No one likes your wedding

Are weddings only for ....assholes?

I think they really might be.

I've done a lot of thinking on this for the past few years and I really can't get over the idea that the wedding tradition is still with us in the year 2018. In my opinion, it's like many other things left behind from the past: Horrifically toxic, miserable, and ...well, I think it smells a bit like a floating corpse.

Why is this tradition still successfully going onward? I think there is only one big reason: For the most part, weddings come and go very quickly for a lot of us. If you don't have a lot of friends and family, you might only have to go to 3-4 weddings within a 10 year time span, and maybe then never again. So we all just suck it up and we go and we try not to dwell on how ridiculous they really are, at this point.

But that doesn't mean we love weddings. In fact, the more thought I've given to them, the more it has occurred to me that weddings aren't even nearly as popular as some people might think they are. My first piece of evidence? Just take film culture. In America, we love film! Well, how many weddings have really been featured in truly famous and cool movies? The truth is...very few. Basically the only one is The Godfather, as far as I'm concerned, and of course The Godfather is about a bunch of backwards Italians, and it was also set 30 years in the past when it was made. Besides this film, almost all of the movies that deal with weddings, I've noticed, seem to be specifically targeted to younger women. One could perhaps even say that a lot of them seem like downright propaganda to convince girls that marriage should be their only dream. I wouldn't be surprised to find out if most of them were funded by nefarious wedding industry people.

Whats my real problem with weddings tho, beyond the film element, you might ask?

Honestly, its hard to know where to begin. I just think they are horribly lame, I think they're unnecessary, and obviousyl, they're rather foolishly expensive. To put it simply, i don't really understand the point of a wedding. Specifically, i don't understand why everyone insists that they be so big. Like, I'm not necessarily someone who supports the idea of marriage, but I can understand it, at least a little bit. I can especially understand marrying someone for reasons of citizenship in another country. But what I can't fathom is why on Earth everyone you ever knew, and your entire fucking extended family, has to basically be forced to attend, or be labeled an asshole? This part is toxic. Horribly toxic. If you have thrown a wedding, you know a lot of people coming probably don't want to come. Yet you insist they do anyways. WHY? 

To me, a wedding should just be like any other gathering anyone has. No one insists on gathering everyone they ever knew together even for fucking Christmas, so why do they have to do it for their wedding? The comedian Doug Stanhope, who hates weddings just like me, says that they're "horribly boring egomaniacal events". He's quite correct. He's especially correct as far as our 21st century is concerned.

For example, once upon a time, I think weddings made a lot more sense. Its very easy to see where the tradition of this gigantic celebration came from. The problem is just that...well, again, it doesn't really fit in with where our culture is at now, and this is made very clear by just how expensive it has become, within the confines of this new landscape. Back in the day, like in the 1600s (an important century to reference for assholes who love old traditions) even the biggest wedding, probably didn't cost shit. Do you want to know why, curious reader??? I'll tell thee! It's because, back then, weddings happened naturally. In the old days, everyone was already living right on top of the other, in cooperative villages, so it was very easy to gather them all for a wedding. It was also very easy to find a "venue", since you had the whole fucking outdoors at your disposal. Ever seen that opening party scene in Lord of the Rings, for example, which is basically set in the Dark Ages? Everyone was just doing it outside, on free land. Everyone in the little village came together naturally in the nature. This is no longer possible. We've been literally banished from our own land. As a result, a gathering of everyone you ever knew or cast your eyes on, costs a lot of fucking money. YOu need to "reserve" a special place.

What I personally find hilarious about the modern wedding is that, the same set of assholes in my family who is obsessed with having wedding after wedding, .....is also the same set of assholes who keep voting to fuck me out of healthcare. Doesn't that strike you as odd? On the one hand, these pricks insist that everyone they ever met keep showing up for their stupid wedding day, and then on the other, they....well, they don't really want a community, it seems, they just want to show off. Because of course, yes of course, showing off is the second thing that has now become the prime goal of any and all weddings. And what I really can't understand myself is ... honestly, who in teh fuck would even want to celebrate their love this way? Are people seriously this fucking unimaginative? The best way for you to celebrate your love is to basically, what, recreate your high school cafeteria?

Think about it. Is that not basically what a wedding is? I remember being at my asshole cousin Jim's wedding and looking around, at the "after party", which of course is the main part of any wedding. It basically just looked like a fancier version of my high school cafeteria, except now it wasn't populated by kids and there were adults of all ages, the food was marginally better, and there was free alcohol. That was all it was, the grand "After party". It was just a bunch of people who somehow knew Jim sitting at dozens and dozens of dinner tables, drinking booze poor Jim had paid for with money he doesn't have, and then eating food he also paid for. Most of them probably didn't really want to be there.

I think there are honestly about 15 people, out of the sometimes hundreds of guests, who ever really want to be at a wedding. The rest of us are looking at our watches (excuse me, cell phones) anxious to get back home...or we are drinking as much free booze as possible.

Well, thanks for the booze, but holy hell, is this really  a wise tradition to keep going??? Is this really the only thing these assholes can think up? Seriously, the average cost of a wedding is upwards of 30,000$$$$. Imagine what type of good time you could have with that money, just you and your lover, if you didn't insist on involving everyone else. You could definitely figure out another way to have a good time with that type of money. $30,000 is, after all,  a shit load of dollars. Why spend it on a bunch of people who basically just view your wedding day as an annoying obligation? Isn't that kind of depressing?

In my opinion, the simplest possible argument for UBI, especially if you are arguing with one of those types of people who is head over heels in love with the idea of everyone working hard, goes something like this:

The fact that people need to eat is, obviously, urgent. One must do it 3 times a day and each meal has to be satisfying. It is also urgent that one have a proper place to rest, so as to avoid sickness or body problems from a bad sleeping surface etc.

All of this, it is clear, is very urgent, I think we can all agree. 

Well, as it so happens, when a country like the USA was still developing, do you know what else was very urgent? Work. In the developmental period of USA, it was essentially a joke to find work, thats how easy it was. You walked out of the door and someone was actually begging you to do a job somewhere, on something. Work was, as I say, completely urgent in that period. On every road, in every city, everywhere, there was some type of work being offered. There was so much work that hundreds of thousands of immigrants poured in, for that exact reason. Even when the Great Depression occurred, the problem was eventually remedied because Roosevelt created huge work projects, and the work he created was pretty urgent. Just read this to see why:

The WPA – which in 1939 was renamed the Work Projects Administration – employed mostly unskilled men to carry out public works infrastructure projects. They built more than 4,000 new school buildings, erected 130 new hospitals, laid roughly 9,000 miles of storm drains and sanitary sewer lines, built 29,000 new bridges, constructed 150 new airfields, paved or repaired 280,000 miles of roads and planted 24 million trees.

Well, as it so happens, the conservative argument that everyone ought to work to earn for themselves, makes perfect sense in that environment. Again, work was just as urgent as eating in this version of the country,  so it wasn't really too unfair to put it all in the same pile, and tell a man he had to work, if he wanted to eat. We had a lot to get done, a country literally needed to be built almost from scratch, even in the late 30s. And then, if you go even further back in time, to a year like 1910, try to remember how New YOrk City was in the process, for example, of building subways all the way from 1904 to the 1940s. Thats damn near 40 entire years of an enormous project that we are still enjoying/using DAILY.  Imagine all that work. And don't even get started on the skyscrapers, etc. This type of seriously urgent work was happening everywhere back in the day.

A lot of people, for example, make the argument about the factories going away, and how that was the "grand loss". These people, however, forget all this other work that once was happening, that just  had to do with infrastructure and houses and sewers, etc. There was so much work going on., around every corner.

Now take a look outside your window, whether you're in a small town or a big city. You can almost hear crickets, even in the big city -- thats how little real work is still usally going on these days. Yes there are still construction projects and the like, and many roads do need to be fixed --- but not nearly enough for all Americans DAILY. In our time, the truth is, work is no longer anywhere near as urgent as it once was, when the country was still developing. Everyone now seems to know someone who, even if they are just searching for an unskilled job sweeping floors at Wal-Mart for a night shift, has to send in application after application for WEEKS, sometimes MONTHS, in order to get on the crew. And they might not even get on, and the work might be seasonal, and then they get fired. There is, quite literally, just not that much to do anymore.

Therefore, we see immediately the truth of our time period: Work is no longer urgent. But eating and sleeping well still is. The f act that we have yet to disconnect the two things is not a sign of some sort of honor system,like many think it is. It no longer symbolizes "grit" or anything like that. All it symbolizes at this point is an old system that, indeed, it once made sense, when work was urgent, but now no longer makes any sense at all. Literally at all. 

Universal Basic income: the COllective wealth of Mankind

Imagine if tomorrow you found out you were a part of a family that was considered one of the wealthiest in the world. That your family was one of a number of families that was partially responsible for the creation of such innovative things as the iPhone, the Personal computer, the telephone, and the Television. Imagine if you found out that, in each of those things, your family held a stock.

It would be a pretty good feeling, wouldn't it? You would feel proud of your family and also maybe yoursel. You would also be very happy because you would know that, owning a piece of stock in such a thing, means your family is doing okay for themselves.

I have good news for you. You're already a part of that family. The bad news is that your particular offshoot of that family has probably been robbed dead blind, the same as mine. You are not considered to have anything to do with the Iphone, the personal computer, the telephone, or the Tv. Nor are you considered to have anything to do with the bridges, the highways,  the shopping malls, the skyscrapers, or all the other things that have been built across literally centuries upon centuries worth of time. Somehow, it is the case that, even though your family, same as mine,can trace itself back millions of years, you are still considered as having absolutely nothing to do -- as having no link at all -- with the creation of civilization itself. With literally any of it. And therefore, the billionaires explain to you, it is perfectly justifiable that you are born with absolutely nothing, and they are born with everything.

The billionaires , you see, will have you believe that it was just one billionaire in particular, one lucky day, who invented the iPhone. They will have you believe that it was just one man in particular who helped usher in the age of the personal computer.

This is, of course, absolutely ridiculous, and nothing could be further from the truth. The idea, in fact, that you ever have, for a moment, believed something as pathetically false as this, goes to show how blind you have become, thanks to centuries of being brought under the yoke and robbed.  For the truth is that every single creation that has ever, in the history of man, happened, is a collective creation. A communal creation.

Yes, that's right. Every single thing that has ever been created was not merely thanks to "one lone genius", but rather thanks to him and to the community. For those who find this impossible to fathom, my advice would be to jump backwards in time, all the way to the 1100s or some far off year like that, and start trying to see how many "lone geniuses" were randomly tinkering with prototypes to the beloved iPhone. The truth is that nobody was --- not even the smartest people on Earth at the time. And why weren't they? The answer, though hidden from us by the murderous billionaires & millionaires of our age now, is very simple: No matter how smart someone in the 1100s was, they simply weren't a part of the right community. They were living in the 1100s. It was literally the Dark Ages. Imagine the worst ghetto you've ever seen in the glorious United States and now magnify it by 10 trillion. No lone genius boy is going to randomly invent an iPhone there. What he will instead do is make a discovery or an invention that fits in for the community of his time.

Why is this important to say? It should be obvious yet somehow it is not: All those really rich people that the capitalist system has created in recent centuries, many of whom have, indeed, created magnificent things for the human race, are still con artists, thieves, and poisonous killers, due directly to the fact that they are taking all the credit for something that, even if they added the finishing touches, a community still helped them to ultimately create. Again, it must be stressed: In the entire history of mankind now, there has never, not a single time, been a lone genius who has done it all by himself. Every genius you have ever heard of is always a part of what the great musician Brian Eno, an advocate of Universal Basic Income, rightfully calls a "scenius". A scenius is that beautiful thing we never hear about, because the murderers called billionaires always make sure everyone obsesses over the genius. What is the scenius? Again, its simple: It's the incredibly vibrant scene or community to which every single creator of anything colossal has ever belonged.

One older example of a genius operating within a scenius would be someone like Leonardo DaVinci.

Notice how Leonardo was not born in the middle of, for example, the Siberian wilderness, in the year 1452, but was instead born right on the immediate outskirts of what was, at that time in world history, one of the most accomplished cities on the planet. If the theory of the lone genius who deserves all the wealth was true, as the billionaires want us to believe, then that means DaVinci could have been born in the furthest corner of the earth at that time, and raised by literal gorillas as was Tarzan, and still ultimately become Leonardo DaVinci. Anyone with half a brain in their head knows this is not true of course. DaVinci was a part of a collective, of a community. It is no coincidence that DaVinci has tons of interesting peers from exactly the same time and place as he's from, who also lived in the same city as him, and shared ideas with him. This is because all of these people were operating within a scenius, and the scenius was operating within a country. Without the cooperative effort of that entire country behind him, the Mona Lisa would have never existed. And of course the same exact thing can be said for people like Galileo Galilei and other such names. The exact same thing. They lived and worked within a scenius.,

The real truth about our time period, when so many are still refusing to see that such a thing as a scenius exists, is a very sad truth. In fact, the fact that a word doesn't even really yet exist to define the idea of a community that is very intelligent speaks volumes about the dead blindness of our current age. It's almost as though we've not yet evolved to see the complete “top down” picture of our times and, as a result of being unable to glimpse the bigger picture, we are unable to see that geniuses are always born in or, in the modern age, one airplane flight away, from very intelligent and vibrant communities.

In the year 1500, when DaVinci operated, you could perhaps justify why the people were unable to see the bigger picture of the vibrant scene. They didn't have the Internet and they didn't have airplanes. For all they knew, cities as mighty as Florence were literally everywhere. Therefore, they fell for the trick that DaVinci was operating completely alone, deserving of all credit -- absolutrly all --- for his discoveries.

But in a year like 2018, where we have the Internet -- the most obvious example of a collective enterprise there could be -- there's no longer any excuse for this blindness. In this age, it's incredibly obvious when someone is operating within a scenius -- and yet we still refuse to see it. Why? Well, mostly it would seem that it is a direct cause of the very modern and very capitalistic obsession, with the idea that "everyone must pull their own weight here". Instead of looking at the innovation we experience as the result of the collective, the capitalists insist that we see it as the result of a few very industrious and "private" individuals who, we are told, simply must sit on top of the pyramid, and take 99% -- literally 99% -- of all profits, leaving the rest of us to fight over scraps and crumbs. The capitalists go so far as to tell us that, if these few individuals did not get the chance to sit on top of the pyramid and keep 99% of all profit, all innovation and invention would immediately, overnight, grind to a halt. No one would create anything at all, we are sternly told, if they could not hope to be rewarded, as the Wal-Mart family has been (for "creating" a grocery store) with a combined wealth of $151.1 billion. All interest in the stars, in flight, in computing, in medicine, in art, in math, in literally everything, would come to a grinding halt tomorrow, if one could not hope to steal 99% of all profits from the rest of their own human family.

The ironic truth about this absurd idea, of course, is that it's all actually the exact opposite: Far from being an impetus to create new and beautiful things for people to share, the hording of almost all of mankinds wealth, which is what billionaires do, has done nothing but stifle invention and creation. In fact, it's almost a miracle that anything has managed to get created at all under this system of thieves and robber barons. Anyone who seriously believes that humans will cease creating just because they don't think they'll be able to one day amass a net worth of $100 billion dollars, obviously does not know too many real humans. The strange and bizarre fact about most of mankinds greatest innovations is that they have happened thanks to people who were struggling mightly in the face of a poverty and a lack that no one should ever have to live in such a time as this. We are talking about people who have been forced to work 12 hours a day at a completely useless "bullshit job" (as the anthropologist David Graeber, also a supporter of Universal Basic Income, refers to nearly all managerial jobs) and who then come home, and with a spare 2 hours of very tired time, gradually, over the course of 30 years, manage to invent something thats actually useful. We are talking about people who, oftentimes, never get any reward for their invention whatsoever. Now imagine if that person was able to collect some of their rightful inheritance. How much faster would they be able to invent and innovate? Imagine if everyone was born with the tools and resources, that the collective has created in the first place, and was thus able to contribute, when they wanted, to further invention?

The truth about a time like this is not that people are motivated by outlandish billion dollar rewards that happen to only 1% of people. The truth is that the vast majority of people are not even able to access the resources needed to further innovate and invent. Huge sections of our society are just withering away in dark emptiness, totally robbed dead and blind. Imagine a beautiful blanket, and half of it has been eaten away by moths and cockroaches. That is poverty.

If, for example ,you have ever asked yourself "where are the flying cars we were promised in the 60s?" or "why are we not yet on Mars?" and "where is the virtual reality?", look no further than to the literally gigantic areas of this civilization that are completely collapsed and forced to live in dark shadows, beneath the weight of crushing, miserable poverty. The idea that conservatives & Republican thieves are now trying to frantically spread, in the face of conversations about things like Universal Basic Income, that all humans will "cease functioning" overnight, only because they'll be automatically given enough money to eat and live on, is absolutely preposterous. No one is going to stop functioning thanks to a $1,000 a month Universal Basic Income that helps them eat 3 meals a day and have a guaranteed room to sleep in. The truth is that they'll actually start functioning then! They aren't functioning now because ... how the hell could you function, when you have nothing to eat and no where to sleep? Impoverished sections of this civilization and, more importantly, this very rich country, need to be seen for what they are: Areas of society where there is no where to 'plug in' the battery to charge.

How can a phone ever turn on if it is not charged? The phone must be charged, at least a bit, and then it can function much more efficiently. In our own time, there is the diseased idea that the fear of poverty "puts people in line" and "helps motivate them" to do things for society. This is a massive falsehood. The fear of poverty does not put people in line, nor does it motivate them to do anything for society. What it really does, especially if the poverty is severe enough, is create a very ruthless and dangerous criminal class, who is far more likely to kill you, than to be interested in finding a way to help you. And of course, the craziest part about the criminal class which poverty has created, is that they actually cost more to maintain than the Universal Basic Income would cost to implement, and they never even get a chance to help us with anything.

Does that make any sense at all?

Bit by the Baseball bug

The baseball bug, I'm a bit happy to announce, seems to have (finally) hit me in decent time this summer. For about 5 summers of my life now, I've been wanting to watch baseball a bit again, as I did when I was a boy, but because I have no TV, I always forget, and next thing I know it's September, and it's basically too late. This summer, finally, the bug hit me in decent time, as I write. It's August 2nd today, and I was hit by the bug before July was over.

Of course, the problem I'm having now is my search for a team to root for. I'm just not sure I can handle the Yankees: I followed them as a child and, I'm a prick, and don't want to do anything like I did back then. I don't want my family's team or my geographys team! I want a new team with new uniforms and new vibrations. Some group of players not connected to that dress code dictator known as George Steinbrenner.

So who is a man to choose? Well, these past few days of watching, I've had my eyes on a few clubs. First, I thought I would be interested in following the Kansas City Royals, because I did watch them win the World Series in 2015, but then I realized maybe they're not so good this year, and i also wanted a team with at least one very real power player. This desire led me, for a game, to taking in the great Mike Trout, as he played with the Anaheim Angels. For the few summers I've tried to get into the sport again, I keep hearing Mike Trout is the greatest player of literally all time. So I thought maybe the Anaheim Angels would be a good time. Then of course, I started to realize they're all the way west in California, and California gets so much good stuff already, I can't also let them get my baseball brain. My baseball brain is one that is all sorts of steeped in that weird and old America, when the east coast and the Mid-west reigned supreme, when cities like Chicago and Philadelphia and Baltimore were the biggest names. So I said forget the Anaheim Angels,and sadly forget Mike Trout, I'll come back east.

It was then that my attention began to focus upon baseballs newest team, them being the Washington Nationals. Almost instantly, I realized that maybe I have found the perfect team for me. Oh yes it's true, so much of modern America drives me absolutely crazy, and so it might seem bizarre to choose this team that is a bit nationalistic for my favorite--- but I also think this team is pretty interesting because, strangely enough, but Washington DC is actually a bit of under appreciated city in some very real ways. Yes I know it has the White House but, culturally speaking, DC has always seemed to be a strange no mans land. It's the political capital of the country but beyond that, nothing seems to happen there. I can't remember any good bands who came from there, for example (maybe Black Flag?)....and, I don't know, with all of this in mind, it just felt like the right city to root for. Especially once you remember that this a new team and, maybe for that reason, the fans are more passionate, and also new just like me. There's also the added bonus when it comes to the Nationals, that one of her starting pitchers, is now being widely hailed as -- just like Trout on the Angels--- as the greatest pitcher ... Of all time! This is the man known as Max Scherzer. I am watching a game he had on July 2nd right now, versus those awful Red Sox, on YouTube. He doesn't seem like the greatest pitcher of all time here -- but ok I'll believe you….

Of course, I'll admit there is a part of me that fears that a new interest in baseball might just turn me into some sort of boring old sod, but maybe I don't really care at this point. It's the only sport I have childhood memories with, and that I understand all the rules for, so it seems like the obvious choice, If I want to watch a sport. But alas, some sports haters might ask (and I know there are a lot of those out there) why watch one at all? After all, are not the great lot of them little more than gatherings of macho jocks who ruined life for most of us in high school? Feminists don’t watch baseball, some might say, liberals don’t watch it (it is considered rather conservative audience), and certainly artists and creatives and theatre geeks don’t watch it. So what are you doing?

Well, yes it is true that a lot of sports are centered completely around macho jocks -- but it’s also true that I can’t help but think that baseball is … a bit different from the other sports. If we are going to make it political, I will say that I believe baseball is far more democratic, and if we are going to make it about not being a macho jock, then I also think baseball is much better than the other three most popular sports in the US, that being hockey, basketball, and of course, the dreaded football. Baseball isn’t really a fighting sport, as anyone can see. It is more of a contemplative, and slow paced sport. Many of the games -- numerous people complain -- go on for far too long. In addition to that (and this is my favorite part, I think) a baseball player is actually not really synonymous with being a certain height or of a certain weight class. Over the years there have been many types of ball players, from the thin to the short, to the aggressive to the laid back. For this reason, I have always said that baseball is a sport that is far more representative of how varied mens bodies actually are, than any of the other sports. Something like basketball sells a facade that all men must be tall. Something like football sells the facade that they all must be jacked and sweaty linebackers. Certainly, I’ll admit there is something sexual about a jacked, sweaty footballer -- but there’s also something..well, a bit stupid about him too. Especially the way his face is hidden behind that helmet. How well can you get to know a team of players who always have those helmets and all those pads on?

For me, it is impossible to get to know the footballers, but this isn’t a problem wth baseball. With this sport, not onyl is everyones face and body plain to see -- but there’s also this very enjoyable and, in my opinion, intimate relationship, with the pitcher. It is a position that I simply do not believe exists in any other sport. It is far more intimate than soccer or hockeys goalie, certainly more intimate than any position on the basketball court, and also one that beats footballs most glorius quarterback who, even if he is the prize boy of the sport, is still hidden behind his mask, and is always moving a bit too much to realy get to know. With baseballs pitcher position, we have none of these problems. Here we have a man who is exposed for all to see, in a uniform with no pads and no “armor”. The only thing he carries is a baseball glove made of leather and the ball itself. Like all the other ball players, he might as well be out for a stroll, instead of participating in a game that, in some stadiums, regularly draws an attendance of 40,000 plus people. Some people might find this bizarre. They adore having their athletes suited up in all sorts of armor. Personally, i do not. I find the down to Earth and naturalness of the ball player, and the ball stadiums themselves, to be, in fact, the most alluring element of all. My love for this sport seems to all lie in the fact that, in a way very similar to soccer, which is beloved all over the world precisely because it is easy to set up a game anywhere, baseball is a game of dirt, grass, and men, and little more. Yes, its a bit more difficult to set up a baseball field than it is a soccer field, and you need the gloves, and the wooden bats, but its still far more down to Earth than the other sports here in the US, and thats why I love it. In every single game of pro ball i watch, i can also always see the shadows of a neighborhood, street game hiding within it. I can always sense some faraway farm town in a place like Iowa, or also a place like Latin America, where beisbol is fairly popular, right alongside the obligatory soccer.  

So, you see, with this sport, I am able to get just the right mixture for me: It is very American, which i enjoy actually (since I think pre-World War 2 America was very different than post WW2),  but it also actually has enough flavor from our neighbors in Latin America, to make it feel a bit international and widespread, too. Football does not have this at all -- if anything it seems the most lunatic patriots on Earth are obsessed with it -- and, as for old basketball and hockey, I just find something gruesomely depressing about watching a game that is as indoors as often as my sad self is. Half the fun of any baseball broadcast is the beautifully manicured green grass, the blue skies, or if its a night game, the sensation of being under the gorgeous lights, but still outside, with a nice breeze on your face. Baseball diamonds are like little nature reserves cut into the heart of even the USA’s biggest cities. They are also some of the oldest and most historical landmarks in our country and, since I was a fan even as a kid, I actually managed to see a few of them, which I feel says something strong about baseballs connection to this countrys culture. I was never even really trying to go to stadiums -- it just sort of happened accidentally. I’ve been to Fenway, Yankee Stadium, Wrigley Field, Tropicana Field, and about 4-5 minor league parks. I’ve never been to a single football stadium or basketball one.

And in addition to all of this, there is the biggest fact of all, sometimes, which is that baseball, more than any other sport, seems to have always garnered the love of writers -- probably, one imagines, as a direct result of the fact that most of the men playing don’t look like beasts, but men, and the game is natural, as I keep stressing. So ya. Baseball.

A strange rant about the Yankees dress code policy

As a boy who hasn't gotten a haircut in about...oh, 7 years I think now, I tend to do a fair amount of thinking about male fashion, and what is allowed, not allowed, or of course just frowned upon. And one recent thing I've found myself focusing on a little bit, as I do some summer watching of baseball, is the New York Yankees organization, and their policy when it comes to the appearance of their ball players.

 A lot of people might not realize (maybe not even some Yankees fans?) but the Yankees are actually the only ball club in the Major leagues, who have such a strict policy on appearance. A Yankee player, whether often on the bench or famous like Derek Jeter, must have short hair, a shaved face, and if they have visible tattoos, the player actually has to wear sleeves. If they do not comply, they actually have to leave the organization. Not surprisingly, some very good players have actually taken off, just because the Yankees wouldn't let them grow their hair.

At any rate, the reason I wanted to talk about this was because, I personally believe -- especially as a resident of the New York tri-state area, where this ball club is gigantic -- that this policy they have, actually effects way more people than just the players on the team. I know some folks will think it sounds absurd to say, but hear me out for a second.

In the first place, just dwell for a moment on my own experience with this weird dress code policy that only the Yanks have: Growing up, I started watching the Yankees pretty religiously from about the ages of 6 to around 12 or 13 years old. Like many other kids in the Tri-state area, I was a major fan and many of the players who were on the team back in the 1996-2001 seasons were some of the first grown adults I can ever remember truly idolizing. I vividly remember watching them and wanting to wear the hat and the socks and everything just the precise way that they did. The image of these men and how they looked, with no beards, short hair, and no tattoos, and of course the clean Yankees uniforms, became emblazoned in my head, from a young age.

To this day, I tune into a Yankees game, and I see the uniform, and its like I can feel chills down my spine. This is coming from someone who hasn't really followed the team in years now, basically since I was 13. Yet when I see the player in that uniform, its still as if its the nicest outfit of al time, that anyone can wear. It is an association I made when i was very young; and it is still very strong. People who won at life wore that uniform, people who were beloved by literally everybody. A great Yankee player is not really like any other character in pop culture. He is essentially beloved by all people...there's no reason to dislike him. Women find him attractive, men can't deny he seems like a nice fellow, children idolize them innocently, and they never do anything weird (like a music star or a movie star might). A great Yankee ball player is just automatically beloved -- and so too, naturally, does his image become beloved, no matter what image he chooses.

Now what I find very interesting about my attraction to the specific Yankee player is that it doesn't seem to carry over to any of the other ball clubs. Indeed, when i see the other ball players from other teams pop up with big old beards, long hair (like my own) and tattoos, it's almost like I'm looking at aliens. After so many years watching only the Yanks as a boy, with their clean cut look, its as though my mind is not programmed to fully accept anything else and, even though I have incredibly long hair myself, it's somehow like these guys just look plain wrong. It's like I'm not watching real baseball or something. Some Yankees fans might like this, of course. They might think it makes the Yankees better, because ,in fact, it does make them stand out (strangely enough) more than these other players with no dress code.

I myself, however, tend to think its a negative and a big problem. I think that my brain was forced to see things this way, thanks to this dumb dress code policy. I also think that its completely out of step with the real spirit that i, personally, see in a sport like baseball. To me, a baseball diamond is like a nature reserve in the middle of every city, and the players get dirty, and they go a bit wild too, so why shouldn't they be allowed to look a bit wild?

So my complaints are this:  I think that the Yankees dress code policy is actually having a much bigger effect than most would think on American male fashion at large (anyone who would deny that pro athletes styles don't effect regular men is a blind fool), and in addition to that, I think it is making sports, and particularly baseball of course, look bad, in 2018. I said already that I believe this weird policy is effecting the world of general male fashion. So now imagine how much i believe it's effecting the world of men who like sports. The effect, i feel, is dramatic, and like i say, its making sports look plain ... well, plain! And maybe I don't really think they should look plain. Especially with all the talking that goes on about how connected sports are to politics recently, I think it might be really important that we lose the image of them as being "conservative".

So now lets start with some facts, about why I feel this dress code policy is effecting us all, instead of just this one team: For as much as everyone swears that football is the biggest sport in the country, the truth is that the Yankees, as a team, and as a piece of US history, are significantly more famous than any other sports organization. Not only that, but the Yankees are a thing that spans what you might call 'the great divide'. The great divide is that borderline which separates the people who are crazy for sports from those of us who just sort of 'hear about it' and occasionally watch. The Yankees, unlike basketballs very popular Los Angeles Lakers, or footballs Dallas Cowboys, tend to come up repeatedly in conversations about American history. Not only this, but the old players are extremely well known and the team has been mentioned in songs, literature, and last but never least, the Yankees hat is literally everywhere, including overseas. And all of this is to say that, even though football might be more popular for a few months every fall, the truth is that this New York baseball team, even if you don't dig them, has way more of a stranglehold over US culture at large, than anything else. If you look at maps of where folks root for the Yanks, you might be surprised to find taht even entire counties out in places like Nebraska and Wyoming, root only for the Yanks. Thats weird -- and something tells me it doesn't happen for the LA Lakers.

So, having said all of that, we now go back to the subject of the Yankees weird dress code policy. Keeping in mind how much of a cultural presence this team is and has been for literally a century in the States, does my reader seriously want to tell me, that they think the dress code policy, and the fact that every Yankee is so clean cut, really isn't effecting male fashion culture at large? It absolutely is! There's no way it isn't. Especially when you keep in mind that, even this team has a bad season, they are still always considered "the great winners". So what does that make all the other ball clubs, who don't have a dress policy, in the eyes of the People? It makes them all losers...and by extension, their whacky hairstyles and beards, also become signs of "loserdom" as well.

In a very real way, I quite seriously believe that the Yankees dress code policy, is actually a dress code policy for all American men. After all, as i already explained, this team is literally being kept inside the beating heart of US male culture.

A Guide to Following a Sport

Have you ever gotten the random desire to follow a particular sport, but tuned in a few times, and found yourself unable to keep up? Even though you wish, somewhere in you, that you could? Do you find yourself looking at all the crazed, obsessed fans of organizations like the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, and the MLB, and almost feeling a bit of envy, at how much they seem to enjoy their lives, during a good game and a victory? Do you long for the potential camaraderie you might imagine comes with following a sports team?

Well, I have some advice for you, if you want to follow sports. The advice is very simple: Choose a player, just a single player, and start to follow him (or her). Forget, for a moment, about the greater picture, that being teams, or (beyond teams) entire organizations & their long lived history. Just browse around on the news, and find a particular player. It could be an up and comer, a new rookie everyone is recently excited about, or it could be someone already very famous, like Mike Trout, of the Anaheim Angels (who we are now told might just be one of the greatest players in all of baseball history).  It could even just be someone small and rather obscure, who only plays right field for some random club, like the Washington Nationals (not too famous in my part of the woods).

But whatever you do, and whatever sport you choose, my advice for the struggling spectator who wants to be interested,  is to just choose one player, and try to focus on them, instead of the team. By focusing on the player, one gets to open themselves up to all sorts of goodies. Take, for example, the ability to go backwards in the game catalogue, and have an excuse to watch --yes---even some rather old games. You start follow the history of this one persons life and their success, and by doing that, you start to get a real personal reason to root for a game. Which, in my opinion, can often be far better than just rooting for a team.

The real truth is that almost every lover of sports is, at some point, merely watching for "one player" -- but they often might not realize it, in my opinion, after a number of years have passed, and they especially probably won't mention it in conversation, which is why it always comes off as though they're merely following one big team. For the spectator who just wants to get started, however, and who has no history watching any of the players, this can be difficult to notice. He or she will start watching and go for the team as a whole, and maybe not even really think about the individual players! They certainly might not think about the players back story . But the back story is, really, all a grand part of the fun. Just look, for example, at how much fun people are still having, even in 2018, with the legends of very old players, like Mickey Mantle, DiMaggio, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, and others. The teams they played on are almost forgotten. But the names never are.  This is because all of these sports, just like art really, are far more about the individual than is ever realized by many people.

So, thats why I say. If you are struggling with pro sports but would like to watch, and wonder where so many people find the joy, this is the real secret, far as I see it. Find one player, zero in on him or her, and try to suck up as much as you can about them. Take their side and travel thru the games with them, just like you would travel thru a movie with a lone hero. Forget about the team. Forget about the organization and its long, storied history, and its many new and old stadiums, etc. Find the one player, and you may find yourself, finally, becoming a fan.

Chinese SPace Station in Latin America

Woke up this afternoon to open the New York Times and read some news that is both surprising, terrifying -- but also, perhaps, a bit expected:

The Chinamen, it turns out, have built a secret Space Station down in Argentina. The Times explains to us that, one day, "like in the world of 2049", it could possibly become a military base. 

How did this happen? Doesn't anyone realize that Latin America is literally the "backyard" of the United States? (Or perhaps you could say we are its backyard...).

No. I don't think anyone does realize, and as I read my way through the long article published this morning, all I could think was that, none of this would have happened, if only the Americans had done what was supposed to happen a long time ago, and end the fucking War on Drugs. But because they could not do that, this is what we have to deal with now. The article itself, 3 quarters of the way into it, confirmed that this really was the primary cause. Note the following:

While President Barack Obama was widely hailed in the region [Latin America] for restoring relations with Cuba in late 2014, Washington’s agenda never ceased being dominated by two issues that have long generated resentment in Latin America: the war on drugs and illegal immigration.

 In other words, we have been completely blind to Latin America, as I have always written we have been, and the only reason we are blind to it, is exactly the same reason we should be concerned: They are our neighbors on the American continent! And now there is a damn potential Chinese military base on our continent, and its all because the Drug War. Because, instead of help Latin America, we just kept waging a literal war on it -- a literal fucking war --- and they are broke because of this war, and do you know how easy it is to buy broke people and broke nations? Very easy.

The entire article reads more like a guide on how to wine, dine, and make poor people feel important (which is what the Chinamen did) than anything else. One is only as strong as ones weakest link. South America, thanks almost entirely to the war on drugs at this point, is a clearly identifiable weak link for our continent. Now the Chinese have a military base on it.

It said the Pentagon was "taken aback" or "shocked" or something like that. My only question is ...how? If even I, 5-6 years ago, was able to see that Latin America was a vulnerable region, thanks to endless abuse, how did not the Pentagon? Does that make any sense? A 22 year old pothead was able to see it and the Pentagon no? Latin America has so much potential as both friend, lover, and neighbor, for the USA. Now, how can we know where their allegiances might lie come the future? Perhaps all of Latin America will be turned into nothing more than a Chinese military center...this will merely be the first base of many to come...we will be dealing with a land invasion coming up thru Mexico...and it won't be Mexicans....it'll be Chinese... .

This part also didn't sound too good, from a US point of view:

The contacts have paved the way for China to start selling military equipment in Latin America, which had long regarded the United States defense industry as the gold standard, said Mr. Ellis, the War College scholar.

Venezuela has spent hundreds of millions on Chinese arms and matériel in recent years. Bolivia has bought tens of millions of dollars’ worth of Chinese aircraft. Argentina and Peru have signed smaller deals.

Mr. Ellis said the Chinese had also probably pursued cooperation relationships with Latin American nations, with an eye toward any possible confrontation with the United States.

This doesn't sound like its going to be a very good time.

Seems the War on Drugs has now officially destroyed something else. Thank you war on drugs!

What is so great about New York City?

My young sister is absolutely obsessed with New York City. She seems to believe that it's the best and most exciting city on the face of the earth. To her, people in New York are living the dream. They remind her of the film stars she watched, when she was growing up, in shows like Gossip Girl and Sex and the City. When she looks at New York , she sees a world of fashion designers, chic nightclubs, expensive bars, and success. She sees an open and happy lifestyle. A progressive place. The one and only place to go to.

I do not blame her for her image of New York City. After all, it's mostly true. It's one of the richest and most successful cities on earth, just like my sister believes.

And yet, I suppose I cannot help but find it fascinating (and very strange) how much my sisters current image of New York City, differs so mightily from the image I had of it, when I was her age, and a young guy, instead of a girl. For the thing I find most curious of all about my sisters love for New York is that, indeed, I think it all connects completely with the fact that she's my sister. A girl.

When I think back to conversations that I had with my group of friends as a young guy about New York, when we were all only 17-20 years old, it's very comical to me that the image we had of the city, as young men, was so radically different (and worse) than what my sister sees. For most of us guys--- the way I remember it---the idea of New York city went something like this: It is a really hard place to live, and you have to be unbelievably tough to live there, always ready for a brawl. If not that, then you have to be rich, which of course we did not believe we would be. Instead of seeing New York as the home of fashion designers and coco Chanel, we saw it as the home of gangsters like the Teflon Don John Gotti, and as having hard hit areas like Harlem and the Bronx, that went far beyond what we used to call “the little Bronx”, here jn our own home city, with a mere 120,000 residents. If we thought our own city was a pain in the ass, and filled with gang issues and drug wars, we did not even want to begin imagining what the hell happened in New York. It was another level of problems, and of course, we weren't the only ones who felt this way: A television show like the Sopranos, which was very popular when I was younger, uniquely examines just how much happier a mob guy can be, when he's in “quiet” New Jersey, instead of New York. Every time tony soprano met with the New York bosses in the show, it was always a potentially life threatening event. He was mortified. They were bigger and scarier sharks who swam in a much deeper sea. Better to be in jersey. For everybody.

Well, as I say, as young men, that was our idea of the city. It simply wasn't seen as aomewhere you would want to go, unles you had plans to be a particualely vicious shark. But beyond that idea, there was also another one that I find even stranger: Though we interpreted the New York lower class as being one in which we surely never wanted to swim, because of how tough we imagined such boys were, we also never wanted to move there because, well, there was also something really feminine about the city to us. That's right: the city of the vicious sharks, of the Teflon Don and the strange subways, the city that practically birthed gangsta rap, was also really feminine. It wasn't the place you would want to go to pursue your absurd dreams of being a masculine American  boy.

New York City was at once this vicious place with the most vicious sharks, whilst also being this place that represented the literal antithesis of what masculinity was really supposed to be. How is it possible, one cannot help but ask.

When I think of distant places my childhood friends used to mention as where they'd dig living, it seems literally almost all the places were out in the woods, or the country, and keep in mind that many of these guys had never even lived in a country setting, yet it was what they dreamed of, when they did dream. The country was where it was thought that a man was free to be a man, whatever that was supposed to mean. He could be dirty and wear no shirt and just a pair of ripped jeans there. He could have a woman who didn't want a $4500 Chanel purse and high heels. He could catch fish and maybe even buy a gun and hunt something , to get “free food”. . This was the dream. The country was seen as a place of riches. New York , dreadful poverty.

It was yet another strange area where the idea of New York again got confusing: A New Yorker -- any New Yorker --- was rich, but he was also poor. He had no real personal space. Is that not the definition of being poor? A house with noting in it in the middle of no where in Tennesse, looks like a mansion, to a poor New Yorker.

I remember how my cousins used to speak constsntly of the pot farms they would one day have in Colorado or Oregon, my friends used to dream of hiking the Appalachian mountains or drilling for oil in Alaska, many used to discuss a state like Texas and how they wanted to move there to shoot guns and “live easy”. And, quite literally, out of probably all the young men I can ever remember talking to back then,  maybe all of one or two ever mentioned New York City. Oddly enough, those two were both rich boys. Beyond them, literally no one wanted to go there. It wasn't even about the money. It was merely that something seemed wrong about the entire scene out that way. It didn't feel inclusive. Even I, as a writer, never felt that New York City would make for an interesting subject. I thought my own city was trash, as I say, and its garbage stink had caused me to spend half my childhood inside fantasy stories.

Of course, it's very strange to think that none of my boys back then felt that New York City was inclusive, considering New York prides itself -- so we are told---on being this ultra inclusive, ultra liberal and progressive paradise. So what the hell is going on? How can the most inclusive place  somehow seem like this to so many people? Specifically young men?

Yet another Essay on the USA (it goes on and on)

If America has so many problems -- why then does it also have such a grandiose and fun myth attached to it?

The reaction is always the same, when people first start to find out about the 'real America'. They can't believe what they are hearing. People die of lack of medical care in America? Child poverty rates are sky high? Teenage pregnancy is rampant? Many of the cities are dangerous and no one wants to live in them? There are more guns than people? The prison population is the worlds highest -- far beyond any other countries? The South is enraged for a Civil War that happened well over a 100 years ago? An entire political party, the one currently sitting in the Presidential office, actually hates California -- the same California I, as a foreigner, dream of seeing, and living in? The races aren't actually all getting along? But mostly live in their own neighborhoods, angrily separated?

What on Earth are you talking about? says the foreigner. This can't be true! This is not the America I Have heard about. The AMerica i know is a land of myth, opportunity, a land of plenty! All the races tehre get along and laugh with one another! People live in pretty little houses and no one goes hungry. Everyone goes to Disney Land.

Where are all these sad tales coming from?  How could a land with this grandiose myth attached to it also be a land with all these rather frightening problems? the foreigner wonders.

For many years, I sat in wonder also, and couldn't quite understand how this myth could be attached to my country -- or even how I myself could believe in it --- whilst still living right in the heart, of so many of America's problems. I always had a pretty passionate love for the American mythos myself. I loved reading about cowboys, Indians, and the Wild West. The stories of how New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other such cities in the northeast came to rise, in the 18 and 1900s, gave my boyhood self some of the wildest thrills imaginable. America was a great story for me--and it still is. I, for example, always appreciated Europe when i was younger -- but I still thought America was inherently safer, better, more interesting, and more forwards than Europe. When I first came to discover that this was the furthest thing from the truth, I was very shocked.

I did not know, for example, that free medical care was even a possibility that could exist anywhere in the world, until I was almost 24 years old. It was unfathomable to my younger self that someone could go to college for free. In my world, only the richest and most arrogant cousin I had went, and he paid nearly $400,000 for the privilege. This was the only world I knew until I began to meet my first European friends, by way of the Internet. Everything quickly changed from there.

I began to read a different interpretation of America that day -- but it wasn’t necessarily one that shocked me too much. Mostly because my life in America had always been a bit strange, and depressing. I grew up in an area that was basically sitting right on the borderlands of  “the Bronx” -- and it was clear to me that a lot was wrong. But I thought, essentially, that a lot was wrong all over the world, and that this was the best we could do. Then, I came to see all of this truth, about how America only enjoys an illusion of being grandiose, even if she actually is not so nice.

Still, of course, many people wonder and always ask: “There must be something special about America, for it to have this powerful myth. ALl this stuff about the prison, the teen pregnancy, the chil dpoverty rates, the dangerous cities, $400,000 for a Bachelor’s degree, the War on Drugs … all of this stuff can’t be as severe as some journalists tell us …. cause everyone still thinks America is just grand…. so it’s a lie, right? Why do al lthese immigrants come to America, if its such a shit? It don’t make sense!”

These people ask a good and imoprtant question, and its the same one i asked, for a long time. I asked it pretty much constantly, up until the time when  I started to really read some deeper history, and almost overnight, I began to feel I understood precisely why this myth exists, right alongside all of these truly major problems. I came to understand why people are so passionate about America, even if America is so troubled.

The explanation is very simple: The United States is, and always has been, what i now call a "high voltage" country, and the reason --the only reason -- that it is high voltage is because it's brand new. It's that simple. America is still the New World and the New World is high voltage (i.e. dangerous, bizarre, & tantalizing); therefore, it is perhaps uniquely allowed to have all these weird, sad and downright pathetic problems --- whilst still being an awesome, cool, and really exciting place.

From the Old World perspective, specifically the European one, America is perhaps a bit like a pornographic film: One watches and feels a bit badly for the actors forced to participate in this gross and primitive spectacle -- and yet, one also cannot help but feel that invigorating sense of excitement and arousal. Humanity is being presented at its most raw and vulnerable.

The grandiose myth stems from the primitive arousal of fresh virgin land that also is strangely savage and experienced -- which is what America is. The USA is a dangerous and sexy boy that shoots guns, kills people, doesn’t waste time reading, lays waste to the "weak", and is always on edge. It might get you killed; it also might show you the best time, and sex, of your life. It’s an adrenaline junkies wet dream come to life. Even the places in the USA that are supposedly quiet -- like Wyoming, for examlpe---always have just another high voltage myth attached to them, as well.

"Who lives in Wyoming?"

"People with big fuckin' guns, dawg."

In fact, an important fact to remember is that, America is not merely a high voltage country -- but also a high voltage continent. In the old US folk songs, the term 'sea to shining sea' is used, and often people think of this as territory stretching from the NY east coast, over to California on the west. The truth about the American mythos and this high voltage thing, in reality, however, is that it really stretches throughout all of the Americas. I.e. It goes from Canada all the way down to a country like Atgentina. The Central and South American countries don't receive as much adulation --- its true -- but, ultimately, even they are still a part of the grand myth. And, in fact, examning the Central & South American countries, and their often intense and very dangerous problems (i.e. Mexicans often decapitating one another in border towns over drugs) will also help people curious about the USA and her problems, to understand them far more. The weird tragedy of the USA allowing so many people to starve and die for lack of medical care, its obsession with imprisoning its own citizens, its love of the gun, and some states still asking to hang people legally in 2018  all makes much more sense, once you examine the continent as a whole, instead of just the country.

What I offer unto my reader is not a condemnation of America, so much as a justification of why America is who she is. She is young. She is big. She is wild. The continent cannot be blamed. It is still yet to be entirely tamed. We, the real American people, which is a term that, in fact, encompasses all of us, from Canada all the way to Argentina, cannot be held completely accountable for our wild actions here. This is not densely populated Europe. It is a different land.

Yet again, it is so often the case that Americns are expected to “already be at” the same level as the liberal Europeans have now so fortunately been able to reach.

Imagine, for example, if someone told you that what happens in Germany or France has simply never effected Spain or England at all. It would sound preposterous, and no one would believe it. Everyone knows that all of Europe is connected, and that these are neighbor countries. When Germany had a big problem, so too did all the other countries. Yet, when you take this same peak at the American continent, you see -- just like the myth -- that all of the neighboring countries -- many of which are plagued by dictators, revolutions, and civil wars--  get oddly disconnected from the USA's story. They are all explained away, for example, as being "absolutely nothing like" the USA.

Mexico, we are told, is hell on earth -- but USA is absolute heaven.  Nevermind the fact that, when one compiles a list of the cities considered the most dangerous in the world, that list features cities primarily from both the USA, Mexico, and further below. On this list I have here, Los Cabos, Mexico rates as the worlds most dangerous city. Saint Louis, Missouri comes in spot #13. There are 50 cities total o nthe list. Not a single one of them is from Europe.   Yet the continued obsession of trying to connect the USA with Europe, instead of her true sister countries, goes on and on.

The truth, of course, is that things just don't work like this. Two countries so close together, shared by land, are inevitably connected. They are, as i write, like brothers and sisters, and they have the same parentage. What effects one undoubtedly effects the other.

I will say it again, and stress it: The USA has significantly more in common, in my opinion, as an American living in an American city, with the very troubled Mexico, than it has ever had with Europe.

The two countries, after all, are both a part of what people used to understand was the New World, as previously mentioned, and again, this fact about being the New World is the entire picture. If this country was not "new", I'm persuaded next to no one would care about it at all.I’m also persuaded that it wouldn’t have so many problems.  (Keep in mind, for example, that if america wasn't new, she wouldn't have the same two languages spoken throughout the entire continent, which would change her in gigantic ways. The Europeans all have different languages, but now maintain an accord of peace and good will, that took literally centuries to achieve).

The American continent, in many ways, is like an old aging celebrity: We all know she's getting older and much stranger now than ever before-- yet we still can't help but remember the original excitement she once brought not merely those of us living inside her, but literally the entire world. Many things have been discovered and been invented since the year 1492, when Colombus discovered the American continent, but nothing has ever quite been on the scale of discovery that this continent was. The human race, for example, has learned an awful lot about space and planets and how big the universe is, in the years since we found this continent, but as great as those discoveries were, they were also a bit dull, for the commoner. The planets, for almost all of us, all just sit inside movies and textbooks. They might as well not be real. We cannot participate with them. We cannot visit them.

America, you see, was that last great all inclusive bomb of a discovery that literally anyone was able to jump into. And that's why it's still so exciting, at times. That's why it's still so cool, and attractive, and fashionable, even if it is insane and inhumane, too.