WILMA!!!
Update – 10/24/05
Well, Hurricane Wilma has made landfall near Cape Romano, Florida, as a dangerous Category 3 storm.
Watching CNN’s coverage of the storm this morning, I can only wonder…when is Anderson Cooper going to start calling himself “Hurricane” Cooper, or my preferred nickname, ‘Cane Cooper?
Well, I haven’t really spent a lot of time working on music lately so I decided to rectify that Saturday. While I didn’t really accomplish much as far as new ideas are concerned, I did manage to record or redo some things.
Parting of the Ways (Version 2)
I remixed this reworking of the original “Parting of the Ways.” I’m still not completely happy with it, but it’s good enough for now.
This is a musical idea that goes back close to two years now, but I never really did anything with it until now. I’m not sure if I’m all that into it, but I figured I should give it a chance. We’ll see. It definitely still needs a lot of work…as well as lyrics.
This is a song I wrote back around the mid-90s (actually, it was a third part of a song that sounded like something off an early 90s ELP record). I had recorded pretty much what you will hear some time ago, but I never got around to revisit it. I finally got back to it Saturday. I re-recorded the vocals and touched up the awkward end of the bridge (where it comes back into the chorus)…although it’s still pretty messed up, it’s much better than it was before (that’s how bad it was). Obviously, this is also unfinished.
“Be My Number Two (Joe Jackson cover)”
I stumbled onto how to “sort of” play this Joe Jackson song the other day so I figured I would take a stab at recording my own version of it. I didn’t spend too much time on it…just recorded some live — and very sloppy — playing and then vocals (I only did two takes and decided to move on). I don’t like to put material online that isn’t mine, but I’ll take it down should I ever be asked to remove it.
Edmund Bacon, a longtime city planner responsible for shaping modern Philadelphia, died Friday at his Center City home. He was 95.
Although surpassed in mainstream notoriety by his son, actor Kevin Bacon, the elder Bacon was the man behind a number of Philly landmarks, including Society Hill, Independence Mall, Penn Center, University City, Penn’s Landing, Market East, and the Far Northeast.
Bacon served as executive director of the City Planning Commission from 1949 to 1970 and his genius landed him on the cover of Time in 1964.
Here are some excerpts from a Philadelphia Inquirer story on Bacon’s passing (registration required):
“Philadelphia has lost one of its greatest citizens,” Gov. Ed Rendell said in an interview. “The landscape of this city would have been miserably different and decidedly poorer had Ed Bacon chosen not to be a Philadelphian…”
…An almost heroic, if not maniacal, force of will guided Mr. Bacon, a man born and raised in Philadelphia, a city that he viewed on the eve of World War II as “the worst, most backward, stupid city that I ever heard of.” But almost in the same breath, he resolved then “that come hell or high water, I would devote my life’s blood to making Philadelphia as good as I could…”
…Like Robert Moses, his sometimes rival in New York, Mr. Bacon shaped the urban landscape with grand – and sometimes grandiose – schemes. But unlike Moses, who controlled hundreds of millions of dollars and wielded the authority conferred by such wealth, Mr. Bacon achieved his stature and power from the force of his ideas and rhetoric, the clarity of his vision, the support of powerful reform-minded political patrons, and sheer stubbornness…
…Architect Vincent Kling, who worked with him on Penn’s Landing and Penn Center – which replaced the Chinese Wall, a monumental stone railroad trestle that blockaded Center City from the Schuylkill to City Hall – described Mr. Bacon as “the brightest, most energetic city planner we’ve had here since William Penn…”
Sure, Bacon had his share of bad ideas…with his call to tear down Philadelphia’s beautiful City Hall — except for its central tower — being one that even he would later regret. However, by all accounts, it is hard to imagine what Philadelphia would have been like without the visionary touch of Edmund Bacon.
This day shouldn’t have been so good for me. After all, after sleeping for about 4 1/2 hours, I woke up at 3:42 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep until I stole another 20-25 minutes during the 6:15 a.m. – 7 :15 a.m. slot.
Needless to say, I’m tired.
However, the day got better when I discovered there is a low-power AM radio station in Lansdale, PA, (not too far outside of Philly) that broadcasts old-time radio shows 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The best thing about this station, WNAR-AM, is that it streams its broadcast over the Internet…so I was listening to Edgar Bergen’s “The Charlie McCarthy Show” while I was at work this afternoon.
What’s even better is that if I have another sleepless night Wednesday morning, I can fire up the computer at 4 a.m. and listen to my favorite radio show of all time…”The Shadow.” If I miss it then, “The Shadow” also airs Saturday and Sunday nights at 10 p.m.
I haven’t felt this geeky since “Doctor Who” came back to BBC television screens — and, for those of us in the USA, to torrent download sites — earlier this year.
And then the day got even better when I saw that the Phillies fired general manager Ed Wade after eight seasons in which they never made the playoffs. Now, I don’t believe Wade was an awful GM. However, it was just time for him to go. The franchise needs to get new blood, new ideas. It was just time for a change.
New York City today warned that its subway system could be the target of a terrorist threat “in the coming days.” The announcement came after NYC law enforcement officials received specific, credible information regarding the threat. Now, I am sure Mayor Michael Bloomberg would not have announced this publicly if he and his aides did not believe there was something to it. NYC was hit the hardest on 9/11 and has, for the most part, run smoothly during times when previous threats were announced by the Department of Homeland Security.
So this announcement seems somewhat ominous to me and probably should be taken seriously by New Yorkers…especially by my friend Katie.
Anyway, back to the point…NYC tells everybody to be aware of anything suspicious and to treat this threat seriously, right?
So what does the Department of Homeland Security do? DHS spokesman Russ Knocke says this: “”The intelligence community has concluded this information to be of doubtful credibility. We shared this information early on with state and local authorities in New York.”
Now, this may very well be the case. But considering DHS apparently concluded there was “doubtful credibility” to widespread news reports and video images of flooding in New Orleans a full day after Hurricane Katrina struck and breached the levees, I’m inclined to go with the NYC authorities on this one.
Well, all I can say is, “It’s about time.” My favorite city, Philadelphia (despite my spending a lot of time in NYC lately), is finally getting well-deserved respect.
National Geographic Traveler names Philly as the nation’s “Next Great City” in its October issue. According to this AP story (via CNN), the magazine described Philly as “a city that has been greatly overlooked.”
“It’s the last great opportunity for anyone who wants a terrific urban life in the Northeast,” said Keith Bellows, the magazine’s editor-in-chief.
As if the Phils’ blowing a 5-2 lead in the eighth and losing to the freakin’ Mets last night wasn’t enough punishment, this morning I woke up and stubbed my right big toe on my dining room table, slicing a piece of nail off.
Now, fast forward a couple of hours and let’s change scenes to my office…I get up from my desk and bang the same right foot into the side of my desk.
Hobbling and in pain again, I went over to my boss’ door to talk to her about something. I went to lean my head against the inside of her door (it was propped open) and I wind up banging my head into the plastic end of a thumbtack holding up a pennant. I finished the conversation and went back to my desk, resuming my work.
Mike, our graphic design assistant who shares an office with me, then asks me which font I prefer for a piece on which he is working. I look up and he says, “Did you hit your head?”
I replied, “Yeah, is it bleeding?”
Of course, the answer was yes.
There was actually a fair amount of blood for such small and painless cut. I still don’t know how the plastic end of a thumbtack did that much damage.
In any event, I now have a toe injury and a head wound, which you can see in the pictures.
I keep seeing these headlines on major news sites (CNN, Yahoo! News, etc.) about — GASP! — Kate Moss being caught doing cocaine. Never in a million years would I have ever thought that a rail-thin supermodel — one dating a rock star who is a notorious drug addict — would be doing drugs…completely unheard of!
I wasn’t reading the stories associated with those headlines because a) I didn’t care, and b) they weren’t going to tell me anything I didn’t already assume.
But then I see this headline today on the Yahoo! home page: Naomi Campbell defends Kate Moss.
Are you kidding me? Now we have headlines about one supermodel defending another…great…just great.
Ugh…I think I am just pissed because that story pushed the article about the death of actor/comedian Don Adams, aka Maxwell “Agent 86” Smart off Yahoo’s home page. “Get Smart” was one of the best comedy TV series of all time…and it’s still funnier than a lot of crap on TV now.
After blowing a five-run lead over the fifth and sixth innings and finding themselves down 10-6 going into the ninth inning, the Fightin’ Phils again reached into the bag of tricks they have been using on their current road trip and scored five times to beat the Reds, 11-10, Friday night at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park.
Jimmy Rollins, who extended his career-high and post-1900 franchise record hitting streak to 28 games earlier in the game, led off the ninth with a single and Kenny Lofton followed with a base hit of his own to put two men on base for Chase Utley. Utley stepped up to the plate and drilled his second home run of the game to make it just a 10-9 game.
Bobby Abreu was then called out on strikes on a ridiculous called third strike that was both low and inside. Abreu argued and was ejected from the game. From the Phils’ bench, manager Charlie Manuel and pitcher Brett Myers were also tossed.
Pat Burrell then struck out for the second out of the inning. But then came the turning point of the game…National League Rookie of the Year frontrunner Ryan Howard strolled to the plate. Reds pitcher David Weathers wanted no part of the rookie and threw four straight pitches nowhere near the strike zone, walking Howard to bring the go-ahead run to the plate in the form of the much-maligned David Bell.
Bell, who came to the plate with a .246 batting average and nine homers, has hit very well against lefthanders all season. However, here he was in a big spot against a righthander…and he had been barely serviceable against righties all year.
But in this season of destiny, Bell smacked a 3-2 pitch into the left-field seats for a dramatic, two-run homer that gave the Phillies an 11-10 lead. Billy Wagner notched his 35th save with a 1-2-3 ninth and moved the Phils to within one game of the Houston Astros for the NL wild card spot with just eight games left to play.
As I posted previously, the Phils have a tendency to fold down the stretch. But this year’s team seems to laugh at adversity. These Phils are resilient and have a lot of heart — no matter what many in their home city say about them.
I have been listening to New York’s 66 WFAN Sports Radio this morning and Chris “Mad Dog” Russo is taking a bunch of Phillies-related calls because stupid 610 WIP AM in Philly refuses to talk about anything other than the Eagles because the station is so anti-Phillies. And, to his credit, Russo is killing the WIP hosts for not talking about the Phillies this morning. “The way this team is playing and after that win last night, that station should be wall-to-wall Phillies,” he said at one point.
So, if you are wondering why I haven’t been posting as much lately, I have been completely preoccupied by the Phils’ pursuit of a playoff spot…and hope to remain so for a couple more weeks.
: )
Photo: David Bell hits a two-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning to lift the Philadelphia Phillies to a dramatic 11-10 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Sept. 23, 2005. Photo by AP.
Although the game ended about three hours ago, I am still incredibly giddy over the Phillies’ improbable 10-2 win over the Florida Marlins at Dolphins Stadium today.
Down 2-0 going into the ninth and facing incredibly tough lefthander Dontrelle Willis, who was three outs aways from a complete game and his 22nd win of the season, the Phillies sent 14 men to the plate and scored 10 runs on eight hits — aided by FOUR errors by the Marlins — IN THE INNING!
As of this moment, the Phils (80-69) are tied with the Houston Astros for the lead in the race for the National League’s wild card playoff spot. A loss by the Astros tonight would even things up in the loss column and put the Phils a half-game up in the NL wild card race.
A comeback like the one staged by the Phillies today has me thinking this isn’t your typical Phillies team that fades away in September…this team is fired up, resilient and comes ready to play everyday. This, folks, looks like a playoff team.
The Phillies have used a number of slogans that have come back to haunt them over the past few years…”Believe,” “Now is the Time,” and “Bring It On!”
Well…this year…I Believe that Now is the Time…Bring It On!
(Pictured: Phillies celebrate during a 10-run ninth inning that propelled them to a 10-2 win over the Florida Marlins at Dolphins Stadium, Sept. 17, 2005. Photo by AP.)
Brian Kelley 