Meditating on Manny

Here's my latest Ionian column (coming out tomorrow!) since I haven't had any new posts for quite some time. Click here to see the whole paper online...

Oct. 21 was – by any standard – a pretty good day in Boston sports history.

On the gridiron, South Florida’s loss to Rutgers the previous Thursday allowed the unbeaten Boston College Eagles to slide into second place in the BCS standings, and Tom Brady threw a team-record six touchdown passes as the New England Patriots continued an unbeaten season of their own, trouncing the Miami Dolphins by a final score of 49-28.

Overshadowing these accomplishments, however, were those of the beloved Boston Red Sox. As the day came to a close, the Sox were putting the finishing touches on a dramatic Game 7 win over the Cleveland Indians, capping off an improbable comeback in the AL championship series and punching their ticket to this year’s Fall Classic (sound familiar, Yankee fans?).

And there he was, right at the center of the on-field celebration at Fenway Park: Manny Ramirez. His long braids flailing wildly behind him, Ramirez – who had bounced back from a sub-par regular season to become Boston’s most consistent threat at the plate in the playoffs – leaped gleefully into the arms of teammates Jonathan Papelbon and Jason Varitek. It was hard to believe that, just days earlier, the man was being scrutinized about his will to win.

“It doesn’t happen, so who cares?” was the damning question Ramirez had posed with his team trailing three games to one. “There’s always next year. It’s not like it’s the end of the world or something.”

An Associated Press story forebodingly taunted Ramirez, “Try telling that to all those people in New England.” Well, on behalf of “all those people in New England,” I think everything turned out just fine.

We all know Manny Ramirez likes to stay loose. He never loses sight of the fact that – despite the extreme fervor of Red Sox Nation – baseball is still just a game. Sometimes Ramirez’s attitude rubs fans the wrong way, but should we really want him to change? Consider the other end of the spectrum, as personified by Beantown’s newest star, Boston Celtic Kevin Garnett.

Upon Garnett’s arrival in town this summer, Boston Globe columnist Jackie MacMullan gushed that KG “plays hard, plays long and plays with an intensity that has been sorely lacking around here,” adding, “He desperately wants to win.”

There is a famous interview Garnett gave on TNT during All-Star weekend in 2004-05. John Thompson spoke of various aches and pains Garnett was playing through at the time, and asked, “What’s driving you?”

“That I’m losing,” Garnett replied, his voice trembling. “That I’m losing. (A pause.) I’m losing. (Another, longer pause.) I’m losing.” The big man failed to contain his emotions from there, explaining that he was crying “tears of pain,” and that “this (expletive deleted) is killing me.”

“I hate that I’m like this in front of you right now, man,” Garnett confessed to Thompson, who quickly replied that he respected Garnett, calling his waterworks “refreshing” and “a sign of strength” rather than “a sign of weakness.” My take: How about a sign for concern? I love KG, but when ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons regularly joked about the inevitability of him one day turning homicidal on his teammates – and it didn’t seem particularly farfetched – perhaps he’d ratcheted up the intensity a bit too high.

Meanwhile, the facts are these: Garnett has made it past the first round of the NBA playoffs once in his career, while Manny was the 2004 World Series MVP, and, now, three years later, might have a crack at it again.

In the final analysis, in a world of robberies, burglaries and staph infections, is a pro athlete who sees the big picture in life the worst thing to be?

Six years later

Below are a couple of pretty well-known articles that I thought were definitely worth revisiting on the six-year anniversary of 9/11...

"Make it Green"
By Roger Ebert
September 14, 2001

If there is to be a memorial, let it not be of stone and steel. Fly no flag above it, for it is not the possession of a nation but a sorrow shared with the world.

Let it be a green field, with trees and flowers. Let there be paths that wind through the shade. Put out park benches where old people can sun in the summertime, and a pond where children can skate in the winter.

Beneath this field will lie entombed forever some of the victims of September 11. It is not where they thought to end their lives. Like the sailors of the battleship Arizona, they rest where they fell.

Let this field stretch from one end of the destruction to the other. Let this open space among the towers mark the emptiness in our hearts. But do not make it a sad place. Give it no name. Let people think of it as the green field. Every living thing that is planted there will show faith in the future.

Let students take a corner of the field and plant a crop there. Perhaps corn, our native grain. Let the harvest be shared all over the world, with friends and enemies, because that is the teaching of our religions, and we must show that we practice them. Let the harvest show that life prevails over death, and let the gifts show that we love our neighbors.

Do not build again on this place. No building can stand there. No building, no statue, no column, no arch, no symbol, no name, no date, no statement. Just the comfort of the earth we share, to remind us that we share it.

"God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule"
From the Onion
September 26, 2001

NEW YORK—Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.

"Look, I don't know, maybe I haven't made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again," said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don't. And to be honest, I'm really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand."

Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of violence."

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again."

The press conference came as a surprise to humankind, as God rarely intervenes in earthly affairs. As a matter of longstanding policy, He has traditionally left the task of interpreting His message and divine will to clerics, rabbis, priests, imams, and Biblical scholars. Theologians and laymen alike have been given the task of pondering His ineffable mysteries, deciding for themselves what to do as a matter of faith. His decision to manifest on the material plane was motivated by the deep sense of shock, outrage, and sorrow He felt over the Sept. 11 violence carried out in His name, and over its dire potential ramifications around the globe.

"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"

"But somehow, it all gets twisted around and, next thing you know, somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued. "It's not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals 'Don't murder people.'"

Worse yet, many of the worst violators claim that their actions are justified by passages in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.

"To be honest, there's some contradictory stuff in there, okay?" God said. "So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it—My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bullshit. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it's God's will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall."

God praised the overwhelming majority of His Muslim followers as "wonderful, pious people," calling the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks rare exceptions.

"This whole medieval concept of the jihad, or holy war, had all but vanished from the Muslim world in, like, the 10th century, and with good reason," God said. "There's no such thing as a holy war, only unholy ones. The vast majority of Muslims in this world reject the murderous actions of these radical extremists, just like the vast majority of Christians in America are pissed off over those two bigots on The 700 Club."

Continued God, "Read the book: 'Allah is kind, Allah is beautiful, Allah is merciful.' It goes on and on that way, page after page. But, no, some assholes have to come along and revive this stupid holy-war crap just to further their own hateful agenda. So now, everybody thinks Muslims are all murderous barbarians. Thanks, Taliban: 1,000 years of pan-Islamic cultural progress down the drain."

God stressed that His remarks were not directed exclusively at Islamic extremists, but rather at anyone whose ideological zealotry overrides his or her ability to comprehend the core message of all world religions.

"I don't care what faith you are, everybody's been making this same mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the other cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades."

Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: "Can't you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism... every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you're supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It's not that hard a concept to grasp."

"Why would you think I'd want anything else? Humans don't need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other—you've been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said. "The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?"

"I'm talking to all of you, here!" continued God, His voice rising to a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to kill anybody. I'm against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don't kill each other anymore—ever! I'm fucking serious!"

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God's shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

The greatest text msg exchange ever.

(From last night around 11:00)

Some number I don't recognize: "R u awake?"

Me: "Im awake. Who are u?"

"Man of your dreams"

"Its charlie rose?"

"No new player"

"Seriously who are u? I think u have the wrong #"

...The end, and you're welcome.

Exclusive sneak preview!!

The following is the unedited version of my first Ionian column of the semester. The issue hits newstands worldwide (but mostly on Iona's campus) tomorrow...

It was the last, precious Friday before I came back to New Rochelle for the start of the semester, and a couple of my friends from home and I did what we so often do on clear, beautiful, summer nights: we blew $10 each to sit inside and watch a movie.

There I was, comfortably slumped in my heavily-cushioned seat, mindlessly enjoying the hodgepodge of advertisements and Hollywood trivia that come before the previews. Then, one of my buddies, looking around the small, packed theatre, observed that we were quite possibly the oldest people in attendance. I scoped out the crowd myself, nodded in agreement, and quickly returned my attention to the big screen, waiting impatiently for the feature presentation, Superbad, to begin.

As I expected, Superbad was extremely funny, the rare breed of movie that elicited such intense laughter from the audience that, at various points throughout its 114 minute runtime, the film’s dialogue became temporarily inaudible, drowned in a sea of incontrollable guffaws. So I liked Superbad, and I knew that I would. After all, any movie produced by Judd Apatow (of 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up fame) and starring Michael Cera (immortalized in the role of George Michael on the short-lived Fox series Arrested Development) was easily pegged as a can’t-miss sure-thing in my book, going in. But by the time the show ended, the credits started rolling, and the lights brightened, I felt something else on top of that simple, sweet satisfaction of a summer night – and a crisp, clean Alexander Hamilton – well-spent. As much as I don’t want to overstate it, Superbad left me feeling just a little bit queasy, as well.

I only turned 20 years old this past March, so I know that it’s strange for me to say that Superbad left me worried about the impact it might have had on the formative minds of teenagers watching. But it did. And as I walked up the aisle and out the exit of the Dedham Showcase Cinema that night among a flock of high school-aged guys and girls – half of whom undoubtedly had to purchase tickets to the G-rated Mr. Bean’s Holiday, for example, before sneaking into Superbad – I tried and failed to shake that angst that I felt.

What was the source of my angst, you may wonder? Those of you reading along who’ve seen Superbad might be mulling over the possibilities.

Was I shaken by the script’s total saturation with crude language, particularly the constant repetition of a certain four-letter word that begins with an “f” and rhymes with “hockey puck”? No, I’m really not the type of person to get worked up over some cursing – or a truckload of cursing, for that matter.

Did I fail to connect with the movie’s barrage of extreme bathroom jokes and slapstick humor? No, some of my hardest laughs of the night came during Superbad’s most outrageous shock-value moments or during the especially ridiculous physical comedy sequences.

Was I, then, bothered by the fact that the whole story revolved around teenagers angling to have sex by scoring booze for a party fueled by underage binge drinking? No, this basic plotline wasn’t it, either – although alcohol was a part of it.

It should be noted that one of the most often-repeated sentiments praising Judd Apatow’s movies has been an expression of admiration for his ability to create characters who struggle, as Nathan Rabin of the Onion A.V. Club has written, between “the pleasures of eternal adolescence and the relentless pull of adult responsibility,” producing an overall “big-hearted” feeling to his work.

Superbad, for the most part, follows this formula. We watch high school seniors and best friends Seth and Evan – Evan, especially – grow up and mature, ever so slightly, over the course of the film. The aforementioned issues of an all-consuming hormonal sex drive and excessive consumption of alcohol are confronted in the course of this maturation and, therefore, presented with a subtle but important and appropriate level of complexity. Driving drunk, on the other hand, is a virtual constant throughout Superbad, with two sloshed cop characters behind the wheel of a cruiser for the better part of the movie, and this fact simply isn’t approached with any sense of moral complexity or caution at all.

Have you ever seen any national statistics on drunk driving? Of course you have, but I’ll list the big one here, anyways. In 2006, 17,602 persons were killed in alcohol-related accidents. Have you ever nevertheless heard anyone rationalize the legitimacy of driving after having drank? Unfortunately, you probably have. I know I have.

I’m not the type of person who obsesses over the impact of movie content on the youth of America. For example, I won’t divulge here the sort of maneuvers I was tempted to pull driving home in my mom’s Ford Taurus after having seen the Bourne Ultimatum, also this summer – but, plain and simple, I knew better. With a proper upbringing, so would anyone else. Still, we have to acknowledge the desensitizing effect movies can have, and, for a movie that was clearly geared largely towards the high school demographic – regardless of its R-rating – the casual depiction of drunk driving in Superbad was at best an unfortunate oversight, and at worst, reckless.