T-shirt #259 - The First Chicago Cubs Shirt

T-shirt #259 - The First Chicago Cubs Shirt

Cubs fandom. This may seem blasphemous for a Detroit Tigers fan. But I feel I am allowed to love more than one team, especially with two teams that compete in separate leagues and rarely play each other.

This is my first Cubs shirt, and it must be about 30 years old. As you can see it has seen better days. It is close to being either pajamas or a "dead" t-shirt. Not quite yet, though I had to unearth from the back of a secondary closet.

Though I own several Chicago Cubs shirts, so far I have only featured one, T-shirt #115, in which I created a loving tribute to Ron Santo. Expect more Cubs and Baseball content to come, though I was hoping to forestall much of it until February and March.

I am still rolling a bit content light for the week as I try to work ahead.

And at the moment, I do not have any pressing news or content to share about the Chicago Cubs. So far, their off season activity has been very quiet.

Unlike the Detroit Tigers, who traded Price Fielder to Texas for Ian Kinsler, traded Doug Fister to Washington for two bullpen arms and a utility man, and are close to singing free agent closer Joe Nathan. But is it right for me to discuss Detroit Tigers content in a post dedicated to the Chicago Cubs?

FIELDER-KINSLER TRADE

TIGERS FANS PANICKING ABOUT FISTER TRADE

TIGERS SIGN JOE NATHAN

I like what the Tigers are doing. In other news, I am shocked that Jacoby Ellsbury is a Yankee.

In an instance of pure serendipity, there is Chicago Cubs content in the Sports Weekly, which arrived in my in box yesterday, after I had written the previous text (I am working a day ahead right now and hoping to expand the lead). Sports Weekly discussed major prospects on the horizon for the Cubs in top outfielder Albert Almora, shortstop Javier Baez, third baseman Kris Bryant, and another outfielder Jorge Soler. Bryant had the best overall season last year and was MVP of the Arizona Fall League. Baez who might move to outfield or third hit for power but needs work on plate discipline.

A nice article on the team makes the case that the Cubs will not seek a quick fix via free agency but will instead rely on the farm system and prospects to pay off starting in 2015 and thereafter. So, though the Cubs may improve marginally from a dreadful 2013 season, I would not bet money on too much improvement. New manager Rick Renteria hopes to turn around the trend as the Cubs have 90+ losses in the last three seasons, but is it realistic that the Cubs even break even let alone contend? Not yet.

So what else is there to say right now?

Besides, this is my content light week of semi-hiatus.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 106 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.05 - 9:28

T-shirt #258 - Kalamazoo College Grey Under Armor

T-shirt #258 - Kalamazoo College Grey Under Armor

Obviously, this is not an Ultimate shirt, but since the photos feature an Ultimate Championship Medal, I decided to show the photos and include this one in the Ultimate category. This may be the first shirt in my Ultimate category that is not in some way an Ultimate shirt.

I featured Team Venom in T-shirt #60 in commemoration of our winning the MUSL league in 2007. Here are the pictures taken later that night with my Championship medal. I had switched into my Kalamazoo College shirt after the tournament and still had it on when I arrived home and wanted my picture taken.

As reported over the last few days, I am still in content light, hiatus mode. I have a smidgen more content to share about Kalamazoo College and then off I go to cobble together future blogs with more substance!

Toodles, Noodles.

Though there are eleven posts in my college category, I have only featured Kalamazoo College and a Kalamazoo College shirt once so far. I have at least four more shirts to feature and may own a couple more before this blog year is over.

I originally featured Kalamazoo College content as well as ruminations on identity in T-shirt #100. I delivered a great deal of Kalamazoo College content in that post. Surely, there is more to come.

This time of year as I counsel my WMU students through the completion of their semester, hammering them with academic rigor, though never as rigorous as what I went through at Kalamazoo College, I think of my own academic experiences, and sometimes I share these stories.

I tell my students that a college semester is like running a marathon. It's all about pacing, but it's a long, long distance, and if they do not pace well, they may have to speed up near the end.

I share about my first college research paper in my Introduction to Religion course, in which I investigated creation myths of different religions and discovered that if I built a paper from the inside out, starting in the middle, a thesis and an illustrative introduction would eventually come to me. I remember long hours in the Trowbridge Lounge with all my research and my electric typewriter.

With great pride, I share my long journey through Moby Dick. In the year of the studies of the great white whale, I stayed at school on Thanksgiving Day. I got up at 5 a.m. to read Moby Dick. Huddled in my single in Crissey, I read all day. I went to the President's Lounge for pizza, which is what the college served to those with nowhere to go for Thanksgiving. Sometime before that day, I read Moby Dick for two hours at the Rolling Stone concert at the Pontiac Silverdome. In the two hour stage reset between Carlos Santana and the Stones, I sat there an read while everyone else hooted and hollered and spilled beer all around me.

Then there was my 72-hour novel writing marathon, in which I slept very little, and wrote a 125-ish page postmodern novel called The Next Best Thing To Being There. I perfected the 45-minute power meditation nap to various Pink Floyd albums. I walked through the Burger King drive through at 1 a.m. because we had no car but were starving. I experimented, as did my girlfriend of the time, with Vivarin.

These are the academic experiences that stick out in my mind, the ones I cherish the most.

More stories to come. Stay Tuned.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR: 107 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.04 - time

T-shirt #257 - 10,000 Maniacs - Blind Man's Zoo

T-shirt #257 - 10,000 Maniacs - Blind Man's Zoo - Eat for Two

I have been a huge 10,000 Maniacs fan since the mid-1980s. I heard that the band played Club Soda around 1985, before I discovered this great band.



The story of my discovery is brief, but it's one of my favorite stories of discoveries of a band or musical artist.

WIDR, the WMU student radio station, used to host a featured album show and another show in which a DJ would play a collection of music from one band or artist. I threw a cassette in one day for one of these shows as I was called down for dinner because I liked the music. The show had already started, so I had missed the name of the artist. For several months after, I had this cassette of music that was beautiful and mesmerizing. But I did not know the name of the album and the artists. One song in particular became an instant favorite of mine, though I did not know the name of the song and couldn't make out the all the lyrics. The song is featured in a video below. It is still my favorite 10,000 Maniacs song. When I heard them play it in concert, I cried. (And I waited through several concerts before they did play it, so that moved me even more emotionally as between each song I would have my fingers crossed and be sending the band the mental message: "Lily Dale. Lily Dale. Lily Dale.")

Months after recording that cassette and playing it over and over and falling completely in love with the music, the precise, tight guitar, and the rich and hearty vocals, I borrowed an intriguing looking album from a friend of mine, a local musician, Jeff Krebs, called The Wishing Chair by a band named 10,000 Maniacs. It was the music on my cassette! And there was the song: "Lily Dale," named for a cemetery in New York near the band's home town of Jamestown.

I have several 10,000 Maniacs shirts, so I am going to leave off at this content for now and let several videos speak for the band's brilliance. These are not all of my favorite 10,000 Maniacs songs. I feel that I need to share "Eat For Two" because it's on the shirt as a promo for the 10,000 Maniacs album Blind Man's Zoo. I selected six songs just from You Tube searching. Some are favorites, like "Lilly Dale," and another, like "Headstrong," was chosen simply because it's on Blind Man's Zoo.

More 10,000 Maniacs content to come in future blogs so stay tuned.

But first some images of ticket stubs. These are not all my ticket stubs and one is not mine. It was given to me by my friend "Billy" Walt Curley, He who is!

10,000 Maniacs- Eat for Two/Live/HD

10,000 Maniacs - Can't Ignore The Train

Natalie Merchant - Verdi Cries

Lilydale 10,000 Maniacs

I can't embed these some for some reason. But click the links. They work.

10,000 Maniacs - Grey Victory

10,000 Maniacs - Headstrong

Okay, wait a minute. I can't go without sharing the amazing lyrics to "Lilydale."

"LilyDale" - 10,000 Maniacs from the Wishing Chair

Come as we go far away
From the noise of the street
Walk a path so narrow
To a place where we feel at ease

Some think it is haunting
To be drawn to the
Cemetery ground, as we
There's a stillness here
Thankful found

Child's pose angelic
A stone lamb at her feet
Part the matted overgrowth
To read the craven elegy

Some think it is haunting
To be drawn to the
Cemetery ground, as we
There's a stillness here
Thankful found

Born in New Albion
Of Rice family elite
Wed to Myron Bilowe
Thrice with sons
Blessed was she

Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the
Cemetery ground, as we
God's acre is a fenced in
Hollow ground

Here soon to rise up
Amelia, tender and sweet
Her last words spoke
All is well, all is peace

Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the
Cemetery ground, as we
God's acre is a fenced in
Hollow ground

Songwriters
Natalie Merchant;Robert Buck

Published by
CHRISTIAN BURIAL MUSIC

As always, I am back again tomorrow.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 108 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.03 - 7:50

T-shirt # 256 - Mad Dog Ultimate Tournament - Scooby Doo

T-shirt # 256 - Mad Dog Ultimate Tournament - Scooby Doo

As I wrote yesterday, I am taking a shirt hiatus.... ha ha, that's a typo. I meant "short" hiatus. It's not really a shirt hiatus as there are still shirts.

So light on content for a few days.

Yesterday was the necessary day of rest for "self-care" though after I graded two sets of assignments and did a bunch of daily work. Also, though I had some good picks (Vikings! Cardinals!), I am 6-9 total for the week and only because I went 2-1 with my picks for Thanksgiving Day. But I am sweeping fantasy basketball (except for the team I let Yahoo draft).

Oh and the Pistons won big. So between reading a bunch of comics, quality time with my wife, loving times with the puppy, I am happy. Though now it's back to work, hence the content-light hiatus.




















Mad Dog was one of the most fun tournaments in which I ever played. I miss it. But I especially liked teaming up with Midland folks in 2002. It's one of my best Ultimate tournament memories. Plus, I have this nifty shirt. In fact, I may have TWO. I like that I have an Ultimate shirt that features Scooby Doo. Great people!

I have always been a big Scooby Doo fan. Check out these two nifty clips. One is Christmas themed!

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969) - Intro (Opening) - Version 2

A Scooby-Doo Christmas

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 109 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.02 - 8:40

T-shirt #255 - Ani DiFranco Purple Every Tool

T-shirt #255 - Ani DiFranco Purple Every Tool is a weapon if you hold it right

I dreamed about Ani DiFranco last night. She was at my house, and I was interviewing her for some article I was going to write. I had to confess that I have not liked, though I have not really listened to, any albums since Educated Guess (2004), and really, Revelling/Reckoning (2001) was the last album by her that really spoke strongly to me.

Ani took this in stride and told me she understood, though she encouraged me to give her more recent works another listen or twelve.

And so I invited her to the Dinner Party.

I have already written about Ani DiFranco in T-shirt #121 and T-shirt #173 because I own four Ani shirts and a hat.

I have seen Ani DiFranco in concert eight times.

I like this shirt. I like purple. I am going to present a few more videos that I have not yet presented. In T-shirt #173, I shared videos for "Swan Dive" and "Gravel." In T-shirt #121, I presented videos for 'your Next Bold Move," School Night," and the poem "Grand Canyon."

Mr. T-shirt Blogging Man is taking a little hiatus to get work done and get ahead on the blog in general longer entries for the blog. Obviously, I am not going to miss any days as I committed to posting on 365 consecutive days, but I am going content light (or lite if you prefer) for the next three or four entries.

Here's some videos of Ani DiFranco music.

Welcome to the Dinner Party, Ani.

Ani DiFranco - To the Teeth

Ani DiFranco - 32 Flavors (HQ)

Ani DiFranco - Grey




Ani DiFranco Shy



Ani DiFranco - Untouchable Face | Live in New York | Moshcam




Ani DiFranco Records "Both Hands"






- chris tower: 1312.01: 14:38
and updated 1601.08

T-shirt #254 - Fight Censorship - Chester Brown

T-shirt #254 - Fight Censorship - Chester Brown

Another Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) shirt. This one by Chester Brown. I wrote about the CBLDF last in T-shirt #159: Save Smut!. I like the CBLDF shirts. I own several, and I am contemplating buying more (or asking for more as gifts).

Though I did not specifically mention the CBLDF in T-shirt #63: The Comics Code Authority, I added it to my CBLDF category because the learned that the shirt was produced by the CBLDF.

I also explored some of the issues related to banned comics in T-shirt #156: EC Comics.

I find it interesting that when I posed for a picture with my Save Smut shirt, I grabbed Chester Brown's most recent book Paying For It, which is a great graphic novel and treatise for legalization of sex work (namely prostitution).

I have always been a big fan of Chester Brown and have read everything he has produced, including collecting all the back issues of his comic book, Yummy Fur. Though many people point to Ed the Happy Clown as Brown's best work, I am most found of The Playboy, which I recommend highly. However, I do think that Paying For It, given the depth of his research and the exploration of the subject matter may be his best work now. I am going to reprint here what I wrote about Paying For It in the previous post and about the CBLDF in general. I am still sort of in holiday vacation mode. Though I do have some comic book round up and some comments on this week's comics to share. I promise more new content on CBLDF with the next CBLDF shirt (I currently have two more in the closet). But I do think there is value in presenting material I already wrote again. I know there are a few of you dear readers who have read everything (which blows my mind, thank you), but I know others are hit and miss. So maybe, you missed this other content. Here it is again.

Chester Brown's book Paying For It is an excellent graphic novel on Brown's experience as a "john," a customer of sex workers. It's a beautiful and compelling book with review quotes from Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Robert Crumb (who wrote the introduction), Sasha, and Tracy Quan. It has an extensive afterword and appendix filled with notes, essays, and various content on issues related to sex work and legality. I give this book one of my highest recommendations. It is surely a book that would (and has) come under fire and needs the CBLDF to defend it. More on Chester Brown in a future blog.

I already featured one CBLDF T-shirt without realizing it. T-shirt #63: Comics Code Authority was produced by the CBLDF.

I already explored some of these issues with banned comics and censorship, especially as related to EC Comics in T-shirt #156 as well as T-shirt #63: Comics Code Authority.

If I have not made my position clear yet, I am very opposed to censorship in any form. Censorship is a slippery slope. Though being unequivocally against it may put me in shark-infested waters when it comes to some materials involving children or small animals, in general, I would rather uphold a strong anti-censorship stance to uphold the rights of everyone because there are far more products that others find objectionable--and are happy to censor or burn-- that I do not.


Check out these stories on CBLDF

Obscenity Case Files: Is a book store owner responsible for all the content in her shop?

New Zealand Library refuses to carry Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls.

On the recent ban in Japan of the mangaBarefoot Gen

And, another thing, I like smut.

RESOURCES

CBLDF SITE

HISTORY OF COMICS AND CENSORSHIP (part of CBLDF) - Part One
(There are six parts in all and this is great reading!!)

EVERYTHING NEIL GAIMAN HAS POSTED ON CBLDF

Digital Commons Case Study on CBLDF

SOME COMIC BOOK ROUNDUP

I have been reading a lot of comic books lately. Big surprise. One book that fell into back log was Wolverine. I had SEVEN issues of the comic piled up in my back log, which I finally plowed through a week ago. Marvel has been going a bit "berserk" with its Wolverine products with three books devoted to the most popular of the mutants. I had been picking up issues of The Savage Wolverine, when they featured Frank Cho art and swiftly dropped the book when Cho left the book. I bought issues of Wolverine and the X-Men during the Battle for the Atom story as I mentioned in T-shirt #218 and T-shirt #229, in which I reviewed the last issue of the massive crossover.






Since Wolverine did not crossover with the Battle for the Atom story, and since artist Alan Davis stepped away from the comic for three issues, I let the title stack up in my back log. When I read all the issues, I found renewed interest in the storyline, in which Wolverine is fighting a mind-controlling virus from the microverse that manages to take away his mutant healing power. Suddenly mortal, Wolvie is in a world of hurt, quite literally. Alan Davis has always been one of my favorite artists and Mark Farmer's inks make Davis' pencils more beautiful, if that's possible. Paul Cornell's writing is deft and smart. Suddenly, this book has jumped high on my radar and hit near the top of the list next time the book comes out.



The New 52! Teen Titans comic book has been a dreadful disgrace. As I have reported on many occasions, I am a huge Teen Titans fan from way back. But this book is awful. Though not quite as awful as recent issues of Superman (because no comic could be as bad as that one), the comic has been a confusing mess. I am not even sure I understand what is going on, and the relationships and subplots have been handled with all the writing skill of a sledge hammer being used for cracking an egg. UGH. Stay away. Though I will keep buying the damn book because it's the Titans, and I am an insane geek.

The All New X-Men #018: It's time for them to go home. At first, I liked the idea of bringing the original X-Men back to the current landscape from the past. But their story has outlived its usefulness. Now it seems like its hanging on to provide Marvel with one more X book in its glut of the industry and to be able to keep the original characters alive and well in the current landscape despite the jeopardy it is causing to the history of the characters and those comic book stories.

Granted, the comic is still well written by Bendis, who, as I have said, is in such a renaissance for his career that I think he is doing his best work ever, and lovingly drawn by Stuart Immomen, but the stories are losing their punch. Though having the originals confront Magneto, who when the originals last met him he was trying to kill them, is worth exploring, other stories like the Cukoos harassing Jean Grey seem rather pointless. And then, in the recent issue, #018, they give the originals new costumes, which sort of violates the whole idea of having the old costumes around as a means of keeping trademarked images alive and current.
I like Immomen (and Bendis) too much to stop buying it and reading it. But send them home already. Enough is enough. This is like the HOUSE GUESTS THAT WOULD NOT LEAVE.

Send these annoying teenagers packing.

'Nuff said.

I would not say I am a big fan of the Luna brothers. I like Ultra enough to teach it in my last semester as a Media and the Sexes instructor. But I had mixed feelings about Girls, which I may or may not explore sometime in the blog.

With the newest offering, Alex + Ada, one Luna brother is out and replaced, ostensibly, by Jonathan Luna's girlfriend, Sarah Vaughn. Okay, fine. The story involves a future world in which robots have become common place in servile and manual labor jobs but can also be purchased as companions as Alex's boozy old tart of a mother explains "Who knew an android might be the best lover I ever had."
My reaction: Eeeeewwwww. And: "Oh relax. He's kind and attentive and says all the right things."
Hmmmm.
At the end of the comic, Alex arrives home from his birthday party, alone and single, mourning the loss of his last girlfriend, to discover that his mother bought him an android, a beautiful woman named "Ada."

Again Jonathan Luna is playing with male fantasies in much the same way as he did in Ultra and especially with the beautiful, naked clone women of Girls, and though this is more sophisticated and less exploitative than Girls (most any story would be), it's still quite a bit the stuff of fan boy masturbation. Stay tuned. I will keep reading and keep reporting.

JOE'S COMICS

I like JMS also known as Joe Straczynski. I liked his Spider-Man, I liked his Thor, I liked his Superman stuff. I adored Babylon Five.

So far, I am not thrilled with his Joe's Comics line.

Granted, I have Ten Grand in my back log, which may be the best of the bunch. Sidekick has art by Tom Mandrake, which is a plus, but the story is a bit dodgy and has more Femme Fatale type manipulation, which will get most fan boy's rocks off. Tom Mandrake, who draws in Gene Colan vein (one of my favorites as I have made a category all his own) almost makes the experience worth it. Almost. I have seen JMS do better writing. Likewise Protectors Inc. is also ho-hum. I added this comic to my stack of comics to recap and just glancing at the cover, I cannot think of one thing I remember of it. Gordon Purcell art looks nice. Purcell is swiping Dan Jurgens, which he does well enough. I flip through the comic and I only have the vaguest sense of having read it. Not too engaged.


Lastly, Batman #25. I wrote about the previous issue in T-shirt #217.

GOOD STUFF!!

I love the Zero Year thing. DC was very smart to start New 52 a few years in and fill in back story with zero issues and Zero Year tie-ins as well as books like Action Comics, which originally explored the early years of Superman's career. Batman #25 continues the early years of Batman's career, after the Joker's origin, detailing the first Riddler story, an early version of the Bat mobile (seen below), the inspiration for the Bat Signal (by Jim Gordon), and a great final twist, which I will not reveal here (though it deals with Lucius Fox). You have to read the comic.

Batman continues to be among the best DC titles.

WEEKLY COMICS LIST

Because The Walking Dead is coming out every two weeks, issue 117 lands the same week as Aquaman, and I have to make the tough choice. The Walking Dead continues to win the top spot in my stacks. Kick Ass drops from its previous spot because of the two aforementioned books (it was second back in T-shirt #225). Likewise, following from the previous posted link for 225, Superior Spider-Man stays highly ranked because the story is strong. I liked the end of Infinity well enough but it's hardly the best idea for a crossover in Marvel history. It was all right, but I am glad it's over. The whole thing left me a bit underwhelmed. Likewise, with New Avengers, I think Hickman is trying to do too much and not doing anything well enough.

And that's all I have read so far. More later. Tomorrow's a big reading day.

COMICS FOR 1311.27

The Walking Dead #117
Aquaman #25
Kick-Ass 3 #5
The Superior Spider-Man #022
Infinity part six of six
New Avengers #12
The Flash #25
Hawkeye #014
Tom Strong and the Planet of Peril #5 of 6
Saga #16

Black Science #1

Uncanny Avengers #014
FF #014

Nova #010 (supposedly #100)

All New X-Men #019

Heist #003
Avengers Arena #018
Cataclysm: Ultimate X-Men #001
Catwoman #25
Sidekick #4
Teen Titans #25
Superman #25

BACKLOG

Uncanny X-Force #014
Sandman Overture Special Edition #1 
Buck Rogers #2
Buck Rogers #3
Indestructible Hulk #016
Codename Action #2

SPECIAL PURCHASES

Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne (volume one)




Nowhere Men volume one




Stark Industries R&D T-shirt (Preview of a future shirt!!)



COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR: 111 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1311.30 - 13:49

T-shirt #253 - Strangers in Paradise

T-shirt #253 - Strangers in Paradise

Today is a day off for the t-shirt blogging writer. I am tired from a huge Thanksgiving dinner at the in-laws. Thus, I am posting something easy (and showing me napping). I will be back tomorrow with the Weekly Comics List and some comic book stuff, one day late, as I usually post the Weekly Comics List on Fridays.

Strangers in Paradise (SIP) is a great comic book.

Why it was so great is explained much better here at

SCHULZLIBRARY- STRANGERS IN PARADISE - BLOG.

I also found in a quick survey of the 'Net that Terry Moore is at work on an SIP novel. HUZZAH!

TERRY MOORE WRITING SIP NOVEL.

Terry Moore is wonderful. I always read his stuff, though I have been waiting for Rachel Rising to conclude to read in collected editions. His writing may be a bit sappy, though at times just right, but his art is always impeccable.

PS: Today is my best friend's birthday. If I planned ahead, I would have posted a shirt he gave me. But I didn't. So it's random, which is fitting.

I tried to control myself. I can go a bit nuts with the images and cover gallery stuff. So here is a controlled array.

COVER GALLERY - STRANGERS IN PARADISE

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 112 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1311.29 - 13:00