THROUGH WITH SPORTS

It has long been my mid-July tradition to enjoy two of my favorite activities at once on Wimbledon finals weekend: watching sports on TV and morning drinking. I usually prepare a bowl of fresh strawberries and chill the finest bottle of Champagne $10 will buy and tune into the live coverage of the women's final, mid-morning on Saturday. As the women's final, in recent years, rarely goes beyond two sets, I normally don't consume more than a glass or two, but on Sunday, the traditionally marathon-length men's final allows me to get through the bottle and then conveniently miss church!

I was fortunate enough, through the generosity of a special lady friend, last year, to attend Wimbledon in person, something I'll never forget. SLF has since moved on to deeper-pocketed pastures, so this year's tournament has been bittersweet, and also sad that I haven't been able to see a single match—so how much was I looking forward to this morning's final, featuring my favorite ass-kicker of all time, Venus Williams. Traditionally, regardless of the broadcast of matches throughout the tournament, the men's and women's finals have been network broadcast on this weekend, as they have the universal stature of the Super Bowl, World Series, Indy 500, and Kentucky Derby. So imagine my disappointment to find that the tennis is only available in ESPN—thus, not available.

Believe me, I have looked into what it would cost to have cable TV in my life, and even if it was something I wanted in my life (which I adamantly don't, except for sports broadcasting, as I don't need a thousand channels of garbage) I found that the cost of it would be more than the cost of a second car, which is ridiculous, seeing how I can't afford a first car (I mean one that, like, runs). If you haven't noticed, the money that's being allowed to separate itself from the wealthiest one-tenth or hundredth percent of the fat pigs has drastically reduced in recent years. That means less for us who enjoy baseball, which is also no longer on broadcast TV in my hometown (the Major League team having their own cable channel). When the people finally get around to burning down the government buildings throughout this country, maybe the fat pigs will all gather in a pathetic circle and mutter, “Hmm, maybe we should have kept using TV as the opiate of the masses rather than trying to switch over to the more profitable (for us) opioids as the opiate of the masses.”

As for me, I'm a sports fan, but that means sports on TV. I used to be collage football fan, but then they had to ramp up the greed, with each conference having their own cable network, and broadcasting almost all the bowl games (certainly all the good ones) only on cable. So fuck collage football, I said, and that was the last straw. But there was still collage basketball, and the NCAA Tournament used to be the best sporting event on TV all year, until they switched it to where 75 percent of the games are on cable TV. 25 percent is actually worse than nothing, in this case, so fuck the Final Four, and that was the last straw.

Then there is (was) the NBA, which used to be my favorite. It is now all but unwatchable. No, let me rephrase that, it's unwatchable. I have no interest, and maybe it's not the NBA's fault, because after watching these few great years (Celtics/Lakers, Pistons/Bulls) how can anything match up. But I'd still try to watch the playoffs, until they decided to put all of the playoffs (except for the finals) on cable TV, so I said fuck the NBA, and that was the last straw.

Except, as a (as I said) hopeless, massive sports fan, I still watch nearly anything. Well, I've never been able to get into ice hockey (maybe I should try) and things like bicycle tricks and crashing trucks in the dirt don't count, to me, as sports. But I actually watch NASCAR and golf, though both have gotten increasingly boring (and that means, booooring). And now, half the NASCAR season is on cable TV, so I said fuck NASCAR, and that was the last straw. Which pretty much leaves golf, a sport which currently musters its most excitement from Tiger Woods DUI reports. I have some nostalgia for Monday Night Football, which I'd never miss as a youth, but now since that is on cable (or was, or switched to Thursday Night or Saturday Night football, who can keep up?) and I can pretty much never see the games of teams I want to see anyway, the NFL is just not enough for me. And my favorite two sports, soccer and Formula 1, have never been on TV in this country.

So is that four or five last straws? How many more chances can I give to sports? No more. I'm sad to say it, because I want to be a regular guy, and I like the idea of sports as a live event in which the outcome is not known, but I'm afraid, for me to enjoy sports, it's all about the TV coverage. I must see it happen. I don't even care who wins or loses, I don't give a shit about stats. I like the game, visually (with sound—which is why sports bars playing silent TV with a moronic music soundtrack does not work for me). Sports IS sports on TV, for me. And since it's all now become, like a Lamborghini, a vacation in Hawaii, or dinner at a steakhouse, something I can not afford, it is over. I am officially through with sports, and if ESPN wants to interview me about it, fine, but I don't think they will, because I will say “fuck” on the air.

I AM SICK IN LOVE WITH THE WOMEN OF THE MOSS PROBLEM

by Darius Smith

Editor's Note:
This article was delivered to me by a bike messenger wearing a T-shirt with that Pynchon Trystero muted horn symbol on it (making me suspect he worked for some kind of post-post underground postage courier) as I made room for cream in my morning Venti brewed house roast at the Starbucks on Beverly and La Cienega. Handwritten with what seems to be a piece of coal on margins of discarded newspaper, I found it necessary to type it up myself — so Mr. Smith will forgive me if I have made any mistakes — and I withhold his usual fee. —Anthony Franciosa, 2012

Heather Prescott—true Queen of England and future Empress of New India. A full-kit rock'n'roll drummer and former L.A. studio whiz kid, she is now plotting her next move in New Zealand. Pay heed, kids.

What do I know about Tiffany Richardson? Well, she carries Flowers of Evil with her wherever she goes for the past three years (she is 22). Also, she is the premiere visual artist of the Western Hemisphere, and the finest performance artist worldwide. A quick example of her third towering ability, her sometimes kind, sometimes devastating wit: "We loved you until you were a success. When you were a has-been we loved you again (some of us) even more. When you died, when we played your songs, we died a little in a happy way and you were reborn, every time." Actually, I suppose this isn't "wit," only an excerpt from a paper (!) letter, including envelope and stamp.

Who is Monica Todd? She is a mystery girl, a Girl Scout, a Marine squad leader, librarian, and mad poet. Currently Secret Queen of America, in love with the modern world and at war with the modern world, Monica is a go-go Eighties Anti-Christ, and my favorite person who ever lived.

Sybilka "Eye-Witness" Storie is everywhere I look, as a model for a Supergirl comic book, her face on an acne treatment box for ten years, lately is seeing everything as for the first time, becoming alternately exuberant and deeply despondent all day every day—so she bought a camera so to have a little more control over what she sees for now—in the end she will control an entire Empire. If she even dared to learn guitar and voice she would soon command an Empire of Sight and Sound.

My Tonya Shelley:  Born a White Goddess in Central Africa, sometime suburban punk, sometime street punk, sometime gutter punk, Miss Shelley currently plays a feisty, aggressive, sometime drunk skate punk on a Russian comedy-drama called Every Young Superstar You Could Imagine. Of course they are all unknowns on the show, but yes, the actors all command a forceful style, especially Tonya, and it would be a crime against humanity if Miss Shelley doesn't become a worldwide star. Not that she really cares….

Here's all I know about Heather Dameron: she successfully revived The Popular Front in 2000 and now tens of millions of Americans are secret communists. They wait only for Miss Dameron's signal to crush the U.S. Government. It should take ten minutes. She said it's OK to admit that The Moss Problem is a key part of the Popular Front, all the better to admit it now when it comes across as just another joke. But, reader, realize this:  Heather Dameron is the only child of Miss January 1962. Her father is JFK. So there.

Broadcast Sports and I Won't Last A Day Without You

Little by little, free broadcast sports coverage is being taken away from the poorest segments of the Untied States population, and it looks like by the time we get through these dreadful single digit years, if you don't pay for cable TV sports specific networks, you will be shitouttaluck. I don't even care to look into digital broadcasting implications, as obvious as it is that all technological advancements are mostly about wringing even more money out of the masses of barely-able-to-afford-anything-anymore, especially food. But let's just say you decide to get by without food and want to be a sports fan. If you live in a city you can still go to a baseball game (as long as you're not in Boston), though don't pick that day to resume your diet, because a hotdog is $15 and a bottle of water is $5. You could save all year and maybe afford an NFL game, but pro basketball has long been affordable only to corporations. If you happen to have a TV, and actually LIKE Notre Dame, you can watch college football. By early next decade, however, the bowl games will be on cable only, and the Final Four are sure to follow that trend. If you have no TV, like me, you won't have to deal with all that digital conversion bullshit, but say you want to find some sports on the AM radio, like in the old days? Forget it!—though you may be lucky and find some so-called Christian bullshit that is so far out even Christians can't stomach it. Most of radio is now, however—as is most of broadcast TV—infomercials—and if you happen to be INSANE and enjoy infomercials, you must now endure commercials during your infomercials. There was a brief window where the Internet seemed like nirvana for sports fans, and indeed these days it's the only place I can find anything at all, but the golden age is over, and soon the Internet will be so gummed up with information gathering robots and animated commercials that it won't work at all. It's more or less there already. You can still get a newspaper, of course, if you have the patience to page through advertisements for the Internet to finally find a poorly written, uninspired article. I was thinking—what IS the opiate of the masses anymore? Is there still $1.50 a six pack beer?—because you sure can't afford cigarettes, taxed as they are in order to pay for the sports arenas that only the rich can afford to visit. What if they decide to tax lottery tickets, someone asked me, and they go up in price like cigarettes? Lottery tickets are ALREADY tax, I reassured them, the rich finding yet another way to tax the poor. I'm sitting here on a grimy Saturday wondering exactly how much it will take before The Revolution, or will there be no Revolution? If there is none, does it mean that the powerful have so totally learned how to control the not-powerful, that they have completely enslaved the—with little, malfunctioning electrical devices, to play with, and direct their anger towards—and the terror of the disappearance of all civil rights? Or are the powerless sitting back and waiting, doing the only subversive thing left that costs nearly nothing, reading books? My pessimism answered that question as you might imagine, and I found it necessary to take refuge in the only drug I have left to me, the Carpenters. Or more specifically, the song "I Won't Last A Day Without You." That song is so far beyond "one day at a time"-- it is pretty much a surrender of existence-- the only thing left is a glimmer of something once idealized as love. I mean, it's probably not even about another person-- it sounds like it could be an ode to a magical antidepressant drug, or maybe a commercial for a cheap, canned cocktail. I could dedicate my life to this song; maybe I have. It is the most compelling pop song ever written, and has the perfect verse and chorus combination, like a punch to the gut followed by punch to the face. But then, most weirdly is that horrible bridge, unimaginable, bad, and out of place--you know, "touch me and I end up singing"-- it's so wrong that it always makes me think about "improper" touching, if you know what I'm saying. I guess you could say it's like the thorn on a rose, but still, a thorn is one thing-- you don't see a human turd on a rose. And then there's that line, "When there's no getting over that rainbow," which I know is meant to mean when it's impossible to reach that world “somewhere over the rainbow,” but to me has always had a different meaning. To me, "no getting over that rainbow" means not getting over, as in not dealing with, not coming to terms with. It's like they're singing, “when you can't really find a way to deal with that rainbow, when you can't come to terms with it.” That's what makes this song, to me, magical, and it's exactly the best example I can come up with of how there might be a glimmer of hope in this fucked up, fucked up, fucked up beyond belief, world.