A collection of things that sparked some thoughts but probably didn’t merit a full post on their own. Enjoy!
This week, Arizona second baseman Ketel Marte suddenly broke down in tears on the field, which was somewhat scary as it looked like he was having a breakdown - and indeed, he was incredibly emotional.
It turns out that a fan yelled “I texted your mother last night” to Marte when he was in the batters box, which a) is a super strange thing to say and b) fairly horrible because Marte’s mother died in a car accident in 2017 while Marte was playing in Chicago. The fan has been banned from future White Sox games and in theory, all MLB games (though I can’t understand how that could possibly ever be enforced), but what got me thinking was the external reaction to the fan being banned. The points they were making were that the fan probably didn’t know that his mom had passed so this was an over-reaction. I have two responses.
The comment from the fan is pretty specific - I texted your mother? It’s just weird and suggests that the fan DID in fact know the history here.
It doesn’t matter. Because fans need to stop thinking that they are part of the event. STOP YELLING THINGS. This is not me just being an old man, but it’s so annoying to attend - or even watch, given how loud some of these folks are - a sporting event and just hear fans yelling the dumbest things. And dumb is one thing, but insulting the athlete, getting personal and mean-spirited? Why? It’s not about YOU. It’s fine to react to plays, to clap or boo (if you must) but just … shut up. And miss me with saying that players are soft, they make too much money to react like this, and you paid for your seat blah blah blah. You’re not in your living room, you’re in society - act like a decent human being, or pay the price for not.
Oh, I have a third insight - you’re a WHITE SOX fan throwing shade? You root for a historically awful team that literally doesn’t even try to win. Be better. (Listen - I know that the White Sox just took 2 out of 3 against my Giants. This is inexcusable by the Giants and doesn’t change the fact that the White Sox stink. Cause, maybe the Giants do, too.)
With the caveat that I’m still not sure if this is true, my rant about the idiotic changes in the name at HBO/HBO Max/Max/HBO Max got numerous folks to send this my way:
As a good friend of mine noted, there used to be a saying that “nobody ever got fired for hiring McKinsey” but … maybe that should change? That’s an awful lot of money to get paid for essentially no real change.
One of my favorite podcasts is called “All Fantasy Everything” where comedians like Ian Karmel, David Gborie and Sean Jordan (and usually a guest) draft random things. Like, for instance, “Jobs That No Longer Exist.” First, nobody drafted a milkman, which bothered me quite a bit. But second, Gborie cited a job that nobody thought existed, and cracks me up - a Flatulist, or a Royal Farter.
A flatulist, fartist, fartial artist, professional farter or simply farter is an entertainer often associated with flatulence-related humor, whose routine consists solely or primarily of passing gas in a creative, musical, or amusing manner.
The most famous of these is this guy — Roland The Farter. And here’s the bit that really got me, is that he was so appreciated that he was granted a manor and over 30 acres of land in England in the 12th century. Wikipedia states that his ancestors are unknown, but I personally think that’s because there are some folks prancing about as English royalty, with grounds and generational wealth due to being the progeny of Roland The Farter, and that part they’d rather not be so well known.
As noted here, I’m a big reader - and that includes both fiction and non-fiction. It’s been baffling to me my whole life that so many men don’t read fiction. My father has always read a ton of both, and I guess I just followed suit. It’s a tremendous loss for anyone who doesn’t read, of course, but limiting oneself to non-fiction is almost as limiting.
This article in the New York Times about a guy trying to start a book club for straight men is fairly depressing. (Women and gay men, apparently, have no problem reading fiction.)
For the first meeting of his book club for men, Yahdon Israel, a 35-year-old senior editor at Simon & Schuster, asked the participants to bring a favorite work of fiction. Not everyone completed the assignment.
One man brought “Watchmen,” a graphic novel. Valid, technically.
Another scoured his home bookshelf and realized he did not own a single novel or short story collection. So he showed up to the meeting with a nonfiction book about emotional intelligence.
There’s a lot of data out there that reading fiction is good for your mental health. (Which, obviously, is why I’m so incredibly well-adjusted. Insert sarcasm hashtag.)
But there doesn’t have to be a REASON to read more fiction. It doesn’t have to improve your soul, or replace self-help books or fight against toxic masculinity - all of these are good things, of course. But it’s just a great way to spend time, to be entertained. I know we all think it takes a ton of time, and I acknowledge I read a LOT more than many folks, but even a few books a year is a great improvement to none. Let’s all read more.