The Rake Magazine

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  • The Sunshine Bores The Daylights Out Of Me

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    I’d ask you to wipe that smirk off your face. This is a serious matter.

    This world is plunging further into darkness.

    Okay, so maybe I’m being overly dramatic, but I can barely hold my head up. It’s damned hard to hold your head up when you’re living in a crawl space.

    Ordinarily in a situation like this I would warn you: Here comes another stream of incoherence, but at the moment there’s something you can perhaps explain to me.

    The other night, when I was out walking with the visiting black angel, I kept seeing these neighborhood watch signs that read, “If I Don’t Call the Police, My Neighbor Will.”

    What the hell is that supposed to mean? Does that not sound like a complete cop-out to you? Doesn’t that sound like passing the fucking buck? It’s so American, yet I’ve no doubt it’s supposed to be seen as some kind of deterrent to criminals. Why would it be, though?

    Because, look, that sign is logically fucked. It’s a shrug of indifference, or at least a smug acknowledgment that, hey, don’t sweat it; somebody else will take care of it.

    Let’s suppose, for instance, that each of us assumes the position of the ‘I’ on that sign, that each of us takes that attitude. Do you see what I’m trying to say? If up and down the block each neighbor automatically assumes that his neighbor will call the police, then of course nobody calls the police.

    Maybe, come to think of it, that would be for the best after all. No sense in getting messed up in something that’s none of our business in the first place.

    In the end, what it comes down to is appetite–

    the enforced idleness, the solitude:

    nothing, hectares of nothing, litanies of nothing on microfiche.

    —August Kleinzahler, from “Epistle XIV”

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  • Neo-Con Man Vs. Paleo-Con Man

    This week’s New York Times Sunday magazine packs an interesting one-two punch. In the opinion slot, David Rieff argued a new facet of an old premise–that President Bush’s approach to liberating the world is not necessarily seen that way on the receiving end. Rieff said what many people have been thinking for some time–that the fundamentalist Islamic critique of Western Civilization is essentially anti-modernist. But he points out that this makes it a tougher nut to crack in competing paradigms than the previous gold-standard for clashing ideologies– Capitalism versus Communism. Communism, he noted, shared some basic modernist values like science and secularism. Indeed, you could make the argument that Leninism was a more pure form of modernism than democratic capitalism in its strident rejection of religion and psychology and other gassy emanations of the individual.

    It’s an old adage that in war we begin to look like our enemies, and I found it more than a little interesting that in the feature well of the same issue, Daniel Smith delineates the Bush administration’s war against science–the true cross of modernity–or shall we say its global struggle against uncomfortable facts like evolution and global warming.

    Simple-minded Americans have come to believe that the war on terrorism is in fact a thinly veiled, old-fashioned war of faith–Christianity against Islam, my god against your god. (Actually, as people of The Book, this is more accurately a “my prophet against your prophet” internecine squabble. Yeah right, and the West Bank is just a slight difference of exegetical opinion.) The more the present administration insists on conforming reality to its ideology, the more it looks no better than the forces of anti-modernity it seems to have such a hard time dealing with. Given the monopoly party’s winning success in convincing most Americans against their own best interests of half-truths and hateful moralities, I wonder why they haven’t been so successful abroad. Perhaps the struggle should be seen less as modernity versus anti-modernity but as a purer form of selfish individualism versus virulent communitarianism. So yes, maybe similar to the old capitlism versus communism monolith– but minus the science on both sides, and thus a truly frightening clash of faith founded not on reason but on passion.

    If we wanted to be true to our one abiding national faith, we should be dropping Barbie dolls and Nikes on them rather than bombs. But this is hardly a time for spreading conspicuous consumerism. Or is it? I heard somewhere that shopping is the new self-sacrifice, and I’ve been salivating to do my part–here’s the new J. Crew collection for men–now if someone somewhere would facilitate my self-sacrifice by, you know, giving me some walking-around money…

  • Get me a shovel, please

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    Brown: Horseshit in New Orleans

    Would Bush have reacted to the disaster in New Orleans faster if someone had told him Terry Schiavo was there?

    Have you considered that the New Orleans disaster may be politically good for Bush? Besides killing off thousands of Democrats, it took the news eye off a few embarrassments undeniably of Bush’s own making. Do you remember a certain little war, in which a thousand people were trampled or drowned last week while Katrina was lashing the Gulf Coast? Do you remember that Karl Rove revealed the identity of a CIA agent?

    How about that empathy for the Gulf Coast victims, though? As Bush was quick to point out, Trent Lott’s mansion was destroyed, and Bush himself used to party in The Big Easy. I think he’d look good staggering down Bourbon Street, hurricane (the drink) in hand right about now.

    And then there’s the quick appointment of John Roberts to Rehnquist’s spot. Distracted us for an hour or so. How come he can react to Rehnquist’s death in one day but his people don’t even know that there are people dying in the New Orleans Convention Center? Turn on CNN instead of Fox at least once in a while, guys.

    Then there’s Mike Brown, head of FEMA, who was fired from his last job overseeing of horse shows. Let’s see, this guy was incompetent at cleaning up horse shit, so let’s give him a job running an agency which has the responsibility of saving thousands of human lives. Now that’s Bush leadership.

    Contrast this from FEMA’s own history: “In 1993, President Clinton nominated James L. Witt as the new FEMA director. Witt became the first agency director with experience as a state emergency manager. He initiated sweeping reforms that streamlined disaster relief and recovery operations, insisted on a new emphasis regarding preparedness and mitigation, and focused agency employees on customer service. The end of the Cold War also allowed Witt to redirect more of FEMA’s limited resources from civil defense into disaster relief, recovery and mitigation programs.”

  • You Call This A Beach?

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    The future is stupid.

    —Jenny Holzer

    I have always been clueless, but I am discovering that my cluelessness is constantly extending itself into entirely new continents of ignorance, and even moving resolutely like a glacier over existing continents in my skull that were once green-swept and shot through with sunlight.

    I guess I could choose to see this development as a sort of personal growth, as long as I am willing to extend the concept of growth to include such things as mold and bacteria.

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    Stories never really end. They can go on and on and on. It’s just that sometimes, at a certain point, you just stop telling them.

    –Mary Norton, The Borrowers

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  • Shame, Shame, Shame

    I recognize that it’s likely ridiculous to hope for anything resembling consistency from the Twins at this point, but that doesn’t, of course, stop me from hoping all the same.

    And that –the continued, irrational investment of hope– is what makes a game like yesterday’s so damn frustrating. The two steps forward, five steps back routine has grown maddening in the extreme. So I must say that I, for one, was more than happy to hear about Carlos Silva popping off (and only in a place accustomed to relatively benign and even tranquil clubhouse chemistry could such a mild outburst of frustration be regarded as newsworthy, let alone as rocking the boat).

    I’m sort of wishing at this point that there’d be a real air-clearing donnybrook to lively up this team (and give us all something truly interesting to write about for a change).

    I will admit, though, that Brad Radke –being Brad Radke– openly pondering thoughts of suicide was pretty damn interesting as far as recent news about this team goes. It was also pretty seriously disturbing, even if you do happen to be familiar with Radke’s private headbanger reputation and taste for Metallica.

    Which Twins would you most like to see square off and kick the snot out of each other right now? From among the characters in that clubhouse what would be your dream card, and how would you handicap it?

    I’ll have to think some about that question myself. A couple years ago I would have automatically said Rick Reed and whomever was most likely to severely imperil his career, but right now it’s a tough question. I’m not really thinking about a pure mismatch at the moment; I’d much rather see a tough, closely-fought contest in which both combatants walk away with minor contusions and a grudging respect for each other.

    Also, can you point to one sustained stretch all season where the Twins played consistently satisfying baseball? I know there were a couple of modest winning streaks, but if I recall correctly even those were marred by inefficient offense and the occasional uninspired effort.

    Finally, consider this question, if you would: Is there one player, coach, or member of the organization that you could point to as most directly accountable for the frustrations of this team? Or maybe this one: Is there one game or series you could single out as the moment when you sensed the train starting to come off the tracks?

    Certainly in recent years we have had more pleasant, more beneficent moments (i.e. Torii Hunter’s collision at home plate against Chicago a couple seasons ago, or Corey Koskie’s back-breaking homer versus Cleveland that salvaged the series, and the season, last year), but I’d be hard pressed to pin the malaise of 2005 on any one person or moment.

    I’ll think about it, though, and I’ll make an effort to look. Because I’m sure somewhere back in the summer sprawled now behind us there is a place on the road where the Twins took a disastrous wrong turn.

  • Headed Straight Into The Teeth Of The Teeth Kicker

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    The tree outside the window wobbled and tossed off light, little sparks like Instamatic flashbulbs in the moonlight. Was it a wagon or a wheelbarrow that so much depended on? Either way, nothing depends on them now.

    I watched a dog creeping through the backyard shadows, stunned to still be doing God’s work early in the 21st century. He paused and listened to what he did not know was a train, a nice rhythm, the night murmuring at some safe distance. Big moving water, perhaps, where another race of dogs lived with its secrets.

    The first plodding steps into September, moving resolutely into the black teeth. Soon enough the house will be smelling like a wet blanket baking, winter heat limbering up in the floorboards. And out there somewhere, sprawled behind me in the vacuum of another long night completing its free fall, are the remains of the blankest summer I can ever recall: three months on my back in the dead grass, staring up into the confused canopy of a condemned elm that obliterated the stars. A summer without a soundtrack, without a scrapbook, without a single snapshot or picture postcard to remember it by.

    The wading pool in the park across the street has been drained, and the days will be marked now by nothing but the dull racket of jumping jacks and shoulder pads and the insolent gaggle of high school students shuffling along the sidewalks on their way to Taco Bell.

    The cicadas are almost done; death, I suppose, the Arizona they fly off to for the winter. They burn down entire villages every autumn and flee to angel dusks. Soon enough the shuddering ghost-crying of geese evacuating across the moon and disappearing into the clouds.

    It was on a night like this, somewhere across the world, that I watched as a shirtless man leaned back and coughed fire into the fog. He would swish his canteen of gasoline and nudge with his boot the tin cup at his feet. “It costs money!” he shouted. “Don’t just look!”

    “How long can a man possibly breathe fire?” a bored Frenchman asked his date. “There must be other things as well. It is the same thing every night.”

    “Perhaps that is what gives it the power it has,” the woman said. “The fact that there is nothing more, that this is all he has: just the fire, just the instant, repeated again and again. The poor man is clearly dying. Give him ten francs.”

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    A Statement From Louisiana Senator Mary L. Landrieu

  • Okay, So Now It's Come To This

    Maybe it’s finally time that we all relaxed, kicked back, and found this sorry, sweet-and-sour spectacle of a season as amusing as it really is. Because it truly can’t get any funnier than what we saw tonight.

    It’s not likely, in fact, that we’ll ever see anything quite like it again: a walk-off victory that featured nothing more than two bunts and two throwing errors. That’s not small ball, friends; that is what you call Little League heroics.

    And I suppose I’d be remiss if I didn’t also add: another unrewarded gem from a starting pitcher and another night of futility at the plate, with a blown save thrown in for good measure.

    Let’s be honest with each other: that game shouldn’t count.

    I have wasted my life.

  • SCIENCE!

    Before The Merciful Intervention Of Medical Professionals:
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    And, Miraculously, After:
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    Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better, which cannot, unfortunately, be said of this world.

    Give something away. Some thing, or some part of yourself.

    Take a moment and try seriously to imagine yourself in the soggy or non-existent shoes of those forsaken people in Louisiana and Mississippi.

    I’ll bet you’re unable to do it.

    I sure can’t.

    We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.

    –Chekhov, Uncle Vanya

  • Bad Dream Song 64 (With Apologies To John Berryman, Who Is Deader Than The Twins So Probably Doesn't Really Care)

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    The Twins, friends, are boring. We must not say so.

  • Sir Lance A Lot

    I think I admirably avoided ranting about this year’s main event, dropping only a single Lance Armstrong-inspired metaphor a few weeks back. For this, I have been congratulated for “keeping my Lance in my pants” by a certain fellow who ought not to be pointing because there are three fingers pointing back at him. (I’m sure he’ll see this after he gets back from passing gas in the mail room.)

    Anyway, I was gone on vacation when the French daily newspaper L’Equipe published a story that claimed to prove that Armstrong had tested positive for an illegal performance-enhancing drug called EPO. (EPO boosts the blood’s ability to carry oxygen, and has thus been a very popular drug indeed in most endurance sports.) Today, this moderately well informed Chicagoan chides the American press for being too dismissive of the story, and blames it on anti-French sentiment. He has a point, but it’s a minor one in the big scheme of things. Aside from the highly dubious proposition of expecting a newspaper to conduct a neutral doping test [(1) get a hold of a six year old urine sample; (2)handle it properly; (3)insure purity and provenance; (4) insure peer review of the testing process], there are lots of problems here. Lance himself made many of them clear in an interview with Larry King earlier this week.

    But two points have not been made. The Tour de France was founded, and for most of its existence, run by a French sporting newspaper, L’Auto. I don’t have a lot of experience with the culture of French sporting newspapers, but I do know that rivalries tend to be bitter and longstanding–and the birth of the Tour itself was the direct result of a nasty copyright squabble between L’Auto and another paper called Le Velo. French sporting newspapers have therefore taken not just a professional interest in the what has become one of the world’s greatest sporting events–the interest occasionally becomes morbid. L’Equipe, ironically, is the modernday corporate descendent of L’Auto. L’Equip has been hot on the story of proving that Lance Armstrong is doping ever since Armstrong won his first Tour De France. (They have previously published two separate, similar stories sourced to former disgruntled associates of Lance’s, who expected that their word would be enough. The stories thus never rose above the level of he said-she said insinuation.)

    Second–and this is a point that gets quietly made because its subtle and a little thorny–EPO is one of the more effective tools in the treatment of cancer, particularly the kinds of cancer Armstrong was diagnosed with. In fact, if memory serves, Armstrong took prescribed EPO as a part of his (spectacularly successful) cancer treatment. This was not only lifesaving, but perfectly legal. Still, by the time he began racing his bike again in 1999, he would have been expected not to use the drug for any purpose, nor to test positive for its presence in his blood or urine. But it does not seem entirely beyond the realm of possibility that a man who once used EPO for legitimate medical reasons might thereafter show evidence of having used it. As an additional complication, until recently there was no direct way to test for the presence of EPO itself in the blood (it perfectly mimicks human hormones, or something like that). You could only test for its results, by checking the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood (hematocrit levels), and somewhat arbitrary levels were set as being natural versus unnatural. Needless to say, most world-class athletes have naturally high hematocrit levels. Some of the very best have unnatural levels.

    I suppose you can’t blame L’Equipe for so relentlessly pursing this story, even if it isn’t there. It would be the biggest scandal in sporting history–yes, much worse than the Chicago Black Socks, when you consider all of the endorsements and charities and corporate interests and cancer survivors that ride on the back of Lance Armstrong. Which may be the strongest argument of all against the remote possibility, and until there is unimpeachable truth, I prefer to believe that quickness of body and largeness of spirit are possible without cheating.