My book that I was writing is not any good. I'm done with my novel, I think. I'm gonna do some more practice in this training canvas. I'm putting this back up but am 100% moving away from politicky stuff. This blog is more fun and humorful these days. I took out about 50 old essays ... some are really good and I like them but I don't want to taint this humor blog with hornet nest topics anymore. I used to dive right into veritable hornets nests of topics and swim around in them until we weeded out some common ground. That's a big headache doing that, it really is. When it came to satire, I hit some big nests too, national ones, religious ones, economic ones. I went for high hanging fruit in the old days with "dig out" essays and "hornet kicker" essays ... not low hangin' fruit.
As you can see from the logo above... this is a NEW blog. It's more good and more better and way more Strongaaa/Stronger than the last blog. This is no longer "Writing on Subjects" or even "Writings on Subjects 2.0" ... this is now .... "New Writings On Subjects II Stronger."
I really get worried that if I don't write stuff that I will just forget how to do it. So let's write stuff. I am really just re-opening this for the sake of Writing and there's not really any sort of incredible goal or format to this blog any longer. I'm openly Writing for practice and Writing for the sake of understanding it as an art.
I re-read an essay by Edgar Allan Poe last month,
The Philosophy of Composition by Edgar Allan Poe
.... and I found it to be really fascinating. You think that he was just some emo-guy churning out greasy kid stuff but he had a severely logical approach to his poems. He really knew what to work with writing. All the things he did were done with reason and rhyme. Writing about Writing.
So, the Writings in here are going to be experimental exercises from here on for the most part. Many of the old ones were that too but it was never really stated that that's what I was going for. In the sense of Poe's Philosophy of Composition, I want to try and be more literal with the experiments I'm trying out in here. Instead of just doing them, I am going to spell out to the audience what I'm going for so there's less room for misinterpretation.
In the old days, if I tried some whacky character as a base setting for the narration of the essay and it didn't work ... then it just looks stupid. Or, if I buried myself deep for a "dig out" and didn't successfully dig out then I just come across as being a terrible person. Or, if I tried whacking around a hornets nest and a bunch of hornets just flew out and stung me then that ended in a failure too.
One essay I still like is "Bees" from this blog ... which is a Hornet Nester in an almost literal sense. You probably now in 2019 wouldn't believe it was a "hornets nest" topic but Bees was a big whacky deal for a while with adherents claiming that we are killing them and that humans couldn't survive without bees and this and that. It was funny to me that a hornet nester topic was just so literal there ... a hornetter about bees.
Okay, anyways, so, what's today's Writing experiment you ask?
Well, over the last 3ish or so months that this blog was under Deep Hiatus ... I traveled the entirety of Canada for the second time in my life. Now that I am back I will engage in a very Jack Kerouacian form of Writing training which is pretty unstructured and free form. "On The Road" by Kerouac was written by Jack after he returned from traveling and just punched keys on his type writer onto an almost endlessly long sheet of paper. He called his texts "scrolls" I think because they were long sheets of paper that he just shredded keys on his type writer to and never had to think of changing the paper. Of course, anyone under a certain age will not know what a type writer was and not understand a word of that but that's okay.
I used a type writer when I was a kid. I was very young too. I was probably three or four when I would use a type writer. I used to try to emulate the baseball boxscores from the newspaper and try to make my own where my favorite players got more Hs and Rs and RBIs. Even typing on a keyboard to this day .... I swear I smell ink. I do. It's just in my brain from when I was a little kid and punching keys on something like this you'd get ink on your hands from touching parts of the type writer that you weren't supposed to touch. My computer keyboard as I punch keys even now smells like ink! It's wild.
I worked with a Kerouac style VERY briefly in this blog at one point. The experiment was 40% Kerouac and 60% Mojo Nixon. Mojo has stated on many occasions that one of his main influences was Jack Kerouac so it felt like a fitting mix. It was not a long piece and I doubt anyone would've picked up the Kerouac style from it but the punctuation is definitely Kerouacian in that one.
Kerouac is only 1/3 of the influencees of this following exercise however. Another of the beat generation will be incorporated. Not Ginsberg or what's-the-other-guy though. To be honest, I'm not a fan of beat writing and not even a big fan of Kerouac (even though today's exercise is 33% based on his style). I really feel that the beat generation of "diggers" who "dig everything" fall into familiar patterns of over description of every little thing around them (even wrote 'bout it once). I understand that hippies can find a way to "dig" everything but does "digging" the "vibe" of some "scene, man" really make for good writing all the time? Not really. The other beat generation fellow being channeled in the following story is Jean Shepherd (and putting him in the beat generation is done loosely, that is not really his main category).
Shep does appear as a character in On the Road by Kerouac under a different name so he was part of that scene, man. For sure. He's a big Writer to me. A Writer's Writer. Most people just know him from the Christmas Story but over the last two decades I've on-and-off listened to archived radio broadcasts of his and read his books. The Christmas Story is actually pieced together from various chapters of his "In God We Trust - All Others Must Pay Cash" book. I gave more than a hint that Shep was an influence to this blog in "Stayin' Up All Night? Oh That's All Right" which was an essay trying to prove that staying up all night is all right.
One thing I liked about Jean's radio show was the bouncing from topic to topic weekly without care. One night's show could be about how to make some french cocktail and then next night's show would be about how he spilt oil on someone's car as a kid but blamed it on someone else. It really seemed like it had no structure even though it was actually a very concise composition of very structured words each week. It was real Yin Yang stuff, man.
The third style that we will incorporate into today's exercise is the surreal stylings of The Stone (free online novella) by late Residents composer Hardy Fox which is a very surreal journey through a dreamscape setting where the only structure to the piece is that it is tethered to a Buddhist quote about this bird who thinks this Stone is just a piece of liver.
Alright, so, what have we got? We're gonna do a short story today ... and it is 33% Jack Kerouac, 33% Jean Shepherd, and 33% Hardy Fox.
In the sense that....
It is a free form scroll churned out without pause written by a person who's just returned from a journey and is trying to remember everything that happened in a flurry of words (Kerouac).
It is also a reminiscent piece about childhood memories ... some true, some half-true, and some totally made up (Shepherd).
It is lastly a piece that is barely tethered to reality and seems almost dream-like in nature (Fox).
Okay... I really don't friggin' know how this short story is gonna turn out. I'm not gonna write it all in one sitting. I think like "The Swamp" one I wrote last year it'll be done in a trilogy. Let's start the first part right now before I realize that this is a bad idea and not do it.
Look, I'm gonna jam this down now, and if you follow me on this Journey so be it ... but I'm not promising that these styles will mix up well AT ALL, okay? I mean this is down right experimental stuff here now.
Okay, Let's go:
The Journey - Part 1 (of 3?)
-A short story by D.
As you know I have been traveling, I have journeyed deep up north into the wilds of Northern Canada. It is a pretty Human Journey that I embarked on and it is cold and difficult in many ways, it is. My goal is to mediate upon a coupla mountains in hopes of coming to some deepest-most understanding of the World.
As of this moment, I am currently in Lac des Deux Montagnes, Quebec (Lake of Two Mountains) ... which is pretty Up North but not like super-duper Up North. I just started my journey yester-week so you can't expect me to be like in the Tundra yet, you know? I just finished an interesting conversation with one of the locals in this here Tea House....
"Ca va?" the aged gentleman asked of me.
"Oui, ca va monsieur." I replied.
"Tu écris quelque chose"? He asked.
"Moi? Oui, j'écris dans mon blog sur l'internet," I told him.
"Ecriture est une chose merveilleuse, n'est-ce pas? De quoi écrit tu?" He wondered.
"Je marche vers le nord et j'écris à ce sujet," I replied.
"Hmmmmmmm. Que fais-tu là-bas? Au nord?" He then asked.
"Oh, je vais juste grimper des montagnes et regarder autour de moi quand j'arrive au sommet des montagnes," is what I told 'em.
"Wow, ça a l'air amusant ça," He said sarcastically.
"J'ai déjà commencé ici à Lac des Deux Montagnes," I said.
"Pourquoi?" He asked.
"Eh bien, une montagne? C'est pas assez pour moi. J'ai besoin deux..." I began before he cut me off.
"DEUX? Pourquoi vous besoin DEUX montagnes??" He asked.
"Bien, Je peux avoir plus de réflexion avec deux ..." I started but he cut me off again.
"Plus de réflexion avec deux montagnes?" He said.
"Oui, comme, je grimpe l'un des d'eux ... regarde autour de moi et réfléchis à quelque chose ... quand je réalise quelque chose ... je redescends ... grimpe l'autre ... réalise quelque chose d'autre ... et puis redescendre encore." I explained.
"Hmmm. Logique. Oui. C'est logique là, bien oui....."
I wasn't joking, that's what I did yesterday. I climbed up the first of the two of the Lake of Two Mountains's mountains and then just looked around until I came to one of life's most amazing conclusions and then I walked back down again, took a little breath, and then climbed up the adjascent mountain, came to a second of one of life's most amazing conclusions and then came right back on down again.
On the second mountain's descent, about half way down, I actually even came to a third of life's most amazing conclusions which was cool because that mountain (the second of Lake of Two Mountains's mountains) was like a two-for-one special is what it was. The third wicked life conclusion I came to half way down the mountain was a biggie too ... it wasn't like just an average one. It was a real shaker-upper. The third one shook me up real good.
After three big time Life Conclusions I felt it was time to move on from Lac Des Deux Montagnes so I did. I think I'm gonna log on out of this here Tea House and start walking more Norther and pretty Westwardly too I might add. North West ... that's where I'm off to.
I'll tell you something about walking. It's hard, but I've done it so much that it is very natural to me. Walking is the way to travel for this old goat. One day maybe my legs will be worser for wear and I won't be able to do a whole lotta walking ... but for now? I just huff offa one flat foot and on to the other, brother. Offa one and onta the otha. A one, a two, a one, a two, a one, a two .... 1- 2-1-2-1 -2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2 -1-2-1-2. Walking has a beat n' a rythym that hits naturally once you get a stride and a bounce brewin' and then it's auto-pilot from there. Well, until you hit an intersection then you gotta break rythym and look both ways and try not to get runned over. Your stride can get broken here and there but once you look ahead and it's just a straight old line on the foreseeable horizon you can brew up your stride again......
One. Two. One. Two. One.... and Two.....
....and think 'bout stuff. Will we win? Will we lose? Will we learn something? Will we get runned over? What about all that stuff about the guy with the........
One. Two. One. Two. One.... and Two.....
You can't just walk aimlessly though. You need to have at least some idea of where you're headed. "North West" is almost enough of a goal post to march towards but it's good to check the map and circle a town that sounds interesting. It's pretty random the locations I circle as goal posts. Why did I walk to Lake of Two Mountains as my first mark? Just because I thought it was cool that this lake had two mountains ... that's all. No real big reason.
Hmmmm... what's next? Let's see here ... how about ... Cornwall, Ontario? Sounds good. Why? Because Cornwall is a goofy name that's why.
I remember being in Cornwall a coupla times in my life. When I was a kid I was there with my parents and sister. We asked some local Cornwallian for directions (this was the 80s before like phones and googles and pip-boys and whatnot). Back then you met local people on these journeys because travel was just you and maybe a paper road map. The kid had a pretty whacky way of speaking and when we were done and drove off we all kind of laughed ... even my mother. We used to bug my mother for many years after that for laughing at that poor poor boy with the speech impediment. It was just one of those things we knew we could bug her with. Even though we all laughed we would always say things like "Remember when YOU laughed at that kid in Cornwall with the speech impediment? That poor soul of a boy? How could you?" Haha.
Whenever you drove from Quebec to Ontario in the old days there was a LANDMARK that was unmissible for any kid. This literal Landmark was half-way or so and you know what it was? It was the FAG building. Just a building with three big reddish letters on it for the world to see. It maybe stood for some corporate thing like Federal Alliance Group or maybe Freelance Armortization Guild ... but they abbreviated their name to FAG and put it in HUGE letters on their building. You always knew when it was coming too and you'd be like "I think the FAG buidling is coming up, guys!" Hahaha, little things like this made me laugh so much.
Another time, me n' my friend, Ol' Fleegs, went down there and we sat in a bar that was pretty empty. As to why he wanted to just drive to Cornwall for, which everyone knows is not the party capital of Canada, is something I don't remember. It was just like me, him, and the two people that worked there ... and then some dude walked in and sat right next to my friend in this tiny bar ... and this dude was WEIRD. Like, you could just encapsulate the weird aura around him ... there's people like that in the world, there really is. This dude talked about pretty normal stuff but the whole time me, my friend (who was like elbow-to-elbow with him) and the two people who worked there were looking at each others eyes and our eyes were saying to all eyes that weren't our own eyes ...
"Yo, this dude is SO WEIRD."
It was so obvious a mutual feeling that it was pretty close to being actual telepathy between us. We all just like connected with our eyes, four people, in unison of, "THIS GUY IS WEIRD!" it was really something. The weirdest thing the dude did was near the end of his time in this empty bar, he asked to take the rest of his burger with him in a take-out styrofoam, and when he got it he JAMMED it into the inside of his jacket in a flash and then looked suspiciously at all four people in the bar like we were all gonna try and steal his half eaten hamburger from him. It was almost cartoony like Snidely Whiplash just acquired a half eaten hamburger and was looking at us all "THIS IS MINE! SEE! ALL MINE!" ... hahahaha .... when he finally left I said "I think that guy like just got out of like jail ... because no one protects half eaten hamburgers like their pilfered diamonds" ... and one of the people who worked there told me ... "yup, that's so-and-so and he just got out yesterday"....
The only other time I experienced the feeling of looking into other people's eyes and KNOWING exactly what they were thinking ... and in turn their eyes telling me that they knew exactly what I was thinking ... was the "Auditorium of Laughs." To this day if even bring up the term "Auditorium of Laughs" with Ol' Fleegs or Ol' Kurtis they will just start laughing and remembering it. It was a moment of life that is just totally encrusted and encapsulated in our brains. The humor of why it was so funny is hard to describe and probably can't be captured in this medium.
The "Why" as to why it was so funny was similar to the above anecdote where just by looking at someone you could feel and know exactly what they were thinking about and in turn knew that they knew exactly what you were thinking about ... that is the essence of why the "Auditorium of Laughs" was what it was. Me, n' Ol' Fleegs n' Ol' Kurtis and another fellow were hanging out in an abandoned burned down house up near Ol' Kurtis's place. That's the sort of things you did as kids ... you hanged out in burned down houses and climbed up to the roof to look off it and come to life conclusions. Anyways, the four of us were just chilling in this burned out building and the other fellow we were with was proned to making us laugh with the silly anecdotes that would come out of him. He had a sort of hang-up or what would you call it? A fascination with a certain pornography star named Ron and his vast array of x-rated films.... and he'd just out of nowhere bring up this fascination with this aged over-weight porno star at whim and without warning.
So there we were... Me, n' Fleegs n' Kurtis n' this nice young fellow who had a pretty big respect for the artistic work of a famous porno celebrity ... sitting in an abondoned building ... Fleegs had on this basketball t-shirt about some squirrel that was just lookin' for a nut (which I couldn't grasp what the statement had to do with Basketball) ... and we were just talking and we notice that our fourth friend hasn't been in the conversation for a while and we stop and all three of us turn to him ... and he's just smiling .... a real grin .... a real smiler's smile .... and then all three of us, we all turn and look at each other .. and ALL THREE OF US ... while we looked at each others faces and into each others eyes KNEW EXACTLY what two words were gonna exit this fellow's mouth within the next few seconds...
... and sure enough, this young man opens his two lips and before it's even fully out of his person and the statement has time to gestate into the air ... while it was only half way out into the open ... while me and my two friends were still locked in a mental connection so strong that we were almost like three men with the same brain ... he says it ...
"Ron .... Jer....."
... and before the words even had time to be considered Alive in the audible real world of waves of noise ... almost before he even said this .... within the milisecond of the first sounding of the "J" syllable being audible to our six
collective ears ....
...we LOST it.
All three of us. Me, n' Fleegs, n' Kurtis .... just lost ... IT.
We lost it like something we never have or maybe never will experience ever again. We LOST LOST LOST LOST .... It. Just lost it and lost it and lost it. Completely and utterly lost it. I'm sure everyone's lost it in laughter before but this was a Losing It so intense and prolonged that for a good minute I actually thought I was gonna die laughing. I'm not exagerating. After the first minute of uncontrollable laughter between three people ... the second minute stops being funny and starts being scary. You're laughing and can't stop. You're laughing and you can't breathe because you're laughing so hard. I remember clawing at wood on the floor and hanging on to my two friends clothing ... clawing and hanging on to people because I thought I was gonna asphixiate, have a heart attack and actually DIE from laughing. It was scary. After like 5 full minutes, after it all died down, and all three of us just stopped laughing ... I was in awe ... I didn't know a person could just start laughing to a point where you could gasp, choke, and claw around trying to stay alive. It was something else. Something I will never forget even if I live to be like 150 years old.
I read a book once, Outlaws of the Marsh, where one of the lead characters at the end of the book dies of laughter. The end of Outlaws is sort of an Animal House style ending where everyone gets a "what happened to this person" afterward paragraph or two before the narrative ends. I always liked Lu Da's ending paragraph where he reads a prognostic poem about himself and then whilst watching the tide bore in and splash around at Qiang River ... he just dissipates into dust and disappears.
Another character, Wu Song, lived 'til he was 80 and then just one day started laughing and couldn't stop. He laughed until he passed on. As a person who can honestly say, without exaggeration, that I did almost die of laughter once ... I can really relate to a guy like Wu Song, you know?
Tide bores are nice......
Anyways gang, I'm gonna head out of 'ol Lac de Deux Montagnes and this dusty old Tea House with Wi Fi right about now and head down to ol' Cornwall town. You can follow me down there if it suits ya, old friend.....
Cornwall
Hunker down, that's what I'm doin'. Just plunkerin' on down. Cornwall town, that's where I am now. That is where I Be. I'm just sitting here in an empty bar, just me and the two people that work here. Thankfully there's no weirdoes here this time. I still can't believe that guy thought any of us would have stolen his half eaten mangly burger from him. I don't think I'll ever forget that.
Gettin' here was fun. I walked the whooooooole entire way. It was pretty cold and bad but what can I say? I came to three or four more deep conclusions about Life along the way, which is to say, I changed somewhat as a person over that walk. The cold and the thinking really shook things up for this rusty clanky noggin on top of my neck. I passed the FAG building along the way and took about 10 minutes to stop and really take it in. My gosh, the building of my youth that brought me much laughter. The one and only FAG building. There it was in all of its amazing glory. Truth be told, the joke doesn't work that well anymore. In the early 90s all young people knew this word and it was very popular. Maybe some older types didn't know about it and that's why a FAG building could sit along the highway in all its Majesty. It's a window in time, very small mind you, where a FAG building could stand in Majesty like this. The term cannot be used now and it was fresh enough then for not everyone to be keen to it ... that's the criteria for a window in time. A fleeting moment. And this? Well, this building was now a fleeting FAG moment. So fleeting that right before my own eyes the building vanished. Maybe my memory imagined it.
I was getting pretty hungry after witnessing the mysterious vanishing of the memories of my youth in front of my own eyes. I stopped in a little town and asked this kid where I can find a coupla burgers. He told me in a very strange accent ... he couldn't have been english but it certainly wasn't a french accent. What was it? He was a white kid ... probably born here ... but I could barely even understand what he was telling me.
"Boiyards? Ya want a couplo boiyards?" He squeeked out like a small wounded bird.
"Ya, I just want a couple of uhhhh Boy Yards. Yeah." I said to him.
"If yoo neeeed yooo a few boiyards just head ons along up this rohod, there charlie-jim!"
"Ok thanks kid. I mean thanks charlie jim. Say, what are you doing all by your lonesome here on the road side charlie-jim?"
"My noims not charlie jim, there charlie-jim! My name is Wessey, and and and ... I'm lookin' for clams n' cans!"
"Clams n' cans eh? What for?"
"Ya see I sell dem for munny. I get nickels fer cans and a dollar fer clams!!!!"
"Okay. Cool. That's good. You saving up for something? A video game maybe?" I asked him.
"Noooo, sweet chuck! I'm soiving up for a TOIKEE!"
"Turkey?"
"YA charlie-jim! A TOIKEE for my FAMILEEEEE!"
This young boy child was mighty strange. He seemed familiar to me though. Maybe I met him before. I don't know. I felt bad for him though. What kind of kid in this age looks for garbage and molluscs along the road side? I ventured further into this person's life for I found him interesting.
"Say Wes, what do you need a turkey for anyhow," I asked of him.
"Waddya think fer!? I neeeed it for Canoidian Thanksgoiving!" He told me.
"Canadian Thanksgiving was quite a few months ago, Wes." I said.
"Ob coooorse I knoi that! But my famileee didn't celebroite it at all! We couldn't boiy a toikeeee soooo we couldn't do Canoidian Thank Goiving!!!"
"Wes, I'm gonna give you what you need to buy a turkey, ok?"
"REEELY! IT"S A CANOIDIAN THANKS GOIVING MIROICOIL!!!!!
"That's exactly what it is Wes .... it is a Canadian Thanksgiving Miracle is what it is..." I said.
He took the funds and skipped off into the dry sunlight, swinging his can-poking stick like a happy little clam. Some kid, that Wes. Good kid. I continued walking up the road to the eatery. I bought a couple of burgers and ate 'em up good. I can see the future sometimes and my brain paused for a minute while I ate those burgers. They were so good that I had a burger-related epiphany and briefly got to see the future....
I saw a kid, a kid who could very well have been Wes, dropping a turkey onto the road. Why was my brain showing me this now for? I had more hamburgers to eat up and did not want to be bothered with powerful visions of the Human Future at this time in my life. Eating hamburgers is literally, no joke, one of if not my most favorite of human activities. Why would Wes drop the turkey for? Maybe I'm just worrying for no reason. I am constantly stricken by bouts of worry. I chewed and chewed ... and worried and worried. Don't drop the turkey, Wes. You need it. It's a Canadian Thanksgiving Miracle that turkey not just some regular turkey. It like represents something. It represents unity and grace .... and giving. It also represents a point in my life where I did something nice ... so don't drop it, Wes!
I couldn't enjoy these hamburgers any longer. I only ate like seven of them and left the rest on the platter. It was a pyramid platter of stacked burgers and I only got to the first seven. The pyramid was still standing for I took the first burgers from the top so it wouldn't fall down. I told the burger guy at the burger thing that I couldn't eat any more of them.
"Why not, old timer?" He asked me.
"I gotta go buy some turkeys. You know where I can get some, old brother?" I answered and then counter-asked him.
"Yah, sure do feller, ya just gotta keep huffing up that road there, you'll see the super market soon enough, ya old goat."
"Thanks old brother. Thanks a lot." I said gratefully and took my leave of the Cornwall burger stand.
I kept on a huffin' step by step up the street like he suggested. I got a good walking rythym going. A one-two, one-two, and couple more one-twos (and a three and a four) and I got there. It was a pretty nice super market for a small town. It was well-lit enough and had a decent selection. I found the turkeys without even asking nobody where the aisle for them was. They had a lot of them. I just needed a regular old turkey. I didn't need like one with stuffing in it already or anything ... just a normal one.
I paused. I started to worry. I wondered what if that kid, Wes, gets so happy and go lucky after getting a second turkey after dropping the first one that with nothing more than a hop, a skip, and a jump ... he swings his can-poking stick a little too hard and the second turkey pops out from under his arm and falls into a dirty puddle or maybe down a sewer....
I better buy a few more back-up turkeys while I'm at the grocery store, I guess. Just in case. In case that kid drops them all in puddles. I bought about twelve of them. I paid for all the turkeys and then stacked them in my arms like a pyramid and started re-huffin up the main Cornwall street.
But ... how am I gonna get the kid the turkeys after he drops them without making him feel bad for dropping so many turkeys and constantly getting them replaced by me? After like the first few he's gonna feel like a big klutz, this kid. He will. He's gonna feel like a big slob. Hmmmm, maybe I should buy a fishing rod at the hardware store. Yeah. Then I can like put a hook in a turkey and cast it out with the rod from like 20 feet behind the kid after he drops the turkeys into the puddles .... and then when they fall down into his arms from the cast out fishing line ... he can just unhook them and think like some angel or deity sent them to him. Yeah, that'll work out quite well.
I stopped at the hardware store and purchased a fishing rod. I proceeded now to walk up the street with a pyramid of twelve turkeys and a fishing rod strung to my back. I was a like a real Kwai Chang Caine. A real Kwai Changer. A big banger. Just walking around the roads of life with turkeys and fishing poles ... helpin' people. It felt good inside of my body and everything.
I finally caught up to the kid, and got ready to cast out turkeys from my turkey pyramid with my trusty fishing pole. Yet, much to my own surprise and amazement ... young Wes turned on a 90 degree heel-kick on his worned out sneakers and starting walking towards an abode ... I reckon it was his family's home. Well waddya know? He didn't drop a single turkey into a puddle let alone a baker's dozen of turkeys into a baker's dozen of puddles after I replaced them for him by casting them off from my fishing line and into his innocent yet grubby hands.
Hm. I walked up the window to see him present the turkey, or "toikee", to his family. I stood at the window with the other turkeys in my arms in a pyramid shape. I wasn't very incognito at all suffice to say. They didn't notice me standing there lookin' at 'em though for they were over joyed at the sight of little Wes and the turkey in his paws.
Their home was very beautiful. It reminded me of Canadian Thanksgiving's of my own past. The whole family gathered 'round the table eating all kinds of wonderful food while autumn leaves fell off the trees. Wonderful days those were. What in the world am I gonna do with all these turkeys though? I don't wanna throw them in the garbage can and make them a meal for some wordly raccoons. Heavens no.... I sat there in front of the window of Wes's house just a thinkin' and a lookin'. I was so proud of that kid that he made it home with the first turkey, when even deep in my gut, I just KNEW for sure he would need many replacement ones. I guess I'm just... like ... wrong about things sometimes.
I'm a flawed and deeply worrisome old badger is what I am. Worry. That's my middle name. It's better to be safe than sorry though when you really get into it....
"Hey moister..."
"Ya? What is it? Oh it's you Wes, you saw me in the window?"
"Yea I soire doid moister! Saaaaay .... waddya gunna doooo with all thoise toikees!?"
"You can have 'em. Freeze 'em for the future, you know? In the freezer."
"Oh, it's okay. I don't neeeyeeed 'em, there charlie-jim!."
"Alright."
"Saaaaaay, why dontcha jes givem all to those hobos underneef da broidge?" He suggested.
"Hobos? Under the bridge? Where's that?"
"Just up yonder way ol' jimmy chuck charlie sam jam!"
"Well, you don't want 'em and I don't wanna throw 'em away soooo... ya, ok."
I parted ways with the filthy yet loveable urchin and made my way to the bridge that he suggested I take these turkeys. Hobos eh? Can't say I really trust most hobos to be humanly honest but I sure as all heck 'aint gonna throw all these darned turkeys into some dumpster for squirrels to gnaw at. I trust hobos way more than I trust squirrels. How many hobos can there be under there anyways? It's a small town it's not like there can be millions of hobos under this bridge. I hope there's only like 12 hobos ... that way I can give each hobo one turkey each. If there's 20 hobos we'd have to cook all the turkeys and cut them up and everything so they all got equal amounts of the turkey. What a chore. There better not be any more than twelve hobos underneath this bridge, let me tell you.
There better not be more than twelve hobos underneath that bridge. Let me tell you.....
(to be continued.....)
Wow, this is fun. Yo, I think I'm just gonna do like one of these a month or one of these every two months for 2019 as my writing hobby. A full story that takes a year to write. Maybe. How many cities are in Canada? A lot? Yeah we can get a lot of meat out of this.
Man, hobos on the horizon. There's only two kinds... really fun ones and horribly bad ones. Stay tuned next month!
Same New Writings on Subjects II Stronger Time and same New Writings on Subjects II Stronger Channel!
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Current State of Writings on Subjects : Comedically Changing with the Times (as such)
I gotta hit a few Subjects that this blog hits soon. Ongoing ones that have been covered over the years here. There's a new Heino-Volution that has come to the forefront that needs looking into (probably even a deep enough look into) and some more Baseball ones have to be done.
For now we have to look at the current change in the comedy world which has taken shape pretty fast. It is changing ... no doubt. I mean there's not a lot of hold offs left anymore in the mainstream comedy world right now. There's not a lot of "old school" comedy left in the media world any longer.
Whenever you watch old stuff on youtube or whatever a phrase that constantly comes up in your mind is "Could They Have Done That Now?" ... and hypothetically about 85% of those mental queries usually end with "Probably Not, No."
Now young folks, before you cast us off and dislike all "old school" people and label us as horrible old dinosaurs and relics of the past .... let's look back at how we got here to begin with and maybe you can understand the comedy era that proceeded this current comedic era.
Let's limit the year range of the "previous era" to let's say 1990 to 2015 ... that's what we'll call the previous era of comedy. I can't speak for everyone so I'll use myself as the host-body to relate observationally how I was influenced living through the previous era of comedy.
1990 to 2015
I would say the nineties were categorized by the Howard Stern show, and WWE Wrestling. I'm not joking ... I think those were the two biggest factors on how totally out-of-control things got in media. The shock value of both these focal points of the art world kept increasingly getting more and more over-the-top in terms of shock value.
If you apply the "can you do that now" filter on half the things that happened on The Howard Stern Show from the 90s into the 2000s .... it's like a 100% "Probably Not. No" ratio. Could you invite a legally insane transvestite into your studio to hurl insane invective? Probably not, no. Could you bring in a set of twins to promote their new "album" who proceed to hurl insane invectives onto an actual crack head? No, I don't think so. Could you bring in two women to win breast implants by competing in a strip-off for a four foot tall man with a tiny head? No.....
Eventually the show toned down by like 2015 and I was one of the people back in 2015 who wrote something negative about the Howard Stern Show (here, at the very bottom). Looking back, I was wrong to say that. I mean, the show was the wildest carnival of insanity for like almost 30 years and then all of a sudden it was over ... I mean I probably wasn't the only person who felt sort of like "Wow, that's it, I guess...." but how can you be the "shock jock" character for 30 years? I'm sure it got boring for him after a while. He's a smart guy ... maybe he wanted a change, that's all. Evolving with the times is how you stay relevant. That's all, no big deal.
He has other talents. He's a great celebrity interviewer, very insightful and engaging. I think there's only four people up for the "Best Celebrity Interviewer of All Time" award and it's H. Stern, L. King, O. Winfrey, and D. Letterman ... and all of whom are still living so there's still time to continue to strive to be the best for these people.
I hope he continues interviewing and being engaging ... he might surpass those others on that list and be the Greatest Interviewer of All Time.
There's been other stand out "over-the-top" things in the art world in this era from Beavis and Butthead and Jackass others ... but I put WWE wrestling on here as the second focal factor because it went WAY OVER THE TOP ... to a point of like .... "Wow, this is so like, wow."
I watched wrestling obsessively from about like 1990 to 1995. Then I kind of grew out of it and focused on other sports ... maybe not so much grew out of it ... as the "product" was pretty bad in 1995. Looking at historical ratings lists it seems I wasn't the only one who tuned out in 1995 because they had low ratings. They lost HALF their viewership from 1994 to 1997. HALF. I was just another of the 1/2 people who tuned out it seems.
Then something curious happened, in 1998 ... the show gained steam ... got its lost half of viewers back ... and then by 2001 they DOUBLED their viewership again! Why? Because the show went totally out of control. The show was sex, n' drugs, n' rock n' roll!
....and it kept on getting more and more out of control until it made literally no sense. There's a bit where a 80 year old ex-female-wrestler gave birth on live television to a plastic hand (????). There's was a bit with a ventriloquist dummy (or corpse??) that was so poorly contrived that it probably made another 50% of people tune out on the spot.
Wrestling has kind of come back down to normal levels now in terms of shock value and it is basically 100% about the "cool moves" now a days which is ok ... but it could use like some story telling elements and "ring psychology" elements though. Ronda Rousey, I think, is maybe the biggest thing to happen in wrestling in a pretty long time. The Roddy Piper gimmick works and the character works.
Anyways, gang, this is what was going on in the 90s and early 2000s in the media world ... over-the-top insanity. This is what you did in the media world to get laughs and viewership. We were exposed to this 24-7 and then guess what happened? The internet happened...
The internet got big in the mid-90s and it was VERY different than the now-a-times internet which is very "personal brand exposure" oriented ... the old school internet was if you took old school Howard Stern and old school WWE and amplified it by one million percent ... and the result was unfiltered over-the-top disgusting insanity.
In the now-a-times internet, like ONE FALSE STEP online and your personal-brand/ youtube-persona/ influencer-status / acting-career/ or-whatever is OVER. In the old school internet it was different, it wasn't uncommon for like your friend to be like "Yo, check out this video of this guy shoving a battery through his eyeball!" and you'd click on it be like "oh wow, look at that...." .. you know? It was messed up! The Internet was messed up!
Was it normal? No it wasn't. To be honest, if I was like a parent in the 90s or early 2000s (or even now) and you asked me 100% honestly if I'd let children go on the internet ... I'd have to say no. Even today it's TOO MESSED UP for kids this dumb internet.
So, you got to keep in mind, new generation, where the old one came from, you know? Like, I agree that we should come back down to civil and thoughtful levels on the internet ... which for a good decade now has been utterly out-of-control ... but it's not gonna just happen over night.
You're telling a generation before you to be 100% politically correct but you have to understand this generation is one that grew up thinking that ... playing rock and roll trivia with an unbelievably drunken dwarf, or watching a wrestling match where a guy's teeth got knocked up into his nose while his children cried in the audience, or getting a link from a friend that was supposedly for a movie trailer but turned out to be a guy eating cackie .....were just totally normal things that happened in front of a screen.
Conclusion
We are quickly going from a media landscape where everything was acceptable to a media landscape where very little is acceptable ... and the new generation has to give us some leeway to make the transition, I think.
I'm no longer a hold out to the "old school", I'm on board now with the change now too. I'm reluctant but I know it's for the best. I started this blog because I wanted to be part of that old comedy guard I looked up to ... I wanted to be "famous" but not like how people want to be famous now a days on the internet ... now people want a million youtube subscriptions so they can get their sponsorship contracts as "influencers" ... for me starting this silly and at times stupid blog back a decade ago .... I wanted other forms of "fame" ... I wanted to be on Howard Stern ... or on Wrestling as a crazy heel manager a la Bobby Heenan .... you know? I think the 90s generation aspired to different forms of fame ... at least I did.
Many times I thought about deleting this thing ... but from a personal standpoint it was a learning experience. Especially in the last year ... I've been going back and reading old ones ... and wow some are like so "old guard" they are cringe-worthy as all heck by today's standards.
That's where I'm coming from. I see a few holdouts in the comedy world from time to time on Twitter and stuff and I respect the old guard and their fight. I know it's hard for people who have had a "character" or a "shtick" or a "bit" their whole lives and that act has to be toned down or even retired in present times.
I really believe society goes through fads .... and maybe in 2096 we'll hit another bump in the road and the pop art world will for another 20 years be an eyeball blast of horrible craziness again.
As for 2018? Well, haven't we all seen enough crazy guys stick batteries through their eye balls for one lifetime, gang? Haven't we all been blasted in the eyeballs enough by shocking silliness?
I have. I know that.
But, New Generation, all I'm really asking is for you to give the Old Generation some transition time. The media landscape from 2015 to 2018 ... not even three years .... has changed unimaginably. One question that still nags at me is....
Would even the silly little jokes Bobby Heenan did on Wrestling Challenge even be allowed today? Probably not, Gorilla Monsoon .... probably not.
And in one way, Gorilla Monsoon .... that's sad.
For now we have to look at the current change in the comedy world which has taken shape pretty fast. It is changing ... no doubt. I mean there's not a lot of hold offs left anymore in the mainstream comedy world right now. There's not a lot of "old school" comedy left in the media world any longer.
Whenever you watch old stuff on youtube or whatever a phrase that constantly comes up in your mind is "Could They Have Done That Now?" ... and hypothetically about 85% of those mental queries usually end with "Probably Not, No."
Now young folks, before you cast us off and dislike all "old school" people and label us as horrible old dinosaurs and relics of the past .... let's look back at how we got here to begin with and maybe you can understand the comedy era that proceeded this current comedic era.
Let's limit the year range of the "previous era" to let's say 1990 to 2015 ... that's what we'll call the previous era of comedy. I can't speak for everyone so I'll use myself as the host-body to relate observationally how I was influenced living through the previous era of comedy.
1990 to 2015
I would say the nineties were categorized by the Howard Stern show, and WWE Wrestling. I'm not joking ... I think those were the two biggest factors on how totally out-of-control things got in media. The shock value of both these focal points of the art world kept increasingly getting more and more over-the-top in terms of shock value.
If you apply the "can you do that now" filter on half the things that happened on The Howard Stern Show from the 90s into the 2000s .... it's like a 100% "Probably Not. No" ratio. Could you invite a legally insane transvestite into your studio to hurl insane invective? Probably not, no. Could you bring in a set of twins to promote their new "album" who proceed to hurl insane invectives onto an actual crack head? No, I don't think so. Could you bring in two women to win breast implants by competing in a strip-off for a four foot tall man with a tiny head? No.....
Eventually the show toned down by like 2015 and I was one of the people back in 2015 who wrote something negative about the Howard Stern Show (here, at the very bottom). Looking back, I was wrong to say that. I mean, the show was the wildest carnival of insanity for like almost 30 years and then all of a sudden it was over ... I mean I probably wasn't the only person who felt sort of like "Wow, that's it, I guess...." but how can you be the "shock jock" character for 30 years? I'm sure it got boring for him after a while. He's a smart guy ... maybe he wanted a change, that's all. Evolving with the times is how you stay relevant. That's all, no big deal.
He has other talents. He's a great celebrity interviewer, very insightful and engaging. I think there's only four people up for the "Best Celebrity Interviewer of All Time" award and it's H. Stern, L. King, O. Winfrey, and D. Letterman ... and all of whom are still living so there's still time to continue to strive to be the best for these people.
I hope he continues interviewing and being engaging ... he might surpass those others on that list and be the Greatest Interviewer of All Time.
There's been other stand out "over-the-top" things in the art world in this era from Beavis and Butthead and Jackass others ... but I put WWE wrestling on here as the second focal factor because it went WAY OVER THE TOP ... to a point of like .... "Wow, this is so like, wow."
I watched wrestling obsessively from about like 1990 to 1995. Then I kind of grew out of it and focused on other sports ... maybe not so much grew out of it ... as the "product" was pretty bad in 1995. Looking at historical ratings lists it seems I wasn't the only one who tuned out in 1995 because they had low ratings. They lost HALF their viewership from 1994 to 1997. HALF. I was just another of the 1/2 people who tuned out it seems.
Then something curious happened, in 1998 ... the show gained steam ... got its lost half of viewers back ... and then by 2001 they DOUBLED their viewership again! Why? Because the show went totally out of control. The show was sex, n' drugs, n' rock n' roll!
....and it kept on getting more and more out of control until it made literally no sense. There's a bit where a 80 year old ex-female-wrestler gave birth on live television to a plastic hand (????). There's was a bit with a ventriloquist dummy (or corpse??) that was so poorly contrived that it probably made another 50% of people tune out on the spot.
Wrestling has kind of come back down to normal levels now in terms of shock value and it is basically 100% about the "cool moves" now a days which is ok ... but it could use like some story telling elements and "ring psychology" elements though. Ronda Rousey, I think, is maybe the biggest thing to happen in wrestling in a pretty long time. The Roddy Piper gimmick works and the character works.
Anyways, gang, this is what was going on in the 90s and early 2000s in the media world ... over-the-top insanity. This is what you did in the media world to get laughs and viewership. We were exposed to this 24-7 and then guess what happened? The internet happened...
The internet got big in the mid-90s and it was VERY different than the now-a-times internet which is very "personal brand exposure" oriented ... the old school internet was if you took old school Howard Stern and old school WWE and amplified it by one million percent ... and the result was unfiltered over-the-top disgusting insanity.
In the now-a-times internet, like ONE FALSE STEP online and your personal-brand/ youtube-persona/ influencer-status / acting-career/ or-whatever is OVER. In the old school internet it was different, it wasn't uncommon for like your friend to be like "Yo, check out this video of this guy shoving a battery through his eyeball!" and you'd click on it be like "oh wow, look at that...." .. you know? It was messed up! The Internet was messed up!
Was it normal? No it wasn't. To be honest, if I was like a parent in the 90s or early 2000s (or even now) and you asked me 100% honestly if I'd let children go on the internet ... I'd have to say no. Even today it's TOO MESSED UP for kids this dumb internet.
So, you got to keep in mind, new generation, where the old one came from, you know? Like, I agree that we should come back down to civil and thoughtful levels on the internet ... which for a good decade now has been utterly out-of-control ... but it's not gonna just happen over night.
You're telling a generation before you to be 100% politically correct but you have to understand this generation is one that grew up thinking that ... playing rock and roll trivia with an unbelievably drunken dwarf, or watching a wrestling match where a guy's teeth got knocked up into his nose while his children cried in the audience, or getting a link from a friend that was supposedly for a movie trailer but turned out to be a guy eating cackie .....were just totally normal things that happened in front of a screen.
Conclusion
We are quickly going from a media landscape where everything was acceptable to a media landscape where very little is acceptable ... and the new generation has to give us some leeway to make the transition, I think.
I'm no longer a hold out to the "old school", I'm on board now with the change now too. I'm reluctant but I know it's for the best. I started this blog because I wanted to be part of that old comedy guard I looked up to ... I wanted to be "famous" but not like how people want to be famous now a days on the internet ... now people want a million youtube subscriptions so they can get their sponsorship contracts as "influencers" ... for me starting this silly and at times stupid blog back a decade ago .... I wanted other forms of "fame" ... I wanted to be on Howard Stern ... or on Wrestling as a crazy heel manager a la Bobby Heenan .... you know? I think the 90s generation aspired to different forms of fame ... at least I did.
Many times I thought about deleting this thing ... but from a personal standpoint it was a learning experience. Especially in the last year ... I've been going back and reading old ones ... and wow some are like so "old guard" they are cringe-worthy as all heck by today's standards.
That's where I'm coming from. I see a few holdouts in the comedy world from time to time on Twitter and stuff and I respect the old guard and their fight. I know it's hard for people who have had a "character" or a "shtick" or a "bit" their whole lives and that act has to be toned down or even retired in present times.
I really believe society goes through fads .... and maybe in 2096 we'll hit another bump in the road and the pop art world will for another 20 years be an eyeball blast of horrible craziness again.
As for 2018? Well, haven't we all seen enough crazy guys stick batteries through their eye balls for one lifetime, gang? Haven't we all been blasted in the eyeballs enough by shocking silliness?
I have. I know that.
But, New Generation, all I'm really asking is for you to give the Old Generation some transition time. The media landscape from 2015 to 2018 ... not even three years .... has changed unimaginably. One question that still nags at me is....
Would even the silly little jokes Bobby Heenan did on Wrestling Challenge even be allowed today? Probably not, Gorilla Monsoon .... probably not.
And in one way, Gorilla Monsoon .... that's sad.
Monday, October 8, 2018
It's Almost 2000 ...
Time flies. It most surely does. It does. For many who don't know I switched to Count Von Count Standard Time a few months ago. It is an incremental time variable measure broadcast via Twitter which I find to be a quite compact and efficient time measuring utility.
Pshaw you say, but it is no more arbitrary than any other method of time tabulating metrics.
Most of us are currently on Greenwich Standard Time which is measured as official Time being what time it is in Greenwich, London in the United Kingdom. As you go eastward or westward from this arbitrary spot the Time then somehow changes. If you go really far out east or west ... then you might even be in the past or future apparently. It's Tomorrow in Australia if you're in the United States ... which to be honest ... is kind of hard to wrap a head around. To be fantastically honest ... it makes absolutely no sense at all for it to be Tomorrow somewhere.
When it comes to Time tabulations for Historical chronological mapping reasons ... most people are on the Roman calendar of January, February, blah blah blah. It has 365 days in a "year" which are divided into 12 non-equal "months." Sometimes February has more "days" in it and sometimes it has less ... for reasons as to which I have no understanding of as to why.
Not everyone is on the Roman calendar either. You know what Time it is in China right now? It is the 29th Water Rooster day in the 8th Water Dog month of the Year of the Dog. You know what Time it is in the Hebrew calendar right now? Hm, looks like we are the 29th of Tishrei in the 5779th year of their tabulations.
I don't think my Time tabulation method for chronological record keeping is that odd to be honest. In current Count Von Count Standardized Internet Time we stand at Moment 1961.
Nineteen, sixty-one. Wow. Time sure does fly. Especially on the Internet where data and news flow like wine at a non-stop banquet. So many things have happened in the last 1000 moments ... it's almost hard to fathom. So many historical moments, so many kids getting trapped in caves, so much whacky political silliness, so many salacious scandals....my goodness.
It's in Times like these, Canadian Thanksgiving, that it really is nice to take a Moment and quietly reflect. You know something? Time does not have to be mathematical and cold. Time is poetic, it truly is. Without Time, we wouldn't even know that our Moments are limited in this world of worlds.
Time
My dearest friend Peter Lorre once described Time as,
Time is a crook? Robbing us of our precious Moments? Maybe. Recently I saw venerable crooner Tay Zonday of Chocolate Rain Fame describe Time as the following...
Time can be scary when you think about it like that. I remember listening to a song once when I was a teenager that really scared me ... it made Time seem more like a horror movie villain than a tabulation of chronology. It was off the album The Last Temptation of Reid by Lard. It was a 15 minute dirge of a song about a clock called "I am Your Clock."
I never looked at a clock the same way ever again. Especially alarm clocks. Damn those things can wake you up. That noise they make is the shrillest reminder that your peaceful respite is not allowed to last any longer for there is no rest for the wicked according to the alarm clock.
A joke I always liked about Time was from an old Kids in the Hall bit where Scott is MAD at Switzerland and Mark is there for support whilst his friend airs his many grievances against the so called "neutral" country...
True, Scott, true. Without clocks we'd all still be caressing the deep and wonderful surreal moments of our multi-colored dreams. Instead of being smashed in and broken out of them by the whaling ghastly cry of the common household alarm clock.
Another moment I liked that is Time-related was from the video game world. In Suikoden III, some of the characters have become immortal due to a rune they affixed to their person. The theme of immortality is one of the main themes of Suikoden III as some of these immortal characters are becoming very despondent with their ever-lasting lives. Out of their boredom of ever-lasting life some of their intentions become pretty nihilistic and evil. I liked a scene near the end where one of the villains gives this diatribe to one of the heroes before they fight. Both the villain and the hero being of the immortal category. After the diatribe by the villain, Yuber, to the hero, Geddoe, and it is time for them to fight ... the hero Geddoe pulls out his sword and the camera zooms in and you expect him to say something very epic, heroic and climactic and he just goes ....
It was so anti-climactic that it was actually climactic and reminded me of another Suikoden quote where Viktor described a man's actions as being "wrong and priceless." From a writing standpoint the Geddoe/Yuber scene is wrong but it's so anti-climactic that it is priceless ... and Geddoe's correct in his assessment too. Wouldn't eternal life just tire you out? If Time wasn't a factor in your life wouldn't you just keep growing ever more despondent and ever-more tired? Saving the world was just another day at the office for the 112 year old mercenary Geddoe.
2000 Approaches
As I continue to quietly reflect on the last 1000 moments of memories past on this cool Canadian Thanksgiving's morning ... I can't help but feel hopeful for the future. As the number slowly moves to roll over to 2000 and the Count lets out his trade mark laugh to let us know how proud he is of his ability to consistently count .... I feel as though a wave of excitement is on the horizon for the world.
A new exciting era is upon us! The future is Now! This era of Hope has me almost bursting at the seams! What exciting events await us in the next 1000 Moments!? What powerful historic events shall spring up which will need to be tethered to the history books!?
Brother Time, I've grown to respect you over the years. You aren't a scary horror movie villain, my brother, you are not a monster waiting to throw us off of our mortal coil. Brother Time ... you're an okay kinda guy, man. You are. I respect you.
Que sera, sera ... Brother Time. Que sera sera. The future? Hey, it's not even ours to see, even. Whatever it'll be. It'll be.
Pshaw you say, but it is no more arbitrary than any other method of time tabulating metrics.Most of us are currently on Greenwich Standard Time which is measured as official Time being what time it is in Greenwich, London in the United Kingdom. As you go eastward or westward from this arbitrary spot the Time then somehow changes. If you go really far out east or west ... then you might even be in the past or future apparently. It's Tomorrow in Australia if you're in the United States ... which to be honest ... is kind of hard to wrap a head around. To be fantastically honest ... it makes absolutely no sense at all for it to be Tomorrow somewhere.
When it comes to Time tabulations for Historical chronological mapping reasons ... most people are on the Roman calendar of January, February, blah blah blah. It has 365 days in a "year" which are divided into 12 non-equal "months." Sometimes February has more "days" in it and sometimes it has less ... for reasons as to which I have no understanding of as to why.
Not everyone is on the Roman calendar either. You know what Time it is in China right now? It is the 29th Water Rooster day in the 8th Water Dog month of the Year of the Dog. You know what Time it is in the Hebrew calendar right now? Hm, looks like we are the 29th of Tishrei in the 5779th year of their tabulations.
I don't think my Time tabulation method for chronological record keeping is that odd to be honest. In current Count Von Count Standardized Internet Time we stand at Moment 1961.
Nineteen, sixty-one. Wow. Time sure does fly. Especially on the Internet where data and news flow like wine at a non-stop banquet. So many things have happened in the last 1000 moments ... it's almost hard to fathom. So many historical moments, so many kids getting trapped in caves, so much whacky political silliness, so many salacious scandals....my goodness.
It's in Times like these, Canadian Thanksgiving, that it really is nice to take a Moment and quietly reflect. You know something? Time does not have to be mathematical and cold. Time is poetic, it truly is. Without Time, we wouldn't even know that our Moments are limited in this world of worlds.
Time
My dearest friend Peter Lorre once described Time as,
"Time. Time. What is time? Swiss manufacture it. French hoard it. Italians squander it. Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist.
Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook."
-Lorre, P. "Beat the Devil"
Time is a crook? Robbing us of our precious Moments? Maybe. Recently I saw venerable crooner Tay Zonday of Chocolate Rain Fame describe Time as the following...
"Time is like a burly bouncer trying to politely push you out of the bar of life -- and you're trying to tie up loose ends with everybody you know before you're out the door. If you die tragically, the bouncer throws you out of the bar from across the room like The Incredible Hulk."It's a nice definition. It's pretty apt. There's a sense of urgency derived from the notion that at any moment the Incredible Hulk of Life can haphazardly put the old kibosh on your most well laid of plans and dreams.
-Zonday, T. (See: Here)
Time can be scary when you think about it like that. I remember listening to a song once when I was a teenager that really scared me ... it made Time seem more like a horror movie villain than a tabulation of chronology. It was off the album The Last Temptation of Reid by Lard. It was a 15 minute dirge of a song about a clock called "I am Your Clock."
"I am your clockI am your religion
I am your shotgun mechanical bride
Nothing is done without my approvalI own you
I decide how long you sleep
And how much rest
You are ever allowedI decide what you desire
I deny you time to think
I am the mirror of constant humiliation
That follows and shadows you
Wherever you go
And blocks out the light
At the end of every tunnel you try
Be on time
Be on schedule
Always feel
Like you're always late
And need more scolding and punishment"
-Biafra, J. "I am Your Clock".
I never looked at a clock the same way ever again. Especially alarm clocks. Damn those things can wake you up. That noise they make is the shrillest reminder that your peaceful respite is not allowed to last any longer for there is no rest for the wicked according to the alarm clock.
A joke I always liked about Time was from an old Kids in the Hall bit where Scott is MAD at Switzerland and Mark is there for support whilst his friend airs his many grievances against the so called "neutral" country...
"They've never done anything wrong you say? Ha! What about the Clock? Huh? If they hadn't invented the Clock ...
I'd still be in bed ... dreaming!"
-Thompson, S.,"Sick of the Swiss"
True, Scott, true. Without clocks we'd all still be caressing the deep and wonderful surreal moments of our multi-colored dreams. Instead of being smashed in and broken out of them by the whaling ghastly cry of the common household alarm clock.
Another moment I liked that is Time-related was from the video game world. In Suikoden III, some of the characters have become immortal due to a rune they affixed to their person. The theme of immortality is one of the main themes of Suikoden III as some of these immortal characters are becoming very despondent with their ever-lasting lives. Out of their boredom of ever-lasting life some of their intentions become pretty nihilistic and evil. I liked a scene near the end where one of the villains gives this diatribe to one of the heroes before they fight. Both the villain and the hero being of the immortal category. After the diatribe by the villain, Yuber, to the hero, Geddoe, and it is time for them to fight ... the hero Geddoe pulls out his sword and the camera zooms in and you expect him to say something very epic, heroic and climactic and he just goes ....
"I feel tired," -Geddoe, Suikoden III, On his eternal life.
It was so anti-climactic that it was actually climactic and reminded me of another Suikoden quote where Viktor described a man's actions as being "wrong and priceless." From a writing standpoint the Geddoe/Yuber scene is wrong but it's so anti-climactic that it is priceless ... and Geddoe's correct in his assessment too. Wouldn't eternal life just tire you out? If Time wasn't a factor in your life wouldn't you just keep growing ever more despondent and ever-more tired? Saving the world was just another day at the office for the 112 year old mercenary Geddoe.
2000 Approaches
As I continue to quietly reflect on the last 1000 moments of memories past on this cool Canadian Thanksgiving's morning ... I can't help but feel hopeful for the future. As the number slowly moves to roll over to 2000 and the Count lets out his trade mark laugh to let us know how proud he is of his ability to consistently count .... I feel as though a wave of excitement is on the horizon for the world.
A new exciting era is upon us! The future is Now! This era of Hope has me almost bursting at the seams! What exciting events await us in the next 1000 Moments!? What powerful historic events shall spring up which will need to be tethered to the history books!?
Brother Time, I've grown to respect you over the years. You aren't a scary horror movie villain, my brother, you are not a monster waiting to throw us off of our mortal coil. Brother Time ... you're an okay kinda guy, man. You are. I respect you.
Que sera, sera ... Brother Time. Que sera sera. The future? Hey, it's not even ours to see, even. Whatever it'll be. It'll be.
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
Great Debates of History
Everyone is saying that in these mediocre times where mediocrity reigns that the debate is a lost art. Are they right or is it just a bunch of stupid malarkey being spat out by people with very little sensibilities and diction. I don't know. It's a good question.
Either way, today, we shall be looking at five great debates of history. At the end we shall choose a winner.
There's no criteria really to be in this contest. All five of the entries are from vastly different circumstances.
The Five entries shall be discussed in the following order:
1) Bobby Heenan debates Ken Patera
2) The Penguin debates Batman
3) Kongming debates the most renowned scholars of Wu
4) Brain Gremlin debates a Pseudo Grandpa Al Lewis
5) Gunther Toody debates Francis Muldoon
Okay, if you're familiar with any of these you already know that all five of these were a meeting of minds that really shook the foundations of all four corners of this great earth. Choosing a winner out of this set will be difficult, no doubt.
Okay. Here we go!
Five Great Debates in the Human History!
1) Bobby Heenan debates Ken Patera
Here we see both men at their podiums engage in a nice well mannered debate. To be totally honest here ... I'm not sure what the topic is that they are debating but I think it has to do with the fact that Bobby Heenan is a jerk and Ken Patera is trying to use examples from his personal life in effort to prove this.
Mr. Patera spares no quarter and leaves no stone unturned as he airs his grievances of the Brain during his turn at the podium. The most gregarious of Bobby Heenan's behavior appears to be that whilst Mr. Patera was incarcerated in the county jail Heenan NEVER visited him, NEVER called him, and DIDN'T EVEN send Ken Patera a card while he was in prison. Not. Even. A. Card.
Patera was dumbfounded by this behavior by a person he thought was his friend. He even asked his wife if she heard anything from Bobby Heenan and his wife said she had not. Patera goes on to claim that whilst in the lonely confines of prison, he had numerous lonely nights to ruminate over Heenan's behavior and also people like Heenan of this world in general. He came to the conclusion that Bobby Heenan is not a good person.
During Heenan's time to counter Patera's points he is very blunt and unremorseful ... going as far as to repeatedly refer to Patera as being a bum and a convict. Heenan's coup-de-grace hit pretty hard as he told Patera that without his managerial skills Patera would never ever get a Championship belt. Heenan then proceeds to remove his own belt and says "You want a belt! I'll give you a belt!" .... he then starts whipping Patera with said belt. Oh my.
It's probably not a great idea to start whipping people with belts during debates, especially if your opponent is a former Olympic weight lifter, but who could blame Bobby here? I mean, Patera said some pretty nasty things about him. I do agree with Patera that Heenan should have at the very least sent Patera a card during his incarceration just to let him know he cares. Like a "Get Out Soon" card or a "Happy Jail" card .... or whatever card you send to someone after they are incarcerated in county jail.
Patera counters during his grace time by taking the belt away from Heenan, bull whipping 'em around the ring with it, and just about garrotes the man. Wow.
This truly was a meeting of two great men.
Winner: Ken Patera
Means: Almost garroted opponent with his own belt.
Moral of the story: When in doubt in a debate just start whipping a guy with a belt. Maybe something will happen, and this outlandish act will turn the tides of the engagement... or maybe the guy will get very mad about it, harangue you across the ring and just about garotte you.
2) The Penguin debates Batman
Just an average day in Gotham City as Batman and the Penguin are the two candidates in Gotham's mayoral race. Most people expect the beloved Batman to be a shoe in to win ... but lo, what's this? The Penguin uses the debate across Gotham's air waves to slander and hurl invectives at our favorite caped crusader!?
I got to to give it the Penguin and his brilliant debate style here. He juxtaposes Batman into a position that no one could be able to wriggle out of. Penguin asked the people of Gotham why is it that Batman is always seen in the newspaper photographed with criminals whilst the Penguin is always in the newspaper photographed with law authorities? Maybe it is because Batman is in league with these nefarious ne'er-do-wells while the Penguin is obviously in league with the law? Hmmm. Makes sense.
Batman wants to counter these vicious slanderous lies yet slander wasn't the last of the Penguin's dirty tricks. The Penguin ordered his henchman backstage to cut Batman's microphone feed on the live broadcast and replace his audio with go-go music (or some 60s era feel-good music of some sort). Unbelievable. How is Batman to counter the Penguin's slanderous attacks when all of Gotham can only hear go-go music on the broadcast and not any of Batman's words.
Well played, Penguin. Well played. Some may call your strategies sinister, but not I.
Winner: The Penguin
Means: Juxtaposed Slander mixed with a little bit of whimsical go-go music over his opponent's microphone feed.
Moral of the story: No one can counter slander while their live audio feed is overlayed with annoying 60s music. Not even Batman.
3) Kongming debates the most renowned scholars of Wu
Here, Liu Bei's most trusted stratagist, Kongming, has travelled to Wu to convince the prince of Wu, the scion of Sun Jian, Sun Quan, to declare war on Cao Cao of Wei.
When I say the scholars and officials of Wu, I'm not talking about like just one or two of them were there. No, there was like all of them there. Let's see, amongst the officials of Wu present that day included:
Zhang Zhao
Gu Yong
Yu Fan
Bu Zhi
Xue Zhong
Lu Gong Ji
Yan Jun
Cheng Bing
And many more....
This was like a twenty on one debate here. Kongming was truly in a den of wolves if not a cave of tigers in this debate environment. Even Bu Zhi was there. Wow. I respect guys like Kongming who can saunter into a veritable sea of mistrust and just be as chill as can be. The guy is in a handicap match here, 20 on 1, and is just waving his feather fan, fanning himself, and staying composed as if he was simply at a leisurely banquet. If there's one thing I know about Kongming is that the dude does not panic under pressure.
All goes quite smoothly until Zhang Zhao just starts laying into Liu Bei, hard. I really must comment that Zhang Zhao was acting like a total fool in this debate. After what Liu Bei went through in Xu and Runan how can this man say such slanderous things about him? Zhang Zhao is really taking a low road here and his words are quite blunt. He goes as far as to call Liu Bei a thieving vagabond. Zhang Zhao even compares Liu Bei to a rat in regards to how he retreated from his battle with Cao Cao! Liu Bei is like Kongming's best friend in the whole wide world! How can Zhang Zhao say these things right to Kongming's face like this? It's almost too much to watch. If I was there I would not have had the patience to put up with a person like Zhang Zhao, who's acting like a total buffoon in this debate. If I was there I would have taken off my belt and starting haranguing him and bull whipping him around the ring ... I mean palace.
Yet, Kongming is a better man than I, as he effectively counters Zhang Zhaos's slander with choice words instead of over-the-top theatrical belt-related violence. He asks the seemingly rhetorical question of "How can common birds understand the long flight of the Roc?" ... Zhang Zhao ponders this seemingly rhetorical question for a moment and then realizes what a silly person he was being. Even silly men such as Zhang Zhao have the competence to see the err in there ways when it is presented to them with crystal-clear clarity.
Kongming's finishing attack in this debate is to be assertive and call these sweaty nerds out. He finishes his remarks by saying to the officials and scholars of Wu that all their book-learning and their precious book-smarts is great and all but you can't apply that theoretical horse fodder to anything. Book smarts won't help anyone when it is time to really get down and do the do. He goes on to say that some of the greatest heroes of yesteryear were farmers and fishermen with little to no use for stuffy book-smarts and who were surely not nerds.
Thus, Kongming openly ponders to the audience of officials if the prince of Wu is a man who would really take his marching orders from this gaggle of filthy and idiotic nerds!? No way, says the Prince of Wu. As the dust settled on this historic debate .... Suan Quan agreed with Kongming's points over his officials' points and forms an Alliance with Kongming to fight Cao Cao of Wei.
All this happened simply due to Kongming's coaxing. In the end, it was as easy as turning your hand and catching turtles in a jug for ol' Kongming is what it was.
Or so the story goes.....
Winner: Kongming
Means: Brilliant use of poetic rhetorical questions to show men the err of their thoughts.
Moral of the story: Sometimes you don't need a belt to shut a mouth. Sometimes a potent rhetorical question will work just as well. For it is true indeed as Kongming made clear ... Who says the common bird cannot understand the long flight of the Roc? Surely it was not I who would say something such as this. A common fellow like myself could never dare understand the dealings of the Heavens or of things of a similar magnitude to the Heavens ... yet, to explore this question further ... obviously a common man could not understand the workings of the mighty Heavens ... but no more so can a King or a Prince understand the workings of them either. Just because Zhang Zhao and his elite intellectual gang of crumb bums went to some fancy-pantsy school doesn't mean they are any closer to some sort of greater understanding of the world. Who is to say a fisherman cannot be a Prince or a farmer cannot be a King? Didn't the simple fisherman Li Jun of Mount Liang Shang go on to become the King of Siam?
Hmmm.... If a snake has no horns does this automatically suggest that it will never become a dragon? Heavens no, of course not. Yes ... it seems what Kongming was trying to tell Zhang Zhao was something as simple as the old western adage of "don't judge a book by its cover" yet these simple words showed Zhang Zhao the error of his ways in the most edifying manner possible.
I must confess ... sometimes Kongming really impresses me.
4) Brain Gremlin debates a Pseudo Grandpa Al Lewis
The first sentient and self-aware Gremlin, known as Brain Gremlin, is invited onto Pseudo Al Lewis' talk show and is tasked with the daunting endeavor of proving his brood (the Gremlins) are not mere monsters but are a civilized society on par with humans.
Yes, Brain Gremlin is behooved on live TV to justify to Pseudo Al Lewis the inherent Gremliness or Gremlinhood of the Gremlin.
I don't wanna delve into too much Gremlins 2 studies as there is a more than capable twitter account (The Institute for Gremlins 2 Studies) devoted to the field that has already covered many bases in regards to Gremlins 2: the New Batch academic endeavors.
I am going to focus solely on the debate itself and who won it instead of getting bogged down in Gremlins 2 semantics. The debate wherein Brain Gremlin debates a pseudo Granpa Al Lewis on whether or not the Gremlins can be considered civilized is what we're working with here.
People think because Brain Gremlin has a working lexicon structure and able to relate himself to Pseudo Grandpa Al Lewis that he is obviously civilized. Yet, as we plainly see from Brain Gremlin's anecdotes on the matter that HE HIMSELF believes he is NOT civilized. He is not even trying to come across as a civilized creature and just because he can talk doesn't mean anything. This supposed "smart" Gremlin has little value for the life of his brethren as seen when he shoots one in the face with a pistol mid-debate.
It seems, didactically speaking, that unlike what some people studying Gremlins 2 are trying to lead people to believe (i.e. The Gremlins 2 Institute believes the Gremlins of Gremlins 2 are civilized and that we should be sad when they are eradicated and melted into goop)... I however take the opposite view that we should NOT cry for the eradication of the Gremlin brood at the finale of Gremlins 2 (or 1 for that matter) for they were nothing but filthy murderous fun-loving monsters and not misunderstood creatures. Plus, on top of it all, they are ugly and they are gross.
Winner: Pseudo Grandpa Al Lewis.
Means: The Brain Gremlin defeated himself in the debate. As he was tasked with proving that the Gremlin brood is civilized and on par with humans ... he failed and entirely on his own accord. Though to his credit it seems he chose to fail of his own volition... which would show he has freedom of choice. Hmmm. Wait a second. I'm reversing the decision. If these creatures have the freedom of thought and the ability to make choices on par with humans, even if their choices are bad ones, then I have to admit he did prove the inherent Gremliness and/or Gremlinhood of the Gremlin (of Gremlins 2).
***DECISION REVERESED***
New Winner: Brain Gremlin
Moral of the Story: The Gremliness or the Gremlinhood of Gremlinkind? That's a hard topic to make someone prove. To me this debate in relatable-to terms was like if you taught a cat to talk and then brought the cat on some TV Show (i.e. Live with Regis) and made it try to prove cats are on par with humans. The cat would probably not get the bit and get all scared, scratch Regis's face, be kicked off and permanently banned from the show. Would that prove a cat is an animal? No.
If you were a talking cat would you wanna go on some talk show and speak in defense of the cathood of cats? No, you wouldn't. You'd wanna go like talk to birds and say mean stuff to them before you ate them.
And yo, if you had a talking cat and you brought it on some talk show ... I bet a lot of people would want to meet the cat and some of them wouldn't have the talking cat's best interest at heart. I saw this episode of "The Littlest Hobo" (a famous Canadian show about a really smart non-talking dog who travels around Canada preforming gracious deeds for society) once where these scientists found out about how smart this hobo dog was ... so they captured him and wanted to cut his brain up and find out why he was so damned smart! You can't cut up the Littlest Hobo's living brain you guys! What the hell is wrong with you guys?
Same thing with a talking cat on a talk show ... I bet some nerd would want to disect its head and find out why it can talk for. Don't bring your talking cat on a talk show! Okay? Look I'm not saying I could teach a cat to talk ... but ... if I did ... I wouldn't make it go on a talk show to explain his/her self to humankind. I guess the real moral here is that if you can teach a cat to talk you don't have to brag about it. You know? It'll just annoy people and pose a danger to the cat.
Anyways. Cats are cats. Gremlins are Gremlins. Humans are Humans ... and Al Lewis is Al Lewis. This person on the opposite end of this debate, this fake Al Lewis impersonator, putting the Brain Gremlin on the spot has some obvious existential malaise of his own. I mean we know he's not the Real Grandpa Al Lewis. All the viewers watching him KNOW he is but a reasonable fact simile of the Grandpa Al Lewis. If I was Brain Gremlin here I would have turned the tables on that host. I would have been like "you want ME to prove Gremlins are sophisticated creatures!? YA RIGHT! How about YOU PROVE that you are GRANDPA AL LEWIS and speak in defense of the Al Lewisness and/or Al Lewishood of Al Lewis!"
Then again, if I was Pseudo Al Lewis in this debate ... I 'd probably lose it pretty quickly with this pretentious geek Gremlin and maybe just take off my belt and start bull whipping him and haranguing him all over the ring ... I mean studio.
5) Gunther Toody debates Francis Muldoon
As you know, in this legendary debate amongst humankind ... Gunther Toody debated Francis Muldoon over who will be next President of the 54th precinct's police brotherhood club.
Muldoon has held the title for many many years at this point and many of the officers of precinct 54 want a change for change's sake and urge Muldoon's partner, the gravel-voiced yet dim-witted Gunther Toody, to contest his presidential position in the coming election.
Gunther Toody gets the Presidential Itch pretty fierce and along with his right-hand-man Sgt. McBride, acting as his campaign strategist, they form an incredibly slanderous and populist campaign to unseat the incumbent Muldoon.
Muldoon, not wanting to muddy his hands and sink to Toody and McBride's level, takes a more lax campaign strategy. He actually doesn't even campaign as he thinks his long public service record and reputation will be reflected in the polls. Sheesh, Yeah right, Muldoon. What hokey-pokey planet of do-gooders does this 7 foot alien come from?
The combined force of Toody's out-of-nowhere Presidential Itch (that itch you get when you wanna be the President that you just can't scratch) and Sgt. McBride's machiavellian-esque stratagems soon become a force too powerful for Muldoon to continue to brush off. Toody and McBride's unscrupulous work comes to a crescendo and pinnacle as Toody and McBride print a slanderous brochure right before the leadup to the first official debate ... "The Truth about Muldoon."
During the debate, Toody reads excerpts from "The Truth about Muldoon" brochure and then right as Muldoon attempts to counter these filthy outrageous lies .... McBride comes on the loud speaker to inform the officers of precinct 54 that there is FREE BEER being offered in detention cell six (Toody campaign official headquarters). Watch as the men exit the room ... not even hearing Muldoon's turn to speak in the debate ... and boy-oh-boy could they care less about what he had to say in his defense.
Gasp! Does this mean what I think it means? Will Gunther Toody's underhanded approach to the debate lead to Toody being President of the brotherhood club!? Surely you jest! How can a guy like that be the President of ANYTHING!?
I don't want to spoil the end of the episode if you've never seen it but ... even though Toody won the debate he still lost the election. Thanks to a hero who swooped in at the last minute with an ironclad if not dymaxion Strategy to sink Toody's ship, and do you know who that hero was?
....It was the REAL Grandpa Al Lewis!!!
Winner: Gunther Toody (though he went on to lose the eventual election)
Means: Filthy slander and innuendoes which damaged Francis Muldoon's pristine reputation as brotherhood club President of precinct 54 ... oh and FREE BEER!
Moral of the Story: There is no substitute for the REAL Grandpa Al Lewis who came to the rescue with brilliant tacticmanship to put an end to Toody's populist uproar at precinct 54.
Gremlins 2 came out in 1990 in a world where the REAL Grandpa Al Lewis was still alive. As to why there is a Grandpa Al Lewis character in Gremlins 2 yet one in which is not portrayed by the actual Al Lewis is shocking. It's not like Grandpa Al Lewis was like untrackdownable like Grady Wilson from Sanford and Son was ... Al Lewis was in the horrible remake of Car 54: The Movie with Buster Poindexter and that came out in 1994 ... four full years AFTER Gremlins 2!
It could not have been hard to find REAL Grandpa Al Lewis in 1990 for the filming of Gremlins 2 ... I've heard in interviews, from Hank Garrett (I think), that diners used to pay Al Lewis in his older years to just hang out at New York diners so people could be in a diner and go "Wow, that's really the REAL Grandpa Al Lewis at that table, honey look!" ... so, I don't think it was too hard to find him.
Either way, I think I'm being too hard on the actor who did a great job portraying Grandpa Al Lewis in Gremlins 2... the remarkable and respectable actor Robert Prosky who was brilliant as Sgt. Stan Jablonski on Hill Street Blues.
Alright, what were we talking about? Moral of the thing? Yeah, That'd be cool like if like back in the 90s you'd be in a diner in New York and you look next to you and it's like ... "WOAH! It's GRANDPA! WOW"
Conclusion
Out of these five contestants in this extravaganza who shall come out on top?
I won't give it to Heenan vs. Patera, I think Patera made some excellent points and yes Bobby "The Brain" Heenan should have sent Ken a prison card when he was in prison ... but the whole debate seemed like much ado about nothing in the end. Fresh fruit for rotting vegetables as the saying goes. I like the part where Heenan starts whipping Patera with his belt though.
I won't give it to Kongming. He is soooo good at his craft, the art of words ... yet in the end he could not unify the Middle Kingdom under the flag of Liu Bei ... he did all he could but in the end it was Sima Yi who accomplished this with the remnants of Wei's forces. I think it was Sima Yi anyway, I don't remember the end of those books too well, and to be honest, the fourth volume of Romance of the Three Kingdoms gets a little stale after all the cool characters from the previous volumes are all long deceased.
Gunther Toody? Similar to Kongming, despite brilliant tactics he failed at his ultimate goal thanks to the late-inning heroics of Real Grandpa Al Lewis.
It's between Brain Gremlin and the Penguin ... and I gotta say ... I like Burgess Meredith ... he was a GREAT actor. Mick in Rocky, the guy who broke his glasses post-apocalypse thus ironically couldn't read his books after he finally had time off from the bank now that the world was over and everyone was dead to read said books...
Yo, eighties kids, did you know Burgess Meredith did the voice of Golobulus in GI Joe: The Movie? Yeah, he did. This guy deserves the award, he does. When it comes down to it ... we gotta give the trophy to Burgess, don't we?
The 2018 Great Debates in History Award goes to ...
.... Burgess Meredith!
Either way, today, we shall be looking at five great debates of history. At the end we shall choose a winner.
There's no criteria really to be in this contest. All five of the entries are from vastly different circumstances.
The Five entries shall be discussed in the following order:
1) Bobby Heenan debates Ken Patera
2) The Penguin debates Batman
3) Kongming debates the most renowned scholars of Wu
4) Brain Gremlin debates a Pseudo Grandpa Al Lewis
5) Gunther Toody debates Francis Muldoon
Okay, if you're familiar with any of these you already know that all five of these were a meeting of minds that really shook the foundations of all four corners of this great earth. Choosing a winner out of this set will be difficult, no doubt.
Okay. Here we go!
Five Great Debates in the Human History!
1) Bobby Heenan debates Ken Patera
Here we see both men at their podiums engage in a nice well mannered debate. To be totally honest here ... I'm not sure what the topic is that they are debating but I think it has to do with the fact that Bobby Heenan is a jerk and Ken Patera is trying to use examples from his personal life in effort to prove this.
Mr. Patera spares no quarter and leaves no stone unturned as he airs his grievances of the Brain during his turn at the podium. The most gregarious of Bobby Heenan's behavior appears to be that whilst Mr. Patera was incarcerated in the county jail Heenan NEVER visited him, NEVER called him, and DIDN'T EVEN send Ken Patera a card while he was in prison. Not. Even. A. Card.
Patera was dumbfounded by this behavior by a person he thought was his friend. He even asked his wife if she heard anything from Bobby Heenan and his wife said she had not. Patera goes on to claim that whilst in the lonely confines of prison, he had numerous lonely nights to ruminate over Heenan's behavior and also people like Heenan of this world in general. He came to the conclusion that Bobby Heenan is not a good person.
During Heenan's time to counter Patera's points he is very blunt and unremorseful ... going as far as to repeatedly refer to Patera as being a bum and a convict. Heenan's coup-de-grace hit pretty hard as he told Patera that without his managerial skills Patera would never ever get a Championship belt. Heenan then proceeds to remove his own belt and says "You want a belt! I'll give you a belt!" .... he then starts whipping Patera with said belt. Oh my.
It's probably not a great idea to start whipping people with belts during debates, especially if your opponent is a former Olympic weight lifter, but who could blame Bobby here? I mean, Patera said some pretty nasty things about him. I do agree with Patera that Heenan should have at the very least sent Patera a card during his incarceration just to let him know he cares. Like a "Get Out Soon" card or a "Happy Jail" card .... or whatever card you send to someone after they are incarcerated in county jail.
Patera counters during his grace time by taking the belt away from Heenan, bull whipping 'em around the ring with it, and just about garrotes the man. Wow.
This truly was a meeting of two great men.
Winner: Ken Patera
Means: Almost garroted opponent with his own belt.
Moral of the story: When in doubt in a debate just start whipping a guy with a belt. Maybe something will happen, and this outlandish act will turn the tides of the engagement... or maybe the guy will get very mad about it, harangue you across the ring and just about garotte you.
2) The Penguin debates Batman
Just an average day in Gotham City as Batman and the Penguin are the two candidates in Gotham's mayoral race. Most people expect the beloved Batman to be a shoe in to win ... but lo, what's this? The Penguin uses the debate across Gotham's air waves to slander and hurl invectives at our favorite caped crusader!?
I got to to give it the Penguin and his brilliant debate style here. He juxtaposes Batman into a position that no one could be able to wriggle out of. Penguin asked the people of Gotham why is it that Batman is always seen in the newspaper photographed with criminals whilst the Penguin is always in the newspaper photographed with law authorities? Maybe it is because Batman is in league with these nefarious ne'er-do-wells while the Penguin is obviously in league with the law? Hmmm. Makes sense.
Batman wants to counter these vicious slanderous lies yet slander wasn't the last of the Penguin's dirty tricks. The Penguin ordered his henchman backstage to cut Batman's microphone feed on the live broadcast and replace his audio with go-go music (or some 60s era feel-good music of some sort). Unbelievable. How is Batman to counter the Penguin's slanderous attacks when all of Gotham can only hear go-go music on the broadcast and not any of Batman's words.
Well played, Penguin. Well played. Some may call your strategies sinister, but not I.
Winner: The Penguin
Means: Juxtaposed Slander mixed with a little bit of whimsical go-go music over his opponent's microphone feed.
Moral of the story: No one can counter slander while their live audio feed is overlayed with annoying 60s music. Not even Batman.
3) Kongming debates the most renowned scholars of Wu
Here, Liu Bei's most trusted stratagist, Kongming, has travelled to Wu to convince the prince of Wu, the scion of Sun Jian, Sun Quan, to declare war on Cao Cao of Wei.
When I say the scholars and officials of Wu, I'm not talking about like just one or two of them were there. No, there was like all of them there. Let's see, amongst the officials of Wu present that day included:
Zhang Zhao
Gu Yong
Yu Fan
Bu Zhi
Xue Zhong
Lu Gong Ji
Yan Jun
Cheng Bing
And many more....
This was like a twenty on one debate here. Kongming was truly in a den of wolves if not a cave of tigers in this debate environment. Even Bu Zhi was there. Wow. I respect guys like Kongming who can saunter into a veritable sea of mistrust and just be as chill as can be. The guy is in a handicap match here, 20 on 1, and is just waving his feather fan, fanning himself, and staying composed as if he was simply at a leisurely banquet. If there's one thing I know about Kongming is that the dude does not panic under pressure.
All goes quite smoothly until Zhang Zhao just starts laying into Liu Bei, hard. I really must comment that Zhang Zhao was acting like a total fool in this debate. After what Liu Bei went through in Xu and Runan how can this man say such slanderous things about him? Zhang Zhao is really taking a low road here and his words are quite blunt. He goes as far as to call Liu Bei a thieving vagabond. Zhang Zhao even compares Liu Bei to a rat in regards to how he retreated from his battle with Cao Cao! Liu Bei is like Kongming's best friend in the whole wide world! How can Zhang Zhao say these things right to Kongming's face like this? It's almost too much to watch. If I was there I would not have had the patience to put up with a person like Zhang Zhao, who's acting like a total buffoon in this debate. If I was there I would have taken off my belt and starting haranguing him and bull whipping him around the ring ... I mean palace.
Yet, Kongming is a better man than I, as he effectively counters Zhang Zhaos's slander with choice words instead of over-the-top theatrical belt-related violence. He asks the seemingly rhetorical question of "How can common birds understand the long flight of the Roc?" ... Zhang Zhao ponders this seemingly rhetorical question for a moment and then realizes what a silly person he was being. Even silly men such as Zhang Zhao have the competence to see the err in there ways when it is presented to them with crystal-clear clarity.
Kongming's finishing attack in this debate is to be assertive and call these sweaty nerds out. He finishes his remarks by saying to the officials and scholars of Wu that all their book-learning and their precious book-smarts is great and all but you can't apply that theoretical horse fodder to anything. Book smarts won't help anyone when it is time to really get down and do the do. He goes on to say that some of the greatest heroes of yesteryear were farmers and fishermen with little to no use for stuffy book-smarts and who were surely not nerds.
Thus, Kongming openly ponders to the audience of officials if the prince of Wu is a man who would really take his marching orders from this gaggle of filthy and idiotic nerds!? No way, says the Prince of Wu. As the dust settled on this historic debate .... Suan Quan agreed with Kongming's points over his officials' points and forms an Alliance with Kongming to fight Cao Cao of Wei.
All this happened simply due to Kongming's coaxing. In the end, it was as easy as turning your hand and catching turtles in a jug for ol' Kongming is what it was.
Or so the story goes.....
Winner: Kongming
Means: Brilliant use of poetic rhetorical questions to show men the err of their thoughts.
Moral of the story: Sometimes you don't need a belt to shut a mouth. Sometimes a potent rhetorical question will work just as well. For it is true indeed as Kongming made clear ... Who says the common bird cannot understand the long flight of the Roc? Surely it was not I who would say something such as this. A common fellow like myself could never dare understand the dealings of the Heavens or of things of a similar magnitude to the Heavens ... yet, to explore this question further ... obviously a common man could not understand the workings of the mighty Heavens ... but no more so can a King or a Prince understand the workings of them either. Just because Zhang Zhao and his elite intellectual gang of crumb bums went to some fancy-pantsy school doesn't mean they are any closer to some sort of greater understanding of the world. Who is to say a fisherman cannot be a Prince or a farmer cannot be a King? Didn't the simple fisherman Li Jun of Mount Liang Shang go on to become the King of Siam?
Hmmm.... If a snake has no horns does this automatically suggest that it will never become a dragon? Heavens no, of course not. Yes ... it seems what Kongming was trying to tell Zhang Zhao was something as simple as the old western adage of "don't judge a book by its cover" yet these simple words showed Zhang Zhao the error of his ways in the most edifying manner possible.
I must confess ... sometimes Kongming really impresses me.
4) Brain Gremlin debates a Pseudo Grandpa Al Lewis
The first sentient and self-aware Gremlin, known as Brain Gremlin, is invited onto Pseudo Al Lewis' talk show and is tasked with the daunting endeavor of proving his brood (the Gremlins) are not mere monsters but are a civilized society on par with humans.
Yes, Brain Gremlin is behooved on live TV to justify to Pseudo Al Lewis the inherent Gremliness or Gremlinhood of the Gremlin.
I don't wanna delve into too much Gremlins 2 studies as there is a more than capable twitter account (The Institute for Gremlins 2 Studies) devoted to the field that has already covered many bases in regards to Gremlins 2: the New Batch academic endeavors.
I am going to focus solely on the debate itself and who won it instead of getting bogged down in Gremlins 2 semantics. The debate wherein Brain Gremlin debates a pseudo Granpa Al Lewis on whether or not the Gremlins can be considered civilized is what we're working with here.
People think because Brain Gremlin has a working lexicon structure and able to relate himself to Pseudo Grandpa Al Lewis that he is obviously civilized. Yet, as we plainly see from Brain Gremlin's anecdotes on the matter that HE HIMSELF believes he is NOT civilized. He is not even trying to come across as a civilized creature and just because he can talk doesn't mean anything. This supposed "smart" Gremlin has little value for the life of his brethren as seen when he shoots one in the face with a pistol mid-debate.
It seems, didactically speaking, that unlike what some people studying Gremlins 2 are trying to lead people to believe (i.e. The Gremlins 2 Institute believes the Gremlins of Gremlins 2 are civilized and that we should be sad when they are eradicated and melted into goop)... I however take the opposite view that we should NOT cry for the eradication of the Gremlin brood at the finale of Gremlins 2 (or 1 for that matter) for they were nothing but filthy murderous fun-loving monsters and not misunderstood creatures. Plus, on top of it all, they are ugly and they are gross.
Winner: Pseudo Grandpa Al Lewis.
Means: The Brain Gremlin defeated himself in the debate. As he was tasked with proving that the Gremlin brood is civilized and on par with humans ... he failed and entirely on his own accord. Though to his credit it seems he chose to fail of his own volition... which would show he has freedom of choice. Hmmm. Wait a second. I'm reversing the decision. If these creatures have the freedom of thought and the ability to make choices on par with humans, even if their choices are bad ones, then I have to admit he did prove the inherent Gremliness and/or Gremlinhood of the Gremlin (of Gremlins 2).
***DECISION REVERESED***
New Winner: Brain Gremlin
Moral of the Story: The Gremliness or the Gremlinhood of Gremlinkind? That's a hard topic to make someone prove. To me this debate in relatable-to terms was like if you taught a cat to talk and then brought the cat on some TV Show (i.e. Live with Regis) and made it try to prove cats are on par with humans. The cat would probably not get the bit and get all scared, scratch Regis's face, be kicked off and permanently banned from the show. Would that prove a cat is an animal? No.
If you were a talking cat would you wanna go on some talk show and speak in defense of the cathood of cats? No, you wouldn't. You'd wanna go like talk to birds and say mean stuff to them before you ate them.
And yo, if you had a talking cat and you brought it on some talk show ... I bet a lot of people would want to meet the cat and some of them wouldn't have the talking cat's best interest at heart. I saw this episode of "The Littlest Hobo" (a famous Canadian show about a really smart non-talking dog who travels around Canada preforming gracious deeds for society) once where these scientists found out about how smart this hobo dog was ... so they captured him and wanted to cut his brain up and find out why he was so damned smart! You can't cut up the Littlest Hobo's living brain you guys! What the hell is wrong with you guys?
Same thing with a talking cat on a talk show ... I bet some nerd would want to disect its head and find out why it can talk for. Don't bring your talking cat on a talk show! Okay? Look I'm not saying I could teach a cat to talk ... but ... if I did ... I wouldn't make it go on a talk show to explain his/her self to humankind. I guess the real moral here is that if you can teach a cat to talk you don't have to brag about it. You know? It'll just annoy people and pose a danger to the cat.
Anyways. Cats are cats. Gremlins are Gremlins. Humans are Humans ... and Al Lewis is Al Lewis. This person on the opposite end of this debate, this fake Al Lewis impersonator, putting the Brain Gremlin on the spot has some obvious existential malaise of his own. I mean we know he's not the Real Grandpa Al Lewis. All the viewers watching him KNOW he is but a reasonable fact simile of the Grandpa Al Lewis. If I was Brain Gremlin here I would have turned the tables on that host. I would have been like "you want ME to prove Gremlins are sophisticated creatures!? YA RIGHT! How about YOU PROVE that you are GRANDPA AL LEWIS and speak in defense of the Al Lewisness and/or Al Lewishood of Al Lewis!"
Then again, if I was Pseudo Al Lewis in this debate ... I 'd probably lose it pretty quickly with this pretentious geek Gremlin and maybe just take off my belt and start bull whipping him and haranguing him all over the ring ... I mean studio.
5) Gunther Toody debates Francis Muldoon
As you know, in this legendary debate amongst humankind ... Gunther Toody debated Francis Muldoon over who will be next President of the 54th precinct's police brotherhood club.
Muldoon has held the title for many many years at this point and many of the officers of precinct 54 want a change for change's sake and urge Muldoon's partner, the gravel-voiced yet dim-witted Gunther Toody, to contest his presidential position in the coming election.
Gunther Toody gets the Presidential Itch pretty fierce and along with his right-hand-man Sgt. McBride, acting as his campaign strategist, they form an incredibly slanderous and populist campaign to unseat the incumbent Muldoon.
Muldoon, not wanting to muddy his hands and sink to Toody and McBride's level, takes a more lax campaign strategy. He actually doesn't even campaign as he thinks his long public service record and reputation will be reflected in the polls. Sheesh, Yeah right, Muldoon. What hokey-pokey planet of do-gooders does this 7 foot alien come from?
The combined force of Toody's out-of-nowhere Presidential Itch (that itch you get when you wanna be the President that you just can't scratch) and Sgt. McBride's machiavellian-esque stratagems soon become a force too powerful for Muldoon to continue to brush off. Toody and McBride's unscrupulous work comes to a crescendo and pinnacle as Toody and McBride print a slanderous brochure right before the leadup to the first official debate ... "The Truth about Muldoon."
During the debate, Toody reads excerpts from "The Truth about Muldoon" brochure and then right as Muldoon attempts to counter these filthy outrageous lies .... McBride comes on the loud speaker to inform the officers of precinct 54 that there is FREE BEER being offered in detention cell six (Toody campaign official headquarters). Watch as the men exit the room ... not even hearing Muldoon's turn to speak in the debate ... and boy-oh-boy could they care less about what he had to say in his defense.
Gasp! Does this mean what I think it means? Will Gunther Toody's underhanded approach to the debate lead to Toody being President of the brotherhood club!? Surely you jest! How can a guy like that be the President of ANYTHING!?
I don't want to spoil the end of the episode if you've never seen it but ... even though Toody won the debate he still lost the election. Thanks to a hero who swooped in at the last minute with an ironclad if not dymaxion Strategy to sink Toody's ship, and do you know who that hero was?
....It was the REAL Grandpa Al Lewis!!!
Winner: Gunther Toody (though he went on to lose the eventual election)
Means: Filthy slander and innuendoes which damaged Francis Muldoon's pristine reputation as brotherhood club President of precinct 54 ... oh and FREE BEER!
Moral of the Story: There is no substitute for the REAL Grandpa Al Lewis who came to the rescue with brilliant tacticmanship to put an end to Toody's populist uproar at precinct 54.
Gremlins 2 came out in 1990 in a world where the REAL Grandpa Al Lewis was still alive. As to why there is a Grandpa Al Lewis character in Gremlins 2 yet one in which is not portrayed by the actual Al Lewis is shocking. It's not like Grandpa Al Lewis was like untrackdownable like Grady Wilson from Sanford and Son was ... Al Lewis was in the horrible remake of Car 54: The Movie with Buster Poindexter and that came out in 1994 ... four full years AFTER Gremlins 2!
It could not have been hard to find REAL Grandpa Al Lewis in 1990 for the filming of Gremlins 2 ... I've heard in interviews, from Hank Garrett (I think), that diners used to pay Al Lewis in his older years to just hang out at New York diners so people could be in a diner and go "Wow, that's really the REAL Grandpa Al Lewis at that table, honey look!" ... so, I don't think it was too hard to find him.
Either way, I think I'm being too hard on the actor who did a great job portraying Grandpa Al Lewis in Gremlins 2... the remarkable and respectable actor Robert Prosky who was brilliant as Sgt. Stan Jablonski on Hill Street Blues.
Alright, what were we talking about? Moral of the thing? Yeah, That'd be cool like if like back in the 90s you'd be in a diner in New York and you look next to you and it's like ... "WOAH! It's GRANDPA! WOW"
Conclusion
Out of these five contestants in this extravaganza who shall come out on top?
I won't give it to Heenan vs. Patera, I think Patera made some excellent points and yes Bobby "The Brain" Heenan should have sent Ken a prison card when he was in prison ... but the whole debate seemed like much ado about nothing in the end. Fresh fruit for rotting vegetables as the saying goes. I like the part where Heenan starts whipping Patera with his belt though.
I won't give it to Kongming. He is soooo good at his craft, the art of words ... yet in the end he could not unify the Middle Kingdom under the flag of Liu Bei ... he did all he could but in the end it was Sima Yi who accomplished this with the remnants of Wei's forces. I think it was Sima Yi anyway, I don't remember the end of those books too well, and to be honest, the fourth volume of Romance of the Three Kingdoms gets a little stale after all the cool characters from the previous volumes are all long deceased.
Gunther Toody? Similar to Kongming, despite brilliant tactics he failed at his ultimate goal thanks to the late-inning heroics of Real Grandpa Al Lewis.It's between Brain Gremlin and the Penguin ... and I gotta say ... I like Burgess Meredith ... he was a GREAT actor. Mick in Rocky, the guy who broke his glasses post-apocalypse thus ironically couldn't read his books after he finally had time off from the bank now that the world was over and everyone was dead to read said books...
Yo, eighties kids, did you know Burgess Meredith did the voice of Golobulus in GI Joe: The Movie? Yeah, he did. This guy deserves the award, he does. When it comes down to it ... we gotta give the trophy to Burgess, don't we?
The 2018 Great Debates in History Award goes to ...
.... Burgess Meredith!
Friday, June 15, 2018
Are Nerds Ruining Baseball?
In March of 2016 I wrote "Baseball: Trots,"
(See Here for "Baseball: Trots": https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2016/03/baseball-trots.html )
To be honest, this is my favorite article in my arsenal of essays. I like this one. I really do. I think Baseball: Trots is a good essay. I can't say I'm proud of most of the crap I wrote in this very experimental writing training blog over the years... especially the earlier very crass ones which are sucky. With Baseball: Trots though .... even looking at it now ... it still holds up... it's something I think is good. I think it's my magnum opus.
There's unfinished work in this essay though, for it seems in the conclusion rests this ominous line:
"Are Nerds ruining baseball? Maybe, we'll have to look into that another time though."
(Baseball: Trots, March 2016)
It's about time we looked into this old chums ... for I feel there is no better time than right now. For I fear nerds are virtually on the verge of running amok all over baseball and this moment is literally the most crucialest of junctures if anyone wants to prevent this from happening.
Now, before you think I am some sort of anti-nerd nerd-hating jock ... let's clarify first off that I am not that at all. I am too ... A Nerd. This article is written from the viewpoint of one Nerd to Another and not from the viewpoint of a Jock to a Nerd.
Just take my word that I'm a Nerd, okay? I can lay down nerd Street Cred all day if you'd like that but time is of the essence, friends. Time is of the essence at this crucial-most path and I will not spend many a paragraph illustrating for you my Nerd credentials with a flurry of geeky anecdotes and references. I could wax off yarns and a half about 80s cartoons or some other manner of sweet n' sour silliness ... but there's no time.
Let's bypass the meaningless set up and dive right into the main point here.... and that's that Nerds ARE Ruining Baseball! They are.
If I wrote this in 2016 or 2017 ... I would have emphatically said that Nerds are not doing that ... but in 2018, as of right now, my stance has changed and I must eliquate as to why.
Why Nerds Are Ruining Baseball
They laugh at our clothes, they laugh at our hair, n' the girls walk by with their nose in the air!
Again, let me remind you reader, that I am a baseball stat nerd and love baseball stats more than pizza .... but the analytics shtick is going too far. It is.
I remember first noticing it when people were clamoring around that Billy Beane and his moneyball gimmick. I remember hearing things like "Billy Beane invented On Base Percentage, noob! Get with the Money Ball program there slappy!" ... and I'm like ... he didn't invent On Base Percentage. It had been on the baseball leader board since 1984 ... how did he invent it almost two decades later? To top it all off it gets a hollywood movie cast with a good looking actor to star in it ... if that doesn't shout "over-hyped" to you then nothing does.
From the second I heard of Money Ball I thought it was a stretch at best and silly/dumb at worst.
Yes, back in the early 2000s I was already skeptical about nerd-related advances on the game. It has really come into the danger zone now though. Things are popping up outta right field and left field that have really got me teetering on a slight slope.
I was reading an article the other month about how a minor league team in the Mexican league hired some analytics dude from some university to coach their games from his tv set in some posh American mansion. This is too far. It is. This is beyond the realm of reasonable. This is every fans dream (to coach the game from his arm chair) but it should remain so. The article goes on to say that like .... the posh American statistician was in awe that the lowly Mexican on-field on-site manager would not take his over-the-phone advice. If I was that Mexican Manager ... I'd leave the phone off the hook the entire game or maybe tell the bat boy to talk to the dude. You can't coach games like that.
I read in Bill Veeck's book that he let the fans coach a game once and held up signs like "shall we jerk the bum?" and the fans would democratically hold up a YES or NO sign. Even that's a saner managing style than having to phone a law professor on his couch in some mansion in the Nappa Valley to see what to do next.
The hands-on approach of general managers and their reliance on "Money-Ball" style strategies is not just from some Mexican league team ... it's every MLB team is run like that now. They want 3 variables to think about and only 3 ... Walk, Strikeout, Homer. That's it. Three variables. That's all they can handle.
Forget long stat lines, as long lost are the days where on baseball card backs you could see how many doubles, triples, homers, walks, steals, etc. somebody has. They want that condensed to ONE variable. They don't have time to look at a full stat line. They want ONE stat to sum up an entire player. Whether it's WAR or WOBA or WHATEVA.
Throw all the scouting reports out the window! Who needs 'em!? This guy's a .910 and that's better than this other bum who's just a .902 ! We don't need to know if he can run or field .... he's a 910 and that's 8 things better than a 902!
Baseball is being run by accountants!
In 1985 a game had on average 5 strikeouts per game... in 2018 it's closing in on 9 per game. It's almost doubled. They're not good strikeouts either ... like I remember if Tony Gwynn or Tim Raines struck out everyone was in shock ... you had to earn a K on guys like that. So many of these 2018 Ks are guys trying to blast homers with 2 strikes on them. You blast those on 3-1 or 3-2 ... why you blastin' on 1-2 or 0-2 for? Then they throw the helmet and yell to make a show for the audience after they swing and miss. You whiffed by a mile on a 1-2 pitch .... it's not like you tried your best and failed ... you tried to do way too much and failed.
I've seen players, in the PLAYOFFS, with a runner on third with nobody out strike out trying to hit it out of the park. That's lunacy. Downright sweet n' sour LUNACY!
You want power and walks? Well you got them. You got 2/5 tool players with 3 weaknesses. A lot of these guys are basically beer league soft ball players more so than terrific athletes.
Then there's the buzz words. All the silly stuff they do has to have corny gimmicks thrown on it. You use 12 pitchers in a game? That's called Pitchering ... oh I'm sorry ... Hash Tag Pitchering. You hit your pitcher 8th in the batting order instead of 9th? That's called Eightering. You write the line up card while standing on your head? They call that Heading.
Lay one down you egg heads!
They probably want baseball played by robots. Then the simulations would match up better to their predictions. But the joke would still be on them because even robots would get pretty hectic and chaotic out there. Remember Base Wars?
Robots playing baseball wasn't a friendly stuffy simulation between competing Nerdlingers... it was WICKED and it was GOOD!
Conclusion
It's suffice to say, Nerds ... Goose Gossage was RIGHT on all accounts! You're ruining the game and everyone knows it and is calling you out on it! You're behind the eight ball now, NERDS!
All jokings aside, I'm still a big baseball stat-head ... I'm just cautioning that this analytics business can go too far. I think a vision for binary variables ... Homer, Strikeout (or walk) .... isn't a great idea. Obviously it would never get to that point .... but with strikeouts per game almost doubling in the last 30 years and other trends of that nature ... I think it is taking a lot away from the game.
I still love stats, and I still love nerds ... but have we reached Peak Nerd?
(See Here for "Baseball: Trots": https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2016/03/baseball-trots.html )
To be honest, this is my favorite article in my arsenal of essays. I like this one. I really do. I think Baseball: Trots is a good essay. I can't say I'm proud of most of the crap I wrote in this very experimental writing training blog over the years... especially the earlier very crass ones which are sucky. With Baseball: Trots though .... even looking at it now ... it still holds up... it's something I think is good. I think it's my magnum opus.
There's unfinished work in this essay though, for it seems in the conclusion rests this ominous line:
"Are Nerds ruining baseball? Maybe, we'll have to look into that another time though."
(Baseball: Trots, March 2016)
It's about time we looked into this old chums ... for I feel there is no better time than right now. For I fear nerds are virtually on the verge of running amok all over baseball and this moment is literally the most crucialest of junctures if anyone wants to prevent this from happening.
Now, before you think I am some sort of anti-nerd nerd-hating jock ... let's clarify first off that I am not that at all. I am too ... A Nerd. This article is written from the viewpoint of one Nerd to Another and not from the viewpoint of a Jock to a Nerd.
Just take my word that I'm a Nerd, okay? I can lay down nerd Street Cred all day if you'd like that but time is of the essence, friends. Time is of the essence at this crucial-most path and I will not spend many a paragraph illustrating for you my Nerd credentials with a flurry of geeky anecdotes and references. I could wax off yarns and a half about 80s cartoons or some other manner of sweet n' sour silliness ... but there's no time.
Let's bypass the meaningless set up and dive right into the main point here.... and that's that Nerds ARE Ruining Baseball! They are.
If I wrote this in 2016 or 2017 ... I would have emphatically said that Nerds are not doing that ... but in 2018, as of right now, my stance has changed and I must eliquate as to why.
Why Nerds Are Ruining Baseball
They laugh at our clothes, they laugh at our hair, n' the girls walk by with their nose in the air!
Again, let me remind you reader, that I am a baseball stat nerd and love baseball stats more than pizza .... but the analytics shtick is going too far. It is.
I remember first noticing it when people were clamoring around that Billy Beane and his moneyball gimmick. I remember hearing things like "Billy Beane invented On Base Percentage, noob! Get with the Money Ball program there slappy!" ... and I'm like ... he didn't invent On Base Percentage. It had been on the baseball leader board since 1984 ... how did he invent it almost two decades later? To top it all off it gets a hollywood movie cast with a good looking actor to star in it ... if that doesn't shout "over-hyped" to you then nothing does.
From the second I heard of Money Ball I thought it was a stretch at best and silly/dumb at worst.
Yes, back in the early 2000s I was already skeptical about nerd-related advances on the game. It has really come into the danger zone now though. Things are popping up outta right field and left field that have really got me teetering on a slight slope.
I was reading an article the other month about how a minor league team in the Mexican league hired some analytics dude from some university to coach their games from his tv set in some posh American mansion. This is too far. It is. This is beyond the realm of reasonable. This is every fans dream (to coach the game from his arm chair) but it should remain so. The article goes on to say that like .... the posh American statistician was in awe that the lowly Mexican on-field on-site manager would not take his over-the-phone advice. If I was that Mexican Manager ... I'd leave the phone off the hook the entire game or maybe tell the bat boy to talk to the dude. You can't coach games like that.
I read in Bill Veeck's book that he let the fans coach a game once and held up signs like "shall we jerk the bum?" and the fans would democratically hold up a YES or NO sign. Even that's a saner managing style than having to phone a law professor on his couch in some mansion in the Nappa Valley to see what to do next.
The hands-on approach of general managers and their reliance on "Money-Ball" style strategies is not just from some Mexican league team ... it's every MLB team is run like that now. They want 3 variables to think about and only 3 ... Walk, Strikeout, Homer. That's it. Three variables. That's all they can handle.
 |
| I'm talkin' Nerds Nerds Nerds! |
Forget long stat lines, as long lost are the days where on baseball card backs you could see how many doubles, triples, homers, walks, steals, etc. somebody has. They want that condensed to ONE variable. They don't have time to look at a full stat line. They want ONE stat to sum up an entire player. Whether it's WAR or WOBA or WHATEVA.
Throw all the scouting reports out the window! Who needs 'em!? This guy's a .910 and that's better than this other bum who's just a .902 ! We don't need to know if he can run or field .... he's a 910 and that's 8 things better than a 902!
Baseball is being run by accountants!
In 1985 a game had on average 5 strikeouts per game... in 2018 it's closing in on 9 per game. It's almost doubled. They're not good strikeouts either ... like I remember if Tony Gwynn or Tim Raines struck out everyone was in shock ... you had to earn a K on guys like that. So many of these 2018 Ks are guys trying to blast homers with 2 strikes on them. You blast those on 3-1 or 3-2 ... why you blastin' on 1-2 or 0-2 for? Then they throw the helmet and yell to make a show for the audience after they swing and miss. You whiffed by a mile on a 1-2 pitch .... it's not like you tried your best and failed ... you tried to do way too much and failed.
I've seen players, in the PLAYOFFS, with a runner on third with nobody out strike out trying to hit it out of the park. That's lunacy. Downright sweet n' sour LUNACY!
 |
| Neeeeeeerds. |
Then there's the buzz words. All the silly stuff they do has to have corny gimmicks thrown on it. You use 12 pitchers in a game? That's called Pitchering ... oh I'm sorry ... Hash Tag Pitchering. You hit your pitcher 8th in the batting order instead of 9th? That's called Eightering. You write the line up card while standing on your head? They call that Heading.
Lay one down you egg heads!
They probably want baseball played by robots. Then the simulations would match up better to their predictions. But the joke would still be on them because even robots would get pretty hectic and chaotic out there. Remember Base Wars?
Gee Eugene, I wonder what Tank Bot's WRC+ Squared is with RISP!
Robots playing baseball wasn't a friendly stuffy simulation between competing Nerdlingers... it was WICKED and it was GOOD!
Conclusion
 |
| The Boys n' the Moos are Clappin' Along! |
It's suffice to say, Nerds ... Goose Gossage was RIGHT on all accounts! You're ruining the game and everyone knows it and is calling you out on it! You're behind the eight ball now, NERDS!
All jokings aside, I'm still a big baseball stat-head ... I'm just cautioning that this analytics business can go too far. I think a vision for binary variables ... Homer, Strikeout (or walk) .... isn't a great idea. Obviously it would never get to that point .... but with strikeouts per game almost doubling in the last 30 years and other trends of that nature ... I think it is taking a lot away from the game.
I still love stats, and I still love nerds ... but have we reached Peak Nerd?
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
The Silly Shift
After being shell shocked from losing my Team (the Expos) I really stopped watching baseball for a good chunk of time. The season where the Kansas City Royals won the World Series (2015) is when I really started getting back into it Big Time again.
So, my years of watching the old ballgame have a chunk missing in it. I was an avid if not rabid fan of MLB from 1986-ish (when I saw Tim Raines hit the Cocoa-Cola Sign at the Big O) until 2004 when the Expos left and now have resumed fanhood (albeit in less avid fashion mind you) as of 2015.
So for me, 2005 to 2014 is sort of like a big hole for me in the baseball world ... and there's things in the game now that I do need to wrap my head around because there's some new stuff in there.
One big one is The Shift, which can be written as in Caps because it is a big deal in the league now which it surely was not during my avid fanhood years. I'm gonna do some thinking about The Shift right now and you can follow me on this exciting journey if you wish...
The Basics of the Shift
I'm not gonna "term define" The Shift because if anyone is gonna read a barn burner article about it I am quite sure they are familiar as to what it is. It just refers to when a team moves its infielders lopsidingly to one portion of the infield against a certain hitter.
There's two reasons why the shift is a good strategy in some cases. The first is as a defensive stratagem, yes indeed, some hitters tend to hit to one side of the infield when they hit grounders or liners or choppers .... and placing all your infielders there should make more of these batted balls into outs. That one everyone knows because it is self evident.
The other factor of why the shift works is mental. It is a tactic designed to sew uncertainty and panic into the hitter's mind. Historians of the game tend to know this, as they point to the first instance of The Shift, being when Lou Boudreau used it in the days of yore to throw Ted Williams off his game.
Personally, I believe it is the mental aspect of the Shift as why it works. I think it has gotten into a lot of hitters minds and threw them off their game.
To me what the shift says to the hitter is, "Hey man, you are such a bum even if I give you half the field open you still couldn't get a hit." I mean the pinnacle full-escalated version to show this (I doubt any manager would ever do this) would be to take all of your fielders off the field except for the pitcher and catcher to send the message of "Hey man, you're such a bum ... if I give you the WHOLE field you still can't get on base!"
If the hitter makes an out while that affront is on him ... he can come out of that situation pretty defeated-feeling and prime himself to go into a prolonged slump. Every time after when he sees the infielders going to huddle on one side of the field he's gonna be like "oh crap not this again."
I can think of two players who the Shift got them. Belt and Smoak. I watched a few Blue Jay games in 2016 (Jays games are on TV in my region all the time) and Justin Smoak was devastated by the dopey shift .. and I am 100% sure it was mental. He had a .705 OPS in 2016 and he was brutal out there. Fast forward to 2017 and where was he? He was at the ALL STAR GAME! Why? Because he adjusted mentally in his approach to the plate.
Same thing with Brandon Belt, he's a big name that I think got hoodwinked by that stratagem but this season he's not letting it get to him and is hitting very well.
So yes, to give it some credit, it can and does work ... but I believe only in a more mental way in which some hitters are thrown off by it.
Criticism
This article was titled "Silly Shift" so this section as you can guess will be longer. It was titled "Dumb Shift" but I changed it because it isn't really dumb it's more silly than dumb.
Let's start at a big critique of the Shift now ... and that's that it only works on ONE particular version of hitter and that's two-tool left handed hitters. Their two tools being power and eye.
I've always been a fan of 5-tool players because they always have something to fall back on if the opposition figures out a weakness on them. The two-tool lefty power n' walks hitter can't fall back on anything when their weaknesses are singled out and pounced on. A TTLPW (two-tool-lefty-power-walker) is out of baseball if his tools are isolated and destroyed. He's usually a firstbaseman or DH so he can't fall back on his defense when goings get tough and stay on the roster because of solid defense. He can't let his speed do the brunt of the work and break out of the slump by stopping his power approach, going for a pure contact approach, and be productive with base running. If you can isolate and punch holes in the TTLPW's game ... he's out of baseball for good. If you stop him from doing the only two things he does well, he's walking the lonely road to Palookaville ..... just him, his dog, and his equipment bag ... walking the long road down to Nowherestown, USA.
Truth be told, not many TTLPWs are out of baseball because of the shift. Why? Because it barely even stifles their ability to do what they do ... and that's draw walks and hit extra base hits. Once they overcome the mental aspect of the shift it barely even affects their game. You think David Ortiz gave a human crap or even a pile of horse crap that they put the infielders to one side of the field? NO! The guy's job was to either walk, strikeout, or blast an extra base hit on or over the wall. He's not giving ten pounds of cat crap about the stupid shift ... and if the mental aspect doesn't work then what good is it? None. You think Ortiz cared how many guys were standing on first base after he hit homerun number 30 of the season? No, he really did not.
That's one way to overcome the mental voodoo of the shift that can enter the hitter's head ... literally to not care about it and keep swinging for the fences. You're a left handed, slow as molasses, DH, power hitter ... you hit homers ... that's what you do. That's your job. You don't have to pretend to care about the silly shift. Don't let it get to you.
The other way you can say Gimme-a-Break to a manager shiftin' on you is to take a breath every 5th shift on you or so ... and tell them ... look .... I know I'm a lefty power hitter who is slower than my grandma at base running but look at this, man, I'm gonna pull a fast one on you. Take two steps back in the batter's box and lunge-slap an opposite field liner into left field. If you can't master the lunge-slap hittin' style then just throw a bunt down the third base line every 5th shift or so just to tell the opposing manager ... "yo, I'm not a Statue, okay? I'm not a Stone Golem here, ok? I can employ other tools if I have to ... don't run this shit on me, man, okay?
I saw Rizzo on the Cubs bunt for a single once. That's rare for him but if there's no thirdbaseman at third base a bunt there is basically a 100% method of getting on base and not making an out. I know with the TTLPWs they don't pay them for bunt singles but pay them to homer ... but if you feel the opposing manager's shift is getting to you then it's not a bad idea to let them know that you're not a Stone Golem every now and then and slap something to third, you know? Hoist the petard on those former back-up catcher nerd managers who think you are nothing but mere one-tool ham-fisted statues.
Can you imagine if 80s or 90s pure hitters had shifts on them? They'd laugh at it. If you did this back then on lefties like George Brett, Tony Gwynn, Al Oliver, etc., etc.,? They'd hit a double off you EVERY TIME. You think they had trouble slappin' to opposite field? No, they were pure hitters. They could hit anything. If you pulled this bush league cow crap on those guys they would have LAUGHED and LAUGHED and LAUGHED. They would have regarded The Shift as ridiculous.
So to sum up my criticism of The Shift....
-It basically stops singles.
-It only works on Slow as Molasses Left Handed Power Pull Hitters who have no plan-B auxiliary tools to fall back on (i.e. opposite field lunge-slaps or bunting/speed attempts)
Left Handed Power hitters are usually hitting 3, 4, or 5 in the lineup and are not paid to hit singles ... they are paid to drive in runners with powerful wallops to the outfield (NOT THE INFIELD EVEN). So, even if the shift does work .... how much difference is it actually making?
-It can be countered by something as simple as not caring about it (i.e. David Ortiz not caring that there were 5 guys standing on first base whilst he circled the bases after a 430 foot homerun)
-It can be countered by just using your brain sometimes and putting a ball where the fielders aren't.
I really think the success of the Shift is mental, that it gets into some hitters minds, and throws them off their shtick ... but as we've seen with even some of the most two-tooled of two-tooled lefty power n' walks hitters (Smoak and Belt) .... even guys who it worked on got out of it. Smoak is smashing balls, Belt is smashing balls. Whatever mental affects it had on them have warn off already.
One other thing that should be noted is that the appeal it has with the fans ... and it does have decent appeal with some fans ... is that it is from the cross-over between NFL fans and MLB fans (which is pretty large). In football, defensive formations is paramount to the game. I mean, if you are set up to stop the offensive play of the opposing coach in football you're gonna win a lot of games. In baseball, defensive formations are part of the game but not NEARLY to the scale of football. Fans should keep in mind that baseball and football ... though both great .... are pretty different cups of tea. They really are.
Different cups of tea.
So, my years of watching the old ballgame have a chunk missing in it. I was an avid if not rabid fan of MLB from 1986-ish (when I saw Tim Raines hit the Cocoa-Cola Sign at the Big O) until 2004 when the Expos left and now have resumed fanhood (albeit in less avid fashion mind you) as of 2015.
So for me, 2005 to 2014 is sort of like a big hole for me in the baseball world ... and there's things in the game now that I do need to wrap my head around because there's some new stuff in there.
One big one is The Shift, which can be written as in Caps because it is a big deal in the league now which it surely was not during my avid fanhood years. I'm gonna do some thinking about The Shift right now and you can follow me on this exciting journey if you wish...
The Basics of the Shift
I'm not gonna "term define" The Shift because if anyone is gonna read a barn burner article about it I am quite sure they are familiar as to what it is. It just refers to when a team moves its infielders lopsidingly to one portion of the infield against a certain hitter.
There's two reasons why the shift is a good strategy in some cases. The first is as a defensive stratagem, yes indeed, some hitters tend to hit to one side of the infield when they hit grounders or liners or choppers .... and placing all your infielders there should make more of these batted balls into outs. That one everyone knows because it is self evident.
The other factor of why the shift works is mental. It is a tactic designed to sew uncertainty and panic into the hitter's mind. Historians of the game tend to know this, as they point to the first instance of The Shift, being when Lou Boudreau used it in the days of yore to throw Ted Williams off his game.
Personally, I believe it is the mental aspect of the Shift as why it works. I think it has gotten into a lot of hitters minds and threw them off their game.
To me what the shift says to the hitter is, "Hey man, you are such a bum even if I give you half the field open you still couldn't get a hit." I mean the pinnacle full-escalated version to show this (I doubt any manager would ever do this) would be to take all of your fielders off the field except for the pitcher and catcher to send the message of "Hey man, you're such a bum ... if I give you the WHOLE field you still can't get on base!"
If the hitter makes an out while that affront is on him ... he can come out of that situation pretty defeated-feeling and prime himself to go into a prolonged slump. Every time after when he sees the infielders going to huddle on one side of the field he's gonna be like "oh crap not this again."
I can think of two players who the Shift got them. Belt and Smoak. I watched a few Blue Jay games in 2016 (Jays games are on TV in my region all the time) and Justin Smoak was devastated by the dopey shift .. and I am 100% sure it was mental. He had a .705 OPS in 2016 and he was brutal out there. Fast forward to 2017 and where was he? He was at the ALL STAR GAME! Why? Because he adjusted mentally in his approach to the plate.
Same thing with Brandon Belt, he's a big name that I think got hoodwinked by that stratagem but this season he's not letting it get to him and is hitting very well.
So yes, to give it some credit, it can and does work ... but I believe only in a more mental way in which some hitters are thrown off by it.
Criticism
This article was titled "Silly Shift" so this section as you can guess will be longer. It was titled "Dumb Shift" but I changed it because it isn't really dumb it's more silly than dumb.
Let's start at a big critique of the Shift now ... and that's that it only works on ONE particular version of hitter and that's two-tool left handed hitters. Their two tools being power and eye.
I've always been a fan of 5-tool players because they always have something to fall back on if the opposition figures out a weakness on them. The two-tool lefty power n' walks hitter can't fall back on anything when their weaknesses are singled out and pounced on. A TTLPW (two-tool-lefty-power-walker) is out of baseball if his tools are isolated and destroyed. He's usually a firstbaseman or DH so he can't fall back on his defense when goings get tough and stay on the roster because of solid defense. He can't let his speed do the brunt of the work and break out of the slump by stopping his power approach, going for a pure contact approach, and be productive with base running. If you can isolate and punch holes in the TTLPW's game ... he's out of baseball for good. If you stop him from doing the only two things he does well, he's walking the lonely road to Palookaville ..... just him, his dog, and his equipment bag ... walking the long road down to Nowherestown, USA.
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| This scene and "firing" Boco in Final Fantasy Tactics made me almost weep openly. |
Truth be told, not many TTLPWs are out of baseball because of the shift. Why? Because it barely even stifles their ability to do what they do ... and that's draw walks and hit extra base hits. Once they overcome the mental aspect of the shift it barely even affects their game. You think David Ortiz gave a human crap or even a pile of horse crap that they put the infielders to one side of the field? NO! The guy's job was to either walk, strikeout, or blast an extra base hit on or over the wall. He's not giving ten pounds of cat crap about the stupid shift ... and if the mental aspect doesn't work then what good is it? None. You think Ortiz cared how many guys were standing on first base after he hit homerun number 30 of the season? No, he really did not.
That's one way to overcome the mental voodoo of the shift that can enter the hitter's head ... literally to not care about it and keep swinging for the fences. You're a left handed, slow as molasses, DH, power hitter ... you hit homers ... that's what you do. That's your job. You don't have to pretend to care about the silly shift. Don't let it get to you.
The other way you can say Gimme-a-Break to a manager shiftin' on you is to take a breath every 5th shift on you or so ... and tell them ... look .... I know I'm a lefty power hitter who is slower than my grandma at base running but look at this, man, I'm gonna pull a fast one on you. Take two steps back in the batter's box and lunge-slap an opposite field liner into left field. If you can't master the lunge-slap hittin' style then just throw a bunt down the third base line every 5th shift or so just to tell the opposing manager ... "yo, I'm not a Statue, okay? I'm not a Stone Golem here, ok? I can employ other tools if I have to ... don't run this shit on me, man, okay?
I saw Rizzo on the Cubs bunt for a single once. That's rare for him but if there's no thirdbaseman at third base a bunt there is basically a 100% method of getting on base and not making an out. I know with the TTLPWs they don't pay them for bunt singles but pay them to homer ... but if you feel the opposing manager's shift is getting to you then it's not a bad idea to let them know that you're not a Stone Golem every now and then and slap something to third, you know? Hoist the petard on those former back-up catcher nerd managers who think you are nothing but mere one-tool ham-fisted statues.
Can you imagine if 80s or 90s pure hitters had shifts on them? They'd laugh at it. If you did this back then on lefties like George Brett, Tony Gwynn, Al Oliver, etc., etc.,? They'd hit a double off you EVERY TIME. You think they had trouble slappin' to opposite field? No, they were pure hitters. They could hit anything. If you pulled this bush league cow crap on those guys they would have LAUGHED and LAUGHED and LAUGHED. They would have regarded The Shift as ridiculous.
So to sum up my criticism of The Shift....
-It basically stops singles.
-It only works on Slow as Molasses Left Handed Power Pull Hitters who have no plan-B auxiliary tools to fall back on (i.e. opposite field lunge-slaps or bunting/speed attempts)
Left Handed Power hitters are usually hitting 3, 4, or 5 in the lineup and are not paid to hit singles ... they are paid to drive in runners with powerful wallops to the outfield (NOT THE INFIELD EVEN). So, even if the shift does work .... how much difference is it actually making?
-It can be countered by something as simple as not caring about it (i.e. David Ortiz not caring that there were 5 guys standing on first base whilst he circled the bases after a 430 foot homerun)
-It can be countered by just using your brain sometimes and putting a ball where the fielders aren't.
I really think the success of the Shift is mental, that it gets into some hitters minds, and throws them off their shtick ... but as we've seen with even some of the most two-tooled of two-tooled lefty power n' walks hitters (Smoak and Belt) .... even guys who it worked on got out of it. Smoak is smashing balls, Belt is smashing balls. Whatever mental affects it had on them have warn off already.
One other thing that should be noted is that the appeal it has with the fans ... and it does have decent appeal with some fans ... is that it is from the cross-over between NFL fans and MLB fans (which is pretty large). In football, defensive formations is paramount to the game. I mean, if you are set up to stop the offensive play of the opposing coach in football you're gonna win a lot of games. In baseball, defensive formations are part of the game but not NEARLY to the scale of football. Fans should keep in mind that baseball and football ... though both great .... are pretty different cups of tea. They really are.
Different cups of tea.
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