Happy Halloween and WS thoughts.

As I’m typing this I am passively watching John Carpenter’s brilliant 1978 flick Halloween as is my yearly tradition. I am a huge fan of slasher films, but this movie had a sort of “art house” quality that endears it to my heart a little more than the others. There will be no dress up or celebrations, however, as I have gratifying and exciting plans of washing dishes and clothes this evening before a glass of wine and maybe bed before 10:00. Such as it is when you’re middle aged, and I am fine with this. My friends wanted me to go to a punk rock show last night and I politely declined adding to the aforementioned lamentable situation that is my life.

I still haven’t digested this year’s entertaining/bizarre World Series and I think time will tell how we see it from a historical perspective when careers are over and certain players are deemed Hall of Fame worthy. The series started with everyone in the baseball world deeming Juan Soto the next Babe Ruth (one being the “Childish Bambino” and the latter the “Great Bambino”) and ending with Donald Dump being booed, tarred and feathered in D.C., a guy taking a home run ball to the chest so he wouldn’t spill the beers he was double-fisting, (which was turned into a Bud Light commercial and 15 minutes of fame) two models flashing their boobs on national television, (which was done for breast cancer awareness and 15 minutes of fame) and finally ending in game 7 with AJ Hinch being criticized for pulling Zack Greinke in the 7th and putting in a smattering of relievers who proceeded to throw dynamite on a bonfire while Garrit Cole sat in the bullpen acting like his dog had just died. I know it’s a cliche, but you seriously can’t make up this kind of stuff. Stephen Strasburg gets a well deserved MVP, the Nats jump around on the field, some kids in Africa will get their Houston Astros gear, and just like that…baseball season is over.

Farewell, old friend.

 

The nightmare that was the 2002 World Series

Here I am “appreciating” the Angels WS trophy that Barry Bonds was 9 outs away from winning.

In 2002 I was living in Los Angeles, being young, doing dumb things, and hanging out with pompous art school kids in my spare time. I was, for the most part, puking in their studios and stealing their beer when I wasn’t attending a gallery opening. I once wandered into a walk-in closet stacked with cardboard boxes and immediately walked out thinking I had made a mistake.

“This is someone’s artwork.” a friend told me.

I’m not sure to this day if he was pulling my chain. Such is life in Los Angeles.

***

October came rolling around and the Angels and Giants were playing for the WS title…2 teams I just hated with a passion. Whom to root for?

It was gay rights icon Harvey Milk who described Orange County best, in response to California State Senator John Briggs describing San Francisco as “the moral garbage dump of homosexuality in this country.”

“Nobody likes garbage ’cause it smells,” Milk told reporters. “Yet eight million tourists visited San Francisco last year. I wonder how many visited Fullerton.”

–The Angels had the Rally Monkey, thundersticks, (basically inflated plastic) douche-bag and mouth-breather John Lackey, the most boring fans in the league, and they played in a white-power wasteland famous for birthing Richard Nixon: Orange County.

–The Giants had territorial rights over the A’s, were kind of dull, and had 2 cantankerous schmucks in their own right (who hated each other) in Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent.

In the end we all know what happens. The Giants blow a 5-0 lead in game 6, Dusty Baker makes some half-baked managerial decisions, Scott Spezio becomes a legend in Anaheim, and the Angels win their first World Series title essentially denying Barry Bonds his one and only shot and leaving him crying in the locker room.

The only saving grace? At least it wasn’t the Yankees.

A special message to the Giants before game 7.