Kevin Marshall's America
Hey everyone!
I’m at the Crowne Plaza for Over the Edge, and our first rappellers are about to go down! Here’s the view from the top:
I’m excited and nervous, but that’s neither here nor there.
The important thing is that you readers raised in excess of $2,000 for Special Olympics of NY. Dreams will be realized and self-esteems boosted due to your kindness. So on behalf of the Special Olympics of NY, thank you for your generosity.
And if you haven’t already, you still can still donate by visiting the website. A little bit makes all the difference in the world for the athletes and their families.
We (me and teammate Meghan Mae) go down at 3:30pm.
THE COMPLETE SCHEDULE
- 10am-3pm WGNA’s Kevin Richards –on site for a live remote
- 10:50am Erin Regazzo – Director of Marketing at the Times Union Center to rappel
- 11:00am Professional Boxers Vinny Maddalone, Shannon Miller and Mike Faragon along with Pugnacious Promotions owner Lisa Elovich to rappel
- 11am-1pm Tri-City Valley Cats Mascots
- 12pm-2pm WGNA’s Donation Request Lunch Hour
- 12:45-1:30 Capital Technical Rescue’s Special Ops Challenge with: APD Assistant Chief Brendan Cox, Army Nat’l Guard Sgt Scott Leslie, NYSID’s Frank Heuer
- 2:10pm Jeff Michaelson – Director of Catering at the Crowne Plaza to rappel
- 3:00pm Jared from Melville’s Mug to rappel– Melville’s will also sell tickets to throw water balloons at Jared while scaling the rock wall
- 3:35pm Times Union Blogger Kevin Marshall to rappel
- 5:50pm Tim Minahan – TD Bank VP to rappel
- 7:00pm After party begins at McGeary’s Irish Pub
I’ll be tweeting throughout the today! Follow @KevinMarshall to get updates throughout the day.
Join OTE on Facebook for updates
Also, congratulations to Laurel H. who won the $25 Target Gift Card!
Don’t forget that today’s the day we go Over the Edge to raise money for the Special Olympics of NY. Folks will be rappelling down the side of the Crowne Plaza Hotel all day, so come on down.
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A friend of mine, Billie-Jean Greene, is running for City Council as an At-Large representative.
I do know and have known other people running for political office, but Billie-Jean is the only one that I’ve actually gone out of my way to help, mostly through distribution of lit and spreading word of mouth.
Why? Because she actually wants to help. She doesn’t have any lofty political aspirations or strange ulterior motives, which is rare for city politics. She simply loves the city, loves her neighborhood, and wants to make it better.
I’ve always been baffled by the ugliness of city politics, with miscreants and ne’er-do-wells using under-handed tactics all to become King of S*** Mountain. Not to mention recent events over the course of the last year, including a voter fraud scandal which if I were any of the involved parties I’d be ashamed to show my face in public let alone openly laugh about it.
The Council doesn’t need new blood, it needs a blood transfusion.
So I’m glad that there’s somebody running who’s running because they want to see some improvement and is earnest in their approach to it. I know her, and I’m willing to throw my support behind her even though she’s a REPUBLICAN!!!!.
She’s now sweetened the pot, so to speak, by promising if elected to give one-third of her Council Salary back to the City.
The full press release is below.
This coming Friday marks the release “Star Wars: The Complete Saga” on Blu-Ray. Collecting all six films digitally retouched, the release features more tweaks and changes that have come to redefine the franchise and Lucas himself in the 21st Century.
Most of you reading this have probably seen, or at least heard, about the most infamous change:
Remember how much you hated the Ewoks and wished they were all Wookies instead? Well, now they blink, so IN YOUR FACE CRANKYPANTS!
And no, it’s not a hoax. Trust me, I wish it was, and I’m not even what you would consider a devoted “Star Wars” geek.
Still, that’s nothing compared to some of the other changes that are in the Blu-Ray collection. Some are so minor you probably won’t even notice, but there’s others that are too jarring to miss.
CHANGES ON THE “STAR WARS” BLU-RAY DVDs
- In “Episode IV: A New Hope,” a large rock is now partially obscuring R2D2 when he’s hiding from the Jawas.
- In “Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” Yoda is not a puppet but a CGI construct like he was in the other two prequels.
- The fake “dragon” call Obi-Wan Kenobi makes to scare away the Tusken Raiders has been completely changed.
- The Ewoks’ eyes are now CGI and blink to make them look more lifelike.
- In Episode II: Attack of the Clones, a lone violin is heard every time Anakin speaks.
- In “Return of the Jedi,” Admiral Ackbar’s long ridiculed line “it’s a trap!” has been replaced with “OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH SNAP!”
- Rather than walking around naked, Chewbacca now wears denim shorts. He still doesn’t get a medal at the end of the original movie, however.
- Jar Jar Binks’s controversial pigeon English voice and dialogue has been re-dubbed. Jar Jar is now voiced by comedian Robin Williams, using his trademark offensive 1970s black man voice.
- Several lines of Han Solo’s dialogue has been modified and others added. When Princess Leia tells Han that she loves him in “Empire Strikes Back,” his original response of “I know” has been changed to “No Duh!” When Luke shoots a Tie fighter from the gunpod of the Millennium Falcon, Han’s original response of “Great, kid, don’t get cocky” has been replaced with “whoop dee pickle.” And at various points during the fight on Endor, he can be heard off-camera yelling “I hate Ewoks!”
- Chewbacca’s growls are now sub-titled, revealing that most of the time he’s just quoting Lord Byron.
- A laugh track has been inserted every time Leia and Han start bickering, and the sound of an audience going “wooooooo” and hollering has been inserted when they kiss.
- Due to some clever editing, Lando no longer betrays Han. Rather, he instead goes to the bathroom and when he comes out, Han and everyone else are gone. Lando then looks around and goes “awww, man” and takes off after them.
- The Emperor now wears a large crown made of the bones of the Jedi children killed by Anakin at the end of Episode III.
- In all editions, C-3PO is now CGI, bright purple, and has a light saber battle in Episode III with an evil Jar-Jar Binks.
- Instead of being saved by Luke in the original film, Princess Leia is now swung to safety by Indiana Jones, who has been displaced by a temporal rift that immediately shuts once they’ve landed, returning him to his proper time and place.
- In the Cantina scene, Hammerhead has been replaced with Plier Pete, an alien who has a head that looks like a pair of pliers.
- In that same scene, the Cantina band is now playing “Deacon Blues” by Steely Dan.
- One final Catina scene change: Greedo shoots himself.
- To explain Han Solo’s unnecessary hostility towards Chewbacca, Han is now drunk for the entire first film and the first two-thirds of “The Empire Strikes Back.”
- Princess Leia’s hair buns are now croissants.
Let me know if you hear of any others.
This Friday is Over the Edge, an event to raise funds for the Special Olympics of NY.
I’ll be rappelling with teammate Meghan Mae at 3:35pm. I’ll also be there before and after providing services for the event as an Escort*. Ooo la la!
In addition to the rappeling during the day, we’ll be at the after-party at McGeary’s starting at 7:00pm. Bring a friend!
It’s not too late to give. Please give what you can – every little bit goes a long way towards helping the Special Olympics of NY. More info & to donate: CLICK HERE. All the incentives for giving listed on that page are still available until Thursday at midnight! (I still owe Courtney and Patrick portraits and Jason P. his promised video – all of which will come this week!)
* Meaning I literally escort people around the site, not the “everything but kissing” type of escort.
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Note: all info comes from the OTE organizers. For further info or if you have any inquiries, please visit their site
COVERAGE
- Listen live on 1057. CrushFM all morning
- FOX morning news: watch Stephanie Schelkun rappel!
- LookTV news: watch David Storey’s rappel!
SCHEDULE
- 9:00am First rappellers to arrive – t-shirts, photos and merchandise to go on sale
- 10:00am Rappellers start coming down
WGNA’s Casey Danton to race 104.5 The Team and The Noe Show’s Brian Noe - 10am-3pm WGNA’s Kevin Richards –on site for a live remote
- 10:50am Erin Regazzo – Director of Marketing at the Times *************Union Center to rappel
- 11:00am Professional Boxers Vinny Maddalone, Shannon Miller and Mike Faragon along with Pugnacious Promotions owner Lisa Elovich to rappel
- 11am-1pm Tri-City Valley Cats Mascots
- 12pm-2pm WGNA’s Donation Request Lunch Hour
- 12:45-1:30 Capital Technical Rescue’s Special Ops Challenge with:APD Assistant Chief Brendan Cox, Army Nat’l Guard Sgt Scott Leslie, NYSID’s Frank Heuer
- 2:10pm Jeff Michaelson – Director of Catering at the Crowne Plaza to rappel
- 3:00pm Jared from Melville’s Mug to rappel – Melville’s will also sell tickets to throw water balloons at Jared while scaling the rock wall
- 3:35pm Local sex symbol Kevin Marshall to rappel (note: they actually refer to me as “Times Union blogger” but I like my title better)
- 5:50pm Tim Minahan – TD Bank VP to rappel
- 7:00pm After party begins at McGeary’s Irish Pub
Stuart Scott once told Ron Jaworski that he had outfitted his ring like Dick Tracy's and that he record his ESPN radio show through it. It took Jaws a full year to figure out it was a hoax.
Jaws thinks Dolphins quarterback Chad Henne needs to get rid of the ball quicker. I mean, s***, he needs to get rid of the ball quicker!
Cue Christian Bale screaming about being a professional.
Later in the game, Jaworski apologized to colleague Mike Tirico and the listening audience.
My favorite part:
Tirico: “…okay.”
*six to eight seconds of dead air*
Rock drummer and professional private investigator Jabberjaw would probably be a better broadcaster than Jaws.
Look, I don’t care that Jaworski said “s***” on the air. In fact, I think it’s awesome, and would love for Jon Gruden to bust out with a “this f***in’ guy” or for Troy Aikman to say anything interesting, ever.
My problem is with the jock-offs outfits like ESPN, Fox, and CBS keep hiring to do these games; men whose only qualification is having played the game. That alone doesn’t make for a good announcer or broadcaster. There are people whose job and training is specifically in this sort of thing. Do we fans need – or want – these well-meaning but woefully inept ex-players in the booth?
S***, I dont’ think so.
(courtesy Awful Announcing)
I often harp on a point that many local businesses are their own worst enemy and that their efforts to portray themselves as victims in need of rescue is not only ridiculous but often indicative of their inherent problems: in particular, they don’t know what a business is and don’t know how to run it.
Well, even the big city’s got this special brand of blues, as evidenced by the petition to have the St. Mark Bookshop’s rent lowered from its previously agreed to price they signed off on in a lease agreement with their landlord. More from Choire Sicha (who is seriously one of my favorite people that I don’t know personally) of The Awl:
“I encourage you petition-signers to go to your own landlords—during the first quarter of the lease that you just signed—and ask for a rent reduction. See how that goes. Yeah. If the bookstore wants to become a non-profit bookstore, let’s file that paperwork and do this thing. (I’ll help!) But this odd public-private partnership “public good” conception of a commercial business is giving me the willies a little.”
Agreed. It’s nice and sweet to get all wistful about stuff like books, but business is still business.
Though I will say that all this is not nearly as frustrating and unintentionally hilarious as all the pining for Border’s, the big corporate chain that shuttered more local businesses than it opened and then became a victim of its own mismanagement.
RELATED: AOA recently had an interesting interview with Susan Novotny, owner of The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza and Market Block Books in downtown Troy, about what local indie book stores could, should, and/or aren’t doing to survive.
I used to be a pretty faithful baseball fan until about six or seven years ago. I fell out for a variety of reasons, but ultimately I became disenfranchised with the sport. It’s not just that steroids were used, but the systemic coverup on the part of Major League Baseball and the compliance news outfits who should have been on this story and investigating it from day one. Like other areas of mainstream media, sports journalists are all too eager to be self-congratulatory about their role in the scandal, but they didn’t pick up on the story until BALCO and Canseco’s tell-all autobiography, even though the prevalent use of steroids and the unwillingness of Bud Selig to adopt and pursue a stringent drug policy was a laughably open secret for the better part of the last two decades.
I was out somewhere the other night and one of the televisions was showing highlights from the day’s games. I got to talking to someone and mentioned in passing that I didn’t watch baseball. Not having really paid attention to anything beyond the Yankees (what do you want? I still have that little bat from Kevin Maas Day at Heritage Park somewhere), I was shocked at what I saw.
Everybody got fat!
Is CC Sabathia the new David Wells, or the new norm?
Okay, well not EVERYBODY. But it certainly seemed to me that there were a lot more straight-up overweight baseball players than there used to be. David Wells used to be a punchline for his paunch. But it seems compared to today’s players, he’s the norm…if not the MLB version of Ryan Gosling (cue the Schenectady Stalking Squad!).
Is it just me?
Well, yes and no. Yes because when you fall out of love with any sport, you notice things you didn’t before. But there is some evidence that baseball players are getting fatter, such as a Harvard Research Study from a few years back which purported that a record 55% of baseball players between 2000 to 2006 were considered overweight. I’ve also had several Yankees fans I’ve spoken to about this claim that A-Rod was the only guy on the team that showed up to Spring Training this year lighter than the year before.
Now, the blog post I’m linking to makes the argument that his is a direct result of the Steroid Era. I don’t think that’s arguable, though some of the excuses some of the comments come up with are worth reading for how embarrassingly naive they are.
I do, however, recognize some of these physiques in folks I know that…well, let’s just say were a bit more adventurous in their weight and performance supplements. They still want the power and strength, and the only way to do that is to put on even more mass without the ‘roids. That means eating more, and finding that balance can be a bit tough.
Then there’s some that, well, are just fat.
Either way, baseball players are bigger than ever. Or they just seem that way.
Too bad baseball itself isn’t.
Two shows this Friday benefitting flood relief in and around the region.
co-sponsored by WEXT & Valentine’s Music Joint
18+ – $10
21+ – $7
Start time: 7:30pm
Eighteen acts on two floors with something for everyone including the Charlie Waats Riots, Ashley Pond, Knyghts of Fuzz, Holly & Evan, Ben Karis-Nix, the Robe Skane 3, Mike Hotter of Swamp Baby and more. 100% of proceeds split between the Schoharie County Community Action Program and The Fulmont Community Action Agency.
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Hudson River Coffee House presents
A Musical Benefit for the Farm Family Victims of Irene
$5 at the door
Start time: 8:00pm
Music & raffles all night long
Featuring: Olivia Quillio, the Midnight Society and more. All proceeds benefit the Regional Farm & Flood Project.
Like so many other things that would make this world a better place, this isn’t real. If it was, though? I’d definitely pay for it.
The “Fatality” at the end is perfect.
Publicity shot for Tinariwen's latest, "Tassili," from ANTI- records.
Ibrahim ag Alhabib was only a toddler when he saw his father abducted and executed by Mali’s government forces, who were working to suppress a Touareg rebellion. The nomadic berber tribe had risen up against what they perceived as government tyranny and suppression against their way of life, and paid a steep and swift price.
In his teens, Ibrahim followed a man with a guitar to his home and listened intently as he played Arabic folk music. The man taught him how to play it, and after several sessions Ibrahim bought the guitar from him. Shortly after, he met other musicians who had developed a passion for music through bootlegs of records from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, and Bob Dylan, among others. The music was so far removed from their world as to be alien in its form and context, but not to their ears. In it they heard a kinship and familiarity with their own musical traditions. In 1979 they formed Tinariwen in the South of Algeria. It comes from a nickname given to them by fellow tribesmen: “kel Tinariwen,” or “boys of the bush.” The word “Tinariwen” itself roughly translates to desert, but has a closer connotation to what we would consider the countryside.
The group traveled throughout West Africa, first as soldiers belonging to an army who in turn belonged to no one, then simply as musicians. Word spread regionally through bootlegged cassette tapes recorded in local radio stations, making Tinariwen voices of the Touareg resistance.
At the beginning of the 21st Century, word spread throughout the Western hemisphere of warrior poets who were playing an electric blues that had sprung up organically from their culture and struggles. They gained a dedicated and fierce following from what we consider to be music’s elite, with the likes of Robert Plant and Carlos Santana singing their praises and distributing whatever recorded material they could acquire to friends and family members.
I purchased their latest release, “Tassili,” through Amazon. The irony in downloading mp3s of a band whose roots lie in a desert nomadic culture was not lost on me.
It’s been eight days and I’m still obsessed with this record. It is strange how music rooted in nomadic traditions could be so alien yet strike something in my psyche. I have no idea what’s being sung, but I knew the feelings behind it without even having read the band’s biography.
Others have made the same observation, and the only conclusion reached by critics and those who represent the group is that there may be a distant relation to the blues through an ancestral connection. Tinariwen hails from the Western portion of Africa, which is also where many slaves were ripped from their homes and transplanted against their will to our own shores. From their travails came the blues, as organically as Tinariwen grew their sound out of frustrations and sadness over social injustices and tragedies visited on their families and livelihoods.
On their latest recording (their first for ANTI- records, which also home to local triumph Sean Rowe) the group decided to forego their electric guitars and recorded the album acoustically in the sand and canyons of Algeria near the Libyan border. I mean that literally, as the only walls they had around them came from the occasional tent.
They’re joined on the record by Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe. Also appearing are the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, who lend their instruments to the powerful and foreboding “Ya Massinagh.”
It’s not enough for me to say that “Tassili” is the most fascinating record I’ve heard in years. It has, rather, reignited an appreciation for the role of music in our lives and culture. And by “our” I mean all of humanity, from the young frustrated American teenager growing into a counter-culture sensation to the orphaned child in the deserts of Mali who grows to become a warrior that yearns for peace.
LINKS:
- Tinariwen on YouTube – Includes numerous performances, videos, and a brief documentary on the group.
- Blues from the Desert, Recorded On Site (The New York Times, 8/31/2011)
Promotional video for the new album from ANTI- records:
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