Coveting

If my interests were not so far-flung, I could easily post exclusively about stuff that goes on at Rainbow Records, owned by my dear friend, one of my three closest male friend, John Thominet. I met John back in 1993 when he coached my son Adam James on the Dodgers baseball team here in town. Adam would have run through a brick wall for John. The following year, when Adam was a on a different team, coached by a local policeman, who was getting out of law enforcement, preparing to pack up and leave for Nashville, to become a country & western song writer, I ended up being the de facto coach, having been the first adult male to arrive for Adam's first spring training game, which we won, 25-7.

I once flagged Adam, who was running from second base on a sharply hit single to right field, to run on home. I was an aggressive third base coach and figured that the syzygy required to get him out would require the alignment of the planets: straight throw, clean catch, good tag. Adam rounded third base with his eyes following the action out in right field. He got about ten feet past third base, and turned around. The throw was perfect. The catcher fielded it cleanly, about five feet from the plate, directly in line with third base. He would have been tagged out, by a mile. Adam turned around, strolled leisurely back, perched his foot on third base and said, "if I had gone home, they would have thrown me out by a mile."

Seldom have I been prouder of my son. He had his eyes opened, his presience was spot on, and most importantly, he did not blindly follow the commands of the de facto team leader. Think for yourself son, don't blindly follow authority. Exactly the things I have always wanted to instill in him.

To a coach, of course, this is mutiny, and worse, embarrassing. Spot on, son.

lyrical interlude: Waist Deep In The Big Muddy

by Pete Seeger 1963, planned for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 but CBS objected to the blacklisted Seeger making obvious references to the"big fool" in the White House, finally sung by Seeger on the Comedy Hour in 1968 as the finale in a medley of anti-war songs

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!

Words and music by Pete Seeger (1967)
TRO (c) 1967 Melody Trails, Inc. New York, NY

At the record store, one can never quite remember what words turn conversations 90 degrees in a different direction. When woman do this, and I love to listen to women who care deeply for one another, with no agendas, I love to listen to them talk, to hear how a word can turn a conversation about a recipe into a remembrance of something the kids did that was dumb when they were four, or that the husbands did that was thoughtless and overbearing, last night, and the night before, and how Betty down at the Beauty Parlor was more drunk than they'd ever seen her before, least ways in public, at 11:00 a.m.

You know what I'm talking about. The kinds of conversations that aren't about facts so much as about feelings, and shared emotions, shared dreams, shared disappointments, shared lives -- pretty much the Ya Ya Sisters rejoicing in their sisterhood. The kind of things that drive husbands to the TV room, to turn the volume up LOUDLY. Too many words, conversation to disjointed for them to comprehend.

OK. I confess, I embrace my inner female. I LOVE to listen to such talk, and for the most part, am quite comfortable partaking of it, with women.

So, for whatever reason, I asked John, "Why is it that, back in the day, I was always so attracted to my friend's hot girl friends? Why did they always look so good to me? Especially if the guy treated them like a jerk."

John is inordinately wise, for one so young. (He's not yet 53. I'll be 56 one month from today.)

When John is preparing for serious utterances, he gets a serious look on his face, as if carefully weighing in his mind the words he is about to speak, parsing them, pruning them down, trying to keep it simple enough for a moron like myself to understand BEFORE I start talking all over him, leaping to conclusions (prematurely ejaculating, from the mouth, as it were) BEFORE he concludes with his main points. And he is QUITE good at getting his main points across. He majored in journalism, back in the days when Woodward and Bernstein inspired a nation of J-majors, who would for the most part, go on to become stenographers for the Republican Party.

Sometimes, when he gets that serious utterance look, I pay careful enough attention that I make a mental note to remain silent, and listen (not think) until he pauses, and takes three breaths in a row without making any more words. Or two breaths.

"It's not about coveting," he said. "It's about opportunity and location. She's a hot chick. She's there. You don't have to do ANYTHING, so, BEING A GUY, you think, he's got her for a girl friend, why shouldn't I?"

This is what men / boys do. This is how we think. Woman. Here. Close. Talks to me. Didn't even have to get nervous trying to impress her. She listens. My own last 15 girl friends never listened. (Not that I was boring, or drunk and stupid .. no WAY that.) She finds me attractive. I am. She's hot. So am I. SHE WANTS ME! I can be good for her.

And so it goes (the first of what will be several Vonnegut tributes).