Film Industry = Fragile Business.

Why do we do it? In hopes of creating a true masterpiece, movie magic such as this gem reported in today's Variety: Pairing Up for Poetry

Lindsay Lohan is joining Keira Knightley in the "The Best Time of Our Lives," which John Maybury is in negotiations to direct for U.K.-based Sarah Radclyffe Prods.
...

Script by Knightley's mother, playwright Sharman Macdonald, is based on the true story of the relationships among Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, his wife Caitlin (Lohan), his childhood friend Vera Phillips (Knightley) and her eventual husband, William Killick. It centers on the curious incident in which Phillips and Killick opened fire on the Thomas home with a machine gun and a hand grenade.

I don't know which excites me more - armed poets, or Lindsay Lohan with a British accent.

I'm getting giddy just thinking about it.

I will now start my routine of running eleventy billion miles a day.

From the NY Daily News:
The Lazy-Bones Nabe - Sunset Park Tagged in City Health Survey

I swear, I spent my youth playing wiffle ball. Maybe there is some nurture in laziness after all...

There are no words.

I was there. Game 7. Shea Stadium. Mets v. Cards.

I surrounded myself with my closest friends. I saw every pitch. I never left my seat. I chanted. I hooted. I hollared. I waved my towel. I kept hope alive, believed when reality should've set in, never stopped dreaming. I did everything I'm supposed to do as a fan to make this night perfect.

I got a hell of a ballgame. I didn't get the fairytale ending.

Cards, 3-1.

I can't quite describe this feeling. It's a combination of a straight gut punch and the depression from realizing it's just a game and the world's still on its axis. It feels slightly off, though. I want to come up with some analogy of baseball as life, but I realize I'm grasping at straws tonight. Making much ado about very little, but this feeling reminds me thoroughly that it's definitely not nothing.

I search for words to elaborate, and I can think of one moment... sophomore year of college, October. I finished watching the Mets lose in 5 in the World Series to the Yankees. That stung. I couldn't find words - but searched the internet reading everything to find them. And I found these two quotes. And they said it all for me.

I thought about them on the way home, the longest ride home. They still ring true. While I cope with the hurt and sadness of Game 7... I keep it in perspective with these few words.

"I cannot get rid of the hurt from losing, but after the last out of every loss, I must accept that there will be a tomorrow. In fact, it's more than there'll be a tomorrow, it's that I want there to be a tomorrow. That's the big difference, I want tomorrow to come." - Sparky Anderson

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." - A. Bartlett Giamatti

It's raining tonight, you should know. Started during the game.

Welcome back.

I can't speak for all of you, but speaking as one guy who grew up a little dork... I know I for one am happy to see Weird Al's still doing it after all these years.

Wow.

The only word I can use to describe KT Tunstall's performance yesterday at Webster Hall. I'm a believer now. Leave your house right now and go buy her CD immediately. Go.

It's alright, I'll wait.

(waiting)

Stop reading this. Believe me, if the hooks don't get you, her voice will. And if her voice doesn't, nor her successful use of a kazoo during the performance, then her keyboardist's/trumpeter's washboard tie will.

Go.

Don't Bet the House on Me

Right.

So apparently, I goofed up my LDS picks. The NLDS? When I said Padres in 4, I should've said Cardinals in 3. And when I said Mets in 5, I should've said Tom Glavine is the Dodger Daddy.

I had my ALDS games mixed up, too. When I said Yankees sweep, I meant the As. And when I said As in 5, I should've said the Yankees are awful. My apologies to anyone who took my predictions to Vegas.

Guys, please accept this as a token of my remorse.

Girls? Uhh... don't.

PS - We've got jury duty! Updates to come just as soon as they're legal.

Mere Moments Away...

I'm sitting on the couch on a sunny afternoon here in the big BK, mere minutes from the Mets gettin' down with the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles. And I'm nervous.

I wanted to write a "what I expect from the LDS series" blog, but ran out of time (games started by the time I got halfway - for the record, I had Oakland in 5, Yankees in 3, and the Padres in 4). That leaves one series. The one that means more.

I spent the last Mets playoff experience in relative obscurity, getting my education about 300 miles away in scenic Syracuse, NY. I watched a small 13" tv, which gave me the grand slam single, the bases loaded walk, the one-hitter, and Timo Perez. I'm back in New York now. Living it. Hell, I've got tickets to Game 5.

Mets in Five. How do I know? Why would I back them even after they lost Pedro AND El Duque? Why am I a glutton for punishment?

I'll tell you why.
- The pitching never mattered. The Mets were 10-13 in games this season started by Pedro Martinez. El Duque? 11-8. Between them? 21-21. Number of games the Mets finished above 500? 32. It took them 13 different starters to get their wins. A patchwork rotation is clearly the least of their worries.

- The bats mattered. The Mets finished in the top 5 in the NL in runs scored, RBIs, HRs, OBP, and OPS. Score runs - and you win ball games. Some might argue a September swoon, but stats will show you there is no direct correlation between September and postseason performance. And, for good measure, the Mets finished the season winning four in a row - including sweeping the Washington Nationals by a combined score of 23-5. Yes, it's the Nationals - but they beat up the team they're supposed to beat up. We look for good signs in small places.

- The Dodgers are suspect. Penny's iffy, they lost their star lefty reliever Bemiel. They can hit with the best of them - but nobody in that lineup scares you.

- Grady Little.

- Because it's time.

Sadly, I have to watch the game on ESPN. Meaning Joe Morgan. I will be periodically punching myself to compensate for the stupidity.

Let's Go Mets.

I appreciate that most folks get their NY Sports from more reputable sources...

But I will say this might not necessarily be the worst idea I've ever heard:

From the NY Sun: Mets Should Use All Their Starters in Tandem

The argument? The Mets essentially schedule two starters for every game. Allowing each starter to go 3-4 innings. They have enough mediocre starters that turning each of them into long relievers would:

A) they wouldn't burn out the arms in the bullpen prematurely
B) the starters could just go all out, knowing they don't need to go all that deep
C) depending on the matchups, you could change the opposing team's strategy towards you earlier (like the Mets going from Glavine, a lefty, to Maine, a righty)

I don't know that I'm on board with this idea, but I've heard worse. (Lima Time comes to mind.) This doesn't solve the Mets' inability to hit lefties, or their general lack of gusto the last few weeks. But it could be a start.

Tomorrow marks my first day in a foray of unemployment.

With exception of one week for Christmas break, I literally have worked every Monday-Friday (and in some cases an extra Saturday and Sunday) since the middle of last September.

I worked too hard and spent the last month focusing on nothing more than getting to today. This isn't unemployment I'm starting tomorrow. It's a vacation.

Many's the time I've been mistaken, and many times confused
Yes and I've often felt forsaken, and certainly misused
Ah but I'm alright, I'm alright, I'm just weary to my bones
Still you don't expect to be bright and bon-vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered or driven to its knees
But it's alright, it's alright, for we lived so well, so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong, I can't help it I wonder what's gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying, I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me, smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying, and high up above my eyes could clearly see
The statue of liberty, sailing away to sea, and I dreamed I was flying

But we come on a ship they called Mayflower
We come on a ship that sailed the moon
We come in the ages' most uncertain hours and sing an American tune
And it's alright, oh it's alright, it's alright, you can be forever blessed
Still tomorrow's gonna be another working day and I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying, to get some rest

Where have I been?

I mean, I don't really know. I can't really explain where I've been hiding. My routine's been... well, routine. I work 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. I don't do much outside of that. I don't get out much, maybe catch a ballgame here or there. All the signs would point to a thriving blog. I mean, look at what's happened in the meantime:

- Chicago actually stood up for the working class and forced WalMart to pay a living wage to its employees. It pissed Walmart off for sure:

“It’s sad — this puts politics ahead of working men and women,” John Simley, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said in a telephone interview. “It means that Chicago is closed to business.”

Score one for the little guy. Even if it's done just to make Cubs tickets more affordable.

- The NYPD and their marijuana busts apparently have racism as a motive, according to the New York Daily News. In other news, the pot called the kettle black.

- Oh man, is this funny or what...?

- JetBlue flies to Aruba. I have a free round trip to anywhere JetBlue goes, and a vacation coming up. Yes, it's under genuine consideration.

- The Mets have a magic number. Rapture.

- I'm reading Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America." Apparently, we haven't learned all that much from history. More on this as it develops.

I mean, it's been almost a month. Well, in the meantime, I'm going to work on that excuse for you.

Howard Dean flies JetBlue.

How do I know this? I met him at the airport last night. We waited for the same plane.

Which they scheduled for 10:40pm.

It didn't depart until shortly before 2AM.

He's shorter than you think. Not short. Just shorter. Charismatic as hell, though.

Not so much the JetBlue attendants.

Oh, Tsuyoshi Shinjo... you're still a cad!

Shinjo, we always knew you were awesome. But if you had tried anything like this at Shea, you'd still be a Met...


Good luck in your future career as a nude model.

Could we have found the internet phenomenon to follow "Snakes on a Plane"?

No, probably not.

But we did find a movie starring Nicholas Cage and 50 Cent. A boxing movie. Called "The Dance."

And to think, I can't even get a meeting regarding a script...

Better late than never...

...but better never late.

From the NY Times: In Big Shift, U.S. to Follow Geneva Treaty for Detainees

Here's the general gist of what's going on, in case you happen to live under a rock:

In 2002, President Bush declared that members of Al Qaeda and other terror suspects seized during the invasion of Afghanistan were “illegal combatants, and so were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva conventions, which among other things set forth rules for the treatment of prisoners of war.

The main thrust of the recent Supreme Court ruling, in a case known as Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, was that the administration had exceeded its authority by creating a system of tribunals without the approval of Congress. But the court also declared that the suspects fell under Article 3, which applies to all “armed combatants,’ and that detainees were able to assert their rights under Article 3 in federal court.

In case you missed it, that Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision means the President should have consulted Congress about Gitmo, and was in the wrong for not doing so. And he, and future Presidents, will need to do so. That's why Slate calls it "the most important decision on Presidential Power ever." I don't know about EVER (it merely just reaffirms checks and balances), but I imagine it could be for this administration because it might finally force Bush to play by the rules.

Or did it?

President Bush said last week that he “would comply’ with the courts ruling, but he has given no details of how he would do so.

Well, one can dream anyway.

And they say there's no good TV nowadays...

...you've just got to look for it. In2TV.

It's worth noting that among the last things I want to do with the ol' blog, providing free advertising for AOL services certainly makes the list. However, anything that streams episodes of Animaniacs, Perfect Strangers, and Welcome Back, Kotter in a quality better than YouTube can't be all bad, right?

Right?

How's your truffle shuffle?

I went back and forth on this one over the last few days.

From the AP: Experts Debate Labeling Children Obese

That's right. This isn't about dealing with child obesity. Just the wording. They don't want to call kids grossly overweight.

The rebuttal for the rewording argument seems like a gimme: "Why are we being so politically correct?"

Then, you get the retort: "But wait... the kids have very little (if any) say over their daily diet. Their caretakers (if available, one hopes) are fairly responsible for the kid's health here."

But now I'm back to the former. Besides avoiding the negative connotation the word "obese" exhibits, the US government uses terms such as "at risk of overweight" because kids may not be able to comprehend the term "obese." That's a good way to resolve it. More words. Kids like wordy explanations. Long and verbose. Perhaps with a slide show, even.

It seems fairly ridiculous to pull punches about something like this that, in a way, is self-inflicted. Sometimes the truth hurts. It can significantly sting in a country like ours where image makes scores of young girls and boys so superficial and self-concious about their looks. The thing is, you can't find resolution to a problem such as obesity unless you can talk about it actively. Give it a name. And stick with that name. Leave the name changing PR stunts to the professionals. (If you don't understand that reference, you can read about it here.)

And this is coming from a guy who has an affinity for fat kids, trust me...

Outdoor hockey in New York City?

Admittedly, it would be at Yankee Stadium, but it'll do.

You can question a lot about White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen.

However, don't ever question his take on homosexuality, especially when directed at a writer for the Chicago Sun-Times:

Guillen defended his use of the term "fag" by saying this about homosexuals and the use of the word in question: "I don't have anything against those people. In my country, you call someone something like that and it is not the same as it is in this country.''

Guillen said that in his native Venezuela, that word is not a reference to a person's sexuality, but to his courage. He said he was saying that Mariotti is "not man enough to meet me and talk about [things before writing].''

Guillen also told Couch that he has gay friends, attends WNBA games, went to a Madonna concert and plans to go to the Gay Games in Chicago.

So there, you naysayers.

I knew Lastings Milledge, phenom prospect of the NY Mets, was awesome.

I just had no idea he was this awesome.

Guess who's back?

I planned to go on a one-month hiatus to allow that last post regarding the Zamboni Revolution in the New York Times to resonate (because it's so freaking awesome). And I was close, mere days away...

Then I came across this gem and needed to share it with the masses:


I missed you, too, kiddies.