Blog Archives

After a long, hard week, time for a tub…

Felt like spring for real out there today.

Tonight gives tourney time, baby…

Over at the Japan Society, there is a cool-looking exhibition (through June 12th): “Bye Bye Kitty! Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art.”

Nate nerds up to the salad bar.

Matt B Friday continues…here’s a funny piece he hipped me to that Michael O’Donoghue once wrote about How to Write Good.

Back to the old school, for the old-timers like Matt B, and anyone else too.

Swoon…Boom, buh-Boom, buh-Boom.

All together now…

Monty’s D ain’t so hot say the scouts.

Tyler Kepner on a young flame-thrower…

Yeah, it’s mad salty, but it’s still good.

From the Huff Post…

There is a long piece by Dana Goodyear in the New Yorker this week about a shrink to the stars. I didn’t get much out of it, but this did speak to me:

By far the most common problem afflicting the writers in Michels’s practice is procrastination, which he understands in terms of Jung’s Father archetype. “They procrastinate because they have no external authority figure demanding that they write,” he says. “Often I explain to the patient that there is an authority figure he’s answerable to, but it’s not human. It’s Time itself that’s passing inexorably. That’s why they call it Father Time. Every time you procrastinate or waste time, you’re defying this authority figure.” Procrastination, he says, is a “spurious form of immortality,” the ego’s way of claiming that it has all the time in the world; writing, by extension, is a kind of death. He gives procrastinators a tool he calls the Arbitrary Use of Time Moment, which asks them to sit in front of their computers for a fixed amount of time each day. “You say, ‘I’m surrendering myself to the archetypal Father, Chronos,’ ” he says. ‘I’m surrendering to him because he has hegemony over me.’ That submission activates something inside someone. In the simplest terms, it gets people to get their ass in the chair.” For the truly unproductive, he sets the initial period at ten minutes—“an amount of time it would sort of embarrass them not to be able to do.”

Yup, the kid pitched well last night.

Yanks and O’s on YES tonight.

[Picture by Bags]

I have a friend who is a fiend for public access TV. He lives in Manhattan so I don’t get to see the shows that float his boat (in the Bronx we are graced by the fine North End Liquor ads). But he shared this with me.

Warning: This May So Great it Hurts or So Awful it Hurts (either way, pain is involved):

Robert Altman once said that you could write a movie by listening to snippets of conversation as you walked down the street.

Overheard on my lunch today…

Short woman talking into her cell phone: “Don’t hang up on me, bitch, I’m trying to f***ing talk to you.”

Two young women:

“W’e’re late, it’s already 1:15.”

“I’ve got 1:07.”

“Oh, that’s cause I set my watch ahead so that I freak myself out so that I’m not late in the morning.”

“That’s smart.”

Business guy talking to another business guy: “And I didn’t get in until 2 but I don’t even feel hung over.”

Dude on his cell phone: “C’mon baby, you know I love you. I love you  like cooked food. What? No, for real, I love you like Red Lobsters.”

[Picture by William Gedney]

For some cool New York City flix, check out Nelson George on Tumblr.

Over at Cardboard Gods, our pal Josh Wilker previews the 2011 Yanks by harkening back to the good ol’ days:

In the Yankees’ 1970s dynasty, the most visible figure and self-appointed leader was Reggie Jackson, and the actual team leader was Thurman Munson, but Lou Piniella was, at least to me, the definitive Yankee. Consider his game-saving play in the bottom of the ninth of the one-game playoff in 1978. After a one-out single by Rick Burleson, Jerry Remy hit a fly to right that Piniella lost in the sun. Instead of panicking, he pretended that he was preparing to make a routine, nonchalant catch, then when the ball came down in front of him, he happened to be close enough to it to stick out his glove and snare it on one bounce. Burleson, fooled along with everyone into thinking that Piniella would make easy work of Remy’s fly ball, had stayed close to first and was only able to make it to second base, unable to score on the long fly out produced by the following batter, Jim Rice. The Bucky Dent home run from earlier in the game has always gotten far more attention as the pivotal moment in the game, but Piniella’s play was vital, too, and was more representative of the Yankees for its infuriating combination of smarts, skill, guts, and good luck (Dent’s improbable gust-lifted pop-up leaning much more heavily on the last of those elements).

How, sweet it was.

It is dark, cold and wet in New York this morning. Nothing like the rain to make the morning commute an adventure. The bus was jammed packed and so was the train. At one point, the conductor on the IRT said, “Please, step all the way inside, you are blocking the closing doors.” A few seconds passed and then his voice came over the loudspeaker again, “You are still blocking the door.” He wasn’t happy. Another beat, then: “I’m looking right at you!”

That got a good chuckle out of the people near me. I was smiling too. At the next stop, the conductor said, “This is a crowded train, people, let’s work together.” He wasn’t upset anymore but encouraging. And when we arrived at 72nd street, a transfer station, he said, “Number 3 arriving across the plaform, number 3. Oh, and it’s as crowded as we are. You are better off staying put.”

I got off the train at my stop and went up to the conductor, who was peaking out of his window, and told him what a pro he was and how much I appreciated riding with him. He had big teeth and he smiled and then he was gone.

Man, it’s hard to believe but I’ve gone the past two seasons without a regular Yankee hat. Yeah, I wore one that I got a cap day last year but it doesn’t fit right so it didn’t become a regular piece of gear. I used to buy the cheap hats with the snaps on the back for five bucks on the street. I’d break ’em in with lots of love then eventually lose ’em (which is why I only bought the cheap ones). But I dig it when you see an old hat, one that someone has had for years like this one that I caught on the train today.

So, what about you guys? How old is your Yankee cap? Do you wear a fitted one? How many do you own?

Whadda ya hear, whadda ya say?