grey gardens on turner classic movies

the film, and the stars of the broadway production:

David and Albert Maysles’ 1975 documentary, “Grey Gardens,” will appear on cable’s Turner Classic Movies (TCM) Oct. 29 in a presentation that includes the stars of the new Broadway musical of the same name.

The film portrait of Jackie Bouvier’s aunt and cousin, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter “Little” Edie, is a cult classic – a portrait of social and personal decay and perseverance. It airs 8 PM (ET) Oct. 29. Check local listings for channel on your cable system.

The TCM premiere comes just days before the Broadway opening of the Grey Gardens musical on Nov. 2 at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Previews began Oct. 3.

of course, the story’s dateline is yesterday, october 30, and the airing was sunday, october 29.

mark your calendars. thanks, playbill.

problems with electronic voting

early voting has begun in florida, and there are problems already.

people’s votes for democratic candidates are being recorded for their republican opponents. of course, election officials are assuring people that the errors can be fixed on the spot.

if, of course, you are savvy enough to catch the mistake, and aggressive enough to alert the people in charge, and persistent enough to make sure your vote is recorded properly. sure. lots of elderly voters are going to have the wherewithal to go through that.

right.

and why is it that, when we read these stories, the error never favors the democrats? i certainly try to avoid paranoia, but you have to wonder.

here’s the quote from the linked story that strikes fear into my heart:

Broward Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman Mary Cooney said it’s not uncommon for screens on heavily used machines to slip out of sync, making votes register incorrectly. Poll workers are trained to recalibrate them on the spot — essentially, to realign the video screen with the electronics inside. The 15-step process is outlined in the poll-workers manual.

the 15-step process.

here’s a true story: on one of my relatively recent visits to the polls, i went up to the proper table and the poll worker asked my last name. she then looked at a copy of the alphabet she had written on an envelope, so that she would know where in the book to find my registration information.

you read that correctly. she didn’t know the alphabet well enough, and had to write it down for reference.

i have other new york voting horror stories, and i assure you that this is not an isolated incident–it’s a typical incident.

and these are the people that are going to initiate a 15-step process to calibrate an electonic voting machine?

i’m really angry about this.

and if you really want to get completely frightened, here’s an online guide to stealing elections. the guide was assembled to make the point that stealing an election is now easier than ever, due to the “improvements” implemented after the 2000 election.

this country is going to hell in a handcart. we need to get the u.n. in here to monitor the elections. like they do in fledgling democracies, countries that seem to be doing a better job of having elections than the united states.

i’m really afraid for what will happen to this country if there are widespread problems with electronic voting. it could be the push over the edge into some really widespread, destructive protests, and we don’t need that.

or, maybe we do.

things that have recently made me cranky

the old guy sitting next to me at “grey gardens” wednesday night made me very cranky. first of all, though he was ancient and practically bald, he still had a ponytail. bad form. when we were going to our seats, before i knew i was sitting next to him, i overheard him complaining about his seats to the usher. well, dude, you bought them. did you not know where they were when you bought them? it’s your damn fault that your seats are where they are. man up. take responsibility.

so kirk and i sat down, and he followed us into the row and sat next to me. great. and throughout the show, he kept passing gas. very smelly gas. and he was constantly poking his bony-ass elbow into my side, way past the armrest and halfway into my seat. i finally had to whisper “excuse me”, which got his elbow at least back onto the armrest.

do people have no clue of how they are acting in public? talk about breaking the social contract. come on, clueless usher-torturing bony-elbowed bad-ponytailed fart man. get a grip.

this morning i got cranky as well. every week or so, i treat myself to a grease-bomb burger king breakfast. i get an egg-and-cheese croissanwich meal (comes with tater tots, and a diet coke) for $2.70–it’s a splurge for me, monetarily and dietarily. but i like it, and i never go to mcdonalds, because they stupidly charge extra for the diet coke, making the equivalent meal well over $4. and i hate the log-o-hash browns. that big solid plank of potato is very unappetizing. give me individual tots anytime.

but i digress.

this morning, i go to burger king for my breakfast. there’s a roped off line to get in, but these two loudmouth idiots at the front of the line aren’t in it. they evidently can’t be bothered to walk the extra 10 feet. so they stand just outside the ropes, waiting for the guy currently at the register to finish, so they can push past all the people who have already ordered and are waiting for their food.

and since they aren’t in line, the rest of us aren’t queued up nicely, but are forced into a clump around them. though, being good people, we’ve all mentally noted who got there first and so on. you can tell with some people that they get it, and with others that they are idiots.

and there’s only one person who works the burger king counter in the morning, so it’s not the most speedy process in the best of circumstances. add to that the general slowness of new york fast food (it’s unbelievably slow, but you get used to it), and we all are waiting our turn in a confused mass of humanity.

and the two guys who can’t line up are waiting as well. and talking. loudly. very very loudly. so i have to listen to their inane conversation about their boring ass life, because they are so loud that i don’t have a choice.

and it is finally their turn. and they ignore the roped-off line, push past the people waiting for their food, and get to the counter.

and look up at the menu board, and one of them says. says.

“now let’s see here, what do you have for breakfast?”

dammit, dammit, dammit. you’ve been standing there for at least three minutes. could you not have looked up and decided what the flying fuck you wanted for breakfast? no. you have to make me wait even longer, because you are an idiot.

and most times, i would have let it go. but this time, i muttered under my breath, “oh for chrissakes”.

at least i thought it was under my breath.

it wasn’t as under my breath as i thought.

everyone in the non-line turned around and looked at me. and then turned around and looked at him.

and, to his credit, he immediately said, “i’ll have a number seven”.

and now i feel bad, a little bit. i need to be less cranky. i need to be more zen.

who knows why the old guy farted so much?

maybe this guy hadn’t seen the guy he was with for a while, and got excited, and forgot to formulate his burger king order.

i need to work on not letting little things bug me so much. in the end, if you have perspective, they aren’t what matter.

interesting this-and-thats

» curious as to where you really fall on the political spectrum? take this quiz. i’m Economic Left/Right: -2.75 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.56, which puts me in the company of gandhi, the dalai lama, and nelson mandela. better than the opposite quadrant, which includes such luminaries as hitler and george w. bush.

» the greedy landlords are at it again. this time they are trying to tear down the building that houses le madeleine on 43rd between 9th and 10th, one of our favorite restaurants. do me a favor and sign the petition. the details are here.

» danny rolling was executed yesterday. i lived in gainesville when the student murders took place, and it was a truly frightening experience. i lived blocks away from victims’ houses, and blocks away from the woods where danny rolling lived in his tent. i’m against capital punishment, though something like this certainly gives you cause to reexamine the strength of your convictions.

» new jersey is on the verge of allowing gay marriages that theoretically should be honored in other states. as far as i’m concerned, i got married by a minister, and i’m married in the eyes of god, and that’s that. the state thinks otherwise, obviously. kirk and i registered as domestic partners in new york city at the time of our ceremony–i’d like to see that given the same legal rights as marriage. i don’t want to get married again–once should be enough if i have the paperwork to prove it. there should be an amnesty or something. but if going through another ceremony would give me equivalent rights, or advance the cause, i guess i’d do it.

grey gardens: a fresh triumph

the old grey gardens? the best show i saw last year.

the new grey gardens? one of the best shows i have ever seen.

many people thought (and i did too, on reflection) that the first act needed tightening. they’ve done it with fairly extensive changes, while plumping up everything thematic and dramatic. the second act is largely untouched, but the staging is much improved, and the ending is better.

below, i’ve scanned the old & new playbill covers, and the old & new song lists:

« click on thumbnails to view pictures »

grey
gardens
old cover

grey
gardens
new cover

grey
gardens
old songs

grey
gardens
new songs

changes?

» “toyland” out, “the girl who has everything” in. to be honest, i don’t remember toyland, but “the girl who has everything” works perfectly as a recurring theme; playful with a dark undertone at the beginning, devastating and haunting at the end. verdict: improvement.

» “body beautiful beale” out. great song, but the message is communicated in the book. verdict: no great loss.

» “better fall out of love” out, “goin’ places” in. the new song does a better job of foreshadowing joe kennedy’s eventual departure, and is more believable overall. verdict: improvement.

» “being bouvier” out, “marry well” in. it seems like a lot of major bouvier’s first act part was cut, or at least that’s my impression. that’s probably ultimately good, as it focuses attention on the beales. the new song gets a lot of the points across that formerly were in the book, or were not part of the original song. verdict: there’s no such thing as too much john mcmartin, but on the balance a slight plus.

» novelty numbers trimmed. “hominy grits” and the oriental featured number with the young bouvier girls have been considerably shortened. they don’t need to be any longer. you could cut them further if you wanted. in fact, you could lose “hominy grits” altogether if you ask me, although it does add to the character development somewhat. verdict: huge improvement.

» “tomorrow’s woman” gone. don’t remember it. didn’t miss it. verdict: improvement.

» horrible anachronistic lyric about howard hughes and the spruce goose gone. my complaint with this in the original was that the action took place in 1941, and the spruce goose flew in 1947. it’s gone. verdict: enormous improvement. the details count.

» sara gettelfinger out, erin davie in. i liked sara gettelfinger, the original young little edie, but erin davie does a great job. there’s a moment when she’s singing “daddy’s girl” when the tone shifts. the lyrics have to be delivered perfectly to avoid a false note, and davie does it wonderfully. verdict: a wash.

» moppets out, moppets in. sorry to be rude or crass, but the kids (jackie and lee bouvier) are largely background. the new moppets didn’t pull my focus, which is a good thing. the old ones didn’t either. verdict: no verdict necessary.

all these are first act changes which have helped things immensely. there’s a more even flow, the character development has improved, and there are lighter moments which contrast well with the darker ones.

the second act songs are the same, with the exception of the end:

» “peas in a pod” out, “the girl who has everything” in. i realize now it’s now a much, much better ending. “peas in a pod” was ironic, but lacked a certain gravitas. the new ending doesn’t sell out a bit. it’s relentlessly consistent with the action that immediately precedes it. verdict: improvement.

they’ve also echoed christine ebersole’s first act big edie in her show-ending turn as little edie, and that’s a good thing. they’ve done a marvelous job–changing the staging at the end and adding lines and the new song really reinforces the way that the edies are so much alike. and the end is so haunting–christine ebersole is such a presence, and you really could hear the proverbial pin drop.

the rest of the cast remains excellent. mary louise wilson was good in the original, but is more focused here, it seems. she’s settled in to a great interplay with christine ebersole–their time together on stage really crackles.

kirk says i tend to speak in superlatives. it’s a fair statement. i cheerlead a bit for the things i like. but i mostly don’t blather on about the things that stink, because they aren’t worth my time. and i don’t even mention a lot of the things i like a lot. i saw “the prestige” this week, and liked it a lot, but it ain’t “shortbus”, so i’m not going on about it.

usually my opinion settles out, and i’ve had a year to digest the old version of this musical, to give me a basis to compare it to the new version. and while my opinion might change over time, right now i’d say that this is one of the top five theatrical events i’ve seen in my lifetime. i haven’t been this completely thrilled in an audience since i saw elaine stritch at the public theater. it’s that level of engagement, and that level of amazement.

grey gardens tonight

tonight is the night of my return to the splendor of grey gardens. i can hardly wait.

i’ve blathered on extensively about this show, and about how much i loved it when i saw it at playwrights horizons last year.

and now it’s on broadway. and, instead of hearing myself sing “la da da da da” in that perfect five-note sequence that cracks me up every time i think of it, i get to hear christine ebersole sing it. it’s part of the first song (“revolutionary costume for today”) of act two, or at least it was, and it’s the first time you see ebersole as little edie instead of big edie, the character she plays in the first act. she’s describing her inimitable clothing choices–it’s the most memorable performance of a song i’ve seen on broadway in years.

you gotta see it.

like me, tonight.

and, as a side note, we’re seeing a preview performance of the little dog laughed on friday, which we’re really looking forward to. kirk knows the playwright from back in the day in hometown pennsylvania, and we’ve heard good things about it. we’re looking forward to it.

but not like i’m looking forward to tonight.

sing it, emily dickinson

you can sing all of emily dickinson’s poems to the tune of the theme from “gilligan’s island”. did you know that?

my former students do. most of them were forced to hear me sing “because i could not stop for death” or some such thing.

you can also sing her poems to the tune of “the yellow rose of texas”.

and now i learn, thanks to a comment on a gawker story, that you can also sing emily dickinson songs to the tune of “the battle hymn of the republic”.

aren’t the internets a wonderful place? how did we ever get along without them? remember, knowledge is power, grasshopper.

denise ousley, my former student who clued me into the “gilligan’s island” tidbit originally, would be thrilled at this news.

apple and mac still [nearly] perfect

last night i tried to go to the iTunes music store, but couldn’t connect. i kept getting an error message.

what? my mac isn’t perfect?

no, of course not. we had an issue with the isync in kirk’s account that was particularly vexing. but other than that, i’ve had no problems and have done little to no maintenance. 99.9% of my time on the mac has been completely productive.

sometimes i kind of miss pc maintenance–spending hours tracking down a device driver conflict, or manually removing a particularly insidious piece of spyware. the detective work was kind of fun.

yeah, right.

anyway, i was aghast when i couldn’t connect to the itunes store. thought that there was a problem with my mac. fiddled a bit (though there’s not much “under the hood” to fiddle with, to be honest) and nothing worked.

today, i read that the problem is with time warner cable, and nothing to do with apple.

well, of course it isn’t.

in other news, it might be obvious to everyone but me, but i didn’t know about this fun mac activity that i just discovered:

» download a .midi file. you can start looking here. there are .midi files for every song you can imagine.

» open garage band and drag the file into the open window for the new file. it instantly populates with all the tracks and all the instruments.

» fiddle and change the instruments and sounds to your heart’s content. speed it up. slow it down. add a sound loop. hook up a microphone and sing along. send it to itunes and burn it on a cd.

instant rock star, and you don’t have to know how to play musical instrument number one. hell, i can’t keep time with a stick and a tin can. garage band sat on my computer for a year, and i never bothered with it. now i can’t stay out of it.

of course, you could do something constructive for work or whatever with microsoft office too, if you have to. i do that once in a while.

but mostly, i just have a blast, do fun stuff, surf the internet without fear of viruses and spyware and keyboard loggers and such, and generally enjoy myself. when i get a few more songs done, i may just post them for download, so you can see for yourself how easy it is to make good music, if you have some talent. and make music that’s a step above mediocre, if like me you have no talent at all.

i enjoy my mac much more than i used to enjoy a pc.

thanks, mets

no, i mean that. no irony, no sarcasm, no bitterness.

it’s been a great season, full of highs and ups, and very few lows and downs. i had fun when i went to shea, and i’ll miss the creaky old place when it’s gone. i even enjoyed the food, especially since i found mama’s of corona in the concourse. great subs, and excellent salads and antipasto.

i watched the new mets tv network, sny, quite a bit, and enjoyed the commentary, the personalities, and the coverage. it was a great first year for them, and they are to be congratulated on how much they improved from an admittedly rocky start, and how quickly they got up to speed.

thanks to omar minaya, for getting us good players and giving us a very competitive team ahead of schedule. and to willie randolph and rick peterson, who pulled all the right strings and got the best out of everyone even through the ghastly year-end injury fest.

i got up this morning ready to be cranky about the mets’ heartbreaking last-minute game seven loss, and to dissect all the details about who did what, and why, and whose fault it was, and what should be done, and all the other technical analysis that runs through my head all the time, but especially at times like these.

and then i realized that none of that really matters. they did their best, got further along than anyone ever expected given the injuries and pitching woes–and in the end got a bit unlucky.

i’m convinced that the best team did not win, and that the mets would have had a far better chance against detroit than will the cardinals. it pains me to see success come to a team that is so obviously rancorous, with scott rolen not talking to tony larussa, and outfielders running into each other from a lack of communication and yelling at each other afterwards. they are the living embodiment of james woods’ great quote from this season’s new show shark: “there’s no team in i”.

but all that’s water under the bridge now.

the mets have the core of a team–players, coaches, and front-office staff–that will be competitive for years to come, and winter trades and free agent acquisitions will only make it better. the seeds of a dynasty to rival the braves’ long run are in place.

next year can only be better than this year.

thanks, mets.

olbermann eviscerates bush

this is as cogent a summary of the peril we face as a country as i’ve seen. i’ll reprint it here in its entirety, for convenience. or watch the video embedded on the link. it’s brilliant.

And lastly, as promised, a Special Comment tonight on the signing of the Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived… as people in fear.

And now — our rights and our freedoms in peril — we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid… of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before — and we have been here before led here — by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives — only to watch him use those Acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote, about America.

We have been here, when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives — only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said, about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9-0-6-6 was necessary to save American lives — only to watch him use that Order to imprison and pauperize 110-thousand Americans…

While his man-in-charge…

General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen — he is still a Japanese.”

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did — but for the choices they or their ancestors had made, about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each, was a betrayal of that for which the President who advocated them, claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced, survived him, and…

…one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900-thousand votes… though his Presidential campaign was conducted entirely… from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States, to the citizens of the United States, whose lives it ruined.

The most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been, only human.

We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.

We have listened to the little voice inside that has said “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”

We have accepted, that the only way to stop the terrorists, is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets, was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute… the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always… wrong.

“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”

Wise words.

And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.

Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.

You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly — of course — the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously… was you.

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But even within this history, we have not before codified, the poisoning of Habeas Corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done, to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “Unlawful Enemy Combatants” and ship them somewhere — anywhere — but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “Unlawful Enemy Combatant” and ship you somewhere – anywhere.

And if you think this, hyperbole or hysteria… ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was President, or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was President, or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was President.

And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant” — exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope, he has not lied about how he intends to use it, nor who he intends to use it against?

“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush. “In which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney, and can hear all the evidence against them.”

‘Presumed innocent,’ Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

‘Access to an attorney,’ Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant, on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

‘Hearing all the evidence,’ Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies, that imperil us all.

“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” …you told us yesterday… “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas Corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The Moral Force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush… they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”

And did it even occur to you once sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 — that with only a little further shift in this world we now know — just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died —

Did it ever occur to you once, that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future President and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “Unlawful Enemy Combatant” for… and convene a Military Commission to try… not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, sir, all of them — as always — wrong.

Joe Scarborough is next.

Good night, and good luck.

november elections can’t come fast enough. i used to think that, if the democrats get control of congress, they should just get on with the business of governing, and not tear the country apart with investigations of the bush administration’s past dealings.

now i’m not so sure. there’s a lot to be undone, and there needs to be some accountability.

why republicans are in trouble

howard kurtz, in his washington post media column, sums it up rather well:

Start with a war in Iraq that has gone seriously south. Cut to a devastating hurricane and the government’s botched response.

Then you have the Hammer getting hammered, as Tom DeLay gets indicted, gives up his majority leader post and then resigns.

The Abramoff scandal blows up, claiming a number of Hill staffers and, ultimately, Ohio congressman Bob Ney, who pleads guilty and says he’ll quit. California congressman Duke Cunningham quits after accepting more than $2 million in bribes, including a yacht.

Just when the plot is in danger of flagging, Mark Foley–who heads the Exploited Children’s Caucus, a detail that no B-movie producer would buy–is exposed as a gay hypocrite who cyberstalks former teenage pages. And House Speaker Denny Hastert and his top lieutenants offer conflicting accounts of what they knew and when they knew it.

As the Foley saga starts to fade, the FBI conducts raids in a probe of whether Pennsylvania congressman Curt Weldon tried to help clients of a lobbying firm run by his daughter and an ex-aide.

Sprinkle in the Woodward book, the Ricks book, the Isikoff-Corn book and now a book by former White House faith-based guy David Kuo who says his ex-colleagues privately referred to evangelicals as “nuts.” Not to mention North Korea setting off a nuclear bomb.

And some conservative pundits are saying the Republicans deserve to lose the House.

Has anything gone right for the GOP?

you tend to forget individual events as the next one rolls around. it’s amazing to see them all listed like this.

if the democrats blow this somehow, i think all hope may be lost.

elbow through the picasso

it’s an old joke in our family. whenever we got together for a holiday dinner, someone inevitably would put their elbow in the butter, because there were so many people crowded around a table overflowing with food. and the butter would end up near someone’s elbow, and there you have it.

it was me a couple of times. it was my mother quite a bit, and i recall my grandfather with his elbow in the butter as well. he might have done it on purpose, though, just to have a good story. he was quite a provocateur, that one.

i have managed thus far in life, however, to keep my elbow only in various messy things, and out of valuable objects.

steve wynn, however, has not been so lucky. it seems that he recently stuck his elbow through his picasso (via kottke). and not just any picasso, but Le Rêve, which had just been sold, by wynn, for $139 million. the highest price ever paid for a painting.

by the way, the link is via kottke, not the elbow. i’m pretty sure kottke didn’t have anything to do with steve wynn’s elbow.

nora ephron was there when it happened, and writes about it memorably.

it should be said that steve wynn has a definite excuse–he’s nearly blind from retinitis pigmentosa. so i’m definitely not making fun of him, which of course would be my normal modus operandi. i can’t even imagine how badly he must have felt at that moment. here’s how he described it to the new yorker:

“So then I made a gesture with my right hand,” Wynn said, “and my right elbow hit the picture. It punctured the picture.” There was a distinct ripping sound. Wynn turned around and saw, on Marie-Thérèse Walter’s left forearm, in the lower-right quadrant of the painting, “a slight puncture, a two-inch tear. We all just stopped. I said, ‘I can’t believe I just did that. Oh, shit. Oh, man.’ ”

oh shit, indeed. the painting is being restored, but wynn is keeping it because the sale was cancelled by the buyer.

fascinating story. one reason why, when i’m in an art gallery, i always try to walk with my hands clasped behind my back.

and i’ll never again feel bad for putting my elbow in anyone’s butter.

ya gotta believe, period

ok, i’m through with my dithering and waffling and prevarication. i’m a believer.

after the last game, in which oliver perez did well enough and the mets hitters did more than well enough, i’m breathing a bit easier.

and it’s probably going to rain today in st. louis, which means that the game may be rained out. and if it is rained out, it’ll give glavine another day of rest, and he’ll pitch at full strength. even if it isn’t rained out, i’ll still take tom glavine on short rest over jeff weaver, who lost to glavine in game one.

and in any case, last night’s victory ensured that the series will return to new york. yesterday i said mets in seven games.

i’m thinking it might be six. after last night, i think the mets are finally motivated enough to get this thing done. the slump is over, the hitting is back, and the pitching will hold up enough to get the job done.

we may even have el duque back for a world series start, which would just be a bonus. please, though, no more steve trachsel. anyone but trachsel. start darren oliver instead of trachsel. start aaron heilman. leave trachsel off the world series roster.

let me repeat that, willie, and omar. leave trachsel off the world series roster. you aren’t going to start him, if you have an ounce of sense, which you do, and you sure as hell aren’t bringing him in for relief. don’t waste the roster space. sorry if that sounds cruel, but the mets would be better served with an extra position player, or heath bell in the bullpen, or dave williams instead of trachsel. you aren’t re-signing him anyway–so what if his feelings are hurt or whatever.

and, as a footnote, the mets-tigers world series won’t be seven thrilling games. it’ll be six thrilling games and one blowout game. probably the mets getting blown out at home. but, still, mets in seven.

ya gotta believe!

tell me again i gotta believe

i know the mets are only down one game. i know it’s only two games to one.

and i know i gotta believe. and i still do, mostly.

but i am worried.

the mets looked bad last night, excpt for darren oliver, who probably should have started the game in the first place. i know that steve trachsel deserved a start and all, but he looked doubtful about his prospects from the first pitch, and he pitched that way. tentative, and not at all commanding.

hey willie. i don’t care how much we pay this guy. leave him off the world series roster, assuming we get there. or immediately yank him at the very first sign of trouble. even though he barely pitched more than an inning last night, willie still left him in too long.

we’d better win tonight, and oliver perez had better pitch the game of his life. if he doesn’t, this thing might not even get back to new york.

tell you what, though. i’m been sportin’ for the tigers all season, and telling everyone i know that they were the team to beat, even with their end-of-season swoon. and the tigers’ league championship clinching win yesterday was a classic game in every respect, from the come-from-behind tying of the game, to the heads-up gutsy play, to the walk-off ninth inning home run. they are the big story of the post-season, the yankees-and-oakland-slaying davids, and they are in my estimation the team to beat this post-season.

in all honesty, i don’t see either st. louis or the mets geting anywhere against them. and i don’t think that many other people will, either.

which puts the mets in an underdog position, both in the league championship and in a possible world series berth.

exactly where they need to be. exactly where the mets always function best.

ok–with a little circular logic, i’ve talked my way through this. here’s my revised prediction: mets in seven for the league championship, and mets in seven thrilling games in the world series.

ya gotta believe!

ya gotta believe, and all

ok, i’m breathing a little easier. the mets got it done last night, with a combination of brilliant pitching (from glavine, the one pitcher you expected to get brilliant pitching from) and one timely hit (from beltran, the one guy that you hoped to get a key hit from). it wasn’t an offensive onslaught, but beltran’s home run, the only meaningful hit all night, got the job done.

i’m breathing a little easier. but just a little.

tonight is the test. the mets are battling the cardinals’ chris carpenter, this year’s likely nl cy young winner, with john maine on the mound. maine needs to step up and shut down albert pujols, and especially the hitters in front of him, like glavine and company did last night. pujols never came to bat with anyone on base, and that’s what needs to continue to happen on a regular basis.

if john maine steps up, and the mets can somehow win tonight’s game, then i’ll nearly totally relax, because that means the mets will, barring a historic collapse, go to the world series. with a win tonight, they’d only need to win two out of five against a depleted cardinals team. they could even ice it, and not have to face carpenter again.

which would be wonderful.

and i’m very happy that it appears that detroit is going to the world series as well. i love it when small market teams with miniscule salary totals do well, and detroit’s success is a feel-good triumph, what with their losing 119 games a couple of years ago. coming so close to the mets record of 120 losses in a season, and not that long ago.

detroit is the one team in the playoffs that the mets could lose to, and i’d still be somewhat ok with it. i love jim leyland, from back in the day when he managed the pirates and i was a braves fan. classic playoff games between those teams. he, along with bobby cox and larry bowa, is the prototypical manager-type for me. grumpy, irascible, cranky, demonstrative, and unfraid to throw the book of research away and go with gut instinct. wille randolph, for all of his recent brilliant managerial moves, could be a bit more like that, for me.

and you gotta love detroit’s young pitchers.

anyway, i shouldn’t be looking ahead. first things first.

maine beats carpenter. let’s hope it happens, and this thing gets a bit easier.

mets versus mets

i don’t think the mets are playing the st. louis cardinals in the national league championship.

i think they are up against themselves, with something to prove. there’s a lot of history to overcome, a lot of conventional wisdom to prove wrong, and a lot of naysayers to be enlightened.

because, truth be told, st. louis really isn’t much competition on paper, other than albert pujols. a lot of their key players are out, or playing hurt. unlike the mets, who are at full strength and completely healthy.

right.

the mets have just as many problems as st. louis, if not more. but i just get the feeling that the world series this year is meant to be detroit vs. new york. it would be the best possible remaining combination for tv ratings, for fan interest, for historical significance, and for great baseball games in october.

but the mets, to live up to their end of the bargain, are going to really have to reach deep. they are winning postseason games through power hitting, and not through good pitching, and that’s a dangerous thing. great pitching trumps great hitting, right? so, to continue to win, the mets are going to have to keep their hitting hot, which won’t be easy, and they are going to have to have some second-line pitchers (john maine? steve trachsel? oliver perez?) really step up with career-defining performances. if this happens, they will mow down st. louis, and detroit as well.

it’s going to be tough. it’s a tall order.

mets vs. mets. 2004-type mets versus 2006-type mets. who will win?

jittery but fine

it doesn’t take much for a new yorker to get taken back mentally to 9/11.

especially when a plane crashes into a manhattan high rise.

on 10/11.

i know that the human mind puts concidences together, and makes logical sense of them. and the 10/11 date is just that–a coincidence.

still, it was an odd feeling, watching tv and seeing a plane crashed into a building. been there, done that, and have no need to repeat.

that obnoxious chevy trucks ad

you’ve probably seen it. the one with the john cougar, i mean mellencamp, song, and the pictures of rosa parks and martin luther king, vietnam and nixon.

and 9/11.

fucking chevrolet. using imagery of 9/11 to sell a gas-sucking pickup truck. that’s wrong, wrong, wrong, in so many ways. the first time i saw this commercial, i screamed at the frigging tv. i was in the city when 9/11 happened, i experienced the ensuing chaos firsthand (though, thank god, i was in midtown and not downtown).

and, as i sat on a bus crossing the pulaski bridge from queens to brooklyn, i cried looking at the shafts of light reaching to the sky. the same image that chevrolet is now callously using to merchandise their spectacularly craptastic consumer product.

slate has a longer piece on this subject, a great read and far more coherent than i’ll be on the subject. check it out.

and don’t go buying any chevy trucks, or chevy anything for that matter. chevrolet can try to wrap themselves in faux patriotism all they want, in order to try to sell trucks to the clueless.

but no one is that clueless, and i’m certainly not.