, but it’s still part of a balanced breakfast. Maybe PFF claims not to distinguish techno from noise, but I don’t see the Rave scene jamming out to the sounds of traffic or the hum of a chainsaw. Maybe you need to be high on E to enjoy techno, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is music. You’d have to be pretty high to enjoy most David Lynch movies, but that doesn’t mean they’re not movies.
What any of this has to do with the difference between Radiohead and Pink Floyd, I don’t know. Personally, I like them both.
Friday, August 1, 2008
I Wrote A Poem About Syphilis
More accurately, I wrote a poem about the fear of syphilis. I hope you enjoy it.
Syphilophobia
Fear of syphilis
I decided to lose her number.
Something about the way she looked
at me and every other guy
and something about that
nail polish, fingers and toes, red as a rash
made me think twice about calling her.
My roommate had It, I think.
He spent a semester on Medical Leave
and came back with new medications
and new restraint.
“I’ll stay home tonight
you guys go have fun.”
There were whispers.
I didn’t sit on our toilet seat for a year.
Can you catch it like that?
Should I be cleaning our shower
every day?
Formula 409 ain’t cheap.
But Penicillin isn’t either.
The paper said one in four college students
but what does a college paper know?
That number seems a little high.
But if they’re right,
and I don’t have It
and the only two girls I’ve ever slept with
don’t have It
then the next one will.
That’s not a phobia.
That’s just math.
Why Is The Dark Knight So Awesome?
The Dark Knight is awesome. It is so awesome. I think you and I can agree on that, assuming you are one of the 5,999,999,983 people who have seen it, and not one of the 17 Nepalese monks who are waiting for it to come out on Blue-Ray. Even the monks would have seen it by now, if they could get a decent BitTorrent connection up in the Himalayas. Damn, spotty wi-fi.
So, why is it awesome? What is the essence of its awesomeness? How can we (you and I, writer and reader) distill its awesomeness down to its constituent parts? Let's get deconstructionist!
There are varying opinions on why The Dark Knight is so awesome (make that, so awesome.) At last count, there were 5,999,999,984 opinions on The Dark Knight's awesomeness (somebody had two opinions, and can't make up his mind. You know who you are.) Was it Heath Ledger? Aaron Eckhart? The brilliant story? The stunning IMAX cinematography? The disappearing-pencil trick? Oh, ye of narrow mind. The way I see it, there are only two possible reasons for The Dark Knight's so-awesomeness, and they are as follows:
1. Courtesy of an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal-- Batman is George W. Bush.
Read that again.
Did your brain just explode? Let me walk you through it. Hold my hand, we'll get through this together.
Batman is a force of morality in a corrupt, immoral world. Gotham City is overrun with bad guys, the insidious criminal element who live to terrorize the good-hearted working men and women of the world. The police, the mayor, they're all useless in the face of such a powerful adversary. Only Batman, acting unilaterally and unequivicably, can hope to topple Gotham's seedy underbelly, chaning its regime and being celebrated as a liberator from terror and tyranny. Only Batman can be trusted to break the law, risk people's lives, violate their privacy, and keep his actions secret from the public, all in the name of security and prosperity. Batman is the hero we need, to justly decide what liberties we can do without in order to ensure our safety.
Batman is George W. Bush. No wonder we love The Dark Knight.
So, how can you argue with that? Well, I'll tell you how. George W. Bush has an approval rating of about 25%, and keep in mind that 5% of the US population is functionally retarded. While no polling exists on Batman's popularity, I think we can assume from the Box Office grosses that more than one quarter of Americans would be a fan (mentally handicapped included.) So, if Batman is GWB, why the disparity? Do people just not get the connection? I mean, it was in the Wall Street Journal, a News. Corp. publication, so it has to be true. Right? Rupert Murdoch has spoken, and we must obey.
Well, no. And that leads to theory number two...
2. The Dark Knight is so awesome because Batman is Barack H. Obama.
I know what you're going to say: Now you're just being contrarian, you snippy little liberal lapdog. Why don't you go throw flowers at a Vietnam vet, hippie.
And of course, you're absolutely right. Except for the flowers part; it's very hard to throw a flower at anything. They tend to just flutter a bit, then fall to the ground.
But to my point: Batman is a crusader for justice. He believes in the inherent goodness of people. He trusts you not to blow up a ferry full of convicts, just because some namby-pamby businessman with a comb-over wants you to. He understands the corruption inherent in the system, and he wants to root it out by elevating the forces of good (Harvey Dent, "Four-Eyes" Gordon.) He seeks not to kill the sources of chaos, but to bring them to justice. He does not kill the Joker in the end; he just beats him up a little, then proves him wrong. Oh, btw, spoiler alert.
In the end, Batman sacrifices his reputation in order to make the world a better place. Kind of like a certain high-minded, optimistic fellow I know who has allowed his funny name to be dragged through the mud, just for a shot at changing the game from the inside.
So, theory number two, that's the one I'm going with. I think I've beat you over the head with enough analogy, so I'll close by saying this. A vote for Obama in '08 is a vote for Batman. And that would be so awesome.
So, why is it awesome? What is the essence of its awesomeness? How can we (you and I, writer and reader) distill its awesomeness down to its constituent parts? Let's get deconstructionist!
There are varying opinions on why The Dark Knight is so awesome (make that, so awesome.) At last count, there were 5,999,999,984 opinions on The Dark Knight's awesomeness (somebody had two opinions, and can't make up his mind. You know who you are.) Was it Heath Ledger? Aaron Eckhart? The brilliant story? The stunning IMAX cinematography? The disappearing-pencil trick? Oh, ye of narrow mind. The way I see it, there are only two possible reasons for The Dark Knight's so-awesomeness, and they are as follows:
1. Courtesy of an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal-- Batman is George W. Bush.
Read that again.
Did your brain just explode? Let me walk you through it. Hold my hand, we'll get through this together.
Batman is a force of morality in a corrupt, immoral world. Gotham City is overrun with bad guys, the insidious criminal element who live to terrorize the good-hearted working men and women of the world. The police, the mayor, they're all useless in the face of such a powerful adversary. Only Batman, acting unilaterally and unequivicably, can hope to topple Gotham's seedy underbelly, chaning its regime and being celebrated as a liberator from terror and tyranny. Only Batman can be trusted to break the law, risk people's lives, violate their privacy, and keep his actions secret from the public, all in the name of security and prosperity. Batman is the hero we need, to justly decide what liberties we can do without in order to ensure our safety.
Batman is George W. Bush. No wonder we love The Dark Knight.
So, how can you argue with that? Well, I'll tell you how. George W. Bush has an approval rating of about 25%, and keep in mind that 5% of the US population is functionally retarded. While no polling exists on Batman's popularity, I think we can assume from the Box Office grosses that more than one quarter of Americans would be a fan (mentally handicapped included.) So, if Batman is GWB, why the disparity? Do people just not get the connection? I mean, it was in the Wall Street Journal, a News. Corp. publication, so it has to be true. Right? Rupert Murdoch has spoken, and we must obey.
Well, no. And that leads to theory number two...
2. The Dark Knight is so awesome because Batman is Barack H. Obama.
I know what you're going to say: Now you're just being contrarian, you snippy little liberal lapdog. Why don't you go throw flowers at a Vietnam vet, hippie.
And of course, you're absolutely right. Except for the flowers part; it's very hard to throw a flower at anything. They tend to just flutter a bit, then fall to the ground.
But to my point: Batman is a crusader for justice. He believes in the inherent goodness of people. He trusts you not to blow up a ferry full of convicts, just because some namby-pamby businessman with a comb-over wants you to. He understands the corruption inherent in the system, and he wants to root it out by elevating the forces of good (Harvey Dent, "Four-Eyes" Gordon.) He seeks not to kill the sources of chaos, but to bring them to justice. He does not kill the Joker in the end; he just beats him up a little, then proves him wrong. Oh, btw, spoiler alert.
In the end, Batman sacrifices his reputation in order to make the world a better place. Kind of like a certain high-minded, optimistic fellow I know who has allowed his funny name to be dragged through the mud, just for a shot at changing the game from the inside.
So, theory number two, that's the one I'm going with. I think I've beat you over the head with enough analogy, so I'll close by saying this. A vote for Obama in '08 is a vote for Batman. And that would be so awesome.
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