Fit To Print

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

Thanks for reading,

The Management

1 comment March 20th, 2009

And They Say He Ran Away

The press has universally covered Manny’s recent comments that the Sox don’t deserve him and that they treat their stars — like Pedro and Nomah — poorly as more evidence that he’s a Prima Donna and a pain-in-the-ass. Well, he may be a pain, but I’m pretty sure the Sox have turned the fans against a lot of their stars in the past. And maybe the new management doesn’t do that, I don’t really know.

I do know that the Red Sox aren’t going to find a left fielder who’s half as entertaining, half as honest, or half as good. No one else is going to high-five a fan after a catch and then double off a runner from first. To boot, Ramirez has a lot more character than the sports world is really capable of understanding.

Relations between Manny and the front office are probably irreparable at this point, and I’m sure he’s a headache to have on your team, so it seems inevitable he will be traded now (possibly to the Marlins) or at the end of the season. And fans and radio talk show hosts will cite his antics and various outbursts of candor as proof the Sox did the right thing. Thus, Manny will become the latest Sox star to be booed out of Boston. What do you do when you’re branded, and you know you’re a man?

P.S. Did you know he had a charity wine called Manny Being Merlot? The city won’t be the same.

4 comments July 31st, 2008

This Week in Bad Jokes

Your news in bagel bites:

All of the Dems on Obie’s short list for VP suck. For some perspective, I’ve also learned that all of McCain’s top choices suck as well. And in fact, McCain sucks quite a bit, himself.

Senator Stevens of Alaska was finally indicted, turning a close race there into a gimme for Democrats, putting them one step closer to 60. At least he’ll have a lot of legislative and lobbyist buddies to play with while he’s in the slammer.

Apparently, the democratically elected government in Iraq is often mistranslated by Der Liebermedia, and one should always rely on CentCom as interpreter.

Just as video killed the radio star, blogs killed the attention span. But most non-blog writing is longer than it needs to be. An excellent summary. More excellence.

This week, repeated skin cancer sufferer John McCain had some “mole like” skin removed from his head. Those moles can be deadly. Six years ago, Ginny Sack had a 95-pound mole removed from her posterior. And in related news, the United States has tentatively scheduled the removal of an eight-year cancerous growth for this January.

McCain dares Obama to go to Iraq. Obie goes. I think the trip can best be described by the monologue in the made-for-theatrical-release movie There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day Lewis: Senator McCain, I drink your milkshake!

1 comment July 29th, 2008

“The Sky is Falling!” Proclaims Climatologist Little

I remember reading about government propaganda in the Soviet Union and fascist Germany and wondering — much like many others have — how can millions and millions of people go along with this obvious deception and these terrible atrocities. But when you think about all the crime there is in every city, or even how many spouses secretly cheat, etc., you realize how hard it is to keep track of the world’s misdeeds. And we have bills to pay, careers to pursue, families to look after, we can’t be consumed with constant policing of ourselves and our neighbors, let alone wrongdoers everywhere.

When my friend from UCSC goes on about the chemtrails that will poison our bodies and how every despotic regime starts by taking away its citizens’ arms, I tend to roll my eyes. Not because all conspiracies are false, but because there are more than enough concrete problems to worry about, and personal interests to take care of, and all that. And because when you start carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.

But I do sometimes wonder when hearings on illegal torture or the mismanagement of an awful war get less coverage than Wes Clark saying perhaps being in the military isn’t the only presidential qualification that matters. Maybe the sky is falling. Or maybe I’m just upset because Baron Davis left the Warriors and the Red Sox were swept by an expansion team. At the very least, I hope someone out there is having fun with the Jekyll and Hype posts here on FTP: “Today’s story: Obama good. But stay tuned for tomorrow’s headline: Obama baaaad!”

In brighter news: Gail Collins ain’t half bad today. Happy Fourth.

Add comment July 3rd, 2008

Today’s History Lesson(s)

I checked online to see if Warner Brother’s Foghorn Leghorn was designed to be a Southern fried version of W.C. Fields, after hearing him utter Fields’ famous line “Go away kid, ya bother me.” Not so, it turns out. Foghorn’s voice was modeled after the faux Southern Senator from The Fred Allen Show, Beauregard Claghorn. Merlin the Magic Mouse, however (of similar Looney Tunes fame), is based on Fields.

In other breaking historical news, Dewey did not win, as had been previously reported. We will continue to bring you updates on this story as it develops.

Add comment April 7th, 2008

Beer Goggles Make the Economy Look Like a Fox

I don’t have a great affinity for Daily Kos, but I was immensely entertained to see that someone there had posted suggested drinking games for the State of the Union, last night.

1 comment January 29th, 2008

I Can’t Quit You Baby

A little over a week ago, Led Zeppelin reunited in London for their first performance in 30 years. Filling in on drums for the late John Bonham was his son, Jason. Zeppelin was the hands down favorite group of many of my friends in high school, and I have probably spent more time listening to them than I have any other band, save the Beatles. My introduction to Zeppelin preceded my introduction to marijuana by a good couple years, but listening to “In the Light” for the first time high - via a nice pair of headphones - is still a standout musical memory for me. Anyway, it reminded me of a frequent high school lament that we could never experience a lot of our favorite bands live. Boo hoo, I know.

The grander point that I think is pertinent is that there just isn’t enough quality music today. There are some exceptions to this, brief eras of creative subcultures; grunge rock in the early nineties, indie rock later in the decade, and then a few impressive years of vibrant underground hip hop that has tailed off in the last year or two. But we don’t have anything equivalent to the tremendous creative output of the 60s that was penetrating the mainstream. In fact, penetration of the mainstream has often been the death knell for many promising musical movements. Many say that this is an inevitability, but I feel that is too simplistic an argument.

Hip hop is the most disappointing example of this. Eloquent discontent became popular enough that many trendsetting artists cashed in on hip rebellion to star in bad movies (see Mos Def in Italian Job) and commercials (Common does Gap ads?), or fell to the wayside, reiterating angry diatribes against the system, album after album, offering little in the way of worthwhile solutions (see Fit To Print).

This isn’t to say music must be revolutionary to be worthwhile. Led Zep didn’t have any strong message other than “look at our huge crotches and loud guitars!”. In fact, preaching often kills potentially good stuff. But when a genre’s success, and in fact, very existence, is predicated on a growing unrest at social inequality (read: underground hh), selfishness by the artist takes on added significance. I would much rather listen to insightful artists who make no pretense of being above looking for a big payday (like Jay-Z, Kanye and Eminem to an extent) than hypocrites.

My “colleague” recently wrote an article about voting with your pocketbook, and I think that is a good suggestion here. You could spend a lifetime listening to good music and watching good movies from the past, or more recent innovative shows on the tele; there is no reason to pay for new entertainment unless it is worth the money.

1 comment December 21st, 2007

Steal this CD!

Radiohead recently allowed fans to decide how much they wanted to pay for the band’s new album online. Not surprisingly, 62 percent of “buyers” decided to pay nothing at all. The remaining 38 percent pitched in an average of 6 dollars. This novel idea generated a lot of interest, with much of the blogosphere concluding it was not particularly successful.

I dunno. Bands only make about 1$ an album for CDs to begin with. I believe many of these online moochers wouldn’t have paid for an album anyway, and the marginal revenue lost will be recouped by all the publicity this has generated, as it leads to better ticket sales and positive hype for the CD’s eventual release. I like it. Paying a few bucks directly to the band beats paying 1 to the artist and 19 to the label.

1 comment November 8th, 2007

James Carville is Uglier than Sam Cassell

As some of you may have noticed, Fit To Print hasn’t been fit to print for quite some time. We are adding a guest poster who is going to pop in every now and again to revitalize this dying beast. His name is Captain Obvious.

I will now execute the smooth hand-off without ever leaving the first person.

Who’s familiar with James Carville? He’s the “Ragin’ Cajun” who ran Bill Clinton’s 92 campaign, along with George Stephanopoulos and Paul Begala. All three have since become sell-out shills, but in 92 they revitalized the Democratic Party like I’m revitalizing this cur of a blog. He blames Dean for the 10 or so close races Democrats lost in the House this year.

Howard Dean is the reason we are talking about pickups of this magnitude in the first place. The real fault lies with party bigwigs like Rahm Emanuel, who refused to believe in the viablity of netroots and progressive candidates and denied them the funding that could have pushed them over the top in many of these narrow defeats.

The internet is creating amazing opportunities for de-centralized organization that will only become better utilized in upcoming elections. The sooner the blogosphere is accepted, the sooner its potential can be realized. The key is educating people who think of it merely as a group of fringe fanatics, and getting them to acknowledge the power of the medium, even if they are wary of some of its current manifestations.

When folks talk about the battle for the soul of the Democratic party, this is one of the biggies. Grassroots progressives vs. Establishment Dems. The internet is becoming the great equalizer in this fight. Excellent article about it here.

In other news, Frank Thomas is thinking of signing with the Toronto Blue Jays. Hey Frank, everyone in Chicago thought you were a whiny baby, but you are hailed as a king at the Coliseum. Do you think the magic ingredient is you or Oakland? Here’s a hint, ask Milton Bradley, who frequently talks about how much the team loves him here, even though he is reviled everywhere else in the contiguous United States. Think a bigger contract is worth leaving?

Mo money, mo problems.

Add comment November 16th, 2006

Look Out, World

Fit To Print’s empire seems to be expanding. Observe our Nov 4 comments on Katherine Harris: “The two people most responsible for Bush’s election and reelection are going down in flames.”

Now take a look at frighteningly similar remarks from mydd’s Chris Bowers, a full 48 hours later: “Neslon (D) 58.4%–34.4% Harris (R). At least one high profile member of the evil empire is destined to go down in flames this year.” Here’s the link.

Coincidence? You tell me. You. Tell. Me.

Also, tonight on The Jim Lehrer News Hour, they were talking about how a Democratic House and the President would have a better shot at creating good immigration legislation than a Republican House. Because it is one of the few issues on which Bush is more of a moderate. It appears the whole world is starting to read Fit To Print. And they’re better off for it.

Add comment November 6th, 2006