( 2:42 PM )
Tuesday, August 12. 1ish. Music Currently Playing: The Mars Volta, Deloused in the Comatorium
Just finished reading Greg's Mets' Story and really enjoyed it. I think this may be because of the manner in which it vastly differs from my own recent Major League Baseball experiences.... Have traveled up to Bank One Ballpark a couple of times this year to see the Diamondbacks and while some of the games were relatively exciting, and the technological and architectural wonder of the stadium itself is impressive (I mean they can close the roof off and air condition the place!), the sheer amount of corporate greed that abounds is so overwhelming it distracts from watching the actual games being played.
Now, I've never been to Shea or Yankee Stadium (hell, I've never been to New York) so I can't really say one way or the other whether the "Californication" of those parks has happened or not. Still, from Greg's description, it sounds like baseball in that part of the country, even shitty Mets baseball, is still at least baseball, still a pastime, still about fathers and sons, seventh-inning stretches, and yelling at your favorite hated players, and not, as it is here, a three hour advertisment to a captive audience. Here in Arizona, baseball is just another money-machine: there is not a single empty space in BOB that isn't covered with some bit of advertising or corporate logo, and the giant megotron screen that broadcasts player stats and instant replays, and lots and lots of regular old tv commericals is almost bigger than the field the players are playing on... My feelings are that if I wanted to watch the game on a tv screen I wouldn't have made the hour drive north to Phoenix, and at least at home I wouldn't have to stand in a line to buy a six dollar beer between innings.
I'm no pinko commie.... Ok, well, maybe a little--I'm anti-war, anti-Bush, in general anti-Republican, I'm registered Green, so whatever label you'd like to use.... But I do have a basic understanding of the overall benefits of capitalism--like access to better medicine, food, and general standard of living. Still, as a compasssionate human being I am continually disgusted with the worst excesses of it, and I am not just talking about the tyranny of oppression it creates between the wealthy and the working poor that you can see living so close to Mexico (where NAFTA has turned the borderlands into a death zone from the thousands of immigrants fleeing the poverty of maquilladores and factories just south of the U.S.)
But in addition to this, it seems like everything I care about.... music, books, baseball, is inevitably bought out by some mega-conglomerate, repackaged, remarketed with slick logos and advertising, and then sold back to me at double the price. The same thing that is being done to baseball has happened to the rodeo here in Tucson. No matter if you're against the general animal cruelty or not... Fiesta De Los Vaqueros is a serious cultural tradition here, since the 19th century when this was literally a true frontier cowboy town, and even when I was growing up I remember it as, despite what you may imagine, not just a bunch of tobacco spittin' hicks choking livestock with rope, but a really fascinatingly dangerous contact sport. But they got a hold of it, and corrupted it, burned out it's spirit in the name of making another dollar. Now it's The Verizon Wireless Tucson Rodeo Brought to you by Wrangler Jeans held at the Montain Dew Rodeo Grounds. It just kills me...
Anyhow.... checkout Mars Volta if you get a chance.... it's a couple of members from At The Drive-In (I scored a 36 on the snob test btw, making me an elitist snob) but it includes Flea on bass, with Rick Rubin producing. Some serious emo-experimental rock with a nice classic-rock integrity... several of the songs remind me of old-school Yes (reminiscent of Heart of the Sunrise type stuff.) Perhaps a full review in the near future.
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