AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

THANK GOD.............

it was Korean and Japan in the World Baseball Classic Championship last night. Thank God it wasn't the lazy ass "we don't want to send our best players" Americans. I'm going to tell you why the Americans won't send their best players. Because they will get their ass handed to them on a silver platter and won't be able to boast that we are truly the baseball mecca. Screw that. Japan is the greatest baseball power in the world and Korea is second. I'm not sure the U.S. even cracks the top 5 but.....we'll ok - I'll give the 4th for now. There is no way on earth, even with our best players that we would be those teams. THEY ARE TEAMS AND NOT INDIVIDUALS. I watched the game starting in inning 3 with the score 1-0 last night. It was a baseball lovers dream. High intensity, strategy on every pitch, electrified crowd. I've never seen this sport before but I hope it comes to this country soon.

PROPS TO THE JAPANESE

I'm going all Asian today - Memoirs of a Geisha is the film and I highly recommend it. Like Slumdog Millionaire we are not bombarded with big name actors and at times get very nice performances turned in by children as well. What really struck me was the pure beauty of the film shooting, the wardrobe and the music. The film is sensual form beginning to end and you can't help but not get wrapped up in it. I remember being completely shocked the John Williams wrote the score. I hear no John Williams in that score. I moved him up a few notches on my composer ladder to the stars.

TAKEMITSU

I like him because he only sound like him. That's the true mark of a great composer. Mozart only sounds like Mozart. Debussy only sounds like Debussy. Takemitsu only sounds like Takemitsu......well wait....OK - maybe he sounds like a weird mix of Debussy and Messiaen with a touch of Lutslawski and a few others but all in all he sounds like him. How does a composer achieve a distinctive sound? It's all about melody, harmony and tone color....rhythm is important but I find that the distinction can primarily be drawn from their approach to melodic and harmonic ideas and their use of color and shading. So thank you Japanese for baseball, movies and music. My blog for the day is complete.

GRIPE OF THE DAY

I don't yell at umpires - I think it's immature and I think they do the best they can. But when my son made a spectacular diving catch in right center last night and the ump was not in a position to seem him officially catch the ball he ruled no catch. So HEY UMP ------ YOU SUCK!!!! BTW - that same kid with the no catch hit the game tying triple and scored the winning run in the bottom of the 6th.