September 29, 2017 – Nats 6, Pirates 1 – Nationals Park

http://m.nationals.mlb.com/news/article/256740958/stephen-strasburg-nationals-defeat-pirates/

 

Attendance: 36,339

Duration: 3:06

Weather: 72 degrees, Clear

Wind: 5 MPH Out to Center

Umpires: HP: Paul Nauert. 1B: Carlos Torres. 2B: Chris Guccione. 3B: Dana DeMuth.

 

Section 312, Row D, Seats 11-13 – great seats, two sections closer to home plate than our regular location

 

Notes – almost a replay of our last game: dominant performance by Strasburg, 2 homers by Zim, close game early until the Nats’ offense finally arrived … but cooler and earlier-ending, with a lot more people, presumably due largely to the beer stein giveaway (which we arrived too late to get) … Stras only allowed 2 hits in 7⅔ innings, retiring the first 14 batters and not allowing a runner past second base … Nats scored a run in the first on singles by Rendon and Murphy and Zim’s double … added 3 in the 6^th, capped by Zim’s 2-run HR, and 2 in the 8^th on back-to-back solo shots by Zimmerman (who had 2 doubles in addition to his 2 round-trippers) and Werth

#157 The Big Heat – Stan Ridgway (1986)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZfNo30VwNw

 

You can have roman noir and film noir – Stan Ridgway is the king of music noir, if that’s an actual thing. (It’s no accident that the title of this song is identical to that of the 1953 movie starring Glenn Ford.) This one is Ridgway’s best, but if you like it, check out “Peg And Pete And Me”, “Drive, She Said”, and “Camouflage”.

#156 (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone – The Monkees (1967)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mZ_YDzoKmE

 

Like many other red-blooded American 13-year-olds, I refused to watch the 1966 TV series starring the “Prefab Four” (who didn’t even play their own instruments!), which we saw as a cynical corporate creation to make tons of money and drive our female counterparts crazy. (They were, of course, wildly successful on both counts.) I did, however, actually buy two of their 45s on the strength of their B-sides: this one (which backed “I’m A Believer”) and “Words”. Later in life, I did come to appreciate the quality of the material, arrangements, and production of much of their oeuvre.  It didn’t hurt that “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (by the always-excellent team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and the A-side of “Words”) could be interpreted as a somewhat sarcastic ode to the college where I spent four mostly wonderful years.

 

Two things really make the song great: the overall garage-band sound, and the drum solo. It was first recorded by Paul Revere & The Raiders, but I didn’t hear their version until a few years ago. I still like the Monkees’ rendition better.

#155 Don’t Hang Up Your Dancing Shoes – Iain Matthews (1978)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MkQwa1IKP0

 

I remember picking up Ian’s Stealin’ Home album (he only used one “I” in his first name back then) for a buck in the cutout bin of an Ames store in Prince George’s Plaza a few years after it was released, largely on the strength of his hit single “Shake It”. It turned out to be one of my best musical bargains, featuring the title track and a few other Matthews originals, along with some well-chosen covers, such as Robert Palmer’s “Gimme An Inch”. “Dancing Shoes” and “Shake It” were both written by one Terence Boylan, a fact that intrigued me enough to almost buy Boylan’s album featuring his versions when I ran across it in a Fairfax warehouse. A couple years ago I finally did get a Boylan compilation CD, which had some other good material but was marred by severe overproduction, most likely due to the number of well-known session musicians that were featured.

Ari Hest w/ Ken Yates – AMP, 9/24/2017

Great “VIP” seats, at the rear of a table in the front row, near the center

 

Although Ari Hest featured strong singing and guitar work (excepting his three-song detour to the piano mid-set) throughout his 70-minute show, he saved most of the best for the end, finishing the main set with “I’ve Got You”, and then encoring with “Heart Of A Lion” from his recent album Natural and a nice cover of Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years”. My other favorite was “The Weight” (a Hest original, not the Band tune), which appears most recently on his Grammy-nominated Silver Skies Blue duet album with Judy Collins.

 

Ken Yates, a Canadian singer-songwriter who’s played a number of house concerts in this area, provided a 40-minute opening set whose most memorable songs included “Huntsville”, “Keep Your Head Down”, and “Roll Me On Home.”

Why college football is more fun than the NFL

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2017/09/21/its-two-different-games-why-college-football-is-more-fun-than-the-nfl/?utm_term=.af9e9ff0f342

September 17, 2017 – Nats 7, Dodgers 1 – Nationals Park

http://m.nationals.mlb.com/news/article/254756660/ryan-zimmerman-stephen-strasburg-spark-nats/?topicId=27118414

 

Attendance: 29,155

Game Time: 3:22

Weather: 78 degrees, clear

Wind: 4 mph

Umpires: Home Plate - Hunter Wendelstedt, First Base - Adrian Johnson, Second Base - Gabe Morales, Third Base - Gary Cederstrom

 

Notes – ESPN Sunday night game, so first for us in a while to start well after sundown … Strasburg finally gave up a run in the top of the 2^nd, ending his 35-inning streak of scoreless innings, but otherwise blanked the Dodgers through 6, despite allowing 3 stolen bases … he also contributed at the plate, running up Hyun-Jin Ryu’s pitch count with 2 outs in the 5^th with a 9-pitch at-bat ending in a walk, forcing LA manager Dave Roberts to lift his starter after he then walked Trea Turner … Nats offense, quiet while losing 4 out of 5 games since last Sunday’s clincher, finally woke up the next inning, when Zim hit a 3-run homer after a Rendon walk and a Murphy single … added one insurance run in the 7^th, and 3 more the next inning on a solo HR by Zim and a 2-run shot by Adam Lind, who set the Nats career record for pinch-hit homers with his 4^th

How Silicon Valley is erasing your individuality

Why some of us refuse to get Facebook accounts or Amazon Echo devices …

"Facebook has nurtured two hive minds, each residing in an informational ecosystem that yields head-nodding agreement and penalizes dissenting views. This is the phenomenon that the entrepreneur and author Eli Pariser famously termed the “Filter Bubble” — how Facebook mines our data to keep giving us the news and information we crave, creating a feedback loop that pushes us deeper and deeper into our own amen corners." https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-silicon-valley-is-erasing-your-individuality/2017/09/08/a100010a-937c-11e7-aace-04b862b2b3f3_story.html?utm_term=.0400e12e33ea

Betsy DeVos could change sexual assault policy for the better

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/betsy-devos-could-change-sexual-assault-policy-for-the-better/2017/09/08/893adc04-94ce-11e7-89fa-bb822a46da5b_story.html?utm_term=.0b0c52f502d1

September 10, 2017 – Nats 3, Phillies 2 – Nationals Park

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/253530188/nationals-clinch-national-league-east/

 

Attendance: 32,627

Game Time: 2:16

Weather: 69 degrees, partly cloudy

Wind: 5 mph

Umpires: Home Plate - Sean Barber, First Base - Tripp Gibson, Second Base - Jeff Kellogg, Third Base - Will Little

 

Nationals notes – Stephen Strasburg extended his scoreless streak to 34 innings, allowing only 3 baserunners through 8 innings, none of whom reached second … offense broke through in the sixth, on a leadoff triple by Turner and doubles by Adrian Sanchez and Victor Robles … Turner homered in the eighth for the final run

 

Phillies notes – Maikel Franco’s singles in the fifth and eighth were the only hits off Strasburg … Ben Lively pitched the entire game, matching goose eggs with Strasburg through the first 5 … Phils rallied for 2 runs in the ninth off Ryan Madson, on singles by Crawford, Herrera, and Nick Williams

 

Other – shortest game of the year in Nats Park brought the team to the brink of clinching the NL East, pending the outcome of Miami’s game in Atlanta, which was tied 5-5 as the Nats completed their victory … Marlins took the lead on Dee Gordon’s second HR of the year and later added 2 more, but the Braves rallied for 3 in the bottom of the 9^th to send the game into extra innings … finally, almost 90 minutes after the game ended in Washington, Lane Adams hit a 2-run walkoff homer for Atlanta in the bottom of the 11^th to clinch the division for the Nats … we were among the hundreds of fans who stayed around to watch the Miami-Atlanta game on the big video screen and join in the celebration