The Great American Pastime

Its Baseball Season again. So although I missed the Fenway South Season opener (Red Sox vs Orioles @ Camden Yards) I did manage to see the ol Florida Marlins (eventually to become the Miami Marlins as everyone basically knows it should be) play at the new Washington Nationals Stadium for the first time.

Happily my old team won - that they are doing good is a miracle - maybe the sell off of players is finally to an end with the new manager and owners (Even I lost track of that).

But Its interesting in what they consider for new stadiums. The architecture is seriously uninspiring - supposedly taking the concrete and steel look of DC vs. the Neoclassical look they could have incorporated from the city's government buildings and made it different from all other stadiums. So it looks boring, the view is relatively blocked so you really cant see much beyond the Washington Monument or the far off National Cathedral. But at least it took one inspiring step and built it part way into the ground like Camden Yards was done. At least it doesn't stick out like a major sore thumb.

Eventually I will see its predecessor (RFK Stadium) go much like the good ol venerable Orange Bowl did a short time back (looking at the pictures of the demolition tears my heart out as I once lived within 5 blocks - saw many Dolphins games there and even The Boss, Journey, and the Police in concert there). I sure do hope they do something decent with the area of the new Nationals Stadium- and not just a bunch of chain stores. Otherwise it was good to see the Marlins winning again- a good 7-3 score, and some cool fireworks to country music? In D.C. ?


(My last view of the Orange Bowl, summer '07)

Music for the Eyes

One of the hidden Gems of this city is all the gala and special events that you can score tickets to once in a while for an amazingly inexpensive price.

Thus was the start of May when my good friend Stefanie calls me up at 6pm asking if I wanted to go to a Gala event at the Kennedy Center for the performing Arts at 8pm since they had a VERY last minute drop out. I knew that this involved The most Amazing living conductor of our time (IMHO) John Williams. So despite that I was down in Del-Ray, on my bike - did not stop me from saying no - I would get home, somehow fast enough to clean up, eat something and get to the Kennedy Center in time - and despite being well over 8-10 miles from home - by George I did it!

The event was the annual fund raiser for the Center itself - and the theme was THE ART OF FILM MUSIC and featured the films of David Lean (including personal favorites of Bridge Over the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and my mom's favorite Dr. Zhivago) and the films of Steven Speilberg - of which was a treat since Williams has composed & directed soooo many of them, including JAWS, ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (which I remember seeing during a summer vacationing in Puerto Rico and was subtitled in Spanish as I remember seeing the original Batman that way also)

Anyway it was quite amazing to see Martin Scorsese, John Williams & Steven Spielberg in person - even if at a distance. Even more impressive was seeing Williams at work. It was probably as close to being *IN* the recording studio as possible when they record a piece for the movies.

Though I much rather have preferred "Belly of the Steel Beast" from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (that is the peice where Indy "battles" the WW1 era tank to save his father) - Williams chose the opening set piece of "Indy's Very First Adventure" (the opening sequence that gives good background to a young Indy played by River Phoenix).

Williams & Spielberg basically first showed the film without music, then - live with the National Symphonic Orchestra, Williams played to the film the corresponding music which (according to Spielberg) included over 45 music cues and other things I cant remember. Like I said - the closest to being in a recording studio with Williams. And although he played other pieces of Spielberg's films - he also did parts of ET's Finale, The complete Indy Close credits, a compilation from Hook, and so many in their performance and unheard of THREE (3) encores!

So needless to say - John Williams is rated #1 amongst my top modern composers/directors - not just for this - but he also gave me all the music for Star Wars (Main title, Imperial March & Duel of Fates in particular). Though I still give MAJOR props to Basil Polidorous for his Conan Soundtrack and Jerry Goldsmith for his 13th Warrior Soundtrack.

Running with the Horses

Wait - didn't we cover this subject before? Well never mind that (ok actually mind it if you wish - I don't mind) since this is the what is now becoming a tradition to enjoy the Gold Cup Affair whether its International of the Virginia version.



Luckily I went back on my winning streak taking home yet more of Dave's $2 Bills and a few of his specially procured presidential coins (John Adams & Thomas Jefferson). I did not realize that the coins will have a different president on each run that is minted (2 or 3 per year?) Kind of neat similar to the State quarters that the mint did. Question is - do guys really want a junk load of change jingling in their pockets? SO the Jury is still out whether we transition to those $1 coins .... I figure at some point the demand will be for those good old Jefferson $2 bills as the dollar gets weaker.