Three FOK News Channel posts for this date.
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The Suicide Of The Republican Party
The Odd Inspiration Of Charlie Sheen
Snappy Answers
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The Odd Inspiration Of Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen is doing an impersonation of Brian Wilson.
Not the Beach Boy, the San Francisco Giants' relief pitcher. The one with the beard dyed so absurdly dark that light will not escape it. The one who hit the late night circuit over the off-season dressed up as a kind of SoCal/Rex Harrison version of "The Ghost" from "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."
At the start, I want to promise I am rarely going to devote space here to baseball or Charlie Sheen. On the other hand, I'm technically on vacation and this rather important sidelight to an enduring, and enduringly strange, story, has not gotten much attention.
This "Tiger's Blood" stuff Sheen keeps spouting? That's a line of Wilson's.
The original "Duh! Winning!" That's some more of Wilson's act/personality/delusion/repertoire.
The Wilson-Sheen connection has gotten some national attention but not nearly enough. Wilson visiting Sheen at his home last month received the usual tut-tutting and 'it's not a problem - right at the moment' from the baseball world. Wilson and his team have insisted there was no wine, no women, only baseball (no Tiger's Blood) - and fictional baseball at that:
That's the deal here, of course. All Charlie Sheen ever wanted to do was be a major league baseball player. He has portrayed at least two of them on film: 'Rick Vaughn' from "Major League," and one of the ill-fated corrupted players of the 1919 World Series, Happy Felsch, from John Sayles' "Eight Men Out." Vaughn was the fast-throwing, fast-living relief pitcher who entered each game to the sound of The Trogs' '60s hit "Wild Thing."
This unleashed the proverbial life imitating art stuff. Soon, actual relief pitchers began to be accompanied by their own songs. Mitch Williams of the Cubs and later Phillies became known as "Wild Thing." Brian Wilson's entire 'weird reliever' persona owes in some part to Sheen's portrayal. Now, in life imitating imitated art, Sheen is issuing online videos faster than Mubarak or Khaddafi, and trying to act like Wilson:
At one point in his life, in what in retrospect seems like an almost tender time, Sheen got as close as he could to baseball by trying to buy up all the great memorabilia. In 1992 he outbid several collectors (myself included) for the baseball that went through Bill Buckner's legs and decided the 6th Game of the 1986 World Series. Less publicly, he amassed an extraordinary card collection and had most of it housed in individual plastic holders made in the form of richly-bound books. Then there was a divorce or something and he wound up selling nearly all of it (the "Buckner Ball" included) at a loss.
I'd like to thank him belatedly for the T206 Collins Proof card, by the way.
But back to the point. There is something bizarrely baseball-related to this Ultra Mid-Life Crisis through which Charlie Sheen, or Charlie Sheen as Rick Vaughn, or Charlie Sheen as Brian Wilson, is passing.
I'm not blaming Wilson or anything. I just think we need to remember that when you grow a beard that looks like it was a prop discarded by Monty Python's Flying Circus, you never know what the consequences might be. The Giants' reliever might just want to warn people - especially Sheen - not to try drinking Tiger's Blood at home.
Charlie Sheen is doing an impersonation of Brian Wilson.
Not the Beach Boy, the San Francisco Giants' relief pitcher. The one with the beard dyed so absurdly dark that light will not escape it. The one who hit the late night circuit over the off-season dressed up as a kind of SoCal/Rex Harrison version of "The Ghost" from "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."
At the start, I want to promise I am rarely going to devote space here to baseball or Charlie Sheen. On the other hand, I'm technically on vacation and this rather important sidelight to an enduring, and enduringly strange, story, has not gotten much attention.
This "Tiger's Blood" stuff Sheen keeps spouting? That's a line of Wilson's.
The original "Duh! Winning!" That's some more of Wilson's act/personality/delusion/repertoire.
The Wilson-Sheen connection has gotten some national attention but not nearly enough. Wilson visiting Sheen at his home last month received the usual tut-tutting and 'it's not a problem - right at the moment' from the baseball world. Wilson and his team have insisted there was no wine, no women, only baseball (no Tiger's Blood) - and fictional baseball at that:
"They could've asked any other closer, but Rick Vaughn asked for me," Wilson said. "When Rick Vaughn picks up the bullpen phone, you answer."
That's the deal here, of course. All Charlie Sheen ever wanted to do was be a major league baseball player. He has portrayed at least two of them on film: 'Rick Vaughn' from "Major League," and one of the ill-fated corrupted players of the 1919 World Series, Happy Felsch, from John Sayles' "Eight Men Out." Vaughn was the fast-throwing, fast-living relief pitcher who entered each game to the sound of The Trogs' '60s hit "Wild Thing."
This unleashed the proverbial life imitating art stuff. Soon, actual relief pitchers began to be accompanied by their own songs. Mitch Williams of the Cubs and later Phillies became known as "Wild Thing." Brian Wilson's entire 'weird reliever' persona owes in some part to Sheen's portrayal. Now, in life imitating imitated art, Sheen is issuing online videos faster than Mubarak or Khaddafi, and trying to act like Wilson:
One of the people he said he wished he could be for ten minutes was Giants pitcher Brian Wilson. Sheen went on to mumble something about Wilson delivering "fury, vengeance, hatred and absolute world domination," then bowed his head in silence for the man, for some reason.
At one point in his life, in what in retrospect seems like an almost tender time, Sheen got as close as he could to baseball by trying to buy up all the great memorabilia. In 1992 he outbid several collectors (myself included) for the baseball that went through Bill Buckner's legs and decided the 6th Game of the 1986 World Series. Less publicly, he amassed an extraordinary card collection and had most of it housed in individual plastic holders made in the form of richly-bound books. Then there was a divorce or something and he wound up selling nearly all of it (the "Buckner Ball" included) at a loss.
I'd like to thank him belatedly for the T206 Collins Proof card, by the way.
But back to the point. There is something bizarrely baseball-related to this Ultra Mid-Life Crisis through which Charlie Sheen, or Charlie Sheen as Rick Vaughn, or Charlie Sheen as Brian Wilson, is passing.
I'm not blaming Wilson or anything. I just think we need to remember that when you grow a beard that looks like it was a prop discarded by Monty Python's Flying Circus, you never know what the consequences might be. The Giants' reliever might just want to warn people - especially Sheen - not to try drinking Tiger's Blood at home.
The Suicide Of The Republican Party
Still having never learned to be calm, retract their claws, and sit around and act rationally in a situation that calls for panic, Wisconsin's Republicans and their Corporate Puppeteers tonight guaranteed themselves an unprecedented and disastrous recall next January.
More over, they also guaranteed themselves that any cloak of stealth under which they have operated in their attacks on teachers, firefighters, policemen, unions, and the settled law of collective bargaining, has been stripped away. If you pass a supposedly urgent "budget repair" bill with key budget components cut from it, you forfeit the fiction that you are doing anything remedial, anything essential, anything except a naked power grab on behalf of corporations who will get the money stolen from organized labor – civic or private.
And further, when you accomplish all this by parliamentary trick – after your national party has spent two years and more decrying Congressional reconciliation – when you deny the minority the right to participate in the outcome whether by compromise or protest, you cut through the cacophony of political-speak in this country and you transmit your sneering indifference towards democracy to ordinary citizens who do not normally pay attention.
This is not to try to mitigate the disaster for Wisconsin and its public servants and its immediate future. Governor Scott Walker, the cross-eyed Koch-sucker, will make inchoate sounds of celebration, like a seal with a rack of horns before it. The Right will claim victory. Good workers who were under the illusion that their public service earned them just as much protection from irresponsible and uncontrolled management as any private employees, will have their lives and families damaged and risked. But the Republicans have overplayed their hand in a way that seems startling even for them, and they shall inherit the proverbial wind. They have taken another step, neither to be retraced nor erased, towards their political suicide – an event that cannot come a minute to soon for the real America of fairness, the sanctity of a contract, rules, and equal opportunity.
Still having never learned to be calm, retract their claws, and sit around and act rationally in a situation that calls for panic, Wisconsin's Republicans and their Corporate Puppeteers tonight guaranteed themselves an unprecedented and disastrous recall next January.
More over, they also guaranteed themselves that any cloak of stealth under which they have operated in their attacks on teachers, firefighters, policemen, unions, and the settled law of collective bargaining, has been stripped away. If you pass a supposedly urgent "budget repair" bill with key budget components cut from it, you forfeit the fiction that you are doing anything remedial, anything essential, anything except a naked power grab on behalf of corporations who will get the money stolen from organized labor – civic or private.
And further, when you accomplish all this by parliamentary trick – after your national party has spent two years and more decrying Congressional reconciliation – when you deny the minority the right to participate in the outcome whether by compromise or protest, you cut through the cacophony of political-speak in this country and you transmit your sneering indifference towards democracy to ordinary citizens who do not normally pay attention.
This is not to try to mitigate the disaster for Wisconsin and its public servants and its immediate future. Governor Scott Walker, the cross-eyed Koch-sucker, will make inchoate sounds of celebration, like a seal with a rack of horns before it. The Right will claim victory. Good workers who were under the illusion that their public service earned them just as much protection from irresponsible and uncontrolled management as any private employees, will have their lives and families damaged and risked. But the Republicans have overplayed their hand in a way that seems startling even for them, and they shall inherit the proverbial wind. They have taken another step, neither to be retraced nor erased, towards their political suicide – an event that cannot come a minute to soon for the real America of fairness, the sanctity of a contract, rules, and equal opportunity.
Snappy Answers For March 9 2011
Florida Governor Promises Everybody (Except Unions) Everything Including Tax Cuts; Makes Awkward Joke Suggesting High School Was Living Hell For Him
Answer: "Doing what must be done will not make me 'Most Popular,' but I'm determined to make Florida 'Most Likely to Succeed.' Related: doesn't this picture make you think of what the transitional period must have been like for Voldemort? (The reporter in the back sure thinks so)
Florida Governor Promises Everybody (Except Unions) Everything Including Tax Cuts; Makes Awkward Joke Suggesting High School Was Living Hell For Him
Answer: "Doing what must be done will not make me 'Most Popular,' but I'm determined to make Florida 'Most Likely to Succeed.' Related: doesn't this picture make you think of what the transitional period must have been like for Voldemort? (The reporter in the back sure thinks so)
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