Just Like Old Times

Looks like the Yankees are gonna get one back tonight. They're up 4-zip after 3 on the hated, detested Red Sox of Boston. This courageous squad of champeens just doesn't know the meanin' of the word quit, led by their fearless captain, Derek The Parking Meter Jeter... hitting a robust .370 for the year, two more hits tonight, and he passes the immortal Mr. Coffee himself, Joseph Paul DiMaggio for 5th place on the all-time Yankees hit list. Like Jeter, Joe D. squired a few winsome lasses around the Big Town in his own day... Hidecki Matsui has a 2-run HR & is really starting to come around as we all knew he would; the guy takes the game as serious as a subpoena and has the dignified monastic approach to fundamentals and doing things the right way that most of his countrymen seem to have... You could put Matsui down for his usual .310 or .315 and 110 RBI's...

Somewhere in the minor leagues Roger Clemens is in the middle of his tune-up start, perhaps his last tune-up start before he comes Bronx-ward with his $18 million arm and ego to match... Last night was a disaster, another lousy looking start from Mike Moose Mussina, who did battle after giving up a 3-run blast from, who else, Manny Ramirez, clubbing his 50th HR of his career against the Yankees, making him more like a Yankee serial killer where you know the ending is gonna be gruesome... and get a fucking haircut already, you lunatic; dreads are cool but come back to us here...

Posada just drove in A-Rod from 2nd, so it's now 5-0 over the hated, detested Curt Schilling! How great is that, we own Schilling, whose Indian name would be Big Chief Bloody Sock... and as John Sterling just remarked -- in between an unrelenting stream of commercials, ads, sponsorship announcements, company tie-ins on WCBS-Radio in what has to be the most commercialized nightly broadcast in the history of the medium -- the Yanks are hitting Schilling hard... According to Suzyn Waldman, Curt Schilling is a person, and people have off nights... Thanks for clearing that up for me, because I was beginning to have my doubts...

I think a blowout win would do a lot for this team's confidence ... The California or Los Angeles or Anaheim, pick a fucking locale and stop changing it, you're the California Angels for gods sake -- what, it's not inclusive enough to represent the whole state all of a sudden? Yeesh! Anyway, the Angels come to town and they're hot (7-3 last 10 games), led by Vlad The Impaler, the closest thing we have to Roberto these days: like Clemente, he's a misunderstood, enigmatic, prideful, sensitive man with a world of talent and a slight chip on his shoulder. And oh by the way he's hitting .338 with 10 HRs and 38 RBI's. Guerrero is another overlooked player who is never mentioned among the top names in the game. Well, I'm mentioning him now...

I was against signing Mussina when his contract was up last year. The guy's on the downside in a big way, he even knows it when you listen to his woeful remarks after his last two ineffective starts. I'm gonna look up his contract in a sec just so I can be even more pissed off, another bonehead Cashman personnel move in a loooooong string he has going, everything he touches lately turns to crapola. Bobby Abreu? This guy literally might be the most overpaid athlete in sports, at least this year, when his career .303 batting average has experienced shrinkage to an embarrassingly microscopic .239. Worse, he's got a total of 2 HRs so far in 45 games, which is only 2 more than me, and I haven't played in ANY games yet. That projects out to ... hold on here ... 8 HRs for the full season. This from a guy who had a seven-year run from 1999-2005 with the Phillies where he hit 20, 25, 31, 20, 20, 30 and 24 homers, while driving in 100+ RBIs four times.

Another disastrous free agent pickup in the news today. Carl The Big Moax Pavano, whose career is likely over, is limping all the way to the ATM with the $4o million Cashman gave him in exchange for 5 wins over three years...

Holy shit, Doug Mankaeawitz(sp?) just blasted a homer off Schilling, who is a Republican shill if I remember correctly. I'll check his Wikipedia page in a minute, which is my go-to Website for such matters... 6-0 after 4 innings.

But Mussina has just lost his fastball, or maybe it's temporarily abandoned him. John Flaherty was right on this last night BEFORE the Manny HR, when he said that if the Moose can only hit the high 80s with his fastball, 87-88 MPH, his breaking ball and curve are not gonna be as effective. The Boston hitters, and the rest of the league lately, don't have to worry about getting busted inside, so they sit on the OUTSIDE pitch, hitting liners to right. All the deep waist bends in the world aren't gonna help Mr. Crossword get hitters out. He's really been susceptible to the long ball almost every start, giving up that one key blast per game it seems, and then he actually pitches and scraps, as much as a guy from Stanford can ever be said to scrap...

Yanks amazingly have never had a 3,000 hit guy. (Some guy named Lou Gehrig leads with 2,721.) What's up with that? Kind of like a Mets hurler never tossing a no-hitter despite their 45-year history of good pitchers. Doesn't make a lick of sense, as Smoky the Biker sez on those GEICO commercials. Boy, those GEICO ads have to be considered among the most successful ad campaigns in the history of Mad Ave. Think about it, it's a long running campaign for an insurance company, and the commercials are not only NOT annoying, they're still refreshing, they don't insult you, and they're always cleverly done. You've got the Brit-speaking Lizard, the Cavemen, Smoky the Biker... In yet another ominous signaling of the forthcoming apocalypse ,The GEICO Cavemen will be getting their very own show on ABC in what has to be the only known case of an advertisement spinning-off a prime-time sitcom, where we find the cave-persons living in Atlanta and trying to fit in while battling anti-neathanderthalism. What a silly premise: everyone knows it gets too hot in Atlanta for cavemen. Duh! As much as I am always amused by the Cavemen, I think ABC is out of their minds on this one. But if I were running a network, I would use the Cavemen to anchor my nightly news program and give Katie Couric her own primetime show; you got a better chance of success that way, but that's just moi...

Fifth inning, Grand Slam inning: if the 4th batter of the inning hits a grand slam, some schmuck wins a Toyota... How do ya like those odds? Something tells me no Toyota gets given away tonight, just a hunch, and I'm right, Matsui just grounded out to short, canceling out the granny possibility, and of course in turn triggering another ad for Benihana, the tourist trap of a restaurant chain that sponsors Hidecki's at-bats. And right after another batter made out after Matsui, John Sterling I kid you not reads ANOTHER AD for Ford Auto! In the space it took me to type this paragraph, two batters, three ads read by the announcers. End of 5, 6-0 Yankees, cut to commercials...

Andy Pettitte is pitching a gem. The relationship between Pettitte and Clemens scares me just a tad, kind of like a cross between Brokeback Mountain and 300. Hey, what they do in their spare time is their business, isn't it, even in Texas? Just asking...

The 38-year-old Mussina is playing in the last year of a two-year $23 million deal, coming on the heels of a six-year $88 million package. That's a lot of gabagol as they used to say in Little Italy; now you're just as likely to hear Chinese as Italian on Mulberry Street, my sources tell me. Hey, I got sources, I got sources...

Andy now at 86 pitches, just thought I'd point that out to the listening audience. With his 87th, I would love to see him stick a fastball in the ear of Manny Being Manny. Long overdue. Let's fucking rumble, make it a street fight between overpaid multimillionaires...

Clemens gave up a few runs, a few hits, a few walks. You're gonna hear about this for like five days till you want to stick a fucking Uni-Ball Vision Elite pen right in your own ear. That's right, this paragraph was brought to you by the good folks at the Uni-Ball Vision Elite Pen Conglomeration of Smaller Pen & Pen-Related Fine Writing Products That Feel Really Nice In Your Hand, Not Too Heavy Not Too Light, Just Right, Inc. Makes a swell writing implement...

Can someone give me a freaking Mets-Braves score? The Metsies must be winning or else John & Suzyn would have given us the score a few times by now. She just mentioned Pavano is having season-ending surgery of the Tommy John variety. What is that, something like elbow replacement surgery, that's gotta hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. I'd ask for Vicodin at the least after something like that. Hell, I ask for Vicodin after a routine blood test...

Schilling comes back out for the 6th, somewhat surprisingly, but he is a bulldog. A bit of an asshole, but a bulldog. In short he's a bullhole.

Apparently Clemens threw 102 pitches, which is a lot for a tuneup. That's more than I would left him in for, but knowing The Rocket's penchant for drama, he probably wouldn't come out because it would make for a good postgame story for the press...

Schilling at 89 pitches now, battered for 12 hits. Does he still leave a seat in the stands for his late dad every game he pitches? If not, why? Is Dad any busier now than he was in the 2001 World Series against the Yankees? Just asking the tough questions here, the Tough Actin' Tinactin questions, is what I meant to say...

So Boston goes to Texas, then somewhere else before they head back home to Fenway to host ... you guessed it, your beloved New York Yankees. Maybe we'll have shaved off a few more games, get it down to 7, 7 1/2 games behind, then we'll see if fucking journeymen like Hothead Julio Tavarez can pitch with a little pressure hanging over his, well, hot head...

Pettitte just threw his 102nd pitch. Ooohh... Next pitch, or the one after that, I forgot already, ground ball out, seven strong innings for Pettitte. That's just Andy Being Andy, I guess. Oh by the way: Fuck the Red Sox and their annoying fans, who always somehow seem to fill up half the Stadium for these games, where they breathe. I'm just saying...

Chief Bloody Sock is out of the game, doesn't answer the bell for inning Seven. Fucking pussy. Jeter just tripled into the gap, third hit. He's got an RBI double, a triple, passes Joe D. for first place on the all-time Yankees hit list, helps beat Boston. Just another night for The Captain. Matsui just singled home Jeter, making it 7-1. When the fuck did Boston score? A-Rod juuuust missed a HR according to Sterling, which means Ramirez caught the ball about 10 feet from the warning track. End of inning...

7-2 now. Kyle Farnsworth just gave up a HR to Coco Crisp. Turns out Coco Crisp is not his real name. Also turns out Kyle Farnsworth really sucks. Thanks to Brian Cashman for another one of your gems--NOT! ... as annoying people used to say in the 1980s. How does Farnsworth throw so hard, 97, 98, 99 miles per hour yet he can never get a big out? He should be better with that stuff... Now another base hit off Fucksworth, an RBI for Kevin Youkalis sending home Ortiz, and it's 7-3. Boston fans are either chanting Youuuuuuu for Youkalis or Yankees fans are quite rightly booing Kyle, one of those names that George Carlin quite rightly disparages as a "soft" name, along with Tyler, Todd, Blaire and Blaine and Brent in one of his trademark HBO rants that I think I have on video somewhere....

You know it's your night when Doug Mankiewz(sp?) gets himself three hits ... came into the game hitting 1-19. His whole year has been an endless series of 1-19's, 2-30's and 3-41's ... The guy is All Glove No Stick, All Leather No Wood ... What I'm saying is he can't hit a lick but plays the field with dexterity and a certain confident insouciance that's rarely exhibited these days. Or something like that... Somebody just drove him in and it's 8-3 now. I'm sure we'll see Mariano come in no matter what the score is because let's just say he needs the work. Ya think!

Sure enough, I hear the dulcet strains of Enter Sandman on the Stadium PA, so here comes The Once-Great Mariano into the game to put the hammer down. It won't be long before we hear THUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH-YANKEEES-WIN!! call by Sterling. You have to admit it's a helluva call. At this point Sterling is better at making up catchy phrases and nicknames after a home run call than the actual nuts-and-bolts of play-by-play. Only about half of his IT IS HIGH, IT IS FAR's actually involve a ball clearing the wall; the rest are caught in play, but that doesn't stop him from pulling the same stunt an inning later.

Mariano has an 0-2 count on Crisp, here's the pitch, and it's swing and a miss for the last out. There goes Sterling. But it's a half-hearted, strangely muted THHHUUUUUHH-Yankees-Win ... hardly worthy of an exclamation point, but what the hell, they cost the same as a period technically, so an exclamation point it is, and another Yankee win in the books! Or is the phrase Put It In The Books! already trademarked by Howie Rose.

So the Yanks win the series, they win the damn thing by a score of 8-3, and are now only 9 1/2 out ... lurking, stalking, sizing up the Sox in what I have a feeling is gonna be an interesting summer of beisbol.

One In A Row

The Japanese call it saving face, here closer to home it may be about saving Joe Torre's job, but at least the New York Yankees staved off an embarrassing sweep at the hands of their crosstown rivals, taking the last game of the overhyped Subway Series 6-2 behind righthander Tyler Clippard making his big league debut. Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriquez all homered, but the story of the night was the 22-year-old rookie pitcher dominating the first place Mets with impressive poise and command of his pitches, including a biting breaking ball that helped him strike out six and keep the Mets off balance all game. "Best day of my life," said the new Yankee Clippard.

Just 42 games into the 2007 season and already the Yankees have had an unbelievable seven rookie starting pitchers making their MLB debuts, the first time that had happened this early in a season since 1884, which is before even Roger Clemens was born. Now the hated Boston Red Sox storm into town with the major league's best record at 30-13, making it almost imperative for the Yankees to win the series, if not sweep all three games. And unless it's 1978 all over again, with the Yankees already trailing the AL East division leaders by double digits, the Yankees at this point have to focus on the wild card spot in the AL. But with the starting rotation now rounding into shape, it's not unrealistic to expect a turnaround.

Offensively, the Yankees have been carried just about all year by a trio of players: the amazing Derek Jeter, hitting .365; Jorge Posada, hitting a blistering .382 with power, and A-Rod, who after a sizzling start of his own came back down to earth in May before showing signs this weekend (2 HRs) of getting hot again. But other hitters are starting to come around, including Hideki Matsui, now hitting .295 after his 3 hits last night. If Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Bobby Abreu have just average years from here on in, then the offense will be fine.

Assuming The Rocket has not fired all his boosters yet at age 45, the rotation of Clemens, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte, Chien-Ming Wang, and then either Philip Hughes or Tyler Clippard to round it out seems pretty formidable. However, given the Yankee's continuing propensity to lose starting pitchers via freakish injury, as well as the advanced age of the pitching staff, I wouldn't exactly chisel this rotation in granite for the remainder of the year. Limestone, or maybe sandstone, but not granite...

And with a quarter of the season already spent, the Yankees can't afford to lose many series from here on out. Beginning tonight we find out if Boston, fresh off an Interleague series win over the Braves (thanks for nothing, Atlanta!) at Fenway, is as good as their nearly .700 winning percentage would indicate. If they are, so be it, but the Yankees still have an opportunity to put a much-needed dent in the Red Sox swagger. The first game pitching match-up would seem to be in favor of the Yankees, with Yankees ace Wang facing Tim Wakefield, but the ancient knuckleballer from Boston, who will turn 41 later this season, sports a solid 2.44 ERA and is never a walk in the park for the Yankees, pun intended.

Wolf Out The Door

"Everyone ran into the hallways and were clapping and hugging each other."
An anonymous employee of the World Bank upon hearing that Paul Wolfowitz, champion of the world's poorest inhabitants and leading architect of the Bush administration's widely acclaimed Iraq invasion, had finally resigned from the World Bank in a conflict of interest scandal involving a pay raise and promotion to his girlfriend.

It turns out there was a lot more to the story than just doing favors for his paramour--charges which proved devastating and ultimately fatal for the Wolf-man's career as head of the World Bank, a position traditionally appointed by the American president, while the Euros get to choose who runs the International Monetary Fund. Ironically, another Wolf-man held the job before the present Wolf-man: James Wolfensohn, although the latter Wolf was appointed by Bill Clinton. That's the kind of trivia you're only gonna find here on WardensWorld.

Anyway, before too very long it looks like Bush will get to pick a successor to Paul Wolfowitz. Great. How does John Bolton sound, because you just know it's gonna be him or some other scumbag that Rove and Cheney will come up with just to fuck with everyone before they leave office, which can't be soon enough--even for all those hapless Republicans running for office in 2008.

According to a piece in the German newspaper Der Spiegel which I just finished translating, there were also charges that he was an arrogant boss, put unqualified friends and underqualified cronies into high positions, and fostered and promoted an agenda practically at odds with the vast majority of World Bank directors, officers and employees. You see, neocons always know what's best for the world, the rest of us just haven't caught up to their wisdom yet.

I know that charges of cronyism, incompetence and corruption leveled at someone with ties so close to our upstanding president George W. Bush surprise us all these days, what with the examples of moral rectitude set by Messrs. Libby, Gonzalez, Rove, Abramoff, et al. And after the honorable, noble behavior we've seen exhibited by high-ranking Bush administration officials like Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, does the claim of overbearing arrogance and highhandedness likewise not ring false, just another sordid case of a liberal media out for blood and ganging up on these unfairly harangued statesmen who want only to do the people's business. We report, you decide...

More MP3 Madness

Hello boys & girls, Uncle Warden here with some more free MP3 nuggets. I know, I know, I'm incredibly thoughtful, but that's what I do.

Let's start with a nice complete live show from the White Stripes. That's right, on the White Stripes Website, you can download a complete concert, 18 songs, from Jack White & Co. on their home turf in Michigan from 2002, before they were discovered by the unwashed masses. And from 2004, there's an MP3 for the song Ball and Biscuit performed live by White Stripes in Detroit accompanied by some guy named Bob Dylan. It's literally priceless, as in free!

Frank Black has made a string of terrific solo albums since the demise of indie supergroup the Pixies in the mid-1990s. For my money, his best stuff eclipses the Pixies' best stuff, although that is considered blasphemy in some circles. Anyway, Minnesota Public Radio has something called Live Performances from The Current, which regularly features musicians coming in to chat and play a few tunes live while they're in town for a show. Frank stayed for over a half hour, and while it's mostly talk, he plays My Life Is In Storage from his latest album and a few other songs. I guess you'd have to be familiar with his work beforehand to fully appreciate this interview, but if it whets your appetite and leads you to check him out, that would be considered a good thing, because Frank Black has never made a bad or uninteresting record, is the best way I can put it; just a regular, down to earth, unassuming fellow who happens to write brilliant songs that tap into his own personal brand of weirdness.

How about a recent in-studio appearance from Arctic Monkeys, a band that couldn't be any hotter right now, with the release of their second album garnering nothing but positive reviews. Here's the link, with an archive that contains a bunch of other artists who stopped by the MPR studio, including indie & alternative stalwarts like Bettie Serveert, Indigo Girls, Cracker, Golden Smog, Buzzcocks, World Party, Mates of State, Magic Numbers, Black Rebel Motorcyle Club, M.I.A., Futureheads, Wedding Present, Shins...

Just found something on Spoon's website: MP3 downloads for five songs, mostly demos. (The MP3's are under BONUS in case you don't get a direct link.)
That should hold you lot for a while...

Not For Sale

A couple posts ago I alluded to my obsession with garnering new music, as long as I didn't have to pay for it. This involved burning CDs from a variety of sources -- the computer here at LT, where I burned about 30 CDs from the 4,000 or so songs that were left behind on the iTunes Library from the previous proofreader whose workspace I inherited; my friend John's laptop, also home to some 4,000 songs; as well as my friend Holly, who also has around, you guessed it, 4,000 songs. What is it with that number that lends itself so readily to a computer's total song accumulation? My other avenue for new music has been your good-old-fashioned New York Public Library, where for a mere library card you can "rent" up to 30 CDs at a time and keep them for a week in the Queens system and up to three weeks in Manhattan.

Before I got a functioning computer at my home base last week, I would take out six or eight CDs from the library, burn them onto the hard drive here at work, and then fit the best songs from those albums onto recordable 80-minute blank discs. In this way I was able to exponentially expand my record collection, and you would be surprised at the choices that a good library had to offer, especially the Donnell Media Center library on 53rd street. I'll just list some of the groups/albums I was able to find: a 2-volume Iggy Pop anthology, two early Band albums, the Feelies first album, the first three Cramps albums, both Television albums from the late '70s, the Clash's London Calling and Give 'Em Enough Rope, a Pere Ubu collection, the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, the first Arctic Monkeys joint, two Joy Division records, including the first album, Unknown Pleasures, and the 17-track Substance compilation, whose fucking brilliance just cannot be overrated or overstated, the deluxe 2-CD bonus-track-laden edition of the Cure's first album Three Imaginary Boys, Alice Cooper's greatest hits, Devo's Freedom of Choice, the Buzzcocks' 1976 Time's Up album, with Howard DeVoto on lead vocals, both fucking New York Dolls albums, a new Neko Case record, and then stuff by Pavement, the Silver Jews, New Pornographers, the Kinks, Sex Pistols, Bottle Rockets, Los Lobos, Lords of the New Church, Mission of Burma ... and on and on. All this for the price of a 50-pack of blank discs, which should run you 10 bucks tops these days or you're shopping at the wrong place my friends, you'd better leave...

Well, cut off my legs and call me shorty, because I just found a new way to add new music absolutely gratis and legal: going on bands' official Websites and downloading MP3 clips of entire songs. Now, it's tricky, because almost every band will let you sample a 30-second or so clip of one of their tunes, but only about one in four or five seems to have whole tracks for the taking. Some bands are so insecure/greedy that they're unlikely to give their fans anything for free, whereas others seem okay with giving stuff away.

I just stumbled upon this. Almost every major band, even those that don't exist anymore, have official Websites usually run by their record label. For instance, one of my favorite bands, the Old 97's-- perhaps the last great major alt-country band left standing after the demise of the Jayhawks, the Bottle Rockets not the same, Uncle Tupelo long gone, Son Volt disbanded and then regrouped with a different cast surrounding Jay Farrar, Wilco mutating into whatever it is they do these days, but it damn sure is a long way from the heart-on-a-sleeve directness of A.M. and Being There -- for better or worse. Anywho, you want to find a favorite band's Website and then look for a link to something like Downloads, Audio, Rare Music or Discography. On the Old 97's Website you're able to download two songs each from almost every album, including Too Far To Care, Satellite Rides, Fight Songs. Rancid has the same deal: two full mp3 tracks per album; here's the song Junkie Man, which features Jim Carroll of People Who Died and Basketball Diaries fame. Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) has a terrific Rare Music & Video Archive section that includes eight full songs from their 1968 Peel Sessions, as well as clips (video & audio) from their 1980 Saturday Night Live appearance. Rockabilly revivalist Robert Gordon also has a nice Rare Audio page with a ton of good live stuff, including concerts from CBGBs (1976 with the Tuff Darts), Max's Kansas City (1977), the Lone Star Cafe (1985), as well as live versions of Fire and Heartbreak Hotel recorded with some guy named Bruce Springsteen at New Jersey's Paramount Theater in 1979. (Too bad there's nothing from the blistering show I attended in 1979 at My Father's Place featuring Chris Spedding on lead guitar, but there is some other Spedding material featured.) Pavement also offers some good live and unreleased tracks on their Website, as does Luna.

My favorite new band at the moment is International Noise Conspiracy. Now, as you might expect from a band whose music is infused with heartfelt left-wing politics and sincere denunciations of this horribly exploitative greed-driven economic system, designed to appeal to mankind's basest instincts, they currently provide mp3's for seven songs, most of which I hadn't heard. Compare this "laissez-faire" approach to the one taken by greedy has-beens like Metallica. I downloaded Capitalism Stole My Virginity, Up For Sale, Only Lovers Left Alive, etc., burned them onto a bleedin' disc and now they reside quite comfortably on me bleedin' iPod...

I'm not gonna provide each & every link here for you. As if. But I will tell you about some other bands whose Websites offer substantial mp3 downloads for the taking include Stiff Little Fingers, Buzzcocks, Bad Religion and John Cooper Clarke. Steve Earle's audio page is particularly generous: you can download almost half the superb Transcendental Blues album, which to me is by far his best overall album, as well as rare tracks, Webcasts, concerts. Remember to right click your mouse on the file and use Save Link As; then wait for it to finish downloading and it's yours.

Now, I'm not saying that this is like Napster in its prime, but at least for me, it appears the days of paying 14 or 15 bucks for a new CD are all but over. Pass it on...

Falling Man Review, Take Two

Here is a much more positive review of the latest Don DeLillo novel than what the New York Times critic had to say the other day. That review left a bad taste in my mouth. Nobody disses Don on my fucking watch, pal...

I knew something was fishy from the get-go, because all these highfalutin book review sections, or a lot of them, seem to be fueled by an extracurricular agenda that is often either politically or ego-driven.

So read the review by Laura Miller on Salon.com, which throws around words like "powerful" to describe the novel's contents. Then read the one from the Times I posted the other day, which called the book "a disappointment." Then decide if you want to shell out the close to 30-dollar jacket price for the book. Myself, I don't read a lot of fiction these days, only history, whereas there was a time I read only fiction, when I wore a younger man's shoes. Rockports, I believe.

Now that the truth is so much stranger than mere fiction, what's the use. The two have become commingled and often stand in for each other on short notice, that's how well the truth and fiction get along these days. When one wants to take a sick day, for instance, either truth or fiction will call in to the other's place of employment and make up a quite credible and plausible excuse that will raise no suspicions. It turns out you can make this stuff up after all... Go figure. No really, you should go figure. When you get the chance. No hurry.

Anyway, if I do decide to read Falling Man, you can be sure I'm not paying for the privilege. Sorry about the royalties, Don, but this has library written all over it. I can't imagine that Don DeLillo writing about 9/11 wouldn't be worth the effort, especially since it's only a 246-page book.

Now, in her review, which praises Falling Man as his best work in years, Miller touches on a recurring central issue in the DeLillo canon: the fact that his dialogue is often obtrusively unbelievable and overwrought. But DeLillo is not after realism per se, rather like many Big Idea writers he seeks to channel his own sensibilities and philosophy through the mouths of his characters. The risk is that every character ends up speaking in the same rhythm and cadence, and even with the same outlook. According to Miller,

The weaknesses of "Falling Man" are DeLillo's long-standing ones. Most of them spring from the fact that he is an essayist at heart, who presumably chose the novel because it is the most exalted and revered literary form of our time -- and DeLillo is not the sort of writer willing to risk being insufficiently exalted and revered. The characters in "Falling Man" are typically sketchy and the dialogue improbable; everyone speaks in exactly the same stagy, portentous manner as the mouthpiece characters in an experimental play. (What woman, being deserted by a lover, would say, "Do I know how to make one thing out of another, without pretending? Can I stay who I am, or do I have to become all those other people who watch someone walk out the door? We're not other people, are we?")

But that description, of authors using their characters as mouthpieces to impart their wisdom and observations, would likewise apply to an awful lot of "revered" writers down the years. I guess it's a matter of degree and context. If you look at DeLillo's work as applying Theater of the Absurd devices to the modern novel, where the characters populating his novels are put into various stages of existential helplessness, then it doesn't seem to be a hindrance but an innovation. I mean, would a critic feel the need to accuse Samuel Beckett of writing "improbable" words for his characters to recite in a play like Waiting For Godot? Just asking...
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P.S. Ironically, or at least coincidentally, after finishing off this trenchant post I stumbled on another review of Falling Man, this one by John Leonard on the Nation.com Website, which makes the case that DeLillo has been writing about "9/11" all along! It's a bit of a stretch. I read Mao II years and years ago, but I remember that one of the premises of that novel is that the future will belong to crowds, to the mob, to mass movements that will all but eclipse the individual. I also recall DeLillo postulating in that same intriguing book that the novel as an art form is now dead, that writers will never again recapture their place in the pantheon of the universal zeitgeist, and how terrorists are the new novelists because they're the only ones left who can shock us out of our ingrained complacency. What I found so amazing is that the Leonard piece begins with a quote about Samuel Beckett from Mao II -- a direct connection between DeLillo and Beckett that seems to confirm the playwright's influence on the novelist. And here I thought comparing DeLillo to Beckett was wholly original on my part. But this is even better, because it confirms that my literary instincts are honed to a fine fare-thee-well. Man, I should be charging people for these undeniably incisive comments. Anyway, here's the Mao II quote, which, keep in mind, is from a book published in 1991, 10 years before the ominous events of September 11:

Beckett is the last writer to shape the way we think and see. After him, the major work involves midair explosions and crumbled buildings. This is the new tragic narrative.

Wow. There's also a pretty good Wikipedia entry for Don DeLillo and one for Mao II.
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Freedomland (1999) by Richard Price
In which Price's almost by this point fetishistic obsession with cops and law enforcement (see Clockers, Sea of Love, Night and the City, etc., ad nauseum) continues. The book is just plain too long at 736 pages, with far too many purple passages that DO NOT MOVE THE PLOT ALONG. I can't help but feel that Price in some way is showing off, using a bigger word instead of the immediate one at hand. Nevertheless, the characterizations are usually right on, as is the dialogue. I have read all six of Price's books, and this is not his best; it's his least satisfying except for maybe The Breaks. Clockers covers the same territory much more effectively. Elements of Freedomland are too often standard police procedural boilerplate and therefore too predictable. But the attempt to open up a window into the life of an inner city housing project is noble and often stunning in its scope.

In Full Swing

Ah, it’s never boring being a Yankees fan. Never has been. Even when they put a mediocre product on the field during the late 1960s and early 1970s, which happened to be my formative baseball years, they managed to spice things up with some good old-fashioned wife swapping between starting pitchers, giving new meaning to the phrase, What's Mine is Yours. And they have had much more than their share of misery and tragedy. All I have to do is recite the names Lou Gehrig, Thurman Munson, Cory Lidle, Billy Martin, Ed Whitson... Okay, we’re kidding about the last one. At least a little.

But 2007 has seen its own share, if not quite tragedy, at least oodles of turmoil, stress, heartache and disappointment – and we’re only 30-something games into the season! And that was before the deplorable signing of Roger Clemens.

I'll admit that I like being proven right as much as the next guy, but it still somehow hurts me to point out that back in a February post titled Like Rooting For Microsoft, I outlined why the Yankees and GM Brian Cashman were right to be playing a form of hardball when negotiating with uber-closer Mariano Rivera on a contract extension. This season has been an unbridled disaster for #42, with the right-hander giving up three stomach-turning stalk-off home runs so far this short season. Even in his worst stretches, Armando Benitez, for instance, probably never had such a hideous run of luck, with luck in this case being frightening close to looking washed up. Imagine if the Yankees had “rewarded” Mariano with, say, a 3-year 30 or 40 million-dollar extension! In sports it’s always better to let a guy walk away a year too early than having your payroll tied up in older, fading guys.

Which brings me to another topic, Brian Cashman. It seems to me that this dweebish-looking dude gets a free pass from the press far too often. Just what has this guy done that the average fantasy league geek couldn’t have done when assembling a team? Every year he brings in an expensive new middle reliever or three and every year by May Yankees fans realize that Joe Torre doesn’t trust any of them, with justification, and really hasn’t trusted a middle reliever since side-arming Jeff Nelson was in his prime, or maybe Mike Stanton. Every year C Jorge Posada burns out after the all-star break because every year the aptly named Cashman fails to come up with a backup catcher who can play even a lick. I mean, the last few years the team had to suffer with John Flaherty, Wil Nieves, Sal whatever the hell that guy’s name was with the walrus mustache who we got late last year. (Editor’s note: the catcher’s name is Sal Fasano, acquired from the Phillies in exchange for minor league infielder Hector Made in what has to be one of the more inconsequential trades in the history of organized baseball.) These players are sold to the media as “defensive-minded catchers” mainly because they gave up on trying to hit their body weight a long, long time ago and concentrated on their defensive games. Now, this doesn’t mean they can throw anyone out on the bases, only that these unwanted castoffs are willing to block potential wild pitches with their bodies and risk being nicked with fouled-off pitches, the only skills they possess which stand between their making a major league roster and a long stretch of unemployment.

Just look across town, where the Mets have employed Ramon Castro as a more than serviceable backup catcher for the last few years, giving them the luxury of resting first Mike Piazza and now Paul LoDuca. It makes a difference over the course of a long season. The Fasano trade is but one example of typical Cashman erring-do. Do we have to run down the list of bad personnel moves that would be magnified were it not for the inexhaustible funds available for the next high priced free agent? In pitching alone, obscene contracts were doled out to names like Kevin Brown, Jeff Weaver, Kyle Farnsworth... and how does Cashman's much-ballyhooed signing of Japanese pitcher Kei Igawa look right about now? They signed him to a five-year $20 million contact -- AFTER they paid $26 million to his former Japanese team just for the right to negotiate with him. I've already written him off as a bust. Even with all the injuries to the starting staff, this guy is now working out of the bullpen as a glorified long man after giving up a whopping 8 home runs in just 30 innings and about a run per inning, pitching to the sorry tune of a 7.63 ERA. Another nice pickup there, Brian!

Of course, that almost unprecedented run of injuries to the Yankees starting pitching this year will be factored into any discussion of the Clemens contract, with many observers in essence letting Cashman off the hook with a built-in element of enabling one of the more unholy alliances in modern sport. Just part of a Bizarro World sport where the incompetent non-commissioner earns a yearly salary of $14 million. Then again, in a declining, sick society like ours, it's best not to overthink things if you want to enjoy anything--recent news of Paris Hilton and a dose of cold reality intersecting in such joyously unprecedented fashion notwithstanding...

But like a badly written short story I digress. Back to backup catcher. It's painful to look at some of Cashman’s “finds” during the Joe Torre era. Be warned that anything close to a prolonged gaze at these backstops' meager numbers will induce something very much like severe nausea or at best mild bowel irritation if you’re a Yankees fan. This roll call of stone-cold mediocrity includes such legends of the game as the immortal Kelly Stinnett, who is virtually unknown outside of his immediate family members. So with a roster that is for all intents and purposes assembled each year by checkbook, and while the farm system remains the red-headed stepchild, Cashman comes up short once again in acquiring solid relief pitching and backup catching. This year you can add the unholy mess that is the first base situation, where three players into two positions – namely, 1B and DH – just doesn’t add up. Throw in the mishandling of the Bernie Williams situation and it’s a wonder how Cashman skates by. In fact, he is lauded for the job he does by a fawning press. All it will take is another strong start from Philip Hughes and the tabloids will be chock full of features about how the Yankees farm system is resurrected.

All I’m saying is that the sight of Brian Cashman beaming behind Roger Clemens at the press conference announcing the misguided signing is a little hard to take for this long-time Yankees fan. In all honesty, at this stage of the game I no longer live and die with the fate of the team as I used to. It’s really more a case of rooting AGAINST the Boston Red Sox and their insufferable fans, and to a lesser extent the New York Metropolitans and their insecure fans, than rooting FOR the team that plays its games at the big old ball orchard in the South Bronx. Of course, in less than two years, a new, antiseptic, unnecessary replica of Yankee Stadium will house the team, and just a little more luster will leak from the storied history of that team. Just a little more luster, a little at a time, and soon you can’t even make out the spot where there used to be such a glorious shine, no matter how you tilt your head or squinch up your eyes…

But what are payroll concerns when you can pay a single player $28 million (pro rated) for part time work? That’s what the Yankees are shelling out for a retro Rocket, a 6-inning pitcher at best these days, while allowing the 45-year-old to basically come and go as he pleases, rejoining the club according to the imperious whims of the mercenary hurler. BTW, there are teams whose entire payroll is less than $28 million. Let that sink in for a moment and then tell me this can be anything but a negative for the sport itself.

Across the City in Flushing, which another team calls home, there is a pitcher slowly emerging as one of the best in his league, if not all of MLB: John Maine. To think this guy was an afterthought in the Kris Benson & Anna Benson-for-Jorge Julio trade with Baltimore makes his success all the more sweet for Mets fans. It says here that the 5-0 Maine is the starter for the National League for this year’s All-Star game. With very little fanfare considering he plays in the sport's biggest market, Maine has put together as impressive a string of quality starts as any pitcher in baseball, and his ERA heading into today's start in San Francisco against the Giants is a microscopic 1.37. With the Mets strong hitting lineup, the state of Maine appears quite bullish, and winning 20 games may be an annual event for the unassuming righty, given that Maine literally just turned 26 yesterday.

On the other side of the ledger sits the shaggy haired Jeff Weaver. Now with the Mariners, the well-traveled Weaver, who had an atrocious stint with the Yanks a few years back, had some shockingly bad stats entering his start last weekend at Yankee Stadium, the announcer mentioning he had given up 31 hits in 11 total innings! His numbers won’t look any better after being knocked out in the 6^th inning. How bad, you ask? His ERA now stands at a robust 15.35, with 40 hits and an astounding 29 runs surrendered in just 17 innings. Yikes! A look at his career stat line shows 1,712 hits given up in 1,585 innings, which to me is the most reliable metric for a pitcher’s effectiveness.

Now, before you accuse me of getting all misty-eyed with my praise of the New York Metropolitans, let me just relate that it's only early May and already I am exhausted by all the area sportswriters, announcers, talk show hosts and sports radio callers waxing bad poetic about how Jose Reyes legging out a triple is somehow mankind’s biggest achievement since the lunar landing. Look, he’s a good little player but he’s not the Best Player in Baseball, another bit of overwrought hyperbole we're hearing all too much of this young season. He’s not even the best shortstop in New York City. We all know who that is, and he wears #2. Derek Jeter, who lost the battling title last year on the final day of the season, is picking up right where he left off, hitting a stellar .354, with an unbelievable 45 hits in just 30 games this season.

Now, in the interest of being fair and balanced, I just looked up Reyes’ stats, and if Jeter’s are unbelievable, I have to say that the Mets’ shortstop has equally incredible numbers: he’s hitting .350, with 49 hits in 32 games, plus his 19 steals lead the league. I will also disclose that Jeter has been somewhat shaky in the field at times this year (6 errors already versus only 15 total in all of 2006), while Reyes has the range of an untamed wildebeest and the strong right arm of a Central American dictator… So I contradict myself. Hey, I contain multitudes, pal; wanna make something of it?

Another New York infielder, Robinson Cano, such a joy to watch last year when he emerged as one of the best looking hitters in the AL, is off to a dreadful start in 2007. It’s to the point where Joe Torre has had to sit the young second baseman, so clueless has Cano looked at the plate. Last year he finished with a .342 average with 15 HRs and 78 RBIs in less than a full season, while he’s struggled mightily this year, hitting a weak .267 with no pop.

Being something of a numerologist, I can’t help but think that Cano’s struggles may stem from switching his uniform number from #22 to #24. Certain people work better with certain numerals, and just a minor change can invoke major consequences. That’s numerology 101. And considering that the unselfish Cano made the switch so that pitcher-for-hire Roger Clemens could have his old uniform number, it makes you wonder if there’s not something amiss in the Bronx this year, the very borough where Edgar Allan Poe once conjured up his tales of the macabre.

Nobody asked me, or is likely to ask me, and I don’t do fantasy baseball, but if I were starting a team tomorrow and got to pick one everyday player, I would immediately select Miguel Cabrera. I’ve always been impressed with the all-around game of the Florida Marlins’ third baseman and would take him over my second choice, the Cards’ Alex Pujols, only because Cabrera plays a tougher position since he switched to 3B from the outfield a couple years ago. At just 23 years old, not only does Cabrera already have a World Series ring, but in a Marlins lineup virtually bereft of hitters who would scare even a small, preternaturally timid child, Cabrera remains extremely patient at the plate, with high walk totals in each of his three full prior seasons. And like Pujols, in his first three seasons Cabrera has put up numbers that rank among the greatest first three years of all time. How good, you ask. Try last year’s .339, with 26 HRs and 114 RBIs; in 2005 he hit .323 with 33 dingers and 116 RBIs, and in 2004, 33 and 112. This year he’s off to another remarkable start, hitting .351 with 8 HRs and 24 RBIs. Yet even with those gaudy numbers, you just don’t hear Cabrera mentioned as one of the game’s best. What we have here may be the second coming of Roberto Clemente, minus the fielding heroics, base-running prowess and sheer hustle. There I go again. Now that I think of it, there may never be another Clemente, a singularly unique player who in many ways was the Jackie Robinson for Latin players when he came up in 1954.

If you read only one book this month, this year, this decade, pick up the tremendous Clemente biography by David Maraniss. It’s about so much more than baseball, so much more than sports really, to the point where you will find yourself choking up at the heart and humanity of this man if you have any kind of pulse still beating. The people whose lives he touched, his ups and downs with the press, bringing a championship to a blue collar town like Pittsburgh, his relief work after the devastating 1972 earthquake in Nicaragua, it’s all there in one terrific biography. It carries the official WardensWorld seal of approval, which, if doesn’t entail anything quite like a money-back guarantee, still confers on all of you the right to call me up late at night and yell at me if you are in any way dissatisfied with the book.

New DeLillo Novel

The New York Times reviews Falling Man, the new novel by Don DeLillo. Unfortunately, Michiko Kakutani's review is mixed at best. It appears likely that DeLillo may never recapture the magic of his late 1980s/1990s ouvre, which matches the best run of any 20th century writer. Falling Man is DeLillo's attempt to deal head on with the terrorist attacks of 2001, but it's an oddly slim book, only 246 pages, for such a topic, almost like trying to capture America post-9/11 in a one-hour movie. The first DeLillo book I "tried" was White Noise, which blew me away, even changed my life, as Eric Clapton used to say about every group in every VH1 Behind The Music special. Then I moved on to Americana, End Zone, Mao II and Libra, his great take on how the Kennedy assassination likely went down. The thing about DeLillo's books is that they stand up to repeat reading like the work of few other contemporary writers. In this way they resemble Kurt Vonnegut's novels, but DeLillo's books will stay with you and haunt you long after you've finished the final page, as cliched as that sounds.

This Is Me Catching Up

Let me put it right out there: I've been feeling quite guilty, remiss even, over the lack of blog entries I've been able to post. It's been a combination of unequal parts being busy at work and then being obsessed with acquiring new music, such that almost every free moment in front of a computer has been spend burning CDs or burning new music into my computer. I should point out that over this very weekend I got a new computer for my apartment. And as soon as I figure out which of the seemingly endless choices for an internet provider to go with, I will be up and running on the information superhighway.

The problem with missing so much time is that you literally can never catch up on world events or even personal business. For instance, you may be wondering how my birthday went last week, which places I went out to celebrate with friends and family, etc. Some of you may be curious as to how I felt about the horrible school shooting by that ugly dork of a loser who went ballistic on the Virginia Tech campus. For the record, I was adamantly against the whole sordid episode.

You also may be wondering how my freelancing career has been going. Let's just say it's been as busy as it's ever been. I think I only missed two days in the entire month of April, which is deceiving because there were days I worked two different places on the same day. So in addition to my regular shifts at LT, I've been working some one- or two-day projects elsewhere. In fact, I just got a call from the Agency informing me that CB needs me for two full days, tomorrow and Wednesday, so I have to check with LT that it's okay for me to miss those two days and come back Thursday. This could be a very lucrative week if it all works out. It's always a balancing act but it's good to be wanted by different places, good to be in demand.

Then there's also the recent NFL draft to discuss, but first I have to do some research on the picks the Cowboys made. I do know that in addition to getting a stud pass rusher in LB Anthony Spencer from Purdue, somehow we came out of the weekend with Cleveland's overall #1 pick for 2008, which of course could be a very, very high pick indeed.

So that's it for now. It's back to work so that I can live to write another day. Write to live and live to write.

Imus-Free Mornings

THIS MONDAY MORNING, for the first time in about 5,000 or 6,000 mornings, New Yorkers did not have the option of spending quality radio time with the Imus in the Morning Show on WFAN. Instead, the same 660 AM spectrum cruelly brought listeners a wholly unnecessary dose of Mike & the Mad Dog, the station’s usual afternoon drive sports talk show team that will be filling in until management decides how best to replace Don Imus.

By now even alien life forms are aware of the three infamous words that cost the broadcasting legend his morning radio program and possibly his career after more than 30 years in business. I used to be a huge fan going back more than a decade, when the show was still based more on scripted skits and celebrity imitations than on interviews with broadcasting bigwigs and politico blowhards. Way ahead of the curve as usual, last August I announced in these very pages that I was in fact personally boycotting the I-Man, not because of any problem I had with the racial tone of the show, but simply because Imus had effectively turned the program over to his producer, Bernard McGuirk, and a steady coterie of in-studio regulars like the sanity-challenged ex-NYC cop Bo Deitl and redneck jackasses like Larry the Cable Guy. Plus, I grew tired of his quest to be all things to all people, trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator in his listening audience while simultaneously trying to play the intellectual as he chatted with writers and pundits. Despite his eventual opposition to the Iraq war, in my opinion Imus far too often gave passes to right wing hacks, and that was why I wished him into the cornfield, but I never wanted the guy fired. It’s like when eventually you’ve had enough of your parents at a certain age, all their arbitrary rules and insanity, so you decide to run away from home. Well, you still don’t want anything bad to happen to your mom and dad; you just need a break. That’s the point I reached with Imus. I wasn’t gonna listen every day, but once in a while you tuned in to hear a few yucks, as Imus himself used to put it.

Ultimately, it was bad karma that did in the I-Man. Having banned Sid Rosenberg for his own more-than-just-tasteless comments about black athletes, loyal-to-a-fault Imus finally relented and let him call in to the show once in a while; it was Rosenberg who Imus was talking to when he made his fateful wisecrack about the Rutgers players. And it was his own producer Bernie who egged him on. The perfect storm of imbecility did in the I-Man, and it was his own fault. It was far from the first time that Imus had gone over the line, but this time there was Internet video to capture it and bloggers and commentators to hammer away at his latest transgression. And somehow, at least for me, it was much worse to actually see Imus saying those words than listening to it firsthand or hearing about it after the fact.

No matter how bad the fallout WFAN had to deal with, there is no reason to subject listeners to Mike Francesa and Chris Russo so early in the morning. The station plans to have the duo perform double duty, at least for a couple weeks – doing the morning show and then their own show afternoons at 2:00. That is a train wreck waiting to happen. If this morning is any indication, where the two know-it-alls were joined (for some unexplained reason) by longtime Imus sidekick Charles McCord, New Yorkers are in for insufferably bad radio, because the two sports hosts are singularly unsuited for a time slot that requires at least a small degree of irreverence and wit, such that I predict the two will become even bigger caricatures and parodies of themselves.

Late last week when news of the Imus firing came down, Mike and the Mad Dog predictably went into full-on outrage-slash-self-righteous mode, with both vociferously blasting station management for their disloyalty and cowardice toward their guy, who brought in more money for the station than anyone. So why do they bail out CBS management by agreeing to fill in as morning replacements? I gotta admit, I had already had it with those two, but just for that sleazy move alone, I will be rooting against these two loudmouths for a long, long time.
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With all the furor over Don’s and Ho’s in the news, I found it more than a little ironic that this very weekend fate saw fit to "announce" that one quite unnappily-headed Ho – smooth-voiced Hawaiian pop singer Don Ho – finally passed on to that great big luau in the sky. I doubt the classy crooner best known for rockin’ the Tiny Bubbles ever called women ho’s or bitches in his songs, but I could be wrong; maybe he planned to use his great god-given monicker (MC Ho, anyone?) to cut a few gangster rap albums to cash in on the hip-hop market. *****************************************************************
I have a system when it comes to the start of a new baseball season: I simply pay no attention until 10 games have been played. That means not watching or listening to games, not even looking at box scores in the paper. Sure, I know A-Rod’s off to a great start, and the Mets are in second place (sweet!), but who cares if someone is hitting .575 after four games. At least 10 games is a body of work, however small, that you can go on. My system worked out better than usual this year, what with the absolutely awful weather we’re getting on the East Coast and in the Midwest, with rain-outs, snow-outs, frigid temps, no sun whatsoever... And with the NBA and NHL playoffs starting, and the NFL draft less than two weeks away, there’s no great urgency to follow baseball closely for at least another 10 games or so. The Yanks are struggling along with a sub-.500 record, Mariano blew a save yesterday, and the injuries to their starting rotation continue to mount, but as long as the Mets or Red Sox don’t run away and hide, I’m OK for now.
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That wacky power pop festival I went to in Brooklyn a few weeks ago is still making news. As I mentioned, a great time was had by all, but I never knew that I was attending some historical event. Apparently it was the power pop version of Woodstock, at least according to this week’s Village Voice, which featured a gushing review of the event. No mention of $11 drinks and $6 beers at the bar, but hey, a small price to pay I guess to see six bands for $22!

New Wave Nostalgia

Last Friday a friend asked me what I was doing for the upcoming weekend, so I told her that I was going to a club in Brooklyn to see a bill that included the Speedies and the Neighborhoods, a few punk bands I had seen back in their/my heyday, and I jokingly called it an exercise in pure nostalgia. Little did I know how fitting that description was, because when we stepped into Southpaw, the small club in yuppified, hipsterized Park Slope, it was indeed a true time warp, with most of the patrons sporting spiky or shaggy haircuts and wearing skinny ties, buttons, badges and other authentic-looking accouterments from the new wave era. All I had was my leather jacket and the actual memories from that time period.

The concert featured six bands on the bill and was the second of four nights of what Southpaw was calling a Power Pop Festival. We were really there only to see the last two groups: the Neighborhoods, the legendary Boston trio who would be going on fifth, and then Brookyn's own Speedies, who would close things out. I had seen the Neighborhoods at Hurrah’s waaaa-aaaay back in March of ’79, my very first punk show...mind-blowing, life-altering...and judging by the youth of the crowd, it had to be a first for a lot of kids that night. The Speedies were best known for a handful of singles, including 1979’s terrific Lemme Take Your Foto b/w No Substitute. I don’t think they even had a whole album to their credit. The Neighborhoods also were best known for a single 45: the tremendous No Place Like Home b/w Prettiest Girl released in 1980, which features great lines like:

"Mom and Dad are so frightnin'
Every day's a crisis
Dad comes home and he's nervous
The air's so thick you can't breathe!"

&

"My best friend is my hi-fi
At Thirty-Three and Forty-Fi-Yi-Yive!"

The Neighborhoods did release a few albums, including 1987’s overlooked Reptile Men, but nothing that matched the blistering intensity of that initial single.

Johnny Star had done his research before the show, reading the group bio on the Speedies Website and discovering how the band members had gone on to have interesting careers after they dissolved around 1981. One guy made a lot of money working for Apple Computer, where he helped design the QuickTime video system; the drummer became a lawyer and then a judge; while another member became a photographer and a professor at Yale University. Also, Hewlett Packard bought the rights to Foto and plans to feature the song in an upcoming TV commercial campaign. Surely not your typical postpunk-breakup story! But then again, after playing in a few fledgling bands of my own, I grew up to become whatever it is I am, while Johnny Star became a NYC fireman, and various other friends from that scene went back to school or became chefs, limo drivers, carpenters' wives…

The first four bands were of varying quality, but one group, the Baby Shakes, did stand out: three young Asian girls in matching black&white outfits playing loud&fast/melodic Ramones-style songs and looking exceedingly cute in the process. I took some cell phone pics but alas they’re pretty blurry.

















Also ran into Lyn at the bar, who was part of the New York new wave band The Comateens back in the day along with Nik North (nee Nick Dembling), who I worked with later at the Wall Street Transcript. Just another of the night’s funny coincidences I guess but it seemed to all make sense.


It was just like old times as we took our place in the crowd near the stage, sweating and laughing and singing along with everyone else. There’s still nothing quite like the rush of good live music. Between sets I would get some air outside, grubbing smokes from the young hipsters, reminiscing with older former punks nearer my own demographic, and checking out the hot young punk chicks dressed in their carefully cultivated customes of spandex, leather, fishnet stockings and spike heels. Still works for me.

My one little nit to pick is that the Speedies managed to cram around 10 songs into their set, but somehow overlooked my favorite, No Substitute, with the catchy but cynical Buzzcocks-like chorus,

"Girls in love they don't exist!"

After their set we caught up with Allen, the Speedies drummer and now a Supreme Court judge, outside the club. We busted his balls about the band not playing No Substitute, but he said the band didn’t have time to "re-learn" all the old tunes in time for their first show in almost 30 years. True, the beginning of No Substitute does have an intricate drum intro, but still... It would be like seeing Grandmaster Flash live and they decided to play The Message but not White Lines! Unacceptable.

While the Speedies’ set was very sloppy but fun, the Neighborhoods, with all three original members alive and intact (no small feat given the passage of time), sounded almost as tight as they did nearly three decades earlier -- bouncing around the stage with the same manic energy that characterized their old sets. Unlike the Speedies, the 'Hoods rightly played both sides of their best-known single, as well as the best song (Pure & Easy) from Reptile Men. It was a night where everything seemed to come full circle.