That was no woman, that was my fastball!

BlaiserBlog Ketchup 2 of 2

Or....What better time to finish a recap than when the Yankees have just lost a game? (Last night's ALCS Thrilla in Calilla...)

August 28th at Baltimore, 11-5 Sox

Baltimore sports a lovely park on the harbor, but don't fall into the Chesapeake--I hear there's a nasty multistep decontamination process. Pity, that. I didn't pity the club-level all-you-can-eat hot dog fest, however, nor a terrific national anthem by operatic tenor dude.

There were so  many Sox fans at Camden Yaads that day, that my Baltimore friend commented the stadium had never seemed that full! I felt bad for the O fans, shown up in their own house.

At this writing, the boys of summer are down to but three squads, and my beloved Sox are not among them. I'll have to wait for next season to stand up and holla, "Lowell for Senate!!!" my war-cry in Baltimore.*

Here are a couple more of my B'More photos that I like.

If I ever get a serious camera, I'll branch out from this grainy motif....
I am so not into the flash.

The Flash, however, is pretty boss.

My dad, who turns 81 soon, is called "Flash" by the head groundskeeper** at the Corey Creek golf course. I just love that!

 * Lowell photo cribbed from some other dude's blog. Wow! And you should check him out. He's apparently in 7th Grade and a really good writer.

** Full disclosure: Greenskeeping Dude is a high-school classmate. Even cooler.

I know my work is subpar, but at least I'm slow!

BlaiserBlog Ketchup 1 of 2...

This took too dam long to write, so I'm just postin' what I got, and I'll work on the rest latah!

It's mop-up week here at BlaiserBlog. Often, as I roll through life slightly out of control, tumbleweed-style, potential blog topics sprout from the earth at my feet, eke out a brilliant half-life in my half-brain, and wither from a cetain lack of aqueous thinking.

Some of these thoughtlets deserve to live on. And so, to cheer up yesterday's inner Wedensday's Child (and here would go a micro-treatise on the western archipilagos and the International Date Line, if I knew when the hell it means...) I offer a smorgasbord of intrigue, a pu-pu platter of platitudes, a Whitman's Sampler of witticism, and yesterday's trash.

Sublime, it should be noted, is the opposite of trash. If you've not heard of Midsummer Night Swing, consider the following: For three weeks of the high Manhattan summer, Lincoln Center becomes an essential destination. Most evenings, at 6:30 P.M., a mass hajj of dance lovers coalesces in Damrosch Park and collectively takes a lesson in tango, salsa, West Coast swing--the style changes daily.

Two sets of live music follow--with a DJ sewing the gaps. You want Chubby Checker? We got Chubby Checker. Ask Big Bad Voodoo Daddy for the car keys; drive to a world beat. Hang your head out the window like a hounddog in the breeze, and watch everyone put their schooling into practice, whilst shaking what their mommas gave them.

I've been fortunate to operate a lighting console there for two years running. Rain has only been a factor once or twice on the expanding MNS stage.

 This year, impresario Bill Bragin opted for a stage couched in the bandshell and an expanded moving-light package. The results were pretty cool.

Let's Play Two!

 In other norts spews, I finally made it to Fenway Park, thanks to a very generous welcome-to-your-40's gift. In fact, the 2009 has been my breakout season as a baseball fan. I wear jerseys; I visit parks.

Fenway is a national treasure, nestled, as it is, on the banks of the Charles River like a massive organic wild mushroom. But it's small, and intimate on the inside, almost Hobbit-like.

Jon Lester pitched a gem against the visiting Toronto Blue Jays. Beer was drunk, hot dogs eaten. Sox roll to a 3-2 victory. Even got to see Papelbon who, despite blowing the last game of the season on Sunday, was a marvel--a panther of a pitcher, languid and deadly.

  To Be Continued.....

She Blinded Me With Vinyl

I make no bones about hating i-Products, maintaining suspicions on mp3 formats and generally whinging about the deteriorating-mazationings of actual, physical things that I can touch. When Y2K hit, my response was to start buying up manual typewriters, like some kind of ironic literary survivalist. When Douglas Adams wrote words to the effect that "And you thought digital watches were pretty neat," I was that guy, but I would have preferred things had stopped with Ms. Pac-Man and that four-player Dungeons & Dragons game, Gauntlet. However, Time Has Passed, and now Elf needs food, badly.

Food for thought, that is, and music that requires neither one, nor zero. (Note that analog music reaps metaphorical benefit from the other 8 digits.) The awesomest sound I've ever heard from a cone was in my parents' basement, when my audiophile brother, Matt, was testdriving a dbx-encoded jazz LP. (Think Dolby Z-Cubed...) I know crates of records are a pain to lug around, but it's not only worth it, it's essential.

And so.... I invested in two classic Technics 1200 turntables, and a mixer.* The Technics 1200 Mk2 is the shark of turntables.... essentially unchanged by evolution for millions of years (OK, slightly more than 30, but you see my point.) The rig is powered by the Panasonic dual-cassette Boom Box with which my parents bundled me off to sleep-away college in the late 80's.

Its left channel is intermittent, and comes and goes like Mary Poppins--when the wind changes. Sometime last week, it healed itself again, and I'm living large in stereo. One has to make the most out of an uncertain world.

And so my 9-year-old son and I are nurturing a weekend ritual: Sunday brunch a la vinyl. A most recent utterance: "Daddy, what's Styx?" ** (He already has something of a foundation in mythology, so he knows about Achilles and the River. Now he's learning about the concept album, a concept that's all but gone the way of the dodo.)

Here's what else I'm finding so fabulous about this trend: Not only is it a joy to dance around with your 9-year-old to rockin' tunes, but his ear horizons have stretched global. That is to say, up to now, he's never thumbed through all the CD's to find something new and interesting. But put him in front of a crate of vinyl, and he's doing exactly that, and here's why: It's fun. It's fun to put the needle on the record; it's fun to play with the pitch, or play a Bruce Springsteen album on 45 rpm so that the Boss sounds like an indignant chipmunk; it's fun to look at the photos on a jacket sleeve--many of them are as large as an entire CD case, nevermind the ridiculous dwarf-photos that show up on someone's i-Product.

Maybe the point is that running around with earbuds and paper-thin music players belies an essential truth of music: Rock is large. Power chords mean more when played on a 12" disc. The Magical Mystery Tour is trippier when flipping through the "24-page full color picture book" included inside. In fact, I'll go ahead and say it: Digital is synthetic.

Disc-uss below: As always, thanks awfully, for reading. And remember, if my busmates on our senior class trip to Washington, DC, hadn't ruled the music choices under threat of extreme violence, I might never have come to fully appreciate AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long, which we listened to, in its entirety, 37 times straight.

* Full disclosure: the mixer also sports two CD players with adjustable pitch. When we're playing vinyl, we play vinyl. When he graduates from Mixing 101, we'll entertain other media. I'm not a total crank...

** And lest one think I'm a purveyor of cheesy pop music alone, get hip to other parts of my vinyl catalog: Bob Dylan, Marlene Dietrich, Lady Day Holiday, Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Bil Cosby, as many Beatles as my son can eat.

Good Morning, Good Day, Hardboiled Eggs, and a Dolly Parton 45.

This is just a check-in, a sonar ping, a call-and-response. Some days, one needs to lift one's head above the water, like a playful dolphin on the Jersey Coast, and say a quick hello to the neighbor body surfers. The porpoise is not only to catch a quick breath of salt air, but also for the sheer thrill. It's autumn, and there are even more women hunters in the woods--haven't you heard? They're apparently more patient than their male nimrod counterparts, and more interested in meat than trophy--a darn good way to slice it.

I'd like to present Wilkes-Barre as a concept this morning. You have to work to get there--anyone accustomed to reflexively peeling Northwest on Route 380, you're missing a great chance to hang in Pennsylvania's most European small town: There are a lot of hills, and the streets, which are small, don't line up. Consequently, it's a lot of fun to get lost.

From the City, it's through the Water Gap and then north on an unlikely spine, the Northeast Corridor of the PA Turnpike. From there, it's only one exit--but soft! One exit on the Extension is an 11-mile tunneling into Luzerne County. Like most everything west of the Hudson, Wilkes-Barre's environs sport a wasteland of box stores, strip malls, and the standard complement of Thank-God-it's-Restaurant kinda places, but in this case, it's more like a retail moat. Once you brave the alligators and the slime, it's quite cozy and charming on the inside. The mighty Susquehanna runs its length, and other interesting bergs are on the other side. They appreciate Poker in this region--two establishments welcomed our cash game, one in our own, free, wood-paneled room. Drinks were inexpensive.

The Red Sox disappointed this weekend, to say the least. Fortunately, it won't mean Jack when we ice the American League Wild Card. Homefield advantage notwithstanding, the postseason landscape is when Major League Baseball hits the Refresh button. There is still another month of hotdogs, leather gloves and shivering fans. And thank God for that.

Thank God, also, for the late great William Safire. His politics were revolting to me, in many ways, but he was a wordsmith nonpareil, and a buddy of the journalist Daniel Schorr's, and that's good enough for me. Let us remember him.

Thanks for reading, and happy autumn, and please try to remember that although Andalusian/French brother Jean Reno--a nonpareil of badassery--occasionally makes a stinker, only YOU can prevent forest fires...

File Under "Damn! Wish *I* Had Thought of That!!" *

Larry Wingnut? No, it's Larry Winget, an apparent motivational speaker and frequent flyer. Now, let me be clear... I usually associate motivational speakers with well snake-oiled charlatans. Unless we're talking about world-class orators, like Cicero, or that guy from ShamWow. But this guy is worth a second look based on his great piece on manners and boundaries. Even better than scoring one of them eee-legal jammers from Yurp!

Another thing that's worth your while, even if you didn't go to high school in the great state of Pennsylvania: Marketplace Reporter Rico Gagliano has just recorded the definitive hipster take on Pittsburgh. I've always loved Pittsburgh. I am, of course, from a one-stoplight town. Go visit. (Mansfield, or Pittsburgh for that matter.) Don't wait for those inter-league curiosities, when Red Sox Japanese pitchers take some swings at PNC Park. I'd be calling USAir now, if I weren't a hairstrigger away from lapping up some motivation.

Appropos of nothing, whatever happened to these guys?

Mojo Nixon
Anson Williams
The rookie from Adam-12
The guy who had the Rico Suave hit in 1990

While you ponder that, I'll be bagging groceries with Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa. Thanks for reading.

* This BlaiserBlog post brought to you, image-free, for your pleasure and convenience. Feedback gratefully accepted.

Dear Kanye...

I know this is a day late, but I'm just starting to experiment with shorter blog posts.

With all thanks to The Huffington Post, I present a brief BlaiserBlog playlist, and other suggestions for Kanye West, in his post VMA-award contemplative phase.....

Songs

Your Mother Should Know -- Fab Four
Big Shot -- B. Joel

We Beseech Thee... Hear Us -- Soundtrack of "Godspell"

Video Killed the Radio Star -- The Buggles
Face the Face -- Pete Townshend

I Yam What I Yam -- Popeye

The Man in the Mirror -- M. J.

Recommended Cartoon Strip:

The Wizard of Id

Grin and Bear It

Suggested Authors:

Mother Theresa
Gandhi

Optimism and Obama

Recently, I happened onto a blog called Liberal Rapture, which as far as I can tell, is populated mainly by fierce Obama critics. I posted a comment--in response to a post about how President Obama's broken campaign promises were the same as George W. Bush's lies about so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction--in which I suggested that the tone of what I read was often similar to what I might read on an extreme right-wing blog: the same degree of sarcasm, the same style of derision, the same kind of sweeping generalities and black-and-white descriptions of "truth" and "fact," all squeezed through, from where I sat, a filter that was a bit cynical.

Mere moments later, I was accused of being a paid political operative, or at the very least of being an "Obot," (a moniker I think is damn funny) -- i.e. displaying reflexive loyalty to Obama, supporting Obama for the wrong reasons, espousing misplaced observations and proffering disingenuous arguments. One can also extrapolate an accusation of brain-washing, or programming--a robot does not make decisions for itself, rather merely carries out its programming in a cold, nonhuman automatic fashion.

The host of the blog, a fella named John, was actually one of the exceptions, and he welcomed me and my voice, which I appreciated, and asked me to lay down what motivates me as an Obama supporter, and why, and so I'll begin that. As far as debunking the idea that I'm some kind of automaton, I'll let my writing here, and elsewhere, stand on its own merits.

My off-the-cuff reaction was that I thought President Obama would do--and indeed already had done--a lot for our standing around the world. I think most people on the Left would find this to be self-evident, but I've done some digging, and here's a sliver of what I came up with:

A Pew Research Center poll released this past July (Pew is a nonpartisan organization) showed that attitudes toward the U.S., in the 24 nations polled, had rocketed to levels not seen since before 2001. Additionally, over 70% of 21 of those nations' responders had some degree of confidence in President Obama (George W. Bush pulled in 17% from those same nations in 2008). The poll targeted Europeans, Canadians, Mexicans, Argentines and city dwellers in Brazil, India and China, as well as people in the Palestinian territories. Perceptions of America improved in comparable moderate Middle Eastern states of Egypt and Jordan. Unsurprisingly, our standing is still not fantastic in much of the Middle East, particularly states with Muslim majorities. Also, we took a hit in Israel, where attitudes toward the U.S. were higher when George W. Bush was in office. The most extreme change of opinion? Germany and France, where President Obama's numbers were better than those of either Angela Merkel or Nicolas Sarkozy, respectively.

Some relevant quotes regarding the poll: "His personal popularity and new respect for the U.S. having elected him translates positively for the U.S. image." -- former Secretary of State Albright.

"The image of the United States has improved markedly in most parts of the world, reflecting global confidence in Barack Obama." -- the Pew Global Attitudes Report.

So. One little piece of fact regarding how the world perceives us with President Obama. Having said that, I'm not blind to the plunging numbers here at home in the aftermath of various bailouts and the healthcare morass. I am embarrassed that we're still wading through all this crap, when socialized health care in a civilized, modern nation in 2009 seems like a no-brainer to me, but I am not yet prepared to say I'm "embarrassed" that President Obama is my president--as the denizens of Liberal Rapture would like--like I was when George W. Bush was in office. Today, on Labor Day, he spoke to my union brothers and sisters in the AFL-CIO. I'm pissed that he's having such a hard time getting heathcare reform done, but I take his actions today, for example, at face value. I take the Pew Poll at face value. I take, for the most part, The New York Times at face value, and trust that they will toe the line of journalistic ethics.

Here's David Brooks,in a recent piece for the Times. athough this is obviously an opinion piece, and not a reporting piece. It's good to know the difference.

"Amazingly, some liberals are now lashing out at Obama because the entire country doesn’t agree with The Huffington Post. Some now argue that the administration should just ignore the ignorant masses and ram health care through using reconciliation, the legislative maneuver that would reduce the need for moderate votes.

This would be suicidal. You can’t pass the most important domestic reform in a generation when the majority of voters think you are on the wrong path. To do so would be a sign of unmitigated arrogance. If Obama agrees to use reconciliation, he will permanently affix himself to the liberal wing of his party and permanently alienate independents. He will be president of 35 percent of the country — and good luck getting anything done after that."

The folks at Liberal Rapture, however, seem to hate the Huff Post, too. And so I did some more research, because I wanted to know what the hell I was critiquing, and it seems that many of Liberal Rapture's posters, and citizens of other blogs that interest them, are essentially bitter and angry and highly motivated Hillary Clinton supporters who appear to wish President Obama ill at every opportunity. I think this is cynical--hoping that one's own president fails. Yes, President Obama is your president. If you're on the Left and he's not your president, then you are an extremist, Sir, or Madam....

I heard a few traces of "Secretary Clinton was done wrong" during the primary process. I don't know the ins and outs of that, I'll be honest. What I do believe, however, is that national politics can get nasty. I doubt that either Clinton, Bill or Hillary, have any illusions about this. In a perfect world, this would not be the case, but sadly, with as much money and power being thrown around, and with a Congress that doesn't seem to have a backbone when it comes to campaign finance reform, there are endless loopholes that politcal operatives can exploit. In a (semi) perfect world, we walk away with President Al Gore in 2000. That didn't happen. I've heard endlessly bitter Liberals blame my man Ralph Nader for that travesty, but I have a different narrative. Mine is that breaking a two-party system is important, and in a democracy that purports to be an actual demorcracy of the people, it is not encumbent on any candidate to step aside. Al Gore ultimately lost that battle in the Supreme Court, but where Al Gore really lost that election, in my opinion, is when he showed a collossal lack of leadership during the campaign. It was his election to lose, and he did. Time to move on.

And so... In 2008 I thought I'd be an early Hillary supporter, but there was this overall sense of entitlement that I sensed from her dispatches and from what I read about her campaign (the Times--which endorsed her--The New Yorker, occasionally my hometown Jersey papers.). I wasn't in love with how she handled herself as the presumptive nominee, and I didn't like how her most vociferous supporters comported themselves--again, this idea that everyone ought to get out of the way, like Ralph in 2000. I heard a similar argument from my rural Social Studies teacher in 10th grade re: Ronald Regan, who thought the Gipper plainly deserved "his due in Warshington...".

But in 2008, I knew the Right was salivating at the prospect of a Clinton-bashing campaign unlike all others before it. Shock and Awe wouldn't have done justice to what they would have rolled out against Hillary in 2008. Might have cost us the White House.

However, I'm an optimist. I considered the nomination a mostly win-win situation. Elect Ms. Clinton, and we win--first woman president; Bill travels abroad and repairs our reputation; intellectualism is saved--she's obviously the smartest person in most rooms she enters, obviously dedicated, obviously a tireless worker.

But with Obama, I had fewer reservations. His stance on the Iraq war was unmarred by voting for it in the first place, and he did not carry any Clintonian baggage. That played a significant role. Change was necessary, and more radical change than a Clinton administration could have offered, in fact or in perception.

President Obama fired off a video message to Iran. I really liked that, and I took it at face value. Here's where I run afoul of the Liberal Rapturians, and their particular sliver of the Left: I believe. I believe in my own critical thinking process. I believe that President Obama is smart. Dude was elected the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated from Harvard magna cum laude.

Magna. Cum. Laude. is. not. a. fraud. It's a pretty good rallying cry. My parents were both English professors, and while I'm a parttime student of politics, I was raised as a fulltime student of critical thinking, and have been all my life. I read a lot. I've taught in two different departments at two four-year institutions. And I'm a stagehand. We solve problems. It's confusing, I know--one member of Liberal Rapture needed significant persuasion that my résumé was legit. This is a cynical attitude.

My particular background is complex, and the question of whether someone is a fraud is complex and subjective, and the political whining from Clinton supporters that I unearthed sounds like a broken record, and I'm arguing it's time to reset the needle. The Left needs to unify for the greater good of the country. The election is over. Senator Clinton lost. She is now Secretary Clinton, and I am thrilled that she's holds that crucial post. I do not view it as a cynical move of President Obama to keep his enemies close, although clearly that played some role. On that topic, I believe her to be an Obama rival, and not an enemy. I believe (again, that word) that she's one of the best qualified Americans for her current job. To the victors go the spoils. It's not perfect, but it's the system we have. And it's not like Ms. Clinton has been consigned to politcal irrelevance after losing the Democratic presidential nomination of 2008. Far from it.

I think a more productive way to channel all the energy that's directed at tearing down the Obama presidency would be to start one's own damn party. That is--if you feel let down by Democrats, and your "grandparents are rolling in their graves", as has been written on Liberal Rapture--and you "heard the spine of the party snap" at some point at which your candidate got the short end of the stick, then run with it. And this is not a "love it or leave it" perspective---I'm a huge supporter of breaking the two-party system.

But that doesn't mean I hope President Obama does poorly. Or that I'll insist he supports all my agendas, chapter and verse, before I support him, as has been intimated by some on Liberal Rapture. That view is not only unrealistic, it's also overtly dogmatic.

I heard on the radio the other day a quote from former NYC mayor David Dinkins: "Campaign with poetry and govern with prose." I think that's apt. I don't love that President Obama has tacked to the center, but I understand it. For me, I think a Liberal Line In The Sand might look like inclusion of a single-payer system or a public option in healthcare reform. I think that the administration was naive in their courting of the Right, although again, I understand why they might have tried. It's called optimism, and I take it at face value.

Sidebar: For that matter, Dinkins wasn't my favorite New York City mayor (I lived there for 13 years), but his connection is relevant: Initially, some etablishment black democrats (scion of the Civil Rights movement John Lewis, Rep. Charlie Rangel, David Dinkins, and others) backed Hillary, and a newer wave (Mayor Corey Booker from Newark, former everything Colin Powell, author Toni Morrison, celeb Oprah, etc.) supported Obama, and what this said to me was that a significant part of the Liberal establishment was threatened by Obama the candidates. That very notion helped me to settle on Barack Obama, who represented the kind of change I believed the country needed.

My point is that Hillary lost, and it's time to move on. I am not a fan of conpiracy theories--that, for instance, man didn't land on the moon, the U.S. government somehow orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, or that Secretary Clinton was screwed out of the nomination--although again, I'm open to analyzing claims of individual electoral grievances on a case-by-case scenario. Unfortunately, It's national politics. It's not fair to begin with. I think Hillary would agree with that, but I also think she would agree that unreasonable criticism of the Obama presidency is counter-productive with what's good for most Americans.

So be positive and start your own party. Endorse change and not divisiveness, for many analysts will tell you that Hillary's perceived divisiveness was outflanked by Obama's perceived message of change. That's perception. Sometimes perception is truth, to the voting public. Nothing's perfect. I'm looking forward to President Obama's speech on Wednesday, and I'll be rather crushed if the public option in healthcare goes the way of the dodo, but we're all going to soldier on. In the end, on our deathbeds, I doubt we'll be saying things like "Gee... I wish I had been a more vociferous jerk to my fellow Liberals." or "Wow. I wish I worked harder." Rather, I think we'll be saying things like what the late, great Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his posthumously pubished "A Man Without a Country"--and I'll paraphrase here--What I've learned is that, for the love of Mike, we've got to be kind to each other!

So please. Go forth and be kind. Sarcasm and derision and comparing Obama's deal-cutting on healthcare to Bush's lies on WMD may make you feel "better," but ultimately, isn't a false goodness? On the scale of reason, it tips out at "extreme." It makes me feel like we're not on the same side at all--the Liberal side. Never mind that we're not all Democrats, I mean the same side in a global, human fashion.

Find another way to work out the anger. Hillary lost. Sorry about that. She still rocks as Secretary of State. I watched John Kerry go down in flames when his war credentials were destroyed by Swift Boaters and their supporters, vs. a guy who essentially skipped out of his militay duty. Kerry VOLUNTEERED for Christ's sake.... still. That election is over, and I can't live in the past. Rather, I can enjoy the irony of meeting one of those Swift Boat guys, who happens to be the neighbor of a radical feminist Lesbian member of my family. He's a fantastic neighbor, and helps out my relative, and her spouse all the time. He's a nice guy. Who knew? And yet... he was instrumental in bringing down Senator Kerry. Do I hate him for that? No. Meeting him renewed my feeling that we have to find common ground to make discourse better in the future.

These are but a few of my reasons for supporting the Obama presidency--with critical caveats--and but a few of my definitions of optimism.

As always, thanks for reading. Apologies for that last paragraph never ending. I'm having formatting issues with Blogger.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. --- Helen Keller

Israel is no longer a people that dwells alone, and has to join the global journey toward peace, reconciliation and international cooperation. --- Yitzhak Rabin

Dr. King wants the same thing I want -- freedom! --- Malcolm X