• The eventual, consistent smiles when strangers understand my t-shirt in the featured image above.  Who doesn’t enjoy seeing a s’more as it chases itself down?  I love how completely clueless the graham cracker is…just stupidly going along for the ride behind the maniacal chocolate.  The marshmallow doesn’t stand a chance.  Nor should he.
• The outro from Frank Ocean’s “Self Control,” off the blond album…oh my god.  The emotions.  The lyrics are great (once understood and decoded a bit; the man has consistently surprising depth), but it’s the layered vocals, with that perfect reverb.  The detailed nuance of each sung syllable.  The phrase matching he does as tracks of himself are added.  5 Franks?  6?  It’s so inspired, feels so loose and raw, while being beautifully executed.  Clean.  Powerful.  This song owns me right now.
• The Rainbow children’s soap/clay from Lush.  So fun for 6 year old Rubin to mold, squeeze, lather, crumble under running bath water, and wash himself with.  He learns to conserve a cool product so he doesn’t waste it, and I get to teach him the word disintegrate. And Lush gets a deserved plug for being the amazing company it appears to be.  Win-win-win.
• The reprise of “Solo” from blond, featuring the incomparable Andre 3000.  It’s so fast and flowing, enunciated in efficient machine gun rhythm. But his content is king.  It’s funny, thoughtful, empathetic to women, and angry at some young whippersnapper rap pretenders who don’t write their own shit.  The track stops cold when you want a lot more.  He’s one of the best rappers alive, whether he’s offering product frequently or not.
• This World Cup.  Holy hell, the speed and skills on display from the likes of France’s Kylian MBappe.  The malleability of Paul Pogba’s game, and how he has happily accepted a less flashy, but sorely needed, set of midfielder duties in the French team’s two-way game.  The statuesque grace of Belgian goalie Thibaut Courtois, who shouldn’t be as agile as he is for looking like an awkward 7 foot tall 11th grader. Every 4 years I fall in love with soccer all over again, but intermittently I never choose to engage in Premier League or anything else.  So I am the quadrennial target of innumerable think pieces; “IS THIS FINALLY THE TIME THAT SOCCER IS GIVEN ITS DUE AND GROWS IN AMERICA BLAH BLAH BLAH…”. Save it. I am very happy with my current soccer intake.  I genuinely, curiously give a shit twice a decade. And right now I can’t get enough of it.
• Tracks 2 through 8 or so from Courtney Barnett’s “Tell Me How You Really Feel.”  Especially, “Nameless, Faceless” with kindred spirit Kim Deal on backing vox.  She’s sung it live at a festival with both twins from The Breeders.  Barnett is the best thing going in her timeless brand of minimalist, direct punk-infused rock songs. Plus she’s funny as hell, and has just the right level of disdain in that deadpan delivery.
• The ingenious Fuego propane grill.  It has a 20” x 20” footprint that makes city balcony life much more comfortable.  And every inch of the cooking surface conducts heat equally.  It’s also gorgeous, designed by a guy who designed Beats By Dre. Been making lots of veggie burgers for me and my girl.  But last night while she was out of town I made a steak rubbed in one of the awesome spice concoctions via Stoner Rock BBQ. The “Not So Gentle Butcher’s Rub” was incredible on a bone in ribeye.
• The wherewithal, schedule, and savings to enjoy an afternoon watching the World Cup with this view:
• 

  I watched France-Belgium while enjoyably bleeding chips at the 2-5 game at The Shoe. There was eventually more tv, and less of this guy.
• In succession I have been consumed by the songs “Nikes,” “Ivy,” “Pink & White,” and “Solo” on the aforementioned blond by Frank Ocean. I hereby declare it the best album of 2016. Who cares if it took me until summer 2018 to know it.  Sue me.

Sometimes you don’t ask for a radical change of professional life, but you look up a few months later and realize how much you’ve had time to notice.

Gratitude.  Always.  Surround yourself with people and experiences that remind you to stay in touch with it.

It’s never too late to start something that will take the rest of your life to accomplish.

I wanna hit every MLB ballpark.  Lots of people go on or have completed this quest.  It’s absurd, really, how many of them I’ve not been to.  I get jealous when I see tweets like this from friend and colleague Chris Tannehill:

Cheers to Ballpark #20 @PetcoPark @BallastPoint pic.twitter.com/XU07fPV21R

— Chris Tannehill (@ChrisTannehill) June 30, 2018

20!  The man is barely in his mid-30’s.  His ballpark list is incredibly impressive, like a Bert Blyleven curve. Plus, he seems to have had very pure, solid fan experiences at the parks, with beers and snacks and friends and such.  I’ve so often been working; upstairs with snooty, carefully detached media, unable to hang out where the real people are and fully feel the building.

“Other than hanging with family, the ballpark visits are probably my favorite thing,” says Tannehill. “Obviously I love to travel but don’t have the time or money to see the world; seeing ballparks allows me to explore the country.”

You’d think I, a baseball romantic bred into this passion essentially from the womb, would have been one of the many who collect ballparks.  I am a man whose pronunciation of “#baahhhhseballl” was so lampooned on the radio that it turned itself from insult to compliment almost daily.    A Twitter account was born just to keep the ridicule flowing.

And yet, my ballpark list feels meek and inadequate, like a Doug Jones fastball.

Last Friday night, amid accompanying my wife on a work trip to Dallas (I have some free time these days), we decided to hit the stadium in Arlington. An insurance company I’d never heard of has the rights, so “Globe Life” isn’t just what all us Earthlings are living every day, it’s the home of the Texas Rangers.

The teams were bad.  Hell, one of them was the White Sox.  Dylan Covey got absolutely destroyed, the Sox played like the clowns Reynaldo Lopez accused them of being a couple weeks ago, and it was 10-0 Rangers by the 3^rd. But hey, Matt Davidson pitched in the 8^th!

Secret weapon. pic.twitter.com/i6Xdqjbr2e

— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) June 30, 2018

That was awesome….the man showed a legit curve and splitter. He said afterwards it was a dream come true.

StubHub got us great seats behind the plate for under a hundred bucks, and we stayed all night until the postgame fireworks, accompanied by a well-crafted Beatles medley.  This was my kind of night.  Adrian Beltre didn’t do anything special, but I’m still glad I saw him. And maybe it was the weird 17% alcohol drinks in mini-baseball shaped cans, but I enjoyed watching the teams have to go through the motions of playing out the game because they must.  It reminded me of times I have sung at terrible, corporate parties.  The band knows the gig absolutely sucks by the middle of the first set….the crowd barely pays attention, we are sonic wallpaper.  But you play your best.  You finish the night with professionalism. It’s a job.

This column appears in full on the Score’s website, here.

BUT…here, you can comment, let’s get a thread going.  What’s your ballpark count at right now?  What traditions do you do at each new park?  Talk to me.

Homegirl wore the Rangers hat, just so her White Sox loathing was clear. True Story.

Matt’s alter ego, Reuben R. Reuben, once traveled the wilds of Los Angeles and Chicago, hunting, eating and occasionally cooking Reuben sandwiches.  He would then write about the meal and the experience, giving the world’s greatest sandwich the respect it deserves.

Read about Reuben R. Reuben and his many Reubens here:

thereubenblog.blogspot.com

RRR says: 

Oh Reuben. How I love thee.

With you, man has mastered the sandwich. You make the turkey club cower for mercy. The patty melt averts its eyes. Even the mighty monte cristo walks away in shame.

I will find you, Reuben, where you most expect me to: any fine establishment, or shithole, at which you are prepared. The best amongst you will be documented here, for all to share in your majesty.

Let those who have gone before me lead the way. And I, Reuben R. Reuben, will share tales of your glory.

WHAT MAKES THE PERFECT REUBEN?

Many of you have asked me this question recently. And by many, I mean just one. But that’s enough! I must answer this impassioned call.

It’s gotta be big. Not too big that I have to break out the knife and fork…but big enough to make me think a little bit before I attack it. It’s got to make me pause and strategize. I like food that makes me strategize before I eat it. But, I have to be able to manhandle it.
What makes it truly great, or not, is the proportion and relationship of the 3 vital accoutrement; the kraut, the dressing, and the cheese. That relationship has to be blissfully, meltingly, symbiotic. The blend has to be seamless…like the colors of the rainbow fading into one another.

It’s man’s greatest sandwich…where kings commune.
The bread is rye…the king of breads.
The cheese is Swiss….king of the cheeses.
And the beef is corned. It’s the best way to have beef. Everything should be corned. There should be corned turkey…corned ham….corned bologna.
So you have these kings coming together, making the Reuben not simply a sandwich aristocracy, but a sandwich oligarchy

I loved reading “Harpo Speaks” 25 years ago, the autobiography of the eternally silent on-screen Marx Brother.

I remember digging the old Hollywood stories, tales of his place at The Algonquin round table, and behind the scenes Marx Brothers movie stuff.

It’s been a quest of sorts to find a good condition hardcover copy ever since. I found one online, and treated myself to it.

The First paragraph:
“I don’t know whether my life has been a success or a failure. But not having any anxiety about becoming one instead of the other, and just taking things as they came along, I’ve had a lot of extra time to enjoy life.”

I think I liked it 25 years ago for more than just the things I thought I did.  It’s a phenomenal read, start to finish.

Fun fact: The Marx Brothers were based in Chicago for a decade, as they rode trains across the country on the vaudeville circuit.  During that time, they went to a LOT of White Sox games, including during the 1919 scandalous season.