My Sunday Feeling

 I got a text Thursday afternoon asking me if I had heard that C had died.  I had not.  Then again, I hadn’t heard anything about C in years other than he was in bad health.  I heard that from a man-one of the baseball dads at school- that used to work with him.  

I grew up with C.  He and my brother Dave were buddies. I seem to recall that we went to church together but I may be making things up.  That was a long time ago.  But we in school together from 5th grade through high school.

C could fairly be described as a recluse.  Which is kinda hard to do in this town. I called one of his high school friends to ask if he had heard anything.  Naturally he had not.  He said he last he saw C about 12 years ago.  After they had visited he asked C if he wanted to get some lunch sometime.  “No” was his reply.  I had better results.  I ran into C in the courthouse @ 8 years ago.  He said he needed to sit if we were going to visit.  Bad back.  “I never took care of myself,” he said I guess by way of explanation.  

Like his other friend I asked if he wanted to get lunch.  “Maybe,” he said.  I handed him my card.  Told him to call me.  Never happened.

I sent a message to his cousin.  Asked her if she had heard about C.  She was shocked.  Then again she hadn’t heard from him in years so she said.  I got a text from Baseball Dad. He said that it was his understanding that C had died in hospice care.  I heard back from C’s cousin.  She called C’s sister who confirmed her brother’s death.  

I think it’s pretty clear that C didn’t want many people to know even this final aspect of his business.  He was married at the time of his death and clearly she didn’t exactly broadcast his passing from a billboard on the highway.  In fact, I think I’ve only seen her once.  I couldn’t pick her out of a lineup if I had to. 

But I found it fascinating that people that would otherwise be somewhat in a position to know what was going on in his life did not have a clue.  Not a clue.  As I told one of my brothers, it was as if he didn’t really exist.  

As I have alluded to earlier it’s pretty hard to be a recluse in a town like Little Rock where everybody knows or is related to everybody else.  My wife has said that I am an introvert.  The first time she told me that was 5 minutes before I went onstage to basically do stand up for the old radio show “Tales From The South.”  I think I stared at her in disbelief as I ascended the stairs to do my shtick.  

Hell, I lived by myself until I met M.  So I guess I was an introvert to some degree.  But I was out in the world.  I ran my traps and regularly went up and down the contact list.  Truth be told, sha and I both like our downtime.  She watches movies in the den while reading feminist theology  I watch baseball while reading Sports Illustrated.  She confesses to being a homebody.  I’m getting there. We do a lot of takeout instead of dealing with the public.

But if our friends went more than a week without hearing from either of us, they would be concerned.  But the Deacon and I, though we have turned into “stay at home” types, are out there in the world.  We really exist.  And I like to think that folks would make themselves available if trouble was at the door.  

Which brings me back to C.  Obviously he didn’t want to have anything to do with many people, including his family and folks he grew up with.  His choice for whatever reason.  And he had every right to run his life the way he saw fit.  He was an honorable man and good and useful citizen.  

But when I die if I die, I hope I will have had the chance to visit one last time with people that I love or loved.  People that have been good to me and important to me in equal measure.

I hope C was happy in his solitary life. 

As for me, I’m sorry that another fleck of my childhood is gone. This seems to be happening with some frequency the older I get.

I wish he had called me for lunch.  

My Sunday Feeling

 Don't take this the wrong way.  And everybody takes everything the wrong way nowadays.  But TRY not to take this the wrong way.  

But I don't much get Taylor Swift.  And I concede that I just may be one of the few people in the US-or known universe even- that doesn't get her.  She is worth a billion dollars, is selling out concert venues all over western civilization, and has a movie out that I'm sure will do boffo box office.  Clearly this my problem.

I won't go see it.  Not that I have anything against her but I'm more at home with Talking Heads.  And I concede that most Swifties as they have come irritatingly to be known probably don't get Talking Heads or Tom Tom Club.  That's OK.  It's a free country.  

I wouldn't be able to pick out a single Taylor Swift song out of a lineup.  Except maybe that one she did on Saturday Night Live about what a jerk Jake Gyllenhaal is.  Like they say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Especially when she is armed with a Taylor Grand Acoustic.  My buddy the music critic, whose opinion is entitled to great weight, informs me that she is about the only female performer out there who writes her own stuff.  So there’s that.  Good for her.

I concede that she is a lovely girl.  Not Margot Robbie smoking but normal lovely like my stepdaughter and other young women you can easily find on any college campus or bar around here.And it is my understanding that she has a social conscious and is involved with "getting out the vote" and other lefto causes. Ain't it a hell of a note that being interested in issues like that are considered to be damn near Communistic by some people.

But despite all of her many virtues, both known and unknown to me, to adopt the language of the Grand Jury, I don't turn on the NFL to watch Taylor Swift.  

As everyone must know by now, Swift is friends, dating, involved with,WHATEVER, tight end Travis Kelce of the Chiefs.  And she has been seen in attendance at Chiefs games with Kelce's mom in his box.  

This is all well and good.  Except that every time Kelce, who is as good as they get, makes a play on the field, which is not infrequent, they cut to his box for the reaction of TAYLOR SWIFT!

This is not why I watch football.  I could give a rip about what is going on in the private box.  I could give a rip about the status of the relationship, whatever it may be, of Taylor and Travis.  

But you can bet your Capital One card that the NFL and the Chiefs do.  Because the presence of Taylor Swift at their games brings more eyeballs than would usually be watching.  And if those extra eyeballs are watching, odds are a good many of them are buying merch online.  Probably with the aforementioned Capital One card.

Which leads me straightaway to the following question.  Wonder what Dick Butkus would think about all of this?

Butkus, the old Chicago Bear, passed away last week.  He is considered one of the best linebackers to ever trod the middle of a football field.  He was a little before my time.  I only saw him, and the hapless Bears, play a couple of times on TV.  Perhaps if the Chicago team physicians were more competent and perhaps if Soldier Field hadn't been paved with Astroturf Butkus's knees could have allowed him to play at least through my high school days.  

Butkus played with an intensity bordering on savagery.  He didn't just tackle people.  He took them apart.  He led with his helmet.  He hit guys late.  He routinely got into fights on the field.

I remember watching the Bears on Monday Night Live one night with my dad. I was probably 15. Buck grew up in what WGN calls the Chicagoland area and was a Bears fan, poor man.  I remember two things about the game we watched together.  The Bears were coached at the time by a rotund former lineman named Abe Gibron who looked about what you would think a guy named Abe Gibron would look like.  Buck had a buddy named Gene back in Indiana who used to date Abe's sister.  Buck said that Abe's sister looked just like him. Gene said she was one hell of a gal and a lot of fun.  

The other thing I remember from the game was Butkus clotheslining a hapless wide receiver simply for having the temerity to run a crossing route in front of him.  Mind you, the guy was not in possession of a football at the time he almost got decapitated.  The old Detroit Lion defensive tackle Alex Karras was doing the color for ABC that night.  

He laughed.  

Clearly the game has changed and for a damn good reason.  It was a blood sport in the day of Alex Karras and Dick Butkus.  They would have to clean it up considerably to play in today's NFL.  Otherwise, they would get tossed in every game and get fined and suspended out the wazoo.  

But I would like to think that Butkus would find all of this Taylor Swift stuff to be complete foolishness (or other words to that effect that he would probably employ) and a distraction from the serious business of men maiming each other.  And if he were playing against the Chiefs today I'm sure old Dick would figure out some way, even in today's relatively sanitized NFL,  to kick Travis Kelse's ass.  Just to show Taylor Swift that she didn't mean jack to him.

I wish Travis and Kelse well.  To the extent that you can "know" anybody in the worlds of music or sports, they seem to be allright.   But I don't watch the NFL to get reaction shots of Taylor Swift.  

And if I'm Travis Kelse, I'm breathing a sigh of relief that Dick Butkus is no longer on the field.  Because I have a feeling that old # 51 would have a special way of letting Kelse know what he thought about all of this folderol.  

    

      

My Sunday Feeling

I haven’t done this for awhile.  There are any number of reasons.  I mainly confess to a feeling of malaise-to use Jimmy Carter’s infamous word-that I suppose has been brought on by all of the goings on in DC, New York and Florida involving former President Trump and his confederates.  That and it has been 200 degrees.  

But as I write this it is a beautiful fall day.  I am out on the porch.  I will be doing the Government classes on Monday and  college football is back on the tube.  

I feel better now.

I ran into a friend of mine in the grocery store today.  She happens to be married to the teacher that I am filling in for on Monday.

“So what are you going to talk about?” she asked. “Nothing much going on out there in the legal world is there?”  She rolled her eyes as she is wont to do.

Here’s what I told her.

If I get the green light, which is rare, I would state to the class that for the life of me I do not understand what made a group of people think that because their candidate lost an election they were justified in violently attacking the seat of representative democracy in this country.  I would further state that while I am no Constitutional scholar-or any other scholar for that matter- I was, and remain to be, stunned by the insane legal theories put out there by lawyers that should have none better.  And some of them are in the process of losing their licenses over their attempts to use the legal system to overturn elections.  And some of them may lose their freedom as well.  

I wouldn’t want to serve time in a Georgia state prison.  Would you?

For the life of me I do not understand how those lawyers got sucked in.  But as they say, men go mad in packs.  Along with two or three women in this case. Here’s your proof.

And men evidently become punks in packs as well.

Three of the so called “Proud Boys” caught fairly serious time last week for their roles in, basically, fomenting an insurrection.  Enrico Tarrio, their nominal leader, was given 22 years.  I was stuck by a couple of things that happened last week.  First of all I loved the picture of Tarrio that ran with many of the stories about his demise.  There he was in dark glasses, cigarette dangling rakishly from his lips, while in the breast pocket of the tactical vest he was rocking, was stored what for all the world appeared to be two yellow cans of the fizzy stuff my wife drinks.  

Some revolutionary.  I bet Che never drank sparkling water out in the field.

Secondly, I note from the accounts of the sentencing hearing for these guys, they all apologized for their actions, recanted their former beliefs and asked the Court for mercy.  Some cried as they addressed the Judge.  

No blindfolds or cigarettes for these guys.  No refusals to recognize the authority of the Court. No wasting everybody’s time with rambling speeches during allocution.  

Just scared white boys not wanting to face the music.

The Proud Boys, at least as embodied by these three, aren’t revolutionaries.  They are criminals. And they don’t have much pride.  

I don’t get it.  I will never get it.

And I hope to never see it again.  Then again, one of our former Governors has opined that if Trump is not restored to the Oval Office then 2024 will be the last year that elections are decided by ballots instead of bullets.  Or some damn fool thing.   

The fact that Mike Huckabee would give voice to such an irresponsible thought tells you everything you need to know about the sorry state of public discourse.

I don’t get it.  

And by the way, I consider myself a fair person.  If Enrico wasn’t packing fizzy water in that pic I wish somebody would let me know.  I will run a retraction.

He has a certain reputation as a tough guy to maintain.  And he needs to maintain it for 22 years after all.

 

 

My Sunday Feeling

 I do not pick up the pen today to write about United States vs. Donald Trump.  I don’t know about you but I tend to find all of this overwhelming at times.  So I would rather talk about something important.

College sports.

In the last 10 days the college conferences map went kablooey to use the technical word.  Or kerflooey as an old country lawyer of my acquaintance used to say.  Either will work nicely under the circumstances.  

First known leader of men Coach Prime went kablooey on his own roster at Colorado.  He pretty much sent the players he inherited to the transfer portal while bringing in his own players.  This used to be known, in the not too distant past, as “cheating.”  It can also be considered as being unfair to some, if not all, of the “student-athletes” he cashiered on a wholesale basis.  

Which raises the question: Do they not have an athletic director over there?  

Then no sooner had the final whistle blown at the spring game when the Buffaloes announced they were exiting the PAC-12 to return to the Big -12 from whence they had fled some 10-15 years ago.  This gives me the opportunity to paraphrase the joke when Colorado went to the PAC-12:  The dope in the Big 12 just got a lot better.  And the Buffs will be joined in their new home by Arizona, Arizona State and Utah.  

Of course this was hot on the heels of USC and UCLA bolting to join the SEC Conference (as many fans and some coaches refer to it).  And not too long afterwards Oregon and Washington  hooked up with the Big 12 leaving Stanford and Cal (along with Washington State and Oregon State) to hold the bag in the now Little 4 formerly known mainly to itself as the “Conference of Champions.”  Supposedly Leland’s Farm and the Golden Bears are hiking their skirts at the ACC.  We’ll see.  Stanford hasn’t been very good at anything other than golf and tennis in sometime.  Cal is even worse and their athletic department is drowning in red ink.  Plus their respective alumni bases are pretty snooty.  Worse than Duke’s even.

Of course this makes no sense geographically.  I mean, Seattle to Piscataway is a long haul.  As has been pointed out while this may not be as big a deal to the football teams that play once a week, it will be pretty onerous to the other team sports that are supposed to play ball once or twice a week in some far off clime while keeping up with the books being “student-athletes” and all.  Is this fair to them?

Here’s the answer.  This is a football thing.  And the the powers that be in the Power 5 conferences and ESPN/Disney/FOX along with the old networks don’t much care about such picayune matters as travel arrangements for the swim team. Because let’s face it.  Football is a core function for many DI schools, much more important in the great scope of things than the music department.  And now some of the players are finally getting paid.  As in over the table.   

Professional sports.  And it’s all about football. Pure and simple.  

What’s next?  Here’s my guess and this guess was unthinkable to me just a week ago.  Do you think the media companies that are pumping out the money that prompted the kablooey would rather show, say, Tennessee and Vanderbilt or Oklahoma versus Tennessee?  Ohio State against Northwestern or Ohio State against UCLA?  

Could Vandy and Northwestern get kicked out of the SEC and the Big Ten?  After all, both were founding members of those two conferences.  What about tradition and shared history?  The answer may be “who cares?”  

Nothing would surprise me.  

If the ACC gives the cold shoulder to Cal and Stanford maybe Vanderbilt and Northwestern can join them in forming a new conference.

They could call it “The Smart Guys Plus 2 Others Conference.”

Nothing would surprise me.  

    

 

My Sunday Feeling

The Feds dropped the second shoe last week when it hit Donald John Trump with another Indictment, this one for attempting to overthrow an otherwise valid Presidential election that, as it happened, did not turn out well for him.  I do not have the actual charging document in front of me. But if memory serves it weighs in at @ 40 counts over 60 pages.  This means @70 counts in 2 Federal Judicial districts. And the State of Georgia has yet to weigh in on its problem with him.

Before we go a further, let me restate something that I wrote a month or so ago after the first go-around in Fort Pierce.  As little use as I have for Donald Trump, and my disdain for him is as wide as Mir a Lago’s coastal shelf, I cannot summon forth enough schadenfreude to fill a shot glass.

Because while I view Trump’s behavior that is lined out in the charging documents to be worthy of prosecution, let me reiterate that I dread the prospect of the actual trial of these matters. Mainly, because he cannot be controlled by any of his lawyers, any of the 72 or so he has on retainer, and I’m not so sure about the courts either.  

Consider this.  At plea and arraignment last Thursday the United States Magistrate Judge, as part of the normal recitation of conditions for release added that Defendant Trump is not to commit any crimes in any jurisdiction this side of the Papal Courts while he is ROR’d.  But she also told him that he is not to contact any witnesses without counsel being present.  And she ordered him not to contact any of the eventual jurors.  

Defendant Trump is a former President of the United States.  He swore upon his oath to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.  Now this.  I think your average mob boss gets more deference than DT was afforded Thursday.

This is remarkable. 

But most criminal defendants, especially those that are fairly notorious for whatever reason, are told to lay low.  Running for office while under indictment is the polar antithesis of “laying low.”  And Trump is not only basing his re-election bid on the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from both him and his acolytes, but that he is being persecuted by a “weaponized” Justice Department acting by and through Joe Biden.

Never mind that the indictments were brought in the name of the United States of America.  Never mind that they were handed up by Grand Juries consisting of his fellow citizens.  Never mind that they are both extremely fact intensive.  Never mind the fact that the Government is undoubtedly loaded for bear or these cases wouldn’t have gotten this far.

And so far, Trump has made it a match between good and evil.  Trump has actually gone so far as to have stated that he is being indicted for his base.

That’s a good one.  Donald Trump. Christ-figure of the Republican Primary.

And what if he pops off on social media while the trial is underway?  I can very easily see him complain about any rulings that go against him.  That puts a lot of pressure on a judge who at that point might be forced to consider whether to issue a gag order against a candidate for President.

But societal norms or a sense of shame or human dignity have never much mattered to Donald Trump.  Neither has consistency of thought.  Even at this late dates it sounds like he is still willing to say the first thing that pops into his head. And then deny that he ever said it.  (As an aside, this was written on Friday afternoon.  As I wrote this, Trump was popping off on social media about going after his persecutors.  DOJ has brought this to the Court’s attention.  The Judge wants a response from his attorneys by Monday.  Here we go.)

And this is the man that, most likely, will be the GOP standard bearer in the general election.

The GOP.  The party that once stood for law and order.

God help us.

My Sunday Feeling

 It is Saturday afternoon as I put down this deathless prose.  I don’t fool with this blog like I used to.  Maybe it’s the heat.  Maybe it’s because I am lazy.  Maybe it is because when I started this I did it to relieve stress from work which is a stress I no longer have. But here I am making another cameo appearance.

Anyway, it is a Saturday afternoon and the Deacon and I are going to see “Barbie.” We’re going to a matinee.  I prefer matinees mainly because you get out at supper time and for me half the fun of going to the movies is talking about what you and your companion have seen over an adult beverage as you peruse the menu.

Secondly, “Barbie” has offended the sensibilities of- as far as I can tell-pretty much the same strata of people that are offended by the children’s fare (or what they perceive to be the children’s fare) at any public library around here.  I figure that I am less likely to get gunned down in broad daylight in a mass shooting by a triggered angry white guy who has got it in for, in this case, women.  That’s another reason I like the matinee for some movies.

I don’t get the mostly faux outrage over “Barbie.”  As I have gleaned from the reviews I have read “Barbie” is a send up of her idealized female form brought to life by a perfectly cast Margot Robbie who is not only beautiful but can do physical comedy as well as anybody.  It is a send up of the suits at Mattel along with the concept of male patriarchy.  As if that weren’t enough Ryan Gosling’s Ken supposedly manages to steal the movie.

Sounds like great fun to me.

Not so much to some folks.  I noticed a post on social media the other day bemoaning the fact that “Barbie” was not a fun innocent movie that she could take her kid to and was yet another sign that this country is going to Hell in a bucket.  And as for her she wasn’t going.

Good for her.  Don’t go.  That is her right.  To spend her money, or not spend her money, anywhere she damn well pleases for whatever reason suits her.  And to her everlasting credit, unlike some of the fools that are raising Cain about the libraries, she is not urging that the movie be banned. At least she didn’t in her post. God Bless.

And she probably shouldn’t take her daughter anyway.  I haven’t seen that “Barbie” has any sex in it (a lack of boy and girl parts would preclude such activity in any event) and there’s very little cussing.  At least nothing most kids haven’t heard already.  But it deals with provocative, adult themes.  Even though its protagonist is based on a beloved doll played with by millions of little girls it is not a children’s movie.  

Or at least that is what I’ve read.  

I guess the thing that mildly irritates me about people that oppose movies like “Barbie” on moral grounds (for lack of a better phrase) is the negative pregnant in much of that criticism that anybody that goes to see movies such as “Barbie” are themselves immoral.  Or worse giving into “woke” culture whatever that means.  That’s ridiculous.  

Me? I’m irredeemable. But without being a pain in the ass about it, my spouse is a moral and upright person who has raised the Hell out of a daughter.  She also would not take a swing at anybody who might accuse her of being a feminist.  Like Me the Irredeemable, she has an open mind, is not put off by different ideas and so, wants to get a look at this particular picture show to see what the fuss is all about.  

Besides it will be cool and dark inside the movie house.  What better way to pass a 102 degree afternoon?   

And afterwards we will discuss what we saw over a glass of wine for her and my Saturday night martini somewhere.  

I mean for God’s sake.  What is wrong with some people?

It’s just a movie.  

My Sunday Feeling

Just when you think that you no longer have the capacity to be surprised by anything that happens in DI athletics, you get unpleasantly surprised. 

I suppose that I have been to Evanston, Illinois 3 or 4 times.  I like Evanston.    Think of a larger version of Hillcrest with a major university in the middle of it.  I could live in Evanston but for the property values and the taxes.  Maybe I could live there under the statue of Civil War general Phil Sheridan for whom main drag Sheridan Road is named.  But I couldn’t afford to buy any real estate there.

Speaking of said major university, I’ve been on campus at Northwestern on most of the occasions I have been in the Chicago area.  Beautiful campus.  I’ve seen the Northwestern Wildcats play there in Ryan Stadium.  I saw them the year they went to the Rose Bowl of all damn things.  They were led by a couple of All-Americans: running back Darnell Autrey and a local boy linebacker Pat Fitzgerald.  After his playing days Fitz joined the Wildcat staff and eventually took over as head man when Randy Walker unexpectedly dropped dead from a massive coronary.  

In his 16 years on the job Fitz wrung a .500 record out of a team once derisively known as the “Mildcats.”  Along the way, he took them to 10 bowl games including another Rose Bowl.  It was widely thought that Fitz had them playing as well as they ever could play given the fact that Northwestern ain’t that easy to get into, being an “academic school” as Wally Hall might say, or has said in regards to Vanderbilt and Rice, and that they play in the Big Ten. Or 15. Or whatever they are now with the addition of perennial Midwestern powerhouses USC and UCLA.  

Well, Pat Fitzgerald got canned the other day after the student newspaper, the Daily Northwestern, printed a story in which former players complained of acts of hazing in the football locker room.  Really grim stuff.  Serial “dry-humping” of a victim in a darkened room.  Nude quarterbacks being forced to take snaps from an equally disrobed center.  And that’s all I can remember.  Or care to. 

Fitzgerald says he knew nothing about this stuff.  Some of the victims said he had to know about it.  Anyway as the story got worse and worse, the two week suspension originally laid down was ripened to a termination, the university’s position being it was his job to know what was going on.

Still you don’t think of this stuff going on at a world class academic institution like Northwestern. Then again, you didn’t think of little boys getting molested by a member of the coaching staff at Penn State either.  

And it makes me wonder.  If this kind of brutality was going on at an Ivy League level institution like Northwestern, you wonder where else it could be happening?  

I guarantee you that college presidents nationwide broke out in cold sweats when this news got out.  And I also guarantee you that ADs are being instructed to get the word out to their coaches reminding them that there is zero tolerance for hazing of any kind.  

Because if hazing could erupt behind closed doors at Northwestern it can be, and most likely is, happening elsewhere.

And it cannot be tolerated.  

But stay tuned.  I bet we haven’t heard the last of this issue.