MLB First Impressions - National League

...and now for the National League...

Washington Nationals
I'm not as crazy about Bryce Harper as I think some people want me to be, but the TV did remind me that he's a year younger than Mike Trout, so I guess we'll see.  Meanwhile, Washington added Dan Haren and Rafael Soriano, and Stephen Strasburg should be mostly free of innings limits this season.  Washington looks really really good.  Easy division winner.  Can we force them to move back to Montreal at this point?

Atlanta Braves
I've always said double the Upton equals double the awesome.  Why wouldn't you want both Upton brothers on your team?  Some things worry me about the Braves.  Tim Hudson is 37 and can't do this forever.  Kris Medlen has to regress a little bit, right?  The left side of the infield has a real "who the fuck are those guys?" vibe going.  Still, having an excellent bullpen and cornering the market on Uptons should be plenty to land Atlanta a wild card spot.

Philadelphia Phillies
Can we just fire Charlie Manuel now and get it over with?  On paper, this team still looks like it should be good, except that it isn't.  I've never trusted Cliff Lee, and I never will.  And now I'm hearing Roy Halladay and "decreased velocity" in the same sentence an awful lot.  And did you know Chase Utley is 34?  I didn't know that.  Yikes.  I love Cole Hamels, the rest of this is a disaster waiting to happen.

Miami and The Mets
Speaking of yikes.  Neither one of these teams has any redeeming quality that would allow me to choose one over the other.  If I have to pick one, I'll pick the Mets to finish just ahead of Miami, if only because the Mets are used to being depressing by now while the Marlins are still sort of reeling from the embarrassment that was last season.  The Mets also have David Wright, which I suppose is marginally better than not having David Wright. 

Cincinnati Reds
I looked at Cincinnati's depth chart and thought "Ryan Ludwick?  Still?".  But then I actually looked at his numbers from last year and they aren't half bad.  More importantly, I love everything about the Reds' pitching and they picked up the Choo Choo train.  All aboard for a division title!

St. Louis Cardinals
Word is Chris Carpenter is most likely done.  That's sad.  As for the rest of the Cardinals, there's so much about this roster that makes me nervous.  Jason Motte seems like one of those "hey, remember that brief period of time when that guy was good?" guys.  Beltran and Holliday are both guys who are older than you think they are, but also seem older than they actually are, if that makes sense.  I don't like what I'm seeing here.  Still second place though, because this division is terrible, even without Houston.

Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates are a lot like the Royals only, unlike the Royals, they haven't yet bothered to go out and get some actual pitching.  Also, I don't know if the Pirates know this, but Russell Martin hit .211 last year.  Who signs that guy to be a starting catcher?  I'm sorry, I can't take the Pirates seriously until they start taking themselves seriously.

Milwaukee Brewers
Ryan Braun is pretty good, so there's that.  I'm just so underwhelmed by the rest of this roster.  I thought we had all given up on Carlos Gomez.  Maybe I'll like them better when they get Corey Hart back.  Probably not though.  When does training camp start for the Packers?

Chicago Cubs
Talk about bottoming out.  Is Carlos Marmol still seriously the Cubs' closer?  They had all off-season to think about this and nobody had a better idea?  He's not even young anymore, he's 30.  And I don't even want to speculate about how old Alfonso Soriano is.  Theo Epstein better know what he's doing.  When people in Chicago get angry, shit goes down.

Arizona Diamondbacks
OK, usually when I think Arizona is going to the playoffs they wind up finishing last, so I apologize to D'Backs fans in advance, but I think Arizona wins the west.  Solid pitching, solid offense, solid everything.  Guys like Martin Prado and Cody Ross are really nice pick-ups.  They're the kind of guys you see filling roles on winning teams.  Also, remember the name Adam Eaton.

San Francisco Giants
Yes, Tim Lincecum is zeroing in on being finished, but the Giants still have Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner, and the surprisingly adequate Barry Zito.  I really like this team, no great hitters, but lots of perfectly solid bats.  I think this is actually the best team in the division, but they'll be hurt by some early season Lincecum train wrecks before they figure out he's finished and I think they wind up settling for a wild card.

Los Angeles Dodgers
Hey, remember when everyone said you didn't want to sign Carl Crawford to a long term contact because he'll eventually lose a couple of steps and suddenly be very mediocre at best.  Well that's happening now, enjoy Dodgers fans.  The Dodgers have the potential to be legitimately not awful, but too many question marks for me.

Colorado Rockies
Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki have to be enough to make this team better than San Diego, right?  Right?  I heard the Rockies signed Jon Garland.  That's not a bad move, as long as this is 2005.  Is this 2005?

San Diego Padres
Add San Diego to the long list of teams that decided to try to turn a potentially excellent closer into a starter.  Too bad Andrew Cashner, you would have made a solid closer, instead you just go on the pile with Daniel Bard and Joba Chamberlain.  The Padres are a mess.  Can we relegate them and call up a triple A team?

National League MVP: Maybe if I keep picking Justin Upton I'll actually be right one year.
National League Cy Young: Cole Hamels!  Cole Hamels!
National League Champs:  This is tough.  Look, I'm going to have to pick Washington, but I don't have to like it.  I think the Nats lose to Tampa in the World Series.  There you go.

MLB First Impressions - American League

I've decided to take the baseball previews in a new direction this year.  More brevity, less rambling.  I'm just going to take a look at each team's depth chart on MLB.com and ESPN.com and jot down some first impressions.  Yankees fans, I hope you enjoy this, because we won't be enjoying anything else for the next six months.

Tampa Bay Rays
Tampa finally did what they should have done three years ago and turned a couple of their pitchers into an impact bat.  Wil Myers is a hitting savant, Rays fans (all 22 of them) will love his work.  I do think Tampa will miss B.J. Upton.  I know he's awful most of the time, but he also has those two week runs where he can just carry a team.  They'll miss that.  But the Rays still have excellent pitching and perfectly adequate offense.  Tampa is still the best team in this division as far as I'm concerned.

Boston Red Sox
This Boston team has "wait, how are they good?" written all over them.  You know who the best manager in the world is?  Anyone who isn't Bobby Valentine.  If Ellsbury and Lester and Buchholz can all stay healthy and be productive, I like Boston for a wild card.  On the other hand, this is my last year of patience with Jon Lester.  If he can't get it together this year, then next year's baseball preview starts with "what the hell happened to Jon Lester?"

Baltimore Orioles
I read an article on ESPN.com that told me Baltimore could field two starting rotations with all the pitching they have.  That may be true, but I'm not convinced either one of those rotations would be any good.  Plus, this is supposed to be the year that Buck Showalter leaves and then some fraud comes in and takes all the credit for what he set up (cough, cough...Joe Torre...cough, cough).  With Buck staying, I have no idea what's supposed to happen now, but I'm not convinced Baltimore can make the playoffs two years in a row. 

New York Yankees
This is all so depressing, but honestly, it isn't all the injuries to the offense that have me down.  I think this team can still hit.  It's the pitching.  You can say the bullpen looks good with Rivera back, but how good are they going to look when the starters are giving them 2 innings every night.  I couldn't possibly hate this rotation more.  Why is Andy Pettitte still here?  Go away Andy Pettitte!  Please!  Ugh.  I may skip the extra innings package this season just so I don't have to watch this.

Toronto Blue Jays
What am I missing here?  Toronto won 73 games last year.  In the off-season they added a guy coming off a steroid suspension (which means he'll either go back to sucking like he used to or he'll get suspended again and they'll lose him for 100 games), a 72 year old knuckleballer and the core of a 69 win Marlins team.  I'm having trouble understanding why people think this all adds up to awesome.  I still don't trust Toronto's pitching, and I'll never trust Jose Bautista. 

Detroit Tigers
Remember the first year after Lebron went to Miami?  The Heat spent the season trying to figure out how to play together, then they went to the finals and lost to a pretty mediocre Dallas team.  The second season for Miami was championship or bust.  Same in Detroit this year.  I've stopped waiting for Justin Verlander's shoulder to explode, I guess he's just a freak.  Detroit still has some bullpen issues, but they should be good to go for a division title.

Kansas City Royals
Wild card for the Royals!  You heard me.  The Royals finally have a rotation, with fastballs and breaking pitches and everything.  Just like a real team!  Solid bullpen, and this team can hit son.  I'm telling you, if they weren't the Royals, I wouldn't be the only one putting them in the playoffs.  Then again, they are the Royals, so I guess we'll see.

Cleveland Indians
I had the Indians in the wild card spot until I looked at their depth chart and saw Scott Kazmir in their rotation.  You can't go to the playoffs with Scott Kazmir.  You just can't.  Having said that, this team can also hit.  If Ubaldo Jimenez can get himself together, Cleveland could be really good.  That's a big if though.  In a related story, Indians fans turned out to be the losers of the Who Gets to Watch 600 Nick Swisher At-bats This Season sweepstakes.  Get ready to hate life.

Chicago White Sox
Every year one team just screams 81-81 at me.  It's usually the Braves, but this year it's the White Sox.  Paul Konerko can't keep this up forever.  And how bad does Gordon Beckham have to be before we all give up on him?  He's a .245 career hitter, and last year he hit .234 (that's called trending in the wrong direction buddy).  I like Jake Peavy and Addison Reed, and I hate pretty much everything else.

Minnesota Twins
I can't even talk about the Twins.  Two different websites have Vance Worley as their number 1 starter.  I really can't talk about them.  So I'm going to take this space to bash the Mets a little.  What happened to Mike Pelfrey?  How did they screw that up?  Everything about young Mike Pelfrey said "this guy's gonna be an ace".  Everything about current Mike Pelfrey says "I wish I had played for anyone other than the Mets". 

Los Angeles Angels
I'm a little worried about Albert Pujols, he's 33 and clearly starting to regress.  And I'm a little worried about Josh Hamilton in Los Angeles.  I heard they have cocaine there.  Having said that, I love Tommy Hanson for this team, and Mike Trout is Mike Trout, so I think they win the division. 

Texas Rangers
It was pretty hard for me to find a second place team in this division.  Texas was my natural inclination, then I looked at their rotation.  Then I looked at Oakland's roster.  Then back to Texas.  I'm going with the Rangers because I think they can still hit and Joe Nathan looks all the way back, but I don't see a wild card coming out of this division (which is sad, because they all get to play Houston a bunch of times).

Oakland A's
Oakland's done it with young pitching and a bunch of nobodys before, but that doesn't mean it works every time.  And this time they have to do it without Brad Pitt.  Also, the one thing people always forget to mention about Moneyball is that Oakland never actually won a championship, or even the American League.  I'm not saying Oakland can't be good, but there's a ceiling.

Seattle Mariners
To believe Seattle can contend, you have to believe King Felix can carry them, because the rest of that rotation is a mess.  And I'm not so sure I believe anymore.  Five straight seasons over 200 innings, and ERAs above 3 the last two seasons.  I'm not saying he'll be bad, but 2009/2010 Felix is gone, and I don't think he's coming back.

Houston Astros
Love the uniform upgrade, hate everything else.

AL MVP: Robinson Cano.  I know I said the Yankees will be terrible, and they will, but I think this is one of those years when nobody from a contender really stands out and someone from a losing team puts up huge numbers and gets the MVP.

AL Cy Young: David Price.  I can't just pick Justin Verlander, and I refuse to pick a Weaver.  Plus, if Tampa is actually going to win the AL East, they'll probably need Price to put up Cy Young numbers.

AL Champs:  I like Tampa, I really do.  I know Detroit is probably a safer pick, but I like Tampa.

Pope Me The First

Yeah, I'm going to be the new pope.  And you know what else?  I'm going to be the best pope ever.  Catholics for the rest of history are gonna be like "that Jesus fellow was OK, but Pope Sean was the shit!"  That's how Catholics talk.  Believe me, I know Catholics.

Why should I be the new pope?  Well, first of all, I'm totally qualified.   Don't believe me?  Take a look at my pope resume!

Pope Qualifications

Catholic? - Check (technically, I was baptized and stuff)
Knows the rules? - Check, 12 years of Catholic school baby!
Looks good in big funny hats? - Check
Speaks Latin? - Check.  Well, I mean, I've heard of Latin.  I'm familiar with it.  Nobody knows Latin anyway, I think if I just fake it I'll be fine.  Agricolae...puella...you know how it goes.
Actually believes in, ya know, god? - Hey, is that the first stone I see you casting?  I'm not infallible you know.  Not yet anyway.
Number of times I've been accused or suspected of having sex with children?  Zero.  That's literally never happened to me.  This one feels fairly important.

Qualified isn't enough though, and I understand that.  The church isn't doing so well lately.  The church needs new ideas, or a new direction, or at least a new haircut.  You want new ideas?  I have so many new ideas!

Pope Ideas

No More Church
OK, hear me out.  The book says you have to keep holy the sabbath day, it doesn't say you have to sit in a hot room and be bored for an hour every Sunday.  Church is boring and awful and everyone knows it.  I will decree that whatever you do on Sunday from now on is just between you and the god that isn't really there.  And we'll turn all the churches into homeless shelters.  And we'll sell all the gold in the churches and give the money to charity.  This is a good idea.  Have you seen how much gold churches have?  So much gold.

Lady Priests
This one's pretty obvious, but yeah, we need some lady priests.  And we also need some married priests.  No wonder the church is struggling so much.  Women make stuff better.  It's a true story.  Will the man priests and the lady priests be allowed to marry each other?  I don't know, I'll probably leave that up to whoever I pick to be the Vice Pope, who, incidentally, will almost definitely be a lady.  Oh, and since there doesn't seem to be one now, I'm also adding a Vice Pope.  Make a note.

Three Strike Policy for Sex Offenders
I know what you're thinking, and listen, a three strike policy would still be better than the church's current infinity strike policy.  But no, that's not what I mean.  You don't get two free molestations.  My three strike policy means that the first time you get caught touching kids I strike you in the head three times with my giant jewel-encrusted pope stick.  You will almost definitely die.

Listen, you have to keep this one a secret though.  I want offending priests to be really surprised when they get to the Pope House wondering "Oh, I wonder what the Pope is going to do to me.." and then I beat them to death with my pope stick.  They'll be so surprised!  You don't expect a lot of beatings from the Pope.  New ideas I tells ya!

War!
Don't worry, not an explosions and death war, more of a war of words, and possibly pranks.  Long term, the idea would be to engage Protestants worldwide in a winner-take-all fight with the goal being to eventually have one side win and re-unite Christians.  I'm tired of all these heretic Protestants running around.  It's confusing and I want to be the Pope of everyone.  I'm pretty flexible on the details of what we "believe", so I think this could work.

Be Nicer
I don't know why I have to decree this, but I feel like I definitely do.  We're going to be nicer, like the fellow from the bible, what's his face.  Nicer to women, nicer to non-heterosexuals, and just nicer in general.  Not a lot of cheek turning from Catholics lately, and the Protestants are even worse (remember we're conquering them). 

No More Vatican
You heard me mention the Pope House before.  Well, it's definitely going to be in America.  I'm not one of these people who hates Europe, but you couldn't pay me enough money to live outside of the U.S.  It's nice here, I speak the language, I already know where stuff is and I don't plan on breaking any laws, so I wouldn't really need to be my own sovereign nation. 

And if the Pope doesn't need the Vatican, neither does anyone else.  Italy can have it back.  They can turn it into a soccer field.  Or a million soccer fields.  I don't really know how big Vatican City is.  I'm guessing larger than my high school but smaller than Spain?  That sounds right.

Interfere in the World When Needed
I feel like there are things the Pope could make happen if he just took a minute to give a crap about them.  For example, Pope Sean decrees that How I Met Your Mother has to tell us who the mother is, like immediately.  And it has to be someone really good too.  Seriously, I've completely had it with that show.  It isn't even a comedy anymore.  Just tell us who the mother is so we can all move on with our lives.  You're basically just holding us hostage now.  See, I feel like if the Pope sent CBS a letter saying essentially the same thing I just said, we'd get some action.

Human Resources
There seems to be a lot going on inside the church, and I can't fix it all with my magic Pope powers.  I've decided we need an HR department.  I'm also all for a priest union.  In fact, yes, we're definitely starting a priest union.  And I can definitely afford all of this, just think of how much more money we'll have after we conquer the Protestants.

If, somehow, I don't wind up being the next Pope, I have a request.  I hear there's an African guy in the running.  I don't really know anything about him, because I obviously don't really care at all about this silly nonsense, but I vote for the African guy.  I would like to see a movie in which Morgan Freeman plays the Pope, and as sad as it is to admit, we're running out of time for that.  It may be now or never.  Get on it!

A Brief History of Stupid

Sometimes I feel like other countries wouldn't believe us if we tried to tell them how stupid our government is.  Let's pretend that you, dear reader, are Germany for a minute.  You don't want to be Germany?  A little too aggressive for you?  OK, France then.  No?  A little too surrendery?  OK let's say Australia.  Everyone likes Australia.

Hey Australia, you'll never guess what happened.  In the summer of 2011, our government reached our debt limit (again, this happens constantly now).  That's stupid thing numero uno, by the way.  Why would we work under a self-imposed debt limit?  I can understand trying it once to see if it actually helps us be more fiscally responsible, but that doesn't really seem to be working, does it?  Now it's just an arbitrary number that we have to raise every once in a while so we don't default on our debt.  Except when the President is black, then we have to fight about it first.

So we reached our debt limit and then, because Republicans don't actually understand how debt works, they demanded that spending cuts accompany any deal to raise the debt ceiling.  Actually, it may be that Republicans don't understand how time works, because they seem to be missing the part where cutting future spending won't really help with the debt we owe for past spending.  To be fair, time is pretty complicated and Republicans hate science, so, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

The Democrats though, they don't want to cut spending.  They say they do, because it sounds good and it's always good politics to be for general spending cuts, but they don't really want to.  They don't want to cut social programs because they, ya know, believe in those things.  And they don't want to cut defense because if they do someone will call them weak and they'll lose an election and have to get a real job.

And don't tell me about how the President has offered $2, or $2.50 or whatever of spending cuts for every dollar of revenue.  I'll give you two and a half unicorns for every one of your horses.  What unicorns?  Don't worry, I've got unicorns.  And I've got traumatized workers who helped me make half unicorns.  You can have the workers for free.  They mostly just sit and cry now.

And the Republicans, they do want to cut spending, except not really.  Republicans don't want to cut defense spending, because if we don't have at least a million times more tanks than every other country in the world then we're all going to die.  And they don't really want to cut social security or medicare either.  They say they do, but they know if they actually did the very old people who vote for them would march on Washington...slowly.  That's why Mitt Romney's plan was to start cutting entitlements ten years from now, two years after it conveniently wouldn't have been his problem anymore.  I wonder if the 2023 Congress would have actually gone ahead with Mitt's plan.  I'm thinking no.

So everybody really wanted to cut spending, except that nobody actually wanted to cut spending.  Then they came up with a big, fool-proof plan to cut spending.  It was called...drumroll...the sequester (ohhhhh).  They came up with all the worst spending cuts they could think of and put them all into one big package of cuts that would take effect at the beginning of 2013 unless some people could, somehow, reach a deal on spending cuts that everyone would like better. 

I guess I should talk about why this particular move was so insanely stupid, but I feel like I really shouldn't have to explain to you why an economic suicide pact is a bad idea for our government.

But who would work together to reach such a deal?  Well, get ready for another stupid thing.  Instead of trying something innovative or smart, they just put together a smaller group made up of people from the bigger group that already couldn't agree on anything.  Even though this was a super smart plan, and even though they were called the Super Committee (ohhhhh again), they somehow failed to agree on anything. 

"Then what happened?"  Good question, Australia.  Well, then they all forgot about it and went to run for office for a year.  It was another excellent plan.  I mean, who has time to worry about the impending economic disaster when the gays are still trying to marry each other and Mitt Romney is being mean to poor people?  Not me, and not any of the people who are paid to worry about stuff like that either.

After the election was over and everyone had a good cry, they all suddenly realized they hadn't bothered doing their jobs for a year and this sequester thing was still happening.  "Ohh noooos!" said John Boehner.  They had until the end of December to reach a deal, but they had a much better and much stupider idea.  Instead of actually doing something, they just raised some taxes that never should have been lowered in the first place and then put everything else off for two months. 

Then, and I swear this happened, they sort of forgot about it again for like a month while the Republicans spent time bitching about Benghazi and the Democrats ran around talking about raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires even though they had literally just done that shit.

By the way, I'm not saying taxes couldn't be higher, because they absolutely could and should be.  I'm saying Democrats spent a year whining about how all they were asking for was a return to the Clinton era tax rates, and as soon as they got it, without even blinking, they immediately started acting like it never happened.

Then everyone remembered the impending crisis that they had just created, and then they fought about it without agreeing on anything until finally it was March 1st.  This is where the President overplayed his hand a little.  The White House spent a week making it sound like the sequester was the end of the economic world, when everyone knew it really wasn't.  I heard people on TV talking about how long airport lines would have people immediately demanding a budget deal.  Really?  You know who doesn't give a shit about airport lines?  Everybody who isn't at the fucking airport right now.  And screw those people anyway.  I don't have time to fly around the country all willy nilly, let them wait on line.

Meanwhile, all this economic crisising left Congress with no time to deal with things like gun control and infrastructure and immigration.  Oh man!  They really wanted to do those things too, there's just no time.  If only there was time!

And so here we are.  Minimal spending cuts that won't really help that much with deficit reduction in the long run, done the stupidest way possible, which is to say the government basically closed their eyes and threw darts at the discretionary budget while telling themselves that none of those cuts were actually going to happen so don't worry about where the darts are landing.  At least now that we have this problem, our leaders are working tirelessly to fix it instead of just trying to go on TV and blame each other.  Oh wait.  Nevermind.

Poor Faulkner

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten dollar words.  I know them all right.  But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use."

This sentiment from Hemingway is always appropriate for a big political speech.

This year's State of the Union comes without the usual pregame madness thanks to whatever the hell was going on in California.  I did learn that Bill O'Reilly doesn't believe in the death penalty.  Who knew?  The rest of it was mostly just video of a cabin burning down.  I'm just looking forward to the President awkwardly working this situation into his speech.

8:57PM: This is pretty fun.  The huge panels of bloviating jackasses the cable networks put together for tonight each got about three minutes to talk.  In order to understand why this is fun, you really have to understand how much these people enjoy being on television.  Don't be surprised if someone burns down a cable news studio later tonight.  Also, Blogger doesn't know how to spell bloviate.  Or maybe Blogger just noticed that I opened with that Hemingway line and is trying to point out my hypocrisy.  Listen, if I could write like Hemingway, I wouldn't need to use words like bloviate.

9:02PM: The Cabinet is very slowly and boringly making its way into the chamber.  Also, breaking news from CNN, the White House says this speech is going to be effective.  What a scoop!

9:05PM: Seriously though, I just noticed CNN has Newt Gingrich in the studio.  He's barely getting a word in.  I think his head's going to explode.  And when a head that big explodes, terrible things happen.

9:07PM: I'm starting to wonder if the President is coming.  If he knew Newt was talking on TV right now, I'm sure he'd jump in and stop it.

9:09PM: Newt's laugh is disturbingly creepy.  Oh, I miss the Republican primaries.  No Newt!  Don't go!

9:10PM: Here comes the Prez.  I keep saying they shouldn't let Biden and Boehner sit together.  They already look like they're up to something.

9:11PM: Lots of poorly executed mustaches in the crowd tonight.

9:14PM: People say Congress never does anything, but could you stand and clap for this long without a break?  Also, Biden and Obama appear to be wearing the same outfit #awkward

9:16PM: Lots of "does anyone know what Mitt Romney is doing right now?" jokes on Twitter.  Probably enjoying being filthy fucking rich and not having to deal with all this nonsense.  Mitt may have dodged a bullet in November.

9:18PM: Did you know we're buying less foreign oil than we have in 20 years?  Still quite a lot, but, you know, less.

9:18PM: "The state of our union is strong."  OK, goodnight folks.

9:19PM: Biden looks twitchy, Boehner looks pretty drunk.

9:20PM: "The American people don't expect us to solve every problem."  True, but solving one would be nice.  Just try one.

9:22PM: Apparently the sequester is a really bad idea.  Everyone seems to agree on that.  If only we could find all those people who voted to pass the sequester in the first place.  Ohhh, I bet the Prez and Mr. Boehner would like to have a word with those assholes.

9:25PM: "Already, the affordable care act is slowing the growth of health care costs."  Yeah, I'm not sure that's good enough.  Health care costs are skyrocketing on a slightly less steep trajectory.  Hooray for us!

9:27PM: We're wallowing in the deficit reduction portion of the speech right now.  The working title for this section around the White House was "all the shit that's never gonna happen".

9:29PM: In the last minute, only the Democrats have applauded for "less crises" and "paying our bills on time".  Tough crowd.

9:30PM: Biden cracks me up.  Obama just said Congress needs to pass the rest of his growth agenda, which caused Biden to laugh out loud.  I'd love to be texting with Biden right now..."Congress do something? OMFG! LOLZ!"

9:32PM: The Prez thinks we should invest in good ideas.  Also, Biden is inexplicably wearing glasses now.  Wait, now the glasses are gone.  Why is Biden doing costume changes?  Just sit still man!  VPs are the worst.

9:34PM: Obama says we can make progress on climate change while also fostering strong economic growth.  I wish he'd stop saying that.  Not everything has to make money.  When you try to pair fighting climate change with trying to make everything profitable, you get stupid ideas like cap and trade.  How about we fight climate change just for the sake of, ya know, not dying?

9:38PM: "Let's cut in half the energy wasted by our homes and businesses over the next 20 years".  Sure, why not?

9:39PM: Even the Republicans stood up and clapped for fixing bridges.  They're not going to vote for any funding for fixing bridges, but, philosophically, they like fixing bridges.

9:41PM: On passing some bill that's currently waiting in Congress.."what are we waiting for?".  Well, the Republicans are waiting for a less black President.  I'm not sure what everyone else is waiting for.

9:42PM: Obama is seamlessly transitioning from one topic to the other.  Climate change, then bridges, now education.  He's really pushing for funding for pre-school.  I don't know.  I remember pre-school mostly just being day care with some counting.

9:44PM: Apparently, German kids are ready to work right out of high school.  I probably could have worked in Germany right out of high school too.  I don't want to work in Germany.

9:45PM: Something about re-designing America's high schools.  No, not going to happen.

9:46PM: "Colleges must do their part to keep costs down".  He said that last year too.  That is definitely not going to happen.

9:47PM: Now we're on boarder security.  He's like a tornado of policy proposals.

9:49PM: The President wants Congress to send him a comprehensive immigration reform bill so he can sign it.  I'm mostly hearing that this is going to happen.  I predict the end result will be toothless and ineffective.

9:50PM: Great audience shot of some lady shaking her head in anger at the idea of equal pay for women.  It isn't easy being a Republican woman, but at least you get to hang out with all of those hot Republican guys.

9:52PM: Raise the minimum wage?  Yes please.  Well, yes please for me, no thank you for the Republicans.

9:53PM: Boehner looks super fidgety.  Someone give him a ball to play with.

9:55PM: "By the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over."  Kudos if he actually pulls that off.  I'm also glad to hear that we're going to spend plenty of time training and equipping the Afghan army that we will most likely be going to war with in about 25 years.

9:58PM: Chuck Grassley may or may not be asleep.  Also, Obama has successfully conditioned the Democrats to applaud whenever he pauses, no matter what he just said.

9:59PM: Even the lady who wouldn't clap for equal pay stood up and applauded for keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.  I wonder if she gets equal pay?  #hmmm

10:01PM: "today's world contains not just dangers, not just threats, but also opportunities".  He added, "opportunities to be endangered and threatened".

10:02PM: Did he say AIDS free generation?  I think he did.  That's sounds like a good idea.  Let's do that one.  Someone go find out why Magic Johnson is still alive!

10:05PM: Boehner just seriously sat there and refused to applaud for equal treatment for gay military members and equal benefits for their families.  What a dick.  These guys are so funny to me sometimes that I forget that they also spend a great deal of time being assholes.

10:08PM: About Newtown and gun control..."this time it's different".  Except not really and it's been two months and Congress still hasn't done anything.  But other than that, it's much different this time.

10:11PM: Republicans won't even applaud for voting on gun control laws.  If you were honestly against something and thought it was a bad idea, wouldn't you be all for stepping up and voting against it?

10:12PM: "they deserve a vote"...best section of a State of the Union speech I can remember in a while.  Well done Prez.

10:14PM: Hey look, that old lady voted. Way to get back to the silly nonsense!  I'm sorry, I'm sure it's a very inspiring story, but these little human interest stories are always my least favorite part of this, and really, of anything.

10:16PM: And hey it's over.  Sort of crash landed there, but OK.

10:17PM: I'm going to stick around for the Marco Rubio response.  Last year Paul Ryan's response was basically just 10 different ways to propose tax cuts.  I'm not expecting much more out of Marco, but we'll see.

10:25PM: If Rubio doesn't show up soon I'm bailing.  I can't wait around forever just because he has great hair.

10:27PM: Finally, here comes Marco Rubio.  I predict I'll never have that thought again.  Before I find 15 different ways to call Marco stupid, I want to give him some honest credit for doing this.  For every guy who made a name for himself giving the State of the Union response, there's another guy who committed political suicide attempting to pull it off.  This isn't easy.

10:30PM: Right off the bat..."for much of history, people lived in societies where a tiny minority stayed at the top and nobody else had a chance".  Ummm, that seems to be where the Republicans have been trying to take us for the last 32 years.  That's a literal description of the result of Republican policies.  Not a good start buddy.

10:32PM: They should have scored Marco a podium.  He's having trouble figuring out what to do with his hands.

10:33PM: Obamacare is bad, check.  Obama is divisive, check.

10:36PM: If the President will abandon his obsession with raising taxes, the Republicans promise to continue their obsession with lowering taxes.  Deal?

10:37PM: I think Rubio is also wearing the same outfit as Obama and Biden #doubleawkward

10:38PM: Republicans don't say "school vouchers" that much anymore, but that's still what they're talking about.

10:40PM: I don't know what Republicans think the President wants to do to the rights of law abiding Americans, but I guarantee that there's nothing in the Constitution about having the right to unregulated firearms.

10:41PM: Yikes.  Rubio just stopped for a drink of water.  Clearly unplanned since he had to stop and reach out of frame to grab the bottle.  That was super awkward and probably all anyone will remember from his speech.

10:43PM: I honestly haven't been listening since that weird water break.  Rubio's sound team isn't doing him any favors either.  The words weren't especially terrible, but the stagecraft was just an atrocity.

Well, there you go.

Grammy Practice

The State of the Union address is coming up on Tuesday and, honestly, I'm rusty.  I need a tune-up, some practice, a rehearsal of sorts (see what I did there).  For a proper tune-up, I need something like the State of the Union address. Something that was probably necessary or at least useful at some point in history, but is now just a farce, a parody of itself.  Something with an audience full of preening frauds who haven't done anything useful in years.  Something so needless and hollow that you watch it and almost wonder if it's even real or if you've died without noticing and gone to a hell worse than anything you ever imagined.

What's that you say?  The Grammys are on tonight?  Perfect!

A couple of things you should know going in.  First of all, according to Twitter, which is always a reliable news source, CBS has banned boobs from the Grammy broadcast.  Thank you CBS.  Our long national nightmare of having to look at pretty girls' breasts is over.  I assume this means Katy Perry will be banned from the building tonight.

On a related topic, CBS continues to provide plenty of fighting and stabbing and shooting on all of their wonderful procedural cop dramas.  Because, obviously, people getting shot in the face is an important and totally appropriate part of our TV experience, but the female body is terrifying and obscene.

Also, I should point out that I have nothing specific against any genre of music.  Even my long-standing, and mostly unexplained, feud with country music has recently ended.  Hard to say if this is a temporary cease fire between me and country music or a more permanent peace, but we're cool for now.  I'm good with all kinds of music.  So if Kiss were to be on the show tonight (please no!) and I were to say something like "I hate Kiss so much that it makes me want to drown Gene Simmons in a pool of face make-up", you can be sure that it isn't because I hate whatever type of music Kiss is supposed to be, but rather it's because that specific band sucks and everyone with ears knows it.

OK, let's get started.

8:01PM: Kudos to CBS for finding a way to slip everyone on every CBS show into the Grammys.

8:03PM: Taylor Swift is opening the show with something that I really don't have any words for.  I'll give her this, she seems to be having fun.  Hey, is Taylor Swift attractive?  I honestly can't tell.  She seems sort of awkwardly tall to me, but people on TV always seem taller than they are.  I'm stumped.

8:05PM: Speaking of people on CBS shows and procedural cop dramas, it's LL Cool J!  He's hosting tonight, and he's wearing a silly little hat too.  How fun for him.

8:08PM: LL says he's won two Grammys "so far".  In other news, Mike Tyson has won 50 professional fights, ya know, so far. #youneverknow #butyoukindofdo

8:10PM: Here come Elton John and some guy I've never heard of.  The guy I've never heard of is either freakishly large or playing a very small guitar.  I always think I'm not a fan of Elton John, but then I start listing Elton John songs that are exceptions (Rocket Man, Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Tiny Dancer...) and I start to think maybe I am a fan of Elton John.  Life is complicated sometimes.

8:15PM: Target commercials have really gone off the rails.

8:20PM: First award: Solo pop performance.  Adele won.  I don't really know that song, but I know Rihanna was nominated and whenever Rihanna is nominated I'm in her corner.  Also, there's nothing that doesn't sound ridiculous in a British accent.  I don't know what Adele said, but as far as I could tell, it was all just silly British gibberish.

8:23PM: I can't say I'm impressed with Fun.  There's a girl on stage with them playing an acoustic guitar.  Is she part of the band or did she just wander out there?

8:25PM: OK, Fun. salvaged their performance by making it rain on them at the end.  That was pretty cool and I liked it.  Also, the song they played sounded a lot like Rod Stewart's Rhythm of My Heart.  I'm OK with ripping off Rod Stewart, I just wanted to point it out.

8:27PM: One difference between the Grammys and the State of the Union...the Grammys are drowning in commercials, and they are all terrible.

8:32PM: First shot of Katy Perry in the crowd.  She obviously didn't get the "no boobs" memo.  The internet tells me that they showed her because current presenter John Mayer is dating her.  As always, fuck John Mayer.

8:33PM: Country performance; Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley.  I don't know if Dierks Bentley is a whole band or just a guy.  I'm still adjusting to the whole not hating country music thing.  Some guy just strolled out to join Miranda for the second verse, I'm going to assume that's Dierks.  Some guy behind them is playing a cello.  I'm glad to see the Grammys got my "more cellos" note from last year.

8:36PM: There have to be at least four guitars on stage right now.  This song isn't that complicated.

8:39PM: Throwback video of LL from, I'm going to say, 1961.  Nice to see he hasn't become any less ridiculous since then.

8:40PM: I don't know who these two guys are, but they are awful.  The first guy started out playing a keyboard, but it kept playing after he walked away from it.  The other guy took a full minute before contributing anything other than "yeah" and "uh".  Also, that whole two minute performance was just the introduction for the Grammy for best country performance.  Um, what?

8:43PM: Carrie Underwood won that award.  She must also be confused at the introduction it got, everyone must be.  Anyway, I've heard all five of those nominated country songs at various times on Pandora in my office this year and Carrie deserved the win.

8:47PM: Without the commercials, the Grammys would only be 22 minutes long.

8:51PM: Third award (in 51 minutes, on what is supposed to be an awards show): Song of the Year: We Are Young by Fun.  Man, I do not like that song.  One guy from Fun thanked Jay-Z.  Jay did not look amused.

8:54PM: The Mumford and Sons guy appears to be playing a guitar and a bass drum while also singing.  Extra points there.  Also, I'm pretty sure Johnny Depp had no idea where he was just then.

9:01PM: No thank you to all of your new shows CBS.

9:03PM: I'm not a huge fan of Beyonce.  Just sayin'.  Having said that, Beyonce looked genuinely uncomfortable trying to interact with Ellen, and that was hilarious.

9:05PM: Justin Timberlake should have quit while he was ahead.

9:06PM: When Jay-Z wanders out of the audience to start rapping with you, you don't stop him.  I'm just glad he's performing with Timberlake and not murdering that guy from Fun.  Anyway, Justin may want to stick to acting at this point.

9:11PM: Next award: Best Urban Contemporary Album.  I stopped paying attention to who won for a second and started wondering why Chris Brown isn't in jail.  Frank Ocean won, he said he wanted to picture the crowd as kids in tuxedos being fancy.  Didn't get a laugh from the audience, but they're mostly idiots and it was funny.  I don't really know who Frank Ocean is, but anyone who beats Chris Brown is cool with me.

9:20PM: Dave Grohl is plugging his documentary about Sound City while also introducing the winner for best rock performance.  Winner: Lonely Boy by the Black Keys.

9:22PM: Maroon 5 and Alicia Keys performing together.  Yeah, I never really liked Maroon 5.  I'm kind of disappointed they haven't broken up yet.

9:26PM: Honestly, Maroon 5 is ruining this Alicia Keys performance.

9:28PM: Either every Kelly Clarkson song sounds the same or she's being nominated for an album she released six years ago.

9:29PM: Best Pop Vocal Album: The album Kelly Clarkson released six years ago.

9:31PM: I feel like I've been watching the Grammys for four years.  Now I remember why I never bother with award shows.  This is awful.

9:36PM: Who is this Russell Brand looking guy interrupting Rihanna?  Don't they have security to tackle him?

9:40PM: How do they come up with these pairs to introduce awards?  They must just be picking names out of a hat.

9:41PM: Next award, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration: Jay-Z and some other people won, but not Rihanna.  But then here's Frank Ocean again.  So far Rihanna and Frank Ocean are the clear highlights here.

9:49PM: No CBS, I will not watch 2 Broke Girls.  I don't care how many times you ask.

9:50PM: We get it Black Keys, you're super hip with your jazz band and your weird guy dressed like George Clinton on the keyboard or whatever it is he's playing.  How about next time you just show up and play a song?

9:55PM: I always hate these lifetime achievement award parts.  Especially when they involve Kelly Clarkson.

9:57PM: That award for Best Country Album just sort of snuck up on me.  Zac Brown Band won that award, as well as the award for best beard/hat combo.

10:03PM: Is CBS trying to peer pressure me into watching CBS?  "Come on, everyone else is watching CBS...come on"

10:05PM: I just have to be honest and say I was never that into Bob Marley.

10:07PM: What percentage of Bruno Mars fans would you guess know who Sting is?  It has to be under 50% right?

10:11PM: I think we've officially lost control of this Bob Marley tribute.

10:17PM: OK, there was a lot going on there.  Quick recap.  Bruno Mars and Rihanna killed it.  Sting was sort of OK which is much better than I usually think Sting is.  Ziggy and Damian Marley I could take or leave.

10:18PM: See Black Keys, look at the Lumineers.  They just showed up with their instruments and played their little song.  How hard is that?

10:21PM: Speaking of people who brought way too many musicians with them, it's Jack White!  Remember when Jack White was in a band with literally one other person.  Wasn't life better then?

10:26PM: Katy Perry is presenting the Best New Artist award.  Fun. won again.  I still don't like them, nor do I have anything else appropriate, funny or constructive to say about Katy Perry.  I've used up my allotment of boob jokes.  Let's just move on.

10:34PM: I've heard this Hunter Hayes song in my office probably 20 times this year, if you had asked me to guess what he looks like, I definitely would have been way off.  Anyway, he was just introducing Carrie Underwood.

10:39PM: Carrie Underwood can clearly sing, but the whole performance really didn't do much for me.  A little too much with the visual effects I think.  Also, more superfluous musicians.

10:40PM: Hey, Prince is still alive.  Good for him.

10:41PM: Prince presented Record of the Year to Gotye for Somebody That I Used to Know.  I'm not gonna lie, that shit is catchy.

10:43PM: How would you describe Prince's outfit.  Fabulous homeless man?  Unibomber? Does anyone know if Prince actually needs a cane or if it was just an accessory?  And what is Prince doing with his time these days?  So many questions.

10:46PM: Ooohhh, the dead people part is coming up.  Always one of my favorites.

10:53PM: I'm super bored with this tribute to music teachers.  I know music teachers are important and kids should all learn music, but maybe you'd drive that point home a little better if you found a way to not make the music teachers portion the worst five minutes of the show.

10:57PM: Man, there are A LOT of people on stage right now.  I'm pretty sure the audience is all seat fillers right now.  Seat fillers and Chris Brown.

11:02PM: Hey, do you think the Rolling Stones watch the in memoriam part of the Grammys every year just to make sure they didn't die without noticing?

11:10PM: This guy appears to be singing in Spanish.  Wait no, now he's singing in English again.  Also, he may or may not be Christian Bale.  There's a lot going on right now.  Spanish Christian Bale was just introducing Frank Ocean.

11:13PM: I don't understand a lot of what's happening right now with this Frank Ocean performance, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.

11:15PM: Adele is presenting Album of the Year.  Mumford and Sons.  I would have gone with Jack White, but at least Fun. didn't win.  Apparently Mumford and Sons is British.  I did not know that.  My whole world is upside down right now.  Well, at least the part of my world that has to do with Mumford and Sons.

11:23PM: We appear to be coming up on an LL Cool J performance.  Am I supposed to be excited about this?  I was around when LL was a rapper, I don't remember it being that great.  Travis Barker on the drums is always worth a listen though.  Tom Morello on guitar too.  In fact, LL is really the only not exciting part of what's happening right now.  Calling this an LL Cool J performance would be like calling a Beatles reunion a Ringo Starr performance.

11:28PM: They're definitely cutting LL off.  Kind of a weird way to finish, but OK.

Untitled Lance Armstrong Thing

OK, I can't think of a title for this post and I'm tired of trying.  I'm going to start reading A Farewell to Arms again soon, maybe it'll help inspire me.  Anyway...

Did you hear that Lance Armstrong supposedly confessed his use of performance enhancers to Oprah?  That's right! The worst kept secret in the history of sports, the shocking truth that you've already pretty much known for ten years, will be revealed on a channel you probably couldn't find on your TV even if you wanted to.  Get excited!

I'll be honest and say that I've never really liked Lance.  He always seemed like kind of a tool.  And you couldn't even call him a tool because people would be like "hey jerk! look at all that money he raised for cancer", and then you feel shame.  But I'm on Lance's side here.  Let's be clear about what happened.

First, Lance got cancer and everyone said he was going to die.  Then, instead of dying, he won the Tour de France seven times.  Then, he raised half a billion dollars for cancer research.  That's billion with a B, as in, holy fucking shit that guy raised half a Billion dollars for cancer research! And now, we're about to find out that he cheated at riding his bike.

And now I'm supposed to think he's a bad guy and he betrayed everyone and fuck him?  Are you fucking kidding me?  They couldn't even give away some of his Tour de France titles because all the other guys were cheating too.  You try to ride your bike around the alps without drugs sometime and see how it goes.  Do you want to be buried in Europe or would you like us to fly your body back to the States?

I heard a guy on ESPN today compare Armstrong to Joe Paterno.  Seriously?  Joe Paterno employed a guy who sexually assaulted children right under his nose.  I heard a guy on the radio today compare Armstrong to OJ Simpson.  OJ SIMPSON!!! OJ Simpson murdered two people!  Lance Armstrong cheated at bike riding.  What the fuck is wrong with you morons?

(Yes, I admit that, outside of New York, sports talk radio is always awful.  Sometimes, on the ride home, I listen to this crazy Jesus freak just for laughs, or sometimes I just listen to static.  They're both better than listening to local sports radio talk about minor league basketball and high school golf.  So it's not the best example of what people might actually be saying.  But still, morons.)

Yes, Lance is a bully and kind of a dick, just like every other great athlete you've ever met.  But he didn't steal our money.  Let me ask you something?  Did you give money to the Lance Armstrong Foundation because you think French cycling is awesome and you have to support any charity associated with it, or because you thought maybe it would be nice to cure cancer?  It's a simple question.  If we find out Lance was using the Foundation money to buy steroids, then he stole your money.  Otherwise, shut the fuck up please.

OK, yes, there's some anger here that should be rightly directed at gun nuts and Congress people who won't give money to Sandy victims.  And I'll deal with them as soon as I can write one complete sentence about either group without using the word fuck.  But for now this is the best I can do.

If you want to hate Lance Armstrong, that's OK with me.  I never really liked him to begin with.  But don't sit there and tell me he betrayed everyone, or that you thought he was a great guy until just now.  You gave him money for cancer research and he used it on cancer research.  If you were inspired by him, it was because he beat cancer.  He still did that, it wasn't a magic trick.  Would he have been significantly less inspirational to people with cancer if he had decided not to use performance enhancers and finished 9th in the Tour de France seven times.  I highly doubt it.  It sounds to me like we all got the deal we were promised.