Anti-Valium

The musicianship of Led Zeppelin is the most overrated in rock and roll history. Jimmy Page’s propensity for air guitar inspiring riffs is undeniable. His limited, meandering solo ability, however, leaves much to be desired. I find the same to be true of John Bonham. For example, the Moby Dick drum solo Sucks with a capital ‘S’. And nothing he ever did even compares to the work of Keith Moon or Ginger Baker.

LLWS

Since I last wrote of the Little League World Series, I’ve done a 180 with regard to Georgia’s star player and ace pitcher, Kyle Carter. The fact that his stuff is overpowering was never up for debate. Yesterday evening, he was even breaking Japanese ankles and knees with an off-speed breaking ball that had them falling out of the batters box; an excellent compliment to his bread and butter fastball. He won me over with sportsmanship. Over the course of this years LLWS I believe I saw Carter hit two batters. It was not the fact that he walked over to the batter on his way to first base to shake hands and apologize, but the way he did it. It was genuine. Befitting his performance throughout, Carter was also the first (at least audibly) coach or player of the LLWS champion team to recommend, excuse me, lead his team over to the opposing dugout to shake hands with a fundamentally impeccable Japanese team; a team without a dry eye up its lineup.

The second most impressive player in this year’s LLWS was Georgia’s second baseman. Consistently overlooked by opposing teams who were perhaps seeking the lesser of two hitting evils by intentionally walking Carter, this kid made them pay with big hit after big hit. More impressive than his bat, he was a vacuum at second base. Fittingly, he made the last out of the last game. Maybe his father, a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates, should petition Bud Selig to lower Major League Baseball’s minimum age requirement.

Pigs

All they do is talk on cell phones. Like much of the country I’m sure, Boston and its Metro-west suburbs are riddled with cops directing traffic. In Boston, they’re compensating for the incompetence of the Big Dig bureaucracy in light of a recent tragedy. In the suburbs, they’re overseeing the direction of traffic as it conflicts with suburban sprawl projects. No matter the location or the purpose, cops love their cell phones. So while they use up minutes (thank god they switched to Verizon), discussing their guns and racially motivated beatings, we the people foot the bill. How have people not made a stink about this yet? We pay for cops to talk on their phones. Sometimes in Boston, and this is my favorite, they assign three cops to the same intersection. Rather than even stand in the intersection they preside over, and at least pretend to work, they’ll lean up against mailboxes on the street corner and chat amongst themselves, presumably about their guns, food and racially motivated beatings. My second favorite is this cop out here in the burbs who indiscriminately waves on cars with both hands from all directions with no regard for the volume, size, or logistics of oncoming traffic. The good people of this town would actually be better off if this guy were hit by a car and forced into early retirement.