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. 

The Mannahatta Project

In September's National Geographic, there was an interesting article about a landscape ecologist who has digitally recreated an exhaustively detailed map of Manhattan as Henry Hudson would've found it 400 years ago.  He and his team essentially worked backward from the present day, superimposing a current street grid of Manhattan over a Revolutionary War era map, and then stripping away all of the manmade elements, leaving the island as untouched as it would've been in 1609.  They also worked in great detail to identify the wildlife within the ecosystem by creating a network of flora and fauna that had to have relied on the other for existence.  I'm glad that there are folks out there that work on projects like this for the enjoyment of rubes like me.

Read the National Geographic article here - http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/09/manhattan/miller-text
Learn more about the project, and explore the map in detail, here (you can even enter any Manhattan address and see what it would've looked like 400 years ago) - http://themannahattaproject.org/home/

Halloween Bonus Track

For your Halloween listening pleasure, enjoy this parody of piety. 

(Link)

On Trick-Or-Treating

October 31 has never been much more than just another day for me.  My formative years found me more likely to overdose on "meat and three" rather than staying up until the witching hour to unwrap all of my neighbors' cast-off candies.  Besides that, my grandad owned a country store where I was more than welcome to take all of the Butterfingers that I could handle, so I became numb to the lure of chocolate bars.

Growing up in rural NC, the trick-or-treatees were few and far between.  The concept of a subdivision hadn't caught on, so the only neighbors I could beg candy from were my grandmother and great-grandparents next door, my great-aunt next door to them, and Mr. Langston.  Mr. Langston lived in a white house across the field behind my great-grandparents' house.  He died when I was fairly young, so I only have a few (four) vague memories of Mr. Langston: 1) he always smoked a pipe 2) on a wall in his old photography studio was some sort of certificate from a rotary organization or civic club that had a topless mermaid on it 3) he gave me my first pet, a turtle I named Herman and 4) he had a reputation for poisoning dogs that crossed his property line, so to this day my dad suspects that Mr. Langston gave one of our dogs an anti-freeze cocktail.

I don't remember actually committing to the act of trick-or-treating more than a handful of times.  In the early 80's, my sister and I must've had zero imagination because we chose, for two years running, to go trick-or-treating as ghosts.  And don't think that we were dressed up in some sort of creative ghostly garb, because we weren't.  We wore sheets.  Two straight years, we each wore a sheet with crudely-cut eyeholes. 

After running the ghost gig into the ground, I broke out and became a hobo the following year.  Hobo attire included overalls, a hat, and of course the hobo's obligatory bindle stick.  Everyone knows that all of a hobo's worldly possessions will tie up neatly on a bindle stick.  If it weren't for said stick, I would have merely been wearing overalls and a hat - not a costume.

And finally, on October 31, 1987, I saw my last foray into trick-or-treating.  My friend Chris and I went in tandem as the Road Warriors.  If you're not cultured enough to be familiar with the Road Warriors, they were the hottest tag team in the National Wrestling Alliance in the late 80's.  Chris was Hawk, and I was Animal.  In real life, the Warriors were easily discernible in that Animal was the one that didn't inject himself with monkey hormones.

This was the one Halloween where I wanted to play the part spot on.  I studied the face paint on Animal to get it just right, and got into an argument with my mom over how I should wear my hair.  Animal had a mohawk, but my mom was a haircut nazi, and a mohawk wasn't gonna happen.  I wanted to spike it to give it a quasi-mohawk effect.  She wanted to comb it straight back since Animal's hair was cut short.  I am still passionate in my argument that I was right, and the mohawk would've been the better choice. Also memorable about this Halloween is the fact that it was also going to be the year that I broke out of my three-house Halloween rut.  Chris's dad, Don, was going to drive us down Main Street in Mocksville, then through Mock Place, an apartment complex for low-income seniors.

I remember a few stops in Mock Place in particular.  There was an elderly woman who invited us inside, and we saw that she was watching G.L.O.W., the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.  We thought she was an angel. Then, we went to the next apartment, and some unfortunate, unsuspecting tenant decided not to answer the door. Bad move. After we spit all over the doorstep, we ran back to the car, where Don assured us that we had made exactly the right decision, "That's what you're supposed to do! If they don't treat you, trick 'em."  Later, we stopped at a brick house on Main Street where we rang the doorbell over...and over...and over.  An old lady finally made her way to the door and said, "Stop ringing the doorbell! It gives my dog seizures!"  So after making off with her candy, you know what I had to do, right?  Yes, it comes full circle.  Mr. Langston poisoned dogs, and I doorbelled them to death.

I've Seen It All In A Small Town

The Great Pumpkin Debate

Me and pumpkins go way back. I mastered gluttony early on in life and dabbled in songwriting for a while when I was 7 years old. My mom still has one of my lyrical gems tucked away in a drawer somewhere--go ahead, ask her... she'll show you. Though it's a song about my dad, one of the masterful lyrics I had written was "why, oh why, do I eat pumpkin pie?" (That's clearly the kind of socially relevant song writing that solidified the legacy of the likes of Bob Dylan several decades prior.)

As I grew older and became a corporate cog in the produce wheel of Lowes Foods, I also spent a great deal of time stealing pumpkin pies from the deli (seasonally, of course) and polishing them off behind the swinging doors of the employees-only produce storage room. Why all the pumpkin history? To let you know that I haven't merely jumped on the pumpkin bandwagon in my later years. No, Friends, I started young on this journey, and now I'm simply a grown man in search of my next pumpkin high.

Coincidentally, the obligatory seasonal adult beverage these days seems to be the pumpkin ale. There are no fewer than ten available to me locally, and they're pushing the "Oktoberfest" brews further back on the shelf each fall. First, let's understand that anything infused with pumpkin probably shouldn't be appealing. It is technically a squash, after all, and I doubt that anyone is waiting for the leaves to turn so they can make a bee line to the store for a microbrew with a light gourd finish. I'll spare the technicalities here and assume that we can all agree that the appeal of a pumpkin beer lies primarily in the spice.

My mission for several years has been to find the perfect pumpkin beer. This year's offering is vast enough that I feel like it warrants some due diligence. Which one will most please a fat man who was once a fat kid who wrote shitty poems about pumpkin pie? The nominees are:

Buffalo Bill's America's Original Pumpkin Ale

Cottonwood Pumpkin Spiced Ale

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale

Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale

New Holland Ichabod Ale

Post Road Pumpkin Ale

Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale

Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale

Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale

For sobriety's sake, I tested no more than a double shot of each beer (although all were finished off later). In an effort to maintain impartiality, I asked my wife to serve as an alternate juror / blinded taster.

Surprisingly, we rated the beers almost exactly alike, so the letter grades below represent our mutual assessment. And the winner is...

So there you have it, Folks.  I feel like I've done my fellow man a great service.  If only one regular Joe can be persuaded to bypass the Smuttynose for a Buffalo Bill's pumpkin ale, then my work here is done.  Enjoy.