Project: Blog Different

Tomorrow brings the day the Commonwealth of Massachusetts votes to fill Senator Kennedy’s long held Senate seat. While I strongly encourage all voters to read about the issues, look up their voting records, and make up their own decisions, I’m going to tell you why I plan on voting for Martha Coakley tomorrow, and why I hope you head the polls yourself tomorrow and do the same (and yes, that sort of contradicts what I just wrote).

First, this should be pretty obvious if you’ve ever discussed politics with me, or read this blog, but I am a very open and proud liberal. Of course my own political beliefs will shape my arguments and takes on various issues, but this election really goes far beyond political and philosophical differences on things like education, healthcare, church & state, etc. In the after-school program I lead, I will often discuss current events, news, and sometimes political discussions, and last week I tried to explain the political spectrum as a concept. Just for some context, I will gladly admit my bias upfront, and try to argue both sides of an issue. In brief we were discussing the political philosophies in very basic terms: good of the collective vs individual right and good of self. We broke down various issues and where they would fall on a two axis spectrum (left/right & less gov/more gov), and then read up on various issues which Scott Brown and Martha Coakley have discussed in their pasts and campaigns (http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2010/senate_race/issues/ also check out project votesmart)

Most, usually but not always historical, issues fit pretty well on the spectrum (health care, tax policies, education funding, federal vs state issues), but most of the more current issues (Reagan Era to now) really don’t fit in with what conservatism is all about. What does limited people’s marriage rights have to do with individual rights? What does starting/continuing wars have to do with saving money? What does torture/”enhanced interrogation techniques” have to do with as Glenn Beck says “what our founding fathers built America about”? Nothing. Zero. Nada. Ziltch.

Now, while I think that all conservatism (both traditional and neo-con) is bad for humanity as a whole, this is so far beyond that basic philosophical difference. The current Republican party, the Tea Bag leaders, Fox News, Scott Brown, Mitch McConnell, Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, and demons like Pat Robertson: these are bad people. They’re not just folks I disagree with, these people are lying and distorting the facts, riling up a fake political group build around hate, and in Pat’s case, condemning Haiti for a deal with the devil. That’s even a new low for Pat Robertson!

This vote tomorrow is about far more than just a senate seat (which unto itself is a powerful thing). Now the news media has been discussing how a vote for Brown is a referendum of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party (who I have issues with as well) as a whole and blah blah blah. That’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m talking about is that a state, as a country, as a species, we need to come together and help each other out. Every person deserves a place to sleep at night. Every person deserves to food. Every person deserves medical care. Every person should have a chance to have a life they can be happy with on some level. It’s not about being from a state, or being from a country, or being from one continent over another, it’s about being a human, and that in the end, no matter what race you are, what religion you are, what what gender you are, what orientation you are: you deserve the same rights. This is what liberalism is all about, and why I am so proud of my views. I don’t care if it means raising my taxes! As long as the money is going to public education, to healthcare, to social programs, etc, It’s fine by me. As a state we need to come together and support the candidate tomorrow who is going to do whatever he/she can to help the most people. I’m proud of what I believe, and Massachusetts as one of the most liberal states in the country needs to come forward and be proud of that too. It’s a good thing to want to care for those who need help! It’s a good thing to support the rights of those who need them! It’s a good thing to care about human life, even if that life is say a gay Iraqi Muslim!

But, back to the election at hand.

Do I agree with Martha Coakley across the board? Of course not. I have plenty of issues with some personality issues, some poor public speaking, some terrible TV ads. It’s fine to question her, in fact, It’s great to question the politicians on anything and everything in the political realm! People should be skeptical! You should question everything! Question what I’m writing right now in fact!  I urge you though, go read about the issues, check out Project: Votesmart, check out the voting records, check out the debates, and go through the issues. If you genuinely believe that lowering taxes on the upper class will help the economy (despite a total lack of evidence and history to show anything of the sort), then by all means, vote for Scott Brown. If you believe that the MCAS are a great measure of students development through school, then go vote for Scott Brown. If you really believe that the government should be able to hold people in foreign prisons and try them in military tribunals without legal council, then go vote for Scott Brown tomorrow! But if you feel like I do, like I bet most people around the country really do at root, if they pull away from all the bollocks of the news media and just think about how they really feel about the issues: go out and vote for Martha Coakley tomorrow. Is she going to save the world? Of course not! But she cares, and what we need, what the state needs, what the country needs, is people who care.

Lastly, I just wanted to spend at least a few words commemorating the work and life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his birthday today. While there are hundreds of important civil rights leaders who never get talked about in the text books, let alone on calenders, that doesn’t mean we should celebrate the Dr.’s life any less. Thanks Dr. King, the country needs more people like you from across all peoples if we want to make the world a place welcoming for all humans. ***by zero means am I trying to Coakley in this category, just to be extremely clear

Thanks for the read.

Links:

http://www.votesmart.org/

http://www.aclu.org/voting-rights

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/291174-1

This post may end up being a bit silly, but I listened to Third Eye Blind’s “Non-Dairy Creamer” this morning, and I feel like blogging about what different lyrics in the song mean to me, because A:) I don’t really know what the band meant by all the words, B:) because music is about personal connects, and C:) I can certainly be just as narcissistic as the next blogger!
So, here goes:

They call it KFC
‘Cause it’s not really chicken
Hot Cheetos for breakfast
Make a young student sick

First off, I love KFC. I know its terrible for you, but it tastes fantastic. Second, it is really chicken. The whole them changing their name thing to KFC from Kentucky Fried Chicken is a myth. Regarding Cheetos, I’ve never been the biggest fan. I’ll eat them, but never my go-to snack. I’d like to think I ate pretty well as a student, got my vegetables most of the time…although there was elevensies. Named after the 11 AM meal enjoyed by Hobbits in Tolkien’s books, my friends and I would head down to the dining hall at 11 PM for a final snack before it closed at midnight. Often consisting of fried food. No wonder I gained some poundage at college.

Did you ever think someone’s trickin’ you… you, you, you?

Most of the time really. For being a skeptic, I’m pretty gullible!

And the guy in the pulpit
Is a bigot and a liar

Generally my feelings on organized religions as a whole. Obviously generalizing here though. It’s just the idea of one person leading a large group or mass of people with one singular message that bothers me. Well, that and the fact that organized religion has been the number one impediment towards progress in America in my lifetime (which I realize is only twenty three years thus giving me a pretty limited period to work with, although I like to think I understand American history pretty well anyway).

Some kid walks into my school and opens fire

Pretty hard to believe it’s been like ten years since Columbine. I think people snapping is one of the scarier things in the world. The media pushes that we should be scared of terrorists and the swine flu. I’m far more scared of a random person snapping after having a rough day and shooting up a room I’m in or cancer. I think a little more attention by parents and peers could go a long way. My bad, I’m wrong, it had to be the video games :p

Heard any good jokes lately?
‘Cause we sure do need ‘em

It seems like 2009 was a pretty depressing year as a whole. Not really for me personally, just for the world. Soooo many celebrity deaths, family members of friends dying, illness among people I know, healthcare being held up by lies and ignorance, economic devastation (although hopefully getting better?), and on a far less important note, the Mets being terrible. Humor helps though. I heard a song on the radio yesterday, Regina Spektor’s “Laughing With”. I’ve only heard it once, but it seems to be about how nobody laughs at god when they’re at war, or in the hospital, etc, but when you take a look at the world, it’s pretty clear god has a sense of humor (to quote Kevin Smith: just look at the platypus). I think a good sense of humor, at least a good joke every now and again is important. Smiling is important. Laughing is important. Especially at yourself.

My punk band’s called Operation Iraqi Freedom

Exactly. You have to be able to laugh at things, even when their rooted in the negative. In this case a war with zero redeeming qualities which has marred any sort of hope for a region we were only just getting done messing up a decade or so earlier.

What’s it gonna be?
Are you real to me?
Or are you non dairy… creamer?

My first thought while reading the chorus was actually to Catcher in The Rye, a book which I really detested through high school while most of my peers were all about it. Holden’s whole obsession over people who are fake, who’s real, and what’s the difference definitely still stands strong in my mind even years later though. Maybe I should revisit the book.

A new love is burning up with me
‘Cause 1 in 4 American girls has an STD.

I really like the double use of burning here for both love as a fiery thing, but also you know, physical burning from said std. I wonder what the numbers are for American boys?

And you can buy yourself some implants
But you can’t buy a soul that never launched

With your chest pumped out
What are you so afraid about?

What are you so afraid of?

Quite true Mr. Jenkins, quite true. (singer and main writer for 3EB).

I have no issue with implants perse, but some people certainly get them for the wrong reasons and it doesn’t matter how your body looks if said soul isn’t there. The whole song goes back to the idea of what is real, and the relationship between portrayal and reality. Yes, you can look stunning, and hide behind that fact, but it’s not gonna change who you really are. Just the same as how you can have an amazing soul, and be thought of as merely a physical appearance.

What’s it gonna be?
Are you real to me?
Or are you non dairy… creamer?

Second time around, my brain went real literal. Every time I would (and well, still do) go with my mom to get lunch or any meal really, she orders a coffee and always insists on real milk as opposed to non-dairy creamer. For a while this kinda frustrated me as one more nuisance to bug waiters about, but now I definitely see the appeal in real milk, cause well, non-dairy creamer is gross.

And two gay guys got married
And brought the family to its knees
How did they blow us to smithereens
Just a couple of queens
How did they do it
I’ll tell you now
They brought marriage to an end

While it’s depressing that so much of the country feels this way, it really is laughable that so many people are worried that gay people getting married threatens their own marriage. I mean, I get that it’s just a front, and what they really feel is that their relationship is more valid/important than those of the LBGTQ community, but the fact that their defense is this just is absurd. Especially hearing Sarah Palin during the election cycle while her prego daughter and Levi Johnson (can’t believe I remember this kid’s name) are being shotgun wedding’d. Or were being shotgun wedding’d. I guess not anymore.

And I’ve found myself some culprits

It’s two young gay… REPUBLICANS
Young gay republicans
Young gay republicans
Young gay republicans

I geniuinely wonder what would happen if the GOP evolved to a more youthful, tolerant, still economically conservative, less crazy socially conservative party. Would it make the world better? Would it reduce the DNC’s numbers? I know they’re trying to get hipper, but so far that’s just been humorous

What’s it gonna be?
Are you real to me?
Or are you non dairy… creamer?

Mission Accomplished

And one more deserved jab at the last administration. What a way to end a song!

Anyway, if you enjoyed my breakdown, or even if you didn’t, you can check out the song below! It’s a good one!

This past Saturday with my friends and roommates all off doing their own thing, I turned on the TV and watched two films which I had heard much about, but never seen.

The first was the sort of mainstream sort of cult hit “Waiting”. The premise is a veteran table waiter played by the very one dimensional Ryan Reynolds gives a rookie played by John Francis Daily (who will always be Sam Weir to me) a crash course in the restaurant. Over the course of the day we learn about the lives of four or five of the main waiters, the other main one played by Justin “Mac Guy” Long. Quick side story, before I return to the movie- my buddy mike was in a Fairfield Ct. (area-ish where I’m from) diner when he squirts ketchup all over himself. He starts to clean up the ketchup and he hears people laughing at him. He looks up, it Justin long and some of his friends. They chatted a bit, said he was a nice guy. Ok, back to the Waiting.

Anyway, I always stayed clear of the movie due to my usual opposition to Ryan Reynolds and my fervid hatred for Dane Cook (who plays a line cook), but it actually turned out to be a pretty solid movie. It’s raunchy, crass, and doesn’t have quite the redeeming sweetness that Kevin Smith or Apatow work in to their flicks, but it was still a fun watch. Daily, while he doesn’t say much is fantastic, and the movie a really great ending which gets a lot of laughs.

So, I finish Waiting, and eventually put in the DVD for Amelie, a movie which I have heard raved about from so many people oh so many times, but just never got around to seeing it. I have a bit of a hang up with foreign movies since I always miss visuals while I’m reading subtitles, but after loving Pan’s Labyrinth, I thought I definitely had to give Amelie a shot.

and I’m glad I did.

It was great. It was definitely non-traditional, at least by American standards, but just had such fantastic characters who were all so extremely unique in a truly genuine way which you just don’t see in movies enough. The overall premise is this girl Amelie grew up with almost no social interaction and developed an incredible imagination which she spends the bulk of her life in. As an adult she begins to make connections with a handful of interesting people who affect how she sees the world and interacts with others. I don’t really know how else to describe it, but it’s fantastic.

I’ll have more blogs coming in coming days! Til then, check out Amelie, and if you’re really bored, Waiting.

As a group we recently viewed “The Secret”, a media craze from a year or so ago which focuses on “The Law of Attraction”: roughly the idea that if you envision something enough, good things will happen around that subject. Their analysis is obviously far more complex than that, as it is an hour and a half film, but in generalized terms, that is the thrust of the movie.

Now, I’d known about “The Secret” for some time now, back to my Barnes & Noble days when “The Secret” was the top book, cd, book on tape, and dvd. Everybody had to own everything related to this pretty basic concept. I was skeptical at the time, but had never actually viewed the entirety of the material…until today.

After watching the DVD (still haven’t read the book), I have to say, I’m even more appalled. Going in I thought it would be an overly preachy advice/self-help/empowering type thing discussing techniques for getting ahead in life, and to some extent that’s what it is, but there is something even darker about it which really irked me. The movie openly preaches that life is about abundance, but more so, about financial abundance and material gain. While some portions discuss other kinds of gain, for the most part, it really comes down to the dollar. We hear story after story about how this person, or that person, achieved success, and then how it was all attributed to “The Secret” (read: not luck, not greed, not connections, not one’s initial position in the racial-gender-socio-economic hierarchy) The whole film and concept is just to validate the wealthy. Of course there is some truth to what they say, if there wasn’t, it would have never gotten so huge. If you dream big, you’ll work harder, you’re more likely to achieve success. That makes a lot of sense. That said, they actually tell you to spend beyond your means as a way of mentally bringing success your way. I’m sure the hundreds of thousands of Americans in debt because of that attitude are thrilled today! Oh wait, they should be thinking of wealth, not debt, my bad! What it comes down to is that positive emotions, ideas, energy, can only go so far. My thoughts aren’t going to change a red light green or will checks to my door step, they’re only going to change my mindset as I see those lights change colors or how I feel about checks or bills in my mailbox. The movie also minimizes the role of medicine as it tells of a woman who survived Breast Cancer through watching comedic television programming while ignoring medical advice. Not to say de-stressing isn’t important, and that keeping a positive attitude isn’t really important for recovering from terrible illness, but any time anyone downplays the role of modern medicine, I almost have to laugh out loud. There’s a major reason why we live upwards of 70 now a days versus 20 or 30 a few hundred years ago. I assure you it’s not that we are a more positive culture!

Beyond that though, the film is entirely geared at straight white Christian Americans. The only people of any color are two or three very stereotyped black speakers, and every religious concept is straight out of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

As a whole the movie is the ultimate propaganda for an emotional version of the American Dream. The movie dictates that personal wealth and success are solely based upon the thoughts of the person. While this is a nice thought, especially for those with money (i.e. they deserved it), it puts blame on those without money; saying it’s your fault to the bulk of Americans who don’t have what those at the top do. It’s not because they don’t think to themselves enough “I’m going to be successful one day”, it’s because the system in this country is to maintain a small ruling elite, the large working class, and the myth of a large middle class. The movie even flat out states early on the reason why the top 1% of the world control 99% of the wealth is because they know “the secret”! They don’t control all that money because they know about the law of attraction, it’s because they know how to control people and milk the system for all it’s worth. That’s the real secret.

This post may contain viewpoints offensive to readers. If you become easily riled with positions other than your own, you may want to stop right here…

I’ve always been a huge fan of Keith Olberman, he combines a quest for the truth in the news with some humor, and of course a view point similar to my own. Usually I watch his show, learn about what’s going on the world, and get my jollies at the expense of guys like Limbaugh and O’Reilly. That said, two nights ago’s show was something extra.

The number one story was the murder of George Tiller, the abortion performing doctor who was murdered a few days ago. He was brought to court a while back on performing a late term abortion where he was found not-guilty. Following the result, the right wing news unloaded waves and waves of hate upon the doctor, saying he should “burn in hell”, that someone should “do something” about this guy, and more. Needless to say, he was shot and murdered in his church a few days ago. Am I solely blaming Fox News for this? Of course not. They spew hate about lots of people, and most of them don’t wind up dead (Bernard Goldberg’s book aside), but they fuel an anger and a hatred which were it coming from the left would be considered a dangerous revolutionary force. Look it up, watch some of the awful things Fox said about this guy, both before and after his murder. It’s terrible. They say he was as bad as Hitler and Stalin! Olberman goes on to discuss how he’s done making fun of O’Reilly. It’s more than that now. It’s not just that he’s some lying clown, it’s that he’s really a bad person, committing bad deeds, and deceiving the world. If he just spewed hateful opinion it would be one thing (in fact, there should be lots of opinions on the news I disagree with), but he is a dangerous man with an enormous following who lies about the actual facts of the news. Olberman goes on to discuss how we need to nationally boycott O’Reilly and Fox News. It’s not censoring him; it’s using the free market which he just loves against him.  Anyway, check out the Countdown, it was a really good one.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677#31053544

Back to the story-

In the end, this is terrorism. It’s right here in the U.S. and no, it’s not committed by Islam. It’s committed by good ol’ white Christian Americans under the guise of being “pro-life”. This wasn’t just about killing one man; it was about scaring the rest of the pro-choice world that it is dangerous to support a woman’s right to choose. The term “pro-life” really bothers me. It sounds so nice, who isn’t pro-life? I mean, Hitler clearly wasn’t! Maybe Old Man Death isn’t? The truth is, 95%ish of pro-life people aren’t pro-life. They’re just anti-rights. If you were really pro-life, you’d support health care, you’d support shelters, you’d support adoption agencies, and the host of other issues which ya know, support “life”. It’d be one thing if these folks who oppose legalized abortion supported all of those things. I might, and I just mean might, not would, be more ok with their view, but they almost never do. No male has any right to tell a woman what to do with their body. We just don’t have the physical capability to understand their potential situation. We just don’t. Backing up a step though, the abortion debate is only one battle in the overall right wing war on sex dating back fifty+ years. When Meghan McCain was on The Colbert Report a few weeks back she discussed the current state of the Republican Party among other things, and said she was “pro-sex”, which caused somewhat of a stir and she later apologized and said she went a little too far. She was laughing a bit in the process, and Colbert even broke character a bit, but the reality is that she was far closer to the truth than the jovial tone let on. Much of Conservative social agenda is built around sexuality in some fashion: anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, abstinence only sex-ed, formerly anti-interracial marriage, and more.

The question then become the why. Is it that they actually follow the bible by word and that they are just supporting the word of god (bet they hate shellfish too!)? Is it that they want to wake up back in the early 1950s with Dwight D at the helm with the two kids in white suburbia again? Or is there something even more sinister?

Or do they even really care about these social issues, and they just know it’s something to rally the troops while they get their real agenda going behind the scenes?

I’d wager one of the last two, but what do I know, I’m just a liberal

If you’ve ever seen me carrying my old Sony Discman around and wondered, “man, why doesn’t he just get an Ipod already?”, I’m sure you’ve heard my rant on how Ipods are ruining the state of modern music and are the epitomization of American excess (but yes, they are pretty and covenant).
In past months though, my fervor for Ipod hating has taken a clean and direct back seat to that of the Blackberry. The somewhat crude title above, is humorous, and as I had just said, crude, but somewhat accurate to boot. Blackberries (in general) become an addiction to their owners. They make the user accessible 24 hours a day 7 days a week and remove the line between career and life even more so than normal cell phones do.

Yes, it might be nice to surf the internet wherever you go, but do you need to? In my case, I’d love to have internet access on my phone, and I might look for one that does have it when my current one heads to the graveyard of past phones, but it’s the business aspect of blackberries which take it over the top for me. They turn business, and work, in to a 24 hour a day thing.

You might now be thinking, “Look at old man Josh over there, not going with technology. With his Discman and his archaic telephone, just learn to embrace technology’s changes!”

Really folks, not the case. I love exciting technology. I’m all about blogs, social networking, new cameras, new video games, tv’s, speakers, etc. In fact, I love sharper image and all their wonder! The problem though is when one of these new things dominate your life. If folks just had Ipods for listening to music, I really wouldn’t care. It’s that they go out and get new ones every two month when they come out and that they flash them as a status symbol. Same goes for Blackberries. If you have it to occasionally do work out of the office, fine. If it’s something you quietly use on the train, fine. It’s when you’re somewhere where it’s blatantly inappropriate to being doing your work that it bothers me.
I’m starting to ramble now, so I’ll sum up my point which really needs a 10+ page essay to really be made effective. Items like the Blackberry dominate one’s life in a way they shouldn’t. Life is about human connections made from one person to another, not a shoddily written email scrambled on a blackberry. Life is about more than work. I’m going to repeat this opinionated statement. Life is about more than work. We often forget this in America. Yes, having financial stability is important. Having a job is important, but it’s not the only part of life. How often when somebody asks you, “tell me about yourself” do you start with your job? It’s just the natural response for most people (myself included). Blackberries make this worse as they provide a physical and material construct to merge life and work even further.

This Friday evening I will head south. Through Rhode Island and down towards south-western Connecticut for a weekend “home.” Home in thus regards is my parent’s house in the town I grew up in, but the real reason I’m going home is to go out to the ball park with my dad as part of his birthday present.Said ball park will be Citi-Field, the brand new home of my beloved New York Mets. Previous to Citi-Field, the Mets had played at Shea Stadium, a brightly colored, somewhat dilapidated, absolutely enormous ball park, since 1964. Shea was a dump, but it was our dump. Each tier of the stadium boasted a different obnoxious color, the bathrooms often had plumbing issues, and overall it was regarded as one of the least liked stadiums in the majors. Not to me though.

I loved Shea. The bright colors were fun, it had some tradition behind it, and above all, the tickets were really well priced. To the envy of my Bostonian friends, I could go out to the park, buy some 8 to 12 dollar seats, move up a section, and thoroughly enjoy a baseball game for 10 bucks. Sure, nicer seats became pricier over the years, but they were still manageable. Fifty bucks got you really good box seats. They could do this, because A: it was a forty+ year old park with limited accommodations, and B: because it held over 60,000 fans. Higher supply, with a constant demand yielded lower prices on seats the average park.

Enter Citi-Field. Citi-Field, opening this year in Shea’s place, has slightly different configurations. Dropping 15,000 seats, the park has far less seating, with new luxury boxes in their place. As it is a brand new, state of the art park, ticket prices have for the most part, rose dramatically. You can still buy upper tier seats for 12-20 dollars a pop (not too far off from the 8+ before), but box seats can now command over $500 dollars a seat if not far more!

I don’t mean to single my Mets out, most teams with new parks have been doing this: making a clear separation between the patrician boxes, and the plebian upper tank folks. What I am thankful for, is that you can still bring your own food to the ball park. This can’t be said for Fenway, or most of the parks of MLB teams, as food sales rake in a huge amount of money. I’ll give Fred Wilpon (the Mets principal owner) the credit for that, if only that. He’s been dubbed by much of the fan base Fred “Coupon” as he does anything in his power to make a buck over going for quality and happiness among fans. Which brings up the big ol’ question in the title: Is baseball a business, or a game?

Let’s take a rewind back to the title of the stadium: Citi Field. The “Citi” (not “city”) refers to Citibank. At the time the naming rights for the new park came up (as the Mets cannot finance their own ball park), and CitiBank won, I was ok with the decision. While I hate corporate naming rights as a whole, if it had to happen, I was ok with CitiField. Aside from “MetLife Park”, it sounded fairly ideal. Sure better than Enron Field, Minute Maid Park, or Coors Field for sure! Fast forward a year or so though, and we come to our current economic climate of bailouts and bankruptcy.

CitiBank has come under serious economic bad times. Being a greedy corporation like so many other banks, Citibank essentially went under, and had to be given funds in the government bailout of Wall Street. Let me paint you a word picture:

Tax Payers give money to Gov’t -> Gov’t uses money to subsidize banks -> CitiBank gives money to Mets for ball park.

This chain has caused somewhat of an uproar among congress and taxpayers alike. Some argue Citi should back out, others argue the Mets should back out, others (usually jokingly) suggest it be called Taxpayer Field. One of these congressmen is my political hero: Dennis Kucinich.

Ultimately bringing me to a tough decision in my head. Do I support my beloved Amazin’ Mets, or my man Dennis? The answer really comes back to the title’d question. If baseball is a business, then the Mets need to back down, because CitiBank sure won’t, and set the record straight that they don’t support a shady deal like that. If it’s a game though, then I have to support my team, the blue and orange!

I really want, as a longtime fan, to think of baseball as a game. The purpose is to have fun and win, not to make money. As I get older though, and see how evil big business can be, I see more and more that the financial bottom line seems to always take precedence.

Lastly. In past weeks, myself and a few of my friends have been discussing the possibility of down the line owning a minor-league baseball franchise. One of them has spent considerable time interning and studying the business of baseball, and all of us have a good amount of knowledge on the game. Minor league teams routinely sell for $25,000 to $1,000,000 for the smaller level clubs. The plan would be to have a group of 10 or so folks each pitching in funds so it could only cost a few thousand a person. Only time will tell if the plan will happen, but that’s the dream you know, to own a baseball team. The key though, is just separating the business from the game, and making sure it’s a fun experience for everyone. Because while running it is a business; in the end its two sets of guys in jerseys playing a game. It should be fun.

I wasn’t alive yet on April 20th, 1970. That was the day Paul McCartney announced that the Beatles had broken up. If I had been, it would have surely been an end of an era.

Yes, of course, bands come and go, form and reform, and most of the time the fans end up caring more about the former bands than the mates do themselves. When interviewed, Lennon made it perfectly clear he wasn’t going to join back up with Paul, George, and Ringo, but fans held their breath hoping, until John’s assassination in 1980 (ending yet another era in American music). I still dream of seeing Paul and Ringo playing together with John’s children (Julian & Sean) and with George’s son Dhani, and I wasn’t even alive for any of the Beatles run.

My own experience with band breakups certainly isn’t as profound as that of any of the myriad of Beatles fans then and now. It just couldn’t be. The Beatles were the greatest band of all time, bar none. I wasn’t alive for the Beatles though, I was born in 1986, missing out entirely on the greatest musical era of all time. The early 90’s had their gems as well, but when you’re 8 or 9 like I was, you don’t really obsess over music like you do once you get just a little older.

While the Beatles remain my favorite band of all time (yes, I’m not that interesting), my favorite band from the era I grew up in, was Blink 182.

I missed out on Blink’s first album Cheshire Cat, but acquired and over listened to every subsequent album they put out from Dude Ranch (1997) on. The music is crass, juvenile, full of swearing and potty jokes, and musically simple, yet it also is charming, fun, youthful, melodic, and well, rock n’ roll. They evolved from an incredibly simplistic Punk band in to a far more developed quirky group on their last album which pulled in all sorts of influences from past genres. A lot of fans thought they sold out, but fans always tend to think that when bands get good. I graduated high-school in 2004, and was all set to buy some concert seats for whenever they headed back to the northeast. When I heard the news on February 2nd, 2005 that Tom Delong had quit Blink, and that the band was on “indefinite hiatus”, that was my April 20, 1970. I guess this is growing up. Tom’s certainly not John Lennon, but he left the group to work on more artistic measures (his band Angels & Airwaves). The bassist and drummer: Marc Hoppus and Travis Barker formed their own offshoot band +44. In this blogger and music fan’s mind, both bands just sound like watered down Blinks.

Anyway, I figured “indefinite hiatus” was the end. While checking on MTVnews from time to time over the last four years, I’d seen nothing but bad news on the reforming front. Songs written by both groups about the other, news that they weren’t even friends anymore, and news of that nature.

This past September, the 19th to be exact, a plane went down in South Carolina with the drummer Travis Barker and a whole group of other musicians and music industry folks. Travis survived but was burned badly, and the crash left 4 dead. While the crash was nothing but tragic, it somehow brought the band back together, at least as friends. In the months after the crash, Marc Hoppus wrote in his blog about the their time together and how they were really enjoying eachother’s company again, and how he would be open to trying the band again.

This news obviously excited me, but was nothing definitive. That was until I flipped to the Grammy’s last night, a show which I had zero intent of watching, when the three came up to the stage together to give out the best rock song award, when they announced that Blink 182 was back with plans to record a new album and tour again.

Needless to say, I was incredibly excited, giddy even, as I learned that the number one band from my lifetime (of course, still opinion) was getting back together. This was the day (on a far far far smaller level) which fans were waiting for each year from 1970-1980. I know 100% that Blink 182 is not the Beatles, in terms of music, history, or popularity, but my experience with the band is certainly of the same sort.

This all got my wondering. What if when John Lennon was shot on that fateful day in December of 1980, he had survived? Would the Beatles have gotten back together? We’ll obviously never know.

I know that everything.

Know that everything.

Know that everything.

Everything’s gonna be alright.

UPDATE: I have tickets for both Hartford and Mansfield

To follow up my post on the Sci-Fi, Musical, Action, Dramatic-Comedy that was Southland Tales, I thought I would write about one of my all time favorite movies, and one that really hasn’t gotten a lot of respect since it came out 9 years ago: Frequency.

The premise is a fairly basic sci-fi plot: an aurora borealis causes a time rift in which a son can speak to his long deceased father via their old transistor radio.

The story though, is far better than your average sci-fi flick. The characters are deep, well acted, and feel awfully (read: awesomely) real. In addition to the intriguing plot and the good characters though, was that the film actually did make you feel things, an aspect which is often lost in action/sci-fi films. The father-son relationship, as well as the relationships of the two main charactors with the women in their lives, is well executed and definitely touching.

What puts the movie over the top though in my mind though, is the role that the New York Mets play. Dennis Quaid’s story takes place in the late 1960’s as the Mets win their first championship, and Jim Caviezel’s takes place in 1999 as the Mets are just starting to get good again. The two discuss baseball throughout the film and its Jim’s character’s telling of the 69′ series which eventually convinces Quaid’s character that they are really talking to each other. On a random note, the film also has a very young Michael Cera in one of his earliest roles.

Last note before I stop gushing about Frequency. I’m also extremely glad this film came out in 2000, and is set in 1999, and not after the September 11th attacks. The entire film is about the NYPD and NYFD, and in an honest and equally heroic/violent light. Any versions of this which could have come out later might have become a glossier take and reached for the artificial sentience which so many films did in the past 8 years. I guess that’s what I liked about the film though, was how it portrayed two of my favorite decades, the 60’s and the 90s, all connected by a little science fiction, and baseball.

Less than twenty two days remaining, for those counting.

What’s that voice in my head? I should actually discuss some critiques with the film too if I’m trying to give it a halfway decent review? I suppose that makes sense.

The film is incredibly male dominated. The only female character who is the least bit strong is Dennis Quaid’s wife, but even she is victimized later on in the film (sorry for the spoiler). The other female characters are minor at best, and while well acted, the script does lack in that department. My only other real qualm is that I’d love more explanation for how the Aurora opened the rift in time. While I’m certainly willing to suspend lots of disbelief, I’d love some sort of explanation on how it all happened, even if its full of faux-science.

This sort of movie is oddly refreshing. While its a good action/sci-fi which subtly pulls at your heart, it does so in a somewhat real manner, not a contrived “I’m going to make you cry” fashion like a Closer, or well any Lifetime movie. If you haven’t seen it, give it a peek, and if you have, then thanks for reading this far down in the entry.

Welcome back faithful reader(s)! I hope everyone reading this had a lovely Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanza/New Years/Festivus/Etc, and is looking forward to 2009.
The topic for this post is going to be the apocalypse, the end times, the end of the world, what have you. If that’s a little intense for a Monday afternoon, you might want to read elsewhere, but if you do stick around, I’m going to discuss the Israel/Palestine Conflict as well as the flick Southland Tales.

Here we are in early 2009, and the never-ending conflict in Israel continues. It seems every year or so there is some new reason (or a continued old reason) for strife, but always centered around Israel vs. Palestine, Judaism vs. Islam, People vs. People, Religion vs. Religion. This incarnation of the conflict has Israeli forces invading the Gaza region after being provoked by Palestinian rocketeers in previous months. The media’s coverage of the conflict has been interesting to say the least. The American media for the most part (lead by the fine folks over at Fox News) has showed a borderline holy Israel defending themselves against the terrorist Palestinians. Much on the international news, and more critical American media outlets have placed heavy blame on Israel for the invasion, portraying the Palestinians as the victims. This latter coverage has come to really upset many of my Jewish friends. The former coverage, as well as the complete lack of impartiality from the American government and the incoming Obama administration have outraged a good Muslim friend of mine.

It’s important to realize that neither peoples really support the conflict in majority, and that this is really the work of extremists from both sides. You might say, “well…the Palestinians elected Hamas, so they knew what they were getting into”. To begin with, think of all the bollocks which gets worked into our own election system here in the United States. Then realize, that this is one of the most soundly run voting systems in the world, probably behind some of the parliamentary systems in Europe. After realizing that, then head over to the Palestinian Election System which lacks a lot of the safeguards of our own (not superb) system. So its entirely possible the election wasn’t that representory of the people to begin with, second even if it was 100% legit, a party or administration in power rarely represents more than 50% of a nation, usually more like 35-40%. On top of that realize that the main opposition party to Hamas is the Fatah Party which the U.S. as well as Israel has been opposed to for the past few decades, and in fact was the reason the U.S. pushed for Hamas to gain some power in Israel to break up the Fatah Party’s lock on power.

My Take- People killing people is people killing people. It doesn’t matter if they have shiny uniforms on with brand new guns or if you are wearing scraps of clothes and are using Soviet era rocket launchers. Of course Hamas shouldn’t periodically fire rockets at Israeli targets, but at the same time Israel doesn’t have to respond with a full out war in Gaza. What makes it all even worse is that Gaza is one of the most heavily populated areas in the world and that civilians are being killed left and right. Even the non-civilians engaged in this are basically forced to risk their lives as Israel has a mandatory military.

If the U.S. is going to play world policeman (which is a debatable item), this is the first place we need to step in. We need to drop our 100% Pro-Israel stance and go in as a neutral firm, but not militant, power, and work with both sides, as well as Egypt, Syria, and other surrounding nations to create not only a cease fire but a more long term solution for giving some more land and rights to Palestinians while forcing Hamas to constitutionally respect Israel as a nation. Obviously easier said than done. It’s no wonder that most people seem to believe the end of the world will begin in the Middle East, and specifically Israel where the world’s three main religions began.

On a lighter note regarding the Apocalypse though, I viewed the film Southland Tales last week: a musical, action, dramatic-comedy about the end of the world. The film is directed by Richard Kelly (of Donnie Darko fame), and stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Sean William Scott, Justin Timberlake, and Sarah Michelle Geller. It also has a host of cameos and smaller role parts played by one of the most diverse and just plain awesome casts I’ve ever seen (Kevin Smith, Norah Dunn, 3+ Saturday Night Live alums, Wally Shawn, and many others.

The film takes the story of Revelations and sets it in an alternate 2008 in which the U.S. has been attacked with a Nuclear bomb and the government has become more militant and controlling of the people’s lives (in a realistic manner though, not far from reality), in which a company called USident has taken the Patriot Act to a new level and now controls all Law Enforcement, Fire Depts., Military, and most other similar organizations.

The film debuted in 2006 at Cannes with awful reviews, and was released later that year to slim Box Office results. I only heard of it because Kevin Smith discussed shooting it in his book “My Boring Ass Life”. The script is messy, the plot is convoluted, the acting looks forced at times, yet I really enjoyed it and was engrossed in it. I’ve owned for a week and already watched it twice as well as all the extra feature content. I’ve wanted to discuss it with my friends and coworkers and convinced my parents to Netflix it. Even though I have a deep rooted hatred for Justin Timberlake’s music from both N’Synch and especially his solo career, he was quite good acting in Tales and one of the film’s high points for me was a lip synching drug induced hallucination of him singing the Killers’ “All These Things That I’ve Done” while Marylyn Monroe-esque nurses dance about him. Despite its flaws, I walked away really enjoying the film on both surface entertainment levels, as well as deeper levels regarding the film’s social commentary on entertainment, government, resistance, religion, and just how easily the world could shift in harsh directions, if not end. Yet, it’s a comedy!