NoPepper.net: … Some days, it rains.

1. Songs with whiskey in the title: Willie Nelson’s Whiskey River is the gold standard, here. But it’s pervasive. Throw the water of life in your title and I am sure to listen. Hank’s Whiskey Bent And Hellbound. Drive-By-Truckers doing Women Without Whiskey? Check. Felice Brothers singing Whiskey In My Whiskey? Yes, please. I am, in fact, tempted to say that I’ll love just about any song if they throw whiskey in the title. The exception that proves the rule is Metallica’s horrendous ruining of the Irish standard Whiskey In The Jar. But I, of course,  love several other versions. It does bring to mind the inevitable question, though. In a seven-game series, does whiskey its ownself beat songs with whiskey in the title?

2. Runny eggs: How perfect is a food that makes its own sauce? I remain suspicious of anyone who doesn’t like his eggs over easy. Also, cook your eggs in butter. Seriously, this margarine and olive oil spray stuff is fine for vegetables. My grandma cooked eggs in butter in an iron skillet. And so should you.

3. Joe Mauer: My best friend and I were drinking beer once — just the once, mind you — when he told me a story. Dock of the Bay came on the radio, and he said the first time he remembered hearing the song, he was with his mom at home when he was just a lad. And as the chorus kicked in, the phone rang. His mother picked up the phone,  blurted out “Can’t talk now. Otis is on,” and hung up the phone. That’s how I feel every time Mauer takes his cuts. A little voice in the back of my head says, “Pay attention. God forbid you curse this world with offspring, this might be a moment you tell them about.” The man doesn’t take bad swings. He swings and misses so little it’s always kind of a shock when he does. He hits more bullets for outs than any player I have ever known. Six hundred times a year we all get a chance to watch Dylan write a song, to watch Van Gogh paint, to watch Hemingway write The Sun Also Rises, one word at a time. Don’t miss it. And if you text me when the three-spot is up in the Twins’ order, the only reply you’re going to get is, “Can’t talk now. Joe’s hitting.”

4. Guinness Irish Stout: I sometimes go to bars — just the once, mind you — and people try to get me to try strange beers. I like Strange Beers almost as much as I like Familiar Beers, which is to say slightly less than Free Beer or Fishing Beer and much more than Warm Beer or Hangover Beer. But I am always genuinely mystified when someone tries to get me to try another kind of stout. Did some folks not get note? They already cracked this code. If I want a stout, I’ll have a Guinness.

5. Flip-flops: The best part of spring is baseball coming back. The second best part of spring is looking into my sock drawer and realizing I won’t have to put those infernal things on again until the snow flies. Socks are like condoms for your feet. Except you aren’t getting laid, and foot reproduction is not really an issue, outside of some very specialized German porn. Ponder that.

6. Terrible jokes: No really, I mean it. And I will spare you. This is my gift to you, Humble Reader. Because what I think is funny horrifies the world. But if you’re at all like me, you should take a trip over here and check out a particular brand of funny. If you thought Jerry Orbach’s one-liners were the best part of Law & Order, we should probably hang out.
7. Bands with fiddles: I came to this realization when I found myself enjoying — and not just a little bit — an Ozark Mountain Daredevils LP. For serious. That isn’t even a real band. That’s the guys your dad got stoned with after college. And after grad school. Probably the night you were conceived and almost certainly the night you were born. That Alabama song, “If You’re Gonna Play In Texas, You Gotta Have A Fiddle In The Band?” I can’t get enough, and I hate both the band Alabama and all modern pop country. Possibly the state of Alabama entirely, though I have never been. I know I hate the football team and its coach. Which I reckon, in Alabama, goes for hating all of them. I blame Texas for George W. Bush, but if someone can play Faded Love, I’ll probably buy the next round — just the once, mind you.

8. Alliteration: There’s a school of thought that says James Joyce ruined this for all of us with his “falling faintly… faintly falling” at the end of The Dead — the best kicker ever written in English, by the way. Codswallop, says I. Sure it launched eleventy billion lame ripoffs. When done right it’s still magic.
9. Baby blue: And baseball needs more uniforms in this color. Everything needs more things in this color. I’d probably eat baby blue food — if you put an over easy egg on top.

10. Jimmer: Don’t you realize? The next time you see sky, it’ll be over another town. The next time you take a jumper, it’ll be in the NBA. BYU fans, they want the best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what’s right for them. Because it’s their time. Their time! Up there! Down here, it’s our time. It’s our time down here. That’s all over the second we get drafted by Oklahoma City!

11) The Wire: The best thing that’s ever been on television. Hey-o, lesson here, Bey. Come at the king, you best not miss.

12) Johnny Cash: The man stomped on the lights at the Grand Ole Opry and recorded the best covers of both ”Hurt” and “He Stopped Loving Her Today”. What else is there to say? Plenty, I reckon. That’s why we’re all here, right?