Me and Cleve

"Me and Cleve was both hittin' it at the same time in 7th grade." That's the most memorable quote. This was a kid on a train, probably 15 years old. I've taken a few train rides recently. Actually, I'm on trains way more than I'd like to be. And while I consider myself ecologically conscious, I've become less of an advocate for public transportation.
The aforementioned friend of Cleve, or whatever he was to Cleve, was talking to another young man and two young women about a different girl with whom the the two were having intercourse, if not necessarily simultaneously, then, well, at least while they were both in seventh grade. A natural topic of conversation on a 75%-full train car.
Then there was the subway ride to a baseball game. At one stop, a trio boarded: two boys in the 16-, 17-, 20-year-old age range, along with a kid who looked to be about 9. They had an amplifier of sorts, so I figured perhaps they were on their way to a DJ gig. But, alas, the venue for the gig was the subway car itself. So they cranked the music up to an uncomfortable level after proclaiming, "It's show time."
I immediately told them the music was too loud, and here's what ensued: The one kid did a few forward flips and some break dancing. The little kid did a few handstands. The ringleader and punk in chief swung around a few poles. And, I guess since I had said the music was too loud, they would look at me after performing the moves. Like, "Take that, bitch." So picture it, a kid swinging around a pole in a subway car and then puffing his chest out. Snap.
And I was actually engaged in some friendly banter with the one kid, which the punk in chief apparently misinterpreted. So he tells me not to run my mouth.And I was like "Shut up and leave me alone." I mean, what's up with train-car etiquette?
Anyway, I can see how people get shot and stabbed routinely. On the subway, if it hadn't been one adult and a punk, as opposed to two punks, the situation could have escalated. Don't be dissin' me, man. My perception was that the disrespect lay in jumping on a crowded subway car, cranking the music and then wanting money for subjecting people to your antics. And they weren't even that imaginative. This was no Cirque du Soleil. 

* * *

Somewhere I have a picture of myself, circa age 6, in a cowboy getup. My friends and I used to play cowboys and Indians. I watched "The Cisco Kid" and "The Lone Ranger" religiously. I still like that stuff. Read books about the West and Indians regularly. I've made up stories and have been writing since I was a child. I've always liked fishing. And dogs. I wonder if it's that way for everybody--you just like what you like, and it sticks with you.
At any rate, I recently read this article panning the new "Lone Ranger" movie. Too bad. I saw previews for it when I took my kids to see "Iron Man 3," which gets me to my point: "Iron Man 3" sucked. I can suspend disbelief for the sake of watching clever entertainment, but Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce should personally apologize and refund my money. Not Ben Kingsley, though. There are some spoilers here, so if you're planning to go see "Iron Man 3," you might not want to read on. Of course, I did already say it sucked.
So Robert Downey Jr.'s character taunts a terrorist. The next thing you know, the terrorists are descending on his seaside estate in helicopters; they then proceed to blow the shit out of this thing. No military jets scramble or anything. I mean these guys deployed helicopter gunships with impunity. They could have wiped Malibu or whatever off the map. Though he does bring down a helicopter or two by, if I remember correctly, throwing part of his iron suit at them. These iron suits apparently have minds of their own, since they can fly to him wherever he is. Like on the opposite coast.
Then there's this other aspect of the movie that's unintelligible. Well, the whole fucking thing is unintelligible, but what they call Extremis in particular. The president of Marvel Studios explained it like this: “Extremis taps into human DNA and is able to regenerate limbs and enhance strength.” The people look all thermal and stuff. I can't do it justice by trying to explain it; I guess you have to see it to understand, or not, the absurdity. I get that movies like this take a lot of license, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. But this one's just a nonsensical ripoff with a lot of stuff blowing up. The kids loved it, but it ain't no "House of Sand and Fog."
At the other end of the creative spectrum, albeit on the small screen, we have "Breaking Bad," which is as good as "Iron Man 3" is bad. This one I won't spoil, because if you haven't watched it, you should. It's right up there with "The Wire" as one of the best shows ever. I know it has been around for five years or whatever, but I just watched the first 4 1/2 seasons. With Netflix, you don't have to wait a week in between episodes, and you can follow the arc of the program while previous episodes remain fresh in your mind. Impressive writing and acting.

* * *

Seems like we might be approaching the end of days here. We have fires, glaciers falling apart, flooding, superstorm Sandy, Miami going under, etc. And now, I fear some kind of "Day of the Animals."
There's this bird, a robin, that has taken to flinging itself into the sliding glass door on the back of my house. With a little observation, I've determined that the sequence goes something like this: Bird flies into door, retreats to arm of chair on deck, takes a shit, gets fecal matter on feet (claws, talons, whatever), flies into door again. Bird repeats steps one through five. Dog freaks out. So now bird-shit footprints adorn the sliding glass door. And a window on the side of the house, for that matter. It's like perverse avian performance art or something.

* * *

I held baseball in obsessively high esteem as a young man, like a religion. On the Circle Line cruise around New York, at about age 10, I asked the tour guide if we were going to pass Yankee Stadium. She said that we would and then singled me out as we approached it. I just wanted to see the thing.
I used to spend time outside at my house hitting a Nerf ball with a Wiffle bat. We played pickup games every day in the summer. Rain would send me into a tailspin.
Now my kids might be through with the sport. One of them has trouble hitting, which poses a problem, and sometimes I would have preferred having a branding iron pressed to my temple to watching his games. Would have been less painful. He hits perfectly well when I pitch, but he had to face kids in games and couldn't get past the psychology that they might not have pinpoint control.
The other one can hit, throw and catch, and he's fast. But he gets distracted by, say, an airplane passing overhead. And he does little dances in the field in between pitches. And takes his hat off. And his glove. And flings his arms around. So, while he has the tools, baseball might not be dynamic enough for him. 
I'm not living vicariously through my kids' sports endeavors. I accomplished enough on my own. I think the problem parents are the ones who didn't do enough on their own. But it still kind of breaks my heart.
Like Gibran says about kids:

You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.