IF I HAD A HAMELS….UNICORNS AND ABSTRACT HOME RUNS UNIVERSALLY INSTANTIATED BY INSTANT REPLAY DO IN COLE HAMELS AND THE PHILLIES – BUT DO THEY VIOLATE THE PLAIN LETTER OF THE HOME RUN RULE?

Last night we witnessed the triumph of existentialism, or should I say, Instantiation, in modern baseball, because the alleged two run home run hit by Alex Rodriguez NEVER ACTUALLY OCCURRED.

To understand this, first we must review the Home Run Rule in modern baseball, which was first defined in 1885, and was subsequently amended in 1892, 1914, 1920, 1926, 1931, 1950 and 1955.

The key concept of the home run rule is most plainly expressed in the 1892 rule which has not been changed very much since 1892:

A FAIR BATTED BALL THAT GOES OVER THE FENCE SHALL ENTITLE THE BATTER TO A HOME RUN…

The key concepts here are that

1) the ball has to be fair; and
2) the ball has to go “over the fence.”

The 1892 rule adds that “A distinctive line is to be marked on the fence showing the required point.” Meaning, if the ball goes over the fence above the line, it goes “over the fence.”

However, and this is the key point, the ball still has to go OVER the fence, not just ABOVE the line.

Last nite’s alleged home run by Alex Rodriquez, as a careful examination of the Rules of Baseball in this blog will demonstrate, was not a home run, but a Ground Rule Double.

It was a Ground Rule Double, because the ball never went OVER the Fence, as require plainly by the Rules of Baseball, but merely hit an object, which was in the field of play, above the line, but still in the field of play.

As to whether the ball would have, could have, or should have gone over the fence, but for the object, which was a TV camera, that is an interesting philosophical debate (which is the same as conceiving of unicorns, trolls, a planet without war and the tooth fairy), but the result is still the same: the home run remains an abstraction, something INSTANTIATED and given EXISTENCE only in the collective minds of the umpires.

You see the replay plainly on Fox TV. At no time did the ball go OVER the Fence. Moreover, the camera was jutting a good five to ten feet into the field. Even if the camera wasn’t there, the downward arc of the ball meant that the ball might have gone over the fence, or it might have continued its downward slope and hit the fence at a point BELOW the line of the fence.

Now, as a careful examination of the rules will show, similar disputes such as balls getting caught in the wiring of the ivy fences at Wrigley have always been rules as ground rule doubles. At no time have such balls ever been rules home runs, not in World Series and never on instant replay, because there has never been instant replay in the World Series or at any time in baseball.

I’m certainly pleased to see that baseball, not content with attempting to stop the Phillies from winning the World Series last year by calling a rain delay halt for the first time in World Series History when Cole Hamels was pitching a brilliant game in game five, this year, for the first time in World Series history called a fake home rum and foiled Cole Hamels again from winning.

Up to the point of the fake homer call, Hamels was pitching a no-hitter. It was obvious that Hamels was furious with the call. And rightly so. The call was utter and total BS, and proves that Bud Selig and Organized Baseball are determined to see that the Yankees win the World Series at all costs. The Umpiring crew rules so quickly that they must have been told by Selig how to rule. They didn’t have time to deliberate.

This is reminiscent of 1950, when the Yankees used their connections with the US Government to have Curt Simmons, a blazing lefthander with Sandy Koufax stuff, a twenty game winner, on the Phillies, get his draft notice in mid-September 1950, two weeks before the World Series was coming up with the Yanks. At the time, the Phils had Robin Roberts, now in the Hall of Fame, and Curt Simmons, a blazing lefthander, on their staff. The two pitchers had combined for more than fifty wins. The two pitchers could each have won two games in the series and blown out the Yanks, much like Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson won the 2001 Series for Arizona back a few years. But with Curt Simmons in the Army, the Phillies barely won the Pennant, and were eradicated by the Yanks in four games.

The Yankees always need to cheat to win.

Ok, so here are the Home Run Rules:

1885 – A fair batted ball that goes over the fence at a distance less than 210 feet from home base shall entitle the batsmen to two bases. A distinctive line shall be marked on the fence at this point.

My comment: At this point, a ball “over the fence” is not a homer at all, it’s a ground rule double. Weird.

1892 – A fair batted ball that goes over the fence shall entitle the batter to a home run; except that should it go over the fence at a distance less than 235 feeet from home base, the batter is entitled to only two bases. A distinctive line is to be marked on the fence showing the required point.

My comment: This is essentially the modern rule. The ball has to go “over” the “fence” to be a home run. And it has to go “over” the “distinctive line” of the “fence”. Not above, but over.

I think we all understand the difference between going near, above and around a line painted on a fence, and going over a fence. It’s the difference between a hurdler stumbling on the hurdle, and a hurdler clearing the hurdle entirely.

Rodriquez’ ball last nite, in Game 3 of the 2009 World Series, is not a home run under the Home Run Rule. It did not go “over the fence” or over the “distinctive line”, because in three dimensional space, it hit the camera before it crossed the plane of the line, and was knocked back into the field. Therefore, it never went over the line, never went over the wall, and never went over the fence.

Consequently, it was not a home run under the 1892 rule.

Are there any changes in the rules SINCE 1892 that could make it a home run? The answer is no, but let’s go through them all and see.

Note that this is not a “judgment call” by the umpires. The ball has to go “over the fence” and be a “fair ball” to be a home run. End of story. An umpire or group of umpires cannot make a ball that might have been or should have been a home run except that it hit something, into a home run by philosophical instantiation, or abstractive analysis.

In short, there are no unicorns, trolls or other imaginary beings just because we think there are; and there are no imaginary home runs. C.f. Occam’s razor—we don’t create a multiplicity of abstract universal beings just because we name them, think of them or create them in our minds. If we create now a class of abstract home runs, home runs that might have been, should have been and so forth, we now introduce into baseball a series of abstract balls, strikes, stolen bases, catches, hits and so forth and soon there will be entire parallel universes of baseball realities creeping into games, abstract realities which have nothing to do with what’s going on down at the field level, or, more pertinently, in the empirical world or in the rulebook. Everything will come down to what the umpires say and we’ll have a courtroom, not a ballgame.

1914 – Should an errant thrown ball remain in the meshes of a wire screen protecting the spectators, the runner or runners shall be entitled to two bases. The umpire in awarding such bases shall be governed by the position of the runner or runners at the time the throw is made.

My comment – this is the first indication that hitting a camera should be a ground rule double. Here the rule says if an errant thrown ball gets caught in wire screen mesh, the runner gets two bases and two bases only. It doesn’t matter if the ball is over the fence in fair ground, it’s still only two bases.

1920 – Home Run/Game-Ending – If a batsman, in the last half of the final inning of any game, hits a home run over the fence or into a stand, all runners on the bases at the time, as well as the batsman, shall be entitled to score, and in such event all bases must be touched in order, and the final score of the game shall be the total number of runs made.

My comment – this is the famous “walk off homer” rule change. Prior to 1920, if someone hit a walk off homer with one, two or three men on that won the game, the only runs that counted were the ones that won the game, e.g. if the score were 9-8 the road team, and you hit a grand slam, you got two runs, the score ended 10-9 home team, and you were credited with either a single or a double, usually a single. Not a grand slam. But under the walk-off rule, the score ended 12-9, the batter got credit for a homer, a grand slam and 4 RBI.

Note again that the rule says “over the fence” and “into the stand”. Rodriquez’ alleged homer last night meets neither of these key tests.

1926 – A fair batted ball that goes over the fence or into a stand shall entitle the batsman to a home run, unless it should pass out of the ground or into a stand at a distance less than 250 feet from the home base, in which case the batsman shall be entitled to two bases only. In either event the batsman must touch the bases in regular order. The point at which a fence or stand is less than 250 feet from the home base shall be plainly indicated by a white or black sign or mark for the umpire’s guidance.

My comment – again, the rule says “over the fence” or “into a stand” in order for a ball to be a home run. This changes the 1892 rule by making the minimum fence distance 250 feet for a home run instead of 235 feet in order not to have “cheap” home runs, although even 250 feet would be a pretty short distance. Of course, Yankee Stadium had a 297 foot right field porch for years for their left handed sluggers, another example of the Yankees “cheating”, and then they would have an all-lefthanded staff to keep the other team from stacking up lefties against them, c.f. Lefty Gomez, Whitey Ford, Andy Pettite, Ron Guidry and so forth. This unfair advantage has been wiped out with the new Yankee Stadium, although allegedly there remains a slightly easier job of hitting to right field.

1931 – Batter/Awarded Bases – A fair hit ball that bounds into a stand or over a fence shall be a two-base hit. Note: There is no reference to distance in this rule and any fair hit ball bounding over the fence or into the stand is a two-base hit.

My comment: This is the modern ground-rule double rule. It hasn’t changed at all. Most importantly, READ what it says. “A FAIR HIT BALL THAT BOUNDS INTO A STAND OR OVER A FENCE SHALL BE A TWO-BASE HIT.” That means that if the ball bounces off a camera and then over the fence, it’s a two base hit. If the ball bounces off a fan and over the fence, it’s a two base hit. If it bounces off the top of the Astrodome, and back into the field of play, as happened to Mike Schmidt in 1974, it’s a two base hit; but if it went off the top of the Astrodome and then over the fence, it would be a ground rule double according to the rule.

According to the plain language of the ground rule double rule of 1931, the ball A Rod hit last nite in game 3 of the World Series was a double. Not subject to review, not subject to judgment call. A ground rule double. It went off a camera and bounded over the fence and then back into the field. It was in play. It’s a ground rule double in that case.

In 1950 the rulebook was entirely recodified and rewritten, refined and clarified:

1950: Batter/Awarded Bases: Each runner including the batter-runner may, without liability of being put out, advance to home base, scoring a run, if a fair ball goes over the field fence in flight and he touch [sic] all bases legally; of if a fair ball which, in the umpire’s judgment, would have cleared the field fence in flight, is deflected by the act of a defensive player in throwing his glove, cap or any article of his apparel, the runner shall be awarded a home run.

My comment – to be a home run, the ball must go over the fence “in flight”. The only case where an umpire may exercise judgment and rule on whether a ball “would have cleared the field fence in flight” is solely and exclusively the case of when the ball is “deflected by the act of a defensive player in throwing his glove, cap or any article of his apparel”. This is the one and only situation where an umpire may exercise abstract judgment and award a hypothetical or abstract home run under the rules of baseball; where a fielder attempts to block the ball by throwing his glove, cap or article of his clothing at the ball.

This was not the case with A Rod’s home run last night. Jayson Werth did not throw his cap, his glove or any article of his clothing at the ball last night. Consequently, the ball would have had to clear the fence “in flight” to be a home run. Since the ball never cleared the fence “in flight”, it was not a home run under the 1950 rule, as amended.

More 1950 changes:

The batter becomes a baserunner when a fair ball, after touching the ground, bounds into the stands or passes through or under a fence or through or under shrubbery or vines on the field, in which case the batter and the baserunners shall be entitled to advance two bases.

The batter becomes a baserunner when any fair ball which, either before or striking the ground, passes through or under a fence or through or under a scoreboard or through or any opening in the fence or scoreboard or through or under shrubbery or vines on the fence, in which case the batter and the baserunners shall be entitled to two bases.
The batter becomes a baserunner when any bounding fair ball is deflected by the fielder into the stands or over or under a fence on fair or foul ground, in which case the batter and all baserunners shall be entitled to advance two bases.

The batter becomes a baserunner when any fair fly ball is defelected by the fielder into the stands or over the fence into foul territory, in which case the batter shall be entitled to advance to second base; but if deflected into the stands or over the fence in fair territory, the batter shall be entitled to a home run.

My comment – the first three rules make clear that deflections by the fielder and interference with the ball by objects on the field, such as vines, fences and shrubbery, are always ground rule doubles. The only case where a ball is NOT a ground rule double is when there is a deflection by the fielder, and for this to be a home run, there are four requirements;
1) a fair fly ball in fair territory;
2) deflected by a fielder;
3) into the stands; or
4) over the fence.

Note that even if argued analogically to last nites hit by A Rod, the 1950 rule does him no good. First, the camera deflected the ball back into the field. Second, the deflection was by a camera, not by a fielder. Third, the deflection was not “into the stands.” Fourth, the deflection was not “over the fence.”

Consequently, it’s really, really, really crystal clear that what we have is a ground rule double, under the remaining provisions of the 1950 and 1932 ground rule double rules. A Rod and the Yankees were only entitled to a ground rule double last nite in game 3 of the World Series.

1955 Rule Change

The 1955 rule change is very, very minor, it just provides that if a hitter hits a homer and has an accident while running the bases and time is called, he can have a runner come in and pinch run for him and run out the homer run and score it. It has no effect whatsoever on the discussion at hand.

Ok, through 1995, that’s all the rule changes I have from the source J. Thorn, P. Palmer, M. Gershman, D. Pietruskza, Total Baseball V: The Official Encyclopaedia of Major League Baseball (Viking NY 1997), c.f. D. Bingham & T. Heitz, “Rules and Scoring,” at pp. 2376-2432.

Now let’s hit the Net.

The rules as they exist through 1955 continue to exist and are codified in Official Rules of Baseball at Rule 6.09, exactly as they were enacted in 1950, see for yourself:

6.09 The batter becomes a runner when—
(a) He hits a fair ball;
(b) The third strike called by the umpire is not caught, providing (1) first base is unoccupied, or (2) first base is occupied with two out;
Rule 6.09(b) Comment: A batter who does not realize his situation on a third strike not caught, and who is not in the process of running to first base, shall be declared out once he leaves the dirt circle surrounding home plate.
(c) A fair ball, after having passed a fielder other than the pitcher, or after having been touched by a fielder, including the pitcher, shall touch an umpire or runner on fair territory;
(d) A fair ball passes over a fence or into the stands at a distance from home base of 250 feet or more. Such hit entitles the batter to a home run when he shall have touched all bases legally. A fair fly ball that passes out of the playing field at a point less than 250 feet from home base shall entitle the batter to advance to second base only;
(e) A fair ball, after touching the ground, bounds into the stands, or passes through, over or under a fence, or through or under a scoreboard, or through or under shrubbery, or vines on the fence, in which case the batter and the runners shall be entitled to advance two bases;
(f) Any fair ball which, either before or after touching the ground, passes through or under a fence, or through or under a scoreboard, or through any opening in the fence or scoreboard, or through or under shrubbery, or vines on the fence, or which sticks in a fence or scoreboard, in which case the batter and the runners shall be entitled to two bases;
(g) Any bounding fair ball is deflected by the fielder into the stands, or over or under a fence on fair or foul territory, in which case the batter and all runners shall be entitled to advance two bases;
(h) Any fair fly ball is deflected by the fielder into the stands, or over the fence into foul territory, in which case the batter shall be entitled to advance to second base; but if deflected into the stands or over the fence in fair territory, the batter shall be entitled to a home run. However, should such a fair fly be deflected at a point less than 250 feet from home plate, the batter shall be entitled to two bases only.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules/06_the_batter.pdf

the deflection by the fielder rule is also exactly the same as adopted in 1950 and has not been changed, and is codified in Rule 7.05(a);

7.05 Each runner including the batter-runner may, without liability to be put out, advance—
(a) To home base, scoring a run, if a fair ball goes out of the playing field in flight and he touched all bases legally; or if a fair ball which, in the umpire’s judgment, would have gone out of the playing field in flight, is deflected by the act of a fielder in throwing his glove, cap, or any article of his apparel;

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules/07_the_runner.pdf

See? It’s exactly the same. The only way an upire can judge if the fair ball would have left the stadium and gone out of the playing field in flight, is if it was deflected by the act of a fielder under Rule 7.05(a).

The umpire can’t make a judgment call under any other of the rules of baseball.

All the rules of baseball, incidentally, are on line and available for you all to read for yourselves at;

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/foreword.jsp

see also these websites:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/rulemenu.shtml

http://www.rulesofbaseball.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_rules

There IS however, a rule which pertains to interference by media, and that is rule 3.15, which I hereby quote now:

3.15 No person shall be allowed on the playing field during a game except players and coaches in uniform, managers, news photographers authorized by the home team, umpires, officers of the law in uniform and watchmen or other employees of the home club. In case of unintentional interference with play by any person herein authorized to be on the playing field (except members of the offensive team participating in the game, or a coach in the coach’s box, or an umpire) the ball is alive and in play. If the interference is intentional, the ball shall be dead at the moment of the interference and the umpire shall impose such penalties as in his opinion will nullify the act of interference.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules/03_game_preliminaries.pdf

NOTE WHAT RULE 3.15 SAYS ABOUT INTERFERENCE WITH A BALL BY NEWSPHOTOGRAPHERS WHO ARE AUTHORIZED TO BE ON THE FIELD OF PLAY: In case of unintentional interference with play by any person herein authorized to be on the playing field (except members of the offensive team participating in the game, or a coach in the coach’s box, or an umpire) the ball is alive and in play.

Since A-Rod’s ball was UNINTENTIONALLY INTERFERED WITH BY A PRESS CAMERA, RULE 3.15 COMES INTO PLAY EXPRESSLY AND THE BALL IS IN PLAY. It’s not a case of fan interference where the umpires are allowed to make a judgment call to nullify the fan interference and create a home run abstractly.

To the contrary, the rule is clear and express- “the ball is in play” says the rule. Since the ball did not go over the fence or into the stands or over the fence in flight, but back to the field, and since Werth relayed it back, the Yankees runners were stuck at 2d and 3d.

There was no interference, and if there were a ground rule here, it was at best a ground rule double. See discussion above, supra.

NOTE THAT THIS IS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SITUATION THAN IF A FAN HAD INTERFERED WITH THE BALL.

The Umps and all of major league baseball got the rules wrong last night.

The ball was alive and in play last night and/or was a ground rule double, under the ground rule double rules and also under official Rule 3.15.

The Umps had no interference discretion under rules 3.15 or 3.16 because NO FAN touched the ball—instead, an authorized member of the press touched the ball.

The camera was an authorized photographer.

Consequently, the ball was in play.

Note the difference if a spectator had touched the ball:

3.16 When there is spectator interference with any thrown or batted ball, the ball shall be dead at the moment of interference and the umpire shall impose such penalties as in his opinion will nullify the act of interference.
APPROVED RULING: If spectator interference clearly prevents a fielder from catching a fly ball, the umpire shall declare the batter out.

Rule 3.16 Comment: There is a difference between a ball which has been thrown or batted into the stands, touching a spectator thereby being out of play even though it rebounds onto the field and a spectator going onto the field or reaching over, under or through a barrier and touching a ball in play or touching or otherwise interfering with a player. In the latter case it is clearly intentional and shall be dealt with as intentional interference as in Rule 3.15. Batter and runners shall be placed where in the umpire’s judgment they would have been had the interference not occurred.
No interference shall be allowed when a fielder reaches over a fence, railing, rope or into a stand to catch a ball. He does so at his own risk. However, should a spectator reach out on the playing field side of such fence, railing or rope, and plainly prevent the fielder from catching the ball, then the batsman should be called out for the spectator’s interference.
Example: Runner on third base, one out and a batter hits a fly ball deep to the outfield (fair or foul). Spectator clearly interferes with the outfielder attempting to catch the fly ball. Umpire calls the batter out for spectator interference. Ball is dead at the time of the call. Umpire decides that because of the distance the ball was hit, the runner on third base would have scored after the catch if the fielder had caught the ball which was interfered with, therefore, the runner is permitted to score. This might not be the case if such fly ball was interfered with a short distance from home plate.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules/03_game_preliminaries.pdf

The ground rules for ground rule doubles are exactly the same as the 1950 and 1932 rules discussed above, and are codified at the official rules of baseball 7.05;

7.05 Each runner including the batter-runner may, without liability to be put out, advance—
(a) To home base, scoring a run, if a fair ball goes out of the playing field in flight and he touched all bases legally; or if a fair ball which, in the umpire’s judgment, would have gone out of the playing field in flight, is deflected by the act of a fielder in throwing his glove, cap, or any article of his apparel;
(b) Three bases, if a fielder deliberately touches a fair ball with his cap, mask or any part of his uniform detached from its proper place on his person. The ball is in play and the batter may advance to home base at his peril;
(c) Three bases, if a fielder deliberately throws his glove at and touches a fair ball. The ball is in play and the batter may advance to home base at his peril.
(d) Two bases, if a fielder deliberately touches a thrown ball with his cap, mask or any part of his uniform detached from its proper place on his person. The ball is in play;
(e) Two bases, if a fielder deliberately throws his glove at and touches a thrown ball. The ball is in play;
Rule 7.05(b) through 7.05(e) Comment: In applying (b-c-d-e) the umpire must rule that the thrown glove or detached cap or mask has touched the ball. There is no penalty if the ball is not touched.
Under (c-e) this penalty shall not be invoked against a fielder whose glove is carried off his hand by the force of a batted or thrown ball, or when his glove flies off his hand as he makes an obvious effort to make a legitimate catch.

(f) Two bases, if a fair ball bounces or is deflected into the stands outside the first or third base foul lines; or if it goes through or under a field fence, or through or under a scoreboard, or through or under shrubbery or vines on the fence; or if it sticks in such fence, scoreboard, shrubbery or vines;
(g) Two bases when, with no spectators on the playing field, a thrown ball goes into the stands, or into a bench (whether or not the ball rebounds into the field), or over or under or through a field fence, or on a slanting part of the screen above the backstop, or remains in the meshes of a wire screen protecting spectators. The ball is dead. When such wild throw is the first play by an infielder, the umpire, in awarding such bases, shall be governed by the position of the runners at the time the ball was pitched; in all other cases the umpire shall be governed by the position of the runners at the time the wild throw was made;
APPROVED RULING: If all runners, including the batter-runner, have advanced at least one base when an infielder makes a wild throw on the first play after the pitch, the award shall be governed by the position of the runners when the wild throw was made.
Rule 7.05(g) Comment: In certain circumstances it is impossible to award a runner two bases. Example: Runner on first. Batter hits fly to short right. Runner holds up between first and second and batter comes around first and pulls up behind him. Ball falls safely. Outfielder, in throwing to first, throws ball into stand.
APPROVED RULING: Since no runner, when the ball is dead, may advance beyond the base to which he is entitled, the runner originally on first base goes to third base and the batter is held at second base.
The term “when the wild throw was made” means when the throw actually left the player’s hand and not when the thrown ball hit the ground, passes a receiving fielder or goes out of play into the stands.
The position of the batter-runner at the time the wild throw left the thrower’s hand is the key in deciding the award of bases. If the batter-runner has not reached first base, the award is two bases at the time the pitch was made for all runners. The decision as to whether the batter-runner has reached first base before the throw is a judgment call.
If an unusual play arises where a first throw by an infielder goes into stands or dugout but the batter did not become a runner (such as catcher throwing ball into stands in attempt to get runner from third trying to score on passed ball or wild pitch) award of two bases shall be from the position of the runners at the time of the throw. (For the purpose of Rule 7.05 (g) a catcher is considered an infielder.)
PLAY. Runner on first base, batter hits a ball to the shortstop, who throws to second base too late to get runner at second, and second baseman throws toward first base after batter has crossed first base. Ruling—Runner at second scores. (On this play, only if batter-runner is past first base when throw is made is he awarded third base.)
(h) One base, if a ball, pitched to the batter, or thrown by the pitcher from his position on the pitcher’s plate to a base to catch a runner, goes into a stand or a bench, or over or through a field fence or backstop. The ball is dead;

APPROVED RULING: When a wild pitch or passed ball goes through or by the catcher, or deflects off the catcher, and goes directly into the dugout, stands, above the break, or any area where the ball is dead, the awarding of bases shall be one base. One base shall also be awarded if the pitcher while in contact with the rubber, throws to a base, and the throw goes directly into the stands or into any area where the ball is dead.
If, however, the pitched or thrown ball goes through or by the catcher or through the fielder, and remains on the playing field, and is subsequently kicked or deflected into the dugout, stands or other area where the ball is dead, the awarding of bases shall be two bases from position of runners at the time of the pitch or throw.
(i) One base, if the batter becomes a runner on Ball Four or Strike Three, when the pitch passes the catcher and lodges in the umpire’s mask or paraphernalia.
If the batter becomes a runner on a wild pitch which entitles the runners to advance one base, the batter-runner shall be entitled to first base only.

Rule 7.05(i) Comment: The fact a runner is awarded a base or bases without liability to be put out does not relieve him of the responsibility to touch the base he is awarded and all intervening bases. For example: batter hits a ground ball which an infielder throws into the stands but the batter-runner missed first base. He may be called out on appeal for missing first base after the ball is put in play even though he was “awarded” second base.
If a runner is forced to return to a base after a catch, he must retouch his original base even though, because of some ground rule or other rule, he is awarded additional bases. He may retouch while the ball is dead and the award is then made from his original base.
(j) One base, if a fielder deliberately touches a pitched ball with his cap, mask or any part of his uniform detached from its proper place on his person. The ball is in play, and the award is made from the position of the runner at the time the ball was touched

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules/07_the_runner.pdf

as you can plainly see, nothing has changed in the ground rules at all.

Consequently, A-Rod’s hit was either a ground rule double under rule 7.05, or it was a ball in play since it hit a media camera which was authorized to be in the field of play under rule 3.15. What it was not was a home run under either rule 6.09(d) or rule 7.05(a) or any other rule of baseball.

I’ve looked exhaustively and so have my sabrmetric friends, and there isn’t a rule in the book supporting what happened last night.

What happened also violates the laws of logic and violates the laws of physics. It violates the laws of logic, because the home run was created by an act of particular instantiation—abstract thought created a thing from a concept—what we in philosophy call a “unicorn”—which would make my old professor of logic at Harvard turn over twice—and violates Occam’s razor—that you don’t create needless entities through nominalism.

Instead, empiricism and realism dictate that a home run is a home run when we SEE and WITNESS that the ball goes over the fence—not that we imagine or suppose that it MIGHT have gone over the fence.

The problem with the umpires’ supposition last night is that it is what we call in philosophy a “modal” proposition, an “if….then” statement, that is conditional.

“If the camera were not there, then the ball would have flown over the fence.”

This can readily be recognized as a categorical statement of conditional form—namely, if there were no camera “x”, the trajectory of flight of the ball would have been different in form “y”.

The problem, as anyone knows, is that without an actual observation of same, there are a plethora of possible universes of possible “y’s”.

All we know is that the ball may or might have gone over the wall—or it may or might have bounced below the line and back onto the field. All we have is a possibility that it might have gone over the wall.

All conditionals are like this.

Moreover, accepting conditionals as true introduces a host of problems.

The medieval philosophers didn’t like conditionals, and neither should we.

It’s true that rule 9.03c states that

Each umpire has authority to rule on any point not specifically covered in these rules.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules/09_the_umpire.pdf

however, in this case, the A-Rod double IS covered specifically by the baseball rules. There is no room for discretion or authority to rule.

Here’s what actually occurred before game 3 of the World Series according to the umpiring crew:

Indeed, umpire crew chief Gerry Davis said that his crew explored every inch of Citizens Bank Park prior to Game 3, spending time reviewing areas unique to the park. The right-field camera was one of the aspects they discussed.
“We tour the field during the series whenever we go to a new ballpark, and discuss specific ground rules and potential trouble areas just like that,” Davis said. “Because we cannot control what the cameraman does with the camera, one of the specific ground rules is when the ball hits the camera, [it's a] home run.”

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091031&content_id=7586236&vkey=news_mlb

So, the umpiring crew themselves MADE UP THEIR OWN GROUND RULE that the camera, if it was hit, would be a home run.

That would be fine, except that it’s in direct violation of Baseball Rule 3.15, as cited above, supra, that a media photographic camera, if a ball strikes it, the ball is in play and NOT a home run.

The Umpires don’t have discretion to make a ground rule about that.

The statement made by Umpire Davis is totally and completely WRONG. The rules cover the situation of when a ball strikes a camera held by a camera man.

Let’s see the rule again:

3.15 No person shall be allowed on the playing field during a game except players and coaches in uniform, managers, news photographers authorized by the home team, umpires, officers of the law in uniform and watchmen or other employees of the home club. In case of unintentional interference with play by any person herein authorized to be on the playing field (except members of the offensive team participating in the game, or a coach in the coach’s box, or an umpire) the ball is alive and in play. If the interference is intentional, the ball shall be dead at the moment of the interference and the umpire shall impose such penalties as in his opinion will nullify the act of interference.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules/03_game_preliminaries.pdf

Ok, then, cameramen, news photographers who unintentionally interfere with the ball, and the interference is unintentionall, the “ball is alive and in play.”

It’s not up to Davis and his crew to make up a ground rule there. It’s up to Davis and his crew to follow Rule 3.15. Rule 3.15 trumps Article 9 and the umpire discretion rules.

Now let’s discuss the instant replay rule.

Here’s the story on the instant replay rule adopted in September of 2008:

5. Instant replay
Main article: Instant replay
In November 2007, the general managers of Major League Baseball voted in favor of implementing instant replay reviews on boundary home run calls. [19] The proposal limited the use of instant replay to determining whether a boundary home run call is:
• A fair (home run) or foul ball
• A live ball (ball hit fence and rebounded onto the field), ground rule double (ball hit fence before leaving the field), or home run (ball hit some object beyond the fence while in flight)
• Spectator interference or home run (spectator touched ball after it broke the plane of the fence).
On August 28, 2008, instant replay review became available in MLB for reviewing calls in accordance with the above proposal. It was first utilized on September 3, 2008 in a game between the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. [20] Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees hit what appeared to be a home run, but the ball hit a catwalk behind the foul pole. It was at first called a home run, until Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon argued the call, and the umpires decided to review the play. After 2 minutes and 15 seconds, the umpires came back and ruled it a home run.
About two weeks later, on September 19, also at Tropicana Field, a boundary call was overturned for the first time. In this case, Carlos Peña of the Rays was given a ground rule double in a game against the Minnesota Twins after an umpire believed a fan reached into the field of play to catch a fly ball in right field. The umpires reviewed the play, determined the fan did not reach over the fence, and reversed the call, awarding Peña a home run.
Aside from the two aforementioned reviews at Tampa Bay, replay was used four more times in the 2008 MLB regular season: twice at Houston, once at Seattle, and once at San Francisco. The San Francisco incident is perhaps the most unusual. Bengie Molina, the Giants’ Catcher, hit what was first called a double. Molina then was replaced in the game by a pinch-runner before the umpires re-evaluated the call and ruled it a home run. In this instance though, Molina was not allowed to return to the game to complete the run, as he had already been replaced. Molina was credited with the home run, and two RBIs, but not for the run scored which went to the pinch-runner instead.
On October 31, 2009, in the fourth inning of Game 3 of the World Series, Alex Rodriguez hit a long fly ball that appeared to hit a camera protruding over the wall and into the field of play in deep left field. The ball ricocheted off the camera and re-entered the field, initially ruled a double. However, after the umpires consulted with each other after watching the instant replay, the hit was ruled a home run, marking the first time an instant replay home run was hit in a playoff game. [21]
Source:

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Home_run?t=3.

Citing to

• ESPN – GMs vote 25-5 to use replay to aid home run decisions – MLB
• http://mlb.mlb.com/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20080903&content_id=3412731&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=nyy
• http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091031&content_id=7586236&vkey=news_mlb

Now, let’s parse all this.

What instant replay boils down to is this.

A lawyer sits in Bud Selig’s offices in NYC and HE reviews the play and decides how it should be called.

The head of the umpiring crew calls NYC and asks the lawyer how the play should be ruled.

Then they decide.

Uh, what’s wrong with this picture if the NEW YORK YANKEES are one of the teams in the playoffs?

Let’s see, a NEW YORK LAWYER making the call? Against a PHILLY team?

Oh right, that would be really fair, impartial and just.

Incidentally, let’s review the rule again:

The proposal limited the use of instant replay to determining whether a boundary home run call is:
• A fair (home run) or foul ball
• A live ball (ball hit fence and rebounded onto the field), ground rule double (ball hit fence before leaving the field), or home run (ball hit some object beyond the fence while in flight)
• Spectator interference or home run (spectator touched ball after it broke the plane of the fence).
Id, supra.

Note that the ball has to hit an object BEYOND the fence while in flight.

Not in front of the fence, but BEYOND the fence.

This is completely consistent with Rules 6.09 and 7.05(a) which define a home run as one hit “over the fence in flight”.

The camera, in this case, was jutting out over the fence by a good five to ten feet.

So it was not beyond the fence, but on the field of play.

Second, because it was on the field of play, it was therefore a photographic interference under Rule 3.15, and should have been considered an unintentional interference, and a live ball in play under Rule 3.15.

Third, if not a live ball in play, then the ground rule double rule of 7.05 (b) et seq. comes into play.

What’s wrong with this picture?

THERE WAS NEVER ANY JURISDICTION FOR HOME RUN REVIEW UNDER THE HOME RUN INSTANT REPLAY RULE BECAUSE THE BALL HIT BY A ROD NEVER WENT OVER THE FENCE IN FLIGHT OR BEYOND THE FENCE.

Let’s review the criteria for instant replay;

1) is it fair or foul? Well, it was a fair ball. No need for instant replay.
2) Is it a live ball that hit the fence and bounced back to the field? No. No need for instant replay.

Was it a live ball that hit some object beyond the fence while in flight?

No. It never went beyond the fence. So no instant replay was required.

Well, it hit the camera==part of which was behind the fence, but the part of the camera the ball hit was NOT beyond the fence.

This is not a semantic issue, but a real rules issue, because if you start saying that balls that don’t go over the fence in flight are home runs, just because the umpires make up ground rules before the game to make them eligible for instant review, doesn’t make it so.

I think the key here is to parse the fact that the umpiring crew made a mistake before the game establishing false ground rules, by making a camera that jutted INTO the field, a candidate for HOME RUN instant replay.

That wasn’t their call to make.

Under the instant replay rule, the camera has to be entirely beyond the fence for them to make that decision, end of story.

Remember, the rule is to decide the boundary issue of when a ball has hit an object BEYOND the fence–not an object within the ballfield.

The Umps exceeded their rulemaking authority. Also, see #3, below, because there’s actually a different rule that applies to cameras that are in the field of play and not beyond the field of play, in which case the ball is either a ground rule double or in play. In either case the result is the same; arod at 2d, texeira at 3d.

3) There was not spectator interference, but rather, photographer interference under rule 3.15, which made it a live ball under the rules, and on the field of play.

Consequently, there was no jurisdiction for an instant reply. Rather, the umpires AGGREGATED and SEIZED inappropriately the jurisdiction for home run instant replay because they forgot their own rule book and the rules of baseball.

They got the call all wrong.

It’s an insult to our collective intelligence and our common sense to say that a ball that fell short of the wall, and never went over the wall, is a “fair ball” that “went over the fence in flight” or that after instant replay, was shown to have struct an object “beyond the fence” in flight. None of these things occured on arod’s hit.

And messed up a 25 year old kids’ no hitter in the processs.

Did they purposefully do it?

Did the NY Offices of baseball reverse the call to obstruct the Phillies from repeating?

I don’t know—go ask the Atlanta Braves. No one in Bud Selig’s office was happy when they went up 2-0 on the Yankees in 1996 either.

The Commissioner’s office basically wants LA or NY to win the series because that’s good for TV ratings.

They like to ignore Philly and Atlanta even though we’re much more rabid about baseball than New Yorkers, most of whom are too poor to afford to go to a game, whereas in Philly or Atlanta, it’s mostly the middle class who attend.

And if we have to cheat and violate the rules to make the Yankees winners, what the hay?

Just remember Curt Simmons’ draft notice, and Bud Selig’s ridiculous rain delay call in last year’s Game Five in Philly.

Definitely be sure there’s bias against the Phillies in NYC.

And of course, let’s not forget they used a single New York Lawyer as the judging panel for instant replay of a World Series play involving….

The New York Yankees.

Like that’s really fair.

This is the Second World Series in a row where Bud Selig has personally messed around with our ace, Cole Hamels, in a World Series game.

First was Game Five in World Series 2008, in which Cole Hamels was shutting the door down on Tampa Bay. Selig allowed the game to proceed in the rain, then let Tampa Bay score a cheap run in rain soaked conditions against Hamels, a cheap run in conditions not fit to play in, and then Selig announced the game would be suspended—a first in Series history—which infuriated not only the Phillies, but Hamels, who had pitched well enough to win. Last year the story line was supposed to be tampa bay to win, cindarella, last place to world champions. New york didn’t want philly winning.

Conspiracy theorists, you are right if you think Selig hates Hamels.

And now this year, Selig sends Davis and an experienced umpiring crew out, and they set up illegal ground rules, and use the first chance they get, to award a two run instant replay home run—an existential, instantiated home run—an abstraction if you will, because nothing ever left the park or ever went over the fence in flight—for the sole purpose of screwing up Cole Hamels’ game in game 3, the pivotal game of the 2009 world series.

I need not point out how furious Hamels must have been with all this BS; for the second year in a row, he’s been messed with, not by the opposing lineup, but by lawyers and umpires and the commissioners’ office. They just won’t let him do his job.

I understand why he might have hung a few curves the next inning to Swisher and Damon.

What I don’t understand is why the Phillies don’t aggressively move

1) for Bud Selig’s immediate ouster as Commissioner of Baseball; and
2) an immediate amendment of the baseball instant replay rule requiring that the review of plays always be done in a neutral city by an impartial panel of three arbitrators, not lawyers, with one chosen by each team and the third chosen by the other two.
3) And the umpiring crew and ground rules be reviewed two weeks in advance of the World Series by the front office of each team, and by the teams attorneys, to be sure there are no conflicts with the Rules of Baseball.

Even my 80 year old mother in law, who just had eye surgery, who watched the game last night, and used to be a Brooklyn Dodger fan from Brooklyn, saw the play last night and she knew that the A-Rod hit wasn’t a home run.

“it didn’t go out of the park” she said. “how could it be a home run?”

Exactly. To be a home run, under rule 7.05(a), and in the common sense of every fan, a home run must go over the fence in flight.

And to be a home run for instant replay purposes, it has to go over the fence in flight and THEN hit some object.

Not hit some object which inteferes with the ball from going over the fence in flight. That’s a ground rule double or a ball live in play, as we have seen from our discussion, at length, of the rules.

The difference last night was two runs.

But the difference, from our perspective, is the lawlessness of the Bud Selig regime.

A regime which bars Pete Rose from the Hall of Fame, but tolerates steroid use by the likes of A-Rod and David Ortiz, and turns a blind eye to the income inequalities between teams like the Yankees and the Twins that keep baseball from truly being competitive.

A regime which makes arbitrary and capricious decisions each and every year about rain delays, rain suspensions, instant replay home runs in the World Series, and which plays games of law and fate which affect a man’s life and career in the case of Cole Hamels, who is a truly great pitcher along the lines of a Steve Carlton.

In fact, if you study Hamels stats, you will see that his 2009 is to his 2008, as Carlton’s 1973 was to Carlton’s Cy Young 1972.

I expect Cole Hamels to have a very bright future.

And he will not take much more of this abuse from Bud Selig and his cronies.

And neither should we philly fans.

And New York Yankee fans, you are cheating to win.

And to think I actually shed tears for you guys on 9/11.

And by the way, your NY Giants got rolled by the Eagles. At least the NFL runs a fair league. Thank you Pete Rozelle Paul Tagliabue and your successors.

Guess those memories of Joe Namath are starting to fade, eh?

–art kyriazis, philly
home of the world champion phillies, 2008 world champions
2008, 2009 National League pennant champs

MAN GAVE NAME TO ALL THE ANIMALS IN THE BEGINNING; AN EDITORIAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL DISQUISITION ON MICHAEL VICK AND THE METAPHYSICAL ONTOLOGICAL RELIGIOUS AND LEGAL BASIS OF ANIMAL RIGHTS; IS THERE ANY BASIS FOR ANIMALS TO HAVE RIGHTS COMPARED TO HUMANS?

The Philadelphia Eagles this past week signed former Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Vick, which instantly generated a lot of media controversy.

Because here at the Sophist we like to examine both points of view, lets’s parse for a moment some of the assumptions underlying whether Michael Vick has actually done anything controversial.

I. You aint nothing but a Hound Dog

In the beginning, people think it was Elvis who sang “you aint nothin but a hound dog”, but that isn’t right at all. It was african american blues woman BIG MAMA THORNTON who first sang “you aint nothing but a hound dog” and what she meant by that was something far different than what elvis meant, and it had a lot to do with accusing her man of infidelity.

frankly, that is probably a more serious matter than what michael vick was actually charged with.

Big Mama Thornton later re-recorded “hound dog” on a record she cut live in prison (michael vick not in attendance) and let me say, every track on there is hot, hot, hot.

here’s a live version on youtube with the legendary bluesman buddy guy;

hot hot hot! the guitar licks by buddy guy, the drumming by his band, and the singing by big mama thornton are totally awesome. what a clip! 11 out of 10! this is a legendary blues clip. wow!

now that’s the blues!!!!

they should have the big mama thornton/buddy guy version of this tune play on the jumbotron video at the linc every time michael vick takes the field. eventually it would be his signature song!

big mama thornton was a big influence on Janis Joplin and a great many other singers, especially as Big Mama Thornton was the first to sing “Summertime” and “Ball and Chain” pretty frequently, songs that later became associated with Janis.

In fact, if you really look at Big Mama Thornton, the fact is that white artists stole or misappropriated all of her fine work–Elvis took Hound Dog, the Stones and other bands took Little Red Rooster, Janis took Ball and Chain and Summertime, and so on, and rarely did the white artists mention Big Mama Thornton or pay her the correct royalties or give her the proper dues.

and yet, if you compare Big Mama Thornton to the white artists, it’s clear as a bell who’s better. janis joplin is good, but Big Mama Thornton is amazing. Elvis is good, but Big Mama Thornton is better. and so forth.

here’s Big Mama Thornton doing “Ball and Chain” with Lighting Hopkins, just an amazing version of this tune, a real blues classic, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSNavkeDg54

If you’ve never heard of Big Mama Thornton, go and download her songs right now on youtube and music sites.

here’s her doing “Little Red Rooster” live at Newport with BB King and Muddy Waters. Pretty awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ycw4uaXPRU&feature=related

here’s wikipedia account of big mama thornton’s version of hounddog, but you really have to listen to the song to get it:

at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_%28song%29

Big Mama Thornton version

The blues singer Big Mama Thornton’s biggest hit was Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s “Hound Dog,” which she recorded in 1952. Thornton’s “Hound Dog” was the first record Leiber and Stoller produced themselves. They took over the session because their work had sometimes been misrepresented, and on this one they knew how they wanted the drums to sound; Johnny Otis was supposed to produce it, but they wanted him on drums. [5] Otis received a writing credit on all 6 of the 1953 pressings. This 1953 Peacock Records release (#1612) was number one on the Billboard rhythm and blues charts for seven weeks. [6]

Thornton gave this account of how the original was created to Ralph Gleason. “They were just a couple of kids, and they had this song written on the back of a paper bag.” She added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song. In fact, she interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one minute long guitar “solo” by Pete Lewis . Her vocals include lines such as: “Aw, listen to that ole hound dog howl.. OOOOoooow”, “Now wag your tail”, Aw, get it, get it, get it”.

Thornton’s delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Over a steady backbeat, she starts out singing each line as one long upbeat. When the words change from “You ain’t nothin’ but a HOUND Dog”, she begins to shift the downbeat around: You TOLD me you was high-class / but I can SEE through that, You ain’t NOTHIN’ but a hound dog. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated..[7]

The other musicians on this recording are Devonia Williams (piano), Albert Winston (bass), and Leard Bell (drums), and are listed as “Kansas City Bill & Orchestra”.[8] Habanera and Habanera-mambo variations can be found in this recording.[9]

II. I Wanna Be Your Dog

in 1969, James Newell Osterberg, Jr., aka Iggy Pop, and the Stooges recorded one of the all time classic rock tunes with “I Wanna Be Your Dog”. It’s been on so many commercials and movie tracks that it would be redundant to re-spell it out here, but suffice it to say that most critics believe this song to be the first genuine song of the punk/new wave movement.

here’s a youtube live performance of iggy pop doing the tune from 1979, and it’s pretty good;

for a really hot 2006 version of the tune on you tube see this link;

this performance is from brussels, 2006 and the band is hot, the audience is so into it, they’re singing every line along with iggy pop. this song is really great. if you can get it on rockband, or learn it on your electric guitar, it’s a winner winner chicken dinner, three chord wonder variety. it’s so elemental that it actually generates energy.

once you watch it, you really get the idea. this song, as well, has little or nothing to do with dogs, but rather about something else far more dark and mysterious.

if you’re still not sure, read wonderland avenue by the late danny sugarman about iggy pop and you’ll get the fuller picture. iggy and the stooges, and iggy solo, one of the greatest rock acts of our time. also, from the great state of michigan, which has brought us Grand Funk, Bob Seger, Kid Rock, the MC5 and other awesome rock acts.

one more version, live in serbia 2004, also good, but not as good as the other two;

enjoy.

the original track from 1969 without video is here;

stripped down like this, it doesn’t sound the same–but as a live track it has had a lot of power over the years. but it still packs power as a studo track. this stooges album is considered a classic.
i find it interesting that europe and especially eastern europe still listen to rock and roll, while american kids waste away on rap, pop and lord knows what. it sort of suggests that their youth are a bit more in tune with normality than ours…and europeans also like classical music as well much more than our people do. they’re far more likely to do a rock/classical/jazz split than americans, who will much more likely do a country/rap/pop split. I’m far more in the jazz/classical/rock camp, so i suppose i’m with the europeans.

III. BLACK DOG BY LED ZEPPELIN

“hey hey mama said the way you move….
GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT
GONNA MAKE YOU GROOVE….”

“didn’t take too long, till i found out, what people mean, by down and out”

an immortal rock tune, “black dog” by led zeppelin is on their immortal led zeppelin IV, the one with “stairway to heaven,” in fact, on the LP version, it opened the side which famously ended with “stairway to heaven”. this was the subject of a famous discussion in the movie “FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH” (1982), what the perfect record to seduce a woman to is, and the answer of course is, LED ZEPPELIN IV, SIDE ONE, beginning with BLACK DOG and ending with STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.

For obvious reasons, BLACK DOG would make a great tune to play when michael vick is on the field. especially with a rocking led zepp video. even if it’s true that jimmy page sold his soul to the devil….

VIDEO ONE

plays the song with all the lyrics, pretty cool.

live 1973:

this is what 70s arena rock was all about. just about every guy back in the 1970s tried to have the robert plant look for a while. inevitably, it still comes around. chicks dig long hair.

i can’t get over Jimmy Page’s outfit in this clip.

john bonham in this clip is the actual model for the four guys in This is Spinal Tap (1984). Eleven, one louder.

this is one of the classic songs of the 1970s. it’s really a blues tune speeded up to arena rock sound, but it’s still blues rock, and played very well. it’s a great tune. well worth reviving as an eagles fight song for michael vick.

IV. BLACK EYED DOG – NICK DRAKE

this is an obscure one–not even well known by nick drake standards, and not one of nick drake’s best tunes, but still out there.

here’s a link to it;

it’s really more of an outtake than a finished tune, it doesn’t have any of the joe boyd orchestration that characterizes the best tracks off Bryter Later, nor is it as melodic as the best stuff off of Five Leaves Left or Pink Moon, which are the three official and only Nick Drake releases to come out while he was recording. It is in fact, an outtake included in “Time of No Reply,” which is an album of outtakes and alternate takes released posthumously, and which was included in the Fruit Tree compilation.

While this is an interesting “dog” track, i don’t think it’s a good song for a football crowd. I do recommend it to everyone though as a good example of a demo of a song by a brilliant songwriter; and being that it’s an obscure Nick Drake song, an excellent choice for a cover by your band seeking a record deal.

Speaking of Nick Drake, his producer JOE BOYD is one of the most intriguing figures in music history. A harvard grad and producer of most of the top bands of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and up to the present day, JOE BOYD is one of the key figures of music history, as well as the custodian of the NICK DRAKE legacy.

here’s his wikipedia bio, which only scratches the surface of this remarkable man’s career;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Boyd

makes for interesting reading, with great linkouts.

V. WALKING THE DOG BY RUFUS THOMAS 1965

this is an alltime classic, and you can dance to it.

This video linkout is vintage 60s live video feed, A++. with the stax/volt band behind him.

the blues brothers live with rufus thomas walking the dog:

this is from 1988, but amazingly, it’s the same band as from 1965! check it out…you’ll see what i mean….First Blues Brothers Band reunion tour Live in Pistoia (Italy) 1988 Steve Cropper-Guitar Donald Dunn-Bass Matt Murphy-Guitar Booker T Jones-Keyboards Anton Fig-Drums Lou Marini-Sax Alan Rubin-Trump. same guys playing on the 1965 vid for the most part.

VI HONORABLE MENTION

ME AND YOU AND A DOG NAMED BOO – Lobo
BULLDOG – Ventures
HOUND DOG MAN – Fabian
SNOOPY AND THE RED BARON – Royal Guardsmen
ANYTHING BY SNOOP DOOG
DIAMOND DOGS david bowie

Black Dog lyrics:

Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.
Oh, oh, child, way you shake that thing
Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting.
Hey, hey, baby, when you walk that way
Watch your honey drip, cant keep away.

*ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah., ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah.

I gotta roll, cant stand still,
Got a flame in my heart, cant get my fill,
Eyes that shine burning red,
Dreams of you all thru my head.
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah.

Hey, baby, oh, baby, pretty baby,
Tell me what you do me now.
(repeat)

Didnt take too long fore I found out
What people mean my down and out.
Spent my money, took my car,
Started tellin her friends she wants to be a star.
I dont know but I been told
A big legged woman aint got no soul.

* chorus

All I ask for when I pray,
Steady rollin woman gonna come my way.
Need a woman gonna hold my hand
And tell me no lies, make me a happy man.

VII. Editorial and disquisition on Michael Vick

First of all, according to the Bible and the major religions, God gave Man dominion over the earth and all its living creatures. That pretty much means that man has substantial rights to do what he will with bears, dogs and cats, especially dogs that have been bred for, and exist because of, dogfighting. In short, the metaphysical existence of dogfighting breeds, and hence any of their metaphysical and ethical rights, are dependent upon, and exist by virtue of, their participation in and breeding for, dogfighting.

within of course, the law.

The same arguments of course apply to poodles, thoroughbred horses, cattle and many other animals which man has bred for man’s own needs and enjoyment. 99% of the rats which exist in laboratories today were bred and brought into metaphysical existence, in a word, instantiated, for the simple purpose of being experimented upon in a laboratory. Their rights and ethical/juridical existences are sub-dependent upon their instantive and metaphysical existence as being created to be lab rats.

In short, about 90% of all dogs, cats, cattle and other animals bred and brought into existence by man exist in a sort of BRAVE NEW WORLD existence, where they are actually genetically bred to serve a purpose, like the alphas, betas, and so forth of Aldous Huxley’s famous work.

As such, I can’t get morally excited or revolted about the fact that Michael Vick or his friends engaged in dogfighting with dogs bred to do dogfighting. After all, it’s what the dogs were bred to do, and in China, people eat dogs.

still, there are technical legal violations, but morally, i can equate it to ray lewis killing a man, or michael tyson raping a girl, or kobe bryant raping a girl, or oj simpson killing two people at once. or even to dante stallworth killing someone while driving drunk.

the life and dignity of a person has to be more valuable than the life and dignity of an animal. if that’s not true, our ethical and legal and moral systems are skewed.

In America, we have something like 100 million dogs and cats, and by all reasonably rational accounts, they are better fed and better cared for in terms of food, medical care and housing, than the bottom 100 million of our own population.

Animals have a powerful lobby; the poor do not. Mistreatment of animals usually draws a powerful response and a jail sentence; mistreatment of the poor usually draws a yawn. If a single dog or cat is hurt, the police cannot wait to find the rascal; but five hundred to a thousand poor African American victims of homicide die in our cities each year without any of those cases being solved.

There are no dogs or cats, to my knowledge, that have to sell their bodies for sexual pleasure in order to eat or obtain drugs or housing; yet we have tens if not hundreds of thousands of young women of all colors, races and cultures prostituting themselves on the streets of our cities in order to feed their drug habits, keep themselves fed, clothed and sheltered. The police and authorities don’t care about these women, but the animal lobbies care plenty about those dogs and cats.

Every year in the NFL, NBA and other leagues, you hear of players having illegitimate children, beating their wives, girlfriends, abusing their spouses, girlfriends, and in many cases, being accused of rape, most notably in the case of Kobe Bryant.

Let’s compare Kobe Bryant for a moment to Michael Vick. Kobe Bryant raped a woman (allegedly) in a Colorado hotel room. Michael Vick’s friends ran a dog fighting ring.

Yet, who went to jail and was prosecuted? Michael Vick or Kobe Bryant. I don’t have to tell you the answer. It was Michael Vick.

And you know the reason—because dogs are treated better in this country than women, and especially women who are the victims of abuse, rape and violence against women.

Dogs have a lobby, dogs provoke popular outrage, and dogs get police protection.

But abused women get nothing, except perhaps “she lied” or “her testimony is questionable” or “she’s of questionable moral character”.

In philosophical academic and legal circles today, there is a growing and popular movement centering on “animal rights”—the notion that animals are sentient beings entitled to the full panoply of civil and social rights that humans enjoy. There’s really well-read people at Ivy League universities making those arguments, which probably proves that they’re bs deconstruction communist arguments intended to undermine capitalism (e.g. if we give all animals rights, the capitalist superstructure will collapse of its own weight).

in fact, i even hear rumors from dc that a major figure appointed to the obama administration faces problems being confirmed–because he once wrote an article critical of animal rights.

the republican party is attempting to stop his nomination by claiming the man in question is a dog hater.

never mind that the guy is on his third wife and never sees his kids–those aren’t issues at all. what’s important is how he treats his dogs, not how he treats his wives.

are you kidding me? how have we gone in this country to judging a man by how he treats his pets, rather than by whether he can stay in a marriage or not?

Notwithstanding the commonsense fact that these are collectively the most ridiculous theories ever conceived by professors in the history of academia, this animal rights movement is actually gaining a lot of steam, which goes to show that any stupid gropundless theory can gain traction, as was the case for year with marxism.

Then again, a great many European lawyers in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries made a terrific living specializing in criminal defense of women accused of witchcraft. Pretty much everyone in Europe in that time was unanimous in the believe that around 25% of all women were witches or possessed by demons. That belief even crawled over, famously, to Salem Massachusetts for a while in the 1690s (see “The Crucible”).

Meanwhile, the womans’ rights movement to pass an Equal Rights Amendment and to obtain relief from violence against women continues to go nowhere. Maybe people still think many women are witches still, while cats and dogs can’t be possessed by evil spirits. (in fact, the New Testament flatly states that Jesus cast out an evil spirit from a human into an animal, more than once, I believe, so this is not true).

In fact, soon gay lesbian transgendered persons, along with cats and dogs, may all soon enjoy more constitutional and legal protections than women. Ted Olson, Esq., a prominent conservative republican attorney, is working with others to overturn the defense of marriage act signed into law by president bill clinton in 1996. they want federal courts to overturn the prop 8 process and issue a federal constitutional ruling.

so much for democracy, i suppose.

I’m not opposed to these other groups enjoying protections, but shouldn’t we fully address the equality of women before the law before we tackle the issues of other groups? Isn’t this fair and just? Obama has been strangely silent on women’s rights after being nominated over Hilary despite having fewer votes and fewer large states won than Hilary (he won due to technicalities in the apportionment formulas in the Democratic party which favored the small states; under the 1988 and prior rules, Hilary would have been the clear winner of the nomination).

though he did say he wanted to overturn the defense of marriage act. he didn’t say anything about enacting the ERA or helping battered women, though. i supposed by the end of the day, african americans, gays, transgendered and lesbians will have more rights than women, along with dogs and cats.

Women are the mother of us all (and I only mention this because August 15th is the saint day of the Holy Virgin Mary in the Greek Orthodox Church) and therefore deserve our saintly attentions as well as our full legal constitutional and law enforcement protections, before we bestow a drop of attention on dogs or cats, or other allegedly disadvantaged groups, especially groups that don’t have to raise kids or shop for groceries or both work and change diapers and also take care of a husband and a kid or three.

Animals were used by the pagan Roman Empire to eat the Christians in the arenas during the many persecutions of Christians before St. Constantine made Christianity the state religion @ 330 A.D. and moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople (where it remains to the present day). maybe its just for us to get back a little at animals for eating us.

Hercules had to slay a lion to prove he was a god. Samson had to kill a lion to prove he was the strongest of men. Killing animals in both greek myth and the bible was tantamount to sainthood and deification. In ancient times, you killed animals and sacrificed them to the gods, if you were an ancient greek, or to GOD, if you were in ancient Israel. How many sheep, goats, rams, etc. were sacrificed in the Old Testament to God? About a zillion, by my count.

Animals, in GOD’s view, were pretty much expendable. They didn’t have rights. Not only didn’t they have rights, but they were the COMMUNION of the ancient service. In the ancient service, there wasn’t just wine and a wafer (or wine and bread as we do it in the eastern Byzantine rite); no, what you got was a dead animal, which you put on the altar, and you BURNED IT FOR GOD along with prayers and incantations.

Imagine trying to do that today in modern America. They’d try and put you in jail for five years. Just for obeying the will of God.

I would argue that the juridical, moral and ethical status of animals has not changed in 12,000 years. We’ve killed more HUMANS in the 20th century than in all prior centuries; and there are more humans and animals alive in the 20th and 21st century than ever before; consequently, it stands to reason that while we might aspire to more ethical protections for humans, animals do not deserve any additional or heightened ethical protections.

Even assuming the status quo, animals, specifically dogs, are routinely mistreated everywhere in the United States. Not twenty minutes from Harvard University, my alma mater, there was a stop on the boston t called “Wonderland”, where they ran dog races back in the 1970s, and where I believe they continue to do so. Not horses, although horse racing is just as barbaric (how many horses have we seen break a leg and then be “sacrificed”), greyhound dogs are bred to run, chasing a mechanical rabbit along the inside of the track to exhaustion. These dogs, once they are done racing, do not make for good pets, and must often be put to sleep once they are done, unless they can be put to stud. Their lives are pretty awful; kept in bad kennels, fed poorly and kept poorly.

The conditions at Wonderland over the last thirty years, and Wonderland is a Massachussets sanctioned facility, would make the treatment of animals at the Michael Vick home seem wonderful.

I won’t even get into all the nutty dog and cat owners who have twenty or thirty cats or dogs. Or celebrity or politician dog or pet owners, who have four or five “rescue animals”, but don’t have the time to take care of them and hand them off to the maid or butler. I’m sure those dogs and cats are having a wonderful time full of love and attention.

In California, a lot of people don’t have kids but keep dogs and cats. In this wacky state, people are a little pathological about their pets, because they do the Freudian slip thing and sublimate, switching their displaced normal maternal/paternal instincts to the dog/cat pet from the child they were intended by biology and nature to have, so they actually commit the (1) sin and (2) error, of giving a humanity to their dog/cat pet(s).

It’s important to note that in God’s eyes, your dog or cat is NOT the same as your son or daughter. The bible commands you to GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY. It doesn’t say anything about being a shepherd and tending flock, except to describe lots of shepherds tending flocks. A person with pets is just a shepherd tending their flock.

Unless of course your pet happens to be the LAMB OF GOD, agnus dei.

But that’s a story for another day.

bottom line, i can’t get too worked up over michael vicks alleged acts of animal cruelty. while a little weird, they’re not exactly directed at people, and that’s the bottom line.

ART KYRIAZIS philly south jersey
home of the world champion phillies
posted august 22 2009

A GREAT TV DAY YESTERDAY AUG 16TH

WHAT A DAY FOR TV YESTERDAY AUGUST 16TH.

1) AN ELVIS MARATHON ON TCM, INCLUDING ‘KID CREOLE’.

2) THE RETURN OF DON DRAPER AND MAD MEN FOR SEASON THREE.

3) THE PHILS DESTROY THE BRAVES ON NATIONAL TV SUNDAY NITE BASEBALL ON RYAN HOWARDS TWO ENORMOUS HOMERS, SOLO AND THREE RUN SHOTS, AND WIN 4-1 AS JA HAPP WINS 9TH OF YEAR AGAINST 2 LOSSES.

Is it just me, or watching Elvis and Don Draper, do I get the feeling that back in 1961, smoking, drinking, and driving drunk, were GOOD for you?

That chasing women, even if you were married, was what men were supposed to do no matter what? and that this was ok as long as you came back to your wife at the end of the road trip or whatever?

the flip side of all this is getting inside of don draper’s creative process, which seems to require that 1) he gets a new account 2) he can’t think of an idea 3) he needs to bed down some new conquest not his wife in a seedy motel 4) the plane ride back or in his office later, he suddenly and brilliantly spits out the ad idea of the century for the account.

i’d think it was a crock, except my brother in law is an ad guy and i’ve seen his creative side work like this (except for all the wild sex) (I’m joking, he actually made don draper look like a monk back in the day) (that would be the chiat day).

speaking of monk, he’s back, and they’ve announced it’s his final season. this is rare for a tv show to say “that’s all folks”.

so the question begins, how many episodes will they devote to solving trudy’s murder before they wrap it all up? It’s been what, seven, eight years, and Monk has one case, one huge case, he’s never solved–the case of his wife Trudy’s murder.

It has to be solved.

Finally, a word about Elvis. “kid creole” is actually a very fine movie. the early elvis movies, from before 1962, are pretty good, and even the vintage ones, from the 60s, have fine qualities about them.

–art kyriazis
philly home of the world champion phillies

RIP GEORGE RUSSELL THE JAZZ WORKSHOP

George Russell, one of the Jazz Legends, died last week in New York City, a death that went all but unnoticed except in the New York Times, which had a fitting obit to the jazz legend.

Russell’s album “The Jazz Workshop” from 1956 is a legendary work, and for years commanded very high collectors’ prices in mint first edition, usually more than a hundred dollars. It was an amazing work.

Russell, as the NYT obit noted, invented modal dissonant jazz—dense harmonic dissonant chord changes which he described in his “bible of modal jazz”, The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization for Improvisation, published in 1953 and again in 1959. (thanks to the New York times 7/30/09 for this).

The effect on the jazz world was dramatic. Miles Davis and John Coletrane immediately picked up on modal jazz, starting with the album “Milestones” in 1958 (they were still in the same band) and then Davis struck gold with his all time classic “Kind of Blue” a year later in 1959 (the fifty year legacy edition was recently released by Columbia in a two cd edition).

From here to the wild modal jazz explorations of miles and coletrane of the 50s and 60s, and to the free jazz of ornette coleman, and the fusion jazz of the 60s and 70s, was but a short step. Dissonance and freedom from tonality was all the rage for the next 25 years.

The movement raged on into rock and blues. Ray Manzarek explained “Light My Fire” as a “modal chromatic inversion” of Coletrane’s “My Favorite Things”; the Grateful Dead and other groups began to improvise and jam along modal jazz lines each and every night, as did more blues-based groups like Eric Clapton and Cream. By the 1970s, modal jazz and jazz-rock fused into jazz-fusion and groups like Mahavishnu Orchestra led by John McLaughlin produced stupendous works like “The Inner Mounting Flame,” while more mainstream artists like Al DiMeola, Jean Luc-Ponty and Weather Report experimented with jazz fusion and modality throughout the decade.

Perhaps my favorite modal work was 1967′s “Nefertiti”, by the legendary Miles Davis lineup which included Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter & Tony Williams. Sublime and spectacular.

George Russell was completely forgotten by then, but he was the father of it all. No one remembered that Russell was the composer of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Cubano Bop” and “Cubano Be Cubano Bop” in the late 1940s, or that Russell continued to teach and play in the new york area for years, or that Russell received a McArthur Fellowship in 1988.

George Russell was one of my favorite jazz figures precisely because he was obscure but influential and brilliant. He never sought out the spotlight, fame, money, fast cars or the attention of pop stardom. He was, to the end, a musician’s musician. He will be missed.

–art kyriazis, Philadelphia, PA
the birthplace of dizzy gillespie & john coletrane

How to Shmooze in Hollywood When You’re Nobody by Alex Lewin

Two men are having lunch at Adriano’s, an expensive Bel-Air restaurant. While they are eating, Frank Sinatra and his entourage enter the restaurant and are seated at a large table in the corner. Seeing this, one man says to the other, “I’ll bet you fifty bucks that I know Frank Sinatra.” (He doesn’t.) His friend, thinking the bet would be easy money, smugly agrees. The man gets up and walks across the restaurant to Sinatra’s table. He puts one hand on Sinatra’s shoulder and offers the other for a warm shaking. “Frank!” he exclaims. “How you doing? Good to see you again.”

Sinatra rises, shakes the man’s hand heartily, and asks how he is doing. He and the man spend a few more moments in cheerful conversation before the man comes back to his table to collect his winnings from the awestruck friend.

This is a true story, and the diner’s skillful manipulation of Frank Sinatra is a classic example of the value of shmoozing. Shmoozing is the most important skill there is for a Hollywood nobody (and let’s face it — that’s what we are, those of us who fantasize about seeing our name on the credits or our faces on the screen).

In Hollywood, a résumé or a degree mean nothing. Some argue that skills and talent mean nothing. Deals do not get made because X has an MFA in screenwriting and got an A+ on her thesis, or because Y starred in I Hate Hamlet at the Winesburg Playhouse and his performance was lauded by the local papers.

Deals get made because Z is a friend of Michael Eisner. It was through his friendship with Robert De Niro that Joe Pesci secured his first film role, in Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) attended college with Usual Suspects director Bryan Singer, and was asked by Singer to write the script.

It was Quiz Show screenwriter Paul Attanasio’s friendship with director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Sleepers and the Attanasio-scripted Disclosure) that got him into the industry.

But what about the rest of us? Those who have high Industry ambitions but lack high Industry friends? Are we without hope?

Perhaps not. Perhaps there are ways to make Industry friends and influence Industry people — the skill which the man in Adriano’s had perfected. You have to strike up a conversation, make a solid impression, be straightforward. And above all, you have to talk to your subject (the shmoozee) in a way that will put the two of you on friendly terms. The key lies in the shmoozing.

Last summer, I had the good fortune to come across tickets to the MTV Movie Awards. Kevin Spacey, fresh from his Oscar for The Usual Suspects, was there and won the MTV award Best Villain for Seven. Let’s say you are in attendance, and after the ceremony you have a chance to talk to him. Spacey, now that he is rather famous, is serious player in Hollywood and can do wonders for your career, if he wants to. So what do you say to him? How do you act?

Don’t panic. Just remember these items:

– Hollywood does not make bad movies. Despite what the box office grosses were, despite what the critics said, despite even what you think of a particular film, you must always sing its praises. You never know what film your shmoozee might have been involved with. As far as you’re concerned, Spacey’s film The Ref is, in some ways (though you needn’t be specific about what those are), on the same level as Citizen Kane.

– Your shmoozee has no last name. When congratulating Kevin Spacey on his award and his performance, never say, “Congratulations, Mr. Spacey. Very well deserved.” There is no greater heresy. You always say, “Congratulations, Kevin. Very well deserved.” (Note: It doesn’t matter whether or not Kevin actually deserves his award. As far as you’re concerned, he deserves the award he got, as well as the ones he didn’t.)

– If you are fortunate enough to actually be employed by a firm with some involvement in the industry, then, as the shmoozer, your last name is extended to include your company’s name. Having worked for Premiere magazine for a time, I had the luxury of introducing myself to Kevin Spacey in the following way: “Kevin. Good to meet you. Alex Lewinpremieremagazine.” (You may wish to rehearse this in front of a mirror, as it can be quite a mouthful, particularly if you work for Bresler, Kelly, Kipperman or Donner/Shuler-Donner.) This informed Kevin that I was almost somebody — and therefore worth talking to — without my having to say so.

– Never underestimate the importance of the word “over,” as in, “I’ve been over at Premiere for two months now.” It may sound trivial, but it helps to convince Kevin that, despite the geographical largesse of Los Angeles, every company remotely involved with Hollywood is located on the same happy block, and you’re all the best of neighbors.

– If you are acquainted with person A, who is nobody, and person A is acquainted with person B, who is somebody, you are, by default, a good friend of person B. A woman I worked with at Premiere, for example, told me one day that she knew screenwriter Paul Attanasio. An admirer of his work, I eagerly asked if there was any way she might introduce the two of us. At this point, she buckled, and explained that she, in fact, did not know Paul Attanasio — she knew his brother.

“Who’s his brother?” I asked. “Anybody?”

“No, he’s nobody. But I did meet Paul once.”

A more skillful shmoozer would not have admitted so quickly that her connection to Paul was a shmoozer’s connection and not a real one. For example, when I was chatting with Kevin Spacey and the topic of Seven director David Fincher came up, I was free to say, “David did a great job with the mood of that film.” I don’t know David Fincher, but I have a friend who does. I could conceivably get in touch with Fincher if I absolutely had to, and that is what’s important. (It also helps, in talking with your shmoozee about a particular film, to refer to some vague aspect like “mood” or “tone” — terms which make you sound intellectual, but really don’t mean anything.)

I met Kevin Spacey because my good friend, Wall Street Journal film critic John Lippman, had tickets to the MTV Movie Awards and wasn’t using them. (Lippman’s actually a friend of a friend and I’ve never met him, but that’s not important.) At the party afterwards, Kevin stood at a crowded blackjack table, waiting for a space to open up. I saw my opportunity, took a deep breath, and went in for the kill.
“Kevin [offering my hand]. Alex Lewinpremieremagazine. Good to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Kevin, shaking my hand.

“Congratulations on the award. Very well deserved.”

“Thank you.”

“I enjoyed Seven a lot. Great film. Did you have a good time working on it?” (For the record, I find Seven a rather depressing and self-indulgent film, but Kevin didn’t need to know that.)

“Well,” Kevin told me, “I didn’t have a lot of screen time, so they didn’t need me around much for shooting.
Not as much as Brad or Morgan, anyway. So that was easy to fit into my schedule.”

And just like that we were having a conversation. Not the type of conversation that a gushy and excited fan typically has with his film idol, but a real conversation. Of course, one has to ask, “what is real?” if everything that came out of my mouth was based on strategy and a level of honesty that was tenuous at best. It’s all part of Hollywood. If you want to make it — if you want friends in high places — you’ve got to fit in. Just ask Kevin; he’ll tell you the same thing. Oh, and when you talk to him, be sure to mention that you’re a friend of mine.

[this was a GREAT article by Alex Lewin posted to the net a few years back. Paul Attanasio is actually a harvard classmate of mine, and we actually have the same name, I'm Athanasios Kyriazis, he's Paul Attanasio, we're named for the same saint, St. Athanasius....however, I've never been nominated for an emmy or an academy award. Disclosure was a rocking good movie, to name only one of Paul's great screenplays, he's a prolific, brilliant writer/producer. --art kyriazis, philly/south jersey, home of the world champion phillies]

NEW SONG (FOR THE MORNING) © Jorma Kaukonen/Hot Tuna 1970

Looked outside my window
Fog came up today
That grey outside is round my head
Looks like it’s there to stay
Looks like it’s there to stay
Looks like it’s there to stay

Can’t you see I love you
I want you more and more
I see you here most every day
But I don’t know where you are
But I don’t know where you are now
But I don’t know where you are

(break)

Time goes on and I get older
What am I going to do
My mirror’d face keeps getting colder
My eyes still look for you
My eyes still look for you
My eyes still look for you

(break)

Sun came out this morning
Highway showed my way
Tracks in the sand pulled me into the sea
Washed my cares away
Washed my cares away
Washed my cares away

You know I want to touch you
My vacuum gives me pain
Your smile releases all my life
Like flowers under rain
Like flowers under rain
We start to live again

TEXTUALISM AND THE FRENCH DECONSTRUCTIONISTS

Back in the late 1970s, Philosopher Richard Rorty wrote an influential philosophy book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Human Nature (1979), that essentially embraced deconstructionism and entirely rejected empiricism, british analytical philosophy, Quine, Kuhn, Kant, epistemology, scientific method, etc.

Rorty basically said, look, there is no spoon. Nothing we see can be verified as real. Everything that is said, everything that is written, is contextual and depends on who says it, its grammar and context, and must be deconstructed. In saying this, he essentially depended on, and was influenced by, all of the french deconstruction theorists, especially Derrida and Foucault, though there were others that influenced his thinking more clearly than those two.

I don’t subscribe to Rorty, because if Rorty were right, there couldn’t be atomic bombs, nuclear power, triads of nuclear warfare, 9/11 didn’t happen, etc. The good part of Rorty is that he asserts a sort of extreme relativism, in which every point of view can be correct. To that extent, he asserts that man is indeed the measure of all things, as Protagoras first asserted, and rejects the Platonic-Aristotelian notion of absolutes, and accepts instead the relativism of the Sophists. But Rorty goes too far–he rejects everything that modern science has shown us is actually true–if Rorty were right, there would be no objective facts of any kind, and yet we know that we can split the atom and turn mass into energy, and plenty of it. They actually did blow up dozens of pacific atolls with h-bombs during the 1950s during open air tests of h-bombs in the 1950s. Those things are scary. The film is enough to make me believe there is science. Plus, i’ve worked in enough labs to know there is dna, rna, genes, and that you can grow wings where a fly’s legs should be by transposing the genes, etc. So I know there’s science and we can control it pretty carefully. There’s actually more science that you think.

So while Rorty should be read, and should be consulted, and should be used to argue that there are two sides to every question, it remains true that there is epistemology, that there are absolute facts, and that there are some absolute truths. For example, we are alive and we will die, and this is not some eternal dream we are experiencing while our bodies are frozen in cryospace (Vanilla Sky) or or alternate reality dreamed up for us by machines running the world (the Matrix), even though those are certainly plausible explanations of what we experience every day. Rod Serling used to come up with about a dozen other explanations of reality every season on Twilight Zone and every one was terrific, but still, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, a tree has fallen in my book.

Here’s some science facts. Penn, for example, has been conducting lie detector research for the FBI and other government agencies for years using MRI and PET scans of human brain and blood flow for the last ten to twenty years. you can look this up on the internet. They’re getting pretty reliable, by the way. In about 5-10 years, those scans will be very, very reliable and eventually will make their way into employment situations and courtrooms. You won’t need to waterboard or torture anyone once you have these devices.

But contextualism is a bit fun, isn’t it? Remember how people used to search for meaning in all the Beatles’ lyrics? That’s kind of what French contextualism and deconstruction is, except without the bong, the getting stoned and starting at the album cover part, apologies to our latest olympic swimming champion who’s probably still working on U2′s latest album lyrics for deeper meaning in the smoke haze.

This used to be fun– here are some examples of modern textual analysis.

Credence Clearwater Revival had a song that went “There’s a Bad Moon on the Right” which a lot of people thought said “There’s a Bathroom on the Right.”

Bob Dylan released an album at the height of his career in 1966 called “Blonde on Blonde”, and one of the longest songs on it was “Visions of Johanna,” which seems vaguely to be about either lesbians or a menage a trois involving the songwriter or singer. When analyzed in this fashion, the title of the album can be seen contextualized as having a different connotation altogether. Remember he was dating blonde model Edie Sedgwick at the time and hanging out at the Factory with andy warhols models in NYC. this is actually pointed out in the recent dylan movie with the six dylans.

The Rolling Stones had a song, “Jumping Jack Flash,” where the refrain sounded suspciously like “Jumping Jack Flash, hits of gas.” Now that’s not what the words really were, but that’s definitely what they made them sound like. Again, some sixties contextualism.

Recent movie titles have some interesting contextualisms. For example, “Milk”, which is about the first openly gay man ever elected to office in the us, in this case a man called harvey milk who was elected to office in SF in the 1970s. He was assasinated and thus a martyr, but the name of the film has, at a deconstructionist level, surely a triple meaning. First, the name of the politician, second, the Jesse Unruh saying that money is the mother’s milk of politics, and third the vulgar one associated with Milk’s sexuality.

George Orwell wrote several essays which discussed contextualism in a more forthright nature, especially his “Politics and the English Language” essay. We all know that Orwell discussed how the War Department, the Navy Department etc. suddenly became the Department of Defense after WWII. One would wonder what Orwell would say about the “Department of Homeland Security.” No one in the United States is even from the United States. It’s not our Homeland. My family is from Albania, Greece, Asia Minor and the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. My ancestors on my mother’s side came here because those empires were destroyed after World War I and the U.S. was the best option available, compared with Turks killing Christians for the heck of it back in the 1920s. My dad came here on one of the very first Fulbrights every given, to study medicine at Harvard, so he was just part of the brain drain. (Thanks Sen. Fulbright). So whose Homeland is the US? The Native Americans and the native American mestizo Latinos of Mexico are my best bet–they’ve been here the longest, right? But Homeland Security seems devoted to keeping out Mexicans of Native American descent, and they don’t have jurisdiction over Indian lands, so that’s a bit confusing.

Overall, it reminds me of an old saying i learned in latin class:

atque ubi solitudinum faciunt pacem appellant.

“and where they make a solitude, they call it peace.” –Tacitus.

That’s sort of pre-Orwellian, but you get the drift.

Rap is par spelled backwards. I kind of like that becaus i like to golf, and because I think rap, while occasionally good, is mostly average and par for the course, as we golfers say. It’s easy to make music now with all of the technology. It’s hard to imagine today that the beatles struggled to make a four or eight track master back in 1967, or that overdubs were uncommon back then. now musicians made demos with 32 or 64 tracks in their basement and wear vocal processors on stage.

there’s not too much subtlety in rap lyrics. you don’t need to be a derrida or a foucault to understand a lyric like “give it to me good baby” or “give it to me right”.

speaking of mysterious lyrics, Van Morrison played last night on Jimmy Fallon’s spectacular debut on the Late Show, playing a track from “Astral Weeks Live.” Astral Weeks is one of the greatest albums in rock history, very hard to pin down, but jazzy, folky and stream of consciousness. Van the Man played acoustic guitar with a full accompaniment of strings and about fifteen musicians. It was fantastic and capped off a show with Bobby DeNiro and other great guests. DeNiro rushed the stage to hug Van when he was done. Those are two great entertainers, let me say.

This is the track listing from Astral Weeks, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Side one – “In the Beginning”

1. “Astral Weeks” – 7:00
2. “Beside You” – 5:10
3. “Sweet Thing” – 4:10
4. “Cyprus Avenue” – 6:50

[edit] Side two – “Afterwards”

1. “The Way Young Lovers Do” – 3:10
2. “Madame George” – 9:25
3. “Ballerina” – 7:00
4. “Slim Slow Slider” – 3:20

Van played “Sweet Thing” last nite. It was truly a glorious moment, because this album, from 1968, is one he has rarely, if ever, played live. Van Morrison is around 65 years old now, but even growling, he’s one fantastic Irish R & B singer, and along with U2, proves that Ireland is the home of the greatest rock bands in the world. Astral Weeks is a title that deserves deconstruction, along with the song titles. Van Morrison has always been fascinated with the title “Cypress”.

Regarding Jimmy Fallon, he is a great shot in the arm for Late Night. I really liked Conan, and he is a Harvard and Lampoon guy, and we have mutual friends in common, and I wish him success on the Tonite Show. But this is a change they should have made three years ago when Jimmy Fallon was smoking hot from SNL doing the news with Tina Fey. I used to read the FallonFey.com website and laugh my behind off, they were so funny together. (Tina Fey will be on tonite). But NBC always gets it wrong–as dramatized in “The Late Shift” (with my cousin Johnny Kapelos). They monkeyed around with Leno and Letterman and almost got neither.

Making Fallon wait, Fallon has cooled off. They should have pushed Leno to prime time three years ago, pushed Conan to the Tonite Show, and put Fallon on immediately back in 2005-2006. Then someone might have remembered who he was. Instead they kept Fallon on ice. This is insanity and explains why NBC-GE is taking such a hit in the stock market.

Basically, Conan was great, but Fallon is a fresh face. It’s Leno that’s tired. They need to move Conan to the tonite show because his audience is older now, and Fallon to late nite, because his demographic is who’s staying up late now. That’s only sensible. I thought Fallon’s show was great. also, Fallon is a low key guy who let’s the guests talk and the musicians play. He’s so nice and low key, he really reminds me of Carson at his best.

I predict a great future for Jimmy Fallon.

Did I mention that he and Tina Fey were hilarious together on SNL?

Getting back to homelands, there’s only one guy in America that i’m certain was born in the USA, and that guy is Bruce Springsteen. I know he was Born in the USA because that’s what his album said back in the 1980s, and no singer is more identified with his state of origin, New Jersey, than Bruce Springsteen. You don’t really have to contextualize or analyze Springsteen’s lyrics too much. When he sings that “Everybody has a Hungry Heart” or says that “Baby we were Born to Run” you sort of know what he’s talking about.

Because I’m from around these parts, I’ve always liked Springsteens’ music and it does speak to me at some level. A lot of the places he used to sing about are closed now–places in Asbury Park and the north shore of Jersey have disappeared or changed now–but a lot of the things he sang or sings about are still the same at the Jersey Shore. And we like that he lives in Freehold and not in LA.

I meant to say more here and may add to this post in the future.

–art kyriazis, philly/south jersey
home of the world champion phillies

BOB DYLAN: THE BOOTLEG SERIES [RARE AND UNRELEASED] 1961-1991 COLUMBIA 47382 (THREE-CD SET) Review from April 1991

This is an oldie but a goodie from when I used to write for an underground bob dylan fanzine back in the 80s and 90s, a review of a classic bob dylan 3CD set from when it was originally released in 1991. Enjoy.

BOB DYLAN: THE BOOTLEG SERIES [RARE AND UNRELEASED] 1961-1991 COLUMBIA 47382 (THREE-CD SET)
Reviewed by Art Kyriazis
April 12, 1991

Bob Dylan turns fifty this year. Watching him nowadays, as a mumbling rocker at the Grammys, as an aging hippie touring with the Grateful Dead or as a semi-clowning “Traveling Wilbury,” it is difficult to explain or even to remember why this raspy-voiced college dropout from Hibbing, Minnesota was once officially awarded an honorary degree by Princeton University for being the voice of his generation or why he used to be such a favorite subject of countless english doctoral theses and late-night arguments.

Fortunately, Columbia, which issued the magnificent Biograph a few years ago, has issued additional compelling proof of the genius that was once Bob Dylan in its new 3-CD boxed set Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3. Import collectors for some years have had access to these tracks from sources known only to them. However, there is no comparision between the pristine, remastered sound quality on this official release and hissy secondary import sources. What’s more, this set only scratches the surface of the mountain of outstanding unreleased Dylan material from the 1960s and 1970s, and apparently Columbia promises to put out more in the future. For further research, consult Paul Cable’s excellent Bob Dylan: His Unreleased Recordings (Schirmer Books, New York, 1978) for an excellent review of all unreleased Dylan material.

The set is arranged chronologically, and comes in a nicely packaged box supplemented by a long sixty-six page booklet containing rare photographs, outstanding liner notes and exhaustive session documentation. “Volume I” and the first 6 tracks of “Volume II” deal with Dylan’s “acoustic” period 1961-64, and represent the political and idealistic Dylan. There is an embarrassment of riches here. “He Was a Friend of Mine” and “Man on the Street” speak to Dylan’s early concern with the poor and the homeless. “No More Auction Block,” a rare early live track, reminds us of Dylan’s commitment to civil rights. “Talkin Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues,” “Let Me Die in My Footsteps,” “Talkin John Birch Paranoid Blues,” and “Who Killed Davy Moore,” all pulled off his second album and barred from the Ed Sullivan Show for political and censorship reasons, are all here officially for the first time. There are a number of other gems, including “Walls of Red Wing,” “Walkin’ Down the Line,” and “When the Ship Comes In.” Turning to Volume II, more acoustic treasures abound. “Seven Curses” and “Farewell Angelina” are excellent outtakes from the 1964 period, and there is a heretofore-unknown solo version of “Mama You Been on My Mind.”

The bulk of Volume II and the first few tracks of Volume III is taken up with outtakes from Highway 61 Revisited, Bringing It All Back Home, Blood on the Tracks and Desire, which by general consensus are Dylan’s finest albums. Basically, this material is indispensable to any modern rock collection. “She’s Your Lover Now” is the best song never released by Dylan and the Band, recorded at the famous 1965-1966 unfinished Band sessions cut short by Dylan’s world tour and motorcycle accident. The alternate autobiographical take of “Tangled Up in Blue” is here, along with the first recorded version of “Like a Rolling Stone,” and an alternate take of “Idiot Wind.”

The long-rumoured session with Dylan and the Beatles also shows up here, in the form of an outtake recorded with George Harrison on guitar, “If Not for You,” which is far superior to the released version. “Call Letter Blues,” a haunting Blood on the Tracks outtake, is outstanding. There are a number of other Highway 61 Revisited outtakes long known to collectors but now available for the first time officially, all of them featuring the backup sound that made Dylan famous as a rock star with “Like a Rolling Stone,” including the late Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper and members of the Band. Turning to Volume III, an alternate take of “If You See Her Say Hello,” followed by an outstanding unreleased Desire outtake, “Golden Loom,” open the set. “Seven Days,” a live Rolling Thunder track, is likewise excellent.

The balance of Volume III is taken up with outtakes and unreleased materials from Dylan’s born-again period through to his 80s material. This later Dylan material, consisting largely of Slow Train, Infidels and Empire Burlesque outtakes, is less consistent and consequently less compelling than the earlier Dylan material in Volumes I and II, but there are interesting tracks, including “Angelina,” Someone’s Got a Hold of My Heart” and “Blind Willie McTell.”

A brief rundown of material which is already available on European import which Columbia may consider releasing in future sets includes the famous Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall, 1966 with the Band; the 1964 Halloween Concert in New York with Joan Baez; Live with the Butterfield Blues Band at the Newport Folk Festival 1965; and a large amount of 1961-66 live acoustic material, some of which was released on Biograph. There is also plenty of Rolling Thunder material, including duet material with Joan Baez, which deserves to be released as well.

Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Volumes I-III unleashes one instant classic after another, and the impression it leaves this reviewer with is a staggering, unpredictable virtuosity which reminds us of Dylan’s importance on musical, historical, literary and cultural grounds. This set is an indispensible addition to any popular music collection.

[historical note: the Royal Albert Hall 1996 concert, 1964 Halloween Live concert from NYC and Newport Folk Festival material were all eventually released. The film of the Newport Folk Festival appearance material from 1965 was part of the core of the Scorcese documentary on dylan that was released to PBS and DVD last year in 2008, which was released to critical acclaim. Bob Dylan is now 67 and still tours the world. You can check on his progress on www.bobdylan.com].

THE EAGLES FAMILY OF COACHES IN THE NFL

The clash between Eagles head coach Andy Reid and his former assistant coach (and now Minnesota Head Coach) and good friend Brad Childress in the playoffs yesterday highlights a new trend in the NFL—the Philadelphia Eagles family of coaches in the NFL. First, there are the Buddy Ryan assistant coaches—Jon Gruden, formerly of Oakland (where he went to the Super Bowl) and now of Tampa Bay (where he also went to the Super Bowl, and narrowly missed the playoffs this year) and Jeff Fischer of Tennessee, the NFL’s longest tenured coach, who is the AFC’s top seeded team this year, a regular playoff contender, and a former Super Bowl coach and AFC champion. Former Eagles head coach and Buddy Ryan assistant coach Ray Rhodes continues to work as an assistant coach in the league. Buddy Ryan’s two sons now are assistant coaches in the league. Second, there are the ex-Eagles—such as Herm Edwards of Kansas City, and former head coach Dick Vermeil, who used to coach at St. Louis, and won a Super Bowl there. Ex-Eagle John Bunting was a college head coach at North Carolina. And then you have the Andy Reid connections–Harbaugh at Baltimore, who used to coach special teams with the Eagles, and all the connections of Reid through Green Bay as well as Philly like Childress at Minnesota and Holmgren in Seattle.

There are probably many more connections to the Eagles that could be found, but it certainly is illuminating how many coaches and assistant coaches in the NFL (and in the college ranks) now have philly ties. And we used to think this was a college hoops town with a lot of college and pro hoops coaches everywhere. Who knew we were a spawning ground for college coaches. Guess it’s a spawning ground of football coaches as well for the NFL.

–art kyriazis philly/south jersey
home of the world champion phillies
Happy New Year 2009

Review of “Syd the Karaoke Kid”

Psychedelia Reborn
author: Arthur Athanasios Kyriazis

originally posted at:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/carpuzi

Syd the Karaoke Kid is a tremendous tour-de-force, an album which reminds us of the Kinks in their 1966 glory, with “Waterloo Sunset” and “You Really Got me Now” type tunes throughout. Syd also pays homage to Sixties Garage Punk like the 13th Floor Elevators; to the Blues of Chicago; and to LA Psychedelia, like the Doors. What an Album, and what a tremendous accomplishment for Syd Arthur!!!

John Kapelos aka “Syd the Karaoke Kid”

1 Syd, the Karaoke Kid
2 There’s Always a Girl
3 The Record Store
4 Seven Ways From Sunday
5 When the Drum Machine Was King
6 Inimitable Spin
7 Years
8 Find Myself
9 1974
10 Yeah Dan
11 The Invention
12 Syd, Reprise
13 When Beautiful People Do Ugly Things
14 The Starlet
15 Let’s Split
16 The Record Store Pt ii
17 Looking For Love
18 When the Drum Machine Was King – Finale

Syd Arthur
Syd, The Karaoke Kid

© 1997 carpuzi muzi (634479187032)

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The premiere disc from actor John Kapelos’ alter ego, Syd Arthur co-produced by Wings drummer Denny Seiwell. This wildly eclectic cd reflects Kapelos’ remarkable range of Jazz, Rock, Brazillian, Cajun, Big Band, Folk and 60′s Rock.

this is a superb cd!

Johnny Kapelos is an acclaimed actor and musician, and a former star of the second city improvisational theater of Chicago, as well as one cool right on dude. He also plays a mean bass guitar and can rock the blues all night long. check out www.karpuzi.com

–art kyriazis philly/south jersey
Home of the world champion philadelphia phillies