I'm Tony La Russa, Bitch!

With this morning's announcement that Tony La Russa, vaunted manager, sunglass enthusiast, is retiring, I thought I'd share this piece I posted at Viva El Birdos.  It's an imagined monologue I wrote when I got home from the bar the night they won the NLCS, combining my conflicted feelings about TLR's style with lots of swears.  If you are not a regular follower of the St. Louis Cardinals, little of this will make sense.  And even then...

I'm Tony La Russa, Bitch!

Whatup, haters?  Remember me?  I'm the guy who traded that hot, young prospect for a bunch of old-ass pitchers and three-month rentals.  How'd that shit work out?  What?  I can't hear you over ALL THE CHAMPAGNE BEING POURED IN MY EARS.

That's right.  I'm Tony La Russa - you better recognize.  When I'm not rescuing baby animals I'm GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES.  I know some of you read that Moneyball crap.  Well tell me this, has "moneyball" ever pulled the kind of crazy shit that I just pulled?  Tell me, seriously, because I have not read the book and only have a cursory understanding of its contents.

Yes, I told Colby Rasmus to take a hike.  Didn't like the cut of his jib.  You know where he is now?  At a karaoke bar in Canada... probably with Scott Rolen and Anthony Reyes.  You don't like it?  I got news for you.  I'm putting together the World Series roster right now, and I'm penciling in Aaron Miles and Cal Eldred.  Believe it.

Did you see how I managed that bullpen?  I managed the SHIT out of it.  For the World Series: No more starting pitchers.  Not enough for me to do.  We will open the game out of the bullpen, and for each batter, I will choose a pitcher who best matches up and/or who has not pissed me off recently.  Call me "The Puppetmaster."  No, seriously, I really would like for that to be a thing that catches on.

If I can be real for just a moment: I know that a manager is always under scrutiny.  There were some dark days for this team when it looked like my ego was driving us into the ground.  So for all those true blue Cardinals fans who lost faith, I'd just like to say, from the bottom of my heart... WASH MY BALLS!  I'M TONY LA RUSSA, BITCH!

Feed Magazine Lives!

Feed Magazine, a very early purveyor of original web content where I was privileged to write, is now back online.  While no new material is being published, the archives, which had fallen into the Internet Graveyard, are now back.

And when I say I was "privileged to write" for Feed, what I mean is I was too young and stupid to realize what a great opportunity it was.  'Twas a time, in those heady days of the dot com bubble, when a young man could write on The Internets... and make a living at it!

The site features a new home page, detailing the history of Feed and notable careers of Feed writers who have gone on to be novelists, writers for The Daily Show, critics for The New Yorker, and other things which make me feel shitty about my career.

I only wrote two pieces for Feed before Pets.com sucked them into the vortex.  At least I think that's how it went down.  Anyway, you can read both of them here.

4 Questions Which Should be Asked About the Cy-Hawk

I wrote this last weekend about the foolishness of dumping a Cy-Hawk trophy with 30-years of history, created by fans, for a corporate advertisement.  The trophy revealed by the Iowa Corn Growers today is even worse than I imagined.  It is nothing but an advertisement.

Here's 4 questions the local sports reporters SHOULD be asking:

1. Why create a new trophy in the first place?

Everyone seems to assume this was a response to the appearance of the old trophy.  Was it?

2. Why not simply redesign/refresh the existing trophy?

If this was just a cosmetic issue, why not refresh the look while maintaining the 30-year history of the Cy-Hawk?  Other rivalry trophies have been "updated" over the years.

3. Why did they choose a corporate sponsor and how much did Iowa Corn pay?

None of the major rivalry trophies in college football have corporate sponsorships.  What made the Iowa and ISU Athletic Departments decide to seek one and how many pieces of silver did it take?

4. How long does the Iowa Corn sponsorship last?

This is a key question.  Hy-Vee paid for certain naming rights in 2004 and renewed in 2007, whereby officials began referring to the "Hy-Vee Cy-Hawk Series."  It's unlikely Iowa Corn's sponsorship is forever, and it's hard to imagine another sponsor embracing an image of a family gathered around corn.  We must expect this trophy to be junked whenever their sponsorship ends.

This whole chain of events exemplifies the polluting effect of sponsorship.  Many people thought the old trophy was ugly.  But what is not in dispute is it was created by fans whose sole intention was to promote this then-fledgling rivalry.  Even if Iowa Corn's trophy had looked better than it does, it was never intended purely as a celebration of the game, but always as a promotional tool for their industry.

The "retiring" of the Cy-Hawk Trophy

Update: 8/19/11 - The new trophy has been revealed and it is a disaster.

This piece, published in the Sunday Des Moines Register, sums up my feelings about the Iowa/ISU athletic departments decision to scrap the historic rivalry trophy in favor of a piece of corporate sponsorship.  It will remain online at The Register for a few days.

Fans are left behind in athletics' quest for cash

When the Iowa and Iowa State athletic departments announced they were retiring the Cy-Hawk trophy for a new corporate-sponsored award, they also cast aside a significant piece of history.

The Iowa/Iowa State rivalry would never have been renewed were it not for the will of the fans. For 43 years, the schools refused to play, despite a growing public outcry and multiple resolutions from the Legislature. Between 1968, when the schools agreed to play, and 1977, when the first game took place, both schools tried to cancel the contracts and the series.

It’s fitting that the trophy also came not from the reluctant athletic departments but from the fans. Bob Uetz and a group of friends, branding themselves the “Greater Des Moines Athletic Club,” paid $500 to have a trophy made, and convinced Gov. Bob Ray to hand it out to the winning team.

The trophy helped cement the legitimacy of the series, which at the time wasn’t guaranteed to last more than a few years. For 33 years, the trophy has been the symbol of the rivalry.

As a symbol, some are critical of the trophy’s appearance. But what’s happening now is not a redesign of the trophy. The athletic departments are dumping the Cy-Hawk entirely, severing its long history and connection to the fans.

There was a hint of these intentions in 2004, when the schools announced the “Hy-Vee Cy-Hawk Series.” The Iowa Corn Growers are getting more than just naming rights — they are getting their own trophy. So when their sponsorship ends, will a new trophy be made?

We haven’t seen the new trophy yet. Maybe it will look great. But it won’t be a piece of history, born of the fans .

The greatest moment for fans comes from that feeling that we are part of the event . The Cy-Hawk was the best of that spirit. Moves like this make it clear the athletic departments view fans not as any kind of partner, but merely as consumers of their product.

— Ben Godar, Des Moines

When Harry Met Sally II

Given the options of funny or die, I would rate this as "funny."

When Harry Met Sally 2 with Billy Crystal & Helen Mirren from Billy Crystal

David Carr, Pay walls and "innovation"

David Carr checked-in with another solid take on the New York Times new pay wall, and the technorati response.  His best point, regarding the value of real journalism:

When I was in Austin, I would fall asleep each night to bad dreams, prompted by cable television ranting that the world was melting down, principally in Japan. And each morning I would wake up to reporting that described in very careful detail what was actually known, not feared, about the nuclear crisis in Japan.

It's also worth noting that one detractor he quotes drops the term "innovation" in his critique.  This is a favorite term of the tech crowd.  In tech, "innovative" and "good" are nearly synonymous.  Not necessarily so with journalism.  The process of journalism - especially the beat system at most major newspapers, embedding reporters in key areas where they can get to know the players, learn how things work and be on the lookout for stories which deserve the attention of the public at large - that is not an innovation.  But it continues to yield great journalism.

The tech side of news agencies should be looking for innovative ways to deliver the news, and yes they've dropped the ball in the past.  But the interface is not the content, and don't we seek out news for the content?

As I mentioned in some thoughts on the new doc Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times, Carr is one of the few effectively making the case that journalism and technology are not the same thing.  Let me again recommend that film for a more in-depth look at how real journalism works and why it achieves something the aggregators never will.

Help Kickstart Julia

Some good friends of mine are working to take Julia, an original play by Vince Melocchi, from the Pacific Resident Theater in Venice to the Off Broadway theater 59e59.  I was lucky enough to see the show just before they opened in December, and it's absolutely a great piece of theater.

Check out the video for more information, and kick in a few bucks if you can over at their Kickstarter page.  If you live in SoCal or NYC, check the play out.

Film Advocacy Day

Sugar, filming in the QC

When the Iowa film tax credit program was suspended, the Iowa Film Office was also closed - effectively closing down all fimmaking in the state.  Today, we are asking Gov. Branstad to reopen and staff the Film Office and allow this industry to thrive.

It's important to understand the Film Office and the tax credit program are not the same thing.  The Film Office has existed since the 1980s as a resource for producers looking to film in Iowa.  It connects those producers with crew, locations and other resources in Iowa.  It was responsible for bringing high-profile features such as Field of Dreams and Bridges of Madison County to the state, along with countless commercials and other productions.

Essentially, the Film Office is there to let producers know Iowa is open for business.  But now the office has no full-time staff, no clear contact information, and only a website full of outdated and misleading information.  The message to producers is clear: Iowa is not open for business.

The Film Alliance of Iowa - a new organization made up of filmmakers and business leaders throughout the state - is asking for you to CONTACT GOV. BRANSTAD TODAY asking that the Iowa Film Office be re-opened and staffed.

Here's how you can contact the Governor:

Phone: 515-281-5211

E-mail: info@terrybranstad.com

Twitter: @terrybranstad

Facebook: Terry Branstad

Here's a suggested message, from the FAI:  We respectfully request reinstating a sufficiently funded Iowa Film Office, staffed with adequate, qualified and experienced staffing. The sooner this happens, the sooner Iowa can best attract production companies to add jobs and economic development to our State's economy, especially through a new Iowa production guide establishing access to Iowa's crew, talent and resources, which will help create a strong film industry.


Also - please help spread the word about Film Advocacy Day.  Post this information to Twitter or Facebook.  Bask in the karma of doing a good deed.


To keep up to date, you can also follow the Film Alliance of Iowa on Facebook.

True/False 2011: Truth Harder

This ain't Twilight. It's a friggin' documentary.

2011 was my third year in a row at the True/False Film Festival, and I can't imagine why I wouldn't go back again next year.

It's hard to describe just how great the vibe in the town is - thousands milling around and lining up around the blocks to watch documentaries.  When I miss a film at the festival - and it's impossible to see them all - and watch them months later at home, I regret not seeing them in the Missouri Theater with 1,000 others.  I missed WasteLand at last year's festival, and as the accolades and Oscar nomination have piled up, I haven't stopped kicking myself.

Probably my favorite film this year was Life in a Day - the doc culled from a day's worth of videos uploaded to YouTube.  Given that pedigree, I had some reservations, as director Kevin MacDonald said he did.  I'm a pretty hardcore cynic, but you'd have to be even more cynical than me to not be moved by the film MacDonald and crew put together.  Life in a Day has elements of narrative, but it's more a symphony of tone, framing the highs and lows of human experience.

Sure, you could call it a gimmick.  But it is a technical achievement that wouldn't even have been possible a few years ago.  If someone offers to show you what is going on around the entire world on a single day, how could you say no?

The quality of the curation goes even deeper.  The shorts program Landmarks & Monoliths featured five shorts which all revolved around the relationship between people and the environments they've built around them.  Minka, directed by Davina Pardo, very delicately explored the lives of two longtime male companions around the story of how they rebuilt an ancient Japanese farm house as their home.

Let's be honest, shorts programs always center around a theme.  But they rarely come together into much more than "here's a few films which kind of relate to each other."

To quote the Portlandia theme song, the spirit of the 90s is alive in (Columbia).  I finally got a chance to eat an truly amazing breakfast at Cafe Berlin.  Booches still dishes out the best hamburgers I've ever been served on wax paper.

I realize I come on like the Convention & Visitors Bureau, but such is my love for this festival and the people who put it on.  If you Googled your way to this post and have read this far, you owe it to yourself to check out True/False for yourself.

Troll Hunter, The Arbor and blurring lines

Troll!!!

Troll Hunter and The Arbor may only have two things in common.  Both screened at this year's True/False Film Festival, and both blur the lines between documentary and narrative fiction.  I liked The Arbor better.

I was looking forward to Troll Hunter as a fan of comedy, bizarro subject matter and Norwegians.  I knew going in that the film was largely invented, with CGI trolls and all.  I guess I thought the filmmakers extrapolated from some kernel of truth - perhaps playing out some crazy guy's stories.  But the film is 100% invention, much in the vein of Blair Witch or Cloverfield.

There are some genuinely funny moments, and the filmmakers get a lot of mileage from just a little bit of troll footage.  Unlike many mockumentaries, they stay completely true to documentary style found footage.  But once it's clear the film is all invention, I wanted the pacing and beats of a narrative arc.  If you don't have the storytelling of narrative and you don't have the "reality" of documentary, what do you have?

Worth shooting with actors just for a bitchin' shot like this.

Whereas Troll Hunter is a fiction narrative trying to look like a documentary, The Arbor is a documentary made to look like fiction.  The film consists of audio interviews with its subjects, with actors on screen lip-synching to their words.

It's the story of British playwright Andrea Dunbar, whose teenage accounts of life in The Estate (the projects) brought her some prominence in the 80s.  Dunbar's hard drinking and hard living led to three children from three fathers and her death at just 29.  Her children, especially the oldest, struggled to get on without falling down the same path as their mother.

The lip-synching technique is a bit jarring at first, but often you forget it's even there.  But Director Clio Barnard wants the audience to remain aware that there is a level of manipulation and storytelling in what they are watching.  (I asked her.)  What really made the technique connect is that, in the same way Andrea's plays were a dramatic recreation of her life's events, the documentary is a sort-of recreation based on the stories the people in her life have told.

Coming on the heels of a year when Catfish and Exit Through the Gift Shop sparked a lot of debate about the blending of truth and fiction in docs, The Arbor and Troll Hunter illustrate that the blending of styles hinges on which elements you hold onto.

Page One: Journalism vs. Technology

A key moment in Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times comes subtly, in footage from one of many panels on "the death of newspapers."  Someone from the news aggregator Newser makes the blanket claim that media companies are in the technology business.

It's hardly new to kick newspapers around for being slow or inept at embracing new technologies.  But Page One makes a much needed counterargument - these technology companies are also in the journalism business.  Or at least they should be.

Times Reporter David Carr - the real star of the film - responds by showing the Newser front page with every piece of content gathered from a traditional news agency cut-out, leaving just a page full of holes.  In another clip, David Simon points out he's never seen a reporter from the Huffington Post at a Baltimore Zoning Board meeting.

But the real argument for the relevance of the journalist comes from watching the entire machine of the New York Times.  Editors stay long into the night debating the relevance of a story, is the angle right, is it even a story at all?  These are conversations I recognize from my days in newspaper, but it's a side of the job not often seen.

Contrasting this is the office of aggregator Gawker, where writers gather around the "big board" - a screen which constantly updates with the top ten stories readers are viewing.  The implication is to serve the audience by scrambling to give them what they want, to grab clicks with headlines that play into common search terms, etc.

In a Q&A after the screening at True/False, David Carr said that the Times is becoming more like Gawker, and Gawker is becoming more like the Times.  Perhaps modern news reporting is one part journalism and one part technology.  But the technology side has taken a lot of credit in recent years, and reveled in kicking the journalists while they're down.  Score this one for the journalists.

Premium Pricing; Premium Experience?

We know about the premium price tag on 3-D movies.  This morning, I learned my local Cinemark theater is now also charging a premium for 2-D movies in something they call "XD."  What is XD?  I'll let them explain:

Cinemark XD is an Extreme Digital Experience where viewers get face-to-face with the action and experience cinema like never before! Extra large, extreme entertainment for the senses. Mega-sized ceiling-to-floor screens, wrap-around custom sound and a maximum comfort entertainment environment ensure that every seat is an intense sensory experience.

Huh the huh?  Is it me, or does that description sound like a Mountain Dew commercial?  I could barely get through the paragraph without jumping out of a plane on a snowboard.

But if we cut out the EXTREME jargon, I think we're left with:

• Bigger screen
• Better sound system
• Comfier chairs

Those are all nice.  And for the matinees I was looking at today, the XD experience will set you back $12, whereas the traditional showings are $6.50.

Now I've been in the XD theater at my local multiplex, for a 3-D showing of Despicable Me.  I guess it was a somewhat larger screen than other auditoriums.  I don't remember being wowed by the sound or my ass feeling especially well-cushioned.  So I'll probably keep that extra $5.50 in my pocket.

The exhibition business is rough, so I hold no ill-will toward even the mega-chains for getting creative to make ends meet.  But there are things that can be done to make movie going a truly "premium" experience.

In LA, I often go to the Arclight Hollywood.  Premium pricing gets you an actual reserved seat, an usher to monitor the auditorium and quality of the projection/sound, and access to a snack bar with higher-quality eats and alcohol.  Whether that's worth the extra bump in price is up for debate, but for me it is, and at least you can point to some tangible "premium" features.

It's tricky to create tiers based on "quality," as Cinemark is doing.  Does this mean the showings in the other auditoriums are shit?  Shouldn't the projection and sound be excellent in all your auditoriums?

The cynical reaction - and I'm not sure it's wrong here - is that Cinemark XD is just a way to charge a higher rate for a few showings even when there's not a 3-D film in that auditorium.  At the least, it seems likely the vaguery of the perks will make movie-goers skeptical of premium pricing in general.

The MPAA & Parenthood

If you read or listen to much movie industry news, no doubt you've heard another recent bout questioning the ratings of the MPAA.  Blue Valentine and The King's Speech are among the latest films whose rating has garnered a collective "WTF?"

As in this episode of KCRW's The Business, it's often MPAA Chair Joan Graves who appears defending the system.  And the defense cited time and time again is that the MPAA ratings are decided by parents - not film experts, or psychologists, but honest-to-goodness, salt-of-the-earth, God fearing parents.

It was probably the 20th time I heard this argument that I was reminded of this nugget of wisdom, spoken by Keanu Reeves in Parenthood.  It does well to summarize the wisdom, reliability and exclusivity of "parents" as a group.

"You need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car.  Hell, you need a license to catch a fish.  But they'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father."