“Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.”
–Ransom K. Fern
There was once a rather hip TV show back-in-the-day that called itself “That Was The Week That Was.” Well known for putting an ironic, humorous, and oftentimes smug twist on current event happenings from the previous week, the program became referred to among its devotees as “TW3.”
Many of those who involve themselves in cultural genealogy look back on TW3 as the progenitor of such boob-tube satirical classics as “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” For the most part, this past week would have provided the show with sufficient fodder for their entire season.
How they would have spun the tragic events of Monday at Virginia Tech University, however, would have tested their collective perspective, sensibility and resolve. They always did find a way to confront the horrific without disrespecting those most personally involved, however.
The ’60s, with its daily diet of war,assassination and riot, provided adequate training in that area. As is the case today, body counts, from both here and abroad, arrived with the box scores of the previous night’s Dodger game. Then, as now, with similar tragic results, both nations and individuals acted out their rage and frustrations with bloody consequence.
The news emanating from Blacksburg, Va. certainly knocked Don Imus’ verbal idiocy and its attendant racial issues from the front page — at least for the moment. Whether or not the Rutgers University Women’s Basketball team finds it in their heart to forgive Imus, he should forever be held accountable for providing Al Sharpton with yet another 15-minutes of notoriety.
Imus is actually a quite interesting cat, although his incessant on-air ethnic and gender barbs embarrassed many of his fans and made it difficult to mask the overwhelming insecurities involved in his psychic makeup.
Ironically, my all-time favorite Imus was the “contrite” edition — the repentant, remorseful, apologetic, sorrowful, properly ashamed personage hunkered down with disheveled hair and cowboy hat in front of the microphone and forced through circumstance, heaven forbid, to finally take a good look at himself.
If he does resurface in another media space/time, following sufficient penance, mind you, he might just possibly fulfill the expectations one usually associates with the truly gifted. What Imus needed was an “intervention,” and it was probably only a matter of time before his narrow-mindedness came home to roost and his big mouth finally pulled the trigger.
One of the more interesting and hilarious sidebars to the Imus ruckus had to be when former House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay jumped in on his blog and claimed Imus as intellectual property of the “ideological right.” Au contraire, Thomas. Imus might have messed up this time, but he’s always seen through your kind.
As did novelist Kurt Vonnegut, by the way. When, a few days back, Kurt finally signed a long-term lease on that cage at the zoo on the planet Tralfamador where Montana Wildhack and Billy Pilgrim once performed upon Sears and Roebuck furniture, “Bokonists” everywhere were left in a lurch. They became unstuck in time.
Vonnegutians from across most available dimensions showed up to pay final respects while they listened to Kilgore Trout babble on about Babylon. They didn’t grieve in the normal human sense, rather, not unlike Tralfamadorians in general, they recognized that Kurt, their Creator, was only dead in the moment and that, in plenty of other moments, he was doing just fine.
To continue with this particular TW3, Major League Baseball celebrated the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier this past Sunday. Amid much assorted hoopla, many current players, including the entire roster of Robinson’s old ballclub, the Dodgers, chose to wear his number “42,” which the league had actually “retired” a couple of years back.
The irony here is, these many years later, the higher percentage of blacks playing baseball are from Latin America, not the good ol’ USA. It would seem that basketball and football have better mined the mindsets of the Afro-American communities than has organized baseball.
Too damn bad — baseball being the hippest and most complex sport of all. Each pitch is an entire new ballgame. It’s like the “butterfly effect” of “chaos theory.” A manager scratches his nose causing the third base coach (from the Dominican Republic) to scratch his cajones which causes the runner at first base to take a big lead off the bag and the opposing shortstop to move slightly to his left.
This causes the infield, as a whole, to come in to double-play depth and the pitcher to keep the ball inside to the left-handed hitter who promptly blasts one toward the loudmouth in the bleachers who is stumbling toward his seat with beers in each hand and a chip on his shoulder. About the same time the ball sticks in his ear, the manager’s hand subtly moves toward the bill of his cap, signaling a whole new ball game. Ya gotta love it!
Under the heading of “better late than never,” try not to get run over by the stampede of born-again polluters jumping on the “green” bandwagon. It’s great that the word is finally getting out and that concerted action is being taken to conserve resources and cut down on greenhouse gasses, but you can’t help grinning at those now taking bows.
Speaking of which, the “Step It Up” powwow at Washington Square in Salt Lake City last Saturday did a good job rallying the troops to pressure their representatives in Congress to get on board — or else! It proved also to be the first outdoor concert of the season as Park City Mayor Dana Williams and the “Motherlode Canyon Band” joined others, including the magnificent “Los Lobos,” to keep the festivities cookin’ well into the night.
And finally, playing bookend to that week that was, there was a wonderfully satisfying Sunday evening concert at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts featuring the “Wailin’ Jennys” from up Manitoba way. They were flat-out beautiful — and sang well, too! As the Tralfamadorians are wont to say, “So it goes!”