B. Reyes is 28 and already has been on the DL several times with hamstring and other issues. No sane GM or owner is going to pay him $20m a year after his 34th birthday. He won’t be as fast and he will be even more of a health risk. Obviously he was having a career year before his two DL stints.

C. How’s that Carl Crawford signin’ workin” out for ya? Ya lookin’ forwardto payin’ him $20m per for the next 6 years?

Johnny – “Terrapin Station” is loosely based on a 17th century Scottish folk song called “The Lady of Carlisle.” If you want to hear an alternate, somewhat more faithful-to-its-sources version of the same tune, check out this gorgeous version by the great British folk-blues group Pentangle: http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Of-Carlisle/dp/B001ME6U98 Robert Hunter took this very, very old folk song and gave it the poststructuralist narratological treatment, emphasizing the ambivalent relationship of an author to his/her/(its) text.

Of course, you’d know this already if you regularly attended the Pop Culture Association conferences in Albuquerque….

That’s great…now who is going to play Shortstop for them next year, after Reyes gets Crawford money?

That’s great…now who is going to play Shortstop for them next year, after Reyes gets Crawford money?

My favorite song by them has left me to wonder if Steven King also was a fan of Hunter’s work… Terrapin station has some semblance to the Dark tower series. A protector of the beam being a terrapin. The train (Blaine the Mono) being a way to the Tower. The year….. “In the New York of 1977 ( the year of the song being produced), Jake Chambers world, a single red rose rises from the rubble…. (and a red rose too?)Hey, I can only guess… Maybe it worked it’s way into the subconscious? Maybe I draw too many conclusions?

Is Godzilla radioactive?

I saw the Dead in San Francisco when they were still called the Warlocks. Heard an early version of “I Know You Rider” with Pig singing the verse “I’d drink muddy water/sleep in a hollow log” that they dropped from the song later on. How’s that for being an old fart young at heart?

Okay, ready for this? There’s an annual conference of scholars, critics and various fan bases in Albuquerque in February, the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association – easily the most fun an academic can have with his corduroy sport jacket on – and the Greatful Dead Caucus usually sponsors between twelve and fifteen ninety minute sessions at it. They’re second only to (I think) the Joss Whedon-Buffy bunch (!). Anyway, the sessions feature prominent musicologists, folklore scholars, other well-known musicians and what have you and the presentations are terrific. For years they’ve published an annual journal based on the papers that are delivered at these sessions, Dead Letters, which has metamorphosed into Greatful Dead Studies this past year somehow.

The conference is on Feb. 8-11, 2012 this coming year at the Hyatt Regency. The Deadheads usually stay at the Hotel Blue, just down – love this too – Route 66 from the Hyatt. There’s a kind of informal “open mike” session every night in the lobby of the Blue after the last conference section. Here’s a link: http://swtxpca.org/index.html

Jerry lives!

Glad I got to see Reyes live last night. Because he will be elsewhere next year.

Unless there really is someone else lined up instead of Einhorn. But with the Wilpons, it’s safe to assume the worst.