Photo courtesy OCPACWednesday, Sept. 21
Major League Baseball is suing the Carver Academy for trademark infringement because it says the school's logo of an interlocking “C” and “A” is too similar to the interlocking “C” and “A” of the California Angels. MLB's case would seem strong except for a couple of small points. One, Carver Academy exists. It is actually there. You can go see it, in San Antonio, Texas; a private, nonprofit school for underprivileged kids started by former NBA star David Robinson. The California Angels do not exist, and thank you God for that. In fact, the California Angels were such a popular outfit that they have been renamed twice over the past 10 years just to get the stink of that “CA” off them. Now, it's important to emphasize that it is not the Angels franchise that is suing the underprivilegedkids; it's Major League Baseball, which says it needs to protect its trademarks even if that team no longer exists—thank you, Jesus—because vintage gear has become such a popular fashion item. To that point, Ethan Orlinsky, senior vice president and general counsel of MLB properties, said the action was necessary and pointed out that “We license the Brooklyn Dodgers on behalf of the Los Angeles Dodgers.” Okay, comparing the Brooklyn Dodgers to the California Angels is like comparing cookies to ass. The Brooklyn Dodgers are one of the most storied teams in American sports and the team that orchestrated the single most significant sporting moment in the nation's history when it signed Jackie Robinson. Of course people would want to have gear from that team, and of course the Los Angeles Dodgers would like to profit from and be associated with that team. The California Angels were a sad outfit, rife with disappointment, whose highest point—one out from the 1986 World Series—was immediately followed by its lowest—Dave Henderson—an event that may have caused at least one man's death. How many kids want to be associated with that team? Even the team doesn't want to be associated with that team, which explains the name changes la Burma, which changed its name to Myanmar after it was taken over and run by a brutal military junta known as the State Peace and Development Council, noted for numerous human rights violations and fair to middling retro jerseys.
Thursday, Sept. 22
Surfer Percy “Neco” Padaratz Jr. is banned from competition on the World Championship Tour after he tests positive for steroids. The announcement comes from Robert Gerard of Newport Beach, the rules and discipline judge for the Association of Surfing Professionals. Tour officials became alarmed when a random test of Padaratz revealed dangerously high levels of methyltestosterone, mestanolone and oxymetholone and dangerously low levels of pot and hash.
Friday, Sept. 23
DO volunteer to chaperone your daughter's first high school dance. DON'T renege on your offer when daughter informs you she is “too tired” to go to the dance but “you can go, Dad, you'll have fun.” DOcall school activities director and confirm your attendance. DON'T tell her that you'll be coming “stag” and you'll be happy to work anywhere, “perhaps on the roof with the snipers.”
Saturday, Sept. 24
You call that dancing?
Sunday, Sept. 25
While communism may not be good for human rights, human spirits, national economies and the manufacture of a roomy sports sedan, it does make for smashing ballet. A few weeks ago I saw the Bolshoi at the Orange County Performing Arts Center and was disappointed at the tepid performance—yes, tepid, cocksucker!—by the once great company, which was raided for its best dancers after the fall of the Soviet Union (which, incidentally, is more fondly remembered than the California Angels). Today, I took my daughter to see the National Ballet of China perform Raise the Red Lantern. Granted, China is about as communist as 3M these days—like the U.S., they have personal property and a passionate disdain for labor unions—but, still, they'd prefer we refer to them as communists and—wink, wink—we do and ask in return that they play along and pretend we have a free market economy. Anyway, the ballet. Stunning. Visually arresting, crisp storytelling, athletic dancers who serve the story without attempting to overwhelm it; even their acting went beyond the pale of the usual clunky ballet “point to finger for marriage” method. The dancers actually employed, dare I say, nuance—yes, nuance, dickwad! (You'll have an idea of the range of which they were capable when I tell you that while other ballet companies have portrayed rape as violently and brutally as in Lantern, it's doubtful any has made mahjong seem so sexy.) And, frankly, I like it when all the mens commence to jumping about. I thought I was going to get that with the Bolshoi in Spartacus. Nah. But the Chinese reveled in strong dancers running full speed, getting big air, kicking and pounding about. Even the message of the performance was wonderful: life is a pale existence without love and love is impossible without forgiveness. Hey, isn't that what Mao was saying all along?
Monday, Sept. 26
Scott Moxley wandered over to the homestead—cubicle—to talk about his web exclusive (“NOW He's Sorry!“) that says that everyone's favorite mischievous teen, Greg Haidl, is now really sorry for all the pain he and his friends caused that girl they gang raped and stuck pool cues and Snapple bottles and lit cigarettes into, you know, the girl his lawyers called a tramp and a drug addict and a wannabe porn star, and he really hopes people—especially the judge who's about to sentence him—can find it in their hearts to forgive him, maybe even the 16-year-old he banged at his “victory” party after his first trial ended in a hung jury (careful). Haidl is gold around here—Moxley's web story got an immediate 5,000 hits—and has a national following. So when Scott said I might be interested in some of the responses to his story when it was posted on DailyRotten.com, I didn't think I'd be too surprised. I edit our Letters page and have become used to the usual anger directed at Greg and, indeed, of the more than 80 responses on Rotten, most fell into the usual realm of prison marriage—”With luck, in a few months, Mr. Haidl, now convict haidl, will be Big Bubba's canteen bitch”—and physiological explicitness—”May his ass hang like a chinaman's sleeve.” (My personal favorite had nothing to do with either; it was more philosophical: “Everyone always remembers the pool cue, but for some reason forget the Snapple bottle and the lit cigarettes. What is it about pool cues, anyway?”) But there was one note that was so specific in its brutality that it kinda creeped you out to think you were on the same side of the issue. I'm not going to quote the thing directly, because it's just too, too ehhhh, but it mentions a “12-inch glass swizzle stick,” Greg Haidl's urethra and prostate gland, and hammering his man-thing with a hammer so that the aforementioned prostate is then littered with “glass shards.” And this isn't the worst of it; just know that the rest of it deals with turning Haidl over on his stomach and pounding the area just below his testicles with a hammer and ends with “The best part is, with a prostate full of glass shards, every time a fellow prisoner shoves a rock-hard cock up his ass he'll cry tears of blood!”
Tuesday, Sept. 27
Gawd.
