Local Creek Coughs Up Orange Water

That's Orval "Hoppy" Ray, and Hoppy is in the news because of his former hometown, Picher, Oklahoma. In 2006, the feds bought out everyone who lived in Picher. Why?

Because Picher is "a vacated mining town at the center of one of the nation's largest and most polluted toxic-waste sites...where kids suffered lead poisoning, where homes built atop underground mines plunged into the Earth and where the local creek coughs up orange water, laced with heavy metals."

Everyone left--except Hoppy (although eventually even he did).

Now the locals are back to celebrate the memory of Picher, and Hoppy? He's a self-published author. His latest offering, Just Call Me Hoppy "chronicles his memories of a pre-toxic Picher, a time he believes everyone else has forgotten."

Be sure to check out the article, via CNN.

I think it goes without saying what label this post gets.


More soon.

JS

Swine Flu Parties--Party Like It's H1N1

It's rare that I come up with a new blog post label. With something like 115 posts under my belt, recently I'd begun to feel like I'd come across any and all "themes" that my posts might have--Sports, Apple, Technology, Writing, and so on.

Well, today I'm adding a new one:

Don DeLillo Might Use This

And here's the story, via CNN.

The lead? Try this on for size:

Health experts are warning parents against holding "swine flu parties" in the hope of infecting their children with the H1N1 virus.

Ding!


More soon.

JS

Finding Neverland

I just finished reading David Gates's short story collection, The Wonders of The Invisible World (which is a must-read for all of you), and still having his voice in my head, I was excited to hear that he had offered up his thoughts on Michael Jackson's passing in this piece in Newsweek.

I urge you to give it a read, as it is fair, honest, and though-provoking, and provides us with commentary that isn't celeb-based or media-based--just good, intelligent writing on a matter that, in one way or another, interests us all.

Of course, I'd expect nothing less from David and I hope you enjoy the piece as much as I did.

Also, thanks to Allison, who tweeted about it.


More soon.

JS

The Chasm That Opens Swallows All That Is Good And Right

The passing of culturally significant individuals is always a major event here in the Land of the Free, home of the Jack Nicholson. But sometimes you lose someone and the chasm that opens swallows all that is good and right--at least for a moment--and when it's over, you tell yourself to remember where you were, what you were doing, so that you may recall the event in the future, so that you can tell your grandchildren: I remember where I was when I found out that Billy Mays died.

Mays was the direct-response advertisement salesman for touchstone products like OxiClean, Orange Glo, Kaboom, Engrave It, Handy Switch, iCan, Mighty Mendit, Might Putty, Mighty Putty Wood, Hercules Hook, AwesomeAuger, Steam Buddy, Zorbeez, Big City Slider Station, The Ding King, ESPN 360, Emergency! Defribrillator, Energize, Computer Wizard, Impact Gel Insoles, Omni DualSaw, Jupiter Jack, What Odor?, Soap-A-Dub-Slop Stopper, Tool Bandit, SIMONIZ Instant Shine, SIMONIZ fix it!, SIMONIZ fix it! PRO, Gopher, Samurai Shark, Grater Plater, Ragazzi's Pizza, and Green Now!

His energy was infectious, his smile, reassuring, and he wore a perfectly-groomed beard that said: I am an everyday Joe. I am just like you and I'm telling you, this product will work.

And we bought these products and were amazed when they actually did work.

So here's to you, Billy Mays. You may be gone, but your legacy remains. Every time someone gives the double thumbs-up, we'll remember you. Every time someone shouts to get their point across, we'll hear your voice. Every time someone fixes, fills, and seals all their problems, every time someone gets on the ball, every time someone gets the tough stuff, the stuff that others leave behind, the hard water build up, the soap scum, the ring around the toilet, the calcium, lime, and rust stains, you'll be there. Because direct-response advertisement salesmen like you only come along once in a lifetime.

Now, we can only consider ourselves lucky to have been there to witness it.

It's in your memory that this Sunday Review is dedicated.

*

-via The New York Times: For those who say that the media forced or invented coverage about Michael Jackson's death, Pt. 1.

-via The New York Times: For those who say that the media forced or invented coverage about Michael Jackson's death, Pt. 2.

-via The New York Times: David Segal makes a great case for why Michael Jackson's legacy is so important to our culture as a whole. As if it was up for debate, regardless.

*And as a side note, let me just say this: For all those asking why the big fuss over a pedophile, just remember one number. 100,000,000. That's how many copies (estimated) of Thriller have been purchased worldwide (although since the figure is always going up, some put it at closer to 109,000,00) since it's release in 1982.

The next closest album on the list?

AC/DC's Back In Black and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon, which both top off at the moment at around 45,000,000. American reactions of "he touched boys" and "stop making a big deal about a singer", while certainly not surprising, is typical of two things--xenophobia and racism. Out of the 100,000,000 Thriller copies sold, only about 28-30 million of those sales happened in the United States. And really, why bother to acknowledge sales, or fans, or in a bigger way, the existence, really, of anywhere else than the good old US of A, right?

Then there's the obvious undercurrent of racism in the matter. It's the typical "Draft 'em Out of High School!/?" debate. Major League Baseball has been signing/drafting baseball players out of high school for years. Decades, really. Nobody ever cared or bothered to stamp their feet about it, mostly because for a while, blacks weren't allowed to play at all, and even when they are now, they hardly make up a sizable portion of rosters.

Then there's the NBA. Hordes of young, talented black men were suddenly getting tremendous amounts of money in the late 90's and into the new millennium. Michael Jordan made that transition from "athlete" to "icon" (think of Jay-Z's line: "I'm not a businessman/I'm a business, man). Then people started getting concerned. Then there needed to be rules. Then we needed to "protect the players" and make sure they had a "fair choice" about "going to college."

And the same is true now.

It's a known fact that Elvis Presley, who is probably the only other entertainer in history who can even be somewhat compared to Michael Jackson (and yes, I said compared to Michael Jackson, not the other way around), battled many, many demons, one of which even included dating a 14-year-old Priscilla while he was *gasp* twenty-four.

But where does Elvis stand in our collective conscience?

And it's not even worth pointing out the fact that Michael Jackson was cleared of the supposed crimes that people still harp on--many minds were and will stay made up. And that's fine. I owe no allegiance to Michael Jackson besides respecting him musically. But for everyone out there, let's remember that the man had three kids and people who loved him as a family member. And as it may turn out, his death may have been been caused by medical negligence, which would be even sadder. In that vein, I urge you to show some respect, or even better, just shut your mouth.

-via The New York Times: This is the cover piece from the Times Magazine by Jonathan Mahler. It's about Detroit and the fall of the Black middle class there. It's important to focus on issues like this during these economic times, especially as a person who is fortunate enough to not have felt the effects. Yet.

-via CNN: Billy Mays, what more can I say? May you rest in peace in a place in great need of cheap, effective household cleaning and maintenance solutions.

-via Gizmodo: 3D Porn? Yes, please.

-via Deadspin: I spent far too much time watching the NBA Draft this past week and Deadspin managed to come up with the answer to something I did wonder about numerous times throughout--handshake body language. Patti Wood's observations were spot-on, I thought, especially regarding Jonny Flynn, who also wore my favorite suit of the night.

-via Mac Rumors: Since all major cellphone/cellphone operating system developers have taken their crack at Apple's iPhone (and failed, so far) I guess Sony shrugged their collective shoulders and said, "Sure, why not us too?" Go to where the puck will be, people. Not where it is now.

-via Cult of Mac: I keep resisting the urge to do a iPhone 3GS write-up, because really, what's the point, but these "Five Hidden Features" is too fun to pass up (and sadly, I found the last one on my own one day and thought it was super cool too. God, I'm lame).

*

That's all for now, folks. It's late on Sunday and Danielle is sick, which means I'll probably be sick soon (right in time for vacation) and I've got a Yankees game to watch. I'm getting over some things, personal things, and I'm hoping to attack this week head-on with renewed vigor. So far, Sunday has treated me well, and that's all I can ask for as I prepare. Hope yours has too.

JS

Quotes For A Hungover Thursday

From the David Gates short story The Crazy Thought, which is in the collection The Wonders Of The Invisible World:


"Moral support: a weird expression. Was the assumption that people's morals needed shoring up in times of stress? Or was it moral of you to lend support? This was one of the many things that flew apart if you looked too closely."


More soon.

JS

Press Hop

Due to some forseen and unforseen events popping up on my radar, I've neglected you all for a few days.

Unfortunately, I'm going to continue in that mode for probably a couple more.

Until then, here's a great video for you to watch, courtesy of Deadspin:




More soon.

JS

Answering A Question We Don't Want Answered

I mentioned this on Sunday--I don't have enough facts to make a statement on what I think about the current situation in Iran, although if what people are saying is true, about them hand-counting ballots, it does seem odd that they ripped through 40 million in two hours.

And while election strife certainly deserves our attention overall, let's face it, we all need something to hold our interest--on a personal note--and for me, that came this morning.

via Gizmodo, Kheirkhah, Boing Boing, and The NY Times, it appears that Iran State Media is, and has been for a while, photoshopping images before releasing them to the public.

Here's a recent crowd, only made to look crowd-ier:



Here's a missile launch before it was shopped:



And here's what people "saw":



All this, combined with reports of purposeful SMS and Twitter outages in Iran, and with the same kind of thing happening in China for a while now, it makes me think of that Einstein quote:

"I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones."

Maybe we're finding that answer out now.


*UPDATE 1* Within minutes of posting this, I saw a Twitter post from friend and fellow writer Hugh Ryan that contained an interesting link. Marjane Satrapi, who I've written about before, is claiming that Mousavi won the election and that she has proof. The authenticity of her document is still up in the air, but it's an interesting twist involving a familiar name. Stay tuned for more.

*UPDATE 2* Another great article, this time by Time.com, about Twitter and Iran. And if you thought Twitter wasn't a big deal, think again:

"The U.S. State Department doesn't usually take an interest in the maintenance schedules of dotcom start-ups. But over the weekend, officials there reached out to Twitter and asked them to delay a network upgrade that was scheduled for Monday night. The reason? To protect the interests of Iranians using the service to protest the presidential election that took place on June 12. Twitter moved the upgrade to 2 p.m. P.T. Tuesday afternoon — or 1:30 a.m. Tehran time."


More soon.

JS

What Would Al Pacino Wear?

I was looking for a picture for the top of this post when I started planning it this morning, and for some reason, I google'd "Game 7." The above picture, of Blair Betts, John Tortorella, and Chris Drury, came back in the first page of results. I moved right past it at first, as I was looking for something, I don't know, iconic or interesting, but then a number of things popped out at me and I decided to share:

-All three of the men in this picture are simultaneously wondering: What the fuck am I doing in this organization? And at least two of them are pronouncing it: organize-ation.

-Before Torts's bottle-throwing incident, I would have seen his facial expression as a positive--intensity, demanding, wears his heart on his sleeve. After the incident, I see it as a negative--immature, bratty, and not even-keeled.

-Speaking of Torts (since he became head coach, Danielle and I have been trying to come up with the best headline pun involving his (in)famous nickname. I still say that, after a "successful" season, the headline "Tort Reform" is the clear winner.), there can't possibly be another coach in the NHL with more of a knack for lame, ugly, cheap-looking ties than John Tortorella. Danielle has noticed it, and as she has admitted on numerous occasions, her favorite clothing style can be described as "dirty-80's." Every suit Tortorella owns looks like he stole it from Al Pacino's closet in 1983.

-Could there be a better summation of Chris Drury's time in New York than his facial expression?

-The Beatles sweatshirt was the first thing I noticed, but I took a while to realize why--this is the next frontier of in-game advertising. You're not going to tell me that Prudential or Geico or Preparation H or whoever wouldn't pay a fan, or at the very least, subsidize part of the cost of an obviously primo seat, in exchange for getting all logo-ed up? Small dollar amount for one or two people and big bucks to buy full arena seat rings? This could really work. And they could have a sense of humor with it too--a Weight Watchers ad on a fat guy, a Revlon ad on an ugly chick. I missed my calling, I swear.

*

Anyway, there was a bunch of interesting sports-related stories floating around this morning, and with no NBA or NHL and a Yankees off night, I needed my fix:

-Apparently, HBO decided in their infinite post-Sopranos wisdom that giving Joe Buck his own show would be a ratings booster. I'm sure their thinking went something along the lines of:

Well--Joe Buck announces a lot of live sporting events that a lot of people watch, so if he has his own show, call it, Joe Buck Live, a lot of people will probably watch that too!

Except what HBO failed to realize is that the reason people tend to watch those games is because of the near-superhuman athletes throwing their bodies and some sort of ball around a packed enclosure. And besides eating or drinking, what they're usually doing while watching is complaining about having to hear Joe Buck talk, that is, until they just press mute. So really, this show is even worse, because he'll talk more AND we'll have to look at his horse-like face the whole time. Good work.

Anyway, the first show aired last night, and for reasons unknown to me (I feel like I use that expression a lot), Artie Lange was a guest. And either Artie is off the wagon again, or they spiked his bottled water with crystal meth, because he went off the deep end. Luckily, Deadspin posted an HBO-website exclusive clip of unseen footage, cleverly titled "Overtime." Please do yourself a favor and watch, and if my plea isn't enough, here's the first two lines of dialogue:

Joe Buck: Anything else you'd like to get off your chest, Artie? You bastard?
Artie Lange: Yeah--the jizz you shot on it.

I smell an Emmy.

-Naturally, after they revived Joe Buck's agent, manager, mother, and four or five of his corporate masters including FOX and Busch, all put in a call to him to immediately find out when and where he lost his goddamn mind. So now he's all apologetic and waxing moral-etic about the fucking guest that he booked for his fucking show. At least we have blogs like Deadspin around to point out the complete hypocrisy in a situation like this.

-Word on the street is that with their young stud QB coming along just fine, the Jets now want to give him a target taller than 5'11" (yes, that was a Laverneaus Coles dig). Plaxico Burress? In the green and white? Sure, why not. Just stipulate that he has to use some of his signing bonus to buy a shoulder holster. Anyway, today those talks seem to have cooled down, but this is the NFL we're talking about. The only person who knows what teams are doing is Chris Mortensen, and he knows nothing, so there you go.

-Bill Simmons's finals wrap-up column has been posted, and at just a smidge over 5,000 words, it's almost readable in one sitting! Considering Simmons is a huge Lakers/Kobe hater, I thought it was impressive that he did the honorable thing--back-handedly trashed Kobe for the duration of the piece and ended with:

But I do know this: What Kobe Bryant accomplished over the past 20 months ranks up there with anything that ever happened in the National Basketball Association. He walks among the NBA gods now. Like it or not.

And even there, he still had to throw in the "like it or not."

This is why I love Bill Simmons.

-And you said people don't watch hockey.

-No, really. People watch hockey. See.

-Fuck it, I know you didn't watch. Here's EJ Hradek's Top 10 2009 Stanley Cup Moments. Fuck.


More soon.

JS

How To Make Yourself Happy On A Budget

I upgraded.

I have a sickness, I know.

And what's worse is that now I've sucked Danielle in.

We went on Friday night--and as you'll see below, not a moment too soon--to pre-order our iPhone 3G S's. Danielle, new to AT&T, me upgrading a phone I got three months ago. This Friday morning, before I go to Vermont for the weekend to visit my fellow misfits at Bennington, we'll go wait outside the store (we're planing on being there an hour early) and our new cases will hopefully have arrived by then, and we'll both be happy. Right?

Right?

Matter of fact, let's get to The Sunday Review before I start thinking about this too much.

*
via The New York Times: I won't claim to know too much about the current political situation in Iran, but the coverage of their recent election strife deserves to bat leadoff this week, as it seems to be one of those fabled this-is-why-it's-so-great-to-live-in-America moments. Opposition party members being arrested, mass protests, calls for the election to be canceled--and really, who knows who is telling the truth? All I can do is send out positive vibes and hope for the best.

via The New York Times: Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins on their Stanley Cup victory. Game 7 was intense, exciting, and every play counted--can't ask for much more than that. And with Sid the Kid *finally?* getting his first Cup at the ripe old age of 21, who knows what's in store for him in the years to come? And as Jeff Klein and Stu Hackel point out in this article, with this victory, the Penguins management may have put the finishing touches on what will quickly become the blueprint to success in the new NHL.

via The New York Times: This is an opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof regarding the anniversary of Nixon's War on Drugs and how the forty years since have been nothing but a failure. Bonus points for this quote, given by a former Seattle chief of police:

“We’ve spent a trillion dollars prosecuting the war on drugs,” Norm Stamper, a former police chief of Seattle, told me. “What do we have to show for it? Drugs are more readily available, at lower prices and higher levels of potency. It’s a dismal failure.”

via The New York Times: This is a piece by Ralph Blumenthal about the link between the leaders of the punk rock movement, men like Tommy Ramone, Chris Stein, Lenny Kaye, and Handsome Dick Manitoba, and the Jewish faith. I love this quote:

“The shpilkes, the nervous energy of punk, is Jewish,” Mr. Beeber wrote. “Punk reflects the whole Jewish history of oppression and uncertainty, flight and wandering, belonging and not belonging, always being divided, being in and out, good and bad, part and apart.”

via The New York Times: John Harwood tackles what can only be seen as bizarro politics--President Obama heaping the praise on Ronald Reagan, and why many Republicans seem to have an "increasingly ambiguous position" on The Great Communicator.

via CNN: I mentioned the switch from analog to digital broadcasting that took place on Friday in my last blog post. Naturally, the FCC received 317, 450 phone calls on Friday alone, most of which went something alone the lines of:

Confused Caller: Hi, my TV doesn't work anymore.

FCC: Were you aware of the switch to digital broadcasting that was happening today?

Confused Caller: What?

FCC: If you don't have digital cable or a converter box for your analog signal, you won't be able to watch television, sir.

Confused Caller: My TV doesn't have a picture, right.

FCC: Sir, you're going to need a converter box. Sir, do you have a relative who might be able to help you with making the switch to a digital signal?

Confused Caller: What?

via Gizmodo: This sentence pretty much sums it up:

"...an independent study conducted by Forrester Research found that iPhone owners are better educated, younger, more affluent, and even more productive than their non-iPhone-using counterparts."

via ESPN: While the players involved make this fairly boring to me, it's good to finally see some juice between "rival" teams. There's too much fanny-patting in pro sports today. Too many smiles, too many shrugs, too many players who, understandably so, don't get "their uniforms dirty" as the baseball adage goes. Free Agency killed the grudge in pro sports, so I guess I'll take what I can get, even if it involves a Frankie "One-Inning Wonder" Rodriguez and Brian "Who?" Bruney.

via Lifehacker: The good folks at the best site for "hacking life" provide us with the goods again--The 10 best how-to cooking videos on the net. I like to think I'm fairly competent at nine of the ten skills shown, and still I learned some new tricks while watching.

via The Boy Genius Report: As I alluded to earlier, and as The BGR is reporting, if you didn't pre-order your iPhone 3G S by Saturday (yesterday), the only way you're going to get it is by waiting on line at an Apple/AT&T store. And again, I can confirm this, as the lady in AT&T told Danielle and I when she heard we came spur of the moment on Friday night instead of waiting for Saturday morning, "Oh, you guys are lucky then, because today is the cut-off for people who want them delivered on the 19th."

via MacRumors: New 15" MacBook Pro will get over 8 hours of battery life. 'Nuff said.

via Michael Ruhlman: This is the most original Internet contest I've seen in a while--make a BLT From Scratch. That means grow the lettuce, grow the tomato, bake the bread, cure the bacon, make the mayo. I've put some thought into this and I don't think there is another "dish" you could do this with. Leave it to a pork slut like Ruhlman to think of it.

*

As I mentioned earlier, I'll be at Bennington this upcoming weekend to celebrate the memory of a lost friend and the new graduates, so there won't be a Sunday Review.

I took this photo the other night as I sat working on a new chapter of Whitney:

I've since finished the chapter, titled "Papers," which I think is one of my best so far, and I guess I have the cat to thank.

With the Yanks up by two touchdowns, I think I'll go enjoy the rest of this Sunday, or at least part of it, on my bike.

Hope you find something equally as enjoyable.

JS

Nothing But Black And White Snow

-In the spirit of Artificial Night's theme, it's with some glee that I approach the fact that today is the nation-wide switch to digital broadcasting. I don't know why, but the idea of millions of television sets showing nothing but black and white snow, making that disconnected noise, gets me excited for the future. The fact that it is so easy for stations to just cut off their signal makes me nervous, I won't lie, but the chaos factor is so high here, I can't help but giggle.

Or maybe the Sox sweeping the Yankees just has me acting disturbingly morbid and out of whack. Could be.

Either way, here's a Lifehacker post on how to prepare for the switch, if you even need to, and here's the obligatory CNN article that sums up all the shit we already know and packages it in between a personal story meant to resonate deep inside the reader.

-Bill Simmons posted on Twitter today about an interview he did with Avi Zenilman of newyorker.com regarding his new book. Here's the interview and here's the book. Not sure if I'm going to buy it yet--don't know if I care for 700 pages of basketball, even if Simmons is the one wrote it. Although really, could it be that much longer than one of his NBA Playoffs preview columns?

-David Fincher apparently wasn't busy making some dark, depressing, long-ass movie that appeals to me and like, 14 other people, and got convinced to do an Apple commercial. Oh, and it's the first iPhone 3G S commercial too. Check it out:



-As someone who is always on the lookout for better digital audio quality (although with FLAC, it's hard to find something better), I found this interesting. Gizmodo posted the results of their "Great MP3 Bitrate Test." Looks like 256kbps won out, which I'm not shocked by, and they also discovered that the better the audio equipment, the higher the threshold for people to hear a difference was, something I'm also not shocked by. I still stand behind my Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 computer speakers. I do all my music-listening on them, have used them for various-sized parties, and they've never disappointed once. And considering they cost around $220, I can't and won't complain.

*

That's all I've got for now. I'm in a major, major funk today, as you can probably imagine, although I think Danielle and I are going to pre-order our 3G S's tonight, so, the junkie that I am, will be quieted for a few hours at the very least.

And the thought of all those blank TV's.

They keep me going.


More soon.

JS

Looks Like He Forgot: The Power of the Mental Edge

These are some of my tweets from last night:

"Burnett is really fucking me up right now. This piece of shit couldn't lose last year, and now he's at 50+ in the 2nd. FML."
about 14 hours ago from Tweetie

"You know things are going bad for the Yanks when I decide that the 3rd inning is a good time to re-set my cable box."
about 14 hours ago from Tweetie

"Sox have a complete mental edge over the Yanks right now. Keep thinking of Yogi's quote, "We've been beating these guys for 100 years."
about 13 hours ago from Tweetie

"Going to sleep angry. First game of the year to really upset me. Yanks never had a chance tonight & that's not the mark of a winning team."
about 11 hours ago from Tweetie

Thankfully, there was a great Stanley Cup Game 6 on (and apparently some basketball) to take my mind off things. Because I'm not happy right now. Those two piles pictured above have the following lines for this year: Sabathia & Burnett.

Now, okay, I'll be fair and say that Sabathia has been decent. Still not lock-it-down ace form, but decent, and not far off his career averages. Those numbers still don't match up with his salary, but that's the tragedy of modern sports.

Burnett is a different story.

I don't know if Yankees fans or AL East fans or anybody who watches baseball remembers the pitcher Burnett was last year, but he was awesome. Dominant. Great fastball, nasty breaking stuff, and best of all, his pitching IQ seemed to be up. Then he came over to the Bronx and all we heard about was his relationship with Roy Halladay, and how he learned how to pitch finally, and we believed it, because we'd witnessed it.

Looks like he forgot.

For the second start in a row, it didn't look like Burnett had any idea where his fastball was going once it left his hand. And when you can't locate your fastball, your breaking stuff is useless, and so he was useless. And as he is going to learn quickly, looking useless against the Red Sox is not smart when you're wearing pinstripes.

What kills me is that this is not a National League import we're discussing here. There should be no need for adjustments or learning curves or unfamiliarity with lineups. Burnett pitched in the AL East! He literally played almost the exact same schedule for the last three seasons, except now it's easier, because he faces the Blue Jays more than the Yankees!

Get your shit straight, A.J. Stop worrying about the cream pies and the mustache and just pitch. Give Doc Halladay a call, go to a strip club, release some stress--do something--and come back ready to give your team a chance to win every fifth day.

*

What's more distressing to me about this situation is bigger than Burnett or Sabathia. It's something I touched on in my tweets, and something the NY Daily News's John Harper wrote about this morning:

The Red Sox now hold the mental edge in this rivalry.

For years, the Red Sox were the whipping boys for the Yanks. Hot streaks, cold streaks, winning, losing, it didn't matter. The Yankees and their fans always felt that they were in a game against the Sox, regardless of the score, because they were. Pedro's "The Yankees are my Daddy," comment perfectly captured the extent of their dominance, and while it didn't always transfer into obvious statistics, it was amazing to see Pedro, a modern-day Koufax, out and out admit that one team had defeated the spirit of another team. There's no extra BP, no extra infield practice, no extra time in the gym in the world that can change something like that.

Then 2004 happened and everything changed.

Papi and Manny and Dave Roberts and Mo and 3-0 and 3-1 and 3-2 and series tied and Damon's grand slam and right before our eyes, the demons were exorcised, the lights were turned on, the earth began rotating in the opposite direction, hell froze over--whatever you want to call it--it happened, and the pecking order became clear.

I don't know what has to happen to get that mental edge back. And I do believe it has to be gotten back completely. There are no 50/50 splits when it comes to Yanks/Red Sox. There is a winner and a loser, and that's it.

Last night I watched as David Ortiz, who's OBP is sub-.300, hit a goddamn bomb off of Burnett. Dead center, no doubt about it, curtain call, just like old times. Right then, at 2-0 in the second inning, I knew the Yankees would lose.

And the Yankees knew it too, and that's the power of the mental edge.

Chien-Ming Wang is pitching tonight, and I'm already preparing myself to see Phil Hughes pitching by the 3rd inning.

That's the power of the mental edge.

Publicly, the Yankees won't let this 6-0 Red Sox season series statistic bother them. Jeter said it, Burnett said it, and Girardi said it. But they better let it start bothering them soon, because Jeter isn't getting any younger, and those titles he won are only getting further away, and instead of Burnett hitting teammates with cream pies, he's going to be ducking the flying debris as he walks off the mound, another crooked number on the scoreboard.

And Girardi is in the worst spot of all. Taking 27 as his jersey number to signify the next World Series win was a bold move, but 27 will quickly become the amount of weeks, days, and then minutes before he is fired, another wannabe who tried and failed to reel in the big one while under the thumb of the Yankees organization.

*

I am an eternal optimist when it comes to sports. It's what keeps me going, what keeps me believing. This is why the mental edge the Red Sox have over the Yankees is even harder for me. I don't want to believe it exists, but deep down, I can't escape it.

Here's my latest tweet from this morning:

Just pulled all the old staples out of my office bulletin board. By hand. Hopefully I've atoned for all of the Yankees sins, but I doubt it.
41 minutes ago from web

Right now, I don't know what else I can do.

That's the power of the mental edge.


More soon.

JS

Do Hard Things

You came to check out my blog, and if you've read it at all before, you figured you knew what this morning's post would be about, didn't you?

Well no, no iPhone 3G S/Snow Leopard/Macbook Pro wrap-up. We all know the story with that. That can come another day.

Instead, I want you to check out the story of Zac Sunderland.

He's on the cover of this month's ESPN The Magazine, and he deserves it.

You should read his story because you weren't doing what he did when you were 17.

Shit, I know I wasn't.

Check out his blog too.

Because again, you weren't doing this when you were 17.


More soon.

JS

Hell Of A Damn Grave. Wish It Were Mine.

There's nothing better to me than books, movies, and music.

Well, maybe there's cooking and gadgets.

And sports.

And sneakers.

But artistically speaking, books, movies, and music is where it's at. So forgive me for being so damn excited, even after hitting the occasional speed bump this weekend, when I show you my finds.

First, I got my hands on:



which is a Blood Pact exclusive (Alkaline Trio's fan club, which I should just pay to be a part of) and now I've got it. The quality isn't awesome, but I'll deal.

Second, Danielle and I watched:



The Visitor on Friday, which was absolutely amazing. I was peeing excitedly about it on Twitter that night, and my mom even took the plunge and she agreed with me on the phone last night that it's a terrific movie.

Third, I'm three stories into:



and I'm loving it already. Great collection of stories. One of those I'd like to write like this books.

I'm a competitive person and nothing gets me more excited to write than having great art all around me. On that note, let's fire up The Sunday Review.

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via The New York Times: Roger Federer completed a career Grand Slam this morning, defeating Robin Soderling in straight sets, a match that included a soon-to-be-arrested Barca fan running out on to the court and actually coming into contact with Federer. I would be more excited about this if he had defeated Rafael Nadal, but regardless, it's still a pretty big deal.

via The New York Times: This is a review of Gerald Martin's Gabriel García Márquez: A Life. My favorite bit is Márquez, who has already written an autobiography, remarking, "Oh well, I suppose every self-respecting writer should have an English biographer."

via The New York Times: This is a review by T.C. Boyle of John Updike's final collection, My Father's Tears. Do I really need to say much more?

via The New York Times: This is a review by Billy Bradley of Bill Russell's Red And Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend. Again, do I really need to say much more?

via The New York Times: I suppose this is a review by Kim Severson of Robert Kenner's documentary Food, Inc., but what's most important is the notion that "movies about food used to make you want to eat," and now they don't. I think this is an important shift, as this type of projected anger can usually lead to shifts in collective conscience. And when talking about food and America, this can only be a good thing.

via The New York Times: Just in case the last article got you fired up, check out this photo spread of Flex Mussels on the Upper East Side. I will be going there soon.

via The New York Times: Ever felt swindled by the blurbs on movie posters? Ever wondered who in their right mind called Kevin James's performance in Paul Blart: Mall Cop "scintillating"? This article by Brooks Barnes answers, or attempts to, those questions.

via Gizmodo: Here's a review of the Palm Pre, a phone that has a bottom edge so sharp, it can cut a block of cheese. 'Nuff said. And you should know that originally, this was going to be a Gizmodo post from this morning which contained shots of the "new iPhone" using its "front-facing camera" in "video chat mode," but when I double-checked it again before sitting down to write, turns out somebody just smudged and fucked with a Skype screenshot. So, uh, yeah. WWDC. Tomorrow.

via Wikipedia: This is just the Wikipedia page for the Wes Anderson movie, The Royal Tenenbaums. I'd prefer you watch the movie, but if you can't, at least read about it. Danielle and I watched it last night and I just love this movie so damn much. To celebrate, here's a Swedish film school remake of one of my favorite scenes:



via The New York Daily News: Athletes use Twitter. Some people make fake pages for celebrities. Twitter is popular with those younger types. Yawn. As usual though, Bill Simmons has written a better article about basically the same thing.

via ESPN's Page 2: Everyone made a big deal over the fact that Lebron didn't shake hands with anyone or speak with the media after getting bounced out of the Eastern Conference Finals. Old white guys getting mad about the actions of young, rich black men? Go figure. Good thing we have writers like LZ Granderson to point out the obvious:

There was nothing wrong with Lebron's actions.

Even better, here's what Bill Simmons had to say about it:

When you caused a controversy by storming off the court after Game 6 and refusing to attend your press conference, you did something even better: You brought us back to the days when "rivals" didn't hug each other like Red and Andy after every game, when NBA stars actually took losing personally and treated their peers like enemies instead of friends. I loved it. That was an old-school move. And as reader Brian Naftaly points out, you accomplished something even better: You made your teammates cover you in the postgame press conference, marking the first time all series they did something or helped you in any way. That was genius. Hold your head up high, LeBron James. You could not have done more with the possible exception of coaching the team … and really, that might not have been a bad idea.

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That's all for now, kids. Yankees just won a close one, the Sox lost, campus is cleared out and quiet again, Danielle and the cat are asleep, and there's still plenty of Sunday left.

Enjoy it.

JS

The Apple Shot

With the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference set to being on Monday, rumors about OS 3.0 and the new iPhone and more quietly so, Snow Leopard, have began to reach a fever pitch.

There's been plenty of the good, the bad, and the ugly--if I allow myself to look at one more blurry picture/re-creation of a phone that nobody has gotten their hands on yet, I might snap, I swear--but I decided to round up some of the best previews/apps/and just overall Apple-ness that I've found lately, because really, who isn't excited?

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via iLounge: This is a "report card" style list of the "20 new iPhone features that virtually everyone wants," or at the very least, Jeremy Horwitz. While I agree with most of the list, #20 is my #1--true multitasking. Push Notification is sure to be sweet, but true multitasking would just take it to the next level.

via The Green Room Blog: This could probably be considered a report card as well, just with a better design, courtesy of Remy. Bonus points for color-coding the likelihood of each feature.

via The iPhone Blog: After two rundowns of features, this beast needs a name, right? iPhone Video sounds right to me.

via Cult of Mac: Not interested in making the switch to the new iPhone right off the bat, but worried that your already year-old iPhone 3G won't make it another year? The solution is simple--make your iPhone warranty work for you.

via Cult of Mac: Regardless of what iPhone you settle on, there's one and only one app you need: Flight Control. This will be the best 99 cents you spend in the App Store, I promise.

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There's plenty of other rumors/info/blurry pictures out there, so feel free to hit me up with anything you find that's worthy of my attention.


More soon.

JS

Make Them Smoke

Before I give the final installment (Part VI) of my Bukowski excerpts, I thought I'd share this amazing find--Peanuts as written by Charles Bukowski:



There's a bunch of these floating around, and while I can't find the original source, it's just too fucking classic to pass up.

Anyway, here's the final excerpt. I hope everyone who has been following these, writer or not, has gotten something out of them. I know I have. Enjoy:

For my own writing, I like to watch the boxing matches, watch how the left jab is used, the overhand right, the left hook, the uppercut, the counter punch. I like to watch them dig in, come off the canvas. There is something to be learned, something to be applied to the art of writing, the way of writing. You have just one chance and then it's gone. There are only pages left, you might as well make them smoke.


More soon.

JS

Contest

Part V of the Bukowski excerpts:

So, I haven't written for 3 nights. Should I go mad? Even at my lowest times I can feel the words bubbling inside of me, getting ready. I am not in a contest. I never wanted fame or money. I wanted to get the word down the way I wanted it, that's all. And I had to get the words down or be overcome by something worse than death. Words not as precious things but as necessary things.

Yet when I begin to doubt my ability to work the word I simply read another writer and then I know that I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself: to do it right, with power and force and delight and gamble. Otherwise, forget it.


More soon.

JS

Jammed In With The People

Yesterday, I gave you Part I, II, and III of my favorite excerpts from Charles Bukowski's The Captain Is Out To Lunch And The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship. I've got three more marked down for today, and then I'll return to my normal blogging ways.

Hope you all are enjoying this as much as I am.

And if not, fuck off.

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Here's Part IV:

Now I'm tired of writing about poets. But I will add that they are hurting themselves by living as poets instead of as something else. I worked as a common laborer until I was 50. I was jammed in with the people. I never claimed to be a poet. Now I am not saying that working for a living is a grand thing. In most cases it is a horrible thing. And often you must fight to keep a horrible job because there are 25 guys standing behind you ready to take the same job. Of course, it's senseless, of course it flattens you out. But being in that mess, I think, taught me to lay off the bullshit when I did write. I think you have to get your face in the mud now and then, I think you have to know what a jail is, a hospital is. I think you have to know what it feels like to go without food for 4 or 5 days. I think that living with insane women is good for the backbone. I think you can write with joy and release after you've been in the vise. I only say this because all the poets I have met have been soft jellyfish, sycophants. They have nothing to write about except their selfish non-endurance.

Yes, I stay away from the POETS. Do you blame me?


More soon.

JS

Move Toward The Mirage

One last Bukowski quote before I leave work for the day:

Who knows? Some day soon I might be bedridden. I'll lay there and paint on sheets of paper tacked to the wall. I'll paint them with a long brush and probably even like it.

But right now, it's the faces of the horseplayers, cardboard faces, horrible, evil, blank, greedy, dying faces, day after day. Tearing up their tickets, reading their various papers, watching the changes on the toteboard as they are being ground away to less and less, as I stand there with them, as I am one with them. We are sick, the suckerfish of hope. Our poor clothing, our old cars. We move toward the mirage, our lives wasted like everybody else's.


More soon.

JS

Down To One

Continuing with today's theme (and most likely tomorrow's because I keep finding stuff I like), here's another great excerpt from Bukowski's The Captain Is Out To Lunch And The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship:

9/26/91--11:36pm

A title. My mind was blank. It was getting chilly. Being an old fart, I thought it might be best to get my jacket. I took the escalator down from the 4th floor. Who invented the escalator? Moving steps. Now, talk about crazy. People going up and down escalators, elevators, driving cars, having garage doors that open at the touch of a button. Then they go to health clubs to work the fat off. In 4,000 years we won't have any legs, we'll wiggle along on our assholes, or maybe we'll just roll along like tumbleweeds. Each species destroys itself. What killed the dinosaurs was that they ate everything around and then had to eat each other and that brought it down to one and the son-of-a-bitch just starved to death.


More soon.

JS

Booze, Horses, Poetry, And Women: Charles Bukowski Was A Mac Guy

After finishing Rick Moody's The Ice Storm and loving it, I wanted to make sure my next read was a good one. I'm finally picking up some steam in terms of Whitney, and I don't want anything to get in the way.

I've got a stack of books to read and besides the Cheever bio, which I'm saving for whatever kind of trip/vacation I go on this summer, there is no order in which the books need to be read.

I decided to go with:



The Captain Is Out To Lunch... is a collection of Bukowski's letter/journal entries from the early 90's with illustrations by R. Crumb. This combo alone makes the book worth it. They had two other collaborations--illustrated short stories (here and here)--and I have both of those too.

Bukowski says early on that he never had any use for keeping a journal, but he did it finally because "someone told me it would be a good idea." I read 100 pages last night because it's just that good--any Bukowski fan would recognize the themes of booze, horses, poetry, and women, but it goes deeper than that. Now 71, he confronts death with the same vigor he approaches everything in his writing, remarks on the benefits of having a pool and a hot tub, and how lucky his nine cats are.

The best part?

He typed all of it on a "Macintosh."

He even talks about taking a computer class and how much he loves the new technology.

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What I've decided to do for today (and maybe tomorrow) is share with you all some of the best of what The Captain Is Out To Lunch... has to offer. There's so much in here about life, and about writing, and about just making it through the fire, and it's all pretty inspiring, while still keeping it light and humorous.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here's the first bit:

There's nothing to stop a man from writing unless that man stops himself. If a man truly desires to write, then he will. Rejection and ridicule will only strengthen him. And the longer he is held back the stronger he will become, like a mass of rising water against a dam. There is no losing in writing; it will make your toes laugh as you sleep; it will make you stride like a tiger; it will fire the eye and put you face to face with Death. You will die a fighter, you will be honored in hell. The luck of the word. Go with it, send it. Be the Clown in the Darkness. It's funny. It's funny. One more new line...

JS

The Collision Of Science And Sports, And Why Bill Simmons Is Taking The Side Of His Faith

As a Yankees fan, I've rooted and continue to root for steroid users.

At first, I was angry about this. Eventually, I accepted it and now I'm moved on. As a matter of fact, I'm okay with it. I still stand behind the fact that I am incapable of seeing the difference, theoretically speaking, of a syringe filled with testosterone and a syringe filled with cortisone. The lengths to which someone will go to gain a competitive advantage is a self-policing progression--when something goes too far, players just won't do it.

The collision of science and sports is scarily similar to the collision of science and religion (Yes, I watched The Da Vinci Code on TNT this weekend and saw Angels & Demons last week). We would all prefer to believe in the myths and the traditions and the history and the idea that things happen for reasons beyond our control and instead of questioning the why and the how, we should just shut up and enjoy our blessings.

I believe we've already seen the pendulum begin to swing in the other direction--away from Congressional hearings and around-the-clock news coverage about whose cap size got bigger from last season. The failure of Serena Robert's novel, er, nonfiction account of the "real" A-Rod, combined with the lack of talk in general about his spring-training admissions, just shows how ready the public is to move on. (The fact that the Yankees have played extremely well since his return and moved into first place in the AL East has NOTHING to do with this, I'm sure.)

That being said, it's with a conflicted mind that I approach the current state of David "Big Papi" Ortiz.

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Papi has taken several years off my life since 2003. For a while, I didn't think he was capable of hitting anything but a double or a home run off of Yankees pitching. He was so comfortable up at the plate against anyone in pinstripes that he could have pounded the metal equivalent of a pedal strap into the left batter's box, just to help anchor that back foot a little better. He never got plunked, never got pushed off the plate, and lefty or righty match-up, it didn't matter, the balls just kept jumping off his bat.

What made this situation worse was that he was impossible to hate.

We've all played the "if you could kill one person without the threat of any and all legal repercussions, who would it be" game. Various Boston Red Sox players are certainly on my short list (number one of which is Curt Schilling), but never has Papi even sniffed that sector of "the rivalry." He just looks too damn nice, too damn fun, too damn everything. He smiles while he plays (half) the game, and isn't that what we want at the end of the day? To see professional athletes enjoying their job the way we envision ourselves enjoying it?

So now that he's a shell of his former self (and by former self, I mean the self he magically transformed into when he came to the Red Sox in 2003 after embracing mediocrity for five years in Minnesota), and while it's tough to get on the guy too much, the time has come to admit that there's a good chance Papi was dabbling in the steroidic arts.

Here's my point illustrated in pictures:

This guy:



Became this guy:



After meeting this guy:



And now this guy:



Has become this guy:



Because he's hitting like this guy:



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The reason that this is on my mind this morning is because of Bill Simmons. His new article in ESPN The Mag addresses Papi's current situation, and while he doesn't deny that Papi may have been taking steroids, he seems to think the issue is more about Ortiz's age and how he may be older than we think.

I've been reading Simmons for a while now, and I'm not shocked by his stance. What makes him a great sports writer is that he embraces sports the same way that we as fans embrace sports:

By taking religion's side in the sports/science collision debate.

He's taking religion's side, even with the pictorial evidence.

Even with the Manny link.

Even with the Dominican link.

Because even with the numbers telling one story--

Bill still wants to believe in his faith.

Because that's what faith is, isn't it?

And even with the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry set to renew again next week, I think I'm going to side with faith too--because Papi deserves it.

Just like when I felt that Giambi deserved it, just like I feel now that A-Rod deserves it.

And because I've moved on.

Because I've rooted, and continue to root, for steroid users.


More soon.

JS