SUPERMAN AGAINST THE EARTH

It might be normal human behavior to be suspicious of strangers, especially those who look and speak in a way that's unfamiliar to us.

I'm certainly not immune to prejudice, though I try to fight it when I find it lurking inside. 

I come from a background where it was very common when I was a boy for the people around me to use racial slurs when criticizing the poor play of a football player, especially if that player was on the home team.

And yet, I don't feel there was deep hatred in those words. Insensitivity? Yes. Laziness? Maybe. But those words were more or less common in casual speech at that time, so I'm sure it didn't seem wrong to the people who were saying them in the heat of yet another bowl game disappointment.

But even then I knew it wasn't right. I don't know how. Nobody told me it wasn't right. I just knew that the people saying those ugly words loved me and were respectful of anyone they met face to face. Their using these words seemed odd, not in keeping with the rest of their lives. 

We had neighbors who would have been very surprised to hear these slurs. But they never heard them because these ugly words were only said in safe company.

That's a long introduction to an idea I had about one particular superhero. What if a superhuman being, the only survivor of a destroyed planet, came to earth?

If he looked just like the people around him, maybe he would blend in and draw no special attention. But what if he demonstrated super strength, heat vision, the ability to fly or at least leap over a skyscraper and land without harming himself?

It could be comforting, I guess. We might say, "Here's someone who could defend us against those who would mean us harm." 

If he were mentally stable and shared our commonly accepted ethical standards of not murdering, not stealing, etc., then he might be promoted to a position of leadership.

But what if we got scared? What if he used his powers in a way that let us know how vulnerable we were to his whims. What if we thought the power was going to his head? What if we decided that he didn't share our values, after all?

He might consider leaving our planet and looking for a better gig. But if he were innocent and just persistent enough to want to prove his innocence, it might turn into a low-level ongoing war: on one side, regular earthlings using whatever means necessary to shoo him away; on the other side, a powerful and potentially dangerous entity that no one wanted in their own backyard. Kind of like nuclear power.

I do not understand your earthling ways
And the weapons you've arrayed
Against me

I've tried to be patient,
but you leave me no choice
The next sound that you hear, 
the next sound that you hear
Will be your jet fighters
Falling
From the sky...

I came in peace, 
but you would not let me be
Now it's
Superman 
Against the earth...

Hall of Fames: Baseball, Rock, etc.

OK. I'm not a baseball sports writer. I do not get to vote on who should get into the baseball hall of fame.

But here's my ballot anyway:

1. Roger Clemens
2. Barry Bonds
3. Scott Rolen
4. Chipper Jones
5. Lou Whitaker
6. Jim Thome
7. Mike Mussina
8. Manny Ramirez
9. Fred McGriff
10. Vlad Guerrero

(Yes, I realize Sweet Lou Whitaker is not on the ballot this year. He was only on the official ballot one year, received less than 5% of the vote and was immediately excluded from future ballots. My ballot doesn't count anyway, so there's no harm in including him.)

I will let others discuss the merit of each player on the 2018 ballot. I'm not that interested in making cases for each of my picks.

However, I will say this about Barry Bonds: 

I didn't become a fan until 2005, well after he had broken the all-time Home Run record. He had been injured most of 2005, and really had no obvious reason to continue playing at that point. He was 40. He was feeling beat up. He had nothing to prove. His team was out of playoff contention. And yet, to me, he proved something very important that year: that he loved baseball enough to come back and play out 2005.

He then went on to play well in 2006 and 2007! 

I mean, if I could have played just two seasons of major league ball and tallied WAR scores of 4.0 and 3.4, I would consider that a pretty decent career. I would hear whispers at parties for THE REST OF MY LIFE of people saying "there goes so-and-so; he played in the majors and had a 7.2 Career WAR."

The thing is, Bonds did that after he turned 40! He already had over 150 WAR, nevermind all the home runs, RBIs, walks, doubles and so on.

By the way, this is intended to be a music blog. So when it comes to the rock hall of fame, who would I vote for? 

I would not vote for anyone, even if I had a vote. I was in the grocery store not long ago when I saw two men a little older than me wearing T-shirts for their favorite classic rock bands. Both bands were on their 3rd or 4th "final" tour, by my count. One claimed the band on his shirt was the "Best Rock and Roll Band of All Time!" They other smiled. I don't think he agreed, but it wasn't worth arguing about.

I find that I am less into bands and more into songs. There are songs that I love. I make a playlist and share it with others. People listen, and either enjoy the songs or they don't. The end. 

Or maybe, just maybe, they don't like a song the first time they hear it, but they listen again and start liking it. 

Or maybe there's music that's very important to me at one time in my life, but I have moved on and now when I hear that song, it doesn't have the same emotional effect. 

But the memory is still there of when that song got me though a tough time. 

How does something that sublte fit into a hall of fame? That's why I wouldn't vote for anyone.

ARE YOU ALIVE? (with a soul down deep inside)

Our mini-van's CD/DVD player burned out one day when my wife was driving back and forth to work. She said it actually started smoking and she was afraid the car would catch on fire. She somehow got the DVD that had been playing to eject, and she left the windows open for a long time to let the smoky odor clear. Likely the DVD motor burned out. We haven't really tried to fix it. As a side effect, the radio also stopped working. UPDATE: One of the students in my wife's art class replaced our radio with one he pulled from the junk yard. He found 4 pennies in the burnt out DVD player, which likely shorted it out. But now it's working again thanks to her student. It's my car now. 

Months later, my wife and I were on our way to a family event when the phrase, "You say my calculations are off by a million or two" popped into my head.

Luckily I had my trusty ukulele with me. On that day I was being the entertainment, playing the songs I'd written on ukulele. I started playing with a chord progression that's very common but never seems to get old: C/Am/F/G. It's been used by the Beatles's "Happiness is a Warm Gun," Santo and Johnny's (in a different key) "Sleepwalk" and more.

As far as the lyrics go, let me start in the middle and explain later.

You say my calculations are
Off by a million or two
Won't you hold me like you did
By the lake on the moon of Naboo
I can't take this indecision
I just need to know
Are you alive, are you alive?

I liked the first two of the first three Star Wars movies. I didn't mind Jar-Jar Binks in the first movie released in the prequel trilogy. I watched the second prequel episode two times (with different groups of people), and swore to myself in the middle of the second viewing that I would never watch that movie again. I won't even say the name. I don't even know the name. Twice was enough for a lifetime.

But I loved one line from that movie. "Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo." I added "on the moon of" because I that's the way I remembered the line, and I like my version better than the actual line. The moon gives it a little extra oomph. I think they actually filmed the scene by the lake, not on another planet or the moon of another planet, but next to a drainage pond in some swank gated community.

We're moving toward a future of human-like robots, or androids. Boston Robotics is basically already there. Eventually the resemblance will be so close that it will fool the eye.

My narrator is coming from the point of view that he's fallen hard for a woman who may or may not be purely mechanical.

The metallic taste of your kisses
The way you hold my hand
With your vice like grip
Your eyes can change color at will
When you smile I get a chill

Are you alive, are you alive? (with a soul down deep inside)

I saw the original animated movie Ghost in the Shell a few years after it came out. I'm pretty sure it was on VHS. I could have seen it in the theatre at the art house cinema with my old roommate, but for some reason I passed. 

Cyborg (human with mechanical enhancements) cops. Guns. Secret governmental agencies. For some reason the description didn't draw me in.

But when I finally watched it, there were so many images that stuck with me. The title sequence showing the assembly of Major Motoko Kusanagi is one of them.

Some say they grew you from a culture
In a laboratory
Inserted your skeleton made of titanium
In a factory
To me you're just the girl next door
Who can lift a thousand pounds or more
Before you become my wife
At the altar won't you ease my mind?

I'm hoping my song comes across as comical: reaching this far into a relationship, recognizing certain characteristics of his fiancée seem a little suspicious but waiting until the very last moment to ask for reassurance that he's not marrying a very good looking major appliance.

Hope this never happens to you.