Monthly Archives: June 2015

Call me. 

Dear Ira,

Gluten is good.

Love,

Phyllis.

I walked past Alice Tully Hall on Saturday and just had to take a picture, man.

The latest reprint over at the Beast is a rich piece of ’60’s pop culture criticism from the inimitable Seymour Krim. All about Jack Kerouac:

As an Outsider, then, French Canadian, Catholic (“I am a Canuck, I could not speak English till I was 5 or 6, at 16 I spoke with a halting accent and was a big blue baby in school though varsity basketball later and if not for that no one would have noticed I could cope in any way with the world and would have been put in the madhouse for some kind of inadequacy…”), but with the features and build of an all-American prototype growing up in a solid New England manufacturing town, much of Kerouac’s early life seems to have gone into fantasy and daydreams which he acted out. (“At the age of 11 I wrote whole little novels in nickel notebooks, also magazines in imitation of Liberty Magazine and kept extensive horse racing newspapers going.”) He invented complicated games for himself, using the Outsider’s solitude to create a world—many worlds, actually—modeled on the “real” one but extending it far beyond the dull-normal capacities of the other Lowell boys his own age. Games, daydreams, dreams themselves—his Book of Dreams (1961) is unique in our generation’s written expression—fantasies and imaginative speculations are rife throughout all of Kerouac’s grownup works; and the references all hearken back to his Lowell boyhood, to the characteristically American small-city details (Lowell had a population of 100,000 or less during Kerouac’s childhood), and to what we can unblushingly call the American Idea, which the young Jack cultivated as only a yearning and physically vigorous dreamer can.

That is, as a Stranger, a first-generation American who couldn’t speak the tongue until he was in knee pants, the history and raw beauty of the U.S. legend was more crucially important to his imagination than it was to the comparatively well-adjusted runny-noses who took their cokes and movies for granted and fatly basked in the taken-for-granted American customs and consumer goods that young Kerouac made into interior theatricals. It is impossible to forget that behind the 43-year-old Kerouac of today lies a wild total involvement in this country’s folkways, history, small talk, visual delights, music and literature—especially the latter; Twain, Emily Dickinson, Melville, Sherwood Anderson, Whitman, Emerson, Hemingway, Saroyan, Thomas Wolfe, they were all gobbled up or at least tasted by him before his teens were over (along with a biography of Jack London that made him want to be an “adventurer”); he identified with his newfound literary fathers and grandfathers and apparently read omnivorously. As you’ll see, this kind of immersion in the literature of his kinsmen—plunged into with the grateful passion that only the children of immigrants understand—was a necessity before he broke loose stylistically; he had to have sure knowledge and control of his medium after a long apprenticeship in order to chuck so much extraneous tradition in the basket when he finally found his own voice and risked its total rhythm and sound.

All-in effort from the Yanks today, especially the bullpen and Mr. John Ryan Murphy who came through with a couple of big hits as the Yanks beat the O’s, 5-3 to avoid being swept. Baltimore is hot but the Yanks did a nice job to get the “w” today.

Exhale.

[Photo Credit: Joel Zimmer]

Hey Guys,

How about not sucking today?

Brett Gardner LF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Garrett Jones RF

Stephen Drew 2B

Didi Gregorius SS

John Ryan Murphy C

Adam Warren’s on the hill.

Never mind the losing:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!
Mason Williams CF

Picture by Bags

Win a little, loss a little: That’s what our pal Hank Waddles said this season is going to be like and after winning seven in a row that Yanks have now dropped three straight. Stupid fielding, weak pitching did the trick last night as the O’s beat the Yanks 9-4. The less said about this one the better.

Oh, but I have to share this tweet from another old pal, Emma Span: “A-Rod hits home run #666. Somewhere in Wisconsin, blood spontaneously appears on Bud Selig’s ceiling in the shape of a pentagram.”

You can’t fake funny and boy, oh, boy, Emmma’s still got it.

C.C.’s on the hill tonight in Baltimore.

Let’s hope he puts together a solid outing and the boys score him plenty of runs.

Brett Gardner LF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Didi Gregorius SS

Stephen Drew 2B

Mason Williams CF

Never mind last night:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Knut Egil Wang]

Maseo homered in his second big league at bat last night and you just have to love that. Harder to love was the beating Big Mike took and boy did he get whupped as the Orioles sailed to a 11-3 win. Alex and Tex had a couple of hits each–and Rodriguez is now 5 away from 3,000–otherwise there’s not much to talk about.

They are at it again tonight. Let’s hope the results are better.

Big Mike’s on the hill tonight in Baltimore.

Brett Gardner LF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Didi Gregorius SS

Stephen Drew 2B

Mason Williams CF

Mase! Never mind the nerves:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo via @orioles/twitter h/t @jessespector]

Alexandra gives new potatoes with green harissa. 

Bim Bam Boom

[Painting by Meghan Howland via This Isn’t Happiness]

Nova can’t return soon enough.  When he does, maybe Warren can go back to the pen to help Betances out while Miller gets healthy.

[Photo Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sport]

Got to figure the Warriors are going to even-up the Finals tonight (in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cavs don’t win another game).

I’ll be pulling for Lebron and his boys, though.

Painting by Ernest Barnes, Jr.

Picture by Linda Christensen via Susan Zweig]

Bout that time of year again, ain’t it?

R.I.P. Ornette Coleman.

“I was out at [anthropologist] Margaret Mead’s school and was teaching some little kids how to play instantly. I asked the question, ‘How many kids would like to play music and have fun?’ And all the little kids raised up their hands. And I asked, ‘Well, how do you do that?’ And one little girl said, ‘You just apply your feelings to sound.’ And I said, ‘Come and show me.’ When she went to the piano to do it, she tried to show me, but she had forgotten about what she said. So I tried to show her why all of a sudden all her attention span had to go to another level, and after that she went ahead and did it. But she was right: If you apply your feelings to sound, regardless of what instrument you have, you’ll probably make good music.”–Ornette Coleman.

For more, dig this, this, this and then Go here for a listen. 

[Photo Credit: Roberto Polillo via Jazz in Photo]

Bad news all around for the Yankees today as Andrew Miller hit the DL with a forearm strain and the cascading bullpen shuffle hamstrung Girardi and contributed to a tough loss.

The Yankees struck in the bottom of the seventh again, turning an 0-2 hole into a 4-2 lead. But instead of the Betances-Miller hope-killer, we saw Eovaldi start the eighth. He allowed a hit and when Jacob Lindgren came out of the pen, something was officially NOT RIGHT.

Lindgren pitched OK for a guy who gave up a game-tying homer. He got Bryce Harper, the key at-bat, we thought, and induced a possible inning-ending double play. But Stephen Drew double-clutched when a single-clutch was all that was called for and the inning leaked forward for pinch-hitter Michael Taylor to ruin a really nice day.

Extra innings played out as Yankee fans began filing missing persons reports for their bullpen aces. When neither appeared in the 10th and 11th, the looming loss crystalized. It was Denard Span with chopper in the eleventh if you’re looking for the official cause of death. Nats pulled it out, 5-4.

The Yankees dropped three of four to Washington overall and at least two of those losses were real stingers. But losing Miller is the real test here. The bullpen hasn’t been anything special outside of those two dynamos, so we’ll see what happens when rubber meets the road.

It’s Senior Eovaldi as the Yanks and Nats play a matinee in the Bronx.

Brett Gardner CF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Chris Young LF

Jose Pirela 2B

Brendan Ryan SS

Never mind the commencement speech:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Masahiro Tanaka out-aced Max Scherzer in a titanic pitching duel last night. The final score skews Yankees because of a seventh inning bulge that came very close to not happening. But before that, it was a doozy.

Let’s pick up the two Tanaka-Harper showdowns that changed the game. In the 4th inning, Tanaka zipped a low fastball that caught a good chunk of the plate. It wasn’t a bad pitch, but I doubt anybody is surprised that Harper got good wood on it. The landing spot however, would be a surprise for most other hitters. Harper festooned just left of dead-center with a moon-shot and that tied the score at one apiece.

It was still tied when Harper batted again in the 7th and this time, Tanaka was better. For a few pitches. He dipped three splitters in and out of the zone and Harper fell behind in the count. Then Tanaka’s splitter slipped and meatball alarms blared throughout the stadium. If Harper had hit a 93 mph heater, low and away, out to the deepest part of the park, what was he going to do this 88 mph floating orb of “hit-me”?

Turns out he was going to bunt it foul. As our friends at the firm of St. Hubbins and Tufnel have held forth, there’s a fine line between clever and stupid and Harper found himself squarely in stupidtown. He took the bat out of his own hands during a crucial spot in a tight game facing what very may well be the best pitch he’ll see all season.

The Yankees quickly turned good fortune into runs in the bottom of the inning. Evidence that Alex Rodriguez has not yet won back the hearts and minds of the Yankee organization? He didn’t get credited for the hit that won the game. With Scherzer on the ropes and passing one hundred and eleventy pitches or so, Alex smacked a first-pitch sitter towards left field. Desmond made a great dive to his right to snag it and save the run, but he wanted to end the inning as well. From his knees he gunned to third, but failed to calculate Pirela’s Flores’ ETA correctly and his throw nicked Flores as he slid and bounced into the seats.

Flores scored the run and the Yanks tacked on with big hits from McCann and Beltran and, get this, a second homer from Stephen Drew. They won 6-1. But man, how is that not a hit for Arod? Desmond had no other plays around the diamond and it would have taken a degree from MIT to figure out where to the throw the ball in order to keep Rendon on the bag and avoid hitting Flores. From his knees. Imagine the whining we’d hear from David Ortiz if his home park official scorer jobbed him on a play like that?

With a big lead lead, Miller and Betances seems like overkill, but with a day-off coming, why not. Miller and Betances and no more chances. Miller and Betances and you better sit out these dances. Remember when Joba came up and was the best reliever we’ve ever seen for 24 innings? Betances is that, but now over 122 innings.

***

NBA Finals, do not sleep on this. LeBron James went to Miami and became just about the perfect basketball machine. He was lethal and efficient and, when Wade and Bosh were firing, often didn’t have to break a sweat to level a team. One year later and he has scrapped that model completely and become a tornado of basketball ability, barely harnessed and unleashing destruction all over the court. It’s hard to watch him miss so often when he had basically eliminated bad shots from his game over the last four seasons, but the fact that he’s found this gear under these circumstances is one of the great individual performances in basketball history. I hope he’s got two more wins in him.

Artwork by Bob Layton, Marvel Comics