Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

Yeah, man, it’s been a while. This guy has been busy. And the busy-ness will continue, along with the business. A few shows, a few other things, heat, biking, a job, avoiding Cubs games, a few beers, a porch, paint and more paint. I’m tired. I have things to say but I’m not taking the time to say them. Not today. So it’s more pictures, because they’re easy.

After Saturday’s epic win over the White Sox, it seemed apparent that the Cubs were ready to turn this season around and go for the glory. Alas, the winds of change came roaring over the lake by Sunday and the beautiful 80-degree weather of the previous day had turned for the worst. I bundled up in three layers, thinking I was over-doing it, and headed out to Wrigley for my first game of the season. Future brother-in-law Captain W was meeting me at “that shitty little bar right off the Red Line” so I looked around and walked into The Dugout, the only shitty bar I could see underneath the train.

I sat and drank a dollar draft and ate peanuts as the frat boys high-fived each other and the girls hiked their thongs up and out of their jeans. Not so attractive, really. This bar sucked. I finished my beer and walked outside to wait for the Captain, and he finally appeared as the first inning was half over. In we went, climbing to the upper deck and sitting down, overlooking right field. I quickly found out that I wasn’t over-doing it all; it was really cold and I put my hoody up. The skies were grey and dreary but the Cubs scored one early and things were looking good. Until the second inning, where the Sox took a 2-1 lead and held on to it.

Let’s just cut to it: two outs in the seventh and suddenly the Sox explode for seven runs, boom, and the game is all but over. It happened so quick I don’t even remember it. Tim Robbins appeared to sing the seventh-inning stretch and after that we were outta there. We watched the rest of the game at some bar on Clark Street that had free tacos as the rains came and went. Final score: 10-6 Sox, and the sweep was not to be. Zambrano still looks haunted by the ghost of Mark Prior and can’t seem to remember how to pitch. D. Lee could not pull off the heroics two days in a row. The bullpen still sucks. Dempster is going to be a starter?

Oh, and I won’t even begin to comment on the creeping commercialism at Wrigley, the ads on the rain tarps, the dugouts, the outfield walls… The horror, the horror…!

I came home for a brief interlude and a couple more beers and then we were off to the Chicago Theater for the Arcade Fire show. Our seats were pretty good up in the balcony and we were all happy to see Electrelane open up (they’re a good band that also play at the Empty Bottle on Tuesday). I had heard that the Arcade Fire would walk out through the doors and down the aisle to the stage but it never happened, they just appeared as the lights went down and we were off. Opening song: “Wake Up.” Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

The new stuff off of Neon Bible is apparently pretty heavy against organized religion, which is right up my alley, but I still found the Funeral songs to be better, both live and on record. Whatever, it was still a pretty awesome show, and the sound was loud and good. Unfortunately, the past two times I’ve seen Arcade Fire (at the Riv and Lollapalooza) were so great that it’s going to be hard to ever top those. That Lolla show was especially amazing. But let’s just say that it was another great show by a band that has set the bar high.

After the second encore the lights went up and it was over. My weekend began to catch up with me, which also included a wedding on Saturday and a rock show last Thursday that started it all. Happy Birthday to Pete Townshend and my friends Bob and Scott, and the rest of the world, here comes another week…

Alright, Cubs have taken a big 6-3 lead into the ninth inning, Ryan Dempster on the mound, hold everything! Yeah, I’m back. Why? I don’t know. It’s a mistake, for sure. Been out getting tires fixed and other stuff…hey, there’s one out! Fly ball to left. Come on, Dempster, you bum! I haven’t forgotten yesterday’s disaster!

White Sox had a lead for most of the game until the 7th. Some late-inning heroics have turned the tables here at Wrigley. Not to mention some errors by the team in black.

Strikeout, we’ve got two outs! Everybody, on their feet! Ah, it’s a good-looking crowd! There’s strike one! Keep it up, Dumpster, you’re not out of the woods yet! Foul ball, two strikes, this is it! Crowd going wild. And the pitch…it’s a ball. There it is, strike three, Cubs win! You gotta like the looks of this team! A solid effort all around. Ah, redemption is sweet! Here are the happy totals: for the Cubs, six runs, eleven hits, no errors. For the enemy, three runs, six hits, four big errors. Better luck next time, Sox fans! How ’bout an Old Style?

So long, everybody!

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I just witnessed one half inning of Cubs baseball that is just about enough for me to give up any ties to this team, FOREVER! I didn’t watch the game until I saw that it was 5-1 Cubs in the bottom of the ninth, and so I thought I would catch the last outs. Ha! A simple, innocent thought: the “last outs.”

I turned on the television and the bases were already loaded, Dempster pitching. Apparently he had walked a few, gave up a single, and it just got worse after that. Another walk, another single, the bases stayed loaded and they kept pushing another in, single, single, until it was tied up. And then, the final ignominy, one last single, and the game was lost 6-5.

This team is awful. The pitchers always walk people and they always score. They have players like Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez who are great on paper but they never seem to hit at the same time. That have a rotating cast of outfielders that suck. They have Ceasar Izturis, Ronny Cedeno, Jacque Jones, some of the worst hitters around. They have Ryan Dempster, the shittiest reliever in the league! What is wrong with this team? Why must the Cubs always suck?

I am done with this team!

Huh. There’s not one civil war in Iraq, but “several civil wars” between rival communities, says a report blaring from Drudge right now. “It can be argued that Iraq is on the verge of being a failed state which faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation,” says the report.

Now, is it time to admit how wrong we were to ever engage in this war and get out, or do we continue lying and dying without any solution in sight? You know what the fools who got us in think, and they unfortunately have not yet been led out of the White House in handcuffs and charged with war crimes (Rumsfeld, too). So dig in and await the latest death toll, people!

One thing is certain: despite the weak efforts of the Democrats to end this war, they have failed, and so this remains George Bush’s War, and the Republican Apologists’ War, and when it is finally time to admit defeat and go home you can be sure who is to blame for this epic disaster.

It’s Christopher Hitchens, once again, with a scathing “obituary” of Mr. Falwell that made me laugh out loud. I really want to leave this whole thing behind and float above the fray, but I just had to quote one last tribute to the “faith-based fraud,” for a few laughs:

It’s a shame that there is no hell for Falwell to go to, and it’s extraordinary that not even such a scandalous career is enough to shake our dumb addiction to the “faith-based.”

UPDATE:

I just got around to watching this, but goddamn, if Hitchens doesn’t just lay it out there so perfectly! I agree with every word he says in this interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Well done!

I added this link a while back and I feel I should give it a proper salute: Pop Songs 07. This guy writes about R.E.M. songs. That’s it. Every day, a song from Murmur or Monster or Up or Chronic Town, even Reveal, analyzed in a paragraph or two. If you love or ever loved R.E.M., this site is awesome. If you thought they lost it after Bill Berry left, this site is awesome. If you think Around the Sun is a masterpiece…you probably need to listen to Reckoning again and wise up.

Since I can think of nothing good to say about him, I’ll say nothing. And pray for the repose of his soul.

- Andrew Sullivan

Wow. Sullivan can’t even manage any words of respect, and this from a true Christian! I can’t think of anything good to say about him either, but at the very least we can review, in his own words, the legacy of Jerry Falwell:

(Speaking of 9/11) “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”

“AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals.”

“I do question the sincerity of people like the Reverend Martin Luther King.”

“I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we don’t have public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them.”

“I do not believe that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.”

“The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.”

“The Bible is the inerrant … word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible,without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.”

Enough! Falwell is done.

In honor of Falwell’s passing, we shall commemorate in style here at The Booze Cabinet (as per usual) with a link to a clip at onegoodmove. Bill Maher interviews Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, on his Real TIme show and it is a conversation that I think you will enjoy, complete with a nod to Northern Ireland, where this week it was finally announced that “they’re going to officially stop killing each other for being the wrong kind of Christian.” I certainly haven’t agreed with Mr. Hitchens on everything, but on this subject, well, what’s not to like?