KRAC Blog

I went out to the Ridge yesterday afternoon to put in some end of autumn miles. A guy caught up with me just after the bridge, and we fell into step. He'd run the Philharmonic Athletic Club's Chestnut Ridge Challenge 10K the day before, and in the course of our conversation he told me that he'd won the 50-59 age group. Looking it up, I see that my running companion was Richard Deren of Blasdell, and he turned in a snappy 44:03. We weren't going at anything like that pace yesterday, but it was nice to have someone along to keep me honest on those hills.

When I got to the parking lot, there were three llamas being unloaded from trailers. Always happy to see a llama, I asked if there was going to be a race, but the two women who were the llamas' keepers said no, they were just there for a walk. Can somebody explain for me what kind of a llama has to be taken to the park for a walk? Don't the sorts of people who have llamas live in the country? It seemed very odd to me, but I'm sure I saw them.

This is all over today, and wonderful: `Most of the buildings around us were like towering boxes, almost phallic in their heights.' Bad lines from sf, fantasy and horror. (Via Bookslut.)

Something about this picture of Robert Christgau-- the Dean of Rock Critics-- tells me that I missed my calling. I don't know who the guy on the right is. 

Weather like this reminds me of "The Cat in the Hat": "Too wet to go out, too cold to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day..."

After watching the Bills last night, I can confirm that it's now hockey season.

Go Sabres!

"Math Yields", by All My Children*:

Math yields to brute force
Math ALWAYS yields to brute force

Numbers
Lots and lots of numbers
You can learn them
BUT YOU HAVE TO PUT IN THE TIME!

Only rock-n-roll engineering students could write that.

*Pre-name change

All of a sudden there are a bunch of great jazz sides out there. The little I have heard of the Monk/Coltrane set is enough to move it to the top of the que, I think, but if the new Rollins had been on the rack at New World the last time I went in there, I'd have bought it.

Michael Bérubé is the kind of intellectual I always hoped I would grow up and become. Or at least become. He writes:

"Oldies radio lies, man.

More specifically, the “oldies” canon, having congealed over the past decade into a reliable rotation of “Bus Stop,” “Spirit in the Sky,” “You’re So Vain,” and such, nicely demonstrates the point—made twenty-odd years ago by any number of literary critics and theorists—that the process of canon formation is inevitably “partial,” in the sense that it does not (and does not attempt to) retrieve the past “as it really was.”

Instead, it presents us with the past as we now like to think it really was. There’s nothing necessarily insidious about this process; it’s not as if Oldies Radio represents history as told by the victors of some global slaughter. Besides, most of the victors, like Norman Greenbaum’s ubiquitous one-hit wonder, survive to this day because they’re really pretty decent little pop songs (or, at the very least, they have a catchy riff and a cool guitar sound that still sounds tolerably cool thirty-five years later). Granted, there are plenty of oldies—think of Seals and Crofts’ handful of contributions to Western Civ—that should be allowed to die a dignified death. But there are hundreds more that have been purged from the Oldies archives altogether. Some, like Paper Lace’s hideous “The Night Chicago Died,” have a ghostly existence as “oldies novelty” tunes, the kind of thing you have to hear every five or six years just to wonder what the hell people were thinking. Hiding behind the oldies novelty tunes, however, is a vast legion of cultural dreck that no Oldies station will touch—even though it once ruled the charts."

The comments are what makes this, of course.

Bad 80's Sax Solos.

Skip Bayless: "If you could pour whatever is inside Derek Jeter into A-Rod, you would have the greatest baseball player ever.

But something has always been missing in A-Rod's makeup: mental toughness, guts, whatever it is that allows Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez to make entire teams better. A-Rod doesn't seize the biggest moments. They seize him, often by the throat.

If you could pour whatever is inside Curt Schilling into Randy Johnson, even at 42, you would have the most dominating left-handed pitcher ever.

But something has always been missing in Johnson's makeup -- big-game confidence, emotional control, whatever it was that Schilling provided Johnson when he pitched the tone-setting games ahead of Johnson as the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees in the 2001 World Series. In the biggest moments, Johnson too often has been a psychological powder keg with a short fuse."

The Greater Buffalo Track Club has posted cumulative indices for the Shamrock and the Boilermaker.. If you want to see something impressive, take a look at Jim's Shamrock times over the years: the man is like a metronome. 1998 is the year he caught me coming up to the last turn. He ran 42:08, I was 42:37. A pretty typical year for Jim-- I fell off the table after that. Tom is pretty consistent, and Dave-- Dave, it's one of the best races of the year! C'mon, one start?

Chi Sox vs. Houston would be kinda fun, featuring a Yankees pitching staff alumni meeting. I must admit I am conflicted about this one-- some new faces, to be sure, but the Pale Hose are associated in my mind with shirtless hillbilly fans assaulting first base coaches and the worst two miles of the Chicago Marathon. Houston I've liked since they played the Mets so tough in '86, but this year's model features Roger Clemens, and he is wicked fat.

HEY RAW-JAH! Too bad about that wicked fat pitch you served up last night.

Looks like we have a true milker going for us this Sunday against Miami.

My Thanksgiving plans have solidified somewhat (although we are still not sure where we are going to eat). EGA and I have run the Prospect Park Turkey Trot before; in years past it was a New York Road Runner's event, now The Prospect Park Track Club sponsors it. A loop around the lake, then a loop around the park, 5 miles. As I recall there is a fair amount of climbing, but you won't hear me complaining about hills in front of Judy or Tom. 

In the KRAC Pennant Race Challenge the Yankees emerge triumphant, at 95-67. The Tribe falls short, 93-69, and my Metropolitans, after a September collapse that was mitigated only by the fact that nobody was watching, rallied under Willie Randolph to finish four games over .500 at 83-79.

I shoulda taken the bet about the Jack jumping out of the deck and spitting cider in my ear.