Friday, August 17, 2012

Play Ball. It's Tradition.

My Dad – who grew up loving baseball and was a pretty good pitcher – was on the verge of playing for St. Louis when he was drafted into the army. Dad came out of World War II with a bad shrapnel wound to the head that forever ruined his pitching and, consequently, his dream of playing in the major leagues. But Dad never lost his love for baseball.  He also loved watching football.  He couldn’t care less about basketball because a) he never went to college and b) he was kind of an Archie Bunker, and there were just too many non-white players in basketball.
Mom, sadly, had no interest in sports. She was clueless.  If I had told her the Indians were playing baseball in December and were wearing brown and orange uniforms, she would have believed it.  The only time she noticed a televised game was when there something else she wanted to watch on TV; then it was a source of profound irritation.  During a football game she’d ask, “How much longer is this going to be on?” and then Dad and I would tell her, “Don’t worry, they just sounded the two-minute warning.” Of course, then we’d laugh like hell when Mom actually thought that meant “two minutes.”
Sadly, not one of his three children inherited Dad’s athleticism.  My brother hated all sports; I’m not sure why, but I think it’s because playing in any sport requires some degree of focus in order to not die, and Bill has never had any focus.  When he was a child, he would throw objects up into the air and watch them plummet to earth, ultimately landing on top of his skull (maybe could that be considered a legitimate sport? Bonk Ball?). Bill also loved getting wasted (buzz ball?) and finding creative ways to elude law enforcement (fuzz ball?)*. As for my sister – well, she always got bored too quickly.  The day I took Dad to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, Barb spent the afternoon shopping and dining on pancakes.  Barb likes to tell me that perhaps she would consider sitting through a game if the players had to juggle knives while running the bases, or if the outfielders had to catch the ball while whistling and hopping on one foot.  (Apparently, Barb has no interest in a sporting event unless there’s some element of immediate danger and/or personal humiliation involved.)
Out of the three kids, I came the closest to sharing Dad’s appreciation of our national pastime. I wasn’t athletic enough to be much good at playing softball and baseball (although I enjoyed it – translation - it was one of the few gym activities that didn’t make me puke), but I was a great spectator.  I loved watching baseball on TV with my father, and can remember how much fun I had going downtown to the old stadium to see players like Joe Charboneau, Buddy Bell, Andre Thornton and Dennis Eckersley. Oh, and I was totally in love with Duane Kuiper (as were most of the girls at Willowick Junior High), but he ran off and married somebody else, so it’s best we don’t talk about him again. 
Now, given this was Cleveland, I probably don’t have to tell you that the Indians sucked back then (for any out-of-towners reading this, it’s safe to assume that if a sports team was in Cleveland, it had way many more bad years than good).  It was considered a decent year if we finished in fifth place. Also, the Indians didn’t have the luxury of playing in a park that was intended for baseball, like Jacobs Field (sorry, but I’m not calling it Progressive Field, now or ever, and you can't make me). Back then the Tribe played baseball in a football stadium, so with the exception of Opening Day or the weekend the Yankees were in town, the place was mostly a yawning sea of empty chairs dotted with an occasional cluster of drunken fans.  I can remember how easily my friends and I annoyed the crap out of centerfielder Rick Manning because we wouldn’t stop yelling insults from the bleachers.  Ah, those were the days.  We were young and we stupidly and optimistically believed a losing team could still perform miracles. Also, that’s where and when we finally got to drink beer (which probably accounted for much of the afore-mentioned stupidity/optimism).
Of course, baseball wasn’t always a bust. I did get to see Len Barker’s perfect game on television (and wrote about it in my diary because hey, even back then I knew I’d probably never see another one!).  I do recall 1995 and 1997 when the Indians went to the World Series … and even though the Tribe wasn’t victorious, this town finally got to be happy and optimistic (without having the “stupidly” attached to it).  Also, the Indians had really memorable, nice-guy players in the 90s: Orel Hershiser, Charlie Nagy, and Omar Vizquel, among others.  It was just a fun time to be a fan. 
Not for Dad, of course.  Dad didn’t watch sports to have “fun” in the traditional sense … he just loved to bitch, and he found reason to bitch about everybody, no matter how fleetingly fantastic they were.  There I’d be, cheering on Jim Thome during a season when he was trying for 50 homeruns, and Dad’s contribution was generally, “He’s too fat - they should get rid of him.”  Everybody was “awful,” “terrible,” “sickening,” or “pathetic.”  And yet... if a game was on television... he never missed it.  I think Dad somehow found tremendous joy in criticizing base-running, crotch-scratching millionaires.
(I, of course, am nothing like him, and I am certainly thankful for that.)
But Dad didn’t confine his rancor to baseball.  I watched football games with him as well – well, at least up until halftime.  Dad often missed the ends of Browns games because Sam Rutigliano or Bill Belichick or (insert any name of a luckless head coach) was “awful,” “terrible,” “sickening” or “pathetic.”  (If those guys had needed to run anywhere, I’m sure “too fat” would have been thrown in there as well.) Usually Dad would fly into a rage over the Browns’ predictable “run-run-pass” offense and, fearing he’d have a heart attack, would spend the second half of the games puttering outside in his garage.  Then, when it was all over, he’d wander in and casually ask me who won.  If the Browns won, he’d grunt and saunter back outside to rake a leaf, shovel dog poop or avoid my mother. But if the Browns lost, then he’d laugh sadistically and shout, “Good!” “Good for ‘em!  That’s good! I hope they lose every game! They’re ______!”  (Insert “awful,” “terrible,” “sickening” or “pathetic.”)
And no, football wasn’t always a bust.  We never made it to the big show during my conscious lifetime, but we came close. Those were exciting times. Of course, then somebody from another team would intercept the ball in the end zone or drive their offense 98 yards down the field and break our hearts all over again, but it was so much fun thinking “this time” would be different.
I guess I got to thinking about all this today when I was driving to work and heard the latest Indians’ commercial on the radio … it has something to do with “tradition.” I think maybe this marketing move is replacing the “What If?” campaign we heard all summer... at least until it became apparent the end of that sentence was, “the Indians crash and burn again this year?” But seriously – “tradition” – well, I’m kinda thinking they should have thought that one through.  Cleveland teams have a tradition of losing, and often losing at the last possible minute. Cleveland fans have a tradition of being amazing resilient and incredibly enthusiastic about mediocre to poor professional teams. We are a people who, in the face of awful, terrible, sickening and pathetic reality, still show up and believe that somehow it’s all going to change one day.  As we say goodbye to another disappointing season of baseball and try to believe another new quarterback is going to be the Chosen One who finally lifts our curse, we mentally prepare ourselves for yet more disappointment … because yes, that is our tradition.**

*My apologies to our esteemed law enforcement community. You guys are the greatest, and I’m sorry Bill put you through hell.
**Well, until this year.  This year we’re going to win the whole thing. I just know it.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Brenda, Barry and Blossom

"All my dreams are dead."  

This was my reaction upon receiving my ticket in the mail to see Barry Manilow at Blossom - a ticket for a last-row seat in the pavilion.  I was heart-broken and totally convinced that God hated my guts. Did He not know that Barry was the love of my life?  I had posters of this blue-eyed, golden-haired, sequin-suited superstar taped all over my bedroom walls. I played his "Live" album until my parents developed an irrational hatred of the man.  (To be fair, how many times can a reasonable person listen to the "You Deserve a Break Today" theme from McDonald's?) And that ticket had cost me a whopping nine bucks...money I had carefully saved up from babysitting my next-door neighbor's kids (one of whom reads this blog, I might add - you know who you are, Lynn!).  I had washed dishes for that money, pulled weeds for that money, and endured Dad's endless criticism of my lack of weed-pulling skills for that money. I suffered, man.  I suffered for Manilow.  And this was my reward? I deserved to sit in the front row.  No ... rather ... I deserved to be backstage, groveling at the feet of my first love, because of course nobody in the universe loved him more than I did.  Nobody.  Not his friends, not his mother, and not the God who created him. 



Of course, this was 1978, and I was 15 at the time.  I kept a diary back then, and those exact words - "all my dreams are dead" - still haunt me. Why?  Well, it's disturbing on way too many levels. For one thing, the writing was so embarrassingly bad. (Oh look, here's another diary entry where I dream of someday growing up and winning "bunches and bunches of Pulitzer Prizes.") For another, the dead dream phrase was not exaggerated.  That summer before my very first concert - Barry Manilow at Blossom Music Center - I thought of Barry during every waking moment. I counted the days until the show.  When it came to the sum total of every conscious fantasy I had, Barry was the one, the only, the beginning and the end. I was obsessed...consumed...and completely out of my mind.  

And, in 1978, no performer was bigger than Barry.  He sold out three nights at Blossom - including the lawn - to the tune of 60,000 seats. His songs were all over the radio; his album sales were insane; he even had his own television specials. (Back in the 70s, our "reality" TV was something called the "variety show," during which truly talented people would entertain us.  Those were some good days.) 

Even at school, Barry was a topic of conversation.  He was cool because he was uncool.  It's hard to explain, but in that era there seemed to be a backlash to just about everything. If Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were popular, disco was its opposite, and so disco became popular.  And if disco was popular, singer-songwriters like Manilow, John Denver, Neil Diamond and The Carpenters were disco's opposite, and so they became popular.  I don't think a lot of people understand how our society's collective mood swings back then contributed to a really interesting decade in music.

Because Barry sang songs that appealed to the vulnerable and insecure, many vulnerable and insecure teenagers loved him.  However, many equally vulnerable and insecure teenagers (who were presumably ashamed of these qualities) hated him, so the pro-Barry and no-Barry camps occasionally clashed.  My most vivid memory of this particular pimple popping involved a jukebox.  At North High, we had a commons area which served as a lunch room.  In the mornings, however, this was where the kids met to socialize and frantically copy each other's homework.  It was an area that had become increasingly attractive because the school had purchased a couple of arcade games: one was video football, the other Space Invaders.  Video games were brand new back then, and students used to get to school extra early just to have a shot at playing them.  Consequently, the area was constantly packed with kids pumping quarters into the jukebox that sat nearby.  (If there is anyone younger than 40 out there reading this, a "jukebox" was a great big box that contained something called "records" which used to contain actual "songs.")

As for the students, we pretty much fell under one of three labels:  jocks, browns or burnouts.  Jocks ... well, they were the popular kids, the athletes, the ones everyone else avoided.  Browns were the smart/creative kids ... the A students, the band members, the drama crowd, the ones everyone else avoided.  And then, finally, there were the burnouts ... the bad kids, the druggies, the ones who were always in trouble, and yes - the ones everyone else avoided.  


So ... my friends and I - "browning" our lives away at our usual table by the window - would listen to David Bowie, Boston, and the soundtrack from "Grease" with little complaint, but every morning - EVERY morning - we had to hear Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" played with sickening repetition.  To hear that thing played six times before the opening bell was not unusual; I think the burnouts (who surprisingly had lots of money) may have been trying to brainwash us.  For me, brain-bleeding was more accurate  Fortunately, we had successfully petitioned to have Barry Manilow's "Ready To Take A Chance Again" added to the box, so we decided (oh, who am I kidding, I decided), that for every time we had to listen to Floyd, they were going to listen to Manilow.  Well ... it didn't quite work out that way.  The very first week we tried to do this, the Floyd followers responded by banging the jukebox against the wall, causing Barry's record to skip.  Naturally, when Floyd came on, we did the same thing.  I vaguely recall this episode escalating into a shouting match with at least six students playing tug-of-war with the jukebox.  Sadly - but justifiably - we all got yelled at, and both Barry Manilow and Pink Floyd were forever banned from our  listening pleasure.  (Sorry, Barry - I meant well.)


At home, my parents just kept telling themselves my Manilow addiction was just some sort of hideous phase that was bound to magically end when I started acting like a normal teenager.  I'm not sure what a "normal" teenager would have been to my Mom and Dad, because they were constantly at war with my older brother and sister.  I think, though, my parents cherished some sort of twisted fantasy in which I would be this nice, stable kid who got A's, moved out of the house at 18, got married to some equally stable man and had a bunch of stable kids. When all that happened, maybe then I'd finally stop playing the "Live" album.  


But my Dad - who knew I was crazy - stupidly offered to drive me and my friends to Blossom to see Barry, which was kind of a big deal because none of us were old enough to drive yet.  He even sat in the parking lot during the show and waited for us.  I can still remember the sweet sound of Dad cussing non-stop when it took him two hours to get out of the Blossom parking lot, which embarrassed the hell out of me in front of my friends.  Dad sure could swear. He died in 2010. 


It's strange ... looking back on it all ... that I don't remember much from the actual show.  I'm pretty sure Barry was there - in all his gold-studded, white-jumpsuited glory - but I think the serotonin rush in my brain might have brought on a seizure that would explain the memory loss.  My diary entry from the day after isn't much help ... it's mostly incoherent babblings from somebody who might have just experienced the Rapture. But, in the end, all the suffering -- as only a 15-year-old can suffer -- was worth it.  


Here in 2012, it's 34 years later and yes, I have a ticket to see Barry Manilow at Blossom Music Center tonight (Aug. 2).  I never stopped being a fan ... probably because Barry never stopped performing, and I never stopped enjoying his performances.  I'm too old to care if Barry's cool. When it comes to temperature, I only care if I'm cool (especially at an outdoor venue in August).  My dreams and Barry have pretty much parted company over these last 34 years.  But tonight, when I sit back and listen to "Mandy," "Weekend In New England" and "I Write The Songs" one more time, I can close my eyes and, for a short precious while, pretend it's 1978 when nothing else mattered.  I know I'll have plenty of company during my time travel; I think Barry still sells out so many of his tour stops because the world is full of people who need to leave 2012 for awhile.  Tonight I'll be surrounded by lots of people who, like me, "deserve a break today."  We can all listen to his music and be 15 again. 

And maybe tonight I can even pretend that my Dad is still waiting for me in the parking lot. 

P.S.  Barry is still creating some incredible music.  Check out his latest single from "15 Minutes," his latest and greatest CD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C72-IBJ1oxg