Mr. Bitter

I’ve been running into Giblets on the street quite a bit lately. Giblets used to hang out at Nocs, playing backgammon late at night. He can be a goober, but he’s a good kid at heart. Anyway, he lives around the corner from me and invited me to a street barbecue this afternoon.

Unfortunately, I had just eaten at ACME Burgerhaus, so I wasn’t hungry. But I wandered over to hang out. Basically, it’s an old fashioned in the hood street barbecue in front of the barber shop. One dude showed up on his bike and offered to sell it to Giblets. Another dude encouraged Giblets to buy the bike, then told him he was paying too much, then insisted he should get a cut of the money he supposedly saved Giblets. This dude was definitely street. He was mock (or maybe not so mock) threatening to not know anything if Giblets’ bike was ever stolen unless he got his cut.

Anyway, that’s my neighborhood, and that’s the way I like it.

My favorite moment - in midsentence, the dude trying to get a cut suddenly stops and asks a passing woman for one of her beers. She gives him one. It’s a Racer 5. When one of the other dudes asked him what kind of beer he had, he said, “Import.” Yeah, an import from Humboldt or whatever.

I was in the Boy Scouts as a kid and we would periodically be asked to march in holiday parades. One year, we did a Memorial Day parade and the local news station interviewed a couple of us for the radio. One of my friends said Memorial Day was a day that we thanked the dead for dying - he wasn’t being ironic. That came later. Anyway, it’s always been one of my favorite quotes.

I’ve been busy with tons of work lately and finally had a day off yesterday. I went over to Gary’s house to watch the Tim Lincecum-Ubaldo Jiminez duel. Ubaldo is a man. 129 pitches, four-hit shutout. Jim Tracy came out to the mound in the ninth but left him in to finish. Yay, Jim Tracy!

ExWK then called - she was heading out to Ocean Beach for a “Return the Sardine to the Sea” ceremony being performed by her old Spanish teacher. Basically, everybody was supposed to dress up in blue and silver so they could throw a fish market-purchased sardine into the ocean. There were musical instruments and I tried my hand at the toy accordion. This may be the start of me becoming the new Weird Al. It was a good time despite the weather - the beach was San Francisco style, with tons of fog and wind (the taco was blown off once and I had to keep it on tight) and it was freezing. We then retired to the Beach Chalet for drinks.

A shout out to longtime reader Eric who let me borrow his pickup to do distribution this week. A real life saver. The umpiring checks still haven’t arrived yet, although the boss told me last night they should be in soon. Once they get here, I can start looking at a new used car. So that’s the goal for the summer.

I’m listening to Carolyn on KUSF at the moment. She’s DJing at the Casanova tonight, and I may swing by there. Also, there’s the open mic at Amnesia down the street. I haven’t been able to go out much lately, so I’m thinking it’s time to hit the town.

ExWK also called me on Saturday when I covered a game in Alameda. We lived in Alameda when we first moved here, so we decided to hit the town on Saturday night. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant, then walked around High Street. We found a great second-hand store and I found an old double-album of Hank Williams for $5! Score! ExWK found an old railroad tie that she bought for a friend of hers. A lovely evening in the old town.

The game was fun because the Alameda coach’s father is Lil Arnerich, who played minor league baseball with Billy Martin. Lil was hanging out chatting with me at the press table and his wife sat down for a while, getting updates on their grandson by cell phone. He was pitching for Long Beach State that night against UC Irvine. Lil asked me about Ray Ratto at one point, and I found out that Lil was the guy who got Ray into officiating basketball.

Years ago, Ray told me a great story about reffing a Catholic Athletic League game between St. Joseph and Bishop O’Dowd. Frank LaPorte, the late, great St. Joe’s coach was on Ray, so at one point, Ray pulls his whistle out and tells LaPorte, “Bite me, Frank!” Of course, at that very moment, the gym suddenly went quiet and everybody heard him. I believe he was reprimanded for it. The great thing about Ray is that in person, he’s exactly like he is in print, just more rude. I love him.

OK, I should call some of my editors now.