It’s time to give 2020 a good, swift kick in the ass

An appropriate metaphor.

The specter of 2020 is almost over, and this baseball writing interloper must take pause and perhaps a deep breath in order to reflect. I’m going to refrain from giving you a redundant frame by frame analysis–as I’m assuming you haven’t reawakened from a coma–but I don’t think I’m reaching when I say that damn near half the population of the U.S. doesn’t care about logic, science, or even high-minded economic interests. (unless you’re raking in over 400,000 dollars a year) No, my friends, the major motivation was simply contempt. An eye opening and disturbing influx of psychotic persecution seemed to rule the day as high minded intellectuals scramble to try to figure out how to baby-sit/pacify the brains of the gullible as they are keenly aware that the singular vote of an idiot counts just as much as the singular well-informed in a demented and ironic twist of a democratic process that the former seems to disdain.

I have no light suggestions of benevolence as I am largely apolitical, and this is, alas, a simple baseball publication, and I’ve largely tried to keep it just that. The World Series was a light-hearted escape from the madness and then Justin Turner pranced around the field in celebratory mode with a case of ‘Rona and kicked everyone in the nuts with a dose of reality. No Bueno. But if anyone understands how misguided any sense of certainty is, it would be a baseball fan. History will largely scoff and turn a blind eye to the suffering and trials of the pathetic humans and when all is said and done, it will still be there in black and white on the written page (paper?) Dodgers 2020 World Series Champions.

I’ll probably have a few stiff drinks tonight in full celebratory mode as my friends and I watch pop stars prance around in confetti and the newest rendition of Dick Clark feigns having a good time in Times Square with his cajones in full refrigeration. There will be Bloody Marys, Chateau Pink Gins, and of course, the lethal Velvet Hammer ready to sweet talk you into staying in bed on the first day of the year as you watch episodes of Three’s Company with ironic detachment and weep into your pillow at the inhumanity of it all. I will be properly blitzed and locked into my fucking groove as the crescendo happens, and 2020 will still be there to scoff, “too bad you’re not double-jointed so you could bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.”

One hell of a New Year’s!

Had one hell of an ending to 1985, which may or may not be remembered.

Mike Norris awoke on New Year’s Day 1986, in bed with a 300-pound woman he did not immediately recognize. He staggered to the Oakland dive where he had spent New Year’s Eve and the bartender was the only person there. The wall behind the bar was mirrored. Norris saw his reflection and it horrified him. Usually a proud dresser, he was wearing the previous night’s clothes. They hung on his thinning frame as sad as sails on a windless day. “Major league ballplayer, my fucking ass,” he snarled at his reflection. Norris was yet another regretful New Year’s casualty of cocktails and carousal. 

People fall into two camps when it comes to New Year’s Eve: they either love the celebration and dish out 100 dollars on a ticket to a party where they proceed to get smashed, or they do something totally low-key – because what’s all the fuss about?

Whether you’ll be celebrating in style this year or snuggling up on the sofa at home (and perhaps even falling asleep before midnight), you’ve no doubt had some shockers of a New Year’s Eve before. Haven’t we all? Here’s one of many horror stories:

New Years 2010. I was the sober driver for some friends until around 11 pm before I headed off to a midnight party in Silver Lake at some sort of McMansion that was supposedly alt-rocker, Beck‘s house. At the soiree, realizing I needed to catch up, I immediately began pounding Red Bull vodkas. My friend immediately told me to “drink this”, which I did. Pretty quickly. Only later did I discover “this” was a pint of 50/50 Jack Daniels and coke. (The legal kind, although the illegal kind was being passed around in the open by dicey “Hollywood types” and hanger-ons.) By the time 12AM rolled around I was spinning and tanked. As the clock struck midnight, I grabbed a girl next to me (who was a beautiful brunette and a local celebrity on some sort of news program) and we had our midnight kiss – which swiftly turned into the two of us fighting to reach the toilet as we both projectile vomited all over the bathroom. She wanted to make out afterwards and I politely declined. I always wonder if Beck woke up the next morning to find the collaborative technicolor yawn that he no doubt had his maid clean up.

Stay safe out there. Happy 2020.