I just realized that not only have I been remiss in writing and catching everyone up on everything — something I do plan to do very soon … but in doing so, anyone who happens to surf by my page sees a photo/gif (I think that’s the right techie term) of someone pouring sparkles on a very buff butt that is not my butt.
Maybe I need to add something new here … oh, and the reason for that particular “reblog” of the sparkly butt was that it was something deep and complicated reblogged from the awesome Fernando Perez, and at the end of his post he mentions that he had read and loved the great memoir “Candy Girl” by Diablo Cody on my recommendation. And he thought the sparkle-butt would be a good logo for the book. Okay?
So. Things I will be blogging about really soon:
My cool new job
The amazing and inspirational experience of doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer (as soon as I finish making my Flickr album that I can link)
Dana stuff, of course (new EP coming soon, etc.)
Pictures of my grand-dog Rilo
How amazing it’s been sorting through old family pictures, expanding my family tree and learning about relatives I didn’t know existed.
In the meantime, here is my Poppy’s passport photo from when he came to the United States from Russia:
I am so verklempt by the last line of this. :)
are the covers of e-books gifs yet?
writing exercise: a few minutes (FIRM) writing per (textless) gif
Kanye West surfaces first—
this GIF is an album summary
brought to you by someone who
doesn’t know most of the words to many songs past the flashing lights like I had before the flashing lights
despite the great mathematical opportunity to do so because of all those short autotuned songs of relatively few words that he’s entered into the catalog since the flashing lights which would presumably be easier to memorize
That Kanye link will bring you to BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION’s
(goddamned) scoop about POTUS’ ipod and poor Taylor
which is boring don’t click on it
it’s just like CAPITALIZING BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION
AND NOT USING THE ACRONYM BET
The link in BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION
will bring you to the clip of the ‘banned’ boondocks episode.
The girls show reached that cultural relevancy critical mass thing to me since my Ta-Nehesi (you must mispronounce his name for that to work) wrote about it in the Atlantic, and I was considering making a link to that article but the article smelled so obligatory—there were valid points so it wasn’t so much the writing, but more was the stance of having to write about Williamsburg Sex and the City and the stance of slouching in front of a computer to read about Williamsburg Sex and the City and then i visited the atlantic and saw he did it again and have realized its bound to be a serial which ‘is what it is’ i guess as they say. Before Girls was a thing as far as i knew, i was visiting my parents and during family television time my father suggested we watch a cool new show (Girls) and after 10 minutes I walked out to stare into the refrigerator and scratch my head saying “I’ve already seen this shit” to which my father replied “but this just came out today” to which I replied “You sent me to Columbia, man, I’ve seen this shit”.
you’ll find at a record store that the kanye LP is actually quite heavy
it probably comes with two records but its also kind of big in the belly
like maybe some panties are inside or something
so it really seems to have the weight of all those adjectives before the fantasy.
for the price of all that I scored Another Side of Dylan and
the Mingus Antibes record which features
Bud Powell
“In Walked Bud” tends to sound different once you’ve heard this story:
(via old MeFi discussion thread )
Monk was pretty much the piano player on the ground floor at Minton’s in New York when bebop was born – he was at least its soul father, the guy who knew what this new idea of harmony could do, and who knew what potential it had. These were the days when all the musicians in New York made their money at nights in swing bands, playing largely what had become sanitized dance music with no breaks and no room for solos for the white crowds that actually had money to pay. So these young lions would get together in the early 1940s at Minton’s after they finished their gigs and just blow, just play for hours and hours. Literally – they’d play “It Don’t Mean A Thing” and “All The Things You Are” and all these other songs they’d just had to play, only they’d play them right. They’d throw in all the weirdest chord substitutions – the weirder or crazier you could make it, the better. No stuffy bandleader would be there to tell you to keep it square. And everybody got a solo – the drummer, the piano player, even the bassist. They’d play these songs forever – they “It Don’t Mean A Thing” used to go on for an hour at a stretch, cycling through, everybody soloing and then passing it on.
Like I say, Monk was there at the beginning, and he got it – he once expressed the philosophy of bebop perfectly by saying: “We’re going to create something that they can’t steal, because they can’t play it.”
Monk had already been on the scene for years at that point, but around the mid-1940s, this young guy, Bud Powell, showed up. Bud idolizedThelonious Monk. Monk was like a father and almost a god to him – and they spent lots of time together, Bud trying to catch every glimmer of new stuff from Monk, and Monk enjoying taking care of the kid and becoming fast friends with him.
Anyway, that brings us to 1945. In this time the cops in New York were notoriously uncharitable (to put it mildly) toward black people and particularly toward musicians. That went double for these young guys staying out all night, sometimes doing some odd drugs, going from closed-up bar to closed-up bar looking for spots to keep playing music with each other. One night, after closing time, a cop got a bit rough with Monk, and was just starting to get violent, when suddenly Bud Powell arrived on the scene and grabbed the officer from behind and swung him around. “Do you realize,” he said, “that you’re getting rough with the greatest piano player in the world?”
The truncheon came down hard on Bud’s head, and he didn’t come up for a while. And after that, he always had the shakes, and he ended up in and out of mental institutions (sometimes against his will) and he turned more and more to heroine. (That’s actually how Monk later ended up losing his his musician’s union card, which meant he couldn’t play in New York for several of the most important years in jazz – he took the fall for Bud one night when a cop found his stash.) Bud Powell died far too young, in 1966, and even then all agreed that he was twenty years past his prime.But Monk never forgot that. He wrote that song to commemorate that night when he was about to get a beating from a cop – when in walked Bud…
anyway, this GIF could work for Candy Girl
by Diablo Cody
which is not to be confused
with the New Edition song linked above
so as to confuse anyone who has made it all the way down here.
—I read Candy Girl (a memoir about a hipster turnt stripper) on rec from a (female) baseball writer with a tumblr who is rad.
(Source: bullshitstar)
Can’t wait to get one!
CORGIS WON SQUISHABLES!!! Here is the prototype / mock up.
Shiba Inu owners are crying foul play on facebook. Maybe they should cry into their new CORGI squishable!
Bryce Who? Debuts through April 29! -
The weekly debut column on display at http://www.MLBDepthCharts.com … and my usual irreverence.
Next week’s debuts will be a little late since Steph and I will be walking in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer THIS WEEKEND … you can still make a donation at http://tinyurl.com/winstoncups until Thursday night!
If you want to follow along with the fun from Thursday arrival (look for a few surprises and Friday event eve in D.C. through the two day walk through sun, rain, thunderstorms and the tenting at Wellness Village, you can follow us on Twitter at @LisaWinston where we’ll be sending Tweets and Twitpix. And Mr. Hankey is coming too.
The Door Is Open, April 23 Edition With Contest! -
For a week with only five Major League Debuts, I still managed to have some fun with the lede … AND this week we introduce a crazy little contest I came up with and MLBDepthCharts.com editor Jason Martinez was generous enough to not only be enthusiastic about but to ALSO offer a free six-month subscription to the site as a prize! Intrigued? And think you know enough about the guys in the minors to try to suss out who might be not the NEXT of the remaining eight teams to bring up a guy to make his debut but the LAST of the teams to do so? Have at it!
So where are those gosh-darn MLB debuts? HERE!!! -
For those of you who don’t really care about my upcoming Avon Walk for Breast Cancer with my super-sister Stephanie, cute pictures of my dog Moxy and my grand-dog Rilo, amazing music by my daughter Dana (acoustic pop songwriter-singer extraordinaire) or husband Wayne (Brazilian jazz, and also his reviews of old movies) or anything else in my life like my love of all things pop culture but especially my overwhelming knowledge of one-hit wonders of the 60s and 70s, embarrassing addiction to trashy reality shows (Shane Klingensmith was Big in Belgium, y’all), adoration for all things related to THE WIRE, and really only read this blog during the baseball season so you can find out all about the guys who made their Major League Debuts this week?
Here. Have at it. The most awesome new website evah, MLBDepthCharts, which will feature my debut column every Monday. So please subscribe because Jason works his butt off and it’s totally worth the price.
[video]
Meet Haley Smilow. This is the face … and T-shirt … that melted this old curmudgeon’s heart.
After 25 years in the business of baseball journalism, I have a big confession to make: I’m more than a little bit jaded when it comes to some of the so-called human interest stories on the fan side.
You know the ones I mean. Lifelong baseball fan has plans to visit every single one of the major league stadiums this summer! And to do so with his son (or daughter), making camera-ready memories to last a lifetime. Or even more intrepid fan has plans to visit every single one of the MINOR league stadiums this summer!
I think these are great undertakings. Really, I do. I know they’ll have a great time, even if a few of those plans get untracked by the weather (see the Smilow’s attempt at an Orioles game) or a GPS direction gone wrong or a bout with intestinal distress from a bad ballpark hot dog. Hey, sometimes those are the most memorable moments.
And as an inveterate hyper-planner (just ask my husband and daughter) I know that the anticipation and logistics are half the fun.
But the problem is that a lot of people who make these plans contact me because they think it would make a great story for me to write. And I have a hard time explaining to them that while I am sure there are outlets for their adventures, I have written these stories so often (most memorably in the mid-1990s when then-couple Bill and Sue became, I believe, the first to actually hit EVERY minor league ballpark in one season … great story but I think they broke up shortly thereafter) that I just … can’t … write another one.
The look of disappointment, when someone has asked me in person to please write about their quest and I say no, just breaks my heart a tiny bit. (When do they ask me in person? The Winter Meetings tends to be a magnet for people with these ideas, who I think may hope for funding as well as publicity).
Ditto the knowledge that I am disappointing someone who contacts me via e-mail (though admittedly less so when they approach me thinking I still write for either MLB.com – SO three years ago – or even Sports Weekly, from another generation entirely. If you can’t do your homework, how can I trust your “reportage”?)
I generally follow it up, though, with the suggestion that if they think they have a good story, who better to write it than themselves – which of course is why blogs have become so popular. Be creative. Find people to follow along. Do something cool at each stop, something local. Get involved in some way, shape or form.
Sing an anthem. Lead “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Try to throw out a first pitch. Volunteer for all the weird games (my dog licked peanut butter off the face of ex-York Revolution pitcher Derell McCall at an Atlantic League Bark in the Park day, and I didn’t even volunteer. Cute Moxy was recruited.)
Do SOMETHING to make it stand out and be different. Or else, hell, just go have fun and don’t worry about it making you famous.
Anyway … the point I was leading up to was this …
Every so often, even my own cold, grinchy, grizzled heart melts. And the way to my heart in this case was two-fold – adorable Haley Smilow reminds me of a cross between myself at her age and my own daughter, and then to clinch it, her dad name-checked Eric Young Jr.
Win-win!!!
Just to give you a little link as to why the latter was key:
http://gotmilb.mlblogs.com/2008/12/15/beyond-the-boxscore-getting-to-know-colorado-2b-eric-young-jr-and-why-i-loved-his-dad/
BUT … more important. I happily agreed to share Haley’s story here at Queen of Diamonds, and hope that she and her family continue to enjoy their baseball travels and maybe even a future in sports journalism …
Last summer, the Smilow family (avowed Yankee fans, just like my own dad was when I was 10) took the month of August and hit the road to follow the Yankees and, when that didn’t fit into the travel plan, as many other teams as they could.
During that 31-day span, they hit 26 games, saw 12 Major League teams and visited seven stadiums in Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis and my own adopted home city of Washington, D.C.
While racking up the miles, Haley also got to launch her young journalism career. Her first interview, dad Marc shared, was with Yankee slugger and all-around good guy Curtis Granderson and ran in Baseball Youth Magazine in their November/December 2011 issue.
That experience convinced Haley to pursue continuing the noble profession and this past off-season she was able to score an interview with Eric Young Jr., aka “Little E.Y.”
How could I NOT share that here????? And so, without further ado, Haley Smilow brings you “Getting to Know Eric Young.” And I bring you a young lady I hope will have as much FUN doing this as I have had over the years – and never get jaded.
By the way … you can check out her family’s website from their August travels – done the right way, without my advice LOL (I especially loved the food reviews!)– at http://www.wix.com/smilow/home-field-advantage#!
HALEY: At what age did you start playing baseball? And did you eventually end up playing in a travel league?
EY: I started playing at age 7. I played travel league (summer) from ages 9-12.
HALEY: Who was your favorite team growing up? And other then your father, who were some of the players that you looked up to as a kid?
EY: Favorite team growing up was whichever team my dad was on. I was a big Ken Griffey Jr. fan growing up.
HALEY: When you are up to bat what is your theme song?
EY: I’m going with Drake “Headlines” this season, and maybe the Bernie. Still debating on that one.
HALEY: Do you have a favorite restaurant in Colorado? And what is your favorite food?
EY: I love Tokyo Joe’s. I love teriyaki.
HALEY: Name five songs in your iPpod right now that you have on repeat?
EY: Drake “Headlines,” Pitbull “International Love,” TPain “Turn All The Lights On,” Flo Rida “Good Feeling,” Lloyd “Be the One.”
HALEY: Do you have any rituals or superstitions before and during a game? Can you give me an example?
EY: I try to eat healthy before a game, usually oatmeal. Music headphones on a bunch.
HALEY: What do you do during the off-season?
EY: Try to get enough rest before getting back to training, and visit my family members.
HALEY: ‘Refuse 2 Be Ignored’ is one of your slogans. Can you explain what it means to you?
EY: It means embrace all/any of your talents. Refuse to ignore what your good at/makes you special to the world in your own right. I just love to encourage people to find what their gift is to the world.
HALEY: You and your father hold a historical moment with the Rockies organization; can you tell use about it?
EY: We have a few. His opening homerun in Denver, my debut in ’09, our playing against each other in spring training. Its all been a blessing to our family.
HALEY: At the 2012 Winter Meetings your name came up in several trade possibilities including the Mets, Tigers and Mariners. If you could play for any team who would it be?
EY: I just want to play and utilize my abilities to my max potential. It doesn’t matter where.
HALEY: What trade or free agent player signing will have the biggest effect on their team’s chances of making it to the World Series?
EY: You never know before the season starts. You have to see how the teams gel together when they get new personalities.
HALEY: Four of the fastest men currently in MLB: EY Jr., Brett Gardner, Michael Bourn and Carl Crawford. Who is the fastest? (EDITOR’S NOTE: I’d add Peter Bourjos to that list.)
EY: You always have to believe in yourself, so I’m saying me. All those names can fly though. I enjoy watching all those other names play the game of baseball.
HALEY: If you were not playing baseball, what else could you see yourself doing?
EY: I can see myself as a barber.
HALEY: Any reason for number 1?
EY: Number 1 was my original number when I was 7 years old.
HALEY: Do you have any other nicknames then Base Burner or EY2?
EY: L’il EY.
HALEY: What was the difference playing winter ball in Hawaii and Venezuela?
EY: Hawaii is a state and Venezuela is another country. The difference in cultures is the biggest difference.
HALEY: What advice would you give to the young readers?
EY: Find what you’re special at and embrace it. I love to play ball and cut hair…so I’m giving it all I have.
My grand-dog. :) I think he’s also part Tibetan Spaniel.
This sleepy pup is my buddy Rilo. The rescue from which I adopted him thinks he is a Corgi-Cavalier King Charles Spaniel mix. Rilo is whip smart, very obedient, and is as happy playing hours upon hours of fetch as he is lounging around the house. All in all, he got the best of the breeds!
I am “old school” when it comes to certain things. Among those things? Having to read the newspaper — you remember those, right? — every morning with my coffee.
First I skim the sports and national/international news sections (sports: my eyes can’t read the agate as well as they used to so I tend to only stop on really great stories — see link below for one that ran today about newest Washington Wizard Cartier Martin — and save the boxscores for the internet; news: usually really depressing.)
I give a lot more attention to the Metro section — a combination of local news, some depressing, some uplifting, some just darn fascinating (one such story today, not available online, about the long tradition of the Washington, D.C.-area’s African-American “church ladies’” wearing of the wonderful hats on Sundays and especially on Easter — worth signing up for the Washington Post just to read this).
And en route to the back page for the 5-day weather forecast, I always look at the obituaries.
And I often see the face at the top of this entry looking back at me. Stoic, sensitive, ready to do his duty. A duty during which he was gunned down just over 15 years ago.
Brian T. Gibson, a Washington, D.C. police officer, died in the line of duty on Feb. 5, 1997, picked off for no reason while sitting in his police car at a red light.
His family has faithfully placed “In Memoriam” notices throughout the years ever since on special days — the anniversary of his passing, his birthday, special holidays. One ran again today from his sister.
I am no one to them, but I want them to know that as they faithfully remember him by placing these notices, they ARE sharing his loving memory. I remember him — I remember the day he died — and I thank them for continuing to make sure we all remember and respect his memory and thank him for the thankless job he did to try to make the rest of us safe.
http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,a,1233,q,539829.asp
Another great read from today was Rick Maese’s story about newest Wizard, Cartier Martin, who joined the team in late March on an elusive 10-day contract, scooped up from his D-League team in Iowa to fill in some empty spots caused by injuries. I won’t tell you how the story ends — you need to read it yourself — but it shines light into the itinerant world of the 10-day contract guys. If you don’t root for Martin, well, you’re just cold.