More Keith…

Look who just wrote a memoir.

Cervelli gets the start.

Let’s do this…

‘Meber this silliness?

I always mix these tunes up in my head for some reason…

Mmm, Mmm, Good.

Is Bill James losing it? Check out this rambling essay for Slate and you tell me.

Andy Pettitte pitched for the Trenton Thunder last night and the reports are good.

No, it’s not the theme song to Not Necessarily the News, it’s EC y’all:

There’s a new book about ol’ Bob out.

Teacher’s Pet.

Boxing Week continues…

In celebration of the recent publication of The Fighter Still Remains: A Celebration of Boxing in Poetry and Song from Zevon to Ali (edited by George Kimbal and John Schulian), let’s do a week of boxing tunes.

First up, a classic:

Yes, it has come to this: the Eggheads take on the Dude and The Big Lebowski.

Speaking of Bridges, check out this L.A. Times piece about the music for his new movie, Crazy Heart.

And dig this: the Film Society at Lincoln Center is hosting an evening with Jeff Bridges on Saturday, January 9th. An interview with the actor will be followed by a screening of The Last Picture Show.

Boss!

I’m getting more sensitive. Oh, I’m not as touchy as I used to be. I don’t take offense so easily, I don’t take things as personally as I once did. On the other hand, I can’t stomach violence. I don’t play Grand Theft Auto, or watch boxing, forget about UFC. I recoil when I see parents berate their kids in public.

Last month I was between 8th and 9th avenue when I looked up and saw a father walking down the block, his son, maybe 7 or 8, walking closley next to him. As I looked at them I heard the father say, “You are so f***-ing stupid, how can you be so goddman dumb?” It felt like a punch in the gut.

Last night, I read an article in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books about the Congo by the historian Adam Hochschild. I should have known that it would be a tough read but there was a story on the first page (fourth paragraph) of such unspeakable horror that I couldn’t finish the article. I skimmed the rest of it, not wanting to read anything so terrible again.

I was on the subway coming home. And I was rattled. I put the article down and tried to distract myself. I couldn’t. So I put on my headphones and scanned the i-pod for something soothing. Couldn’t find a thing. Then I happened on Some Girls, one of my favorite albums by the Rolling Stones. Listening to “Beast of Burden,” I was able to forget the savage imagery of the article for a few minutes.

I grew up on Some Girls–still one of my favorite Stones records–Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You. They may not be the Stones’ best work–Let it Bleed, Beggar’s Banquet, and Sticky Fingers are the Stones at their peak, though there have always been hardcore Stones fans who swear by Exile on Main Street (with Black and Blue as the sleeper pick of cherce)–but in some ways they are the ones that I hold most dear. The Stones were my first favorite band. As a kid, I thought Mick Jagger was a bad ass and a clown.

I remember a British friend of my mother’s laughing in those years when she heard “Emotional Rescue.”

“The Stones are making disco records now.”

Maybe the Stones were already a parody of themselves by the late Seventies, but they lived in New York City, and their records sounded good. Even if they were corny at times. “She’s so Cold,” that was my joint. I never especially loved “Beast of Burden,” but listening to it last night–and thinking about “Waiting on a Friend” at the same time–I felt reassured and calm.

Nice to know we’ve got distractions–a way to escape–from the incredible terrors, large and small, that exist in the world.