Charlie and the Corn Chips

"I like it," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said of the tense, four-hour-long 6-5 victory. Even when I hate it, I like it. It tests you. That's what the game is all about. It's exciting, but in some ways it's not too good."
Sometimes you need an interpreter to weed through a Charlie Manual interview, but ultimately he gets right to the heart of the matter with that West Virginia accent. The Skipper was an easy target here in Philadelphia for a couple of years. When he was asked once about the folks here not liking him, he replied something along the lines of, "There are plenty of people that like me in other places, so that's okay." Now someday there will be a statue of Charlie Manual at the ballpark. I'd almost bet on it.

I met Charlie when I took these pictures above at this years ALS charity event. The stuck him in the dugout,,,in the sun for about 4 hours for photos with fans. I wasn't taking those fan photos, I just needed to get something of him for ALS. I was trying to be quick and discrete, but Charlie was set on trying to help me get this shot with this little girl while she was intent on sharing her corn chips with Uncle Charlie. I watch this team for those 162 games a year, and a lot of the post game interviews that come with them too, but sometimes you get sense of someone's disposition in just a brief personal interaction.

Penn State/Iowa...and Beer Pong

Not in my wildest imagination did I anticipate a weekend so dominated by my new favorite sport... Beer Pong. We never did get tickets for the rain drenched Penn State/Iowa game and I think we ended up being the lucky ones in the end. It was a messy weekend, but still great to spend some time with family. My cousin not only introduced me to some great people, but they in turn introduced us to Beer Pong. I was surly aware of it's existence, but it wasn't in full rage during my college years and I had never played. I am now considering going back to school just to play more pong.

I only took about 40 pictures all weekend which is unusual for me. Every single one of them was taken around the Beer Pong table. Thanks to Jeff and Lisa for hosting us and Mugger's friends Freddy and Amy and their folks (Bill and Barbara) for sharing their hospitality and their new RV.

Here is a link to the pictures.

Magnificent Gift

Earlier this summer I had a gathering to commemorate my 40th birthday. We rented a place in western Pa next to a river and invited everyone I knew. We played beanbags, drank Yuenglings and sat around a campfire. It was everything I needed for a good ol' fashioned birthday blowout. I wasn't thinking too much about presents. In fact, I requested that in lieu of gifts I would prefer if the dudes grew mustaches. I figured it would be more entertaining and most obliged and it was in fact very funny. The women would not be excluded and brought their own mustaches.
I put together a slide show if you haven't seen it.


So I guess what I'm getting at is that a gift or present wasn't on my radar that day. I was more caught up with getting my itunes arranged and where to buy a half keg of Yuengling deep in the hollers of Western PA...and would a half keg be enough...

I think that is why this gift from my family was all the more special. My immediate family chipped in and purchased a VIP package for Kristen and I to see U2 in Boston. Previous to this weekend I had been chirping off that U2 had for some reason bypassed Philadelphia on the first leg of their new tour. Kristen was on pins and needles for a couple weeks prior just hoping that I wouldn't get it in my head to road trip to see U2.

The gift was a tremendous surprise. Didn't see it coming. Not even close. The party and the actual Boston road trip were great bookends to the summer. I could get used to the VIP treatment at the big shows. Parking 50 yards from the entrance and not having to pay the $40 fee was our first indication that we were in for a very pleasant day. In addition to being only 18 rows back and having a birds-eye view of the new 360 degree stage, there was also a VIP party before the show. We had an all-you-can-eat buffet and an open bar and met some great people along the way. One of which somewhat knew my cousin from Penn State.

The coolest thing about these shows is that there is no imagined community here. People are there for the same exact thing and most have been doing this for 20 or 30 years. I get to reflect on how long I've been listening to this band and all the bookmarks jammed into the chapters of my life. It's no joke.

Like most folks I saw them first at Live Aid in 1985. I didn't know what I saw, but it resonated with me. It was my Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. I had 8 distorted hours of Live Aid on a VHS tape for years at my folks house. I watched the U2 performance about 100 times. I'd toss it in every once in while to revisit until one day I came home from college and when I went to watch it, I found it replaced by a Penn State/Michigan game. U2 at Live Aid was gone. There was no Youtube, Napster etc. There was no commercial release of the show until about 3 years ago. Now with Youtube it's at your fingertips all the time.

I'd say it was about 1986 I was working at Acme Market as a cashier. My first job and I had to wear a tie and some type of smock with a name tag on it. With their label maker I punched in The Edge on my name tag. I still have it somewhere. It made for some interesting dialogue. I'd ask the old ladies if they wanted paper or plastic and they'd reply, "we don't care for the plastic bags, they hurt our hands and fall over when you set them on the table, we'll have paper. Thank you, The Edge."

I went to college and put a couple u2 posters on my dorm wall along with them on the cover of Time magazine. I still have them somewhere too. A bunch of friends from my dorm went to the Joshua Tree Tour at Three Rivers Stadium in the Fall of 1987. I squinted from the 700 level in deep deep center field. Bono had his arm in a cast from falling the night before from some scaffolding. It was my first real concert. It was a cold night and I had bad skin and bad hair and my fathers army jacket on that would later be stolen at a frat party. I saw every u2 tour since then except one while we were in LA cause I was out of work and broke as a joke. We were in Philly when they returned the next time around. I took Kristen for the first time and we hit the pit lottery and saw them from the first row. The next time we saw them they brought out Bruce Springsteen and his wife to do a song. I yelped like a little school girl.

In my confirming belief that good people find good people, I tend to give u2 credit for meeting one of my best friends. I think it was the summer of '93 when I met my buddy Mika from Finland. We were at a mutual friends gathering and he was mulling about like a Fin out a water with a rather befuddled look on his face. He had a 'how'd I get here' look on his face which wasn't uncommon for International students who ended up in Indiana, Pennsylvania. I'd seen it a number of times and I may have chuckled and carried on, but this dude had a u2 t-shirt on. We talked about the tours and how his friends sent him off the night before with a party and the Zooropa CD. We were fast friends and dumped a lot of bills in the Coney Island jukebox playing Achtung Baby over the next couple years. Mika just called me this morning to tell me they're buying extra u2 tix for next summers Helsinki stop...whether we make it over there or not. This isn't the first time he's done that.

So yeah, that's all I got. Those are the highlights. The trip to Boston was another bookmark. As mentioned we met some more good people and I did the best I could with my point and shoot camera. I'd again like to thank those that gave us this thoughtful gift. My folks, Kristen's folks, Aunt Gummy and Uncle Weiner, Megan and Bill, AJ and Tiffany, Tibby and Mugger and Michelle. You guys rock.

Ella's East Coast Tour

I mentioned in a previous posting that we had my niece here for a couple days this summer. It's become a tradition of sorts. We get her way down south here to Pa and then toss her around the Eastern Seaboard like a 2 dollar hat. She stayed with Grammy and Poppy in Mountaintop and then to us and then to Granny Jean in Md. We had a good day couple days. I always try and plan a decent tour, but it's usually the little things that the kid remembers and puts on her list of things to do. Like walking Frank through the woods or jumping around the backyard through the sprinkler or putting marshmallows in the microwave.

This year we went down the shore as they say here in Philly. We went to Ocean City, New Jersey, but not before stopping at Kristen's Blood Drive at the Ballpark. I gave Ella a tour of the park and then we got to try on a Phillies WS ring for kicks. Alright, the ballpark stop was for me, but Ocean City was for her. The water was perfect and we stayed in for at least 2 hours. We ate pizza, cotton candy, soft pretzels, a water ice and candy dots. I avoided the spin-y rides but we both dug the log flume ride.

The coolest thing about this years visit is that Ella was able to sit in the front seat for the first time. Due to age and weight restrictions she's always had to sit in the back. It's no fun taking a road trip when the only other person in the car is in the backseat. You feel more like your tooling Mz Daisy around town looking for the Piggly Wiggly. We sat in the front seat and listened to tunes and talked about Michael Jackson, the new school year and Vampires.

Flaming Lips Rainout

A couple years ago we went to see Wilco at Madison Square Garden with our friends Phil and Pam. Flaming Lips opened that night. Both Wilco and Flaming Lips were just starting to tip toe into the mainstream consciousness and this gig was in many ways big-time vindication as well as a coming out party for two bands at the top of their game. Jeff Tweedy played in pajamas and brought in the new year, but what the Flaming lips did that night I still have a hard time putting in words...and I've tried. I've tried to describe how the show opened that night. The costumes, the lead singer in a bubble walking on top of their fans, the hundreds, maybe thousands of boulder-size balloons filling the arena. You can try and describe this, but you really have to see it and live it.

A couple weekends ago we saw the Lips again in Philadelphia. Watch the clip below to try and get a sense of what I'm talking about. We were on our way to a perfect night when about 45 minutes into this show on Penns Landing we got washed away. The clouds opened and it started raining buckets. They warned us it was coming and it wasn't a great surprise, but how fast we got soaked was pretty impressive. We tilted our heads back when we thought we felt the first drop. I got splashed in the eye with what felt like water balloon.

At 40 these moments are just as fun as when your 20, but you're just a little more prepared. While all the college kids were dancing around in the rain, I put my camera in a little water-tight zip lock and Kristen and I put our little rain slickers on in unison. We felt like nerds while the kids were rain dancing. The thunder cracked and the lighting felt like it was the bringing on the End of Days. We floated through town trying to find us a cab to get us home. It was fun...and maybe still a perfect night.

Great show. Great band. Wish we got more than 8 songs, but as mentioned, the energy in the enclosed video eclipses most of the shows we've ever seen.

Beatles For Sale

Today they released the entire Beatles catalog again on CD, entirely remixed and remastered from the original recording tapes. I remember it was a big deal when they first released the catalog in the late 80s, but right from the start there was criticism that the mixing was muddy and the music sounded flat compared to the vinyl predecessors. I've never considered myself to be much of an audiophile. I've always enjoyed music whether it was coming out of my crappy Toyota car speakers or through my bose headphones. I recognize the difference, but I don't obsess over it. Today I bought one of the new CDs at the local record store. I purchased Beatles for Sale as it was one of the few albums that I didn't already have in one format or another. I put it on the player at home and it really is unbelievable. It's like sitting in the room with them as they recorded it. I've read about the big Beatles re-release for a couple years now and at this point I suspect it's going to be the compact disc's last hurrah. It signified the legitimacy of the compact discs when they were first released and now they will ultimately put the format to bed for good. The funny thing is that many people will simply rip/compress the cds to their itunes and lose a lot of the vibrancy that makes the re-release so vital. I just thought I'd say that if you of the likelihood to still buy a CD, pick up you favorite Beatles CD and put it on a decent stereo. It lives up to the hype.

I've always been happy to line up for the latest Beatles marketing push. I simply don't listen to the Beatles as much these days and it's a good reminder to pull out Abby Road or Revolver and listen to what are just a few of many perfect albums. Start to Finish. Along with the CD, the album format is also a soon-to-be-lost art form. Of course the artists will still be out there making albums, but the mindset of listening to an album from beginning to end is already gone . It's generational and it's technological. It's a singles/itunes world and you just grab the song you like for a buck. If you do have the whole album it's never been easier to skip to the next song. I find myself sometimes skipping the 1 or 2 second pause in between songs on my ipod. Even with cassettes, it was such a pain in the ass to skip or search for a song, you basically just let it play out.

I remember liking the Beatles as a kid. I couldn't tell them apart, but I liked everything about them. I was 12 when John Lennon was shot and I think it was then that I started wondering what the big deal was. I've always remembered the song Gotta Get You Into my Life as a song from my childhood. This didn't make sense though. I always remembered it as a single on the radio from the 70s. I eventually read somewhere that they re-released that particular song in 1976, 10 years after it's first release. After a quick google I was able to confirm it.

I was talking to my niece Ella while she was staying with us this summer. We got to chatting about the Beatles and I had her memorize the names of the Beatles. I don't know why, I just thought it would be something cool that a 12 year old could rattle off at some point and time in the future. I showed her a couple pictures of the Beatles and she seemed to think they all pretty much looked the same too. Ella's been asking for a puppy for the last year or so, but she couldn't decide whether she prefered a Chihuahua or a Dachhund (hot dog). Last week my sister and Bill got her a mix of both breeds from their local no-kill shelter. Ella named him Ringo.

Vick Statement

The emails and texts starting coming in around the time we were watching our first preseason games. I was visiting my folks up north and hanging with my niece so I didn't hear the news at first and I haven't been plugged in to the inter-web the past couple days so I'm just catching up with what the local and national perspective is,,, but the reaction to everyone I know has been interesting. An array of different opinions from a lot of different people I know. With all this, I felt like I should make a statement...so here is my press release.

It's kind of uncharted territory in some ways and there are a number of different issues at play here. Should Vick have been reinstated back into the NFL is the biggest? Either you think he should or he shouldn't. Once your opinion on that has been established you can sift through the rest of the questions, many of which aren't any easier to answer.

First of all, I don't know if Vick should have been reinstated, but it doesn't surprise me a bit. If you are a superstar athlete apparently you have to do something worse than run a dog killing ring to be banished from your sport. It's hard to say that once someone has served time in prison and lost all their money that they couldn't go back to their job once the time has been served. The difference here is that unlike most occupations, this is high profile and your base salary is a couple million dollars and that is very hard for any normal working person to grasp or accept.

I think it's safe to say I'm a dog person and come from a dog family. Nearly all of our friends have dogs and treat them as part of the family. I like many dogs more than a majority of humans. I understand them more and am often more comfortable in their company. I have seen other dog cultures though and have been chased by a pack of dogs in Mexico, fighting them off with rocks. I was also scared to death of the dogs in Africa. Some of my African friends would laugh when they saw pictures from home of dogs in the car or getting a bath. When I used to duck out of the hut to take a piss at night I'd stare wide-eyed out into the dark hoping that some wild dog didn't bite my pecker off. Dog fighting, however, is something I never saw or even knew existed before Michael Vick. Can't even imagine it really. Maybe my dog Claudius could have been a contender in his prime, but I see Frank more as the dog carrying the ring placard in between rounds. It's not funny and shouldn't be joked about, but that's how far away it is from something I know or have experienced.

I thought a lot about the dog fighting when all of this first went down. It's a damn shame and disgusting, but I thought even then that it was, to a certain degree, an unfortunate case of ignorance and cultural demographics. This was and probably still is something that is considered acceptable behavior and sport in some parts of our country.

This ignorance kind of struck me not so much from anything Vick said because once the charges were brought against him he didn't have much to say. I remember Clinton Portis coming out and kind of laughing at the reaction from Vick's actions. He couldn't believe how people were reacting to how dogs were treated. I wondered how many more players (or people in general) thought that it wasn't a big deal.

So, I guess my point is,,,I don't know if Vick is rehabilitated. I don't if he is a better person now and probably never will. I don't know if he deserves a second chance. I know he doesn't deserve one with a couple million dollars attached to it. I do know that Vick is probably a smarter person now. Despite whatever 4 year degrees they hand out to some of these dudes before they enter the NFL, they are not the sharpest cleats on the turf out there. They are sometimes expected to make intelligent social and moral decisions when they just aren't that smart. Not all players of course, but I think it's safe to say that some programs just push you through the system. I think Michael Vick is smarter now. I think those two years in prison have educated him on this particular subject.

I'm disappointed that the Eagles picked up Michael Vick. I wish my team wasn't the test tube for this experiment. As a football move, I don't agree with it either. I didn't think that Vick was a great QB in his prime. He was a fun athlete to watch, but I don't know if what he'll bring the Eagles could possibly outweigh the general negative backlash that will be felt by a lot of fans. Also, with the precarious relationship that Eagles fans already have with Donovan McNabb, this could end up back-firing if Donovan gets hurt and Vick has success. It's not the first time that I thought the Eagles ownership/GM made a bad move and it won't be the last. We lost a high character individual in Brian Dawkins this year and brought in Michael Vick.

The majority of the rumors had Vick going to the Steelers because it's a solid organization and well run and would have given him a good chance to re-establish his playing career and his reputation in general. I was kind of indifferent when reading about the Steelers rumors, but figured he was going to end up somewhere and a team like that might have made sense. Instead it's the Eagles and you have to examine it a little more thoroughly when it's your own team. I'm not going to burn my jersey and foam finger. I, like a lot of people will take a wait and see approach and even if it's not the best move for everyone involved, hopefully it won't be the worst move for everyone involved. Not much else to do.

Sorry if the Birds disappointed some of you. If this is indeed the final roster adjustment the Eagles needed to make and Vick is carried off the field a Super Bowl hero, we'll all have some soul searching to do.