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

_____________________________________________________________

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.