Heroes is back….

…and I have to tell ya: months spent nitpicking over the relative disappointment of last season disappeared completely in the remembrance of exactly how much I enjoy watching this show.

Wall-crawling….a speedster…ice generation….and finally, at last, some villains other than Sylar. I have high hopes. Sure, I’ll probably end up playing “spot the original comic-book inspirations” like I’ve done with past episodes, but that’s a feature, not a bug.

Bailout Thought, part 2

Instead of using 700 BILLION dollars to bail out Wall Street firms, why not spend the same amount issuing another stimulus package to the American public?

That would be about $3,000 for every adult in the US. It seems to me that any use of that — paying off debt, making frivilous purchases, or putting it into savings, would be of greater benefit to the economy than absolving Wall Street banks of their fuck-up…..

In other words — if we’re going to piss away taxpayer money, shouldn’t it go to the taxpayers?

Farewell to Yankee Stadium

Last night was the final game at Yankee Stadium. I caught a bit of it on TV.

I remember the first time I went there, in 1981, struck at how vibrant the colors were — the rich green of the outfield against the deep ochre of the base path, with the stark white of the Yankees home uniform — when compared to the images that I had grown up with on TV.

I remember the last time I went there, in 1999, with , a last-minute decision to join a group of Navy Seals who had been visiting the USS Intrepid (where I worked) at the game. My first subway game — taking the B train to the game, and then back.

I didn’t get to the Stadium as often as I’d have liked to — but it still formed a big part of my life, through countless games on the television forming the background of thousands of family memories. Weekend gatherings at my grandmother’s are mixed with memories ranging from the George Brett Pine Tar game to David Wells’ pitching his Perfect Game. My grandmother had a print commemorating the construction of the stadium in 1923, hanging on the landing of the stairwell in her house.

Last night was the last game — the Yankees will have a new stadium, but it will be a soulless corporate monstrosity, with more luxury boxes and no sense of history. The *real* Yankee stadium, the stadium that gave its final bow last night, was steeped in history: Not only baseball’s history, or the history of New York….but my personal history as well.

I’ll miss it.