Not career value - not "going forward, who would I most like" - just flat right now, for 2010, who am I saying are the 50 best players in baseball.
6 notes:
1. Pitchers are harder to forecast than position players - at the end of the year, my MVP votes may well be both pitchers (I voted for Greinke last year, for ex. in the AL) but arms aren't as consistent year to year as bats.
2. There's only one closer. It's not who you expect.
3. Russell Martin was on the list, but near the bottom, before his injury - that's enough to boot him, let's say he misses the first couple of weeks and takes another couple of weeks to find his bat - since he's coming off a bad year anyway, he's out.
4. #51 is Cole Hamels.
5. This is not a fantasy board. My fantasy drafts are top of the month. I've given it zero thought so far. I've got the Counterfactual to write.
6. My pre-season picks, with thoughts on over/unders will come prior to Opening Day. Right now, I'm leaning Red Sox.
Here we go:
1. Albert Pujols 1B St Louis
2. Hanley Ramirez SS Florida
3. Prince Fielder 1B Milwaukee
4. Chase Utley 2B Philadelphia
5. Joe Mauer C Minnesota
6. David Wright 3B NYM
7. Adrian Gonzalez 1B SD
8. Ryan Braun OF Milwaukee
9. Grady Sizemore OF Cleveland
10. Tim Lincecum P SFG
11. Matt Kemp OF LAD
12. Troy Tulowitzki SS Colorado
13. Mark Teixeira 1B NYY
14. Zack Greinke P KC
15. Roy Halladay P Philiadelphia
16. Evan Longoria 3B Tampa
17. Dustin Pedroia 2B Boston
18. CC Sabathia P NYY
19. Miguel Cabrera 1B Detroit
20. Alex Rodriguez 3B NYY
21. Andre Ethier OF LAD
22. Ryan Zimmerman 3B Washington
23. Matt Holliday OF St Louis
24. Brian McCann C Atlanta
25. Cliff Lee P Seattle
26. Jimmy Rollins SS Philadelphia
27. Yunel Escobar SS Atl
28. Dan Haren P Arizona
29. Felix Hernandez P Seattle
30. Adam Wainright P St Louis
31. Jayson Werth OF Philadelphia
32. Matt Cain P SFG
33. Ian Kinsler 2B Texas
34. Pablo Sandoval 3B SFG
35. Lance Berkman 1B Houston
36. Chipper Jones 3B Atlanta
37. Nick Markakis OF Baltimore
38. Justin Verlander P Detroit
39. Joakim Soria RP Kansas City
40. John Lester P Boston
41. Johann Santana P NYM
42. Josh Beckett P Bosto
43. Chris Carpenter P St Louis
44. Aaron Hill 2B Toronto
45. Josh Johnson P Florida
46. Ben Zobrist 2B Tampa
47. Ubaldo Jimenez P Colorado
48. Carlos Beltran OF NYM
49. Hunter Pence OF Houston
50. Yadier Molina C St Louis
Edited notes - I wound up replacing Jurrjens and Gallardo with Carpenter and Johnson - the injury risks of the latter two kept me from their inclusion originally, but I've decided to cut a little bit the other way. Javvy Vazquez was better than all of them last year. And is Tommy Hanson better than all of them by year's end - is that an end of 2011 thing? I still might swap out Pence for Victorino or Zobrist for Uggla. Berkman's gonna miss a couple of weeks, I should knock him down the list a couple of spots - I've already dropped Martin and Reyes from the list entirely, I'll put Reyes back by opening day if he's active. I like Joey Votto and would like it if he played for my team. Right now, I'm weighing Victor Martinez's bat against Molina's glove for that last spot.
1st and Ten: The Weekly Tendown: February 28-March 6 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Dear Internet:
Hi. It's the Academy Awards issue of Tendown (issue #17) - last week - I talked about compulsory flag salute, poor restroom etiquette, my first baseball game, the second best wrestler in the world and the philosophical value of Cop Out, which, while significant, is not worth the $7.50 matinee price I paid for the film. Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant can fistfight over a higher quality film - perhaps - one of the ten films nominated tonight for Best Picture.
That's the structure of the Tendown today - with the minor caveat that I haven't seen any of them - I'll be ranking the ten nominees for Best Picture (as opposed to making my Oscar picks, which I did earlier in the week. Shorthand, the price for Bigelow, who is an absolute lock as Best Director, is still affordable, and if that's the kind of thing you do - consider making an investment.) I won't be actually talking about the movies themselves; instead, I'll be talking about, you know, the same crap I always talk about - some mixture of my radically lefty politics and analysis of this week's episode of Bad Girls Club (it's made Real World irrelevant; well, Real World's only relevance in five years has been as a feeder system to the Challenges; but more broadly stated - every non competition reality show has to stand in line behind the absolute madness that is Bad Girls (Bravo excluded). My lady friend and I both audibly gasped when Kate punched Annie clean in the neck Tuesday night; it was the second most startling thing of the week). But I'll do it within the artifice of ranking the nominees for Best Picture. See? See how we do?
But before that...
1. The Most Startling Thing of the Week
The health care debate has entirely become one about process. Should the Democrats use the "nuclear option" (a term which the Republicans, until the past couple of months, had used to refer to eliminating the filibuster entirely - and are now taking Democratic sound bites using that meaning of the term and alleging that Democrats are hypocritcally claiming the right to use reconciliation when they claimed it was inappropriate in the past).
You: What does this have to do with the 45,000 Americans who die every year, like another 9/11 every three weeks, because they don't have goddamn health insurance?
Yeah, good point.
What the right has done, with the aid of their chief propagandist, Fox News...
...is make the debate not about dead Americans, not about the US having the 37th best health care system in the world, but instead about Democrats using some dirty trick to pass a bill with just a majority of support.
We are, as Gore Vidal has said, the "United States of Amnesia" - but probably, given the hyperbolic coverage, this "nuclear option" should be unprecedented - and if it has been used before - say, by the Republicans - almost certainly it was covered in a similar way?
Here's Media Matters discussing the media coverage of the 2003 use of reconciliation by the Republicans to pass Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. You know, those incredibly beneficial tax cuts that had broad based support - well, not so much from the Americans without health insurance, but they're probably dead by now, so it hardly matters.
The NY Times wrote once about the bill being passed through the procedural mechanism of reconciliation.
The Washington Post, USA Today, Associated Press never referred to it at all.
There were no stories on cable news.
Media Matters went back 5 months all the way through the passage of the tax cuts and found, in every major outlet across the country, only the barest mention of reconciliation - and never as a controversial matter - never as some sort of dastardly procedural trick - never as the "nuclear option."
This wasn't 1912 - it was 2003 - this was a bitterly contested bill, one that had to be passed through a Dick Cheney tiebreaking vote, even after going through reconciliation - this was under an Administration that lost the popular vote - this was a tax break to radically shift income to the wealthiest Americans - it passed only after reconciliation - and never once did that notoriously liberal media ever say the process by which it passed was unfair.
But Lamar Alexander, this week, said reconciliation will destroy the Senate.
But - say the right - that was a budgetary bill - budgetary bills are where we use reconciliation - it's not appropriate for health care. What we really mean is reconciliation for health care bills - that's what will destroy all of us in a mushroom cloud of...people... with ...insurance coverage.
Unless you know what the R in COBRA stands for.
Or - from NPR - the other 8 times reconciliation has been used for health care legislation.
If that's the nuclear option, we sure do have a history of pressing the button.
I found the reconciliation noise startling this week. Here's Judd Gregg in 2005 arguing in favor of using reconciliation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
Is there something wrong with majority rules? I don’t think so.
And here's Judd Gregg now:
You're talking about the exact opposite of bipartisan. You're talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement, and throwing them in the Chicago River. Basically, it takes the minority completely out of the process of having a right to have any discussion, say, or even the right to amend something so fundamental as a piece of legislation of this significance. ... So using reconciliation in this manner on this type of an issue would do fundamental harm, fundamental harm, to the institution of the Senate. I mean, why have a Senate if you're going to do reconciliation on something this significant? You might as well go to a unicameral body. Be like Canada. Have one body and have it be the House of Representatives because that will be the practical effect of using reconciliation here.
And that's what hypocrisy looks like. And that understanding is the best thing that happened this week.
After the jump - the nominees for Best Picture - and the Tendown!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Oscars are tonight - as the gayest straight guy you're ever going to meet, it is a day that means every bit as much to me as any non-Niners Super Bowl (meaning, any Super Bowl at this point, sigh) - I watch almost as much red carpet as I do pre-game; I've done predictions; I'm in pools; and like my (successful, damn right) dual call of the Saints plus the number and under the total, tonight I'll go to the (cough, cough) metaphorical pay window with Kathryn Bigelow. Let's rank the 10 nominees for Best Picture here on the Tendown
1. The Hurt Locker
Last week, I talked about Jim Bunning holding up an extension of unemployment benefits that had the support of the other 99 Senators. He did so, purportedly, because of fiscal responsibility - we shouldn't make the federal government any more bloated - spending money on items without paying for it. For this stand, Limbaugh, this week, said Bunning is a "hero to the people" (which raises the question about who Limbaugh thinks receives unemployment checks, marmasets?). The right loved this principled stand. After all - how can we pay for this is a perfectly reasonable question to ask about any spending - even when that question causes 1.2 million Americans to run out of their unemployment benefits.
Now it's time to ask the same question about these trillion dollar middle east wars.
George Bush took office with a 5 and a half trillion dollar surplus and left with a 3 trillion dollar debt.
Yet somehow - it's Obama who is framed as the spender in chief - and the fiscally minded Republicans who are just trying to protect future generations. The Republicans have a simple strategy - when they are out of power - grind everything to a halt (in 2009, Republicans filibustered more than both parties did in the 1950s and 1960s combined) claim that every measure proposed by the Democrats is an attempt at socialist/Nazi/terrorist takeover of the United States - and when in power - give every possible dollar to insurance companies, military contractors, and the wealthiest Americans.
I'll watch The Hurt Locker, but I don't care about it. The story I want to hear told about Iraq is how much it costs and how we're going to pay for it. How much infrastructure repair we don't get, how many new textbooks for public schools don't get bought, how much water and air doesn't get cleaned from cancer causing pollutants, how many jobs don't get created, how many kids don't get medical treatment, how many elderly people die in decrepit conditions because of money that continues to be spent on these wars, lining the pockets of defense contractors. Just like Jim Bunning, presumably, wants to know also, no matter how many basketball games he has to miss to find out. I encourage the newly budget conscious right wing to demand the military conform to this "how will we pay for it" principle that it all applauded this week on the backs of the unemployed.
Let me offer, to the right wing, one answer to the question "how will we pay for the unemployment benefits" - perhaps, by REPEALING THOSE TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY- BECAUSE TAXES ARE HOW WE PAY FOR THINGS.
You guys (1) cut taxes and (2) increased spending - and now ask how we're going to pay for things?
Stay classy, conservatives.
2. Up In The Air
It's the movie about the unemployed, Up In the Air, which will probably be the movie on the list I'll wind up liking the most - I've liked Reitman's previous films - I like Clooney as much as everyone else does (I like to play a game I haven't really brought to this blog yet, Overrated/Underrated - the premise of which is everything is either one or the other - it's easy to say that something clearly overrated...like Cheech and Chong or Derek Jeter or lobster...is overrated - it's the close calls, where you just suffer having to pick overrated or underrated, where the game becomes worth it. Money? Underrated. Beatles? Overrated. Fear of death? Underrated! Clooney is really a challenge..he feels very fairly....Underrated. Done. Overrated/Underrated is a very underrated way to look at the world).
3. Avatar
I'll never see Avatar, I don't care about movies whose primary quality is spectacle - an element of that is my watching films in my house as opposed to the giant IMAX palace where the visual impact would be better appreciated - but one of the reasons for my choice of forum is that I don't particularly care about spectacle in the first place. Bright colors don't much do it for me - a line I've been using as long as I've been playing overrated/underrated is that the 4th of July is my least favorite holiday because it combines 4 things I dislike, bright colors, large crowds, loud noises and hysterical jingoism - and that (except for the jingoism part, I recognize that Avatar has a gently lefty message) motivates my disinclination to ever see Avatar. I don't, however, feel a need to call Moratorium on the giant splashy spectacular animated movie - I'm not in - but I don't think it's essentially harmful to our society that they continue.
See, Moratorium is another game I've been playing forever, like Overrated/Underrated - Moratorium is some element of our culture that doesn't need to be destroyed forever - but it just needs to go away for an indefinite period of time. Just needs to leave the territory for several years to freshen up. I mean, I could probably enjoy a Triple H promo again (or a Robin Williams stand up performance) but I need five years of not having him on my TV to get to that spot.
What I've been compiling recently are phrases I need not to hear for the next several years - that when I've heard them in the past couple of months I've shouted "Moratorium!" - whether I was alone or with my lady type friend. I'll leave it to the reader to decide which shouting circumstance is the more bothersome.
like chickens with their heads cut off
i don't trust him as far as I can throw him
you can cut the tension with a knife
i just threw up in my mouth a little bit
kumbaya (as in, we're not gonna sit here and hold hands and be all kumbaya and shit)
Moratorium!
4. Up
The other cartoon nominated I also won't see, and I know I won't see it because my aforementioned lady type friend watched it this week and I abstained- it's the only film on this list that she has thusfar seen and I put it here for the following reason.
Give me a moment, just thinking about it gives me the tremors.
I'm dating a woman who has never seen Karate Kid.
I know, right?
I made a Karate Kid reference this week - something like "show me paint the fence" - and she looked at me as if I am in need of protective headgear (I shouldn't have revealed my belief that I have Asperger's Syndrome last week; this, understandably, has reduced my value as lifelong man-partner). I said, "you know, Mr. Miyagi - "always look eye, concentrate, focus power."
And that's when she revealed the horrible truth. She's never seen Karate Kid.
It was bad enough that Kirk Hiner never saw Footloose - but all we did was write a play together, there was no nudity involved. How can I be with someone who doesn't understand what I mean when I say "fear, has no place, in this dojo." I mean, if I were a different guy, I'd have that phrase tattooed on my wrists like how the intern at People's Revolution has those Britney Spears lyrics (I don't want to play old dude here - but at what age will that guy look at his wrists and think..."yeah...I should have stayed home that day.")
But then it struck me - there are movies I haven't seen. Movies that everyone has seen but I haven't seen.
And with that - new game. What have you never seen?
I've never seen Gladiator. I've never seen any of the Harry Potter movies. I didn't see that one Lord of the Rings movie which won Best Picture. And I'll never see Avatar. I'm not really in any position to judge.
I withdraw my complaint.
5. The Blind Side
This will be just a dopey red state movie, and I'll be irritated that the best parts of the book didn't wind up anywhere near the film. But it's a sports movie and I like sports.
This week, I liked the HBO documentary, Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals and Naomichi Marufuji - I saw 3 4+ star Marufuji matches, the 2 against Devitt (January was 4 1/4 - the J Cup final from December was 4 3/4, and that's the first candidate for 2010 match of the year, and a 4 1/4 February match against Nakajima). I wrote the latest installment of my mighty wrestling counterfactual - and I have ready to go for next week the Top 50 players in baseball - right now - the 2010 edition.
6. Inglourious Basterds
This was Tarantino's speech just before the Inglourious Basterds premiere:
"So, are you ready to see some Basterds?" [Mild applause] "I said, are you ready to ready to see some Basterds fuck up some Nazis?" [Louder applause] "Yeah, motherfucker!" [Throws microphone on the floor]
7. A Serious Man
The Ten Best Coen Brothers Movies Ever:
1. Raising Arizona
2. Fargo
3. No Country For Old Men
4. Blood Simple
5. Barton Fink
6. Miller's Crossing
7. Bad Santa (see what I did there?)
8. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
9. Burn After Reading
10. The Big Lebowski
8. Precious
Precious is not as funny as you'd expect.
A good piece I read this week was about how Steve Martin, one of the hosts tonight, isn't funny anymore. This has long been my contention - my belief - that some mystical force connected to Bowfinger sucked the funny clean out of both he and Eddie Murphy has not gotten the level of cultural traction that all the Poltergeist related deaths had for a few years. Also not funny - Leno and Palin, who, to be fair, deserve each other. And Victoria Jackson, who is not, repeat, not, doing any sort of parody in this clip.
9. An Education
The best piece I read this week was in Science Daily, that there is a correlation between higher intelligence and liberalism and atheism in men. Who doesn't want to read an article that says his subgroup is the smartest? If they added professional wrestling fans named Jim to those other two groups, that might drive down the sample to just me and Cornette. An article in Science Daily just about me and Jim Cornette! That will definitely make Tendown.
Atheists must be smart - they've found a way to con believers in the rapture into this "doggy left behind" service. I'm probably a great choice for those of you who are preparing to be beamed up in the soon to come end of days - much like your dog, I'm not going to be taking the ride with you - but I am extra responsible and I very much like pets. I don't want to poach clients from that website, but if you'd like to talk terms I'm inclined to listen.
10. District 9
I have nothing to say about District 9. But speaking of dogs - I did find this picture this week:
That's a dog in a vending machine. Not for sale - it's getting a 33 minute shampoo. Japan is a curious land. Not so good if your Toyota doesn't stop, as that's a good example of a country with tort reform - but excellent if you'd like your dog washed cheaply. And perhaps smelling like coffee.
That's Tendown. I'll see you next time...if there is a next time.
Your pal,
Jim
Hi. It's the Academy Awards issue of Tendown (issue #17) - last week - I talked about compulsory flag salute, poor restroom etiquette, my first baseball game, the second best wrestler in the world and the philosophical value of Cop Out, which, while significant, is not worth the $7.50 matinee price I paid for the film. Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant can fistfight over a higher quality film - perhaps - one of the ten films nominated tonight for Best Picture.
That's the structure of the Tendown today - with the minor caveat that I haven't seen any of them - I'll be ranking the ten nominees for Best Picture (as opposed to making my Oscar picks, which I did earlier in the week. Shorthand, the price for Bigelow, who is an absolute lock as Best Director, is still affordable, and if that's the kind of thing you do - consider making an investment.) I won't be actually talking about the movies themselves; instead, I'll be talking about, you know, the same crap I always talk about - some mixture of my radically lefty politics and analysis of this week's episode of Bad Girls Club (it's made Real World irrelevant; well, Real World's only relevance in five years has been as a feeder system to the Challenges; but more broadly stated - every non competition reality show has to stand in line behind the absolute madness that is Bad Girls (Bravo excluded). My lady friend and I both audibly gasped when Kate punched Annie clean in the neck Tuesday night; it was the second most startling thing of the week). But I'll do it within the artifice of ranking the nominees for Best Picture. See? See how we do?
But before that...
1. The Most Startling Thing of the Week
The health care debate has entirely become one about process. Should the Democrats use the "nuclear option" (a term which the Republicans, until the past couple of months, had used to refer to eliminating the filibuster entirely - and are now taking Democratic sound bites using that meaning of the term and alleging that Democrats are hypocritcally claiming the right to use reconciliation when they claimed it was inappropriate in the past).
You: What does this have to do with the 45,000 Americans who die every year, like another 9/11 every three weeks, because they don't have goddamn health insurance?
Yeah, good point.
What the right has done, with the aid of their chief propagandist, Fox News...
...is make the debate not about dead Americans, not about the US having the 37th best health care system in the world, but instead about Democrats using some dirty trick to pass a bill with just a majority of support.
We are, as Gore Vidal has said, the "United States of Amnesia" - but probably, given the hyperbolic coverage, this "nuclear option" should be unprecedented - and if it has been used before - say, by the Republicans - almost certainly it was covered in a similar way?
Here's Media Matters discussing the media coverage of the 2003 use of reconciliation by the Republicans to pass Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. You know, those incredibly beneficial tax cuts that had broad based support - well, not so much from the Americans without health insurance, but they're probably dead by now, so it hardly matters.
The NY Times wrote once about the bill being passed through the procedural mechanism of reconciliation.
The Washington Post, USA Today, Associated Press never referred to it at all.
There were no stories on cable news.
Media Matters went back 5 months all the way through the passage of the tax cuts and found, in every major outlet across the country, only the barest mention of reconciliation - and never as a controversial matter - never as some sort of dastardly procedural trick - never as the "nuclear option."
This wasn't 1912 - it was 2003 - this was a bitterly contested bill, one that had to be passed through a Dick Cheney tiebreaking vote, even after going through reconciliation - this was under an Administration that lost the popular vote - this was a tax break to radically shift income to the wealthiest Americans - it passed only after reconciliation - and never once did that notoriously liberal media ever say the process by which it passed was unfair.
But Lamar Alexander, this week, said reconciliation will destroy the Senate.
But - say the right - that was a budgetary bill - budgetary bills are where we use reconciliation - it's not appropriate for health care. What we really mean is reconciliation for health care bills - that's what will destroy all of us in a mushroom cloud of...people... with ...insurance coverage.
Unless you know what the R in COBRA stands for.
Or - from NPR - the other 8 times reconciliation has been used for health care legislation.
If that's the nuclear option, we sure do have a history of pressing the button.
I found the reconciliation noise startling this week. Here's Judd Gregg in 2005 arguing in favor of using reconciliation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
Is there something wrong with majority rules? I don’t think so.
And here's Judd Gregg now:
You're talking about the exact opposite of bipartisan. You're talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement, and throwing them in the Chicago River. Basically, it takes the minority completely out of the process of having a right to have any discussion, say, or even the right to amend something so fundamental as a piece of legislation of this significance. ... So using reconciliation in this manner on this type of an issue would do fundamental harm, fundamental harm, to the institution of the Senate. I mean, why have a Senate if you're going to do reconciliation on something this significant? You might as well go to a unicameral body. Be like Canada. Have one body and have it be the House of Representatives because that will be the practical effect of using reconciliation here.
And that's what hypocrisy looks like. And that understanding is the best thing that happened this week.
After the jump - the nominees for Best Picture - and the Tendown!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Oscars are tonight - as the gayest straight guy you're ever going to meet, it is a day that means every bit as much to me as any non-Niners Super Bowl (meaning, any Super Bowl at this point, sigh) - I watch almost as much red carpet as I do pre-game; I've done predictions; I'm in pools; and like my (successful, damn right) dual call of the Saints plus the number and under the total, tonight I'll go to the (cough, cough) metaphorical pay window with Kathryn Bigelow. Let's rank the 10 nominees for Best Picture here on the Tendown
1. The Hurt Locker
Last week, I talked about Jim Bunning holding up an extension of unemployment benefits that had the support of the other 99 Senators. He did so, purportedly, because of fiscal responsibility - we shouldn't make the federal government any more bloated - spending money on items without paying for it. For this stand, Limbaugh, this week, said Bunning is a "hero to the people" (which raises the question about who Limbaugh thinks receives unemployment checks, marmasets?). The right loved this principled stand. After all - how can we pay for this is a perfectly reasonable question to ask about any spending - even when that question causes 1.2 million Americans to run out of their unemployment benefits.
Now it's time to ask the same question about these trillion dollar middle east wars.
George Bush took office with a 5 and a half trillion dollar surplus and left with a 3 trillion dollar debt.
Yet somehow - it's Obama who is framed as the spender in chief - and the fiscally minded Republicans who are just trying to protect future generations. The Republicans have a simple strategy - when they are out of power - grind everything to a halt (in 2009, Republicans filibustered more than both parties did in the 1950s and 1960s combined) claim that every measure proposed by the Democrats is an attempt at socialist/Nazi/terrorist takeover of the United States - and when in power - give every possible dollar to insurance companies, military contractors, and the wealthiest Americans.
I'll watch The Hurt Locker, but I don't care about it. The story I want to hear told about Iraq is how much it costs and how we're going to pay for it. How much infrastructure repair we don't get, how many new textbooks for public schools don't get bought, how much water and air doesn't get cleaned from cancer causing pollutants, how many jobs don't get created, how many kids don't get medical treatment, how many elderly people die in decrepit conditions because of money that continues to be spent on these wars, lining the pockets of defense contractors. Just like Jim Bunning, presumably, wants to know also, no matter how many basketball games he has to miss to find out. I encourage the newly budget conscious right wing to demand the military conform to this "how will we pay for it" principle that it all applauded this week on the backs of the unemployed.
Let me offer, to the right wing, one answer to the question "how will we pay for the unemployment benefits" - perhaps, by REPEALING THOSE TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY- BECAUSE TAXES ARE HOW WE PAY FOR THINGS.
You guys (1) cut taxes and (2) increased spending - and now ask how we're going to pay for things?
Stay classy, conservatives.
2. Up In The Air
It's the movie about the unemployed, Up In the Air, which will probably be the movie on the list I'll wind up liking the most - I've liked Reitman's previous films - I like Clooney as much as everyone else does (I like to play a game I haven't really brought to this blog yet, Overrated/Underrated - the premise of which is everything is either one or the other - it's easy to say that something clearly overrated...like Cheech and Chong or Derek Jeter or lobster...is overrated - it's the close calls, where you just suffer having to pick overrated or underrated, where the game becomes worth it. Money? Underrated. Beatles? Overrated. Fear of death? Underrated! Clooney is really a challenge..he feels very fairly....Underrated. Done. Overrated/Underrated is a very underrated way to look at the world).
3. Avatar
I'll never see Avatar, I don't care about movies whose primary quality is spectacle - an element of that is my watching films in my house as opposed to the giant IMAX palace where the visual impact would be better appreciated - but one of the reasons for my choice of forum is that I don't particularly care about spectacle in the first place. Bright colors don't much do it for me - a line I've been using as long as I've been playing overrated/underrated is that the 4th of July is my least favorite holiday because it combines 4 things I dislike, bright colors, large crowds, loud noises and hysterical jingoism - and that (except for the jingoism part, I recognize that Avatar has a gently lefty message) motivates my disinclination to ever see Avatar. I don't, however, feel a need to call Moratorium on the giant splashy spectacular animated movie - I'm not in - but I don't think it's essentially harmful to our society that they continue.
See, Moratorium is another game I've been playing forever, like Overrated/Underrated - Moratorium is some element of our culture that doesn't need to be destroyed forever - but it just needs to go away for an indefinite period of time. Just needs to leave the territory for several years to freshen up. I mean, I could probably enjoy a Triple H promo again (or a Robin Williams stand up performance) but I need five years of not having him on my TV to get to that spot.
What I've been compiling recently are phrases I need not to hear for the next several years - that when I've heard them in the past couple of months I've shouted "Moratorium!" - whether I was alone or with my lady type friend. I'll leave it to the reader to decide which shouting circumstance is the more bothersome.
like chickens with their heads cut off
i don't trust him as far as I can throw him
you can cut the tension with a knife
i just threw up in my mouth a little bit
kumbaya (as in, we're not gonna sit here and hold hands and be all kumbaya and shit)
Moratorium!
4. Up
The other cartoon nominated I also won't see, and I know I won't see it because my aforementioned lady type friend watched it this week and I abstained- it's the only film on this list that she has thusfar seen and I put it here for the following reason.
Give me a moment, just thinking about it gives me the tremors.
I'm dating a woman who has never seen Karate Kid.
I know, right?
I made a Karate Kid reference this week - something like "show me paint the fence" - and she looked at me as if I am in need of protective headgear (I shouldn't have revealed my belief that I have Asperger's Syndrome last week; this, understandably, has reduced my value as lifelong man-partner). I said, "you know, Mr. Miyagi - "always look eye, concentrate, focus power."
And that's when she revealed the horrible truth. She's never seen Karate Kid.
It was bad enough that Kirk Hiner never saw Footloose - but all we did was write a play together, there was no nudity involved. How can I be with someone who doesn't understand what I mean when I say "fear, has no place, in this dojo." I mean, if I were a different guy, I'd have that phrase tattooed on my wrists like how the intern at People's Revolution has those Britney Spears lyrics (I don't want to play old dude here - but at what age will that guy look at his wrists and think..."yeah...I should have stayed home that day.")
But then it struck me - there are movies I haven't seen. Movies that everyone has seen but I haven't seen.
And with that - new game. What have you never seen?
I've never seen Gladiator. I've never seen any of the Harry Potter movies. I didn't see that one Lord of the Rings movie which won Best Picture. And I'll never see Avatar. I'm not really in any position to judge.
I withdraw my complaint.
5. The Blind Side
This will be just a dopey red state movie, and I'll be irritated that the best parts of the book didn't wind up anywhere near the film. But it's a sports movie and I like sports.
This week, I liked the HBO documentary, Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals and Naomichi Marufuji - I saw 3 4+ star Marufuji matches, the 2 against Devitt (January was 4 1/4 - the J Cup final from December was 4 3/4, and that's the first candidate for 2010 match of the year, and a 4 1/4 February match against Nakajima). I wrote the latest installment of my mighty wrestling counterfactual - and I have ready to go for next week the Top 50 players in baseball - right now - the 2010 edition.
6. Inglourious Basterds
This was Tarantino's speech just before the Inglourious Basterds premiere:
"So, are you ready to see some Basterds?" [Mild applause] "I said, are you ready to ready to see some Basterds fuck up some Nazis?" [Louder applause] "Yeah, motherfucker!" [Throws microphone on the floor]
7. A Serious Man
The Ten Best Coen Brothers Movies Ever:
1. Raising Arizona
2. Fargo
3. No Country For Old Men
4. Blood Simple
5. Barton Fink
6. Miller's Crossing
7. Bad Santa (see what I did there?)
8. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
9. Burn After Reading
10. The Big Lebowski
8. Precious
Precious is not as funny as you'd expect.
A good piece I read this week was about how Steve Martin, one of the hosts tonight, isn't funny anymore. This has long been my contention - my belief - that some mystical force connected to Bowfinger sucked the funny clean out of both he and Eddie Murphy has not gotten the level of cultural traction that all the Poltergeist related deaths had for a few years. Also not funny - Leno and Palin, who, to be fair, deserve each other. And Victoria Jackson, who is not, repeat, not, doing any sort of parody in this clip.
9. An Education
The best piece I read this week was in Science Daily, that there is a correlation between higher intelligence and liberalism and atheism in men. Who doesn't want to read an article that says his subgroup is the smartest? If they added professional wrestling fans named Jim to those other two groups, that might drive down the sample to just me and Cornette. An article in Science Daily just about me and Jim Cornette! That will definitely make Tendown.
Atheists must be smart - they've found a way to con believers in the rapture into this "doggy left behind" service. I'm probably a great choice for those of you who are preparing to be beamed up in the soon to come end of days - much like your dog, I'm not going to be taking the ride with you - but I am extra responsible and I very much like pets. I don't want to poach clients from that website, but if you'd like to talk terms I'm inclined to listen.
10. District 9
I have nothing to say about District 9. But speaking of dogs - I did find this picture this week:
That's Tendown. I'll see you next time...if there is a next time.
Your pal,
Jim
Oscar Predictions
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Oscars are Sunday. I haven't seen the films, so I make no warrant about what should win.
But I can read the tea leaves. Here's the call:
Picture: Hurt Locker
-Obviously it's a two horse race; Hurt Locker's level of campaigning got some Hollywood frownage late, which maybe brings Avatar back into it. Nothing else is worth considering.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
-It's not a contest, don't consider anyone else in your pool. Only 4 women have even been nominated for Best Director - Bigelow won the DGA, there's just no circumstance where she loses.
Actor: Jeff Bridges
-Also not a contest.
Actress: Sandra Bullock
-Word is it's Sidibe who is charging, and that makes sense - this is an award where, ten years from now, it will be embarrassing that Bullock won for something as trifling as Blind Side ( I did read and enjoy the book, which apparently bears no resemblance to the maudlin, red state bait, Jay Leno/Sarah Palin esque film - Michael Lewis has a new book about the financial crisis which you could consider picking up. You can get Bullock for the same price you can get Hurt Locker, and both make sense as plays - Bridges and Bigelow are barely worth it given the expense, but it's free money.
Best Supporting Actor/Actress: Christolph Waltz/Mo'Nique
-Waltz is the biggest Vegas favorite of the night - and the price for both is prohibitive.
Screenplay: Inglourious Basterds/Up In the Air
-Reitman wins Adapted for Up in the Air - Original is really the first place where, if there is any chance at all that Hurt Locker punts away Picture you'll see it show up - it's 50/50 to me that Tarantino sweeps in and takes it, and I like Tarantino (although I have zero interest in seeing the film, I don't have much interest in Hurt Locker either - and I'll never see Avatar - how about that!) so I've decided to pick him. (edit, I'm changing my mind on Oscar morning - it's Hurt Locker)
Foreign: White Ribbon
-If there's an upset it's the French film - but the German film is as favored as is Hurt Locker.
Doc: The Cove
Animated, Score: Up
Art, Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects - Avatar
Makeup - Star Trek
Song: The Weary Kind
Editing: Hurt Locker
Costume: Young Victoria
But I can read the tea leaves. Here's the call:
Picture: Hurt Locker
-Obviously it's a two horse race; Hurt Locker's level of campaigning got some Hollywood frownage late, which maybe brings Avatar back into it. Nothing else is worth considering.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
-It's not a contest, don't consider anyone else in your pool. Only 4 women have even been nominated for Best Director - Bigelow won the DGA, there's just no circumstance where she loses.
Actor: Jeff Bridges
-Also not a contest.
Actress: Sandra Bullock
-Word is it's Sidibe who is charging, and that makes sense - this is an award where, ten years from now, it will be embarrassing that Bullock won for something as trifling as Blind Side ( I did read and enjoy the book, which apparently bears no resemblance to the maudlin, red state bait, Jay Leno/Sarah Palin esque film - Michael Lewis has a new book about the financial crisis which you could consider picking up. You can get Bullock for the same price you can get Hurt Locker, and both make sense as plays - Bridges and Bigelow are barely worth it given the expense, but it's free money.
Best Supporting Actor/Actress: Christolph Waltz/Mo'Nique
-Waltz is the biggest Vegas favorite of the night - and the price for both is prohibitive.
Screenplay: Inglourious Basterds/Up In the Air
-Reitman wins Adapted for Up in the Air - Original is really the first place where, if there is any chance at all that Hurt Locker punts away Picture you'll see it show up - it's 50/50 to me that Tarantino sweeps in and takes it, and I like Tarantino (although I have zero interest in seeing the film, I don't have much interest in Hurt Locker either - and I'll never see Avatar - how about that!) so I've decided to pick him. (edit, I'm changing my mind on Oscar morning - it's Hurt Locker)
Foreign: White Ribbon
-If there's an upset it's the French film - but the German film is as favored as is Hurt Locker.
Doc: The Cove
Animated, Score: Up
Art, Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects - Avatar
Makeup - Star Trek
Song: The Weary Kind
Editing: Hurt Locker
Costume: Young Victoria
1st and Ten: The Weekly Tendown: February 21-27, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Dear Internet:
So, we know each other a little bit by now. After all, this is the 16th Issue of Tendown - heck, just Last Week, you learned about my new car and my boyhood crush on Sonny Crockett, and how I'm not as fat yet as Kevin Smith.
And since we know each other a little bit, probably you're aware of my twin pet peeves: compulsory flag salute and poor public restroom etiquette. This week saw the return of both. So that's how we'll start our look back at the cultural happenings of the past 7 days (just last night I thought I should have named this Sundown as opposed to Tendown - cause it's Sunday, it's a countdown, and it marks the end of the cultural week. Sundown - get it?). Let's get some Tendown!
First: I Just Ate a Whole Bag of Chips
I think I have Asperger's Syndrome.
My lady type friend thinks that eventually I will reveal to her that I've been diagnosed with such - I haven't - but I'm...51/49 in favor that I have it. I'll probably continue to ignore that conclusion, because I'm 39 and haven't the energy to join the ranks of the differently abled, but I fit the profile pretty solidly.
I mention that here because, while my brain completely locks up and I'm flooded with terror in social situations, I always enjoyed being with my grandparents when I was a boy; my grandmother would make me graham crackers and milk and fried hamburger patties - and my grandfather would take me to the games - we went to see the Niners (we always won, which was curious given how little that occurred in the late 70s) and the Giants (it seems unlikely that I saw Jim Barr lose both ends of a twi-night doubleheader in '79, but it's in my brain nonethless). It was at my first Giants game (night game at Candlestick against the Reds in '78) that I was first confronted with the idea of the "other" - that people existed outside of my conception of them; we arrived a little late and were on the concourse getting polish sausage (I can still taste the sesame seeds from the bun and feel the snap of the gulden's mustard on my lips) when Cincinnati got a couple of baserunners in the top of the 1st, "The Reds are runnin!" - a dude excitedly uttered as he made his way from the concession line. It was in that second that I processed a thought which had never occurred to me - that there were people who weren't Giants fans. I spent the rest of the game (the part where I wasn't eating or freezing half to death) extrapolating that thought into the rest of my life - I loved the Giants unconditionally, my first gift was a 1970 autographed team ball procured by my mother's sister (subsequently destroyed along with every other damn thing I owned in a house fire in the mid 80s) before I was born, and a world of my creation would not have included any Cincinnati Reds fans.
But here he was - a Reds fan. An adult man in a white t-shirt and a Red cap cheering for Joe Morgan. And against my Giants. This was not my idea.
And if that wasn't my idea - that meant that the world was not my own creation - my Cartesian doubt about the existence of a world outside my head was shattered - I was, with, every tangy bite of the sausage, cast into a world larger than my sense of it. The healthy response, one assumes, is to engage with that reality - I've never really been able to do that - instead retreating as deeply inside as I could go, to a place where only Giants fans are allowed to live.
Even more viscerally startling, if not as existentially significant, was a trip to watch the Harlem Globetrotters at the Cow Palace (I think the Trotters eked that one out - that's the benefit of choosing that as my initial hoops experience rather than going to a Golden St. game) less for the actual game - than for the experience in the men's room. The Cow Palace, in the late 1970s, did not have individual urinals. Instead, it had a man trough - a bathtub like structure in the middle of the men's room, in which a group of encircled men would, standing shoulder to shoulder - do their business.
I was unprepared for such a dong laden halftime.
My primary takeaway from that evening was a lifelong dislike of public restrooms - not to the point of avoidance, as a life in the workforce which I have chosen makes that impractical - but instead, I've become a signatory of a very simple piece of etiquette with which, in my experience, most men (perhaps who have shared similar experiences to my Globetrotter halftime - say in the military or in a federal penitentiary) concur - that a men's room is an experience that, if it must be shared, should consist of as little talking as an elevator or a Benedictine monastery. I want you talking to me in a men's room about as much as I want you urinating on my shoes. Just stare straight ahead and go on about your day.
I've noticed just in the past couple of years, with the increase in hands free phone use - that every now and again a student (as that's who I share most of my public restroom encounters with, students) will appear to be talking to me (or Talking to No One, which is a good title for a book by a guy with Asperger's Syndrome who lectures for a living) but instead be on the phone. I keep my dislike of this practice to myself. But I note it and make the appropriate gradebook adjustments (jokes, I tell the jokes).
This week, a particularly brutal week in the most demanding stretch of my professional life, I stood alone at the furthest urinal from the door in the downstairs men's room at my institution - when a student walked in and set up shop three urinals down, a safe and manageable distance.
We wordlessly continued doing what men do without acknowledging that each other existed, when, without any provocation - in full voice - he said "I just ate a whole bag of chips!"
Yeah, don't do that.
My first thought....is dude apologizing for an odor that I am not noticing....
My second thought...oh, yeah, he's on the phone.
By the time I washed up (that's hygeine, son!) and left he had continued with his conversation, so it was clear what the circumstance was, but that thoroughly out of nowhere, I had the experience of hearing "I just ate a whole bag of chips" in a men's room was the thing that happened this week that had the most impact on me - so that's how we start Tendown. After the jump - we'll talk about compulsory flag salute and all the rest of the happenings from the past 7 days.
So, we know each other a little bit by now. After all, this is the 16th Issue of Tendown - heck, just Last Week, you learned about my new car and my boyhood crush on Sonny Crockett, and how I'm not as fat yet as Kevin Smith.
And since we know each other a little bit, probably you're aware of my twin pet peeves: compulsory flag salute and poor public restroom etiquette. This week saw the return of both. So that's how we'll start our look back at the cultural happenings of the past 7 days (just last night I thought I should have named this Sundown as opposed to Tendown - cause it's Sunday, it's a countdown, and it marks the end of the cultural week. Sundown - get it?). Let's get some Tendown!
First: I Just Ate a Whole Bag of Chips
I think I have Asperger's Syndrome.
My lady type friend thinks that eventually I will reveal to her that I've been diagnosed with such - I haven't - but I'm...51/49 in favor that I have it. I'll probably continue to ignore that conclusion, because I'm 39 and haven't the energy to join the ranks of the differently abled, but I fit the profile pretty solidly.
I mention that here because, while my brain completely locks up and I'm flooded with terror in social situations, I always enjoyed being with my grandparents when I was a boy; my grandmother would make me graham crackers and milk and fried hamburger patties - and my grandfather would take me to the games - we went to see the Niners (we always won, which was curious given how little that occurred in the late 70s) and the Giants (it seems unlikely that I saw Jim Barr lose both ends of a twi-night doubleheader in '79, but it's in my brain nonethless). It was at my first Giants game (night game at Candlestick against the Reds in '78) that I was first confronted with the idea of the "other" - that people existed outside of my conception of them; we arrived a little late and were on the concourse getting polish sausage (I can still taste the sesame seeds from the bun and feel the snap of the gulden's mustard on my lips) when Cincinnati got a couple of baserunners in the top of the 1st, "The Reds are runnin!" - a dude excitedly uttered as he made his way from the concession line. It was in that second that I processed a thought which had never occurred to me - that there were people who weren't Giants fans. I spent the rest of the game (the part where I wasn't eating or freezing half to death) extrapolating that thought into the rest of my life - I loved the Giants unconditionally, my first gift was a 1970 autographed team ball procured by my mother's sister (subsequently destroyed along with every other damn thing I owned in a house fire in the mid 80s) before I was born, and a world of my creation would not have included any Cincinnati Reds fans.
But here he was - a Reds fan. An adult man in a white t-shirt and a Red cap cheering for Joe Morgan. And against my Giants. This was not my idea.
And if that wasn't my idea - that meant that the world was not my own creation - my Cartesian doubt about the existence of a world outside my head was shattered - I was, with, every tangy bite of the sausage, cast into a world larger than my sense of it. The healthy response, one assumes, is to engage with that reality - I've never really been able to do that - instead retreating as deeply inside as I could go, to a place where only Giants fans are allowed to live.
Even more viscerally startling, if not as existentially significant, was a trip to watch the Harlem Globetrotters at the Cow Palace (I think the Trotters eked that one out - that's the benefit of choosing that as my initial hoops experience rather than going to a Golden St. game) less for the actual game - than for the experience in the men's room. The Cow Palace, in the late 1970s, did not have individual urinals. Instead, it had a man trough - a bathtub like structure in the middle of the men's room, in which a group of encircled men would, standing shoulder to shoulder - do their business.
I was unprepared for such a dong laden halftime.
My primary takeaway from that evening was a lifelong dislike of public restrooms - not to the point of avoidance, as a life in the workforce which I have chosen makes that impractical - but instead, I've become a signatory of a very simple piece of etiquette with which, in my experience, most men (perhaps who have shared similar experiences to my Globetrotter halftime - say in the military or in a federal penitentiary) concur - that a men's room is an experience that, if it must be shared, should consist of as little talking as an elevator or a Benedictine monastery. I want you talking to me in a men's room about as much as I want you urinating on my shoes. Just stare straight ahead and go on about your day.
I've noticed just in the past couple of years, with the increase in hands free phone use - that every now and again a student (as that's who I share most of my public restroom encounters with, students) will appear to be talking to me (or Talking to No One, which is a good title for a book by a guy with Asperger's Syndrome who lectures for a living) but instead be on the phone. I keep my dislike of this practice to myself. But I note it and make the appropriate gradebook adjustments (jokes, I tell the jokes).
This week, a particularly brutal week in the most demanding stretch of my professional life, I stood alone at the furthest urinal from the door in the downstairs men's room at my institution - when a student walked in and set up shop three urinals down, a safe and manageable distance.
We wordlessly continued doing what men do without acknowledging that each other existed, when, without any provocation - in full voice - he said "I just ate a whole bag of chips!"
Yeah, don't do that.
My first thought....is dude apologizing for an odor that I am not noticing....
My second thought...oh, yeah, he's on the phone.
By the time I washed up (that's hygeine, son!) and left he had continued with his conversation, so it was clear what the circumstance was, but that thoroughly out of nowhere, I had the experience of hearing "I just ate a whole bag of chips" in a men's room was the thing that happened this week that had the most impact on me - so that's how we start Tendown. After the jump - we'll talk about compulsory flag salute and all the rest of the happenings from the past 7 days.
TBOR Athlete of the Month - February 2010 (Plus 1991 Recap)
Friday, February 26, 2010
Drew Brees. Runners-Up: Alex Ovechkin, Bode Miller, Kim Yu-Na
Garret Hartley had maybe the best SB a kicker ever had and got my texted in vote for MVP; but I've got Brees's SB 12th all time for SB QB performances, and that gets him the win.
He joins Peyton Manning, who won last month, in the race for TBOR Athlete of the Year.
Last month, I started uploading the archives with the full 1990 tally. Here's 1991 (The AP Winner was Michael Jordan)
1991 Athlete of the Year - Michael Jordan
January - Thurman Thomas (Chris Zorich, Marcus Allen, Matt Bahr)
February - Stacey Augmon (Jimmy Jackson, Dominique Wilkins, Scott Skiles)
March - Brett Hull (Oliver Taylor, Sergei Bubka, Christian Laettner)
April - Roger Clemens (Hakeem Olajuwon, Ian Woosnam, Magic Johnson)
May - Mario Lemieux (Nolan Ryan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson)
June - Michael Jordan (Monica Seles, Scott Erickson, Barry Larkin)
July - Steffi Graf (Cal Ripken, Ian Baker Finch, Dennis Martinez)
August - John Daly (Mike Powell, Fred McGriff, Carl Lewis)
September - Jimmy Connors (Marshall Faulk, Barry Bonds, Chuck Knoblauch)
October - Jack Morris (Alejandro Pena, Kirby Puckett, Steve Avery)
November - Desmond Howard (Michael Jordan, Barry Sanders, Guy Forget)
December - Emmitt Smith (Kevin Willis, Bobby Hebert, Joey Mullen)
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