The Sound of a Window Closing

Not quite six months ago, I wrote that insofar as the Chicago Cubs were concerned, they couldn't possibly repeat last season's head-scratching fiasco. This year would assume an air of normalcy, defined as the Cubs resting comfortably atop the National League Central Division at the conclusion of the season.

I was wrong. Interminably and utterly wrong.

I have been watching major league baseball for half a century, and I have never seen such a confounding display of it. 

There are but a select few who see this team behind closed doors. In the locker room. At meetings. On team flights. I am not one of those people.

And yet, I don't need to be to know something is amiss.

Yes, there have been injuries to critical personnel: Willson Contreras, Javier Baez, Craig Kimbrel and most recently, Anthony Rizzo. Ben Zobrist spent the brunt of the season on leave collecting the pieces of a shattered marriage. And Kris Bryant, Cole Hamels and Brandon Kintzler battled recurring maladies.

But so did the New York Yankees, who as of Friday's games are 100 and 55 and sit eight and a half games ahead of the division's next-best team. No, this isn't about injuries. It's about something less-obvious and more-insidious. These Cubs are satisfied.

Having vanquished the most cursed stretch of baseball any franchise ever endured, Rizzo, Bryant, Baez, Zobrist and Jon Lester will never have to pay for a drink in Chicago again. Which is as it should be. The Cubs' 2016 championship was a monumental event that transcended loyalties and perhaps even baseball itself.

But that title raised expectations. With a young core entering its prime, there was no good reason to believe they wouldn't contend for several more.

And they have. Kind of. After a hung-over first half, the 2017 Cubs got serious and again won the division, defeating the Washington Nationals in the divisional series before being swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS.

Emerging cracks in the pitching staff were addressed by two free-agent signings, Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood, which on paper reinforced the pitching corps for another title run.

It didn't quite work out that way as Chatwood struggled to throw strikes and Darvish seemingly couldn't shake the memories of his disastrous World Series the year before and pitched just forty innings before succumbing to injury.

Despite blowing a five-game lead in the closing weeks, the Cubs staggered to 95 victories (which seen through the lens of 2019 appears truly remarkable) before surrendering the wild-card game to the Colorado Rockies.

The on-again, off-again offense, the shakey bullpen and the general weirdness which characterized 2018 couldn't repeat itself in 2019, right?

Right?

Ha. Ha. Ha.

I don't want to say this season has been strange, but I'd swear I saw David Lynch in the dugout.

The offense still disappears without a trace and the bullpen is still shakey, but this year there is a new wrinkle: the Cubs can't win on the road. Current homestand excepted, the Cubs were giant killers at Wrigley and morphed into the Florida Marlins on the road.

Team stats don't show a marked fall-off in OPS or runs scored or in batting average, but the Cubs could not find a way to win away from home. No division contender had a road record anywhere near as awful as the Cubs'.

And in the long, slow slide that is destined to close this season, it has caught up with them. Armed with a small lead, the Cubs could not afford to mess up. And mess up is exactly what they did. The run spigot has been turned off and the Cubs are in the midst of a four-game losing streak—at home.

In homer-happy 2019, they have scored just nine runs in those four games. (That figure falls to five in three games when the series-opener against the St. Louis Cardinals is eliminated.) This after scoring forty-seven in three games against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Bi-polar? You have no idea.

This while the division-rival Cards amass the best record in baseball since the all-star break and the Milwaukee Brewers, supposedly eliminated from contention after the loss of Christian Yelich, have won eight of ten since his injury.

But these are numbers. They are only reflections of what is going on with this team. And that goes back to my contention that this club is satisfied. There is little sense of urgency. The fact that this club has never gone on a sustained surge means things like focus and purpose are in short supply. Chemistry is as rare as clutch hitting.

The Cubs aren't on a mission anymore.

They never found their groove, and have actually regressed from last season's sputtering stop-start despite the remarkable turnaround by Darvish. With the second-biggest payroll in baseball, the Cubs are punching way below their weight.

As a fan desperate to see another World Series appearance before the window inevitably closes, I'd like to see change. Even if that means waving goodbye to a personal favorite like Rizzo or Lester or Contreras.

With the Cubs' farm system running on fumes, the only way forward is a trade. It's time to be bold. It's time to ask “What would Bryant bring on the open market? Who could we get in exchange for Baez?”

Slugger Kyle Schwarber had a big year. What would he bring?

Shocking? Perhaps.

Necessary? Definitely.

For whatever reason, this team is sleepwalking. Blame it on the front office. Blame it on Maddon. Blame it on the prolonged pressure of playing for the Chicago Cubs, where the scrutiny ratchets up right along with the wins.

The bitch-slap of a big trade might shake them from their doldrums.

There's enough here to build on, but without a judicious trade or two this thing will never be turned around. They have shown us who they are.

Ric Ocasek

Ric Ocasek didn't fit the rock star template. There could hardly be a more antithetical one than the 6'4” Richard Theodore Otcasek from Baltimore, Maryland. After his family's relocation, he graduated from high school in the post-Elvis, pre-Beatles doldrums of 1963 Cleveland.

Even Alan Freed had skipped town.

Ocasek attempted college, but was drawn to music even if music wasn't initially drawn to him. He spent the remainder of the decade searching for the right assemblage of musicians that would nurture his creative flame.

He and eventual Cars' vocalist and bassist Benjamin Orr (who met in 1965) relocated to Boston in the early seventies. There, they assembled a folk-rock outfit called Milkweed who became popular enough to record an LP.

It sank without a trace, but provided the groundwork for the Cars. Future keyboardist Greg Hawkes played on the LP, which led to meeting future guitarist Elliot Easton. Drummer David Robinson and Ocasek met up in Ocasek's last pre-Cars band, and the musical aggregation Ocasek had been looking for for over a decade was complete.

So combustible was their sound that the mere demo for “Just What I Needed” received regular airings on Boston's influential WBCN. A signing to Elektra Records followed soon thereafter, and the Cars' debut LP sizzled throughout the summer of 1978.

Of note is the fact Ocasek was thirty-four years-old upon the album's release. The Cars was the culmination of a fifteen-year slog through crappy bands, crappier clubs and too many false starts to count.

Like Ian Hunter (who was thirty when Mott the Hoople got off the ground) and Bob Seger (who was thirty-one when “Night Moves” clicked), Ocasek was a lifer who didn't know how to do anything else but make music.

With less of a track record than either, his persistence is made even more remarkable.

We all know the story of the Cars, and Ocasek's eventual rock star turn in his marriage to Czech model Paulina Porizkova. But even in this he was the outlier: they remained married for nearly thirty years.

Ocasek hit it big after a long climb. He played in front of millions of adoring fans, sold millions of records and married one of the most beautiful women on Earth. There was even a successful reunion LP, which in the long history of pop music can be counted on less than ten fingers.

As the Cars' primary songwriter, Ocasek never had to shop Goodwill or stomach generic spaghetti sauce. I doubt he ever cross-shopped his car insurance.

From my side of the glass, things looked pretty good.

Of course, appearances can be misleading. There was a faded friendship rendered irreparable by an early death and the inevitable long, slow fade endured by so many in the performing arts. Two failed marriages. And a spotty solo career.

It was a life.

I hope you were okay with it, Ric.

Just Six? Really?

Hello. And a happy National Ink and Toner Day to you, too.

(Yep. That's a thing.)

Isn't it interesting that it took just six deaths for government agencies to spring into action, issuing edicts while our elected representation demands that the Food and Drug Administration ban e-cigarettes until conclusive studies can be performed?

Yes, vaping (which last time I checked was a highly-voluntary activity) has certainly captured the attention and ire of the nation. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, 39,773 people died via a gun in 2017. A similar number died last year, with figures for 2019 expected to be even higher.

I'd like to respectfully submit that getting shot (with the exception of self-inflicted wounds) is a highly-involuntary activity.  

And as of 6:36 AM CDT, nobody is doing a damn thing.

Which is certainly interesting.

Pouting Your Way to the Top

I'm going to re-imagine my work-life in the context of professional football player Antonio Brown's career.

Upon graduation, I am offered employment with employer A. I work hard and establish myself as a leader in my field.

By my third year with the company, I begin to exhibit an exaggerated sense of my importance. In a dispute over office supplies, I yell “Don't you know who I am? I don't need office supply requisitions! I am this company!”

Prior to the office Christmas party, I taunt visiting sales reps from another company and am forbidden from attending the year-end gala.

As my status within the company grows, I begin to flaunt my position by regularly showing up late for meetings, seminars, and the like--if I show up at all. I dare my superiors to call me on it.

Near the end of my seventh year with the company, I feel unappreciated. 

I act out. In defiance of established business protocol, I belch loudly at a business dinner where we are in the midst of sensitive negotiations with a new client.

After being reprimanded privately by my boss following the dinner, I post our meeting on You Tube. He is heard complaining about our new client and the deal falls apart. He is then made to apologize by our company's CEO.

One month later, I am made the highest-paid person ever with my job title.

But I still feel unappreciated. Everyone doesn't love me. The company doesn't act on my suggestions. One particular co-worker calls me out on my deficiencies—as if I had any. Did I mention I feel unappreciated?

This mounting disrespect eats away at me until I confront the brazen co-worker. His superiors feel I am out of line and want me punished. I take the next several days off.

When I return, I am told I have been suspended.

I take to my Linkedin account and announce that my time with employer A has clearly come to an end. I wait for competing offers to roll in.

While the industry-leaders I crave are mostly silent, an offer from an older firm in the midst of a rebuild intrigues me. But I need to know they are committed to my success, first.

Everything is going swimmingly until I am told I need to forego my beloved BlackBerry, per company policy. I refuse. I try repeatedly to sneak it into meetings, only to be caught and reprimanded in a series of escalating meetings.

I contact a a tech-wizard who retrofits my BlackBerry's circuitry into a shell made by my new employer's approved manufacturer. It doesn't work. I storm out of the building, outraged. Who were they to say what kind of phone I could—and couldn't—use?

I need to get out of town and think. Employer B is cramping my style. How did they think I would function without my phone? It's like chopping off the hands of a concert pianist and telling him to perform with someone else's.

I take a few months and clear my head in Tahiti.

During a scuba-diving trip, I am bitten on the hand by a gold-crowned Antfish. It doesn't bother me until I return to the elevation at which employer B's headquarters rests. My hand soon begins to throb uncontrollably, causing severe, debilitating pain.

It makes using a phone—Blackberry or not—impossible.

Even after doctors stabilize the hand, the issue of my phone remains. Employer B is increasingly concerned whether I will ever work for them.

Just as I am beginning to reconcile myself to the idea of working for them, my CEO goes all hard ass on me. He issues an emergency performance review that threatens not only my employment with the company, but reveals several financial penalties that would kick-in if I don't begin work immediately.

I post his threatening review on Linkedin for all the world to see. What's more, I also threaten to knock the crap out of him. Who does he think he's screwing with, anyway?

He threatens to fire me. By this point, I couldn't care less. This is clearly a backwards organization that prizes unthinking obedience over enlightened individualism. I certainly don't need them as much as they need me.

I prepare to take my lumps and am in the midst of updating my resume when the phone rings. It is my department manager.

“Listen, bro. Can't we just sweep all this shit aside and just go to work? I don't even know what the fuck's happening, man. I just want to get down to business.”

His naked, heartfelt appeal catches me off-guard. “That's all I ever wanted” I sob into the phone.

A hasty reunion is arranged and I report to work. I issue a tear-stained apology to my co-workers for my disruptive behavior.

But afterwards, I become aware that nothing has really changed. This is still a second-rate outfit that won't let me use my BlackBerry.

I post my letter of resignation on FaceBook. I am done.

Then I get a job offer from Final Solutions, the industry-leader I should have been with from the start.

There's a lesson here somewhere. I'm just not sure it's one anyone should learn.

It's Time

I'm trying to gauge the pathos in a year with 298 mass shootings, especially when only 247 days of that year have passed. Any idiot capable of inhaling and exhaling without a prompt could see it for the horror it is.

But there are special kinds of idiots aligned with the NRA, and one of the most prominent is Mitch McConnell.

The witless lap dog of Donald Trump, the senator from Kentucky resembles not so much a freely-elected representative to the United States Senate, but actor Lincoln Perry's Stephin Fetchit character, a bumbling, eternally fearful man terrified of upsetting the boss man.

Like Perry's character, McConnell is scared shitless of his boss. That's why he makes no statements without first clearing them with the Trump-whore.

After Wal-Mart grew a pair and decided to apply even a moderate amount of pressure to the gun-control brake pedal by refusing to sell ammunition for assault weapons and hand guns, Mitch couldn't comment. “Oh no. I have to check and see with the boss first.”

Translated, this means I need to know what he thinks before I know what I think.

Of course the NRA, in its time-honored myopic fashion, lambasted Wal-Mart for caving to the so-called gun control 'elites' and potentially compromising the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

Gosh.

Is there anyone among us—anyone at all—who believes that tens of thousands should be fatally shot or wounded every year in service of the Second Amendment?

That's what I thought.

The NRA opposes each and every piece of gun-control legislation, no matter how sensible or respectful it is of “law-abiding” gun owners. The NRA's vocabulary consists of but a single word: no.

And for decades, we have accepted that.

What we have to show for our compliance is a country with more guns than people. A country where the paranoid, the disenfranchised and the mentally ill can amass weapons stores capable of hideous acts of mass murder. A country where anyone is able to buy any kind of gun they want because anything less is a violation of the NRA's interpretation of the Second Amendment.

It's time for the rest of us to land a gut punch to the NRA.

In the early-nineteen-eighties, when drunk driving became a recognized social problem, legislators didn't hem and haw about pending legislation, fearful of reprisals from liquor manufacturers and their lobbyists.

No. They went ahead and did the morally-responsible thing. In the face of a mounting public slaughter, they increased awareness of the toxic effects of drinking and driving and dramatically increased the penalties for those who continued to violate drunk driving statutes.

No one gave a second thought to the impact on “law-abiding” drinkers. Simply put, the greater good was served.

That isn't the case with gun violence. The NRA has made it crystal clear they are comfortable with any amount of collateral damage, so long as the rights of “law-abiding” gun owners are protected.

I cannot overstate this: the NRA refuses any and all efforts at gun reform. In other words, they are okay with Odessa and El Paso and Dayton and Gilroy. You get that, right?

This is why Democrats need to stop playing nice. They need to stop being respectful of “law-abiding” gun owners and act on the realities of 2019 America.

America is a shooting gallery. A place where anyone—no matter the state of their mental health or personal inclinations—can buy an assault weapon and wage war on whoever happens to be around.

And again—the NRA is fine with that.

Can't get laid? Got fired? Spouse got custody of the kids? Thanks to the NRA, you can go out and purchase an assault weapon and seek (real or imagined) revenge with no more effort than squeezing a trigger.

And again—the NRA is fine with that.

Is it okay with you?

Representatives and Senators are refereed to as elected representation because they are elected to represent people from a specific geographic area. It is presumed they will act on the wishes of that electorate. And yet, I don't recall the electorate expressing a preference for inaction on gun control in a very, very long time, if ever.

And yet that is exactly what we have.

A two-thirds majority has consistently desired stronger gun-control legislation and deeper background checks in the face of our mounting carnage. But the NRA's hold on Republicans is stronger than ours.

Let's be clear: if you vote Republican, you are endorsing gun violence.

Vote Democrat, and perhaps one of these options might see the light of day:

Repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. When gun manufacturers are held accountable for the carnage they enable, I'm guessing they'll develop a sudden interest in developing safer weapons and meeting gun-safety activists half-way than hiding behind the sneering petulance of the NRA.

Tax guns and ammunition the way we do alcohol and tobacco. We now understand the latter two are responsible for an inordinate amount of public expense due to the destructive and easily abused nature of these products.

Guns are no different. Let users pay for the carnage that goes hand in hand with our over-abundance of firearms.

Let's mount a gun buyback. This would be hideously expensive due to a quarter-century of Republican largesse, but it was hugely successful in Australia, and as a result suicides and fatal domestic disputes dropped dramatically.

Of course, Australia isn't burdened by the likes of the NRA, who would no doubt oppose a drop in suicides and fatal domestic disputes.

We've done it the Republican (er, NRA) way. This is what we have as a result. We really need to try something different, like steering around the iceberg.

Republicans prefer an 'A' from the National Rifle Association over your safety and your entirely-reasonable desire not to die while attending a concert, a festival, school, church or work. Or while sitting on your porch, in a parked car or while waiting for a bus.

We can cut off the head of the gun monster and begin to work back towards making America a safer place to live.

Or we can vote Republican.

Ja'quan Swopes and Dahleen Glanton

Dahleen Glanton is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She advocates, often quite effectively, for people of color.

But Michael Jordan reportedly missed shots. LCD Soundsystem released middling albums. And we the people elected Donald Trump as president.

Like the bumper sticker says, shit happens. So it's only natural that Ms. Glanton occasionally knocks out a clunker of a column.

Early on the morning of August 13^th, five teens descended on a rural home near the Illinois-Wisconsin border. They arrived there in a stolen Lexus, and were intent on adding to their bounty.

The home-owner, a seventy-five year-old man, awoke to find the teens in his driveway, attempting to steal his car. He called the police to report a crime in progress.

What happened next is unclear. Did the teens, aware they were in an isolated area, assume they had time to steal the car before the police could respond, ignoring the old man in the process?

After one of them approached the property-owner with a knife, the elderly man discharged his gun, fatally wounding the would-be assailant.

Heightening the drama is the fact that the old man was white and the miscreants were black.

While I abhor guns and gun violence and the industry trade group that works so very, very hard to sustain it, I wasn't overly upset by the news. It struck me mostly as a case of live by the sword, die by the sword.

Ms. Glanton saw it differently, and committed her feelings to print.

She was outraged not only by the death of fourteen-year-old Ja'quan Swopes and the felony murder charges brought against Swopes' accomplices, but by the public reaction to Swopes' death.

After voicing her concerns, Glanton reported her inbox was overflowing with the most-extreme opinions our society could generate. She railed at references to Swopes as a 'thug'.

Apparently, it was a surprise to Glanton that people weren't publicly flagellating themselves in the aftermath of his death.

I also e-mailed Glanton, but her e-mail account had been shut-down for “maintenance.”

I wanted to tell her that yes, the law that permitted authorities to charge the four remaining thieves with felony murder ought to be revisited.

But I also wanted to tell her that Ja'quan Swopes is not Emmet Till, and that the two should never, ever be confused.

Swopes was not the victim of racial hatred—he was the victim of his own stupidity. If there's anything to lament, it's that Swopes considered stealing cars a worthwhile and risk-free endeavor.

Again, I hold nothing but contempt and derision for our gun culture and its enablers. I feel similarly towards crooks—be they in the White House or an old man's driveway at one A.M.

Like many teenagers, Swopes wanted to taste forbidden fruit. He wanted a glimpse of life on the other side.

Needless to say, he got it.

So no. My heart does not bleed for Swopes. If that makes me a racist, fine. But know this: I would feel no differently if his skin were white. Or brown.

My heart bleeds for the truly innocent. Those killed at work. At school. At church. Or while passing a summer evening doing nothing more inflammatory than sitting on their front porch.

Ms. Glanton, let's advocate for the innocent and rail against the guilty. You seem (at least temporarily) to have confused the two.