12/27/fourteen. #FBF The miracle is in us, and it blossoms forth the moment we lay ourselves open to it. -- Henry Miller Uptight grammarians will find fault with this because like vultures they always find a bone to pick. Doesnt mean Kulkll stop laying it on the line. Or is it lying it on the lay? Lay Lie Laid Lain. Sounds like a dish he ate years ago at Moon Wok. Or was it Wokket Man? Hard to remember. But the noodles were cold as hell. Anyhoo. Just had the first sip of coffee. Its taking. Heres the first thing that happened yesterday morning: a funky angel appeared by Kulks side and said I have something for you JoJo and handed him a baseball card from 1978. Topps. Oh what a day those were in South Ellay for a baseball-loving boy whod scour the house of its loose change and ride his banana-seat Schwin to the liquor store to buy 3 or 4 packs of Topps cards. For a good stretch, from about 77 to 83 or 84 maybe 85, he had em all. He collected for the sake of collecting, and to devour the stats on back, and also for the thin cardboard gum that lost its flavor after 14 bites but if you chewed enough of em at once you got a nice sugar buzz for 3 minutes. All sorts of excitement rushes to the fore when looking at a 78 Topps of Buddy Bell for the first time in a long time. Buddy Bell played third base for the Cleveland Indians, the worst team in baseball. Awful. The worst, Jerry. The movie Major League made the Indians the butt of its joke. Art imitated life. In 68 the Tribe went 86-75, not so bad, and then they became the Mendoza Line: 62-99, 76-86, 60-102, 72-84, 71-91, 77-85, 79-80, 81-80 (hooray!), 71-90 ... 101 losses, 102 losses, 105! To be fair, the mistake by the lake scrubbed its image in the 90s, and the Indians moved into a new park and won 100 games in 97 and made it to the World Series though they lost to the Marlins, whod been around just 4 years. Back to the 78 Buddy Bell card. The 78 Topps series stood out from others of the decade. According to cardboardconnection: The design of the 1978 Topps Baseball card set is one of the most subdued of the decade. Relying heavily on the photography rather than color and design elements, the overall design allows the cards story to be told strictly through the player images which dominate the available geography of the cardboard canvas. A bold cursive-like script in the bottom left hand corner displays the team nickname of the depicted player, with their name designated in the area outside the color border which houses the image. A small baseball in the upper right-hand corner lists the players fielding position. The rest of the cards story is told on the reverse which contains a wealth of information. A detailed listing of biographical and statistical information is accompanied by a brief trivia piece about the player. Using an orange and blue color scheme, the card backs are instantly identifiable compared to those from previous years in the decade. Removed from the cards is the customary cartoon and is instead replaced by a play in a baseball card game. Kulk flipped Bells card to read his bio and stats. First thing that popped out: his birthplace of Pittsburgh. Lorin Scallops. Indeed, Lorin Scallops forevermore. Then Kulk looked at the stats and through Buddys first 6 seasons he had 859 hits, 128 doubles, 19 triples, 58 homers, 324 RBIs and a .272 average. Not great. Not bad. It also said Buddy won Wichita States MVP in 71, foul year of our Lord, which makes sense considering Kulk was born in September of 71. The play on the back was base on balls. Kulk turned the card over to look at Bell, a handsome chap with country-blonde locks. The font for C on Clevelands caps intrigued Kulk, who looked at both sides of the card for another minute or two then lay it on the counter -- lie? laid? -- and moved on to the next thing. Two hours later, a kid walked in and first thing Kulk noticed was his World Series jacket. The kid browsed and eyeballed with more than a passing fancy and one thing leads to another ... ... and he immersed himself Kulks chat with questions, which began when the latter asked Bobby from Dallas about the jacket. Hes no ordinary Bobby, and this interaction was no dream, J.R. Bobby bought the jacket when the Rangers made the World Series in 2011. Went to Games 3 and 4 with Dad and the reason he got one with World Series instead of one inscribed with Rangers or Cardinals is because hes not a Rangers guy. Redbirds, either. Just wanted a jacket to romanticize 2 Classic nights with dad. It was the only thing in the gift store I liked. Father and Son watched Pujols hit 3 homers in Game 3 (16-7 Cards win) then got to see the Dutch Oven (Derek Holland) throw 8.1 of 2-hit ball the next night (4-0 Rangers win). The Fulbright Scholar wants to teach community college or prep school. For 3 years he helped students better appreciate words as an English teacher at the Upper School. He likens himself a member of the Dead Poets Society, a book-toting lover of words with degrees from Brown (English) and Oslo (Lit) and another on the way from Dartmouth, where hes attempting to write something good. // He and Kulk interrupted each other often as they talked writing and books and dreams and fears and failing and flailing. Kulk tried to explain what he does on this page re: injecting his stories with life experience and life in the gallery. You might call that living vicariously through others but its not. Theres living vicariously through someone else because youve never tried to live for yourself, and theres being a slave to words. That, and not vicariousness, is what slays him on a daily basis. He has come to expect a reality that hes one of the worst writers on the planet, yet he keeps writering. // Bobby asked about writing books and Kulk said his deepest fear is that he hasnt read enough and even if he did read like they say youre supposed to read if you want to be a writer theres another fear of hearing people say hes trying too hard to write like ____ and ____ and the last thing any writer wants to hear is This reminds me of _____ because we all want to sound original; and anyway, hes read Hemingway and Steinbeck and Thompson and Taibbi and even Superfudge! His other fears runneth deep yet none of them stop him from writing. // Bobby and Kulk talked about Paris and other exotic travel. Kulk said hed love to go to Paris and blah blah blah and Ill get there one of these days. // Bobby has been to Paris. He dug into his backpack and pulled out Henry Millers The Wisdom of the Heart and turned to a passage he underlined in purple ink and asked if he could read it. Sure, kid, knock yourself out. So he did: The history of religions emphasizes the stupendous difficulty which man has in realizing this truth. Truth crystallizes quickly into idolatry, servility, surrender. Everywhere we see life being lived vicariously. And yet life everywhere and at all times for any and everybody is simple, startlingly simple. We live on the edge of the miraculous every minute of our lives. The miracle is in us, and it blossoms forth the moment we lay ourselves open to it. The miracle of miracles is the stubbornness with which men refuse to open themselves up. Our whole life seems to be nothing but a frantic effort to evade that which is constantly within our grasp. This which is the very reverse of the miraculous is nothing but FEAR. Kulk wasnt so impressed by Hanks wisdom and his short attention span had kicked in right about now, and he responded to the passage by saying You either do something or you dont. Bobby from Texas, a White House intern who opened mail for President Bush (43) and did a stint at the EPA, put the book back in his pack. They resumed chatting. Kulk couldnt discern Bobbys Texas Twang till he got him to say a sentence about playing football, and the Twang emerged like we were in Zephyr or something. Come to find out the popular kids at St. Marks accepted him like a king during football season, and for the other 6 months they considered him a goober because he read high-lit and wrote poetry. He published his first poem in November. Kulk posted part of it. If you want to read the entire poem, hit him up on Facebook. By the way, is ANYone going to bring Kulk a plate of Lorin Scallops? How many references does someone have to make? Jeezum crow. Cmon and lay it on the line for him. Or is that lie it on the line? Stop being so uptight.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 18:08:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015