I want to commit crimes against the elderly

I have been reading books almost all of my life, from The Poky Little Puppy to Crime and Punishment and everything in between. In all of those thousands of books I had never read anything by Cormac McCarthy. I finished No Country For Old Men not an hour ago and I have never been more unsatisfied and unsettled by a novel than by this one.

I saw the trailer for the new Coen Brothers' adaptation and I thought, "whoa, this looks bad-ass." I couldn't wait to see the movie so I picked the short novel up at the library. I could not and would not recommend this book to anyone. As much as I love the Coens I have serious doubts about paying to see the film. If this book is not an aberration and the rest of his catalog bears any similarity, then Cormac McCarthy is the worst sort of hack. The sort who writes His Way, even though His Way sucks dick, and manufactures a work so full of holes and errors and yet still manages to pass it off to his editors and reviewers as high-minded literature that is immune to such things as comprehension and understanding.

The book was good, even great, for 236 pages. Bad grammar but good premise and good characters. Lots of bloody violence. And it then just stopped. The action, the chase, the suspense all just stopped. And what picked up for the next 60 odd pages was an old man visiting his uncle to tell him about a bad day he had in WWII and remiminiscing to himself about how America is nothing like it used to be and wishing he knew his father better. Huh!? Imagine the movie Jaws where the shark is towing the Orca out to sea and Hooper and Brody are struggling to untie the lines. The cleats pop off and then....we jump cut to see the two of them standing on the beach giving each other high-fives. It was like that.

For 236 pages I forgave McCarthy for numerous plot holes, comma splices, and anachronisms. I ignored McCarthy playing fast and loose with his timelines and confusing narrative structure. These things were forgivable because I had a great, simple, taut thriller in my hands. But he threw all that away on page 237 and hit me in the teeth with a lead pipe. The only thing I can think to compare it too is Grapes of Wrath where everything that came before simply deflates and you're left with an old geezer sucking on some chick's tit in a rainstorm. That is how I felt.

Save yourself the feeling of wanting to simultaneously throw up, jump out of your skin, and crack a beer bottle over someone's head and avoid this book and its shitty author.

Do you want other people's morals on your popcorn?

It seems the theme of the night is questionable parenting.

I went out to the movies tonight. The theater that I usually go to is right in downtown Salem; three screens, small, local, very community-driven. To get into the seasonal frenzy that is going on currently they have been dedicating most of their shows to old horror movies -- Hitchcock, Kubrick, Carpenter, and the ilk. I was going to see A Clockwork Orange cuz I've never seen it, but Evan gave Gone Baby Gone a glowing review the other day so I decided to see it instead.

I get to the ticket counter and this old couple -- with the wife taking point -- is giving the girl behind the counter a hard time. Turns out some mope brought his young children, 7 or 8-abouts in age from the hearsay, with him as he took in some filmic literature for the evening. Apparently there is a graphic rape scene in the movie so this parenting decision is clearly one of the great affronts to the decency of Western civ. The woman is a school principal -- who better for a strong moral compass? -- so of course she should be encouraged and allowed to berate the man in front of the audience and his children. Make of big show of getting your money back and walking out in a huff and listen as the queued-up masses applaud your virtue and demand you be pinned with ribbons.

She says how dare he? I say how dare her? It's his kids; he can raise them as he sees fit. I would imagine I would be a bit more selective in children's viewing fare, but it's not my problem. Mind your own business and don't get self-righteous about a film that you probably praised as "ground-breaking" when you were the age Malcolm McDowell was when he filmed it.

All of this dove-tailed nicely into Ben Affleck's directorial debut. The movie turned to the audience and asked, "who better to guide a young innocent into adulthood: some caring, well-meaning strangers with some skewed perspective or a coked-up, abusive single mother from Dorchester Heights? The movie was good, Casey Affleck was a badass, Michelle Monaghan was cute, and the ending did not take the typical route down Mulholland Drive. In the end I identified with Patrick and sided with his decision and walked home thinking concerned strangers need to keep their thoughts on parenting to themselves.

Day of infamy

I am pained. Today marks the first of a long next three years. An hour ago I was happily watching episodes of Rome. Now I am crying into my beer. I checked ESPN for an update on the Sox-Indians game to find the game still tied 6-6 in the 10th inning. I also gained ugly, unwanted insight into the Reds new managerial hire. I shudder at the mention of...

...Dusty Baker being our new manager.

I don't keep a liquor cabinet at home. I find that it can be too much of a distraction. I may have to reverse that decision because I find myself awake at 1:11 on a Sunday morning with a serious need for a serious drink. I need a miracle to stretch my remaining beer into a dozen.

Dusty Baker is a disaster for my baseball team. He is one of my most hated managers. He is awful. He will ruin Homer's arm and waste our young talent and drive me crazy with his toothpicks. We might as well bring in Barry fucking Bonds and some other old-ass wash-ups to complete this moronic hire. Dusty Baker will kill me as surely as he killed Mark Prior and Kerry Wood and the Cubs.

Who hires a manager off of a league-worst record? What was Krivsky and/or Castinellini thinking? Can anyone be in charge of the Reds without dooming them to failure for the forseeable future? I don't know if Harang, Brandon, and Josh can dig us out of this hole. This has been some of the worst news I've ever had. Worse even than the fact that I just finished that last beer.

My thoughts are thus: yes, we wanted a "big name" hire, but how do you hose Pete Mackanin like that after the job he did for us? Why not at least wait until after the playoffs to see if Joe Torre is available? Did we even ever contact Joe Girardi? Cuz it sure seems we didn't. The only thing worse than this hire would have been Tony La Russa. I will gladly suffer through 3 or 1 and a half years of this dumbass to avoid the very real possibility of living with La Russa. I would have completed unholy acts to keep La Russa as far away from this franchise as possible. So Dusty Baker is a small -- extremely fucking microbial -- comfort.

I feel so so bad for Pete Mackanin. I am so sorry I'm out of beer. We better win the World Series for the next 3 years running.