The Unfolding Yankee Season

Caveat

That's Matt DeSalvo pitching in his debut for the Yankees.

A while back I got an e-mail from somebody who said he really hates this blog because I sometimes write about baseball. The truth is, I don't write about baseball, I write about what I think about in response to the box scores. Anyway, if I lost a reader because I occasionally choose to talk about the things that interest me, so be it. Lord knows there are plenty of blogs out there that don't discuss baseball; and my last entry on anything sporting was about Brian Lara retiring, so go figure.
In the mean time, this entry is going to be all about the Yankee season so far.

Yankee Thought No. 1 - 2005 Redux (Or Is It Reflux?)

Well, here we are again with a re-run of 2005. The Yankees have stumbled out the gate as there have been a rash of injuries that has devastated the rotation. Well, some are even citing the stat that the Yankees have started 4 rookies this year for the first time since a Philadelphia team that no longer exists did so in 1890. What's not surprising is that three of those rookies are from the Yankee's own farm system and the other, Kei Igawa, is only a rookie by semantics - he was the Ace of the Hanshin Tigers for 4 years and so is hardly a babe in the woods. Of the 4, Matt DeSalvo and Darrell Rasner have done well; Philip 'The Franchise' Hughes looked sensational in his second outing as he took a no-hitter into the Seventh and promptly got injured; and Chase Wright had one good outing before the red Sox squashed him like a bug. It's not a bad outcome given who was out: Wang, Moose and Pavano.

More on Pavano in a moment... In 2005, of course they slotted in the likes of Tim Redding, Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small but since then Brian Cashman has stocked the farm system so that he hasn't had to reach for the waiver wires and reject bins. As a wise man once said you only get Shawn Chacon once in your life and well, Cashman had Chacon AND Aaron Small that year, so while the injuries have been annoying to the max, he's done a great job of allowing these young fellows to be in a position to be available to the club.
As crises go, having 4 rookies start, isn't that bad.

Yankee Thought No.2 - TINSTAAPP!

Roger Clemens is coming back. Hooray. TINSTAAPP as you may know, stands for 'There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect"
When you sign a 44 y.o. former Cy Young winner, you could fairly be accused of holding to that philosphy. I hesitate to think what a 45 y.o. Rocket can deliver when a 41-43 y.o. Big Unit was a big disappointment on the standing on the shoulder of even larger disappointments; but what the hey. He only has to beat what Kei Igawa is going to deliver because the front 4 are already Wang, Pettite, Moose and Phil Franchise. Some have estimated this to be about 3 wins. However, that's 3 wins extra the Red Sox won't be getting, so Roger NOT going to the Bosox might be the bigger story than him actually turning up for the Yanks. Either way, it doesn't show the Yankees are suddenly all frugal and penny-pinching. They just know when to open their purses.
One thing I don't get. Will he come back next year if they win the World Series?

Yankee Thought No. 3 - Pavanova
I actually bought the Brian Cashman line and picked up Carl Pavano for 1 start in my Fantasy League. Then, I quickly ditched him for Boof Bonser, who I ditched for Zack Greinke who I ditched for Oliver Perez, who I ditched for Igawa and now Gil Meche. As a result I didn't pick up that one win. I know how Cashman feels. If only the fucker could stay healthy long enough for league average, he would've been great trade bait by now. As it is, he's insisting he needs Tommy John surgery. Aiyah. I don't even care if he's faking it or if he genuinely is the injury-fairy. As Yankee fans like to say,"He's dead to me!"

Yankee Thought No.4 - On The BoSux
As of this writing, the Yankees are 6 games behind the Bosox and 1 game under .500. It's May. I just don't think the Red Sox can really run away with the division. I can always be proven wrong, but they're not as good as they've been playing; and the Yanks certainly not as bad as their record shows. The 2-6 record on 1-run games is a bit of a culprit as Mo has blown 3 saves, but really, it's not going to stay this way. When you see the A's sitting on top of the AL West with a 16-15 record, the fact that there are two 20-win teams in the AL Central just doesn't scare me. I think the Yankees will just inch back and take the division like they have in the previous years.

Yankee Thought No.5 - Phil Franchise

In all of this chaos, Phil Hughes arrived and promptly got injured. This is perhaps the most awful news in all of ths confluence. (Fortunately I picked himup just for the good start, but now he's going to live on the DL for 4-6 weeks and it's killing me). I think it's the first time in living memory that the Yankees have brought up a No.1 Prospect that was a pitcher - TINSTAAPP or not. I'm really rooting for the kid who has been dubbed 'Phil Franchise'.

Yankee Thought No.6 - A-God
I'm delighted at A-Rod's sizzling start. I'm glad the fans have finally embraced him. About time too. At one point he was slugging over 1.000, but since then he's cooled back down to slugging .740. Talk about on fire - he was like the sun itself. He may yet exercise his option and opt out of his contract at the end of the year, but until he does, he's a god. I'm enjoying what the Yankees are getting from him right now. It's great entertainment, and let's be blunt: on some levels, it's all about the entertainment.

Yankee Thought No. 7
It's turning out so far that the returns on the Randy and Sheff trades have not been great. Humberto Sanchez went and got himself Tommy John surgery, which is bad. Russ Ohlendorf hasn't exactly lit up AAA Scranton WB. At the moment the trades are looking a bit Mike-Lowell-for-Ed-Yarnall+2.

Space As A Lifestyle Choice...

Don't Wanna Go Home


Here's an interesting article on what Cosmonauts say about working in Space.

The best, the most beautiful part, is after the start when you look at Earth
straight away," Cosmonaut Vladimir Dezhurov said.
"Earth is like a big, blue balloon and this beautiful balloon is flying, all around it is solid blackness."

Dezhurov has lived in Star City – a formerly top-secret training base for cosmonauts near Moscow – for 21 years and has done two four-month stints aboard the International Space Station, 350 km above Earth. He can think of no other profession he'd like better, despite the fact that after the launch, and that glimpse of his home planet, "it's all work, work, work up there, night and day".

But his main gripe is not the long hours, or missing his family and friends. "The hardest thing is coming back to Earth," he said. The problem is not so much the mundanity of earthly existence – bills to pay, food to buy, chores to complete.

"The muscle fabric degrades very much. It's hard to walk. You have to learn how to walk again, like a small child."

Astronauts train daily aboard the orbiting space station to prevent the atrophy of their legs and feet which are under-used in weightlessness. It takes several weeks under medical supervision to recover from a long stay in space.

The things we learn, every day. :)

Gotta Laugh

Say Hello To Farfour Mouse!


This is pretty wrong-looking and wretched:

A giant black-and-white rodent - named "Farfour," or "butterfly" - but unmistakably a Mickey ripoff - does his high-pitched preaching against the US and Israel on a children's show run each Friday on Al-Aqsa TV, a station run by Hamas.

The militant group, sworn to Israel's destruction, shares power in the Palestinian government.

"You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," Farfour squeaked on a recent episode of the show, which is titled, Tomorrow's Pioneers.

"We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers."

Children call in to the show, many singing Hamas anthems about fighting Israel.

Israel has long complained that the Palestinian airwaves are filled with incitement.

It's a far cry from Borat, but worth noting.

Quick Shots

My Song Of The Week - 'QVB'

I recorded this old song from my youth. It's hard to explain the circumstances today, but it's essentially about wavering affections.
Check it out.

Fantasy League Blues - AFL Style
My AFL Team has shot to the bottom quarter in a 16 team league in a mere 3 rounds. considering I was at the top of th table at the completion of Round 3, one might ask, "what happened?" 3 straight unlucky losses would do it, boys and gals. From here on in, it's a mystery what will transpire in this league. Oh well.

Fantasy League Blues - MLB Style
My phenom-laden Combat Wombats are running in the middle pack. I don't really know where I can improve my team, other than wait for the retun of Felix Hernandes and Philip Hughes.
I've given up on Alex Gordon this year. He might be the next George Brett, but it ain't happening this year by the look of things. David Wright has played like the definition of crap. Other than that, Jeter's been a rock, Brian McCann has been okaay and Adam Dunn has been awesome.

More on Schirra

Pretty Cool
If you thought the Right Stuff was a bit too macho, you should check this out here from Time Magazine:

Wally Schirra once told Chris Kraft to go to hell. Remember the astronaut, who died this week at 84, for a lot of things, but put that particular bit of courage near the top of your list. Nobody, up until that moment, had ever told Kraft to go to hell, and the fact is, Schirra didn't tell him directly either. What he did do was tell Deke Slayton, the head of the astronaut corps, and he knew Slayton would tell Kraft, the director of all of the manned missions. Even when you're calling down your imprecation from the safe remove of the Apollo 7 command module high in Earth orbit, that took brass.

Apollo 7 was Schirra's third and last mission. Having joined the space agency as one of the original seven astronauts in 1959, the former Korean war combat pilot became the fifth American in space, orbiting the Earth in his tiny Mercury spacecraft in 1962. In 1965, he returned to space aboard Gemini 6 with co-pilot Tom Stafford, rendezvousing with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, already waiting in orbit in Gemini 7. After those two trips, there wasn't much that rattled Schirra, but agreeing to fly Apollo 7 at all still took some spine.

On January 27, 1967, just 21 months before Schirra's mission took off, the Apollo command module had killed three of his colleagues, when a spark ignited its pure oxygen atmosphere, immolating Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee during a lockdown rehearsal on the pad. Everyone at NASA already knew that the so-far unflown Apollo was a lemon. Not long before the three men died, they sat for a photo session with a model of the command module resting on a table in front of them it. In one of the outtakes never released to the press, they dropped the grins, bowed their heads and brought their hands together prayerfully. They inscribed the picture to Harrison Storms, the head of North American Aviation, the spacecraft's lead contractor: "Stormy," the inscription read, "this time we are not calling Houston!"

After the fire, it was left to Schirra, the commander of the three-man back-up crew that included space rookies Walt Cunningham and Donn Eisele, to help oversee the gutting and redesign of the ship. Schirra was a bear about the job, stalking the factory floor, poking his nose into whatever the engineers were doing and making it clear when he did not like what he saw. If he wasn't satisfied with the answers he got, he'd go up to the executive suites and buttonhole Storms himself. "You guys want to fix this ship or not?" he'd challenge. "If so let me see you down on the factory floor with the rest of us."

After all this, it was no surprise that when the spacecraft finally took off for its 11-day trip, Schirra would be just as much of a pit bull about how the ship would be flown. NASA scientists had stuffed the flight plan with experiments and astronomical observations, but Schirra didn't want any part of them. This was an engineering mission, as the test pilots liked to call it, meaning that it was a shakedown flight for the ship itself, not a working trip for the men in lab coats.
Whenever an experiment crowded an engineering exercise, he'd jettison the experiment. When a prime-time broadcast was scheduled for shortly before the crew was to execute a tricky rendezvous, he scrubbed the TV show. "No TV until after the rendezvous," he pronounced. The ground objected but Schirra held firm. "TV will be delayed without any further discussion."

Things got more contentious still when all three men developed head colds, something that can be uncomfortable enough on Earth and is exponentially worse in the unfamiliar pressure of a sealed spacecraft. Reporters noticed the sparring between mission control and the ship and began writing about the "snappishness" of the astronauts. The Russian press weighed in too, pointing out the crew's "increased irritation due to the monotony of the spaceflight and the imperfect design of the systems for controlling the vital functions of the spacemen."
Finally, Kraft broke all protocol and proposed to speak to Schirra directly. Slayton offered to do it himself, figuring that as one astronaut to another he could communicate more candidly. Slayton did just that and later reported back to Kraft.
"I told him that the whole world was following this flight and that he and his crew were not coming across well," Slayton said. "I told him he was trained to do a job and that he'd better get busy doing it."
"And?" Kraft asked.
"And he told me to go to hell."

As Slayton must have known, however, doing his job was precisely what Schirra was engaged in for the entire 11 days aloft. Astronauts were pilots first and showmen second. And while the silver flight suits and the smiling press events and the ticker-tape parades belied that, they were hired for their unique understanding of the machines they flew and their hardheaded ability to coax the most from them. That was Schirra's gift. And if flipping off his boss was necessary to get his work done, well, he was happy to do that too. Kraft, 83, wound up respecting Schirra for that act of defiance. Schirra was happy to get that nod. But the fact was, the pilot in him really didn't need it.

An interestng read and a peep in to the world of '60s-'70s NASA.

The Passing Of Wally Schirra

All Hail The Mercury Seven


Wally Schirra, he of the Mercury Seven with 'the Right Stuff' passed away.

Schirra was one of the seven young men selected in 1959 to lead the Cold War
space race against the Soviet Union. Only John Glenn and Scott Carpenter remain
from the project. He was born in March 1923 into an aviation family, Schirra
was one of the seven Mercury astronauts named by NASA in April 1959. He then
piloted the Sigma 7 Mercury flight in late 1962, which orbited Earth six
times.

That flight lasted 9 hours, 15 minutes and attained a speed of 28,091km/h at an altitude of 280 km. It travelled almost 230,400 km before re-entry.
Schirra was the command pilot on the historic 1965 Gemini 6 flight. The highlight was a successful rendezvous of Gemini 6 with the already orbiting Gemini 7 spacecraft. This was the first rendezvous of two manned manoeuvrable spacecraft and established another space first for the United States.

In 1968 he was the command pilot on Apollo VII. Schirra had logged a total of 295 hours and 15 minutes in space. He was the only astronaut to have flown Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions.

In 1969 Schirra retired from the US Navy and NASA. According to his family, Schirra died of natural causes.

Farewell, and godspeed, Wally.

Back From The Road

Queensland Perfect One Day, Bending Over Backwards To Help The Next
My road trip involved taking Japanese producers and Executives to Production facilities in the Goldcoast and Wellington. The Goldcoast leg of the trip took us to Movieworld Studios and the facilties there.

The executives and producers are looking to shoot a Ninja movie in the Southern Hemisphere during the Northern winter; their star actor is only available during the deepest winter, but the picture has many ocean scenes. So it was off to these lovely facilties to see just what was possible. The picture is already green-lit, with director, studio and distributor also set. With some luck, I'm set to to be one of the prodcuers should the project be shot in the Southern Hemisphere. Yep, a multi-million dollar feature film with Ninja action.

Movieworld Studios is a lot bigger now than it used to be and is equipped with 3 possible water tanks for shooting underwater sequences. The semi-circular outdoor tank and the latest massive water tank are very deep and very inviting prospects. They aaslo have on-site At-Lab for processing, Panavision for camera support and Photon, for Visual Effects. The only problem with a Queensland location shoot is that the landscape is so sub-tropical Australian. That is to say, with its gorgeous golden sand on immensely long beaches with Australian flora a plenty, it's just not going to be a convincing location for a medieval Japanese rural location.

So while it may not happen on this shoot, Queensland left a deep impression on the Japanese delegation as a shooting destination.

Wellington
Things got more interesting in Wellington, because they just have more of everything there. It's hard to explain how that is possible, but it comes down to one man's name: Peter Jackson.

Peter Jackson's films have enabled Wellington to essentially leap to the top of the list in terms of quality facilities available down under. Yes, Movieworld is bigger than Stone Street, but you just can't beat the strength of having both WETA Workshop and WETA Digital just down the road; and when it comes to Park Road Post, there is nothing else like it on Earth. It's an amazing facility - it's a facility made by a film-maker for film-makers and that says it all.

The other thing Wellington has that Queensland doesn't, are these massive pine forests, which happen to look just like pine forests in Japan. Indeed because NZ is volcanic, even the sand on the beach looks similar. Just to locations had the Japanese delegation really excited. Then of course we went to the WETAs.

Remember Narsil?
Yes you do. That was Isildur's sword that was shattered, and was reforged. Well, I held it. Actually, I held the action prop that WETA Workshop created for the LOTR films, but who's quibbling? I have held Narsil in my very hand!

Anyway, I also got to meet Richard Taylor who built all those wonderful things, and gawked at him because I recognised him from all the DVD extras. He is one amazing man. he talked us through how he would appproach shooting the shark sequence, outlining how he would buildd a modern day Bruce. That was a lecture to behold.

WETA Digital
The amazing thing about doing things digitally is that it's so bloodless. The sort of faffing around and endlessly adjusting things that are all too often unrepeatable, with ananlog set ups simply get replaced by repeatable processes. The guys aat WETA Digital talked us through how the crew might work on a Dry-For-Wet shoot and how that might be put together. It's a fascinating solution to a difficult problem. To be honest, I'm a big fan of simpler, repeatable processes, so this was very promising.
Again, the folks at WETA Digital were very impressive.

So What Now?
Hopefully, the Japanese execs decide on what they want to do in the next month. Then I think it will be time to set up the shoot. Should be exciting if they do choose to do it down under.
And if they don't... Something tells me their interest in the Southern Hemisphere is piqued. Stay tuned. :)

Quick Shots

On The Road Again
Next week, I'll be going to Queensland and then WETA down in Wellington NZ as I accompany a host of Japanese producers doing a feasibility tour of shooting one of their bigger pictures, down-under. The raationale goes the lead actor is only available during December and January, but the script calls for scenes in the wilderness and an underwater fight scene, so naaturally they're trying to get their heads around shooting in the opposite season.

Anyway, with some luck I'll convince them it's feasible and then get a job working on the production. We'll see how it goes. :)

The Writings Of Cho Seung-Hui
One of the tragedies in this world is that overnight, 183 people might die in Baghdad and nobody raises an eyebrow, not even an eyelash; but should a crazed Korean go on a shooting-spree rampage through an American educational insitution killing 32, it's world-wide front-page news. *Ugh*

In the ensuing media-circus (which is fit for a poke here on these pages) it has been rvealed that Cho was a creative writng student (*Ugh* x2) and that he has produced 2 little plays. Becaue the world is all digital and fucked up, we can now get some insight into the wretched soul that was Cho Seung-Hui here.

I will report that yes, I have read one of them, but not the other. There's only so much crap one can handle.

Brian Lara Calls It A Day
In other news, Brian Lara has decided to retire at the end of the current Cricket World Cup.

Over a 17-year international career, Lara achieved every individual accolade a batsman could. At the end of his career, he is the greatest Test match run scorer of all time (11,953) and boasts the highest-ever Test and first-class scores.

At St John's in 1994 against England, he broke Sir Garfield Sobers' mythical total of 365, and then bettered it again when Matthew Hayden dared to set a new mark, when he made 400 at same venue against England 10 years later. His first-class total of 501 for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994 is still unsurpassed.

He scored the most runs in a Test over (28), most runs for the West Indies, the second most double centuries (eight), the second most Test centuries (34), the most runs in a losing team (351 v Sri Lanka in 2001) and took second most Test catches (168).

In his 131-Test career, he faced the three greatest Test wicket takers of all time, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Muttiah Muralitharan, while he played alongside the fourth in Courtney Walsh. In an era of golden cricketers, Lara not only competed, but dominated many of them.

Alongside Sachin Tendulkar, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting, he stood on that second level behind the incomparable Sir Donald Bradman.

It's always sad when a great has to call it a day.

My Song Of The Week

Astronaughty

A few weeks back, we saw the news on NASA Astronaught and US Navy Captain Lisa Nowak's strange misadventure. So I wrote a song about it.
It's an irony-filled number about love lost, and being an astronaut. The Right Stuff sure ain't what it used to be.

Quick Shots

Working
I've been helping out 32 Hundred Lighting for a few weeks now. It's a bit of casual temping on the side. It's really interesting to see the events/promotions world from the other side of the producing ledger. The place is filled with great people so stay tuned for fun stories.

On The Court
I'm back to having regular hits on the tennis court. I think I've got my movement back and my strokes are pretty clean. My backhand comes and goes depending on my footwork but my forehand is in a groove. It's good to feel healthy.

Jack Kerouac Memorial League Season Starts!
My goodness it's taken me a fortnight to get to mention it but the MLB season is on for young and old again. The only thing that kept me sane through the Northern winter this yar was watching cricket and Tennis, which is no substitute for the joys of reading the box scores on Yahoo.

My draft this year was very rookie heavy:
1. (1) Johan Santana SP
2. (20) David Wright 3B
3. (21) Derek Jeter SS
4. (40) Mariano Rivera RP
5. (41) Huston Street RP
6. (60) Jered Weaver SP
7. (61) Takashi Saito RP
8. (80) Brian McCann C
9. (81) "King" Félix Hernández SP
10. (100) Cole Hamels SP
11. (101) Adam Dunn LF
12. (120) Delmon Young RF
13. (121) Todd Helton 1B
14. (140) Ryan Freel 2B,3B,LF,CF,RF
15. (141) Tadahito Iguchi 2B
16. (160) Akinori Otsuka RP
17. (161) Dennys Reyes RP
18. (180) Kei Igawa SP
19. (181) Reed Johnson LF,CF,RF
20. (200) Bobby Crosby SS
21. (201) B.J. Upton 2B,3B
22. (220) Austin Kearns RF
23. (221) Alex Gordon 3B
24. (240) Matt Murton LF
25. (241) J.D. Drew

Since then I've traded Santana for Dice-K (which raised eyebrows); cast aside Matt Murton for a 5th starter to fill in for a DL-ed Jared Weaver; looked for a pitcher for holds, but at the end of 2 weeks, I'm on top. Which promises absolutely nothing, but we'll see. Adam Dunn has been a revelation, but his friend Austin Kearns has been pretty slow to start. Nick Johnson (a.k.a OBP Jesus) was out injured for the season while Todd Helton has simply been grizzly.

I'm high on all these rookies, and so far BJ Upton, Delmon Young, Dice-K have been as advertised. Helton, Jeter and Mo are old on this squad!
Plus, I have King Felix, Cole Hamels and Jared Weaver. If only I could find a good 5th starter out of John Maine, Kei Igawa and Zach Greinke, I am Mr. Pitching Depth.

Alex Gordon has been slow, having had 3 hits in 29 ABs or so. One of those was a homerun - I'm going to be patient. After all, he was he most likely to be star prospect in just about everybody's forecast. He may supersede David Wright as the Combat Wombat 3B of the future.
On a related note, I'm really excited BJ Upton has finally arrived for the Devil Rays, and he's done so as a 2B. I foolishly parted with Chase Utley (I'm still trying to remember the reasoning as it was clearly stupid in retrospect). Upton hits like Jeter in the 2B hole, I'm a happy lad.

Question: Why is Orlando Hudson hitting in the 3 hole for the Arizona Diamondbacks? And why is he producing so much thus far? Very spooky, but I've decided to imbibe the Kool-aid to see what it's about. I've dropped Iguchi in favor of Hudson.

AFL Fantasy League
Encouraged by my 7th/16 place finish in the AFL last year, I have signed on again to take on the Jennings boys.
Here's my team for the year:

1. BIRCHALL, Grant (HAW)
2. CORNES, Chad (PTA)
3. BOYLE, Tim (HAW)
4. RICHARDS, Ted (SYD)
5. MILLER, Brad J. (MEL)
6. GLASS, Darren (WCE)
7. EGAN, Matthew (GEE)
8. CROSS, Daniel (WBD)
9. JUDD, Chris (WCE)
10. BRUCE, Cameron (MEL)
11. HODGE, Luke (HAW)
12. GOODES, Adam (SYD)
13. THOMAS, Lindsay (KAN)
14. EVERITT, Peter (SYD)
15. MOONEY, Cameron (GEE)
16. LUCAS, Scott (ESS)
17. O'KEEFE, Ryan (SYD)
18. THOMAS, Dale (COL)
19. HALE, David (KAN)
20. HALL, Barry (SYD)
21. JETTA, Leroy (ESS)
22. MCGRATH, Ashley (BRL)

Bench:
Torney, Jason
Mackenzie, Eric
Hurn, Shannon
Collins, Brett
Wood, Cameron
Taylor, Simon
MacDougall, Andrew
Phillips, Simon

It's a salary-capped league so you have to choose your stars wisely.
This year my tack is no longer "Stars & Scrubs", but depth. Because you can only have 20 trades in a 20 round season, you just can't afford to have a roster with holes where people don't play.
The guys who fluctuate do fluctuate wildly, but nothing hurts the bottomline as a guy who is on your roster who does not play. Last year, I didn't value the contribution of my scrubs enough and so spent most of my 20 trades looking for people to fill my holes. That was bad.

This all meant I had to fill in the likes of Shannon Hurn and Leroy Jetta before choosing my stars. In turn, it meant I had to forego Kane Cornes, Dean Cox, Dane Swan and so on - a real Bummer. Fortunately I retained Luke Hodge who I think is primed for a good year. I also managed to pick up Peter Everitt again, which amuses me in as much as he's moved to Sydney and I think he's under-valued. he's only 1 year out from a monster season and he's still very capable.

I also have familiar names from last year's squad in Barry Hall, Matthew Egan, Dale Thomas, Grant Birchall and Scott Lucas.
Who knows? It might work this year.

My Song Of The Week

How Can It Be... Love?

I wrote this song when I was 17.
Well, most of it anyway. It was the first thing I recorded on my cassette deck, way back when. This is a new rendition I decided to undertake because I don't think the song ever got its dues in my old bands and all the while I felt it was quite an okay tune. So I guess it was time, as I exorcise ghosts. In fact I am only now understanding what the band Japan may have meant when they wrote that song. Such is life.
But do check it out.

CyberBach 8 BWV 549

I Did This! :)

Art's Art Book

Amazingly, I Have A Book Coming Out
To be specific, it's not really 'my' book. I only translated it. But it's coming out over at Amazon.com so check it out here. It officially launches on 1 June 2007, but if you pre-order now, you get a 34% Discount.
I've received my copy and true to all things printed in Japan, it's a gorgeous book.
The Amazon Editorial Book Review says:

Book Description
Recently the West has been inundated by a steady flow of images from manga, anime, and the video games that are a key part of today's Japanese visual culture. At the same time, Japanese contemporary artists are gaining a higher profile overseas: many Westerners are already familiar with
Takashi Murakami's brightly colored, cartoonlike characters, or with Junko Mizuno's "grotes-cute" Lolita-style girls. Perhaps less familiar are the absurd fighting machines of Kenji Yanobe, the many disguises of Tomoko Sawada, or the bizarre fairytale landscapes of Tomoko Konoike. Warriors of Art
features the work of forty of the latest and most relevant contemporary Japanese artists, from painters and sculptors, to photographers and performance artists, with lavish full-color spreads of their key works. Author Yumi Yamaguchi offers an insightful introduction to the main themes of each
artist, and builds up a fascinating portrait of the society that has given birth to them: a Japan that still bears the scars of atomic destruction, a Japan with a penchant for the cute and the childish, a Japan whose manga and anime industries have come to dominate the world.

Warriors of Art takes its title from a phrase used to describe Taro Okamoto (1911-1996), perhaps the first truly influential contemporary artist to emerge in postwar Japan, who fought to bring modern art to a wider audience. Following in Okamoto's footsteps, the forty artists featured in this
book are a new generation of warriors, attacking our senses with a shocking mix of the cute, the grotesque, the sexy, and the violent, forcing us to sit up and take notice of their vision of Japan.

About the Author
Yumi Yamaguchi is a Tokyo-based art critic who writes on art for a wide variety of Japanese magazines, and is the author of several books on the subject. This is the first time she has been published in English.

No mention of me, the translator, but hey, what do you expect? :)
If you're even remotely interested in art, this book is worth it's weight in US Dollars!

Art Book

Amazingly, I Have A Book Coming Out
To be specific, it's not really 'my' book. I only translated it. But it's coming out over at Amazon.com so check it out here. It officially launches on 1 June 2007, but if you pre-order now, you get a 34% Discount.
I've received my copy and true to all things printed in Japan, it's a gorgeous book.
The Amazon Editorial Book Review says:

Book Description Recently the West has been inundated by a steady flow of images from manga, anime, and the video games that are a key part of today's Japanese visual culture. At the same time, Japanese contemporary artists are gaining a higher profile overseas: many Westerners are already familiar with
Takashi Murakami's brightly colored, cartoonlike characters, or with Junko Mizuno's "grotes-cute" Lolita-style girls. Perhaps less familiar are the absurd fighting machines of Kenji Yanobe, the many disguises of Tomoko Sawada, or the bizarre fairytale landscapes of Tomoko Konoike. Warriors of Art
features the work of forty of the latest and most relevant contemporary Japanese artists, from painters and sculptors, to photographers and performance artists, with lavish full-color spreads of their key works. Author Yumi Yamaguchi offers an insightful introduction to the main themes of each
artist, and builds up a fascinating portrait of the society that has given birth to them: a Japan that still bears the scars of atomic destruction, a Japan with a penchant for the cute and the childish, a Japan whose manga and anime industries have come to dominate the world.

Warriors of Art takes its title from a phrase used to describe Taro Okamoto (1911-1996), perhaps the first truly influential contemporary artist to emerge in postwar Japan, who fought to bring modern art to a wider audience. Following in Okamoto's footsteps, the forty artists featured in this
book are a new generation of warriors, attacking our senses with a shocking mix of the cute, the grotesque, the sexy, and the violent, forcing us to sit up and take notice of their vision of Japan.

About the Author Yumi Yamaguchi is a Tokyo-based art critic who writes on art for a wide variety of Japanese magazines, and is the author of several books on the subject. This is the first time she has been published in English.

No mention of me, the translator, but hey, what do you expect? :)
If you're even remotely interested in art, this book is worth it's weight in US Dollars!

My Song Of The Week

Expert, Textpert...

I did a cover of 'I Am The Walrus'.
You can find it at this link. I did change the line to "Expert, Sexpert" just to be funny.