Author: Ed Weathers

BLISS ON THE BLUFF

There are very few places I’d rather be than the leftfield bluff at AutoZone Park. I’ve come to the conclusion that this mound of dirt — dressed so elegantly in the kind of grass best appreciated barefoot — is the single greatest idea in the history of Memphis sports. I grew up with the almost Biblical belief that the best vantage point for a baseball game is directly behind the third-base dugout. You can have that seat. Give me a blanket, some sunshine, and a family member or two . . . and I’ll make the Bluff my home.

The Bluff (it deserves to be capitalized) is the perfect amenity for the perfect ballpark. To begin with, it’s a tangible metaphor for our city. If you can’t watch baseball from a bluff in Memphis, then where? Gazing from atop the Bluff — which is elevated above an already oversized leftfield wall — one gains the kind of vista that makes baseball and poetry such a familiar tandem. You can see the entire grandstand, the confines of both dugouts, the roof of The Peabody, even the cranes bringing the FedExForum to life beyond Beale Street to the south. And, of course, you see that blanket of grass — and delightful diamond of dirt — where men remain boys.

Anyone who has ever survived three hours on a metallic, backless bleacher seat will attest to the immeasurable comfort the Bluff provides. Drop that blanket where you please and stretch your every limb till you find a body harmony rarely enjoyed in public. Sit Indian style. Recline. Stand up for an inning or two (those behind you can shift accordingly). Heck, lay down, roll over on your belly, and nap through the seventh inning stretch. Try this at Busch Stadium in St. Louis and you’ll wake up behind bars.

If the view and the wide-open space aren’t enough to land you on the Bluff, there’s always the flying cowhide. If catching your first foul ball might be compared with falling in love for the first time, then catching a home run ball is very near, well, realizing love’s more intimate charms. And yes, home runs are hit on the Bluff (more so in some seasons than others . . . keep the faith). During the Redbirds’ 2000 championship season, a well-timed dive allowed me to beat a pair of grade-schoolers to my first home run ball. Alas, it was hit by a Tucson Sidewinder, so I proceeded to sling the offending spheroid back from whence it came. Anyone going home with a ball that aided the opposing nine will not be welcome in our prestigious Bluff Club.

It’s the children, of course, who make the Bluff a sloped urban oasis. I thought I knew how to have fun at the ballpark until I saw my daughter — then three — perform her first downhill somersault as the Redbirds took the field. I thought I knew baseball joy until I saw this little blonde chase down Rockey the Redbird — a Bluff regular, by the way — for a mid-game hug and handshake. I thought I knew spectator pride until I saw my younger daughter — only eight months old! — celebrated on the stadium scoreboard as the Redbirds’ Fan of the Game . . . broadcast live from the leftfield bluff.

Box seats have their virtues. Luxury suites are . . . luxurious. But you know what? The world would be a better place if we found more opportunities to put grass under our fannies. To recline instead of sit, to stretch our bodies instead of fold them. And to do all this at a baseball game? Bliss.

How much to join my club of Bluff Brothers (and Sisters)? Less than a movie ticket. Less than an order of barbecue nachos in the very same park! No excuses not to visit. If you can’t fall in love with the Bluff, please find help. The grass will never be greener.

THE UN BOMBING IN IRAQ

If you have a high-speed connection, and you have a strong stomach, you might want — note, I say, might — to view this unedited CBS News “as it happened” footage of the UN bombing today [Tuesday] in Baghdad:

CBSNews.com or try:

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/videoplayer/newVid/framesource2.html?clip=/media/2003/08/19/video569057

Yes, while watching this, I felt anger and disgust at the demons who do such things to innocent men and women. Anyone (else) who was around the aftermath of an IRA bombing in the Seventies would feel the same outrage, whether the innocent lives lost were taken in Belfast or Jerusalem, Beirut or New York City.

But the same kind of anger and disgust, I believe, must be directed at the man ultimately responsible for the madness in Baghdad these days. And yes, the buck stops there.

No one put a gun to George W. Bush’s head and made him decide that a preemptive war in Iraq was in America’s — and the world’s — best interests. No one but the Bush cabal (ok, yes, Tony Blair went along for the ride, as did our cowardly Congress) believed that war was inevitable in Iraq. No one but the Bushies believed that, as Lt. Calley might say, we had to destroy Iraq in order to save it. The buck stops there. Period.

The Pentagon today was quick to blame today’s horrific crime on Al Quaeda “infiltrators.” Perhaps the military is correct. But I can’t help but wonder just how many “terrorists” we ourselves created with our now-famous “shock and awe” bombing campaign last March.

Unfortunately, there were no CBS News cameras around Baghdad during those dark early days of war. Americans then had no access to remarkable “as it happens” video footage like today’s. There were no action shots of bombs ripping apart homes and shops, of people trapped in rubble, of screaming mothers desperately looking for their children. No, this was, as we were told daily by Donald Rumsfeld, a surgical war, the cleanest war ever fought in human history. And so most Americans went about their business, convinced that he was correct, convinced that this indeed was a “good” war, a surgically precise campaign in which casualty figures were unimportant.

Few among us here in the States, for example, got to see what really happened to the folks at that Baghdad restaurant on the night of March 24th, where, we were told (at first), we’d nailed Saddam Hussein. We hadn’t, of course, but the news reports diligently added that a dozen civilians were killed. Remember?

Just a dozen. Just a number. There was no blood, no carnage, no gore on the television screen. Just a comment from Wolf Blitzer or whomever. Just a few unfortunately dead Iraqis. How unfortunate.

Pity we couldn’t see what was really happening to those real live human beings back then, just like we can see what happened Tuesday in that CBS News video. Pity we couldn’t have heard the wounded moan; pity we couldn’t have seen, yes, the blood and the gore…

Had we been able to do so, maybe, just maybe, we’d understand why American forces haven’t exactly received the hero’s welcome they expected once they “liberated” Iraq. Maybe, just maybe, we wouldn’t be so quick to blame everything that’s gone wrong since our May 1st declaration of victory upon “Saddam loyalists” or “foreign infiltrators.” And maybe we’d finally stop swallowing the mainstream media pablum that continues, remarkably, blaming all our problems on Al Queda and/or Hussein loyalists.

Maybe, just maybe, we’d wake up and smell the coffee. Maybe we’d understand that there’s many a father and son — and daughter and mother — walking the streets of Baghdad with a serious axe to grind against the American military…

Perhaps today’s murderous culprit wasn’t actually a Taliban fanatic or a disguntled Republican Guard. Perhaps the bomber was just one of those thousands of grieving Iraqis, himself just one of millions of fellow citizens who were just trying to get through life as best they could in Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad, trying to make ends meet, trying to stay out of trouble. Just like most folks, well, just about everywhere.

This, of course, before a bunch of abstract poltical theorists in Arlington, Virginia, had a better idea. They decided that they knew what was in his country’s best interest. And decided that “shock and awe” was just the ticket.

Perhaps today’s murderous culprit was just as angry at the terror that came lashing out of the sky into his or her personal life last March, as the families in New York City were who suffered parallel catastrophes on September 11th, 2001. Perhaps he too will never forgive those who so changed his life, those who did so much to destroy his world.

How ironic that today’s dose of human suffering was delivered to neither Iraqis nor Americans, but to citizens of the entire world, people whose only crime was to work for the one organization that most sentient beings realize is the only real hope for our planet’s long-term future. How tragic that today’s victims were the very people who have sought, through their own courageous actions, to demonstrate that the kind of unilateral sabre-rattling practiced by the Rumsfelds and Cheneys of this world is hopelessly outdated, and has no place in twenty-first century civilization, if indeed that civilization is to survive another century.

None of us should be surprised at the disastrous consequences that have come from Gulf War Two. This, after all, was a war launched by “leaders” who were at best misguided and ill-informed, and at worst, liars and scoundrels. You reap what you sow, as the Bible says. You reap what you sow.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

Last week, rumors circulated around Washington, D.C., that Secretary of State Colin Powell would resign at the end of George W. Bush’s current term. Asked about the rumors while at the president’s vacation home in Texas, Powell replied, “I serve the president.” There were two things wrong with that response. First, it didn’t answer the question. Second, it was not true.

Mr. Powell, you don’t serve the president. You serve the American people.

In its second season, the excellent TV show “The West Wing” had an episode in which President Jeb Bartlett, the series’ main character, played by Martin Sheen, confronts a female radio talk-show host at a reception in the White House. The woman, a conservative who despises Bartlett’s liberal politics, refuses to stand when the president enters the room. The president notices that she is seated, but at first he says nothing about it. Instead, he proceeds, with drenching sarcasm, to denounce the woman’s well-known, Leviticus-based dislike of homosexuals, pointing to other Old Testament passages that no one would apply literally. (Example: “My chief of staff, Leo McGary, insists on working on the Sabbath,” says Bartlett. “Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself? Or is it okay to call the police?”). Only at the end of his one-sided “debate” does it become clear why the president is really so upset with the woman. “One last thing,” he says to her. “While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building when the president stands, nobody sits.” Then he walks away.

Liberals are expected to cheer Bartlett for defeating this conservative woman in verbal warfare and for demolishing her Biblical arguments against homosexuality. I’m a liberal. I think that homophobia is stupid, and that the Dr. Lauras of the world who spread it are dangerous. But at the end of that scene, all I could think was, “Good for her! I wouldn’t stand for the president, either!” As far as I’m concerned, in that scene it’s Bartlett who’s the tight-ass.

It’s time we put an end to the royal presidency. The president is not our king. He is a public servant. He serves at the pleasure of the American electorate. If anything, he should stand when you and I walk into the room. Americans do not kneel before kings. We should not stand for presidents.

At the State of the Union address, the members of Congress should remain seated when the president walks in. There should be no applause. There should be no basking in his smiles or grabbing for the glory of his handshake. It is all unseemly, humiliating, and unAmerican. At press conferences, the reporters should remain seated when the president enters and should not stand when he leaves. “Hail to the Chief,” a brass mockery of American democracy, should be silenced forever.

Recently, a Republican acquaintance took me to task for referring to our current president as “Bush” instead of “President Bush.” Ah, those Republicans. They love their titles and their class system and their little aristocratic rituals that keep everyone in his place. Deep in their hearts, they wish we still had a king. They want their president spelled with a capital “K.” They want King George.

(How curious it is that the British, whose aristocratic pretensions we fought against in the Revolutionary War, treat their own head of state, the prime minister, with far less deference than we treat our president. When the prime minister addresses the House of Commons, he routinely hears boos, hisses and catcalls. Our own president could learn much from such sounds.)

It’s been argued that we should stand when the president walks into the room because it’s a way of showing respect for “the office.” Well, when an abstraction figures out how to walk into a room, then I’ll figure out how to respond. I can imagine standing when love strolls into the room, or when kindness tiptoes in, or when dignity strides in. But I’ve never seen an “office” wearing shoes, and by itself, an “office” commands no respect.

It’s been said that when we stand for the president, we are showing respect for democracy. No, I think we are simply demeaning ourselves before vestigial aristocracy. We stand, but it is the equivalent of Asian kowtowing–forehead to the dirt in the presence of the emperor.

It’s been said that we should stand for our current president out of respect for those who have held the office in the past–the Washingtons and the Jeffersons and the Lincolns. But I would not stand for Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln, either–and I think they would understand why not. Washington refused the offer to become king. Jefferson hated the idea of an American royalty. Lincoln was, at least initially, a humble man who squirmed at shows of obsequiousness.

Besides, if I were to stand for the current president, would I also be standing for the Bill Clinton who lied? For the Reagan who was senile? For the Nixon who was corrupt? For the FDR who tried to stack the Supreme Court?

If anything, Americans stand (literally and figuratively) for the present, not the past. But there is little in the present–or in the present president–worth standing for.

The pretender-to-the-throne currently in the White House loves the trappings of the royal presidency. His handlers love to place him behind the royal seal and surround him with the royal colors and serenade him with the royal musicians and flatter him with the royal marines who salute him every time he enters the royal helicopter. Those same handlers love to raise him above the masses and land him on the royal aircraft carriers, and they no doubt say, “Thank you, Mr. President” every time he dismisses them from his sight, even if he has, in the five minutes previous, behaved like a fool.

I say, No more. No more saluting. No more standing. No more trumpeting. No more kissing the king’s ring. The king is dead. For Americans he died in 1776. Stay seated now, and let him rest in peace.

LOVE AND GAMES

Don’t ever tell me that love and sports don’t mix. I’ve got more than nine years of research to prove it does, and how.

If you’re looking for true love, find the woman who follows her husband four hours north for Ozzie Smith Day in St. Louis. She sits through a wet, chilly Friday night “warm-up” game, then finds her two square feet alongside Ozzie’s biggest fan in the standing-room-only section at Busch Stadium the next day. She listens to 90 minutes of speeches from people she couldn’t pick out in a lineup, from a distance that would require a carrier pigeon to deliver a message from her husband to the guest of honor. When the Wizard himself says a few words, and her husband’s cheeks get a little wet, she understands the relationship is about more than box scores and bubble-gum cards. The true love part? Her cheeks are wet too.

Find the woman who tags along on a two-family trip to Little Rock to see — in person — the great Peyton Manning quarterback the Tennessee Vols one last time. She finds herself in Row MM of War Memorial Stadium on a November night so cold that Hog Nation is adorned more in hunter’s camouflage than Razorback Red. Huddling against her knees to stay as warm as possible, her three hours are spent staring at the backsides along Row LL, Manning merely a rumored celebrity on the field below. The true love part? She’s still his wife come Sunday morning.

Find the life partner who agrees to a cross-state road trip to Knoxville to see — what?! — women’s basketball. She listens to the hype about these Lady Vols, hears that we have one chance — ONE! — to see the legendary Chamique Holdsclaw do her thing in her quest for four straight national championships. When the opening-tip is an hour earlier than expected and her group gets to see exactly one half of a game the home team wins by 30 points, there is nary a complaint. When her husband insists on seeing the next day’s game at Vanderbilt, she smiles and sends him on his way. The true love part? She’s six months pregnant.

Find the lady who agrees to another trip to St. Louis for, yes, another Big Day . . . Willie McGee Day this time. The team is not retiring the player’s number, as they did Ozzie’s. The player is not on is way to Cooperstown, as was Ozzie. He’s merely the most popular player the team has suited up (including Ozzie) since Stan the Man. So she goes along for the festivities, the speeches, the chilly early-April baseball at Busch. The true love part? She has an infant in her arms the entire weekend.

Find the wife who buys into the newest Memphis hype machine, NBA basketball. She agrees to attend the second home game of the Grizzlies’ inaugural season, her husband’s beloved Dallas Mavericks (huh?!) in town. She tolerates the fan’s clinging to his seat, griping about missed foul calls, cheering when the rest of the crowd boos . . . knowing full well that the last two minutes of a basketball game are all that matter anyway. The true love part? She finds her own hero in Steve Nash.

Find the mother who follows the father to AutoZone Park for the 14th (15th?) time in a single season, a three-year-old daughter in Cardinal red at her side. This time, she’s eight months pregnant. It’s Autograph Night at the ballpark, and her husband simply has to introduce little Sofia to the great Stubby Clapp. Camera in hand, the moment arrives. Stubby reaches out to shake the little girl’s hand . . . and she shies away as if Prince Charming himself were proposing. The mother encourages her daughter until she finally agrees to the photo of a lifetime. The true love part? Mom’s in the picture too.

True love is understanding the husband’s weakened knees when a statue of, yes, Ozzie Smith is dedicated outside Busch Stadium on August 11, 2002. His wife’s birthday. Coincidence? Sure. Poetic? Absolutely.

Happy birthday, Sharon. I love you.

THE OPEN BOAT

My friend is sick with cancer, and he may not survive. What am I to make of this?

I don’t believe his sickness is part of some god’s plan. I don’t believe it is his destiny. I don’t believe he did something to deserve it. He is an extraordinarily nice, humble, considerate man. He has wonderful grown children and a terrific wife. He takes care of himself, is extraordinarily fit, doesn’t drink or smoke, and eats a vegetarian diet. For him to get stomach cancer makes no sense. It’s just plain bad luck. All I can think is that one of the zillions of invisible neutrinos zinging through space hit one of his genes at just the wrong angle at some moment in his life, maybe while he was talking with one of his sons on the phone, and here he is, terribly sick and having to eat through intravenous tubes. Needless to say, it could happen to any of us.

For ten years, I have played tennis at least twice a week with my friend, who has never given me a bad line call, gloated when he won, or made excuses when he lost. We discuss politics after we play, and of course, since he agrees with me and I agree with him, I think he is a particularly astute analyzer of national and international affairs. He lent me a book to read that looks at American history from our particular political perspective and that I have not yet finished reading. I think I need to return it to him.

My friend doesn’t want visitors or phone calls while he’s sick. I understand that. He has work to do–the work of getting well–and he doesn’t need distractions from that work. He is also a proud man; it probably embarrasses him to be sick in front of other people, and he doesn’t want to be smothered in sympathy, which can be both humiliating (“Poor you!”) and depressing (“You’re in really bad shape!”). All I can do for my friend is hope–hope really hard–that he gets better. Not everyone wants company in times of pain. The desire to get through sickness alone is something else he and I share.

Since I live in my own body and am the central character of my own life, I of course find myself wondering what I should do with the information about my friend’s sickness. What does it mean for me? After the normal sadness and anger, my reaction is what it always is when I know someone who is sick: a feeling of increased pleasure in my own health. (I would say “gratitude” in addition to pleasure, but I don’t know anyone to be grateful to for my being well. I don’t believe in gods. It’s just luck that I’m healthy.) I once knew a man who had broken his neck in a diving accident. He had no use of his legs and very limited use of his arms. Despite this, from his wheelchair, he was a successful university professor. I admired this man, but my more permanent response to him was this: Ever since I met him, every time I find myself carrying five grocery bags at once, two in my arms, two gripped in my fingers, another under my armpit, I immediately think of my friend in the wheelchair and remember how extraordinary and pleasant it is for a human being to be able to carry five grocery bags at once, and how lucky I am to be able to do what he could never do. I promise you, I think of my professor friend every time I carry five grocery bags at once.

Likewise, a few years back, a colleague of mine came down with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis–ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Gradually, over two years, he lost his ability to talk or walk or pick up his three-year-old son. A delightful man, my colleague had been a fine golfer in his health. My response to his sickness was similar to my response to my friend in the wheelchair: Every time I play golf now, I think of my friend with ALS and feel how extraordinarily lucky I am to be able to walk a golf course. Because he was sick, I take greater pleasure in my own life.

Now I have a friend who has stomach cancer and is eating out of IV tubes. The next time I eat a meal, chewing and tasting and swallowing and digesting, I will take extra pleasure in the very fact and act of doing those things.

So my friends’ sicknesses have, perversely, heightened the pleasure I take in my own health. This seems a horribly selfish reaction, but I can’t help it. Some people would say that that should be a consolation to those who are sick, that it gives their sickness some meaning: Their plight has increased others’ pleasure and appreciation of life’s joys. If I were sick, I wouldn’t find much consolation in that, and I certainly wouldn’t believe that my sickness was necessary for others to appreciate life. Let them appreciate it on their own, which is perfectly possible to do if they are simply awake enough.

I had another friend die, unexpectedly, a few years ago. My reaction to his death was simply to realize, a bit more vividly, that the trapdoor could open under any of us at any time, so we’d better concentrate a little harder on the living part of being alive. His death made me more alive to my own life, it added intensity and piquancy to my own life, but I still wish he hadn’t died. It wasn’t worth it.

I suppose having friends get sick from heart disease or cancer or ALS should spur me to give money to research in those diseases. But every disease has its victims, and I try to give money to research into lots of diseases. I don’t choose which ones based on whether they hit close to my own home.

I’m convinced that where bad luck hits is just that: bad luck.

I remember Stephen Crane’s famous short story “The Open Boat.” In it, a group of men are in a lifeboat, their ship having sunk. They’re trying to row to shore in a storm. Some are strong, some are weak, some are competent, some are incompetent. In the story, we are never told which men are good, if any, and which are bad, if any. In the end, they must chance the breakers and the rocks to reach safety. Some make it and live. Some drown. Strong, weak, good, bad, competent, incompetent–in Crane’s story there is no sense, no logic to who survives and who doesn’t. Nature, says Crane, doesn’t really give a damn about human beings. It’s all a crapshoot.

I’m 57 years old and have been healthy my whole life. I’ve never been hungry or unsheltered or poor. What little pain I’ve experienced has been short-lived. If I get sick tomorrow, no one can take that 57 years of health and comfort away from me. It’s not fair that I’ve gotten 57 years like that while billions–literally billions–of people in the world have never had one year like that. It makes no sense. There is no justice in it. Once, when I was unhappy over something, I complained to a philosopher I know that I hadn’t done anything to deserve that unhappiness. He looked at me over his beer and snorted, “You think only bad people get hit by trucks?”

Okay, so good people get hit by trucks, too. And by cancer. I can live with that. Yes, I’m happy and sad to say, I can live with that.