The Cheap Seats

  I grit my teeth all the time now. Don’t you? I didn’t always, but when everything about existence that I used to reliably count on got flipped on its head, what’s a guy to do?   Don’t get me wrong, I have never been an unwavering, Love it or Leave it "patriot" about the United States of America. Far from it. As a lifelong student of its history, I can find all of its warts, scabs, and cancers with a critical eye. Kind of sucks, actually. You see, we’re a two-steps forward, one-step back kind of nation. We always have been. Broadly shared gains seem to always be followed by bitter, aggrieved setbacks. Emancipation leads to Jim Crow, Civil Rights spawns White Citizens’ Councils, Barack Obama is succeeded by Donald Trump. Our “better angels” have been taken to the woodshed time and time and time again. All pessimism aside, I still believe what Dr. King espoused, that “ the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice .” The ongoing struggle he spelle...

I love American history. As a child I couldn't get enough of it, specifically mass movements that were ultimately about American Progress —stories of men and women who fearlessly advanced noble causes that inspired and empowered their fellow citizens for generations to come. You know who they are, the ones we've named schools and streets after. I don't mean to be glib; I'm just deeply discouraged. It comes with adulthood I suppose, along with the realization that American Progress has never been a steady march forward—that for every legal and moral stride this nation has taken, some noxious legislative obstruction and petty grievance has stood in the way, the overarching goal (crafted by some frightened, shrinking base of power) being to maintain a status quo that is deeply rooted in racial inequality, be it in housing, employment, education, criminal justice or treatment in police custody. You know, those pursuit of happiness things that the armed (and un-arrested) Mi...

     A global pandemic gives an introvert more time to think than is good for him. Thoughts, ideas, and grand plans zip in and out of my mind long before my cat ever receives her first feeding. Soon after, coffee soothes whatever "pressing" tasks were on my mental to-do list and I settle on an insignificant few each new day.       We're sort of wired for these times. Introverts, I mean. Observers by nature, we have always mentally exhaled after long days at work or at play. Don't get us wrong, we love humanity, but in order to do it all over again tomorrow, we need to re-charge in the company of only a few, or none. Trust me, the introvert in you (or in your life) is nodding.      The one consistent thought that hasn't left me however, is, "I am one of the lucky ones." I suppose that's why I've kept my head down since the lockdown began. Keep your mouth shut, I remind myself from the comfort of home.  No one wants to hear yo...

Every May, June and July for the past decade, I have filled my time umpiring a lot of baseball and softball games. The one guaranteed result from all of these active evenings has been that I sleep pretty well for three months out of the year. No big surprise, just simple math. But all that fresh air reminds me how much better humanity used to sleep than we do in this silly century. Though life was physically more challenging in the past, people undoubtedly slept longer and harder than we do today. After all, they had to. Manual labor was much more the rule than the exception in daily life. Fast-forward to today. The forty hour work week demands very little of us physically. Consequently, we toss and turn at night, our minds occupied by a world that our ancestors would collectively eyeroll at.  I'm not saying life was better "back in the day." I am quite content with all of the modern, time-saving devices that keep my hands callous-free. But I can't help not...

A few weeks ago, at the same time I was lamenting the sheer amount of trash we humans deposit on the side of the road (among other places), I was listening to Michael Jackson's pre- Thriller album, Off the Wall. Because I connect a lot of music to different times of my life, I quickly calculated that Off the Wall was a monster album throughout the entirety of my 7th grade year. Before he was ever called The King of Pop , a very young Michael Jackson churned out hits like Don't Stop 'Til You get Enough, Rock With You, Off the Wall, and She's Out of My Life . The songs were great then, they're great now. And regardless of the late singer's alleged (or confirmed) abhorrent, criminal behavior, I will continue to listen to his music. Is that wrong? Ken Burns seminal documentary on the American Civil War was broadcast on PBS in the fall of 1990. That nine-part series held me spellbound over the course of two weeks, launching me into a decade of intense read...

I used to be one of those nutty, daily runners. You know the type—always worrying and wondering when he/she will squeeze in a four-miler, meanwhile disrupting everyone else's schedule.  Insufferable, really. All that changed about five years ago when I (mis)diagnosed some mild but constant hip pain as sciatica. Naturally, another year went by before I visited my doctor (the last time I've been to a clinic, as I recall). He took an x-ray and drew some blood (no doubt because I had insurance) and concluded that I was arthritic in my left hip. You could have knocked me over with a shoelace. "You're going to have find some other form of aerobic exercise," he commented nonchalantly, completely misreading an obsessive runner. "Like what?!" I replied, much too harshly.  "Have you tried walking?" The transition to walking wasn't as bad as I'm making it sound. A grudging acceptance eventually took hold—an acknowledgement that I was no...

I've always imagined myself a forward-thinking guy, someone with very little time for sentiment or a backwards glance. To-do lists, DIY projects and a variety of activities and obligations constantly filling my calendar. It's all bullshit of course, I'm just trying to stay one step ahead of something—regrets, creeping middle age, poverty, hair loss, weight gain. Take your pick. Still, I kind of enjoy the chase, if only to convince myself that I'm somehow winning.  Approaching the half-century mark two years ago involved a lot of hand-wringing. I'm not sure what I expected, perhaps a complete and total systems failure, some sort of steep and rapid decline across all fronts. You know, what happens to anything the day after a warranty expires or a car has been paid off. Kaput—time to buy a new one. But then 50 came and went and nothing happened—at least nothing swift and sudden. That's when I started paying attention.....and panicking. Succeeding at middle...