jjsaucesauce

Helium for balloon-heads

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:00:16 GMT

My girlfriend's aunt sends me ten emails daily in an attempt to find me respectable employment in Texas, including links to resume builders (blogs are the new thing now), obscure marketing jobs, several academic positions I might qualify for in fifteen years (i.e. Director of Creative Writing), and my favorite, websites that will pay twenty dollars for an article. There's a catch, of course. At helium.com, you choose a topic of interest, write a 500 word article, then submit it to a one-on-one battle royale until a single article emerges as champion--the article with the most "wins" gets the prize. After submitting a piece to a competition, writers are prompted to choose the better of two musings, which span topics from "Should Parents Spank a Child," to "Reduce Stress With Better Work-Life Balance." The system is entirely self-contained; there are no third-party judges, nobody regulating the quality of submissions, just a plea to spell-check. Here's the first line of an article that is currently ranked 5th out of 35 submissions: "There's no way painful like a stabbed when a children know that their family is falling apart." The topic is "How Can Children Ease Children's Psychological Burdens From Divorce?" The following is my submission to the same prompt. I was immediately ranked 17 out of 35. I guess they start you en media res.

"How Can Children Ease Children's Psychological Burdens From Divorce?"

My father was a closet-talker, one of those quiet-by-day, introverted types who cornered me in the living room just as I nestled into the couch to watch my favorite evening show. In the soft light of the television, he would overwhelm me with his pent-up thoughts, which began vague and introspective, hardly worth sharing, until they festered and boiled over like stomach acid. His voice would crack, or wobble. His warm breath smothered my ear, and I'd pray for the patience to bear witness, one more time, to whatever heartbreak had ruined him.

Sometimes I thought he was just biding his time in the garden, checking his tomato plants until he was absolutely certain they were supposed to be red, or examining the long, gangly legumes in the back yard. I could tell he was struggling with his divorce, convincing himself that his pain was buried deep within. Each night I spent with him was like a horror movie: something would bite him, he'd ignore the wound that refused to heal, try to hide the fact that he was shedding thick, tortured fur and growing long, razor-sharp incisors, and finally, he would transform into Wolf Man.

One night, after rejecting his attempt at conversation, he accused me of being a mama’s boy. I had been living with my mom throughout the separation and divorce, visiting Dad on weekends when I wasn’t playing basketball or scouting remote locations to make out with my girlfriend. It was late; we were both exhausted and irritable, and before long I was shaking my fist in my dad’s face, some kind of half-hearted threat. I drove away from his house in such a frenzy that my windshield hadn’t yet defrosted, so I stuck my head into the chill and navigated to an empty convenience store lot. The longer it took for the layer of ice to melt, the harder I bawled. After five minutes of this, a policeman rapped a flashlight on my window and asked me to step out. He thought it suspicious that I was parked outside a convenience store after midnight and thought it prudent to check my car for drugs and weapons.

One way for a parent to ease a child’s psychological burden from divorce is to ease his or her own burden. Pretending everything is hunky-dory is nice, but children can see through a hoax (although we may endorse it as the best option available). And unloading on children about all the nasty business of marriage, while having a sort of real-world value, probably won’t strengthen the parent/child relationship. I can’t say there’s an easy solution, a happy medium of repression and open communication that manifests in Dr. Phil catharsis, because it is difficult to universalize about families and relationships. Young children may not understand what a divorce is; for others, a divorce is the most potent form of disillusionment. Maybe the best thing to do is to be available for your children: listen, soothe, smile occasionally, hug often. But don’t pry. Don’t expect your child to be so in command of their feelings that they can articulate to you their fears and desires, or how those fears and desires are manifest in their behaviors and actions. Divorcees can rarely articulate their own complex emotions, their own desires and fears. But they should have the chance to unburden their personal anxieties so that they can be receptive and sympathetic for their children.

My father’s chance to unburden himself came from his brother, a pastor who lives in California, a long way from Dad’s home in Ohio. My dad and uncle had never talked much, only politely when my grandfather’s death seemed imminent, but through a process I cannot fully appreciate, they reconnected over the phone, and off-peak at that. I’m not saying that everyone has an ordained brother who doles out advice for a living, but it seems important for a divorced parent to be intimate with other adults, especially when all intimacy seems lost. It’s okay for a child to witness a parent, or parents, struggling with divorce, but if the child can also witness kindness, sincerity, and love, the child may be inspired to emulate those same traits.

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 07:32:30 GMT

I grew up in Sacramento, close enough to the bay area for my brother and I to split our loyalties between the A's and Giants, and fortunate enough to see some games at Candlestick and Oakland Stadium.   For the longest time, I've been involved in a heated debate with my bro about which slugger is more kickass: McGwire or Bonds. I've seen each hit homeruns before they went on their ridiculous tears, and I feel I bring a valued insight to all you who forgot about the premiere homerun hitter of our era, otherwise known as the Bash Brother who didn't wear a man-thong on Surreal Life 5. Here's my case for why Big Mac deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

1) Without McGwire, this commercial wouldn't exist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ltD21rYWVw

2) McGwire and Bonds both entered the league in 1986, although Bonds amassed 413 at bats and McGwire collected a measley 53. This is significant because, by the end of 1987, Bonds hit 41 homeruns on 964 at bats. McGwire hit 3 in 1986 and then set the as-yet-unbroken rookie homerun record (49) in 1987, giving him a total of 52 homeruns in his first 610 at bats.

Aside from the fact that McGwire matured quickly as a major league power hitter, batting .289 and co-leading the MLB in homeruns with Andre Dawson, this establishes him as a power hitter at the outset of his career. He has always belted a crazy amount of homeruns; he was scouted as a power hitter, and he remained so throughout--no mysterious transformations from mediocre to transcendant slugger. Put simply, he BEGAN his career as a record-setter in the category that would define him.

By the way, it took Bonds 15 years to hit as many as 49 homeruns, and he did that the year before he hit 73.

3) stats: an argument for consistency

-McGwire hit 50 or more homers three times. Bonds did it once.
-over their first four seasons, Bonds averaged 21 homers and Mac averaged over 29, and yes, I'm including Mac's 53 at-bats in 1986. If we were to compare their averages using Mac's first four seasons, he would average 38+
-over the first six seasons: Bonds (23+) vs. Mac (36+)
-Mac's AB/HR ratio has always been phenomenal: his highest AB/HR was 22, the only time he averaged more than 20 AB/HR, compared to Bonds' highest (30+) and the five times he posted above 20 AB/HR.

4) Mac has always been known for his psychotic workout regimen, his imposing physique, and his massive forearms. He didn't transform into an ogre; he was born one.

MAC BEFORE

AFTER

BONDS BEFORE

AFTER

5) McGwire was "allegedly" discredited by Jose Conseco, the biggest douche in major league baseball (barely edging out Albert Bell). Conseco obviously took roids: the temper, the short-lived career, the spousal abuse, the insistent arguing with umpires, the lumberjack swing, peanut-sized nut sack. Come on, Conseco went on Surreal Life to publicize the book that implicated McGwire!  When asked about Conseco's allegations during congressional hearings, McGwire responded, "It should be enough that you consider the source of the statements." That's all Mac needed to say. I don't know what to say about Palmeiro or Sosa, the others implicated in Conseco's confessional, but I will point out that Conseco asked for immunity to prosecution in exchange for his testimony. As Mac says, "why rely on convicted criminals who would do or say anything to solve their own problems"? On another note, McGwire was bashed for being evasive, but I trust him when he says he acted on his lawyer's advice, because he (arguably) had the most to lose. But isn't it confounding that when Barry Bonds implicated himself during the Balco scandal, the United States congress uses Conseco's book as its leading evidence? To sum up, the best evidence against Mac is an auto-biography from a desperate has-been and a discrete response during a farcical congressional hearing (in which the evidence was an autobiography from a desperate has-been). If Conseco ever needed a character witness in one of his many court engagements, he'd be forced to use a ham sandwich, or a douche, because only those of like-mind can attest to his quality.

6) The evidence prosecutors leveled against Bonds:
-several documents with Bonds' name on them specifically suggest he used human-growth hormone, "the cream" and "the clear," Depo-testosterone, insulin, and Clomid, a drug used for female infertility that increases the production of testosterone.
-laboratory tests with Bonds' name
-schedules for drug use
-billing information
-his trainer was indicted for distributing steroids. The trainer's excuse: I didn't do it knowingly (sound familiar).
-six other players, including Gary Sheffield, the Giambi bros, and three Giants teammates, all pointed to Bonds as the ringleader. My question is, if Bonds was unknowingly taking roids because he thought they were flaxseed oil and arthritis medication, why would Bonds recommend arthritis medication to six other players, all of whom have postumously admitted to using steroids? "Oh, you're looking to hit homeruns like me?  You must be suffering from arthritis, too."

Circumstantial? Maybe in the real world, but in any one of the CSI shows, Bonds would be done-for. David Caruso would pry off his shades, turn sideways, gaze at the smudge on his shoe, grunt, slowly raise his chin, perform his copyrighted eye-brow maneuver called the "gotcha," then say, "roundtriper, eh? How bout a roundtrip to the slammer...and back again...the eternal limbo...baseball limbo...of shame." Curse that Caruso. Curse him.

7) During his career, Mac was open and honest about his use of performance enhancing substances. He took andro, a legal, over-the-counter supplement and precursor to anabolic steroids, during his 70 homerun binge. He stopped taking andro after the record-breaking season, and then hit 65 homeruns. Sure, it doesn't mean he wasn't taking something else...but to this day, NO EVIDENCE has ever been collected indicating that he has taken an illegal steroid substance, circumstantial or otherwise. It may be possible that Bonds has been prosecuted more heavily, possibly due to race, but McGwire, because of his size and prolific HR hitting, has been a target of steroid investigations for far longer than Bonds.

8) I grew up reading biographies of Frank Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and Hammerin Hank Aaron, whose heroism in the face of hate brought integrity to baseball. I will never understand the racism both Aaron and Bonds have survived, or are surviving, but it'd be difficult for me to consider Bonds as a person with integrity. Let's just say I don't mind that Aaron plans to golf instead of witness Bonds break the homerun record.