Thank God.

It's such a dark period between October and March, when we lose that hour and its black outside at 5 and snowing sadness and there's no baseball. Now, i'm beginning to see the light.



Spring training is officially underway. Go Royals.

Only Halfway Home

Besides eating life-sized chocolate penguins, few things make me happier than the idea of airing something like this short film about Levon Helm on MTV in primetime, preferably in between episodes of "True Life: I'm a 16 year old pregnant basehead with a million dollars" and "like, watch me barf or whatevs." Levon Helm must have had millions of dollars at multiple points in his career, which may or may not have all been spent on treatment for his throat cancer, which almost cost him his voice entirely- but is Levon tooting pounds of flour up his nose with Robbie Robertson and sleeping in an inflatable pool of mardi gras beads and big, american breasts? Maybe. But i see him up on the tractor and saying things like "where'd you bring that buick in from, buddy" and i'm in it 100%.



This is the man that brought you The Last Waltz, the undisputed greatest single rock movie/concert in the universe. And he's harvesting grain. He's having a can of coke. He wants to.

As a side note, i don't know when or if i'm coming back to this blog, but do check in once a week or month for project updates from the flight deck, if you're so inclined. I'll do my best to see that there's at least a howdy-doo for you until i've settled on the next big thing. Until then, hang tight. Keep the faith. Gracias.

Sir Couchalot

Well, school's back in session these days, and where am i? Well, couchside watching the history channel, of course. Indeed, the graduate has arrived at last. And just how long can his silence and abstinence from all mediums of written word outside of the tv guide go on? Well, according to "Byron," the greatest sharpshooting archer in the world, who i just saw shoot an aspirin out of the air with a bow and frickin' arrow, i think my break from writing could last between 2 and 2,435 weeks. That sounds about right. Fear not though, faithful weston-ites and queen elizabeths. While my online interests may be waning, a full-scale music project is in the works, and i'm considering a mandatory-writing project, perhaps a series of album reviews, to debut as soon as i think about it longer than thirty seconds just now.



Until then, why don't you do what i've been doing, and watch videos of Bobby McFerrin on youtube until your brain turns into a geoduck and the chinese food delivery guy starts asking if you're going to be okay. Why do you have to be good at math to run a baseball team, anyway? What is that guy talking about?

I'll be back. Someday soon. Probably.

I'll Have What He's Having

Tall order, sir.

Tony Stamolis

Tony Stamolis is a California-born photographer turned New Yorker, earning some pics in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Maxim, and a million other, artsier magazines that i'll never hear of again. His recent book, Frezno, highlights some of the seedier images of his hometown, now the sixth-largest city in the Golden State. From nude portraits to bushes full of upside-down shopping carts, he's hot on the trail of contemporary suburban Americana.

Check out his portfolio here. Or read about his new(ish)book here for more.

Llamacycle, Anyone?

After making the grave mistake of checking my book through with the luggage over the holidays and having nothing to look at but feral children and the collection of gum wrappers and barf bags in the pocket in front of me, it was all the better to recently discover Kasper Hauser's Skymaul :Happy Crap You Can Buy From A Plane.


This is your one stop source for all those things you had no idea you needed so desperately that you might drop dead at any moment. Here you'll find the ipod shredder, adultery detector, and who could live without inventions like these?


There's really something for the whole family here. Don't forget baby this x-mas!

Why I Love Whiskey

While this site appears to be on a dangerous precipice of plummeting into full time abstract late night commercial analysis, i find myself inspired yet again. And, as OJ Simpson well knows, when inspiration knocks, sometimes you gotta break that whole door down and wave your glock all up in someone's nose to get something done. Now where was I? Oh yes. Commercials like this new one from Johnnie Walker remind me why i make whiskey my drink of choice, and also teach us so much about American history! Did you know any of these monumentally important historic events were remotely related to the simple consumption of Johnnie Walker? Take a looksee.



It's really little known fact that the Wright brothers used all their empty bottles of Johnnie Walker red to counterbalance the ailerons on the first flight in Kittyhawk. If they hadn't drawn up the plans to the airplane while hamboned on whiskey, we wouldn't be sitting in airports across the country today as American Airlines cancels our flights. Thanks, Johnnie Walker. I've obviously been wasting my time drinking Jack Daniels, because all that makes me want to do is set fire to my golden deer and put my head through a TV when America's Funniest Home Videos is on to see if Bob Saget's really inside.

In reality, i think we can all come to the agreement that if Johnnie Walker whiskey were responsible for the invention of an airplane, it would be the one featured forty seconds into this video. That one has always been my favorite, although the mutant seagull bicycle car early on is a contender. That's far too imaginative, probably a product of the Smirnoff team.



And how could we all forget the civil rights movement in the 1960's? While many historians contend that was the work of fearless leadership and human sacrifice, it was actually Johnnie Walker whiskey that opened the doors at the University of Alabama for desegregation in 1963. Who knew! Can your vodka tonic say that? The only thing vodka was there in history was Stalin's death march, and, more recently, the Girls Gone Wild dvd series "The Wildest Bar in America." You think you can hold a candle to the significance of Whiskey in American history? Look at that astronaut just floating around fixing things with his wrench. You think that astrophysicist is going to celebrate tightening that lugnut with a glass of merlot? Wrong.

As clearly shown in this commercial, New York city was built by guys pushing huge steel beams around in the 1930's, obviously plowed on Johnnie Walker. Really, its a miracle that city is even still around, considering. I urge each and every one of you to pick up a bottle of this liquid magic, which is remarkably easy to get, i might add. It's a wonder we haven't gotten wise to the pattern in visionary American accomplishments until this year of 2008, when the economy started looking like a urinal cake. Thank god this thing aired in the nick of time. Now get out there!

Money vs. More Money

Granted, there's a lot to worry about these days, what with the housing market and the economy and the fire ants and the glayyyvin. Personally, all i can focus on in times like these is how much more money we have to pump into advertising to convince us all to get back out there, and continue buying things like shoes. Now, i recognize that saying something along the lines of "nike ads are always cool" is about as profound as saying "thriller was sweet in 1983" or "cameron turner is a fruitbat."

When nobody has any more money at all, and we're all breaking into our five gallon buckets full of nickels we've been saving for that nsync reunion tour we all know is so totally waiting to happen, we'll be leaving the house for that last trip to the grocery store to stock up on ramen and thunderbird for the apocalypse, and sure enough, one foot out the door, we'll see something like this:



You're obviously buying. I'm buying. We're buying. In this corner, you've got the heir apparent to michael jordan, black barbershops, powdered donuts, and a hip-hopized song from the 50's. How could adidas ever respond to something like this? Yes, of course:



Here, you've got the only reasonable response to an ad of nike's caliber: scooters, kevin garnett, asian rappers, a hip-hopized song from the 50's, missy elliot, david becks, and blurry footage easily recognizable as taped at my most recent birthday party. Right about now you're wishing you'd made it out, aren't you.

But really, how much could this commercial have cost? In the grand scheme of things, Nike is probably going to sell more shoes and have spent less (a paltry 90 million for Lebron) thus giving them the upper hand. When thriller was tearing through car stereos in 1984, Jordan was making 2.5 mil over 5 years. So, obviously, our concept of worth must be on the right track. By those standards, shouldn't all of our parents working in '84 now be making 40 times more? Let's try dad at the office regarding that one.

Carol!

Try and wrap your mind around how bad Keith Richards must be feeling during this shooting of his duet with Chuck Berry's band. He botches the song a hundred times, and the piano player looks about as happy as i was to find a hypodermic needle two blocks from my house this morning. There goes the neighborhood, tee hee!



Plus, is that Steve Jordan on drums or not? He looks like he's about to throw Keith in a woodchipper just after 2 minutes in, but when they finally get it together thirty seconds later he looks happier than a pig in shit. Could it be he's masking his true feelings regarding Keith's abilities? That would be wrong. Chuck's obviously thrilled.

Constant Holiday Danger Update

Good thing i'm getting this out there before tomorrow afternoon, lest anyone was considering violently throwing a half-thawed turkey into a vat of overflowing 500 degree oil to celebrate our first harvest at Plymouth in 1621. Personally, i was planning on tying a turducken to a tree and just firing rockets at it with my new Panzerfaust III (thanks, ebay!) until i saw that the turkey had been sufficiently defeated, upon which a circle of my closest friends would sing "do you believe in magic" and pick through the assortment of bones and tree bark to put together some pretty unique necklaces. Tradition, you know? It's what America is all about.



Folks, there's a lot of danger out there, and a large amount of it happens to be lurking. In fact, in a google search for "danger lurking" you'll find it's currently residing most in: bottles of red wine, the tour de france crowd, your clothes dryer, public wi-fi, barack obama's tax policy, and flu shots. Really, you're best off not trusting anything. And that means you, old people, small lizards, and snow.

Tryptophan: The Anthrax of Thanksgiving

One of my personal favorite aspects of the holidays in America is the inevitable horror news coverage of holiday-related subjects. We're talking about live from the situation room, kids choking on tinsel, people starving in line at the mall, and this great obsession we've developed over the last couple years, with no explanation whatsoever:


We're talking of course about tryptophan, the most silent of killers. Standing in line at Bank of America, where they've recently set up flat screen televisions to counterbalance the long lines of people waiting to hear about their housing loans being eaten by giant sandworms, i overheard the first of what will surely be an endless slew of threat embellishments. As a news segment ended, we saw the stereotypical anchorwoman making banter with her weatherlady, wishing her good luck on Thanksgiving in coping with the scariest sounding amino acid on the planet. Though i don't recall it word for word, it went something along the lines of

"be careful getting behind the wheel on thursday night after all that tryptophan..."
Tryptophan. It's an amino acid, and an essential protein builder in the human diet. There are high levels of it in chocolate, bananas, milk, yogurt, eggs, fish, poultry, red meat, spirulina, and peanuts. So for the jury still out on whether or not it's the turkey that's going to make you fall asleep on the drive home from aunt mildred's and plunge your car full of children off an overpass and NOT the ten corona's you drink watching the Detroit Lions get pummeled like a demented tether ball, you've got a few things mixed up.

In fact, it's overstatements on small scientific findings like this that make me think we're better off as a christian fundamentalist society. Science is way more scary than useful to the general public, and so are all the amino acids, for that matter. Allow me to be the first to suggest we place all amino acids on the FDA-prohibited list, and protect American families from this atrocity this Thanksgiving. Drive safe everyone, and avoid the benadryl green beans.

"Before, You'd Brush Your Teeth, But Still Smell Like Anger"

Since my last post was unusually enjoyable to put together (imagine that, me wanting to talk about 90's rock ((or sports!)) i've decided to dedicate at least one more to someone i feel is deserving of a real haranguing. This is also an issue i've managed never to flip-flop on, unlike such infamous claims as:

a) i'll never eat guacamole so long as i live
or
b) oh, if i could only just sleep with that britney spears!

No, i've consistently disliked Carlos Santana for a good 20 years, and have never, never once, not ever so much as nodded my head in a hotel elevator or mongolian barbeque when "black magic woman" came on the radio. Santana was terrible enough leading up to the 1990's, but the album he put out at the end of the decade featuring "Smooth" with Rob Thomas really sealed the deal for me then and there. That song might go on my all-time most hated songs mixtape, to play when Bristol Palin is sworn in as president in the year 2040, or if the Royals ever move to a city like Albuquerque.


From there he went on to (successfully, now) collaborate with every other crappy artist under the stars, and received nothing but praise and money for doing so. Really, collaborations with Sean Paul, Everlast AND Nickelback? Really, America? All the while making headlines for doing things like curing bad breath by forgiving child molesters and being saved by christ from committing suicide 7 times.

Honestly, if you need to be saved 7 different times by Christ himself from killing yourself, how much confidence can you have going into your next solo that there isn't going to be an 8th? I feel for Carlos about as much as i miss O-Town. And Crazy Town. All the towns, really. Sugah. Baby.

RATM

I don't remember what precisely triggered my most recent plummet back into 90's era music, but now that i've re-found this i have a few things to say about it. First of all, i think the argument can be made that Rage Against the Machine was the greatest rock band of the 90's without me sounding like i haven't got any brains. True, all Rolling Stone will ever talk about until the earth is sucked into a stellar-mass black hole is how great Nirvana was, how important Kurt Cobain's flannel shirt funk was to the writing process of such inspirational hits as "Scentless Apprentice" and whatnot, but really, looking back- Can you dig up a more listenable rock track from 15 years ago than this? Or, more important a question, can you handle how much ass this kicks?


Rage Against The Machine No Shelter Music via Noolmusic.com

If you wanted to break it down scientifically, you could analyze this song's current relevance primarily as a result of its restraint from soon-to-be-dated technology that sounds terrible 15 years after its recording, (see: all 80's music) but mostly i hand it to the bass work of timmy-c and the most confusing, angry-nonetheless-presumably-intelligent rapper ever. I wont even touch on Tom Morello, since i already spent the 90's treating him like the Maharashi. The breakdown at 3:00 minutes is bed-wetting good, and the fact that the song can get any heavier at 3:50 than it was at 3:30 makes me wonder how i ever learned to read.


Just think of the context we're dealing with here, with the 1990's as a decade in general. Rage Against the Machine playing in the same era as The Backstreet Boys is sort of like imagining Tiger Woods playing an 18-hole deathmatch against someone like Jon Lovitz. What i mean is, you know who comes out on top. Subway would find a new spokesman. To my credit, i do actually recall asking my dad if i could go see RATM at their protest concert outside the Democratic National Convention in LA in 2000. Why my father would prevent a 16 year old boy from his certain first hint of enlightenment (and probably arrest) at a massive firetorch rally in downtown Los Angeles is totally beyond me, and a conflict that likely threatens to plague our relationship until an unnecessarily large Christmas present is bestowed upon me.

Tim Curry vs. Tiny Flesh Eating Mutant Apes

Michael Crichton's recent passing saddens the literary and film worlds, but he has a special significance to me, as i just realized his books were the first i ever read and then immediately saw adapted to the big screen. I read Congo sometime around 1994, when i was listening to a lot of Coolio and feeling confused about life in general. I found a paperback copy of Congo in my grandmother's library, though in retrospect it seems unlikely she was responsible for putting it there. I read it cover to cover, and though i can't remember being particularly horrified in the reading process, i was big time into it.

A few months later, i coerced another kid's parents into taking us to see the movie, despite the fact that we were 11. There, i witnessed Tim Curry being eaten alive by miniature ravenous apes, who fell into an erupting volcano of molten lava. This, as i recall, was as traumatizing an experience as the time i saw Stargate with the same exact friend, and he fell asleep about ten minutes in, leaving me with Kurt Russell for a babysitter. This was my first experience of disappointment with film adaptation, and astonishment that a director had the power to interpret a book differently for a film. How dare they?


I immediately moved on to Jurassic Park, which, with one exception, did NOT disappoint in its film adaptation. Jeff Goldblum was the difference. He alone made up for the fact that the old guy/owner of the island escapes clean on the helicopter at the end, to wistfully look out the window and lament something like "god, what have i done?" In the book, that guy is eaten alive by about a hundred tiny, ravenous green dinosaurs. Not until 2008 would i piece together this tradition of Crichton's, having his characters meet a very chewy end, by a pack of overtly small, carnivorous animals. Oh well.

Then, if i remember correctly, i tried to read Sphere. On that one, i got about 40 pages in, and gave up. I think i saw the first half of that movie too, with Samuel L. Jackson and Queen Latifah. Things kind of went downhill around this point for my Crichton fanclub membership. Something about puberty really wrecked that whole author for me.

Al-Obama

While the polls lately have gotten me more excited than the prospect of a 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2' i'd like to cast a congratulatory note to states like Idaho and Alabama for having their priorities straight. While the Mccain/Palin ticket is nosediving into what's affectionately termed a "death spiral" with Joe the Plumber himself failing to show up to rallies for John, these states have their priorities straight. I'm talking about states like Idaho, where Mccain is leading by over 30 percent, and Alabama, a state that hasn't so much as joked about voting blue in over 3 decades (Carter!)

Why, it's almost as if i were trying to segue into the topic, as if i had this clip of Randy Newman i wanted to play the entire time.



And while i'm on this frivolous tirade, i might also bring attention to the fact that this is the first time in history BOTH non-contiguous states have had anything remotely significant to do with the American election. Being a native of the great Aloha State the majority of my life, i know of the unspoken rivalry between Alaska and Hawaii. While you might think it's enough to live in tropical paradise and break coconuts over giant lizards heads all day (when the surf isn't up) without making fun of Alaska, it really isn't. To Hawaiians, Alaska is generally regarded a distant province of Siberia, where they may or may not speak english, shoot wolves from helicopters, and watch Chevy Chase movies. This election will finally decide the importance/dominance of the non-contiguous states, and no matter what, we'll still have one more electoral vote. And this guy.

American Waters

Lest this blog become a vapid cesspool of late night television commercial mockery (actually that doesn't sound too bad) and not a forum for all things American and occasionally artsy, i thought i'd feature Alex Kirkbride's project "American Waters." Kirkbride took 3 years to travel over 100,000 miles in an Airstream trailer to photograph underwater images from all 50 states, from Elvis Presley's Graceland swimming pool to a cow's water tank in Kansas. He even got a guy with the last name Cousteau to write the introduction, something i had no idea was still currently possible.






from the introduction:

The results demonstrated how extraordinarily diverse underwater images could be. There was an impressionistic image of a cottonwood tree from New Mexico, an antique dentist's chair from Indiana, and an ore cart from a flooded mine in Missouri. I began to think about what else I might find on a lengthy trip around the country and how it might make a unique collection of images - a portrait of America from a fish's point of view, or a crocodile's, or a turtle's eye in a desert spring. It would be an enormous challenge to capture images expressive of American waters from coast to coast - a feat no one had ever attempted before...

Any body of water was fair game, so the quest for images led to diving and snorkelling in the most bizarre places, especially when it came to fresh water. Rivers, creeks, streams, lakes, springs, marshlands, caves, swamps, and wetlands were all explored. The expedition went to the source of the Mississippi River in Minnesota, and I even lay in a puddle in New York City. In Massachusetts at harvest time, I jumped into a flooded cranberry bog - cranberries being one of the few truly native fruits in the USA - to the great bewilderment of the farmers. For Kansas, when the time came to photograph cattle in some aquatic situation, I spoke to my friend Rob, the only person I knew from the Heartland State, the geographical centre of the contiguous United States. Rob's father put me in contact with a rancher, whose foreman didn't think my notion too far-fetched - until I asked to jump into the cows' water tank.

Having A Coke With You

Frank O'Hara, 1966

Whether You Like It or Not

This is probably only funny to me because i live in San Francisco, where leather-clad rollerbladers wave their ding dongs at chinese 3rd graders on a regular basis, but i'm going to put them up anyway. You can literally streak down Powell street frothing with a mouthful of pcp without reeeeaaaally offending anyone, simply for the fact that you're the only one there not asking anybody for money. But here, get a load of this nightmare that could potentially be coming to bite you in the republican-mom ass if we continue to let girls marry girls.



And, if you think little girls wondering if it might be okay to marry princesses someday are scary, just look at how scary mayor Gavin Newsom is. Why, from that clip they play over and over again, it seems as though he might be out of his crazy-cheat-on-his-girlfriend-all-the-time mind! And he must be, obsessing over these gays trying to have "civil rights" or whatever.



This ad makes it sound as though gay marriage is going to be mandatory for everyone soon. You're going to have to divorce your wives, send the kids off to gay camp, and accept the fact that somebody resembling Rip Taylor is going to have their way with you every day, whether you like it or not.

Loud 'N Clear

While i've been unsuccessful in baiting responses from different morons for two potentially great blog posts-to-be last week, i guess i'll have to settle for something like this, which i actually saw on television around 3 in the morning a few nights ago. Now, i can handle the nature of programming to slide into the depths of pathetic pandering toward the elderly, obese, and gullible dropouts looking for online degrees once it gets to that time of night. I know i shouldn't ever have the thing on during those hours, and it reflects poorly on me. But still. Can't i still fall out of my chair, no matter what time it is, when something like this comes on?



I don't know where to start, but i think the thing that stands the test of time is the woman yelling BinGOH! with that strange farm animal noise she makes at the very end. You might think the guy trying to score with the ladies at the sweet party they're all at is the best one. Did anyone under 65 ever actually buy it for that? Impossible, i say. Then i like the hunter, who obviously isn't even holding a gun, and looks a lot more terrified in his acting than someone might be who was trying to sneak up on a full grown canadian moose wearing a 14 dollar hearing aid. They've seemed to actually embrace the concept of Loud N Clear altering your reality altogether, as shown by the shrunken child voices and the woman in the pink top clearly experiencing an acid trip in the woods. But no, your favorite is grandma, just trying to sing at church, and a glimpse of her happy life around the retirement home. Making friends. Playing games. Its like summer camp, only you can't leave until, you know. At least someone is selling them these.

Royals Report Card, 2008

On opening day of the season, April 2, i laid out some predictions/ requirements for my beloved Royals, in hopes that this season would bring some changes to the way things have been for the last, oh, 20 years in Kansas City. While some of them were admittedly bold, none of these feats had been accomplished in 5 years of Royals baseball- Progress would be inevitable this year, not only for the fact that it was nearly impossible to do any worse than we've done for the last five seasons, but for the fact that we hired a new manager, renovated Kauffman Stadium, and i personally rode 600 miles on a vintage tandem bicycle across rural Kansas for 2 weeks just to support them.


So. Compared with my predictions from 7 months ago, lets take a look at the report card, and whether or not it's going on the fridge.

1. Finish the season within 5 games of .500

Record: 75-87 Okay, so we finished 12 games under .500. Last year we finished 24 games under. The year before that we finished 39 under. By previous standards, this season was a godsend. Still, 12 under. Grade: C+

2. Finish at least 3rd in the AL Central

Finished: 4th. For the first time in five seasons, we finished out of last place. We finished ahead of the Detroit Tigers, by one game. If you'd told me last season that we'd finish ahead of the Tigers in 08, i'd have gone out and gotten a tattoo of bigbird on my esophagus, because that should have meant we were going to the world series. Still, looks good on paper. Grade: B-

3. Somebody on team must hit 25+ homers

Home Runs: Jose Guillen hit 20 homers, Alex Gordon squeaked 16. No long ball. No run support. Grade: C

4. Two players must hit 20+ homers

Obviously one did. Alex probably would have if he hadn't injured himself doing something like this:


5. Alex Gordon, rookie sensation, must hit 20 homers or 70+ rbi's

Alex was groovy, but not a rookie sensation. He hit 16 and batted in 59. Would have done it had he not gotten hurt. No excuses. Grade: B-

6. At least one player must hit 100+ rbi's

Jose Guillen, in his infinite bitchiness, did knock in 97 rbi's. Couldn't he have just banged out 3 more in that last game? Jeez. Still, last year's rbi leader on the Royals only hit 60. So again, in comparison, we're mammoth right now. Grade: A-

7. Three players must finish season hitting .300 or higher

Mike Aviles: .325
David Dejesus: .307
Mark Grudzielanek: .299

Aviles and Dejesus. Unstoppable. Constant hitting. Gamers. And ol' Grud. Grade: A-

8. Two pitchers must earn 15+ wins

Gil Meche: 14-11
Zack Greinke: 13-10

I can't believe this didn't happen, because Zack Greinke is better than Optimus Prime plus Kurt Russell in the 90's. Zack Greinke is to the Royals pitching rotation what beer is to Tony Stewart. He'll win 18 games next season. You'll all owe me money. Grade: B+


9. Two players must be elected to 2008 All Star Team

Only Joakim Soria made it to the team, and he actually pitched! Granted, the game had to go 13 innings for that to happen, but shut your mouth. Grade: B-

10. Jose Guillen must hit 20+ home runs, use no steroids

Jose hit 20 homers. I assume he didn't juice, but he did threaten fans, throw fitty tantrums, and act like a hemorrhoid a few times. If he didn't club 97 rbi's, i might even speak ill of him. Grade: A-

11. Joey Gathright must steal 25+ bases, harm no old ladies

Gathright:21 stolen bases. Joey is so freaking fast, he's already in the 2009 season. Nobody else is, but he's there and just waiting for next March. If he hadn't gotten hurt this year he'd have doubled it, and i don't care what happens to old ladies anymore. Greatest player on earth.

12. Team must post winning record at Kauffman Stadium

Didn't happen. Put the crown back on the screen. Things will change. Grade: C

13. Manager Trey Hillman must be ejected from at least 2 games

Trey was ejected from at least two games, and god bless him. I hope Buddy Bell took copious notes on the spit in the umpire's cornea. We all know you have to get mad before you get better Grade: A

14. Two starting pitchers must finish season with ERA under 3.50

Zack "Christ" Grienke: 3.47 ERA
Gil Meche: 3.98

It's good enough to have two pitchers under 4, but we really need to see this number go down. Brian Bannister pitched like an idiot this year. The fact of the matter is, we could have drafted Tim Lincecum instead of Luke Hochevar. We could be drinking Aquafina instead of camel urine. Grade: B

15. Closer Joakim Soria must earn 30+ saves

Joakim Soria belongs on the fridge. In notching 42 saves for us with an era of 1.60, that guy deserves a key to the city. He deserves a key to America. And a Cy Young. And an unlimited shopping spree at the Sharper Image. Grade: A+

16. Two pitchers must strike out 150+ batters

Zack Greinke: 183
Gil Meche: 183

I should do 183 pushups right now for these guys. Two seasons ago, our top two pitchers struck out 76 and 72 batters. Excuse me? Can you say 200 in '09? Grade: A+

17. Royals must slaughter San Francisco Giants on June 21st.


On the day i first arrived at Kauffman Stadium after riding 600 miles on a tandem bicycle for two weeks, (see here) i watched the Royals fall behind 10-3 to Tim Lincecum and the woeful Giants. And i felt blue. However, the Royals managed the second greatest comeback in franchise history that afternoon, eventually winning 11-10 thanks to Joey Gathright. It was the single greatest game i've ever witnessed in person. Also, they were in the old Monarchs jerseys. Also, i was delirious. Grade: A+

As you can see, this was a hell of a season for my boys, and further proof that next season they'll be ruining lives all over the American League Central. These kids are going to be in the playoff picture before you can say Saberhagen, and i can't give them anything lower than a B- this year for their landmark progress and finishing out of the cellar for the first time in five years. I might even make it a solid B. You could still show your grandma that. Go Royals, and we'll see you in Surprise, 2009.