Category Archives: Comment

THE SPORTING PANORAMA

From NFL Hall of Famers to the corrupt 2016 Olympics

by Dell Franklin

COMMENT.SPORTING.ORLANDOOf late I have developed conflicted feelings about the sporting world and lost interest in teams and players, which has led me to boycott the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro for the first time—except for the sprinting events. At the same time, for the first time ever, as the farthest thing from a football fanatic, who never watches college games and few pro games, I viewed the entire day-long National Football League Hall of Fame induction ceremony and found myself utterly absorbed and repeatedly in tears while listening to men who had come up from the very bottom of our socio-economic ladder in America and reached such heights in the bone-crushing and wildly emotional game of professional football.

Having sampled football up until the tenth grade and realizing it was for kids more gladiatorial than me, there is this respect and admiration for those who continue to play. My father, who played big league baseball and faced fire-baller Bob Feller without a helmet and was an amateur boxing champion out of tough Chicago, also found football simply too brutal in the stone-age era of the 1930s when he was recruited by the University of Illinois to play for the legendary coach, Bob Zuppke, whom he characterized as a “miserable goddamn heartless sadist.”

“Football players at that level are a different breed,” he always said, with a touch of awe. “They’re not like other people. They’re a select club of men.”

Nowadays, these men play for more money while enduring even more pain and brokenness because they’re bigger and faster and smash into each other with horrifying force, so much so I wince and hate to look at the players who after collisions lay writhing in agony, their magnificent athleticism temporarily and sometimes permanently crippled. To face such savagery, and even dare to be paralyzed, as in some cases, their courage is something us mortals cannot possibly relate to or understand, only stand in awe of.

And perhaps that is the reason I tried but could not hold back tears while listening to Orlando Pace, a black giant, talking about his mother, who raised him and his sister while working two jobs in Sandusky, Ohio, the camera panning to his mother and sister dabbing at tears as they sat under a warm Ohio sun.

John Madden, home and ailing, possesses such profound respect for these men he could hardly get through a taped introduction of the deceased Kenny Stabler, a slender Alabaman quarterback who, on badly damaged knees, stood the charges of thunderous defenders for over a decade and won games with guile and daring.

Kevin Greene, all-American boy and ex-Boy Scout, talked of his dad, a retired Army officer wounded in Vietnam, the camera panning to this man who struggled to keep his composure as Kevin gave him full credit for teaching him the military discipline to succeed in such a tough business.

The most impressive speech was by an ex-owner drummed out of the league, Ed Debartalo, a diminutive man so in love with his players that he immediately visited them, in the locker room after injuries and took care of their futures as family. His message to NFL powers that ran him out of the game was to treat these men as he had; a chastising of their greediness and ruthless inattention to the physical and mental debilitation these men suffer long after retirement.

If these men brought tears and cheers, Brett Favre brought roars and copious weeping. The toughest of the tough, he barely made it through his speech without breaking down, but brought down the house when talking about how hard his dad was on him, yet at the same time, behind his back, extolled his character and determination to his coach, something I think all jocks and their jock dads have experienced, including myself.

All of these speeches were delivered by a bunch of big old sentimental slobs. At times they were awkward, unpolished but always sincere, and always moving, boy/men still, thanking just about everybody who helped them get there, the memories so poignant, the game so dear to them, the teammates and coaches so valuable, that it wasn’t really about them, but the totality of the experience, from peewee football to the prized NFL that has broken the heart of so many gridiron stars trying to make it.

Small wonder American football fans are so crazy about these gladiators.

***

COMMENT.SPORTING.RIOThe 2016 Olympics in Rio are the accumulation of decades of the IOC turning a magnificent competition into a corrupt grab-bag of billionaires and politicians on the take. It is about the rich pushing around the poor, and in some cases taking their homes to build monstrous and soon-to-be obsolete sports complexes, as in countries like China and Russia. It’s about a broke country like Greece going broker. It’s about a country like Russia, caught red-handed in a colossal cheating scheme and then let off the hook by the political whores in the IOC knuckling under to the latest global bully, Vladimir Putin.

It’s about the Russians recruiting desperately impoverished migrants from Eastern Europe to build their complexes, withholding their pay, housing them in sheds, disposing them as lifeless carcasses when they’re sick and broken and used up—and dead. It’s about this very same country forcing their poorest people out of their homes and out of their turf, paying them nothing, essentially breaking them, while billionaire oligarchs become richer, and we in America, along with the IOC, stand by as we wave our flags of superior athleticism—another vehicle to buoy our image to ourselves and the world.

It’s about Brazil, a country caught in an economic tragedy so severe that people are literally starving to death, and protesting, somehow spending billions to put on the usual pomp and pageantry and the construction of soon-to-be abandoned venues as, like Greece, get fleeced by the greed-hogs from the IOC.

It’s about NBC manipulating the emotions of every American TV viewer with its saccharine music accompanying maudlin depiction of certain athletes and their heart-breaking situations, a literal soap opera, while two-minute commercials seizing on the gullible masses stuff their corporate pockets.

Every year, since I can remember, the Olympics arrived every four years as something great, but as time passed it became this monster of flag-waving, country-chanting hypocrisy, another money grab perpetrated by a pack of rapacious scoundrels known as the IOC, a group not unlike NFL owners whose entire goal in life is to stock-pile more treasure and territory and keep their foot on the neck of their slaves.

I just want to watch the sprints. §

Dell Franklin grew up in the rough-and-tumble of sports in Compton, Calif., where his father, “Moe” Franklin, a professional baseball player, built a shoe business and supported a family. Dell writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., where he lives with his rescue dog, Wilbur. Visit Dell’s website at dellfranklin.com.

Open letter to Hillary’s voters

The Fear of Donald and our descent into fascism

COMMENT.HILLARYby Stacey Warde

Yes, I know, fascism gets tossed into our faces pretty easily these days and comes off as mostly disingenuous and trite, until you meet one of Hillary’s “vote for Hillary, or else” supporters, whose pressure to conform amidst dire warnings about fascism sound alarmingly fascist themselves.

Here’s the deal, if the only reason you’re voting for Hillary is because you’re afraid that Donald Trump will win, fascism has already won. You’ve already lost your freedom to choose. You’re afraid. The fascists have won.

And, soon, hounded by fear of what might be instead of acting upon our values, creating a truly just world, we’ll all be fascists, as we continue to vote for the lesser of two evils.

How much more can we lower our expectations in a general election? Hillary or Donald? Wall Street Darling, or Bankrupt Bully?

If you really like Hillary, which I don’t, then by all means vote for her. That’s what a democracy is all about. Please, however, don’t try to convince me that she’s the best candidate because she’s the only ONE who can beat Donald.

Bernie, apparently, might also have beaten Donald, and might still had he considered joining the forces of his 13 million voters with a third party candidate like Jill Stein. But, never mind that, because I don’t want to sound like a spoilt sport or be ridiculous. Just because he got sandbagged by The Machine, and the “revolution” sidelined. Yes, it’s upsetting, and I don’t plan to “get over it” until the system changes.

There will be no revolution with Hillary. The revolution will be with Donald Trump, if he wins, one that might spell the end, it is said, of the American enterprise as a place of virtue and good will, which is only historically partly true. The United States has always had flaws, very serious flaws, that have resulted in the torture and deaths of thousands upon tens-of-thousands of innocent people. But let’s not get into that, or into the tens of thousands of lives that might have been saved had Hillary spoken out against the war on Iraq.

Let’s just say that together Trump and Clinton represent nearly all of the flaws the world attributes to us, starting with violent, brash, repugnant, ignorant and entitled. I’ll choose neither candidate, and prefer those who, like Bernie, can at least show some sense of humility and humanity, which seemingly lack in both Hillary and Donald. Again, if you want Hillary, that is fine. Let’s agree that Donald mustn’t win, and I’ll vote for the person who most represents my interests and values.

The Fear of Donald

COMMENT.DONALDThe only presidential candidate I know who has already incriminated, and thus disqualified, himself from the office before he even holds it, is Donald Trump, a weak, thin-skinned, pathetic demagogue, a low-blow, bigoted bully who knows little about our own constitution, foreign policy, the world’s state of affairs, how to treat women, or the pressures of the nation’s highest executive office.

Let’s impeach him for conspiring with Russia to spy on a U.S. citizen.

He has no backing in both the House and Senate, or even from the despicable Koch Bros., and no political clout, capital or influence beyond his own self-aggrandizing and bloated ideas of himself; his speeches are mostly exercises in narcissism, and his calls to action are mostly appeals to base thuggery and ignorance.

If we truly have a democracy, he will lose, unless we’re a nation of course men and women, a mob of ignoramuses who prefer the gross over the sublime. The laws and principles and force of history of this nation—if American greatness ever existed—will bring him down, not raise him up. Decency alone would dictate this. He has none. He is indecent and rude and mustn’t be elevated.

If Trump is elevated, lifted to “victory,” he will ultimately lose. That is his game. He loses over and over, his whole life a series of failures that he calls “success.” If Trump rises to the top, that says more about us as a people than it gives a solid argument for why I should vote for Hillary.

Trump doesn’t frighten me half as much as a populace so cowed and afraid that it must choose the “lesser” of two evils to avoid a calamity. That’s the beginning of fascism, when a people choose an evil, even if it is the “lesser,” over conscience and heart. Unless, and until, more voters begin to vote their conscience, we will, sooner or later, all turn into fascists.

Some say that to vote my conscience, not for Hillary, is a “luxury” no one can afford.

I don’t consider my vote a “luxury.” It represents what I most value, someone who is not beholden to Wall Street or the One Percent, someone who refuses to choose war over reason and diplomacy, or who isn’t likely to dissemble through word and action, who knows the constitution and laws protecting citizens rights, and is humble enough to admit a mistake.

Our politics are so rife with cynicism that we go along with the “lesser evil,” election after election, as far as I can remember, even if that lesser person models what is most despicable in our culture—greed, graft, and corruption—as if that can actually be a good thing upon which to hinge my hopes and dreams. I’ve voted for the lesser evil most of my life. I won’t do it now, or ever again. §

Stacey Warde is publisher of The Rogue Voice. He can be reached at roguewarde@gmail.com

Trump: America’s love of bullies

We have turned to Donald Trump, a born bully totally lacking in soul or humanity for anybody but his own flock.

We have turned to Donald Trump, a born bully totally lacking in soul or humanity for anybody but his own flock.

by Dell Franklin

The wild throng of Hillary haters at the Republican presidential convention is wildly reminiscent of the packed houses and stadiums where Adolph Hitler spewed inflammatory demagoguery and scapegoating that turned an entire nation against Jews and people who were not white or purely German and led to the saddest, most demonic era in the history of the world.

“Heil Hitler! Jail Hillary!” Same thing.

The faces of what appears a 98 percent white crowd are clenched and inflamed with hatred, prime prey for a messianic bully to lead them to the promised land, which was their once-white country where “niggers and ‘spics and queers” had no voice or chance to get ahead, and knew their place if they wanted a few crumbs to survive on. They were all, like Native Americans, victims of the bullying white race with its fanatic religion and rage to control and dominate.

Whites, with capitalism, supposedly a partner of “democracy,” and the desire to amass fortunes, build personal castles, gouge out territory, and plunder the environment, could subjugate and keep the minority masses down. Capitalism and greedy whites trampled democracy, and so what we have today is the disgraceful, absurd and embarrassing Republican convention to show the world just what a bunch of failures and petulant whiners we are—a reflection of our system.

To salvage this mess of a country, which has actually thrived after George W. Bush single-handedly imperiled it, we have turned to Donald Trump, a born bully totally lacking in soul or humanity for anybody but his own flock.

***

There are three ways of dealing with bullies, and you learn this at a pretty early age. First, you can knuckle under and join the bully as a cowardly sycophant and indulge in some bullying of your own. Second, you can go out of your way to avoid the bully so you never have to be confronted by him and be exposed as a coward. Third, if he is bigger and older and stronger and crueler than you, find a way to beat the living hell out of him.

Because the Republican primary was supposed to be about issues, policy and civility, the 15 sycophants running against Trump had no idea of how to deal with his incessant bullying and demeaning of their persons, and one by one they crumpled in disgrace, powerless in their political correctness not to walk over and bitch slap or knock him on his ass.

I’m positive if any one of these weasels, and especially the newest sycophant, Chris Christie, would have punched him, he would have garnered more than 2 percent of the vote. None of them had anything to lose, even the biggest pussy, Jeb Bush.

***

Congratulations to the GOP for scouring the country to dig up a handful of angry bible-spouting black pastors and police captains to spout over-the-top vitriol, these so-called speakers evidently culled from our black populace to show us that the Republican Party cares about them, especially after rolling back voting rights in every black stronghold. What the GOP haters are really saying behind their backs is—“you fuckers had your chance with your Muslim nigger Obama, now we’re taking over! Because white is right!”

***

I’m sure Latinos and black folks were impressed with the roll out of the preppie Trump clan, scrubbed and polished and so shiny they resembled something hoisted out of a wax museum, talking about how great America is, and how great its been to them, and, like their Dad, inheritors of millions, sent to the most prestigious schools, the sons, who have never served in the military, taking on trophy wives like dad, the daughter looking like a trophy wife, all bragging about how wonderful their father is and how he loves America and wants to help the citizens he’s been fleecing and conning for decades.

***

Mike Pence, who reminds us of one of those guys who was a professional politician in junior high and kept working at it by being religious and conservative and careful and proper and bland, and landed the vice presidential slot, is perfect for Trump—he’s smaller and looks tiny beside Trump, and he’s got that helmet of white nary-hair-out-place hair compared to Donald’s billowy mane, and he is so utterly dull and ordinary and conforming that Donald kissed him for his fawning mediocrity, recognizing immediately the perfect toady for a bully.

***

Lining up behind Trump are especially nasty and mean-spirited fellow bullies like Christie, Giuliani, and snide Newt Gingrich, all salivating to run Trump’s show, like a lingering disease that will not go away. I’m sure the cowardly chickenhawks who started the Iraqi war are licking their chops, as well as some military brass always spoiling to flex their muscles and in the name of American greatness sending troops from the under-classes into battle while we sport ribbons and praise their courage.

Yeh, the Republican Party is the white bully party, the tough guys, the law-and-order, war-mongering, super-patriotic, gun-toting bible-beaters, the screeching, hating, anti-abortion-obsessed women, and they’ve got their man, the perfect bully to line up behind and flex their dwindling power as sad, sad human beings floundering around in the greatest so-called country in the world, the greatest country ever.

***

Congratulations to Cleveland for turning their city into a police state so as not to expose us as a racist nation.

***

Since Donald Trump has threatened NATO and promised to undue our nuclear pact with Iran, I guess it is natural he and his tribes feel it doesn’t matter that most of the civilized Western world thinks we’ve lost our minds and have become downright stupid and dangerous.

***

If this country elects Trump as president, we will deserve everything we get, especially when those who clamored for his success riot to impeach him within a year into his first term—when they realize Trump is no more than a corporate entity taking what it feels is its due as the superior race. §

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., and will punch out any bully who wants to Make America White Again. Visit his website: dellfranklin.com

Murder and rape in Cayucos

Why do we remain silent, or worse, defend the perpetrator?

by Stacey Warde

(Screen shot from KSBY.com)

(Screen shot from KSBY.com)

In a small town like Cayucos, with a population of only a few thousand residents, at one point or another, you’re likely to run into just about everyone who lives here, including the nut cases and predators and their friends, not to mention the few people who don’t like you.

I’ll admit, I’ve befriended a few of the nut cases.

We’ve had our share of them, and I’ve loved them all, and for the most part they’ve been decent people, in spite of their peculiar behaviors. This town, as small as it is, embraces the stranger, the oddball, I’ve seen it more than once, so long as he gets along, does his share, and generally respects his neighbors.

In this town, we like to say that we watch out for each other, especially those who are vulnerable, the elderly and the young, for example, and we keep a close eye on our children. We’re a quick easy stop for kooks traveling the coastal road between LA and San Francisco. Sometimes they stop and stay, sometimes they keep moving. We’re wary of strangers who don’t quite fit in and, trust me, we know who you are.

Which is even more important when it comes to people of questionable character, whether they’re passing through or actually living here, those who do more harm than good, who prey on the weak, lie, cheat, steal and inflict pain on others, including murder and rape, both of which have recently occurred here.

Thankfully, I’ve managed to avoid getting too close to the predators—and we’ve had more than one in the neighborhood.

Matthew James Levine, for example, reported his grandmother, Dorothy Vivian Autrey, 84, missing from her home on Hacienda Way, where he also lived with her on the southern outskirts of town, at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 21, 2008, about a day after she was last seen alive.

Dorothy Vivian Autrey, whose body was never found, was murdered by her live-in grandson.

Dorothy Vivian Autrey, whose body was never found, was murdered by her live-in grandson.

Dorothy, apparently, had been getting on Matthew about his lifestyle and an argument ensued, and she disappeared. He claimed she must have gotten lost, being old and forgetful and all, wandering who knows where. Maybe she got swept out to sea. It happens. Her soggy purse was later retrieved near the Cayucos Pier but she was never found.

Meanwhile, according to one account, Matthew handed out fliers about his missing grandmother, asking for clues and signs, anything to help him find her, even boarding a Cayucos school bus to enlist the children’s help.

Matthew turned himself in a month later and confessed to killing his grandmother. He’d stuffed her body in a suitcase and threw it over a cliff near Ragged Point, a treacherous stretch of Highway 1 that winds high above the jagged Pacific coastline in Big Sur. Her body was never found.

He claimed to have misjudged a blow to his grandmother, a warning bump, an accident perhaps, because he’d been under the influence of marijuana and cough syrup. He got scared and took the mafioso approach to hiding the evidence, tossing her remains into the sea. She is still reported as a “missing person.”

I didn’t know either Matthew or his grandmother and this tragedy may or may not have been avoidable, but there must have been signs of trouble. Someone in the neighborhood or family or circle of friends might have seen the signs, and made note of them. That alone would make us safer, just noticing, talking, making sure everyone’s ok.

Maybe it’s unfair for me to categorize Matthew as a predator because I didn’t know him but I suspect he had other motives for moving in with his grandmother than simply keeping an eye on her and making sure she was safe. He was later convicted of first degree murder and elder abuse.

I suspect that something darker than good intentions were also at work in the case of Oscar Higueros Jr., a former volunteer Cayucos fireman and citizen in good standing, who was recently convicted on several charges of raping a minor and human trafficking, and faces the likelihood of spending the rest of his life in prison.

I doubt his actions in keeping company with an underage girl rose solely from a desire to protect and love her, as has been conveyed to me by friends who know and like Oscar, and who have tried to convince me there’s more to the story than meets the eye.

Nonetheless, a jury found Oscar guilty on numerous counts and he will be sentenced for his crimes beginning at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, May 9, at San Luis Obispo Superior Court. He faces a minimum of 64 years and a maximum of 183 years in prison.

I noted the fact of his recent conviction in a Facebook post, suggesting that it would serve the community well to begin a dialog about how we might in the future protect our children from others who wish them harm: “Dead silence in Cayucos about predators in our midst. When do we start the conversation about how to protect our sons and daughters?”

I got the following comment from the wife of someone who worked with Oscar at the Cayucos Fire Department: “Stacey, you need to get all the facts before you lash out.”

I responded to this effect: “What are the facts? Let’s hear them, especially since the court that convicted Oscar, and Oscar himself, might be interested, if the facts can show that he’s not guilty.” She deleted her comment.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been scolded or corrected after mentioning Oscar’s arrest and conviction, as if there were details I should know—such as he was in love, or the underaged girl was a tramp.

At Schooner’s, soon after Oscar’s arrest, a friend of his told me over beer that Oscar really loved this girl. He was protecting her, as a good fireman should.

“You really don’t know what you’re talking about, dude,” he said, as if my mentioning the news of Oscar’s arrest had put me in the wrong. I had mentioned only the facts of the case as reported in local news media, which basically was a rewrite of the district attorney’s press release on the subject.

Maybe I didn’t know the whole story, I responded, but the court would find out whether he really loved this girl, or was using and abusing her. In any case, I added, the fact that she was underage might have been clue enough for Oscar to leave her alone. So, why didn’t he? And why didn’t those who know Oscar, and who still defend him, warn him that he was treading on thin ice? Or, for chrissake, why didn’t they report him?

Well, came the response, love knows no bounds and people do what they must when they fall for someone. Perhaps, I said, but the law is pretty clear, even for firemen, regarding sexual behavior between adults and minors. Oscar crossed the line. Now, he’s guilty of rape.

I respect and understand friendship and loyalty, but these qualities, as I’ve known them, would never, in their best form, tolerate or quietly condone the abuse of a minor or elder, regardless of whether their friend was in love or his victim a tramp. His actions were reprehensible and cannot be defended on any grounds that I know.

I’d give less consideration to defending one who has been deemed a predator, a menace to the community, and put more focus on the victims who have suffered from their abuse. §

Stacey Warde is publisher of The Rogue Voice.com.

Crossing the color line—again

Cuba, baseball and Obama

by Dell Franklin

GAME TIME—President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro of Cuba applaud a run by the Tampa Bay Rays during an exhibition baseball game between the Rays and the Cuban National Team at the Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana, Cuba, March 22, 2016. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

GAME TIME—President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro of Cuba applaud a run by the Tampa Bay Rays during an exhibition baseball game between the Rays and the Cuban National Team at the Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana, Cuba, March 22, 2016. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

I was four when we lived in Havana, and though I recall nothing concrete, there are swirling images of bright colors and energy and activity and non-stop, fast-talking voices and rousing music. My father was playing professional baseball in Cuba during the winter after a season in Tampico, Mexico, where he played after leaving the big leagues for better money.

On my wall is a small black-and-white framed photo of dad with his teammates on his Cuban team, the only American among black and lighter-skinned men of Spanish ancestry against a backdrop of a rickety stadium. A man of high passion and strong opinion, dad loved Cuba and had already learned the language while in Mexico. As a man raised in the Great Depression and serving in World War II, he was convinced the secret to life was making the best of every situation, to ignore hardship and differences in culture and concentrate on the joy of relating to people and their customs.

Dad remembered Fidel Castro as a polite kid wanting to be a ball player and working out with his team and having a “decent glove as an infielder for a tall gangly kid, but couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a bass fiddle as a hitter.”

He talked of the fans: “It was love-hate. They were rabid, much more so than American fans, even New York and Detroit and Philly fans, who were real wolves. Cuban fans bet on games, bet on innings, bet on at-bats. The cities and towns practically closed down when there was a game. They came to the park or listened on radio. They were rough on you if you didn’t produce, and if you were an American with a big name and came down and laid an egg, didn’t come through in the clutch, they would literally run you out of town. I was fortunate to play well down there until the malaria I got from the South Pacific during the war recurred.”

Mother said: “The Cuban people were very warm and good-hearted. No matter how poor they were they seemed good-natured and happy about what they had, there was a spirit and a soul about them, they were not afraid to reach out and embrace you. At night, Murray and I would go out after the games, very late, because it was so exciting, and also we had not seen each other for almost two years while he was away during the war, and we would go to the cantinas and clubs, and there was always music, and the people loved to dance, and we loved to dance, the parks were always full of people playing games or playing music, there was so much life and excitement in Havana, it was a city of ongoing festivity that never shut down.”

CULTURE.murray in cuba

Murray Franklin, back row, second from right, an infielder who played with a Cuban team in the late 1940s, said this about Cuban baseball fans: They were rabid, much more so than American fans, even New York and Detroit and Philly fans, who were real wolves. Photo courtesy of Dell Franklin

Dad talked of his teammates and players such as Minnie Minoso and Sandy Consuegra and many others, the black ones like Minoso not allowed to play ball in America no matter how gifted they were, while the lighter skinned Cubans were allowed to play before the color line was broken by Jackie Robinson. Minoso finally established an illustrious career in the big leagues in his 30s.

COMMENT.MURRAY @ BAT

Murray Franklin at bat in his Cuban team uniform.

Dad said: “The Cubans played with a different emotion, what you would call flair. You could call them showboats. They came from a different background, a different culture. What I learned about them was that if you made an effort to learn their language and made an effort to be friendly they would do anything for you and were very loyal, they would take you into their homes and no matter how poor they were or how little they had in their pantries, they would serve you their last plate of rice and black beans, because you were a guest, and they liked you. They had this inborn quality of thinking about you first, a trait I find very rare and good in people and which I tried to copy as a man, because, in the end, it serves everybody better to share what they have. You are always learning in life, and my experience in Cuba taught me humility, even though I was a pretty humble guy to begin with and always appreciated what I had.”

***

Cuban baseball players risk their lives to come to America to play the great game, possibly to live in freedom, make real money, and compete against the best to show us just how great they really are. They play with a different rhythm and instinct pleasantly devoid of over-coaching and over-training, like kids growing up in the sandlots and dirt parks a century ago, like Cobb and Ruth and the Gas House Gang; so unlike the controlling and insane supervision and overexposure of American Little League and the structured and robotic techniques taught to and applied by American players along with the new metrics moving them around by front office stooges and automat coaches like chess pieces.

Cuban ballplayers are colorful, ours are not.

Imagine the culture shock of Cuban ballplayers coming to America and facing the vastness of our country, the huge shiny powerful cars marauding our massive highways, the sudden big money, the freedom, the incredible hi-tech toys and the splendor of even our minor league systems, much less the luxury of the big leagues. Imagine their reaction to the tight-lipped grimness of the baseball tradition in America…

…And then imagine our players, raised in a culture of over-abundance and entitlement if you are a big league prospect, the best food and equipment and stadiums and pampering, and going to Cuba and playing ball there, seemingly for a pittance, in seedy surroundings, for love of the game and patriotic reasons of one-upmanship on a country like ours.

Baseball, our great game, is their great game also, and now our President, Barack Obama, is trying to renew relations with Cuba, recently by using baseball as a sort of bridge to build a new relationship of visiting each other and sharing.

Meanwhile, politicians on the right squawk sanctimoniously of how Cuba is a Communist country punishing its people and denying them human rights, while at the same time these very same hypocrites wish to deny women in our country the right to make their own decisions on abortion, seek to deny black people the right to vote, try to destroy the first health care provider in our country primarily for the poor, and hang on to a cold war mentality that has long ago dissolved, and a bombastic occupational foreign policy that has failed miserably and infuriated most of the world.

We negotiate trade and exchange tourism with Vietnam and China, supposed enemies, and seem to have no problem with their regimes, or their propaganda against America, and they seem to have no problem with our history of exploiting Latin and South American governments for decades, assassinating their leaders and replacing them with any ruthless despot who would do what we told them for military support while these military puppets and millionaire aristocrats tossed crumbs to their impoverished people and jailed or murdered them if they rebelled.

And for what?

What Obama is trying to explain to the mindless knuckleheads in this country is that what he is doing is about people—their people and our people. It is about allowing their people to taste a little of what we have while we taste a little of what they have, and in the process we can learn a little something about each other without trying to turn their country into South Florida. It is about no longer demanding THEY change before WE concede even to talk to them because of their terrible record on human rights, or about us imposing our political philosophy and ideology on them, or boycotting their goods and placing embargoes and strangling their economy and rendering their people poorer than they already are.

And for what?

Cuba is a proud country with as many social ills as we have, but what it is really about is Cubans and Americans, the lot of whom, if we ever met, would probably like each other, and have a great time together, if we just for a minute allowed ourselves to have a few beers and forget about politics and history and perhaps watch a baseball game together, whether it be here or there. §

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., and spent many years of his life active in baseball, teaching, coaching and playing, learning from all-time greats and keeping a wary eye on how the game is played. More of his work can be read on his website, dellfranklin.com

 

Old rumpled Bernie v. King Donald

Differences between earning one’s way and growing up with privilege

by Dell Franklin

Bernie worked at some shitty jobs and became involved in civil rights. He was probably not good at shitty jobs, not with his mind on social causes and politics.

Bernie worked at some shitty jobs and became involved in civil rights. He was probably not good at shitty jobs, not with his mind on social causes and politics.

Bernie, child of immigrants, is one of those old hippies who really believed in the cause and eschewed the future white picket fence, the Mercedes, the plush suburb that inevitably proved too irresistible to fellow marchers who were in it to avoid the war, find good drugs, and get laid. Bernie is a true believer, a crusader who early on felt the tug of compassion for the struggling, miserable underclasses and the unfairness of their plights.

The Donald was born into wealth and power and liked it. He came up the hard way, educated at Wharton business school and his father donating him a paltry million to start his own real estate business. The Donald knew early on who to browbeat and who to patronize and schmooze and who to more or less legally bribe (red baiter Roy Cohen) to get things done and make his billions. The Donald believed in greed and embraced the life of glitter and luxury.

The Donald was born into wealth and power and liked it.

The Donald was born into wealth and power and liked it.

Bernie worked at some shitty jobs and became involved in civil rights. He was probably not good at shitty jobs, not with his mind on social causes and politics. He did not fit the sleek image of an Ivy League charmer or smoothie, this rumpled balding figure with a deep Brooklyn accent, an abrasive finger pointer and exclaimer, out to charm no one but dead set on change and getting things done.

The Donald was this sort of handsome ladies man with the flowing hair never out of place and as carefully tended to as a plant in the White House Rose Garden. He accumulated friends in high places and feathered their nests and bankrolled tall buildings with high rents and acquired his own jet plane and married a statuesque model with high cheekbones.

Bernie kept running for office and kept losing and finally became mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in a 10-point victory and served two terms, built affordable housing, revitalized the infrastructure, started women’s programs and, despite looking like a ragamuffin, gained the confidence of the state’s voters as a politician of the people.

The Donald erected and opened casinos in Atlantic City that were all the rage and had everybody cashing in until the economy fell apart and he watched them go bust, scuttled out of the city while the city went broke and was left holding the bag, people out of work, the boardwalk dead, the Donald managing a bankruptcy that had him coming out smelling like a rose.

Bernie, a divorcee, married a portly cheerful Irish lady who worked as a bank teller and supermarket cashier and eventual community organizer with the same interests and crusades as he, and won himself a seat in Congress where he continued to vociferously push his causes.

Donald got divorced and married another statuesque model with high cheekbones and nurtured his sons in the business and on the side became the star of a reality show where he sat on a throne like a king and either pointed thumbs down or up when choosing what greed obsessed, fawning acolyte he would hire in his own business. His abrupt, arbitrary, ruthless treatment of losers and mild praise of winners soared in popularity and he became such a celebrity he hinted of running for president.

Bernie got elected to the Senate and voted against tax cuts and the war in Iraq while continuing to push for his causes as an independent/socialist in the manner of his idol, Eugene Debs. Or perhaps Upton Sinclair.

The Donald got divorced again and married another statuesque model with high cheek bones and, meanwhile, became so rich and powerful and popular that he saw fit to continue the rumor of his running for president and started the rumor that America’s first black president, Barack Obama, was some sort of Kenyan not born in the United States and was not really an American, nor much of a Christian, which leant to nearly half of all fellow Republicans believing Obama was a dreaded, hated Muslim.

Bernie finally got fed up with the asininity of the Congress and Senate and decided to run for president and unleashed his rage at Wall Street, the One Percent, Goldman Sachs, the rigged economy, homelessness, our foolish wars, and vowed to do something about them, threatening to take down investment bank swindlers who destroyed the economy as well as the nest eggs of the middle-and-lower classes while the government bailed them out and kept them rich and afloat and, most humiliating, out of jail.

The Donald announced his candidacy for president and soon accumulated a massive throng of howling, scowling, fat white mooks who, like Donald, wanted to “take their country back!” The Donald promised to build a wall to keep criminal, terrorist Mexicans out and make the poor Mexicans pay for it, deport millions of other illegal immigrant Mexicans, not allow a single Muslim to immigrate into the country, whether they’re terrorists or not, bomb ISIS into powder, and steal Iraq’s oil so as to salvage something after our occupation of that country, trick China out of what we owe them because they tricked us into debt because our leaders “are stupid,” and make so much money for so many wonderful people that those howling scowling fat white wonderful mooks will be wallowing in cash just like the Donald as they compose an eerie chant, “USA! USA! USA…!”

Bernie vows to start a revolution to stop the rigged economy of the One Percent more or less driving economic inequality in America lower than it’s been since the Great Depression, and he has kept his promise of taking nothing from the big investment banks and Super PACs but instead inspired millions of true believers to donate to his cause an average of $27 per person to bankroll his candidacy, and now he, like Donald, is a strong contender for President of the United States in the Democratic Party.

The Donald, king of a financial empire, bankrolls his own candidacy, boasting of achieving the ultimate American dream by possessing billions and billions…and is the frontrunner for President of the United States in the Republican Party.

Poor old rumpled Bernie possesses a tad over $500,000, has no plane, and it’s difficult imagine him owning a car, or what kind of car, or even driving a car. §

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., where he lives with his rescue dog, Wilbur, and posts dispatches of life in a small coastal town. His work, which includes a lifestyle as a cab driver, bartender, and sports nut, can be viewed at dellfranklin.com, where this comment first appeared.

GET LOST, LA RAMS!

by Dell Franklin

COMMENT.Stan_Kroenke_Rams_2012

Mr. Kroenke wanted to show LA sports fans he is not a cold-blooded corporate prick, but a man who can cry over a football team. Boohoo.

Billionaire chiseler/phony Stan Kroenke, after shafting St. Louis and choking up over taking their football team away from them, is now in Los Angeles, which is about as opposite of St. Louis as day and night, and he is again all choked up over promising poor so-called pro football-starved Angelinos the wretched Rams that were stolen from them decades ago by a crew of chiseling phonies not worth mentioning.

The chiseler/phony with the old-country mustache also promises to build a $3 billion tacky Taj Mahal of a football stadium to rival the tacky one built in Dallas by fellow sentimental rival, Jerry Jones, a chiseler so canny, ruthless, and scarily predatory he’s intimidated the entire cabal of chiseling/phony NFL owners and their puppet commissioner, Roger Goodell, who during the meat appraisal NFL draft hugs first round picks like a cuddly uncle before turning them over to the ruthless chiseler/phonies.

Mr. Kroenke wanted to show LA sports fans he is not a cold-blooded corporate prick, but a man who can cry over a football team. Boohoo. If this guy ever ventured into a working-class tavern he’d be stoned within half an hour. He and his shark-like right hand man, Kevin Demoff, who would also be stoned in a working-class tavern within 30 minutes on looks alone, want you to think it’s ALL about boosting a poverty stricken black community like Inglewood and pleasing LA football fans, who are the most disloyal, distracted and superficial west of Miami Beach.

Fat chance.

Look, guys, LA sports fans have better things to do—like taking selfies 24/7 and admiring them…and shopping, primping, dressing, tanning, posturing, posing…and checking and rechecking those little hand phones to see who loves them.

The chiseler/phony already has number-one LA sports fan Magic Johnson in his camp. Magic’s going to buy season tickets. $100 just to get on board, and then we start very high up in the stratosphere of the Taj Mahal for $300, which means if there’s two of you it’s $600 just for games that are not exhibitions, so if you’re filthy rich like Magic you can dole out about $3,500 for one game and probably be close enough to a celebrity to share a selfie, unless of course they’re sealed into the hierarchy glass luxury cocoon where $100 wines and gourmet cuisine is shared by the chiseler/phony and his coterie of sycophants, who stand and cheer when he does, and sit down when he does, and stand again to turn thumbs down and deliver the kill sign when the team gets booed out of their tacky Taj Mahal.

Roman days indeed!

COMMENT.LAColiseum-under-construction-1922

LA Coliseum, under construction in 1922, is in much need of upgrading, where returning LA Rams will play until their billion-dollars dream stadium is completed.

Does anybody who likes to watch a football game in a working-class tavern have a shot to go to these games? Most of the population of LA sports fans are so awash in hi-tech gadgetry they have the attention span of hummingbirds, which means that the day they enter the super hi-tech Taj Mahal they will be in hi-tech heaven and get to test out their own gadgets against the plethora facing them everywhere, a spectacle, really, lights flashing everywhere throughout the game, unless they’re waiting in line to gorge on junk food, quaff over-priced beer, or stand in agony in long lines trying not to pee in their pants.

Meanwhile, for the next three years, these dodos get to revisit the dreaded, dilapidated, uncomfortable Coliseum, where the urgent need for hi-tech gadgetry will be in short supply and the dodos will have to actually watch parts of a football game and see the replays on their own gadgetry; this after inching along on freeways and side streets for two hours, idling and lurching and gnashing their teeth in parking lots for 45 minutes, waiting to be searched for weaponry for 30 minutes, before finally being admitted into a bowl so distant from the field one will need high-powered binoculars or a mini-screen of their own to see what actually happens.

But it’s not all bad. There will at last be a NFL football team in LA. Though it is a football team coached by a lackluster wash-out with a losing record wherever he’s gone, without a quarterback or any semblance of an offense, a team about as boring as the place it came from—St. Louis. Will tattooed, spray-painted barbarian/zealot fans similar to Raider low-lives be allowed to form their own dog pound? Can they afford it? Who wants to rough-house in a glass-encased Taj Mahal surrounded by boutiques for the Rodeo Drive crew?

In any case, the true football fans/marauders can pool their money and barbecue in the parking lots just off the Coliseum starting at six in the morning and get so drunk by game time they’ll have to take saliva tests before entering, but once they’re in it will be like the old days, guzzling, screaming, hooting, cursing, booing, arguing, staking out territory, fighting, causing a panic, maybe drawing the cameras for a split second before the goody-goody boys in the production trailers and broadcasting booths pooh-pooh their discordant behavior and turn us back to the spectacle produced by America’s foremost chiseler/phonies this side of Wall Street—the PR hogwash of good citizenship and humanitarianism among people trying to dismember limbs and in the end immobilize brains—all for love of the game and a few bucks.

Yeh, LA sports fans demand a professional football team; deserve a professional football team; demand and deserve a winner, according to the chiseler/phony. So good luck, LA sports fans, surely you deserve this. §

Dell Franklin grew up in working-class Compton, Calif., at a time when professional sports, venues and players were mostly accessible to the roiling mass of fans/marauders who could then still afford to attend games. For more of Dell’s sports commentary, visit dellfranklin.com.