5.27.2005
Kid Charlemagne
Three weeks since the last update, eh? Those who know me know of my general inability to follow through, to the point where I hope one day to be able to refer to it in a sentence as my "famous inability to follow through" without any fear of hyperbole. Since the fifth grade I have come up with more ideas for projects than I care to recount, projects that all would have changed the world (I am confident) had someone seen them through to completion. When I tell friends or family that I have recently embarked on Project X, I can see their eyes glaze over knowingly, in the same sad manner that Dodgers and Yankees fans probably felt whenever Steve Howe said he was quitting the blow, this time for real.
It is one thing to read your favorite site regularly without knowing Thing One about the author(s) involved, perhaps coming to wonder why the output has seemed diminished or otherwise lacking recently, and then suddenly finding out that so-and-so has been taking time off to write a book, whatshisname is shutting down his site after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, and that lady with the web site (capitalized perhaps?) just decides that the thrill is gone.
In this case, a new relocation to a new job with an accompanying new schedule has dealt a body blow to the once-regular MLBeat production schedule. The past three weeks have marked my reintroduction to the 9-to-5 lifestyle -- possibly pedestrian to you, but for me it's like emigrating to a new planet. This adds difficulty to the regular production of MLBeat Game Reports, for example, since your standard East Coast game kicks off about an hour before I leave work, and about two hours before I make it home to Lappy.
(In-Person Game Reports were bound from Day One to be infrequent due to financial considerations, but I did take in a Bay Area special this past weekend, Giants def. A's 3-2. I can add very little of substance, except to say that the Giants start their nosebleed seats at $24 a pop, plus $6 in convenience fees, and are completely justified in doing so because of the spectacular panoramic view of the Bay they provide. On a clear sunny afternoon such as this one, they could probably double the price and get away with it. I was spellbound to the point of not even really noticing the game.)
So, we've come to the question that hangs over the first State of the Beat: is it worthwhile to continue this particular project, a project that attracts no readership, changes nobody's lives, and costs nothing to produce except for the occasional few hours from a man whose time has turned out not to be valuable anyway? The most appropriate lesson here comes, as it so often does, from a near-incidental subplot in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle. In this case we have Hal, the father, uncovering an old ham-radio console from his college days while cleaning out the garage. Nostalgia sweeps over him, and soon he has revived his long-gone persona, Kid Charlemagne (a neat little reference), who uses his spotty broadcast signal -- and every inch of his three-block radius -- to stick it to the Man. Kid Charlemagne is of course his only listener, straining to even get his own family to notice his efforts. The inevitable joke arrives when the FCC comes calling, dressed akin to the Men in Black, to forcibly shut down Hal with a vengeance because he was "too real." We then learn that Hal's neighbor Craig had been an avid listener all along, but it's an unnecessary plot twist: it is enough to see Hal sweating from exhaust and exertion as his diatribes roll on into the night, convinced he was bringing the American heirarchy to its knees.
I could discuss baseball all day long, and until that glorious day arrives when someone offers to pay me to do so exclusively for them, I see no reason to stop doing so here. Regarding content I will continue to post what I please, when I please, but I'll cut a deal with you right here and now: the first reader to contact me with any sort of creative input whatsoever will see his or her wishes fulfilled, to the extent that those wishes are reasonable.
Not all at once, now.
It is one thing to read your favorite site regularly without knowing Thing One about the author(s) involved, perhaps coming to wonder why the output has seemed diminished or otherwise lacking recently, and then suddenly finding out that so-and-so has been taking time off to write a book, whatshisname is shutting down his site after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, and that lady with the web site (capitalized perhaps?) just decides that the thrill is gone.
In this case, a new relocation to a new job with an accompanying new schedule has dealt a body blow to the once-regular MLBeat production schedule. The past three weeks have marked my reintroduction to the 9-to-5 lifestyle -- possibly pedestrian to you, but for me it's like emigrating to a new planet. This adds difficulty to the regular production of MLBeat Game Reports, for example, since your standard East Coast game kicks off about an hour before I leave work, and about two hours before I make it home to Lappy.
(In-Person Game Reports were bound from Day One to be infrequent due to financial considerations, but I did take in a Bay Area special this past weekend, Giants def. A's 3-2. I can add very little of substance, except to say that the Giants start their nosebleed seats at $24 a pop, plus $6 in convenience fees, and are completely justified in doing so because of the spectacular panoramic view of the Bay they provide. On a clear sunny afternoon such as this one, they could probably double the price and get away with it. I was spellbound to the point of not even really noticing the game.)
So, we've come to the question that hangs over the first State of the Beat: is it worthwhile to continue this particular project, a project that attracts no readership, changes nobody's lives, and costs nothing to produce except for the occasional few hours from a man whose time has turned out not to be valuable anyway? The most appropriate lesson here comes, as it so often does, from a near-incidental subplot in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle. In this case we have Hal, the father, uncovering an old ham-radio console from his college days while cleaning out the garage. Nostalgia sweeps over him, and soon he has revived his long-gone persona, Kid Charlemagne (a neat little reference), who uses his spotty broadcast signal -- and every inch of his three-block radius -- to stick it to the Man. Kid Charlemagne is of course his only listener, straining to even get his own family to notice his efforts. The inevitable joke arrives when the FCC comes calling, dressed akin to the Men in Black, to forcibly shut down Hal with a vengeance because he was "too real." We then learn that Hal's neighbor Craig had been an avid listener all along, but it's an unnecessary plot twist: it is enough to see Hal sweating from exhaust and exertion as his diatribes roll on into the night, convinced he was bringing the American heirarchy to its knees.
I could discuss baseball all day long, and until that glorious day arrives when someone offers to pay me to do so exclusively for them, I see no reason to stop doing so here. Regarding content I will continue to post what I please, when I please, but I'll cut a deal with you right here and now: the first reader to contact me with any sort of creative input whatsoever will see his or her wishes fulfilled, to the extent that those wishes are reasonable.
Not all at once, now.
