Chicago
No, not a Broadway review. And yeah, today’s game kinda sucked. What with everyone sleepwalking through it. but I’m talking Chi-town, the Windy city, the city of big shoulders, Second city, Daaaa Bearsss. Daaa Cubsss. Daaa Bullsss. Whatever you call it, and however you feel about it, it’ll always be a 2nd home to me. Even though I’ve only been there twice. I may not have spent too much time there, but both my parents and all my grandparents (and great grandparents) were born and raised in Chicago. Two of my sisters were born there as well. My grandfather used to tell us stories of growing up on the south side and getting in a lot of fights because he was a Cubs fan through and through, and how he broke his leg when he was 12 chasing after a foul ball at Wrigley (yeah, he got it. Don’t know where that ball went, though). They all lived in the Irish section down near St. Bride’s church and school. So, I’ve only been there twice. Once in 1968 to see my mom’s brother, the original Uncle Chuck and his family, and again in 1995 for a wedding in northern Indiana.
That trip in 1968 I saw Juan Marichal pitch against the Cubs. What an incredible game that was. We got there early and hung out down by 1st base as long as we could, and it was so cool. You could hear the players chatting and laughing 15′ away. Billy Williams, Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Mays, McCovey, Jimmy Ray Hart, and all those Giants of the day. I was dumbstruck, and wished we could have sat there all day. As it was, we were about 30 rows up in short right field. The Giants won somthing like 8-3. Marichal was great, and someone on the Giants homered that day. Mighta been McCovey. My cousins were pissed, but I got to gloat that night. Flash forward to 1995, when my oldest friend John (we met in 2nd grade) was getting married in Indiana, so my wife and I and his bride-to-be decided to head out there early and spend some time in Chicago. This was June, so it wasn horrendously hot, but it was getting there. The 3 nights before the wedding were epic. Went to Rush St. and hit a shitload of bars. Caught some shit for all the Giants gear we were sporting, but half the people there were from out of town anyway. Next night we went to Buddy Guy’s Blues club. Some killer bands played all night, and the highlight was seeing Lonnie Youngblood’s son play guitar with Buddy Guy. They played til 3:30 am. Of course we had tickets to the Cubs-Dodgers game the next day. Bleacher seats. And of course it was 104º that day, and humid. My wife and the bride to be gave up by the 3rd inning, but the groom and I HAD to start drinking heavily just to reach the point of feeling good enugh not to die out there in the heat. Turns out the Cubbies were as shitty as we felt, and they lost 7-0. Even the bleacher bums were too tired to give us shit about being Giants fans. I just wanted to see the Dodgers go down but it wasn’t to be.
Last thing. My mom and I were walking through the south side on that 1995 trip and she was showing me all the places she used to hang out. Some of them were still around from her day (mid to late 30s), and when we walked past this market, I hear this little Italian guy yelling Margie! Margie! from the back of the store.Yeah, that what they called her back then. But this old guy, who hadn’t seen my mom since somthing like 1946, recognized her 50 years later. He ran out, gave her a hug, and they chatted for a few minutes, he gave her a good-bye kiss, shook my hand, and we went on our way. I thought, holy shit, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. But hey, that’s my kind of town.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
X might have been studly at cal 15 yrs ago and a couple years with the Pirates, but last couple his offensive numbers are pretty bad. Including this year 2010-12 he’s hitting .220, his highest slugging pct is .360 and high OPS is .660, or about where blanco is right now. Since he isn’t known as much of a defender, he has actually had minus WAR for each season since 2010, including this one. coming into today he had hit 13 HRs in his last 675 ABs.
Hey, I like the guy and hope he does well. But realize if the Giants got him off waivers, then damn near everyone in the league had a shot at him and passed. I hope his RH pop can continue to help, esp at home. But SF might actually have a better LU with Arias or Scutaro in LF and crawford at ss. But I bet he drinks for free tonite anyway.
Blade, I was on a flight from Sun Valley to Boise in one of those Otters. Twin prop, 14-seater. Problem was we had a stop in McCall Montana. So, it is usual mountain weather. Cloudy and windy. As I am stepping onto the ladder, a bolt of lightning hits the ground about 30′ from the plane, kicking up a nice chunk of earth. Great start. I’m sitting in the front seat, which happens to face backwards,so I can see everyone else. Take-off’s a swerving dipping nightmare mess, rain and lightning, but we get airborne and get above the storm. Apparently there are 14 mountain ridges from Hailey to McCall, and the thermals are in full force. The plane is jumping and diving every 5 seconds. My stepfather had a smoke in each hand and 2 in the ashtray (this was back when you could smoke on planes) and he’s gripping the armrest for all it’s worth. After about 25 minutes of this I yell to the pilot “is this normal?” He says “kinda.” So, I grab my smokes and hold on. After another 20 minutes, the grandma next to my stepfather pulls out her rosary beads and starts silently praying. Everyone else on the plane is feeling some sort of low-grade panic to outright terror. The good news was we at least passed the storm, so it wasn’t raining in McCall and the landing wasn’t too hairy. The pilot said “20 minutes on the ground, then we leave again.” A few people kissed the ground, and everyone was real reluctant to get back on that plane.
Happily, the flight to Boise was much less eventful and we flew back to San Francisco later that day. Those little puddle jumpers freak me out to this day.
Not certain, but the Otter was probably what we were flying too Chuck. Funny story . . . Glad you survived to blog. 🙂
Great tales of American Aviation guys, had me laughing here. Scariest I have been on a flight was on trip down to be stationed at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Evidently there is a tight flight corridor that
Castro didn’t like us to get out of down there, invading his air space I guess. The damn plane does this half sideways roll while descending down to lane, I think my asshole sucked my underwear tight. I made up my mind that the next time I would get on a plane in Cuba was when I had finished my 18 month tour and wasn’t coming back. I must be getting really excited about our chances of winning the division, because I watched the Dodger/Dback game last night and plan to watch the last part of it later tonight after the Bammer/Meechegan game is over. I will say
Back in my Navy days I was never terribly confident in the upcoming flight when we had to sit strategically to “balance the load”. It was like “keep an eye on fatso, if he tries to get up, slug the SOB”…
Same deal when i was in the Air Force Mike. I also recall my asshole tightening up when the crew chief told us that the C-130 flies better with 3 props operating and one “feathered.” Say what? WTF does it have 4 then?
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
– Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), ca. 1895, British mathematician and physicist
Of course, these so-called geniuses were wrong too . . .
What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?
– The Quarterly Review, England (March 1825)
[Television] won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.
– Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox, 1946.
That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.
– Admiral William Leahy. [Advice to President Truman, when asked his opinion of the atomic bomb project.]
The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.
– Advice from a president of the Michigan Savings Bank to Henry Ford’s lawyer Horace Rackham. Rackham ignored the advice and invested $5000 in Ford stock, selling it later for $12.5 million.
. . . and who can forget this one:
Computers in the future may…perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons.
– Popular Mechanics, 1949.
Can’t act. Can’t sing. Balding. Dances a little
-RKO Casting agent on Fred Astaire-
Yeah, I remember something similar being said about Paul Newman’s career being over after he made The Silver Chalice. Newman called the film “the worst motion picture produced during the 1950s”. He once screened it for guests at his home, handing out pots, wooden spoons, and whistles and encouraging the audience to offer noisy critiques.
Yeah, and when it was first going to air on TV he put out an ad asking folks not to watch and apologized for the picture
Which caused only caused it to have high ratings. Brilliant advertising move by Paul. LOL.
Hell Twin, I didn’t know you were a fellow sailor.
That reminds me of that Jack Nicholson line in THE LAST DETAIL when they’re in the cab “You a swabby? I knew you were a fellow swabby. Mule, didn’t I tell you he looked like a swabby?”
Or something like that
You sure they didn’t say squid? We also called them deck apes and pukes. With affection of course . . . 🙂
The only thing I recall about that movie is Jack Nicholson going up to chicks, saying, “How do you like these pants? Pretty nice, eh? How do you like the way they make my dick look, hunh?” a line I drunkenly tried after seeing it, which ever-so-slightly explains why I stay away from booze.
Aviation Ordinance, did a tour in the “Brown Water Navy”..you?
No idea how that post landed here-that was for Manny.
Appropro to absolutely nothing, I’ll never understand advertising. I just saw a commercial for Dr. Pepper. The message was that’s it’s one of a kind. The song in the background was I GOTTA BE ME. And the visuals were of hundreds of folks all wearing the same t-shirt. What am I missing here? If that concept was presented to me I would have called the creator a fucking idiot. I just don’t get it
Sheeesh, These flight stories are legendary. What a thread of awesome conversation. Mine are perhaps less dramatic. Once, while I was in college, a jet “lost” an engine. We had just taken off, and we heard a loud thud. The look of fear and panic on the stewardesses’ [as they were then called] faces told us enough. Then the captain came on, all West-Virginia-Chuck Yeager drawl, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re gonna mosey on back because we lost one of our three engines. We only need one, but we’ll head back to Syracuse. I’ve never had this happen in 25 years of flying, but we’ll be fine.” Right. I think we had to assume the position. A priest next to be prayed the Rosary. Me too. All the fire equipment was on the runway. We were fine. Maybe it was a little risky. Then in the Eighties I took a tiny 4- or 6-seater from LAG to Atlantic City. Two days before I had survived a head-on crash with only a broken wrist. Then plane hugged the Jersey shoreline. But upon approaching and landing, it did that tilted-wing thing in the wind. I was pretty sure we’d flip. Didn’t. On my trip to the WS, there was a full-ground-stop because of wind. It was a bit rough landing in Chicago. Finally, coming back from Cayman Brac a year ago February, the landing in the wind in Phil. was so great, everybody applauded.
I was on a commercial flight where the pilot was retiring after this one.. He introduced himself as “Captain Will Fllyhigh”. The attendants brought complimentary champagne…I asked my seatmate to help me keep an eye on the cockpit door-no way do I want to see full glasses going in, or worse- empties coming out. Who knows “Mr. Flyhigh’s’ state of mind? He might be acting goofy to mask deep resentment about what was probably a forced retirement due to failing eyesight and the suicide notes he sent the busty attendant…..the man is probably a powder keg- WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!
Well, it turned out OK. But you can’t be too careful. I know those fuckers are crazy. That may look like Robert Stack but they’re all Warren Oates on the inside…
Violent collision at homeplate in the Dodger game, but MLB is OK with that. No problem.
Montero really stuck it to Victorino. That AZ reliever, Shaw can really bring it…
In the bar a few hours ago somebody played the song that Wilson & Cody did the video of with the kid with the glasses. I looked up at the TV screen and Andres was batting for the Mets in the 9th. I started crying…
that is the goldest of the gold. Almost brought tears to MY eyes.
*Did* bring tears to mine
Thanks, Flav…..Very rare for me to get sentimental about anything, but I lost it…
I fucking love that video and those 2 dudes AND YOU in that fucking costume……..
Loo, admit it now. You are Lou Seal’s….youngest….shortest…..(fill in blank)….
Whoops…*Ted-fucking-Spe moment* coming on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And though I put the breaks on my post due to an oncoming “TSM” I can say with 100% certainty that there is no blogger I’d rather read as my head hits the pillow than THE original-IMPOSSIBLE to IMITATE-or REGURGITATE…..Ted………MOTHERFUCKING…….SPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whoops…*Ted-fucking-Spe moment* coming on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
———————————————————————————————
I recently read in a medical journal those can be controlled now with drugs and intense therapy.
Thanks, Big Flavor
…and Mets get 4 in 9th and win. VUNGO!
“Oh inspector, that is fantastic!!!!!!!!!!”
(obscure Pink Panther reference that no one will get)………….
You’re right. Got me
Oregon ahead of Arkansas St. 50-10 at halftime. Arkansas St. playing a “blood money” game. They go to Oregon, get destroyed, and get a big payday for their sports program. And scrape their players off the field after the game.
Well, no sweep by the D-Backs. The bottom line is that the D-Backs just aren’t all that good. Upton isn’t nearly as scary as last year, and it’s hard to see what Young brings to the table anymore. Everything went just right for them last year, and the law of averages caught up with them this year.
We have the easiest schedule in Sept, we’ve got momentum, we’ve got a 4.5 game lead…..this is all falling in to our laps.
I didn’t sweat a SINGLE FUCKING DODGER MOVE from Hanley onward–and there are ample posts of mine that support that. I also didn’t blink when Melky turned into a Spinal Tap drummer (obscure ref for only a few of you)…….
And I am not some *fantasy fan* who beats off to the team just because of our jersey. I discriminate and filter information…….
There were and are many reasons to logically think that we are winning the West EAS-a-FUCKING-ly in 2012……..
And though it’s only been a day, I’m enjoying September immensely………..
I can recite every single line of this movie at any point in it whenever I’m called to do so….
But I fucking STILL watched this twice!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hard to know what you’re saying, Z. The DBacks aren’t as good as last year, but how does failing to sweep LA enter into that?
BTW, Craig: there have been other dissections of the Dodger trade and our position that have provided soild reason for why SF will win the West.
My “dissection” started with Hanley detoured through Melky and steam rolled through that idiotic trade– I have been the lone wolf through all of this–none of it scared me in the slightest or deterred me from my prediction: we will win the West easily.
Go look it up…
And when I say “go look it up” I mean go look up every post I made after all three of those occurrences. Every single mother fucking one of them basically said “do not sweat this..”
I’ve read yours, mine, and others as well. You’ve been consistent, but not alone, Craig. Pointing out that the Bums made a couple upgrades is not sweating it- my posts have also been clear and based on solid reason- as have others. But man- no one disrespects your take or that you’ve been consistent with it.
Twin, I was a Storekeeper, did 20 years and 26 days but who was counting. I was on two Frigatess and a Cruiser for a total of almost 9 years of sea time, plus the 18 month tour in Guantanamo Bay. I actually really liked my time in GTMO, got to go home to barracks every night to a fridge full of cold beer and we BBQ’ed lots.
I hated that I never got to go to the PI, when the Navy had a base at Subic Bay, I heard some good stories about the place.
I just did my 4. That was Vietnam, a million years ago and yesterday too. Hard not to wonder what might have been if my Dad let me sign the Twin’s offer. Probably not a lot- I was slow. and had no power. Most likely I end up in the Navy anyway. Riverboat duty was coveted, God knows why, I got assigned though, many volunteered- and the wait was long. .
I don’t add to the *POTD-Best of* widget that often. And I think it’s entirely supportable that I don’t have a fucking clue what should qualify. But every month or two I set myself on one and Loo’s 9:15pm was epic on so many levels………
Well done my little, long lost Asian figurine….well done……….
*Blows nose*
It’s a shame we didn’t meet at Belmont. I’m still quite a sight, even to people who’ve known me for 40 years…
Well, I never made it due to that cheating fuck and his drug addicted horse…
Little known secret: I hate to fly worse than Madden— most of my flights are 50-90 minutes. I was dreading that trip.
So it actually all worked out for me…
But life is short AND weird, my friend. Don’t take a face2face off the table just yet..
Pawlie’s already texting me about a 2012 WS hook up (minus all the gay shit gay men have to go through)…
Ya never know. Even when you KNOW you never know….
I wasn’t gonna be there either…
Looooo!!!!!! (I know it doesn’t sound too dramatic but imagine if I said it like Kirk said “Kahn!!!!” at end of Star Trek 111
This is all somewhat confusing. But I’ll defend to the death your right to confuse me.
‘Cuz this is America Goddammit!!!
Okay, now you’re in my arena. That’s STAR TREK II-THE WRATH OF KHAN. III was THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK
And The fact that I misfired on one of my favorite movie’s of all time (3>2) is the greatest sign in the world that it’s time to hit the sack.
TedSpe, I salute you.
FREE DEL MAR DENNIS!!!!
AND FUCK THE PIGS!!!!
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!!
What are we, the S.L.A.?
And I salute you, Flav and all ya’ll in Flavor Nation. Let us sign off on September 1st with an oldie but a goodie.
Goodnight, Gentlemen (question mark)
Good night, Ted. And all.