Anti-Intellectual Property

How's Your Manager's WOR?

It used to be, the only baseball statistics that counted were fairly simple: runs, hits, RBIs, batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, ERA, strikeouts and the like. Then, SABR came along, and Bill James and Moneyball, and suddenly we saw a proliferation of hybrid and derivative statistics like OPS -- on base percentage plus slugging percentage -- that may or may not compute in a dimensional analysis but are useful gauges of hitting prowess.

It's a struggle to keep up with all the new permutations and combinations that the stats geeks come up with to measure performance on the field -- what OPS is considered good, anyway? -- and I say that as a poser of a stats geek myself. Then, there's further analysis you can do once you fold in the business aspects of the game. Player payroll, stars' salaries per season, attendance figures, and season ticket equivalents all serve to indicate the health of a franchise.

In the competitive, metrics-oriented world of sports business, performance on the field is inevitably compared to ownership's investment in player salaries. Analysts originally began by measuring payroll per win. Then, some smart guy figured out that, if a team can win 60 games in a 162-game season even with a roster of Triple-A stiffs, the player payroll should be divided not by total wins but by wins in excess of 60 to determine spending efficiency.

(The ghost of Marvelous Marv Throneberry will thank you not to remind us of the New York Mets' magical 40-win inaugural season in 1962.)

Which brings us to managerial efficiency. If you or I were to manage a major league team -- which, after all, we do in our minds each time we watch a game -- how many wins would our team achieve, despite our indisputable incompetence? We need a baseline number in order to calculate managerial success as the number of wins over that figure.

Happily, the baseball gods have just bestowed an answer upon us. Today we learned that Washington Nationals manager Jim Riggleman reportedly took advantage of a rare winning stretch and super-.500 June record to insist that the Nationals GM Mike Rizzo pick up the manager's contract option for the following season. Rizzo, recalling the adage that the worst deal is the one that you make on someone else's timetable, and in any case we haven't seen July, August, or September yet, demured, and Riggleman resigned before a mid-season road trip.

Over 12 big-league seasons managing the Padres, Cubs, Mariners, and Nationals, Riggleman has compiled a .445 career winning percentage. I heard today on the radio (but have not verified myself) that this is the worst percentage in baseball history among managers who have managed during 12 MLB seasons or more. Multiply the .445 winning percentage by a 162-game season, and Jim Riggleman-managed teams have averaged 72 wins. This exceeds the 60-win bad-team baseline, to be sure, but enough 60-win seasons would doom a manager to a very short managerial career -- certainly, fewer than Riggleman's dozen seasons.

Riggleman's 2012 contract option with the Nationals reportedly carried a salary of $700,000. Presumably you can hire him next season to manage your team for the same, modest price. Or, you can bring in someone else with managerial experience for a bit more, as the Pittsburgh Pirates did this season by hiring former Colorado manager Clint Hurdle for about $1,000,000. Hurdle's career winning percentage in 7 seasons with the Rockies was .461, translating to 75 wins per season, or a WOR (Wins Over Riggleman) of 3. We seem to have established, based on absurdly limited data, that the Pirates paid $100,000 per WOR for their new manager.

(Indeed, 75 wins is a reasonable expectation for the P-Rats this year. Whether they overpaid or underpaid for Hurdle will be left as an exercise for the reader.)

Alternatively, Pittsburgh could have hired former Pirate, Phil "Scrap Iron" Garner, with a career WOR of 6, or Ken Macha, originally from Western PA, with an impressive, if shorter career WOR of 15. However, Macha's early career with the A's might be overvalued, in terms of WOR, with A's GM Billy Beane's stats-driven organization a more likely cause of the team's long-term success. Moreover, Macha had just come off a disappointing Brewers stint (WOR of 7).

Or, the Pirates could have hired a rookie manager with no established WOR, as the Brewers did in replacing Macha with Mike Scioscia's former assistant, Ron Roenicke. Roenicke faces a trial by fire. Brewers' GM Doug Melvin brought in front-line, free-agent starters Zack Greinke and Sean Marcum and kept slugger Prince Fielder for his contract year, widely assumed to be his last in Milwaukee. The expectations for the Brew Crew in 2011 are enormous, and it could be now or never -- which means that, for Roenicke, the only statistic that matters is WOL (Wins Over LaRussa).

Ghost Racers of the Ninja Apocalypse

That distinctive screaming, whirring, movie-sound-effects noise filling the air this weekend emanates from the Milwaukee Mile at State Fair Park, where the Milwaukee 225 IndyCar Series race is being run. It's kind of cool, actually, and so is the knowledge that it will go away later today.

Running errands yesterday in The Silver Zloty -- there was an old radio ad in which a happy-go-lucky doofus said, "We were just looking for some throw pillows for the loveseat in the breezeway," and my noble quest was about that important -- I meandered up National Avenue in West Allis, within livestock-sniffing distance of the State Fairgrounds, and found myself in sudden peril, chased by a pack of black-hooded ninjas on black racing bikes holding small, laser-guided handweapons, their black helmets of the latest curved design concealing their eyes as they bore down on me with extreme intent, as if in the opening sequence of a Japanese action comic. No? Well, that's what it sounded like yesterday in the vicinity of the Milwaukee Mile.

The funny part is, I was listening to golf on the car radio while being chased by the invisible ninjas. Sportscaster Sean McDonough hosted ESPN Radio's coverage of the U.S. Open from Congressional Country Club, at which young Jedi knight Rory McIlroy seeks to redeem himself in the eyes of the August Master. At the time, it seemed like a better listening option than weekend infomercials for living trusts.

Now, I've been known to give the radio medium its due. Baseball on the radio is a continuing joy. I've listened to Matt LePay's countless calls of "Touchdown, Wisconsin!" on Saturday afternoons (probably while shopping for curtain rods). I've listened to the Indy 500 on the radio in fascinated amazement at the tight broadcast production. I've even been involved in offbeat radio sports in a small way myself; back in the day, for example, I wore a highly attractive orange life preserver in a small powerboat as the remote engineer for college radio broadcasts of crew races, hanging on for dear life. (Pro tip: position yourself and your puffy vest as a noise baffle between the guy with the microphone and the outboard motor. Pro tip 2: if he falls overboard, immediately yell, "Let go of the mike!")

But, it's hard to do golf on the radio. Exactly how fascinating can the basic arithmetic of the leaderboard possibly be? How many times can McDonough & Co. describe Phil Mickelson's booming, errant drives into the next zip code and his wedge shots to 18 inches from 85 feet, and sound surprised? How critical is it whether McIlroy's proficient game stacks up to that of Tiger Woods, whose absence looms over this tournament like a ghostly apparition? Why do golf announcers whisper during the putts when they're probably sitting in a studio in Bristol, watching on the big screen like everyone else?

Yet on this day, the broadcast team provided an informative, workmanlike depiction of the sights and action from Congressional, never letting the audience wonder for a moment what Mickelson or McIlroy or their caddies might be thinking -- it seems that, according to all golf announcers throughout history, all pro golfers have "the courage of champions" -- as I sped through West Allis intersections and took hard corners trying to shake the racing ninjas in hot pursuit.

It suddenly occurred to me that I could slow down; I was not in mortal peril. The ninjas meant me no harm. It was merely Tiger and his entourage, trying to get close enough to The Silver Zloty to hear the latest updates on the leaderboard.

Neverread

Someone else will have to write the definitive review of Neil Gaiman's darkly comic fantasy novel Neverwhere, for I didn't make it past page seventy.

That's not Gaiman's fault. Neverwhere is a perfectly entertaining story, at least so far, with enough colorful whimsy and clever lines to fill a Monty Python movie. There's an Arthur Dent-type urban everyman as protagonist, a mysterious damsel in distress, two Looney Tunes villains whose urbane, Dickensian dialogue only heightens their cartoonish menace, a host of Doctor Dolittle-like transgressions of the animal-human communication barrier, and enough impressionistic descriptions of London proper and the London underground to fill a Fodor's guide.

To be sure, I'm not usually one for the fantasy genre. Fiction is already unreal enough for me; fantasy fiction seems like overegging the pudding. Moreover, having seen "Stardust" on the big screen and a recent, Neil Gaiman-penned "Doctor Who" episode on the small screen, I think I get Gaiman's recurring meme: normal meets fantastical at a mysterious frontier, to both scary and wonderous effect, à la Terry Gilliam. The spooky, semi-occult themes of fantasy lit don't often grab me -- but that's not what stopped me from reading this light, slightly subversive thriller in mid-noir.

Nor can I articulate any particular objection I had to Roy Blount, Jr.'s Hail, Hail, Euphoria!, the noted humorist's personal, crafty, scene-by-scene explication of the Marx Brothers classic flick, "Duck Soup", that kept me from finishing that book; nor can I recall why An Object of Beauty, Steve Martin's amiable novel of the modern art collecting world, failed to capture my eyeballs for more than a couple of chapters, for it too looked promising; as did a fascinating historical treatment of the New York City art world, The Pop Revolution by the late Alice Goldfarb Marquis.

I actually did finish The Year of the Hare, a wry picaresque tale set in Finland that became a touchstone of the 1970s back-to-nature movement. In truth, however, Arto Paasilinna's symbolism-laden allegory was less than 200 pages long and super-simple reading; it's one of those Euro-fables that your foreign language teacher might have assigned to your tenth grade class, were it not already in English. Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou, a starkly riotous and ribald African novel of similar brevity and simplicity, comprising a series of low episodes told to a street-smart Congolese bartender and relayed in his purported diaries, deserved a much better fate in my hands than it received, but halfway through fell victim to my all-too-brief attention span and manic library habits.

Therein lies the tale. Each trip to the public library is a festival of eyes-bigger-than-stomach reading avarice. The ritual begins with the guilt- and sadness-inducing return of a big bag o' books that I haven't even begun to read, despite initial excitement, earnest intentions, one or two online renewals, and a grace period, along with perhaps two or three books that I speed-read through page twenty or fifty in the last hour of their due date, just to get the sense of what I would be missing, before dropping them into the slot. There! Now I can focus on the two or three checked-out books still at home, left behind as it were, a sensibly small number of items awaiting my undivided attention. Naturally, as long as I've already spent the gas money to return the others, I'll just take a quick peek at the New Books section by the front door...and two and a half armloads later, I'm on my way.

Once home, I'm doomed, pile-driven to distraction by a looming, unread stack of erudition and expert storytelling on the oval side table in the living room, the defined check-out period for each item establishing an anxiety-inducing expiration date. There's compound guilt, of course: so long as I'm not reading them, I'm not experiencing the cozy, enlightened life of writerly illumination that I'd imagined they would confer upon me when I checked them out; so long as they're in my possession, I'm preventing another equally delusional County Library cardholder from checking them out with similar earnest intent. The cycle repeats.

Only one way to break this pernicious recurrence, this wretched "Groundhog Day" scenario, this Fortuna-thon: discover a new musical infatuation on YouTube to absorb my restless mental energies, and return all the books. As it turns out, they have CDs at the library, too.

Live Apple

Why on Earth hasn't Fiona Apple been rediscovered yet?

Good Luck, Harmon

[Originally posted December 31, 2010]

The older kids next door were Minnesota Twins fans, so I was too. They revered the Twins' clean-up hitter, Harmon Killebrew, and I adopted the benevolent slugger from Idaho who wore No. 3 as my boyhood hero.

Long before the Internet emerged as a news and entertainment medium, well before the demand for 24/7 sports coverage spawned multiple cable channels, back in the day when over-the-air game broadcasts in Upstate New York were limited to a single NBC Game of the Week on Saturday afternoons and, if we were lucky, a Mets or Yankees home game on Sundays, my friends and I somehow knew everything about our favorite players.

(It helped that my fourth and fifth grade teachers wheeled the school's A/V television set into our classroom during afternoon World Series games -- imagine that happening today! -- and guided our acquisition of critical knowledge.)

Every day, we would devour the box scores in the Schenectady Gazette, scanning those treasure-troves of matrixed data for hints of outsized performances from the previous evening's contests. We'd find our favorite teams and players' names and examine the columns headed "ab r h bi" for indications of productive nights at the plate. Two or three hits were cause for celebration; two or three RBIs, even moreso. If a player had both runs and RBI's, he had almost certainly crushed the ball at least once, perhaps launching a hanging curve into orbit or clearing the bases with a double.

How much sunnier the world seemed on a day when Harmon Killebrew's line read "4 2 2 3" rather than "4 0 0 0". Both occurred frequently.

Killebrew went down with a hamstring injury while playing first base in the 1968 All-Star contest. California Angels' shortstop Jim Fregosi may have thrown the ball low to my baseball hero and ended his season, but I swear I'm over my grudge by now. I imagine that No. 3, reputedly a gentleman of the game, never held a grudge in his life.

Killebrew was a terrific role model for this hero-worshipping Little Leaguer. His incredible 1969 MVP season, when he led the league with 49 home runs and 140 RBIs, shone (and still shines) like gold in my imagination. When he homered in the 1971 All-Star Game, one of six A.L. sluggers to mash the potato that day, I enjoyed his triumph as if it were my own. When Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto, mocking Killebrew's extensive girth, once noted that he had rounded third and headed for home "like a hippopotamus heading for water," I bore the fat-kid insult with him, knowing that he would have laughed it off. His baseball nickname, "Killer", never really fit his reserved, genial personality.

I arranged the baseball posters in my bedroom to depict Bob Gibson pitching to Harmon Killebrew.

As the ball drops in Times Square tonight, ushering in a Happy New Year for 2011, word comes from the Associated Press that Killebrew, now 74, is battling esophageal cancer. His public statement disclosing his condition sounds just like his interviews from back-in-the-day; simple words, a frank assessment, optimism, appreciation for those who appreciate him, a plea for privacy. Dignified, as always.

Also, fan-friendly. As a young fan, I once wrote a letter to Killebrew, c/o the Minnesota Twins, and asked for an autograph. A few weeks later, a signed black-and-white photo arrived in the mail; the inscription read, "To Bob, Good luck, Harmon Killebrew".

Indeed, I've had pretty good luck. Many days I'll wind up with a "4 0 0 0" line, but sometimes I'll get a hit or two, metaphorically speaking, and even a couple of RBIs now and then. It's high time for me to return the favor:

Mr. Killebrew, here's wishing you peace, comfort, and excellent outcomes from your medical treatments that lead to renewed good health. Thanks for years and years of very happy baseball memories, for serving as a personal role model, and above all, for your simple dignity.

Good luck,

Bob Wait

* * *

Epilogue: Harmon Clayton Killebrew passed away on the morning of May 17, 2011. A staunch advocate of hospice care since the time of an earlier, life-threatening ailment, Mr. Killebrew's last public statement said, "I am very comfortable taking this next step and experiencing the compassionate care that hospice provides...I look forward to spending my final days in comfort and peace with [my wife] Nita by my side."

One Review, Thirty Minutes

The ad hoc creative team of Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds, Damian Kulash, and Neil Gaiman met in a Boston recording studio yesterday. The ambition of their stated goal, to produce eight songs in eight hours (hence the project and band name, 8 in 8, and to let the Internet world watch while they did it, attracted both fascination and notoriety in advance. The least one can do to honor the project is to respond in kind, with a thirty-minute review of their final six-song product, "Nighty-Night".

That they fell short of their goal numerically, producing six songs in twelve hours, is the least important aspect of the endeavor. The project may have started with an artificial time-challenge, but when time ran short they kept going, and quit when it was no longer sensible to continue. This was not the musical version of Chopped, the timed gourmet-cooking competition show; noone was required to step back from the keyboards and mixing console at the end of eight hours.

The six tracks reflect the disparate sensibilities of the contributors. Author Gaiman's contributions are the most witty and writerly, in a Sir Tom Stoppard meets Sir Noel Coward kind of way. Gaiman's "Nikola Tesla", a rock-staccato track voiced by Palmer atop her piano-percussion banging and Ben Folds' drums, shows off the writer's science-minded wit while reintroducing Palmer's meme of the everygrrrl torching for celebrities, à la the Dresden Dolls' "Christopher Lydon" -- or in this case, for a celebrity of historical interest. Later, Gaiman voiced his own sword-sharp lyrics in the collection's closing track, "The Problem With Saints", a modern-day Jean d'Arc sequel as Tom Lehrer might imagine it -- if Tom Lehrer were English.

That the album session appeared to some advance critics to be a mere stunt -- one commenter had worried about the prospective "jokiness" of the result -- may have spurred the team to incorporate large elements of sadness and poignancy into the collection. The haunting plea for a missing child to return is the subject of a Folds-Palmer slow duet, "Because the Origami", that leads the listener out of the realm of Dr. Demento into the hurt and pain of parental grief and desperation.

"Twelve Line Song", a Ben Folds-led number that mixes funny and sad, features the unlikely still life of a squirrel suicide in a bathtub. One suspects Folds, Gaiman, and Palmer don't quite have the "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?" faux-death-scene photo project out of their heads yet. The happy sounding tracking vocals are a seriocomic switcheroo, a trick that Palmer and Folds have used before, in W.K.A.P.'s "Oasis".

With more gravitas, Damian Kulash of OK Go takes the lead on "One Tiny Thing", a break-up song depicting the fragile nature of relationships. Kulash's mournful vocals revealed a soulful musicality which seemed upstaged during much of the project by the alpha squirrels in the studio. If certain songs reminded chat-room onlookers of the Beatles, then Kulash was this project's George Harrison. One imagines "One Tiny Thing" could ultimately become the most honored of the collection, if tribute is reckoned by the number of future cover versions from a wide variety of artists.

Which brings us to the penultimate piece, "I'll Be My Mirror", to me the true payoff piece of the project. As much forceful poetry slam as song, "Mirror" takes a tragic scene that everyone can relate to, the street person out of their right mind; Amanda Palmer's emphatic vocals bring home the startled onlookers' pensive, but-for-grace-there-go-I apprehension in the presence of the subject. A catchy fanfare of a piano riff and a crashing rhythm guitar add an exclamation point to each stanza without interrupting the angst and poetry of the lyric.

The overall verdict? "Nighty-Night" is a bit incoherent as a song collection, but several of the songs are highly worthy in their individual graces. The team created something of value and opened a window into the creative process. In particular, they revealed that worthwhile endeavors invariably take longer than even the most talented and productive creative types imagine that they will -- and at a full hour and thirty minutes instead of the budgeted thirty minutes to write this review, it's time for me to join them in saying, that's enough for today.

The Indestructible Wonder: A Requiem

You've got one in your closet, or in your dresser, or in a heap on the floor next to that box of junk that you keep meaning to sort through. It's your favorite shirt, the one that your Beloved Spousal Unit despises and that you cannot live without.

Mine was indestructible, until today. This is its story.

My Esteemed Paternal Unit, whose off-hours wardrobe is more Montgomery Ward than J.C. Penney, had declared its design unwearable by any serious, self-respecting, lawn-mowing male -- something about the two enormous front pockets, I think, though I'm still not sure -- so of course he passed the Indestructible Wonder and two others like it to his son. Sold as travel shirts; constructed of unnatural fibres to render them sink-washable and air-dryable; short-sleeved, with more pockets than buttons; in colors Almost White, Light Greenish-Grey, and Mango-Mustard; the shirts soon embarked upon their lives of second-hand service and achievement.

Their paths soon diverged. Mango-Mustard was worn twice, then donated under threat of pain, divorce, and more pain. Light Greenish-Grey was in the minor-league starting rotation -- low minors -- until it pilled and frayed beyond pragmatic utility six or eight years ago. Which left Almost White, a.k.a. the Indestructible Wonder, whose stoicism and indefatigable spirit through a long career of latex housepaint spatters, Secret Stadium Sauce drips, and assorted other cruel indignities serve as a model for us all.

"I thought you got rid of that thing," said my Beloved Spousal Unit this morning, with pro forma disgust -- yet, surely, with grudging admiration for my courageous steadfastness in the face of the omnipresent temptation of reckless fashion. A pair of pinhole-sized flaws had appeared above each pocket, their symmetry rightly suggesting the harmony and inner balance of the garment's occupant. Another blissful Milwaukee summer, sweating happily through the shirt at ballgames and festivals, loomed ahead.

Until...r-r-r-rrrrrrip! Tugging upward on the shirt's collar in back to relieve a bunched-up, folded-under, lumpy and itchy spot [Note to self: possible dog names - Lumpy & Itchy], I'd inadvertently separated the yoke from the back of the Formerly Indestructible Wonder.

My Beloved Spousal Unit's eyes widened, the corners of her mouth suddenly rising into a near-demonic grin of triumphant exultation. Leaving no chance that her long-awaited moment of deliverance would be further delayed through a deft repair with a mending kit, she set about to rip and ruin the shirt irretrievably. It is possible, Dear Reader, that I had not yet fully exited the damaged garment when this action was executed. (Oh, grow up!)

No longer indestructible, my favorite shirt lies in tatters, its cotton-polyester fibres sorrowfully stuffed inside a wastebasket in anticipation of the weekly trash collection; an unworthy fate, you'll agree, akin to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's shrouded corpse being tossed unceremoniously into a pauper's grave. I am in mourning.

I wonder if I can find another one on eBay?

A Bop from Bud on Opening Day

Some things can only happen in Milwaukee.

Celebrating baseball's Opening Day, with the Brewers on the road in Cincinnati, my Beloved Spousal Unit and I went to lunch at Gilles Frozen Custard, our favorite burger stand. There we planned to listen to Brewers announcer and veteran funnyman Bob Uecker, the happy survivor of recent health problems, kick off the new season's radio broadcasts. Located within a pop fly of her high school, just up Blue Mound Road from Miller Park, Gilles has been a favorite indulgence of Milwaukee natives and Brewers fans for decades. Wearing my Brewers cap and blue jacket, Opening Day essentials after a long Milwaukee winter, I trundled inside to order our Big Daddy burgers and shakes.

Whereupon, I espied the Big Daddy of Major League Baseball, Commissioner Allan H. "Bud" Selig, chatting amiably with the Gilles owner while taking his lunch break. It's well-chronicled that baseball is Selig's third most favorite thing in life, after his family and lunch at Gilles. The Commish orders his daily hot dogs with relish and retreats to his Lexus to plot the destiny of the National Pastime. (You can tell it's an important phone call if the brake lights of the Lexus are lit while he's parked.)

This is roughly equivalent to FIFA President Sepp Blatter keeping England and Germany from starting a war over World Cup groupings while chowing down on a liverwurst sandwich at a Zurich Imbiß after exchanging views with the Wurstmacher. Every day.

You have to understand Milwaukee to get this: it's no big deal for a 50-year old kid, or anyone else, to greet the Commish at Gilles, even when he doesn't know you from Adam. I hailed the chief in passing, an appreciative fan at the start of a new season: "It's a great day, Mr. Selig!" Wearing my Brewers hat while I did so -- the dopey one that spells out BREWERS in block letters -- earned me a knowing smile and a bop on the arm from Bud. The man may no longer own the team he saved from oblivion at least twice, and he may still have to disclaim any trace of residual partiality, but behind the two hot dogs with relish lives an exuberant Robin Yount fan.

Like March itself, today's ballgame came in with a roar but ended baa-aa-aa-adly. Back-to-back lead-off blasts by Rickie Weeks and Carlos Gomez to start the game had Milwaukee fans all a-Twitter, a good times feeling enhanced by more solid hitting and a defensive gem by Casey McGehee at third. Sadly, a game-long comeback by the Reds, capped by a walk-off pop by Ramon Hernandez, spoiled the day for Brewers fans, with closer John Axford playing the unaccustomed role of Goat-for-a-Day. Still, in this season of rare high expectations for the Crew, featuring a handful of postseason-worthy starting aces and enough offense for a team and a half, there's every reason to believe the Brewers will compete for a division title, and maybe more.

If that happens, I'm pretty sure the brake lights on the Lexus in the Gilles parking lot will be not just lit but flashing. With relish.

One-Ton Dooley

A highway stop, a roadhouse bar, and I was feelin' dry
Though why I had to pick that place -- I should-a driven by
A hairy, open-carry drunk was gettin' coarse and venom-y
It was my great misfortune that he took me for his enemy
The sumbitch snarled, "So, yer feelin' lucky with yer luck?"
I said a thing, I think it might-a rhymed with "pick-up truck"
Then the pushin' got to shovin', and things got a bit unruly --
Now I'm headin' for a last ride in my One-Ton Dooley.

They drove me to the sick-house with a bullet in my gut
Ridin' shotgun ain't as special when your belly ain't quite shut
The doctor told me, "I'm afraid it's way beyond some stitches,
You'll prob'ly see the afterlife, thanks to them sons-a-bitches!"
They called my next-of-kin, an' my kid brother came a-cryin'
I said, "Yer better listen up, 'cause I'm a-busy dyin' --
An' then we'll say goodbye, bro, 'cause I'll hardly hear yer Eul'y
From a Number 7 casket in my One-Ton Dooley!

"I never stand on principle, don't write no fancy verse,
I never saw the purpose of a chrome-bedecker'd hearse --
Why spend yer dough on transport when a good ol' truck'll do?
Keep the coffin lid wide open so that I can see the view.
The highway's full-a pretty sights while yer above the ground,
Just set me on a rubber mat so's I don't slide around,
Then drop me in a shady spot -- that's all I want, most truly! --
Salute me with a lawn-job made by my beloved Dooley.

"The moral of my story: Stay away from stinkin' drink!
Never hassle with an ass'le; never wrassle with a fink.
Keep yer fenders clean an' polished, keep yer tires full-a air --
Yer never know just when yer need to peel out-a there!
Don't spend yer money stupidly on luxuries and such;
Take all I got -- now on, I won't be needin' very much.
To my nephews, give my Stetsons; to my nieces, all my jewl'y --
They'll be stylin' in the way-back of my One-Ton Dooley!"

Copyright 2011 Bob Wait

Philadelphia Story

When you stumble upon a party, it can be a good time. When you stumble upon a legend, it can be transcendent.

In Philadelphia for a software users group conference, I didn't exactly relish the thought of mingling at the post-program, organized-fun, 70's-themed bar crawl this evening, networking opportunities and hot programming tips notwithstanding. Stopped by the joint long enough to catch an unsettling glimpse of my fellow info-geeks wearing afro wigs and trying to squeeze past each other in the pub's narrow passageway. Recalled dorm and frat parties in college where I couldn't move for minutes at a time due to the unchecked crowds. Recalled not having actual "fun" on many such occasions, despite thinking that I was supposed to pretend to. Observed the substandard interpersonal distances, according to North American cultural standards. Played the "Who's In Charge Here, Anyway?" card, which I seem to deploy with increasing frequency, and hightailed it out of there.

Onto the streets; Broad Street, in particular. A cheery downtown on this night, actually, regardless of what you may have heard about Philly. Started strolling city blocks at pace, inhaling the late winter air; a terrific antidote for All-Day Hotel Meeting Chair Syndrome. Took in the early-evening sights in the theater district. Architecture, art schools, art supply stores, restaurants, theaters. Passed the Ormandy Ballroom, named for the late Philadelphia Orchestra conductor. Slowly began to incubate a notion to catch some sort of evening performance.

The Philadelphia Theater Company, down the street from the hotel? The grand opening of a promising new stage production was upcoming, but tonight, it was dark and empty. Another nearby theater, whose current offering features a post-feminist title and poster recalling certain Monologues? Nope. Just nope. The stage version of Amadeus, a few more blocks away? Intriguing, but too many notes for tonight. A large-ish building with the word "Symphony" splashed across the top? A mirage; it's a new condo project.

Then, along comes the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, an über-grand performing arts center with look-at-me lines. An amazing atrium; sweeping curves and lattices; your delighted eyes drawn up to the sky, back down and around. Not a right angle in the place. Now that's a venue! Fell in step with a slightly greying theater-district crowd, gathering with anticipation for some kind of show -- but what?

The Philly Pops, that's what, with longtime Philly Pops leader Peter Nero conducting and performing a 1950's-themed program. Much beloved in Philly, where he's invested the last three decades of his life delighting Pops audiences. Nero's 50+ years in the music trade earned him two Grammy Awards and placed him elbow-to-elbow with Sinatra, Mancini, all the greats of the post-war era.

The audience regulars were as appreciative as they were forgiving. I'd never seen so much hand-clapping and lip-syncing by seniors. Certain lightly rehearsed numbers and looseness in the cohesion of the instrumentals were beside the point, as the old-timers on stage and in the audience, both intermingled with music performers and aficionados young enough to be their adult grandchildren, gave and received a gentle, happy, slightly sloshed-sounding performance that had the feeling of one last round at the bar surrounded by the great songs of their -- anyone's -- youth.

Seeing and hearing Peter Nero play "The Way You Look Tonight" from my overhead perch in the third balcony, watching Nero's hands tease out the jazzy, swinging style from the song in that beautiful place, I felt I'd witnessed not just a performance but the curating of a priceless treasure by one who knows. A perfect martini, captured at the keyboard.

A reminder, also, that the "Who's In Charge Here, Anyway?" card is often the most valuable in the deck. My Philadelphia evening had regressed two decades, from the 1970's to the 1950's, but it took a great leap forward.

I Am So, So Sorry For This

          A second soprano named Betty
          Races camels on the Serengeti.
          When she trills 'top a hump
          At the steeplechase jump --
          It sure beats a plate of spaghetti!

Double Helix

          I went to squash a bug today
          It saw my form and flew away
          Preserving for another day
          Its double helix (DNA)

          I couldn't help but wonder why
          For usually I get my fly
          With stealth, dispatch, and steely eye
          Passed down through the milleni-i

          But on this day my strike was slow
          Or just a bit too high or low
          Thus saving my intended foe
          From crippling force of mighty blow

          The reflexes are not as keen
          As when I was a scrawny teen --
          Or had the bug evolved a gene
          And thus was my appendage seen?

          A thousand generations hence
          Some mutant fly with sharpened sense
          Grows fangs, and then comes back at me
          To snack upon my six-foot-three

          I doubt that I could self-defend
          And thus it's to a sticky end
          And all because upon this day
          It saw my form and flew away

          © 2010 Bob Wait

Schrödinger's Dishwasher

For your consideration: an everyday kitchen appliance -- perhaps very much like one in your kitchen -- that's both clean and dirty at the same time:

          Beloved Spousal Unit: "Is the dishwasher clean?"
          Me: "No, I just emptied it. It's dirty now."

At the instant I said that our dishwasher was "dirty" -- and spoke truthfully -- it didn't have a spot of dirt in it. This pristine, yet fallen state would continue for a few more blissfully ambiguous moments until I fouled the nest, defiling our beloved Putzmaschine with the first crumb-stuck breakfast plate and stained coffee mug of the day.

This ambiguous state of our pre-pastried power-scrubber is related to the Physics conundrum known as "Schrödinger's Cat":

          Schrödinger's Cat's a metaphorical cat
          It lives in a box with a nuclear vat
          When a nucleus decays, a loaded gun is released
          And although the box hides it, the cat is deceased
                    ...or is it?
                                                            -t.s. eliot

To the outside world, the cat is unobservable as it waits for the ax to fall; it's unobservable after the ax has fallen. In some external sense, the cat is both dead and alive at the same time.

Or, consider the moment of any creature's demise. Let's say there is one last atom left in a cat's Central Nervous System that has kept the cat alive; for surely there must be a last one, as there must have been a first one. It's down to its ninth life, as it were, and it's the bottom of the ninth with two outs and two strikes. We know from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle that the exact position and state of a particle are mutually indeterminate. Is our beloved kitty dead or alive at the indeterminate moment of the last atom's expiration? Or both?

Notwithstanding any of this, our feline friend clearly picked the wrong box to crawl into; it should have selected our dishwasher instead (or else the curtain where Carol Merrill is standing). It might have gotten clean, it might have gotten dirty, or both; but it surely wouldn't have fallen into the clutches of that horrific sadist Erwin Schrödinger, the mere mention of whom, properly framed, could lift PETA's Freshman Orientation Week fund drive to goal immediately.

I saw the following headline recently: "World's Oldest Person Dies".

Not any more.

* * *

UPDATE: Since writing this piece, I Googled "Schrödinger's Dishwasher" to see if Google had indexed the article yet. What I found instead surprised me: one metaphorical variation on Schrödinger's Cat is indeed called Schrödinger's Dishwasher! Imagine dirty dishes inside a dishwasher; then, imagine an atomic switch for the dishwasher whereby the electrical circuit is closed, and the appliance starts, when the atom decays. Are the dishes inside clean or dirty? Or both? It's an equivalent dilemma to the classic metaphor involving an atomic-triggered gun, except that no animals were harmed. Hooray animals!

          It would be such a pity
          If we bumped off the kitty!

How It's Made: Blog Entries

[V.O.] Today on How It's Made: Blog Entries.

[Sx: Light techno-pop music]

[V.O.] A "Blog" is a formatted presentation of digitally encoded, creative content, produced and published on the Internet by one or more authors or editors. It's often, but not always, organized in reverse chronological order around a single, coherent theme. "Blog entries" are the short, mildly amusing essays, anecdotes, and other elements of content that make up a blog.

To start with, the Worker turns on his personal computer and waits for it to boot up. This may take 10 to 15 minutes, so the Worker places a nearly full mug of tap water into the microwave for a serving of instant coffee. He closes the door of the microwave and sets the timer, using the touchpad on the face of the appliance, to 99 seconds and presses the Start Button. This saves one keystroke, compared to entering 1 minute and 39 seconds.

While the water is heating, the Worker notices and then ignores the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. This skill is essential for the successful blogger.

Instant coffee crystals are shaken from their container into the container's lid, for later transfer to the hot water. Using the container's lid instead of a spoon results in one less utensil for the Worker to clean. He knows the correct amount of coffee to use based on his many years of writing blog entries. A shake of cinnamon, a pour of sugar, and a blip of whole milk add to the aromatic and flavor qualities of the beverage.

Returning to his computer, the Worker carefully places the mug of hot coffee on the folded paper towel on the desk. He's careful to avoid bumping the mug with his left wrist, forearm, and elbow for the remainder of the production cycle.

By now, the computer is almost ready.

[Commercial Break: End of Part I]

Seal Rock

The humorist Dave Barry once wrote, "Yuppies have a very low birth rate, because apparently they have to go to Aspen to mate."

Clearly, Mr. Barry has never attempted to drive through the North Side of Chicago on a Wednesday night with a destination and an arrival time in mind. Yuppies, hipsters, and various bicyclists and jaywalkers, thick as a pod of seals on Seal Rock, crowd the sidewalks, their closely-spaced numbers both the result and proximal cause of privilege and procreation. The opportunity to reduce the surplus population is there for the motorist's taking, whether the heel at the wheel is a sociopathic Illini or a mild-mannered Wisconsinite in town for, say, a Dresden Dolls reunion tour concert at the Vic Theatre.

At least my Beloved Lady Seal and I knew better than to assume a trouble-free route to our destination. Ten years prior, our bucket list baseball pilgrimage to Wrigley Field had resulted in an apparently predictable two hours of futile wrangling with Addison Road gridlock, not to mention a supplementary idiot tax of $20 exacted by alley youngsters perpetrating a well-practiced, time-tested faux-parking ruse. We arrived to take our place on the Rock in the fourth inning.

Once inside Wrigley, our fellow fans crammed themselves into the tiny grandstand seats, more interested in animal partying and mating rituals than the batting averages of the alpha seals on the field, blocking our view of the ballgame annoyingly and repeatedly as they shuffled past us multiple times to make their way to the sea for more fish. The confines of Wrigley Field may be friendly, but when the perpetuation of the species is at stake, marine life on the Rock doesn't have time to spectate.

Ah, nostalgia. We were but pups then.

Seal Rocks are fascinating and diverse. A Rock can be seasonal, as with Aspen during ski season or Milwaukee Summerfest in, er, the summer. It can be a singular, temporal event, as with Woodstock or the Jon Stewart rally, or recurring, as with the quadrennial co-mingling of the athletes at the Olympic Village. A colony can evidence prosperity and generative energy -- the quickly constructed suburban schools, townhouses, and mega-malls ringing Washington, D.C. come to mind -- or high-density deprivation and a lack of alternatives, as with urban ghettos or tent villages. Recognizable-by-type residential and commercial districts, each with their own characteristics, surround military bases, factories, colleges and universities, and anyplace else that colonization and the raising of baby seals occurs.

Seals sometimes also go clubbing, a nifty role-reversal. On the aforementioned Wednesday evening in Chicago, we managed to wend our way through traffic and avoid running over the locals with the Silver Zloty at seal crossings, arriving at the Vic Theatre in the fourth inning -- i.e., near the end of the opening act. We found our way inside. The uniformly skinny, black-clad and/or costumed members of species H. Dresdendollus teemed on the lower level, performing intricate mating rituals, exchanging, if not genetic material, at least cellphone numbers, email addresses, and pirated MP3 files. Sharing fish with each other, as it were. Meanwhile, the older, heftier, balding and bespectacled members of the colony -- hey, that's me! -- headed for the higher altitudes of the balcony.

Having experienced a Seal Rock first-hand, I'm inclined to agree with the line from Jurassic Park: "Life will find a way." The entire colony danced its happy-mammal dance in the panorama before us, rocking and writhing to the percussive tones. It's hard to tell if the collective joy in the theater that evening was born of enthralled appreciation for the musical performance or warm affection for the musicians. Both, I'd say. But it was also a purely instinctual response: now and then, if you're a seal, it feels great to find yourself on Seal Rock.

Go Green!

What if the cost of packaging were subtracted from GDP instead of added to it?

Might As Well Be on Scrolls

I don't want to answer the "48 Things About Me" quiz that the Brick Duck passed along to me on Facebook this week. Instead, I'll offer a list of largely unread library books that I have in a stack at home, awaiting my attention:

Aimee Baldridge, "Organize Your Digital Life: How to Store Your Photographs, Music, Videos, and Personal Documents in a Digital World"

Stewart Brand, "Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto"

Linda Greenlaw, "Seaworthy: A Swordboat Captain Returns to the Sea"

Susan Hasley, "Intelligence" (novel)

Chuck Klosterman, "Eating the Dinosaur" (essays)

David Maraniss, "Into the Story: A Writer's Journey Through Life, Politics, Sports, and Loss"

Daniel H. Pink, "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us"

I'll probably finish most of "Seaworthy" and skim through "Eating the Dinosaur", and that's about it before they all have to go back. Discipline, Drive, and Intelligence are all fine aspirations, but do they really trump playing "Monopoly" on Pogo.com? Organizing my digital life is important but not urgent, and as such will just have to wait.

When did I stop reading entire books, anyway?

Fear the Deer; Don't Fear the Tier

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and JSOnline.com columnist Don Walker today asked, "Is Contraction on the Table in the NBA?"

I tend to think it is, in order for the league to gain leverage on two fronts. First, of course, is the ever present push-pull of labor negotiations with the NBA Players Association. The threat of fewer jobs will either loosen up the players' demands or result in a strike or lockout. The NHL Players Association found out about the latter the hard way a few years ago.

Second, the specter of contraction rattles the cities and communities that constitute the smaller, less profitable NBA markets, such as Milwaukee. To put it bluntly, the Greater Milwaukee area isn't as "Greater" as it used to be, economically. There's no question that some so-called small-market NBA teams, such as the Bucks, are disadvantaged by lower television revenues than their peer franchises. Some also have arenas that -- from a revenue standpoint -- are economically inferior to major facilities in the league's top cities. If the Bucks are to remain competitive here, then local business leaders and politicians will have to pony up for a new arena, or else for a major refurbishment to the Bradley Center that would be tantamount in cost to a new arena. This public expenditure seems unlikely in the current economy, particularly with U.S. Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, the Bucks' owner, increasingly less likely to influence the team's direction within a few years.

So the situation for the NBA, in a nutshell, is this: how can the league avoid abandoning its middle-city franchises, like Milwaukee, while not absolutely requiring new arena construction from markets that cannot afford it?

There's a potential solution that I haven't heard anyone discuss. Personally, I would have no problem with a two-tier NBA in which more playoff slots are reserved for teams from the upper tier. Put the Bulls, Celtics, Lakers, and Heat, and their peers, in the upper tier; keep Cleveland, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Toronto, and other middle-city franchises in the league by creating a second, lower tier. That's basically what it's come to now anyway. Shift teams between the upper and lower tiers based on their prior year's performance, like the European soccer leagues. Or just define teams as upper or lower tier, more or less permanently, and negotiate different salary caps with the NBA Players Association that fit the economics of each respective tier. The peer-level competition within the respective tiers will keep the fans happy, and the lower cost and payroll stability will keep the owners -- and importantly, their risk-averse bankers -- happy.

For some reason, we're allergic to consideration of a tiered approach to professional sports in the U.S. Major league franchises are uneven in quality as a result, and the minor leagues, while beloved by local fans, are very minor by comparison. I like a Toledo Mud Hens game as much as Max Klinger does, but unless I go to a game when driving through that city, I hear nothing about it. But the sad truth is, some of the major league teams in all major sports have become, from the standpoint of national recognition, all but minor league franchises as well -- the Bucks in the NBA, the Pirates in MLB (I'm trying very hard not to mention the Brewers here), Detroit in the NFL, and so forth. Occasionally they overachieve, thanks to a star draft pick like the Bucks' guard Brandon Jennings or stalwart center Andrew Bogut, but in the long run, such teams have little recurring chance against the Lakers, Yankees, and Cowboys. Still, the mid-cities' citizens and local leaders want their teams to remain "major league", not just in fact but as a point of civic pride. "We're big kids, too!"

A two-tier structure would provide a measure of franchise sustainability and allow civic face-saving to occur in the smaller markets, an outcome far preferable to the loss of a team altogether. The NBA second tier that I'm proposing would not be a mere replica of the now-defunct Continental Basketball Association; the Bucks would still play the Cavs, and it would still be an NBA game with NBA players. They'd even play the Lakers once in a while, and the Bulls more often as a regional rivalry. We just wouldn't see Kobe or LeBron in person as often at the Bradley Center -- and by the way, the tickets might be priced at $30 or $35 instead of $75.

If you can live with that, Bucks fans, then so can I. It might even open the door for NBA expansion, not contraction. Pittsburgh Pipers, anyone?

"Ooooh, Sticks!"

Some people like to take casual strolls in Milwaukee's lovely parks and along its waterways. Others go for a jog near Bradford Beach at the Lake Michigan shoreline. Civic-minded volunteers pick up trash and litter in public areas, working together toward the laudable goal of urban beautification.

My Beloved Spousal Unit and I pick up sticks.

Not just any sticks; dead sticks. Burnable sticks. Burnable-in-the-fireplace sticks. Burnable-so-that-even-a-former-Boy-Scout-who-never-made-Second-Class-can-start-a-fire-with-two-matches sticks.

Last winter was our first season as domestic fireplace operators. Our large firewood supply held out fine, but we ran out of sticks. They sell firewood by the face cord; who sells sticks? So, we fetch sticks.

The other day I voted in the Primaries. On my half-mile walk to the polling place, I saw an eight-foot fallen branch, an inch-and-a-half or so in diameter, the late mother-limb of several baby limbs of useful dimension, sitting at the side of the road; an obvious casualty of the prior evening's thunderstorms. A veritable treasure-trove of sticks -- for free! -- merely three blocks up from our place.

The calculations began: If I pass it by, walk the three remaining blocks to vote, and walk back, will the branch still be there? Should I haul the branch home first, and then restart my trek -- a gambit which might tempt this proud but lazy citizen to say the hell with voting? Or do I claim the branch, drag it to the polling station, leave it outside with the slogan-sign mules and pamphleteers -- they'll surely know better than to mess with a branch-wielding loony, won't they? -- and then drag it all the way back home? This is how the branch-addict thinks.

I'm not sure who was more thrilled: I, when I saw that my branch was still waiting for me on the way back, or my Beloved Spousal Unit, when she saw that I'd actually performed a useful act of hunting and gathering.

          When a poor man came in sight,
          Gath'ring winter fue-ue-el!

I asked a timber-owning friend, The Tin Woodsman of Upstate N.Y., whether my wonderful branch and its many sublime sub-limbs would air-dry in time to use in our fireplace this season. Taking pity, he provided remedial education: "Some species such as oak take more time to dry because of their grain (xylem cell) structure, beech is fairly fast drying, and maple is sort-of average." He further advised me, in a kind voice -- or would have, had he not been responding via email -- that my splendid prize, which I'd spent a highly inefficient 45 minutes dismembering and cutting to length with a dull pruning saw, "may not amount to much volume."

Hmmph, I thought. The Tin Woodsman may know his xylem and phloem, but I say he knows nada about sticks.

Today, the autumn wind is howling. Returning from errands, my Beloved Spousal Unit and I stepped out of the Silver Zloty in front of our home. Instantly, our eyes fell upon a cornucopia of future kindling on the street and sidewalk. "Ooooh, sticks!" said the two highly-educated professionals, in unison. We can hardly wait for the first ice storm of the season.

The General Election is a month-and-a-half away. In six weeks, I'll walk six blocks to vote for the candidate who promises us the most sticks.