August 2013: To err is human, to forgive is divine, and root beer is the taste of summer. Sinners all, we look with a jaundiced gaze on the glorious spectacle that is Major League Baseball as the usual gang of cutthroats, pirates, heretics, and rogues parade their talents - warts and otherwise - on a national stage. As usual the hopes and dreams of a virginal spring are dashed on the rocks of the season, as age and unexpected injuries take their toll and once sound-looking predictions are shown to be the rantings of false prophets. The days become shorter once the seasonal equinox has passed, next month the leaves will begin to change color and drop from the trees, announcing the advent of the World Series. But for now we are bogged down in the dog days of August pennant races, and it is the happiest of places to be. Every game becomes crucial in the standings, every at-bat and out has the possibility of swinging a game, and momentum, either positive or negative, in the standings. For the Pirates, seemingly blessed by simple dint of owning the best record in baseball, no sin or heresy has been too great to overcome, but the Astros are doomed and abandoned by the gods, obviously cursed for sins committed in past lives to eternally playing in one of the circles of Hell: the possibility of another season of 90 losses. Meanwhile, over in the National League West the resurrection of the Dodgers, is a sight glorious to behold, as it has been accompanied by the trumpets of angels (*not* the Angels) and hosannas in the local press; of course owners spending the previous winter committing hundreds of millions of dollars to the team is one of the best sacrifices that can be offered to the gods of baseball, maybe not as effective as burnt offerings, but....And the apostate Ryan Braun has begun his tour of purgatory, who knows if he will ever be able to redeem his once stellar career. In this issue: dem Bums and all things Dodgers; news from The Damned Yankees Desk; a posting from a purgatory of a different sort: Seattle baseball; a rundown of the pennant races, which includes the useless prognostications of some lunatic prophet; all that plus the chronic cast of wreckless idiots, fumbling half-wits, and heroes with feet of clay. Pay attention as there will be a test following.
Da Bums: Not seen since those bygone halcyon days of "Mannywood", excitement and hope has returned to Chavez Ravine. Even after last night's (July 26) 5-2 loss to the Cincinnati Reds, the Dodgers are 23-6 since June 20, the second-best mark in MLB over that time. In just over a month, dem Bums have improved from 30-42 and 9.5 games back in the NL West to 53-48 and a half-game lead ahead of the D'Backs for the division lead. Bolstering that are the wild and wicked rumors of a trade with the Phillies that would send 2009 Cy Young winner Cliff Lee and All-Star 2nd baseman Chase Utley to the Dodgers. However inside word has it that the Phillies consider Utley not for sale, and apparently Utley doesnt want to leave either. Or it may be that the Phillies asking price of the Dodgers, Andre Ethier, is a far higher price than LA wants to pay. However! Baseball being, if nothing else, a truly bizaare game regarding trades, where the villians of the opposing team become your heroes when they land on your team. I am thinking of Sal Maglie, Juan Marichal and the Beard. Stranger things have been written, but I never thought I would see the day to write these: Former Giants closer Brian Wilson, the man who made the last out in the World Series just signed a remainder-of-the-year contract with the Dodgers. As the LA Times puts it "there is only upside to this deal" as Wilson, coming off of surgery, will be a stabilizing veteran presence in the bullpen. Nicely done Dodgers.
Still, as the Dodgers begin to pull away from the NL West with a 3.5 game lead (as of July 31) one might look ahead to the post-season....and be worried. Both the Braves and the Pirates, atop of their respective divisions have better records, as do the Cardinals who are locked in a dogfight with the Pirates for 1st, in probably the most exciting pennant race of the summer. But as I have often written, baseball is a very streaky game, especially so when you are playing a schedule that lasts from April 1st to October 30. In other words the post-season is often times won by whatever team is hot at the moment, as sometimes pure dumb luck in the form of the walk-off homer, or the lucky catch, or just striking out the side can make the difference between advancing to the Big Show or going home for the winter. The standings are indicative of both how a team plays over time and a rough gauge of its talent, nothing more; the Mariners won a record 116 games in 2001, beating the AL record, but still lost to the Yankees in the playoffs. But I will go on record here about one thing: Clayton Kershaw is a effin stud and is putting up Bob Gibson-like numbers, he's a shoo-in for the Cy Young.
From the Damned Yankees Desk: As usual the entertainment is never lacking here at the Damned Yankees Desk: If its not A-Rod feuding with the Yankee ownership over how injured he is then its A-Rod about to be suspended for taking steroids and lying about it. "While 50 games is the standard for a first offense, the stiffer penalties for some players are tied to other alleged violations, including not being truthful to MLB investigators....The Yankees expected him to be accused of recruiting other athletes for the clinic, attempting to obstruct MLB's investigation, and not being truthful with MLB in the past when he discussed his relationship with Dr. Anthony Galea, who pleaded guilty two years ago to a federal charge of bringing unapproved drugs into the United States from Canada." Wow. Sounds like A-Rod is about two steps away from a major-league bitch slap. Couldn't happen to a bigger loser either. Over the course of his...career....Alex Rodriguez has proved himself to be hugely talented, but also immature, selfish, self-centered, petulant, and a liar. He's pretty much alienated teammates, every baseball journalist and most of the baseball public. And lets not even get started on how many times he's choked at the plate in crucial situations for the Yanks, in both the Playoffs and the Series (why do I even care??). Its so bad for him that even the revelation that he was trying to recruit fellow ballplayers to the Biogenesis clinic is met with a cynical shrug of the shoulders and the thought "well, that's A-Rod, nothing new". He may be even more reviled than Barry Bonds. There is a circle of Hell warmly waiting for this man.
Of course that's not even the best news from the Damned Yankees Desk. The better news is that the Yanks are in 4th place in the AL East, 8.5 games out, and sinking fast. The late season addition of 37 year-old Alfonso Soriano, while adding some much needed right-handed punch, is still a case of far too little, too late. CC Sabithia looks to have finally blown out his arm, and the rest of the pitching staff is not exactly striking fear into the hearts of AL batters. Expect the Yanks to limp to a 3rd place finish, at best.
Speaking of Being Publicly Reviled: Poor Ryan Braun, the Hebrew Hammer, gone from being a widely admired, 2011 NL MVP winner, to being suspended for 50 games for steroids, the hits just keep on coming. Former teammate Zack Greinke publicly shames Braun, and runner-up 2011 MVP candidate Matt Kemp thinks Braun should be stripped of the award. What I find is most interesting is this trend, exemplified by Kemp and Greinke, to speak ill of another player in this fashion. For quite some time, even thru the Barry Bonds debacle, active ballplayers generally observed a code of silence when it came to the subject of fellow teammates abusing steroids; for retired ballplayers such a code was non-existent, yes I am looking at you Jose Canseco. It strikes me that nowadays most ballplayers, or at least a vocal minority, are as sick of this steroid scandal as the public is. I know I am. Sick of it. I am taking this new trend as a good thing, that hopefully more ballplayers will speak out on how corrosive to the game taking steroids is.
A Posting From Purgatory, aka Seattle: Well sure as hell its not LA (thank you Baby Jesus), and its sure as hell not NY either, and for that we can be thankful, as Seattle is a lovely town, but has a fairly craptastic history in regards to baseball. The first iteration of pro ball in Seattle was the Seattle Pilots, who played all of one (ONE) season in Seattle, 1969, before being relocated to Milwaukee to become the Brewers. Incidentally, that one Pilots season was forever immortalized by Jim Bouton in his hysterically funny memoir "Ball Four", and if you havent read this great book on baseball...well then you are dead to me. Pro ball was resurrected in Seattle in the form of the Mariners, who first took the field in 1977 and then proceeded to field losing teams for 13 years, until the hiring of Sweet Lou Pinella started turning things around in 1993. Sweet Lou righted the ship and piloted the M's to winning seasons, even going so far as to tie the record for most wins by a team in 2001. However Sweet Lou walked after the 2002 season, citing managerial lack of commitment to doing what it takes (Big Monie$) to field a consistently winning team. He wasn't wrong either, as the ownership has consistently stated that they will not participate in the yearly spending orgies that goes along with free-agency signings, preferring to keep costs down, profits up, and a "competitive" team on the field, and by "competitive" they mean a team that plays around .500, correctly judging that fans will still come out to see a team finishes 2nd or 3rd year after year after year, hoping that every once in awhile lightning will strike and the team will get hot and play above their level all the way into the playoffs. Unfortunately what this has translated into is a team that has never finished higher than 2nd since 2002 and has twice had seasons of 101 losses. The sole highlights of these sad sad years has been the supreme pleasure of watching Ichiro hit (and hit and hit and hit) and seeing King Felix Hernandez turn into the dominating pitcher his talent projected him to, capitalizing in winning the 2010 Cy Young (with a losing record!) and pitching a perfect game in 2012. This year its been more of the same old tired bullshit: management talks up the happy talk during Spring Training, of how this team will be different, winners all of them, finally a pack of hitters to strike terror into opposing pitchers.....and then the season starts. Meanwhile over in Oakland Bob Melvin (aka The Manager Who Got Away) is beating the pine tar out of the rest of the AL West, and doing it with Billy Beane's usual mix of low draft picks and cheap castoffs (Bartolo Colon, again?!?). Which has really got to stick in the craw of the Angel's management as they see less and less production from the $200 million dollar man Albert Pujols, who is out for the rest of the year with a bum foot. And pathetic as it is the only reason the M's are not in last place in the AL West is because there is one team that is even more wretched: The Houston Astros. Still there are glimmer of hopes, as the M's are pulling some very interesting prospects out of their farm system, and they do pitch well pretty consistently; the core of their problems is that they don't, and haven't for years, hit consistently for shit. Its frustrating as all bloody hell to be sitting in the stands or watching on TV and see Mariner hitter after hitter after hitter, come up to the plate with runners on, or against a obviously bush-league pitcher...or both...and immediately get two strikes on them. Which makes me think that the Mariners have, for years, had a committee of horses asses for hitting coaches. Surely M's manager Eric Wedge must think the same.
The upshot is that for the immediate future the prospects for a winning team in Seattle are slim to horseshit. Best case scenario for this year is that they finish with a .490 record and 3rd place. Next year more of the same. Frankly I have very little reason to pay any attention to this team any more, which is sad. Consistently losing coupled with ownership indifference will do that to a fan base. So the only real hope we have here in Seattle is that things get soooo bad that fans stay away in droves, forcing the ownership to drop some real coin on the team. How cynical and sad is that?
Ok, check the standings one more time: Hrmmm....ahhh...yes. Dodgers up 3.5 games ahead of the D'Backs. Ok, we can sleep now, everything is alright in the world. Until next time keep it between the lines and on the road.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Saturday, July 20, 2013
My Dark Days
Anxiety is a bitch. A cold-hearted bitch who doesnt care what time of day or night it is, the whispers go on. That little voice in the back of your head, the cold butterflies in your stomach, the nagging fear that no matter what you do, or where you are, it will all go wrong. Its the gerbil on the wheel, the broken record, constantly repeating its take-down message, wearing a groove on the inside of your skull.
Depression is a motherfucker. Depression comes on like a pile of bricks, a smothering blanket. It covers you over and tries to block out all light. Sometimes it succeeds. Sometimes it succeeds for days, weeks....years....
I seem to suffer from both anxiety and depression. I say "seem" because I have never been officially diagnosed but I sure display the outward, and inward, symptoms of both. Suffering is also relative, some days I am...mostly....fine, when there is that spring in my step, I smile at strangers on the street, I am optimistic about my future. Sadly those days are the small exception. Mostly what happens is that I have a constant on-going unfocused anxiety, which manifests itself as "butterflies in the stomach". We all know that feeling. Now imagine its your constant companion. Even on my good days this feeling is with me, right there in the pit of my stomach and will not leave. There have also been too many days that its a struggle to get out of bed, that to get up and face the day with all its attendant possible situations that could potentially visit pain and heartbreak are too much to bear; this is what depression tells me. And then there are the days where I cry, that it all catches up with me, all the anxiety and depression and negative messages I have been carrying around since child-hood, it all comes crashing down on me and I just weep. Lately there has been a lot of crying as it looks like I have accidentally hurt someone very close to me, unintentionally, because of my negligence and lack of paying attention to simple social cues. These situations bring back all the self-loathing labels that my childhood peers so successfully drummed into my head, "I am so stupid. How can I be such an idiot?? I constantly do this. Why dont I learn to stop?!?"
Where does this all begin? What is the initial incident that started this hard road? Who knows and I am not sure I really care. No I take that back, I do care, very much, but I am not here to point fingers and pass blame; maybe I was just born with the bitch and motherfucker on my back, grown right into my spine in the womb. Some of the facts as I understand them are that I was a very happy and laughing kid, but when I started going to school some odd combination of personality and stupid fortune combined to make me the target of my peers taunts and teasing. This truly started in the 3rd grade when I was the new kid in the class and continued up to the 11th grade in High School. It was a situation where I was afraid, constantly, of going to school, that I would be teased until I cried, or beat up, or both. This was my daily life for years, a true crucible for anxiety. The depression component....I have no idea where it started, maybe its the simple culmination of all the negative messages I received growing up gelled into one package of self loathing and non-existent self-esteem.
It oftentimes felt as if I was trapped in a horror film of not my own making, that somehow I was being slapped around by life for something that was not my fault and out of my control to stop. I would spend days agonizing over why my life was in this state, asking the universe at large for answers and not receiving any. There were a few adults who sympathized and offered a bit of guidance, but for the most part I was left to my own devices, feeling abandoned, to fumble through. Growing into a teenager did little to alleviate the situation as all the previous years of negative messaging along with feelings of abandonment and loneliness coupled with the raging hormonal stew that goes along with typical teenagehood manifested itself in me as a boy who was utterly awkward in every environment he found himself in. Thus I spent alot of those years self-medicating with marijuana and alcohol, desperately hoping that I would be accepted as cool by my peers; the drugs seemed to offer a solace and escape that everyday reality was witholding from me.
Somehow I managed to hold it all together to graduate from High School, served 4 years in the military and then went on to receive a BA from a university. Along the way I also started realizing that my attempts at forging relationships with the opposite sex were almost always not working. It seemed that the frequent complaint that was being voiced at me was that I was too intense, too much to take, too grasping. Maybe this was because of the way emotions were expressed at me, oftentimes, from others, in such a negative fashion that I grew up believing that if I expressed love in a intense way it would be reciprocated. This situation caused me endless amounts of pain as all I truly wanted was to be in a healthy loving relationship; it felt like it was the only thing that mattered and being rejected again and again took me right back to grade school where I was, all over again, the little lost boy, trapped in a hell he had no way of controlling or stopping.
And now, 30 years and two divorces later I still feel like I am trapped in a hell I cannot control nor stop. To be honest its not nearly as bad as it was in grade school, one reason being that if anyone treats me the way I was treated back then I would probably stomp the shit out of them. I also walked away from all of that past with a gigantic ball of anger wrapped up around my insides, as I learned that to best defend myself from anyone who might cause me pain was to maintain an almost constant emotional defensive posture, thus I could be prickly and aggressive when meeting new people, a situation almost guaranteed to drive people away thus increasing my isolation and loneliness. I've learned to put aside most of that anger and I believe, and hope, that I have been mostly successful, but old habits truly die hard.
What also dies hard are the internalized and ugly messages that were pounded into me by my school peers and others: you are not worthy of love, you are stupid and a idiot. In my head these last few days these messages have coalesced into a tidal wave of despair that washes over me and buffets my very soul, turning me into a small and miserable person.
However in all honesty its tough, but not hopeless. I have a family that loves me deeply and unquestioning. I have a circle of friends who care about me, roots for my successes and commiserates with me over my failures. After years of therapy I have come to realize that very little of this was my fault, to lay the blame where its due, take responsibility for my own feelings and finally put down my anger, that constant dark shadow. I now take meds for the anxiety, which helps stop the constant chatter and worry in my head; I had previously resisted taking any medications as I wanted to truly experience the depths and heights of my feelings so I could understand them, but after years of that kind of work I came to be exhausted, worn out by the constant anxious knot in my stomach.
And so my life goes on. The struggle of everyday existence, all the hopes and fears available to human existence. What I have come to realize is that the one of the best things I can do with my life is to create memories, so I try to collect unique experiences: hiking across the volcanoes of Hawaii, dancing along the Seine in the shadow of Notre Dame, sleeping on the deck of a ship traversing the South Seas, smoking opium in Singapore, exposing myself to as much art as one person can stand, snow camping in the frozen Minnesota woods, bicycle camping across the state of Minnesota, hiking the Cascades on both sides of the border, kayaking in the San Juan islands, and so many others too numerous to mention. What I also realize is that the worst thing that the bitch and motherfucker can do to me is make me think that I am completely alone, that I am cutoff from simple human relationships, and make it difficult for me to reach out to others. I think that we humans are social animals, we love being around each other and its part of our natural state, so its completely unnatural for me to spend days alone, locked away in my house, in my head, running thru the movies of my memories replaying again and again those scenes of failure. The bitch and the motherfucker are never going to truly leave me, they will continue to be my life-long companions, til death when we part.
Depression is a motherfucker. Depression comes on like a pile of bricks, a smothering blanket. It covers you over and tries to block out all light. Sometimes it succeeds. Sometimes it succeeds for days, weeks....years....
I seem to suffer from both anxiety and depression. I say "seem" because I have never been officially diagnosed but I sure display the outward, and inward, symptoms of both. Suffering is also relative, some days I am...mostly....fine, when there is that spring in my step, I smile at strangers on the street, I am optimistic about my future. Sadly those days are the small exception. Mostly what happens is that I have a constant on-going unfocused anxiety, which manifests itself as "butterflies in the stomach". We all know that feeling. Now imagine its your constant companion. Even on my good days this feeling is with me, right there in the pit of my stomach and will not leave. There have also been too many days that its a struggle to get out of bed, that to get up and face the day with all its attendant possible situations that could potentially visit pain and heartbreak are too much to bear; this is what depression tells me. And then there are the days where I cry, that it all catches up with me, all the anxiety and depression and negative messages I have been carrying around since child-hood, it all comes crashing down on me and I just weep. Lately there has been a lot of crying as it looks like I have accidentally hurt someone very close to me, unintentionally, because of my negligence and lack of paying attention to simple social cues. These situations bring back all the self-loathing labels that my childhood peers so successfully drummed into my head, "I am so stupid. How can I be such an idiot?? I constantly do this. Why dont I learn to stop?!?"
Where does this all begin? What is the initial incident that started this hard road? Who knows and I am not sure I really care. No I take that back, I do care, very much, but I am not here to point fingers and pass blame; maybe I was just born with the bitch and motherfucker on my back, grown right into my spine in the womb. Some of the facts as I understand them are that I was a very happy and laughing kid, but when I started going to school some odd combination of personality and stupid fortune combined to make me the target of my peers taunts and teasing. This truly started in the 3rd grade when I was the new kid in the class and continued up to the 11th grade in High School. It was a situation where I was afraid, constantly, of going to school, that I would be teased until I cried, or beat up, or both. This was my daily life for years, a true crucible for anxiety. The depression component....I have no idea where it started, maybe its the simple culmination of all the negative messages I received growing up gelled into one package of self loathing and non-existent self-esteem.
It oftentimes felt as if I was trapped in a horror film of not my own making, that somehow I was being slapped around by life for something that was not my fault and out of my control to stop. I would spend days agonizing over why my life was in this state, asking the universe at large for answers and not receiving any. There were a few adults who sympathized and offered a bit of guidance, but for the most part I was left to my own devices, feeling abandoned, to fumble through. Growing into a teenager did little to alleviate the situation as all the previous years of negative messaging along with feelings of abandonment and loneliness coupled with the raging hormonal stew that goes along with typical teenagehood manifested itself in me as a boy who was utterly awkward in every environment he found himself in. Thus I spent alot of those years self-medicating with marijuana and alcohol, desperately hoping that I would be accepted as cool by my peers; the drugs seemed to offer a solace and escape that everyday reality was witholding from me.
Somehow I managed to hold it all together to graduate from High School, served 4 years in the military and then went on to receive a BA from a university. Along the way I also started realizing that my attempts at forging relationships with the opposite sex were almost always not working. It seemed that the frequent complaint that was being voiced at me was that I was too intense, too much to take, too grasping. Maybe this was because of the way emotions were expressed at me, oftentimes, from others, in such a negative fashion that I grew up believing that if I expressed love in a intense way it would be reciprocated. This situation caused me endless amounts of pain as all I truly wanted was to be in a healthy loving relationship; it felt like it was the only thing that mattered and being rejected again and again took me right back to grade school where I was, all over again, the little lost boy, trapped in a hell he had no way of controlling or stopping.
And now, 30 years and two divorces later I still feel like I am trapped in a hell I cannot control nor stop. To be honest its not nearly as bad as it was in grade school, one reason being that if anyone treats me the way I was treated back then I would probably stomp the shit out of them. I also walked away from all of that past with a gigantic ball of anger wrapped up around my insides, as I learned that to best defend myself from anyone who might cause me pain was to maintain an almost constant emotional defensive posture, thus I could be prickly and aggressive when meeting new people, a situation almost guaranteed to drive people away thus increasing my isolation and loneliness. I've learned to put aside most of that anger and I believe, and hope, that I have been mostly successful, but old habits truly die hard.
What also dies hard are the internalized and ugly messages that were pounded into me by my school peers and others: you are not worthy of love, you are stupid and a idiot. In my head these last few days these messages have coalesced into a tidal wave of despair that washes over me and buffets my very soul, turning me into a small and miserable person.
However in all honesty its tough, but not hopeless. I have a family that loves me deeply and unquestioning. I have a circle of friends who care about me, roots for my successes and commiserates with me over my failures. After years of therapy I have come to realize that very little of this was my fault, to lay the blame where its due, take responsibility for my own feelings and finally put down my anger, that constant dark shadow. I now take meds for the anxiety, which helps stop the constant chatter and worry in my head; I had previously resisted taking any medications as I wanted to truly experience the depths and heights of my feelings so I could understand them, but after years of that kind of work I came to be exhausted, worn out by the constant anxious knot in my stomach.
And so my life goes on. The struggle of everyday existence, all the hopes and fears available to human existence. What I have come to realize is that the one of the best things I can do with my life is to create memories, so I try to collect unique experiences: hiking across the volcanoes of Hawaii, dancing along the Seine in the shadow of Notre Dame, sleeping on the deck of a ship traversing the South Seas, smoking opium in Singapore, exposing myself to as much art as one person can stand, snow camping in the frozen Minnesota woods, bicycle camping across the state of Minnesota, hiking the Cascades on both sides of the border, kayaking in the San Juan islands, and so many others too numerous to mention. What I also realize is that the worst thing that the bitch and motherfucker can do to me is make me think that I am completely alone, that I am cutoff from simple human relationships, and make it difficult for me to reach out to others. I think that we humans are social animals, we love being around each other and its part of our natural state, so its completely unnatural for me to spend days alone, locked away in my house, in my head, running thru the movies of my memories replaying again and again those scenes of failure. The bitch and the motherfucker are never going to truly leave me, they will continue to be my life-long companions, til death when we part.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Shocky Prays For Us
Last Wednesday I had to put my cat Shocky to sleep. Shocky was a 13 year old female calico, mostly white with tan and black spotting across her face and body. About 3 weeks ago I noticed that she was acting more high-strung than usual and this is the cat that defines high-strung; living with her was akin to sharing quarters with a sugar-hyped teen. So she seemed a bit more antic than normal and was rubbing her face and talking about it. I looked more closely and noticed that her face seemed swollen and her lower lip discolored, it had turned almost a purplish hue. Having had other older cats that experienced impacted teeth this seemed to be a natural conclusion, so I thought. I took her to the vet as soon as I could.
However the vet had other ideas. He felt along the right mandible of her lower jaw and noticed a lump; he saw a swelling on the right side of her mouth, on the inside. His thinking was that this might be a cancer. Uh oh. This is quite a bit different from a impacted tooth and has all kinds of other consequences and brings up a whole host of other thoughts, immediately, including mortality and death. We agreed to have her come back in a couple days to get a biopsy and x-rays to see exactly what was going on.
Shocky had only come to live with me last August when her former owner/parents moved to Fiji to take a job. Not wanting to have their 3 cats go thru a 2 month quarantine upon arrival they sadly decided they had to give up the cats, at which point I stepped in and assumed ownership.
Shocky was a big girl, weighing about 10lbs but carried it well across a large frame. She was solidly built and moved like a graceful linebacker. She could be intimidating if she wanted and spent a goodly amount of time with a frown on her face, as if contemplating murder most foul. Coupled that with a personality that goes from good mood to downright spitting mad in no time, she could be positively bi-polar, if not possessed by Satan. However I think that most of this schizo type behavior could be explained that I was a new entity to her and she needed to learn me as much as I needed to learn her. Then there was the matter of her praying. When in a good mood, and truthfully, this was most of the time, she would sit on her hind legs, lift her front paws up, and wave them at me to get my attention. Her former owner/Mom explained it to me as "Shocky pray prays". Simple as that, heartbreakingly adorable and stunningly hysterical. Imagine this behavior going on all day, every day; I wake up in the morning, stumble into the bathroom, face the mirror, Shocky runs in, jumps on the back of the toilet and proceeds to pray pray; I sit down to enjoy some Netflix, Shocky jumps on the arm of the chair and pray prays; I sit at the computer, working or writing, Shockie sits on the other desk, to my right and pray prays.
In any case on the agreed upon day I dropped Shockie off at the vet, 8:30am. They called me about noon to come and pick her up. At the same time I was able to view the xrays they had taken of her mouth. It was not pretty; in fact it was downright appalling: her lower right mandible was missing a piece of bone about the size of the end of my index finger. Which is not an inconsequential amount for a cat. In other words the cancer was eating away the bone. The vet and I discussed options, all of which amounted to just being able to make the rest of her life as comfortable as possible, because essentially this was a death sentence. I didn't need to hear the results of the biopsy to know that her life expectancy had dropped dramatically. So I was sent home with a round of antibiotics and liquid pain meds, and Shockie came home with a permanent grimace, as she had to have 3 teeth extracted, and the right side of her mouth was swollen. She also picked up a new name, "Cancer Face".
Why do we let these cats turn us upside down in this way? Why have we, as the dominant species on this planet, open our homes and hearts to this other, more primitive animal? What base instinct are we feeding by allowing cats to live with us? For the most part they are aloof, sleep 20 out of 24 hours, sulky, and lay down some stinky shit. I cannot answer any of these questions, and I have been around cats my whole life as I was raised in a family that had cats, dogs, guinea pigs, ducks, chickens, horses, birds, and fish as pets. Cats shed, covering houses and clothes with a fine patina of fur, they puke almost constantly. But I've also learned alot about cats, not so much anatomy or physiology, but behavior; I've learned to watch the pace of their tail movement to judge mood; I've learned to let them come to me when I am meeting a new cat, let them come to me and sniff my fingers, if they rub my fingers I can then pick them up; and they communicate alot with their eyes. Cats will spend alot of time watching you and following you with their eyes, the more they watch you the more they like you. If you wish to punish your cat, ignore it, this will drive the cat mad with anticipation and worry. Shocky was no different in any of this regard, the more she got to know me the more she looked at me, and the more she prayed at me.
And so, a few days after the x-rays and teeth extraction I got the phone call from the vet with the biopsy results. It was not anything that I hadn't expected: aggressive sarcoma cancer of the mucosa membranes. It was expected to spread quickly and the vet admitted that if cost were no object the best treatments would only give us, on average, another 240 days of life. The feeling that comes over is helplessness, coupled with an abiding sadness. We call these animals into our lives, give up food, shelter and affection, asking back their engagement and love, if love can be returned by cats. But they are also stoic, they are unable to tell us when they are in pain, or if they suspect an illness; in fact they will instinctively hide pain and disease so as to not alert any potential predators of their weaknesses. So there was no telling how long Shocky was in pain, or if indeed she was in pain at this moment; what became distressingly obvious was her rapid decline.
In the days following the teeth extraction Shocky stopped eating and drinking water. She would spend most of her time either under the bed, or at the bottom of the closet. The one day I let all the cats out on the deck to enjoy the sunny warm day, it was....shocking....as to how wasted she was becoming, her fur was lank and bedraggled, the skin was hanging off her, her eyes sunk deeply in her head. Her right lip was starting to bulge out and some kind of infection was spreading on it. Returning to the vet last Wednesday for a scheduled follow-up felt like carrying out a death sentence. After talking it over and showing me the inside of her mouth, bulging and turning blue on the right side, tongue and gum, the vet and I agreed that it was for the best that it was time for her life to end. A sedative was administered, to relax and slacken the muscles; after a couple of minutes a overdose of anesthesia was administered to Shocky, putting her into a permanent sleep. She will be cremated and her ashes spread on a garden in back of the clinic. Up until she lost control of her muscles and was unable to continue, as the sedative took effect, right up to the end, Shocky was purring. I came home and got drunk.
Shocky Prays
However the vet had other ideas. He felt along the right mandible of her lower jaw and noticed a lump; he saw a swelling on the right side of her mouth, on the inside. His thinking was that this might be a cancer. Uh oh. This is quite a bit different from a impacted tooth and has all kinds of other consequences and brings up a whole host of other thoughts, immediately, including mortality and death. We agreed to have her come back in a couple days to get a biopsy and x-rays to see exactly what was going on.
Shocky had only come to live with me last August when her former owner/parents moved to Fiji to take a job. Not wanting to have their 3 cats go thru a 2 month quarantine upon arrival they sadly decided they had to give up the cats, at which point I stepped in and assumed ownership.
Shocky was a big girl, weighing about 10lbs but carried it well across a large frame. She was solidly built and moved like a graceful linebacker. She could be intimidating if she wanted and spent a goodly amount of time with a frown on her face, as if contemplating murder most foul. Coupled that with a personality that goes from good mood to downright spitting mad in no time, she could be positively bi-polar, if not possessed by Satan. However I think that most of this schizo type behavior could be explained that I was a new entity to her and she needed to learn me as much as I needed to learn her. Then there was the matter of her praying. When in a good mood, and truthfully, this was most of the time, she would sit on her hind legs, lift her front paws up, and wave them at me to get my attention. Her former owner/Mom explained it to me as "Shocky pray prays". Simple as that, heartbreakingly adorable and stunningly hysterical. Imagine this behavior going on all day, every day; I wake up in the morning, stumble into the bathroom, face the mirror, Shocky runs in, jumps on the back of the toilet and proceeds to pray pray; I sit down to enjoy some Netflix, Shocky jumps on the arm of the chair and pray prays; I sit at the computer, working or writing, Shockie sits on the other desk, to my right and pray prays.
In any case on the agreed upon day I dropped Shockie off at the vet, 8:30am. They called me about noon to come and pick her up. At the same time I was able to view the xrays they had taken of her mouth. It was not pretty; in fact it was downright appalling: her lower right mandible was missing a piece of bone about the size of the end of my index finger. Which is not an inconsequential amount for a cat. In other words the cancer was eating away the bone. The vet and I discussed options, all of which amounted to just being able to make the rest of her life as comfortable as possible, because essentially this was a death sentence. I didn't need to hear the results of the biopsy to know that her life expectancy had dropped dramatically. So I was sent home with a round of antibiotics and liquid pain meds, and Shockie came home with a permanent grimace, as she had to have 3 teeth extracted, and the right side of her mouth was swollen. She also picked up a new name, "Cancer Face".
Why do we let these cats turn us upside down in this way? Why have we, as the dominant species on this planet, open our homes and hearts to this other, more primitive animal? What base instinct are we feeding by allowing cats to live with us? For the most part they are aloof, sleep 20 out of 24 hours, sulky, and lay down some stinky shit. I cannot answer any of these questions, and I have been around cats my whole life as I was raised in a family that had cats, dogs, guinea pigs, ducks, chickens, horses, birds, and fish as pets. Cats shed, covering houses and clothes with a fine patina of fur, they puke almost constantly. But I've also learned alot about cats, not so much anatomy or physiology, but behavior; I've learned to watch the pace of their tail movement to judge mood; I've learned to let them come to me when I am meeting a new cat, let them come to me and sniff my fingers, if they rub my fingers I can then pick them up; and they communicate alot with their eyes. Cats will spend alot of time watching you and following you with their eyes, the more they watch you the more they like you. If you wish to punish your cat, ignore it, this will drive the cat mad with anticipation and worry. Shocky was no different in any of this regard, the more she got to know me the more she looked at me, and the more she prayed at me.
And so, a few days after the x-rays and teeth extraction I got the phone call from the vet with the biopsy results. It was not anything that I hadn't expected: aggressive sarcoma cancer of the mucosa membranes. It was expected to spread quickly and the vet admitted that if cost were no object the best treatments would only give us, on average, another 240 days of life. The feeling that comes over is helplessness, coupled with an abiding sadness. We call these animals into our lives, give up food, shelter and affection, asking back their engagement and love, if love can be returned by cats. But they are also stoic, they are unable to tell us when they are in pain, or if they suspect an illness; in fact they will instinctively hide pain and disease so as to not alert any potential predators of their weaknesses. So there was no telling how long Shocky was in pain, or if indeed she was in pain at this moment; what became distressingly obvious was her rapid decline.
In the days following the teeth extraction Shocky stopped eating and drinking water. She would spend most of her time either under the bed, or at the bottom of the closet. The one day I let all the cats out on the deck to enjoy the sunny warm day, it was....shocking....as to how wasted she was becoming, her fur was lank and bedraggled, the skin was hanging off her, her eyes sunk deeply in her head. Her right lip was starting to bulge out and some kind of infection was spreading on it. Returning to the vet last Wednesday for a scheduled follow-up felt like carrying out a death sentence. After talking it over and showing me the inside of her mouth, bulging and turning blue on the right side, tongue and gum, the vet and I agreed that it was for the best that it was time for her life to end. A sedative was administered, to relax and slacken the muscles; after a couple of minutes a overdose of anesthesia was administered to Shocky, putting her into a permanent sleep. She will be cremated and her ashes spread on a garden in back of the clinic. Up until she lost control of her muscles and was unable to continue, as the sedative took effect, right up to the end, Shocky was purring. I came home and got drunk.
Shocky Prays
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Opening Day Bamtastic: The April Baseball Letter
April 2013: As I have stated in my previous post, Opening Day is the beginning of Spring. The true beginning. The frozen ground thaws out, trees sprout new buds and leaves, and the crack of bat on ball is heard throughout the land once again. Time to oil up the mitt, locate the missing batting glove and buy some extra baseballs. And after working out the kinks of a short winter, MLB ballplayers are ready to start the perennial campaign. This is the time of year when all the baseball writers put in their best prognostications for how the season will shake out, what team is up, or down, and what team is expected to go to the playoffs. And certainly this is also the time of the year that fan hope springs eternal, that every team has equal chance as every team starts at a 0-0 record. So with all that in mind let us begin anew the baseball season, let us watch our Spring days roll into Summer and then fade into Autumn, as we also watch our teams rise to the occasion and play like the winners we hope they are, play like the gang of mediocrities they really are, or crash and burn like our worst nightmares. In this issue: Dodgers&Giants, Damned Yankees, Mariners and the reconfigured AL West, plus the usual gang of idiots. Hold onto your hats.
The Largest Payroll Ever Vs Some Hippies: I hate the Giants. Lets just get that out of the way right off. Its a matter of genetic makeup which can never be denied: being the scion of 2 previous generations of Dodger fans I have to hate the Giants (and the Yankees, which we will get to later). Of course "hate" is a very strong word, the Giants have been the inter-division rival of my beloved Dodgers since the dawn of time, even pre-dating the infield fly rule and the DH, so you know that's a long time. So while I use "hate" very loosely, what I really mean is "over the span of many generations of baseball the Dodgers and Giants have provided the sport one of its most storied rivalries and enough drama to inspire Shakespearean prose while giving the fans some of the best baseball ever played....And the Giants still suck." So, yeah. And over the last decade or so things have been completely famboozled in Dodgerville, as we had to suffer thru a ownership debacle - the McCourt family - that drained cash, players, fans, and spirit from the organization. However last year this situation has appeared to be righted, as the McCourts were pressured by MLB into selling the team and thankfully a ownership group stepped up that is putting big bucks into the team, which means the Dodgers went shopping over the winter; oh yes they did. Say hello to first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, leftfielder Carl Crawford, starters Zack Greinke and Josh Beckett and shortstop Hanley Ramirez who will join ace Clayton Kershaw, centerfielder Matt Kemp and rightfielder Andre Ethier, to make what looks to be the best Dodger team in quite awhile....on paper. Because, sure, on paper, or in the fantasy league of your head, we can all drool and salivate about how our team stacks up against rivals, based on pure stats, but it still doesnt mean that this assembled collection of very highly paid athletes will gel as a team. And its working as a team, all 25 members, that gets you to the World Series, whether that means extra hustle on the basepads to playing hurt to taking being benched if need be, the player needs to do what it takes for the good of the team otherwise its just a gang of prima donnas who flail around and become frustrated that their "efforts" never seem to advance them further than 3rd place in the standings. And this is where a lot of the focus will be on the Dodgers this year: can they play as a team? Because *IF* they do, they will be very very VERY hard to beat.
Which brings us around to the title for this section, "The Largest Payroll Ever....." Very true, this is the largest payroll ever assembled for a baseball team, surpassing the previous record owned by the Yankees. I have, and always will, be of the persuasion that owning such a record is of very dubious distinction, but we will never be able to dispel the notion that pro baseball is firstly a business, secondly a game. Players and owners are in it to make money, and the team with the most money can spend to get the best players available. It has always been thus, ever since the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth (for $100k I think) to the NY Yankees, and to now criticize the Dodgers for behaving in such a fashion is to ignore what every other team does, and has done: buy and sell players. Although, what is really driving that particular critique is that the Dodgers have behaved like the Yankees of the Steinbrenner era, where the owner will outspend his rivals, and strip his farm teams of prospects, to assemble (or rent if thats what you prefer) a team who's sole mission is to win the World Series and win it every year, any other finish is failure. Its been perceived (by me, for one) that this is a terribly cynical way to conduct baseball, as it gives the distinct impression that the players will be only held onto for as long as it appears that their services are useful and then cast aside. There is also the appearance that minor league prospects, brought along and nurtured by the minor league coaching staff are simply there as trade bait, and while this may be true and necessary, if true it also can sacrifice the future of the team for the present. But Steinbrenner was anything but a patient man, winning at almost any cost was his mission, and he drove his teams hard, in much the same fashion as a carriage driver drove a team of horses.
So what the hell does all of the above have to do with the Giants? Very little, screw those hippies. After getting to the Series last year, and then beating handily, a very good Detroit Tigers team the Giants have all the markings of a team that will dominate for years, but how they do without the services of Melky "The steroided Milkman" Cabrera remains to be seen, as his bat will be missed. And I would clap Satan himself on the back if he clubbed the Pennant winning homer off Timmy Lincecum. Winning and bleeding Dodger Blue is what its all about and if the ownership group wants to drop millions on assembling a winning team, now, then by all means do so. Its been since 1988 that the Dodgers were last in a World Series, so with that long of time it becomes incumbent upon a new ownership group to show the fans they are serious.
Players to watch this year. Bryce Harper of the Nationals. He homers in his first two at-bats for this season (yeah, by the time this thing hits the door the season will have started). Last year's National League Rookie of the Year starts off this year living up to the all the hype generated by his rookie year. The guy looks to be a future superstar and should make the Nats a strong contender in the NL East.
Mike Trout, Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols, of the Angels. Last year Trout put up numbers that not only qualified for AL ROY but also serious consideration for the MVP. And now with the addition of Josh Hamilton into the lineup, we might be seeing the best lineup in baseball (in my division against my Mariners....can I just kill myself now?). Last year Pujols put up very un-Pujols numbers (personally I think he's the best all-around hitter I have seen since Frank Robinson) and I dont think we can expect that trend to continue....yet. Yes Pujols is at an age where players begin to decline, and as is Josh Hamilton, but I also think that even if one of these three puts up less than stellar numbers, just having all 3 in a lineup will be enough to give opposing pitchers fits of terror. Dammit.
The Upton Brothers, Atlanta Braves. BJ and his brother Upton are very good players. Very very good players. Potential 30-30 guys, year in and out. Combined with Jason Heyward, the Braves probably have the best outfield in baseball.
Clayton Hershaw, LA Dodgers. Hershaw (whatta stud) has led the league in ERA last 3 years in a row. As of today (April 2) he pitched a Opening Day shutout against....wait for it....the Giants, keeping his ERA at the same place it was prior to Opening Day: Zero. Expect him to post, again, Bob Gibson-like numbers at the end of the year, and possibly again winning the Cy Young.
Buster Posey, SF Giants. Wow. After having his ankle almost completely destroyed in a plate collision 2 years ago the guy comes back last year. And how? Only by winning the MVP and powering his team into the Big Show. Its also amazing to me that he did this playing catcher, the most trying position on your joints. I have to wonder how much longer he can continue to catch on his ankle and hope that the Giants consider switching him to an infield position so as to prolong his career.
Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers. How the hell do you top a year when you are the first player since Yazstremski to hit for a Triple Crown? I dunno, but it will be fun to watch. And fer Gawd's sakes can we all agree, right now, that his nickname of "Miggy" is awful and should be retired, in all due haste.
From the Dammed Yankees desk: Its absolutely nothing but good news over here at the Damned Yankees desk. Mariano Rivera has retired (most dominating pitcher ever?), Alex "the slapper" Rodriguez is out injured, as is Curtis Granderson and Mark Texiera. Its an aging and ailing team, and an indication as to how bad it is, the Opening Day cleanup hitter was Kevin Youkilis, who's precipitous decline in his stats over the last two years has been sad to watch. However they still have a solid pitching staff anchored by C.C. Sabathia, but in what could be a premonition of future disaster (I hope I hope I hope) they got clobbered by the Red Sox on Opening Day, 8-3. This makes the Baby Jesus smile.
"But why Daniel, why all the Yankee hate?" I hear you ask. Why must I explain? Its the Yankees.
And now for the news. Its gonna be another ugly year over here in Mariner Land. The M's did a tad of shopping of their own this last winter, certainly not on a Dodger, or even Yankee-type scale, but still....The notable results of said shopping trip were to pick up outfielder Mike Morse from the Nats to a 1 year contract, sign former Red Sox/Mets outfielder Jason Bay to a 1 year contract, and to sign Kendry Morales to play DH. The idea is that this should bolster the middle of the batting order which in recent years has been positively anemic regarding run production, last years runs stats were absolutely putrid. With that in mind the Mariner management decided to pull in the outfield fences a few feet, which is actually a good thing, because I cannot tell you how many times I have watched potential homers die in the gloves of opposing teams....along with my dreams.....Anyways! The fences are moved in, Mike Morse will put up respectable homer stats (along with "respectable" strike out stats), Jason Bay will be platooned until he can either demonstrate that he has returned to his old form (.300+/30 homer) or that he's washed up, the kids on the team will continue to improve (I hope), Felix Hernandez will continue to prove why he might be the most dominating pitcher in baseball (screw YOU Justin Verlander) and maybe the M's might, just might, end the season with a .500 record for the first time in years.
But I did start this off by saying it was gonna be another ugly year. My thinking is that the Angels got better in a BIG way by adding Josh Hamilton over the winter, and Ron Washington is PISSED as he is probably sick and tired at having gone to the Big Show twice in the last 3 years, only to lose it all in the final outs. Ron is a very good manager, but he's about as volatile as Bobby Valentine, and usually looks like he's ready to chew his own arm off to win the game. He lost both Michael Young and Josh Hamilton over the winter, but he still has his core pitching team intact, and he's proven himself to be a very good handler of pitchers.....when he's not leaving them in too long....However! In Mike "Dodger Dogs" Scioscia, Ron, along with the rest of the division has to contend with a guy who might be the best manager in the AL.
The only silver lining in all this ugliness is sadly that there will be another team that will play even worse than the Mariners. Say hello to the newest members of the AL Western Division: the Houston Astros. Pity the poor Astros (seriously), as they are being predicted far and wide to lose at least 90 games this year, if not beat the Mets record for most losses in a season, 120. Having witnessed the Mariners losing 90 games 2 years ago I can roundly state that its a sight that makes you want to give up, go home and crawl under your bed....for years. So at least the M's will be assured of few wins this year, at the Astro's expense of course.
And as hesitant as I am to bring this up, I suppose I should. This year will be year 1 of the post-Ichiro era in Mariner history. Ichiro was an amazing hitter, probably the best hitter I ever got to witness in person. No one ever got down to first base quicker, was better at beating out infield hits, and putting the ball exactly where he wanted to. However the last 3 years it was painful watching the obvious decline in his abilities, not being able to beat out the throws like he used to, not being able to cover as much ground in the outfield as he used to, watching him last year for the first time ever, finish the year with a sub .300 average. And as he absolutely refused to give up his leadoff spot he actually became an albatross around the neck of the team. So while it was with sadness that we watched him leave for the Yankees, it was also with a sense of relief, as we could now try out younger kids in the leadoff spot. Wishing Ichiro all the best, he gave us years of lights out baseball here, and here's hoping he gets into the playoffs and a World Series ring.....well...not really as that would mean his team the Yankees got there and we cant have that, can we.
Ok kids thats enough for now. Until next time keep it between the gutters and on the road.
-daniel
The Largest Payroll Ever Vs Some Hippies: I hate the Giants. Lets just get that out of the way right off. Its a matter of genetic makeup which can never be denied: being the scion of 2 previous generations of Dodger fans I have to hate the Giants (and the Yankees, which we will get to later). Of course "hate" is a very strong word, the Giants have been the inter-division rival of my beloved Dodgers since the dawn of time, even pre-dating the infield fly rule and the DH, so you know that's a long time. So while I use "hate" very loosely, what I really mean is "over the span of many generations of baseball the Dodgers and Giants have provided the sport one of its most storied rivalries and enough drama to inspire Shakespearean prose while giving the fans some of the best baseball ever played....And the Giants still suck." So, yeah. And over the last decade or so things have been completely famboozled in Dodgerville, as we had to suffer thru a ownership debacle - the McCourt family - that drained cash, players, fans, and spirit from the organization. However last year this situation has appeared to be righted, as the McCourts were pressured by MLB into selling the team and thankfully a ownership group stepped up that is putting big bucks into the team, which means the Dodgers went shopping over the winter; oh yes they did. Say hello to first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, leftfielder Carl Crawford, starters Zack Greinke and Josh Beckett and shortstop Hanley Ramirez who will join ace Clayton Kershaw, centerfielder Matt Kemp and rightfielder Andre Ethier, to make what looks to be the best Dodger team in quite awhile....on paper. Because, sure, on paper, or in the fantasy league of your head, we can all drool and salivate about how our team stacks up against rivals, based on pure stats, but it still doesnt mean that this assembled collection of very highly paid athletes will gel as a team. And its working as a team, all 25 members, that gets you to the World Series, whether that means extra hustle on the basepads to playing hurt to taking being benched if need be, the player needs to do what it takes for the good of the team otherwise its just a gang of prima donnas who flail around and become frustrated that their "efforts" never seem to advance them further than 3rd place in the standings. And this is where a lot of the focus will be on the Dodgers this year: can they play as a team? Because *IF* they do, they will be very very VERY hard to beat.
Which brings us around to the title for this section, "The Largest Payroll Ever....." Very true, this is the largest payroll ever assembled for a baseball team, surpassing the previous record owned by the Yankees. I have, and always will, be of the persuasion that owning such a record is of very dubious distinction, but we will never be able to dispel the notion that pro baseball is firstly a business, secondly a game. Players and owners are in it to make money, and the team with the most money can spend to get the best players available. It has always been thus, ever since the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth (for $100k I think) to the NY Yankees, and to now criticize the Dodgers for behaving in such a fashion is to ignore what every other team does, and has done: buy and sell players. Although, what is really driving that particular critique is that the Dodgers have behaved like the Yankees of the Steinbrenner era, where the owner will outspend his rivals, and strip his farm teams of prospects, to assemble (or rent if thats what you prefer) a team who's sole mission is to win the World Series and win it every year, any other finish is failure. Its been perceived (by me, for one) that this is a terribly cynical way to conduct baseball, as it gives the distinct impression that the players will be only held onto for as long as it appears that their services are useful and then cast aside. There is also the appearance that minor league prospects, brought along and nurtured by the minor league coaching staff are simply there as trade bait, and while this may be true and necessary, if true it also can sacrifice the future of the team for the present. But Steinbrenner was anything but a patient man, winning at almost any cost was his mission, and he drove his teams hard, in much the same fashion as a carriage driver drove a team of horses.
So what the hell does all of the above have to do with the Giants? Very little, screw those hippies. After getting to the Series last year, and then beating handily, a very good Detroit Tigers team the Giants have all the markings of a team that will dominate for years, but how they do without the services of Melky "The steroided Milkman" Cabrera remains to be seen, as his bat will be missed. And I would clap Satan himself on the back if he clubbed the Pennant winning homer off Timmy Lincecum. Winning and bleeding Dodger Blue is what its all about and if the ownership group wants to drop millions on assembling a winning team, now, then by all means do so. Its been since 1988 that the Dodgers were last in a World Series, so with that long of time it becomes incumbent upon a new ownership group to show the fans they are serious.
Players to watch this year. Bryce Harper of the Nationals. He homers in his first two at-bats for this season (yeah, by the time this thing hits the door the season will have started). Last year's National League Rookie of the Year starts off this year living up to the all the hype generated by his rookie year. The guy looks to be a future superstar and should make the Nats a strong contender in the NL East.
Mike Trout, Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols, of the Angels. Last year Trout put up numbers that not only qualified for AL ROY but also serious consideration for the MVP. And now with the addition of Josh Hamilton into the lineup, we might be seeing the best lineup in baseball (in my division against my Mariners....can I just kill myself now?). Last year Pujols put up very un-Pujols numbers (personally I think he's the best all-around hitter I have seen since Frank Robinson) and I dont think we can expect that trend to continue....yet. Yes Pujols is at an age where players begin to decline, and as is Josh Hamilton, but I also think that even if one of these three puts up less than stellar numbers, just having all 3 in a lineup will be enough to give opposing pitchers fits of terror. Dammit.
The Upton Brothers, Atlanta Braves. BJ and his brother Upton are very good players. Very very good players. Potential 30-30 guys, year in and out. Combined with Jason Heyward, the Braves probably have the best outfield in baseball.
Clayton Hershaw, LA Dodgers. Hershaw (whatta stud) has led the league in ERA last 3 years in a row. As of today (April 2) he pitched a Opening Day shutout against....wait for it....the Giants, keeping his ERA at the same place it was prior to Opening Day: Zero. Expect him to post, again, Bob Gibson-like numbers at the end of the year, and possibly again winning the Cy Young.
Buster Posey, SF Giants. Wow. After having his ankle almost completely destroyed in a plate collision 2 years ago the guy comes back last year. And how? Only by winning the MVP and powering his team into the Big Show. Its also amazing to me that he did this playing catcher, the most trying position on your joints. I have to wonder how much longer he can continue to catch on his ankle and hope that the Giants consider switching him to an infield position so as to prolong his career.
Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers. How the hell do you top a year when you are the first player since Yazstremski to hit for a Triple Crown? I dunno, but it will be fun to watch. And fer Gawd's sakes can we all agree, right now, that his nickname of "Miggy" is awful and should be retired, in all due haste.
From the Dammed Yankees desk: Its absolutely nothing but good news over here at the Damned Yankees desk. Mariano Rivera has retired (most dominating pitcher ever?), Alex "the slapper" Rodriguez is out injured, as is Curtis Granderson and Mark Texiera. Its an aging and ailing team, and an indication as to how bad it is, the Opening Day cleanup hitter was Kevin Youkilis, who's precipitous decline in his stats over the last two years has been sad to watch. However they still have a solid pitching staff anchored by C.C. Sabathia, but in what could be a premonition of future disaster (I hope I hope I hope) they got clobbered by the Red Sox on Opening Day, 8-3. This makes the Baby Jesus smile.
"But why Daniel, why all the Yankee hate?" I hear you ask. Why must I explain? Its the Yankees.
And now for the news. Its gonna be another ugly year over here in Mariner Land. The M's did a tad of shopping of their own this last winter, certainly not on a Dodger, or even Yankee-type scale, but still....The notable results of said shopping trip were to pick up outfielder Mike Morse from the Nats to a 1 year contract, sign former Red Sox/Mets outfielder Jason Bay to a 1 year contract, and to sign Kendry Morales to play DH. The idea is that this should bolster the middle of the batting order which in recent years has been positively anemic regarding run production, last years runs stats were absolutely putrid. With that in mind the Mariner management decided to pull in the outfield fences a few feet, which is actually a good thing, because I cannot tell you how many times I have watched potential homers die in the gloves of opposing teams....along with my dreams.....Anyways! The fences are moved in, Mike Morse will put up respectable homer stats (along with "respectable" strike out stats), Jason Bay will be platooned until he can either demonstrate that he has returned to his old form (.300+/30 homer) or that he's washed up, the kids on the team will continue to improve (I hope), Felix Hernandez will continue to prove why he might be the most dominating pitcher in baseball (screw YOU Justin Verlander) and maybe the M's might, just might, end the season with a .500 record for the first time in years.
But I did start this off by saying it was gonna be another ugly year. My thinking is that the Angels got better in a BIG way by adding Josh Hamilton over the winter, and Ron Washington is PISSED as he is probably sick and tired at having gone to the Big Show twice in the last 3 years, only to lose it all in the final outs. Ron is a very good manager, but he's about as volatile as Bobby Valentine, and usually looks like he's ready to chew his own arm off to win the game. He lost both Michael Young and Josh Hamilton over the winter, but he still has his core pitching team intact, and he's proven himself to be a very good handler of pitchers.....when he's not leaving them in too long....However! In Mike "Dodger Dogs" Scioscia, Ron, along with the rest of the division has to contend with a guy who might be the best manager in the AL.
The only silver lining in all this ugliness is sadly that there will be another team that will play even worse than the Mariners. Say hello to the newest members of the AL Western Division: the Houston Astros. Pity the poor Astros (seriously), as they are being predicted far and wide to lose at least 90 games this year, if not beat the Mets record for most losses in a season, 120. Having witnessed the Mariners losing 90 games 2 years ago I can roundly state that its a sight that makes you want to give up, go home and crawl under your bed....for years. So at least the M's will be assured of few wins this year, at the Astro's expense of course.
And as hesitant as I am to bring this up, I suppose I should. This year will be year 1 of the post-Ichiro era in Mariner history. Ichiro was an amazing hitter, probably the best hitter I ever got to witness in person. No one ever got down to first base quicker, was better at beating out infield hits, and putting the ball exactly where he wanted to. However the last 3 years it was painful watching the obvious decline in his abilities, not being able to beat out the throws like he used to, not being able to cover as much ground in the outfield as he used to, watching him last year for the first time ever, finish the year with a sub .300 average. And as he absolutely refused to give up his leadoff spot he actually became an albatross around the neck of the team. So while it was with sadness that we watched him leave for the Yankees, it was also with a sense of relief, as we could now try out younger kids in the leadoff spot. Wishing Ichiro all the best, he gave us years of lights out baseball here, and here's hoping he gets into the playoffs and a World Series ring.....well...not really as that would mean his team the Yankees got there and we cant have that, can we.
Ok kids thats enough for now. Until next time keep it between the gutters and on the road.
-daniel
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Baseball
[ed note: So, being the lazy slug that I am, I cannot decide what to write on and thought, "hey, why not play blog-roulette and let people suggest subjects, any subject, and write on them?". So, from the suggestion of my big sister the subject of this latest post. Thanks Sissy]
Baseball. It always brings to mind long summer afternoons of fading daylight, long shadows, long fly balls hit to the outfields. Also, muggy and tropical night games played under klieg lights that attracted the moths who would fly in and out of the shadows. Dodger Stadium on smoggy days; elementary ballfields on spring mornings; Fenway Park; Candlestick Park; Yankee Stadium; Padres Stadium. Poring over the stats and records of present and past players. Listening to the mellifluous tones of Dodger announcer Vin Scully, who was so popular that you heard his voice everywhere in Los Angeles in the summer, from cars driving by windows down, from radios on park benches, and from fan's hand-held radios in Dodger Stadium itself. Watching the World Series on television, watching the World Series on television with the volume down and the radio turned up because Vin Scully on the radio was always better than any of the television play-by-play announcers. These are just a few of the memories and thoughts that Baseball brings back for me.
I am certainly one of those romanticists who believes, sincerely, that baseball is somehow a link to our shared past, that it stretches back in one unbroken chain to the 19th century; that its New York origins and particular slower-paced rhythms are evocative of a "simpler" time. Yes yes, I am definitely viewing the "game" with rose-tinged glasses, easily glossing over the facts that its not truly a game as a high-money profession that rose out of humble origins and shook off its legacies of racism and institutional indentured servitude to morph into something still recognizable by its inventors and still a wholly new and strange beast.
And yet, the basic tenets of the game has remained the same since it dim origins in the 1860s: 3 bases, home plate, 3 outs, pitcher/catcher/infielders/outfielders/batters. I think this is one of the reasons I like it, this feeling of a unbroken lineage stretching back 150 years. Whatever the emotional tugs may be, whatever the reasons, let them remain dim and unknown, it doent matter anyways; what really matters, what I really want to say is that I love baseball; there was a time when I ate, drank and slept baseball; sadly those days are no more. And while the passion has dimmed my understanding has deepened. Even after that disastrous half-season of Little League my love for the game did not die off.
Whatever. The new season is coming round. In a week and a half we will have Opening Day, the greatest day of the year. Never mind March 20, screw that day, Opening Day is the first day of Spring. This will be the day my beloved Dodgers take the field once again, to renew their never ending quest for dominance and another World Series ring. Da Bums. Even though I grew up in LA I always felt a inherent sense of history stretching back to those bygone days in Brooklyn (thank you Mom), Ebbetts Field long gone into the dust, the trolley cars of Flatbush Ave, the speed of which forced pedestrians to dodge out of the way, ergo the name of the team. It always struck me as somehow heroic and golden, those years in Brooklyn, specifically the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese; but what the hell do I know, I wasnt there, I am just imagining a past that probably had no true resemblance to reality, based on what I have read and cooked up in my fevered imagination.
This I do know to be true: This should be a good year for Dodger/Giants fans. The Giants won the World Series last Fall going away, hardly breaking a sweat against a very good Detroit Tigers team. Last year the Giants became a dominating team, for the first time since.....well since never. Seriously. They even did this without the services of Melky Cabrera, who had to sit out most of the season due to steroids abuse. Which means, unfortunately, that they still cant shake the ghost, and curse, of Barry Bonds. The Dodgers, having played the last decade under a owner who was using the team as his personal ATM, got sold to a ownership group that includes Magic Johnson, who have made a true commitment to winning, went out and got Adrian Gonzalez and Zach Grienke, two dominating players, and will bring to bear the largest payroll in baseball, which brings to my mind a vision of swinging bags of money.....Anyways, this should be a good year and I will make the prediction now: Dodgers. All. Tha. Way.
Play Ball!
Baseball. It always brings to mind long summer afternoons of fading daylight, long shadows, long fly balls hit to the outfields. Also, muggy and tropical night games played under klieg lights that attracted the moths who would fly in and out of the shadows. Dodger Stadium on smoggy days; elementary ballfields on spring mornings; Fenway Park; Candlestick Park; Yankee Stadium; Padres Stadium. Poring over the stats and records of present and past players. Listening to the mellifluous tones of Dodger announcer Vin Scully, who was so popular that you heard his voice everywhere in Los Angeles in the summer, from cars driving by windows down, from radios on park benches, and from fan's hand-held radios in Dodger Stadium itself. Watching the World Series on television, watching the World Series on television with the volume down and the radio turned up because Vin Scully on the radio was always better than any of the television play-by-play announcers. These are just a few of the memories and thoughts that Baseball brings back for me.
I am certainly one of those romanticists who believes, sincerely, that baseball is somehow a link to our shared past, that it stretches back in one unbroken chain to the 19th century; that its New York origins and particular slower-paced rhythms are evocative of a "simpler" time. Yes yes, I am definitely viewing the "game" with rose-tinged glasses, easily glossing over the facts that its not truly a game as a high-money profession that rose out of humble origins and shook off its legacies of racism and institutional indentured servitude to morph into something still recognizable by its inventors and still a wholly new and strange beast.
And yet, the basic tenets of the game has remained the same since it dim origins in the 1860s: 3 bases, home plate, 3 outs, pitcher/catcher/infielders/outfielders/batters. I think this is one of the reasons I like it, this feeling of a unbroken lineage stretching back 150 years. Whatever the emotional tugs may be, whatever the reasons, let them remain dim and unknown, it doent matter anyways; what really matters, what I really want to say is that I love baseball; there was a time when I ate, drank and slept baseball; sadly those days are no more. And while the passion has dimmed my understanding has deepened. Even after that disastrous half-season of Little League my love for the game did not die off.
Whatever. The new season is coming round. In a week and a half we will have Opening Day, the greatest day of the year. Never mind March 20, screw that day, Opening Day is the first day of Spring. This will be the day my beloved Dodgers take the field once again, to renew their never ending quest for dominance and another World Series ring. Da Bums. Even though I grew up in LA I always felt a inherent sense of history stretching back to those bygone days in Brooklyn (thank you Mom), Ebbetts Field long gone into the dust, the trolley cars of Flatbush Ave, the speed of which forced pedestrians to dodge out of the way, ergo the name of the team. It always struck me as somehow heroic and golden, those years in Brooklyn, specifically the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese; but what the hell do I know, I wasnt there, I am just imagining a past that probably had no true resemblance to reality, based on what I have read and cooked up in my fevered imagination.
This I do know to be true: This should be a good year for Dodger/Giants fans. The Giants won the World Series last Fall going away, hardly breaking a sweat against a very good Detroit Tigers team. Last year the Giants became a dominating team, for the first time since.....well since never. Seriously. They even did this without the services of Melky Cabrera, who had to sit out most of the season due to steroids abuse. Which means, unfortunately, that they still cant shake the ghost, and curse, of Barry Bonds. The Dodgers, having played the last decade under a owner who was using the team as his personal ATM, got sold to a ownership group that includes Magic Johnson, who have made a true commitment to winning, went out and got Adrian Gonzalez and Zach Grienke, two dominating players, and will bring to bear the largest payroll in baseball, which brings to my mind a vision of swinging bags of money.....Anyways, this should be a good year and I will make the prediction now: Dodgers. All. Tha. Way.
Play Ball!
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
The 2nd Amendment and US
US as in the United States. Us as in "us", the people, the whole entire populace. There has been quite a lot of debate lately regarding gun control and the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. This is a good thing, a very good thing, as we should be having this conversation. A healthy debate, out in the open, is good for our society; the more we can discuss these issues in some semblance of rationality the better chances we have of arriving at good legislative policy. At least, that is my hope.
Unfortunately the rhetoric on both sides is often times too ugly and over the top. I am sure you all have seen it, people calling each other names, which does nothing but alienate, and in no way advances either sides' arguments. It seems that we, as a society, drop right down to name calling all to easily these past few years, which I find both sad and exhausting. How can I possibly reason with someone when their entire argument is predicated on labeling me a "liberal" or a "radical" or "bleeding heart" or some combination of the previous plus whatever other name might be used? Answer: I cannot, and all too often I will fire back the name calling, which leaves us both frustrated and no further along than when we started.
I dont know, it seems perfectly obvious to me that as a society we are awash with guns and are suffering under an epidemic of gun violence. I dont use these words lightly, I have been observing this situation for years, and I think (operative words being "I think") the evidence backs me up: mass shootings have been on the rise, every day someone dies due to gun violence, , we have far and away the highest incidents of gun violence in the Western World, and the costs to our society are staggering. I hope we can agree that this is a problem that needs addressing, that we as a society should be looking at all sides of this issue and examining every angle. This in no way means I am in favor of a certain position, or not, more that at this point I dont think we should be throwing out any suggestion based on a source, or how a the person making the suggestion votes politically, but examine each suggestion for its merits and then come to a decision to discard or move ahead.
Of course, me being me, I do have some suggestions for policy, but what I want to make clear at this point is that I do not believe the 2nd Amendment, or the Constitution, to be a monolithic, never-changing document. There have been many changes and amendments to the US Constitution, as there should be, as our so-called "Founding Fathers" intended. The Constitution was never designed to written in stone, but was intended to change as the times needed. So we no longer count slaves as 3/5s of a vote, we no longer allow slavery, and all native born or naturalized citizens have the right to vote, are just three of many changes to the Constitution that have happened since it was written. We should celebrate this aspect of our government, that our Constitution is this elastic, which allows our governnment to change and adapt over time to circumstances. As a history major I shudder to think what might have been the outcome if Lincoln and Johnson (the gentleman who followed him in office) were not able to pass the necessary amendments to outlaw slavery, the entire slaughter of the Civil War would not only have been in vain, nothing would have been settled, and we may very well have ended up with two seperate countries.
So what I want to argue here is that we should not be looking upon the 2nd Amendment as utterly inflexible, never changing, forever static. The text of the amendment is as follows:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
At the time it was written this was a crucial piece of legislation, as we had recently fought a civil war (yes, it was a civil war) against the British Government, this amendment was key to helping secure the populace against any future incursions by the British, which was a viable fear at the time. It was also reasonably thought that a armed populace could be a natural inhibitor to a dictatorship being setup in the new country. Thus when it was written the 2nd Amendment made sense, it seemed a natural outgrowth of the desire of the populace to protect itself, from enemies foreign and domestic. Nowadays I am not so sure as it seems to me that we have a strong military that is able to project power abroad when needed (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force) while being able to secure our borders (Coast Guard, National Guard), thus making the need for a well regulated militia much less needed or relevant. It also occurs to me that the idea that a well regulated militia will be some kind of bulwark against a possible native dictatorship to be terribly unrealistic, because if a dictatorship were to sieze the reins of power and control the military, any militia uprising would be swiftly and easily crushed.
The other part of the 2nd Amendment is the right to bear arms, which might be the most thorny aspect of the Amendment. It has been interpreted in some corners as meaning that any form of government, from the Federal all the way down to the local, can not infringe on any individual's right to own firearms. Its my opinion that this is both a too broad and self-defeating interpretation, as it allows for no changes for mitigating circumstances of, say, possibly regulating assault weapons (more on this in a bit) and forecloses any discussion about possibly changing the Amendment, if not throwing it out altogether. Not that I am advocating doing away with the Amendment, more that I am arguing for allowing a discussion and examination of the idea.
But what I do earnestly believe is that we should be banning the sale of assault rifles to civilians, as there is no real societal benefit to civilians owning these kind of weapons. If we hearken back to the time when the 2nd Amendment was written, the kind of weapons used were breech loading single shot rifles and pistols; there was no such thing as automatic weapons. While there is a definite usage for automatic weapons in the military, I fail to see what possible use there is for these weapons to be in private hands, except to kill other civilians. As we allow our government to regulate various aspects of our country's "common space", everything from our national forests to medicines, the highway system, product safety, and the public airwaves, why should guns be exempt? As we insist the government regulate and enforce safety regulations on cars (seat belts and air bags for instance) why is it that guns be above regulation when their very purpose is to kill?
Again I am not advocating wholesale dumping of the 2nd Amendment as there are very tangible usages for guns, hunting and police work come immediately to mind. I also am very loath to strip away anyone's Constitutional rights as once a right is taken away by a government they are very reluctant to give it back. But it seems to me that we can achieve a balance, whereby we regulate, or ban, the sale of automatic weapons, high capacity ammo clips, and other aspects of guns that are used solely for rapid fire killing of other humans, without infringing on anyone's inherent overall right to own other, less lethal, type of guns.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Garcia Marquez and the Art of Creativity
I have been reading lately the memoirs of Columbian author and Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez (and if you have never read any of his work, shame on you). I've always been a gigantic fan of his work, ever since I read the first sentence of '100 Years Of Solitude': "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." Never mind the three different periods of time that are called out, how does one discover ice? Garcia Marquez packs more ideas, and imagery, into one sentence than most authors do in entire chapters.
In any case, 'Living To Tell The Tale' is Garcia Marquez's attempt to tell the story of his life while sorting out the truthful memories from the ones that may have been imagined. It is a theme that he touches on frequently in his writings, what is the truth, what is imagined, what is dreamed. Especially memories as he describes many of his characters as imprisoned by memories, endangered by memories.
"During this period my parents were responsible for an emotional mishap that left me with a scar difficult to erase. It happened one day when my mother suffered an attack of nostalgia and sat down to play 'After the Ball Is Over,' the historic waltz of her secret love, and Papa had the romantic idea of dusting off his violin to accompany her, even though it was missing a string. She adjusted without difficulty to his romantic middle-of-the-night style and played better than ever, until she looked at him with pleasure over her shoulder and realized that his eyes were wet with tears. 'Who are you remembering?' my mother asked with ferocious innocence. 'The first time we played this together,' he answered, inspired by the waltz. Then my mother slammed both fists down on the keyboard in a rage.
'It wasn't with me, you Jesuit!' she shouted at the top of her voice. 'You know very well who you played it with and you're crying for her.'"
What else strikes me about this book is the author's desperate hunger to be a writer. From the earliest age all he wanted to do was write. He dropped out of school, alienating his parents and starved for years, for his craft, for his art. I am terribly jealous of this, both of his ability to conjure up the most magical and wonderful landscapes for his characters, the depths of his emotional insights, and his discipline. I too, have always wanted to be an artist, but thru a combination of...all sorts of things....it didn't work out like that. For whatever reason(s) my parents never encouraged me in drawing and painting, which I always wanted to do, but I got lots of encouragement for music and acting. I guess I was always something of a middling talent, because even though I was granted years of music lessons, I don't recall ever being singled out as good at it, or described by anyone as that. With acting it was bit of a different story, as I loved it, took to it at a very early age, and started regularly performing in community, school, and church theatre. However, somewhere, somehow, along the way I also picked up the virus "lack of self-confidence", which must be the most corrosive of diseases, as it can cause both the physical and mental muscles to atrophy from lack of exercise. How I got infected with this disease I am not sure, and I don't want to use this space to cast stones; besides it doesn't really matter anymore as I am not a character in Russian novel, trapped and doomed by the past.
So in my mid-20s I put down the youthful exercises and "came of age". I stopped acting, dropped the music lessons, forgo any thought of art, as I believed at the time that it was my responsibility to focus on getting an education and a job. But in the back of my mind I grieved a bit, I always wanted to create art, of some kind, somehow. And now that I am older I have taken up this desire in earnest, and what I am discovering is rather interesting. I have taken it upon myself to paint a few canvasses, but since I have never been trained in perspective all my shapes come across as flat. However I do love to paint, as I love pushing colors across the canvasses with brushes, its both soothing and fulfilling. So I am now taking beginning drawing classes from a close friend, who is teaching me how to measure and draw perspective, how to shade, how to judge the light, and how to use the tools of the trade - the different pencils and charcoals, the erasers, what paper to use, etc. Its both fascinating and frustrating.
A big reason why I didn't draw from a young age is that I always thought my drawings were ugly. Flat, little tonal differences, little use of shading, is what I remember and what I remember hating. Yes, hating. I never liked my art; now I do. But, what I am also noticing, and what was always there, is a lack of simple patience with myself; if the drawing doesn't go right the first time my initial overriding desire is to rip it up and start over, or to just throw something and walk away from it altogether. So my art teacher points this out again and again, that I don't take well to criticism, that I want it to go right, right at the start, that it takes years to learn these techniques. All correct, absolutely. I have to give up those voices in my head telling me its ugly, it has to be right from the start, I have to let myself sink into the process, that the point is not the finish but the journey.
In any case, 'Living To Tell The Tale' is Garcia Marquez's attempt to tell the story of his life while sorting out the truthful memories from the ones that may have been imagined. It is a theme that he touches on frequently in his writings, what is the truth, what is imagined, what is dreamed. Especially memories as he describes many of his characters as imprisoned by memories, endangered by memories.
"During this period my parents were responsible for an emotional mishap that left me with a scar difficult to erase. It happened one day when my mother suffered an attack of nostalgia and sat down to play 'After the Ball Is Over,' the historic waltz of her secret love, and Papa had the romantic idea of dusting off his violin to accompany her, even though it was missing a string. She adjusted without difficulty to his romantic middle-of-the-night style and played better than ever, until she looked at him with pleasure over her shoulder and realized that his eyes were wet with tears. 'Who are you remembering?' my mother asked with ferocious innocence. 'The first time we played this together,' he answered, inspired by the waltz. Then my mother slammed both fists down on the keyboard in a rage.
'It wasn't with me, you Jesuit!' she shouted at the top of her voice. 'You know very well who you played it with and you're crying for her.'"
What else strikes me about this book is the author's desperate hunger to be a writer. From the earliest age all he wanted to do was write. He dropped out of school, alienating his parents and starved for years, for his craft, for his art. I am terribly jealous of this, both of his ability to conjure up the most magical and wonderful landscapes for his characters, the depths of his emotional insights, and his discipline. I too, have always wanted to be an artist, but thru a combination of...all sorts of things....it didn't work out like that. For whatever reason(s) my parents never encouraged me in drawing and painting, which I always wanted to do, but I got lots of encouragement for music and acting. I guess I was always something of a middling talent, because even though I was granted years of music lessons, I don't recall ever being singled out as good at it, or described by anyone as that. With acting it was bit of a different story, as I loved it, took to it at a very early age, and started regularly performing in community, school, and church theatre. However, somewhere, somehow, along the way I also picked up the virus "lack of self-confidence", which must be the most corrosive of diseases, as it can cause both the physical and mental muscles to atrophy from lack of exercise. How I got infected with this disease I am not sure, and I don't want to use this space to cast stones; besides it doesn't really matter anymore as I am not a character in Russian novel, trapped and doomed by the past.
So in my mid-20s I put down the youthful exercises and "came of age". I stopped acting, dropped the music lessons, forgo any thought of art, as I believed at the time that it was my responsibility to focus on getting an education and a job. But in the back of my mind I grieved a bit, I always wanted to create art, of some kind, somehow. And now that I am older I have taken up this desire in earnest, and what I am discovering is rather interesting. I have taken it upon myself to paint a few canvasses, but since I have never been trained in perspective all my shapes come across as flat. However I do love to paint, as I love pushing colors across the canvasses with brushes, its both soothing and fulfilling. So I am now taking beginning drawing classes from a close friend, who is teaching me how to measure and draw perspective, how to shade, how to judge the light, and how to use the tools of the trade - the different pencils and charcoals, the erasers, what paper to use, etc. Its both fascinating and frustrating.
A big reason why I didn't draw from a young age is that I always thought my drawings were ugly. Flat, little tonal differences, little use of shading, is what I remember and what I remember hating. Yes, hating. I never liked my art; now I do. But, what I am also noticing, and what was always there, is a lack of simple patience with myself; if the drawing doesn't go right the first time my initial overriding desire is to rip it up and start over, or to just throw something and walk away from it altogether. So my art teacher points this out again and again, that I don't take well to criticism, that I want it to go right, right at the start, that it takes years to learn these techniques. All correct, absolutely. I have to give up those voices in my head telling me its ugly, it has to be right from the start, I have to let myself sink into the process, that the point is not the finish but the journey.
Friday, January 25, 2013
"Writer's Block" aka Random Junk
I've been spending alot of brain power last few days trying to come up with a topic for my next post, and have been batting a lot of zeros with regards to actual ideas. Its mostly been bits and pieces, random thoughts that haven't coalesced into a meaty honest-to-God blog post. So in the interest of actually posting *something* I am throwing a bunch of ideas out there, in the hopes that it will add up to...something.... Do with it what you will.
I am a Internet Plumber.
For my job at the ISP, who's name will remain unknown, I am titled "Network Engineer". As such I monitor the relative health and working state of the different networks that my ISP is in charge of. If any break I try to fix and if am unable to fix I escalate to a more knowledgeable individual or team. Now as the conglomerate networks, grouped together to form the "internet" as we know it, is at its most basic, a group of circuits of various sizes (1.44mb, 100mb, 1GB, 10GB, etc), capable of moving traffic from point A to point B, it seems to me that this setup can be seen as a group of pipes, in the same way that plumbing moves water from different points, thru pipes of different sizes. So when people ask me what I do for a living, and I try to explain my job, and when their eyes begin to glaze over....I say "I am basically a Internet plumber, keeping the pipes open". They get that.
I hate driving in traffic.
Seriously. Hate it. Mostly because I think other drivers are a gang of criminally insane idiots. Gentle readers, you of course are all excluded from the above grouping. I just get really tired of the casual way drivers treat each other, bicyclists, and pedestrians, rudely tail-gating, cutting each other off, changing lanes without signaling, etc etc. Its scary because we dont know what the other person is thinking, and when you see people chatting on their phones when they should be driving, well you think the worst. And when thru a combination of bad driving, erratic driving, drunken driving, or just plain bad luck, we end up in accidents that can change our lives in a instant, it feels as if we are letting strangers have too much of a "impact" upon our lives. Then having to spend time sitting in traffic, with little or no forward movement, feels as if my soul was dying, little by little.
So at some level I have to trust complete strangers that they will be paying attention to what they are doing, that they will obey the rules of the road, that they will responsibly drive these multi-ton behemoths....and I don't like it. I don't like having to cede that much trust to people I don't know. And when I see how casually rude drivers are to each other as a matter of course I like it even less. If I had my druthers I wouldn't be driving all that much at all, but since we have a terrible lack of good transportation alternatives here in Seattle, I don't have much choice except to drive most places. Its sad because I actually love to drive; the act of driving is a lot of fun and when you are wheeling down an open road, blasting the music and watching the landscape roll past, it can be a time of sublime clarity and lasting memory. But city driving, dodging potholes, traffic jams, other drivers, it all adds up to a painful experience. I wish I had another choice.
I love peanut butter.
Seriously. Ilove adore peanut butter. Its creamy goodness, the peanutty smell, the thick taste. And it has to be crunchy peanut butter, none of that wimpy non-crunchy butter for me thank you very much. Is there a better snack food? I think not. Peanut Butter should be carved into Mt Rushmore. When I die just immerse my body into a 6ft jar of peanut butter and bury me.
I spend way too much time re-living past embarrassments.
Does anyone else do this too? I hate it. My brain will be humming happily along, thinking about this and that, and then alluva sudden.....I am back at that time when I, without meaning to, picked a verbal fight with my friend's dad, at my friend's wedding. This happens to me all the time, that my brain (stoopid stoopid brain) will suddenly (surely laughing the whole time) lurch over into Embarrassing Memory Lane and I'll be reliving that time when I said that...."thing"...when I shoulda kept my yap shut. I know I know! Its a waste of time and energy, I cant change the past so why fret? Especially when there is so much peanut butter to eat!
I like Rock 'n Roll.
Still. Its been a almost 50 year obsession, ever since I heard "I want to hold your hand" on the radio, as a 4 year old. I still love the passion, the angst, the tension and release. Right now I am cranking Queens of the Stone Age, loving the dinosaur stomping riffs, sounding all the world like some primeval beast climbing out of the tar pits. I also love the more "sensitive" artists such as Beachouse, Elliott Smith, Sufjan Stevens, Devotchka, Ereykah Badu, and the hysterical weirdness of Tom Waits (he is really funny live). I love the blues, my appreciation for Jazz grows daily, and I oftentimes fall asleep listening to classical music. But I still come back to the rock. Recently I stumbled across this vid, a live clip of the Faces doing "Stay With Me", and it seems to capture alot of what I love about rock music: the want of artists to be recognized, and at its most basic level the boy wants the girl to notice him. And here is a band, the Faces, who in their salad days of 1972-1974 were one of the best (some peeps say the best, but....Rolling Stones) live bands ever. And surely what comes across in this vid is 5 guys who are really enjoying playing with each other, kicking out a loose, sloppy, and oh-so-tight song that would do any backwoods roadhouse proud. As Rod Stewart says at the beginning of the song, "Slow down...Play it dirty". Indeed.
I am a Internet Plumber.
For my job at the ISP, who's name will remain unknown, I am titled "Network Engineer". As such I monitor the relative health and working state of the different networks that my ISP is in charge of. If any break I try to fix and if am unable to fix I escalate to a more knowledgeable individual or team. Now as the conglomerate networks, grouped together to form the "internet" as we know it, is at its most basic, a group of circuits of various sizes (1.44mb, 100mb, 1GB, 10GB, etc), capable of moving traffic from point A to point B, it seems to me that this setup can be seen as a group of pipes, in the same way that plumbing moves water from different points, thru pipes of different sizes. So when people ask me what I do for a living, and I try to explain my job, and when their eyes begin to glaze over....I say "I am basically a Internet plumber, keeping the pipes open". They get that.
I hate driving in traffic.
Seriously. Hate it. Mostly because I think other drivers are a gang of criminally insane idiots. Gentle readers, you of course are all excluded from the above grouping. I just get really tired of the casual way drivers treat each other, bicyclists, and pedestrians, rudely tail-gating, cutting each other off, changing lanes without signaling, etc etc. Its scary because we dont know what the other person is thinking, and when you see people chatting on their phones when they should be driving, well you think the worst. And when thru a combination of bad driving, erratic driving, drunken driving, or just plain bad luck, we end up in accidents that can change our lives in a instant, it feels as if we are letting strangers have too much of a "impact" upon our lives. Then having to spend time sitting in traffic, with little or no forward movement, feels as if my soul was dying, little by little.
So at some level I have to trust complete strangers that they will be paying attention to what they are doing, that they will obey the rules of the road, that they will responsibly drive these multi-ton behemoths....and I don't like it. I don't like having to cede that much trust to people I don't know. And when I see how casually rude drivers are to each other as a matter of course I like it even less. If I had my druthers I wouldn't be driving all that much at all, but since we have a terrible lack of good transportation alternatives here in Seattle, I don't have much choice except to drive most places. Its sad because I actually love to drive; the act of driving is a lot of fun and when you are wheeling down an open road, blasting the music and watching the landscape roll past, it can be a time of sublime clarity and lasting memory. But city driving, dodging potholes, traffic jams, other drivers, it all adds up to a painful experience. I wish I had another choice.
I love peanut butter.
Seriously. I
I spend way too much time re-living past embarrassments.
Does anyone else do this too? I hate it. My brain will be humming happily along, thinking about this and that, and then alluva sudden.....I am back at that time when I, without meaning to, picked a verbal fight with my friend's dad, at my friend's wedding. This happens to me all the time, that my brain (stoopid stoopid brain) will suddenly (surely laughing the whole time) lurch over into Embarrassing Memory Lane and I'll be reliving that time when I said that...."thing"...when I shoulda kept my yap shut. I know I know! Its a waste of time and energy, I cant change the past so why fret? Especially when there is so much peanut butter to eat!
I like Rock 'n Roll.
Still. Its been a almost 50 year obsession, ever since I heard "I want to hold your hand" on the radio, as a 4 year old. I still love the passion, the angst, the tension and release. Right now I am cranking Queens of the Stone Age, loving the dinosaur stomping riffs, sounding all the world like some primeval beast climbing out of the tar pits. I also love the more "sensitive" artists such as Beachouse, Elliott Smith, Sufjan Stevens, Devotchka, Ereykah Badu, and the hysterical weirdness of Tom Waits (he is really funny live). I love the blues, my appreciation for Jazz grows daily, and I oftentimes fall asleep listening to classical music. But I still come back to the rock. Recently I stumbled across this vid, a live clip of the Faces doing "Stay With Me", and it seems to capture alot of what I love about rock music: the want of artists to be recognized, and at its most basic level the boy wants the girl to notice him. And here is a band, the Faces, who in their salad days of 1972-1974 were one of the best (some peeps say the best, but....Rolling Stones) live bands ever. And surely what comes across in this vid is 5 guys who are really enjoying playing with each other, kicking out a loose, sloppy, and oh-so-tight song that would do any backwoods roadhouse proud. As Rod Stewart says at the beginning of the song, "Slow down...Play it dirty". Indeed.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Paris Part 3
First of all I want to apologize to everyone for the horrible font problem of my last Paris post. I copied it over from Facebook and for some reason Blogger decided that it had to be underlined with a white background; hideous to look at. I offer my apologies to everyone, and I appreciate you reading thru it....If you could stand it....
I think this shall be my last post on Paris, about Paris, regarding Paris. Obviously the trip, even as short as it was, left a lasting impression on me. Like I have said previously, travel changes us, or at least it should. Sometimes we dont know how much until later. As for me, the impact has been immediate, but without any real changes, other than a terribly strong desire to go back to Paris and to continue to travel throughout the world. What struck me immediately in Paris was to the degree as to how much slower the pace of life is there. Its not to say that Parisians are somnolent sleepwalkers, but more that its more relaxed than the US. Lets remember that their work week is 35 hours in length, giving them more leisure time, which lends itself to the slower pace. Honestly I dont know how this translates economically, and I wonder if France and the US were roughly the same size, with access to roughly the same raw materials would our economic output be similar? What I do know is that as a whole Parisians struck me as more relaxed than Americans. It is true that of all the industrial nations the US public works harder, keeps longer work hours, and has less vacation times; is this a good or bad thing I will leave that for you to decide. As for me, I will say that I prefer the slower paced life, but that is just me only and I am not going to advocate it for everyone else.
What also came to me is that walking, living, being in Paris is to be around living history, significant history, that stretches back almost 2000 years. Everywhere you look (at least in the city center) there is a historically significant building, landmark, or statue. Its unavoidable. As a history major I was riding in hog heaven; being able to see with my own eyes the places that I had only been able to read about, previously, was a constant delight. Then there is the booksellers along the Seine. Paris has granted, for a few hundred years now, licenses to booksellers, who set up stalls along the banks of the Seine; these booksellers sell anything from medical drawing prints, to Audobon sketches, out of print magazines, first edition books (mostly in French), and I did not get nearly as much time to browse them as I would have wanted to, because as Balzac once said "Where is the will so weak but in a bookstore?"
Speaking of bookstores, this place, Shakespeare & Company, almost made the trip worth it by itself. Its a tiny, crowded, dark bookstore stuffed with overhanging shelves, frumpy chairs, and a lending library upstairs. Upstairs also, tucked into the corner of the art books room was a upright piano, where patrons are welcome to sit and tickle out a tune. Its a legendary place, and I can really see why, as it reflects a love of books, of good writing, and an appreciation for the touch and tactile feel of books, which you cannot get from the electronic formats. I would rather spend 5 minutes shopping in a bookstore such as this, than 1 hour shopping for books online.
So, once again, Paris is the sum of its parts: the architecture, the museums, the whimsical bookstores and bookstalls, the romantic Seine, the cathedrals everywhere, the landmarks, the food. As this wonderful history of Paris points out, Paris is a Lady, it is a feminine city, beguiling in its charms. I am a believer in this. I believe enough that I will be going back, next year, for a longer stay.
-photos by Melissa Massie
I think this shall be my last post on Paris, about Paris, regarding Paris. Obviously the trip, even as short as it was, left a lasting impression on me. Like I have said previously, travel changes us, or at least it should. Sometimes we dont know how much until later. As for me, the impact has been immediate, but without any real changes, other than a terribly strong desire to go back to Paris and to continue to travel throughout the world. What struck me immediately in Paris was to the degree as to how much slower the pace of life is there. Its not to say that Parisians are somnolent sleepwalkers, but more that its more relaxed than the US. Lets remember that their work week is 35 hours in length, giving them more leisure time, which lends itself to the slower pace. Honestly I dont know how this translates economically, and I wonder if France and the US were roughly the same size, with access to roughly the same raw materials would our economic output be similar? What I do know is that as a whole Parisians struck me as more relaxed than Americans. It is true that of all the industrial nations the US public works harder, keeps longer work hours, and has less vacation times; is this a good or bad thing I will leave that for you to decide. As for me, I will say that I prefer the slower paced life, but that is just me only and I am not going to advocate it for everyone else.
What also came to me is that walking, living, being in Paris is to be around living history, significant history, that stretches back almost 2000 years. Everywhere you look (at least in the city center) there is a historically significant building, landmark, or statue. Its unavoidable. As a history major I was riding in hog heaven; being able to see with my own eyes the places that I had only been able to read about, previously, was a constant delight. Then there is the booksellers along the Seine. Paris has granted, for a few hundred years now, licenses to booksellers, who set up stalls along the banks of the Seine; these booksellers sell anything from medical drawing prints, to Audobon sketches, out of print magazines, first edition books (mostly in French), and I did not get nearly as much time to browse them as I would have wanted to, because as Balzac once said "Where is the will so weak but in a bookstore?"
Speaking of bookstores, this place, Shakespeare & Company, almost made the trip worth it by itself. Its a tiny, crowded, dark bookstore stuffed with overhanging shelves, frumpy chairs, and a lending library upstairs. Upstairs also, tucked into the corner of the art books room was a upright piano, where patrons are welcome to sit and tickle out a tune. Its a legendary place, and I can really see why, as it reflects a love of books, of good writing, and an appreciation for the touch and tactile feel of books, which you cannot get from the electronic formats. I would rather spend 5 minutes shopping in a bookstore such as this, than 1 hour shopping for books online.
So, once again, Paris is the sum of its parts: the architecture, the museums, the whimsical bookstores and bookstalls, the romantic Seine, the cathedrals everywhere, the landmarks, the food. As this wonderful history of Paris points out, Paris is a Lady, it is a feminine city, beguiling in its charms. I am a believer in this. I believe enough that I will be going back, next year, for a longer stay.
-photos by Melissa Massie
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Nothing is sacred. Everything changes.
I was reminded of all that, and more, when I saw this article reporting on Hasbro replacing Monopoly tokens. I grew up in a family of rabid Monopoly players, we would stage the days long Monopoly battles, and they were a cutthroat business. No deal too sordid to make, no promise that could not be broken. So I have a deep and abiding nostalgia, and love, for the game. Its a part of the American culture by this time, same as Clue, or Scrabble. A touchstone for many of us, growing up.
So, in what must be a calculated bid to raise awareness, and subsequent sales, Hasbro has decided that they will be replacing one of our beloved tokens, and is allowing the public to vote on which piece gets replaced. I dont feel comfortable voting for this, as the game tokens are as much a part of the game as Boardwalk; Hasbro might as well remove all the Railroads while they are at it. Now, I can see how in a age when Hasbro has been releasing, for years, Monopoly games that are very city specific, that this is not much of a change; in other words there is a Seattle version of Monopoly, featuring Seattle attractions and landmarks and many cities have their own Monopoly versions also. But to me this feels like they are removing one of the parts of the game that makes it unique, as each token is different, and takes on its own personality, and I might be stretching a bit on that last point. What I really want to say is that I think somethings, in this life, should be left alone.
But I also know that is impossible. We live and die in a world that is in constant flux, whether by natural or man made agent. Metals rust, buildings age and must be torn down, trees blow over, people grow old and die. And when we have an object that is hundreds of years old, say a landmark, we agree that it should be preserved, to remind us of its part in our history. Even so, these preservations age, despite our best efforts. This is as it should be, we must always remember the impermanence of it all, and our very existence.
Funny how just a little thing about replacing some game tokens can cause me to wax eloquent on the existentialism of life. Its just a game after all.
So, in what must be a calculated bid to raise awareness, and subsequent sales, Hasbro has decided that they will be replacing one of our beloved tokens, and is allowing the public to vote on which piece gets replaced. I dont feel comfortable voting for this, as the game tokens are as much a part of the game as Boardwalk; Hasbro might as well remove all the Railroads while they are at it. Now, I can see how in a age when Hasbro has been releasing, for years, Monopoly games that are very city specific, that this is not much of a change; in other words there is a Seattle version of Monopoly, featuring Seattle attractions and landmarks and many cities have their own Monopoly versions also. But to me this feels like they are removing one of the parts of the game that makes it unique, as each token is different, and takes on its own personality, and I might be stretching a bit on that last point. What I really want to say is that I think somethings, in this life, should be left alone.
But I also know that is impossible. We live and die in a world that is in constant flux, whether by natural or man made agent. Metals rust, buildings age and must be torn down, trees blow over, people grow old and die. And when we have an object that is hundreds of years old, say a landmark, we agree that it should be preserved, to remind us of its part in our history. Even so, these preservations age, despite our best efforts. This is as it should be, we must always remember the impermanence of it all, and our very existence.
Funny how just a little thing about replacing some game tokens can cause me to wax eloquent on the existentialism of life. Its just a game after all.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Paris Part 2
I wrote this last month while in Paris. It seems to capture what I was seeing and feeling pretty well, the time I was there.
-photo by Melissa Massie
Day
8 Paris: And now I am full. Satiated with drink and food. Paris is
for foodies, but not for gluttons, and there is a difference. One
enjoys food here, the serving of it, the banter with waiters and the
couples at the other tables around you,
the deciphering of the menus, the choosing of wines, the different
courses, and the long lingering pleasurable relaxed time it all
takes. It is 12:15 am, and we have just rolled in from dinner at a
French restaurant. The entree was scallops in butter on the
half-shell, on a plate of rock salt, dinner was cassoulet of pork,
bacon, ham and legumes, dessert was the richest and thickest
chocolate sorbet known to humankind and the wine....well....I was
going to crawl into the bottle, but....
The day began, as they all do, with a walk to the metro, and we took the train to the Invalides station, where we met Jennifer, one of our local hosts. Walked across the Pont Alexandre III to a brasserie for a light repast of orange juice, and cafe (always cafe for me). On the way there was a tunnel for the road that parallels the Seine, heading east, and on the top of the tunnel at its entrance was a replica of the Statue of Liberty's flame. "Oh, interesting", I thought; but it turns out that this was the tunnel where the Princess Diana lost her life and there were notes and flowers left at the base of the flame. After our repast we walked over to the Quai Branly museum for this exhibit, which was endlessly fascinating :http://www.quaibranly.fr/en/programmation/exhibitions/currently/the-sources-of-aborigine-painting.html
The day began, as they all do, with a walk to the metro, and we took the train to the Invalides station, where we met Jennifer, one of our local hosts. Walked across the Pont Alexandre III to a brasserie for a light repast of orange juice, and cafe (always cafe for me). On the way there was a tunnel for the road that parallels the Seine, heading east, and on the top of the tunnel at its entrance was a replica of the Statue of Liberty's flame. "Oh, interesting", I thought; but it turns out that this was the tunnel where the Princess Diana lost her life and there were notes and flowers left at the base of the flame. After our repast we walked over to the Quai Branly museum for this exhibit, which was endlessly fascinating :http://www.quaibranly.fr/en/programmation/exhibitions/currently/the-sources-of-aborigine-painting.html
So
far, and I may re-think this statement, but so far this may have been
the best art I have seen here, and we still have the Hopper exhibit
tomorrow. Yes, I know, better than the Mona Lisa, better than any
Ingres, better than the Van Goghs? Well, yes and no. No because Van
Gogh stomps anyone and everyone else, and the Mona Lisa is the
epitome of sublime, and I so wanted to run out of the Louvre with one
of its Ingres (they have so many, surely they wouldnt miss one!).
But, "The Sources of Aboriginal Painting" flipped my lid
like no art has done for quite some time. I dont want to call it
primitive, because its only "primitive" from a Western
viewpoint; I think it better to call it simple, in that its using a
very limited palette and very limited motifs: a few circles, wavy
lines, dots, a rectangular object here and there....and thats about
it. And yet, the emotion that is conveyed, the spiritual meanings
that pour off the canvasses, is quite powerful and beautiful.
And,
speaking of powerful and beautiful, a short walk from Quai Branly put
us on the short shopping street of the Rue Cler, small lunch of
stuffed raviolis in cream sauce and cafe (quel naturel) and then a 3
block stroll to the promenade of the Eiffel Tower. Yes, the Tower is
visible from just about anywhere in Paris and yes, it is instantly
recognizable as one of the world's more famous landmarks and yes yes,
you dont realize how beautiful, stunning, and simply amazing it all
is until Bam! its right there in front of you. Graceful in design,
yet exhuding a sense of power, it doesnt so much squat as it almost
dances; because it is not a solid object, you can see thru it,
because of this it is not some squat solid tower, it has soft curved
lines that start far apart and come to a point, thus it doesnt sit
and look ugly (and feel ugly in the way too many towers do), but
invites you in to enjoy its space. Anyways, we strolled thru,
underneath, crossed the Seine and walked up the hill to the Trocadero
for the best view of the Tower. We then caught the metro, back to
Jennifer and Ofer's apartment, and then went out to our dinner,
described above. Et Viola!
-photo by Melissa Massie
The Largest Structure in the Universe
It has always been a source of amazement to me, astronomy and the study of objects in and beyond our Solar System. I dont pretend to understand much of it, I wish I could but I was always a 'C' student in astronomy; not good enough at the math is what my T.A. told me. Fair enough, I still love looking over Hubble photographs and try to keep up on the Mars missions. I also feel humbled by the size and scope of various objects in our galaxy and beyond; I am speaking of the various nebulas, dwarf stars, distant spiral galaxies, the shadows of planets orbiting distant stars. It is a great time to be alive as we are constantly pushing the boundaries of what we know about our Universe, its origins, its makeup.
What brought all this up was the release, Saturday, of the news that the largest structure in the known universe has been discovered, and well....enormous doesnt even begin to describe it.
From the article:
What brought all this up was the release, Saturday, of the news that the largest structure in the known universe has been discovered, and well....enormous doesnt even begin to describe it.
From the article:
"The newfound LQC is composed of 73 quasars and spans about 1.6
billion light-years in most directions, though it is 4 billion
light-years across at its widest point. To put that mind-boggling size into perspective, the disk of the
Milky Way galaxy — home of Earth's solar system — is about 100,000
light-years wide. And the Milky Way is separated from its nearest
galactic neighbor, Andromeda, by about 2.5 million light-years."
To use a somewhat hackneyed phrase, this just blows my mind. So our own galaxy, filled as it is, with nebulas that span light years, solar systems, stars....would only take up about 1% of this structure, if that. Contemplating these massive objects, these gigantic distances, helps me keep my life in perspective. Not that it makes me feel insignificant, but more that it reminds me that we are made up of the dust of stars, of stars that exploded billions of years ago and the forces of gravity caused the dust and particles of these distant explosions to coalesce into our sun and the planetary bodies that orbit it. Somehow it doesnt really matter how large this newly discovered structure is, how long the time it takes for light to travel from point A to B across a galaxy, or galaxies, none of this will have much impact upon my daily life; but it sure reminds me that there is so much out there we still do not understand, and it is the natural curiosity of humans that got us to this point. It is our innate desire to understand the world, and cosmos, and our place in it, that pushes us to explore our world and other worlds, and the surrounding universe. This is the way it should be, because when we don't explore, when we don't push our knowledge boundaries, we stagnate. We are unique, each of us, on this planet, and in the Universe and we should never forget that.
One more point: I love that thru the advances of science we are able to peer into the farthest reaches of the Universe, which means at the same time we are looking back in time, and we are almost able to see our point of origin, we are almost able to see the Big Bang itself.
-daniel
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Paris, Part 1
So I went to Paris last month. For the first time. And, yes, it was amazing. The food, the buildings, the people, the landmarks, the museums filled with art, the food. Yes, it was all pretty overwhelming, and endlessly interesting. I've been reading about Paris, and France, my whole life; I dont consider myself a Francophile, but Paris is one place I've always wanted to visit.
Travel does interesting things to us. Supposedly travel is to be part of either working or a vacation, sometimes both. To travel overseas is to see your culture from afar, and the view can be interesting. Every time I go abroad I always make an effort to speak to local residents as I am fascinated by their lives, their politics and their views on the US. Personally I find that travelling makes me listen and observe more, especially when I go to places where I dont speak the language, if for nothing else trying to get from point A to point B as easily as possible. Usually its not a problem as English is a universal language, and if you combine a few polite phrases in the native tongue with simple politeness you will find much success and friendly people.
But what I really want to say is that Paris is a glorious place. As full of light and culture as has been written about. Even though I was there in December approaching the winter solstice, and the sunlight had a weak and watery quality about it, it was still very obvious as to how beautiful the city is. Parisians are a prideful bunch, but they have very good reason to be, as they are the guardians of some of the world's most important treasures, a responsibility they take seriously (and they never let you forget it either).
Travel does interesting things to us. Supposedly travel is to be part of either working or a vacation, sometimes both. To travel overseas is to see your culture from afar, and the view can be interesting. Every time I go abroad I always make an effort to speak to local residents as I am fascinated by their lives, their politics and their views on the US. Personally I find that travelling makes me listen and observe more, especially when I go to places where I dont speak the language, if for nothing else trying to get from point A to point B as easily as possible. Usually its not a problem as English is a universal language, and if you combine a few polite phrases in the native tongue with simple politeness you will find much success and friendly people.
But what I really want to say is that Paris is a glorious place. As full of light and culture as has been written about. Even though I was there in December approaching the winter solstice, and the sunlight had a weak and watery quality about it, it was still very obvious as to how beautiful the city is. Parisians are a prideful bunch, but they have very good reason to be, as they are the guardians of some of the world's most important treasures, a responsibility they take seriously (and they never let you forget it either).
So the piece above, which you might recognize, is fairly emblematic of Paris. You see the image everywhere, on posters, billboards, tourist tchotkes. Its also quite the thing to see it in person. As you might imagine it is quite the superstar in its home in the Louvre, there are signs everywhere pointing to its gallery, and when you enter the gallery, there are tourists 10 deep in front of the painting. However Baby and I timed this all just right; we went to the Louvre on Wednesday, when it is open late until 9pm and we entered about 4pm. So the first time I went to the Mona Lisa's gallery the tourists were 10 deep in front of the painting; I went and looked at other galleries and pieces, came back in about an hour, the number of tourists were halved; went away for another hour, came back and had her to myself, along with about 2 other tourists. Well, nothing quite prepares you for these moments until you actually live them, as happened for me and Ms Lisa. She says so much, with that enigmatic smile, and still keeps her secrets. The shading, the lighting, the detail. And the size of the painting, its not much larger than 2.5ft X 3.5ft. I wonder, though, all the people who come to see this piece, and it must be thousands, daily, do they come to see it because its famous, or because its beautiful? Or both?
-photo by Melissa Massie
The Marx Brothers and Bugs Bunny were my heroes growing up. I loved their crazy, over the top anarchic approach to life: If its not working, blow it up; if possible pull it off with a clever quip. Chico was a fantastic, gifted pianist, he was so much fun to watch; Harpo the brilliant physical comedian; Groucho the master of the non-sequitar. And Bugs. What can we say about Bugs that hasnt already been said? Not much, except to note that Bugs wouldn't have lived if it weren't for Groucho, his obvious influence. Not that that last point matters much, it truly doesnt.
As a kid I was an addict for the Warner Bro's cartoons. The then black&white, later color, cartoons populated by rubber bodied characters engaged in the most ridiculous of antics completely appealed to my pre-adolescent self. Its a strange dichotomy being put out in these cartoons, rather simple morality tales involving horrendous acts of violence - guns, cannons and explosives constantly going off in someone's face/beak/hand - that are casually dismissed with a joke, a knowing shrug or arched eyebrow (Bugs is the master of this). When I grew up a bit the Marx Bro's became one of my teenage obsessions; I wanted to be Groucho so bad. I remember reading a Marx Bro's biography that told the tale of how they would pretty much demolish the backdrops and sets of their plays on Broadway, every night. That kind of life completely appealed to me; that and the way they would send up and satire the everyday hypocrisy we endure in our lives.
I bring this up for no other reason than to talk about both Bugs and Marx Bro's in the same post. It does feel like it dates me, that I grew up being able to remember a time when both black & white Marx Bro's movies and color Bugs Bunny cartoons could be found on tv fairly easily. Now, speaking of being dated, the radio is playing "96 Tears" by ? and the Mysterians. What a great, almost perfect, pop song.
-daniel
As a kid I was an addict for the Warner Bro's cartoons. The then black&white, later color, cartoons populated by rubber bodied characters engaged in the most ridiculous of antics completely appealed to my pre-adolescent self. Its a strange dichotomy being put out in these cartoons, rather simple morality tales involving horrendous acts of violence - guns, cannons and explosives constantly going off in someone's face/beak/hand - that are casually dismissed with a joke, a knowing shrug or arched eyebrow (Bugs is the master of this). When I grew up a bit the Marx Bro's became one of my teenage obsessions; I wanted to be Groucho so bad. I remember reading a Marx Bro's biography that told the tale of how they would pretty much demolish the backdrops and sets of their plays on Broadway, every night. That kind of life completely appealed to me; that and the way they would send up and satire the everyday hypocrisy we endure in our lives.
I bring this up for no other reason than to talk about both Bugs and Marx Bro's in the same post. It does feel like it dates me, that I grew up being able to remember a time when both black & white Marx Bro's movies and color Bugs Bunny cartoons could be found on tv fairly easily. Now, speaking of being dated, the radio is playing "96 Tears" by ? and the Mysterians. What a great, almost perfect, pop song.
-daniel
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