Thursday, February 15, 2007

"Say It With Dead Flowers"

A severe winter storm, computer outage and even more severe inertia and lethargy combined to prevent Joey Porter’s Pit Bulls from posting the entry we had crafted for Valentine’s Day.

It’s just as well.

Valentine’s Day was always for other people, anyway. For me, it was usually the day I was reminded that other people do, in fact, do that sort of thing — but only when I’d walk into my favorite neighborhood cocktail lounge in the early evening and see couples canoodling while they waited for their reservations to be called at the overpriced, overcrowded restaurant next door.

And then I’d remember, “Who are these annoying people? Oh, yeah, it’s Valentine’s Day.”

And then I’d go over to the jukebox and play “Dead Flowers” by The Stones.

Oh, well.

Didn’t do that this year. But Joey Porter’s Pit Bulls are glad the extended run of pre-Valentine’s Day commercials is finally over … you know, pretty much the same commercials that ran, pre-Christmas, for overpriced but cheap-ass jewelry store chains like Jared, J.B., Robinson, Zale, Kay’s, J.C. Penney and Sears, for cryin’ out loud, to name the most egregious offenders. At least that’s over.

As Mick Jagger sang, “Say it with dead flowers …and I won’t forget to put roses on your grave.”

Hey! Look Who's Back!!

Emerging from an extended hiatus are the guys over at The Dock Ellis Experience, one of our favorite blogs. Dock Ellis, in case you didn’t know, was an All Star-caliber pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1970s.

One evening in San Diego, he pitched a nine-inning no-hitterwhile on LSD. Sure, he walked eight and hit a batter, but otherwise he was seeing his pitches as multicolored laser trails in a zone. And people wonder why we follow sports.

Anyway, Dock Ellis's trippy no-hitter inspired the blog name, The Dock Ellis Experience, and, as Jimi Hendrix said in his song, “Third Stone From the Sun,” “Not necessarily stoned, just … beautiful.”

Besides, we’ve always liked the following rationale, offered at the end of the first-ever post on The Dock Ellis Experience:

“Will anyone read this? I don't really give a fuck... I'm bored and I always read other people's shitty opinions so I thought maybe it's time to give the world mine, so here it is...”

Words to blog by.