Happy Birthday to a couple of my very favorite writers!

Dorothy Parker was born on this day in 1893, and while she is most remembered for her days with the Round Table in New York, she spent a number of years in Hollywood as a screenwriter (IMDB). She passed away in 1967.

I’m never going to accomplish anything; that’s perfectly clear to me. I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more.

And yes, you might as well live.

Ray Bradbury, also born on 8/22, but in 1920. (Funny to think of Mrs Parker at 27 when he was born, being fired by Vanity Fair for offending people.) A while back I wrote about Ray:

[He] is the ghost in the machine. He finds the soul in the rocket, traces the life in the Martian colony, points out the demons lurking in the fires of a burning book.

Always one to tweak the nose of too-serious folks, Ray has recently been talking about what Fahrenheit 451 really means. Some people have gotten a little pissy about it, which says more about them than Bradbury. And that’s kind of the point.

Living nearly a century and writing some of the best literature in the world gives you a smidgen of latitude. ;)

Richard Henry Dana (for whom Dana Point was named) wrote Two Years Before the Mast as a diary during a sea voyage. I’ve not read it yet, though I will definitely be checking it out soon, if for no other reason than the portrait it contains of early 19th Century California.

In the book, which takes place between 1834 and 1836, Dana gives a vivid account of “the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is”. He sails from Boston, around Cape Horn, arriving in California when it was a remote Mexican land, and San Diego, San Pedro, Los Angeles, and San Francisco weren’t much more than a few sheds. He gives descriptions of landing at each of the ports up and down the California coast as they existed then. In the book, he makes a tellingly accurate prediction of San Francisco’s future. He also gives a nice description of a society wedding amongst the “Californios.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Years_Before_the_Mast

The text is available at Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4277

Back in March, I wrote an article about choosing an MLS team to root for — “Chivas or Galaxy?”.

The first and last professional soccer team I rooted for actively and on a regular basis hasn’t played a game since 1981. That would be the Dallas Tornado of the also-defunct North American Soccer League (NASL). The Tornado had one NASL championship, in 1971.

I wasn’t able to make a decision at the time, though I began to lean toward Chivas USA.

Since then, the Galaxy have announced Herbalife as their jersey sponsor, which pretty much rules them out for my support. ;) I’ve only been to one MLS game, in fact my only professional soccer game — Real Salt Lake @ Chivas USA last year. Had a super time.

No matter what, there will be a certain artificiality to my being a particular team’s fan, at least to begin with. The same was true, though, of my adopting the Dodgers a few years ago and the LA Kings back in the 90s.

In a sense, I chose sports to love, then teams to express that with. My site The Trolley Dodger covers my baseball obsession and includes a page describing how I came to follow the Dodgers, “Back in the day…”

Soccer is a little more complicated for me. I do love the game and am determined to learn as much about it as possible. While I’ll be writing about this relationship in more detail another time, suffice to say I’ve been following the sport without a favorite team, whether MLS or elsewhere.

Between the Internet and TV outlets like Fox Soccer Channel and some of the Spanish stations, it’s relatively easy to follow any particular team in a few leagues — the English Premiership, La Primera División de México, MLS, etc.

My friend Alex is a big Liverpool fan, and I once had an English acquaintance who loved Chelsea. After doing some reading, I had thought to adopt the Wolverhampton Wanderers, mostly because I liked their name and Wolves mascot, but they’ve not been in the Premier League for a few years now. Of course, Manchester United would be all too easy to choose, much like there are far too many NY Yankee fans running around the globe. ;)

So I am still undecided and would welcome input in the comments (if anybody so desires). For the time being, however, I am going to keep on watching, learning, and writing about the Beautiful Game.

If you pretend those are her eyes, this is an exceedingly creepy photo:

The alien popstar queen prepares to suck the brain out of an unsuspecting toddler.

Reggie Bush meets David Beckham