Monthly Archives: December 2010

More on Captain Beefheart from Sasha Frere-Jones.

Steven Goldman’s latest take on Brian Cashman and the Yankees’ off-season:

On one hand, Cashman’s nerves are understandable. He has a reliable ace in CC Sabathia and then four question marks. However, you would think he would be excited about what a great opportunity the team has to get better and save money at the same time. As I’ve said throughout the offseason, the Yankees have so many near-ready pitching prospects that at least one of them should pay off. It’s entirely possible they go 0-for-8 or so in young starters in 2011, but it seems unlikely, especially given how talented some of these kids are. While only one of them seems to have true ace potential at this writing (young Mr. Betances), somewhere on this year’s Scranton or Trenton rosters lurks a pitcher or two who can fill out the back of a rotation better than Dustin Moseley or Sergio Mitre can, and that’s all the Yankees really need if their offense and defense are up to last year’s standards. What should be even better from Cashman’s point of view is not only can these tyro hurlers be good, they won’t be arbitration eligible for two or three years.

If all of Cashman’s fears are justified, then 2011 turns out to be a transition year as the Yankees break in their new rotation. Yes, the results-only crowd, which tends to include Yankees ownership, would consider that a disappointment. The problem is, as the Pavano-Wright epoch demonstrates, you can’t force these things. Even Cliff Lee by himself wouldn’t have made 2011 any more of a sure thing, though he would have reduced the number of gambles the Yankees would have to undertake. Penciling Freddy Garcia and his 4.50-5.00 ERA into the rotation won’t change a thing except to lower the team’s profit margins. If the Yankees want to take an injury-prone, low-strikeout fly-ball pitcher and stick him in Yankee Stadium and have him shell the Bleacher Creatures, that’s their right, but it isn’t smart and it isn’t better than letting a kid do the same thing, because the kid is cheaper and might actually get better.

The Braves have wisely signed Yohan Flande to a minor league deal.

Flande, a 24-year-old lefty pitcher, had been in the Phillies system since 2006 and spent most of the last two years at AA, where he went 14-12 with a 4.44 ERA, a 1.415 WHIP, and a 2.06 K/BB ratio.

If he joins the Braves AA team this year he’ll join an already strong roster of names that includes Brett Butts, J.J. Hoover, Benino Pruneda, Tyler Pastornicky, L.V. Ware, and the top-notch Jesus Sucre.

For the digital food nerd comes a cherce list from Serious Eats.

I thought of the old New Yorker theater the other day because it is where my brother and I saw “Tron.” Our old man dropped us off outside the theater and we asked some grown ups to get us in. Later, I saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” there. This was well past the theater’s prime, but I am fortunate enough to remember a bunch of the old movie theaters on the Upper West Side.

My favorite was The Regency which showed double features of old Hollywood movies. I’ll never forget seeing Harry Langdon’s “The Strong Man” (directed by Frank Capra). My bro did a spot-on imitation of Langdon by the time we got home.

 I also remember the Metro and the Cinema Village and the Thalia, and downtown there was St. Marks 80. What were some of your favorite spots?

More on Charles Portis. Here’s Charles McGrath, writing in the New York Times:

“True Grit,” Mr. Portis’s second novel, which was serialized by The Saturday Evening Post and appeared on the New York Times best-seller list for 22 weeks, is actually a divisive matter among Portis admirers. There are some, like the novelist Donna Tartt, who consider it his masterpiece, a work comparable to “Huckleberry Finn.” Others, like Mr. Rosenbaum, resent “True Grit” a little for detracting attention from Mr. Portis’s lesser-known but arguably funnier books: “Norwood” (1966), “The Dog of the South” (1979), “Masters of Atlantis” (1985) and “Gringos” (1991). The writer Roy Blount Jr., an old friend of Mr. Portis’s, suggested recently that Mr. Portis himself was a little embarrassed by the success of “True Grit.”

…What the other novels have in common with “True Grit” is their deadpan quality. Most comic novels — think of anything by P. G. Wodehouse, say, or Ring Lardner — are fairly transparent: they unabashedly try to be funny and let the reader in on the joke. The trick of Mr. Portis’s books, especially the ones told in the first person, is that they pretend to be serious.

…Mr. Portis evokes an eccentric, absurd world with a completely straight face. As a result there are not a lot of laugh-out-loud moments or explosive set pieces here. Instead of shooting off fireworks the books shimmer with a continuous comic glow.

Man, is there anything harder than writing funny? Look at sports writing, for example. How many humorists do we have? Hell, forget humorists, how many funny writers are there? Charles Pierce has a sense of humor and so does Pat Jordan. Richard Hoffer has a sly and subtle wit but he’s not around much these days. Closer to home, Emma has the rare gift of being funny without seeming to strain to get a laugh. Jay Jaffe and Steve Goldman can come up with some choice zingers, ditto for Repoz over at the Think Factory. Not easy, though.

Andy is going to retire, no, he’s coming back, no…

Today, the glass is less than half-full. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

“David and Goliath,” by Caravaggio (1599)

David Lebovitz does carrot cake.

Indeed.

Tame and El…classic Kut:

Flicks of Keith Haring…bombing, over at Subway Art Blog.

What New Yorkers are reading on the train.

[Photo Credit: New York Magazine]

Here’s a great gift idea for the movie nyerd in your life. Thomson is terrific fun to read even when you don’t agree with him.

Here’s a few other movie books of note…

“Lulu in Hollywood,” By Louise Brooks:

“The Parade’s Gone By,” By Kevin Brownlow.

“Picture,” By Lillian Ross:

“The Pat Hobby Stories,” By F. Scott Fitzgerald:

“Hitchcock,” By Francois Truffaut:

“Chinatown and The Last Detail: Two Screenplays,” By Robert Towne:

So Zack Greinke went to the Brewers and the Yanks are still waiting to hear from Andy Pettitte…Grienke wasn’t a New York Guy…

Things are slow for the Bombers as Christmas approaches. But that doesn’t mean the Yankee blogosphere is dormant–peep the latest from the fine folks at Replacement Level Yankees Weblog,  Pinstriped Bible, Was Watching, The Captain’s Blog,  River Ave Blues, It’s About the Money, Stupid, Yankeeist, Zell’s Pinstriped Blog,No Maas, and of course the Lo-Hud Yankees Blog.

In the meantime, dig this real rap session on the craft of hitting featuring Don Mattingly, Wade Boggs and Ted Williams. Peter Gammons is the writer, SI is the mag–back from April, 1986.

[Photo Credit: Nittanywhiteout.com, the Boston Globe.]

Long Sunday for the Giants. Long day. This one will sting for more than a minute…

Here’s a homemade hot coco recipe from the folks over at Serious Eats.

The Knicks lost their third straight last night, but UConn Women’s goes for a record-tying 88th consecutive win today. This afternoon also brings Giants and Eagles as well as Jets and Steelers. Greinke to the Brewers and also some big names moving in the NBA.

Should be a good sports Sunday, Cha-Cha. Enjoy.

The wife and I took a ride up to Port Chester this afternoon to check out the Mario Batali-Joe Bastianich food jernt, the Tarry Market.

Nice place. Not cheap, but no surprise there, right?

Then we stopped in for a bite next door at the Tarry Lodge:

Artichokes with mint.

Pizza with Guanciale, black truffles and a fried egg. Ka-Boom.

..yer listenin’ pleasures while yer doin’ the chores…

[Picture by Bags]

The passing of Don Van Vliet a/k/a Captain Beefheart this morning is news most people will react to with an unknowing shrug of the shoulders or a chuckle at his odd stage name. For the rest of us, this cuts deep.

Beefheart (along with his high school chum Frank Zappa) virtually invented avant-garde or underground rock music. At its heart, his music was based on the blues (the influence of Howlin’ Wolf on the Captain’s vocals is undeniable), but the blues was never a staid museum piece to Van Vliet – it was a living, breathing thing that he could mold, bend, even mangle to his liking. His early albums Safe as Milk and the double lp Trout Mask Replica (produced by Zappa) didn’t sell much, but found a home with adventurous and discerning listeners, including the famous or soon-to-be-famous, like John Lennon, Joe Strummer, Mark Mothersbaugh and Tom Waits.  Waits once said of Beefheart: “Once you’ve heard Beefheart, it’s hard to wash him out of your clothes. It stains, like coffee or blood.”  Beefheart continued through the 70s and early 80s with great albums, among them Lick My Decals Off, Baby, The Spotlight Kid, Bongo Fury (live, with Zappa & the Mothers), Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) and what may be his best and most accessible album, Clear Spot.

Personally, I first heard Trout Mask Replica when I was 18 or 19, and I was never the same.  It was so weird and off-kilter to my ears, and yet oddly welcoming: as if he was opening a door to somewhere exotic, but slightly forbidding, seeing if you were game for the journey.  I’ve never regretted accepting the invitation. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons spoke of hearing Trout Mask at 15 and thinking:

“…that it was the worst thing I’d ever heard. I said to myself, they’re not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn’t believe Frank Zappa could do this to me – and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realised they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I’d ever heard.”

Even though the Captain hadn’t made an album since 1982 (he’d retired to his other creative outlet, painting), the mark he left on modern music is as indelible as his album titles were indecipherable.  Thanks, Don…the dust blows forward and the dust blows back.