Those of us who grew up in the jaunty sunlight of the Kennedy clan are now at twilight. Time to pass the torch to those who will wake up in the morning with places to go and people to see. Kev, a Ted Kennedy delegate at the 1980 Cleveland County (Oklahoma) Democratic convention, is bereft but optimistic. Those with the torch will do better than us.
Playing football at noon recess at Christ the King in Lubbock, Tex., on Nov.22, 1963, a new Cajun kid in school from Louisiana ran onto the dirt field to announce JFK had been shot. Father McGovern canceled the altar boys’ meeting for that weekend.
And now it’s on to Chicago, Bobby said, as I turned off the TV, only to be awakened by mother that June day in 1968 to be told that the third brother had fallen.
Ted Kennedy, flawed as we all are, refused to accept his flaws as a definition of his life and legacy. He picked himself up and said give me the ball, just as OU’s bad boy Joe Don Looney told coach Bud Wilkinson and QB Monte Deere in 1962 and took the handoff for a 60-yard touchdown run to beat Syracuse in the waning moments (you can look it up), just as the Pinstripers’ 2003 hero Aaron Boone seeks a comeback to baseball from heart surgery.
The torch, the pigskin, the horsehide. We hold on to them as long as we can, and then they must be passed, handed off, tossed to the best of us. They'll do the same.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Second Acts
As Big Daddy said in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” the odor of mendacity is powerful, sister girl.
Louisville basketball maestro Rick Pitino, “success book” author and motivational speaker, is revealed as less than the man he pretended to be. Who made “six years ago” the statute of limitations?
The bloody ankles’ David Ortiz, “big poppie” and lovable slugger, says somebody slipped him a performance-enhancing mickey in his blueberry-banana smoothie. Who put the lemonade in my lemonade?
And now Michael Vick, who gets $1.3 million this year as long as he stays away from your poodles, is working overtime at the Philadelphia Eagles training camp. Who let the dogs out?
There are plenty of second acts in American sporting life, so we have that going for us. Which is nice.
But the checkered past can never be repealed. It can only be repeated (the definition of insanity) or addressed by excuses and apologies to allow one to limp along, the latter option not as good as a time machine, but the best that the real world offers.
Pitino will never sell another “how to be like me” book. Ortiz may be done, too, not because he is a bad guy but because he can’t turn on the inside pitch. Vick, however, will go to the Super Bowl (write it down), not because he’s a super guy, though he might turn out to be. The premise of Christianity, my preferred religion, is to deny the power of Satan, who whispers seductively that you can’t change.
Can’t repeat the past? Of course, you can, old sport, Gatsby confidently told Nick Carraway. But who would want to?
Louisville basketball maestro Rick Pitino, “success book” author and motivational speaker, is revealed as less than the man he pretended to be. Who made “six years ago” the statute of limitations?
The bloody ankles’ David Ortiz, “big poppie” and lovable slugger, says somebody slipped him a performance-enhancing mickey in his blueberry-banana smoothie. Who put the lemonade in my lemonade?
And now Michael Vick, who gets $1.3 million this year as long as he stays away from your poodles, is working overtime at the Philadelphia Eagles training camp. Who let the dogs out?
There are plenty of second acts in American sporting life, so we have that going for us. Which is nice.
But the checkered past can never be repealed. It can only be repeated (the definition of insanity) or addressed by excuses and apologies to allow one to limp along, the latter option not as good as a time machine, but the best that the real world offers.
Pitino will never sell another “how to be like me” book. Ortiz may be done, too, not because he is a bad guy but because he can’t turn on the inside pitch. Vick, however, will go to the Super Bowl (write it down), not because he’s a super guy, though he might turn out to be. The premise of Christianity, my preferred religion, is to deny the power of Satan, who whispers seductively that you can’t change.
Can’t repeat the past? Of course, you can, old sport, Gatsby confidently told Nick Carraway. But who would want to?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Korea, Greece and Ireland
Yin and Yang were on the Hazeltine golf course today in Minnesota. The red-shirted one had yin but no yang, striking the ball with characteristic panache, but taking the name of his father Zeus in vain when his ambrosia-fed muscles failed to make putts sink as they should. Doesn’t Tiger mean godlike in Greek?
I know how you feel, Eldrick. Well, maybe not exactly, because my six- and ten-footers succeed with such rarity that my partners and the foursome behind us look on with shock at a brown leprechaun dancing around the green when his Titleist dips into the cup.
The unflappable Y.E. Yang, on the other hand, had both going for him. The South Korean flag with its yin-yang motif was a suitable symbol for his game down the stretch. You can’t have one without the other if you expect to win, in life or in golf. Scoring an eagle on the par four 14th to take the lead, Yang curled a 200-yard shot on the 18th with a hybrid club and sank the birdie putt to claim the victory while Mr. Woods, probably doubtful of his Olympian heritage, slouched toward Orlando as television cameras predictably followed him first after his bogey putt on 18.
Yang, dressed in all-white like a lamb to the slaughter, didn’t get the memo that you’re supposed to sweat when teamed with Woods when he has a 54-hole lead in a major tournament.
Meanwhile, Padraig Harrington did a favor for all of us weekend duffers by singing “Frosty the Snowman” on a par three. To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart, Patrick Moynihan said. I’m sure mine will be broken this week on some par three when I don’t have my yin and my yang.
I know how you feel, Eldrick. Well, maybe not exactly, because my six- and ten-footers succeed with such rarity that my partners and the foursome behind us look on with shock at a brown leprechaun dancing around the green when his Titleist dips into the cup.
The unflappable Y.E. Yang, on the other hand, had both going for him. The South Korean flag with its yin-yang motif was a suitable symbol for his game down the stretch. You can’t have one without the other if you expect to win, in life or in golf. Scoring an eagle on the par four 14th to take the lead, Yang curled a 200-yard shot on the 18th with a hybrid club and sank the birdie putt to claim the victory while Mr. Woods, probably doubtful of his Olympian heritage, slouched toward Orlando as television cameras predictably followed him first after his bogey putt on 18.
Yang, dressed in all-white like a lamb to the slaughter, didn’t get the memo that you’re supposed to sweat when teamed with Woods when he has a 54-hole lead in a major tournament.
Meanwhile, Padraig Harrington did a favor for all of us weekend duffers by singing “Frosty the Snowman” on a par three. To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart, Patrick Moynihan said. I’m sure mine will be broken this week on some par three when I don’t have my yin and my yang.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Screenplay
I’m writing a three-chord song, “The Left Wing Blues,” which will accompany an epic moving picture that has even more than the health care debate and Wall Street bonuses to keep audiences riveted.
In one scene, for instance, our hero thinks he is squared up perfectly with his target and strikes the ball flush, yet it rockets sharply to the sinister side instead of straight down the fairway. His buddy immediately places a club at his feet, which revealed that his perception of the landscape before him was severely skewed. The obvious correction is to aim at what he perceives to be the right of his target. But the mind’s eye is a terrible thing to lose, to paraphrase Dan Quayle (the Sarah Palin of his time).
Later, our hero (let’s call him the Marlboro Man) finds that rivals on the rodeo circuit are flinging their lariats with much better effect when it comes to capturing calves and tying their hooves together. The loop keeps missing the young bovine’s head to the left, falling limply to the dust of the arena. Is human growth hormone the answer? No, MM, solid citizen that he is, insists he will only take over-the-counter supplements and protein shakes.
In the middle plot point, MM confronts big government, which is trying to turn him into – gasp! – a Western European. He escapes with the help of a comely pharma/HMO lobbyist (our Bond girl). “They seek him here. They seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? Is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel.”
The climax finds MM and lobbyist (think Claudine Auger in Thunderball), guns blazing, rescuing derivatives traders clinging to George Washington’s statue at Federal Hall on Wall Street from the clutches of Mr. Big’s socialists who would confiscate well-deserved wealth made possible by fiscal deficits and taxpayer largesse. They fly to the sports books in Las Vegas and parlay their way into even more-deserved riches by correctly betting the over-under in a Hamilton Tiger Cats - Montreal Alouettes game.
The dénouement: Back on the golf course, our Bond girl points MM to the right and his ball effortlessly soars in a Ruthian blast to the far reaches of the short grass.
The sequel: if she can only correct the putting stroke and save us all from the yips and the evils Mr. Big is plotting.
In one scene, for instance, our hero thinks he is squared up perfectly with his target and strikes the ball flush, yet it rockets sharply to the sinister side instead of straight down the fairway. His buddy immediately places a club at his feet, which revealed that his perception of the landscape before him was severely skewed. The obvious correction is to aim at what he perceives to be the right of his target. But the mind’s eye is a terrible thing to lose, to paraphrase Dan Quayle (the Sarah Palin of his time).
Later, our hero (let’s call him the Marlboro Man) finds that rivals on the rodeo circuit are flinging their lariats with much better effect when it comes to capturing calves and tying their hooves together. The loop keeps missing the young bovine’s head to the left, falling limply to the dust of the arena. Is human growth hormone the answer? No, MM, solid citizen that he is, insists he will only take over-the-counter supplements and protein shakes.
In the middle plot point, MM confronts big government, which is trying to turn him into – gasp! – a Western European. He escapes with the help of a comely pharma/HMO lobbyist (our Bond girl). “They seek him here. They seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? Is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel.”
The climax finds MM and lobbyist (think Claudine Auger in Thunderball), guns blazing, rescuing derivatives traders clinging to George Washington’s statue at Federal Hall on Wall Street from the clutches of Mr. Big’s socialists who would confiscate well-deserved wealth made possible by fiscal deficits and taxpayer largesse. They fly to the sports books in Las Vegas and parlay their way into even more-deserved riches by correctly betting the over-under in a Hamilton Tiger Cats - Montreal Alouettes game.
The dénouement: Back on the golf course, our Bond girl points MM to the right and his ball effortlessly soars in a Ruthian blast to the far reaches of the short grass.
The sequel: if she can only correct the putting stroke and save us all from the yips and the evils Mr. Big is plotting.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Evidence of a Higher Being
Golf is a perverse pastime. It requires concentration and nonchalance in equal parts. You have to care and not care at the same time. It is the blend that those of us not blessed with a carefree mind and natural athletic grace attempt to concoct to approximate the real thing.
It is our superstitious opinion that a putter contains only so many true rolls and that practice depletes that number. After all, why do so many sluggers forgo the home-run derby the night before the All-Star game?
And it is a truism, not a superstition, that a good big man will beat a good little man every day. Remember the look on Michael Spinks’ face when he saw Mike Tyson charge out from his corner? That visage of terror haunts us to this day. It wasn’t quite that bad with good little old man Tom Watson on Sunday at Turnberry, but you could tell when he pulled the putter back for an eight-footer that would have won The Open Championship that fear had conquered him.
Carrying the torch for us 50-somethings, he cared too much and then the wheels came off in the playoff. He was simply one stroke too old. As Vince Lombardi said, fatigue makes cowards of us all. And fatigue strikes the aging with much more frequency than it does the younger. This is the way God planned it and we must accept it
Now Stewart Cink, the fellow with a golfer’s tan that includes his pale pate when unhatted, a jarring sight, is no teen-age phenom, but his assertion that he felt no nervousness rings true. Doubt afflicts the older man as he grows tired. We must again go to the young genius Keats when he addressed the nightingale thusly:
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Notice the modifiers preceding “man” – good, big and little. By taking one more club, the little man swinging with confidence can carry the water and set himself up for a birdie putt, while the big man with a grandiose opinion of his talent will take a pitching wedge and shank it into the wildlife clustering at the edge of the pond.
Similarly, the good young man will beat the good old man more often than not. Again, this is God’s plan. The Bishop in Caddyshack who “theoretically” could have beaten the course record in a thunderstorm missed the point when he declared in the bar at Bushwood that there is no God.
Of course there is, your eminence. He made Watson take the eight-iron instead of the nine.
It is our superstitious opinion that a putter contains only so many true rolls and that practice depletes that number. After all, why do so many sluggers forgo the home-run derby the night before the All-Star game?
And it is a truism, not a superstition, that a good big man will beat a good little man every day. Remember the look on Michael Spinks’ face when he saw Mike Tyson charge out from his corner? That visage of terror haunts us to this day. It wasn’t quite that bad with good little old man Tom Watson on Sunday at Turnberry, but you could tell when he pulled the putter back for an eight-footer that would have won The Open Championship that fear had conquered him.
Carrying the torch for us 50-somethings, he cared too much and then the wheels came off in the playoff. He was simply one stroke too old. As Vince Lombardi said, fatigue makes cowards of us all. And fatigue strikes the aging with much more frequency than it does the younger. This is the way God planned it and we must accept it
Now Stewart Cink, the fellow with a golfer’s tan that includes his pale pate when unhatted, a jarring sight, is no teen-age phenom, but his assertion that he felt no nervousness rings true. Doubt afflicts the older man as he grows tired. We must again go to the young genius Keats when he addressed the nightingale thusly:
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Notice the modifiers preceding “man” – good, big and little. By taking one more club, the little man swinging with confidence can carry the water and set himself up for a birdie putt, while the big man with a grandiose opinion of his talent will take a pitching wedge and shank it into the wildlife clustering at the edge of the pond.
Similarly, the good young man will beat the good old man more often than not. Again, this is God’s plan. The Bishop in Caddyshack who “theoretically” could have beaten the course record in a thunderstorm missed the point when he declared in the bar at Bushwood that there is no God.
Of course there is, your eminence. He made Watson take the eight-iron instead of the nine.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
They Don't Write 'em Like That Anymore
“Green grass ‘round my window
Young leaves that the wind blows…” (Green Grass, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, 1966).
Oh fuggedaboutit. Kev’s trash-strewn Brooklyn thoroughfare sprouts nothing but vile rap lyrics at decibels that make us want to join the NRA, secure a shotgun and blast several engine blocks while blaring Petula Clark from our cute little Sony boom box. “Don’t sleep in the subway, darling,” would be our “hasta la vista, baby.”
But we realize it’s a free country. We ended our popular music infatuation around 1969, extended by a Steely Dan and Allman Brothers habit in the 1970s, and so acknowledge we have become a cranky old man standing athwart history and yelling, Stop! Yeah, I’m feelin’ groovy all right.
Let’s be clear. We’re usually an optimistic sort, and will return to that sunny clime soon enough. For now, we slog through a slough of despond, imploring Miss Market and our zen-like putting stroke to return. Anthony Kim and Hunter Mahan must be going through the same thing, watching the red-shirted master of the universe roll in a 20-foot putt on 16 for the winning margin. Not to mention Andy Roddick, whose serve wasn’t broken until the 30th and final game of the fifth set at the All England Club. As a wise friend of mine has noted, guys like Eldrick Woods and Roger Federer “command the elements.” The rest of us must live with our imperfections. They are legion. Roddick’s defeat was foreshadowed as early as the second set, when he flubbed away a 6-2 advantage in the tiebreaker. Mahan’s 62 was only a tease. He foolishly warmed up on the range for a playoff.
The “green shoots” rally now must face the earnings reporting season beginning this week. And the employment data – not only the payroll losses but the shrinking workweek – point to a different kind of recovery. “Broke, disgusted, agents can’t be trusted,” as the Mamas and Papas intoned (told you we are trapped in the sixties), the American consumer isn’t going on a spending spree this time around. Don’t buy the market. Stick with what we used to call on Wall Street, “special situations.” PALM, NVAX, F, and consider airlines now that oil prices are fading. We’ll be looking for others and will report back.
Luckily, the Hess station next door saves us 45 cents on cigarettes. But we think we’ll soon have to start rolling our own.
Young leaves that the wind blows…” (Green Grass, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, 1966).
Oh fuggedaboutit. Kev’s trash-strewn Brooklyn thoroughfare sprouts nothing but vile rap lyrics at decibels that make us want to join the NRA, secure a shotgun and blast several engine blocks while blaring Petula Clark from our cute little Sony boom box. “Don’t sleep in the subway, darling,” would be our “hasta la vista, baby.”
But we realize it’s a free country. We ended our popular music infatuation around 1969, extended by a Steely Dan and Allman Brothers habit in the 1970s, and so acknowledge we have become a cranky old man standing athwart history and yelling, Stop! Yeah, I’m feelin’ groovy all right.
Let’s be clear. We’re usually an optimistic sort, and will return to that sunny clime soon enough. For now, we slog through a slough of despond, imploring Miss Market and our zen-like putting stroke to return. Anthony Kim and Hunter Mahan must be going through the same thing, watching the red-shirted master of the universe roll in a 20-foot putt on 16 for the winning margin. Not to mention Andy Roddick, whose serve wasn’t broken until the 30th and final game of the fifth set at the All England Club. As a wise friend of mine has noted, guys like Eldrick Woods and Roger Federer “command the elements.” The rest of us must live with our imperfections. They are legion. Roddick’s defeat was foreshadowed as early as the second set, when he flubbed away a 6-2 advantage in the tiebreaker. Mahan’s 62 was only a tease. He foolishly warmed up on the range for a playoff.
The “green shoots” rally now must face the earnings reporting season beginning this week. And the employment data – not only the payroll losses but the shrinking workweek – point to a different kind of recovery. “Broke, disgusted, agents can’t be trusted,” as the Mamas and Papas intoned (told you we are trapped in the sixties), the American consumer isn’t going on a spending spree this time around. Don’t buy the market. Stick with what we used to call on Wall Street, “special situations.” PALM, NVAX, F, and consider airlines now that oil prices are fading. We’ll be looking for others and will report back.
Luckily, the Hess station next door saves us 45 cents on cigarettes. But we think we’ll soon have to start rolling our own.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Stitch It Up, Doc
Recall the metallic taste and smell of blood? Seldom do middle-aged urban, sedentary adults experience it, but it is one of those startling sensations of childhood, when we are fearless and the physical world abruptly slaps some sense into us and it’s off to the emergency room for a stitch here and there. Needless to say, we and our offspring have been sewn up multiple times, only to be surprised when it happens anew.
The United States Department of Labor reported that employers shed far more jobs than anticipated in June and stocks beat a hasty retreat to the ER, much like Kev and his fellow sissies on the golf course today, who heard the rumble of thunder on the 18th hole and picked up their well-struck balls plugged in the squishy sod of Split Rock where the family Bronks used to live and the Battle of Pelham was waged in October of 1776. The latter “saved the revolution” according to the hole markers. We’ll have to look it up.
Times being what they are, this patriot wished for a shotgun in his bag to bag a family of “wild” turkeys clucking around a tee box, oblivious to the swack of titanium on Titleist as they pecked the ground for their daily bread. Oh well, probably would have sprayed buckshot at the Acela train speeding by on the outskirts and missed the plucky fowl, much like missing the fairway most of the showery day, requiring the services of a savvy lawyer.
The jobs data need a fast-talking spinmeister, too. All of the components – jobs lost, wages, hours worked, average work week – were inescapably grim. We won’t bother you with the particulars, but the anticipated recovery in the second half is thrown into serious doubt.
We remain hopeful, though. Not to put lipstick on a pig, but we remain enamored of the glamour of filthy lucre. It is our opinion that the choice between God and mammon (that is, excruciating destruction of wealth vs. happy days are here again) is a false premise. Listening to Wall Street “economists” bloviate on facts that are apparent to all but the illiterate is the equivalent of reading yesterday’s newspaper. Money supply growth and fiscal stimulus (and more to come until it works) will kick in.
No one will be blamed for taking money off the table (Kev wishes he had done so with his baseball picks last week), but the jobs report makes stocks cheaper. Which means we’ll get back in when they look too cheap. Now, where’s our shotgun? Dinner, like youth, must be served.
The United States Department of Labor reported that employers shed far more jobs than anticipated in June and stocks beat a hasty retreat to the ER, much like Kev and his fellow sissies on the golf course today, who heard the rumble of thunder on the 18th hole and picked up their well-struck balls plugged in the squishy sod of Split Rock where the family Bronks used to live and the Battle of Pelham was waged in October of 1776. The latter “saved the revolution” according to the hole markers. We’ll have to look it up.
Times being what they are, this patriot wished for a shotgun in his bag to bag a family of “wild” turkeys clucking around a tee box, oblivious to the swack of titanium on Titleist as they pecked the ground for their daily bread. Oh well, probably would have sprayed buckshot at the Acela train speeding by on the outskirts and missed the plucky fowl, much like missing the fairway most of the showery day, requiring the services of a savvy lawyer.
The jobs data need a fast-talking spinmeister, too. All of the components – jobs lost, wages, hours worked, average work week – were inescapably grim. We won’t bother you with the particulars, but the anticipated recovery in the second half is thrown into serious doubt.
We remain hopeful, though. Not to put lipstick on a pig, but we remain enamored of the glamour of filthy lucre. It is our opinion that the choice between God and mammon (that is, excruciating destruction of wealth vs. happy days are here again) is a false premise. Listening to Wall Street “economists” bloviate on facts that are apparent to all but the illiterate is the equivalent of reading yesterday’s newspaper. Money supply growth and fiscal stimulus (and more to come until it works) will kick in.
No one will be blamed for taking money off the table (Kev wishes he had done so with his baseball picks last week), but the jobs report makes stocks cheaper. Which means we’ll get back in when they look too cheap. Now, where’s our shotgun? Dinner, like youth, must be served.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)