We Want Them to be Good at Life

Last week, my Washington Nationals traded second baseman Daniel Murphy to the Cubs. Murphy signed with the Nats just over three years ago and his time with the team can be considered nothing but a huge success. For the first two years of the contract, he surpassed expectations in a big way. He hit a ton (356 hits in two years) and made two all-star teams. He was injured for most of the first half of 2018, but was actually starting to round into his old form when the Nats, who were going nowhere, decided to trade him and get what they could (which, as it turned out, was almost nothing). When I heard about the trade, my gut feeling was disappointment. I really enjoyed watching Murphy hit. I enjoyed the way he would greet teammates in the dugout after a bit hit, with his trademark victory shout: "Fwah!" I have fond memories of going to a game last year against the Phillies, in which he got the walk-off hit. Coincidentally, they were giving out his bobble head that day. It's been on the windowsill of my office at school ever since.

Had to glue the bat back on, but he's still in my office. Even if he's a Cub now.

But then I saw this article by Parker Molloy of The Guardian, which reminded me of a frankly appalling thing Murphy said a few years ago, which I guess I had chosen to forget. "I disagree with his lifestyle,” said Murphy, of Billy Bean, a former player and Major League Baseball's current Ambassador for Inclusion, “I do disagree with the fact that Billy is a homosexual. That doesn’t mean I can’t still invest in him and get to know him. I don’t think the fact that someone is a homosexual should completely shut the door on investing in them in a relational aspect. Getting to know him. That, I would say, you can still accept them but I do disagree with the lifestyle, 100%.”

Yikes. There's no need for me to explain why this is a completely unacceptable thing to say - especially in 2014. Besides, Parker Molloy already does a fine job of explaining it in the article. I'll just add this: if you throw around terms like "lifestyle" to describe homosexuality, you don't get to call yourself tolerant. (Same goes for "The Gay Agenda.")

Murphy has never retracted his statement (although, to be fair, he does seem to have cultivated a friendship with Billy Bean). I don't begrudge Molloy her decision to give up on her Cubs. She's pissed and she has a right to be. At the same time, though, it never occurred to me to stop rooting for the Nationals despite their employment of a known homophobe. It's maybe not something I'm exactly proud of, but I rooted passionately for the homophobe himself.

[Incidentally, before we reduce Murphy to a bigoted caricature, let's also note that in the same year he made his questionable remarks about Bean, he took a bold stand for paternity leave when he and his wife had their first child. He stood his ground despite heavy criticism from Boomer Esiason, among others. And he said this of his wife: "She is too good of a woman for me...It was a humbling process to see how well she handled it." This is not to minimize his homophobic statement, but to point out that he is a three-dimensional human being, with virtues and flaws.]

I'm torn. While I understand the anger directed towards Murphy and his team, I've always tried to separate the art from the artist - or, in this case, the athletics from the athlete. If we start to really look closely at the morality of all of the players we root for, we'll probably end up disappointed. The sad truth is that to be a sports fan is to find yourself, at some point, cheering for someone who has said or done something horrible. Chances are that you've been compelled to root for a wife beater, or an animal abuser, or a bigot, or - worst case scenario - a murderer. If you were a baseball fan in the 90's, you almost certainly rooted for a cheater. By no means am I excusing any of this behavior. But it is the truth that, as sports fans, we are generally willing to look the other way.

At a certain point, fans might want to draw a line in the sand: "I can't, in good conscience, support a team whose player has done X." Frankly, I don't know where this line is for myself. Murder? The Patriots spared me from having to make that choice when they cut Aaron Hernandez. Short of that, as a fan of the Nationals, Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots, I've been in the position of rooting for an ultra-conservative blowhard (Curt Schilling), a loudmouth redneck Trump-supporting, teammate-choking moron (Jonathan Papelbon), a guy who tweeted a bunch of dumb, racist things (Trea Turner), and, briefly, a guy convicted of DUI manslaughter (Donte Stallworth).

A shame that he turned out to be such a jerk. But we'll always have the Bloody Sock Game.

One case that strikes particularly close to home for me is that of Ryan Church, a Nationals outfielder in the early days of the franchise, who once suggested in an interview that Jews are headed for eternal damnation unless they accept Jesus Christ as their savior. This bigoted moron was on the team for another two years after his infamous quote. And I cheered for him.

These cases are just off the top of my head. There are a lot of good people in professional sports too, but if you root for any professional team, you're going to run into one of these idiots sooner or later.

To me, being a fan often means hanging onto to two conflicting ideas simultaneously. For example,

Idea #1: Curt Schilling is a pompous, intolerant asshole.
Idea #2: The Bloody Sock Game against the Yankees will always be one of my favorite baseball games of all time.

I often have to think the same way when it comes to art, too. Woody Allen is a creepy predator AND Annie Hall is a hilarious, poignant, wonderful movie. Ernest Hemingway was a raging misogynist AND The Sun Also Rises is one of my all-time favorite novels. Cat Stevens probably wants me and my people dead AND "Father and Son" is a beautiful song.

If you want to reject an athlete or a musician or a writer on the basis of their morality, then I get it, but I choose not to play that game. If the Israeli Symphony can play the work of Wagner, a notorious anti-Semite, then I can permit myself to cheer for Daniel Murphy.

Writer Roger Angell said something on the Ken Burns baseball series that has always stuck with me: "We want [star baseball players] to be good at life as well as good at baseball. If you think about it, it’s unfair. It’s hard enough to expect them to play baseball well. I’m convinced there is the same division in baseball that there is in life itself: of true heroes; of people of strong principle; of ordinary everyday people; of rogues; of weaklings."

If you're going to root for a team, then sometimes you have to cheer the rogues and the weaklings - which makes it all the more special when you find a true hero to root for. Right now, my baseball hero (good player + good guy) is Nats closer Sean Doolittle, who tweeted this last month:

“Homophobic slurs are still used to make people feel soft or weak or otherwise inferior – which is bullshit. Some of the strongest people I know are from the LGBTQIA community. It takes courage to be your true self when your identity has been used as an insult or a pejorative,” he continued. “It’s a privilege to play in the major leagues and we have an obligation to leave the game better than we found it. There’s no place for racism, insensitive language or even casual homophobia. I hope we can learn from this and make the MLB a place where all our fans feel welcome.”

And also this:

"It can be tough for athletes to understand why these words are so hurtful. Most of us have been at the top of the food chain since HS, immune to insults. When all you’ve known is success and triumph it can be difficult to empathize with feeling vulnerable or marginalized."

If we're going to publicize the losers, then let's focus on the heroes too.

If you aren't currently following this guy on Twitter, please Doooooooo yourself a favor.

Baltimore's Favorite Weirdo

Given what I know about Edgar Allan Poe, I can think of a few places where he might hang out if he were still alive and living in contemporary Baltimore. Most of Mount Vernon would probably appeal to him, especially the spooky Methodist Church on the circle. I can easily picture him stalking around the cobblestoned section of Charles Street surrounding the Washington Monument, or ducking into the basement of Brewer’s Art for a Resurrection Ale. (He would no doubt approve of the name.) I can also see him strolling through the small, well-preserved graveyard on the corner of Fayette and Greene, where he is now buried alongside his wife, Virginia Clemm. Poe’s reputation as a drinker has apparently been distorted: the facts suggest that he may have been less a raging alcoholic than simply a lightweight. Still, I have the feeling he enjoyed a good drink – even if he couldn’t hold his liquor – and I think I’d be able to recommend him a few good bars. If dark and moody were his vibe (and I assume it would be) there’s Bookmaker’s Cocktail Lounge in Federal Hill, or the Wharf Rat in Fell’s Point. And obviously, there’s Annabel Lee Tavern, a veritable shrine to Poe, whose walls are hung with his portrait and emblazoned with some of his most quotable quips (especially ones that relate to alcohol). If he could ignore the undeniable weirdness of having to stare at his own likeness throughout the experience, he might enjoy a snifter of Brandy here. (His opinion of the pile of duck fat fries that have become the tavern’s trademark is anyone’s guess.)

As it happens, the internet has a strong supply of Poe memes.

One place where I have trouble imagining Poe is The Horse You Came in On Saloon in Fell’s Point, a loud, rowdy bar at the epicenter of one of Baltimore’s loudest, rowdiest neighborhoods. I don’t actually know much about Poe’s personality beyond what I can try to infer from his writing, but I still have the distinct impression that the Horse isn’t really his scene. It’s a really bro-ey place – meaning that it attracts a lot of well-dressed, finely coiffed young professionals who watch college football and order Jager shots or Red Bull and Vodka. Actually, Poe was purportedly a bit of a fashion plate, but I kind of doubt he’d be at home with the Bros. He’s too dark, too morose, too artsy. And that’s why it’s strange to me that this bar is so closely associated with his death.

To be completely accurate, it wasn’t this bar exactly. The bar where Poe most likely consumed his last drink was called Ryan’s Tavern, and on the day he showed up, it had been converted into a polling place for a local election. Still, on this day, Poe certainly spent at least some time on the inside of the cavernous expanse that is now the Horse, and later, in an incoherent stupor on the sidewalk outside: in the very spot where it is now common to see groups of young Morgan Stanley executives standing in a huddle, smoking cigarettes.

Would Poe's ghost stop here for a drink? I'm not sure it's his scene.

One compelling theory – and there are many versions of the story – suggests that Poe was given alcohol by political backers as a reward for casting his vote for their party. In the corrupt, scantly regulated world of mid-nineteenth century politics, it was not uncommon for parties to hire goons whose job was to ply prospective voters with alcohol and then to dress them up in disguises so they could cast their votes a second time – a practice called “cooping.” If Poe was cooped on the night he was found drunk in the street, which would turn out to be three nights before his death, it may also help to explain the story’s most peculiar idiosyncrasy: he was found wearing another man’s clothes. Normally a sharp dresser, Poe reportedly had on a dirty shirt, an old coat, a straw hat and (most scandalously) unpolished shoes. His hair was unkempt and his face unshaven. An acquaintance, who eventually showed up at Washington College Hospital to identify him, described his appearance as “repulsive.”

To further complicate matters, Poe, who was never to regain his lucidity, repeated one name again and again: “Reynolds.” An untold number of biographers and amateur sleuths have come up with theories about this odd detail without coming to any real consensus.  I wonder about it too sometimes – about all of it. Who was Reynolds? What was Poe doing in the polling place that day? (He lived in New York City at the time and evidently interrupted a trip home from Richmond, Virginia to make a pit stop in Baltimore that was, by all appearances, unnecessary.) For that matter, what did Poe actually die of? Alcohol poisoning? Some concealed illness like influenza or cholera? Or maybe something more nefarious? (Some have suggested the cause was syphilis or rabies.) The mysteries are many, and it’s hard for anyone familiar with Poe’s writing not to find the circumstances surrounding his death uncommonly fitting for a man fascinated with darkness, creepiness and unexplained phenomena.

But what haunts me even more than the story itself is how little it has to do with the festivity that occurs almost every night, oblivious to the disturbing demise of one of the most renowned American writers. Panhandlers are a fairly common sight in Fell’s Point. And on occasion, incapacitated men or women may be seen sitting or reclining on the curb outside some bar or other. (On the night of his last drink, Poe couldn’t have been wearing a shirt any dirtier than some I’ve seen worn by denizens of Fell’s Point.) Panhandlers are occasionally humored with a few cents and drunks are occasionally ridiculed, but more than anything else, people who occupy the curbs are ignored. They are understood by most to be part of the neighborhood’s wallpaper, irrelevant to the main storyline of young professionals enjoying a little time off from work.

What kind of a response, or lack of response, would a drunken Edgar Allan Poe provoke now, as he lay shivering in the gutter, wrapped in an ill-fitting coat, muttering “Reynolds… Reynolds”? I see a recent Hopkins grad, clad in a blue and white striped Brooks Brothers shirt, elbowing his buddy, gesturing discreetly towards the supine figure, and smirking, “Get it together, Dude.”

Here’s the ironic thing, though: Baltimore loves itself some Edgar Allan Poe. His former home, located in a rather dicey West Side neighborhood is a popular tourist attraction, and its docents are leaders in an endeavor to package Poe as a Baltimore Native Son, despite the fact that he wasn’t actually born there. Though he died in Baltimore, he was actually born in Boston during his parents’ brief sojourn there. Even Baltimore’s Poe House concedes, on its website, “Richmond is the place that Poe most considered home.” Frankly, even the work that Poe wrote during his residence in Baltimore is undeniably obscure: of the stories written in the house on North Amity Street, “MS. Found in a Bottle” is the only one anywhere close to a household name.

 In almost every way, the Poe Museum in Richmond is objectively superior to the house in Baltimore, boasting more artifacts, better hours, and Poe-themed ghost tours. Its attractive space and desirable location have even made it a popular, if unlikely, wedding venue. But regardless, Baltimore has fought hard to make Poe “their guy”: that is, to strengthen the bond between the city and the figure in popular imagination. Anyone who has spent a few weeks in Baltimore can attest to the success of this campaign: his visage appears everywhere – even in the most unlikely places.

Just a few doors down the street from The Horse You Came in On is a store called Nattybohgear, an emporium that specializes in merchandise featuring the iconic logo of National Bohemian Beer (“Natty Boh”): a smiling, mustachioed cartoon face, perhaps a cousin of the Pringles guy. One of the store’s hottest items is a t-shirt featuring a hybrid of Poe’s and Mr. Boh’s faces. The caption: “Natty Poe.”

Far weirder is the intentionally ironic mural on the side of a building in Station North, featuring Poe’s melancholy face on the body of an astronaut. The general tone of Poe’s writing, which tends toward deadly seriousness, conflicts with the irreverence of this image – but like Poe, the mural seems to take delight in their own self-conscious weirdness. This graffiti artist is at least close to Poe’s aesthetic ballpark, in other words.

But what would Poe think of the city’s most visible, and, simultaneously, most incongruous tribute to his legacy? The Baltimore Ravens, who relocated from Cleveland after the 1996 season, were undoubtedly the first football team to take their name from a poem, Poe’s most famous work, “The Raven.” Divorced from its context within the poem, the Raven is fine mascot: intimidating, aggressive and predatory. But the poem itself, the ruminations of a solitary man in his study, looking desperately for a supernatural message from his deceased lover, is light years away from M&T Bank Stadium on game day. And it isn’t like the team’s name is some esoteric in-joke contrived by the eggheads in the front office. Its poetic origin is widely known to fans, and with small touches, like cartoonish raven mascots whose names are Edgar, Allan and Poe, the franchise is fond of reminding them.

For its part, The Horse You Came in On is slightly understated in the way it deals with its connection to Poe. In a single sentence on the “history” section of its website, the saloon admits, “The Horse was the last destination before the mysterious death of the great American writer E.A. Poe.” Its décor, more country western than Gothic, also suggests that management may be attempting to distance itself from the Poe story and its accompanying unpleasantness.

Baltimore, more than most of its east coast neighbors (especially strait-laced D.C.), has always prided itself on its quirkiness. It boasts a strong element of artists, hipsters and literary enthusiasts whose familiarity with Poe’s work often stretches far beyond “The Raven” and commonly anthologized stories like “The Tell-tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” They appreciate the man and his work, as much as they appreciate the ideal union between a character and a city that both revel in their own eccentricity. But I’ll wager that the majority of Baltimoreans – the off-duty electrician wearing the Ravens helmet and the Ray Lewis jersey, the yuppie stock broker at happy hour in Fell’s Point, and everyone in between – know only a few elementary facts about the man himself: he wrote “The Raven, he had a mustache and a receding hairline, and (a half-truth) that he was hometown guy. They love Poe, though – just ask the man on the street in Canton or Charles Village or Highlandtown. An admission otherwise is a blasphemy on par with admitting a preference for lobster over crab, or The Sopranos over The Wire.

Baltimore loves Poe unconditionally, but not the Poe who was found passed out in the street on that night in 1849, and definitely not the Poe who married his much younger first cousin, and probably not even the Poe whose poetry and stories are still widely taught in schools and are still capable of capturing the imagination. They love Poe the icon, whose very face, around these parts, is as ubiquitous as the Orioles logo. Except in small academic circles, the details of his life and work only matter insofar as they add to his legend, which in turn, adds to the identity of a city.

Sophomore Slump

Music Discussion Question #3
** Note: I've recently been listening to "Dig Me Out," a podcast devoted entirely to 1990's rock music, and it's giving me some serious nostalgia. I had no idea until recently that it was possible to find an hour-long discussion of The Rentals' debut album on the internet. This article is inspired by the podcast, specifically an episode about "Disappearing Acts," which the hosts define as bands that experienced great success for a short period of time, followed by a rapid decline in popularity. If you have any interest in the subject, you should check out the episode, and really, the podcast in general. **

The question: Which new album purchase left you the most disappointed?

In the height of the CD era, before Youtube and illegal downloading, CD's were going for like $16 to $18 a pop. So it was important to be sure you were going to like the album before you bought it. Nothing was worse than the sinking feeling, after two or three tracks, that you had just wasted almost twenty bucks on an album you probably wouldn't listen to again.

It took me some time to admit it, but Live's album "Secret Samadhi" was the first album ever to give me this feeling.

It's easy to forget now the popularity of Live during the 1990's. Their big hit songs - "Selling the Drama," "I Alone," and especially "Lightning Crashes" - were all over rock radio. Everyone I knew owned their breakthrough album "Throwing Copper," which I still think is a fantastic rock album, full of catchy hooks, interesting, enigmatic lyrics and varied dynamics. I remember going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in, I think, spring of 1999, and watching a highlight reel on the history of rock. It covered just about everything chronologically: Chuck Berry, Elvis, the Beatles, Zeppelin, up through the Grunge Era. The last band on the montage was Live. And their inclusion, following all of those other great acts, confirmed what a lot of people believed at the time: they would inevitably inherit the title of Best Rock Band in the World.

Obviously, this was not to be. In 2002, just a short time later, I bought tickets to see Live at a relatively small venue in Columbus, Ohio, and I had trouble finding anyone to go with. "No thanks," said one of my friends, "I'd rather not drive an hour to see some washed up band from the 90's."

I'm not entirely sure why the end for Live came so suddenly. The guys on the Podcast theorize that, while they were played to death on mainstream radio, they never really had the fan base of a Pearl Jam or a Dave Matthews Band, and so when the radio stopped playing their songs, the band quickly faded from memory. That makes sense to me, but certainly, they didn't do themselves any favors with their lackluster third album.

Easily the most 90's band photo you'll see today.

In 1997, Live followed up "Throwing Copper" with "Secret Samadhi." It wasn't completely terrible. There are a handful of good songs - "Rattlesnake," "Lakini's Juice," and... actually, i guess that's about it. But the album was marked by a series of forgettable, mid-tempo songs, some absolutely cringey lyrics (first line: "Let's go hang out in a mall"??), and, overall, a painfully pretentious vibe. I listened to it plenty of times anyway, as if in an attempt to convince myself to like it. But "Throwing Copper" it was not. And its only major hit, "Lakini's Juice" (Who is Lakini? Why is his or her juice important? Got me.) kind of came and went without much fanfare.

Back to those lyrics, for a moment. Some lowlights included:

"I can smell your armpits"
"You stole my idea/This puke stinks like beer"
"If the mother goes to sleep with you/Will you run and tell Geraldo?"
"I rushed the lady's room/Took the water from the toilet."
"Angel, don't you have some bagels in my oven?"

And so on. Maybe we shouldn't have been totally surprised. This was the band whose biggest hit had crowds of people singing about a placenta falling to the floor.

Some years later, Live put out "The Distance to Here," which actually wasn't bad. And they followed that one with "Five," which was. I think they put out another one after that, but by then, I had stopped paying attention.

The failure of "Secret Samadhi" continues to bother me more than it should, and not just because it was a waste of $16. I think the bigger heartbreak was that it more or less meant that one of my favorites bands, the one that seemed most destined for legend status, would effectively fail to survive the decade. My parents came of age at the same time as some of the best bands in history - The Beatles, The Stones, The Who. In 1996, when I watched Live perform at Garden State Arts Center, I thought I was seeing a legend in the making. Instead, it turned out I was seeing a footnote - or maybe even a punchline.

What does this album title even mean? Part of Live's downfall had to be their pretentious fascination with Eastern imagery.

Postscript: Three years ago, Live's frontman Ed Kowalczyk marked the twentieth anniversary of "Throwing Copper" with a series of shows, in which the setlist was the entire album, played on acoustic guitar. Once again, I had trouble finding anyone to go with, and was basically resigned to skipping it. But on the night of Ed's show in Harrisburg, I found myself sitting at home with no plans and made the spontaneous decision to drive up and buy a ticket. (When I called beforehand, the box office representative happily told me that tickets were still available for "Ed Kowalski.") I was surprised how much the show moved me. After not really having listened to it in ten years, I got actual goosebumps from "Lightening Crashes." if Live never did anything else, they made an album that still got under my skin, twenty years after I first heard it. That's more than most bands can do.