If you want the doom and gloom prognostication of the 2013 New York Yankees season, you can pretty much go to any newspaper or website, but not here. I have filled the glass with something while appearing clear in color, may not be in content and I have taped the rose-colored glasses to my face as I look forward to Opening Day on Monday.

Anyone who has paid a moment's attention to this off-season knows that the Yanks were dedicated to getting the payroll under the luxury tax limit of $189M for the 2014 campaign which meant pretty much no big deals, no long-term deals, either. There were already the challenges of core players, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and CC Sabathia coming back from serious injuries requiring surgery. Many important players - both regular and bench positions - went elsewhere this winter: Nick Swisher, Russell Martin, Raul Ibanez, Eric Chavez, Andruw Jones and with them a lot of the power. Of course last season everyone complained that the Bronx Bombers were way too dependent on the long-ball. That probably won't be an issue this season.

The Captain, who vowed he'd be recovered from the injury sustained in the playoffs in time for Opening Day, couldn't get his thirty-eight year old body comply with that and will start the season on the disable list. Same for Curtis Granderson who has his forearm broken with a pitch in his first spring at-bat. Mark Teixeira lasted a little longer; he wasn't injured until hitting off a tee in preparation for his participation in the WBC. We already knew we were to be without A-Rod for the foreseeable future. He had already been replaced before the spring got going. For good measure, number four starting pitcher, Phil Hughes, will also start the season with "DL" next to his name on the roster.

So, what's good? Well, the pitching has the potential to be excellent. Big money did go out to Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Hiroki Kuroda to keep them in pinstripes this season. Those starters, anchored by CC Sabathia and rounded out by the emerging Phelps, the potential of Nova and the contract-year of the aforementioned Hughes. Adam Warren and now, Chien Ming Wang are waiting in the AAA-wings should any of the top five falter of get injured.

The bullpen, with Mo back is also solid as can be. Closer heir-apparent, David Robertson and Joba Chamberlain set him up very nicely. David Aardsma was just let go, but Boone Logan looks ready to go. Girardi counts on this 'pen a lot and if they deliver, the Yanks can win a lot of close games and they may be in many of them as it's true- they won't score as much this year.

But there's more speed than there has been in some time with an Opening Day line-up that should include Brett Gardner, Ichiro Suzuki and Eduardo Nunez and that speed, despite Nuney's throwing issues should help shore up the defense.

So, what's the major concern? Well, much like in some seasons past where it seemed like GM Brian Cashman was taking every available arm off the slag heap and giving them a shot that brought the unexpected, happy results of Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia, this year the aching, huddled masses were players on the decline (Youkilis), released players (Boesch, Overbay), un-tradeable players (Wells). During the spring I had hoped that the Yankees would give some of the bigger payback/no investment kids a shot; Mesa, Mustelier, Neal and others got a good long look. As did castoffs like Juan Rivera and Dan Johnson, but doesn't look like any of them made the last cut.

But here is what could go very right with these guys. There are some of these guys, on 1-year deals, who have a lot to prove and a lot of money on the line should they produce for the Yanks in the early goings. Kevin Youkilis, for whom no real Yankee fan feels inclined to root, is on such a bubble. He doesn't want to be with the Yankees either, but knows his career is on a precipice. Should he fail to produce for the Yanks, the $12M New York is paying him will most likely be the last big dollar pay-out he sees. But, should he be able to resurrect his career filling in for A-Rod, a multi-year deal with similar money could be his this off-season and you have to KNOW that is rather motivating.

The same goes for Vernon Wells, Brennan Boesch, Ben Francisco and most of the other stop-gap guys Cashman has brought on board to tie the Yankees over until Tex, Granderson and A-Rod return. Adding in to the 'pro' column is that the Yanks get to come into this season as something of an underdog; strange territory but also a situation that has the potential to gel this team, to build some early team chemistry that could lead to some wins. Yeah, yeah, my glass is half-full to be certain, but we'll see -- that's why we play the games, right?

Next blog post will be about the goings on around my upcoming book tour. I am currently lining cities and locations up and will share that early in the coming week.

Thanks
Brian

hello kind and supportive people: i have so much gratitude for the outpouring of boosts, shares, well-wishes, moral support and the generous contributions.
exceeding the goal by 30-freakin'-% not only covers the approx. 11% fees, but it shall enable me & Rose to do all the things (personal appearances, reviews, publicity, etc.) originally conceived and a few more yet-to-be-determined marketing schemes for the book.
i will start planning the first round of the mini-tour (NY, LA & SFO) as soon as indiegogo releases $ to me as well as planning on nice launch event here in the Twin Cities!
thank you my friends for all the encouragement and support: i look forward to seeing many of you in the coming months and relish the opportunity to read to you...
thank you all ever so much, Brian

Out of the box and onto your shelf. Today is the last day of my Indiegogo campaign to aid & abet my Rock 'n Rose Spring Book Tour. NYC? Yes, I'm on the way -- thanks! SFO? Same for you! Oh, vexing Los Angeles? You know you want it. Seattle? Moving on up...

Click here to go straight to the Indiegogo page. Click here to see the Facebook invite.

Here's what I'm talkin' about:

Short Summary

I woke up one crisp October morning with a story in my head. This isn't terribly out of the ordinary, but the form that it was in was totally different. With a film background (grad of NYU Film School) all the works of fiction that I created were for the screen.

But this was a short story and it flowed out onto the page and I thought little about it until another story burst free, nearly fully formed, and demanded space on a page. Before none too long, a theme had developed and I wrote the twenty-six tales that became my first book, "A Rose by any Other Name" although it took me a number of years to finally push this puppy out of the nest.

The book was released in April 2012, but immediately after that my time was demanded toward a greater goal of assisting a dear friend who had been diagnosed with a terrible disease and while I have been able through direct sales, Amazon and Kindle to put my stories in front of some sets of eyes, I hadn't had the opportunity to really present the book to the world.

With your help, I would like very much to be able to begin to do that this Spring.

What We Need & What You Get

I am looking to raise $3500.00 to help with the above stated goal. What I would like to do is to be able to afford to send copies of the book in to publications and websites for review in an attempt to spread the book beyond my own wingspan.

Additionally and perhaps even more importantly, I would like to be able to take the book and myself on the road and present it to the public in personal appearance and readings/signings in some of the cities in which the tales take place: Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York first and foremost.

The advantages of first bringing "Rose" to those cities in which I have lived is that hopefully I have something of a built-in audience of friendly faces. But from a practical stand point, I will be able to keep the costs of the mini book tour minimal as I will have places to stay and venues at which I can perform.

But hopefully visits to those cities will permit me to be able to add more: Boise, Austin, Seattle, Tel Aviv? You're all on the list. 

The funds would go to airfare but also for publicity to make those appearances worth while. The money would also permit me finally to purchase and submit copies of the book for review and PR purposes.

Perks of contribution will include:

* grateful acknowledgement in future print and electronic editions of "Rose"

* inscribed copies of "Rose"

* original, hand-written versions of the tales in "Rose"

* original, signed art-work by Meital from the publication of the tales in the Jerusalem Post Lite

* your name as a character in my upcoming work

* the grand prize: a lifelong promise that I will never use your name in any of my upcoming work.

The Impact

The world of self-publishing really is fantastic. Unlike my experiences in the world of film where there are so many cooks are in the kitchen, I was able to put "Rose" out into the world - warts 'n all - as I saw fit and in the manner of my own choosing. That said, getting the book into the hands of other people has been the ongoing challenge.

Other Ways You Can Help

I know we get asked to contribute to campaigns such as this all the time and I am fully conscious of that fact. If you can help - great! I really appreciate it. If you cannot - great! I understand that fully as well, but if you could share this with friends who may wish to assist, I would really appreciate your help. 

If you would like to read some of the tales for free, go here: http://www.wattpad.com/user/BrianMazo

You can purchase a copy here: https://www.createspace.com/3527985

Thanks for either "coughing" or "squealing" ... or just scroll on to the next campaign. I sure do appreciate your help.

Brian

In honor of St. Paddy's Day, here is the one poem from my book, "A Rose by any Other Name: An Alphabet of Tales About a Man and a Woman" -- it's called:

Fiona, the Irish Girl

He sat at the Original Blarney Stone bar

And watched her toil

Whenever he was drinking alone.

The crimson beer signs overhead

Blazing in her coppery mane

Making her freckles dance a jig.

Her name is Fiona

And he called her that

Whenever he could

Without sounding so obvious.

She knew his name was Brian

From the tab kept on his credit card

And he longed for her to comment

On the Irishness of that.

He’d tell her the truth,

To lie to her impossible,

That no, he wasn’t of her Isle

No emeralds shone on his family tree.

Not in this lifetime, he’d jest

And if he hooked her with that

He’d confide his fears

Of all things Irish:

The Words

The Whiskey (of this she had a clue)

The Women.

And of all the bonnie Irish lasses

No colleen stoked the flames brighter

When she pulled a pint of Guinness

Or pour’d a shot of Jameson and son

Than Fiona, the Irish girl.

Want the original, hand-written version of this tale -- or another -- from the book? That could happen. Click here to go to the page for my IndieGoGo campaign for the Rock 'n Rose book tour.

Thanks!
Cheers!

Brian

Okay, I'll give you a little break today from the plug-plugging of my book's crowd-fundraising campaign (click here if you want to see what I'm talking about) and let's talk about what's going right in Yankee camp this Spring Training.

The obvious need not be stated (again) so I won't. First off, the pitching has been dominant as the last couple weeks of the grapefruit league games are getting played and the players are rounding into shape. The Yanks who had barely won any games so far this spring (but, really, much like spring stats wins and losses don't account for ... anything) but over the last three games and after the word came down that the Bombers were going to rely on speed and pitching especially during the injury-plagued beginning of the season, the pitching- from top to bottom - has been phenomenal.

How phenomenal? How about one run - total - in the last three games facing the Blue Jays, Cardinal and Rays (two of the three being very good hitting teams) and yes, the Yankees won all three. With that kind of pitching, scoring three or four runs per game is more than sufficient. Kuroda has looked as sharp as he did last year. The back-end of the rotation, most notably Nova and Phelps, have been pushing each other with fantastic results. I think between the two of them, they've given up one run in 20+ innings.

As for the battery, once the Yanks let Russell Martin go, it was decided it was going to be defense over offense for the catcher position. If the previously mentioned pitching is any reflection on the backstop, well then point made. Want a stat? Francisco Cervelli has thrown out five of seven runners attempting to steal. If that's mid-season form, it's pretty impressive. It may not reflect on how he does once the real season starts, but it does indicate that he's doing something right behind the dish.

In front of the dish, Robinson Cano has been beating the crap out of the ball for the Dominican Republic WBC team. He's hitting up a storm, over .500. Brett Gardner is proving he's healthy and perhaps ready to make the jump to star. Yes, defensively the injury to Curtis Granderson will see Gardy still in leftfield even when  Granderson is back, but he's also a star in the making as a centerfielder.

And as Brian Cashman is reaching out to the AARP for players, some of the kids being given a chance such as Melky Mesa and Cuban Mustelier and are impressing. We kind of know what kind of (limited) production we would get from the likes of Rivera, Diaz and Francisco, but in the short-term and especially as pitchers would need to learn them, the potential upside of one, or more, of these kids being given the chance to start the season, and see some playing time with the big club could be bigger than the diminished expectations.

Okay, that's my glass half full perspective. Ahh, spring training: all that sound and fury and hope, signifying ... who the heck knows.

Cheers,
B.

"A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME"

as told by art and tweets

"Why settle for diner pancakes the morning after when a good looking, well dressed, fine smelling man had already offered up dinner?"

"She wanted Paul to know she was capable in the kitchen, maybe not in his league, but still in the game."

"She wasn't exactly playing hard to get, she just wasn't going to be got tonight."

"He stole a look at Dinah and could see that she was melting and the temperature wasn't that high in her kitchen."

 She saw the burst of beautifully colored flowers before she spotted the handsome man they were attached to standing near the curb.

Both of them wanted to say something. Neither of them did.

It was over. He knew it. She confirmed it.

He hurriedly completed the task of removing the last page from each and every one of her books.

He could come clean. He could tell her what he did.

A Primer for "A Rose by any Other Name: An Alphabet of Tales About a Man and a Woman"

A is for Allison, I know this world is killing you...
B is for Brooklyn, re-born in a broken land...
C is for Charlotte, who weaves a wicked web...
D is for Dinah and the handsome man heating up her kitchen...
E is for Eve and her Hallowed Night...
F is for Fiona and her shining emeralds...
G is for Gabby who finally sees the new boy...
H is for Hannah who's not sure if she's coming or going...
I is for Ivy -- my how she hangs...
J is for Jane and for cliched letters...
K is for Kat who is the cat's meow...
L is for Lorraine, you don't want to cross her...
M is for Mary, all hail her...
N is for Nina and her Pinto and the Santa Ana winds...
O is for Olive who once was filled, but now is not...
P is for Paige and all those torn last pages...
Q is for Quinn who used to "play" doctor...
R is for Rose and for the one in her hair...
S is for Sally be she in a Mustang or a Buick...
T is for Tiffany who is not as blue as the box she came in...
U is for Ursula who got undressed...
W is for Wendy who doesn't mind waiting...
X is for Xena who never saw the TV show...
Y is for Yolie who wants to get out of here now...
Z is for Zora who gets to be the last girl...

"If you want something done right ... do it yourself" is a pesky old adage. While it's true to some extent in some cases, ultimately it proves a lack of faith in anyone else. But I have to admit it is also at least part of my line in thinking when I turned my back on writing for the screen to concentrate on prose. In writing and publishing a book, I couldn't complain about producers who have purchased my scripts re-writing my work or directors missing the point of the "blue-print" I delivered as a "work-for-hire." Such is life.

When I put my first book, "A Rose by any Other Name: An Alphabet of Tales About a Man and a Woman" out last April, I was able to do do warts 'n all. And sure, there are warts -- there are a bunch of warts (as I have started reading for audiences I notice them more and more and get to revise some of them in the new edition for next month) but they are MY warts.

But the past ten months of trying to get the book out into the world has definitely proven to me that I truly cannot do it all myself. Writing the book was a great exploration and a pleasurable one at that; getting to read some of the tales on the radio, at bookstores and other personal appearances has been a wonderful learning experience especially for someone far more comfortable being "behind the camera," but now I want to turn to "others" for help getting a leg up and the book out.

Today marks the "final fortnight" of the Indiegogo campaign I began for the book a month ago. My desire is to be able to finally send copies of the book out for review, to make personal appearances in the cities where most of the tales take place, to expand that into other cities where I should find friendly faces and to be able to support those appearances with a little ground-support and publicity -- and I can't do myself. Can you assist in making the Rock 'n Rose Spring Book Tour a reality? Read on for details of the campaign and thank you very much.

The Rock 'n Rose Book Tour Spring 2013 IndieGoGo Campaign

click HERE to go directly to the page

Short Summary

I woke up one crisp October morning with a story in my head. This isn't terribly out of the ordinary, but the form that it was in was totally different. With a film background (grad of NYU Film School) all the works of fiction that I created were for the screen.

But this was a short story and it flowed out onto the page and I thought little about it until another story burst free, nearly fully formed, and demanded space on a page. Before none too long, a theme had developed and I wrote the twenty-six tales that became my first book, "A Rose by any Other Name" although it took me a number of years to finally push this puppy out of the nest.

The book was released in April 2012, but immediately after that my time was demanded toward a greater goal of assisting a dear friend who had been diagnosed with a terrible disease and while I have been able through direct sales, Amazon and Kindle to put my stories in front of some sets of eyes, I hadn't had the opportunity to really present the book to the world.

With your help, I would like very much to be able to begin to do that this Spring.

What We Need & What You Get

I am looking to raise $3500.00 to help with the above stated goal. What I would like to do is to be able to afford to send copies of the book in to publications and websites for review in an attempt to spread the book beyond my own wingspan.

Additionally and perhaps even more importantly, I would like to be able to take the book and myself on the road and present it to the public in personal appearance and readings/signings in some of the cities in which the tales take place: Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York first and foremost.

The advantages of first bringing "Rose" to those cities in which I have lived is that hopefully I have something of a built-in audience of friendly faces. But from a practical stand point, I will be able to keep the costs of the mini book tour minimal as I will have places to stay and venues at which I can perform.

But hopefully visits to those cities will permit me to be able to add more: Boise, Austin, Seattle, Tel Aviv? You're all on the list. 

The funds would go to airfare but also for publicity to make those appearances worth while. The money would also permit me finally to purchase and submit copies of the book for review and PR purposes.

Perks of contribution will include:

* grateful acknowledgement in future print and electronic editions of "Rose"

* inscribed copies of "Rose"

* original, hand-written versions of the tales in "Rose"

* original, signed art-work by Meital from the publication of the tales in the Jerusalem Post Lite

* your name as a character in my upcoming work

* the grand prize: a lifelong promise that I will never use your name in any of my upcoming work.

The Impact

The world of self-publishing really is fantastic. Unlike my experiences in the world of film where there are so many cooks are in the kitchen, I was able to put "Rose" out into the world - warts 'n all - as I saw fit and in the manner of my own choosing. That said, getting the book into the hands of other people has been the ongoing challenge.

Other Ways You Can Help

I know we get asked to contribute to campaigns such as this all the time and I am fully conscious of that fact. If you can help - great! I really appreciate it. If you cannot - great! I understand that fully as well, but if you could share this with friends who may wish to assist, I would really appreciate your help. 

If you would like to read some of the tales for free, go here: http://www.wattpad.com/user/BrianMazo

You can purchase a copy here: https://www.createspace.com/3527985

Thanks for either "coughing" or "squealing" ... or just scroll on to the next campaign. I sure do appreciate your help.

Brian

In honor of the Burnal Equinox - that moment in the calendar halfway between the Man becoming ash one year and being set ablaze the next - here is one of the Burning Man-themed stories from my book, "A Rose by any Other Name" entitled "Gabby & the New Boy"

Gabby and the New Boy

Gabby heard the whispering in the halls of her high school; some of it was intended to be overheard, especially by the new boy. Teenagers tend to be cruel – and not cruel to be kind. She had heard he had a few tufts of hot pink in his hair. “Gay” was what they were saying, but Gabby hadn’t seen him.

            Gabby was pretty, but nobody at her school ever noticed. “Freak” was all she ever heard, sometimes whispered, sometimes out of the sides of their mouths, sometimes fully aloud for all to hear, for all to laugh at. She wished she didn’t care, but she was seventeen after all.

            It was all going to change in about a year’s time. College was going to be different. She knew this. She only wanted to go to one school in particular. Her parents had strongly suggested she apply to a backup school. Unbeknownst to Gabby, her older sister, Brooklyn (named for where she was conceived) had made a deal with their parents. If Brooklyn could get Gabby to apply to a backup school, then they would permit Brooklyn to take her to Burning Man that summer. Gabby had been simply dying to go to Burning Man ever since her older sister started going a few years back. Gabby could actually taste the dust the way her sister described it.

 The acceptance letter from the backup school, NYU, had arrived two days ago. Gabby hadn’t slept for those two days, envisioning cold, wet, gray days, necessitating the wearing of shoes. Maybe if her head weren’t in the clouds, she might have noticed the new boy, but it was and she didn’t.

Gabby was staring down at her black-and-white striped Hello KittyÔ pirate socks, praying to her personal goddesses that today might be the day that Berkeley deemed her worthy.

Her high school’s dress code demanded that socks be worn at all times. She conformed to that regulation, but Gabby found a loophole: It said nothing about shoes. She hadn’t worn any for the entire school year. Her parents came to the principal’s office when called in and backed up their younger daughter’s stand.

            You know how time seems to slow to a crawl when you’re waiting for something? Well, Gabby was waiting for two separate, but linked, amazing events on her distant horizon. Time stopped. She’d stare at the clock sometimes wishing there were someone she could point it out to. But that would have been just something else for her classmates to mock her about so she remained mum.

            Gabby was still praying and she was still staring down at her socks when the new boy passed her in the hallway. Neither noticed the other. That’s the way things go sometimes.…

Trevor moved to Los Angeles with his mom when she came south from Oakland to take care of his grandma. He could have stayed in the Bay Area and finished up his last year of high school, but he knew in a few months he’d be off to college. This was precious time and he wanted to savor it. He wasn’t a mama’s boy, but he recognized his mother for the amazing human being she was and a little inconvenience wasn’t going to deter him.

            His girlfriend had been devastated, but Trevor knew that the same break was inevitable. Soon, she would be off to the Sorbonne and that would have been that.

            Trevor wasn’t deaf. He heard what his new classmates thought of him. He sort of expected it. Part of his reasoning to move to Southern California was to get out of his comfort zone. If this doesn’t sound like the ordinary thought process of an average seventeen-year-old boy, there was a very good reason for that. Trevor was not your average seventeen-year-old boy. Both his parents at first, but now just his mom for the last seven years, had seen clear to that.

            Trevor’s annual “What I did on my summer vacation” theme paper at the beginning of each school year had begun pretty much the exact same way since he was five: “This year at Burning Man...” It was something his mom had negotiated with his school’s principal to explain why Trevor always missed the first couple of days of the new term. He always arrived tanned yet amenable to the restrictions of public school, but Trevor had a faraway look in his deep, brown eyes that nothing in the Default World could quell for weeks.

When his parents divorced and his mom changed her name back to her maiden one, Trevor made a decision. He didn’t want to offend either parent by choosing one name over the other. The thing is, had he kept either of their surnames, he would have been in Gabby’s homeroom. His chosen last name made it so that he was stationed clear across campus.

            Gabby and Trevor had Trig’ (which neither of them could grasp) in the same classroom in subsequent periods. But, much like those proverbial vessels of the sea, Gabby dawdled in her art class and just beat the bell for math class by the skin of her teeth. They remained star-crossed….

The acceptance letter from Berkeley arrived on a Friday. Gabby celebrated by dyeing her hair that weekend the same exact shocking shade of pink as Trevor’s. Their school handbook had not yet been updated to restrict this particular fashion trend. But they never got to compare hues.

            Graduation day came and graduation day went.

There’s a long-standing institution at Burning Man, a theme camp that provides soul-mate matching. As Playadipity (the word used to describe the serendipitous little moments that seem to occur with miraculous regularity on the Playa) will have it, Gabby and Trevor arrived there within moments of one another. As they were filling out their paperwork on opposite sides of the tent, an “employee” of the camp named Legend looked up.

Legend spied Trevor in his left eye; he spied Gabby in his right. Without uttering a single word, he slipped out from behind his desk and walked over to Trevor. With one hand, Legend took Trevor’s paperwork away from him. He took Trevor by the other hand, still silently.

Legend walked Trevor over to where Gabby was squatting and then he took her paperwork away. She looked up, startled for a split second, and was about to ask what she had done wrong. Legend silenced her with a finger on her dry, questioning lips. He took Gabby’s hand and placed it in Trevor’s trembling one.

It was then and only then, that Legend spoke and all he said was “Go.” And they did.

(c) Brian Mazo, 2012 All Rights Reserved

Want to hear and see me read that story and some more? You can help may that happen: check out IndieGoGo for my campaign for the Rock 'n Rose Tour 2013 by clicking here.

Thanks, Brian