"Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." - Me
I'm using a computer. Which is great. I once drew a circle on one of the first Apple Macs that Steve Jobs gave to Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono. Who else was there? Blondie, Jean-Michael Basquiat, Nora Ephron, Lou Reed, Alan Alda, Jim Beam, Boris Yeltsin, Peter O'Toole, The Rockettes, Denny from the restaurant Denny's, Boutros Boutros Ghali and Carney Lansford. I shot film of them all looking bored for 36 hours and then Yoko Ono threw me out a window.
But speaking of Carney Lansford. I think he was invited because we thought he was an actual carney. He was a baseball player. Pittsburgh has a baseball team.
I once put together a baseball team at the Factory. They were called the Velvet Underhand. George Steinbrenner's bohemian brother Saul paid me $5M to do it.
I'm getting off-topic. What is the topic? I'm bored.
The Pittsburgh pie rats. They are just these hungry little guys going around on the floor looking for pie. But they haven't found any in a while.
They were in first place for about 15 minutes last season. So what.
They always say time changes things, but you have to change them yourself. They forgot that in Pittsburgh for about 18-20 years. What they should have done, I think, was to mass-produce these little pitching prospects. But it's a free country and, anyway, they're trying very hard now. It's very American.
One thing you can say about the Pirates is that they all drink Coke. Just like me. Just like you. So you shouldn't think that you're somehow better than them because you're drinking the same Coke and hamburgers and your canned soups taste the same and, even though something you sneezed into was auctioned off for more than their 2013 payroll, well, your black turtlenecks are made out of the same cotton and wool blend.
You're not going to get a better kind of Coke just because you're Joey Votto.
Andrew McCutchen, he's very good. He's a genius. I would say he's the best genius. But it's not just him, there's also... Jeff Karstens? Actually, excuse me, I have to go run off 100 copies of something.
It's a very wonderful team, each of them are geniuses in their own way. They performed their "The brief flirtation with first place followed by a slow descent into alcoholism" so perfectly the last two years. But, I have to admit, they have to really get on television and yell and scream pretty loud for it to work out the way they want.
Almost all of these guys are mostly good. Other ones are almost good or barely bad. Imagine if Starlin Marte and Travis Snider had beatiful little seasons like they always promised they would?
Here's the list of names. If someone has 15 minutes next to them, they are going to be good this year and I would put a huge screen-printed head-shot of them in my bedroom with gross colors.
Starting lineup:
LF Starling Marte (12 minutes)
2B Neil Walker (10 minutes)
CF Andrew McCutchen (15 minutes)
1B Garrett Jones (6 minutes)
3B Pedro Alvarez (10 minutes)
C Russell Martin (6 minutes)
RF Travis Snider (7 minutes)
SS Clint Barmes (5 minutes)
Starting Rotation:
RHP A.J. Burnett (9 minutes)
LHP Wandy Rodriguez (8 minutes)
RHP James McDonald (9 minutes)
RHP Jeff Karstens (6 minutes)
RHP Kyle McPherson (10 minutes)
Bench:
C Michael McKenry
1B Gaby Sanchez
IF Brandon Inge
UTL Josh Harrison
OF Jose Tabata
Bullpen:
Jason Grilli
That's enough.
...
What I noticed is that you look at the names and you think, "he's pretty good, isn't he?' Like, why isn't Gaby Sanchez playing all the time? But then you look at the name again and you think well maybe not. So what.
Is it actually a good thing that former Astronauts like Clint Barmes and Mark Melancon and Wandy Rodriguez are on the team? Who knows?
If I wanted to just sum it all up and print one phrase over and over all over PNC park it would be: "PIRATES DFA JEFF CLEMENT."
Francisco Liriano - I like the way that name sounds. He's not even a part of the scene though. Him and Charlie Morton are disabled. Jose Tabata, an artist, I don't even know where he is.
Artist statement
They say the best thing you can do in baseball is put together a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can wina cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can win a cost-controlled team that can wina cost-controlled team that can wina cost-controlled team that can win
But I say that losing is the most sincere form of winning. The hardest thing to do is to pay a lot of money and get nothing. And getting nothing is more beautiful than any trophy that would take up that perfect space filled by not winning. So, other than spending a lot more money, my advice for some of the younger guys to dye their hair gray.
Here, I put these two phrases next to each other and maybe they'll be helpful: After the Lost Two Decades, Pirates fans forgot what emotions were supposed to be. Andrew McCutchen.
That'll be $18M dollars