Who hated you in high school that wouldn't love you for your liver now?

Old friends in from out of town, a few shows at the Empty Bottle, lots of working at the bookstore, and some general muckity-mucking around. We've been so busy it hurts. And the sleeping in until 1 PM doesn't help. There simply aren't enough hours in the day. Work today was a motherfucker, too. It's spring, and Myopic was packed full of book sellers and rectal smellers from 11 AM on. Egads, the general public is obnoxious, especially on weekends.

That is our poor excuse for being woefully underprepared for book club. As in, we haven't read the book. Hopper, sorry about that. Apologies in advance, etc. We should be reading Master and the Mexican Mixed Drink right now instead of blogging, but the people demand service from OGFP. That and we got this kick ass book, Mao: The Unknown Story (by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday) that has eaten up our reading time. It's really hard to put down. Short story: Mao was an incredibly bad guy, it seems, and not just to those who hated him. Long story: read the thing, because it proves that one guy with insane ambition and unmitigated gall + tons of conniving can dominate the most populous nation on earth and limitlessly bend its national machinery for decades. Fascinating and horrifying and not an allegory to be found.

Tomorrow night at the Cell, a world championship banner is raised above White Sox fans for the first occasion in many, many lifetimes. Opening night vs. the Tribe of Cleveland. We have to work, but for those in attendance, it should be quite a sight. We'll be listening on the radio, of course. Mark Buerhle gets the pill for the Good Guys. Expect more pecking about this over the next few days, and an entire summer of White Sox news, gossip, head scratching, busy-bodying, nervous chattering etc. Just serving you notice that this blog is so named for a reason, and that reason is about to go into ultra high gear. Are we currently still v. pissed off that we couldn't get tickets for Wednesdays game, when the first 20,000 fans get a miniature World Series Champs trophy free of charge? You know the answer.

In other baseball news, it's fantasy baseball league draft week. We had three drafts in about as many days, and now have a splitting headache and some 9 hours of lost time to show for it. We've been doing this for three years now, and we never win any of our leagues because everything that makes us good baseball fans (undying Pale Hose allegiance, hatred of the Yankees and Dodgers and Angels and Mets among other teams, occasional weekday trips to Wrigley for N.L. scouting and Cubbie-related eye-rolling, excitement over rookies and prospects across the bigs) makes us terrible fantasy league players. We stick with old veterans that we adore and the third best White Sox relief pitcher all season even though our teams are hemorraging (sp?) points due to our sense of duty and blind stupidity. This year we sank so low that we drafted Derek Jeter, and not the flashy rookie Washington Nationals outfielder with the obscene spring training OBP. Maybe things will turn out better? We still picked Paul Konerko every time with our #1 pick, natch. Some old habits never die.

If you missed Submarine Races, CoCoComa and Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra last night, it was raging full on. Three items of Merch were bought! That is a true rarity, friends. Our old grizzled heart does not often get so ferociuosly rocked upon in so short a time. Shit Sandwich Records really has their, um, shit together right now. It was so good from the garage that we're flagrantly blowing off Arab Strap pounding down below us, and taking our bleeding ears easy.




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