Monday, July 25, 2011

Take Me Out of this Ballgame!

Sometimes, timing is everything. It can be fantastic, where you find yourself in a situation where, had you been a moment earlier or later, you would have missed a phenomenal occurrence. Or, as was the case for me last night, you can choose just the wrong moment to run to the car, and return only to ask, "what did I miss?" Yep, in an attempt to take advantage of a slow moment in the action to get my Invisalign trays (invisible braces thingys), I missed out on the cherry on top of the weirdest baseball game I've ever seen.

To set the scene: the baseball diamond at Johnston High School in suburban Des Moines, a fairly well-maintained patch of grass and dirt on the outskirts of town. Beyond left field the test plots of agribusiness giant Pioneer stretch out to the horizon in a scene reminiscent of the original X-Files movie. To right, there are some signs of civilization, as cars sporadically file past the line of trees just outside the outfield fence. The sun is high overhead, baking the simple aluminum grandstands, but there is a slight breeze, and if you stay in the shade of the press box, it's a pretty pleasant day.

I'm there to cheer on my brother-in-law as he plays in a local amateur league game. The word amateur has a definition on a bit of a sliding scale: some of these guys look like they were maybe one bad break away from making it at least into the minors, while others just appear to be ordinary joes who enjoy the game. The same can be said for the officiating crew, unfortunately. The role of an umpire is hardly an easy one, but most of the ones I've seen have at a minimum seemed to try their best to be fair and impartial. Not so yesterday...

I won't recap the entire game here, but the most egregious offense of the night was the bro-in-law being hit by a pitch in three separate at-bats, and being bawled out by an umpire on a power trip on each occasion. Some of it was from the opposing team's assertion that he'd moved in order to get hit, some was due to frustration after the second, clearly retaliatory (except in the umpire's eyes) hit, and most of it was just because there was a dude with a little bit of authority and a lot of short-man syndrome.

I'm far from being a baseball expert - I consider myself just a person who enjoys the game. But I've been to more than a couple games, and I've seen some people get hit by a pitch. There are a lot of different ways people move in such instances: usually a flinch or step back to avoid getting beaned, or sometimes the batting motion itself gets them into the path of the ball, but I don't believe I've ever seen anyone try to get hit by a pitch. Particularly in a recreational league, where everyone is ostensibly playing "just for fun." I don't need to have ever played competitive baseball to know it's more fun to bat than to have a guy throw a ball at your body. Add to that the fact that their pitcher had been hitting batters all day long, and I think someone needed a warning, but I'm not sure the ump wanted to call out the team he was so chummy with.

Be that all as it may, my brother and his team were actually doing quite well, and were ahead of a previously unbeaten opponent. This was when I made my fateful trip to the car, and missed something so bizarre as to hardly be believed. Apparently the umpire told our team that he was fed up with the language he heard from the dugout, and if he heard one more cuss word, he'd throw someone out. I like to think that if I'd heard that in person I would have laughed out loud, but I might just have been flabbergasted into silence. This is an adult league, and the only spectators were a handful spouses and friends, but apparently Little League rules were called for. From what I hear, the angels don't care for swearing...


In the end, all turned out well, though I had a few anxious moments on a couple more bad/biased calls, where I silently urged our team to not fight it, just let it go, a couple more outs and we win. I had a good time overall: by the end of the game it had turned into a beautiful day for baseball. I just wish the umpire had understood it wasn't all about him. These games, and in a sense all baseball games, should be played for the love of the sport. I'm a sentimentalist at heart, but I still truly believe that. Sure, it's great to win, but you want to do it the right way. If you're wound so tightly that you're screaming that your opponent stepped into the pitch, it's time to reexamine why you're playing. And if you seize on that opportunity to use your position of authority to yell at the players, maybe you take another look at whether that paycheck for umpiring is worth it.

Thankfully, a few poor sports didn't ruin my enjoyment of the game. Baseball's bigger than those guys, just as it's bigger than me and my perceptions of how things "ought to be." All in all, I think that's a good thing.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Can I go feedlot-free?

Today my workplace threw an elaborate party to celebrate the fact that I've been working there for five years. Well, to be technically accurate, it was for all the employees who'd reached a milestone anniversary so far this year, but let's not quibble, shall we? In addition to the thoughtful visa gift card they selected specially for me, my corporate masters also provided a lunch. They say there's no such thing as a free lunch, and they're right. It took five years of 9 to 5 to get that meal, so I was determined to eat my money's-worth.

So I stepped up to the line, grabbed a styrofoam plate (grrr) and was faced with an array of meat-and-vegetable kababs, from which I had to choose chicken or beef. In the past, that might have been a tough decision based on which I felt more like eating that day, but today it was a no-brainer. Factory beef is something I just haven't had much appetite for lately. Because though that meat may have looked like this on the plate:


(slight exaggeration)

It originally came from a place like this:


(unfortunately no exaggeration)

That picture shows mile after mile of cattle crammed into tight confines, often knee-deep in their own waste, and fed corn, a grain for which they're not adapted to eat and which makes them understandably sick. To combat the illness, they're pumped with antibiotics, which then also become part of our food stream. Even aside from the issues of the animals' welfare being subject to these conditions, mass-produced beef just isn't very good for you. You can't control everything in life, but I've read articles showing a strong correlation between quantity of red meat in one's diet with health issues like colon cancer, which I'd love to avoid having. I haven't done the research to validate those claims, but it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to think that eating meat from malnourished sickly cows doesn't do great things for the human body.

All that said, I am an incredibly lucky individual. I have a nearby producer of grass-fed beef, who makes routine trips into Des Moines to sell just about any cut of beef you can think of (plus poultry, lamb, pork and fish, but that's beside today's point). Nick Wallace, of Wallace Farms, raises cows the way they're evolved to live, eating grass and roaming about in pastureland. As a result, the meat off these cattle is significantly better for you, and has been proven to be much higher in the beneficial Omega-3 fats that our bodies need to stay healthy. I can't really discern a difference in flavor with grocery store meat, but the beef is delicious, juicy and comes from happy cows that are doing their part to keep me well and vibrant. At home, I cook exclusively with grass-fed beef from Nick Wallace. As an aside to any readers who live in Des Moines, look Nick up for his local buying clubs - you'll be glad you did.

So, probably 90% of the time, I do really well. As I just said, I only cook with grass-fed beef. And when I'm eating food out, I usually avoid beef unless it specifically says it's grass-fed. But I'm not perfect. Last week, S and I grabbed lunch at Sonic and I ordered a burger, knowing full well it was conventional/factory meat. It was tasty, but I've lately started wondering if I'm still willing to make that trade-off. Was it delicious enough to offset the welfare of the animals and the unhealthiness that it provides? It's a tough question. Right now my knowledge of the food system in the U.S. gives me pause when ordering, but sometimes the impulse buy wins out over my conscience. I'm considering going full-bore non-feedlot beef, though it is a struggle.

Granted, when you go out to eat and order something that isn't beef, it too comes from a confined feeding operation. There's no perfect solution without exclusively eating at home or at farm-to-table restaurants. But beef feedlots are some of the worst, particularly for the environment, and the poor health effects of their factory production are some of the highest correlated per today's research. So you might feel bad going out for chicken as well, but I feel better about that than I do for beef.

I think I'm going to give it a concerted try. Sacrificing going out for fast food burgers is probably a good idea in general, and there aren't that many other restaurant beef offerings that I find myself terribly tempted by. Of course, there will have to be exceptions - if I'm visiting relatives or friends for dinner, I won't refuse beef that isn't grass-fed; that's just rude. But when I do "control my own destiny," so to speak, I'm going to try not to eat any more feedlot beef. Sure, those burgers at Sonic are pretty tempting, but they're not half as good as the grass-fed beef tater tot casserole I'll be eating tonight. Or for a more apt comparison, the juicy grass-fed burgers we made a few weeks ago. (Sorry, it just happens we're having tater tot casserole tonight.) I don't know if I can succeed at this challenge, but I'm up for giving it a try. I think my body will thank me.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Filmfest 1940-1942 - Loyalty

Picture doodads coming later...

When I was younger, my Mom had a saying that would sometimes need to be repeated to my siblings and me, typically when we were complaining about a family event conflicting with something we wanted to do. "Family comes first." Regardless of the situation, those three simple words reminded us that our first loyalty was to our family. That meant if a sibling was having trouble with something, we automatically had his or her back. It meant that if we had to choose between spending time with our family or with yahoos from school, we picked family. It meant that no disagreement between us was big enough to make us forget that we were brothers and sisters first, and always will be. It's a philosophy that has lead to us being one of the tightest-knit families I've ever seen, and I hope that I can pass it on to my own family someday.

This batch of movies each touch on the concept of loyalty, though not specifically to one's family. Within my family, loyalty means a steadfast feel of fierce unity and support, but these characters explore the various ways loyalty can be interpreted or twisted. Loyal to their professional dignity, their loves, their childhood dreams, their art, to another person or simply to themselves, these are some of the greatest characters in movie history. In most cases that means a spectacular film results, but there's still one that I can't quite learn to love as fervently as most cinemaphiles. Overall, though, it's a good group, and long overdue for sharing.

1940 - The Philadelphia Story (#44) - I first saw this movie in October of last year and liked it quite a bit. When it came back up on my list, I thought for a while about how I'd perceived it and decided it didn't necessitate a rewatch, though I'll certainly enjoy watching it again sometime. Just not in the middle of this project. The film is a pretty standard romantic comedy, by today's formulaic interpretation of the genre. But this incarnation is a rather well done one, with some of the era's best actors to boot. Anytime you have James Stewart, Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant on screen at the same time, you're pretty sure to enjoy the show. The craziness all starts with Cary Grant showing up on ex-wife Hepburn's doorstep just as she's preparing to remarry. You can imagine the zaniness that ensues, especially after newspaper reporter/paparazzo Stewart arrives to document it all. It's clever and witty, and you can't help watching without a smile.

4 out of 5 sailboats that are quite "yar"



1941 - Citizen Kane (#1) - Here it is. The one I just didn't much like, and as luck would have it, the American Film Institute thinks it's literally the best movie ever. Now, there can be some sense of smug satisfaction in not liking what everyone else does, but I'm not just dissing this movie to be some kind of hipster. See my (quite different) response to movie number 2 as proof. No, I just didn't like this film because there was no one to like in it, and no one to truly sympathize with. Sure, plenty happens, but in a "biopic" on fictional news baron Charles Foster Kane, if you don't care what happens to Kane, it's a bit of a bust. The guy was written as kind of a jerk, so you were hard-pressed to feel much besides "serves him right" when ills befell him. For the record, I do understand why he's portrayed that way, but I just didn't feel like it was well rationalized. On the plus side, the story of what does happen to him is fairly interesting, and a second viewing revealed some unique innovations in filmmaking. Strange camera angles, effects of scale, shadow and optics - it was all pretty neat. But without a person to root for, it felt really long and I just wanted it to be over.

2 out of 5 printing presses



1941 - The Maltese Falcon (#23) - It's hard to say for sure, but I think this was one of the first classic movies I sat down on the couch with my Dad to watch on PBS some Sunday afternoon, and I have loved it ever since. You probably can tell by now that I enjoy the genre of film noir, of which Maltese Falcon is one of the best. This movie has it all: hardboiled detectives, a classic femme fatale, a mysterious object of desire, and constant double and triple crosses. Add in some of the best actors of the era: Humphrey Bogart playing Sam Spade as no one else could have, with a devil-may-care attitude and plenty of snappy one-liners. Peter Lorre as the effeminate and sniveling Joel Cairo, and of course Sydney Greenstreet as the enormous and smooth-talking Kaspar Gutman. They're all chasing after the Maltese Falcon, a jewel-encrusted bird statue of immense value. As they go, allegiances are tested, lives become expendable and the audience is kept breathless, guessing whose side anyone is on. It's a suspenseful ride with memorable quotes throughout, set in a well-executed rendition of seedy parts of San Francisco. I love this movie; I'd watch it pretty much anytime.

5 out of 5 black birds (of course)



1941 - Sullivan's Travels (#61) - Finally! We had a gap in our Netflix queue so I nabbed it to get a copy of Sullivan's Travels, the only missing film from this set of five for the past month or more. I don't know if that extended wait raised my expectations for the movie, but I found myself rather underwhelmed by it. It was decent, don't get me wrong, but certainly not on par with the best movies of this era. The concept centers on a big time Hollywood film producer, known for making profitable comedies, who wants to make something truly meaningful, capturing the grit and despondency of the poor at the time. Not a bad premise for a film, and I do think this could have been good. But, ironically enough, the movie suffered from a lack of identity as it wavered at different points between being a slapstick comedy and a serious drama. I do believe that movies can blur that line, but I'm not sure this one did it successfully. Jumping from a painfully bad car chase using sped-up film and ridiculous situations to our protagonist somberly walking amongst the homeless was a bit too inconsistent for me. That said, there were parts of this movie I did like, from the sultry Veronica Lake (inspiration for Jessica Rabbit, don't ya know) and her sarcastic wit to the moving scene at the church picture show. But it just didn't all play well together, and had a convenient ending that I had a major problem with. An okay movie, but definitely not great.

3 out of 5 hobo boxcars



1942 - Casablanca (#2) - Here it is. The greatest and most perfect movie of all time. I realize that I'm hardly being original in that assertion, but sometimes classics are classics for a reason. If the Maltese Falcon was the first classic film I saw, this one has to be the first one I loved. Again featuring Humphry Bogart, this time as a world-weary American expatriate living in Casablanca toward the beginning of WWII. The supporting characters are fantastic, too, including Peter Lorre (again), Sydney Greenstreet (again), Claude Rains, and the lovely Ingrid Bergman. But the thing that makes this film so transcendent is the story. There isn't necessarily a Hollywood happy ending here, the world isn't quite as simple as black and white, and love can mean many things, not necessarily what's expected. Bogart's Rick starts off cold and cynical, but we quickly learn that there's much more beneath the surface. As letters of transit to escape Casablanca mysteriously go missing, the action comes quickly, but always revealing more about what people are willing to do to get what they want. Words can't really describe how much I love the ending of this movie - it is simply the perfect moment, scripted beautifully and atmospherically staged. That scene sums up the themes of the movie, but the whole film is a work of art, that any movie lover simply has to watch.

5 out of 5

Friday, July 1, 2011

The Race of a Lifetime

After the final laps had been ticked off the counter, after the thick clouds of tire smoke from celebratory donuts had cleared, and after many spectators had long since headed for the exits, I continued to stand on my bleacher seat looking toward the activity in victory lane. I wanted to snap one last picture, getting a photo of the scoring pylon to record the finishing order, but I was literally shaking with too much with excitement to hold the camera steady. I had just witnessed probably the best auto race I have ever seen in my life, and I have to admit I'm skeptical that it can be matched in the future. I knew traffic wouldn't allow us to leave the Iowa Speedway for at least another hour, getting us home some time around midnight, but with all the excitement coursing through my body, I wasn't the least bit worried about staying awake.

The interesting thing was, this race almost didn't happen - at least not for me. As you likely know, I would consider myself a racing fan, with a distinct predilection for Indycars. Sure, I started out with NASCAR and I'll still catch a few laps here and there; I also enjoy the skill, strategy and amazing machines of sports car racing. But for pure entertainment, for inspiring enough passion to yell at the television, for the nervous energy that means I have to stand up from the couch, nothing really does it like the wheel-to-wheel action of Indycars. As such, I've been to the Indycar races at Iowa Speedway with Stacia since they began in 2007.

The first time was all about the experience, seeing and living it all for the first time. The next few years we came almost by default - it was simply the thing we expected to be doing toward the end of June. But last year's event really made us reconsider. Not that the race was bad - it was actually pretty exciting and a guy that we both sort of rooted for ended up winning. The trouble came about by sitting in uncovered grandstands under a blazing sun for 3+ hours on a hot humid summer afternoon. Neither one of us felt great following the race, and Stacia had some pretty significant heat exhaustion symptoms. For ticket face values north of $50 a person, we weren't sure it was worth feeling sick over to be there in person when we could just watch it on TV.

So it came to be that the day before the race we had no tickets and didn't plan to do much more than watch the broadcast. I thought just for the off chance that I might find something, I'd poke around Craigslist. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a pair of tickets for all the support races that day and the big race (now on Saturday night, not Sunday afternoon) for a total of $60. I found the tickets around 9 AM, ran to the bank around 10, and at noon had a couple of guys stop by my office to make the exchange. It was a whirlwind series of events that left me in a bit of a bind. Friday night had a couple of minor league races scheduled as a buildup to the Indy race, plus qualifying for the big cars. It all started at 3:30, and the speedway is an hour's drive from home.

I managed to convince my boss to let me take off at 3:00, and I sped home as fast as our Honda scooter would take me, where I literally took off my helmet and jacket and jumped into the car to zoom out to the racetrack. Google maps predicted it would take me 55 minutes - we had the car parked at the track within 40, still a touch late but not missing much. I opened the door and immediately heard the familiar engine whine that meant cars on track. I smiled at Stacia, knowing we'd made the right choice. By time we got to our seats we'd missed just 4 cars out of 25 making their qualifying runs. As we settled in and each car in line roared to life, I couldn't imagine we thought about skipping this.


And that was just the start. In qualifying, the excitement built as the superpower teams struggled and relative unknown Takuma Sato took the pole with fan favorite Danica Patrick starting second. Then we sat through the caution-filled debacle of a USAC midget race, and the follow-the-leader affair of the USAC Silver Crown cars. The next day saw some practice runs, followed by the buildup to the main event. Star Mazda cars, a kind of mini Indycar, took to the track for a race that was side by side for the lead until one car's engine gave out halfway through. Indy Lights, the development series for Indycar, took to the track for a hard-fought battle between four different cars. It was all pretty fun, but it was just an aperitif to what was to come. As the driver introduction stage was moved into place, I began to jitter with nervous anticipation.


That anticipation built up through the intros, the anthem, as the drivers strapped into their machines, the "start your engines" command, and the first few pace laps. It came to a crescendo as the cars lined up in rows of two, their engines spooled up along the backstretch, and they finally came roaring out of turn four to take the green flag. I excitedly waved the green flag I'd been given at the entrance, along with 35,000 of my closest friends. The cars jostled back and forth, dodging and weaving as they sought to gain positions while so closely packed. Eventually, Dario Franchitti of the dominant Target race team began to pull away, as he had on more than one prior occasion.

But my eye wasn't often on him. I was more interested in the black #26 car with red scales and glaring red eyes on the front wing - the Venom Energy Drink-sponsored car of Marco Andretti. Grandson of fabled race driver Mario, Marco has shown flashes of brilliance throughout his young career, but rarely has been able to close, having only one win in five years of competition. He can come off as aloof and spoiled, supposedly symptoms of shyness (which I can totally understand), but seems like a "good kid." In addition, he is aggressive and has more guts than many of his competitors, frequently putting his car in places few would try. About halfway through the race, having passed many cars from his poor starting position, I leaned over to Stacia and yelled "Marco's using the high line." She smiled and nodded, knowing from prior races that Marco would soon be making breathtaking passes on the outside.


And so he did, bringing his car to the lead briefly, then dicing with former winners Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan. As the laps counted down, Dario's car began to fade, but Marco and Tony only upped the intensity of their battle, with Marco sweeping high lap after lap to pull alongside Tony but not quite able to pull off the pass. Then, with about 20 to go, in one of the sweetest moves I've seen, Marco ran high through two turns to build up momentum, pulled up behind Kanaan on the straightaway and darted inside just before the turn-in. Squeezed down as low as he could be by his rival, Marco blasted out of the turn and took the lead. As they had throughout the night, the stands erupted as he blew past the flagstand.

This dogfight wasn't over though. Kanaan fought back, taking advantage of Marco's preference for the high lane to try to duck in underneath. As we nervously counted down the handful of laps we were away from Marco's second victory, I worried whether he could hold off the much more seasoned racer running just inches behind and alongside him. Then in one final show of strength, with 5 laps to go, Marco tightened his apex in turns 1 and 2, disturbing the air in front of Kanaan's car, causing him to lose downforce on the front wing. As Kanaan was forced to lift off the throttle to control his car, Marco powered away and took the win moments later. I stood and cheered, still shaking from the tenacious battle I'd just witnessed.


I did eventually get the picture of the scoring pylon I'd wanted all along, with the number 26 proudly showing at the top. Stacia and I talked about how fantastic a race it had been, and how incredibly furious we would have been had we chosen to skip it. I don't yet know if we'll come back next year - the series is rolling out a brand-new car, and I just don't know if it will provide the thrills this race did. Frankly I'm not sure it's possible. But for one phenomenal weekend, I saw the best race ever. That was well worth the sixty dollars.