Frustration And Hope In Philadelphia

After 98 days, the MLB Lockout has finally come to a close.  As of March 10th, teams are once again able to complete trades and sign free agents to MLB contracts as they prepare for the 2022 season.  I won't pretend to be an expert on unions or labor negotiations, and unless either side is willing to hand me a couple of season tickets, I'm not picking a side in this fight.  My concern for team finances and player salaries are exactly the same as their concern for my financial situation, which is to say I don't care at all.  My thoughts on the lockout are pretty simple: if they play, I'll be in the stands watching.  If they don't, I'll spend my money on something else that I enjoy.  Thankfully, the two sides came together on a five year CBA, so this won't be a problem again until after the 2026 season at the earliest.  Moving on...

The Phillies made a few moves prior to the start of the lockout that I wrote about back in December.  To summarize, they signed closer Corey Knebel (1 year, 10 million) and utility infielder Johan Camargo (1 year, 1.4 million).  Additionally, the Phillies acquired two backup catchers in trades: Garrett Stubbs (from the Astros) and Donnie Sands (from the Yankees).  They also picked up RHP Nick Nelson in the same trade that brought Sands to the Phillies, and they picked up four additional relief pitchers on waivers: Yoan López (RHP - Braves), Ryan Sherriff (LHP - Rays), Kent Emanuel (LHP - Astros) and Scott Moss (LHP - Guardians).

We also learned that two longtime Phillies will not be returning in 2022.  Backup catcher Andrew Knapp has signed a minor league contract with the Reds, and one of my favorite players, closer Hector Neris, signed a two year contract with the Astros.  We lost another favorite of mine when shortstop Freddy Galvis signed with a Japanese team.  Finally, relief pitcher JD Hammer returned to the Colorado Rockies organization just before the start of the lockout.

Teams were free to sign players to minor league contracts during the lockout.  The Phillies added quite a few players to the farm, including Justin Williams, Josh Ockimey, Andrew Bellatti, Jake Newberry, Joe Gatto, Tyler Cyr, Michael Kelly, Yairo Munoz, James Marvel, Drew Maggi, Karl Ellison, Joe Genord, Aaron Barrett and John Andreoli.  I don't know too much about any of these guys and I haven't done too much research on them yet, but there are more than a few names in this lot that have had experience in the big leagues.  Additionally, they re-signed relief pitcher Cam Bedrosian to a minor league contract.  Cam is the son of former Phillies Cy Young Award winner Steve Bedrosian, so I'm especially happy to see him back with the team.

One of the reasons I was looking forward to the 2022 season is the fact that it marked the end of the Odubel Herrera contract extension.  I really liked this guy when the Phillies first picked him up in the Rule 5 Draft in December 2014.  He had a productive rookie season in 2015, and he was an All-Star and a Gold Glove finalist in 2016.  However, it became pretty hard to ignore some of his poor decisions on the field.  He struck out quite a bit, his routes in center field were bizarre, and his base running was downright atrocious.

Unfortunately, his poor decisions were not limited to baseball, and he was taken out of the Phillies lineup after he was arrested for domestic violence in late May 2019.  He was DFA'ed after the 2019 season, and I expected that this was the last that we'd see of Odubel Herrera in Philadelphia.  However, it didn't quite work out that way.

Odubel signed a five year contract extension prior to the start of the 2017 season, and the CBA between Major League Baseball and the Players Association doesn't allow a team to take disciplinary action against a player for domestic violence beyond what is decided by the league.  So, after he served his MLB suspension, he was back with the organization.  At this point, I expected that the team would stash him in Triple A for the remainder of his contract, but he was back in the big leagues in 2021 for what was the final guaranteed year of the contract extension he signed five years earlier.

The Phillies had a team option on his previous contract to keep him for the 2022 season.  It was declined, and I thought that we had finally moved on from this man, who has been a complete disaster both on and off the field.  Sadly, that is not the case, as for reasons I cannot possibly understand, the Phillies re-signed Odubel Herrera to a one year contract with the expectation that he will platoon in center field with Matt Vierling.

This decision by the Phillies front office had me utterly disgusted in the team, much in the same way that I was when the Eagles signed Michael Vick.  I don't think there's any excuse or justification for this move.  If there wasn't anybody else they could sign or trade for, they could have just let Vierling start in center field this season.  If they didn't want to do that, they have two first round draft picks in Adam Haseley and Mickey Moniak, both of whom are left handed and could platoon with Vierling, and both of whom play a better defensive center field than Odubel.  I don't want to hear any bullshit about people deserving second chances.  He got his second chance by avoiding prison when his girlfriend decided not to press charges.  There is no valid excuse for bringing this man back to Philadelphia to play baseball in 2022.  None.  Period.  End of discussion.

My feelings about the Phillies decision to sign former Mets closer Jeurys Familia are complicated.  Like Odubel, he was arrested for domestic violence after an incident that allegedly occurred on Halloween 2016.  Unlike Odubel, the charges were dismissed and expunged from his record, and an investigation by the league (which both Familia and his wife - the alleged victim of the incident) found that he did not threaten or assault anyone on the night in question.  So I guess if the police, the league, and his wife are all in agreement that the alleged incident never happened, who the hell am I to say that I know better.  Still, it's not an especially good look for a team to go out of their way to sign two guys who have been arrested for domestic violence in the past six years.

He's signed to a one year deal for $6 million.  From a strictly baseball perspective, I don't know what to expect out of this guy.  Like Odubel, he was an All-Star in 2016, and he was one of the best closers in the National League at one time, but he hasn't put up numbers that are anywhere close to his peak over the past five seasons.  The best case scenario that I can see is that he rebounds in his age 32 season and can be an effective setup man for Corey Knebel.

The Phillies signed another former All-Star reliever to a one year contact for $6 million when they brought lefty Brad Hand to Philadelphia.  This is the bullpen acquisition that I'm the most optimistic about.  Like Familia, Hand was once a highly effective closer.  He was a three-time All Star from 2017 to 2019 with the Padres and Indians, and he was a perfect 16 for 16 in save opportunities in the Covid-19 shortened 2020 season.  He started last season with the Washington Nationals and was off to a good start before he was traded to the Blue Jays at the deadline.  He struggled in his 11 appearances in Toronto and was placed on waivers.  The Mets claimed him on September 2nd, and he seemed to settle down pitching in New York for the last month of the season, so there's a lot of reason to hope that he could bounce back.  If he pitches anything like he did from 2017 to 2020, it wouldn't shock me too much if he steals the closing job off of Knebel.

The biggest signing happened on Wednesday when the Phillies signed slugger Kyle Schwarber to a four year, $79 million dollar contract.

When the off-season began, I was hoping that the Phillies would have signed Kris Bryant because he could take over at 3B if the need arose, but the more time I've had to think about it, the more I've convinced myself that Schwarber is the right move.  He's 29 years old, so a four year contact at under $20 million AAV is very team-friendly.  He is a huge power upgrade over Andrew McCutchen in left field, and his OBP suggests that he could be the leadoff bat that the Phillies have been missing in their lineup.  He bats left handed, so he fits perfectly at the top of the order hitting in front of Segura (R), Harper (L) and Hoskins (R).  He has post-season experience and was a valuable bat in the lineup for the Cubs in the 2016 World Series, batting .412 with a .500 OBP against the Indians after missing practically the entire regular season due to injury.  He is the right player at the right time, and I'm very glad that he's coming to Philadelphia.

This signing puts the Phillies $10 million under the Luxury Tax threshold.  Now, I have long since given up on the idea of the Phillies going over the threshold.  They haven't ever done it before, and I had zero expectations that they were going to start now.  I'm still digging my feet in and saying that the Phillies are finished with major free agent signings for the 2022 season, but damn Jayson Stark for giving me reason to hope.

Nick Castellanos?

Nick freakin Castellanos?!

I am really, really, really trying not to get my hopes up here.  The Phillies were known to be interested in signing Schwarber or Castellanos, but I doubt that even the most optimistic of fans entered into this off-season believing that the Phillies would sign BOTH of them.

Jayson Stark's tweet from 10:44 says it all.  While this signing wouldn't make the Phillies an especially strong defensive team, it would give them a lot of versatility now that the designated hitter has been brought to the National League.  It would give the Phillies power from both the left and right side of the plate, and if Alec Bohm can bounce back to his 2020 production, the Phillies could have one of the most dynamic offensive teams in the league.

Imagine this lineup:

1. Kyle Schwarber
2. Jean Segura
3. Bryce Harper
4. Rhys Hoskins
5. Nick Castellanos
6. J.T. Realmuto
7. Alec Bohm
8. Bryson Stott / Didi Gregorius
9. Odubel Herrera / Matt Vierling

I know I'm jumping the gun by allowing myself to get excited before it happens.  I've been trying to remind myself for the past day that the Phillies have never gone over the Luxury Tax threshold.  Never.  Not even once.  Not even by a dollar.  In fact, they've gone out of their way to get right up to the edge of the Luxury Tax and then stop short of making that extra move that could have gotten them to the post season.  But maybe... just maybe... this will be the season where the front office finally goes all in for a championship season.

UPDATE (9:40 AM): It has been reported late last night that the deal has been completed.  We're still waiting for the official announcement from the team, but numerous credible sources have reported that Nick Castellanos has signed a five year, $100 million dollar contract with the Phillies that will keep him in Philadelphia through his age 35 season.  The deal contains no opt out clauses, and it gives the Phillies their most powerful lineup since the 2007-2011 era.

Things have just gotten a lot more interesting in Philadelphia!

Give My Regards To Broadway Names

Novelty Newspaper
Broadway Names (1957)

My grandfather served in the US Navy after he graduated high school.  He had already began dating my grandmother before he was deployed.  When he was discharged in December 1957, someone ordered a novelty newspaper for my grandmother to celebrate his coming home.  It's printed on the same newsprint and is the same size as a real newspaper, so it looks pretty legit.  The only thing that would suggest the fact that it isn't real is the oversized headline.

This novelty newspaper was produced by a company called Broadway Names in New York City.  There's an advertisement for them on the back of the page in the top right hand corner.  You could order three copies for $1 or seven copies for $2.  You got to choose up to 36 letters to appear in the headline with no mention of what the rest of the newspaper would contain.

Before we get into some of the more interesting things to be found throughout this paper, I was curious to know a little bit more about where this business was located.  I'm no expert on real estate, but 1663 Broadway on the corner of 52nd Street in New York City seems like it would be a pretty valuable piece of property in the theater district.

 

According to Property Shark, the block of 1651-1665 Broadway is occupied by the Novotel Times Square Hotel, which permanently closed in December 2020 due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.  Property Shark lists the building as having been built in 1929, but every other source I could find stated that the hotel, which is 35 stories tall and had 480 rooms, was built by Accor in 1984.

I'm not sure what it's being used for today, or if it's just sitting empty and waiting for a new tenant, but I'm reasonably sure that it's not being used as the base of operations for the sale of The Lord's Prayer engraved on a penny, which is just one of many things that were printed on the novelty newspaper.

It might be a bit of a stretch to call it "one of the truly great phenomenons of this world" even for the 1950's, but at least it wasn't very expensive.  If you mailed a quarter to Pennies From Heaven at the same Broadway address that sold these novelty newspapers, they'd send you back a penny that has been engraved with The Lord's Prayer, sealed in a clear vinylite case and with a gold beaded chain attached.

If you want one of these and don't have access to Doc Brown's DeLorean to go back to 1955, you're in luck.  At the time of this writing, there are 86 different actions on eBay that have them for sale right now, though you'll pay considerably more than 25 cents.

This is probably the most normal thing printed on this paper.  It only gets stranger from here.

Right next door to Pennies From Heaven is Turtle Heaven; allegedly the world's largest retailer of live baby pet turtles.  I'm not sure what disturbs me more - that they were sending baby turtles through the mail, or the fact that they would paint your name on its shell for an extra dime.  Neither of these things are good for a turtle's health despite their assurances of "live delivery guaranteed".

 

Here we have a number of products available from a company called Times Square Identification Service.  There's nothing too unusual about a plate with your name engraved on it to put on your mailbox or doorbell for a quarter, or lamination services for your cards and photos.  However, I don't think it's an especially good idea to have an exact replica of your Social Security card engraved on a paperweight or a polished bronze plaque.

This company also offered US Government Civilian Identification Cards.  The ad claims that the Atomic Defense Commission has requested all civilians to carry this card.  It's a pretty chilling reminder of the threat of nuclear war that everyone lived under in the decades after World War II, but the advertisement is a bit dubious at best.  As far as I can tell, there never was an official government organization called the Atomic Defense Commission.  The closest I could find was a proposal by Senator Harry P. Cain to replace the Atomic Energy Commission, which was controlled by civilians, with a new department called the Atomic Defense Commission, which would be controlled by the military and report to the Secretary of Defense.  That never happened, and the Atomic Energy Commission continued to function until it was abolished in 1974.  With the way things are going in the world today, who knows?  We might soon find ourselves in another Cold War that will require us to go back to the days of civilian ID cards and duck-and-cover drills... if we're not there already.

Hubert's Museum has a pretty interesting history.  It was in operation in Times Square at 234 West 42nd Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues) from 1925 to 1965.  In its 40 year history, it was the home of performances by Jane Barnell (the bearded lady from the 1932 movie - Freaks) and Jack Dracula.  The location where this once stood is now home to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Odditorium, which is a really nice touch.  I wonder if they still have some of the old displays from Hubert's Museum there.

I'm going to have to do some more research on this place to write more about it later, because what little I have already learned about it has fascinated the hell out of me.

The news articles that were used for this novelty newspaper are almost as random and puzzling as the advertisements.  If something like this were to be made today, they'd probably just create a bunch of made up funny stories that are loaded with bad puns.  Back in the 50's when this newspaper was put together for Broadway Names, they just used real articles that were cut out of actual newspapers throughout the Spring and Summer of 1951.  The four above were from April and May that year.  The first thing that caught my interest on this paper at all was the photo of Ralph Branca with the caption of "Tempts Bad Luck" for his #13 uniform.  This photo ran in newspapers across the country five months to the day before he would give up the famous Shot Heard 'Round The World to Bobby Thompson.

The decision to use real newspaper articles as the template for their novelty newspaper is understandable.  It gives the finished product more of a sense of realism, and it probably saved a bit of time and money.  You might expect that they'd make an effort to find light-hearted stories, like maybe a pet cat stuck in a tree, or a book donation to the library, or maybe somebody who bowled a 300 game, but that was not the case.  The end result is a collection of stories that are anything but light-hearted, with references ranging from bombs to bull semen.  Hell, they included photos of dead bodies in this thing.  Imagine if a company were to do this in 2022.  Extra - Extra - Read all about it!  Little Timmy turns 10 years old today, and oh yeah, here's a dead gangster from the 50's.  Happy birthday!

Right below the novelty headline in the dead center (no pun intended) is a photo that was taken from the rooftops of the body of bookie Arthur Rubin (aka: "Little Ush") who was killed in a drive-by in the Lower East Side.  I couldn't find too much additional information about this incident.  Most of the newspapers who covered the story used the exact same photo and caption that appeared in the novelty paper.  However, the earliest mention I was able to find of it was from August 12th, 1951.  The St. Louis Post Dispatch gave a bit more information, stating that the deceased was 34 years old and had been carrying a pistol, but "failed to draw it fast enough to use it".

 

If one body isn't creepy enough for you, here's a shot from the Battle of Mạo Khê in the First Indochina War.  The battle took place from March 23 to March 28, 1951, and the photos ran in most of the papers that carried it in the first week of May later that year.

And now for something a bit lighter, but not a bit less strange.

Just in case you were interested in how to acquire bull semen for the purposes of breeding cattle, the folks at Broadway Names have helpfully included this article.  I didn't bother to do any research on what newspapers this appeared in, and unless you want Google to surprise you with a few interesting new advertisements, I suggest that you don't either.

 

Out of all of the random stories and photos on this paper, this is the one that I wish I could have learned more about.  A man named Leo Simmon discovered an aerial bomb in the hallway of a building on 6th Avenue in New York City.  I was able to find dozens of instances of this photo with the same caption, but not a single word from a follow-up story about where it came from.  Maybe they never found out.

Police officers in Astoria, Queens rounded up thirty teenagers (including three girls) on a disorderly conduct charge to prevent what they expected to be a midnight gang war.  That in itself would be the foundation for an interesting movie idea, however it's the second to last line that really caught my eye - "Police were told the disturbance grew out of a petting party".  Petting party, you say?  If ever two words from an old news article from the 50's begged to be Googled, it is these two.

As it turns out, a Petting Party is exactly what the name suggests.  They began in the 1920's and were gatherings where high school and/or college students got together for sexual experimentation that stopped just short of having sex.  It's an interesting concept.  According to NPR, this phenomenon began to fade in the 1930's, but as this photograph from a 1951 newspaper suggests, it hadn't died out entirely.

Finally, we have the story of poor Mrs. Lois Soderland, forever immortalized in newsprint with her finger stuck in a bus seat.  She had been trying to recline the seat so she could lay back, but her finger "entered a hole" and she couldn't pull it back out.  They had to take her and the bus seat to the emergency room to have it removed.

Now... THAT'S the kind of story you expect to see in a novelty newspaper, and it deserves a closer look.

The Madisonian - May 4, 1951

There are other oddities to be found in this novelty newspaper, but I'll leave those for someone else to research.

As I write this, I have to wonder about the time when it was purchased.  I don't know if my grandfather bought it for my grandmother, or if maybe one of my grandmother's friends ordered it to surprise her.  I'm sure they looked at it for a few minutes, chuckled at the headline, and then put it in a drawer with a bunch of other photos and mementos from the years before they got married.  It might have gotten shuffled around a few times until it was packed up in a box and stuffed in the back of their attic where it sat undisturbed for half of a century.  My grandfather died in 2011 and my grandmother followed less than a year later.  The box that held this newspaper was one of many that I packed into my car and brought over to my house, where it once again got packed away in an attic for nearly another decade.  Then a global pandemic struck, and their sentimental grandson decided to spend some of his time in quarantine digging through old boxes of photos in the attic.

Maybe somebody else will stumble across this newspaper years from now.

Becoming A Nuggetarian For St. Patrick's Day

Reuben Bites
Cattlemen's Ranch (2022)

Between breakfast nuggets and all of the other miscellaneous air fryer foods in the freezer at the grocery store these days, I think it may be possible for someone to live their life as a nuggetarian.  It probably wouldn't be a very long life, but what the hell.  Who wants to live forever?

The best thing I've found from the nugget craze of the 20's are these Corned Beef Reuben Bites from Aldi.

They really need to start serving these at the bar, and the ballgame, and the drive-in, and everywhere else on the face of the earth for that matter.  They're freaking delicious!  I cleared out a shelf in my freezer just so I could stock up on these, but I was too late.  They're already out of stock at my local Aldi's, so I only got this one bag.  There's always next year.

Pac Man Fever Comes Home

Pac Man
Atari 2600 (1982)

One of the biggest home video game releases of all time took place forty years ago today when Pac-Man went on sale for the Atari 2600 console.  The home port was programmed by Tod Frye, who was under both time and resource constraints to have a cartridge in stores in time for the first quarter of 1982.

 

Standard Speaker - March 17, 1982

The finished product was seen by most gamers as a disappointment and has been cited as one of the factors that led to the video game crash of 1983.  However, the massive success of Pac-Man at the arcade led to sales of over 8 million copies by the end of the decade, which makes it the highest selling Atari 2600 cartridge ever produced.  Although it doesn't even crack the top 50 these days, Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was the best selling video game of all-time.

Christmas Eve 1984

Although the video game crash of 1983 was terrible for the industry, it could not have come at a better time for a kid that was born in 1980.  I was given an Atari 2600 console and a pile of games for Christmas in 1984.  Just a few years earlier, new games would have cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 each, but they were being sold for as low as a dollar by the 1984 holiday season.

Pac Man on the 2600 may have been disappointing for gamers who expected something that resembled the arcade experience, but for a four year old little boy in West Hazleton back in 1984, it was the best Christmas present ever.  I played the heck out of Pac Man, and dozens of other games that my dad brought home.  Today, I can look back and see why older gamers were disappointed at the time - especially the ones who paid full price.  However, from a personal perspective, I don't think I ever powered on my Atari 2600 and felt anything but pure joy.

A Sad Goodbye To The Bad Guy

Scott Hall
1958 - 2022
One of the most talented and charismatic people to ever set foot inside of a professional wrestling ring has died.  Scott Hall had fallen and broken his hip earlier this year.  He underwent surgery which dislodged a blood clot and led to him suffering from three heart attacks on Saturday.  He was taken off of life support yesterday and passed away later in the day.  Mr. Hall was 63 years old.

I first saw Scott Hall on television in the summer of 1992.  Back in those days, when the WWF signed a new wrestler, they would film a series of vignettes to give the audience a bit of backstory on a new character that they haven't seen before.  The character that Mr. Hall introduced to fans in his vignettes was a Cuban villain named Razor Ramon.

Although I didn't know it at the time, this character was basically Scott Hall doing an impersonation of Tony Montana if he was a pro wrestler instead of a drug kingpin.  I was only 12 years old, and while my dad was pretty liberal about what movies he let me watch, he wasn't about to bring home a copy of Scarface for family movie night.

I've always gravitated toward the bad guys in the 80's like Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, Rick Rude, Curt Hennig, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and "Macho Man" Randy Savage, so I was instantly hooked by this dude who came out to the ring calling himself "the bad guy".  Before every match, he took off his gold chains and handed them to the ring attendant with a warning: "if something happens to this, something's going to happen to you".  Then, just for good measure, he'd flick his toothpick in the guy's face.  This dude was absolute wrestling villain gold from day one!

On May 27, 1996, Scott Hall appeared unannounced on WCW Monday Nitro.  He addressed the crowd and the wrestlers in the locker room and planted the seeds for the nWo storyline which changed the professional wrestling business forever.  It was the moment that I, along with millions of other pro wrestling fans, switched over from the USA to TNT to give WCW the win in their head-to-head ratings war with the WWF for 83 consecutive weeks.

On April 5th, 2014, Scott Hall was inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame.  His induction speech was fitting capstone on an incredible career, which he ended with a line that became an instant classic:

"Hard work pays off

Dreams come true

Bad times don't last

But bad guys do."

Scott Hall's longtime tag team partner and best friend, Kevin Nash, posted this message on Instagram on Monday morning.  My heart goes out to him, and to all of the family and friends of this incredible performer.  Rest in peace, Mr. Hall, and thank you.

A Sweet Hot Chick

Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich
Wendy's (2022)

On the way home from seeing The Batman, we stopped at Wendy's for dinner, and I tried their Spicy Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich.  It's made from a chicken breast that's been marinated in peppers and spices and topped with bacon, dill pickles and pepperjack cheese with a hot honey habanero sauce.  I'm going to go ahead and say that my diet is still going strong, because although its nearly 800 calories, it's the only thing I had to eat after lunch, so it was fewer calories than I typically have for dinner.  It's definitely a tasty sandwich.  I could have done with it being a little bit hotter and spicier, but it was very flavorful.

What Is A Yute?

My Cousin Vinny
20th Century Fox (1992)

No other movie I can think of has made me laugh harder than My Cousin Vinny.  It was released to theaters nationwide 30 years ago today, on March 13th, 1992.

Palm Beach Post - March 13, 1992

This was another movie that I saw in theaters when I was living in South Florida in 1992.  I was 11 years old at the time and had only been living outside of Pennsylvania for a few months, so I don't remember which theater we saw it in.  It would have been somewhere in the area of Boynton Beach or Greenacres, but there are so many cinemas in Palm Beach County that it's impossible to say which one it might have been.  My dad's best friend, John, took me to go see it.  He was a member of the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program, so he would sometimes pick me up to hang out with him and his "little brother" from the program.  I forget the kid's name - I want to say that his last name was Murphy, but I'm not sure.  Anyway, this kid was my age and we got along pretty well when he wasn't yapping throughout an entire movie like he did with The People Under The Stairs earlier that year.  Thankfully, the three of us were too busy laughing our asses off while watching My Cousin Vinny, so it wasn't a problem this time.

That night, Marisa Tomei became one of my first childhood crushes.  I fell in love with her character, Mona Lisa Vito - a beautiful, smart and bad ass woman who played incredibly well off of the title character, Vincent LaGuardia Gambini (Joe Pesci).  Every scene those two have together is flawless, and it's a performance that earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Joe Pesci is one of my favorite actors of all time.  He's immensely talented and seems like a genuinely good person from everything that I've heard about him.  He is at his absolute best throughout this movie.  Everything about his portrayal of Vinny is hysterically funny - his dialogue, his delivery, his facial expressions, that incredible leisure suit he wears to court... everything.  He may not be "funny like a clown", but he delivered what is, in my opinion, the best motion picture comic performance of the 90's.

This movie also marks the final performance of Fred Gwynne, whose portrayal as the stern and impatient Judge Chamberlain Haller is absolutely brilliant.  As a kid who grew up loving the old sitcoms on Nick At Nite, I was familiar with his roles as Officer Muldoon in Car 54 Where Are You and Herman Munster in The Munsters, but I never saw him in a movie before (it would be a few years before I saw Pet Sematary for the first time).  His presence is commanding, and the way he plays off of Joe Pesci is hilarious! 

Thankfully, My Cousin Vinny didn't have a terrible sequel the way that so many great comedies have had, but it did inspire an album.  Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just For You was released six and a half years after the movie, and it includes a Christmas song called If It Doesn't Snow For Christmas that I've played at least once for every holiday season since I first heard it.  Play it once and I'm sure you'll want it on your playlist this December too.

The Great Blizzard Of 1888

There's a snowstorm passing through the Northeast today, but at least it's not as bad as the blizzard that brought 40 mph winds and dropped 22 inches of snow on New York City 134 years ago.  It started at midnight on March 12, 1888 and it snowed nonstop for a full day and a half.  The storm stretched from the Chesapeake Bay to the Canadian Atlantic provinces and was responsible for over 400 deaths and $25 million in damages (in 1888 dollars).

Vengeance Won’t Change The Past

The Batman
Warner Bros Pictures (2022)

Before I say anything about The Batman, I'd like to share a little but of my own personal history with this character.  If a middle-aged nerd can't ramble in his blog about Batman and breakfast nuggets, where the hell can he?

I'm 41 years old, and I've seen a hell of a lot of Batman in my life.  When I was very young, I watched reruns of the Adam West series on television.  I even got to see the 1966 film, Batman: The Movie on one of the pay channel free preview weekends.  I turned nine years old in the summer of 1989 when Batman was being marketed more predominantly than any comic book character had ever been before (or since).  My grandfather brought me to The Majestic in West Hazleton (now the Cinema & Drafthouse) to see the Michael Keaton/Jack Nicholson Batman on the big screen, and I was blown away.  It was the most exciting movie experience of my life up to that point, and just like every kid I knew in school at the time, my Christmas wish list that year was filled top to bottom with Batman toys.  That was pretty much where my interest in Batman had peaked.

 

I didn't see Batman Returns until it came out on home video, and while I have grown to appreciate it a lot more in my adult life, the 12-year-old me wasn't even close to as hyped up for it as I was the first movie.  It's dark and beautiful, but even though I like it more today than I did back in 1992, I still think the first movie is the better film of the two.

The next movie in the series was Batman Forever.  It came out a couple of weeks before I turned 15, and like its predecessor, I didn't see it on the big screen.  However, while I enjoyed Batman Returns as a kid and enjoy it even more today, the same cannot be said for Batman Forever.  I thought it was a lousy movie then, and my opinions of it have not improved with time.  Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carey were just plain ridiculous.  It felt like they were trying to combine the campy, cornball villains of the Adam West series with the million dollar production of the movies.  That sort of villain was fun and charming in the old 60's tv series, but it was annoying to see on the big screen.  I still believe that the only good thing to ever come out of Batman Forever was its soundtrack.

 

To this day, I still have not watched Batman & Robin.  I'm a big fan of George Clooney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman and Alicia Silverstone, but after seeing Batman Forever and then seeing the Batman & Robin trailer with all of those terrible puns, I had absolutely no interest in seeing the 1997 film.  I wouldn't be a dick about it if any of my friends ever wanted me to watch it with them for some reason, but there is pretty close to zero chance that I will ever sit down and watch it on my own.

Next came The Dark Knight Trilogy, starting with Batman Begins in 2005.  They're a hell of a lot better than Batman Forever, but something about them never clicked with me and I have no idea why that is.  I know this is going to sound like I'm ripping on these movies, but that's not at all my intention.  I saw Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises in theaters and I enjoyed all three of them (especially The Dark Knight), but I don't think I've ever watched any of them since.  When I'm in the mood to watch a Batman flick, I always go back to the 1989 movie that I fell in love with as a kid.  One of these days, I'll have to sit down and have a Dark Knight Trilogy marathon, but even as I type that, I'm thinking "eh... not this weekend".   

Justice League was the next Batman movie that I saw in theaters.  I didn't really have too much interest in it, but I was on a business trip in El Paso, and there was a Cinemark not too far from my hotel, so I thought I'd go see a movie and it was the only thing that was playing that looked good to me at the time.  In fairness to the filmmakers, I was tired and stressed out and probably still suffering from a little jet lag, but I fell asleep in my seat about a half hour into the movie, and I woke up about five minutes before the credits.  From what I'm told, I didn't miss anything.

There's a lot of Batman material that I'm skipping over here - some of which I've seen and some that I haven't.  I'd would be interested to know how many combined hours of Batman movies, cartoons and television shows have been produced in my lifetime.  There's also an increasing amount of Batman-adjacent material out there, including Catwoman, Joker, Gotham, Suicide Squad, Birds Of Prey and plenty of others... not to mention all of the comic books, video games, and other media that's been produced in my lifetime.

Maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from and maybe you won't, but after seeing this character countless times over the past four decades, I was not too excited to see The Batman.  My first reaction when I learned that there was going to be another Batman film was to think "Oh, come on!  How many different ways can there be to tell the same old story!".  But as worn out as I have grown to be with this character, I had every intention of going to see it.  What the hell - it's not like it was going to cost me anything extra with the Regal Unlimited deal, so why wouldn't I go see it?  The worst thing that could happen is that I fall asleep like I did at Justice League.

With this in mind, I skipped out on opening weekend and went to see a 4:00 screening of The Batman on Monday after the crowds had died down a little bit (or whatever passes for a crowd in my little coal-dust covered corner of Northeast PA).  I settled into my seat at the Regal as a hopeful skeptic.  That was not my mindset by the time the credits rolled.

 

The tone of The Batman reminded me very much of the 2019 film Joker, and if that's the direction that DC Films are committed to taking with the Batman character, I can say one thing for certain: I will be excited when the next Batman movie hits theaters.

This movie is brilliant!  Absolutely brilliant!  It's the most realistic version of a Batman story that I've ever seen.  Bruce Wayne isn't a suave billionaire playboy who broods once in a while.  He's a psychological mess of a man who saw his parents get murdered when he was a child and whose only coping mechanism is to dress up in a bat costume to act as a vigilante to take vengeance on others.  The Riddler isn't a goofy man in spandex dancing around and engaging in dopey comic book banter.  He's another psychologically scarred man who is seeking his own version of justice on a world that wasn't fair to him.  The world in this film is a corrupt and dangerous place, and no one truly has their shit together.

The fight scenes are more realistic that I've seen in any other Batman movie.  He's not an unstoppable superhuman.  He's just a guy who learned how to fight and can afford good weapons and body armor... and while his gear is very good, it isn't ridiculous or garish.  The most advanced tech he uses seemed to me like something that very well might exist before the end of the decade, if it doesn't already.  This gives Batman an advantage, but he's vulnerable and could get his ass kicked just like anybody else.  Similarly, Catwoman isn't a bodysuit wearing sexpot making cat puns and meowing.  She's a strong woman who's seeking her own vengeance.  The Penguin isn't a egg-shaped cartoon character who quacks, flaps his arms and has actual penguins marching around him.  He's a mobster and a drug dealer.  Everything about this movie is done with care and consideration to tell a story that you could almost see really happening.  It is our world with the volume turned ever so slightly higher.

The piano music throughout the film is beautiful and haunting, as is the use of Something In The Way, which is my favorite song off of the Nevermind album and one of my favorite songs from Nirvana's catalog.  Robert Pattinson is incredible as both Bruce Wayne and Batman, and if you can't see past the fact that he was in the Twilight movies, it's your loss.  Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, and Colin Farrell gave the best performances as Catwoman, The Riddler and The Penguin that I have ever seen, and there is no close second.

Simply put, this film makes every other Batman movie I've ever watched feel childish in comparison... even my beloved 1989 film... even the critically acclaimed The Dark Knight.  This is a movie that is grounded in reality, and it has a message that's worth hearing.  I hesitate to even call it a superhero movie.  This is a action-based crime drama, and a damn good one.  Go see it on the big screen.  You'll be glad that you did.

The Return Of McMario Kart

Mario Kart Happy Meal
McDonald's (2022)

In celebration of Mario Day (Mar.10), McDonald's has announced that they are bringing back their Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Happy Meal promotion.  Seven of the eight toys that are available were part of the original Mario Kart 8 promotion in 2014. A new Toadette hover car has been added for this 2022 relaunch.

These two Mario Kart activity worksheets that are available to download for free on HappyMeal.com.  Images of these worksheets are above, but for the best quality, grab the original pdf file off of the McDonald's Happy Meal website while it's still available.