The Freedom of Music

Reducing the Book of Mormon to Just One Verse

2012-01-22T08:56:00.000-08:00

While planning a home teaching message this month I started thinking, "If you had to define the Book of Mormon using only one verse from it, what verse would it be?" Perhaps that's an impossible goal, but I kept thinking about it and have seven candidates.

Which of these would you vote for, or what verse not listed here would you nominate?

1 Nephi 1:20
And when the Jews heard these things they were angry with him; yea, even as with the prophets of old, whom they had cast out, and stoned, and slain; and they also sought his life, that they might take it away. But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.
(Emphasized because this statement can be viewed as the thesis for the entire Book of Mormon)

2 Nephi 25:26
And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.

2 Nephi 31:20
Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

Alma 7:14
Now I say unto you that ye must repent, and be born again; for the Spirit saith if ye are not born again ye cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye may be washed from your sins, that ye may have faith on the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, who is mighty to save and to cleanse from all unrighteousness.

3 Nephi 27:14
And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil.

Moroni 7:48
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with [charity], which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.

Moroni 10:32
Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

If I had to pick one, I'd probably favor 2 Nephi 31 verse....

A Mormon President?

2012-01-11T13:45:00.000-08:00

Now that Mitt Romney has won in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the political press is starting to crown him the eventual nominee. I guess the odds are likely in his favor, but we'll see what happens in the next month or so.

If he does become the Republican nominee, I like his chances against the incumbent And, of course, if he wins the election, he'd be the first Mormon (or, if you prefer, Latter-day Saint) in the White House. So, what does that look like?

I suppose a Mormon president still serves wine...champagne...coffee...or whatever is served at the official "state dinners." Don't want to depart too radically from custom, right? Still, tax payers won't be footing the bill for his own quaffing.
Mrs. Romney won't forever be linked with a rehab clinic....at least, you wouldn't expect.
Does he take "worthy" Mormon Secret Service agents with him to the temple or does he just forgo temple attendance for four to eight years? Or...maybe he just goes "incognito"?
Would nightstands in the White House offer a free Book of Mormon along with the Gideon's Bible? Maybe not...don't want to raise hackles on people obsessed with the separation of church and state.

Being a Mormon myself, I don't mind the idea of Romney for president. I am not dead set on it. Romney seems qualified to me: Undeniable leadership qualities, financial and economic acumen, and (as The Economist said), he vaguely resembles Buzz Lightyear (well, they think so, anyway).

I suppose Gingrich could be a good president, but he also strikes me as rather weird. I'd have a hard time taking him seriously.

One thing I find interesting about Romney and the reports of his chances in the media. I often hear something like "he says what people want to hear." Of course, Romney has been accused of weather-vaning (AKA, flip flopping), and I'm prepared to accept that. Outright pandering is rather off-putting, isn't it? And yet, how do you know if someone is talking common sense or just saying what you want to hear? I'm thinking they'd sound about the same, right?

Before the year is out, we'll know if American's are comfortable electing someone for president who was named after a piece of athletic equipment...

(Yes, I know it's not his first name)

2011 Highs and Lows

2011-12-31T21:35:00.000-08:00

These are roughly in chronological order....

The Highs

The King's Speech
Starting my (free) subscription to The Economist. I feel smarter already
Packers won the Super Bowl
Good times at Gourmandise
The U2 concert (finally!)
Running five miles (all at once!) for the first time
Harry Potter finished strong
Getting under 160 pounds
Interviewing Bono
My baby starting kindergarten (I guess that's a high)
Getting my gallbladder out (it went smoothly and I don't have to worry about gallbladder attacks anymore)
The Tree of Life
The Cardinals' amazing post-season run and World Championship season
Discovering a very wicked, completely evil recipe for Blondies
The Black Keys released a new album
A delightful Christmas, thanks to so many supporting hands
Lots of good books

The Lows

Utter nonsense at work, including a micromanager as Co-CEO (yes, I said co-CEO). I don't recall seeing "micromanager" on a list of desirable CEO qualities in any management book.
Getting two crowns from the dentist. The actual procedure wasn't horrible, but my wallet felt my pain.
Getting laid off.
Albert leaving the Cardinals.
Packers couldn't beat the Chiefs.
And plenty of other stuff I won't even remember soon.

"El Camino" three weeks later

2011-12-31T09:43:00.000-08:00

When I first listened to The Black Keys' album El Camino, I wrote an "in the moment" review. Now that I've had the album for three+ weeks and have absorbed the tunes a little more, I have the following observations:

From my first listen, I felt "Gold on the Ceiling" was the best track. While it's still a solid one, I would probably say "Sister" is the best. "Gold on the Ceiling" may be just a little too "commercial" to be lastingly great. "Sister" is just a little more meaty and serious.
The overall vibe of the album feels like retro soul or something like that. It may be semi-plagiaristic, but not to the degree where you can identify the influences very easily (except that "Last Dance with Marry Jane" guitar piece in the middle of "Little Black Submarines."
The album was recorded at Dan's Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville, and there's a "bigness" to the sound that I find really endearing. It's a rich, full sound that greatly compliments the Keys' sound.
I find many of the songs pop into my head at random moments, which probably means they are catchy, clever tunes. Brothers was like that to some degree when I first got it, but not like this. El Camino is almost certainly the Keys' catchiest album.

I have been able to not overdose on the album. Maybe it helps that I haven't been in my car a lot since buying the album.

Crazy present Paige got for Christmas

2011-12-30T21:13:00.000-08:00

Paige enjoys Play-Doh, and she says she wants to be a dentist....Who knew you could combine the two?

Yep, you make teeth for the "head", stick them in his mouth, drill holes with them, put in filling, and even add braces.

The description says "Make going to the dentist a little less scary with the DOCTOR DRILL ’N FILL playset! Your child can make braces and brush teeth for the included head with ears! The playset comes with fun tools for all kinds of dental play and three cans of PLAY-DOH modeling compound."

I was actually pretty interested in trying it out myself, and did, but it didn't hold my attention too long. I think they need to improve the teeth-making aspect of it. They should include little plastic "roots" to help the teeth stick better in the "head."

LOST questions that still bug me

2011-12-29T11:33:00.000-08:00

When LOST wrapped up last year, I planned to start re-watching the series from beginning to end. In due course I started with Season 1...and barely finished it about six weeks ago...maybe a little less.

Today I finished Season 2, so I guess I'm picking up a little momentum. All this free time being laid off, I guess.

It's been good to go back and rewatch. I'm getting close to my favorite extended period of the entire series, which is from the middle (or so) of Season 3 to the end of Season 4. Much of Season 5 was good, too.

Anyways, I've had a post about this before, but these are unanswered LOST questions that still rankle:

How did DHARMA know about the Island? Why were they there?
Why didn't the "headquarters" for DHARMA know their island personnel had been "purged"? (i.e., why was food still dropped on the Island?)
Why are “The Others” on the island? Who or what is behind them, as they seemed to have significant resources?

I suppose they may have just been the protectors of the Island, to help Richard and Jacob, but that seems too simplistic.

Who built the big statue?
Why was Libby in the crazy house? Did she know Hurley from there, or was she too drugged up to have any clue?
Was there ulterior motive in Libby letting Desmond use her boat in the race around the world? Or was she just kindhearted?
How did Penny know what to have her two dudes look for (season 2 finale)?
In season 2, why/how was Walt appearing to Shannon? Was it actually him?

That's it for now...Actually not as many as I thought, but chances are I'll be adding to this post as I keep watching.

Wise Men and Women Seek Him Still

2011-12-20T12:28:00.000-08:00

The High Priests Group in my ward was responsible for putting on the Christmas party this year. I had some rough ideas for a message we could share. I put together a PowerPoint with the script below. A member of the group did a voice over (someone else had audio equipment to do that).

I realized it could be a nice blog post, too. Merry Christmas!!!

Many years before the meridian of time and the coming of the Son of God, Old Testament prophets gave witness to his role as savior of the world. They foretold His sinless life, as well as His birth and His death for all mankind.

The book of Numbers prophesied that “There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel. Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion.” Numbers also teaches us that Moses raised a type of Christ in the wilderness, so that all might look and live. In the twenty-second Psalm, David wrote, “For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.” David also foresaw that “in [his] thirst they gave [him] vinegar to drink.”

Isaiah says “he was he was wounded for our transgressions”, and that he “gave [his] back to the smiters, and [his] cheeks.”

Zechariah says in the last days, “One shall say unto [Christ], What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”

But before the Garden of Gethsemane, before Calvary’s cross, and the supernal blessing of the garden tomb came the humble stable in Bethlehem.

Isaiah delivered many prophecies regarding the birth of our Savior. “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” He also wrote, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

Micah prophesied, “But thou, Beth-lehem Ef Rattah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

Joseph and Mary were not citizens of Bethlehem nor Jerusalem, but according to the decree of Caesar, “Joseph...went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:), To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

The night of His birth, “there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.”

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.”

Amongst the Nephites, Samuel the Lamanite foretold that at Christ’s birth, that “in the night before he cometh there shall be no darkness, insomuch that it shall appear unto man as if it was day.” And, “there shall a new star arise, such an one as ye never have beheld; and this also shall be a sign unto you.”

It was this star that heralded his birth in the Holy Land as well. “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.”

Do we “come with haste” as the shepherds did to find Jesus and make him the central part of our lives? Do we seek after Jesus as the wise men “from the east” did? What gifts can we offer him? To the Savior of the World, the Lord of Lords, we can consecrate our lives as a reflection of His glorious life. A star was the herald of his birth. Let us reflect the sacred light that He brought and continues to bring to the world.

As President Monson has written, “We remember that during the meridian of time a bright, particular star shone in the heavens. Wise men followed it and found the Christ child. Today wise men [and women] still look heavenward and again see a bright, particular star. It will guide you and me to our opportunities.”

May this special season be a time of joy and rejoicing, and reflection on the birth, life and atonement of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Life Without Albert

2011-12-17T11:19:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, Dec. 8th, news broke that my sporting hero, Albert Pujols, would not re-sign with the St. Louis Cardinals but would instead take a 10-year, $254 million offer from the Anaheim Angels of California or whatever their name is.

Before I say anything else, let me make this clear: I really wanted Albert to stay with the Cardinals. I have been a Cardinals fan most of my life (1982-1989, and 1997-present, or 21 years), and he has been a phenomenal joy to watch since his amazing rookie year in 2001. All that was left was for him to be locked up as a Cardinal for life. A gigantic statue would eventually go up at Busch Stadium, the Cardinals would retire #5 (maybe they still will), and his Hall of Fame plaque would list only one team. The perfect script.

That was the hoped-for fairy tale. Reality is much more complicated. Am I disappointed he won't be a Cardinal anymore? Sure! It hurts that when I watch a Cardinals game, he won't be in the lineup, at first base, or in the dugout. But, life goes on. The title of this post is a bit of a sucker's choice, because there will not be life without Albert. There will only be life without Albert as a Cardinal.

Does that mean I'll be an Angels fan now? Not necessarily. I could see the Angels becoming my AL team, at least casually. I won't live and die with every Angels win and loss like I do with the Cardinals. If (when?) the Angels make the playoffs, I will definitely be rooting for Albert and the Angels.

So, that's me. I seem to be in the minority. My St. Louis Cardinals "feed" on Twitter and comments I've seen from "fans" on St. Louis-area media and otherwise have been highly vitriolic, condemning "Pujol$" apparent greed and disloyalty. Maybe if I were actually in St. Louis, I might feel the same way. There's a good chance that I'd have a better sense of Albert letting down a whole community, whereas here in Utah, I don't think one person has said a word about it to me, aside from my own wife and kids. The anger of many fans has reached near LeBron-vs.-Cleveland levels, from what I have seen.

I suppose all the fans who say they want to burn their Pujols apparel would never consider getting their hands dirty with a quarter of a billion dollars. Sure, they would never take the best monetary offer. Their motives are purer than that. Maybe they're suddenly realizing that their hero, their baseball god in Cardinal Red is, like them, motivated by human desires and needs.

All those who are so offended that Albert would suddenly be all about the money seem to conveniently overlook that during his time in St. Louis, Albert was vastly underpaid compared to what he delivered. Using baseballreference.com as my source, I found that from 2001 through 2011, Albert averaged a mere $9,458,221 per season. That's dirt cheap for a 3-time MVP and a key player on three World Series teams, and two World Champion teams. Less than $10 million per year for the player widely regarded as the best in the game? Get outta here!

Consider these average annual salary amounts for some of his contemporaries (2001-2011 unless otherwise noted):

Barry Bonds: $16,523,620 (2001-2007)
Randy Johnson: $13,506,947 (2001-2009)
Alex Rodriguez: $25,853,568
Derek Jeter (Mr. Overrated himself): $18,520,851
Ryan Howard: $12,541,667 (2006-2011 only!)
Roger Clemens: $11,900,000 (2001-2007)
Matt Holliday: $8,702,443 (2005-2011, and close to $2 million more than Albert per year since they've been teammates)
Derek Lee: $8,256,818
Manny Ramirez: $17,437,070 (even with a 2011 salary of just over $2 million)

True, during this period, Bonds was a 4-time MVP...but come now. Albert didn't just get house arrest, either. Is there any argument you can make that says Albert was not underpaid for his first 11 years?

Tony La Russa had what I thought were good, common-sense comments about the whole thing this week. He said, "He deserves what he got. He earned it. There's no bad guy here. I think the Cardinals went where they thought they should go. If they can't go farther, they shouldn't."

Seems reasonable. According to the info I have, I think the Cardinals could have done a better job trying to lock him up. The Cardinals were looking out for their interests before Albert's. That's SOP, sure...but if you're dealing with a superstar, the kind of talent you see once every 50 years, as Tim Kurkjian has said, I think you take a different approach.

Deidre Pujols, Albert's wife, had an interesting comment that I think speaks volumes: "When you have somebody say 'We want you to be a Cardinal for life' and only offer you a five-year deal, it kind of confused us. Well, we got over that insult and felt like Albert had given so much of himself to baseball and into the community ... we didn't want to go through this again."

Now, most of us would like to be insulted to the point where we're offered a 5-year, $130 million contract. But, in her defense, how do you say that to the cornerstone of your organization? I'm not sure of the timeline, but I believe that offer was two years ago, perhaps a year ago. Also, I'm not sure if that's the same offer, but one offer before the 2011 season would have made Albert the 4th highest first baseman in baseball. That's not going to entice anybody, let alone "Lou Gehrig," (which is the historical comparison Michael Wilbon uses when talking about Albert).

I believe if the Cardinals' first offer was close to their final offer of 10 years and $210 million, he would still be a Cardinal. Maybe that goes against the convention negotiating wisdom of anchoring (believe me, I had a negotiations class in grad school). But you can't be convention with Lou Gehrig! If they had made an 8- or 9-year offer two years ago for, say, $195 or $200 million, would we have this conversation? And...if that deal had been made, there would only be six or seven years left...That would make it a lot easier to swallow. If you help Albert understand St. Louis isn't New York or Boston, while not insulting his Latin pride, maybe you do get the "home town discount." You know what: We all want to be wanted (trust me: as a guy who's been on the job search since the end of July, being wanted is huge!).

The Cardinals didn't appeal to Albert's pride. I am not an expert on the Latino psyche, but I would be surprised if his Latin pride and machismo wasn't bruised a little in the way the Cardinals approached the negotiations. As said above, this guy has been woefully underpaid compared to what he delivered, and he was looking for his pay day. As La Russa said, "I believe in Albert's case he was disappointed there wasn't more enthusiasm from the Cardinals. The (Miami) Marlins came at him hard and then here comes Anaheim. I think that the Cardinals were being careful."

In their defense, perhaps the Cardinals were wise to be careful. Albert's offensive numbers have been in decline for four straight years (although those have still been darn good years). He's a special player, but Father Time is undefeated (something else Wilbon likes to say). He'll be 32 in January; have we seen the best Albert has to offer? Only time will tell. Albert could end up being the offensive equivalent of Nolan Ryan, putting up solid numbers into his late 30s. Still, as ESPN.com states,

Studies by Bill James and numerous other baseball scholars have found that players tend to peak in their mid-to-late 20s. There have certainly been plenty of outliers on that front... But more often than not, once you hit your 30s, it's not going to get any better from there. Pujols went from 9.1 WAR [wins above replacement] at age 28 to 9.0 WAR at age 29, 7.5 at age 30, and finally 5.1 WAR at age 31 this past season. That's a scary trend for a team that just shelled out $250 million.

And yet, I have a sneaky feeling Albert is going to convert the backlash of his move to Anaheim into a solid offensive year. Forget his unfamiliarity with AL pitching and ball parks. He's going to have something to prove. Despite Albert's achievements, he's always had something to prove: early on, "people" said he was older than he claimed to be. How else to explain such talent? Then, it was performance enhancing drugs. Albert converted those doubts into motivation. This is the same. I would expect something like .325, 38 HR and 120 RBI. I am not familiar with the Angels lineup, but those seem like reasonable Albert numbers at age 32. The big question is: how long will it last?

One reason I am accepting this is that the Cardinals should be competitive for the next couple years. They just won the World Series without Adam Wainwright (which I never expected) and with reduced contributions from Albert). They obviously have some cash that was intended for Albert that can now go for other players (not least is locking up Wainwright long-term if the elbow is sound). Berkman is rejuvenated, Carpenter proved in September and October that he's still a dominant ace, David Freese had a historic post-season, Yadi Molina is adding a better than average bat to his Gold Glove-caliber defense, and Holliday might actually show up and contribute next year. If the Cardinals aren't in contention in 2012 and 2013, I'd be shocked.

The final word: I am not angry at Albert for leaving; I think the Cardinals could have tried harder to "woo" Albert and fawn over him unless they had serious doubts regarding his future production; and the Cardinals can definitely win without him.

Top 5 Rush Album Covers

2011-12-13T16:02:00.000-08:00

A good friend has been sharing Rush's new "Sector" box sets with me. There are three and each provides five albums from their earlier days; one of the albums is mixed as a 5.1 DVD-Audio disc.

Although I consider myself a pretty big Rush fan (the name of my blog should make that clear), there are a lot of Rush albums and songs I don't know. Seems kinda strange now that I didn't look into them before now.

The Sector sets feature CDs packaged as mini LPs, which is pretty cool. Looking at the sets, I realized Rush generally has some pretty groovy cover art and, hey, that's a blog post waiting to happen.

So, here are my Top Five Rush album covers (I was going to do 10...but, let's face it, a few of them are real dogs and there are really only eight or nine solid candidates anyhow).

From 5th to 1st:

A Farewell to Kings

Dystopian...apocalyptic....spooky. Yep, this album cover has all that.

Roll the Bones

I remember seeing concert posters for the Roll the Bones tour when I was in Frankfurt. Always stuck with me. Love how most of the die are set to "3".

Exit...Stage Left

An item from each of Rush's previous eight studio album covers can be seen on the front and back cover of this live album, though each has been modified in some way. Here's the rest of it so you can see:

The owl from Fly by Night flies above Apollo, the man in the suit from Hemispheres, who stands next to the woman from Permanent Waves (right side of the image). The puppet king from A Farewell to Kings sits atop a box stenciled with the "Rush" logo from Rush. Next to him is a painting of the Caress of Steel album cover, held by one of the movers from Moving Pictures, with another mover standing behind. Next to this is Dionysus, the nude man from Hemispheres. Behind this scene, the starman from 2112 hangs in the background, next to an "EXIT" sign. This entire foreground scene is on the left side of the stage, thus Exit...Stage Left.

Moving Pictures

Visual pun...dramatic background. A little cheekiness from everyone's favorite Canadians.

Signals

Striking image of a Dalmatian and a fire hydrant focuses on the connotations of "signals." Clever.

Black Keys "El Camino" puts them on "the way" to superstardom

2011-12-06T14:29:00.000-08:00

My long-time readers (yeah, all four of you) may recall a Music Monday blog post I did about The Black Keys way back in January 2008. I had already been a fan of the Akron, Ohio duo for close to three years. Back then, it seemed few people knew who the Keys were, and if they did, it was because I told them.

How times have changed.

The Black Keys are just about the hottest thing in music these days. Their 2010 album Brothers blew up big time, netting the band five Grammy nominations, three wins, and the #2 spot in Rolling Stone's list of 2010's best albums. For all that, from my perspective, the hype train took a little while to get rolling, but soon Dan and Pat (as I call them) were the toast of the music world. I think a lot of industry insiders were expecting 2008's Attack & Release to be the big breakthrough for the duo, but it didn't work out that way. Attack & Release is a solid album, the first when the guys started to expand their sound, but it doesn't seem to be quite...there. It has a couple of my very favorite Keys songs, but it may be my least favorite *album* (although still very solid).

This is the first time I have been ahead of the wave in liking a band before they really it it "big." It is an interesting experience. I don't think I'd ever accuse a band of "selling out" or whatever the trendy term is, nor abandoning a band because they change their sound. But I can now understand the unease and bittersweet feeling it can be to have a band hit it big. After all, this was my band! I liked them before any of y'all! Do you realize that? I was jamming to Rubber Factory way back in 2005!

With the band so popular now, I fear I may not be able to meet and talk with Dan after their next local concert, as I did after their 2010 show in Salt Lake City. There's even a chance I may not score tix to their next local gig (or if I do, it won't be $30). I suppose the Keys could play the same cozy venue in SLC, assuming they come here again, but if they do, will there be 10 of us to greet him after the show, or 1,000?

As Pat says in the Times article mentioned above, "It’s a weird, ‘Twilight Zone’ kind of feeling [being a "big" band now]. I had to be forced into adapting to the idea that the Black Keys were no longer an underdog but now were expected to be a great band.”

Perhaps the best sticker to ever grace an album wrapper.

So, now that the Keys proved themselves on Brothers, can they do it again? All signs point to yes. Their latest album, El Camino, came out this week, and the Keys are on fire. For proof, check this article in the NY Times and this one from The Guardian.

El Camino, as recommended on the album itself, is meant to be played loud. After picking up the disc (yes, I still buy actual CDs...I just like having the disc), it sounded fantastic on my Acura's premium sound system. Here are my thoughts after one listen:

"Lonely Boy"
So you pull my heart out and I don't mind bleeding

Heard this one awhile back, thanks to the off-beat video that came out in November (right?). At the time, I was happy that the Keys' authenticity was intact and they were grooving very well. As a putative follow-up to "Tighten Up," it could be called a distant cousin. It's fresh, infectious, fun and sounds great loud. The last 30 seconds is excellent.

"Dead and Gone"
After every word is said, I'm feeling dead and gone

Reminds me of The Spencer Davis Group's "Keep on Running," with its driving beat to open the song. Maybe the most effective use of "whoa-ohs" on a song ever.

I get a strange hint of the Supremes on this one. Must be the"whoa-ohs".

"Gold on the Ceiling"
Just a matter of time before you're stealin'

Holy mother of awesomeness. If you thought "Lonely Boy" was catchy...you gotta hear this. Big, fuzzy, crunchy riffs and addictive hooks. I defy anyone to adequately describe the organ (?) riff on this track. You're gonna feel that in your fillings. The hook just before the "They wanna get my.." is PURE GOLD (pun not intended).

Compare this gem to, say, "Thickfreakness," and the duo's musical maturity is astounding. They've maintained the kernel of their sound while following every avenue to flesh it out.

"Lonely Boy is good"...but "Gold on the Ceiling" is probably the best track on the album. An instant classic.

"Little Black Submarines"
Everybody knows a broken heart is blind

Starts off as a melancholy ballad...and then someone flips the Zeppelin switch and away we go. Truth be told, when the volume jumps, the riff reminds me of "Last Dance with Mary Jane" (on steroids, perhaps), more than James Patrick Page. There's also a hint of Red Hot Chili Peppers ("Dani California" maybe?). Super track.

"Money Maker"
She wants milk and honey, she wants filthy money

Appropriate reverb, earth-shaking chorus. Nice usage of a talk box adding some texture. (Also nice that it wasn't overdone, i.e., it's pretty subtle as far as rock music goes). Not as easy to wrap your arms around as the previous tracks. Could definitely blow out a few speakers.

"Run Right Back"
She's the worst thing I've been addicted to

I dunno. Maybe this one will grow on me. Good beat, good vibe and atmospherics, but seems a little out of place on this album.

"Sister"
Did they take or try to break a heart that longs, it's so wrong [maybe!]

Instantly likable with an easy groove and Dan employing his falsetto to good effect. One of the album's highlights. There's a moment in this track that reminds me of the New Radicals "You get what you give"...at least I think that's what it is.

"Hell of a Season"
In this hell of a season give me more of a reason to be with you

The first thing that hits you is you're glad you're not one of Pat's drums on this track. He slams the crap out of them on this one. Definitely a hard hitter.

"Stop Stop"
This love was so strong it shoulda been against the law

The first couple notes make me thing of The Animals' "San Francisco," but it's completely different after that. It feels like an amped up Motown tune. Imagine taking a Temptations track from 1971, transporting it 40 years into the future, applying some studio magic, and voila. Dan obviously likes this one, using a little falsetto again. Catchy as hell.

Can't wait to fire this one up on the iPod when I'm out running.

"Nova Baby"
I'm falling hard for every yard of the dream you sold me

Feels a little Phil Specter, wall-of-sound-ish. Definitely an homage to older stuff.

"Mind Eraser"
Don't let it be over

Thick and driving, "Mind Eraser" finishes off a super solid album. The refrain of "don't let it be over" could easily apply to the album.

El Camino clocks in at 38 minutes...which seems a little thin. I recall one reviewer saying Brothers was too long. Any true Black Keys fan would have disagreed with that. You can't have too much Black Keys! And yet...looking back, there are probably a couple tracks that could have been left off the album (which was 55 minutes). Camino feels a little short, a little incomplete. What is there sounds brilliant (again, first listen). I think most listeners will find they want a couple more helpings of the Auerbach/Carney magic.

Is it their best album? On the day of its release, I'd say no...but it's one heck of an album. Patrick sounds like a drum god, Dan's guitar is on fire, and his vocals are nothing short of inspired. That dude knows how to sing.

El Camino doesn't have the breadth of Brothers, nor the raw power and innocent authenticity of Rubber Factory. I just hope I can resist playing it incessantly, which is an apt description of what I did with Brothers (which made it lose it's magic a little).

What does El Camino mean for the Black Keys? It means they will continue to ride the wave of critical adulation and attract boatloads of new fans. In the short term, I would like to see them release a live album (like, say, late summer/early fall 2012). Why? The Keys have been pretty prolific in their career, but I can't see a new album before, say, August of 2013. It would be great to see a live document of the band at this stage.

Does this make sense to anyone?

2011-12-01T13:46:00.000-08:00

I participate in a number of on-line survey panels and a couple of them provide some really decent rewards. With one, for example, I recently redeemed by reward "dollars" for a $50 iTunes gift card.

Due to current circumstances, Kim and I decided to sell said gift card on eBay. After all, we ought to make around $42 after fees and such, which ain't nothing to sneeze at.

To our surprise/bewilderment/astonishment, we found that iTunes gift cards, and maybe others, are going for more than the face value of the card. I've provided a screenshot of a handful of eBay auctions as proof.

There are a lot more where that came from, too.

Does this make sense to anyone? That is not a rhetorical question, either! I want answers!

My first reaction is that the buyers must be in locations where they can't easily find/buy iTunes gift cards. BUT, you don't need a gift card to buy stuff on iTunes. Credit cards work perfectly fine.

Okay...so it's teens buying gift cards since they don't have credit cards. Maybe...but if they are buying something on eBay, they have a PayPal account (right?) and you can use PayPal to pay for your iTunes stuff also. And...I have a PayPal debit card. I don't know if that's because I'm "special" or not (volume user), but I doubt it.

Predicting Time's "Person" Of the Year

2011-11-29T13:31:00.000-08:00

I think the clear favorite to be Time magazine's Person of the Year is Mohamed Bouazizi. And who is Mohamed Bouazizi?

He is the Tunisian street vendor, who, in protest against draconian measures that threatened his means of earning an income (and, therefore, his life) set himself on fire on Dec. 17th, 2010. This lead to his death on Jan. 4th, 2011. He was 26 years old.

In reaction to his death, Tunisians began to protest. It's no stretch to say that his act lead to the sweeping changes in North Africa and the Middle East, including the toppling of governments long thought secure (due to their dictatorial ways). Things are still not "perfect" for most citizens in these countries, but what we have seen has to be considered a revolution. People fighting for their freedom is quite something.

The Lord moves in mysterious ways...we'll see what comes of these changes.

Potato Chips Cost More than Steak

2011-11-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

I've noticed recently that the price of potato chips seems to be out of all proportion to reality. I rather enjoy potato chips. I recognize they aren't the healthiest snack and so I try to only enjoy in moderation. But, quite often the "savory" flavor of, say, a bag of sour cream and onion chips is exactly what I need.

Earlier this year, I noticed that potato chip bags were only 9 or 10 ounces, which seemed a lot smaller than I remember. A lot of companies are trying to be sneaky and offering less product for the same price, which is the same as raising the price on the previous packaging. For example, I noticed about a year ago that a pint of Haagen-Dazs is no longer a pint, but 14 ounces. And it's now like you can see a "now smaller!" label on the package.

I don't really know if potato chip bags are smaller now, but it's hard not to notice the price. A cursory examination at the store showed most had $4.29 stamped on them. Is a bag of chips worth $4.29? I dunno. By way of comparison, I'd probably say no.

At the store on Wednesday, I wanted to get a bag of Lays Sour Cream and Onion (to satisfy that craving). The store I went to had a BOGO offer: buy one bag of Lays at the regular price of $4.29, get one free. Works out to 50% off, basically, but the store is forcing you to buy two to get that deal.

I've recently realized that at these prices, potato chips cost more than steak. And, I'm not just talking cheap sirloin, either. I almost never buy steak (ribeye, strip or T-bone) unless it is on sale, and the sale prices we see are usually $4.99 a pound, so my observations are based on that price. Consider these comparisons, based on the "everyday low prices" (or, prices that did not seem to be a sale) I saw yesterday:

Lays: 10 ounces for $3.28, or $5.24 per pound ($0.328 per ounce)
Ruffles: 9 ounces for $3.99 or $7.09 per pound ($0.443 per ounce)

Ribeye @ $4.99 per pound: $0.312 per ounce

I don't know if Ruffles have $4.29 stamped on them like regular chips do, but using that number, Ruffles would be $7.62 per pound and Lays would be $6.84 per pound. That's crazy! How much does a bag of potatoes cost, anyway?

According to my research, the local Kohler's store has a 15 pound bag for $3.39, on sale this week for $2.50. Harmons has a 15 pound bag for $3.99, or $1.98 this week.

A 15 pound bag has a total of 240 ounces. At $2.50, that 15 pound bag costs a little more than 1 cent per ounce. At $1.98, it's obviously less than 1 cent per ounce. So, comparing that to the price for Lays, do we assume that the other 31 cents is the price of the cooking, seasoning, packaging, distribution, retail mark-up and marketing? I find that hard to swallow.

Why are chips so expensive? I've heard that cooking oils are getting pricier. That could be a factor. I also believe the purveyors of "premium" chips (often positioned as "exotic" or otherwise "healthy") are driving up the price of regular chips.

I realize that chips are often on sale and it is often possible to get a bag for about $2.50. My non-scientific observation is that Doritos tend to be cheaper (or on sale more often...I think the bag is bigger too), and Sun Chips are pricier.

And, finally, I don't have to buy chips, but this just seems nuts to me.

It was 20 years ago today: Achtung Baby at 20

2011-11-19T10:36:00.000-08:00

Time is a train
Makes the future the past
Leaves you stranded at the station
Your face pressed up against the glass

Twenty years ago today, I was in Pirmasens, Germany. More significantly, from a music history standpoint, U2 released their masterpiece Achtung Baby, marking the beginning of a new phase for the Irish quartet.

You're honey, child, to a swarm of bees
Gonna blow right through you like a breeze
Give me one last dance
We'll slide down the surface of things

November 19, 1991 was a Tuesday, even in Germany. My journal entry for that day says I got a letter from a friend and my mother, and that I was going to be leading my first district meeting the next day. How 'bout that? I had to wait another 16 months before I heard the album, in March of '93. It was of course well worth the wait.

Did I ask too much - more than a lot
You gave me nothing - now it's all I got
We're one, but we're not the same
Well we hurt each other, then we do it again

As Wikipedia notes today, "Stung by the criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their musical direction to incorporate influences from alternative rock, industrial music, and electronic dance music into their sound. Thematically, the album is darker, more introspective, and more flippant than their previous work. Recording began at Berlin's Hansa Studios in October 1990, but the sessions were fraught with conflict, as the band argued over the direction and quality of their music. After nearly breaking up, they made a breakthrough with the improvisation of the song 'One.' Morale improved during the subsequent recording sessions in Dublin in 1991."

In the garden I was playing the tart
I kissed your lips and broke your heart
You - you were acting like it was the end of the world

For whatever reason, I've always been intrigued by an album's first three tracks. Maybe I figure if the first three are solid, the album will be as well. Few albums can match Achtung's opening salvo of "Zoo Station" (with its references to Berlin's subway system), "Even Better Than the Real Thing" (great riff!), and the timeless "One."

I disappeared in you - you disappeared from me
I gave you everything you ever wanted
It wasn't what you wanted

I don't really care for "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses," (I haven't even imported it into iTunes) but other than that track, I love everything about this album. Sure, The Joshua Tree is an all-time album, an historical achievement. Achtung Baby, on the other hand, is the sound of a band breaking free of all restraints and even the burden of previous successes and resulting expectations. Achtung Baby is the sound of a band entering its musical maturity and realizing what they are capable of. It is a beacon to everyone as proof that reinvention is gloriously possible. U2 has been accused of pretense before. Achtung Baby is refreshingly free of it.

It's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest
It's no secret ambition bites the nails of success
Every artist is a cannibal - every poet is a thief
All kill their inspiration and sing about the grief

For someone like me coming home from two years away from rock and roll, Achtung Baby was the perfect reintroduction to what I had been missing. During Led Zeppelin's '75 tour, Robert Plant would frequently refer to the performed songs as "colors," that when combined together were like the colors reflected by a prism. In fact, the quote is, "Right, we're gonna start, what we intend to do tonight is to take you through some of the colors of um, if you regard music as being a prism, prism [emphasizing the word isn't "prison"], as in prism, a prism of colors, we've explored the prism and we've developed music along pattern of color. Some bright, some dark..." Achtung Baby has all the colors.

Johnny, take a dive with your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things you can't explain
To touch is to heal - to hurt is to steal
If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel

The strings and piano on "So Cruel" will always give me goosebumps. The riff of "The End of the World" will always quicken my pulse. The farce and knowing wink of "Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World" will always make me smile. There's heartache, there's betrayal, there's irony, there's joy. There's belly dance music. :)

I dreamed that I saw Dali
With a supermarket trolley
He was trying to throw his arms around a girl
He took an open-top Beetle
Through the eye of a needle
He was trying to throw his arms around the world

Regarding Zeppelin, one of the greatest compliments I think anyone could give to their music is that it is "timeless." I hear Bon Jovi or Poison or Guns and Roses or Def Leppard, and all I can think of is "1980s." Zeppelin's music doesn't say '60s or '70s to me. U2's music is largely like that, too, and Achtung Baby is much more than "early '90s."

There is a silence that comes to our house when no-one can sleep
I guess it's the price of love - I know it's not cheap

According to Bono, "We had never allowed the band to use the word 'baby' in a lyric. It did not exist in the U2 vocabulary. It is on Achtung Baby twenty seven times [surely that omits "Acrobat," which seems to have it 50 times?], which is one of the reasons for the title." And, oh baby, what an album it is!

When I first met you, girl, you had fire in your soul
What happened? your face of melting snow
Now it looks like this

And now all that's left is for me to get back to work so I can earn a little cash and buy the Super Deluxe 20th Anniversary Edition of Achtung Baby.

A little death without mourning
No call and no warning
Baby, a dangerous idea that almost makes sense

40 points about 40

2011-11-14T15:26:00.000-08:00

I reached the ripe old age of 40 last week. It's happened to plenty of other people before me, of course, but this is my first time. I had thought about doing a blog post about a "bucket list." Maybe later.

Today, I share 40 nuggets about myself. I don't know if they're interesting nuggets...you be the judge.

I have more Led Zeppelin in my iTunes library than any other band. Those that know me will not be surprised. At the moment, it totals 1,351 items, 8 days, 12 hours, six minutes, and 46 seconds (16.79 GB).
I love to cook, but unfortunately, my preference is for fattening stuff, like desserts and rich Italian food.
I speak German. Need to work on it.
I worked in Missouri, from May of '97 to July of '99, at the Missouri Military Academy. I taught journalism, published a monthly newspaper (8 pages most of the time, a 16-page alumni edition twice a year), did the yearbook (two all together; the second one was much better), did 95% of the school photography, etc. etc. Quite an experience.
I had my gallbladder out in August.
I've never seen "Friends" or "American Idol". Thank goodness!
I've been on eBay since late 1997...or maybe 1998. I can't remember for sure. :) I've sold quite a few things on eBay, and I have a perfect rating (i.e., no one has left anything but a positive rating for me).
Since April of 2010, I have lost about 20 pounds. I had been at around 167 for years, and found my weight going up, to about 175 (I think I saw 179 once). That's not too heavy, overall, but I wanted to apply some discipline and get lower. I got down to 162 in July of 2010, then hovered around there for about a year. This past summer I wanted to see 159.9 on the scale...I saw it, and kept shedding. Now I hover at around 155.
I've worn glasses (or contacts) since the 5th grade.
I've been to MLB games in Denver, St. Petersburg (Tampa), Detroit, and, of course, St. Louis.
My favorite novel is War and Peace. I re-read it every five years, and the next time will be next year (which will be appropriate, since it's 2012).
When I was VERY young, I used to think mustaches were nose hair that kept growing out onto the lip. Weird, huh?
I don't like fish, but I've had a taste of sushi a couple times and it has been rather interesting.
I've never had a broken bone (unless the pain in my right hand is a broken bone!)
I had appendicitis once when I was 13. It went away. No, really.
I don't recall ever buying anything from The Gap or Banana Republic, and definitely not Aeropostale or A&F.
When I was in elementary school, I played flag football with a future NFL All-Pro.
In 6th grade, in flag football, I intercepted a screen pass and scored a TD. I'm always surprised that you don't see screen passes intercepted once or twice a season in the NFL or college game. That year, we were supposedly the best team, not that there was a tournament or anything, but I remember the coach always saying he had a "rich" friend who was going to buy us pizza for a little victory party (because, back then of course, only rich people could afford pizza). It never happened.
The first concert I went to was Air Supply, at BYU. I was probably 8 or so. My sister took me...or, maybe more accurately, went with me.
Until this year, I never had a cell phone bill (employers always paid it).
I kinda like ironing my shirts. It's therapeutic.
Haven't read any of the Harry Potter books (and probably never will), but I think the movies are lots of fun. In some ways, they may even be better than Lord of the Rings.
I think clearer when my hands are on a keyboard (i.e., when I'm writing)
I have more books from Tom Clancy than from any other author...but he's pretty much washed up now, right? His last good book came out in 1998.
At Thanksgiving, I like dark meat.
I can eat pumpkin pie anytime of year...but only with whipped cream on it.
I used to collect comic books. I've sold most of the more valuable stuff I had. Man, I wasted a lot of money on them back in the day...thanks goodness I could recoup some of it.
Many people know I cook a great steak...but not too many know I am not as good with chicken. The whole salmonella thing, I guess...
I have a somewhat distorted view of the value of $5. Here's what I mean: I've often had co-workers who would eat out for lunch almost every day. I would go maybe two times a month. Part of my reason for not going is the $$...but also the calories, and I always read on my lunch break. But, when I go to Gourmandise, Salt Lake City's primo French bakery, I'll drop big $$ on pastries. Raspberry tart for $5.50? Sounds like a deal to me!
I used to think Dan Rather was a cool cat, and I watched the CBS Evening News every day. Man, was I sick.
I've never been west of California...unless you count the Czech Republic. ;)
I've been in eight countries besides the U.S., and in 27 states (not counting "just flying through").
Sometimes I've been in a state of denial.
I don't like Polo-style shirts (you know, knit cotton, three buttons). I always feel dorky in them...Aside from T-shirts, I don't like short-sleeve shirts generally, even on hot summer days.
I've had pizza in Pisa, filet mignon in Manhattan, gelatto in Florence, and baguettes in Paris.
I've never spent more than about $30 on jeans, but have spent more than $100 on shoes...several times.
I hope the NBA dies and doesn't come back.
I think Tom Petty is a genius.
I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Wow, there are actually 40 things about me that are mildly interesting.

Amazing Cardinals, Improbable Victory

2011-10-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

It's great to be a Cardinals fan this morning. I'm out of words, so I'll let Jayson Stark explain it for me, again:

No team had ever won a World Series after finding itself 10½ games out of a playoff spot on Aug. 25 or later. No team had ever won a World Series after finding itself 8½ games out in September. No team had ever won a World Series after being one strike away from extinction in back-to-back innings of the same World Series game. But this team is special.

These Cardinals needed the Phillies to sweep the Braves in the last week of September just to make this tournament at all. But it happened. These Cardinals had to beat Roy Oswalt and Roy Halladay in Games 4 and 5 to topple the Phillies in the division series. But it happened.

These Cardinals had to find the strength to roar back to life after crushing losses to the Mets and Cubs and Astros down the stretch. But they found that strength. And the longer the rest of the sport let them keep breathing, the more dangerous this team became.

"It's history," said Allen Craig. "That's what it is. It's history. That's what Tony would say to us. It's history. Our whole ride to the playoffs. Just what we did to get here. It's improbable. It's unbelievable. All I can say is, we did it."

Four months from now, when they get the band together in Jupiter, they may not look the same or feel the same. There may be no La Russa in the manager's office. There may be no Pujols in the No. 3 hole. So there may be a very different feeling than the one that swept over them at Busch Stadium on this night.

But that doesn't change what just happened here. They may never truly understand how it happened or why it happened. But this is a team that just completed one of the most amazing rides into the history books in the annals of this or any sport. All they had to do was win this one last Game 7 to make it happen.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

2011-10-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

In April 2010, thanks to the largesse of my employer, I went to St. Louis for a social media conference. Of course, the location was of my choosing, because the night before the conference, the Cardinals were hosting the Mets and it would be my first chance since 2007 to see the Cardinals play in person.

So it was that my wife and I saw Adam Wainwright pitch a complete game victory for the good guys. Fast forward to Christmas Eve day. I had done a little detective work and found Wainwright's home address in Georgia. I penned a gushing fan letter and sent it off, along with a photo of him I had taken at that game. I respectfully asked him to sign the photo and send it back in the convenient pre-stamped and addressed envelope.

About seven weeks later, just as spring training was about to get started, that envelope made its way back to me. The signed 8x10 now sits on a shelf of a bookcase in my home office. That was cool and all...but it was just a few days later when news came out that Wainwright would have to undergo season ending ligament replacement surgery (i.e., Tommy John surgery). I morbidly joked at the time that the effort it took Wainwright to sign my picture was the last little thing that tore the ligament.

All joking aside, the Twitterverse was all doom and gloom at the news, and I wasn't far off. How in the world could the Cardinals win the NL Central, much less reach the World Series, without Waino? When it came time for me to make my season predictions, I did throw caution to the wind and said the Cards would win the Wild Card, but beyond that....how far would they go?

As I write this, they are one game away from winning the 2011 World Series. First pitch is in less than five hours. It's been an insane journey to get even this far. And the most insane instance of all was last night's Game 6.

Sports can be a powerful teacher of so much: never giving up, staying disciplined, the transcendent gift of talent, and, to use a cliche, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Last night's game was plenty ugly until about the bottom of the 7th. One might even say that's when it was ugliest, after the Rangers had taken a 7-4 lead, their biggest of the night, and then the Cardinals go quickly, 1-2-3. Then, it was as if we (or at least the Cardinals fans) were watching Picasso painting, or Mozart composing, or Led Zeppelin performing (okay, you get the idea).

But then a glimmer of hope. Rangers go 1-2-3 in the top of the 8th, and the Cards get a run back in the bottom on a solid homer. Top of the 9th, Rangers get a man on but can't score. Magic was about to happen...but only for the first time this night. With one out, Albert Pujols in what could have again been his last AB as a Cardinal, stroked a solid liner to the gap for a double. Berkman walked, and Craig struck out. So, two on, two out, needing two runs to tie and keep the season alive.

This is the part you can't make up.

Coming to the plate was David Freese. No slouch with the bat, he was the NLCS MVP. Up to this point, he'd had a decent World Series, but he was not at all in the MVP conversation. Season on the line, facing a tough closer for the first time, and he's down in the count 1-2. In other words, the Rangers are one strike away from winning the World Series. So what does Freese do? Only launch a screaming triple off the right field wall (which more than likely could have been caught, given a better effort), scoring two runs and saving the season...for now.

Oh, forgot to mention, Freese is also a home town kid. Who comes up with this stuff? It just doesn't happen!

Winning run now 90 feet away, and Yadi Molina at the plate. He's had some clutch hits in his career, but not this time. We go top of the 10th...and in a blink the Rangers are up 9-7 on a Josh Hamilton homer, his first of the postseason. You can't make up this shi....stuff. Sure, Hamilton is an unbelievable hitter, but due to a sports hernia (I think that's what they said), he wasn't been able to put a lot of power into his swing. But when the Cardinals reliever is hucking it at 98 or 99, all Hamilton has to do is put the bat on it and let physics do the rest.

Put a fork in 'em, right? Nope. More magic. After scoring on a ground-out to make it 9-8, the tying run is on second. I like the way Jayson Stark sets it up [even though he's wrong; tying run was on second]:

There were two outs in the 10th. It was a 9-8 game. The tying run was on third, thanks to a not-exactly-textbook bunt by -- don't even ask us how it came to this -- a pitcher (Kyle Lohse) who was hitting for another pitcher (Edwin Jackson) who was announced as the pinch-hitter for a third pitcher (Motte). And Pujols had just been intentionally walked by the Rangers for the fifth time in three games.

So, Berkman at the plate. I used to hate Berkman, and who wouldn't? (I kid). He was always a clutch hitter for the Astros against the Cards for years and years. When the Cards signed him, I wasn't expecting much. And then, all he did was have a season that will get him MVP votes. He came up big all season. He was having a solid World Series. All he needed was a simple hit. I told that to his image on the TV in my home. He had two strikes against him (again, the Rangers were one strike away). I told him, "Puma, you're a professional hitter, you can do this." My wife told me, "Whatever happens, don't wake up the kids."

I think I need to send Berkman a fan letter and tell him how much I love his guts. All he did was lace one into shallow right-center, scoring the tying run. Again, winning run is 90 feet away, but Alan Craig can't cash in.

Top 11: Rangers get a man on, but can't cash in.

One game, two men: the pitch and the batter. They would decide this thing in the bottom of the 11th. It's that home-town kid again, David Freese.

You just can't make this stuff up!

Again, with two strikes against him (but without the do-or-die circumstances), David Freese puts a bow on this gift of a game by launching a 3-2 change-up to near dead center field, on the grass of the hitter's background, and St. Louis erupts. How I didn't wake up the kids with that one I'll never know. It was unforgettable in every way.

One of the great aspects of this post-season run is that, especially later in the NLDS and from then on, I have been watching these games with my wife, and even with our older two girls lately. We have some amazing memories from the playoffs.

Also, because my oldest daughter asked me to blog about it anyway, something must be said about Albert Pujols' historic Game 3 performance: 6 ABs, 4 runs, 5 hits, 3 HR, 6 RBI.

But for it to be meaningful beyond 2011, one more good thing needs to happen. In comments yesterday, Lance Berkman, the Big Puma himself, said "The reality is that, if we don't win tomorrow, this game becomes just a footnote to a nice season. But if we win tomorrow this is the stuff of legends."

That's an echo of what I had been saying about Albert's Game 3 performance. That and Game 6 were both historic and entirely memorable. But, without one more W for 2011, without popping that champagne and making it mean more than a (remarkable) memory, they have to seal the deal.

I was wondering this morning if there will be a "hangover" effect from such a dramatic win. With this team, I think that's highly unlikely. They didn't letdown or let up after winning the Wild Card on the last day. They didn't worry when the Phillies smacked them around pretty good in Game 1 of the NLDS. They didn't let the specter of Roy Halladay pitching the deciding Game 5 daunt them. And in Game 1 of the NLCS, when the Brewers did roughly the same as what the Phillies did in NLDS Game 1, they bounced right back.

In 2004, Jim Edmonds hit an extra-inning home run against the Astros to force a Game 7 in the NLCS. The Cardinals won that Game 7. In 2005, down by two runs in the top of the 9th, with two out and two on, Albert Pujols utterly destroyed a Brad Lidge slider to put the Cardinals on top (I don't think that ball has landed yet). That blast forced a Game 6 in the NLCS, which the Cardinals lost.

Last night was about heart, determination, focus, effort. No way these Cards fold when they just need one more.

Will the Rangers fold? Will we see something like the '85 Royals cruising to a 10-0 easy win? It could happen...but chances are, the good guys will be in for a dog fight the whole way. How could it be any different?

Climbing "The Tree of Life"

2011-10-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I'm not sure when, I saw a preview for The Tree of Life, a very ambitious motion picture from Terrence Malick. The trailer, which didn't actually reveal a lot, struck me somehow at a very deep level. The imagery shown and the hinted-at themes seemed massive and profound.

I had embedded the trailer clip here in the blog, but it was not playing any dialogue, just the score. Weird. See a preview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0KHlZMEquU&feature=related

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, and it won the prestigious "Palme d'Or," the highest prize. It then opened in the U.S. on a limited number of theaters on May 28th. Salt Lake City's "arty" theater downtown got a print, but I kept waiting for the wider release on July 8th. The wider release never happened.

Finally, earlier this month it was released on DVD. I then realized I could rent it on iTunes and, as I had a credit anyway, did so this past weekend. I knew it was going to be different. I had high expectations, but I generally just let it wash over me and absorbed every frame.

The Tree of Life is an amazing film, which leaves an indelible, lasting, and powerful impression on its viewers. And yet, it is also true that it is a strange film, and some people will not enjoy it at all. What do I mean by strange? Quoting from Wikipedia, "Malick's film chronicles the origins and meaning of life by way of a middle-aged man's childhood memories of his family living in 1950s Texas, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the universe and the inception of life on Earth." There are also dinosaurs, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and an afterlife of sorts. It's operatic, it's existential, it's non-linear. How's that grab you?

It is, almost by definition, an "artsy" film, and some will no doubt call it pretentious. I would not, but some viewers unused to "art house" fare will deride it mercilessly.

Beyond the description I gave above, I will not attempt to explain the film. And...there is not really a plot that I can relate anyway. There is not a lot of dialogue and I can't recall any conversations lasting more than two minutes. Every scene feels portentous and crucially important. Although not obvious, Sean Penn's character, who is the older, current-day version of the family's oldest son, is reflecting back on life and trying to understand his place in, well, the universe, and to understand his connections to others around him.

The sense you get from the trailer is that Brad Pitt's character is abusive and despicable. I actually didn't think of him as abusive, as there are no scenes of abuse. He is demanding and strict, but he seems perfectly in place for a 1950s father. I like how Roger Ebert expressed it:

[The father] is doing what he thinks is right, as he was reared. Mrs. O'Brien (the ethereal Jessica Chastain) is gentler and more understanding, but there is no indication she feels her husband is cruel. Of course children resent discipline, and of course a kid might sometimes get whacked at the dinner table circa 1950. But listen to an acute exchange of dialogue between Jack and his father. "I was a little hard on you sometimes," Mr. Brien says, and Jack replies: "It's your house. You can do what you want to." Jack is defending his father against himself. That's how you grow up.

Suffice it to say that the film wrestles with the power, for good and ill, of relationships; the struggle (as the trailer says) between nature and grace; the frustrations and tragedy's of life; and an understanding on some level of what matters in life and what doesn't. The only movie I can try to compare it to is Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was of course odd in its own right.

What stands out in the film, and the reason why I am writing this post, is that I cannot recall a film that combined such striking images with such an unbelievable classical score, featuring a lot of liturgical pieces.

The "Lacrimosa" from Zbignew Priesner's "Requiem for My Friend" that accompanies the creation of the universe is breathtaking, awe inspiring, foreboding, and even doom. You can hear the song below and see clips from The Tree of Life (but, not as the song was used in the movie). A lacrimosa from a requiem speaks of "mournful that day" and the judgment in eternity of a guilty man. I wonder if the message is that anything that is born will eventually die.

The acting is also pitch perfect. Brad Pitt is excellent, although it's not really his movie. Jack, the oldest boy, is portrayed by Hunter McCracken and he captures all the turmoil, confusion, and wonder of a child (adolescent) trying to learn his place in life.

In some ways, I think you could say the film is spiritual without substance, or to use an oxymoronic phrase, it is secularly spiritual. At least, that's how it strikes me. The creation of the universe seems to be presented as chance, which suggests man also is a result of chance, rather than man being the central element of God's creation. I didn't sense any appreciation for a salvation of any sort; no hope that there is more to life than....life (of course, why would we expect one from a Hollywood film?).

Then again, there is a glimpse of an afterlife, but to me it felt a little sterile and, for lack of a better term terrestrial (but, to be fair, it's not like we see a lot of it beyond joyful reunions).

It is, ultimately, a film you have to see for yourself. Nothing I say can appropriately prepare you for this film. I will be very curious to see what happens at Academy Award time. I can't decide if I'd be more surprised if it were nominated for Best Picture or if it weren't.

In the end...I'm not even sure what to say about this movie, and writing is what I do. I don't know if it's a masterpiece. Probably not. But it is clearly a work of "art." Just go see it, then we'll talk.

World Series Prediction: How Will Cardinals Improbable Run End?

2011-10-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

This is tough. Predicting the outcome of the World Series when I have a rooting interest in one of the teams. (Rooting interest? How 'bout "complete, fanatical interest".)

The Cardinals resurrection from 10.5 games out of the Wild Card race (as every broadcast and recap show reminds us), was a miraculous turnaround, thanks in no part to the Atlanta Braves. Qualifying for the post-season is one thing. Beating the heavily favored Phillies in the NLDS and then the almost-as-heavily-favored Brewers in the NLCS is quite another. And it's just not the winning, it's the how:

The Phillies assembled an all-time pitching rotation, the likes of which are rarely seen, and perhaps the best comparison was the heyday of the Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz Braves. The Cards beat Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt and Roy Halliday, reigning Cy Young winner in the NL, and likely runner-up this year. In other words, the Cardinals beat good pitching.
Against the Brewers, the Cardinals used exceptional bullpen pitching and relentless hitting to overcome a potentially momentum-crushing game 1 loss (a game which the Cards had a lead in). After the Brewers' Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder were a combined 3-7 with 2 HR and 6 RBI in game 1, these two dramatically contained.

I don't know a whole lot about the Rangers, but I know enough to be wary. The line-up is stacked. The pitching is good enough, featuring three left-handed starters. The Cards have in recent years struggled against lefties...but then again, they beat Cliff Lee in Game 2 of the NLDS (after thumping him pretty good in the regular season...at least once).

As I see it, these are the Card's advantages:

Never-say-die attitude and momentum that got them here. Do they have enough mojo to keep it going?
Tony La Russa magic. After leaving Jaime Garcia in too long in Game 1, he pulled all the right levers in the NLCS against a post-season rookie manager. Ron Washington is better...but he's simply not in TLR's class.
Potentially four games at Busch means only three games (at most) with designated hitter. Yeah, the Ranger's line-up is stacked, but the Cards are not far behind, and when the pitchers hit, I'd say it's very close to even.
Chris Carpenter. If Carp can be marginally close to what he was against Houston on the last night of the season and against Philadelphia to win the NLDS, he'll win Game 1 tonight and start the series on a strong note for the the good guys. Even ESPN's "experts" (more on them below) who are picking Texas recognize Carp as the one true "ace" in this series. Chris Carpenter's postseason ERA is 3.11, and his opponent tonight, C.J. Wilson, is 5.4. Advantage Cards. I think the Cardinals starting pitching IS better overall, too.
Albert Pujols. After a pretty good NLDS and a lousy Game 1 in the NLCS, Pujols again showed why he's an all-time player. The talk is about him staying in St. Louis or not, with his pending free-agency. Against the Tigers in 2006, Albert was lackluster. Aside from a big HR in Game 1, he contributed little. I expect Albert to be at least as good as he was in the NLCS and add another line to his daunting resume.
Battle-tested bullpen. After chumping it up most of the regular season, this crew of arms was nothing short of amazing in the NLCS. Two days off leading up to the World Series will go a long way to helping these guys get rested, and if Carp can go deep into Game 1, that's even more rest. Sure, the Rangers' lineup is tougher than the Brewers was, but TLR will know how to match up his guys.

Not knowing much about the Rangers, I'll quickly hit some of their advantages from a novice viewpoint:

Powerful line-up chock-full of veterans
They were in the Series last year, so they won't be overawed.
I hear their bullpen is decent as well
Probably some other nice, warm and fuzzy stuff

On ESPN.com, none of the so-called "experts" picked the Cardinals to win the NLDS, and only one picked them to win the NLCS. For the World Series, the "experts" are going Rangers 21-4. That is insane. Some sample comments: "The Rangers' offense is simply too powerful for the Cardinals to handle." (Would he have said the same about the Brewers?) "This has been a team on a mission all season, and the Cardinals are hardly equipped to get in the way." (Yeah, the Cardinals "only" beat the team with the best record in baseball in the NLDS). "Texas is a versatile team that can beat you with power, speed, pitching or defense, and ultimately its roster depth gives it the nod." (Yadi shuts down the run, and Cards are hitting pretty good too).

I would be surprised if any team swept or won in five games. Rangers in 6 or 7 or Cards in 6 or 7 seems the likeliest outcome.

And, having said that, I can't pick against my Cards! Counted out, left for dead, brushed aside, and here they are as one of the last two teams. I said I had a rooting interest. I'm probably not objective, but the Phillies and Brewers can tell you all about the Cardinals winning ways.

Cardinals in Six Games!

The Sound of Silence

2011-10-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

I don't understand people sometime. Have you ever reconnected with an old friend by e-mail? You share what you've been up to, where your life is going, send it off, your friend does the same, and then you reply with a few more details, maybe a question or two...and then your friend goes radio silent?

I'm never the guy who goes radio silent. I'm always the one keeping the conversation going...or trying to, anyways.

Now I find I'm stuck in that sort of situation, only I'm trying to keep the conversation going with people I interview with. I am having a hard time understanding this sort of experience:

I go in for an interview
It goes well (and, that is not just my perspective; the comments of the interviewer make it obvious)
I follow-up when it's appropriate to do so
Nothing happens

Why is this happening? It seems to make no sense at all. One minute I'm a stellar candidate (seemingly), the next I'm a leper. I know when an interview doesn't go so well and that I probably won't hear back. This is something entirely different.

LCS Predictions

2011-10-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

Wow, I totally forgot to do predictions for the ALDS and NLDS. Sheesh. I guess I was still basking in the afterglow of the last night of the season...and, trying to find a job, too.

My season predictions were:

AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: White Sox
AL West: Rangers
AL Wild Card: Twins

NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Brewers
NL West: Rockies
NL Wild Card: Cardinals

I was 1 for 4 in the AL and 3-4 in the NL, or 4 for 8...Not bad. Not sure what I was thinking regarding the White Sox...not to mention the twins.

As for the first round of the playoffs, In hindsight, I would have said:

Tigers in 5
Brewers in 4

...and from there it gets tougher. The Rays/Rangers series would have been a tough one for me. I might have said Rangers in 5. Hard to say.

And, of course, the Cardinals-Phillies series would have been even harder, since it was so close to my heart. Based on how the Red Birds played in September, I might have said Cards in 5. After all, they were 6-3 against the Phillies over the season. Not bad at all. The Cardinals clearly had some mojo going, while the Phillies had the pressure and burden of expectations. My head might indeed have told me Phillies in 4 or 5.

LCS Predictions

The Tigers are for real, as are the Rangers. This could be an all-time series. As much as I'd like to say Tigers in 6 or 7, I'm gonna go Rangers in....7.

And, for my beloved Cardinals. Do I trust my head or my heart? The Brewers have home field advantage and are tough in their park. They pushed around the Cardinals pretty good in the early going this year, but then the Cards started playing better. While the teams split the season series 9-9, the Birds won six of the last seven, including a three-game sweep in Milwaukee.

The Cardinals have been defying expectations for five weeks now. Chris Carpenter is dominating, the bullpen has been solid, and even when Albert Pujols hasn't been hitting, the rest of the lineup has been finding ways to score.

Cardinals win in 6 games, baby!

Baseball Gods Bless Fans with Night for the Ages

2011-09-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

With four teams vying for two playoff spots, and with the outcome depending on four separate games, a baseball fan was excused for expecting Wednesday, Sept. 28, would be a good one.

Instead, it ended up being an all-timer. As Stuart Scott and Scott Van Pelt said on SportsCenter after it was all over, in the course of 100 years we would never see anything like it again.

As the night unfolded and the drama increased, it became increasingly hard to fully grasp the unlikeliness of what was happening. I saw a tweet that seemed apt: it was like baseball's version of March Madness.

The comparison I came up with is that last night was Tolstoy (Rays coming back); Wagner (Red Sox & Braves collapse); and Van Gogh (Chris Carpenter's 2-hitter for the Cardinals), all played out on a field of grass and dirt.

My beloved Cardinals ended up having the easiest go of all. When you score five runs in the 1st inning and your long-time ace and former Cy Young winner allows just two hits and goes 9 innings, it's easy to expect good things. Once that game (which started last but ended first) had finished, I divided my attention among the three remaining games, often changing back and forth after each pitch. Some will still insist that baseball is boring. For true fans, we'll always have this night as a gift from the baseball gods.

What I will remember most from last night aside from Carpenter channeling his inner ace is Tampa Bay's one-in-a-million (the odds were probably better than that) game-tying home run with two outs (and, I think, two strikes) in the bottom of the ninth. If they lose there, they are not necessarily dead, but it's nice to control your own destiny. And then, of course, there is the sequence that took all of six minutes: Orioles tie the Sox with a two-out double; Orioles beat the Sox with a shallow fly (a blooper?) that Carl Crawford couldn't quite corral; and then, Evan Longoria hits the game winner for the Rays (after helping overcome the Yankees 7-0 lead with a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 8th).

In the end, two of the last three games went to extra innings, and the other had a rain delay, adding to the tension. In the end, the outcomes of these three games came in a span of 37 unforgettable minutes. It was baseball heaven.

Thanks to ESPN, here's the sequence of events. All times listed are Eastern Times (City listed is where game was played).

7:10 ATL First pitch
7:10 BAL First pitch
7:11 TB First pitch
7:19 ATL Ryan Howard double gives Phillies lead
7:21 TB Curtis Granderson scores on Ben Zobrist error
7:27 ATL Sac fly by Chipper Jones ties game at 1
7:49 BAL Red Sox take lead on Dustin Pedroia single
7:54 TB Mark Teixeira grand slam gives Yankees 5-0 lead
8:03 ATL Dan Uggla homer puts Braves up 3-1
8:06 BAL Red Sox trail on J.J. Hardy homer
8:06 HOU First pitch
8:20 BAL Alfredo Simon balks home Marco Scutaro to tie game
8:24 HOU Nick Punto singles home fifth run of first inning
8:35 TB Second homer for Teixeira gives Yankees 6-0 lead
8:36 BAL Pedroia homer gives Red Sox 3-2 lead
8:52 TB Andruw Jones homers to give Yankees 7-0 lead
8:57 ATL [ESPN didn't have this one, but Hunter Pence throws out Dan Uggla at the plate]
9:07 ATL Jack Wilson error cuts Braves' lead to 3-2
9:34 BAL Rain delays game
9:56 ATL Chase Utley sacrifice fly scores Pete Orr to tie game
10:11 ATL Wilson strikes out to send game to extra innings
10:17 TB Bases-loaded walk gets Rays on the scoreboard
10:18 HOU Allen Craig homer gives Cardinals final margain of victory
10:23 TB Evan Longoria homer pulls Rays within one of Yankees
10:26 HOU Cardinals win 8-0
10:27 TB Johnny Damon popout ends six-run Rays rally
10:33 ATL Michael Martinez snags deep fly to send game to 11th
10:47 TB Pinch-hitter Dan Johnson ties game at 7 with home run
10:58 BAL Game resumes
11:13 ATL Martin Prado grounds out to end Phillies' threat in 12th
11:18 BAL Scutaro thrown out at home to preserve one-run game
11:28 ATL Hunter Pence blooper gives Phillies lead in 13th
11:40 ATL Phillies win 4-3
11:59 BAL Nolan Reimold double ties game in bottom of ninth
12:02 BAL Robert Andino game-winning single: Orioles win 4-3
12:05 TB Longoria game-winning homer: Rays win 8-7 in 12

Down the Stretch They Come: Wild Card Races

2011-09-25T17:07:00.000-07:00

St. Louis trailed Atlanta by 10½ games before play on Aug. 26 but have since gone 20-8, with wins in 15 of their last 20 games. With three games left for both St. Louis and Atlanta, the Cardinals are just one game back. This is where the fun begins!

You may recall I predicted in March that the Brewers would win the Central and the Cardinals would be the NL Wild Card team. As highlighted above, that looked like a foolhardy prediction just a few weeks ago, as the Braves were playing almost as well as the Phillies. Now, the Cardinals have caught lightening in a bottle and are playing with new life (we won't talk about the game on the 22nd). The Cardinals play three in Houston against the hapless Astros while the Braves take on the Phillies, in Atlanta. The Phillies essentially have nothing to play for...so how will they play it. Will they try their best and not risk going cold just before the playoffs? I can see Charlie Manuel being conservative with his pitchers. We shall see.

While it would be great if the Cardinals could just take the wild card outright, one of my favorite things in all of sports is a one-game playoff to get into the playoffs...especially afternoon games. That would be cool.

And, there's a chance there could be more than one! The AL Wild Card race is down to three games, with the Rays just 1 game back of the White Sox. It's going to be a wild finish this week!

Uncertainty Can Be a Guiding Light: My Top 10 U2 Songs

2011-09-24T15:32:00.000-07:00

This is a list of 10 U2 songs I can't do without. This is not necessarily an examination of the key moments in their career, the songs that "defined" them. These are just the 10 I love.

1. With or Without You
Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you

The rest of the songs are in no particular order, but I had to put "With Or Without You" first because that's where my U2 "career" starts. I remember hearing it on the radio in the late winter/early spring of 1987. I don't know if I even knew anything about U2 at the time, or even if I had heard the name U2. Great song, great emotion, and one of their signature moments.

2. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
Faraway, so close
Up with the static and the radio
With satellite television
You can go anywhere
Miami, New Orleans
London, Belfast and Berlin

Zooropa came out shortly after I returned home from Germany. I love the album. Sure, there are some oddities, but this track, "Lemon" (below), and "Dirty Day" are excellent tracks that can make any album better.

This one is so melancholy, sparse, and heartfelt, a moment when less truly is more. It feels so personal. And, Bono's vocals sound so clean and clear, it's like he's never been captured so purely before.

3. Original of the Species
Baby slow down
The end is not as fun as the start
Please stay a child somewhere in your heart

My baby is almost 6. She's still a child in her heart, definitely, but how long will it last? I worry that she'll grow up way too fast, like her bigger sister (the one who's 12 now). This song makes me feel like a dad. It's poignant but also celebratory. The strings are spot-on, and the entire vibe is a victory.

4. Until the End of the World
In the garden I was playing the tart
I kissed your lips and broke your heart
You...you were acting like it was
The end of the world

This song is all about Edge's riff. This is rock-n-roll. I love Bono's unrestrained vocals coming out of the solo, especially in live versions. Great stuff.

5. So Cruel
Her heart is racing, you can't keep up
The night is bleeding like a cut
Between the horses of love and lust
We are trampled... underfoot

I don't know what it is about this song that I like so much. I think part of it is that it, at the time, it felt like the band's most mature song. I do know I love the string arrangement on this song, especially where it reaches a bit of a crescendo at the end of the lyrics quoted above.

The lyrics hint at betrayal, jealousy, and obsession. It seems to be a very cynical song. What else would you say of the line "We're cut adrift/But still floating/I'm only hanging on/To watch you go down/My love." The voice wants to see the other person drown. That's stark enough as it is, but adding in the "my love" at the end is a biting bit of irony (or is it satire?), reinforcing a sense of a love/hate relationship. If it weren't so mean, it would be gold; I still think it's a great turn of a phrase.

6. One Tree Hill
I don't believe in painted roses
Or bleeding hearts
While bullets rape the night of the merciful
I'll see you again
When the stars fall from the sky
And the moon has turned red
Over One Tree Hill

I didn't fully appreciate "One Tree Hill" until fairly recently. Learning who Greg Carroll was (the song is dedicated to him) and the meaning behind the song has made a big difference. Carroll was a Maori from New Zealand who ended up working with the band. He died as sessions for The Joshua Tree were beginning. According to Wikipedia, although it is not referenced, Carroll in accident "while delivering Bono's motorcycle in the rain." Again, no reference is given, and the U2 By U2 book does not provide details. Perhaps that is the meaning behind the words "That's when the rain will/Break my heart." Obviously the song was born from sad circumstances, and yet the song isn't necessarily sad. It's an uplifting song with a jaunty beat and, as the lyrics above highlight, the hope of a joyful reunion some day. A true U2 masterpiece.

7. Kite
I want you to know
That you don't need me anymore
I want you to know
You don't need anyone, or anything at all

Although #7 here, this is the last slot I filled (no particular order...but what I had here to begin with didn't deserve a top ten spot). It took some time to decide which one should be "last." "Pride" is important enough to be on this list, but do I like it that much? What about "Bullet the Blue Sky"? Or "Kite"? A dark horse like "Van Diemen's Land"? Or even something from No Line on the Horizon? I had to sleep on it. Twice.

Using the criteria I set above, "a list of 10 U2 songs I can't do without," and decided "Kite" meant the most to me. It wasn't easy. This song, with reference to the imminent death of Bono's father, is a very emotional one for the band.

I'm a man, I'm not a child
A man who sees
The shadow behind your eyes

8. Lemon
And these are the days
When our work has come assunder
And these are the days
When we look for something other

"Lemon" is one of the most unusual U2 songs, as far as I am concerned. Take Bono's falsetto and combine it with music that feels sort of gloomy and odd.

Something I didn't know: "Bono wrote the lyrics with his late mother in mind. He explains that it was a 'strange experience to receive, in the post, from a very distant relative, early Super 8 footage of my mother, aged 24, younger than me, playing a game of rounders in slow motion.' The footage showed Bono's mother at a wedding as the maid of honour, wearing a lemon-coloured dress. The film footage inspired Bono to write lyrics about using film to recreate and preserve memory.

A man makes a picture
A moving picture
Through the light projected
He can see himself up close
A man captures colour
A man likes to stare
He turns his money into light to look for her

9. Bad (live versions)
If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it go...

This desparation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation
Let it go

The Rattle and Hum film is a mixed bag, but for me the highlight has always been the stirring and unforgettable performance of "Bad." I have a number of concert DVDs from a number of bands, and I don't know if I have ever seen as much true passion as U2 shows performing "Bad" on Rattle and Hum. The track as it exists on The Unforgettable Fire is okay, I guess, but it's fairly sedate and conservative, especially when compared to the unrestrained live versions.

And, it's a true story. Bono introduced it once by saying, "I wrote the words about a friend of mine, his name was Gareth Spaulding. And on his 21st birthday he and his friends decided to give themselves a present of enough heroin into his veins to kill him."

10. One
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

When I interviewed Bono last month, he told me, "It's not a hippy vibe, it's anti-romantic: We are one, but we're not the same. We get to carry each other. It's a reminder that we have no choice. I'm still disappointed when people hear the chorus line as "we've got to" rather than "we get to carry each other." Because it is resigned, really. It's not: "Come on everybody, let's vault over the wall." Like it or not, the only way out of here is if I give you a leg up the wall and you pull me after you. There's something very unromantic about that. The song is a bit twisted, which is why I could never figure out why people want it at their weddings.... I tell them, 'Are you mad? It's about splitting up!' "

I love Edge's guitar, especially the moody little flourishes after the "leaves you baby/if you don't care for it" verse.

One, but we're not the same.

In My Life, since 9/11

2011-09-16T13:35:00.000-07:00

I've been laid off six times...and twice by the same company
I welcomed two more daughters to my family, and they have both been tremendous blessings in my life
Said goodbye to my grandpa and my sister
I went back to school and got an MBA
The Cardinals won the World Series, and I have made three separate trips to St. Louis, seeing four games all together.
I traveled to Europe
Moved to Lehi
Met many great and inspiring people
Started cooking creme brulee on a regular basis
Became a student of the American Civil War
Saw the current resident of the White House do all he could to bring a great country down
Fell in love with LOST...and then kinda got mad at it
Fell in love with ALIAS and definitely got mad at it...and got Jennifer Garner's autograph in NYC
Saw the three Lord of the Rings movies, and, over time, decided the acting was largely mediocre (see Wood, Elijah), but the sets, costumes, and score were world class.
Worked hard to support my wife and be a strength to her. Fell in love with her over and over again.
Decided that Gourmandise Bakery in Salt Lake City is one of the great places in the world
Discovered the music of Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney (The Black Keys)
Saw Rush three times
Had my first In-n-Out Burger and discovered that, yes, they are extremely overrated
Made lots of money on eBay, most of it legal
Interviewed Bono
Started this nifty blog

The gallbladder, the woman in the white rain coat, and more: a revelation of sorts

2011-08-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

In the end, this post may just be something for me, an easy way of remembering. A blog is an excellent sort of memory bank, and, besides, it was a prophet of God who said, "When you look in the dictionary for the most important word, do you know what it is? It could be ‘remember.’" (Spencer W. Kimball)

And what is it I am trying to remember?

Yesterday, I went under the knife and had my gallbladder removed. Stones, you see. Modern anesthesia is quite something. I think the last thing I remember was an oxygen mask going over my face...and then I was slowly coming-to in the recovery room. Last night, as I was trying to fall to sleep, I found that I couldn't. I just didn't feel all that sleepy, for whatever reason. My mind wandered and, somehow, I suddenly had a clear, mental image of a tall-ish, elegant woman in a crisp white (cotton?) rain coat, unbuttoned, with a high, stiff collar that gave her a sort of martial air. This coat is kinda in the right direction, but I don't know about the belt.

What the crap was this?

Suddenly, the other aspects of her appearance became clear. Blue jeans that flared a little at the bottom. A red and white vertical stripped satin shirt, "slim fitting" (is that the right term for a woman's top? My shirts that come in more on the sides are called slim fit), and red "high" heels (but not too high). She also wore a pair of classy sunglasses (these are pretty close), and her raven black hair, shoulder length with tasteful bangs, was braided on both sides of her head, but toward the top, joining in an impish pony tail. While the white rain coat started it off, the finishing touch was a pair of sleek, black leather gloves.

Who is this woman? Why is this image coming into my head? A couple names popped up: "Samantha" and "Megan."

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

To resolve this mystery, you'll have to take a little journey with me to October 2006 and January 2008. In 2006, the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series, to my unrestrained joy. The only drawback to the victory is that I was in grad school at the time and, if memory serves, I saw two of the five games in their entirety as they aired. In 2007, MLB (I guess) released a DVD set of the World Series broadcast and I found it cheap on eBay. In 2008, when I finally sat down to watch Game 3 (Chris Carpenter's 3-hit gem). During that game, one of Carpenter's pitches broke the bat of a Tigers' hitter, with the barrel flying into the infield.

That commonplace incident gave me something I had been seeking for awhile: an idea for a book. It came in a flash: in a freak accident, a piece of a broken bat flies into the infield and slams into the pitcher, who was focused on fielding the ball. The bat fragment penetrates the pitcher in the lower back...basically, he has part of a bat sticking out of him. In the end, he has a kidney removed because it is beyond repair. The rest of the book deals with his recovery and, more importantly, his return to full activity as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (my book is intended for the LDS market).

The pitcher's name is Travis Woodley. When the names Samantha and Megan came to mind, I was shocked to realize that Samantha was the name I chose for his wife, and Megan the name I chose for his nine-year-old daughter. So far, I have written the prologue (which wasn't short...maybe it's actually chapter one)...and that was two years ago. :)

Well, I was half right. Megan is indeed the daughter's name. I am sure Samantha was a candidate way back when I started to conceptualize the book. Turns out I chose Lana, which didn't seem familiar at all. I think I will go with Samantha.

In connection to her Twilight books, Stephanie Meyer says she had a vivid dream of two people in a meadow, or something like that. The dream was so powerful and real that she had to know who those people were. As I understand it, they became Edward (sparkle sparkle!) and Bella. I'm not saying my experience was quite that powerful, and I may never finish the book, but it was a unique experience. Maybe it's because I just started rereading—for the first time in 20+ years—John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Le Carré has a way of writing that is worthy of emulation. Perhaps immersing myself in his prose again has sparked something in me.

More importantly, a "vision" of a woman in a white rain coat isn't all that came to me last night. I also had conversation snippets and ideas flowing into my mind. And, perhaps most telling of all, I came to the realization that while my book is about an injured pitcher and his struggles with recovery and reactivation in the true Church, the real story I need to tell is the Atonement. That is what this story is all about. Travis grew up LDS, but he and his family were sporadic in their activity—not completely inactive, but also not fully engaged or fully observant of how a Latter-Day Saint should live.

I see two priesthood brethren, Travis' home teachers, being his tutors, helping him learn—or relearn—the doctrine of the kingdom. Nevertheless, I somehow see just one home teacher, Paul Manchester, in most of the conversations. Not sure why. :) One conversational thread that came to me goes something like this:

"Why did Jesus do it? Why did he suffer and die for us?" Woodley asked, his eyes riveted to a spot on the floor between his feet.

Paul recognized the significance of Travis asking the question: The Spirit was opening Travis' heart to the full meaning of the Gospel and Christ's sacrifice for sin. And, it was perhaps the most profound question anyone could ever ask. The answer came to him in a flash. "He did it for us because of us, Travis. All of us, the whole human family, are the reason Christ went to Gethsemane and Golgotha. His love for us and for our Father in Heaven took him on that path." He thought of a passage of scripture that could help illustrate his point. Using his iPhone, Paul launched the Gospel Library app. "Let me read you a few verses from Alma that will shed some light on the subject."

Thumbing his way to Alma 7, Paul began to read at verse 11: "'And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.'

"'And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.'"

At this, Paul looked up from his reading and said, "Here are six of the simplest words in the Book of Mormon, but over time I have come to see them as deeply profound. Verse 13 begins, 'Now the Spirit knoweth all things.' Of course He does, but why did Alma throw in what seems like a basic observation in the middle of talking about the atonement?" This was intended as a rhetorical question, but Travis was clearly searching for an answer. Paul waited.

"Because...", Travis began tentatively. "Because...the Spirit...can tell us what we need to know?"

"You're on the right track, Travis. What does that mean in relation to Christ's Atonement?"

"It...can help us understand what it means...for us, personally."

"Great answer," Paul responded, trying not to sound condescending. "That's absolutely true, and we can all learn a great deal from the Spirit. In Alma's discourse, however, he was going in a different direction. The rest of verse 13 reads, 'nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.'"

Paul allowed the words to sink in for a moment before continuing.

"Let me read something from a general conference talk that really opened my eyes to these verses. I have to give credit where credit is due," he said with a grin. He was navigating on his iPhone again. "This is from Elder Kent F. Richards, of the Seventy. You'll remember we talked about the Seventy a week or two ago." Travis nodded in reply.

"At the beginning of this talk, Elder Richards tells us that he was a surgeon before his call to the Seventy. Okay, he said, 'Late one night lying in a hospital bed, this time as a patient and not as a physician, I read those verses'—from Alma 7—'over and over again. I pondered: “How is it done? For whom? What is required to qualify? Is it like forgiveness of sin? Do we have to earn His love and help?” As I pondered, I came to understand that during His mortal life Christ chose to experience pains and afflictions in order to understand us. Perhaps we also need to experience the depths of mortality in order to understand Him and our eternal purposes.'

"'President Henry B. Eyring taught: “It will comfort us when we must wait in distress for the Savior’s promised relief that He knows, from experience, how to heal and help us. … And faith in that power will give us patience as we pray and work and wait for help. He could have known how to succor us simply by revelation, but He chose to learn by His own personal experience.''"

Again, Paul paused, allowing the Spirit to confirm to Travis what he had read.

"Wow," Travis said, his voice cracking. As Travis looked up from the floor, Paul could see the tears in Travis' eyes. "He...he didn't have to do it that way, but he did. That's...how can he love us so much, Paul?"

"It's hard to fathom, isn't it?" Paul answered. "I don't think I can answer that, but I also don't have to. The important thing is that he does love us so much and because of Him, every good thing in this world and in the next can be ours. Because he experienced what he chose to experience—and other verses say he 'descended below all things', which I take to mean that there is nothing in all of the human experience that he didn't experience and doesn't understand—he really does know us better than we know ourselves."

So, does it have a chance?

My (imaginary) Interview with U2's Bono

2011-08-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

[Editor's note: Most of these quotes really came from that Paul Hewson guy]

Jason: It's good to see you, man. Haven't seen you one-on-one since that night at Capital Records.
Bono: Yes, that was a night to remember. How are you keepin'?

J: Can't complain, except for being laid off. But, I feel good about this interview helping to put some money in the bank.
B: Glad to help. Did you enjoy our Salt Lake City concert in May?

J: Very much. It got better and better as the night went on. I was thrilled to see you guys do "Stay (Faraway, So Close!). And "Zooropa" was a treat. The new songs, too.
B: Yeah, I recall it was a good night for us in the band. You Utah folks get all excited when we show up. It wasn't the warmest night of the tour, either.

J: To get started, I want to talk about songwriting. I consider myself a good writer, I can put words together and achieve a meaning that is somehow beyond just what the individual words mean. As the singer, showman, and shaman of U2, I think sometimes your songwriting gets overlooked, but you do it so well.

B: Songwriting has, over time, become what I enjoy most about this absurd life. What I like most about being in a band is the feeling of writing a song, one day it doesn’t exist, the next day it does exist, then you make it into a record, then the record is played on the radio all over the world, and then you go to some far off place, and you come in the airport and you hear your song on the radio, and that’s a really special feeling; that kind of pays your wages more than anything.

J: Tell me about some of the songs you're most proud of.
B: There are a few that stand out, and studying our setlist can give you a clue. "One" has to be on the list. And, most people don't understand the message. It's not a hippy vibe, it's anti-romantic: We are one, but we're not the same. We get to carry each other. It's a reminder that we have no choice. I'm still disappointed when people hear the chorus line as "we've got to" rather than "we get to carry each other." Because it is resigned, really. It's not: "Come on everybody, let's vault over the wall." Like it or not, the only way out of here is if I give you a leg up the wall and you pull me after you. There's something very unromantic about that. The song is a bit twisted, which is why I could never figure out why people want it at their weddings.... I tell them, "Are you mad? It's about splitting up!"

"The Fly" is a very cynical song, of course, but it's so fun because the character just sort of revealed itself to me. I always felt like "The Fly" was this phone call from hell. It took U2 fifteen years to get from Psalms to Ecclesiastes, and it's only one book!

J: The part of "The Fly" that stands out for me is the line "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief/All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief." I'm sure every writer feels that way. And, you'll love this, when I first heard it, I thought the line was "Every artist is a cowboy."
B: Well, there is a bit of the maverick in me, the "I did it my way" aspect.

Another song is "All I Want Is You." There are some beautiful songs on Rattle and Hum. "All I Want Is You" is probably the best. Jimmy Iovine always said, "It’s a great song but we never made it a great record." He felt if we’d gotten it right it would have been a number one hit. It never was. I sing this song to Ali. Ali is like a force of nature. She is like a current that you don’t see until you are in the water. These songs, if they're any good, are usually as much biography as autobiography. They contain the person you want to be sometimes more than the person you are. She doesn’t need me to be anything other than the person I am. I would think, “Gosh, I wish I was more this way; I wish I was more that way.” She would always look at me and say, “Actually, I like you just the way you are. Lighten up.” She’s got that kind of belief in who I am at the essential level. It’s an amazing thing.

Autobiography leads us to "Kite." I first saw it as me talking to my girls, but as most people probably know, my Dad was dying when we put out All that You Can't Leave Behind. Edge could see what I was really saying, even if I didn't. There is the thing about songwriting, sometimes you're the last one to know what you're on about. It was a reference to an absurd moment of parenting, where I took a kite up on Killiney Hill with Jordan and Eve. I'd been away, and wanted to do the dad thing but the kite blew off the line and smashed to smithereens on the first flight and Eve asked if they could go home and play with their Tamagotchis. So the song is about letting go but when I sang it suddenly I was back in a caravan site when I was a kid and I remembered that my dad tried to do exactly the same thing with a kite and it had gone equally badly. I realized I wasn't singing from quite as theoretical a place as I thought. I felt the goodbye aspect of the song was not from me to him, but from him to me.

"City of Blinding Lights" is even more recent, and we liked it so much in the band that we started our Vertigo [tour] shows with it. The first verse is in London and the chorus in is New York. The thing I had in mind was my first trip to London with Ali when we were teenagers. And then, of course, New York, the scene in Madison Square Garden during the Elevation Tour [i.e., after the 9/11 attacks] where the lights come on and 18,000 New Yorkers were in tears, jumping up and down, and I shouted. "Oh you look so beautiful tonight." It is such a naïve and innocent line. That's what this song is about, remembering those times. "I miss you when you're not around." It's not necessarily a curse, it's that part of us is missing. It's about recapturing a sense of wonder, being in a city and reminding yourself that you don't have to lose your soul to gain the world.

"Bad" is potentially a truly great song ... if I had finished it. And in a way I do finish it every night, live. I change the lyric. Songs should not be set in stone. If they are any good, they are living, breathing organisms.

J: You didn't mention "With or Without You" which is the first song I remember hearing from U2. I was in 9th grade.
B: The lyric is pure torment. One of the things that was happening at the time was the collision in my own mind between being faithful to your art or being faithful to your lover. What if the two are at odds? Your gift versus domestic responsibility?

I had always been the kind of person who would sleep on everyone else's floor, the eye of the traveling rat, a natural tinker. I would just wander off and be very happy. So now I have this person in my life whom I love more than my life but I'm wondering if the reason I'm not writing is because I'm now a domesticated beast. I'm wondering if I'm house-trained? If I meet somebody and I want to go off with them, to find out what their world is like, I can't because I'm a married man.

It's not even about sexual infidelity. I just remember thinking: 'Is this the life of an artist? Am I going to have kids and settle down and betray my gift or am I going to betray my marriage? It was a very difficult thing in my head. I had met a couple of people on the way who had taken advantage of my naivete, is the best way I can put, and I realized I knew so very little about this world and now, the future looked like I was going to know even less. You can learn about politics, culture, but your emotional life also has to be developed.

I think in some senses mine wasn't, and I was going through all this kind of uncertainty. I was at least two people: the person who is so responsible, protective and loyal and the vagrant and idler in me who just wants to run from responsibility. I thought these tensions were going to destroy me but actually, in truth, it is me. That tension, it turns out, is what makes me as an artist.

Right in the centre of a contradiction, that's the place to be. There I was. Loyal. But in my imagination filled with wanderlust, a heart to know God, a head to know the world, rock star who likes to run amok and sinner who knows he needs to repent...

If I had cut loose, what would have become of me? The muse is taciturn and can abandon you, leaving you with nothing. My muse has different demands. If I'd gone that route, many of my best songs would have gone unwritten. Or if I'd taken the other road, which is straightforward, given myself over to the domestic side of life, the songs would have been lost. It's the tension between the two that keeps me sharp. You don't have to resolve them, just don't go too far either way."

J: Alright, so what about the bombs?
B: You want me to admit there were bombs (chuckles).

Well, "God Part II" was a misfire, shall we say. The whole song came out of a moment where I was worried about what we were doing. That song doesn't actually belong on Rattle and Hum. It is really the first song on Achtung Baby. I'd come to the end of nostalgia.

J: In 1986, U2 performed on a program called TV Ga Ga. You performed a mysterious song called "Woman Fish"—
B: You're not going to—

J: And then an apparently drunken rendition of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."
B: Oh, it's a shame you had to mention that.

J: Sadly, in the age of YouTube, anyone can relive this tragic moment in U2's career.
B: I offer no explanation...I just ask people to remember it was a long time ago and I was very young back then.

J: You alluded to it above, but Rattle and Hum doesn't seem to have aged well.
B: I think it was a moment when hubris was the next logical step in our development and we walked into a sucker punch. The performance stuff in the film is amazing. It's shot by Robert Brinkmann and Jordan Cronenwerth. No rock 'n' roll band had been shot like that before. The black and white footage is like Raging Bull at times. And then the other stuff is us being self-conscious in front of the camera. Self-consciousness will turn the prettiest face ugly and make the most vivid personality dull grey. No matter how long Phil [Joanou, the director] spent with us, as soon as the lights went on, we froze. The hardest thing to do is be yourself. When somebody says "just be yourself" what do you do? Especially if you don't know who you are.

J: What about the album?
B: The album would have worked out better if we had been brave enough to experiment more. We didn't know how to break the rules. Maybe we didn't want to at that moment, because The Joshua Tree had been such an enormous breakthrough. We thought, "Why not keep going down this road for a stretch" and it turned out, in some ways, to be a wrong turn. But, it's probably also true that it would have been impossible to make Achtung Baby in 1989. No way.

J: When Pop was released, I was very excited because we had all been waiting so long for a U2 album. It seemed great at the time, but with a few exceptions, it doesn't seem to work now. It seems too plastic, too polyester, like you took MacPhisto too far.
B: So many of the songs on pop are almost but not quite there. We wanted to make a party record but we came in at the end of the party. The dancing was over, and there were a load of broken bottles and young people sleeping under tables and the odd row in the garden between lovers who've imbibed too much. It starts in the "Discotheque." "Do You Feel Loved" was our attempt to stay in the night, but, very quickly, it's the morning after and what can only be described as the "Mofo" of all hangovers. And it pretty much stays there.

The title was a piece of deliberate disinformation, and a spectacular own goal as far as the rock audience were concerned, because they don't like pop.

J: To get ready for this interview, I flipped through the U2 By U2 book and I realized your personal style has changed a lot over the years. We talk about U2 reinventing itself every few years. You've done the same, it seems. But...what was going on with that mullet?
B: Forget a bad-hair day, I was having a bad-hair life. You should never look like you've had your hair ironed. I look back at pictures from that period and I am the Prince of mullet, and the only thing that’s keeping that mullet away from pop history is a hat designed for a taller man. There’s still people who can’t like us because of that hair do.

U2 have had two really rotten fashion phases. One was the October tour, where I had a skunk on my head. It looked like a badger, actually; early experiments with peroxide, and it didn't work. We were so involved with whether we even wanted to be in a band or not, we really weren't thinking that much about what we looked like. The second was The Unforgettable Fire period. That was pretty rough because I'd taken to wearing military boots that were knee-high. You should never draw attention to your legs if you don't have any.

J: I always thought you looked best with the longer hair, the Joshua Tree-era look. Is that weird to say?
B: No...but it's a little strange to hear (laughs). Yeah, it was the right look at the right time, but I'm 51 now. I can't look like that anymore.

J: On the subject of growing older, how often do you take stock of where you've been, where you're going, who you are?
B: I suppose anyone who puts pen to paper as often as I do takes stock of their current station in life. There's no retirement for an artist, its your way of living so theres no end to it. As a rock star, I have two instincts, I want to have fun, and I want to change the world. I have a chance to do both. I'm a scribbling, cigar-smoking, wine-drinking, Bible-reading band man. A show-off [laughs]... who loves to paint pictures of what I can't see. A husband, father, friend of the poor and sometimes the rich. An activist traveling salesman of ideas. Chess player, part-time rock star, opera singer, in the loudest folk group in the world.

J: The 360 Tour is now over, and set a record for highest grossing tour ever, more than $500 million! What's next for U2?
B: We have to spend all that money, man! (laughs). No, that's really blase of me. There was a big gap between No Line on the Horizon and How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, and we can sense our fans want new material from us sooner rather than later, so...we hope to put out something by the fall of 2012, if not sooner.

J: Funny you should mention that. In 2009, when I hung out with you guys in Hollywood just after No Line on the Horizon came out, you said there would be a new album out pretty soon...it was going to be like Achtung Baby and Zooropa. I hate to say it, bro, but we're still waiting.
B: Oh, you remember that, do ya? Well...maybe I shouldn't tell you this...but that was indeed the plan, as far as anyone associated with U2 has a plan. We were in such a creative groove that we did have all this extra stuff we wanted to get out. We still have it of course. So, yeah, the plan was to put out something. But, then we got out on tour and it was such a monumental undertaking that all these side projects had to take a back seat. And then, of course, I hurt my back and we had to postpone the whole of the 2010 U.S. tour, so, it was like the back seat caught fire. We have the music, we plan to do something with the music...but, perhaps in some ways we are not as enthusiastic about those tracks as we once were. They will see the light of day eventually...in some form.

J: Speaking of Achtung Baby, you have just announced several different 20th Anniversary packages to come out this fall to mark the occasion. You famously described Achtung Baby as "the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree." What does Achtung Baby mean to the overall story of U2?
B: I suppose it's not a stretch to say without Achtung Baby, there would be no U2.

J: It had that big an impact.
B: Absolutely. If we had kept on in the same mold, we would have stagnated and died. With Achtung, we did things that we hadn't even thought of before. We broke down so many barriers. It was Kafka-esque in how liberating and, more importantly, illuminating, the creative process can and should be.

You see, a lot of people don't know this because Achtung Baby worked, but when we were in Berlin to get started, we had some serious issues to face. What we thought were just hairline cracks that could be easily fixed turned out to be more serious, the walls needed underpinning, we had to put down new foundations or the house would fall down. In fact it was falling down all around us. We were running up hotel bills and we had professional people, the U2 crew, staring at our average-ness and scratching their heads and wondering if maybe they'd have been better off working for Bruce Springsteen. We came face to face with our limitations as a group on a lot of levels, playing and songwriting. When you're at sea the smartest thing to do is to find some dry land as quick as possible. So I think Larry and Adam were just anxious: "Stop messing around with all this electronica, let's get back to doing what we do. Because all this experimental stuff isn't working very well, is it?" There was a bit of that going on. "Did somebody say we were a rock band?" As you were walking down the corridor, you'd overhear that kind of remark.

J: The Super Deluxe packaging is $160+ and the uber edition is $659, at least they are as we sit here today. Can you really justify those prices given the state of world affairs?
B: No, I probably can't. Listen, we don't expect too many punters will want the uber edition. We could even call it the "uber the top" edition. But hey, if you want to get your own Fly shades, this set is for you!

When it came time to put together special editions to mark the occasion, we wanted to present every option possible. There are five versions to choose from. You might look at it and think, "Why isn't there an option around $100?" Well, the economics just didn't work out that way. Is it excessive? Yeah, probably, but Achtung Baby in a way was all about excess, mocking the excess. From "The Fly" to MacPhisto later, we were reveling in the rock star world while also peeling back the mask just a little. Does the Emperor have clothes on or does he not? We aren't going to force anyone to buy the pricier sets, but for those who do, they will find a first-class production that is worth every nickel. Maybe I can send you one, get the guys to sign it for you.

J: Okay, last question: As time goes by, I find "Original of the Species" to be one of the great U2 songs. It touches me on many levels. It sounds like something I'd say to my girls. How much did parenthood influence the song?
B: You always could spot the good ones, couldn't you? Yeah, the parent-child perspective is definitely there, but I didn't want it to come across that way. You sense with teenage girls this incredible pressure to be beautiful and to do well in their school. It is as if every waking moment the whole world is telling them what they are not. I wanted to write a song about uniqueness. It's worth remembering that you probably have something the world really needs. Trying to discover what that might be is one of the challenges of life. But one way you will not discover it is by trying to be what you are not. It's one of our great songs, but unfortunately it doesn't work all that well in a live setting.

And, U2 is an original species... there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.

When the Gospel doesn't provide identity and belonging

2011-07-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

A recent article in The Economist caught my attention for what it didn't say. The article reviewed the work of Google Ideas, and the Summit Against Violent Extremism (SAVE) in Dublin. This conference brought together people who had been involved with violent organizations.

The article says they "had much in common." One pair from widely divergent backgrounds "struggled with defining their identities." Some "spoke of abuse they suffered as children." "Others described absent fathers, households plagued by alcoholism, lonely teenage years and their frustrated desire to belong." To fill these holes in their life, they turned to organizations that offered a form of acceptance that was wholly devoid of lasting and worthwhile substance.

My realization is that the Gospel could have offered what these people lacked in their youth, and otherwise corrected what was wrong in their lives. I realize that having the Gospel and a knowledge of the truth in one's life does not make life perfect. But, the good men I know who cling to the Gospel are not absent fathers, and there isn't alcoholism. And, most importantly, the Gospel helps us understand who we truly are and gives us a place of eternal belonging. Just my $.02.

Baseball at the Halfway Point (or something like that)

2011-07-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

I should written this at the true 1/2 way point in the season (which is not the All Star Game), and then, failing that, I should have written this before or after the AS Game. In any event, my predictions for the 2011 baseball season were:

AL
East: BoSox
Central: White Sox
West: Rangers
Wild Card: Twins

NL
East: Phillies
Central: Brewers
West: Rockies

In the AL, the Sox have overcome a dismal start to rocket to the top of the East. In the Central, my prediction of the White Sox looks a little wonky, but they are in the mix, and in the West the Rangers have a reasonably solid 4-game lead. The darn Yankees would be the Wild Card at the moment.

In the NL, the Phillies are trying to running away with the East but the young Braves are hanging in there. In the Central, the Brewers, after ending April 13-13, have surged lately to take the lead, with my beloved Cardinals close on their heels. More on that below. The Giants lead in the West. The Braves have the second best record in the NL and would be the Wild Card today.

Surprises
It's mid July and the Pirates have a winning record. As I understand it, those words have not been uttered for 20 years. They're only .5 games out of 1st place at the moment! This is an amazing development and I'd be more excited about it if the Pirates weren't in the Cardinals division.

The Diamondbacks have overcome an 11-14 start to go 40-30 since. Didn't see that coming.

The Rockies are 5 games under .500 and 9.5 back. Ubaldo Jimenez is mortal at 5-8 and an ERA over 4 (like you'd expect from Coors).

Cleveland Indians. Wow, what the heck? I have to expect the Tigers to surge ahead, but the Indians are doing well.

The Cardinals
Albert Pujols showed remarkable healing powers and was back in the lineup 17 days or so after breaking his wrist. But...I understand his wrist injury is not the typical sort of wrist injury that can hold a player out for weeks and potentially derail a career. Pujols' "wrist" injury was apparently to the tip of either the ulna or radius, which heals faster. He's played well since returning, too. Carpenter had a dominating outing against the hated Reds on the 16th, and one would think he'd soon be over .500 (he's now 5-7, with an ERA at 3.69, which isn't wince inducing).

Perhaps, all things considered, 50-45 is about right for the Cardinals, but it seems they should be more like 54-41, or good enough for 1st place in the Central. As the trading deadline approaches, the Cardinals need bullpen help. Everyone in baseball knows it, which means it might not come cheaply.

The Cardinals have a great chance to claim the Central, but there is little margin for error. If Carp does regain his old form and Albert kicks it into gear, it should work well!

Most divisions are shaping up to be closely contested until well into September. Should be fun!

Tiramisu, How I Love You

2011-07-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

Went to Gourmandise in downtown SLC on Saturday and splurged on a large tiramisu. It's a glorious thing. Took some great pics with the work camera...although I kinda forgot to get the top. Oh well, you can see what the top looks like from the one I bought in 2008 (here).

Click each image to see a (much) larger pic.

No, It Doesn't Get Better

2011-07-03T22:01:00.000-07:00

Society is taking another step away from the strait and narrow path. A group called the It Gets Better Project is aiming to tell "homosexual" teens that, despite challenges, being homosexual "gets better." This effort was prompted by, as I understand it, a rash of suicides of and/or bullying against homosexual teens.

My heart was sick to see advertisements on national TV from this group. The spots feature "celebrities" and even an animated Sheriff Woody (Toy Story). Apparently there are numerous variations, including the San Francisco Giants' team telling teens "it gets better" and the staff at Pixar doing the same. Even that Obama guy has a spot, where he says, "You didn't go anything wrong." I guess it would be too much to expect anything else from a modern, "open minded" society. We need opinion leaders to say, "homosexuality is wrong, it is not normal, but that doesn't mean violence against homosexuals is OK."

The first time I saw this lame campaign, it was a commercial promoting Google's Chrome browser, which I happen to use. Google's message was not only in support of the It Gets Better group, but as a way of using the Internet—"the web is what you make of it." My first response was to stop using Chrome and throw away all my Pixar DVDs. Do I have the strength to do that?

My response
My message to so-called teen homosexuals is, if you pursue these homosexual inclinations, then no, it doesn't get better. Any action, homosexual or otherwise, that takes you away from truth, will only make life worse. Just as I would say to someone considering adultery, abortion, premarital sex, or even tax evasion or just getting drunk, wickedness never was happiness. Ancient and modern prophets have made that clear. Taking any step into immorality of any kind can only lead to sorrow, anguish, and ruination. Real happiness in life only comes by adhering to true principles in harmony with our eternal identities.

My opinion is shaped by my spiritual perspective. I don't delude myself that my blog has a lot of readers, but there may be some who might stumble upon this post and won't agree with me. So be it. They may likely hurl homophobic slurs at me, call me intolerant and narrow minded. They’ll probably say, “leave religion out of it,” or “there’s nothing wrong with consenting adults to do as they please as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

Some may even accuse me of “hate.” If I see my children playing in the road, I am going to tell them to get out of the road. It’s not because I hate them. On the contrary, it’s because I love them and don’t want them to get hurt.

I ask those who disagree with me to tolerate my opinion, as they demand I respect theirs. It's almost comical how those who accuse people opposed to homosexuality of being narrow minded, but can't be open minded enough to respect an opinion based in religious/spiritual/moral principles.

When I first wrote this, it was much longer, but I have decided to shorten my comments. My key points are:

1. No one has to surrender to mere feelings and desires. Our Father in Heaven has given us moral agency. We are to act and not be acted upon. It is given unto us “to know good from evil; wherefore [we] are agents unto [ourselves].” To any supposed homosexual, I would say, these feelings and desires do not define who you are. Instead of telling teens that “it gets better,” we should be telling them, “You can be stronger than these feelings. You don’t have to surrender.”
2. People are free to choose. And, for those who want to counter that some are NOT free, that they are in fact “born this way”, I would say, “Yes, there may be some who have greater inclinations to such desires and thoughts, but as humans we can control our desires and thoughts. Any feeling is controllable. We have the power to rise above inappropriate feelings. Most of us do it every day.”
3. I am not on a crusade to “save” gay people, but I am opposed to efforts to legitimize the gay lifestyle and make it more acceptable. My fear is that eventually my children will no longer believe that homosexuality is wrong, despite all my best efforts to instill that in them. Nevertheless, I’m not going to protest against or otherwise humiliate people engaged in such behavior. I don’t teach my children to hate homosexuals, and I would never condone the bullying.

In 1860, Abraham Lincoln delivered a landmark speech at New York’s Cooper Union, laying out clear precedence for opposing the spread of slavery into U.S. territories. Toward the end of the speech is a passage that is strikingly applicable to the modern fight over homosexuality, in my view. In the passage below, where Lincoln originally referred to slavery, I have substituted homosexuality, and where he said Washington, I substituted Jesus (some of the talk of Union men and Disunionists will be incongruous, but you'll get the idea):

If homosexuality is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality - its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension - its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought homosexuality right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think homosexuality is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? [or, to make it more applicable, “can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to gain a modicum of normalcy?”] If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively.

Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Jesus, imploring men to unsay what Jesus said, and undo what Jesus did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT [emphasis in original].

That is my call, as well. We live in an age when even good, heterosexuals feel they can’t say homosexuality is wrong. Over time, I believe the right to call homosexuality wrong will be taken from those who know the truth, and that, echoing Lincoln, we may face dungeons for ourselves. As Isaiah said, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20).

It is also my conviction that more and more institutions that are currently on the right side of this argument will begin to yield until only the honest in heart, those who know that truth is a knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come, will be the last ones to stand up to wickedness.

(You may also find this article interesting)

Tough Break: Albert Pujols Out with Injury

2011-06-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

As baseball fans know, Albert Pujols will be out "4-6" weeks with a wrist/forearm injury. No doubt the 4-6 weeks could be more like 7-9, and on ESPN.com, Buster Olney apparently has an article that states, "Past players who have had this type of injury were never the same."

The irony is that earlier in June, it seemed Albert was really starting to hit better. I had started to track his stats (literally track in Excel), with the intent of posting weekly updates. Obviously I haven't been doing that, but, for what it's worth, we have:

June Totals
.317 average (versus .279 on the season)
8 HR
13 RBI

June 1-7 (6 games)
.375 avg.
5 HR
7 RBI

June 8-14 (6 games)
.238 avg.
1 HR
3 RBI

June 15-19 (5 games)
.333 avg.
2 HR
3 RBI

Take out that middle week, and he's hitting .357. Not bad at all.

I'd like to be optimistic and say that the injury will help Albert rest up, regroup, and put a lackluster first 1/3 of the season behind him. When he comes back, there will likely be rust...but Albert is a generational player, and maybe this is all he needs to get back on track. Hopefully the Cards' season isn't in the toilet by then.

Echoes of 1970s England in 2011 America

2011-06-12T20:26:00.000-07:00

I just began reading a book about Margaret Thatcher (not a biography per se). So far, it has been extraordinarily good. On Saturday, I came to a section that quoted what we can probably call a party strategy document from 1977 (not written by Thatcher). She became PM in 1979.

Maybe Republican candidates for the White House should co-opt this from the Brits, throw in Obama's name, and rally the troops.

Britain under Jim Callaghan is far from an ideal society. Yet already the normal rosy hues that preceed [sic] an election are being painted by the Labour Government. Even the IMF are springing to their aid. We must counteract this propaganda. We shall do this by painting what we believe to be the true picture of “Jim’s Britain.

This is a very ugly society and we believe the following words characterize it: selfish, cruel, irresponsible, evil, unjust, unfair, dishonest, secret, frightened, cowardly, lacking nerve, stupid, illogical, dull, unthinking, un-reasonable, erratic, simplistic, hostile, hateful, ignorant, con-fused, poor, hesitant, short-sighted, blind, apathetic, bored, tired, pessimistic, unfulfilled. In other words we have an immature society where individuals deny responsibility to each other. Both they and their country seem to have lost faith in themselves.

There is no appearance of personal growth, no fulfillment of satisfaction for self, children or indeed the whole family. No sense of pride, no sense of patriotism. We shall contrast Jim’s Britain with the normative model of Britain’s ideal society that Tory values will create. By contrast this society would evidence concern for others, law and order, justice, fairness, honesty, integrity, openness, courage, a preparedness to take risks for fair rewards, enterprise, invention, intelligence, thoughtfulness, freedom, good sense, concern, knowledge, underlying convictions, mature restraint, self-confidence, loyalty, responsibility for others, self-respect, pride, vision, vibrancy, patriotism, inspiration and interest.

Above all, a willingness to support one’s country, the best for oneself and one’s family. An optimism, a sense of fulfillment, a desire to reach maturity so that one is at peace with oneself and the world, and in a natural state of grace.

And, I just found this video on YouTube. It seems she can be forceful and generous all at once. This is a response to the question "Has Thatcherism left the nation divided?"

MLB at the 1/3 Mark

2011-05-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

All of a sudden, the Cardinals have the second-most wins in baseball. As shocking as that may be, it's not the biggest shock of the season so far. Albert Pujols is (unless you count the Indians).

The Cardinals have so far played exactly 1/3 of the season, and stand at 32-22. They've done it without Adam Wainwright, and with Chris Carpenter at an abysmal 1-5, and an ERA over 4. And, they've done it with an Albert Pujols who is, at best, a shadow of his former self. At the moment, AP is hitting .257, with 8 homers and 28 RBI. This time last year (through 54 games), he was hitting .318 with 12 HR and 39 RBI. I'm not as worried with the difference in production as I am with the average. This is so un-Albert like. He has grounded into 16 double plays, most in the big leagues, and has all of 13 extra base hits. It feels like he's had more 0-fer games in the first 1/3 of the season than he has in his entire career. (And, for the record, Carp was 7-1, with a 2.76 ERA by this point.)

The Cards are doing it with a rejuvenated Lance Berkman (highest average in the NL), a rejuvenated Kyle Lohse (7-2, 2.13 ERA), and strong contributions from Matt Holliday (of course) and Kyle McLellan. If the bullpen could actually hold a lead now and then (and if La Russa hadn't insisted on trotting out an ineffective Ryan Franklin with the game on the line several times early in the season), it's no stretch at all to say the Cardinals would have the best record in baseball.

Imagine how it would be if Albert would start hitting and Carp could get some wins. I don't have the stats in front of me, but I'm pretty sure Carp isn't getting much run support.

As for the rest of baseball, other surprises include Ubaldo Jimenez at 0-5, with a 5.86 ERA. Ouch! Jose Bautista (Joey Bats) is killing the ball in Canada, eh, and then there's the whole Cleveland Indians' renaissance. Holy cow, is that a shock or what? The Twins are now 14.5 games back and in the AL Central cellar. Yikes.

As we get into June and July, talk of trades will of course begin to accelerate. I'm intrigued to see what happens in the East and West divisions of both leagues. Should be fun!

Reconsidering LOST

2011-05-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

LOST concluded a year ago today. Surprisingly, I can’t say that I miss it. At the time, this is what I wrote about the finale:

Did I like it? Taking the episode on its merits, and pretty much ignoring everything else that has happened in this show from day one (except for context), I thought it was just about a masterpiece. The emotional notes were exactly right. It has been made clear to me in recent weeks that for the producers, LOST was about the characters and their development. The rest was basically window dressing. In that sense, “The End” was a soaring triumph. It was sad, it was touching, it was wildly entertaining, it was brilliant (warts and all).

Jack Shepherd has been such a huge character in this show. He was definitely the shepherd of his flock, if you will, and to see where he ended up, that a “man of science” could still to some degree be a “man of faith,” was a great journey. I don’t know that I have ever said that Jack was my favorite character, but it’s sure hard to not like Jack. He has been among my favorites, certainly. It was sad to see him sacrifice himself, but it did feel like it “had to be.”

Okay…from an intellectual viewpoint, the finale, and Season Six as a whole, were lackluster at best. What the hell was “the source” of the Island? What was that plug/rock thing? What was the Island, for heaven’s sake? What about the statue? Who built that? I only wish I could have been a “creative consultant” for this season. So what if the producers don’t care about the mythology of the Island? Millions of viewers do! Why not address it? This show featured a freaking monster made of smoke, for crying out loud. There were whispers and time travel and a “magic box” (something else that wasn’t really explained) and people who didn’t age. Sounds like a lot more than window dressing.

365 days later, I’m not sure I’d agree with that (the positive comments) wholeheartedly. In a vacuum, I suppose the finale was very good, but probably no better than that. Since it aired, I keep thinking the producers and writers really did their fans a disservice by the way they didn’t wrap up the mysteries. It feels more and more like a dud.

Last summer, I started to watch Season One again, with the intent of going all the way through the series over several months. I watched maybe three episodes. I just don’t have the enthusiasm, and I think part of the reason is that I know, in the end, I’ll face the same frustrations. (Although another, bigger, reason is that I’m a busy guy with busy kids and lots of books to read).

That’s my take on LOST, one year on. I do hope to get started on Season One again soon…and, if memory serves, it’s around episode six or seven when it becomes completely addictive. Maybe I’ll just stop at the end of Season Four or Five and call it good. :)

Some Awesome Photos I Have Taken

2011-05-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

Because I am the default corporate photographer at work, I not only take quite a few photos as part of my job, but I also have access to our equipment and can snap a few shots for my own enjoyment. This is a collection of stuff I have shot in the last 18 months or so. Many were from a three week trip across the country with my company's Co-founder and former CEO.

Click the image to see a larger file.

The Death of the Villain in Pakistan

2011-05-08T16:04:00.000-07:00

The big news of the week was the death of that man in Pakistan. It's about time.

For this week's post (yeah, cutting it close to the wire), I share a few blurbs from this week's Economist magazine. It speaks of the monumental developments in the Arab world, which, to my eyes, have largely been secular and pluralistic. These "revolutions" seem to be the antithesis of what Bin Laden stood for.

A few bullets were enough. But the shots that killed Osama bin Laden in the dead of night on May 2nd in a fortified compound not far from Islamabad came after 15 years of dogged pursuit, two long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, well over $1 trillion of spending and around 150,000 deaths. It is a heavy reckoning for one man’s life.

Even if it does, that should not obscure the fact that Mr bin Laden’s infamy in the West is losing its power to inspire his own people. This partly reflects the failure of violence to accomplish the goals he set himself in the Muslim world. Despite years of bloody strife, the Western way of life has continued to encroach on Muslims. Jihad has failed to banish non-Muslim troops from Islamic countries. Western forces remain in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kashmir is home to the Indian army, and Chechnya to the Russians. Israel still flourishes. Not one treacherous Arab government has yielded to the caliphate.

More than that, Mr bin Laden’s desire to murder his way to salvation has at last aroused widespread disgust among Muslims. After al-Qaeda slaughtered Shia and Sunni Muslims in their thousands in Iraq, even fellow jihadis began to condemn his doctrine of takfir, under which radicals took it upon themselves to declare other Muslim apostates and kill them. According to a poll by the Pew Research Centre, confidence in Mr bin Laden in the Palestinian territories has fallen from 72% in 2003 to 34% now. In Jordan it is down from 56% to 13%.

That still leaves a huge reservoir for recruits, but they have been hard to spot in the uprisings sweeping the Arab world. So far the Arab spring has cast violent jihad to the margins. When young Egyptians crowded into Cairo’s Tahrir Square, they wanted rights, not a caliph. Even the Muslim Brothers look as if they will opt for civil society rather than theocracy.

Political change in the Arab world will be neither smooth nor immediate. In some places it is sure to go wrong; in others it may yield to hardline Islam. And yet, thanks to the Arab spring, Islam stands its best chance in generations of re-engaging with politics to found institutions in which religious and civil life can coexist. That would be a devastating refutation of Mr bin Laden’s ideology of universal Muslim struggle.

The Folly of Ethanol...or why your grocery bill keeps going up

2011-04-30T19:01:00.000-07:00

Today's "Weekend Interview" in the Wall Street Journal features C. Larry Pope, CEO of Smithfield Foods, "the world's largest pork processor and hog producer by volume." If you're wondering why your grocery's ain't getting cheaper, just as your gas expense is growing, he has some illuminating statements.

Here's a few gems:

"60 to 70% of the cost of raising a hog is tied up in the grains. The major ingredient is corn, and the secondary ingredient is soybean meal." Over the last several years, "the cost of corn has gone from a base of $2.40 a bushel to today at $7.40 a bushel, nearly triple what it was just a few years ago."
What happened "just a few years ago"? President George W. Bush "came forward with—what do you call?—the edict that we were going to mandate 36 billion gallons of alternative fuels" by 2022, of which corn-based ethanol is "a substantial part." Companies that blend ethanol into fuel get a $5 billion annual tax credit, and there's a tariff to keep foreign producers out of the U.S. market. Now 40% of the corn crop is "directed to ethanol, which equals the amount that's going into livestock food."
The ethanol industry would supply only 4% of the nation's annual energy needs even if it used 100% of the corn crop. The Environmental Protection Agency has found ethanol production has a neutral to negative impact on the environment. "The subsidy has been out there since the 1970s," Mr. Pope says. "If they can't make themselves into a viable economic model in 40 years, haven't we demonstrated that this is an industry that shouldn't exist?"
He also advocates lifting regulatory and tax burdens on business. "I fundamentally don't understand the logic of corporate income taxes," he tells me. "If I have a 35% tax, all I do is take that 35% tax and I transfer it into the price of bacon and the price of pork chops."

My quick take-away from this is that ethanol subsidies are an abomination that, in the end, harms producers, punishes consumers, and would never have the hoped-for environmental impact.

Call your congressman and your senator and help them see the light.

Learning from Lincoln

2011-04-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for one of the work blogs I manage and thought I ought to share it here, too. Man, I love Lincoln.

One hundred and fifty years ago this month, the American Civil War began when Confederate batteries in Charlestown, South Carolina, surrounding Ft. Sumter opened fire. The nation would not know peace again for almost exactly four bitter years. The war claimed the lives of some 620,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. Destruction, especially in the South, was extensive.

Mere weeks before the conclusion of the war, Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address. Despite the enmity of war and the trials he and the nation had jointly faced, his words spoke of healing and reconciliation. He laid no blame on either party, for in his simple, poignant words, “and the war came.”

Instead of focusing on the differences that divided North and South, he focused on the common culture that yet bound them together. “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other,” he said. And yet, he acknowledged that controlling events was out of his or indeed out of any man’s hands: “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

And with his peroration, Lincoln became “healer-in-chief,” espousing “malice toward none” and “charity for all,” and a call “to bind up the nation’s wounds”—not just in the North. He pledged the nation to “care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan,” and to look toward “a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

These are the words of one who bore no grudge, who sought peace in the ashes of war, who saw the full potential of his countrymen, regardless of uniform. We can all learn to seek the welfare of others and lay no blame, even when such can be laid.

Better Late than Never: My Experience Seeing the Black Keys last year

2011-04-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

The Black Keys are two guys from Akron, Ohio, Dan Auerbach (guitar and vocals) and Pat Carney (drums). That's it. I first discovered them in 2005. In May or June of that year, Robert Plant handpicked the tracks for a disc to accompany that month’s edition of Uncut magazine, which had a cover story on James Patrick (Page). One of the tracks was “Grown So Ugly” from the Key’s Rubber Factory. That’s about all it took. In July of ‘05 I bought the album and I’ve never looked back.

I finally had the chance to see them live on June 2nd, 2010, at The Depot in Salt Lake City (about 15 minutes from work). The Depot is the perfect venue for a band like the Black Keys. When I arrived, the "line" was about 6 people long, so I claimed my spot and waited for the doors to open. Once inside, I got a spot against the stage barrier (is there an official term for that thing?) and held my ground. Luckily, when the Keys were coming on, there wasn't a mad rush to get closer, and I was only pushed once, so I spent the entire night about three feet from Pat's bass drum.

I guess it’s fitting that the first half of the show featured, by my count, four tracks from Rubber Factory, plus one in the encore, closing the show.

The rest of the first half was “older” stuff…a couple tracks from Attack and Release (although not the ones I was hoping for), only one from Magic Potion (unless I missed something), a couple from Thickfreakness, and a couple from The Big Come Up. [Note: I wrote the basis of this review the day after the concert. At the time, I actually didn't own The Big Come Up and wasn't as familiar with Thickfreakness as I am now. So...if the concert were done today, I would have been better equipped to remember what was played].

Then they played seven tracks from Brothers (in fact, they played eight of the first nine as indexed on the disc, omitting only “Black Mud”). I would say Brothers is their best album, at least in terms of consistency. The new stuff sounded incredible, and since SLC was the first night of the tour, they seemed eager to share. For some of the Brothers tracks, they had a bass player and a keyboardist join them on stage. It was almost shocking!

I’m not exactly, 100% certain which songs they played. The slight “problem” with the Black Keys is that a number of songs have similar riffs, especially the older stuff (but hey, only so much you can do with a 2-man band, right?). I also listened to all of their music I have in the days leading up to the show, so it’s all kind of blurred together. I used to write down the songs bands played at concerts, but it’s kinda geeky…and when you’re in the front row, that’s probably a good way to get killed!

Here’s what I think they played, in around this order:

Your Touch
Girl is On My Mind (including a subdued, blusesy interlude)
10 A.M. Automatic
Stack Shot Billy
Everywhere I Go
No Trust
Strange Times
Busted
I Got Mine
Hold Me In Your Arms…I think. Maybe they played it!
Set You Free
Tighten Up
The Only One
Howlin For You
Too Afraid To Love You
She’s Long Gone
Next Girl
Ten Cent Pistol
(Something old closed the main set…I think)

Encore:

Everlasting Light
Till I Get My Way

Highlights: Aside from finally seeing these guys and being so close, it’s hard to pick highlights. “10 A.M. Automatic” is one of my favorites (it’s a great song to run to) so it was wonderful to see that performed (I was expecting it), and I really like the way “Girl Is On My Mind” was performed. The stuff from Brothers was awesome.

Well, maybe the true highlight was meeting Dan after the show, getting my picture taken with him, and briefly speaking with him. It was only after the fact that I realized I hadn't really conversed with him like I should have, and I didn't have him sign anything! A couple months ago, I sent the Keys a fan letter and two photos I took, along with a self-addressed-stamped envelope. They rapidly sent the photos back, signed. Sweet!

For me, the Black Keys are pure, genuine, authentic music, and they put all they had into performing. Being so close to Pat, it wasn’t hard to see him dripping sweat. He attacks the skins. And…he has the most unorthodox drumming technique I have ever seen.

It was a night never to be forgotten.

Pat signed a copy of this one for me.

I wish I had retaken this...or had someone take it for me. Oh well. Dan signed a copy of this one for me.

President Uchtdorf's "Meisterstuck"

2011-04-10T17:44:00.000-07:00

As a young and sometimes clueless missionary serving for the LDS Church in the Germany Frankfurt mission 20 (!) years ago, I encountered a remarkable man, a true man of God, who was serving as a Stake President.

His name was Dieter Uchtdorf. All of us missionaries loved him with a sincere love, because he loved us first. We knew of his prestigious position with Lufthansa, and we loved to hear him speak (oftentimes using metaphors to flying).

One year after I returned home from Germany, the stake president to whom I had sent weekly mission reports as mission secretary was called the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy. Two years later, in 1996, he was called to the 1st Quorum, and later to the Presidency of the Seventy. Of course, he was called to the holy Apostleship in 2004, and now serves in the First Presidency.

Last week, in the priesthood session of General Conference, President Uchtdorf delivered what I am sure will long be hailed a classic on the priesthood and living up to our potential. On the whole, I don't know if there has ever been a richer priesthood meeting. At the time, I called it a "Ph.D. course in the priesthood." President Eyring and President Monson also delivered powerful talks.

For this blog post, however, I am simply linking to the powerful words of President Uchtdorf. Find them here.

One section I wish to highlight:

Too often we fail to experience the bliss that comes from daily, practical priesthood service. At times assignments can feel like burdens. Brethren, let us not pass through life immersed in the three Ws: wearied, worrying, and whining. We live beneath our privileges when we allow worldly anchors to keep us away from the abundant joy that comes from faithful and dedicated priesthood service, especially within the walls of our own homes. We live beneath our privileges when we fail to partake of the feast of happiness, peace, and joy that God grants so bountifully to faithful priesthood servants.

Let us heed his words and live up to the privileges that can be ours.

Read it and Weep: 2011 MLB Predictions (Regular Season)

2011-03-31T07:30:00.000-07:00

It’s that time of year again. Like the salmon of Capistrano instinctively returning, and Pitt getting bounced out of the NCAA tourney in the early rounds, it’s time for the pop of the mitt and the crack of the bat, and a greasy ‘dog with onions and mustard. It’s time to play ball and make predictions.

American League

East
This is the easiest choice in sports. The Boston Red Sox dominated the off-season and are poised to dominate the regular season. As with any team, injuries could prevent them from winning the division, but this team is loaded.

Central
On paper, this looks like the best race of the year, with the Tigers, White Sox and Twins fighting for the crown. The Twinkies should get Joe Nathan back, but won the division without him last year. My heart says to pick the Twins (good pitching, Mauer, Morneau, etc.), but for whatever reason I’m going with the White Sox.

West
I’m hearing a lot of talk about the A’s this season…but the Rangers are Nolan Ryan’s team now, and he has them buying into his philosophies and techniques. Rangers capture it again.

Wild Card
Am I required to say Yankees here? That may be the easy choice, but don’t count out the Rays. And yet…I’m going with the Twins.

National League

East
Picking the Phillies is the second easiest choice in sports, but with more caveats. With Chase Utley and Placido Polanco ailing and Jason Werth gone, this line-up is much more pedestrian. Perhaps with the rotation they have, a semi anemic line-up is no big deal. But, what if Hamels gets hurt? What if Oswalt sucks, as usual? (Back in the day, ESPN experts would always pick the magic midget to win the NL Cy Young…and it hasn’t ever happened. He’s always been overrated in my eyes.) What if, somehow, Roy Halladay is merely good? What if the Cliff Lee who lost two games in the World Series is the real Cliff Lee?

Central
For the first time since 2008, I don’t have much faith in my beloved Cardinals. Once Wainwright went under the knife, my enthusiasm for this season was almost totally shot. Sure, the team still has Albert, and Holliday, and Carpenter, and some other decent pitchers, but while the Brewers got better, the Cardinals stood still. And then of course there’s the very real possibility that this will be Albert’s last season with the Cards. Distraction? I say yes…and it will only become increasingly so.

I can’t recall a more frustrating season than last year. The only thing the Cardinals did consistently was play inconsistently. If the pitching was hot, the hitting was not, and vice versa. After sweeping the Reds in early August to claim first place (if memory serves), the Cardinals tanked. Perhaps with low expectations, this team can do something special, like it did in 2004, winning 105 games en route to the World Series. For that to happen, though, numerous players will have to have career years. It could happen, but you don’t make predictions based on a hoped-for statistical anomaly.

What I had originally wrote was,

I think the Cardinals will be competitive, as they usually are, and will probably be in the Wild Card hunt up until the last week or so, but I give the Cardinals no better than a 15% chance of making the playoffs.

Scratch that. I’m going with the Cardinals to be the NL Wild Card. Don't be surprised if Albert and Holliday are 1-2 in the MVP voting...but who will be #1?

I think the Reds are a flash in the pan. It’s always funny when a team bubbles up and everyone jumps on the bandwagon. In 2008, after the Rockies went to the World Series, many “experts” picked them to get back to at least the NLCS. I didn’t see it, and was proven correct. The same holds for the Reds. The Brewers will win the Central.

West
The West was quite a story last year. The Padres came oh so close to winning, and they seemed to do it with smoke and mirrors. Will the Giants stay on top? Will the Rockies return to glory? Should be a fun race.

The Giants seem like carbon copy of the Phillies: Strong pitching, less strong hitting. The Rockies have two legit superstars (CarGo and Ubaldo), and that Tulo kid. I’m going with the Rockies.

Wild Card
St. Louis Cardinals! (Apologies to Braves and Giants)

V For the Millennial Generation

2011-03-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

When I was in 5th grade, NBC aired a two-part miniseries that I was fascinated with: V. Then, a year later, they followed it up with a 3-part miniseries. I was obsessed with it.

Not only did I watch the show on tape (my grandparents received a VCR in 1984) over and over again, I also got the paperback book that was an adaptation of both shows...I was a single-minded boy. Later, NBC made V into a weekly series, and it was good for about a couple months, and then ran out of gas (and, to the best of my knowledge, the local affiliate never aired the last episode or two, which really bothered me at the time. Maybe Netflix can resolve this for me).

Anyways, last year ABC revived the concept as a weekly series (although in an abbreviated season) and I tuned it. It was...OK. It was definitely not on par with, say, LOST (what is), but it was worth watching. Some cheesy moments to be sure, but I faithfully watched the first season, and was interested in seeing more.

Season Two ended a couple weeks ago. Still OK...One thing I thought was cool was that Jane Badler was brought on the show. In the original story, she was the main Visitor, Diana, a completely ruthless and conniving "lizard." In the reboot, she is the mother of Anna, who fills the completely ruthless leader of the Visitors. Badler's character once again had the name Diana, not to suggest they are the same character, but I suppose more as an homage.

(Spoiler alert below)
Badler added a nice touch to the series. As a young viewer back in the '80s, I don't recall ever having a crush on her ( I always preferred Faye Grant's Juliet :) ), but she fills the role with critical gravitas. I was disappointed that Anna kills Diana in the season finale, so I guess that's that.

Another fun thing the writers/producers did was have Marc Singer on in the finale as a government type running a super-secret operation designed to thwart the Visitors. Back in the day, I thought Singer was the coolest cat around. He was great as Mike Donovan...the show was his, for all intents and purposes. It was nice to see him (he's 63 now!!!). Viewers were left to assume that he'd be back in season 3...I think he will be a list a little.

Anyway, it's kind of interesting to see V done again.

JFK and the Cuban Missle Crisis

2011-03-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

As I watch Jimmer and BYU take on Gonzaga in the "third round" of the NCAA tournament, I'm using an iPad from my company's IT department to write this post. It's pretty cool, I guess.

I recently finished a very compelling biography of JFK (An Unfinished Life). Being too young to have any experience with his presidency (or life, for that matter), I learned a lot from this book. I know a number of my "conservative" friends would automatically say JFK was a liberal. I suppose he did have liberal tendencies, but JFK had other non-liberal tendencies as well. For example, he had what some would call a hawkish (but sensible) foreign policy, and sought a tax cut in 1962 as a way of stimulating the economy. Was that the last time a Democrat asked for a tax cut?

Anyway, the key moment in JFK's presidency is the Cuban missle crisis. Having previously seen Thirteen Days (which is highly accurate, BTW) and knowing a little about the whole thing, I was anxious to read this part of the book. I don't want to take a lot of time on what happened...just what didn't. There were so many ways the whole thing could have gone wrong. War was a near certainty at numerous junctures.

The way I see it, the key to the whole crisis was Kennedy keeping his head and not overreacting. There were many chances to do so, especially when a U2 was shot down. Here's my point: I believe JFK was meant to be in the Oval Office in order to keep the peace. If Nixon (Kennedy's opponent in the 1960 election) had been president, I'm less certain catastrophe would have been averted (nothing against Nixon...I'll soon be reading a Nixon biography). Maybe (since his presidency had few victories) JFK was just supposed to be in the right place at the right time.

A rather random blog post, to be sure, but it's just been on my mind. And, BYU beat Gonzaga. Now that's worth celebrating.

Coming back to life

2011-03-08T15:08:00.001-08:00

I have been silent far too long. I am pledging to write at least one blog post per week for the rest of the year. Topics, as usual, will be various and sundry.

As a brief appetizer, consider this: 150 years ago, on March 4th, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th president of the United States. As a writer by profession and a reader by avocation, I am drawn to Lincoln not just for what he did keeping the Union together, but for what he said and how he said it.

So, what was Lincoln's greatest speech or written statement? There are numerous candidates, but let's limit it to these. Vote at the right, if you like.

Peoria Speech on Kansas-Nebraska Act (Oct. 16, 1854)
House divided speech (June 16, 1858)
Cooper Union (Feb. 27, 1860)
Speech delivered on departure from Springfield (Feb. 11, 1861)
1st Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861)
Closing paragraph of the Second Message to Congress (Dec. 1, 1862)
Gettysburg Address (Nov. 18, 1863)
2nd Inaugural Address (March 4, 1865)

Tony Blair is my kind of guy

2010-10-31T17:39:00.000-07:00

It really bothers me that the Wall Street Journal has made a lot of its online content "subscriber only." I actually got a new subscription earlier in the year, but it didn't include an on-line account. Bogus!

Anyway, on Sept. 25, the Journal ran a interview conducted by Bret Stephens (whose articles are uniformly brilliant). His subject: Tony Blair. This was one of those "subscriber only" articles, but I was able to find it on-line!

Tony Blair believes in "Islamist extremism."

It's U.N. week, and the former British prime minister is in town as the representative of the Quartet—the U.S., Russia, the EU and the U.N.—that aims to broker Mideast peace. We are in his suite at a posh Upper East Side hotel, talking about a passage in his just-published memoir in which he discusses the reach of the radical Islamist "narrative." It's a narrative, he argues, that needs to be "challenged head on."

This prompts me to ask whether he thinks that the widespread reluctance to use the word "Islamist" alongside the word "extremist" is a kind of evasion from reality.

"I think it is, I'm afraid," Mr. Blair answers, deploying the famously elegant diction that used to make for such invidious contrasts in the days when he shared a podium with George W. Bush. By way of explanation, he turns to the recent, aborted attempt by Florida Pastor Terry Jones to burn the Quran.

"I have no difficulty in saying this person is a Christian pastor but I completely and totally disagree with him," he explains. "It's fascinating, though, that when that happens the whole of the Western leadership have to come out and denounce it. . . . Let's say some cleric in some remote part of Pakistan turns up and says, 'I'm going to burn the Bible tomorrow.' What would we all say?"

Mr. Blair has been out of office for more than three years, but he is still sounding the same themes that were the touchstones of his decade in office. He is still faithful to the Third Way school of politics, still believes that government should be for empowerment not entitlement, and is still fighting a rear-guard action against fellow "progressives" who think it ought to be the other way round. But above all, Mr. Blair remains seized by the scope of the challenge posed by radical Islam.

"I think there is a tendency to regard the activities of the extremists who use terrorism and suicide bombings and so on as this small group of people unrelated to the broader [Muslim] community in which they exist," he says. "And I feel that narrative penetrates a lot deeper. And if you can't take that narrative on, you are left in a position where you end up semi-apologizing for your own position in relation to these things. And I think that's dangerous."

The narrative, as Mr. Blair describes it, consists of the view that the West is in cahoots with its client regimes in the Middle East—not just Israel, but also countries like Pakistan, Egypt and the Gulf emirates—to oppress Muslims and denigrate Islam. That narrative has its own subscribers among Western leaders and opinion-makers who believe the right approach is to say, in Mr. Blair's mocking paraphrase, "We kind of understand why you feel like this about us and maybe it's our fault but, you know, let's try and work this out."

Mr. Blair has little patience with this view: It rubs him wrong not only because he believes the analysis is flawed and the prescription misguided, but also—and here I'm reading between the lines—because it suggests Muslims should be held to a different set of standards and values.

Yes, he says, the Muslim world needs "genuine demonstrations of equality, respect, partnership and so on." That's one reason, he adds, why he puts so much stock in the Israeli-Arab peace process. But Mr. Blair also stresses that what the Muslim world—or at last the modernizing forces within it—need from the West is "for us to be really strong about our own confidence in our position, our own way of life and the values we represent."

Part of that confidence is affirming the rightness of what the U.S., Britain and the rest of the Coalition of the Willing did in Iraq—and what they continue to do in Afghanistan. Regarding the so-called occupation of Iraq, Mr. Blair notes that from the middle of 2003 coalition forces were in the country "with full U.N. authority." The international community followed up with billions in aid to the country. Democratic elections were held; Iraqis indicated the kind of future they wanted for their country.

And then the effort nearly fell apart on account of the unremitting savagery of Baathist holdouts, al Qaeda recruits, and Iranian-backed militias. Mr. Blair would like to know why Iraq's tormentors should be let off the hook while its liberators are vilified. "For us to end up in this situation where people say this is an indication that you should never have gone there, that you should have just let Saddam stay—we really need to think about what we're saying when we're saying that."

Mr. Blair feels the same way about the apportionment of blame in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is confident of the good intentions of both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (about whom, he adds, he is "absolutely sure [he] would sign a deal"). But he is also mindful of the way Israel is mindlessly castigated in the West, "particularly in Europe," for its every misstep, real or alleged.

"You cannot refuse to accept that Israel has a genuine security problem," he insists. "What does it mean when, the other day, President Obama launches the [Israeli-Palestinian] talks in the White House . . . and Hamas kill those [Israelis], including a pregnant woman and the parents of six children, and then put out a statement saying that this is an heroic act of courage? What does it say of the nature of what we're up against?"

Mr. Blair is equally emphatic about the need to confront Iran, which in his memoir he treats as morally equivalent to al Qaeda. Though he says he agrees with President Obama's approach to the regime—summed up as "here's a hand of friendship and now it's your choice"—he is under no illusions about the threat Iran poses. He is particularly enraged at the role it played in Iraq, including the supply of IEDs to insurgent forces that killed British and American troops. Might things in Iraq have gone better had the coalition confronted Iran's meddling sooner than it did? "I think that's a very, very good question," he replies.

The interview turns to the subject of Tehran's nuclear program. Could an Iran with nuclear weapons be contained, I ask, as it is now so fashionable to argue?

"I wouldn't take that risk," he replies without hesitation. "It is perfectly possible that a nuclear-armed Iran might be contained. But I think it's impossible to guarantee that, and it so drastically changes the balance of power within the region that it's not responsible" to allow it.

I say that sounds like he'd be prepared to countenance military strikes if other options fail.

Mr. Blair hedges for a moment: "When I'm asked this, [I always] default to the traditional line, which is to say I don't think you can take any option off the table."

I press: "But it sounds like you actually mean it."

He comes back more firmly: "I do mean it. . . . The alternative is to say that you are prepared to contemplate [a nuclear Iran], which, by the way, the moment you send that signal makes it a lot more likely to happen. So I think it's perfectly possible that we can avoid the situation. But I think the stronger and clearer we are, the more likely we are to avoid it."

Mr. Blair's tenure in office—begun, as he accurately puts it in his memoir, as a veritable love affair between him and the British electorate—is widely believed to have soured precisely because he holds these foreign policy views and was willing to act on them. Given that the Labour Party in Britain and the Democrats in the U.S. have now turned their back on the Third Way politics that gave Mr. Blair and Bill Clinton their resounding electoral victories, I wonder whether those politics would not have been more in vogue today had it not been for Iraq.

Mr. Blair demurs. "People forget this, but the closest I came to losing my job in a [parliamentary] vote was actually over tuition fees [for university students], and not over Iraq. The most difficult things were . . . introducing private-sector [reforms] into the health-care system, introducing academy schools, the equivalent of charter schools, and law and order."

It's a useful reminder. When Mr. Blair and Gordon Brown first came to office, the New Labour moniker was widely suspected of being a kind of political marketing device rather than representing a real change of heart by a party that had once been a de facto subsidiary of Britain's trade unions. But if Mr. Blair's memoir is anything to go by, he for one was a sincere convert to the New Labour faith. Among other things, it explains his current opposition to high rates of marginal taxation.

"The most important thing is to encourage strong growth, for the economy to create wealth. And I just think this is a very basic point . . . you need tax rates that are competitive with the world in which we live and in which people's hard work and enterprise is rewarded." As for the notion that the purpose of progressive governance is to tax the wealthy and redistribute it to the rest, Mr. Blair urges caution: "The people you end up hitting are not the very wealthy, because in my experience the very wealthy can make their own arrangements."

Mr. Blair is similarly worried about the perils of excessive regulation. While he believes that governments were right to respond to the financial crisis as they initially did, he worries that the recovery runs the risk of regulatory strangulation. "How you stabilize the economy is not the same as how you then get it let out of the crisis and back to strong growth, where you will need the private sector to be enterprising, innovative and able to compete." Nor does he have any patience with the demonization of the financial sector as "the bad guys" in the crisis.

The question arises of how Mr. Blair—a prep school boy and Oxford graduate who came to the Labour Party more from its intellectually Fabian wing than from the trade union movement—came by his views. Partly it's to do with his own father's rise from working-class roots, and partly by the pre-political years he spent as a commercial and industrial-relations lawyer, where he learned that "most people aspire to do better and most people actually want their kids to do better than them—and these are actually great engines of growth and progress."

But he also says his views are informed by traveling to emerging economies such as China. "These are all places where, if we're not careful, they are going to learn the lessons of our development and, funnily enough, they're not going to replicate all those lessons. . . . They will learn from our successes as well as our mistakes. And if we're not careful, they are going to leave us behind."

So much of what Mr. Blair says is so consonant with the political right-of-center that I ask him if he doesn't feel closer to John McCain politically than to Barack Obama. He laughs it off, calling himself a straight "Democrat-Labour" kind of guy. But elsewhere in the interview he offers a political warning to his fellow progressives:

"In today's world, in the 21st century, a progressive party that stands essentially for the state and big government is not going to succeed. Simple as that." I wonder if anyone in the White House is listening.

Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's Global View column.

World Series Predictions

2010-10-27T07:41:00.001-07:00

I totally forgot to post predictions for the both League Championship Series. It was convention week at work, so times were crazy, but I have also been out of the habit of posting blogs.

Now, after the fact, it would be easy to say that I would have picked the Giants and the Rangers. It's certainly the match-up I most wanted to see. We certainly can't have the Yankees in the Series, and, although I respect the Phillies, I am getting tired of seeing them too. Enough with Chase Utley's slicked back hair in the dugout!

I probably would have said Rangers in seven games, given that Cliff Lee was scheduled to pitch the seventh game if it got that far. As for the Giants-Phillies series, more than likely I would have said Phillies in six.

So...what do we have now? The Rangers proved in the ALCS that they can pitch, too, and not just Cliff Lee. Colby Lewis won two games and the gruesome Yankee line-up was largely kept in check. There's no question the Rangers' offense is better than the Giants. But...the Giants pitching was also able to contain a feared line-up in the NLCS. Then again, the Phillies had some offensive struggles in the regular season. Ryan Howard had ZERO RBI in the playoffs....That's an extended slump. Sure, the Giants' arms had something to do with it, but the Phillies were just not "on."

In other words, I don't think the Giants will be able to hold down the Rangers. Texas averaged 6 runs a game in the ALCS, while keeping the Yankees to a little more than 3 per game.

I'm thinking Rangers in six.

MLB Division Series Playoff Predictions

2010-10-06T07:06:00.000-07:00

My 2010 MLB season predictions (in terms of who would be in the playoffs) turned out to be 50% correct...sort of. I got two right in the NL: I correctly predicted Philadelphia would win the division and Atlanta would win the Wild Card. In early in the season, these seemed like shaky picks, but now I look like a genius!

My beloved St. Louis Cardinals made me look like a fool, as far as the Central goes, and the Rockies' late-season surge wasn't good enough this time.

In the AL, I picked the Yankees to win the East and the Rangers to be the Wild Card. Both teams are in the playoffs...so depending on you look at it, I was either 50% correct in my AL predictions or 0% correct. Maybe we can split the difference and say 33% correct. Huh?

Playoff Predictions

NLDS

On ESPN, exactly one "expert" (out of 28) says the Reds will beat the Phillies. I don't see it happening, either. Phillies in four.

The Braves-Giants series, to me, looks like it will be the hardest-fought of all LDS match-ups. I expect five games, and I give a slight edge to the Giants. I think they have more fire and desire right now. They seem to be racing to the post-season. Giants in five.

ALDS

The Rangers have been a great story all year, and the Rays are just awesome. I would much rather see this as the ALCS match-up. I don't want either to lose. I want both to win! Of those ESPN experts, only five have the Rangers winning, and no one has this series as a sweep.

The Rays scored more runs than the Rangers and allowed fewer runs as well. IF Cliff Lee can dominate, the Rangers have a legit shot, but I see the Rays moving on. Rays in four...maybe five.

Twins and Yankees. Again. The Twins won one fewer game than the Yankees, but are 2-8 in their last 10 games. The Yankees scored more runs than the Twins, but the Twins allowed fewer runs than the Yankees. It would be really awesome if the Twins could throttle the Yankees, and maybe they can. My head says Yankees in four or five, but my heart is yearning for Twins in 5...

MLB Update, or "Geez, where have you been?"

2010-07-17T13:55:00.001-07:00

Good intentions...yeah, I've got 'em. I had hoped to write a report at the 1/3 mark around Memorial Day, reviewing the status of my predictions, but obviously didn't. I missed the half-way point around the 3rd of July, too. I'm just a slacker. Let's get on with it.

NL Central (or, the Division That Matters Most)

Where the heck did these Reds come from? Surely they have to start fading soon, right? Right? At the moment, they have a .5 game lead on the Cardinals...or my Cardinals, as I refer to them. These two are clearly the class of the division, as no other team in the division is over .500.

The Cardinals had a great April (15-8), but then had a mediocre May (15-14) and June (13-13), and now stand at 49-41, or eight games over .500, after being seven over on May 1. What's the problem? Injuries have played a part, with Brad Penny and Kyle Lohse both on the DL, along with Ryan Ludwick and others. But every team has to deal with injuries.

I think the Cardinals main issue this season has been inconsistency. In fact, they have been consistently inconsistent! Exhibit A: Albert Pujols. He's ranked 4th in NL homers and RBI, but his average is "just" .311. That's still pretty darn good, but for a guy who's career average is .332, it's a bit off the pace, and is, I think, a reflection of his own inconsistency. His OPS of .986 is second best in the NL, but his career mark is 1.051 and if he finished the season at .986, it would be his second-worst season mark (it was .955 in his sophomore year).

Continuing the theme of inconsistency, when the pitching has been great, the hitting has struggled. One game that sticks out in my mind is when Adam Wainwright outperformed Cole Hamels on May 4th, but the team couldn't score until the 9th inning and Philly one in the 10th. Or, when the hitting has been hot, the bullpen has struggled (do I dare mention the Colorado series from a few weeks ago? Ugh). Or, when Pujols has had a hot bat in the lineup, no one else was backing him up. If Pujols, Holliday, Rasmus and Ludwick ever all got hot at the same time, and the pitching did its part...look out.

And what about those Reds? I don't know how important "having been there" is, but the Reds are a young team. The next five weeks should tell the tale.

NL East

I picked the Phillies to win the East, with the Braves as the wild card. That could still be the case, but Atlanta has opened up a five game lead in the division, over both the Mets and the Phillies. Wow, what a turn of events. This race could be something special.

NL West

I predicted the Rockies would win the West, and right now they are three games behind the Padres. The Padres have to be the biggest surprise of the season. Pitching is the key, as the Padres have scored the fewest runs in the division, but have also allowed the fewest. Their run differential of +83 is easily the best in the NL. I have less faith in the Padres than I do the Reds, so I expect a change to come...but you never know.

AL East

Tampa Bay could do no wrong the first eight weeks or so of the season, standing at 34-17 on June 1. Now, on July 17, they are at 54-35, and are three games behind the dreaded Yankees. I picked the Yankees to win, but sure would like to see the Rays do it. The Red Sox are 6.5 behind...too early to count them out.

AL Central

I picked the Tigers to win the Central, and they are currently 1.5 games behind the surging White Sox. Minnesota is lurking at 3.5 games behind. Like the NL East, this could be a three-team race the rest of the way.

AL West

I picked the Angels, and they are 4.5 games behind the Texas Rangers. Given that Texas landed Cliff Lee last week, the Rangers are in great shape to not only stay in first but do deep damage into October. A great story.

In April, I wrote, "The race for the American League Wild Card should prove to be heart stopping. Chicago, Seattle, Minnesota, Boston, and Tampa Bay have a shot, too, I think." Well, I guess four out of five ain't bad. Boy, did Seattle really chump it this year.

I'm excited to see the rest of the season!

The Black Keys Nail It

2010-06-12T10:30:00.000-07:00

Now that LOST is over, I have to come up with something else to blog about. I have been meaning to do something on MLB at the 1/3 mark (which is now 1/3 plus two weeks), and there is always music. Which brings me to this post.

On May 18th, the Black Keys released their newest album, Brothers, and it's just about as good as it gets. Because I ordered the CD when I preordered my ticket to their show at The Depot on June 2nd, I actually got the disc on the 15th of May, mailed from the record company...I guess. It was pretty sweet to have it in my hands early.

The concert was insanely good, two guys (and sometimes four) cranking our pure, genuine, authentic music. I was front row the whole night and I will post some photos and a full review soon. I was able to meet Dan Auerbach (singer/guitarist) after the show and I got my picture taken with him!

Meanwhile, here are some videos of a performance they did for "The Interface"

Lost: The End

2010-05-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

I have been kind of putting this off. I don’t think it’s because I don’t want to let go (Dr. Shepherd, where are you when I need you?), but because it’s a big mountain to climb. It’s like a big college paper that’s looming on the syllabus, and it ain’t going to write itself.

Instead of recapping this episode, which would take a week, I’m just going to share my impressions of what happened (okay, there will be some recapping so you know what I’m talking about)—the things that stood out for me. That is, if I don’t fall short of my design.

Flash Sideways Stuff

In the opening scene when Desmond signed for Christian’s body at the church, he told Kate he wants to “leave.” It didn’t really mean much at the time. I was thinking he meant he wanted to leave to go back to the Island, but that doesn’t make sense, does it?
Juliet visits to check on Sun. Perfect. She did an ultrasound for Sun on the Island, only fitting she does it in the sideways, too. The emotion of their baby helps them both to “see” What is interesting about them is that they saw (I assume they did because we did) all the way to their deaths. Hmmm. That’s interesting. :)
Maybe I should have seen Sayid ending up with Shannon, but I don’t agree with it. Why wouldn’t Nadia be his “true love”? Maybe since she wasn’t on the Island, they couldn’t end up together in the “flash sideways”…but Penny and Desmond ended up together. I can appreciate the “closed loop” (rounding off Shannon’s character) but I think it was cheesy.
- If you’re going to bring back Boone and Shannon, why not Mr. Eko? He was a better character.
At the concert, Desmond was sitting at Table 23.
Speaking of the concert, I had expected it to be more momentous, like the culmination of the flash sideways story. There were hints of “leaving” and I’m thinking the leaving meant somehow going back to the Island, although I couldn’t reconcile why they would necessarily do that. I thought this “leaving” would happen at the concert, with everyone together, but it didn’t turn out that way. Charlie saw Claire, whom he had previously seen in a “vision.” Claire went into labor and Kate helped her out, which I thought was great, and perhaps I should have seen coming. This mutual experience opened their eyes. But that was about it for the concert. No sign of Penny. The only other thing worth mentioning is that Mrs. Hawking asked Desmond if he was taking her son (and again, I was thinking that somehow meant back to the Island somehow). Desmond says “not with me.”
Locke’s eyes were finally opened after Jack operated. Jack has a brief flash, but he’s resisting. He doesn’t want to let go. Ironic. Locke tells Jack he doesn’t have a son.
Loved the scene when Sawyer visits Jin and Sun at the hospital, after their eyes had been opened. They know what’s going on, but he doesn’t yet. Jin says “see you there.” Concert? Maybe not.
Then, looking for something to eat, Sawyer finds the vending machines, directed there by Jack. After punching in the numbers for an Apollo Bar (no surprise), the bar gets stuck. And Juliet shows up. It’s about time! Juliet has a trick to get the bar out. It works, and she hands him the bar, saying “it worked.” She said that in the season premiere. I would guess that what she was saying then was from her “consciousness” in the flash sideways. A few other things she says in this scene are exactly what she said in the premiere. It makes sense now. If only I had been paying more attention I could have made the connection. Their moment was quite moving for me, and produced the only tears of the night. I don’t know why. Might have to do something with what happened with Juliet last season, and in the premiere.
Jack finally makes it to the concert and meets up with Kate. He seems to remember her from the plane. She takes his face in her hands and he flashes, but still fights it. Come on, Jack!
It’s happening at the church, where Dharma has the lamppost station. Locke arrives by car, gets in a wheelchair, and has a chat with Ben, who is outside. Ben says he is sorry for what he did to him. He says he was selfish, jealous and wanted everything John had. He says that John was special and that he wasn't. John says he forgives him. Ben tells him how much it matters to hear that. He tells John that he has things to work out and will stay "here" for a while. He tells John that he doesn't need to be in the wheelchair anymore, so Locke walks into the Church.
Jack and Kate arrive. This is the big moment, what we’ve been striving for all these years. As directed by Kate, Jack goes in the back of the church. His father’s casket is there. He touches it, and has more flashes. He opens the coffin but it is empty. I wasn’t surprised and I suspect many other fans weren’t either. His father is there, which greatly surprises Jack and he asks “how can you be here now?” Christian asks, "How are you here?" That’s when Jack—and by extension all of us—realizes that he died too. I didn’t see that coming. The clues were all over this episode. I could have done better.
And then the explanation. I know for a fact this part confused a lot of people, because I had to explain it to people on Monday. Basically, the flash sideways in Season Six was “heaven” for lack of a better term. Christian explains that he and Jack are real, Jack's life was real, the people in the church are real. He says "everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some before you, some long after you." Christian further explains they are all here now because "There is no now, here", and that they’re in a place they all made together to find each other, because the most important part of Jack's life was the time spent with these people. They made it so they could find each other, remember, and "move on."
- In other words, we know Hurley and Ben were on the Island after Jack died, and they probably helped Desmond leave. We have no idea how long Ben and Hurley were there. It could have been years, it could have been centuries, I suppose, as Jacob was there for a good 2,000 years. But, in the flash sideways, everyone came together.
After coming to terms with what he learned, Jack and his dad enter the main part of the church. It’s a happy reunion. They settle in the pews, Jack’s dad puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder (just the way Jacob touched people on the shoulder??) and opens the doors of the church, revealing a bright, white light. Jack exchanges a smile with Kate, and then looks ahead as they are engulfed by the light.

On the Island

Last week, “Locke” told Ben he would let Ben have the Island, and then at the end of the show said he was going to destroy it. When Sawyer encounters them, this comes up.

BEN: When you said you were gonna destroy the island, I thought you were speaking figuratively.

LOCKE: Because I said I’d leave you in charge once I was gone? I’m sorry if I left out the part about the island being on the bottom of the ocean. That being said, you’re welcome to join me on my boat. Because once we get Desmond to do what we need him to do, I’m going to sail away from this godforsaken place and watch it sink.”

So that’s cleared up now.

Having Bernard and Rose on seemed a little forced. It was their only on-island appearance all season.
I wasn’t surprised that Richard wasn’t dead. And, he has a gray hair. Maybe his agelessness is ending, now that Jacob is gone.
I was also not too surprised to see Frank Lapidus still alive. Maybe a little.
Thought it was funny what “Locke” said to Jack: “Jacob being who is, I expected to be a little more surprised. You're sort of the obvious choice.” I wonder if the writers winked when they wrote that. Of course, Jack puts his mind at ease and says, “I volunteered.”
When Jack, Locke and Desmond reach the bright waterfall cave thing, as Jack is tying a rope around Desmond, he says:

DESMOND: This doesn't matter, you know.

JACK: Excuse me?

DESMOND: Him destroying the island, you destroying him. It doesn't matter. You know, you're gonna lower me into that light, and I'm gonna go somewhere else. A place where we can be with the ones we love, and not have to ever think about this damn island again. And you know the best part, Jack?

JACK: What?

DESMOND: You're in this place. You know, we sat next to each other on Oceanic 815. It never crashed. We spoke to each other. You seemed happy. You know, maybe I can find a way to bring you there too.

JACK: Desmond, I tried that once. There are no shortcuts, no do-overs. What happened, happened. Trust me, I know. All of this matters.

I have wondered all season long if “Island Des” and “Flash Sideways Des” had “dual consciousness.” I was guessing he did, and this conversation makes it clear that is the case. It’s like he was two people at once, I guess…Not really sure what the mechanics of this would be. I guess when Widmore subjected Island Des to the electromagnetism, he could have seen the “other side,” rather than him being in both places. Since we know the nature of the Flash Sideways, this seems the most plausible….There is no “now” in the Flash Sideways. :)

As they lower Desmond, “Locke” says to Jack “remind you of anything?” He’s referring to Season One. Jack says, “You're not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by wearing his face, but you're nothing like him. Turns out he was right about most everything. I just wish I could've told him that while he was still alive.” That’s one of the great statements of the entire series. Loved it.
After Jack and Locke lowered Desmond down the waterfall cave, the camera tracked down the waterfall, as they watched…an homage to the season one finale after opening the hatch door.
Down in the cave, Desmond passes a few skeletons. Looks like some other people tried to investigate this before. He takes a stone “cork” out of a glowy, mysterious pool. The stream from the waterfall stops, the electromagnetic force recedes, the light goes out, the pool dries up and there is a red hot glow emitting from the center. Getting out of the pool basin, Desmond can’t manage it and screams "No!" What’s the deal? He couldn’t get out? And how does the cork stop the water from coming into the pool? Seems backward.
Locke tells Jack “looks like you were wrong” and leaves the cave thingy. Moments later, Jack tackles him from behind and punches him a few times. “Locke” is bleeding. Seems like he’s no longer an indestructible entity. Of course, Jack ain’t either, as the rock to the head proves. I guess Jack and his team might just be able to do what Jacob couldn’t. The Island begins to shake.
In the jungle, a tree begins to fall. Ben pushes Hurley out of the way, and gets pinned. I thought for sure this is when he would die (I predicted he would), but he’s only pinned.
Then, it’s time for the showdown. Locke is at the cliff where the cave is with the crossed out names. His boat is anchored off shore. But Jack isn’t letting him go. That’s quite a fight. Locke seriously wounds Jack under the ribs, and we see the injury to Jack’s neck that we have been expecting. At the last second, Kate, who “saved a bullet,” takes out Locke.
With the Island clearly in distress, Jack says he has to fix what Desmond did. He wishes Sawyer good luck. Ben says that if the Island is going down then he is going down with it. Hugo refuses to climb the rickety wooden ladders and tells Jack that he is with him. It’s time for Kate and Jack to say goodbye. Touching.
Back at the source, Jack tells Ben and Hurley them he is going down alone will not survive. Hurley doesn’t like it one bit. A great scene. Jack says this is what is supposed to happen and that Hurley is who the Island needs, that his job was to fix the source but after that it should be Hurley. Jack tells Hurley that he believes in him, and Hurley agrees. He gets some water for Hurley to drink, but doesn’t do an “incantation” the way “Mother” and Jacob did. When Hurley is done, Jack puts his hand on his shoulder and says “now you’re like me.” Mother and Jacob said “now you and I are the same.” Is that important? If this is some sort of ceremony, don’t you have to do it right? Maybe it doesn’t really matter how it’s done. Maybe there really isn’t an “ordained” person who needs to protect the Island.
Down the hole, Jack helps Desmond to the rope. Desmond wants to return the plug but Jack tells him he has done enough and he needs to go home to be with his wife and son. Desmond asks Jack what will happen to him. Jack says, “See you in another life, Brother.” Perfect. There was a time (Seasons Three and Four) when Desmond was my favorite, and that phrase has huge significance from Season Two…and what we learned at the end of this episode. Powerful.
After making everything right (Jack’s good at that), he seems to be resigned to his fate. That’s where he’ll die. But no, he awakens where Jacob found the body of his brother. He struggles to the bamboo grove, and lies down where we first saw him, on September 22, 2004. Vincent shows up, just as he did in the pilot, and lays down next to Jack, so that Jack doesn’t have to die alone. He sees the Ajira plane fly over, with Kate, Claire, Richard, Miles, Sawyer and Lapidus. He closes his eyes.

Concluding Thoughts

If Matthew Fox doesn't get nominated for and win an Emmy, there is no justice in the world.

In a blog post with predictions for the finale, I thought it would be a happy ending, “meaning most or even all of the main characters will survive. Since they are also still alive in the Flash Sideways, I don't really consider Sayid, Sun, and Jin to be dead…” Of course, now that we’re done, that’s a pretty ironic statement to make.

Did I like it? Taking the episode on its merits, and pretty much ignoring everything else that has happened in this show from day one (except for context), I thought it was just about a masterpiece. The emotional notes were exactly right. It has been made clear to me in recent weeks that for the producers, LOST was about the characters and their development. The rest was basically window dressing. In that sense, “The End” was a soaring triumph. It was sad, it was touching, it was wildly entertaining, it was brilliant (warts and all).

Jack Shepherd has been such a huge character in this show. He was definitely the shepherd of his flock, if you will, and to see where he ended up, that a “man of science” could still to some degree be a “man of faith,” was a great journey. I don’t know that I have ever said that Jack was my favorite character, but it’s sure hard to not like Jack. He has been among my favorites, certainly. It was sad to see him sacrifice himself, but it did feel like it “had to be.”

Okay…from an intellectual viewpoint, the finale, and Season Six as a whole, were lackluster at best. What the hell was “the source” of the Island? What was that plug/rock thing? What was the Island, for heaven’s sake? What about the statue? Who built that? I only wish I could have been a “creative consultant” for this season. So what if the producers don’t care about the mythology of the Island? Millions of viewers do! Why not address it? This show featured a freaking monster made of smoke, for crying out loud. There were whispers and time travel and a “magic box” (something else that wasn’t really explained) and people who didn’t age. Sounds like a lot more than window dressing.

When it became clear that we weren’t going to get a lot of answers this season, I began to speculate that the DVD set just might provide a few answers. I still hold out hope for that, but I don’t give it any better than a 40% chance.

It’s so hard to take in all that happened in this show. I plan to rewatch the entire series this summer; after all, the season six DVD set is out in August. But, having watched at least part of the “Final Journey” clip and interview show that aired before the finale, I was reminded at how nearly perfect this show was for so long. Apparently a number of fans felt frustrated at the beginning of Season Three, wondering where the show was going, and the producers weren’t quite sure what was going on. Then, they targeted 2010 as the year LOST would end and began working on that. Season One had so much going for it, everything was so fresh, but Season Three from about the 7th episode (when it came back on the air after about a three month hiatus) through all of Season Four, LOST was insanely good (except for that stupid Nikki and Paulo episode). I was going to outline everything great that happened in those episodes, but it’s just too much.

Why do I mention this? Because Seasons Five and Six now feel a little like lost opportunities, no pun intended. I mean...“What lies in the shadow of the statue?” "Ille qui nos omnes servabit" ("He who will save us all"). Who or what was lying in the shadow of the statue? Jack wasn’t around for that scene, he was in 1977. Who the hell was lying in the shadow of the statue? I mentioned above that I plan to watch all the episodes again, but a little part of me would want to stop at the end of Season 5.

Especially with seasons 1-4, LOST was full of crescendo. Season One was a non-stop roller coaster ride. You just HAD to keep watching because so much was going on. In comparison, I think I was watching Season Six to finally get some answers…but the answers weren’t coming. Sure, I was anxious for every episode, but the urgency wasn't quite the same. Where was the crescendo in Season Six? Okay, I am going to list just a few things from Season Three:

Desmond’s Twilight Zone visit to London and meeting up with Mrs. Hawking.
Learning how Locke ended up in a wheelchair. Now THAT was one incredible episode.
Locke’s Dad showing up on the Island
Naomi drops on to the Island from a helicopter
Sawyer kills Locke’s dad, who was the real Sawyer
Charlie and Desmond taking care of the Looking Glass station, and Charlie dying
Jack’s insanely good “flash forward” at the end of Season Three that threw everyone for a loop.

Did Season Six come anywhere near that? I guess we finally learned a little more about Richard and got the story of Jacob and Man in Black, but their episode raised more questions than it answered! The Season Three and Four finales were far, far better than anything Season Six had to offer.

And finally…Don't get me wrong, I still love LOST. I just think it could have ended much stronger. When I see something awe-inspiring and “timeless,” I wish I could be a part of it, to know that I was involved in something that will stand the test of time. I want to know what it’s like. It’s hard for me to explain. For example, when a team I love wins a championship, I wonder what it would be like to help hoist the trophy, and to have such a brotherly connection to my teammates. Or, more appropriate for this, when I watch the “Lord of the Rings” movies, and especially the bonus features and see the camaraderie and the effort and struggle and eventual accomplishment and glory of what they have done, I ache to be part of something like it, to know that my best was good enough.

LOST is certainly in that category. What these actors, writers, producers, composer, etc. etc. etc. have put together is incredible. What they did is kinda like going through junior high and high school with the same core group and building memories that shape and define you. It’s quite a body of work. They have all been part of something they can be immensely proud of. Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris, and they’ll always have the Island…and LOST (and we will too).

What am I proud of? I still think my Top 10 LOST Moments post kicks ass.

Predictions for LOST finale

2010-05-21T17:33:00.001-07:00

I expect a "happy ending," meaning most or even all of the main characters will survive. Since they are also still alive in the Flash Sideways, I don't really consider Sayid, Sun, and Jin to be dead...
Ben will die
The way MIB could use Desmond as a "fail safe" is to send him into the light...throw him in, if you will. If Desmond has a unique ability to withstand electromagnetism, then it would seem he could extinguish the light (and thereby destroy the Island) without being transformed into a smoke monster...or just dying.
Something will happen to Jack's neck, coinciding with what we are seeing in the Flash Sideways
As previously mentioned, most/all of the Flash Sideways characters will unite at Faraday's concert. I forgot that Charlie was in L.A. specifically for that concert, so he needs to end up there.
Mrs. Hawking will freak out that so many of the "Losties" are at the concert. In the episode "Happily Ever After," when Desmond heard the name Penny and wanted to know more, Mrs. Hawking said it was a "violation." She seems to be fully conscious of the Flash Sideways stuff and may even be behind it....and will likely have something to do with resolving it.
Jack's ex-wife in the Flash Sideways...One obvious possibility would be Juliet. Shannon would be too young, it's obviously not Kate or Claire or Libby. I was also wondering if it could be Penny, but that just doesn't feel right. By process of elimination, then, I say the odds-on choice is Juliet. I hope they do it right...
Don't be surprised if Abaddon shows up
A lot of stuff we want to know will remain unanswered.
I will be lukewarm about the finale.

Lost: What They Died For

2010-05-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

[This post contains spoilers, including theories for upcoming episodes. If you haven't seen this episode of LOST, or don't want to know about upcoming episodes, you may not want to read this.]

Flash Sideways
The first scene showed Jack cleaning some blood off his neck. He had something like that in the season premiere, on the plane. This has to mean something. Only one more chance to see what it is.

At breakfast, with his son and Claire, Jack gets a call from Oceanic, telling him that his dad was found…but it was Desmond. About time he caught up with Jack.

Desmond also makes contact with Ben. When it appeared the Desmond was perhaps going to run over Locke again, to help him “let go,” Ben intervened. When Ben says he wants to know who he is, Desmond gets out of his car. “You want to know who I am?” He knocks Ben around a bit and Ben sees Desmond beating him, from Season Five when Ben was going to kill Penny.

Desmond then makes contact with Sawyer, Sayid, Miles, Kate, by turning himself in to the police. Not a surprise. I’ve been expecting this. I did expect him to talk to Kate in Sayid when they were in the slammer. I guess that’s still to come.

After being looked at by the school nurse (I guess), Locke comes in to see him and says “we need to call the police.” Ben isn’t so sure, because of what he saw. He tells Locke that the man (Desmond) wanted to help Ben let go…which is what Jack wanted Ben to do too.

Later, Alex sees the shape Ben is in and insists she and her mom give him a ride home. The mom is Rousseau. She looks a lot better than the jungle version. Alex asks if they can have him to dinner. Although Ben tries to protest, Mom insists, “even if we have to kidnap you.” Great line.

Visiting Jack at the hospital, Locke recounts what happened with Ben. I thought he’d be there to accuse Jack of doing it. Instead, Locke tells him “I want to get out of this chair.” One theory already making the rounds is that while Jack is operating on Locke in the flash sideways, Jack and Locke will be battling on the Island. I’m not so sure…I don’t think you just dive right into that kind of surgery.

Later, as Desmond, Sayid and Kate are being transported to the county lock-up, Desmond tells his mates it’s time to leave, and that once he gets them free, they have to promise to do something. They agree, and the van stops. Hurley financed it. And Ana Lucia is the driver. From what he says, (recognizing Ana Lucia), it sounds like Hurley has “seen” more. Sayid goes with Hurley and Desmond takes Kate. They’re going to a concert. I assume that’s Faraday’s concert, and Jack’s son will likely perform there. Jack’s ex-wife should be there, too…I wonder who it will be.

On the Island
Jack is tending to Kate. She mentions Sun’s daughter and that Jin didn’t even meet her. “Locke did this to them. We have to kill him.” Jack agrees.

We finally catch up with Miles, Ben and Richard. They are on their way to find C4 at the barracks. Miles has a number of great lines. I especially liked the one when he notices the “Indiana Jones” door and says, “Is that your secreter room?” In response, Ben says, “It’s where I was told I could summon the monster. That’s before I realized that it was the one summoning me.”

Zoe shows up in Ben’s house, and Charles shows up. I bet Ben never expected him, and his expression proves it. Nice touch.

When Ben asks how he got back to the Island, Charles says Jacob invited me. Ben doubts this, says Charles hasn’t even seen Jacob. “I most certainly have. He visited me, not long after your people destroyed my freighter. He convinced me off the error of my ways; and told me everything I needed to know for this exact purpose.”

In the jungle, Hurley sees Young Jacob, who confronts Hurley and asks for his ashes. Chasing after him, Hurley finds Jacob at a fire. Jacob says he is burning his ashes, and that when the fire goes out, “you won’t see my any more. Get your friends. We’re very close to the end.” (Do you burn ashes? I think all he meant is that his ashes were in the fire.)

Meanwhile, “Locke” is coming to the barracks. I was a little surprised that Widmore’s brilliant idea is to “hide.” Ben, on the other hand, wants to face him, as does Richard. Miles’ plan is to “do whatever doesn’t get us killed.” While waiting outside, Smokey rushes Richard and flings him into the air. I personally don’t believe Richard is dead. What we know about Richard is that he doesn’t age and seems like he can’t die, either. I expect it was just a way for Smokey to get Richard out of the way so he could have a heart-to-heart with Ben. I guess he could be dead, but seems like a low frills way of eliminating someone who has been a main-ish character. Locke says he needs Ben to kill some peeps. Probably Jack and his group, right? In return, Locke will give Ben the Island.

Ben tells “Locke” that Widmore is in his secret room, so they go in the house. Locke asks who Zoe is and as she starts to reply, but Widmore tells her not to talk. So Locke reacts by slashing Zoe's throat. Kinda coldblooded. He says that as Widmore told her not to talk to him that made her pointless.

After “Locke’ threatened to kill Penny once he gets off the Island, Widmore tells him that Desmond is “a measure of last resort” because of his unique ability to withstand electromagnetism. And then Ben takes out Charles. I thought they couldn’t kill each other?

Then a scene that I thought would have been better. Hurley has gathered Sawyer, Kate and Jack. They can see Jacob. He’s going to tell them what they [Sayid, Sun, Jin] died for. Jacob says he made the monster. He also says, “I chose you because you were all like me. Looking for something you couldn’t find out there. You needed this place as much as it needs you.”

What is the Candidate supposed to do? “There’s a light at the center of the island, you have to make sure it never goes out, that’s how you have to protect.” He also says, “You have to do what I couldn’t.” That doesn’t say a lot. Jack clarifies: “You want us to kill him. Is that even possible?” “I hope so because he is certainly going to try to kill you.”

Jacob makes it clear that the one who replaces him needs to do it by choice. As I have expected, Jack steps up, says it’s what he’s there to do. At a stream, Jacob chants and asks Jack for a cup. Jacob fills it with water from the stream…not wine. Jack drinks it all. When he’s done, Jacob says “Now you’re like me,” just like his “mom” did.

At the end of the show, “Locke” and Ben find a rope into the well where Desmond was supposed to be. “Locke” doesn’t seem too upset about it. Ben asks what Widmore said to him. He says that Desmond was a fail safe, a final way for Jacob to be sure that Smokey could never leave. Locke says that when he finds Desmond he will get him to do the one thing he could never do himself: "Destroy the Island."

Observations
I was happy with this episode, but I am resigned to the fact that we won’t get a lot of answers in the finale and I may even end up disappointed in it. I would have to say that this season has been disappointing overall. To salvage the season, and to some extent the entire show, it’s going to have to be flawless. Can they do it? This episode made “Across the Sea” a better story, too.

I expect a convergence of characters at Faraday’s concert—Desmond, Kate, Jack, Jack’s ex-wife, Sawyer, Charlotte, Dr. Chang, Miles, Mrs. Hawking, Penny, and probably Claire and possibly more. Based on what Miles said to Sawyer, it sounds like it’s at Dr. Chang’s museum, which Hurley donated money to, so he’s likely to be there.

The conversation Kate, Sawyer, Jack and Hurley had with Jacob was not realistic. Why wouldn’t they pepper him with all kinds of questions? I guess there’s a chance they just don’t care anymore, but I would certainly want some answers. And, like “Mother” did last week, he could have just said something like “I can answer questions all night long, but when this fire goes out, I will be gone and then you’ll be lost.” Ha, that would even tie in the name of the show.

Locke told Ben he would let Ben have the island all to himself…but at the end he said he was going to destroy the Island. I hope Ben is listening. I guess he (Ben) is still actuated by raw self interest.

When Jacob took Jack to the river and gave him the water to drink, it almost felt like he was just going through the motions, doing what Mother did because that’s what she did. I do believe that Jacob really does fulfill a purpose, and Jack will now have to do the same, but I wonder if he’s really on the level.

Despite the name of the episode, I don't think we really did learn what "they" died for. Bummer.

Questions

Is Richard dead?
Does it matter that Jacob didn’t use wine when he “initiated” Jack?
If Jack is the confirmed final Candidate, does that mean Sawyer, Kate and Hurley aren’t candidates anymore and could be killed?

Remaining unanswered LOST questions

2010-05-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

In January, before Season Six got underway, I posted the 25 questions I wanted answered. We are now down to 3 and 1/2 hours of the show (with commercials) and I fear some or even most of these will not be answered. Here's an update.

1. What is Smokey? Is “he” the same as Jacob’s nemesis?

Still somewhat uncertain. Although the "Across the Sea" episode makes it clear that "Man in Black" and Smokey are connected, it's unclear if they are one and the same.

2. Is Jacob actually dead? What/who is Jacob?

He definitely seems to be dead. He was born on the Island, and seems entirely human, but clearly has some supernatural abilities.

3. Based on what we saw in the finale of Season 5, did Jacob have something to do with our “heroes” getting back to the island?

Seemed to be answered in the "Lighthouse" episode, as Jacob has been looking for people to take his place.

4. What is The Island? Is it connected to Atlantis? How does it do what it does?

Still not answered. In "Ab Aeterno," Jacob told Richard the Island was like a cork in a bottle of wine that keeps in "evil." In "Across the Sea" we had a glimpse of a mysterious light, but exactly what the Island is and its origins remain unknown.

5. What is the mechanism of the frozen donkey wheel?

Somewhat addressed in "Across the Sea." "Man in Black" wanted to use the "mysterious light" to get off the Island.

6. How did DHARMA find/find out about the island? What were they doing there?

Has not been addressed this season and I seriously doubt it will be.

7. What is the current status of Dr. Gerald DeGroot and Alvar Hanso?

Has not been addressed this season and I seriously doubt it will be.

8. Whose figure does Locke see in the cabin in season three, when he and Ben went there?

Has not been addressed this season, but I'd like to think it will be.

9. Why doesn’t Richard Alpert visibly age? Why isn’t he the leader of “The Others”?

Addressed in "Ab Aeterno." It's all because of Jacob.

10. Why are “The Others” on the island? Who or what is behind them, as they seem to have significant resources?

You could say they are on the Island because Jacob brought them there. As for the resources, that has not really been visited this season.

11. Was DHARMA good? Are The Others good? Is Ben evil, is Widmore evil, or are both evil?

If we assume that Smokey is evil and that Jacob's duty to check him is a good one, then we might believe both are good, based on what has transpired this season. But it's far from certain. Who knows what DHARMA was planning.

12. As the DHARMA folks on the island were purged, are DHARMA people in Ann Arbor looking for the island, or is DHARMA completely defunct?

Has not been addressed this season and I seriously doubt it will be.

13. How does the submarine get to the island?

Doesn't seem important now, does it?

14. Why was Libby in the insane asylum with Hurley?

While we had a glimpse of Libby this season, the exact reason for her being in Santa Rosa are still unknown.

15. If “everyone” was supposed to go back to the Island, what about Desmond, Walt, and Aaron?

Desmond has made it back to the Island....as for the others, who knows.

16. Who is behind Ilana and those with her?

It would seem she was working exclusively for Jacob, and that he had prepared her to help him. But, still not especially clear.

17. Does she and those with her represent the “they” from Jacob’s statement, as he was dying, “They’re coming”?

Probably. :)

18. What is the significance of the question, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” and its answer, as given by Richard, “he who will save us all” (his response in Latin was “Ille qui nos omnes servabit.”) At the end of this episode, Locke’s body seemed to lay in the shadow of the statue…Significant?

Has not really been a factor this season. It *ought* to be resolved.

19. What do the whispers mean that we have periodically heard on the show?

The answer was finally given in "Everybody Loves Hugo." The whispers are from those who died on the Island, the ones who can't move on.

20. Did Widmore somehow arrange for Desmond to end up on the Island?

Has not been addressed...could still be.

21. When Hurley saw Charlie, Eko, Anna Lucia, etc., was it just him being crazy, or was it actually “ghosts”?

This season makes it pretty clear they are actually ghosts.

22. Why did Ben flip out and kill Locke when Locke mentioned Eloise Hawking?

Unknown. If it's going to be addressed, it better be done soon.

23. Going back to very early in Season 1, what about “Adam and Eve”? Who were they?

We finally have an answer! Adam and Eve are Jacob's "Mother" and his brother, who is or could be Smokey.

24. What is the significance of the numbers? Why did this specific sequence of numbers have to be entered into the Hatch computer?

Well...we learned this season that Jacob had a number of candidates to replace him as the protector of the Island, and these candidates had a number assigned to them...which seemed to be tied to the angle of the mirror in the lighthouse. 4-8-15-16-23-42 referred to Locke, Hurley, Sawyer, Sayid, Jack, and the Kwons (in that order). I suppose it ended up as the serial number on the door of the hatch.

25. What happened to the crew of the Black Rock and why was the boat so far inland? Does theledger include information about the island?

Except for the ledger, this was answered in "Ab Aeterno."

Lost: Across the Sea

2010-05-13T06:33:00.000-07:00

[This post contains spoilers, including theories for upcoming episodes. If you haven't seen this episode of LOST, or don't want to know about upcoming episodes, you may not want to read this.]

Can you see it? The finish line...it's just down there a stretch. Watch out for the polar bears. And the electormagnetism. And the H-bomb.

"Across the Sea" was a great episode...and yet it was still unsatisfying. Only LOST would raise yet more questions in the penultimate "regular" episode. I'm starting to think we won't have resolution for everything. Some friends of mine say the producers have said as much. Then there's this from a WIRED article: "When Lost leaves the airwaves on May 23, its creators have pledged never to speak of it again."

I’m trying not to recap scene-by-scene, but it’s probably unavoidable. My observations:

When it was obvious that Claudia was pregnant, I figured she was carrying twins, Jacob and Man in Black. There has always been a theory of sorts making the rounds that MIB was Esau (countering Jacob). If that had been the case, I would have burned my DVDs and sworn off network TV. Still, it almost seemed natural that they should be twins. And the black and white contrast was evident from the beginning when "Mother" wrapped Jacob in a white blanket and MIB (or BIB, for Baby/Boy in Black) in black.

I was so sure we'd learn MIB's real name in this episode. After he was born, Claudia said she only had one name. No name is used for him, so is it possible he was never given a name? If he doesn't represent anything from mythology or, heaven help us, religion, it would potentially mean something. If not, it has no weight and therefore it's probably more interesting to leave him unnamed. For example, if he had the name of some Roman god or something, it would likely have bearing on the story, and revealing it would therefore mean something.

Before the delivery, this "Mother" tells Claudia that every question she asks would lead to another question, so she might as well get her rest. Is that just a writer's trick of not spending too much time on her, or not revealing too much too soon? She says she came to the Island by accident. Otherwise, we know nothing. No name, no place of origin, no pet peeves, zip. We do later learn why she's there (according to her), but did someone give her this "assignment"?

Thirteen years later, and we see a Jacob who certainly looks like the boy who has been appearing every now and then, warning MIB not to kill the candidates. It's the same boy, right?

He visits "Mother", who is weaving. We have seen Jacob weaving before. This is probably how he learned it. Jacob and his brother had been playing a game on the beach, a game BIB had found. When his mother asked about it, he told the truth. Later, on the beach, "Mother" says Jacob doesn't “know how to lie. He's not like you.” And what is BIB? He’s “special.” She says “the island is all there is” and that he will never have to worry about death. We've heard of a few other people being "special." Is being able to lie connected to being special?

Because Mother had told them the island is all there is, the boys are shocked to see other people on the Island. This exchange was pretty interesting:

MOTHER: They're not like us. They don't belong here. We are here for a reason.
MAN IN BLACK: What reason?
MOTHER: It's not time yet...
MAN IN BLACK: Mother! What reason?
[Moments later, Mother leads Jacob and the young Man In Black through the jungle ... the boys are both blindfolded]
MAN IN BLACK: Did you know about the people?
MOTHER: Yes.
MAN IN BLACK: Why didn't you tell us about them?
MOTHER: Because they're dangerous and I didn't want to frighten you.
JACOB: What makes them dangerous?
MOTHER: The same thing that makes all men dangerous. They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt... and it always ends the same.

The last part is, of course, what MIB told Jacob on the beach in the Season 5 finale, and I brought it up again last week. Prescient of me, no? Another interesting aspect here is the "reason." Locke was always convinced about being on the Island for a reason. It sounds like "Mother" has the same opinion.

After telling them “I’ve made it so you can never hurt each other," she shows them a cave that a stream runs into, with a warm, golden light streaming from it. She calls it "the warmest, brightest light you have ever seen or felt. We must make sure no one ever finds it." How did she make it so they can't hurt each other? What ability or power does she have?

Referring to the light, “If the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere.” She says she can’t protect it forever, and that one of them will have to.

Later, BIB tells Jacob, “One day you can make up your own game and everyone else will have to follow your rules.” If MIB is somehow right and there is no need to protect the Island (as he told Sawyer), could this be an allusion to Jacob creating a "game" of sorts and then calling the shots?

As they play, BIB sees his mother. He goes to the beach and finds her. Jacob can’t see her because she is dead. She shows him other people who were with her on a ship, that they came across the sea, as did he, and that she is his mother. BIB finds Jacob, tries to take him to “our people.” Jacob gets upset, starts beating up BIB, and then Mother shows up. BIB tells what he knows, that Mother killed Claudia, that he wants to go “home.” Then Mother says “you will never be able to leave this island.” To which he says, “That’s not true. One day I can prove it.”

In the next scene, Jacob is talking to “Mother” about BIB not coming back. Jacob asks if she did kill Claudia.

CLAUDIA: Yes…If I had let her live, she would have taken you back to her people; and those people are bad, Jacob--very bad. I-I couldn’t’ let you become one of them. I needed you to stay good.
JACOB: Am I good, Mother?
CLAUDIA: Yes, of course you are.
JACOB: Then, why do you love him more than me?
CLAUDIA: I love you in--in different ways. Will you stay with me, Jacob?…Please?
JACOB: Yes. For awhile.

When she’s asking him to stay, it sounds very “needy,” like she can’t do it alone, like she needs a replacement. She sounds manipulative.

During this conversation, on the beach, it seemed like the part of the beach where Richard first encountered Jacob, where the statue should be. But, not sign of the statue. Maybe this isn’t the right part of the beach, but we never saw it.

Thirty years later, an older Jacob is weaving, and his Mother is nearby. She doesn’t seem any older. Jacob goes and watches MIB and his people. They play Senet, and MIB asks why Jacob watches them. He replies, “I want to know if Mother is right.”

MIB: You wanna know if they’re bad. That woman may be insane, but she’s most definitely right about that.
JACOB: I don’t know. They don’t seem so bad to me,
MAN IN BLACK: That’s easy for you to say. Looking down on us from above. Trust me, I’ve lived among them for 30 years. They’re greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy, and selfish.

The “looking down on us from above” sounds very “heavenly”-like. Interesting way to phrase it.

MIB says he found a way off the Island. He throws a dagger (THE dagger) which sticks to a stone wall. Magnetism. MIB says there are smart men among them, curious about how things work. They have found places, places where metal acts strangely. When they find, they dig. “We found something.” He tells Jacob he found a way off the Island and wants him to come with him.
“I don’t want to leave this island,” he says. “This is my home.”

Mother finds out that MIB may have a way off the Island, and confronts him, in a “well” or sorts (a roomy underground space). He tells her he has walked the island for 30 years looking for the “waterfall with the beautiful light.” Then he reasoned, “What if I could get to it from someplace else?”

The “frozen wheel” is leaning against the cavern wall. She asks about it. “It’s a wheel…We’re going to make an opening…one much bigger than this one; and, then I’m going to attach that wheel to a system we’re building. A system that channels the water and the light. And then I’m gonna turn it. And when I do…I’ll finally be able to leave this place.”

Sounds kinda vague. I guess we kinda have an idea what he was talking about, but what “system”? How does channeling the water help?

When Mother asks, “How do you know it will work?”, he says, “I’m special, Mother.” She tells him not to go, and he says, “I don’t belong here.” She says, “I suppose this is goodbye,” but then knocks him out. I was actually thinking she had killed him.

She takes Jacob to the cave and the light, tells him she had to let his brother go, and that he will have to protect the light. He asks what is down there.

“Life, death, rebirth. It’s the source, the heart of the Island. Promise me, no matter what you do, you won’t ever go down there.” He asks if he would die. “It would be worse than dying, much worse.”

She pours wine into a silver cup, chanting in Latin.

MOTHER: Here. Drink this.
JACOB: What happens if I do.
MOTHER: You’ll accept the responsibility that you will protect this place for as long as you can.; and, then you’ll have to find your replacement.
JACOB: I don’t want to protect this place.
MOTHER: Someone has to.
JACOB: I don’t care.
MOTHER: My time is over.
JACOB: Why? Why is your time over?
MOTHER: It has to be you, Jacob.
JACOB: No, it doesn’t. You wanted it to be him…But now I’m all you have.
MOTHER: It was always supposed to be you, Jacob. I see that now. And one day, you’ll see it, too; but, until then…you don’t really have a choice…Please, take the cup and drink.

(He drinks.)

MOTHER: Now, you and I…are the same

I was surprised that Jacob was reluctant to be the protector. Why? What is holding him back? And how are Mother and Jacob the same?

Meanwhile, MIB regains consciousness and finds the well filled with dirt. He goes to his settlement and finds everyone dead. He’s pretty upset. Mother returns to her camp and finds it’s been trashed…and then she’s stabbed from behind by MIB.

MAN IN BLACK: Why wouldn’t you let me leave, mother?
MOTHER: Because I…I love you…Thank you.

Thank you? Was she tired of living? Is it kind of like Richard’s situation where he wanted to die, but couldn’t kill himself and needed someone to help (i.e., kill) him?

Jacob arrives and is enraged. He pummels MIB, who reminds Jacob that he can’t kill him. Instead, Jacob takes MIB to the light and the waterfall. He forces MIB into the water, and he hits his head. An unconscious MIB glides down the waterfall…and then Smokey flies out of the cave and into the jungle. Was the light in the cave gone? It seemed to be.

Jacob washes in a stream and see’s MIB’s body. He takes it to the cave. He picks up a white and black stone from MIB’s game and places them in a pouch. He lays Mother next to MIB, and we see flashbacks to very early in Season One when Jack discovered the cave and a source of fresh water. We finally have an answer to one of the longest “mysteries” on the show: “Adam and Eve” were “Mother” and MIB. Lostpedia has long had info about how “the producers talked about how the skeletons might give insight into the nature of the show and evidence that certain elements were planned early on.” I guess so. Two thousand years after they died, Jack found them.

Jacob tells his brother goodbye.

Questions

Who completed MIB's project with the wheel? Could it have been Jacob? We know he left the Island.
Where the heck did "Mother" come from?
What is the light?
What is the wine?
Did "Mother" kill all of MIB's "people" by herself, or did she have help? Could she have summoned Smokey, if Smokey existed (I actually don't think so)?

So What is Smokey?
MIB goes down the cave and Smokey comes out. So, I guess the possibilities are:

Smokey is 100% Smokey and 0% MIB (or, maybe it’s safer to say 99% Smokey and 1% MIB, in terms of memories and such), and likely existed before MIB. By going down the waterfall, MIB simply released Smokey, who had otherwise been contained. Smokey can of course “read” and assimilate people so he knew all about Jacob and “Mother.” Support for this includes the mysterious Egyptian-like carving that would seem to predate Mother and anything else we have seen.

Smokey is a mixture of Smokey and MIB. Support: “Mother” told Jacob that doing down the water fall would be a fate worse than death.
Smokey is 100% MIB, as if MIB’s soul was transformed into MIB. I actually think this is the least likely. Support: “Fake Locke” told Kate in the episode “Recon”: “My mother was crazy. A long time ago, before I... looked like this...I had a mother, just like everyone. She was a very disturbed woman. And, as a result of that, I had some growing pains. Problems that I'm still trying to work my way through. Problems that could have been avoided had things been different.”
- We now have context for that statement, but it does not guarantee that it’s MIB speaking of his own experiences. We know Smokey can take on not only the appearance of others, but also their memories, experiences, and emotions.
Additional support for the last two possibilities is that Mother said she "made it" so Jacob and MIB could not hurt each other. Smokey has definitely not been able to hurt Jacob. And, if Smokey were just Smokey, that could mean Smokey killed MIB (not necessarily, though).

And here we are. Still so much to know...that's my next blog post, hopefully over the weekend.

Lost: The Candidate

2010-05-04T19:56:00.001-07:00

[This post contains spoilers, including theories for upcoming episodes. If you haven't seen this episode of LOST, or don't want to know about upcoming episodes, you may not want to read this.]

This is it. May, 2010, and we have three regular episodes (including this one) and the grand series finale. It seems too soon. There seems to be too much they haven’t addressed yet (I’m planning a blog post on that topic soon).

It’s been a long two weeks since the last new episode. Buckle up.

Flash Sideways
After performing emergency surgery on Locke in the last new ep, Jack is standing by as Locke comes out of the anesthesia. He tells Locke that from what he saw during the surgery, Locke would be a candidate (there’s that word) for a new procedure that could help him walk again. “I want to fix you,” Jack says. As we know, Jack always wants to fix things, and it seems like that’s still true in the flash sideways.

Despite Jack’s encouragement, Locke turns him down. But, of course, Jack can’t “let go.” He finds Locke’s dentist…Bernard. Bernard and Jack realize they were on Flight 815 together. “Pretty weird, huh?” Bernard says. Did Bernard and Locke know they were on the same flight? Bernard gives Jack the name “Anthony Cooper.” We know in the regular timeline that Anthony Cooper is Locke’s dad…the same here?

One thing I wondered: If Bernard is Locke’s dentist, why wouldn’t he have made that connection when he met Rose at the temp agency earlier in the season? He wouldn’t necessarily know her, but her last name, Nadler, isn’t very common…or perhaps she doesn’t go by Nadler.

Later, Jack goes to a “rest home,” I guess. Helen shows up and introduces Jack to Anthony Cooper, who is indeed the same Anthony Cooper, and Locke’s dad.

At the hospital, Locke is asleep as Jack watches…Locke is talking in his sleep, and what he’s saying is stuff from the Island. Claire comes to see Jack at the hospital and has a music/jewelry box from her dad. Jack doesn’t know anything about it. They open it together, but there doesn’t seem to be anything special about it. What’s the deal? We all know (or assume) we’ll come back to this box at some point, right?

Claire asks how Christian died and Jack explains it happened in Sydney and he brought him home…and then they realize they were on 815 together. Jack is starting to notice that a number of people he seems to be “randomly” running into were on the flight. Very nice of Jack to invite Claire to stay with her.

Later, as Locke is leaving, Jack shows up and tells Locke that he found Cooper. Locke then explains what happened: he got his pilot’s license and wanted his dad to be his first passenger. The flight went horribly wrong, and that’s why both are in wheelchairs. Locke doesn’t want Jack to operate because of what he did to his dad. Jack says, “What happened, happened,” and encourages him to let go. Jack says it's not easy and he doesn't know how to let go either, and he hopes that Locke could "go first." It doesn’t work.

As Locke leaves, Jack’s final words to him are, “I wish you believed me,” or exactly what Locke wrote to Jack in his suicide note. The words stop Locke for a moment, as if he remembered something, but then he continues on his way.

On the Island
Sawyer, Kate, Sun, Jin, and Frank are in the clutches of Widmore’s people, who take them to the old bear cages. Sawyer refuses, and takes a rifle away from “Doughboy.” Widmore puts a gun to Kate’s head and says she’s not on the list, so Sawyer better comply. Then, Doughboy gets his rifle back and hits Sawyer with it. Doughboy is bound to die.

Elsewhere, MIB meets up with Jack and Sayid, sharing his plan. When Jack says he doesn’t plan to leave, MIB tells Jack he could kill him but instead saved his life as a way of trying to get Jack to trust him. Sounds like a lie…Jack’s a Candidate, so I have to believe it’s a lie.

At the plane, the Losties show up and MIB walks out of the plane with C4, saying Widmore rigged it to kill everyone. True? Can Widmore kill the candidates? Because they can’t be sure if there are more explosives, he tells them they have to take the sub.

Everything seems to be going well at the sub ambush, until Kate gets shot in the shoulder. Everyone gets on, except Claire. Seems a bit contrived—Sawyer yells for her to get on the sub, and she ignores him, but 10 seconds later notices the sub is leaving without her. Duh!

MIB joins her on the dock as she expresses dismay that they left. “You don’t want to be on that sub,” he tells her. Why? Oh…there’s a bomb in Jack’s pack.

The experience Jack had with Richard earlier in this season showed him that MIB can’t kill them, that the only way to get them out of the way is to have “us kill each other,” he explains. But Sawyer doesn’t buy it and pulls the wires out of the bomb…bad idea.

Taking matters into his own hands, Sayid tells Jack where Desmond is and “you are going to need him.” When Jack asks why Sayid is telling him this, Sayid says "Because it's going to be you, Jack,” and then he takes the bomb and runs down the passageway. The bomb explodes.

Wow. Is Sayid really gone? Ever since his conversation with Desmond, he’s seemed a little more normal. I don’t think Sayid was ever my favorite character, but he was a good one. His episodes were usually excellent. He did something good in the end.

The explosion pins Sun against the wall of the sub. Hurley takes Kate out of the hole created by the explosion. Seemingly nothing can be done to free Sun, and then Sawyer is hit on the head and knocked out. Jin tells Jack to take Sawyer out. He stays with Sun, even though she tells him to leave. He says he will never leave her again…and they apparently die together. And, it seems Frank dies too. Sorry Frank. You were one cool dude.

Inconceivable. Three of the original characters die in one episode. In Season One, I think the grand total was one (Boone). In Season Two, Libby and Ana Lucia died…but I wouldn’t call them “original characters.” Eko (again, not really an “original”) and Charlie died in Season Three. Locke in Season Five…sort of. It hasn’t happened very much, and here in one episode three are seemingly gone (although I am certain we will still see them in the flash sideways).

Jin and Sun were solid. A coworker whom I got hooked on LOST said Jin was his favorite character. I was a little surprised by that because, while their story was quite good, they didn’t seem to have a significant part to play. Still, their death was rather tragic and touching. I am surprised Sun didn’t tell Jin, “You have to leave and go home and take care of our daughter.” Why not say that?

Sawyer, Jack, Kate and Hurley reunite on the beach and mourn the deaths of their friends. Back on the dock, Claire says something about them all being dead, but MIB says their aren’t all dead and grabs his rifle, saying he has to finish what he started.

There can be no question now that Sawyer, Kate, Hurley and Jack, with Desmond, will oppose MIB. I can’t imagine any way he can regain any trust he might have had.

When Desmond ran down Locke a few eps back, I assumed that it was to help Locke remember the Island, as trauma or love seemed to jolt Desmond, Charlie, and Hurley. Although Locke did say a few things connected to the Island in his sleep, and almost seemed to respond when Jack said "I wish you believed me," no character saw "the other side" in this episode.

If MIB still planned to use the plane to leave the Island, who is going to be the pilot? I do not doubt that MIB wants to leave the Island. If he were to eliminate the candidates, how would he leave now?

Next week involves a flashback of Jacob and MIB. I expect that episode to be an all-timer. I also suspect that we will finally learn who MIB is, and the nature of his and Jacob’s conflict. I also believe we’ll return to Richard, Ben, and Miles. It’s almost as if those three are all dead, we haven’t seen them for so long.

If Jack is determined not to leave, almost as if it were his destiny to always be there, how’s this for a possible finale scene: Jack is on the beach, doing something very benign, perhaps catching a fish. MIB, in the guise of John Locke comes along and says “Mind if I join you?” Sound familiar? In other words, I see Jack becoming THE Candidate (as Sayid stated) and taking on the role of Jacob. He remains on the Island, keeping MIB in check. And since MIB looks like Locke, it’s like their conflict from earlier seasons will never end.

Or will it? In the Season Five finale, in the scene alluded to above, Jacob says, “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.” What is “it”? How will “it” end (the one time that it does end)? Progress toward what?

For the episode before the finale, I expect all the flash sideways characters to somehow meet up and somehow piece things together.

This was a long post, and I thank you for sticking with it. We’re almost done. What will happen?

Lost: The Last Recruit

2010-04-22T06:40:00.000-07:00

[This post contains spoilers, including theories for upcoming episodes. If you haven't seen this episode of LOST, or don't want to know about upcoming episodes, you may not want to read this.]

On the Island
In his conversation with Jack, Man In Black confirmed that he had appeared to Jack as Jack’s father. I guess we can believe it’s true. One never knows of course. His explanation to Jack of why he was doing it was pretty slick: “all I’ve ever been interested in is helping you.” I can see that, I guess…as long as helping Jack and the Losties also helps him, right?

When Jack asks why MIB hasn’t left yet, he says, “Because it has to be all of us.” That sounds like Mrs. Hawking and Ben when they said the Oceanic 6 all had to go back.

In their conversation, MIB says Locke was “stupid enough to believe he’d been brought here for a reason,” and that Locke was “a sucker.” If we hold to the theory that those Jacob touched were then somehow destined to the Island, then I disagree with MIB’s statements. From previous scenes this season, we know that he is doing all he can to discount the idea that the Island has to be protected (like he told Sawyer in “The Substitute”), that Jacob and his potential “candidates” have any real role to play. He has to take this approach because otherwise he’d be admitting that Jacob was indeed there to check MIB.

Also, if Locke was a sucker, then how was he able to walk after arriving on the Island? That wasn’t his imagination…and he’s not the only one who has benefited. I wonder if MIB really knows what the Island is all about, or if he’s completely consumed with just the idea of leaving.

Later, Claire tells Jack she’s glad he’s coming with them, but Jack says he hasn’t decided yet. Claire says “yeah you have, the minute you let him talk to you.” I was under the impression that for MIB to “hypnotize” someone, he had to talk first, but that wasn’t how Claire stated it. Why is his voice or his words so convincing?

Locke asks Sayid to kill Desmond, suggesting he can’t do it himself. If Desmond were a “candidate,” that would likely be the explanation, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen him to be a candidate. When Sayid goes to kill Desmond, their conversation felt like when Richard went to kill Jacob for MIB in “Ab Aeterno.” Desmond asks what Sayid was promised. When Sayid says he could get back the woman he loves, Desmond asks “what will you say to her?”

Claire mentioned something to Jack about being abandoned by everyone except MIB…which is not exactly true. In Season 4, MIB appeared to her as her dad, and then she left with him. Later, as Sawyer and his clique sneak off to find the boat and get away from MIB, Claire clearly felt abandoned again. She confronts them at the boat and Kate does a great job of convincing her to come along. I liked that scene.

Later, on the boat, Jack tells Saywer, “This Island isn’t done with us yet. We came here for a reason.” He’s fully taken on the mantle (if you will) of Locke. He tells Sawyer, “Maybe he’s [MIB] afraid of what would happen if we stayed.” Interesting idea.

The reunion of Sun and Jin was good…although it didn’t feel as dramatic as I expected it to. Nice to have them back together. When Zoe had Sawyer and his gang kneel on the sand, I was half wondering if they were going to open fire and wipe them out. THAT would have been a shocking occurrence. Why is Widmore being such a weenie?

And, at the end, Jack ends up with MIB…he must be the "last recruit." Now what?

Flash Sideways
Not surprisingly, Sun and Locke are converging at the hospital. She seems to be in shock enough to recognize Locke. And, in addition to having Kate in custody, Miles and Sawyer are out for Sayid. Looks like another convergence.

I don’t know how Desmond knew to take Claire to the lawyer—on the 15th floor—or even where to find her. Did Desmond know Jack would be showing up? Does he have a kind of omniscience now? That the lawyer was Ilana was interesting, of course. Did she have an accent?

Quite a way for Jack to meet his half sister, at the reading of his father’s will. But, I guess that will have to wait, because, in another non-surprise, Jack gets a call from the hospital and rushes off to take care of Locke. That should be interesting.

Another solid episode. Moved really quick. It reminded me of episodes we have seen before the typical two-part finale, but of course we have a few more episodes to go. The flash sideways didn’t seem to especially revelatory…

Finally, soon after season 5 ended, Matthew Fox (Jack) said this:

"The sixth season will start with [the answer to the destiny question], and I think it will be very surprising, and probably fairly confusing initially to the audience," Fox explained. "And I think relatively soon into the year, the two timeframes are going to be solidified into one time and we will be operating at a more linear time through the end of the series. Like a third of the way in, I would guess, we're going to get on one timeframe, and it will be very linear--no more flashbacks, nothing--it will be very linear on the island and sort of a final conflict to the end."

We’re now about 2/3 into the final season, and this statement has not proven correct. Either plans changed after he said this, or he was given bad info!

Next week is a rerun…

Lost: Everyone Loves Hugo

2010-04-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

[This post contains spoilers, including theories for upcoming episodes. If you haven't seen this episode of LOST, or don't want to know about upcoming episodes, you may not want to read this.]

This was a great episode, and we finally had one big question answered.

Flash Sideways

My bold prediction that Hurley would be married to Libby in the Flash Sideways was of course incorrect, but it did involve her. I don’t see how they could have told his story without her.

In the opening scene, when Dr. Chang was reviewing Hurley’s philanthropy, there was a slide of him holding a dog and wearing a Humane Society shirt. That is Hurley’s (Jorge Garcia’s) real dog, Nunu. Fun! (see this)

When Hugo’s Mom told him she had set him up with Rosalita, I was confused, as I figured Libby had to be in the mix. Then she shows up at the restaurant and Hurley says what I’m thinking: “You don’t look like a Rosalita.” Of course she wasn’t. Libby has had a glimpse of Hurley in the “real” timeline, and wanted him to remember. Just as he seemed to be willing to listen, the doctor came to take her away, and when Hurley saw the Santa Rosa van, he seemed to write it off. She’s crazy, after all.

But then Desmond finds Hurley at Mr. Clucks, and, true to his pledge to find the Flight 815 passengers and “show them something,” he encourages Hurley to not give up on Libby. Did you notice that when Desmond’s order was number 42?

Hurley then went to Santa Rosa and dished out the $100,000 as a bribe of sorts in order to see Libby. There’s a guy playing Connect Four, but he’s not repeating 4 8 15 16 23 42. Did Hurley use those numbers to win the lottery in the flash sideways, or some other combination?

She tells him after she saw him on TV, memories flooded back, but from another life. She recounts a plane crash, an island, and that she remembered being at Santa Rosa before, and that he was there. Hurley of course doesn’t remember.

Because Libby is in Santa Rosa voluntarily (whatever that means), she and Hurley are able to go on a date of sorts…a picnic on the beach. Just like they were supposed to have. When he asks her why she would be with him, she says it’s because she likes him, and then they kiss…and he sees things. Again, love is opening the eyes of our heroes.

Or, pain. As the show ends, Desmond, who had been eyeing Locke, floors his BMW and plows through him. Is this Desmond’s way of helping Locke see? Or, does Desmond in the Flash Sideways know what “Locke” (the fake one) did on the Island (see below)? We shall see.

On the Island

When Michael appeared to Hurley, I was briefly wondering if it was Man in Black or actually Michael. And then I realized that Man in Black is stuck with the appearance of Locke. Why is he telling Hurley not to blow up the plane?

I was surprised that Ilana is already gone, but not surprised the dynamite blew up. We know how unstable it is. A friend of mine figures the writers couldn’t see any further use for her character, which makes sense.

I hope Hurley knows what he’s doing, taking Jack and Sun to see “Locke.” That’s just what Locke wants, of course.

On the way, Frank, Sun, Jack and Hurley hear whispers. Hurley says he thinks he knows what they are, and goes off to find Michael. “You’re stuck on the Island, aren’t you?” “Because of what I did.” “There are others out here, like you, aren’t you. That’s what whispers are.” “Yeah, we’re the ones who can’t move on.” Finally, we have that question answered. Not a shocking explanation, I don’t think. Michael shows Hurley where Locke’s group is…if going there is a bad thing, would Michael tell him?

As MIB took Desmond on a walk to show him something, the two saw another boy, dressed like an “Other,” just like Sawyer saw a few weeks ago. MIB tells Desmond to ignore him. Could it be a manifestation of a young Jacob? Is this appearance like the previous one, when he reminded MIB that he couldn’t kill Sawyer? Does the same hold true of Desmond?

MIB takes Desmond to a well. He tells Desmond that the well is very old, that it was built by hand by people who were looking for answers. They had noticed that compass needles spun at points like this. He says that digging the well did not give them answers. He says that he has shown Desmond the well because Widmore is not interested in answers, that he is only interested in power and that Widmore has brought Desmond back so he could help Widmore find what he was looking for. Desmond expresses his doubt that this is the only reason that MIB has brought him to the well. MIB asks Desmond why he isn’t afraid, to which Desmond asks what the point of being afraid is. And then, unsurprisingly, MIB throws Desmond into the well.

If MIB can’t kill Desmond, this is an easy way for him to keep Desmond “under wraps.” The preview for next week made it look like Sayid shoots Desmond, but I seriously doubt that’s what will happen. This is LOST, and previews are frequently misleading.

Finally, Hurley, Sun, and Jack (with Frank), wind up at Locke’s camp. This is getting interesting!

Lost: Happily Ever After

2010-04-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

[This post contains spoilers, including theories for upcoming episodes. If you haven't seen this episode of LOST, or don't want to know about upcoming episodes, you may not want to read this.]

I think it was early in season three when I started to say that Desmond was my favorite character on LOST. I guess it had something to do with his tragic situation. His love and devotion to Penny, even at great sacrifice to himself, was fascinating to watch, and very moving. I also think his accent is pretty cool, brotha. In Seasons 4 and 5, his role was reduced, and up until last night's episode, we'd seen him for about three minutes this season. I was so glad to have him back!

“Happily Ever After” was another classic Desmond episode; I don’t think there’s ever been a bad one. As seems typical with him, the attention was on his flash sideways (i.e., the bulk of the episode was about him). Looking at things now, I realize that Desmond has already had a flash sideways: “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” from season 3. I suppose the difference between what he experienced in that episode and what our heroes are experiencing this season is that they “co-exist.” That is, Jack, et al, seems to be on the Island and in L.A., but in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” Desmond seemed to only be off the Island. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe in that episode when he was with Penny in London, he was also lying unconscious on the Island.

That “alternate reality” was the result of him turning the failsafe key at the end of season two. That event was apparently the “catastrophic electromagnetic event” that Widmore referred to, saying Desmond is the only known survivor of such an event. Widmore told Jin he had to know if Desmond could do it again, which was the “on Island” storyline for this episode.

By now, you would think we’d be able to predict the flash sideways twists for the characters. For Desmond, he not only works for Charles Widmore, but has a great relationship with him. Charles freely shares his McCutcheon Scotch with him and uses him as a right-hand man. But…Desmond doesn’t know Penny. I should have been able to predict that (like, I was able to predict that Sawyer would either be a cop or an FBI agent).

Another connection for Desmond is that the guy who picked him up at the airport is George from the freighter. George was having flashes between the freighter and another time line just as Desmond was in “The Constant.” That feels important.

The other connection is that Desmond needs to look after Charlie, and Charlie turns out to be the one who opens Desmond’s eyes. The scene of Desmond and Charlie in the water was haunting, and of course the flashes of Charlie’s hand with “not Penny’s boat” written on it was pretty trippy. Earlier, Charlie had talked about seeing himself with a beautiful blonde woman as he was chocking on the airplane (from the season premiere). Sounds like Claire, I guess.

At the hospital, before Desmond had an MRI done, he was asked if he had any metals—change, keys…which is what he was asked when he was strapped to a chair in the generator room on the Island. Probably not a coincidence, and since he was wearing a hospital gown, so I don’t know where he’d be hiding any metals.

In the flash sideways, Faraday (or, Daniel Widmore) is a musician, Penny is his half sister, and Eloise and Charles are married.

The big “?” for this episode is Eloise. When Desmond heard Penny’s name and wanted to know more from the event planners, she intervened, in a much more forceful manner than their previous conversation. “I want you to stop. Someone has clearly affected the way you see things. This is a serious problem. This is in fact a violation,” she told him. “You have the perfect life.” When he pressed her to see the guest list, she said, “You’re not ready yet Desmond.” She’s acting like she is fully cognizant of the manufactured timeline Desmond and the others are in, much as she was in “Flashes Before Your Eyes.” It feels like she has some responsibility for it.

Her actions reminded me of “The Matrix.” In order to maintain balance or something, “they” create a life where those who could change things are made comfortable and “controlled.” Any attempt to “peek behind the curtain,” as Desmond was trying to do in this episode, could ruin the illusion.

When his avenue to finding Penny was seemingly blocked, Desmond had another chance open when Daniel told him they needed to talk. Their conversation seemed reminiscent of other “technical” conversations they’ve had before.

Daniel asks Desmond if he believes in love at first sight and explains that he saw a beautiful redhead with big blue eyes. He says it was as if he already loved her. He’s talking about Charlotte of course (interesting note that she was eating a chocolate bar). He says the night after seeing her, he woke up and wrote a complex mathematical formula. When he produced the notebook, I was expecting him to show Desmond a mysterious scribbling about “Desmond will be my constant.”

He talks about a catastrophic event is about to happen and he feels like he has to set off a nuclear bomb to prevent it. But, he feels like he has already done that. He wonders if “this life” was not meant to be. Desmond asks what it has to do with him, because Penny is just an “idea.” And then Daniel said Penny was his half sister.

I don’t know what to make of the scene with Desmond and Penny, when he faints and seems to wake up again on the Island, after being subjected to electromagnetism. It felt like “Flashes Before Your Eyes” but is that what happened (where he was moving between times)? It doesn’t feel that way. Why was Desmond so eager to help Widmore at the end of the show? What put him at ease?

A curious turn of events at the end when Sayid “rescues” Desmond, which should bring him to Man In Black, I would think. Is that good? Is that according to the plan?

The key is love. Charlie had a glimpse of something real and felt a profound love. He opened Desmond's eyes, who had a glimpse of Penny and wanted to know more. Daniel saw Charlotte and felt love, and gave Desmond a chance to find Penny. Love seems to be more powerful than any illusory life our heroes are living.

Awesome episode…still lots of questions. Could it be any other way? What sacrifice does Charles want Desmond to make? My first guess is something like staying on the Island in a Jacob role and thereby giving up Penny and his son. That’s a huge sacrifice.

I’m going on record regarding next week’s episode: Hurley will be married to Libby.

2010 MLB Prediction

2010-04-06T18:25:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. Like the metronome of the tides, the rhythm of the seasons, and the instinctive flocking of the salmon of Capistrano. I'm picking the division and wild card winners in Major League Baseball.

Whereas last year I had a fledgling faith in my beloved Cardinals, I am bullish and gung-ho about the Redbirds in 2010. Carpenter, Wainwright, Holliday and some guy named Pujols is a great core of talent (in fact, Sports Illustrated called it the best four-player core in the majors).

It's easy to go with the perennial picks: Angels, Yankees, Twins, Phillies. The smart money is largely on a repeat of last year's playoff teams, but you never know in baseball. Just ask Joe Nathan.

American League Division Winners

East: New York Yankees

Central: Detroit Tigers

West: Los Angeles Angels

Wild Card: Texas Rangers

I just don't see the Twins holding on to the Central this year. That is a big "?", as is the Wild Card. I suppose my pick of the Rangers was done largely for "contrarian" reasons, but it's not an absurd pick. The race for the American League Wild Card should prove to be heart stopping. Chicago, Seattle, Minnesota, Boston, and Tampa Bay have a shot, too, I think. Should be fun to watch.

National League Division Winners

East: Philadelphia Phillies

Central: St. Louis Cardinals

West: Colorado Rockies

Wild Card: Atlanta Braves

With these predictions, I realize my NL picks match those of SI, and they have been horribly wrong in recent years (remember how they picked them for the NLCS two years ago? Sheesh), but this seems like logic to me.

Lost: The Package

2010-04-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

[This post contains spoilers, including theories for upcoming episodes. If you haven't seen this episode of LOST, or don't want to know about upcoming episodes, you may not want to read this.]

This isn't much of a recap. Sorry, I just don't have much to say this time around. :)

Flash Sideways

Sun and Jin are not married? That is the twist for them…but apparently they are still involved.

I didn’t realize in Sayid’s flash sideways that the one guy taking him to Keamy was Omar. So we have Omar Keamy and Mikhail all together.

The cash Jin had was for Keamy as payment for Keamy to kill Jin. Interesting turn of events.

Almost as interesting as Sun being shot by an errant bullet when Jin takes care of Mikhail, shooting him in the eye…where Mikhail had a patch before. Will Jin and Sun run into Jack at the hospital?

On the Island

Man in Black tells Jin that he (and those with him) can’t leave the Island unless everyone who’s name hasn’t been crossed off of the leaves together. This felt very important. I would assume that means that no one can be outside his group acting as the replacement for Jacob.

Sayid says he can’t feel anger, happiness, or pain. Man in Black says, “Maybe that’s best Sayid. Will help you get through what’s coming.” What could be coming? War? Horror?

After Widmore’s people use tranq darts on MIB’s camp, they take Jin, apparently because he prepared a map for Dharma showing the pockets of electromagnetism on the Island. Is electromagnetism going to be an element of the story as we come to a conclusion? This topic, and Dharma’s interest in it, hasn’t been fully explained, I don’t think.

MIB says he is hoping Kate will help him get three more people, which would have to be Jack, Sun, Hurley, whose names haven’t been crossed out.

It was touching to see Jin looking at photos of his daughter on Sun's camera, seeing her for the first time, thanks to Widmore. Maybe Widmore ain't so bad after all. He says any reunion with Sun would be short lived if MIB left the Island, which is what Widmore came to prevent. When Jin asks how, Widmore says it's time for him to meet the package....a who, not a what. And it turns out to be Desmond. It’s about time!

So...like I said. Not much to contribute. I am curious to learn what Desmond can do to keep MIB on the Island, what his role will be. Have you noticed the previews for the next episode seem to be showing less and less every time?