Russian Author Alexander Solzhenitsyn(One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich), Actor/Comedian Bernie Mac(The Kings of Comedy, The Bernie Mac Show), Dave Matthews Band Saxophonist LeRoi Moore, NFL Player's Union President Gene Upshaw, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) and legendary Soul Musician Isaac Hayes(Theme from "Shaft"). Not too mention the suicide bombings in Pakistan and Airline crash in Spain. I've been overwhelmed at the idea of posting something recently in light of all the tragic deaths the world has seen in recent weeks. I don't what else to say except that my prayers are will all of those affected by the loss of their loved ones and that I hope we are given a reprieve from so much sadness, at least for a little while, even though I know death is an unavoidable constant in this world.
Moving onto lighter fare. I might the one of the few people in the world who is kind of underwhelmed by the Michael Phelps mania. I have done my best to get interested in the Olympics. I found the U.S. women's gymnastics to be a compelling story both for the team competition where they faltered and then in the individual all-around rebounding to a triumphant one-two punch of winning gold and silver for Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson respectively. I've seen several great volleyball matches both indoor and beach and was not surprised to May-Treanor/Wash win gold yet again. My biggest gripe with NBC has been the odd scheduling of the basketball games. I've yet to catch even one of Team USA's games and they have been living up to LeBron's "Redeem Team" catchphrase by absolutely dominating their opponents. Hopefully I'll be able to catch the medal round and see them bring back the Gold to where B-Ball was invented.
Of course outside of the Olympics, it's still baseball season and we're getting down to crunch time. The Rangers recently had a disastrous road-trip where they were beat-up on by the likes of Boston and Tampa Bay. Now they are hovering at .500 with Ian Kinsler lost for the season to a hernia injury that needs surgery. It was a valiant effort and I feel good about next year, but 2008 is over.
This all just makes my mouth water for football to start. College games kick-off Labor-Day weekend! The Longhorns first opponent is Florida International or is it Florida Atlantic? Hell, who cares?! They're nobody, even if former Oklahoma and Miami Head Coach Howard Schellenberger is there. Anyway, apparently they are talking trash about UT. Really? I know Mack Brown has a bunch of new skill players to work into the offense in the backfield and at wide receiver but I'm sure Colt can run up the score enough to go along with new Defensive coordinator Will Muschamp's aggressive attack, not to mention the magic of having Vince Young on hand at the game as there will be a ceremony to retire his #10 jersey. Final score : Texas - 63, Florida Atlantic - 0. Hell yeah, shut-out, blow-out and gross out to start the year. It's going to be a tough year but these Sunshine state chumps got nothing on us for week one.
I have to also comment on filmmaker Michael Moore's open letter to Caroline Kennedy, who is heading up the search team for Barack Obama's VP candidate. In the letter, Moore states that he thinks Ms. Kennedy should follow the lead of our current Vice President Dick Cheney, who back in 2000 was on the team vetting VP choices for President Bush when he threw his own hat in the ring and eventually got the nod. Moore believes that Caroline, former first daughter(her father was President John F. Kennedy, in case you are from Mars) who has been a vocal supporter of Obama and has been involved in politics her entire life from grassroots level without ever becoming a career politician like so many others in her family would be an ideal choice for Obama's running mate. I think it's a bold and unlikely choice, but if it were to happen by some chance I'd be absolutely exhilarated and would probably leave my job to join their campaign full-time, doing whatever I could to help on the election trail and prevent a John McCain presidency.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Thursday Afternoon Quarterback
>> Spent the past two weekends partying with some of our country's finest servicemen. First with my very good friend Alex, who is in the Air Force and stationed in Virginia. He got to come home and visit his family since his younger sister, Elizabeth, recently had a kidney transplant. It was successful and she is doing so much better, which we're all very happy about. Then the next weekend my freind Chrissy's older brother, Josh, also an ex-Bastropian, came home for a mid-tour leave from Kuwait where he serves in the Army. Our military is populated with so many great young Americans, who have friends and families that love and miss them. It's a shameful how they exploitive this administration has been towards them and thier service.
I don't want to go off a political rant right now and I don't want to spills the beans on too much of what happened while partying with Alex and Josh respectively. I now know that too many people read this blog and what happens at the party or on 6th Street stays there. I'll simply say that many drinks and laughs were shared and I very much look forward to the next time each of them are home.
>> This week I've been working a lot on my play, The 9th Ghostly Figure, so that I can have some of it read on 16th of this month when my freind Englea, who is the Artistic Director of EASY Theatre, is hosting a reading for a new one-act play by a local actor and lawyer, Sam Damon. It's going to be nice to hear the words coming out someone else's voice other than my own. My dad has already the first quarter of the script and he liked it and he definitely got the tone that I am going for early on in the play, before the climax takes a decidedly darker and more intense turn. It'll be tricky to make it work, but I think I can do it.
>> So Brett Favre is New York Jet. Which means barring a catastrophic injury, he'll be a Jet in 2009 as well. Because even with Brett taking over the reigns for the Jets this season the best case scenario is just making the playoffs. They are still playing in the NFC East with the Patriots(who for the first time during this current dynasty will be playing with chip on thier shoulder, so watch out) although the hapless Dolphins won't be any trouble, the Bills are up and coming and the Wildcard race will be tight as usual with Tennessee and Cleveland both unlikely to win thier divisions. Still I think this is a better fit for Brett than having to play for an egomaniac like John Gruden who chews up and spits out Quarterbacks like a wood chipper. Sure Gruden won a Super Bowl, although that was with the team Tony Dungy built. And Gruden and the Bucs are so shady they won't even give Chris Simms a shot to play for them again nor will they release him so he can go try to find and compete for a job somewhere else, like Dallas, who is interested in having him as a back-up for Tony Romo.
>> The Summer Olympics start this weekend in China. I'm all for the US Athletes wearing masks, for both the political statement of it and the practical usage since the air quality is so bad. And pollution is not even close to being the biggest problem I and many other people have with China and the Olympics being held there. Team China, with Yao Ming, faces off against Team USA (the Redeem Team, as oppossed to the Dream Team of 1992) in the first round of the Basketball tournament. Hopefully it will be a blow-out, no offense to Yao, and then the Redeem Team can roll on it's way to a Gold Medal. My only other real interest in this year's games is the Women's Soccer team and it's feisty, sexy and kick-ass goalie Hope Solo. If you're reading this Hope, call me, text me, e-mail me, smoke signal, carrier pigeon. Whatever it takes baby. You and me, we could paint this planet red together.
>> So this has been the summer of the Superhero Action Blockbusters at the cinemas, with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones 4(not technically a superhero), Will Smith's Hancock(still haven't seen yet) and of course THE DARK KNIGHT. But now it's late in the summer and we are finally getting treated to some good old raunchy comedy. Step Brothers, the latest collaboration between Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and director Adam McKay is just what you'd expect; a funny, silly, simple and instantly quotable film. The same can be said for Pineapple Express, which finds Seth Rogen and James Franco teaming up as potheads on the run from some crooked cops and drug dealers after witnessing a murder. Like Step Brothers the comedy is familiar but comforting and instead of the usual aimlessness of a stoner buddy film there's an attempt to tell a story and there's real relationships formed and evolved throughout. Next week, we get Ben Stiller's big budget War movie satire, Tropic Thunder, that costars Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black and Pineapple Express' scene stealing Danny McBride(also see The Heartbreak Kid, Drillbit Taylor, Foot Fist Way). Tropic Thunder also features British comedic actor Steve Coogan, who will also be seen in the upcoming Hamlet 2, which looks fantastic as well. So as we hit these dog days of summer I say hit the multiplex and laugh your arse off. I know I will.
I don't want to go off a political rant right now and I don't want to spills the beans on too much of what happened while partying with Alex and Josh respectively. I now know that too many people read this blog and what happens at the party or on 6th Street stays there. I'll simply say that many drinks and laughs were shared and I very much look forward to the next time each of them are home.
>> This week I've been working a lot on my play, The 9th Ghostly Figure, so that I can have some of it read on 16th of this month when my freind Englea, who is the Artistic Director of EASY Theatre, is hosting a reading for a new one-act play by a local actor and lawyer, Sam Damon. It's going to be nice to hear the words coming out someone else's voice other than my own. My dad has already the first quarter of the script and he liked it and he definitely got the tone that I am going for early on in the play, before the climax takes a decidedly darker and more intense turn. It'll be tricky to make it work, but I think I can do it.
>> So Brett Favre is New York Jet. Which means barring a catastrophic injury, he'll be a Jet in 2009 as well. Because even with Brett taking over the reigns for the Jets this season the best case scenario is just making the playoffs. They are still playing in the NFC East with the Patriots(who for the first time during this current dynasty will be playing with chip on thier shoulder, so watch out) although the hapless Dolphins won't be any trouble, the Bills are up and coming and the Wildcard race will be tight as usual with Tennessee and Cleveland both unlikely to win thier divisions. Still I think this is a better fit for Brett than having to play for an egomaniac like John Gruden who chews up and spits out Quarterbacks like a wood chipper. Sure Gruden won a Super Bowl, although that was with the team Tony Dungy built. And Gruden and the Bucs are so shady they won't even give Chris Simms a shot to play for them again nor will they release him so he can go try to find and compete for a job somewhere else, like Dallas, who is interested in having him as a back-up for Tony Romo.
>> The Summer Olympics start this weekend in China. I'm all for the US Athletes wearing masks, for both the political statement of it and the practical usage since the air quality is so bad. And pollution is not even close to being the biggest problem I and many other people have with China and the Olympics being held there. Team China, with Yao Ming, faces off against Team USA (the Redeem Team, as oppossed to the Dream Team of 1992) in the first round of the Basketball tournament. Hopefully it will be a blow-out, no offense to Yao, and then the Redeem Team can roll on it's way to a Gold Medal. My only other real interest in this year's games is the Women's Soccer team and it's feisty, sexy and kick-ass goalie Hope Solo. If you're reading this Hope, call me, text me, e-mail me, smoke signal, carrier pigeon. Whatever it takes baby. You and me, we could paint this planet red together.
>> So this has been the summer of the Superhero Action Blockbusters at the cinemas, with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones 4(not technically a superhero), Will Smith's Hancock(still haven't seen yet) and of course THE DARK KNIGHT. But now it's late in the summer and we are finally getting treated to some good old raunchy comedy. Step Brothers, the latest collaboration between Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and director Adam McKay is just what you'd expect; a funny, silly, simple and instantly quotable film. The same can be said for Pineapple Express, which finds Seth Rogen and James Franco teaming up as potheads on the run from some crooked cops and drug dealers after witnessing a murder. Like Step Brothers the comedy is familiar but comforting and instead of the usual aimlessness of a stoner buddy film there's an attempt to tell a story and there's real relationships formed and evolved throughout. Next week, we get Ben Stiller's big budget War movie satire, Tropic Thunder, that costars Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black and Pineapple Express' scene stealing Danny McBride(also see The Heartbreak Kid, Drillbit Taylor, Foot Fist Way). Tropic Thunder also features British comedic actor Steve Coogan, who will also be seen in the upcoming Hamlet 2, which looks fantastic as well. So as we hit these dog days of summer I say hit the multiplex and laugh your arse off. I know I will.
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