Monthly Archives: May 2011

Last Sunday, there was a long piece in the Times about Paddy Chayefsky’s process writing the screenplay for “Network”:

Thirty-five years later, “Network” remains an incendiary if influential film, and its screenplay is still admired as much for its predictive accuracy as for its vehemence: a relentless sense of purpose that is even more palpable in the files Chayefsky left behind upon his death in 1981.

These papers were acquired by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in 2001 but not examined much after their cataloging in the library’s Billy Rose Theater Division was completed in 2006. The rarely seen documents on “Network” speak loudly for their absent author, documenting the angst and animus that consumed him on this highly personal project.

Working in an era of paper, pencils and typewriters, Chayefsky seemingly committed to print every observation and self-criticism that he thought of. His “Network” archives provide a road map of the paths taken and not taken in its narrative, but they also reveal a visceral rawness that is scarce in today’s age of digital files and screenwriting by committee. They tell the story of an author’s struggles to determine what he wanted to say about a medium that would do anything for an audience’s attention.

Worth checking out.

[Pictures by Michael Rougier and Terry O’Neill]

Rat-a-tat-tat:

Mets owner Fred Wilpon

Jeffrey Toobin’s profile of Fred Wilpon in the New Yorker was published online yesterday. The profile, intended to help shed the belief that Wilpon was complicit in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and improve his reputation, did that, but it made news in a much different way. It showed that Wilpon has more than a little bit of George Steinbrenner in him. In print, he criticized three of his prized players: Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, and David Wright. He even called his team “shitty.”

The Mets have not had a good seven months. Wait, let’s dial this back, they haven’t had a good go of it since September 2007. Most recently, however — the past seven months — their financial troubles have dominated the sports and news sections of the local papers, due in large part to the Wilpons’ victimization in the Madoff scandal, as Toobin dutifully reported. The Mets’ average home attendance this season is 28,565 (68.3 percent capacity), ranking them 14th in the Majors, according to the latest MLB Attendance Report.

The finances aside, the timing for this article, and the commentary therein, couldn’t be worse. The Mets just got blasted in the last two games of the Subway Series, having been outscored 16-6 by the Yankees. Furthermore, since the article was published on an off-day, the story’s shelf life was extended an extra 24 hours. Players, coaches, the manager Terry Collins, anyone involved with the organization, will have to answer questions about this for another day. Once again, the focus on the Mets has shifted off the field.

Yankee fans have seen this many times over the years with George Steinbrenner: Pick a Billy Martin hiring-firing episode; the Howard Spira investigation of Dave Winfield; the Don Mattingly mustache/mullet fiasco; Hideki Irabu is a “fat pussy toad;” the David Wells and Gary Sheffield negotiations. Hell, pick one. We came to expect stuff like this over the years with George, and then Hank filled the void, even if he was a pale comparison to his old man.

But for Wilpon, who as Toobin shows, is a diehard baseball fan, student of the game, and bleeds with every pitch, this behavior is stunning. Forget the fact that Wilpon’s assessments of Beltran, Reyes and Wright are sound. (Some have argued that Wright’s numbers are superstar-worthy. They’re not. Wright is a star, but winning an MVP and/or a World Series to elevates players to “superstar” status.) The Mets need all the good PR they can muster right now. Downgrading the left side of your infield, two players that define this generation of the Mets and their fans, is an invitation for Defcon 5 level Damage Control.

For those who haven’t seen excerpts or read Wilpon’s quotes yet, here they are.

First, on Beltran:

…There is the matter of the quality of the Mets teams. At one point, I mentioned to Wilpon the theory that the Mets might be cursed. He gave a sort of half laugh, and said, “You mean”—and then pantomimed a checked swing of the bat.

Any Mets fan (I am one) would understand the reference. The Mets took the 2006 National League Championship Series to a seventh game against the Cardinals. On October 19th, in the bottom of the ninth, the Mets were down, 3–1, the bases were loaded, and Carlos Beltran, the team’s star center fielder, came to the plate. With two outs and the count 0–2, the Cards’ pitcher, Adam Wainwright, threw a looping curveball on the outside corner. Beltran twitched, froze, and watched strike three.

Wilpon later said Beltran, who has been beset by knee injuries the past two seasons and has arguably been the Mets’ most consistent player in his return this season, is “65 to 70 percent of what he was.”

On Jose Reyes, the impending free agent and perhaps the Mets’ most tradeable asset:

“He’s a racehorse. … He thinks he’s going to get Carl Crawford money. … He’s had everything wrong with him. He won’t get it.”

And finally, on David Wright, the face of the franchise:

“A really good kid. A very good player. Not a superstar.”

Let’s take each of these individually.

Re: Beltran, Wilpon called himself a “schmuck” for giving the switch-hitting center fielder a 7-year, $119 million deal based on his breakout postseason in 2004 for the Houston Astros. Toobin didn’t mention this, but it’s interesting Beltran took that contract and thrust himself in the spotlight. The chronicles of Buster Olney and Tom Verducci revealed that Beltran wanted to be a Yankee so that 1) he could inherit the centerfield job from a declining Bernie Williams, a fellow Puerto Rican whom he idolized; and 2) given the superstar players and uber egos in the Yankee clubhouse, Beltran thought he could hide. The Yankees did not want him, though. Instead, they traded for Randy Johnson, and also signed Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright, hoping to solidify a pitching staff that was reeling after blowing a 3-0 ALCS lead to the Boston Red Sox. (Sounds like a familiar refrain. “We need pitching, we’re not focused on position players.” More on this later.)

Wilpon’s astute observation that Beltran is 65-70 percent of the player he was in his prime, is lost amid the gesture mimicking the failed check swing. It was the nonverbal equivalent of calling Beltran “Mr. May.”

On Reyes, Wilpon made it clear he’s not going to pay the shortstop the big contract he’s seeking. Reyes’ value on the open market is yet to be determined; the most common number tossed about by reporters apparently in the know, and talkies projecting Reyes’ worth, is about $90-$100 million over a five- or six-year contract. Reyes is one of the most dynamic players in the game, but persistent injuries — his good health this season notwithstanding — and flakiness he has shown in the past still trails him. Some personalities on WFAN have suggested the Yankees may want him. General Manager Brian Cashman refuted this notion, telling Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts two weeks ago that the priority is pitching, not position players.

And David Wright … One can only think of the contentious negotiations of Derek Jeter’s contract over this past winter, Hank Steinbrenner’s comments about the palatial compound Jeter is building near Tampa, and the back and forth that played out in the tabloids.

Local writers — both beat folks and columnists — excoriated Wilpon for the way he publicly dumped on the faces of his franchise. Mike Pelfrey told the Times’ David Waldstein, “Maybe next spring when we have our media workshop, Fred can come and sit in.” (Thanks, Tyler Kepner, for the great tweet).

Defenders of Wilpon may argue, “He’s paying these guys millions of dollars. If he’s not getting the return, he’s justified in his criticism.” That’s one view, yes. But if you’re as hands-on and supportive an owner as Wilpon is reputed to be, instilling that support and confidence is of utmost importance. Public criticism of your players, especially when that’s not known to be part of your M.O., crosses a line and is viewed as a breach of trust. How are his players supposed to view him now? How much tougher has he made the jobs of his general manager, Sandy Alderson and the braintrust of J.P. Ricciardi and Paul De Podesta? After these comments, does he expect that free agents would even want to come to New York for the Mets? What kind of reference sell would current Mets players make? Now, probably a reference to the Phillies to see if they have a void.

The Daily News reported that Wright was the first to respond to Wilpon’s comments. In an e-mail, Wright demonstrated his maturity and professionalism, saying “Fred is a good man and is obviously going through some difficult times. There is nothing more productive that I can say at this point.”

Wright may or may not have read Robert Fulghum’s poem “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten,” but he ascribed to many of the tenets outlined in the text. Mr. Wilpon would be wise to adhere to the following:

Play fair.

Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

Clean up your own mess.

Let’s see how many he follows through on in the coming days.

A good friend of mine is a stinkin’ Red Sox fan of the worst variety. He’s a converted fan. And it’s all the more galling because he grew up in Jersey and remains a huge Knicks and Jets fan. Hates the Celtics, hates the Pats. But loves the Red Sox. Has a bottle of Schilling Chardonnay in his office. It’s enough to make you sick.

He went to college in Boston and was miserable, not in Boston but with his life. So he started going to Fenway and showing up at that park and caring about the Sox gave him a sense of purpose, saved him when he needed saving.

Part of me still thinks his taste in inexcusable–and I’ll never tire of giving him hell about it– but sometimes we don’t pick our teams with much thought or logic. They find us or we find them.

Anyhow, this particular friend turns 40 today and I’d like to take this moment to wish a happy birthday to his stinkin’ ass.

[Photograph by Erica McDonald]

When I was in high school I started seeing a shrink. She lived on west 86th street in the same building Stanley Kubrick and I.B. Singer once called home. Her name was Miriam and she looked like she could have been Elaine Kaufman’s sister.

My father knew Elaine when she managed a restaurant called Portofino down in the village. He followed her when she opened her own place on the Upper East Side. He was a regular at Elaine’s in early days, before he got a job at ABC and migrated down to Herb Evans and then the Ginger Man over by Lincoln Center in ’68-’69. Dad took my aunt and cousin Donny to Elaine’s and soon they were going on their own. Last year, Donny told me that the first time he ever ate Pesto was at Elaine’s.

Her place was famous, as famous as any bar in New York since Toots Shor’s. Famous as a hangout for writers and scene makers. It stopped being hip by the late ’70s but coasted on its reputation for many years after that. And Elaine was at the center of it all, loving and profane, a true New York character.

Last December, Elaine died. On Thursday, her old place closes for good. I’d say it was the end of an era, but really the joint died when she did.

How about a toast?

Oh, yeah, big Bartolo Colon and the Yanks got thumped by the Jays, 7-3.

Yanks-Jays tonight in the BX.

Cliff has the Preview, we do the cheerin’:

Let’s Go Score Truck!

[Picture by Craig Robinson]

This is what I imagine Derek Jeter will look like one day.

It’s the eyes.

THIS TRAIN GOES ONLY SO FAR

By John Schulian

I wouldn’t cross paths with McGurk again until I was out of grad school and holding an Army draft notice. By then, his promise to keep an eye on me didn’t matter. I was fully aware of the fact that I wasn’t good enough for pro ball. But that doesn’t mean I stopped loving the game. Of I hadn’t love it anymore, it wouldn’t have hurt so much to make the first truly difficult decision of my life. I was a sophomore at Utah and we were working out in the fieldhouse, an old barn with worse lighting than an abandoned coalmine. It seemed like every day I’d wind up catching this left-handed maniac who eventually signed with the Giants. He had a great fastball, a wicked curve, and absolutely no control. While his pitches bounced off my chest and shins, I started looking at my future in a different light.

In the fall quarter, for the first time in my life, I’d done really well in school. Something like three A’s and a B. And it felt good. Better still, I was starting to think I might want to be a newspaper reporter. But if I played baseball, I was going to miss classes and not have as much time to concentrate on my writing as I needed, and, really, for what? For the chance to sit in the bullpen when the wind was turning Laramie, Wyoming to ice? For the chance to do that for one season and maybe two before I got a decent shot at starting? Baseball wasn’t my future anymore. My brain was, for better or worse. Whatever the future held for me, I knew I wasn’t going to stay in Salt Lake. I needed to get the best grades I could so I could use them as my ticket to ride. So I walked away from my baseball scholarship. Nothing dramatic. No pleas for me to stay. The team would get along fine without me. I cried a lot of tears that nobody ever saw, but I knew I’d done the right thing. And I graduated Phi Beta Kappa, which is something I’ve never made a lot of noise about, mainly because I’ve never fit my idea of what a Phi Beta Kappa should be. A Phi Beta Kappa should be legitimately smart, a true intellectual. I’m just the guy Pete Radulovich turned into a catcher.

I thought that was the end of me and baseball. But come summer Utah Power & Light’s amateur team called and offered me a chance to play. I promptly went out and had the worst year of my life. I’m not sure I hit .250. But they asked me back the next year, when the team added two terrific players from BYU, one of whom happened to be a catcher. I wasn’t sure why UP&L needed me, but I hung around, doing a little catching and wondering if I was wasting time. And then one night I whacked a pinch-hit double over the left fielder’s head, and everything changed. They made a place for me in the lineup, sometimes catching, sometimes at third, but mostly in the outfield because our other catcher’s idea of playing there was to wait until he saw where a fly ball landed before he went after it. I led the team in hitting and he was right behind me.

The next year was even better. I caught full-time and my friend Steve Radulovich, Pete’s son, who’d been drafted by the Yankees and Cincinnati but never signed, played first base. We had a lot of good college players and a couple of former minor leaguers on the team, plus a curve-baller from Utah who went 8-0. We won our league and the state amateur championship, and I hit .397, best year I ever had, even if Radulovich out-hit me by 70 points. (It’s almost embarrassing to remember this stuff, but I do.) One of the guys I played with—we called him Starchy—still says I was the craziest SOB he ever saw, and he’s probably right. After doing nothing but study in school, I had a lot of steam to let off. I hardnosed our pitchers, bitched incessantly at umpires, challenged a lot of opponents who could have kicked my ass, and swore like a stevedore if I hit a weak ground ball. I’ve still got the trophy they gave me as the team’s most valuable player. But the story I want to leave you with has nothing to do with that.

We had a pitcher, one of those kids who’d been a monster all the way through high school and then hurt his arm. I could have caught his best fastball barehanded. But one night he’s throwing a beautiful game — it might even have been three innings of no-hit ball–and he calls me to the mound. Our manager, a big guy with the face of a baby bird, trots out immediately.

“What’s the problem?” our manager says.

“I’m tired,” the pitcher says.

Our manager looks at him for a beat, then slaps him on the back and says, “John will tell you when you’re tired.”

Click here for more “From Ali to Xena.”

[Painting by Dane Tilghman]

For years Woody played his clarinet every Monday night at Michael’s. Missed the Academy Awards when “Annie Hall” won Best Picture because he was there instead.

How I pined to go when I was a teenager. But I never made it.  It was such a New York thing.

Anyone ever see him play there?

[Picture by François-Marie Banier]

Thai Heaven in Queens.

Took the trek last Friday night and it was as good as ever.

When I was sixteen the Regency Theater on the Upper West Side ran a Buster Keaton-Charlie Chaplin-Woody Allen revival for a few months. That was my introduction to Buster and it was love at first sight. I adore Chaplin too but Buster speaks to me in a more direct, personal way.

There’s a wonderful article on Buster by Jana Prikryl in the latest issue of The New York Review of Books. If you are not familiar with Buster, this here is a fine introduction:

More than fifty years have passed since critics rediscovered Buster Keaton and pronounced him the most “modern” silent film clown, a title he hasn’t shaken since. In his own day he was certainly famous but never commanded the wealth or popularity of Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd, and he suffered most when talkies arrived. It may be that later stars like Cary Grant and Paul Newman and Harrison Ford have made us more susceptible to Keaton’s model of offhand stoicism than his own audiences were. Seeking for his ghost is a fruitless business, though; for one thing, film comedy today has swung back toward the sappy, blatant slapstick that Keaton disdained. There’s some “irony” in what Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler do, but it’s irony that clamors to win the identification of the supposedly browbeaten everyman in every audience. Keaton took your average everyman and showed how majestically alone he was.

And here’s James Agee from his classic essay, “Comedy’s Greatest Era”:

Very early in his movie career friends asked him why he never smiled on the screen. He didn’t he realzie he didn’t. He had got the dead-pan habit in variety; on the screen he had merely been so hard at work it had never occured to him there was anything to smile about. Now he tried it just once and never again. He was by his whole style and nature so much the most “silent” of the silent comedians that even a smile was as deafeningly out of key as a yell. In a way his pictures are like a transcendent juggling act in which it seems that the whole universe is in exquisite flying motion and the one point of repose is the juggler’s effortless, uninterested face.

Starting tonight, the Film Forum is hosting The Best of Buster Keaton. They will be showing a Buster movie, along with a couple of two-reelers, every Monday for the rest of the summer. Tonight gives Buster’s first feature  for MGM–and arguably, his last good movie: “The Cameraman.” It’s worth seeing on the big screen for  many reasons (the pool scene), not the least of which is this gorgeous sequence filmed at the original Yankee Stadium.

“De La Soul is Dead,” one of my favorite records, is twenty years old.

Check out this extensive piece on the De La’s second album.

Freakin’ Lick ’em.

[picture by Jeff P Faller]

Over at the Village Voice, Allen Barra talks Murray Chass and the New York Times.

Compelling.

“The Breakfast Room,” By Pierre Bonnard (1930-31)

Big article on Fred Wilpon, Bernie Madoff and the Mets by Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker.

Alex Rodriguez had four hits yesterday, all singles. The softest of the four drove in the go-ahead run.

“I showed them, didn’t I?” Rodriguez said after the game.

Hey, a funny!

“We’ve been talking about playing small ball for the last week or two,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t think it could have gotten any smaller.”

[Illustration by Michael Marsicano]

Ivan Nova looked confident and smooth in the first inning today but gave up three runs in the second. Nothing hit too hard and he had to work out of trouble after that but he was strong enough to get into the seventh with the Yanks down, 3-1. Mike Pelfry, on the other hand, gave up an early home run to Curtis Granderson–there’s that man, again–yet looked hittable. In the second inning, Jorge Posada and Brett Gardner narrowly missed homers, but then Pelfry settled into a nice groove, used four different pitches and “really pitched,” as the announcer like to say.

I was watching the game at home with the wife. It moved along without much incident. The crowd at Yankee Stadium, again, was subdued. In the sixth, the Yanks turned a 5-4-3 double play, “around the horn,” said Michael Kay on the YES broadcast.

That’s when the wife, who had been unsuccessful in an attempt to nap, sprung to life.

“Round the horn,” she said. “I hate that. Round the horn, merry go round, I’m a putz. In your wheelhouse. Right in your kitchen. Why not your laundry room or your unfinished basement? Put the bat right in your stupid merry go round.”

I laughed. This is what happens when the wife doesn’t nap.

She said, “I’m just a little cranky.”

Most Yankee fans were irritable too. Then came the seventh inning when luck was on their side in the form of swinging bunts, seeing-eye singles and bloop doubles. Brett Gardner started it off with a base hit that went between Pelfry’s legs. Pelf, a tall dude, mumbled, cursed and walked Chris Dickerson. Then Francisco Cervelli squared around to bunt and took a fastball off his shoulder. At first I thought it beaned him in the head.

DJ was next.

Jeter hit the ball hard up the middle. Sitting at home I thought it was a sure double play. But it found the hole, a Luis Sojo Special!, and darted into centerfield. Two runs scored and the game was tied. Pelfry’s day was over.

Against a left handed reliever, Curtis Granderson sacrificed the runners along and Mark Teixeira was intentionally walked, loading the bases for Alex Rodriguez. Another pitching change and then Alex swung at the first pitch and hit the ball weakly toward third, went maybe 50 feet.

But it was soft enough for a run-scoring infield single. Robbie Cano followed and hit a flat, 2-0 sinker hard into right field, scoring another run. Jorge Posada was called out on strikes but then Gardner hit a bloop double to left and Dickerson followed up with an even luckier bloop double and all of a sudden it was 9-3, Yanks.

That’s how it ended. And now, we kick back, relax and enjoy the rest of the day.

It is chilly today in the Bronx. Big Pelf against the kid Nova. I can’t call it but you know I’ll be rootin’ hard:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

1. Jeter SS
2. Granderson CF
3. Teixeira 1B
4. Rodriguez 3B
5. Cano 2B
6. Posada DH
7. Gardner LF
8. Dickerson RF
9. Cervelli C

[Picture by Joseph Holmes]

More gray in NYC.

[Photo Credit: Joseph Holmes]