one reason the cubs will win the world series is because of their quirky but brilliant manager joe maddon
the other reason is because theyre stacked.
add that together along with being beloved around the world as the lovable losers
and youve got a pretty interesting unemotional journey to Destiny.
this is going to happen.
everything is fitting into place.
theres a lot of space and the weathers nice.
maybe thats why they built a million baseball parks like it aint no thing.
today i took a dry run over to where the cubs play now in the spring.
no more HoHoKam Park, which is where i last saw the Cubs in spring training way back in the day.
now it’s Sloan Park named after the Chicago company Sloan Valve Co.
who?
actually Sloan Valve Co has been making something very important for over the last 100 years.
in 1905 they created the Royal Flushometer, it is the magic that makes a toilet or urinal flush.
for the first few years sales suffered because people were still using outhouses
but in 1908, yes THAT 1908, shit went down and Sloan took off and have never looked back.
so what about these new no-flush urinals, hows Sloan gonna compete against these newfangled environmentally safer piss pots? have no fear, Sloan makes waterless urinals too, so relax.
Sloan Park can accompany 15,000 fans which is the most of any spring training facility.
all i know is they sell Portillo’s Italian Beef sandwiches. let’s see if they still serve Old Style there
birthplace of the blues.
this is where the dreams start. the left side of the rainbow.
everyone comes to spring training with high hopes and visions of sparkly things.
except for the cubs.
i can’t remember one year when march rolled around and i was all
oh yeah
look out man
but this year everythings all butterflies and unicorns and gumdrop trees.
tomorrow im gonna eat from the gumdrop tree and tell you about it.
but first, a dip in the magic buttered hot tub.
Munenori Kawasaki, recently acquired from Toronto seems to be doing his part of keeping the team loose. The light hitting IF led the Cubs into singing Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” while the team wore headbands with Japanese sayings such as “Must Win” and “Fighting Spirit.”
Munenori Kawasaki sparked the Cubs’ morning stretch Friday by singing karaoke to Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” and he inspired players to wear headbands with Japanese sayings such as “Must Win” and “Fighting Spirit.”
Watch this and tell me you’re not inspired to take a road trip to Mesa and see these dudes get ready to win the World Series.
one of my favorite movie bloggers is ms. marya gates who until today was at Rotten Tomatoes but now shes heading over to TCM (congratulations!)
last year on her tumblr she focused some of her writing about films directed by women. i was definitely enlightened.
marya must be a big Jeopardy watcher too because today she wrote something fascinating today that only a real fan would have noticed:
I wrote to you guys about two weeks ago after tracking how often (and by often I mean how NOT OFTEN AT ALL) you mentioned women in your clues. I spent the last few weeks tallying it as well and it has remained horribly grim.
Tonight (3-4) for example you had BOOK SONGS, and all five songs were written by men. You also had NON FICTION, and all five books were written by men.
You did have an entire category on Scarlett Johansson Roles, but the last time you did Movie Roles literally the only woman you mentioned was also Scarlett Johansson. Thousands and thousands of actresses in the history of cinema and the only six questions you’ve done in the last three weeks about women movie roles are all about the same actress?!?!?!?!
I’ve been live-tweeting (@oldfilmsflicker) about this blatant sexism as I watch and I will continue to do so. I hope you improve soon, or this is looking to be a really bleak season for me and for all women and for all men, really. No one is done justice when you ignore the achievements of women.
Jeopardy, you of all shows should be doing better and the fact that you are not does not give me hope for the rest of our society.
something tells me something good will come from this
but i worry because this isn’t the first time the popular game show has been accused of sexism.
that time is not now.
im not exactly sure when that time was, granted. i just know im not in it.
did i take full advantage of that era?
probably not.
im not one who often takes full advantage of anything.
most of the time i’m like this:
what the heck!
the rest of the time im like this:
holy hell!
when good things happen to me im surprised, when bad things happen to me im surprised.
im surprised during this period of time, which is the time when im not cool.
i feel like i have a cool job, i have a cool car, i have cool friends
arent those things that make someone cool?
maybe its my clothes. there was once a time when crappy clothes were cool.
maybe those days are over.
(those days will come back.)
cool.
or was it the perfect amount of margaritas?
we were celebrating two special occasions: charlie at (not pictured) returning to silver lake to visit and say hi
and seana fitt returning to LA to say hi.
when it comes to good friends i have an embarrassment of riches, which i am always surprised about because when i moved to LA i knew nobody here. and i knew even fewer when i transferred to UCSB.
all through grade- and high school i knew everyone, so was i a little nervous that it would be hard for me to start with a fresh slate? of course. but like minded people congregate to each other very naturally as long as you’re open to it, which is beautiful.
anyways seana told me last week that she was gonna be in town and we should hang. i told her lets hang on weds because by then i should be bouncing back from the exhaustion of the oscars.
meanwhile young mr hornberger was rounding up peoples to drink with and all the stars aligned and so many good people arrived including one of jeanine’s old grade school friends who interned at KROQ during the 80s so of course i had a million questions.
and she had answers.
as it happens with most parties i wish i could have cloned myself into 88 mes so i could have good long chats with everyone but maybe you get to do that in heaven. here you get to drink, eat nachos, and thank your lucky stars.
often the best moments are before the network cameras get turned on.
rock your life.
keep inspiring everyone around you
even if it doesnt seem like anyones around you.
we’re all around you.
waiting to be inspired.
for all the glamour and elegance, flashing lights and cleavage, working the oscars is for many many many people hard work and we all go through emotions.
at first i was excited, then i got nervous, the night before my stomach felt like it had a softball in it.
at first i thought it was bad crew food but it hung in there so i went to, not my favorite thai restaurant,
but a known lessor.
i needed a Tom Kah Kha soup that was, perhaps, a little neglected.
i wanted to fight fire with fire, basically.
so i ate it and i drank a lot of a water and i prayed. in the morning it felt a little better but i was nervous.
any time i would even nibble on anything it upset the diminishing beast in my belly so i didnt eat until well after lunch. meanwhile i was eating tums. shoutout to whoever invented tums. #fanluv
about an hour before showtime the spread they lay out outside the press rooms had arrived and i took a big plate of shrimp and that didn’t destroy me so after a little work i ran back down there and got another plate.
all clear everywhere and i was so relieved i started eating everything and it was delicious.
i even had one designer mixed drink around midnight at the ball
and i spilled a little out for tha brothers
and the readers of the busblog