85 HOURS TILL OPENING DAY

That's me on the third base side, Loge section 147, row E, seat 2...

THE SAN FRANCISCO TREAT

Juan Marichal vs. John Roseboro, exhibit "A" in the Greatest Baseball Rivalry of All Time (Vinny said so!)

Opening Day, SBC Park: Giants 4, Dodgers 2. Jeff Kent booed into the Bay by Giant fan. Despite some early offense-- like Cesar Izturis's first at-bat of the season dinger-- a throwing error from Giovanni Carrara and a fielding error by whipping boy du jour Jose Valentin lead to fourth loss of early lead by the Dodgers in a row (counting the weekend exhibition sweep by the Angels). Los Angeles Times sports writer Bill Plaschke is beside himself with glee. DePodesta is an red-faced idiot, he screams! The defense has more holes than a 10-year-old screen door, he shouts! The bats have gone back to sleep, he hollers! Plaschke publishes a column the next day that is one big "I told you so," full of assumptions, what-might-have-beens and the usual logical stumblings that manages to regurgitate yet again every tired theme he's harped on since that black day in late August last year when DePodesta dismantled a team Plaschke never liked in the first place.

Wednesday, game two: Jose Valentin responds by nearly batting for the cycle, coming up only a double short (and he was in the batter's box at the last out), but dishing out a huge three-run homer, part of a 10-4 stomping of the Hated Ones that was made even more sweet by the outstanding, yes, almost Cora-esque defense of one Jeff Kent, who was visibly tickled by his ability to give it back to Giant fan in a somewhat more significant way. The giddiness of the win was tempered only by the ineffectiveness of Yhency Brazoban, who gave up 3 runs and had two or three more ready to come in before Kent scooped up the final out, tossed it to first and stopped the bleeding.

Thursday, game three: All Jeff Weaver does is pitch eight innings of shut-out ball, and the Dodger bats sing sweet music again, leaving boisterous Giant fan with a lump in his/her throat and moist eyes that might only be dried by the Return of BalcoMan. Final: 6-0.

All that, and the Blue's first dramatic comeback win of the season tonight (they did it a mere 52 times last year) against Shawn Green and the retooled-with-actual-major-league-players Arizona Diamondbacks. Down 7-4, they mount an awe-inspiring ninth-inning surge, capped by Jose Valentin (!!), whose 2-out, 0-2, two-run homer in the top of the ninth brought the score to 8-7, where it would remain after solid outfield defense helped Yhency Brazoban redeem himself with a perfect ninth and snare the season's first save.

I'm going to bed very happy tonight, and ready for more tomorrow.

HOW TO GET READY FOR THE SUMMER MOVIE SEASON

Well, I told myself I'd go to bed early tonight-- no working, no writing. But the Dodgers are stomping the Giants 10-1 and putting it to cynical local sportswriters like the Times' Bill Plaschke who, after one game (yesterday's heartbreaking loss to SF 4-2), have decided that the tired themes they've harped on all season-- DePodesta's "bad" moves, the lack of defense in the wake of Beltre's departure-- are reason to pack the whole season in. And I've got office work to do after all.

But I couldn't let this one go by. The summer movie season is rapidly approaching, headed up by the 800-pound gorilla, that little political chamber drama directed by George "What I Really Want To Do Is Make Avant-Garde Films" Lucas. I'll have more to say about some of the anticpated releases headed our way later in the week. But the story tonight is about the fans who have parked themselves outside Grauman's Chinese more than a month ahead of the movie's release date, and the eleven die-hards who have refused to pack up camp despite the announcement that the movie, breaking a tradition started way back in 1977, will actually not be playing at the Chinese, but a mile down the road at the Arclight Cinerama Dome! Here's where you can get the whole silly story.

Whoops. The Dodgers' 9th-inning whiz Yhency Brazoban is getting shelled. Now it's 10-4 and the Giants, with two outs to go, are, as Vin Scully just said, going stubbornly into that good night. But it's okay. I can type with my toes crossed.

Ah. Uncross 'em. Jeff Kent scoops up the ground ball and throws to first for the final out. Bring on the rubber game!

GARDENING AT NIGHT

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." --- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every time I feel like I’m running down the wrong track, this Emerson quote is one that I try very hard to remember, and when I do I’m always glad for it, because it gets me to the occassionally necessary business of refreshing myself on what's really important in my life. (Notice that the poet did not mention making boatloads of money...)

It ought not to come as much of a surprise that laughing is a good idea, and not necessarily just in the Patch Adams sense, or to preserve one's sanity. I believe it’s beneficial to one's soul. There are so many times that this activity alone has seemingly reached down and plucked me right off the white-hot coals that I can’t help but believe life would be not only more miserable, but downright unlivable, without the ability to tilt the skull back at a 90-degree angle and let fly with laughter erupting straight from the core of the belly. For this reason alone I am grateful for the sight of Jeff Daniels in agony on that posh toilet in Aspen, Colorado; for elaborate stories of Gumby-fixated girlfriends and midnight sinkside root beer guzzling gone horribly wrong told by good friends who unabashedly delight in the telling of the tale; for John Cleese rising from his archaeological dig and singing, from seemingly nowhere, “Too-daaaay/I hear the robins sing/Too-daaaay”; and for the ability to clamp onto my daughters’ chins with my lips and send them into tickled states of borderline insanity, only to hear that illogical, irrational cry of happiness, “Again! Again!”

Following Emerson's line, I’m surrounded by intelligent people who don’t run screaming at the sight of me, so I count that as some sort of triumph. I'm even pretty sure that I give my dear wife Patty and my best friend Bruce ample reasons to do so on a regular basis-- some of those involve my behavior, some of those involve my distractedness, some of those involve peculiar odors. It is a tribute to them that I know they'll always be there for me with their support, their love, and the occassional well-directed spritz of air freshener. And there are intelligent people who read this blog occasionally, who read it regularly, and even participate in it on the comments columns. I appreciate that more than I could ever properly say, mostly because I love the feedback from folks who are smarter than I am, and their enthusiastic participation on this site, but also because I can rest easy in the knowledge that most of you, from the comfort and distance of the blogosphere, will never have cause to pick up a can of air freshener on my account.

Not to divert the subject matter too radically, but I am also in a constant state of awe when I look into my daughters’ eyes and see love and wonder not only reflected back at me by them, but generated by them. I'm still floored when one or both of them says my name, or wants to come and sit with me, or on me, or be held in my arms. They are the ultimate blessing. To Emerson, regarding these perfect beauties that call me Daddy, I would add another quote, this one not from literature but from the movies:

"It's the most terrifying day of your life, the day the first one is born... Your life, as you know it, is gone, never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk, and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most delightful people you will ever meet in your life."
-Bob Harris (Bill Murray), Lost In Translation

Another thing that I’ve relearned because of the writing I’ve done in the last six months, on this blog and elsewhere, is that it is a very good and encouraging thing to discover that the work one does is appreciated by people who are knowledgeable in the areas of one’s concerns, people who are also unafraid to point out where and how one might be leaving the tracks. One of the primary attractions of blogging is the independence from editorial restrictions. But that’s a double-edged sword, because that independence also means there’s not another thought process to bounce off of, or a voice that will tell one what one sometimes need to know. It’s a big responsibility to take oneself seriously enough to not betray that freedom by creating writing that’s only half-cocked and full of factual, logical and observational holes. Fortunately, I have good friends who are supportive in what I’m doing, but who also offer their opinions and criticisms freely, with (hopefully) no fear that I’ll take things too personally—a challenge I sometimes find hard to live up to. It’s my belief in their sincerity, however, that always wakes me up to the fact that anything said hard is not necessarily said harshly, that their honest responses are ways of interacting with what I’m writing that makes the interaction worth it for them as well as me.

For me, I would add to Emerson at this point that not only is earning the appreciation of honest critics essential to success, but also earning, and growing from, the criticism of honest critics. For if the criticism is meant to help one to grow in what one is doing, then it is actually a gesture of friendship, toward the author, perhaps, but certainly toward the work, and something to be valued as much as enthusiasm and positive appraisal. I offer my genuine thanks to those with whom I have worked recently who have provided me those critical voices, and I hope we’ll have the opportunity to work together again soon.

As for the betrayals of false friends, or for that matter dishonest critics, those are to be endured and learned from as well, but not, for me, to be dwelled upon. I guess that’s how I endure them.

“To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition…”

I try to indulge in these kinds of behaviors every day, and sometimes circumstances and my own head make that more of a challenge than it should be. But even as I sometimes fail I strive to remember it as a goal, and in so striving realize that, like so many facets of life, this kind of attitude can be, for whatever reason, more difficult to cultivate and maintain than one of pure cynicism and resignation. Yet another person who is much smarter than me once said that the things in life that are truly of worth are the things that are sometimes most difficult to achieve. I think I’d have to, in general, agree, but the arena of appreciating the value of those around you, geographically and culturally, can be more easily navigated than I think is generally recognized. This is something that, oddly enough, my blogging enterprise has also made clearer to me. In the more immature days of my writing, I always felt it was easier to talk about cinematic failure because doing so increased the opportunity for me to trot out the snot, to show off my smarts and make fun of a piece of work that was probably worth about half the amount of attention I was paying to it. But in those days I almost always found writing about something I liked was, ironically, more difficult, largely because doing so forced me to reach deeper into myself, into the work being discussed, and figure out a way to deal with not just the rudimentary elements of plot, technique and acting, but with what it was about the movie that moved me, and why, and how, and why that was worth discussing. (The mere fact that dealing with what I liked in anything more than the most superficial way was often so difficult should have been a clear indicator that I had some serious growing to do.) Yet whenever I would read favorite critics on this subject, they would almost always state the opposite: writing about bad films, they said, is dispiriting because the ratio of good to bad films is so lopsided that one begins to run out of clever things to say to justify the ink, whereas writing about good films is energizing, exciting, and the process of discovery about the work, and your own observations about it, is the holy grail of film criticism, why a film critic should want to write about film in the first place.

Now that I’m maturing (okay, getting older) and still learning what it is to be, or attempt to be, a writer, I’ve naturally come to understand, through my own experience and processes of observation, that those critics were right. And when I look at one of my own pieces, like the short appreciation I posted on Goodbye, Dragon Inn last month, I realize that seeing that movie, and writing that post, was more fulfilling for me than any snarkfest I might have indulged in after seeing a bad movie. I can’t imagine writing, or wanting to write, more than a couple of short paragraphs on, say, Robert Rodriguez’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico, but if I did, I doubt those paragraphs would be as interesting, to me or anyone else, as what I could write about a movie I loved, like Goodbye, Dragon Inn. I already am blessed with two healthy children, so maybe this blog has become my little Emersonian garden patch, a place where I can more finely hone my skills at appreciating beauty and finding the best in others. I’m certainly not forgoing the necessity, or even the pleasure, of writing about failure; I just hope to do the kind of justice to it that I would expect of myself in writing about something that truly and successfully captures my imagination. How this attitude toward what I write can, and will, translate into the way I interact with people in my everyday life is just another aspect of getting older and, I hope, wiser that makes the whole aging process something I look forward to these days a lot more than I dread.

As for the last nugget of awareness from Emerson’s quote, that little bit of the George Bailey Experience that is so integral to the poet’s assessment of personal success, I can only live in the hope that it is so, and that someday, through no effort of my own, I might come to see how it has been true. Naturally I hope that my wife and children’s lives are made easier, more pleasurable, more fulfilling because I am alive and able to give them the love they need, but that’s not for me to judge, and I don’t say that as a clever way of fishing for validation. For me, it’s kind of like putting out a huge effort trying to be perceived as cool— once you sweat that, you’re not cool. Well, in the same way, once you go trolling for testimony as to your inherent value to other people, you automatically take your eyes off of what you should be focusing on in order to stroke your own ego. I will be satisfied that those who love me, and those who see me every day, generally don’t tend to run screaming from the room whenever I walk in the door. That’s good enough for me, and that gets me right back to where I started, near the top of this post. So before this snake swallows itself whole, I will take my leave.

But before I do, I want to tell you my favorite joke. I rejiggered it just a little bit (you’ll figure out how) when I told it to my five-year-old daughter, and she laughed just as hard as I did the first time someone told it to me, so I figure it must be a pretty good joke. And it’s literally one of only two jokes that my sieve-like brain can even commit to memory. Fortunately for you, Dear Reader, the other one depends on my spot-on Irish accent for full effect, so you will be spared that one until I bump into you in a far-too-claustrophobic space someday in the future. For now, here’s my favorite joke:

A guy walks into a bar. He's got a duck sitting on his head. The bartender says to the guy, “What can I do for you?” Without missing a beat, the duck says, “You can get this guy off my ass!”

[ Crickets Chirping ]

Oh, come on!

HEADS-UPS AND UPDATES: BLOGGERS, SANDRA OH, FURIOUS QUIZMASTERS AND REVVED-UP SATANISTS

For those of you interested in the developing story of journalistic integrity and credibility and its existence or lack thereof within the blogosphere, Slate editor Jack Shafer, who routinely reports on the blogging phenomenon for the magazine, has published a tough-talking rebuttal to yesterday’s Los Angeles Times column by media reporter and critic David Shaw. Shafer takes on Shaw’s “1,300 gassy words” and generalizations about the intentions and failings of bloggers. He also effectively calls the critic on the carpet for lumping Matt Drudge and impenetrable “Dear Diary”-type bloggers in with those who are working hard to build reputations for reliability and thoroughness, to be taken seriously as journalists, and who take advantage of the technology’s ability to correct the kinds of mistakes and oversights that take much longer to acknowledge and fix in TV and print media, if they’re acknowledged or fixed at all. It’s a fascinating read and a convincing response to Shaw’s rather paranoid piece, and there are additional links on the page to Slate articles by Shafer and others about blogging.

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Also in Slate this week is a nice write-up on Sandra Oh, which emerges from a rather withering review of her new ABC series Grey’s Anatomy.


Regular readers of this blog won’t be shocked by the news that she’s emerged of late as one of my favorite actresses, and therefore I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I fogged out and missed the show’s premiere last Sunday night. Liz Penn, writing on Slate as Dana Stevens, gives the show middling marks, writing off at least the first episode as an uninspired E.R.-Sex and the City hybrid. However, Stevens says that Oh’s “delightfully bilious” characterization rises to the top and away from the wreckage of the rest of the show and that she’ll hopefully be able to parlay her experience here into better roles in films and, perhaps, even another TV show that might better showcase her abilities. I don’t know about Grey’s Anatomy (yet), but I’m in favor of anything that gets this terrifically sexy and funny actress in front of a camera.

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As a follow-up to my breathless, albeit somewhat speculative reportage last week (sorry, Mr. Shaw), there’s been a definite release date posted by Anchor Bay DVD for both Race with the Devil and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. It’s June 28, 2005, so mark your calendars.

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Finally, the response to Mr. Hand’s Spring 2005 Pop Movie Pop Quiz has been very gratifying and a whole lot of fun. When I got into the task of compiling my own list a couple of days ago I realized just how NOT EASY the whole undertaking really was, so I appreciate even more the time and efforts of everyone who has responded so far. I’m still looking for more lists, if I can get ‘em, and when I do I’ll compile another list of the best responses and create a brand-new post for everyone to see. Homework was never this fun, was it?

MR. HAND'S SPRING 2005 POP MOVIE POP QUIZ

Everyone loves a pop quiz. Well, that may not exactly be true, but nobody seems to mind one that gets us thinking about the movies, the ones we love to think about, the ones that inform our lives and make it better, the ones that mean the most to us. Well, there are questions in the quiz below that may address some of those movies. But there are also questions below that are meant only to jog your memory, make you make associations, perhaps bring up an aspect of the movies, or going to the movies, that you’d set aside as trivial or perhaps hadn’t ever given much thought to (and probably for a good reason). There are no right answers to this quiz, just your answers. And, unlike the pop history exam in Mr. Hand’s class, if you check back on this page over the next few days you’ll get a chance to peek over to someone else’s desk and see their answers without getting yelled at in front of other students, drawing detention, or having the teacher stop by your house at an inopportune time for an impromptu catch-up lesson to help make up for having wasting his time in the classroom. Everyone is invited to drop their answers in the Comments column below, regular posters to this site, those who regularly lurk and don’t usually comment, or anyone else stumbling across this site for the first time. You can provide short, concise responses, or you can elaborate to your heart’s content, and if you feel the need and have the time to elaborate, please do—those are often the answers that are most fun for the rest of us to read. So now, class, pencils ready? Have an excellent Easter weekend… and begin.

1) The one movie you’d drop everything just to see again.
2) The one movie you never want to see again under any circumstances.
3) The most treasured DVD in your personal collection.
4) The most coveted DVD you like to add to your collection.
5) Best NYC movie?
6) Best LA movie?
7) Best movie ever made in or about your home state, or country?
8) Humphrey Bogart or Jimmy Cagney?
9) Best movie remake?
10) The one movie you’d most like to see remade, and by whom (director, cast).
11) Best integration of an existing piece of music into a movie.
12) Most unwelcome pop song typically used in a movie montage.
13) Movie that made you want to change your life, or the world.
14) Katherine Hepburn or Carole Lombard?
15) Your father’s favorite movie.
16) Your mother’s favorite movie.
17) The movies’ most handsome leading man or character actor, and the role which most perfectly featured him.
18) The movies’ most beautiful leading lady or character actress, and the role which most perfectly featured her.
19) Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant?
20) Your favorite actor who almost nobody knows about.
21) Your favorite actress who almost nobody knows about.
22) The movie you love that everyone else seems to hate.
23) The movie you hate that everyone else seems to love.
24) Your most memorable moment related to the movies.
25) Your most unpleasant moment related to the movies.
26) Most revolting eating scene in a movie.
27) Joan Crawford or Bette Davis?
28) Your favorite sports movie.
29) Your favorite movie sex scene.
30) Your favorite movie car chase.
31) Your favorite death scene.
32) Your favorite movie gross-out.
33) Your favorite movie rating.
34) Your favorite movie theater.
35) Your favorite movie snack.
36) Your favorite movie speech.
37) Your favorite movie about movies.
38) Your favorite Hammer horror movie.
39) Your favorite Kurt Russell Disney movie.
40) Your favorite Dean Jones Disney movie.

THE EYES OF REGINA KING

Victorious Regina

Any actor whose presence who could get me to even consider seeing Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous would have to be said to be someone with undue influence over my emotions and my moviegoing tendencies. Well, it turns out that Sandra Bullock’s costar in this wacky sequel to the wacky Miss Congeniality(2000) is Regina King. So I figure that, before I go and spend $10 on the movie this coming weekend, thus inspiring fear and trembling over my mental state among friends and relatives for doing so, this is as good a time as any to come clean about my big crush on this talented actress. I first discovered her as Marla Gibbs’ sassy daughter on the forgettable sitcom 227 and figured that, despite her spunk and vitality, she’d probably never make it out of the TV comedy wasteland. So when she started showing up in movies like Boyz N The Hood, Poetic Justice and Friday, I was encouraged that she might get something going on after all. And my wife says she’s terrific in a little-seen straight-to-video feature called Love and Action in Chicago. But I think I officially flipped for her as Cuba Gooding’s tough, sexy wife in Jerry Maguire. Ever since then, I’ve imagined every meaty movie role for a young woman with Regina King replacing whatever relative nonentity who was actually cast—imagine how much better Monsters Ball might have been with King squaring off against Billy Bob Thornton. There might have been some actual tension there, and King would have made me believe the extremes of that character’s behavior, as written, that were way out of Halle Berry’s limited range. Ray is the latest showcase for King’s phenomenal energy and presence (until this weekend, I suppose), and I really hope that movie’s popularity opens some doors for her. There’s no reason why casting directors shouldn’t have the imagination to see her in just about any role for which Ashley Judd or Renee Zellweger would be routinely considered (and hopefully the roles she'd get would be better than the ones these actresses routinely accept). Moviegoers live to be seduced by big brown eyes as spectacular as the ones King has at her disposal, eyes that can gaze with tender care, but also burn through you with disbelief and fury in the split second it takes to blink. Audiences, and the movies, will be the ones to gain if we get more opportunities to gaze back at those eyes in the future, in roles that are worthy of them, of course. Directors, say no to Julia, to Angelina, to Gwenyth, and start saying yes, and please, and thank you, and what can I get for you, to Regina King.