~ The JeanMarie: Blog ~

Ken Griffy Jr. We Hardly Knew You.

paddy — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:25:51 +0000

Since the start of April I’ve been steadily getting more and more obsessed with professional baseball. It tends to happen every spring and then I go through a phase where it stops being interesting right around the all-star break and then I pick it back up during the pennant race and into the playoffs. What can I say, the season is just a little too long for me to maintain focus for an entire season. Anyway I digress, so far a couple of things have come to note, my favorite team the Toronto Blue Jays have great pitching, a terrible manager and could use a couple of bats in the lineup, The Marlins are way better than anyone thought, the Yankees young pitchers are worse than anyone thought, and Cincinnati has too many outfielders.

The Reds best prospect, a guy named Jay Bruce, is stuck in the minors because the Reds have a bevy of veteran outfielders stuck in front of him. According to all scouts Bruce is one of the three or four best baseball players that is currently in the minor league. The guy is major league ready but the Reds don’t have a place for him on the everyday major league team. On the major league team the reds currently feature 5 fielders with significant major league experience; Ryan Freel, Adam Dunn, Jerry Hairston, Corey Patterson and Ken Griffey Jr. Of all of these names only one sticks out as a legitimate all-star candidate, Ken Griffey Jr. Well I’m here to tell you today that Junior is no all-star.

Ken Griffey Jr. reminds me of a kid we’ll call “Dave” that was in my class from grade 3 through high school. When I switched to my new elementary school in grade 3 it was clear right away that Dave was cool, he was naturally the best athlete in the class, he was the tallest of all the boys, and he was nice even though he could have easily been a bully.

Dave became one of my best friends through elementary school and all was good until 8^th grade when we were writing a test and Dave leaned over and asked me for answers. I didn’t think anything of it, generally I was a better student than so I gave him the answer, we were caught and punished. In the grand scheme of things nothing happened to us, we got detention we had to rewrite the test but nothing serious. But I think that this mistake in judgment may have changed our relationship. That September we went to high school, and Dave was no longer the tallest or the most athletic. It seemed that while everyone else kept growing Dave peaked in 6^th grade, he was 5’11’’ and was still a strong athlete but he could never really get down the more complicated high school play books for all of the sports team. By 10 grade Dave was out of varsity sports altogether, he was still a nice guy but he had become one of those people that was in the background more often than not. He was never again the best player on any sports teams, and he was never the life of the party. I only really thought about him because he recently sent me a facebook message letting me know that he was getting married this summer to his high school girl friend. It was nice to know that he was doing ok, but it was really the first time I’d thought of him since I graduated high school 7 years ago.

Ken Griffey Jr. and Dave both seemed like they were destined for greatness, but I will remember both more for what they became. They actually have a lot in common, both were super stars (in their own right) in the early 90’s who couldn’t maintain the success they’d showed as the years passed, both seemed to have pinnacled right before a move (Griffey to Cincinnati, Dave to high school), and both enjoy wearing backwards baseball caps. Perhaps the worst thing however is that both just sort of went away and became normal. They both just became people.

Lyrical Snipets from the Up and Coming…

jordan — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:40:55 +0000

CLONES

It was a sentence from a book that none of us had ever read

Telling us how animals can feed upon the thoughts inside our heads

As of yet it’s not quite clear if they keep feeding while we’re eating them

No one ever tells us things we wouldn’t figure out in the end.

We’re just a god fearing people with ulterior motives

There’s no sense in feeding what you cannot hide

But if we keep our god fortune from pulling us under

Then we just might make it home alive.

The Right Time of Year

curtis — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:12:15 +0000

I have to say that the last 2 months in Miami have been one huge music party for myself and the crew. It began with Langerado in March which I have attended the last couple of years but totally out did itself this year with four day and nights of intense music till 4 at night. I think we all decided that The Jean Marie will be playing next year.

WMC. Wow. I had no idea. A few of us are neighbors to the Ultra Music organizers and I found myself there on the first friday. Fuckin’ crazy. The kids stay up days at a time and rage. Bicentenial Park is set up with eight stages and you get blasted from every which angle. For reasons I wont go into my heart beated faster than ever for about 18 hours and although I don’t see myself there next year, it was definitly an experiance.

Theirs more from this past March that I’ll get into next time but until then this is what I’m looking forward to-

SunFest West Palm is gonna be a blast April 30th to May 4th. The music line-up definitely has its moments, particularly Morris Day and the Time. If you like Prince as much as I do don’t miss these guys. We are playing with them Hellogoodbye, Matisyahu, and many more on that Sunday the Fourth and coulden’t be more excited! The Time! yeah!

The peoples will be out all weekend and I don’t plan on leaving until I see Radiohead the monday following.

Rockin at Churchill’s

richard — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:55:03 +0000

Thanks to everyone who came out to see us last night at Churchill’s Pub. We had a hell of a rockin’ time. For those who couldn’t make it, we played with our good friend, the exponentially amazing and lovely Rachel Goodrich who is quite the force to be reckoned with. Also on the bill were 6 Pack Deep, a 7-piece (including 4 horns) ska-laced band from Baton Rouge, LA. Any band with 4 horns that opens with The Imperial March and closes with Raining Blood is a winner in my book.

Naturally, I brought my camera but took no photos. Natch.

-Richard out!

Greeting From Sydney

paddy — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:08:08 +0000

Well Boys I landed in Sydney today and the most peculiar thing happened. I got on the plane on March 5th, 2008 and off the plane March 7th (haven’t yet been able to confirm the year). I hate to say it but I think I time traveled. Anyway the future looks glorious. Until I see you again I will continue to pimp your record on a 3rd continent in less than a year, (I’ll try to get the other 7 continent pimped before the end of the year).

Paddy Out!

Internet Explorer compliance

richard — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:02:46 +0000

Alright, so Internet Explorer 7 appears to be displaying the blog correctly.

Can someone out there please test the blog (reading, posting comments, etc) in IE 6?

Please post any comments to let me know of errors…

The JeanMarie blog is live!

richard — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:43:04 +0000

Well, it took me ALL GOD DAMN DAY but the JeanMarie blog is up and running. I’m sure there will be bugs discovered as things go along, so be sure to comment here if you come across any strange behaviours or visual flaws, and I’ll attempt to fix them.

Things in the works: awesome image viewers, sound players. These are low on my priority list in the grand scheme of the website, but they will eventually get implemented. In the meantime…enjoy.

First post!