the shrewdness of apes

one of the sidebars to the protracted Carlos Delgado negotiations was whether he would continue his slient protest of refusing to stand during or otherwise acknowledge the playing of "God Bless America" that many stadiums have taken to ad nauseum during the 7th-inning stretch. it's amazing how much energy has been expended discussing this which just goes to show the effect that one small gesture can have. gladly, his new address in South Florida (and the $$$ thrown at him) will not change his tune, so to speak:

Delgado answered questions in English and Spanish on subjects ranging from championship rings and the courtship for his services to the Marlins' playoff chances now that he's their cleanup hitter.

``The Marlins don't support it, and we don't not support it,'' Samson said. ``He's an adult. The club's position is that what he does is up to him.''

i think the Marlins stance is the proper one. whether you agree with Delgado or not, he has a right to his opinion and a right to act in accordance with those opinions. those on talk radio and elsewhere who claimed that they didn't want Delgado playing for the Mets (or whoever) as a result of his views are the people who sicken me and are the reason we're all now subjected to the neo-fascism of the Patriot Act, et. al. to me, the overplaying of "God Bless America" is symptomatic of a larger ill that is conformity of opinion and action.

"The Star Spangled Banner" is already played before every game, giving everyone a chance to display their love of country and their inability to hit the high notes. remember a number of years ago when there was actually some momentum building behind the movement to stop playing the Anthem before games? i'd like to see anyone try to make that case now. meanwhile what could be more American than singing "Take Me Out To the Ballgame" during the 7th-inning stretch? and the Mets' playing of "Lazy Mary" (in Italian) during that time is always a highlight for me (the Yankees' abhorrent "Cotton Eye Joe" is another matter and should immediately be jettisoned for something less offensive like Toby Keith). let's get back to having each team create its own 7th-inning stretch traditions and stop having each game become a paean to the "War on Terror". i go to games to get away from all of that, not to endure constant reminders of failed foreign policy and a government where inveterate liars become Secretary of State.

Posted by Jamie at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

the awards and nominations are being handed out, the year-end lists are coming fast and furious and as usual, the paucity of movies i've actually seen (as opposed to simply pre-judged) means i don't have much to offer on the subject. i am going to try to see as many as possible between now and the Oscars if only to feel like my righteous indignation at what actually wins is justified. lord knows it's not going to help me from finishing in the basement of the Oscar Pool. and i may submit a list too, though time will continue to be a factor for a few weeks.

but we all know there are the proverbial assload of scripts that never get off the ground and which most of us are never privy to outside of that one friend who keeps talking about how his glorified "Scooby Doo" episode of a short film is his ticket to the big time. so fortunately there's Query Letters I Love in which some Hollywood type posts the bad, ugly and incomprehensible pitches that he gets on a constant basis, such as the one reproduced below.

"Query - "Black Virtue"

But miracles can come at an unexpected cost, as "no good deed goes unpunished."

Posted by Jamie at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

you may remember that loyal reader Dave and i had a little bet going in advance of the 1-AA football championship game between JMU and Montana. the Dukes inevitable triumph made me the winner and it was with much anticipation (and a bit of badgering) that i waited for my winnings to arrive from the Treasure State. and since Dave and his family are such a stand-up bunch (must be something in the crisp, Rocky Mountain water) they sent me even more than i bargained for. a quick review:

Montana Grizzlies Adjustable Hat:
this was an extra throw-in courtesy of Dave's parents who i guess figured they could have the last word on the matter this way - sort of a very polite "screw you". but it's a great hat. i'ts not some cheapo piece of felt, there's just a paw print on the front, and velcro in the back. and it's not like they're the Yankees or something. definitely wearable. grade: B+

Buffalo Jerky:
made, packed and vacuum-sealed at a local Billings-area butcher shop, this stuff is the real deal. chewy but flavorful, it drove the dog crazy and the wife couldn't stop eating it. no ingredient list, but there was no detectable MSG and no illness resulting from overconsumption. grade: A

Buffalo Chips:
made from the same animal (and not what the name would imply), these were round pieces of dried meat about the size of a roll of Scotch tape. a little drier than the jerky and not as tasty but still disappeared in a hurry. grade: B-

Elk Jerky (teriyaki):
i was hoping this would be the coup de grace, but instead it was the most disappointing part of the whole deal. this was made by a Montana-based company but was prepackaged and replete with logo, ingredients, etc. i'm not sure what part of the elk this is made of, but it's brown with an eerie translucent quality. unlike the buffalo jerky, it stretched as we tried to tear some pieces off and didn't easily relent to our attempts to chew it. sort of the consistency of a rubber cement spill left out overnight. what flavor there was seemed to come from the additives as it didn't really taste like meat. there were two packages of this so perhaps the other one will be better, but it may just become dog treats. grade: D-

download your National Champions wallpaper here

Posted by Jamie at 03:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

as another round of flakes trains its crosshairs on the eastern seaboard, the Mad Snow Scramble [tm] is already underway, leading me to a couple of questions:

why are we constantly being told that things are "more important than ever"? on the Weather Channel the other night, some woman intoned that preparing for winter storms (or possibly "Winter Storm Events" - see below) was more important than ever without producing any information to verify said claim. couldn't the case be made that it's actually less important in these days of thermostats, snow tires, insulation, and early alerts? with all the bluster produced by well-coifed and smooth-voiced anchorpeople on television and radio days ahead of any potential storm threat (they have to have time to come up with a catchy name for it after all - you think they can produce "The Blizzard of '96" or "Ice Storm '02" in just an hour or two?) only the truly hermitic are left unknowing of the need to rush to the closest store for milk, bread and toilet paper.

it's amazing to me to see - on TV or in person - the people flocking to the stores, stepping over each other, and waiting in Soviet-length lines to stock up on "the basics". certainly several million people aren't all getting caught with only some moldy Wonder bread in the pantry and a half-roll of Cottonelle on the dispenser. only a select few hard-core bachelor types would be caught without enough sustenance to get them through 72 hours and unless you're running a prison, why would the milk, bread, TP triumvirate be the top things on your shopping list? if you're going to be stuck in the house for a couple of days, live it up a little bit or spin the Big Wheel O' Chance with whatever is on hand. 20 years from now are you going to remember the storm when you made french toast and stayed regular or the one when you ate that questionable leftover casserole washed down with a pint of vermouth and hallucinated that you were a member of the Donner Party circa winter 1847?

to flog a different linguistic horse for a minute, why do the networks feel the need to advertise programs as being "a television event" (i know you can hear the voiceover in your head as you're reading that)? does "event" have some connotation beyond merely "something that happens" if it's read by a guy with a deep, vaguely menacing voice? is it related to the way hippies used to refer to things as a "happening"? what it seems to amount to is an attempt by the networks or whomever to hijack the process by which things are labeled as important, leaving us with a never-ending series of "Nissan Event Clearances", "Made-for TV Events" and "Year-end Sales Events". perhaps someone has done some market research that proves that people respond Pavlovianly to the intonation of the word, though i would have to speculate that anyone actually buying into it is also the type who responds to spam for university diplomas and considers H2s to be sensible purchases.

Reagan getting shot was an Event. OJ on the freeway was an Event. the Super Bowl is a captial "e" Event because it has ascended to the level of a virtual holiday with its own traditions and rituals and we know it will be the highest rated program of the entire year. however, a mid-season episode of "Alias" or "24" can not be conferred with event status except by popular opinion, i don’t care who the guest star is or which main character will be held at gunpoint for 45 minutes only to escape in time for next week’s installment.

Posted by Jamie at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

t.s.o.a. rarely throws it's weight behind many products, but in all the hysteria over the iPod Shuffle (i'm not linking to that, i'm sure there's about 137,624 blog entries about it alreday) i almost missed the rolling out of the Mac Mini which has to be one of the most genius moves Apple has yet made. the article in yesterday's Circuits section didn't even mention it until over halfway through. but a $500 Mac? with a 40 GB Hard Drive, enough RAM for most people and CD burning capabilities? totally unbelievable. and you can double the hard drive size and get a fast processor for just $100 more. and have you seen it? it takes up the space of about four pieces of bread and it weighs only slightly more at 2.9 pounds. how much easier is that to cart around than a laptop? granted you need to have access to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and that gets into the drawbacks, but for the most part you can use any existing items you already have with it without having to necessarily buy new ones. the only other significant drawback that i can see is that it only has 2 USB ports, but a $40 USB hub can solve that problem if applicable. there's also the issue of software, but it comes with a lot of good stuff and how many of you paid for that copy of Photoshop or Microsoft Office on your computers right now anyway?

i've been a Mac supporter for quite some time (really, let's not have that argument. Windows certainly has its advantages and its good points), but never to the point that i would chastise someone for buying a PC. but now, if you can get a computer that looks great, is totally unobtrusive, with an incredibly stable OS on a platform that is almost totally free of viruses and spyware (though those threats are sure to increase if marketshare does) at the same price point more or less of the Dells of the world, i don't know how you can make another choice. actually i do know, but i can no longer condone it.

perhaps Britt Daniel will get royalties from every sale

Posted by Jamie at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(apologies to Richard Thompson)

in light of recent world events, i began wondering why anyone uses the term "tidal wave" when it has nothing at all to do with tides? normal waves are tidal waves, but large destructive waves are something else entirely. even my dictionary calls "tidal wave" a non-technical term for a tsunami "not actually related to the tides". fortunately, the internet knows all:

Sometime in the 1800s (see 1878 quote), ‘tidal wave’ became confused with what now might properly be called a ‘seismic sea wave’ or ‘tsunami’ (Japanese, from ‘tsu,’ port, harbor + ‘nami’ wave, first appearing in English print in 1897). The original misuse of ‘tidal wave’ was probably a result of the fact that there was no proper generally recognized word for the phenomenon at the time and it, more or less, filled the void.

recently the Discovery Channel seriously amped up its tsunami-related program schedule. one of the most interesting things i saw was a feature about the largest tsunami ever recorded - a 1958 wave in Lituya Bay, Alaska caused by a landslide that reached a height of 1,700 feet at it's most massive.

Posted by Jamie at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

a moment of silence please for the demise of WHFS, which for a long time was just about the only place to hear decent new music in the entire Washington DC area. when i first learned of a world of music that didn't exist in my parents record collection or on top 40 radio in the very late 80s, WHFS was there to teach me my Squeezes from my TMBGs, my Ramones from my Replacements. over the years they became much more mainstream just as "alternative" music did and when Infinity bought them in 1996, well that was the final nail in the coffin as they moved to playing a constant stream of Pearl Jam, STP, the Offsrping and lord only knows what else these days. but as another station falls to the specter of demographics, it still seems to be an unfitting end for a station that undoubtedly molded many more minds than just mine.

The Washington-area FM radio station WHFS, long a pioneering purveyor of alternative rock, did a programming U-turn at noon today by ditching the genre for a Spanish-language, Latin music format featuring middle-of-the-road superstars such as Marc Anthony and Juan Luis Guerra.

WHFS-FM 99.1, the radio station behind the popular alt rock music festival called "HFStival," is now "El Zol," featuring Caribbean and Central American music, according to a prepared statement released by Infinity Broadcasting, the station's owner.

here is a brief history of WHFS and another intersting article (albeit 7 years old) called "Who Killed Rock Radio?".

Posted by Jamie at 06:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

with the Carlos Beltran sweepstakes heating up and just 43 days until pitchers and catcher report to spring training, you'll forgive me if i have a bit of baseball on the brain. hey, it's either that or a rant about how Utah, Lousiville or Boise State could have offered a better fight than Oklahoma did last night and how ridiculous it is that none of those teams even had a chance to prove how good they are (outside of the great Liberty Bowl game that Louisville and Boise State played against each other).

the t.s.o.a. ballot for the Hall of Fame: Boggs, Sandberg, Gossage, Blyleven, Tommy John, Alan Trammell (Jim Rice and Dale Murphy are on the cusp).

everyone talks about how WWII took away some of the best years of Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, etc. but what about Johhny Pesky? give him 3 more prime, 200-hit seasons at SS and he's certainly the equal of, say, Luke Appling or Joe Sewell and deserving of a place in the Hall of Fame. sure he got a pole named after him, but that's hardly ample compensation for a plaque in Cooperstown.

a couple fun baseball links: the Girls of Summer, highlighting women pioneers of the game with in-depth pieces on one woman per position throughout the last 100 years. check out Jackie Mitchell who once struck our Ruth and Gehrig back-to-back and Toni Stone who broke the gender barrier in the Negro Leagues.

also check out the Indy Leagues Graveyard, cataloguing the demise of entire leagues and teams mosly from the 1990s to the present day. there's not a ton of info about most of the teams, but there are plenty of bad nicknames and logos to explore (and some good ones). St. George Pioneerzz anyone?

and finally a story to crush the wife's crush: Johnny Damon got married before the New Year. and for some reason AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson was in attendance.

Posted by Jamie at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

the wife and i caught a great show last night on BBC America called "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" wherein Gordon Ramsay - the "foulest-mouthed chef in Britain" - sets out to turn around a failing restaurant in just a week. much more interesting than "The Restaurant" and its horrid Rocco DiSpirito, Ramsay is a total shitstorm with credentials and as his moniker would suggest he's not the type to hold his tongue. in last night's episode (9pm, repeated at midnight and 4am) he was dealing mainly with Tim, a 21-year old self-styled head chef for whom 11 concurrent customers was too much to handle. Ramsay even cruelly sends Tim to his (Tim's) parents house to cook a meal for his parents and grandparents. the food was mostly prepared in advance but even that can't stop Tim from royally tanking. the process of watching the unassured and untrained Tim gain a base level of competence in time to have a successful night on Valentine's Day was engaging enough, but when peppered with Ramsay's constant barrage of expletives and other creative language (our favorites: pronouncing the "a" in "twat" as in the word "hand" and threatening at one point to "pickle [Tim's] testicles") it demanded a closer level of attention. by the time we reached the coda where Ramsay visits the restaurant a month later (only to find much of his effort undone and most of his advice unheeded), we were ready for another hour. i don't know if the show will hold up as well in future viewings, but considering there are currently just 4 episodes to be aired it may have some time before wearing thin.

you can read the Village Voice's take on the show and ready yourself for Ramsay's foray into American network television courtesy of (who else) Fox. just be prepared for lots of bleeps (BBC-A seems to only bleep out the "f*cks"). also just found is an article about Tim's attempt to gain a measure of revenge against Ramsay, featuring lots of words spelled like "f******".

Posted by Jamie at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)