Archive for April 2009
The Gap Between Yankee Stadium
They call it the “bleachers” because the fans are bleached.
I’m a Yankee fan, but I’ve only been to one Yankee game. It was in 1998 when I went with my 6th grade class—the Yankees played the Red Sox and won. I’ve wanted to go to another game for years now but I never got around to it. With the season over and the destruction of Yankee Stadium eminent it seems I’ll never get another chance to visit the “House That Ruth Built.” As much as I love the Yankees as a team, I hate them as a corporation and the building of their new stadium brought up all the reasons why.
The building of the new Yankee Stadium was filled with controversy and became another example of corporate welfare; a billionaire like George Steinbrenner convinced public officials that the people of the city of New York should pay for his stadium.
Government subsidies are nothing new to the Yankees. The Yankees “first-fan” ex-Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani was one public official who helped the Yankees tremendously; an article in the New York Times (“The Rings of Giuliani” 5/12/07) exposed how the Yankees paid less in rent in a year than the residents of a nearby housing project paid in a month.
That wasn’t the only time nearby residents—who make up one of the poorest congressional districts in the United States—were cheated. The stadium discussions occurred without the communities input, something that never happened before. Ultimately the new stadium will destroy arches of nearby Macombs Dam and John Mullaly Parks.
The corporate side isn’t the only frustrating thing about the Yankees, so is the social aspects of attendance.
If you ever find yourself leaving Hunter and taking the 4 train into the Bronx and see that the train is past 125th street but still ridiculously overcrowded, full of constant chatter, and filled with white people who certainly don’t look like they live in the Bronx just remember; it’s probably because the Yankees are playing.
And despite watching games on television more often than actually attending them, I pass by Yankee Stadium all the time. And every time the 4 train departs or enters the 161st Street Yankee Stadium Station I’m sure to look out for the window for the gap between Yankee Stadium. The gap, which can’t be more than five or six feet in width, is large enough to catch a quick glimpse of the action inside.
But a glimpse is all I get. The fans who attend the games hardly ever live in the Bronx, they mostly come from the Manhattan. Once the game ends they go back to Manhattan not wanting anything else to do with the Bronx, like the government officials who’d rather help the Yankees than help the poor community surrounding it.
“He’s Jumping The Shark?” {Nods head}
Ron Howard: The originator, none greater.
I love Bill Maher. Not because he’s the funniest comedian, or even the most intelligent. I love Bill Maher because he’s politcally incorrect in a very American way: He says the kinds of things Americans think but never say because their impolite but he can back up his ideas with practicality and responsibility, the very thing American’s lack which is why they try and make up for it by being poltically correct.[1] This is what makes him so engaging on his show: He just stepped up and said it. And after I gave it a second of thought, you realized just how right he was.[2]
I love(d)
Real Time With Bill Maher because it made me think. But lately, I’ve just been thinking how terrible this season has been.[3]The season has been bad (except for that great episode with Mos Def going all boogie man on us) for a few reasons. For one, the guests have gotten pretty dry. Bill always had the same liberal guests but after a few years having the same people make the same points over and over again grows tiresome.
But the real problem with last week’s episode was the format. The show always had a somewhat convoluted format: cold open skit, title screen, Bill does a monologue, Bill interviews somebody via satellite, Bill has a discussion with his
3 guests, some quick prop jokes, another satellite interview, more with the guests, and then New Rules. Okay, that’s a lot stopping and going, but the show naturally flowed into that rhythm somehow.Last week all that went out the window. The episode featured two one-on-one interviews. Maher is not particularity good at one-on-one interviews unless he’s asking impossibly tough questions to poltical figures. But when he has someone like Ron Howard or Sarah Silverman–people who aren’t particuarly poltical–the interview becomes too gloaty and filled with softball questions. Bill used to call his show the lion’s den, it took guts for a politican to show up. But with guests like Howard he does the kind of interview you’d expect on the Late Show.
The episode also had no monologue and no discussion table. They put New Rules right smack dab in the middle instead of the end. Throughout the season he’s been demoted to 2 guests. At first, he joked it was because of the recession but later admitted he was tired of talking to three people.[4] If they were really looking to cut something out of the show, their better off cutting out those terrible skits and prop jokes.
I’m not totally sure why the show is been going through so many changes, but my guess is becuase Bill doesn’t have a target anymore. The last few years where his glory years becuase Bush was such an easy target: Bill could make fun of Bush for being dumb and he could challenge the moral/practical grounds of his actions. But with Obama? Not so much. Plus, Obama’s popularity is so high any joke about him usually backfires[5] Which has me thinking, maybe Sarah Palin 2012 isn’t such a bad idea. If only for the comic results.
[1] I’ve seen Bill say all types of blaspehous things and use words like fag, but I’ve yet to see him use the word “nigga” I’ve always found that particularly interesting.
[2] Personal favorite point Bill Maher often makes: The Ten Commandments are pretty bogus since only two of them are actual laws and they don’t even include rulings common laws like rape, touture, and incest.
[3] Funny thing was, I never even saw Real Time in a scope of seasons. It’s hard for me to even compare one episode to another. Their all more or less the same. Some episodes are funnier, some are more heated, some have more intriguing discussions, but I can’t remember which is which.
[4] Actually, he’s probably just tired of talking to four. For some strange reason, a season or two ago they started having a fourth guest sit at the table midway through the show. Why not just have them from the beginning?
[5] Again, the man who knows no taboo can’t make fun of black people without an audience “oooo”
