DREAM THERAPY
I had a dream the other night. It was a feverish, terrible dream, like a tornado of thoughts leaving a path of destruction through the trailer park of my brain, or a Uwe Bolle movie. I almost dare not recount it, for fear that the thoughts, the terrible, nightmarish thoughts, may once again plague my wakeful sleep, but I crave a release from the torture of my nights; failing that, I crave the company of others that share my horror. What follows is the fabrication of a sick and delirious mind…
The scene is some godforsaken South American jungle, where the rain never ceases to fall, and the snakes in the trees and the leopards in the shadows have an unyielding hunger, never sated, and only occasionally slaked by the blood of man.
Into this steaming hell, walked three such men. It was me, Bear Grylls, and a small Dominican shortstop hacking our way through the insect-infested, vine-choked labyrinth; a place where life and death commingled, where the steaming, fetid climate brought terrible and otherworldly visages to the periphery, only to melt to shadow and fog when confronted. I took point, after the shortstop, who had initially been tasked with blazing the trail, had swung and missed with the machete so many times that he almost succeeded in permanently and irrevocably damaging our group’s ability to progress.
As I hacked and tore at the dense vines, my hands wet with a mixture of their sap and the liquid from my torn and bleeding blisters, I became aware that the foliage was gradually subsiding; the saplings and vines were thinner, younger, easier to cut, like a cabana boy in Michael Jackson’s vacation home. This had been a trail at some point, a trail that could lead us to freedom. With renewed vigor I slashed at the undergrowth; with renewed vigor, Bear Grylls used his cell phone to reserve a room at the Holiday Inn, call in a helicopter that featured in-flight wine tasting, and fly out of the jungle, landing in the parking lot of the nearest Stuckey’s Pizza; with renewed vigor, the shortstop ran wildly in circles and screamed nursery rhymes at the top of his lungs.
With a final mighty hack, I cut through a final vine, and stumbled into a clearing. It was a grassy knoll, at the top of which was an Incan pyramid, overgrown with lichen and moss. The sun, before blotted by the ever-present clouds and mist, had burned a singular hole in the cloudcover, bathing the pyramid in an almost holy yellow light. At the top was the figure of a man, dancing the dance of the delirious and crazed. From the distance we could only make out his silhouette, but his body was desiccated with age, and burnt leather-brown by the sun. On his head he wore the headdress of a high priest; in his left hand he carried a spear; in his right, a gleaming, golden knife; in his mouth was a toothpick.
Somewhere, in the distance, a pan flute played.
I approached cautiously, taking care to silence my footsteps as I climbed the golden pyramid with a mixture of awe and reverence; drawn on, fearfully, by the onrushing tides of fate.
“Go not this way, lest your fate and mine be cleaved as one,” quoth the leathern spectre, as he continued the grotesquerie of his dance, “dude.”
I bent to one knee, forced by the combination of the power of the visage before me, the sun glinting off the gold of his weapons, the copper and turquoise beads strung round his neck and dangling from piercings in his ears flying this way and that like demonic faeries of a different age, and the fact that my Dominican Tormenter had leapt upon my back like a sex-crazed hyena and was wildly humping my shoulder while singing “I’m a little teapot.”
“Good sir,” I said above the din, “we are but lost, weary travelers and/or crazed Dominican shortstops. We know not the way we traverse, and our guide has forsaken us. We are ships without sextants. We are sextantless. Please, good sir, we need assistance, or surely we shall perish. We need guidance. We need a sextant. I want your sextant, baby.”
“I was once like you,” he said, his breath even despite the acrobatics he displayed. “I wandered to this place, alone, hungry, making bad George Michael jokes.” For a moment, his dance slowed and he became almost wistful. “Mine involved a bathroom.”
“Sir,” I pleaded again, “can you at least do something about…” I jerked my head toward the Dominican, who at this point was eating fistfuls of green pills out of a ziplock.
With a mighty hack of his great, golden sword, the demonically dancing demigod shuffled off the mortal coil of my once comrade. Suddenly, the pan flute stopped; a great, still silence fell upon the golden temple, and coal-black clouds began to gather overhead. The single needle of sunlight that lit the temple was snuffed, and thunder began to ring out across the treetops. I was dimly aware of a distant rumble, like the sound the third and ill-advised chili dog makes in your stomach, letting you know of the terror waiting in the wings.
His eyes widened. His dancing slowed, until finally he was simply tapping one toe. This, too, eventually stopped. He stared hard at the gap-toothed grin on the face of the disembodied head lying at his feet.
“What…what have I done?!?” he shrieked in an unholy wail. “He was the chosen one!!” He pointed his staff at the tiled mosaic we were standing upon. It was wrought with great precision, filigreed and latticed with goldleaf and polished silver; precious gems were studded within; ivory and volcanic glass were finished to a high shine.
It took a moment for me to realize what it was: a lineup card. In the #2 spot in the batting order had been written:
Suddenly, a great shriek emanated from the very center of the pyramid, shattering the silence like moist flatus in a crowded elevator. The sky broke like a nine-and-a-half-months pregnant woman’s water, and hail the size of canned hams fell like standards at a singles bar at half-past-vodka-tonic-o’clock. The earth shook like the gelatinous subcutaneous masses on the spandex-clad thigh of the fat woman using food stamps to buy a box of ho-hos in front of you in line at WinCo. Great fissures cracked the surface of the pyramid, exposing its weakness much as this paragraph exposes the weakness of my writing.
I ran. I ran like a simile from a bad writer’s mouth. Down the steps of the pyramid, across the clearing, and back to the dense undergrowth of the jungle. Before I threw myself back into that twisted nest of thorns and vines, I looked back one last time at the golden temple. At the top, I could see the head priest, holding the small, lifeless body aloft over his head. I thought I could hear the rasp of his voice one last time:
“Why, Neifi? WHY?“
I awoke from this nightmare, my skin clammy, my throat raw from my own screams. What did it mean? What did it mean?
It is thus that I begin this, The Week That Was. As follows:
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: DEADLINE DEALS
Well, seeing as though this post should technically be titled “The Two Months that Were”, it surprises no one that there were a buttload of trades propagated upon the league in the intervening time. This was due largely to my brilliant idea of including a trade deadline (moving target though it may have been), providing an impetus for managers to revisit their stables for the stretch drive. It all began with my brilliant move of getting rid of Josh “Captain Blisterhands” Beckett for Jake “You Might Be A Redneck” Peavy. Time has, as it always does, told on this trade, and I’d like to point out that I rock it like a hurricane. Peavy “The Bed” went 5-0 with a 1.36 ERA for the month of August, while “Samuel A`” Beckett managed a meager 3-1 with a 2.86. Okay, so it wasn’t that big a difference. Sue me.
The next trade was a buster of block proportions. Corky Romano sent CC “I Ate A Baby” Sabathia and Aramis “Brown Santo” Ramirez to The Tenth Letter for Garrett “Who?” Atkins and Johan “Dirty” Santana. I’m not an expert, but I do play one on the Internet. My personal take is that it’s been a pretty even trade. The Who has gone on a rampage over the last month, hitting .330 in that span with 3 HR and 20 RBIs. The Black Magic Woman, on the other hand, has been perfectly mortal the past 30 days, with a 2-1 record and a 3.37 ERA. Fatback DelLardbutt, on the other hand, has been a little closer to the angels for The Jabal Saag, posting a 2.05 ERA over the last month, even though his record is the identical 2-1. A-Ram the Man Ram (hm…sounded better in my head) has almost kept pace with Quadrophenia, to the tune of a .310 avg and 3HR/13RBIs. Where this trade will be interesting will be next season, since Westyside now has Santa Anita’s rights for next season.
The Filthy Pirates and The Deutschland Terror got in on the excitement when The Dirty Krauts broke ties with their Axis brethren by sending Ichiro “Tora! Tora! Tora!” Ichiro to the “She Hops Around Saying ‘AAAAARGH!'”‘s for the one-two punch of Joe “The Jesus and” Mauer “Chain” and Bobby “On a Wing and” Abreu. It, again, has been a close trade, but I’d have to give the benefit to the Blackbeards, since ICHIRO! has hit almost .400 (!!) over the last month, while stealing 7 bases and getting 46 (!!!!) hits. The worst of the trade has been “The Lawn” Mauer “Man”, hitting .258 with zero HR and a paltry 6 RBIs. “I pray you don’t look at me” Abreu “Don’t look back”, on the other hand, has kept up his end of the bargain, hitting a solid .291 with 5 HR and 21 RBIs.
The Corkers were at it again with the 4th Deadline Deal, trading Ivan “It’s b12! Swear to God!” Rodriguez and Carl “Not Cindy” Crawford to his “room mate” the Eh Steve’s for Brian “One Can, Toucan,” McCann and David “Two Wrongs Make A” Wright. The clear stud from this trade was “Dudley Do”Wright, going .394/.516/.657 for the month of August, with 6 HR and 21 RBI. Shits. Mr. Cork wasn’t the beneficiary of this bounty, however, as you’ll see next. Pudge, on the other hand, was Less Than Optimal, batting at a rousing .244 clip, with 1 HR and 4 whopping RBIs for August. “Hot” Carl, on the other hand, was a worthy addition for the Eh’s, tearing up the league at a .388 pace and going 11/12 in the stolen base department. Brian McCann wasn’t a slouch either, with a .394 AVG, 5 HR and 19 RBIs.
In the final, and complicated, Dread Lime Meal, Herr Corkenstein sent Wright “Place, Wrong Time” to DaCheaters for Albert “Insert Butthole Joke Here” Pujols “Get it? Insert?”. Alberto El Gordo has been decent for the Cork Soakers, putting up 7 HR for the month of August, but has only hit 1 double, and more than half of his RBIs have been his own morbidly obese frame. I believe we’ve already been over “Orville” Wright’s stats.
TOP PERFORMERS
While I’d really like to take this time to point out that I’m still rocking out with my first place out, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Weston has managed to add a full 13 points over the last 2 months. If he’s lucky, he might be able to add another 13 in the next two months. Oh wait, there’s only 27 games left in the season.
My bad.
In the half league, however, things have gotten interesting, as all of the early pitch-and-ditchers (myself, unfortunately, included) have finally hit their innings max, and have started falling like the leaves of Autumn. Currently Eamon sits in first, though it appears tenuous at best since he, too, has pitched all he’ll ever pitch and must attempt to hold on solely on the power of his offense. Only time will tell.
TOP PERFORMERS: At Sucking
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Hey. nothing like a lazy Thursday. Maybe I’ll go crank one out and then watch Jonny Quest reruns and drink room temperature plastic bottle gin out of a dirty tumbler until the pain in my soul becomes a dull, numb ache and I can’t feel my face anymore.”
Wow. You’re a small, sad excuse for a human being.
BASEBALL, RAY
Now this, my friends, is a pennant race.
Sort of.
It’s like this: a normal pennant race can be roughly equated to a turn-of-the-century bare knuckle boxing match. Two rugged, square-jawed, usually Irish men would stand toe to toe and take turns hitting each other as hard as they could. Each of them would be an impenetrable brick wall, impervious, raining blows like Zsa Zsa Gabor at a policeman’s ball; they would fight, these Mastodons of Muscle, as a testament to the sheer force and brutality that man was capable of, quitting only when the final bell rung and the winner was declared.
This isn’t that kind of a pennant race. This is more like a Tuesday afternoon slapfight between the functionally retarded couple that lives in the rent-controlled apartment across the street after one of them took the last Jello Pudding Pop without offering to share. The one with the pudding pop will start to run away, but then it’ll start melting so he’ll stop to lick it, and she’ll catch up and start slapping at the back of his head, yelling “NOOOOOO! I WANNA PUDDIN! I WANNA PUDDIN!” So he’ll run away again, but this time he’ll slip on his untied shoelaces and wind up dropping the dessert into the gutter, and he’ll start crying because he stabbed himself in the throat with Bill Cosby’s brown shaft before it rolled into the storm drain. And she’ll see that he’s crying and try to make it better, but in the process will just wind up poking him in the eye, and eventually they’re both crying and hugging and drooling and saying “AH LUFF YOU SOOO MUCH” and they wind up having sex in the pool again and you have to call the management and Jesus Christ what happened to your life that you live in a place like this.
Yeah. It’s kind of like that. Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Chicago Cubs.
FIN
And that…was The Week That Was.