Bear Left...

Dinner last night: The Friday night tradition of a ham French Dip sandwich at Philippe's.

Manny Being Barry

Well, so much for the Dodgers' promotion of Mannywood. Two field level seats steps behind the leftfielder plus two t-shirts. Quite a deal. On hold. At least until after the All-Star break when he is due back. For the time being, maybe they can work some sort of promotion around "Pierrewood." Because that's who will be playing left field at Chavez Ravine for the next little while.

It's old news already. Manny Ramirez suspended for 50 games because he took some kind of sexual enhancement drug. Actually one of those female pills that increases testosterone after you've gone through a steroid cycle. Heck, maybe Manny's simply trying to get his current main squeeze pregnant. How do you say "yeah, right" in Spanish?

Whatever. These days, the ideal baseball fan is one who works the counter at Walgren's. I don't understand any of it, except that it's all cheating and I'm sure a lot more bigger names do it as well. Albert Pujols, there's a pee cup in your future . And, you, too, Big Papi---that dumbbell on the Red Sox who has inexplicably not hit a homerun since last September.

Manny claims his doctor prescribed this and did not realize it was on the MLB no-no list. Do I believe this? Maybe. Maybe not. I can't believe that the Commissioner's office doesn't have a website where players and doctors can check to see which drugs are verboten today. How stupid are they? How stupid are we?

Hell, Manny's physician just might actually be as dumb as a doorknob. We do know that Manny isn't using his off days to develop theorems on quantum physics. Is this innocence, guilt, or simply Memorex? We will never ever know. But the more I read and see of Manny, he strikes me as just a big kid who loves to play baseball. The type that might do or take anything to keep that world spinning at warp speed.

The Dodgers have gotten off to a monstrous start in 2009, due in part to Manny. But, not exclusively due in part to Manny. He is a big component of the team, but not the only one. I'm astounded by the handwringing that I heard yesterday. The team is destroyed. Boo hoo. They will never recover. Boo hoo. Do you offer any refunds on those season tickets you sold me? By the way, no, I don't.

Last I looked, baseball was a team sport. Played by a team. A team that picks one end up when another is down. If the 2009 Dodgers are resilient, they will hold together until Manny and his pill-swallowing self returns. Forget his nightly doubles into the corner. The Dodgers need another starting pitcher more than they need Manny at this juncture. If we suddenly learn that pitcher Chad Billingsley has tested positive, then we have ourselves a Titanic and an iceberg.

The key to the Dodgers enduring a Manny-less May and June is Joe Torre. This is the type of situation where he thrives. A manager who knows how to deflect all the bullshit and media hype from his players. If anybody can keep this team on a level course until July 3, it's Joe.

At the end of the day, I'm not devastated. Or suicidal. Or even surprised. This is what baseball has become in the post-Mark McGwire era. Like everything in our society, it's flawed and you are asked to accept that. Everybody cheats---from our baseball players to our potential Presidential Cabinet members. You have to take the lemons and the pits and somehow wind up with a delicious lemon drop martini. If baseball is truly like life, then the Dodgers just hit one of those many bumps in the road.

We press on. A little wearier. A little wiser. But, fans of our favorite team nonetheless. Rooting for the name on the front of the jersey, not the one on the back.

Dinner last night: Louisiana hot sausage at Dodger Stadium.

Bluetopia

While it went straight to DVD, “Bluetopia” is a documentary that is so good and so wise that it could have played screens bigger than your living room plasma. It’s technically about the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 2008 season, but, at its heart, the movie is about so much more. There were points during the 90 minute running time that my eyes started to well up with tears. Not because the Dodgers lost to the Phillies in the NLCS. Indeed, even if the team had finished behind the pack in 2008, this film would have told the same story. About the fans and the truly unique folks that inhabit Chavez Ravine.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. The “Bluetopia” filmmakers fill the reels with the requisite baseball stuff. The arrival of new manager Joe Torre. The surprising trade-deadline appearance of Manny Ramirez who singlehandedly transformed the Dodger season from water to wine. The usual ups and downs of a 162 game baseball schedule.

But, this is not where “Bluetopia’s” director Timothy Marx wants to concern himself. Nope, he’s looking at the people in the stands and under the stands. The fans and those that attend to the fans. You follow the Dodger season through their eyes and it is the most humanistic view of a baseball team that I have seen.

There’s the police detective who arrives in the bleachers two hours prior to game time so his son can try and snag a batting practice home run or engage Chan Ho Park in a game of catch. There’s the three ladies who come adorned with Dodger caps and pins and bleed the consummate blue. They reminded me so much of the gals who sucked me into Dodger fandom ten years ago and now, for me, there is barely any other team to follow. There’s the lifelong season ticket holder whose cancer battle is noticed by an attentive usher and she winds up throwing out the first ball last Mother’s Day. Later, she schedules her chemo treatments around the Dodgers’ postseason schedule. Sadly, we learn that she has since passed on. You meet another season ticket holder whose father was the first one in Los Angeles. When Walter O’Malley first announced the move from Brooklyn, his dad sent the first $25 deposit for tickets.

You get a wonderful look at rookie Clayton Kershaw’s first major league start (hey, I was there, too) through the eyes of his family and friends in the stands. You watch his girlfriend greet him after the game with so much love and warmth that you want to hug them both. You watch Manny introduce himself to clubhouse workers, forgetting to say hello to his new manager. No Dodger documentary would be complete without some Vin Scully, who addresses some Asian journalists with the only thing he knows how to say in their native language. “I’ll have scotch with a little water and some ice.”

At its core, “Bluetopia” shows you what it means to be the fan of a baseball team. Not just the Dodgers. Any team. It reminded me of when I was a kid and I lived and mostly died with the New York Mets. When I knew every uniform number and birthplace of every player. Jim McAndrew from Lost Nation, Iowa. Nolan Ryan from Alvin, Texas. I realized that there is still some baseball love for me to give even if it’s in another time and another place.

”Bluetopia” showed me that baseball is never outgrown. Because baseball keeps us as we should be. All kids at heart.

Dinner last night: Roast beef sandwich from Clementine's.

WTF Wednesday!!

Like the absurdity of the picture above, our world today is a goofy place. And none of it makes any sense. All of it makes you scream...WTF!

---Did we all get enough details on Mr. and Mrs. Urkel's date last weekend? We haven't had that much information since Gidget and Moondoggie hit the Shake Shack at Muscle Beach.

---WTF.

---Does anybody except Us Magazine give a shit about what these two are doing with themselves? Or with each other?

---All the news about their big date excluded the one thing I wanted to know.

---Did he get any?

---The more I see the media make these two into the typical American couple, the more I realize they are anything but.

---Just ask anybody who dealt with the missus in their old Chicago neighborhood. Two words keep coming up over and over.

---"Raving lunatic."

---WTF.

---But, a raving lunatic with 600 dollar sneakers. And you don't find those draped over telephone lines on my block.

---Can you imagine the media frenzy and backlash that would have happened if Barbara Bush bought 600 dollar sneakers?

---Can you imagine the media frenzy when Barbara Bush tried to fit her swollen feet into 600 dollar sneakers??

---Now we're getting press coverage on Mrs. Urkel's old lady who has now plopped her ass into the White House as well.

---She's trying to carry on a normal life. With season tickets to all the important Washington DC events.

---WTF.

---If she really was trying to carry on a normal life, I'd expect to see her down at the Fluff N' Fold doing her unmentionables.

---A story in the LA Times yesterday talked all about how late night comics and writers are staying away from doing and writing jokes on the President because they don't want to appear racist.

---If Bob Hope was alive, I bet he'd be doing Obama jokes.

---No moratorium here in this blog. Bob Hope would be proud.

---For instance, if you're one of those who say that the day there was a Black president, pigs would fly, guess what?

---Last week, swine flu.

---But I wanna tell you...

---No, really, jackasses got up into the air, too. Until Joe Biden realized he didn't want to fly in a confined space.

---But I wanna tell you...

---Did you hear that Obama is going to tax aspirin? Yep, it's white and it works.

---But I wanna tell you...

---There's a documentary on HBO this month that you should see. It was even nominated for an Oscar. "Trouble The Water."

---It's supposed to be a look at Hurricane Katrina through the eyes and the video camera lens of two schmucks who rode out the storm.

---While it's allegedly poignant, it actually plays like a Wayan Brothers comedy with every racial stereotype you can imagine.

---Until you realize it's all real.

---But the two assholes have the last laugh when they use their FEMA money---and our tax dollars---to start a hip hop record label.

---WTF!

---Sad that a true talent, Dom DeLuise, passed away. He was on a Murphy Brown episode when we were there and he stole the show.

---Except I'm surprised he lasted this long. That night, he was so fat that he couldn't stand on his own two legs.

---It was Classic Rock night on American Idol and I finally decided that I don't give a shit about this season. They are too busy pimping that annoying Adam Lambert as the future winner. And he has a better shot at selling eyeliner than his own record album.

---The mentor last night was Slash from Guns N'Roses and how do you take career advice from somebody with staples in his nose?

---Judge Kara DioGuardi was dressed for the night as a biker chick and she looked like she was playing Rizzo in the Sioux City VFW production of Grease.

---Yawn...and WTF.

---My guess is that clean cut Kris goes home as his attempts at hard rock sounded like the Cowsills doing Def Leopard.

Dinner last night: Teriyaki chicken cutlet and side salad.

Orphans

While I was in NY last week, I had a dinner with two college friends who stand alongside me in a very unique club.

We’re all orphans.

Not orphans like the little red-headed curly-topped kid at the top. None of us are running around with a dog, a bald guy, and some dude named Punjab. But, we’re on our own nonetheless. Only children whose parents have passed on to their eternal timeout.

We talked about our lots in life. The positives and the negatives of being sibling-less. As I look around my world, I realize that I have twelve such friends who grew up the same way I did. Forced to make your own lonely fun. Staging basement shows where you play all the voices. Being the only reason your parents need to adapt their schedules. Being the sole recipient of punishment because you have nobody else to point at and say “he did it.”

We’re a resilient bunch. None of us locked ourselves away in our attics to make pipe bombs. Nope, we worked harder to forge friendships with others. We appreciated those bonds that were formed with our pals in school or, in my case, “up the block.” If our parents weren’t going to bother to give us brothers and sisters, we damn well had to create them ourselves. Indeed, we relish our friendships more than others. We appreciate what we have because we know what we had not. And, oddly, we gravitate to one another. Only child and only child and only child. Makeshift families that are hardly makeshift at all.

Not all of my friends sailing in this special boat are orphans. But, those who are can understand the intricate dynamics that arise at the end of their parents’ journeys. Being the only one to get the midnight call when breathing is labored or simple steps have failed. Sitting in some nondescript emergency room. Alone with nothing but a year-old People magazine as your emotional support. That’s the darkness of a world when your brother and sister has the same name. "Nobody."

At the same time, when Mom and Dad pass on, your decisions on how to move forward---with funerals and beyond---are uniformly your own. You don’t have to fight with anybody over what time the burial should take place or what dress Mom should wear in the casket. Nope, you alone decide. 12 Noon and the blue one.

Perhaps, this is our just reward for being a parent’s sole offspring. Is it worth all the loneliness that precedes it? Who knows? A few years ago, a very good college friend of mine lost his brother at a very untimely age. When we were talking after the fact, he told me that, now, he was alone. Just like me.

Oh, no. Sorry. But you are not just like me. Because, even for one day, you had a sibling to share a moment with. To bitch about Mom or Dad. To argue about what TV show to watch. To be an actual voice on the other side of the room. Nobody can know our feeling except those who share it.

Indeed, I had a strange sensation when my father died. My thought, besides sadness and a bit of relief, was that I was going to be okay. Why? Because I still had one parent left. A reserve fund, if you will. But, when the second one goes, the sadness is impalpable. Your secret stash has been depleted. You are officially bloodline-less.

If being an only child made me what I am today, then perhaps it was worth it. Because I am not alone. I have friends. Many, many good friends. And, at the very least, I have those other “brothers and sisters.” Dolores, Djinn, Bib, Barbara, Amy, Larry, Bob, Patti, Ingrid, Gary, Lorraine, Dennis.

Dinner last night: Sausage pizza from Maria's Italian Kitchen.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - May 4, 2009

Amen to that. And good riddence to Facebook.

Dinner last night: Chicken salad sandwich.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Grandma's Schedule

In the picture at the top, you finally see Grandma. With me and my hand up Popeye. So to speak.

You'll notice there is a wristwatch on me, but not Grandma. The woman was timeless. But, still, growing up in my house, we had wall clocks and calendars all over the place. Frankly, we didn’t need them. You could always tell what day or time it was by paying attention to whatever my grandmother was doing. A set schedule of weekly activities that never ever varied one iota.

The morning hours after breakfast always were set aside for some sort of household chores. On Mondays, she descended down the cellar stairs to do the wash. The machine was circa 1935 and the clothes were wrung out through one of those mechanical rollers. I was always warned not to put my fingers anywhere near it. Tuesday mornings were one of two consecutive mornings devoted to cleaning her house. Major dusting. Living room, bedroom, and the stairs that went up to our apartment. With no door or wall separating our area, Tuesday was not a day you could sleep late. Because, by 830AM, there was Grandma on the top step. Wipe, wipe, spray, spray, wipe, wipe.

Wednesday mornings featured part two of the cleaning parade. Floors. With the vacuum. At perhaps the earliest hour you can imagine. Again, no sleeping late as the sound of this massive Hoover canister, probably purchased during the Eisenhower administration, could be heard from our house all the way to New Rochelle.

I got sucked into the Thursday morning project when school was out for the summer. My father would drive her to the A & P (and later Waldbaum’s) for the weekly grocery shopping. This took almost two hours as Grandma methodically propelled her shopping cart up and down every aisle. She carefully surveyed all the shelves as if some new amazing product would be added to the items on sale. Not that Grandma would deviate from anything she had routinely purchased for the past forty years. The same brand of chocolate chip cookies. The same little cans of Carnation Condensed Milk. The same box of H O Oatmeal. The same bag of specially ground Eight O’Clock coffee. You could take a picture of her cart one week and it would exactly the same the very next week. And her attention to the prices was almost Rain Man-like.

”You see this jar of pickled beets? Last week, it was 79 cents. This week, it’s 80 cents.” Nothing got past her. Amazing that she could read numbers, but not words.

Friday mornings were special. Her kitchen linoleum was washed and waxed. Every single week, as if Army troop maneuvers were regularly conducted there. By the time I was in high school, all the accumulated wax on the floor made the whole kitchen one inch higher. Of course, you risked life and limb walking through there if the floor was not 100% dry.

”Go out through the basement. The floor is not dry.”

I loved Grandma on Saturday mornings because that’s when baking would commence. An apple pie. A pound cake. A rhubarb pie. Some bread pudding. The aromas wafted through the entire house as if we were living next door to the Entenmann’s main headquarters. The finished product was always kept in her pantry and usually was missing a hunk as soon as I could sneak in there.

There were, however, some Saturday mornings we dreaded. When the bus would stop on the corner and out would come Grandma’s niece or cousin Adele. We were never quite sure of the familial connection because it was described differently on any given day. Nevertheless, Adele’s arrival heralded complete polarization. On one hand, she was more than welcome because she always brought these homemade strawberry squares which she had baked lovingly with about five pounds of butter. But, on the other hand, Adele’s visit could only mean one dreadful thing.

Grandma was going to be getting a Toni Permanent.

In her home upstairs, we would immediately go into Defcon 4.

”Quick, Grandma’s getting a Toni. Go close the door! And make sure the dog stays upstairs.” My mother began to bark like General Patton. But, if you did not react quickly, the rancid smell of a home permanent concoction could last for weeks. Luckily, this was only repeated on a Saturday once every two months.

Sunday mornings sometimes found her at the German service of our Lutheran church. But, you could always count on a big Sunday dinner getting cooked up for midday consumption. She used to eat around 1PM, but, as time wore on, she started eating earlier and earlier. Had she continued to live, by now, she'd probably be eating her Sunday dinner on Saturday night. Sadly, the great baking on Saturday didn't translate to phenomenal cooking on Sunday. Probably as a result of Depression living, Grandma made due with the barest of ingredients. Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup was used as spaghetti sauce. Salad dressing was some vinegar and a spoonful of sugar. Not even mixed together. Serviceable meals, but nothing from the annals of Rachael Ray.

Afternoons? More clock setting. A 45 minute nap on the couch, always referred to as "beauty sleep." Then, One Life to Live and General Hospital.

It might sound boring to you, but something worked about all this precision. The woman made it to the age of 92.

Dinner last night: Garlic prawns and pasta at Cafe Montana.