Seven Red

A few posts back, Chuck from Austin suggested that a better metric for predicting playoff success might not be the two that I offered (road record, late inning runs), but rather performance during the last two weeks – or last ten games – of the season. Having mostly gotten over the halfway point on that metric, here are the results so far:

New York: 6 – 0 (with 4 games left)
Detroit/Minnesota – I’m not even touching this one. Ugly for Tigers fans right now.
LA Angels: 3 – 2 (with 5 games left)
Bosox: 0 – 5 (with 5 games left) (!)

Phillies: 2 – 3 (with 5 games left)
Cardinals:  1 – 4 (with 5 games left)
LA Dodgers: 2 – 4 (with 4 games left)
Rockies: 3 -2 (with 5 games left)

It’s a big ouch for Boston, first of all, if the metric means anything. Oddly, the Cards performance is not a whole lot better, but the whole NL leader group looks like it’s fizzling. The Yankees keep winning games late, and did so last night with a bunch of guys nobody’s ever heard of – their 15th walk-off win this year. It might yet happen, of course, that the Yanks collapse in the first round, or that they walk into Tampa Bay and lose three straight and take that sting into the playoffs or something. I think the point here is that any way you slice it, they look formidable. Even on this “Last 10″ metric, it’s not close to a contest.

METRICS UPDATE, October 4

New York: 7-3
Detroit: 4-6
Minnesota: 7-3
LA Angels: 7-3
Bosox: 4-6

Phillies: 4-6
Cardinals:  2-8 (ouch!)
LA Dodgers: 3-7
Rockies: 6-4

I gotta think that having Sabathia get beat up like that on Friday night tweaks the last ten stat for the Yanks. That was brutal, and probably will make him a bit tenuous in his first playoff start. But still, the Cards record is ugly, and there’s not anything that much better in the NL. I sputtering close. I’d bet on Detroit to hold on. Reason: they’re not the friggin’ Mutts.

(CCCC Louisville Update): It looks like Hyatt is feeling the pressure from their little test run up in Boston. As I suggested in the comments to my previous post on this, Hyatt is likely “user-testing” the viability of a general labor strategy with their decision to fire a hundred permanent housekeeping staff in Boston and replace them with contract workers. That this test comes as Hyatt is preparing an IPO should come as no surprise. Investors will want to see reductions in labor costs, so Hyatt management has to figure out how to provide these reductions without pissing off an already irritated public. The move was almost certainly suggested by some douchebag at Goldman Sachs (listed prominently in the syndicate underwriting the IPO), who will have to sell this dog at a road show with negative earnings for 2009 appearing on the balance sheet.

Based on the extensive response I got to the email I wrote Hyatt about the Boston issue, they are in full-fledged damage control mode, and probably having to do more than they thought they would. In Boston, the governor of Massachusetts has suggested that all state workers boycott Hyatt, period, and even cab drivers have started organizing a boycott (I’d love to see how *that* would work…refusing to take a customer to a location is illegal in NYC). So their test case didn’t go so well, and we hear word yesterday that Hyatt will “hire back” the fired workers. Of course, that’s not quite right: they will be hired by the contractor “until” at least December 2010, at the same salaries. Now, you might be asking how that could be: wouldn’t it be cheaper to pay these workers their salary than to pay the contracting company the salary plus fee? And wouldn’t this put the lie to the oft-repeated claim that the decision to fire the workers resulted purely from the drop in revenues? Well, maybe not. Hyatt also paid for benefits for these workers, which included, at least, health and 401K/other defined contribution plan. Now Hyatt gets to cut out those benefits, and try to save the PR disaster by pretending they’ve “lost” this fight. They do note – and did so in the email as well – that the contracting service provides health benefits, though again, you’d have to wonder how extensive these are. In any case, I think I will send out another email noting that I don’t buy it, and I’d urge everyone to continue to avoid the Louisville Hyatt Regency until management gets their heads out of their collective IPO-dreaming asses and abandons this outrageous labor strategy.

Scene 1: me at computer, actually typing up the grocery list. she folding laundry on the sofa.

she: Hey, on the April baby boards, one person has a kid named Wolfgang.
topspun: I like that.
she: Yeah, Wolfie.
topspun (being pedantic, as per usual): Volfie.
she: Yeah, Volfie.
topspun: I once knew a guy named Helmut.
she: What’s short for Helmut?
topspun: Nothing. If a man’s name is Helmut, you best damn well call him Helmut.

Scene 2: About 2:30 Friday afternoon, me walking out on to back deck to take a writing break; three gangbanger dudes who moved in next door about two weeks ago walking down their back stairs.

topspun (making eye contact, lifts hand in greeting): What’s up, man.
gangbanger dude (looking genuinely surprised and delighted to finally be addressed by whiteboy neighbor): Hey man! (holds up a twelve pack of Modelo). You want a beer?
topspun: Nah. I’m working. Thanks, though.
gangbanger dude: Cool, man.

Scene 3: Jewel-Osco at Foster and Pulaski, check out line.

ellie: I want to press the button. Hey, I can’t reach it!
she: OK, but wait until the lady is done scanning all the groceries.
ellie: I know, but I want to press it!
cashier in next aisle (to Ellie): Do you have enough money for all those groceries?
ellie: I wasn’t talking to you.

So I’ll be attending the CCCC conference again next year, ready with my little pen and pad to add to my list. OK, maybe not, but it is an opportunity to see that rarest of rare birds – called Chance to Actually Affect Disgusting Corporate Practice. You see, the Hyatt in Boston axed their entire housekeeping staff on August 31 of this year – after tricking them into training their outsourced replacements. On NPR this morning, a woman who had worked for Hyatt for 21 years – since she was 19 years old – discussed her firing. So, basically her whole adult life thus far has been devoted to this organization, and they pretend the recession means that they should drop her $15 an hour and 401K contributions in favor of much cheaper labor? Um, uh uh. So 4C’s has contracted with both the Hyatt and the Marriott in Louisville for reduced rates; they’re the two main hotels being suggested by the conference. Here’s a stark choice. But it’s easy enough to say No! to the Hyatt and their outrageous labor practices in this case, and tell them precisely why (with specific notes sent to national, the Louisville Hyatt in particular, and the Boston Hyatt in particular). I think it’s also important for the conference organizers to revisit their deal with the Hyatt in light of a decision which very clearly conflicts with the values espoused by the organization, if not with standing resolutions and position statements.  Let’s remember that we often go to these conferences – mostly on the Employer Institution’s dime, which means many of us even pay with money that comes ultimately from union households – and, good Lord, but we hear a lot about writing for social change and resistance and agency and all kinds of stuff like that. Well, here you go. Write a note when you book elsewhere, and maybe these folks can get their jobs back on equitable terms.

Just noting here the current road record of the top teams in each division:

• Yankees: 42-30
• Tigers: 32-40
• Angels: 42-32
• Phillies: 43-28
• Cardinals: 41-31
• Dodgers: 42-30

Notice any consistencies? Any outliers? I would say that Detroit’s basically done for in the first round, but that’s not a particularly stunning revelation, since they would be at least six games out of first in  any other division. Texas, which likely won’t catch Boston for the AL Wild Card, leads Detroit by two games in the standings right now. Minus the Tigers’ severe deviation, however, I think that’s a pretty tight grouping.

Second, I wonder if there’s some way to get the stats on late inning runs, say 7th, 8th, and 9th. I have to believe that the Yankees would be leading in that metric by a lot. It would seem to suggest a team that’s really come together as a team.

Anyway.

OK, I’m going to break my unstated and inconsistent rule about commenting on day-to-day political and media spectacle here to rant a bit about uber-dick Terry Moran, ABC news journalist. The story goes like this: Obama is being interviewed by ABC news, no doubt relating to health care or somesuch, and in an off-the-record moment after the interview is apparently chatting about stuff when he calls Kanye West, of award-show-interrupting fame, a “jackass.” Well, if it was off-the-record, how could we possibly know this? Because Terry Moran, former White House reporter, Bush ass-kisser, and Nightline host decided to tweet this little tidbit to his Twitter account. Three cheers for transparency, right? Oh, he of course added his own very professional snark to the tweet, noting “Now THAT’S Presidential!” (What’s the implication here? That Obama isn’t otherwise “Presidential” – whatever the eff that means – or that Obama is not living up to the gravitas of the office in the very serious manner of Richard “Go-Fuck-Yourself” Cheney?) Needless to say, the principle of off-the-record communications is so crucial even to a cub reporter interviewing the local dog catcher that Moran had to delete the tweet and ABC apologized (did Terry Moran?), and I guess we’re all supposed to pretend that this sniveling right wing tool simply didn’t know how to work that crazy Twitter machine, la di da.

But Terry Moran is very much a guy who demonstrates endless concern for the journalistic profession when outright propagandists and warmongers like Judy Miller and Michael Gordon want to either rev up the war-machine or keep it running, and O Lawd how sacred is the concept of a journalist’s anonymous sources when they are brutal little DC despots seeking revenge on (the non-making-a-fool-of-himself) Joe Wilson for having exposed their sicko prevarications. In this piece, for instance, Terry Moran gets all pomo on the modern-day fetish for journalistic “objectivity,” wondering how-o-how can a journalist not want his or her country to kick ass and take names, and is it really a feasible proposition that Michael Gordon should have to deny his firepower fetish when it’s his job to write news articles informing propagandizing the public about the little war he so loves? Quoth Moran, sounding for all the world like your average pomo theorist: “There is no such thing as a person who is so untethered to any community–national, racial, religious, etc–that she or he is able to gain a truly ‘objective’ view of things. We are all contingent creatures.” This in defense of a snarling jingoist like Michael Gordon, whose kooky theories on Iranian involvement in Iraq made Curtis LeMay sound like John friggin’ Lennon. Oh, the tension inherent in Moran’s profession! One suspects that this philosophical conundrum derives directly from Moran’s tendency to puff up his chest and distinguish himself from all the supposedly “anti-military” journalists who presume that “the American projection of power around the world must be wrong.” I know, I haven’t ever seen one of these exceedingly rare creatures either, but I may have been distracted by Katie Couric crushing on some Navy SEALs or something.

And this guy’s gonna tweet off-the-record statements about Kanye fucking West by the President? And say “oops, my bad?” Come on, now. I’m not all “Oh, let’s respect the Office” and all this other imperial presidency nonsense that so many liberals are now spouting, nor do I find the whole Kanye West thing anything other than a matter of monumental irrelevance and supreme unimportance. But come on, now. The great philosopher of journalistic objectivity in wartime and defender of the sacred character of the anonymous source is printing off-the-record remarks by the President of the fucking United States on his Twitter account?

ABC should fire that fucking guy effective yesterday. Come on, now.

Looks like NINE is at it again, hitting the Montrose rooftop for what must be the fourth or fifth time this year. This time he’s using a completely new style, which is a relief, since the old one was getting a little stale. I’ll have to get more pics, since the Brown Line rooftops are getting just infected; must be the recession.

NINE H20, Brown Line off Montrose

NINE detail: SPRAY IT, DON’T SAY IT. (Couldn’t agree more…)

Today we were invited over to the next door neighbors yard, where they were having a barbecue, cooking up skirt steak and chicken, and heating up corn tortillas on the grill. It was an interesting experience to say the least, largely because they don’t speak all that much English, and we don’t speak any Spanish beyond what I remember from 7th and 8th grade, and whatever I managed to pick up growing up in Queens (which, given the segregation prevalent at that time, is not all that much). My English is not so very, he kept saying. He referred to Ellie as “your son,” and each time his wife, who speaks less English than he does, would say “daughter,” and he’d say “Oh yeah! Daughter!” Hio, hia. One can see why. Nevertheless, we managed to get on reasonably well, and the carne asada was very good. We all drank beer.

The guy next door is one of those guys who drive around collecting steel and other metal that people throw out – basically a scrap metal operation. He loads up a beat up old pick-up truck that’s been rigged with some additional fencing and a few cross bars and drives the alleys (for New York people, the north side of Chicago, unlike most places in New York, has back alleys on most blocks where the garages are, and where you put your garbage). He then comes back and sections out the daily haul. It’s amazing, really: refrigerators, exercise machines, microwaves, barbells, all manner of tools and vices and scaffolding, air conditioners, fans, and humidity machines, shelving units, lamps, faucet hardware, frames, futon bases, whatever – metal piled up in big chunks, and then he spends some afternoons back there with a hammer and some tools chipping out the steel and metal bits from the smaller or more seemingly plastic trash, like the inner frame of a computer case and similar small things that you really have to work on to get some salvageable metal out of. There are hundreds of guys who do this, mostly recent immigrants from Mexico and various Central American countries. At the old place, I used to see them come on up the alley because that’s where I smoked. They’d stop, inspect various garbage areas, pull what they could sell, and move on. I have a sense of what this guy’s day is like. About a month ago, we had Work Colleague over for dinner, and my neighbor came back with his truck being towed; we helped him push it back into his driveway, no small task given the fact that the driveway opens on to a fairly narrow alley. I was glad Work Colleague could speak Spanish, or that little operation wouldn’t have run so smoothly, I suspect. And that truck’s his whole livelihood. He had it up and running again in two days. So, this guy, my neighbor, basically sweeps up shitloads of metal that people have put to trash, collects it, pulls the scrap from it, all day driving the alleys and lifting heavy shit, then coming back and banging it with hammers: the underground economy next door. Busting his hump, and probably helping the environment in the process, turning bourgeois detritus into carne asada, and then offering some to us.

The hippies won’t come back, you say
Mellow out or you will pay
Mellow out or you will pay!
Dead Kennedys, California Über Alles

Some quick reviews. In my (very little) off-time this summer I managed to pick through a few non-work books, including a little bout of California noir in James Ellroy’s The Big Nowhere and, of course, Pynchon’s Inherent Vice. Reading the two more or less together in the space of a week made for both a nice contrast and a nice focus on the genre, though trying to peg Pynchon on genre is always going to be a little wonky. I liked The Big Nowhere, and I always find Ellroy just eminently readable. There’s also something deeply attractive about the counterfactual method that runs throughout Ellroy’s books: pick a hazy actual historical crime and build an utterly corrupt and twisted explanation for it, walking some interesting characters through the process. In The Black Dahlia, obviously, it’s the Elizabeth Short case. In The Big Nowhere, it’s the Sleepy Lagoon case. I’m rarely surprised by such books, but I was surprised by the character of Danny Upshaw, and I think Ellroy handles the character really well.

Pynchon is also focused on a real California crime, though he has no interest in offering alternative theories. Inherent Vice is set in 1970, and what a difference twenty years makes from Ellroy’s Los Angeles. I have to believe that Pynchon and his publisher were playing a bit of a joke by releasing Inherent Vice on August 4 (it’s beach reading!), since the various reviews would inevitably appear in the same newspapers that were commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Manson murders (August 8 and 9), and these events permeate the novel like a sinister background, some creepy crawly hum that plays behind the text only to break through here and there, with Pynchon’s protagonist, surfer-hippie detective Doc Sportello, professing a crush on Leslie Van Houten and teasing his homicide detective rival, Bigfoot Bjornsen, for not having been “up on Cielo Drive” with the rest of them. But this is really par for the course for Pynchon – in Gravity’s Rainbow, in Vineland certainly, in Inherent Vice, and in (I might have to argue another time) Against the Day – always with an eye toward the collapse of the 60’s counterculture, the emergence of a control society, and he manages to do it in an oddly non-nostalgic way. Something flashed and was gone, and while Pynchon’s going to remain faithful to that event (like Dick with Valis), he’s always working through the process of its disappearance, how fear – dread even – inundates an entire culture and becomes its engine. Classic noir, and I think Ellroy is just a master at this, certainly runs on shady networks, but its always a question of struggle, not fear. And if that’s the switch, there’s no better place to go than Los Angeles in 1970, as the fear generated in early August of the previous year became a national spectacle, a lesson in the new form of life.

One gets the sense reading Inherent Vice that Doc Sportello is telling the tale himself, maybe in the present. The narrator slips into Sportello-like verbal tics, like ending sentences with “and so forth,” and you don’t get the long, contemplative sentences that appear in Gravity’s Rainbow or Against the Day – except at the end, the last few paragraphs (which sketch, incidentally, as beautiful a set of images as you see in any Pynchon). The primary narrator in Gravity’s Rainbow never slips into Slothropisms, like using the word “that” before a place name (that Berlin, that London, and – hilariously – that the Hague), but in Inherent Vice you get just that, and so forth. But if fear is the engine, you get laughter and detachment as the counterforce. Inherent Vice is an incredibly funny book, maybe in the way Vineland sought to be funny, or in the way Gravity’s Rainbow (and, for my money, Mason & Dixon) actually was. The big joke that all the reviews note is that the detective is a stoner who forgets pretty much what he’s doing repeatedly throughout the book, but that’s the detachment side. Far more interesting is that the narrator seems to mostly remember the funny parts, even as the fear is pumped out by the gallon.