Here at BCB After Dark, the hippest club for early risers, night owls, new parents, and Cubs fans overseas, it’s another week. Come on in and join us in cooling down. There’s no admission fee. A few tables are still available. Please bring a drink of your own.
As long as it doesn’t violate the site’s policies, you can discuss anything you need to get off your chest about baseball, music, movies, or anything else at BCB After Dark. Everyone is welcome to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the day, but the late nighters are urged to start the celebration.
The Pittsburgh Pirates were crushed by the Cubs today, 18-8. The Cubs stole eight bases and scored eighteen runs in this game, setting a plethora of records. The Cubs are now back at.500 after the victory, which indicates that they will definitely lose tomorrow based on my calculations. This Cubs club absolutely like taunting us in this manner. But tomorrow, I’ll celebrate by breaking out some Frances Gumm if they manage to go over.500.
Last week, I asked you if you’d rather have Corbin Burnes or Max Fried as a free-agent acquisition this coming winter. By the vote of 54 percent to 19 percent, you preferred Burnes. The rest of you wanted neither one.
Here’s the part where I talk about music and movies. You can skip ahead if you want. You won’t hurt my feelings
I’m playing a 2015 NPR Tiny Desk performance with trumpeter Terence Blanchard and the E-Collective, which features some amazing fusion music. Oscar Seaton on drums, Fabian Almazan on piano, Charles Altura on guitar, and Donald Ramsey on bass.
I don’t have a film to write about this evening. I don’t feel bad about that because I gave you two film essays last week. My day today was absolutely packed with events. Not only did that not give me a chance to write up anything, I didn’t even get to watch tonight’s Cubs game. (“Couldn’t you have written up a film essay over the weekend, Josh?” You can just shut up, voice in my head.)
So I thought I’d throw the floor open to you about your favorite horror pictures to recommend. You probably won’t catch me writing up many horror pictures in this space as it’s not a genre I generally enjoy. I love the old Universal monster films of the thirties and forties. I love Psycho and Night of the Living Dead from the sixties. Carnival of Souls is terrific as well. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is good too, but mostly because Bette Davis just chews every piece of scenery in the film. I guess what all those films have in common is that they’re all black-and-white. I suppose that the lack of color makes the horror more palatable to me.
Get Out is certainly a great horror film. Although it’s in color, the horror is more psychological than physical. I liked Last Night in Soho from 2021, which is another psychological horror film. The psychological horror films don’t tend to turn me off like the blood and gore films do. I really can’t handle most of those. I wrote about The Exorcist one Halloween and while I greatly respect what a masterpiece of filmmaking it is, I found it a thoroughly unpleasant experience that I wouldn’t want to watch again.
But I know a lot of you probably do love horror films. So if you’re the kind of person who loves to watch a good horror picture—it whatever subgenre you prefer—give us your recommendations on ones to check out. Just be aware that I might shy away from your suggestions.
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.
Tonight I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to ask you to pick out a cap from the team store of one of the Cubs minor league affiliates. Pretend you get one of these caps for free—tell us which one you want.
I’m going to give you some choices from among the alternate caps of the four affiliates. Why the alternate caps? Because over the past few years, the Iowa Cubs, Tennessee Smokies and South Bend Cubs have all rebranded to make Cubs-themed hats that look awfully similar to each other. I suppose that’s what sells. The Chicago Cubs are popular and having a cap that shows your Cubs pride but is just a little different from what the major leaguers wear—but still clearly a Cubs cap—has some appeal.
But man, the Iowa Cubs bear on the cap looks almost exactly identical to the Tennessee Smokies bear. And the South Bend Cubs bear isn’t much different either. Only the Pelicans have stuck to their own branding on the caps.
So I’ve picked out my favorites from the alternate caps. The Smokies don’t really have any alternate caps at the moment. Their “alternate cap” is just the home cap in blue with a red circle. So I’ll offer their red road cap instead.
So here are your choices. And yes, all of these are for sale at the team’s online store.
