Visions of slave labor camps, under the control of our cruel gibbon overlords.
Ernie Harwell Salute Tonight in Tigers Game
I just read in the Free Press that tonight, Ernie Harwell will be saluted during the game between the Tigers and the Royals. Harwell, one of the premier baseball broadcasters and a staple in the lives of anyone who lived in Michigan in the past 50 years, was diagnosed with inoperable bile duct cancer last month. (For some readers’ reactions to the news, check out this article in the Freep. Have a tissue ready.)
I wish I were able to tune in the game tonight in Chicago to see the message. I’m sure Ernie will be his gracious self and thank everyone for their well wishes and for making his life in Detroit so full. Whereas, in reality, he was the one who enriched our lives, with his skill, his great storytelling ability, his humor, and his seemingly endless goodwill for everyone. It’s hard to write about him without seeming maudlin, but if the world still values humility, graciousness and respect for your fellow man (all of which certainly have taken a beating in the news for the past few years), then every day should be a salute to his example. He lived a long, full life, and he made everyone’s lives better who came in contact with him.
A couple seasons ago, I sent a letter to Ernie to tell him about our new baseball poetry site, Bardball.com. I don’t know why, but I imagined he would acknowledge it in some way, because until felled with illness, he always had time for everyone. I was floored when he sent the postcard below AND mentioned us in his regular Free Press column. And dig that! “I appreciate your support. Enjoyed your verse.” I was over the moon when that arrived. And how cool is it that he used a Mickey Mantle stamp on it?
And now, news of his declining health makes me feel negligent, as if I haven’t searched out his books, or read his column as religiously as he deserves. I probably thought he would go on forever. That’s the kid in me, the one listening to Ernie and Paul Carey on the clock radio real quietly on a school night as the Tigers muddled their way through another game.
His books are great, but a little too anecdotal, which makes them a little choppy. Ernie’s not Roger Kahn, after all, but none of us are. He was best enjoyed in the moment, when the game was unfolding and he was talking about Sparky or Gibby or John Wockenfuss, or whether the pitcher had his best stuff that night, or the fan from Amherstberg who caught the foul ball. I’ve tried working on a poem for Ernie for Bardball for a couple years now, but have never been able to get it quite right. Maybe soon I’ll finish it, but it won’t be nearly adequate to describe the man. To get a full measure of him, for those of you out-of-towners, imagine his spicy baritone on Opening Day, when he would read from the Song of Solomon:
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
All the sweetness of creation. And with that, another season began, and the world was new again.
How many broadcasters can give you that?
UPDATE: You can watch Ernie’s speech by going to Bless You Boys, and you can see the video highlight reel shown at the stadium last night at the Tigers website here.
“Daily Show” No Longer a Daily Requirement
The beginning of fall means getting back into certain routines around the homestead. Homework after school. Theater tickets. Public drinking. And more TV watching. After going cold turkey from TV for at least two months, the chance to catch up on old movies, “30 Rock” and The Simpsons is a vegetative delight.
But it also causes me to worry about “The Daily Show.” I thought the writing was getting a little weak in the spring. Jokes just didn’t have that certain “snap” they needed, and things didn’t build during their segments. “Colbert Report” has changed almost completely into a personality-driven show. I still love it, but don’t feel the need to catch it every single day. Now, I’m starting to think if I have to choose between the two, “Daily Show” might be more topical, but “Colbert” is always funnier.
Even the asides of wackiness are stronger on “Colbert”. Take last night, for instance. Colbert’s assertion that Kanye West was really out to pick a fight with him at the Video Music Awards? Weird, funny, psychologically dead-on.
Jon Stewart in a fat suit? Edging very close to Steve Allen.
I’d hate to think they can’t bring the show back to its former state, but maybe in our new era of earnestness, they’re feeling an urge to educate and not mock. Just because some flawed surveys say that young people get the majority of their news from “The Daily Show” doesn’t mean it should become the slacker version of “Grammar Rock.”
Sara Paretsky Reads Tribute to Mark Fidrych
Back at the Printers Row Lit Fest in June, after we appeared on a panel to discuss baseball and Cubbie Blues, I cornered Sara Paretsky and asked her to read a poem for Bardball.com. She was nice enough to agree to it, and looked over the 8 or so poems I just happened to have printed up. Just my luck, she chose my poem “Wings of the Bird”. We found a little vacant lecture room in the Harold Washington Library and taped this below. Hope you like (apologies in advance for the clumsy editing).
If you’re a Sara Paretsky fan (and of course, you should be), her new book starring V.I. Warshawski is coming out on September 22. You can find more info on the book, Hardball, at her webpage here.
The Olympic Bonanza
Satirists are usually of two minds about bad ideas. While bad ideas might be detrimental to society, the economy, or individual people’s lives, they generally lead to pretty good jokes.
So when I read that the Chicago City Council voted unanimously to guarantee any potential cost overruns for the 2016 Olympics, I was distinctly ambivalent. Bad idea? Sure. Funny material? It starts with the picture of all those clowns standing up and applauding like the Bulls just won in overtime. And the notion that this somehow proves that the Olympics have popular support around here.
This morning on WBBM, Stephanie Streeter, the chief executive officer of the US Olympic Committee, wanted to put a little fire under our collective seats by saying that Chicago is not the front runner for hosting the games. (Again: Good news? Bad news? Please don’t t’row me in dat Briar Patch!) She went on to say that we could really turn things around in time for the October 10 vote:
“What you want to do is be in the lead on the last day, after the vote is taken, not necessarily going into the competition,” she said, in an exclusive interview with WBBM.
Streeter said she believes Chicago is peaking at the right time. She called the Chicago bid “spectacular,” said Wednesday’s unanimous Chicago City Council vote to make financial guarantees erased one potential obstacle, and said the unanimity speaks far louder than the recent Chicago Tribune poll that showed Chicagoans nearly evenly split over support for the bid.
There’s another laugh for you: that the City Council vote represented a unanimity of spirit for the city as a whole. I assume she’s visited the city numerous times in recent years, and knows how things work. So, she’s either deluded, or she’s having a little wry laugh at the expense of the radio audience.
In their enthusiasm, the aldermen must believe the mayor’s assertion that everything’s covered, that in the unlikely event of an overrun, the city’s insurance will take care of it. The aldermen certainly have a hunger to crunch budgetary numbers–just look at how well they scrutinized the parking meter lease deal. These guys LIVE for their fiduciary duties!
The rest of the city? Forgive us if we’re the teensiest bit skeptical about this whole deal. Unless we see some real improvements in the city–most notably with mass transit–we’d like to know exactly what we’re all getting for the half-billion dollar bill we might end up footing.
But at least some of us cynical ones will get some material to work with.
Son Joins the Hordes of High School
It didn’t hit me yesterday, because I wasn’t the one who drove, but today I got hit with it smack in the face: Number One Son is in high school. As he left the car this morning, it looked as if he were entering a literal stream of young people, heading upriver (or down? Lousy metaphor), flapping around in the water, headed toward that ravenous monster, the future. Kids from all backgrounds (except I guess neglectful ones), dressed in all sorts of clothes (didn’t see many headscarves at the Catholic grade school), armed with enthusiasm and intelligence and a little blind naivete that likely is necessary to get a jump-start on adult life.
His anxiety was strong in the car, as he tried to bury himself in a thick biography of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. On Tuesday, enough things went wrong to alert him that he’s no longer at the parish school around the corner. His newfangledy tablet computer (which he got through an experimental school program) went out on him twice. He forgot his locker combination. And he came to realize that he might actually have to pay attention through his whole 90-minute classes and do most of his homework at night. At least there were no snafus on the CTA bus coming home.
He’ll be fine in a few weeks, I’m sure. But we’ll need to keep an eye on his stress levels, because they have a tendency to get bottled up until they explode. I’d blocked out of my mind, at least a little, how difficult the first weeks of high school were. One thing I do remember is, back in the day, I got myself so worked up with nerves and the fear of failure that I made myself sick for a few days. The only people I knew were my brother’s friends and the dorkiest kid in my grade school who was following me there. It was a school full of traditions and demanding standards and a lot of all-boy school machismo, and I really thought that I’d never make a friend there on my own terms. Of course, I eventually made some of my best friends there, some I still stay in touch with. But the immersion was more than my 14-year-old spirit could handle.
I had a dream a few days ago that I still had my handsome fat baby boy in my arms, and I was blowing neck farts on him. He smiled and laughed, we probably even talked about things in a dreamlike way. Damn, he was a handsome baby! I woke up satisfied, not sad or wistful. But oh if it were possible to hold your kids one more time in your arms, if only for a day! How much would any of us pay — how many years off our own life would we sacrifice — if such a thing could be done? It aches just to think about it. Sometimes it’s hard being a sentimental old fluff like me.
(Below is a family portrait that he drew when he was four years old, and his little sister was a caterwauling babe-in-arms. Note the monsters and space ships on the frame, and the pile of hair on his head. I think this was drawn when “Monsters, Inc.” had just come out.)
Having a Smoke Outside Tim Horton’s
On our trip to Canada in August, an old man having a smoke outside the Tim Horton’s in Baden, Ontario, noticed our Illinois license plates. “From the States, eh?” (Gotta say, stereotypes aside, this was the one time I heard an “Eh?” for the whole trip.)
Yep.
“They don’t treat their old folks too good down there.”
Well, there you go, a great way to start a conversation. I could callously agree and get on with my cruller-eating, or disagree and get into a discussion with someone who had obviously made up his own mind. Where are you now, Dale Carnegie?
Despite the misconception, Canada does have one national language, and it is politeness. So I had to actually try and converse with him. It really didn’t go anywhere, as he just wanted to tell me he pays $4 for his prescriptions and he knows all about the US because he and his late wife used to golf a lot in North Carolina.
But one reason to stop and talk was to get an outsider’s opinion of the whole health care “debate” now devolving. I hadn’t seen any of the town hall shouting matches, but I don’t think I needed to. If I wanted to see a bunch of middle-aged white guys shouting, I could go to a demolition derby. Unfortunately, I’m pretty uninformed about the topic. Which generally doesn’t stop anyone from having an opinion, but I’m kind of old school about such things. I also don’t like arguing with pensioners. Bad form.
But to explain to him why the arguments were happening the way they have been? Sort of impossible in a casual setting. If he didn’t know that America is more dog-eat-dog than Canada by this stage in his life, he’s not paying attention, and to make the point felt like self-flagellation. Which isn’t covered by my insurance.
I haven’t bothered to watch many of the town hall screamfests now that I’m back with a TV and broadband access. I mean, what’s there to learn, except that a huge portion of my country has been pounded by economic and social change and doesn’t like it one bit, and has decided that aligning themselves with the pharma-insurance industry will improve their lives? Today, I did watch the video clip from the NJ meeting, when a woman in a wheelchair with auto-immune problems was heckled and mocked because she might lose her home. Was it cruel? Yes. Surprising? No.
Because a large portion of Americans have no big objections to watching people’s lives collapse. Not a majority, I don’t think, but certainly a good chunk. As long as they’re not personally affected and their corner of the world stays the same, everyone else can just go to hell. You can dress it all up in flashy principles like small government, no creeping socialism, and all that, but that group of people really doesn’t mind watching others suffer. “The devil take the hindmost,” they think, and one more day when someone else is the hindmost is a good one.
Trying to explain that to a nice old Canuck in front of a donut shop isn’t easy. I didn’t try.
But at the end of our conversation, as a way of sign-off, he said, “Well, regardless, you guys seem to get things done in the end. You find ways to get it all together.”
Sure we do, as long as you don’t tally up all the costs.
Okay, Looks Like I’m Ready to Be a City Boy Again
Yesterday the family piled in the car and returned to the City on the Make. Schools are starting, and other obligations are beginning. Of course, after a rainy weekend, the sun came out on Sunday and taunted us as we packed, cleaned, stored and drove off. Typical weather for the end of a vacation–I wish I could keep track of the weather every Sunday evening since we’ve been going to the lake house, because it always seems to be sunny, warm and perfect.
So after a pasta dinner tonight, I took a stroll through Lincoln Square, to see what’s been going on around the area. Couple stores opened, a couple closed. No real surprises. Both bookstores are still there (man, we are fortunate around this hood), and looking like they’re doing okay. An artist lined up a lot of canvases on the sidewalk near the square, which was cool and something it would be good to see more often. The Davis is still showing movies, and my favorite bars are still open. Pretty soon Half Acre Brewing will have a tasting room at their brewery on Lincoln, so I can have my mail forwarded there.
Yep, it looks like everything proceeded along without me the past two months. The nerve of this city, ignoring my absence! As usual, coming back here after the summer was filling me with a little dread: too much noise, too many cars, too many people. Oh, and the writing projects call again, now that vacation is over. It’s always more pleasant to think about great projects than to watch what they end up being.
But as I type, I realize these are the exact reasons I’m not ready to live full time up in farm and lake country. I need the distractions. I need the loudness, and the people. I need things to keep changing. Without it, I don’t think I’d be able to survive. Hanging out on the water is a lot of fun, and certainly refreshing, but I still need to talk to people about something other than the fish and whether the State of Michigan will implode on itself.
So the Garners still get the best of both worlds. A place to relax, and a place to get wound up. I wish these two things to all of you. Oh, and some fresh caught fish.
Fishing Boats for Sale
Driving through the backroads of Michigan this summer, I’ve seen “For Sale” signs everywhere. Not just on houses and property, but also on cars, trailers, lawn mowers, snow blowers, fishing boats and pontoons. It’s very sad. It’s gotten to the point where I expect everything sitting in someone’s front yard MUST be out there to be sold. I had to apologize repeatedly to that old woman sitting in the Amiga in Fruitport, and she STILL gave me the finger when I drove off.
Just kidding. I was never in Fruitport. And I have no use for an Amiga.
Such a fire sale can be hard on the nerves of the casually interested. If I had a few million sitting in the bank ready for action, I’d probably start succumbing to temptation and assemble a flotilla of pontoon boats, bass boats and jet skis. What I’d do with a flotilla, I don’t know. Float it as best I could, probably. The temptation is also there to scoop up some of the homes and property that are sitting on lake front property, but they cost considerably more than a 20-year-old pontoon. And I have no interest in becoming a real estate baron. Plaid pants make me look fat.
These are tough times for my favorite state. It always seems to be tough times here. I moved to Chicago in 1982 because of tough times, and every time I come back, it’s déjà vu all over again. Now the workers who are losing their jobs or feeling the pinch of the general downturn are trying to sell their fishing boats, which are basically standard equipment here. The “Cash for Clunkers” program might help the factories get rolling again, but the GM bailout will be forcing wages down. So even those folks who still have jobs might not be able to afford a house and a boat.
Oh boo hoo, you might be thinking. I don’t have a boat, or a trailer or even the time to use one if I did.
But it was part of the social contract here in Michigan for generations. You put your time in at the factory, and you’d be able to send your kids to school, have some health coverage, and be able to relax a little on the water on the weekends. Now that’s falling apart quickly. The state is out of money, the city of Detroit is bound to collapse soon, the small factories that fed Detroit are cutting back and/or shutting up shop, and the people who are just trying to wait for the rebound to start are going to food banks and selling the fishing boat. Maybe when things turn around, they’ll be able to buy a new one, maybe not. Sad to watch. Feels like the whole state is hunkered down, waiting to get punched one more time.
Henry Louis Gates: Scholar, Freedom Fighter, Potty Mouth
Henry Louis Gates’ recent dust-up with the police, and today’s historic beer reconciliation (who’ll bring the pretzels and mustard?), have brought to mind the time about 14 years ago when I met Prof. Gates.
He and I had contributed essays to a marvelous collection called HOME: American Writers Remember Rooms of Their Own. Assembled by my friends Steve and Sharon Fiffer, the book was built like a fictional house in which different writers chose a room (mine was “The Work Room”, Gates’ was “The Living Room”) and wrote a reflection on the personal meaning of that space. A portion of the book’s profits were given to homeless charities.
During the book’s launch, a reading was arranged at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, and somehow I was in town to participate. I met Prof. Gates and a couple of the other writers, whose names escape me now. When my slot came, I read the first three pages of my essay, explaining my new-found appreciation of the wisdom of the Three Stooges that had arisen upon the purchase of my first house.
The reading went pretty well, and when I returned to my seat, Gates leaned over to me with a wide smile on his face and whispered:
“You are one funny motherfucker.”
This was one of the most thrilling asides I’ve ever had in my life. A Harvard professor and international scholar not only thought I was funny, but also that I was cool enough to be called a motherfucker. I’ve often thought of how I could get away with using this endorsement, on a book jacket or play poster or something. Imagine how cool that would look on the back of a book: “James Finn Garner is one funny motherfucker”–Henry Louis Gates.
When Gates said this to me, I asked him to send me a letter with his opinion in writing. He must’ve thought I was kidding, but I really wanted a copy of this, especially on stationery from the chairman of Harvard’s African-American Studies Department. How cool would THAT be? A week or two later, I sent him a letter at the school, hoping I could josh him into it, but I got no response. Apparently the exchange was meant to be private. Well, until now.
“Politically Correct Bedtime Stories” Onstage in Toronto Fringe Festival
Earlier this year, I received a request from a theater group in Ontario, the Pheasant Pluckers Mates, about adapting my PCBS stories for the stage. After a little paperwork, they went ahead with it, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. I read their treatment, and it was very funny.
Now there’s a set of photos on the web by one Jen Grantham, showing the members of the Pheasant Pluckers onstage, ready to assault their audiences’ funny bones. Again, it looks like a hoot, if you can judge these types of things from pictures.
The Pheasant Pluckers’ Mates will be performing their adaptation at the Toronto Fringe Festival from July 1 through July 11. Looks like there’s a performance just about every day, both early and late, to suit all schedules. If you’re in the area, please check them out. They’ve been top drawer with me, and I’m bettin’ the show will be a hoot.
Bardball Bardcast #02
We’ve now posted a second podcast for Bardball.com, the only daily baseball poetry website. In this episode, a plethora of readers will regale you with poems about Dontrelle Willis, father-and-son bonding, and a parody of Robert Frost about sneaking down to the expensive stadium seats during later innings.
Yeah, we’s well read, we got a little Frost parody action goin’ on! Can I get an Amen and a Holy Cow?!
Please catch the latest Bardball Bardcast at libsyn by clicking here.
You can also subscribe to us at iTunes. Even if you don’t regularly listen to podcasts, please consider subscribing, as that will raise our profile and attract some more fans to us. We’re building a great community here, one piece of doggerel at a time.
R.I.P., Sunday Magazines
Or color supplement, or rotogravure, or pictorial weekly. Whatever you call it, if newspapers are the endangered rhinos of the media world, then the Sunday magazines are the white rhinos.
The Chicago Tribune this past Sunday announced they were discontinuing the separate Sunday magazine. It was a little shocking, because isn’t that what Sunday papers were for–longer, more involved, more thoughtful pieces? But after the news sunk in, I guess it made sense. The magazine recently had slimmed down to one cover article, a recipe, a couple columns, and the crossword. Thankfully, Rick Kogan’s column will be included elsewhere in the paper on Sunday. He’s a civic treasure. They ought to siphon out his brain and put it in a robot, so people can remember everything that makes this city great (not excluding Rick Kogan robots, either).
I have a sentimental attachment to the Trib Magazine Section. It was where I had my first story printed. Back in 1990, they carried “Jerry’s Last Fare,” which actually was also the first of many annual Christmas stories that I write for my wife. Of course it was a little sentimental, but it was the holidays, deal with it. I was ecstatic that they were going to print it. Households all over the Midwest (how many? A million? Or close to it back then?) would have a story of mine sitting around their house in the week before the holiday, kicking around the coffee table, maybe picked up by two, three, five secondary readers! If I remember correctly, we were headed out of town to my in-laws in Michigan on the Saturday morning, and so we bought a few at Jewel, then bought up a lot of copies when we got to the west side of the state. We bought the copies that my proud father-in-law hadn’t gotten yet. I still have a lot of yellowing copies somewhere. Like a lot of other things, you never forget your first paid story.
I’m sad to see it go, but frankly the Sunday Trib has less and less to read every week. It’s not just because they’re jettisoning too many writers–they’ve also let the morons from Red Eye choose the content. While market research will tell them to print snappy, trendy factoids to attract the hip set, common sense would tell them Sunday papers aren’t meant for skimming–they’re meant to be read over coffee and sweet rolls. We only get the Sunday Trib out of habit now, and give almost all our attention to the Sunday NY Times.
On the other hand, maybe in the back of my mind, I feel like subsidizing the Sunday paper. It’s a pity move, that’s for sure, and they don’t deserve it because the Trib has fired many excellent writers and editors (some of whom are good friends of mine) while protecting their middle-management ranks and dumbing down the paper tremendously.
But in Detroit, where my mom lives, they’ve stopped home delivery except three days a week. She told me sadly, earlier this year, “It’s awful lonely in the morning if the paper doesn’t come.” Maybe I’m still betting against a future like that for other places.
Happily Ever After…Not So Much
Since many people assume that I am completely obsessed and an utter expert on fairy tales and the postmodern exploration of their themes, metathemes and metametas, I thought I would pass along this gallery of photographs by Dina Goldstein. As her daughters have begun to be interested in Disney princesses, she began to explore the idea of what “happily ever after” was like. Her portrayals of Snow White and the rest of them are beautifully done, and sometimes disturbing. My favorite is Cinderella drinking in a honky-tonk. Enjoy.
Crosstown Classic: Ozzie and Lou
Posted today on Bardball:
The White Sox and the Cubbies
Determined to have a battle.
Then Ozzie said that Wrigley Field
Wasn’t fit for cattle.“It makes me puke,” he told the press,
Though he meant no disrespect.
His mouth is like a leaky faucet,
So what could you expect?The Chicago skippers aren’t like the twins
From Lewis Carroll’s book of yore.
Ozzie yips like a hyper spaniel
While Lou just shrugs and snores.