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Linus apparently played kickball for the first time ever this week in his gym class. I advised him to call for the Slow and Bouncy next time he played.
I loved playing kickball when I was in grade school gym class. Our school, Carl Lundgren Elementary, had the largest gym of any grade school in Topeka. Nobody knows why, but it did. The far walls made for a kind of Fenway Park-type feel, except instead of the Green Monster, we had the Pink Monster. That’s right, they painted the walls of our gym pink for about three years, because of the theory that the color pink would sedate us during our lunch time. Seriously, that’s what they told us. Other Pipeline People were there and can bear witness to these events. Testify!
The first kickball we ever used in gym class was a semi-deflated volleyball. That was our gym teacher Mr. Frownfelter’s idea, and it worked well other than the fact that it would sting bare skin if you caught a real screamer, which always happened at least once a game to somebody, sometimes even Mr. Frownfelter. It was what you would call a live ball. Power kickers flourished.
Then, the Nerf company released their first Nerf Soccer Ball when I was in fourth or fifth grade. Mr. Frownfelter rolled it out to us one day to our immense curiosity. It was different; softer on the bare skin, perhaps, but heavy, too. It would knock the wind out of you if you didn’t protect your gut on a hard kick.
Most of all, it was a dead ball. You just couldn’t elevate it enough to carry to the Pink Monster…or so we thought. One morning I made my Slow and Bouncy call and Frownfelter grooved one right down the middle. The rest, as they say, is history. Sadly though, that was the pinnacle of my kickball career, and I was considered a has-been by the sixth grade. But now my son can avenge me.
In case you were wondering, as I was, when kickball was invented, history is not definitive. Some say it was the Romans who invented kickball. Some say it wasn’t. Others say kickball was invented by Allied Army troops during the North African campaign of 1942-1943. Still others say kickball was invented in the Carl Lundgren Elementary gym sometime in 1980. Learn the real answer here.
In fact, inspired by that bit of history, I’ve started a movie script about a Victory-style kickball game between the Germans and the Australian 9th Division, victims of the siege at Tobruk. Rommel leads the bad guys, Leslie Morshead the good guys.
This particular scene begins with the opening roll of the climactic final match. It’s dawn, and the faraway dunes appear to have a blazing orange fire deep within them as the low sun emerges. The exhortations of the crowd, a caterwaul of drunken, leathery Germans and Aussies, echo off the shifting sands. Seventeen camels are lined up nose-to-tail in a semi-circle to form an outfield fence. The camera zooms in close to Morshead as he stands alone with the ball in the middle of the infield, his sweaty brow furrowed with determination as the first rays of the sun cross his face.
Standing in the kicker’s box is German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox. After taking a large swig of beer out of his boot (Rommel was a barefoot kicker), Rommel digs in. Morshead toes the rubber, discards his freshly emptied Foster’s can, and cocks his arm to deliver the opening roll.
Suddenly, Rommel explodes out of his kicking crouch, waving his arms and screaming “Nein! Nein! Ich bin’s blitzkrieg kraut Slow and Bouncy! Achtung, baby!”
Morshead, incensed at Rommel’s use of the word “baby”, takes a couple steps off the roller’s mound towards Rommel and says “Crikey, mate. I reckon you want it to bounce like a wallaby!” Then Morshead hurls the ball at Rommel, who deftly pulls out his Luger and shoots the ball in mid-air. The deflated ball flies many feet away and lands at the feet of a goat, who begins to eat it.
Morshead, aghast at no longer having the ball that was used by his men to invent this wonderful game of kickball, the ball that would forever allow him to be known as the Abner Doubleday of Kickball, goes quite literally insane with rage. He screams the horrible scream of a man who has had his ball taken away, whose two sexual moments in the last 18 months were both with camels. His hands outstretched, Morshead is across the sand and perilously close to gripping Rommel’s neck before any of the stupefied spectators can respond.
But Rommel is too fast. He has been holding a fistful of sand since he stepped into the box, just in case he needed to blind a fielder trying to make a play as he ran the bases. But current events dictate a more prudent use, and Rommel unleashes a desert campaign right into Morshead’s eyes.
“Aaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhh, mate!”, cries Morshead as he falls to his knees. “My eyes!” Some blokes nearby douse his eyes with Foster’s to wash out the sand, but when he finally regains his vision he sees the German tanks rolling off into the desert. It was over. The Germans had found a way out of defeat yet again, but more important, the Allied North Africa corps lost its only ball in the process.
Sir Leslie Morshead would die in 1959, supposedly of cancer. But those who were there that day remember the deafening echo of Rommel’s Luger, the sickening thud of the deflated ball as it hit the sun-baked desert, and the soft bray of the goat who then dined on it, and know that was when Sir Leslie Morshead was mortally wounded.
I’m trying to think of a historical parallel to O.J. Simpson, and I don’t think there is one. He’s simply the most famous pariah ever. Yeah, even more than Hitler, and I’m prepared to argue that point if anybody wants to go. The real point being, the O.J. story is perhaps the most bizarre of the last 20 years. I mean, his murder victim’s parents just published a book the murderer wrote, in order to fulfill his sentence in a civil proceeding. You can’t make stuff like that up. Oh, and the murderer won the Heisman Trophy and was in Naked Gun and had a slow-speed chase broadcast on national TV. I hope it’s the only trial verdict I’ll ever hear in my life that will make me remember where I was when I heard it. (Wendy’s drive-through in Roseville, MN.)
Among the many unbelievable aspects of the O.J. Simpson saga is that it isn’t over yet.
Pipeline Person KellyR just sent me a link to this story in Rolling Stone, which features details about a full Led Zeppelin reunion in November. Of course a “full” reunion isn’t possible considering John Bonham’s condition has not improved, but it is noteworthy in itself that John Paul Jones will be playing with Page and Plant again. And hey, it’s pretty storybook that the dead drummer’s son will sit in for him on drums. I don’t know if Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey have kids, but if so it’s possible we could one day see The Who, only it will be progeny of the original members. It’s my understanding that’s the deal with Australian Pink Floyd, that it’s a band comprised entirely of offspring of original Pink Floyd members, all conceived during various Australian tours.
Anyway, if you read that Rolling Stone story you will see that this is in fact called “what must surely be the Holy Grail of rock reunions.” When I read that, I immediately thought of one of my favorite Onion pieces.
Our children have become fond of talking about how “stupid” other things and people are, and often feel compelled to describe how much they “hate” something. I’d like for them to use different words, less so for politeness and healthy worldview than creative vocabulary, which is a must. But even a laissez-faire language parent like me finds continued use of coarse language by children to be tiresome.
Jane felt the same way and actually came up with a plan: Each time one of them said “stupid” or “hate”, they had to put a quarter in the Stupid Hate Jar. Although I generally support the Stupid Hate Jar, I’m a bit torn about its likely success. On the one hand, money is still largely an abstract concept, especially for Lily. Linus knows and values money, but his life hasn’t reached a point where he’s thinking about uses for his money ahead of time, so he’s never all that concerned with acquiring more or giving up some that he already has.
And, I’ve never been one for language regulation in parents. I mean, yes, kids and adults alike need to understand there is a difference between public and private language, but is an authoritarian ban really the best way to make that happen? Spalding Gray once wrote a terrific piece about the absurdity of the idea of banned language, and whether it was OK for his 12 year-old to say the word “shit”. He concluded it was, then several years later jumped from the ferry into the NY Harbor and killed himself after taking that same son earlier in the day to see the movie “Big Fish”. True story, and I think the meaning is clear: Spalding Gray is dead.
I suppose it’s OK because we haven’t “banned” the language, and thus turned a taboo into a temptation. We’re merely setting up an economic incentive program for little people who don’t participate in the economy, but describing it in grave tones with intonations of shame and possible karmic doom that might capture their attention for 45 seconds.
Immediately after it appeared Linus and Lily started calling it the Stupid Hate Jar, which to be fair is the name Jane and I gave it, so they get a pass for using the words to actually refer to the jar. It is a Stupid Hate Jar. They spit the words out, full of contempt and spit. “Oh, there’s the Stupid Hate Jar.” So there’s a cathartic release for them which may or may not actually work. Our friend Rhonda operates on that theory, giving her kids one swear word per day, within what I would call network TV limits minus “Bitch!”, for obvious reasons. I don’t know what her kids choose, but whenever Linus is there he picks “hell”. “Oh hell, this soup is hot!”
I guess I’m ambivalent about the rule. While I haven’t crossed into actively promoting the use of vulgarity by my children, I’ve long said kids will use bad language anyway. Let my children be the ones who wield these verbal rapiers with discretion and precision alike.
Check out this great Paul Demko piece in City Pages about Norman Coleman’s early days as a vocal Vietnam protester at Hofstra, and how they connect to the Norm Coleman of today.
I finally got tired of looking at the pre-installed wallpaper photos that came with our computer, and commenced using the internets to trade up. This is the first site I went to, and it was so good I just kept adding wallpaper photo after wallpaper photo, and truthfully I haven’t stopped yet. I have a wallpaper addiction problem. Animals, waterfalls, beaches, classical architecture, I’ve got it all, and I see a random slice of it every five minutes.
Damn, there are some fantastic photos out there to use, and a lot of the people have multiple pictures available, which is nice when you run into somebody who focuses on a place you love like the Oregon coast. I’ve come to accept that there are many wonderful places in the world I will never see, and a great photograph is probably as close as I’ll come to some of them.
Blitzen Trapper is playing the Turf Club in St. Paul on Wednesday, September 26. Tickets look like they will be $8, but they aren’t on sale yet. I’m wondering if any Pipeline People of the local persuasion would be interested in attending that show. I’m hoping it will reach official Pipeline Outing status, which is when three or more Pipeline People are in the same place.
I like Blitzen Trapper’s new record Wild Mountain Nation about as much as Pitchfork did, which is to say a lot. And there’s some pretty decent YouTube stuff of theirs, too. Turf Club! In fact, I like the record so much it looks like I’m choosing Blitzen Trapper over Metric, who’s playing First Avenue on the same night. Why?!
September is turning into an unexpected live music flurry. Jane, her friends Rhonda and Debbie, and Debbie’s 13 year old son Billy Joe are going to see the Flaming Lips at a crazy new suburban live music nightclub in Maplewood called Myth. Jane, Debbie and Billy Joe, plus me and Linus, saw the Flaming Lips last year at the Minnesota State Fair, a very different venue. I would have to say that concert was one of the top 3 I’ve ever seen, and I think Jane and Debbie, who have seen a fair number of shows, both agreed. So they know what a Flaming Lips show might be like in a smaller club, though who knows what the band is doing 12 months later.
Rhonda, on the other hand, has very little experience with shows, and for the most part her musical world stopped in the 1980’s. When I asked her if she’d seen any live shows before, she thought for a moment and mentioned Air Supply at some kind of amusement park. So this is going to be an interesting experience for her, not just to see a “modern rock show”, but to see a band that places a premium on audience entertainment and visual stimulation. And besides that, a band that just really kicks ass. She borrowed several of our Flaming Lips CDs to learn the songs. I don’t know that she’ll necessarily become a regular listener of newer music, but at the very minimum she will now know the song, “She Don’t Use Jelly”. I expect her to have a pretty good time. My advice to her and everybody going to shows is: wear earplugs.
Billy Joe, for his part, is getting out to more and more live music, which I think is great for him and great for those of us who go with him. His last concert was Slayer and Marilyn Manson. His primary interest was in Slayer, who I’ve also seen (16 years ago) and thought was excellent. He was not attending the show on my recommendation, however. He came up with that on his own.
The end of the month concludes with LCD Soundsystem and Arcade Fire who are playing Roy Wilkens Auditorium in St. Paul on September 30th. I just bought the tickets via Ticketmaster, and I will just conclude the post now before I go on a 5 minute dirge about the “convenience fees” they charge. Better be a great show…
I was never what you’d call a WWII “buff”, but I definitely read a lot about it growing up. I could probably name about 20 different WWII fighter planes, and at some point probably built a glue-smeared scale model of most of them. I know where the Bulge happened. I know why the D-Day planes had special paint patterns. I know there was a real Pappy Boyington.
Despite all that fancy book learnin’, I didn’t really understand the totality of circumstances until I saw Saving Private Ryan. I had never seen such a graphic depiction of war, and specifically of D-Day. It gave me a whole new appreciation for what combatants endure, both during the battle and for all the time after it.
I’m looking forward to the Ken Burns documentary “The War” due to the subject matter involved, obviously. I have already heard multiple reviewers say this is probably the definitive piece ever done on WWII, and quite likely the best thing that will be on television this year. And I think Ken Burns’ body of work is pretty outstanding, given there will always be quibbles when you have to get the history of anything crammed into 14 hours. What’s not to like? The best film documentarian of our age just spent 7 years chronicling the definitive event in human history.
But I have another compelling reason to watch, because one of the four towns that are the focus of the film is Luverne, MN, where my wife and several of our friends grew up. It’s been a huge deal in Luverne, as they have hosted people like Tom Hanks for the world premier of the film this week. I know the place a little bit, and enjoy learning more about it’s history. It’s not every hometown that gets the Ken Burns Treatment, so that’s pretty cool.
I went to the PBS website and looked at some of the preview clips, in an effort to see if this was something Linus could watch. It’s pretty powerful stuff, something I see no particular reason to burden him with. I wouldn’t object to him taking an academic interest in it at his current age, as I did. But there’s just too much raw footage and direct, dramatic dialogue in some parts, which is really the whole point, that this isn’t the sanitized version of the war that largely existed until Saving Private Ryan.
Check out the clips, there’s about 25 minutes’ worth overall, some very good stuff.
Kingda ka
This is the roller coaster Brent posted about in the previous comment section. I had never heard of it before, but there is no question that this is the most intense amusement ride I have ever seen. I’m not really sure I could do it. It blasts you off to 128 mph to get up the hill. It’s nuts.
The header on Pipeline right now is from my kindergarten photo. Last night was the first time I had ever seen it. For some reason it is the only class photo missing from my parents’ books, and I just assumed it lost to the ages until a friend from grade school that I reconnected with at my reunion sent it to me along with other reunion photos. I thought that was pretty cool. Unfortunately he also sent our middle school class picture, which I would have preferred I never see again. The old header photo had been up awhile, and I figured I’d throw a part of this photo up till I came up with something else. I have good intentions to have more variety of headers, hopefully quality variety, but intentions never get me there as much as they should.
Yes, I am in the picture. No, I am not the kid with the glasses.
The old picture was taken at KellyR’s wedding on the Oregon coast. NateD is standing at the mic, giving it a last test minutes before a wedding that concluded exactly as the sun dipped into the water. It was a great moment and an incredible visual scene that unfolded gradually as we emerged out of the brush of the camp and looked across the sand towards him. I wish the photo wasn’t so washed out, something I attribute firstly to lack of skill and equipment on my part, and also the fact that I’m shooting into the sun. I didn’t have this impression at the time, but seeing the photo always makes me think of those atomic tests they used to do in the Pacific.
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