In explanation but not exactly defense of this, which I just had handed to me and have no clue of its origin, though I’ll just bet it’s a Cub fan…

Mark McGwire got a standing ovation at the Cardinals’ fan convention. In the wake of calling out McGwire and other juicers as liars, cheaters and phonies, Jack Clark was booed. As you can see, Cardinals fans check their brains at the door.

…I will add that: Jack Clark made the single gravest error in Cardinal fandom which is talk shit about another Cardinal (two, really, since he goes after Tony, too), something that is not ever ever done without grave unrest. See: La Russa basically has no comment on Ozzie Smith, and wisely so. See likewise: Ozzie is widely regarded as the villain of that situation, essentially because he was vocal in his criticism of the way Tony handled the end of Ozzie’s career, which to be fair Tony did sort of shit the shortstop bed there with Royce Clayton and maybe hadn’t by that point quite learned the fundamental rule in discussion, here. See finally, though: how Ozzie seems to have recently moved on from the subject, and wisely so.

UPDATE: The Post-Dispatch’s Bryan Burwell gives fans a stern talking to and receives a gabillion comments, many of them testy.

I was walking on the sidewalk just now and saw one of the city ladies in an orange vest slip a ticket under the wiper of a green Tercel. As I passed her I said, Ticket season, and she looked at me and her eyes were big and it occurred to me that the world is full of assholes, they’re everywhere, on the internet and outdoors in the real world. Here in this bar there’s a guy talking to the server like she signed up for some subscription of his. I hear asshole narratives about friends’ and girlfriend’s ex-boyfriends, these shit men who behave like shit; and likewise surely my own ex-girlfriends have stories about me, I’m certainly not exempt from this club. The Iranian government. Pat Robertson and a whole fleet of assholes on screen. Writers, all of us. Skateboarders who throw beers onto floors and get all tackley, in-face finger pointers. Promise forgetters and even worse neglectors. Point being surely this woman has been screwed with and harassed as she’s gone about her job in this city. With the new meters I bet we’re all screwing with her more. But I was smiling and so she smiled back and I liked her, she was lipstuck in the perfect shade for a woman in her upper forties, and had some heft to her. Always! she said and laughed and a step later I said, It’s like wabbit season, but this time she didn’t laugh or otherwise acknowledge amusement and I didn’t know what to say to someone when Bugs Bunny fails to resonate.

I’ve got a reading coming up in February, a guest blog post on Three Guys next week, and an essay this Spring in St. Louis Magazine. The coffee shop was all full (it’s always full) but I discovered that it’s okay to sit in the bar next door and write all day long. The question remains as to whether it’s a Greek, Canadian, or American bar.

Finally, please be advised that it actually is the real Graham Nash, as far as I can tell, commenting on the last post. I hope now his Google Alert goes off again so he comes to see how goddamned tickled I am at the reality of that, and read one final apology from me about my plastic surgery accusation, which was brash and presumptuous and but holy shit, man. Graham Nash!