Thinking

Get Ready for the 2010 Phillies

As my two favorite Phillies blogs, Beer­lea­guer and the Fight­ins,  vie for the title of best Phillies blog over at the Phield, I look for­ward to Mon­day’s Open­ing Day game against the Nation­als, with tick­ets cour­tesy of for­mer Nation­als right field­er Eli­jah Dukes. (Thanks, dude! I hope you find a team soon!)

This is our third year as sea­son tick­et hold­ers and the first that I’m gen­uine­ly ner­vous about how the sea­son will end. Maybe it’s the feel­ing any­one has when their team gets that close to win­ning back-to-back cham­pi­onships and los­es. Fear creeps in. Doubt, too. Some­how, despite the fact the Phillies trad­ed for a pitch­er who’s arguably the best in base­ball last Decem­ber, I can’t help but won­der how Roy Hal­la­day will be able to fix the Phillies when he can only take the field every fifth day.

With our thin pitch­ing staff already being test­ed by injuries, I can’t help but won­der if this is the year our fan­tas­tic Phils final­ly fall apart. Part of that is a life­time of Phillies pes­simism talk­ing, but it’s also the real­iza­tion that it’s very dif­fi­cult to field a team as con­sis­tent­ly great as the Phillies have these past two years with­out set­backs like this. On the oth­er hand, it’s April, and the Phillies tend to start slow­ly and gain momen­tum as the sea­son pro­gress­es. After all, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. There’s plen­ty of time to beat up on the NL East to secure a play­off berth.

I also feel like this is the first year that the end is in sight. Werth a Yan­kee? Per­ish the thought, but it might hap­pen. Trade Howard? After years of threat­en­ing, this could become a real­i­ty if the Phils aren’t will­ing to pick up his con­tract. The end of Jim­my Rollins’ reign as Phillies short­stop looms. Will the lega­cy of the ’08 Phillies be like that of the ’80 Phils, with Chase Utley as the new Mike Schmidt, the last man stand­ing from the team’s glo­ry days, a Hall of Famer sur­round­ed by also-rans and unproven rookies?

It’s famil­iar to me as some­one who was only 3 when the Phils won in ’80. I spent the bulk of my child­hood hat­ing the loath­some Phillies, even going so far as to resent their rag­tag run in ’93. The Phillies were so bad I chose to fol­low a team that was even worse: the Cleve­land Indi­ans! By ’95, I’d giv­en up on the Tribe and found myself root­ing for a Phillies team led by guys like Kevins Sef­cik and Stock­er. I vivid­ly remem­ber pars­ing the Schilling trade, hop­ing that some­how a guy like Omar Daal might be the answer to the Phils pitch­ing woes. (He was­n’t.) Must my infant son endure the hard­ship of being a Phillies fan just as I had before him? Seems likely.

My wish for the 2010 Phillies is that they win the World Series and enter the pan­theon of great teams. They’re prob­a­bly already there, but to win a third con­sec­u­tive Nation­al League pen­nant would be a thing of beau­ty. To be men­tioned in the same breath as the Big Red Machine is already dizzy­ing, but to sur­pass them would be magical.

So while I’m over­come with nos­tal­gia for the past two won­der­ful sea­sons, my hope is that the Phils enjoy con­tin­ued suc­cess and stay com­pet­i­tive. We won’t always be there in Octo­ber. It could be worse, much worse. We could be Mets fans!

Let’s go Phillies!

My Macbook Needs Help

I recent­ly had a stroke of bad luck with my oth­er­wise mar­velous Mac­book. It was act­ing fun­ny, so I tried to restart. It stalled out and I tried doing a hard reboot.

Oops.

I found myself star­ing at a grey screen, the fan whirring out of con­trol. Fun!

Now I’m try­ing to fig­ure out whether I should take it to an Apple store, or just vis­it a repair ser­vice now that my Apple­care term has ended. 

Feel free to offer your two cents in the comments!

A Quick Word on Jack Rose

I was at a wed­ding when I got word that Jack had died. It felt like a punch in the gut. I did­n’t know him par­tic­u­lar­ly well, but well enough to say hi when I saw him around town. He lived around the cor­ner from me here in Port Fish­ing­ton, and I’d often see him smok­ing a cig­a­rette out­side his house on Cedar Street. I named this blog for the song he’s play­ing in the video above. Watch it and let it soak in.

Jack­’s music con­tin­ues to amaze me. His genius was revered with­in a small group of fans here, grew some­what when Kens­ing­ton Blues was released, and then shrank again. See­ing him play was always a treat and I saw him pret­ty often, most mem­o­rably in the First Uni­tar­i­an Church sanc­tu­ary when he opened for Sunn O))). I saw him play with Pelt when they opened for Earth in the church base­ment. Jack was the sort of artist who had his bonafides and did­n’t need crit­i­cal praise from Pitch­fork to grow a com­mit­ted following.

I can’t believe he’s gone. It’s one of the sad­dest sto­ries in music for me in 2009. I some­times imag­ine him still play­ing at 60, daz­zling a new gen­er­a­tion with his sin­gu­lar style. I want­ed to see where he’d take his music. It’s a shame that we won’t all get to see that hap­pen. I’m hope­ful that Thrill Jock­ey can release his final album and that Jack gets the recog­ni­tion he so rich­ly deserves.

Rest in peace, Jack. Your music lives on eternally.

My Time at TLA Video

The past ten years were host to the great­est chal­lenges and joys of my life. I start­ed the decade as a tough-mind­ed grad stu­dent at the New School for Social Research. Some­where along the way I turned an unpaid hob­by into a career. Crazy, huh?

In between times, I made the best out of under­em­ploy­ment, teach­ing myself about movies dur­ing a stretch as a video store clerk. I fell in love with film at TLA Video’s store at 4th and South Sts. The store closed ear­li­er this month. Need­less to say, it was a Philly insti­tu­tion that will be sore­ly missed by any­one who set foot in it.

I feel for­tu­nate to have worked with the peo­ple who made TLA Video a safe haven for cinephiles here in Philly. I can’t tell you how many cus­tomers thanked us for sim­ply being the loy­al oppo­si­tion to Block­buster. We knew who Wim Wen­ders was when the big box stores bare­ly car­ried for­eign titles. Sure, it was a low-pay­ing retail job, but at least it had a mis­sion and a clear iden­ti­ty. We were going to offer the sort of movies Block­buster edit­ed out of exis­tence, whether that was for­eign or adult or what­ev­er. TLA was every­thing Block­buster wasn’t.

The road got rock­i­er when Net­flix start­ed to bul­ly brick and mor­tar. When I think back to my time there between 2003-05, I swore I’d nev­er go to Net­flix. It lacked imme­di­ate grat­i­fi­ca­tion, I thought, dis­re­gard­ing all those times I went into the store only to dis­cov­er the movie I so des­per­ate­ly want­ed to see was cur­rent­ly rent­ed. I thought the mail was just a clunky way to deliv­er movies. How wrong I was. Cus­tomers loved it and we watched our busi­ness dwin­dle even in Net­flix’s ear­ly days.

I think the peo­ple who worked at TLA made it the insti­tu­tion it was. I was intro­duced to more off-the-wall movies by my co-work­ers than I have been in 3+ years as a Net­flix cus­tomer. Every­one had their area of exper­tise and our reg­u­lar cus­tomers sought out those of us they trust­ed most when they need­ed to see some­thing, but weren’t sure what to rent. It was a joy to help peo­ple find new and inter­est­ing movies to watch, and a greater plea­sure to dis­cuss them when they returned. It was the only thing we could offer that the com­put­er and it’s Amazon.com-esque rec­om­men­da­tions couldn’t.

Ulti­mate­ly, con­sumers chose con­ve­nience over that lev­el of cus­tomer ser­vice. Oner­ous late fees and the has­sle that came with them were enough to kill off the brick and mor­tar biz. Trust me: we hat­ed those argu­ments as much as you did! The brick and mor­tar busi­ness tried to accom­mo­date this cus­tomer with ter­ri­ble results. There was no price point that would work for a com­pa­ny with the sort of over­head TLA had.  What made TLA Video spe­cial will ulti­mate­ly kill it off. The video store will not die with dig­ni­ty, but rather a slow, lin­ger­ing death at the hands of Net­flix, Red­box, and the mot­ley offer­ing from your cable provider.

When TLA laid me off in 2006, I was hurt most because I real­ly believed in what they hoped to accom­plish. It still hurts. I’ve watched help­less­ly as they’ve laid off many of the peo­ple who made the com­pa­ny great. I’ve since moved on and am very hap­py where I am, but I still miss the ide­al TLA rep­re­sent­ed, even if it set a stan­dard no busi­ness could live up to in today’s economy.

I think what’s strangest of all is how I will strug­gle to explain what a video store was to my son when he asks about the jobs I’ve held. Are knowl­edge work­ers at the shal­low end of the jobs pool des­tined to go the way of the milk man?

Resolutions, I’ve Made a Few

I’m look­ing over the res­o­lu­tions I made last year. Hilar­i­ous! Apart from final­ly find­ing a theme I could live with and a cou­ple easy plug-ins for the right rail, I’ve done noth­ing that even resem­bles my goals for the year. In light of this I’m going to take some advice from Paul Rud­d’s char­ac­ter ‘Kunu’ in For­get­ting Sarah Mar­shall and try to ‘do less.’

What does that mean exact­ly? It means mak­ing res­o­lu­tions that make sense to some­one who’s start­ed a fam­i­ly. I spend hard­ly any time on the com­put­er at home now. I stay con­nect­ed via my beloved iPhone, but it’s hard­ly an ide­al tool for try­ing out new things on Word­Press. No, I need to set real goals for 2010 that aren’t in any way con­nect­ed to my life online.

For exam­ple, I need to pack my lunch more often. Glam­orous, right? I fig­ure I could save about $50 a week if I just took the deli­cious left­overs in the fridge rather than get­ting yet anoth­er roast pork with sharp at Tony Luke Jr.‘s dur­ing my lunch hour.

A corol­lary to pack­ing my lunch: take cof­fee to the office! I usu­al­ly drink a small French press every morn­ing before I head into the office in the morn­ing, only to find myself in line at the Tir Na Nog branch of Star­bucks with my co-work­ers almost every morn­ing. That has to stop. I’ve cut back to a tall cof­fee there, but it’s still about $10 a week on some­thing I have read­i­ly avail­able at home. I think one of these new Klean Kan­teen trav­el cups should do the trick!

One thing that’s a con­stant in my life is the desire to read and write more. Since Char­lie was born, I’ve spent more hours in front of a TV than ever. It’s the per­fect anti­dote to being shut-in, but it estab­lish­es bad habits that I did­n’t have as a child. I don’t want Char­lie to devel­op those habits either. Keep in mind, it’s very dif­fi­cult to do much read­ing when you’re tend­ing to a baby, but doing some would be bet­ter than what I’ve been doing. The days of read­ing 1200 pages per week dur­ing grad school seem impos­si­ble now. If I could read even just a book a month I’d be happy.

The writ­ing’s impor­tant, too. As my job changes, I find myself less inclined to write about music. The time it takes to do it right, plus the lack of inter­est from the gen­er­al pub­lic in read­ing music con­tent have dis­cour­aged me from writ­ing. I still love read­ing great music writ­ing and I’m inspired by folks who’ve real­ly had to over­come set­backs in their careers as music crit­ics, name­ly my old boss Christo­pher R. Wein­garten and some­one who became a dear col­league and music crit con­fi­dant for me this year, Mau­ra John­ston. Their work con­tin­ues to amaze me, even as we’re told that the audi­ence for such writ­ing approach­es nil.

On a per­son­al note, I need to do a bet­ter job of get­ting my house in order. Lit­er­al­ly. I can’t hang a shelf in this place with­out some­thing going hay­wire, which might explain why there are so few shelves. I’m call­ing on my old high school friend Kevin Der­rick to help us sort out how to make life with a baby in a mod­est Kens­ing­ton rowhome a lit­tle more beautiful.

I’m not sure what awaits me next year. My won­der­ful, sup­port­ive wife and love­ly baby son amaze me every day. I’m excit­ed for the chal­lenges that lie ahead in my pro­fes­sion­al life. I’m excit­ed to focus on the prac­ti­cal rather than the per­fect. I feel the future burst­ing with pos­si­bil­i­ty. Bring it on!