Repertory Re-Ticklings, and the Pleasures of the Dirt

Hello World,


Sorry I've been out of touch for over a month—the longest hiatus from this tiny slice of the Great Blogberry Pie—but Spring deluged me with its swollen clouds and shredded my sails with its spirited winds. When tempests disperse, however, and the heavens sparkle once again, and the sun rises over refreshed earth, and the birds punch the dawn time clock, here's what remains for me:

Bach and baseball (Hit Play and read on.)



I took piano lessons for 7 years as a kid and quit when my teacher wanted me to play Bach and I wanted to play Billy Joel. So lately, with some time on my hands and a new keyboard installed where the Christmas Tree had left an inviting strech of apartmental wall, I liberated my sheet music from the anonymity of mini storage and started playing. And I got better.

It's one of the most basic lessons we learn and yet so easily forgotten: practice pays off. Over the years I winnowed my piano playing goals to just a few songs, and of course over time, large sections of those pieces drained out of my fingers—musical blades gone dull from a profound lack of sharpening. But they're still in there: Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, which made my father weep just a little when a 12-year-old me played it without error one Pennsylvanian summer evening; my favorite rag, Solace, by the incomparable Scott Joplin; and now, also, the elegant musical expression of a strand of human DNA—a few of J.S. Bach's divine preludes, as inevitable as a spider's spun web, and a gift to myself to learn.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox turned their backs on an inglorious start and scaled the craggy backside of the American League East. At this writing, they're on a 9-game winning streak, including two ought-to-be-illegal beat-downs of the Toronto Blue Jays, whom they outscored 30-5, and a gorgeous dismantling of the hapless Yankees, swept back-to-back at home, and who haven't dropped six straight to the Sox since 1912.

My son was pressed into some relief pitching in his 10/11-year-old league. Not his first choice, but when handed the ball, he went about his business with workmanlike resolve, fixing hitters with a flinty stare and a no-nonsense delivery. Struck out one. Despite a winless season for his team, he hasn't lost interest and we focused on discrete victories: excellent at-bats and successful defensive plays. We also picked up some great tips from his coach this year and if he so chooses, I'll be squatting in the dirt with a catcher's mitt any time he wants. Practice yields results. Important for an 11-year-old to learn, on the cusp of the two words most feared in the parental lexicon: Middle School.

Practice for his Dad, who still learns lessons at 41: How best to keep his mouth shut at critical times, how to play winning softball with just a dash of motivational trash talk (again, with the catching), how to filter the beautiful opportunities he's lucky enough to encounter in life, through a Baroque sieve, one note at a time.

Here's to a nice summer, readers, wherever you are, and to taking thoughtful, nurturing steps with the opportunities that matter the most. I'll be trying to do that the best way I know how—a promise to myself, as well as to you.

Sometimes It Rains

April is the cruellest month. And it doesn't take a brick-company boss's son from the Midwest with a fake erudite accent to tell us that. April surprises, every year, dealing frosty, miserable days that encourages us to throw good money after bad. It brings equal parts promise and uncertainty; all is called into question. Will the buds remember their birthright? Will the pastel green deepen? Will Keven Youkilis's bat start devouring fastballs like they were cocktail weiners off the sample table at Wegman's?

My baseball team, like a bunch of sullen teenagers, has refused to live up to its potential. It's ok, though, 'cause it's all part of the Master Plan. The Red Sox do not respond to hype. The Red Sox, like an interested yet somewhat ambivalent lover, have to marinate for a while before gelling. And you can't rush richness.

I'm thinking yesterday's rain delay is the beginning of a turn-around. It might be a slow-burn, but our coal scuttle overfloweth, and the haze of a wet season is about to evaporate. Compare it to a pot of boiling water. Well, everyone's been watching, and you know what that does. It SEEMS like the boil will never achieve; actually it's inevitable--as reliable as applied heat pushing the mercury to 212 degrees Farenheit. Jon Lester will solve the corners, the left-handed flea that the Leading Player knows you want to be. Matsuzaka will compartmentalize the after-shocks and will at least break even on quality starts. John Lackey will seek as many audiences as it takes with the Dalai Lama until he amasses the necessary chi to shrug off not only Salty's first-year skittishness, but also his unfortunate surname. Tim Wakefield, a Prospero on the mound, will lead his dear friends once more unto the breach, with wow and flutter, and surpass Roger Turncoat Clemens for the most wins at Fenway. Clay Buchholz will reject the Psalms and inherit the earth via intimidation and ungodly breaking balls.

It's the same with my kid. He's on unfamiliar ground, too--10- and 11-year-olds grouped together for the first time; the ball's coming in appreciably harder than last year. He's braver than he realizes, though. There was a defining moment in last-week's scrimmage, his team down a fistful of runs, when he dug in against a gnarly looking older kid. After taking a ball, he fouled off the next pitch and his bench erupted, "YEAH! THAT'S RIGHT!! HE AIN'T SO BAD!!" That at-bat ended in a hit. His squad was annihilated at the end of 6 innings, but the take-away was that It Could Be Done, this baseball business. His swing is so sweet and he doesn't even really know it. And his team is just starting to gel. Like Spring. Like New Love. And like the 2011 Red Sox.

We know what we're doing, actually, but we forget. In the Spring we learn to trust again, and May rewards us, lush and gorgeous. May urges us to use the word "redolent," in a sentence, and to worship the brevity of the fiddlehead fern, and the shortening nights. Don't miss the crescent moon--how many more will wink at you?

Thanks for reading, and always keep in mind that what's inevitable will reveal itself, in time. Meanwhile, bring an umbrella

Big Bird, Trilliums and Mothers Day in Heaven

Today the Red Sox are a half-game out of Second Place. But there are three teams ahead of them. How should I feel about that?

More important, Tim Wakefield goes for career win #190, and in a related move, there's a real good possibility I'll get to meet Big Bird this afternoon...

He's 40, too. We should compare notes.

I have white man's overbite guilt/envy when I dance to R & B records.

On Sunday, I saw a snowflake in Scranton. It was Mothers Day, and in the local paper there were more than 20 "Mothers Day in Heaven" memorials to dead mothers. My mother is still alive and well, in Florida, so I sent her flowers and took myself out to brunch at Chick's Diner on Moosic Street.

Ron Paul has introduced legislation to once again legalize hemp farming in this country. Party on, Garth.

I propose we merge April and May into one month in which all the poets bike to work.

Thank g-d Whole Foods has sprouted stores in expensive neighborhoods. Before that, I'd only partially eaten foods for which I had underpaid.

If I only write ny with lowercase letters, can I reasonably expect never to have to spend time in Albany?

The single largest donor to the Democratic Party made his fortune from "five retards in Spandex." I don't think he's a nice man.

I wonder what the career advancement opportunities are for the guy who wears a diaper and lies on a bed of nails. Does he look over at the guy who walks on hot coals and think, "That's my two-year plan, Inshallah."?

Is Inshallah Arabic for "yo" or is "yo" Jive for "God Willing"? *

When a thing is televised, its head is actually held motionless in the retractable steel jaws of fiction.

If you ask a McDonald's executive where you should eat lunch, betcha he won't say, "Burger King."

Recently I walked in the woods amongst the destruction wreaked by the natural gas companies, in their disheartening prosecution of making profit from the Marcellus Shale. Hundreds of trees had been knocked out, and bulldozers had carved a road into a mountain side -- my hunting grounds. At the edge of this road, where busted roots were flayed open like the broken bones of  so many freeway pileup victims, I discovered a tiny little trillium erectum, a protected wildflower that was illegal to pick, in my youth, and may still be. In that moment--a tenuous cling to the roughly ploughed earth--this fragile forest jewel stood proudly against the arrogance of man, as if to say, "You may tear up my home and gouge my garage, but you cannot stop the tumescence of even the smallest living thing. You Gunkies!"

Thanks for reading, and here's a question to ponder on your trip home: Does forcing the Earth to fart  constitute a safe, sane or sustainable energy policy?

* I know. Most fakirs are probably not speaking Arabic. I'm just sayin'.

Why I Don't Root For Godzilla

Dateline, The nearest Red Sox bar I could find, The Hairy Monk, one of the few good reasons to go to the East Side. And.they.still.had.the.Yankees.Opening.Ceremony.on.the.Telly.

There they were, in their nauseating glory, introduced not once, but twice..... And Matsui, in an Angel suit... I tell my Yankee-fan friends that being a Yankees fan just isn't interesting. Rooting for the Romans isn't interesting. I wonder if it sinks in at all..

Kristen Chenoweth, a trained opera singer, rocks the Stars-Go-Bang-Bang and some Navy guys fly a couple of attack fighter/bombers overhead.

Soscia and Girardi, past catchers both... classy guys. I actually respect individual Yankees, but the whole concept of "Wow.... you did such a great job as 2009 World Series MVP that we're shipping your sagging ass to California.... " (see Matsui, above) is the classless move of a corporation, not a team, that might have, you know, organs... such as A HEART!

1:10 p.m. -- Thank God they put the Dropkick Murphy's on the Juke during the commercial break.

1:11 --- Ooh. A first-pitch strike at 88 mph....... hurt me, Andy.... hurt me.

1:15 -- Abreau strikes out -- just as well. I hate that dude.

1:20 -- Matsui steps up, and some twitnozzle in the crowd holds up a sign that says, "Matsui We love you longtime" which somehow compares the former Yankee Left Fielder with a Vietnamese whore... Nice.

1:21 -- Matsui's gone. Another ex-Yankee strikes out... my feelings are conflicted

1:26 -- Nick Johnson. Yeah.... this was the kid on the school bus who you hoped wouldn't sit next to you...... homerun. I really don't like this guy.

1:29 -- Flashing back to the team introductions.... The Yankees have the gall to play Star Wars theme when the players are announced.... and we're supposed to believe that the Angels are the Empire, which makes the Yankees..... the Rebellion??? If Han Friggin' Solo wasn't a Red Sox fan, then I'll save Billy Dee the hassle and appear in the next Colt 45 ad myself.

1:40 --- You know, computer companies totally lie about battery length! Bottom of the Second. Cano is up and is already having a good season..

1:44 -- Runners at the corners, no outs, and Curtis Grand-stand-erson up.... not good.

1:49 -- Swisher Swiffs..... Strike Two was a nasty, nasty curve.

1:52 -- The kid pitches himself out of a bad situation. Props.

1:52:15 -- I celebrate the Third Strike a little too loudly, and the two Yankee goons near me at the bar are not amused....

1:57 -- Abreu up again. Hoping Andy strikes him out. Yeah.... Still 1-0 Yanks.

2:05 -- Jeter solo shot.... whatever.

2:07 -- sweet 3-6 Double Play.... and not for nothing, but what the hell does 3 and 6 have to do with it? I've never grokked that particular system. Help a brother out.

2:10 -- Now 2-0, top of the Fourth. For your entertainment, I present a used set of catcher's gear that I'm looking into...

The Tuxedo Park Terrors made their 2010 debut Sunday night at the Meadowbrook fields in South Orange, NJ, with Yours Truly behind the plate for most of the game. We won 17-9, our first victory EVER. So I'm buying some gear.

It looks like Boba Fett disintegrated the guy, late in the afternon one April day, leaving only his gear behind.... it's a catcher inorganic chalk outline...

2:14 -- Pettitte still has the stuff. Six strikeouts in 4 innings. One inning for each of the "T"s in his name. Hence, his SPT ratio is 1.5. Just sayin'

2:17 --- I'm embedded at one of the few available power points in this fine Publick House, thereby ensuring my little live-blog project will last to the end of the Alleged Home Opener.... I'm pretty sure all five of you are psyched.

2:19  -- Posado grounds out --- HAH!    U - S - A !! U - S - A !!

2:24 -- a Commenter!! Praise Jesus. One comment before the Angels have even scored, however. I'm not sure which that bodes worse for.... my first attempt at liveblogging, or the California Angels...

2:28 -- Ugh. Bad break for the Angels with an infield single for Jeter. Bases loaded, and the schoolbus bully at the plate. I'm hiding my eyes.

2:30 -- Are you kidding me? There are empty seats at that alleged stadium. It's Opening Day, you fickle so-and-so's! Fenway's been sold out since 2003. You should send the three guys you stranded this inning into the stands to plug the gaps. If you're a member of "yankee nation," it's just $35 million well spent...

2:33 -- Yanks only scored one run in last inning's trainwreck. With just .73% more control, this kid Santana is going to be a lights-out hurler in the Bigs. Does one capitalize "Bigs"? I think I'll capitalize "Bigs" just to up my confidence level as a Rookie live-blogger.

Anyway, if Santana can't get his pitching game together, there's always the guitar... 

Ar ar ar ar ar ar ar!

2:37 -- Pettttttittttttte is at 80-some pitches... Time for him to make a mistake.

2:39 -- oh crap. But not with Abreu. I hate Abreu. AAAAAAAAAAnd: He pops out. The Gunkie.

3:36 -- egads!!!! YANKEE PUBLICK RELATIONS OFFICE BLOCKS BLAISERBLOG WIRELESS ACCESS!!! I just managed to get back online. Freakish. And definitely not a coincidence

Meanwhile, both starters are replaced, the Yanks keep swingin' and Nick Swisher makes a totally unnecessary tuck-and-roll. Yankees strutting at 5-0 bottom of the 7th

I missed my 7th-inning stretch comic: here it is.

3:50 -- Blog updates greatly slowed not only to vast Yankee conspiracy, but also hot-fudge Sundae...

3:52 -- Angel offense less energized than my Old-Guy-Suburban-Softball League team... WAIT! A SOLO SHOT----from my keyboard to Chan Ho Park's weakened mind... 5-1 Yankees.

3:55 -- Posada flummoxed by extra gear in the on-deck circle. If he ever did anything but scowl, I might feel for the guy.

4:00 -- Mike Soscia has put on another five pounds since the start of this game. Apparently he was once under 200 lbs....

4:03 -- The uber-expensive seats behind home plate are as thinning as.... well they all shave their heads, don't they? This is exactly what I'm talking about. Phoning it in because they don't have to, because they have too damn much money. $*(%^@

4:09 -- Yankees 7-1. They're definitely on the ropes. If I were Soscia, now would be the correct time to release the tigers...

4:13 -- Jeter's jump-throw misses. Not anymore old man, you're in your nearly late-30s now...

4:14 -- TYING RUN AT THE PLATE!!!!

4:15 -- Um, what I actually meant to type was: Two men on, no outs. Top of the Ninth

4:17 -- Yankee "closer" gets a spanking from angry Bomber pitching staff... It's like the bad guys from The Karate Kid all over again....

4:20 -- Grand Slam. Mother Flippin' Grand Slam. And of course it would be Bobby Abreu. I don't know whether to cheer wildly, or to go out and play in traffic on Third Avenue.... 7--5 Yanks. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a Ninth Inning....

4:23 -- Enter the Sandman. This may be shorter than I'd hoped... Still, the man is mortal, and Torii is up, despite his racialist comments about Dominicans....

4:25 -- Bombers clip Angels' wings, 7--5. Thanks to CAL (my one commenter), The Hairy Monk for their fine AC outlet and neighbor-with-free-Internet and the Boddington's Beer Company. Insert any number of Crash Davis quotes here...

Thanks for reading. And always try to remember that just because you can button your shirt in front of a bunch of reporters, it doesn't mean that you have a quantifiable soul that might actually ascend to something when Jonathan Papelbon sends you to your maker, sometime in late October, 2010.