Roger That

Rogers Centre, and from where I'm at centre is spelled correctly I assure you, is the home baseball stadium of the Toronto Blue Jays in Ontario, Canada. Me son Frank and I picked it up last night as part of our years long stadium tour. We try to attend a ball game at one new site each season.

Rogers Centre is the first retractable roof stadium, opening in 1989. The roof can be opened for good weather while closed when conditions are poor. They weren't poor yesterday but it was chilly, so it was closed.

The stadium is nice, thought it's a bit weird to see baseball indoors. As Frank remarked, baseball seems intended for the open air. Still, the sight lines were good all over, and we felt reasonably close to the action. The top level where we sat looks steeper than it is but not so much when you're actually seated.

The Jays hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers, who won 12-2. Not a pretty game for the hometown nine.

Stadium amenities were good, and prices weren't bad. Our hot dogs (you gotta have a dog at a ball game) were $6.75 each, but as Canadian money is at a discount against US funds they came out to $5.10 I think through the use of our American debit cards. My souvenir Toronto baseball cap cost $49 from a Canadian start of $67, so prices were comparable to what you would pay in the States. I choked at the $490 tag on an authentic Toronto Blue Jays jersey (Frank said I audibly gasped) but I wasn't going to buy one anyway.

The park was very clean, and felt older than it is. As I said, it opened in 1989, making it I believe the fifth oldest baseball venue in use in the major leagues. It's not the best ball yard, but I do like it. I kind of expected not to. I thought it would be a concrete and steel monster, yet it was rather homey in its own way.

Would I go back? Sure. After all, it is baseball. And I am curious to see the place with the roof open.

VW

I won't say that I drive old cars. I don't have to: everyone who knows me knows that. But some are quirky in a way which is actually kind of cool.

For a while back in 2007 or so I had an old Volkwagen, not a beetle, but a boxy brown car which was sort of a compact type. A Golf, in fact. That's what it was. A Volkswagen Golf. A 1987 Volkswagen Golf.

It ran very well and the gas mileage was outstanding. But coolest of all was that it had stamped into the wheel well under the hood, "Made in West Germany". I was driving a car in 2007 made in a country that no longer existed.

I take pride in things like that.

 

The Housing Market

My mailman was kind enough to deliver to me the latest bit of drivel from my local Congressional representative, who proclaimed within it that safe and affordable housing is a right. I am not enlightened.

The trouble with rights is that they imply obligations. If you have a right to something, who is obliged to fill that right? After all, if a certain nondescript fellow (whom we'll call Cloyce just to give him a name) has a right to a safe and affordable house, well, mine is safe and affordable. Do I have to give it to Cloyce?

Oh, don't be silly, Marty. Of course not.

Well, okay, then, how about the heavy machinists and the carpenters and the electricians and the heating and plumbing contractors who actually build homes? Do they have to build Cloyce a home for free? And do the folks who make the materials which go into home building have to supply the lumber and wire and ductwork and lighting gratis as well?

Come on, Marty, of course not.

Well, then, who does have come up with the house? Who owes Cloyce a safe, affordable home, since it's a right he has? Who must deliver on that right? Don't say the government, because that's just a longhand way of saying me, and we've already established I don't owe Cloyce a home.

And that's the trouble when you begin bandying about rights. If you aren't ready and willing to talk rationally about obligations as well, Congressional representative, you're just blowing smoke. 

I Don't Get It

I'm going to be him: I'm going to be that guy. I don't care. I think it has to be said.

Have we become such party animals that so mundane a trifle as a sports draft is literally tying our streets in knots? The NFL, the National Football League to you who don't know (and I have been surprised by the number of folks who don't know and, thankfully, don't care; there is hope for the world), is holding its player draft in Detroit this week. And the city is teeming with visitors and all sorts of temporary construction is happening and streets are being closed...so teams can choose who can play for them?

To begin with, and I mean this quite seriously, why a draft of players? Why can't they select who they want to have a catch with? Isn't it some form of involuntary servitude to say that if you want to play with us you have to play with who we (those in power) say you have to play for? I'm willing to argue that there's a real moral wrong at work here.

Then there's all the stuff and nonsense surrounding the thing. I get it, to a point, anyway, when sportsball is happening, a Super Bowl or what not. But we're not even talking about an actual game or event here. We're talking about, at best, an eenie, meenie, minee, moe: who picks who first and so on. It's inane, and I mean that quite seriously too, to force all this hullaballoo on a community for such ultimately meaningless drivel. 

When bread and circuses have devolved to this point, friends, I have to honestly wonder whether our national priorities are anywhere near right. Yet judging by the recent history of these United States, perhaps this is a symptom of a greater disease.

Truly Sublime

Here I am, touting my own writing. How gauche, but my blog, my rules.

Still, here's a cool review of my 'memoir' The Sublime to the Ridiculous

Kidding aside, it's pretty much what I intended about the collection. It's available here: STTR

Kindle only just yet, but I hope to have a print edition ready soon!

The Day Dawns

When I bought a copy of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the noted Beatles album from 1967, I found a gem. I especially liked the song When I'm 64, a Paul McCartney tune which is the second track on side two. 64; that was a long time off for a twelve year old.

Not so much now. Today I hit that milestone, fifty some years after first hearing the song. When I get older? I am older. Losing my hair? Oh, yeah. Many years from now? Not anymore.

But I'm living the life. All my years humming that tune, and here we are. Thank you, Lord.

Looney Sunday

I discovered last night that a cable station is having a Looney Toons - Merrie Melodies marathon this weekend. Man, I had almost forgotten how laugh out loud hilarious all those old Warner Brothers shorts could be.

First there was The Old Grey Hare, where Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd were transported all the way to the year 2000 - 2000, showing how old the old toons were - for them to see how their relationship ended. No spoiler here, but dynamite was involved.

Ever see Duck Amuck? If you haven't you need to. The animator puts Daffy Duck through all kinds of bizarre situations which you have to see to believe. And who, it turns out, was that artist? 

There was stone age Elmer who sounded like Jack Benny. I saw the Three Little Bops, narrated in jazz style by Stan Freberg. Hilarious. Foghorn Leghorn painted a dog's tongue green. Uh, you had to see it. But it was the sort of thing which leaves the viewer asking, 'People got paid to write that?'.

Of course, there was What's Opera, Doc?, one of the few where Elmer got the best of Bugs. It's classic.

The marathon lasts until 6 tomorrow, Monday, morning. Don't bother me the rest of the day.