Remembering A Friend

By: Raul Parra

Email: rp@99sportsproblems.com

Twitter: ParraPalliative

When I was seven years old my parents decided to get a divorce.  I don’t remember much of my home life from this point.  perhaps it is an emotional blackout, perhaps my seven year old brain didn’t care enough to file away those memories.  When I go to draw water from them, the well is dry.  I do remember after sometime I wanted to go live with my mother.

We moved into a well lived apartment in the on the South Side of Chicago.

Mom was free and becoming her own woman.  Myself… a pudgy slab of clay.  No direction and formless.  Scared and excited.

Cannaryville is like the negative image of Mayberry.  There are drugs and there are gangs.  There are haves and have-nots.  Sometimes the have-nots seem to out number the haves.  However, much like Mayberry, the old neighborhood also had community.  Strong bonds that stem from family and the lingering memory of what it is like to be a minority in a strange new country.  (Cannaryville is predominantly Irish American)

In what seemed like a short time to me, I went from my old neighborhood of Pilsen, where I had a few friends and seemed to know my place on the totem pole, to becoming a stranger in a strange land.  Needless to say I quickly became a shut in.

I remember walking in colorful Fall afternoons after school.  All manner of orange leaves fell like comets to Earth.

I remember the snarls of bullies.  Scraped knees and bruised fists.

After a few rounds and incidents with a few unsavory fellas I decided to give up on Me

I wanted to fit in.  I had no desire to be different.  I wanted to look like everyone else, talk like everyone else and find my niche.  I just wanted to put my head down and be ignored.

After awhile I did just that.  I stopped standing out.  I stopped talking loudly.  I shrunk like a wilting flower.  I thought I was happy.

Then with a flash.  Without warning. With little to no care of what would happen to me, a friend of my mother gave me a milk crate full of Doors paraphernalia.  Magazines, pictures, albums, posters, books and VHS tapes were haphazardly thrown into this Pandora’s box of Jim.  It’s like somehow he knew I was searching for something more than little league and pee wee football.

I don’t remember the first Doors song I heard or the first album I slipped into my CD player.  I do remember the collective feeling I got from those first few listens… that feeling was fear.  Frankly,  The Doors scared the shit out of me.  Their twisted carnival moans and Jim’s syrupy vocals were enough to make my hair stand on end.  When you’re seven-ish and you’re falling asleep to the radio serenading you and this comes on.. It might be enough to freak you out…

Over time the fear subsided and new and original ideas floated to the surface and without trying to, I began to break the mold.  Jim became somewhat of a mentor to me.  The older I grew the more my obsession grew and more importantly the less I wanted to fit in with others.

Jim was the first to turn me onto poetry, way before any teacher could sink their claws in me.  It was because of him that I first fell head over heels in love with the Beat poets

“I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness.” – Jack Kerouac

Morrison was also responsible for directing my compass toward the horizons of philosophy.  His love of Nietzsche became my love.  When I first read words like this I knew there was more than the racially divided neighborhoods of Chicago out there waiting for me

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche

He was also responsible for turning me onto the Blues, which in turn sparked the idea that I could be a musician one day.  20 some odd years later I’m still strumming chords and beating rhythms out on my ragged drum set.

So how do you honor someone who has meant so much to you and literally shaped you as an artist and person?  I have no clue.  The only thing that came to mind is to tell my story and hope that it would inspire you to go search out some of those early heroes of yours and once again heed whatever message you once gleaned from them.  Even if it is only for a second, relive those afternoons when you had a hero.  Remember what it was like to not know who you are.

R.I.P

James Douglas Morrison

(December 8th, 1943 – July 3rd, 1971)

The Bag Skate…..Seau, the Cubs on the Farm, Rocky Horror Live Cast

by: Tony Leva
email: tonytrucker1969@gmail.com

Junior Seau, CTE and where this all may lead

On Monday, future NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Junior Seau put a gun to his chest and pulled the trigger, ending his own life at age 43. This is eerily similar to how former Bears defensive back Dave Duerson took his own life in February of 2011. Duerson left a note saying he intentionally left his brain intact so it could be studied for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as CTE. It’s a degenerative brain disease that has been linked to violent contact sports like football and hockey. Repeated blows to the head in these, and other, sports are suspected to directly lead to CTE, which in turn causes the victim to suffer from memory loss, depression, confusion and aggressive behavior. Obviously, suicidal tendencies are also a symptom and unfortunately, sometimes the last symptom.

With the recent deaths of hockey players considered “enforcers”, Rick Rypien, a CTE victim who committed suicide, the possible suicide of Wade Belak, a depression sufferer, and the overdose of Derek Boogaard, also a depression sufferer and CTE victim, the hockey community has been seriously questioning the role of enforcers in the game as its becoming apparent the constant punches to the head may be directly linked to CTE. Considering the relative youth of these 3 players…Rypien was 27, Boogaard was 28 and Belak was 35…the crippling effects of CTE manifesting itself in such young men is truly frightening. If getting into fights on the ice is linked to CTE, what the hell is the game of football doing to others?

Virtually every play in football ends with a high-speed collision between at least two people…at least one of which is moving at full speed. From the first time a youngster puts on the pads and taps into that neanderthal gene that says “RRRAAAAAHHHHHRRRRRR!!!! HULK SMASH!!!!” they are subjecting themselves to the very real possibility of injuring their brain on a constant basis until the day they stop playing the game, be it one play later or when they retire from pro football. The damage done to a brain from a violent concussion can never be trusted to fully heal and the medical data supporting that conclusion gets bigger with every study done on the brain.

When do parents around the world finally say, “Not my child” and refuse to allow them to participate in sports where the risk for brain injury is so great? I’m not advocating one side over the other here, just asking that very important question….”When”? I’m certain that many parents out there won’t give a shit about anything that’s come to light and will keep enrolling their kids in these sports and will continue to scream encouragement from the stands when little Johnny plants a crushing hit on the son of another set of parents. They’ll yell “SHAKE IT OFF, RUB SOME DIRT ON IT AND GET BACK OUT THERE” even when it’s their kid on the sideline, woozy and nauseous from receiving a similar hit, even when their coaches insist they watch from the sideline until they’re cleared by a doctor to return to game action. I’m not sure where this is leading for the future of these sports, but I’m sure controversy will abound.

The Cubs and the Farm System

On a lighter note….Yeah, the Cubs suck hard this season and probably will in 2013 as well. While this is nothing new for us Cubs fans, what is new is there’s an actual plan to improve via the farm system. Let’s take a look at my top 5 prospects…

1. Anthony Rizzo, 1B The prize of the Adrian Gonzalez to Boston deal, the Cubs somehow heisted The Riz (That’s MINE and I expect royalties when he wins his first MVP and everyone calls him that) from the Padres for Andrew Cashner. Only 22 years old, he’s tearing it up at AAA to the tune of a .372/.422/.638 slash line and is only being held back by the issue of service time (free agency eligibility begins after 6 major league seasons and teams sometimes try to delay the eligibility clock by bringing young players up in June or July) and the fact that Bryan LaHair is playing well at the major league level. He’s a Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivor, so you know the kid is a fighter, too. I think he’s the most big league-ready of our youngsters and will give the Cubs a big run producer for a decade or so. ETA…June 2012

2. Brett Jackson, OF Jackson is a big, left-handed hitting OFer with superb defensive skills, is faster than rent in the ghetto and actually has the ability to draw a walk, something the Cubs haven’t stressed in the past. He’s prone to the strikeout, but so were plenty of other difference-makers with a similar tool set. I’m hoping he can be Jim Edmonds with more speed and less power. I don’t expect 40 homers from him, but 40 steals per season are in his sights. He’s excelled at every level he’s been at and at 23 is ready to hone his craft in Wrigley. There’s an available OF spot for him, but he’s in the same service time boat as The Riz. This kid is going to get every chance to be the dynamic leadoff hitter we have lusted after like we’ve lusted after a video of Kate Upton doing the Cat Daddy.

God help the rest of baseball if Jackson exceeds that level of awesomeness. ETA….June 2012

3. Javy Baez, 3B The last 1st round pick of the Jim Hendry reign of terror, he’s from the last MLB draft where overslotting and overpaying those players was possible. Drafted 9th overall in 2011, he’s 6′ 1″, 205ish, and still filling out since he’s only 19 years old. Scouts raved about how the ball jumps off his bat to all areas of the field. Defensively, he’s already a plus player and has the ability to play SS as well as 3B. Attitude may be an issue, though. He was recently scolded for admiring a home run and responded, “I can do whatever the fuck I want!” He’d better hit about 35 homers with a .300+ average in Wrigley if he’s going to be a cockbite. Hey, they can’t all be saints. ETA….2015

4. Matt Szczur, OF Pronounced “Caesar”, Szczur is a super athlete who played both baseball and football at Villanova before choosing baseball after being drafted in the 5th round of the 2010 draft. He probably would have chosen baseball anyway, but the Cubs gave him $100K to sign and another $500K to skip the NFL scouting combine. For $600K, I shudder to think what I’d do. He’s struggling a bit at High-A Daytona, but he was a project with a high ceiling when we drafted him and we can afford to let him learn his craft at his own pace. He’s athletic and was very durable in college while playing two sports. He’s gone from 5th round future to fast-track prospect making a name for himself in the organization. ETA….2014, maybe 2015

5. Trey McNutt, P The top pitching prospect in the system, McNutt, only 22, has two outstanding plus pitches…an overwhelming fastball and a big ol’ power curve that are almost major-league caliber as it is. Refining a 3rd pitch and sharpening his control a bit will be the keys for McNutt (yeah, you love that name) to make it as a starting pitcher in The Show. He is thought so highly of that the Cubs refused to include him in the Matt Garza trade and laughed in Boston’s collective faces when they wanted McNutt (don’t act like you’re not giggling) in compensation for Theo. Standing 6′ 4″, he’s an imposing figure on the mound and may even put a few more pounds on his 205 pound frame. We need more home-grown arms to compete, but McNutt is a good start. ETA…2013

Rocky Horror Live Cast Showing

Ok, off sports for a second. This past Friday night, I took my girls and two of their friends to the Arcada Theatre’s live cast showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. If you’ve never seen this, it’s a Bucket List thing, especially if you like rude, vulgar, offensive and colorfully dressed people who worship a movie that bombed like it was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. These goofs (said lovingly, of course) dress up in costume and act along with the movie in it’s entirety. But that’s not the fun part!! The fun part is the audience callbacks. During the whole movie, the dialogue in the movie is “answered” by the in-the-know members of the audience. Here’s a decent example of this. Gotta listen kind of close, but you can make out the callbacks.

The enjoyment level for virgins (Oh yeah, first-timers are called “virgins” and are marked with a lipsticked “V” on each cheek and some offensive words or artwork on foreheads or bald heads. Then, the cast tries to offend them pre-show. The guy who tried to offend me had the tables turned on him. Silly cross-dresser!!) depends on how good the audience is. It’s much more fun to hear everything crisp and in-time (My name is Janet. “SLUT!!”) rather than a bunch of people who aren’t into the flick. It’s very audience participatory-dependent for fun, because the movie itself pretty much sucks, which is why it bombed years ago. After the show, the cast is more than happy to pose for pics and shoot the proverbial shit with you. This is me and my boy, Frank. I think it’s a boy. I didn’t have the sack to look under it’s panties…

Bring your kids if you don’t mind taking a chance on scarring them for life. How can you, really, when it’s just a bunch of grown-ups prancing around in drag?