the sticking point

Chin Music

I was reading the Jack Curry article in today's Times, about the owner of Barry Bonds's record-setting home run ball deciding to mark it with an asterisk before offering it to Cooperstown. That's sort of cool. I imagine the signage near the Hall of Fame's display will have language explaining why the "scarlet" ideogram is on there.

The article included a quote by a "baseball historian." I was surprised to see who it was. Pete Nash. Formerly known as Pete Nice. Formerly also known as Prime Minister Pete Nice of 3rd Bass. Did you know he was a baseball historian now? I didn't. He's written books about baseball. [1, 2]

Just stuff...
The Yankees are in the playoffs now. I'll be glad if they play the Indians in the first round, not only because they were 6-0 against Cleveland this season, but because it means the Red Sox and Angels get to bang each other's brains in. I hope that series goes the distance, and all five games are extra-inning ordeals. And I hope all that cross-country travel wears them out.

The Indians have a great pitching staff (and pitching rules October), but their lineup looks harmless.

* I watched the Yankees' postgame celebration last night, and couldn't help thinking how pointless and stupid the Champagne spraying is. It looks like the kind of thing you do because it's expected, but deep inside you feel silly.

* The National League doesn't have a team capable of beating the A.L. postseason contenders. The World Series could be a blowout.

* On the ballfield, Derek Jeter is unimpeachable. He's all hustle, and he consistently knows the right play to make. Last week, my brother-in-law asked if I'd rather have A-Rod or Jeter on Team Sticking Point. A-Rod's got more talent, strengths, and abilities, but Jeter's the guy to have. He's a hero and a future first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. But, off-the-field, Jeter's been annoying the shit out of me. He's become increasingly arrogant in post-game interviews, answering questions with snarky questions of his own. I just KNOW there are reporters wishing they could say, "Stop being a dick and just answer the question. Your night is over. I still have to write this piece. Two hours from now, while you're forking over cab fare for some model's ride home, I'll be raking over my second draft of this puffery." Not to mention that when he's not being a douche, Jeter's the most predictably boring interviewee in the clubhouse. For a while, this was good, as it helped the Yankees reshape their image from self-serving millionaires (1976-1994) to dutiful, blue-collar millionaires (1995-present). Now he's just a bore. (And for Christ's sake, stop beginning every other answer with, "Like I said..." Because you didn't. I don't know when you think you said it, but it wasn't in this interview!)

Secondly, Jeter's become a shill. Is there any endorsement deal he won't sign? Watch a Yankees game, and you'll see him on more commercials than the gecko and the cavemen combined. Colognes... deodorants... cars... trucks... credit cards, sneakers, colorful sports drinks, he hawks it all! It's obscene to watch him climb out of a $35,000 truck and brag that he just got one in red.
Thirdly... that hairstyle. Really? You're sticking with that, Jeet? It looks like someone glued a hairy rice cake to your head. (If such a thing doesn't exist, it should; if only to help make Derek Jeter halloween costumes more realistic.)

* A-Rod has become a boring and predictable interview, too. But I'll cut him some slack, because he must be shit scared that saying the wrong thing will bring the boo storms back to the Stadium. It was practically stop-the-presses earth-shattering to see him nod his head last night when a Yes reporter started a question with "With all this talk about you being the runaway MVP in the American League...".

Rodriguez is the first player to hit 50+ homers and drive in more than 150 runs in a single season since Sammy Sosa in 2001. And if you can barely see Sosa's numbers through the Stanozolol-stained glasses, you've got to look back to 1938, when the great Jimmie Foxx did it (50/175).

* Remember spring training, when Yankee fans and the New York media were sweating the How's Joe Torre Going To Get Melky Cabrera In The Lineup Dilemma? Now we look up and Melky's notched 147 games and 535 at bats so far. It's Lebowskian, how the baseball universe provides.

* I've been a Doug Mientkiewicz fan since '99, when he had a really hot week for my fantasy baseball team. He's a great fit on the Yankees, and exactly the kind of player that excels in the postseason: a smart situational hitter/great fielder. He's kind of a "discount" Paul O'Neill. (That's a compliment.)

He's a lot of fun to watch, but the ball-signing incident took the some of the polish off Shelly Duncan's shine. Mainly because he was signing for a kid. If that were an adult member of Red Sox Nation (or, best of all, that decrepit Robert Redford-clone season ticket holder behind the plate at Fenway), I'd be laughing my ass off.

* The Division Series starts Wednesday. If the Yankees remain the wild card team my tickets will be for Game 4, the following Monday.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Mystery Achievement from the album Pretenders by Pretenders, The

The Grid

I did this a while back, thought I'd give it another whirl...

Stuff I'm not supposed to like, but do...
The Sounds, uncomfortable shoes, Staples (and all stationery stores), Grey Goose & Red Bull, "It's Goin' Down" (), Countdown's substitute anchors Alison Stewart and Amy Robach, Major League Baseball's wild card system, kale, HotChicksWithDouchebags, the bus to Barnstable, the whole idea of Corey Feldman

Stuff I'm supposed to like, and do...
Yukio Mishima, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Gore Vidal, Soupman's turkey chili, Flight of the Conchords, Van Halen's next tour, my 3-year-old climbing into our bed at 3AM, Mary-Louise Parker

Stuff I'm not supposed to like, and don't...
Televised talent competitions, Bob Murray, Dora the Explorer, U.S. military stop-loss policy, flip-flops, Perez Hilton, "the surge," evil clowns

Stuff I'm supposed to like, but don't...
Paste magazine, Talking Heads, high-waisted jeans (and the women who wear them), telephone conversations, The Corrections, sports talk radio, punctuation, iPhone, concerts at Roseland Ballroom, Ethan Hawke, selectively bred hybrid dogs, myspace, Big Love

Stuff I like the idea of, but don't really like...
Yoga, picnics, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, Colbert Report, Jay-Z, "massage" parlors, You Tube Presidential Debates

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Here's this week's Friday 10. Made from the best stuff I like.

01 Tomorrow Belongs To Us - Discharge: All the early Discharge singles are perfection. I was a big fan of theirs in the early 80s, then forgot all about them for a long time, until last year when I started putting the vinyl on CDR and gathering up the CD comps. It's great stuff. This track is on the "Decontrol" EP and the Why comp.

02 You Got Too Many Boyfriends - The Equals: I'm ashamed to say that until a few months ago, all I knew about the Equals was: Eddy Grant was in the group, and they were responsible for "Police On My Back." Then my pal SO'C shared the Viva Equals! comp with me and set my head right in regard to this great, great band. I am a fan now, only three decades after the Equals stopped recording. Song after song after song, Viva delivers. I can't believe that "You Got Too Many Boyfriends" was a B-side.

03 Stretcher Case Baby - The Damned: Another great B-side ("Sick of Being Sick" is the A). It was on their second album, Music For Pleasure. I got this version from Skip Off School To See The Damned (The Stiff Singles A's & B's) on Demon.

04 Lose My Freedom - Go Home Productions: I've written it before; I am not a fan of mash-ups. I say, if the songs are great to begin with, who needs DJ Wicki Wicki making a novelty song out of them? But I make two exceptions to the rule. I really like what Eric Kleptone did with all the Queen tracks on Night at the Hip Hopera, and I always check out the Go Home Productions site for new material. Mark Vidler (who is GHP, I guess), created this track, which combines Devo's great "Freedom of Choice" with something by Destiny's Child.

05 Anyone Else But You - The Moldy Peaches: I bet you don't know who is the Moldy Peaches' biggest fan. I'll give you one guess. Go ahead. Wrong! It's this dude Matt, with whom I once shared an office. Strange guy. Nice guy. Matt was entirely into his own thing and that was that. But oh, the memories! The room we shared was larger than most offices, and there were lots of us in there, too. Sometimes as many as six people. It was a quote-Writer's Room-unquote. Which meant that the Powers That Be threw us all in there together, hoping we'd "bounce ideas off each other" and all the ridiculous stuff people who don't write think writers do when they sit shoulder to shoulder. Anyway, Matt, for as well as any of the rest of us could get to know him, had three main interests. First, there was (were) the Moldy Peaches. Twice a week he'd ask the room, "Do you guys want to listen to the Moldy Peaches?" And one of us would invariably say, "No, because they suck." (We liked him, but sometimes treated him as if he was Donny from Big Lebowski. Because he sort of was.) The second of his life's loves was yoga. Not regular yoga. Matt was into the Bikram type, where you go and do your moves and poses in a hellish Saharan hotbox while every liquid in your system exudes from your pores. Sweat? Of course. Salts? Sure. Plus possibly blood, butter, baking grease, K-Y, Gravy Master, crotch jam, old eggnog, and other multiphasic compounds, all settling back onto the skin and into the fibers of one's clothing. Like Matt's. I knew this (we all knew it), because he'd abstain from a post-Bikram shower in order to get back to our writer's room. He'd stride in, his body shining, with a towel hung rakishly from his neck and a hot breeze of moldy ass trailing his steps. By late afternoon, our shared workspace smelled like someone had shit out a book on how to throw up.
The third thing that seemed to make Matt happy was eating smelly lunches. Which he indulged in as soon as he got back from yoga.
But anyway, now there's an actual Moldies song I like. It's this one, from the Murderball soundtrack. Cheers, Matt.

06 Sonny's Burning - The Birthday Party: My favorite Birthday Party song. I can say, without fear of hyperbole, that the first six syllables of this track comprise the best opening lyric in the history of music, in this or any other universe. If you read this site regularly, you're familiar with the Birthday Party -- ancestors of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I come back to their music often, and I usually hear things differently each time. I have to guess that bands like Jesus and Mary Chain and Dino Jr probably bumped into their share of BP records during their formative years. "Sonny's Burning" is from the Mutiny EP.

07 Hiromi - Squatweiler: If you've never heard this song, I hope it blows you away when you hear it. This is a great, great North Carolina band that deserves a lot more attention. I hope you track down every last morsel they've ever recorded. Maybe you'll start with New Motherstamper, which contains "Hiromi." Motherstamper is the band's third record, but their first after bassist Stacey Matarrese took over the vocals. Throttled the vocals.

08 Give Up The Funk - Parliament: It was just this past Tuesday when Burning Dervish told us "Give Up The Funk" would be his entrance music as he stepped into the batter's box at Yankee Stadium. And here it is on the very next F10.
How cool it was to grow up hearing Parliament, Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire, and Rufus on the radio all the time. I didn't realize how blessed I was. "Give Up The Funk" aka "Tear the Roof Off The Sucker" is from the classic Mothership Connection record. The Parliament/Funkadelic collective released 19 or 20 albums -- high-quality albums -- between 1970 and 1981. Think about that for a second. You think Ryan Adams is prolific? You think Steven Tyler did a lot of coke? In the 70s, George Clinton could fuel a 747 with a cup of his urine.

09 What Makes You Happy (L) - Liz Phair: I burned this off television program I'd recorded called Sessions at West 54th Street. I've forgotten most of the details about the series, but I copped some good performances from the show onto CDR. I have Phair, Sinéad O'Connor, Ben Folds Five, Beck, and a couple others. I like this song a lot. The version on whitechocolatespaceegg is one of my favorites of hers. It's got the great lines "I feel the sun on my neck / I smell the earth in my skin / I see the sky above me like a full recovery."

10 King's Lead Hat - Eno: The title is an anagram for "Talking Heads." The story that gets passed down through generations of Eno fans and scholars is that he hoped to record it with DByrne and the rest, but it never came to be. Soon after this album, Before and After Science, was released, the Man Himself collaborated with Talking Heads on a few albums. I don't know all of them, but the one TH album I actually like is among them. Getting back to Eno -- the Man Himself -- for a second, I think his reputation as an experimentalist might turn some people away. I'm sure plenty of folks hear "art rock" or "ambient music" and think, "Fuck that! Where are my Stooges records?!" Luckily, TMH's recorded output is as varied as the day is long, the summer is hot, and Dick Cheney is evil. There's plenty in his rewarding canon for everybody; dig in! October is just around the corner, and for me that means lots of Here Come The Warm Jets. His music is good for anytime, but there's something carried on a crisp fall breeze that tells me it's time listen to more Eno. (I have "October music;" I'll explain another time.)

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Tag, you're it. Set your mp3 player, digital jukebox, or Roomba to "shuffle all songs." Hear 10 songs randomly selected for you by the machine. Share them with us in the comments section below.

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Hear it for yourself. CLINK THIS LINK to download this week's Sticking Point Friday 10.

[posted with ecto]

Thursday Dispatch

Rented a car today to drive to our car and remove the license plates and all our personal belongings. The whole process took about two hours and it sucked.

It was weird to see the vehicle, with no obvious damage visible to the eye, and think that it could be "totaled." But that's the fact. The water got in pretty high. (If anyone had been sitting in it, the water would have reached the bottom of the kneecap.) It ruined a lot of the electronics, wiring, and crept through the transmission line into the car's mechanical nethers. The insurance adjuster put a big sticker on the rear side window, that was like a checklist of what was "good" and what was "damaged." Looking at it, I could sense used parts dealers or junkyard owners squatting in the bush, waiting to pounce. Waiting to pull it apart like carrion. Each tire was listed individually. The "good" box was checked for each. There were about 20 items on this list, and the score was fairly even between good and bad. However, the radio/cd player was marked "damaged," which I know to be incorrect.

Anyway, it was saddening to walk away from that car. We drove it off the lot on 11-20-05, and the rain killed it on 8-8-07.

* * * * * *

I have been working out hard and quite efficiently in the last month-plus. I devised a new periodization cycle for myself and I've stuck to it with religious dedication. It's based on ten days of workouts and four days of rest every 14 days. That's the length of the cycle. I keep my max-effort, overload days heavy; but more importantly, I keep the weights low on dynamic effort (speed) days.

It's still powerlifting training, so my focus is on the big three: squat, deadlift, and bench press. Anything I do outside of these exercises is done for the sole purpose of improving my technique and increasing my strength for those three. I do a lot of grip work (DL), abs (all 3), neck (S, DL), and hips (S, DL) solely for their benefits for squatting, deadlifting, and benching. That's all I care about. Not cuts or muscle size or any of that crap. I don't do biceps, or any other vanity exercise. All I care about is strength. Moving heavy weight.

Today was heavy squat day. My favorite. (Until recently, my fave was heavy DL day. But that's been getting crazy-nauseating.) I went to the gym with nothing in me, I thought. I'd had a disappointing workout yesterday -- even though I felt good walking in -- so I didn't expect much today. I did well. After a few warmup sets, I kept raising the weight and doing singles. I felt good. I had a good spotter. I kept increasing the weight. I didn't use wraps, but for the last two sets I wore the belt.

I managed a new personal best in the squat. Within two weeks, I believe I can finally break the 400# mark for sets. I've been training toward that magic number for a couple years, but something (illness, injury, work schedule, travel) always seems to get in the way of the training and set me back. I've never been this close.

One very weird thing happened during this session today. Four or five people stopped their workouts and came over to watch. After my final set one young man approached me and, even though he'd just watched me double-rep it -- with his own eyes, asked, "Did you lift that?" I sat on the floor for a couple minutes talking to him and his friend. They tried to lift it up off the pins together and giggled their asses off when it didn't budge. I asked if they did squats and said it is one of the best exercises anyone could do for themselves. In broken English, he asked, "Why do you do it? Can't you break a muscle?"

Awesome.

Tomorrow is the hardest workout of all. I'll run, do hundreds of crunches, do neck work, and work with my flex bands and Blast straps. I will not pick up any weight, that's what makes it so hard. But that's psychological, an ego thing I have to get over.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Kamera from the album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco

Return To Sender

So, the Yankees finally ship the Big Useless out of town after two seasons, 34 wins, and 0 World Series appearances. It's a good move to get him off the team, but, personally, I'm not convinced the Yankees are building a better starting rotation for 2007 than they've had in any of the last four seasons.

This week's Friday 10 has a 95 mile-an-hour heater and some wicked breaking stuff.

01 Crude Bomb - The Evens: For what it's worth, the first Evens CD was the first album I listened to in 2007. I brought the disk along for the families drive into Manhattan and back for a 3-year-old's birthday party on New Year's Day. The party was at an UWS Pizzeria Uno, where H got the chance to make his own pizza-for-one. It was... awesome. His first layer of sauce was a splatter that resembled a fish. Then he added a huge pile of cheese to the right side of the dough platter. The next layer of sauce he spread out to look like a sun. And then a little more cheese on the other side of the pie. Fifteen minutes later, the waiter brought it back all baked up, and H and I chowed down. It was damn good. The Evens album? Also DAMN GOOD. By now, you know the band is indie rock demi-god Ian MacKaye and his girlfriend Amy Farina, formerly of Mr. Candyeater and The Warmers. There's a new Evens disk out, and what I've heard is real good, but I'm still stuck on this first one. There's a fantastic, nearly two-year-old article from LA Weekly here. (Written by Brendan Mullen. Rather than bore you further with a tangent, I'll let you Google him at your leisure.) Check out NPR's website, it also has a bunch of Evens/Ian/Fugazi material.

02 Polly - Nirvana: From Nevermind; maybe you have it. The video Live! Tonight! Sold Out! is finally on DVD. I really really wanted it years ago, but it took forever to come out, and now I couldn't care less.

03 EMI - Sex Pistols: Speaking of DVDs, the Julien Temple-directed documentary The Filth and The Fury is fantastic. I Netflicked it last year to see it again, and I liked it even more the second time around. It's so interesting to see the part near the end when Lydon is nearly in tears over what the scene (and Malcolm) "did" to his old mate, Sid. Lydon seems to forget about the camera and speaks informally to his friend, the director, like "Oh, Julien, it was horrible...." Captivating. The version of "EMI" I heard today was the plain jane one from Bollocks.

04 Hay Wrap - Saw Doctors: A fine song on record and a great song live. They're almost always on tour, and soon they'll be in the USA. (New York show is March 10 at Nokia Theatre.) From All The Way From Tuam.

05 ESP - Buzzcocks: from their second album, 1978's Love Bites, the one with "Ever Fallen in Love" on it. Their debut, Another Music in a Different Kitchen, had come out only about seven months earlier, and they followed it up with this. That's momentum! Everywhere Love Bites was released, it came out with slight variations to the cover. To collectors, this is like a Crack/Viagra speedball. There's a cool website with all the different jackets and labels of practically every Buzzcocks release. Apparently, the rarest version of this record is a two-LP white-label test-pressing with side A on one LP and side B on the other. I've never seen it listed anywhere, but I'm looking. (Along with thousands of fanatic a-holes just like me.) This is a great album, and deserves some time in your ears.

06 Image of Me - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys: I always loved the idea behind this song. The narrator is a guy asking his ex if she's remaking her new boyfriend "in the image of me." Badass and arrogant. It's a late-career Wills song, a cover song, and I think you'll only find it on a pair of anthologies. Mine is from the good-but-not-great-or-thorough Curb Records' Greatest Hits. A few seconds of scrolling Amazon could find you a much better comp than that one. Wills and his band were pretty amazing. As you listen, you can hear inspiration from Louis Armstrong and Tex Ritter in equal doses. The best description of BW&HTP that I've seen is from AllMusic.com, who described them as a "dance band with a country string section that played pop songs as if they were jazz numbers."

GEEK ALERT!!
07 Barbed Wire - Youth Brigade: There was a Youth Brigade that formed in SoCal in the mid 80s by the Stern brothers. They played cool punk rock that would often turn up on the soundtrack of Vision and Powell skate videos. They had great songs like "Did You Wanna Die" and "Sink With Kalifornia." This is not THAT BAND. These guys are the east coast Youth Brigade, from Washington, D.C. specifically. Which automatically means we can play the six degrees of Ian MacKaye game. The easiest angle would be that they were on Dischord Records, the label run by MacKaye, but we won't go that way. How about this one: Youth Brigade singer Nathan Strejcek was (in 1980) singer for Teen Idles, which had Ian MacKaye on bass; Youth Brigade bassist Bert Quieiroz was (in 1981) in a band called the Untouchables with Alec MacKaye, brother of Ian. This song, a really hot slice of DCHC, is from Youth Brigade's Possible EP. The title was a reference to one of the first Dischord ads, where, in a list of future releases, the small print read, "possible EP by Youth Brigade." I have the EP on Dischord #14, a vinyl comp that features the first EPs from Teen Idles, Government Issue, State of Alert, and Youth Brigade.

08 Love Will Tear Us Apart (alt) - Joy Division: I think I've gotten this one on a Friday 10 before, maybe a few months ago. This is the alt version from the b-side of the "Love Will Tear Us Apart" seven-inch on Factory Records. It's a little treblier than the A-side, with a thinner vocal. Overall, the tempo of the alt is slightly faster than the A-side. This is a great version, but the be-all, end-all version of "LWTUA" is from the band's second John Peel session, November 1979. It's out there and in print. Another great Manchester band with a brilliant and intense lead singer.

09 Have a Cuppa Tea - The Kinks: From Muswell Hillbillies. I am such a fanatic about the Kinks. As anyone who knows me already knows, I've never been a Beatles fan. They just never got to me. I could listen to about three or four of their songs, but the rest... were just OK. Where other people heard genius, I merely heard simplicity (and inferior backing vocals). When I was younger, dumber, and full of... piss and vinegar, I'd tweak people by saying I hated the Beatles and that they flat-out SUCKED. I'm older, and I've melllowed, and now I can at least just say, sure -- they were adequate, but not for my ears. Why am I writing all this in an entry for a Kinks song? Because then and now, the Kinks are the band I always throw in the ring against Beatles fans. Far superior songwriting and musicianship. And if they could have just gotten back into the U.S. after their 1965 tour (they were banned from re-entering by the U.S. government at the request of the AFM), instead of four years later, Kinkmania would be the universal descriptor. There's a great Pete Townshend quote from The History of Rock n Roll: "I always think that Ray Davies should one day be Poet Laureate. He invented a new kind of poetry and a new kind of language for pop writing that influenced me from the very, very, very beginning." There are 74 Kinks songs on my iPod. That's not nearly enough.

10 Fake Tales of San Francisco - Arctic Monkeys: I kept seeing them written up in papers and magazines, and was curious, so I stole a bunch of their songs online. Should have known better: I wasn't impressed. This song was the biggest surprise of this week's F10, as I thought I'd exterminated all the Arctic Monkeys inhabiting my hard drive.

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Do it yourself: Put your digital jukebox or mp3 player on "shuffle all songs," and let us know the first 10 out the box. Because it's Friday.
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[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Stranglehold from the album Burning Ambitions (A History of Punk) by U.K. Subs

Are You Ready For The Healing?!

Tonight, with great fanfare, they are re-opening the Superdome for football. They are pulling out all the stops, making a night of entertainment out of it. Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day, and U2 will be performing, pregame. The latter two will even play a new song; something about saints. Then, of course, the football and all the inevitable talk about how special this is. How – for the people of Louisiana – this is their Super Bowl.

But something’s not right. This “eventification” of tonight’s game smells bad to me. If the Superdome had simply been the site of an American tragedy, then memorializing it, and moving on, might feel OK. But that building is the site and the symbol of one of this country’s most horrifying failures. It was a destination of last resort, where the most desperate could go and wait to die. Those who died inside or near the Dome were victims of involuntary manslaughter through the criminal negligence of our federal government. That’s something you don’t put behind you or forget, or heal with football and a blowout pregame show. It’s disgusting and crass, how the television industry and corporations (like the NFL) fatten their wallets and goose their ratings by attaching empty words like “remembering” and “healing” to their televised all-star suckfests.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Living In Fame from the album Sandinista! by Clash, The

Chin Music

I'm happy with the Yankees Abreu/Lidle acquisitions this weekend. Not because Abreu will add "pop" to the lineup as many say (he might, but he may not be that type of hitter anymore), but for two other reasons: 1) his tendency to draw walks will stretch innings (and opposing pitchers) and 2) Lidle is a big improvement over Sidney Ponson.

But I am especially glad they made the trade for Wilson yesterday. They added offense, deepened their squadron of pinch hitters, and didn't lose an arm to do it. Very nice deal. I hope the lineup tonight (and until Cano comes back) looks like this:
CF Damon
SS Jeter
DH Giambi
3B Rodriguez
RF Abreu
C Posada
1B Wilson
LF Cabrera
2B Cairo

They can win with that lineup, I think. Plus, it gives their bench some depth. Remember the late 90s, when pinch hitters like Strawberry, Raines, or Davis could come off the bench and worry the opposition? Bernie's no Straw, for sure... but I love him coming in against lefties. And, on those days when Bernie is DH, you've got Wilson -- who's a very good pinch hitter -- on the bench, to tighten up the defense late in the game. I'd like to see Phillips stick around, because I think he'll be a good player... it just won't happen this season.

I hope Torre doesn't occasionally put Bernie back in center as he hints he might. I love Bernie. Love everything about him. But he shouldn't play centerfield again until Old Timer's Day.

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And also? My son said "coffee" this morning. Je suis un papa fier!

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[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Out Of The Question from the album Wall Of Noise by Doctor Mix And The Remix

Sal Fasano Is The Answer

The question was: Could the Yankees find a worse-hitting backup catcher than Kelly Stinnett?

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Wild Thing from the album Zombies by Attak

I Got Robbed

I’m just home from the gym, my usual gym, the one here in Forest Hills. (I didn’t get to Coliseum today because S needed the car.)

That guy Rob was there again, of course, with his workout partner Heidi. He spotted me for a few sets and we talked about gyms, equipment, and powerlifters like Dave Tate, Karl Gillingham, and Ed Coan. He showed me an assortment of supplementary exercises I can do to help my squat. Stuff like a “good morning” that evolves into a squat, very very wide-footed squats with low or no weight, and these sort of isometric bounces and jumps to do at the bottom of the movement. All good stuff. Today’s leg workout might have been my best ever. I definitely got over a plateau, and I’m already feeling (good) pain and burn that I usually don’t feel until about 10 hours after the workout.

Since it was his chest day, he and Heidi showed me (and let me try out) a number of exercises they do in the cage, including pushups performed on hanging cables. And then the same pushups with a rubber band around my back from hand to hand. The fact that you’re swinging while performing these requires every muscle you’ve got just to stabilize yourself for each rep. It was great stuff. I learned more from them in 45 minutes than any knowledge I’ve picked up in the last two years. And I appreciated that they were giving up time from their own sets to show me things and let me try.

Rob asked if I’d be at the gym tomorrow around 0930, so he can let me try out his Iron Mind Rolling Thunder for one-armed deadlifts. I said yessir I’ll be here. Unfortunately, I realized a few minutes later that I cannot make it. S is being interviewed tomorrow for a documentary, so H and I will be hanging out together at that time. I won’t make the gym until later in the afternoon, but those are pretty cool reasons for missing the Rolling Thunder.

It looks like I’ll be trying that Coliseum Gym on Wednesday for my next leg day. I’m most looking forward to doing my squats with chains on the bars. (They have all that gear there.) The chain work is deadly – it puts more stress at the top of the movement (when the chains are mostly off the floor) where there is usually no resistance. At the bottom of the squat, the chain is mostly piled on the floor. On the way up, it gets heavier.

Why am I telling you all this?

Um....

Here's today's Friday 10...

01 Real Cool Time - The Stooges: From that self-titled, why-don't-you-have-it-yet first record. Iggy's the fucking undisputed heavyweight champion, isn't he?

02 Does He Love You? - Rilo Kiley: From More Adventurous. I recently found a review of this disk, and although the critic like it, he had some shitty things to say about this track; something about it being over-the-top histrionics. Yeah, OK.

03 All Through A Life - Rites of Spring: The Rites of Spring EP is one of the greatest products ever to come out on the mighty Dischord label. (You can get it here, but the Dischord.com website is the best place to go for this stuff.) Rites of Spring were some serious musicians: the lyrics are strong and the music is blazing. The lineup (Eddie Janney, Guy Picciotto, Brendan Canty, and Mike Fellows) is the cornerstone of some of the best DC bands. They broke up after this EP (but reformed briefly as Happy Go Licky).

04 Coax Me - Sloan: The first time I heard these guys was the song "Underwhelmed" on MTV on a show hosted by Henry Rollins. I don't think it was 120 Minutes, it was just a random two-hour block of programming that they turned over to a cool host to play great music (videos). See, I managed to grab a musical victory out of the snapping jaws of the corporate beast of mediocrity! It must have been around 1992. I loved that song, and I bought all the Sloan albums I could find. None of them are a let down. They're from Nova Scotia, and don't get to the States very often, but when they do -- they're shows should not be missed. One of my top ten favorite live bands. The song I heard today, "Coax Me," is on their Twice Removed CD. If you're interested, start with One Chord To Another, it's bombproof.

05 What We Do Is Secret - The Germs: I've read that the Germs movie is finally happening. Jenny Lens and Alice Bag have stayed involved and written stuff about the film on their sites. The Germs are easily one of the best rock bands of the last 200 years; you cannot overestimate how powerful they are. Not easy to get to at first, but the rewards pay double on your effort. There are a lot of Germs songs scattered on comps and bootlegs, but if you get MIA, you'll have everything you need... for now.

06 Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole - Martha Wainwright: I love this song, and I've been crazy about Martha since I heard her perform "Many Rivers To Cross" at the original St. Ann's Church (Montague Street, Brooklyn) in 1997.

07 Meat Factory (L) - F.O.D.: Who doesn't remember the tail end of the Dead Milkmen song "Nutrition," where Rodney Anonymous says "I'm gonna go to the hardcore show and see F...O...D"? Yeah, you remember. F.O.D. is Flag of Democracy from Philly. I'd catch them at CB's pretty often from '83-'88; in a bill of eight or nine bands, they'd go on first, last, or anywhere in between. I think they're still together and recording on a German label.

08 Working On My Tan - Tim Curry: Deep down inside, I have a hunch that this is a bad song. That fact matters very little to me. I like this song, and hell -- I like the album it comes from, Simplicity. It's way out of print. There must be hundreds of thousands of them in a warehouse somewhere, because I'm sure it didn't ship worth a shit.

09 Standing in the Shower... Thinking - Jane's Addiction: To this day, that I got to see them so many times still makes me feel lucky.

10 Oxgam - Miriam Makeba: One of my favorite Makeba songs. It's from The Magic of Makeba.

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Slap your mammy down, do it yourself: Put your mp3 player or digital jukebox on "shuffle all songs," and let us know the first 10 random songs out the chute.

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[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Baby Out Of Jail from the album Poor Little Critter On The Road by Knitters, The

Interim Dispatch

Sorry I've been out of touch again for awhile. I've had some work, I've been out of town, and I've spent several of the in-between days without connectivity. (Thank Fuck you, Time Warner Cable.) But I've had my laptop fired up and the keys rattling, so I have some posts already written (between the last post and this one). I'll get them up as soon as I can correct the hundreds of typos I'm sure are in there.

Thanks, if you've been checking in here while I've gone missing. And I'm sorry today's thing isn't such great shakes.

*     *          *     *          *     *

I'm really looking forward to the deadboy & the Elephantmen show Saturday at Maxwell’s. Great band, great venue. I wish more people would discover d&tE. How could they not be adored?! I joined the bandwagon only in the last five or six months and I’m a big fan already.

I just can’t figure out why it bothers me so much when people hear (or see them) and say, “Oh… White Stripes.” The Stripes are a fine band and I respect them a lot and I obviously see the guy-guitarist-girl-drummer thing, but they sound more like Soledad Brothers in a blender with Pearl Jam. And Tessie hits HARD. When Sticking Point B-I-L StereoMic saw the duo play on the Rollins show he said it looked like she was playing with tree trunks.

*
There's this big guy who's always at my local gym. Dude with an enormous, powerlifter’s build; my guess -- he's 6'5", 285. Like me, he spends a lot of his workout time in and around the cage, doing all the old-school/dinosaur stuff that builds strength and bulk. We see each other many times a week, but have never talked more than "Do you have a lot more left?" Yesterday, he saw me putting some Iron Mind straps back into my backpack and asked if I’ve ever used this or that Iron Mind product. He recommended the Rolling Thunder device for one-arm deadlifts and the “claw” grip thing that they sell. I’ll check them both out. (The Rolling Thunder device was already on my wishlist.) I'm a huge fan of the company, so I offered up some recommendations of my own. The guy -- Rob --  also told me about a gym in Queens called Coliseum, where they have all this old caveman stuff (cages, cambered bars, chains, kettles, box-squat bars)  that I like. He said it's got great equipment, it's clean, and a one-day walk-in workout is only $10. I think I'm going tomorrow for my leg day. Has any of you ever been there or heard of the place? Please let me know what you know.

Oh, yeah -- and for the benefit and sole enjoyment of SO'C: Rob and I were later married in a small ceremony between the quad/hammy sleds.

*

H went to his first night game at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday. We got there just as Bubba Crosby was participating in some pre-game photo-op, receiving a meaningless award from some company's  public relations middle-manager. H seemed entirely interested in watching the strange stretching routines of the players. While NIck Green and Derek Jeter threw in front of the dugout, he uttered "Teeter" [Jeter] and "bayzball." (Shortened from his usual, more fun, "B-d-b-d-b-d-b-d-bayyyyyzball.")

First inning, his attention turned to the enjoyment of a lemonade ice cup.

Top of the second, he was restless, so mom walked him around the hallways and ramps inside the stadium.

Bottom of the second, Nick Green doubled to left-center, while H and the Forest Hillbilly Family headed to the car.

Bottom of the third, we were home, H was in his crib.

 

*

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Savage from the album The Nuns by Nuns, The

 

Our Third Pet Can Go F*ck Himself

Today, while doing what I do every Saturday afternoon -- Google searching for nude photos of Jeanne Zelasko -- I found something even more sickly seductive. The "personal web page" of her husband, sports anchor Curt Sandoval. It is simple and it's cheesy, in a "look at me, publishing on the InterWeb" / Koolgrrrl's Guide To Life!!! sort of way.

My favorite line: "Two of our three pets fit the sports theme."

Also? C-Sand is the kind of guy who writes "would of." As in, "...they would of gone broke..."

Really? Would they of?

Awesome.

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Catch Me Now I'm Falling (Original Extended Edit) from the album Low Budget by Kinks, The