Baseball Trip 2005, Day 1

A trip to L.A. would not be complete without a stop at the Giant Robot store. Youthlarge was on her best behavior and did not purchase much.


Already needing relief from the sun.


Quality Forever!
If in L.A. make sure you track down the Apple Pan for some great burgers and amazing atmosphere. Before you can even get comfortable at the counter, the attentive waiter will have already supplied you with some hot fries and a plate of ketchup. A true highlight was watching the waiter doublefisting ketchup bottles in a synchronized squeeze.


Picture time as Jen picked up her car from the shop.


Oh no, don't drive over Bob Hope's star!


Hott!


The courtyard at Dave and Jen's place is amazing -- a bridge, fish, and a turtle. Youthlarge races up the stairs to take a nap!


We head to Silverlake to pick up Mitch. Balgavy patiently awaits at the front door of Mitch's friend Randy.


Anaheim Angels vs. Boston Red Sox

For the most part, I'll post the non baseball related activity in this space and save the baseball for later.

If You Are Six Episodes Behind on Six Feet Under like Apes Is, Do Not Read This Post

Last night, Youthlarge and I finally watched the final episode of Six Feet Under. It hit all the right notes during the episode. I'll admit that I teared up a bit at times as the interesting soap opera drew to a close. I enjoyed this season quite a bit.

But then the last five minutes happened and I thought "What the fuck was that?" I liked the idea behind it but the execution seemed like a joke. You can't just put bald caps and makeup under the eyes of young actors and actresses to make them seem like they have aged. Ruth's deathbed scene was hilarious to me. Her crazy hair was ridiculously funny. Why would the producers of the show let this happen? I understand the show always has attempted to blend realism, tragedy, and whimsy but this ending just didn't feel right to me. Why mess with such a brilliant finale on such shoddy production?

However, the idea was so great that it might have transcended the silly direction of it. After reading Unwellness's take on the episode I've been convinced that the ending was a thought provoking one about mortality if not also strangely humorous. I also found it appropriate that I watched this show on the night that Summer Dan officially was put to rest.


Somehow George won't age a day in the next twenty years!

What Happens in Long Beach Stays In Long Beach

Balgavy - Out of Control

Off to the West Coast for Baseball Trip '05

In the meantime, have a good time at the movies or by listening to the supposed Steve Carell lookalike Chris Russo on WFAN.

Big Eyed Googler

Someone has been googling himself. There my post is - on page 27 of scrolling through Google. I wonder what he thought about the Post Polvo entries that derided him. My music post found an unlikely visitor yesterday - read the first review and then scroll to the bottom of the comments. Don't forget to check his blog!

Dangling Shoes

Washington Ave.

I've never quite understood why shoes get hung on telephone lines, street signs, and traffic lights. I've always heard that it was a signal to let people know that you could buy drugs at that particular corner. But can you really buy drugs at almost every corner? Is that what it used to be and now it has mutated into something sillier? What is the story here?

Love Hurts

Houston St.

Look Up

I'll buy a beer to anyone who can tell me who wrote the words that I've stolen for my current tagline.

Youthlarge may not participate.

I Saw Indie Pop's Future and Its Name Is ...

That's right, I have two new favorites - bands I am really enjoying. The first is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Oh Chrislarry, don't groan!!!!. Their songs are so damn catchy, memorable, melodic, and fun. The first couple of songs threw me for a loop. Where is the delicious pop? Hell, the second track sounds like the less creepy version of Tom Waits' carnival barker/ ringmaster. By track three, the album kicks into high gear and Summer 2005 has a soundtrack! I'm looking forward to seeing them open for The National at Bowery Ballroom in September.



My second new favorite indiepop band is Voxtrot. Youthlarge randomly saw them play at a hair salon/ art gallery at South by Southwest and came home raving about them. They have one five song EP out and it is pretty good if not occasionally a wee bit twee. However, seeing them live takes the cake. Youthlarge and I saw them at Magnetic Field the other night and they blew my mind. I felt like I was 19 again watching this merry band of indiepop marauders. Imagine Holiday with more balls or the Housemartins updated for the My Space generation and you can begin to imagine the fun. Plus, they clap their hands a hell of a lot more than Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.


PD Heaton loves Voxtrot!

It is nice to have favorites - sort of gets you through when you need a lift and these bands are so much more entertaining than following the indie boredom crowd!

Balgavy Turns 31

Who's up for some bocce?


Or perhaps some James Bond?


Or perhaps Lovers' Corner?


Anne can't believe Alex is so good at bocce.


Down and Dirty


A blurry Birthday Boy

Double Duty Radcliffe

I was saddened to learn about the death of one of my all time favorite characters in baseball history - Negro League star Double Duty Radcliffe. He received his nickname because he often would pitch one game of a doubleheader and catch the second. Apparently, he even had a saying on his chest protector that stated "Thou Shalt Not Steal."

He remained a huge White Sox fan and lived near Comiskey Park. Every year on his birthday, he threw out the first pitch at Comiskey. In May, he attended a game at RFK. He was wheeled out near the pitcher's mound and dropped the first pitch into Don Buford's glove. At the age of 96, he threw a pitch during a game in the independent Northern League.


Harold Baines and Double Duty on Radcliffe's 100th birthday in 2002.

Too Much Fragging Going On in South Korea These Days

SOUTH KOREA: MAN DIES AFTER 2-DAY COMPUTER GAME A 28-year-old man collapsed in an Internet cafe in southern Taegu after playing a computer game almost non-stop for 49 hours, the police said. He had eaten minimally and not slept, refusing to leave his keyboard while he played the battle simulation game StarCraft. He died at a hospital a few hours later, of what doctors are presuming was a heart attack.

I have no idea if I used the word "fragging" correctly but it makes me laugh regardless.

Youthlarge's Company Turns Ten Years Old in the U.S. and We All Get to Eat Meat!

Mini Burgers/ Huge Dogs


Patriotic Dan


Balgavy Doesn't Like Eye Contact, Part I


Balgavy Doesn't Like Eye Contact, Part II


Getting busted by New York Noise as I snap a shot of Carl Newman of The New Pornographers getting interviewed.


Long Bathroom Lines -- To Get Into Them, Not Length of the Coke Lines (At Least In My Experience of the Night)


Three Eligible Bachelors


How Can Someone Who Looks So Sweet Be So Cruel?

An Open Letter to Bam Rose Cinemas

I have been a member of BAM for a number of years now. The Brooklyn Academy of Music has been around for years but when they opened a movie theater in the fall of 1998 in my neighborhood, I was very excited! Even when I moved out of Ft. Greene, I have continued going to many movies there. But I've had many problems with them over the years and my membership is about to expire. Rather than bitching about the the place to anyone who would listen, I decided to join Handwashings and Whiskey Drinker by writing to them.

I have not heard back from them yet.

To Whom It May Concern,

I love BAM Rose Cinemas. I have been a member for a number of years and have regularly attended movies at your fine theater since you opened in 1998. However, I am seriously contemplating letting my prized membership expire at the end of August for a variety of reasons.

Rigidity of Staff/ Policy:

There have been numerous occasions where I have been made to feel like my patronage is not respected. Some are small matters, some are larger but I believe that all add up to an air of not understanding how to make customers happy.

1. Last year, I sent my check in to renew my membership in plenty of time. My membership card did not show up. Eventually, my old one expired but I didn’t think that would be a problem. I went to see a movie and was told that I had to pay full price. I explained that I had sent in my money and that I had been a member for a few years and couldn’t I be given a member price. I was told no. I asked to see the manager and was again told no. I was steamed. Is this the way members are treated at BAM? To be fair, I called to complain and received two comp passes to another screening but the point had been made to me how people will be treated at your theater.

2. This past week, I attended the wonderful Buster Keaton screening. I bought tickets in advance for four friends and me. Two of my friends were running a little late. I knew that the screening was going to be crowded and I wanted to go in at about 6:30 to save seats for my friends. I asked if I could leave my friends’ tickets at the box office and was told that that was against BAM policy. In the few moments it took to be told that BAM will not do anything to help its patrons, she could have taken the tickets and my friend’s name. I understand that this could be a slippery slope but how often would this kind of thing even occur?

3. I have been going to movies at your theater since 1998 but almost every single time I go, I am asked for my ID. This isn’t that big of a deal but it adds to the lack of trust and friendliness at your theater. I have been a member at Film Forum since 1997 and also have had memberships at MOMA and Walter Reade over the years and I have not been asked for my ID once at any of those establishments. Is it really such a rampant problem of your members going out of their way to pass around a membership card that this policy is needed? What if a person did not have their ID on them? Is it BAM policy to deny members admission in a case like that? At Film Forum, the ticket sellers have consistently proven to be mellow and able to adapt to situations that might arise. In general, at BAM, there seems to be a chilling effect stemming from rigid policy.

4. Your movies consistently start early. Often, the previews start close to ten minutes before the starting time and the movie itself starts a few minutes early. I have been to many showings where older patrons have stumbled in the dark looking for their seats because it is so dark one minute before the screening time was supposed to start. I respect your theater’s wishes to start a movie on time (or early) but you are the only theater I’ve ever been to that does this. I go to many movies at your theater so I now know to arrive early. If this is your official policy, maybe you should post an announcement in your print ads, on your website, and in the lobby that states it rather than simply doing it in this passive-aggressive manner.

BAM – Always a Guessing Game

It is very difficult to figure out what films are going to come to BAM. I understand that it isn’t your fault that films usually open in Manhattan. However, this doesn’t explain why you consistently show previews and put up posters for films that never come. As a member, I would rather save some money by seeing the film at BAM rather than when it opens in Manhattan but you make it extremely difficult. There have been countless times where you have put up a poster or shown a preview leading me to believe that a film is coming and then it doesn’t. What happened to Murderball? Why were you still showing previews for A Very Long Engagement weeks after I had already seen it at Cobble Hill? Why do you still have a huge ad for Hustle and Flow displayed when you clearly aren’t going to show the film? It opened at Court St. so I find it hard to believe that you couldn’t get it.

I understand that if a film doesn’t do well at the box office in Manhattan, you are inclined not to get it. However, many of these films I wanted to see and foolishly waited for them to come to BAM because I had been led to believe they were coming.

I will say though that things have gotten slightly better in the last year. I appreciate that you do state when a movie is going to close and at least let the public know a few days ahead of time if a film is going to open.

Price of Tickets/ Membership

The final straw for me is the raising of your ticket prices for members. A three-dollar savings? I have attended a little over twenty films at your theater in the past year. If I do that in the next year, I will break even or save six dollars. What is the impetus for me to stay a member when I can still go to your events for the exact same amount of money? As a bonus, I can go see movies in Manhattan for only fifty – seventy five cents more at Sunshine, IFC, Angelika, or Lincoln Plaza when they first come out and not have to guess if a movie is coming to BAM or be misled by your false advertising at the theater. Not to mention, many of your films also come to Cobble Hill. I’m not going to pretend that Cobble Hill theaters are anywhere as nice as yours but their matinee prices and their Tuesday/ Thursday prices are $1.50 cheaper than your member prices.

But the most ridiculous aspect of your membership prices is that it costs $60 for an individual and $120 for two. My wife had an individual membership and has let it expire. If we were to join as couple, would she have to come with me to be able to go to the movie? If so, would she be out of luck if she wanted to come without me? I’m not sure but everything about your rigid policies indicates that this would be the case. What would be the reason to even buy a dual membership since there is absolutely no benefit to it?

Compare this to Film Forum (5 dollar savings per ticket) where an individual membership is $65 and a dual one is $95. Or to Walter Reade (4 dollar savings) where an individual membership is $65 and a dual one is $85 and you get a year subscription to Film Comment.

Again, I understand that the economics are different for those two theaters than for yours. But if you are going to charge Manhattan prices and then have senseless membership pricing, you are going to lose more members like me. I already know of two other friends who have either let their memberships expire or plan on doing so.

I would love to hear your thoughts on these matters.

Move the Fences Up and In

The Colorado Rockies have problems. They have a hard time figuring out what kind of team they want to build. It is hard to figure out what to do when you play in such a high altitude. The ball carries better than at sea level and apparently curves don't curve quite as much making it very difficult for pitchers. The 1995 team is the only team since the 1993 inception of the squad to make the playoffs. That team was built on the concept of bashing the other team into submission.

Then the team decided it needed good pitchers and went out and signed Darryl Kile who was terrible. Later on, the team decided to pressure Denver to improve their public school system as well as to import good looking hookers in an attempt to bolster their pitching staff. While they successfully signed Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle, both of those pitchers were complete crap while wearing the purple and black. At around the same time, team officials decided to go all "athletic" so the team could cover the wide expanses of the outfield. Alex Ochoa, anyone? And, of course, who can forget the humidor experiment?

But through it all, the team has sucked. Jamie had an interesting post the other day about Steve Reed, a pitcher who had much success while pitching in Coors Field. How does one explain that rookie Jeff Francis has been much better at home than on the road this year? Is it all psychological for most of these players? Pitchers tend to be terrible in Colorado (Kile and Hampton had to get out of town to resurrect their careers) and hitters tend to not be nearly as good on the road. I'll leave these debates to the Baseball Prospectus folks out there but I think that I've come up with an interesting solution.

For a long time, I was saying that the outfield fences should be pushed in at Coors. The fences are really far back to prevent super cheap homers since the ball travels so well. But this just creates a lot of dinky little singles that fall in front of the outfielders and many, many extra base hits when the ball finds the gap. Obviously, baseball officials aren't going to let teams field a tenth man in Denver so that is out. And if the fences are merely moved in, then there will be way too many homeruns. So I propose this:

What if the fences were moved in and at the same time raise the height of the fences dramatically? You could have a Green Monster type effect around the entire outfield. You could even have a section at some point where the wall is low thus creating the opposite of the Green Monster effect. At first, I thought this wouldn't work because there would be too many doubles hit off the wall. But in Boston, many of those long hit balls hit off the wall with only end up as singles.


It could look something like this minus all of the wailing.

What do the baseball experts out there think?

After, I get this going I can start working on my real dreams -- like the outfield fences that consistently keep moving during a game or the spikes that indiscriminately pop up out of the grass like in Flash Gordon, or maybe put a treacherous hill and flagpole in centerfield. Oh wait, those are too damn crazy!


Who would ever greenlight such a ludicrous concept?


Imagine an outfielder going back to make a catch while having to dive out of the way of vicious spikes.

A Solar Cinema Experience

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Bad News Bears

One is pretty good. The other one is kind of pointless. One retains its magic while creating a different vision than the original. One seems like a rehash.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is not perfect but it is a fun movie. Tim Burton doesn't try to recreate the Gene Wilder film. Instead, he chose to be more faithful to the book. The Oompa-Loompas are great, the colors are perfect, and Johnny Depp manages to capture the essence of the character from the book instead of trying to recreate Wilder's portrayal. It has been years since I've read the book, but there were times during the movie that I felt like I was eight years-old tucked into bed and reading it.

Bad News Bears, on the other hand did not need to be remade. The original movie is just too damn good. It has spawned countless retreads on the same ragtag team makes good story. So not only was this film fighting the ghosts of the original but also it found itself trying to compete with all of the other films of the past thirty years that ripped off the original. Richard Linklater did what he could.

The look of the film is fantastic -- all washed out like it was made in 1976 and the colors had faded. The baseball scenes are pretty damn good and I appreciated that we were allowed to watch much of the action unfold in front of us in one long take with the camera placed behind home plate. However, I just don't get the point of this film. Near the beginning, I thought the film might try to make interesting societal comments like the first one did. There is a part when Billy Bob Thornton first meets his team and assumes that the black kid wearing #25 idolizes any number of black players who have worn that number. When it turns out that the kid's favorite player is Mark McGwire, Thornton can't quite believe it. It is a funny moment in a movie that otherwise just piles on the cursing to seem as edgy as the original. It felt like Bad Santa on the baseball diamond.

And what is the market for this film? People who are familiar with the original are going to be very disappointed. Parents aren't going to want to take their seven year-olds to see a film with such bad language. I guess this is for today's 13 year-olds? Why not just rerelease the original?

I think that movies based on books can have any number of successful adaptations. But movies based on another movie seems like a complete waste of time. Are there any remakes of a film that are even close to the original? I can't think of any off the top of my head. The reason that the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was able to succeed was that the source material can be interpreted in many different ways. Rather than get upset that Depp was not like Wilder, I marvelled at his take on the character in the book. As opposed to Bad News Bears where I kept finding every single character lacking compared to the original movie. To adapt a book, a filmmaker has to make an innumerable amount of choices of what to put into the movie. So even a great movie adaptation like To Kill A Mockingbird could be successfully remade because the filmmaker could make different choices than the director of the original did. God Bless Walter Matthau.

A Trip North

New Jersey

Hamachi has new puppies! Youthlarge enjoys three of the five.


And then the Peanut stopped by for her favorite food.

Vermont

Jeremy and Sebastian search for good rocks to skip.


Needs some work.


I love Vermont this much.


That is some damn good sherbet.

Maine

Portland Sea Dogs


Weasel and Mrs. Weasel.


Maine - Where the mascots ride in minivan comfort.


Youthlarge enjoys her lobster roll at Red's Eats in Wiscasset, Maine


Musical Wonder House


Maine, I feel like I hardly got to know you.

This Is Not A Baseball Blog

But you need to buy this book written by Jim Baumer of Words Matter.

Do the Collapse

I have never intentionally stated that the Orioles would be in contention all year . Never. Ever. Period.

Oh well. It could be worse.