Listen. Seriously. I need you to sit down. The Phillies lost last night. They lost to the Evil Empire of Baseball. The Yankees, as my wife says, is basically the GOP of baseball. And that shit makes sense. The Yankees have won 27 of 105 World Series championships. They’ve literally played in 40 of those 105 games — 38% of World Series championships. That’s goddamn redonkulous. This makes me sad. I decide to watch baseball this year only to have my heart dragged out of its chest, a funnel of piss vented through the ventricles. I guess I’m almost glad it was the Yankees? They’re easy enough to get behind as a bad guy, and it’s better than being beaten by a mediocre team, like the Arizona D-Bags. Or the Mets. Not that such a matchup would happen in the Series, but hey, shut up, I’m still stung from the 1986 Red Sox / Mets battle, okay? Deal with that.
The popular meme that goes around is that the Yankees buy their championships, which is true to a point in that they have a lot of money to throw around — but, money doesn’t make a team, and it doesn’t craft skill. Of course, the conspiracy theorist in me reminds one that money could in theory purchase shitty calls from dickbucket umpires, and maybe, just maybe, the Phillies got boned on one too many calls over the course of that series — but, I’ll take off my tinfoil hat and shut up, now.
Point of all this is, we’re weepy over here. Our sphincters are still tightened in rage. Hence, no big new post today, except for our lamentations sung over a home plate spattered with red.
In the meantime, I’ma crosspost a little something-something from Terribleminds — J.C. Hutchins is a patron saint of people like us, because he’s a guy who stepped out there when the system wouldn’t give him a boost, and he punted the system in the nuts, spitted in its eye, and cut his own entryway with a reciprocating saw. And now he’s in there with a new book and…
Well. I’ll let the crosspost tell the tale.
***
Normally, I’m not big on recommending books I haven’t read yet. This’ll be an exception to that rule.
7th Son: Descent hits today [edit: actually last week!]. And I’m telling you to go buy it. (Or, if you’re into awesome incentives, buy many.)
Why buy it?
First, J.C. Hutchins is good people. He did it his way. He was not thwarted. The guy’s a goddamn machine. (Or, shit, maybe he has a buncha clones of himself running around. It would explain a lot.) If you do not choose to believe that he is either machine or clone, perhaps consider him in the running for a writer totem spirit — some ancient entity deep in the woods, fueling your beating heart and churning guts with the mighty power of Bad-Ass Writing. (Reference: Check out this interview with Hutchins over the summer for the Workbook Project. Listen here.)
Second, because I went ahead and checked out the first ten chapters of the book, which are free to you should you choose to click here. They’re good. They’re real good. Some books, even good ones, present a kind of “barrier to entry.” Not this. It’s a smooth read. It’s Colt 45 with Lando Calrissian. (Though, it’s arguably also like the Sarlacc, what with the “sucking you in helplessly until it’s done with you” part. But much prettier.)
And that’s that. I’m off to go buy the book. Maybe you want to, too. Honor the totem spirit. Leave a bloody heart on his altar, tonight.
