Magic Jewball

I’ve been a sports fan for a long time. First hockey, then tennis, and then baseball. Even before I was a baseball fan, I was a Yankee fan. This is both because I grew up in a mostly Yankee New York household and because I read a biography of Lou Gehrig as a child and was entranced. When I saw the movie and realized that Lou Gehrig was actually Gary Cooper, well, there was no looking back. It was only later that I began to actually enjoy the sport itself and not just reading the score in the paper.

But this is the part I have always had trouble with: the trade. As I sit through this afternoon’s telecast of the Anaheim, or LA, or Anaheim of LA, or LA of Anaheim game, I am again pondering the mystery of it. I think I have finally accepted Johnny Damon. Maybe.

You remember Johnny Damon with his head of Breck-girl hair blowing masterfully in the Fenway wind. Now he is a Yankee. Or so I have been commanded to accept. It’s not like this is my first day of trying to wrap my mind around this. Oh, I saw the pictures of his fancee haircut over the Winter. Then I went to Spring Training opening day in Tampa and saw him wave cheerfully at our crowd of tourists and Floridians (Tampons? No, that can’t be right). And now it’s been a week of doubles and base hits in the far West. But it’s still hard.

Imagine this. Our commander in chief, I forget his name, conducts a press conference where he announces that after gathering together our millions and millions of dollars, we have finally signed Osama and as soon as he has passed his fitness test he will be on a plane here, beard shaven, to don the US Army uniform and terrorize other nations on our behalf. “I’m proud to wear this hideous shade of khaki,” Osama says through his translator. “Clearly Al Qaeda didn’t appreciate my efforts and my option came and went without a word to my agent. Now that I have been signed, I can tell you it has always been to my dream to play in the land of Benjamins. See you in April!”

Not that I am comparing the Red Sox to Al Qaeda. Seriously. But you see what I mean? Isn’t sports supposed to be like war? This must be why I also love tennis. You can’t exactly trade Andy Roddick, can you? Although these days I wish I could. I wonder how Johnny Damon’s forehand is. He could even grow out his hair, no problem.

But back to baseball. I know what you’ve been thinking as you read this. “Yankees? You lost me, Becca. I don’t care who wins this year as long as it’s not them.” That’s OK. I don’t mind. But consider this. The Yankees are America. Wait! Hear me out! You know, the richest, the most successful, the arrogant one, the one with the megalomaniac leader, the one that draws the talent from the rest of the world because this is where the money and success are. You know it’s true. So hate the Yankees if you must but you’ve just answered that “why does everyone hate us” question once and for all. Go ahead, root for your hometown team (you should!) but if you’re just rooting for the team that hasn’t won lately, well, Go Russia!

Yes, I am suffering from Katie Hype Overload Syndrome. I don’t think I can stand to hear another word about this woman and her plans. Meredith Vieira’s beginning to really bug me as well.

These are the things I know about Katie: she’s perky and she had a colonoscopy (or several?) on TV. I’m betting the second didn’t lead to the first. Oh, I know it would be different if I watched the Today show or any morning yakfest but I don’t and so I can’t bring myself to give a rat’s ass about it.

See, in the morning I need news. Real news. The kind that comes one story after another with illustrative film. It can’t be a conversation about a book or health issue. I don’t really care about these things at any time of the day but especially in the morning I need chop-chop, get to the point news. Where did the idea begin that when you are in the biggest rush of your day and getting out the door late can lead to the end of your income, then bankruptcy and financial ruin, that that is when you need a lot of people chatting and laughing?

If only they would put the evening national news on at 7am I’d be one happy camper. Instead I watch NY1, a local all-news channel (Does any other city have enough news to fill 24 hours? Please let me know if yours does. If you don’t feel like commenting, I have e-mail now!). Except for a couple of segments, it is all serious, “fire in Washington Heights”, “transit strike”, “2nd Avenue Deli going out of business” news. I have actually timed my morning to avoid their fluff pieces, especially the parenting report lady who is clearly on E and the “Average Joe visits a new Y opening” guy. If you watch NY1, you will know who I am talking about. When these segments come on, that’s when I’m brushing my teeth or getting my coffee.

But I knew the Katie Couric news was important because it was on the front page of the NY Times. You know, next to people getting killed in Iraq and Zacarias Moussaoui singing “Burn in the USA” to the tune of “Born in the USA” at his trial. Now I don’t want to joke about these things but did he not understand that the lyrics to that song weren’t exactly patriotic in the first place? He probably also thinks “Every Breath You Take” would be a fine song by which to walk down the aisle at your wedding. Not that, you know, it looks like he’s going to be married any time soon. In fact, I think he’s going to have all the time in the world to watch “Your Health with Dr. Sanjay Gupta.” Unless they kill him, which, after a few rounds with Meredith and Matt, he might prefer.

For some of you, this will be a blast from the past. For others it will be new. For everyone, it will be tiny and dark and grainy. Yes, it’s my Gates film, back from the dead. When we last left my movie of The Gates, I was unable to do anything with it due to copyright issues on the music (oh, those evil, evil record companies!). Well, this is for no commercial purpose and let me just add, please buy this fine record. If you like this song, the CD will blow your mind. Buy it today!

It’s been over a year, but you will probably remember The Gates, the Christo & Jean-Claude project in Central Park last February. Some people hated it, some people loved it, but I felt differently. See I first hated it and then loved it. In the daytime it looked like a construction site or like ugly orange curtains. Then I went at night with my iPod and changed my mind.

I have noticed as I blog around (that is, randomly go from blog to blog on Blogspot) that lots of people are now using AdSense which places ads on your site and pays you according to how many people view them. Rest assured, I will never do this. First off, it’s ugly, and these generic templates Blogspot gives you have zero aesthetics as it is. But second, it basically tells you that I don’t care about you, you’re just a fraction of a cent to me. And I care, I care deeply. At least a nickel per hit. Oh, just kidding.

This is not to say I’d never sell out. On the contrary. I have sold out in the past. See, I was pranked by the Jerky Boys. You remember them, right? They were these two guys who had a novelty act making prank phone calls and had several successful albums and a movie. But it wasn’t one of those ordinary prank calls, it was done on behalf of an artist who recorded for our label at the time who were their friends. So they called us and I picked up the phone. I knew it was them, I recognized their voices. But on the off-chance it wasn’t, I had to pretend it was a serious call. Gah.

Fast forward a few months and I’m told that this other artist (the friends of the Jerky Boys) would like to use my sound bite on their song and they wanted me to sign a release to allow it. Well, I’m not going to mention who this “artist” is, but believe me, you wouldn’t want to be associated with them in any way. So I said no, no way, absolutely not. Then they offered me money. Then they told me the Jerky Boys also wanted to use it on their album and they’d double the money. It wasn’t a lot except if you’re poor, which I was. So I said, pride, what’s that? Yes, yes, of course, where do I sign, where’s my money, give me a check, where’s my money? I bought a computer with it and never regretted a thing.

I just checked and my song is on iTunes. You could hear my voice, if I told you which track it was. It’s not that I’m so private, it’s just that I sound weird and nasal. I hate my voice and I’m sure you’d snicker. And I care about you way too deeply to hear you snicker.

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to experience your teenaged life with your adult mind and body? No, me either. But seriously, that’s what happened to me this weekend in Baltimore. For some reason I got it into my head that it’d be fun to revisit my traumatic college years since I was already headed down that way to see some swell friends. If your college years were fun, carefree, and party-filled, then you probably didn’t attend my alma mater. I’m sure you’ve heard of it; your doctor probably graduated from there.

This school sucked the life out of me and convinced me I was stupid and had no writing skills. (Don’t bother commenting that you agree. I don’t control the comments on here for nothing.) I also experienced a couple of bad breakups (with the same person – Liz Taylor is my hero!) and a lack of money and social skills. The result was four sad, miserable, pathetic years.

As I waited (and waited) for the bus to take me up there, which I did countless times going to and from work when I was in college, I really did feel like I was back in the day. The awful, awful day. And then walking around campus and through the buildings, it all felt quite real. I half expected to see that drunken frat guy who is probably your doctor right now.

But it was kind of like Dateline NBC. I was the sad survivor of personal trauma being taken back to the scene of the crime for no ostensible purpose. I could imagine Ann Curry next to me. “So this is the place where Professor Carter-Smith [I made that up – is it pretentious enough?] told you that he had no idea how you even got into this university. How do you feel, Becca?” Or “Here is the spot where that guy told you that you had serious issues because you couldn’t get over your ex. Tissue?”

And yet, I bought a sweatshirt. You don’t see Vietnam vets going back to My Lai and buying souvenir t-shirts, do you? But, you see, it was really just like a prison tattoo. Bear with me, I have some back-up for this. I don’t think people are proud of going to prison. But some of them are terribly proud to have survived and made it out alive. And that is me, wearing my $45 prison tattoo. I lived through Johns Hopkins, bitch.

But a couple of other random notes on the trip. First off, who’d have thunk it, but there is actually a synagogue in the Inner Harbor and it’s been in continuous use since 1857. Someone there made the wise decision to leave it with its lovely period details in gold and cream and dark wood. Unfortunately, the pews were designed for the asses of yesteryear. But that’s a minor quibble.

Also, in case my love letter to Baltimore (aka, my last post) didn’t convince you, I can now confirm that the city is as charming and friendly as ever. I really forgot what it was like for people to make eye contact with you and say good morning. I even got into my old Baltimore friendliness and advised a couple at the bus stop who asked me that the bus ran every 25 minutes. I couldn’t help adding, “Of course, I haven’t lived here in 12 years.” (But I was right.)

And the rowhouses and downtown architecture still make me swoon. Alas, however, it is no longer the City That Reads. No, perhaps the city council felt like that was too hard for people to believe. So they went with a much more plausible catchphrase and the benches now read: Baltimore - The Greatest City in America. Oh yes, my thoughts exactly.

Speaking of cities and their grandiose advertising slogans, I can’t end this without commenting on the delight at seeing my very favorite sign from the Amtrak train: Trenton Makes, the World Takes. I always thought that vaguely accusatory, as though it should also say, in slightly smaller print, “If anyone would like to return what they have taken from Trenton, please drop it off at the Police Station, no questions asked.”