This is a new Randy Rainbow song parody that's very different. For one thing, it has nothing to do with politics. Well, okay, that's the main thing. It's a love letter to his favorite performer in the world, Barbra Streisand, for him he got an advance copy of her new album. The song is a bit much in its Streisand Adoration (although, yes, okay, admittedly that's the point) and album promotion, but it has a lot of very clever and funny pun-rhymes and allusions to Streisand songs and movies. And fun, elaborate production values.
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There's an amusing thing in this tale, even if your not a baseball fan. But first, the background. Last night, I was watching some of the early innings of the Chicago Cubs game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, but had some other things to do, so I left. I came back later -- around the fourth inning -- to check things out and planned to watch an inning or two before I got back to my other activity. But I noticed that the Cubs hadn't yet given up a base hit, so I knew I couldn't leave until the no-hitter was broken up -- or not. And so, I kept watching. And continued to watch through the final out because four Cubs pitchers together threw a no-hitter and won by a score of 4-0. What was more notable is that in the 145 year history of the Cubs in the National League, it was the team's 17th no-hitter...but the first time ever that they'd thrown a "combined" no-hitter with more than one pitcher on the mound. Making this all the funnier is that none of the three Cubs relief pitcher had any idea that there was a no-hitter going on when they were on the mound! Zach Devies started the game and pitched six innings, and then the three relievers were Ryan Tepera, Andrew Chafin and Craig Kimbrel. Chaifin came in second, for the eighth inning. After he got the side out hitless, he was done for the night and so went to the Cubs clubhouse. “I’m sitting there with a couple of trainers," he said, "and there was a stat on the bottom of the TV saying something about there’s been six no-hitters already this yea. I started talking to them about it and then I turned around and they both went looking in the opposite direction." There is a baseball tradition not to talk about a no-hitter when it's in progress, so as not to "jinx" anything. But Chafin didn't know there was a no-hitter in program -- although everyone in the clubhouse did, which is why they all looked away from him. “Then I was like, ‘Wait a second, why would they be showing that stat at this point in the game?" Which is when he added, "‘Oh, [expletive], I might’ve just ruined it for us.’ But yeah, it worked out." Even when closer Kimbrel entered the game, he didn't know either. “When Willie [Cubs catcher Willson Contrerar] gave a big fist bump, I knew something was up,” Kimbrel said. “And [Ryan] Tepera ran out there and whispered and he’s like, ‘You have no idea what happened.’ And then [Javier Báez] put me in a headlock. I had no clue when I came into the game that we had a no-hitter.” Odd as it might be that none of the relievers knew there was a no-hitter going on, as the Chicago Tribune explained -- "The location of the visitors bullpen near the right-field corner at Dodger Stadium creates a limited view of the scoreboard. The Cubs pen could see the count, number of outs and some statistics, but the hit column was obstructed. The TV in the bullpen wasn’t any help, either. It showed an overhead view of the field because of MLB’s video rules. Plus, there are no box-score features on the screen." And as Kimbrel added, the relievers in the bullpen could see that there were a lot of Dodgers on the bases during the game. "When you have a lot of traffic on the bases," he said, "you don’t really get as consumed that they’re all walks. You figure, well, maybe one of them is a single or something like that. But that wasn’t the case.” I also thought of one other thing -- you'd think that someone would have told the relievers what was going on, at the very least when they came in to pitch. But I realized that no one would likely mention to them that there's a no-hitter in progress, since doing so would be against baseball tradition and "jinx" things. Here's the last out, with Kimbrel striking out pinch-hitter Will Smith for the final out. You'll notice that when catcher Contreras pumps his fist in great excitement, Kimbrel himself is stoic, as if he couldn't care less. But when the camera eventually cuts back to him, mobbed by teammates at the 1:34 mark, his face is covered with a huge smile, since he's by then been told. I've periodically written about the ocean sailing jaunts that I've taken with my cousin Jim Kaplan, who has a small motor boat/ sailboat, the Flying Fish III. Jim has worked in the marine industry for several decades, probably at least 30 years, dealing with the general public, but also the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. He's a very bright guy and knows the subject well, especially having grown up in the Indiana Dunes on Lake Michigan in northern Indiana. (This photo above is from a previous sail, one that turned out to be a bit misguided since a mini-squall decided to blow in.)
We took another of our cruises yesterday, and the subject of the tragic disaster in Florida came up. It was initially addressed because of my concern of where his mother and her husband lived. (Side note: his mother Elaine just celebrated her 100th birthday this past Monday. That that wasn't a unique occurrence in the household, though -- her husband Mark turned 100 last November. They have a lot of candles in the cupboards.) Happily, they don't live on the east coast of Florida. But that moved the discussion to the collapse of the apartment complex and what could have caused it. While this isn't the specific area of Jim's expertise, it's related to his field and his study and concerns over the years, and he had some initial thoughts of possibilities. To be very clear, what I'll describe below is NOT Jim's words, but my paraphrasing of them. Anything I get wrong is entirely my error and not his. He knows what he's talking about -- I don't. Jim said that he could think of three possibilities, though added that there could certainly be other causes, noting that these are just his ramblings of what could conceivably have caused the disaster The first was manmade, that there had been some issue with the construction of the complex which had been overlooked in cursory building inspections over the years, since such things aren't generally what are looked for. (Rather, he said, inspectors tend to focus on whatever caused the most recent disaster.) And so, finally, after years, the problem manifested itself. The other two possibilities are related. (They also have more scientific reasoning behind them and are the ones which I'm more likely not to explain exactly right.) One is that over the years, the water level rose -- perhaps related to Climate Change, and the melting of the ice caps). This would had more salt water to the area and more water pressure, which in turn could increase the erosion of land, which exposes the metal support structure, and corrosion of that metal by the salt water. The other is that as more people have moved to the southern Florida area, more fresh water has been needed, and so it's been piped into the area for nearby sources. (I think he said the Everglades, but I won't swear to that.) And since nature abhors a vacuum, the ocean's water will move to fill that void, thereby lowering the water level. This can expose the land more, leading to its erosion, and again making the metal structure more vulnerable to corrosion by the salt water. The only thing he said he is sure of is that corrosion of steel reinforcement ( known as rebar) in concrete can destroy the integrity of a structure. I'll repeat the disclaimer. This is me remembering his more-detailed explanation and interpreting it the best I can. The larger point that Jim made (the accuracy of my recollection aside) was that of these three possibilities, the "best" would be the first, since it's manmade. As terrible as such a reason would be, the cause would be limited to work done by that individual construction. The other two explanations are more problematic because they relate to environmental damage done to the land of the entire coastal area. Again, there could be other reasons for what caused the apartment complex to collapse, and he notes that these "ramblings" are only what may have occurred -- or not. And that the study to follow will find out for certain. But as a starting point, these were three initial possibilities for finding what might have caused such a disaster to ensure it doesn't happen again. I love otters. I would say that otters, seals and elephants are high on my list of wild animals, perhaps in the top three. This video will help explain my love of otters. Actually, I think the still image frame below might be enough to explain it. But there's more evidence. It's six minutes of two otters meeting a popcorn maker. And beyond just being a repetition of their reaction for six minutes, the storyline actually develops. Rachel Maddow has an utterly fascinating, remarkable sequence last night. I can't embed it here, but I can post the video she showed and the two others related to it that didn't air. And explain what it's all about. The short version is that two high-ranking gun advocates -- one, a former president of the NRA, and the other the author of a book called "the bible of the NRA" -- were invited by a conservative high high, James Madison Academy in Las Vegas, to give commencement addresses on behalf of guns. Before the schedule event began, they were asked to do a dress rehearsal in order to get the sound check correct and other technical matters set. They did so, in front of the 3,044 empty chairs, and it was recorded. Later, they were told that there was a threat to the event, and it got cancelled. Here's the thing. There is no James Madison Academy. The school and its website were all fake. A simple background check by either man or their staffs would have discovered this, easily. Rather, the scam was set up by an anti-gun violence group, Change the Ref -- a group created by Patricia and Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin had been killed in the Parkland massacre. And the 3,044 empty seats represented the number of high school students who lost their lives to guns this past year and would not be graduated. At the end of Maddow's segment, she had Manuel Oliver on as a guest. She asked him if he had seen any change in his efforts that he considered hopeful. He had a wonderful answer. He said -- let me explain why I do. I am on your show tonight because of this event that we set up. I am not on for the usual reason, after a gun massacre. So, this means that we are controlling the dialogue, and that's important. (Important, too, is that President Biden and Attorney General Garland yesterday gave speeches where they outlined a new, Zero Tolerance gun policy -- where any gun dealer who willfully ignores background check laws just once will lose their license to sell guns. That would seem to take away a major argument gun advocates might otherwise try to make. But it's hard to argue with, "They were allowed to sell guns, but lost their license because they willfully broke the law. We are enforcing the law.") I also liked a comment that Manuel Oliver made, that he wasn't concerned with how either of the two gun advocates felt about being scammed. His only concern was about the people who lost their lives and saving the lives of others. By the way, the name "Change the Ref" comes from a comment that Joaquin Oliver had made to his father about playing basketball. It referred to when the referee seemed to be making bad calls that were weighting the results, and all he wanted was for the game to be played fairly. (There's also an unexpected side note to this. After watching the segment on The Rachel Maddow Show, I called my friend Myles Berkowitz -- who I mention here periodically -- because I knew he had become friendly with one the parents at Parkland, my recollection was Fred Gutterman, and so I thought he'd be interested and would want to watch the MSNBC rerun three hours later. As I was telling him the story, and mentioned "Parkland," Myles interrupted me. "What, is this my Manny??" It turns out that I had it wrong, the father -- and mother -- he'd gotten to know was Manuel and Patricia Oliver It was after Manuel had made a devastating "parody" of a Louis C.K. video making the rounds where the comedian was making jokes at the expense of the Parkland tragedy. Myles wrote to the family about, they stayed in touch and later met and became friendly, even working with Manny to get him to speak at his daughter's school. And Myles says that they are smart, wonderful, talented people who he is not remotely surprised did this.) Here first is the third video that Change the Ref put out, which didn't air last night, but it actually explains the scam pretty well. This is the first video, which is what Rachel Maddow did air on her show. Know that it (and the last video) are difficult to watch for the audio they edit in. But it also makes it profoundly more powerful. And this is the second of Change the Ref's three videos, which also did not air last night on The Rachel Maddow Show. This is really weird -- but for being SO unexpected, mainly because of the source. Which is Microsoft, not known for its humor, let alone self-effacing humor. And boy, does this define self-effacing humor. Last year, Microsoft released a new video game for the Xbox, called "The Outer Worlds." It was very popular, so they went into making a sequel. And this is the teaser trailer the company released to announce the upcoming release, only a year after the original game it the market. The teaser is wonderful. (And all the more so to me for having written my share of movie trailers and teaser trailers.) And it's gotten a great reaction online.. As a bonus, here's the same teaser trailer, but embedded with podcaster/influencer reaction watching it blind -- not knowing what it was for -- when it was shown online to them exclusively during the "virtual" E3 gamer expo. There is a whole series of these "reaction" videos for the game, all of which have a similar response (especially fun since these are people who have seen SO many teaser trailers trying to sell them and who know every cliché about them that's been written and after all this time are a bit jaded from it), but this reaction video is one of my favorites. And this one is fun, too. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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