The ICC Cricket T20 world cup semi finals are over, India and South Africa move on to the finals, on Saturday at 8:30 AM. I think my favorite moment was when the stadium speakers were playing “London Calling” by the Clash. I am not sore they were throwing shade of if it was just on the playlist, irony at the very least. The English needed another 100 runs on 50 some pitches and the Indian team was mowing down English batters like ninepins. That is a quote by the color man calling the match: “England going down like ninepins!”
As a novice fan of the game I have to say that I have enjoyed watching the handful of matches I viewed curtesy of Willow TV by Crickbuzz and by curtesy I mean $9.99 a month, the broadcasts are available with audio in your choice of Hindi or English. The Major League Cricket season starts up on July 5th with the Seattle Orcas playing MI New York in Church Street Park, Morrisville, North Carolina.
The US and West Indian teams both made it to the Super 8s although neither made it to the semi finals. The West Indies team ended the series with a slightly better record than the US squad so
gets to claim victory for The Commonwealth.A Cricket stadium is proposed for the Seattle area in Marymoor Park, here are some of the proposals:
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I now know what a wicket is, that it is made up of two bails, placed upon three stumps. The field is called a pitch. The batters, there are two of them on the pitch at the same time, are a striker and a nonstriker, the pitcher is called a bowler. I am chock full of newly learned cricket jargon and that William Blake is thought to have immortalized cricket in one of his illustrations for the following poem:
"The Echoing Green"
(The Ecchoing Green)
by William Blake
The Sun does arise,
And make happy the skies.
The merry bells ring
To welcome the Spring.
The sky-lark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around,
To the bells' cheerful sound.
While our sports shall be seen
On the Echoing Green.
Old John with white hair
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk,
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say.
Such such were the joys.
When we all --girls and boys--
In our youth-time were seen,
On the Echoing Green.
Till the little ones weary
No more can be merry
The sun does descend,
And our sports have an end:
Round the laps of their mothers,
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest;
And sport no more seen,
On the darkening Green.
Copy Z, 1826 from the Library of Congress
Thus ends the cricket lesson.
We are working on a welcome sign for when my youngest son comes to visit with his daughter in July. The sign is themed on Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things are and requires me to brush up on my Photoshop skills for an airport sign thats going to be used for about an hour. Then crowns.
LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!
John from Cincinnati (2007 )
HBO 10 Episodes
John from Cincinnati was written and created by David Milch after he had done the same for Deadwood, both debuted on HBO. I have been a fan of Mr. Milch’s since Hill Street Blues (’82-’87) and NYPD Blue (’93-2005), yep, that is how old I am. The series follows a dysfunctional family of surfers in Imperial Beach, California, just south of San Diego where I lived for about eighteen years in the 80’s and 90’s.The cast is phenomenal, the interactions at the motel between Garret Dillahunt, Dayton Callie, Paul Ben-Victor, and Luis Guzmán make it worth watching alone. My first watching of the series was when it released on HBO, I was pleased at how different from Deadwood the show was, quirky is putting it mildly. A parrot brought back from the dead, a levitating surfing patriarch, and a haunted motel are just a few of the oddball goings on in this series. A good friend and I assumed we were the only people who watched the show, and it never achieved a Game of Thrones sized fan base. Still it is one of my all time favorites.
It is available to stream on Max, Max on Prime Video Channels, and to Rent or Buy on PrimeVideo and to buy on AppleTV.
Romeo + Juliette (1996)
This film is a nostalgic favorite of mine because it was the first film
and I saw in a theater, it was not a first date, but close. It had everything going for it in my mind, a star crossed romance and Shakespeare, the perfect way to show off my savior fare and to look suave and debonaire, which was a tough go. From the scene in the gas station with Dash Mehock as Benvolio, Jamie Kennedy, Zak Orth, and John Leguizamo as Tybalt the Prince of Cats, the film is Baz Luhrmann’s Shakespearean roller coaster. Other standouts are Vincent Laresca as Abra, and my favorite in this film, Harold Perrineau as Mercutio:Mercutio
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough. Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.
[Exit Page]
Romeo
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
Mercutio
No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o' both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death. A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic!
[To Romeo] Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.
Romeo
I thought all for the best.
Mercutio
Help me into some house, Benvolio, Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms' meat of me. I have it, And soundly too. Your houses!
We had both been taught Shakespeare in school, I had read most of the plays, even performed a short one man, two sons performance of Henry V, Act IV scene 4 in my son’s fourth grade class, so we knew a little Shakespeare. But WTF! It remains a favorite of ours to this day, and I like to think I upped my suave and debonaire game after we saw Titus Andronicus at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, and dragging her to the Seattle Library’s downtown branch for an exhibit of the First Folio on loan from the Folger Shakespeare Library.
It is available to stream as Rent or Buy on PrimeVideo.
Cosmo’s Factory (1970)
Creedence Clearwater Revival
This was the first LP I ever bought. I would have been about 13, we were at the Gemco in Burbank, CA if I remember correctly.
Enjoy, that is about all I have for now. Thanks for reading.
Have a great weekend,
Gumpy
I say, dear chap, that I feel hearkened to give the ol' sport of Cricket a go.....as a fan, of course. I naturally assume that Scotland has a team I can cheer on whenever they battle their mortal foes the Brits?