The horror

Look, I knew the Nats were going to suck this year. Anyone who knew anything about baseball knew the Nats were going to suck this year. But the sucking is so sucktastic, so very, very special, that I think everyone should pause and wonder if we have another Calvin Griffith on our hands for an owner.

Griffith, for those of you who don’t know, was the notoriously tightwadded owner of the original Senators (who eventually left town and became the Minnesota Twins). The Senators were perpetual non-competitors, leading to the term “First in war, first in peace and last in the American League.” Fans grew tired of the sucktastic act, giving Griffith just the opening he wanted to leave town.

The Nats’ lead owner is Ted Lerner. He looked over the landscape upon purchasing the team and rightly concluded that he should pour his resources into re-stocking and developing the pathetic farm system he was handed. I’ve got no qualms there — to a point. What I *DO* have qualms with is his decision to intentionally put a completely non-competitive team on the field — including perhaps the worst starting rotation in the entire history of major league baseball — instead of spending a few mill to find at least one veteran pitcher who could chew up a few innings and win a few games.

The payroll of the Nats this year is about $37 million. That is ahead of only two sad-sack teams — Florida and Tampa — in all of major league baseball, even though the Washington metro area ranks fourth in the country in population and is one of the nation’s most affluent metro areas. NO team in a market this big and rich should EVER have a baseball payroll that low, in my opinion. It borders on bad faith.

Let’s say the Nats had picked up one middlin’ sort of starting pitcher for, oh, $5 million a year. That would have moved the Nats from 28th in payroll among the 30 major league teams to — surprise! 27th. In fact, if the Nats DOUBLED their payroll, they’d still be in the bottom half of major league squads.That would still leave plenty of room for building up a system.

The Nats are a big-market team acting like a small-market…no, wait, a bush league…team. When their expected-to-be-mediocre bats didn’t click at all at the beginning of the season and their pitching lived down to expectations, the result was a 2-8 start. Already, the new owner is reaping what he has sown, and I’m not going to give him long after this year to prove to me he has a clue. I fear Lerner will join a fine Washington tradition of failed owners — in other words, he’ll be just like every other sports team owner in this town right now.

On Imus

You’ve undoubtedly heard about the Don Imus controversy, so I won’t get into that — other than to think what I often have thought concerning him: “What took so long?”

I first heard of Don Imus in 1992, after Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign told reporters the candidate would make an appearance on the radio program. Some of my colleagues said, “Uh oh,” and some others snickered about it, and I soon learned why Imus was Imus.

So did Gwen Ifill, then of The New York Times and my favorite reporter on that campaign. She declined to appear on his show — at a time when other reporters were clamoring to get on the program — and Imus reportedly responded (even Ifill isn’t entirely sure) by asking on the air why the Times allowed “the cleaning lady” to cover the White House. She’s got some interesting thoughts about that — in a measured, direct style that still makes me envious of her skills.

Imus eventually got simulcast on MSNBC, and I’ve watched snippets of it in the mornings at times — in part because his musical tastes and mine are almost perfectly in sync (alt-country, Americana and blues). Still, I’ve heard his trash talk at times over the years and wondered why no one has slapped him down — and also wondered even more why so many high-profile journalists were so willing to go on the air with him.

That day may be at an end. The Washington Post probably summed it up best in an editorial: “Those who bask in the glow of his radio show ought to consider whether they should continue doing so. After all, you’re judged by the company you keep.”

So long baby goodbye

This year’s Hottie Cyborg wasn’t as hot, as cyborg-like or as vocally talented as last year’s edition, so she got booted to the curb tonight on The Show. Uncle Fester almost got it instead, and choosing between those two was like choosing between cancer and tuberculosis — you’re glad to get rid of one, but one still haunts you.

But now, we start getting a real field. Fester probably can’t survive another week. After that, I think Eraserhead will be shown the door. And after that — finally, sweet Jesus — I think the Toy Boy will go home. And after that, I won’t predict, because that’s when things will really start getting to be fun.

A few (more) push pins

Here’s another Google map: Local bars (the ones I can remember, anyway) where I have played.

Putting together this map brought back some memories. I have played in are more bars than this (and there are close to 50 bars listed here), but I can’t remember the names of all of them. For example, there also were the Southern bar/Doe’s Eat Place combo in Georgetown where I often played until it closed a few years back; a very bizarre back-door lounge in some anonymous Arlington building (in the front was a Korean restaurant and weekend Korean disco;  the cool Koreans would sneak out of the disco and slum with us, and eventually the whole place got flattened and replaced with a Hollywood Video); and some godawful place in Arlington’s Courthouse area where I played with a pickup band and the manager hated us so much that he shut down the power to the stage. Enjoy.

A few push pins

I go to Vegas almost every year — this year, I’m going in August with a bunch of guys — and just for grins, I’ve built this Google Maps mashup of lounges and bars where I’ve had good times on the Strip. Of course, the current Vegas ultralounge culture is too young and hip for me, but there are alternatives and I have enjoyed exploring them.

By the way, Google Maps just put out a tool making it easy to make these mashups. I recommend it highly.