Safe Behind Closed Doors

I am coming to you from a seedy motel room in Lynchburg, VA. I have locked myself in here to make sure that I am not captured by locals and violated in terrible ways.

There is a knock on the door!

Whew...just the TV. I need some moonshine to calm my nerves.

So my girl Haley is still in the running for American Idol. Casey got the boot last night. It was a little surprising unless you figure that he was already kicked off once yet saved by the judges.
He was one of my picks for final four; ironically, Haley was not.

Lauren Alaina is apparently having some trouble with the notoriety. She has been visually disturbed about comments made abotu her somewhere. I guess people are commenting that she is a little chubby, although I'm not sure what it is exactly. The girl is 16, personable and cute. She has a good voice, so that can't be it. But she really is a nice, humble girl. If she was a snot I'd say blast away.

I thought Jacob Lusk would get the boot last night because he went first and wore the most ungodly outfit I have since on that show. I had been more of a supporter of his talent early on in the contest. I don't like the singing in the high voice. He is much more effective in the lower range. But enough people dig the falsetto to keep him around so that is all that matters.

Its anyone's game.

The new podcasts are available at marshcast.com. We had a real good taping last Monday and had a lot of fun. Hopefully you can hear that in the final product.
If you are sensitive don't listen though.

The Mets come into Philly tonight. They had a 6-game winning streak snapped by the Nationals but they are hitting well and hitting in the clutch. That's all anyone can ask from the team for which you root.

Some Phillies commentators are giving Roy Oswalt the business for heading out to Texas to "check on his family" after the wild storms there last week. The comment I kept hearing over and over again was, "fly your family to Philly." He is making some 10 million dollars and one would think that would make sense.
A little internal controversy on the Phils is welcome to me.

So its a hypnosis show tonight at an after prom in Lynchburg. I am not sure why they seem to be so popular at high school after proms, but I'm not complaining. I had a show in Baltimore canceled on me for tomorrow night because the company needed to cut their budget recently.

Times continue to be so slow that I did have to take a part-time job here. It really pisses me off that I had to do so, but its on a contract basis so I have flexibility.

I am probably going to talk about Donald Trump on my podcast. And do Angry Man Dating Advice for Beginners. I'll try to tie the two of them together somehow.

No I won't, they'll be separate topics.

Ok, this laptop is a pain in the ass to use so I am cutting this short. I just needed to say that I saved Haley again on American Idol, so HAHAHA to those of you who are jealous that I love her.

LOL


Done

Streaking Voices

A couple of busy days have left me negligent here. But a brother has to eat at some point, right?

We had a great night taping Monday night. Now I have to sift through the four hours of tape and decide what to keep and what to toss.
Those decisions are made a little more difficult when I start to read or hear what others pick up or comment on when they listen to the show.
Generally what happens on taping night is that I just start recording when people to start to gather around in the house. A lot of interesting and/or funny things happen when people are just being themselves and not trying to say something forced.
So what happens is that I can start a show segment that is in the middle of something that isn’t a normal way to start. Instead of saying, “hello, how are you?” maybe Alex Storm is talking about picking up an old mattress and stuffing it in the back of his van on the way over here. If it’s interesting or funny, that’s how it ends up being there in a place that is not expected. Trying to re-create that moment is tough when we’re dealing with people who have never done this type of thing before.  

Shelton, Levine, Aguilera, Lo

Regardless of whether or not this lasts a long time, doing these shows had been great for me. We already have created some memories that will last a long time for those involved. It’s also just nice meeting new people and inviting them over to basically have a party every Monday night. Sure, the discussion always degrades to something nasty and not always appropriate for everyone else to hear, but we all have fun and letting loose while trying to be creative is definitely therapeutic.

I broke down and watched The Voice and its premier episode last night. It was ok to me. There are a couple of interesting twists on this singing competition. Having four talented artists as judges and coaches who basically pick singing teams while hearing just singers voices seemed to work for me and kept me watching throughout the 2-hour show.
I missed the first ten minutes or so but it was clear that there were initial auditions somewhere and then the better singers were called back to perform on stage with the judges.

The judges will each select 8 people for their “team” and then try to coach them to victory. They will weed the 32 down to 16 and then the audience will vote from there. When a judge listened to the singer and they wanted to try to pick them for their team, they would hit some button, turn around, and then the singer would pick one of the judges to work with if there were more than one.
The judges are country singer Blake Shelton, Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, Cee Lo and Christina Aguilera. I never really heard of Shelton and just recently heard mention of Cee Lo. They are not performers of a genre that has general appeal to me. Aguilera is, of course, a singing legend and I like Maroon 5 except for that last piece of crap album on which I wasted my money.
Aguilera was the big signing for this show. They would have needed an equal talent to get me to commit any time to this one. I found her a little disturbing to watch here though. What seemed to disturb me the most was simply her bleach blond hair. She also was a little chubby too, but that was just an observation as opposed to a criticism. The hair was just awful.
Am I sort of sounding a little gay there, talking about a hair style? Who the heck did I become all of a sudden?
I don’t know, see for yourself.
If I continue to watch the show, and I might since there really isn’t much of a choice right now on Tuesdays, then I’ll mention some of the singers, some of whom so far have been pretty decent.
Carson Daly is the host of this show. He does the Ryan Seacrest imitation and stands outside the backstage door and talks to the singers ready to perform and then with the families watching them on closed circuit. Was this really necessary? I try to figure out how this guy got another high-profile job like this. He brought absolutely nothing to the whole show, just like Seacrest brings nothing to AI, and he’ll skip happily to the bank while my jaw continues to remain on the floor as he is doing it.
The thing I really didn’t like about the show and any show like this, is the live audience. I really am so tired of coached audiences standing on command and clapping like maniacs all in unison because some stage producer is holding up a sign that says, “Clap like seals for 30 seconds.”
Just keep the show real. If the audience isn’t thrilled and eager to clap like one of those wind-up battery-operated stuffed monkeys holding the cymbals, then they shouldn’t have to do it.
It’s also clear that they have to pump in additional crowd noise and that’s just insulting.
Just be real and be real with a real reason for a host to be there so I don’t have to sound like an old, bitter jealous, near bankrupt man, ok?

For the record, I was flipping back and forth to a couple of baseball games so I could continue to keep my straight credentials intact.

I was right about the Angels Jered Weaver’s record about reaching 5 wins in the fastest time in MLB history. He then became the fastest to 6-0 the other night. The Angels after that win were 13-10 so he is the difference right now between that team being a winning team or a losing team.
Whenever a player has this kind of start or record I root for him. That is one of the cool things for me about baseball; getting a chance to perhaps watch history unfold like that.
The chatter, in this case, might be about Weaver’s chance to be the first 30 game winner since Denny McClain in 1968. The Dodgers Andre Ethier extended his hitting streak to 23 games last night so now the chatter is about the record of 56 games set by Joe DiMaggio. Pick whatever the statistic or streak might be and once involved in following it you just know why this game is the best game ever.
In my life I have been able to watch and follow all sorts of historic baseball feats by players who were reaching or beating milestones set by the old-time players of legend. I saw Nolan Ryan surpass Walter Johnson’s career strikeout mark, Hank Aaron pass Babe Ruth in homeruns and then saw Barry Bonds pass Aaron. I’ve now seen most of the pitchers who have reached 3000 career strikeouts. I saw Rickey Henderson set season and career stolen base marks; Ichiro set a single season hit mark; Pete Rose break the all-time hits mark. It goes on like that for a while.

It just means I am old, I think. But as a life-long baseball fan I love having those memories of my favorite game.

Now I would like to see someone hit .400 and pass that 56 game hitting streak. Those are the two that many of us believe we won’t see happen. The single season doubles, triples, and RBI marks are also long standing, but not quite as glamorous.
For younger fans now I think there are a few that they will never see happen and are marks that will be even more legendary years from now. They would include Nolar Ryan’s all time strikeout mark of 5714, Rickey Henderson’s all time stolen base mark and his single season record of 130, I might add.
I think that it will be a long time before anyone sees a 300-game winner again too, unless some real men start pitching again. There have only been two 400-game winners so I haven’t seen that myself.

So if I get to see someone breaks one of those records this year and if Christina Aguilera just leaves her hair color natural I’ll be a satisfied TV viewer.

Done.

Going the Distance in the Dark

I had been staring at a blank page for a couple of days. I found myself with nothing to say there for a little while. I can’t tell you if it was writers block or if I am just shell shocked at what has happened in my life this year so far. I sometimes just shake my head and slap it to see if I am going to wake up.

A couple of real highs and a bunch of real lows have highlighted this year for me. One day its performing in Las Vegas and the next day its considering selling everything I have to escape debt and start all over.

Then the tax bill this year just sank me…then people from 12 other countries listened to my stupid new show this past week. Then…they didn’t send any money.

Ok, so that’s the way it happens in life, its up, its down, its sideways. I recalled that I am still blessed beyond belief.

Then, I became suddenly unblocked and here I am.

We are now 1/8^th of the way into the baseball season. Everything moves so fast and now its hard to keep up with everything.

Without diving into real hard numbers to back what I am going to say, let me just say that it looks like its going to be a big power number year at this rate. There are plenty of guys on pace for 50 homeruns and a stack of others on pace for 40.

I prefer those offensive numbers as long as at the end they aren’t so out of whack like during the height of the steroid era where guys like Brady Anderson were hitting 50 homeruns.

But right now there are 22 guys on that pace and this is the time of the year when balls traditionally don’t carry as far. Once the warmer weather hits in July and August the tater pace increases.

The Dodgers Matt Kemp is on pace to be the player of the month in the NL. He is hitting .402 with 5 homeruns 17 RBI and 8 stolen bases.
The Dodgers Andre Ethier just recorded a hit in his 20^th straight game so we’re now on that hitting streak watch. He is hitting .381.

Matt Kemp

On the mound the early story is the Angels Jered Weaver who reached the 5 win mark faster than anyone in history, if what I heard was accurate. It’s a more incredible feat considering the fact that managers have this artificial 100-pitch barrier that they seem to never let pitchers cross very often.

I am so tired of hearing about pitch counts. It is the most useless figure to follow in all of baseball. We have announcers now freaking out every inning when someone throws more than 20 pitches.

While pitches have always been tracked, it was the TYPE of pitch thrown to batters that was tracked.
Using a pitch count to determine when a pitcher would come out of a game really started in earnest in the 80’s and with hall of famer Nolan Ryan. Ryan was 40 years old and coming off of an injury while with the Astros (if my memory serves me correctly.) Because he was old and just off the DL, they limited him to 100 pitches for a while.
It turned out that Ryan came back real strong and somehow this success was credited to the implementation and enforcement of this pitch count.

Nolan Ryan - A real man on the mound

A baseball game is 9 innings. It used to be that a starting pitcher was expected to pitch 9 innings. If he started to become wild late in the game or batters started to time him better and start knocking the crap out of him, then a reliever would come into the game.
From the bullpen, back in the days where men played baseball and not sissies who can only pitch 5 innings now, usually came a veteran pitcher who would mop up, close, or finish the game. These guys were usually those who weren’t good enough to be the 4-man rotation…oh yeah, there used to be a 4-man rotation with a 5^th guy around who would pitch the second game of a double header or if there were rainouts and too many games in a row, he would allow rest for one of the real starters.

Where was I? Oh yes, so this veteran would come in and take over the rest of the pitching duties.

It is so ridiculous now that teams actually have a 7^th inning guy, an 8^th inning guy and a closer on a staff. And somehow its accepted.

Well, I don’t accept it. I mean, I have to, but I don’t have to like it…and I don’t.

Starting pitchers are now getting standing ovations from know-nothing crowds when they give up a run or two, leave a guy or two on base and get pulled in the 7^th inning as if they have pitched like Nolan Ryan when he was healthy and pitching 300 innings a year with over 300 strikeouts.

Pitchers, who might start 30 games a year now instead of 35-40 in a 4-man rotation, are making millions of dollars a year. Take Cliff Lee for example, off the top of my head. He is getting paid about 21 million dollar this year. If he pitches in 30 games he is making 700,000 dollars a game. If he only average 7 innings a game he is getting 100,000 dollars per inning which might last 5-7 minutes.
Economically, this is bad business and makes me want to vomit.

If I am going to pay a starting pitcher 21 million dollars a year I am going to expect him to be able to pitch 9 innings every time he is out there. At the very least, he should have the STAMINA to do it. This is what I see is the real problem.
We supposedly have all sorts of new modern training techniques now that we are in the 21^st century but the pitchers of today only seem to be able to pitch two thirds as long as they used to pitch.
The physical training is obviously void of much sense. Yes, throwing the ball is a strain on the arm. And running is a strain on the legs, too.
Starting pitchers are like long distance runners. They are supposed to pitch for a long time…9 innings in this case. Therefore, wouldn’t it make sense that the training involved made an arm strong enough that it could have the stamina to pitch 12 innings? That way, when they stepped into a real game, 9 would be nothing. Instead they seem to train for 7 innings and then start seeing signs of fatigue at 5.
If you are a long distance runner training for weekly 5k runs, do you train by running 3k when you go out to train or do you run 6,7,8k when you train so that the 5k is easier?
If you’re training less to try to do more, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!
So are major league baseball pitching coaches and trainers.

Speaking of wrong, our next taping of the Dungeon of Manlove is tomorrow. While I am pretty sure that I got most of the nasty things I needed to say off of my chest, there will still be some naughty things taking place for sure…SO TUNE IN TO MARSHCAST.COM SOON!

We will be preparing to do a show that is the antithesis of that one soon. Oddly, when I put a call out for people to help me with that one, no one answered. But when I put out the call to do a “dungeon” type of show, my phone and email went nuts.
I have some theories about why that is which I’ll talk about on the show. I am sure the theory isn’t new and talked about ad infinitum in basic psychology classes, but I’ll spew it anyway.

I will also talk about people’s moral compasses and try to figure out what it is that makes people cross artificial lines in their lives that they would never have crossed at another point in their life.
For example, what was the event that sparked a talented musician in the high school marching band to become all of these things at the same time…now get this…a stripping, swinging, bisexual, foot-fetish model.

When I was told this the other day…I was happy! I had just found a new guest for my show!
Seriously, I’m 49 and street wise. It would take a lot to shock me at this point in my life. Was I surprised? Not particularly. EVERYONE has a “dark” side to them. Not that I am saying that those things are “dark” at all, even if some people do; it’s just that side of us that we never wish anyone to know, for some reason. Most of us are perfectly happy when we are visiting the other side but are very hung up about revealing that part to anyone else.

Find the Stripper?

This is where the Dungeon of Manlove comes in pretty handy. It is a place where people can be themselves (while using a stage name of course…lol) and have fun doing it without being judged. (If you are listening and judging people on it, you stop it now! Its satire.)
But since I theorize that everyone has this dark side, its little wonder that I get more calls from people to work on the Dungeon show than I do for the Positively Inspiring show.

Done.

Drunkleman

The Cardinals Albert Pujols is now hitting over his weight again and that spells trouble for the NL Central division. He popped his 6^th homer of the year yesterday in a 5-0 shutout pitched by Kyle Lohse (I know, right?) The return and health of Matt Holliday to the lineup could be a contributing factor to that, but Pujols is Pujols and the league was not going to keep him down for long. With those two bats on fire the shakeup in the division is under way and the Cards are now tied with the Reds for first place.

Still not hitting his weight of 220 is the Nationals Jayson Werth(less). His second homerun of the year last week against the Phillies was pretty funny to watch but it was the last one he hit too. After 18 games he has driven in a total of 4 runs now increasing his pace to 36 for the year. Let me LOL a bit for a moment there.

And then cry because he is getting paid 18 million dollars this year for that exhibition and I’m broke…and then cry some more because my team is currently saddled with the worst record in baseball.

Stefano got the boot from American Idol last night, as he should have. His flashback at the end of the show reminded me about the accident that he had a few years ago and that he had an incredible fight back to get where he was. It also reminded me that he was much more humble back then than he is now.

So that now leaves the four that I picked to be “stars” Lauren Alaina, who Steven Tyler said could win the whole thing, and my hot love bundle, Haley Reinhart. Pia Toscano should really be in that group, but she’s on tour and holding a recording contract already so she’ll start pulling in money before all of them and she is probably just fine with that.

James Durbin continued to be interesting to me on this show. He is the rocker of the group and even did a heavy metal song one week on it. While he has that whole scream thing down, when he controls it and ropes it in, he really has a good voice. But the thing about him is that he has Tourette Syndrome and he tics up a storm while just standing there next to Seacrest, the worst interviewer in the world, but when he sings all of that is under control. He is easy to root for on this show.

Seacrest is really bad and is one of the luckiest guys on the planet. How many times are we going to hear this clown ask a question like this, “What does this mean to you?” or “What will this do for your career?” Really? Is this what this guy gets paid millions of dollars to do? I’ll do it for a quarter of that from now on and ask interesting questions or at least questions that aren’t easily answered by everyone sitting in front of the TV… EVERYTHING, and IT GAVE ME ONE, for examples.

One of the dumbest guys on the planet is that Dunkleman dude who was co-host with Seacrest on season one. Wow, he must be lurking in a dark alley drunk and heavily medicated with illegal street drugs masking the pain of that decision even to this day.   

Seacrest and...what's that guy's name from Season One of AI

One of the smartest advertising campaigns I have ever seen is the Ford campaign created with the remaining Idol contestants each week. Brilliant plan to use them in these ads, each different, every week. I actually notice them to watch how they use the kids in the ads, and then I just even mentioned it here so it has worked on me.

I really would like to see a car parallel park itself.  

I didn’t think that I would watch AI without Simon Cowell. But the talent is actually talented this year and that has kept it interesting. It was MORE interesting for me to watch it with some not-so-talented people in it with Cowell making any sort of comment like…let’s try, “That sounded like a Rhinoceros begging for an afternoon snack!”

Cowell, the genius that he is, even made a comment that this year’s show is better without him. The genius of making that comment is even more geniusier than one might think. There is no animosity whatsoever in it; he made millions from that show and avoids any confrontation with its show’s fans, many of whom will watch X-Factor when that starts in September.

I’m not really sure what Steven Tyler brought to the table at AI besides some star power and the occasional blurt of an expletive in front of all of the 15-year-olds jammed in front of the stage drooling over Alfred E. Neumann. But he was in Aerosmith so it’s fine with me and every grandma out there watching.
Paula Abdul still brings nothing, but there is no doubt that she is really is a beautiful woman.
It’s anyone’s game on AI and there is no telling or bothering to predict who will win now; either of the six are capable of taking the title especially with my 50 votes each week for the little blonde sex bomb.

Speaking of sex bombs, I had the pleasure of finding out that someone I know grew up to be a stripping, swinging, bisexual foot-fetish model last night. Seems as if I found a great new guest for my Dungeon of Manlove show! Jackpot!

Speaking of stripping, swinging and bisexuals, I was rebooked to do the swingers convention at which I did a show last November. They booked it for the weekend where I have done the U of Maine show 3 of the 4 years so if there is a campaign to ban me from UM because my show is too raunchy, I can invite those who want to see an even naughtier show to bring a swinging friend to this one and have even MORE fun.

Why is Easter on Memorial Day this year?

Done.

Durbin's Message...Hear It.

I just got done watching the full episode of American Idol and have time on my hands to comment while it’s all fresh in my mind.

I’ll mention again that it is cool to watch the progress of each of the singers. The coaching they are getting each week is clearly evident in their performances.

The show started out with a nice touch as the last six contestants voted off the show came out to sing. That gave me a chance to see Pia and Thia reunited on stage. They were joined by the three other girls (Karen, Naima and Ashtyn.) Then Paul the Spaz sauntered out in some flaming red and black Liberace outfit of some sort and tried to sing. God awful, it was (his part of it, of course.)

At this point anyone can win the season but Stefano Langone just doesn't belong there. He was excruciatingly bad, although his stage presence and performance was markedly improved. I still don’t get what the judges are hearing with this guy. I get his whole look thing that the 13 year olds and the grandmothers are voting for but he can’t sing.

I can't stand the use of back-up singers on this show. It's a mistake by the producers. In Langone's case they had two real horrible blonds singing back up and cackling "I just can't stop, I just can't stop, I just can't stop," coincidentally as I just couldn't stop barfing through the entire 3 minutes of his song.

Haley Reinhart stole the show of course…LOL to my stalkers. I didn’t know the song that she sang so I couldn’t compare it in any way, but it was hot.

Actually it was Durbin’s night to steal the show. He sang a Muse song that I actually own. The song itself is an anti-establishment and uber political song, which is for another discussion and appropriate for what is going to follow here shortly, but he killed it for sure.

I still laugh when I think that Alfred E. Neumann is going to win the whole thing.

I thought Casey’s version of the Maroon 5 song sucked, but he is still the one with the most overall talent of the remaining.

If you go back in my blogs the four guys who I thought were future stars are still in this competition – Casey, Jacob, James and Alfred E.


Information about the contractual arrangements that a major league baseball franchise makes with MLB is not readily available. I did what I could to dig up some of this information when I heard about the league “taking over” the LA Dodgers.

There is some information to be found regarding the Commissioner's role in exacting penalties on teams and players but what has happened here this week is that for the first time in the leagues history the office has commandeered a team based on what they claim is in the interest of baseball.

(Yes, MLB ran two other franchises temporarily for financial reasons, but this time the league has stepped in and taken over.)

I think this is a little scary here. It sets an ominous precedent, in my opinion. The Dodgers are a company and it has just been taken over, one could say, by the government…indeed MLB is the governing body of the teams.
When we have any type of government exerting some form of ultimate control, or eminant domain,  over an entity like this, the move has suddenly superseded some rights.

The trouble with my own argument with myself is that the team obviously has something in its franchise agreement with MLB that would allow MLB to make this move.

But this is just one example of why I have a real problem with the US government backing home loans or getting any more deeply involved with mortgages than they already are.
Who is to say, that all of a sudden, in a real horrible economy, that someone like…say…me, who is down over 50% of his income in the past couple of years doesn;t become vulnerable to that same type of takeover?
What if our government is allowed to make increasingly tighter regulations and add more rules and restrictions to home loans and, in particular, the borrowers? What if we continue to allow them to take more and more of our rights, in any way, shape or form?
If we continue to allow our rights to slowly slip into the hands of one central entity like that, allowing them to make these increasingly-powerful regulatsions, whether it’s a team in MLB or an individual or a company in the country, we could potentially lose a lot more than we could ever gain signing deals and making arrangements that might have seemed ok and to our benefit when we first made them.

I could expand on this ad infinitum but I prefer to just try to make quick points and keep the overall length of this blog short because there are lots of other people that you like to check out and read and see each day.

Hmmm….could I possibly have more to say in some politically podcasted podcast? Hmmmm….could I?  Well, if it should, by some strange chance…coincidentally…become a real project, you would find it at www.marshcast.com. (It isn’t there but the 4-12 tapings of Dungeon of Manlove are.)

So…we could now be facing $6 per gallon gas this summer? It was funny, I made a brief post on my Facebook page about it today and within an hour two friends had unfriended me. BYE BYE COMMIES. Didn’t need you there anyway; if you can’t see what the hell is going on there and can’t take the heat in the political kitchen, then get out. Good riddance.

Where are these two people's pitchforks?

I’m tired of holding my tongue about how we are getting robbed by our own government and any large company that pays these thieves ways into office.

Crap…maybe I should hold off on expanding on that for another time…a more appropriate place…like, say…a podcast on marshcast.com at some point. Oh…you think I swear a lot in the Dungeon…wait until you hear my take on all of this stuff…if I should go through with that project, that is.  Oh yeah…I have stuff to say; stuff that will get me blacklisted by those with whom I disagree. I just have to get my ducks in a row and make some personal calculations.

Hmm… I thought I had other things to say. No worries, if I remember it tomorrow, I’ll just write another.

Done.

Hurling and Pinching Reds

The Cincinnati Reds pitching staff is making all sorts of news in the last 24 hours.

Want the good news or the bad news first?
Ok, let’s start with the bad news.
Starter Mike Leake was collared by a Macy’s department store for shoplifting close to $60 in t-shirts. I believe it was 5 t-shirts.
Now, I imagine that the Reds give their players all of the t-shirts that they want. So it makes me wonder if the shirts he was accused to have taken were Albert Pujols shirts or someone else whom he may have idolized.
Leake made his debut last year right out of college at Arizona State. I seem to recall his salary for this year at around $400,000. That is a whole lot less than his signing bonus which was originally over a million.
I know we all need to tighten our belts these days and cut costs and corners wherever we can, but…um…I don’t think this is a really good idea.

On the positive side, Aroldis Chapman, the Reds 23-year old second-year reliever from Cuba returned to the mound in a mop-up role against the Pirates last night. He threw 25 pitches with all of them over 100 mph. It included a reading in Pittsburgh of 106 mph on one toss, which would have broken his own record set last year. There were two other readings in the park though and three different readings.
Chapman returned after experiencing some shoulder discomfort recently in a game where he only reached the low 90’s with his fastball.

My best throw ever was measured around 62. Girls throw faster than that, underhand, in softball.

The Rockies Troy Tulowitski hit 15 homeruns in the last month of the season last year. He parlayed that into a 140 million dollar (or so) contract.
Some players sign monster deals like that and tend to not perform quite so well. Tulowitski hit 7 homeruns in the first half of April, is hitting .345, and is on a current pace to hit 70 homeruns; amazing numbers for a month let alone half a month, and then totaled with the last month of the 2010 season.
The Rockies, behind Tulo, are off to a 12-4 start, 3 games ahead of the World Champion Giants and return Ubaldo Jimenez, their ace starter to the hill tonight. This will be Ubaldo’s first start since Opening Day when he suffered a cut on his right thumb.

Oh well, the Orioles have dumped 8 games in a row now and sit next to last in the East, where many would have predicted. I can still root for the Orioles, but I don’t see putting forth much energy to do so after that. Much in the same way that I’m not overly excited to hear that there is a Met game playing on TV somewhere.


Times are tight for me for sure right now. Big budget cuts for me personally. I’m not just talking real frivolous things either; I’m talking major leagues cuts. You know, unlike the kind the government is willing to make.

I spoke today with a garden center manager who said his business is down 50% from ANY year that he has had. I’m not sure if that made me feel much better since mine is down 70% from 2 years ago, but at least I know that I’m not alone. I also know that I’m not in the right line of work, that’s for sure. A friend of mine who is a programmer just had two companies bid for his services after he tendered his resignation a bidding war broke out and he stayed where he is for 40% more. Good to see that for him!

I’m going to try to be more positive here so I’m going to let you know that since our first podcast show is up and running on www.marshcast.com we are preparing to create our second one.
Since we are exploring the dark recesses of my soul in show #1, we now want to shine the light on anything and anyone positive that we can.
I am now looking for people local to me to participate in this program and programming. If you are someone who would like to create this new masterpiece with me, write to me at me@marshcast.com If you have some uplifting stories of your own to tell or to send to me, contact me the same way. I am not sure when we will start taping for this; I have to get a bunch of things together and work out a schedule. But contact me anyway if you have any interest.

Wow, the mlb.com website is absolutely pathetic. It is so busy loading up all sorts of crap from all sorts of databases that the pages are taking 30 seconds to load and hogging up 90% of my PC’s processing power.

Ok, it’s time to get ready for the next taping of the Dungeon of Manlove. Last week’s tapings are posted at www.marshcast.com. I’ve chopped it into 3 parts to make it a little easier…I think it’s easier anyway.

Done.

To Shock or Not to Shock, That is the Question

I am back home from an interesting couple of days on the road.

On Thursday night I did a high school show in Maine. Prior to the show a couple of the girls from the show committee and one of the girl’s boyfriends were talking to me about the show.
I found out that I was replacing a guy who had been doing shows for a few years there and I asked why they made a change. The reason was because his show was apparently the same word for word and they just wanted something new.
I asked about a couple of the skits that he did so I could figure out if I should add or cut anything from mine.
One of the skits this guy did was have guys pregnant and “give birth” onstage.
Now this is a high school show and I made the mistake early on in my career of doing this at a late night high school show. When I did it, over to my side I saw two teachers in the wings telling me to stop. I did, of course, and later they told me that in that community it probably wasn’t wise.

The kids loved it and invited me back the next year but the two teachers kept me away.
Now, had the people involved been high school girls instead of boys, I could see a problem with that. I wouldn’t use girls, or even women for that matter, in that situation because its really only funny with guys.

So I tell these three kids that story and why I wouldn’t do it there. One of the girls looks at me and says, “I’ve heard of shows where they have people orgasm on stage. Do you do THAT one?”
All three were now looking at me clearly with a look of hope. How do I know it was a look of hope? Because when I said I couldn’t do that in this show, they then had a look of disappointment on their faces and the girl who asked me then said, “oh, that sucks.”

I thought that was pretty funny. But now I realize that I am going to be compared to the last guy who did more risqué stuff than I was willing to do. So I had to run to the advisor to let her know that my show was only PG-13 at best. Now, I also know and explained that if I had the teachers and parents in a room separately, they would want to see the more R rated show. But when the two crowds are together it doesn’t go over well.

Clearly that is all very stupid, when it comes right down to it. Particularly since what people actually do on stage is follow a suggestion to use ones imagination and the result is that they are acting out the scene I describe, if they want to follow along in the first place anyway.

So the show goes on and I do my thing. And I do it well. I guess the crowd was about 100 in size. Not too shabby for a high school show on a Thursday night.

At the end of it the advisor tells me that she loved the show and even said so in front of the video camera. She also told me, off camera, that I was better than the last guy. The three kids who I met earlier agreed and I’ll be heading back there.

The next evening was particularly interesting. For more details about what happened in this one I’m going to talk about it during the next taping of my show. But to tease it I will let you know that you will find out why I gave out more business cards after one show than EVER before, yet there is a group of people who are going to do whatever they can to make sure I never work there again. (The high school kids would have loved it!) I have had an arrangement with the organization which hired me not to broadcast anything from that appearance over the years I have done that show and I always honor that. So I can only imagine what the stories of that night will sound like a couple of years from now without any tape available.

Well, I guess the guy I replaced at the high school will have an opening he can fill that I might have left for him. He should know though that I did the pregnant dude thing there years ago already so he’ll need some new material.

Done.

Stillettos and Frozen T-Shirts

I'm writing from a room in Bangor, Maine.

Bangor...yeah...like what I would do to Haley Reinhardt who is still alive on American Idol.

Much to my friend Jennifer Munoz Dugan's dismay, Paul the Spaz was eliminated... FINALLY from AI last night. I managed to find that out late last night.
VoteForTheWorst.com fans are crushed now despite their best efforts to keep Paul around especially after watching what he wore in his last ghastly performance.

Mrs. Dugan is now prepared to stomp on American's with her stilletto heels because she feels that the country got it wrong. To her credit she thought that it was wrong that Pia was voted off last week...but come on...Paul?

Last night I did a fund raiser at a high school in Windham, Maine. I found out that there had been another hypnotist there the past few years but the kids got tired of his routine.
When I first started doing these shows I used to be concerned about replacing another hypnotist.

Not any more though. I know how many of these guys shows go. There are always funny people who volunteer for these shows so as long as a hypnotist is capable of hypnotizing people, they can pull off something. But what many of them do is just put them to sleep, give the same suggestions that all hypnotists seem to give, wake up the volunteers and they follow the suggestion.

I have skits though so even though many of the elements are similar (like suggesting changes in body temperature so a volunteer is cold and snuggles up with their neighbors) they are done with a different type of presentation, which I have created myself. So at least half of my show is original in that way.

I was told that my show was better than the last guy. So...I'll be back there next year and, based on what a bunch of other people were saying afterwards, I'll be asked to do some additional shows in the area.

Tonight is the Relay for Life show at the University of Maine. Its my 3rd time up there and its fun. Its a marathon, of course, where students walk around the track all night long to raise money for cancer. There are a variety of activities that take place along with it, such as my show.
Its held in the Field House on the Orono campus. Kids pitch tents, bring down couches and love seats and sleeping bags and fill up the infield section of the field house.

Last year a show that followed mine was one produced by students. It was a game where tie-dyed t-shirts were frozen solid. The goal for teams playing the game was to defrost the shirt as fast as possible to the point where someone could then put it on. The first team to finish that won a prize. Watching how they were trying to defrost the t-shirts was pretty funny. Since body heat was the only to get that job done the quickest, the shirts were being placed in all sorts of fun places.
I was watching the girls teams of course. Their places were much more fun than the guys places.

I am writing from a laptop with a very awkward keyboard so this has taken about  6 hours to write. I think I have said enough for now so now I am

Done.

Sticks and Stones and Pitchforks

Taxes.

Break out the pitchforks; that’s what I say.

But enough of that, I said my piece yesterday.

I am currently obsessed with http://www.marshcast.com/ and the Dungeon of Manlove. When I get obsessed about something, it succeeds. Tomorrow night is another round of auditions and let me tell you…so far this has been fun. I’ve met a couple of great new people and some interesting people and tomorrow I’ll meet more.

Party at my place, baby. I don’t really have a big house so normally all of these people won’t fit in here, but there are three completely empty rooms so at least they can have some space for now.

There is a chance that I’ll do some hypnosis on the show. We put a call out for some willing volunteers and may have a couple coming. If not tomorrow, then next week.

I think we are up to 10 other people either on the staff or auditioning for it right now. This means spin off shows soon.

I have two official followers of this blog and one official stalker from Florida. Just thought I would throw that in there.

Mets fans warmed my heart the other day as they were chanting my nickname for former Phillie and current National, Jayson Werth. After grounding out to end one of the innings in a game the Nats won last night, my New York friends taunted him with a version of Jayson Werthless…Jayson Werthless…Jayson Werthless.

Werth is living up to his nickname so far after signing a deal which will pay him 18 million this year. He currently has a homer and the one RBI he got with that in 9 games. That’s a pace for 18 RBI’s for the year at that bargain basement fee for the Nats of 1 million dollars per RBI.

Even at my advanced age I could drive in more than 18 runs in a full MLB season. I’m going to call the Nationals and tell them I will do it for half a million per RBI and they will love me for it.

I’ll tell ya what. I’ve been a baseball fan over 40 years now. One might think I have a bit of a clue. Not one of the teams that I picked before the start of the season is in first place. Most of them are near the bottom. I’m telling you that Hell must be mighty cold right now. Wait a second…I may have picked the Reds. They are in first. Woohoo!

I have a hypnotherapy client tomorrow. This person is coming in because he/she is in training to be a phlebotomist and is now shaking as he/she is trying to enter a patient’s vein. That could be a problem, don’t you think? Apparently the teacher is overbearing and it does seem as if that has created this issue for this person.
This won’t be the first time that I have seen these types of maladies occur because a person develops a symptom as a way to avoid ridicule or shame or someone’s incessant criticism. Manifestations of stutters, shakes, lock-ups and the kind are the subconscious minds way of keeping a person from having to deal with an uncomfortable future situation.
If a person develops a stutter or a shake, then he/she won’t be asked to perform the particular task at which someone is criticizing or laughing. The subconscious mind deals with problems in a completely different way than the conscious mind, which is where reason resides.  So in this case, this person’s subconscious mind is making him/her shake. If he/she shakes then he/she can no longer perform the task and therefore he/she is not subject to the yelling from the teacher any longer.

This is why we really have to watch our words, especially if we are leaders, teachers, coaches and parents. The saying that “names can never hurt us,” is just a falsehood. They clearly can. If this person can’t stop shaking then he/she will not be able to pass the class and the consequences for him/her in this case are great, if that happens.

If he/she shows up I’ll fill you in on how it goes. The last 8 people who have made appointments for hypnotherapy sessions haven’t come. Tough to make a living trying to count on that!

Done.

Shut it Down

Tax time this week. I am self-employed so I have to write a check at this time every year. Since I am getting killed financially I have to actually charge it this year. What a kick in the groin that is. Thanks for the hope and change.

Then it’s up to Maine for a couple of shows Thursday and Friday night. A high school fund-raiser is followed by my third appearance at the U of Maine and their Relay-For-Life marathon.

But I have a problem now that the girl is gone; I have to find someone to take care of my dog. It is not cool that the dog has to suffer in this way because of what happened. I am not happy about this at all. I mentioned the other day that I prefer to keep him stress free but now it seems like I am left with no choice but to leave him with a friend of mine who has two large German shepherds. That can only cause stress for him. I hope they don’t eat him.

The Rays Manny Ramirez retired the other day all of a sudden. His career is now shut down because of what ,on the surface, appears to have something to do with the leagues drug policy.
Ramirez was one of the most feared hitters in baseball for nearly 18 years and he retires with 555 career homeruns.
He will be on a growing list of recent baseball stars who will need to get judged by the Hall of Fame committee who had either admitted to using, or had been found to have used, performance enhancing drugs to help them at some point in their career.

Let those debates rage forward.

How about them Orioles? They handed the Rangers their first loss of the season and matched their record so far at 6-1. But then the Rangers got revenge with a 13-1 win in a make-up game.
How about Cliff Lee getting boinked around by the Braves? I’m telling you that the Phillies fans have so much penis envy about New York that they have forgotten about the Braves, the team that I still think is the team to beat. They did pull the series even with Oswalt on the mound in game two.

Red Sox nation is a bit happier now. The blow of that 0-6 start was softened by the first win of the season coming against the Yankees. Then they were miserable again as they got pounded in game two.

So with baseball it’s like that…you win one, you lose one. The best teams in baseball lose a lot of games every year. The best players strike out and the best pitchers give up homeruns. That’s why those debates about who is the best player and which team is the best are never ending.

But there is no debate that the departure of Manny Ramirez is the most news worthy item in the league this week.

At http://www.marshcast.com/ two new shows are posted. There are now four shows worth of audition tapes with a few more coming. I think it’s interesting to hear this show, Dungeon of Manlove, get created and grown right in public like this. I literally welcome people into my studio and sit them down in front of the microphone, press record, and start talking. I chop out bad audio and dead air and the occasional poorly judged remark, but its basically raw tape. And it is so much fun. It is exactly what I have needed to do to push through a block of mine here.

It also helps me vent some real frustration and some growing anger. There is plenty of it to unleash with more piling on every day.

For example, since I paid $3.85 for a gallon of regular gas the other day I decided to experiment with something. It got pretty sunny and windy at the same time the other day and so I rolled my car out of the driveway and onto the street. I sat down in the driver’s seat and prepared myself for my trip.

I waited and I waited. Time kept passing. Sure enough, I ended up on the verge of being late so I had to turn on my car, hit the gas pedal and go.

So what it the moral of the story? We have a bunch of idiots claiming that wind and solar power are the answers to our rising energy price problems.

My experiment proved that no matter how windy or sunny it is, wind and solar power are NOT going to power our vehicles.

GAS IS WHAT DOES IT RIGHT NOW! We need more gas and cheaper gas. Without those two things, we are doomed. We need a leader that has the freaking common sense to see this and get this done. Our own resources need to be developed and utilized IN OUR COUNTRY so we can grow once again.

This joke of a “recovery” is just that…a joke. And it’s a much sicker joke now that we are, once again, pushing near $4 a gallon for gas. Where is the outrage about this now? Where are CBS, NBC, CNN, and ABC and their investigative reports into the Obama administrations ties to big oil companies? Because, in case you hadn’t heard, his political campaign received plenty of campaign contributions from oil companies when he ran for office. When Bush was president all we used to hear when gas reached $4 a gallon was how he and Dick Cheney were in bed with the oil companies. EXPLAIN THIS SHIT TO ME NOW!

He makes a deal with Brazil and promises to give them 2 billion dollars of OUR tax money so they can develop THEIR oil reserves, and then tells them that WE will be THEIR best customers. So we not only get our tax money robbed from us to do that, we then have to spend our money to help the Brazilian economy?

WHAT THE HELL? Am I the only one around here who sees a problem with this?

So because my gas bill is now so much higher, I had to cut back on my personal budget and chop my cable service to basic. This now means that I no longer have access to the MLB Network, my favorite channel of all time. It’s not a catastrophe; I can make do without it but the point is that a lot of the money I am paying for gas is not staying here and helping our economy. The money I had been paying for my cable bill was staying here and helping our economy.

Complete idiots make these energy decisions.

Look, I’m all for trying to develop new sources of energy but it has to be done with these things in mind…
1- It must be cheaper than what we have now.
2- It must be at least as effective as oil is now
3- It must be done while we are taking full advantage of our own resources until the development of items 1 and 2 above are complete and the proper infrastructure to deliver the new sources of power are in place.

Electric cars are stupid too. Gas and coal are two components used to make electricity and they are practically banned by this moronic administration.

I’d rather not get political here. I don’t have a lot of real close friends but 80 percent of them are either unemployed or underemployed right now and that 80% is not an exaggeration. If we just were allowed to develop our own natural resources in this country all of us, at this point, would rush to wherever they were opening up the development to go get work. It’s getting that critical for a whole lot of people.

Maybe we should move to Brazil, I hear there are new opportunities there.

Done.

At Least Haley is Still There

The best singer on this season’s American Idol was voted off the show last night in 8^th place.

Pia Toscano was the one ousted by a sick combination of 13-year olds voting insanely to keep Stefano whateverhisnameis alive and a more bizarre band of idiots determined to do whatever they can to destroy the show at a site called votefortheworst.com.

Pia Toscano

All is fair in love, war, and American Idol voting of course. Frankly I may be at fault for not getting in my usual 50 votes for all of the hot girls in an attempt to balance out the teeny bopper population. But I do have other things to do in my losing battle with my finances after all.

The Votefortheworst.com morons have been actively pushing that spaz Paul McDonald and he didn’t even make the bottom three. Hey, they have a right to do so because he is entertaining to them. But just overall, how Pia got screwed is probably proof that having just the audience vote at this point is stupid.
She’ll be fine, of course. She’s blessed with an amazing voice and she is hot and I would do her. (Not that the fact that I would do her means that she’ll be fine, I just wanted to say something nasty.)

There are some theories that because Pia didn’t dance around the stage that hurt her. Occasionally the judges would make such a comment. But it’s a SINGING CONTEST. There is a whole other show called "So You Think You Can Dance." I don’t hear the judges on that show saying, hey you danced pretty good but next time you should add some more singing.

The judges on AI, Randy Jackson, Steven Tyler and Paula Abdul sometimes mention this dancing thing. But it’s a SINGING CONTEST. Paula Abdul was a dancer who then had a singing career (as did Paula Abdul) but Paula Abdul can’t sing; she can only dance, so she expects more of that…and making some sort of connection with the audience…man I am tired of hearing that too.



Haley Reinhardt (oh yeah!)



But Haley is still in there, that hot little monkey. I can still watch it since she is there but once she is gone, I’ll care no more.

Man the Red Sox suck. They are 0-6. What idiot would have picked them to win the whole thing?
The Orioles are 5-1. There is some imbalance in nature that can only mean that the world may indeed be coming to an end on 5-21-11. Damn it. I forgot to talk about that in my podcast taping yesterday.

My balls hurt. I either have a hernia or cancer. Hopefully it’s the former because I don’t have insurance. If it’s the latter I guess I’ll be dead soon. Good. Maybe then I’ll be out of my misery.

Two more new people auditioned for the show yesterday – Kevin from Kenya and “Amber” who is a singer, promoter, and entrepreneur who has lots of tattoos and big boobs. It was fun talking about giraffes, Iowa, and boobs yesterday.

I have to make a Facebook page for the Dungeon of Manlove show today. I was going to get to that now but one of the two people who read this blog gave me a bunch of shit for not having it prepared and posted promptly today.

Hey, I aim to please!

I have to make a whole lot of shows real quick if I am dying. This way some revenue can trickle in to pay off any bills that are left when I am gone. So I have to get back to some of that now so I’m….

Done.

Hello...ello....llo...lo...oooooo

Baseball is a humbling game for those who play it and those who try to make predictions about it.

Albert Pujols, my NL pick for run away MVP isn’t hitting his weight. The Red Sox, my pick to win it all, got swept in their opening series and their pitching staff was serving up bombs like they were playing the Libyans. Cole Hamels, who I figured to be the breakout star of the Phillies much ballyhooed pitching staff, got his ass kicked by the Mets in his first outing.

And no one saw the Orioles starting 4-0 now, did they?
I can root for the Orioles. I have always liked them and they are just down the road. If Brian Roberts stays healthy at the top of that lineup, Vladimir Guerrero andDerrek Lee stay healthy, Mark Reynolds doesn’t strike out 300 times instead of his customary 200, and the talented young pitching staff doesn’t crumble, there are plenty of reasons to see O’s fans cheer a lot this year. That is a lot that needs to go right for them, but I am happy for it since I can see all of their games on TV.
I can’t root for the Phillies and they are closer. Shane Victorino, Phils centerfielder, perhaps said it best, “Phillies fans are the most obnoxious in baseball.” That is why I don’t like them. Most of my friends are Phillies fans too…I like THEM, but not their choice of baseball teams.
It’s not their fault, for the most part; we usually root for the team near us when we are growing up. I was closer to New York, so I root for those teams. But at least having my parents raise me as a New York fan isn’t the near child abuse that it is for a parent to push a Philadelphia sports team on them as they are raised. I still believe that should be illegal.

Even if the Phillies go 161-1 they are still the team with more losses than any other team in the history of the world, which keeps my heart warm.

Can you tell there is a Phillies-Mets series taking place right now?

It was a great show at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA last night. It’s always great when I can get half a dozen hot young co-eds to have orgasms on stage at the same time. (There were dudes there too but I don’t really care what they are doing when I have a microphone in front of a cute moaning 20-year old.)

Excuse me…I need to hold that thought for just a few minutes.

Ok, I’m back.
One of my goals in life when I was younger was to become a dirty old man when I got older. I am well on my way! One of my other goals was to be financially secure – rich, dare I say… well, at least one of those dreams is coming true.

The next taping of the Dungeon of Manlove is today. I can’t wait for that. I’ll meet a couple of new people today and we’ll get to mess around with the stuff we have been writing about and kicking around all week since the first taping.

I am also excited for next weeks taping which is already scheduled. The hottest girl on the planet, who happens to live here in Delaware…(I know right? Who would have ever thought that?!) is going to give a shot at making the show’s staff. (She’s in.)

The house is now ¾ empty. There is an echo in most of the house. It’s odd for sure. No pictures on the wall, a bare refrigerator (except for a couple of cases of diet soda, chicken and some mustard) and the finished portion of my basement where I have my theater room is empty. There is no echo there since there is carpeting.

I’m probably more worried about the dog missing his adopted mommy. Last night, for example, I had to leave the house around 3 and didn’t get home until midnight. That throws him off schedule and since he is 15 years old I try not to stress him out like that.
Don’t underestimate the stress factor on your pets, my friends. I have worked very hard to keep his life as stress free as possible. And I feed him chicken twice a day (which is why there is chicken in the refrigerator…the diet soda is mine though) so these are reasons why he has lived a long time. 16^th birthday this coming June, God willing....and you're all invited to his birthday party!

She did stop by to pick up some things while I was at the show. But for some reason I get a text saying that she took my phone charger. I still can’t figure out why or how that even happened. It was in a cabinet with plates that was already cleared out. Is there some odd reason behind that? I know she’ll bring it back; I just found it a little strange.

Speaking of strange, our show crew has come up with a new segment for the Dungeon of Manlove. It’s called “Find Marshal a new whore…um…I mean…girl friend.” That is the official name of it.  I like the name of the segment.

I am pretty much done with all of that relationship bull shit though. I told her when I met her that she was going to be the last one, one way or the other. Since it was one way and not the other, I’m just going to bachelor it up for the balance of my days. (Famous last words, right?) Besides, I need this extra time and space to work on my shows and work on reaching the other major goal in my life. Being a dirty old man is one thing but not completely respected in the community. Being a dirty old RICH man? That, at least, gets respect from the male community.

Done.

Keep it Simple

Chaos is underway.

http://www.marshcast.com/

If you are easily offended, come back Thursday for more here on this page. I need to be out of here for a couple of days as the move is made tomorrow. I have a comedy hypnosis show on 4-6 at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA. They are hosting my show to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, so please come out, if you can. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8. I am not sure how much the tickets cost, so just bring lots of money and that should cover it.

A special shout out to Tell Em Steve Dave as they are the influence behind Marshcast.com

Done

Beginnings, Endings, Endings, Beginnings, Beginnings

We are now a few days into the 2011 baseball season and the fun has begun.

I think it’s a bit trivial to discuss much about what has taken place after two or three games have been played. Games could be analyzed and dissected I suppose, but that’s not where I really want to go so much unless I were to get paid to do so. I really wish to just comment about the thoughts that run through my head when I see and read what I am able to see and read.

I was watching the Yankees-Tigers game yesterday. AJ Burnett was pitching for the Yankees. He had been a whipping boy for the Yank fans last year as he became the first pitcher in Yankee history to lose 15 games and have an ERA over 5 in 2010. With the game at home, his career in this first start of the 2011 season was under a microscope.
He did ok, but what I noticed is that he had some sort of facial tic. I don't recall seeing this before and perhaps he does have some issue and I shouldn't comment about it because its a sensitive situation; I don't know for sure. If it's something new maybe it was just something that was a temporary nuisance to him, but he was stretching his mouth and jaw like he was preparing himself to eat something really large for dinner later.

Can you imagine making a debut in the major leagues? If you are someone who always wanted to play pro ball, have you ever thought about that particular moment in time when you step into the batters box or face your first batter as a pitcher? What is that vision in your head?
Growing up (and not like I ever had a chance of becoming a pro player) I saw myself standing in the batter box against someone like Tom Seaver or Steve Carlton, or my idol Nolan Ryan, and cracking a long homerun; maybe even doing something really crazy and iconic right afterwards and announcing my retirement with my 1.000 batting average and 4.000 slugging percentage.

Well for the Detroit Tigers, 23-year old Venezuelan Brayan Villarreal made his MLB debut on the mound in the 6^th inning at Yankee stadium yesterday. Up as his first batter was future Hall of Famer Alex Rodriguez. Here is that perfect childhood dream situation for the rookie who no doubt had to think of something similar during his young days playing ball in the streets of Caracas. The stars were all aligned for him...Yankee Stadium...Alex Rodriguez...big strikeout coming...

And then Rodriguez hit a 430-foot homerun to centerfield to pad his Hall of Famer statistics and continue HIS dream.

Oh well, so much for that.

Dreamer

Sad news.
The Phillies released Luis Castillo last week. They decided to put another Mets reject, Wilson Valdez, at second base for now.
Now I have to wait to see if Castillo finds another team so I can create some new artwork.

Good news.
The Phillies have to resort to signing Mets rejects to fill gaps in their lineup. Since the Mets, on paper, are worse than the Phillies it means that the Phillies will be content with trying to head back to where their fans are much more fun to watch… the basement.

Bad News? Good News?
There are just two days now before my girl friend of nearly five years moves out of the house. It’s not a particularly pretty scene around here; lots of emotion when we’re both here, etc.

One of the good things about it is that this isn’t a nasty end. We’ve had a few nasty near ends before but this was just her finally realizing that we just never grew together early on and so we just became roommates more than anything else.

But that can also make it harder. If we were at each other’s throats then it’s an easy choice…get the hell out and as fast as possible.

I would much rather have it this way.

Well, I’d rather have a nice healthy relationship but this one has never been one of those.

Here is the bottom line though – we both need different types of people in our lives. She needs someone with a blue-collar, 7-3 type of job, who likes country music, crabs, and likes home improvement projects.
I need someone positive, happy, creative, inspirational and supportive who accepts me the exact way that I am.

The anger and negativity broke me in this. I worked hard on becoming a happy, care-free, positive person for a long time. Now, I’m really just care-free…but care-free as in an “I-don’t-give-a-fuck” type of care freeness.

That may ultimately be beneficial for what I am launching soon, which may prove to be super ironic. But currently, I’m just broken.

There is a financial component to this too. In a few months, if things don’t turn around, I’ll really be broke.

We didn’t really have much in common but we did like to travel and day trip. But I lost 2/3^rds of my income since November of 2008, so yes; it was then pretty boring because we haven’t been able to do all of those things like before.

I wonder if part of the reason that I haven’t been able to overcome all of the hope and change that has helped destroy things is because this girl broke me down with all of her anger and negativity. She just can’t understand a person who has a creative and entrepreneurial spirit so when I had an idea, she would roll her eyes and tell me to get a job. How many times can someone look to their partner, hear and see shit like that and not be affected by it?

It also just means that she never took the time to hear anything that I said about myself from day one, or figured that she was going to get me to change to suit her preferences.

Consequently there have been times that I have even doubted myself and called myself a loser. Isn’t a partner in life supposed to have an opposite effect on you? Or at least be as supportive and motivational as possible?

I had success in spite of all that though, because I did fight through all that bullshit the best way that I could. I did, after all, make the switch to concentrate on the entertainment career during this relationship and have reached milestones that thousands dream of and don’t achieve.

But entertainers can have a lot of extra time on their hands, which I had easily been able to fill with something financially productive over the years. I just wonder if the difficulties that I have had there are a result of the fact that I have been broken down the way that I have.

I take full responsibility for the failure of this relationship and have told her as much. While she wasn’t really a good communicator, I could have stepped up and been an even communicator than I believe that I am.

I wish her no ill will and only want the best for her and hope she finds the perfect man and situation for her.

I also wish myself well so I’ll begin a new chapter. I’d rather not be alone but that is the way that it’s going to be for a while, I imagine. First, who wants a 49-year old guy even if he does have a rocking hot body? But then throw in the financial situation and that cuts out the young, hot gold diggers. And…I’m not ready to tap into the social security system yet, if you know what I’m saying.

So probably I’m looking at a long parade of dirty young hookers for a while, at least if I am looking for some sort of instant gratification anyway.

But…I’m not, though. So with lots of extra time on my hands I’ll concentrate on the new project…. http://www.marshcast.com/.

The first two shows are “in the can,” so to speak.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I have named the first show for the network and it will be called, “The Dungeon of Manlove.”

For those friends and followers of mine who have conservative tendencies, and/or are easily offended, this show will not be for you. While I will incorporate things into this show about my life on the road as an entertainer, sports, and other normal life things, it will ultimately be about releasing a great deal of pent up frustration and creativity in a very free-spirited, uncensored, and unbridled way. It’s a show that is created in sort of that “I don’t-give-a-fuck-because-I-don't-have-much-to-lose-anyway” type of way that I mentioned earlier.

Just the name of the show should give people some cause to think before pressing the button to play it, when its ready to go.

So let's tally the results of today's piece. Two endings, three beginnings. That's PLUS ONE, so I'm ahead in the game today. So now...I'm

Done.

The Pied Piper Pipes Us

I read an article just now that really pissed me off.

A couple of months ago I applied for $50,000 loan to help buy a little restaurant ½ a block from the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach.

To just give some basic numbers…the business was for sale for $90,000 but not the building. A rough estimate of the equipment inside was about $30,000. So technically, there were not enough assets to secure the $50,000.

However, I have an 800 credit score and, let’s just say, over $100,000 equity in my house, which I was willing to use to secure the loan.

I was turned down for the loan.

So I read this article http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-01/foreign-banks-tapped-fed-s-lifeline-most-as-bernanke-kept-borrowers-secret.html which, in the second paragraph, talks about how one foreign bank based in Brussels and Paris borrowed 33.5 billion dollars from our government.

Six EUROPEAN banks borrowed a total of roughly 274 BILLION FREAKING DOLLARS from OUR Federal Reserve System.

And those bastards couldn’t lend me $50,000? Want to hear what is more angering? I then asked if I could borrow $30,000 and they shot that down also because “there seemed to be something fishy about the previous owner’s financials. 

You know what is really freaking fishy? LENDING OUR *$*$(@#( MONEY

to FOREIGN COUNTRIES!

Never mind what I was bringing to the table; it was IRRELEVANT to them. If I was from a foreign country would I have then been relevant? Or are we just TURNING DOWN AMERICANS NOW?!?!

I don’t care who is office, whether it’s a republican or a democrat, nor do I care who is responsible for this $--- I WANT WHOEVER IS RESPONSIBLE GONE! EVERY LAST ONE OF THESE FILTHY THIEVES NEEDS TO BE BOOTED OUT, INVESTIGATED, AND TORTURED FOR WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO AMERICANS.

At least I have SOME way to generate SOME income. What about the people in this country who are LOSING THEIR HOMES?!?!?!

If my government continues on what can only be described and understood by me as a PURPOSEFUL destruction of our economy I’m not far behind those people in the above paragraph.

I am also angry that Thia Megia was voted off of American Idol last night while that spastic geek Paul McDonald continues on chasing his dream.
Naima was booted also so there was at least some justice but I have to imagine that McDonald himself had to feel bad that the assholes at VoteForTheWorst.com have chosen him because he is the worst of the bunch and a truly talented girl is now gone (Megia, not Naima.)

But Haley and Pia are still in there so I can still watch the show since it still has sex appeal to me.

271 billion dollars to foreign banks.  A LIBYAN owned banks got 73 loans from the Fed.

I hope, at the very least, we were careful not to bomb those banks last week! We need them to pay that shit back so I’ll be able to pull $20 out of an ATM next week.

I’m telling you that we all need to wake the hell up and stop being sheep while the pied freaking piper plays a wealth redistribution song on his skin flute.

But, hey, don’t worry if you are unemployed, there is an opportunity out there for American workers. Seems as if Japan is looking for American workers to work at their “crippled” nuclear plant. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/exclusive-wanted-u-workers-crippled-japan-nuke-plant-20110331-165506-832.html

Those three stories have taken the wind out of my Opening Day of baseball sails.

Done.