The Korean “star” Psy showed up at Dodger Stadium last night and took the place over for a few minutes. Check out former Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda’s reaction and facial expressions as Psy starts doing his thing on the concourse, right next to Lasorda’s VIP seat. Only in LA.
It was announced that the Los Angeles Dodgers filed for bankruptcy in Delaware court today. Clearly this is a massive fall from grace for one of the signature franchises in Major League Baseball. And I won’t go into the gory details of their owner Frank McCourt. All I will say is that I am thankful the Red Sox and MLB rejected his bid to buy the team 10 years ago.
Now, if MLB had the guts, wouldn’t it be epic to relocate the Dodgers back to Coogan’s Bluff and Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn? Imagine a modernized version of Ebbets Field with the Dodgers playing there. Brooklyn is hot these days – the Nets are moving there. Families are staying there. There has to be a rich former Brooklyn-ite out there who would pick up the Dodgers and their mess and think about doing this. I realize that the old “aura” of the 1950’s Brooklyn Dodgers will never be replicated. It was a different era in our society and in baseball back then, but I know a lot of former Brooklynites who speak with such reverence about the old Dodgers and Ebbets Field that I think it having the Dodgers playing in Brooklyn today could come close. What of the Mets, you say? Well, they are not doing too much better than the Dodgers thanks to Fred Wilpon and Bernie Madoff.
This will never happen, but wow, how amazing would that dream be?
Out in California, which has been pummeled by the meltdown in the housing market, skateboarders from far and wide are draining pools in foreclosed houses so they can rip a few half-pipes. The skaters are literally traveling in packs, with pool draining tools to empty the pools so they can have their skating parties:
In these boom times for skaters, Mr. Peacock travels with a gas-powered pump, five-gallon buckets, shovels and a push broom, risking trespassing charges in the pursuit of emptying forlorn pools and turning them into de facto skate parks…Skaters are coming to places like Fresno from as far as Germany and Australia. Mr. Peacock said his floor and couch were covered by sleeping bags of visiting skateboarders each weekend.
What’s most impressive is that the skaters are using sites like realtor.com and realquest.com to find foreclosed houses with pools.
I spent the majority of this past week out in beautiful San Francisco, CA attending the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (yes it exists) WOM Basic Training conference. At its most basic level, Word of Mouth Marketing is defined as giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place.
Overall, I found the conference very eye opening and enlightening. There were some very compelling presentations and they far outnumbered the poor presentations (including the pathetic disappointing keynote from Robert Scoble). What I found most fun were the stories and examples of different people rallying around a specific cause or passion, including www.savesurge.org, www.snakesonablog.com, iPod Battery Replacement, and the Chevy Tahoe “make your own ad” fiasco.
I also met some great people, including the fine folks from Brains on Fire from down in Greenville, SC (thanks Spike, Robbin for dinner on Wednesday evening! It was fantastic!).
I could write for pages the things I learned and the background on the previously mentioned examples, but I think I’ll just add them sporadically to the blog as time goes on. It will make for some interesting and diverse reading.
I look forward to attending future conferences like this and I can only hope they are as informative and enlightening as this one!
You know our country is going to hell in a hand-basket when Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected Governor of California. Yes, “The Terminator” is now “The Governator”. I guess it was a “Total Recall” vote that led to his victory. I think its sad that the public has taken their greatest privledge in this country and reduced it to a popularity vote rather than a vote for the best person who can do the job. I only hope the people of California know what they have done.