Not Soon Enough...

A photo from the next to last game at "The Old Boneyard" as my pal, Tunes and I have called it for years. It has been a cold and impersonal winter. The weather doesn't care who it inconveniences. We got heated up over Texiera and then got frozen out once more by the Spankees...I have been busy writing a proposal for my book.....yes, after 18 years on the baseball road, I am finally ready to join the overpopulated market of baseball books.....I look around the crowd at Fenway sometimes and wonder who would buy it. My answer is five people, and I would know four of them...

An HGH Hangover..

I haven't felt much like thinking about baseball this week. The kick in the fans groin known as A-Rod has taken its toll. I guess the choice is clear. You can go to the majors and see drug stuffed clowns or to the minors and see people stuffed into uniforms acting like clowns.

A-Rod and Aretha

A friend remarked that at the Inauguration, "Aretha wasn't very good." Lets see, a 66 year old woman, after sitting in the cold for a couple of hours...and miracle of miracle, she actually sang her own vocals and didn't use backing tapes!" I thought it was fab to hear and see her and let it go at that. In this American Idol universe, no one sings live, no one plays live and for awhile there, not everyone hit home runs without enhancement. Since the Texas Rangers have never been a threat to most other teams, what joy-boy was doing in 2003 didn't cross my nose. Let he who is without sin throw out the first needle.

So little time...

so many to prosecute...A-Rod joins the tainted. Of course, he didn't lie to a grand jury or Congress as the other lunkheads did...but it is still a shame. Is there nothing believable in Major League Baseball? I had hoped that A-Rod (or somebody) would break Bonds HR record so it could be reclaimed for the real people. With the economy is a death march, sports is a nice diversion. Now, instead of Spring Training chatter, A-Rod will dominate the news. I need baseball. It dominates my life for months. I go to games, I photograph it. I have friends all over the country. I revel in the Minors. Who sang that.."They Can't Take That Away From Me...?" Every so often, I announce I will chuck all of this stuff. To be honest, it is all I know.

More Snow....

Not a lot, mind you...but enough to make your chest heave and count the days until that you can see the green, green grass of home....It has been a long and slow winter. The NPR poofs seem to have stopped chanting "global warming" and have merely extolling "Slumdog Millionaire" which looks to be as much of a dud as year's "Little Miss Sunshine." For all of the synchophants that march behind Fox News and their broadcasts, there is something more zombie-like about the NPR crew...

Is It Spring Yet?

Boston is getting quasi-clobbered with snow this winter. I say "quasi" because the news media sends everyone into a panic with three inches of snow due...when I was a boy.......we used to walk ten miles to school every day and on cold days, we had baked potatoes in our pockets to keep our hands warm. If our family was to poor to buy potatoes, we had hot bricks.

This is my country....

"This is my country...these are my people..." Randy Newman. Every single one of them....from skin to shining skin....what an American tune baseball sings.....

Dream

January 19, 2009

I had never seen this image uncropped until recently. A college boy took the picture but couldn't be trusted to develop it. Into the darkroom of Ernest Withers it went.

Not in Brookline

The summer before last, I shot some pictures of Lars Anderson, prospect of the future. Being a Brookline, MA native and having participated in many activities at Larz Anderson Park there, I asked him if he was related to the philanthropist that donated the park to the town. He was not and apologized for never having heard of him. Lars, the ballplayer, seems as highly touted as Nomah was...and that is an exciting thing.

Gates of Heaven

A Shotgun Shack....

Seventy four years ago a baby was born. And it wasn't a cold and grey Chicago morn....

The Other White Presley

It seems tragic to me. Tourists are given audio headphones, tour Graceland at a breakneck clip and are deposited at the graves of Elvis, his mother, his father, his Aunt Minnie and his stillborn brother, Jesse. To die an addicted person at age 42 is a tragedy for anyone. To not have your associates and family reach out to at least try to intervene is a disgrace. Skinny Elvis. Fat Elvis. Dead Elvis. As he was so squarely in the public eye, the squalor of his death is public as well. And a tour costs only $28 dollars.

Down in the Valley...

Graceland looks like a drug hallucination. This isn't a complaint but an observation from a former observer of that scene. I find Elvis' life a tragedy. His death at 42 and how it was a human tragedy, essentially alone, is never talked about. The man lived a Rocket 88 trip to the top of the American Dream slipped, stumbled and fell all the way back down. Somebody said that after awhile, Elvis was the first Elvis impersonator.

and after Lennon?

And after Lennon? 90-95% of what Elvis produced in his life was pure schlock. His output was so prodigious that it overshadows what he did accomplish. It is easy to think of him as he declined into a pool of drugs and incoherant mumbles. Thinking back to the fire of "Baby Lets Play House" makes sifting through it all worthwhile.