PRIDE SHARE

This past Friday The Wife, The Kid and Your Humble Narrator betook ourselves to Chase Field for Pride Night...

...and to watch the D-bax take on San Francisco. The game was pretty wretched; the final score was Giants 11, D-bax 5. But the atmosphere at the park was fun and festive, and it was followed by an excellent fireworks display with lots of rainbow colors, accompanied by a trying-too-hard soundtrack full of Elton John, Boy George and the Village People.

Outside the park, by the gates at the west end, were the inevitable street preachers decrying the celebration of "pride" through bullhorns, and a peek at some of the skin-crawly comments on the team's Facebook page, including repeated whiny iterations of "when is straight pride night?" was similarly dispiriting, as was the almost complete lack of acknowledgement of the event on the TV broadcast. But it was still a terrific evening.

RANDY AND MAD

These identical Randy Johnson figurines...

...were the giveaway loot The Kid and I obtained when we betook ourselves to Chase Field Saturday night to see the Diamondbacks take on San Francisco. It was the decade-and-a-half anniversary of Johnson's perfect game back in 2004, so The Big Unit was there to throw out the first pitch, and his catcher for that game, Robby Hammock, was there to catch it.

The game that followed, alas, wasn't so perfect. Poor Zac Godley had another rough night on the mound for the Snakes, while Madison Bumgarner was at his maddening best for San Fran. It felt like the D-bax were still in the game until the Panda himself, Pablo Sandoval, seemed to stick a fork in them with pinch-hit homer off Matt Andriese in the 8th.

The final was 8-5. Disappointing, but The Kid and I had blast stuffing ourselves with outrageously-priced ballpark food. And we heard a lovely, thrilling a capella performance of the National Anthem by members of the Musical Theatre of, well, Anthem.

BACKS IN THE SADDLE AGAIN

Hope everybody had a great Easter/Passover weekend. Friday The Wife, The Kid and I, along with some of The Wife’s cronies from her Day Gig, went to Chase Field for Opening Day and got see the spectacle of a good, tense Diamondbacks win over the Giants, 5-4. Giants great Tim Lincecum had a bad first inning, and the D-bax were able to hang in there. We were in the outfield picnic tables, and had a blast.

In other excellent news, my pal Barry Graham’s novel The Wrong Thing…

…has been nominated for a Spinetingler Award, sharing the category with the likes of Lawrence Block.

The Kid and I caught up with Mirror Mirror, a live-action comic retelling of Snow White that’s been sort of lost in the Hunger Games shuffle. It’s no Princess Bride, which it badly seems to want to be, but it’s not a bad picture; the cast—Julia Roberts as the Wicked Queen, Armie Hammer as the Charming Prince, Nathan Lane, Mare Winningham, and especially the unsentimental Dwarves—give it some buoyancy, and Lily Collins as Snowie herself is very sweet. There’s even a Bollywood-style number at the finale.

Here’s a pic of Your Humble Narrator, seemingly annoying the cast of the upcoming Dark Shadows, taken by The Kid in the lobby of the theater after the movie…

NODBALL

Speaking of baseball, as Your Humble Narrator just was—the Diamondbacks clinched the NL West Championship last Friday! The following evening, The Kid & I betook ourselves to Chase Field to watch the reptiles add insult to the Giants’ injury, routing them 15-2. It was Hispanic Heritage Night, & the lads were decked out in their “Los Dbacks” gear, & before the game we were transfixed by Ballet Folklorico & Capoeira performances. Then we watched the Dbacks drive the Giants’ starter, poor Eric Surkamp, out of the game in the first inning, after he had recorded just two outs.

It was a very long, peculiar game—there was even a power outage during the 7th Inning—& we left, thoroughly satisfied, long before it ended. The highlight of the evening, as far as The Kid was concerned, was getting her Ryan “Tatman” Roberts bobblehead...

Tatted-up arms, neck & all, Ryan now stands atop her bookcase, ready to nod in vigorous agreement with whatever she says: Just what every girl wants from a guy.