Author: J T. Ramsay

Rihanna at the Borgata

You know that scene in The Body­guard? It was like that the whole time.

I’ve been all about R&B this year. Don’t know why it took so long. I guess it was eas­i­er to com­plain about all the things that were wrong with indie rock. Now when I look back, I feel like I real­ly did­n’t appre­ci­ate all the great stuff that hap­pened when I was grow­ing up because it was­n’t “under­ground” enough. Wish I’d under­stood the dif­fer­ence between main­stream crap and real­ly great, engag­ing art back then.

Hav­ing said this, this is a pret­ty lack­lus­ter Rihan­na song, but it’s one of just two videos from the Bor­ga­ta show last week­end. Fun­ny since you could­n’t look at the stage with­out see­ing hun­dreds of cam­eras point­ed direct­ly at her. Like I said, it was like that scene in The Body­guard from start to finish.

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Last Call for Zane Lamprey’s Three Sheets?

I knew things weren’t good when I first caught a glimpse of Zane Lam­prey in a Sub­way com­mer­cial. When I start­ed fol­low­ing Lam­prey on Face­book, I saw that he was work­ing on a new project, but his oth­er show, Three Sheets, has got­ten a stay of exe­cu­tion. Then I read this post over on his site. This tweet did lit­tle to con­vince me that Mark Cuban was des­tined to save Three Sheets.

Is Zane Lam­prey cursed? Should the title of this post real­ly be “How Zane Lam­prey Sank Two Net­works?” Think of the SEO!

Now, I get why Trav­el Chan­nel balked. They have Antho­ny Bour­dain’s show, No Reser­va­tions, which fea­tures him doing much the same thing, with more culi­nary insight and less self-aware­ness. Peo­ple like that. He’s macho. He knows famous peo­ple. Win, right? Who could be both­ered with the wild­ly relat­able Lam­prey who seems to make friends eas­i­ly wher­ev­er he goes.

I still don’t remem­ber how we dis­cov­ered “Three Sheets.” My guess is that Helen hap­pened to find it while chan­nel surf­ing, or a friend told us we should tune in. The show was great. Even if you don’t care about booze, who would­n’t enjoy on-screen tal­ent will­ing to debase him­self in ways even the Three Stooges would refuse?

Whether he was at home or abroad, Zane got him­self into all the best kinds of trou­ble. Any­one who’s ever got­ten drunk over­seas knows how it feels to wake up the next morn­ing and hop on a plane, impos­si­bly hun­gover. It’s hell, yet Zane sub­ject­ed him­self to such tor­ture glee­ful­ly. I some­times found myself real­ly root­ing for the booze to defeat him, but like the Wash­ing­ton Gen­er­als, it nev­er won.

I hope Zane isn’t exiled to Cuban’s HDNet. Where does any­one watch that? I’m real­ly sor­ry we missed him when he blew through town last June. Hope­ful­ly he’ll find a munif­i­cent home for “Three Sheets” before he’s back through.

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In Praise of Atlantic City

Helen, Char­lie and I just spent anoth­er won­der­ful week­end vis­it­ing our friends Frank and Suzanne in Atlantic City. That’s right: Atlantic City. It may not be the ide­al set­ting to try and raise a fam­i­ly, but it’s a com­plete­ly under­rat­ed week­end spot, if you ask me.

Sure, we’re lucky; we’ve befriend­ed a cou­ple who invite us reg­u­lar­ly to stay at their amaz­ing arts and crafts home on the south end of town, far from the casi­nos. Need I men­tion it’s just a block off the beach? Yeah, we’ve got it tough, but we manage. But even if you set aside our good for­tune, the Atlantic City we like to vis­it is a far cry from the Atlantic City most tourists see. When we vis­it, it’s like step­ping back in time. The tree-lined streets are cool, the hous­es are enor­mous, beau­ti­ful and unique and the beach is tran­quil and free.

If Helen and I are going to see a show at the Bor­ga­ta, we take the Jit­ney, which may be one of the most amaz­ing ways to trav­el in Atlantic City. You trav­el at about a mil­lion miles per hour through the dens­est traf­fic known to man and yet some­how end up at your des­ti­na­tion in one piece. It’s been in use since 1912 and I hope it’s nev­er replaced by the dull mass tran­sit we’ve come to expect in most munic­i­pal­i­ties, unless Atlantic City ponies up for a mono­rail. (Yes, I’m halfway seri­ous. It would be amazing.)

Atlantic City is hard­ly per­fect, but it’s got­ten a bad rap thanks to the des­per­ate mea­sures under­tak­en to replace the tourist econ­o­my that made it so pros­per­ous. I’m hope­ful that the upcom­ing series Board­walk Empire on HBO sheds some light on what made the town the hotspot it once was and not just the gang­sters who ran all the rack­ets under Prohibition.

Sure, I’m a suck­er for the hey­day of the Rust Belt, but it’s a far sight more inter­est­ing that any­thing the Sun Belt has to offer as far as I’m concerned.

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What I’ve Learned So Far

Bring Your A’s Game has been a whirl­whind. After two weeks I’ve got­ten more press than I could’ve ever imag­ined. This week I talked to Bob Huber at Philly Mag and Shai Ben-Yaa­cov at WHYY.It’s been exhil­a­rat­ing to build a guer­ril­la mar­ket­ing cam­paign out of thing air. And that’s not even the strangest part!

I find myself sud­den­ly immersed in the pol­i­tics sur­round­ing the Oak­land A’s. It’s like my grad­u­ate work has come back to haunt me through my love of base­ball. It’s urban polit­i­cal econ­o­my at its rawest: the A’s and MLB have every­one over a bar­rel as they try to lever­age the best deal from either Oak­land or San Jose. It’s a lose-lose for every­one involved. The A’s new sta­di­um will be cost­ly and it’s not clear to me that it real­ly solves their prob­lem. Can a new build­ing make them the hot tick­et when San Fran­cis­co has Tim Lincecum?

I’m not entire­ly sure where this project will take me, but I’m up for a good thrill ride. The mix of blind ambi­tion plus a smat­ter­ing of con­crete goals ought to shape it into some­thing worth­while, if not entire­ly trans­for­ma­tive. Can’t wait to share my progress!

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The Trade Deadline, Revisited

Helen and I had tick­ets to Roy Oswalt’s debut as a Phillie. Wish it had gone bet­ter, but it was still a bril­liant move for the Phillies. Few peo­ple believed that J.A. Happ could dupli­cate his suc­cess­ful rook­ie cam­paign, myself includ­ed. The Oswalt deal gives the Phillies an intim­i­dat­ing rota­tion, espe­cial­ly in a short series.

But can they make the play­offs? The Phils have been snakebit­ten yet again, los­ing Shane Vic­tori­no, Raul Ibanez and Ryan Howard to injury, leav­ing Jayson Werth as the only Phillies reg­u­lar who has­n’t been hit with the injury bug. It could­n’t come at a worse time. The Phils have moved with­in 3 games of the Braves and seem to be putting the pieces togeth­er before the lat­est round of injuries hit. (Make that 1 game back. The Giants mirac­u­lous­ly beat the Braves last night.) If they can get healthy for Sep­tem­ber, I’d say they have more than a decent shot at win­ning the NL East yet again.

If not, they still made the right move. Get­ting Oswalt for the 2011 sea­son and beyond is still the right move. Dom Brown will have more expe­ri­ence. We may man­age to keep Jayson Werth, though prob­a­bly not. It’s still the smart thing to have done at the dead­line. Now that we’re only one game behind the Braves, our rota­tion may be too much down the stretch.

Love John­ny Good­times’ let­ter of apol­o­gy to Ruben Amaro, Jr. I guess I should sign on to that as well, huh?

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