Viva la Sioux Falls (go Canaries!)

Sioux Falls, you have been a surprise.

I guess I assumed that so far removed were thee from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the GREAT NATION STATE that you wouldn't get me, or I wouldn't get you, or we wouldn't get each other and would just spend 4 nights staring back and forth like two people on an interminable first date.

Thus was not the case.

The crowds were perfect. They were in no particular order: polite, enthusiastic, astute and eager to listen (I know I sound like I'm describing a young suitor from a Jane Austen novel but that's how they were).

I can't wait to come back here next year. Hell, even the bachelorette party on Saturday night was perfectly behaved. How often does that happen?

I've noticed something lately. Small-town America ain't so small anymore. No when it comes to ideas, anyway.

Perhaps it's the greater access to information these burgs have nowadays. The 24-hour cable news networks and the internet providing a portal to every tidbit and morsel of goings on, thereby allowing for deeper, more measurable amounts of cultural penetration into the outer sectors of society.

Perhaps...

Or maybe, just maybe I just shouldn't prejudge people.

I dunno. All I know is I had a great time at the Sioux Falls Canaries game yesterday.


This wasn't Triple A, Double, nor even lowly Single A ball. No this was independent Northern League ball.


These are guys hanging on to the dream by the thread of a thread's second cousin.

I have to say, it doesn't get any better or purer for someone of my tastes.

$10 bucks for a box seat right behind first base. A hot dog and a Diet Coke in hand and I was in small stadium heaven.

Loved the atmosphere. Families everywhere, everyone there before the first pitch and staying 'til the last. Not a swear word to be heard.

I sat two rows in front of a greasy-haired 50 year-old chatterbox with a set of teeth like piano keys who never met a Canaries player he couldn't root on or an opposing batter he couldn't work up a jeer or two against. Clad in his late model Rolling Stones concert T-shirt, he was one of those "wants to be funny but never will be" type guys. A know it all. Cliff Claven in Sioux Falls.

The type of guy who stands during the part of the game when everyone else is sitting down.

But I was glad he was there. I found it comforting to hear his unending chatter - rah rah encouragements for the home team mingled with conspiratorial accusations in the wake of every close or downright bad judgment on the part of the umps.

It wasn't satisfying to him that the umpires would actually make an honest mistake from time to time or call to call. No he had to believe these men were actually from the other team's home town or were perhaps in receipt of a bribe from some opposing coach/owner/evil baseball game fixer. Some malfeasance was occurring and would not go uncommented upon as long as Cliff was present, ever-vigilant in the seats behind first.

There was no pitch, no ball or strike, no infield pop-up, no well-laid bunt he couldn't work himself into a frenzy of either joy or disgust over. Every baseball game needs one of these guys. He was this one's.

Now for the recap...

At first the Canaries didn't look to be swinging so hot, falling down 4 to 1 in the early going. But then a bases loaded opportunity in the bottom of the 5th inning led to a no out double and then a homer for a grand total of 7 big runs that turned the tide of the game for good.

Go Canaries indeed!



Lots of in between inning hijinks to kill the time.

An Axe thrower popping balloons between his assistant's legs, a unicycler juggling chainsaws, the Canaries' mascot being chased down and tackled by a ten year-old who won a prize for doing thus.

By the way - is that not the creepiest mascot ever? I mean, what happened to the full body suit? Did he misplace his bird gloves? There is just something incredibly disturbing about seeing a man with a canary face and human hands.

Other than that it was a successful afternoon and a great week in Sioux Falls. I hope I come here every summer and I hope the Canaries win it all this year, whatever "all" is in the Northern Leagues.

It was all enough for me.

I am old...

I'm old.

Not old like "I'm gonna die any minute old".

I'm old like "I can't believe I played basketball 3 days in a row" old.
34 is too old for the NBA and it sure as hell is too old for the rec center.

My legs feel like I ran a marathon and my back thinks somebody tried to collect a debt from me with a bat.

Ah well. I'm in Dayton with a day off and this is truly the silly season. No football to watch on TV and nothing on CNN but politicians trying to prove who believes in Jesus more.

I should have gone to the minor league Dayton Dragons game today. Damn! Didn't occur to me 'til I was writing this.

I will tell you one thing for sure, next Sunday night I will be watching the Sioux Falls Canaries take on the hated Sioux City Explorers.

Then the following week I'm gonna check out the Peoria Chiefs openin' up a can of whoop-ass on the West Michigan Whitecaps.

After all, what good is being out here all alone in the midwest summer if I can't have a hot dog and watch somebody chase their dreams 'round the ol' basepath?

I'm OK, You're Fucked Up

I am a nervous wreck of steel.

I am a beautiful crater of hate.

I am a strange rat shivering under an umbrella of uncertainty.

I am done with my shows in Dayton. For the year.

It's getting towards that part of the cycle. Time to start booking. Time to worry about January.

I miss smoking copious amounts of pot after a performance.
It made it easier to be alone in a strange city after a show.

I haven't smoked any since January.

It made things interesting and mellow and most of all - when combined with the correct amount and type of other substances - unfeeling.

NyQuil and Xanax alone don't do the trick. They help but I need to shut it down completely somtimes.

To escape from my thoughts for a brief instant of calm in an ocean of fret.

I need it.

My uninterrupted minute of love and serotonin overload.

THC mixed with Xanax mixed with "Chris Mathews' Hardball" mixed with the New York Times Crossword.

Alas, what bliss is this!

Unfortunately there is always a price to pay for escape. The ticket out costs more than I want to pay.

I always wind up back in my own skin, missing something I can't get back.

Drugs suck and they ruin your life.

But like ex-girlfriends and other things that are bad for you, well...

... sometimes you miss them.

Other than that it was a great week and Dayton fucking rocks! See you next year D-town!

I drive to Sioux Falls day after tomorrow. More updates as events warrant.

Peace,
Sean

Doublethink Alert

According to Orwell's "1984", the concept or practice of doublethink is:

"The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them..."

I run into this shit a lot lately.

Yesterday I was listening to Hugh Hewitt and he said (I'm paraphrasing):

"I'm not fear-mongering! I don't care what Olbermann says! Nobody cares what Olbermann says! I am not a fear-mongerer! Now let me give you some reasons not to vote for Barack Obama. Number one - he will ruin your economic future. Number two - he will get you killed."

Wow.

That is some 4th degree blackbelt level doublethink.

I also saw "actor" Stephen Baldwin on Faux News talking about how Hillary and Barack "hated each other's guts" during the primary.

Then he saw them on TV huggingg the other day and to him that was an example of how the Democratic Party will "literally do whatever it has to, whether it's authentic or not, to win this election."

Now let's be honest. The Dems had a tough primary. Sort of like John McCain and Dubya had in 2000. Remember when Karl Rove spread rumors in S. Carolina that McCain's adoptive Bangladeshi daughter was actually his illegitimate black child?

How do you think that made McCain feel?
I mean Bush's campaign went after his daughter!
Do you think he was filled with feelings of love and tenderness towards the dear leader?

Or do you think he wanted to beat the living shit out of ol' Georgie-boy and Turd-Blossom?

Regardless, in the 2004 general election we were treated to this creepiness...







Now the Obama/Clinton primary reached some fairly heady levels of nastiness (mostly from Clinton's side - the 3 AM phone call ad, etc.). However nothing came even close to the shit Rove pulled on McCain's little girl.

But obviously poor little Stevie has had his political theater cherry popped by the horrible spectacle of Hill and Big O huggin' it out.

Anyway, Baldwin also went on to say...

"What is freaky to me is the media and Hollywood is so convinced that Middle America and mainstream America cares what it thinks."

Right. Well what is freaky to me is that Baldwin doesn't understand the irony of his statement.

Because when he was saying it (and I could be wrong ) he really seemed to believe people should care what he thinks.

And I don't want to be an asshole, but...

Hello, Steve!!!! YOU'RE FROM HOLLYWOOD!!!!

That's why you're on Faux News! Not because you're an incisive, well-respected intellectual or a member of some obscure think-tank!

No, you're on TV giving your opinion because you made fucking Bio-Dome with Pauly Shore.!

Anyway I'm actually having a pretty good day. I've just been re-reading Orwell and the term doublethink really got me... thinking.

But not doublethinking. I swear.