To Absent Friends - Dr. Thomas Starzl

Dr. Thomas Starzl

1926-2017

Dr. Thomas E. Starzl died this past Sunday, one week shy of his 91st birthday.  With the possible exception of Dr. Jonas Salk, perhaps no one associated with the City of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh has ever done more to save lives and advance the the greater health and welfare of human beings the world over than has Thomas Starzl and his work to advance the science of human organ transplantation.  

I, myself, am personally acquainted with two individuals who are alive and well as a result of organ transplants. They and thousands like them owe their lives, if not directly, then indirectly, to the work of Thomas Starzl.  In addition to performing the transplant surgeries themselves, Starzl was instrumental in the development of anti-rejection drugs that have made such surgeries and the long term survival of recipients almost routine.

Starzl retired as an active surgeon in 1991, but his work lives on, not only at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, but in hospitals and in surgeons around the world.  Perhaps this final paragraph in an editorial in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says it best:

Nearly 690,000 transplants, about 149,000 of them involving livers, have occurred in the U.S. since Jan. 1, 1988, according to UNOS. It is impossible to say how many of the recipients owed their second chances in one way or another to Dr. Starzl, but the raw numbers wouldn’t do him justice anyway. The truer measure of his impact is the individual stories of recipients who were able to resume normal lives, of parents who saw their dying children reborn through transplantation and of families who donated loved ones’ organs because they realized — in the midst of their own sorrow — that Dr. Starzl’s science would allow others to live on.

In Pittsburgh, we build statues of athletes and politicians, but if anyone deserves a statue in this town, it's Tom Starzl (and Jonas Salk).

And if you have not done so already, the best tribute you can pay to Dr. Starzl is surely the simplest and most selfless thing that you can do: Sign up to be an Organ Donor.

RIP Dr. Thomas E. Starzl.

Sunday Morning Ramblings

Some thoughts on a lazy Sunday morning.....

Last night we watched this movie, which was an Oscar nominee for Best Picture of 2016.

With all due respect, the best thing that I can say about this movie was that it was an affirmation of why I am not, with few exceptions, a fan of the science fiction genre.  Why didn't I like this movie? Let me count the ways....

• I love Amy Adams, but she was so obviously and painfully acting in this one, that it got tiresome to watch.
• You could only understand about every fourth word spoken by Forest Whitaker, a past Oscar winner.  I was wishing that they had subtitles whenever he spoke.
• The movie was so relentlessly dark that I was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with my TV set.

When I went to Google this morning to get the picture you see above, the first thing you see are references to article after article that "explains" Arrival and the movie's ending.  I got it, for the most part, but if a movie needs article after article to tell you what it was about, then that's not entertainment, that's work.

Only one star from The Grandstander for this one.

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I got to watch the last four innings of the Pirates exhibition game against the Red Sox on TV yesterday afternoon.  Nice watching the Bucs again after a five month absence.  Didn't see any scoring but I did see Tony Watson, Daniel Hudson, and Jared Hughes each pitch a three-up-three-down inning, and Pat Light also facing three batters (one hit, but guy was then caught stealing) to wrap it up.  So that was good stuff. 

Also got to see hot shot prospects Austin Meadows and Kevin Newman bat for the first time.  Meadows struck out looking, Newman swung at first pitch and popped up.  (Bums!)  And while I consider myself an avid fan who keeps pretty close tabs on the team, there were guys playing at the end of that game of whom I had never, and I mean NEVER heard.  And we may never hear of them again.

You gotta love the Grapefruit League.

I also made the promise that I make every spring:  Gotta get down to Bradenton to see some of these games myself....next year!

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An eight part series called "Feud" begins on the FX network tonight.  It is about the legendary feud between actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and it stars Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon.

I am not sure how long I will stick with this series, but I am going to give it a shot for at least a week or two, if for no other reason than to see what will surely be some major Chewing of the Scenery by Lange and Sarandon.  

It could be great fun.

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Speaking of Bette Davis, the next TCM/Fathom Events classic movie that will be showing in movie theaters will be the 1950 multiple Oscar winning, "All About Eve".  In Pittsburgh, it will be showing at the Cinemark theaters today, Sunday, and Wednesday, March 8.  I am planning on taking in one of the showings on Wednesday.

Be there, and fasten your seat belts.  It's gonna be a bumpy night.

Oscars Post-Mortem

So, they gave out the Oscars last night, and how can you write anything about it without focusing on the incredible screw-up at the end.

You know what happened: Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty announced "La La Land" as Best Picture, the "La La Land" folks were all on stage making their emotional acceptance speeches, they were then told that no, they had not won, that Beatty was given the wrong envelope, and that neither Dunaway nor he had the aplomb to realize the mistake, and stop the proceedings (I guess that actors really do need scripts), and that "Moonlight" was actually the Best Picture of 2016.

Everyone was quite gracious about it, but I do feel bad that the people from "Moonlight" were robbed of that magic moment of hearing their name called for the big prize.  How that all happened may never be fully known, but as the hoary old Hollywood cliche goes, someone is never going to work in that town again.

My thoughts on the rest of the night:

• The opening number by Justin Timberlake was dazzling and fantastic.  Nothing else for the rest of the show topped it.
• Host Jimmy Kimmel's nine minute opening monologue was also terrific.  He nailed it.  After that, all the host needs to do is to keep the show moving and stay out of the way, and Kimmel did that as well as anyone.  However, note to all future Oscars hosts: Stop with the jokes about how long the show is running.  Bob Hope was doing that sixty years ago, and it ceased being funny after the first five or six years he did it.  Enough already.
• After the Best Picture announcement snafu, Kimmel was also great in taking the blame for it.  "I just knew I was going to screw this up.  I know that I'll never be back here again."
• To borrow a baseball analogy, the pace of play of the show was moving quite well right up until Viola Davis' long, drawn out, and tearful acceptance speech.  She was the equivalent of a Jeff Locke 37 pitch first inning, to use another baseball analogy.
• Speaking of Davis, her Supporting Actress victory was the closest thing to a lead pipe cinch leading up to the night that were was.  So, was her sense of wonder, and  tearful, emotional speech sincere, or was she "acting"?
• The bit with the people from the tour bus was wonderful. 
• The bit with the movie candy parachutes was fun. Once.  Doing it twice was pushing it, and doing it a third time was REALLY pushing it.
• Best dress of the night: Amy Adams.
• The "Inspiration" bits were nice, but why only three of them?  Of course to do any more would have really dragged out the show.
• I didn't predict her win, but I am quite happy that Emma Stone won Best Actress Oscar.  She's just so damn cute.
• Denzel Washington sure didn't look happy what Casey Affleck was announced as Best Actor.
• Damien Chazelle, you've won a Best Director Oscar at age 32.  Now, go out and buy yourself a tux that actually fits you.  I know that "skinny suits" are the height of hipster fashion these days, but he absolutely could not have been comfortable in that thing he was wearing last night.

As happens quite often, a terrific movie with a passel of nominations gets shut out completely.  It happened with "The Martian" last year, and last night it happened with "Hidden Figures".  The test of time is what will really determine what the best picture of any given year is.  What movie will we all most likely want to pull off of the DVD shelf ten or fifteen years from now? "Moonlight", "La La Land", or "Hidden Figures"?  Or something else entirely?  I am betting that everyone of us has seen "Caddyshack" and "National Lampoon's Vacation" more than whatever movies won for Best Picture in the year that they were released.

Oh, about my predictions.  I broke even at 5-5.  In the categories of Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Original Screenplay, and Documentary Feature, I believe I had that.  Missed out on Picture, Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Original Song.  So, it you bet with me, you didn't actually lose money.  However, no prediction season is a success if you whiff on the winner of Best Picture, and I haven't been right on that one since "Argo" five years ago.

The Winners!

Ali, Stone, Davis, Affleck

MLB Players Strike Out

The news came down this past week that the Major League Baseball Players Association rejected all but one initiative proposed by management that were aimed to speed up the pace of play of baseball games for the upcoming season.  By turning a deaf ear to these proposals, the players have said that they don't care about games lasting well over three hours (four hours once you get to the post season).  They don't care that lengthy games with loads of dead time will continue to turn off younger people, people who are needed to replace old guys like me when we, you know, die. They really just care only about themselves, but, hey, I guess that that is no real news flash.

Oh, one proposal did get approved: A pitcher will no longer be required to throw four wide ones when intentionally walking a batter.  When such strategy is called for, the batter automatically be awarded first base.  As John Mehno put it in his column today, that ought to cut off at least two, maybe three, minutes from the length of the season.

So, baseball fans will continue to be treated to the following:

• Josh Harrison stepping out of the batter's box, tapping his spikes with his bat, and taking two practice cuts after every pitch.
• Antonio Bastardo and Felipe Rivera taking 40 or so seconds to deliver every pitch.  It's a fact.  I timed these two guys at a late season game I attended last year.
• Just about every batter in MLB stepping out and adjusting his batting gloves after every pitch.
• Watch a manager take a slow walk to the mound, conferring with his infielders, catcher, and pitcher, wave in a left handed reliever, watching that reliever take a slow walk to the mound, take eight warm-up pitches (after he has been warming up for ten minutes in the bullpen; a relief pitcher should get one warm up pitch, two at the max, when he comes in just to get the feel of the mound), see that pitcher face the single left handed batter he was brought in to face, then watch that same manager do the same thing all over again when he removes that lefty relief specialist and brings in a right hander.   That is a LOT of time expended to face one single batter in a game.  It's why a lot of people bring books to the ball park, if they even come at all.
• And let's not even begin to talk about the time spent in replay reviews.

Before the Purists start screaming the usual "you can't put a clock on baseball" b.s., no one is saying that baseball should be anything less than a nine inning, twenty-seven out contest.  And there is a distinct difference between the "length" of a baseball game, and the "pace" of a baseball game.   Having a batter stay in the batter's box or having a pitcher deliver a pitch within a prescribed time limit is NOT putting clock on the game.  A three hour game played at a brisk pace is a lot different from a three hour game spent watching Josh Harrison tap his cleats time and again, and watching Clint Hurdle and Joe Maddon doing the continual dance with pitching changes described above.

Of course, the biggest culprit for these lengthy games are the interminable commercial breaks, especially during national telecasts and post season games.  That, however, is where the money comes from so it's not going to go away, so it behooves baseball and its players to figure out other ways to solve the problem.  Management seems willing to try.  The players, not so much.

Oh, and one other thing.  Post-season games and the World Series, the showcase events and the most important games of the season, will continue to end well after midnight in vast swatches of the country, and, as a result, will not be seen by millions of people. If that is not a concern to baseball and its players, it should be.

Oscars Thoughts and Predictions

I have been completely silent on the subject of the Academy Awards for a couple of reasons.  One, the nominations were announced when we were on vacation in Florida, so I was unable to strike while the iron was hot, as it were, and once we got back home, well, I just never found the time to do so.  Two, I have been unable to see all of the nominated performances, or even a lot of them, so I go on the theory that No Prediction is better than an Uniformed Prediction.

Still, what fun is that, so I've decided to blow some smoke anyway.  Here goes.

Nine films have been nominated for Best Picture.  I have seen four of them: "Hell or High Water", "Hidden Figures", "La La Land", and "Manchester by the Sea".  Of the remaining five, I do want to see "Fences", and I kinda sorta want to see "Arrival". "Hacksaw Ridge", "Lion", and "Moonlight" all fall into the category of "Didn't see it, don't wanna see it."

BEST PICTURE:  I am saying that the winner will come from among the four movies that I have seen.  If we used The Grandstander's standard of What Movie Am I Most Likely To Watch Again And Again Over The Years, then the winner would be "Hell or High Water" in a landslide, but I am going to call this one for another terrific movie, which is also one that I will watch more than once, "Hidden Figures".

ACTOR: Once again, I have only seen two of these nominees, Ryan Gosling and Casey Affleck.  I believe that it will come down as a race between Affleck and Denzel Washington.  Washington has already won two Oscars, but will he benefit from Hollywood reacting to last year's #oscarssowhite controversy?  Possibly, but I say that the Oscar this year goes to Casey Affleck.

ACTRESS: I have seen two nominated performances, Meryl Streep in "Florence Foster Jenkins", and Emma Stone in "La La Land".  I love them both, and both were great performances, but the buzz seems to be heaviest for Natalie Portman in "Jackie", and I say that Miss Portman takes home her second Oscar come Sunday night.

Supporting Actor: Again, only saw two of the five nominees, so this prediction is based solely on personal preference:  Jeff Bridges wins for "Hell or High Water".  Lucas Hedges, the kid in "Manchester by the Seas" was terrific, and I'd have no problem if he won, but Bridges was just SO good, and this award will be a way for Hollywood to honor this terrific movie.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Michelle Williams gave a wonderful performance in "Manchester By The Sea", but the one category that seems to be a slam dunk this year is a win for Viola Davis in Fences", so Davis it is.

DIRECTOR: "La La Land" was everybody's darling to sweep the Oscars this year, but in recent months, it has been hit with a strange and bitchy sort of Hollywood backlash.  I mean, have you read some of those "this movie really stinks" types of stories?  Unfair, but I think it will hurt the the movie, Ryan Gosling, and Emma Stone in the voting. However, Hollywood will honor this movie by naming Damien Chazelle as Best Director.

ORIGINAL SONG: The Oscar goes to "How Far I'll Go" from the movie "Moana" written and composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda.  Why? Because it was written and composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and at the age of 37, Miranda will now have achieved an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony), plus a Pulitzer Prize.  It's good to be Lin-Manuel Miranda.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:  Never made a prediction in this category before, but what the hell, I am calling for Ezra Edelman's amazing five part, seven and one-half hour documentary, "O.J. Made In America" to win the Oscar.

And here are two more predictions for you.  Strictly semi-educated guesses on my part:

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Kenneth Lonergan, "Manchester By The Sea".

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: August Wilson, "Fences.

There you go.  Ten predictions will make it easy to calculate my winning percentage.  As always....Watch, But Don't Bet.

Seattle, Elvis, and Joan O'Brien

In anticipation of a trip to Seattle later this year, and always being a sucker for Elvis Presley movies, we settled in and watched this one last night.

This 1963 movie was set in Seattle at the time of the World's Fair in that city.  Lots of scenes of the Space Needle and the futuristic monorail system in place at that Fair.  Also - Surprise! - Elvis wooed several  different women (including future Batgirl Yvonne Craig), fell in love with one who resisted him (at first), got into two different fist fights, and sang ten songs.  In other words, standard fare for an Elvis flick.  I also have to say that even for the incredibly low bar of the typical Elvis movie, this one was Cheesy beyond belief, but what the hell, when you watch a movie from The King, you know in advance that you ain't getting "Citizen Kane".  

What interested me in this movie was the love interest played by actress Joan O'Brien.

O'Brien was an actress with whom I was not familiar, and she did not seem to be a "typical" Elvis love interest from his filmography.  So, I went to the Google Machine to do a bit of research.  O'Brien got her start in show biz as a singer, doing stints with several Big Bands, and even had a brief shot as a fill in for Lawrence Welk's "Champagne Lady".  She took a shot at acting in the late 1950's.  Her most well known roles were in "Operation Petticoat" (1959) with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis, "The Alamo" (1960) with John Wayne, and "It Happened At the World's Fair".  She was 27 years old when this one was made (Presley was 28), and it was reported that she and Elvis had a romantic fling when the movie was filming.  This was standard operating procedure for Elvis.  It is interesting to note that while Miss O'Brien came into show biz as a singer, she only sang a few lines in the closing number of "It Happened...."  With exception of Ann Margaret, I can't recall many female leads who did a lot of singing in the Elvis Film Canon.

(Joan and Elvis dining at the 

Space Needle in the movie.)

After "It Happened At The World's Fair", O'Brien appeared in only one more movie, a teen movie called "Get Yourself a College Girl" with Nancy Sinatra in 1964.  She did some guest spots in a few TV series, the last being in a show called "Valentine's Day" in 1965 after which she walked away from the acting profession.  She sang again for a little while with the Harry James Orchestra, but in 1968 she left show business for good in order to raise her two children.  She went on to have a successful executive career with the Hilton Hotel chain.

Joan O'Brien is still alive and turned 81 years of age this past Valentine's Day.

Maybe it's just me, but I find this kind of stuff interesting.

Spring Training Has Begun

Yes, Spring Training has been underway for one week now, and you are probably wondering, "Why hasn't The Grandstander  written about the Pirates yet?", or maybe you aren't wondering that, but the fact is, I am having a tough time getting my usual jolt of springtime optimism when it comes to our favorite baseball team.  The reason for that can be laid at the feet, I believe, of the Pirates themselves.

Consider that following a season when the team took a 20 game step backwards and which featured a trade deadline deal where the team gave up two highly touted prospects, not to obtain a key player to help them win games, win championships, or even get better, but to dump a salary (I am speaking of the Francisco Liriano to Toronto salary dump trade, in case you forgot), this is what transpired over the Winter Hot Stove Season:

• The team spent most off their time trying desperately trying to trade Andrew McCutchen, probably their most popular player, and easily their best player over the last ten seasons or so.
• Re-signed pitcher Ivan Nova, who despite two good months (5-2, 3.06) with the team, is still a pitcher with a career ERA north of 4.00.
• Signed free agent pitcher Daniel Hudson.  Hudson, who has had two Tommy John surgeries in his career, may well be a good pitcher, but at this point he is destined to be a seventh or eighth inning set-up guy.
• Obtained a bunch of no name pitchers in hope that Ray Searage can turn water into wine with them.
• Had to deal with a DUI incident involving Jung Ho Kang.  That's not the team's fault, but it sure has cast a pall over the off-season nonetheless.

That's it.  That's the list. If I left out any big blockbuster that inspires visions of overtaking the Cubs and Cardinals in the NL Central, I will be happy to be corrected.

Now, Spring Training has begun, and the main story seems to be gearing up all Pirates fans for what will probably be  final season, or maybe even the final half-season, of McCutchen's tenure with the Pirates.

Yep.  That ought to have people storming the PNC Park tickets windows.

And today, we have been treated to stories detailing Bob Nutting's annual address to the team, and his various tete a tetes with the media.

Of course, McCutchen's status is still Topic A, and Bob assures us that he "loves" Andrew, and hopes that he will "always be a Pirate", but well, you know, business is business, and sometimes things just don't always work out the way you want them.

Don't get me wrong.  Yes, Cutch underperformed last season, but at the age of only 31, I'd say he deserves the benefit of the doubt before he's written off as being done.  Also, no player should be untouchable, and if the team can be made better, anyone could and should be subject to being traded.  However, how confident are you that value on a par with what McCutchen has given the Pirates will ever be received in a trade for him?  And no matter what, he deserved better treatment than being dragged through the public prints and airwaves all winter as so much excess baggage that the team needs to jettison.

And one other nugget from Bob Nutting's interviews.  Since he has taken over as Chief Bigdome at 115 Federal Street, he has never, not once, taken a salary from the team. What a prince!

Oh, I am sure that the fires will still burn within me.  I think that the first televised game from Florida will be sometime next week, and I am sure that I will be planted in front of the TV set when it comes on, at least for a couple of innings, but it's going to take the players that they have - Marte, Polanco, Bell, Harrison, Cole, Taillon, and, yes, Andrew McCutchen - generating excitement for me on the filed of play to stoke those fires, because all the Front Office has done since last October is throw buckets of water on them.