Rewarded for Mediocrity?

Never really gave it much thought, but just found out that you can't create a save situation yourself, that is, if you come in to close out a game with your team up by three runs or fewer, if you give up a few runs to fall within that margin, it doesn't turn into a save if your team still wins. Basically, even if your team wins, you don't necessarily get rewarded for mediocrity. I like this.

Mets Classics

With tonight's rainout, SNY showed a "Mets Classic" from 6/11/05, the Mets' first over-.500 season since 2001. In this game, in the top of the 10th, after Carlos Beltran, two months in to a dismal season to kick off his seven-year contract with the team, and Mike PIazza struck out, Cliff Floyd came to bat. Floyd, a fan favorite who was always either a little or a lot injured, came to bat, got to two strikes and crushed a foul ball. He then fouled off two more pitches before sending one over the right-center fence, just to the base of the scoreboard, to the right of the homerun Apple.

Those were the days when hopes were brightening anew, the Piazza era was coming to a close, and no one knew the anguish and high-end futility that would define the ensuing seasons. Nonetheless, I was a little emotional seeing Cliffy win it in the 10th.

Every damn Yankees Classic is a World Series game. The Mets' classic games are usually insignificant, but scrappy blue collar wins, usually staring forgotten heroes (or Mike Piazza). I prefer the Mets when they're scrappy and bad, and not expected to win. I never went to more games than I did between 2002 and 2005. Empty Shea, so many great seats for cheap. Good times.

Did He Hear a Goodbye?

Some music is so good that sometimes, fairly often (because I listen to the best music. Just sayin'), I listen and lose breath for one of two reasons: 1) sometimes stuff is just beautiful, or 2) I desperately wish I were writing, performing, or singing that song.

There are some artists that do both: the Beatles is an obvious one, particularly when it comes to poppier fare like "And Your Bird Can Sing" (though that's no easy pop song) or Mean Mr. Mustard (though Lennon considered that one a toss-away. We should all be so lucky to sit under the table as John Lennon tosses us musical scraps). David Bowie is another one with Mick Ronson, doing his best VU, strumming Queen Bitch or, even better, Carlos Alomar laying down a funky, proggy riff on TVC15. These types of songs are the class of their genre, but like any great pop song, don't feel particularly complicated, though they might be and often are.

I don't play any instruments. I stopped playing piano when I was 15 and I bought a guitar when I was 31. Much to my son's delight, I figured out how to one-note (with zero technique) the chorus to the Moody Blues' "Driftwood" (don't ask me why I chose that one. It was in my head at the time). I even did my best Justin Hayward over my labored performance, but the guitar mostly collects dust. It's actually near me right now.

But then there is that singing. I can hold a note well, and have no real range to speak of (10 note? Low to middle C when it's humid?), but I have a great ear I'm tellin' ya'. I have relative pitch, and I can nail a harmony without hesitation, so naturally I'm drawn to harmonies. Crosby, Stills & Nash's harmonies have been described as a "miracle," and while I can't say that with any certainty, their vocal arrangements, largely assembled by Stephen Stills, fulfill my two emotional criteria.

Helplessly Hoping.

Two minutes and 37 seconds of subtle brilliance. The whole thing starts off perfectly like any Stephen Stills acoustic workout: four measures of A minor, C, G, & D, and then the vocals:

"Helplessly hoping her harlequin hovers nearby, awaiting a word." People might roll their eyes that the alliteration, which is punctuated by a muscular delivery of "hovers nearby." I love it.

Stephen Stills and Graham Nash are couched nicely in the right channel while David Crosby -- a singer whose phenomenal quality of voice is usually beyond (at least my) description -- is perched on display in the left. Stills is singing melody (the low part) in the middle until the word "nearby," when he and Crosby, who up to this point was singing the middle part, blend for an instant and Crosby continues to ascend, taking over the melody, finishing "awaiting a word" in the lead.

What I'm pointing out is no revelation, of course. What made CSN legendary were their miracle vocals, and the way those vocals are woven and arranged, and how Stills and Crosby constantly interchange, swap, and invert their parts to point where you often can't tell who is singing what anymore. Nash, with his falsetto, is usually identifiable, but he and Crosby often cross lanes here and there.

We're only at 25 seconds now.

"Gasping at glimpses of gentle true spirit, he runs, wishing he could fly." Basically the same as before with Crosby taking over the melody at "wishing he could fly," but this time with an added "only to trip at the sound of goodbye," where Stills slides back into the melody and the "bye" elongated .

"Wordlessly watching he waits by the window and wonders, at the empty place inside." Same as the first verse, but the second half of "window" is punctuated by Crosby, making it very clear where he once again takes over the melody.

"Heartlessly helping himself to her bad dreams he worries: Did he hear a goodbye or even hello?" The "hello" is sustained by Nash and Crosby while Stills takes it into the song's break, first singing solo on "They are one person," and then joined by Nash on "They are two, alone," and finally Crosby fills it out for "they are three together. They are four (for) each other."

Man I do wish I were singing this song.

Yes at the Wellmont

A clip of Yes playing Yours is No Disgrace at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, NJ, February 16, 2010. Steve Howe's amazing.

Marriage Equality: Close (Yet So Far Away)

The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee voted last night to support a bill that would establish same-sex marriage in New Jersey, providing full equality for married gay couples. It was an important measure of progress, for sure, but in a state where a recent Rutgers-Eagleton Poll showed that same-sex marriage enjoys popular support, the 7-6 vote goes to show just how hard, even in the most progressive of states, it is for our courts and legislatures to act social change.

I'll admit, I take pride in making efforts to understand all sides of an issue, the pros and cons, and always try to understand why people might feel differently than I do. This is one issue where I just don't understand the opposition to same-sex marriage. I would understand it (though I wouldn't agree), if the whole of the opposition were in the name of religion, but when so many marriages, including my own, are conducted secularly, it just makes no sense. Further, while people can choose to make marriage a religious function, the fact that judges and elected officials can preside over a marriage is proof (if we needed any) that marriage is not necessarily a religious event.

So, if it's not for religious reasons, then I'm left to believe that people oppose same-sex marriage because they simply don't think gay people should get married and that marriage is an exclusive institution between a man and woman. This is not an acceptable position, and it's not the role of our courts and lawmakers to enact exclusionary laws -- particularly laws that exclude a certain portion of the population from enjoying all of the legal rights involved in a domestic union.

Also, I should have said this first, but opposition to same-sex marriage is just unabashedly wrong. Believing that only certain people should get married is fundamentally at odds with basic, inalienable rights.

SO, thanks to Hank Kalet, a newspaper editor here in New Jersey, here is a list of legislators we're asking everyone to call who are on the fence. Please take action.

• Sen. Diane B. Allen, Republican
• 11 West Broad St., Burlington, NJ 08016 (609) 239-2800


• Sen. Christopher Bateman, Republican
  36 East Main St., Somerville, NJ 08876 (908) 526-3600


• Sen. Jennifer Beck, Republican
  32 Monmouth St., 3rd Floor, Red Bank, NJ 07701 (732) 933-1591


• Sen. John A. Girgenti, Democrat
  507 Lafayette Avenue, Hawthorne, NJ 07506 (973) 427-1229


• Sen. Paul A. Sarlo, Democrat
  207 Hackensack St., 2nd Floor, Wood-Ridge, NJ 07075 (201) 804-8118


• Sen. Jeff Van Drew, Democrat
  21 North Main St., Cape May Court House, NJ 08210 (609) 465-0700
  1124 North High St., Millville, NJ 08332 (856) 765-0891
  1028 East Landis Ave., Vineland, NJ 08360 (856) 696-7109
  Additional Phone, Somers Point, NJ (609) 926-3779
• 
  
• Sen. Jim Whelan, Democrat
• 511 Tilton Rd., Northfield, NJ 08225 (609) 383-1388

Judge Orders New Brunswick To Place Ward Question on Ballot

From Empowernb.com

New Brunswick, NJ – The Honorable Judge James P. Hurley ruled today, that New Brunswick residents will get to vote on a citywide referendum for ward-based City Council elections this November. In his highly anticipated decision, Hurley ordered New Brunswick City Clerk Dan Torrisi to honor the petition of a local grassroots group, Empower Our Neighborhoods. Hurley said that the New Brunswick city government acted improperly when it rejected the group’s petition on October 21, 2008. Both Torrissi and the City Council were defendants in the suit.

This decision is the latest in a chain of litigation which began in July of 2008, when the city government improperly rejected a petition for a vote on wards signed by 1,116 New Brunswick residents. EON brought suit against the city to compel Torrisi to accept the petition, and that litigation was still pending when ballots were printed for the November 2008 general election.

In October 2008, EON circulated a new petition calling for a referendum on wards in November of 2009, which the city again declined, citing an action of the City Council for an alternative ballot question. Judge Hurley rejected that rationale, pointing out that the prior litigation had determined the Council’s ordinance, O-060807, to be illegal. Charter study ordinances, as they are commonly known, are frequently used by incumbent New Jersey municipal governments who favor the status quo to prevent residents’ groups from winning changes to the municipal elections process.

“It’s fairly apparent by now that the city’s objections were politically motivated,” said EON member Martha Guarnieri. “The law requires a public vote on a legitimate petition, no matter what the government thinks of it content. We’re very glad Judge Hurley has affirmed the people’s right to determine their own form of government and look forward to another exciting campaign for change in our City.”

Longtime New Brunswick resident Thomas Peoples felt that the decision was a long time coming. “This is a great victory for New Brunswick.” said Peoples, leader of the Lincoln Gardens Neighborhood Block Association. “We’re finally going to have a government of the people, and that’s accountable to the people.”

The ward question, which would guarantee each ward one representative on the City Council, will appear on the ballot in the general election on November 3, 2009.

Losing the Book

Charles McGrath, in his recent article in the New York Times, points to something that not even the Kindle can overcome:

One of the odder sensations of reading on the Kindle, though, is a sensation of eternal presentness. Your books are all there, perfectly preserved. The device even remembers exactly what page you were on last. On the other hand, as you read along, there are very few cues to how near you are to the beginning, how far from the end. You’re always in the middle."

Personally speaking, I feel a great sense of accomplishment when I finish a book - having never used a Kindle, I wonder if finishing a book is a less exciting affair?

Moreover, we have not begun to address the issue that technology has yet to address: the loss of the physical library. People have devoted rooms in their houses, and rightfully so, to display their book libraries, as well as their music libraries. About a year ago, I gave up buying CDs, opting to purchase only online. It was a hard decision. I love my iPod and I think that device has changed the way I listen to music — it’s made me appreciate music more. But you lose the liner notes, the _physicality_ of owning an album in its product form. You lose the art, and you lose the library.

About a month ago, I came around — opting to buy CDs once again, but only at independently-owned record stores, thus finding a happy medium between the convenience, the sound environmentalism of digital downloads (no packaging, no shipping), and the old-fashioned CD, replete with all the things we love about holding our music in our hands.

I have yet to read a book on a Kindle, but this one seems a bit more unlikely to go mainstream - at least in the short-term.