You want to blow my book sales in Europe?

Current fantsay league baseball standings: Fourth out of 11, First out of 10, second out of 18. Thome and Konerko have chilled a bit. Brian Hawpe, Austin Kearns (?!) and Moises Alou are hot to trot. As in around the bases. Hittin' lots of 'taters. Nice work Ol' Pee Hands! Keep it up.

White Sox are still atop the AL Central, even though Seattle punked them in the bottom of the 11th inning last night at just about Midnight CST. New winter acquisition Javier Vazquez takes the bump tonight against Joel Pinero. Strategy against the Mighty M's: keep Ichiro off the bases (if you can, by mixing speeds...one of the best OBP guys in the game the last few years; only Bonds and Big Papi are better, but Ichiro can run like the freaking wind), walk Ibanez if you have to, throw Sexton fastballs up and in, and Beltre couldn't hit the side of a barn if he was swinging a canoe right now, so don't worry about him. Sox always play a awkward, rotten band of baseball on these west coast swings, but maybe we can reverse that a bit in '06. Go hose!

Documentary feast: Daniel Johnston and Charles Bukowski vehicles both in the last few days. Guess you couldn't find two more different chorizos in the meat section, but both flicks had their high points and moments du excellente (is that French?). The Daniel J was a real tear-jerker (and a surprisingly packed house at the Landmark...we thought he was dead and few would care otherwise) and very effectively done across the board, content and style-wise. For years we'd written him off as part and parcel of the whole phenomenon of hipster guilt/stupidy/flaggelation/exploitation of the helpless and "gifted" insane, which we'd participated in just a hair in our own early Chicago days (cough....Wesley Willis), but not the case. At least as far as this film was concerned. Maybe Lee Ranaldo and Thirsty Moore have different ideas, but they have their own discographies to worry about.

Hopper was helping us to congeal a plan to get cheap walkmen somewheres just so we could buy all the homemade Daniel Johnston tapes that you can internet any time you like for just 5 bux apiece, and roll like that for a few months on his deranged Beatle Bob brilliance. But that wouldn't work, 'cause the only things we listen to these days are Chopped and Screwed Houston boom bap sizzurp records (whooooo is Mike Jones?) and Cleveland proto-punk (Mirrors, Rocket From the Tombs...thanks Jonathan). Hopper even stopped by the other night and gave us the new Dem Franchise Boys record. Isn't she a nice one?

The Bukowski was a little more straight and straight-forward, not as well done obviously, but maybe we were more familiar with the topic beforehand and had some tall axes of our own to grind. Like he's the ultimate sexist ass to draw L.A. breath, obviously, but there was more to old Hank than meets the book turns out. Since we hadn't read anything by him in years, and most of his stuff was such mow ahead Autobio blather anyhow that we swerved towards our own self-wound chemical highway when dealing with him, maybe we had just as many misconceptions re: his drunken half-mast tomfoolery as we did about DJ's paranoid delusions and public celebrations thereof. A few things were obvious by the fin; that Charles could really write a poem to shatter your heart (go Google "Bukowski bluebird" and grab a box of tissues quick) and celebs in documentaries are usually real stoopid and take up valuable screen time with self-importance empty as rice cakes.




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