December 21, 2012 

I think it’s time I did something about this creation of mine called Man.

He’s evil plain and simple, and I’m deluding myself by insisting that sometimes good beings just do bad things. The truth is, he has always been fascinated by the allure of the fruit—indulge the desire, ignore the cost. He has come to worship the seven: lusxuria, gula, avaritia, acedia, ira, invidia and superbia.

I’ve always despised haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief, a deceitful witness that utters lies, and, most of all, he who sows discord among his brethren. Like the child who chooses to ignore his parents’ warning against disobedience, man has embraced the seven; indeed, he has taken them to levels even I could not imagine.

And still I forgave him. To love someone is to forgive them.

Adam was the crowning achievement of my creation. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for Adam, nothing I wouldn’t give him, and so when I saw that he was lonely, that he hungered for a companion, I created for him a woman. When Eve bid him to taste of the fruit, I knew I had lost him forever.

From that moment I knew nothing I offered could compare to earthly delights, not even the promise of eternity.

I once sent a great flood to wash away the evil, to start anew, but man again chose pursuit of that which he could see, taste, touch. For that I have no one to blame but myself. Being human must be very lonely.

As a deity, I flit among the stars, am able to travel light years in less than an instant, and can commune with the lowliest creatures.

I trapped the spirit of man in flesh. As a fetus he is one with his mother; but at birth he knows solitude, and for the remainder of his life he seeks the comfort of earthly pleasures—food, wine, the touch of others. Man mistakes communion of the flesh as love (a lie to himself as well as his mate), while woman is untrue to her mate in the intimacy of darkness.

The comfort I can provide he eschews because I am something he cannot see, touch.

And his desire, his need for creature comforts only grows with each generation.

I am at fault for setting rules to which he could not adhere. I set him up for failure, giving him the freedom to choose, fully aware that he might choose against me. I knew this, yet I hoped it would be otherwise. Such is hindsight, even for God.

There were, are, good men, and women, but always I know their hearts.

Mother Theresa, who endeavored so diligently to do my work, knew doubt. In her doubt, she chose not to feel my presence within herself.

Rodin created beautiful works of art, but always he lusted for that which he sought to immortalize in clay. I cannot condone beautiful creations born of vulgar, evil thoughts.

Mozart sought, in his musical creations, to be godlike. Does God suffer superbia in wishing acknowledgement of the gifts he bestows upon his creation?

Man has become a blight on my creation. Like a germ that devours its benevolent environment, he takes and gives nothing in return, not to his environment nor his brethren. He knowingly wreaks havoc and absolves himself of any wrongdoing. He is ego, avaritia his birthright. The world around him, his brothers and sisters, exist only for his benefit. No other creature save man savors, revels, in its cruelty toward others.

And so I find myself at this precipice—a perfect being having created in man imperfection incarnate. I wonder if, long ago, evil once existed in me and, in seeking to rid myself of the bile, I poured forth the evil into my creation. For surely, before this instant to which man refers as the universe, evil had not existed.

With no one to blame but myself, I speak the words:

“Let there be darkness.”

May 2, 2009–Comerica Park, Detroit, MI. The Detroit Tigers are taking on the Cleveland Indians in the middle game of a three-game set, having dropped the opener last night and hoping to get back to .500 with a win today. It’s Saturday, partly cloudy and sixty-three degrees at game time, a perfect day for a ballgame. If you’re watching on the tube, that’s me, in the straw hat, fifteen rows up behind the home team’s dugout. I can look over the shoulders of right-handed hitters and follow the foul line all the way into the right field corner, 330 feet away from home plate.

Shortly before the first pitch, a young man seats himself to my left; to his left sits his girl. I quickly learn from him that they’ve come down from a small town just north of Lansing to celebrate his twenty-fourth birthday. Tickets to this afternoon’s ballgame (“The best seats I’ve ever had,” the kid tells me) and to Sunday’s hockey playoff game (Wings against the Ducks) are courtesy of his girlfriend. He also volunteers that they’re staying overnight in a hotel in Novi. I nod politely and tell the kid that it seems as if his girl is a keeper. He tells me, “Yeah, that’s what everyone keeps telling me,” and I deduce that, sadly, she is more into him than he is her. He then launches into a brief exposition of what a great game baseball is, filled with subtle nuances, the situation constantly changing. I nod, not just because it is the polite thing to do. A real chatterbox, this kid; I hope that once the game starts he’ll be less chatty.

Zach Miner goes into his windup and sends his first pitch: I hear the sound of the ball hit Gerald Laird’s mitt and the umpire’s declaration–“Striiike!” The kid next to me leaps to his feet, fist pounding the air, to declare, “Yeah!” I wonder if by game’s end he will have a voice left.

The first three and a half innings unfold as a pitchers’ duel, scoreless, the type of game that suits my purist love for this grand old game. Miner’s sinker is flawless, inducing a number of ground ball outs. The kid beside me is growing restless. He wants to see some action. This isn’t just the result of youthful exuberance; he’s just finished his third six-dollar beer. Thankfully, for his girl, this isn’t part of the birthday celebration package. The drinks for this day are on his coin, so I’d learned during the second inning when he flagged down the beer vendor, asking him, “What kind of beer have you got?” “The kind with hops,” I suggested. The vendor, as well as the two guys in the row behind ours–also from out of town on this, their first visit to the Copa (I’d asked them, between innings, whether they’d also purchased the empty seat between them to keep their distance)–laugh. “How many hops?” the kid asked, not wanting to feel left out. “Bud Lite,” the vendor told him. Bud Lite gives me a headache, so I’d opted for a glass of twelve-year-old Glenlivet, along with a cigar in the Camacho Cigar Lounge prior to the game. I briefly considered the eighteen-year-old, but at a dollar a year, the price was too steep for my budget. I watched the second period of the Penguins and Capitals playoff game behind the bar and befriended a couple with season tickets who live in the city. The husband was nearly as curmudgeonly as I, but I had ten years on him. We shared a couple baseball stories and he informed me, disgustingly, that a season ticket at the new Yankee Stadium comparable to his at Comerica Park would cost him four times what he pays for his. “Yeah,” I told him. “Someone’s got to pay for George’s billion-and-a-half park.”

Back to the second inning, the bucks-for-brew transaction was completed, but not before the vendor checked the kid’s ID. The vendor handed back the ID and asked the kid if he was aware that it will expire in two days. “Yeah,” he said. After the vendor departed, the kid explained to me that he’d thought he was getting a new license along with the plate tab he’d renewed last month. He realized his error when the tab arrived sans the license. “They told me it could take three weeks to get my new license, so I’ll have to be careful next week. But I’m not worried. I haven’t had a ticket in two years,” he declared proudly. “Be careful,” I told him, adding, “Murphy’s Law.” “Who?” he asked, blinking. “Things happen when you least expect them.” “Oh. Yeah,” he said.

The Tigers erupt for five runs in the bottom of the fourth frame, four on a grand slam by, of all people, Adam Everett, our diminutive shortstop, acquired from the Twins just before the start of the season. It’s his first round-tripper of the year, and I’m guessing the first slam of his career. It is a Gary Sheffield type of homerun: a low liner that doesn’t clear the fence in left by much, but it gets out in a hurry. The kid to my left is ready to celebrate a Tigers win and promptly orders another Bud Lite from a passing vendor. The kid’s speech is becoming slightly slurred and his comments are peppered with obscenities. I lean over to whisper that he watch his language, in deference to the young children in the row in front of us and in the seats to my right. “What?” he grunts. “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” His girl, who I haven’t heard utter a word thus far, doesn’t seem as into him as I’d initially thought, and instead seems somewhat embarrassed; indeed, the only evidence they are a couple are those occasions when he rests his hand on her knee.

The Indians counter with five of their own runs in the top of the fifth, all resulting from a ball Ryan Raburn misplays in left field, although no error is scored on the play. The kid to my left is beside himself, berating Jim Leyland for not starting Josh Anderson in left field, and is among those who boo Raburn when he comes to the plate in the sixth inning. That Raburn’s batting average is a series of three bagels doesn’t help matters much. But Raburn manages to bunt his way on while moving a runner into scoring position and the Tigers eventually go ahead again by a run.

In the top of the sixth, Leyland had sent Brandon Lyon to the mound to replace Miner, sending my seat mate into a tirade. “I hate Lyon,” he exclaimed. “He should send Bobby Seay to the mound–he’s been the best pitcher out of the pen all year.” “Lyon has been shaky at times,” I said. “But he’s looked good at times, too.” “I promise you he’ll give up a homerun,” the kid said. Lyon pitches a scoreless sixth inning. The kid looked across me to the seats to my right, which had been empty the last inning or two. “What happened to your family?” he asked me. I had no idea whether he thought the woman was my wife, the kids mine, or that they were my daughter and grandkids, but I told him that they were of no relation to me and it was my guess that Mom took the kids for a ride on the carousel. I hoped she hadn’t departed early the result of the kid’s language. Fortunately, they returned for the final two frames.

After the Tigers retake the lead in the bottom of the sixth, the kid departs for the third time for the loo, and I’m reminded of the wisdom of one Archie Bunker: “You can’t buy beer, you can only rent it.” When the kid returns, the Tribe is rallying for two runs and the kid launches a verbal attack of Lyon. “That’s not Lyon out there,” I tell him when he finishes. “It’s your boy, Bobby Seay.” “Oh,” is all the kid manages to slur. Zumaya comes in to mop up the seventh and pitches a scoreless eighth.

The Tigers retake the lead with three runs in their half of the eighth, two on a majestic Curtis Granderson homerun to right, another on a bases loaded walk to Raburn. “Why would any pitcher throw inside to Granderson?” the kid asks me. “Because he can hit with power to left field, too,” I tell him. “Well he doesn’t hit many that way,” he says. I refrain from telling him that’s because most pitchers continue to bust him inside.

Fernando Rodney comes in to pitch the ninth, taking a page from the Todd Jones book on closing: putting runners at the corners before striking out Peralta, securing the win for Zumaya.

All in all, it was an entertaining outing for me, and not just for what happened on the field.

I was in a Barnes and Noble recently where I picked up the 50^th anniversary Legacy Edition of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, expanded and enhanced, a CD I’d recommend to anyone as the definitive jazz album, indeed an album that music experts hail as “crossing genres, speaking to generations, and a cornerstone to any music collection.” I’d owned a vinyl version of this gem and had purchased the CD when it was released many moons ago. But this version was expanded to two discs and included a jazz-cool tee-shirt – Miles on the front facing front, Miles on the back facing away. Its color? Kind of blue. What can I say? I’m a sucker for slick marketing ploys, especially where cigars and CDs are concerned.

As I was checking out other CDs, my eyes alit on the photo that adorns the famous Abbey Road album by the Beatles – for the uninitiated, it shows the Fab Four, in single file, crossing the famed Abbey Road, Paul sans shoes (yes, Paul McCartney played in a band before Wings). What attracted me to the display was that this was a vinyl pressing. So I thought, When did B&N consent to selling used merchandise? Then I saw the Diana Krall album, Quiet Nights, next to Abbey Road, which had been released just last month. Amazon had alerted me to its release because I’d once purchased from them an Ella Fitzgerald compilation. Then I noted the price on both albums was listed as new. The sales clerk stocking a nearby DVD bin, noting the look of confusion on my face, said, “Cool, huh?” He was obviously a Baby Boomer like me. I said, “They’ve taken to rereleasing original presses on vinyl? Whatever for?”

He laughed and said, “There’s a whole new market for albums in their original format. Two-hundred-thousand titles are already available and the company in New York producing them is backed up with more titles.”

“A new market?” I asked, incredulous. “Who?”

“Gen-X.”

“You’re kidding? I thought they were into iPods, or as John Laraquette called them on an old House episode after waking up from a ten-year coma, ip-ods.”

“They love the artwork in the larger format,” the clerk told me. “And it’s a tie to their parents’ generation.”

“But is anyone even making turntables anymore?” Again for the uninitiated, turntable is the term for what my parents called a record player.

“They are,” the clerk confirmed.

For the first time in a long time – I mean, a very long time – I was utterly amazed. Just when I thought nothing could surprise me.

For the clerk’s benefit I told the story a friend of mine recounted for me maybe twenty years ago. He and his, at the time, seven-year-old son were crossing the parking lot of a Target when his son stopped dead in his tracks, his attention fixed on an old 45 rpm record someone had discarded. “Dad, what’s that?” he asked. His dad patiently explained what it was and that that was how music had been recorded back in the day. “Wow,” was his son’s one-syllable response, eyes big as, well, big as CDs. “They must’ve been able to get a lot of music on them.” My friend laughed and informed his son that, “No, they were able to get only about seven minutes of music on each side.”

The clerk and I both laughed at the story and I paid for my Miles Davis Legacy Edition CD grateful that I had never sold my original vinyl pressing, or my Abbey Road. But I winced at the recollection of my buddy’s sister-in-law – she’d sold, at a garage sale for $1, his original, limited edition numbered Beatles White Album, pressed in white vinyl.

I left Barnes and Noble scratching my head and thinking my dad was right: The more things change the more they stay the same.