A pitcher in the World Baseball Classic named Been Gwak
“I didn’t have to end up spread on some bread to make avocado toast, you know. I could’ve
13.03.2026 23:43
👍 2
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
A pitcher in the World Baseball Classic named Been Gwak
“I didn’t have to end up spread on some bread to make avocado toast, you know. I could’ve
One late November night in 1980 I was flying over the state of Utah on my way back to California. I had an aisle seat, and since I believe that anyone who flies in an airplane and doesn’t spend most of his time looking out the window wastes his money, I walked back to the rear door of the airplane and stood for a long time at the door’s tiny aperture, squinting out at Utah. Two days earlier, a fierce early blizzard had gone through the Rocky Mountain states. In its wake, the air was pellucid. The frozen fire of a winter’s moon poured cold light on the desert below. Six inches away from the tip of my nose the temperature was, according to the pilot, minus sixty-five, and seven miles below it was four above zero. But here we were, two hundred highly inventive creatures safe and comfortable inside a fat winged cylinder racing toward the Great Basin of North America, dozing, drinking, chattering, oblivious to the frigid emptiness outside. Emptiness. There was nothing down there on the east — no towns, no light, no signs of civilization at all. Barren mountains rose duskily from the desert floor; isolated mesas and buttes broke the wind-haunted distance. You couldn’t see much in the moonlight, but obviously there were no forests, no pastures, no lakes, no rivers; there was no fruited plain. I counted the minutes between clusters of lights. Six, eight, nine, eleven — going nine miles a minute, that was a lot of uninhabited distance in a crowded century, a lot of emptiness amid a civilization whose success was achieved on the pretension that natural obstacles do not exist.
Reisner had me with three paragraphs.
Some headlines. Wall Street Journal: Escalating Hormuz Crisis Raises Specter of Prolonged Closure CNBC: Three more ships struck in the Persian Gulf as Iran warns of oil prices hitting $200
"Don't everybody like the smell of gasoline?"
I’m way older than Adam Ottavino and I hope I’ve never looked that tired
We took one of those trips too. I came home with a loaf of Wonder Bread. My parents left it on top of the fridge for a month and waited for it to show the first sign of mold. Our scientific assessment: It isn’t really bread.
The sign says WEDNESDAY “BARGIN” DAY
it's probably this, but those last 24 seconds... youtu.be/eyV3zCq1OHM?...
back cover of Neko Case’s ‘Fox Confessor Brings the Flood’ CD (Anti-, 2006)
front cover of Neko Case’s ‘Fox Confessor Brings the Flood’ CD (Anti-, 2006)
oh I heard it was your birthday, OK we’re putting ears on you tonight
night falls over Gainesville
oh hell yes, and this one too
Cover art for Squeeze’s ‘Trixies’ depicting a wet street and a nightclub with a pink neon sign.
The McCartney doc, and subsequent revisits of his first two solo albums, turned out to be the perfect warmup for what is rapidly turning into a surprise Squeeze Weekend. What an unexpected treat. #Trixies
If you ever find yourself down this way in April or October there is a Friends of the Library book sale where most of the CDs are 50¢. I took these home last fall for roughly a Hamilton note. Also there are a couple hundred thousand cheap books. www.folacld.org/m^sale^about...
It is the better one of Billy’s two French ones, that’s for sure
Got an email at work from an AI company that used AI to incorrectly identify me as the correct contact to discuss how my employer could use AI to do business. It was supposedly forwarded by an account manager from the company’s CEO, and had clearly been written with AI.
If the government gets to decide if you have them, they're not human rights.
Barber and frozen custard vendor
A character named after me was killed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in a movie.
He sees six or seven people crammed into the tiny room, waiting to use two urinals and a single stall. And in his thick Brooklyn/Long Island accent, Eddie Money bellows, “What the hell is this, the Grammys?” That’s my story. 7/7 FIN
I had just finished washing my hands, and I was about to open the door and leave — when the door swings open, right at me. It’s Eddie Money. 6/7
After the panel ended, a lot of guys made the journey, and naturally there was a queue and some crowding at the door. 5/7
Anyway the film was screened at Skywalker Ranch while it was undergoing a renovation, so the nearest men’s room was closed for repair. The only available bathroom was far down a corridor, and was very small. 4/7
Money was great on the panel, entertaining, but all over the place. First question was about working with Dowd. Within about 30 seconds he was deep into an anecdote involving Maureen McCormick, Ron Nevison, cocaine and (I think) an abandoned Ferrari. 3/7
Around 2003, I attended a screening of a music documentary about audio engineer Tom Dowd. Eddie Money spoke on a panel in the auditorium after the film. 2/7
OK. I’ve told this story before, but now it’s time to tell it again. 1/7
The don’t-bug-me-when-I’m-peeing thing is powerful though. One time I saw some guy try to talk up Jeff Tweedy in the men’s room at the Mercury Lounge. Several months later I met Jeff on a press junket. I mentioned the night, and Jeff instantly remembered the guy.
I keep thinking about the bit in the new McCartney doc where Nick Lowe (I think) claims Paul “trained himself” to not need bathroom breaks at rest stops because he couldn’t stand to chat with strangers at the urinal. It’s not clear whether Paul underhydrated, or developed superhuman restraint.
My ticket stub from the 1994 HFStival. $15 to see Counting Crows, Cracker, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Meat Puppets, James, Pavement, Rollins Band, Violent Femmes and Afghan Whigs, plus Gigolo Aunts, Tuscadero, the Greenberry Woods, Lotion, Madder Rose and Edsel on a second stage in the parking lot
if only RFK Stadium were still standing
counting blue cars until you get to twenty one pilots
A Series-winning homer was somehow not close to the most memorable thing that happened after the 8th inning!
