Seasons

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America
has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a
blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.
This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all
that once was good, and that could be again." Field of Dreams, 1989

There is no real reason for me to write anything else.

How Now Brown Cow

Ed Furillo: The three of us, New Mexico... driving cattle.

Mitch Robbins: What, like in a truck? City Slickers, 1991

I don't know from cattle. Having grown up on the edge of farm country, I'm pretty sure that if you stood a dairy cow and a beef cow next to each other I could pick out the one I generally find under cellophane at King Soopers. That's it. So, the situation in Nevada represented just a passing interest - Good Ole Boy runs cattle, refuses to pay the Feds for grazing rights.... He lost in court, there was some delay in enforcing that outcome and now it's become a thing. Nevada, Harry Reid and you get conspiracy theories galore. Whatever.

Two things. I've met Harry Reid, shook hands with him at the DNC in 2008. He ambled over (yes, ambled) to a group of Lakewood cops and Secret Service agents awaiting the next round of Suburbans to enter the secure loading dock we were...securing. Nice man, thanked us for serving, for being diligent during the festivities. He was kind, soft spoken and had a firm grip (as opposed to Bill Clinton's). 

Second, I love conspiracy theories as entertainment. I don't actually buy into many of them because they are too complicated and I get confused. Consequently, I moved on to something more concrete, like whether Kirsten Dunst insulted women. Then, the guns showed up in Nevada.

A More Perfect Selfie

me: [smashes through crush's bedroom window]
me: sO I NOTICED YOU DIDN'T LIKE MY SELFIE
me: [revs up chainsaw]

Recently, I posted a "selfie" on Facebook from St. Petersburg Beach, on Treasure Island in Florida. Bright sunshine prevented me from truly previewing the shot (which resembled a prison photo), but I was walking on the beach in shorts. Didn't all of my friends want to share that moment with me?

Apparently not.

One friend, an exceptionally talented co-worker, compared my picture favorably to Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalist. From his Wiki story:

"While suffering a bout of health problems, Thompson committed suicide at the age of 67. Per his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend, Johnny Depp, and attended by a host of friends including then Senator John Kerry and Jack Nicholson."

Another long-time friend noted that I had developed double chins in my old age. He prescribed cycling.

Thank you, doctor. "Spring has sprung, the grass has rizz" my college friend Joe used to say. Beautiful blue sky, temperatures in the high sixties and low seventies.... I accepted invitations from friends for three rides this weekend and, by early afternoon today will have laid down over one hundred miles of quality time with buddies. Two rides are in the books - the first climbing of the season and a longer, flatter ride in yesterday's glorious sunshine. It is remarkable what riding bikes in warm weather with nice folks can do for my soul.

However (comma) blame the above revised selfie on my detail-oriented friend. It was the least I could do. Actually, it was the best I could do. I ain't James Bond. In fact, this goofy guy on the beach looks a lot like me! Maybe it is the perfect selfie after all.

Out of the Line

"People stare at McDonald's menus. They have pictures of the food - just point!" John Pinette

Actor/comedian John Pinette passed away from apparent natural causes today at the age of 50.

His bio lists a number of credits - an episode of Seinfeld, the Broadway play Hairspray (he played a woman) and other lesser roles. He was a regular guest on The Tonight Show.

His forte was stand up...a particular brand of stand up. He poked fun at a lot of things, including standing in lines, going on diets ("salad isn't food, salad comes before the food") and the insults he had to endure from buffet restaurant owners when he "bellied" up to the displays. When the Greer family searchs for just the right bit of gentle sarcasm, we whistle up a Pinette video on YouTube.

He tells the story of going to a Dairy Queen in Tempe for a milkshake when it was a hundred and ten degrees. "When it's a hundred and ten YOU GET A MILKSHAKE!" he said. "I think it says that in the Weight Watcher's manual." The guy in front of him asks "How big is a small?" Pinette, of course, is incensed. "It's small. The mediums are medium, the larges are large. If you gotta ask how small a small is you're not hungry enough, come back later. Get out of the line!"

My wife and I saw him at a benefit several years ago. He looked tired, his face drawn, his usually commanding voice thin. Yet, he put on a show, delivering many of his greatest hits ("Oh, good, she has coupons.... Bitch"). After the show, in line at the valet parking window, I stood behind a middle-aged woman. She was spectacularly dressed - evening gown, tasteful jewelry, beautifully done hair. She turned to the gent next to her (gray suit, highly-polished shoes) and says "The salmon was pretty good, but the steak...ugh, you coulda used it as a HOCKEY PUCK."

John Pinette's humor was that infectious.

It's the Fifty Yard Line!

“It’s the fifty yard line, Dad!” – Little Giants

Please welcome daughter Beth Mason. She is an honors graduate of both Metropolitan State College and the University of Maine School of Law. She and her husband Mike reside in St. Petersburg, Florida. She is preparing to take the Maryland bar.

Here’s a subject I never thought I’d be writing a blog post about: Baseball.  It’s not that I dislike the sport; I grew up watching Sandlot, Field of Dreams, and A League of Their Own.  My Dad is a huge fan, and my sister got that gene, it just somehow skipped me.  And if you asked me if I knew who Daniel Murphy was yesterday, I would have said “which sport?”  My father and sister would have lovingly made the face they always make when I am being out of touch with their favorite American pastime. 

But I woke up to the “outrage” seemingly sweeping the nation over Boomer Esiason’s comments about Murphy’s paternity leave.  No, not just that he took leave and missed two games to be with his wife, Tori, while she gave birth to their first child.  But the audacity of Tori for not scheduling a C-section early so that he didn't have to miss opening day.  That right there was enough for me to roll my eyes.  I haven’t had any children, and I am no expert on C-sections.  But from what I understand, a C-section is major surgery that comes with possible complications and an extended recovery time.  It’s unconscionable and grotesque that he would suggest that, but not altogether surprising that a man wouldn't understand the ramifications of the procedure. 

But then I read the next comment attributed to him on CNN.  That’s what really got me jumping up and down on my hat the way my dad does when an umpire makes a bad call.  The player, Esiason claims, should have told his pregnant wife:

Assholes and Elbows

"His Majesty was his usual pigheaded, recalcitrant self and I think the surly bastard was drunk." Michael Collins, Carrying The Fire, (Cooper Square Press, 1974).

One knows the type immediately.

The guy stood in front of his exit row seat, back to oncoming traffic. Talking loudly into his earpiece about something that must be so very important, his five-tenish carried two-hundred-plus mostly in his shoulders. Well-coifed, booth-tanned.... Oblivious to the smaller inconveniences of life, which surely involves the rest of us boarding his aircraft. His tablet is sitting on my seat. He seems...miffed...when I bring this to his attention. With a sniff he tosses it onto his own seat and continues yacking while swaying ever so to and fro. Hmm, had a few at the sky lounge, did we?

"What gate are we coming into?" He directs his question to a nearby flight attendant without a hint of please. She doesn't know. That, of course, is unsat. "What time do we land?"

Against The Wind

If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

Yogi Berra

The Samsung's GPS pointed toward Mullet Key, part of the Fort de Soto County Park. It is probably one of the most picturesque spits of land in the Tampa/St. Pete area. Palm trees rim grand expanses of clean, white beaches. Infinite views boast virtually one-eighty vistas of the Gulf, nearby Egmont Key visible just on the horizon. At the far southwestern edge of our island's knuckle a lone lighthouse stoically blinks its warning message.

Seeing these things is possible only when the driving rain and gale-force winds subside.