Blurbex

For those of us intelligent and tasteful individuals who miss HBO’s The Wire — which was egregiously snubbed by the Emmys this year, yet again — let me suggest something of a surrogate.
It’s called Generation Kill, (9 p.m. Sundays, HBO) a seven-part mini-series about the Marines of First Recon Battalion during the initial 40 days of the Iraq War.

The show, which runs about an hour and a quarter, has the same visceral, hyper-real feel of The Wire. GK is based on a book by Evan Wright, who was embedded with the Marines as a reporter for Rolling Stone. Its executive producers include David Simon and Ed Burns (yes, from The Wire), who also do a fair share of the writing.

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Bucs camp starts Saturday and I don’t care.

Well, I care a little, I guess, but not like I used to in the past. I picked up the sports section today and there was the obligatory story about keen areas of competition expected in camp — running backs, receivers, etc. — and I barely skimmed it.

Last year, and the years before, I would’ve been all over it.

Why? The Rays, man.

Until this year, I, like so many Tampa Bay sports fans, slogged through late June and July — with the NBA Playoffs over and our baseball team already 20 games under .500.

Football training camp represented a rebirth. Throw me a crumb about the battle for who’s going to return kickoffs, or the human interest story on the 127th kid who’s overcome adversity, and I am on it.

Hey, I’ll probably still read those stories, but they won’t be the lifeline they’ve been before. And I’ll read the Rays stories first.

I was sitting in the back row of the press box at Tropicana Field Friday night when an imposing figure sat down beside me. Dude was about 6-feet-2, thick, wearing a black brimmed hat. This is no garden-variety baseball beat writer, I thought.

I introduced myself.

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Just walked home — from Crescent Lake to Placido Bayou in St. Pete – to the tune of, oh, about five or six miles. Here’s why: 

I was driving north on 16th Street, having left a Rays game, when my Prius started riding like a Peterbilt tractor trailer. I’m a little slow on the uptake with car stuff, so it took me a few hundred yards to realize I had a flat rear right tire. I pulled over into the parking lot of a mom-and-pop convenient store, opened the hatch and started looking for the spare.

The lighting was bad, and on a good day it would probably take me ‘til dawn to figure out how to change the tire – if I could even find it. Plus, I wasn’t really digging the vibe in the place. So I figured I’d drive up a little ways, real slow, find a brighter spot, and assess my situation. Blinkers on. 12 mph. I made a right on 9th Ave. No., a left on MLK.

Then I saw the lights of a cop car behind me.

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So I’m sitting on my back deck naked — it’s fenced in, by the way – after a night at Tampa Theatre in which I saw a transcendent show by Shelby Lynne and then got kicked in the teeth after I waited more than an hour to meet her and get her to sign my cover story and she bagged on me, and I’m a little cranky, but I figure I’ll have another drink. And a smoke. My wife’s out of town. It’s completely still, the moss hanging from the trees is not moving a milimeter.

I look over and see this Bic lighter on the table. It’s been there for at least two months — in the sun and all the rain we’ve had lately. I figure this thing is waterlogged and sun-beaten for weeks on end, will it light? I pick it up, click it once, just a spark, click it twice, a spark, click it three times, and the thing fires up.

You go, Bic lighter. Used to be “lighters up” at rock concerts. Now it’s “cell phones up.” I like “lighters up” way better.

I put my one-dollar Bic lighter in a dresser drawer, knowing I can count it.

Newspaper headlines and lead stories got you down? Feeling a little anxious about life in general. Let me suggest a handy respite for 30 minutes a week.

On Wednesdays at 11 a.m., WMNF (88.5 FM) runs recorded lectures of Alan Watts, a British philosopher/theologian who holds court on Zen Buddhism, Asian philosophy, and a bit of Western religion.

Watts, who died in 1973, speaks in a cultured British accent, and there’s a touch of whimsy in his voice. What he says is always thought-provoking — he has a way of breaking down complex metaphysical ideas into lay-friendly, graspable terms — but it’s also the way he says it. His discourse calms you down, his speaking style an ideal reflection of his content.

I can’t always tune into Watts on Wednesday, but do so whenever I’m in the car. As a matter of fact, WMNF should run Watts during rush hours; his talks are the perfect traffic-jam coping device. It certainly helped me out this morning, while I was stuck on the bridge in the aftermath of a car fire.

Ex-Ray, ex-drug abuser Josh Hamilton warped minds last night with his display of power-hitting at the MLB Home Run Derby, part of the All-Star Game festivities.

Without going into rules particulars, Hamilton swung at 38 pitches (friendly throws from a batting-practice pitcher). He knocked 28 out of the park, and lots of ’em were moon shots. That 28 is a record for one round in the event.

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I watched parts of the Rays’ seven consecutive losses on this last road trip. And guess what? It sure is more fun tuning in when they’re winning nail-biters at the Trop than dropping games on the road to average teams.

Rays contests can get pretty dull when journeyman pitchers for the Cleveland Indians are throwing balls over the plate and it looks like the Rays are using heavily perforated bats.

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Maybe you’ve heard about Becky Hammon, the 31-year-old WNBA star who will play for the Russian basketball team in the Beijing Olympics. Flag-waving bloggers and conservative radio hosts (including one tool who was sitting in for Schnitt in Tampa recently) have derided her as a traitor, even suggested that joining the Russian team was an act of treason.

What a basket of bullshit.

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It’s my considered opinion that Chris Rock is a funny motherfucker. Last night at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center he was definitely a funny motherfucker. OK, there’s my review of the show.

What follows is a few of his bits, so consider this a spoiler alert if you’re going to his show tonight.

Very early in the set:

• I wanna do a good show tonight, ’cause I don’t want the authorities to come and take my children — like they did to Britney Spears. They took her kids! I’m looking at Britney Spears’ kids — they ain’t got no knots upside their heads, they don’t look hungry. It made me realize: They take white kids quick. Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, they got their kids. They even let O.J. Simpson keep his kids. And he killed the mother. O.J.’s got a lotta balls; I saw him say ‘Y’know it’s hard being a single dad.’ … But you killed the mother. He said it like they just broke up, like she won’t return his calls.

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Tampa Bay won twice last night — on the field and in the stands. After years of watching Red Sox fans turn Tropicana Field into their own personal pep rally, I was particularly gratified to be in the midst of a decidedly Rays partisan crowd.

Oh, there were Sox backers, for sure, but they were decidedly less loud — and often deliciously drowned out — by the Rays faithful, many of them newly converted and appropriately zealous. On the handful of occasions that a “Let’s Go Red Sox” cheer started to kindle, a hometown counter-chant quickly doused it out. Rays fans were particularly enthusiastic in heaping boos on Manny Ramirez, the Boston star who’s been bullying low-level team functionaries of late.

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With online voting for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game closing out Wednesday night, it seems a good opportunity to assess the Rays players most likely to go. You’d think, with the best record in baseball, that the local club would stand to place more than the mandatory one player on the American League roster.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

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Watched nine innings and nearly three hours of baseball last night. Again. I’m still amazed that I have that capacity, because baseball has always been a bit on the slow side for me.

It’s all about the Rays, of course. Watching them become a good team has been a kick, then a thrill, then something of a preoccupation. And the more you watch, the more you get an affinity for the team, and the guys on the team, the more you learn about game situations via illuminating analysis by the TV announcing team of Dewayne Staats and Joe Magrane.

The game is still a bit on the slow side for me, but it’s never boring (these days) and, during tense situations (like last night’s 9th inning in a 5-4 Rays win) can be as exciting as any other sport.

• During last night’s game against the Red Sox, it sure seemed like a Rays crowd.

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Fifty-three-year-old Benjamin Ford finds himself stranded for hours in O’Hare Airport on his way to his estranged daughter’s lesbian wedding in California. Out of sheer desperation, he picks up a pen and starts writing a letter to the airline, demanding his money back.

This letter is the clever conceit that shapes Dear American Airlines, Jonathan Miles’ debut novel. The “letter” turns out to be a tightly composed, 180-page story, a mixture of complaint and confessional, at turn hilarious and heartbreaking. This is not your classic summer read (whatever that is), but I unequivocally recommend it for fans of contemporary adult fiction who like their novels about equal parts humorous and poignant (and for those not interested at the moment in epics).

The book’s structure allows Miles to rant directly to the airline, describe the horrors of an overnight airport stay and — most crucial — write a rambling bio of Bennie Ford in long digressions that lay out a tale of regret, despair and possible redemption. As it turns out, Bennie was a bad drunk, bad husband and bad father. But somehow Bennie’s not a bad guy.

Miles prose is dense but not flowery; he balances out his longer riffs with tossed-out lines that lend a conversational air. Here’s a passage I especially like:

The worst part of sobriety is the silence. The lonesome, pressurized silence. Like the way sound falls away when you’re choking. Even when I drank alone, the vodka provided me with a kind of soundtrack — a rhythm, channeled voices, a brain crowded with noise and streaming color, the rackety blurred color of decrepitude. At the meetings everyone talks about how much more vivid life is without the booze, but I think, though I never say, that vivid is the wrong word. Life is rather more clear.

Dear American Airlines is loaded with insights like these, all the while evoking a narrator that you end up liking in spite of yourself.

By now, most of us know that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Americans have an intrinsic right to own a gun for self-defense.

The St. Petersburg Times ran a wire story on 1A today about the landmark decision, but then, in a sidebar about Florida’s bring-a-gun-to-work law, appeared to digress into another ruling by the court.

Reporter Jennifer Liberto wrote that the justices upheld the right to “bare arms.” “That changed when the Supreme Court decided for the first time that individuals have the right to bare arms …,” goes one passage.”

So it’s settled. The Supreme Court has upheld your right to wear a wife-beater.

Man, was that fun. Sitting along the third bass line in a sea of Cubs fans last night at Tropicana Field, and having the last laugh. And being artfully obnoxious to boot.

I picked up my media credentials at the Trop and grabbed a seat in the last row of the press box. It being a professional environment, there’s no cheering allowed in the press box. I went to a concession stand and bought a 24-oz. Bud Lite and brought it back to my seat. That’s when I found out there’s no drinking in the press box.

I was in the mood to drink. I was in the mood to cheer. I joined my pal Bobby J, who was sitting close to the field in a morass of blue — bright blue emblazoned with “C’s” and “Cubs,” way more so than the dark blue of the Rays.
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Just called Ticketmaster to check on prices for a story I was writing — no, I wouldn’t actually use Ticketmaster — and the computer voice came on. The computer voice introduced herself: “My name is Kelly, I’ll be helping you with your order.”

I was so thankful that Ticketmaster went out of its way to humanize the process. Kelly had a very sexy voice, although she did tend to monotone a bit. I tried to get her number, but she didn’t even dignify it with an answer. And I think Gladys took over for Kelly a few times — I swear I heard some phrases in a different voice. Gladys’ voice wasn’t as sexy as Kelly’s.

We’ve all seen — in the movies or, worse, in person — the power-tripping parking meter person who writes you a ticket even when you’re begging to get in the car and drive away. Well, I just had an experience that shows it doesn’t always have to be that way.

My pal Hamgravy and I were standing by our cars on the corner of Zack and Florida in Tampa, yapping about this and that. Our parking meters had run out. Suddenly, up barrels a white compact car with “Public Works” on the side and speed-parallel-parks right in front of us. We quickly made the move to our rides. A guy jumped out of the Public Works car. Immediately, we started pleading for a break. “Our meters are up, but can we just get in and drive away right now?” I asked him.

This is how he responded: “It’s OK. I’ve got to check out that Explorer across the street. No hurry. Finish your conversation.”

Huh? … Uh, thanks.

We wrapped up our chat and drove off. Thought I’d pass along a good story about meter people for a change.

This year, for the first time, NBA pundits allowed themselves to utter, albeit rather apologetically, a heretofore blasphemous statement — that Kobe Bryant might actually might be as good as Michael Jordan. Bryant’s performance in the playoffs — up until the Lakers/Celtics final — seemed to justify that discussion.

Bryant’s disappearing act, especially last night, when the Celtics stomped the Lakers by 39 to win the championship in six games, should put that talk to rest.

Let me stress that I’m no more a fan of Jordan than Bryant. Why? I could go into specifics, but sports-o-philes know: There are just some players you hate. And Bryant and Jordan are high on my list. (Bryant may be alone on top.)

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What’s the line between interrogation and torture? I admit to not having given it much thought until recently. Some stuff is obvious, like beating a guys balls off (e.g. Daniel Craig in the latest Bond movie) and forcing someone to listen to “Afternoon Delight” for days on end. From what I’ve heard about waterboarding … seems like torture.

But what about sensory deprivation? Long periods of isolation? Playing on a prisoner’s phobias? How much is too much? The issue can get dicey.

Well, I’m glad to pass along this little tidbit from CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman. In ‘02, he told a gathering of military and intelligence officials that torture “is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.”

Don’t know about you, but I’m glad that’s cleared up.