Harold Reynolds…gone, gone , gone

I’ve been an avid ESPN viewer for the last 18 years. I’ve seen them grow from an admirable bunch of sports fans turned commentators giving the news, interviews, stories, etc that were actually really good. ESPN brought up some talents like Charlie Steiner, Robin Roberts, Dan Patrick, Keith Olberman etc and some not so talents (Craig Kilborn). They took chuckleheads like Chris Berman & Stuart Scott and turned them into icons. Might I add here that I once loved Chris and Stuart. When you don’t change your act for 15 or 30 years your act tends to get a little stale.

I used to love watching Baseball Tonight. Though I thought Andrew Jackson, errr, Peter Gammons was full of himself, he usually knew what he was talking about. I loved how the commentators would go over each ballgame and discuss trade rumors or a few inside stories. Then the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry kicked in again and the show started becoming 30 minutes of Boston and New York, 10 minutes of Bonds, 10 minutes of gossipy crap, 5 minutes of game analysis and maybe 5 minutes of attention to teams not from Boston or New York (sometimes this was taken up by more talk about Bonds).
I always thought most of the players-coaches that came onto the show were way off the mark in their insight of current league issues or games. Instead of intelligently discussing the issue at hand and coming to a logical and sane conclusion, it was a discussion of all the inside parts of baseball we wish we’d never known: That baseball players, for the most part (and probably most athletes in all sports) are egotistical, machismo obsessed, pride mongering neanderthals.
One of the few intelligent spokesmen that I’d heard on this show was Harold Reynolds. Lo and behold someone who once played the game puts down his “Man Cap” for a second and actually discusses the game in an intelligent manner and doesn’t assume his audience is intelligence-handicapped. Instead, he treated us as if we could handle whatever information he would give us. He stated his opinion without mistaking his opinion for fact. He wasn’t the world’s best baseball analyst but he was leagues above Kruk, Kennedy or Brantley. Much more entertaining than Phillips. So…how does ESPN repay him for his 11 years with the network and treating the viewing audience like intelligent human beings? They fire him. No announcement. No explanation. Just GONE.

Well…that’s one more (of the many) ESPN shows I won’t be watching anymore. Their Sportscenter talent has left years ago, NFL Live offers little in intelligent insight and now Baseball Tonight is off the list since there’s no more Reynolds or Gammons (may he recover quickly). Darts, The Spelling Bee, The Scrabble Championships, and poker are not SPORTS. They are games or competitions…but they are not sports. Hockey and soccer are sports…but ESPN is far above covering them. I’d rather they covered Rugby or cricket before starting to cover the spelling bee or darts. Give it up ESPN, you’re finished.

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Clerks II

Just got back from watching Clerks II.

When I first heard about this movie last year I was really excited about the prospect. Kevin Smith was up in front of something like 6,500 people and was discussing what was then “Clerks II: Passion of the Clerks”. Someone asked about Mel Gibson having a beef about the subtitle and it’s closeness to “Passion of the Christ”. Kevin went into his idea for the crucifixion scene where two ninjas sweep in, pull Christ off the cross and someone screams out “But he’s supposed to die for the world’s sins!” The first ninja bellows back, “Not on MY watch!” Blasphemous? Hilarious? I’ll let you decide but I have a sense of humor so I had a good laugh.

Clerks II…
Once I started seeing commercials for the movie I immediately became very doubtful. A kitschy comedy set in a fast food restaurant with purple and yellow shirts. It just seemed a bit campy for Kevin Smith and I almost didn’t want to go see it.

I WILL NEVER DOUBT KEVIN AS LONG AS I LIVE.

The only words I can use to describe the movie is…Oh, cake!

Kevin Smith came in about 10 minutes after the movie for a short Q&A session.

There was a couple of women there dressed as Jay & Silent Bob who took a picture. Right after that he called on a girl who mentioned that she and her girl friend also dressed as Jay & Silent Bob a few years back and gave Kevin a picture of that.
A 12 year old kid asked about the Clerks Animated Film and while Kevin answered the question he was more astonished that a 12 year old kid was watching Clerks II. We got to meet the kids uncle Dwayne who brought this nephew to the movie. Kevin was appalled and gave him a bit of a light-hearted ball-breaking about it.
They mentioned Fletch. Apparently Kevin had planned on doing a prequel of Fletch, I guess, and he had his sights on Jason Lee. I guess it was him or no movie. The people in charge, I guess, told Kevin that Jason wasn’t famous enough to do the movie. He keeps pressing everytime Jason does something and they keep telling Kevin that Jason’s not famous enough yet. So then “My Name Is Earl” comes out and Kevin’s going “Yes! Number 1 show in America. NOW they can’t tell me he’s not famous enough.” “Yes,” they told him, “but now he’s too old.” Kevin throws up his hands and says at the Q&A, “So there might be a Fletch prequel but it won’t come from me.” So that’s sad. I guess. I’ve never seen Fletch.
Someone asked Kevin what he felt when he had to shoot his wife kissing Dante in the movie. Kevin’s response, “It’s ok. It’s just O’Halloran. If it had been someone like Affleck, then I might have been jealous.” Basically implying that Affleck would be an upgrade for Jennifer but Brian’s safe.
There were questions about how Kevin came up with the idea for a couple aspects of the movie. One involved his first trip to Tijuana and all the myths that crop up about the area like Spanish Fly. Kevin wanted to put it in the film. The other came up in a conversation about Jason Mewes staying with a girl that wouldn’t give it up and what she might have told him that would have convinced him to stick it out. The idea just flew out of Kevin’s mouth without thinking and ended up in the movie.
I guess Zack was there in the theater as well (he’s the inspiration for “OH! Cake!”). They discussed how he got the role (walked by at the right time as they were discussing who might get the part). He wouldn’t accept the role until he got the ok from his sister, who’s in high school. Saying any more would ruin it.
Anyways it was a bit of fun. Being so close to the front, I’m sure I could have shook Kevin’s hand but…I don’t know. Just left. Might never be so close again. Literally 5 feet away. I suck.

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This is becoming a bad habit

I’m sitting here feeling really good after a pretty poor day. I’m not even going through it all. Why rehash all that and end up feeling bad all over again?

So, Victoria and I started an exercise and health food regimine about a week ago. We haven’t been perfect but we’re off to a great start. We’ve been walking for 30 minutes nearly every day and we’ve started doing some cardio workouts too and that’s been cool. We started a program at http://www.sparkpeople.com and it feels good to have a plan. Not just a plan, but one that I know I can stick to, as weak willed as I am.

I haven’t written in over a week. How dare I. I’ve even been slacking lately on posting lyrics at http://www.renaissancefestivalmusic.com. Anyways, life has been pretty hectic. I’ve even been really poor at calling my grandmother, talking to my dad, and basically getting my act together. I need to quit slacking and get moving.

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What an evening.

Lots of emotions going through me tonight and most of them are not positive.

There are some people I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Family that I love very much and I haven’t talked to in way too long. I’m sure they’re wondering where we are and how we’re doing.

Thinking of my Dad. Hoping I can talk with him soon. That might mean calling him during a lunch break or something.

Hoffman blew a save in the All-Star Game. I’ve been checking the Padres message board and lately it’s been so positive. An influx of negative posts from strangers left my emotions a bit frayed. I’ve really been focusing on my emotions lately. Just trying to deal with negative people in a positive manner. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. Especially for me because I tend to react quickly to stuff and my first reaction to someone’s statement is to match their emotion. When it’s positive, then all good. When it’s negative, I have a really hard time. I’ve really been working on that and tonight it got to be a bit much.

Then right after that, we watched the Buffy episode where Joyce dies and all the emotions the scoobies go through, the fact that there’s no music, it just brought back a lot of emotions of “that week” and after all the other thoughts and emotions of the evening it was just too much for me and I had to go take a break.

Yeah, so. Yeahh.

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