So, you'll recall all the way back to yesterday how I wrote about that the beloved Chicago Cubs haven't won a World Series in 108 years, but under new management they've been rebuilding their minor league system and have what is being called the "core four" -- four highly-touted prospects they hope to bring up to the major leagues soon. At the end of the season, most teams will promote some of their prospects for the last remaining weeks, and on Wednesday the Cubs started one of those "core four" for the first time, 22-year-old Jorge Soler -- who in his very first at bat in the major leagues hit a home run. Last night on Friday was his third game. And his first against the Cubs' longtime historic rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals. And so, it's only proper that two is the number. No, no, I don't mean he hit his second home run. I mean -- last night, he hit two more. He now has a total of three home runs. (He also went 3-3. So, he's now got 7 hits in his first 11 at bats. That's an average of .636.) No, it's not going to keep being "this easy." It's not even going to be easy. In baseball, if you get out seven times out of ten, and hit .300, you'll end up in the Hall of Fame. You don't hit .636. This is three games. He's just 22 and only has a paltry 500 at bats of experience. (Teams like a player to have at least 1,000.) The dust bin of baseball is filled with hot prospects who started off spectacularly and them plummeted. Eventually, major league pitchers adjust, and find the young player's weak spots. It's what they do with all rookies. And then it's up to the batter to fix whatever isn't working and adjust. But this is sure a good way to start. Especially when your team hasn't won in 108 years. There is no truth that when God created the concept of hope, He also created the Chicago Cubs. But research shows that He began thinking about them then... And so, here's to hope.
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This is one off those videos that qualifies under the heading of "This is a treat." Apparently -- and I only have his word to take for it, but it seems reasonable -- Fred Astaire had never danced at an Oscar ceremony. (In fact, until 1975 he's never even been nominated for an Oscar.) But in 1970, Fred Astaire walked out onstage with Bob Hope -- appropriately, as an inside joke the audience was yet to be aware of, to the song, "I Won't Dance" -- to present the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. After, as Oscar presenters are wont to do, Astaire and Hope began to quip about how Fred Astaire had never danced at the Academy Awards before. And in a few moments, at the age of 71, and to the utter delight of the theater (and no doubt those at home), that was about to change. To offer a slight digression, I actually had the opportunity to meet Fred Astaire. And quite appropriately for our purposes here -- and memorably for me -- it was at the Academy Awards. In fact, all the better, it was at those very aforementioned 1975 Oscars when Fred Astaire was nominated for the first time, as Best Supporting Actor for The Towering Inferno. (How I get to the ceremony is too long and bizarre a story. The short version is that I was a kid, and a friend basically said, "You're a movie guy, you could get tickets to the Oscars." And so, I called up -- and got tickets to the Oscars.) Anyway, as I think I've mentioned around here, I'm not much on getting autographs, especially just for the sake of it. But when there's a special reason for which an autograph carries meaning, I'll make an exception. And I figured that an autograph from Fred Astaire, on the official program for the Academy Awards, the year that he was nominated for his first ever -- and only -- Oscar...was a pretty valid "special reason." There. Proof. I'm not a-lying to you. I can't tell you what in the world we talked about. My recollection is that it was along the lines of something substantive, "Hello, Mr. Astaire, may I please have your autograph?" "Yes." "Thank you, I really enjoy your work." "Thank you." It's the sort of witty repartee that George Bernard Shaw was so well-known for. Anyway, here's the video. It's all sort of enjoyable to watch from a historical standpoint. But if you want to get just to the dancing, you can skip to the 2:21 mark. Apparently, he will dance. Joyously. No matter how exhausted it might make him. But after all, the show must go on. And you know, I really do enjoy his work. There's a wonderful and valuable article on CNET by Lexy Savvides about how to protect yourself when using a free WiFi hotspot. You might think you're pretty careful, but some of the tips make so much sense for things you might not have considered. Take the very first one, for example.
Before using a Free Wi-Fi in a a coffee shop, or library or wherever...ask the staff the name of the network to verify it. As Savvides points out -- it's easy from someone nearby to create a fake network called "Free Wi-Fi" -- or even one that says "Starbucks" in the name, and hijack your account when you log in. Some of the suggestions are a bit convoluted, and more than most people will likely do. But one -- which takes a couple of steps -- is still very easy and a huge safety net. In Windows, go into your Control Panel and turn off "File Sharing." That way, if you are hijacked, your files can't be accessed. Then you turn it back on after you log off. (The article shows you how to easily do this, and what to do with an Apple device.) You can read the whole article here. Sometimes when you're crazed, you don't realize how crazed you are. Welcome to the world of the gun corporation-owned NRA, the outlier fringe terrorist group. I refer to them as terrorists because one of things the NRA does is what pretty much any self-respecting terrorist group does -- try to increase their reach by creating a sense of irrational fear and hatred of others who they paint as hated threats by focusing on the use of violence. And so they were at it again. Less than 48 hours after a nine-year-old little girl accidentally killed the instructor who was teaching her at the gun club how to use an Uzi -- yes, really, an Uzi -- the gun corporation-owned NRA sent out a tweet about all the great fun that the kiddies can have at the shooting range. I mean, seriously, how tone deaf can one get? Not just the message itself, but look at the Twitter account name used for posting this. "@TeamWON." Yes, it's quite a victory they're trying to convince us to celebrate. And anyone who thinks this tweet was just a coincidence when it was posted, rather than yet another intentional attempt to regain the public platform after a potentially damaging tragedy is ghastly kidding themselves. This is what the gun corporation-owned NRA does.
Great fun, indeed. Well, okay, perhaps not so much for instructors, but at least for the kiddies, as long as you don't count a lifetime of nightmares and therapy. To the credit of "NRA Women," they took down the tweet without explanation. Not that any explanation was needed. I suspect "Are you serious??!! This makes US look like heartless assholes" was thrown around a lot. I also suspect some of the NRA Women also started to shout, "Over my dead body," but thought better of it, remembering who they were dealing with. By the way, I want to be clear about something, to put all this is perspective. So, a digression -- At summer camp many years ago, I taught "air riflery," which is a fancy name for BB guns. It was an NRA accredited sport, though I suspect BB's were looked down at with scorn by the NRA hierarchy, even way back then. (Once I did a test, and put a blown-up balloon in front of the BB gun and fired -- it didn't break the balloon. Though in fairness, if there was more distance between air rifle and balloon it would have popped. Though with the low-power BB guns we used, I wouldn't bet on it. Nor would I bet that you'd hit the balloon, since the sights were often a bit off) BB guns were probably just waaaay down on the NRA totem pole. After all, how many macho points can one get with a BB gun when competing again an Uzi? That aside, I was pretty good at it, reaching the level of Expert, the second-highest (only under Distinguished). I also enjoyed regular riflery at the camp, with single-shot.22's. I wasn't quite as adept in that field, doing okay, but just getting about halfway, reaching Bar 4. It was only recently that I found out the husband-and-wife camp owners had an ongoing philosophical argument about whether to have the gun range. The wife part of the equation told me she was strongly against it (and just think, she wasn't even an "NRA women"!), her husband felt the range was well-monitored, had a history, and justified as a target sport. The point being that I am not inherently against teaching young people (I was 11 when I started) how to handle single-shot rifles safely as a target sport. And to me, with my hand on a Bible, that's ALL it ever was. Trying to hit a bulls-eye, like in archery or darts. Obviously a rifle is massive worlds more dangerous, but I'm just explaining how I personally viewed it. I never had any thoughts of hunting or killing animals for food or anything other than one thing: I liked shooting at a piece of paper 75 feet away with numbers on it to get the highest score. It was (to me) not significantly different in its core point than bowling. And it was incredibly, meticulous, profoundly monitored. A set order to everything. No picking up of the rifle even until approval was given. No talking. Total attention to detail and care. I did my best to keep those high standards reasonably so when I ran the BB guns. Stupid as I thought BB guns were. (I kept asking to be assigned to some other activity. Once, I did get to work in athletics, but that was only for a few weeks I was then sent back in air riflery. I think this was for two reasons -- 1) I ran if efficiently and well, and 2) I don't think they could get anyone else to take it over. I ended up being in charge for three years. Ah, the burdens of having a useless skill...) Through all this, I never gave any thought to using a hand gun. I don't know why not, but there was never any hint of an idea of being a quick draw or gunslinger, or tough guy. It was just rifles -- lying prone or sitting or kneeling to look carefully through a little eye piece at a target to get as many points as possible. And having said all this, though I enjoyed single-shot rifle target practice to score points, if they didn't have riflery or air riflery, I'd have been okay with it. Same as if they didn't have it today -- which they may not, for all I know. Because in the end, whatever your personal position one way or the other,I think it's fair and reasonable to believe there's a huge difference (to the extent of it being an unencroachable gulf) between the two realities: a mannered, deeply-protected range to shoot at a bullseye target purely and solely to score points -- and teaching a nine-year-old child to use an Uzi. There is no earthly reason to use an Uzi unless you are a member of the Israeli Army. And I think there's little reason to let nine-year-olds to handle a gun of any sort -- there's plenty of time to learn, God willing there not being a house accident. And I think too there's little reason for most any young child to handle a gun for any other reason other than as basic hit-a-target-and-score-points practice. If you want them to learn about killing animals for food, take them to the grocery store and watch the butcher. But most of all, there's no reason to be so thoughtless and crass simply because you're crazed and feel that whenever there's a tragedy you must push the cause of that tragedy all the harder. Smash it peoples' faces. Cram the hell down peoples' throats. Even if that means the throats of little children so that they can just have grand "fun." With a God-sucking Uzi. Or any killing weapon. My sense or at least hope is that this sort of thing will ultimately backfire on them. No pun intended. Because what they do every time they do this is remind the public in the most galling, horrifying way what galling, horrifying, heart-breaking thing happened. This time, for instance, even the NRA Women knew they'd gone too far. But the overall NRA powers-that-be? Nah, not them. After all, they're the gun corporation-owned NRA, the outlier fringe terrorist group. As tone deaf as one could imagine. In many of the tributes to Robin Williams -- and indeed, in many articles over the years -- it was mentioned how much he looked up to and was influenced by Jonathan Winters. It was something Williams himself acknowledged readily and often. Here, for instance, is him talking so affectionately about Winters. One of the few interviews I'm seen Robin Williams do where he wasn't just making jokes, but talking so clearly deeply about someone who meant the world to him. I had reason to very briefly meet Jonathan Winters. It was when I was working at Universal Studios in PR. I was running an "Academy screening" for a movie we were pitching for an award, and he showed up. It was early, and we couldn't let people into the screening room yet, so the half dozen people who had already arrived had to wait a few minutes. He was one of them, and what I most remember -- and always liked -- is that he didn't feel any need to be "on," making quips about everything. He was very low-key, personable, and said a couple of witty things, but overall he was quiet and friendly. You'll note in the clip that David Letterman comments about Robin Williams talking about Jonathan Winters at the Emmy Awards. Last year when Wilnters passed away, it was Williams who gave the tribute tom him, and began by saying -- "Jonathan Winters was my mentor. I once told him that and he said, 'Please. I prefer 'idol.'' But I knew it was true. I knew the moment I saw him on The Tonight Show when Jack Parr handed him a stick. What happened next was a genius at play. John and that stick transformed into a dozen different characters, complete with sound effects -- a fly-fisherman, a matador, Bing Crosby playing a round of golf ... he was comedy at the speed of thought and I was hooked." The stick. That famous stick. I thought you might want to see what he did. Here, from 1964, is Jonathan Winters on The Jack Paar Show. What I most like about this is not the sheer, breathtaking vibrancy of coming up with different characters and situations that become funny simply by their inventiveness, but that each one has an actual joke. And all that Paar does is hand him...a stick. The beloved Chicago Cubs have not won a World Series in 108 years. And they've been pretty dismal the last few years. But with new management they've been developing their young players in the minors leagues, and have four of the top prospects in the top 25 of all of baseball. They're known in Chicago as "the core four," and the team has slowly brought a few of them up to the majors in these last few weeks of the season, just to give them a taste. Three weeks ago, I posted a video here of one of them, Javier Baez, who in his first game with Chicago, won the extra inning game with a home run. He hasn't adjusted exceedingly well yet since there, though does already have an impressive seven home runs. Last night, the Cubs brought up another of the four, Jorge Soler, from Cuba. He made his debut in Cincinnati, starting in right field. This is his first at bat ever in the major leagues. And on the fourth pitch, and his first swing, this is what happened. What I love is how he races around the bases. And has a joyous smile on his face. No attitude, no posturing, just playing ball. And I love too how thrilled his teammates are in the dugout. Usually, veterans give rookies the a joking cold shoulder on their first home run, only to turn around later with congratulations. But there is no hiding the excitement the Cubs players feel, knowing that this could actually be part of their future.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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