1.16.2021 – at end of the bench

at end of the bench
players play at not playing
insane, to stay sane

I came across an old book of Mitch Albom columns from the 1990’s the other day.

The Detroit Free Press used to issue pseudo books of Mr. Albom’s by picking 100 of his recent columns and reprinting them.

I remember them well as I was working at a book store back in then.

Then went by the imaginative titles of Live Albom #1, #2 … etc.

I also remember them as I remember reading them when the columns themselves were in the Free Press.

Or at least I remember the events in the columns if not the columns themselves.

Telling you the truth I DO remember reading some of them though.

Sounds too much to accept that I could recall Mr. Albom’s writing after 30 years but some of them, I can.

Maybe that says more about Mr. Albom’s writing than about me or maybe I am just a little odd.

Ernie Hemmingway once put on paper a statement on writing that went something like, “if you can write in such a way that WHAT YOU WRITE becomes part of the consciousness of the reader, then you are writer.”

I will that this applies to Mr. Albom, at least before he had to admit he ‘contrived’ or ‘projected’ a lot of his conversations with people as to ‘they way it would have happened … had it happened.”

I guess instead of reporting we just change the heading over his books to fiction, it is still good.

But this is all prologue.

I got the idea for todays Haiku from a column that appeared in the Detroit Free Press on April 18, 1990.

Written during the Detroit Pistons 2nd NBA Championship run during the Bad Boys era, the article was about two player, Scott Hastings and David Greenwood who never, if rarely got into a game.

An NBA team has 12 players.

5 players play at any one time.

So 5 really good players is all you need.

With maybe 2 or 3 guys off the bench.

That leaves 4 or 5 guys, really really good, NBA level talent, athletes sitting on the bench trying to look excited about being paid a lot of money to not play.

Mr. Albom titled the column, At the end of the bench you play at not playing.

Then led off the column quoting Scott Hastings as sayin, “Every thing we do is insane. It keeps us sane.”

Mr. Albom’s column was the story of 2 grown men working to dealing with life in one of the brightest of sports spotlights and the light just misses them.

The two players Greenwood and Hastings, how they passed they time, talking to fans, asking them to order popcorn, cheering for their team, watching the crowd, commenting on the weather, taking part in time out huddles.

Listing goofy thing after goofy thing just to pretty much stay sane.

Or at least stay awake.

This is what struck me.

This was just these two fellers in there little world.

If you were a fan and sat nearby you might have noticed it.

Some of the players on the Pistons bench said they were aware of the zany world at that end of the bench and tried to avoid.

It was … private.

You know what I mean?

It was a world of just these two players and they did these things just for themselves.

Today?

Today with twitter?

Today with twitter and other aspects of social media?

These guys and there little world most likely would be mega stars or ‘influencers.”

And it would not have been the same.

So many little worlds like this used to exist.

Private and on going unto themselves for the sake of themselves.

If there was an outlet for this it was AM TALK RADIO late late at night.

Today all these little private goofy, odd and maybe scary worlds are in the fore front somehow.

Instead of being under the carpet or off the radar they lead the newscycle.

I think these little worlds, like the players at the end of the bench, have always been there.

But now they have a voice.

A megaphone.

A megaphone yelling LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME.

Social Media has pulled back the carpet and revealed all the bugs underneath.

Instead of the guys at the end of bench, I am the one going insane to stay sane.

I feel like I am playing at not playing.

All the news now is just AM TALK RADIO with live video … of the person talking.

Can say it is an improvement.

1.15.2021 – move us rapidly

move us rapidly
across an area might
as well not exist

I based this haiku and several others like it from the writing in the book, The Art of Travel (2002, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton, and the passage:

On entering a new space, our sensitivity is directed towards a number of elements, which we gradually reduce in line with the function we find for the space. Of the four thousand things there might be to see and reflect on in a street, we end up being actively aware of only a few: the number of humans in our path, perhaps, the amount of traffic and the likelihood of rain. A bus that we might at first have viewed aesthetically or mechanically—or even used as a springboard to thoughts about communities within cities—becomes simply a box to move us as rapidly as possible across an area that might as well not exist, so unconnected is it to our primary goal, outside of which all is darkness, all is invisible.

*Adapted from the book, The Art of Travel (2002, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton.According to the website, GOOD READS, Any Baedeker will tell us where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why.

As I said in the section on Architecture , what I find irresistible in reading Mr. de Botton is his use of language.

To also quote myself, I get the feeling that if you made a spread sheet of all the words, adverbs and adjectives used by Mr. de Botton, you just might find that he used each word just once.

And to reemphasize, neat trick in writing a book.

If I knew how to do that, hey, I would.

1.14.2021 – But night upset this

But night upset this
claim to normality, now see
inside and wonder

Adapted from the book, The Art of Travel (2002, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton, and the passage:

I began word-painting.

Descriptive passages came most readily: the offices were tall; the top of one tower was like a pyramid; it had ruby-red lights on its side; the sky was not black but an orangey-yellow.

But because such a factual description seemed of little help to me in pinning down why I found the scene so impressive, I attempted to analyse its beauty in more psychological terms.

The power of the scene appeared to be located in the effect of the night and of the fog on the towers.

Night drew attention to facets of the offices that were submerged in the day.

Lit by the sun, the offices could seem normal, repelling questions as effectively as their windows repelled glances.

But night upset this claim to normality, it allowed one to see inside and wonder at how strange, frightening and admirable they were.

The offices embodied order and cooperation among thousands, and at the same time regimentation and tedium.

A bureaucratic vision of seriousness was undermined, or at least questioned, by the night.

One wondered in the darkness what the flipcharts and office terminals were for: not that they were redundant, just that they might be stranger and more dubitable than daylight had allowed us to think.

Adapted from the book, The Art of Travel (2002, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton.

According to the website, GOOD READS, Any Baedeker will tell us where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why.

As I said in the section on Architecture , what I find irresistible in reading Mr. de Botton is his use of language.

I get the feeling that if you made a spread sheet of all the words, adverbs and adjectives used by Mr. de Botton, you just might find that he used each word just once.

Neat trick in writing a book.

If I knew how to do that, hey, I would.

1.13.2021 – back at the point of

back at the point of
making shoes for dead people
who no longer walk

For the first time I am quoting my own haiku.

Back when I had just stared posting haiku but not writing anything else I posted this haiku.

I always liked it so I repurposed it for today.

It comes from a line in the book, SHORT-TIMERS by Gustav Hasford.

The movie, Full Metal Jacket, is based on this book.

I watch the news and the faces change and the voices change but the story and words stay the same.

And nothing happens.

Guess I am just old fashioned or just old but I would have thought, regardless of why you were there or who told you to go there, rampaging through the United States Capital would get your butt hauled away in a paddy wagon.

Silly me but I thought the same thing about carrying a loaded machine gun into the State Capital Building in Lansing, Michigan would land you in jail at least over night.

I myself was once told by a Detroit Cop outside Joe Louis Arena that if I bought 3 Red Wing hockey tickets some feller was offering to me AT FACE VALUE (he had three friends who didn’t show up), I would spend the night in city lockup.

I had exams the next day so we didn’t buy the tickets.

Well at least not in front of that cop we didn’t.

We went around the corner of the Joe.

I am sure you want to ask what I was doing at a Red Wings game the night before exams,

See, my Dad always said that as far as the night before exams went, if you didn’t know by then, you’ll never know it.

So when my roommate proposed going into Detroit and catching a hockey game, it was an easy decision.

What was funny about the night seeing as how that cop wanted to stop this small effort at supply and demand was that the game was against the old Quebec Nordiques.

At the time they were famous for having the Šťastný Brothers.

Three brothers, Marián, Peter and Anton who had escaped from Czechoslovakia.

Three french Canadian guys from Windsor sat behind us and yelled, “You G**D*MN COMMUNIST B*STARDS,” at them through the entire game. (Sorry got complaints about cuss words)

I used the phrase later at a Michigan Basketball game.

At the time I had been at Michigan long enough that my student seats were in the 2nd row.

I yelled at the ref.

He heard me.

Stared right at me.

Then shook his head and went back to the game.

Thinking no doubt the things folks yell in Ann Arbor.

But the night in Detroit, I didn’t go to jail.

I did enjoy the game.

I think I passed the exam.

But I digress.

Seems like the punishment for breaking into the building would be a bigger personal risk than buying hockey tickets.

And I admit, I WANT to see them punished.

I watch the video and hope that this time the police will start using their riot sticks.

And I feel very frustrated that so little is happening.

That nothing seems to change with this story.

Lots of words.

Lots of calls for action.

Nothing happens.

When is it that this has all gone too far?

I AM JUST SO T I R E D of it all.

Making shoes for dead people
who no longer walk.

In my reading today, I came to these verses in the Bible.

From the Book of Psalms.

Psalms 74, verses 5 and 6.

They behaved like men wielding axes
to cut through a thicket of trees.
They smashed all the carved paneling
with their axes and hatchets.

The Psalmist closes with a call to God:

Do not ignore the clamor of your adversaries,
the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually.

Sorry to say though it was the first verse that saddened me the most.

O God, why have you rejected us forever?

Not that I feel God has rejected us.

Not that I feel God has rejected us forever.

But that I know why.

As Thomas Jefferson said and as I have quoted here often, “Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.”

1.12.2021 – water is taught by thirst

water is taught by thirst
land by the oceans passed
peace by battles told

Stolen shamelessly from Emily Dickinson and her short poem;

Water, is taught by thirst.
Land — by the Oceans passed.
Transport — by throe —
Peace — by its battles told —
Love, by Memorial Mold —
Birds, by the Snow.

I am not sure what it means.

Most likely, like any passing view or shadow, its meaning can change with the day.

Today I want to say it means that you won’t miss it until it is gone, then you will miss it a lot.

Miss what?

Well, whatcha got?

I miss this country.

Or at least the mirage of civility this county used to display.

Maybe it was a mirage.

Maybe it was a hypocrisy.

But it was a useful hypocrisy.

Now as Mr. Wonka says, you can’t go back – go to go on to go back.

Water is taught by thirst.

Civility maybe is taught by the lack of it.

Or at least I hope so.