What a Card

Sports Illustrated published an article recently about Ken Griffey, Jr.'s 1989 Upper Deck baseball card, the holy grail of rookie cards at the time.  The article discussed the sharp decline of the baseball card industry that started in the early 90's.  In 1986, when I first started collecting cards, there were three companies that dominated the market: Topps, Donruss, and Fleer.  Within 3 years, there were countless imitators with countless gimmicks - Sportflics, Upper Deck, Score, et al. - as well as premium line extensions from the big three that completely saturated the market.

I collected so many cards that I figured I'd be rolling in the dough by now.  Back in the day, the Beckett Baseball Card guide valued common players' cards from the 50's and 60's at $ 5.00 or better per card.  I used to buy cards constantly under the assumption that I was planning ahead financially.  I don't even know where you can buy baseball cards anymore.  There used to be no shortage of card shops and shows, and even the most bare bones gas station would have packs for sale - mostly Topps, complete with the stale, waxy stick of gum that would leave a grease mark on the last card in the pack if it sat on the shelf too long.  These days, Topps has a corner on the market, having inked a deal with Major League Baseball that gives the company exclusive rights to team trademarks and logos.  I know Topps doesn't have all of their eggs in the baseball card basket, but I would be concerned about the viability of a product with limited demand and no competition.

The promise of a young rookie used to be the primary driving force behind demand.  Ninety percent of the time, the rookie would either be a bust in the majors or at most have a couple of big years before a bigger decline.  Do any of these names ring a bell? Chris Sabo, Todd Van Poppel, Wally Joyner, Matt Nokes, Gregg Jefferies...anyone...anyone?  Yet these were the stars of tomorrow that drove kids to blow every dime they had on a pack of cards.  Snag just one of these prospects preserved on cardboard, and you'd easily get a return on the 50 cents that you paid for the pack; mostly, the rookies and star players would be valued around a dollar or two.  The exception was the Griffey Upper Deck rookie card.  At the time, it would've been worth around $ 25. 

The Griffey card is arguably the card of a generation.  Even though the average price still hovers close to the original value, a quick search on Ebay found that the card is currently being auctioned for up to $ 2500, depending on the "grade" (sports card grading is a relatively new money racket that charges you to have your cards officially graded).  I never got my Griffey.  I could have easily purchased one individually, but I couldn't abandon the thrill of the chase.  Tearing open a random pack of cards and finding "the one" would've been like finding Willie Wonka's golden ticket.  And though the Golden Griffey never showed up in my stacks, I have some very fond memories of the pursuit. 

Movie Purge: December

My attention span is short, and I will almost always fall asleep during a movie - at home or in the theater, it doesn't matter.  This isn't the fault of the films I'm watching, because I've dozed during some really good ones.  I'm just wired so that once I get settled, I can (and will!) fall asleep faster than any human being you've ever met.  When I was 14, I went on a school trip to New York, and for some reason, the adults thought it would be a good idea to take teenagers to see A Secret Garden on Broadway.  I remember nothing about the show - only being woken up by an usher because I was snoring.  So given my reputation, you should be impressed that, within the past 30 days, I've seen a few movies from start to finish.

The Proposal - A romantic comedy that I expected to be the stale, stereotypical chick flick - the kind of movie that's kept the careers of Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey afloat.  But, while The Proposal doesn't break new ground, it's actually not an awful movie.  Sandra Bullock plays Margaret Tate, a bitchy, high-powered book editor, and Ryan Reynolds plays her office lackey, Andrew Paxton.  When Tate (a Canadian) is threatened with deportation over a green card issue, she is forced to feign an engagement with Paxton to stay in the country.  The plot line is highly predictable, but some pretty big laughs come from the awkward discomfort and embarrassing moments when the two try to pass off the relationship as legit to Paxton's family.  This is one of those movies that will be playing in perpetuity on TBS or on your preferred airline.  Better than expected, I'll give it a C+.

American Swing -  Documentaries are the exception to my movie snoozing rule.  I'm much more easily drawn to a film that has some basis in reality.  American Swing chronicles the rise and fall of Plato's Retreat, a New York swingers club in the 70's and 80's.  The film includes extensive interviews with former employees and patrons, and documents the evolution of free love as an accepted practice.  This movie captures the hedonistic nightclub scene of the '70s that's likely never to return, and although there's something a bit disturbing about listening to senior citizens reminisce about wife swapping, this film appeals to the voyeur in all of us.  B 

Paranormal Activity - The grassroots buzz on this movie and the home video shooting style drew comparisons to The Blair Witch Project.  The comparisons should stop there.  I thought Blair Witch didn't live up to the hype, but Paranormal has stuck with me longer than any horror film since The Shining.  The premise is that Micah and Katie, a live-in couple, are being haunted by strange nighttime happenings that date back to Katie's childhood.  In an effort to determine exactly what is going bump in the night, Micah purchases a video camera and shoots 24/7 in hopes of catching the spooky activity on film.  To give any more detail here would be a spoiler, but let's just say it moves from spooky to downright scary. The first half of the film is slow, but once it gets in gear, it will definitely have you on the edge of your seat and replaying scenes in your head for hours afterward.  A solid A-.

Facing The Habit -  This movie plays like an overly long and more depressing episode of the A&E series Intervention.  The documentary follows Dave, a former millionaire who's now addicted to heroin, broke, and running out of options to get clean.  He heads south of the border to undergo treatment with Ibogaine, a plant-based African "drug."  While the focus is mostly on Dave's struggles, there are testimonials from recovering addicts who have gotten clean on Ibogaine.  The recovering addicts and a few medical "experts"argue that Ibogaine is the most effective method of treatment for addiction.  The problem is that the film, at times, comes across as an endorsement or infomercial for the treatment.  C.

Hey Man, Remember the 2000s?

Another decade is about to go down the tubes, and as usual there will be year-end lists, decade retrospectives, and VH1 specials ad nauseum.  I don't know why, but I'm a sucker for lists.  The organization and segmentation of  lists appeals to the obsessive-compulsive madman in me, and I like to wax nostalgic too, so I'm always drawn to a wealth of meaningless information that I'd have otherwise forgotten to reflect on in the first place.  That must be why I enjoyed Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" so much.  The lists linked below are my personal favorite best- and worst-of lists (so far).

40 Things That Were Popular At The Beginning Of The Decade That Aren't Popular Anymore
The Best Documentaries Of The Decade
10 Worst Things About The Worst Decade Ever
Best Products, Services, & Technologies Of The Decade
100 Best Albums Of The Decade
The Worst Hollywood Remakes Of The Decade
The Decade's Best TV Moments
10 Most Memorable Sports Moments Of The Decade
The Worst Photoshop Disasters Of The Decade
50 Best Movies Of The Decade
Biggest Technology Flops Of The Decade

The Boss in the Queen City

I had the opportunity to see Bruce Springsteen in Charlotte last month, the second time on the 2009 tour, and my fourth Boss show in all.  If you've never seen Bruuuuuuce in concert, do yourself a favor and make it happen.  It's the highest energy, purest rock & roll show you'll see, and at 60 years old, the Boss surely won't be keeping it up much longer.  Inevitably, you won't hear every song you're hoping for, but you will never leave thinking the E Street Band didn't give 110%.  The band was tight, and the acoustics in Time Warner Cable Arena are great - the best I've heard in an arena venue.  On a side note, take advantage and support live music at the TWC Arena if you ever get an opportunity, because I don't know how much longer the Charlotte Bobcats will be able to keep the doors open.

As usual, the concert itself was stellar.  On this second leg of the North American tour, the "gimmick" each night has been for Bruce & the band to perform one of their historic albums in it's entirety and in sequence.  The only minor issue that I have with this is that it makes 8 to 10 songs on the setlist predictable and, even though you know you're going to hear the better parts of any particular album anyway, the unpredictability of an E Street Band show is a big part of their appeal for me.  In Charlotte, Bruce played the Born to Run album.  There were no disappointments, though by the time he played his final song (3+ hours after taking the stage), my wife was ready to call it a night.  The highlights of the evening:

Darlington County: This or Cadillac Ranch is a staple at any Carolina show.  It was the second song of the night and set an up-tempo mood.

Hungry Heart: This was only 3 songs into the show, and Bruce walked through the floor-level crowd, belting out this classic and then crowd surfed back to the stage!

Backstreets:  One of my favorites -- I hadn't heard it in concert before.

Jungleland:  I always felt that the album version of this one dragged on a little too long, but seeing the musicianship come together on stage converted me. It was awesome.

I Fought The Law: This is one of my favorite early rock songs.  It was an audience request that Bruce and the band absolutely nailed.

Hard Times:  I'd heard this one in Greensboro back in May.  It was written in 1854, and is as timely now as ever.  This was my wife's favorite song of the show.

Rosalita:  This was another live first for me.  It's a bit long too, so it was around this time that my wife began to yawn (it was also 3 hours into the show).  The complete setlist is below:

November 3, 2009 / Time Warner Cable Arena / Charlotte, NC
Seeds
Darlington County
Hungry Heart
Working on a Dream
Thunder Road
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Night
Backstreets
Born to Run
She's the One
Meeting Across the River
Jungleland
Waitin' On A Sunny Day
I Fought The Law
Sherry Darling
So Young and In Love
Brown Eyed Girl
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Badlands
Hard Times
Bobby Jean
American Land
Dancing in the Dark
Rosalita
Higher and Higher

A Helpful Household Hint

Are you like me? Have you ever wondered how you could get a new dress shirt to look like it had been dragged through the inside of a potato chip bag?  Well, I've found that it's easier than you'd think! 

1. Purchase one tube of Burt's Bees natural lip balm
2. Place balm in pocket of your blue jeans
3. Put jeans in washing machine (I prefer Kenmore)
4. This is the most important step!  Once thoroughly rinsed and spun, transfer jeans (taking care to ensure balm is still in pocket) into dryer and crank up to high heat
5. Allow ample time for balm to slip out of pocket, melt thoroughly, and coat dryer items with leopard-like grease spots

Voila!  Your clothes are now worthless, but you'll have a clean conscience when you recycle the empty tube.

I Hate Dummies

In the glory days of the Sears Wish Book (back when it was bigger than the phone directory), I would pore over the pages and drool over things that would never be mine. There were two things in particular that I consistently hoped for in the early 80's - a snowmobile and a ventriloquist's dummy. With an average statewide snowfall of 5 inches per year in North Carolina, I can't, in hindsight, justify my desire for a snowmobile. It would've been more rational to have wished for snow. The dummies in the Wish Book were largely celebrity - Laurel and/or Hardy, Howdy Doody, Mortimer Snerd, Charlie McCarthy, etc. I was too young to know about the so-called "art" of throwing one's voice, so I just thought they were puppets.  And besides, my friend Adam had a Howdy Doody dummy in elementary school, so it wasn't far-fetched that Santa may bring me one.  Well, guess what?  He didn't.  I have since realized that what evolved into a disdain for ventriloquism might've started out as a case of sour grapes.

My earliest exposure to ventriloquism was through Willie Tyler & Lester, although a few years passed before I realized that Willie Tyler did not play Lamont on Sanford & Son (although you have to admit that you've never seen a photo of Willie Tyler and Lamont Sanford in the same place at the same time).  Willie & Lester shilled for Maxwell House coffee, Toyota, Vietnam Veteran's Outreach, and everything in between.  The ads were clearly aimed at an adult market, so what I need now is a concise explanation (or apology) from the respective ad agencies.  I really think they owe it to me personally.  If you ever purchased a car because you were influenced by a wooden toy, then you're unbelievably dumb, and I don't want to know you.

Wayland Flowers & Madame were another hacky ventriloquist act best known from Hollywood Squares.  Madame was a creepy doll that eerily resembled Joan Rivers, if Joan Rivers were less synthetic.  Their humor leaned toward the risque, and even though I can't recall any particulars of their act, it's safe to assume they were quite the unfunny duo.  They had the stereotypical look of a stale Vegas act, and I can picture them in their heyday bringing down the house at Harrah's, complete with Japanese tourists eager to return to the Orient with tales of bright lights and puppetry in the Western world.

Fast forward to present day and, wouldn't you know it, ventriloquism just won't die; in fact, it's on the upswing.  My sister-in-law ruffled my feathers recently when she raved over Jeff Dunham.  I think she was surprised at just how irritated the mention of a dummy (with a dummy) made me.  Dunham's premiere of The Jeff Dunham Show on Comedy Central drew an astonishing 5 million viewers, and he reportedly earned $30 million last year.  I know that sounds like pocket change, but it's really not that bad for a ventriloquist.  I seriously tried to watch an episode of Dunham's show, and in less than 60 seconds, I was seething with a mixture of rage, shame, and embarrassment.  Let it be known that my sister-in-law is dead wrong! There are no laughs to be had on this show.  None.

From my perspective, a ventriloquist's dummy is largely a crutch,  a prop to hide behind in case the comedy just isn't that good.  Funny is funny.  It's also subjective, I know, so I certainly wouldn't make a blanket statement to indict all ventriloquists as unfunny.  But if the comedy's good enough to get an honest laugh, it's probably good enough to be delivered sans a puppet. Good jokes, and comedians, should stand on their own.