New Baseball Haiku

Okay, I suppose the Tokyo NY-TB series deserves a haiku or two.

Baseball starts again
Game begins at 5 a.m.?
No Cincinnati?

Boss issues statement
This is only the first game
A long season starts

Yes, I'm Back

After a length off-season, I've decided to resume blogging. Why? Who knows, but while I may have gotten bored with the blog over the winter, I now find I'm bored enough in general to want to spew observations out onto the web again. Yesterday I posted a comedy list, the sort of thing I did back in my Backslap.com days. Ahhh, those were fun. In fact, the list was really an updated, edited version of something written back then, in 2000. I found my old archive of material and realized that a good chunk of it was pretty funny, so I'll be revisiting some of that stuff. The trick is to find what's not terribly dated, or an idea that's not dated, but with dated topical references that need to be brought up to 2004. People seem to be chuckling though, so I'll keep posting it. It should be noted that a lot of the older stuff was written with Dan Kline and I wouldn't want to take ALL the credit. However, Dan, it sure isn't making me any money, so don't worry.

In other news, BASEBALL is back. Whew, that was a close one. It always seems to come back JUST in time. Playing in Japan for whatever reason, the Yanks split a 2 game series with the Devil Rays by pounding them 12-1 this morning/last night/tonight/yesterday/Easter Sunday/whatever time & day it was over there. Surly new Yank Kevin Brown looked damned good, as did the great Jorge Posada. Welcome back, baseball. You're a mess these days, but damned if you don't look good to me.

Yahoo! Sports - MLB - Yankees 12, Devil Rays 1

Things You Didn't Know About…

...Vice President Dick Cheney

Spent three years as a gag writer on "Hee Haw"

Reluctantly accepted Secretary of Defense slot after losing the lead role in Ghost

On a drunken bender in 1991, ordered invasion of Hawaii

Spent the years between Bush administrations as associate dean at a clown college in Kansas

Served as Congressman from Wyoming without having actually visited the state

Was principal architect behind President Ford's "Fall Down A Lot" policy

Sponsored legislation forcing NBC to keep "My Two Dads" on the air

Spent a night in jail after misinterpreting what it meant to be the House whip

Happy New Year

Hey...sorry I've been so lax about this log. Christmas came around and I was either working my tail off or running around getting ready for the holiday...finally, when I was done with those two, I was busy having fun. Thus, no blog for a couple weeks. Chances are you all were too busy to notice or care.
I hurt my hip last week, I think just from excessive time working on my feet. I haven't seen a doctor, and its gotten better each day, so I'm not concerned. It may have simply been a bad muscle pull, or bursitis or a pinched nerve-- who knows. All I know is that I woke up in the middle of the night on the 2nd with intense pain in my leg and hip, and when I hobbled out of bed to get some ibuprofen, I was cursing like a stevedore in pain. Yikes! I spent the weekend hobbling around on a cane and sitting on my ass watching football and movies. As of today, it's just a little sore and tight, but I can walk just fine and move around and all that jazz.
Luckily for me, some of the football games were good ones, like that great Tennessee-Baltimore game on Saturday and the equally great (if not more so) Green Bay-Seattle game yesterday.
Besides the football, I've been on an old movie kick of late. I watched the new DVD of Howard Hawks' To Have and Have Not, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Bacall was all of 19 years old when she and Bogie fell in love making the movie. The romance shows, her age doesn't. It's not that she doesn't look young and beautiful, but she sure doesn't act like any 19 year old *I* know. The film is pure Hawks. William Faulkner may have co-written the script, adapted from Hemingway's novel, but the film's author is clearly Howard Hawks. Was you ever bit by a dead bee?

To Live and Die In LA

Watched William Friedkin's To Live and Die In L.A. the other night and dug it very much. It's sort of an L.A. answer to Friedkin's French Connection, and while it's not as good as that film, it's still a really cool 80s movie artifact, and a cracking good thriller. The story of an obsessed Secret Service agent on the trail of an evil, murderous yet brilliant and talented counterfeiter, the movie screams 1980s - from the vivid color scheme to the score by Wang Chung. No, that's not a joke, Wang Chung scored the movie - you may vaguely remember the almost-hit title track. While the film definitely displays plenty of Friedkin's trademark style and obessions, it could almost be mistaken for the work of Michael Mann. Willem Dafoe and William Petersen are both terrific in the film, playing basically unlikeable characters. Petersen's the hero and we're supposed to like him, I guess...but he's pretty much a louse, not unlike Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle in French Connection. It may not suit all tastes, but I really enjoyed it.

Boston says the A-Rod deal is dead, Texas says it still has a chance. I no longer know what to think, or even what to root for in this issue. The AL East should be a wild ride in 2004.

Harumph

I don't have time to write much this morning, so, suffice to say, Andy Pettitte going to Houston really peeves me. As much as I blame Steinbrenner, and his candy-ass attempts to take over the reigns this off-season and plunge the Yankees back into the mid 1980s, I'm pissed at Pettitte, too. The press made it sound like the Yankees didn't really make Pettitte the high priority they claimed he was, but who's to say for sure except Steinbrenner, Pettitte & Cashman? Andy was always too much of a bible-sniffer for my taste, but he got the job done, and with a modicum of style. I know it's horribly old-fashioned, but after winning 149 games and four World Series with the Yankees, I would have thought Pettitte might want to stay (for MORE money) and spend his whole career in pinstripes, break Whitey Ford's team win record, go to the Hall of Fame, etc. I guess he'd rather "go home." Whatever. The Yankees are now in a jam, and only Pettitte and the Yankees know of who's making it really was.

Winter approaches...

I know it's still autumn, but damned if it doesn't feel like winter, what with all the snow on the ground and the freezing temperatures (okay, actually I think it was 34 or so yesterday, whatevah...). I'm battling off some sort of weirdo cold. I feel okay, but my head is stuffy and my eyes are red and watery. I cough for a bit, and then it disappears for half a day. I don't get sick very often, and I feel like my body can't decide if it's ill or not. I have a long ass work week coming up, plus Christmas shopping and that friggin' three hour Lord of the Rings movie on deck, so I vote for "not ill."
I've been thinking about movies that are perfect for watching on those snowed-in days. Some people would go for all summery, warm, tropical locations and so forth, but I actually like to reinforce that feeling of being inside and cozy on a cold, snowy evening. Therefore, I like watching cold, snowy, wintery movies. The two that leapt to mind were David Lean's Doctor Zhivago and John Carpenter's remake of The Thing. Oh, and Ice Station Zebra, but I've never seen that. I'd like to though. Does anyone want to lend me a copy?

No, its not a musical.

I finally got around to watching The Haunting last night. No, not the cheesy, special-effects overrun 1999 flick with Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones, but the much, much cooler 1963 version with Julie Harris and Claire Bloom, directed by Robert Wise. Both films were adapted from Shirley Jackson's novel "The Haunting of Hill House," and while I've never read the book, it's a safe bet the '63 version is truer to Jackson's written words. Wise does such a great job here, it's easy to forgive him for the bloated duds he spent too much of his later career making (and I like The Sound of Music). The story goes that Wise only agreed to take over The Sound of Music (William Wyler was originally to direct) if Fox would let him make The Sand Pebbles (which I dig, largely because of Steve McQueen), and of course, as we all know, The Sound of Music made an obsene amount of money at the box-office and went on to win 312 Oscars...but I digress.
Wise was an editor at RKO before his directorial career, and he notably edited Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons for Orson Welles. The influence of Welles and specifically Kane is deeply felt in The Haunting. Wise's use of the camera to create and sustain tension, dread and atmosphere is flat-out masterful. He succeeds in making Hill House one of the starring characters of the film--we regard it as as important a presence on screen as any of the flesh and blood actors at any given moment. The cast is excellent throughout (Harris is a bit over-the-top, but it works for the film) and there are a handful of genuinely scary moments, with virtually no special effects. Wise creates scares from mood, lighting, camera work, sound effects and psychological dread. The result is certainly more haunting than most of today's effects and gore-laden "horror" films.

Listening to Paul Westerberg's new cd, Come Feel Me Tremble. It's my first time through, so I can't give a definitive opinion yet, but I like it. Nothing earth-shaking, just good basic Westerberg.

Okay, I have to run...A Charlie Brown Christmas comes on in 3 minutes!

Hot Stove Hoop-de-doo

It's safe to assume any baseball fan now knows that Curt Schilling is now a member of the Boston Red Sox. Schilling going to the Sox doesn't bother me nearly as much as the sleazy way the Diamondbacks went about dealing him. The message was clear though: most teams do NOT want to deal with the Yankees. Arizona asks the Yankees for their two best young stars (Soriano and Johnson) for a 37 year old pitcher, and then accepts that ehhh package from Boston instead. Hell, if it was really about Richie Sexson, you'd think the Yankees could have gotten him for Arizona too. Oh well, I'll just have to root for the Sox rotation physically breaking down next year, which isn't really a very far-fetched idea, considering the health of Pedro and Schilling over the years. To be honest, I've never liked Schilling, he always seemed like a bit of an egocentric redneck (hmm, sorta like the Rocket?), and now I like him even less. It was pretty hilarious to hear yet another athlete talk about how "...it's not about the money." Why do they even bother with that one anymore? What's it about then, the dental plan?

Now the word is that Sheffield is going to the Yankees , which I have no problem with. Ideally, I'd like a centerfielder so they could move Bernie to LF (I love Bernie, but his range is diminishing each year and his arm has never been worth a damn), but I can live with a Matsui-Williams-Sheffield outfield. Of course, the rumor is that Williams will become a DH, which would mean dealing Nick Johnson. This idea I really don't like--not only do I really like Johnson (and his steadily growing OBP), but given Giambi's health woes, do you really want to get rid of your younger, better-fielding first baseman? I suppose I could live with dealing Nick the Stick if he brought back Vasquez or Colon, but I dunno...Oh well, I have faith that the Yankees won't do anything 1980s-style stupid and will put a terrific team out there.

..and he didn't own that movie ranch.

Warren Spahn, the winningest left-handed pitcher in baseball history, has died at the age of 82. Rob Neyer has an excellent appreciation of Spahn's achievements in his ESPN.com column. I was finishing up the Koufax book last night on the LIRR and there was a mention of Spahn and Koufax's lobbying to add him to the All-Century team a few years back. I pulled into Port Washington, put the book away, walked home and as soon as I sat at the PC, I read that Spahn had passed away. Weird.
I lost at poker again, by the way. I won one nice big hand and that was it. Crappy cards, bad decisions, you name it--I lost every which way. Luckily, it didn't cost me much money...but I really have to get off the snide.

been a long time, been a long time...

I caught some good rock'n'roll last Thursday night: The Detroit Cobras and The Greenhornes at the Mercury Lounge. Both bands would be considered part of the late 90s-early 00s Garage Rock revival, which I happen to really enjoy. I can see how some people might see the neo-Garage trend as just that, a trend, a bit ersatz, but I think its the most refreshing thing to happen to the rock scene in years. "Indie" rock is actually fun again. These bands seem to have remembered how much fun it is to play rock'n'roll music. This isn't dour, navel-gazing, rhythm-less "rock," it's souped-up, pounding, thumping, dancing, hip-swingin' rock'n'roll! The Cobras essentially play punked-up 50's r&b, while the Greenhornes play mid-60s style rock'n'roll, clearly influenced by The Yardbirds above all (they even covered the Yardbirds' "Lost Woman"). The Cobras are the more memorable band, but both were a lot of fun.

My Caption of the Day

Do you think Bill might be saying "I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart!"

Lord of the Trophies/Rings

Barry Bonds just won his SIXTH MVP award, and his third in a row. SIX F'IN' MVP AWARDS, FOLKS. That's twice as many as Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio, it's a truly staggering number. I felt Bonds deserved the award again, but a great case could be made for St. Louis' Albert Pujols, and I thought it would be a much tighter vote. Anyway, it was Barry in a walk (no pun intended), and his legend grows and grows. Next stop, Babe Ruth. It's amazing that Bonds won his first MVP in 1990, and he's still winning them easily thirteen years later. How often is the best player in the game (any game) still the best a decade later?

I watched Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers again last night. I'd seen it once before, in the theater last winter, and I enjoyed it far more the second time. It's not that I didn't like it the first time, but I was feeling logy and it's a long freakin' movie. Consequently, I was trying to stay awake half the time and getting antsy waiting for things to wrap up. When you're in a hurry, waiting for the Ents to get their wooden asses in gear is interminable. Last night I was able to really enjoy it. I haven't seen the "Extended" version of the first LOTR, and I'm not dying to see the longer version of Two Towers that was just released today, but I suppose I'll see them both eventually. I've been told that the longer versions add a lot of character development and nuance that make the stories much richer and satisfying, but jeez, they're already three hours long. It's amazing when you sit through a movie this long and realize how much they had to cut out. Personally, they don't seem bloated to me in their theatrical release versions, but my friend Will Simon quipped, "Howard Hawks could havd told the same story in 82 minutes." Well, he probably could have, but he'd have Walter Brennan play Gollum. Hmmm, now who would play Aragorn in Hawks' version, Bogie, the Duke or Cary Grant?

One more note on The Two Towers: it sure was good to see Brad Dourif in a major movie again. He was so good in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and then in John Huston's sadly overlooked Wise Blood, he's always a welcome, if slightly creepy presence on my screen.

...also, I'm currently finally reading Jane Leavy's Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, and it's pretty fantastic thus far.

A-Rod Wins, Random thoughts.

Alex Rodriguez finally won the AL MVP today, in a very tight race. Although I'm not sure I would have voted for him this year (I thought Carlos Delgado and Jorge Posada had excellent cases), I'm happy he won. He's deserved it before, and I'm glad the BBWAA got over their last-place bias.

In other baseball notes...Rob Neyer has a good piece today discussing why the Yankees are so good and why they're likely to remain so good. I'm just happy to see him write about something other than the Red Sox. Also, Japanese star Kaz Matsui has announced he's coming to the major leagues. I don't know much about him, beyond the stats (which are impressive), but it's said the Yankees will probably make a run at him, possibly moving Soriano to centerfield. We'll see.

Retromedia has closed! I'm so very bummed out about this. I had only recently discovered the site and now it's being yanked away from me--I had so many clips left to watch! Maybe we should all throw money at this guy so he re-opens the site.

34-24-34?

It's Tuesday again, which for me means it's 24 night. Yes, I am among those TV geeks who never miss an episode. It's now season 3, and I'm still going out of my way to catch every second of this ridiculous show. Don't get me wrong, it's good TV: exciting, creative presentation, great production values, strong acting, etc. However...c'mon, it's pretty absurd. As super-agent Jack Bauer, Kiefer Sutherland has been injured more in 3 seasons than Mickey Mantle was in 18, and still never misses a beat, not to mention the wild turns the plots and characters take at the drop of a dime. Last season Kiefer had a hunk of wood lodged in his leg after a plane crash. He tore it out, limped around with a grimace for about 5 minutes, and then resumed running all over Southern California to foil the bad guys. An episode later, you'd never have had any idea he'd suffered such an egregious injury.
However, for most 24 fans, our main source of angst is Kim Bauer (Elisha Cuthbert), Jack's daughter. I think most fans, especially males, really want to like her. First of all, she's extremely hot, with that sexy yet innocent "You can bring me home to your parents with pride and you can also bend me over the sofa at 2 am" look, and besides, she's the beloved daughter of the hero...but sheesh, do the writers of this show make her look stupid. Half the time she seems very with-it, sharp and tough, and then the writers always contrive to make her do the dumbest thing possible. In both of the first two seasons, she's gotten stuck in ridiculous "Perils of Pauline" type emergency situations that no thinking person would ever get themselves into. So far this season, that's eluded her, but she's spent the first three hours of the latest international crisis worrying about when she can tell her Daddy she's dating his new partner. As Ed Pancreas summed it up: "Daddy, I know dere's a viral coming and killing peoples but me got a boyfriend! Me got a boyfriend! Teeheeheehee!"
If I were Elisha Cuthbert (and I think we can all be thankful that I'm not), I'd be planning my hissy fit for the writers and producers. Hey, a couple seasons ago she was a kid, largely unknown (at least in the US) and thankful to have such a great gig. Now, she's getting movie offers (like looking adorably sexy in the way I described earlier in Old School), her picture is constantly being splashed around in celeb mags and the internet...in short, she's a rising young star, and pretty essential to the show. They've already killed off Jack's wife and had his ex-adulterous lover turn out to be an evil double-agent (who wound up killing said wife), chances are they're not going to kill off the daughter. So, Elisha, now is your time to demand that your character stop being so freaking stupid and self-absorbed. Let Kim save the freakin' day, just one time, please? Because even with that questionable new hairdo, she's really, really hot.

American Icon Soup

One more thing about Mystic River: for days now I keep singing Willie Nelson's "Whiskey River," changing "Whiskey" to "Mystic." It's easy to fall into, hard to stop, and given the content of the film, highly inappropriate.

Old West Action

Caught Clint Eastwood's latest directorial effort, Mystic River, the other day. Man, this is an excellent flick. Its one of the best things Eastwood's ever done, and I'm of the school that that's saying a lot. It's probably his best work since Unforgiven, and at least since the underrated A Perfect World. Clint doesn't appear in the film, instead he's working with one of the strongest ensemble casts of recent years, i.e. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden & Laura Linney. What's nice to report is that the lesser parts are just as ably handled. No one delivers a false performance - everyone rings true, as does the look and feel of the film.

I won't rehash the plot of the film, you can find that anywhere. Suffice to say, it's heavy stuff, definitely not a good "date" movie (unless you happen to be dating a child molester, murderer or small time gangster from a blue-collar Boston neighborhood). As I said, everyone's very good, but Penn and Robbins really stand out. It's Penn's best work since Dead Man Walking, and Robbins' best to date. Playing a man with a wound that cannot be healed by time, Robbins' body language is extraordinary. He stoops his shoulders, hangs his head and presents himself as a wounded child in a grown man's body--as if time stopped for him on that fateful day in his youth, while his body marched on. Penn is a walking mass of conflicting emotions, coiled like a cobra, but with genuine pain and loss in his eyes. We're never sure if he's longing to renounce bloodshed forever, or longing to let it seep back into his pores.

Eastwood's direction is sure-handed and smart - he doesn't waste frames showing off, and maintains a certain level of anxiousness and dread from beginning to end. In Mystic River, as in Unforgiven and A Perfect World, violence is presented as a disease, akin to alcoholism. It infests the lives of those consumed with it, and spreads to those around them, innocent or guilty. Eastwood's characters try to back away from the violence in their pasts, but somehow relapse, fall off the wagon and slide back into the blood and brutality that's been the ruin of their lives. The best flick I've seen this year, and deserving of the hype.

International Steakfishing

I had a bizarre dream last night. In it, I apparently worked at Saturday Night Live. I was working in a dark blue office with no windows, and we all worked in cubicles. The week's guest host was James Caan, and I was told to go speak to him about something. Caan had found one sketch absolutely awful and over-long. I read it and agreed with him, and he asked me to have someone write something better. I went back to the writers and producers and told them what he'd said, at which time they instructed me that it was just the 12:50 am skit anyway, so it didn't really matter, and why didn't I write a new one? It was my first day on the job and I'd never written anything for the show, so I was apprehensive. Nevertheless, I began to wrack my brain for an idea. Suddenly, I had it: The International Steakfishing Competition! In my sketch, two red-blazered sports announcers would broadcast the International Steakfishing finals - wherein two beautiful women would be fishing and reeling in cooked steaks. Why they were beautiful women instead of typically gruff looking fishermen, I have no idea. They would reel in a filet mignon, a strip steak, a london broil, etc. I remember that I had one of the commentators remark, "Look at those grill marks!" at one of the catches, and I'd written in one of those "Up close & personal" segments about one of the girls. In my dream, the staff seemed to like my sketch, oddly enough. Very odd.

Clarification & Sno Balls

My friend, the great Ed Pancreas, wrote to me today and said: "Are you so sick in the head that you put hockey on the same level as pro and college football?!? You must have a screw loose boy." He's right - let me clarify. Football, both pro and college, is the greatest TV sport there is. I absolutely love it. It comes right behind baseball in my heart and psyche. What I meant by placing hockey along side it was that I love the day-to-day appeal of hockey. Football is great, but its really a once-a-week affair. Hockey and basketball go every night, so they help satisfy that daily sports craving that baseball so perfectly fills all summer long. However, as I said, the NBA is a drag, so I look to hockey to entertain me on Wednesday nights in November. Football is clearly the cold-weather king. Okay, Ed?

MMMmmm boy, I just had me a good sandwich. The "Bavarian Club Hero" from the Banhof Deli. It wasn't severely overstuffed or anything, but it was damned tasty. Black Forest Ham, turkey breast, muenster cheese and Russian dressing on a hero. It was so good I even bought a package of orange Hostess Sno-Balls. Sno-Balls are one of the most bizarre looking snack foods in existence. A creme-filled chocolate cake, covered by a layer of marshmallow goo coated with dyed coconut. I'd really like to meet the Hostess employee that came up with the concept. It's not as if people had been baking Sno-Balls in their homes for decades and then Hostess decided to mass-market its own recipe.
"Don, your team has to come up with something! Drakes is creaming us in the Northeast, Little Debbie's cutting into our Midwest market and Tastykake has such tasty cakes!"
"Yes sir, Mr. Hostess, my boys down at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen have come up with just the thing to boost lagging sales--its a coconut/marshmallow covered orb of cake with creme filling! And we'll dye the coconut pink!"
"Hmmmm, Don, old boy, I love it! Call them SNO-BALLS!"
"But they're pink Mr. Hostess."
"Just do as I say and start baking!"

They're usually pink, but I guess they're making them orange for Halloween. People generally have two reactions to Sno-Balls: 1) Ewww, that looks disgusting! Who the hell would want to eat that? and 2) Mmmmm boy, gimme two! I fall into category two, but I must say it's well below Twinkies, Cupcakes and Fruit Pies in the Hostess hierarchy. And now...a haiku:

MMmm shaggy sno-balls
orange coconut smiles hello
oh! my poor insides

When is spring training?

The new-look Knicks started their season last night with a very old-school Knicks loss. It looks to be another long season for those of us who follow the Knickerbockers. Although I'm a Knicks fan, I find myself caring less and less about the NBA each season, as the pro game has become really dreadfully boring. Its become so static and predictable, the only basketball that really enthralls me anymore is the NCAA tournament.
The NHL is also underway, and I'll have some fun following my beloved Islanders this year, as they should be able to hang in the playoff mix. They tied the Penguins last night, 4-4. I love hockey and football, and I'll enjoy some basketball, but I'll still be missing baseball big-time.
More later...