last week i attended a baseball game with the wife of my friend greg
and i was moved to consider a number of things so let me begin with the overall impression of the ballpark it was such a glitzy noisy place it sits there in all it's charm minnesota fans getting back to playing on grass such a sweet idea but it is an experience of constant discomfort what is it to go to a baseball game what is it to sit there and try to watch a game amid the mayhem of erratic human activity all contained in a stadium
while i must acknowledge the free seats it was painful to sit where i sat i sat in an aisleseat right within visual range of right field and first base i sat next to a lady who i feel was decidedly indifferent about the game and indifferent to the fact that i was intent on really watching the game and because we sat on the aisle it was almost impossible to watch the game with consistent attention because of the constant stream of hungry distracted nervous thirsty desperate people who wove by and the venders who yelled and sold worthless crap for a high price i was not able to focus on the game and this was a terrible feeling
between each inning the whole ballpark was flooded with loud heavy bass affect rock noise from the loudspeakers this fact alone has moved me to state that i will never go to another twins game it's over for me i will not go again plus there is this constant visual blitzkrieg taking place the digitized screens and there are groups a raging drunken goofy women having a night out being all gaga before some camera singing karaoke
my contention that they let the girls in is this
and while i have my difficulties with the fair sex
these days i do not wish to condemn in judgement
all that i see and experience in femininity these days
it is simply that between the visual distraction all the hyped up food and drink concessions which by right should be taken care of largely at home and the women should be there to prepare it now it is hoisted into the social atmosphere in the form of money grubbing sweating desperadoes who want to sell you things you should not eat anyway
and then there are young women there who sit and talk about babble that they babble
when it's time to babble they pay what 40 bucks to come to a place where they just babble to one another while a guy like me might be trying to concentrate on the game which is a foolish proposition anyway because everything around him militates against the possibility of concentrating on the game they even remove all the stats from visual access between innings so you can't size up who is doing what how many errors on the field how many strikes thrown
etc until the inning begins again
there was a time and i was there and i saw it with my eyes when
a ball game was by and large a male phenomenon and men
sat around a very concentrated effort on the part of two teams to
outwit and out play one another and it was sort of sacred
and we attended to that with vigilance and rapt attention and we
moved with the possibilities and the air the day or night had brought about
it is in ruins
it has become a spattering array of visual
audible and gastric distraction
the only remedy is for women to say
OK guys that gets to be your sacred ritual
we don't have to attend that
it is a place where you work out what you need
and there can be a few women poets around like marianne moore
who bestow sacred encouragement upon the rite
but there can be no more of the girl zaneyness
and screaming
the ballpark is a guy place
and girls can only make a mess of it
i'm sorry
that's the way it is
the girls who play baseball are mocking everything
so this is my summer discontent
i have had to make a lifestand judgement on a game
and the judgement is
i will never attend another probaseball game as long as i live
as long as the visuals and the audibles persist
as long as it is only a pathetic distraction
in a commercialized sea of grease sweat and
human pathos
once we acknowledge the intense social failure
everything else will fall into place
but having killed baseball
is to have rendered the male gathering ritual
into an almost shameful display of ineptitude
into a pathetic distracted aimless perpetual
listlessness of meaninglessness abject and foul devastations
and i'll have nothing more to do with it
if in any way baseball is an expression of free market capitalism it is an expression of the most hideous attributes known to mankind
and i'll have nothing more to do with it
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6 comments:
se lah.
what of the other...
X-balls???
La Gran Puta....tiene stadia por pelo
yeah yeah yeah
it's always the women
who are to blame ; - )
blah blah blah
i've heard it before
though i don't think i've ever heard
any one else blame women for capitalism
at least i take some consolation
that i have never been
to a professional baseball game
so it wasn't me who messed it up
but i do like the image of you
staring intently at the game
in the old days
keeping track of things in your head
i acknowledge that as a genuine loss
when i was in college i was treated to the then au courant notion that white european men screwed everything up and it was women who were fortunately far more capable than any white male who would set things right...this was really the thinking
i hate to complain about this but
it seems more and more true
and of course i do not wish to make sweeping judgements for i now all too well the importance of individual witness but...
my shoot from the hip synthesis of deranged capitalism is...more women in the work place more mania about money more money to spread around more shopping and the whole thing just keeps going round and round into organzied chaos and someone is enjoying i guess but i don't....sally
you don't seem to be a person who focusses on shopping which i find rather rare - all my sisters and inlaws brag about their shopping exploits and i find it all rather idiotic...but the freedom for women seems to be expense accounts that are linked to nobody and nothing other than their own whims
most conspicuous consumption is the domain of women with their own money i suppose it used to drive husbands crazy because they had to provide their wives with money for conspicuous consumption but now almost all the women have their own money
i for one don't think there is an employment crisis i think there are too many people who think they need to work and earn money more people should stay home
at the baseball game there was the food court and almost all the managers of the food court were women all the sales booths were women it was this big overpriced market place of superfluous stuff that women were in charge of the thing was all money not product not quality
i know it's a difficult position to hold but i think this whole women in every sphere of life in every social position in every possible degree in every every every thing
is crazy
i think women if they want to really prove themselves should go back to the great luxury of learning for the sake of learning reading and knowing all sorts of things just because and not with the presumption that it has to mean a job
maybe it's protestant work ethics and pragmatism i am arguing against and the fact that women's rights just fed right into all that
but something ain't right about it
what the world really needs is more places that serve as homes places where home happens and it is to be expected and it shouldn't cost an arm and a leg to make it happen
i suppose i should be happy that all the players are men in pro base ball but the sensory mayhem that surrounds the game is enough to drown out any sense of sanctuary
men once felt about it all
maybe we should go to a game sometime
i suspect you'd have the same revulsion i had
it might not pan out to be the women in charge of all the mayhem from your point of view
but i couldn't help seeing it that way
anyway
it would take a lot to have me re-neg on my oath
anyway
benedict and scholastica got along alright
jesus seemed to like women alright
my life would certainly be deficient had not women deemed to be a part of it
i guess i'm just trying to make some sense of the horrendous incongruities i find when i go out into the world
way to put up your rhetorical dukes there sister
my laments are not without
vivid reminders of when things were alright
jh
i got up early to temper my comments
with the acknowledgement
that once i get past
my defensiveness about women
that this is a vivid and effective piece of writing
it takes me there
and i too feel the sensory overload
of the modern ball game
and the intense focus
of the old game
even your comments about women
open a window to your perception of the world
which i understand better now that you
have elaborated on it
maybe you could pray
for all those women addicted to shopping
i guess i can agree
that there are many women
whom i have a hard time relating to
i have so little in common with them
i used to think it meant that there was
something wrong with me
that at family gatherings
i found myself more often
hanging out with the men instead
i'm all for working less
i wish i could figure out a way to do that
for me it would be ideal to work half-time
i do enjoy the stimulation of being in the work place
of interacting with others
of having my contributions recognized
but there are many other things
i would also like to do with my time
men started the schports rackets, like they started the mafia
and Model T's--
beer, beef n' pork, bets, ball, dames, and some tommy guns to keep it runnin. Add the contracting scams to build the stadiums--bada bing, LaSordidocracy . Yo, one could get used to this poetry bidness.
hi S.
hey J
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