WorldSeries2008

(Part II)Joe Safdie

October 25 What is that insane children’s jingle playing in the background as the Tampa Bay starting lineup is announced? “Fish, fish, fish . . .” Are the fans hearing this? This isoutrageous! I guess it must be intentional – the Phillies score first on psychological warfare (as the promos for

punctuate the transmission, at least an improvement overTBS’

Frank TV

). And then the starting lineup in reverse? This is truly odd . . . but thenit’s back to normality. “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise, and remove your hats.”I’ll try to keep these stanzas more discrete for this report and end each sixth line withsyntactical closure. Numbers are important in this particular rain-delayed game, withthe oldest player in major league baseball, 45-year-old Jamie Moyer, throwing the firstpitch at 10:07 Eastern time and getting the Japanese leadoff hitter to fly to center. Now it’s BJ Upton striding to the plate, with DL Hughley on CNN debuting a news comedy show, somewhat in the vein of these transmissions. Are white players ever called by their initials? (Another noble aesthetic intention bites the dust). “The dangerous but sofar hitless Evan Longoria” (Hughley showed a picture of Eva on his show a few minutesago, and the Phillies fans chant right along). Moyer gets out of the first through hisexperience, while the young Matt Garza succumbs to the pressure somewhat, giving justone run, trying to get to 7:47 PM (sorry, switched to west coast time there) when themoon goes into Libra. “Emotion not a bad thing,” says the repellent Joe Buck, thinkingperhaps that he’s engaging children, or language poets. “Drinkability,” it must be said,is

not

Bud Light, but more along the lines of the Presidente brandy I’m sipping to calmme as I report on this tense contest, the Tampa Bay Devil-less Rays drawing even in thesecond on Carl Crawford’s speed. I don’t have any crystal meth, but have recently takena few puffs of the only joint of marijuana we’ve grown this year, which is pretty good(but perhaps I should defer to my readers on that). “And now he goes deep to left . . .and Ruiz puts the Phillies back on top.” You’re the top, sang Cole Porter, you’re theLouvre Museum. It’s a rainy night in Philly, while here in So Cal the Santa Anasmentioned in part one of this report have finally eased, “There’s some moisture in theair” reported my wife a few minutes before now, 7:47 PM, as the moon goes into Libra,no longer “void of course.” The music of the spheres was more than a metaphor to the17

century poets I taught last week, Donne’s sublime metaphorical anguish the last of

its line, just as “the poetry of witness,” according to some theorists of Flarf, is old-hat,like the World Series (among the results of a recent Google search was Nada’s blog of 2003 mentioning my use of that term, and asking, not quite indignantly, “What wouldsomeone looking for Carolyn Forché be doing on my blog?”) Still two-one Phillies andRollins is definitely bothering Garza, his 24-year old emotional nature a metonomy forthe young and untested Barack Obama, and Navarro throws fucking Rollins OUT,definitely a good sign (and really, doesn’t Charlie Manuel remind us all of John McCain,a genial and probably decent man, albeit obviously showing signs of senility, while JoeMadden of the Rays is often described as “cerebral”)? I’m sorry, of course, for the loss of his mother – I lost my own mother earlier this year – as I’m sorry that Senator McCain was tortured for five years in unbearably painful conditions, but how long, exactly, can we play the sympathy card? Shane Victorino as well had a recent death in his family, oras Ben Jonson put it in a poem I taught last week, “Here lies Ben Jonson / his best pieceof poetry” (writing about his son, dead at seven years old). What a great catch by Uptonon a line drive to center by – what’s his name – interesting how an all-star name cantemporarily escape my mind – Chase Utley – what were his parents thinking about, do you think, when they named him “Chase”? How many people do you know named“Chase”? It’s funny, I’ve always liked Donne a lot more than Jonson, but as time goes by I can see the appeal of Jonson’s plain-spoken matter-of-factness, an admission that he would never really have the wild genius of Shakespeare, only the temperament of anartist and a desire to make the best of his intelligence. But who can really judge the vagaries of the creative process, language poetry, the poetry of witness, Flarf, or thiscockamamie reminiscence of Black Mountain I’ve been trying to carry on for some thirty years now, we’re just watching 45-year-old Jamie Moyer plow through the eager youngdevil-less Rays, who don’t know I’ll have to teach

Paradise Lost

in a few weeks, whereSatan becomes the epic hero, Joe Buck gives us a pre-review of

24 during

the game (talk about product placement!) starring Jon Voight, one of the only McCain supporters inHollywood, just 90 miles up the road from here in Encinitas, the quiet and suburbannorthern part of San Diego county, where people of faith, even

conservative thanin the rest of these military environs, are preparing to vote down gay marriage, again.