Beat On that Red Sox Mickey Mouse All You Want, Anaheimans...

Those futile swings won't bring your prop-board shantytown any closer to being an actual city (like, say...the one from which your baseball team embarrassingly pretends to be).

[OC Register via Deadspin]

World News for the Narcissistic American

People are leaving Venice, and nobody knows why.

I used to live out near Venice--before I moved back east into West Hollywood--so I am uniquely equipped to offer a theory:

Homeless people. They smell, and they make me feel bad for owning a dope-ass flat screen.

If the people of Venice kick enough homeless people out in time, they--in turn--will not be forced to relocate...thus retaining their homes (and, resultantly, their balls-to-the-wall home entertainment systems outputting at HD-1080p).

In which case...you're welcome, America.

A Case for 'the Providence Red Sox of Boston'

When the Boston Red Sox--despite having been staggeringly incapable during the final few weeks of the 2009 season--managed to stumble ass-backwards into a playoff spot (a break owed entirely to the team's early-season dominance), I was concerned about their chances.

On Thursday night, when the BoSox promptly shit the bed against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim-California-United States of America-Continent of North America-Earth-Earth's Solar System-Milky Way Galaxy in the first game of their division series, my concerns were unfortunately validated.

The question now is: How can the lethargic Red Sox turn the tide against the charged-up (and mathematically due to win the series) Angels?

Get their pitching to not suck? Hogwash. Have their batters hit the ball and reach base safely? Balderdash. Care? Stratego.

There's only one thing the Boston Red Sox can do if they hope to stand a chance a chance against their extraneously-named ALDS rival:

They need to add more cities to their name.

Think about it: in 2002, the first year since 1965 that the (then just "Anaheim") Angels acknowledged their geographical location on their jerseys, the team won its first (and, to date, only) World Series. No one outside of Anaheim gave a hoot (and even the majority of those living in the Anaheim area were only pretending to give hoots in order to hide their shame over having been unaware that their city had housed a professional baseball franchise since 1966); the team went on to suck for the following two seasons, a suckitude made much more embarrassing than its previous incarnation by the fact that the rest of the baseball world was now vaguely aware of the existence of Anaheim in all its irritating worthlessness. (I thought Disneyland was just Disneyland, remarked everyone, oblivious to the trenchant accuracy of that discarded belief.)

Prior to the 2005 season, the Angels ownership--no doubt realizing that the wholly artificial, rapidly decreasing "fan base" that came to exist just three years earlier might soon vanish entirely--struck upon the ingenious idea to rebrand the team to arbitrarily include the name of a city 40 miles away: a city that, importantly, people had actually heard of. And, voila: the [One City] Angels of [Another, Completely Unrelated City] went on to make the playoffs in 4 of the 5 ensuing seasons.

Sure, Providence, Rhode Island, is 45 miles from the city in which the Red Sox actually play--not to mention in a different state--but the Anaheim Angels didn't let silly things like "facts" and "logic" stand in their way en route to their recent postseason-appearance streak; the one thing that has stopped them, time and time again, from advancing beyond the division series is the Boston Red Sox. The hard truth currently facing the Red Sox is that they can't, in all likelihood, keep knocking the Angels out of the postseason forever. [UPDATE (10/11/09): Called it.] For that streak to continue, the Red Sox must take a page from the Angels' book and add a city.

(And though it may be too late for the Red Sox to do so this season, there's always 2010 for the Providence Red Sox of Boston; and if that doesn't work...watch out for the New England Boston Braves-Red Sox of Pennsylvania in 2011.)

Red Sox Take 25 Outs to Realize They're Facing John Lackey

Despite their deluded perception of geography, the Anaheim Angels of Pretending To Be From a Different City 30 Miles Away have been a very good team this year, one that has had the Boston Red Sox' number. While I, as a Red Sox fan, am not happy to be reporting on the fact that Nowhere But Anaheim extended their season series lead over Boston to 7-1 with a win on Tuesday, this is a much easier post for me to write than would have been the one I was planning to when there was 1 out in the bottom of the 9th...because that's how close the Red Sox came to being no-hit by John Lackey.

Who, the casual baseball fan may be asking himself? Exactly, I'm answering.

For such persons' edification: John Lackey is a decent--if inconsistent--pitcher who rose to prominence in 2002 when he helped the Angels (who had yet to publicly announce their shame over their own city by extending their team name to an unwieldy mouthful incorporating two separate and distinct locations) win the World Series. He followed up his star season by being terrible in 2003, sub-par in 2004, and serviceable in 2005. In 2006, Lackey reemerged as the team's ace--but by then, the world outside of Anaheim (including Los Angeles, which is a completely different city) had long since forgotten about him, as it should have.

Coming into Tuesday's game, John Lackey had firmly established his place in history as a mostly forgettable major-leaguer--one of baseball's many "Guy Fleegmans", if you will--whose most visible individual achievement was allowing himself to be made to look stupid in a Gatorade commercial. Had it not been for Dustin Pedroia's 9th-inning single (followed up by a two-run home run by Kevin Youkilis) in that game, John Lackey would have gone down in history as "the guy who no-hit the greatest team of the decade."

Instead, thank Jeebus, he'll go down as a dismissable "almost" in that regard...in the same way that Anaheim is almost Los Angeles.

Seisblogogy

Though the Mediocre Los Angeles Earthquake of 2008 occurred more than five hours prior to this posting, it has maintained its place as the top national news story of the day and I've just discovered that because I live in the affected area I was supposed to blog about it. Better late than never, here's Metroville's knockout first-person account:

When it happened, I was standing in a child's bedroom in a house that my wife and I are considering purchasing. The ground was all shaky and then the ceiling was all shaky and we were like, "Whoa, was that an earthquake?" and we couldn't get cell phone service and it turned out that it was, in fact, an earthquake. We still might buy that house, especially since it didn't fall apart during the earthquake.

KA-POW! Eyewitness blogging that affects your world, in real time*!


*plus or minus five hours

California Democrats Pick Nice White Lady Over Scary Black Man

And that white lady salutes you, racism.

(Okay, maybe racism isn't entirely responsible. Maybe I'm just angry because I--as a "decline-to-state" voter in Los Angeles--have learned that my vote probably didn't count because I managed to skip right over the bonus party bubble, which is a lot less fun than its name would indicate.)

BRT 1138

Yesterday, one might have taken the fact that Britney Spears checked in and out of rehab within twenty-four hours as a sign that she wasn't committed to treating what might be an alcohol and/or substance abuse (or is it just sleepiness?) problem. But now that KABC in Los Angeles has broken the news that the pop-star-cum-theme-park-ride-disaster showed up at a tattoo parlor with her head shaved bald, we can stop pointing fingers...because twenty-four hours is more than enough time to make a full recovery when the rehab facility in question is a dystopian prison commune located beneath the surface of the Earth. The androids who oversee the day-to-day operations at that place--with their emotion-suppressing drugs and liberal use of batons--will straighten a girl out right quick.

We never should have doubted your level of dedication to improving yourself, Britney. You truly are a shining example for all mankind.

UPDATE: Idolator has discovered that Gang Starr had previously attempted to popularize this aesthetic choice back in 1998.

Bank of America Won't Tell If You Aren't

In a move of bold defiance to the popular notion that large corporations are insensitive to the needs of the working man, Bank of America Corp. has begun offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers--"typically illegal immigrants", the Wall Street Journal helpfully points out.

According to the Journal, Bank of America tested the program last year at five branches in Los Angeles, and last week expanded it to 51 branches in Los Angeles County, home to the largest concentration of illegal immigrants in the U.S. (and me!). The bank hopes to roll out the program nationally later this year.

I think this ought to prove to all the capitalism-hating hippies out there that just because a company is incredibly rich and powerful, some--like Bank of America--will still go the extra mile to help customers who, for one reason or another ("the law", for instance), wouldn't normally have access to their services.

That is, of course, until said customer-in-need runs out of money...and then that dirty, lawbreaking Mexican better go back to his own country where he belongs.