It’s muggy in the Rotten Apple.

Take a bite out of this:

Before we bring you the happy recap of today’s game, please sit back and take a look at this red ass delight, first brought to the masses by the good fellas over at Deadspin.

Somehow, this was left on the so-called cutting room floor.

It’s a good ‘un:

It is overcast in the Bronx as the Yanks look to inch closer to first place.

Just made flapjacks for the Mrs. We’re at home, chillin’. Hope all am well mit you unt yours.

Go git ‘im, fellas. (And for those who will be watching the World Cup, feel free to chat in the thread below.)

[Picture by Bags]

Hard to imagine that the biggest tournament in the world would introduce a new ball, but that’s what they’ve always done.

USA vs England at 2:30. Hope the boys bring it today, England will be looking to deconstruct the States back into to colonies.

Yo, Matt Garza…

Free South Africa, By Keith Haring (1985)

Keith Haring used to have a boutique just south of Houston Street called The Pop Shop. I remember they used to sell enormous versions of this poster for a buck (man, I should have bought a dozen of ’em). I had one hanging in my room, which made for stimulating conversation with my mother who was raised in the Belgian Congo. Picture me, the young, know-it-all New York Liberal vs an apolitical mother who was raised by Colonialists. We could have guest starred on Piper’s Pit.

Still, the picture endures…

Haagen-Daz Vanilla.

The perfect crime.

A butta mid-’90s Hip Hop joint…

[Picture by Bags]

Burt Lancaster had been a movie star for nearly forty years when he appeared in Scottish director Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero, but it’s probably the film that first made me a Lancaster fan. I’m sure I’d seen him before on TV – a movie of the week airing of The Island of Dr. Moreau, or on HBO’s heavy rotation of Zulu Dawn – hell, maybe even a Million Dollar Movie broadcast of John Frankenheimer’s excellent thriller, Seven Days In May. Regardless, while I knew the name and face of Burt Lancaster, he’d never meant anything to me until Local Hero hit cable TV a short while after its 1983 release. I was just old enough to appreciate its charms and to become a fan of its legendary star.

Local Hero finds a Houston oil company yuppie, MacIntyre (Peter Riegert), sent to Scotland by his employer, Knox Oil & Gas, to purchase an entire town and its bay for a new refinery. The research and planning has been done, all that’s left is for the deal to be made with the locals. MacIntyre gets the job due in part to last name. However, he confides to his friend that his parents were Hungarian and they adopted the name MacIntyre because they thought it sounded “American.” That detail gives you some sense of the world view of Forsyth’s film.

This is a true gem of a movie: gentle, but pointed, moody, but hopeful and eccentric and funny without trying too hard. Local Hero gives the viewer the illusion of comfort of familiar terrain while actually being quite unlike any other film.

Forsyth, who had already had one sleeper hit the previous year with Gregory’s Girl, has said that without Lancaster’s star power, the film would likely not have been made. Lancaster plays the CEO of Knox Oil, Felix Happer and though he’s on screen far less than Riegert, he creates a truly memorable character. Lancaster was no longer the acrobat or chiseled tough guy of his youth, but he’d grown into an even better actor.

Happer has some of the qualities we’d expect of the CEO of a massive oil company: he’s a narcissist and a bully. However, he’s got a couple of somewhat endearing quirks, most prominently his fascination with astronomy. When MacIntyre visits Happer for last minute instructions on the deal before flying to Scotland, Happer seems only interested in making sure MacIntyre will call him personally at any time if he witnesses anything unusual in the heavens – especially in Virgo. This sets up the beautiful sequence of a drunken MacIntyre’s rapturous phone call to Happer as he witnesses the aurora borealis for the first time.

Lancaster and Riegert both deliver layered, nuanced performances that keep the delicate balance of whimsy and cold reality in play. (Happer may be a boorish oil billionaire, but you’d like to think that if he ran BP, the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico would never have played out like this.) Lancaster’s comic touch in his dealings with his quite possibly deranged psychoanalyst is especially deft and charming.

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Mark Harris writes about the disappointing start to the summer blockbuster season in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly:

As TV has surged, the risk-averse souls atop the movie studios have stopped pretending that their job is anything other than to find and greenlight renewable, easily marketed franchises for undemanding audiences on big weekends. Making movies because you belive in the script, the director, the idea, the creative possibilities? That’s 1970’s nostalgia, if not rank sentimentality–leave it to the indies.

…The rest of this summer will certainly provide some big hits, because that’s what summers do. And–who knows?–maybe we’ll even see some really good mainstream films; perhaps some combination of Pixar, Christopher Nolan, vampires, Julia Roberts, 3-D, and Michael Cera will save the season. But a few clean wins aren’t likely to change the fact that in 2010, the Hollywood studios and those who run them are behaving like irresponsible custodians of the great tradition of mainstream moviemaking. Their choices are lazy and defensive; their creative ambitions are hidden even from themselves; they look to marketers rather than filmmakers for inspiration; and their product just isn’t very good. When the grosses go back up, all this will doubtless be airbrushed away like a starlet’s worry line. But what if they stay bad? The result will be, at last, a crisis. Perhaps exactly the crisis Hollywood needs.

Well put from a guy who is the only reason to ever glance at EW.

[Photo Credit: Jakarta Daily Photo]

Living in Cooperstown, one never knows when one will run into a former major league star. That scenario happened to me again last weekend, when I was asked to conduct a village trolley tour for friends and family of former home run king Hank Aaron. I was told that there would be no former major leaguers on the tour, so I was surprised by the ensuing encounter. I didn’t meet Aaron–he decided to remain at the hotel–but I happened to run into another former Braves slugger, not to mention a former Yankee.

Bob Watson, a friend of “Hammerin’ Hank” and a fine player in his own right, was standing right outside of the trolley door. I didn’t recognize him at first, but he did look vaguely familiar. I thought that he might be a retired player, but I could not place a name with the face. Then I saw someone approach him, exclaiming, “Hey, Bob.” At that moment, it popped into my head: Bob Watson. The face now jived with memories from some of my old baseball cards. He still had that strong, rounded build, the one that reminded me of his timeless nickname, “Bull.” It’s a fitting name for the man who currently serves as Major League Baseball’s disciplinarian.

A few minutes after my moment of recognition, Watson took his seat on the right side of the trolley, in the second row, well within my sights. Bob simply blended into the tour, politely asking questions like some of the other riders, but making no mention of his big league experience. He was apparently too modest to draw attention to himself. About midway through the tour, Billye Aaron, the exceedingly cordial wife of Mr. Aaron, pointed out that one of the trolley riders was indeed Bob Watson. She emphasized that Watson had not only played for the Braves, but had become the game’s first African-American general manager when he was hired by the Astros. Shortly thereafter, the conversation turned to Bob’s work as the general manager of the Yankees, and how he had helped put together the 1996 world championship team. All through the conversation, Bob remained silently humble about his accomplishments.

Watson ended up resigning as Yankee chieftain prior to the 1998 season, largely because of health concerns and the stresses of working under the watchful fist of George Steinbrenner. (Just look at how much Brian Cashman has aged over the past decade. He looks at least 50.) Given Watson’s brief but successful tenure as the Yankees’ general manager, it’s easy to forget what he achieved as a ballplayer in the seventies and eighties. Those who remember Watson’s playing days probably recall him as a power-hitting first baseman, but Bull actually started out as a catcher in the Astros’ organization. Watson struggled with his mobility and his throwing, so much so that the Astros decided to try him in the outfield, at first base, and third base. The Astros intermittently returned him to catching on two occasions, but ultimately settled on him as a left fielder and occasional first baseman. Playing alongside Cesar Cedeno in Houston’s developing young outfield, Watson began to establish himself as one of the National League’s finest young hitters.

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The first two games of the series at Camden Yards — the last series the Yankees will play against American League competition for a few weeks — did little to hold the interest of even the Yankees, it seemed. The Yankees believe they will win every game, while the Orioles, a once proud franchise, have become a team that is only “Major League” in name, to paraphrase Vin Scully. As WFAN’s Steve Sommers put it on the Wednesday Schmooze, “You know who’s going to win, it’s just a matter of what the final score will be.”

Yet amid an air of seemingly unfailing predictability, there’s AJ Burnett. In his last two starts he plowed through the Indians’ lineup and then ran into the Blue Jays’ home run machine. The O’s should have been the perfect elixir to get him back on track. Except that with Burnett, in a season and a half of watching him closely, we’re unable to discern that there is a track.

In the first inning, Burnett’s numbers read as follows:

2 R, 2 H, 2 HBP, 2 K, 2.00 WHIP.

Great poker hand, terrible pitching line.

But these were the Orioles, so there was still a sense that the Yankees would come back and win this game without issue. Either that, or the Orioles would find a way to botch things and hand the game in the Yankees’ favor as they did Wednesday night.

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Yanks look to close the door on the O’s again tonight. Baltimore has a promising rookie starting; AJ Burnett goes for the Bombers.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

[Picture by Bags]

Painting of Lemons, By Kate Douvan (date unknown)

…Aw, hell, and there’s this too (second verse, “lemonade”):

Squeeze me.

Can’t mess with a theme, man…

And while we’re on the topic of lemons…

Check out this recipe for creamy lemon gelato.

[Photo Credit: bell’ alimento]

In one of Burt Lancaster’s finest roles he had the misfortune, and then the great fortune, to go head-to-head for the audience’s affection with Susan Sarandon’s lemons.

Louis Malle’s Atlantic City (1980) traces the decay and rebirth of a city and a man as Lou (Burt Lancaster), an aged one-bit-hood who’s sniffed but never tasted a life of crime, bumbles his way into his beautiful neighbor’s screwed-up life. That neighbor is Sally (Susan Sarandon), and her daily work in a casino oyster bar leads to the ritual cleansing of her bare breasts and arms with lemon juice each night. Watching the painstakingly thorough application of said juice through Sally’s kitchen window, we share a voyeur’s perch with Lou from his darkened room next door. Thus begins our identification with Lou–through our common depravity.

The first fifteen minutes spread out silently, setting the plot and place like a gentle ocean wave lapping the shoreline. Such sustained quiet in a film is striking in its own right, but all the more unlikely when you realize it was written by a playwright. This is John Guare’s only attempt at conceiving a project explicitly for the silver screen, and you wonder if he just got bored with the medium because it came so naturally to him.

Louis Malle has juxtaposed much of the opening action with scenes of demolished and decayed buildings. Old Atlantic City was razed and rebuilt with the legalization of gambling in 1976, a metamorphosis etched in the lines of Lou’s rumpled suits. Gone is the city’s axis of organized crime, replaced by the glitz of the legal jackpot and the free-for-all drug trade. Lou is just another decrepit structure, waiting for the wrecking ball. Watching Lou running numbers through the poverty stricken parts of town, or trying to hock a shamefully stolen cigarette case, he seems outside of time–like a guy selling Christmas trees in May.

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With Father’s Day fast-approaching, consider Will Leitch’s smoothly-written memoir, Are We Winning? It’s a brisk and funny read. Will is really in his element here, flourishing. Ya heard?

And while we’re talking fathers and sons, do yourself a favor and check out this post by Glenn Stout:

Most of my memories of my father are somehow wrapped around a baseball – playing catch, him taking me to games or watching me pitch. It was the one way we really connected. But in high school I tore my rotator cuff and had to stop playing. We didn’t have as much to talk about after that.

Almost twenty years later my shoulder healed and I joined an adult league, one in Boston and later, another in Worcester County, where I then lived. For three or four years I was in both leagues and played fifty, sixty games each summer, usually pitching and playing first or third.

I’d call home every week and for the first time since I was a kid my conversations with my father were wrapped around baseball again. I sent him the ball after I won my first game since I was sixteen years old, and a t-shirt I got for making the league all-star team. I was as proud of each as of any book I’ve ever written, and so was he.

Fine work by Glenn, as usual.

Yes, I just used a Counting Crows lyric for the post title. It was the ’90s, I was very young, and this is like the 149th time the Yankees have played the Orioles this year — sue me.

C.C. Sabathia started out a little shaky, throwing too many balls in the early going and allowing too many hits by a team whose best hitter to this point is, probably, Ty Wigginton. This would be no big deal, except that C.C. Sabathia has been shaky a bit more than usual this year… but it hasn’t stopped him from beating the Orioles three times already in 2010, and it didn’t stop him from doing so again tonight. He eventually found his happy place, got a bit of support from his offense, and pitched 7 solid innings for a 4-2 win over Baltimore. I feel I’ve called the O’s”hapless” too often already since April, so tonight instead I will describe them as unpromising, unhappy and ill-starred.

By the end of the third inning, Baltimore had taken a two-run lead, on RBI singles from Garrett Atkins and Adam Jones; they’d hold it for five innings, the longest they’ve held any sort of lead since May 25, which, yikes. In the fourth inning Robinson Cano singled (this was his third straight game with three hits, bringing his average back up to .376 — and over .500 against the Orioles), then advanced on a throwing error and groundout and scored on Curtis Granderson’s sac fly. Two innings later, his bouncing single knocked in Mark Teixeira and tied the game at 2-2. In what was not exactly a powerful offensive explosion, Alex Rodriguez then scored on a Jorge Posada force out, but the Yanks had the lead and, by that time, C.C. Sabathia was in his mental cave communing with his Power Animal. After several strong innings he got into a tough spot in the seventh – bases loaded thanks to two singles and walk, with two out – and extricated himself by striking out Luke Scott. His final line: 7 IP, 9 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 8 K.

New York’s one extra run came in the 8th, when Gardner pinch ran for Posada, stole second even though everyone in the building knew he was about to try and steal second, and scored on a sharp single by Francisco Cervelli. Joba Chamberlain had a relatively non-terrifying eighth inning (let’s get that ERA below 5!) and Mariano Rivera notched his 14th save with a perfect ninth, just because.

The Yankees will play the Orioles again on Thursday, and also, I assume, the day after, and the day after that, and the day after that, and every single day Michael Kay will discuss the declining attendance at Camden Yards, every day, oh god it will never end, never, not ever!

[Sob]

Ahem… deep breaths… A.J. Burnett starts next time out for the Yanks. I’m fine. I SAID I’M FINE.