October | 2009 | Bryan Joiner

October 15, 2009

Why I’m Skipping Blogs with Balls

One thing I’m not doing today is getting on a plane and going to Las Vegas. I’m not watching out the window as we pass over the Alleghenies, the Great Plains, the Rockies and, finally, the desert. I’m not, upon arrival, dropping 50 cents into a slot machine at McCarran Airport, and being happily greeted by the blast of hot air just outside baggage claim. And I’m not attending the Blogs With Balls 2.0 convention at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

I don’t think the conventioneers will take it as a real loss. Many of the sites that will be represented get more hits in an hour than I get in a month. Plus, I’m not really a sports blogger. I’ve tried, again and again (and again), but I can’t write about sports day in and day out. I find pretty much everything fascinating, inside and outside the lines. On the Internet, that’s a liability. The best way for success online is to find a small, unlit corner of the web and make it your own. Not like “Covering Cleveland sports” specific, but like “Covering Cleveland sports and gambling, taking a unique progressive/libertarian/Republican stand on social and political issues, and tying every post together under the guise of a curse against the region perpetuated the racist mascot for the Cleveland Indians” specific.

The blog in question is Cleveland Frowns. It’s written by one of my friends and it’s one of my favorite. Its proprietor is in the air as we speak, probably enjoying a complementary tomato juice and getting his “game face” on. This is the second Blogs With Balls convention in less than a year, and he’s attended both. The networking opportunities are unmatched: all the heavy hitters in this relatively new genre will be there.

But the whole thing strikes me as fundamentally odd. If blogging is the way of the future, why are sports bloggers meeting at a convention—an increasingly outdated mode of gathering and exchanging information? Doesn’t the Internet, the very thing that makes this convention possible, also make it redundant?

I’m not begrudging people’s chance to have a good time. If they enjoy hanging out with people they’ve never met, or only “met” online, that’s fine with me. Put $50 on black and toss back some G-and-T’s. They’re free!

What does affect me is the quality of sports blogging that I read on a daily basis. And I think that sports blogging needs a resolute kick in the pants if it’s ever going to be taken seriously.

What sports bloggers need to understand is that they’re no fundamentally different than the sportswriters to whom they are “alternative.” If Peter Gammons was born in 1985, he’d probably be a blogger today, and if Deadspin founder Will Leitch was born in the 1940s, he’d be the guy at the daily newspaper cranking out columns for you to hate. The point is, there’s nothing about blogging that exempts it from the rules of any other consumption. It needs to be interesting and fresh, sure, but it also needs to be true. And the more work you put into any one post, the better it will be. Bloggers need to focus less on how to increase their hits via keywords and headlines—though these are important—and more on how to reach out to teams, players and other writers to make their work better.

Bloggers have come a long way, the work only gets harder from here. Maybe that’s the point of the convention, but it seems more like a celebration to me of something that’s not yet worth the self-congratulations. Blogging is still an alternative to the mainstream, and simply outlasting the dinosaurs isn’t going to change that. Bringing light into a bigger corner of the Internet will. The better bet might not be to squeeze your arms into coach class, but to stretch them out, as it were, at home.

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October 14, 2009

The MLB Playoffs: Who Cares What FOX Wants?

One of my pet peeves kicks into high gear every October with the baseball playoffs, which invariably pit a few teams from large markets like New York, Boston and Los Angeles versus teams from smaller markets like Minnesota, Oakland and St. Louis. The conversation will go something like this:

ME: “Who do you think is going to make the World Series?”

YOU: “Well, FOX wants Yankees/Dodgers, I’m sure.”

I’m not sure there’s ever been a less interesting line of logic than this, but it seems to have invaded our national sports-watching culture. We’re constantly intrigued by what series will get the highest ratings, to the point that we’ve substituted this type of thinking for our own. I’m not saying that these observations are wrong; to say that FOX (yes, the network spells its name in all CAPITAL LETTERS, just to make the point) would prefer higher ratings to lower ones is probably not going to far out on a limb. It’s the implication that bothers me. If you’re concerned enough about what the networks want to speak it aloud, you probably want it too, and there’s a strong chance you won’t watch a Twins/Cardinals game.

I’m not telling you what to watch. But as Jerry Seinfeld famously said, we’re rooting for laundry out there. What does it matter where that laundry is washed and folded?

Recently, there’s been an attack on subjective baseball terminology by the more statistically religious members of baseball’s enormous fanbase. Words like “clutch” and “heart” should not be applied, they say, because they cannot be measured. Baseball analysts should stick with what is known, like batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. These things exist, they say. These measurements provide the framework for the game that is going to be played, and they are just as quantifiable as the size of cities.

The bigger the city, of course, the bigger the television market. The bigger the market, the more money the team has coming in. The more money the team has coming in, the better the players they’re able to sign. If you spend your money well, every extra half-million people probably nets you at least one more win a year. In markets like New York and L.A., those wins will add up quickly.

If the stat guys are right (and by and large, I believe they are), the playing field is fundamentally unfair. How is a team like the Cleveland Indians supposed to compete year in and year out? The last two A.L. Cy Young winners came from the Tribe, and this year they’ll both start game one of the Championship Series—CC Sabathia for the Yankees, Cliff Lee for the Phillies. They had to leave Cleveland because the Indians could no longer afford them.

If the stat guys are wrong, then who cares what FOX would ever want? If the game was based on as-yet ummeasurable quantities, the best series—from a pure baseball perspective—would include teams who were the best at… well, whatever. But certainly not just almanac-busting.

The truth is, baseball follows the stats on a macro level, but not a micro level, which is why anything can happen in the playoffs, and why the Yankees haven’t won in nearly a decade. The stat guys call this “luck”—I think it’s something more akin to the magic of the game. Things happen in October that defy logic, reason and stats, but I’m not willing to call it a fluke. There’s one goal every year: to win the World Series. FOX may want the teams from the biggest markets, but you should want the ones with the winners. Baseball is hard enough that you should stand in awe of anyone who makes it. And most importantly, you should watch.

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October 13, 2009

The War at Home

This column was started yesterday, but as “luck” would have it, the scene repeated itself last night. That’s right, I suffer for you to keep my columns fresh. We’ll get back to more topical/at all interesting topics tomorrow. That’s the plan at least.

I’m tired today. There’s no two ways about it: sleep is chasing me like I’m leading the Belmont Stakes. That’s the longest horse race in the world, and now the day seems so… long…

The culprit is a mosquito. He has invaded my personal space and bites me while I sleep. Could be a she, but there’s not a history of ladies sneaking into my apartment. (ed. note: see comments) Either way, as Walter Sobchak would say, worthy fucking adversary. I can’t even tell how he gets into the apartment. But when he does, he wreaks havoc.

Let’s set the scene: I live on the fifth floor of a five-story apartment building, and life is mostly good at the top. I’m free from most ambient ground-level noises, and there’s no pitter-patter of feet above my head. The roof is almost always completely vacant, except when someone’s installing a satellite dish or repainting it that searing, brilliant silver that burns your skin and eyes in the summer.

Up there, water collects in little pools. Up there, mosquitos breed, and then gameplan a way into my apartment. They come one at a time: there’s a Papacy of little buggers bleeding me dry. There’s one, I kill it, and then there’s one more. Always one, no more no less. But one can do a ton of damage.

This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered this problem. When I lived in Queens, I lived in the first floor of a house, with a room facing an unkempt backyard. Weeds were everywhere, and the perennial plants were overgrown. It was a mosquito’s Shangri-La. I wasn’t surprised when they’d get in, and I devised a method to kill the bastards. I’d turn on my reading lamp, and look to the side of it. Bathing the whole room in light was too much, but the ambient light was just enough to catch a glimpse of the bloodsuckers. The goal was to end the ordeal with one well-timed clap.

Apparently evolution works quickly, because that method doesn’t work anymore. That or Brooklyn mosquitos are just a tougher nut to crack. Or smear all over your wall, as it were.

These guys are spastic. They don’t buzz me until the lights are off. And they drink like an alcoholic at an open bar. More details are probably not necessary, but during the summer in my sleeping-without-a-shirt phase, I was sure a spider had taken up residence at Casa Joiner, and not one of the silly, functional kinds. I’m talking the kind you name sports teams after (I’m looking at you, University of Richmond). These bites were big.

But no.

The problem is, and always has been, mosquitos. That’s why, in the words of Montgomery Burns, I want to destroy the sun. Lacking any real mechanism to do so, I can only root hard for the onset of fall. Our summer was a largely contented one except for this.

I know what you’re thinking: Why don’t you just close your windows and doors? Well, they are closed. I’m at a loss to figure out why I’m still getting buzzed, the only real remedy to which is… getting buzzed. (A couple beers, and you’ll sleep right through the pain.) But that’s no way to go through life. The mosquitoes’ drinking breeds my own. That’s a downward spiral no one wants.

The only downward spiral I want is the sight of a wadded-up tissue with the last of the insect kings, meeting his watery grave. Down the stretch we come. Bring on winter.

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October 12, 2009

The Sox, Pats and the Moon

I’m not sure this column makes any sense.

In last night’s episode of Man Men, hotel impresario Conrad Hilton tells ad genius Don Draper that he wants a campaign so grand it would put a Hilton Hotel on the moon. When Draper returns with a clever, modern pitch that emphasizes Hilton comfort in all corners of the globe—Rio, Toyko, Paris—Hilton admonishes him. “I wanted the moon,” he said. He leaves in a snit, and it’s unclear who’s at fault: Hilton, for making such a grand request, or Draper, for failing to take it seriously.

A handful of hours earlier, the Patriots lost the Broncos in overtime in their once-and-present house of horrors in Denver. A few hours before that, the Red Sox lost in tremendous fashion to the Los Angeles Angels, giving up a two-run lead with only one strike to go in game three of their best-of-five series. The Sox are done for the year, a year in which they won 95 games and almost by acclimation just “didn’t have it” this year.

That’s quite a luxury as a sports fan, but it’s wholly understandable. Red Sox fans never asked for the moon. We just wanted them to win a World Series in our lifetime, and they did it. I’m not sure what we want from here on out, other than to have a great team that plays with passion. The adjustment from title-starved to dignified in defeat has been difficult, but I think it’s finally been achieved. We’re finally okay with losing. Insofar as things like passion, heart, and hunger actually exist for a baseball team, it always seemed like this team didn’t have it. A good team gave it a good try and came up short.

Can the same be said for the Patriots? Maybe, but it feels different. With the Patriots, we’ve asked for the moon. Any loss is unacceptable, a result of the Pats’ lapses more than their opponents’ greatness. Two years ago, a large subset of the Pats fan population would have been crushed by a regular-season loss, and Bill Belichick plunged his team into the space race. He would go for the moon. When the ship crash-landed on the surface, it was made to feel like the problem was one or two plays that could have gone either way, not that the Giants were simply the better team. The fact is, it doesn’t matter what the reason was. They lost. The lesson should have been learned.

Pats fans weren’t always this way. The first Super Bowl season, it was good enough just to make the playoffs. Then beating the Raiders was pride-inducing, and beating the Steelers was divine. By the time the Super Bowl came around, the Pats could see the Rams and their NASA-inspired gameplan, and they licked their chops. The brought the pass-happy Rams back to Earth, and won in dramatic fashion. Does anyone doubt now that the Pats were the better team? And if we don’t, what does that tell us about the 2007 Giants?

I put these pieces together, and yesterday didn’t crush me the way it would have 10 years ago. Part of it is growing up, and part of it is seeing my teams succeed, but most of it is knowing that sports can’t bring you the moon. I wish the Sox won, but if they can’t close out a game like that, they’re not champions anyway. It’s still early for the Pats, and I’m confident they’ll do well, even as Tom Brady enters his golden years. The oughts are finally starting to pass us by, and, like a traveler in a foreign country at the end of his trip, I’m only now starting to get used to them.

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October 10, 2009

Amateur Hour

Third, and probably angriest, column from yesterday. If you read all three, you’ll notice something familiar in here.

If you want to know why Democrats can’t govern, look no further than the fallout from the announcement that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Europeans are injecting their politics into this, one liberal friend wrote on Twitter. Isn’t diplomacy part of the job description? blared another, on Facebook. Way to lower the bar, Nobel Committee, said a third. And finally, the most common criticism: He hasn’t done anything yet.

Sure he has! He won the Nobel Peace Prize!

Just as Obama’s “flunking” the International Olympic Committee test brought about a nauseating response from Republicans, Obama’s Nobel Prize victory was Amateur Hour for the left. On Twitter and Facebook, self-professed Obama supporters shat all over his credentials for an award handed out by a small group of people in Norway.

Why today? Because we are mad that the Europeans are getting involved in our politics, fearing, I guess, that praising Obama during the tough times will embolden him. These are the same people who literally believed “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” as literally as fundamentalist zealots believe the Bible. He was too smart to let them in on the real secret, that in many, many ways he’s more similar to George W. Bush than he is different. Those differences, however, are of paramount importance to the country and the world, and they are so big that transcending them resonates from Washington to Oslo in fundamental ways.

Are the Europeans “injecting their politics into the decision?” Yes! Of course they are! The better question is when this wouldn’t have been the case. In effect, the Nobel Commitee has said: We know how hard of a time President Obama has had governing, dealing with a system that gives a minority of its citizens power to stop his nearly every move domestically, but we will overlook that in favor of the good he has done for world relations. They see our system and laugh at the roadblocks other politicians have put up for him. Many of these people come from Obama’s own party, eager to “get theirs” now that the gettin’s good. They want what’s good for them, not necessarily what’s good for the country. They waited eight years for this!

Well, I’ve got news for them: so did the rest of the world. They want American leadership that isn’t regressive and inward-looking. They admire certain qualities in an American President, and they’ve found those in Obama. His prize is that he gets to answer questions back home from a skeptical media about whether he thinks he “deserves” it—questions taken straight from the GOP playbook, but intoxicating to too many on the left as well. Why is it? I have no idea. Maybe it’s sheer egoism, or maybe it’s just ignorance that a commitee of European award-givers has no power to sway, alter, or morally ratify the foundations of America. The Nobel Prize is, like all trophies, just a trophy.

Am I happy Obama won? Yes. But I’m happy when the movie I prefer wins the Best Picture award too. When it doesn’t, I’m annoyed, but I don’t put too much stock into it. The world is no different today than it was yesterday at this time, except a gold piece of hardware will be transferred from Norway to the White House. While some people have taken it as such, it’s no more an opportunity for anyone to pass judgment on the President than each sunrise is. That‘s what makes this country great. Let’s not forget that.

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October 10, 2009

You won the Nobel Peace Prize. Defend yourself!

Column two that I didn’t post yesterday.

The last 10 years have been revolutionary for the science of baseball. The best team, it turns out, doesn’t always win, according to the number-crunchers. The winners just get lucky in October. The World Series title doesn’t really mean anything—it’s just won, year in and year out, by the team with the best combination of luck and skill in October.

This puts the fans of some World Series winners in a bind. You’ve won, the writers say, Now defend yourself. How could you be better than team X? Well, you’d say, we beat them. They would have a simple response: So what?

Today, the President of the United States won the Nobel Peace Prize and he is being asked to defend himself. For an award. Bestowed upon him.

At the press conference just now, a reporter actually asked press secretary Robert Gibbs if the award was based on talk more than action. Gibbs responded that the award signified America’s restored place of leadership in the world. Here’s what he should have said: it’s an award! Ask them what it’s about! They gave it to us!

The award is big news on Facebook and Twitter. Facebook has become something of a parliamentary chamber for debating out Obama’s chops. BARACKSTAR, one friend writes. An award by socialists, for socialists, writes another. Those in the middle hew against the committee, feeling this sends the wrong message to the President. It’s a bad precedent, they say. He hasn’t accomplished anything yet.

Sure he has: he won the Nobel Peace Prize!

Look, I haven’t agreed with every Best Picture winner at the Oscars. And I haven’t thought the best team has always won the World Series. But once it’s over, it’s over. The awards are handed out, and it’s time to move on.

I’m not sure what Obama’s detractors are expecting. Would they like him to refuse the award? To say something like: “I’m humbled and honored that the Nobel Prize committee has chosen me for this prestigious award. I, however, regretfully must decline accepting this honor, because I feel have not met the standards upon which I was apparently judged. I can do so much more for the world by rejecting an award promoting peace and togetherness. In the eloquent words of LOLCats, Pease Awards: UR Doin It Rong.”

It seems like just two weeks ago that member of the media were piling on Obama for pushing Chicago’s Olympic games bid. He’s too arrogant, they said. His campaign will never work, they said. It’s unbecoming of a President. He should focus on his job. Then Chicago lost the games, and the right celebrated. He got served! The world showed him what was up!

Now, having done nothing in the way of campaigning for another international award, and having gained it, Obama is being chastised for not deserving it. The hypocrisy would be oozing if it was just coming from the right, but it’s not. It’s coming from everywhere. Everyone’s got an opinion. His detractors say he’s simply undeserving. His supporters ask if he could do better.

That’s like asking if the Yankees could win five games in the World Series instead of four. It doesn’t freaking matter The Nobel Prizes go to the best candidates they can find. Barack Obama was the best candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize this year, by the criteria for which it is judged. You know this, because he won. By being himself.

That’s the last thing he should have to apologize for.

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October 10, 2009

Peace

I wrote three columns about the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday that I declined to post because I figured angry posting is bad. Calmer today. Here’s the first one.

So Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize and, to put it simple, people be’ buggin.

A random sampling of my Facebook friends’ status updates tell me as much, at least.

“BARACKSTAR!” one writes.

“Way to lower the bar, Nobel Committee. What’s the opposite of congratulatons?” blares another.

“[T]he Nobel Peace Prize: Awarded by socialists for socialists,” a final one laments. “Sadly it’s not what it once was.”

Wait, so the Nobel Peace Prize is The Simpsons? Or Brett Fav—nevermind.

The truth is, I’m fairly surprised at the announcement, but as usual, the reactions to it probably say more about the respondents than it does about the award. Why would the prize be any different now than it was in the past? What sort of objective standard was there before? Can anyone answer that? Any one my 100+ Facebook friends, that is?

I doubt it. I’m guessing that people’s reactions are in direct proportion to their feelings about Obama. My right-wing friend, who reliably attaches the adjective “socialist” to any Obama policy, is still a die-hard George W. Bush supporter, and one suspects he’s a big fan of the right-wing talk radio and TV circuit that reveled in Obama’s Olympic “failure.” Sadly, he was on his honeymoon at the time, so the world didn’t get to hear his tweets and clucks at the news, so we’ll use one from a Weekly Standard writer:

As a citizen of the world who believes that No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation, I’m glad that the Obama White House’s jingoist rhetoric and attempt to pay back Chicago cronies at the expense of undermining our relationships with our allies failed.

I wonder what the writer, John McCormack, will come up with today, now that the other nations of the world have effectively decided Obama has done anything but attempt to dominate them. Once happy with the world pushback, now McCormack will have to go on the offensive against the world’s love affair with the, yes, BARACKSTAR! There ought be a tornado watch in McCormack’s vicinity as he attempts to untangle himself from his own logic.

At the same time, it does seem to me to be a bit early for President Obama to have won the award—until you realize that he’s been America’s de facto world representative since before he gave a speech to two million Germans before the Brandenburg Gate. Other countries still needed the signatures of Cheney/Bush et. al, but they bought up the Obama “hope” message in bulk. Turns out, they really believed that message, which a majority of Americans did as well. And now some Americans are calling them fools.

One need to look no further than the Olympic decision to know that Barack Obama can’t push other countries around at will. America can lead the world, but the world won’t blindly follow us around. Having failed to snag the games for Chicago, Obama will have hopefully learned his lesson.

A final friend lamented that the Europeans “injected their politics” into the decision. He said it was “gross.” I say it’s probably always been that way, and even if it hasn’t, why is it bad that Europeans like our President? I, among others, chastised George W. Bush for alienating European countries—and now we’re going to complain when they show appreciation for our choices? How does that make any sense?

The Nobel Prize is what it is, and nothing more—a committee of people handing out awards. If you think it’s more important than that, be proud. If you don’t think it’s more important than that, then what’s the big deal?

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October 9, 2009

No More Vineyard/Nantucket Game?

Sorting out my feelings on the news that this year’s Vineyard/Nantucket game has been canceled, and the Obama Nobel Peace Prize announcement. I also think the ALDS is insidious, not for any fundamental reason but because the short series forces you to watch all of it. I’m happy to miss an inning or game or two of a seven-game series, but if you blink you might miss a best-of-fiver. For all Bud Selig says about there being no compelling reason to change the playoff system, I think that’s the most obvious one. But what do I know?

That’s it for now. Saw The Informant! last night, was unimpressed.

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October 8, 2009

The End of Letterman?

Last night, I wondered aloud whether this could be the end of David Letterman. I was quickly and forcefully admonished, but I still wonder. I certainly don’t think he’s going to get forced out, or face any external pressure to quit, but is there a chance he just up and walks away?

At first, the idea seems ridiculous. In light of his sleeping-with-interns scandal, he’s continuing the show, putting a lemon-faced smile every night. He beat the tabloids to the punch by admitting to everything he has been accused of, and has turned the show inward into one big joke about himself.

There he was, last night, pretending to be a yokel low-level news reporter. There he was, letting Vince Vaughn run roughshod over the show. The audience loved it of course: the scandal, in a perverse way, plays to Letterman’s self-deprecating ways; and everyone loves a free-verse Vaughn. He was the perfect guest for an awkward time, so on-the-nose that you can bet Letterman’s superiors are far more impressed with the host’s ratings than they are worried about his behavior.

I’m not judging the behavior. To my mind, now that he’s admitted it, he has exactly one person to answer to: his wife, Regina. And that’s why I can’t help but think this could be the beginning of the end.

Look at it this way: what would Letterman have to do at this point to get fired? It’s not that this incident was so bad—or really, in a grand scheme, bad at all—that I’m trying to paint Letterman as a criminal in varying shades of gray, but it would take a serious, serious incident to force CBS to take Dave off the air. This doesn’t even register to the network, the scandal equivalent of a monologue joke that falls flat, except you can see them thinking, “Move along, and yes, there’s plenty to see here, every night at 11:30!”

I just wonder when Dave will tire of this. Late-night television is such a peculiar genre that only two people have ever really been master class performers. Letterman has, by and large, lived by his own rules, and his own internal compass has guided him to this point—that’s why, as New York Magazine’s cover story from about a month ago read, he never had to grow up. When the world indulges you, that’s the world’s problem.

But Dave did grow up, and got married, and kept showing up. His show evolved from the hip, outsider space to the seat of the winking insider. No longer uncomfortable with being late-night royalty, he embraced it in his endearing, sourpuss way. He had a child. He got married. As the article cites, he finally grew up.

Right now, Dave is doing the grown-up thing by working through the problem, continuing to perform while struggling at home. That’s commendable, but the truth is David Letterman isn’t like any of us. He doesn’t need to work for the money, and I suspect he doesn’t need it for some deep personal fulfillment anymore. That time has passed. He works because he enjoys it, having reached a point where it’s no more complicated than that. It took a while to get here, but he got here.

So my question is: what if he decides that having grown up, he would rather spend time tending to his wife and son than yukking it up on national television? To fix the one thing in his life, other than his work, he’s been attached to? It would be the final iconoclastic masterstroke for him, one borne out of a commitment to family and self he’s only recently demonstrated. It wouldn’t be a sign of weakness—it would, with the message that he could leave his show, a sign of supreme strength.

I don’t expect this to happen. I just wouldn’t be surprised if it did.

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October 7, 2009

The Brooklyn Bridge at the Magic Hour

The other night, in discussing my plan to paint the Manhattan Bridge, I took some shots at the Brooklyn Bridge in the company of a proud New Yorker. She was aghast, but I continued as if she wasn’t even there. “… and it’s not even pretty anyway!” I bellowed. “I just don’t think it’s a nice to look at as everyone says it is. They just want to like it because it’s old!”

When I was admonished by not just said woman and, well, everyone sitting around me, I refused to back down. Okay, maybe I backed down a little, retreating to my initial point about the Manhattan Bridge’s need for anything—anything—to spruce it up. On Monday, I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, like I often do, and everything changed.

I moved to Brooklyn in March, and it was July until I realized that the walk from City Hall to my house was no more than 45 minutes, and a sure way to beat the heat with the cool breezes at the top of the bridge. The first few times I did it, I made sure to stop and soak in the view of Brooklyn, Governor’s Island, the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan. I almost never looked north.

I was trying to understand what made the bridge so great. I’m not a cynic by nature as much as someone who needs to see things with his own eyes. I wasn’t seeing it yet, but I continued to walk over the bridge. I needed the exercise.

During this time, I began dating a woman who has since become the official squeeze of this blog. She often gets off work around the same time as I do, and had admonished me for never calling her before walking over the bridge (she lives nearby). Well, Monday, I finally did it, and we met at City Hall and pointed ourselves eastward, and that’s when everything clicked.

For all my thoughts that the summer was the best time to enjoy the span, I was wrong. It’s right now. The angle of the sun from 5 to 6 p.m. is just right to cast the shadows of the suspension cables across the bridge’s stanchion’s, which are also bathed in the oranges, reds and purples of the setting sun—what’s known as the “Magic Hour” to photographers. It’s majestic, and it’s only then that the size of the structure stands out. Surrounded by cables and shadows, it feels like you’re experiencing a wonder of the world (when it was opened, it was called the Eighth Wonder of the World). Here the bridge existed not as a watery tomb to those who created it but as a living, functional piece of art with no American equal. And I was finally mad at the aliens (Independence Day), tidal wave (Deep Impact) and U.S. Government (I Am Legend) for destroying it.

Yesterday, one day removed from my epiphany, I walked over the bridge again. Without the lady and the exact weather conditions, it was a touch less spectacular than the day before, so I turned my attention back to the Manhattan Bridge. There it was, in its blue-and-rust splendor, existing mostly for truckers and commuters who could do without the Brooklyn Bridge’s pomp and heightened security. One thought overwhelmed all others: it’s just too watery. The blue of the bridge mixes with the blue-green of the East River to render it mostly invisible except in those photographs from DUMBO where it perfectly frames the Empire State Building. I, like many new New Yorkers, saw that for myself about seven years ago and thought I had discovered something amazing. Like my recent discovery of the majesty of the Brooklyn Bridge, it just showed I had a lot to learn.

My initial proposal was to paint the bridge brown, but I think I’ve grown attached to one by a friend who left it in the comments here: paint it beige, and train lights on it a la the Empire State Building. Change the colors nightly. The bridge would become a living piece after sundown, keeping the magic alive after its little brother’s breathtaking show at the dusk.

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Month: October, 2009