SNL Beat.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the new cast members on SNL this year.  It may take a while for the new faces to find their "niche", but I always love seeing who can rise to the top and become the next star.  NBC desperately needs the next Will Ferrell.  I really hope someone can step up next season and become something special.  All that very person needs is the opportunity. Lorne Michaels, Seth Meyers and company need to give the new faces sufficient airtime. Give them the OPPORTUNITY to succeed or fail--that's all that I ask. Five generic TV minutes per week and a bit part on Update will not suffice. SNL needs to take chances and give air-time to the lesser known cast members ASAP if they want to grow the brand and start a new era of comedy.

Throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.

Keep in mind, this is a big fall for SNL.  The election usually translates into big, big ratings numbers.  I just really hope the writers don't lose sight of the fact that, in addition to producing classic presidential comedy, creating new stars should be NUMBER ONE on the to-do list.

random thoughts about my writing

           

            I wanted to write something today, but nothing came to mind.  Hopefully by punching my fingers into this dirty keyboard, my brain will initiate activity that will in turn produce words, sentences, and something worth reading.

(2 minutes later)

Still nothing.  I think I’m going to make a coffee. 

(2 minutes later)

Okay I’ll just start writing as this coffee cools down. 

            The first topic I want to write about is not having a topic to write about.  You see, I’ve always wanted to be a prolific writer.  Not the J.K. Rowling bestseller type or the Steven King thriller type; I’ve just always wanted to express myself through stories.  I’d love to make music, but I’ve never played an instrument, and my voice is on par with Screech from Saved by the Bell.  So my creative outlet comes with writing.  I’ve decided that this is the most difficult avenue of creativity.  Songwriters write 50-100 words of poignant, terse lyrics, and they are finished.  Novelists have to compose thousands of sentences that have to fit into a framework of an overall story that sometimes doesn’t even make sense.

            I love writing, but I hate talking about it.  When friends and family ask about my novel’s progress, I tell them it’s going well. Then they inevitably ask me what my story is about and I cringe.  I don’t have a grand plot where my protagonist travels to the dangerous Saharan desert to avenge his father’s death.  My plot is centered around my own experiences, which has basically been growing up as a white male in a good family in suburbia.  Sounds boring, right?  I guess so, but I believe that all lives, no matter how trivial or lame they may be, are stories that deserve to be told.  Having said that, I've been scrolling through my 900+ facebook friends looking for a story, a character, a setting.  So if any of you think you sound like a character in a story of mine, it's probably you.

and that's all I have time for.  off to the wildwood boardwalk. later.

-JD

If Cole Goes...

The Mayans forewarned us that the end of days will crash to earth December 21, 2012, but for Phillies fans that day may come a few weeks earlier at the MLB annual winter meetings in Nashville, Tennessee.  Those early December days could very well see Philadelphia’s World Series hero and homegrown southpaw Cole Hamels walk away from this baseball crazed city, leaving the Phillies older and more vulnerable than anyone could imagine last season during a run  that saw them win a franchise-record 102 games. 

                In the event the doomsday does occur, the Phillies must have a bomb shelter.  A place to crawl under while the nuclear fallout poisons the air.  How can losing Cole Hamels be a positive thing?  Let’s take a general manager’s look at what the dollars will look like when the Hamels free-agency meteorite comes crashing down on South Philly.

First, the money the Phillies are committed to pay next season (in millions) :

Cliff Lee – $25

Roy Halladay - $25

Ryan Howard - $20

Chase Utley - $15

Jonathan Papelbon - $13

Jimmy Rollins - $11

Hunter Pence - $11.5 (arbitration estimate)

Carlos Ruiz - $5

Kyle Kendrick - $4.5

Ty Wigginton - $4 (or $0.5 buyout)

Laynce Nix - $1.35

Buyouts

Jose Contreras - $0.5

Placido Polanco $1.0 (or $5.5 option)

·         Note: I’m assuming that Ty Wigginton’s option will be picked up and Polanco’s will not.  This could obviously change, but I’m just basing this off of here and now.

Total Committed Payroll = $136.85 for 11 players.  So the Phillies will need to fill 14 spots for their 25 man roster.  The Phillies brass have maintained that they want to stay below the MLB sanctioned $178 million luxury tax.  So this leaves $41.15 million to work with.  Keep in mind I am not only assuming Kid Cole will be gone but Shane Victorino, too.  

Now, Ruben Amaro Jr. could have another trade up his sleeve, but if Free Agency is the only card he can play, here is a list a potential free agents worth looking at.

Josh Hamilton

Michael Bourn

Melky Cabrera

B.J. Upton

Andre Ethier

Carlos Quentin

Ichiro Suzuki

Kevin Youkilis (Boston Option)

David Wright (New York Option)

                Of those names, I can only see Bourn, Cabrera, Upton, Quentin, and possibly Youkilis becoming available at the end of the year.  Michael Bourn would be cheaper than Victorino and would give the Phillies the true leadoff hitter they’ve always needed.  If Domonic Brown continues to wear shoes on his hands in the field, Melky Cabrera could be an upgrade in left.  That still leaves plenty of room for RAJ to acquire Youkilis, a career .288..389/.489 hitter that could come cheap if he continues to struggle this season. 

                Even with these few additions, the Phillies would be left with room under the almighty luxury tax to go out and trade for arms or bats.  Or they could stash their money in one of Ruben’s cigar boxes and wait for the much richer free agent class of 2013 which boasts names like Lincecum and Garza. 

                Don’t look to the farm system for help.  The trade wave of the past few years has left the crops slashed and burned.  The few bright spots in the system include a couple of arms in Reading and Lakewood.  So who takes the fourth and fifth rotation spots if Cole and Joe were to walk?  Here’s hoping Kyle Kendrick doesn’t assume either of those roles.  Ruben needs to get creative, or we will see a nuclear holocaust reminiscent of the late ‘90’s at the Vet.  

Creative Writing Prompt #100

I found this cool website with 345 creative writing prompts.  Some were lame, but some were actually pretty cool.  I am going to try to do a prompt per night.  The first activity I tried is as follows:

(please realize that I make shit up when I write.  it's a way to make us boring people seem like we have interesting lives ;) )

#100

            Write for 10 minutes using “I used to think…” as your starter.

Check below the fold for my entry.....

The Irony and the Ozzie

 

            Irony is all around us; it's like rain on your wedding day.

It's a free ride when you've already paid.  That’s right.  If Alanis Morissette can understand the concept of irony so too can the Miami Marlins. 

            We were all shocked and appalled when Ozzie Guillen told Time Magazine last week “I love Fidel Castro ... I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that motherfucker is still here”.  For the manager of a team that plays a camouflaged boat ride away from Cuba in a shiny new stadium set in the urban “Little Havana” section of Miami, this obviously wasn’t well-taken.  As Guillen and his Marlins dropped two of three from the Phillies earlier in the week, the team’s brass gathered to decide upon an appropriate response to their new manager’s comments. 

            Before I get to my main point, let me educate the reader a little about Fidel Castro’s Cuba.  While in office, Castro turned his country into a suppressive communist state.  While the physical manifestations of his regime may not be clear at first glance, neither will they be any more transparent after a second, third, or fourth look-see.  Reason? Cuba is censored more than Wal-Mart’s cd aisle.  In 2008, Cuba had 28 journalists in prison.  Special permits are required to use the internet for the common people.  All other forms of media and entertainment are heavily censored.  Think Hunger Games, without Lenny Kravitz or Woody Harrelson. 

            NRA people can kiss their rifles and the religious can thump their bibles, but the freedoms that I can’t live without are speech and the press. 

            So, the Miami Marlins decide to suspend Ozzie 5 games for his comments about Castro. 

            Castro throws a journalist in jail for writing something.  The Marlins suspend Guillen for saying something.  On a much, much smaller scale the Marlins are suppressing free speech.  They are not a government; they are a business, but this only underlines the growing power of corporate America.  If the Marlins knew they wouldn’t lose anyone’s money, they wouldn’t even address the Castro comments. 

            As I hope I have expressed, I do not agree with Castro, do not like him, and have empathy for those in socialist Cuba.  However, the punishment for Guillen’s comments should be from his peers and the world around him.  Why should a man’s livelihood be taken away for a political statement?  As you go more and more to left of the political dial, where is the tipping point of acceptable speech?  Saying I love Obama is okay, but if you take it to another a level and say I love Nelson Mandela, is that not okay? 

            If I offended you by this column, good; you have a right to be.  People have the right to offend and the right to be offended.  God Bless the USA.

Reflections on Attending Wrestlemania XXVIII

  I don’t think I was ever more excited to wake up at 4 AM after 3 hours sleep than when I got ready to fly to Miami for Wrestlemania XXVIII on Friday, March 30. The flight was quick with the only inconvenience being that I had to cover my ears with headphones so as to not hear two jackasses behind me try to spoil the ending of the 3^rd book of The Hunger Games. I quickly got in a shuttle with some other wrestling fans to our hotel and made it to the Hyatt Regency Miami just before lunch time. Because my  two buddies Justin and Anthony were not going to arrive for a bit, I decided to venture out, check out the surrounding area, and grab some lunch.

WRESTLEMANIA XXVIII PREVIEW and PREDICTIONS

The Granddaddy of them all has arrived as Wrestlemania commences at Sun Life Stadium in Miami, Florida this coming Sunday. I will be attending the festivities with fellow Horsemen Avenue bloggers Anthony Zorzi and Justin Dibiase this weekend. WWE has done a great job in creating three super match-ups and putting together a solid undercard. It’s time to look at what is scheduled and what I think will happen.

AMERICAN IDOL Top 9 POWER RANKINGS

     American Idol season 11 is well underway with the most well-balanced collection of talent the show has had in years. The judges have gotten back to critiquing the performances this year, which is a shock since Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez added nothing but star-power last year. The race is on to see who will make it to the finale at the Kodak Theater and fight for a recording contract. Here is where I believe the contestants stand at this point in the competition.

Monday Night Musings

            Ever notice the difference in the way some people pronounce the word “the”?  When they are around friends in a comfortable setting, they say “thuh”, but if they are at work or trying to sound professional, they say “thee”. 

            It’s just another example of people losing their identity to what amounts to a subconscious social magnet.  If someone’s around it long enough, at work or at school, it’s bound to seep into your speech like a baby first learning a language.  You start using the same words, phrases, sentences as the people around you.  I’ve been at my office for almost three years and I catch myself using phrases that I’ve heard from co-workers.  Part of me is sad that I can no longer talk like “myself”, but what do I really talk like?  What I sounded like before was only a reflection of my surroundings at the time.  When I was in college, I probably sounded like the students around me.  When I was in elementary school, I probably sounded like a whiny little boy.  Sometimes conformity happens to “thuh” best of us.

_______________________________________________________________________________

            I saw an ad in the paper the other for “Skinnygirl Vodka”.  The ad had a thin woman holding a bottle of the booze, smug yet surprisingly hungry looking. 

            After all the hullabaloo the media made over the Jeremy Lin “chink in the armor” comment, I didn’t understand how “offensive” things are selectively chosen by the media.  “Skinnygirl Vodka” is a product that glorifies the Hollywood eating-disorder girl look and snubs its nose at everyone else.  It’s not even called “Averagegirl Vodka”.  Now I’m usually not an advocate for overweight women, but consider this, whom do you think is more affected here? Jeremy Lin after reading “Chink in the Armor” on ESPN.com or a depressed, overweight girl that opens up the Philadelphia Inquirer in search of the day’s news and is instead reminded of what she should look like and who she should be. 

            I don’t think that Chinese people should ever be called “chinks”, and I think the ESPN worker should have been reprimanded, but the media fake outrage over stuff like that is ridiculous.  Let ESPN handle its own worker.  We don't need Al Sharpton to exhort live on his dumb show.  I am starting to believe that every media outlet has an entry-level job for trolls that sift through endless material looking for the next chance to blow the whistle on someone.  Lin himself said he wasn’t upset about it.  Since when is the media the moral police?  If you want to protect the Chinese from being called names, then you should also stop selling ads to companies that suggest fat girls aren’t good enough (it’s offensive to them), stop making fun of short people (it’s offensive to me), stop reviewing restaurants that serve veal (it’s offensive to vegans).. Maybe we should all just shut up because we are eventually going to offend someone, aren’t we?  

Wrestlemania 28 - Entry 1

Do you remember that Christmas when you came tripping down the stairs to see those shiny presents?  There was the one present that was neatly wrapped, but by its shape and prominence in front of the twinkling tree, you knew exactly what it was. 

                Santa came to work today.  My present, carefully wrapped in a slim FedEx shipping sleeve, left very little to the imagination.  I knew exactly what it was.  I ripped through package and found, expectantly, three crisp tickets to Wrestlemania 28 in Miami, Florida.  In one month’s time, fellow Horsemen Avenue writer Anthony Zorzi and I will fly down to the land of LeBron and C.S.I. spin-offs,  We will be meeting up with my long-time college bud and Horsemen Avenue contributor John “The Entertainment Blender” Sturgeon for a weekend that will kick off spring, baseball season, and warm weather. 

                As the mega-event draws nearer, I plan on updating the blog with personal Wrestlemania 28 thoughts.  In addition to the wrestling festivities, Z and I will be attending one of the first ever games played in the spectacular new Marlins stadium. 

                As far as the actual wrestling is concerned, the main event could be one of the most epic battles of all time; that is to say if WWE books it correctly.  The Electrifying One vs. The Doctor of Thuganomics.  The Rock vs. John Cena.  In reality, they are average in terms of overall wrestling ability but are masters of “puttin’ on a show”. 

-More to come in the month leading up to the event at Sun Life Stadium.

JUSTIFIED continues to kick ass and take names for FX

Back in 2010, I was pumped for the debut of Justified, an FX series based on infamous crime novel writer Elmore Leonard’s short story, Fire in the Hole. The main character of the show is U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), a rugged, tough loner with a cowboy hat who happens to know how to use a gun expertly to get out of precarious situations that he encounters protecting Harlan County in Kentucky. In the Pilot, his chief adversary and rival Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) starts blowing up churches and other buildings with a rocket launcher. Raylan eventually finds Boyd and puts a bullet in his chest. With great action, novel-like dialogue, and excitement throughout the pilot, the foundation was laid for a great series.

Pitchers and Catchers

            By themselves, the three words are boring, but strung together they make the phrase baseball fans dream about all winter. 

            Every Spring Training is identical to the last.  First, the wobbly camera shot of workers loading of 5 million baseballs, 4 trillion bats, and 80 million cases of cotton-candy flavored bubble gum en route to I-95 and Florida.  The countdown box in the Inquirer.  Sports talk radio hosts turning to the optimistic Phils as the pessimistic Birds chatter hibernates for the rest of winter.   The romantic “spring baseball as a metaphor for new life” columns such as this are everywhere.

            Those lucky enough to travel to Florida salivate at the thought of 70 degree weather and Grouper sandwiches.  The rest just love seeing the boys stretching next to palm trees on the 6’o clock news. 

            I too associate Pitchers and Catchers with these things, but I think each person has a personal attachment to the day as well.  In the DiBiase household on East Oak Road in Vineland it marked the beginning of our season of Phillies complaints about Eddy Wade, Tito Francona, and the frugal ownership group.  With just a lukewarm cup of coffee, a folded over Atlantic City Press, and a plate of Grandmom’s biscotti, my Grandpop held his own Spring training right there in the kitchen.  I’d argue with him about a player, have a biscotti, argue about another player, and then have 2 more biscotti.  With her grandsons around, my Grandmom’s face lit up like a candle.  It’s one of the fondest memories of my childhood.

            He passed away on April 2^nd, 2010, just three days before the Phillies season opener in Washington.  I watched the entire 11-1 romp through misty eyes.  I didn’t have Grandpop to call after my man Ryan Howard blasted a John Lannon fastball deep into the seats at Nationals Park.  I called my Dad and mustered a joke my through the emotional moment.

            For years, I wondered what was it about baseball that made grown men weep.  (“Wanna have a catch, Dad?”)  I’ve settled on the notion that it never really was about the game or the team or the ’80 or ’08 championship.  Baseball could be replaced by soccer or the cooking channel.  When you’re six feet under, it’s not going matter how many rings your boys got, all that's going to matter is the effect you have on the world and those closest to you.

            It’s not about what’s in front of you on the television, it’s about who’s around you at the table every Sunday passing around the spaghetti and meatballs.   

            Since his passing, the start of the baseball season has meant a little more to me than just the smell of pine tar and figuring out the fifth man in the Phils rotation.  It reminds me of my Grandpop and all my family, living and deceased, and how wonderful it is to have a game that means so little bring so much joy to my life.  

Enjoy Pitchers and Catchers, everyone. And enjoy the 2012 Phillies!

           

               

2011 recap

Here’s a quick recap of my 2011.  I usually write something longer, but I am not in the mood.

                  Pardon me for being morbid but as I was skimming through my 2011, the two most weighty events involved deaths of two men I never met.  No, I am not referring to the vile Bin Laden, the “dear leader”, the macho man, or even the Big Man.  I am talking about the treasured comedian Patrice O’ Neal and the revolutionary Steve Jobs. 

                  Patrice O’Neal may not have had the impact the world that, say, Elizabeth Taylor did, but it’s my year-in-review so shut up and keep reading, please ;) 

                  The two men’s deaths put into perspective what types of lives we can lead.  Steve Jobs changed the world; while Patrice O’Neal changed the worlds of the people around him.  You can tell a lot about someone by reading the “RIP” tweets in the days following their deaths.  While Jobs’s tweets were mostly admiration and respect for the man; Patrice’s were highly emotional and contemplative.  People felt they had lost their best friend despite never meeting him.

                  Most of the population will never achieve what Steve Jobs did but we all have an opportunity to make an impact on each other’s lives. One Life, One Chance.

Good Movies I Saw (no particular order)

True grit

Hall Pass

Scream 4

Fast 5

Horrible Bosses

Crazy Stupid Love

Moneyball

The Muppets

Good Books I Read (ordered)

1. A False Spring by Pat Jordan

2. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

3. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

4. Joe Dimaggio by Richard Ben Cramer

5. Shit my Dad Says by Justin Halpern

6. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

7. The Unforgiving Minute by Craig Mullaney

8. The Last Boy by Jane Leavy

9. Veeck as in Wreck by Bill Veeck

10. Bloodclots in the Mainstream by Rob Santello

Music (no particular order)

 Dave Hause - Resolutions

Horrible Crowes - Elsie

Mighty Mighty Bosstones - The Magic of Youth

Blink 182 - Neighborhoods

Cobra Skulls - Agitations

The Black Keys - El Camino

Dropkick Murphys - Going Out in Style

Face to Face - Laugh Now Laugh Later

Frank Turner - England Keep my Bones

Have Nots - Proud

Rise Against - Endgame

Moments of the year

Clearwater 2011

Horsemen Hangout – Two words. Fudge Rounds

Hurricane Irene

Bamboozle

XTU

Ocean City Maryland

Strikerz Bowling – Those damn house balls just don’t spin.

Concerts

Dad’s Retirement Party

Phillies – It’s not about the end, it’s about the ride

Pineapple United – Soccer is back in my life!

Wing Bowl – My first

Earthquake – I felt it

MLB Playoffs – If you are a baseball fan, you had to like the ride that was the 2011 playoffs

Patrice O’Neal / Steve Jobs – RIP

Gaslight Anthem / Springsteen – Saw Bruce for the first time as a surprise guest in Asbury Park for Gaslight Anthem’s holiday show.