Ahhh..baseball

The world has gone cynical and sorry. In the midst we have baseball, which the media and Congress and others would like to drag through the mud and mire then strain through the eye of their camel.

Steroids are such an uncomplicated story. But rather than deal with real scandals like the war in Iraq, prisoner abuses, white collar fraud, erosion of civil liberties, the government would rather focus on Baseball.

How convienent.

Well I reject that and embrace the game. It is still a great game, despite the high salaries and so-called scandals. We live in a media age that DEMANDS scandal as a means of selling their so-called "news".

Barry Bonds, the greatest player of our time, is not as good with the public as he is with a bat. Okay. Just leave him be the best ballplayer around and a great show. And while you are at it, remember two things about Barry. First he lost his father last year; and second, he still loves the game. He may hate the media (they mean him no good), but he loves the game.

All real baseball fans love the game. It has a Zen-like quality unknown in most sports. Anne lamott's depiction of the old days at Candlestick is dead on, with Willie Mays out in centerfield "looking like Jesus" (Bird by Bird).

Yes, I know it is very expensive. When the Ginats went to the World Series in 2002, I took my 10 year old son tot he game that was on his birthday. It cost me $450 and we missed 2 innings.

But that's the trick for regular season games. Show up after the first inning (on public transit) and someone will give you a ticket or sell you a $45 one for $10. Pack a sandwich in your fanny pack and a pouch drink. Go catch 5 innings in the glee that is Pac-Bell, or stay for the whol deal then camp out and write in your journal for an hour while everyone clears out.

Either way, enjoy the crowd, the rolling party. get in tot he game when it heats up, or have some yucks with your neighbor (he'll buy you a beer).

I'll miss seeing barry in left field as the season opens...but we have a lot to be grateful for until he returns.

I predict Barry will be back in late May and the Giants will win the division at the wire against a surprising Padres team.

Excerpt from Morford

Checkout Mark Morford's diatribe in this morning's SFGate.com on why we all need a Living Will and soon.

Do it because we are now in a country where you need to protect yourself from hordes of people who insist on praying for you when theirs are the kind of prayers that make God cringe.

See, there is this rift. This chasm, this nasty hypocritical rupture in America right now and it has to do with a lot of pseudoreligious types cramming their beliefs down everyone's throat via new laws and silly moral codes and really awful B-grade slasher movies featuring a beaten blood-soaked Jesus wondering just what the hell happened to his real message.

All of which is inducing a collective nausea among anyone with a brain and an active soul and a self-defined sense of their own spiritual path until they go, oh holy hell, now I need to fill out some forms to make sure misguided sanctimonious types don't stomp into my hospital room and refuse to let me pass into nirvana with a tiny shred of peace and self-respect and maybe my favorite nipple ring.

Here is the link

Two Blogs May Make a Right (or at least sense)

Checkout these two blogs for a more in-depth analysis on the Terri Schiavo case.

Bloggence, Cunning, Exile

Brilliant at Breakfast

Today

It's Goth. I like it. The Old World had something going for it that the brutal world of Bush does not. The lines were clearer and people understood their own pain and loss in a way this generation will not for..well, a generation, or two. Then they will look back to this time as a "Dark Ages" more Goth than any Goth.

I invite your comments! BBQ here in the mid-Spring. Sign-up now!

Neighbors

We do not live alone, but in many communities. Most closely with our children and who we love...but also who we find to be neighbors.

We would not usually choose them..but later maybe.

At the Citadel we have a wild mix. Best to keep things simple and organic. Care for you r neighbor. Judge not. Be available..when you can. Simple.

Citadel grounds

Mystery is a lost art...as is faith, hope and most definitely love.

Part Four

It's beautiful here. The air comes through my office window like small waves. The three deer come by for tea, the three crows come by two hours later for coffee. The mountain outside my window is alive. I hear invitations. God has left some green ferns and small white flowers to note His presence as he walked. Just a little note as if to say "I'm here if you wanna talk."

Part three of the Exodus

Not everyone stays in the basin. When I returned to downtown it cost me $1300 a month for a small 3-bedroom flat next to the freeway and with drug dealers downstairs.

I always thought Marin would be too expensive...but $1600 for a two bedroom flat on top of a mansion (The Citadel) is pretty affordible considering there is work here and the air you breath is not like snorting dehydrated onion soup.

It's actually heavy with moisture and hints of the ocean. Yet it is sunny and clear.

In Sacramento, when they get money, they move to the hills. This is a decent move, but in reality not much different than moving from the basin to the outer rim of the "bowl".

Cling as you may...you are still a part of the toxic mess that is.

more next...hey see above!

Part Two

The last thing I want to say about Excramento, is that it is deceptively surrounded by brown water.

It took me awhile (as my eyes burned perpetually like the JFK memorial) to realize why I never say any topography except the few moments I was on the freeway.

Everything is underwater in Sacramento.

Down on the Delta, say in Antioch or Isleton you might get a legitimate breeze...some gasp of real air not cooked a thousand times in the Sacramento Easy Bake Oven.

So it was not mistake that when I travelled to the Coast...to Baker, or Bolinas, or Pt. Reyes..I immediately felt healthier and more vibrant.

Most of Sacramento is underwater...under the levee. The dustbowl is surrounded by waterways that help catch and contain all the ugly filth mentioned below..and which might, with the help of a good wind, actually clear out.

Instead it is like a vortex that simply sucks all manner of crap into the core of the basion or dry bowl.

Er,..I do not miss it.

The Citadel

HOME

The Citadel is home.

Today, for the first time my wish came true: the great Pacific wind swept off the ocean at Bolinas and whipped over the mountains and drove straight down into San Anselmo.

Been waiting for that.

I doubt most pick up on it. Yood have to live in the Sacramento basin for twenty or so years to really appreciate the incredible beauty of today.

They call Sacramento a "valley". It isn't. It's a basin at best, worse it is like an immense toilet bowl or at least dustbowl...a "Dyson" prototype gone horribly wrong where all the worst kinds of dust, mites, pores, pollens, hayseed, garbage, flak, decompossing leaves (Sacramento is second only to Paris in trees per capita...not always a good thing), gas fumes, pollutants, smog and bad political rhetoric all swirl around day after day in a gigantic turbine only to be heated from above by a merciless ozone-less sun that cooks and atrophies each layer of filth into a powdery soupy (minus the water) pile of choke-inducing smack...which each Sacramentan then snorts like a line every time they breath in.

Checkout the Azotus Blog here