How’s everyone doing? Hope you didn’t terribly mind the absence, we were just preparing for the new (now released) Cam’ron mixtape. You know, re-painting the house, installing new wainscoting, ordering new ponytails, stuff like that. I treated it like we were having guests over. But we are back, in earnest, and next week will bring (moderately) full content. So let’s get to the best of the rest of the ‘net.
The greatest tweet ever? A: Yes.
It was a bit of a busy week in sports. The hot stove burned on, and Mark McGwire admitted to using steroids in his baseball career, and apologized. McGwire didn’t conclude that his steroid use helped him hit home runs, a conclusion also reached by Baseball Between the Numbers. It’s not hard to say, but it’s hard to prove. McGwire fails the smell test on his numbers, but certainly some of the pitchers he faced were using an advantage. As did the fielders who ran down his (ever fewer) in-the-park hits. And some of his teammates (or fellow hitters) used steroids. Maybe super-McGwire was always better than super-Trachsel? Maybe McGwire would have been better than a 1991 Fred McGriff, even if he had stayed clean? How much of it was talent? How much of it was freak ability? Or diet? Or advances in medicine? Or George Costanza’s idea to move to cotton uniforms? It’s hard to say. I certainly don’t have the statistical background to properly break this all down. But McGwire made stinky money off home runs. And he paid his publicist well for the rollout.
Many have been turned off for over a decade. In 1998, an informal straw poll conducted (by me) at my (Canadian) high school showed plenty of (young) people took issue with McGwire’s andro use. (In Canada, home of Ben Johnson, steroids are just as bad or worse than andro.) Never mind amphetamine use in the ’70s, or that taking steroids was not punishable, or testable, this gutted people, even before guys were slugging .700. It’s not only reporters who were outraged. And it wasn’t only after the fact.
Agnostic Front are touring this year, playing Victim in Pain start to finish. (Ideally including “With Time (For Amy).”) The record was re-released with all the stops just last year, and it is a hot joint. I’m willing to go out on a limb here and say that the tour will be a little more relevant/interesting than the Sonic Youth Daydream Nation tour, or the Spin Doctors Pocket Full of Kryptonite West Coast weekend. But then I’m biased. Unsubstantiated and unverified rumors also place an Inside Out N.Y. reunion in 2010, which will presumably not likely result in a yearlong worldwide tour.
And finally, Invasion is playing Saturday in New Jersey. Be prepared for long lines at Harold’s Deli, ACME Grocery, Gerry Cosby’s, and the secret Spot-Bilt warehouse. Also playing is Floorpunch.