Posted on

More Unwritten Rules of Baseball

Put this up yesterday on Bardball.com. The reference to the Alex Rodriguez/Dallas Braden dustup is more than a month old, but it’s not always easy to be as timely and topical over there as we’d like. Lots of voices to corral, and egos to massage, and styles to balance. But really, Bardball gets better with every season, if I do say so myself.

Don’t congratulate a teammate by faking a high five and delivering a hard nad shot.

Don’t talk about racism except in the context of how Jackie Robinson eliminated it.

Rhapsodize about the integrity of the game, but don’t make any big deal about desperately poor Dominican 15-year-olds being drafted by shady agents and advised by “scouts.”

Don’t try and bunt against a pitcher pitching a perfect game unless, you know, you’re trying to help your team score. Like you’re paid to do.

On-field displays of excitement add too much energy and character to the game, and so must be avoided.

Don’t ever criticize a veteran teammate in the media, even when he lets down the squad. Only rookies can be criticized.

Don’t comment on the herd mentality and obsequious jocksniffery of sportswriters.

And however long you play or watch the game….

Don’t expect to like Alex Rodriguez.

Posted on

Tranformational Deaths?

A few weeks ago, we were shocked by the news that a good friend at church had woken in bed with difficulty breathing and died early on a Saturday morning. Steve was only 49, actually seven weeks younger than me. He was very active and athletic, and had a lovely wife and a teenage daughter. He was so active in in our large church that you could’ve sworn he was the guy running things.

My jaw doesn’t drop for much. But I was gobsmacked by this news.

There were many reasons why the lines at the funeral home were so long, and why 700 people (my guess) were at his funeral. I won’t list them, except to say he had great good humor, a deep sincere concern for others, the ability to motivate you to do better than you already were, and a knack for never making disagreements personal or last longer than the issue. (He worked at the Chicago Board of Trade, and we were all glad that his business partner spoke at the service, to give us SOME idea of how a humble, caring guy like Steve could do well in a selfish, cutthroat place like that.) He was just one of the best guys I knew.

After the funeral, a rather dramatic friend of ours intoned repeatedly that this was a “transformative event” for her. This gave her so much perspective on our life and mortality that she was going to make immediate changes and savor every last drop of every day’s blessing. Steve’s death was a shock to everyone, as I said, and his example was a good one to follow. But I suspect as we head into our fifties, unhappily more friends will be dying, and our habits and attitudes will remain largely unchanged.

Habits. Outlook. Generosity. Time-management. Enthusiasm. None of these transform as quickly and with such irreversibility as a sudden death. It’s flippant to think that one will easily lead to any of the others.

A few years ago, the artist Ed Paschke died of a heart attack on Thanksgiving Day at the age of 65. I knew Ed a little, after spending a couple hours interviewing him for a magazine article. He was an energetic, enthusiastic, down-to-earth guy, in love with pop culture and high art and the chance to make the art he wanted to. I remember him vividly saying how excited he was to enter to his studio every morning and “open his paint box and mess around.” This was in spite of a complicated private life that included a terminally ill wife.

After Ed’s funeral on the campus of Northwestern University, I vowed to remember Ed’s joy at getting to “open his paint box” every morning. I wanted to apply it to my own creative work. For me, unfortunately, getting started on a project is terrifying. I’d rather do most anything than settle down and “open my word box”. The only thing I’d like to do LESS than that is give up on my writing and get a regular job. (Why do most writers agonize so much over creating their work? Why can’t we take a lesson from the other arts and try to enjoy our craft?) I still have postcards of Ed’s marvelous paintings thumbtacked up around my office, reminders that I knew one of the greatest American postwar painters and that I have something to learn from him.

I have something to learn from my friend Steve’s death, too. But will these events –CAN they — be transformational? My steamship’s been chugging along for many years, and making turns takes a long time. I’d LIKE to make changes for the better. I’m very grateful to have known Steve and Ed, and appreciate the lessons that their lives might contain. But am I really going to change from this? Is there much hope that a generally crabby, reluctant, unprolific egotist like me can improve from knowing better men? I keep wanting to experience an earthquake, a lightning bolt, a Scrooge-like epiphany that will crack my carapace and power me through the next three decades of my life.

But Scrooge was fiction, and transformations like that reek of madness. Real change takes time, and great effort, and an informed sympathy about what people are really able to do, all the while dodging the easy cop-outs of “I’m only human” and fatalistic shrugs of “Eh, whaddya gonna do?”

Maybe I should be thankful at least that the lessons have wormed their way into my consciousness somehow. I’ve been around a lot of good examples in my life. Steve, Ed, my father and brothers, my father-in-law, my English Lit teacher in high school, my counselor in college. Lessons can be gleaned from all of them. The trick, as it is throughout all our lives as adults, is to gain an honest idea of where it is you want to go. Short of an epiphany on THAT, real internal change is hard work.

Posted on

RIP Ernie Harwell

Now the Tigers’ voice has been quieted.
He saw teams that won, and fans that rioted.
He saw a man play in the bigs after jail.
He saw a boy pitching tell his baseball a tale.
He saw a flawed man win 31 games,
The careers of good men go up in flames.
He watched a beloved ballpark decay
And the City of Wheels fall by the way.
Yet he knew in the end it was only a game.
God’s plan ignores things like money and fame.
A bat’s just a branch, a mitt is just leather.
Baseball’s true worth is bringing people together.

Some night, when a hit curves decidedly foul,
We’ll hear a faint voice with a sweet Georgia drawl,
Say, chuckling with fathomless love for it all,
“A man from Paradise just caught that ball.”

For a transcript of the Dodgers’ Vin Scully last night, as he reminisced about Ernie, visit the Sons of Steve Garvey blog.

Ernie, we’ll miss you.

Posted on

Go Out and Get “Get Capone”

Jonathan Eig has just released his new book, Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster. By all accounts (check the advance reviews at the website), it is a terrific read, bringing alive a slice of Chicago history as vivid as a razor across the throat.

Jon allowed me to read a couple of passages early on, but I can’t wait to read the entire book. I also can’t wait to see him on The Daily Show at the end of the week.

Go out and get this book. IPhone users might also like to buy his app, Chicago Gangland Tours, which will allow you to find places in town connected with more than 600 historical facts. Makes me want to go buy an iPhone right now, just to cruise the city.

Jon allowed me to submit some questions for my column **cough cough** at True/Slant, exploring the role Chicago itself played in Capone’s rise and meteoric fall. You can find it by clicking here.

Posted on

Sexy New Poem on Bardball

Well, I don’t know if the poem is sexy, but it’s about sex.

And I don’t know if having sex in the men’s bathroom at Comiskey Park on Opening Day is sexy — in fact, it sounds like a nightmare, and a great an STD and a visit to 26th and California — but it did inspire a poem. It’s up today on Bardball.

South Side Fireworks, Inside

On Opening Day at the Cell,
Amidst the ravening horde,
The men’s room witnessed a tryst ‘twixt
A South Side lady and lord.

All the prudes and official blue-noses
Who by this action were floored
Should think of the White Sox’s condition
And be grateful that somebody scored.

Posted on

The Year of Beer

It was only about a year ago that my ever-lovin’ wife put the bug in my ear to take up my former hobby of homebrewing. it was something I picked up in college, and kept pursuing off and on until we moved into a house with a small kitchen and a filthy basement, which left me with no reliable place to brew. Another reason I stopped was that I was doing a lot of wet, intensive work to produce six packs which would then be mostly used as hostess gifts. Gifts that were never opened in front of us.

Hours of time and effort tossed down the hospitality hole.

But last summer I invested in a 2.5 gallon aluminum keg and a CO2 priming system, which we keep filled and chilled in the fridge out at the cottage. Now golden malt nectar is available 24/7 during the summer, and the only people who get to drink it are those I like well enough to invite there. A perfect situation.

Now that I’m back with the wort-and-sparge crowd, it feels like the whole world is becoming top-fermented. A terrific microbrewery opened only two blocks away, in a converted auto body shop. Half Acre Brewing is only available in Chicago, but they make some stunning brews, especially their lager and Daisy Cutter Pale Ale.

Last night I got to experience a little bit of beer-nerd Valhalla in a brewery tour of the Goose Island Brewery. Head brewer John J Hall went into some very fine detail in explaining basic brewing, plus the tireless research and experimentation of its brewmaster (and friend of mine) Greg Hall (no relation). Goose Island has trotted out some marvelous Belgian-style beers in the past four years, which seems to be the latest trend, but John Hall told us that Greg has been working with them for more than 15 years. My tour group paid great attention to the minutiae of the brewing process, even as we drank large quantities of Green Line, Matilda and Pepe Nero, a saisson style beer made with black peppercorns. And just this afternoon, said wife and I made a special trip to grab a bottle of Bourbon County Stout, which is aged in bourbon casks from the Van Winkle Distillery. The big problem now is finding a special time to open these up. (I think the Blackhawks defeating the Predators might qualify.)

And in a few weeks, my buddy Jim Powers will be launching the special event, BEERHOPTACULAR, a weekend fest of microbrews, home brewing, tasting and all in all heavenly jolliness. It’ll be at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago June 4 and 5. Brewers from all over the nation will be there, so come on down.

I first learned homebrewing while working at Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village, where a lot of us in the Crafts Department were indeed crafty, hands-on people. It struck me then, and still strikes me now, that making your own beer is empowering, economical, entrepreneurial, and ecologically sound. (After examining the carbon footprint of their beers, Goose Island decided to launch its Green Line Pale Ale. It’s served only in kegs to cut down on energy, and they hope to keep buying materials that are closer and closer to Chicago. To this end, they’re talking with farmers in Wisconsin into growing barley and hops, to eliminate shipping from Oregon, Montana and Europe.)

Can we help save the planet by drinking local beer and making our own home brew? I’ve heard stupider ideas, and I was going to be drinking anyway, so it’s worth a try.

I hearby coin and copyright the term LOCABIBING. You’re welcome.

Posted on

“Parade’s” Paycheck Parade

This is hardly earth-shattering news, and not very timely besides, but last week Parade Magazine published its annual celebration of pecuniary envy, “What People Earn”. This gives us, amid all the ads for weight loss systems and USMC-themed Hummel-like figurines, the chance to line up what Tiger Woods makes with the take-home of a janitor in Billings, Mt., and a circuit court judge in Kalamazoo.

Now, I was always taught that it was rude to ask people what they earn. In some circles (like among Europeans), it’s actually bad form to try to maintain a conversation by talking about something as boring as a job–a person should have (or try to cultivate) better conversational skills using more intriguing methods of interpersonal exchange. So I guess instead of dissing Parade for being nosy, boring, and banal, I should thank it for asking the questions people want to know.

Then again, screw it. I’ll thank them when Walter Scott answers the reader question: “What does Courtney Cox think of man’s basic nature? Is there really an objective division between good and evil, or are our souls the active battleground of good and evil, as the Manichaeists believe?”

The results of Parade‘s crack reporters’ research shows that, by gosh, just as you might think, there’s a huge range of dollar amounts for everyone listed. Tiger Woods, $100 million. A pastor in Wichita, $5,800. US Army dog handler, $30K. The 25-year-old CEO of Facebook, $3 billion.

Sure, I believe that guy’s worth $3 billion. Until the next big computer fad comes out, and he’s left to scrounge nickels like the guys from Napster, MySpace, and Netscape.

Seeing Parade in the Sunday paper always makes my skin crawl (True headline from this week’s online edition: “Lisa Kudrow Says It’s Important to Keep History Alive!”). But this paycheck issue is always extra-creepy, for a number of reasons:

* It’s plain nauseating to think that Glenn Beck made $23 million last year (which is a low guess anyway, since Forbes estimates it was closer to $32 mil.), because that’s just not a world I want to live in. Ditto Jay Leno bringing in $32 mil.

* There is a forced camaraderie and false connection implied by lining up everyone’s picture on an equal grid, so that Johnny Depp and a nursing home worker look like fellow students in a high school yearbook. Sorry, Johnny Depp seems like a likeable down-to-earth megastar, but he lives on a different planet. And on that planet, he owns four houses and lives with a French model. Nothing against Seymour, Tenn., but Johnny Depp is not popping in for a BBQ anytime soon, no matter how friendly the people seem.

* The strained equivalences are reinforced by use of the first person plural throughout the article. “How We’re Making It Work.” As best as we can, thanks, though the cost of living is a lot different in South Dakota than in suburban Maryland, and people like Kanye West are making it work because they can afford lots of handlers and lawyers to keep them out of trouble when they get drunk and abuse people.

* It forces me to consider scenarios in which I’m working in a menial job in a flyspeck town. Fate may be capricious, of course, and it’s a longshot that it would happen, but what if an old “Twilight Zone” storyline came true, and you woke up one morning with your body switched with a complete stranger’s? And why should you have people across America learn that you make crap wages?

* It hurts my head to imagine the reality behind some of the people’s occupations and stated income. A modern dancer in Murray, Utah, earning $32,000? There’s a modern dancer in Murray, Utah? And she makes a living wage? Weird, baby.

* And I hate it because it’s so transparently shoddy, for all the above reasons, and so illuminates the problem of ranking articles like this, whether published by Forbes or Inc. or Jack & Jill. While trying to pass as important sociologically and even anthropologically, they are always merely one editor’s idea of an interesting topic, fleshed out under deadline with questionable methods. How did Parade find the retail salesperson in Kreamer, Pa., and why did she tell them she only made $8200 last year? And what conclusions can be made from a call that certainly was made randomly? And I hate myself for getting sucked into articles like this, too.

And then there’s a long, long argument to be made about whether a person’s income is in any way reflective of the worth they add to society, and the growing chasm between the wealth of the richest and the poorest in America, but those are for another time. Most of the people in the article aren’t too concerned that the average CEO makes 300 times what his average worker makes. They’re probably just happy to have their pictures in the paper.

And heavens, that’s enough time spent on THAT magazine. Sorry for wasting your time on it.

Posted on

My Trip to C2E2: Adventures in Jiggle City

So I went to my first comic convention on Friday, the C2E2 down at McCormick Place. I went dressed as my favorite character: the middle-aged scribbler with writer’s block who is on the hunt for work. And if I do say so, my impersonation was seamless.

It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. I almost brought my daughter, but I’m glad I didn’t, which I’ll explain later. It was about what I expected, times 5. Lots of crazy pop culture going on. Publishers trotting out their star creators and titles. Indies trying to grab someone’s attention (If zombies are popular, and the Wizard of OZ is a perennial AND in the public domain, what could be better than….ZOMBIE SCOTTIE: TOTO’S REVENGE!!). Retailers from all over the Midwest trying to unload their stock to serious collectors. Numerous corset makers (well, I admit, I didn’t really see those coming, and wished I hadn’t seen them at all). And lots of fanboys and fangirls grabbing up free samples of everything.

I’m almost completely over any qualms telling people that I’m pitching a graphic novel idea. With the popularity of comic movies and TV shows, R.Crumb’s Bible adaptation and other inroads into bookstores, the slow invasion of comics into “acceptable” culture may finally be declared a victory. Then again, when I mentioned my trip to the convention later in the weekend, a writer friend of mine asked, with the slightest archness in his voice, “Do you have an ….. affinity for those kinds of things?” It was a bit of a conversation killer, but I did admire this playwright’s ability to choose just the proper word.

But besides defending myself from insinuations like these, and any and all comments about it from my mother, what’s the downside to it? If my project breaks through, it could have tremendous upside: Regular writing work, quick turnaround, an active fanbase, the chance to do something way out of the ordinary once I earn a publisher’s trust. Compare it to the state of “regular” publishing today, and I’ll take it. Or rather, there’s no reason NOT to take it, since comics aren’t so stigmatized and set apart anymore, at least when it comes to dollars and cents. A “regular” publisher could care less if your previous book was a collection of bawdy anagrams that slandered the Pope and the Freemasons, as long as that collection made money.

The deal hasn’t come through yet anyway, so this is premature to write about. Keeping my fingers crossed.

The thing that struck me the hardest at the con–and what made me glad my 12-year-old daughter didn’t come along this year–was the sheer amount of cleavage and jiggling on display. Especially in Artist Alley, where scribblers sat to meet with fans and get a little spending money from prints, quick sketches, and homemade chapbooks, there was cheesecake everywhere. I didn’t have any big problem with it, and I’m sure it drove traffic to the individual’s booth, but it was quite a lot all the same.

Some guys were clever about it. One artist was peddling a calendar of original art that combined pin-up girls with classic movie monsters, with corny sentiments like “Blinded by Science!” as Frankenstein’s monster and a lab tech in a short white coat dodged lightning bolts from the lab equipment. Others just took famous characters and drew them a little more R-rated, like Catwoman lounging dishabille, apparently after a particular humid caper. And one person had a portfolio explicitly marked “Not For Kids”, which had Betty and Veronica doing all sorts of nasty things they don’t teach at Riverdale High. (The creators of Archie Comics had a strong presence at this fair–how would they react if that portfolio turned up? Is it just wink-wink, nudge-nudge time, or are there serious copyright issues involved?)

One artist friend of mine was attending, and told the story about a collector who, after a few months of correspondence, got up the nerve to ask for a drawing of a famous national newscaster, depicted as a hamster. Oh, and naked, of course.

These kinds of stories never floated around Book Expo America, but frankly, I don’t care. If the comic geeks will have me, I’ll have them.

Posted on

Tigers Opening Day 2010

I’d been battling allergies for a couple of weeks and was completely drained of energy. On the night before, I played host to a book signing and stayed out til midnight with the literary types singing karaoke at a lesbian bar.

So, what was the best thing to do to stay healthy? Of course! Wake up at 5 AM and drive to Detroit for the Tigers Home Opener!

I’ve now been to more Opening Days at Comerica Park than I ever did at Tiger Stadium. I wish that weren’t the case, but I never was into skipping school, and generally had a good excuse not to go during college years. Then I moved to Chicago and tried to pretend I didn’t care. Now, it’s too late for the Stadium, which was finally and completely knocked down last summer. But Old Comiskey’s gone too, and Yankee Stadium. Those fights are done, time to get on with living.

It was an overcast day, temperature at game time was 38. But my friend Gary sold me one of his very sweet upper deck seats that looked right up the first base line.

The wind was minimal, the company was good, and the Tigers beat the Indians 5-3. (One thing I wish they’d do is STOP singing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch. Come on, guys, just quit it. It’s depressing and pompous and no one connects it with 9/11 anymore.)

Ernie Harwell wasn’t there, for the first time since 1960 (minus his lost year when former GM Bo Schembechler fired him). Ernie is suffering from pancreatic cancer, and probably won’t make it to see Opening Day 2011. Once again, a reminder that time marches on.

It was a crazy scene in the streets after the game. I haven’t seen so many people completely shitfaced in a long, long time. Not just 20-yr-olds, but people in their 40s and 50s, who oughta know their limits by now. They were being dragged around by their friends like it was “Weekend at Bernie’s” time, literally vomiting and pissing their pants. Someone in our group speculated that it might show the economy is doing better, which would put people in a better mood. Then again, he thought it might show the economy is in worse shape, and people are cutting loose in frustration. I don’t know which is true, but watching some idiot take a swing at a cop in full daylight was more than a little pathetic. Every big public event doesn’t HAVE to turn into Mardi Gras, does it?

After the game and a little beer reception, a bunch of us headed to the Polish Village Cafe on Yemans, a terrific place in Hamtramck. (I also now know more Polish restaurants in Detroit than I do in Chicago–sad but true! I still intend to drag my kids out to one soon, just to tick off that box.)

Then we grabbed a couple beers at Skipper’s Hamtown Bar on Conant, which is run by a truly great innkeeper and has a fridge stocked with all things good, including Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale, possibly my favorite malt beverage. Skipper is an old neighborhood guy who knows all the politicians and went to school with half of them. It’s a warm, friendly place full of crazy Detroit people. Anyone who doubts that the city will survive should hang out there for a night and listen to the patrons and their love of the Motor City.

One of my favorite reasons for going to Detroit is crashing at the house of my friends Gary and Vicki. They live in Indian Village, in a beautiful house designed by a young Albert Kahn, the famed industrial architect. Indian Village is a beautiful neighborhood that reeks of the class and money that Detroit enjoyed in the first quarter of the last century. (Surrounding it is some pretty rough terrain, let alone wasteland, but enough has been written about that lately.) It is truly striking to see the remnants of that era and realize how much money the car makers were bringing to the city then. Now, you can buy a 5000 sq ft house in Indian Village for the low six figures. Or even less, although many speculators swooped in during the housing collapse.

When I was young, my dad kept a boat on the Detroit River, and occasionally we visited people’s houses in elegant, old-school neighborhoods like Indian Village and Grayhaven, which had a canal and boathouses for each of the properties. Hanging around near Belle Isle brings back those memories. Just looking down Gary’s street, with the spring trees barely stopping the sunshine, you can see the Detroit River rushing by, same as always. We ate breakfast Saturday morning at a pancake breakfast at the Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian Church, a gorgeous old place with friendly people.

Visiting Detroit almost always brings back large waves of nostalgic feelings and memories. This year, it didn’t. Maybe I was too tired. Maybe the final demolition of Tiger Stadium somehow stuck one last nail in that coffin. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about what the future may hold for Detroit, how Mayor Bing is hoping to relocate people away from blighted areas so the city provide services to a dispersed and shrinking population, how “decay porn” is attracting the notice of all the news organizations around the world. Figuring out where the place will end up is a confusing business.

It’s much easier just to weigh the Tigers chances for the World Series, now that they’ve lost Granderson, Polanco and Rodney.

Posted on

Calling all REAL men: Come out to the Book Cellar Thursday!

This Thursday night, April 8, will be “Guys Night” at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square. There’ll be lots of scratching, spitting, and thinking about sex every 7 seconds.

And if you can’t find your own way to the Nonfiction Section, don’t ask any of us to ask for directions! Burp!

I’ll be the humble host of this night of readings, which will feature:

Jonathan Eig, reading from his about-to-be released blockbuster, Get Capone.

Bryan Gruley, reading excerpts from his further-down-the-road-to-be-released sequel to Starvation Lake, entitled The Hanging Tree. Hockey, northern Michigan, egg pie, MURDER–the works!

Peter Schilling, author of a book that’s by-god in the store, The End of Baseball, a fictional account of Bill Veeck’s attempt to field a major-league team in 1944 with all Negro League players.

And to make everything even muy mas macho, I’ll read a few poems from Bardball and throw around words like mackinaw, ingot, and smelt. Come on out at 7:00 and support your local indie bookstore!

Posted on

Cast a Spell on Me

Last Friday I had the honor of once again being a judge for a citywide spelling bee, hosted at St. James Lutheran School. My competition was in the morning, consisting of fifth through eighth graders from the public schools in Chicago. We started out with 63 spellers and ended up with one winner who will head the the national bee in Washington in June. (The afternoon competition was among the private school students, who will also send a champeen (sp?) to Washington.)

This was probably my fourth time being a judge, and I absolutely love it. (I posted on it last year, if you’d like to read it. I put a lot of cool vocab words in it.) I may have to turn down the assignment in the future, b/c my hearing is just getting too screwy to be relied upon. Luckily I didn’t have to monitor the spelling, just give out the definitions, languages of origin, and sample sentences when asked. Also, it was pretty clear when a student spelled it wrong, usually a transposition or a false assumption that an “f” sound was spelled with an “f”.

What was astounding, however, was how many students spelled things RIGHT! In the first round, out of all 63, I think 4 kids went down. Next round, maybe 3. It was beginning to look like we’d be there all day. Still, it took us 3 hours to finally get a winner. The kids were so poised and so smart, my heart went out to every one of them. They were all great sports, too. While I saw some disappointed faces, there were no tears or anger or frustration when someone missed a word. They were happy to compete (and to have a half-day off school).

Some people argue that spelling bees are a waste of time (count on the Tribune’s Eric Zorn to go off on it this spring). Certainly, the ability to spell is not a measure of intelligence, more like a unique hard-wiring that some people have to a greater or lesser degree. But I think spelling bees are useful at least for the fact that the kids prepare for it and then need the poise and self-assurance to approach the Mike of Doom. And a love of words, how they’re built and what they mean should be something to encourage in this era of glyphs, emoticons and twitter shorthand.

And where else are you going to pronounce and define a word like pickelhaube? You know you want to. (Scroll down for a picture of one, after which you’ll slap your forehead and say, “THAT’S what that’s called?”)

Words from the bee to use in everyday life, for all us vocab fetishists:

Podsnappery: insular complacency and blinkered self-satisfaction. (from the behavior or outlook characteristic of Dickens’s Mr. Podsnap in Our Mutual Friend)

whilom: one-time; former

moiety: one of two (approximately) equal parts

psittacism: speech or writing that appears mechanical or repetitive in the manner of a parrot (from the Latin word psittaci, or parrots!)

And here it is, your moment of Pickelhaube:

Posted on

Big Food = Big Laffs

I’ve been trying to convince the drama teacher at my daughter’s school of this irrefutable equation for two years now, with no success. One need only point to Woody Allen’s “Sleeper” for evidence of its veracity, with the giant banana peel and the aggressive instant pudding. Maybe she’s been swayed by the wave of recent articles about American obesity, and pictures of gargantuan hamburgers that people actually try and eat.

A few years ago at another school, I worked on props for a version of “Jack and the Beanstalk”, which included a lot of material about eating. (The kids thought that material was hilarious, BTW. You can always trust kids to laugh at food, poop and any combination thereof.) For that play, I made chicken legs out of 2-liter bottles and papier mache, hams out of detergent bottles, and bowls of spaghetti out of clothesline, paint and brown styrofoam balls. The giant cheeseburger has had a place of importance in our TV room ever since.

For Liesel’s play this year (which will be held this weekend at the fabulous Portage Theater in Portage Park), I only had one food prop to make, but thankfully it was to be a little larger than life. A character had to get in trouble with the police for smuggling cheese into Russia, so I needed to create a wheel of cheese that was big enough to see but not so big that a grade schooler couldn’t wave it around.

I started with a plastic tray for under flower pots. I cut a pie-shaped slice out of it, filled it with newspaper, and sealed it all up with a couple pieces of cardboard. Then, we covered it with a few layers of papier mache. When you apply papier mache as thickly as we do around here, it’s going to dry very tightly and cause the object to buckle and crease a little bit. Thankfully, cheese is not always a symmetrical delicacy.

Then a base of white paint, which makes it look like brie, a food funny in some situations but much too runny to be believable in our scenario:

Then some yellow paint, and a few holes drawn on:

And Wooola! It’s not very large. In fact, it’s actually life-sized. But I take any assignments I can get these days.

Bonus Prop: Here’s my version of an iPad that I created for the play. These are available now, so you don’t have to wait for Apple to enjoy their little masochistic waiting period. Pencil not included.

Posted on

Does it ever get old, mocking Milton Bradley?

Naaaah!

Old “Forgive and Forget” Bradley

Because a hitter’s supposed to get hits,
Lou called Miltie a big piece of shit.
With a new gig in Seattle,
Milt’s still fighting old battles,
Showing the world that this shoe still fits.

Bardball is poised and ready to come back for the new baseball season. Please bookmark it for baseball doggerel, served fresh daily during the regular season.

Posted on

Thanks, Olympics, for giving me a reason to sit on the couch all week

Okay, I think I’ve reached it. I’ve finally had my fill of the Winter Olympics.

I haven’t been sitting in front of the TV EVERY evening for these two weeks. We had theater tickets last night, for example, and I’ve also been around to help with homework (pretty bad form to blow the kids off so I can watch ice dancing) and gave a speech in Ann Arbor last Saturday. But other than that, with the TIVO in hand, I’ve been glued to the set. Why?

It helps that the Olympics are in Canada, undoubtedly my favorite country I don’t live in. Seeing all those maple leafs everywhere warms my heart, and I’ll cheer for a Canadian in just about every winter sport except short track speed skating. I feel bad that the national movement to “Own The Podium” has resulted in Canada landing in fourth in the medal total, but really, that whole quest for domination seems so American that it’s a good thing it imploded. (Maybe American covert agents were behind it all along.)

Also, I don’t know why this is, but I think everyone who is out competing in winter sports at any level just generally LOOKS good. Maybe it’s the lack of sweat, plus the lycra body suits that cover up the overstrained muscles enough so the athletes don’t look like lab experiments.

Hockey isn’t my sport, but I learned more watching the US-Canada and Canada-Russia games than I have in all my life. The speed, the set-ups, the passing, the lack of cheap hits and fighting–all were beautiful things to behold. While this won’t turn me into a rabid rink rat, it will at least make hockey fans more intelligible, if not tolerable. And the pictures of the Canadian Women’s Team drinking beer and smoking cigars after winning the gold medal are the coolest pics I’ve seen in a long time. Olympic officials can go lick a flagpole if they don’t like them.

Bobsled? I still don’t get bobsled. The vehicles they were pushing down the track looked like NHRA funny cars or something. The pusher in the back doesn’t even get to watch where the rig is going. Where’s the satisfaction in that? Luge and skeleton were a little more entertaining, but here are two ideas for consideration:

Just attach runners to an athlete’s jumpsuit and let er go. Talk about a need for control.

OR:

Send people down the chute in those metal flying saucer things we used to ride as kids. The kinds that spun around and gave you know control about anywhere you were going. (Two years ago, I watched some kids in Chicago sledding in the top of a Weber kettle, which was pretty macho.) It would at least let us see the expressions on the player’s face.

One reason I think I’m addicted to watching the Winter Olympics, especially the ski competitions, is that I miss “ABC’s Wide World of Sports.” Skiing was a regular feature on that show, and to a kid in Detroit the broadcast locales were exotic, like St Moritz and Squaw Valley and, yes, Whistler. That romantic aura still infects me when I go skiing, no matter how long the lift lines are, how expensive the food and lodging is, and how obnoxious the snowboarders are.

So, thank you, Winter Olympics, for this two-week binge of excitement, vicarious competition, and harmless jingoism. (Well, the Russian hockey team might find such jingoism a little painful when they return to their homeland. Suck it, comrades.) They’re not for everyone, and the arguments against the Games from the non-fans are completely plausible. The way I see it, if you don’t like or participate in winter sports, then you’re a punk (especially if you live in a cold climate). Everyone should at least be grateful that the Winter Olympics have postponed the debuts of “The Marriage Ref” and “The Tonight Show seized by Jay Leno” and all the amazing, breathless coverage of the Oscars that will immediately flood the media.

Who will be left to perform in the closing ceremonies? They used every single Canadian performer I can think of, short of Anvil and Mike Myers.