RIP x 2 November 21, 2006
Posted by bbop in death.add a comment
Sad to hear about the death of director Robert Altman today. If you haven’t seen Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts, or Gosford Park, do yourself a favor. I always loved what Altman was able to do with large, ensemble casts in films such as those. He had a way of getting some really wonderful performances out of his actors. I’ve had one of Altman’s most acclaimed 1970s films, California Split, on my “to watch” shelf for a while now. Hopefully I can carve out some time to watch it soon.
In other news, I learned last night about the death of a former editor of mine, Mark Leary. He had been fighting cancer on and off for the past few years, but I heard that he had recently taken a turn for the worse. In 1999, when the job market wasn’t all that great, Mark offered me a full-time position at The Journal News. I think I started about a month after I graduated from Northwestern. I’ll always be grateful to Mark for giving me a chance and helping me develop as a reporter. I met some great people at the paper and, generally speaking, had a good time working there. A friend of mine, Sam Weinman, wrote a nice little tribute to Mark for today’s paper, which you can read here.
I have mixed feelings about Mark’s death. Obviously I was saddened to hear about it and I feel badly for his family. I do feel like it’s probably better, if he was suffering as much as I had heard, for it not to be any more prolonged than it had to be. The last few interactions I ever had with Mark were not all that great, frankly. Not to speak ill of the dead, but I really feel like as much as he supported me in the beginning, he didn’t when things got tough. If he had really stood up for me during the whole Iona fiasco that led to my departure in late 2004, things might have worked out differently. But when I felt like he wasn’t behind me, that was the last straw that told me I should leave. It’s too bad that my last conversation with him was about something petty. I guess that’s one regret I’ll always have.
Yay Bears and Cubs! Yay Ben Folds! November 20, 2006
Posted by bbop in music, sports.2 comments
Having intentionally sequestered myself from all sports news on Sunday in order to keep from learning the outcome of the Bears-Jets game I had TiVoed, I was pleased to get home late last night and discover that the Bears had won again to improve to 9-1 and that the Cubs had agreed in principle with Alfonso Soriano. An exciting day for Chicago sports, to be sure.
Like a lot of Cub fans I’m a little skeptical of giving one player – especially one who turns 31 in January – an eight-year deal. But the bottom line is that at least no one can say the Cubs aren’t trying to win. They had to do something to get better and without a lot to offer in a trade, going after top free agents is basically it. I do worry about Sori’s strikeouts and on-base percentage, but if he goes 40-40 again and Cubs win the World Series, will anybody say they’d rather have a high OBP guy like Scott Hatteberg? Plus, from the few times I’ve personally observed Sori, he’s not going to be a clubhouse cancer. He seemed like a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of guy to me. Sign me up for a #12 Cubs jersey, baby.
News of another Bears win and the Soriano signing proved to be the perfect end to an eventful day in which I had lunch with a couple of J-School classmates at SriPraPhai, the noted Thai restaurant in Queens, and then went around shooting video of people doing things, which was homework for one of my new media classes. After that, I ran into another couple of J-School classmates on my way to the Ben Folds show at Hammerstein Ballroom. They were going to the show as well, so I hung out with them.
The show itself was pretty good, not the best I’ve ever seen from Ben but fun nonetheless. We were pretty far back, which is never a good idea at Hammerstein if you want to see what’s happening onstage. With the exception of the very beginning when there was apparently a fake Ben Folds who came out and launched into the intro for “InBetween Days,” before being hauled off by security (not sure if that’s been part of the whole tour or what) things started out kind of slowly, with almost all newer material for the first half of the show. But the energy really picked up starting with Ben’s mini solo set. For me, a couple of highlights included “Kate” and the cover of the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights.”
As a general policy, I’ll try to post setlists for shows I go to when I know the person/band’s music well enough to keep one.
Ben Folds//11-19-06//Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY//support: Corn Mo
Trusted/Theme From Dr. Pyser/(German interlude)/There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You/Gone/Losing Lisa/All U Can Eat/Jesusland/Learn To Live With What You Are/Annie Waits/Bizarre Christmas Incident/You To Thank/Bastard/Still Fighting It/Bitches Ain’t Shit/Landed/[Ben solo] Boxing/The Last Polka/Best Imitation of Myself/One Down/[band returns] Army/Such Great Heights/Kate/Zak and Sara/Not The Same//E: Narcolepsy
57 million + 1 November 19, 2006
Posted by bbop in Uncategorized.2 comments
According to one of my professors at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, the esteemed Sree Sreenivasan, there are something like 57 million blogs as of this moment. So why on earth would I want to start another one? I don’t really know. Maybe to write about some of the shows I go to, maybe to post a funny link from time to time, maybe just so I’d have a place to link to on my new personal Web site (which is currently located here, but which will be moved to a different server at some point in the future.) Ultimately, though, I guess I just figured it was about time I moved into the 21st century. Or, to make a long story short, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” We’ll see how it goes.
