Meltdown

Good evening!  I haven't posted anything in a while, so I thought I would this evening.  I'm awake and alert and it's a nice, slow night tonight.  Tonight's topic will be the humble meltdown in its many forms.


BASEBALL

Now that baseball season is in full swing (so to speak) and the juggernaut Blue Jays are well on their way to running the table after winning the first two games.  This brings to mind a few entertaining and rather extraordinary meltdowns that I've seen.  The first is from Brian Walker right here.

If this athletics thing doesn't work out for you, there is totally a career in acting for you.

Brian here is, or was, a catcher for the University of Arkansas Razorbacks and the video here shows the guy pretending to get hit by a pitch with some awesome, awesome acting.  When nobody buys it, he strikes out on a huge cut and then proceedes to lose it.  To me, this guy's just bizarre.  I mean, who does this?  What would posess anyone to fake getting hit by a pitch when there are cameras around and a whole bunch of witnesses.

Now, after seeing this, it probably isn't a shock that he didn't make it to the show, although interestingly enough, there are several people named "Walker" that made it to the big leagues, not the least of which Larry.  According to MLB.com, there was a Chico Walker, not one but two Dixie Walkers, a Gee Walker, Hub Walker, Rube Walker, Speed Walker, and my absolute favourite, Mysterious Walker.  Oh, and speaking of interesting names, the Dave Van Horn you see in this video is not to be confused with Hall of Fame broadcaster Dave Van Horne.  Two entirely different people.

Now this next one is my all-time favourite managerial meltdown: Phillip Wellman.

Oh no, don't hold back now.  Please tell me how you really feel.

I'm guessing he didn't like that call none too much.  I won't describe it beyond saying that it must be seen to believed.  Oh yeah, and he takes a bow at the end.  Say what you like about him, but he's a character.  The unfortunate thing here is that the Double-A Mississippi Braves fired him after the 2010 campaign and I think it's a safe bet that his managerial career is over.  I could see him doing commentary for Fox Sports, though.  I think I'd enjoy that.  Yes indeed.

Lastly, and I love this one, Hal McRae.

Gee whiz.  He sure looked a lot happier as a player rather than a manager.

I love this one mostly for its sheer visceral power.  He's not just mad, he's furious.  He's in a rage.  He's pissed.  He's throwing stuff, beating up reporters, and all on tape.  It's awesome.  And I remember him as a player for the Royals, too, back when I was a kid.  Let this be a lesson to you all, though: heavy is the head that wears the crown.  Although, as a sidenote, one of the things that I always loved about baseball is that, unlike all of the other sports, the manager is out there wearing a uniform just like everyone else.  I mean, could you even imagine Randy Carlyle in a Maple Leafs jersey?  Ha ha ha ha...

Hey!  It's MacGuyver!  Get his autograph!

...ha ha ha-  Oh.  Well, you know what I mean.  Oh, and just as a sidenote, speaking of Leafs and Meltdowns, I just thought I'd say that the Toronto Sun sure is a subtle publication, isn't it?

The funniest thing is the angle they have him at.  It's hilariously cheap!  And Burkie driving the bus!  I can't stop laughing...

Anyway!  Enough nonsense.  My baseball section seems to have veered away from baseball so let's get this bus back on course, so to speak.


BREAKING BAD

Not Beastie Boys.  Breaking Bad.

Man!  What a great television show.  I think it's a toss up whether Breaking Bad or...

The look on Tori's face: priceless.

...is my favourite (aka. the best) show on television.  However, Breaking Bad is in a category all its own, I think.  It's not the Sopranos.  It's not Boardwalk Empire, or Friends, or Dallas.  It's something totally different.  Ever since Episode One, Season One this show has been an exercise in tension.  It's like a very tightly wound pocket watch that slowly ticks down only to be cranked tight again at just the right time.  It's a slow burning fire.  It's a constant impending dread.  It's the most elegant meltdown I've ever seen on television.

Have you considered an exciting career in high school chemistry?

One of the central themes to this show is the feeling that there is this Pandora's Box.  There's this fight or flight decision that I think we can all relate to where we do something that we don't want to do but feel that we have to for whatever reason and we cross the line.  And once that line is crossed it can never be taken back.  Ever.  Every decision that we make, right or wrong, has been done and we all have to move forward.  In this case, Walt decides to take his knowledge and try to do the right thing for his family, but in doing so he crosses that line and there's no going back.  This show as much as any shows how just taking that first little step across the line can leads to full on meltdown further on down the road.  And there's no turning back.

Ominous.

It is really something to watch this meltdown happen and see things spin further and further out of control.  From one little seed that was planted, so many lives are getting sucked in and down with it.  Never mind that there are guns and drugs and other nasty things, this is some of the best and most well-made television that you will ever, ever see.

And the casting is pitch perfect from top to bottom.  I honestly didn't think Bob Odenkirk had this in him,

Breaking Bad, as much as anything else, is meltdown as art.


BLACK FRIDAY

Well, there are probably a lot of Black Fridays, but the one I'm talking about occurred on Friday September 24, 1869.  Oh wait, though.  Before I begin, some mood music.

Operation Grand Slam?  What does this look like?  A Denny's?  No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to order hashbrowns!  Idiot...

Yes, before there was Auric Goldfinger there were the real life evil masterminds of...

"Diamond" Jim Fisk

...and...

Jay Gould

Now these guys were some serious, serious bad dudes.  These two were a combined their experiences as smugglers, grafters, fraudsters, financiers, investors, bribers, railroad barons, and all-around cut-throat money men. Together, and with the help of political puppet-master Boss Tweed, they teamed up to corner the United States gold market.

This picture is a dramatization.  Not actually the gold being cornered.

I know!  It sounds sinister, right?  That's kinda what Goldfinger did, only through nuclear fallout instead of the good old fashioned method of corporate chicanery.  A modern day equivalent would like Warren Buffet and Michael Bloomberg getting together and going out one day and buying up gold.  Then more gold.  Then more gold.  That would drive the price of gold up thirty percent and stock prices across the board drop like a rock.  So then Obama gets worried and orders the powers that be to release some gold from the reserve to bring the prices down.  And did it ever go down.  Once the government gold hit the markets, the price of gold suffered a total meltdown.  Meanwhile, Fisk and Gould sold off their gold, aware of the impending crash and escaped any significant financial hard.  The rest of the marketplace, however... well, let's just say that they don't call it "Black Friday" for nothing.


NETWORK

Oh what I would give to see Peter Mansbridge do this scene live - or something similar.

Have you seen the film "Network" before?  Mmm?  Either way, whether you have or not, it's messed up.  Totally messed up.  To put it briefly, there's this evening news anchor who goes off his rocker and gets fired, but before he's done he has a total meltdown and gives a rant for the ages.  Live.  On-Air.  In front of millions.  At first they want to do the humane thing and just shut him down, but then once they see the ratings they realize that they can put this poor cracked son of a gun to work and milk his lunatic ravings for all they're worth.

At first it looks so campy and far-fetched given that the show was released in 1976.  And old man having his own show, clearly a cushion short of a couch and people just eat it up.  It seems too weird and cynical to be true.  Or is it?  Let's see...

Uh huh.

Mmhmm.

Uh oh.

Aw geez.

Yikes!

Alright, enough already.  Geez.  Yes, the movie was eerily prescient with its take on how brutal and manipulative the fame industry is, and in closing on this subject, one last old lamentable ranting man.

"I put 34 years into this firm, Howard, and now I can't pay my insurance. You can't eat an orange and then throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit."

COMEDIANS

I thought long and hard about actually doing something about a meltdown, like at either Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or Fukoshima, but then I thought against it in a sort of "Nah, that's too easy" kind of way, so instead we get this list here.  Now, to finish it off here one last great meltdown: the comedian.

Herman J. Pennypacker: Wealthy Industrialist

So Michael Richards had a nice little run with his nice little spin off detective show after Seinfeld took its last, terrible bow, but after that bombed (as opposed to simply melting down), he went back to doing standup.  On November 17, 2006 while doing a set at the Laugh Factory some hecklers got the best of him and he lost it.  "Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass!"  And then he shouted "He's a nigger!" oh, I dunno, a bunch of times trying to explain himself to the audience like that's cool.  And he made reference to lynching.  Not good.  Not good at all.  However, the good news is that he was never seen or heard from again after that.  Well, more or less.  He retired from doing standup (woo!) and then went on a quiet to do some spiritual healing or some such nonsense.  Good for him.  Good for him.  Cause you see, if he couldn't handle a softball outfit like the Laugh Factory, there's no way he could handle the pressure cooker that is...

The two-man roast, sans heartfelt tribute.

And then there's this clown here.

And by "clown" I don't mean funny,  Sure, why not.  Let's get him with a cigar, too.

I won't belabour this one because it was already so expertly belaboured over the past year and, frankly, he's just not worth it.  Suffice to say that he melted down and I'm not so sure he's done yet.  Time will tell.  ...  I wonder if he's got an endorsement from Winners...  Anyway!  And now this guy.

Well, I got a cigarette at least.

Some have called this a meltdown, but I'm not so sure.  Sure, he took off to Africa to find himself spiritually, but unlike Michael Richards it didn't take a horrible embarrassment before he needed to do so.  Instead what it was was that he was offered $50 million to continue work on the Dave Chapelle Show.  And he looked long and hard at the $50 million and in the end he walked away from it.  Now that takes guts.  All kinds of guts.  Turning your back on $50 million takes huge guts, but he did it and that's impressive.  What I see here is not another comedian that had another meltdown, but rather a comedian with a crisis of conscience who followed his heard and said no to the lucrative contract so that he could remain true to himself - very similar to what this guy went through.

Finding him with a cigarette was easy, too.

And that took just as much guts to give up a roughly equivalent amount as well.  Although he wasn't very funny.  At all.  Yeesh.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but I think I'll leave it here for now.  Thanks for reading and have a good night!

Potpurri!

Oh, what a week it has been, so let's tee it off and aim for the fairway.


ATTACK OF THE ROBOCALLS

Press '0' at any time to speak to a live agent.

Before this week I had never even heard of the word "Robocalls", and that's saying something because I've worked (and currently work) in call centres for pushing four years now.  I mean, I knew what they were?  Who hasn't heard this?

Here is, ah say, here is your captain speaking.

But here's the word, plastered everywhere in exceptionally bold print.  ROBOCALLS.  Now, if only they could get rid of ROBOFAXES, I'd be just as happy.  How happy?  Somewhere in this ballpark.

PC Load Letter?  Not anymore!

In all seriousness, this is a really deeply unsettling story.  If I were you, I'd read about it.  All about it.  I won't really comment on it because it's such a fluid, changing story and there's just so much going on that it's not worth it.  However, I will say this.

I am really saddened by this - not by the electoral fraud or lies and accusations or spin or cover-up.  I mean, that's Ottawa.  You do what you can to make right, you know?  I'm just really bummed (more about bums up next, by the way) because I have so many really great memories of the six months I lived in Guelph.  It's a really great place, about half the size of Regina with a formidable university and exceptional transit services.  Nice shiny malls, a whole bunch of history, the Speed River cutting through town under the Edinburgh Rd. bridge and lovely bowling greens and gazebos.  It's just a really nice place, and I remember it well, and I'm just so bummed that had I have still been living there, I would have been called on election day by Elections Canada and notified that my polling station had changed.  I would have leapt onto the bus, gone to work in the morning on election day, worked, and hopped a bus back downtown for the polling station - that wasn't there. 

Someone just lied to me.  I mean, I just got a call this morning from someone saying that they were Elections Canada, but they weren't.  Their whole intent was to deceive me in the hopes that, geez, it's a quarter after 5:00 and I gotta go run for groceries yet and then we're going out to Wimpy's and then the polls are all closed.

See that bench there?  In Wimpy's?  In Guelph?  Second from the end on the right?  Raccoon Inc. was there!

Damn it!  And my vote's gone.  Spoiled.  I would be one less opposition (make no mistake) vote.  My vote was stolen, because one less opposition vote is just as good as one Conservative vote.  And I'd be pretty pissed, because I take my civic duties seriously.  Voting, jury duty, all that fun stuff.  Canada's a great place, but you get what you put in, and so yes, I'd be pissed.  And saddened, too.  This is a dark week for democracy here and a new low for our government.  Every time I think that there's a bottom here somewhere, they scrape deeper into the mud.


OH I ALWAYS MEET MY BODHISATTVAS IN THE STREET!

Moody blue to the extreme.

So earlier this week I finished reading Machiavelli's "Discourses" and I poked around my study for something new to read at night.  I was kinda beat from reading Machiavelli, Aquinas (at great length), Russel, and mystery novels from Stout and LeBlanc, so I thought it might be nice for a change of pace, and lo and behold, I've still got that old copy of "The Dharma Bums" sitting around.  I'm about six chapters in now and I'm hooked.  Mind you, not so much for the content of the work but for the style.  There's something that's just absolutely awesome about Jack's style, but I want to say this first.

I would not eat them in a box either, man.  We're all in a box, though, in some way.  Free your mind!

At no point ever anywhere have I seen Jack wear a beret.
At no point ever anywhere have I seen Jack wear a turtleneck.
At no point ever anywhere have I seen Jack wear sunglasses.
At no point ever anywhere have I seen Jack wear a beard.
The classic image of the beatnik really doesn't have much to do with the whole vibe that was their founding fathers.  Indeed, Jack's books paint a much different picture.  Rather than a pack of pretentious hipsters a la...

I LEFT THE OCEAN.  IT'S TOO CURRENT.

.., what you get is something far more spiritual and meaningful.  You get asceticism and sincerity in his words.  You get this yearning for the meaning of human experience, and it's all tied together with his style of writing.  It's not quite a stream of consciousness, but close.  It's kind of like this sort of bare bones retelling of these stories on box cars, in shacks, on trails, guzzling wine, having sex, and all this intimate stuff.  In fact, that's the word that I would use.  It's a very intimate look at cross-section of one generation's yearning for expression and spirituality presented in a most intuitive way.

As a last word on this, take a look at any top 50, or even top 25 American books ever written.  Chances are Kerouac is on there at least once, and richly deserved I might add.  You may say, pfeh!  American...  My rebuttal to that would be, fear not!  Both his parents were Quebecois.  Dig it.


NERD: A CONUNDRUM

Alright.  Time for a thought experiment.  Now follow along carefully - there will be a test at the end.  Ready?

Male nerd.

Female nerd.

Male nerd.  (This is not a younger picture of me, I swear.)

Female nerd.

Male nerd.

Female nerd.

And now for the test:

Could someone please explain to me why male nerds are dorky and female nerds are sexy?

Well, I'd ask the guy who invented the word, but he passed away in 1991.  Yes, Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel invented the word "nerd" in 1950 in the book "If I Ran The Zoo".  However, "nerd" didn't start meaning, well, nerd until the 1970's.  Until then you were just square, daddy-o.  I guess the world may never know.


THE CASE OF THE NARCOLEPTIC NINCOMPOOP

Now if it was more like this, it'd be way easier to stay awake!

And now for the curious case of Rob Anders.  I'm just gonna start unloading with both barrels now if you don't mind.

How easy is it to be an Alberta MP?!  You're gonna get 80% of the vote every time out (since Landslide Annie) because those dopes are damn bullheaded to get it through their thick skulls that competition is good for business.  So now you get this clown here, Rob Anders, Honourable Member for Calgary Whatever, falling asleep in Parliament.

Initially my reaction was something like this: Falling asleep in Parliament?!  I get that it's boring as anything, but for God's sake, you're being paid a king's ransom to be there.  Well, maybe not a king's ransom, but his salary could easily vouchsafe an earl, baron, or viscount.  I guarantee it.  So he sits there and nods off, but you know what?  Honestly, deep down, if someone's droning on about something asinine, I have no issue with that at all.  I fell asleep in physics before.  I fell asleep on a bus ride across town before.  That's fine.  That's a human thing as much as it is anything.

But then when you do it again this week at a House of Commons committee (which again, is fine), and then deny it, now I get pissed.  If you fall asleep in a committee room, surrounded by people, and then deny it when you have a gaggle of witnesses, and then you turn around and blame the accuser of lying because he has NDP ties, then buddy you're worse than sleepyhead.  You're an unethical liar.

What the hell is wrong with these people?!  You know, here in the real world, when we make a mistake, we apologize for it.  You don't go around accusing people when we get caught red handed, and you sure as hell don't need a statement crafted by the Prime Minister's Office in order to convey that apology when you eventually get around to it, either.  What kind of dolts are running this place these days?!  Honestly!  It really, really makes me mad when you can't do such a simple thing as apologizing if you screw up, and the lengths that people will go to avoid apologizing are just extraordinary!  It's boggling.  It really is.

Ach!  Enough.  On to the next one.


OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

Smile for the birdie!

Now, I've done my fair share of slagging Ron Wilson in this blog, and as it turns out that I'm not alone in my opinion.  This week saw the fans at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto chanting "FI-RE WIL-SON!", and if you know Toronto crowds it's hard enough to get them to yawn let alone get them engaged in the game.  After going 1-9-1 in his last several games (ouch, by the way), slagging his goalies publicly along the way and otherwise having a "meh" attitude about things, enough was enough.  You know, I got one prophecy right and one prophecy wrong.  I was absolutely correct in assuming that the contract extension would prove to be a sweet severance package, but wrong that they would go with someone other than Randy Carlyle.

On the other hand, though, I do feel sorry for him.  How responsible could a coach possibly be for a god awful team.  I mean, this is not Emilio Estevez in the Mighty Ducks we're talking about here.  These are your Toronto Maple Loafs.

On yet another hand, the great province of Saskatchewan has no hockey team, so it's easy as hell to slag the life outta everyone else's teams.  Fun, too.  But if Saskatoon gets this team they're wanting...  Meh, I'll still like baseball better.

And that's all the time we have for tonight, daddy-o.  Stay cool, man, practice your ohm omne padme ohms, and feel free to trash your young goalies in front of the cameras.  Try to stay awake unless you're trying to sleep, and don't forget that this is the age of the geek.  Oh, and if a robot calls, go run pick up your nearest Asimov novel, fry his circuits with a nifty logical paradox, and stick it to those dirty rotten cheaters.  Good night!