You'll Never Guess Where This One Winds Up

I'm driving home on Sunday night and a radio station comes on that's playing some 80's retrospective. I'm listening for awhile, entertained by some really awful music and thinking that bands like Slade and The Psychedelic Furs never really got their due. Although the Furs did make a pile of money whoring their best somg out for the movie 'Pretty in Pink', so maybe they did.

Nina Blackwood is the DJ, and if memory serves she was one of the first MTV VJ's, kind of the whore to Martha Quinn's wholesome, girl-next-door image. Which in turn makes Mojo Nixon's song "Stuffin' Martha's Muffin" even better. Nina has some trivia thing on about what year in the 80's three things happened, none of which I remember right now, (possibly because I was drunk through most of the later part of that decade), but I do remember her saying that the right answer was 1989. And that because of these three things 1989 was a very important year. Which it was, but not for those reasons. No it was important because that was the year I finally stopped being a virgin.

Raise your hand if you saw that plot twist coming.

New Year's Eve, 1988. At a frat party where my roommate was a brother. With a girl I'd met a few weeks before during a snowball fight when I hit her right in the crotch with a snowball. I was so drunk that after midnight I don't think I could have put a carrot in a washtub, let alone my pertinent parts into her pertinent parts, and there is a distinct possibility that I lost my cherry to the mattress, but by daybreak I had become a man. A man with a bad hangover sleeping naked next to a girl in the lounge of a frat house, albeit one with a locked door. It was as classy as it sounds, and I'll never forget it. You'll be shocked to know that we broke up a few weeks later, although we did manage to do it a few more times before it ended. Fortunately, the emotional scarring was kept to a minimum by the lack of any real emotional attachment by either party.

Let that be a lesson to all you youngsters out there. If you're going to lose your virginity, do it with someone you don't really care about. That way, when things end, as they almost inevitably will, you can avoid the whole devastating emotional impact that I've seen others go through and just move on.

Oh, and use condoms. Don't ever accuse us here at Limpy World of condoning unsafe teen sex. Irresponsible we're OK with.

A Touching Story of Great Emotional Impact About the New York Yankees

There's a headline you don't see too often. Most stories about my favorite team, (and Greatest Franchise in Professional Sports), usually start with phrases like "Filthy rich douchebags buy another player" and then go downhill from there. Not this one.

My friend Mark went to school with a guy named Joe. Both of them are big Yankee fans and Joe is a huge Graig Nettles fan. Which sort of tells you how old we are. Joe's prized possession was aball autographed by Nettles. As we grew older and started having kids, Joe's wife became pregnant with what would have been their first son. Unfortunately, there was a defect of some kind that essentially ensured the child would be born dead. Which is what happened. At the funeral, Joe tearfully buried his son with the ball.

Mark was at the funeral and made note of this, but didn't say anything. When he got home he wrote to the Yankees front office and relayed the story. Several months later a box arrived at his front door. Inside was a new ball autographed by Graig Nettles.

Remember that the next time someone says how much the Yankees suck.

HNT

This is the reason I got in trouble last week. Caught between the sheets with another woman. I had no defense of course; photos don't lie. In my defense, however, I've always had a thing for reddish-blonde hair, and she did sneak in after my wife got up.

I Will Gladly Give Up My Left Nut For This

While watching the season finale of "24" last night I learned two things. The first is that after 23 hours and 45 minutes of watching elite American mercenaries try and fail repeatedly to capture and/or kill Jack Bauer, it took three Chinese agents a whopping 11 minutes to grab him, beat him bloody and then stuff his ass on a cargo ship bound for Shanghai. Let me tell you America, if we can't do better than the Chinese at neutralizing super-agents, we are not going to be able to compete here in the 21st Century.

It did also occur to me that Audrey Raines must be one hell of a pain in the ass if Jack is willing to first fake his own death and disappear for 18 months and then after being reuninted with her for 10 minutes lets himself get captured by the Chinese. But I digress.

The second thing I learned, from watching the commericals, is that American Idol ends this week. This makes me happy. But I would give my left nut, (and I fully realize that this is hardly much of an incentive), for one of the contestants to come out and, instead of crooning through some insipid ballad, launch right into the Dead Kennedy's "Too Drunk To Fuck", then throw down the microphone and walk off the stage. I would raise funds to make up for whatever prize money they lost. And I guarantee they'd be more famous than any of the other graduates of that show. I can only hope.

In the meantime, all together now:

"You gave me head,
You made it worse,
Take out your fucking retainer,
Put it back in your purse,
'Cuz I'm too drunk to fuck, too drunk to fuck, too drunk to fuck."

Can you tell I liked that song in 7th grade?

My Fellow Yankee Fans in Action

Q: Went to the Yankees home opener and was using one of the urinals in the men's bathroom. Two stalls over, a guy had his daughter in one of those baby papoose things around his neck. The guy between us strikes up a conversation with the dad. "So how old is she? Is this her first baseball game? Is this her first Yankees game?" Then he says, while talking stupid baby talk, "I bet this won't be the only time you go to a Yankees game." Just then, another guy walks behind us and says, "I bet this also won't be the only time she's in the men's room," and keeps on walking past. Welcome to Yankee Stadium.

I stole this from The Sports Guy's column in today's espn.com. For the record, if someone said this about my daughter, I would have smashed a porcelain toilet top over their heads. Which also fits right in at Yankee Stadium men's rooms. Honestly, I'll pee right down my leg before I go in there.

Fringe Benefits

We had our first Little League game last night. We won a nailbiter, 25-4. At one point I had to tell our team that the next kid to say something out loud along the lines of "Holy Crap, we're killing these losers", was probably going to take a fastball in the ribs from me the next time they got to bat. But that's not what this is about.

My wife came to the game to cheer on our son. And after awhile to cheer on the other team for doing things like not falling down after swinging their bats, getting their gloves on their hands as opposed to their feet, and even on a few rare occasions when they threw the ball in the vicinity of the right base after first kicking it halfway across the infield. But they had fun, right? Right?

At one point during the game my wife, who is rather enthusiastic about cheering, managed to snag a team hat from someone. I look over and there she is in low-cut jeans, a t-shirt cut sort of high, and a baseball cap with her hair spilling out the back. I don't think I've ever been that hot for her. I loves me a woman with long hair in a baseball cap.

And no Syd, I did not have a camera with me in the outfield.

Can You Spot The Stereotype?

A company in Tullahoma, Tennessee has started marketing one of its prducts, a still, as a way to bring down the cost of gasoline. For $1,400, y'all kin git y'self a still an' make ethanol fur .75 a gall'n.

The company is called Dogwood Energy. It employs a guy named Bumpus and the newspaper article shows, among other things, the shop dog named Sam. The assembly warehouse is located next to a creek, down a backwoods road, and there's a rooster on the premises. In order to comply with the law, (and avoid the rev'noors), a customer has to "promise", (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), to add poision to the brew to make it fit for driving but quite unfit for drinking.

Cheapskates, like me, can get the blue prints for $45 and if they're competent salvagers, can probably use the plans to build their own still for less than a grand. And while I'm obviously having some fun at the Billy Joe Bob stereotypes in this article, I will freely admit that their mechanical abilites will save them a bunch of cash on gas, while my mechanical abilities will only save me money because after I put together the still and blow my house and self sky high in the ensuing fireball, I won't be needing to drive anywhere anytime soon.

Why I Shouldn't Coach Your (Or Anyone Else's) Kid

As most of you know, I coach Little League for my son's team. I volunteered as an assistant and slowly sort of took over. Like a fungal rash of some kind. Some of you have commented that you hope your kids get a coach like me, because I put the kids first, I don't care if we win or lose, and because I am amazingly good looking and you need some eye candy during games.

I made up that last part.

At any rate, here's why you don't want me to coach your kids.

We had our first game on Saturday. We're a travel team, not beause we're good, but because we had to put together three towns to have enoguh teams to make a halfway decent league. Naturally, it rained all day Friday and most of Saturday, but because it only drizzled mot of Satruday, the powers that be decalred "game on." Our head coach was in Syracuse for some reason, so I was in charge. I scout the field hours in advance and find the following things about it.

a) it's hard to find.

b) it's behind a cemetery.

c) it does not appear anyone has been on the field in some time, but judging from the tracks in the mud a heron is playing first base.

d) there is a locked gate in front of the field, so that anyone who wants to go to the field has to climb over fence to the cemetery.

This is not promising. We return a few hours later for the game. It's my son and another kid. No sign of another team. Slowly other kids from our squad start trickling in. I start hitting balls to the kids in the field. Still no other team. We start hitting practice. The way I run hitting practice is that the kids rotate through all the positions, with the first baseman being the next to hit. So everyone gets to play all the positions.

Even Tyler.

Tyler really wants to play first base, but the offical coach doesn't let him. Just because he can't catch and will probably get hit in the skull. Not a problem for me. This is what happens.

Me: "OK, Matt your up, Tyler go take first, everyone else shift to the right."

Tyler: "Um, the other coach doesn't let me play first base. He said I'll get hit in the face with the ball."

Me: "Elton John had that same problem and he's made millions. Go play 1st Tyler, and keep your glove up."

Tyler: "Who's Elton John?"

Me: "He used to play for the Indians, now scoot."

Tyler's father almost had a seizure trying not to laugh, and I am pleased to report that Tyler didn't get hit at all. Of course, he didn't catch any either, but that's work for next week.

The other team never showed up and we are undefeated. The kids wanted to know if the people from the cemetery were going to show up, and I told them they would show at midnight and we'd play for brains.

Another Thing I Like

Syd was impressed by my knowledge of Dixie beer, which brings up another in my continuing chapters of things I like.

Beer.

Oh, do I love beer. I am an admitted beer snob. I don't like the mass-produced stuff. Most of it has no taste. I think they do that on purpose, because if something has no taste, it can't offend anyone. Which I guess makes sense if you're buying beer by the 30-pack, in whcih case you're not fooling anyone that you're buying for taste. That reminds me of those old Schaeffer ads where they would say "Schaeffer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one", and it started with someone scratching a one on a frosty mug, and then it ended with a person, possibly the same person, scratching a 2 on a different mug. Speaking from personal experience, scratching those numbers on frosty mugs is easy; scratching an 18 on a semi-warm bottle is a real trick.

But back to the main subject, my love of beer. Or, as others might refer to it, my incipient alcoholism. I'll try any regional beer from any region I happen to be in. Anchor Steam in San Francisco. Abita in New Orleans. Narraganssett in Rhode Island, (I don't recommend that one). Sam Adams in Boston, (or pretty much anywhere these days), McSorley's in NYC. If I can find a local brwery, so much the better. I've had great beer at a Cajun oriented brewery in Cincinnati and some foul concoction in a brewery in Houston that I hope has gone out of business. Strangely, I do have a fondness for Lone Star and Pearl River. I like Guinness in the colder months and Sierra Nevada IPA when it gets warmer. I have some friends who home brew some great beer, and some who should just stop trying. I even have a fried who whipped up a batch of "Old Guy Ale" for my 35th brithday party. His wife made me a booby cake. I'll have to find a picture of that.

There's really no point to this is there? Just that I like beer. And I was bored at work. So I'll leave you with the immortal words of Dennis Hopper as Frank in "Blue Velvet":

"Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst...Blue Ribbon"

Although honestly? PBR is pretty bad stuff.

It's A Surreal World After All

I'm driving to court this morning. First I have to stop at Dunkin' Donuts to get my morning hot chocolate. I always expect them to ask "You want whipped cream with that...fag?", but they never do. At any rate, the line in the drive thru was too long so in I go. The guy waiting on me has a heart tattoo on his forearm of a heart with the name "Tom" on it. So I'm thinking, "Hey, fly those colors high my brother", and then I notice his name tag.

Tom.

Hey, fly those narcissitic colors high, my brother.

But that wasn't the most surreal moment. No indeed. On the way down the road I saw a pink dog. I'm not making that up. I was going past at 40 mph, and I was little late so I couldn't slam on the brakes and do the U-turn I wanted to, but there it was, just up the road on a side street. Looked like some kind of mastiff mix, but it was clearly painted pink all the way up to the neck, and then the head was the natural white color. Honest to God, I saw a pink dog this morning.

No more peyote for breakfast for me.

File Under "No Shit"

Once again this morning I was reading the paper and was stunned with the news of another astonishing scientific breakthrough. After careful studies, scientists were able to determine that heterosexual men and lesbians both responded more favorably to female pheremones than they did to male pheremones! Gosh, what are the odds? And this on the heels of an earlier study that determined that homosexual men and heterosexual women responded more favorably to male pheremones than they did to female pheremones. I mean, who would have guessed such results? Besides, of course, everyone with a brain in their head.

I'm looking forward to the next pheremone study, in which it will be determined that straight and gay men and straight and lesbian women all go insane and start a head-butting mating ritual contest when exposed to the pheremones of Angellina Jolie.

In an unrelated note, and yet another attempt by yours truly to wean America, or at least the infinitesimally small percentage of it, (and some of you fuuriners), away from the tripe that is 'American Idol' music, I once again recommend some music. As always, feel free to completely disregard it.
I just got the new Drive-By Truckers CD, "A Blessing and a Curse." It tails off after the first 4-5 songs, but those first few really kick ass. Plus any disc that contains the lines "She woke up sunny-side down and I was still thinkin' I was to proud to flip her over" gets bonus points from me. Which should tell you what a degenerate I am.

I also found, after it had been missing for about a year, my 2-CD set "Do The Pop". It's a collection of Austrailian garage-rock music from the mid-70's to mid-80's. Some hits, some misses, but over 40 songs. If you want it the internet is prbably your best bet. If you like The Saints, Hoodoo-Gurus, Radio Birdman, The Lime Spiders or the like, it's a good addition. And if you don't like those bands you probably should have stopped reading this right after the part about Angellina Jolie.

More On Little League

Those of you paying attention know that awhile ago I ranted about the idiotic "evaluations" my 7 year old son endured before Little League started this year. At that time I promised to become a coach just to make sure things stayed somewhat sane, as any league that actually times how fast 7 year olds run to second base needs a swift kick in the ass once in awhile.

True to form, I volunteered as an assistant coach and have slowly started taking over the team. My wife isn't the only one who knows how to stage a coup. I've completely marginalized the official assistant coach, and even the head coach seems to defer to me more often than not. Maybe because I can get the kids to listen and participate better than he can. My secret is simple: I could give a shit if they know the infield fly rule, all I care about is no one gets hurt, (too badly anyway), and that we all have fun and want to do it again next year.

So far the team actually looks pretty good. There are only two kids who need to be exiled to the outfield, one for his own safety and one for everyone else's safety. The former kid can't catch except with his face, and the latter has to grab every ball, regardless of whether or not it was even hit in the same zip code as his position. If he's playing second base he will run over the third baseman to get to a grounder.

And then there's Christopher. Chris has only showed up to two practices. He is accompanied by an overbearing father who you can tell he worships. After every ground ball he missed he'll look at his Dad and say "Sorry, Dad", and his father will sternly tell him what he did wrong, more often than not with an exasperated tone. Same thing when the kid shuffles the ball to the wrong base or does anything else. Oh, there's one other thing you should know about Chris.

His arm's in a cast.

Yep, you read that right. He broke his arm before the season, but still shows up to practice and take some grounders. He's good, you can tell, but it's kind of hard to play ball in a splint. And his Dad, what an asshole. During our last practice, Chris is playing defensive pitcher behind me, (the coaches pitch but don't field. If the kids pitched there would be more walkers than a March of Dimes festival), and I let a grounder that was hit pretty hard go by me. Chris stops it with his glove, it bounces off, hits him in the gut, he picks it up, in his glove, because his throwing arm is broken, and pushes the ball at first base. The runner was safe by a mile.

So I look at his Dad, who is telling him nice job for staying in front of it, and I ask if maybe I should start knocking those down, since, y'know, your kid has one arm. He says, "No, I want him to get used to what the ball feels like."

I stare at him. What does one say to someone that fucking dumb? Does one say, "good thinking. Maybe after practice I can hit some balls to you while you keep one hand behind your back"? Perhaps not, but that's what I said. Then I high-fived Chris, (on the glove hand), and told him he was the toughest guy on the field. I managed not to say "and your old man's full of shit", but it was close.

I Develop A New Get Rich Quick Plan

My old plan, which consisted largely of procuring Powerball tickets, doesn't seem to be working all that well. As you may well have already guessed by my attention to blogging, my Yankee work ethic is sorely lacking as well, so I'm not going to get rich the old fashioned way either. All together now "They eeeeeeaaaaarrrrrnnnn it" Ah, John Houseman, where have you gone. And I'll bet right now that at least three of you are thinking "Who the fuck is John Houseman?"

No, my new plan is to wrote a novel, sign a three book deal and option the screen-play to Hollywood for the first book. Now, as someone with the literary ability of a drunken chimpanzee, this would ordinarily be a pretty far-fetched plan. But I have clued in to a secret known to but a few.

Plagiarism.

Yep, I'm just gonna rip-off pre-existing best sellers, change the title and the character names, and go from there. Just like that former hot shot 17 year old author from Harvard who wrote "How Opal Metha Got Laid" or some such drivel and was hailed as the next great young American author, and then it turned out that she'd written a book suspiciously close to at least four other books with similar themes. As in verbatim chunks transferred from the earlier novels to hers.

I think I can avoid the discovery of my plagiarism by picking more obscure novels to rip-off. Nope, I won't be borrowing from well-known "chick-lit", (I did not make that phrase up), books, but older novels that no one reads anymore. For instance, here's the opening to my first efforts, a gripping tale of madness and revenge on the high seas during crabbing season: "Call me Ishmael...." What do you think? It's winner isn't it?