Funny, ha ha

It’s funny how the methods of thieves and robbers and criminals in general get incorporated into the very fabric of how an economy functions. The assimilation is nowhere more perfected than in the USA.

            It’s funny if you think getting reamed up the ass with a corrugated pipe is funny.

            It’s very funny how these shady behaviours get accepted by the general populace, growl as they might. To curse and express anger at being robbed is deemed to be naïve, un-American, anti-social, or even seditious.

            How has this happened?

            Gradually, over very many years; and it dates back to long before the founding of the US, doesn’t it?

            A very small example, and one revealing of my own naiveté is my current Comcast (that bastion of corporate excrescence) bill. Little did I know I was being charged for HBO every month, after the first month’s free trial. I never asked for it, I never signed on, I never said yes.

            But apparently I never said NO (perhaps I had other things to do).

            Let’s nail him! they gloated, and I was 20 bucks poorer every month for something I did not want.

            Apparently I let my guard down, forgetting how ‘things work’.

            Are corporations evil? my daughter asked me one day, as we walked along the tree-lined streets of midtown Sacramento.

            It’s more complicated than that, I answered.

            But I’m not so sure.

            The businessmen, the politicians, the lawmen; they all learn from the crooks. Somewhere in their hearts they admire the crooks and their quick successes, and seek only to find ways to do the very same things, but within the gambit of some law or other. Protection rackets, shell games, snake-oil, thinly veiled stick-ups and high-jackings – they are all accepted under the cover of the proper amount of, or layers of, authority and official and showy decoration.

            Peel the layers off the onion and you find nothing. Something has been lost - likely stolen - and it is irretrievable.

            Maybe you can live with this.

Note from the Downtrodden Man, written at 2:43 PM, on a Monday

We are truly at war all the time. Not with the terrorists. The terrorists are on our side. They hate the machine as much as we do. We should all be terrorists. At least, to those who decide to become one with the machine. Then again, most of them are really only going along with it, because they believe they can’t fight it.

            Cut off the head of the snake, indeed. That would be good. Walls of insulation protect the ones who really profit, from retribution by the masses, if they ever venture forth to complain or cause a little fuss. The walls have been built year upon year, generation upon generation, the workers themselves under direction and diligently mending all the flaws and possible points of ingress and egress. Reinforcements have always come to seal the breaches that have threatened to penetrate the walls.

            We’re not at war with another country, another culture, another race, another religion, another geopolitical region. Our enemies are right here amongst us, with their slimy fingers working their way into our minds and our hours. We need a patriotism of the self.

            Slavery is a word with multi-faceted meanings.

            Find your meaning.

            The strongest weapon is the weapon of time-suck. We watch in near helplessness as our hours get vacuumed from the dwindling balloon of our lives, only to be piled into a dumpster in a piss-stained back alley, reeking of stale shit and dead messengers, never to be retrieved.

            It gets worse, of course.

            Sometimes we’re blasted right to our faces, told we’re not good enough, not with the program perhaps, somehow diseased and dysfunctional. It’s an easy line to walk, just walk it, we’re told.

            It can get even worse if we actually pipe up and say something, or god forbid, do something.

            In spite of all our sense of self-preservation and wish for well-being we continue to say; ‘Fuck you, asshole.’ (though it may often be just under our breaths). That’s the life in us speaking.

            It all sits like a toxic stew fermenting in our guts and we just want to shit it all out, and be done with it.

            But we can’t do that. It keeps welling up inside from the continual injections from outside.

            We are truly at war all the time.

            This war is not about guns, or slogans, or placards, or protests, or marches, or bombs. It’s an everyday war, and it’s not going to end any time soon.

             

Livin' in the USA

‘$100,000’

I was merely stating what the documents I’d given her stated, our worth.

She was unimpressed and searched for the monthly income line.

‘Hmm.’ she went, which was barely perceptive to a normal person. I noticed it though.

‘I’ll call you.’

She never did.

I walked off, seeing that even though we could afford not to work for awhile, but could rather enjoy a bit of leisure, the landlords would not allow us this pleasure. We needed to work for them.

A homeless person waddled by with a grocery cart full of possessions. There was probably more stuff in that basket than I had in the tiny studio apartment I was camped out in for the time being. I noticed he had a shiny silver watch on his wrist. Both of mine were bare.

I’m only a very small step away from that, I thought.

Who knew it would come to this? In a past life being locked out was expected, but it wasn’t anymore, after I’d acquired some serious credentials.

Well, that’s my pretensions rearing their ugly heads. How foolish to believe the hype.

It would be summer soon, the real summer, not these measly days of 80’s and such. The overarching trees provided their welcome cover, and I had to wonder where I’d be when those days rolled around.

I went back to the place to watch baseball and drink beer.

Who would have thought it would come to this?

            In America you can’t rent a place no matter how much money you have (not considering millionaires and such here, only regular people with a nest-egg to live off), without a monthly income of 3x the rent.. As in many other things, Americans wear blinders and are oblivious to the realities of the world, and to a life outside the grind. Things must conform to the script. God help you if your history has been in another part of the world. That doesn’t count to an American. It doesn’t really exist.

            For example, your credit history of paying off houses and cars and having credit cards and bills count as nothing if they were incurred in a foreign country. Recite this history and an American’s eyes will glaze over and they will disappear into the place where all things are as in America. It’s in one ear and out the other. Not even a single ching registers on the cashbox of that mentality. America is simply not geared up to deal with things and people that happen elsewhere. Try counting the forms, in whatever format, that don’t allow the option of somewhere other than the 50 states, or maybe Puerto Rico, to be chosen.

            Americans don’t really believe that there is a world outside the lower 48, and a few other add-ons - except as occasional tourist destinations.

            When I was interviewed for a position in South Africa nine years ago I was laughed at when I told them I didn’t have a passport. Believe me, now I know what they meant.

            Now I’m back, without much welcome.

            It’s all quite frustrating and I hope you will forgive me if my respect for the intelligence and soul of a people as a whole, and any number of individually seemingly kind and reasonable people, appears to have eroded a bit. It’s unavoidable. 

            I see the country as a case of mass constipation, and hope for the moment when it lets it all out.

            I know this little bit won't help anything get more sane, and I know the world is mad from pole to pole, but it makes me feel better, and I count that as a good thing.

Exploitation

Growing up I had no feel for science. In fact, I was anti-science. We all were, me and the other little hippies, who knew so very little about almost anything. Some of those people still feel that way – they’ve carried an adolescent perspective into their senior years.

            Hey, that could be a good thing - the youth that refuses to die.

            Yeah!

            I’m with that rebellion. I will protect my innocent amazement of nature, intact in the face of the mercenary drive for mammon and prestige.

            Which is what science is all about - innocent amazement of nature - and the blowhards who rail against it in favour of airy-fairy lollipops that they find succour in sucking on can go get fucked, hopefully by a horse with a cock that will rip them from asshole to jawbone.

            As for myself, I finally got into the swing of science, saw it as the play that it really is, and became enthralled by the discovery of little bits of knowledge and insight that can be gained through persistent questioning and testing.

            Make no mistake; the pursuit of science is almost exactly the same as the pursuit of art, and its outputs are often equally abstract and at the same time equally necessary, though sometimes much more practical.

            In time, I gained some respect in my field – internationally - in spite of my dissolute younger years, and often got requests to review, or edit, or participate in gatherings, or in many other ways be invited to become an accepted member of the club.

            Yes, there is a club; as there is in all human endeavour. Don’t fucking kid yourself.  

            But there’s a telling piece of the picture that doesn’t fit; though it fits perfectly with a larger view of life that I’ve held since my days of walking to school with my buddies and expressing words too cynical for such a youngster.

            I’m good enough for this and this and this, but I’m not good enough for that…the very thing that I actually need…namely a job in my case...You can insert your own need or dream here if you wish...

            A cruel and unkind exploitation is found everywhere that humans exist.

            This is what we have to live with.

The Professionals

The burden of professionalism lies like a rock on the soul of creativity. There is more to treasure in the careless tinkerings of some artists than in the carefully honed and rehearsed constructions of others.

            I said that one night as we sat around in the kitchen; she with a white wine and me with the inevitable beer.

            “You’re copping out.” she said.

            “I’m serious! People miss out on a lot because they want perfect little turds wrapped up in neat little packages, bows tied.”

            She winced. She was frustrated with me. I could see that, but I wasn’t sure why. Because surely it was true. I’d heard too many people praise too many so-and-so’s who seemed to be without soul, for their clever little ditties. There were recipes to follow.

            The clock on the wall made an abnormally loud click as the top of the hour rolled into place. It had never done that before.

            “You’re just lazy.”

            “I used to think that too, but I’m not so sure anymore. Working too hard at it seems to squelch what it is I really want to do.”

            “What is it that you really want to do?”

            “Find something new, all the time. And find honest expression.”

            “What are the chances of that?”

            “If you can do it once, you can do it again. If not, then no matter how professional you are it doesn’t really matter - might as well sell used cars.” I took a hit of beer. “It won’t always work. Sometimes it will be the same old shit, it’s true. It’s a matter of probabilities. One has to take the chance. Chances are, if you don’t try too hard, it’ll happen. As far as honest expression goes, the chances are slimmer. We have a lot of skilled people but precious little of that.”

            “The probabilistic guy.” she said. She was sceptical about this view of life, though she knew it was as organic as wheatgrass to me. Play it by the probabilities.

            “Ya, that’s me.” I took a pull off the beer, afterward squelching an incredible interior burp, a heroic implosion.

            She smiled in hopeless abandon and we both laughed, wrinkles coming together along the sides of our eyes. Silliness really was the unabashed master.

            I saw that there was a good probability that we would be making some sweet moves along the sheets quite soon, and that made me look on the bright side of things.       

            We had a chance in life, after all.

           

Blues for Monk

“Monk was my man.”

            It was late. We were in the tiny little studio apartment I’d rented as a camp-out spot, till a decent situation presented itself.

            “How does it come to pass that artists of that stature spend their lives scuffling like rats in the alleys?”

            “That is sin, my friend; that is the definition of sin.”

            “Who are the sinners?”

            “Always comes back to the people with the money.”

            “But having money’s not a sin.”

            “What you do with it might be.”

            “Have enough of it and you can do whatever you want and still come out smelling good.”

            “Are we just jealous?”

            “Shouldn’t we be? Haven’t we worked hard?”

            “You’ve got a point there.”

            “No one should be allowed to have too much money.”

            “How much is too much?”

            “Too much is more than you need.”

            “Good luck with that one.”

            “There should be a cut-off point. This much - and no more. Why should anyone be allowed to accumulate so much? Can you think of a single person who does something that’s that valuable?”

            “How valuable is that?”

            “You know what I’m talking about.”

            We sat in silence for a while pondering the injustice of life - a recurrent theme with a shifting pedal point.

            “Let’s listen to ‘Round Midnight’ one more time.”

            “I could do that.”

            Then we sat back and witnessed pure beauty.

            It almost made things better.

           

Blog People

“So I finally figured it out.” she said to me.

            “Figured what out?”

            “What all this shit is about…” she waved her left hand around in the air, dropping ash on the hardwood floor.

            “All this shit…” I waved my right hand about in a feeble way.

            “This stuff about the Blog People.”

            “Ah yes, the Blog People.”

            “They get their ‘friends’ to hit them up, and praise them, and start a snowball rolling. One ass licks the next, and pretty soon they’re all on the road to Blog Heaven.”

            “Blooog Heaven...so you say. What does that do for them?”

            “So I say. But I had a point…” She hesitated, and stared at the floor as if it would provide an answer. Then she rose up and brightly said, “but with all the people they’ve managed to recruit to their cause by endless networking, one looks at their content and sees very little…or at least not all that much…nowhere near as much as the impression they exude from their endless enthusiasm.”

            She fell back on the couch, exhausted.

            “One looks?…”

            “You know what I meant…”

            “Yes, but you didn’t answer my question.”

            “I don’t know what it does for them. It makes them feel better about themselves. I can’t answer for their delusions.”

            Life doesn’t have to be this hard, really.

            But for some of us it is, and I can only say that I knew exactly what she was talking about.

Bad Things

Bad things happen to good people.

In the bleary world of America in 2011

one might get a different impression.

Bad things happen to people because

they deserve it.

Bad things don’t happen to good people

who work hard

obey the rules

tow the line

until they can ply the whip

to get what they want

in order to puff

out their chests

in pride

that they’ve prevailed

over all the slackers

who weren’t quite so

narrow minded

and deprived of soul.

All those people

to pity.

In the wake of the rise to success

lie the ashes

of the bad things

that happened

to

good

people.

Luck

“Why don’t we ever have any luck?”

“Well, we have some luck, occasionally. Not big luck, but we have our little bits of luck.”

“But that’s not what I mean. I mean real luck, the kind of luck that can turn life around.”

“Very few people get that kind of luck. It’s not fair and it’s not right, but it is the way it is.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any better.”

“You hear a man stumbling down the street, screaming. You can’t place the voice, it’s not on your street. It’s off in the distance, but it’s close at the same time. He sounds like he’s in agony and needs help. You go to the door and listen to try to locate the pain you’re hearing, and as you stick your head out into the night it seems even farther away. You go back to the couch and sit down for a sip of beer. You’re lucky.”

It was quiet on the other end of the line for about a minute.

“Dad, are you drunk?”

“No, only a little buzzed. That was for real, I just heard that here on my street.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I don’t think it can be all that relative, you know? You’re lucky because other people are more unlucky.”

“I’ll bet you’re right, but you know, you can’t place any bets on the kind of luck you mean. Do the best you can at what you do and you have nothing to be ashamed of. Grab your little snatches of happiness.”

The silence on the line lasted even fewer ticks than last time.

“OK Dad, I have to go to the gym, I think I’ll hang up now, OK?”

“OK kiddo, you have a good time, got it?”

“I love you Dad, talk to you tomorrow hopefully.”

I carefully placed the receiver in its cradle and cocked my head to hear the sounds of the night.

It was as quiet as the grave.

Dying for your Country

Wading through the excrement of American tv is a never-ending fascination with frustration. It's bad enough that ream after ream and pile after pile of crap programming gets aired on station after station, but when decent, or even very good things get defiled by commercial after commercial, things get to be too much. A violent heart gets born. One really shouldn't allow oneself to be subjected to such crass and disgusting greed and money-grubbing without allowing oneself to feel anger...and to express anger. Brainwashing really isn't a nice thing, and being anesthesized to it is not something to be proud of. Tv of course was designed from the outset to be a brainwashing device, but it has produced certain positive outputs.
I watch tv, I confess, and the other night watching 60 Minutes I saw a returned soldier from Iraq express anger over how people in the civilian world seemed to be unaware or unconcerned about how people continued to die 'for them'. His story was a sad one but I saw a different sadness in his story. Like many others, he had been led to believe that he was fighting and risking his life for his country - which means for the people of his country, his fellow citizens. Its a very old belief, and a very old lie. He forgot that Iraq posed no threat to the US and so he couldn't be protecting his fellow citizens from threats, since there were none. Perhaps this has been true of all US wars since WW2.
And if those people have not died for their country - their fellow citizens - what have they died for?

On the Edge

‘$100,000’

I was merely stating what the documents I’d given her stated, our worth.

She was unimpressed and searched for the monthly income line.

‘Hmm.’ she went, which was barely perceptive to a normal person. I noticed it though.

‘I’ll call you.’

She never did.

I walked off, seeing that even though we could afford not to work for awhile, but could rather enjoy a bit of leisure, the landlords would not allow us this pleasure. We needed to work for them.

A homeless person waddled by with a grocery cart full of possessions. There was probably more stuff in that basket than I had in the tiny studio apartment I was camped out in for the time being. I noticed he had a shiny silver watch on his wrist. Both of mine were bare.

I’m only a very small step away from that, I thought.

Who knew it would come to this? In a past life being locked out was expected, but it wasn’t anymore, after I’d acquired some serious credentials.

Well, that’s my pretensions rearing their ugly heads. How foolish to believe the hype.

It would be summer soon, the real summer, not these measly days of 80’s and such. The overarching trees provided their welcome cover, and I had to wonder where I’d be when those days rolled around.

I went back to the place to watch baseball and drink beer.

No Title Too

I got roped into a discussion about race one night. This was with one of those who believe that race in humans is a social construct, not a biological reality.

            “Biologists tell us that race is not real.”

            Which I happened to know was not true, being a biologist myself.

            “Well, maybe anthropologists anyway.” I said, not totally convinced that they counted as biologists.

            “There are more differences within any population group than between them. There are no characteristics that define so-called racial groups.”

            He was very proud of himself, being but a poet, at the research he had done into the biological sciences. He cited a number of papers from the epidemiological literature, each like another notch in his belt.

            It was a curious thing. I knew that biologists routinely referred to races of insects and plants and lizards and fungi and birds and snails, but humans were somehow different. As if an evolutionary history of restricted gene flow would not lead to differences among populations. There was a strange double standard among the progressive sociologists and liberals and literati and environmentalists where humans were not only accepted but actively promoted as being simply another animal among many that populated the planet, yet were still held to be above the types of perspectives applied to other organisms by biology.

            “You mine the literature to find the data that conforms to your predetermined view, ignoring other data, and call that support for your argument.”

            “And you don’t?”

            “Well, I try not to.”

            He didn’t laugh.

            “You demand the kind of distinctions that would normally be applied to species differences, not racial differences. That we don’t see those kind of differences simply confirms that we are a single species.”

            I’m not sure if he was aware of the controversy in biology over whether species were in fact objective entities themselves. In that context, arguing about the reality of race was pretty silly. But I knew of a mountain of data that showed a continuum of differentiation and diversity. I couldn’t understand the urge to deny it.

            “What good does it do to deny what a child can see?” I asked.

            “On their own, children don’t see it.”

            “Maybe they see it but it never occurs to them to use it as an excuse to gain unfair privilege. The only way to beat racism is by embracing the diversity.”

            He sputtered and muttered something about unity and oneness. I had a vision of the mindless and stupid crowds at rock concerts with their never-ending waving arms, a Borgian beast with no soul in sight.

            Outside rain pelted the tin roof of my poor abode. It was cold and the rain came in rhythmic waves, crescendos and diminutions of attack.

            “Let me show you to the door.” I said.

            When he was gone I breathed a sigh of relief.

            But I knew he’d be back.

Occupy the Living Room

Don’t get me started.

            That’s the worst thing you can do. Give me that little opening, and that’s it, you’re done. Cooked - boerwors on the braai pit, chicken over the charcoal.

            I don’t know how many times I’d told her that. And after all that she still let me in.

            We were watching the World Cup on tv.

            “Do you know how much Messi makes?”

            That was enough for me.

            “The extreme wealth of some people is obscene. What do they do to deserve all that luxury? Does what they contribute really justify so much money being funnelled into them, sponging it all up?” I said. It was a question but I wasn’t very interested in an answer. “I don’t think so. You can’t tell me that the contributions to society or community or whatever entity beyond their own little egos you might think of, that actors or athletes or celebrities or CEO’s or lawyers or politicians or whoever you care to name, merit the mountains of rewards that are bestowed upon them!”

            I took a long pull off the beer. Outside a couple of cars had pulled up in front of my place and the occupants had piled out to piss in the street and throw their empties into the weeds that lined the sidewalks. House music blasted from the open car doors sounding like a wrecking yard.

            I lived on a little side street of a major byway. People were forever pulling on in to take a breather, apparently - eat a sandwich, have a drink, smoke a joint, engage in a lover’s quarrel after an all night party, make a call on the cell, or just have a little party like these assholes were doing at that moment.

            “I like freedom to do as I please as much as anyone, but I propose that we impose a threshold. Beyond that threshold, you can accumulate no more wealth. That’s it! You’re done! We’ll allow for a range of affluence, from the poor to the slightly well-off, but no one gets to be filthy rich, hogging everything for themselves…Marx was right, but that didn’t work, so this is the least we can do.”

            “Who decides on the threshold?”

            “Either by referendum, or a consensus of the wise.”

            Even I had to laugh at that.

            With a few slams of their silver doors and some stupid toots off their tuned hooters along with violent prodding of their surrogate genitals the sudden party was over and it was quiet again. Before the revving sound of their ripping through the gears had subsided a gaggle of souls scuffed up the street from Beaufort, singing in a spontaneous harmony. They sang well, a joy ringing through the night.

            “We’ll call it capped capitalism. This much and no more!” I demonstrated the level of the threshold with my hand.

            “But who decides?”

            “Yes, that’s tough. Who decides? Someone has to. There’s no doubt that there has to be some coercion. People will not do this voluntarily. That was the moment for Che, when he went from being an idealist to a murderer. People will not do this voluntarily. Fuck!”

            She leaned my way to kiss me, but I passed it off.

            “But we can’t let this continue, this rape of the people, this crap! Suffering these useless parasites sucking every ounce of resource to sooth their precious egos!”

            Since the kiss didn’t work, she handed me my beer. I took a huge hit. A drunken soul was stumbling down the street toward Beaufort, shouting gibberish. His footsteps scraped the street like shovels against a resistant soil. I listened to him, and in that moment felt a clean kinship.

No Title

Walking down the street I saw a sign that said ‘Live Jazz’. It was like an oasis after crossing dune after dune of desert. I went on in.

            There were three tables that housed people and two waiters stood by the bar.

            I walked up to the bartender.

            “I’ll have a Red Tail Ale and a shot of Jack Daniel’s. Where’s the band?”

            “They left. They’re not here anymore.”

            He walked off to get my drinks.

            Over at the three tables the people laughed, caught in their bubble. The rest of the room was dark.

            “Eighteen bucks.” said the bartender as he clunked my drinks onto the bar.

            “Phew…” I wasn’t used to prices like that. I looked out the window into the night. “Does Billie work here anymore?”

            “No, she’s gone.”

            “Monk?”

            “Gone.”

            “Miles?”

            “Gone.”

            “Look, last time I was in here all these people were here…Duke, Rahsaan, Wayne, Tony, Sonny, Bird, Art…what’s up?”

            “Gone.”

            He shrugged his shoulders and padded off along the planks.

            I was quick to down the Jack and chug my beer. I slammed the glasses down onto the oak and rose to leave, knocking over the stool. At least there’d be one other casualty from this tragedy.

            Outside on the street I took a deep breath of the winter air. Lights were being doused behind me, one by one.

            I looked off down the street in the direction I needed to go and it was even darker down there.

US and UN

Watching the Colbert Repor(t) some weeks ago there was a telling exchange and revelation when Colbert, acting in character of the conservative who is staunch in condemnation of the UN as an agent for global domination and subjugation of America, is countered by the statement from Susan Rice, US Permanent Representative to the UN, that ‘The UN can’t even issue a press report without the US’ approval.’

            A chilling affirmation of what very many countries around the globe have been claiming for a very long time.

            I have not heard any commentator or satirist pick up on this outlandish statement.

            That’s even more chilling.

More Baseball

In many of my moments of baseball reverie I have been struck by the vitriolic hatred that Barry Bonds elicits from a legion of followers of the game. I find it to be a mystery and an abominable contradiction. Surely, on any objective assessment, Bonds was one of the very greatest players of all time. Why all the hatred?

            The early stages of this hatred almost surely arose from Bond’s disdain for sports writers. Look at it from his point of view: a gaggle of gossip hacks that are completely unable to do the thing about which they write, and therefore essentially don’t know what they are talking about, continually pester one with dumb questions and rude probes into one’s personal life. What does an intelligent person do? Well, avoid them, of course. But then, this is not what ‘celebrities’ are supposed to do. Celebrities are supposed to kiss ass to ensure that the fan’s asses get out there on the seats and that further endorsements and investment opportunities continue to flow one’s way, not to mention so that writers can brag that they’re best buds with Barry.

            I like it that Bonds didn’t care. It shows style.

            But the sports writers were offended. Their little egos were wounded and with typical small-minded bitterness they bit back. Imagine these people – hangers-on, talentless wannabes loitering around the locker rooms of nubile young men in jockstraps. But their venality and toxic envy reaches a lot of people.

            Strike one against Bonds.

            Almost no one will feel comfortable if I raise the race issue, but I must. Barry Bonds is a black man, but then again, so are Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and many other revered baseball players. But Bonds was different. He demanded a respect beyond what the accommodating Aaron or Mays merely hinted at. He was an ‘uppity nigger’.

            Strike two against Bonds.

            Finally, there is the steroids dilemma. The demonization of Bonds over steroid use is of course, only an excuse. ‘Now we can finally nail him’ is the cry from the self-righteous and phony patriots who seem to think that baseball is an expression of an essential American spirit, and not a bloody monstrous entertainment business. I feel certain that few of these pious souls were not thrilled to see Barry blast homer after homer into McCovey Cove.

            That’s entertainment folks!

            Consider basketball players. How many people approach 7 feet tall? They might be considered freaks of nature. But this is not a problem, or considered ‘unfair’.

            McGwire, Sosa, Rodriguez, even Clemens…none of them are as hated as much as Bonds, even though they used as well; as did innumerable others lacking the talent of a Bonds, and for whom steroids could not suffice to transform them into superstars.

            Of course, even Aaron stated that he doubted steroids could have any effect on hand-eye coordination, and no one seems to consider Bond’s experience as a factor in his later batting performance, such as the exquisite patience in judging when to swing at a ball he developed in the ‘steroid years’. One can probably state that he was powered up enough to hit an extra 50 to 75 homers over his career due to steroids.

            Big deal. Should there be an asterisk next to those two records? Most likely.

            Arrogance. Funny concept. Self-confidence is generally considered to be a good thing. Be careful if you’re a public figure, I guess.

            Strike three against Bonds.

            Well, I say vote him into the Hall of Fame at the very first opportunity.

            As for steroids, let’s legalize them, and regulate them so that the entertainers have equal opportunity and are safe and remain healthy, as we sit back and watch a feast of physical wonders cross our screens.              

Ecology

For some time now I've been bothered about something. Hell, I'm always bothered about something, there's always some aspect of life with humanity that gets my goat. So it's nothing new and no surprise.
But I keep hearing these tags put on certain people who have a yearning for the natural world, such as poets, politicians, sociologists, activists of some sort of stripe...that they are 'ecologists'. There's a certain poet in Grahamstown, here in South Africa, where I am now, who has been called an 'ecologist'. There are many others, in many other places.
These people have a love for nature, and a drive to understand it. That is a very good thing.
But they are in no way ecologists.
Ecology is a science.
To do ecology one must formulate hypotheses, collect data, publish in peer-reviewed journals, present at scientific conferences.
One may quibble with the literal meaning of the word - study of the house - but to call oneself, or think of oneself, or consider anyone else, who does not engage in the processes outlined above, an ecologist...is an insult to the people who are really trying to understand the natural world.
It's good to have all these naturalists and environmentalists roaming about. But let's not call them ecologists.

Gettin' Happy

There is a gradient of accent as one moves from New York outward through the suburbs. It’s a gradient that reflects an economic and educational gradient, as the more well-off search for their little havens further away from the sordid pulse of the city. The rich sneer and street snap of the New Yorker becomes attenuated until finally all trace of regional accent is lost in the robotic and dulcet tones of TV Land.

            I grew up where the ebb and flow of the gradient mixed accents, like an estuarine blend of salt and fresh water, though the concentration of amorphic TV language had become predominant.

            We were in Romo’s Deli & Chop Shop one day, looking to steal something. It didn’t matter a lot what we would steal. The important thing was to get away with it.

            I was fingering a little packet of bubblegum and baseball cards, wondering if I really wanted Claude Osteen in my collection. He was on that great pitching staff of the LA Dodgers, but he wasn’t the best of them.

            I had the best collection of baseball cards in the neighbourhood. In fact, when I bequeathed it to my friend Adam Hines’ little brother Vin, he became a made man.

            “Hey, whatcha doin’?”

            Fritz was at my elbow, smelling like onions from a White Diamond ratburger.

            “You really wanna steal bubblegum?”

            “I’m thinking about the baseball cards.”

            “You and your fricking baseball cards. What’s with that shit?”

            “I like baseball.”

            “Yeah, but you like the Dodgers! Where’s your patriotism? You should like the Yankees!”

            I looked at him as if he was a mosquito singing Verdi. Apparently he wasn’t aware of the full force of Koufax.

            “Look, there’s some bottles of sherry over in the back corner.”

            I looked and sure enough, there were four or five brown bottles of cooking sherry with tan labels sitting on a dusty shelf, next to the wooden matches.

            “You want to drink that shit?” I asked.

            “Yeah, we take it back down to the park and get a little happy.”

            If only my parents could see me now, I thought.

            “Alright, I’ll go ask Romo about these baseball cards and you can stick a bottle under your armpit. Just walk out. I’ll meet you at the train station.” I said.

            The trouble was, as Fritz was sidling out through the front door the bottle of sherry slipped out of his armpit and would have broken onto the sidewalk if he hadn’t executed an acrobatic rescue.

            “Hey!” shouted Romo. “What da fuck ya doin’?” He ran toward the door.

            Fritz was off like a cheetah.

            “I don’t know that guy.” I said to Romo.

            “Fuck you, muddafucka!”

           

            Later on, down at the park, we got a little happy.

Spit

Let me start by saying that I love baseball, and have followed it closely most of my life. Not only did I play the game as often as I could as a kid, but I dreamed away my days in school immersed in the imaginary stats of an imaginary season of batting and pitching. By the end of the day I had batted .387 with 49 homers and 135 RBIs, but also had a 23-6 W-L record, a 1.89 ERA and had 256 SOs. I played Little League, sandlot hardball and softball in parks and on streets, stoopball, and stickball.

            I have been a baseball junkie in my time.

            But I have a problem with it lately, and this is it:

            What is it with baseball players and spitting?

            Watching a baseball game these days is like watching a gaggle of clams with legs. Spit, spit…spit, spit. Everybody does it. Even the managers and coaches do it. Even the bloody umpires do it. I keep watching hoping to see at least one single player refrain from spitting all over the show.

            It doesn’t happen. They all do it. Is it a requirement to get drafted?

            ‘What’s his spit like?’ the manager asked the scout.

            ‘Got a real good stream, good projection.’

            ‘How often?’

            ‘After almost every play.’

            ‘Sign him.’

            Can you imagine if basketball players did this? Football players?

            For one reason or another I haven’t seen a lot of baseball for awhile, partly due to 8 years living in South Africa. I got seriously into cricket there, a game vaguely similar to baseball. If cricket players sent sprays of greasy saliva all over the pitch they’d be booed off the field.

            I’ve been watching other sports with an eye to the spit. It’s understandable that athletes in indoor sports don’t spit all over their playing pitches…things could get slippery. But there’s nothing really stopping athletes in many outdoor sports from the…practice...or is it posture? The rugby World Cup is happening right now and I’ve looked for the spit. With minor exceptions I haven’t seen it. I look for it in soccer players and seem to miss good examples. I see no evidence of it in track and field. Tennis? I don’t think so.

            Maybe baseball players just have too much time on their hands (but that’s true of cricket players as well). There is a lot of tension and suspense as the innings build up. One must work one’s gums.

            Has it always been this way? I can’t seem to remember. I remember some guys back in the day with their tobacco chaw, and their salvos of brown gunge leaping from their lips. But I don’t remember the extent and pervasiveness of spitting I’m seeing in baseball now. Maybe it didn’t bother me then. I seem to remember doing a bit of spitting myself on the little league diamonds, imitating some big league player or other, I suppose.

            Bad model, that. Ugly crap. Saying that it’s a necessary consequence of some imagined need to chew some sort of sticky substance to calm the nerves won’t cut it. Somebody of authority really needs to impress upon these overpaid bozos that they are on national tv, up-close and personal.

            My wife is South African and loves sport and though she wants to enjoy baseball she can’t seem to penetrate the wall of spit. It’s sad, because it’s such a lovely game.

            Though I don’t like this word I have to use it because it fits perfectly; all this spitting is simply repulsive. Please stop.

A View from a Returning Expatriate

When during a phone interview connecting me to my potential colleagues in South Africa nine years ago, I stated that I had no passport, they just about gasped in astonishment. Such a thing is impossible for an academic in that and in most other countries. But it’s emblematic of life in these United States. The US is mired in a blinkered insularity that makes it and its people something of the village idiots to other folk around the planet. The perception that nothing that really counts happens outside the US is so pervasive that anyone who has seen first-hand the falsity of that perception, and experienced the consequences of it upon trying to re-integrate into America, may be forgiven for succumbing to a feeling of hopeless, helpless, frustration and rage.

            God help the immigrants.

            It’s pretty well accepted that the average American’s knowledge of geography is, well; let’s be blunt: piss-poor (When we told a waiter that we were from South Africa, East London to be precise, he enthusiastically bonded with us by telling us he had a friend in Djbouti, which was ‘near there, near Madagascar’.). But the problem ramifies into many levels of what should be routine, or at least humane, administrative tasks.

            Here are a couple of examples.

            There are any number of reasons to fill out online forms – job applications, credit applications, cell phone applications – you name it. Doing this for a US entity is often an exercise in futility if your current or last employer or place of residence is outside the US. The option to select such an outlandish reality simply does not exist. It is not provided for, as if such people do not exist. There are ways around this, of course, but more than once I have been thwarted in completing an application or some other form because my details were not accepted. I didn’t exist. My reality was not provided for.

            This may seem trivial, this business of thwarted form-filling, but I see it as being symbolic.

            Upon returning to the US after 8 years in South Africa I tried to open up a credit card account with a major bank. My application was denied because my credit history was deemed to be too sparse. I was advised to open up credit lines from one money lender or the other. In South Africa I had bought and sold a house and paid off the loan, had a continuous 5 year history of paying rent in full and on time, had paid off a car, had a credit card paid in full – all evidence of good credit. None of it counted. This history didn’t exist to the US bank. It’s as if the globe consists of the wide and bustling US with the rest of the landmasses blanked out, as if nothing ever happens in them, at least that matters to the commerce of individuals in the US.

            It’s interesting to watch tv news here, interesting because it’s so boring - in a fascinating world - but interesting to observe how little news from around the world is reported – except where the US is involved. What’s happening in other countries simply doesn’t matter to the American people, and the powers that be would rather keep it that way. It’s useful to have the people happy in their own little playpen and not looking outside at what the other kiddies are doing - or having done to them - in their name.

            My South African wife has been in the US for a month and said the other day that she felt isolated. By that she meant: isolated from the rest of the world. 

            This insularity of life in the US is almost understandable. In explaining why I didn’t have a passport to my South African colleagues, I stated that I simply didn’t need one. Everything I needed I could find in the US, and the conferences I attended were all typically in the US. It’s a big, well-endowed country. It’s all happening here. But this comes with a cost.

            The cost is not just the perception of the American people held around the world that we are kind of cute but a bit obnoxious and naïve overgrown children. This is the 21^st century we are in, and more and more the problems we face are global problems. It simply will no longer do to look inward, to be ignorant of causes and effects elsewhere in the world, to be careless of causes and effects elsewhere in the world, to be ever more protectionist, drawing the covered wagons round us. Such behaviour will incur a very large cost even in the short-term, never mind the long-run (it already has). We need to work and live with the people of the planet. Become people of the planet, in fact. It’s gratifying that our current President actually is such a person, and appalling that he has been vilified for being so.

            Even the concept of patriotism needs to be refined. Patriotism is a concept that has generally been used as a divisive mechanism. It’s useful in uniting one group of people but has the inevitable consequence of dividing humanity into ‘them’ and ‘us’. This is why patriotism is drummed across the land in times of war, of course. But to the extent that patriotism depends on the patriot feeling superior to ‘them’, it’s a false concept. If one’s sense of self-esteem depends on feeling superior to others, rather than gratified by one’s own accomplishments in and of themselves, then one can be said to be deluded, diseased in a way.

           The US is by no means alone in displaying some of these traits, but it’s exaggerated here, almost a caricature at times, in spite of any ‘what abouts’ one might call forth. I look forward to a United States that does not suffer such delusions, and sees uniting the global community in mutual respect and mutual curiosity as an important goal. A time when striving toward that goal is not seen to be un-American.

            A time when an expat or foreign national can find their country on the bloody drop-down menu.

Who would have thunk it?

Title comes from a Greg Brown song, but only a very short while ago I would have scoffed at the idea of having a blog. After all, this is completely unfiltered writing, unfettered by any aspect of peer-review...I have a problem with that. But let me join the club, if for no other reason than to get a few more people exposed to my writing...the kind that I often devote a bit more thought to than I would to a blog. Who knows? I will post spontaneous things here as well as things from the near and maybe even far past. I have 4 books of fiction that are available at http://www.lulu.com/, soon to be on Amazon. I'm working on a new novel, and I wouldn't be too surprised if I decide to publish one or two collections of poetry before I bite the dust. I have so many of them that I may need the help of an editor for that little exercise, however. I've been published here and there; I guess if you google me out you'll find out a few juicy tidbits.
That's all for now, but remember, 4 books of economical and honest prose at http://www.lulu.com/. Search my name, or for the titles: Cat Came Back and Other Stories, Two Trains Running, God Awful Acres, and Stockboy.