Bagging It

A few nights ago, my friends and I were at our usual Wednesday night karaoke haunt, Sully’s Pub. Nice place, that Sully’s. I’d never thought I’d be a regular at a bar, but I like the atmosphere there—it borders on charming without pretending to it. The usual crowd is a mix of slumming hipsters, angel-voiced war vets, crooning ex-drama stars, and a Led Zeppelin-obsessed man named Jonathan, who looks like a meek investment banker but we think might be a serial killer. The clientele rotates on a regular basis, but you tend to see at least a few of the same faces crop up at some point each week.

When the douche walked in, therefore, it was easy to spot him.

Backwards hat? That’s the first sign, and not a good one. Reversed caps work on a precious few people. Actually, the only one I can think of is Ken Griffey Jr., and even then, it only works when he’s in the Home Run Derby, which he’s too old to participate in anyways, so the point is moot.

Pink shirt? OK, well, in certain situations, I can see one working. In fact, my friend Zach has made the pink shirt a key part of his wardrobe. Still, as we will see, it is often an indicator of true douchebaggery.

Purposely-ripped jeans? Unambiguously douche. We’re nearing critical d-bag level and honestly need only one thing to complete the image.

Sandals? At night? In a bar? Who are you kidding?

I do so hate to judge a person based on his appearance, but honestly, it’s disingenuous not to do so. Merely neglecting how a person presents himself in developing your assessment of him suggests powers of perception that you do not actually possess. Appearance can be by necessity or choice, but it is never insignificant.

In our own subject’s case, his appearance was obviously calculated to convey a sense of laid-back dudeness—to say, in a sense, that it would be perfectly OK and in fact preferred to call him “bro”. He had the typical lips-parted half-smile of the greater North East d-bag*, with dull eyes and just the barest hint of stubble.

*A short digression on the different types of d-bag. One would think they’re the same all over, and in truth there are certain commonalities that link douche to douche in the grand douche circle of life (if represented visually, such a circle would vaguely resemble a badly-drawn barbed-wire tattoo). In the interest of assembling as authoritative a compendium of the various types of douche as is possible in this space, I will briefly address their distinguishing characteristics:

North East D-Bag: Already addressed in some detail. Crucially, a NEDB will often pop his collar for reasons unknown (possibly in a pale and unwitting imitation of a peacock, though protection from Vampires has not been ruled out). The more advanced versions of this variant will wear several collared shirts, all with collars a-poppin’, tripling or even quadrupling the douche level like some kind of douche layer cake. NEDBs can often be found behind a friend’s house (the friend will usually be named Foley) for the express purposes of drinking a thirty-cube of Miller.

Guidouche: I’m subjecting myself to this once again this year, because I consider running the Guidouche Gauntlet to be some kind of rite of passage, like hunting down and killing an elephant or a lion (only both would be bright orange). Guidouches typically wear muscle shirts or tank tops, tan themselves to a fine burnt sienna hue, spike their hair in blowout fashion, and make kissy-faces. Guidouches are dormant for the entirety of the workweek, but come alive immediately upon exiting work on Friday. They retreat to clubs for the duration of the weekend, venturing out only to flex on the beach during the day. A Guidouche lives his life in a kind of tunnel—his vision too clouded by a haze of Axe body spray and pulsing strobe lights to ever see anything but the equally bronzed girl at the bar.

Lord Fauntleroy Douchington: “Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever BEEN on a yacht, but FATHER’s is just FANTASTIC! MUFFY and I spent nearly two weeks on it, and it was just the most MARVELOUS time (father’s terribly rich, so I haven’t had to work for AGES)! “ Lord Douchington, at one point in his life, watched one of those 1980s teen romantic comedies where the nerd moves to a new town and gets the girl, all while dealing with a cadre of spoiled rich kids led by the likes of Billy Zabka. Lord Douchington looked up to Zabka and has spent his entire life trying to tie a sweater around his neck in exactly the correct fashion.

Roidouche: When this variant goes to the supermarket, he has to ask for help in reaching for the muscle supplements on the top shelf. Swimming is a no-no—not only is it a slimming activity, the only stroke the Roidouche can manage is a dog paddle. Where the Guidouche spends his whole life in the club, the Roidouche holes up in the gym—though he usually confines himself to the bench press exclusively. His “guns” are of paramount importance, as the Roidouche can often be found gazing admiringly at them, kissing them, or in one terribly disturbing YouTube clip I won’t inflict on you, making out with them. Full tongue.

L.A. Douche: Has been on at least one reality show. This is not surprising, as he has been trying to Date a Cougar or Get a Celebrity Out of Here for most of his adult life. The L.A Douche splits his time between drinking by a pool and drinking by a beach. He retains the unique ability to monetize his doucheness, thereby making himself the most dangerous of all douches. Fortunately, he will generally waste his money on a grotto.

What makes a man aspire to douchedom? I pondered this as the douche sat down at the table next to us, in an open chair at the same table as a few attractive girls. Much of it is women, no doubt. The douche is like a mildly retarded peacock, running around with his tailfeathers out all the damn time. Eventually, they’ll just get covered in shit.

Which is appropriate, because he wasn’t exactly covering himself in glory. Though he acted overly familiar with the girls, they seemed to be having none of it. You know the expression a women gets when she’s simply not interested?* Eyes down and elsewhere, mouth in a thin line of disapproval that would seem appropriate on the face of some tyrannical nun. That’s what the douche created in the middle of a rollicking bar: a fucking convent.

*There’s a story, somewhat apocryphal, about the casting process for “The Graduate”. Apparently, Robert Redford auditioned for the lead role. His performance was good, but not quite what the producers were looking for. They took him aside and told him to act more wounded and less confident.

“You know how sometimes you’ll be hitting on a woman and she’ll reject you?” they asked.

Redford gave them a blank look, and without a hint of guile, said “Huh?”

The pattern repeated itself many times over the course of the evening—a cold approach, a sense of familiarity, a sudden but striking cooling of anything resembling ardor, disengagement, etc. Finally, the douche heard his name called by Don, the DJ karaoke at Sully’s. It was time for him to sing.

I’m ashamed to say that I can’t remember exactly what he decided on, but I’m going to pretend it was something from the douche catalogue that epitomizes douchiness. He sang Nickelback.

Nickelback is an aggressively awful band that makes aggressively awful songs, but a singer that has something of a clue can at least make their 4:00 ditties go by with very little aggravation. The douche was not one of those singers.

As I watched him hem and haw his way through the song, it dawned on me the essential problem with douches. Break them down into their component parts and you find a lot of qualities that aren’t necessarily bad. They’re confident, for sure, and somewhat social. They’re always down for a drink. Most of them keep in reasonably good shape. It’s also not a bad thing to dress a little ostentatiously.

What, then, is the problem? Why do they take so much from the table?

Substance. The douche, in one way or another, makes a promise with his outlandishness, and his overconfidence, and his willingness to engage. He says to you, I promise that I am an interesting person, the life of the party, a go-getter. I’m someone that can make things better for everyone in this bar.

He always breaks it. He can’t help it. There’s nothing backing him up.

On stage, the douche took advantage of a quiet moment in the song to raise his arms up

.

“I need some ladies up here now. Where are all the ladies at tonight?”

No one answered. Douche.

A Metal Primer: Blacker than the Blackest Black, Times Infinity

What's the most embarrassing album you own?

For most of you, I'd bet on some early pop crap you bought on a lark as a kid. Backstreet Boys, LFO, something of that nature. If you asked that question to my parents, it'd have to be Jermaine Jackson's Jermaine, which I found while flipping through their joint record collection once. Both of them deny ever purchasing it, but it's there, which meant that, at one point in their lives, my parents thought that buying the third- or fourth-most talented (depending on your opinion of LaToya) Jackson kid would somehow enrich their lives, musically. I've never let them live that down.

My most embarrassing album trumps all of yours by a wide margin. I am the longtime owner of Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle Earth. This is a concept album about J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. Only it's not about the coherent, somewhat familiar story we all watched on the big screen a few years back. This album is based around the Silmarillion, which is Tolkein's attempt to create a detailed backstory for his fictional universe.

Nightfall in Middle Earth is based on a HISTORY TEXTBOOK for a FICTIONAL UNIVERSE. I own this album. I've never read the book. I bet that copy of Pop by N'Sync doesn't look so bad now, does it?

Welcome to the Lovecraftian horror that is my taste in music. What can I say? I loves me some metal.

Metal is, out of all the major genres, perhaps the most misunderstood. Now, I am by no means an expert on the subject, but I am a pretentious know-it-all who can bullshit with the best of them. To that end, I've decided to provide all of you with a quick primer on metal music.

Like all good musical genres, metal is as much about the music's subject matter as it is the actual sound. Metal covers a wide variety of topics, but it's very important to understand what is and is not metal.

Death is very metal. Many metal songs revolve around the concept of death, or someone dying, or how life is pointless and we all should die--this is basically a very tiresome concept in the realm of metal. Go to a Metallica concert and request, say "Kill 'Em All", and they'll probably play it, but with kind of a jaundiced ennui. Death is old hat to the experienced metalhead.

To this end, Murder, Suicide, and occasionally Arson are all metal. Burglary, Kidnapping, Tax Evasion, and Treason are not metal. Murder and suicide are prickly topics in the metal community, primarily as a result of one Norweigian black metal band called Mayhem.

Now, Mayhem is not a band I listen do. Doesn't do it for me, and besides, their story is really all you need to know. At one point in the band's history, they employed guitarist Oystein Aarseth (known as Euronymous) and vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin (known as Dead). Bear with me on the names.

According to the rest of the band (keep in mind that this is a group of people who gave themselves names like "Necrobutcher" and "Hellhammer"), Dead was a bit of a weird guy. He would bury his clothes in the ground prior to concerts, and dig them up so they'd have the "smell of the grave" still on them. Upon finding a dead bird by the road one day, he put it in a jar and would smell the jar onstage, so he could "sing with the smell of death in his nostrils".

You can see how he got his name.

Did I mention that I don't listen to this band? Just wanted to reiterate it.

Dead was melancholic, humorless, and depressed, so it should come as very little surprise that, in a woodland cabin that the band shared, he committed suicide with a shotgun. This would be about 1991 or so. He was discovered by his friend and bandmate, Euronymous.

What would you do in this situation, after freaking out? I'd like to think you'd call the police or something of that nature. I don't know whether or not Euronymous freaked out, but he did not call the police. He went to a local shop, purchased a disposable camera, arranged certain items around Dead's...well, dead body, and took several photographs of it. One of these photographs was later used for the cover of the Mayhem album Dawn of the Black Hearts.

Rumors surfaced that the band had made a stew out of Dead's brain, and had constructed necklaces out of of his skull fragments. The band vehemently denied the first accusation. Brain stew! Ridiculous and offensive. Brain stew? What kind of freaks do you think you're dealing with here?

The second part was entirely true.

Euronymous, incidentally, was later stabbed to death by fellow band member Varg Vikernes, otherwise known as "Count Grishnack". Vikernes claimed that most of the 26 stab wounds in Euronymous' body were not his fault. The stab wound right in the middle of Euronymous' forehead was entirely his fault, however, and Vikernes remains in jail to this day.

So yes. Murder, Suicide, Depression, Darkness, etc., etc.---all metal.

War is also very metal, perhaps because it combines all those things you've read about above. What's interesting is that the further in the past the war is, the more metal it is. For example:

The Iraq War is not metal at all, but The War of the Roses is.

The Vietnam War is only a little bit metal, while The Punic Wars are incredibly metal.

The cutoff point, I think, is World War I, which is very metal. World War II is not metal. Perhaps that's because World War II contained Genocide, which is surprisingly not metal, whereas World War I involved Trench Warfare--very, very metal.

You could probably say that The Past is, in general, metal, while The Present is variable. The Future is almost never metal, unless it involves Post-Apocalyptic Situations or Historical Anachronisms. Take Star Wars, which is not metal in and of itself. If Luke Skywalker was a Viking and had used a Battleaxe, Star Wars would probably be the most metal movie in existence. This would be despite Luke riding in Spaceships (not metal).

Vikings are probably the epitome of metal. There is nothing that is not metal about Vikings. Think about it: you have essentially nihilistic medieval warriors, raiding and fighting for the hell of it, dressed in wolf/bearskin, covered in blood, and wielding all kinds of nasty pain instruments. That's metal as fuck.

My brother (who is in a metal band of his own, The Arkham White) loaned me a CD once by Amon Amarth, called With Oden On Our Side. The first song was a rocking tune that described a viking raid on a village. Awesome stuff. Great for pumping yourself up before sports.

The second song was about a viking raid on a village. OK. Maybe it's part of a triptych?

Once I got to the fifth song, which dealt with the heretofore-unexplored territory of a village, raided by vikings, I kind of realized that the whole album was going in one very basic direction. But at least none of the members have murdered one another.

Makeup is not metal. By extension, Hair Metal is not metal. Wearing Paint that Makes You Look Like a Corpse is very metal, just keep the spray out of your hair, wuss.

Faeries are not metal. Elves are actually very metal, as are Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, Wizards, and most assorted fantasy concepts that don't seem too feminine.

Religion in and of itself is not metal. Aspects of religion are totally metal. Jesus is not metal, but Crucifixtion is incredibly metal. God is not metal, but Satan has his own branch of metal.
Concept albums are very metal, but the concept needs to be Obscure, Socially Awkward, and Repellent to Women. Kamelot's Epica is a concept album about Faust. We've already mentioned Nightfall in Middle Earth. Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime "tells a story of a young man, Nikki, awoken from a coma suddenly remembering work done as a political assassin, then falling in love with a nun, mixing around with heroin, seeking help, then being ordered to assassinate his love", and oh God, just kill me now.

Nu-metal is not metal, and it's just embarrassing.

This is metal, though it is equally as embarrassing:



Running through the forest behind your parent's house whilst wearing a wizard hat and carrying a torch in broad fucking daylight is, unfortunately, metal.

Really, it's just a lot easier these days for me to listen to funk. Funk is not metal, but Sex, Dancing, Getting Up, Getting Down, and Booty Shaking are all funky.

James Brown is both metal and funky. Let's end this with a little bit of the Godfather of Soul, in his prime, to make you forget about vikings and Dead and whatever.

Will No One Help the Widow's Son?**

Eight years after the widely-accepted Future Demarcation Line, the past still has power.

West Hartford center has undergone a transformative binge of construction in the past few months, cutting into the last vestiges of pastoralism surrounding Hartford proper. It's added a small but modern theater, plus a Cheesecake Factory and a White House, Black Market. The place is good for a walk now, and has brought out the younger element in the area.

All this development stands in marked contrast to an old church, the First Church of Christ, West Hartford, which looms over Main Street like a great brick elephant. You have seen a million of these churches if you've ever lived in New England. They seek to impose the terror and majesty of their religion through sheer height. Once, they were the tallest buildings for miles around, marking God's country to all who could see. This is no longer the case in the city, but places like West Hartford never had a need for skyscrapers, so the great white spire of a church is still king.

I never gave these churches, and indeed this particular church, a second look, up until a few weeks ago. On my way to pick up some groceries, a hawks' cry caused me to look in the direction of the church. I took it in as a full entity for the first time, and for one bare second, it was if my vision had blurred and contorted.

I had seen this church before.

There is a graphic novel out there called From Hell. It's written by the great Alan Moore, master of subtext and structure, a storyteller without peer. The book concerns one particular theory about the 1888 murder of five prostitutes in the Whitechapel section of London--all killed in brutal and horrifying fashion by a madman who would come to be known as Jack the Ripper*.

*Every once in a while, history will surprise you by injecting a little bit of modernity into events which seem remote and ancient. In this case, you may not know that the police actually took photographs of all of Jack the Ripper's victims. I will now provide you with a link to that of Mary Jane Kelly, the fifth victim. Don't look at it. I apologize for saying this, because now you will.

The novel postulates that Jack the Ripper was one Dr. William Gull, Royal Physician to the Queen of England, and that the murders were actually part of an elaborate and arcane ritual. Gull was a Freemason, part of a fraternal brotherhood of powerful and influential men. Freemasonry figures heavily in a number of conspiracy theories, most concerning things like shadow governments, the Illuminati--tinfoil hat stuff. Anyway, Gull remarks on several occasions on a church in Whitechapel that holds particular significance to Masonry and Masons--Christchurch, Spitalfields. It's full of pagan symbolism, most notably the fact that the steeple is essentially an obelisk. Here's what it looks like:

Incidentally, Christchurch is supposed to be unsettling in person. The architect, one Nicholas Hawksmoor, designed it so that it it appears as if it's going to fall on you. It won't. But still.

This is what the First Church of Christ in West Hartford looks like:


They aren't carbon copies of one another, obviously (actually, after I took a closer look, there are big differences in certain structural aspects), but the key elements are all there. Most notably, the obelisk on top stands out, a weirdly pagan symbol atop a Christian building.

There is, I think, a bit more at work here than mere coincidence. I do not believe in conspiracy theories (how would you keep half these things secret, for instance). But I have to admit, a small thrill ran up my spine when I realized that the church is right across the street from a Masonic temple.

Later, driving to a party, I found myself flying past churches, all topped with a history's cold stone dagger. I will never not notice it now.

The past looms over us all.

**The title of this piece comes from what is rumored to be a Masonic distress call. Bend your elbows, hold both your palms up in a gesture of acceptance, and say it, and a Mason is obliged to help you. Or so the story goes. I did it for kicks in front of the temple on Main Street. Nothing yet.

From the Archives: Exclusively Regarding Bobby Abreu's Approach to Hitting

Sorry, non-sports fans, we're taking a left turn back into the ballpark for a bit. This is something I wrote that plays off of my enduring fascination with hidden greatness, those people without whom the world would fall apart. In this case, we deal with the curious case of New York Yankees right fielder Bobby Abreu, the greatest player no one can stand.

Bobby Abreu looms over the plate. He is exactly six feet tall but has mastered the cobra's trick of making himself look larger than he is. Abreu holds his hands high and tilts his stocky body forward, giving the impression that he is a frightening power hitter, but this is fiction. Bobby Abreu averages 22 home runs per season, which is respectable but not exceptional. What he has done, in totality, is eschewed exceptional power and turned himself into baseball's version of a meat grinder--a relentless, terrifyingly effective destroyer of pitching.

He's so good at it that nobody wants to watch him. You'll eat hamburgers, but you don't want to watch them get made.

At some point in his life, I imagine Bobby Abreu read Ted Williams' book, titled "The Science of Hitting". His philosophy (Ted Williams is second only to Babe Ruth, who played in an era without integration or the slider, in most important rate categories, so his philosophy on baseball is more "absolutely right" than a true philosophy) was quite simple. Ted Williams wanted young hitter to get a pitch to hit, and when that pitch came, to hit it.

Simple.

Hard to follow, though. Ted's philosophy required an extreme degree of discipline. If a pitch was an inch off the plate, you were not to swing*. If it was an inch too high, you were not to swing. If it was a strike, and your particular collection of skills and swing mechanics would not allow you to put the ball in play for a hit or foul it off safely, you were not to swing. Anything else was giving in to the pitcher's plan to get you out.

*Some players, through a collection of unique skill and confidence, can ignore this rule, but that list is vanishingly small. Vladimir Guerrero of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (this translates to "The Angels Angels of Anaheim, but whatever) swings at more pitches that are not close to the strike zone than anyone else, by a humongous margin--something like three times as often as the next closest guy. But he can get away with it because he has near bizarre strength and hand-eye coordination. I saw him hit an opposite-field line-drive home run on a pitch outside and eyeball-high off of Brad Penny in an All-Star game, and I swear to God I've seen him clock a double off a pitch that bounced in the dirt. Vlad the Impaler. A marvel in a pine tar-stained red helmet. You may never see his like again.

You could not alter the plan under any circumstances. It didn't matter whether that inch-high pitch came in a spring training game or the seventh game of the World Series. You were not to swing. Trust Ted. It would work itself out. You'd come out ahead more often than not. If you swung at the bad pitch, you would make an out. If not, you could get a pitch to hit. Or walk. Either way, you win.

Not swinging is what Bobby Abreu does best. He looms over the plate, looking ten feet tall and coiled like a viper, and he doesn't swing. Bobby Abreu has broken down the batter-pitcher matchup into its component parts. 106 times a year, the umpire calls ball four and Bobby Abreu walks to first. 128 times a year, the umpire calls strike three and Bobby Abreu walks to the dugout. Approximately a third of the time he comes to bat, Bobby Abreu does not put the ball in play.

This infuriated fans in Philadelphia, where he played for eight and a half years. Why, asked the Phillies faithful, would Bobby Abreu refuse to swing (as an aside; he has 1800 or so career hits, so he is clearly capable of doing so)? With a man on second, Bobby Abreu would prefer to walk, to put another man on base without necessarily affecting the score?

Was he selfish? Foolish? Ignorant?

It was certainly a possibility to the fans in Philadelphia. Their franchise is approaching 10,000 losses, the first professional team ever to do so. They could not afford to wait. Bobby Abreu could. So they blame Bobby Abreu, the best player on their team, for their sorrows.

To wit: Bobby Abreu's career batting average is .300. Nothing to write home about. Lots of people have done that.

His career on-base percentage, which is a measure of the number of times he gets on base without making an out, is .407.

On-base percentage is the statistic most closely correlated with scoring runs, which is one of the two ways you win baseball games (the other is preventing runs, which he's also pretty good at, but we are talking about hitting here). This ranks 32nd on the all-time list.

He's ahead of Jackie Robinson. He's ahead of Rickey Henderson. He's ahead of Joe DiMaggio. He's ahead of Mark McGwire. He's ahead of Willie Mays. He's ahead of Arky Vaughn, Hank Greenberg, Honus Wagner, Ralph Kiner, Johnny Mize, Hack Wilson, and Cap Anson (you don't know who these people are, but they're all Hall of Famers).

Furthermore, when he does hit the ball, he hits it hard. His refusal to swing at bad pitches means that a higher percentage of his swings come against good pitches, which are easier to drive on a straight line, hurtling past the infield and coming to rest far away from any outfielder. Bobby Abreu doesn't hit an overwhelming number of home runs, but he smacks 41 doubles a year, bringing his slugging percentage (total bases/at-bats, essentially a measure of overall power) to an even .500. This puts him in the top 100 all-time, ahead of people like Reggie Jackson, George Brett, and Yogi Berra.*

*Admittedly, some of this is due to the fact that he's a corner outfielder, where it's easier for a hard-hitter to thrive. And more of it is due to his era, and his ballpark, and plain dumb luck, and the fact that he hasn't entered a true decline phase. Still, I think it's clear the man is an elite-level hitter.

A team composed entirely of Bobby Abreus would score a thousand runs. They would eat pitchers alive, destroying the coherence of pitching staffs and causing a new outbreak of horrific arm injuries. Heck, they'd even play decent defense and run the bases well.

They would win a hundred and twenty games per year.

But their games would take five hours. They'd almost never swing. Nothing you could do would change them.

This is the curse of Bobby Abreu's approach to hitting. It's like a meat grinder. It gets the job done in the most efficient and effective way possible.

And no one wants to watch.

Scouting Report: Joe DeMartino

Player's personal comments in italics

Height: 5'10"

Weight: 170 lbs. (and dropping!)

Bats: Left

Throws: Right

Sings: Tenor

Eyes: Green

Hair: Brown, awesome

COMPLETE ATHLETIC RECORD

LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL (Ages 7-13)

• Strengths: Good throwing arm, reliable glove, excellent plate discipline
• Weaknesses: No power, no strike zone judgment, slow, afraid of balls thrown more than 60 mph.
• Positions played well: Catcher, second base, third base
• Positions played incompetently: Outfield (all), pitcher

HIGHLIGHTS: Once tagged two people out at home on the same play. Wore out pitchers with ridiculous refusal to swing at close pitches. Dove and caught a ball once in center field. Mashed the occasional double. Still holds record for killing mosquitoes in dugout at Kennedy Field (fifty in one night!)

LOWLIGHTS: Walked four people in a row during disastrous stint as pitcher. Almost threw ball at fat kid who mocked him for walking said people. Fat kid was walking down first base line at the time. Struck out with frequency and flair. Bad eyesight. Struck out on purpose against last pitcher ever faced, due to pitcher's first offering going an inch over his head at eighty miles per hour. Catcher's return throw to the pitcher once hit him in the head while he was in the batter's box. Struck out--looking!--on a full count with the bases loaded and two outs in the final inning of the local championship game*.

REASON FOR RETIREMENT: Couldn't hit a curveball.

PLAYER SUMMATION: Futility infielder.

*OK, while technically true, the circumstances were bullshit. We were down by five, so even if I hit a grand slam, we still had the autistic kid who hated baseball coming up after me. I read Ted Williams' "The Science of Hitting" (fat lot of good it did me), and its central tenet was that it's pointless to swing at a pitch you can't hit. So I didn't swing at that pitch. Wanna know why? IT WAS AT MY FRIGGING ANKLES! When the ump rang me up, I had to restrain myself from breaking his arm with my bat.

POP WARNER/HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL (ages 10-14)

• Strengths: Ability to understand plays. Advanced sense of self-preservation.
  
• Weaknesses: Average size. Slow. Lacks agility. Afraid of contact. Averse to pain. Glasses.
  
• Positions played well: Left bench
• Positions played incompetently: All

HIGHLIGHTS: Nicknamed "The Professor" by first Pop Warner coaches. Felt awesome sense of inclusion with every team played on. Great sideline motivator. Good snapper. Planned and led successful raid on defensive unit's cabin in freshman year training camp in Vermont. Successfully explained concept of a light-year to star nose tackle. Was the only person to quit freshman year football with honor and to the coach's face. Received no major injuries*.

LOWLIGHTS: Refused to go all-out in drills. Shied away from every tackle. Run over constantly at the line of scrimmage. Cried when formerly undefeated team lost a heartbreaker to North Attleboro. Lost a cleat in the mud of a Martha's Vineyard field. Fractured right pinky finger after catching it in opponent's facemask. Mocked by creepy drunken townie for sitting out with said injury.

REASON FOR RETIREMENT: Spent week-long training camp in hellish Vermont locale with two-a-day practices, shitty food, and no pillows/sheets/mattresses. Literally slept on wood.

PLAYER SUMMATION: Looks a bit lost out there.

*This one kid I knew, Derek Durkin, was a fleet and nimble running back. Really talented, just loved the game. We had this one drill where two players faced off, about twenty yards apart. The coach held a ball in the air between the players, and they had to run forward and either a) get the ball or b) tackle the guy with the ball. This was the dumbest fucking drill I'd ever been a part of. I always slowed up so I wouldn't get the ball and made a half-hearted dive at my opponent. My coaches were always pissed. One of them headbutted me while I was wearing a helmet. Derek Durkin, maybe eleven or twelve years old at the time, received THREE CONCUSSIONS from this and various other drills. So yeah, no thanks. I like my brain intact.

GOLF (age 14?)

• Strengths: Hit the crap out of the ball
• Weaknesses: Didn't know where the ball was going. Hated golf.
• Positions played well: Not golfer.
  
• Positions played incompetently: Golfer

HIGHLIGHTS: Found out he hated golf*.

LOWLIGHTS: Crazy kid who ended up being a townie nearly decapitated him with a five-iron after some gentle mocking of his swing.

REASON FOR RETIREMENT: Found out he hated golf.

PLAYER SUMMATION: Hated golf.

*"When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it."--Hall of Fame second baseman Rogers Hornsby. Hell yeah, Rajah.

FENCING (ages 14-present)

• Strengths: Strong wrists. Totally awesome salute. Looked cool in a white kevlar bodysuit. Awesome hair looked cool when mask was taken off dramatically. Got to keep sweet purple warmup suit from Northwestern.
  
• Weaknesses: Mediocre footwork. Tended to fall in love with parries and neglect offense. Usually faced off against D-I scholarship athletes who had been fencing their entire lives and occasionally were Olympians. Lost to girls*.
• Positions played well: Pain-in-the-ass defensive specialist
  
• Positions played incompetently: Attacker

HIGHLIGHTS: Once just absolutely destroyed this arrogant prick who gave him a "come and get it" hand signal after lunging. At least seven confirmed wins, including three in a row against another club team when the rest of his squad was unable to continue due to injury/fatigue. College coach had sweet Civil War-era mustache.

LOWLIGHTS: Unconfirmed number of losses, possibly in the thousands. Lost 15-0 in Ohio State Duals against some guy who he later found out was captain of "The Excalibur Squad", whatever that is. Tried and failed to cause crippling knee injuries to Ohio State fencers. Never went to supposedly mandatory workouts due to combination of 7 AM start time, two-mile walk, cold weather, and alcohol.

REASON FOR RETIREMENT: Combination of daily three hour practices, vastly increasing academic workload, and constant ass-kickings.

PLAYER SUMMATION: Looked cool, at least.

*To be absolutely fair, these girls were the cream of the crop. NU is one of those schools which is ranked anywhere between No. 1 and No. 5 in the country at any given point, so these kids had all kinds of family traditions, dating back like a hundred years. Not that you care, you jerks.

TRACK (age 15)

• Strengths: None
• Weaknesses: Slow.
• Positions played well: Sitter.
• Positions played incompetently: Runner

HIGHLIGHTS: Found out he hated track

LOWLIGHTS: Brought a book to the only practice he attended. Read it while coach was talking. Quit after first quarter-mile due to boredom.*

REASON FOR RETIREMENT: Slow, hated track.

PLAYER SUMMATION: Hated track.

*Neil Gupta, noted track stalwart, has never let me forget this. I still don't have the foggiest idea why I decided to try running, considering I hate running and have to listen to angry-man music to get through 15 minutes on a treadmill.

OVERALL PLAYER EVALUATION

Strong arm. Good hands. Slow feet. Hates pain. Loves competition. Used to wish he was Ted Williams. Will now settle for Joe Posnanski.

The Caveman

Some people just have an advanced sense of themselves.

About seven months ago, I broke up with my girlfriend of four and a half years. As you might imagine, this left me with just oodles of newly-formed questions about exactly who I am. This type of thing crops up with me every three years or so. I usually come out of it as a better person, or at least a different one.

For now, though, I'm in the middle of a grand re-imagining, trying to develop aspects of myself that I had previously cast aside. It's actually going pretty well. I'm solidifying. My goal is to become, in some way, a fully-formed Renaissance Man.

My goal is the Caveman.

I don't know the first thing about rugby. It bears a resemblance to football, so I can kind of follow what's going on. I gather you need to run into an end zone with an oddly-shaped ball and prevent other players from doing so by physical force. Regardless, it's tough to follow if you're not familiar with its quirks*.

*This exact same thing applies to cricket. I know it comes from the same family of games as baseball, but I couldn't make heads or tails of the one cricket game I've ever watched. The pitcher (bowler) wound up, hurled the ball at the batter, and the guy just crushed this freaking ball. Walloped it into the stratosphere. I don't think it's landed yet. All I know is that he hit what must be the American equivalent of a home run.

And NO ONE REACTED! The announcers barely made mention of it. Weird sport.

I don't know where I first heard Sebastien Chabal's name mentioned, but I do remember the first time I saw him in action. Ready for it?



A couple of things:

1. Sebastien Chabal plays rugby for the the French national rugby team, and also the Sale Sharks. He is 6'3" tall and weights 260 lbs.

2. He's the one with the beard who looks like a caveman.

3. I think he killed that first guy.

4. In fact, his nickname is "l'Homme des Cavernes"—the Caveman

5. His other nicknames are "The Seabass" and "The Anesthetist".

6. He might have killed that second guy too.

Have you ever met someone who is exactly what they should be? No wasted effort? No doubt? The sum totality of their lives has become plain on their faces, and you get the sense that their world will never fall apart. It's contained from within by a strong magnetic force, too well-maintained to ever fail, like a benevolent black hole.

Sebastien Chabal was put on this earth to hit other gentlemen very hard in the pursuit of athletic glory, while looking like a monster from the dawn of time. It's a simple thing, but here's the rub. He's accomplished what so many of us strive our entire lives to do: he has discovered his purpose and, in the discovering, has found he enjoys it. You can't break him. He is forever himself.

I take heart from this. At times, I feel alone and despised, but I take heart from this giant Frenchman, playing a strange sport in a distant land. My purpose awaits me, but I'm in no great hurry to find it. Sebastien Chabal was born as Sebastien Chabal, but it took him a while to become The Caveman.

Because "toycannon.blogspot.com" was not available...

Adding a simple "The" solves that problem.

"The Toy Cannon", incidentally, is the nickname of 1960s-70s Houston Astros center fielder Jimmy Wynn. He got it by hitting moon-shot, tape-measure home runs despite being (charitably) 5'6" tall. The name itself has no relation to this blog save for two things.

First, we'll be talking about baseball. Not all the time or anything. But it'll come up.

Second, as nicknames go, that one is absolutely perfect. I mean, boy, is it ever perfect. We've entered a real down-time in terms of nicknames and I worry that it's a permanent thing. Look, the best player in baseball right now is Alex Rodriguez. Fifty years ago, he would have been called something like "Moonshine Al" or "The Impossible Machine". Something evocative, you know? The best we've come up with for him is "A-Rod", which tells you bloody well nothing. If you were looking at Jimmy Wynn up at bat and asked who he was, and I told you "Oh, that's Jimmy Wynn, the Toy Cannon", I suspect you'd have a good idea of what he was like as a player. Not so with Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez.

That's not his fault, incidentally, horrid Yankee though he be. The "X-Rod"* nicknaming convention is insidious. Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez had a great nickname (though stolen a bit from Carlton "Pudge" Fisk), but I've heard people refer to him as "I-Rod". For shame, people.

*This same problem extends to politics. Otto von Bismarck was "The Iron Chancellor", which is kickin' rad. George W. Bush is "Dubya". Christ. It's just his middle initial, mispronounced.

For my money, the top ten best nicknames in all of history are as follows:

1. Edward "The Black Prince"

Just an absolute stunner of a nickname. You have to marvel at how badass a man has to be to be nicknamed "The Black Prince". I can just imagine the conversation back in France:

French Soldier 1: So, I hear the English are coming. We can totally take them. Who's in command?

French Soldier 2: The Black Prince.

French Soldier 1: God damn it.

French Soldier 2: I know!

For what it's worth, Edward was never called "The Black Prince" in his lifetime, so the above conversation never really could have taken place. Still. "The Black Prince". Damn, son.

2. James "Cool Papa" Bell

This nickname is good enough that it's subsumed James Bell's actual name; I know an awful lot about baseball*, and I had to look it up. Cool Papa Bell was a Negro Leagues great, said to be so fast that he could flick a light switch and be in bed before the room went dark. The marvelous part about this legend is that it actually happened once, due to faulty wiring.

*God, I'm so smart.

3. Jimmy "The Toy Cannon" Wynn

Covered previously. Jimmy Wynn played in a cavernous pitcher's park in a low-offense era that killed his chances at the Hall of Fame. One year, he alone accounted for 37 of his team's 93 TOTAL home runs. His wife also stabbed him this one time. So there's that.

4. Walter "Sweetness" Payton

Most football nicknames run the super-macho gamut; Mean Joe Green, Jack "The Assassin" Tatum, Jerome "The Bus" Bettis. Just saying "Sweetness" actually makes me smile a little bit. It's completely non-conformist, rolls off the tongue, and tells you all you need to know about the man's running style.

5. Attila the Hun, "The Scourge of God"

Visigoth Soldier 1: So, I hear the Eng--uh, Huns are coming. We can totally take them. Who's in command?

Visigoth Soldier 2: The Scourge of God

Visigoth Soldier 1: God damn it.

Visigoth Soldier 2: Also, we're about to enter the Dark Ages.

Visigoth Soldier 1: *forgets how to read*

Fun fact: Typing "Scourge of God" into Wikipedia takes you directly to Attila's page. You know you've a great nickname when no one has dared to take it for 1600 years.

6. Illich Ramirez Sanchez, "Carlos the Jackal"

Leftist revolutionaries have a bunch of great nicknames (I'm not a huge fan of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, but you have to admit, that name has sticking power), but Illich Sanchez' is the best. Reduced slightly in power considering the guy is in prison and did not die in a hail of gunfire.

7. Martha "Calamity Jane" Cannary

Another nickname that has completely subsumed the subject's actual name. Whatever your opinion* of Calamity Jane, it will change dramatically once you watch HBO's "Deadwood".

*Unless your opinion of Calamity Jane is that she is a drunken mess of a person whose every other word is a profanity. Then your opinion probably won't change much.

8. Manfred von Richtofen, "The Red Baron"

English Pilot 1: So, I hear the Germans are coming. We can totally take them. Who's in command?

English Pilot 2: *dies of trench foot*

English Pilot 1: God damn it.

9. Erwin Rommel, "The Desert Fox"

Are there foxes in the desert? I think there are, but I'm too lazy to confirm that independently. I doubt they're really all that fierce. Anyways, I hate to give a great nickname award to a Nazi, but "The Desert Fox" is too good to pass up.

Is a movie made better by the inclusion of the Nazis as the main villain? I'm pretty certain that's true, based solely on the Indiana Jones movies. The first and third? Excellent. Lots of Nazi-punching/shooting/dissolving-due-to-the-terror-of-the-Almighty. The second one? Tribesmen. Not so good.

10. Bob "Death to Flying Things" Ferguson

19th-century infielder who apparently was very good at catching spherical white objects before they hit the ground. This nickname is really long and wordy, which is usually the worst thing a nickname can be, but it's just so goofy that it gets the nod. It's one of those things that only drunken men with bowler hats and handlebar mustaches could come up with.

That's a hell of a list.