The Rundown

Next week will mark the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first game as a Brooklyn Dodger. When he stepped out of the dugout and onto the grass of Ebbet’s Field on April 15 1947, Jackie took on sixty-seven years of segregation in major league baseball. His journey transcended the sports world and it served notice to everyone who insisted on looking in the rear-view mirror to find the greatness of America. He proved that we find the best in ourselves by moving forward.

When asked about his decision to bring Jackie Robinson to Brooklyn, general manager Branch Rickey said that “Some day I’m going to have to stand before God, and if He asks me why I didn’t let that Robinson fellow play ball, I don’t think saying ‘because of the color of his skin’ would be a good enough answer,”.

That quote always gets me.

President Zelensky says Russia is preparing for a “new bloody wave” of attacks in eastern Ukraine and made an urgent appeal to NATO for more weapons. The idea of any substantive inroads being made as far as peace talks between Russia and Kyiv grow more dismal with each passing day. Local officials have warned civilians that this will be their last chance to leave as Russian forces tighten their grip on the border. More than 5,000 civilians have been killed in he port city of Mariupol, with Mayor Vadym Boichenko calling it the new Auschwitz.

The owners of a sprawling nature resort tucked deep in the pine woods of British Columbia are taking the news out of Ukraine to heart by opening their doors to the country’s refugees. Their goal is to host 100 people on their 81 acre property which was formerly known as the Grouse Nest.

Their new Name? The Ukrainian Safe Haven. Refugees will be provided with all of the essentials as they attempt to piece their lives back together. Inside the darkest of times, perfect strangers are making good on a refrain that never goes out of style.

Home is where you hang your heart.

I would love to tell you my Netflix habits have gotten smarter with time. I really would love to tell you that. Alas, when my evening fare consisted of The Ultimatum: Marry Or Move On, it seems I am a lost cause when it comes to educational nourishment in my streaming diet.

It might not be the popular opinion of golf geeks or sports talkies but I’ve had my fill of Tiger Woods.

In present day, he is arguably the greatest golfer of all time but in 2009 there was no argument. Back then he was destined to surpass Jack Nicklaus for the title belt before his star crashed, literally and figuratively. We came to learn he was even more prolific as an adulterous jerk than he on the links. His personal life and his career spiraled from there as a result of his self-destructive arrogance, but you’d never know it from listening to the talking heads gush about his return to Augusta this weekend. They wax poetic on the former king of the sport as if he wasn’t the sole reason for his demise. I’m sorry, but Tiger Woods ain’t giving me a reason to watch the Masters.

In fact, he’s giving me yet one more reason not to.

Eric Church is a new age country singer and I never planned on knowing that much about him. And then he canceled a concert last weekend so he could attend the Final Four and watch his beloved UNC Tar Heels and I felt as if I knew too much about him. He is trying to mend the fences by staging a free concert now but I have to wonder how many people will decide they don’t want to go back to Church. You knew I was going there, right?

The Senate yesterday confirmed the nomination of Ketanji Brown yesterday by a vote of 53-47, making Brown the first black woman to serve on the highest court in the land. This result was as bi-partisan as things get in these times with three Republicans crossing the aisle to ensure the confirmation. It’s a much needed win for Biden as well with the mid-term elections just around the corner.

Last weekend proved once again that we have no rock bottom.

When it comes to supply chains, there is no disruption when it comes to the carnage humankind is capable of. There is no line we will not cross, no sacred place we will not desecrate. Saddest of all is the realization that people killing people has become a routine part of our everyday.

Tim Langer doesn’t own a television or a computer and he doesn’t get to read the newspaper all that much. You can excuse his ignorance when it comes to our other pandemic seeing as how he is living on the streets. His ‘home’ is a tiny space off K street in downtown Sacramento, where he is invisible to the rest of the world most days. And then an eruption of gunfire roused him from his sleep, thrusting him from the shadows and directly into the line of fire. That’s when he came across a couple of panic stricken young women and he made sure they would live to see morning.

“From what I could see, the state of war, I was just trying to calm them down and keep them reassured that everything was going to be all right.”

When faced with a moment where actions mattered more than words ever could, Langer made his way through the darkness that was busy stealing six more souls. He placed himself in harm’s way, shielding the women with his body as he raced them to cover. And to that never ending pit of hopeless outcomes that was hunting for more lives to take his message was a resounding one.

Not today.

The Beatrix Kiddo Invitational: Volume Uno

My first dalliance with an Invitational post came about thanks to a vision I had whilst partaking of Marlboros, martinis and oxy as I watched The Departed. In the luminescent halo of smoky observance, I found Vera Farmiga’s likeness staring back at me and that’s when the mystery of it all became the history of it all.

It was a religious experience that would never be replicated . . . until another idea rolled up on me just recently. The fingerprints of this provocation can be traced to a summit with apple pie moonshine and Guinness; the medicinal qualities of which provided me a time-released muse with the hemi of a semi.

And so, I present to you the Beatrix Kiddo Invitational. As in badass with a capital Boom! This compilation of badasses only includes fictional characters of stream and screen since the turn of the millennium. So apologies in advance to the luminaries of the badass industry- Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, Dirty Harry, Pepper Anderson and the Mod Squad, among so many others. They were the original masters of ass-kicking legend

Our invitational is all about handing out propers. There is no particular order because let’s face it, badasses don’t stand in line.

They make their own.

Do you know why Anton Chigurh is a badass legend? You might think it has to do with his hopped up grasshopper relentlessness . . . his DIY skills when it comes to removing shrapnel from his person . . . or the business of his inner evil bloodhound. Oh yeah, and he walked away from a crash in which he gets t-boned, with a bone sticking out of his arm. No doubt, its an impressive rubric of badassery. But the reason he’s a legend is because he sports a Dutch boy haircut in No Country For Old Men and not a single mention is made of that fact.

Daniel Craig as James Bond. Because he took the evergreen enterprise and he went where no Bond had gone before. He’s the most prolific drinker in the Bond series, which is pretty fucking impressive when you consider that his deadlines are quite literal. Craig’s Bond is equal parts Jack Bauer and Cary Grant. Add to that, his rendition of the character was honored at the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic games in London when a stuntman parachuted into the stadium. A little shaken but not stirred.

Kilgrave is the antagonist in Marvel’s Jessica Jones, and when it comes to villains he is one of my all timers for a reason. He’s a snappy dresser with a murderous glacier of a heart, and he provides the witty banter of a Shakespearean gangster. If you’re looking for a fighter, he most certainly ain’t that. Nope, he wins by controlling people’s minds like a televangelist on commission. A badass with a brain is a very dangerous thing.

Heath Ledger’s turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight is the stuff of legend. The late actor gifted bat fans with a master class in badassology, and he transformed Christopher Nolan’s franchise in the process. Ledger reprised a role made famous by guys like Caesar Romero and Jack Nicholson and made it his own, entirely so. Rumor has it when veteran actor Michael Caine first met the Joker on the set, he was so terrified that he forgot his lines.

Now that is badass.

There was a time when The Walking Dead was appointment television for yours truly. By the sixth season, I was seriously considering a divorce until it came to my attention that Jeffrey Dean Morgan had been cast as the show’s next villain.

I reconciled.

Negan provided me with a reason for staying, even if his coming out party turned a lot of fans off. Welp, those peeps must have forgotten the context of a zombie apocalypse where diplomacy will get you skewered. And okay, yes, perhaps our boy was a little over the top when it came to the business end of his barbed wired baseball bat named “Lucille”. But I know one thing for certain; a more tempered Negan wouldn’t have made it all the way to the end of the show’s eleven year run. And while he has changed a ton in the ensuing years, he never lost that swing.

Welcome to Pee-Pee Pants City. Population: Me.

 

The Rundown- April 1st Edition

I caught some flack (not named Roberta) for last week’s downer of an episode, which I didn’t think was all that dark . . but whatever. I do understand these are tough times we’re wading through, and so in honor of the day that makes fools of us all, Imma fool ’em right back.

My regularly scheduled programming will return next week with more stories of death and destruction, as well as how to write off that purchase of Madden NFL 22 as a business expense. But for this week, we make party.

Welp, let’s get to it.

She’s baaaaack!

No, Hilary Clinton isn’t running for office again, no matter how hard Sean Hannity prays for that ratings winner. And seeing as how she has an allergy to winning elections against anyone not named Rick Lazio, it’s probably a good thing for whatever is left of the Clintonian legacy.

Instead Ms. Clinton will voice the role of the Giant in Stephen Sondheim’s adaptation of Into The Woods. In the role, she plays the vengeful widow of the giant Jack slayed in his climb down from the beanstalk. Hilary says she prepared for the role by poring over footage of interviews she granted during her time as First Lady.

Rick Madeira of Fall River, Massachusetts has come up with the solution to rising gas prices, and while it won’t get him an invite to the White House, I’m sure Jimmy Fallon’s people will be in touch.

Madeira rides his electric unicycle to work and he says it has cut his commute time in half- from eight minutes to four. I’m not sure how an eight minute commute inspires an individual to hop aboard a ride with no seat . . . or windshield, or handlebars, or doors or air bags. His Gotway Nikola Plus can go up to eighty miles on a single charge, and reach speeds of 40 mph. “It’s just more convenient, and it’s obviously more fun,”. If you characterize the possibility of becoming road pizza as fun, you probably hail from New England.

As fun as this looks, I’ll stick to horses.

March Madness has almost struck midnight and once again, the tournament that bills itself as the place where Cinderella balls out . . . ain’t that at all.

Okay, props to the Saint Peters Peacocks out of Jersey City for making it to the Elite Eight this year. And big props to the U, as the Miami Hurricanes came up just short of their first Final Four appearance in school history. But in the end, as happens every single year, the bluebloods dominate the final weekend. For all the manufactured upsets in which teams are seeded on a mostly subjective scale, this sport has become a bettors paradise and little more. When the only familiar names in a sport belong to the head coaches, what do you expect? And I’m not just venting because Imma come up short in my office bracket.

But it doesn’t hurt.

PS- Imma be rooting for Coach K to go out on top.

April 1st BREAKING NEWS . . . .

Former President Donald Trump announced this week that he will not run in the 2024 Presidential election, while offering an apology for his boorish behavior over the last half century. He also accepted full responsibility for his role in last January’s riot at the Capitol and promised to be totally cooperative going forward.

“Also, I lost the election to Joe. Actually, he didn’t just win, he kicked my ass. I was embarrassed so I made up this huge lie about how the presidency was stolen from me. It was really a gag, because who in their right mind would really believe that shit? I was pulling stuff out of my ass . . from vote dumping in the middle of the night to corrupted servers to an army of the dead showing up . . . I didn’t expect many of my followers to play along, but then they all did!”

He spoke to reporters before his morning round of golf, which he lost resoundingly, after which he filed suit to have the results overturned.

I dove into Winning Time with tempered expectations, considering how fictionalized accounts of real life events seldom bear any resemblance to the original. And for the first couple episodes, I was right. It was a kitschy dip into the shallow end of sports lore and it was good enough for me. The casting is spectacular, with Quincy Isaiah shooting his shot as Magic Johnson and nailing it. Jason Clarke as Jerry West is inspired, as is DeVaughn Nixon’s turn as Norm Nixon- the point guard who preceded Magic’s Showtime Lakers. And okay . . . John C. Reilly does a great job as Dr. Jerry Buss, even if I can’t extricate Talladega Nights  and Stepbrothers from my brain when I watch him. But that’s a me problem.

And then the show began dishing up revelations that moved the needle. Gems like how Pat Riley wasn’t always the coolest cat in the room, and how Magic’s ascendance was hard earned and how a little known offensive genius named Jack McKinney was responsible for ushering in the up-tempo style of play that transformed a franchise and the league.

Good stuff.

The 94th annual Academy Awards was held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday night. With three hosts proving unable to carry the load of one solid emcee, the show was proving to be a rudderless waste of time.

And then it happened.

In a shocking turn of events that left the audience buzzing, The Power Of The Dog did NOT win the Oscar for Best Picture. And thank fucking Christ for that because it would have been a complete mockery of the event. Imagine the memes on social media? The wall to wall coverage all week long? Yikes! When you consider all the great Oscar winning films of the last century, the idea that Power would have joined that legendary list is, well, how do I put this nicely?

It would have been a slap in the face.

Still Perfectly Frank – April ’22 edition

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Another month is nearing an end, Imma asked me to take a break from Beach Walk Reflections and pitch in for some random thoughts. Thanks to Marc for the space.

March provided Ukraine, Putin, a US Supreme Court nominee hearing, continued COVID saga, gas prices, busted March Madness brackets, baseball’s labor agreement, Oscar awards, Grammy nominees, and other stuff. We also remember those who departed us such as a Good Times actor, a Holocaust survivor, a US diplomat, the creator of GIF images, Foo Fighters drummer, a country singer, William Hurt, Traci Braxton, and some guy named Bob somewhere.

For those looking forward to the new month, April is the month to celebrate guitars, celery, humor, pets, poetry, pecans, hope, and straw hats. April also provides week-long celebrations for dance, coins, princesses, and popper scoopers. April also offers an array of one-day celebrations such as ferrets (2nd), lying (4th), beer (7th), tartan (9th), licorice (12th), dolphins & ex-spouses (14th), Amaretto (19th), zippers (28th), and many more. Check it out here.

In case you missed it, here are a few March headline gems from The Onion. Oscar Mayer Introduces new filter-tip hot dogs for a healthier meat-eating experience, Pope Francis using a new treadmill-altar to add more physical activity to the workday, God regrets never learning Spanish, and Texas bans consensual sex.

Hats off to Steve Hartman (CBS News) for his features focusing on good news. I like this edition about empathy and a superhero.

In mid-March, I did this beach walk essay about bloggers. Something interesting happened. The first 12 comments were from bloggers in 9 different countries.

March was the time we returned home after several months as snowbirds. During that time I drafted about 30 new beach walk essays. Then again, all of them have a long way to go before they are ready to post.

I yawned at the news that baseball settled their labor dispute. I’ve been a fan for a long time, but they are wearing me out. Shortly after the settlement, my Reds traded many of their better players to decrease payroll. I sighed as my interest waned even more. I should follow their lead and reallocate my resources elsewhere.

Laura, who occasionally visits Beach Walk Reflections, composes music. I found her latest to be great background music as I write. I invite you to listen by visiting this site – the music will be in the upper left. Besides, I love the title of her musical suite.

Are you a supertaster? If not, do you know anyone who is? Here’s an interesting article about supertasters.

In a dream, I imagine a time when politicians ask good and relevant judicial questions to court nominees. In reality, their questions and statements demonstrate that politicians are the best hypocrites while demonstrating a “party-first” mentality with minimal interest in good judicial questions.

According to the 22nd Amendment, a president cannot hold office for more than two consecutive terms. So, will Donald Trump admit that he lost in 2020? After all, if he won, he can’t run. Thank you, Doonesbury for that one.

At the end of today, we can close the door to March and welcome April. Happy St. Stupid Day … well, tomorrow – April 1st – and that’s not a joke!

The Rundown

The Lviv Symphony Orchestra and Mikola Lisenko Music Academy have been holding open air concerts in the center of Lviv to protest the Russian attacks. Kahlil Gibran wrote that music is the language of the spirit, and as the people of Ukraine are proving every day, their spirit is strong. (Photo courtesy of The Atlantic). 

The theater of war was drowned out by Vladimir Putin and his old Soviet cronies, who amped up the rhetoric this week. As if death and destruction were not enough, why not double down with the kind of provocative talk that will take things from worse to catastrophic?

Putin feels as if he was screwed over by a regime in Ukraine that didn’t just want the keys to its own car, it wanted to drive it too. For all his tough talk, Vlad’s war isn’t exactly going according to plan thus far because wars never go according to plan. So why not harp on his old nemesis to the west . . . Us. Because when a bully isn’t getting his way, create a diversion by bemoaning the failures of his predecessors. And push the nuclear chatter to the center of the table in a gambit that nobody wants to be all in on.

I’m beyond sick and tired of this asshole.

The odyssey that is former Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson’s football life let him off the hook this week when the Cleveland Browns made him the highest paid quarterback in the game. Watson had spurned the Browns in trade talks only days earlier and it seemed nothing was going to change his mind. Until $230 million fully guaranteed somethings did.

Watson was benched for the entirety of the 2021 season after twenty-two women filed civil suits accusing him of lewd and coercive sexual behavior. And none of that mattered once a Texas grand jury decided that no criminal charges would be brought against him, because that’s when the feeding frenzy for his services really got going. No less than six teams were in the race, never minding this sordid mess because big league sports always has room at the table for another bad act, so long as he can still produce at a high level.

Not to be outdone, the Miami Dolphins made Tyreek Hill the highest paid wide receiver in the game on Wednesday after acquiring him in a trade with the Kansas City Chiefs. So now my club has a high profile bad guy with a record of domestic abuse, but so what? We’re contenders!

The powers that be at the league office know we ain’t buying their tired old company line about how the league is one big, happy family and about how much they value women. But it doesn’t matter, because they have pockets that are deeper than the Mariana Trench and a legal team large enough to have its own zip code.

As a sports fan these days, you best wear shades.

I used to believe Godfather 3 was the most egregious shit ever taken on a movie franchise, and then they issued the Coda and I made peace with it, for the most part. And while I ain’t ever gonna compare Michael Corleone with Michael Myers, the latter has had an impressive run in his own right. Which is why the people responsible for Halloween Kills now own the award for most objectionably egregious sequel in the history of ever. The film is an abject disaster, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d swear the writers had intended for this to be a spoof of the original. Embarrassing.

Madeleine Albright, who became the first female secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, lost her battle with cancer on Wednesday.

Ms. Albright was the daughter of Czech refugees who were forced into exile after the Nazi occupation of her country in 1938. They fled to Britain a year later, having no idea of the horrors to come. They survived the German Blitz before moving to the outskirts of London until the end of the war. Madeleine was schooled in Switzerland for a brief period where she learned to speak French, but her family’s return to their home was short lived when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia took control in 1948. As a press attaché who opposed communism, her father sent them to America.

From a young age, Albright was a lesson in what Ellis Island means: She believed in the principles of democracy while never taking for granted the freedoms it offers. She was witness to how despots rise to power with manipulative language whose power lies in the fear they can spread.

Madeleine Albright was 84.

There are so many stories of people from around the world contributing to the people of Ukraine: from grass roots fundraisers to booking rooms with no intention of filling them. And here’s one more, because when I get tired of the way the world so oftentimes works against itself, these stories bring me back to a better place.

Anastasiia and Vira Derun moved to this country from Ukraine with the same dreams as so many who have come before them. To make their own special footprint in a country of immigrants. In October of last year they realized their dream with the opening of D Light Café just outside the nation’s capitol. And less than two months later it was up in smoke, literally, when a fire shut its doors. But thanks to a GoFundMe campaign the sisters were able to re-open last month. Right before the Russian invasion changed everything, yet again.

They have spent many a sleepless night since the war began, staying in touch with their family back home as best they can. “We don’t have the power to help them. We cannot visit. They cannot come here. I’m literally watching the news every five minutes just to keep myself updated. What’s going on? Where’s the army moved to? It’s this situation where we look at unknown things and we just pray. That’s the only thing we can do right now.” Anastasiia says.

They started taking donations and well, it’s proven to be their sunshine in the middle of this raging storm. To date they’ve raised more than $7,000. Every morning you can find people lining up outside the small bakery in Adams Morgan to buy pastries and to make donations and in many instances, both.

“We have a lot of Russian people coming in and supporting us, which is so wonderful because we understand that this is not between people—it’s between political individuals” she says. “I want everyone to understand that Ukraine is a country. It’s not part of Russia or part of Europe. We are a nation who has our own culture, our own values.”

I gotta tell you, when I went digging for a feel good story this week I had no doubt I would find plenty of them. Because I always do, because they are always there. This week it was people singing songs in the square and booking vacations they will never take and sending letters and money and clothes across the oceans to complete strangers. Because in the middle of the worst of times, love always finds its way. And so when I learned about these two sisters, I knew I had my story.

It was a piece of cake.

 

 

 

Wordless Wednesday

The Rundown

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed our Congress this week, appealing to our elected representatives for more aid and weapons. He also called for the US to institute a no-fly zone over Ukraine. President Biden is making good on the first two requests but thus far has refused the third. The reason for his refusal is simple; it will push NATO forces and more specifically, the US from the sidelines and into the middle of this war, inextricably.

It’s a hell of a thing to watch people suffer and know that we could do more, but at what price? A ramped up escalation that pits us against Russian forces? Even if that scenario doesn’t lead to a nightmarish conclusion involving nuclear missile strikes, it most certainly draws us ever closer to a not so fictional midnight.

It’s vital that we weigh our responses to both Putin and Zelensky at this point in the conflict, seeing as how the wrong move could not simply heighten tensions, but throw them over the cliff. And in a sea of horrible possibilities, we sure as hell don’t want to introduce yet another one.

I love Bono, but his poem to Ukraine on St. Patrick’s Day will not be remembered in the same vein as The Joshua Tree. Just saying.

The Windy City celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of one of the most unique St. Patrick’s Day celebrations going. Back in 1962, a few chaps from the Chicago Journeymen Local Plumbers Union were making merry on the Holy Day when the spirit(s) of the 17th prevailed against their better judgement. So they dumped 100 pounds of dye into the Chicago River, and the rest became local history. The moral of the story? Believe in the magical qualities of mayhem.

Marco’s Micro-Movie Review- The Batman feels like David Fincher dreamt it up after a really bad breakup; dark and gloomy with a unrelenting hopelessness that saturates the (too long) three-hour caper. Solid performances all around, but none better than the Riddler- played by Paul Dano- whose wicked ways don’t just cross the line. They torch it.

Well, shit . . .

Rainy days and Mondays usually get us down, and this kid is no different. And kudos to him for going all Hamlet with his feelings rather than just bottling them up, because lets face it, that shit’ll kill you. Letting it all hang out is the way to go. And not for nothing, but he should be expecting a call from Ron Howard any day now.

Tom Brady news that I actually found interesting? Someone bought Tom Brady’s final touchdown pass for $516,628  . . . just hours before Brady announced that, well, it wasn’t going to be his final touchdown pass after all. And now I don’t feel so bad about that loan I made to my pal Fat Tony when he wanted to get into bookmaking.

The Fed announced this week that it will raise interest rates, with more hikes to come over the course of 2022. The full-court press is in response to a consumer price index which came in at an eye popping 7.9 percent in February, its highest level since early in the Reagan administration. They’ll keep raising rates with the hopes of getting the economy to chill for a tad, but this strategy is likely to butt heads with the supply chain issue we’ve got going on so . . . . I’m pricing horses as promised. I found a beauty in Maryland, one owner. She’s a retired grandmother who only rides the horse to and from church on Sundays.

The Senate passed a bill this week that would call for a year-round daylight saving time. No more messing with the clock every fall, the clock would remain stuck where it is now. And not for nothing, but it’s an idea whose time has come. Okay . . that was worse than Bono’s poem, sorry. The House still needs to sign off on the bill, after which it would go to President Biden . . . because he has nothing else to concern himself with these days.

A volunteer’s work is never done, and thank God for that.

The latest evidence that hope and love are the most valuable commodities on the market comes to us from Siret, Romania. That’s where 7-year old Arina and her family are living right now after fleeing Ukraine for a refugee camp that is located almost six hundred miles southwest of their home. More than 2 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on February 24th. More than 85,000 of them have found a safe haven in Romania.

When a psychologist at the camp learned that Arina was celebrating a birthday, he made sure there would be a cause for celebration. After which a lot of people with a lot of really important things to tend to made it happen. Because in that moment, the most important thing in the world was to make this beautiful child smile. Hell, it wasn’t just important to them, it was everything.

It became the kind of moment that possesses a language all its own, one known to the dreamers and lovers and fools of a world who still believe in the best of humankind, after all of this. As they sang to her, they achieved that smile they had been searching for since tomorrow got lost. And as a peaceful snow fell through the thick of night, it was as if the heavens were looking down in applause.

Happy Birthday Arina.