I missed this at first, but the Ladybug was right there: the Fifth Beatle has joined the first two.
Billy Preston was prolific, a gifted songwriter and keyboardist; besides his own work and his well-known organ sessions with the Beatles, he wrote for or performed with Joe Cocker, Ray Charles, Sly and the Family Stone, and the Rolling Stones. His soundtrack work was extensive, and continued up to the present day:
"Go Where No One's Gone Before," from L/R
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Thanks for the music, sir. Rest in peace.
PS - the official L/R page doesn't work anymore; the Japanese-language version does, for those who have a working knowledge...
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Hulk smash! But not Hulk fault
Updated, June 7, 11:00 pm - a scientific take on the news, from reader John (and thank you).
Great. "Intermittent Explosive Disorder." (w/t to the Coalition of the Swilling)
It's not that science ought not to study these things - the knowledge of how helps us live healthier and happier - but we ought not to be deceived. We've always known that some people have tempers and others tend to eat too much or lie around the hut while sensible people are hunting for the weekly caribou. We've always known people who can't handle it when the dry goods store is low on feed, or have an eye for the daughters of the shop owner. Neighbors have had their moments from the first moment people started having neighbors. They sensibly decided to suck it up and get on with life, and that meant mastering their tendencies.
The opposite action - to give up in the face of our impulses - was also known to us, under the name of "sloth." But taking the easy way is to accept bondage: first, to oneself, as one's appetites drive one's choices, and second, to society - for people who refuse to manage themselves must be managed from without, by laws and lawkeepers. In the end, to accept personal slavery is to pave the road for civil slavery, and society casts a very wide net. Soon the Devil won't be able to make us do anything because we won't be free to do anything.
Great. "Intermittent Explosive Disorder." (w/t to the Coalition of the Swilling)
CHICAGO (AP) — To you, that angry, horn-blasting tailgater is suffering from road rage. But doctors have another name for it — intermittent explosive disorder — and a new study suggests it is far more common than they realized, affecting up to 16 million Americans.
"People think it's bad behavior and that you just need an attitude adjustment, but what they don't know ... is that there's a biology and cognitive science to this," said Dr. Emil Coccaro, chairman of psychiatry at the University of Chicago's medical school.
Road rage, temper outbursts that involve throwing or breaking objects, and even spousal abuse can sometimes be attributed to the disorder, though not everyone who does those things is afflicted.
These people seem determined to erase the concept of free will and reduce man to a bundle of impulses and drives - or as Ms. Sister so eloquently puts it:
The last thing anyone needs is more excuses. McDonald's made me eat it, Philip Morris made me smoke it, Budweiser made me drink it, XBox made me sit on it, GM made me kill it, my tough parents made me eat some more, the Devil made me do it, Tinky Winky made me love purple...on and on, ad nauseum. And now another made for Law & Order excuse syndrome is added to the burgeoning B$ pile.We are totally getting snowed, here. Scientists are finding more and more biological tendencies, so much so that soon everyone will be "afflicted" at least once. This is news? "I do not understand myself... The very thing that I hate, that thing I do... For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive... Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:15 and etc.)
It's not that science ought not to study these things - the knowledge of how helps us live healthier and happier - but we ought not to be deceived. We've always known that some people have tempers and others tend to eat too much or lie around the hut while sensible people are hunting for the weekly caribou. We've always known people who can't handle it when the dry goods store is low on feed, or have an eye for the daughters of the shop owner. Neighbors have had their moments from the first moment people started having neighbors. They sensibly decided to suck it up and get on with life, and that meant mastering their tendencies.
The opposite action - to give up in the face of our impulses - was also known to us, under the name of "sloth." But taking the easy way is to accept bondage: first, to oneself, as one's appetites drive one's choices, and second, to society - for people who refuse to manage themselves must be managed from without, by laws and lawkeepers. In the end, to accept personal slavery is to pave the road for civil slavery, and society casts a very wide net. Soon the Devil won't be able to make us do anything because we won't be free to do anything.
Monday, June 05, 2006
No surprises
Via Tim Blair, the unshocking news that the Northeast has, on balance, the stupidest drivers. New Jersey ranked in a tie, fourth from the bottom, which is why I had to give up cursing at other drivers this past Lent.
Note that they can only rank based on how many questions one can correctly answer on a sample test - not how many people routinely cut off, speed, fail to signal, or other regular horrors of the roads. In other words, the skill of the dummies at the wheel are not measured.
You can try it yourself to see how you do. In the meantime, I shall give a little advice to those who so badly need it:
DON'T tailgate. Seriously. You don't need to see the contents of my trunk. And contrary to popular belief, being flashed from behind is not rude; it's the universal signal for "Excuse me, I wish to go faster than you are but I don't want to barrel around you on the right." If you give me a little blink, I'll slide over if I haven't done so already - but that's hard to do if you're too close for me to see your headlights.
DON'T ride the left lane. You don't belong there unless you can't get over or are already passing. This is harder in Jersey, since some highways give us the notorious left-hand exit, which means a steady supply of pokey drivers in the passing lane, galumphing toward the early bird at Denny's. Brilliant. (I think New Jersey exlusively hires traffic engineers who flunked out of programs for better jobs and resent it.)
DON'T slalom. You have wheels, not skis. It's tempting to slip into that little hole when you're stalled out in your current lane, but it's dangerous and frustrating to the people who are finally beginning to move a little bit to have to stop suddenly for your convenience. We're all trying to get somewhere. It's even worse at highway speeds: at least in stop-and-go it's not likely to get anyone killed.
DON'T block the intersection. I was following someone to the tournament on Saturday, and we got stuck at a green light, because some of the fair citizens of Lancaster PA had filled the intersection and gotten stuck. This led to a long line of us edging forward, hoping to wiggle through before the cross traffic had right of way.
DON'T be a jerk. We would have gotten past as soon as the traffic edged ahead enough to grant a single lane through. What we didn't bargain for was the three separate drivers (one of them at the wheel of an 18-foot rental box truck) who bolted into the intersection even though they were stopped at the light. Finally we just pulled the Jersey Power Move and ran our light once it changed.
DON'T gawk. Situation: about a month ago I was stopped on a two lane road in Dunellen, near route 28. Someone was trying to make a left through our stopped lane of traffic and into a side street, but this list hadn't been written yet and he was forced to give up. He bolted forward and sideswiped another driver that had tried to pass him on the shoulder. Together they slid to a stop in the gap of the side street opposite, sharing polite admonitions through the open window. Well, them's the breaks.
Result: a line of cars rolling past, curious but respectful - until the gap. Soon the culprit came into view. This fellow was so engrossed in the proceedings, and so openly staring, that after he passed the accident he adjusted his rearview mirror to keep things in view for another couple hundred yards.
Theory: if you're obviously that much of a jerk, why not just pull over? Can you possibly look any stupider? Hell, shoot the works! Get out and walk up to the crash! Ignore the drivers and bend down for a better look at the damage. Take a picture on your cell phone - you know, the one you were talking on five minutes ago - then call back and start discussing the details in front of them.
And finally, something so egregious that it boggles the mind, and yet I see it happen at least once a month: DON'T back up on the highway. Really. There are other exits, and most of them offer the miraculous option of going back in the other direction to the exit you wanted. If you're really that worried about getting the right street you might as well pull over for a minute and study a map or call somebody. Something - anything - but don't throw it into reverse when everyone else is heading toward your location at 70 mph.
Note that they can only rank based on how many questions one can correctly answer on a sample test - not how many people routinely cut off, speed, fail to signal, or other regular horrors of the roads. In other words, the skill of the dummies at the wheel are not measured.
You can try it yourself to see how you do. In the meantime, I shall give a little advice to those who so badly need it:
DON'T tailgate. Seriously. You don't need to see the contents of my trunk. And contrary to popular belief, being flashed from behind is not rude; it's the universal signal for "Excuse me, I wish to go faster than you are but I don't want to barrel around you on the right." If you give me a little blink, I'll slide over if I haven't done so already - but that's hard to do if you're too close for me to see your headlights.
DON'T ride the left lane. You don't belong there unless you can't get over or are already passing. This is harder in Jersey, since some highways give us the notorious left-hand exit, which means a steady supply of pokey drivers in the passing lane, galumphing toward the early bird at Denny's. Brilliant. (I think New Jersey exlusively hires traffic engineers who flunked out of programs for better jobs and resent it.)
DON'T slalom. You have wheels, not skis. It's tempting to slip into that little hole when you're stalled out in your current lane, but it's dangerous and frustrating to the people who are finally beginning to move a little bit to have to stop suddenly for your convenience. We're all trying to get somewhere. It's even worse at highway speeds: at least in stop-and-go it's not likely to get anyone killed.
DON'T block the intersection. I was following someone to the tournament on Saturday, and we got stuck at a green light, because some of the fair citizens of Lancaster PA had filled the intersection and gotten stuck. This led to a long line of us edging forward, hoping to wiggle through before the cross traffic had right of way.
DON'T be a jerk. We would have gotten past as soon as the traffic edged ahead enough to grant a single lane through. What we didn't bargain for was the three separate drivers (one of them at the wheel of an 18-foot rental box truck) who bolted into the intersection even though they were stopped at the light. Finally we just pulled the Jersey Power Move and ran our light once it changed.
DON'T gawk. Situation: about a month ago I was stopped on a two lane road in Dunellen, near route 28. Someone was trying to make a left through our stopped lane of traffic and into a side street, but this list hadn't been written yet and he was forced to give up. He bolted forward and sideswiped another driver that had tried to pass him on the shoulder. Together they slid to a stop in the gap of the side street opposite, sharing polite admonitions through the open window. Well, them's the breaks.
Result: a line of cars rolling past, curious but respectful - until the gap. Soon the culprit came into view. This fellow was so engrossed in the proceedings, and so openly staring, that after he passed the accident he adjusted his rearview mirror to keep things in view for another couple hundred yards.
Theory: if you're obviously that much of a jerk, why not just pull over? Can you possibly look any stupider? Hell, shoot the works! Get out and walk up to the crash! Ignore the drivers and bend down for a better look at the damage. Take a picture on your cell phone - you know, the one you were talking on five minutes ago - then call back and start discussing the details in front of them.
And finally, something so egregious that it boggles the mind, and yet I see it happen at least once a month: DON'T back up on the highway. Really. There are other exits, and most of them offer the miraculous option of going back in the other direction to the exit you wanted. If you're really that worried about getting the right street you might as well pull over for a minute and study a map or call somebody. Something - anything - but don't throw it into reverse when everyone else is heading toward your location at 70 mph.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Aw poopie
Well, we did outscore our opponents for the tournament. Unfortunately, only one of those goals came in the semifinal and we lost 2-1.
Still, a decent tournament. We all get along well, so there's no finger-pointing our bad-mouthing folks after a disappointing game. There's talk of putting the team into the regular league here in Jersey.
The best part of the weekend was being able to make it a vacation with the lovely Ladybug. Nice dinner at the Brasserie with a teammate and his fiancé. After our premature ouster we went to the Texas Roadhouse to drown our sorrows in tasty beverage and well-grilled varieties of cow. Good times, though we'd rather have been celebrating.
Lancaster will run another one in the fall, and we can come back with a full season of experience.
Update - hey, there's a TR in Jersey!
Still, a decent tournament. We all get along well, so there's no finger-pointing our bad-mouthing folks after a disappointing game. There's talk of putting the team into the regular league here in Jersey.
The best part of the weekend was being able to make it a vacation with the lovely Ladybug. Nice dinner at the Brasserie with a teammate and his fiancé. After our premature ouster we went to the Texas Roadhouse to drown our sorrows in tasty beverage and well-grilled varieties of cow. Good times, though we'd rather have been celebrating.
Lancaster will run another one in the fall, and we can come back with a full season of experience.
Update - hey, there's a TR in Jersey!
Friday, June 02, 2006
Radio silence
...until at least Sunday evening - I'll be out of the state, playing a little hockey tournament in Lancaster PA. In the meantime, there are fun things in the posts below. I'll let you know how we did when we get back.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Yup, right on schedule
Nightfly, Thursday, May 25 - "...I'm afraid to talk about the resurgence of our center fielder - indeed, I fear to even name him lest my Sports Jinx powers inflict a dreadful freak injury."
Wednesday, May 31 - in the 11th inning of last night's game, said center fielder fouls a pitch off his right kneecap and spends ten minutes writhing on the ground while my friends and I watch in horror.
Blood-ee HELL.
So - posted without elaboration. Next week, when Trots is vaporized by the invading hordes of Omicron Persei 8, you'll know who to blame.
Wednesday, May 31 - in the 11th inning of last night's game, said center fielder fouls a pitch off his right kneecap and spends ten minutes writhing on the ground while my friends and I watch in horror.
Blood-ee HELL.
So - posted without elaboration. Next week, when Trots is vaporized by the invading hordes of Omicron Persei 8, you'll know who to blame.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Big hint in the title
Another hiatus strikes the Pantheon of Bloggers: Sluggo's putting the blog to bed for a while. This makes five from a list that never numbers more than twenty. Sort of makes me wonder whether I have a Blog Jinx to go along with the Sports Jinx.
The man always has something interesting to say and says it well. We'll miss you, Sluggo. If you need a soapbox drop me an e-mail.
The man always has something interesting to say and says it well. We'll miss you, Sluggo. If you need a soapbox drop me an e-mail.
Adwerks
Since you’ve sat through the nattering nabobbery about bad ads, it’s only fair to talk about what actually does work. Blinding Flash of the Obvious – I have no demographic info and could not begin to guess about my peer group, which seems to be “young fogey.” This is just what works for me, Joe Consumer, an 18-35 type with a decent job. By blog logic, this means that it automatically applies to all of you. (Implied consent, just by loading the page. See what Microsoft can do for you!)
In general, the good spots have the same hallmarks – they’re simple, clever, and fun. You can get away with two of the three, or even one if it’s the only thing you’re trying to do, but you can’t flub them all, or you wind up with one of the spots we mentioned in our last post.
A lot of them are also musical. There’s nothing like a snappy jingle to fix a slogan in the mind. People in my parents’ generation can rattle off the musical spots of their youth the way rappers drop f-bombs: Brylcreem, Alka-Seltzer, Band-Aid, Budweiser.*
It should come as no surprise that many of my favorites are radio ads. Example: there’s a series of racetrack spots that run on the local stations, where a spot-on track announcer calls various everyday events like a horse race. “Guys Night Out” is hands-down the best of these: “And here’s Beautiful Girl! Single Guy comes up on the rail, but Beautiful Girl pulls away! Oh, no! Here comes Cheesy Pickup Line! It’s Cheesy Pickup Line, immediately followed by Getalife, You’re a Creep, and In Your Dreams!”
In general, this brings up the make-or-break guideline, the thing that makes good concepts into great ads, or blown opportunities: pay attention to details. The pacing and tone of the announcer make the track spots: CHEE-sy pickup line! If he misses the emphasis or sounds a false note, the whole thing deflates like a week-old party balloon.
Just don't do it too well. Back in 1989, the New Jersey gubernatorial race featured radio ads with a simple, catchy, sing-song refrain – “Flo-ri-o! Flo-ri-o!” The announcer would give a Florio Fact and then the singers would do their little chirpy bit, and so on. Florio won, and was probably grateful for the spots, which did such a good job of wiring his name into the voters’ brains.
Problem is, Florio’s side didn’t run those ads. His opponent, Jim Courter, did. The facts weren’t very flattering, but because of the jingle, nobody remembered them. Haven’t heard a lot of political singing since then.
* my generation has a healthy share of snappy jingles too. “You Deserve a Break Today,” The Children’s Aid Society, Wild West City (link has sound – see what I mean?), singing pills (“We’re Not Candy!”), and the gold standard, Schoolhouse Rock.
In general, the good spots have the same hallmarks – they’re simple, clever, and fun. You can get away with two of the three, or even one if it’s the only thing you’re trying to do, but you can’t flub them all, or you wind up with one of the spots we mentioned in our last post.
A lot of them are also musical. There’s nothing like a snappy jingle to fix a slogan in the mind. People in my parents’ generation can rattle off the musical spots of their youth the way rappers drop f-bombs: Brylcreem, Alka-Seltzer, Band-Aid, Budweiser.*
It should come as no surprise that many of my favorites are radio ads. Example: there’s a series of racetrack spots that run on the local stations, where a spot-on track announcer calls various everyday events like a horse race. “Guys Night Out” is hands-down the best of these: “And here’s Beautiful Girl! Single Guy comes up on the rail, but Beautiful Girl pulls away! Oh, no! Here comes Cheesy Pickup Line! It’s Cheesy Pickup Line, immediately followed by Getalife, You’re a Creep, and In Your Dreams!”
In general, this brings up the make-or-break guideline, the thing that makes good concepts into great ads, or blown opportunities: pay attention to details. The pacing and tone of the announcer make the track spots: CHEE-sy pickup line! If he misses the emphasis or sounds a false note, the whole thing deflates like a week-old party balloon.
Just don't do it too well. Back in 1989, the New Jersey gubernatorial race featured radio ads with a simple, catchy, sing-song refrain – “Flo-ri-o! Flo-ri-o!” The announcer would give a Florio Fact and then the singers would do their little chirpy bit, and so on. Florio won, and was probably grateful for the spots, which did such a good job of wiring his name into the voters’ brains.
Problem is, Florio’s side didn’t run those ads. His opponent, Jim Courter, did. The facts weren’t very flattering, but because of the jingle, nobody remembered them. Haven’t heard a lot of political singing since then.
* my generation has a healthy share of snappy jingles too. “You Deserve a Break Today,” The Children’s Aid Society, Wild West City (link has sound – see what I mean?), singing pills (“We’re Not Candy!”), and the gold standard, Schoolhouse Rock.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Please don't buy my stuff
More anti-advertising:
A-1 Steak Sauce - ok, I'll give you the janitor running through 10 G's to urge the last drop of A-1 onto his steak. But the guy eating some other guy's steak right in a restaurant? It's just too realistically mean to be amusing. Pass.
Verizon - not entirely fair. They've had some good spots lately, but they made a serious misstep with the "We're hip kids filming a documentary" theme. First, it's been done recently (and more effectively) by Coke. Second, hip kids do not film documentaries about the great service people get from a multi-billion dollar phone company; they're much more likely to film documentaries about how those companies screw their customers, even if they have to invent facts to do it. Third, the Coke spots weren't really about Coke - they were about all the odd kids the hip kids "discovered" on their "documentary trip." Sure, the hip kids mostly discovered a lot of product placement for varieties of Coke - that is the whole point of advertising, after all - but the spots never just came out and said it, and that was the charm. Coke just "happened" to be in all these cool, offbeat places. Verizon utterly dropped this storytelling device, and exposed their own spots as shallow and crass.
(It doesn't help that the "Tax Tax Tax" spot has been running on a near-loop locally. It's the ad equivalent of Ali-Liston. Catchy, clear message... Verizon is over the barrel right now. James Earl Jones wept.)
ESPN Mobile - the first couple of these were cute, but again, we're beyond the point of saturation. Now the guy just comes off as a creepy loser: he won't go away, but he won't stop doing free ads for the very company that brushes him off. I picture Stuart Scott tied hand and foot in this guy's closet while he dances, Buffalo Bill style, chanting the SportsCenter theme.
Starburst - pretty much a chronic offender at this point, starting with the klepto spot, blazing into the final lap with the "What if you had no friends" spot, and sprinting through the tape with the latest, where someone drops his roll of candy into a tub of chemicals and his friend loses his arms trying to fish it out. Uh, if your arm's off, maybe the candy dissolved too? Maybe you can just fish 75¢ out from under your car seat and buy another roll? Then again, considering that the stuff is usually sharp enough to cut your gums to the bone if you bite down wrong, those guys may not have been as dumb as they looked.
Maybe next time I'll make up the difference and share some spots that I thought worked. At this time of night, though, we're moving to infomercial hell, so it will have to wait.
A-1 Steak Sauce - ok, I'll give you the janitor running through 10 G's to urge the last drop of A-1 onto his steak. But the guy eating some other guy's steak right in a restaurant? It's just too realistically mean to be amusing. Pass.
Verizon - not entirely fair. They've had some good spots lately, but they made a serious misstep with the "We're hip kids filming a documentary" theme. First, it's been done recently (and more effectively) by Coke. Second, hip kids do not film documentaries about the great service people get from a multi-billion dollar phone company; they're much more likely to film documentaries about how those companies screw their customers, even if they have to invent facts to do it. Third, the Coke spots weren't really about Coke - they were about all the odd kids the hip kids "discovered" on their "documentary trip." Sure, the hip kids mostly discovered a lot of product placement for varieties of Coke - that is the whole point of advertising, after all - but the spots never just came out and said it, and that was the charm. Coke just "happened" to be in all these cool, offbeat places. Verizon utterly dropped this storytelling device, and exposed their own spots as shallow and crass.
(It doesn't help that the "Tax Tax Tax" spot has been running on a near-loop locally. It's the ad equivalent of Ali-Liston. Catchy, clear message... Verizon is over the barrel right now. James Earl Jones wept.)
ESPN Mobile - the first couple of these were cute, but again, we're beyond the point of saturation. Now the guy just comes off as a creepy loser: he won't go away, but he won't stop doing free ads for the very company that brushes him off. I picture Stuart Scott tied hand and foot in this guy's closet while he dances, Buffalo Bill style, chanting the SportsCenter theme.
Starburst - pretty much a chronic offender at this point, starting with the klepto spot, blazing into the final lap with the "What if you had no friends" spot, and sprinting through the tape with the latest, where someone drops his roll of candy into a tub of chemicals and his friend loses his arms trying to fish it out. Uh, if your arm's off, maybe the candy dissolved too? Maybe you can just fish 75¢ out from under your car seat and buy another roll? Then again, considering that the stuff is usually sharp enough to cut your gums to the bone if you bite down wrong, those guys may not have been as dumb as they looked.
Maybe next time I'll make up the difference and share some spots that I thought worked. At this time of night, though, we're moving to infomercial hell, so it will have to wait.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
And by the way
The daily rounds have reminded me of two movies I forgot about when I did my list: Throw Momma From the Train and What About Bob? Really, missing that last is preposterous. Bill Murray is a genius, and Richard Dreyfuss gets a chance to show his comedy chops, which are considerable. For that matter, the kid who plays Sigmund (Dreyfuss's son in the film), Charles Korsmo, demonstrates what's possible for a good actor when he's not dragged down by a poorly-written, over-loud, gimcracky movie.
And by the way, I'd actually fogotten a little-known film that Crystal did in '80 that I must have seen as a boy about fifty times. This is one from the Overlooked Films Vault! Great voice cast. Listening to Crystal do both Ali AND Cosell in the boxing segment was funny even when I was eight. And the poor guy at the end of the marathon! "We had it all planned. Kitty Mambo dolls... Kitty Mambo vitamin pills..." (Pronounced vit-a-min - hahahaha!)
Oh, and fer cryin' out tears, The Dark Crystal.
And by the way, I'd actually fogotten a little-known film that Crystal did in '80 that I must have seen as a boy about fifty times. This is one from the Overlooked Films Vault! Great voice cast. Listening to Crystal do both Ali AND Cosell in the boxing segment was funny even when I was eight. And the poor guy at the end of the marathon! "We had it all planned. Kitty Mambo dolls... Kitty Mambo vitamin pills..." (Pronounced vit-a-min - hahahaha!)
Oh, and fer cryin' out tears, The Dark Crystal.
Why it's hard to be a Mets fan
...because they'd rather keep an easily-replaceable commodity like a good outfield prospect than try to acquire an All-Star quality starting pitcher like Barry Zito or Dontrelle Willis.
...because the current starting rotation is sort of like the Mouseketeers - Cubby, Annette, and a load of other guys you've never heard of.
...because Cubby and Annette are, respectively, 48-year old Pedro Martinez and 53-year old Tom Glavine.
...because, to bolster this group, the Mets recently acquired 72-year old Orlando Hernandez - and he's still better than Jose "Beans" Lima.
...because all of this is happening but I'm wasting all my bandwidth talking about Barry Blargin' Bonds - and all my off-line time researching him.
...because I don't get paid dime one for any of that bandwidth or research, while Skip Bayless is still profitably employed to yell stupidly at Woody Page on television, when he isn't condescending to all of us in his columns.
...because after the Braden Looper debacle last season, when he pitched the entire year without telling the team that he was injured and required surgery, Victor Zambrano wound up trying the same thing this season.
...because the team traded away Scott Kazmir for Zambrano, when he's not even the best pitcher among people with his last name.
...becuase now I get to watch Kazmir strike out 10 guys for Tampa every fifth day for the next fifteen years.
...because I miss Bob Murphy's broadcasts.
...because I'm afraid to talk about the resurgence of our center fielder - indeed, I fear to even name him lest my Sports Jinx powers inflict a dreadful freak injury. (Seriously, his head may pop off and fall over the centerfield wall like the first "Naked Gun.")
...because the Mets took two of three from the Yanks last week, but all anyone noticed was the game they blew a 4-0 lead in the ninth and lost.
...because, after the NHL playoffs (which I can't even watch anyway without OLN), all I've got until September is the inevitable "lost 11 of 14 games to drop behind the suddenly-hot Braves" story.
...because they have great home white uniforms, but insist on wearing the goofy stripes or the even goofier black jerseys at every opportunity.
...because, despite all of that, I will still watch and still live and die with them.
...because the current starting rotation is sort of like the Mouseketeers - Cubby, Annette, and a load of other guys you've never heard of.
...because Cubby and Annette are, respectively, 48-year old Pedro Martinez and 53-year old Tom Glavine.
...because, to bolster this group, the Mets recently acquired 72-year old Orlando Hernandez - and he's still better than Jose "Beans" Lima.
...because all of this is happening but I'm wasting all my bandwidth talking about Barry Blargin' Bonds - and all my off-line time researching him.
...because I don't get paid dime one for any of that bandwidth or research, while Skip Bayless is still profitably employed to yell stupidly at Woody Page on television, when he isn't condescending to all of us in his columns.
...because after the Braden Looper debacle last season, when he pitched the entire year without telling the team that he was injured and required surgery, Victor Zambrano wound up trying the same thing this season.
...because the team traded away Scott Kazmir for Zambrano, when he's not even the best pitcher among people with his last name.
...becuase now I get to watch Kazmir strike out 10 guys for Tampa every fifth day for the next fifteen years.
...because I miss Bob Murphy's broadcasts.
...because I'm afraid to talk about the resurgence of our center fielder - indeed, I fear to even name him lest my Sports Jinx powers inflict a dreadful freak injury. (Seriously, his head may pop off and fall over the centerfield wall like the first "Naked Gun.")
...because the Mets took two of three from the Yanks last week, but all anyone noticed was the game they blew a 4-0 lead in the ninth and lost.
...because, after the NHL playoffs (which I can't even watch anyway without OLN), all I've got until September is the inevitable "lost 11 of 14 games to drop behind the suddenly-hot Braves" story.
...because they have great home white uniforms, but insist on wearing the goofy stripes or the even goofier black jerseys at every opportunity.
...because, despite all of that, I will still watch and still live and die with them.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The fix is in
update, 5/24, 7:00 pm - at the request of a friend I've done the charts below a little differently than at first.
As promised, I have the results of my computer-run simulations.
To recap - ESPN's Patrick Hruby estimated here that, without pharmaceutic enhancement, Barry would have hit #616 the other day, rather than #714. To test this I ran off five simulated seasons as-is on High Heat 2001. (These would be years 2000-2004, based on career stats through 1999.) I did this for five trials and tabled the results. Then I "juiced" the cyber Bonds by going back to the beginning of 2000 and simply making him ten years younger, to fool the computer into thinking that he was back in his prime, and ran five trials that way.
The cyber Bonds was impressive enough, but, not surprisingly, he tailed off as time went on. In fact, in three of my five trials, he retired at the end of 2003, which means that I only have 23 seasons for him. He hit just over 38.5 homers in those years, though, and finished his career with a healthy 610 total, on average.
This jibes quite well with Hruby. Bonds has, in real life, only hit 10 homers since the end of 2004, which means that Hruby's estimates of the "unjuiced" bonds would be 606.
And if, in Hruby's words, we "throttle Father Time" as Bonds seems to have done?
Juiced Cyber Barry (we'll call him JCB for short) gained, on average, nearly 14 homers per season, hitting as many as 286 twice in five full trials, which would give him 703 at the end of 2004. (In real life, Bonds had 704. So far, so accurate.) And the further you go, the more grotesque it gets. The following charts, for example: the first gives the single-season highs for the clean cyber Barry vs. JCB in several major batting categories. The bottom line is the number of times out of 25 tries that JCB topped clean Barry.
..... hits avg db tr hr .slg rbi runs bb so* sb
Barry 178 .331 45 10 50 .700 148 135 153 70 _14
_JCB_ 196 .352 55_17 76 .836 175 169 171 75 _37
x over 7_ __7_ _7 _5 14 _16_ _5_ _11 _5_ xx _25
*For strikeouts, this is the lowest, not highest, number for a full year.
JCB topped boring old Barry in other measures as well. Unaltered Barry won two MVPs in the 23 years. JCB won thirteen - including one trial in which he won all five out of five years. The Giants (with unaltered Barry) won two World Series in 23 years. JCB's boys won four, and played in two others. JCB also won five batting titles and ten home run crowns, led the NL in RBI eleven times, and even managed to top the league in triples once. And, ludicrously, JCB stole 35 or more bases in a single season 15 times. Unaltered Barry stole fewer than that in four of the five full trials.
This second chart shows the average numbers per year for clean Barry and JCB.
...... hits .avg .db tr .hr. .slg .rbi. runs. walks .so* sb
Barry 155.4 .292 35.6 5 38.6 .594 109.6 114.4 129.8 88.4 _7
_JCB_ 169.8 .317 41.8 9 52.4 .722 136.8 134.0 141.6 93.2 37
JCB had had one freak season hitting only .258, a full 30 points lower than any of his other 24, and still hit 45 homers that year. About the only thing that remained the same was that in the playoffs, both Barry and JCB's numbers dropped sharply, hitting about 30 points lower each time.
Mr. Hruby, you have some backup. Excelsior.
As promised, I have the results of my computer-run simulations.
To recap - ESPN's Patrick Hruby estimated here that, without pharmaceutic enhancement, Barry would have hit #616 the other day, rather than #714. To test this I ran off five simulated seasons as-is on High Heat 2001. (These would be years 2000-2004, based on career stats through 1999.) I did this for five trials and tabled the results. Then I "juiced" the cyber Bonds by going back to the beginning of 2000 and simply making him ten years younger, to fool the computer into thinking that he was back in his prime, and ran five trials that way.
The cyber Bonds was impressive enough, but, not surprisingly, he tailed off as time went on. In fact, in three of my five trials, he retired at the end of 2003, which means that I only have 23 seasons for him. He hit just over 38.5 homers in those years, though, and finished his career with a healthy 610 total, on average.
This jibes quite well with Hruby. Bonds has, in real life, only hit 10 homers since the end of 2004, which means that Hruby's estimates of the "unjuiced" bonds would be 606.
And if, in Hruby's words, we "throttle Father Time" as Bonds seems to have done?
Juiced Cyber Barry (we'll call him JCB for short) gained, on average, nearly 14 homers per season, hitting as many as 286 twice in five full trials, which would give him 703 at the end of 2004. (In real life, Bonds had 704. So far, so accurate.) And the further you go, the more grotesque it gets. The following charts, for example: the first gives the single-season highs for the clean cyber Barry vs. JCB in several major batting categories. The bottom line is the number of times out of 25 tries that JCB topped clean Barry.
..... hits avg db tr hr .slg rbi runs bb so* sb
Barry 178 .331 45 10 50 .700 148 135 153 70 _14
_JCB_ 196 .352 55_17 76 .836 175 169 171 75 _37
x over 7_ __7_ _7 _5 14 _16_ _5_ _11 _5_ xx _25
*For strikeouts, this is the lowest, not highest, number for a full year.
JCB topped boring old Barry in other measures as well. Unaltered Barry won two MVPs in the 23 years. JCB won thirteen - including one trial in which he won all five out of five years. The Giants (with unaltered Barry) won two World Series in 23 years. JCB's boys won four, and played in two others. JCB also won five batting titles and ten home run crowns, led the NL in RBI eleven times, and even managed to top the league in triples once. And, ludicrously, JCB stole 35 or more bases in a single season 15 times. Unaltered Barry stole fewer than that in four of the five full trials.
This second chart shows the average numbers per year for clean Barry and JCB.
...... hits .avg .db tr .hr. .slg .rbi. runs. walks .so* sb
Barry 155.4 .292 35.6 5 38.6 .594 109.6 114.4 129.8 88.4 _7
_JCB_ 169.8 .317 41.8 9 52.4 .722 136.8 134.0 141.6 93.2 37
JCB had had one freak season hitting only .258, a full 30 points lower than any of his other 24, and still hit 45 homers that year. About the only thing that remained the same was that in the playoffs, both Barry and JCB's numbers dropped sharply, hitting about 30 points lower each time.
Mr. Hruby, you have some backup. Excelsior.
Monday, May 22, 2006
This may take a while
OK, I'm a bit more than halfway through the simulations. It's taking a little while. Soon I'll be able to start with some basic stuff like average season with and without the "juice." But I will say that, after running the first of five trials with a boosted Bonds, the difference is quite marked - he socked, on average, 13 more homers per season than he did in his unaltered years, which is about where I figured. More to come tomorrow...
Re-stirring the pot
In my fits of research about the surge in home runs, I never attempted to answer a basic question, now much on the mind since His Barryness has tied the Babe: how much of this is his prodigious natural talent, and how much is the juice?
Now, someone has attempted to answer. It isn't ever going to be 100% certain, of course, but I like that someone has started the discussion. Hruby's number - 616 homers for Bonds, sans drugs - seems sensible to me, but I don't think it's fair to leave it at that. I'm going to conduct an experiment on the ol' baseball simulator.
I'm going to go into my HH2001, which has all of the historical stats up to and including 1999. I will run the game for five seasons on full simulation (no human input) as-is, five times, and give you Bonds' career numbers each time; then I will edit his player profile to simulate the juice - I will make him ten years younger and repeat the experiment.
Based on having done this with a computer-generated player in the past, I can tell you what I expect: barring injuries, a jump of about 35-40 points in average, an extra 12-15 homers per year, and twice as many stolen bases. (Then again, at his peak Jimmy Howell was swiping 90 bags a year, a rate even Barry would envy.) Later this evening I will post the results.
Now, someone has attempted to answer. It isn't ever going to be 100% certain, of course, but I like that someone has started the discussion. Hruby's number - 616 homers for Bonds, sans drugs - seems sensible to me, but I don't think it's fair to leave it at that. I'm going to conduct an experiment on the ol' baseball simulator.
I'm going to go into my HH2001, which has all of the historical stats up to and including 1999. I will run the game for five seasons on full simulation (no human input) as-is, five times, and give you Bonds' career numbers each time; then I will edit his player profile to simulate the juice - I will make him ten years younger and repeat the experiment.
Based on having done this with a computer-generated player in the past, I can tell you what I expect: barring injuries, a jump of about 35-40 points in average, an extra 12-15 homers per year, and twice as many stolen bases. (Then again, at his peak Jimmy Howell was swiping 90 bags a year, a rate even Barry would envy.) Later this evening I will post the results.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Ducky
This is a guest post from the eldest child of a family friend. The poem deserves some extra attention. -NF
There was a little ducky and he sat upon a log
He was angry with his quack because it sounded like a frog
He had a mental breakdown and he jumped into the pond
Where he met a little fishy with a bright and shiny wand
Ducky wants a normal quack and so he did complain
Fishy coughed *conformist!* - "But I'll make your quack the same."
He told the Duck to close his eyes and quickly spin around
But duck got dizzy
Gasped for breath
And sadly Ducky drowned
There was a little ducky and he sat upon a log
He was angry with his quack because it sounded like a frog
He had a mental breakdown and he jumped into the pond
Where he met a little fishy with a bright and shiny wand
Ducky wants a normal quack and so he did complain
Fishy coughed *conformist!* - "But I'll make your quack the same."
He told the Duck to close his eyes and quickly spin around
But duck got dizzy
Gasped for breath
And sadly Ducky drowned
Friday, May 19, 2006
Good, clean fun
Top Ten Things That "Vulture 6" Could Be -
10. A secret society dedicated to the militant preservation of avian species
9. The probe that threatened to zap the Earth unless Kirk and Co. produced the Creator
8. The Buzzard Planet
7. A character they planned to introduce on the American version of "Battle of the Planets" (why do you think they called that stupid robot "7 Zark 7?")
6. A secret society that James Bond defeated
5. The long-forgotten, ill-concieved American Motors sports car (and which ironically had five, not six, cylinders)
4. Something Voltron blew up once
3. A Duran Duran/David Bowie concept album that never quite came off
2. What? You never played Vulture 1-5? Are you kidding?
and the number one thing Vulture 6 could be:
A houseboat with eligible bloggers - in Miami Beach!
Anyone want to pick on someone else? My comments are open.
10. A secret society dedicated to the militant preservation of avian species
9. The probe that threatened to zap the Earth unless Kirk and Co. produced the Creator
8. The Buzzard Planet
7. A character they planned to introduce on the American version of "Battle of the Planets" (why do you think they called that stupid robot "7 Zark 7?")
6. A secret society that James Bond defeated
5. The long-forgotten, ill-concieved American Motors sports car (and which ironically had five, not six, cylinders)
4. Something Voltron blew up once
3. A Duran Duran/David Bowie concept album that never quite came off
2. What? You never played Vulture 1-5? Are you kidding?
and the number one thing Vulture 6 could be:
A houseboat with eligible bloggers - in Miami Beach!
Anyone want to pick on someone else? My comments are open.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Movie Tag Again
** update, May 19, 5-ish pm - changed below to reflect V's comments.
Well, Vulture 6 has put out a"Top 100 Films Ever" "100 Repeatedly-Rewatchable Films" post, and part of the post involved tagging fellow bloggers for their picks, and I made the cut. The problem is that I already did this last year, a list of 31, and in order to triple the size I'd be diluting the content.
That gives me a problem. I don't want to disappoint, especially a guy with the bloghandle "Vulture 6." How about this - I will do another small list of films not on the first list, but following the same criteria. In fact, we'll just call it "Some Stuff I'm Shocked I Missed." My only defense is that the original tag only asked for a month of movies. (Therfore, my new month shall be called Double Featurary.)
1. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Disney) - this thing must have run on a loop on the Disney Channel in the early days, and I saw it nearly every single time.
2. Big Fish - Tim Burton saved all of the color from every movie he'd previously made and used it in this.
3. Blazing Saddles - you can just fill in your own quotes here. _________________________
4. A Christmas Story - I simply can't believe this isn't on the first list. It's actually shameful. I could recite about 70% of it right now. What was I thinking?
5. Ghostbusters - despite the theme song of Ray Parker Jr., already established in this space as a rip-off jockey.
6. Godfather I & II - yeah, and now this. But I do have a defense; or rather, I have an embarrassing admission rather than omission. Turth is, I'd never actually SEEN these movies in their proper form - only in snippets here and there, back and forth, filling in gaps as I could. I'd seen all the scenes at least twice but not the actual movies. Well - now I have, and here they are.
7. The Iron Giant - a fine movie, quite overlooked (but for that meme, see here, and also over here).
8. Jackie Brown - most people say Pulp Fiction, I guess, but I saw this first, and as a result it has pride of place in the Hive. It was, in a way, the least Tarantinic of Tarantino's films. It also has a killer cast in all the important roles, as is his way.
9. Lady and the Tramp - as you can see, I spent a lot of my childhood watching Disney. This is really a great, warm-hearted film.
10. Pixar in general - Incredibles was on the last list; may as well throw the rest into the mix now. (Even A Bug's Life.) The end to Monsters Inc. always makes the Hive a little dusty. They just know how to do a story well. (No surprise that Brad Bird did Iron Giant before coming to Pixar.)
11. The Princess Bride - more shameful omission. Inconceivable! (Luckily AMC is currently running it every 27 minutes.)
12. Rocky I - III - the first film was amazing on a great many levels. Between that and First Blood it's actually surprising that Sly Stallone devolved into a mere action hero and did utter craptaculars like Judge Dredd. The guy wrote ROCKY for cryin' out tears. I'm not saying that he should be doing Shakespeare, but really. "Yo, Juliet, is dat you in da winnow, dere?"
13. The Untouchables - after four tries of typing a Connery quote in Connery's phonetics, I gave up. We will just have to agree to disagree...
14. When We Were Kings - the documentary of the leadup to the Rumble in the Jungle. Truly amazing.
15. The Wizard of Oz - this deserves a separate post, sometime.
And here I break with tradition. I don't like tagging others. Believe it if you need it; if you don't just pass it on.
Well, Vulture 6 has put out a
That gives me a problem. I don't want to disappoint, especially a guy with the bloghandle "Vulture 6." How about this - I will do another small list of films not on the first list, but following the same criteria. In fact, we'll just call it "Some Stuff I'm Shocked I Missed." My only defense is that the original tag only asked for a month of movies. (Therfore, my new month shall be called Double Featurary.)
1. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Disney) - this thing must have run on a loop on the Disney Channel in the early days, and I saw it nearly every single time.
2. Big Fish - Tim Burton saved all of the color from every movie he'd previously made and used it in this.
3. Blazing Saddles - you can just fill in your own quotes here. _________________________
4. A Christmas Story - I simply can't believe this isn't on the first list. It's actually shameful. I could recite about 70% of it right now. What was I thinking?
5. Ghostbusters - despite the theme song of Ray Parker Jr., already established in this space as a rip-off jockey.
6. Godfather I & II - yeah, and now this. But I do have a defense; or rather, I have an embarrassing admission rather than omission. Turth is, I'd never actually SEEN these movies in their proper form - only in snippets here and there, back and forth, filling in gaps as I could. I'd seen all the scenes at least twice but not the actual movies. Well - now I have, and here they are.
7. The Iron Giant - a fine movie, quite overlooked (but for that meme, see here, and also over here).
8. Jackie Brown - most people say Pulp Fiction, I guess, but I saw this first, and as a result it has pride of place in the Hive. It was, in a way, the least Tarantinic of Tarantino's films. It also has a killer cast in all the important roles, as is his way.
9. Lady and the Tramp - as you can see, I spent a lot of my childhood watching Disney. This is really a great, warm-hearted film.
10. Pixar in general - Incredibles was on the last list; may as well throw the rest into the mix now. (Even A Bug's Life.) The end to Monsters Inc. always makes the Hive a little dusty. They just know how to do a story well. (No surprise that Brad Bird did Iron Giant before coming to Pixar.)
11. The Princess Bride - more shameful omission. Inconceivable! (Luckily AMC is currently running it every 27 minutes.)
12. Rocky I - III - the first film was amazing on a great many levels. Between that and First Blood it's actually surprising that Sly Stallone devolved into a mere action hero and did utter craptaculars like Judge Dredd. The guy wrote ROCKY for cryin' out tears. I'm not saying that he should be doing Shakespeare, but really. "Yo, Juliet, is dat you in da winnow, dere?"
13. The Untouchables - after four tries of typing a Connery quote in Connery's phonetics, I gave up. We will just have to agree to disagree...
14. When We Were Kings - the documentary of the leadup to the Rumble in the Jungle. Truly amazing.
15. The Wizard of Oz - this deserves a separate post, sometime.
And here I break with tradition. I don't like tagging others. Believe it if you need it; if you don't just pass it on.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Case in point
Two generations' worth of thinking like this leaves you wide open, doesn't it?
In other words, if we enforce our laws we will be sued in our own courts by a foreign power. What's worse is that they have a reasonable expectation that these courts will step in to order that the National Guard stand down. That's the lack of confidence we have as a society - our own courts may well tell us to ignore our laws and compromise our sovereignty.
(w/t to the Coalition of the Swilling - whom I wish hadn't so quickly illustrated my point.)
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Mexico said Tuesday that it would file lawsuits in U.S. courts if National Guard troops on the border become directly involved in detaining migrants.
In other words, if we enforce our laws we will be sued in our own courts by a foreign power. What's worse is that they have a reasonable expectation that these courts will step in to order that the National Guard stand down. That's the lack of confidence we have as a society - our own courts may well tell us to ignore our laws and compromise our sovereignty.
(w/t to the Coalition of the Swilling - whom I wish hadn't so quickly illustrated my point.)
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
No truth, no dare
My brain's been working over this piece that the Derb wrote for NRO yesterday.
I must admit, up front, that I've not read Lolita, and that I know little of it save Sting's lyric:
Luckily for me, John Darbyshire isn't really lasered in on the 'theme' of the story so much as our reactions to it: "It is of course a dreadful story, of awful crimes narrated by the criminal. Like all criminals, Humbert is a solipsist, a person who does not really believe in the existence of anything outside of himself... The more you get to know him, in fact, the more unpleasant things you uncover." His point is that Nabokov aims for something that makes us uncomfortable - for something that led many to reject publishing the novel at all back in 1955 - that we recognize Humbert's humanity, distorted and self-defaced as it is. And that's where Derb gets into the meat of his own critique - not of the novel, which he loves ("dreadful" refers to the character, not Nabokov's writing), but of our society:
I'd love Darbyshire's writing regardless, for the lovely last sentence of that quote, but in this case (like so many others) his aim is true. We are timid when it comes to seeing and recognizing real evil (such as that which confronts us in Nabokov) because we've been detached from the truths of our nature, both the gross and the fine. In fact, one reason I love Derb's writing is that he is the perfect Chestertonian Pessimist - the man who, for the sake of preserving the good, stands to remind us of the ways that good can go wrong, and the likelihood that it shall.
In this case, it's good already gone to seed. One of the things our society recoils from is the thought that evil is free choice. "He must be crazy," we say of the sociopath. "They must be poor," we say of the thieves. "They're oppressed and marginalized," we say of gangs or terrorists. And we act accordingly - understanding the criminal and analyzing the crimes, seeking ever to soothe, mollify, and include. We no longer recognize what is painfully obvious - it is not we that reject such people, but they who reject us. Crime is a veto cast against decency and civilization.
To even say that now is considered harsh, much less actually taking such behavior at its word and punishing it. Criminals are unkind and we shouldn't be like them. Terrorists kill and we shouldn't be like them. Humbert is a monster and we shouldn't be like him. All fine and good - but how are criminals, terrorists, and monsters to understand their cruelty if there is no consequence to it? We don't even have the half-understanding of the criminal, who realizes that crime demands a stern response and laughs at the indulgence of the "tolerant" that permits him to remain a wolf among the sheep, not even bothering to disguise himself. At the very least, we could see the obvious - that doing more than merely punishing criminals by definition cannot omit the punishment.
Humbert could correct us, if we let him. He is human, all in all - and as such stands as testament to what we could become if we are not careful about good and evil. This helps explain our squeamishness. We are unwilling to think of evil as a choice that a person may make, because it would open up the terrible possibility that we may go wrong by our choices, and become brigands and lawbreakers ourselves. We call it illness instead of selfishness so that our own indulgences don't trouble us as much: "Oh, I could never rob a bank." Or, "Well, if I was starving I could rob a bank" - which is the same thing from the other end, that if our plight was bad enough we wouldn't be to blame, any more than those who've already been tried and convicted. In both cases, the choice is shunted aside and all we are left with are circumstances and tendencies, conveniently outside of our control. "Must not be like him" becomes a self-fulfilling pipe dream.
The conclusion is not a stumper. Drop away circumstances and there is no difference between good and evil acts. Removing vice from the picture removes virtue from our own reach. Derb could tell you what's next:
I must admit, up front, that I've not read Lolita, and that I know little of it save Sting's lyric:
It's no use, he sees her
He starts to shake and cough
Just like the old man in
That book by Nabokov
Luckily for me, John Darbyshire isn't really lasered in on the 'theme' of the story so much as our reactions to it: "It is of course a dreadful story, of awful crimes narrated by the criminal. Like all criminals, Humbert is a solipsist, a person who does not really believe in the existence of anything outside of himself... The more you get to know him, in fact, the more unpleasant things you uncover." His point is that Nabokov aims for something that makes us uncomfortable - for something that led many to reject publishing the novel at all back in 1955 - that we recognize Humbert's humanity, distorted and self-defaced as it is. And that's where Derb gets into the meat of his own critique - not of the novel, which he loves ("dreadful" refers to the character, not Nabokov's writing), but of our society:
Ah, the realities of life! Was there ever a civilization more uncomfortable with them than ours is today? Humbert Humbert is a monster and a sociopath. He was a human monster, though, and a human sociopath. His monstrousnesses are hypertrophied growths of our own flaws... It is all too much for our prim, sissified, feminized, swooning, emoting, mealy-mouthed, litigation-whipped, 'diversity'-terrorized, race-and-'gender'-panicked society. We shudder and turn away, or write an angry e-mail. The America of 1958, with all its shortcomings, was saltier, wiser, closer to the flesh and the bone and the wet earth, less fearful of itself.
I'd love Darbyshire's writing regardless, for the lovely last sentence of that quote, but in this case (like so many others) his aim is true. We are timid when it comes to seeing and recognizing real evil (such as that which confronts us in Nabokov) because we've been detached from the truths of our nature, both the gross and the fine. In fact, one reason I love Derb's writing is that he is the perfect Chestertonian Pessimist - the man who, for the sake of preserving the good, stands to remind us of the ways that good can go wrong, and the likelihood that it shall.
In this case, it's good already gone to seed. One of the things our society recoils from is the thought that evil is free choice. "He must be crazy," we say of the sociopath. "They must be poor," we say of the thieves. "They're oppressed and marginalized," we say of gangs or terrorists. And we act accordingly - understanding the criminal and analyzing the crimes, seeking ever to soothe, mollify, and include. We no longer recognize what is painfully obvious - it is not we that reject such people, but they who reject us. Crime is a veto cast against decency and civilization.
To even say that now is considered harsh, much less actually taking such behavior at its word and punishing it. Criminals are unkind and we shouldn't be like them. Terrorists kill and we shouldn't be like them. Humbert is a monster and we shouldn't be like him. All fine and good - but how are criminals, terrorists, and monsters to understand their cruelty if there is no consequence to it? We don't even have the half-understanding of the criminal, who realizes that crime demands a stern response and laughs at the indulgence of the "tolerant" that permits him to remain a wolf among the sheep, not even bothering to disguise himself. At the very least, we could see the obvious - that doing more than merely punishing criminals by definition cannot omit the punishment.
Humbert could correct us, if we let him. He is human, all in all - and as such stands as testament to what we could become if we are not careful about good and evil. This helps explain our squeamishness. We are unwilling to think of evil as a choice that a person may make, because it would open up the terrible possibility that we may go wrong by our choices, and become brigands and lawbreakers ourselves. We call it illness instead of selfishness so that our own indulgences don't trouble us as much: "Oh, I could never rob a bank." Or, "Well, if I was starving I could rob a bank" - which is the same thing from the other end, that if our plight was bad enough we wouldn't be to blame, any more than those who've already been tried and convicted. In both cases, the choice is shunted aside and all we are left with are circumstances and tendencies, conveniently outside of our control. "Must not be like him" becomes a self-fulfilling pipe dream.
The conclusion is not a stumper. Drop away circumstances and there is no difference between good and evil acts. Removing vice from the picture removes virtue from our own reach. Derb could tell you what's next:
Our women dress like sluts; our kids are taught about buggery in elementary school; "wardrobe malfunctions" expose to prime-time TV viewers body parts customarily covered in public...; songs about pimps rise to the top of the pop music charts; yet so far as anything to do with the actual reality of actual human nature is concerned, we are as prim and shockable as a bunch of Quaker schoolmarms. After 40 years of lying to ourselves, we are now terrified of the truth.
Monday, May 15, 2006
The color of homers
Warning - first-class ranting here. (w/t to WunderKraut)
I had an old old website (pre-blog) in which I tried to make sense of Barry's juiced numbers from 2001. The only analogue I could find was a fellow named Steve Madden, ironically a Pirate, whose cartoon numbers defied description: something like .390, 62 hr, 167 rbi, crap like that. Of course, the reason that Madden's numbers were cartoonish was because that's literally what he was. His monster year came in 2024 on High Heat Baseball. And, this being HHBB, the pitchers weren't smart enough to walk him in the early innings with men on.
I'd like to say that I smelled a rat when Sosa and McGwire were off to the races (no pun intended) in 1998. I'd like to say that McGwire's stretch from 89-94 in Oakland made any renaissance suspect. This would be untrue. It was a myth we could still indulge, that of the proud athlete rising back up and showing his old form for one last glorious run. Hadn't he rebounded before the trade to St. Louis? Hadn't he hit 49 homers as a rookie?
Yes, and yes. Only in hindsight does it seem odd that we thought of that as the true player, and not the man who spent a substantial part of the time hitting .230 when he wasn't injured. The rookie phenom was the flash in the pan - the other guy was a mainstay. In fact, McGwire was probably much more in the Kingman/Balboni mold until the andro. And according to Game of Shadows, that's why Bonds - one of the five best players on the planet before '98 - decided to give in and juice up. Below are his numbers if he'd chosen to retire instead:
..G. .AB. Runs Hits .2b 3b .HR .RBI .BB. .K.. .SB .AVG .SLG
1898 6621 1364 1917 403 63 411 1216 1357 1050 445 .290 .556
Hall-of-Fame lock, I'd say. But the siren song was too much for him, as for so many others. I did some reasearch a way way back and found, not only that the top numbers were rising, but also the middle numbers. (Scroll down to the table. This trend held last season as well, with 77 guys hitting at least 20.)
So, coming back to our original ranting - are we all a bunch of Jim Crows for giving McGwire the pass, and not Bonds? Of course not. McGwire had a good chance of duping us at the time - but fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. (Fool him limitless times, shame on Skip Bayless.) McGwire's singing the Fifth Symphony in front of Congress left the erstwhile Bunyan looking much more like a big blue ox, so it's not like he (or Jason Giambi) are suddenly getting a wink and a nod. Same with Raffy Palmiero, whose career ended in a maelstrom of jokes conflating the drugs he endorsed with the ones he actually took.
My thoughts here keep coming back to Ken Griffey. He, too, was incandescent - and then he, too, was injured, and sent from AL to NL. He's rallied, hitting 35 homers last season. He's a guy that people root for, who has genuine love for the game, who keeps coming back, and who seems alone among the myriad current-day sluggers in that he seems to have done it with his own prodigious talent and not pharmaceutically.
The real color to note here is green. Palmiero had already met the 3000 hit and 500 homer milestones; as a result there was nothing else the Orioles could gain from his continued employment. Bonds, however, still has the Ruthian Ghost, and perhaps Hammerin' Hank by year's end. Therefore the Giants will use Bonds as blithely as he used the juice, much as baseball at large has done until last season. The dragon has a leash, and after his fire is spent, it will be safe to discard him - but not before. That's not racial, its just reality.
I had an old old website (pre-blog) in which I tried to make sense of Barry's juiced numbers from 2001. The only analogue I could find was a fellow named Steve Madden, ironically a Pirate, whose cartoon numbers defied description: something like .390, 62 hr, 167 rbi, crap like that. Of course, the reason that Madden's numbers were cartoonish was because that's literally what he was. His monster year came in 2024 on High Heat Baseball. And, this being HHBB, the pitchers weren't smart enough to walk him in the early innings with men on.
I'd like to say that I smelled a rat when Sosa and McGwire were off to the races (no pun intended) in 1998. I'd like to say that McGwire's stretch from 89-94 in Oakland made any renaissance suspect. This would be untrue. It was a myth we could still indulge, that of the proud athlete rising back up and showing his old form for one last glorious run. Hadn't he rebounded before the trade to St. Louis? Hadn't he hit 49 homers as a rookie?
Yes, and yes. Only in hindsight does it seem odd that we thought of that as the true player, and not the man who spent a substantial part of the time hitting .230 when he wasn't injured. The rookie phenom was the flash in the pan - the other guy was a mainstay. In fact, McGwire was probably much more in the Kingman/Balboni mold until the andro. And according to Game of Shadows, that's why Bonds - one of the five best players on the planet before '98 - decided to give in and juice up. Below are his numbers if he'd chosen to retire instead:
..G. .AB. Runs Hits .2b 3b .HR .RBI .BB. .K.. .SB .AVG .SLG
1898 6621 1364 1917 403 63 411 1216 1357 1050 445 .290 .556
Hall-of-Fame lock, I'd say. But the siren song was too much for him, as for so many others. I did some reasearch a way way back and found, not only that the top numbers were rising, but also the middle numbers. (Scroll down to the table. This trend held last season as well, with 77 guys hitting at least 20.)
So, coming back to our original ranting - are we all a bunch of Jim Crows for giving McGwire the pass, and not Bonds? Of course not. McGwire had a good chance of duping us at the time - but fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. (Fool him limitless times, shame on Skip Bayless.) McGwire's singing the Fifth Symphony in front of Congress left the erstwhile Bunyan looking much more like a big blue ox, so it's not like he (or Jason Giambi) are suddenly getting a wink and a nod. Same with Raffy Palmiero, whose career ended in a maelstrom of jokes conflating the drugs he endorsed with the ones he actually took.
My thoughts here keep coming back to Ken Griffey. He, too, was incandescent - and then he, too, was injured, and sent from AL to NL. He's rallied, hitting 35 homers last season. He's a guy that people root for, who has genuine love for the game, who keeps coming back, and who seems alone among the myriad current-day sluggers in that he seems to have done it with his own prodigious talent and not pharmaceutically.
The real color to note here is green. Palmiero had already met the 3000 hit and 500 homer milestones; as a result there was nothing else the Orioles could gain from his continued employment. Bonds, however, still has the Ruthian Ghost, and perhaps Hammerin' Hank by year's end. Therefore the Giants will use Bonds as blithely as he used the juice, much as baseball at large has done until last season. The dragon has a leash, and after his fire is spent, it will be safe to discard him - but not before. That's not racial, its just reality.
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