I’m Moving
Bored again. Tentatively moving the operation to http://mudville.wordpress.com
The Builder’s Lament
Lifetimes are lethal, like shoddy architecture
The blueprints are blemished; brittle as drywall
The facts are in facades and our fates are but footfalls
On a ragged stretch of rug. Regrets are but jutting nails.
Two Baseball Things:
On Walter O’Malley:
Former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley was selected for the Hall of Fame yesterday to a great deal of criticism. Journalists in New York are still bitter that he moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. Commentators claim he was instrumental in establishing the unjust hegemony ownership had over players until free agency. This is all true.
O’Malley moved baseball West and we have all seen how badly that turned out for the sport. Baseball is ruined everywhere and New York City’s shattered ego has yet to be repaired. To this day, residents walk with their heads down in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Dodgers have not sold 3 Million tickets for something like twenty consecutive years. Nope. They can barely fill that Chavez Ravine place up.
And contracts in baseball are way too low. It is a wonder these fine athletes can play 162 games what with all the starving. Owners have far too much power of their contracts. What tragic abuse.
And Walter O’Malley? O’Malley was only Branch Rickey’s assistant general manager.
His role in the signing of Jackie Robinson was just a coincidence. Helping develop the farm system as a paradigm for player development? Fluke. Walter O’Malley was just an old coot.
Lastly, Walter O’Malley looks exactly like the prototypical baseball executive of his time. Heavyset, well-dressed, glasses, slicked back hair. He smoked cigars and came off more like a high-powered mobster or robber baron than baseball man. If anything, he deserves to be in the Hall for just the image.
And for my (optimistic) money, letting too many people into the Hall of Fame is a trivial error. The real injustice lies in keeping the wrong people out. But more on Shoeless Joe and Buck O’Neil later.
On the Marlins-Tigers Trade Today:
The Marlins today, sent two huge commodities to Detroit in one trade. Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis for a group of talented young players and prospects. I have no real interest in the trade; its effect on the Dodgers will be negligible. But I find the deal surprising on both sides.
By packaging two of their most valuable possessions, Florida marginalized the value of both. That is the nature of selling in bulk. In order to move more product, prices are lowered across the board.
Why did Florida do this? Obviously they did not find the individual markets for Cabrera and Willis as satisfying as they would have liked. Early on, their negotiation strategy seemed to be just hold onto Cabrera until a sufficiently exorbitant offer came along. No offer came. So to sweeten the deal, and get the types of guys they wanted, they had to include Willis. The whole thing just reeks of desperation and dangerous impatience.
After all, Willis is a valuable player. He remains, despite his recent decline, a talented, cheap, and at the very least competent left handed pitcher. Consider the markets for similar (albeit better) players like Johan Santana and Erik Bedard. It seems that Florida would have been wise to market Willis as an individual piece. He would have had greater value as a consolation prize for those more lucrative sweepstakes.
On the Detroit side, this trade is equally perplexing. Quite simply because they bargained the future for the present. Over the past few years, the Tigers have moved to a more and more traditional, veteran based front office policy. But this is a massive leap. Miller and Maybin are almost sure to be successful major league players and would have remained under Detroit control for much longer and at a lower cost than Cabrera and Willis.
Less Wild Things
I sit here, splayed out on an eighteen-dollar couch in a nineteen-dollar apartment building, somewhat bored with life at 21. Big paper due tomorrow, and a lot of personal dissatisfaction right now. But Wild Things is on TV, and nothing seems so bad. It might be too much to say that this movie always cheers me up. Truthfully it is not good enough to have that kind of effect. Instead, Wild Things reminds me of some less wild things. It offers a little perspective.
You could say that when I first saw this movie I was discovering myself. It came out in 1998, the year I turned 12. I probably did not see it until a year later at 13 when it debuted on HBO. It had to be HBO; that much I know for sure. I also know that I was an inexperienced 13. An awkward 13.
My memory is pretty average. I only know I saw Wild Things on HBO because of one particular scene. But that scene was enough. It was the scene. The scene that every male peer of mine made his bones on. The scene that involves Denise Richards, Neve Campbell, and I think some guy in there somewhere.
When I first saw it, that scene was epic. It was the greatest thing ever. Ever. It was The Godfather, it was the Mona Lisa, it was my Rushmore. It was everything I could possibly want in this world. It seemed to last for hours. And it took days to get out of my head. The scene was an epiphany. Not the first sex scene I ever saw, but the first one that mattered.
God knows that Wild Things or not, I would have eventually realized how much I liked girls. Just like most other boys, it happened in steps for me. But girls, believe it or not, are not the subject right now. I am far too self-centered for that. The subject is me.
I just watched that scene again. And to be honest, every time I do (which I swear is not that often), it seems shorter. Pretty good, but not spectacular. Wild, but not transcendental. That said, I get another kind of pleasure from watching this movie now. I get nostalgic. Wild Things reminds me of my own innocence. An innocence that fortunately, is not completely lost. I think about the way I was then, and the way I am now, and nothing feels different. Girls, for example, I think I still know nothing about.
But regardless of my instinct, some things are different. Which is why I am capable of enjoying Wild Things on another level these days. I can enjoy it now as a fun, but awful movie redeemed by some pretty faces, a memorable sex scene, and Bill Murray.
So here I sit. Matt Dillon just tried to kill Kevin Bacon on a sailboat in the Caribbean. And I find myself more absorbed by my past than by the movie itself. The whole situation reminds me how much more there is to discover in the less wild things. And now, sunk deep into the lumpy sofa, nothing seems so bad.
*Note: Married…with Children is on right now and features a cameo appearance by Vlade Divac. More evidence that Vlade Divac is the greatest human being in the history of the NBA and Serbia.
And Again.
Start me up. If you start me up I’ll never stop. Actually I probably will stop eventually. But for the moment I am starting up again. After some months of only creative writing I need some nonfictional balance in my life. Enjoy the new look. That two page thing was pretentious and way too complicated to manage.
Religion Is Not Like Sports
If anybody reads this I think they should know this. I’m agnostic. A semi-practicing Jewish agnostic.
Since I’ve been home I’ve had a few conversations about religion. In all of them I’ve found myself making the same point in defense of smaller and less socially accepted faiths, mainly Mormonism. The argument has nothing to do with theology, in fact the premise is that all religious theology is irrational. The rationality or “correctness” of a religion is completely subjective. There is no litmus test to see which deity is real, which gospel is true. Like a few religious people have told me before, faith is a choice.
So with that in mind, my premise is that no religious person is more or less rational than any other religious person (or dogmatic atheist for that matter). How new or weird a religion may seem should have nothing to do with how a religion or its disciples are perceived. Consider the historical lives of many Catholic figureheads. What makes Joseph Smith so unworthy?
One irrational set of beliefs should not be held in higher esteem than another. If faiths must be quantified and judged, let it be by the actions of their disciples. Let religions be rated by the behavior of their followers. Mormons for example, are highly successful in American society. The church breeds a strong sense of family, education, and charity. Most Mormons you meet are unflinchingly polite and kind. Putting aside the tenets of their faith, how can one object to the Mormon lifestyle?
The caveat lies in the extreme. In what we call cults. Consider the polygamist offshoots of the Mormon church which categorically rejects the practice. Or super Islamist terrorist groups. Or Scientology. In these cases the behavior of the disciples, often awful in itself, is overshadowed a hundredfold by the conniving and misleading efforts of leadership or the faulty structure of the institution.
The point I guess, is that religion in itself is all a bunch of question marks. And instead of judging how folks answer those questions, we ought to take a look at how those answers make them behave. Because there’s no right and wrong. Religions are not like elections or sports. There aren’t exit polls or standings. Just people trying their best to get through this world in a way that seems right to them.
Encore (Rough Draft)
This is a poem I started working on right after I got back from seeing the band X at the House of Blues the other night with my cousin. He is 17 and was probably the youngest person there. X is an old punk band from LA . They are probably in their 50s or so and got big in Southern California in the early 80s, reaching the edge of what would be called mainstream here. Despite some really good, and accessible songs, they were never as popular outside the region. Anyways, they don’t play many shows anymore because the members all have other stuff going on. The crowd at the show was diverse in many ways, including age. But for being so old, they were pretty damn bouncy and into it. That’d be my inspiration here:
Encore.
Middle-aged mosh pits turn counterclockwise.
Buttons break off plaid shirts with collars and fall
To the sticky concrete floor. Grey as the hair of the
Men and women. Spinning spitting, bouncing,
Busting with nostalgia. Women wear too-tight jeans
And too much-makeup and fan themselves with
Flyers announcing upcoming shows starring bands
They’ve never heard of and they smile inside (still got it)
When passing men with country club goatees
Grab their ass, which happens to be the most convenient
On the sweaty sojourn from the barrier to the bar and back.
And all of them smile on the outside and their eyes light
Up in the half-light between bands at that first whiff
Of marijuana through the must and mint of mojitos
On special tonight for only six bucks. This crowd knows
That middle-aged mosh pits turn counterclockwise.
And for a few hours it forgets that clocks don’t.
Comments and criticism highly encouraged.
Also, I really do highly recommend X. They were discovered by Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek back in the day and play a sort of roots/rockabilly inspired punk rock with duel (male and female vocals). The singers, John Doe and Exene Cervanka met at a poetry workshop. So the lyrics are always sharp, occasionally scary, and often hilarious.
Or watch this video from the 80s. It’s a live performance of their song Los Angeles. It might be one of their their most popular tunes but it’s not the greatest recording. Unfortunately, having your name be a letter of the alphabet makes search engines kind of difficult. So young musicians, keep that in mind.
Coming Home to Dodger Baseball
Since 2004 I have lived in Seattle, Washington. It’s a hell of a town. Nice scenery, friendly people, a decent play by play guy. I get to watch Adrian Beltre on TV every night in the Summer and eat gourmet Thai food at ballgames. But I’m from Los Angeles.
When you move, you realize that the place you left doesn’t wait for you. Even with all that 405 construction, the wheels never stop turning in LA. Things change so that every time you come home there are less places to come home to. Less places that stay the same. My parents house stays the same. In n’ Out burgers and Tito’s Tacos taste the same. Dodger Stadium looks almost the same, smells exactly the same, and thankfully, Vin Scully sounds perfectly the same.
When I lived in Culver City I was at Dodger Stadium as much as possible. Top deck, pavilion, it didn’t matter. Just being in the stadium was enough. It still is. I was raised to bleed blue. But it wasn’t until I left that I learned to appreciate the institution that is the Los Angeles Dodgers. I realized how much of my love for the city and for the sport was based on the team. I started to care about more than just the roster, but the state of the club. The stadium, fan and player behavior, ownership beyond the numbers.
It disappointed me when Frank McCourt hired Ned Colletti over Kim Ng to be our General Manager. Not just from a baseball perspective, but from a cultural perspective. Colletti, for all his faults as an “old school” baseball executive, has been nothing but class. And perhaps more surprisingly, so has the McCourt family. Things started rough, but I’m proud of Frank McCourt. I’m proud to have an owner willing to invest in not just the team but the aura of Dodger baseball.
Wednesday I went to my first and probably only game at Dodger Stadium this year. It was the first time I’ve been to Camp Day since I was a camper. It was a midweek day game against an opponent whose starting lineup featured no players batting over .273. It was a chance to see a Cy Young candidate in the middle of a Pennant Race. It was a shame he got raked. It was a joy to watch the washouts and youngsters that seem to balance this team like polar opposites win the most exciting game of the year. It was a blast eating my free wings after the game in a Hooters full of Dodger fans.
It was good to be home.
Mike Huckabee: Nice Guy
If one presidential candidate embodies my eternal optimism about American politics, it is ex Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. It’s a shame that Mike Huckabee and I disagree on practically every issue.
Huckabee is a conservative. In fact he is a very conservative. On his website, he brags of being the first governor in America to get a license for concealed handguns, he claims that his faith defines him, and he says absolutely nothing relevant about foreign policy. Aside from guns, Mike Huckabee is anti everything: Gays, abortions, Mexicans, even the IRS.
But listen to him talk. You will find that for all the intelligent design theorizing, Roe V. Wade bashing, and threatened wall-building, Mike Huckabee has been nothing if not congenial. He has an impenetrable wall of kindness. He makes jokes that are actually funny. Mike Huckabee is the real compassionate conservative. And yet he plays in a rock band.
Between complimenting the Clintons on keeping their marriage together and warning Americans about the dangers of obesity (he lost 110 pounds and now runs marathons), Huckabee can be seen running the least self-righteous positive campaign in the history of the world. Hell, even the 2004 version of John Edwards would tear up at the sound of ol’ Huck’s voice.
Huckabee’s record as governor of Arkansas was strong but relatively low-key. Due to his predecessor’s resignation he served a little over two terms and did a bang-up job supporting an influx of Hurricane Katrina victims. Time Magazine called Huckabee one of America’s five best governors. And as a campaigner he’s proved solid. Starting out with no money or national credibility, strong straw poll showings have shot him up to the middle tier of Republican candidates. A tier he now shares with Sen. John McCain who seems to be moving the opposite direction.
Huckabee won’t win Iowa and probably won’t win the nomination. But if has a shot, New Hampshire will be key. Huckabee’s most daring and intriguing platform is the Fair Tax. The fair tax is basically libertarian: Essentially it eliminates the IRS and create a ten percent consumption tax on everything with certain rules and restrictions for spending below the poverty line, etc. New Hampshire is the most actively libertarian state in the union. In fact, libertarian groups there have even contemplated secession. If Huckabee can tap those loonies with his fair tax and pro-gun ideas he could find success. The only drawbacks are his very invasive ideas about social policy like abortion and same-sex marriage.
But none of that matters too much to me. Because of his politics, I won’t be voting for Mike Huckabee. I just appreciate his candor and the nature of his campaign. I appreciate the fact that he is running as a nice guy with strong convictions. The convictions of a pastor.
And I find it reassuring that there are candidates out there like him. People I can disagree with on nearly everything but still respect. Political candidates who can smile and mean it. After all, it only seems obvious that the truly compassionate conservative is the one who doesn’t call himself that.
War of the Words
For the moment, the Drudge Report leads with a story on John Edwards’ problem with the term “War on Terror.” It isn’t breaking news by any means. Edwards has spoken out against the phrasing and the idea for quite some time. He says we ought to move on because “War on Terror” represents the President’s misguided ideologies and plays right to what the terrorists want.
The idea, right or wrong, is much more important than it seems. The common adoption of the words “War on Terror” might just be President Bush’s greatest victory in office. The phrase frames the way Americans think about our country’s role in the world and national security. Since September 11th, the question has not been whether we should be fighting a “War on Terror” but how we should go about it.
Are wire-tapping, military tribunals, and the war in Iraq helping us win the “War on Terror?” Or are they weakening our standing in the world, motivating our enemies, and exposing us to further attacks?
In polls, most Americans believe we should withdraw from Iraq. But if we were instead asked if we should withdraw from the “War on Terror,” the answer would be a resounding no. And if Edwards wants to change the premise of the debate, he must do so delicately. Americans need to know that their government is actively seeking out national security threats and extinguishing them. To many people, the phrase “War on Terror” stands for that action.
If John Edwards can convince America that it is possible to maintain that vigilance, but under a different name and a different doctrine, he will not only reshape the debate over national security, but strengthen his campaign. Clinton and Obama continue to stand by the phrase.
