Regardless of your stance on players kneeling during the National Anthem, baseball is still the American pastime, rich with myths, legends and colorful language and imagery. The beloved poem, Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer is the inspiration for my take on the circus surrounding the Presidential election results in Georgia.
Donnie at the Bat
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Trumpville mob that day: The score stood three-oh-six to two-thirty-two, with but steal attempts to play, And when Rudy dripped dye from his temples, and later farted without shame, A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
The jubilant masses celebrated in the streets. The rest in kind Clung to conspiracy theories which spring eternal in the misguided mind; They thought, “If only Donnie could but get a whack at that— We’d put up even our children’s lives, with Donnie at the bat.”
But Flynn took the fall for Donnie, as Melissa performed like a flake, And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake; So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat, For there seemed but little chance of Donnie getting to the bat.
But Flynn received a pardon, to the wonderment of all, And McConnell, the much despisèd, crumpled the Constitution into a ball; And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred, There was Graham double talking and Flynn a-hugging a-turd.
Then from five thousand throats and more there rose an unmasked yell; It rumbled through the valley, it rattled up from hell; It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat, For Donnie, fascist Donnie, was advancing to the bat.
There was madness in Donnie’s manner as he overstepped his place; There was false pride in Donnie’s bearing and a smirk crossed Donnie’s face. And when, responding to the cheers, he doffed his MAGA hat, No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Donnie at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt; Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on the GOP’s shirt; Then while the wisened judge gripped the law and refused to flip, Treason flashed in Donnie’s eye, a sneer curled Donnie’s lip.
And now the leather-covered tome came hurtling through the air, And Donnie stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there. Close by the Paunchy batsman the law unheeded sped— “That’s all fake news” said Donnie. “Strike one!” the umpire said.
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar, Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore; “Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted someone on the stand; “Proud boys stand back and stand by,” Donnie responded as he raised his hand.
With the blessings of white Evangelicals, Donnie’s orange visage shone; He stirred the rising tumult; he bade the game go on; He signaled recount to the judge, and once more the law sphere flew; But Donnie still ignored it and the umpire said, “Strike two!”
“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered “Fraud!” With one approving look from Don the audience was awed. They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his tiny fingers strain, And they knew that Donnie wouldn’t let the truth go by again.
The sneer is gone from Donnie’s lip, his teeth are clenched in hate, He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate; And the steadfast judge still holds the line, freeing the will of the people to flow, And now the air is shattered by the force of Donnie’s blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright, The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout, But there is no joy in Trumpville—loser Donnie has struck out.
“Casey” Image courtesy of C.F. Payne
Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer is in the public domain
The Bridge is an enduring symbol of the conquest of ingenuity over physical obstacles. It is about creating connections where none previously existed. And, it is a metaphor for the basic human need to connect with others of a like mind, to be understood. I explored these cultural connections in an earlier post https://foursquaremiles.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/culture-of-one/
I have crossed a thousand bridges In my search for something real There were great suspension bridges Made like spiderwebs of steel There were tiny wooden trestles And there were bridges made of stone I have always been a stranger And I’ve always been alone
There’s a bridge to tomorrow There’s a bridge from the past There’s a bridge made of sorrow That I pray will not last There’s a bridge made of colors In the sky high above And I think that there must be Bridges made out of love
I can see him in the distance On the river’s other shore An his hands reach out in longing As my own have done before And I call across to tell him Where I believe the bridge must lie And I’ll find it, yes I’ll find it! If I search until I die
When the bridge is between us We’ll have nothing to say We will run through the sunlight And he’ll meet me halfway There’s a bridge made of colors In the sky high above And I’m certain that somewhere There’s a bridge made of love
Vou seguindo pela vida Me esquecendo de você Eu não quero mais a morte Tenho muito que viver Vou querer amar de novo E se não der não vou sofrer Já não sonho, hoje faço Com meu braço o meu viver
How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him, Shedding white rings of tumult, building high Over the chained bay waters Liberty—
Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes As apparitional as sails that cross Some page of figures to be filed away; —Till elevators drop us from our day . . .
I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene Never disclosed, but hastened to again, Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;
And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced As though the sun took step of thee, yet left Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,— Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!
Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets, Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning, A jest falls from the speechless caravan.
Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks, A rip-tooth of the sky’s acetylene; All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . . Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.
And obscure as that heaven of the Jews, Thy guerdon . . . Accolade thou dost bestow Of anonymity time cannot raise: Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.
O harp and altar, of the fury fused, (How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!) Terrific threshold of the prophet’s pledge, Prayer of pariah, and the lover’s cry,—
Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars, Beading thy path—condense eternity: And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.
Under thy shadow by the piers I waited; Only in darkness is thy shadow clear. The City’s fiery parcels all undone, Already snow submerges an iron year . . .
O Sleepless as the river under thee, Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod, Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend And of the curveship lend a myth to God.
There’s no shortage of old stone walls in Connecticut. Most have been standing for hundreds of years. They were built from materials pulled from the land. When the glaciers melted and land masses were pulled apart by the forces of nature, Long Island was blessed with rich, fertile soil, leaving New England with an unyielding rocky coastline.
Walls are built to keep things out, or in
Walls define borders
Walls are passive by nature; they are not weapons—they are defensive
I’m sitting on this one, so I can view what’s on either side…
“One Ton…One ton, it’s not gonna get any lighter.”
Rahsaan Roland Kirk at Newport Jazz Festival
Hidden behind a stone wall that borders a small brook, this stone cross is a reminder of the sacrifices that have been made for all of us, and the burdens still shouldered by our brothers and sisters.
In honor of the awe inspiring Republican National Convention, I profoundly present to our listeners a song from the days when America was great, when WRVR was broadcasting on the New York airwaves, Donald Trump was following in the footsteps of his father Fred, demolishing some of New York City’s finest architectural landmarks, and when men were men, women were women and, like minorities and foreigners, knew their place.
This classic, Your Mind Is on Vacation from Mose Allison, could have served as the theme song for the RNC that mercifully concluded after four mind-numbing nights.
Your Mind Is on Vacation
Mose Allison
You’re sitting there yakkin’ right in my face I guess I’m gonna have to put you in your place Y’know if silence was golden You couldn’t raise a dime Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is Working overtime
You’re quoting figures, you’re dropping names You’re telling stories about the dames You’re always laughin’ when things ain’t funny You try to sound like you’re big money If talk was criminal, you’d lead a life of crime Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is Working overtime
You know that life is short and talk is cheap Don’t be making promises that you can’t keep If you don’t like the song I’m singing, just grin and Bear it All I can say is if the shoe fits wear it If you must keep talking please try to make it rhyme ‘Cause your mind is on vacation and your (big) mouth is working Overtime
This is worth sharing. The words of James Baldwin have echoed across the decades as of late. The WBGO selection includes the following jazz inspired works:
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Davis(Vintage Books)
Clawing at the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever by Salim Washington and Farah Griffin(Thomas Dunne Books)
From the publisher’s site, notes on Baldwin’s collection:
ABOUT THE CROSS OF REDEMPTION
The Cross of Redemption is a revelation by an American literary master: a gathering of essays, articles, polemics, reviews, and interviews that have never before appeared in book form.
James Baldwin was one of the most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the past century, renowned for his fierce engagement with issues haunting our common history. In The Cross of Redemption we have Baldwin discoursing on, among other subjects, the possibility of an African-American president and what it might mean; the hypocrisy of American religious fundamentalism; the black church in America; the trials and tribulations of black nationalism; anti-Semitism; the blues and boxing; Russian literary masters; and the role of the writer in our society.
Prophetic and bracing, The Cross of Redemption is a welcome and important addition to the works of a cosmopolitan and canonical American writer who still has much to teach us about race, democracy, and personal and national identity. As Michael Ondaatje has remarked, “If van Gogh was our nineteenth-century artist-saint, Baldwin [was] our twentieth-century one.”
Also on the Penguin Random House website is an excerpt from the book:
Four Square Miles of Noise 