About a quarter of a million years ago, I played some of your old work-league softball. We had jerseys and beer and gloves and balls and bats and heart and big mouths and some kind of willingness to play a game for a while before going out and having more beer.

Fast forward to the modern times, and “they” have added all these rules and safety concerns and all sorts of falderal. First base is now twice as long and is half orange and half white. There’s a place for the defensive side and a place for the runner. For safety, they must not ever touch. It’s the sporting equivalent of an Orthodox bride keeping on her side of the sheet with the hole.

The team I have joined is not good. I do absolutely nothing to raise the curve of not good.

I’m incredibly special needs. I want to play ball. I know the rules and what’s supposed to happen, but like many an enthusiastic mentally handicapped child there’s a giant gap between my desire and my physical coordination. Last night I grabbed the ball off the ground on the edge of center field with the intend of throwing it to home. Somehow, I managed to stretch my arm above my head in a spastic throwing motion and drop it on my head. As I paused to marvel at my stupidity and slowly shagged the ball that had rolled down my back and away from me, the runners all comfortably reached their bases.

By the way, if you are special needs, but at an educable level such as I am, there is nothing worse than the polite encouragement from your team. That “good try” telegraphs “we all know you have special needs but are doing our best to be tolerant and let you mainstream.”

The rule that seemed absolutely un-American in terms of tradition, but sadly completely American in terms of liability and litigiousness and an incredibly pussified fear of injury, is the newfangled way a runner is supposed to handle scoring a run. The runner cannot touch home plate. Instead he/she runs wide and lets the catcher hold the ground to tag the base. A runner’s tagging the metaphorically loaded, traditional home base is out and no run is scored.

Sadly, even the Canadian Special Olympics allow for the runner to tag up and forgive it, if there’s no play at home. Not so out league.

That out was the difference between a 30 to zip loss and a 30-1. That out was the difference between dignity.

Technorati Tags: Americans, softball, sports, tradition

My complete and utter freaking, crazed neuroses has resulted in my actually getting my shit together more than I expected. I have a whole lot of sunscreen, an ocean of mosquito repellent, khakis, linen and all sorts of anti-this and that viral load roiling through my veins. I might try to pack this weekend.

Most surprisingly of all, I got a shitload of work done this week, including a list of what kind of crap I can do remotely, what kind of crap can wait and what kind of crap some poor, co-working schmoe might have to help file, send, sign, email, fax, burn or shred. It felt like a well-earned mellow Friday night.

M. and I strolled down the street to peruse the billions of possible morsels we could dine upon in the ‘hood. Meanwhile, I had completely forgotten to tell M. about seeing Susan Jacoby talking up her new book on the U.S. of A.’s growing anti-intellectualism on The Colbert Report the other night.

I wanted to remember, tell M. and possibly buy him the book, because Susan Jacoby mentioned a statistic near and dear to his heart — half of Americans haven’t read a book in the last year. None, not a romance, a pulp novel, a smarmy self-helper, a graphic, pornographic novel. No books. Half of us. None.

M. has three, four or five books he’s cycling through at any given time. His book consumption is as constant as his rice and barbecued pork consumption, and by that I mean a fucking lot. Mostly, they are non-fiction with a capitalist, business, economic bent. But, books they are. He also enjoys nothing more than a couple of hours in front of his big ass TV channel surfing from the crappiest movies ever, murder dramas and CNN.

M. has come home from work on a thousand or so different occasions with variations on the observation, “Other people in my office don’t read books.” Sometimes it’s a self-conscious question, “Do you think I’m weird for reading books all the time?” More often it’s a question about others, “How can people not read?”

I’m way down on the keeping up with M. book-wise. I’m voracious for news and articles and spend a fair bit of time keeping up with the current events of the work I do for pay. My rationalization, poor as it is, for not reading more and not keeping up with fiction for sure is that time reading is time not writing. That doesn’t make me a complete boob, does it?

Anyway, I forgot about The Age of American Unreason and went about my life. This life included the aforementioned stroll in search of dinner.

Dinner we had, and where else did M. want to go afterward during our nighttime constitutional perambulation? The local independent bookstore, Kepler’s.

I saw the pile of red books displayed before I heard the speaker and noticed the crowd in folding chairs. It was Susan Jacoby herself, again talking up her book. Live and in person in our very own neighborhood.

“The Age of American Unreason” (Susan Jacoby)

It’s a book I will likely read in paperback. It’s a sad truth in my intellectual weakness, but I hefted the book and deemed it too heavy to carry on my upcoming string of international flights. My brain is small and atrophied, as are my wrists.

It does feel as though we, the people, have been dumbed down collectively, although Hamilton rather disdained the rabble such as we are back in the day. Jacoby’s stories and connections are compelling.

However, I looked over the mostly grayed and white-haired heads bobbing in agreement in the crowd, and I couldn’t jump in with both feet and show my support. Sure, the point of computers and electronic communication and access to information as mere tools is a sound one. But, books are tools, too. They are no more magical and imbued with mystic healing properties and wisdom. There’s as much useless, dull, pointless and anti-intellectual dreck in the library, as there is on the old ‘puter.

Take the guy harshing on the culture today plugged in 24/7 to iPods and how listening to music as a constant soundtrack was impairing people from critical thinking. Or, old, bookstore-going dude, I’m listening to my friend’s recordings of violin quartets after she explained some rudimentary music theory to me, or I’m listening to NPR podcasts, audiobooks or classic radio bits from Bob and Ray. I’m sorry was your judgmental swipe and assumption that all iPods are loaded with Deathcab for Cutie more intellectual than thou or am I too dumb to get your point?

I guess for me, I wanted to stop the nodding heads of complacent agreement about those other people out there getting all dumbed down and explain that they were perhaps missing something in the books versus computer/TV/video screen either-or argument that seemed to be seeping into the conversation. Hell, sure, now with the speed of the internet, assertions can become fact and conspiracy theories and freakish lies become worthy of discourse without merit. But, the same intranet instantly spawns associations of like-minded individuals collectively correcting the lies and distortions.

That second effect of the internet seems powerful to me in positively affecting public discourse.

I can think people who take Wikipedia at face value without understanding it as a tool, an end not a means, as anti-intellectual. But, I cannot dismiss the body collective who contribute their esoterically tiny or their vast and varied knowledge and verifiable facts as the great drooling masses, because they haven’t produced or consumed books.

M., punkass punk that he is, walked over to me, as I stood in the back of the book talk, and whispered “elitists.” Wherever does he feel such sarcasm is acceptable?

Technorati Tags: Americans, books, California, intellectual, life, Politics, Susan_Jacoby

I had a whole elaborate post inside my head about sports and how un-sporty I am, but I never got around of moving it out to my fingertips and keyboard.

The gist is M. and I signed up for the softball team started by one of my fellow toilers. We played our first game on Monday. To say our team was not the best would be fully dulling the truth. We were sublimely not good. There’s a zen-like calm when you end up playing a game that wraps up at a 0 to 37. At least it wasn’t 40.

The thing for me is I don’t care at all. I understand how scoring works, and I get the fun of actually scoring. But, balls were hit and caught and thrown around. So, the game was still played.

Of course, the team that kept taking walks wile amassing the double digits clearly missed that little league moment when the coach taught you how to be a “good winner” and not humiliate the opposition needlessly.

I wonder what part of my brain doesn’t exist or wasn’t developed enough to get all do or die about the actual score. I do play hard, poorly but enthusiastically. And, I’m more than willing to throw myself into the dirt (which I did in an incredibly awkward play on second that landed me flat out on my belly clutching a grounder, while my feet stayed tagging the plate and earning the out). But, I just don’t give a crap about the score.

Amusingly that same day, my brother finished (at a fairly respectable 4 hours 18 minutes) his first Boston Marathon on a charity team that included Tedy Bruschi. We laughed at how little that particular brush with celebrity meant to him or would have meant to me, while at the same time we realized folks we know would have been off the charts excited.

Here’s a really crappy video commemorating the softball match. I bought a rather cheap pocket-sized video camera–one of the dealios that records to media and is kind of meant to post right up on YouTube.com. Clearly, I haven’t worked it out and suck at using it right now.

In lighter news, I finally fucking got my Yellow Fever injection and can now leave the relative comfort of my Californian, low-disease-risk haven. All in all, I got five shots, polio, typhoid, tetanus, yellow fever, and hepatitis A. Somewhere in there, I think a concoction or two will boost my measles and whatnot. I might run to the pharmacy tomorrow for my anti-malaria pills.

With that level of invincibility coursing through my veins, I’m ready to make out with a chimp or walk barefoot in a major city.

I’ll be sending an email wit the Blogger.com identity (and matching YouTube.com and Picasa.com accounts) that I’ve set up for the voyage to Uganda. One person has given me the shout out to get the link. For others, let me know, or beware a mass email.

Technorati Tags: competition, race, softball, sports, travel, Uganda, work

 

 Softball: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

After the second attempt to get all sorts of injections and pills for traveling outside of the U.S. of A., I saw the nurse. As a side note, nothing adds to good old-fashioned American-style xenophobia than preparing for a trip to the continent of Africa. The hand-outs and WHO and CDC warnings are all about the germs, parasites, viruses and horrible afflictions for which your weak, pampered American ass is wholly unprepared.

I saw the nurse, yet I am still Yellow Fever prone. Apparently, there’s a shortage on account of it being a live vaccine that mad scientists whip up in small batches and keep alive. So, they have a big old let’s open the yellow fever vaccine bottle just this once appointment, where me and four or five other folks will get poked at the same time with the fresh bottle. You’d think they would have mentioned this little, fucking thing when I called, oh, I dunno, a half dozen times trying to get this shit straight.

Fucking HMOs.

No Yellow Fever, but I apparently am all set for Hep A, Typhoid and polio. I kind of want to sleep with a drug-addicted hooker to check out how my liver fends off the hepatitis. Maybe I should just trust the medical establishment.

I don’t know if I”m a total hypochondriac or I’m diseased. She said the typhoid vaccine would hurt my arm (I swear I could feel it surge through my veins), and that I might get a fever and a headache. I ended up riving home with the kind of skull-slicing pain that makes your eyes water. I laid on the couch complaining that the typhoid had gotten me. I'm probably minutes from a messy, old-fashioned demise.

I just wrote long, uninteresting diatribes in my own comments section down in the Harriet post below. What the fuck is the matter with me?

In other news, my fingernails are bitten down to the quick, I’m half convinced I’m coming down with a cold, and I feel abso-fucking-lutely unprepared to leave this continent and head out to exotic destinations. Tomorrow, I’ll try again for the yellow fever vaccination and malaria meds prescription I’ll be needing in Uganda.

The other day, fucking Kaiser-Permanente passed me through an annoying series of switchboard, if you want x press 1 now, if you want a real person, hahaha, telephone connections before letting me actual talk with the travel clinic. I was calling to explain I was late, because I got lost en route. When after 10+ minutes of trying I got through, the chick on the phone said, “Oh, our one nurse who is certified to do those shots left. Her appointment didn’t show up.”

AHHHH, motherfucker, I was the appointment. Thwarted in getting her to stay by a fucked up phone system patched through Sacramento back to the neighborhood I was driving around.

I’ve committed to white-water rafting the Nile. Admittedly, it’s because how unfuckingbelievably cool does “Hey, I went white-water rafting on the source of the Nile,” sound?

That and the chimp tracking in Budongo, and I’ll pretty much be fulfilled.

So far, the only thing I’ve honestly done to prepare is to worry myself sick and buy some on-sale linen shirts at J-Jill.

By the way, I’m going to set up a legit completely unrelated to this website blog on Blogger, probably with a photo album on Picasa. I’ll be traveling with legitimate, actual journalists, who may be blogging their own bad selves. I’m also going to try to convince my co-worker to contribute.

Since shitting where you work is a bad idea, as is pissing in the coffee pot, I don’t want to direct anyone here.

If you see this note, and you’re interested in reading my adventures in Uganda and seeing some pics (assuming I can get the bandwidth to upload), shoot me an email and I’ll send you the link(s). Or leave a comment, and I’ll email you offline. (Mum’s the word on this shithole, though, that’s the only rule.)

Technorati Tags: Africa, travel, Uganda, vindication, weblog, worry, work, writing

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, I like the idea of grown up sports way more than I ever liked team sports as a kid. Maybe it’s because there ain’t no ego-destroying line ups of two captains picking teams while the numbers of eligible players dwindle, and you’re left standing with the Tourette’s Syndrome girl, who your mother had taught in her special needs class.

Speaking of the girl with Tourette’s Syndrome, I’ll call her Deb, ‘cuz that was her name. Well, Deb knew me and considered me an ally, since she knew and liked my mom. There’s a special weird place of trying to fit in to any juvenile social scene when that crazy, universally teased, often cruelly, girl is shouting to you in the lunch room that if you have no where to sit, you can join her and her one other, almost equally mocked, friend.

Fortunately, I’m not a total cunt. So while I didn’t join her, I never treated her poorly. Karma, dig?

Anyway, eventually we all grew up, and Pat would see her regularly bagging groceries at the local Shaw’s. They would exchange pleasantries, and Deb would update her on her goings on. Apart from the Tourette’s she was a regular, townie woman. One day, Pat gleefully told me on the phone the latest news. Deb was getting married.

Of course, the punch line my dear mother held back to get the timing just right. Wow, Dee, she founds someone who would marry her. She delighted in letting me know the girl with Tourette’s, the girl who she had once had me tutor, the girl that everyone in my school tortured, that girl had done something I couldn’t (and really still haven’t). She had become a bride.

I have no doubt at all in any corner of any synapse within every inch of my skull, that if Pat were alive today, she would still point out that I am unmarried.

All of the last few paragraphs were a total digression. Obviously. The point really is that in adult life you get to just sign up for shit, and the other kids and you have to get along. Some parts of being an adult are way the fuck easier than childhood.

We had a scrimmage match last night. I remembered another reason I hated gym class — fucking warriors who treat all athletic activity, even town league softball practice sessions, like the World Superbowl Series Olympics. Fucking douches.

Last night, there was one such douche, named Brian, who plays with a team that showed up for the first practice in their matching shirts, the only ones among four or five teams who did, and who offered to fill in some spots on our side to provide some league-seasoned guidance. I fucking hope through some random series of errors, bad luck and maybe a hawk attack on their side and good fortune and fun playing on ours, we kick their asses later in the season.

My preference is we win through uncontrollable events, because Brian is most definitely the kind of guy who needs control. The little blond nazi, most definitely reminiscent of Rolf in the Sound of Music, earned my slight annoyance after the third time he explained to me where to stand, despite his utter obliviousness that I was trying to help M., who had asked, figure out where best to stand to cover second. He nailed my enmity, when during a different inning I was at second. He ran in from the outfield, shouting “I got it,” to snag the ball that was directly behind me and then raced forward forcing me out of the way to cover the base.

Way to play that ‘I’ in team, one man band man. For fuck’s sake, I wanted to yell at him, “What the fuck is the point of you making that play during a practice, you know where the rest of us were trying to, um, practice?” Throw the ball, handle some relays, shag some balls. Practice things.

As we were walking home from the park, I did entertain the thought that I’m psycho for hating a stranger over a stupid game. I was vindicated this morning, though. Apparently, per my co-worker who played with the other team for the scrimmage match, a team of normally dressed, joking-around, fun-seeming people, the matching t-shirt team is the only hardcore competitive team in the league. And, everyone hates the little blond dude, known for minor rule infractions and plate crowding to win.

The other bonus to gym class activities in the real-live grown-up world is you don’t have to like, or pretend to like, the arrogant jocks. Yay maturity.

In related news, I’m a little disappointed that the bruise on my thigh from a hit ball isn’t larger. I wanted a softball-sized trophy for my middle-aged jock fantasy.

Also, M. is putting his mad cricket skillz from the old world to work. He’s picking up quickly on what Abner Doubleday started.

Technorati Tags: competition, government, gym, softball, sports, jocks, life, Pat

The inimitable Dorothy Dwyer had a birthday during what is now yesterday. Go say “Hi” on her weblog.

And, no matter what, I have vowed to find her a gift worthy of the shiny cardinal sweater she sent me, even if it takes me to the ends of the earth. Luckily, I’m heading to one end of the world in a couple of weeks, and M. has family in another end. Unless Antarctica is the tchotchke capital of the world, and I don’t know it, I have hope.

Technorati Tags: blues, Dorothy_Dwyer, Dot_Dwyer

Ah, the WWW. Just by it’s definition, you find yourself crawling from one strand to another and another. Thanks to this man, who I’d like to call a friend from Boston comedy, and who also writes here, I ended up here. So I checked out NPR’s show “In Character,” which I hadn’t heard before.

After whiling (or wiling) away some time listening to some of Broadway’s belters as the fabulous Mama Rose (Really is there a better musical?), I found this little NPR piece on what for me will always be until the end of time one of my favorites — Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy. Awesomeness.

I didn’t realize two things about the book, which I read, reread, dog-eared, wore out and eventually carved a square in the pages to hide my juvenile pot stash, it is literally as old as me, born in 1964, and it was something of a handbook for germinating lesbians of my vintage.

I’m not a lesbian, but I guess reading-wise, it could have gone either way.

Technorati Tags: comedy, Louise_Fitzhugh, Harriet_the_Spy, teenage, women, writing

I did our taxes today. It kind of blows, since we both owe some deniro. M. actually was close to even, more or less, considering his success of the year.

Me, though, I was in a special kind of stupid with the federal gov’mint. Not only do I have to pay them some cash money, but I have to pay a $3, come them, uno, dos, tres, three singles, as a penalty for underpaying. What the fuck? I ain’t never had to pay a penalty before.

What kind of bullshit is that exactly? If I got the same amount as a refund, would the federal government of the U.S. of A. have to pay me an extra $3. Yeah, I don’t think so.

I guess the bright side is it means we are employed enough, and doing well enough, and liquid enough to have earned taxable income and be able to afford to pay. Compared to say being unemployed or flat down busted broke, I guess it will have to do as better.

It would be a little easier to swallow if the country wasn’t trillions in debt in the middle of an endless, stupid war. I’m not so much anti-tax, ‘cuz I believe all that shit about a great society, and whatever you do to the least of your brothers, yada, but these days it just ain’t faith-making.

Anywho, life shall go on, even if the coins jingle a little less in my proverbial pocket.

Other than that, I’m started to full on freak out about the upcoming trip to Africa. Whilst it’s nice to put another pin on another continent in the imaginary world map in my head, I have to admit trekking the world fires up my neuroses like nobody’s business. Strap on injections for the exotic like yellow fever and pills for malaria, let alone the way too fucking long flights to Amsterdam than Kampala, and I’m downright skittish.

Adding to the fear factor, my co-worker has suggested post official work stuff we go white-water rafting. The highlight there is if I don’t drown, or cause a raft of tourists to smash against the rocks, I’ll have the bragging rights to have ran the rapids at the source of the motherfucking Nile River. Yeah, that Nile.

And, there will be chimps. Yes, there will be chimps; it is not quite certain but as close to locked guarantee as one can get chimpanzee-wise.

Technorati Tags: Africa, Uganda, blues, taxes, travel, work

Did anyone have any doubt that Mayor Gavin Newsom would be able to keep the protestors (and as it turns out a whole lot of disappointed Chinese immigrants) off the scent of the Olympic torch?

I mean, Gavin’s a man who had an affair with his best friend/campaign manager’s wife. No doubt he has a trick or three on keeping things under wraps. Today, he used those skills for the city.

Technorati Tags: government, Mayor_Gavin_Newsom, Olympics, San Francisco