Ivan Nova has made the decision hard on Girardi or, maybe, it's easy: keep pitching the guy who looks poised and confident out there who keeps putting up wins or stay loyal to the higher-paid veteran who can't be trusted even with a 10 run lead? My campaign to dump AJ Burnett out of the starting rotation is hopefully starting to get some traction. But how can a guy who musters zero confidence be considered your #2 starter? I don't even want to see him riding the bullpen bench: designate him for assignment, put him on waivers and see if some other team thinks they can cure what ails him and pick up the remaining years on his $65M contract.

Speaking of sitting on the pine, it looks like that's where Jorge Posada is going to stay for awhile - if not the rest of his career. Posada is in the last year of his contract and although last winter he spoke openly about not being done and was even willing to entertain the notion of signing with another ballclub after this current contract expires. The way it appears now, Jorge is going to get to spend a whole lot of time with his family. I don't mean that disrespectfully; it is just what it is...

Maybe the Giants can trade Beltran (when he's healthy again) for someone who can hit.


Working on my piece for "Batting for Punto: A Salon" and hoping that we can still pull off the maiden voyage of that ship next month. I have a meeting tomorrow night with my partner in that project and hope that leads to pushing forward. I have one "applicant" already; a poetess friend of a friend and although I will mainly be the written-word lead, she has my vote already.

Working on the "Rose" cover also. Hopefully I have a pretty far along mock-up by the time I get back from TTITD in early September.

And somehow, rather inadvertently, I think I have become something of a fan of "mumblecore," a film splinter of small, quiet, contained films, through the work of actor/writer/director/etc. Joe Swanberg. His films only came across my radar in doing some of my watching/research for "Caving" my own movie and I don't know if I fully intend to play in that particular sandbox but I do know that I am considering it. Crap! I am even considering reaching out to Swanberg; I think our sensibilities may match up and I think he is venturing out into some genre fare that is even more up my alley.

And speaking of the whole screenwriting game, for the first time in months I have been getting some nibbles on some scripts, both spec' stuff as well as potential works-for-hire. Nibbles are just that and I don't get excited too much about any of the smoke until there is actual fire, but it's better than having every query ignored. Glad that someone is reading "Crawlspace Charlie" as I am pretty freakin' fond of that one and think it is a very viable project.

Ok- that is all...

Cheers,
Brian