Gheorghasbord: Ides of October Edition

Lots of ephemera floating around the old gray matter today, most of it a defense mechanism, my subconscious working hard to block out the steady drumbeat of the decline of the American empire. Some of the stuff in my head is even fun.

Like, for example, the baseball playoffs. I'm obviously bummed that the Red Sox are gone, but I didn't really expect much of them from the beginning of the season. That a team with no power and middling starting pitching won a division title, Boston's first consecutive such finish in history, is both remarkable and unexpected. Anything else was gravy.

I hated seeing the Nats go out the way they did, too. That team's rapidly piling up exactly the wrong kind of anguished history, and I know a lot of people that experienced the kind of hurt that I remember from days gone by, just because they chose the wrong sportsball team to support. Some day, Nats fans. Some day.

But the four teams that remain are all great stories, and we've already had an embarrassment of riches, narratively speaking. The Yankees, who remain evil, are nonetheless a fun team to watch, with the thunder of their mashing bats and the lightning in their bullpen. They may not overcome a really deep Houston team, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified of their prospects for next year.

Those Astros, after dispatching my Sox, have become my rooting interest for the remainder of the postseason, and not just because they're playing the Yankees. The primary reason is pretty easy to guess, if you're paying attention. This made me exclaim loudly, despite the fact there were 10 teenagers pregaming for the Tuscarora High School Homecoming dance in my house.



The Cubs are, even after winning a championship, a likable, fun, and really good team, and the Dodgers, despite overtaking the Yankees in the better winning through exorbitant spending sweepstakes, are hard to hate. Probably because of Dave Roberts. Who did a thing back in 2004 for which I'll always love him.

Speaking of that Homecoming dance, please allow me to get a little bit selfish, and a tiny bit maudlin. I dropped my daughter and her boyfriend off at the school, and as they walked away, he reached out his hand and took hers in it. And goddamn if tears didn't well up as I caught a tiny glimpse of the future, where she'll walk away from me for good.

Three years ago, my wife and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary with an incredible five days in Sonoma, CA. I remember both that area's natural beauty and its relaxed, beer and wine-heavy charm. I remember Santa Rosa, and the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, full of Sparky's art, and life. As we drove to Sonoma from the San Francisco airport, I remember being struck by the dryness of the landscape, the fields of grasses browned by too little water for too many months. Even so, I'm stunned by the scale and scope of the destruction wrought by the fires in that part of the country, and numbed by the pace of disasters befalling our brothers and sisters across America.

In the midst of what's been one of the more stressful professional months of my life, at least as far as I can remember (which, let's be honest, isn't very far), FOGTB Dave Fairbank hit me with a fun Twitter DM question: "saw a tweet in your wheelhouse. guy asked for folks' 5 most important albums. not necessarily faves - though they may overlap - but 5 most important to musical growth, understanding, whatevs."

To which I responded, after some heming and hawing and complaining about how hard that question is to answer: "okay, off the top of my head:

queen, 'the game' was the first cassette i bought with my own money, and turned me on to the album format. which i never listen to anymore.

the smiths, 'louder than bombs' introduced me to alternative rock as an impressionable 15 y/o

son volt's 'trace' made me love alt-country and driving with the windows down

the beastie boys 'paul's boutique' was the first rap record i loved, along with l.l. cool j's 'bigger and deffer'

and a compilation of world music for kids by putamayo opened my mind to a whole different kind of rhythm and melody"

I should've just sent him the link to this post.

That same little girl who made me cry has a dark side, too. Or at least a dramatic side. For the past three years, she's been part of the cast of Shocktober, a haunted house staged at a creepy as all fuck old mansion that now serves as the centerpiece of a local community service campus. Shocktober is one of the major fundraisers for the campus, which hosts the local ARC (with which Whitney will be familiar), among a number of other organizations. And my beautiful kid looks like this tonight, scaring the pants off of kids of all ages (including just a few weeks ago, multiple members of the Washington American Football Club's defensive line).

They grow up fast. And weird.