Watched Crash

Liked it.

Hooray!

Soon.

Meant to do this Months Ago

Top Five Books I Read for the First time in 2005:
(in the order in which I read them)

The Hours, by Michael Cunningham
The Teammates, by David Halberstam
The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran
1776, by David McCullough
The World According to Garp, by John Irving

(last year's list)

He's Not Gonna Do It

Barry Bonds hit another one last night, his 711th, bringing him that much closer to Babe Ruth's mark of 714. Bonds'll catch Ruth if it kills him (and it may) but there's no way in the world he'll break Hank Aaron's record of 755 -- he doesn't have 44 more home runs in that body and he doesn't want it bad enough to languish around in mediocrity for the years it would take to chip away at it much further. He wants The Babe, (and he's made enough comments on that subject for it to be taken as a racial thing if you're inclined to,) but he's not after Hammerin' Hank with nearly the same drive and at this point there's no reason to think he could do it even if he wanted to.

I say all this as an unrepentant Bonds fan. Still. What I like is baseball played at its highest level and Bonds has shown us that. Illegally? Yep. Unethically? Sure. Dishonestly? Well, yeah. But I'm don't generally follow a player because of his ethics or his moral stature. You're welcome to, but that's not why I watch baseball. I'm more interested in a guy's bat speed or pitch recognition or plate discipline than in his position on what we used to call Modern Ethical Problems. Watching Derek Jeter take off from first base with two outs and the payoff pitch on the way is exciting to me -- stories about how responsible he is when he goes out clubbing are not. Vlad Guerrero's arm in right field and ability to hit a pitch in the dirt through the ozone brought me to the ballpark when the Expos used to come to town, not the fact that he lived with his mother, who made his breakfast every day. I don't care. There are a million good guys in the world, but I don't pay to watch them at work. What I like is baseball played as well as it can be played. I like Barry Bonds -- he's been the best I've ever seen. Best baseball player on the planet for the better part of twenty years.

And he's not gonna do it.

For all the advantages, for all the steroids and tiny new ballparks and watered-down expansion pitching and modern nutrition and training technology and genetic predisposition and growing up in the dugout and advice from Willie Mays and elbow pads and thin-handled bats and clubhouse recliners and chartered jets -- and for all the breathtaking talent -- he's not gonna do it.

So can we please take a break from all the hating on Bonds long enough to give honor to whom honor is due? Hank Aaron hit 755 without ever hitting more than 50 home runs in a single season, averaging almost 33 a year for 23 seasons. That kind of consistent productivity isn't as immediately attention-grabbing as, say, a 73 homer season, but it does leave Aaron with additional records for total bases, extra base hits and the all-important RBI. Three Gold Gloves and 24 All-Star games. And when the dust that surrounds Barry Bonds, the most jaw-droppingly great player of the past couple generations, settles -- for all the controversy, for all the attitude, for all the talk of witch-hunts and perjury -- it'll be Bad Henry Aaron that's still standing.

Not to mention the fact that Aaron did what he did amid hate mail and death threats born of a culture of racism of which Barry Bonds has experienced very little. The Hammer tied the Babe in Cincinnati for crying out loud and circled the bases hoping he wouldn't be shot. How's that for concentration in the face of distraction?

Junior Griffey may make a run at 755. Ditto ARod and Pujols and some kid who's in high school right now. But don't hold your breath and don't get distracted by brilliant talent sustained for twenty years -- apparently that's not enough. The smart money's still on Hammerin' Hank.

I wonder what kind of odds Pete could get me?

Okay Mike, I Believe You

I don't want to, but I do.

Yep

"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves."
--August Strindberg

Argue With That

Me: What're you doing?

Amy: I got new shoes and I'm trying to break them in.

Me: Try hopping up and down some.

Amy: I'm not a bunny.

Me: Bunnies aren't the only thing that hops.

Amy: Okay, I'm not a cat.

Hey Dave

Have you seen this?

This One's Gonna Be Good

From the book I'm reading:

"A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension."

Hey!

Happy Dingus Day!

Happy JRob Day

One of my guys.

I Am a Barry Bonds Fan

I am not a Barry Bonds apologist.

This is a great article.

Liked this One

"The one who wanders independant in the world, free from opinions and viewpoints, does not grasp them and enter into disputations and arguments. As the lotus rises on its stalk unsoiled by the mud and the water, so the wise one speaks of peace and is unstained by the opinions of the world."

--Sutta Nipata

A Little Bit from my Little Book

There's yet another phone number here of a friend I never called. Seriously -- I suck. Matt and I used to spend hours playing Strat-O-Matic baseball and it's been months since we've even talked.

The title of a book I haven't read yet: No One Here Gets Out Alive. I'm guessing that The Ruth and I had just watched the movie and it had piqued my interest.

Then the label off of a PBR bottle -- had to have been at the comet. And some kind of list:

**for Sunday
**the announcement
**schedule

And then:

the kinks

I'm thinking I wanted to track down some of their stuff (maybe "Autumn Almanac"). Then another list:

Remains of the Day
Legends of the Fall
A Beautiful Mind
The Shawshank Redemption
American Beauty
Titanic

Why the list? Movies I Like a Really Lot. Not sure what was going on. Then another note for me to call Matt (which I didn't do).

That's enough book for now. It's 11:30 PM and I'm home from work but still all keyed up from the day, so rather than toss & turn in bed and bug The Ruth, who's still sick, I sit here in my underpants drinking a cab and, well, blogging. Also listening to Indigo Girls -- currently the song is "Go."

Work's been lots of fun lately. For the first time I'm aware of we have enough people in my two departments and they're good people and most of them want to be there. It's a good team.

Speaking of my fine work people, I was in the phone center a couple days ago talking with a couple ladies and the Hoo-Hoo came up. (Couldn't have been because of the million pictures of him plastered everywhere, could it?) One of them said that Gehrig looked like me, which people say alot but which I don't see, and I mentioned that while he may have my eyes, he seems to have his mother's personality. And out of the corner of my eye I catch the lady who's on the phones mutter under her breath, "Thank God."

Safe to say she doesn't like me much either, but we knew that. She told Ruthie a couple weeks ago (Ruthie had been in shopping) that I don't have a sense of humor. Says I'm stern.

Whatever...

Anybody catch "Bonds on Bonds" tonight?

Sometimes People Get Angry

And sometimes angry people get mean.

And sometimes mean, angry people get comical

Albeit unintentionally.

Lady looked across the counter at me tonight and said,

"You make me disgusted with the human race."

And meant it.

And I've never in my life had to fight so hard not to giggle.

Something I Read Yesterday

"Everything that has ever happened is responsible for this moment."
--Sylvia Boorstein (emphasis hers)

This is Fun

This morning I've slept in, blogged for real, made, eaten and cleaned up a hella good breakfast, emptied, vac'd up and refilled the cat box (I think Ruthie gets pregnant so she won't have to change the litter) read some of my John Adams book and I still seem to have some time.

A little more then from my little book:

The name of a Beck record I never bought: "Sea Change." I don't know him well enough to know if I like him, but I dug the song "Lost Cause" a lot.

Some scribbled directions to the place in Columbus where we last saw Indigo Girls. It was a great show and a great trip. Made some friends. Been two years since we've seen the Girls and that's not cool. This is also where I jotted the songs as they played them.

It's also when this happened. I ran into Scott a couple months ago and we had a beer. I reminded him about this conversation -- quoted it to him verbatim. Scott didn't remember it, but said, "He does mumble!"

Then the name of a restaurant (Andy's Mediterranean Grille) I've come to dig very much (thanks Randy) and where I was first introduced to the hookah. A

An album that Michael recommended that Van Morrison did with the Chieftans and which I still have not checked out. It's gotta be good -- Michael's never wasted my time. And a poem which I almost remember having copied out of a book one night at the Comet -- likely the same night we talked about that Van Morrison record.

"Beyond Lip Service"

The pathos of faces
in the subway, eyes
that stay down

could cause a revolution
in your blood
if you could learn
to love the first one.

--Jonathan Greene

And then the numbers of twelve baseball cards I'd like to have. '84 Tigers mostly. Every five years or so I buy a bunch of baseball cards. I like them. Gehrig's in this phase where he likes to play with credit cards and ticket stubs and stuff like that, so I laminated him a bunch of baseball cards. I like that my kid will know about Jackie Robinson so early in his Life.

A quote from my wife the Sunday morning she came home from the gym and announced, "I think I like yoga better than church."

And one from Michael: "A prayer is a toast without a drink."

Yet another music recommendation I've not followed up on: Katie Melua's "Call off the Search" Don't know who that one came from. And a title that's either a book or a record: Jaime Cullum -- "Twentysomething."

Then another one of those song lyrics that I like to quote to myself:

"Love when you can, cry when you have to."

Fogelberg that one.

Directions and phone numbers for long-forgotten destinations.

A title David recommended -- "Mass Appeal"

A line I liked, but don't remember where from: "The stillness of a thousand moons"

The name of a bar I saw: "The Wet Spot"

And I've written "Andy's Mediterranean Grille" again.

Then my mom's e-mail address.

Something that may have come from a talk I heard my dad give:

cross vs. tomb
Palm Sunday vs. Easter
altar vs. table

I bet it did -- that's my dad's language.

And then a recommendation I actually pursued (and dug):

The Road to Perdition

Seen it? It's probably worth your time. (And I was appalled that Paul Newman wasn't nominated for Best Supporting Actor -- he's incredible here.)

A couple phone numbers coupled with a couple names of people whose identities are a total mystery to me now. I guess I could call the numbers...yeah, that's gonna happen.

A biography title:

Truman by David McCullough

I'm reading his John Adams currently. At this rate I'll be lucky to get to Harry Truman (#33) before my dotage.

Then there's some scribbling regarding whatever was wrong with whichever of our vehicles was currently at Dent Service Center. I hate cars.

The Baby's at My Mom's

Rather, the toddler's at my mom's.

Ruthie's working a half day.

I'm here by myself. First time I can remember the hope of a handful of uninterrupted hours alone in, what...months maybe?

I love them both, but this is Good.

Let's see if I remember how to do this.

Thought I'd work through my little book a bit more. I finally filled the last page yesterday. It took over two years and the last thing on the last page is something someone said this week:

"Life is the story that you tell yourself about it." -- TG

I liked that for a stopping place.

Now back to where I left off in February. The e-mail addresses of a couple people I was supposed to keep in touch with. I'm horrible at keeping in touch. Just awful.

There's a list of stuff like conduit connectors and 90 degree elbows that could only mean that someone -- likely my father-in-law -- was working on our house and I'd run to the Depot for him. I'm as bad at doing stuff around the house as I am at keeping in touch.

Then the name of a song I heard on the jukebox at the Comet and liked -- Lee Morgan's "Slow Drag." That's good squishy.

A list of three things that I can't quite hang on a hook. Not sure why they're grouped here the way they are. I feel like maybe they had to do with things about our Approach to Life (i.e., what we do instead of "church",) that were bothersome to people we/I knew in the Before Times. Great Ben, what were they?

1. Sunday meetings
2. use of the word "Christian"
3. What happens when I die?

Places, I suppose, where our lack of Orthodoxy can be uncomfortable for some people. Oh, then there's a couple more:

Bible/divinity

Yep, I'm remembering this Conversation. It wasn't -- and isn't -- I don't think, that we're giving the wrong answers to these questions. It's that we're not asking them. Or at least not straining at them. Not tortured by them. (Someone said, "'I don't know' is good theology. Who was that, Buechner?) That seems to be a big part of Me -- who I am, how I am. This whole thing for tomorrow has pointed it out to me more clearly than ever. I allowed it to throw me -- just for a moment -- out of my actual Life and into a couple weeks of rereading and concentrating and dissecting and analyzing and...what's the word? Trying.

Good or bad, trying to figure out how to have a conversation just isn't me. Neither is bearing down and working at something like loving people. Seems destined to fail. To never rise above behavior (as opposed to identity). To create more pain than it assuages for everyone involved.

For my money the Buddhists seem to try too hard too. At least based on lots (but not all) of what I've read.

Phone rang and shot my train of thought.

A book recommendation: Wilde's De Profundis, which I'm pretty sure Michael recommended and which I still have not read. Looks like I was reading The Picture of Dorian Gray at the time because on the facing page I've written:

"We live in a age that reads too much to be wise and that thinks too much to be beautiful." -- pg. 133

and I'm pretty sure that's where that's from. Liked that line and it may have something to do with what I was trying to get at a couple paragraphs ago.

Another book recommendation: Christ the Eternal Tao which I also have yet to get to. Sounds about right to me though.

Scattered lists of things I intended to blog about and may or may not have ever gotten around to:

Pittsburgh
Josh & Jared
Larry B.

Dana
DATA
my job

Onward Ctn Soldiers

Glad I never got to that last one. Would've been ugly.

Then a line from a Jewel song, which I'm told she lifted from Ghandi or somebody and which in the Before Times I could have called my Life Verse, (if it had come from an approved text):

"No longer lend yourself to that which you wish to be free from."

I wasn't writing it down to remember it -- it's been too big a part of me for too long -- so I must've needed the reminder. Still do from time to time, but it's getting better.