The Dead and the Undead...

1. On the ropes, with one foot straddling the grave: the Texas Rangers. The boys in Red and Blue need to get some mojo going in the Arlington half of the World Series or they are done. Lose game #3 and the Orange and Black can start sliding the Dom Perignon off the ice in San Francisco.

2. The Undead: Jerry Brown. Left to his own devices, Brown who can hear a dime drop in falling snow, finally unleashed a flurry of media ads in the final month of his Cali campaign which woke up snoozing donks from their comatose Whitman stupor. Way to save your ass, Jerry. Didn't your mum tell you not to wait until the last moment to take care of business?

3. The Dead: Meg Whitman's 140 million.

4. Nevada Undead: Harry Reid vs Sharon Angle. Harry, the senate majority leader, and curmudgeon extraordinaire, trailing a tea party candidate who doesn't believe in Social Security or Medicare...will be a humiliating and spectacular defeat for the donks who underestimated Angle; exercised poor judgement, and were guilty of bringing a pocket knife to a gunfight.

5. Tele Dead: Friday Night Lights, one of the greatest series in the past decade, is in it's final year. The show filmed in Austin, Texas was not just about football. Season after season, the production went deep into their characters and brought a wealth of rich story lines from middle America which crossed over; using hand held cameras and scripts which were realistically brilliant, the show was always under-appreciated in the ratings, as most good shows are, but critically acclaimed. Friday Night Lights was the 'My So-Called Life' of the 2000's.

6. Wow. Completely Undead: Sleater-Kinney THE best rock band of the 90's has resurrected and morphed into...The Corin Tucker Band, and Wild Flag, a 4 member band with Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein. All systems on go. Turn the lights back on...

"Instant Karma's Going To Get You..."

Yeah, how simple life would be if it were all relative to karma. But, my friends, every now and then the universe throws us a right cross on the chin and why, after the stars have cleared, something marvelous happens. Like in the city by the Bay. The SF Giants led by a baby-face, named Lincecum, pitches tonight trying to put the final choke hold on the Phillies to catapult his team into the World Series. After a dramatic walk off win last night at AT&T Park, a victory would be the cherry on the sundae and drop the city into a frenzy the likes which hasn't been seen around here since, er, the ill fated 1989 Loma Prieta quake-off that pitted the Oakland A's vs the Giants. And how fitting that this adrenalin thumping drama descends on a team which fields peach fuzzy, Posey, Lincecum, and Bumgardner along with Brian Wilson (not the singer) the all world closing pitcher who dyes his beard with bear grease (fiction), sports a mohawk occasionally, and dominated the league in saves this past year...a Giants team with it's chemical past in the rear view mirror, finally devoid of steroid prima donas, and locker room dissensions, now led by a cluster of man children, hit the karma refresh button and finds itself implausibly standing on the brink of the biggest stage of them all.

The bigger story though, resides in Arlington, Texas where the Rangers a franchise now owned by Nolan Ryan, and who have never been to the World Series in their agonizingly riddled history, have the vaunted Yankees on the ropes and will try and close out the deal Friday night. In all of baseball, there is not a better story than the one swirling around Ranger's, center fielder, Josh Hamilton. Hamilton, a stud with the bat, terrorizing the Yankees with his hitting in the playoffs, has a well documented past of bad boy behavior: hard drugs and blackouts, culminated by a stretch of 2 years when he left baseball to detox, find himself, and eventually claw his way back to the major leagues. The World Series in Texas? Bring that baby home to the land of the Pecos...

Ginny Thomas. WTF? Did somebody slip her a barrel of acid tabs? Concussed from a helmet to helmet hit on the playing field? Uh, ask Anita Hill to apologize? After there's ice water in hell.

Happy Scatter Shots

After the last blog, my sister subtly lobbied for more optimistic news. You want it? You got it.
What better way to start with the 33 miners in Chile.

1. Against all odds, and in a feat which re-defines the word, 'survival' (yeah, you, abominable CBS television series) 33 miners gutted it out 1/2 a mile down in the underworld, the belly of the beast, and were brought safely to the surface today after spending two months in 90 degree heat and oppressive claustrophobic conditions. How did they survive? They came together and formed a disciplined plan of survival. They found a small running water fall which they used for showering. They dug 3 wells for drinking water and kept the area clean of waste material. The 33 men exercised by running up and down empty tunnels almost a half mile in length. When they were discovered alive 17 days after the cave-in, the miners had almost exhausted their rations of 2 spoonfuls of tuna, a cup of milk, one cracker, and a spoonful of peach topping which they allowed themselves every other day. Attended to by Doctors on the surface, the miners were sent nutrition packets until their caloric count leveled off. Fresh air was pumped into the tunnel and as their spirits rose, the men requested wine, but got cola instead. Smokers were initially given chewing gum and nicotine patches (are you kidding me?) , and in some sort of Pyrrhic victory were finally slipped 40 cigarettes daily. And why not? Under those circumstances, just days from meeting my maker, I'd like a couple of smokes too. Miraculously, as the 33 miners ascended to the surface, one by one, in a special pair of dark glasses to shield their eyes, the world applauded.

2. After the shooting of Bambi and Old Yeller, all members of the Oakland Police department must now take an annual mandatory dog and wildlife course given by the SPCA.

3. Spaghetti tacos. The rage of the pre-teen diet. Offered as a gag on a nickelodeon show, the double-double carbohydrate meal is the craze. Blogs and recipes for the dish are clogging the 'net' as the food itself chugs towards the crazed armies of ingesting 'tweens spiking their tiny tyke arteries with fat globules the size of chicken nuggets. Any parent that needs to consult sites to figure out the prep work, or even considers making this for their children should be led out into their yard, stood up against a wall, and well, you know...on second thought, Alex and Iz, are these good?

Scatter Shots

1. The Oakland Police fell flat on their collective badges again. Having already made headlines several months ago with the shooting of a fawn, who was lost and wandering around the streets of East Oakland, gunning it down like a rabid pit bull ready to savage them, drew their weapons last week and blasted an 11 year old family pet, Gloria-a yellow Lab (Old Yeller), who was arthritic from hip dysplasia and moved like her limbs were stuck in molasses. Not having learned from the Bambi execution that uh, pepper spray and tasers are available, the Police officer responding to a burglar alarm and believing he was about to be attacked by Gloria (a burglar?) opened fire. Come on, we did not all fall off the turnip truck. The family deeply distraught by the fatal shooting of their loved family pet in it's own yard does not believe the officer's version. The back pedaling Oakland Police Department is working hard to extinguish this latest PR blunder. Gloria's owner who raised her from a pup said the dog for the last several years had trouble getting up and moving. The disturbing fallout once again raises questions about police procedure and behavior.

2. Down in South Fla., Kassim Osgood, a Jacksonville Jaguar tight end, was spending a quiet evening with a friend, Mackenzie Rae Putnal, a Jags cheerleader, at her family home when a gun wielding ex of the cheerleader burst through the door, pistol whipped Kassim and threatened to kill them both. Putnal on the floor with a gun pointing at her head scuffled with the ex who grabbed her cell phone and smashed it. Osgood 6'5" jumped out a 2nd floor window and ran for help leaving Putnal inside (!) with the crazed gunman. Putnal, resourceful, and quick on her feet escaped to her parent's room on the lower level, pulled out a sidearm with an infrared laser sight
and traded gunfire with the ex. The moral of this story, boys and girls, is: don't F with cheerleaders. You never know if they'll go all Evelyn Salt or Nikita on you. Post script...the ex was arrested after fleeing Putnal's home.

Macchiato shots

So there I was in the City where I've left my heart pillowed over the years, in fog enshrouded canyons of the Richmond or the Sunset, along the long windy stretches of crusty Ocean beach, under perfumed eucalyptus groves lost in the Presido...waking in a lovely 3 storied home where the bridge spans and the city lights spill into the living room at night, dreaming of only one thing: double pain au chocolat from Tartine bakery. Proust had his madeline. I would have Tartine's decadent morning offering. Walking briskly through Dolores Park at 7:30am with Marisa, was ironic. We are old now, and rise with purpose. Luck benevolently smiled through the morning chill. No line at Tartine. And no double pain au chocolat! Sold out! WTF. Could we wait 20 minutes for the next bake? A wry smile. As I pointed out before, we're old. And patience abounds. We can out wait even the 2nd coming. The good baker delivers my delectable dream and sets it down before me beside my English breakfast. This is the moment I truly miss the wallop of the black Irish tea, but all moments share tiny imperfections. I stare at the shiny bronze pain top. Taking my fingers I pull apart the pastry bread. Steam rises from the bun, and molten chocolate spills forth. Oh baby! Seizure time. The first bite, pornographic. The second bite, moon trajectory. Every flaky morsel fracking other worldly. To my right, Marisa is polishing off her croissant; she said it was the best one she had ever had outside of France. For a sec, I am not computing what it is she is saying. Unconscious and deep into my own private double pain au chocolat Idaho, I am already mentally tucking in for seconds.