Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Great article today from scribe Joe Posnanski about Babe Ruth and The MVP Formula.  But, as usual, my favorite part of the thing has nothing to do with baseball at all.  He compared something or other to an episode of Bewitched, and then...as he does...he had to include a Pozterisk.  What's a Pozterisk?  I'll let Joe explain:

Pozterisk (PAHZ-tur-isk), noun. An aside that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything but is thrown into the middle of the story because the author thinks it’s funny.

See?  He named it after himself because of his extremely heavy use of them. So anyways, here was Joe's Pozterisk about Bewitched:

*My daughters have taken a sudden liking to the show "Bewitched." And it reminds me of something that has always bothered me -- was Darrin insane? I say yes. He had a wife that looked like Elizabeth Montgomery and could do pretty much unlimited magic. She constantly wanted to use that magic to HELP him. And he basically yelled at her a lot and told her to STOP using that magic and become a suburban housewife? Huh? … The question goes double for Larry Hagman in "I Dream Of Jeannie?"

I've always thought the same thing.  Fools.

Image source

Bennington Claps

Here's out youngest cat doing his most special trick. He sits on his haunches, and...well, he claps.

Usually at nothing at all. Something he sees floating in the air. Something outside the window of our bedroom. We've even spied him doing it while looking at himself in a mirror. So odd.

But he will also clap on demand.  When food is involved. Check it below or go to Youtube here.

Bennington Claps for Food from BE Earl on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas!

The Pogues and Kristy MacColl doing Fairytale of New York.  Have a great one everyone!

H/T Savannah Marsh Mama

See ya after the holidays!

We had a freakin' blast of a time on Just Talking to the Cornfield Wednesday night. You should'a been there. Or maybe you were. Either way, you can catch a replay on Talkshoe or iTunes. I actually may have been semi-coherent for the show, but I'm not sure. A half a bottle of bourbon can play tricks on your mind.

So the next week and a half are gonna be busy. Gia is down in Charleston with her family for Christmas. I stayed up here to look after the cat harem and see my family for the holiday.  But I'm heading down there for New Year's Eve and Day. It's gonna be off da hook. And I'm gonna be REAL busy with work during this whole time. Year-end gets a bit nuts in my business. It is what it is.

With all that, I may not be blogging that much until the second week of January or so. But that's okay. You're a little sick of me anyway, right? RIGHT?

But I'll still be reading and commenting every once in a while. So don't you go changing.

Bottom line...Seasons Greetings, everyone!  Have a great Holiday season!

Happy Holidays from the Cornfield

Join the Colonel and I on Wednesday, December 21st at 9PM EST for a special Holiday Edition of Just Talking to the Cornfield.

It's all gonna be about the Holidays. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, Festivus, Saturnalia or another of the Winter Festivals or holidays. Or if you just want to hear a couple of idiots ramble on about holiday food, holiday booze and/or holiday films.


We plan on sharing the pulpit with some very special guests as well. So it will surely be an episode that you won't want to miss.

Photo source

Baron Ambrosia

Those of you outside of the NYC/Metro area may not have heard of Baron Ambrosia. Hell, I live nearby and I had never heard of him until Wednesday night.  Now...everything has changed.

Who is he? Well, he's the screen alter-ego of NY filmmaker Justin Fornal. What is he? That's a much harder question to answer. Equal parts pimp, vampire, Anthony Bourdain, Kid Rock and William Shatner.  He hosts a cooking/travel show called Bronx Flavor on local public-access television.  A "quaffer of culinary consciousness" as he likes to say. It's kind of like "No Reservations", but with much shittier production values, campy bits and the Baron's odd and over-the-top voice-over.

I may get sick of it very quickly, but it also may be MY FAVORITE TELEVISION PROGRAM OF ALL-TIME!!!  And I've only seen one episode so far!

Check it out on the website for full episodes. All I can think of is that line in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas about Dr. Gonzo.

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." - Raoul Duke

Here's a clip of the opening credits. It's just...so odd. I can't look away.  

Behold

Just my opinion, ya see. Yer entitled to yer own.

Source: someone on the Internet...sorry.

Let's Try This Again

Didn't get a lot of response from this last week, so I figured I would give it one more try. If there still isn't any interest...well, then there is no interest. And we'll just move along. However, I'm all for giving folks a second chance. Unless they do icky stuff with kids, I mean.  Those people can burn in Hell, although I would prefer to see them burn here on Earth.  Instant gratification and all. Where was I?  Oh yeah...have at it! - Earl

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So....one of the ideas that my co-host had for Just Talking to the Cornfield in the off-season was to have a show specifically dedicated to Christmas food and recipes.  Which is odd, because he's Jewish. But I think he meant the "holidays", in general. Not just Christmas. Or he just hates his heritage. Let's move on...

Besides, I don't really know what Christmas food is anyway. In my family, we basically just did Thanksgiving all over again on Christmas Day.  Maybe a spiral ham in addition to a turkey. I just don't remember anything memorable about Christmas or Christmas Eve dinner.  I know some of my friends of Italian descent do the whole Seven Fishes thing on Christmas Eve. I don't know what that is about. Sounds good though.

Here's my thought. We are gonna do a show sometime in the next two weeks about Holiday Food including recipes and suggestions. You can be a part of it. Either by joining us during the broadcast (I'll let you know when that will be), or by commenting here with your suggestions or recipes, or by emailing me your suggestions and recipes to babyburke at aol dot com.

I'll then post all the recipes and/or suggestions to our collaborative food blog after it is all said and done for everyone to enjoy.  What do you think?

Do it to it, peoples!  FUN!

Christmas Giving

I dig Christmas.

I dig Christmas music.

I dig Christmas movies.

I dig giving and receiving Christmas gifts.

I hate Christmas commercials.

Especially the ones where a husband tricks his wife into thinking the small box he is giving her is a piece of jewelery, when it's actually the keys to a brand new BMW parked with a huge honkin' bow in their snow-swept driveway.

Have you ever given a car to a loved one for Christmas? Has anyone in your family? Has anyone you have ever met done it? Has everyone anyone in your family ever met someone who has done it?

I fucking hate those commercials most of all.

But I dig Christmas itself. That's something.

You're So Mean

Best song ever...or BEST SONG EVER! Don't even argue with me. Seriously.

Precious

The Pretenders

I LIKE THE WAY YOU CROSS THE STREET 'CAUSE YOUR PRECIOUS 
MOVING THROUGH THE CLEVELAND HEAT HOW PRECIOUS 
TAKING RIDES AND ALL THE KICKS WAS SO PRECIOUS 
BUT YOU KNOW I WAS SHITTIN' BRICKS 'CAUSE I'M PRECIOUS 
MADE ME WANNA, 
MADE ME WANNA, 
YOU MADE ME MAKE IT 
OH, YOU'RE SO MEAN 
EAST 55TH AND EUCLID AVENUE WAS REAL PRECIOUS 
HOTEL STERLING COMING INTO VIEW HOW PRECIOUS 
IT'S A PITY THAT YOU BRUISED MY HIP 'CAUSE I'M PRECIOUS 
YOU SHOULDN'T LET YOUR MANNERS SLIP YOU'RE TOO PRECIOUS 
MADE ME WANNA, 
MADE ME WANNA, 
YOU MADE ME MAKE IT 
OH, YOU'RE SO MEAN 
WE WENT AROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND THE SHOREWAY WE WAS A DUET DUET DUET DUET DO IT ON THE PAVEMENT 
OH MAYBE MAYBE I'M GONNA HAVE A BABY 
WE WAS A DUET OH WE DO IT ALL NIGHT 

I WAS FEELING KIND OF ETHEREAL 'CAUSE I'M PRECIOUS 
I HAD MY EYE ON YOUR IMPERIAL YOU'RE SO PRECIOUS 
NOW HOWARD THE DUCK AND MR STRESS BOTH STAYED 
"TRAPPED IN A WORLD THAT THEY NEVER MADE" 
BUT NOT ME BABY I'M TOO PRECIOUS I HAD TO FUCK OFF 
MADE ME WANNA, MADE ME WANNA, YOU MADE ME MAKE IT 
OH, YOU'RE SO MEAN

Holiday Food Ideas/Show

So....one of the ideas that my co-host had for Just Talking to the Cornfield in the off-season was to have a show specifically dedicated to Christmas food and recipes.  Which is odd, because he's Jewish. But I think he meant the "holidays", in general. Not just Christmas. Or he just hates his heritage. Let's move on...

Besides, I don't really know what Christmas food is anyway. In my family, we basically just did Thanksgiving all over again on Christmas Day.  Maybe a spiral ham in addition to a turkey. I just don't remember anything memorable about Christmas or Christmas Eve dinner.  I know some of my friends of Italian descent do the whole Seven Fishes thing on Christmas Eve. I don't know what that is about. Sounds good though.

Here's my thought. We are gonna do a show sometime in the next two weeks about Holiday Food including recipes and suggestions. You can be a part of it. Either by joining us during the broadcast (I'll let you know when that will be), or by commenting here with your suggestions or recipes, or by emailing me your suggestions and recipes to babyburke at aol dot com.

I'll then post all the recipes and/or suggestions to our collaborative food blog after it is all said and done for everyone to enjoy.  What do you think?

Do it to it, peoples!  FUN!

Treeman

Forgive me if you've seen this one already. It's been making the rounds on Facebook, according to Gia.  Her musician friends all love this guy. All I know is that this video made Gia laugh harder than I've seen her laugh in years.

I love his accent and the way he punches himself in the hand when he can't get the notes right. This guy needs to be a star.  Even if he IS the world's angriest guitar player.

Jazz in the Cornfield

Last night we were all over the place in the Cornfield.

Usually one of us sets an agenda and we do our best to not stick to it. It's like a game where everyone loses.  But I was too lazy to set a proper agenda this week for us to ignore. So we did a free-form, stream of consciousness thing.  Just talked about whatever came across our tiny minds.  Which included:

• Christopher Walken impersonations. Bad ones.
• The TV show Taxi. Slow down....
• The actor Peter Coyote's birth name. It's Rachmil Pinchus Ben Mosha Cohon. He's Buddhist now. 
• Jazz. And our inability to really understand it.
• Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito.
• The Odd Couple. "We're out of Cornflakes - F.U."
• Baseball Wives. It's a train wreck.

And it just got odder from there.

Check it out on Talkshoe or iTunes, if you have an hour and forty-six minutes to kill.

SALTALAMACCHIA!!!

Old Man Winter

Rears his fugly head.

Who is that lady in the background?

I like to layer my clothing in the late Fall/early Winter months. Sue me.

Holiday Films in the Cornfield

I'm being ultra-lazy today by making you do all the hard work for me.

We have a little internet radio show, and the initial idea was that it was going to be about 50% baseball and 50% other things that interest us.  Movies, TV, food, booze, etc...

But we love baseball so much that it often becomes difficult for us to include the other things we love.  Back before Halloween, we did a special show where we only talked about horror flicks.  No baseball talk at all. It was loads of fun.

In the coming weeks, we are going to incorporate more topics like food and booze as we see fit, but specifically we are planning a Holiday film episode a few weeks down the pike.  Just Holiday film reviews. And here's the thing...I don't know that many Holiday films off the top of my head.  Here's what I got:

• It's a Wonderful Life
• Miracle on 34th Street
• White Christmas
• Holiday Inn
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Elf
• Love Actually
• A Christmas Story
• A Christmas Carol (or any of the remakes)

That's all I can really think of.  I left out some that I didn't enjoy like The Santa Clause or Jingle All the Way.  I left out others that I did enjoy that I don't really consider Holiday films like Home Alone or Die Hard. Just because a film is set during the holidays, doesn't make it a Holiday film.  (Although one could make an argument for Home Alone)

So I'm asking you, dear reader, what is a really good Holiday film that I need to see and enjoy?  I'm looking for some suggestions so I can add them to my list and maybe review a couple of them during that show I mentioned previously.

And if Christmas isn't your bag, and your faith's holiday has a good flick, throw that in as well.  That's why I refer to them with the PC-tag "Holiday" instead of Christmas.  But, for the life of me, I can't think of one Hanukkah, Eid, Saturnalia, Yalda, etc... film.  So if you know of any, this is the place to enlighten me.

Movie Review: The Shrine (2010)

Just because we are done with the Halloween season, doesn't have to mean I'm done with horror flick. Nope, I watch those year-round. The latest and one of the greatest is this nasty little flick called The Shrine that I found on Netflix.

The film starts off with a young man who appears to be ritualistically killed by satanists or something.  It's a great opening that brings back memories of those old 60's and early 70's Hammer films, the non-vampire ones. Actually, the entire movie is like a love letter to those old satanist cult films that I loved so much as a kid.

A journalist and her two friends go to Poland to see if they can solve the mystery of the missing young man who was killed in the opening scene.  They find a backwards town that could have existed at just about any point in time, but would have fit right in with those Hammer flicks I mentioned. And the townfolk don't want these Americans nosing around in their business.  But there is this weird stationary fog that has settled over a part of the forest and they want to investigate it, so they do.

What they find is a creepy ass demon statue holding a human heart. Then shit starts to get real, or unreal to be more specific. I'm not going to give any spoilers because I don't want to ruin it for you if you intend on watching it, but the film really kicks into high gear after that.

Oh, and the filmmakers decided against giving us subtitles for the parts in Polish. This way we, the viewers, are as much in the dark as the American characters in the film. It's unsettling in a great way.

It's one of those small horror flicks that actually exceeded my expectations.  Nothing historic, you understand.  But it's pretty damn good.  Check it!

Green Man

I'm always looking for Green Man images for my blog and what-not.  I just dig it.  So my buddy, ever the thoughtful dude himself, sent me one that he found online somewheres that I can use during the holiday season.

Look for this one to be incorporated here sometime soon.

UPDATE: image credit Anne Stokes

Pretty cool, eh?

Ho ho ho, Holidude!

Thanks

To these things, I give the thanks:

• Our four cats. Gogo, Wolowitz, Bootsy and Bennington.  They make us so happy nearly every day. I say "nearly", because happiness doesn't just happen every day. Sometimes they puke on the carpet and you step on it with your bare feet. Those days aren't so great.
• Jim Beam. I love me some bourbon, and I love me some classy bourbons. But most times, I just want some plain old Jim Beam. Filet mignon is awesome, but a lot of times you'd rather just have a great burger.  Jim Beam is that great burger. You know what I mean.
• Baseball. I've been enjoying this off-season of baseball nearly as much as the regular season.  Having the weekly radio show certainly helps. Being a fan of a team that you know is gonna spends some money to ensure a quality product is out on the field every day is an even bigger help. 
• Cooking. It both excites and calms me. I was a indifferent chef for most of my life, but now I try to inspire myself in the kitchen at least 4 or 5 times a week. Good for me, good for Gia, good for our health. It might be a more recent passion than booze or baseball for me, but it's just as important.
• The Internet. Without it, I wouldn't be watching Breaking Bad or Mad Men on Netflix, boring y'all with this here blog of mine, wasting time on Twitter or playing silly games. I also wouldn't be finding as many cool recipes or friends or opportunities for...whatever. I never want to be unplugged again.  Except for the times when I don't wanna be plugged in. Again, you know what I mean.
• Tom Waits. I wasn't a big fan growing up, but I've really come to appreciate the man and his music.  Whenever I'm feeling particularly down or up, Tom centers me.  I dig that.
• My family. This is the extended family I'm talking about.  My family, Gia's family, our friends, our friends' families.  It's all family to me. They are...the best.
• All y'all. That, according to a Southern friend of mine, is the plural of y'all. Which, of course, is a plural expression. "You all". Hey, I don't try to make or break any rules.  But all y'all are pretty damned special, and I appreciate the hell outta you.
• My Gia. She is my world.

That's enough for now. I've got a lot more to be thankful for, but I'll save that for another time.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. 

Make it your own.  Fly your turkey freak flag.

Old

Turned 45 this past Friday.  Yeah.

Celebrated with Gia and our friends in NYC on Saturday with the following agenda:

• Biscuits and coffee from Donna Bell's Bake Shop in Hell's Kitchen.  Both were outstanding.  I had bacon, blue cheese and parsley biscuit, naturally. Gia went with the pimento cheddar and chive variety. Each was the size of a baby's head.  The service at the joint? Not so outstanding.  We ordered 4 biscuits, a muffin and four coffees and we got 3 biscuits, the wrong muffin, 3 coffees and a 15-minute wait for them to brew the last cuppa. The place is tiny, but c'mon...they need to work on that.
• Breakfast pitcher of beers (and bourbon) at Rudy's Bar & Grill.  The best dive bar in NYC.  We got there around 11:30AM, so the alcohol was indeed of the breakfast variety. I don't know what time they opened, but our bartender's shift ended at noon. And I've closed the joint past 4AM in the past.  I think they pretty much close for a couple of hours, and start all over again. My kinda joint.
• Took a walk downtown and stopped at a crummy Irish chain pub because one of us needed to pee. Wasn't me, by the way.  Didn't stop us from ordering a round of Lutaks. We miss you, big guy!
• We got hungry again, so we headed over to a sandwich shop on Broadway called No. 7 Sub attached to the Ace Hotel.  Gia had done a mess of research about the best sandwiches in NYC, and this place consistently popped up.  And they were awesome.  I had a brisket hero with Chinese mustard, pickled jalepenos (replacing the mushrooms) and parsley.  Gia went with the broccoli hero with Lychee Muchim, Ricotta Salata, and Pine Nuts.  Equally as awesome.  They are strictly a takeout joint, so we took our food to the lobby of the Ace Hotel which was an odd, wonderful experience.  Drinks were ordered at the Breslin Bar located in the hotel, and we sat down for a nice meal.  Did I mention the lobby was an odd experience? Packed to the gills with guests of the hotel and transients like us.  Drinks were being had, job interviews conducted, seemingly lots of work going down...all this on a Saturday afternoon. Weird, but it was a great place to people-watch.
• Our friends had to go home at this point, so Gia and I trudged on without them.  First to some local bar whose name I don't recall.  We were headed to the Flatiron Lounge, but it was still 15 minutes away from opening.  So we ducked into this joint.  Met some really interesting people there as well.  But the Flatiron Lounge was the real gem.  Great cocktails served with absolute precision by knowledgeable mixologists.  A real treat. 

We kinda called it quits after that.  Headed back to Penn Station for the train ride home.  There were a couple of more bars mixed in there, one at Penn while we waited for our choo-choo and one near our home.  By 10PM, 12 hours after we got to the city, I was done.  And feeling it very much the next day.  I can't party like I used to.

The title of the blog post says it all.

Old.

On Human Error

Go here to read Michael Lewis' (of Moneyball fame) great Vanity Fair article on Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman.  It's utterly brilliant.  The power and often failure of human intuition and reasoning. Good stuff.

Here's an excerpt:

In 1983—to take just one of dozens of examples—they had created a brief description of an imaginary character they named “Linda.” “Linda is thirty-one years old, single, outspoken, and very bright,” they wrote. “She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations.” Then they went around asking people the same question:
Which alternative is more probable?
(1) Linda is a bank teller.
(2) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

If you answered (2), well...you aren't alone. In a poll conducted, 85% of respondents agreed with you.  Once you really think about it, you will realize why that isn't the correct answer.  Or just read the article to get smarterer.

See? It ain't only sandwiches and baseball here. 

PS - But if you NEED the sandwich stuff, here it is. You are welcome.

Get Thee to the Greek

Don't live a stone's throw from half a dozen greek joints where you can get a tasty, authentic gyro?

I feel sorry for you.

BUT...Fugs1 (aka Bill Mangini) is here for the rescue!

Well, not here...over there.  With a recipe for homemade gyro sandwiches.  Including a recipe for the Tzatziki sauce that goes with it.  Yum!

Check it!

Over there now

I'm not here, and probably won't be for the rest of the week. Well, I'm here, but not here...ya know. 

Instead, I'm over there...talking about sandwiches.

Today: The Best Cuban Sandwich Ever!  Check it!

Sandwich Week: Simmer, Sip, Share

It's late on Sunday night as I type this, and I've had a rather sudden urge to write about my favorite food.

The sandwich.

A hero, a roll, a slice of pita or maybe just two pieces of bread. And something to put inside that bread.  That's what I like.  Gimme, gimme, gimme a great sandwich.  And don't be half-ass about it.  If it's gonna be tuna salad or egg salad, jazz it up a bit.  If you want to make it as simple as bologna, how about fried bologna?  All I'm saying is that I just don't want something hastily thrown together.  I need some thought put into it.

This coming Friday is my birthday, and Gia wanted to know what I wanted.  And, like every year, I have no response to that.  I don't really need or want any kind of gift.  I don't pine for objects I don't have.  If I want something bad enough, I don't wait for someone to buy it for me.  That's just been a part of my DNA forever.

So this year, I asked her to research the best sandwiches to be had in NYC.  I'm taking the day off and we are going to head in early for breakfast at this bakery I've been dying to try.  Then walk around some, maybe do some shopping, maybe have a beer someplace before heading to the sammich joint late in the afternoon to see what we see.

That's what I want to do on my birthday.  Have an incredible sandwich experience.  Insert gay joke from Slyde here.  Yeah...he's THAT obvious.

Oh...so we've got this food blog called Simmer, Sip, Share going on as well. I've been a little lax with posting over there lately.  So I've decided to make it Sandwich Week over there.  I'm going to post once a day about a great sandwich that I've made or enjoyed.  I encourage everyone who contributes to the blog (you know who you are) to join in on the fun, if they so wish.

Let's start off the week with this bad boy:

Yeah...that's a paper plate. Deal with it...

Looks delicious, right? Wanna know what it is? Well, you'll have to go here to find out. Heheheh.

Welcome to Sandwich Week!

Teeth

This is my few favorite thing in my reader: Nature Wants to Eat You.

Tigerfish will fuck you up!

It's a Tumblr site, and a fairly new one. So there isn't a lot to peruse just yet. But what is in there will haunt your nightmares forever.  THIS is why I sometimes hate nature.  Because nature can have "great big fangs".

"Look at the bones, man!"

PS - Happy 11/11/11. Let's all do a shot of something at 11:11:11 PM, okay?  Hell, let's do one at 11:11:11 AM for that matter! SHOTS!

5 Years Ago: The Verdant Dude Archives

Got to thinking about this today from a post Alex Belth put up over at Bronx Banter. It's about the night I met Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. And, um, told Sarah Jessica Parker that I loved her. Ugh.  Read on, good fellows...

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"Aww...that's so sweet!"
Sep 19, 2006 by B.E. Earl

Slyde's tale of his trip to NYC to see Martin Short's Broadway show made me think of my favoritist Broadway experience. Hang onto your socks...this is gonna be a long one. And I've told this story before (on Slyde's blog, I think) in short form so it may be repetitive. Oh well. Deal with it, beee-yatchs!

Now, I'm not a Broadway guy. I'd much prefer to hand over 10 bucks at the local movie theater to see a good film than sit through a Broadway play. Sometime, just sometimes, it's really worth it. This one time was more than worth it.

Before "The Producers" came out and became such a huge mega-hit, I had heard that it was being adapted for Broadway. I was/am a huge Mel Brooks fan so I was instantly interested. I also needed something to buy for my girlfriend at the time for Christmas.

So I went online to pre-buy tickets for the earliest show possible. There really wasn't a buzz for it yet as most folks didn't know it was coming. It wasn't Opening Night...it was actually the first "rehearsal" night in Manhattan, happening a few weeks prior to the official Opening Night. Cool.

When my friend Cristina found out about it, she asked me to try to score tix to the same show...which I did. Somehow I managed, three days later, to get the two seats right next to me and my girlfriend for her and her husband. Like I said...this was all pre-buzz, but I still found it odd that I could get those.

Anyway, we get to Manhattan some months later for the show and we do the dinner thing at Carmine's, drinks somewhere else before rolling to the show. The lobby was packed and we ordered drinks and settled in towards the rear of the lobby...back by the emergency exits. That's when we hear someone knocking on one of the exit doors to get in.

We didn't know what to do. Should we let someone into a sold-out first night performance of the show? After weighing our options we decided to open the doors. It was Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft! 

MEL BROOKS AND ANNE BANCROFT! MRS. FUCKING ROBINSON!

They thanked us and we shook hands (I think I actually hugged her and she gave me a little kiss on the cheek...it's a blur) before they joined the party. I was dumbstruck! My friends Cristina and her husband then asked "Who was that woman with Mel Brooks?" AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH! I can't stand non-movie people!

So, if that wasn't good enough (and believe me I was high for two weeks after meeting them) the show was fantastic! Mel stood in the first row and conducted comically throughout. Hysterical! But it gets better...much better.

At intermission, we went out to the lobby to get another cocktail. As everyone filed in for the second half, me and my girlfriend stayed at the bar to finish our drink. I had to go tinkle so I told her to wait there and I would be right back. I turned around and there was Sarah Jessica Parker just standing there by herself. So I turned around and smacked my girlfriend to look over there at the Big Star. She was deep in conversation with the bartender so she didn't understand what I was saying. I didn't get that she didn't understand, so I just proceeded on towards Mrs. Broderick.

There were so many things I wanted to say. Her husband was awesome in the play...tell him I said Happy Birthday (don't ask why I knew it was his birthday on that day)...I love your show...I loved "Square Pegs". So many things!

All that came out was "I love you". I wanted to die.

But Sarah Jessica Parker, to her credit, was very kind. Instead of calling Security, she put her hand on my arm and said "Awww...that's so sweet!" with a great big smile on her face. I'm a fan for life because of that moment.


Epilogue: When I left her and went to proceed to the bathroom, I realized that my girlfriend didn't follow me over to the Big Star. I know had a decision to make. Do I A) go back past Big Star and tell girlfriend about her before I pee or B) not tell her and risk her almost certain wrath? I chose option A. So I snuck around Ms. Parker and whispered to girlfriend "Now act cool, but right now the only other person in the lobby is Sarah Jessica Parker". She responded by pushing me out of the way and running over to her screaming to put her in a bear hug in what was certainly the most un-cool act of hero worship ever witnessed. My work for the evening was done. Thank you.

Left Hook

In the 70's, if you were a boxing fan, you were either a Muhammad Ali guy or a Joe Frazier guy.  It was that simple.  I was only a kid watching the replays of their titanic battles on Saturday afternoons on Wide World of Sports on ABC, but even I knew that.  I was an Ali guy.  The big, bold personality.  The slick as lightning footwork.  The flair, the drama...everything.  Muhammad Ali was bigger than life, and Frazier was a hard-working pug with a tremendous left hook.  Ugly to watch, but efficient as a bulldozer.  The man never floated like a butterfly in his entire life.

But, as I got older and I became more aware of the everything that went down before and during these fights, I've become more of a Frazier guy.  I'm sure he was no angel either, but the verbal abuse handed out by Ali against Frazier in that time now seems incredibly over the top and offensive.  Calling him an "Uncle Tom" before their first epic battle.  Then calling him "The Gorilla" before their third fight in the Philippines because it rhymed nicely with "Manila". These were things that hurt Frazier down deep for the rest of his life. And coming from a man who he respected and helped, both financially and otherwise, during the time he was stripped of his title in the late 60's.  It was disgusting.

There was a social and political aspect behind these fights as well.  Ali represented the younger folks.  He refused to serve in Vietnam, and lost the Heavyweight title along the way because of it.  He was hip, fun and socially relevant.  Frazier wasn't any of those things.  But he really wasn't the opposite either, as the media and Ali suggested.  He just wasn't...Ali.

And then there was Frazier's boxing style, which I characterized earlier as "ugly to watch".  Except it really wasn't.  It was actually quite amazing.  Head down, always moving forward, punches coming from everywhere, never backing down, smothering his opponent with his aggression.  Mike Tyson had a little bit of that in him.  Except that Frazier also had the wonderful left hook. One of the best weapons I've ever seen from a fighter. Quick and mean, full of bad intentions.  It was a crippling blow that seemingly came out of nowhere. 

I've still got a lot of love for boxing, especially the Heavyweights in the 70's like Ken Norton, Ernie Shavers, George Foreman and, of course, Ali and Frazier.  But I also recognize it as a brutal, unnecessary sport that essentially kills these men before their times. Quite the conundrum, as some would say.

All that being said, I was much more saddened at the death of Joe Frazier earlier this week than I really expected. It was an odd left hook to the soul that I didn't see coming, naturally.

RIP, Joe.

source: NY Times

Twitter question

Most of you blogiots are also twidiots, and I mean no disrespect by that. I'm a twidiot too.  But I have a serious Twitter question that may or may not be awkward.

I've noticed some of you use websites/apps like Get Glue, Foursquare, Gowalla, etc... And you have them linked to your Twitter accounts. Checking in with these sites/apps (and I'm kinda guessing here) will generate a tweet to your Twitter stream.  Right?  Is that how they work?  To broadcast to the Twitterverse where you've been, what TV show you've watched, where you've eaten.  Things like that.  Again, I'm not sure exactly how they work, but that's the general drift I get from seeing the generated tweets.

I'm curious as to why you use these sites/apps.  What, exactly, are YOU getting out of it?

I mean, I can see when you've had lunch at McDonalds or breakfast at Denny's or whatever. Or that you've watched the latest episode of Glee with 75 others who've checked in. Or that you've unlocked some sticker of some sort for visiting someplace you haven't been before.

I don't really think about those tweets very much.  They show up in my timeline all the time, but it rarely interests me. As I peruse Twitter, I usually skip right past them. I'm just not sure why you want me to know that you are doing those things. Not sure what I'm supposed to do with that information.

So, again,  I'm curious as to why you are using these sites/apps.  I'm a relative noob to Twitter.  I only follow 56 feeds, and there are only 42 folks who follow me (42 people who must be bored to death with my Twitter lameness).  Maybe there is something here that I am missing with this particular piece of social media. Maybe there are some really fun and interesting reasons to use these sites/apps. I dunno. 

I honestly don't mean to put anyone down for what they are or aren't doing on Twitter.  It's not my place.  I'm just really curious about these things.  Truly.

Holla back if you care to enlighten me.  Thanks!

High Shelf Booze

I'm digging Eilen Jewell, the self-described Queen of the Minor Key, lately. Another Pandora discovery.  And not only because she sings about "High Shelf Booze".

But it doesn't hurt.

Dig.

High Shelf Booze

Eilen Jewell

If my man asks ‘bout what I’ll do
Now that he’s turned me loose
Tell him I’ve gone to meet all the girls
And drink all that high shelf booze

The high shelf booze, the high shelf booze
You won’t catch me dead with no blues
The high shelf booze, the high shelf booze
You won’t catch me dead with no blues

I always said I’d be his slave
Before I would be his dog
But it looks like he’s got me rambling ‘round
And sleeping in a hollow log

A hollow log, a hollow log
Sleeping in a hollow log
A hollow log, a hollow log
Sleeping in a hollow log

Well it’s one man on Sunday, another on Monday
Two on Tuesday afternoon
Easy come, easy go
You won’t hear me sing no lonesome tune

Easy come, easy go
You won’t hear me sing no lonesome tune
Easy come, easy go
You won’t hear me sing no lonesome tune

If I were Brian Cashman

Note: Stop reading now if you aren't interested in the fantastical musings of a NY Yankee fan. It will be better for you and better for me.  Slyde...don't even bother.

___________________________________________________

Here is my off-season plans for the Yankees, now that they have extended the contract of CC Sabathia and locked up the options on Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher. It's very simple.

• Trade Nick Swisher.  Yeah, yeah...I know they just picked up his option.  And at $10.25 million, it was a very reasonable option. Yeah, this is a world in which $10.25 million is considered reasonable.  But there is something very real to dislike about Nick Swisher.  His game, his approach to hitting, is a very patient, wonderful thing. Until it's not so wonderful. He will not swing at a pitch that is an inch outside of the strike zone.  Over the course of the season, that's a great thing that leads to a wonderfully high On-Base Percentage.  But his game is over when confronted with an umpire that allows the outside or inside pitch to be called a strike.  He is virtually useless in these contests. I, for one, would appreciate a hitter who can roll with the punches a bit more.  Mark Teixeira is a similar type of hitter, but the Yankees are paying him a fortune for a number of years.  So he ain't going anywhere.  A hitter like Nick Swisher under contract for only one year is VERY attractive to the rest of the league at that price. Go get a decent starting pitcher right now.  He doesn't have to be an 1 or 2 guy.  He shouldn't be for Nick Swisher and one year. Or maybe go for some prospects, because I have an idea about SP coming a bit later. But the Yankees can get a decent return right now for Swish.  They should do it.
• Sign Jim Thome. My love of Jim Thome knows no bounds.  And the man can still crush right-handed pitching.  Having him as a part-time DH, along with Jesus Montero from the right side, is a great move.  And a solid long-ball threat off the bench. Yankee Stadium. Short RF porch. Jim Thome. I'm smiling just thinking about it.
• Sign Michael Cuddyer. Or Jason Kubel. Or Josh Willingham. I don't really care. Sign one of them to play RF in the absence of Nick Swisher. All three are underrated hitters and defensive liabilities.  Sounds like Swisher to me. And all three will come with lower price tags than Nick Swisher. Not that the Yankees have to worry about money. They don't.  But with the limited SP talent available in free agency, the combination of dealing Swish for a pitcher and signing one of these guys seems like a no-brainer to me.
• Sign Dontrelle Willis. As a lefty specialist out of the pen. Yeah, I know...he's always been a starter.  But as many analysts have pointed out already, he's no good in that role. BUT, he stymies left-handed hitters. Very, very well. This is a LOOGY you want in your pen right now.  And the Yankees can afford to give him more than the league minimum to do so.
• Release AJ Burnett. I like the guy. Honestly, I do. But he is a sunk cost and a hopeless cause right now. His roster spot can be put to better use.  Sorry AJ. Bye.
• Sign Yu Darvish and Hiroki Kuroda as a tandem. Darvish will be an expensive, long-term deal. The 37-year-old Kuroda will probably settle for a one or two-year deal. Pairing the young, inexperienced (in MLB terms) Darvish with the older, experienced Kuroda seems like a good idea to me. And a short-term deal for Kuroda is an ideal bridge to the two remaining Killer B's (Banuelos and Betances) in the Yankee farm system for 2013 and beyond. This is the move I'd be pushing for the most if I were Brian Cashman.
• Re-sign Andruw Jones. Or another decent, cheap OF-type with the ability to play RF and/or LF. And be a strong right-handed hitting threat on the bench. I don't really care who it is.

So here is my Yankee Opening Day 25-man roster:

Russell Martin - C
Mark Teixeira - 1B
Robinson Cano - 2B
Derek Jeter - SS
Alex Rodriguez - 3B
Brett Gardner - LF
Curtis Granderson - CF
Michael Cuddyer/someone else - RF
Jim Thome - DH/bench
Jesus Montero - C/DH
Eduardo Nunez - INF
Andruw Jones - OF
CC Sabathia - SP
Yu Darvish - SP
Hiroki Kuroda - SP
Ivan Nova - SP
Phil Hughes - SP
Corey Wade - RP
Joba Chamberlain - RP
Boone Logan - RP
Rafael Soriano - RP
Dontrelle Willis - RP
David Robertson - RP
Mariano Rivera - RP
25th spot - another corner infielder (Chavez?) or UTIL type.

American Horror Story

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill house, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for 80 years and might for 80 more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

You are gonna die in there...

Warning: very mild spoilers below

I've waited a few weeks to review the new FX series American Horror Story to give it time to fester in the cellar of my soul.  Because that's where this oddball horror series belongs.  In the cellar of my soul.  Festering.

That's a good thing.

In case you haven't been watching, it's about a family who have moved from Boston to LA after an affair by the husband with one of his students, and the still-born birth of their baby.  The two bring along their surprisingly frank and non-stereotypical teenage daughter with them.  She's the most "normal" one in the family, even though she suffers from depression.  The father is a psychiatrist, practicing out of his home.

They movie into an old restored mansion with a history. The house has seen so many deaths, mostly murders, that it has become a regular and popular stop on the Murder Tour.  A bus tour celebrating locations of famous murders in the LA area. Yeah...you don't want to live there.  Neither does this family after just a few short weeks.  But their savings are wrapped up in the house, so they are going to have to sell it before they can move on.  Hopefully while they are still alive.

Not a given.

The house some additional "residents" to speak of as well.  And not just the ghosts of the murdered former owners and their visitors.  Constance and her daughter with Down Syndrome, Addie live next door, but they seem to be tied to the house just as much as the specters.  Always walking in un-invited.  Especially Addie.  One terrifying scene had Addie crawl from under the teenage daughter's bed after grabbing her ankle and singing "Trick or treat! Smell my feet! Give me something good to eat!" on Halloween night.

Well, it was terrifying to me.

Then there is Tate.  A young disturbed man who is receiving therapy from the father in the family.  He's just as much of a fixture in the house as the overhead lights.  And he has a healthy/un-healthy romantic interest in the teenage daughter.  Something her father is not so keen on at all.  Tate's backstory hasn't been fully told yet, but somehow he is tied to the house as inextricably as Constance and Addie.

Then there is Larry Harvey, my favorite character on the show.  He's the horribly burned and disfigured former owner of the house.  He has been released from prison after murdering his entire family because of an advanced case of brain cancer.  Not sure that would happen in real life, because he is one crazy mother-fucker.  His "dream" is to become a character actor in Hollywood, but he is really around to warn the father about how the house "told him" to murder his family...and for comedic effect. Larry is a hoot.

And don't get me started on the...thing living in basement.  Or the dude in the rubber S&M suit who seems to be behind every door. Imagine an even more evil version of the Gimp from Pulp Fiction. Around every dark corner of your house.  Yeah.

This show is creepy as all hell. 

Dig.

See ya, NCIS

Shoulda done this a long time ago, but NCIS...I'm breaking up with you.

I haven't been really enjoying it for a couple of years now, but I've been watching it out of habit. It's fucking terrible. But it was like comfort food or comfort television, if you will.  Something to put on in the background while I'm doing something else.  It's really fucking terrible.

I feel like the only reason I hung in this long was my awkward crush on Pauley Perrette.  But even she (and her character Abby) are starting to wear on my last nerves.

Last week's episode was the final straw.

They introduced a new love interest for the elderly Dr. Mallard (David McCallum), played by Cheryl Ladd.  The homicide of the week looks like it was turning into a serial killer case.  And Ducky, Dr. Mallard (get it?), was having mixed feelings about how exciting his job was. Or at least he was having mixed feelings about sharing his excitement with his new lady love.  She seemed...oddly into it.

No. They weren't going to make Cheryl Ladd a serial killer, were they? Nah. That would require several weeks of character and plot development.  Plus the modus operandi was ridiculously complicated.  Getting someone drunk, getting them to a remote location, getting them to take ecstasy, tying them up, then getting them to drink enough water to kill them because ecstasy makes you thirsty.  What?  There were way too many problems with that. 

Yet, that's exactly what they did.  And, although Mark Harmon's character did figure out that she was the killer, she basically just confessed to Ducky when he demeaned the actions of the killer.  She wanted him to be impressed by the killer, ya see?

Ugh...it was the most ridiculous hour of television ever produced. And yet it wasn't that much worse than every other episode that I have been trudging through.  It just sucks.

Officially deleted from my DVR queue. Goodbye, NCIS. Forever.

Asshole Cat Part Duh

Remember when I told you about how much of an asshole this guy is?

He's only cute when he sleeps

Well, he has taken his morning routine of waking us up to entirely new levels lately.

You see, he used to just jump on us, meow, jump up by the window shade, rattle that, meow some more, knock some shit off the side table and then meow some more.

But Bootsy is the Terminator cat that is going to be the end of us all.  He's a learning asshole cat. He's actually figured out our technology.  And he's using it against us.

We have one of those iHome clock radios. You know the kind, it's got a dock to charge your iPhone or iPod on top.  Other than that...it's pretty much a regular clock radio.  And Bootsy has figured out how to work it.

I'm serious.

He turns the radio on and off.  We adjust the volume lower, but he has figured out how to fix that issue too.  He also knows how to turn the alarm off and on. My favorite thing, and by that I mean my least favorite thing, is that he has learned how to set the alarm so that it goes off in 2 minutes.

I'm serious.

He sets the alarm for two minutes in the future.  I don't even know how to do that!  How the fuck has our cat figured out to set a fucking alarm?

He's such an asshole.

Boo!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween today. It's the one day of the year when I really wish I were a kid again. My favorite holiday.

I've posted this before, but it's sooo good and creepy and fun that I have to post it again. It's called "Season's Greetings" from creator Michael Dougherty.  It stars little Sam (short for Samhain), a little trick-or-treater who is being stalked by a bad man.  Sam was seen again in Dougherty's Trick 'r Treat, one of my favorite horror flicks of all-time.  Check that one out on Netflix Instant if you haven't already. It's a gas and a half.

Season's Greetings, everyone!!!

Movie Review: TrollHunter (2010)

Ever since The Blair Witch Project, or The Last Broadcast from the year before if you prefer, horror and found-footage have been a match made in Hell.  Sometimes they are done really well.  Take [Rec], for example. Sometimes they are done really poorly. Take Diary of the Dead, for example.

TrollHunter (or The Troll Hunter) is an example of the former. A whole heap of subtitled Norwegian fun. And who knows more about fun than Norwegians?  They invented Black Metal, fer crissakes!

So there seems to be a bear poaching problem in the wilds of Norway. And some teenage film students are going to find out who is behind it all.  They've got a good lead on a loner hunter driving a Land Rover.  He's the most likely suspect according to some local hunters with proper bear kill licenses.  So they start to follow him around to see if he is, in fact, the perpetrator.

What follows is some good, old-fashioned, mythical fun.  The hunter is actually working for the government.  The TSS, Troll Security Service.  They control the troll populations in the remote forests and mountains of Norway. Sometimes it involves blaming the resulting livestock carnage on rogue bears that they plant at the scenes of destruction. The film actually does a pretty good job of taking seemingly normal, everyday events and blaming them on troll activity.  Bridge down? Troll. Russian backpackers found killed? Troll. Small seismic disturbances? Big troll.

It's not nearly as ridiculous as it sounds.  I know, but really.

The thing is, it's all done very professionally without taking itself too seriously.  Even though that's the general premise of found-footage horror films. They HAVE to take themselves seriously to bring the horror.  But here the filmmakers...well, c'mon...it's trolls! They know how ridiculous that is, so they have a little fun with it. From the first time the hunter yells "TROLL!!! RUN!!!", you know you are in for a good time.  The kids knew it too. Until shit starts to get real.

The trolls themselves look a bit ridiculous, but not too bad considering the nature of the beasts.  And there are several genuine shock/horror moments thrown in for good measure.  The backstory is also handled very well.  About as plausible as you can imagine for a movie that wants the viewer to believe that trolls are real.

I dug it. So will you.

My NetFlix Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Shape

Nick Castle
Dick Warlock
George P. Wilbur
Don Shanks
Chris Durand
Brad Loree
Tyler Mane

What do these seven actors have in common?

Thrill me.

Movie Revew: Blood River (2011)

Another "find" in the Netflix Instant horror vaults.

And another sparse, simple tale of a dysfunctional family and a stranger who wanders into their midst.  This time it's a couple through the Nevada desert to visit her family. She's pregnant with their child, with a child from another man left at home for the trip.

After a night at a roadhouse/motel in the middle of nowhere, they head out only to have a blowout about 50 miles from the motel. And 5 miles from a dead town in the middle of the desert called Blood River. And about a billion miles from somewhere where anyone wants to be. Soon enough they are joined by counter-culture cowboy Joseph.  An ominous man who claims to have run out of gas somewhere down the road.  But he was at the motel the night before, and dead bodies have been left in his trail.

So you see where this is going. Except for suddenly when you don't. It's when this classic serial killer tale turns into something else entirely.

And I got to tell you, I wasn't too thrilled when it did. I was kinda enjoying the tension between the corporate couple with the child on the way and this dangerous drifter. I wanted to see how THAT film was gonna play out. Even if I had seen THAT film many, many times before.

Where the film did head? Well...that kinda bored me, to tell you the truth.

And that's pretty much the last thing that you want from a horror flick several nights before Helloween.

Meh.

My Netflix Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Movie Review: The Bleeding House (2011)

First of all, that's a terrible name for a film. Terrible. The literalist in me immediately imagined a house with blood pouring out of the window panes and door jams. After maybe an accident of some sort. A papercut, perhaps. Or a gift-wrapping incident. The Bleeding House? C'mon...

But there I was last night, perusing the horror genre on Netflix Instant, and the cover art for this one jumped out at me.  Very simple. Red, black and white. Kinda creepy.  I almost didn't even need to read the summary of the film to check it out, but I did. And I still went ahead. And I'm glad I did.

Imagine this: You are at home with your highly dysfunctional family in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio. Nighttime in Autumn is rapidly approaching. Suddenly a man knocks on your door dressed in a white linen suit and white fedora.  The kind of outfit you would expect to see in a Tennessee Williams play. Oh, and he's carrying a beat-up old doctor's bag.  You know, the kind of beat-up old doctor's bag that you would expect to see that character from that Tennessee Williams play carry. Oh, and he's being not-so-vaguely religiously creepy.  He's got car trouble down the road, and the mechanic can't come until the morning.  He's asking to be put up for the night.

Do you let him in?

OF COURSE YOU DON'T!!  He's a creepy, religious dude in a white linen suit carrying a beat-up old doctor's bag!  There's about a dozen reasons NOT to let him in the house at that point. 

Guess what Mom and Dad of the dysfunctional family decide to do? Yup. And wacky hijinks ensue. And he goes on to say things like "I cut people" when they ask him what he does for a living. Followed by an explanation that he's a surgeon and some nervous laughter, all around.  But at this point in the evening, I'm gonna start watching my ass around this guy.

It's a very simple film from there on. White Linen Suit, of course, is a bad guy, and he's gonna do bad things.  But there is a twist with this family.  Did I mention that they were dysfunctional? But that word doesn't begin to scratch the surface. And I don't mean that the twist is a great cinematic twist. It's not. You'll know what is going on with the family pretty much right away.  But the way that it plays out is pretty interesting.

It's sparse and simple, but that's the way I like my horror movies sometimes.  The best part of the film is the performance of Patrick Breen as White Linen Suit.  He's both subtle and over-the-top at the same time as the villain. A really great turn by a really great character actor.

It's not a perfect film. Horror rarely achieves that level.  But it was a nice, little movie. And by "nice" I really mean "vicious as all hell".  And that's what I was in the mood for last night.  So take this review with that particular grain of salt.

My Netflix Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Movie Night

Holy shit!

Halloween is just a few short days away! And I haven't even figured out what I'm going as!!!

OK...I'm calm now. Halloween sure isn't the same when you are grown up without any interesting costume parties to go to. And no...I'm not asking for any invites. Thanks, anyway.

But I am excited for one thing these next few days. Horror movies. Lots of 'em.

I've already made sure to record some of the classics like Halloween, Bride of Frankenstein, Night of the Living Dead, etc..  Films I should already have in my library, except that I don't really have a movie library anymore. Those DVDs didn't survive the last move, and who really needs "hard" copies of films in this age of digital streaming?  I can't tell you the last time I popped a DVD or Blu-Ray into the player.  That thing just sits there like a...sitting thing. Yeah.

Well, anyway...I'm sure I'll be supplementing the fare that is playing on AMC and TMC and wherever with some new stuff on NetFlix or Amazon Instant. And I can't wait.

Horror movies. Yeah, that's what I'm in the mood for.

You?

PS - Oh, one more thing. I'm going to be reviewing them as I see them. So expect a bunch of posts in the coming days. Mwah-ha-ha-ha!!!

Guilty Pleasures Redux

After a long fight against a pre-Winter cold, I'm back. And meaner than ever.

Okay...maybe not.

But I am back, after missing most of the last week or so in the Blogosphere. Sure, a little Twitter here, a little commenting there. But it's not the same. I even had to miss the last episode of Just Talking to the Cornfield on Sunday night because I lost my voice after an ill-advised bout of drinking over the weekend. Well, it was probably the cold night air that did me in, but I think the booze may have had something to do with it as well.

Oh, I'll be reviewing the booze over here shortly.  You are gonna dig it.

The Colonel and I were supposed to discuss some of our guilty pleasure films/books/tv/whatever on that episode.  And we probably still will whenever we find time to record another show. We even share one in common that we were going to use as a discussion point. Notting Hill. Yeah, both of us are hopeless romantics at heart. Especially when the romance involves the world's most famous actress (as played by Julia Roberts...hehe), and an idyllic setting like the one in the film. Cry us a river.

But the ultimate guilty pleasure movie for most men I know is Road House. Patrick Swayze, Sam Elliot, Ben Gazzara. An American rip-off of the classic kung fu films I grew up. Lone warrior wanders into a town that is persecuted by a powerful warlord. Distancing himself, at first, the warrior eventually falls for the town and its people and takes measures to bring down the evil warlord.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it.  Happens with me.

Anyway.

So what are some of your guilty pleasures? Movies, books, magazines, trashy talk-shows, soap operas? What?

Hit me.

It's been too long...

Since I've been down drinking at the bar.

Gia was sick all last week. Passed it on to me this week. But I'm thinking we are going to need to celebrate the end of this seemingly un-ending cold with a sad and wonderful night spent down drinking at the bar.

Yeah.

Down Drinking at the Bar

Loudon Wainwright III

Well, I call you up on the phone: nobody's at home.
Then I do my usual thing: I let the telephone ring and ring and ring.
I'm standing at a phone booth, coping with the ugly truth.

You see, I know where you are... I know where you are.
You're down drinking at the bar.

I can picture you there on that stool, drinking like a drunken fool.
Yeah, you're sitting there on your ass, muttering into your glass.
Paying for your lowlife thrills with wet quarters and soggy one dollar bills.

I know where you are, baby.
You're down drinking at the bar.

Dean Martin's on the jukebox, I bet.
Or maybe it's Tammy Wynette.
The tearjerkers are jerking your tears.
Salt water in your whiskey and your beers.
You've got the Miller High Life bouncing balls.
You've got the Utica Club waterfalls.

I know where you are, oh ho.
You're down at the bar.
You're down at the bar.

Go ahead get drunk, it's alright.
Lost weekend on a Tuesday night.
But I'm going to have to give you the score:
I'm not going to call you up on the telephone no more.
I'm sick and tired of listening to that phone ring 15 times.
I'm sick and tired of getting back my dimes!

Because I know what you are.
You're at sot, that's what you are.
I know what you are.
You're a lush.
You got a big red nose!

I know where you are, baby.
I know where you are...
You're down drinking at the bar.

These things

Just in case you ever need to take care of me when I have a cold, I'm gonna need a few things:

• Green tea with honey. It's oh-so-manly.
• Some broth-based soup of nearly any kind. Chicken tortellini soup sounds about right.
• NyQuil. Capital N. Small y. Big fucking Q. Original Green Death flavor is just fine.*
• Sleep.
• Lots of sleep.
• Tissues.
• Quiet. 
• A good book. Reading "The Collectors" by David Baldacci right now.
• Pampering.
• Warmth.
• My hoodie skull pattern sweatshirt.
• Plenty of episodes of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Torchwood or anything else I haven't seen yet that is available on Netflix Instant.

And if you are a cat, you know who you are, please don't wake me up by sitting on my chest and yelling at me. That's very rude.

Actually, that last one applies to non-felines at all. Would hate to find this armless troll sitting on my chest in the morning. Ugh.


*h/t to Denis Leary, of course.

Yawn

I love baseball. I really do.

But even I can't get excited about a World Series featuring the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals. 

I guess I should have a little more respect and admiration for the Cardinals organization than I do. They've been around forever and they've won more World Series than any team not named the New York Yankees.  So a long and somewhat prosperous history.

They are also managed by a man who is a legend in his own time, Tony LaRussa. Some complain about his complex moves, lineups and pitching changes. But I side with those that say he manages the way he does to maximize the results of his sometimes over-matched teams. I know, I know...don't all managers run games like that? They should. Sometimes it seems like most of them are running the "Managing Major League Baseball for Dummies" playbook.  Word for word. So I kinda dig LaRussa.

And they have the best player on the planet in Albert Pujols. Did you see his home run in the 3rd inning last night? That shit came in around shoulder high and he pummeled it out of the park. FAR out of the park. Amazing hitter, amazing player. So I guess I should be glad about that.

But I'm just not seeing any excitement coming from this series. Especially since it's gonna be on FOX, and I hate the announcing team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver with the fiery fury of a thousand white-hot suns. They suck the joy out of the game for any viewer. But I'll probably still watch.

And I hope to be entertained.

I'm just not counting on it.

Just Talking to the Cornfield - New Episode Tonight at 9PM EST

You know the drill.

The Colonel and I will discuss some baseball and some other stuff.  Fascinating lead, right?  Ugh...I suck at this.

Just listen in, okay?

Here's a better writeup from the Colonel in his weekly email reminder.

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So if you missed last week show, you missed Earl and the Colonel discuss some possible off-season moves for those playoff teams that were eliminated.    But after another week of playoff games we now opt to get out of aggravation and frustration at the god-awful disastrous crews on TBS and Fox that are announcing the games.    Its been so bad I yearn for Howard Cosell.  

 

We also take a look forward at the World Series, and hopefully after tonight it was be fully decided who will play (GO CREW!!).   

 

Finally, last week we tipped our junior high school cards a bit to talk about what movies 'moved' us the most in our younger days.   Now, ugh, Earl would like to discuss what films or TV shows made us..... whimper.   Get out your tampons folks!!   Its what the Cornfield is all about.

 

 

 

 

See you at the Cornfield!!

 

Sincerely,

 

Earl and the Colonel

 

 

http://talktothecornfield.webs.com/