No Surrender

"Did you ever get the feeling that we are just talking to ourselves? All our venting and outrage and facts about how sick the Republican Party have become, and the peril our country is in, is preaching to the converted? We’re not converting anyone. We are talking to each other."

This was the rhetorical question raised by Steven Van Zandt. He was asking on behalf of a great cross section of the country. A great section of this country that is cross. Cross with the wall of indifference or outright denial of facts and evidence. Upset by having to share space with people who blindly follow the "leadership" of their party into the political and moral abyss. Whether it is the pleas to ignore past behavior and sins of their candidates or the exhortation to commit armed insurrection, it would seem that half the country seems content to watch as expectations for our elected officials continues to slip further away from the high standards set by the very founding fathers they pretend to admire.

So, first of all, let's get that "what does Bruce Springsteen's guitar player know about politics?" out of the way. In 1985, "Little Steven" left the E Street Band to put together a coalition of artists who would speak out against Apartheid in South Africa. The light shone by Steven and those Artists Against Apartheid helped bring necessary attention to the system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race that had held sway by the white nationalist rule for decades. And if that weren't enough, there is also Teach Rock, a free set of curriculum and activities for teachers to use popular music and culture to help engage students. Did I mention this is free? And that this foundation was the brainchild of (checks notes) Steven Van Zandt? 

So back in 1985, when Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band was experiencing the highest level of superstardom, Steven walked away. He went off to be, as he describes it, "the political guy." Far from languishing, he was able to use his knowledge and understanding to promote causes and point out injustice wherever he found it. Even when he rejoined the E Street Band in 1995. 

Which begs the question he asked, posed at the beginning of this piece: How do we affect a world that has become insulated to the absurd grotesqueries of what we refer to as "The Republican Party?" Like the words of Tommy Tuberville, former football coach and first term senator from Alabama: "They're not soft on crime. They're pro-crime. They want crime," Tuberville said of Democrats. "They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bulls**t. They are not owed that." Did any of his fellow Republicans stand up to face this kind of racist rhetoric? Nope. 

That was left to us who are not under the spell of whatever sickness that currently fuels that big red machine. Try not to give up. 

The No-Fun Zone

 Neil deGrasse Tyson, noted astronomer, space scientist and movie kibbitzer took to social media this past weekend to point out yet another physics issue in popular entertainment. Specifically, the issue had was with Top Gun: Maverick. Neil wanted everyone to know that if the titular character had  from ejected from a hypersonic plane at Mach 10.5, before it crashed, his body would splatter like a chainmail glove swatting a worm. Which may not have been the most questionable thing about this particular film, but this was a physics discussion, after all.

My mind raced back to all the times my older brother pointed out to me the sound of engines roaring to life in outer space. In a vacuum. In which sound cannot travel. When the Death Star exploded, it would have made quite a flash, but no noise. This was the same guy who inserted the question of carbon based life on other planets. Why should we assume that whatever life exists outside of our own planet would be a similar composition to ours? And why in this world or any other would they insist on speaking English? Why?

Maybe because these are entertainments created for other carbon-based, English-speaking life forms. We don't want to spend our time wondering what would happen to the internal organs of the Six Million Dollar Man as he runs close to sixty miles an hour. We are living in a world of imagination. Or at least we are trying to. That's the second half of "science fiction."

If, instead of hearing that cataclysmic eruption after dropping his torpedoes into the Empire's Space Station, Luke and his rebel pals had sped away from a flash of light with no sound, would we the viewers have felt the same exhilaration? There was a genre expectation that Maverick would walk away from his supersonic ejection. The story would be over and the credits would roll, and nothing heroic would have been achieved. Again, I would like to point out that this misinterpretation of the laws of physics was not going to keep this movie from being made. Quite the opposite, in fact.

That doesn't mean that I don't keep score myself of all the ways that Newton and his pals have been countermanded over the years by movies and TV. The illusion of invincibility is not limited to Superman and his Super Friends. Indiana Jones and his rescue refrigerator comes to mind. Or the city bus jump in Speed. It is truly amazing that the decision made by a cop under stress telling a woman who is not even a trained bus driver to accelerate is dubious at best, but makes for great cinema.

And in the end, a shredded Tom Cruise does not make for great cinema. Right?

That's a rhetorical question, Neil.

Crushed

 When I was in high school, my dad took me to see a professional football game. A Denver Broncos game. At Mile High Stadium. The year was 1977. For those of you who have a sense of sports history, this would be the first year that the Broncos finally made it to the playoffs. The game my father and I attended wasagainst the Pittsburgh Steelers. Like so many others in the Mountain Time Zone, our attention was finally focused on our National Football League franchise. 

Ours. I have never owned a piece of any sports team. Unless you count the endless array of T-shirts, caps and jerseys that I have collected over the years. 

Nonetheless, I took it upon myself on the occasion of getting to bear witness to what would be one of twelve regular season victories that year to make a sign to hold up. Not just to spur the orange and blue to victory, but to try and get my little self on television where my mom might see me. 

My mom is the football fan in my family. When my parents split up, she was the one who got custody of the University of Colorado football season tickets. But that time was still to come when my father and I took our seats on that November day in 1977. 

Beneath the overhand of the upper deck on our partially obscured view of the field. There was no way anyone except those sitting next to me was ever going to see my clever picture and slogan: "The Orange Crush Will Melt The Steel Curtain!" My father suggested that I ask an usher if I could tape the poster up on the wall at the top of our section. Where anyone on their way to the bathroom might have a chance to take a peek. 

I would love to tell you that I remember any of the actual game. The score is a part of history, as is the rest of that storied Super Bowl run that ended up in quiet humiliation at the hands of the vaunted Dallas Cowboys. But it set the bar much higher for those in the Mile High City and the surrounding area. It wasn't too long after that when John Elway came to town and making the playoffs was a certainty, if only to be dismantled by someone else's favorite team in the Super Bowl. 

All of this is what lives on in my memory, and in my T-shirt drawer. Which is why the exhibition of futility that took place last Thursday night on "prime" left such a sour taste in my mouth. The Denver Broncos and the Indianapolis Colts battled to a nine to nine tie at the end of regulation. The Colts got the ball first in overtime and struggled downfield to get their fourth field goal of the night. The Broncos took the ensuing kickoff and drove downfield, choosing to go for a touchdown rather than try to extend the game with yet another field goal. I could say it was a gutsy move, except it turned out to be ultimately the humane thing to do to put those who had bothered to tune in out of their collective misery. 

And suddenly I found myself questioning my youthful allegiance to a sports franchise. 

It made me long for 1977. 

Free

 My wife was offered a new couch. New to us, anyway. A friend of hers had a very pretty Victorian-inspired couch with a matching chair and she was giving it away. "For free." 

That was how it was presented to me. "Free." It was from this point that my questioning began. "And where is it that this 'free' couch will land?" 

"Where the old couch is," she replied, having already worked this out in advance. 

"And what about the old couch?" There was an audible silence, if there is such a thing. If my life was a sitcom, this is where the studio audience would be encouraged to snicker and guffaw. Without the laugh track, I waited in that quiet. The answer was not immediately forthcoming. 

"We could," she wanted to make the new couch and this slight hitch would not get in the way, "put it," another long pause, "downstairs?"

This was as much a question as an answer. It showed up as the challenge point, since the old couch was as much a part of our family as any of our pets and more than just about any of our furniture. It had been purchased for a song at a Sears warehouse and moved into our living room with much sweat and strain by burly men who cursed our front stairs and were glad to be done. That was a long time and a dog ago, and when it finally came time to surrender to our empty nest need for "grownup furniture," we bought a matching sofa and loveseat, again for a song. 

The old couch was wrestled into what used to be our son's bedroom, and it quickly became apparent that the way I had once manipulated its mass to construct forts for our New Years Eve celebrations came in handy. Nonetheless I understood the curses of the delivery men so many years before. There it became a periodic guest bed, though folding it out into its convertible form only confirmed its best and most comfortable shape: that of a couch. A great place for a cat nap, especially for the cat who could often be found napping there. 

But now it was time for progress and fashion. Sentiment was out the window. "How about we see if there's a place that will haul it away?" She made the arrangements, and after much grumbling and huffing and puffing, the old couch was moved once again. Out of the house and down the stairs. Eventually it came to rest out in front of the house, where we had been told the couch removal team would come and extract it in just a couple days. Meanwhile, my wife and her cousin made the trip to San Francisco to collect the new used furniture. The chair and couch were much easier to carry and required few if any curses. 

When the day came for the couch extraction, the crew looked at it and saw all the miles that old fold out had on it and they fled. Without the couch. My wife had been waxing nostalgic about our old friend, and was now recommitted to finding a place for it. 

Downstairs.

So once again, we hefted the beast up the driveway. A big turn into the barn doors and onto the somewhat finished floors installed by our son. We are now a three couch household. One for me. One for her. One for the cat. 

And best of all, it was "free." 

Won't Back Down? Why Not?

 My son was walking home from middle school, a long time ago, when he was approached by a kid whose neighborhood he happened to be passing through. The kid confronted my son, then stepped forward and slapped him. My son rushed home from this experience to share it with his mother. He was in tears. Did I mention that the slapper was much younger and smaller than my son? 

Recent events at my school brought up this memory and my potential failures as a parent. Should I have prepared my son for instances like this differently? Why didn't he defend himself? Because his mother and father had never indoctrinated him into the "hit back" culture. I don't know if this year is very different from all the years that have preceded it. Urban Oakland is where I teach. It is where I live. The message from so many parents for all these years has been "hit back." When called upon to discuss this matter with kids and parents at my school, I remind them that they are in a safe place where they don't need to defend themselves in that same way. There are adults scattered across the campus who are waiting for a chance to deescalate a situation. We are there to help. Chances are if a kid hits back, he is hitting a kid whose parents have instilled the same message and there will be no resolution until someone is battered or bruised.

And in tears. 

For the record, my son was nowhere near an adult who might have deescalated the confrontation in which he found himself. He was alone, confused, and suddenly confounded by his predicament. He ran home to his mom. Crying. 

In middle school.

Looking back, I couldn't be more proud of his reaction. It was not terribly different from that of his father, all those years ago. I had my share of tormentors. In junior high in particular. I had two brothers who kept the potential for physical confrontation alive for me, but never in the way that running away crying wouldn't work just as well. All that being said, there was a part of me that was enraged by the idea of my son being hit, struck for no apparent reason. By the time I made my way home from dealing with the elementary schoolers in my charge, I lacked sufficient outrage to march up the hill with my son to find and confront his assailant. I worried that the "crybaby" label might get stuck in his head somewhere and alter all the good programming that was inside of him. 

As it turns out I needn't have worried. My son has a sense of right and wrong that is more evolved than my own. Maybe I could get him to drop by my school for some interventions. 

PED-estrian

 What is the difference between sixty-two and seventy-three? If you answered eleven, you are a mathematician. If you paused and gave this problem more thought, then you are probably a baseball fan. In the most recent case of how real life can impact mathematics, Aaron Judge hit sixty-two home runs in a season. That is one more than sixty-one, the number of home runs hit by the late Roger Maris way back in 1961. Seventy-three is the number of home runs hit by Barry Bonds hit in the 2001 season. That was the most anyone had ever hit in major league baseball.

Some might argue that seventy-three is actually less than sixty-two, and as it turns out, it really does depend on the year. Barry Bonds' accomplishment was made at a time when the number of home runs was rapidly climbing, with Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire topping the sixty home run mark along with Mister Bonds back before the turn of the century. This was an era referred to by many as "the steroids era," when major league baseball was just catching on to the whole notion of the ugly little secret called "performance enhancing drugs." There are those who would say that MLB politely turned the other way while baseballs went screaming out of ballparks in record numbers and television viewers tuned in by the millions to watch the race. 

In 2000, the New York Times broke a story that alleged that steroid use had become "widespread" in baseball. Two years later, Sports Illustrated took up the case. In 2005, Jose Canseco published his memoir entitled Juiced, and the questions that remained were taken up not by Major League Baseball but by the United States Congress. A shamed Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa showed up for questioning, denying steroid use, but the stories were already told. In 2010, McGwire confessed to what everyone already knew and baseball began to clean itself up. 

Twenty-one years after Barry Bonds hit his seventy-third home run in a season, Aaron Judge hit his sixty-second. The celebration was felt most profoundly in Yankee Stadium, where Roger Maris once played, and Aaron Judge came sixty years later to break the franchise record, if not that of Major League Baseball. Now the arguments can commence. For his part, Barry Bonds has managed to steer clear of confessing to steroid use, only admitting to using "clear stuff and some cream" given to him by trainers. How could he be guilty if he never knew what he was putting into and onto himself? 

Meanwhile, on October 5, 2022, Stephen Vogt of the Oakland Athletics had his last at bat in a ten year career. It was a home run. After going oh for thirty-two with the Tampa Bay Rays, Vogt's first hit in the major leagues came with the A's. It was a home run. Sometimes the magic of baseball gets lost in the numbers. 

A Great Value

 Family values.

My first impression upon seeing those words is to ask, "Whose family?"

The close relationships found in the Corleone Family might be held up as one example. Or maybe the Duggar Family. There are plenty of images and appearances in media that would have us lift up ideals of how we connect to those closest to us, and many of them don't always hold up to close inspection. 

There was a guy who was in real estate, and became enamored of the glitzy life offered by the social and entertainment spotlight. As it turns out, he has been married just a little more often than he has been impeached. He has had multiple affairs and along the way racked up multiple accusations of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. A steady stream of lawyers and non-disclosure agreements have kept much of the ugliness from becoming widely known. Not until he took his quirky brood on the campaign trail and eventually to the White House. Suddenly the whole tawdry clan was on display for the whole world to endure. This train wreck of codependency and dysfunction continues to pop up all over as they continue to promote their way of life as the wholesome version of the American Dream. 

Maybe this is the perspective that has brought us MAGAts like Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose marriage was described by her husband as "irretrievably broken." Or Lauren Boebert's husband who did time in jail for lewd exposure at a bowling alley. In his defense, I suppose a bowling alley is as good a place as any for lewd exposure. 

As yet, no one has come forward to accuse Herschel Walker of lewd exposure. However, there has been a great deal of discussion about how the Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia has conducted himself in a less than Christian manner. I say "Christian" as in the given name of the son who has recently uncorked in response to allegations that the advertised "pro-life" daddy Herschel once paid a girlfriend of his to have an abortion. And now he is lying about it. This is on top of the number of children the elder Walker sired over the course of his journey to the U.S. Senate. 

Will all these revelations put a hitch in Herschel Walker's plans? Marjorie Taylor Greene got elected. Lauren Boebert got elected. We know about the real estate guy. It doesn't seem to matter, ultimately, what sort of freak show your "family" turns out to be. Nor does it seem to matter how thick the protective layer of hypocrisy gets. They keep on talking the talk. Just don't expect them to walk the walk.