Gaining altitude

My latest black-hole bout has been lengthy and annoying, if not particularly debilitating. Aside from a couple of "lost days" in the mix over the last, what, three or four weeks(?), I've remained functional and reasonably alert despite the dark cloud surrounding my mood and the extra effort required to focus on anything. These episodes generally don't last this long—three or four weeks is definitely an outlier—but these are not exactly normal times we're living through and I suppose I am cursed with the combination of awareness of our societal decline plus ethical standards that require commensurate outrage. Add clinical depression to the mix and I guess it's not a stretch to have a month-long span of sometimes-morbid ennui.

The incident on the ballfield near the end of January most definitely had a hand in this. The disrespect and insult from the league, however unintentional and clumsily communicated it may have been, has had me seriously considering quitting the umpire gig, which I used to enjoy quite a bit. Subsequent shifts were less fun, less engaging, regardless of what teams I drew on the schedule or the weather or whathaveyou. The reminder that I'm considerably older than anyone else on the field staff (and probably older than anyone working for the league in any capacity) contributed to feeling like maybe I ought to chuck it since I'm apparently considered an interchangeable cog. On the other hand, with my client base diminished post-COVID and my lack of enthusiasm for building it up again, I do utilize the $50 per game more than I used to, especially with Felon47 stealing from us all on a daily basis and otherwise wrecking the economy.

Thankfully, last night's ump shift was a return to fun. It was the start of playoffs, which can sometimes be bad depending on the level of machismo present, but everyone behaved themselves. I had one close game, where the defense came to play—I don't think I've ever done a game with so many double-plays in it, and highlight-reel-level outfield catches to boot—and one blowout. Some silliness and goofy interplay. And to a person everyone wanted me to ump their next games and were upset when I told them they were going to get someone else thanks to limitations of the schedule.

I needed it. It's a sad commentary on my state of mind that I needed it, but I did. Between the outrages in the news and the flak from the league, the various low-stakes problems with finances and stuff at home, and general depression being fed by it all, having the players all greet me by name and express thanks for getting me for their playoff openers, then play a fun game with no bullshit, then ask if there was a way they could twist the league's arm to get me to work their next games even though it's on someone else's docket, it all served to give my altitude orbiting the black hole a boost. Then I got to work a game with ichiban suki na senshu and her squad, after which she had me tag along for ice cream and insisted I be in a photo with her team. (Just don't show the league, lest they think I play favorites when making calls.)

I hate having to deal with the black hole so often, but it's something I just have to endure from time to time and I can thanks to psychopharmacology. And, in this case, thanks to the players on the field, who let me know in ways the people that pay me can't or won't ever do that it makes a difference to have me doing the gig.

Tagged Umping, The Black Hole, Posted on February 24, 2026 at 8:15PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Umpire Diary

I had two games to work last night and they both involved players I like to draw on my docket. You'd think, therefore, that it would have been a lot of fun and provide some tales for the blog.

You'd think, but not so much. Mostly because my little black hole episode referenced the other day is still hanging around. I'd managed to gain some altitude the day before, but apparently not a lot, because I got tired and dropped down a bit and was basically powering through last night. Which is a shame, because it was the first time I got to work a game with The Leftovers this year and I didn't make the most of it. Still, things went OK. I might not have been "all there," but it's still nice to see Neal and Cerissa and the gang.

Both games were blowouts, with the team playing a doubleheader scoring 38 runs in each while holding the opponents to the teens. Some of the players on the winning side were present on the night I got "policed" by the league, so there were questions, good-natured ribbings, further discussion of that incident; that likely didn't help my demeanor, but I still appreciated it. The players deserve to have an idea of what kind of business they're supporting, and I don't want to be opaque or, on the flip side, unreasonably critical or leave such impressions. Still, I prefer to just ignore that fiasco at this point.

One bit of administrative nuisance that came up was about our league's lineup rules, which require a minimum gender ratio be followed (no more than two men for each woman or non-binary player in the lineup or on the field). One group was lobbying for an exception to the rule and even though I like these people, and even though I have been known to, under extenuating circumstances, allow for a deviation from the edict, on principle I support the rule and want to enforce it. Doing so didn't win me any new friends, but in this area I don't mind being a hardass so long as the rest of the field staff are consistent with it. We're a coed league, we're not a men's league, and making allowances for teams that show up with a too-skewed ratio of men to women or vice-versa (though that's yet to happen) is counter-productive. When I was a team captain in this league I had to deal with it and deprive myself and one or more of my teammates from at-bats because one or more of the ladies didn't show up. It's annoying, but the rule exists for a reason and I agree with it.

The issue that gives me even a little pause is that apparently some of the other umps choose not to enforce the rule and therein lies potential chaos. There have been piddly rules I've chosen not to enforce now and then, just to avoid arguments on things that I consider inconsequential (generally these have been rules about a specific pitching distance or concerning the pitching rubber, the enforcement of which once resulted in an epic meltdown of a player who turned out to be on the autism spectrum, or the scope of the batters' box, which on dirt fields especially can be tricky due to lack of field maintenance) but every time such things come up I make it clear—the rulebook says this, but I'm choosing not to enforce it today because of X. Others will likely choose to enforce it, I may choose to under other circumstances next time, so never assume this to be standard. But if others are just ignoring things like the ratio rule (which maybe they believe to be inconsequential, though I'd disagree) and giving teams the impression that they have at least a 50/50 shot at ignoring it on a given day, then the teams may plan for it or at least not prepare for working within their limits. I just ask for consistency—keep the rule or change it, but don't leave players wondering what it'll be every time out.

I'm not recalling in great detail how well I handled that problem last night—the black hole made me a bit foggy and I remain so today—but it was enforced and there wasn't a lot of pushback, so it must have been OK.

I've got a couple more games on Sunday afternoon and then two more Monday night. Hopefully I'll be more clearheaded and in a higher orbit by then.

Tagged Umping, Softball, The Black Hole, Posted on February 13, 2026 at 9:11PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Hitting the links

My lifelong struggle with clinical depression hit a bump this week—if I'm being honest with myself, it was in the works for a while now—and I had me a good old-fashioned lost day yesterday when I didn't even get out of bed. When not asleep, I was unproductively reliving certain memories from younger days that I wish had gone differently, you know. Basically stuck in a wallow.

This shit happens once in a while, I've learned to accept it. It happens less often than it used to thanks to my Rx, and when it does happen is not as severe. Not as severe means, among other things, that I was fully able to muster the willpower to get up, take care of some things, and get some exercise today as I attempt to gain more altitude over the black hole I continually orbit. Early reports are favorable.

Anyhow, now that I'm caught up on two days' worth of email and some administrative housekeeping (still haven't tackled the taxes, though), I've been perusing the Interwebs to see what fresh horrors are in the news and have come across some links to share. To wit:

• Cory Doctorow has a suggestion for Democrats in Congress: make a big deal out of forming what he's calling a "Nuremberg caucus." Basically a committee that keeps track, publicly, with a website and regular on-camera announcements, of all the criminal behavior perpetrated by Felon47, the Cabinet, DHS/ICE/CBP, and the rest of the regime. They would publicize plans for hearings, at least, if not charges and potential trials, regarding each of the crimes noted, to take place when Democrats regain the majority—whether that be after midterm elections or when enough Republicans resign or otherwise leave office. If nothing else, politically this would be a great move as we need to see and hear more form our elected leaders about their intentions to hold the fascists accountable for the destruction they are wreaking on the nation.

  The Nuremberg Caucus could vow to repurpose ICE's $75b budget to pursue Trump's crimes, from corruption to civil rights violations to labor violations to environmental violations. It could announce its intent to fully fund the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division to undertake scrutiny of all mergers approved under Trump, and put corporations on notice that they should expect lengthy, probing inquiries into any mergers they undertake between now and the fall of Trumpism.

• On a similar topic, today's Bob Cesca Show podcast featured a discussion with Cliff Schecter about oligarchs and the need to once and for all declare as a country that no amount of wealth that effectively places an individual above the law will be allowed, that rule by the rich is the basis of the current regime and now is the time to enact massive reform. From a return to the 90% marginal tax rate to making stock buybacks illegal again to eliminating the distinction between income and capital gains, Cliff notes a plethora of suggested reforms that would not only rein in the obscene levels of wealth disparity that has exploded since the ’80s, but seriously curtail the ability of the super-wealthy to buy their way out of legal consequences for their behavior.

• This isn't new news, but I missed it at the time. A couple of months ago variants of this headline were working their way through social media sites: “Wake Up, Jeff”: Paul McCartney’s Ultimatum to Amazon Sends Shockwaves Across Culture, Business, and Politics. The article's lead paragraph includes, "McCartney announced that he would pull all McCartney-affiliated media partnerships and business collaborations from Amazon, accusing Bezos of a quiet alignment with Donald Trump." It looked legit, made sense. Paul McCartney certainly would be the sort of figure that would object to the cruelty of the current American regime and the businesses that support it. But it's bogus.

  The same piece, with other names substituted for McCartney's—musicians, sports figures, Hollywood celebs—was all over Facebook. It was created by people exploiting Mark Zuckerberg's Meta software to engage users of Facebook (and other Meta platforms) to share the posts, click through, and give advertisers more impressions. When a version using the name Bo Nix, a Denver Broncos football player, in place of McCartney's started going around, it was more obviously bogus (at least to people who follow the Denver Broncos) and a reporter for a Denver paper did a deep dive into it: https://www.denvergazette.com/2025/11/22/this-just-in-facebooks-breaking-news-is-a-total-head-fake/. Among other findings:

  Fake news hooks genuine users, who often react emotionally to it, either by celebrating or condemning its content. This creates what is called “a feedback loop”: More interactions mean more algorithmic promotion, more time spent on the platform, and higher ad exposure. Studies have shown that fake news can generate 20 times more shares than real news, turning one bot’s initial spark into widespread organic traffic.

  How does that turn into money for Meta? Indirectly but hugely. The more exposure an ad gets, the more Meta charges the advertiser. Last year, Meta made $161 billion on advertising placed on its three platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

  And here’s where it gets downright deplorable. According to a bombshell new Reuters investigation released Nov. 6, 2025, fully 10% of Meta’s ad revenue—up to $16 billion a year—comes from publishing ads that Meta knows to be outright scams or for banned products. This comes from a review of Meta’s own internal documents.

  Yet another (or really a variation on the same) reason to boycott Facebook and all Zuckerberg platforms. Yet, I still post links there because more than a few people I know treat the Internet like it's just an extension of Facebook. Maddening. There are better ways, folks.

• The House passed the latest Republican voter suppression bill today, with one Dem, Henry Cuellar (TX), joining the fascist caucus in voting yes. It needs to be killed with fire by the Senate, then either buried in a deep hole or shot into the sun. The anti-American Speaker of the House, who has already declared his opposition to abiding by law and the Constitution on other matters, tried to conflate the bill's proposed change to voting law with "open[ing] a bank account [and] buy[ing] cold medicine," and asked "why would voting be any different than that?" Well, Mr. Speaker, the fact that voting is a right enshrined by the Constitution is a factor, not that you give a damn about what the Constitution says. Also, no one has to produce a passport or a birth certificate and, if applicable, official name change documentation to buy Sudafed or open a checking account. Yet that's what you want to require to register to vote. So let's ask you that same question—why do you want voting requirements to be so exclusionary, far beyond what would be required to open a bank account? The fact that Speaker Johnson feels the need to obfuscate and distort the truth about his bill tells us that he knows full well that it's unacceptable on its face to the public at large. Asshole.
• "Attorney General" Pam Bondi appeared at a hearing in the House of Representatives today and performed as instructed by the criminal regime for which she works. Speaking with open contempt for Congress, not even pretending that her job as head of the (former) Justice Department is in any way independent of the president, and, of course, lying her ass off.
  
  

There's more, but I have to go to an HOA meeting, so this will have to do. Later, all.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, The Black Hole, Republicans, Posted on February 11, 2026 at 7:00PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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How is it December already?

Should be read in the tone of Jerry Seinfeld greeting Newman the mailman

Good day, and welcome to Month 12.

As I type this, it is December 1st, 2025, which kind of weirds me out. I mean, we all know that as we get older the passage of time seems to speed up merely because of the law of scale—a year/month/day/pick your unit of time continually shrinks in proportion to the total time you've lived, hence a year when you're 13 feels a lot longer than a year when you're 53—but this year seems to have flown by with particular alacrity.

In some ways, I guess that's not so bad—big-picture-wise, 2025 has been a shit year, why not get it over with—but that's nonsensical. Arbitrary numbers on our cultural timekeeping platforms are great for organization, but really they don't mean anything on a day-to-day human level. (And yes, I know days and years aren't arbitrary, they're facts of astronomical physics, but how we think of them culturally is; with a little different push from history we might still be using a variation of the Sumerian calendar.)

Or, maybe the year hasn't really flown by in my perception. Maybe my wow-is-it-already-December nonplussedness stems from something a little more localized, or more to do with my fucked-up brain chemistry and how for a while it seemed November was the month of doom. There was a stretch of years around the turn of the century wherein bad stuff tended to fall in November; that hasn't really been the case in more recent years, but anniversaries still turn up every time around and perhaps have contributed to my most recent Black Hole episode, still ongoing.

In which case, yay, November over, bring on December.

Eh, whatever. The why of it doesn't matter, I guess, it just is: I'm in a mood, and time passing by, whether "quickly" or "normally," isn't helping said mood.

Analyzing the whys is what I do, though. I overthink things, I overprocess things, I drill down to the studs on things. I might be better off if I just moved the fuck on. Instead I'm posting this rambly word salad stream of consciousness. Which, I suppose, is a potential way to move on? Better putting it out there than just letting it stew unarticulated in my head.

Regardless, it is now December. We've gotten past the first portion of the holiday season, bracing for the next, and looking forward to putting them all in the rear-view. Which kind of sucks. I mean, as a younger person I looked forward to holidays; now I look forward to them being over. Because they aren't fun anymore. Holidays are not made for single folk, they're not made for poorly-coupled folk, they're not made for third wheels or groups of orphans (literal or metaphorical). In fact, I can't remember the last holiday season I actually enjoyed as an adult. There must have been one or two somewhere along the way, but really I just remember suffering through them or just making the best of them in a sort of relaxed coasting detachment.

Anyway, herein lies my immediate challenge: Climb out of the Black Hole during the holiday season without immediately falling back down again. Don't disappear completely into my head for another month. That's my mission, if my brain chooses to accept it.

 

Ghosts appear and fade away.

Tagged The Black Hole, Holidays, Posted on December 1, 2025 at 11:35PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Pop culture and fighting the black hole

My mood since returning from my California travels has been in a state of flux, vacillating between "meh" and "we live in the worst timeline everything is misery." OK, I exaggerate slightly—truly miserable hasn't been part of my black-hole-of-depression episodes since the Zoloft Rx, it's actually more ennui than misery. But you take my point, it's not been peaches and cream. Unless the peaches are moldy and the cream curdled, I guess you could go that route in your metaphors if you like. "Darmok and Jilad at the expired food buffet."

Anyway, I won't go into the state-of-the-world portion of what's depressing in this post. You can look to the news media or your health insurance renewals for those sorts of bummers for now. In fact, for this post I don't think I want to go into any of the stuff that's been bumming me out, the bulk of which is something I don't really have a handle on anyway. Instead, let's discuss some stuff I've actually enjoyed lately.

My consumption of entertainment on the TV machine of late has included a few standouts that I heartily recommend:

• 

  The Big Thing of the Moment in the streaming world is Plur1bus, on AppleTV+, and it really is as good as its hype. It's high-concept sci-fi, so not for everyone, but the story follows Carol (Rhea Seehorn), a romance novelist with contempt for her readers, who is among a very few people worldwide who have not been afflicted with a mysterious ... something? Ailment? Virus? Extraterrestrial takeover? Freak sunspot storm? ... that has put the vast majority of the global human population into a sort of group mind. There have only been three episodes so far, so the mystery is still quite mysterious, but it's a premise that poses a Big Picture question, if you will, which is: Are people better off content in a happy groupthink mental commune, or as individuals with all of the messy conflicts that are possible between them? Created by Vince Gilligan of X-Files fame, the show's tagline is "The most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness." The show works only because Carol is such a well-realized character and Seehorn is so good at embodying her. Without Seehorn in the role I think the show would fail, or at best be something quite different. It's intense, but very well done.

• 

  Wayward, on Netflix, is a mystery show from creator/star Mae Martin. I liked Martin's prior show Feel Good, so I thought I'd give this one a shot too. It's a whole different kind of thing—Feel Good is a semi-autobiographical slice-of-life comedy/drama, Wayward is about a tiny town in Vermont where there are no children and an academy for teens that "students" run away from as often as possible because horrible things happen there. Based at least in part on the experience of a childhood friend of Martin's who was sent away to a "troubled teen" camp of sorts called CEDU—that friend is a consulting producer of the show—the series follows two parallel tracks: one, a pair of Toronto teenagers who find themselves "enrolled" in the cult-like academy; and two, Martin's character, a cop newly-transplanted to the tiny town who dives into figuring out the mystery of the academy while the entirety of the town tries to prevent anyone exposing its secrets. It's good, but the ending is unsatisfying; it gives two different versions and its unclear which character imagines the false one or if it's supposed to be more of a you-the-audience-can-choose-which-ending-you-like-better kind of thing or what. I liked it overall, though, and it's worth spotlighting the sort of "troubled teen" institutions that still exist and still cause problems in our world of abuses.

• 

  Then there's The Lazarus Project, a British sci-fi show that follows George, a new recruit to a secret government agency that intervenes to prevent disaster from befalling humanity and uses its most powerful tool to turn the clock back if the worst comes to pass. George notices he's in a time loop, repeating three months of his life, and since people aren't supposed to remember things that happen before a "reset" the agency takes interest and brings him into the fold. When someone has the power to reset the world—always back to the most recent July 1st—there have to be understandings that resets only happen in the most critical circumstances or else there's nothing but chaos. But what if one of the agents feels his/her personal needs outweigh the rules? And what happens if other people discover this whole time-reset thing and try to develop their own method? Or a way to send someone back beyond a reset point? Time-travel stories all tend to have similar elements, but I like the way this one skews them and the way the multiethnic British cast fills out a complex bunch of characters. It's not a show that has any real standout staying power, but its well-produced and well-performed. I enjoyed it.
• A Man on the Inside is a show I watched when it first came out last year, but I rewatched it while visiting Dad & Marty in California a few weeks back. It has a new resonance for me now that my dad is going through some stuff that relates heavily to some elements of the mystery Ted Danson's character of Charles is placed in a retirement home to investigate. Really great stuff, and season two is scheduled to drop this week. Looking forward to it.

Then there's the world of comics. I've been asked a few times, mostly by my friend Nikki, why I, a middle-aged adult man, still spend anywhere from $50-$100 a month on comic books. I don't always have a good answer. Lifelong hobby, appreciation of the art form, investment in the fictional worlds they embody. A lot of them I read and then say, well, that's not memorable or special at all, and think I should reassess my ordering habits. (I'll turn some of them around and sell them on eBay if I don't find any other value in them.) Sometimes I keep getting a particular title for the collector-completeness motive even though there's not much there. Mostly, I simply enjoy them and that's good enough for me. But occasionally something will surprise me, a mainstream superhero comic or a little indy curiosity that reminds me, yeah, that's why I always loved comics.

The most recent of those standouts are Detective Comics #1100 and the 2025 Titans Annual.

Detective #1100 is an oversized milestone edition with several Batman short stories, all of which are stylishly done and satisfying in their own ways. "Lost and Found" is a silent (i.e. no dialogue, no narrative captions) tale of Batman, aided by Ace the Bat-Hound (a deep cut going back to the goofy Batman comics of the 1950s), helping a deaf child recover his lost dog. It's derivative—Matt Fraction and David Aja did a fantastic issue of Hawkeye several years ago that was from the perspective of Hawkeye's dog Lucky (aka Pizza Dog) that wasn't exactly silent, but the only dialogue rendered in non-gibberish were words Lucky knew—but still fun. "The Knife and Gun Club" barely features Batman at all, it's a peek into the doctors and nurses on staff at the emergency room that treats people involved in a typical night in Gotham City—victims of crime and perpetrators of same that, in one way or another, are sent to the ER by Batman. One doctor is outraged at the number of injured people arriving thanks to the actions of Batman. Another much prefers the injuries they treat now over the fatalities that were the norm pre-Batman. A reveal at the end has Batman himself sneaking in to have a laceration stitched up. "Your Role in the Community" juxtaposes Batman's crime-fighting efforts with the image cultivated by his alter ego Bruce Wayne, who is shown at a fund-raising event in Gotham being browbeaten by a journalist who takes him to task for merely throwing money at society's problems. The last story is "The Fall," which doesn't do anything for me but is illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz, whose gritty, ink-wash style is always interesting even if not particularly appealing to me.

Titans Annual 2025 is a more traditional single-story issue, entirely character-based as Donna Troy recounts her attempt to meet and get to know her birth father. That particular character has had a mysterious background for a long time and there have been a few iterations of "Who is Donna Troy" going back to the ’80s, but this was a welcome addition to the canon, spectacularly written and drawn by Phil Jimenez. The regular Titans title I should probably quit buying, it's one that I simply have a lot of nostalgia for as one of the favorites of my comics-fan heyday even though lately it's been forgettable and ... let's say, unsophisticated. But, had I not been getting it I might have passed on this Annual, and I'm glad to have gotten it.

 I've also started the novel Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie. It was recommended to me as "in my wheelhouse," but thus far I'm kind of struggling to get into it. Hopefully it'll pick up soon.

So, anything y'all would recommend I add to the entertainment pile?

Tagged TV, Comics, The Black Hole, Posted on November 19, 2025 at 12:48AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Ghosts appear and fade away

Sigh. The state of the world (see previous post) hasn't been good for my state of mind.

I haven't found myself in the clutches of a particularly bad episode in the Black Hole for a long time now; still haven't, and I thank modern medicine for that and hope RFK Jr. isn't able to somehow outlaw Zoloft so that can continue. But I do get into milder ones with what seems like increasing frequency.

Again, state of the world.

I've been gloomy for a week or so. Forgetful, slow to act, listless and prone the intrusions of sad memories.

Time of year has something to do with it, too. Time was, the approach of fall was a fun time of year—pennant races in full swing, shortening of the days (night owls of the world rejoice!), crisp evenings among the shed leaves—but these days I think of (a) my grandfather, who would be 104 years old today if he were still around and whom I miss a lot, especially around his birthday for whatever reason; and (b) my mom, who died ten years ago(!) this week. My mom would be apoplectic at the state of the US government right now. As a career public health professional she would be aghast and possibly in tears over what RFK has done to HHS. I think about her a lot even when I read the damn news because of that.

My distractions have been somewhat effective. Friends are good to have. Nerd TV is an excellent diversion (though I have a whole post's worth of thoughts on the good and less good of the current season of Strange New Worlds which may yet get put into actual words). Baseball—well, with the recent performance of Your Seattle Mariners, baseball hasn't really helped much. Books and other reading material. Enterprise fanfiction, comics, baseball histories.

The Ministry of Time was a good read, recommended to those who like character studies and fish-out-of-water scenarios and mysterious intrigue. And that can handle convolutions of time travelers, of course.

And, oddly for me, music.

I'm not a big music buff like so many of my contemporaries. I like the stuff I like, my musical tastes haven't really changed since the late 1970s, and live shows tend to be more annoying than enjoyable thanks to the deafening volume. But I did recently run across a new(ish) album from the great band Semisonic that has a title track, "Little Bit of Sun," that speaks to me. It immediately goes up there with Men at Work's "Overkill" as a go-to depression song. They're good companion pieces, really, with "Overkill" describing the experience of being in the grip of a depressive episode and "Little Bit of Sun" describing the first glimmer of climbing out of one.

Here's to finding a little bit of sun, a little bit of sky. I think I see it from the corner of my eye.

 

 

 

Tagged The Black Hole, Music, Posted on September 3, 2025 at 1:54AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Laugh when you can while depression abounds

Hiya, netizens. It's been a few weeks. I've had a couple of folks check in with me to see if all was well, given my brain chemistry issues, so I figured a new post was in order.

The lack of posts hasn't entirely been black-hole related, but I have been fighting the gravity a bit. Not in a really dark, can't-get-out-of-bed sort of way, more in a mild ennui kind of way. Weary. Lethargic. Spurred on by the continual descent of the country into dictatorship and the corresponding frustration and anger with all the idiots who voted Republican despite having seen the sneak preview version of this play from 2017-2021.

Anyway. I won't turn this into a political rant today, at least not yet, because coherence when thinking about it is elusive. There's too much. Which atrocity to focus on? What can be said that hasn't been said already elsewhere? So I'll save that for later.

Instead, I'll just share something that amused me greatly when watching the baseball game from last Saturday between Your Seattle Mariners and the visiting Texas Rangers. There were two outs in the inning, M's at bat, Julio Rodríguez on 2nd base. Batter Josh Naylor taps a comebacker to the pitcher, who has a brain cramp and throws to third base trying to get the lead runner out even though he had an easy play at first which would have ended the inning. The throw gets past the third baseman because he wasn't expecting to be thrown to, Julio scores the tying run, Naylor safe at first, the inning continues.

This is something I had never seen in a big-league game but see all the frickin' time as a softball umpire. It has become kind of an inside joke just for me, one that I have stated out loud on occasion to the next batter in such a softball game, that one day, sometime before the heat death of the universe, I will be umpiring a game wherein the score is tight in a late inning and the defensive team takes the easy out at first to end an inning rather than attempt to get a lead runner instead. (To be fair, teams do take the easy out now and then, but never in a tense situation.) So when seven-year Major League veteran Merrill Kelly of the Texas Rangers did it I laughed very hard.

The M's still lost, though. Oh well.

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners, The Black Hole, Politics, Umping, Posted on August 5, 2025 at 8:58PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Little of this, little of that

“We’ve been in the Void for over a decade, Kamiko.”
“Maybe it’s for the best, Ted, things might be a shitshow out there.”

I'm not coherent enough this evening to put together a "real" post, so I'm figuring to do a kind of potpourri of fragmented thoughts about whatever. Because getting some stuff out of my head seems helpful even when it's scatterbrained.

• First, a brief update on my headspace: The crash-and-burn of the previous post isn't quite in the rear view yet; I'm still climbing out and it's a slower process than I thought it was going to be. I think this is one of those circumstances where it hurts me not to have a day job. Maybe. Anyway, getting going in any given day is still a challenge and sometimes doesn't happen until it's safe outside for vampires and then my tendency to be awake all night reinforces the pattern. Work in progress.
• We had a "bomb cyclone" come through the area the other day and I was without power for not quite 24 hours or so. This also did not help my headspace because without electricity there wasn't much to do during the nocturnal hours I tend to find myself most awake. There's only so much reading one can do by candle illumination and awkwardly-held flashlights. No other inconveniences for me personally, but some folks in the (not-immediate) area had a lot of damage to contend with from wind and toppled trees and such. The rain's been pretty steady ever since, though, and whenever I go out to get the mail I half-expect to see someone building an ark in their driveway.
• Michael Schur is good at TV. I mean, we knew this already, he's not only half of the great PosCast about sports and nonsense, he's also the brains behind The Good Place, Parks and Recreation, and other such things that step up the level of quality and thoughtful humor on television. His latest show is called A Man on the Inside, and it's delightful. Ted Danson stars (with small roles for a couple of other Good Place alums and another for Eugene Cordero) as a widower in need of something to do who gets hired by a private detective to infiltrate a retirement home and be the "man on the inside" in an effort to catch a thief. It's only eight episodes, I watched them all last night. Charming, witty, poignant . . . you know, a Michael Schur joint.
• The Seattle Mariners are cutting ties with a couple of players I'd rather not see them cut ties with. Makes me wonder what they think their doing or if they have any sort of plan. Anyway, today they non-tendered (and thus cast to the free agent winds) both Josh Rojas and Sam Haggerty, two of the only bright spots in the non-pitching portion of the 2024 team. Haggs is recovering from a bad ACL injury and this seems an especially heartless thing to do to him since being with an organization when rehabbing and such can make a huge difference, both in terms of available facilities and financial security (though unless he's squandered it, he's made plenty of money by regular-people standards the last few years even though he's a pauper by professional athlete standards). Haggerty can play seven positions on the field and switch-hits and is the best baserunner in baseball right now (well, not right now, but when he has two working ACLs). And he's inexpensive. Why let him go, just to save a tiny-by-MLB-payroll-standards amount of money? Hard disapprove, Mariners. Rojas surprised me last year by being actually pretty good both as a third baseman and as a batter, though the bar was low; I'd thought of him as the least valuable piece received in the Paul Sewald trade the year before and he proved to be capable. Rojas isn't a key piece of the puzzle, granted, but still sad to see him go. And, this creates a new vacancy to fill—before today, Rojas figured to be at least a platoon partner at one of two infield positions; now, both the second base and third base positions have no one ready to step into them. Unless they're counting on Dylan Moore to fill one, which, ugh. No, thank you. (Or they think Ryan Bliss is ready to be an everyday big-leaguer? Mmmmmayyybe? I mean, good on-base chops in the minors, but all we saw of him with the M's was during the Scott Servais/Jarred deHart reign of error, so who knows.) Dropping these two is another cost-cutting maneuver, saves them maybe $6M in player payroll, but to what end? I guess we'll wait and see.
• Including those Cloud Five strips in my last post (and, yes, I know the C5 site is broken, it's been so for a while now, I just haven't been motivated to fix it) has made me think seriously of reviving it, but if I do I'm not sure what to do about the intervening 11 years or so. I mean, a lot of shit's gone down. Do I age the characters up and just drop into today? Do I pick up where I left off and pull a Newsroom and treat the now of the strip as 2014? Do I do both, do any picking-up-from-before in flashback? Or is it better to just start form scratch on a new thing? Or am I not willing to do that format again? I don't know. It's a big thing to take it up again in any form. Meanwhile I'm just doing some unrelated sketching, which is better than nothing.

Tagged The Black Hole, Baseball, TV, Seattle Mariners, Posted on November 22, 2024 at 9:58PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Crash and burn

I'd been doing fairly well, depression-wise-speaking, for some time now. Oh, sure, I've had a number of relatively mild stints in The Black Hole over the past few years, but I've come to accept that those are just a fact of life if you have the brain chemistry of, well, me. But I hadn't had a really bad episode in quite a while.

Those mild ones still suck, don't get me wrong. Wouldn't wish them on anyone. But they're tolerable. The bad ones are . . . well, not different so much as just more. I'm not even sure when the last bad one occurred; the ones that stick in my memory are from much further back, and the more recent ones all had the same sort of flavor, if you will, not a lot to differentiate them. Call it six or seven years since the last one, that's about how long I've been on my current Rx, which has been largely effective.

But the streak, however long it was, is over. Nasty Black Hole time returned this last week, particularly from around Thursday night through yesterday.

There just isn't a good way to articulate the experience, my use of the Black Hole metaphor can only go so far and I always seem to mix other allegories in with it which probably doesn't help clear anything up. But suffice to say this one had me basically not get out of bed except to feed the cats—and then only when their patience ran out—for 2½ days or so. It's just so, so tiring, among other things.

I had more explanation here; I'd just finished a longish post when my PC decided to spontaneously reboot itself and I lost everything in temporary RAM. (Not sure if it was a Windows thing, a Bitdefender Security thing, or a screwed-up hardware thing, all I know for sure is that it was a failure-to-save-drafts thing which is a bad habit I can't blame on my fucked-up brain chemistry.) No matter, really, no attempt I've ever made at articulating the experience of clinical depression has ever been close to adequate; the best try was back when I was doing the Cloud Five strip, so maybe that's as good as it'll get (see below).

Anyway, this one was different. It was . . . weird.

Because there is a readily identifiable outside cause. Or, not cause, exactly, but . . . let's call it a prompt. I speak, of course, of the election and it's continuing fallout. And this evening, now that I have some of my critical-thinking faculty back, I wonder if that means this episode will be easier, harder, or about the same when it comes to climbing out of it.

Today's been OK. I got up, got outside, took a lengthy walk in the drizzle before it was completely dark out. A bit of exercise and a decent meal is a good jump-start. But the news is going to stay terrible for a good long while, so does that mean I'm just going to get pushed back into free-fall again? Or was this prompt only really potent becuase of shock value, and with shock dissipating and unlikely to be a factor again—I mean, the horrobleness to come is all expected now, right?—and thus won't be as big a deal in this specific way?

I tend to think this is better. Meaning, the outside-prompted episode is better than the "regular" kind because I'm not wholly at the mercy of my brain. Maybe focus, either on the prompting issues or deliberately away from them, can be a tool here. Combined with a little more diligence in getting some exercise (which I have been severely lacking since before my California trip, save for the adventure at Vazquez Rocks) and avoiding extended isolation, as well as maintaining my Rx, may well serve me better than just the usual having to "ride it out" reliance on time, rest, and energy recharge.

Well, at any rate. Life goes on, and with luck and effort it goes on in a more engaged and less debilitating fashion.

If only our macro-scale problems were so easily dealt with.

 

Here's most of the sequence from C5 I did more than 10 years ago now(!!) that seemed to be my best attempt at articulating the Black Hole in layman's terms.

 

 

I really should revive this strip someday.

Tagged The Black Hole, Posted on November 19, 2024 at 11:58PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Election paralysis

It's T-minus 14 days. Two weeks until we start to get results from this, the latest in our series now of Most Critical Elections Ever. Will we retain our democratic republic, or will we slide headlong into fascist autocracy? Will the propagandists be successful in turning enough level-seven-susceptibles into enablers in their own downfall, or will the majority of sane Americans so dwarf the coalition of evil, dumb, corrupt, and easily-malleable?

The zeitgeist has it that it's down to basically a coin-flip's odds. So, you know, no pressure.

I want to believe the zeitgeist is giving us a picture skewed form reality, that the idea that this country's electorate is split 50-50 between competence and chaotic dictatorship is based on faulty data. The more rational parts of my mind think it's far more likely that this will not be as close as the prior two presidential elections and that Vice President Harris will carry the day with plenty of room to spare. The more emotional part of my psyche says, "never underestimate the misogyny and racism of the average American voter, to say nothing of the vast ignorance of so many US citizens."

I've alluded to how this has been producing enough anxiety to infiltrate other aspects of my daily life, but as we get closer to November 5th it's becoming more paralyzing. I can't even say "I can't wait until this thing is over with" because if it goes poorly the anxiousness will multiply a thousandfold. It's affecting me in a similar yet different manner to one of my clinical depression episodes, basically sapping me of energy and motivation to do much of anything.

Tomorrow I'm heading out on my annual trip to visit my dad and Marty for Dad's birthday, which always coincides with the World Series; it's thus become our ritual to hang out at Dad's Palm Springs-adjacent abode for a week to ten days or so, watch the Series, and take care of whatever odd jobs and repairs need doing at his house. Aside from watching the end of the baseball playoffs, all I've been trying to do the past few days is plan my route for the road trip and get things ready here for when I'm away, but I can't even seem to make headway on that. I've decided on and reconsidered and redecided on and reconsidered whether I take an extra day and hang out in San Francisco on the way; or use that extra time instead to go the back-road route, maybe along the coast; or just go direct and minimize drive time. The current decision is the back-road along the coast option, but of course, subject to change and subject to my actually being ready to leave tomorrow by the middle of the day.

Anyhow, my focus on that or anything else is transient as the anxiety kicks in again. Just gotta ride it out, I guess.

Meanwhile, I try to take some comfort in the guarded optimism of others. Here's Stephen Beschloss today:

If you’re measuring the election outcome by the current polling, you may count yourself among the worried Democrats. But I am increasingly convinced that the results will not be as close as many observers are expecting. The carnage-loving Trump may resonate with his cult followers, but that will never comprise a majority; the forward-looking Harris continues to have the ability to expand her voting population.

I still believe that most Americans yearn for a positive future characterized by humanity and decency, not one defined by grievance, degradation, and hate.

...But I also nod in agreement when reading things like this, from Craig Calcaterra today:

One candidate in this election has campaigned vigorously and competently, understands that basic civil rights and the rule of law is of critical importance to a functioning society, and has actual policy proposals. The other candidate has had multiple recent moments which strongly suggest that he is suffering from cognitive failure of some kind, has spent the entire campaign promising to usher in an unprecedented age of American authoritarianism, and is closing the campaign with hearsay about the size of a dead golfer’s dick.

The fact that this will be one of the closest elections in my lifetime says everything that needs to be said about the state of America.

My vote is already turned in. I'm going to attempt to enjoy a road trip and not worry about it. We'll see how that goes.

Tagged The Black Hole, Politics, Posted on October 21, 2024 at 8:34PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Stuff other people said

I'm not feeling particularly eloquent tonight; I had something of a "lost day," which tends to happen during Black Hole episodes though in this case I think it's more due to the general stress alluded to in the previous post. But I have wanted to say stuff about the source of said general stress, just to vent if nothing else. But since I'm not terribly clearheaded right now I'll instead quote some other folks and see where this goes.

• I've had (and continue to have) problems with Bob Woodward's choice to withhold critically important information for months in order to sell more books, but I am nevertheless intrigued enough to want to read his new one, War. I'm most intrigued with it for the coverage of the Biden Administration's tremendous handling of foreign affairs, but it's this bit from former Army General Mark Milley that should be Page One News with followups every day for the next three weeks. Said Milley to Woodward about Donald Trump, for whom Milley served as Charmain of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country. A fascist to the core.”

  Excerpts from Woodward's book began to make the rounds starting around October 8th, and this quote was made public by the 12th. Nowhere is it mentioned in any way on the front page of the New York Times on any of those days, or in the days since. The Washington Post did publish an article about this on October 12th, but buried deep in the paper, with no mention at all on the front page (though they did feature "Campaign Seeks More Security for Trump" above the fold; the Times' October 12 front page had "Much of World Treating Trump as Power Broker" in similar position). In some alternate universe wherein the corporate press grew a spine and started recognizing the stakes of this election, that front page would have looked more like this:

  

  But we don't live in that universe. We live in the one where mainstream media covers this catastrophic candidate like this.

• Rachel Maddow is also displeased with much of mainstream media, and the other night she took them to task for coverage of the economy vis-à-vis the presidential campaign. I am continually flabbergasted at the impression many voters claim to have that Republicans are better on the economy when that hasn't been true at least as far back as the Kennedy Administration. But part of why people think that is comes from reportage that reinforces the false belief in both subtle and unsubtle ways. Here's Rachel:

  Regardless of what your priorities are for the election, the economy is generally seen as the most important issue for the most voters. And because of that, because of that preference among voters, that interest among voters and what you're seeing in the economic news, you're now seeing the political press, again, sort of begrudgingly, admit that, you know, yeah, well, it turns out the Biden administration is leaving in its wake a fantastic economy.

  But, when I say begrudging, I mean that the sort of subtext for all of it—and sometimes the overt text of all of it in the political press—is yeah, yeah, yeah it's a great economy, a really great economy, a historically great economy, but surely that can't benefit Kamala Harris, can it? I mean, I know you've seen headlines like this. Here's a typical one from just a couple of days ago at Politico.com, quote, "Harris is riding a dream economy into the election. It may be too late for voters to notice."

  It is a dream economy.

  I mean, as it says in the piece, "the unemployment rate stands at 4.1%, the S&P 500 stock index is up more than 20% this year, [and] GDP has been growing at a robust 3% pace. Middle-class Americans are more optimistic about their financial future. Gas prices have been falling. The economy added over a quarter-million jobs in September alone—far higher than expectations."

  It is a "dream economy" that is being left by the Biden-Harris administration. But Harris can't possibly benefit from that politically, can she?

• Chris Hayes, covering the insane Pennsylvania rally/alleged Town Hall at which Donald Trump spent about 40 minutes just bopping weirdly to his comfort songs, made this observation: "I think his ideal version of the presidency would be 350,000,000 Americans just watching him sway to Bocelli hits on stage."
• Craig Calcaterra has become my favorite baseball writer despite only having read his stuff on an email newsletter. In discussing the National League Championship Series (now tied one game apiece between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers), Craig indulges in one of my favorite things about the postseason: making fun of Fox color announcer John Smoltz. Craig writes: "During the sixth or seventh inning, Smoltz said that 'it’s been statistically proven' that one game means less in a best-of-seven series than in a best-of-five series. I still remember where I was when I read news of the mathematical breakthrough in which it was discovered that one is a lower percentage of seven than it is of five. A watershed moment to be sure."

I had more in mind when I started this post, but I'm foggy and in need of a meal. I probably spent too much time on that fake WaPo mockup. Bye for now.

Tagged The Black Hole, Politics, Craig Calcaterra, Posted on October 16, 2024 at 1:32AM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Head games

It's not been a good week for me in terms of The Black Hole. Nor has it been a terrible one. It was—and continues to be?—another of those stretches wherein I feel basically OK but I'm scatterbrained.

If I didn't have a long history of this as a manifestation of my clinical depression, I'd be worried about long COVID or something. But I do have that history, and, frankly, given the choice between a stretch of foggy brain and a severe Black Hole episode of despair, I'll take this in a heartbeat.

A friend of mine—whose birthday I forgot this week, apologies—has mentioned a couple of times over the years that she's observed my Black Hole symptoms are worse in the summertime. I don't know if that's true or not, but this has been a rather quick return for a foggy-head stretch, seems like I just got over one of those. Is it just brain chemistry? Added stress? Ennui? Too damn much sunlight? Who knows.

But here's a rundown of my last week or so:

• Forgot I had Mariner tickets for June 1st, which turned out to be a great game and it would have been fun to be there. I did realize my error in time to sell the tickets pregame on StubHub, so at least I got my money back.
• Forgot Nikki's birthday and have yet to rectify that. (Sorry, Nikki.) But she's on a road trip right now, so maybe it'll keep.
• Screwed up during an umpire shift in a circumstance that required more from me. There was a collision at home plate, completely unwarranted, but also I believe not premeditated, more one of those things that happens fast and reaction time was slow. And then my reaction time was slow. Way too slow. I handled everything in a manner that kept the peace and let us proceed reasonably well, but had I been sharper that night I would have been far more assertive and timely in laying down the law and offering better/more obvious defense of the injured party, who happened to be one of my favorite players in the league. Nobody's holding a grudge (that I know of) or giving me any sort of hard time about it, but I know I fucked up and that it was a disservice to one of my faves makes it all the worse, at least in my head.
• Was late to my own softball game this week because I had transposed the start times of games (6:30 and 7:45 became 6:45 and 7:30, which makes absolutely zero sense) and I missed the first inning.
• Screwed up yesterday's umpire shift by not remembering that different parks mean different start times because of things like lights and permits. I know this, it's basic information. Yet, knowing I was going not to Capitol Hill but to Wedgwood, I still timed things to arrive at 7pm. On my way down, at about 6:20, I got a call asking if anything was wrong since I wasn't where I was supposed to be at 6:00. Shit. Then to compound matters when I did arrive I went to the wrong field first (#3, not #2), got confused by the lack of people around when I expected two teams of annoyed softballers, and took an extra five or ten minutes to get things straight. Then I became aware that another group had the permit for that field as soon as we were scheduled to be done, so there was no wiggle room for going over time and I just had to rush things and basically those two teams got screwed out of half their time. I'm lucky that they were all understanding and not actually that annoyed. Again, had I been sharper, there was an easy solution involving moving to one of the unoccupied fields instead which would have allowed us to play later, but that didn't occur to me in time to do any good (we did play the second game on another field despite the fact that the bases there weren't pegged in and basically sucked).
• Today is my sister's birthday, and as my mind is functioning at the speed of someone trying to run a 100-yard dash under eight feet of water, I didn't realize that until I heard someone on a podcast say the date out loud. So I made a call as I was out on errands and added "buy belated b-day card" to my errand list.

Is this stretch of fogginess over? No, I can tell it's not. I still feel like it takes three times as long to think a thought than it should. But with any luck it'll pass soon. It's a problem.

I did watch the Mariners this afternoon, as they blew a big lead and decided to go to the ninth with reliever Ryne "Panic with" Stanek in for the save. Why did they do that? No one knows. It didn't go well. It felt like ol' Panic was similarly having trouble concentrating on what was in front of him as he walked the leadoff man, served up a base hit and a one-out game-tying triple, and then his doofus manager intentionally walked not just the next guy to set up a potential double-play, but the guy after that as well—a slumping (and slow) Salvador Pérez, who's seen his batting average drop 38 points the last couple of weeks—to load the bases, which even the announcers were a bit dumbfounded by. Result? A hot shot off the bat that only a superhuman effort by J.P. Crawford kept from being a hit but was still enough to score a run and end the game. But hey, those fans in Kansas City got their money's worth tonight, that would have been a heck of a game to be at to see your team give up seven runs before even coming to bat then claw their way back to a close score only to win it in exciting walk-off fashion. Enjoy our slow-witted, unthinking Seattle ways, Kansas City!

 

Tagged The Black Hole, Seattle Mariners, Umping, Posted on June 7, 2024 at 11:07PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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