Giants v. Dodgers or Residentialists v. Builders, or what?
Tom Hanks, or a character he played, said “there’s no crying in baseball”. Surely, you know there is no “center field foul pole / corporate communications behemoth 65 foot pole antenna” in baseball.
At the risk of going full Juan Marichal vis a vis John Roseboro — an extreme over-reaction, or an inappropriate forum – I want to caution and bemoan that We the People are at an all time low, the public sector is a shambles, the corporate interests are in a rout, a feeding frenzy —
These $1,000 an hour mouthpieces with their $2,000 suits, yes we know you, sir.
there’s a great book by George Packer, Gunn 1978, on this: The Unwinding.
As early as 1849 Henry David Thoreau warned that leadership was not keeping up the standards of the founding fathers and mothers, and recommended as remedy we lean in, fight back, maybe make like Sal the Barber Magli and throw a few — and this a metaphor only — a few brushback pitches, a little chin music, against the Corporation.
Jack London wrote about this circa 1920, “The Iron Heel” he predicted it might take 500 years for the people to prevail.
Baseball is mythic and pastoral, not technology dense. Santayana* said: whoever would know America would know baseball. Even William Davidow is now admitting we are over connected and getting feedback…
Finally,
Although I like to claim I have been in this community since 1974, it is also true that I played five seasons of youth baseball not at 3672 Middlefield but at Stan Troedson fields in Los Altos Hills: now I read and then verified with my own eye, LAH Little League has a war monument, to Will Segua, our version of Pat Tillman, kids tap the monument for good luck. Palo Alto, and with due respect to leadership of the baseball org per se, wants a corporate monolith? Or we say we have no choice, we have no money, there are federal words stopping us from fighting back?
Old timers recall Art Kuehn bouncing a ball off the library, a long home run — he is our Babe Ruth. calling a shot. Tony Mouton broke Joe Charbono’s SCVAL homer mark and played there, as did Danny McCallister, who died too young and was a basketball program mate of mine for the Gunn champions years.
If you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Field of nightmare.
I should have brought along Lawrence Ferlinghetti here.
edit to add:
they say:
I’m Art Howe from Dewey Cheatham and Howe:
WHEREAS, the parties hereto agree that the procedures described in this Agreement are, with
regard to collocations as defined herein, a proper substitute for the FCC’s compliance with the Council’s
rules, in accordance and consistent with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and its
implementing regulations found at 36 CFR Part 800; and
This also reminds me of the scene in “Bowfinger” with Steve Martin carring around a landline and pretending it’s a cell phone..
coda: Pernice Brothers, “Moonshot Manny(Pega Luna)” buy here, and portion goes to a little league team in dorchester Mass.
*Jacques Barzun: Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.
edit to add, three days later, under Doug Moran column in Weekly:
This is the text of something I wrote in opposition to the antennas at little league park, written and published between gavel drop and the public hearing started, and then I read the piece from my laptop computer, in the 3 minutes allotted. I’ve done this trick a few times; I’ve written more than 60 articles on policy since the campaign began, and about 200 since 2010. (Hit “plato’s republic” button to sort these from the 700 or so on culture and the arts).
Tom Hanks, or a character he played, said “there’s no crying in baseball”. Surely, you know there is no “center field foul pole / corporate communications behemoth 65 foot pole antenna” in baseball.
at the risk of going full juan marichal vis a vis john roseboro — an extreme over-reaction, or inappropriate forum – I want to caution and bemoan that We the People are at an all time low, the public sector is a shambles, the corporate interests are in a rout, a feeding frenzy —
these $1,000 an hour mouthpieces with their $2,000 suits, yes we know you, sir.
there’s a great book by George Packer, Gunn 1978, on this: The Unwinding.
As early as 1849 Henry David Thoreau warned that leadership was not keeping up the standards of the founding fathers and mothers, and recommended as remedy we lean in, fight back, maybe make like Sal the Barber Maglie and throw a few — and this a metaphor only — a few brushback pitches, a little chin music, against the Corporation.
Jack London wrote about this circa 1920, “The Iron Heel” he predicted it might take 500 years for the people to prevail.
Baseball is mythic and pastoral, not technology dense. Santayana* said: whoever would know America would know baseball. Even William Davidow is now admitting we are over connected and getting feedback…
finally,
Although I like to claim I have been in this community since 1974, it is also true that I played five seasons of youth baseball not at 3672 Middlefield but at Stan Troedson fields in los Altos hills: now I read and then verified with my own eyes, LAH little league has a war monumnet, to Will Segua, our version of Pat Tillman, kids tap the monument for good luck. Palo Alto, and with due respect to leadership of the baseball org per se, wants a corporate monolith? Or we say we have no choice, we have no money, there are federal words stopping us from fighting back?
old timers recall Art Kuehn bouncing a ball of the library, a long home run — he is our Babe Ruth. calling a shot. Tony Mouton broke Joe Charbono’s SCVAL homer mark and played there, as did Danny mCallister, who died too young and was a basketball program mate of mine for the Gunn champions years.
If you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Field of nightmare.
I should have brought along Lawrence Ferlinghetti here.
edit to add:
they say:
i’m art howe from dewey cheatham and howe:
WHEREAS, the parties hereto agree that the procedures described in this Agreement are, with
regard to collocations as defined herein, a proper substitute for the FCC’s compliance with the Council’s
rules, in accordance and consistent with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and its
implementing regulations found at 36 CFR Part 800; and
this also reminds me of the scene in bowfinger with steve martin carring around a landline and pretending its a cell phone..
coda: Pernice Brothers, “Moonshot Manny(Pega Luna)” buy here, and portion goes to a little league team in dorchester Mass.
*Jacques Barzun: Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.
(I’m arguing that almost anything beyond the lame mouthing of cliches and pre-digested sound bytes would be an improvement in the discourse and correspondingly the policy. For the record, I was editor of the Oracle at Gunn, majored in English at Dartmouth, wrote for ad agencies, news papers and pr firms, had a radio show at KZSU, and now blog, in addition to producing concerts and managing musicians — I want music as discourse but hear a lot of clams).
Doug comes up to me — maybe I prepared him a scoop of ice cream — and says “Mark, so how is it that you are replacing Nancy Shepherd?” I presumed he was making some kind of a wise crack about her stepping away from the table, which I found perfectly ordinary, having done three of these in five years; I said “Will of the people”. I was pretending to believe he was predicting I would displace her on council and succeed to mayor.
My vote total jumped from 800 in 2009 to nearly 6,000 in 2012, all without spending a dime. This year I may spend $1,000 out of pocket — so far, still $0 officially — and have about 20 endorsements, heading towards 50 I would reckon.
If Doug had an hour to read my blog he could probably muster a 200 word synopsis rather than just saying he has no clue. Why does he do this?
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 