about to get LOST!

i am so excited for tonight’s lost premiere that i was compelled to use capital letters … i think team darlton’s decision to air exactly zero seconds of advance season 6 footage was absolutely the right call, and i think it speaks to the profound respect for the show that everyone (well, entertainment weekly, my tv bible) is avoiding spoilers of any kind.

plus, the decision to use no new promotional footage led to probably the greatest preview commercial i have ever seen. as with most good things, it’s en espanol, but someone added handy subtitles. so let the words to the poem sink in, then watch it again.

it’s stunning.

the poem and chessboard imagery is the absolute perfect reading of what the stakes are this year … it hearkens back to the backgammon scene with locke and walt (waaaaaaaalt!) from season one, which might just be the most significant scene in the series. i’m not going to embed it because i’d rather embed the only other promo i’ve ever seen that can match this one …

david lachapelle’s lost season one uk promo is gorgeous:

the original version features a portishead song, but i think the cast voices one is fantastic.

american tv stations need to step it up.

* * * *

but i have not been this giddy for a season premiere since … ever, i think. the only show that matches the high-octane action is 24, but the stakes for lost are *so* high. i am prepared to be simultaneously blown away and completely confused. i can’t wait.

boom.

LOST

 

the backup catcher bonanza

i waited 72 hours to write this. i believe that’s enough of a period to clear one’s head and reexamine a serious grievance and breach of goodwill before ranting rashly.

i will now proceed to rant sensibly.

so proud to have you, omar

omar, it’s over. every measure of good faith i chose to continue to allot you is gone. you have turned us into a joke. and not the lovable-losers variety of the 60s. we’re talking a cowardly (willie randolph firing), insanely stupid (ryan church concussion handling), judgmentally challenged (bare-shirt bernazard), childish (blaming a beat writer for unearthing bare-knuckle-boxing bernazard’s appalling behavior), undesirable joke.

now to be fair, omar, for all we know, you could be the lame duck gm some speculate you to be – crippled by ownership as a direct result of your previous incompetence. if that’s the case, well, congratulations, you’ve earned it. please forward my regards to jeff wilpon. if he’s not too busy fawning over citi field and the shake shack.

i have to start with the backup catcher supermarket sweep. instead of improving the major league roster in any way, shape or form, you sign two horrendous backup catchers – both on the wrong side of 35. henry blanco, the 38-year-old you signed to give some right-handed “pop” off the bench, batted .235 last year with a whopping 16 rbi in 67 games. chris coste, whose name was actually painful for me to type, declared himself “a phillie for life” and said he never saw himself playing for the mets on the day that you signed him.

let’s pause while i bash my head against the keyboard.

i’m realistic. we had no shot to get roy halladay. but the reason for that is your shocking ineptitude at sustaining any kind of farm system. you were a scout, and yet your minor-league system is appalling. six out of seven minor league affiliates with losing records in 2009. inspiring. triple-a and double-a combine to go 61 games under .500. that looks great next to the “major league” mets’ record.

it’s not your fault that injuries on the big-league level necessitated the promotion of our only untouchable bona fide star prospect fernando martinez, who proceeded to show the world his utter mediocrity and rob him of the mystique that could have produced something on the trade market. but it is your fault that there were no other minor leaguers to promote in his stead.

but during a season in which the dangers of having no minor-league talent became painfully obvious to everyone who watched even one mets game, you fail to sign two of your top ten draft picks?! worst draft outcome in the majors. well done.

during an offseason in which we find out that the mets actually made money off the madoff scam, you fail to pony up the cash it would take to land the only palatable starter on the open market? unconscionable.

oh, but you did sign 100-year-old elmer dessens to a minor-league deal. thank god.

*    *    *    *

now there’s another angle here. even if we did have enough prospects to tempt the blue jays to ship halladay to citi field, would halladay have waived his no-trade clause? not a chance. even if we did attempt to lure lackey with cash, is it so hard to believe the theory that he just didn’t want to have anything to do with the mets? how sad is it that a pitcher’s haven in the biggest baseball city on the planet can’t attract a no. 2 starter guaranteed to make ace money?

we may sign jason bay. we may not. his agent might be following satan scott boras’ blueprint for exacting extra years and dollars out of teams bidding against themselves. or he may be stalling, hoping desperately that any other team will swoop in to rescue his client from the world-class graveyard that is citi field … and i don’t mean that it’s a place where homers go to die. it’s a place – the bastion of a franchise – where dreams go to die. (look what you’ve done to me, mets. you have me speaking in cliches and banging my head against the wall when i should have at least 16 more weeks before i need to break out that paper bag to put over my head.)

but while the outcome of the bay negotiations will certainly affect our on-field potential next season, its success or failure will do nothing to squelch the simple, tragic fact that this team’s management is a train wreck, its vision wholly undefined, its priorities misaligned. hey, at least we’ll have more than enough bullpen catchers.

*    *    *    *

but what do i do now? how do i emotionally brace myself for 2010? i’ve been wrestling with this question since it became apparent that the mets still have the organizational goal of making themselves the team with the most aging players of dubious pedigree (honestly, i think their goal is to only ink players in the twilight of their careers – and the requirements? player must have played for at least five ballclubs and/or spent the majority of their pro seasons languishing in the minor leagues … oh nelson figueroa, how i hope we meet again).

this is how bad it has gotten – i have consulted with the book of simmons to determine whether i qualify for a reallocation of team support. in his seminal 2005 book, “now i can die in peace,” he boiled his original list of rules down from 20, and my situation does make me eligible for such a shift, under original rule 19e, revised rule 6d:

“rule no. 19: once you choose a team, you’re stuck with that team for the rest of your life, unless one of the following conditions applies … e) the owner of your favorite team treated his fans so egregiously that you couldn’t take it anymore … when it happens, you have two options: either renounce that team and pick another one, or pretend they’re dead and you’re a grieving widow.”

after this season ended, i wore black for a week. does that count?

now, anyone who actually believes that come opening day, i’m not going to be wearing blue and orange and fighting like hell for this mess of a team doesn’t know me at all. but baseball is supposed to make you happy, right? there’s supposed to be some element of joy, of an escape from reality. and i’m not going to have that this year. the mets are not going to make me happy.

there is only one person in baseball who can give me that this year, and he doesn’t play in new york. so i’m going to continue to live and die with the mets, but since i know it’s not going to be much of a life, i’m going to look elsewhere for that sense of childlike wonder, of real hope and inspiration. i’m going to find it in seattle, i’m going to find it in “the kid.”

"the kid" represents everything i love about baseball

i hope i express this clearly enough – i’m not going to become a mariners fan, but i’m going to be pulling for them this season. partly because they seem to want to win (what a strange concept for a baseball franchise!), but 99% because i want ken griffey jr., the best baseball player of our generation, to get the world series ring that he so deserves.

the video of the mariners carrying him off the field on the last day of the season made me bawl like a baby – it’s my favorite moment of the season. i wasn’t moved by anything the mets did last year. but watching that griffey video reminded me, in a swell of emotion, how beautiful this game can be. a team with no playoff spot carried an aging veteran – who didn’t produce all that much – on their shoulders because of who he is, as a player, as a seattle hero, as a baseball legend, as a person. the classiest guy in baseball deserves a ring. and seattle, in an incredible display of purpose and determination, is going to do everything in their power to get one for him. i hope they succeed.

my brother jimmy is taking a different approach. our text-message exchange from tuesday follows (edited for profanity):

jimmy: “[freaking] great. we lose out on lackey and halliday, but we’re ‘actively pursuing’ kelvim escobar, who hasn’t pitched for 2 years and has a bad shoulder.”

vic: “[freaking] unbelievable. no wait, it’s perfectly logical. who wouldn’t pick a guy with a bum arm over a sure-thing free agent?”

jimmy: “i’m literally done with the mets for this season. texas rangers were randomly selected as my team this year. a jersey has been ordered.”

vic: “was literally just looking at griffey shirts.”

jimmy: “haha. i got a vest jersey … brand new … $24 on ebay. bad ass.”

vic: “i’m intrigued by the mariners’ team philosophy – it’s a bit foreign to me. i think their goal is … to win?”

how did jimmy decide to follow the lonestar-state team this season? he put mlb 2009 in his playstation, went to the “select team” menu, let the scroll button run for a while and randomly let go.

remember the good old days? (they stopped in september)

and how to explain the fact that the team it landed on has better prospects than the mets this season? well, unless you live in pittsburg, every major-league stadium has less storm clouds hanging over it.

voila. instant hope by random video-game selection.

may all of us in the unenviable position of bleeding blue and orange find some kind of hope this season. i’m thinking the only surefire way to find it if your heart belongs to the mets is to rewind the clock, pop mlb 2007 into your playstation and pray that the video game isn’t technologically advanced enough to factor in september collapses.

 

i’m gonna fire four words at you – liza. minnelli. celine. dion.

so i’m pretty sure that, in an accidental overflow of glee, kate’s nun boss may or may not have heard me belt celine dion’s “taking chances” into her friend’s phone this morning. in an octave i had no business trying to reach.

i am watching glee now. and i’m a little ashamed. just a little. (and i am clarifying that i do not love celine. just glee.)

 

a reading from the book of armaments …

today, at the end of church, the cantor said, “and now let us all celebrate by singing hymn #666, ‘change our hearts’ – hymn # 6-6-6.”

is that bad?

 

go big blue!

may this football season be more rewarding than baseball season.

 

won’t forget

when it happened, i wrote about it. unfortunately, the hc newspaper editors gave the opinion piece the title of a 98 degrees song. but it still fits what i feel.

but the best expression about what happened came from someone who wrote a science fiction song in 1976 that happened to come true. this recording from the concert for new york city makes me cry every time. the words are sadly prophetic, but as billy says, “unlike the end of this song, we ain’t going anywhere.”

i’ve seen the lights go out on broadway
i saw the empire state laid low
and life went on beyond the palisades
they all bought cadillacs
and left there long ago

we held a concert out in brooklyn
to watch the island bridges blow
they turned our power down
and drove us underground
but we went right on with the show

i’ve seen the lights go out on broadway
i saw the ruins at my feet
you know we almost didn’t notice it
we’d see it all the time on 42nd street

they burned the churches up in harlem
like in that spanish civil war
the flames were everywhere
but no one really cared
it always burned up there before

i’ve seen the lights go down on broadway
i watched the mighty skyline fall
the boats were waiting at the battery
the union went on strike
they never sailed at all

they sent a carrier out from norfolk
and picked the yankees up for free
they said that queens could stay
they blew the bronx away
and sank manhattan out at sea

you know those lights were bright on broadway
but that was so many years ago
before we all lived here in florida
before the mafia took over mexico
there are not many who remember
they say a handful still survive
to tell the world about
the way the lights went out
and keep the memory alive

~ billy joel

 

the injury report

vic’s blue-and-orange pride has been assigned to the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to the day the mets stopped covering up santana’s prolonged elbow problems. or the unassisted-triple-play day. or the day david wright got beaned. or the day louis fell down the dugout steps. or the day louis dropped the pop-up.

when asked about the possibility of vic’s pride returning on its first day of eligibility, mets manager jerry manuel said, “i’m not optimistic” and then proceeded to make a joke and laugh at it.

in indecipherable remarks given over a conference call, general manager omar minaya emphasized that it was not *broken* pride, merely *strained* pride, and then lashed out at sny commentator ron darling for possessing more pitching knowledge than mets pitching coach dan warthen.

minaya went on to say that he could not recall any events that could have contributed to the straining of vic’s pride, overlooking the fact that half of the mets’ current roster belongs in the minor leagues and the other half belongs in a retirement community.

minaya said the disabled-list assignment was merely a precautionary measure. “i am confident that her pride will recover completely once she sees tim redding’s next start or sees anderson hernandez bat cleanup,” he said. “she will absolutely be back this season.”

update: medical professionals who prefer treating injuries to elaborate injury cover-ups acknowledge that vic’s pride will undergo season-ending surgery. they project a full recovery by spring training, but lord knows they’ve been wrong before.

 

cd day

today is cd day.

i haven’t been this excited about a tuesday in years – my music idol, imogen heap, finally released the album i’ve been counting down to … and ingrid michaelson (the only musician who could ever pull off radiohead on a ukulele, and, therefore, another music hero) chose the same day to drop her all-new album (“be okay” was really a rarity/b-side/live effort). lest the lack of exclamation marks deceive you, rest assured that august 25 has been a day scorched in my brain for quite some time.

as i was working out my plan to grab these new albums today (never mind the fact that i pre-ordered imogen’s deluxe album on itunes weeks ago), i found myself thinking about what cd day used to mean. see, i made this pact with my shopaholic self about two years ago. i promised that i’d stop buying cds just to buy them – i wanted to stop collecting music and start savoring it.

because somewhere around the time the police nabbed napster, all my college friends started swapping cds like crazy – we’d sit there burning the entire modest mouse discography or transferring a party’s worth of 80s tunes onto each others’ computers just so we had it all. i used to know the track listing to every single album i owned. i used to know the *lyrics* to every song i owned. now? forget it. somewhere along the line, the catalogue became more important than the music inside it.

so i made a pact with my inner music hoarder to stop scooping up every mp3 in sight or buying every album on sale for $9.99 and start listening for real again. because when i think of pop music, when i think of connecting with music, there’s one memory that kicks it all off.

my fourth-grade self is striding through the parking lot behind quimby street holding the first cd i ever bought myself. it was my third cd total, coming just on the heels of elton john’s greatest hits – but this was the first album i ever placed on a counter and paid for with my own money. i remember picking at the shrink wrap, opening the cover, finding the booklet inside. magic. dying to rush into the house and spin it on my new cd player. mariah carey and i have been connected ever since.

i can see myself so distinctly, sprawled out on the floor of my old room (the one my parents so easily tricked me into thinking was better than my older – and significantly bigger – one, after franny outgrew his crib and needed to move with jimmy into a bigger room) with the liner notes from “music box” spread in front of me. i just listened. and the only words i read were the ones mariah had released with her songs. what else was there to think about?

i want to listen to music like that again. just laying there, content to spend 41 minutes and 54 seconds absorbing the music and following along with the clues the singer left us.

i don’t take that time now. now i hear my music while i’m catching up on email or working my way down route 22 or straightening papers – the music’s there, but my mind isn’t. is it because i don’t have the luxury of time, or because i’m filling it with something else? i still want to know my music inside and out, but sometimes i think i’m cramming songs and lyrics like i’m cramming for a test. music is always playing, but i’m rarely savoring the discovery.

but today, i’m keeping all that in mind. i’ve unwrapped that shrink wrap and given the liner notes a first glance. i’ve taken two albums for a spin, and i can already tell that they’re going to rocket up my list of favorites. i don’t know quite when my schedule is going to allow it, but i’m going to set aside a guilt-free hour and just listen. it’s cd day, and i’m not going to shortchange imogen or ingrid or the fourth-grader laying on a blue carpet with her boombox thinking that a cd might very well be the best invention ever.

 

please forgive the disappearing act. it’s not intentional, and it’s not permanent.

i’ve had a bunch of thoughts for blog entries, but i guess i was looking for something terribly exciting to write about next … since i’ve remembered life doesn’t always work that way, we’ll return shortly to your sporadically scheduled posts.

thanks for stopping by -

 

what vic and alyssa milano have in common

so i get back from camping (more on that later) to find out that the Mets have actually won two games, and today they go ahead and do the right thing by firing hothead shirtless bully vp tony bernazard. but they can’t even do that with class – omar has to throw longtime beat writer adam rubin under the bus for reasons i can’t even begin to imagine. but i am too amazed by the ineptitude of the front office that i don’t even want to comment right now, so more on that later.

instead, i choose to remind myself (and you) why i love the game of baseball. so that brings us to alyssa milano.

the following is a reprint of a “vic’s picks” (that’s my occasionally self-indulgent music column) that appeared in the westfield leader on april 16. you can see it with my picture on top here, or you can just keep reading for full text, minus capital letters:

q: what do vic’s picks and alyssa milano have in common?
a: baseball.

what do baseball and a music column have in common? admittedly, not much…but then again, picks is rarely your average music column.

next week, we’ll return to your sporadically scheduled music reviewing. but spring is here, no matter what the thermometer says, and spring brings opening day, which unfailingly brings a new crop of baseball books. yup, today we’re going literary, and that brings us back to this column’s titular question.

vic’s picks never really thought she and alyssa milano would have much in common, but it seems the intoxicating nature of america’s pastime spreads far and wide. fans have probably noticed the actress’s clothing line of women’s baseball fashions in stadium stores. women who like to rock their team colors without having to wear boxy shirts no doubt are grateful for her enterprise. but when this diehard Mets fan heard that milano would be joining tbs’s postseason baseball-reporting roster, she was rather suspicious. an actress makes a clothing line and gets clubhouse access? does she even understand the sanctity of the game?

apparently, i wasn’t the only one to ask that question. my daily scouring of mlb sites led me to something that made me regret my skepticism. milano has a blog on mlblogs.com, and she wrote a staunch defense of her love for baseball for the benefit of doubters like me. she had me at “i hate when the count is 0-2 and the pitcher throws that ball low and away [because] the batter knows just as well as we do that it’s coming…”

but i digress.

the actress released her first (clearly baseball-themed) book just before opening day. and this now-avid milano convert devoured it in a day and a half.

as its jacket says, the book is a love letter. not to carl pavano or barry zito (though we must note that her taste in baseball boyfriends tends to involve pitchers who can’t pitch), but to the world’s greatest game.

she finds a way to reconnect her father to his brooklyn past and to tether them both to a life in los angeles. she finds a way to (unintentionally) show up male costars in the baseball-statistics-dropping department. baseball keeps her grounded in a world of actors – she has full access to the stars of the hollywood scene, yet the person she name-drops most often is 81-year-old dodgers announcer vin scully.

she finds a kind of family in the other dodgers season-ticket holders in her section – watching the kids in seats around her grow up, bonding with other diehard fans, shouting creative insults with her brother (see: calling the light-hitting, out-of-shape outfield bust andruw jones “snacks”).

i don’t think she’s harsh enough on steroid users, but she tackles the subject with a sweeping review of cheating through the ages, asserting that the “pure” era of baseball we long for never really happened.

she peppers the book with sidebars recounting wacky, sobering and mammoth games or players. she shows that she knows her stuff in a relaxed, breezy manner, making drive-by references to past greats or moments of great implosion (see: rick ankiel’s infamous wild pitching performance). it’s the kind of discourse one might spout when digging into a baseball discussion with an old friend – knowledgeable, but not trying to impress.

but the real pleasure in this book is not about the stats or the history or the dodgers; it’s about the joy and the passion with which milano discusses them. it’s the literary opportunity any true fan would die for – the chance to just pour your heart out about the game that has captured it.

it’s not cheesy, but it is a love story. “if i were a less emotional person, i wouldn’t have booed and screamed at my television every time barry bonds stepped to the plate…i wouldn’t have [seen former drug addict josh hamilton’s home run derby performance as] the most astonishing act of redemption…the most vivid example of the human spirit’s resilience and beauty,” milano writes. without that emotional investment, that human connection, baseball is just a sea of stats, and she knows it.

“how can a sport save someone?” milano asks at one point. her book shows readers a pretty good answer.