THE SAUERBRUN REPORT

Now just a few days away from California Chrome’s attempt to make horse racing history, the buzz is pretty thick and the hopes are as high as we‘ve seen them since the run-up to the Smarty Jones try in 2004. Will we witness the first successful completion of a Triple Crown since 1978?

I’m one who typically throws cold water on the whole thing. It’s extremely difficult for a young racehorse coming off two hard efforts in the last five weeks to win Belmont’s grueling, near-unreasonable race distance of a mile and a half. Chrome’s breeding screams failure when it comes to long journeys. There’s fresh runners waiting to knock him off. Chrome’s human connections are very confident although their pilot Victor Espinoza has won just two of 67 lifetime rides at Belmont going into the week.

A visually impressive workout by Chrome at Belmont last Saturday revved up the excitement. A couple days after Chrome’s Preakness win, New York racing officials scurried to lift a longstanding ban on nasal strips which CC’s trainer Art Sherman applies above the colt’s nostrils to enlarge his air passageways.

I think Espinoza will have Chrome in a good spot through the first eight furlongs and ask for a little burst coming out of the final turn. I just don’t know if there’ll be anything in the tank at that point. I’ll be among those hoping Chrome can bring it home. I’ll yell with the rest of the great New York racing crowd yearning for a Crown. I just don’t know if he‘ll have the stamina. It’s a tough ask from a horse who calls Lucky Pulpit his father.

The only thing I feel certain about is that the race track’s management will struggle to handle the big audience expected in Elmont Saturday afternoon. The New York Racing Association said attendance for Smarty’s attempt was 120-thousand. The announced number is typically inflated. But given the nice weather forecast and deep bond Chrome has forged with racing fans, you’d expect Saturday’s crowd to be in six-figure territory if it weren’t for the string of logistical shitshows Belmont has put on with a crown on the line in recent years.

NYRA isn‘t doing itself any promotional favors this week by running radio ads saying “limited” general admission tickets can be bought in advance via Ticketmaster. The implication is that the Belmont will sell out.

It won’t. It can’t. Gambling parlors don’t turn people away and they won’t on Saturday. But by saying tickets are “limited,” at least somebody cashes in on the $2.25 service fee attached to the $10 G-A charge.

I’m just hoping you can buy a cold beer without it being a big hassle.

-I caught a Monday afternoon screening of the movie “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors” at Cinema Village and really enjoyed it. Set primarily in Rockaway Beach, Queens, the film focuses on a mother’s deep despair and panic over her son’s multi-day disappearance in the New York City subway system. The lost boy has Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. Funded in part by a Kickstarter campaign, the movie’s dazzling cinematography is at a level of proficiency way, way beyond its limited budget. The story is compelling and multi-layered. If you ride the subway with any regularity, you’d know the visual and auditory stimuli on the train can be full-on wow. Multiply that effect for a young solo person with Asperger’s. Stand Clear captures that brilliantly. Beyond the main storyline, you get a great feel for what it’s like to ride the subway train. Only one time in the film is somebody not nice to 13-year-old Ricky (the lead character) as he navigates underground – day and night. When Ricky helps zip up the jacket of a rider who is missing an arm, you’ll get a lump in your throat. Recent, real-life NYC sagas involving autistic kids wandering away from home base make the film even more resonant – as does its linkage to Hurricane Sandy. It’s not being distributed broadly right now but Stand Clear is so great, it’s bound to end up in more theatres at some point. Go see it if you can. I won’t give away the ending but the movie’s final scene is jaw-dropping.

With thousands of high-rise apartment dwellers in earshot, the great band Porches played on a solar-powered stage set up in the backyard of a youth hostel on the upper west side of Manhattan late Saturday night.

The gig was part of a day-long arts and music festival on the grounds of Hostelling International – NYC at 104th and Amsterdam.

A fence topped with barbed-wire separates the hostel property from the perimeter of the Frederick Douglass Houses, a sprawling public housing project with 17 buildings. The band’s volume set off a car alarm in the adjacent parking lot and elicited yells from nearby residents unhappy with the noise.

Porches went on at 1020 PM and played about 40 minutes. Front man Aaron Maine wore a jacket emblazoned with his pseudonym “Ronald Paris” (pronounced Par-eee) on the back. He shared a quick smooch with bandmate Greta Kline on stage just before starting the gig.

The band didn‘t appear to adhere to a pre-determined set list. They played “Jesus Universe” after a fan in the audience yelled for it between songs early in the performance. The brilliantly written number relies heavily on Seiya Jewell’s keyboard sounds which came through clear as a bell.

Shambles kept his shirt on – what with a pretty good chill in the night air. The Porches drummer (real name: Cameron Wisch) is crisp with the contact and a pleasure to watch.

I can’t get enough of this band right now. They play a lot of shows in the area, although you have to keep an eye out given the somewhat uneven nature of the band’s linkage to its fandom. Facebook appears to be their primary PR vehicle at the moment. The Porches Bandcamp page (which was my initial point of exposure to the band after hearing them on the radio) keeps a list of upcoming live dates although the hostel show wasn’t touted on it.

Admission to the event was $20 at the door. 12-ounce bottles of craft beer were four bucks.

Attendees who needed to use the bathroom were directed to beautiful in-house facilities at the hostel.

With 672 beds, this particular hostel is the largest in North America. It’s a stunning building. It was built in the 1880’s and was a nursing home for many years. It became a hostel in 1990 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. I got a little lost trying to exit the place after the gig. I wandered through much of the first floor and was amazed at its cleanliness and orderliness.