I Hear Digging But I Don't Hear Chopping

Two Sundays ago I was doing my usual Sunday morning ritual- go down to the Crescent Street Deli to buy some coffee (sugar and a little half and half), a two egg and cheese sandwich on a roll (salt and pepper, no ketchup), bring it all back upstairs, and watch the latest edition of Bill Moyers. On the show he had two lawyers, David Boies and Ted Olson. They'd previously been adversaries, most famously in Bush v. Gore, but were now teaming up to litigate the lawsuit against California's passing of Proposition 8. Both men are supremely talented and it's a real pleasure to see that real resources are going to be put into litigating the case. What's also very refreshing is seeing a conservative like Ted Olson make the conservative case for gay marriage. Olson, who has been revered in the conservative community for his win in Bush v. Gore, has been somewhat ostracized in man conservative circles because of his stance on this issue and I have nothing but respect for people who are willing to stand up and do the right thing at personal cost for themselves (although admittedly the personal cost is not that great for him.

There was one thing, though, that struck me as I was watching the program, something that, up until now, I hadn't given much consideration. During one segment, David Boies started talking about some of the advertisements that the Yes on Prop 8 groups ran. Fearmongering ads that played on stereotypes of gay people seducing young children, or how gay marriage would destroy the institution of marriage for heterosexuals. One of the videos showed a pastor talking about how gay marriage would lead to polygamy and other types of deviant behavior. After the videos stopped playing, both Boies and Olson were especially adamant in destroying any notion that gay marriage would lead to polygamy. And they're right of course; allowing gay people to marry will not lead to polygamy. Marriage as something between more than two people is something that will be even harder for our society to sanction, let alone come to grips with.

But the more I think about it, the more I have to come to terms with the fact that there's nothing inherently wrong with polygamy. This isn't like the horrendous bestiality comparisons (most notably by Rick Santorum) or the pedophilic ones that are implied by all of those school commercials. Both of those are despicable for many reasons- but the comparisons don't even make any sense because they do not involve parties that are able to consent. Is there actually a problem with, let's say, three consenting adults that love each other being able to profess that love in way that they see fit? It seems to me that, if you make the argument that bans on marriage between two consenting adults are unconstitutional, an argument that I buy, then it follows that banning a person from marrying because it involves more than one person is just as unconstitutional. Why should marriage be between only two people; if all of the adults are consenting there shouldn't be a problem. But of course it is, probably because it just seems primitive and animalistic to some people- polygamy just conjures up images of Ottoman harems and brainwashed Mormons and primitive Tanzanian tribes. And as long as they do there will never be a substantive debate on the issue.


Postscript:
From a practical standpoint, I guess it would be legally more complicated for things like next of kin or deciding whether to take someone off life support if we had a society where people could marry more than one person. But, I mean, we have second liens on mortgages and lines of succession for President, I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to have an order of importance for your various wives/husbands if you chose to marry more than one.

Thoughts on the Health Care Summit

First I should probably talk about my overall thoughts on the health insurance debate, since I think it'll help to clarify my reaction to the entire forum. Overall, I am not too fond of either bill, mostly because I think that they won't do much to lower healthcare costs going forward. I think certain parts of the bill(s) are good, most notably the stuff on pre-existing conditions. My biggest gripe though is with the individual mandates without a public option. I'm always a bit queasy about mandates of any kind, but it would be far more palatable (and much easier to philosophically defend) if the mandate came with an option to buy publicly rather than being forced to buy from a private insurance company.
Personally, I would like to see a system with universal catastrophic coverage, vouchers for preventative care, and an increase in community health clinics that serve poor and working class people.
I also think that we need to be honest about what accounts for the majority of healthcare costs- end of life treatment and chronic conditions. Those are the two real problems, and they're the ones that are the hardest to do anything about. I would just as soon put chronic conditions in with the catastrophic coverage, with either a deductible or yearly cap, although admittedly each would have their own problems.

Overall, I don't think the health summit got much accomplished as each side stuck to their guns pretty hard. Talking to my brother about this earlier today he had a very good point- our system makes it so that no side can ever admit that they're wrong, not even for a moment. And that makes people dig in their heels, even in untenable positions, The calcification of our political process is probably the biggest impediment to solving any problems in our country and there's really no way to fix it.


President Obama- Came off as the smartest guy in the room as he usually does. He's really the ace for the Democratic party and is pretty much the only person in leadership that is able to easily and effectively explain the parties position. At times he got a bit agitated, sometimes even snapping at members of his own party (Biden, Waxman, and Rockefeller). Even with his agitation though, I do think he enjoys these kind of debates. In a way, descriptions of Thomas Jefferson come to mind. Jefferson was someone who enjoyed debate and enjoyed mashing out legislation in committee moreso than being President. Obama is probably a much better orator than Jefferson was (at least from contemporary accounts) but I often times think his natural role is Senator rather than President. Or if we had a parliamentary system he'd make a great prime minister. Back on topic though- he's generally a great salesman for his ideas even though I don't agree with all of them and I echo both the Atlantic and Salon that he should do more talking while the rest of the party leadership just shuts the hell up.

Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Nancy Pelosi (D-California)- Doing them together since I only watched a bit of their opening and only Pelosi's closing. The biggest problem with both of them, and the Democratic leadership (besides Obama and Durbin) in general is that they don't actually talk much about their bills and instead just spout platitudes about expanding coverage and bending cost curves. Okay, that's fine, but why should we use this bill to do it? They have a hard time being able to defend their respective bills because it's convoluted. That being said, it's very easy to sell healthcare reform broadly and very hard to sell specific legislation of this magnitude and those two just don't have it in them

Lamar Alexander(R-Tennessee)- A bit frustrating but mostly harmless as the Republican standard bearer. Couldn't get much of the talking points and was outsmarted by Obama during their back and forth.

John Boehner-(R-Ohio) The tan-man was terrible, easily the worst speaker of the day. Had the gall to say that medical malpractice was the key driver of healthcare costs- Boehner's never met a fact he couldn't completely misconstrue . I think it was Moynihan that said that people are entitled to their opinions but not their own facts. He was talking about you Boehner.

Charles Boustany(R-Louisiana)- Good points in the beginning, boilerplate at the end. Mostly inconsequential though.

George Miller(D-California)- Also mostly boilerplate- although I faded in and out of his speech because he was kind of boring.

Jon Kyl (R-Arizona)- Just an all around jerk, went on rambling about costs control but government takeovers and really had new clue what he was talking about. Absolutely awful.

James Clyburn(D-South Carolina)- Liked his point about community health centers, which I'm glad he brought up because for a second I thought his speech was going nowhere.

John McCain(R-Arizona)- Came across as petty and petulant like he has ever since he lost the election and Obama rightly smacked him for it. Did have a point about Obama's promise though, and I would have loved to see the entire debate on C-Span from the get go.

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius- I've had the opportunity to hear her twice now, once for a conference call at work and now here. I find her unimpressive and although I know she knows her stuff, I had a hard time focusing when she spoke. Maybe I just needed a second cup of coffee.

Eric Cantor (R-Virginia)- My brother and I both did debate in high school and while talking to him on the phone during the intermission, my brother described Cantor perfectly. He's the rich conservative kid at the debate tournament who comes dressed in a nice blue blazer, has way too many files for the competition, is cavalier and snide to anyone who is not his intellectual equal (which to him is pretty much everyone), and is really just an all-around asshole. But the kid also really knows his stuff, practices everyday, is abreast on all political issues, is engaging and speaks with a confidence that at it's best is engrossing, and is always the most formidable opponent you'll face during the tournament. Man I hated that kid but always respected the effort. Cantor is like that and he played up to the role- not as intellectually rigorous nor as formidable as Paul Ryan, but amongst the best of the GOP. Which is pretty sad.

Vice President Joe Biden- Didn't get much of a chance to talk, but when he did was pretty good. When Obama is at his most arrogant, it's usually with regard to Biden- it seems like he just doesn't like the man and it shows up on camera. Maybe it's too many episodes of Biden sticking his foot in his mouth; but he's far from a liability and could have been utilized more effectively in the number two slot; he is much better than Reid or Pelosi. His best attribute is his ability to breakdown arguments to their essence; particularly on the issue of pre-existing conditions, which is really one of the fundamental agreements of the healthcare debate. Because really, once you agree that pre-existing conditions should not bar people from being able to buy into health insurance and that the amount they pay should be capped at a certain percentage above the normal rate, then you're suggesting that government get into healthcare all the way. I don't think that point was stressed enough.

Louise Slaughter (D-New York)- Pro- Very passionate. Con- A little crazy

Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)- Cornboys! Another example of someone who had trouble defending the bill on the table. Essentially, he made a case for single payer coverage, but then tried to tie it to the bill on the back-end. And I have no clue where he was going with that whole insurance/segregation thing.

Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia)- Such a flopper, one minute he's for the public option moral imperative, next he isn't. Rambled on and on to the point where Obama had to cut him off. Just not a very inspiring figure.

Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee)- Shame, I thought she'd bring a bit of Bachmann to the proceedings, instead it was just your standard government takeover rhetoric.

Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin)- The star of the GOP right now; the man's got some chops. The only one who can stand up intellectually with Obama, at times he had him absolutely stumped. Last week I read over his long-term plan on entitlements, and while I do not agree with it, at the very least he's relatively honest in saying that benefits will have to be cut if taxes aren't raised. He's much stronger on the general deficit than he is on the However, he voted for Medicare Advantage and he needs to repudiate that as strong as he repudiates the current plan. One other note; one thing that I like about the Republican party is that they are a bit quicker in allowing young people to rise in the ranks of the party. Cantor is the whip, Ryan has become one of their top policy guys. I mean the cream usually rises to the top, so a man with the political talent of Obama can run for President, but if Obama had stayed in the Senate he'd be a back bencher for years before getting an opportunity to become a leader. Now, the actual leaders for both parties in the House and Senate are pretty weak (I'd rank them Pelosi, McConnell, Hoyer, Boehner, and Reid strictly on their leadership abilities), but I just think the Democrats would be better served if they had some of their young guns in more prominent roles.

Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma)- And right back to the crazies. Coburn is another one of those big time entitlement champions, but never

Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)- I can never figure him out. Sometimes he seems like he's part of the small intellectually honest Republican contingent and sometimes he's as demagogic and misleading as the worst of them. And sometimes he champions causes for some unknown reason (huge opposition to physician owned hospitals, opposition to tax-exemptions). One thing I do like about him is that he's genuinely intellectually curious; I smiled when he said he relished the opportunity to learn so much about our healthcare system. His speech was mostly a wash though.

Henry Waxman (D-California)- And another wasted opportunity for giving a coherent speech on the merits of the bill. Did the majority of the Democrats come unprepared? Now, that's different from saying that the Dems have better arguments than Republicans. But it just seems like they barely attempted to play any defense. Waxman was in-line with the rest of them, never getting into the meat of why this bill is a good thing.

Dick Durbin (D-Illinois)- Maybe it's the Chicago water or just the way they play politics there, but the two most impressive Democrats today were both from Illinois. I sincerely hope that Durbin beats Schumer for majority leader when Harry Reid finally gets ousted. He's strong and consistent and is very good at crafting narratives. Plus he's really one of the only top Dems that is a natural and charismatic speaker. Either him or Biden should have been the number 2, rather than Pelosi and Reid.

I faded out a bit after that, and only caught a little bit of the rest of the speeches and the closing. Overall my verdict is one of a slight Democratic win, which I guess is how it was supposed to end up in the first place. Insofar as the Democrats were trying to shame the Republicans in their recalcitrance they failed at that. And if the Republicans thought that they could slow the Democrats or force them away from going it alone I think they also failed. Insofar as it matters, the best Democrats (Obama, Durbin, Biden) were far better than the best Republicans (Ryan, Cantor, Grassley) and the worst Republicans were godawful(Boehner, Coburn, Alexander). It should be enough to give the Democrats cover for reconciliation, now the question is do they use it?

But that's the political calculus. From a policy perspective, the bills are better than the status quo and certainly better than the Republican package of ideas, but to me they're still logically incoherent and not going to be nearly enough in the long-term. You can't fully make the moral health care coverage argument because you're forcing people to buy coverage rather than creating a mechanism to provide it for them. The fiscal argument is their primary argument, but it feels logically convoluted and a bit like a sleight of hand (cutting Medicare to fund other entitlements). But we'll see what ends up happening and whether or not this political theater actually matters.

The Beautiful Games

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a HUGE HUGE sports fan. Baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer, if it's two sides competing in an athletic endeavor, I will definitely watch it and try my best to understand the nuances involved. I'll sit down and watch no matter the era, no matter the style of play- low-scoring, high-scoring, no-scoring, the thrill of the competition always excites me and keeps me coming back.

Lately though, I've been thinking about sports, and particularly team sports, from an aesthetic perspective- sports divorced from the goal of winning, sports simply as a form of entertainment. I started thinking about this while reading about the current plight of the NBA. The NBA, for those who haven't been following, is in a bit of a slump- teams are having a hard time selling tickets to games, there's news of upcoming labor strife, and there's a perception, fair or unfair, that the professional game is too selfish, too boring, guys don't try until the last five minutes, and to thuggish. It's almost hard to believe, because growing up, it looked the NBA was on a path of permanent ascension, propelled by Michael Jordan to unimaginable heights that could only get higher. His popularity and the fanaticism that his celebrity generated lifted the entire league to the point where I thought it was only a matter of time before basketball became the most popular sport in the country. The effect was only magnified in the Black community where basketball was the absolute king and people thought I was weird because my favorite sport was baseball.

That all seems like such a long time ago now; even with the popularity of Lebron James and Kobe Bryant, there's just not enough interest in the league for it to sustain itself in its current form. Basketball's challenge to baseball as the second most popular sport in the country is pretty much over. Now I don't agree with people who find the current brand of basketball to be boring- those who stopped watching after Jordan retired have missed some really good basketball, particularly in the last 3 or 4 years. But in the world of entertainment, perception is reality and it got me thinking- from an entertainment perspective, what is the optimal style of play for the the five major North American sports?

Now, simplistically, I could just say that it's the style of play that is most conducive to entertainment is the style of play that is most conducive to scoring. In general offense, particularly for casual fans, is much easier to understand and higher scoring gives the spectator a greater sense of action. Defense is a bit more nuanced. However, I'm not sure it's necessarily as simple as high scoring equals fun. To give one example, suppose an NBA team averaged 120 points per game, but scored almost all of their points by isolating their best player at the top of the key and having the other four players stand around doing nothing. Is that truly the optimal style of play that maximizes the sport from an entertainment perspective? Or would fans be willing to sacrifice more scoring for an offense that got everyone involved and was full of cuts, screens, ball movement, as well as a few isolations?

For the next few days then, I'm going to write about what I think are the optimal styles of play, from an entertainment perspective, for baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and soccer. First up is the sport I know most about and the one that I've pondered this question for the longest baseball. Til then!

Schools and Snitches

Oh what am I going to do when Bill Moyers goes off the air? I cannot think of another journalist who has such a variety of guests and such creativity in topic choices. Hopefully, PBS has started to groom a replacement for him, or at least start to produce an analagous program that can capture the attention and imagination the way Moyers does. There isn't a better journalist to watch on Sunday morning with a cup of coffee than him.

Moyers' guest two Friday's ago was a man named George Mortenson, a humanitarian who, for the past 20 years, has worked to build schools in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan, primarily for the education of women. It was pretty fascinating learning about the success he's had in his endeavors, even with all of the setbacks, even with (or perhaps because of) the attention deficit disorder our country has when it comes to that region of the world. My roommate and I were up late last night talking about the merits of optimism when it comes to large scale, decades long projects and about having a collective sense of what is possible given the constraints people we describe as humanitarians operate under. Watching people like George Mortenson makes that sense of optimism I'm always trying to harbor a worthwhile endeavor.

I've been thinking alot lately about Afghanistan, because I was anxious to see what kind of strategy President Obama would persue in the country, to see whether or not he'd deploy troops in great numbers and whether he'd fear being painted as soft on national security, something Democrats are always scared of (Moyers piece on the deliberation of President Lyndon Johnson as being analagous to President Obama's is a must see by the way). Initially, I was very much against an increase in troop deployment, which is why President Obama's ultimate decision was very disappointing. However, after listening to Mortenson and thinking about the various alternatives, deployment of troops, if, and only if they understand that they are there for protection, and not for a true military victory, which isn't really possible anyway. Instead, our primary mechanisms for combating terrorism and making sure the country is not a safe harbor should be a two-pronged strategy I'd like to title "Operation SNS," or Operation Schools and Snitches.

John Kerry was blasted during the 2004 election because he said that the "War on Terrorism" should be fought primarily through police action rather than military action, but I think he was on to something. The Taliban should be treated primarily like organized crime rather than a true military. The best way to combat organized crime then, is to get in good with the populace, train police officers who are part of the population. People know a lot more than they let on and citizens on some level must be willing to talk to the people who are charged with their protection. We tend to make fun of people who talk to the police, what with "Stop Snitchin," and depictions of police as pigs, and we certainly have problems with the police today (that's for another discussion though) but a functioning civil society needs a relatively trustworthy force capable of both respecting rights and imposing some knid of order. Of course, because of the weaponry that the Taliban possesses, there will always have to be a military component to our efforts in Afghanistan, but it's just so much easier for a police officer to blend in than a vested up, semi-automatic rifle touting soldier and it's easier to talk to them also.
As for the second prong, it's a bit more self-explanatory. Education is the cornerstone of a vibrant civic life and although it takes a lot of time in order for it to bear fruit, it tends to build a foundation that lasts. The closer Afghanistan can get to universal education, the better that foundation will be and less tolerance people will have for a group that cannot deliver on anything real.
One final point. Mortenson said that although he would have preferred no new troop deployments over anything else, he was glad that the ultimate decision was not pulling out troops with more targeted bombings, which would only exacerbate the problem. With heightened casualties though, there's a lot of political pressure to garrison our troops instead of having them out in the populace. That may also make things worse, just some food for thought.

Injury Report: Entire Colt's Defense Out Two Week with Hurt Feelings

For the past month and a half, I've been living in a hotel way out in California for work. And one of the perks of living in this particular hotel (besides free breakfast seven days a week, free dinner four days a week, racking up Hilton points and people making my bed and giving me fresh towels) is that I get the USA Today delivered at my doorstep. I don't read the paper much anymore, I get most of the things I need online, and the USA Today is to news as McDonalds is to meals, but it's just nice to have something delivered every morning on your doorstep, as if I was living in a true home or something.

Or at least it was. I got up early this morning because I'd fallen asleep before I could do my laundry. I'm walking out with my bag of clothes and look down to see the USA Today at the foot of my door, like it always is. The headline is something about tainted cafeteria lunches in our schools, alarmist no doubt, but something I might look at later. On the top left corner there's a small headline about Sunday nights, Colts-Patriots games that made me do a double-take- "Colt's D Felt Disrespected By Play-Call!" What!!!

If you're not a sports fan, what they're refering to is the Patriots going for it on 4th and 2 with 2 minutes left deep in their own territory. Punting the ball is conventional wisdom in that scenario and it's pretty much what every team would do. Only the Patriots didn't, thinking that getting the first down on 4th and 2 would ice the game. Only they failed (controversially) and the Colts went on to score the game winning touchdown. Belicheck was destroyed in the press and on TV for his decision, for everything from being too arrogant to showing no faith in his defense.

I personally do not think it was a bad call. The numbers are actually with Belicheck in the situation, about 60% of 4th and 2's are successfully converted, and I think it's always good to challenge your offense in those situations. I like aggressive play-calling, and I think in the long haul it helps to win games. But conventional wisdom is hard to break, especially in athletics, which is steeped in tradition and has long been a bastion of conservatism, both on and off the field. So I understand why people took Belicheck to task even though I don't agree with it.

But the Colts D saying they felt disrespected! That is beyond stupid; it's almost like an Onion headline. In fact, it's pretty similar to this headline from last week. They felt disrespected because the Patriots wanted to go for the win in that situation, because they went for it on 4th down? Isn't that what teams are supposed to do? Offenses try to get yards, defenses try and stop them, that's it. There's not respect or disrespect in that. Did the defensive line feel disrespected everytime the Patriots ran a running play? "Oh, they don't think we can stop a draw play, we'll show them!" I bet Bob Sanders feels disrespected everytime they throw in his direction, because you know, that's saying he can't defend a pass. In fact, the Patriots even stepping on the field is disrespect to the Colt's defense, since the Patriots offense is explicitly saying that they believe that they can score on them. Think about this Colts D- maybe Belicheck wasn't disrespecting you, maybe he was respecting your Hall of Fame quarterback, not wanting to put the ball in his hands with the game on the line. Or even better, maybe he was RESPECTING his Hall of Fame quarterback, the one that convinced him to go for it, the one that shredded up your defense pretty good for most of the night, the one that he's been to four super bowls with and won three championships. Either the Colts defensive players are the most sensitive group of people in the Western Hemisphere, or the whole "disrespect" thing that athletes always shout about, has gone way way too far, to the point where its as much a cliche as "taking it one game at a time" or "no one believed in us."
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On another note, I want to emphasize one thing, timing aside, 4th down is JUST ANOTHER DOWN. Yeah, in many situations you punt because you're worried about giving up the ball in prime territory, but you don't have to punt and in many situations it's probably best not to. You make your decisions based on whether or not you think it will win you a game. I will say this: in football, the most important posession you have are your four downs (like in baseball your most important posession is outs). Conventional wisdom in football, because of the natural risk-aversion of coaches, is that you almost always give one of those downs away. But that means giving away your most prized posession freely; it's not that teams should ALWAYS go for it, but that the decision, particularly in the "maroon zone" shouldn't be as automatic as people suggest.

Break Up the Yankees Part 1

My favorite sportswriter, Joe Posnanski, wrote a blog post about the tremendous financial advantage the Yankees have and how that financial advantage translates into a payroll that absolutely dwarfs every other team in the entire league (including the second place Red Sox). As a result, the Yankees are a team of all-stars that can, if not win the championship every year, at least dominate the regular season and always have a chance at the end of the year to play for the title. Even last year, when they missed the playoffs, the Yankees tied with the White Sox and Twins for the fourth best record, and most surely would have made the playoffs had they played in the AL Central. In the post, Joe doesn't come up with any solutions (which disappointed me a little), but just puts the question out there for discussion, after laying out how truly monumental the Yankees payroll is. The discussion that ensued was very vibrant, at times heated, but genuinely informative. I had a hard time arranging my thoughts so I didn't comment on it then. I'll try my best to do it now.

I remember back in 2000, the Yankees had just won their third straight championship and fourth in five years. I just kind of figured that the Yankees would go along winning championships for the rest of my adolescence. Cries for higher luxury taxes, salary caps, anything to stop the Yankee menace, were at a fever pitch, on sports pages and from the mouths of every non-Yankee baseball fan. Bud Selig was on top of his milk crate talking about how small market teams just could not compete in this environment, that some teams might even need to be contracted from the league.
At the time, I was in complete agreement with the proponents for a salary cap. A burdgeoning fan of a small market team (Milwaukee Brewers) I thought the competitiveness of my favorite team and the very survival of my favorite sport was at stake. The only way to fix it, it seemed, was to make sure that no team could spend more than a certain amount of money. I had a friend who was a big Yankees fan in high school, I use to always tell him his teams championships were tainted because they were bought rather than earned. I went into the 2001 postseason scared as ever that the Yankees would win yet another World Series.
Only something happened, something glorious to quiet all us small market fans, the Yankees stopped winning championships. They lost the World Series to the Diamondbacks in 2001 (Game 7 was one of the happiest moments of my life). Lost in the ALDS to the Angels in 2002, lost in the World Series in the Marlins to 2003, lost to Red Sox in the ALCS in 2004, lost to the Angels in the ALDS in 2005, lost to the Tigers in the ALDS in 2006, lost to Indians in the ALCS in 2007. Didn't even make the playoffs in 2008. The Yankees were spending more and more money, their payroll reaching ungodly levels, but since they weren't winning championships, not too many people cared. If anything, they became something of a punchline- the best team money could buy, only they couldn't win when it counted. Countless stories were written about how the free agents they signed for megabucks, men like Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi, and especially, Alex Rodriguez, weren't "true Yankees" and didn't have the heart to win a championship.

Of course it was all ridiculous, the Yankees were still winning tons of games, still scoring tons of runs, still dominating the regular season year in and year out like few teams ever have. Pretty much every Yankee team from 2001 to today has been better than the 2000 champions. But baseball on any given day is a crapshoot, much more so than the other major team sports, and that counts double for playoff baseball. The baseball season is long because it takes a much larger sample size to separate the good teams from the bad. Even the worst baseball teams win 40% of their games (equivalent to a 33 win basketball team or a 6 win football team), and even the best teams only win 60% (49 win basketball team or a 10 win football team). Give me a sample size of 16 games and I can make just about any team in baseball have the best record in the league, depending on the dates chosen. To think that we could determine what team from a best of 5 and two best of 7 series in a sport like baseball is ridiculous. But here are the Yankees, back on top of the "world" again, and the conversation turns to how to stop the team from leveraging its advantage to winning all of the championships. But the thing is, nothing's really changed. This conversation should have stayed front and center throughout the entire decade, because the Yankees were still the best in the area where the best teams are truly determined, the regular season. The only difference is that this time they weren't quite lucky enough to get through the playoffs unscathed.

I guess one other thing is different too, I've started to care less, or at the very least had a chance to see the situation from a more nuanced point of view. There are plenty of owners who are far richer than the Steinbrenners (including the owner of the Royals who happens to have a share of the Walton families riches), plenty of owners who take the luxury tax or shared revenue money and pocket it instead of spending it on player development and salaries. Many of the teams that say they can't compete don't even really try to and are perfectly content with putting a losing product on the field if only to make sure that their income statement looks pretty. I would rather see a salary minimum before a salary cap, see what will happen if teams had to put more effort in assembling a competitive roster. As a fan, I don't care too much about inherent advantages. I think it's logical that a team in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago has an advantage over a team in Milwaukee. Flattening the advantages some is cool with me, but I also don't think we should do away with them. My expectations are that the ownership group will try its best to build a quality team with the resources that it has. I don't think I'm owed a playoff spot every year or even the hope of one. It comes with the territory of being a fan of a small market team, and I do think that there are ways in baseball to compete under the current system.

But that doesn't change the fact that many fans see this as a huge problem and in the case of entertainment that's all that matters. The fans see the Yankees buying their way into the playoffs every year and see the entire system as unfair. And as long as that is the perception then it's going to be a problem, something that MLB has to address.

Is there a solution to the problem? I think it truly depends on what is truly the primary concern. Is it having a number of different champions every year? Baseball already does a pretty good job of that, the crapshoot nature of the sport makes it so that a hot team has a good chance of winning a championship in any given year. To give even more teams a chance to win a championship, they could open the playoffs to more teams. Baseball opens its playoffs to a lower percentage of teams than any of the major sports, but I there would be plenty of people crying foul saying that the regular season would be even more diluted (people howled when the wild card was implemented).
Or they could shorten the regular season enough to where a fluke team can get in with greater frequency. If a larger sample size separates the good (i.e. high payroll) teams from the bad teams, then a smaller sample size would make there be less separation. But, itt would mess with all kinds of season and career records, and no one would want that.

Is the primary concern competing for a playoff spot? If that's the case, then I think the only real problem area is the AL East, where there are two teams (Boston and New York) that have a confluence of many advantages that make it hard for the other three teams in the division to compete (large media market, ownership groups willing to spend, populations with high incomes, rich history and tradition that stretches back over 100 years). I truly don't think that teams in divisions other than the AL East have a too much of an argument that they can't compete.*

Let's take the teams that haven't made the playoffs in a decade in the other divisions- Kansas City and Texas in the AL; Washington, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati in the NL.

Texas: Up and coming team, and actually had a better record than either of their; they made the playoffs three straight years in the mid to late 90's. Their only problem is that Tom Hicks can't or won't pay his bills.

Kansas City: Hasn't made the playoffs since 1985, but they have a very wealthy owner. The only truly big market team they have to compete against is the White Sox, the second favorite team in a football town. Minnesota and Cleveland are able to compete with those teams just fine. Kansas City has no excuse but their own bumbling, cheapskate owner.

Washington: Special circumstances, didn't have an owner, moved from Canada. Give them a few more years to try and build a fanbase and team

Pittsburgh and Cincinnati: Call it the curse of Barry Bonds and the curse of Davey Johnson. All I know is, if Milwaukee can compete in that division, then any team can. It's a shame what terrible ownership has done to these once proud baseball towns.

Finally, is the primary concern simply think that no team should have a payroll so far in excess of the other teams, whether or not the Yankees won 13 consecutive championships with the highest payroll or spent the last decade losing 100 games a year with the highest payroll. I'm not convinced by the fairness argument (why care about fairness in something as trivial as sports), but I think that many people would put their Yankee opposition under this tent. The people who are most concerned about this are in favor of a salary cap. I'm not, or rather, I think that there's a way to get the features of a salary cap without having a salary cap, and I think, that, along with other solutions will help to flatten some of the advantages that big markets have without taking them away. But that's for my next post......

Fractional Earned Runs

So lately I've been doing a lot of reading about our monetary system, and specifically, criticism of fractional reserve banking and comparisons between fiat money and the gold standard. I'm certainly not a gold bug, I think that the transition back to the gold standard would cause so much harm that even if all of its supposed advantages were true it still would be a bad idea. But it's pretty fascinating to gather information on the subject, and some of their critiques have made me reconsider some of my positions.

All of this focus on fractional reserve got me thinking as I was watching the end of the Angels-Red Sox game. Jonathan Papelbon came into the game and the two commentators were going on and on about how Papelbon has never given up an earned run in his postseason career. And that's true- under baseball's rulebook, Jonathan Papelbon, up until that game, had never given up a postseason run. But without discounting Papelbon's dominance, that has just as much to do with one of baseball's archaic rulebook. The rules stats that once a runner reaches base he is the responsibility of the pitcher he reached against, regardless of whether or not another pitcher is the one that allows him to score. And I find that grossly unfair.

If a pitcher allows a leadoff single and gets lifted for a relief pitcher and the relief pitcher allows a home run, why should the first pitcher bear the full weight of the runner on first. He didn't allow him to score, he allowed him to get a single, the relief pitcher allowed him to get the other three bases. Many people have commented on this before, but why not have a fractional run system, with each base counting 1/4 of a run. Under a fractional run scenario, the first pitcher would get charged 1/4 of a run for allowing the first hitter to get a single and the relief pitcher would be charged 1 3/4 runs for allowing the base runner to advance three additional bases and for the four bases he gave up to the batter. It makes so much sense, sharing the responsibility between pitchers, and it's not like the math is hard or anything. All it does is make starting pitchers look worse and relief pitchers look better. But alas, in the end, Papelbon finally gave up a postseason run and the Red Sox will be watching the rest of the playoffs like me (only with nicer tv's I suppose).

3 Days in Zion

The counter woman and waitress brings me my tray, on top of which sits a greasy mushroom swiss burger, a smattering of onion rings, and a cup of Sprite. Just the sight of it makes my stomach churn, and thoughts of late night heartburn rushes dance inside my head. But hunger will make a man do crazy things, make him decide to get a burger at a rundown Dairy Queen with exactly zero customers, make his head not notice the Applebee's across the street with the special on cheesburger sliders. I bite into the burger, the swiss cheese is a bit old, the bun is a bit hard, and the mushrooms are a bit slimy. The onion rings aren't much better, cooked in finely aged oil no doubt; at least that explains how they could be both crispy and soggy all at once. And for the trifecta, the Spire tasted terrible, but I couldn't figure out whether it was because there was syrup stuck to the spigot or the bittersweet taste was from earlier in the delivery process. And as I hurriedly scarfed down my subpar fast food, all I could think was about how much I loved my job.

Just a few days ago I was sitting at my desk inputting some data into a spreadsheet, or researching some kind of hospital company. And here I was today, eating some crappy food in some small town in Illinois, with sreets named Ezekiel, and Jeremiah, and Isaiah, knocking on peoples doors, getting to have conversations with people who do healthcare work for a change. I don't really think any other job I could have can match this one for pure variation. Go to Illinois and meet with hospital executives, go to Wisconsin and work on a historic election campaign, have a sit down with a guy running for state treasurer, go to Florida and meet with hospital workers, monitor finance authorities. And as I finished my burger and walked out towards my blue PT Cruiser, 7 more hours of door knocking ahead of me, I couldn't help but think about how much I'd miss it when I was done.

I'm sitting at Denny's early the next morning, hungry because I didn't eat dinner. Ordered a denver omelette with all the good sides, heavy on the coffee, halfway through my second cup already. Directly in front of me are two old men, chatting about some kind of good old days, a slight hint of a stereotypical Italian-American accent from one of them, a strong Mid-Western accent from the other.
"And I tell ya, there ain't too much of us left. The stories I got, me and Rico," said the one with the Italian accent.
The Midwest guy nodded, "Yeah I know, they should get somebody to write all this stuff down,"
"I'm tellin ya, there's nothin like the good old days. Man, we use to do so many deals."
And he proceeded to tell stories, stories about shady real estate deals in Chicago, ins he had with the mayors office. Tales about how some of his buddies ran the numbers rackets, use to fence stolen goods, how he had to make a million dollar cash run for this guy who hid his money in the floor boards. His buddy Rico would steal anything not nailed to the floor and half of the things that were. I guess those were the days. I just listened closely and drank my coffee, my head halfway down, less they think I was an informant or something. I wanted to get up and tell them that I'd write their story, call it "Those Were the Days: Looting, Shooting, and Wholesale Corruption in Daley's Chicago." And I'd price it at 19.99, and we'd sell the damn things like Snuggies, and we'd be instant millionaires. But I wouldn't dare get up. Instead, they finished up their coffee, paid their tab and walked out. I did the same shortly afterward; then I went to Target to buy some socks.
************************************************************************
I never really noticed, but damn there are a LOT of small towns in the US. Places with 10,000, 5,000, 2,000 people. Places where the highlight is a Monday night ride to the skeet shotting range, where the roads are still sand and gravel, and the airports have Cessna's instead of 737's. Rode past this one community plopped down in the middle of a cornfield, like it had taken a ride on Dorothy's tornado and fallen out of the sky. I tend to forget sometimes that these places exist, to me they're random exits on the side of the freeway. It's good that I get a chance to visit for work sometimes, because I wouldn't otherwise.

Freelancer

And so begins my last week in New York for three whole months, with a plate of Puerto Rican food and a pint of some bittersweet Black Sheep Ale watching the late afternoon football games and monitoring the progress of my fantasy football team (go Union Thugs! 2-0 baby). Starting September 28th through December 31st (at least) I'll be in the Bay Area for work. Luckily, I'll be staying in an apartment instead of in and out of hotels, at least after the first week.

There was this computer game I wanted when I was like 16, Freelancer, where you play a cargo runner/soldier of fortune of sorts, who takes on various missions in order to amass a fortune, upgrade your ship, and achieve a certain level of status and reputation throughout the galaxy. I was big into gaming, then or now, so I didn't know that it was a very highly anticipated game, all I knew was that the concept was attractive to me, and for more than just entertainment. That air of independence, even if it truly is a facade, is so appealing. At its core, it's not necessarily a world devoid of attachments, but it does mean being attached to people and institutions almost completely on your own terms. At it's worst it's completely insular and more than a little bit immature, particularly when it's applied to relationships to people rather than relationships to institutions. What's more it clashes with any kind of sense of loyalty, a sense of community, and it's impractical if you want to establish any kind of relationship long-term.

So I guess the best thing to do is to get it in the small of doses that you can, which is why I'm always so game to go when my job wants me to travel. Maybe it's my Navy brat upbringing, but I start to get the shakes whenever I stay in one place too long. Although I'm firmly attached to my job, for a little while I can feel or pretend that I'm doing something for myself. And when those days come where I got that lawn and the mortgage I can tell my kids about my days sweltering in a Miami hotel getting stood up in a Coral Gables hospital or running down the streets of west Chicago or three months living on the eastside of the San Francisco Bay. Just my small bit of the independent life before I did what was good for me.

Socrates Reprised

It was one of those hot nights, air was like sticky and sweet, the kind that puts beads of sweat on your forehead, the kind that makes you want to get out of the house before you slowly melt. Don't know if it was a coincidence, but it just so happened that I wanted to see this one Italian film, "Gomorrah," at Socrates, a sculpture park about ten blocks west of me on the border of the East River. It's funny because about year ago today something similar happened. I'd just moved to New York, a bit lonely, bored out of my mind, and the apartment I was living in felt like And Socrates was playing 8 1/2 by Federico Fellini. And since I had no one to go with, I went by myself. I guess it was some kind of theme night, because they had a stand serving meatballs and eggplant, pasta, and cannolis for desert, and some of the best coffee I've ever had. In front of the screen they had some band playing some Nino Rota lite, soothing enough to drink some coffee to. But mostly I remember when the film started sitting on the grass in my shorts because I forgot to bring a blanket, looking around at the people with their companions and dogs, wine bottles and glasses, french bread, fruit, and cheese. Throughout the crowd I saw only one other person by themselves, a Black lady in her late 20's with a red and yellow scarf wrapped around dreads that went down to her shoulders, looking even lonelier than I felt. But at least she'd brought a blanket to sit on. I started to get cold as the wind blew off the river, but there's nothing like sipping coffee to warm you up while watching a film in a language you can't understand.

Round 2, and this time I went alone again. Walked down that same streets, past the same guys playing soccer on artificial turf, past the same oily taxi repair shops. Past the blue and metal paneled diner that I loved to eat at but always made my stomach cramp. Except this time, I had a bag with me, this time I remembered to bring some food and a blanket. Turkey sandwich with swiss cheese and mustard and two beers, Brooklyn Lager and Brooklyn East India Pale Ale, not cabernet sauvignon and brie exactly, but more filling, and I needed something to differentiate myself from everyone else. When I walked in I saw all the same things that I had last time. There was a line for meatbalss and cannolis, the same band playing the theme from the Godfather, the same people with their dogs and wine. And I took my place, pretty close to where I was last year, the same awkward spot where the ground starts to slope backwards and the grass is mostly dirt. I've kind of had that feeling for a while now though, feeling of sameness, stagnation. Maybe next time I could bring somebody or something, spice it up a bit (getting people to come out to Queens though?)

The movie itself was pretty boring, more concerned with the filming technique than with story development (and it was shot very well, capturing the grit of Italy, a country that in many parts sits on the brink of third world status). The tryptophan and beer did it's job though and I fell asleep for most of the last quarter of the movie, and at least I had a blanket to sleep on.

Chili Dawgs Still Bark at Midnight

I don't know if it was the howling mutts wrapped in hot dog buns or the bewildered look on Lewis Grizzard's face as he stares up at that smiling moon, his eyes guarded by those unimaginably dorky glasses band across the top of the frames (my father had a pair), but I was completely fascinated by this dusty pocket-sized paperback my dad had near his military duffel bag. Don't really know why, but I knew that I had to read it- in my eyes it was absolutely adult, without being too academic like the books they forced me to read in school. I took it from my father's room and read the whole damn thing in one sitting.

Looking back, I can only vaguely remember reading it. Only a few of the stories really stood out, one about televangelist and one about Kentucky Fried Chicken, but a the time, it was something special, a foray into a world that I'd known very little about. Grizzard was a southerner through and through, at a time when I was Even without remembering most of the stories, I do remember that I enjoyed his irreverence and his varied sense of humor.

The strange thing is that I'm quite certain that if Grizzard was alive and writing today, I would absolutely despise him. To me, he represents everything that is wrong with old-time sportswriters and conservative southerners, namely, their stubborness and dogmatism, their inability to empathize with anyone, and mostly their hypocrisy. Grizzard was married three times, and yet he was a purported traditionalist when it came to values. He wasn't a religious man per se, instead he was just someone who was incredibly sure that the society he grew up in was right- or if not that, then at least good enough to survive an assault from a more modern world.

I've talked before about cities that represent a specific time and place in America's history. For the 60's, or at very least the late 60's, that city was Haight-Ashbury/Summer of Love San Francisco. The late 70's to early 80's was the Son of Sam's New York. It's a bit tougher to choose for the 1980's, but I think that Lewis Grizzard's Atlanta would be as good a city as any to choose. Atlanta started to flex its muscles in the 1980's- it was still a defiantly Southern town, with Southern sensibilities, but with success comes changes and transplants, and a confrotation between the values of the people who And it was that disappearnce of that old South that Grizard was decrying. A South that didn't take itself too seriously when dealing with each other, but one that also became hyper defensive when their problems were pointed out. A place of purported family values that nonetheless winked, nodded, or turned a blind eye towards the inclination that much of their population had towards the seven deadly sins.

White Southerners have a lot more in common with Black people then they think. Most of their history has been spent feeling or being inferior, at least by the common social and economic metrics we use to measure such things. Sooner or later though, a culture begins to develop around that feeling of inferiority, and while I think it is certainly generalizing, I think white southern culture reveled a bit in its informality, its more overt displays of masculinity and femininity, and its emphasis on a principled value system (no matter how many times those principles were violated). Yeah you Northerners may have more money and better education, but we sure know how to have a good time. A professor of mine in college, during a lecture on the antebellum South, talked about how important the culture of honor was, and I think that it's importance, while not as strong, still lingers to this day. I also think you can see remnants of this in the modern Republican party, both envigorated and imprisoned by its value system. And that's what Grizzard's book, admittedly in hindsight, represents for me. It's probably very hard for people to think of a Lewis Grizzard book as an example of the frustration, anxiety, hatred, and humor with which Southern white people dealt with the makings of the "New South," but for me it definitely is.

New Gotham

Thank God for indigestion- the hamburger crowned America's best burger by "Good Morning America" did not agree with me falling asleep too long and my stomach did all types of somersaults at 3am. Reminds me of that Lewis Grizzard book I found in my dad's room when I was 11; I guess burgers wait a little bit longer before they start to bark (I want to write about that book sometime). But I was fortunate really that I'd woken up when I did. In my pursuit to meet a college classmate for a fine slice of Kobe beef, I'd completely forgotten to pick up some deodarant and a pair of black socks that I needed for the meeting tomorrow. (In my defense, the burger, which was good but far from America's best, was topped with a healthy chunk of brie. The taste of brie and burger is interesting enough to fool someone into thinking that the burger is America's best).

After finding out where the nearest Walgreen's was, I stumbled out of my downtown Chicago hotel onto the quiet streets. A comforting quiet really, not an eery quiet, interrupted by idling municipal trucks parked next to a manhole, men in their white jumpsuits suspended by rope lowered deep into the dark sewer. I love the look of Chicago, I think it does a better job of blending old and new than any other city in the country. Chicago, at least in my mind, doesn't try to escape from its gritty past, in many ways it still looks like a souped-up 1920's gangster film. To this day, Al Capone would not look out of place crossing the river at La Salle. It's probably why Christopher Nolan decided to shoot "The Dark Knight" there rather than in New York. Obviously I wasn't here for New York during it's downtrodden heyday, but from the looks of things, it's far too glamorous, far too safe to be anyone's Gotham. It's commendable that the Dinkins and Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations did such a good job in cleaning up the city, cracking down on crime, destroying the Son of Sam and New Jack City, New York. But a good city for business and families and quality of life makes for a pretty lousy Gotham.

The sounds changed after I crossed the river. More cars, more lights, even the wind picks up its pace slightly. A Black lady walking on my side of the street but in the other direction hugged herself close. Her fingers nervously rubbed the side of her pink tank top. Her legs were long enough to last the whole summer and every nervous and wobbly step they took reminded me of a baby gazelle the moment before it's taken down by a pride of lions. She looked like she'd be tough enough, on her best days, to stand toe-to-toe with any motherfucker that dare cross her path, tonight tears framed the middle of her face. Past her, the unmistakable smell of urine and body odor and alcohol was strong enough to make my eyes water. I found the source when I got to the corner, a man in a dirty white shirt shuffled his way down Ontario, propped up only by the buildings on his left and the occasional wayward trash can on his right. I imagined that the first alley he found was where he'd call it a night.

One Power Vitamin Water, three pairs of black socks, a stick of Mitchum deodarant, six pencils, and two pens later I was on my way back home. On the other street corner, next to a two-story McDonald's I saw a group of maybe eight or nine people having a good time. I went over to get a closer look, maybe McDonald's at damn near 4am was the happenin spot downtown. Turned out to be two crazy guys talking to bronze statues of little kids. I decided to take a different way back, one that was just a little bit darker, to revel in the quiet just a little bit more. No cars at all this time, just the gentle wind, the subtle river, and the sound of my own footsteps. I love Chicago, but there's just no comparison between it and New York. The only way downtown would ever be this quiet, this lazy, was if a nuclear bomb went off on Canal Street. In the city at least, I could never imagine passing no one, on any street, at any time. Don't know if that's a good thing or not. I made it back to my hotel close to 5am, enough time for one hour of sleep and morning full of a whole bunch of coffee.

Living Off the Wall

When I first heard the news that Michael Jackson died I didn't think too hard about it. Sure I was sad that a person who made such great music and was so beloved by the world had fallen to such unthinkable depths, an agonizing crawl from the absolute height of worldwide fame that could ever be achieved by a human soul to the subject of near constant ridicule and scorn (even until the end though there was constant love). In many ways the person my parents and my older cousins knew growing up had been dead for damn near twenty years, replaced by something that looked very much like a ghost. As much as people my age hate to admit it or try to pretend otherwise (and by my age I mean anyone who was less than 3 when Thriller came out), we didn't really know who Michael Jackson was. By the time we were cognizant, he had already become something of a circus freak. Bad was released in 1987, a few days before I turned 1, and he'd already completely changed his color and his hair. He still made good music, but when I heard or thought about Michael Jackson during my formative years the negative ("I pledge allegiance to the flag, that Michael Jackson is a fag," the "In Living Color" send-up of the "Black or White" video, the child molestation charges) completely outweighed the positive (my cousins VHS of Moonwalker). Not to say that I wasn't completely entranced by the man, even as a little kid. I knew he was important, an outsized celebrity before I even knew what a celebrity was. When I took my test to get into kindergarten and the proctor told me to draw something, I drew Michael Jackson, albeit with an enormous head (anyone who remembers the Speed Demon video from Moonwalker might get why. Needless to say, they said I did not get into kindergarten). But I can't say that I really knew or loved Mike. Not the way my cousins can, not the way the people I saw at the Apollo can. I can love his music, his history and like to the greats from Motown's past, his undeniable genius and enormous talent surrounded by an equally undeniable pain. But his justfiable heyday as the biggest pop star this planet has ever known is an era that I just missed, and it would be dishonest if I mourned him as if I was a front-row spectator for the creation of a legend, when really, I just watched the re-run.

These past couple of days though as every car that passes blares "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" and every other track from his magnum opus out of half rolled down windows, I've found myself gravitating towards songs from "Off the Wall." It's not to be contrary, I enjoy "Thriller" just like everyone else. It's just that, for some reason, when I listen to "Off the Wall," I feel like I'm listening to Michael's last hope. It's well known that Michael was disappointed after the release of "Off the Wall." Although it was critically lauded, he felt that it hadn't been treated with respect by the Grammy's, and he vowed that it would never happen again. When he released "Thriller" he was a man on a mission, to become the biggest and richest pop star the world had ever known. And he did that, it took him three years, but he accomplished what he set out to do. But what was the ultimate cost? Everybody knows how well hindsight can see, but knowing how damaged Michael's psyche was, would it have been better for him and for his life had he not accomplished his ultimate goal? What if he'd been satisfied with the success of "Off the Wall" (and it was still uber-succesful, ultimately selling 7 million copies in the US and having four top ten hits)? "Off the Wall" sounds like pure joy a man has on gaining his independence. "Thriller" sounds like a man on a mission, and the man became ensnared and trapped by the consequences of that mission's successful completion for the rest of his life. My sister said to me that when she looks at a picture of a young Michael Jackson when he was with the Jackson 5, she wants to give him a hug and tell him everything is going to be okay. I want to walk up to the 21 year old Michael after "Off the Wall," won only one Grammy and tell him how great the album was. Maybe we wouldn't get "Thriller," but we also wouldn't get everything that came after it too. Rest in Peace Mike

The Heart of a Slacker

Back in 11th grade, when I was in pre-calculus, I had a teacher who'd give out homework every night. And every night after I came home from work, I wouldn't do it. I'd lay on the couch or watch something on TV or do something useless on the computer, anything but do my homework. There'd always be a rationalization, usually that 6 hours of pushing carts and cleaning up spills was so tiring that there was no way in hell that pre-calculus could get done. Besides, the work was so easy that I could start it in 2nd period general music class and finish as I was walking to third period. Only of course that's never how it worked out. I'd use my dear time in general music unsuccessfully trying to get with this one chick (who ironically I ended up dating a year and a half later) or laying my head down on one of the cold black music stands that I pulled over from the back of the classroom. So everyday, when my teacher would come around to collect the homework, I wouldn't have anything. And she'd look at my with such disappointment. And for the most part, I wouldn't care, figuring that I aced all my tests so at the very least I'd walk away with a B. But one day after class was dismissed, I was the last person left in the classroom. I was putting my notebook in my bag when my teacher walked up to me.
"Antonio, do you know what you're grade in my class is?"
I really didn't have any idea, hadn't really thought about it.
"Right now you have an 84. And you know what, you're capable of having a 104 if you'd just turn in your homework."
And the way she said it, her voice didn't match the look she'd always given me while collecting everyone elses papers. No, it wasn't that almost maternal disappointment she flashed so often, it was a look that bordered on disdain, as if she couldn't fathom a person such as myself. I was like a lazy bug on the bottom of her New Balances. And it was that look and only that look that got me to do my homework, or at least occasionaly. There were still plenty of days where I'd hand in nothing, but they were outnumbered by the ones that I did. Never got that 104, but a respectable 93 was all I could ask for.

Through my almost 23 years on this planet, I've had a lot of teachers disappointed in me, mostly for the same reasons that my pre-calculus teacher was. Like the mid-90's Mariners or the early 2000's Sacramento Kings, somehow the perceived talent never matched up with the finished product. The conclusion I've come to is that deep in my heart, I am a slacker. Now there's a difference between being a slacker and being lazy. I don't think I'm lazy, because laziness implies an unwillingness to work. It is still very possible to be a slacker and still give enough effort to succeed, to appear as if you're working hard and even have results which imply just as much. I think I fall nice and squarely into the latter category, even if only because of the sense of ambition that was driven into me from every adult that's ever meant anything to me in my life. But the ambition I have is also a result of an inherited ego that's way too large for me to be a grocery store philospher (I've known and worked with a few and I envy them). The traditional barometer of success is something that I believe in though, something that I am more than willing to adhere to, for completely vain-glorious reasons (marry a good woman, have a nice bit of money, and have people think of me as intelligent, interesting, and wise). Because truth be told, the best job I ever had was being the mid-day Drug/GM stocker at Kroger. I was the only person in the department, I got a chance to think, I read political magazines and complex novels on my lunch break, I got to interact with coworkers and customers when I wanted companionship, and I got to conveniently disappear when I didn't. If money was not an object, I'd really consider doing that for the rest of my life. Just because you love intellectual discussions and keep abreast on obscure current events doesn't mean you're a scholar. And I know that I'm not, but the expectation is that I should be.

City, Country, City

Listening to "City, Country, City" by WAR. Unfortunately I cannot find a link to the song. I'll have to put it on when I get home; they were one hell of a band!

I really think this song should be called, "Country, City, Country." It starts out so languid, tranquil even, the harmonica strong but lazy like a clear sunny day when you have nothing to do. Reminds me of the heat bearing down on me walking up a dry green hill, my feet stomping on grass that's been baked over twice. Only later does it get fast paced, country harmonica gives way to city saxophone. Not that smooth jazz urbane saxophone that frequents every R&B song from the late 80's. I'm talking an urban sax that jolts the senses, crashes into you like the unapologetic businessman checking his BlackBerry down 42nd Street. And just like that you head straight back, to the sun, to something so peaceful. It's hard to choose between the two sometimes and I'm not speaking in a metaphorical sense. My junior year of college I went to this conference where this guy, Peter Raven, talked about how apartment living would make the most economic and ecologic sense; that people would have more green space and be much mroe energy efficient if only we lived like people in say, Hong Kong. And that's true, and I want all that, it appeals to my logical sensibilities and any kind of vision that I have for the world. I want the culture and the subway, the pace and the people, everything that comes with living stacked high on top of millions of other people. But damn it if I don't want a big ass yard to mow and make more even than Steve Harvey's afro. And I want that big ass yard in front of a big ass house with a humongous den where I can hide from my family while watching a baseball game. Everything slowed down to a molasses drip; can absorb everything I love about being alone. All the green space to myself, as energy efficient as a 5-year old Hummer.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that the test of a first rate intelligence is to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. I wonder if holding diametrically opposed emotions gives one a first rate heart? The thing about Fitzgerald's quote is that I've always found it relatively easy to hold two opposing ideas; I'd argue that it wouldn't be worth having a brain really if you didn't. Rather than impeding my ability to function, debating two opposing ideas inside my head feels utterly liberating. This is certainly because the ideas I end up debating in my head are mostly superfluous. I'm not a lawyer or a judge or some kind of person who has any real responsibility. There are very few consequences to the ideas I play around with.
Emotions though, how you feel about something or someone, that's a lot harder. Whenever they're in conflict I find my entire body shutting down, losing the ability or the will to move, paralyzed by the way I feel or the idiotic things I've done. Maybe it's my body slowing down trying its best to allow my brain to catch up. Maybe if there's just a little more time I can make everything coherent again. I can live with cognitive dissonance when it involves something philosophical like a Supreme Court decision, or hate crimes legislation. But when there's a conflict about how you feel, the ultimate conclusion is that maybe you're not the man you thought you were, the one you pretend to be.

Adventures in Code Crossing

Sitting here listening to some kind of blend of Aretha Franklin's "Lady Soul," and Van Hunt's classically underrated eponymous first album.

I wouldn't say that it's happened a lot, but there have been a few people who have commented on the way that I talk in the past couple of months. Not the tone of my voice so much, as my vocabulary, my word choice. Being up in New York, I've had a few people comment that I talk like I'm from the South. And while I'm in the South it is generally understood that I am from somewhere up North. Not a full fledged Yankee mind you; maybe Philadelphia or something.

I guess it has a lot to do with fitting in; I've had to do it often- code switching it's called (learned that from an interdisciplinary class that had a foot in the linguistics department). Everyone code switches of course, whether you are moving from a formal setting to a more casual setting, or you are moving from a casual setting with family to a casual setting with friends, our way of speaking changes in marked as well as subtle ways depending on the situation. Code switching is not absolute though, it is impossible to completely change your style of speech. The markers that identify who you are, where you come from, the people you hang around, they always stay with you. When you're trying to fit in they come out subconsciously, sometimes in the most unfortunate situations (like when you're talking nervously trying to impress a suited-up civic leader, that's for another day though). Those who do it best usually can keep those slips to a minimum.

A far more common phenomenon, or at least something I know I do, is the intentional mixing of different styles of speech. I don't know exactly what to call it, but there has to be a term for it in some lingustics text book. For now, let's call it "code-crossing," using at least two separate styles of speech in conversation, at the same time, in order to signify both your insider and outsider status.

"Code-crossing" can be both an offensive and defensive mechanism; I shall give you examples for both.
For the first example, let's take a hard working young man who finds himself at university. And at this university, he takes a class, a class, perhaps, on inner city public school education. And furthermore, having gone to an inner city public school he finds himself surrounded by students who went to Gossip Girl style expensive private schools or at the very least elite public schools. Now, it is true, the young man could discuss the topic, inner city public schools, just like everyone else in the class, using the words and mannerisms and style of an educated man who more than holds his own at this particular institution of higher learning. And he does..... for the most part. But every so often, he puts in a few choice inflections, cuts off a few "g's" at the end of his sentences as he embarks on tales of the woeful inadequacy of his particular high school, a school that symbolizes the inequities within our society. Implicitly, he's saying that it is his right to dominate conversation on this topic. But it's not enough to show that he can hold his own, no, he has to shame his fellow classmates as well.
"Look at you, the advantaged children of the wealthy! I didn't have your advantages and yet we still ended up at the same place; you're pitiful. If I'd gone to (insert fancy private school) they would have named me Chancellor by now. Hang your head in shame!" Offensive code-switching is best used when a dash of outsider status confers some kind of expertise or authority.

Now, let's take the same young man, only this time, let's place him in an entirely different scenario. A fancy dinner, the kind with a bunch of different forks and glasses and courses (yes I know it's a more than a little cliche). Everyone is confidently eating and socializing, using the inner and outer forks correctly, while he has to look down at his hands and make the "d's" and "b's" to remember where his drink and bread goes. In order to save face, code-crossing can be very helpful in this instance also. This time though, it will signal that "Hey I'm an upwardly mobile young man, but back where I'm from, we didn't have all these crazy utensils and cloth napkins and such." Guaranteed to buy you two faux paus before the dinner is over.
The key with code-crossing is it has to be strong to where the message is definitely delivered, but subtle enough where it doesn't seem intentional. It can take years of practice, but with repetition and diligence, in the long run you'll be able to get the effect you're looking for.

Just a Thought About Dreams

To the conscious mind, dreams are pretty much random. I've had dreams about polar bears inside a funhouse, speaking naked at a debate tournament, and my brother getting hit by a car in Beaufort, years after we left, across the street from Alvin Ords because he was breakdancing in the middle of traffic. Anyway, all of those dreams and many more that I can remember had absolutely nothing to with what I'd been going through the days or even weeks before the dream occurred. Now, I'm certain that to my subconscious those dreams certainly did have something to do with my day/feelings/worries and interpreting them in such a fashion is always fun (I briefly tried to keep a dream log). Occasionally though, you have a dream that is incredibly topical, the kind where the moment after you wake up you sit up and let each concrete moment settle in your head- the bits and pieces that are hazy get swept into the dust bin, the most vivid parts taking over the narrative, gradually becoming a compelling story, one now more worthy of interpretation.

The thing about those dreams is that they touch you supernaturally, like an angel visiting softly in the night. Even the most vivid dreams are still ephemeral; in many ways they are the one outlet you have to the mysteries inside your head, the part of you that you have no control over. Topical dreams have helped me make decisions, helped me to appreciate the people I love, solidified my principles, and scared me half to death, much more so than the nightmares I use to have when I was little. At their best, the sense of mystery is awe-inspiring, at their worst completely nerve-wracking. I go through periods where my dreams are incredibly vivid; they strike without warning and last for only a short period of time. I wish I could go through one of them again, just for fun, just to give me something else to ponder when I'm bored with the life that I actually got.

Morning Coffee

So I'm by myself in my girlfriend's apartment, drinking coffee, reading the Atlantic. No matter how much I tell myself that I love the hustle and noise, the sounds of my neighborhood, the liveliness of the city, there's nothing nearly as peaceful to the mind as a quiet neighborhood early in the morning on a weekend. Part of it is being alone, part of it is that the people who live here are still fast asleep. Their children are in the living room watching cartoons and the only sounds I can hear besides my hand on the keyboard is the "pop" of a tennis ball awkwardly hitting a racket, and a few songbirds chirping as they chase each other from tree to tree. Maybe it's just the ability to concentrate more than I usually get a chance to. I guess it's connected to all those studies about light and noise pollution. The ways in which the end of night time and the end of tranquility has disrupted our circadian rhythms. Or something like that.
I know it's impossible to have it all three ways- to have the suburbs when I want memories of being a kid playing in the streets on base, the country when I want to be alone with my thoughts, the city when I absolutely crave the excitement. A guy can dream just a bit though.

Blogging Howlin Wolf: The Definitive Collection

I have been meaning to do this for some time, right after I did the live-blogging for Sketches of Spain. But alas, I just couldn't get another one out of me. Without further ado, here's my live-blogging of the incomparable Chester Arthur Burnett or as he's better known Howlin' Wolf

Moanin' at Midnight
The opening is famous- Wolf does his best impression of throat singing. The song is downright scary, but accessible enough to reach #10 on the charts. Simple lyrics but his voice is clearly the star. An auspcious start to an excellent career.

How Many More Years
Your standard jump blues really, both in subject matter (woman doggin him out, he's about to leave) and in style. Surprising that it was the biggest hit he had in his career, because he's had much better songs. Not to belittle it any, Wolf is great on the harmonica, but his singing on this song is just average, with none of the passion that he'd exhibit on later works. Sounds more like a rock and roll precursor than blues really. As a plus though, a pre wife-beating Ike Turner appears on the song.

Evil-
A song about another man sleepin with your woman, while you're out travelin, workin hard for her. Subject matter thoroughly covered by the blues I know, but it's still so well done. Willie Dixon sings lead on this song and he absolutely steals the show, at least in my opinion. Wolf's relegated to the chorus- which he also does very well on. He really stomps his feet into the "e" in evil, until it's twisted and mangled, like it went through a paper shredder on the way out his mouth. The piano is probably the most distinctive- this song has a more Willie Dixon-style to it even though it was written by Wolf- in the sense that it's sounds more like a pop blues song than some of Wolf's other more unique work.

Forty-Four
"I wore my fourty-four so long, it's made my shoulder sore." Changes up the subject matter slightly, about a man with a gun who has a bad case of wanderlust- a woman has to make an appearance (it wouldn't be the blues if it wasn't) but she's inconsequential to the ending. Instead, he pawns his gun for some money, hopefully to start a new life.
But what this song is actually about is the rhythm section, which really shows its muscles after hiding in the background the previous three three tracks. It all starts with the beautiful piano entrance about 18 seconds in, and then they add some bass and rolling drums to the concoction. Willie Dixon, for all his faults (and we'll get to those in a minute) really could play the bass, it really is the force behind this song. Well, him and Wolf's powerful voice, which is the first time he completely put its versatility on display since "Moanin at Midnight." It's impossible not to hear the southern gospel influences in his voice, it'd sit right along nicely on a Mahalia Jackson tune. And that right there, is the central contradiction of the blues. He's singing about a gun making his shoulder sore with the voice of a choir member (on second thought, maybe it's not such a contradiction).

Smokestack Lightnin
Probably the most famous song of his career, or at the very least the most famous song of his career that he wrote for himself. It wasn't his biggest hit (that was How Many More Years), but it did peak at #8, and in all honestly, it completely blows away that song (it's always good when a song is both an excellent track and becomes a hit, what happened to those days?). The subject matters is, what else, a do-wrong woman, but he doesn't come right out and say it, you're not really sure what smokestack lightnin is. The songwriting is sparse, a third of the words are just Wolf moanin', but I don't think he'd ever put more passion into anything he's done. It's at once dreary and sad, utterly distinctive, the verses aren't really verses, it's more like just a stream of accusatory questions between tormented moans. Like Bobby Womack, he's able to convey strength at the same time he conveys vulnerability. My favorite line is towards the end where he says- "Whoa, who been here baby since I, I been gone, a little bitty boy? Girl be on."
The rhythm section is really cooks again and it's a team effort, the underlying riff would be gorgeous if it wasn't so spooky, particularly the bending guitar that always hits a twinge in me everytime I hear it.
I agree with what Wolf said, he can sing his own shit better than he could Willie Dixon's. Only four more songs on the album were written by him after this. The rest of them are by Willie Dixon- who was much more of a pop-blues writer. I think Wolf's appeal was that, although he was smooth for a 6'6'' 300 pound man, he was naturally rough and intimidating. And he was at his best when he had a chance to experiment and wasn't trying to appeal to his pop sensibilities. At he was successful at it.
As a final aside, the last two songs were the reason that I had such a hard time completing this damn thing, I wanted to hear them over and over again.

I Asked For Water
Another hit for Wolf (#8), but a big drop from the last two songs, which struck the right balance between experimental and accessibility. The musicians, after two Hall of Fame performances, decide to take a break. They're sparse to the point of barely being there. The vocal performance is similarly understated. Not a bad song by any means, but you can't really follow Smokestack Lightnin.

Who's Been Talkin
Tha man is the master of the harmonica. This song is very unique, I can tell why it wasn't a hit, but it has a very interesting lineup, with the tenor sax and piano sounding particularly interesting. The underlying riff by the tenor sax weaves through the breaks and really makes this song. I like how, for the most part, Wolf eschews hooks and instead allows the musicians to be the ones to burrow into your head.

Sitting on Top of the World
A slightly different take on the whole "my woman left me" theme. It may be tongue in cheek, but he seems to relish the freedom from not having to bring his lady with him. Hop on a freight train if he wants, work as hard as he wants and can keep all the cash in his own pocket. The songwriting just okay- but by this time Hubert Sumlin, who Wolf had brought with him from Chicago and who had been with the band from jump, had really come into his own. From this point on, his sliding guitar would be the star musician on just about every track. I like to imagine that Wolf was just a little bored with this song after Who's Been Talkin's originality.

Howlin For My Darlin
And we officially depart from the Wolf-written section into section where Dixon handles the songwriting duties. I don't know exactly why they stopped Wolf from writing his own songs; four of the eight songs above were top 10 hits. Perhaps some of his latest experimentations had fallen flat and blues was moving away from his style. Maybe they thought Dixon had more adaptability. Or maybe Leonard Chess (head of Chess Records) wanted to keep everything in-house and have first dibs to all the rights to the songs. Dixon was handling most of the songwriting duties for all the other Chess artists, and if they were paying the man primarily to write, then damn it he'd write for everyone. It's easy to see where my loyalties lie.
The change from Wolf to Dixon can be immediately felt on this song. First, the title is kind of corny not to subtly playing on Wolf's stage name. There are more bright and shiny horns, the better for the ladies to dance to. And he loses all of his spookiness. Even the subject matter itself has changed- in this song, he is raving about how good his woman is. Who wants a blues artist to do that?

Wang Dang Doodle
The ultimate blues standard, but Wolf had it first. Sadly, he did not do it best. It's known that Wolf hated this song and in his autobiography, Dixon said that he hated this song too. It's a rollicking urban party song, which was something new for Wolf, but he just can't really catch a hold of it. Personally, I like Koko Taylor and Little Walter's versions much better.
On the other hand. Hubert Sumlin is teamed up with Freddy King (the baby of the three blues kings) and they both really go to town. I think it's great that the guitars have fun on this song, but a passionless, flavorless, Wang Dang Doodle is not what I want to hear- he just doesn't have the screeching in his repotoire that's required to make this song great.

Back Door Man
The first time I heard this song I didn't think it was anything special, but I've grown to like it a lot. Wolf's on the prowl in this song, visiting all the wives of the neighborhood men in the night, and retreating to his lair during the day. Reminds me a lot of Clarence Carter's "Back Door Santa." The best part of the song is Dixon's dragging bass, which meets up with Wolf while he sings "I am/ a back door man." It's the intermingling of the bass and guitar that make this song really work though, and Wolf really finds his voice in that combo, around the middle of the song. At times, it sounds almost James Brown-ish, a terse three syllables making up the line in the verse. At times it's almost like improvisation.

Spoonful
Rhythm section sounds like a rehash of Smokestack Lightnin, and it's a bit like 100% recycled paper. No matter what the environmentalist tell you, it's just not as good as the original thing. Freddy King, by this time having taken over chief guitar duties, has another excellent performance. Why did they have Dixon writing the songs again?
Since I don't have much of anything else to say about this song, I guess I'll talk a little bit about Howlin' Wolf's life.
His story starts out like most other bluesman who made their way to Chicago by way of Memphis in the 1930's. Born in Mississippi in 1910, he grew up very poor on a farm near White Station. His mother kicked him out before he was a teenager for being lazy. Then he went to go live with an uncle who treated him even worse, before finally settling in with his father when he was 13. He first moved to Memphis in 1948 after a stint in the army and spent his days performing, being a radio station DJ, and sellling farm equipment. He was discovered in 1951 by Sam Phillips of Sun Records (the same man who discovered Elvis).
I don't know what the perceptions were about Chester Arthur Burnett, but he certainly was no dummy. In fact, he was a something of a rareity among bluesmen. He lived frugally, saving his money rather than spending it on drink, flasy cars, and loose women. Before he even got to Chicago, he'd already saved enough working in Memphis to have a nice nest egg in his pocket and a nice car to drive up in. He couldn't read or write until well into his 40's, but he worked hard, got his GED, and later studied accounting to further his business career.
Most importantly, he married one of those pretty, bougie, southside of Chicago girls. She came from an educated family, was the primary manager of all his finances, and was the one who encouraged him to continue his business studies. (there ain't nothing like a good woman to do that for you). He was so financially successful, that he not only paid his musicians one of the best salaries in the business, but he also paid for their health insurance. That's pretty awesome.

Shake For Me
Up tempo stuff. I do have to give it to Dixon, he does know how to write a popular song. The other good thing about him writing the songs is that Howlin' Wolf got more of a change to play the guitar. Not sure who had the solo on this song but it's enjoyable and Sam Lay puts down a nice backing for the three guitar attack to play over. This is where Dixon is at his best, an ultimiately inconsequential ditty of a song, but very nicely performed.

Red Rooster
Another song that became blues standard. To be honest, I like Sam Cooke's version better, even though he puts a lot of soft sheen onto the song. I guess it's just because I heard Cooke's version first. Not that Wolf's is bad or anything, it's got some downhome feel to it adding a certain heft to the song.

I Ain't Superstitous
Very interesting song, mostly the guitar work again. I miss how great the rhythm sections use to be; but if there's one area that Dixon's songs get the edge it's here. Teamin' with Sumlin, Wolf sure is something. The lyrics touch on an unsuperstitous man who has all kinds of bad luck. Not a woman to be found in this song.

Goin Down Slow
Dixon is a sly motherfucker, the two times he appears on vocals he really takes over. This song he isn't singing, but his spoken word is hilarious "I did not say I was a millionaire, but i said i have spent more money than a millionaire.... and women? well googly moogly) This is some straight classic blues, more great guitar play. At around the 3 minute mark the bending guitar really stands out.

Three Hundred Pounds of Joy
Another interesting uptempo, lots of horns and Buddy Guy (Buddy Guy!) on bass. It's not so much a blues number, more of that 60's poppy R&B stuff. Sounds like something you'd imagine Bobby Bland singing with these kind of lyrics and arrangement.

Built For Comfort
More poppy stuff. I don't mind the silliness too much (I'm built for comfort not built for speed); but the truth is that Howlin' Wolf is long past his prime at this point. I'm still listening, but quite honestly it's starting to bore me at this point.

Killing Floor
Burnett's last hurrah. This final song was written by Wolf, he was finally released from the Dixon cage and he goes back towards the darkness. Not his best stuff, but as we draw to a close, it's nice to hear him going back to his roots. Overall, the first half of the album stacks up to any blues artist in history. The second half is not nearly as good in my opinion, and suffice to say it coincides with when they took the pen out of his hand. Hubert Sumlin's guitar work helps to make up for a lot of it, as does Dixon's penchant for fun- but Wolf knew himself, knew what he was best at. It would have been something if he could have written for himself his entire career and not just half of it.

Diner Dash

So, after 6 and a half months, I finally got around to returning the copy of Jane Eyre that I checked out from the Jackson Heights Branch of the Queens Library. It was supposed to be for a book club that never really got off the ground. Just have a hard time doing classics. Didn't stick around to see how much I owed on the book, although it has to be a lot of money. Hopefully they didn't report it to a credit rating agency, I heard libraries do that nowadays.

Got a little hungry after I was done, hadn't eaten all day. There was a diner just a short walk away from the library that I'd notice when I got off the train. When I walked in, I immediately felt like I passed through a time portal, straight to the 70's, like that soon to be canceled show, Life On Mars. Or more accurately, it was straight out of Taxi Driver or a Woody Allen movie (Annie Hall or Manhattan). They had those swivel chairs that are attached to the front of the bar, stained glass chandeliers covering those dusty yellow globe lights, wood paneling. Smooth jazz versions of Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack oozed through the speakers. Gray-haired men were reading the New York Daily News, eating lukewarm soup and drinking egg cremes, talking to the waitress about the mayor or the Yankees or the new administration. They were there long enough to have breakfast and lunch and they would always forget to wipe the food out of their beards. And the whole place was dim even as the sun poured in to the large front windows; not to the point where you couldn't see, it was like the entire world had been turned just a little bit more gritty, like life was in technicolor. I'd had one of those moments before, feeling like I'd gone back in time as soon as I stepped inside a place. My uncle (by marriage) has never been able to escape the 70's, I guess it must have been a good time for him. Everything in his house is dim, he still has a floor model TV, the light bulbs burn that dull brownish yellow, the type of yellow that lightbulbs burn after non-stop cigarette smoked has caked the glass. This isn't the vibrant, bell-bottoms, Brady Bunch 70's. No, this is some kind of blaxploitation film, dark enough to be The Mack, not quite cool enough to be SuperFly, a little too dirty for Shaft.

I've always been more than a little intrigued by New York in the 70's, particularly the New York of the mid-to-late 70's. It's like San Francisco in the mid-to-late 60's, something about that time and place goes a long way towards explaining the character of our country. It's the New York which actually earned its reputation as a dangerous city (sorry New Yorkers, but contrary to what you believe, you do not live in the roughest city in the country, not by a long shot). It became the ultimate symbol for a more general national malaise and the ultimate failure of the urban experiment. New York from that era was John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, the Son of Sam, the Bronx Zoo (the Yankees team not the place where animals live)- the city that Ford refused to bail out, the breeding ground for punk, hip-hop, and disco, all the sheen of Studio 54, all the sexuality of the Mineshaft, all the trashiness of a Rupert Murdoch tabloid, weighted down by the bloat of its bureaucracy. Birthed by disillusionment which flowered in to the kind of unrepentant hedonism that conservatives could point to as the moment when our country ceased to be a great nation- that hooker doing blow off a gay man dressed like an angel and proceeding to get fucked by three celebrities in the dirty batthroom of a discoteque on 54th Street. Yeah, that was when our country officially went off the track and Reagan officially won his election. A child of the 90's wonders what it would have been like to live in that world, but I'm glad to be able to study it from afar.
_________________________________________________________
The waitress took me and the Hispanic couple behind me to our respective places, me by myself near the kitchen, them towards the back where the tables were separated and there was a few more people scattered about. I'd already known what I wanted since I walked in, a nice juicy cheeseburger as a way to celebrate the end of Lent- but I let the waitress give me the menu anyway, mostly to see what kind of desserts they had. I started filling out the questions on the placemat, it had all of the presidents pictures and dates in office, and you were supposed to name as many presidents as you could. Using only the pictures, I got 27 out of 42, with the pictures and dates I got 40 out of 42. I forgot James Polk and William McKinley. Guess that makes me a nerd. What dawned on me as I was filling out the placemat though, was how many really mediocre presidents we had. Guys who were just not up to the challenge- after James Polk, there was a series of Presidents who were simply not up to the task of being President- Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan. More often than not these men were chosen for their ability to be molded by party bosses, and they proved unfailingly up to the task. I guess there's something to be said for Congress having more control over our affairs and maybe that's how the Framers intended it to be, but man were these guys weak.

The burger, fries, lemonade, cheesecake, and coffee was delicious, left the waitress a 33% tip for her excellent service. Walked around Jackson Heights for a little bit, before the rain started. It was good just to be out on my day off- when the temperature dropped I got on the 7 train back home so I could lay down and watch some baseball.