Keeping the Quadrupeds in Line

 Deer bounding across the road are quite menacing when you're on rollerblades.

America's Gun Problem is Impossible

Derek Thompson's excellent and informative podcast Plain English details the four obstacles that impede any solution to the proliferation of guns and-- thus-- gun violence and mass shootings in America:

1) money . . . many politicians are in the pocket of the NRA and guns are big business;

2) cynical love of power . . . some politicians will do and say whatever is necessary to gain votes-- even if it's detrimental to our country;

3) the Second Amendment, fear of government overreach, the desire for freedom and liberty, and the ability to fight oppressors;

4) a genuine love of guns and a genuine gun culture-- this is the hardest one for many people to understand, but there is a whole nation of people out there that love guns-- they love the feel of the metal in their hand, they love shooting, they love talking about guns and buying guns and going places with other people with guns . . . and I think they think of guns the way other people think of cars or video games or whiskey . . . they love these things despite knowing that there are harmful consequences and externalities . . .

these are formidable obstacles and so it seems to me (and the podcast espouses this) that because there is a correlation between gun prevalence and gun violence, the only way to tackle the problem is statistically-- it has to be the same as cigarettes, which are still legal but stigmatized to the point where they aren't as prevalent as they once were . . . so little laws, little taxes, licensing requirements, background checks, etcetera . . . anything to reduce the number of guns will reduce the violence . . . but it's never going away . . . but it could get better-- cars are safer now and technology will make them less and less prone to crashing and perhaps we'll need similar technological solutions to deal with guns.

I Don't Serve on Shomer Shabbos!

 

The boys and I had off yesterday-- we never burned our snow days-- and my wife took off from her school, so this was supposed to be a relaxing day where we could sleep-in, get a few things done around the house, and then play our State Semi-Final tennis match at 4 PM . . . but the weather reports kept getting worse-- and while the other semi-finalist teams decided to play at noon to avoid the rain (Metuchen vs Florence . . . Florence won 3-2) for some logistical or transportation reason Shore Regional could not get out early to play us . . . so there was lots of texting and phone calls and I made a Google doc to figure out what day we could finish the match in case of rain, which reminded me that I have two observant Jewish players who can't really play on Saturday-- or one kid could walk to the courts, which are quite far from his house, but not drive in a car-- and then the weather cleared enough for Shore to come to Highland Park and we started the match, but soon enough a massive storm rolled in and we had to write down the details of every match-- and they were all close, a barnburner . . . except second doubles-- we took a solid lead there; the next problem was when to play, as we HAVE to complete the match by Tuesday, according to State Rules, so that the final match can be played ON Tuesday and then the winner can attend the Tournament of Champions, which is at Mercer County Park on Thursday-- that date is set in stone . . . but just after the match, my Athletic Director, a good friend of mine, got a call from the NJSIAA director and he said we HAD to play the match on Saturday-- no exceptions, religious or otherwise-- even though it was supposed to rain all day Saturday . . . so because we are the higher seed and home team, we had to provide indoor courts-- no easy feat in Central Jersey on Memorial Day Weekend . . . but my AD found some courts at noon on Saturday in East Brunswick and reserved them (with his own credit card!) but my Jewish player said he couldn't get there because he couldn't drive on the Sabbath and we brought this up to the tournament director and he said it didn't matter, so we were just going to have to forfeit that match . . . this still gave us a shot to win, as you only have to win three of the five matches-- so we were going to suck it up and win for religious tolerance and freedom and Walter from the Big Lebowski . . . but then things got interesting, the Jewish kid wrote an email and his father contacted our superintendent and the tournament director-- making the argument that if the next day was Easter, you wouldn't play the match-- you'd postpone until the next available school day, and I think the threat of a prejudicial lawsuit scared the tournament director because then I got another call from my AD and now we are finishing the match on Tuesday at normal time, so everyone can play and it will be a fair result . . . if we win, we'll have to play again Wednesday, so that's tough-- but at least we'll have all our players and the best chance possible . . . and win or lose, this was quite an adventure.

Respect the Speck

Hockey is hard enough to watch on TV, but if there's a black speck on the TV-- or several black specks on a couple of TVs-- then things can get really confusing . . . sometimes you're following the puck, sometimes you're following the speck, and sometimes-- like that magical moment on The Office when the DVD logo hits the corner-- the black speck intersects with the actual puck and reality breaks down into an inception of the matrix.

Whew . . .

I was nervous all day for our first state tennis match: we earned a bye in the first round and we had to play Point Beach today-- last year's sectional champ-- and while we matched up well against them, it's tennis, so you never know who's going to lose their mind, play poorly, smash their racket, start double-faulting . . . there are so many ways to fall apart in this stupid game . . . but we came to play; Ian had the toughest match, against a very solid player, and he beat him 6-0, 6-0 . . . and Alex, Boyang, and our very consistent second doubles team of Ethan and Patrick all won handily in two sets-- but we still can't figure out the perfect first doubles team-- they lost-- so we're going to experiment tomorrow and see what happens and then we'll probably play Shore Regional-- who is excellent-- in the semifinals on Friday.

The Horror, the Horror!

The year is winding down but we're still not done with Hamlet . . . or at least I'm not done with Hamlet-- one of my senior students looked like she was attentively following along with the play, holding her book in the classic two-handed meditative literary pose, but then I noticed that she had her cell-phone inside the book-- as we used to do back in the day with comic books (most notably, School is Hell by Matt Groening) and so I made her put the phone into the pocketed phone holder in the front of the room; apparently she was shopping, some prom dress algorithm blocking the text to one of the great works in the canon, which is exactly what those folks at Amazon are trying to do.

Crime and a Whole Lot More in 1963 L.A.

One-Shot Harry, by Gary Philips, certainly evokes Walter Mosely . . . Harry Ingram, a black journalistic photographer/ Korean War veteran, attempts to navigate a slew of issues in 1963 Los Angeles: the fishy death of his war-buddy-- a white jazz musician; racist police; radical leftists and a radical romance; a photographic blackmail scheme; some typical heavies; the Nation of Islam; power and politics; and a plot against Dr. Martin Luther King . . . the prose is clear, the plot is thick, and the perspective offers a counterpoint to James Ellroy's take on this particular time and place.

Ian = Work

Ian put in some hours working this weekend; Saturday he went to his county trail maintenance  job with his brother and the heat was so brutal that they let them go home after lunch-- but that was enough time for Ian to ruin his gloves and consequently have to throw them away-- they were at some park in Old Bridge and they ended up cleaning up a homeless encampment and-- by accident-- Ian touched a bag of homeless person poop which ripped open (or something like this, he told me the story at a family bbq and I cut him short because I was eating) and then Sunday morning Ian worked for a lady, weeding and mowing her lawn, and then he went and mowed another lawn and then he called Ed Ransom, to see if he could work at his tennis camp, and Ed Ransom, a veteran teaching pro, said he needed to take a look at his game because he wanted someone to teach the advanced kids so we met him at a nearby park and the job interview turned into a tennis lesson (and Ian passed the interview, got the job, and improved the kick on his second serve) and now he's taking a well-deserved rest.

AITA?

There's a forum on Reddit called AITA (Am I the Asshole?) and I wanted to put this incident on there (but forgot to post it) but I got into a bit of a beeping/traffic situation in the school parking yesterday afternoon, so I wrote that one up and posted it on Reddit . . . check it out and upvote me!

The Jack Wong Effect?

On Tuesday, my son Ian got to play Jack Wong, the eventual winner of the GMC tourney (and one of the best players in the state) and then he had another tough match on Wednesday against Spotswood's top player, senior Jason Acheampong; in the first set, though both players were hitting the ball very well, Ian beat him 6-0 and when he came over to talk to me he said, "After Playing Jack Wong, the ball looks like it's going so slow . . . everything is easier" but then the Jack Wong Effect wore off and he lost the second set 6-0 . . . but then he rallied and won the third set 6-3, a nice victory after playing a ton of tennis the day before . . . and we noticed the other player who played Jack Wong on Tuesday (and, like my son, got beaten handily) also had a great match on Wednesday and beat a good opponent decisively; the other thing that happened during the Spotswood match was an annoying hack of a tennis player, a white dude in a tie-dyed shirt, expressed some annoyance and impatience about the fact that there was a high school match going on and we were taking up six courts; I informed him that some of the matches might finish in 45 minutes or so and he would just have to wait and then he went over to the sixth court-- where some beginner high school players were having a match and apparently he insulted their play and told them their match would never finish because they couldn't hit the ball, so the kids came up to me and informed me and I went over to the guy and gave him a piece of my mind-- and I get very defensive when anyone fucks with my players so while I felt myself getting angry, I figured out a way to deal with the situation without punching the guy (and the Spotswood coach, who is a football guy and ex-lineman, had made his way over as well) but instead of yelling at the guy and losing my shit, I played the pedophile card and told him it was very odd that he was lurking around a high school sporting event, especially since he wasn't a parent or a coach, and that he was interacting with my youngest players . . . which I deemed highly inappropriate-- and then I told him he could read about the results in the newspaper and he needed to get away from the children and this worked quite well-- he beat a hasty retreat into the parking lot (and the Spotswood coach was impressed with my method, and now I know to use this method if this ever happens again).

Setting the Story Straight

My wife insists that I revise yesterday's narrative, when I presented a video of a Killer Deer . . . apparently this particular deer, a female, was protecting a newly born fawn-- the fawn was on the other side of the road, and neither Lola nor I saw it, but my wife did when she went down to the park a few minutes later to investigate . . . so this doe was just being an overprotective parent and the "killer" moniker is absolute hyperbole.

Men . . . We're the Best

I learned from a Freakonomics Radio Podcast (Women are Not Men) that while women are catching up and even surpassing men educationally and economically, there are some things at which men still significantly outperform women . . . things such as drowning and getting struck by lightning (men overestimate their ability to swim and they are outside more than women and don't come in during storms) and I believe I have found another thing that men excel at-- getting attacked by large animals . . . this morning while I was accompanying my dog Lola on her usual constitutional to Donaldson Park, we were confronted by an unusually aggressive deer-- and I normally let Lola off leash so that she can chase the deer down the hill and into the park, so they don't eat all the neighborhood hostas and spread deer ticks and cause traffic accidents-- but this morning was different (as you can witness in the video) and this doe would NOT back down and eventually charged us-- and this happened on our way down to the park and our way back home-- on our way back home the deer actually stalked us-- and my wife wondered why I had video of this-- why on earth I was would mess with this deer twice and I really had no good answer for her, other than the fact that I am a stupid man-- in fact, I should have realized that the doe was protecting a fawn, instead of screwing with it . . . and I later learned that when I sternly admonished the charging deer to "cut it out," it actually could have kicked me several times in the face instead of listening to me . . . anyway, Lola and I lived to tell the tale and we're not going to fuck with that doe any more.

So Much Tennis . . .

Today was the GMC Tennis Tournament, an all day tennis extravaganza with 26 teams from Middlesex County in attendance . . . we left for Thomas Edison Park at 8 AM-- packing food, water, chairs, tarps, coolers, sunblock, sandwiches, snacks, rackets, balls, etcetera-- and Ian lucked out with a prelim walkover so then he played an undefeated kid from the lower division and he beat him handily in the first set 6-0 but then started fooling around in the second set but still ended up winning 7-5, giving him the honor of playing the overall number one seed (and one of the top five players in the entire state) Jack Wong from East Brunswick . . . so he got to have some fun against a serious athlete and college player-- Ian had to back up to the fence to hit his serve back and while he was able to stay in some games, he couldn't take one . . . Jack Wong also hit a court length tweener that turned out to be a winner; Alex had a similar fate, he won his prelim in a tiebreaker and then got to play the number one seed in second singles-- another East Brunswick kid (East Brunswick had the number one seed in all five events) and our other players and teams had a good day as well-- everyone advanced to the second round; Boyang then lost in a close one to the Metuchen kid (again) and first and second doubles faced very strong teams, after winning their preliminary matches . . . so no complaints-- everyone got to play two matches, no one got injured, we saw some incredible tennis, and we got some great practice for the state tournament (where we play only Group I schools, so we should be competitive).

Be Prepared and Have a Plan?

This morning the weather report was grim: "High winds, severe thunderstorms, possible large hail, possible tornado" and there was an actual exclamation point next to the three weather slot and the recommendation to "be prepared and have a plan," and when I ran this by my students, none of them were aware of this and none of them had a plan . . . but apparently, it didn't matter-- the big storm never materialized, very disappointing, but the looming threat was probably good because it meant that the GMC Tennis Tourney was postponed until tomorrow-- so I was able to go to school today and spread the word about a nonexistent storm (and I was very successful in my acting endeavor, which related to the start of scene 3.2 in Hamlet, in which I pretended to choke on some water-- it went down the wrong pipe-- and then, in a coughing fit, consequently knocked over the water bottle, spilling water all over the carpet . . . the kids couldn't believe I was acting and decided that I should pursue a film career, though I could only act in movies where I pretend to choke on stuff and then knock things over).

Here We Go Again . . .

It's hot, it's humid, and-- just in case you thought you were safe in the water-- the lantern-fly eggs masses, mortar colored and ready to hatch, are dotting the trees in abundance.

Tranquil Time Travel

Emily St. John Mandel's new novel Sea of Tranquility floats by in an otherworldly manner, which makes sense-- since it is beautifully written about other worlds, other times, other timelines, and other possibilities . . . and while there are ghosts of the post-apocalyptic, post-pandemic world of Station 11, the current COVID pandemic, and the author herself, the book flows by in an odd, serene state of hypothetical possibility, the possibility that the world is a simulation, the possibility that you might interview yourself, that you might go back in time and live a recursive life, the possibility of moving too fast and too far, and the possibility of being still, and the possibility that time and motion and memory might be corrupted like a bad file . . . this was a much smoother and philosophical read than the last time travel novel I read, The Paradox Hotel.

More Tennis Adventures

We enjoyed a nice 4-1 win yesterday against St Joe's-- especially since their players were all wound up for senior day-- unfortunately, we didn't know that their school does NOT have tennis courts, so we went all the way over there, drove around a bit on their campus, and then learned that they play in Thomas Edison Park-- which is right next to Highland Park-- so we drove over there, got started late, had a couple matches go into the third set (and Ian was in an endless match with a really strong athletic senior) and when we finally finished it off, I found out that the freshman Ethan had ordered Uber Eats-- McDonald's-- but Ethan couldn't find the driver and this generally pissed me off because I had to be home to get to the GMC seeding meeting to learn about the county tournament so we searched the park for a few minutes for the delivery guy, but it's a giant park and the guy was way late, so I told Ethan to get a refund-- which he did-- and we headed home and I told the entire team to check with me before they did anything stupid (such as order food to be delivered to an enormous park).

People Are More Different Than You Believe

One of the essential things I always try to remember is that there are lots of people that genuinely believe things-- holy things, moral things, sciencey things, etcetera-- and that is going to be really important going forward with oncoming the Roe v. Wade conflict . . . as a nonbeliever in most things, aside from the fact that sports with a ball are a good way to spend your time, I have to recognize that a bunch of folks with very vehement beliefs about where and when and under what circumstances you can abort a fetus are going to scream and shout at one another and many of us that have no clue as to the right and wrong of this are going to get caught in the crossfire.

A Tough Loss and a Tough Win

Monday we had a big match against Metuchen which will probably determine the winner of the White Division-- and the two smallest schools by a large margin are at the top of the leaderboard-- and while the match started ugly for us, we made a nice comeback and Alex-- at second singles-- came up with a big win against last year's first singles player; Ian, unfortunately, had to play their young phenom, who stepped right into the first singles slot, and though Ian took an early lead, he lost the first set-- and he asked me what to do when "all this kid hits are winners" and I told him to hit it deep and hang in, which he did and he won the second set 6-3 so they headed to a third; meanwhile, Boyang was struggling at third singles, and our first and second doubles lost the first set- so I thought it was over-- but apparently the second doubles team are crazy twin brothers (two of three triplets) who are great athletes but often flake out, which they did and so our second doubles won the second and third sets, Alex won his match-- epic-- Boyang and first doubles lost; so it was two -two and it all came down to Ian at first singles-- and he pulled the heavy hitter into a third set but then went down 4-0 and it looked like all was lost . . . but Ian won four in a row and then split, so it was 5-5 (and the text strand to my wife was getting more and more insane) and then they fought it out to the end and Ian lost 7-5 . . . unfortunate, but-- as I reminded the team-- most teams are playing for nothing right now, so the fact that we got to play a huge match at the end of the season is what it's all about . . . especially as a coach and a dad, I was happy to be there and happy to be involved-- anyway, we had to recover to play South Plainfield, another good team, who beat Wardlaw twice on Monday-- a very good team-- and Ian recovered and won against a good player in two sets, but we had troubles elsewhere so it all came down to second doubles-- and they were bickering a bit when the match went to a third set-- but we were able to calm them down and they won the third set 6-2, giving us an excellent victory after a tough loss (and, as a side note, Alex had an AP test yesterday-- AP Calc BC-- and he won his match, and Ian had an AP test today-- AP Lang-- and he won, so I told both my kids those were banner days, more happened in a day that will often happen in a year of adulthood).

Like the Shining, But With Time Travel

If you're looking for a fast-paced novel with gender fluidity and plenty of time travel, set in a spooky hotel, then you'll love Rob Hart's The Paradox Hotel . . . but if you like your mysteries to have a linear plot, then this book . . . maybe not.

Stacey Summons the Dead

Stacey and I have the same schtick when we begin Hamlet-- we both play the role of Horatio, who-- in the opening moments of the play-- is skeptical of ghosts and the supernatural . . . Marcellus explains, "Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy, And will not let belief take hold of him" and Horatio, in reference to the apparition, confidently asserts "tush, tush, 'twill not appear" but, moments after he says this, the ghost of Old Hamlet DOES appear and, after some good natured "I told you so!" by Barnardo (How now, Horatio! You tremble and look pale.Is not this something more than fantasy? What think you on't?) Horatio admits that "Before my God, I might not this believe without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes" and just before the apparition enters, Stacey and I always ask the class if they believe in ghosts, then chastise the believers for their irrationality and then we try to summon the dead, call upon the spirit world to strike us dead and stop our hearts, etc . . .  and there are usually a few kids who get upset by this-- who don't think we should fuck around with the netherworld, whether we believe in it or not-- but we've never been haunted or struck dead . . . until now-- apparently last week, the night after Stacey did her ghost bit, she was visited by a spirit in the night, a little girl in a green sweatshirt that hovered over her bed-- twice!-- and she woke her husband up but he didn't see her and now she wonders if there might be spirits walking the earth, and she wonders if she has summoned them . . . but of course, I think she was dreaming or saw a shadow or whatever, as I am a logical and rational man-of-logic who would never be perturbed by such rubbish.

Happy Mother's Day?

Mother's Day did not start off so well this year-- Catherine's shoulder pain was so intense she couldn't sleep, despite various muscle relaxants, painkillers, and some wine-- so we went to the emergency room at Robert Wood Johnson this morning, and while Cat was in serious pain, the emergency room experience was as good as it gets-- everyone was super-kind and the procedures were fast and efficient, and she was able to get x-rays, a lidocaine patch, some kind of painkiller shot in her other arm, a prescription for anti-inflammatories and a diagnosis: calcific tendonitis, which is painful but better than a torn rotator cuff . . . and while i was picking up her prescription at the pharmacy, the pharmacist recognized me-- I taught him many years ago (he's 27 now) and he remembered the social experiment I did during Orwell's Shooting an Elephant," because he was my confidant in the ruse-- I kicked him out of class to demonstrate some elements of the narrative-- and he fondly remembered this, so that was a fun moment in an otherwise lousy day (but at least Lola is on the mend, and hopefully Cat will be better once she gets a steady does of naproxen in her system).

All Blue Food

All Blue Seafood and Ramen House is now just called All Blue Chinese Cuisine and no longer has ramen-- it's now a Sichuan Place and the food is delicious (and very authentic, according to reviews) and it's BYOB and fairly cheap; they give you some cold spicy potato strings in vinegar to start and you order by checking boxes on a paper menu-- we had Dan Dan noodles and spicy potatoes and beef with scallions -- the beef was really good-- and some wontons in chili oil . . . we will bring the kids next time and order more stuff, but this is a good one to try, just out of town on Route 27.

TGIFF

Thank God it's fucking Friday . . . what a week: Catherine woke up on Tuesday and she couldn't lift her right arm and had to go to urgent care and get a steroid shot for severe tendonitis in her shoulder and she's in terrible pain, unable to sleep, and on steroids and muscle relaxants; Lola was up in the middle of the night, needing to pee, and then had an accident on a couch cushion-- which never ever happens-- so she either passed a kidney stone or has a UTI; I had to write up a preponderance of evidence for my summary evaluation; I covered three classes this week, all on my three period teaching days-- so three days this week, I spent every minute of the day with children; more tennis matches have been canceled due to rain; not only did the Supreme Court Roe vs Wade doc get leaked, but so did a doc about changing our school start and end time, which frightened a number of people; AP testing is in full chaotic swing, for both my students and my own children; I had a nightmare ride to the vet this afternoon with the urine sample, and after fighting through traffic, had to wait in the parking lot for a long time until I told them I was just dropping off the urine and leaving because traffic was building up and I might never get home, and so I handed over the urine and beat a hasty retreat back to Highland Park-- but when I got out of the car, Lola yanked loose because she saw the mailman and she barked at him, as dogs are won to do at the mailman and it frightened the dude and he dropped a bunch of mail in a puddle and I had to apologize profusely-- so fucking embarassing-- and it's going to rain for a long long time . . . so if our basement doesn't flood, my wife's arm starts working again, and Lola doesn't have a UTI, we'll be through the thick of it.

How Far Would YOU Drive For an Abortion?

This post-Roe Map of America is going to inspire some interesting abortion travel campaigns: come to Chicago and stroll the Riverwalk, sample the deep-dish pizza, and get an abortion . . . visit Miami, for the Art Deco architecture, the Cuban sandwiches, the beaches, and the abortions . . . but, in the end this will be something of a class issue, because if you can't afford to travel and you need an abortion in Mississippi, you're going to be SOL.

He's Your Pusherman

Good outing for Highland Park yesterday, we beat Piscataway-- a Group IV school-- five to zero and while they weren't all that good in most positions, their first singles player was 5-2 and a classic skilled junk ball pusher-- the kind of player that drives decent high school players absolutely crazy . . . especially my son Ian who just wants to play some good tennis-- he's happy to lose a match where both players are hitting the hell out of the ball but can't stand just bopping it back-- but after a game the Piscataway player realized he couldn't beat Ian at fast-paced tennis so he started pushing and Ian made the usual errors, tried to hit too hard, got too close to the net, and got frustrated-- he fell behind 4-1 and then realized that all he had to do was push back and give the kid a taste of his own medicine, so he started lobbing on him and it was windy and the kid got gradually more and more pissed off and Ian came all the way back and won the first set and then slowly, so slowly, beat him handily in the second set-- by the end the kid was hitting all kinds of bizarre cut shots, serving underhand, and trying every trick in the book, but Ian stayed the course and never freaked out and got the win on a kid who beat everyone but the best players in the White with the weirdest, most annoying tennis strategy on record.

New Shit Has Come to Light

We were watching Goliath and someone used the phrase "crock of shit" and my older son Alex said, "what of shit?" and my wife and I said "crock" and Ian asked, "like a crock pot or like a Croc shoe?" and my wife and I said, "crock pot" but then we agreed that a Croc style clog full of shit was also an excellent thing to be full of shit, especially if you stuck your foot inside it.

The Ticks are Back in Town

The kids work outside all day on Saturdays, Catherine works on both her own garden and the community garden, and the dog and I spend plenty of time outdoors as well . . . so who knows exactly who is bringing the ticks into our house, but we are finding them-- on pants and skin and hair, and Ian-- with his especially good eyes-- spotted a minuscule one on the dog . . . the thing was so tiny it leads me to believe that resistance is futile (although I've been trying to convince the boys to shave their shaggy locks because I never have to worry about ticks on my head).

In My House, The Apple Falls Right Next to the Tree

Yesterday afternoon, I yelled up the stairs to my older son Alex, who is eighteen now, and asked him what kind of roll he wanted for his burger and he yelled back "Dad, I'm trying to take a nap!" which made perfect sense since he had worked all day for the County Parks, doing trail maintenance, and when I came back into the kitchen my wife said, "Who does that sound like?" and she laughed and laughed.