I watched horror movies as a kid–respectable ones like “Carrie,” and “The Shining,” “The Exorcist,” and “The Omen,” as well as “Halloween,” and “Friday the 13th.” I also saw a bunch of low-budget horror classics like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “I Spit on Your Grave.” But it was a phase that didn’t last. Horror movies were never my thing, and the older I got the less interested I was in being scared.

I was also just as likely to be scared by an action movie like “The Road Warrior” or “Aliens” or a thriller like “Fatal Attraction” than I was by a horror movie. Horror movies were just iller, with all the blood and guts gore.

I got to thinking about scary movies over the weekend cause of Halloween and you know which one stands out? “Taxi Driver.”

It’s not a horror movie, strictly speaking, but it is a nightmare vision of New York and one that was easy to identify with–the isolation and danger, the fear and violence.

Scorsese once told an interviewer:

It was crucial to Travis Bickle’s character that he had experience life and death around him every second when he was in south-east Asia. That way it becomes more heightened when he comes back; the image of the street at night reflected in the dirty gutter becomes more threatening. I think that’s something a guy going through a war, any war, would experience when he comes back to what is supposedly ‘civilization’. He’d be more paranoid.

Pauline Kael gave it a rave in the New Yorker:

In its own way, this movie, too has an erotic aura. There is practically no sex in it, but no sex can be as disturbing as sex. And that’s what it’s about: the absence of sex–bottled-up, impacted energy and emotion, with a blood-splattering release. The fact that we experience Travis’s need for an explosion viscerally, and that the explosion itself has the quality of consummation, makes “Taxi Driver” one of the few truly modern horror films.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw it, this scene featuring Martin Scorsese himself, really freaked me out…just, so…tense:

Nah, I haven’t been to Four and Twenty Blackbirds in Brooklyn yet.

But I aim to change that in the near future.

Michiko Kakutani, New York Times:

The story of Frank Sinatra’s rise and self-invention and the story of his fall and remarkable comeback had the lineaments of the most essential American myths, and their telling, Pete Hamill once argued, required a novelist, “some combination of Balzac and Raymond Chandler,” who might “come closer to the elusive truth than an autobiographer as courtly as Sinatra will ever allow himself to do.”

Now, with “Frank: The Voice,” Sinatra has that chronicler in James Kaplan, a writer of fiction and nonfiction who has produced a book that has all the emotional detail and narrative momentum of a novel.

Mr. Kaplan’s spirited efforts to channel his subject’s point of view can result in some speculative scenes, which make the reader race to the book’s endnotes in an attempt to identify possible source material. For instance Mr. Kaplan tries to recreate Sinatra’s tumultuous romance with Ava Gardner and tries, not always that convincingly, to map his complicated feelings about the mob. But at the same time Mr. Kaplan writes with genuine sympathy for the singer and a deep appreciation of his musicianship, and unlike gossipy earlier biographers like Kitty Kelley and Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, he devotes the better part of his book to an explication of Sinatra’s art: the real reason readers care about him in the first place.

Some couple of few things to click on:

The first round of organizational meetings for the Yankees will be held today in Tampa. George King reports that Kevin Long will return as the hitting coach.

Ben Kabak on a certain former New York team…

Rebecca G takes a looks at the 10 best moments of the 2010 Yankee season.

Steve Lombardi serves up a dirty trick.

And over at The Captain’s Blog, William talks Core Four and “The Diplomacy of Saying Goodbye”:

The decline of legends like Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera (well, maybe not Mo) is inevitable, and at some point, the Yankees will have to move on. However, they don’t need to do it in such a cutthroat way. In the case of Bernie, there was no reason for not giving him a guaranteed deal. Even if the money was a concern, would the Yankees really have been worse off with Williams taking the roster spot of guys like Andy Phillips, Josh Phelps and Kevin Thompson? Luckily, Bernie’s relationship with the Yankees remains strong, but it would have been a shame had the result of the team’s decision been estrangement from one of its homegrown stars.

Do we really follow sports only to watch a winner? If so, why not jump from bandwagon to bandwagon? Although many casual fans do take that approach, the diehard’s attachment to a team stems more from its history than its prospects for future success. Because of their financial advantage, the Yankees can have their cake and eat it too. As a result, the team shouldn’t feel the need to abide by Branch Rickey’s famous advice about trading “a player a year too early rather than a year too late” when handling its Hall of Fame core. The Yankees can still win while catering to their stars. The end doesn’t always justify the means, and in this case, the cost of winning in the future doesn’t have to involve turning away from history.

[Picture by Richard Sandler]

Here’s some flicks from around town…

taken by Bags, our man in the street.

Happy Monday.

Madison Bumgardner, 21-years old, branded the Texas Rangers tonight, but good, throwing eight shut-out innings.

Wait, who? That’s right, Madison Bumgarner. Believe it, folks, it was a thing of beauty.

The Giants won the game, 4-0, and now the Rangers look to Cliff Lee to save their season.

Sunday Slather, Whirled Serious Style!

I’m pulling for the Giants but I think the Rangers will win again tonight.

Trick…

or treat?

So I was down on Broadway looking for a parking space this morning and I couldn’t find one so I had to drive around for a minute. Dig what I found…baseball in New York! The Yankees’ season might be over, but the Whirled Serious is cookin’ down in Texas, and the Kingsbridge Little League is still in full effect.

Ya heard?

The Rangers look to avoid going down 3-0 tonight in Texas. It says here that they get it done.

Let’s Go Base-Ball.

Mid-90s Underground Goodness…

Foodie fun for Halloween from the fine ladies of Food52….

Salted Pumpkin Caramels from Food52 on Vimeo.

Chilly but sunny Saturday morning in the Big Apple.

Hope everyone is having a good one.

Whirled Serious continues tonightski…

[Picture by Bags]

A childhood favorite…

From Bay Area Legend, Elmer Bischoff…

Willie Bobo was from Harlem. He made a name for himself playing for Tito Puente and then, in San Francisco, with Cal Tjader and Mongo Santamaria.

Please to enjoy…

01 Grazing In The Grass

01 Spanish Grease

03 It’s Not Unusual

My old man didn’t own any rock records. He had original cast recordings of Broadway shows. That was his thing, that’s what we heard around the house. My twin sister Sam really took to musicals. I liked some but never caught the bug.

I appreciate and admire the art form but I’m not much of a fan. Still, I read Paul Simon’s review of Stephen Sondheim’s new memoir (the first of two volumes), “Finishing the Hat,” with interest because I’m a nerd for guys talking shop.

This caught my eye:

“Finishing the Hat” — a fascinating compilation of lyrics, commentary and anecdotes, covering the years 1954 to 1981 — is essentially about process, the process of writing songs for theater. Performing acts of literary self-criticism can be a tricky business, akin to being one’s own dentist, but Sondheim’s analysis of his songs and those of others is both stinging and insightful. Nevertheless, he successfully avoids the traps of a self-inflated ego.

…Sondheim quotes the composer-lyricist Craig Carnelia: “True rhyming is a necessity in the theater, as a guide for the ear to know what it has just heard.” I have a similar thought regarding attention span and a listener’s need for time to digest a complicated line or visualize an unusual image. I try to leave a space after a difficult line — either silence or a lyrical cliché that gives the ear a chance to “catch up” with the song before the next thought arrives and the listener is lost.

Love this comment. It’s like knowing how to pace a laugh in a movie, how to let it breathe. Then, there’s this:

…I saw “West Side Story” when I was 16 years old, and I have two vivid memories of the show. One, I didn’t believe for a minute that the dancers were anything like the teenage hoods I knew from the street corner, and secondly, I was completely overwhelmed by the beauty of the song “Maria.” It was a perfect love song. Sondheim was less enamored with the lyric he wrote for Bernstein. He describes it as having a kind of “overall wetness” — “a wetness, I regret to say, which persists throughout all the romantic lyrics in the show.” Sondheim’s rule, taught to him by his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, is that the book and composer are better served by lyrics that are “plainer and flatter.” It is the music that is meant to lift words to the level of poetry.

Sondheim’s regret about “Maria” reminded me of my own reluctance to add a third verse to “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” I thought of the song as a simple two-verse hymn, but our producer argued that the song wanted to be bigger and more dramatic. I reluctantly agreed and wrote the “Sail on silvergirl” verse there in the recording studio. I never felt it truly belonged. Audiences disagreed with both Sondheim and me. “Maria” is beloved, and “Sail on silvergirl” is the well-known and highly anticipated third verse of “Bridge.” Sometimes it’s good to be “wet.”

I’m not a huge fan of root beer though I sure do love a root beer float.

Check out this root beer taste test over at Serious Eats.

For too long, I used to think that Oscar Azocar epitomized the ineptitude of the Yankee teams of the early 1990s. A free swinger to the point of hapless extreme, Azocar struggled so much in trying to reach first base that I considered him synonymous with Yankee failure during that era. I felt bad about that continuing assessment this past June, when I learned that Azocar had died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack at the age of 45. I only felt worse when I started to read about Azocar, learning more about a hustling ballplayer, a fun-loving teammate, and a delightful guy.

As a rookie for the Yankees in 1990, Azocar stepped up to the plate 218 times. Swinging the bat from a pronounced crouch, he offered at almost any pitch within the general proximity of the batter’s boxes. In one stretch, he came to bat seven consecutive times without taking a single pitch. Not one! By season’s end, Azocar had coaxed a grand total of two walks. For awhile, he had more sacrifice flies than walks, which resulted in his batting average being temporarily higher than his on-base percentage.

While it’s true that Azocar didn’t walk and didn’t hit with any tangible power, he did play the game with a level of passion not normally exhibited by staid and stolid major leaguers. When Azocar played left field, he made sure to involve himself, even when the ball was not hit in his direction. On a batted ball to another outfielder or infielder, Azocar would make a hellish dash toward third base, so that he would be in position to back up his third baseman on a possible overthrow. It didn’t matter if the chances of there being a play at third were infinitesimal; Azocar wanted to be there, just in case. Azocar did something similar when runners from first base attempted to steal second base. If the catcher’s throw tricked into center field, Azocar would back up third base in the event of a second overthrow.

Some of the veteran Yankees noticed Azocar’s habit of running furiously toward third base. Perhaps unwilling to face their own mediocrity as ballplayers, they poked fun at Azocar. A few Yankees asked Azocar why he did this. Looking a bit bewildered, Azocar thought for a moment and then replied in his heavy Venezuelan accent: “Because that’s what I’m supposed to do.” And, you know what, Azocar was right. He didn’t have anything else to do on the play, so he might as well put himself to use–just in case.

In addition to his perpetual hustle, Azocar exhibited other good habits on defense. He tracked fly balls well and usually hit the cutoff man with his throws. Best utilized as a left fielder, Azocar had enough speed to dabble in center field, at least on a fill-in basis. He could also handle right field, though his arm strength was something less extraordinary than that of Jesse Barfield. Or even an injured Dave Winfield.

Azocar could run the bases, too. Though hardly a blazer, Azocar knew how to read pitchers and steal bases. Over parts of three major league seasons, including a pair with the Padres, Azocar stole ten times without being caught, setting an unofficial major league record.

Still, there was much more to Azocar. He loved to smile. He smiled during games. He smiled and laughed in the dugout. He smiled before games. Azocar simply loved playing baseball, along with the experience of being around the ballpark. With his upbeat and enthusiastic approach, Azocar became a wonderful teammate. He was no Mel Hall, who spent much of his time sticking pins in Bernie Williams dolls. Azocar just seemed delighted to be hanging around a major league setting, spending time with players ranging from Don Mattingly to Bye-Bye Balboni to Bam-Bam Meulens.

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