William Jefferson Clinton, a man who left office under a cloud of scandal and with the derision of those on the left of his party who thought that he was too politically expedient and quick to compromise on sacred Democratic ideals but who now invoke his name as the kind of tough negotiator who would totally stand up to the opposition and protect our cherished social safety net, turns 65 today. I would say that 15 years from now those people will have the same false nostalgia for Barack Obama, but 15 years from now we will all be living in holes and running from fires and begging the rich people to enslave us just so we can enjoy the protections of their walled cities, so we will probably have a bunch of other stuff on our minds. Anyway, happy birthday, vegan president. Enjoy that Social Security while it lasts.

Photo by Anthony Correia, via Shutterstock

No, there’s plenty of derivative, self-satisfied, faux-conceptual, obvious, ill-conceived boring-ass live crap all around you! Next?

by David Roth and David Raposa

David Roth: Good news! I’ve secured a licensing deal for Carlos Zambrano RageBeast 27-Hour Energy Drink. Two flavors, for now: Lemon-Lime and Blind Fury. I’m still trying to figure out the ingredients, though. Any thoughts?

David Raposa: Stage blood. Preferably from a summer stock production of Oedipus.

David Roth: And hot dog water is a must. Because you need the nitrates and sodium and ambient protein. So corn syrup, food coloring… PCP?

David Raposa: Ground-up liver of Michael Barrett.

David Roth: Taurine and bile and shards of smashed dugout water coolers.

David Raposa: Whatever pill was used in the making of Player’s Coffee. About 100 of those.

David Roth: Player’s Coffee continues to blow my mind.

David Roth: The idea that Tim McCarver was walking around basically on speed for his entire Major League career is so tough to process. Thirty-six straight hours of frantic, clammy punning is obviously nothing new for him. But imagine how much more emphatic it must’ve been.

David Raposa: Its prevalence explains a lot, though. Like Joe Morgan’s elbow twitch. Luis Tiant’s joie de vivre. And Pete Rose in toto.

David Roth: Pete Rose drugs are the scariest drugs. Everything’s cut with barbicide and Aqua Velva.

David Raposa: And on the subject of batshit loons, it’s a shame we didn’t chat earlier in the week when the big story was: Oh Shit, Carlos Went Crazy (Again). Now the story is: Oh Shit, Carlos Wants His $18 Million. He and the Cubs deserve each other.

David Roth: The Cubs are so strange. They’re free of their porny newspaper-destroying owner, which is great.

David Raposa: They’re not free of the clownshoes front office that he brought in, though.

David Roth: I loved reading about how they were turning down teams inquiring on randoms and utility guys at the deadline. “Jeff Baker? Not available. We’ve got a shot at 75 wins.”

David Raposa: They did flip Fukudome, though. Which must’ve killed all the racist jagoffs out on Waveland Avenue selling HERRO THERE t-shirts.

David Raposa: Hey, remember all the way back to last week, when the Blue Jays were the biggest cheaters to ever cheat at anything?

David Roth: That seemed like a well-reported story.

David Raposa: Yeah, for a WEBSITE.

David Roth: MURRAY CHASS’D! (Although I also don’t know if building the whole piece on home/road splits and anonymous sources in the White Sox bullpen is as airtight as it seemed at the time.)

David Raposa: Don’t forget the damning anecdotal evidence provided by the Yankees & Red Sox broadcasters.

David Roth: Matt Thornton and Ken Singleton, Deep Throats for a new era.

David Raposa: I guess that means that the broadcasters for 13 other teams are too distracted by steaming bowls of poutine to notice anything.

David Roth: So do you buy the Jays thing? I still kind of do, but at the same time there was something kind of silly/suspect about the whole Man In White Sighs When A Change-Up Is Coming specificity of it.

David Raposa: I don’t doubt that they, and other teams, steal signs outside of the parameters set by Baseball’s Unwritten Rules. I doubt, however, that they’re the reason Jose Bautista and Friends can occasionally light up a team’s third starter.

David Raposa: And if you can spot a vague signal from the CF bleachers and still make contact with a pitch AND keep the ball fair, then more power to you. I’d have to believe most folks, even if they were told what was coming and where it was going to be, would be more like Marvin Benard than Barry Bonds.

David Roth: Yeah, you kind of deserve it if you have time to steal what pitch Justin Verlander is throwing, and then hit it. That’s always been the bottom line for me with all this stuff, including the steroid thing. You could put me on an HGH regimen until I look like a bespectacled, Jew-y Lou Ferrigno and then send me a fax 45 minutes before the game identifying which pitch is coming when and I’d still start weeping halfway to the batter’s box.

David Roth: So, can you watch this ska-scored Tsuyoshi Shinjo tribute video and tell me everything is going to be okay, please?

David Raposa: Ah, the world-famous Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra!

David Roth: Who makes these videos?

David Raposa: Relatives of the world-famous Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra?

David Roth: Paris Hilton is in it. And yes, if anything, Shinjo detracts from the Inna Toshiro Mifune Stylee irie-ness of the group.

David Raposa: A pic of Shinjo yawning in his Mets uni and matching sweatbands says it all.

David Roth: Lots of in-action photos from his groundout-intensive period with the Giants.

David Raposa: Uh, go to 1:28 and tell me what the fuck that is, please.

David Roth: Well, that’s… like, have you seen Hellraiser? The baseball-themed Hellraiser sequel?

David Raposa: That’s the one with Trey Hillman using the puzzle box to fix Gil Meche’s messed-up back, right?

David Roth: Probably Jeff Fahey’s worst performance on record, there. (As both Hillman and Meche.) So, we talked about this a little on Twitter this week, but after watching Jason Bay during his most recent hitting-and-looking-like-the-sickly-kid-from-the-Simpsons slump, I’ve been kind of stuck on the Greatest Pop-Up Artists Of Our Time thing. His little humpbacked pop-outs are just the most innocuous ways to not get on base that I’ve seen maybe ever.

David Raposa: Worse than worm killers that barely roll past the lip of the infield grass?

David Roth: I wonder if the passing of the steroid era, besides taking away the last thing Bob Costas enjoyed talking about involving baseball, has deprived us of our great pop-up artists. (It’s not like Bay can’t roll over on a 4–3, either.)

David Roth: But you have to see these pop-outs. It’s like if you could hit a ball with a bat and somehow produce the sad trombone sound effect from “Press Your Luck.”

David Raposa: Ah, THAT sound — did you know there are WHAMMY COLLECTIONS on YouTube. It’s synthy, but the tough-titty spirit is there.

David Roth: I definitely wasn’t thinking of The Whammy Mascot Zydeco Symphony Orchestra featured in that video, but I’m damn glad to meet it. That shit needs to accompany a Shinjo video.

David Raposa: Or maybe the 30-second Best of Kosuke Fukudome USA Compendium. Featuring That One Homer, and The Catch He Made.

David Roth: That should be set to “Rainbow In The Dark” or something. YouTube highlight vids set to inapt songs are forever my favorite.

David Roth: Travis Hafner’s Greatest Doubles, with Christina Aguilera’s “I Turn To You” underneath.

David Roth: Randy Wolf’s Most Adequate Starts, set to “Ante Up” by MOP.

David Raposa: Over/under on “Simply The Best” tributes to light-hitting utility players?

David Roth: Not enough. If I had the chops, I’d cobble together a Joe McEwing tribute set to that song.

David Raposa: Super Joe, keep on burning!

David Roth: And then a Dale Murphy one set to “War Pigs.”

David Raposa: Only if you limit your footage to Murphy’s ignominious tour of duty with the Phillies.

David Roth: If MLB sued me, so be it. I’d know they were right to do it, but also that I’d done the right thing.

David Roth: Mark Buehrle highlight on right now. What happens to pitchers at age 32? They just all turn into bearded rectangles. Jason Isringhausen looks like Kirby from Mario Kart.

David Raposa: As a 36-year-old non-athlete with the metabolism and appetite of Jack Donaghy, I plead the 5th on body shapes. Though! Speaking of square bodies! JI —

David Raposa: — M THOME!

David Roth: I am really happy for Jim Thome.

David Raposa: Hands down the happiest bastard in the 600-homer club.

David Roth: He’d be just as happy throwing heavy objects around on a farm, I suspect.

David Raposa: Damn skippy.

David Roth: But he deserves it. As much as The Dugout deserves credit for making him everyone’s Favorite Slugging Boo Radley.

David Raposa: Oh, no doubt.

David Raposa: If any player is actually worthy the “He’s just having fun out there” handjob that some broadcasters/writers give haphazardly to dive-happy sub-Ecksteinian goobers, it’s Our Man Jim.

David Roth: There’s a great picture of him hitting his 590somethingth homer, with Delmon Young in the on-deck circle making this totally gif-appropriate OH SHIT NO HE DID NOT face. A very eloquent gif.

David Raposa: Oh hell, yes. I must be the 600th person to think that Thome looks very Killebrew-esque in that pic.

David Roth: Thome has the rare distinction of looking like someone who could’ve played in any era. No one really looks like Babe Ruth anymore. The same way that all Jewish immigrants looked exactly like my great-grandparents, and that no one looks like that person anymore.

David Raposa: Hell, no one in the past 20 years, that I can think of. Outside of Thome and Matt Williams. Put pre-nap Junior Griffey in some uncomfortable wool pantaloons, and he might qualify, too.

David Roth: Riblet technology was not sufficiently advanced to create a Mark Buehrle body type back then.

David Raposa: There were only so many cigars and bottles of hooch to go around. Because of war rations. Also, any time someone wanted a steak, they had to go into Shelbyville and kill it themselves.

David Roth: Onion-belted, I’m sure. I think the key to making that olde-timey look work is actually just walking around looking like a Diamond Kings drawing all the time. Not that many people can pull that off in this day and age.

David Roth: Where have you gone, Pete O’Brien, a nation turns its lonely eyes to your 1991 Donruss Diamond King Perm.

David Raposa: Oh god, those early ’90s baseball cards were some kind of hideous. Donruss must be Swedish for “Colorblind.”

David Roth: Obie looks VERY Spicoli in his Diamond King. O’Brien’s stats the year of his Diamond King Enshrinement: .260–12–55… in 155 games.

David Raposa: Hey now — he had 16 HRs and 71 RBIs in 1988! Don’t knock the (grit and) hustle!

David Roth: Cory Snyder also repping the .215/.251/.360 slash line that year. Very flattering. Very good team, Cleveland Indians!

David Raposa: I’d say I’m glad the days of the 696 OPS DH are behind us. But you have to bat Jeff Mathis somewhere on his off days, am I right?

David Roth co-writes the Wall Street Journal’s Daily Fix, contributes to the sports blog Can’t Stop the Bleeding and has his own little website. And he tweets!

David Raposa writes about music for Pitchfork and other places. He used to write about baseball for the blog formerly known as Yard Work. He occasionally blogs for himself, and he also tweets way too much.

Photo by delusionalcubsfan.

“I suppose it made sense, when blogging was new, that there was some confusion about voice. Was a blog more like writing or more like speech? Soon it became a contrived and shambling hybrid of the two. The ‘sort ofs’ and ‘reallys’ and ‘ums’ and ‘you knows’ that we use in conversation were codified as the central connectors in the blogger lexicon. We weren’t just mad, we were sort of enraged; no one was merely confused, but kind of totally mystified. That music blog we liked was really pretty much the only one that, um, you know, got it. Never before had ‘folks’ been used so relentlessly and enthusiastically as a term of general address outside church suppers, chain restaurants and family reunions. It’s fascinating and dreadful in hindsight to realize how quickly these conventions took hold and how widely they spread. And! They have sort of mutated since to liberal and often sarcastic use of question marks? And exclamation points! ‘Oh, hi,’ people say at the start of sentences on blogs, Twitter and Tumblr these days, both acknowledging and jokily feigning surprise at the presence of the readers who have turned up there.”
 — Don’t blame David Foster Wallace for the way we blog now, but it is totally his fault.

Here is the most dramatic quote you will read in the newspaper today, from the organizer of a summer camp for girls that teaches them how awesome “manufacturing” is: “Not letting your children learn the hands-on component of the theory of science is killing us as a nation. You have to stop giving kids books and start giving them tools.”

Yes, books are destroying America’s girls. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m all into girls learning to make things! It’s just… let’s say, complicated. Since the public schools already funnel students into “white collar” and “worker” channels at an early age.) In other news, the story of how the State Department’s summer cultural exchange program dumped visiting college students — many of whom are enrolled in “medical and engineering graduate schools” — into harsh assembly-line jobs at a Hershey’s plant is hilarious: “In a meeting at the plant last week, which a student recorded on a mobile phone, a manager advised them they could be fired and the council might send them back home if they engaged in a protest.” Welcome! Now you’ve got a through education in USA! USA! I think we can find a solution here. Just shove the girls in Hershey’s camps and have the foreigners make all our lampshades.

“It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim. Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth’s atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control — and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.”

You know, what if the Black Eyed Peas were a really good band? They are, after all, immensely popular! What if it’s just you? What if you’re just a stuck-up and joyless snob?

In any event, while you mull that, the recently canceled Black Eyed Peas concert in Central Park is back on, for September 30th, although the Times requests that you remember that delightful night in 1983, when “hundreds of concert goers were mauled” after Diana Ross’ show. That was back in an odd little moment when Diana Ross was sort of… Lady Gaga meets a black Kreayshawn? Important archival video documentation above!

A Look Inside News Corp.’s “Business Conduct” Manual!

by Anthony Lydgate

On Tuesday, Parliament published a heap of correspondence related to the News of the World phone-hacking investigation. Included in the document haul was News Corp.’s “Standards of Business Conduct” manual, which the Murdoch camp had dutifully forwarded to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee upon request.

When James Murdoch testified before Parliament back in July, he mentioned the “Standards” manual several times, saying that it explained the company’s ethics guidelines in a fairly detailed way, but “not too much, so that people read it.” The manual (which, it turns out, was available online the whole time) was last updated in May 2011, right when the current installment of the hacking saga was getting its start. The pamphlet is an editorial tour de force, with imagery drawn from all corners of the Murdochs’ excellently diversified media empire — children’s books, sports shows, tabloid newspapers, Hindi-language soap operas and James Cameron movies. The often startling contrast between the copy and the accompanying graphics would be enough to make the manual a fun read — but it’s enjoyable to browse through for other reasons, too.

Always report to the appropriate persons (and to the persons they consider appropriate).

MP Jim Sheridan: “Mr. Murdoch, do you accept that ultimately you are responsible for this whole fiasco?”
Rupert Murdoch: “Nope.”
Sheridan: “Who is responsible?”
Murdoch: “The people that I trusted to run it, and then maybe the people they trusted.”

Oh, don’t bring the moon into this.

Fox News anchor: “Does it go anywhere close to the climate-change debate that’s underway here on Earth? I mean, if the moon had erupting volcanoes… it’s not like we’ve been up there burning fossil fuels.”
Bill Nye: “No, volcanoes are not connected to the burning of fossil fuels.”

Then they watched several episodes of “Sons of Anarchy.”

“Paul V. Carlucci takes no prisoners. The head of a marketing division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Carlucci once rallied his sales force by showing a film clip from The Untouchables in which Al Capone beats a man to death with a baseball bat.”

A safe & healthy environment in which some are predators, others, prey.

Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News: “I only understand friendship or scorched earth.”

Nothing says credibility like these guys.

Rupert Murdoch: “I’m not talking about that issue at all today. Sorry.”
Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney: “Okay, no worries, Mr. Chairman, that’s fine with me.”
Murdoch: “I’m too far removed out here. Sorry.”
Varney: “That’s all right, sir.”

Her pie will go on.

Pie-thrower Jonnie Marbles: “As I got close to him, Wendi Deng got up and lunged at me. […] I remember the rage in her eyes.”

Anthony Lydgate lives in Brooklyn and would Wendi Deng for you.

18. Turd on the Run
17. Let It Loose
16. Casino Boogie
15. Sweet Virginia
14. Stop Breaking Down
13. Shake Your Hips
12. Rip This Joint
11. Sweet Black Angel
10. Loving Cup
9. All Down The Line
8. Ventilator Blues
7. Soul Survivor
6. Tumbling Dice
5. Torn And Frayed
4. Happy
3. I Just Want To See His Face
2. Shine a Light
1. Rocks Off

“The prison population of England and Wales has hit a new record high of 86,608 people,” thanks to several hundred young rioters being held in the system. Yup: 86,000 people are in prison out of a population of 53,390,300. Yeah… so that’s .0016% of England and Wales. (The U.S. has about 2,300,000 people in prison, out of 307,006,550 people — almost five times as many, by population.)

Guess what? This means England has surpassed its tragic colony, old Prisoncrime Island, in rates of imprisonment — with all of 22 million people, Australia has only like 30,000 people in prison. (Though they’re trying desperately to up their rates!)