Goodbye old friend

She was just a bundle of yellowish-white fur when Pop and I picked her up Christmas Eve 1994.

A tiny package of pee, poop and slobber with paws the size of a Mack truck.

Shawnie was an Alaskan samoan-German shepard mix with a bark that made the electric man crap his pants and a tail that would whisk away your beer and anything else in its path with one easy swoosh.

Pop told me he was buying a dog from a buddy at the Idyllwild Garage who's dog just had a litter, and Pop asked if I wanted to join him when he picked her up. What the hell, I said, I was always a sucker for puppies. I was home from Vegas for the Christmas holiday, so on the morning of Christmas Eve we stopped off to pick up the newest Melissa. We papered the downstairs bedroom with old L.A. Times - what better use, right? - and let her have free reign. She sat there, shaking with fear in a room that must have looked as big as the Texas plains to her small body. But my God, those paws, she wasn't going to stay palm size for long. If Pop had it his way, her name would have been Lady or Girl - why not call her dog, dad? that was our response - until one of us blurted out Shawnie, and that stuck.

Thirteen years of loyalty, friendship and love should cost more than fifty bucks. That's what Pop plopped down for a pooch who was more human than dog, more sister than pet. She was a not a pet, but a family member. And after that first year, you couldn't put price tag on Shawnie, my parents would fight to the death than give her away. I wouldn't blame them, either.

I knew this day would come. Pop had been warning me and my sister for the past few months. And honestly, after sitting for Shawnie during June this year, I was happily surprised she made it until the end of September. You see, being a big dog with shepard genes her hips slowly began deteriorating. I noticed it a couple of years ago, which means the parents knew about it much sooner than that. But the old girl kept plugging along, chasing her ball in the back yard, trotting along the open field near my parent's house, and barking peevishly when we were watching a movie and not paying attention to her. Shame on us is what it always sounded like and we dutifully listened to her whines. During the last few visits I reminded myself of what a spirited friend Shawnie had been, and what I was seeing was a sick friend fighting off the aches and pains so she could have some more fun. There was nothing any of us could do but love her, and I think she understood that. She appeared happy for the visits, enjoying the extra loving attention and reciprocated it with head butts and slobbery kisses.

Both my sister and I always felt Shawnie was my parents' favorite kid. When it came to her needs or wants, money was no object. They bought her a cushy warm doggie bed with faux sheep wool that contained a five foot-by-five-foot pillow hidden inside. It was more comfy than the twin bed taco (sleep in the middle of the mattress and the ends fold up) they gave me for my apartment, or the spring-in-the-ass couch they handed down my sister's way. When we were kids, we'd crank the heat up one extra notch and Pop would complain that we were spiking his electric bill, but Shawnie couldn't sleep on the cold floor, oh no, she needed that wool doggie bed so she could brave those 60-degree nights in Hemet ... California.

They took her everywhere, too. Wife and I, combined, haven't been to as many states as Shawnie. Heck, she even attended more family reunions than either me or my sister. She's been to the northern most parts of the country - Washington and Maine - and spent time the Florida Keys. She's been to Toronto, Canada, and Galvaston, Texas, the closest she could get to Mexico. Damn those pesky Mexican laws regarding pets.

Be itin the back yard in Idyllwild, the walled-in confines of Hemet or a campsite in Yellowstone, Shawnie knew how much turf was her's and would let you know whether you belonged there. For example, a buffalo went on an afternoon stroll through the campsites in Yellowstone one year. The family had met with relatives from the Cleveland area for a little reunion, and true to form my parents brought Shawnie along (I was unable to attend due to vacation time constraints, so this tale was relayed to me after the event). Well, the buffalo stepped foot in the parents' campsite and Shawnie was having none of that. Tied to a tree by Yellowstone rules (by the by, great rule Yellowstone, why not slather every pet with honey too so more bears and buffalos come looking for a 'dog on a rope' snack in the afternoon), she let the 900-pound glorified moose know it was not welcome in her yard. The buffalo snorted its displeasure and pawed at the ground, ready to spin Shawnie on its head like a barking soccer ball. Finally, realizing this 100-pound, yellow-furred pint-sized beast (when compared to the snorting land mass of a buffalo) wasn't going to back down, the buffalo continued on its way through the campsite, ignoring the barking Shawnie and coolers full of lunch meats and beer.

Those who pretend to know what dogs think and mean in bark inflection and tail wags say the animals have short memories. A dog, according to these wonks, don't remember things that happen from hour to hour, let alone day to day. They're full of dog-poop. Whenever I came home from college that dog bulled her way up the stairs and through the front door like she was Dino and I was Fred. She'd head butt my hip, lean against my legs until I backed up into a wall for support and then slobbered kisses on my hands until my own paws were coated in dog saliva. She may not have missed me when I left to head back to school, but she sure knew who I was when I walked through the door.

It won't be the same when Wife and I stop at the parents' pad. Heck, Shawnie had just started warming up to Wife - it only took seven years, I think Shawnie was jealous - she finally warmed to her and started licking her hands and nuzzling her thigh when Wife would sit on the floor. There won't be that familiar face peering at us through the sliding glass door, tail wagging, mouth open, panting, looking as though she's smiling at our appearance. I won't get that head plop when sitting on the porch or the heaving breathing wake up call at 6 a.m., and I'll miss it. Shawnie was a companion to my mom when Pop was on the road, and a friend who always seemed excited to see me at her house or mine.

But those will be the memories that will keep her alive in my mind, her high fives for treats and morning walks to the vacant lot where she'd run and sniff forever if we let her. Maybe now, that's just what she'd doing, running on a pair of good hips and barking at buffalos.

The force is strong with this one

The prison work camp likes to keep the inmates happy by giving away free shit from time to time.

It starts with Inmate of the Quarter, a morale-building exercise in suck-assery that gets the winner free stuff from joints like Marshall's (because the wardens can't have us inmates dressing like south Phoenix winos), Fry's grocery stores (because the wardens are tired of the inmates stealing their caviar and lobster sandwiches from the lunchroom fridge) and the T&A Liquor Store (because the wardens know a 'happy' inmate is a drunk, oversexed inmate, and that Liquor Store just so happens to have the widest selection of 'exotic' reading material this side of the Rio Grande).

The cell blocks here split up and root for their biggest bulls knowing full well there are a few generous sorts who may share a dozen donuts - that's like currency here - with the rest of the block. We're worse than carrion birds around here, just waiting for whatever scraps the premiere suck ass of the quarter will toss to the rest of us misbehaving inmates, and then we spring on 'em like ants on a scorpion. We're a bunch of thugs, if you win cash someone will roll you in the parking lot, kick you in the jumblies and take every last penny (it's a prison work camp, we don't have much more than a few pennies to begin with).

But the gift card bounty is just a Band-aid on a sawed-off limb when compared to the days when the Warden Supremo puts sports tickets up for raffle. Us inmates become Dumpster-diving hobos behind a greasy spoon diner off the Interstate (the kind of joint that's populated by a 68-year-old waitress named Flo and a cook who's cigarette ash is a shade shorter than his fingernails). We resort to scribbling our X on odd-stock paper so it stands out in a bowl of notebook paper from other inmates and sit there in our cells ticking of the seconds until Warden Supremo finally pulls the name.

That magical moment came my way last week.

It was like an episode of the "Price is Right," he said my name and screamed like a pregnant housewife about to give Bob Barker a bit of oral pleasure on TV. Of course, in his infinite wisdom, the leader of Sun City's largest information distributor forgot the tickets on his desk, so he departed the stage to retrieve my prize - four tickets to the Phoenix Coyotes. Hockey for those of you who may be asking "What the hell sport do they play?" And for those of you who may never have heard of hockey - with the shitty TV package the sport secured two years ago, I wouldn't be surprised - it's a sport that's played with sticks, a puck and on ice. Phoenix ... ice ... I know, I've heard the jokes before, so can it. Seriously, this is the logic of a governing body based in the United States that lords over a sport that was created in Canada. So, of course, we stole nearly all of its teams and have ruined the damn. Ah, but that's a topic for another day.

Not more than two minutes after running around the cell block proclaiming my wonderful greatness at putting my X down on a scrap of paper and tossing it into a bowl so it could be pulled out a few hours later, one lesser warden - Warden lite, if you will - comes wandering around the wall with a ad sales slug in tow.

"You going to use those hockey tickets?" He asks. The question takes me aback. I'll give out my response, and parenthetically give you the response I thought about later, in the prison work camp bathroom where we all know I do my best thinking.

"Uh, yeah, I was thinking of taking Wife. She loves the fights." (No, I just threw in my wadded up scrap of toilet paper with my name on it for shits and giggles, smart guy. No wonder you're in charge of the ex-cons in the press room.)

Then the sales lackey pops out from behind him like a house elf from Harry Potter. At first, she spooked me because I thought the Prison Guard may have just pooped her out when I wasn't looking - she's border-line midget, so it's not out of the question - then realized, no she was just tagging along because he was her mouthpiece in this transaction. He didn't want the tickets, she did.

She looks at me, stares me down like I'm chum to her sharklike sales instincts, and then says, "Are you really going to use the tickets? I really want them. Do you really think you'll use the tickets?"

I looked into the House Elf's eyes and I was lost in a sea of surrealism. Was she really asking me for the tickets I fairly won? My tickets, now. What the hell? No, I tell myself, I want to go. It will be a nice date night for Wife and I (hockey date nights = Wife filled with adrenaline thanks to a half dozen hockey fights). But I'm so taken aback by the House Elf's balls - she's in ad sales, remember, so, yeah, she has some gonads - I wasn't sure what to say. This kind of situation isn't in the normal, raffle-winning script.

"Yeah," I say more confused than when Wife actually said yes when I asked her to marry me, "I want to go."(Look here you little imp, I'm taking the little lady out that night for a little ice boxing, some raw oysters and a whole lot of liquor. Then, if I'm lucky, we're going to do some ice dancing, if you know what I mean.)

"Really?" And an odd feeling came over me, like I was one of the guards at Jabba the Hut's layer that Luke Skywalker uses his Jedi mind trick on ("You will dress Princess Leia up in a chain link bikini and parade her around like a Jedi dominatrix.")

That's when I figured out, dammit, she is a Jedi, too. But just as I was going to call the Elf on her true persona, the Warden Supremo came back with my loot.

"Oh, these tickets say Oct. 22." Fine by me, I thought, I'm still going with Wife. I can wait a month for some hockey and hockey fight sex. Then I looked at the Elf who appeared heartbroken. But I was sure she'd use her Jedi powers to either get the Warden to buy her new tickets or have him switch those tickets outs for a more acceptable game. However, my face must have registered more confusion, so the Warden piped up, "No, I'm just kidding."

Then he turns to me with his big, Fred Flintstone head and asks whether I'd mind sitting separate from the other seat. "Do you plan on going with someone? And if so, do you like that person?"

To say his question, and straight face, stumped me more than a legless distance runner was an understatement. I didn't know how to take him. Between the Elf, the Prison Guard Mouthpiece and Warden Supremo-turned-George Carlin here it was all too surreal. Nothing was making sense. Two folks were guilting me into giving away tickets I rightfully won, and the giver was turning the other end of my head around with his straight-faced jokes.

"Uhm, yeah, I'm taking Wife. It'll be a date night." (Listen, when I want to watch bad comedy I'll check out your sex life, dude.)

He laughs and then nudges my prison guard, "I can't believe it, he thinks I'm serious."

"Oh, you don't want to go," the Elf said, looking me in the eyes again. It took me sec to fight off her Jedi powers before I shook my head no. "Give me the tickets."

"Well, there's actually four tickets here, what should I do with the other two?" said the Warden Supremo.

"Give them to me," said the Elf Jedi. However, the Warden Supremo didn't adhere to her mind games and instead slapped all four in my paws.

"Do what you want with them, dude."

And without knowing why, I give two tickets to the pushy, rude Jedi Sales Elf. I told those around me that they obviously meant something to her if she came over here and begged, pleaded and damn near sucked her way to these tickets.

My money was on the fact that her husband or boyfriend was a big Coyotes fan and she knew how good these seats were (seven rows off the ice, close enough to see hockey player snot on the Plexiglas when the players plastered each other up against glass - I can't even blow security guards well enough to get into those seats). But to my relief, she took her son and to see his smile as we watched two players swing away on each other's domes at center ice told me all I needed to know. It really did mean something to her, and obviously her son. I couldn't begrudge her of that, but she's still a Jedi Sales Elf, and if she ever wins anything at the Camp she better be ready to split her loot with thise Italian imp.

Happy 4+1 Day

Ask Dodger fans - before Sept. 18, 2006 what the greatest moment in Los Angeles Dodger history was and like a tribe of talking blue cockateels they'd answer with Kirk Gibson's game-winning homer in game one of the 1988 World Series.

Hard to argue with that choice.

I remember sitting in my living room - a smooth baby-butt faced kid of 16 - jumping up and down, exchanging high fives and hugs with the ol' man. We watched as Gibby pumped his fist rounding second and then delivered a high five to third base coach Joey Amalfitano that should have dislodged the limb from the socket and sent it halfway to Pasadena. Our television screen was a Zenith 20-something inch, with more wood framing the screen than actual TV, but as we watched Gibson reach home he looked 10-feet tall. Paul Bunyan in Dodger blue. David to Dennis Eckersely's Goliath (he became a hall of fame closer a few years ago, Eckersely, not Goliath). And after watching that I knew two things: 1) That was the greatest home run I'd ever seen; 2) The Dodgers would win that World Series.

I was three-quarters right. The Dodgers won that World Series - they're last one during the past 19 years (you guessed it, I still live in the 80s. Didn't you figure that out when I blabbered on about that decades music last week?) - and while I still say that was the greatest home run I had ever seen, but now it comes with a caveat: The game I watched one year ago today could be labeled 1a in a home run ranking system.

The Dodgers and Padres were trading first place like renaissance fish merchants for the better part of six weeks. On the season, the Pads had had the Blue's number. I feared this series. It gave me heartburn, diarrhea and jock itch before it even started. Through Sunday, the Dodgers were 1-2, and needed a win Monday night more than a porn star needs a seven-foot tongue.

Brad Penny started the game against designated Dodger hemorroid Jake Peavy, so my hopes were about as high as a high schooler smoking grass - Bermuda grass. I watched as the Pads put four on the board in the first inning and when Wife entered the baseball sanctuary and midget porn theatre - our office - I told her she may want to cue up a Monk or Rescue Me or the documentary on Furries (you haven't lived until you spanked Bugs Bunny's ass and puff tail while doing it doggie-style), I had a feeling this was going to be a long night for the Dodgers.

Then they got one back in the bottom of the inning. They scored one more in the second to make it 4-2. And then, in the third, the Big Blue Wrecking Crew tied the game with an improbable dinger from Rafeal Furcal, the pint-sized $15 million shortstop, and a run scoring double by professional Christian liar J.D. Drew. I told Wife to back down from early departure threat level Red, so she sulked back into the office just so she could be near my wonderful, awe-inspiring presence that radiates from my soul as I watch a Dodger game. I'm as pleasant as a spring time breeze when I'm really focused on a game.

My plan that night was to write bit while the game was running. But that plan faded into oblivion as I found myself riveted to the screen. I gave up by the fifth and made the video screen a size bigger and sat back to watch what was becoming a whale of a ball game.

After they tied the game, both teams stood in the center of the ring and played patty cake, unable to push the momentum one way or the other, until the eighth. That's when all hell broke loose, but more on that later.

Finally, the Pads were able to break their cherry again and pumped two runs across against Jonathan Broxton, a man the size of Georgia who likely could eat Georgia (dude runs 290 pounds - at least that's what the media guide says). Knowing how these things end for the Dodgers, I started looking for other scores around the league hoping other wild card contenders had lost, so the Dodgers wouldn't lose any ground in the playoff chase. But, because baseball is a crazy bastard that keeps you on your toes with every pitch, the Dodgers cut back into the 2-run lead, cutting it to 6-5.

There was still life left in the Blue Crew. Wife, however, had enough of my wonderful personality and called it a night, leaving me to the glow of the computer screen and the lone light shining against the wall on my desk. I told her I'd be in soon, and believed it.

The Dodger closer came in to keep the game close in the ninth. He's Japanese, and I'm sure when manager Grady Little told him to keep them within striking distance, the words Takashi Saito heard were "spot 'em a 4-run lead." One of the best Dodger pitchers that season was tattooed in the ninth more than a prison lifer, and the team was the prison bitch to the Padres' bull queer.

9-5, bottom of the ninth. At least I can crash in about 10 minutes, I thought. But remember, all hell was about to break loose.

Jeff Kent led the inning off. On Jeff Adkins second pitch (thank you Bruce Bochy for not calling in future hall of famer Trever Hoffman to pitch - stroke of genius Mr. Mustache) Kent drilled the offering over the center field wall. 9-6. The gates to hell were open.

"Way to go Kent. Hit a home run now, you piss ant!"

J.D. Drew came up next, and took Adkins fourth serving deep (the ball could have qualified as a long distance airliner as far as it went) into the right field bleachers. 9-7.

"That's interesting."

Then, the Padres brought in Hoffman, and I'll admit this time it felt different.

Earlier in the season, the Dodgers had a five-run lead going into the ninth inning against the Padres. Unfathomably, they blew the lead in the ninth, and lost the game in the tenth. It was April 30, but it felt like Sept. 30. Those kinds of losses haunt you for a season. Maybe tonight the Dodgers would get some pay back, I thought.

Dodger catcher Russell Martin - man crush alert - took Hoffman's first pitch, a fastball just over the left field wall (you couldn't fit a pubic hair between the ball and the wall). 9-8!

I pushed my chair back and jumped out of it like something just bit my sack. This couldn't be happening, I thought. They have a shot! Christ, they have a shot. In a moment of foreshadowing, I shut the office door so I wouldn't wake Wife with screaming if the game prompted me to do so.

It would.

Marlon Anderson, who homered earlier in the game and was already 4-for-4, took the first pitch he saw deep into an ecstatic left field pavilion. I jumped from my chair again and screamed silently - remember Wife asleep, would be none too happy if she woke to a hysteric husband - stomping around the room like a wild-eyed mosher. 9-9! Back-to-Back-to-Back-to-Back homers to tie the game. In the history of baseball, this was the fourth time that feat had been matched, and the first time it was done in the ninth to tie the game.

The next batter hit a shot that was caught on the warning track, but when I saw it leave the bat I thought it was gone too. The next hitter popped out (wimp), and the final hitter of the inning - Furcal - drove a pitch to the right field wall. The outfielder leaned against the wall to make the catch, it was that close from going out and winning it.

The best Dodger pitchers out of the game now, they leaned on a journeyman named Aaron Sele. It wasn't the best option, but at that point the Dodgers had to take what they got. The first hitter lined out, but then Brian Giles followed it up with a double. The Dodgers walked Adrian Gonzalez to get a force out at any base. I was worried. I didn't want them to blow this game that they fought three times to get back into, that's not how the script was written, I remember telling my computer screen.

The next hitter lined out, and I breathed a little easier. Then Josh Bard - friggin' Bard - singled to right to score Giles. 10-9. Ugh!

Sele retired the next hitter, but the damage was done. The Padres bullpen doesn't give up that many leads, and I thought the Dodgers had used up all nine lives in this game.

Rudy Seanez came in to pitch for the Pads. Thankfully, they used all their best pitchers earlier, too. Slap hitting Kenny Lofton led the inning off with a walk. Bringing up Nomar Garciappara. His quad muscle was barely hanging to the bone. He hit a double earlier in the game and I thought he'd have to pogo on the other leg just to get to second.

It was a five pitch at bat. But if you asked me today I would have said it was on the first pitch. Funny how memories get clouded over time. One-legged, like a certain hitter some 18 years earlier, swung and...

..."A high fly ball to left field - it is a-way out and gone! The Dodgers win it, 11-10! Ha ha ha - unbelievable!" - Vin Scully.

I ran around the office as if I just hit the homer. I couldn't believe it. "Oh my God! Oh my God!" was all I could get out of my pie hole. My heart was racing, and the fatigue I felt a half hour before was gone. I ran from the office into the kitchen and clicked on ESPN to watch the highlights. There's nothing better than watching highlights of your team after a monster win, and I had to see it again to make sure it wasn't a dream.

I was too amped up for bed, too. I knew that. I'd just sit there with this goofy smile on my face as if I was the cat who ate the canary, and the fish. The only thing I could do was maybe kick back and read until I calmed down. I took a shot of whiskey to ease the adrenaline and read for an hour, despite having to wake up for work in four hours.

When I finally crept into bed, Wife woke and asked how the game was. I talked in a blur and gave her the Cliff Note version. I think I mentioned four straight home runs and Nomar winning it in the 10th, but it could have been in Portuguese for all I knew. Her response: That's nice. Then, she rolled over and fell back asleep.

That was a year ago today. And, as I type this, I'm listening to the same game. In a season that has been so frustrating, I took Wife's advice and listened to a game that would make me happy. Hopefully that will put me in the right frame of mind for when I turn on the Dodger-Rockies game a little while later.

Group shower

The invitation sat innocently enough on the kitchen counter. Teddy bears holding balloons proclaiming some sucker was about to drag another freeloader into the world. I figured Wife would be gone one Saturday afternoon at this baby shower, leaving me to day of baseball, college football or camel racing from Timbuktu and a gastro buffet of foods I am no longer allowed to eat (yummy - chili dogs with jalapenos). I couldn't wait.

"Too bad, hon, looks like you're baby showering it this weekend," I said trying to hide my snarkiness, which was about as well hidden as hiding Rosie O'Donnell behind a telephone pole.

"Did you read the invite, sweetheart," she said. Something afoot. "It said it was a 'joint shower.' Do you know what that means?"

"Is it anything like the coed showers we had at UNLV?"

"No dear. It means you and I are going to a baby shower. Together."

"Surely, you jest Pumpkin. Baby showers are meant for those with high levels of estrogen, and while I admit to crying when Tom Hanks died in 'Saving Private Ryan,' that doesn't mean chickiness level didn't red line."

"I do not jest, and plenty of guys go to baby showers nowadays. So you're going."

You could have shoved a 12-pound freeeloader through my gaping maw. I didn't know what to say. Then, I remember what I heard about broads and bachelorette parties. I figured a baby shower might be the same thing.

"Do the chicks strip down to their undies and have a pillow fight at these things?" If there was a chance of a pillow fight breaking out at this shindig, well, then that could definitely get me to attend.

"What do you think, shit bird? No! We eat finger foods, drink some soda, play games..." Wife can have a foul mouth from time to time. I've tried talking to her about it, but she just calls me a fuck stick and beats me with a plastic hanger.

"Like strip poker?"

Her sigh almost sparked a kitchen fire. I had a feeling I might be testing the limits of patience. After five years of marriage, you begin to pick up the signs. "No. After the games they open the presents, and then there's cake."

Well, I would sure hope there was cake. It would be a gyp in my book if we didn't get something made of sugar, flower and coated in enough frosting you could spackle an elephant-sized hole in drywall.

"Do I have a choice?" knowing full well the answer.

A big, hairy-ass no. And when I couldn't summon a fainting spell or a seizure that morning I knew my afternoon of unabated sports watching, appetite gorging and alcohol consumption was going to die before it got off the ground.

Here's what I learned from my first baby shower, unless you're a freeloader's old man you can't tell the difference between a baby booty and a stiletto high heel shoe when it's inside a brown paper bag; crushing soda cans against one's melon and screaming "Who's your daddy!" at such an event is frowned upon; accepting the dare to wedge my fat ass into the stroller does not endear yourself to the mother-to-be or the giver of said stroller.

One of the games we played was guess what baby items was inside the brown bag. There were six bags and if it weren't for Wife participating in the same game next to me my list would look like this: bota bag, flask, weed pipe, rolling papers, pipe cleaner and heroin spoon; I cheated, however, and peeked at Wife's list: Booties, mini bottle, pacifier, teething ring, bottle brush and baby spoon. I'd say all in all, I was pretty damn close.

Then came the presents. I'll admit, I got caught up in the tide of oohs and ahhs whenever the expectent couple opened another package of LSD-colored onesies (you gotta be somewhat tweaked to appreciate the color schemes the fashion gurus slap together on these fabrics). Dudes were just as excited as chicks at the haul that was piling around the couple's feet, which resembled Ali Babba's lair after 20 minutes.

The macho thing to say here was that I was excited for our friends and the loot they were landing because the rest of the POW (prisoner of wives) husbands were excited, but the truth is I was truly happy for their upcoming journey into parenthood. It was three hours of my day I wouldn't trade with anyone for anything.

Well, maybe a minor trade to get a TV in the room with Dodger/Diamondback game on, say I'll pay for the baby's love/hate tattoo on its knuckles (it's inevitable, you know, I know it and the tattoo artist I talked to in El Mirage knows it). That's fair, right?

That old style rock-n-roll ... from the '80s

I'll admit it - I love me some 80s music.

Now I ain't talking about those scrotum smokers Milli Vanilli, or teen hooker Debbie Gibson, or tax evader turned Jesus Freak in bad suits MC Hammer, I'm talking about the good shit like Depeche Mode and Echo and the Bunnymen and Human League. And don't forget Soft Cell, Oingo Boingo, The Smiths, U2-lite The Alarm, or finally, the penultiment of badly teased hair, synth guitars and melancholy morbidity, The Cure.

Too much from our friends a across the pond? Want something a little local? I pounded imaginery moshers when I would turn my bedroom cave into a pit when Dramarama came one, The Cult blasted out, any band with the word Dead leading the name - Dead Kennedys, Dead Milkmen - and those kids from New York, the Beastie Boys.

I can't get away from it either. My ol' man used to say the music I listen to in high school and college will be the tunes I listen to for life. I thought all the Oak Ridge Boys album he listened to scrambled his melon when he said that, I was going to evolve with music and be one of those old fogeys who likes everything.

Before I go on, I should admit that I was a music snob during this time. I couldn't tolerate metal, and pop music - I'm looking at you Paula Abdul, you corporate schill for "American Idol" - made my pubic hair ache. It was new wave, modern rock or punk or you could take your axe guitar and shove that sumbitch sideways up your poop chute. It wasn't until later on in college, after getting Metallica, Van Halen and Skid Row drilled into me like it was a form of Chinese water torture that I begin to appreciate other styles of music. Hell, by that time I even attended an Alabama concert ... willingly ... and enjoyed it. Hey, everyone needs a fiddle in the band.

That evolution stopped in the late '90s. Bands - actually, calling these groups bands is like calling white supremicists a social club with shaved heads - began sounding the same, from the melodies to the the vocals, the beat to the look. I can also pinpoint the time because, like the consumer slug I was back then, I bought up these albums (damn skippy, I still call them albums, even if I buy the tunes online. You can't beat new tricks into a dog) like they were the Beatles' newest albums. It started with Third Eye Blind, followed by Matchbox 20 and Blink 182. All three were radio friendly, translated they sold their soul to Axl Rose to make money and soak up a few minutes of fame. Now, they're all likely twirling home development signs in Hemet, California, hoping to lure some straight edge, reformed crack addict in to blow their drug dealing dough on a house that'll be reposed in a year. Don't believe me, I just came from Hemet this weekend, and I swear to Al Pacino I saw Rob Thomas spinning KB Homes arrows Saturday morning. What a mook.

That's what got me thinking about music. When the century turned, so did my music taste. Thanks to our Tech Geek friend who has every song known to man, including tribal shit from the Sumarians back at the dawn of mankind, music has become found a little lean-to shelter in my heart. Without help from her, I would never have heard of Ash, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (who I swear sounds like The Jesus and Mary Chain for you old new wavers/punk rockers out there), Elastica or Franz Ferdinand. Of course, she's also the same joker who put everything Fleetwood Mac ever did on my hard drive, so when I'm working in the morning (re: being a fantasy baseball dork by pouring over meaningless stats) with the randomizer going on the computer stereo, every fourth song I catch is Stevie Nicks whining about her shitty love life. Thank Al Pacino for one-button fast forward. If I hated a song 10 or 15 years ago, I'd have to hit fast forward on the tape machine and hope I don't pass up the song I wanted to hear.

But back to why I was thinking about music. Like I said, I was on a little road trip to the cow pie spot of California - Hemet - and was plugged into my iPod for 10 hours of drive time. In that time I realized how much I missed sitting back and listening to music. I caught Ash, and a Beastie Boys album I hadn't heard (To All the 5 Burroughs), and The Dandy Warhols (another Jesus and Mary Chain ripoff). It was all top notch shit, and reminded me of the late '80s and early '90s when I was really excited about a new song or band that I just caught on the radio.

So, for every Limp Bizkit, Lit, Nickleback and Train, there's decent stuff to hear. We just need to turn off the radio to listen for it.

Tape delay

It really has become an art form.

It never fails, either, when there's a game on that I have to see, let's say, for example, the season opener for the Chargers against the Bears, TVs are harder come by than beer at a Mormon baptism party. I always seem to be elsewhere - family gathering, California road trip, Muppet porn festival - and am forced to a) DVR the game, and b) stay away from all new outlets that may divulge the game score before I watch it.

Like any skill, it's taken years of practice. I've learned to speak up, avoid talking sports with folks and rarely wear team gear when I plan to watch the taped game to avoid some stranger exclaiming "nice job, today," all for fear of some nitwit giving up the score. My evening is planned if a taped game is on tap, give me a game update and that plan is shit-canned faster than you can say, "How 'bout them Chargers?!" I know I could still watch the game to see how it unfolded, but the element of surprise is gone, much like humping a crack whore hooker, you know you'll get an STD but which one is the question. It's always so much more fun when you don't know.

Baseball games are fairly easy because there's so many of them folks get tired of talking about. NASCAR - I reckon y'all knew I taped the redneck-fests, and I ain't ashamed to admit it - is even easier because most of us are afraid of the incessant heckling we might receive from the portion of society that still has all its teeth. Football, on the other hand, is a little more difficult. For one, there are only 16 games (24 if you count the preseason and every round of the playoffs). Pansies! Why they can't up that schedule to 60 or 70, at least on par with hockey and basketball, screams of wimpiness. We play football in the park during the season and by two or three days after the game I'm ready to go again. These dudes need a whole week off? Slap a dress on 'em and tell 'em to knit a sweater if they can't handle a few aches and pains.

But I digress. Football is everywhere. TV, radio, skywriting, malls, beauty salons, churches; there's no avoiding ascore. Plus, there's one other hurdle in my quest to avoid a score before I watch the game - fellow Charger friends. We like to dissect the Bolts effort from week to week, examining every facet of the game from the defensive backs broken coverage to LT's array of moves to the color of jock straps the offensive line is wearing. We leave no stone unturned. But because I'm as brain dead as Elvis most Sunday's, I forget to let them know I won't be watching certain games live. That results in random text messages - Wife saved me yesterday, thanks dear - with final scores, or voice mails that scream louder than a howler letter in Harry Potter, or even e-mails, too. Therefore, I have to go into information lock down. Wife answers the phone, or plays the message and I run from the house chattering "na na na na," with my fingers jammed through my ear holes deep enough to molest the drums.

One of my favorite baseball movies is "Fever Pitch." There's a scene where Drew Barrymore and her boyfriend, Jimmy Fallon, are having dinner with her parents. It's the first time they've met him and decided a lobster joint is good place to eat. A table nearby starts talking about the Red Sox game and he starts babbling like he's Reagan MacNeil, then his girlfriend leans over and shoves her fingers in his ears. She does so because his hands are caked in lobster feces, or whatever the hell it excretes (makes you want to go out and toss down a juicy lobster right now, doesn't it?). Then she explains to her parental units that he's taping the game and doesn't want to know the outcome. They look at him like he just killed their dog, cut off it's head and opened it's mouth so it can felate him at the dinner table. That dude is me ... well, without the dog stuff.

So, maybe a tip to y'all when you're looking to talk about a sporting event involving one my teams that has been completed, you might want to throw out a feeler question, like "Did you see the Dodger game today?" That works a lot better than, "Dude, the Dodgers really screwed the pooch today, didn't they?"

Then again, that might save my remote control from being the object to receive my wrath when I watch the Blue Crew blow another 2-run lead.

Clutch performance

Folks used to ask me how the Mean Green Machine was running.

"Knock on wood, I haven't had any major problems."

That's what I use to say. And it held some weight when the MGM motored past 100K miles a few years ago. I could say it with pride, like I was talking about my kid acing its second-grade spelling exam. My chest would swell (not from a jalapeno and chili dog for once) and you'd need to grease my head in Crisco to get my overinflated ego through a door jamb. The MGM was my pride and joy, it was Jesus Christ and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream on wheels.

Then the wood knocked back.

It started Friday (maybe earlier, but with my chest and guts dancing the hokey pokey the day before I probably didn't notice) on the way to work. I shifted into third and it felt like I stepped on a frog. The MGM's typical rice-burning pep wasn't there. It felt like it was burning fried rice mixed with a extra helping of MSG rather than clean steamed rice. I figured I let it out to quick. Then I shifted to fourth gear and gave it some extra gas to outpace the street sweeper who impossibly seemed to be gaining on my limping MGM.

"Hmmm," I say to myself because I often talk to myself (no one else listens ... hell, I don't listen sometimes when I talk to myself either), "this could be a problem."

There was no question in my mind, it was the clutch.

I've driven a six-cylinder car that ran on four-and-a-half, a car that squealed louder than Brittany Spears on the delivery table when it 60 mph, and resurrected a car squirrels in Idyllwild had called home for two years. There were days when I prayed to Al Pacino for the car to start, and would daydream in class about how my fellow classmate would leave for home in cars that would start on the first turn and wouldn't stall at a stop light if they didn't quickly throw the tranny into neutral.

The MGM gave me that glimpse into how the other half lived. And now, 10 years later I have to wonder how much the ol' girl has left in her. I've been lucky, but sometimes you just have to let it go. Don't get me wrong, the MGM still has plenty of rice in her engine, but slapping a new clutch in her reminds me it won't last forever. My ol' man just dropped a new rice burner in his little ride. It has 200K-plus. You drive something that long the car company ought to kick some new floor mats your way. Hell, I should get a little somethin'-somethin' for cresting a dime, at least something better than a new clutch - that I had to pay for.

Whew, and pay we did. For the cost of a new clutch you buy a small country and populate it with slave-labor chimps. I think that's why I'm starting wonder whether the ol' MGM is becoming the OPS - Old Piece of Shit (which I'm sure Wife was death gripping until the day I turn 40, then whammo, that'll be my new nickname).

Of course I'm nothing if not proactive, so in the next few weeks I think I'll start test driving new rides to see what I like. I'm global-warming sensitive to, so I'll start with something environmentally friendly - a Harley Sportster. It's motorcycle, it's gotta be sweet on gas mileage. President Frat Boy will gnash his teeth when he sees me tootling around town not sucking up the oil he's no doubt getting enough kick backs from to afford a swimming pool full of Wild Turkey. After that, maybe I'll look at sports cars. They don't eat up too much gas, right? Say, something like a Ferrari. In fact, I know a dealer in Vegas, smack in the middle of Wynn, who would like nothing better to hook me up with a Magnum-red ride.

Well, a man can dream, right? Knowing my luck, I'll have to beg and plead, and promise back rubs for eternity to Wife just to get a used 1988 Chevy Citation.

Because I liked it so much the first time

Aug. 24, 2007 - 1:30 p.m.: 1-1/2 big-ass Boddington's (beer) and four slices of pepperoni pizza drenched in what must have been axle grease that tasted a lot like mozarella cheese.

Aug. 24, 2007 - 4:20 p.m.: Finish second Tecate in the pool under a 110-degree asphalt melting, ball sweating Arizona sun. Drinking alcohol in the sun is the best way to combat the heat I hear.

Aug. 24, 2007 - 7:10 p.m.: Rather than using a fork, tilt a pasta bowl drenched in red sauce down my gullet. I was really hungry. Oh, toss in a couple of meatball as well.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 12:30 p.m.: Crack open first beer of the day.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 12:33 p.m.: Crack open second beer of the day (I nursed the first).

Aug. 25, 2007 - 1:15 p.m.: Sit down with fourth beer and first jalapeno-spicy guacamole-onion burger.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 2:00 p.m.: Decide one burger isn't enough so dive into the remaining hunks of burnt cow that have sat in the sweltering body heat of our kitchen for a second burger and load it up with everything spicy I can find in the house. My ass can tell you how a jalapeno-Chinese red pepper-chilli powder-spicy horseradish mustard-burger tastes. Just don't get too close. Wash it all down with a beer. Losing track by this point of what number brewsky I'm on.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 5:00 p.m.: Head to game after many beers, half-a-bag of chips and hot salsa and enough burgers to form a cow inside my intestines.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 5:45 p.m.: Beer up inside beautiful University of Phoenix Stadium.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 8:30 p.m.: Halftime meal of super chilli dog and beer. It was yummy and my gut thanked me a few days later for this gift.

Aug. 25, 2007 - 12:45 p.m.: Nightcap the evening with a scotch and Cherry Coke - it's good trust me - and then proceed to talk politics and religion with the crowd until 2 a.m.

Aug. 30, 2007 - 10:45 a.m.: Head to hospital with chest and gut pains.

You do the math as to how I reached that final result. Rest assured, however, I am fine and only spent a few hours in the hospital. They understood my urgency to leave when I told them I had 10 dudes coming over for a fantasy football draft that night. (Long story short, Wife pinch hit and drafted my first seven rounds, quite well I might add).

Thursday, sitting in the emergency room for the second time in 12 days, I realized I wasn't 25 anymore. That was a brutal fact when the ER doc said the most exciting thing I could toss down my pie hole for the next few weeks was cherry-flavored Mylanta. The list of no's for food lapped the yeah's by a couple miles, and after hearing everything that would potentially kill me over the next few weeks I finally had to ask her if tofu and plain rice cakes were my only options.

"No, you can wash it down with a tofu shake."

"Oh man, doc," I say, as I flash my hairy, bloated gut (because the hospital gown accentuated my hobbitish body) "party at the compound baby. Rice cakes for everyone!"

Let's play a little game now. Here's the list of no-no's as handed down by the supreme health inquisitor and food nazi, Doctor Dolly Madison: Chocolate (no problem, I need less sweets anyway), foods high in acid (perfect, those citrus fruits get in the way of good foods like beer and jalapenos), caffeinated drinks (fine, I've been trying to curb soada drinking anyway since anything coming out of an aluminum can should contain barley and hopps), spicy foods (whoa, doc ... does that include chili rellenos? those aren't spicy, just packed with cheese. That should be hunky dorry), red sauces (um, doc, you saw my name, you see my nose, no red sauce for an Sicilian? You might as well rip out my tongue and slap me across the face with it), and finally, the coup degrace, she said I had to limit myalcohol content (rubbing alcohol, I ask hoping that's what Doc No Fun really meant. Unfortunately, kiddies, she meant the kind you drink, especially the kind that comes from barley and hopps).

I cried for an hour straight.

And what's worse, the hospital wrecked my stomach to begin with. When I was in 12 days before they prescribed a steroid that didn't bulk me up, help me hit 760-some odd home runs (believe me I tried, I had Wife out back firing fastballs at me and I couldn't catch up with none of them - she has wicked movement on the pitch) or lift VW buses over my head. The steroid did, however, make my heart race faster than Tony Stewart's No. 20 Chevy at Texas Motor Speedway, and chew up my innards like they were doggie chew toys.

So my gift for making it out of the hosipital in one piece? A room full of work mates guzzling beers - MY beers- and waving them at me as if they were little green-legged rockettes full of tasty liquid. All I wanted to do was take said bottles, shove them up someone's nose and ask, "How does that taste, funny boy?"

But then I realized, I don't need the beer that bad. Why return to the ER with someone else's injury when all I had to do was kick their rear ends three ways from Wendesday's in fantasy football. So, believe you me, folks, I took note of who drank my beers and I will have my revenge. Oh yes, I will have my revenge.

And in another few weeks I could have a beer. Or two. Maybe less than 20 days, really, but who's counting?