link-o-matic

if you've ever been involved with campus ministry, like to laugh and don't mind being offended or making fun of others, you'll love which circle!

back in the days of the horse and buggy, there was a blogger named miah who introduced me to this site. he was a good man, that miah.

oklahoma, circa 1986

i've never thought of myself as a sentimental person. long distance commercials do not phase me, i would never attend high school reunions and the room doesn't get "dusty" when espn classic airs reruns of the 1985 world series (filled with profanity maybe, but not dusty).

that being said, for the last week or so, i've been immersed in memories of my childhood. i've been waking up on summer mornings only to find my baby brother, snug in his yoda underroos, sleeping beside me. i've run through the two and a half neglected acres we called the jungle, where i've redug the trap doors that fooled no one, found dirty condoms on "rock island," sent my brother home after he fell through thin ice lest he get hypothermia, and caught crawdads, hundreds and hundreds of crawdads, and subjected them to horribly creative deaths (slingshots, the blacktop death march and dismemberment are just a few of the options). i could go on. i could tell you about mavis jarvis and in-house suspension, what my friend gabe taught me about my vocation, officiating floor hockey games in the gymnasium, but i won't.

i will, however, confess that i am becoming a bit sentimental. as the years pass the edges of my childhood experience, the fear, failure, my inability to hold my own in honors math, are wearing off and leaving me with a deep sense of wonder. and wonder ain't half bad. in fact, wonder seems to be leading me just a bit closer to the holy and hidden heart of it all.

overheard

"i keep hearin' whispers, that everything's gonna be
all right. you put some goodness back and you take your stand and you hold on to him for dear life."
~bill mallonee, songwriter (numb)

"you cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and experiences."
~w.h. auden as quoted in mark miller's experiential storytelling, pg. 77

"i was no longer stasi. i was sacagawea, indian princess of the west, a valiant and strong woman."
~stasi eldredge in captivating, pg. 3

pitcher as pedagogue

if only i'd known what life would throw
i would have stood still in that box
feet planted, head still, anticipating the schoolyard four seamer

if only i'd know that seams imprinted
could never compare to a ruptured heart
hands back, bat still, short stride

if only i'd known life that life could throw
exploding sliders, cutters in on my hands, shit you can't explain
i'd have taken my cuts, legged a few out, counted the r.b.i.

out of fear i recoiled from the pedagogue
terrified of failure, timid towards pain
backed out of the box, dropped the bat, walked away

but i no longer have a choice
feet planted, bat still, short stride
i have to take my cuts

fear and failure be damned.
i'm going to take my cuts.

fever pitch, part deux

second, it does not work as a romantic comedy. this is true for at least two reasons. first, even a second rate preacher, such as myself, can tell you that you should not wait twenty five minutes to introduce the primary conflict that drives the story (this applies to other genre of literature and film as well). the failure to raise the conflict between fallon's rabid fandom (which is about as realistic as elton john's rabid heterosexuality, by the way) and his broad's yuppie sensibilities, sinks the film from the start. second, fallon and barrymore have less on-screen chemistry than prince charles and lady die. hell, they have less chemistry than me and airport girl! note to the farrely brothers, when viewers have a hard time believing that the main characters would engage in a one night stand, it's going to be a bit difficult to convince them that they would be involved in a long term relationship. for some reason the directors also thought it was a good idea to turn the gender roles on their head by having "the girls" in the movie spend time rock climbing and boxing, while the guys nanced around in an apartment, begging for tickets like strippers for singles, and the lead character faced rejection with pathetic tears instead of a twelve pack of sam adams. playing with gender stereotypes is one thing, but making it difficult for the women in the audience to identify with the female lead and making absolutely verboten for any hetero man in the audience to identify with the male lead, causes more problems than it solves.

the movie also fails on the third level insofar as it is a miserable adaptation of a nick hornby novel. nick writes wonderful novels about how terribly narcissistic, single men discover their humanity and open up their terribly narrow souls. as we have seen with high fidelity and about a boy this theme can be done by american filmakers, and done well. but to turn a nick hornby novel, with the exception of how to be good, into a chick flick is a cinematic sin of the first order.

in sum, i hated this film. in my humble, subtle opinion, ebert and roeper can take the two thumbs they extended in support of this film and stick them up their asses.

whew. i feel better. i should also admit that while i hated the film, i loved the evening. hanging out with kellie and leanne is was tonic for the soul.

dear reader, do sit on your hands until the next edition of jaded reviews, when i will provide my thoughts on john and stasi eldredge's captivating. just to whet your appetite, in the first three pages stasi has already described a conversion experience in which she realized that "i was no longer stasi. i was sacagawea, indian princess of the west, a valiant and strong woman." it was at that very moment that i realized this book is going to be good.

my long awaited review of fever pitch part 1

the primary problem with fever pitch is that it does not work on any level.

first, it does not work as a baseball movie. as most of us have experienced personally, and even more of us vicariously, a baseball field is a beautiful and often magical place. if you ask any true baseball fan, they can tell you about the first time they exited the tunnel at yankee stadium and saw the deep green expanse of left center, walked up to bush stadium and viewed the arch inspired facade or wound their way up to the upper deck of royals stadium, where they were greeted with a magnificent view of the fountains (not to mention I-40 I-70. thanks uncle cade!). unfortunately the cinematography of fever pitch fails to convey either the physical beauty of the field or the lyrical beauty of a perfect wind-up or the sweet moves of a short stop turning two. the stock footage of the games is decent enough, but the shots that the farrelly's directed were horrible. i'm convinced that the blind imbecile who willingly purchased petey the bird could have made more of those shots. in true fenway fashion i would have to say, cinematographer, cinamatographhhher, cinamatogrepherrrrrrrrrrrrr....you suck! furthermore, the portrayals of the fenway faithful were utterly unbelievable. i've been to fenway and have sat close to where the quirky, irrepressible fans sit, so i can assure you that their dialogue is not pg-13 material. i have heard profanities at fenway that i never knew existed and the hometown faithful have made me blush more times than i can count. fans at fenway do not fail to use the f-bomb, they do not talk about "the curse" (they leave such ignorant talk to mindless muckrakers such as Shaughnessy) and they do not fail to discuss subtle nuances of the game, such as whether a one out sacrifice is mathematically sensible or whether lefty-lefty pitching substitutions make an ounce of sense. the fans at fenway, and i'm talking about the real fans--not the beachball pounding, wave joining, blathering idiots who populate the dunkin dugout environs of the bleachers--know baseball better than any fans in the world. when i am there, i am proud to be one of them. turning them into jibber-jabbing, non-cursing, conga-line dancing idiots is reprehensible. on second thought, its worse that that...it's filthy! finally, it does not work as a baseball movie because the narrative ark of the season is never in doubt (hence, no suspense whatsoever) and the filmmakers profane the game by subliminating the story of the season to an idiotic, insipid romance. if you're going to make a baseball movie, make a baseball movie. the narrative arc of the baseball season can sustain a love story here and there (think jake taylor and his sexy librarian, crash and his nun of the "church of baseball"), but do not subliminate the baseball to some player or fan's affection for some broad. okay, i need to get to work. more to come...