A jock defends his market impulse

Bob how you ask a question like that?

Listen Sonny—

How you ask a question like that Bob?

I’m just asking you to look at the cost—

Do you like having a job?

Sonny.

Do you Bob like having your job?

…

…

Sonny I think what Bob is aski—

Linda I like making a lot of money. I like it. It probably more money than any one person deserve. But you ask me do I think it greedy?

Well that about sums it right there.

No Sonny I want to know do you think it is fair. Greedy is another issue.

Fair to who Bob?

Well fair to the fans who pay it says here a hundred and fifty dollars on average… for an average family.

I don’t make no money off that hot dog man. People buy five dollar hot dog for they kids Bob that got nothing to do with me.

Fair enough Sonny. But—

So what you really asking Bob, is if I think it unfair making this much money and still asking for more at expense of fans, then I must be greedy. So I’m just skipping along to the real part of the question.

Sonny.

No it aint unfair and I aint greedy. Your job—

But you’re at the bargaining tables…

Bob your job—

…and you have ticket prices jerked higher and management extorting tax revenue, ultimately out of the fans, to pay these escalating contracts and Sonny—

Bob the money we get do not come out of fans. It come out of you. Out of TV.

Sonny I can assure the viewers network policy forbids compensating players for—

Out of the TV contracts Bob. Look how much money they pay the league, and the local teams, for those TV deals. That where the money come from Bob.

Sonny.

And we see that. And somebody paying that, it mean somebody making even more money off us. So we just making sure we get a share of that.

But without media no one would even know your—

Exactly. So you in it too Bob. We in it together. Somebody make money so much putting me on TV they can afford to pay you to ask me do I think it fair.

Well we put on a show for the TV viewers and the network employs thousands of people but those fans at the stadium still—

The money ain’t made from those people. I ain’t asking for they money. Like a magazine. Everybody know the money come from advertisers not subscriptions. You just want subscriptions to up the ads. TV don’t even charge. All your money ad money.

But fans' prices are going up.

And people say I should retire. Take it easy. Get in the studio make a million dollars.

Fifteen more seconds Sonny, let me ask you while we have—

Well Linda I don’t know about a million, right—

How much you make Bob?

It’s not polite to say Sonny but you can be sure the average broadcaster earns far less than—

Oh that’s too bad Bob you know maybe you and your fellas ought to get together and—

Well Bob, Sonny we’re out of time.

Thank you Linda and thank you Sonny. When we come back assistant commissioner—

A story of evolution

Life doesn't know what it's doing. It has no plan and no training. Life does not even looking out the window to see how well it's succeeding at whatever it's doing. Life is carefree.

Some might say it's indifferent. But it never gives up and it doesn't get down on itself about its aimlessness. What life does instead is try everything. Given an opportunity to go in several directions, it doesn't restrain itself to one path. It tries all of them. Life's adventurous like that.

The thing about life is it fails almost all the time. There's good news though. Most of those failures, extinctions, are the result of life's other activities being so overwhelmingly successful they dominate the inauspicious efforts until those're abandoned altogether. Even mild successes tend to bludgeon the memory of dead-end paths.

But eventually the paths that lead somewhere fork and life doesn't learn its lesson. After all it might not have found its way had it not tried all the earlier directions. Life continues its unrestrained, ignorant journey at all available angles. Through no fault of its own, however, it's somewhat limited now. There's a built-in control. Life can only explore its unbridled curiosity at these new intersections descended from avenues that worked out the first time. And theselife does explore.

After centuries of wandering around, life finds itself in many different places, but not every place. Simply because the control's effect has been to guide it, however absently, in exclusive directions. Life, though still unconcerned with where it might be headed next, gained a little perspective in its travels and can't help but pause, awed and astonished to realize it never would have gone so far and certainly never roamed so wildly and inventively, had it departed with a determined goal and restrained itself to that path, or even its best guesses where that path might be.

The end. But, naturally, life goes on.

The Walk Up

Hello,

First, be sure you read Lars' post below. It seems that whenever someone posts something here someone else posts fairly quickly after. And since we haven't updated lately, you may have missed Lars' most recent. Anyway, read it first and leave him a comment.

I recorded a song tonight that I'd been working on for a bit. I think the lyrics are good because I'm actually trying to say something.

Whenever I upload a new song to the PureVolume page it plays at double speed, but then a day or so later it's fixed. So it may be at double speed right now, but go here and listen to "theRunDown". Then tell me what you think.

Enjoy! Have Fun!

S_Dot_Business

Bluff

I’ve been writing Adam fake stories for Sports Illustrated for a while and he’s just now starting to get shit from his bosses.

“Hey man,” he says, “that part about the brawl behind the curtain at the press center at Skydome was awesome but how did you get back there?”

“I didn’t,” says I, “I made the whole thing up.”

“Oh,” he says, “well we can’t use the thing where the baby sneaks into the beer vendor’s stand and drinks the 64 ozer and then curls up inside the plastic cup because, uh, babies aren’t supposed to drink and that vendor could get fired.”

“What!? You’re fucking journalists. You’re not supposed to worry about who gets fired. The baby went back there didn’t he? That was the best item I got.”

“Well maybe,” says Adam, “The other thing is when you write all the excruciating details about one single play, it’s really fantastic writing and I would love it if they would print that but they want more quotes and summary of the whole game. And the section about the storm. Like I say its very well written and so tactile, the images of the roiling moisture and so forth but they are going to come down on me about it. That’s the thing.”

“Well why don’t you get Sports Illustrated to actually get me a press pass so I can do some real reporting?”

“Yeah maybe I’ll do that.”

“And I have that car now,” says I, “so I can get to the games if I want and have enough time.”

“That’s right,” he says, “that’s right: the car. Yeah maybe we’ll do that.”

“Lets go up the beach.”

The beach is not flat and full of sand. It’s bluffs with wisps of thick fibrous grasses holding the earth back from an eroding seashore. The water’s cold. We’re in the north, but the sun’s nice and it seems like New England summer.

There’s a point of land like a small cape or a breakwall stretching out from the foot of the hotel. A girl with springy hair and glasses washes the window in the hotel’s main door. I roll up into the hotel and tell the bell woman I’m on the sixteenth floor which is a lie. I don’t even stay at this hotel. It’s very fancy.

The woman is huge, too tall. She lifts me up by my ankles and holds me like that, dangling above the floor though her fists and my ankles are just about at her shoulder. She throws me out the door, past the girl washing glass.

“Run,” says I. And me and Adam do, around past the point and handfuls of vacationers on the small slope there where a real beach with some pebbles is protected by the ridge. Little kids play with pails and adults lay on blankets. Not that many though.

The hotel manager, the bell woman, and the window-washing girl pursue. The manager is yelling at us. This is hotel property here, behind the hotel, near the beach. The manager wears a pink and green skirt suit and waves her hands menacing.

I turn and lead Adam the other way, up a high much steeper slope above the beach in back of the hotel. My feet make contact with the slope and carry a bit of the way but soon I’m on my hands and belly, pulling on the thick clumps of grass, because it’s too steep to run. The earth’s in my fingers and there’s sun and sweat on my back. Adam doesn’t seem too happy to be doing this. The women are behind us, climbing and shouting.

We haul ourselves over the summit. Trees and shrubs like those on the edges of the slope fill the top of the high mound. We’re not quite higher than the top of the hotel but the hotel manager and her staff are after us. Adam ducks quickly into an outhouse and I jump in after. It’s a little awkward. I’m sitting on his lap so I stand against the door.

The hotel manager, the bell woman, and the girl bang in fury against the door but it’s locked. Adam flushes himself down the toilet and he’s gone. Escaped.

I open the door swiftly, yank the girl with springy hair and glasses into the outhouse. I fumble with the lock but the other women are so surprised they pause and can’t throw their thick arms in the outhouse door.

The girl’s surprised too. But the outhouse is all ours now. I kiss her. She’s excited. We make out. Whew.

(I dreamed this.)