Who Asked Me?

I park my car on Bon Air, alongside Marin General and cross light traffic to the bike path by the Corte Madera Creek. It’s the same path I’d pedal to Kent School every morning in the seventh grade, and as I break in to a  jog, visions return. There’s the twelve year-old Bruce Strahmborne (not his real name) on the path – an odd kid who kept a “thing box” filled with rusty nails and plastic buttons. He was always getting picked on, and this particular day is no different. The Sommerfield twins, Randy and Bill, have him boxed in on either side of his bike. They position their front tires each time Bruce makes an attempt to escape until finally, out of panic and frustration, he pulls a tiny penknife – one and a half inch blade barely suitable for opening a loosely-sealed letter – from his backpack. “He’s got a knife!” Randy Sommerfield exclaims, as he and Bill pedal off furiously. “What a maniac!”

Other more legitimately disturbing incidents would helped cement Bruce’s reputation, and whenever something like this occurred it enhanced his legend. Within hours the penknife was a switchblade, slashed wildly at both brothers and narrowly missing an ear. They were bad news, the twins, and forever scouting easy prey.  I  had a run-in with Randy. He hit me in the arm after a ceramics class to see how I’d respond. Through quick calculation I returned the favor, as hard as I could, and that was it. He rubbed his arm for a while and moved on to consider other targets. The rule would apply to all bullies well in to adulthood. Those hitting hardest were the same ones hiding in their homes, fearing being revealed.

I pick up the pace, marshland air from the creek in my nostrils and sun sitting low on the horizon, Mt. Tamalpais now a dark construction paper cutout. Marin summer temperatures soar in the afternoon but cool to ideal by evening with San Francisco fog parking itself just beyond the surrounding hills. My breath is holding out but the legs feel tired as I approach my former school. I run around the circumference of the soccer field, cut through the parking lot, and head to the basketball courts adjoining my old wood shop class. It was there, many years back, that Mike Olivia discovered that someone had lifted five dollars lunch money from his wallet. Kevin Franklin was suspected by all before shop teacher Mr. Harvard stepped in. He summoned the principal, but when this solved nothing, Robert Truckee had a suggestion.

“I once saw a movie,” Truckee explained, “where something got stolen and they let everyone in the place enter the room individually, giving the thief a chance to put the thing back where it was.”

And so it was that we all filed out to the basketball courts, entered the shop class one by one through the rear door, and exited the front. When it was over, Olivia’s five bucks had been returned and class resumed. Afterward, of course, the first thing we did was to query Eddie Black who came before Kevin Franklin, and Mark Chambers who followed. Black: wallet was empty when I got there. Chambers: five bucks was returned . A minor slice of life and sociological experiment for the day, that only became more telling with time. Franklin was in and out of trouble throughout his twenties before falling victim to California’s Three Strikes law and being sentenced to hard prison time. He died while incarcerated, in his thirties.

I finish my run, sweating, and drive to the parents’ place. Halfway there, a more recent memory is jarred from maybe six years back. Driving nearby with a passenger, I jokingly referred to the surrounding area as the “bad part of Corte Madera ” – a nod both to Marin’s affluence, and status as a sleepy, bedroom community. The joke missed the mark, and I was later chastised for my naivete. But tonight I think about Kevin Franklin, and then about Jim Mitchell who shot and killed his brother Artie in his home on one of those same, sleepy Corte Madera streets. And then about my own life these last six years; the easy shit and otherwise. I park at the folks’ place and take the keys from the ignition – a free meal waiting inside.

While I’m at this photo-posting bit, here’s one of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, as seen from my roof this past weekend. It seems an appropriate image, on the cusp of the upcoming holiday.  I looked the word “liberty” up, and among various definitions my favorite was “freedom from arbitrary or despotic control.” This may be easier defined than reached, and those believing they’ve achieved it may simply be more adept at self-delusion. And yet, despite my innate cynicism, I’ll still make an argument for this country. In one of my favorite films, The Verdict , Paul Newman makes a great summation speech (penned by David Mamet) to the jury. He tells them that the lawyers, the marble statues, and the books are all just “trappings of the court” and “symbols of our desire to be just.”  “They are, in fact, a prayer : a fervent and frightened prayer.”

This is also the way I see the of the Statue of Liberty, and have imagined what it represented to my great grandfather and the thousands like him who continue to pass through this harbor. It’s not about some imaginary Land of Milk and Honey, but  simply about having a shot . I’ve been born in to much good fortune and probably shouldn’t even be allowed such a fat-headed observation.  But I could expound some on the likelihood of being “free from arbitrary or despotic control,” even after other basic needs are covered. Despite such insight, it’s probably a good thing that I’m not running the show. There’s something not so euphonious about a July Fourth celebration with overhead images of the Statue of Having a Shot in the New York Harbor.

Quite a day for celebrity deaths, yesterday. Farrah Fawcett checked out, followed closely behind by Michael Jackson. Soon after this news, a rumor circulated that the actor Jeff Goldblum had bought the farm as well, but this proved false. This was good news, both for Goldblum and advocates of the theory that show business deaths always come in threes. (Johnny Carson side-kick Ed McMahon had died earlier in the week, starting the first leg of the trilogy.) Bumping things up to a quartet would have put added strain on an already-faltering star system and caused guys like Wilfred Brimley great distress, having to wait an extra few days for the other shoe to drop. Of course, an argument can still be made for the four theory with the death of David Carradine, but it really just points to the depressingly rudimentary fact that we’re all dying.

Jackson and Fawcett offered  a marked contrast on the subject of how to grow old gracefully. Farrah was a natural beauty to the end, and maintained a more weathered but none the less beautiful appearance in to her later years. She stood in defiance of the tightly-pulled, over-moisturized, Nancy Pelosi Botoxed route, inexplicably favored by many women today. And Mike .. well, he was just Mike. If you’re going to go down that road you might as well see what the ride can do. Jackson’s appearance in recent years made Siegfried and Roy look like the Nature Twins.

These deaths also helped me gain a better grip on this whole Twitter phenomenon. Having halted my social networking prowess with email, I’ve been out of the Myspace and Facebook loops and struggled to understand how Twitter differed from either. I now see that it serves the specific function of being the first indicator of celebrity demise. Being online at the time of Jackson’s death, I noticed that the news was being “Twittered” well before Drudge picked up the headline and a full hour before the AP and Los Angeles Times. I’m not certain, but I don’t think users of this service are subjected to a particularly vigorous verification process. And I’d lay odds that, like me, Jeff Goldblum is catching on to all of this fast.

walk away from trouble if you can
–Kenny Rogers

So David Carradine is dead, possibly (but not definitively) the result of auto-erotic asphyxiation. At least there’s still one off-color habit in which I’ve yet to indulge. Thai police, who found Carradine in his Bangkok hotel, said that he had cords around both his neck and genitals. This doesn’t necessarily point to sexual hi-jinx, and could just be a final symbolic nod toward that which accounted for most of his problems in life. Who knows?

My memories of Carradine revolve primarily around grainy, color re-runs from my youth where he’s being called “chinaman” by a posse of unshaven, slothful shit-kickers. Then things would get blurry and revert back to an earlier, clean-headed era, with some old, glaucoma-ridden dude telling him that the path to enlightenment made no pause for violence. Inevitably, and due to circumstances largely beyond his control, he’d beat the living crap out of these guys anyway. It never really mattered what the old dude had to tell him. This theme of walking softly but ultimately using one’s big stick is present in many narrative forms. It fueled all the Buford Pusser “Walking Tall” films and provided the final kick for Kenny Roger’s epic song “Coward of the County” (which in turn inspired a made for TV film of the same name.) The lesson here seems to be that, as much as we love a well-crafted dissertation on the virtues of pacifism, it never really clears the pores like a good skull-cracking. Perhaps the same can be said of auto-erotic asphyxiation, although running this proof beyond conjecture implies paying the ultimate price and there’s never anyone to write it up after.

Rest in peace, Grasshopper.

I was out at AT&T Part in San Francisco yesterday watching the Giants take on the Mets – the first West Coast game I’ve attended in over a year. The currently great Johan Santana was facing the once untouchable Randy Johnson. This, along with untypically warm San Francisco weather and a chance to sit in some exceptionally good seats seemed reason enough to make the effort. While my interest in Giants baseball has waned in recent years, I’m at least able to follow an entire game from start to finish. This tapered enthusiasm certainly trumps any appeal that baseball holds for me on the East Coast. While I still enjoy the ambient summer pleasures of the Mets and Yankees buzzing in the background, my specific interest in CC Sabathia’s ERA or Carlos Beltran’s opposite-field power ranks right up there with my attachment to the current front-runners on American Idol. Maybe it’s an age thing but I don’t have it in me to follow more than one franchise with any specific interest. (Although I’m still eternally grateful to baseball for the sacred place it serves in filling the gaps in otherwise awkward small talk and unavoidably banal social interaction.)

Having attended games at both Citi Field and AT&T Park only weeks apart, I can state with some confidence that the Giants’ ballpark has it over the Mets’ new home in every respect except the quality of the product on the field, and the unavailability of any beer – domestic or imported – for less than eight dollars and seventy-five cents. While the Mets have made a valiant attempt at laying Shea Stadium to rest, the fact that their new home is only a stone’s throw from the old one is an inescapable drawback. Nothing about Flushing can compare to San Francisco’s waterfront location, not even the abundant discount muffler retailers and chop shops on one side of the new stadium. And the food at AT&T is clearly superior. While there’s been some buzz about the “Shake Shack” burger stand behind the Citi Field scoreboard, their product falls far short of West Coast garlic fries. Both games that I attended at respective venues featured exceptionally warm weather, but San Francisco did offer some late inning relief in the form of a welcome breeze coming off the Bay. These benefits, while arguably superficial, still add up. There isn’t much about munching an average burger under stifling Queens temperatures and watching a pedestrian Mets-Nationals showdown that will keep the borderline fan coming back for more.

As far as the teams go, there’s really no comparison. The Mets may not be favored to go all the way this year, but they’ve got a far better club than the Giants. Santana had a rare off day yesterday, but his team backed him with the kind of run support absent from anything that San Francisco typically puts on the board for their marquee starter, Tim Lincecum. Lincecum is the sole reason for my tepid return to Giants fandom. At five foot ten and a buck seventy-five, this goofy looking kid with the Van Helsing haircut led the league in K’s last year and handily surpassed Santana in Cy Young voting. In this age of the juiced-up likes of Bonds at the plate and Clemens on the mound, there’s something refreshing about a guy with a two-seam fastball in the high nineties who resembles your buddy’s goofy kid brother. After dropping the first three games of this four game series, it’s about all I’m hanging on to.