S P E R T S now w/ xtra lynx!

To Bonds or not to Bonds? That is on the form, and in the form of a question. Whether 'tis feebler in the mind to ignore the syringes with arrows of 'roid-rageous fortitude, or to take pen against a ballot of troublemakers, and by opposing send them away until next year:

Baseball is not golf. It is not a gentleman’s game, nor does it pretend to be. Baseball has a culture of cheating that goes back to its inception, of loading up the baseball and stealing signs and corking bats and yes, of drug use. All amphetamines became controlled substances by 1965. Players who took them did so illegally, just as steroid users did. Of course, amphetamines didn’t shred the record books in the same way.

That bit reminds me most of how Charlie Hustle became a speedster, which would one day transform hitting legend Pete Rose's nickname into at least a treble-entendre (when you include both his gambling and greenie activity). Anyway, I think that all baseball's banned substances, amphetamines included, if not that which led to shred the books, certainly added tabs. And how! And like, wow, man!

Speakin' o' shredding and hallses of fame, what about big baseball buff, bassist Geddy Lee? Such an extra-league enthusiast was he... that a fraction of his balls of fame made it into the Negroes. Dude actually had one that Satchel Paige had thrown.

A few hundred miles over from Cooperstown on the shore of an only as eerie as it is large lake rests the Hello, Cleveland Hall of Bass, Guitar & Drums (and Vox & Keys and MCs and Samples & Breaks). It's a house of pop and/or poll notoriety. Among the enthused throngs at this year's induction ceremony will be those who believe there exists such a thing as "the best" at playing an instrument, which would be the case any year, I'm sure, but this time in triplets, because Kanodean raccers RUSH are being enshroomed.

What if it were revealed that Geddy Lee wouldn't have been able to play the harmonic break in YYZ were it not for a diet of lumpy mashed potatoes and anabolic gravy? Or that Neil Peart had taken the under on Van Halen's advanced reunion tour ticket sales?

Is the reason why Pete Rose continues to be the only baseball player officially banned from its hall of fame because betting on baseball skates a slope to throwing games? Or is the real reality that Roids Rule!? <On my 'If I Were King' List is Lance leaping all over Oprah's couch-of-contrition delightedly declaring just that.)

Why should a continent that claims an inability to get out of bed in the morning without the use of psychopharmica restrict its entertainers from doing all they can to entertain?

Let all Halls of Fame be Halls of Infamy, with a place in the corner for the purists and prudes who'd either prefer to look the other way, or hire a cop for every creature and design a blood-test for every one of our pathetic enhancements.

Interview with a Blood Clot

"diese ‚fiese' Frau Feinstein"

As I arrive at the clot's current residence, tucked just inside the skull behind the right ear of the outgoing secretary of state, I am initially greeted by indifferent curds, who come off surprisingly disengaged and nonthreatening. The surroundings are pedestrian. To say that the place is sparsely arranged would be generous; there is no furniture in sight.

They lie about on what appears to be the brittle remains of beanbag chairs, made literally tacky, I'm guessing, by disregarded party-phernalia. But there is a certain oppulence in this decadence.

As I take my seat in the same vein, in rolls a clump of a figure draped in a crusty terrycloth bathrobe and carrying a short tumbler, which has the appearance of being an extension of both the previous evening's revelry, as well as the clot's personality.

Clot von Hills: When you said 'morning' you weren't lying.

diary von davidly: It's afternoon.

Clot: Whatever, dude. I'm surprised you aren't over clamoring for an exclusive with Fiscal Cliff.

dvd: The doctors say they're treating the SoS with anti-coagulants. Is the party over?

Clot: Party? This is my life. I'm just going with the flow.

dvd: There aren't any plans to enter your host's brain?

Clot: Surely you can tell that I don't make plans? Anyway, she's not my host... any more than I am yours.

dvd: Sounds more like you're shirking responsibility than denying being culpable.

Clot: You know, they call me the great equalizer. Like, there are all these rich and powerful people in the world who can squash you like a bug whenever they damn-well please, yet any one of them can be brought down in a heartbeat. Do you realize how many times your heart has beat since that very first time you bat an eyelash?

dvd: Would you ever want to be the cause of a stroke?

Clot: I don't want things. I'm the result of things. And those things didn't cause me as definitively as something else caused them. The source for your story lies elsewhere.

dvd: Where would that be?

Clot: How the fuck should I know? I just do what I'm told, like everybody else.

dvd: The doctors are confident of her recovery.

Clot: Even if she did die, there'd always be another.

dvd: But it's rumored that she's weighing a presidential run in 2016.

Clot: Which came first, the rumor or the plan? Either way - beware the treacherous venality of banging glass ceilings.

Look, for longer than I can keep track, I've been supplying her brain with oxygen. Then one day she cracks herself on the head and everybody's all, "Beware of the glob!" and the internets are filled with a call to prayer from the likes of a Rothchild for chrissakes. You sure can't make that shit up.

dvd: Should I be talking to Lady Rothschild?

Clot: That'd be about as effective as interviewing the professed messages in her "mailbox" [said with finger-quotes], if only a little less tedious. Or diese „fiese" Frau Feinstein [again with the finger-quotes (this time Teuton type)].

dvd: You referring to the senator from California's strong support for the recently extended FISA?

Clot: I'm referring to futile conversations with blood clots.

resources:

As the Crow flies

I want you to keep doing that, too, Jack. As long as you feel you're able. I know more than just I have missed your shadow.

Wish I could do more for you than stand stupidly here in your shade.

RIP GHWB

The title's an imperative. As in, Die, already. I almost linked the news of his "guarded condition", but didn't wanna draw the deliberation of the spooks, if you know what I'm sayin' (maybe I should've used 41 ?-)

They say you shouldn't talk shit about the departed, so I'm doing it here preemptively. Get it?

Maybe he'll go today, maybe tomorrow, but definitely for the rest of his life, whenever he does croak (and I do believe that there is no more fitting term to signify his passing than that one, even if he doesn't do the Glottal Stop upon expiration).

I'd've let this pass unnoticed if it hadn't been for 42's kin shooting a secular prayer out the ol' e-Twat. Or, rather, "coverage" of the same.

I can just see 42 eulogizing him already, attesting to his greatness, thoughtfully squinting with his subtle bobbly-head (hey, not unlike 40!). He sure talks smart for a hillbilly, don' 'e?

Then there'll be 44 eloquatiatin' about how he so-honored his nation. And he's got his own head action going on: Look up to the left, look up to the right, look up to the left, look up to the right... Jesus, if that doesn't indicate having been hatched for advanced mind control...

The Red, White, and Blue like to talk about the dudes who founded their company, and they'll be hanging their heads half-mast for this one dude whose founding lineage did as much to shape the current Foreign Sales & Acquisitions strategy as anybody with the word "doctrine" used after their name in the hallowed institutions of higher homicide.

And who would the sanctified political opposition be to bemouth even the devil's spawn itself? I mean, it's not sperm, or their own bloodline, or their own blood that makes them family in Lil' Sicly. It somebody else's.

I can't say Dukakis' hands were too pure to win the chair. And I'm pretty sure the Willie Horton spectacle was little more than something for the savvy voter to be able to rant about during election seasons to come, like the picture of Mike in a helmet. Though I doubt sitting by in a tank while the Ascender-in-Chief was cast as a wimp won him confidence-points with the board of directors. They knew who their guy was anyway, though, and were just waiting for someone better clothed for the job.

After that it's all crooked smiles and golf cart rides.