We play today, we win today, das it.

The other day, I found myself watching Mission: Man Band. I know, I know, what has my life come to? Well, I have always wondered what happened to the white guy from Color Me Badd. The band, which calls itself Sureshot, consists of four members:

* Bryan Abrams (Color Me Badd)
* Rich Cronin (LFO)
* Chris Kirkpatrick (*NSYNC)
* Jeff Timmons (98 Degrees)

Who are those three other clowns? Basically, they got the dude that's not JT from Nsync and the dude that's not Nick Lachey from 98 degrees. I guess the dude from LFO was picked to round out the crew. What the funny looking guy from the Backstreet Boys was busy? Honestly, this show is pretty bad, but it's just too funny to not watch. You know, in that unintentionally funny kind of way. Sorta like Flavor of Love. By the way, when I googled Color Me Badd, I came up with this tidbit; they are listed on Billboard as the 7th biggest musical act of the 90s. Really? Were the 90's that bad?

As for a good show to watch, I've really been into this show Mad Men on AMC. Good show about Ad Execs during the early 60's. From the executive producer and writer of "The Sopranos" Matthew Weiner, comes Mad Men. It's a provocative tv show about the lives of the ruthlessly competitive men and women of Madison Avenue advertising firm. Good cast to boot, with John Hamm playing a really dark and introverted character, and the lovely January Jones(best known as Cadence from the American Wedding movie) as his wife. I like this show a lot.
It's probably the best TV show to debut this summer. While I'm at it, the other day I caught one of those VH1 Classic Albums shows. This one was about Nirvana's Nevermind. Pretty cool documentary on the making of that album. Includes interviews w/ Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, producer Butch Vig and Thurston Moore.

Yankees have been playing like crap the last few days. Losing two of three to the Angels didn't help. And so far splitting the first two games against Detroit. Not looking good going into a huge series against Boston this week, who have been playing well. This is that stretch where they really needed to play well, and they have played just OK. A few things that have hurt the Yanks are the starting pitching has been pretty bad lately, namely Mike Mussina and Roger Clemens. Wang and Pettite have both pitched well their last time out(hopefully that continues), and Phil Hughes continues to be an enigma. Fans are starting to hate on the Joba Rules, believing the kid should pitch when the team needs him, despite the strict rules to keep him from getting hurt. Big series against Seattle next week too. It's kinda funny because, the Yanks really have their own destiny in their own hands. Ask most teams and players, and that's what they would want. It's pretty basic, you play to win today and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. Where are those Mariano Duncan t-shirts when you need them.


Listening Pile:
I downloaded Bishop Allen's new album, The Broken String the other day after I clicked on a banner by accident linking me to their song"Rain". I have their 2003 album, Charm School, which I thought was a pretty good listen, but a little uneven.

The band released an EP every month for a year, and they ended up with some 4 dozen songs, of which they picked 8 and added two new ones to make up this album. After years of underground rumblings with their self-released debut the Brooklyn by way of Boston - based group should command a bit more attention for their new masterful album, combining cinematic lyrics, plaintive, passionate vocals and jangly indie-rock. "Rain" is a bouncy, new wave-ish track, and the rest of the album is playful, capturing life's fragile, beautiful moments.

Holy Cow!

It's been a very sad two days in my household. We lost a very close friend in the Scooter, Phil Rizzuto. He was beloved for this off-beat announcing, giving people shoutouts on their birthday(before they were shoutouts), his love of canolis, his wife Cora, and of course of the game. He was the voice of the Yankees for many a generations. To this day, just about every game I watch, I think to myself, this would be so much more entertaining and insightful if the Scooter were doing this game. He holds a dear place in my heart. Here is a greatMike Lupica Article about the Scooter.

I was saddened at Old Timers day when they announced the Scooter couldn't be in attendance. That day, was the first time it even dawned on me that he might be gone one day soon. I had the pleasure to meet him once when I was about 8 years old. I used to live in the same town as him in New Jersey and we went trick or treating in his neighborhood. I remember ringing the doorbell and none other than the Scooter answering the door. I'm sure we weren't the first kids that night to ring his doorbell, nor the last, but he treated us as if we were friends. He just said, "Holy Cow! Look at those costumes and put a bunch of pennies in our bags. I actually kept those pennies for years, and kinda still wish I had them. '

Listening Pile:
No music today. Just listening to the voice of the Scooter. So glad Mike and the Mad Dog played an interview from June of 05 on their show yesterday. He sounded old and beat up, but still full of life. Go to youtube, the yes network and listen to some old play by play by the Scooter. One of my favorite stories by the Scooter, can't remember who it was with, but they were talking about an oval shaped hotel room. The Scooter just said something like, "I couldn't stay in a room like that, I'd have nowhere to corner Cora." Go here to read some more.

And my dreams all fade away

Pete Abe at the Lohud Yanks Blog posted this earlier:

Received this press release from YES today:

The YES Network is enjoying its highest New York Yankees ratings ever, with its primetime Yankees telecasts ranking No. 1 in New York on 27 of the past 29 game nights. YES’ primetime telecasts have regularly outperformed ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and all other New York broadcast and cable stations this summer.

Tuesday’s Yankees-Blue Jays telecast on YES registered a 7.4 TV household rating (715,000 viewers), the highest-rated and most-watched program on YES since September 29, 2005, when the Yankees-Orioles telecast scored a 7.6 TV household rating (731,000 viewers).

This suggests two things to me: People really like how this team is playing and there’s not much on in the summer.

Um... yeah, you think. Last night I found myself watching The Nine and Top Chef. Seriously, what has my life come to. There are times I pray for death looking for something to watch on TV during the summer. I also have been watching Survivor...er... Big Brother Season 112. Things are bad. I literally watched Feasting on Asphalt for the 2nd time in 3 days last night, while the Yanks were getting killed. I will say, one good thing that came out of the Bonds home run chase, was getting to watch all his games on ESPN2. As an East Coast baseball fan, I never get to see any of the NL teams play, especially the NL West. That was kinda nice. The parks in LA, San Diego, Arizona and SF are sure nice too. Some of the best out there from what I've seen.

Anyhows, here is when the Yanks' schedule gets ridiculous. 17 out of 20 games against the Red Sox, Angels, Indians, with 3 each, and 8 against the Tigers(and Placido Polanco's misshaped head), who beat mercilessly on the Yanks last year in the postseason. You can come out of those games two games over .500, and win two of out 3 against the Orioles, who have given the Yanks fits all season, and we have a very good shot of getting into the postseason.

Listening Pile:
Just saw that UNKLE is playing a show in NYC at Webster Hall on October 18th. I am totally blown away by this information. With his U.K. label Mo' Wax, James Lavelle helped launch the instrumental mid-'90s downtempo breakbeat era, eventually dubbed trip-hop. Lavelle has always found a way to make some of the most interesting electronic music out there, with lots of guests on his records singing their parts, from Josh Homme, Thom Yorke, Ozzy, to Ian Brown and Ian Astbury. My man's technique is sick. Psyence Fiction and Never, Never, Land were outstanding albums, and so far from what I've heard of War Stories, it's top notch too. Plus, you need to see the video for "Burn My Shadow" w/ the Eastern European dude from ER.

Theres no bathroom, and there is no sink.

things have been crazy the last few weeks. lots of work crap to deal w/ last week as i was taking friday off to have wrist surgery, also took monday off. yay short workweek. the surgery hurt like a mofo. i was totally out of it on friday, the day of the procedure. i don't know what it is about hospitals and doctors, but i have no idea why they keep you waiting around so long. like, for no reason. just sit there and wait, and wait, and then more waiting. then you go somewhere else, and wait more, before you see a doc for five minutes, then you go and wait more. ugh! so, like injured baseball players, i guess i'm just day-to-day. or, dunno, would i be on the DL?

somehow the yanks went from 9.5 games out of the wildcard on july 7 to .5 games out today. that's 9 games they picked up on the indians,or the tigers, whomever is not leading the central. phil hughes looked pretty good the other day in his first start back from the D.L. i really hope that kid can start to finish off batters and not mess around so much and nit-pick when he has two strikes on a guy. he threw way too many pitches in only 4 and 2/3 innings the other day. but, lots of people have been saying that having a kid like him at the back of the rotation is like trading for a solid starting pitcher. plus i came across a stat the other day talking about how clemens and pettite are two of the winningest pitchers of all time in the month of august. good, we'll need it!

joba chamberlain is up too, which is kinda nice, and not just because the dude's first name is joba, which opens up endless possibilities for a nickname and theme music, but also because he's been lights out since his conversion to the bullpen in AAA ball.. The 21-year-old, 2006 draft pick, has been lights out all season, going 9-2 with a 2.45 ERA over 3 organizational levels. In 88.1 innings, he has allowed 62 hits and struck out 135. Just the other day, he struck out 5 in two innings of work. I dunno, I like this team a lot better than the old, slow, stumbling team we had in April and May. I hope bringing back Giambi doesn't hurt the team. It's strange, but it seems the team has played so much better without him and you have to hope his return doesn't impede the development of Melky and Andy Phillips, who have thrived in their new starting roles.

i've been watching this big brother 18, or whatever season it's in now.(isn't there like one every six months now or something?) i know one of the guys, eric. nice guy, met him once when we went out for drinks w/ some friends. he's america's player, so america, gets to pick stuff for him to do. i hope someone asks him to punch that tommy lee looking dude(dick) in the face, or at least that jen chick. that would make for must see television. i mean, seriously, do they turn off the AC in that place. why are people standing around in their underwear? who cooks in a bikini? this show is so irrational, but people love it.

Listening Pile:
I'm not sure yet, but I really think I like this new Rilo Kiley jam, Silver Lining It's from their upcoming fourth album Under the Blacklight. "Silver Lining" has got some 60's am pop vibe to suck you in and cute little Jenny Lewis just sucks you right in. Damn her! I have to say, I've never been into the Rilo, nor her solo stuff, but she always manages a way to make me at least want to check out her records.

By the way, has anyone noticed Silverchair is back with a new album, that apparently is only available from Newbury Comics? Apparently, it's their best selling album, which is hard to believe, since Frogstomp seemed to be everywhere back in 95. I dunno, why I'm talking about this. Just seems weird.