A divorced jingle writer flies to London for his daughter's elegant wedding, and finds a soulmate in unexpected circumstances.
Last Chance Harvey is a touching story acted by two veterans, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman, who bring out their characters with small gestures and deft silences. Dustin's Harvey Shine is pained and awkward at the rehearsal dinner, trying to hide the department store security tag a clerk must have forgotten to remove from his cheap suit, nervously excusing himself to take another call. He might be losing his job on Monday--he's got to take this. His daughter moves him to the far end of the table while he's away. He gives a halting and poorly-timed toast. Both his daughter and his ex-wife are embarrassed by him, and the lost years are evident on his face. He retreats to the hotel bar, slinging back Johnny Walker, neat. His ex-wife finds him and warns him not to make an ass of himself. Their entire sad history lies buried between the lines. His daughter finds him to say good-bye and lets him know the stepfather will be giving her away. More half-stated history, more residue of regret.
This isn't a movie review site. There are plenty of places on the web for that. For me the movies are a way to talk about life, to find points of connection and make discoveries. I love movies because they make you think. I love movies because they make you feel. I love movies because they lead you to remember what you used to believe in and hope for. There's a magical moment when a good movie ends, as the credits begin to roll and the song begins to play, when you consider an alternate life that ends as hopefully and charged with meaning as the film, where you feel you are discovering your best self for the first time.
Emma Thompson plays Kate Walker, a woman who has grown used to being disappointed. She has a dead-end job where people are rude to her. Her friend sets her up on a blind date and during another of the persistent calls from her mother the guy winds up inviting three of his friends to their table, two girls and a guy, all younger than she, and they're gaily chatting away while she forces an occasional polite smile. We've all felt this awkwardness, feeling like an uninvited guest at our own life, at a party but not quite part of it, looking for a moment to slip out without being noticed.
You sense life has been like this for her for a long while. Any time she's out her mother calls her every fifteen minutes, excessively worried over Kate's Old Maid status, nervous that the Pole who moved in next door may be a serial killer. (He's carrying something all wrapped up in a sheet into his storage shed, and has a smoky fire going on all day. He waves to her through her parted curtains, and she jerks her face away from the window with a start.)
It's the movies, so you know the two of them are getting together, but the charm is in the way it happens, particularly the understated and genuine way Hoffman and Thompson let their characters live the story. Slowly they agree to hope. She agrees to be his date for the reception. He buys her a nice dress, and woos her with his self-deprecating humor. Just as her fears bubble to the surface and she slips out to the exit he slips into a side room and finds a waiting piano, calls her back from the elevator with a tender song, one he wrote himself. He always wanted to a jazz pianist but was never good enough. She takes a writing class twice a week and dreams of a rustic villa with a sunny balcony, by the ocean in the south of Spain. An old man in her class writes turgid, twisted prose, a psychological thriller with an alarming preoccupation with sex. It's amazing what you can find out about two total strangers and the people around them in ninety minutes of a good story. It's amazing what we have never discovered about ourselves.
Weddings are a great setting in a movie because they are crossroad moments in real life, times when all our family stuff and unresolved internal stuff collides and converges. We put our best face forward. We conceal our failings in a new suit of clothes and in a rush, forget one of the tags. Stephanie got married in Montana and I drove all night to get there. I didn't decide to go until the last minute and Marie and I had a painful fight over it that resonates in our marriage to this day. Nothing in life or the movies prepares you for the awful, ugly moments when you run smack dab into your own inadequacies and fears, when your hurts and the hurts of those you have hurt collide like two speeding trains. There is messiness and mayhem in our real world that no movie can contain. The sentimental part of us wants it to be more like a movie, and smiles wistfully at the realization it can't be.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Everybody's Fine
The best movies help you discover yourself, or make you forget yourself altogether for a while.
In Everybody's Fine Robert De Niro gives a subtle performance about a sledgehammer of a man, Frank Goode, who has made his living laying miles of telephone cable wire and comes to the end of his life realizing his own kids are avoiding him and covering up the truth of their lives and his. His wife has died and he lives in a seventies museum of a house, filling his days with yardwork and an antiquated answering machine that exists only to receive the blinking light of their excuses and evasive distance. The photos of his wife and children are enshrined on the mantle and in the hallways. His doctor warns him not to travel, especially by plane.
De Niro, who has played a taxi driver and a deer hunter and a raging bull, who has embodied The Godfather and The Devil and The King of Comedy, wears a sad clown face as the stubborn, determined, loving but inarticulate father who steadily learns the regret of realizing his brand of love, the tough discipline and high expectations and dogged provision, never met the needs of his scattered brood. With the same dogged determination he laid his miles of wire he sets out to rediscover them and deliver an envelope to each one of them, the contents of which we never see until late in the story. He packs one outdated suitcase and sets out to surprise them, dropping in on their hectic lives. Dad, what are you doing here? they ask. He wants to be with them. He wants them to come home and be together for the holidays. He wants to know everybody's fine.
The seminal moment in the movie comes when he goes to his wife's headstone to apologize to her. He realizes he made mistakes and his amends were clumsy and inept. The envelopes he has left under the door and on the kettle drum and thrust into his daughters' hands weren't enough to bridge the awful gap of time and misplaced hope in their lives. The kids are keeping terrible secrets. Their brother is in deep trouble in Mexico, and worse yet, they don't want to be alone with him again. They can't bear the awkwardness. They can't bear his expectations and needy interest. They're too busy with their own lives, the truth of which would be a searing disappointment to him and themselves. They go to elaborate lengths to conceal the mess they've made, to keep his inquiries at bay and send him along to the next sibling. The wires he laid across America become a network they use to control their interactions with him and protect their secrets. Both he and his kids see their strained relationship as a sad duty to his dead wife and their mother. At one point in the story he says as a father of four he expected to worry. The children show by their reluctance and vagueness that as the children of Frank Goode they expected to be a disappointment to him. They hide their sorrows and even their loves.
De Niro's odyssey across America takes him to New York and Chicago and Las Vegas on trains and buses, and his chance encounters with tender, lost, dangerous, gentle, odd, helpful people show his humanity and theirs. It's telling how much more readily he connects with strangers. One old man at the counter of a diner gives him a sad glimpse into his future.
Parents will see themselves in Frank Goode. When he meets each of his children and when he imagines them gathered around his table he sees them as the children they were coming toward him in their play clothes and with small vulnerable voices. It's a powerful device that will resonate with anyone who has ever worried over their adult child: you always see them as the bright, trusting child you parented imperfectly.
I admired the humanity and courage the actors displayed in creating this movie. Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale give nuanced performances that made me reflect on my own life and my own complicated journey as a parent and a child.
Both my parents were a mystery to me and I remember them with a mixture of gratitude and shame. My father was a brutal and inarticulate man with staggering limitations. His coarseness and cruelty scarred me deeply, but as the years passed he made gestures of reconciliation that amazed me. My mother could wound or heal and never leave a mark. It's hard to choose between remembering the sneering criticism or the noble sacrifices. It's hard to talk about either. As a parent myself I've tried break their vicious cycles and reject their divided legacies with mixed success: I was fiercely loving and devoted but breathtakingly preoccupied and undependable. My children knew I loved them, but whole years went by when they had no idea where I was or when they would see me again. My own unmanagable and misspent life got in the way of all my best intentions. I care so much for my kids. I failed them completely and over and over.
The movie was thoughtful and ambitious. It went unnoticed in the theaters and escaped critical attention. People will rent it and many will watch thinking not much happened and be disappointed. I thought it had layers of realism that could reach into your soul. I was stunned. It will stay with me for a long time.
In Everybody's Fine Robert De Niro gives a subtle performance about a sledgehammer of a man, Frank Goode, who has made his living laying miles of telephone cable wire and comes to the end of his life realizing his own kids are avoiding him and covering up the truth of their lives and his. His wife has died and he lives in a seventies museum of a house, filling his days with yardwork and an antiquated answering machine that exists only to receive the blinking light of their excuses and evasive distance. The photos of his wife and children are enshrined on the mantle and in the hallways. His doctor warns him not to travel, especially by plane.
De Niro, who has played a taxi driver and a deer hunter and a raging bull, who has embodied The Godfather and The Devil and The King of Comedy, wears a sad clown face as the stubborn, determined, loving but inarticulate father who steadily learns the regret of realizing his brand of love, the tough discipline and high expectations and dogged provision, never met the needs of his scattered brood. With the same dogged determination he laid his miles of wire he sets out to rediscover them and deliver an envelope to each one of them, the contents of which we never see until late in the story. He packs one outdated suitcase and sets out to surprise them, dropping in on their hectic lives. Dad, what are you doing here? they ask. He wants to be with them. He wants them to come home and be together for the holidays. He wants to know everybody's fine.
The seminal moment in the movie comes when he goes to his wife's headstone to apologize to her. He realizes he made mistakes and his amends were clumsy and inept. The envelopes he has left under the door and on the kettle drum and thrust into his daughters' hands weren't enough to bridge the awful gap of time and misplaced hope in their lives. The kids are keeping terrible secrets. Their brother is in deep trouble in Mexico, and worse yet, they don't want to be alone with him again. They can't bear the awkwardness. They can't bear his expectations and needy interest. They're too busy with their own lives, the truth of which would be a searing disappointment to him and themselves. They go to elaborate lengths to conceal the mess they've made, to keep his inquiries at bay and send him along to the next sibling. The wires he laid across America become a network they use to control their interactions with him and protect their secrets. Both he and his kids see their strained relationship as a sad duty to his dead wife and their mother. At one point in the story he says as a father of four he expected to worry. The children show by their reluctance and vagueness that as the children of Frank Goode they expected to be a disappointment to him. They hide their sorrows and even their loves.
De Niro's odyssey across America takes him to New York and Chicago and Las Vegas on trains and buses, and his chance encounters with tender, lost, dangerous, gentle, odd, helpful people show his humanity and theirs. It's telling how much more readily he connects with strangers. One old man at the counter of a diner gives him a sad glimpse into his future.
Parents will see themselves in Frank Goode. When he meets each of his children and when he imagines them gathered around his table he sees them as the children they were coming toward him in their play clothes and with small vulnerable voices. It's a powerful device that will resonate with anyone who has ever worried over their adult child: you always see them as the bright, trusting child you parented imperfectly.
I admired the humanity and courage the actors displayed in creating this movie. Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale give nuanced performances that made me reflect on my own life and my own complicated journey as a parent and a child.
Both my parents were a mystery to me and I remember them with a mixture of gratitude and shame. My father was a brutal and inarticulate man with staggering limitations. His coarseness and cruelty scarred me deeply, but as the years passed he made gestures of reconciliation that amazed me. My mother could wound or heal and never leave a mark. It's hard to choose between remembering the sneering criticism or the noble sacrifices. It's hard to talk about either. As a parent myself I've tried break their vicious cycles and reject their divided legacies with mixed success: I was fiercely loving and devoted but breathtakingly preoccupied and undependable. My children knew I loved them, but whole years went by when they had no idea where I was or when they would see me again. My own unmanagable and misspent life got in the way of all my best intentions. I care so much for my kids. I failed them completely and over and over.
The movie was thoughtful and ambitious. It went unnoticed in the theaters and escaped critical attention. People will rent it and many will watch thinking not much happened and be disappointed. I thought it had layers of realism that could reach into your soul. I was stunned. It will stay with me for a long time.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Ethan Turns Two
Today is my grandson Ethan's birthday. He's two years old. When I called this morning he was eating his breakfast and playing with Woody and Buzz Lightyear and his blue hippopotamus. I sang happy birthday and asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up. "Eat peanut butter," he happily declared. That's my grandson, always thinking of his next meal. I think I'll go have some peanut butter myself.
His mother has a follow-up doctor's appointment today. She was getting ready to take a shower when I called. On the last day before Tom left for Afghanistan they were rear-ended at a traffic light and there was a scare with the baby and Stephanie had to go to the hospital. They wanted to keep her overnight but she begged them to let her go home.
Tom has called twice. He's in Kandahar right now but soon he'll go to the mountains. His specialty demands it. He's on the bomb squad and this is what he was trained for. Young men have been going off to war for centuries, to uncertain fates and unspeakable horrors, but this feels different. Before he left he made videos for Ethan, videos of reading stories and playing guitar. Ethan watches them every day. Kourtney, the sixth grader, is worried and nervous. "She's not taking it well," her mother said. She's better when they get a chance to talk. The second time she was at school.
Kandahar is like a resort. There's a McDonalds and a Burger King and a TGI Fridays. Internet service is expensive and not many soldiers sign up. Tom calls. Stephanie sounded brave, but scared. I'm sure she cries herself to sleep some nights. For his birthday Ethan wants apple-cinnamon muffins. I'm sure his daddy must be thinking of him today.
I sang happy birthday and told him I loved him. "I love you too," he said in his little-boy voice. I've only met him a few times. He can hardly know who I am. But he's sweet, a charmer, a healthy, beautiful boy.
My life is out of balance right now and filled with uncertainty. I'm always broke and barely connected to the people I love. I exercise and play poker and drag myself to work, and Marie and I tentatively act in accord with our careful truce, each with our secret fears and disappointments, not wanting to let go of each other but not quite in love either. A life is the sum total of the decisions you make, the attitudes you adopt, the beliefs you hold and the habits you practice, and there is one more vital element, the clarity with which you see things. I've been out of balance for a long time, in delay or denial, postponing and full of regret. What do people live for? How do they keep hope and purpose alive? It's the simple things, I'm sure, and choosing faith over despair. Stephanie's getting ready for the doctor and Marie is taking papers to the agency for her job application. Austin's getting ready to hang out with friends. And I'm in my chair, trying to scratch together enough good luck to ease our misery.
A lot of times we live numb and disappointed lives, not quite aware of the source of own unease, not quite aware of ourselves. The big moments and movements are far beyond our control. Nothing prepares you for the shock of betrayal or losing your job or car wrecks or going off to war. The small decisions add up, however, and in the long run they have a momentum like a strong current in the broad river of time.
His mother has a follow-up doctor's appointment today. She was getting ready to take a shower when I called. On the last day before Tom left for Afghanistan they were rear-ended at a traffic light and there was a scare with the baby and Stephanie had to go to the hospital. They wanted to keep her overnight but she begged them to let her go home.
Tom has called twice. He's in Kandahar right now but soon he'll go to the mountains. His specialty demands it. He's on the bomb squad and this is what he was trained for. Young men have been going off to war for centuries, to uncertain fates and unspeakable horrors, but this feels different. Before he left he made videos for Ethan, videos of reading stories and playing guitar. Ethan watches them every day. Kourtney, the sixth grader, is worried and nervous. "She's not taking it well," her mother said. She's better when they get a chance to talk. The second time she was at school.
Kandahar is like a resort. There's a McDonalds and a Burger King and a TGI Fridays. Internet service is expensive and not many soldiers sign up. Tom calls. Stephanie sounded brave, but scared. I'm sure she cries herself to sleep some nights. For his birthday Ethan wants apple-cinnamon muffins. I'm sure his daddy must be thinking of him today.
I sang happy birthday and told him I loved him. "I love you too," he said in his little-boy voice. I've only met him a few times. He can hardly know who I am. But he's sweet, a charmer, a healthy, beautiful boy.
My life is out of balance right now and filled with uncertainty. I'm always broke and barely connected to the people I love. I exercise and play poker and drag myself to work, and Marie and I tentatively act in accord with our careful truce, each with our secret fears and disappointments, not wanting to let go of each other but not quite in love either. A life is the sum total of the decisions you make, the attitudes you adopt, the beliefs you hold and the habits you practice, and there is one more vital element, the clarity with which you see things. I've been out of balance for a long time, in delay or denial, postponing and full of regret. What do people live for? How do they keep hope and purpose alive? It's the simple things, I'm sure, and choosing faith over despair. Stephanie's getting ready for the doctor and Marie is taking papers to the agency for her job application. Austin's getting ready to hang out with friends. And I'm in my chair, trying to scratch together enough good luck to ease our misery.
A lot of times we live numb and disappointed lives, not quite aware of the source of own unease, not quite aware of ourselves. The big moments and movements are far beyond our control. Nothing prepares you for the shock of betrayal or losing your job or car wrecks or going off to war. The small decisions add up, however, and in the long run they have a momentum like a strong current in the broad river of time.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
The Bunnies Playing in the Yard
My wife has a tender side, and it endears her to me.
When she was eleven she had two bunnies, Daisy and Calico. Calico had black and white patches and Daisy was a fat bunny with pure white fur. One of her favorite memories of childhood was a Spring day when let all the baby bunnies to hop around the yard. Her Dad built the bunny hutch, and the good strong fence. I can imagine how safe she felt in that yard, with the warm spring sun on her face and a spray of spreckles on her nose. This was before the troubles and struggles of adulthood, before the disappointing first husband and the violent second one. She had a beautiful childhood with two loving and supportive parents. She was cared for. She always had a nice new dress for parties and dances. Her father taught her how to drive. He was an amazing man, gentle and kind. He could play the saxophone or build a house or repair a car.
Part of the anger and disappointment she feels now in life is the shock at how different her life turned out. This is how it's supposed to be. Good men take care of you. Families don't leave each other. There was no yelling in her house growing up. Her family went to church together. Her mother usually overcooked the Sunday roast. They still joke about it. Her father died of prostate cancer in 1994. Her sister died a few years later.
The fence is solid and strong. It's still in good repair, and there's a sturdy storage shed he built in the well-trimmed yard. Her mother hires a man to keep everything up, partly, I suspect, as a tribute to him. In all of his pictures he is smiling, steady. The kind man in the blue flannel shirt reading to his grandbabies. His hands are weathered and strong. She deserves a man like that. On my best days, I try. But I can't build a house or repair a car. And I have already failed her far more times than he ever did.
When she was eleven she had two bunnies, Daisy and Calico. Calico had black and white patches and Daisy was a fat bunny with pure white fur. One of her favorite memories of childhood was a Spring day when let all the baby bunnies to hop around the yard. Her Dad built the bunny hutch, and the good strong fence. I can imagine how safe she felt in that yard, with the warm spring sun on her face and a spray of spreckles on her nose. This was before the troubles and struggles of adulthood, before the disappointing first husband and the violent second one. She had a beautiful childhood with two loving and supportive parents. She was cared for. She always had a nice new dress for parties and dances. Her father taught her how to drive. He was an amazing man, gentle and kind. He could play the saxophone or build a house or repair a car.
Part of the anger and disappointment she feels now in life is the shock at how different her life turned out. This is how it's supposed to be. Good men take care of you. Families don't leave each other. There was no yelling in her house growing up. Her family went to church together. Her mother usually overcooked the Sunday roast. They still joke about it. Her father died of prostate cancer in 1994. Her sister died a few years later.
The fence is solid and strong. It's still in good repair, and there's a sturdy storage shed he built in the well-trimmed yard. Her mother hires a man to keep everything up, partly, I suspect, as a tribute to him. In all of his pictures he is smiling, steady. The kind man in the blue flannel shirt reading to his grandbabies. His hands are weathered and strong. She deserves a man like that. On my best days, I try. But I can't build a house or repair a car. And I have already failed her far more times than he ever did.
Friday, March 19, 2010
A Duck Flies East
Mike Bellotti announced today he would resign as Athletic Director at the University of Oregon to take a broadcasting job at ESPN. He said he missed football and this would allow him to stay in the game. What he DIDN'T add is that it would allow him to do so without the pressures of recruiting and midnight calls from the Eugene police.
I've always had a lot of respect for Coach Bellotti. He conducted himself with class and helped build a once-atrocious program into a perennial contender. He was consistent and prepared and well-spoken. He was organized and unfailingly gracious with the media. He handled the pressures of the job and a public spotlight with dignity. He won more games than any other Oregon coach in history.
Athletic Director never seemed like a good fit for him. Oh, no doubt he was bright and capable enough to do the job, but I never felt it fully captured his interests and energy. He missed the sidelines and the rush of game day, buried in paperwork and obligations. An athletic director is a schmoozer and a glad handler, a wrangler of big-money contributors and a wheeler-dealer behind the scenes. Coach B wanted to call the plays. Standing by and cleaning up the messes didn't suit him. Altogether he spent 21 years at Oregon. He will always be remembered and respected.
Telegenic, intelligent, knowledgeable about the game, he's a natural for ESPN, and will enjoy his new role. If he relaxes and trusts his gifts, he'll shine there. He'll be a refreshing change from the no-nothing talking heads and ex-coaches still bitter over their last firing. He'll speak with more authority and less of an agenda. People, even fans of his old rivals, will readily see he's likable and loves the game.
Many are speculating the ESPN job is a mere precursor to a return to coaching in a year or two. "It's in his blood," they say. "An offer will come along and he'll get the itch to be on the sidelines again, making the decisions, building a team." Arizona State might be a likely destination. Another old coach who can't resist the next job, Dennis Erickson, has had two losing seasons in a row after a 10-win campaign in his first year. Boosters are chaffing and the grumbling is growing louder. Coaching is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world.
John Canzano, the shrill-voiced sneering whiner who writes sports columns for the Oregonian, speculates that Bellotti might wind up succeeding Chip Kelly at Oregon, should Kelly take an East coast job, be tempted by the big money in the NFL, or tire of answering questions about why his players can't stay out of jail. Idle and irresponsible speculation is Canzano's stock in trade. He's never met a rumor or an innuendo he wouldn't publish as fact. Last year he predicted the Ducks wouldn't win six games. They won ten, but he still hasn't apologized. You'll never hear him say, "I was wrong." He just moves on to the next half-baked pronouncement.
Tomorrow in the paper he'll no doubt harp on what a loss this is to Oregon and how the program is now in disarray. Never mind while Bellotti was their he publicly derided him with nasty innuendos and self-serving diatribes, even pulling his wife and family into the argument. Family is off limits. If you want to talk about the halfback's arrest, or the punt on fourth and one, that's one thing, but a man's wife is none of the paper's business.
As a game analyst and studio commentator the Coach will have none of these worries. He can fly into town and do his job and play golf on Sunday morning. The losses won't gnaw at him and the boosters won't second guess. He'll earn a good living, fly first class and have a great seat for every game. It sounds like a good life. I wish him well, and I'm sure most Duck fans do also.
I've always had a lot of respect for Coach Bellotti. He conducted himself with class and helped build a once-atrocious program into a perennial contender. He was consistent and prepared and well-spoken. He was organized and unfailingly gracious with the media. He handled the pressures of the job and a public spotlight with dignity. He won more games than any other Oregon coach in history.
Athletic Director never seemed like a good fit for him. Oh, no doubt he was bright and capable enough to do the job, but I never felt it fully captured his interests and energy. He missed the sidelines and the rush of game day, buried in paperwork and obligations. An athletic director is a schmoozer and a glad handler, a wrangler of big-money contributors and a wheeler-dealer behind the scenes. Coach B wanted to call the plays. Standing by and cleaning up the messes didn't suit him. Altogether he spent 21 years at Oregon. He will always be remembered and respected.
Telegenic, intelligent, knowledgeable about the game, he's a natural for ESPN, and will enjoy his new role. If he relaxes and trusts his gifts, he'll shine there. He'll be a refreshing change from the no-nothing talking heads and ex-coaches still bitter over their last firing. He'll speak with more authority and less of an agenda. People, even fans of his old rivals, will readily see he's likable and loves the game.
Many are speculating the ESPN job is a mere precursor to a return to coaching in a year or two. "It's in his blood," they say. "An offer will come along and he'll get the itch to be on the sidelines again, making the decisions, building a team." Arizona State might be a likely destination. Another old coach who can't resist the next job, Dennis Erickson, has had two losing seasons in a row after a 10-win campaign in his first year. Boosters are chaffing and the grumbling is growing louder. Coaching is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world.
John Canzano, the shrill-voiced sneering whiner who writes sports columns for the Oregonian, speculates that Bellotti might wind up succeeding Chip Kelly at Oregon, should Kelly take an East coast job, be tempted by the big money in the NFL, or tire of answering questions about why his players can't stay out of jail. Idle and irresponsible speculation is Canzano's stock in trade. He's never met a rumor or an innuendo he wouldn't publish as fact. Last year he predicted the Ducks wouldn't win six games. They won ten, but he still hasn't apologized. You'll never hear him say, "I was wrong." He just moves on to the next half-baked pronouncement.
Tomorrow in the paper he'll no doubt harp on what a loss this is to Oregon and how the program is now in disarray. Never mind while Bellotti was their he publicly derided him with nasty innuendos and self-serving diatribes, even pulling his wife and family into the argument. Family is off limits. If you want to talk about the halfback's arrest, or the punt on fourth and one, that's one thing, but a man's wife is none of the paper's business.
As a game analyst and studio commentator the Coach will have none of these worries. He can fly into town and do his job and play golf on Sunday morning. The losses won't gnaw at him and the boosters won't second guess. He'll earn a good living, fly first class and have a great seat for every game. It sounds like a good life. I wish him well, and I'm sure most Duck fans do also.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
I May Not Know Much, But I Have an Opinion on Everything
Today is our wedding anniversary. I bought Marie an Opium gift set, a Megabucks ticket and a pink rose. We've been married four years and it's been eventful and action packed. I love her dearly. I hope our best days are ahead.
Around the web a lot has happened this week. Fox News anchor Bret Baier had a contentious interview with President Barack Obama yesterday about health care reform. Opinions vary on this, and half the country is dead set against it. Given the government's track record in managing other large concerns like Social Security and border security I can understand the scepticism. But what I don't understand and can't tolerate is rudeness to the President of the United States. Even conservatives should respect the office, regardless of whether a liberal or a card-carrying Tea Partyer holds it. I don't like the way debates are framed in our national politics. There is too much labeling and fear mongering, too much distortion and mischaracterization. The is a lack of fundamental decency and intelligent discourse. But it has always been this way. Political cartoons of Abraham Lincoln's time drew him as an ape. There were ugly whispers about his ancestry and appearance. In spite of the stakes we lead with our emotions and our fears.
The Israeli government is going along with plans to build high rise apartments in traditionally Arab sections of Jerusalem. This has heightened tensions with their neighbors and strained delicate relations with the U.S. This too is unchanged from centuries ago. Bible heroes grazed their sheep on the land of the Hittites and the Jebusites, and the struggle has gone on ever since. Fragile alliances and sporadic violence, coupled with profound religious hatreds and fundamental distrust: it's a dangerous recipe they're stirring at the center of the world.
Sandra Bullock, America's sweetheart and recent Oscar winner, has left her husband of five years. People magazine says he had an affair with a tattoo model. So often when a husband cheats it has nothing to do with the wife and everything to do with his own weakness and self indulgence. Here's a woman who was attractive, successful and devoted, but it didn't make any difference. She married a bad boy, and in the end he acted badly. Imagine the pain and embarrassment in being humiliated so publicly. Imagine the pressure of living out your life's most difficult moments with reporters and cameras watching your every move. I wish the family hope, healing and grace. It's never easy to overcome a profound hurt. The person we love has the power to heal or to hurt us like nothing else in the world.
I'm looking forward to seeing her new movie, "The Blind Side." The previews look terrific, and I've always liked her characters. Marie does too. Marie says she is one of the rare actors or actresses that men and women both like, that men find appealing but women don't find cheap or untrustworthy. George Clooney is a male example of the same phenomenon. I don't have the same feeling about the vampire boys or Matthew McConaughey. While we're on the subject of attractiveness, I don't get John Mayer. He's classless and creepy, and all his songs sound the same. With that breathy, effeminate voice, he's James Taylor with no talent and no soul. And Lady Gaga, I don't get her either. She looks like a man in drag, and her act is recycled Madonna and Prince whirled in the blender of hype and self-promotion. Maybe I'm just too old.
Fess Parker died today, one of the heroes of my boyhood. He played Daniel Boone on TV. One of the sure signs of growing old is that the athletes and celebrities you remember start to die. Then there are the times you start talking about a movie or event involving the past and someone asks, "Is he still alive?" And no one is quite sure. Of course there are websites devoted to that now. You can google anything or anyone any more. It's a little scary, really. A random stranger could find you in ten minutes. Probably it's better not to think about it, and be glad the one who loves you found you in the first place. Now if you would please excuse me I've got to go celebrate our anniversary.
Around the web a lot has happened this week. Fox News anchor Bret Baier had a contentious interview with President Barack Obama yesterday about health care reform. Opinions vary on this, and half the country is dead set against it. Given the government's track record in managing other large concerns like Social Security and border security I can understand the scepticism. But what I don't understand and can't tolerate is rudeness to the President of the United States. Even conservatives should respect the office, regardless of whether a liberal or a card-carrying Tea Partyer holds it. I don't like the way debates are framed in our national politics. There is too much labeling and fear mongering, too much distortion and mischaracterization. The is a lack of fundamental decency and intelligent discourse. But it has always been this way. Political cartoons of Abraham Lincoln's time drew him as an ape. There were ugly whispers about his ancestry and appearance. In spite of the stakes we lead with our emotions and our fears.
The Israeli government is going along with plans to build high rise apartments in traditionally Arab sections of Jerusalem. This has heightened tensions with their neighbors and strained delicate relations with the U.S. This too is unchanged from centuries ago. Bible heroes grazed their sheep on the land of the Hittites and the Jebusites, and the struggle has gone on ever since. Fragile alliances and sporadic violence, coupled with profound religious hatreds and fundamental distrust: it's a dangerous recipe they're stirring at the center of the world.
Sandra Bullock, America's sweetheart and recent Oscar winner, has left her husband of five years. People magazine says he had an affair with a tattoo model. So often when a husband cheats it has nothing to do with the wife and everything to do with his own weakness and self indulgence. Here's a woman who was attractive, successful and devoted, but it didn't make any difference. She married a bad boy, and in the end he acted badly. Imagine the pain and embarrassment in being humiliated so publicly. Imagine the pressure of living out your life's most difficult moments with reporters and cameras watching your every move. I wish the family hope, healing and grace. It's never easy to overcome a profound hurt. The person we love has the power to heal or to hurt us like nothing else in the world.
I'm looking forward to seeing her new movie, "The Blind Side." The previews look terrific, and I've always liked her characters. Marie does too. Marie says she is one of the rare actors or actresses that men and women both like, that men find appealing but women don't find cheap or untrustworthy. George Clooney is a male example of the same phenomenon. I don't have the same feeling about the vampire boys or Matthew McConaughey. While we're on the subject of attractiveness, I don't get John Mayer. He's classless and creepy, and all his songs sound the same. With that breathy, effeminate voice, he's James Taylor with no talent and no soul. And Lady Gaga, I don't get her either. She looks like a man in drag, and her act is recycled Madonna and Prince whirled in the blender of hype and self-promotion. Maybe I'm just too old.
Fess Parker died today, one of the heroes of my boyhood. He played Daniel Boone on TV. One of the sure signs of growing old is that the athletes and celebrities you remember start to die. Then there are the times you start talking about a movie or event involving the past and someone asks, "Is he still alive?" And no one is quite sure. Of course there are websites devoted to that now. You can google anything or anyone any more. It's a little scary, really. A random stranger could find you in ten minutes. Probably it's better not to think about it, and be glad the one who loves you found you in the first place. Now if you would please excuse me I've got to go celebrate our anniversary.
Monday, March 15, 2010
March Madness
The Toyotas are running amuck and the Greeks, who gave democracy to the world, are watching their economy collapse. Ominous signs are everywhere: it's the hungry and bitter who touch off panic and rioting in the streets, and if a bold gesture of confidence is not made soon the world will race off like a Prius with a stuck accelerator and a full charge. Eighty years ago the defeated hauled wheelbarrow loads of disgraced currency to the marketplace to barter for a loaf of bread, a madman saw this and blamed the Jews, and soon the whole world was in flames.
It's different now, we say. There are controls in place. Still the madmen lurk with their cries for purity and revenge. Cleanse the world of infidels and we'll have a thousand years of peace. The promise is always hollow, for the poor and hungry will swallow a lie and call it hope. The world races on and the false pundits find someone new to blame. Be afraid for a world where reason gives to panic and then panaceas, where sharp-tongued men in crisp shirts feed eager crowds a diet of catchphrases and quick-witted lies.
In America this week the offices and shops will be abuzz with new energy. The copy machine will be whirling and flashing like a nickel slot machine in the frenzy of an Elks convention. Energetic clusters will gather around desks, and the air will be filled with bracketology and inevitability of a bracket buster in the five-twelve seed. "I had it," comes a smug voice from accounting, the guy who smirks behind his coffee cup and always seems to have the answer to 29 down. It will be a week of sneaking into the breakroom and lost productivity, of buzzer beaters and Cinderellas gone home. I don't care for the March Madness. The best players leave early for the league and the story lines are too short. It's too prepackaged. The enthusiasm is all for TV, the basketball head masks and painted faces, the index fingers thrust into the air. The images are stale. I don't have a bracket in the office pool, and couldn't tell Duke from Dusquesne.
I won't watch a minute of this but millions will, and it's amazing to me we can get so excited about this while the world is shaken off its axis, and the founders of democracy lose theirs. Erin Andrews makes her living on sex appeal and tight skirts, but the idea of someone watching her leaves her tearfully outraged. The tears, I suspect, are for loss of control of her brand. The world is hurtling along like a Prius doing 90 miles an hour uphill with the brakes on, and the official story is that it's all a hoax.
It's different now, we say. There are controls in place. Still the madmen lurk with their cries for purity and revenge. Cleanse the world of infidels and we'll have a thousand years of peace. The promise is always hollow, for the poor and hungry will swallow a lie and call it hope. The world races on and the false pundits find someone new to blame. Be afraid for a world where reason gives to panic and then panaceas, where sharp-tongued men in crisp shirts feed eager crowds a diet of catchphrases and quick-witted lies.
In America this week the offices and shops will be abuzz with new energy. The copy machine will be whirling and flashing like a nickel slot machine in the frenzy of an Elks convention. Energetic clusters will gather around desks, and the air will be filled with bracketology and inevitability of a bracket buster in the five-twelve seed. "I had it," comes a smug voice from accounting, the guy who smirks behind his coffee cup and always seems to have the answer to 29 down. It will be a week of sneaking into the breakroom and lost productivity, of buzzer beaters and Cinderellas gone home. I don't care for the March Madness. The best players leave early for the league and the story lines are too short. It's too prepackaged. The enthusiasm is all for TV, the basketball head masks and painted faces, the index fingers thrust into the air. The images are stale. I don't have a bracket in the office pool, and couldn't tell Duke from Dusquesne.
I won't watch a minute of this but millions will, and it's amazing to me we can get so excited about this while the world is shaken off its axis, and the founders of democracy lose theirs. Erin Andrews makes her living on sex appeal and tight skirts, but the idea of someone watching her leaves her tearfully outraged. The tears, I suspect, are for loss of control of her brand. The world is hurtling along like a Prius doing 90 miles an hour uphill with the brakes on, and the official story is that it's all a hoax.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
A Wall Comes Tumbling Down
FOURTH WALL
The imaginary wall of a box set through which the audience see the stage.
from theatrecrafts.com, a glossary of theater terms
Television and mass media create a false intimacy. We watch celebrities, actors and athletes, and we feel as if we know them. We see their appearances on talk shows and read their sanitized, prepackaged stories in People magazine, see their shining smiles on the red carpets and award ceremonies, and without even thinking we buy into their image. Tiger Woods, golf prodigy, on the Mike Douglas show at age 2. The Chosen One. The boy genius. Born to be a champion. Learning his perfect swing watching his father from his high chair. Now a grown man and the greatest golfer ever, with a withering glare of determination and an indomitable will to win, the fierce focus of perfect concentration, willing the ball into the hole, hoisting the trophy into the air, his pretty devoted wife proudly at his side. Go Tiger! the gallery shouts, as if his victory was their own.
When an athlete falls from grace, he breaks through that fourth wall of the human drama of athletic competition. Disturbing reports of his real life intrude upon the storied image we've bought of him, the grace and courage we assigned to him. There are several glaring examples. O.J. Simpson, Heisman trophy winner, NFL record holder and hall of famer, once one of the most popular athletes in the world, became a brand name in the seventies, doing Hertz commercials with everyone's likable grandfather, Arnold Palmer. Go Juice! Go Arnie! He made madcap silly movies with Leslie Nielsen. How grimly ironic it is to think of O.J. Simpson in a funny chase scene or running through an airport, now revealed as a nutcase and a savage beast.
In sports the examples are endless. We've witnessed the semi-tragic collapses of Mike Tyson and Michael Vick, brought down by their own crude appetites. Vaunted baseball sluggers, Barry and Big Mac, A-Rod and Slamming Sammy, were all found to be cheaters fueled by illegal juice. Kobe Bryant made a sleazy conquest of a hotel maid. A NBA referee fixed games, and star point guard Allen Iverson staggered through whole seasons in one long drinking binge. More recently, former Super Bowl hero Ben Roethlisberger revealed himself to be a crude trolling thug, raping a drunken college girl in the bathroom of a bar. She had to hospitalized after their sordid liason. Naturally he denies it all. "She hit her head," was his blithe explanation. No, Ben, no. Say it isn't so. I'm afraid it is, kid: Shoeless Joe Jackson legendarily said on the steps of the courthouse, in the illegitimate father of all sports scandals, when the Black Sox fixed the Series. By now the story is nearly a hundred years old but the story remains the same. I'm afraid it is, kid.
Yesterday at the University of Oregon two of our heroes have been found guilty. On Friday star Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli pled guilty to burglary, a second degree felony, and freshman sensation LaMichael James, who rushed for more than 1500 yards last season, pled down to fourth degree harassment to avoid a trial for domestic violence. Coach Chip Kelly suspended Masoli for all of next season, and James for one game.
The shock is, we thought they were such good kids. But why did we think that? Because they play for our team? Because they say the right things in interviews, or politely hand the ball to the referee after scoring a touchdown? I don't know these young men. I never did. I only thought I did, because I read about them and watched their games. I was prepared to like them because they wore the green jerseys instead of the black, and gave them more attention than my own children.
Both young men are fools for messing up their careers in such a shameful and public way. And I am a fool too, for investing myself so fervently in their scores and highlights. It's clear they never cared about any of us. Our investment in their lives and outcomes was full of false hope and a willingness to be fooled.
I remember Russell Crowe in "Gladiator," sword and shield thrust out, demanding of the crowd, "Are you not entertained?" He'd given them what they wanted, the blood of Legions on his swordpoint. Wasn't it enough? But the crowd wanted more. They wanted a reason to love him and believe he was noble and sympathetic. He hadn't given them that. When he broke through his fourth wall, demanding their approval, they fell uncomfortably silent, shocked to find their gladiator had been cynical about them all along. Maximus cared nothing for their love or approval, and to see him show that so openly on the arena floor, brought the whole arena to stunned silence. Bread is scarce. We want to be distracted from our woes. We want to believe in a champion.
And when the champion shows himself to be low and grasping, we are indignant and outraged. Stay behind the wall, heroes. We want the image and not the man. We are already intimately acquainted with human failings, because we live with our own every day.
The imaginary wall of a box set through which the audience see the stage.
from theatrecrafts.com, a glossary of theater terms
Television and mass media create a false intimacy. We watch celebrities, actors and athletes, and we feel as if we know them. We see their appearances on talk shows and read their sanitized, prepackaged stories in People magazine, see their shining smiles on the red carpets and award ceremonies, and without even thinking we buy into their image. Tiger Woods, golf prodigy, on the Mike Douglas show at age 2. The Chosen One. The boy genius. Born to be a champion. Learning his perfect swing watching his father from his high chair. Now a grown man and the greatest golfer ever, with a withering glare of determination and an indomitable will to win, the fierce focus of perfect concentration, willing the ball into the hole, hoisting the trophy into the air, his pretty devoted wife proudly at his side. Go Tiger! the gallery shouts, as if his victory was their own.
When an athlete falls from grace, he breaks through that fourth wall of the human drama of athletic competition. Disturbing reports of his real life intrude upon the storied image we've bought of him, the grace and courage we assigned to him. There are several glaring examples. O.J. Simpson, Heisman trophy winner, NFL record holder and hall of famer, once one of the most popular athletes in the world, became a brand name in the seventies, doing Hertz commercials with everyone's likable grandfather, Arnold Palmer. Go Juice! Go Arnie! He made madcap silly movies with Leslie Nielsen. How grimly ironic it is to think of O.J. Simpson in a funny chase scene or running through an airport, now revealed as a nutcase and a savage beast.
In sports the examples are endless. We've witnessed the semi-tragic collapses of Mike Tyson and Michael Vick, brought down by their own crude appetites. Vaunted baseball sluggers, Barry and Big Mac, A-Rod and Slamming Sammy, were all found to be cheaters fueled by illegal juice. Kobe Bryant made a sleazy conquest of a hotel maid. A NBA referee fixed games, and star point guard Allen Iverson staggered through whole seasons in one long drinking binge. More recently, former Super Bowl hero Ben Roethlisberger revealed himself to be a crude trolling thug, raping a drunken college girl in the bathroom of a bar. She had to hospitalized after their sordid liason. Naturally he denies it all. "She hit her head," was his blithe explanation. No, Ben, no. Say it isn't so. I'm afraid it is, kid: Shoeless Joe Jackson legendarily said on the steps of the courthouse, in the illegitimate father of all sports scandals, when the Black Sox fixed the Series. By now the story is nearly a hundred years old but the story remains the same. I'm afraid it is, kid.
Yesterday at the University of Oregon two of our heroes have been found guilty. On Friday star Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli pled guilty to burglary, a second degree felony, and freshman sensation LaMichael James, who rushed for more than 1500 yards last season, pled down to fourth degree harassment to avoid a trial for domestic violence. Coach Chip Kelly suspended Masoli for all of next season, and James for one game.
The shock is, we thought they were such good kids. But why did we think that? Because they play for our team? Because they say the right things in interviews, or politely hand the ball to the referee after scoring a touchdown? I don't know these young men. I never did. I only thought I did, because I read about them and watched their games. I was prepared to like them because they wore the green jerseys instead of the black, and gave them more attention than my own children.
Both young men are fools for messing up their careers in such a shameful and public way. And I am a fool too, for investing myself so fervently in their scores and highlights. It's clear they never cared about any of us. Our investment in their lives and outcomes was full of false hope and a willingness to be fooled.
I remember Russell Crowe in "Gladiator," sword and shield thrust out, demanding of the crowd, "Are you not entertained?" He'd given them what they wanted, the blood of Legions on his swordpoint. Wasn't it enough? But the crowd wanted more. They wanted a reason to love him and believe he was noble and sympathetic. He hadn't given them that. When he broke through his fourth wall, demanding their approval, they fell uncomfortably silent, shocked to find their gladiator had been cynical about them all along. Maximus cared nothing for their love or approval, and to see him show that so openly on the arena floor, brought the whole arena to stunned silence. Bread is scarce. We want to be distracted from our woes. We want to believe in a champion.
And when the champion shows himself to be low and grasping, we are indignant and outraged. Stay behind the wall, heroes. We want the image and not the man. We are already intimately acquainted with human failings, because we live with our own every day.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Movies Have the Power to Move Us and to Heal
Marie and I love the redbox. For a dollar you can buy two hours of intimacy, happiness or hope. We plug in the string of small white Christmas lights she wound around the headboard of the wrought iron bed, pop the dvd into our thirty nine dollar player and turn on the 150 pound tv we got free for helping our friend Steve move. His deplorable ex-roommate SpongePolly Squarepants had left it behind after ditching him for $8000 back rent. She was a devout Christian but had no sense of honor or responsibility, just a fervent desire to volunteer at the church and a willingness to exploit the kindness and misplaced affections of a vulnerable man with a weakness for alcohol and cheap women. You see how stories are intertwined with stories, wound around like the Christmas lights adorning the wrought iron frame of our lives.
The movies are the bright light in the dimness. We hold each other and laugh or cry together. Under the safety and comfort of a warm quilt and snacks we put ourselves in the story and consider honor and love and loyalty, what it means to choose someone and wait for them and overcome the inevitable obstacles and disappointments. Through our tears or our laughter or the arousal of our senses and emotions we consider what's worth living for. And we kiss with new tenderness and hope. They are the most delicious hours of our fractured, wounded lives. They ease the tension and regret and disappointment.
We watched "The Proposal" with Sandra Bullock and "Hachi" with Richard Gere. "The Proposal" is a flawed and predictable movie but we loved it anyway. We loved Sandra Bullock with her genuineness and spark and spunk. You knew where the movie was going but didn't mind the stunts that moved it along. Underneath our busyness and our business, we all have a vulnerable core. We want to be chosen and loved. We want to become part of a family and have hope and traditions and a place to go on holidays. We want to be kissed, chosen, cared for, and most of all, we want someone to believe in us and our dreams. The movie had a good heart. I don't care about the Oscars or the Raspberries. I celebrate anything with a good heart, anything that encourages the heart in us.
"Hachi" was an incredible story of tenderness and devotion, a story of the power of finding room within yourself for vulnerability and friendship. It reminded Marie of her mother's love for her father, and that is the highest compliment I can think of. Sixteen years have passed and she is still his devoted bride. Her memories of him and his gentleness and strength are the most treasured possessions in her life. He is still standing behind her shoulder, still gazing at her as if she were the most precious and beautiful women on earth. Genuine love is more powerful than all our flaws and limitations. It changes lives, communities, destinies. It is enduring and transcendent. The power to believe and to care can smash through our pretensions, the veneer of cynicism and bitterness we use to hold the world at bay. To believe in something, to care for someone, to accept the hard work of loving them and the risk of losing them, it's worth waiting in the cold. Ultimately we become a monument to our devotions, whatever they are, no matter how carelessly we misplace them. Reclaim your devotions. Hold them close.
My daughter says good-bye to her husband today. He leaves for Fort Lewis and then for Afghanistan. His son Ethan turns two in thirteen days. He's not the first father to leave his kids for war, nor the last, but it's desperately sad that leaders and nations do THIS so carelessly, send young men to The Hurt Locker for an ill-considered cause and an uncertain and unattainable objective in a hostile and far away place. Afghanistan won't be any safer or more secure and neither will we, no matter how many strong good young men we send to dismantle explosives in the street. There will always be more C-4 and newer and more sinister ways to hide it under a coat or in the trunk of a parked car. Of all the senseless dramas we play out, this is the most cruel and idiotic, and unfortunately, timeless and inevitable.
I don't want my daughter to hurt. I don't want her husband to come to harm. I hate the sophistry and rhetoric and false certainty that sends him there. I hate the military machine that deems it expedient, the crazed religionists and their senseless rage and the glee and fervor they stoke to keep this insanity in motion. I'm afraid there's not enough tenderness and hope in the world, and too much greed, too much fervor to destroy. The imbalanced hateful evil is winning the day. But Ethan and his puppy will wait for daddy to come home. May the days of waiting pass quickly and end with mercy and grace.
The movies are the bright light in the dimness. We hold each other and laugh or cry together. Under the safety and comfort of a warm quilt and snacks we put ourselves in the story and consider honor and love and loyalty, what it means to choose someone and wait for them and overcome the inevitable obstacles and disappointments. Through our tears or our laughter or the arousal of our senses and emotions we consider what's worth living for. And we kiss with new tenderness and hope. They are the most delicious hours of our fractured, wounded lives. They ease the tension and regret and disappointment.
We watched "The Proposal" with Sandra Bullock and "Hachi" with Richard Gere. "The Proposal" is a flawed and predictable movie but we loved it anyway. We loved Sandra Bullock with her genuineness and spark and spunk. You knew where the movie was going but didn't mind the stunts that moved it along. Underneath our busyness and our business, we all have a vulnerable core. We want to be chosen and loved. We want to become part of a family and have hope and traditions and a place to go on holidays. We want to be kissed, chosen, cared for, and most of all, we want someone to believe in us and our dreams. The movie had a good heart. I don't care about the Oscars or the Raspberries. I celebrate anything with a good heart, anything that encourages the heart in us.
"Hachi" was an incredible story of tenderness and devotion, a story of the power of finding room within yourself for vulnerability and friendship. It reminded Marie of her mother's love for her father, and that is the highest compliment I can think of. Sixteen years have passed and she is still his devoted bride. Her memories of him and his gentleness and strength are the most treasured possessions in her life. He is still standing behind her shoulder, still gazing at her as if she were the most precious and beautiful women on earth. Genuine love is more powerful than all our flaws and limitations. It changes lives, communities, destinies. It is enduring and transcendent. The power to believe and to care can smash through our pretensions, the veneer of cynicism and bitterness we use to hold the world at bay. To believe in something, to care for someone, to accept the hard work of loving them and the risk of losing them, it's worth waiting in the cold. Ultimately we become a monument to our devotions, whatever they are, no matter how carelessly we misplace them. Reclaim your devotions. Hold them close.
My daughter says good-bye to her husband today. He leaves for Fort Lewis and then for Afghanistan. His son Ethan turns two in thirteen days. He's not the first father to leave his kids for war, nor the last, but it's desperately sad that leaders and nations do THIS so carelessly, send young men to The Hurt Locker for an ill-considered cause and an uncertain and unattainable objective in a hostile and far away place. Afghanistan won't be any safer or more secure and neither will we, no matter how many strong good young men we send to dismantle explosives in the street. There will always be more C-4 and newer and more sinister ways to hide it under a coat or in the trunk of a parked car. Of all the senseless dramas we play out, this is the most cruel and idiotic, and unfortunately, timeless and inevitable.
I don't want my daughter to hurt. I don't want her husband to come to harm. I hate the sophistry and rhetoric and false certainty that sends him there. I hate the military machine that deems it expedient, the crazed religionists and their senseless rage and the glee and fervor they stoke to keep this insanity in motion. I'm afraid there's not enough tenderness and hope in the world, and too much greed, too much fervor to destroy. The imbalanced hateful evil is winning the day. But Ethan and his puppy will wait for daddy to come home. May the days of waiting pass quickly and end with mercy and grace.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
A Game of Decisions and the Turn of the Cards
I play small stakes poker online for extra money. I made four hundred last month and another hundred so far in March. I enjoy doing it and it passes the time, and there's always the lure of hitting a big jackpot that eases the drudgery and uncertainty of my unpleasant job and our one-income household. Every day I live with the certain knowledge that we're just scraping by. The rear end of the Vista Cruiser is making an ominous noise and my wife is wearing a wedding ring with a fake stone. I want to do better. Like an athlete with a talent for breaking free on the off tackle slant, poker is my dream, my way out of the ghetto.
Mass media gives a lot of people elusive dreams. There are plenty of athletes who never make it, and plenty of poker players scuffling for a buy-in. In my case I don't dream of a big final table under the tv lights and a pile of cash sitting there on a tray festooned with a glittering bracelet. I just want to outlast the field in an online tourney for a few extra hundred, or six or seven thousand in one chunk, a windfall out of nowhere. It could happen. I finished 38th in a field of 2100 the other night after work, busting out with AK all-in before the flop versus an ace and six offsuit. Six on the the river for a hundred thousand chips, about 35 times the blinds and good cushion to the final nine. The six blinked up, after three and half hours of grinding and careful decisions, and some donkey hauled off with all my chips, congratulating himself on his bold move. Nothing I could do or say. I could have blasted him in the chat that crawls below the game, but what's the point?
A writer named Jesse May once said that poker is part skill and part luck, and the chief part of the skill is how you manage the luck. You have to assess your chances, and when you're playing with clarity, your opponents. You have to keep yourself on even keel when things defy probability and your perfect logical assessment falls stone dead on its ass to a death card on the river. You have to keep yourself from impulsiveness or frustration. The big stack calls a raise in early position with king-eight suited, a piece of trash, and walks all over your pocket jacks. You know he's calling with a rag. He has more confidence with his rags and calls with them to the river, and no amount of maneuvering or logic or hope can keep you from busting to this guy, who always hits his hand and always has enough, except when you fold some marginal beauty that would have notched him to double up. I'm always leaning the wrong way.
I'm beating the game for steady but unspectacular money just based on persistence and a knowledge of the fundamentals, but at this rate I'll never get out of poker's minor leagues. I have days where the game breaks my heart, where it gets me screaming at the screen of my laptop like a deranged crack addict who just lost the forty bucks he stole from his brother. The game torments me and punishes me for inattention or lax decisions. When I'm playing good they outdraw me and when I'm out of line the cards fall red when I'm black and leave my stomach in a knot. Even when you're making a profit a tournament usually ends with a hand you lose, and in a four hour session there are 250 hands and most of them you'll lose. Good starting cards draw three rags. The best hand gets counterfeited. Just now I went all in with a king and queen and some clown called me with a queen and a ten. He's a three to one dog, more or less. I flop a king and now he's in a world of hurt. But a jack falls on the turn for a gut shot straight and he busts me. In the turn of one card I go from second place money to third, and every one in the circus parade of donkeys dances madly to the calliope at my expense. It's maddening. All morning long I've looked at running flushes and miracle outs, and I've lost ten bucks despite patience and sound decisions and intelligent raises and folds. Boldness and stubborn stupidity have won out every time. I win money, but there's a lot of suffering along the way.
My wife's getting tired of my bad beat stories and sniveling. Somehow I have to let go of the compulsion to expect everything to be logical or fair. Just now I got short stacked and plunged all-in with nine-eight offsuit, figuring two live cards first in in late position was better than waiting for the blinds to devour me. I got three calls, a bad sign for a rag just trying to pick up the blinds. The flop came a jack, an eight and a four, and one of the big stacks bet three quarters of the pot. The rats all scurry into the muck. I'm cautiously elated when he turns over two red sixes, half expecting a six on the turn or the river. He misses, and suddenly from the brink of extinction I have four thousand chips, thirteen times the blinds with 600 to go to the money. I might eke out another small win or get on a rush and make the top 200, stay alive till eleven. Tournament poker is a game of survival and avoiding traps. For the best players it's a game of creativity and aggression, but for me it's a grind and a slog and taking my lumps till I catch a break. I keep doing it, because money won is ten times as sweet as money earned.
There's a cost to it though. I don't get to the gym enough, and I hardly ever read a book. For a variety of reasons my wife and I have sex maybe three times in a month, and it's a heartbreak to realize she doesn't have any fire for me anymore. Like that old country song I miss the old days when we were crazy in love, before him and the hurtful fights and the regrettable words. In poker and in life I keep grinding along, trying to stifle my small worries and moments of failure, hoping to choose the right time to go all-in. I can usually get my money in with the best hand, but you can't control the outcome of each successive confrontation. Deep down I fear I'm not a lucky guy. Or maybe I'm just not smart enough to win the big money. I need to win a big jackpot, boost my confidence and take the pressure off. Once you win one your outlook changes. You have a little cushion and lose the self-defeating caution that leads to mediocre results. You start making the bold gamble at just the right time. And those hands where you get burned don't have such a devastating effect on your psyche. I have to learn to let go of the small defeats and play for the long run. But I can't let go of the nagging realization that in the long run we're all dead.
Mass media gives a lot of people elusive dreams. There are plenty of athletes who never make it, and plenty of poker players scuffling for a buy-in. In my case I don't dream of a big final table under the tv lights and a pile of cash sitting there on a tray festooned with a glittering bracelet. I just want to outlast the field in an online tourney for a few extra hundred, or six or seven thousand in one chunk, a windfall out of nowhere. It could happen. I finished 38th in a field of 2100 the other night after work, busting out with AK all-in before the flop versus an ace and six offsuit. Six on the the river for a hundred thousand chips, about 35 times the blinds and good cushion to the final nine. The six blinked up, after three and half hours of grinding and careful decisions, and some donkey hauled off with all my chips, congratulating himself on his bold move. Nothing I could do or say. I could have blasted him in the chat that crawls below the game, but what's the point?
A writer named Jesse May once said that poker is part skill and part luck, and the chief part of the skill is how you manage the luck. You have to assess your chances, and when you're playing with clarity, your opponents. You have to keep yourself on even keel when things defy probability and your perfect logical assessment falls stone dead on its ass to a death card on the river. You have to keep yourself from impulsiveness or frustration. The big stack calls a raise in early position with king-eight suited, a piece of trash, and walks all over your pocket jacks. You know he's calling with a rag. He has more confidence with his rags and calls with them to the river, and no amount of maneuvering or logic or hope can keep you from busting to this guy, who always hits his hand and always has enough, except when you fold some marginal beauty that would have notched him to double up. I'm always leaning the wrong way.
I'm beating the game for steady but unspectacular money just based on persistence and a knowledge of the fundamentals, but at this rate I'll never get out of poker's minor leagues. I have days where the game breaks my heart, where it gets me screaming at the screen of my laptop like a deranged crack addict who just lost the forty bucks he stole from his brother. The game torments me and punishes me for inattention or lax decisions. When I'm playing good they outdraw me and when I'm out of line the cards fall red when I'm black and leave my stomach in a knot. Even when you're making a profit a tournament usually ends with a hand you lose, and in a four hour session there are 250 hands and most of them you'll lose. Good starting cards draw three rags. The best hand gets counterfeited. Just now I went all in with a king and queen and some clown called me with a queen and a ten. He's a three to one dog, more or less. I flop a king and now he's in a world of hurt. But a jack falls on the turn for a gut shot straight and he busts me. In the turn of one card I go from second place money to third, and every one in the circus parade of donkeys dances madly to the calliope at my expense. It's maddening. All morning long I've looked at running flushes and miracle outs, and I've lost ten bucks despite patience and sound decisions and intelligent raises and folds. Boldness and stubborn stupidity have won out every time. I win money, but there's a lot of suffering along the way.
My wife's getting tired of my bad beat stories and sniveling. Somehow I have to let go of the compulsion to expect everything to be logical or fair. Just now I got short stacked and plunged all-in with nine-eight offsuit, figuring two live cards first in in late position was better than waiting for the blinds to devour me. I got three calls, a bad sign for a rag just trying to pick up the blinds. The flop came a jack, an eight and a four, and one of the big stacks bet three quarters of the pot. The rats all scurry into the muck. I'm cautiously elated when he turns over two red sixes, half expecting a six on the turn or the river. He misses, and suddenly from the brink of extinction I have four thousand chips, thirteen times the blinds with 600 to go to the money. I might eke out another small win or get on a rush and make the top 200, stay alive till eleven. Tournament poker is a game of survival and avoiding traps. For the best players it's a game of creativity and aggression, but for me it's a grind and a slog and taking my lumps till I catch a break. I keep doing it, because money won is ten times as sweet as money earned.
There's a cost to it though. I don't get to the gym enough, and I hardly ever read a book. For a variety of reasons my wife and I have sex maybe three times in a month, and it's a heartbreak to realize she doesn't have any fire for me anymore. Like that old country song I miss the old days when we were crazy in love, before him and the hurtful fights and the regrettable words. In poker and in life I keep grinding along, trying to stifle my small worries and moments of failure, hoping to choose the right time to go all-in. I can usually get my money in with the best hand, but you can't control the outcome of each successive confrontation. Deep down I fear I'm not a lucky guy. Or maybe I'm just not smart enough to win the big money. I need to win a big jackpot, boost my confidence and take the pressure off. Once you win one your outlook changes. You have a little cushion and lose the self-defeating caution that leads to mediocre results. You start making the bold gamble at just the right time. And those hands where you get burned don't have such a devastating effect on your psyche. I have to learn to let go of the small defeats and play for the long run. But I can't let go of the nagging realization that in the long run we're all dead.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting
I love my wife more than anyone or anything in the world. I desire her more than any celebrity or starlet or ghost from my past. I want to be with her. I crave her company, her presence, and the light in her eyes is a tonic to my soul. Her curves entice me, her laughter delights me, and I want to be where she is.
But we can't get along.
Old hurts get in the way. The discouragements and trials of daily living beat us down. We are too sensitive. We are too different and too alike. We say just the wrong thing at just the wrong time. The devil torments us with our demons and insecurities. I've failed her in ways she can never forgive or forget.
My pride gets injured and my back goes up. I set my jaw and lapse into a sulk or storm off. I wound her when I should comfort her. She turns away from me when I need her most. The old hurts are right below the surface. We can be blissful and happy, but a misery gets triggered by a random reminder and we are right back in the stew, stewing and murmuring to ourselves, dwelling on all the wrong things.
I would give anything to take her in my arms and make all the hurt go away, to create a moment or a gesture or a tenderness or a passion that settles things forever, that takes us out of our awful patterns and destructive habits. I wish I could love her in a way that makes her forget all her old loves, or our old hurts. I wish I had the right blend of confidence and tenderness to conquer her heart forever.
Instead we stumble along and stumble into fights and squabbles and tiffs, misunderstandings and hurt silences and sorrowful blowups. We waste precious hours and damage tender mercies. Last night I said something hurtful and banished myself to the couch.
I need her and I want her. I want us to belong together and be united against every trouble and difficulty that comes along. I want to renew my vows every day with gestures of kindness and moments of grace.
I wish I knew better and did better and could stop screwing up. I love her with all my heart.
But we can't get along.
Old hurts get in the way. The discouragements and trials of daily living beat us down. We are too sensitive. We are too different and too alike. We say just the wrong thing at just the wrong time. The devil torments us with our demons and insecurities. I've failed her in ways she can never forgive or forget.
My pride gets injured and my back goes up. I set my jaw and lapse into a sulk or storm off. I wound her when I should comfort her. She turns away from me when I need her most. The old hurts are right below the surface. We can be blissful and happy, but a misery gets triggered by a random reminder and we are right back in the stew, stewing and murmuring to ourselves, dwelling on all the wrong things.
I would give anything to take her in my arms and make all the hurt go away, to create a moment or a gesture or a tenderness or a passion that settles things forever, that takes us out of our awful patterns and destructive habits. I wish I could love her in a way that makes her forget all her old loves, or our old hurts. I wish I had the right blend of confidence and tenderness to conquer her heart forever.
Instead we stumble along and stumble into fights and squabbles and tiffs, misunderstandings and hurt silences and sorrowful blowups. We waste precious hours and damage tender mercies. Last night I said something hurtful and banished myself to the couch.
I need her and I want her. I want us to belong together and be united against every trouble and difficulty that comes along. I want to renew my vows every day with gestures of kindness and moments of grace.
I wish I knew better and did better and could stop screwing up. I love her with all my heart.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Are We Living in the End Times?
"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes."
Matthew 24:7
In the last ten years of the 19th century, in the period of relative calm before The Great War and and the Russian revolution, there was only one major earthquake recorded in the entire world. In the last sixty days we've had three and their aftershocks, and the middle one moved the axis of the earth. The polar ice caps are at their second lowest level in modern history. Entire regions are besieged by famine and war and uncertainty. Religious hatreds seethe. Plagues and killer bacteria overwhelm our advances in medicine and science. Nature is seemingly reclaiming the planet. Something is up, and far beyond our control.
From our primitive beginnings, from the discovery of fire and tools to the age of reason to the ages of machines and industry and information technology, we've taken great pride in our mastery of the elements. We've built talling buildings and awesome weapons, only to be reminded again and again that most powerful weapon on earth is the simple rhythm and gathering of the tides.
When Napoleon's armies raged over Europe many feared it was the end of the world. When Hitler plunged the world into ultimate evil, burning the innocent, living out his twisted and unholy obsessions, infecting an entire country with his madness, people wondered if time had reached its darkest hour. Only the brave and amazing sacrifices of many ordinary people turned away his darkness. Millions gave their lives to save humankind from despotism and blood lust.
This too is a terrible uncertain moment in the history of humankind. We can't march against the tides or build a foundation strong enough to withstand the rending of the ground beneath our feet. We don't have the wisdom to control the fierce hatreds we've stored against each other, or the knowledge to turn back the terrible ill effects of our poor husbandry of our world. We are like polar bears swimming frantically for 150 miles. We're the birds growing quiet before the next cataclysm. We are confused and overwhelmed and faithless. What will save us? Where will we turn when it happens here?
Our leaders posture and argue in the margins. Money buys its influence as if everything will go on as before, as if the currencies of today will matter on the dark morning and the awful hour. Yesterday I saw a man walking through the health club with a .44 magnum tucked into his pants, stuffed against his hip, held there by the waistband of his jeans. People take a gun with them to buy their morning coffee. How long before someone starts shooting, angry because the waitress smirked or there was no cream or their unemployment has run out? What have we become, when everyone carries a weapon? How far are we from the rule of lawlessness and greed? Where will the earth shake next, and who will pull the trigger first?
My son-in-law leaves for Afghanistan in a week, to make the world safe for democracy, one successfully defused IED at a time. The tremors and rumblings of that desolate place are no place for a kind man with two babies, but that is his duty and his training. He will go, and rely on fierce bravado and steady hands, and the pictures tucked in his helmet. Like many other young men before him he's called to execute the will of politicians and fools. From the solid rock where I stand, the two are the same thing.
Matthew 24:7
In the last ten years of the 19th century, in the period of relative calm before The Great War and and the Russian revolution, there was only one major earthquake recorded in the entire world. In the last sixty days we've had three and their aftershocks, and the middle one moved the axis of the earth. The polar ice caps are at their second lowest level in modern history. Entire regions are besieged by famine and war and uncertainty. Religious hatreds seethe. Plagues and killer bacteria overwhelm our advances in medicine and science. Nature is seemingly reclaiming the planet. Something is up, and far beyond our control.
From our primitive beginnings, from the discovery of fire and tools to the age of reason to the ages of machines and industry and information technology, we've taken great pride in our mastery of the elements. We've built talling buildings and awesome weapons, only to be reminded again and again that most powerful weapon on earth is the simple rhythm and gathering of the tides.
When Napoleon's armies raged over Europe many feared it was the end of the world. When Hitler plunged the world into ultimate evil, burning the innocent, living out his twisted and unholy obsessions, infecting an entire country with his madness, people wondered if time had reached its darkest hour. Only the brave and amazing sacrifices of many ordinary people turned away his darkness. Millions gave their lives to save humankind from despotism and blood lust.
This too is a terrible uncertain moment in the history of humankind. We can't march against the tides or build a foundation strong enough to withstand the rending of the ground beneath our feet. We don't have the wisdom to control the fierce hatreds we've stored against each other, or the knowledge to turn back the terrible ill effects of our poor husbandry of our world. We are like polar bears swimming frantically for 150 miles. We're the birds growing quiet before the next cataclysm. We are confused and overwhelmed and faithless. What will save us? Where will we turn when it happens here?
Our leaders posture and argue in the margins. Money buys its influence as if everything will go on as before, as if the currencies of today will matter on the dark morning and the awful hour. Yesterday I saw a man walking through the health club with a .44 magnum tucked into his pants, stuffed against his hip, held there by the waistband of his jeans. People take a gun with them to buy their morning coffee. How long before someone starts shooting, angry because the waitress smirked or there was no cream or their unemployment has run out? What have we become, when everyone carries a weapon? How far are we from the rule of lawlessness and greed? Where will the earth shake next, and who will pull the trigger first?
My son-in-law leaves for Afghanistan in a week, to make the world safe for democracy, one successfully defused IED at a time. The tremors and rumblings of that desolate place are no place for a kind man with two babies, but that is his duty and his training. He will go, and rely on fierce bravado and steady hands, and the pictures tucked in his helmet. Like many other young men before him he's called to execute the will of politicians and fools. From the solid rock where I stand, the two are the same thing.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Jim Bunning Throws Struggling Americans a Fastball Under the Chin
This morning at the breakfast table my lovely wife said to me, "We need to buy some guns. We need to stock up on ammunition."
This week in Congress retiring Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning is blocking an appropriations bill that would extend unemployment benefits for millions of Americans. His job affords him free medical care and lifetime postage, and he is thumbing his nose at hurting people and flipping them off on the way to the elevator.
People are angry. They can't get jobs, the roads and bridges are crumbling and the trains are antiquated, and the people in charge of making decisions and providing solutions are grousing about missing a college basketball game. Jim Bunning says, "Tough shit." He's not worried. He has a fine home and lots of money.
It's frustrating to many, because they watch the news and see we have money to help Haiti and Chile, and we print money to finance an unending war in the Middle East, but the ordinary citizens of this country are living on $325 a week and wondering how much longer they can go on.
My granddaughter Kourtney reads about the earthquakes and disasters and historically extreme winter weather and she thinks we're nearing the end of the world. She's in sixth grade now, twelve years old. What a world that children have to carry such thoughts in their heads. They hear the whispers of their parents. A knot of uncertainty never leaves their stomachs.
One day soon a father living this mean and stark existence is going to get angry in a way he can no longer control. He's going to look across town to the hills where the fine homes, the homes with the seven big screen tvs and the bathtubs that look like the spa of a prince, and he's going to think about how easy it would be to take everything the rich man has. Morality won't mean anything to him any more. Civilization and society won't. Society has failed him. And in the primitive part of his brain the law of survival will take over, and he will spew all of his anger and empty his rage out in the street.
Jim Bunning has flipped off the wrong people. He may touch off the road rage that clogs every freeway in America, and sends the posh Senate elevators crashing to the basement. The earthquake of rage and frustration that hits this country will be a magnitude never seen on earth.
This week in Congress retiring Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning is blocking an appropriations bill that would extend unemployment benefits for millions of Americans. His job affords him free medical care and lifetime postage, and he is thumbing his nose at hurting people and flipping them off on the way to the elevator.
People are angry. They can't get jobs, the roads and bridges are crumbling and the trains are antiquated, and the people in charge of making decisions and providing solutions are grousing about missing a college basketball game. Jim Bunning says, "Tough shit." He's not worried. He has a fine home and lots of money.
It's frustrating to many, because they watch the news and see we have money to help Haiti and Chile, and we print money to finance an unending war in the Middle East, but the ordinary citizens of this country are living on $325 a week and wondering how much longer they can go on.
My granddaughter Kourtney reads about the earthquakes and disasters and historically extreme winter weather and she thinks we're nearing the end of the world. She's in sixth grade now, twelve years old. What a world that children have to carry such thoughts in their heads. They hear the whispers of their parents. A knot of uncertainty never leaves their stomachs.
One day soon a father living this mean and stark existence is going to get angry in a way he can no longer control. He's going to look across town to the hills where the fine homes, the homes with the seven big screen tvs and the bathtubs that look like the spa of a prince, and he's going to think about how easy it would be to take everything the rich man has. Morality won't mean anything to him any more. Civilization and society won't. Society has failed him. And in the primitive part of his brain the law of survival will take over, and he will spew all of his anger and empty his rage out in the street.
Jim Bunning has flipped off the wrong people. He may touch off the road rage that clogs every freeway in America, and sends the posh Senate elevators crashing to the basement. The earthquake of rage and frustration that hits this country will be a magnitude never seen on earth.
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Doo Doo, The Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah
Oh no! Apolo Anton Ohno is gliding, gliding, looking for an opening, trying to slide inside or around the Canadian in the 500 meter short track. He puts his hand on the Canuck's hip and the red-jerseyed fatback-eater goes careening out of control. Ohno and J.R. Celski, the guy who survived when a skate blade slashed his leg in a nasty fall just five months before, skate on to silver and bronze.
But wait! The Canadian judge is looking at the tape. After further review, Ohno is disqualified, and the Canadian, despite being in a heap along the boards, wins the medal. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. Never mind that in the same replay the Canadian gold medal winner is seen delivering the same hip nudge to a Korean skater. God keep our land, glorious and on the medal stand.
Like nothing else the Olympics embodies the human drama of athletic competition, with a little home cooking stirred in to spice things up. Ohno certainly has skated on the edge of the rules more than once. His gold medal in Salt Lake was questioned vehemently by the Koreans in a similar incident.
Imagine training for four years for one moment, and having it come down to a split second, a missed gate, an errant shot after 20 kilometers of skiing. I loved the Olympic coverage, particularly the human drama of Bob Costas and Al Michaels trying to share the commentary. They're doing the "wasn't it all wonderful" signoff and the facial gyrations of Michaels waiting to break in with his thoughts as Costas elocutes were marvelous. Costas talks, talks, pauses, no wait, he's starting another paragraph, and Michaels' face does a triple lutz and triple salchow as he looks for his opening.
He should have put his hand on Bob's hip and nudged him out of the way.
But wait! The Canadian judge is looking at the tape. After further review, Ohno is disqualified, and the Canadian, despite being in a heap along the boards, wins the medal. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. Never mind that in the same replay the Canadian gold medal winner is seen delivering the same hip nudge to a Korean skater. God keep our land, glorious and on the medal stand.
Like nothing else the Olympics embodies the human drama of athletic competition, with a little home cooking stirred in to spice things up. Ohno certainly has skated on the edge of the rules more than once. His gold medal in Salt Lake was questioned vehemently by the Koreans in a similar incident.
Imagine training for four years for one moment, and having it come down to a split second, a missed gate, an errant shot after 20 kilometers of skiing. I loved the Olympic coverage, particularly the human drama of Bob Costas and Al Michaels trying to share the commentary. They're doing the "wasn't it all wonderful" signoff and the facial gyrations of Michaels waiting to break in with his thoughts as Costas elocutes were marvelous. Costas talks, talks, pauses, no wait, he's starting another paragraph, and Michaels' face does a triple lutz and triple salchow as he looks for his opening.
He should have put his hand on Bob's hip and nudged him out of the way.
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photo by Kajo123 from the website flickr.com
The Hawthorne Bridge at sunrise, Portland Oregon. Photo by Joe Collver, from flickr.com
"It's a Wonderful Life"
George returns home to everything he ever wanted.
