Baseball's not like Cricket

I had a nice chat with our GM from our UK division last night, mostly about cricket, futbol (theirs, not ours) and baseball. He said he's been to a couple of games and they nearly drove him mad because he didn't really understand it. From his perspective, it was just pitch, catch, hit, run. I tried to explain the nuance of "the thinking mans game" and how the situation on the field changes with every pitch. He started to get it. I told him a true baseball fan can really enjoy a tight, 1-0 game, but that most fans today want home runs and pyrotechnics or they're not sufficiently entertained.

This morning I discovered that last night while Keith and I were chatting, John Lester out dueled Toronto ace Roy Halladay in a 1-nil Sox win...

Oh, and here's something very cool for those of you who can't stand the 3:40 game...

Bonus Question: How long does a cricket match last?

Oh, one more thing. Roger... Jeez...

The Hard Sell

I’m going to keep this post short, but do women get spam promising a smaller vagina? I doubt it, because women aren’t hung up on their size. Well, that size anyway. I hear there’s a worldwide shortage of silicone impeding production of solar panels. Hey, I know where it all is. No wonder women have so much energy. Oh, that’s silicon they use in solar… Sorry for that little interruption.

It’s not easy to get large amounts of real data on “male enhancement” spending even for the legit ED drugs, but the marketer of “Enzyte,” a “natural male enhancement” formula was recently convicted “of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.” Prosecutors charged Steve Warshak with scamming thousands of diminutive men out of some $100 Million Dollars! I’m sure there’s a good joke involving prison and his product, but this is a classy blog…

If one company rang up a hundred mil on the penis promise, what must the total spending be? A billion? Ten? A hundred? The marketing effort is huge. Here are some of the tens of spam that swell my inbox each week:

• Size Matters
• Mine is Bigger
• Impress Your Girlfriend
• Gain up to 4+
• Gain up to 5+
• Gain up to 6+
• Be like Ron Jeremy
• Did you hear about how big he was?
• Extra inches to Shlong
• Super-Size It Today!
• Buy Cialis, Viagra Online - Save Up To 40%...

…and my personal favorite, “Get a bigger copulation organ today.” Copulation? That reminds of Dick Nixon asking David Frost pre-interview if he “did any fornicating over the weekend,” I guess those particular marketeers must be after the Napoleon segment of the Republican Party.

I don’t know. Someone, apparently not P.T. Barnum once said, “There's a sucker born every minute.” Steve Warshak is now snaking his way through the justice system for selling a dream that a minnow could grow into a Trouser Trout, and thousands of dopes bought it. They’re the biggest dicks of all.

Mmmmmm… That’s Some Tasty Carbon!

This morning I consciously purchased my first carbon offsets. Yeah, as I was going through the obstacle course of online ticket purchasing for a Wilco show, this option was presented:

"Help the environment - Offset your CO2 emissions on the way to the show and plant a tree with your ticket purchase!

By donating to the cause, you can help plant trees in countries around the world and in the neediest tropical areas like Honduras, Belize, Senegal, Uganda, India and the Philippines.

When you drive your car to an event, it emits harmful doses of CO2 that pollute our environment and promotes global warming. By helping fund the purchase of renewable energy sources you can offset this pollution. To do so simply check the text box to the right and your credit card will automatically be deducted .55 cents (USD). Proceeds go to Trees for the Future and Native Energy and will be used to plant trees in some of the neediest places in the world, as well as help to purchase renewable energy sources."

I’m not sure fifty-five cents will offset the carbon my car will emit driving to and from Tanglewood in Lenox, MA, but I’ve heard the venue is gorgeous and I know the band will bring it:

I, Consumer-less

Starbucks has never been a habit of mine, just an occasional $4 latte treat. This week the company cut its earnings forecast citing the economy as, “worst in the company's history.”

Last night I decompressed over a plate of chicken nachos and dueling martini’s with a buddy I’ll call Alan. Against the backdrop of glittering cold gin, I opened my wallet and pulled out a piece of paper with Andrew Jackson’s picture on it. “You see that,” I asked rhetorically. “That’s been in my wallet since Saturday.” I went on with a riveting description of breakfast at home and brown bag lunches. Old friend Quicken tells me I saved an average of $9.50 per day by not feeding at the bagel store or the company café. The echo chamber of a refrigerator I peered into this morning is also evidence we won’t be throwing any food away this week.

Let’s do the math… $9.50 x 5 days a week x 50 weeks = $2,375.00 and no wasted food. If I keep this going, that may be just enough to cover the rising price of gas.

Oh, Alan... President Jackson thanks you for picking up the check.

Do You Want to See a Miracle?

It takes courage to be the focus of a bright, circular light elevated for all to see and judge. For some, it’s a place too intimidating to step in time. For others, the brilliant round provides comfort like a rocking chair on a shady porch in summer, the microphone a tall, cool lemonade. For Kyle, singing is as natural as breathing, and it’s a pure heart that pumps the beat.

There were some talented kids up on that stage, and several were from Ms. Root's class. Those special young people received some of the most boisterous ovations of the evening from their teenage peers. I’ve watched racism wither with the generation of my children, and it seems they’re rejecting meanness as well. The winning team sang “Colors of the Wind,” but in this judges opinion, a young lady who sang the comical “Taylor the Latte Boy,” was the best. There were also several capable guys rapping hip-hop songs, accessorized like gaudy gold bling with cliché bad boy “moves.” At one point I turned to Kyle’s Mom and asked, “Does our boy do a crotch grab in his song?” While that would have been hilarious, he didn’t, but thanks to Kyle, our hearts are blessed with the sound of music.

Mailing it in Sick Post

I think I have Bubonic Plague, so there will be no reason (Insert your humorous comment below…) to this mornings post. The involuntary expulsion of a midnight phlegmball resulted in a four hour wad of insomnia that had me wondering if my current health crisis was somehow attributable to “King Corn.”

I also caught Bill Moyers interviewing journalist Leila Fadel. She’s been covering the war in Iraq and tells Mr. Moyers about the human side of the conflict. Ms. Fadel recently won a Polk Award for her work. Oh, and she’s only 26.

Speaking of women, I can’t see how John McCain is going to win any of their votes after news of his legendary temper and vulgarity toward his wife percolate in the Fall. Even without this history of bad form, Senator McCain will sink like Jack Dawson with a giant “Dubya” albatross around his neck.

As bad infomercials go…this one’s pretty bad…

I’ve written about Magritte’s La Voix du Silence before, but only recently did I discover the museum in which it hangs finally published an online image of it. I must have stared at that thing for 10 minutes when I first surrealed it. Half reminded me of my old apartment in Westminster. Actually, considering the darkness; the whole thing did.

La Voix du Silence, 1928 oil on canvas
Magritte, René, 1898-1967
54.00 cm. x 73.00 cm.
Worcester Art Museum

While we’re on art, Barack Obama wants more of it exposed and taught to our children in school. The right will love this…



I was pretty critical of the Boston Bruins lack of offensive skill after game 4, but after their 4 goal third period barrage in Montreal in game 5, let’s hope I Was Wrong.

Serendipity

Sometimes things just happen this way…

“He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit.” - Bruce Springsteen, not talking about John McCain

Meet the Boss’s new Boss. Not the same as the old boss.

Espo, where art thou?

Like children chasing butterflies, last night the Bruins hounded the faster, more talented Montréal Canadians for sixty minutes of breathless playoff hockey. Yeah, it was a nice break from the plodding presidential pundits, but its outcome was from a dusty old blueprint, etched in the ice like a perfect figure eight. The Canadiens always beat the Bruins in the playoffs. Well, almost always. After losing four straight years (‘84-‘87), I was there when the home team finally ousted the bleu, blanc et rouge at the old Garden in 1988.

Just like when we used to bitch about the Yankees and a “curse,” the Habs were just better. The Bruins are a likable team, and hockey like last night will bring back fans to some extent, but until they’re willing to pay for talent that can “light the lamp,” the B’s will be golfing while other teams sip from the Cup.

“29 long years.” That’s what I recall the TV announcer saying after Bobby Orr potted a Cup winner in 1970. At 11 years old, 29 years seemed more than a lifetime, but the sad reality is it’s now been 36 years since their last Cup in 1972.

Since then it’s been one team after another with decent goaltending and defense, but a limited bunch of “muckers” up front who can’t score when it counts. Last night in a furious and scoreless game, Glen Murray had the Bruins’ best chance of the night at 10:55 of the second period, set up dead in the slot, but he shot the puck into the Montreal net minder. About nine minutes later, Montreal got their chance and buried it along with the Bruins, 1-0.

Murray said, “Got to put that in. Big time of the game.” Yeah, we know.

The Bitter Truth

I’m saddened to think the blue collar workers and unemployed are going to buy this “Elitist” nonsense. In the last two elections, these "folks" were manipulated and pandered into voting for a guy “you could have a beer with” and he thanked them by shipping their kids off to Iraq with a lie and also engineered the biggest transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich in the history of the republic. The GOP executed Karl Rove’s blueprint for these votes with baiting issues like gun rights, gay bashing, immigration, and sickening religious pandering. A dead son or daughter in a flag draped box is a pretty harsh example of the neocons "Family Values."

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Elitism as “The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.” Hmmm... Let's look at our candidates:

• Barack Obama has spent much of the last 20 years working on the streets of some of Chicago’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Hillary Clinton has been a “First Lady” twice and with husband Bill, made $109M last year.
• John McCain, the son of a famous Naval Admiral father and grandfather, hopped on his second wife, a beer fortune heiress in 1979.

I'm confused. Who's elitist?

Senator Obama’s “Elitist” transgression is uttering an honest opinion, and not pandering for the votes of people who are ignored after their votes are counted. Here are the clingons:

“But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Hillary Clinton and John McCain have pumped the pandering by saying these good folks aren’t “bitter.” Hmmm… Bruce Springsteen has been writing songs for more than these 25 years and has been praised for his honest representation of this blue collar working man. His words seem to agree with Senator Obama’s assessment…

End of the day, factory whistle cries,
Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes.
And you just better believe, boy,
somebody's gonna get hurt tonight,
It's the working, the working, just the working life.
Factory - Darkness on the Edge of Town – 1978

I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don't remember
Mary acts like she don't care
The River – The River – 1980

I had a job, I had a girl
I had something going mister in this world
I got laid off down at the lumber yard
Our love went bad, times got hard
Now I work down at the carwash
Where all it ever does is rain
Don't you feel like you're a rider on a downbound train
Downbound Train – Born in the USA - 1984

From the Monongaleh valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalacchia
The story's always the same
Seven-hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name
Youngstown - The Ghost of Tom Joad – 1995

If people buy this latest Obama smearing, then they deserve the candidate they get.

The Tramp Doesn't Want to be a Lady

You have to (well, you don't have to, but I do...) wonder if Bill Clinton is subconsciously undermining his wife's campaign.

Strong, Bold and Smart Women

Last week I attended a fundraising luncheon for Girls, Inc. of Lynn. Joyce is a Board Member there and Kronos a sponsor. I was amazed at the stories of disadvantaged women and girls who had overcome much adversity to become “strong, smart and bold” women. Gisell De La Cruz came to the US two years ago, and with the help of Girls, Inc., she learned English and will attend Wentworth Institute of Technology in the Fall to study Architecture. Ms. Del La Cruz was a 2008 “Girl Hero” Award winner.

On the sixty minutes home, a Jason Isbell soundtrack drove with my dreams about my own “Girl Hero.” Megan is a wonderful mom to her Madison, and she’s also doing a fine job with her niece Mackenzie, who at six is craving the attention and love of a “mom.” Megan’s not her mom, but the love and attention Kenzie gets from Megan and Andrew is like sun warming a flower. Little Kenz just got her Q3 report card and “E”xcellent was the dominant letter. She is overcoming adversity on her way to becoming “strong, smart and bold.” Oh, and Auntie Megan showed some boldness and initiated a return to school. “A” was her letter of the quarter with a “Plus” thrown in as exclamation in Biology II. Each grade is paired with a numeric for “Attitude and Effort.” Those were 1’s across the board, but they don’t even begin to measure what she’s accomplishing.

The Recession: Sorry, My Bad…

After seeing the authors interviewed about the Federal budget on the Bill Moyers Journal, I picked up, “Where Does the Money Go?” More on that after I finish reading it… The sub-title is “Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis.” As part of my 2007 tax planning, I discovered my own budget crisis, namely the spending habits of a drunken Congressman.

I don’t recall where I got this list, but I owe attribution to someone… As you scrimp for change to fill the Hummer, here are some areas to cut costs. Oh, here it is, It’s Bankrate.com’s “Top 10 money drains:”

1. Coffee – Quicken estimates about $150 for me in 2007.
2. Cigarettes – Uh, no, but I did spend over $20 on a cigar down at Dad’s recently.
3. Alcohol - $250.72 just at Kappy’s.
4. Bottled water – None at home since I bought the PUR dispenser.
5. Manicures – None on the toes either.
6. Car washes – Only $29 last year and it’s kinda dirty…
7. Weekday lunches out - $836.47 in the inexpensive company café.
8. Vending machines snacks - $0
9. Interest charges on credit cards - $273.82, but all that debt is so last year.
10. Unused memberships – Saved $660 by canceling gym membership… Spent $672.50 on a used StairMaster that’s still being used.

Quicken calculates my top ten damage at a meager $1,560.01. Not bad, but if you add in my big number one with a bullet, things get crazy: $8,081.39 on “Dining” in 2007! Now that’s not “Groceries” ($7,415.92), it’s everything from the “Bagel Blace” ($1,230.09) to “Fenway Park” ($84.00) to “Some Mexican Place in Tampa” ($11.00). Now most of these included Kyle or Megan or both, but how can I bitch about the price of gasoline ($2,600.05) when I burned over $8K on food and drink? I also spent $1,645.00 on “electronic toys” like a new camera, camcorder and iPod.

The news isn’t all bad. I was able to retire all credit card debt in 2007, some of which dated back to the Tar Hut years. Eliminating that debt allowed me to re-fi down to a 15 year mortgage that I hope to pay off in less than 10.

So far in 2008, dining is down, but still on pace to exceed $5K for the year, and there have been no toy purchases, hence the recession. Sorry.

Strike a Pose

I recall back around 1984 or so predicting Madonna was a fad and she'd never last. I'm not sure of the official length of a fad, but I do believe she's eclipsed it by, oh, 20 years or so. When I saw this new promo shot of her yesterday, I was amazed how this almost 50 year old woman now looks like a woman I dated a few years ago. Well, minus the heavy eyeliner...

Integrity is Deductible

Yesterday I faced and survived my annual tax burden, a full ten days before I had to. There must be something wrong with I, Procrastinator. Anyway, I fired off my digits to our friends at the IRS and the MA DOR with a painless upload courtesy of both H and R Block. Before I stroked the AMT-enhanced $1.5G spot, the scoreboard read mostly red:





After I sent millions of microscopic little digital swimmers up into the mothership, I experimented to see how I might have lightened my load. A few keywords and clicks later, I found statistics indicating people in my general tax bracket give 3.65% of their Adjusted Gross Income to charity. I think that’s bullshit for most people. (Although I do believe someone “tithes” away enough of my money for the both of us…) Just to be charitable, I entered the 3.65% number into the program and discovered I would have received hundreds of dollars in a refund had I, um, been more charitable with myself…

An IRS and Economic Policy Institute study done after the 2000 tax season estimated $353B in taxes was owed, but not paid. That’s equal to about 15% of total taxes owed, or for those of you playing at home, a substantial piece of our mounting national debt.

Regardless of politics or position on how government spends our money, there are rules and many are breaking them, resulting in a weakening of our country.

Do you cheat on your taxes?

Still Walking in Memphis

My grandmother Lillian was at our house and she was sad and scared. The heartsong of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been silenced in a city of music at 39. There was fear in many American households that night.

Real fear. Not the FauxFear peddled on Fox with endless loops of Barack Obama’s minister. Thirty years of ministry reduced to repeated 60 second clips of angry venting sandwiched between commercials for Cialis. This week it was reported that prior to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Senator Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton, hoping to prevent it told Richardson flatly, “He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win.” Sen. Clinton figures if she can’t hang Sen. Obama with the robes of Rev. Wright, the Republicans surely will. Anyone who believes that should read this.

It’s a story of four 60’s contemporaries, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jeremiah Wright. Faced with fear, three of the men used deferments and family connections to avoid military service. One, ‘after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines.’

Can you guess which one?

Random Passages – Three

“the relation of language to painting is an infinite relation. It is not the words that are imperfect or that, when confronted by the visible, they prove insuperably inadequate. Neither can be reduced to the other’s terms; it is in vain to say what we see; what we see never resides in what we say. And it is in vain that we attempt to show, by the use of images, metaphors, or similes, what we are saying; the space where they achieve their splendor is not that deployed by our eyes but that defined by the sequential elements of syntax.”

“This Is Not a Pipe” – Michael Foucault
p.9 Translators Introduction

Yeah. Where to grow with this one? The book is inspired by a René Magritte painting that mixes media in French irony. I’m off work today and just back from taking my son to see one of his favorite thin…, uh, artists, Julie Andrews. We had hoped to meet her as she signed her new autobiography at Borders – Downtown Crossing, but British protocol had other plans. Still carrying the weather and navigating ourselves and a parrot-handled umbrella through a turnstile door, we heard, “all the tickets are gone for Julie Andrews.” Huh? Tickets? Sadly, we trailed the real fans who arrived at 7:00am to score free tix to meet the woman who embodied two of the most enduring characters in film. I was concerned for Kyle, but he’s so understanding. Truly, he has both song and love in his heart, and Ms. Andrews is a big reason why. Thoughts of a payoff raced through my head. A couple hundred would buy a position in queue, right? It didn’t happen, but we were able to get a spot about 8 yards of high traffic carpet from the table where pen would grace paper.

Grace doesn’t walk, it floats, balancing on its head a legacy that will never fall. On air, she glided through polite applause and took her seat as a solitary press photographer documented the moment from within an empty area of red velvet past. Amateur photography was not allowed, but many of the 400 attendees showed the Brits how rules don’t apply to us and flashed away, in spite of the gentle pleadings of the Borders staff. I stored some respect with my camera in its bag. At 72, Dame Julie Elizabeth Andrews is an enduring, now backlit beauty. Kyle was awed, but ready to leave after a few minutes. Book signing is not a compelling spectator sport.

My intention today was to blog the Ansel Adams episode on “American Experience,” but I don’t need to. Its start provides my end. It features the late photographer John Szarkowski poignantly describing the infinite relation: “He found some way to put together those little fragments of the world in a way that transformed them into a picture in the same way a poet uses the same dictionaries the rest of us do. All the words are in there. All the words in the poem are in there in alphabetical order so you can find them. And it’s just a matter of taking a few of them and putting them in the right order. That’s all there is to it. So why is it that some lines of poetry, some sentences, grasp us, grip us, and we think that’s right, that’s true! I don’t know what it means, but it’s true! A good picture does something like that.”