D's Notebook

Month: July 2009 (Page 2 of 2)

R’s – Maybe Things Aren’t So Bad

July 8, 2009 /

Note: I had to hang on to this for a couple days after the Royals ripped off three straight wins. Fortunately, between losing in Detroit last night, trading for Ryan Freel, and keeping Tony Pena, Jr. on the roster, things are quickly getting back to normal.

Not much to say about the floundering Royals. Their cold streak turned into a cold month, into two cold months, and now they’re officially right back where they’ve been for most of the decade. Depressing. They’ve gone Back To The Future on us, seemingly disappearing before our eyes between injuries, bizarre managerial moves, epically bad play in the field and at the plate, and a few off-the-field controversies.

But, you know what? Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem.

I checked the Royals’ June results, because it seemed like a really, really bad month. Sure, they won at a nifty .385 clip. But they also won ten games. I was, frankly, surprised they managed to sneak into double digits.

See, they’re still capable of some pleasant surprises!

Casey Hangs Up His Mic

July 7, 2009 /

Even a long-time Casey Kasem fan like me was surprised by this news. Not the fact that he was retiring his countdown show(s), but that he was still even doing a countdown.

Casey Kasem ending his run on radio this weekend –

“Hosting various versions of my countdown program has kept me extremely busy, and I loved every minute of it,” Kasem, 77, said in a statement. “However, this decision will free up time I need to focus on myriad other projects.”

Naturally, I’ve reflected a bit on this. You know Casey was a big part of my childhood. And while much of the music I listen to today has no direct connection to the music he played, the 80s pop sound still played a huge role in developing my musical ear. While obviously not on the same level as a Sinatra or Carson, Casey was one of the last monolithic cultural icons left from those simpler times (can we put him at the same level as Dick Clark?). Back then, famous people became institutions and you could count on them as tastes, both cultural and personal, changed. Today, our hyper-culture demands that our cultural icons constantly be refreshed and replaced. Like Ryan Seacrest is still going to be around in 30 years.

So best of luck to my man Casey. I love that quote. He’s been active with animal rights and various other political causes for most of his career. I would imagine most people don’t know that, though, and wonder what his “myriad other projects” consists of. Only an entertainment legend, feeling a little full of himself, would bust out the word myriad there.

Oh, and do check out the YouTube vids attached to that story. They’re brilliant.

 

Reader’s Notebook – June 2009

July 6, 2009 /

Books completed:
Road Work – Mark Bowden
Redemption Song: The Ballad Of Joe Strummer – Chris Salewicz
Eleanor Rigby – Douglas Coupland

Books in progress:
Best Music Writing 2008

09-9 – Road Work – Mark Bowden.
Mark Bowden is one of the best long-form journalists we have right now. He is most famous for Black Hawk Down, his book upon which the movie of the same name was based, and for his recent The Best Game Ever, about the 1958 NFL title game. But he’s been at this for decades now, building his reputation with the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Road Work is a collection of his work for the Inquirer and other magazines from about 1980 into the early part of this decade. It’s great stuff, and made me think of what writers I would love to switch careers with. These were the first four I thought of:

Carl Hiaasen: crank out a hilarious, best-selling novel each year and in-between spend your time skewering local politicians for the Miami Herald.
Bill Simmons: write 8000 words about your favorite sporting events, sprinkled with pop culture references, and create a genre while you’re at it.
Joe Posnanski: work for the Kansas City Star, be one of the best baseball writers in the world, win awards.
Mark Bowden: travel the globe investigating dictators, wars, and injustice. Sell movie rights.

09-10 – Redemption Song: The Ballad Of Joe Strummer – Chris Salewicz.
I’ve read just about every major history of The Clash; why would I dive into a 500+ page book just about Joe Strummer?

Why not?

The best way to describe this book is exhaustive. It’s very British in that every single detail of Joe’s life is spelled out. His family’s moves. Weeks in the studio. Friendships made and lost. And I loved every page of it.

Salewicz was a friend of Strummer’s for years and this allowed him both access to those that were close to Joe and a first-person perspective to weigh the views of others against. While he was a friend, and the opening chapters are as much about Salewicz’s mourning after Joe’s death than about the death itself, he also isn’t afraid to call Joe on the areas where he failed in life: his epic ingestion of drugs and alcohol (he may never have been into the harder drugs for long periods, but it seems like Joe lived a life not terribly different than Keith Richards), his incesant womanizing, his mood swings, and his willingness to end relationships, musical and personal, in a moment if they no longer served his purposes.

This is a great book. If you liked The Clash or are just into music, I highly recommend it.

09-11 – Eleanor Rigby – Douglas Coupland.
Liz Dunn is lonely. She’s in her 40s, single, overweight, unattractive, and anonymous. But she’s been that way her entire life, so she’s used to it and has found some kind of peace with her fate. Then, one night she gets a call from the hospital. A patient has her listed as his next-of-kin. She is about to meet her 20-year-old son for the first time and her life is going to get a lot more interesting.

I really enjoy Coupland’s writing. His books are often funny and interesting, and always reveal some emotional depth as you work deeper into them. That is all true about Eleanor Rigby, but it doesn’t measure up to the other Coupland books I’ve read. It almost as the feel of him working on things, getting some kinks out, before he moved on to bigger things. It’s not a bad read, just not a great one either.

 

Another Classic (With Bonus U2 Bashing)

July 5, 2009 /

So much for last year’s Wimbledon men’s final being unmatched. Sunday’s Federer – Roddick final was pretty damn epic as well. The 16-14 fifth set was one for the ages and the perfect ending to a fantastic match.

Yet, I kept thinking it didn’t quite match the drama of a year ago. Last year had the rain and the race to beat darkness. This year had perfect weather and an open roof. Last year had Nadal finally taking out Federer on grass, and knocking him from the top spot in the rankings, after several years of slowly closing in on him. This year it was Andy Roddick, playing the best tennis of his career, but not exactly bringing the same kind of drama to Centre Court that Nadal brought. To be honest, I expected the match to last about 90 minutes, figuring Roddick had played the match of his life on Friday and would have nothing left. Shows how much I know about tennis.

I wonder, too, if the lack of any back-and-forth in the match reduced its drama. Last year, Federer and Nadal would seize the momentum, only to see the other grab it right back moments later. There was a breathless, roller coaster feel to that match. Sunday, Federer and Roddick largely held serve, both literally and figuratively. So it was compelling, but not edge-of-your-seat stuff like last year.

But a great match nonetheless.

I’ve been watching Wimbledon for almost 30 years now. I love the tradition and pageantry that come along with it. So I had to chuckle a bit when each commercial break brought ads for the iPhone, Palm Pre, or Blackberry. The Queen was probably rolling over in her grave that the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon were sullied with such high-tech nonsense.

”God save the Queen.
She ain’t no human being.
There is no future
In England’s dreaming.”

Hey, speaking of those smartphone ads, that <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA8SM_ivqpY”>U2/Blackberry commercial</a> seemed kind of familiar. Which is weird, because it is brand new. Oh, wait. It’s a lot like <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDFkRMNeZo4″>Coldplay’s iPod/iTunes ad</a> from last year. So now they’re not only sounding like Coldplay, but they’re mimicking their advertising pushes? And wasn’t U2 making commercials for Apple just a couple years ago? They had their own iPod and everything. Rumor has it they think they know more about design than <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive”>Jonathan Ive</a>, thus the jump to Blackberry. Good luck with all of that, lads.

 

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