Cinta de la mezcla

OK, after yesterday’s post perhaps it’s time to get back to something a little lighter. Besides, I’ve already gone through the six stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, Hall & Oates). How about a mixtape?

Compacto – Curumin

Me and Armeni – Emiliana Torrini

All the Night Without Love – Elvis Perkins

A Change Is Gonna Come – Ben Sollee

I Feel It All – Feist (for Ide)

Paint a Face – Neil Halstead

Trees – Everest

Can’t Hardly Wait – The Replacements

She Does – Locksley

I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You – The Black Kids

Pretty In Pink – The National

You Don’t Wanna Leave – Mike Mangione

The One – Old 97s

Let It Be Me – Ray Lamontagne

Easy Love – Leslie Mendelson

Follow the link to download. If you like what you hear buy something!

“Goodnight, everybody”

Skip Caray, 1939-2008

Ask me how I feel about crying when someone close to you dies and I’ll tell you it’s a perfectly natural, healthy emotion and it’s nothing to be ashamed about. Ask me how I feel about crying when the announcer of your favorite sports team dies and I’ll tell you: a little queer.

But I cried anyway. I guess if you listen to someone so intently for so long you grow married to the idea of them always being there, always painting the picture for you. It’s jarring when you realize you’ve experienced something for the last time. It sure doesn’t feel right that there’s a Braves game coming up and Skip Caray won’t be around for it.

What struck me, and I think it’s safe to say most people, about listening to Skip was that he never really put up with the bullshit. He wasn’t afraid to call a duck a duck, so to speak. If the team was playing crappy, he’d say so. If the league or the organization or even his own bosses at Turner tried to pull some lame stunt/marketing ploy on the fans he’d note it for what it was, a load of bull.

Skip once said of a game so far gone that only a miracle could salvage it, “You have our permission to turn off the TV and go to bed now … as long as you promise to patronize our sponsors.”

He had a caustic, self-deprecating wit that the Joe Buck’s and the Tim McCarver’s of the world will never understand. As good of an announcer as he was, Skip could just have easily been the guy sitting next to you in the bar, ranting about how awful Francoeur looked in that last at-bat or how ridiculously overplayed the whole Manny Ramirez saga is. As tongue-in-cheek as that quote was, it pretty much encapsulates what Skip was all about. He knew who he was talking to. And he never took their intelligence for granted.

The funny thing is, no one ever really turned the TV off. Because as bad is it may have been, and during his 30-year tenure there were plenty of bad nights, Skip never really let it get boring. Whether it was his constant ridicule of the B-movies that so often followed games (in case you were wondering, there’s a reason I have a soft spot in my heart for movies like Roadhouse) or his famed colorful aphorisms (“The bases are loaded again, and I wish I was too”) or his undying affection for former reliever Jung Bong and the numerous puns his name provided (“The Mets take another hit off Bong!”).

But as good as he was during the blowouts and the rain delays, Skip was at his best in the big moments, that pinched, nasally voice rising to a yell, bubbling over with excitement and joy. People could argue day and night about who was better, but there was no one I’d rather hear call a big moment.

Game 7 – 1992 NLCS

Game 6 – 1995 World Series

While most other fans complained that Skip was a homer openly rooting for the Braves to win, Braves fans loved him for it. So what if he rooted for the home team? Skip had a passion for his team and he lived and breathed with them just like the rest of us.

I’ll miss Skip. I grew up listening to his voice. I’ve shared laughs, triumphs and heartbreak (a whole lot of heartbreak) with him, and never once did I ever want to turn it off. Right about now it feels like we’re in the midst of a blowout, and without Skip around it just doesn’t feel right listening.

So maybe it is OK to turn the TV off now … so long as I remember to support the sponsors.

So long, Skip. Life sure will be a heck of a lot duller without you.

Welcome to the Town Hall Chat

The Tipping Point

Tip Tip ... Hooray!

One of my mottoes in life (one of the ones I actually believe, not just one of the ones that sounds good) has always been “treat people the way that you would like to be treated.”

At its core, it’s a pretty simple principle to live your life by. Don’t like getting yelled at? Don’t yell at people. Don’t like being bossed around? Don’t tell people what to do all the time. Don’t like talking to idiots? Quit hanging out with Republicans.

But the problem with this is that your actions, be they of the best intentions, still don’t guarantee you’ll receive the same kind of treatment. Sometimes your good deed goes unnoticed or, even worse, punished. It’s not that good deeds prompt bad responses, but sometimes people just don’t get it.

Case in point, I’ve had some pretty lame jobs in my time – there was the Italian restaurant where the staff had to chase the manager out to the parking lot for their paychecks; there was the nameless coffee shop that made me sit outside and count foot traffic in the middle of a tropical storm (oh, it really happened) – but not once have I ever been forced to sing for tips.

Which is more than I can say for the poor souls manning the counter at the Subway on Calhoun Street.

Not to knock Subway employees, but it’s a pretty sad lot in life to have your job half-heartedly referred to under the moniker “artist” when you’re dealing with cold cuts and condiments. Not to say the term “sandwich artist” isn’t anything but another marketing ploy from the King of Marketing Ploys (“Hey, fatass! Why not try the Jared Starve Yourself Diet?” “Of course these veggies are fresh! They just came from that can didn’t they?”) but the idea that some poor soul somewhere dubbed themselves that – maybe they were bored, maybe they were in computers and felt unfulfilled and one day just decided to quit it all and spin the art world on its head, either way it’s just too damn much to think about without crying.

So it’s no surprise I’ve never really seen a Subway employee smile. Would you? But the poor bastards I encountered this afternoon took sadness to a whole different level. A fact that was not lost on the lady in front of me, who, when given the tally for her 12-inch sub and Coke, gave the cashier a $20, just sort of looked brokenhearted at her and said “Oh, you keep the change” (I swear on Ryan Seacrest’s grave, she really did).

So when my turn came, naturally I was inclined to give the two hard-working, long-suffering ladies some change. Bolstered by sense of what was right, and pressured by my sense of shame, I dropped my change into the tip jar ($3 and some coin … I know, big spender, right?)

Of course, judging by the nearly empty tip jar, I should’ve realized that this was probably not an event that happened fairly regularly. No, in fact this was a special occasion. And as Disney has taught us, special occasions are always celebrated in song (and then the main character’s mom usually dies). So what do they do when you tip the employees at the Calhoun Street Subway, you might ask? Well let me break it down for you…

Clap… Clap… “Tip Tip”… “Hooray!”… “Tip Tip”… “Hooray!”… “You’ve really made our day!”… “We’d like to thank you personally-”… “-for visiting Subway!”… “Tip Tip”… “Hooray!”

As I stood there, watching this horror of corporate horrors, I realized (gazes into distance like Carrie Bradshaw) it may be difficult for most of us to express how much we hate our jobs … but it takes a Subway employee to craft it into a work of art.

—–

Happy Birthday, Melia!

What has two thumbs, a balky back and has way too much time on his hands these days?

Yo soy es mas macho ... y herido!

This guy!

OK people, get ready to be proud of me. What? You’ve been waiting 25 years and it still hasn’t paid off? Well wipe the dust off those congratulatory signs and streamers, because today I’m starting to blog again.

Si, chicos y chicas, I’m back to my blogging ways and you know what they say, it’s like riding a bike: once you learn, you never forget and if you never really learned… then I guess the metaphor doesn’t really apply then.

Where was I? Right, the blog. So I’ve started writing the first post here several times and, after leaving it to finish at a later time, I’ve gone through about ten different drafts, none of which retained any sort of timeliness or relevance (I do have some dynamite observations about what happened three weeks ago though). Because if you learn one thing about me from these posts, it’s that I’m lazy I’m a perfectionist.

Anyway, all that build-up and stalling aside, I don’t really have much of a witty intro left in me. I’d like to think there’s something else a little more important to say here, but in my head all I’ve got is something like, “Well, you know Timecop is on AMC tonight” … so I think you see where the discourse is headed here. Either way, I’ve come this far and I’m no quitter (note: except for that last time I quit) so here goes.

Hi, my name’s Chuck. My friends all started blogs and inspired me to start writing again. I’ve listed them all below as the cast of Lost.

Gillie

Kate

First things first, you have no idea how hard it was not to pick Sun here (you’re welcome, Gillie). Like Kate, my roommate Gillian manages an equal balance of feminine charm and ass kicking, uh, ass-kickery (you can’t see it in the picture, but she’s got a Colt .45 revolver stashed nearby and she will use it if you try to steal her tater tots from her.) Girls, enterprising guys, what have you, you can all check out Gillie’s ideas for a modern 21st century wedding at http://no-dowry.com

Brian

Jack

Like the islanders, people often turn to Brian for help. And like Jack, Brian always seems to deliver. And he’s a freaking Lieutenant JG in the Navy/Army/Something Or Other … I don’t quite know what that means, but why not just check him out here and ask him yourself? While you’re at it, you can hear him detail what life is like for a Naval Officer stationed in Iraq.

Darren

Hurley

Unquestionably, Hurley is the moral core of Lost … and he says things like “Dude” a lot. I believe my buddy Darren exhibits one of these traits in spades (I’ll leave it to you to figure out which one). You can check out his ever-changing design portfolio and 21st Century Communist Manifesto at http://schwindamania.com.

Ide

Sawyer

Like Sawyer, Katie Ide isn’t one to suffer fools. She has the ability to say what is on everyone’s mind but few actually have the nerve to say. She’s also involved in a passionate love triangle with Gill (Kate) and Brian (Jack). You can catch up on her move to Chicago here.

Melia

Sayid

Don’t let the genteel and exotic facade fool you, Melia could fuck your shit right up if pressed (Go on, diss Color Me Badd, I double dog dare you!) You can check out Melia at http://www.reschoolyourself.com.

Gener

Dr. Ben Linus

It’s quite possible that my friend Gene is an evil genius. Gene cherishes his blog The Gene Pool like Ben does his island. And the “Tina Cursing Corner” is now a daily ritual for me.

Lisa

Locke

My friend Lisa is one of the smartest people I know, and, like John Locke, if you cross her she will cut you. Also, Dr. Ben Linus drives her completely nuts. So there’s that. You can read her blog here.

Kathleen

Desmond

Funny enough, Kathleen has spent the past three years living in a small underground bunker … I actually have no proof to backup that claim, but why not? You can read Kathleen’s blog, La Vita Curiosa, here.

OK, that’s all for tonight, folks. It’s good to be back.