Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Of Offseason Trades & Bad TV

We’re getting down to the wire here. My daughter keeps asking when it will be Christmas Day, and she assures me that when that day comes it will snow. She’s also reasonably convinced that Santa is bringing her “lots of presents.” She’s probably wrong about the weather – we’ve had a string of lovely, clear days and mild nights – but dead on about the presents. Thank my wife for that. When it comes to gift giving and gift wrapping, Terry is second to no one. She does most of her shopping on the Internet, in advance, and therefore avoids the malls and all the last minute hassles that put people in a foul mood.

If Shawn Green agrees to waive the no-trade clause in his contract, he might be on his way to Arizona, paving the way for Randy Johnson to become a Yankee. After what happened to the Yanks this season – blowing a three games to none lead over Boston in one of the worst collapses in MLB history – Johnson is exactly what the doctored ordered, a dominant starter. Toss Johnson into a rotation that already features Mike Mussina and Carl Pavano, and the Yanks look reloaded for 2005. All they need now is for A-Rod to learn how to hit in the clutch.

On another sporting front, I tried to watch the Wizards-Lakers game a few nights ago and found it impossible. Kobe going one-on-five time and again isn’t my idea of basketball. Where’s the passing, the screens and cuts, the teamwork? Is Kobe as egotistical as he appears? He will probably lead the NBA in scoring but it is unlikely the Lakers will advance very far in the play offs. Phil Jackson must be laughing.

Here’s an admission of guilt: I watched the Swan last night, the beauty pageant edition, or should I say that the Swan was on while I was burning CD’s for my niece on the computer. The spectacle of the show left me speechless, but it sucked me in nonetheless. I had to check myself, ask if I was interested or repelled as I watched the surgically enhanced women come out for their turn under the bright lights. Faces reshaped, fat sucked or carved away, teeth whitened or replaced, noses molded, breasts beefed up with silicon – was it me or did all the swans essentially look like wannabe porn star? As if the surgeon had a single idea of female beauty in mind.

We are attracted to bad TV in the same way we are attracted to a three car pile-up on the freeway. Whether we want it to or not, the spectacle draws our attention, appeals to our insatiable curiosity rather than our intelligence. The Swan spectacle no doubt looks different from a participant’s vantage point, an ugly and dissatisfied person suddenly rendered attractive and in the spotlight, the glamour, the applause of a friendly studio audience. For most this is perhaps as brightly as their star will ever shine. Once the “competition” is over, it’s back to the humdrum world, and quite possibly the same condition they were in before.

Monday, December 13, 2004

The Rituals of Fatherhood

DADDY DO

Yesterday, for the first time in the seven years we have lived in Unit C, I strung Christmas lights on the landing near the front door. Ours is the only apartment or house in the immediate area lit up for the season. Of course, the operation was not without a snafu or two.

By my own reckoning, I am the least mechanical man in America. When it comes to tools, engines, electrical wiring, carpentry, masonry or cabinetry, I am a moron, a complete idiot, beyond the help of the friendly experts at Home Depot. I lay the blame for this squarely on my father, and I’m sure my father would blame his father and so on down the line. My dad knew a thing or two about card games, horse racing, golf, cooking, and cutting meat, but when it came to the basic manly arts that were second nature to most American men of his generation, he was lost.

I deployed my tools to the landing: industrial stapler, step-stool, nails, hammer, bottle of Corona, and a tangled string of lights, which I at least had the sense to plug in and test before fastening them. It took about five minutes to untangle the string. Cars whizzed past on Milpas Street while I worked, a young Mexican woman pushing a baby stroller walked by, and the neighbor across the way stepped out on his landing for a smoke. This is the same bloke who throws his butts on the driveway, where they collect in small drifts like snow, and, when the wind blows, scoot across the driveway to form small drifts in our carport.

As I sipped my Corona and untangled the lights I was thinking: this is what fathers do. They hang Christmas lights on a Saturday afternoon. This is a time honored daddy ritual, a marker for passing years. Once a year we pull from the garage or carport or storage shed in the backyard the boxes and plastic containers and bags that hold lights, ornaments, wreaths, reindeer figures, stockings, and wrapping paper. We dust the stuff off, ruminate on how familiar it all looks, and think perhaps that maybe it’s time for some new things, like a life-sized Santa to anchor to the roof.

The industrial stapler that belonged to my wife’s grandfather didn’t work. I pulled out the pin that holds the staples in place, replaced the staples, shoved the pin back in, still no luck. The thing worked when I tried it down in the laundry room, but come show time, a dud. Switching to hammer and nails, I began hanging the lights; pound the nail, hang a section of the string, sip Corona, move the step-stool, repeat. It was unseasonably warm and it occurred to me that in other places, cold places, wet places, fathers not only battle the inevitable problems with the lights themselves, but also the elements. By contrast, my most significant challenge was pounding the nails in straight.

But I’m happy to report that I did it, the lights work, flashing merrily to announce the season to the cars and pedestrians who pass by.

Monday, December 06, 2004

Random Thoughts on Monday

Baseball on Steroids:

Do we give Barry Bonds the benefit of the doubt when he claims he had no idea the clear substance he was using for arthritis was in all probability an illegal steroid? I don’t know. Most people I talk to assume Bonds has been on the “juice” for several years, pointing to the fact that he came into the league at around 185 pounds and is now pushing 225 pounds of what appears to be solid muscle. Sure, Bonds works out with trainers and a nutritionist and has access to the best equipment, but that kind of muscular growth in a man in his late 30’s and now early 40’s isn’t natural. At that age, as many of us know from experience, metabolism slows, injuries take longer to heal, and the joints and muscles loose suppleness. Bonds appears to have reversed the clock, and that makes a lot of people suspicious.

I don’t know that bulking up gives Bonds or any other player an advantage when it comes to hitting a baseball moving anywhere from 80 to 100 mph. That’s a function of eye-hand coordination, knowledge of the strike zone, and split-second recognition when the ball leaves the opposing pitcher’s hand. If you watch Bonds at the plate, you realize very quickly that he knows the strike zone as well or better than any player in Major League Baseball. Unlike Sammy Sosa or Jason Giambi or Richie Sexson, to name three sluggers, Bonds rarely swings at pitches out of the strike zone. By virtue of his tremendous plate discipline, Bonds forces the pitcher to either throw a strike and risk having it deposited in the farthest regions of the outfield stands, or give in and deliberately issue a walk. The uncanny thing about Bonds, and what cannot be explained by allegations of steroid use, is how often he makes solid contact. Given a decent pitch to hit, he rarely misses.

In terms of putting the bat on the ball, making contact, steroids probably doesn’t help Bonds or Giambi or any other player caught up in the current controversy. What the drugs might do, however, is prevent a player from wearing down over the course of a long, grueling season – and that could be a decided advantage.

What I’m Reading:

Continental Drift by Russell Banks. My second reading of this fine novel, the story of Bob Dubois, an oil burner repairman from New Hampshire. Bob Dubois who flees the cold north because he senses that his life there is nothing more than a dull repetition of days and months and years, and himself a waking, walking corpse. Bob Dubois, who cheats on his wife and convinces himself that this is acceptable as long as he still loves his wife and she never finds out about his infidelities. This is also the story of Haitian immigrants, desperately poor and exploited and tossed about by forces beyond their control, and the very American notion of rebirth and renewal in a new locale.

I find it extremely satisfying to go back and several years later re-read a good novel. I catch important elements I missed on the first go round, feel the pathos differently today than back then. I come across passages I underlined five or seven years ago and wonder why they seemed significant.

Of Passing Interest:

Was a report in the Los Angeles Times about smut stores setting up shop in the heart of small-town America. Apparently, the decent, bible-toting residents of Kansas and Iowa and Missouri enjoy sex toys and XXX movies just as much as any resident of San Francisco or Manhattan. It’s somehow comforting to learn that good ol’ American porn sells in places so concerned with “moral” values.