DOG DAY AFTERNOON

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (08-03-23)

 

     Every home Sunday during the summer, the Hudson Valley High-A professional baseball team hosts a game that dogs are allowed to attend. We took Gidget, the cutest dog in the world, to her first nine innings, and I must admit, she seemed pretty underwhelmed by the experience. Believe me, if they tried this trick at the U.S. Open all hell would break loose with that many tennis balls flying around. Have you ever tried to hit a tennis ball that a Labrador just retrieved? "You said you were going to serve them and I was able to fit three servings in my mouth."

     The day was a little hot for dogs and after a few innings she wanted to go home. I told her in order to do that she'll have to get on base, steal second, wait for a wild pitch and go home on an error. Besides, what older tradition is there than a hot dog at a ball game? By late afternoon it cooled off, and she started to enjoy the attention. Gidget is tolerant of preschoolers, impartial to other dogs and attractive to cats. What she really wanted to do was make friends with whatever was living near the dumpsters behind the stands. I said, Gidget, what kind of friendship would that be? First of all you're going to have to jump all the way up into that garbage bin, and when you get there I know you and you won't like the food. How is it going to feel to be dumped by a someone who lives in a dumpster?

     The players on the field are two rungs of the ladder away from playing in the big leagues. And even though the game is played exactly the same way, there are some innovations that could smooth the transition to the majors. For instance, whenever there's a two strike count, a train whistle sounds and everyone stomps their feet on the metal bleachers, and it sounds exactly like the number 4 subway that goes by Yankee Stadium, only it stops on schedule. There isn't very much offensive language directed at the players, so they'll need to practice their defensive language on their own time. There was some barking at the umpire, but that was mostly by the dogs. But if you pay attention you may see some players on the way up. You may see them on the way back down. If there were any scouts in attendance, surely they would have offered Gidget a modelling contract by now. 

     There's a lot going on in-between innings. There are all sorts of games of skill and chance, designed to let the announcer make fun of you. If you've ever had a sadistic camp counselor, you'll know what I'm talking about. There were hula hoops, frisbees, pool floats, traffic cones, but no matter if you won or lost, you were somehow going to get soaked with water. 

     I used the time to bond with Gidget, and we chatted about some of the paradoxes of the game, like why do they call them "stands" when you sit in them, and why do they call them "innings" when they contain outs, and why do you sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" when you're already there, and does foul territory smell any worse? I had some more things to discuss but I couldn't hear myself over her snoring.

     The theme of the day was "Christmas in July," so we were awash with caroling, Santa beards, candy canes and reindeer antlers. It seems to me that if Christmas in December isn't sufficient to get the job done, we're not doing it correctly. My birthday is on Christmas Day, and still, I'm over it by Halloween. By the way, I didn't hear any talk of "Birthday Presents in July." I'm starting a movement right now called, "4th of July in December," and we can have fireworks, barbecues and 78-degree weather.

     In-between innings were more contests and exhibitions. A gal stood on top of the dugout and was lip-syncing a Taylor Swift song at a stadium, just like Taylor Swift does. There were mascots dressed up as raccoons, skunks and mosquitos, I'm not entirely sure why. It is a farm team after all, so I guess it shouldn't be that surprising. The atmosphere was like Times Square, a street fair, a circus and a birthday party all rolled into one. Gidget slept through most of it. 

     Eventually I remembered that there was a game going on- the home team didn't win due to an implosion of the bullpen. It certainly wouldn't have happened if Gidget were pitching. She is a southpaw, northpaw, eastpaw and westpaw, depending on which direction the mound faces. But no matter the score, with dogs, sunshine and baseball, how can you lose?

CRAZY TALK

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (07-27-23)

 

     I often read The New York Times, because I like the pictures, and because I love the fact that they can make a graph for just about anything. But I find I need more in-depth information, and figuring out how to read the graph is, to use graphic language, a pain in the axis. So I was scrolling through the news feed on my web browser to get the latest breaking bulletins. I found out, for instance, that Twitter users are throwing fire emojis at Elizabeth Hurley's bikini photos. If this ends up causing a Canadian wildfire I will know about it before anyone else.

     The news of the day turned up an article titled, "How To Spot A Psychopath Through 5 Telltale Traits." Which, when you work in the media is a useful thing to know. A team of researchers at Cornell University studying inmates convicted of murder found that a common theme among them was their patterns and topics of speech. It didn't seem like a lot of new ground being broken, but I'll paraphrase the results for you anyway. One of their habits is to frequently punctuate their speech using "um" and "uh," I guess to consider if what they're about to say sounds nuts. (I'm talking  about  the convicted murderers, not the researchers  from  Cornell.)  So, if you  happen  to be chatting  with  someone  who  says something like, "Uh, it's, um, so time-consuming being uh, a psychopath," that could be a dead giveaway. Hopefully not in that order.

     They also use subordinating conjunctions such as "because" or "so that," maybe to effect a logical premise for why they did what they did. Not only does it make sense that convicted murderers often believe that they killed for a good reason, but it also confirms my suspicion that my 10th grade logics class teacher was probably a psychopath.

     The study found that conversations with the inmates often included details about food, specifically, what they ate on the day of their crimes. I would be curious to know if there were any patterns regarding WHAT they ate, because I think you'd have to be a lunatic to eat Brussels sprouts. If you are what you eat, there are some people I know who probably ate a lot of bananas.

     Crazy is a word that's bandied about way too loosely in my opinion. My Mom used to say I drove her crazy. I said, "Mom, I understand that I drive you crazy, but once I drive you there you'll be crazy about me! Hop in!" Much of what is labelled as "crazy" just turns out to be "stupid." Some members of Congress seem to relish being called "unhinged," possibly to illustrate that they are willing to go to great lengths in their beliefs and beef up fund-raising. They seem secretly hoping to be called "crazy like a fox," but being crazy like a stupid fox isn't flattering either to the congresswoman or the fox.

     Another psychopathic tendency is that they tend to shy away from discussing religion or family life. I'm not a great believer in organized religion, maybe because I'm afraid no organized religion would let me in if they see my office. And any talk involving my family is a discussion of wackos even before you get around to me. I guess most of us are a little bit crazy.

     According to my own research, a sociopath is anti-social and flouts the rules, impulsive and is quick to be angry and defensive. A psychopath tends to take pleasure in harming others, often internalizes his or her feelings and lies pathologically. As an illustration, a sociopath is like my cat, whereas a psychopath is like my other cat.

     I know the article was just trying to be helpful, but I need more definitive evidence that whomever I'm speaking to is a person that might kill me. For that reason, I take a quick DNA swab whenever I'm talking to someone who seems dicey. I also ask to see their web browser. I get a full set of fingerprints as well if there is a search for "places to hide a body where no one will find it." I was surprised that the number one answer was my garage, by the way.

     To me, a psychopath is someone who is dangerously crazy, and I'm just slightly annoyingly quirky. But it was alarming how many tell-tale psychopath traits I have according to the article. I ask my wife, am I crazy or is this a dumb article? She says, why does it have to be one or the other?

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE

 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (07-20-23)

 

     If you want to know how short our attention spans have become, just turn on the game. Short of actually begging us individually to keep watching and not turn our eyes away for ANY reason, the producers of live sporting events are trying everything in the book. No one has the attention span to actually read a book, so they're trying stuff that they think might be in a book.

     I was watching the baseball all-star game last week, and it used to be enough just to watch the best players in the game play the game. Not anymore. We need to listen to them play the game also, and so they are "mic'd up." The broadcast booth was carrying on a running conversation with the pitcher in between pitches, which was constantly interrupted by a rude batter swinging and missing THREE TIMES while he was trying to talk. The most interesting player on the field this year is Japanese, and I was dying to see if they would let his interpreter "mic up" next to him on the pitching mound. "Shohei Ohtani wishes to thank Baseball for this opportunity, and I think I heard him mention how underpaid interpreters are."

     The producers kept passing the microphone along, trying to find someone on the field who might have the personality to take our minds off this boring game. Someone who's been practicing his stand-up while sitting on the bench. "I tell you, Jim, I just love playing here in Seattle- playing anywhere else is like a day with sunshine, ha ha ha." "Ha ha. Speaking of light, it's time for a word from our sponsor, the light beer company."

     You need to get your product to appeal to EVERYBODY. But in trying to include one group, you'll undoubtedly offend another. You'll have to handicap which minority is the one unlikely to notice that you threw them under the bus, but what if that was precisely the corner of the market that you are trying to capture? Once you have everyone under the bus, maybe you can run an ad under there that appeals to them while your core fans aren't paying attention. That's what we've been reduced to: pandering to the least tolerant. 

     In case you were thinking of running to the bathroom during the commercial, or getting something to eat, the ad now runs simultaneously to the side of the action on the field in the dreaded "2-box." Now not only is our attention span short, but divided with one eye trained on the commercial and the other on the field. It's just a matter of time before they start running two commercials at the same time with the game in the background. It also explains why I'm so hungry at the end of the game and my bladder is not in a forgiving mood.

     When they do cut away for commercial, it's for a movie about a superhero who is an insect, and there is a lot of stuff blowing up and a parallel universe and defending civilization, and in the midst of all the explosions nobody thinks to whack him with a newspaper. Luckily there is no shortage of bugs to make superhero movies about, and if you come to my patio you can take some with you to your parallel universe, or even your perpendicular universe on the off-chance that one of them may be a superhero. When we come back to the game, who is sitting in the first row box but the superhero bug-guy, eating something- whatever it is it's attracting bugs.

     It's now more important than ever to build personalities that transcend the game because their stories are so uplifting. If you were born without the use of your eyebrows, and you came from a broken family and were adopted by a different broken family who beat you every day at Scrabble and then had a troubled marriage during which you transitioned into a woman but didn't like it so you transitioned back again, THAT'S what we're looking for. If you overcame all that to hit .188, it's the feel-good story of the year.

     When did we as a society become this vapid? Can you imagine what it took to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel without posting updates on how it was coming along or crowd-sourcing suggestions? "OMG Mr. Angelo, that is a GR8 picture. IMHO you could include IDK maybe a devil emoji in that garden, FWIW? If not NBD. LMK." What was the invention that started us off on an inexorable journey that drove us to where we are now, where there is always something better than what we are currently doing? Was it the telephone? Was it the automobile? Was it the remote control? I'll delve into this subject in depth when I have a few seconds. Maybe we could spend a little more time spending time instead of wasting it. NGL but TBH YOLO. TTYL.