Javier Oscar Torres
Stacey and Oscar's baby - born July 19th, 11:52 AM. He weighed 6lbs, 13oz and was 21 inches long. Stacey was in labor for 34 hours.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Artscape 2009
Natalie and I went to Artscape on Saturday and Sunday this year.
Saturday we got there around 12 and saw the band "Fall Back Plan" on the Main Stage. They're a talented band but a little generic for my taste. The lead singer was really good. She reminded me of somebody, Gwen Stefani maybe. The parade of Art Cars came by around 12:30, always a high point. We wondered up Mount Royal Avenue, checking out some of the artists booths along the way.
There was an exhibition of Sondheim prize semi-finalists at MICA. That was really interesting. Natalie liked the art that was made up of all these little pictures from the newspaper transferred to the canvas with clear tape and masking tape. There were marble statues of Mario, Kermit the frog and the lego man, and this installation type thing that was kind of creepy. There was a bed or futon in it and all these strands of plastic bags blowing around while a spotlight at the top slowly changed colors.
From there, we headed up past the Art Cars to the Midway on Charles Street. It was packed by then, single file, shoulder to shoulder. Natalie got a little freaked out by the crowd. We did make it up to the Charles Theater area and picked up some stuff from the Free Store in the parking garage. That's when the kids called and told us they had managed to lock themselves out of the house. So that was that.
Sunday we got down there around the same time - noon. That's the best time to be there. We heard an organ concert at Corpus Christi Church that was great. We also tried to go to the Lyric but that was a fiasco. We went right in but instead of Irish dancers there were African dancers on stage. So we left and that was our mistake. When we tried to go back, the place was full. Nobody was leaving and they weren't letting anybody in. After waiting about 20 minutes, I saw the Irish dancers on a monitor in the lobby. So that was a waste. They are going to have to open up the balcony next year.
We wondered around a little longer then went to the Owl bar for a couple of beers. We would have liked to have gone to Brewer's Art but they don't open till 5:00 on Sunday.
Saturday we got there around 12 and saw the band "Fall Back Plan" on the Main Stage. They're a talented band but a little generic for my taste. The lead singer was really good. She reminded me of somebody, Gwen Stefani maybe. The parade of Art Cars came by around 12:30, always a high point. We wondered up Mount Royal Avenue, checking out some of the artists booths along the way.
There was an exhibition of Sondheim prize semi-finalists at MICA. That was really interesting. Natalie liked the art that was made up of all these little pictures from the newspaper transferred to the canvas with clear tape and masking tape. There were marble statues of Mario, Kermit the frog and the lego man, and this installation type thing that was kind of creepy. There was a bed or futon in it and all these strands of plastic bags blowing around while a spotlight at the top slowly changed colors.
From there, we headed up past the Art Cars to the Midway on Charles Street. It was packed by then, single file, shoulder to shoulder. Natalie got a little freaked out by the crowd. We did make it up to the Charles Theater area and picked up some stuff from the Free Store in the parking garage. That's when the kids called and told us they had managed to lock themselves out of the house. So that was that.
Sunday we got down there around the same time - noon. That's the best time to be there. We heard an organ concert at Corpus Christi Church that was great. We also tried to go to the Lyric but that was a fiasco. We went right in but instead of Irish dancers there were African dancers on stage. So we left and that was our mistake. When we tried to go back, the place was full. Nobody was leaving and they weren't letting anybody in. After waiting about 20 minutes, I saw the Irish dancers on a monitor in the lobby. So that was a waste. They are going to have to open up the balcony next year.
We wondered around a little longer then went to the Owl bar for a couple of beers. We would have liked to have gone to Brewer's Art but they don't open till 5:00 on Sunday.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Souvenir Bat Night
WASHINGTON—Attendance may be down, but the fans at last week's game didn't care—they were too busy enjoying the stadium's new Fuck-Cam.
"We've been really surprised and delighted by the crowd reaction," said Washington Nationals public relations director Janine Perry, who started the Fuck-Cam program that has since been emulated by every other ballpark in the major leagues, except Miller Park in Milwaukee. "Apparently, people who like watching baseball games also really enjoy watching other people have sex. And not just between innings, either. If the action on the screen is still going when the play on the field resumes, they'll still watch. The Fuck-Cam has been quite a phenomenon."
Major League Baseball estimates that more than 700 people have had been featured on the Fuck-Cam since its introduction. The first Fuck-Cam couple, Gary Kochalk and Kim Dahle, have been guests on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. And a montage of legendary Fuck-Cam performances is one of the most viewed clips on YouTube, featuring such great Fuck-Cam moments as the man who hasn't realized his partner has fallen asleep; a would-be suitor who goes down on one knee, produces a ring, and is flatly denied; an overweight couple who is booed off the JumboTron by the crowd; and a good-natured if somewhat clumsy performance by the Fox Sports broadcast team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.
"It's at the point where some people come to the ballpark with the idea of getting themselves on the Fuck-Cam," Perry said. "They dress up for it, wave signs, even start fucking with two outs at the bottom of an inning in the hope they'll get noticed, the whole thing. The buzz has been awesome. Of course, we'd rather people come to see our beloved Nats, but our attitude is, if people having sex in the seats gets people to come to the park, it's good for baseball."
Perry refuses to take credit for the concept, although she did make it official by adding the subtitles and frames now associated with JumboTron displays of crowd sex. Instead, she credits the Washington fans themselves—"the greatest and most sexual fans in the world," she said gratefully—with the spontaneous invention of the Fuck-Cam.
"The Nats were getting blown out by the Dodgers in an early May game, and the camera guy went to the kiss-cam early and often," Perry said. "Well, he lingered a while on the same couple, and they just got into the spirit of the thing and started fucking like you wouldn't believe. It was great, but I really didn't think much about it until the next morning when someone told me it had been mentioned in the news, and later that day it was No. 3 on SportsCenter's Top 10 Plays."
By June, Fuck-Cams were in use at Baltimore's Camden Yards, Detroit's Comerica Park, Yankee Stadium, and countless other major- and minor-league ballparks. The promotion has been a hit at every stadium in which it has been introduced, although the process has not always been smooth.
"You want to be careful," said Wrigley Field cameraman Greg Somerset, who noted that he "gets" an average of four couples a night on his Fuck-Cam. "Sometimes you can have good luck with a guy and a girl who are just sitting next to each other, but other times it doesn't work at all. A couple who's fighting may or may not have great makeup sex while you're watching. Getting two guys on the Fuck-Cam, well, it may work or it may not, and the crowd may or may not like it. The time with two guys and a girl, that was a mixed reaction."
"Also, I just want to forget about souvenir bat night," Somerset added. "You just can't tell with some people."
"The Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla"
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