Album Review: "Modern Vampires Of The City" - Vampire Weekend

"Modern Vampires Of The City": B-.  Every once in awhile I like to get a small sample of the music that the Gen X and Y'ers are listening to these days.  The success of my sporadic experiments has been no better than hit and miss.  I often come away from a listening session wondering if, twenty-five years from now, there will be oldies stations dedicated to playing the sounds of the 2010's.  It stands to reason that the answer is "yes," especially if one considers the growth and popularity of satellite radio where there's a station for every taste, but I can't imagine today's music ever knocking the music of the '60's or '70's (or the '50's) off the air and into the dust bins, rarely to be played again.  I probably won't be around to find out if my prediction is true, unless I'm listening from that big juke joint in the sky.

There was a lot of buzz a couple of weeks ago surrounding Modern Vampires Of The City, the third album by Vampire Weekend, a four man band comprised of recent graduates of Columbia University.  The album debuted at # 1 on the Billboard charts (as did their second LP, Contra, three years ago), and garnered mostly positive responses from the critics.  One of the age-old questions about song writing is "which comes first, the lyrics or the melody?"  I have not seen that question asked or answered in media interviews of the band members, but I would be flabbergasted if, on this offering, the lyrics were not in place first.  Modern Vampires Of The City is replete with cross references to esoteric writings by philosophers and essayists, religion (notably Judaism and Islam), foreign cultures, and songs from the band's two earlier albums.  I am not criticizing that methodology.  The Beatles did the same thing, such as giving a nod to I Am The Walrus in Glass Onion and She Loves You in All You Need Is Love.  But the writing approach results in a record that demands careful listening and, if you're an eager beaver, a generous portion of due diligence research.  I will leave some of that for the younger crowd, clearly Vampire Weekend's fan base anyway, but I do enjoy lyrics that make you think.

The song getting the most attention is the fourth track, Diane Young.  Is this about a woman with that name, or a play on words "dying young"?  The smart money is on the latter interpretation, as anyone who's ever heard of the Ted Kennedy cover-up surrounding Chappaquiddick Island would spot the connection.

Irish and proud, baby, naturally

But you got the luck of a Kennedy

So grab the wheel and keep holding it tight

Til you're tottering off into that good night.

Perhaps it's purely coincidental, but some of the album was recorded at nearby Martha's Vineyard.

My favorite is Hannah Hunt, a story of the slow dissolution of a romantic relationship.  Once again, there is room for more than one interpretation, as the protagonist could be singing about a cross country road trip he took with his mate, or the trip could be a metaphor.  The singer looks at himself and his girl as a unit, but the longer he's with her the more he realizes that she considers herself singularly.

In Santa Barbara, Hannah cried amidst those freezing beaches 

I walked into town to buy some kindling for the fire

Hannah tore the New York Times up into pieces.

The most accessible song of the album's twelve tracks is Everlasting Arms, a song in which lead singer Ezra Koenig not only sounds, remarkably, like Paul Simon but which comes close to copying the bouncy base beats of Simon's You Can Call Me Al and Late In The Evening.  Like many other songs on MV, this one arguably has religious implications and can be deciphered to death.  My take is that the singer bemoans the fact that he cannot, in good conscience, accept the reality of a higher being, notwithstanding the rest of the world's willingness to do so.

Could I've been made to serve a master?

Well I'm never going to understand, never understand.

Another theme which crops up in MV is depression, or at least fatalism.  On Obvious Bicycle the advice is to "spare your face the razor because no one's gonna spare the time for you."  Why bother to freshen up your appearance?  It will not matter in this dog-eat-dog world.  On Unbelievers he sings:

The world is a cold, cold place to be.

Want a little warmth

But who's going to save

A little warmth for me?

Obvious Bicycle and Unbelievers are the first two tracks on the album.  Nothing like setting the mood right off the bat!  But even before you push "play," you can't help but notice the art on the CD cover.  It is a haunting photograph taken in 1966 by Neal Boenzi, showing an aerial view of New York City on the smoggiest day in that metropolis' history.  One hundred sixty-nine people died from the effects of the pollution.

Movie Review: "Before Midnight"

"Before Midnight": B-.  "Does this [insert any article of clothing or an accessory] make me look fat?"  How many guys would be dumb enough to answer in the affirmative to that question if posed to them by a member of the female persuasion?  Certainly not Jesse (Ethan Hawke), even though Celine (Julie Delpy) has been asking him that, or something of that ilk, throughout their many years together.  What really frustrates Celine is that she has met her match in Jesse, so she seldom has the satisfaction of a "gotcha" after one of their verbal sparring matches.  She is wont to ask him questions for which there is only one correct answer, and by "correct" I mean an answer after which the responder would not have to duck .  Jesse isn't always willing to play that game, and that leads to Celine's conclusion that he's holding back the truth that he doesn't want her to hear, at least not from him.

You already know from the first paragraph of my review of Les Miz (February 1, 2013) that I recognize the awesome responsibility of providing a fair review of movies in this blog.  I would not want to lead astray the thou... the hund... the handful of people who actually read what I post.  Therefore, in preparation for this review I re-watched Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) right before embarking to the Lagoon a few days ago to see Before Midnight.  Don't feel too sorry for me.  I own both of those flicks on DVD, and it was a pleasure to see them again.  (Sneak preview to my next Quarterly Review: I graded them A and A-, respectively.)  As is true of many movies which are the third in a series, it is not essential to watch the first two installments, but doing so anyway is highly recommend.  The next paragraph is a brief synopsis of the history of the protagonists' relationship leading up to Midnight.  I have attempted to cleanse the paragraph of spoilers.

In Sunrise, Jesse and Celine are in their early twenties, and meet cute on a train.  Jesse, an American with a Eurail pass, has a morning flight to catch out of Vienna, the next stop.  Celine, a French woman who once studied in the States, is heading home to Paris.  Jesse talks her into getting off the train with him to carry on the conversation they've been enjoying in the dining car.  The remainder of the movie follows them around as they relish each other's company, knowing that their time together is limited, to say the least.  In Sunset, it is nine years later, and Paris is the last stop on Jesse's whirlwind tour to promote his new book, a memoir which includes remembrances of a Viennese romance he once had with an anonymous girl.  Guess who is peering in through the window of the bookstore where Jesse is signing autographs?  Once again Jesse has a plane to catch and the clock is ticking.

Back to Midnight.  We are now in the present day.  Jesse and Celine are together, the parents of twin girls.  The family has been living in Paris, but this story takes place in the south of Greece where they have been vacationing with Jesse's fourteen year old son, Hank, for the past six weeks.  (Hank was referenced in Sunset, although we never saw him.)  The boy lives with his mother, Jesse's ex-wife, in Chicago, and it's now time for his return flight.  The conversation between father and son as Jesse walks Hank to the gate perfectly captures the relationship between a worrying parent and a young teenager who wants to dispense with the good-byes and just get on the plane.  The cleverly written dialogue ends with the kid reassuring his father that things will be okay by using the same words his father had uttered minutes ago.
 
Richard Linklater directed all three Jesse-Celine movies.  His style is to film very long scenes comprised almost entirely of dialogue.  Following the airport intro, the remainder of Midnight is comprised of four lengthly scenes, three of them limited to only Jesse and Celine, and one excrutiatingly long outdoor feast in which four couples of disparate ages drone on about personal observations, theories, anecdotes, and philosophies on life.  I have never been to a gathering of eight people where each person could speak uninterrupted because the other seven were mesmerized by what the person with the talking stick had to say.  But, for the characters involved here, good for them! 

One could legitimately ask, "How can you diss the dinner feast conversation in Midnight on one hand, and on the other speak so highly of Sunrise and Sunset?  After all, the conversations between Jesse and Celine in those first two movies fit that same general description."  Fair enough; I don't have a good answer.  For some reason I found the dialogue between the two friends in Sunrise and Sunset to be more natural and interesting than the conversations they shared in Midnight, and far more listenable than the dinner party prattling.  The words resonate more effectively in the first two movies than the new one.  In the first two films, the couple was up against the clock, thereby giving more urgency to the later scenes.  In Midnight, time is not of the essence (to coin a phrase), so the edge has to be supplied differently.  For the most part, that edge is the product of Celine's willingness to pick unwarranted fights.  I typically enjoy movies with good verbal jousting.  For example, I gave the extraordinarily well written (and acted) Carnage an A- (reviewed here on February 15, 2012).  Two of the keys to writing that kind of scene are (i) unless it is a comedy, the argument has to be over something relatively worth fighting for, and (ii) each of the participants has to make a good case for her position.  In Midnight, the first criterion is met (viz., the welfare of Hank) but the second is not.  On my scorecard, Jesse wins by a TKO in an early round.

Their big brouhaha emerges almost out of nowhere.  The day starts innocently enough as the happy couple leisurely strolls hand in hand through the ruins of the Peloponnese Islands.  This hearkens back to their first night together, when they wandered the streets of Vienna in Sunrise.  Once they reach their hotel things turn on a dime, however, as Celine takes a call from Hank, who is transferring planes in London.  After the call has ended, the gloves figuratively come off.  At the heart of the dispute is Jesse's desire to at least have a conversation with Celine about the possibility of moving to the US to be closer to Hank. Celine will not hear of it and starts issuing ultimatums, complete with non sequiturs.  In the heat of battle she uses the infamous Lloyd Bentsen debate strategy of hitting below the belt.  Jesse is emotionally wounded.  What will he do about it?  Equally as important, will there be a fourth chapter nine years hence?  Perhaps it will be titled Before Noon. 

As Sally Field might be inclined to say, I really really wanted this movie to be great.  The first two movies were excellent, and with Midnight we have a script co-authored by Linklater and the two stars.  All the pieces were in place, but I left the theater feeling a little disappointed.  In my favorite Bon Jovi song, In These Arms, he tells his girl that he needs her "like the poet needs the pain."  That lyric came to mind as I thought about Celine.  She has not felt the pain as she grew up comfortably, being educated at the Sorbonne and able to travel internationally while pursuing an ecology-related career, which has long been her passion.  The father of her daughters has devoted his life to her.  Part of her problem, as correctly perceived by Jesse, is that she wants sympathy even though he gave her everything she wanted, including living in Paris four thousand miles from his son.  When he tells Celine, "You're nuts" she does not like that.  Sometimes the truth hurts.  

Movie Review: "Mud"

"Mud": A-.  My decision to attend Oz The Great And Powerful (reviewed here on March 27, 2013) even though I did not previously care for James Franco turned out to be a good one.  Thinking I might be on a roll, I took a chance with Mud, despite my distaste for Matthew McConaughey, and came out a winner again.  What could be next? A Jane Fonda movie marathon?

From the first dialogue between fourteen year old Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his father, through the closing credits when we hear the Beach Boys' Help Me Rhonda for the second time, the pervading theme in this coming of age movie is this: Can you trust the love of a woman?  Ellis wants to believe the answer is yes, yet his folks are splitting, his own girlfriend is just toying with him, and the title character he befriends would clearly have been better off had he never met his Juniper (Reese Witherspoon).

 

Ellis and his constant companion, Nick (Jacob Lofland), are a couple of small town Arkansas kids.  Ellis lives in a houseboat docked along the river bank, and the two boys love to go exploring in a motorboat.  Their explorations lead them to a discovery of a small yacht which, somehow, is perched in the boughs of a tree on an island down river.  A few minutes later they meet a scruffy looking adult (McConaughey), who is packing a .45 in his belt.  Even though the man is obviously in hiding, a trusting relationship shortly ensues, and he openly tells them his life's story, although not all at once.  He has been living in the boat for the past few days, waiting for the right moment to rendezvous with Juniper.  Once they make it to the Gulf via the waterways of the South, no one will ever be able to find them.  To pull off the ambitious plan, he needs the help of the boys, enlisting them to bring him food and other supplies from town, and to courier notes to Juniper.  Nick isn't too sure aiding the man is a good idea, but the noble Ellis is hooked by the man's passion for his woman.  Nick is the pragmatist, Ellis the romanticist.  As the two boys are returning upriver to their homes, they realize that they don't even know the man's name.  They learn later it is Mud.

 

The next day when Ellis and his mother come upon a road block while driving on the highway, he finds out Mud is a wanted man .  The cops are searching for Mud, whom they believe is in the area.  Ellis disclaims any knowledge, and the cops won't tell Ellis what Mud allegedly did, but Mud describes his crime to the boys the next time they're on the island.  Mud says he murdered a man in Texas because he assaulted Juniper while she was pregnant.  Ellis is even more impressed with Mud after hearing the story, and resolves to do what he can, with Nick's help, to reunite Mud with Juniper.

 

The cops aren't the only group looking for Mud.  The dead man's father (Joe Don Baker) and brother have made it to the river town, and have assembled a team of bounty hunters to make a hit on Mud.  One of the few weaknesses of the story is that, except for the road block, the cops disappear altogether, giving the cold blooded killers free reign to hunt down their prey.

 

The superb Sam Shepard is a mystery man, Tom Blankenship,  who lives by himself across the wide river from Ellis.  He has a history with Mud as a father figure, but prefers to keep to himself.  Is he Mud's real father?  An assassin?  A special forces vet?  He gives advice to Mud and later to the boys.  Does it fall on deaf ears?  We wonder what part, if any, this character will have as things come to a boil in the final act.

 

The story reminded me a little of another coming of age movie which I enjoyed very much, 1971's Summer Of '42.  As is true in Mud, a group of young teenage boys stumble upon a bigger-than-life figure (beatific Jennifer O'Neill) who has detached herself from the crowd in a location (Nantucket Island) which is germane, if not essential, to the story, while she pines for her lover from whom she is separated by circumstances beyond her control (World War II).  Both '42 and Mud are the kind of movies the viewer will think about for days.  (The haunting theme song, alternatively titled Theme From "Summer Of '42" and The Summer Knows, from the earlier movie is one of the best of the pop/rock era).

 

There is no denying McConaughey is solid with his portrayal of the lovestruck fugitive.  I didn't think he was as good an actor as he proved to be in this movie.  But the real surprise is the spot-on work of young Tye Sheridan, a sixteen year old actor in just his second full length motion picture.  His part calls for the widest emotional range among the cast.  His handsome looks remind me of a young Paul Newman.  Mud is just as much Ellis' story as it is Mud's.

 

This is the best movie I've seen during the current movie year of February 2013 through January 2014.  I deliberated whether to give it an A, and doing so was my preliminary frame of mind upon leaving the theater.  I decided to reign that enthusiasm in a notch, though, mostly due to one other weakness (besides the one described four paragraphs above) for which I must give a spoiler alert.  I like watching Reese Witherspoon on the silver screen as much as any other red-blooded guy, but bearing in mind that Juniper has already been beaten up by the dead man's brother, once she has made her decision regarding whether to live the rest of her life with Mud, there is no reason for her to remain holed up in the town's motel, or anywhere else in town for that matter.  Yet there she is, whiling away the time, watching her little black and white TV in her low budget room, and puffing her cigarettes on the balcony with a view of the parking lot.      

Putting Pressure On The D

In my April 22d post (Manufacturing Runs) I wrote that when baseball people talk about manufacturing runs, aka "small ball," the three components of the game they are most often including are base stealing, the hit and run, and bunting.  The first two of those were the topics of that blog post, and you have been patiently waiting for my promised musings about the final piece.  Your wait is over.   

Although baseball is superior to any other team competition, it is similar to others with the concept that defense is the great equalizer.  No matter how many sluggers are in the opponent's lineup, they all (other than the DH, of course) have to go out on the field and play some defense; "D," to borrow a term from football lingo.  Customarily, teams concentrate on putting their most athletic, lithe, nimble, quick 'n' steady players in the middle positions (center field, shortstop and second), and place the big bangers at the corner spots (left field, right field, third base and first base).  The old axiom of "being strong up the middle" (meaning defensively) proves to be true more often than not, especially if you count the catcher as a key defensive player, notwithstanding the probability that he just might be the biggest guy on the team.  If a team plays good D, they will be competitive in most games, provided they get decent pitching.  

Keeping in mind that four of the defenders on the field are occupying corner positions, here is my definition of putting pressure on the D: Force one of the four corner guys to make a play that a middle fielder could do better.  The best way to create that pressure is with base runners.  Anyone who has ever put on a glove knows that there is a lot more pressure on the defense when there are runners on base.  Things get more complicated.  Quick decisions have to be made.  Better throws have to be executed.  In short, the defenders have to be on their toes, and their weaknesses are more likely to be exposed if they have to worry about, let alone deal with, base runners.  Generally, the corner guys are stick men, not glove men.  Their bread and butter is batting.  They do not want the ball hit to them.  When I coached baseball, one of the things that always brought a smile to my face was seeing the other team throwing the ball around (and away!) like a bunch of crazies.  It was usually brought on by the presence of my team's base runners.

Getting men on base is not easy.  Some observers have opined that hitting a round ball with a round bat is one of the hardest things to accomplish in team sports.  The distance from the rubber to the plate is only sixty feet, six inches, and by the time the pitcher has released the ball after striding to the plate, it's more like fifty-six feet. These days, a low 90's fast ball is considered merely second tier at the MLB level.  If a guy has a history of getting a base hit three out of every ten times up -- or put another way, he is unsuccessful 70% of the time -- he is an all-star.  If a team has to manufacture runs that means it must get runners into scoring position and figure out how to plate them.  (With apologies to all the chefs out there, I hate it when announcers make a verb out of "plate."  I just wrote that to make you squirm.)  It can't count on the long ball, and may not even be able to count on stringing several singles together.  (Remember, round ball and round bat.)  It has to get creative on offense, and bunting is an arrow in their quiver.

Types Of Bunts: I wrote on April 22 that there are four kinds of bunts.  The first is bunting for a base hit, and under certain circumstances is sometimes referred to as a "drag bunt" and sometimes called a "push bunt."  (I am periodically going to call all bunts attempted with the intention of achieving an infield hit "drag bunts" for the sake of convenience, even though, technically, a drag bunt label is only accurate if a left-handed batter runs at the ball as he is bunting and lays the ball down close to the first base line.  He and the ball are, in effect, running and rolling together down the line, as if he were dragging the ball with him.)  The goal of a drag bunt is to reach first safely, and almost always depends on the element of surprise.  The exceptions are with players like the Phillies' Ben Revere or the Angels' Peter Bourjos, for whom bunting is an integral part of their game.  The defense has to respect that very real possibility because those speedy players have bunting skill in their arsenals.  The corner infielders don't really want to move in too close; what if the batter swings away?  That is pressure on the defense.  Regarding other players who don't ordinarily bunt, they might lay one down anyway if they notice that the third baseman is playing deep, or if they are trying to break a hitting slump.  

Secondly, there is the sacrifice bunt.  Unlike the drag bunt where the primary goal is to reach first with an infield single, the purpose of a sacrifice bunt is to advance the runner(s).  The team is willing to give up an out (the batter getting thrown out at first) in exchange for moving the runner(s) up a base.  The batter is not charged with an "at bat," unless (i) he is fortunate enough to beat out the throw to first for a hit, or (ii) his bunt was unsuccessful and one of the runners is forced out.  In a sac bunt situation, the corner infielders will charge toward home as soon as they see the batter squaring around, if not before.  Once again, pressure.  The second baseman has to be ready to cover first to take the throw, as the charging first baseman will be out of position.  If the play started with a runner on second, the shortstop may go over to cover third base in case the throw is made there.  While the ball is still rolling, the catcher has to yell out which base his fielding teammate should throw to, because the catcher is the only one facing the runners.  Anytime a team can get defensive players out of their comfort zone (e.g., interior infielders running forty to fifty feet to cover first or third, or requiring the catcher to make a split second judgment), that is placing pressure on the D.

The third and fourth types of bunts, the suicide squeeze and the safety squeeze, are related and rare.  A suicide squeeze occurs when the runner from third starts running for home while the pitch is being delivered.  The runner is going full bore, not waiting to see if the batter makes contact.  The batter must get wood on the ball and place it at least ten feet from the plate so the catcher can't field it. If the batter misses the ball, the incoming runner will be dead meat, absent a wild pitch or a passed ball.  If the batter succeeds in laying down a bunt out of the range of a springing catcher, the run will score because whoever fields the ball will not have time to throw home to beat the runner.  The suicide squeeze play requires a verbal cue from the third base coach, and a signal from the batter that he knows the play is on.  If the batter does not so acknowledge, the play is off and the runner on third will not be coming home while the pitch is in the air.  The purpose of having the batter acknowledge the coach's cue is so that he doesn't decapitate the incoming runner with a swing.  So, for example, the cue word might be "gapper" and the acknowledgement might be tapping the cleats with the bat.  If the coach yells out, "Come on, Pete, we need a gapper," and the batter taps his cleats, the play is on and the runner should not have to worry about decapitation, impalement, or some other ghastly injury.

By comparison, a safety squeeze is much like a sui ("SOO-ee"), except the runner does not break all the way for home until he sees that the batter has laid down a bunt.  That is not to say the runner doesn't get a tremendous lead, maybe even half-way if the third baseman is playing toward the hole.  Just as was the case with a sui, the infielder who fields the bunt will not have time to throw home; the play will be at first.  To be safe, however, the bunter should avoid placing his bunt directly toward the pitcher.

Bunting Boo Boos: Watching American League pitchers attempting in vain to bunt in National League parks can provide much humor for the fans, but in their defense, they definitely are not the only players who are guilty of some, if not all, of the bunting mistakes I've witnessed as a player (ancient history), a coach and a fan over the years.  Here are seven and a-half that come to mind.

1. Depth In The Box: Standing too deep in the batter's box.  Watch the back foot of batters when they are swinging away.  It is usually touching the back line of the batter's box.  Some guys even try to plant their back foot behind that line, and the umps let them get away with it.  The reason for standing deep in the box is to give the hitter a nano-second more to identify the type and location of the pitch.  However, in sac bunting situations, a batter should move up in the box to lessen the likelihood of bunting a ball foul.  (As you no doubt know, once the count reaches two strikes, the next foul ball off a bunt attempt is a K.)   The farther up in the box you stand, the better your chances for keeping the bunted ball in fair territory, because there is less foul territory alongside you.  Too many bunters make the mistake of staying deep in the box while attempting to lay down a sacrifice.   

2. Squaring Around: Squaring around instead of using a drop step.  Even though "squaring around to bunt" is part of the baseball lexicon, a bunting batter is better off not completely squaring around, but rather taking a small step back with his right foot as he levels his bat (subject to # 4 below).  This is the only time when "stepping in the bucket" is a good idea, and it is especially important if the batter is bunting for a base hit.  (A lot of young players step in the bucket all the time because they are afraid of getting hit by the ball.)  The reason for stepping in the bucket during the bunting process is to enable the batter to take a quicker first step as he is making contact with the ball.  Think of a track sprinter's starting blocks; one foot is behind the other, not even with it.

3. Eye/Bat Separation: Failing to keep a constant distance between the eyes and the bat.  The distance from the batter's eyes to his horizontal bat should remain the same throughout the bunt attempt.  If the batter needs to lower the bat to reach the pitch, he should do so with his knees (by crouching), not with his arms and hands.  Too many players make the mistake of lowering the bat by bringing their hands down without crouching.  The result of that approach is that his eyes are too far from the bat.

4. Bat End: Failing to keep the business end higher than the knob.  Like any stick, a baseball bat has two ends.  They are the handle/knob and the barrel.  A bunter needs to keep the barrel slightly elevated.  This helps him get the ball on the ground.  One of the worst things a bunter can do is to pop up a bunt attempt, because not only is that an easy out, but the runner is then more vulnerable to getting doubled off the bag.  

5. Perfection: Trying to execute the perfect bunt, when a merely decent bunt will get the job done.  Too many players make the mistake of trying to lay down the bunt within a foot or two of the baseline, i.e., attempting a perfectly placed bunt.  Unless the batter is an excellent bunter, that approach will result in too many foul balls.  What I believe is a smarter approach is to pay attention to the pitcher's follow-through while you're in the on-deck circle.  Then, bunt more toward the middle of the diamond away from the side the pitcher is falling toward in his follow-through.  Don't forget, a pitcher has to come off the mound to get to the ball, and that is harder than it looks.  

6. Punching:  Punching at the ball instead of keeping the bat stationary.  The idea behind most bunt attempts is to deaden the ball.  Too many players make the mistake of punching or poking at the ball, instead of letting the ball come to the bat.  The two-fold problem with punching the ball is (i) too many pop ups result, and (ii) a punched bunt gets to the fielder too fast. 

7. Sweet Spot:  Failing to hit the bunt above the sweet spot.  Unlike the aluminum bats which high school and college players get to use, the wooden bats required by MLB have a relatively small sweet spot, a range of a few inches about half-way between the label and the barrel's end.  Ordinarily, a batter will try to hit the pitch off the sweet spot.  When you hear an announcer proclaim, "He got all of that" or "He hit it on the screws," chances are overwhelming that the ball came off the coveted sweet spot.  However, when you're trying to lay down a bunt, you do not want to hit the pitch off the sweet spot, because the best bunts are soft rollers.  In addition to what I wrote in # 6 above, another way to achieve the desired deadening effect on a bunt is to attempt to have the ball hit the bat above the sweet spot, i.e., close to the end of the barrel.  The resulting deadening effect is what you're hoping for.       

7.5  The Count:  Bunting too early in the count. I list this as a "half boo boo" because I would excuse a player from committing this sin if he was not a rather accomplished bunter.  But, for the best bunters, I would hope they could work the count before picking a pitch on which to square around.  There are three reasons for this wishful thinking.  First, by taking a pitch or two (or more), the batter is giving his teammate-baserunner a chance to steal.  If the runner can advance by stealing a base, why waste an out with a sac bunt?  Second, the hardest pitch to bunt is a high fastball; the easiest to bunt is a low off-speed pitch.  The more the batter can work the count, the better the odds that he will eventually see an easier pitch to hit than the high cheese.  Third, the longer the batter waits to bunt, the more indecision there is on the part of the defense, especially the corner infielders who may not be too keen on the idea of charging toward the plate if it looks like the batter isn't going to bunt.  Unlike hockey players, baseball players value their teeth too much to be extreme daredevils.      

Movie Review: "The Sapphires"

"The Sapphires": B+.  One of the keys to success for any movie about a small group of people -- be they singers, soldiers, cowboys, roommates or office co-workers -- is that the story must develop the characters at least to the point where each is not merely a support player or a cardboard one-dimensional stereotype.  Two old successful films about music which immediately come to mind as good examples are the Tom Hanks movie from 1996, That Thing You Do, involving a fictitious band comprised of friends from Erie, PA, and A Hard Day's Night (1964) featuring the Beatles, four mop tops you may have heard of from Liverpool.  The Sapphires only modestly succeeds in that regard, but it certainly has other saving graces which render it an enjoyable interlude from a busy week.  For one, it has the best sound track of any movie since 1983's The Big Chill.  (Okay, it's pretty tough to top the music from Les Mis (2012), but is that really comparing apples to apples?)

The Sapphires are a singing group comprised of four sisters originally from an Australian Aboriginal reservation.  I write "originally" because one of the four, Kay (Shari Sebbens), has been kidnapped from her home and brought to the city as a young girl, to be raised by a white family of means.  The movie viewers are advised before the opening credits that this practice was allowed under Australian law in the last century, the unforgivable rationale being that the child's welfare was enhanced by such a practice.  Those youngsters, who like Kay were targeted because of their comparatively fair-toned skin, are collectively referred to as the "lost generation."  We find out a little later in a flashback that the two young girls we saw running through the fields and jumping barbed wire fences were Kay and her older sister Gail (Deborah Mailman), attempting to escape the clutches of the men who succeeded in taking Kay to the city.

The story moves quickly.  In the first act, Gail and Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell) are preparing to head into town to compete in a talent show venued in a theater owned by a bigoted proprietor, who has hired whiskey swilling and homeless David Lovelace (Chris O'Dowd) to host the pageant and provide musical accompanyment on keyboards.  Half-way through their song, youngest sister Julie (Jessica Mauboy), who had been told by her mother and Gail to stay home, crashes the party and turns the duo into a trio.  Even before Julie chimed in the girls were clearly the best act in the show; Julie is the icing on the cake.  Although the contest is rigged, favoring the inferior white competition, the girls don't remain losers for long.  Notwithstanding his mildly inebriated condition, David is lucid enough to recognize the three sisters as the real thing, bona fide talent, and before you know it he has become their manager and has used his connections to land his charges a gig in Viet Nam entertaining US troops.

A quick pace usually serves a comedy well, and this movie, although not intended as a knee-slapper, is fairly labeled in that genre.  However, some of the scenes which one might expect to be developed a little more are very brief.  For example, all it takes for Gail and Cynthia to convince Kay she should drop her lavish surroundings and her white bread friends to join them in war-torn Viet Nam is a one minute stare down outside a Tupperware party.  When David gets up the gumption to break the news to Gail that she has the weakest voice among the quartet, and should therefore surrender lead singer duties to Julie, Gail needs only a few seconds to digest the news and accede.  The attractions between David and Gail and between Kay and a GI seem too hurried and unlikely, reminding me of some old Elvis movies in which he immediately falls for every girl who looks at him, and vice versa.

In spite of its shortcomings, this is a feel good, spirited and upbeat movie.  In addition to the superb music, the casting of O'Dowd  as David is a home run.  I loved his performance.  His sad sack countenance and Irish brogue mesh perfectly with the funny lines he delivers.  The role calls for an actor who can turn from being an irresponsible mess who sleeps in his car to a well-connected judge of talent.  At first we wonder how four intelligent women can place their personal safety amidst war zone fighting into the hands of a ne'er do well like David.  But the more responsibility he has on his plate, the more he rises to the occasion.  He is helping the "girls" start a career, and in turn, their relationship enables him to get his life together.  David is also given one of the best lines in the movie.  He must convince the performers to abandon the country & western songs they've grown up singing in favor of the soul music which their military audience prefers.  In comparing the difference between C & W and soul, David explains that both country music and soul are about loss, but in the former "they've given up and they are just all wining about it.  In soul music they are struggling to get it back.  They haven't given up."

One public service announcement.  I spent the first fifteen minutes of the movie (following the opening credits) thinking that Gail was the mother, instead of the oldest sister.  It turns out that maybe my perception wasn't so far off base.  According to the bios of the four Australian actresses who play the sisters, Deborah Mailman (Gail) is twelve years older "in real life" than the next oldest of the remaining three.  Don't be fooled like I was.  

Sojourn In Sudsville

Momma Cuandito and I made our twelfth annual trip to Milwaukee last week to see the Twins take on the Milwaukee Brewers.  To be precise, this was the twelfth year in a row we've gone to Milwaukee to see Major League baseball, and the eleventh time we've seen the Twins versus the Brew Crew there.  The exception was two years ago when we saw the Brewers play the Cubbies instead of the Twins because the daughter of one of Mary's close friends had the audacity to schedule her wedding on the same weekend we otherwise would have followed the Twins to Sudsville.  The Twins-Brewers face off this year was a battle for the ages, as both teams were in last place in their respective divisions.

Our frequent traveling partners, Admiral Bob and Madame Cipolle, were unable to join us for the festivities; something about a little car race in Indy on the same weekend.  Nevertheless, Momma Cuan and I still managed to enjoy ourselves, as we always do in the beer drinking capital of North America, Milwaukee.  Here are some reflections on our excursion.

* We have been staying the past several years at the Ambassador Hotel, a renovated art deco structure which sits on the very western edge of downtown.  Two blocks to the east is Marquette University, home of the Warriors (I mean, the Golden Eagles).  Two blocks to the west is the hood.  There are two main features which attract us to the Ambassador.  First, the hotel runs a shuttle service for its guests, taking them anywhere within a four mile radius.  In all the years we've stayed at the Ambassador, we have only desired transportation to three or four places outside that radius, in which case we've driven ourselves or taken a cab.  Our usual M.O. is to park our car in the hotel lot when we arrive, and not get in it again until departure day.  Two of our three favorite hotel employees are shuttle drivers, Santiago and Sam, who have been working that job for several years.  Santiago, a bald headed philosopher with a ring in his ear, has the unique ability to tell you his life story and cures for the world's ills, all within the duration of a ten minute ride.  He is a guitarist and loves his motorcycle.  If he had a patch over an eye he could pass for one of Captain Hook's pirates.  Sam is a retired Milwaukee city fire fighter who took early retirement but decided working part-time as a driver was better than trying to keep up with his honey-do list around the house.  Sam and his wife have a cabin near Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, and he told us it's bigger than his residence in Milwaukee.  Thank God for defined benefit pensions for public employees!  Sam's best talent is the ability to give his passengers the low down on all the Milwaukee eateries, watering holes and attractions.  He has never given us a bum steer. 

The Ambassador's other main feature which is a big plus for us is the hotel bar, aka the Envoy Lounge.  It is here that you'd find the third of our favorite employees, Chris.  He is what I think of as the model bartender, because he is attentive without being annoying, he knows how to fix a mixed drink, and he's not stingy filling up the wine or draught beer glass.  Either he remembered Momma Cuan and me from our previous stays, or he is a very good actor.  When you return to the hotel after an evening on the town, it is nice to have the option of enjoying a nightcap in the Envoy before calling it a night.  A word of caution, however: Don't order a Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey unless you're willing to fork over fourteen smackers for the shot.  That sticker shock reminded me of why I'm a beer drinker.

One thing we didn't know about the Ambassador before this most recent visit: They have a pillow menu.  If you don't like the pillows they put in your room, select a different one from the pillow menu and the housekeeping people will fulfill your request.  We started out with medium fiber-filled, and ended up with soft down-filled.  To my knowledge, I have never stayed in a place that offered that service, but then for the rate I usually pay at the Motel 6, you can't have everything.  

* On Monday evening we were waiting with another couple from Boston for the shuttle to take us downtown. They appeared to be about our age.  We struck up a conversation for a few minutes before boarding.  When the van pulled up, Mary and I crawled onto far back bench seat, and as the Bostonians got into the middle seat the guy noticed that I had my arm around Mary.  The man jokingly asked, "Say, do you know that woman you're sitting with?" to which I replied, "Only for forty-one years."  With that, his female companion turned around and exclaimed, "No!  You two aren't old enough to know each other that long!"  When we told them we'd been married for thirty-seven years, she still had an incredulous look.  That made my day, even though she was undoubtedly focusing more on Mary.

* We discovered a new bar to patronize before heading to Miller Park.  Saz's is located on State Street, about two miles directly north of the stadium and a stone's throw west of the huge Miller Brewery.  Saz's strong suit is barbecue ribs, and the beer selection is impressive.  We sat in the bar area, which has the feel of a neighborhood gathering spot that gets busy in a hurry when the regulars show up.  The bar itself is circular and small enough to facilitate chatter among most of the stool occupants.  In addition to the bar area, there are two other dining rooms.  The walls in every room are covered with Wisconsin sports posters, pictures and other memorabilia, including several framed autographed jerseys from professional athletes with local ties.  Saz's runs little buses to Miller Park, leaving about every ten to fifteen minutes.  On Tuesday night we took the Ambassador shuttle to Saz's, then after a tasty rib dinner took Saz's bus to the game, and returned to the Ambassador on the hotel bus after the game.  Incidentally, we did not get back to the Ambassador until shortly after midnight, and the Envoy was closing up.  But, our buddy Chris snuck us in.  What a guy!

* I suppose I should write something about the two games we saw, since that was the main reason for our trip.  The Twins won both contests, but some of the things that struck me as noteworthy had nothing directly to do with the game action itself.  For instance, the first game was a Memorial Day matinee, and the teams wore camouflage caps honoring the military.  Before the singing of the National Anthem, the Twins lined up along the third base line, and then the Brewers came out of their dugout and lined up on the first base line.  The cool thing was that former Twin Carlos ("Go Go") Gomez walked over to Twins manager Ron Gardenhire and shook his hand before joining his fellow Brewers.  That was an unscripted classy move that seemed to take Gardy by surprise.  The several thousand Twins fans in Milwaukee that day cheered for Go Go every time he came up.  He has always been a fan favorite in the Twin Cities, and he is a better ball player now than he was as a youngster with the Twins.  (Going into the series, he was hitting .326.)  Coincidentally, in Monday's game Go Go creamed two monstrous home runs, including one that traveled over 450 feet.

The Tuesday game started at 7:10 p.m., lasted fourteen innings, and did not end until 11:53.  I've got to give a tip of the cap to Momma Cuan, who hung in there for every pitch.  The paid attendance for the game was 24,415, and I would estimate that only around 10,000 were around to see the final inning.  Miller Park-- and before that, Milwaukee County Stadium-- is famous for the sausage races which take place before the bottom of the sixth inning.  Five humans donning sausage mascot costumes trot around the perimeter of the infield, and the crowd goes nuts.  To reward the die-hard fans who did not leave early, a second sausage race was conducted before the bottom of the twelfth inning!  I'm not sure what the odds were on the Daily Double, but for the record the winners were Italian Sausage (Guido) and Hot Dog (Frankie Furter).  We also did a 14th inning stretch as the organist played "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" for the second time that night.

The extra sausage races and the extra inning "stretch" weren't the only new visual experiences for me on Tuesday night.  I saw something else which was out of the ordinary and could only happen in a National League park.  Usually when a manager has two pitchers warming up in the bullpen, one is a righty and the other is a southpaw.  Sometimes it's because the manager is unsure at what point he's going to need to pull his pitcher, and sometimes it's because he is planning on using both relief pitchers on back-to-back hitters hitting from opposite sides of the plate.  The extraordinary phenomenon I witnessed occurred in the bottom of the fourth inning.  The Twins were winning 4 to 0 going into the Brewers' bottom half of the inning, but Twins starting pitcher Scott Diamond, who had been brilliant for the first three innings, all of a sudden hit a wall and could not get back his rhythm.  He gave up hits to five of the first six hitters he faced in the 4th, and before you could say "Great seats, eh buddy?" the score was 4 to 3 with the tying run on second and only one out.  Gardy looked like he needed a stiff drink.  Pitching coach Rick Anderson was trying to avoid making eye and audio contact with Gardy.  The Twins had two pitchers frantically getting ready in the bullpen, but unlike what would be happening if the game were in an AL park, both guys warming up were right handed pitchers.  I figured out why, and shared my observation with MC, whose response was "oh."  If your response would be the same if you had the misfortune of having to sit next to me at a baseball game, you should skip the next paragraph.

Here is why the Twins were warming up two right handed pitchers simultaneously in the bullpen.  The pitcher (9-hole) was due to lead off the top of the 5th for the Twins.  If Gardy replaced Diamond before he could get out of the near-disastrous 4th, the new pitcher would probably be replaced by a pinch hitter in the Twins' half of the 5th, and a second reliever would have to be utilized to pitch in the bottom of the fifth.  Thus, the Twins would have burned through an extra pitcher for the sole purpose of relieving Diamond.  The next two Brewers batters (Yuniesky Betancourt and Alfredo Figaro) scheduled to face Diamond in the fourth were right handed batters, so Gardy had one righty (Ryan Pressly) ready to be called in to get out of the inning, and a second righty (Casey Fien) to start the 5th after Pressly would be lifted for a pinch hitter.  As it turned out, Diamond got out of the inning without further damage by inducing Betancourt to hit into a 5-4-3 double play, but it was clear that Gardy was ready to come out with the hook if Betancourt had reached.  In an American League park, where pitchers don't bat, the need to warm up two right-handed (or for that matter, left-handed) pitchers at the same time would not exist. 

The Twins' winning run was scored in the top of the 14th inning on a sacrifice fly by pinch hitter Eduardo Escobar.  His heroic launch came at about 11:35.  Prior to that, he had been sitting in the dugout for almost four and a half hours, waiting for his turn to get into the game.  

* I have probably driven the Minneapolis to Madison stretch of Interstate 94 about 300 times.  Attending college in Indiana, visiting friends and assorted rellies in Chicago, having a daughter, The Beanschwagel, living in Madison and Milwaukee, and another daughter, JR Sacejewea, living in the Windy City, not to mention baseball games in Sudsville and occasional football games in The Bend and Mad City, necessitated lots of those trips.  I have tried many a bar and restaurant (diners, drive-ins & dives, to coin a phrase) along the way.  No blog post about a trip to Milwaukee would be complete without at least mentioning my two current (and long-time) favorite spots on the route.  The first is the Norske Nook, located in Osseo, Wisconsin, eighty-eight miles southeast of the St. Croix River and therefore easily found off of Exit # 88.  The three best reasons to have lunch at Norske's are butterscotch cream pie, banana cream pie and sour cream raisin pie.  Sometimes we put in our order for dessert before we order the entree, just to make sure it's sitting there waiting for us when we've finished our hot turkey sandwiches or Swedish meatballs.

Our other go-to place is Monk's Bar in the heart of downtown Wisconsin Dells.  The Dells isn't just for getting a piercing or tattoo any more!  There is no need to deliberate over Monk's attractive menu.  Just order a cheeseburger with mushrooms and fries, and you are set.  I originally thought that the tastiness of Spotted Cow on tap, which I typically use to wash down my burger, might be affecting my judgment.  But no!  On this last visit I went sans suds (diet Coke with a lime, instead), and I still place Monk's burger at the top of my Wisconsin Burger List.  And everyone knows, Wisconsin makes the best hamburgers in the country.