Season Ender

 As I stood there, medium deep in left field, I told myself that I was guarding the foul line. The red ball was making its way directly toward me. 

Directly to me. 

This annual rite of passage for the fifth graders has become more of a chore each year as I have grown older and more stiff while the competition has stayed the same. Playing kickball against the soon-to-be-promoted ten and eleven year olds is something that has caused me to lose sleep. Not a lot, since I have also rationalized the brief moment in time that it encapsulates. Last year, after a string of ignominious defeats, the fifth grade class rose up and broke a streak that went back several years. To hear this years incipient middle schoolers, the teachers and staff were "gonna get beat."

I wasn't thinking about all of that exactly as I watched that red ball hurtle through the air. 

I was thinking about the one I had missed the inning before. I didn't get my hands on it, but my inability to sprint to the place where it landed caused much amusement among the assembled student body. Mister Caven doesn't get around as well as he used to.

I took some comfort in the knowledge that much of the rest of our team was younger and more spry than I, and whatever deficiencies I might have would be amply made up for by them. 

I spent a lot of time when I was in elementary school praying that the ball would come nowhere near me. I just wanted the game to be over. I could see that same expression on the faces of some of the fifth graders as they took to the field. 

Forty-five minutes to glory.

Now the ball was making its descent, and I thought about the number of other "easy" fly balls I had seen my teammates bobble. Playground balls are notoriously bouncy, and I had seen them careen off my teammates outstretched arms and fingers. Would I be able to corral this one chance at personal triumph?

If I dropped it, I could become part of a rally for the fifth graders. If I caught it, I would put an end to their inning and we would have another chance to add to what was becoming an insurmountable lead. 

I set my feet and put out my hands, remembering to grab the incoming rubbery missile in the air, then bring it into my chest, securing the catch. 

Then it was over. 

There were some cheers, and some jeering from the crowd whose allegiance became apparent as the game wore on. 

When it was all over, the teachers and staff had triumphed, thirty to twelve. I probably didn't need to relive all that childhood trauma. I probably could have enjoyed the game just a little more. But I will keep that one fly ball in my personal highlight reel. 

Wait til next year.

Welcome Home

 There's a lot of awful news out there.

Do I need to tell you about the $1.776 billion dollar fund that the convicted felon has set aside for other convicted felons? Mister Spray Tan believes that the January 6 rioters were unfairly prosecuted by the Biden administration, and these poor insurrectionists deserve to be paid for their "suffering."

Closer to home, a teenage driver plowed into a crowd on a sidewalk here in Oakland, killing three and injuring several more. The teenaged driver was traveling at more than fifty miles an hour. The bright spot? Bystanders apprehended the driver after he attempted to flee the scene. 

And just down the coast in San Diego, three people were shot and killed in that area's largest mosque. Then the gunmen turned their weapons on themselves, in an apparent act of civic pride that was poorly timed, since they could have shot themselves before harming innocent victims. 

I do not need to tell you these things, and yet, here I am, reiterating just a fraction of all the ugliness that surrounds us all every day. 

So I will tie this all up by telling you this story: On Monday, the Bay Area was experiencing a period of gusty winds. One of these breezes blew our front door open. My wife, who was preparing to leave herself, initially closed the door and prepared herself to head out on the rest of her day. When she left, it did not occur to her that our cat might have found his way out that previously open door. 

Consequently, our cat spent the day outside. This used to be his natural state, having grown up as the neighborhood stray before we acquired his newly toothless, recovering beast after a bout of painful dental surgery funded by our local cat lovers. I was busy at work, and my wife was rambling around doing errands around town as she often does, not keeping an eye on the feline. 

When I came home later that afternoon, imagine my surprise when our wayward kitty was sitting on the back porch, looking quite contrite when I went out the door to dispose of some recycling. I welcomed him back in, and he trotted past me without looking up. This interaction stood in stark contrast to what had been a ritual for the first few years of his stay with us when we would spend hours tracking him down, searching in his old haunts and alerting the neighbors to his escape. 

Not this time. He seemed relieved to be back inside. Home. 

I understand. 

What's His Deal?

 The big fluff about the Orange Worst was that he was some sort of brilliant businessman, and that he would "run the United States like a business." 

What they failed to mention that he might just end up running the United States like one of his businesses. 

On this spot, I have made the point many times that this is a guy who managed to bankrupt not one, not two, but five of his own casinos in Atlantic City and Gary, Indiana. If this is the first you've heard of a casino in Gary, Indiana, you are not alone. My guess is that the former game show host probably found out that he had a casino in Gary shortly before it closed down. Maybe he gave away too many King Crab legs at the buffet. Or maybe he just couldn't figure out how to make a business that should print money work. As he has done his entire life, he leaves one smoking heap of wreckage for the next potential failure. 

Now he's doing this with house money. Our house money. Just this week he has decided to "drop" the ten billion dollar lawsuit he filed against the Internal Revenue Service for failing to keep his tax records safe, after never bothering to release his financials ahead of any of the presidential elections in which he has participated. In the modern era, this failed casino owner is the only major candidate not to do so. The fear, it seems, is that if we ever saw the unholy mess this "deal artist" has made of his family fortune, we might not think as highly of his business acumen. 

Slide this right up next to his ongoing obsession with creating monuments to himself across our nation's capital. The ballooning estimates to complete the wreck he started by tearing down the East Wing of the White House in favor of a glitzy, bulletproof ballroom and bingo parlor continues to embarrass members of his party as well as confound even those who were sure he needed such a monstrosity. 

Right behind that is the very expensive spray painting of the reflecting pool between the Lincoln and Washington monuments and the Arc De Trumpf that will interfere with air traffic in the area, and you have the tip of the iceberg. 

What lies beneath is the destruction of our American economy. The war with Iran has done little to solve the unrest in the Middle East, but has made inflation jump to critical levels while the deficit grows not unlike the giant grasshoppers in a fifties science fiction movie. Billions of dollars are being spent each day not to achieve our diplomatic or military goals, but to keep firing missiles at another country's military that was supposed to be "obliterated." 

Once the Oval Office started to look like the bathroom, we should have noticed. There is no art in his deal. 

Medium Well

 There was a couple years there where I used to stand around in my living room with a plastic guitar strapped to my chest as I flicked a control bar with my right hand and maneuvered my left across a series of colored buttons. I was pretending to play guitar. 

I have mentioned here before how much I enjoyed Guitar Hero.  

On Medium. 

Like so much of my video game experience, I don't feel like I need to push myself needlessly to extremes. This was also the case with my masquerade as a guitar hero. Every so often a guest would appear in our living room and ask if they could dial up the difficulty. "Go right ahead," was my response, and I was frequently amazed by their prowess manipulating a toy guitar and following those rainbow dots that came streaming across the screen. On all those occasions, I never met a single "real" guitar player. Friends who played "real" guitar scoffed at the charade I had made my avocation. 

It was all a vast conspiracy created to get pikers such as myself the vague feeling of playing loud music, becoming a facsimile of a rock star in the comfort and privacy of my own home. Wish fulfillment in the most clunky possible way. 

Which is pretty much how I feel about AI. Like going to an improv show and having the performers ask, "Okay, give us a situation." Then, "Alright, give us a couple characters." Finally, "Now give us a bunch of funny things to say and do." 

Creating amusing videos to fill up your stream? Memes that you were too lazy to create yourself? How about give that bit of imagination you have an extra creative shove? No matter that the end product is the result of every funny bit created before it, but we'll just call that homage.

Not theft. 

My wife and I will soon be marketing our own version called "Novel Hero." Right from that same living room where you once pretended to play guitar, you too can be a "novelist." Don't have the time or energy to push yourself to near madness looking for that perfect sentence? Don't worry. Artificial Intelligence has your back. Heck, half an idea is better than no idea at all. And if you're more inclined to the visual arts, coming next fall, "Paint Hero." You don't have to be a Picasso, especially since we've already got all his best bits right here in a box. 

On Medium.  

All Over Again

 As this school year winds down, I have been asked by numerous friends and acquaintances how I feel about my decision to call it quits after the upcoming year. 

"Are you starting to count down?"

"Do you find yourself thinking, 'This will be my last summer break,' or stuff like that?"

Well, yes. And yes. It's pretty difficult not to hear the clock ticking when so much of what we do in Elementary School is counting up, and then counting down. The hundredth day of school is a big event. I have no recollection of this being the case when I was a  student at Columbine Elementary, but it not only serves the very practical purpose of giving kids a sense of what one hundred feels like. It also lets teachers know that they have rounded the corner of your standard one hundred eighty days of instruction. Upon the return from any three day weekend or extended break, students and staff are equally curious about how many days until the next interruption. 

I have a very salient memory of our former cafeteria manager, commenting on the days leading up to Christmas Break. Before she retired, I was in second place longevity-wise at our school. She reminded us all, "You'll wake up and it'll be January." Initially I flinched at that reckoning, but I can now see the wisdom of her assessment. Thirty years at one location will give you that sense of being on a merry-go-round. Another trip around the sun, as my older brother has often pointed out about birthdays. 

But to come to that point where getting off the merry-go-round is a real possibility is becoming very real. This past Saturday, I went over to the school to join students, families, and staff for a morning of painting a mural on the wall adjacent to our playground. It was a highly organized affair, and we were done with the big patches of color before noon. It wasn't the first time I have splashed paint on and around the school where I work. Leaving my mark in some mildly permanent fashion has a mild appeal to me. 

I was there. 

Soon, I won't be. And one day I'll wake up and it will be January. 

All over again. 

Does Not Work And Play Well With Others

 The convicted felon continues to abuse women. Mostly reporters at this point. He took the opportunity to rail on Norah O'Donnell about a 60 Minutes interview back in April while talking to his lapdog Sean Hannity. He began to answer Seanity's question about progress in talks with China, then began to wander. See if you can catch where things went off the track: “Yeah, I mean, it is progress, but I also tell people that, you know, I was in an interview with a very bad, you know, stupid reporter. She works for CBS. You saw that ’60 Minutes.’ Stupid person. Just an average person. You could take anybody off the street, and it’d be as good as she is. You know, just, very average.”

Which, for the adjudicated rapist is mild compared to his treatment of another woman reporter who dared question the doubling the size of an already unnecessary ballroom. MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner was the target of the Orange Worst's most recent outburst. Most of the exchange has been jettisoned in order to show the misogynist in Chief in all his gory glory. Here is the question Ms. Gardner asked in advance of the spiteful response from the "alleged" pedophile: “You wanted Jerome Powell fired for cost overruns,” Gardner pointed out to Trump, referring to the Fed’s ongoing renovation project of its Washington headquarters. “How is that different than your ballroom and the reflecting pool?”

If you haven't visited our nation's capital recently, you may have missed the terrible mess his pool guy has been making out of the reflecting pool located between the Washington and Lincoln Memorials. He's got a bunch of confused individuals spray painting the bottom of the pool "American Flag Blue," according to his bulginess' wishes. It is quite a sight. 

And besides subverting the calm aesthetics of the original architecture, in comes the former game show host's "vision," the kind that tends to paint things and attach gold bric-a-brac as costs go unchecked. All the while, a war rages on in Iran in spite of the insistence that there is a somewhat meaningless cease-fire. Gas prices climb ever higher as the Worst's approval numbers reach historic lows. Which might explain his continued frustration with the press, who seem to be aware of this. Of course, this does not keep him from making the following statement: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody."

With that one possible exception. 

What a stupid person. 

Typical

 If you've been reading this blog for more than a little while, you are probably familiar with my more than a little mild antipathy for jury duty. From the moment I pull that summons out of the box, I become anxious and feel put upon for the request by my government to help fulfill the Sixth Amendment. I am not one of those who crumple up that piece of paper, daring the local authorities to come and find me. After all, I like voting, so I will accept the call.

Begrudgingly. 

Contrast this to the choice made by Elongated Mush last week when he chose to skip out of his own trial, the one he set into motion with a lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup OpenAI. Mister Mush testified in an Oakland courtroom, perhaps one of the very same in which I have cooled my heels waiting to be called up, back on April 30. At that time, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asked the parties if there was any reason to hold Musk in “recall status,” meaning that he should be available to testify again if called upon to do so. OpenAI lawyers said, “Yes.” The judge instructed him: “OK, Mr. Musk, you are not excused, but you can leave for the day.”

Which is odd since Mushie packed his valise and hopped aboard Air Force One with his frenemy the Orange Worst. They went to the other side of the world to curry favor with the powers that be in China, a fourteen hour flight away from Oakland. While these Mister Mush grovels in front of the world's biggest consumer of electronic components, the one hundred thirty-four billion dollar lawsuit he filed against his old pal Sam Altman may remains unsettled. Jeffrey Bellin, a law professor at Vanderbilt University and an expert in the rules of evidence suggests, “A typical witness would not leave the country if they were subject to recall."

Sorry, Mister Bellin. You fail to see the internal fallacy of your assertion. Elongated Mush is a lot of things, but "typical" is not among them. Go ahead and try to conjure up the image of Mushie standing in front of his mailbox, frowning at the jury summons. 

I'll wait.