10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5... Blanda!

10, 9, 8, 7, 6 .... Blanda! Man, I was just a wee whippersnapper the year George Blanda played last-minute hero as kicker and quarterback in at least five games. He won them all in the final seconds, and he was 43 years old. He was a middle-aged precursor to Kenny Stabler, and the notion that my team would find a way to win was impressed upon me at an age when hope ought to be handled with care. Blanda was an old-fashioned toe kicker and had the range of a high school soccer star today, but his dying quails would just clear the uprights and even my father would shake his head in disbelief. "He's ten years older than I am," he would mutter, which is about as excited as he ever got. Blanda died the other day at 83, and the memories came flooding back. Raider nostalgia ain't hard to find- hell, every trip to Tahoe used to mean a quick stop at Jim Otto's Burger King; HBO put together a terrific documentary of the A's and Raiders of the 70s, and now the Chronicle brings weekly stories of George Atkinson Jr., running crazy across high school football fields all over the Bay Area. Damn, I just remembered that Jack Tatum died recently; his collision with Earl Campbell at the goal line has to be one of the greatest meeting of badasses in NFL history. But Blanda was a folk hero when I was too young to know how special such seasons were. I vaguely remember thinking that those greying lambchops and that thinning hair made him look like somebody's granddad, but the respect in my father's eyes and voice suggested something grander. Pictures of Blanda from that time now look like posters from another world, before steroids and red zones and Mel Kiper Jr. Thanks, George, for bringing some magic into our living rooms- maybe Jason Campbell should look at some of your game films.

What is the sound of Nine Batters Whiffing?

"It's Nice to be Dead"

A Houllebecq interview is always an interesting way to spend some time, no matter how many dumb things he says. Occasionally, you get the largely unspoken truth.

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6040/the-art-of-fiction-no-206-michel-houellebecq

Last Night's Soundtrack of Loss

It's Friday night, and the dulcet sounds of Kruk's cliches just ain't gonna cut it. What are you listening to weekend version-

Bloodstains Across the Midwest
Jack Oblivian- Saturday Night part 2
Pontiac Brothers- Doll Hut
Apache- Radical Sabbatical
Pagans- The Pink Album
Killed by Death #3
The Dipers- How to Plan Successful Parties
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion- Crypt Style
The Motards- Saturday Night Special Ed.
Green Flash West Coast IPA
Racer 5

Amen

Limp

The Giants may be the most frustating team to support in baseball. It's not because they go on long losing streaks- they don't. Instead, they tease with batting prowess and then return to impotence. They make journeymen fucks like Randy Wolf look like Bob Gibson. They have the patience of my second child when he's two hours past bed time. They read cut fastballs on the hands like they're platters full of bacon gently landing in their mouths. In short, they are bad hitters spliced with decent moments usually bred by pitchers with pre-midnight hooker appointments. Five of their last eight games have been hitting fiascos, in the midst of a hot pennant race. The pitching, after a horrific August, has been spectacular in September. What can you say? If Edgar Renteria is your leadoff hitter, you really don't belong in the playoffs. It may be as simple as that. I've put in the dog hours this year and logged the emotional miles, but it ain't easy. A playoff spot is complete victory- anything shy is failure. When it's all or nothing, you have to wonder about the limp dick performance of tonight. The Rockies are hungry and scoring at will. The Giants shuffle back to the dugout after another lazy pop to right, seemingly on repeat. Look, nobody will beat the Phillies in the West, but the Giants need to at least battle each at-bat. OK, Uribe is incapable of shared sacrifice, but the other guys need to take some pitches, foul some pitches off, and make some motherfuckers work. This looked like a tired team with a dinner to get to. Tonight is another reason why the Giant naysaying pundits don't make me mad- maybe they're just right.

Do the Chosen Few

Who doesn't love Aussie rock? From the big boys- Saints, Scientists, Beasts of Bourbon, Radio Birdman (overrated, in my very accurate opinion), to the perfect singles- Fun Things, Razar, and Victims- there is something wonderful about Oz dudes and their guitars. My current obsession from the land of exiled Rein is the Chosen Few, a band I've heard but never fully appreciated until recently. Funny how consciousness works, and the levels at which attention can be focused. I've enjoyed songs by these guys for years, whether it's the Murder Punk comps or a Soulseek download of Do the Manic. But I never really listened, and what I'm hearing these days is one of the great punk singles ever released. Granted, that first 45 is packed with six near-instant classics, which ain't your normal load for a single. But what a fucking 45 it is! I just paid 25 dollars for a Do the Manic lp from some Danish bastard- that's how fucking good these guys are. Sure, I could use mere adjectives (see: fucking), but what's the point? Description gives way to histrionic superlatives when time is short: this is one of the sloppiest, angriest, and most righteous documents of tuneful thug punk of that late 70s era they like to call the golden age. Get thee to ebay- I'm sure there's a Finnish asshole just dying to rip you off.

He's At It Again

CHULA VISTA, Calif. — Former San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres slugger Kevin Mitchell faces assault charges after he was accused of punching a man in the head at a golf club

Mitchell has pleaded not guilty to battery and assault and a judge ordered Wednesday that he stand trial Nov. 3. If convicted of both counts, he faces a maximum of four years in prison.

Mitchell, the National League's MVP in 1989 while he played for the San Francisco Giants, is free on $25,000 bail.

The 48-year-old is accused of punching another golfer at the Bonita Golf Club course several times on the head. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports Mitchell was apparently upset because the golfer had spoken disparagingly about him earlier. The other man says he suffered a concussion.

Meta-Monday

I was doing my hamster time at the gym yesterday, trying to sweat out the weekend and finish David Mitchell's disappointing new novel, when Jerry Brown ran by me. Jerry is a semi-regular downtown, so few folks gawk when he does curls in his all-black cotton sweats. I had one eye on the page and one on the big screen, as the US Open final was in a rain delay and I was hoping Judge Judy would disappear and Nadal would continue his quest for the career grand slam, when one of those new Whitman ads came on. You know the one from the 1992 campaign, in which Bill Clinton calls Jerry out about higher taxes in California? Anyway, twice when Jerry came up the track's home stretch, he stared into three giant screens with his mug plastered on 'em and a fiery Clinton looking ready to bite it off. Did the man look up? Not that I could tell, as I was contorting myself into gumby to get a good look, which is probably the source of this morning's back pain. Zen training seems to have paid off, as he was either too tired to raise his head or he learned something about discipline along the line. So, still no camera video footage of Jerry Brown gazing up in horror at Meg's cheap ads at the downtown Oakland gym. It was a meta-Monday.

Detroit Michigan

Rod is in a Whiskey Glass

I've been listening to this a lot lately, but mostly I just stare blankly at the cover.

Sloppy Kisses from the Pontiac Brothers

Sometimes the best thing to do is just batten the hatches and line up the Pontiac Brothers records. There is a comfort in the warm and raucous sounds of the past, and if a first-rate band ever got a third-rate reception, it was these drunks. Everybody's favorite cliche is that they were Placemat wannabes, and I'll grant you a few moments ("Creep") that come dangerously close to hero worship. As always, though, folks ain't listening, cuz it's the Stones these guys were filching from, and if Doll Hut ain't the perfect followup to Goats Head Soup, then I'm just a middle-aged washed up drunk, looking for peace in the dusk.

Hell, I couldn't even bring up any P Brothers records on Soulseek- how's that for no respect? And this from a band that knocked out three winners in a four-year span. Tell that to Bruce Springsteen. So they loved the Stones and they loved their booze, but if the songs ain't there you're just rolling your eyes at your friend's dumb band. These guys could write. Ward Dotson did time with The Gun Club before the no-fun black leather crowd sent him packing for a good-time gig. They blew their first effort with Big Black River, but regrouping never sounded so good with Doll Hut. Fiesta en la Bibliotecha followed, and while some folks claim this is the big one, I'm still partial to their goodbye disc, Johnson, (well, partial after Doll Hut, of course), a more slickly produced slab that went for the gold and ended with a collection of classic anthems only the lonely in cluttered studio apartments ever heard. End of the Pontiac Brothers. Dotson went on to indie fame with the Liquor Giants, who paled in comparative greatness to his previous bands and had some cringe-inducing Westerbergisms that drove my cigarette intake to intolerable levels. Hey, they had some hits, but it was a softer and more calculated thing, and ain't any of those tunes gonna be confused with an Exile outtake.

So today we've got plenty of new weird subsubsubsub-rock categories, but very few straight rock bands. I'm guessing there is a Pontiac Brothers album sitting for a buck in many a shitty record store just waiting for a loving owner. Kinda like Toy Story. Next time, give that fucker a happy home, and let the love flow in both directions.

Gories play Thursday... you in, Sonny?