So you are probably stuck in your house (or stuck at work all weekend like me), so why not enjoy the wind, rain, and power outages with some music. Here is my hurricane playlist.
1) Hurricane - Bob Dylan
2) Fool in the Rain - Led Zepplin
3) Run for the Hills - Iron Maiden
4) Miami 2017 - Billy Joel
5) Against the Wind - Bob Seager
6) Louisiana 1927 - Randy Newman
7) Rock You Like a Hurricane - Scorpions
8) Fire and Rain - James Taylor
9) Blowin’ in the Wind - Bob Dylan
10) Riders on the Storm - The Doors
11) Come on Eileen - Dexys Midnight Runners (It is close enough)
Nobody that knows me would be surprised to know that yesterday was a very special day for me. Baseball has always been important to me. More so the Yankees and Derek Jeter have been important to me.
Maybe thats not healthy. Maybe I should save all my worries for actual things of consequence. I do have perspective of what is actually important in the world, but I think that is exactly why baseball matters to me. If you are always taking the worries of the world as your own, with no outlet to just enjoy something with no actual consequence, you would just explode. Everyone escapes in some way. Some people escape from reality with art, music, or countless other forms of expression, I escape with a ball, a bat, and pinstripes.
One of the things that has been a goal of mine in recent years was to give myself, if I could, a chance to see Derek Jeter’s 3,000 hit in person. I wanted to be a part of it, I wanted to experience it. I fulfilled that goal when I bought tickets to go to the game friday night, which would be his first real chance to get that hit. Unfortunately the weather had other plans, and it down-poured in New York City and the game was postponed until September. I was extremely upset, I felt as if something had been taken from me.
To make matters worse I had a shift at work that began at 3pm, so to avoid possibly being on the subway when he got the hit I had to go to work two hours early. I held that bitterness through hit number 2,999 and through a 3-2 count in his second at bat. Then as the ball flew into the beautiful, blue New York sky and landed just in front of the right field bleachers all the ill feelings and about twelve years of time were washed away, just as the game was the night before.
I wasn’t sitting and waiting for work anymore. Suddenly I was 12 and out of breath from just running inside from playing, and arguing over, a wiffle ball game to watch the Yankees on MSG. For that moment all was right with the world.
Yesterday had a little bit of magic, and I’m not just talking about what went on at 161st and River Ave. I came to realize that as I reflected on all the moments of baseball I enjoyed over the years, it wasn’t only the moments that remain vivid. What I remember is what I was doing and who I shared those moments with.
I thought about my mom running upstairs thinking I’d hurt myself because of how loudly I screamed at “The Flip.” I remember watching, with my entire family speechless, the “Mr. November” home run. I remember being equal parts excited about the Jeffery Maier home run and just being able to stay up past my bedtime to watch it. I remember the first trip I made to Yankee Stadium, a surprise trip by my Grandpa, and how I knew even then that this trip was going to effect me greatly.
That is why today I have no qualms talking about how important baseball is to me, because it doesn’t just help me escape from what is important. It also reminds me what is truly important.
I have no shame in saying that as I watched Derek round the bases, reflecting on all this, and bringing me back to years gone by my eyes may have been a little misty and words probably would not have been able to escape my throat at that moment.
Since that ball landed in the stands, nothing has taken the small smile off my face, because when you are 12, and there is some magic on the field you believe it is possible anywhere.
It has been an astoundingly long time since I checked in here. I am going to try and start up again. I am trying my best to get to something at Tribeca sometime this week. That will at least give me something I will have to write about.
The Giants recently signed David Tyree to a one day contract so he could retire a New York Football Giant. Cheers to the most exciting football play I will ever watch as a fan.
Last night I got home from Inception and wanted to write this right away, but I decided not to because it would have been completely incoherent. I would have tried to say too much at one time.
I have digested and am ready to write about it.
Christopher Nolan has completely cemented himself as the best filmmaker of what I am going to call the smart action movie. Films that are equal part spectacle and mind bending.
I will start off by making a statement that I do not believe is hyperbole though it may seem like it. I have not been more mentally engaged in a film in a long time. That is what the complicated plot does for Nolan, because it is more complicated then usual it forces the viewer to engage in a way that they are not familiar with. It is truly a unique experience, something especially unique in mid July.
That being said, although the plot is complicated, I did not feel like the film was as hard to follow as it is being made out to be. It is complicated and unfamiliar, but if you let yourself into that world fully, it all makes sense and flows rather nicely actually. (There is one major inconsistency that bothers me that I need to talk to someone about though) I am by no means saying you can be passive and understand, I’m just saying with all the talk of how confusing it is, I did not find it that way. Now being able to follow it may just be a product of years of nerding it up, partaking in many many sci fi films and philosophical theories and being somewhat used to that type of thinking.
The action part of Inception is equally awe inspiring. For about the last hour of this film there is so much happening you cannot get of the edge of your seat, literally. I hate that cliche but this is the case it is true, I could not lean back in my seat until near the end.
I wish more people made films like Christopher Nolan, not just because I wish more directors wanted to engage their audience the way he does, but because he is one of the few directors (along with the Coen Brothers and maybe Clint Eastwood) who fully embrace Neo-Noir. Noir has always been my favorite style of film and it always excites me. The style was pulled off beautifully in the film, and is just as strong as the plot.
Now comes my only issue, which normally would be a huge issue, but because of the strength of everything else, it was not the detriment it would be for other films. Although the performances were great, especially by Dicaprio, the characters were not very, if at all, engaging. You discovered very little about the characters and were instead shown, which naturally makes you less interested in them just as having to discover things about this plot make you more interested in it. Although normally this would bother me enough to make me not like a film, this film is obviously plot-driven and not character-driven and I can accept and embrace that in this case.
Although I would recommend everyone watch this film, it is not for everyone. Some people won’t like it, and that is fine. Unfortunately this is the perfect example of a film that will have a very strong following that will automatically call someone who doesn’t like it stupid or shallow, but people look for different things in films and there is nothing wrong with that.
I’m excited to watch this film again, and if you have not seen it yet, see it so we can talk about it.
When you put the pinstripes on you are not just putting a baseball uniform on. You are wearing tradition and you are wearing pride and you are going to wear it the right way
Your Attention Please, Ladies and Gentleman, Welcome to Yankee Stadium
The longtime PA announcer for Yankee Stadium, Bob Sheppard, passed away today at the age of 99. He is deeply ingrained in some of the greatest memories I have as a child going to the old ballpark. Although he never hit a homer or struck anyone out, he was as much a part of the Yankee teams I watched growing up as Derek Jeter or Bernie Williams. I will miss him, just as I miss the stadium, as a part of my childhood, and a link to generations of fans with the same passion for more then fifty years.
