He wrestles with the idea of the struggle.
He believes his opponent is the world
he imagines inexhaustible.
Believing himself powerless, his own image
is exaggerated, every gesture a minute lost,
until his life is reduced to a night,
the parameter of a bed.
Sleep is his perfection.
But the day, immeasurably long, is the absence
of sleep. An old antagonist, its eyes painfully
familiar, challenged it refuses the challenge,
for sleeplessness is its perfection.
—Nick Campbell
by Dell FranklinScrawny old Walt knows just enough about everybody in this supermarket-sized gym (indeed, it was once a Von’s) to make a busybody like myself utterly happy. Walt is the kind of geezer who is not afraid to engage a stranger, instead of muffling himself in headphones and ignoring everybody as he suffers in solitary drudgery—like the robots on the bank of stationary bikes up front under the bank of TVs, and two rows of Nordic Tracks behind them, and the treadmills in the back.
Walt and I are off to the side, up near the front desk, separated from this rabble by a few Nautilus machines. Walt and I have a choice view of all those on the aerobic machines and the other larger cluster of very busy Nautilus machines in front of them, leading to the weight room and the glassed-in wooden-floored workout room where mostly women participate in yoga, Zumba, Pilates and spirited combat involving a mixture of judo chops, kicks and jabs and hooks.
I first encountered Walt when he wandered over as I pumped away and worked on the LA Times Sunday crossword, and said, “I know a good barber. He’s good and pretty cheap.”
I was taken aback. “I don’t need a barber,” I rejoined. “I’ve had my own hair stylist for almost fifteen years.” Truth is, I hadn’t had a haircut in about 15 months.
Walt sports a carefully trimmed white goatee and has white hair shooting out from under a ball cap. He asked, “How much you pay for a haircut?”
“Well,” I said. “I pay a lot, because I only go in every six months or so, sometimes longer, like now.” My hair was so long and unruly at this point that I did nothing with it when I awakened mornings with strands caught in my teeth, and just swiped at it to form it into some semblance of shape. My woman had been frantically urging me to get it cut for months. Truth is, I was sick of it. Also, I shave every four or five days. Why should I shave every day? I’m retired and hate shaving.
“I pay thirteen dollars for my haircut,” Walt informed me. “And he does a good job. Do you want me to write down the address and phone number, so you can make an appointment?”
“No, I don’t. The lady I go to is the wife of my tennis partner, who is one of my two or three best friends. I’m a loyal person.”
Audrey, a pleasant retired grammar school teacher, married to Ron, a retired college football coach, who had just finished on a Nautilus machine, unplugged her ear buds and came over. She and I are friends, exchanging books.
“Ellie is my hair stylist, too, Walt,” she said. “She is very, very good.”
“Well, how much does she charge?” Walt wanted to know. Walt is hunched from scoliosis, and bird thin; and sort of skitters in short mincing steps. He had polio as a kid.
Audrey glanced at me, and I said, “Thirty five dollars.”
“Thirty five dollars!” Walt was appalled. “I can get three haircuts for that.”
“She’s pricey, but she’s good,” Audrey affirmed.
I said, “Since I only get my hair cut every six months, I don’t mind paying that much. I even give her a fifteen dollar tip to try and rearrange my person.”
“Fifteen bucks! Jesus! That’s outrageous.”
“Yeh, but if I pay a hundred bucks over a year, that’s less than you do paying thirteen every month or so.”
Anyway, that was the end of our conversation that time, but Walt and I became better acquainted when he began riding one of the less technologically advanced side-by side bikes at about the same time I did—around ten thirty in the morning, a time when most of the geriatrics like us are in the gym, getting the misery out of the way. Plus, having somebody to talk to while pedaling helps kill the excruciating boredom and pain of solitary exercise, which I usually try to ease by working the crossword puzzle.
Walt and I have begun to be almost confidants. Everybody knows him, comes up to his bike. Some of the middle-aged guys refer to him as “trouble.” “How’s trouble doing today?” they’ll ask, smirking at Walt’s nosy shenanigans. Most of these people have been and are still standoffish with me, uncomfortable kidding like cornballs, which I refuse to play into. Sometimes Walt will try and introduce me to somebody who has observed my strangeness over the years, but they are wary. Walt is a kind of celebrity in here, and I enjoy being his sidekick and admire his nerviness.
For instance, the other morning he observed a guy walking up and down the rows of aerobic machines, going around the Nordic Tracks and then in front of the treadmills and then behind the stationary bikes, seemingly either spying on oblivious panting workout nuts or observing the machines. Later, when he passed by us, Walt, having finished wiping down his bike, engaged the man, and asked, “What are you doing, pacing up and down along those machines—queer hunting?”
The man, middle-aged and togged out in designer workout attire, was literally speechless, could not muster an answer, and abruptly left, visibly shook up. We’ve never seen him since.
“Maybe he comes in here at an hour he’s sure you won’t be here,” I told Walt, who didn’t seem too remorseful at what he’d said.
“I was just kidding,” Walt confessed.
“But you didn’t know the guy, Walt. You can’t say shit like that to strangers.”
“Well, he should have known I was kidding,” Walt maintained. “Hell, I don’t give a damn if he’s a queer or not.”
“He didn’t know that. He probably thinks you’re a loony homophobe, affiliated with those assholes running for president, carrying on about the goddamn bible.”
“Well, if I ever see him again, I guess I’ll apologize and explain I was kidding.” §
Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., where he lives with his rescue dog, Wilbur. For more of his work, visit his website, dellfranklin.com, where this article first appeared.
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.
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.
by Dell Franklin
Cam, beyond movie-star handsome, has the rehearsed, dazzling smile of a born-to-be winner of unprecedented narcissism with dollar signs dangling like blinking neon.
Cam Newton, you marvelous beast, us white folks so want black folks like you all to act like us, be like us, you know, more reserved, carefully spoken, modest, inhibited, supposedly respectful of opponents and fans and especially the institutions that for centuries, as a black man, gave you the royal shaft. I mean, it gets under our skin like a painful itch that won’t go away when we see a super-humanly talented black dude like yourself brim with confidence, strut your stuff, disdain our cultural traditions, conquer the stage of the most exalted sport in our realm—football.
It’s kind of like when the great Muhammad Ali conquered the then most exalted sport in the entire world back in the 1960s—boxing.
“I am the greatest!” Ali exclaimed with righteous fury as he danced around the ring, his opponent either crumpled on the canvas or blear-eyed on his stool. “I am champion of the world!”
And he was.
“I am beautiful,” Ali boasted. And to women, and I suppose white women, too—tsk tsk—he was. But to white men he was a source of bitter resentment and hateful anger that this cocky, uppity nigger, who was once Cassius Clay, had converted to Islam and changed his name to Ali and was knocking out and embarrassing white pugs all over the place, clowning and mocking them as he did so, showboating, and not saying it, but implying, “IN YOUR FACE, WHITEY!”
***
Cam’s got it down, like he made a study of it, first things first flashing a Magic Johnson-like smile to deter all negative thoughts, almost as if he talked to the Magic man who told him to keep on smiling, brother, and there ain’t nothin’ they can do, you’ll get ads, ads and ads and ads, and the kids’ll love yah, it’s hard to resist a smile, bro’, no matter how phony your spiel.
Thing is, Magic’s smile is utterly spontaneous and all encompassing while oozing sincerity and a nameless joy at living that includes everybody. And Cam, beyond movie-star handsome, has the rehearsed, dazzling smile of a born-to-be winner of unprecedented narcissism with dollar signs dangling like blinking neon.
So Cam, flashing that magnetic row of piano keys, mentions that as a black man, talented as he is, bigger than life that he is (kind of like Wilt and Shaq), he scares people, and I suppose he means us whiteys, because black folks sure as hell ain’t gonna be scared, and shouldn’t be, because, like Ali, he is theirs!
But he’s different than Ali in that although Ali’s clowning, mocking, poetry spewing and boasting and joshing with and scolding the press for disbelieving his beliefs and feats was part of an act; he did it with a twinkle in his eye, and a personality and wit so contagious, so endearing, you just had to love the guy. Ali had everybody in the press room in stitches half the time, was beyond comfortable on stage—in his glory, in fact—like a great comedian who had the audience transfixed on his every next word.
Cam, on stage, is a tortured, cringe-worthy attempt at acting that an acting teacher and class would crucify. Back a few seasons ago, when the Panthers were losing, his overly distraught sap sessions after losses were maudlin drivel, his moping, his blaming of himself, so uncharacteristic of an egomaniac used to total, unquestioned dominance and constant adulation.
This whole shtick, or schlock, is embarrassing. What’s more, unlike Ali, he is boring, like a knockout beauty queen so pursued and placed on an untouchable pedestal there was never time to form a real personality outside of fielding adulation and toady behavior from hopeful hat-in-hand suitors.
The trouble with a lot of athletes of his ilk.
Even his act of ripping off the Superman cape and joggling his head and saluting and giving away footballs to children after touchdowns seems a calculated PR move, the first act causing the squeamish emperors of the league in their luxury booths to wince at the over-the-top showmanship, but then to swoon with approval at the big black Adonis handing a football to a little white kid, another trick to make one think the NFL owners are good guys and not greedy criminals, that the entire bloodsucking organization of zillionaires and its employees are about humanity and community.
When Newton talks about being scary, does he mean big and black scary? You know, like the terrifying visage of a scowling Sonny Liston back in the 1960s, when Ali called him “The Big Ugly Bear?” Or Mike Tyson, slaughtering opponents with a cold-blooded calm, his face a mask of evil intent?
Come on, dude, who do you think you’re kidding? Ali scared white folks because he represented what was happening in all of sports—the black man taking over because he was fiercer, hungrier, more dynamic, bigger, faster, and goddammit, whether you like it or not, in many cases, smarter! And rubbing it in on the white hordes.
Black athletes were coming. They dominated Olympics track and field, baseball, football, basketball, and boxing. Marciano was gone and we had Ali, Frazier, Holmes. In baseball, Musial, Williams and DiMaggio were gone, and besides Mickey Mantle, we had Mays, Aaron, Clemente, Frank Robinson. And in basketball it was already confirmed black men reigned over white inferiors.
Most of those great black athletes were ingrained to remain humble and duty-bound appreciative for white club owners to give them a chance and in some cases were referred to as “Uncle Toms.”
But not Ali. His was an individual sport, and he was the greatest, was champion of the world, and although there is no proof whatsoever that this man who employed Ferdie Pacheco as his doctor and Angelo Dundee as his trainer had a problem with white people, he was telling the rest of us with the ferocity of a roaring lion, “I am a black Muslim man, I am not fighting your stupid war, I’m seein’ black brothers getting killed by the bushel, so, In Your Face, Whitey!”
Cam Newton, you ain’t scarin’ nobody, and your act is so easy to see through that the more you win, and the longer you’re on the stage, the easier it’s going to be see what a complete phony you are, cheesy smile and all.§
Dell Franklin is a passionate sports enthusiast and writer who lives in Cayucos, Calif., where he laments the growing cancer of entitled pro athletes in clubhouses around the nation. More of his essays are available at dellfranklin.com.
by Jason Vest
Iowa Voters To Trump: You’re Not Exactly Fired, But We Really Like The Cruz And Rubio Apprentices
GOP Establishment Hopes Trump’s Public Mulling About ‘Buying a Farm‘ Indicates Subconscious Death Wish
Trump Now Claims He Mixed Up Fox News Women Who Might Pose Threat To His Campaign; Really Meant To Try To Bully Palin Into Submission
Trump: Expectations of Decisive Iowa Win, and With It Actual Explosion of Rich Lowry and Bill Kristol’s Heads, Dashed; Republicans and Democrats Alike Rue Lack of Latter, Start Plotting on How to Go Dave Brat On Editors They Both Hate
Cruz Gracious In Defeating Iowa Ethanol Lobby: Says Corn Has Its Place
Rubio To Jeb: My Neocons Are Better Than Your Neocons
Rubio To Christie: My Establishment Hedge Fund Donors Are Better Than Your Establishment Hedge Fund Donors
Cruz To Rubio And Christie: I Don’t Know If It’s More Amazing That My Establishment Hedge Fund Donors Are Better Than Both Y’All’s, Or That I Get Their Money AND Get To Be An “Anti-Establishment Candidate”
Rubio: My Strong Third-Place Finish Is So Much Easier to Understand Than My Three Houses
Sanders to Clinton: Triangulate This
Clinton: Of the 1%, Winning by .3%
Clinton’s Future: Looking Like Rahm Emmanuel’s Present?
Sanders: To The Concord Station
Sanders To Channel Upton Sinclair: I, President: A True Story of the Future shortly forthcoming; likely sequel I, Candidate for President; and How I Got Licked Scheduled for 2017 Release
Cruz: God, Goldwater, and Goldman Sachs
Jeb’s Hail-Mary Schiavo Ad Only Latest Reflection of Bush Campaign Being Brain-Dead And On Life-Support
Carson: Craps Pants In Debates and In Iowa; Flees to Bush and Rubio’s Dirty State To Rinse Stains
Jesus to Carson: You Remind Me Of Another Time I Had To Deliver Some Bad News About Contest Prospects
O’Malley: Being In This One Percent Blows
Christie: Eating It In Iowa, Saving Room for New Hampshire
Santorum: Living Up To The Name In Shitty Numbers, Gets Flushed
Huckabee: I (Heart) Duggars
Fiorina: Like Hewlett-Packard When She Ran It: On The Cutting Edge Of Marginality
Paul: Dude, Where’s My Utopian Voter Bloc?
Kasich: Apparently Having Been an Ax-Wielding Budget Zealot in the Reagan and Gingrich Revolutions and Current Governor of Ohio Only Gets You Two Bits and a Cup of Coffee in Iowa
Gilmore: Less Than Zero. §
Jason Vest agrees with H.L. Mencken that it’s almost impossible to make a career in politics without embracing the ignoble and vulgar.
by Dell Franklin
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!
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.
Tex & I were gently drinking another
day away on Teri’s front lawn, when
the time came for him to walk the
block or so to work. But we yearned
for still more sodden camaraderie,
so it was decided that if I could throw
three plastic figures of small black
children — which happened to be
handy — into Tex’s shirt pocket, he
would quit his job, and we could
continue our revelry. One, two, three,
Tex was unemployed, and we lay
back joyously reveling in the magical
figurines and the thrill of ambivalence.
—Todd Young
