#15. I used to be into making dream catchers (I am very white and have since learned the errors of my ways no need to lecture me)

[sodacowboy]

every now and then I remember that collecting hobbies IS a hobby and that it is indeed my hobby

[okbyokaybye]

Kill the Cop in Your Head

Authoritarian Leftists: Kill the Cop in Your Head

By Lorenzo Komboa Ervin - Black Autonomy, April 1996.

It's difficult to know where to begin with this open letter to the various European-american leftist (Marxist-Leninist and Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, in particular) groups within the United States. I have many issues with many groups; some general, some very specific. The way in which this is presented may seem scattered at first, but I encourage all of you to read and consider carefully what I have written in its entirety before you pass any judgements.

It was V.I. Lenin who said, "take from each national culture only its democratic and socialist elements; we take them only and absolutely in opposition to the bourgeois culture and bourgeois nationalism of each nation". It could be argued that Lenin's statement in the current Amerikkkan context is in fact a racialist position; who is he (or the Bolsheviks themselves) to "take" anyone or pass judgement on anyone; particularly since the privileges of having white skin are a predominant factor within the context of amerikkkan-style oppression. This limited privilege in capitalist society is a prime factor in the creation and maintenence of bourgeois ideology in the minds of many whites of various classes in the US and elsewhere on the globe.

When have legitimate struggles or movements for national and class liberation had to "ask permission" from some eurocentric intellectual "authority" who may have seen starvation and brutality, but has never experienced it himself? Where there is repression, there is resistance...period. Self-defense is a basic human right that we as Black people have exercised time and time again, both violent and non-violent; a dialectical and historical reality that has kept many of us alive up to this point.

Assuming that this was not Lenin's intent, and assuming that you all truly uphold worldwide socialism/communism, then the question must be asked: WHY IS IT THAT EACH AND EVERY WHITE DOMINATED/WHITE-LED "VANGUARD" IN THE UNITED STATES HAS IN FACT DONE THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT LENIN PROCLAIMS/RECOMMENDS WHEN IT COMES TO INTERACTING WITH BLACKS AND OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR?

Have any of you actually sat down and seriously thought about why there are so few of us in your organizations; and at the same time why non-white socialist/communist formations, particularly in the Black community, are so small and isolated? I have a few ideas...

I. A fundamentally incorrect analysis of the role of the white left in the last thirty years of civil rights to Black liberation struggle...

By most accounts, groups such as the Black Panther Party, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican Independence Movement "set the standard" for not only communities of color but also for revolutionary elements in the white community.

All of the above groups were ruthlessly crushed; their members imprisoned or killed. Very few white left groups at the time fought back against the onslaught of COINTELPRO by supporting these groups, with the exception of the smaller, armed underground cells. In fact, many groups such as the Progressive Labor Party and the Revolutionary Union (now known as the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA) saw the repression of groups they admired, and at the same time despised, as an opportunity to assert their own version of "vanguard leadership" on our population.

What they failed to recognize (and what many of you generally still fail to recognize) is that "vanguard leadership" is developed, it doesn't just "magically" happen through preachy, dogmatic assertions, nor does it fall from the sky. Instead of working with the smaller autonomous formations, to help facilitate the growth of Black (and white) self-organization (the "vanguard" leadership of the Black masses themselves and all others, nurtured through grassroots social/political alliances rooted in principle), they instead sought to either take them over or divide their memberships against each other until the group or groups were liquidated. These parasitic and paternalistic practices continue to this day.

The only reason any kind of principled unity existed prior to large-scale repression is because Black-led formations had no illusions about white radicals or their politics; and had no problems with kicking the living shit out of them if they started acting stupid. Notice also that the majority of white radicals who were down with real struggle and real organizations, and were actually trusted and respected by our people, are either still active...or still in prison!

II. The white left's concept of "the vanguard party"...

Such arrogance on the part of the white left is part and parcel to your vanguardist ideas and practice. Rather than seeking principled partnerships with non-white persons and groups, you instead seek converts to your party's particular brand of rigid political theology under the guise of "unity". It makes sense that most of you speak of "Black/white unity" and "sharp struggle against racism" in such vague terms, and with such uncertainty in your voices; or with an overexaggerated forcefulness that seems contrived.

Another argument against vanguardist tendencies in individuals or amongst groups is the creation of sectarianism and organizational cultism between groups and within groups. Karl Marx himself fought tirelessly against sectarianism within the working class movement of 19th century Europe. He was also a staunch fighter against those who attempted to push his persona to an almost god-like status, declaring once in frustration "I assure you, sir, I am no Marxist". It could be argued from this viewpoint that the "vanguardist" white left in the US today is generally ,by a definition rooted in the day to day practice of Marx himself, anti-Marx; and by proxy, anti-revolutionary.

Like your average small business, the various self-proclaimed "vanguards" compete against each other as well against the people themselves (both white and non-white); accusing each other of provacteurism, opportunism, and/or possessing "the incorrect line" when in fact most (if not all) are provacateurs, opportunists, and fundementally incorrect.

The nature of capitalist competition demands that such methods and tactics be utilized to the fullest in order to "win" in the business world; the white left has in fact adapted these methods and tactics to their own brand of organizing, actively re-inventing and re-enforcing the very social, political, and economic relations you claim to be against; succeeding in undermining the very basic foundations of your overall theory and all variants of that theory.

Or is this phenomenon part and parcel to your theory? In volume four of the collected works of V.I. Lenin, Lenin himself states up front that "socialism is state-capitalism". Are you all just blindly following a a dated, foreign "blueprint" that is vastly out of context to begin with; with no real understanding of its workings?

At the same time, it could be observed that you folks are merely products of your enviroment; reflective of the alienated and hostile communities and families from which many of you emerge. American society has taught you the tenets of "survival of the fittest" and "rugged individualism", and you swallowed those doctrines like your mother's milk.

Because the white left refuses to combat and reject reactionary tendencies in their (your) own heads and amongst themselves (yourselves), and because they (you) refuse to see how white culture is rooted firmly in capitalism and imperialism; refusing to reject it beyond superficial culture appropriations (i.e.-Native american "dream catchers" hanging from the rear-view mirrors of your vehicles, wearing Addidas or Nikes with fat laces and over-sized Levis jeans or Dickies slacks worn "LA sag" style, crude attempts to "fit-in" by exaggerated, insulting over-use of the latest slang term(s) from "da hood", etc), you in fact re- invent racist and authoritarian social relations as the final product of your so-called "revolutionary theory"; what I call Left-wing white supremacy.

This tragic delemma is compounded by, and finds some of its initial roots in, your generally ahistorical and wishful "analysis" of Black/white relations in the US; and rigid, dogmatic definitions of "scientific socialism" or "revolutionary communism", based in a eurocentric context. Thus, we are expected to embrace these "socialist" values of the settler/conquorer culture, rather than the "traditional amerikkkan values" of your reactionary opponents; as if we do not possess our own "socialist" values, rooted in our own daily and cultural realities! Wasn't the Black Panther Party "socialist"? What about the Underground Railroad; our ancestors (and yes, even some of yours) were practicing "mutual aid" back when most European revolutionary theorists were still talking about it like it was a lofty, far away ideal!

One extreme example of this previously mentioned wishful thinking in place of a true analysis on the historical and current political dynamics particular to this country is an article by Joseph Green entitled "Anarchism and the Market Place, which appeared in the newsletter "Communist Voice" (Vol#1, Issue #4, September 15, 1995).

In it he asserts that anarchism is nothing more than small- scale operations run by individuals that will inevitably lead to the re-introduction of economic exploitation. He also claims that "it fails because its failure to understand the relation of freedom to mass activity mirrors the capitalist ideolgy of each person for their self." He then offers up a vague "plan of action"; that the workers must rely on "class organization and all-round mass struggle". In addition, he argues for the centralization of all means of production.

Clearly, Green's political ideology is in fact a theology. First, anarchism was practiced in mass scale most recently in Spain from 1936-39. By most accounts (including Marxist-Leninist), the Spanish working class organizations such as the CNT (National Confederation of Labor) and the FAI (Federation of Anarchists of Iberia) seized true direct workers power and in fact kept people alive during a massive civil war.

Their main failure was on a military, and partially on an ideological level: (1.) They didn't carry out a protracted fight against the fascist Falange with the attitude of driving them off the face of the planet. (2.) They underestimated the treachery of their Marxist-Leninist "allies" (and even some of their anarchist "allies"), who later sided with the liberal government to destroy the anarchist collectives. Some CNT members even joined the government in the name of a "united front against fascism". And (3.), they hadn't spent enough time really developing their networks outside the country in the event they needed weapons, supplies, or a place to seek refuge quickly.

Besides leaving out those important facts, Green also omits that today the majority of prisoner support groups in the US are anarchist run or influenced. He also leaves out that anarchists are generally the most supportive and involved in grassroots issues such as homelessness, police brutality, Klan/Nazi activity, Native sovereignty issues, [physical] defense of womens health clinics, sexual assault prevention, animal rights, enviromentalism, and free speech issues.

Green later attacks "supporters of capitalist realism on one hand and anarchist dreamers on the other". What he fails to understand is that the movement will be influenced mostly by those who do practical work around day to day struggles, not by those who spout empty rhetoric with no basis in reality because they themselves (like Green) are fundementally incapable of practicing what they preach. Any theory which cannot, at the very least, be demonstrated in miniature scale (with the current reality of the economically, socially, and militarily imposed limitations of capitalist/white supremacist society taken in to consideration) in daily life is not even worth serious discussion because it is rigid dogma of the worst kind.

Even if he could "show and prove", his proposed system is doomed to repeat the cannibalistic practices of Josef Stalin or Pol Pot. While state planning can accelerate economic growth no one from Lenin, to Mao, to Green himself has truly dealt with the power relationship between the working class and the middle-class "revolutionaries" who seize state power "on the behalf" of the latter. How can one use the organizing methods of the European bourgeoisie, "[hierarchial] party building" and "seizing state power" and not expect this method of organizing people to not take on the reactionary characteristics of what it supposedly seeks to eliminate? Then there's the question of asserting ones authoritarian will upon others (the usual recruitment tactics of the white left attemping to attract Black members).

At one point in the article Green claims that anarchistic social relations take on the oppressive characteristics of the capitalist ideology their rooted in. Really? What about the capitalist characteristics of know-it-all ahistorical white "radicals" who can just as effectively assert capitalistic, oppressive social relations when utilizing a top-down party structure (especially when it's utilized against minority populations)? What about the re-assertion of patriarchy (or actual physical and mental abuse) in interpersonal relationships; especially when an organizational structure allows for, and in fact rewards, oppressive social relationships?

What is the qualitative difference between a party bureaucrat who uses his position to steal from the people (in addition to living a neo-bourgeois lifestyle; privilege derived from one's official position and justified by other party members who do the same. And, potentially, derived from the color of his skin in the amerikkkan context) and a collective member who steals from the local community? One major difference is that the bureaucrat can only be removed by the party, the people (once again) have no real voice in the matter (unless the people themselves take up arms and dislodge the bureaucrat and his party); the collective member can recieve a swift punishment rooted in the true working class traditions, culture, and values of the working class themselves, rather than that which is interpreted for them by so- called "professional revolutionaries" with no real ties to that particular community. This is a very important, yet very basic, concept for the white left to consider when working with non- white workers (who, by the way, are the true "vanguard" in the US; Black workers in particular. Check the your history, especially the last thirty years of it.); i.e.- direct community control.

This demand has become more central over the last thirty years as we have seen the creation of a Black elite of liberal and conservative (negrosie) puppets for the white power structure to speak through to the people, the few who were allowed to succeed because they took up the ideology of the oppressor. But, they too have become increasingly powerless as the shift to the right in the various branches of the state and federal government has quickly, and easily, "checked" what little political power they had. Also, we do not have direct control over neighborhood institutions as capitalists, let alone as workers; at least white workers have a means of production they could potentially seize. Small "mom and pop" restaurants and stores or federally funded health clinics and social services in the 'hood hardly count as "Black capitalist" enterprises, nor are any of these things particularly "liberating" in and of themselves.

But white radicals, the white left of the US in particular, have a hard time dealing with the reality that Black people have always managed to survive, despite the worst or best intentions of the majority population. We will continue to survive without you and can make our revolution without you (or against you) if necessary; don't tell us about "protracted struggle", the daily lives of non-white workers are testimony to the true meaning of protracted struggle, both in the US and globally. Your inability or unwillingness to accept the fact that our struggle is parallel to yours, but at the same time very specific, and will be finished successfully when we as a people, as working-class Blacks on the North American continent, decide that we have achieved full freedom (as defined by our history, our culture, our needs, our desires, our personal experiences, and our political idea(s)) is by far the primary reason why the white left is so weak in this country.

In addition, this sinking garbage scow of american leftism is dragging other liberating political vessels down with it, particularly the smaller, anti-authoritarian factions within the white settler nation itself and the few [non-dogmatic and non- ritualistic] individuals within todays Marxist-Leninist parties who sincerly wish to get away from the old, tired historical revisionism of their particular "revolutionary" party.

This seemingly "fixed position", along with many other fixed positions in their "thought", help to reveal the white left's profound isolation and alienation from the Black community as a whole and its activists. Yet, many of them would continue to wholeheartedly, and retardedly, assert that they're part of the community simply because they live in a Black neighborhood or their party headquarters is located there.

The white left's isolation and alienation was revealed even more profoundly in the criticisms of the Million Man March on Washington. In the end, the majority of the white leftist critics wound up tailing the most backward elements of the Republican Party; some going as far as to echo the very same words of Senate majority leader Bob Dole, who commented on the day after the march that " You can't seperate the message from the messenger." Others parroted the words of House majority leader Newt Gingrich, who had the nerve to ask "where did our leadership go wrong?"

Since when were we expected to follow the "leadership" of white amerikkka; the right, left, or center without some type of brutal cohersion? Where is the advantage for us in "following" any of them anywhere? What have any of them done for us lately? Where is the "better" leadership example of any of the hierarchical political tendencies (of any class or ideology) in the US and who do they benefit exclusively and explicitly? None of you were particularly interested in us before we rebelled violently in 1992, why the sudden interest? What do you want from us this time?

Few, if any, of the major pro-revolution left-wing newspapers in the US gave an accurate account of the march. Many of them claimed that only the Black petit-bourgeosie were in attendence. All of them claimed that women were "forbidden" to be there, despite the widely reported fact that our sisters were there in large numbers.

"MIM Notes" (and the Maoist Internationalist Movement itself) to their credit recognize that white workers are NOT the "vanguard" class: yet because they themselves are so profoundly alienated from the Black community on this side of the prison walls they had to rely on information from mainstream press accounts courtesy of the Washington Post. And rightfully alienated they are; who in their right mind actually believes that a small, "secret" cult of white campus radicals can (or should) "lead" the masses of non-white people to their/our freedom? Whatever those people are smoking, I don't want any! I do have to say, however, that MIM is indeed the least dogma addicted of the entire white left millieu that I've encountered; but dogma addicted nonetheless.

I helped organize in the Seattle area for the Million Man March. The strong, Black women I met had every intention of going. None of the men even considered stopping them, let alone suggesting that they not go. Sure, the NOI passed on Minister Farrakhan's message that it was a "men only" march, but it was barely discussed and generally ignored.

The Million Man March local organizing committees (l.o.c.'s) gave the various Black left factions a forum to present ideas and concepts to entire sections of our population who were not familiar with "Marxism", "anarchism", "Kwame Nkrumah", "George Jackson", "The Ten-Point Program", "class struggle", etc.

It also afforded us the opportunity to begin engaging the some of the members of the local NOI chapter in class-based ideological struggle along with participating community people. Of course, it was impossible for the white left to know any of this; more proof of their profound isolation and alienation. At the time, despite our own minor ideological differences, we agreed on one point: it was none of your business or the business of the rest of the white population. When we organize amongst our own, we consider it a "family matter". When we have conflicts, that is also a "family matter". Again, it is none of your business unless we tell you differently. How would you like it if we butted in on a heated family argument you were having with a loved one and started telling you what to think and what to do?

This brings me to two issues that have bothered me since January, 1996. Both comments were made to me by a member of Radical Women at the International Socialist Organization's conference at the University of Washington. The first statement was: "I don't recognize Black people as a 'nation' like I do Native people."

My first thought was "who the fuck are you to pass judgement upon a general self-definition that is rooted in our collective suffering throughout the history of this country?"

She might as well join up with the right-wing Holocaust revisionists; for this is precisely what she is practicing, the denial of the Black holocaust from 1555 to the present (along a parallel denial, by proxy, of the genocide against other non- white nations within the US). Our nationalism emerged as a defense against [your] white racism. The difference between revolutionary Black nationalists (like Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party) and cultural nationalists (like Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam) is that we see our nationalism as a specific tool to defend ourselves from groups and individuals like this ignorant person, not as an exclusive or single means for liberation.

We recognize that we will have to attack bourgeois elements amongst our people just as vigorously as we fight against white supremacists ("left", "center", or "right"). The difference is that our bourgeosie (what I refer to as the "negrosie") is only powerful within the community; they have no power against the white power structure without us, nor do they have power generally without the blessing of the white power structure itself. Our task, then, is to unite them with us against a common enemy while at the same time explicitly undermining (and eventually eliminating) their inherantly reactionary influence.

The second stupidity to pass her lips concerned our support of Black-owned businesses. I pointed out to her that if she had in fact studied her Marxism-Leninism, she would see that their existence goes hand-in-glove with Marx's theory that revolution could only ensue once capitalism was fully developed. She came back with the criticism, "Well, you'll be waiting a long time for that to happen".

Once again, had she actually studied Marxism-Leninism she would know that Lenin and the Bolsheviks also had to deal with this same question. Russia's economy was predominantly agricultural, and its bourgeois class was small. They decided to go with the mood and sentiments of the peasantry and industrial workers at that particular moment in history;..seize the means of production and distribution anyway!

Who says we wouldn't do the same? The participants of the LA rebellion (and others), despite their lack of training in "radical 'left-wing' political theory" (besides being predominantly Black, Latino, or poor white trash in Amerikkka), got it half right; they seized the means of distribution, distributed the products of their [collective] labor, and then burned the facilities to the ground. Yes, there were many problems with the events of 1992, but they did show our potential for future progress.

Black autonomists ultimatly reject vanguardism because as the white left [as well as elements of the Black revolutionary movement] has demonstrated, it errodes and eventually destroys the fragile ties that hold together the necessary principled partnerships between groups and individuals that are needed to accomplish the numerous tasks associated with fighting back successfully and building a strong, diverse, and viable revolutionary movement.

The majority of the white left is largely disliked, disrespected, and not trusted by our people because they fail miserably on this point. How can you claim to be a "socialist" when you are in fact anti-social? How do you all distinguish yourselves from the majority of your people in concrete, practical, and principled terms?

III. Zero (0) support of non-white left factions by the white left.

I've always found this particularly disturbing; you all want our help, but do not want to help us. You want to march shoulder to shoulder with us against the government and its supporters, but do not want us to have a solid political or material foundation of our own to not only win the fight against the white supremacist state but to also re-build our communities on our own behalf in our own likeness(es).

Let white Marxists provide unconditional (no strings attached) material support for non-white factions whose ideology runs parallel to theirs, and let white anarchist factions provide unconditional (again, no strings attached) material support for factions in communities of color who have parallel ideologies and goals. Obviously, the one "string" that can never be avoided is that of harsh economic reality; if you don't have the funds, you can't do it. That's fair and logical, but if you're paying these exorbitant amounts for projects and events that amount to little more than ideological masturbation and organizational cultism while we do practical work out of pocket or on a tiny budget amongst our own, it seems to me that a healthy dose of criticism/self-criticism and reassessment of priorities is in order on the part of you "professional revolutionaries" of the white left.

If the white left "vanguards" are unwilling to materially support practical work by non-white revolutionary factions, then you have no business showing your faces in our neighborhoods. If you "marxist missionaries" insist on coming into our neighborhoods preaching the "gospel" of Marx, Lenin, Mao, etc, the least you could do is "pay" us for our trouble. You certainly haven't offered us much else that's useful.

To their credit, the white anarchists and anti-authoritarian leftists have been generally supportive of the Black struggle by comparison; Black Autonomy and related projects in particular. Matter of fact, back in October of 1994 in an act of mutual aid and solidarity the Philadelphia branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) printed the very first issue of Black Autonomy (1,000 copies) for FREE. One of their members actually got a little upset when I asked how much we owed them for the print job. In return (and in line with our class interests), we allied ourselves with the Philly branch and others in a struggle within the IWW against the more conservative "armchair revolutionary/historical society" elements within its national administrative body.

Former political prisoner, SNCC member, Black Panther, and Black autonomist (anarchist) Lorenzo Komboa Ervin credits the hard work of anarchist groups in Europe and non-vanguardist Marxist and anarchist factions in the US for assisting him in a successful campaign for early release from prison after 13 years of incarceration.

In no way do we expect you or anyone else to bankroll us; what I am offering is one suggestion to those of you who sincerly want to help; and a challenge to those who in fact seek to "play god" with our lives while spouting empty, meaningless rhetoric about "freedom", "justice", "class struggle", and "solidarity". To those people I ask: Do you have ideas, or do ideas have you? Actually, a better question might be: do you think at all?

IV. Bourgeois pseudo-analysis of race and class.

It only makes sense that the white left's analysis of race and class in amerikkka would be so erroneous when you're so quick to jump up and pass judgement on everyone else about this or that, but deathly afraid of real self-criticism at the individual or collective level; opting instead to use tool(s) of self- criticism as a means to reaffirm old, tired ideas that were barely thought out to begin with or by dodging real self-criticism altogether by dogmatically accusing your critics of "red- baiting". Clearly, it is you who "red-bait" yourselves; as the old saying goes, "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones!" Action talks, bullshit walks!

Some of the more backward sections of the white left still push that old tired line "gay, straight, Black, white, same struggle-same fight!" Nothing can be further from the truth. Sure, we are all faced with the same "main enemy": the racist, authoritarian state and its supporters; but unlike white males (straight or gay) and with some minor parallels to the experiences of white women, our oppression begins at birth. This is a commonality that we share with Native people, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, and Asians.

As we grow up, we go from being "cute" in the eyes of the larger society, to being considered "dangerous" by the time we're teenagers. As this point is driven home to us day in and day out in various social settings and circumstances some of us decide, in frustration to give the white folks what they want to believe; we become predatory. This dynamic is played out in ghettos, barrios, chinatowns, and reservations across the country. Even those of us who choose not to engage in criminal activity, or aren't forced into it, have to live under this stigma. In addition, we as individuals are still viewed as "objects" and our community as a "monolith".

We then enter the work force...that is, if there are any jobs available. It is there that we learn that our people and other non-whites are "last hired, first fired", that our white co-workers are generally afraid of us or view as "competition", and that management is watching us even more closely than other workers, while at the same time fueling petty squabbles and competition between us and other non-white workers. Those of us who are fortunate enough to land a union job soon find out that the unions are soft on racism in the workplace. This only makes sense as we learn later on that unions in the US are running dogs of capitalism and apologists for management, despite their "militant" rhetoric.

Most unionized workers are white, reflective of the majority of unionized labor in the US; who constitute a mere 13% of the total labor force. This is why it is silly for the white left to prattle on and on about the labor "movement" and about how so many of our people are joining unions. That's no consolation to us when Black unemployment hovers at 35% nationally; many of those brothers and sisters living in places were "permenent unemployment" is the rule rather than the exception, and many more who find work at non-union "dead end" service industry jobs. One out of three of our people is caught up somewhere within the US criminal "justice" system: in jail, in prison, on parole, on work-release, awaiting trial, etc as a direct result.

In addition, many white workers are supportive of racist Republican politicians, such as presidential candidate Pat Buchannan, who promises to protect their jobs at the expense of non-white workers and immigrants. What is the white left or the union movement doing about all of that?

It shouldn't be suprising that the white left still preaches a largely economist viewpoint when it comes to workers generally, and workers of color in particular. This view is further evidence of not only your own deviation from Marx, but also from Lenin, by your own varied (yet similar) definitions.

Lenin recognized why the majority of Russian revolutionaries of his time put forward an economist position: "In Russia,...the yoke of autocracy appears at first glance to obliterate all distinction between the Social Democrats organization and workers' association, since all workers associations and all study circles are prohibited; and since the principle manifestation and weapon of the workers' economic struggle, the strike, is regarded as a criminal (and sometimes even as a political) offense."

In this country, the distinction between the trade unions and revolutionary organizations is abundantly clear (even if some groups like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) still fail to make the distinction themselves) and the primary contradiction within the working class is that of racial stratification as a class weapon of the bourgeoisie and capitalists against the working class as a whole.

Yet, the white Left (along with the rest of the white working class) fails to see its collaborationist role in this process. And this goes right back to what I said earlier in this writing about the need for a serious historical and cultural critique amongst all white people (and not just the settler nation's left-wing factions) that goes beyond superficial culture appropriations or lofty, dogmatic proclaimations of how committed you and your party is to "racial equality". To even consider oneself "white" or to call oneself "white" is an argument FOR race and class oppression; look at the history of the US and see who first errected these terms "white" and "Black", and why they were created in the first place.

I remember last summer, around the fourth of July, I had a member of the local SWP try to tell me that the American War of Independence was "progressive". Progressive for whom? Tell us the truth, who were the primary beneficiaries of the American Revolution? You know the answer, we all do; only a total, unrepentant reactionary would lie to the people, especially on this point.

Howard Zinn, in his work "A People's History of the United States", points out how early 20th century historian Charles Beard found that of the fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to draw up the US Constitution "a majority of them were lawyers by profession, that most were men of wealth, in land, in slaves, manufacturing, or shipping; that half of them had money loaned out at interest, and that forty of the fifty- five held government bonds, according to records of the [US] Treasury Department. Thus, Beard found that most of the makers of the Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong federal government: the manufacturers needed protective tariffs; the moneylenders wanted to stop the use of paper money to pay off debts; the land speculators wanted protection as they invaded Indian lands; slaveowners needed federal security against slave revolts and runaways; bondholders wanted a government able to raise money by nationwide taxation, to pay off those bonds.

Four groups, Beard noted, were not represented in the Constitutional Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women, men without property. And so the Constitution did not reflect the interests of those groups." (Zinn, pg.90)

Come to terms with your white skin privilege (and the ideology and attitude(s) this privilege breeds) and then figure out how to combat that dynamic as part of your fight against the state and its supporters. Your continued backwardness is a sad commentary when we uncover historical evidence which shows that even before the turn of the century some of your own ancestors within the white working class were begining to take the first small steps towards a greater understanding of their social role as the white servants of capital. A white shoemaker in 1848 wrote:

"...we are nothing but a standing army that keeps three million of our bretheren in bondage...Living under the shade of Bunker Hill monument, demanding in the name of humanity, our right, and withholding those rights from others because their skin is black! Is it any wonder that God in his righteous anger has punished us by forcing us to drink the bitter cup of degradation." (Zinn, pg.222)

We can even look to the historical evidence of Lenin's time. Prior to the publishing of Lenin's "On Imperialism", W.E.B. DuBois wrote an article for the May, 1915 edition of the Atlantic Monthly titled "The African Roots of War" in which he vividly describes how both rich and poor whites benefit from the super- exploitation of non-white people:

"Yes, the average citizen of England, France, Germany, the United States, had a higher standard of living than before. But: 'Whence comes this new wealth?'...It comes primarily from the darker nations of the world-Asia and Africa, South and Central America, the West Indies, and the islands of the South Seas. It is no longer simply the merchant prince, or the aristocratic monopoly, or even the employing class that is exploiting the world: it is the nation, a new democratic nation composed of united capital and labor." (Zinn)

Yet, the self-titled "anti-racists" of the left continue on with their infantile fixation on the Klan, Nazis, and right-wing militias. Groups that they say they are against, but in fact demonstrate a tolerance for in practice. Standing around chanting empty slogans in front of a line of police seperating demonstrators from the nazis in a "peaceful demonstration" is contradiction in its purest form; both the police and the fascists must be mercilessly destroyed! As the Spanish anarchist Buenventura Durruti proclaimed back in 1936 "Fascism is not to be debated, it is to be smashed!" There is no room for compromise or dialogue, except for asking them for a last meal request and choice of execution method before we pass sentence; and even that is arbitrary!

True, tactical considerations must be examined, but if we can't get at them then and there, there is no "rule" that says we can't follow them and hit them when they least expect it; except for the "rule" of the wanna-be rulers of the Marxist-Leninist white left "vanguard(s)" who only see the fascists as competition in their struggle to see which set of "empire builders" will lord over us; the "good" whites who regulate us to the amerikkkan left plantation of "the glorious workers state", or the "bad" whites who work us as slaves until half-dead and then laugh as our worn out carcasses are thrown into ovens, cut up for "scientific purposes", or hung from lamp posts and trees. You people have yet to show me the qualitative difference(s) between a Klan/Nazi- style white supremacist dictatorship and your concept of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" in the context of this particular country and its notorious history. So far, all I have seen from you all is arrogance in coalitions, petty games of political one-upmanship, and ideological/tactical rigidity.

Let's pretend for a minute that one of the various wanna-be vanguards actually seizes political power. In everyone of your programs, from the program of the RCP, USA to even smaller, lesser known groups there is usually a line somewhere in there about your particular party holding the key levers of state power within a "dictatorship of the proletariat". Have any of you actually considered what that sounds like to a community without real power? Does this mean that we as Black people are going to have fight and die a second time under your dictatorship in order to have equal access to employment, housing, schools, colleges, public office, party status, our own personal lives generally?

Look at our history; over one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclaimation (the 1960's) we were still dying for the right to vote, for the right to protest peacefully, for the right to live in peace and prosperity within the context of white domination and capitalism. Today, after all of that, it is clear that the masses of our people are still largely powerless; we stayed powerless even as public schools were being desegregated and more of our elites were being elected to Congress and other positions. The same racist, authoritarian state that stripped us of our humanity was now asserting itself as our first line of defense of those hard-won concessions in the form of federal troops and FBI "observers" (who watched as we were beaten, raped, and/or killed) sent to enforce The Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As we have seen since that time, what the white power structure grants, it can (and will) take away; we can point to recent US Supreme Court decisions around voter redistricting as one part of our evidence. We can also look to the problem of mail and publication censorship in the US prison system (state and federal) that has come back to haunt us since the landmark 1960's first amendment legal challenge to the state of New York that was won by political prisoner and Black/Puerto Rican anarchist Martin Sostre. And then there's the attacks on a prisoners' right to sue a prison official, employee, or institution being made by the House and Senate. Give us one good reason to believe that you people will be any different than these previous and current "benevolent" leaders and political institutions if by some fluke or miracle you folks stumble into state power?

No "guarantees" againt counter-revolution or revisionism within your "revolutionary" party/government you say? There are two: the guns, ammunition, organization, solidarity, political consciousness, and continuous vigilance of the masses of non- white people and the truly sympathetic, conscious anti-authoritarian few amongst your population; or a successful grassroots- based revolution that is rooted in anti-authoritarian political ideas that are culturally relevant to each ethnicity of the poor and working class population in the US. Judging by the general attitudes and theories expressed by your members and leadership, we can be rest assured that it is virtually guaranteed that the spirit of 'Jim Crow' can and will flourish within a white-led Marxist-Leninist "proletarian dictatorship" in the US. It's clear to me why you all ramble on and on about the revolutions of China, Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, etc; they provide convienient cover for you all (read: escapism) to avoid a serious examination of the faults in your current analysis as well as in the historical analysis of the last thirty years of struggle in the US.

These are the only conclusions that can be drawn when you all are so obviously hostile to the idea of doing the hard work of confronting your own individual racist and reactionary tendencies. When your own fellow white activists attempted to put together an "Anti-Racism Workshop" for members of the Seattle Mumia Defense Committee, many of you pledged your support (in the form of the usual dogmatic, vague, and arguably baseless rhetorical proclaimations of "solidarity" and "commitment to racial equality") and then proceeded to not show up. Only the two initial organizers within the SMDC and two coalition members (neither affiliated with any political party) were there. Make no mistake, I have no illusions about white people confronting their own racism; but I do support their honest attempts at doing so. Here we have a situation in which an ideological leap amongst the white left in Seattle may have been initiated; yet, the all- knowing, all-seeing "revolutionary vanguard(s)" of the white left were too busy spending that particular weekend picking the lent out of their belly buttons. Are we saving our belly-button lent for the potential shortages of food that occur during and shortly after the revolution [is corrupted by the mis-leadership of your particular rigid, dogmatic, authoritarian party]?

V. The bottom line is this: Self-determination!

For most white leftists, this means that we as Black people are demanding our own seperate nation-state. Some of our revolutionary factions do advocate such a position. Black Autonomists, however, reject nation-statism [For more on that, refer to page 15 of any copy of Black Autonomy newspaper].

Regardless of whether or not the Black masses opt for a seperate homeland on this continent or in Africa, we will be respected as subjects of history and not as objects that the state, its supporters, or the white left decides what to do with.

The answer to "the Black question" is simple: It is not a question; we are people, you will deal with us as such or we will fight you and the rest of the white settler nation...by any and all means necessary! We will not be cowed or dominated by anyone ever again!

Too many times in the course of American (and world) history have our people fought and died for the dream of true freedom, only to have it turn into the nightmare of continued oppression. If the end result of a working-class revolution in the United States is the continued domination of non-white people by white "revolutionary leaders" and a Left-wing [white supremacist] government, then we will make another revolution until any and all perpetrators and supporters of that type of social-political relationship are defeated or dead! Any and all means are completely justifiable in order to prevent the defeat of our revolution and the re-introduction of white supremacy. We will not put up with another 400+ years of oppression; and I'm sure our Native and Hispanic brothers and sisters won't tolerate another 500+ years of the same ol' shit.

Ultimatly, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"; that's the main reason I decided to publish this, as yet another humble contribution to the self-education of our people. The second reason is to, hopefully, inspire the white left to re- examine your current practices and beliefs as part of your process of self-education; assuming that you all in fact practice self-education.

Reject the traditions of your ancestors and learn from their mistakes; or reject your potential allies in communities of color. The choice is yours...

"It is a commentary on the fundementally racist nature of this society that the concept of group strength for black people must be articulated, not to mention defended. No other group would submit to being led by others. Italians do not run the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Irish do not chair Chistopher Columbus Societies. Yet when black people call for black-run and all-black organizations, they are immediatly classed in a catagory with the Ku Klux Klan." -Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael), Black Power; Vintage Press, 1965.

via IWW

[eerie-qwq]

1. What is you middle name?

2. How old are you?

3. When is your birthday?

4. What is your zodiac sign?

5. What is your favorite color?

6. What’s your lucky number?

7. Do you have any pets?

8. Where are you from?

9. How tall are you?

10. What shoe size are you?

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

12. What was your last dream about?

13. What talents do you have?

14. Are you psychic in any way?

15. Favorite song?

16. Favorite movie?

17. Who would be your ideal partner?

18. Do you want children?

19. Do you want a church wedding?

20. Are you religious?

21. Have you ever been to the hospital?

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?

23. Have you ever met any celebrities?

24. Baths or showers?

25. What color socks are you wearing?

26. Have you ever been famous?

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity?

28. What type of music do you like?

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?

30. How many pillows do you sleep with?

31. What position do you usually sleep in?

32. How big is your house?

33. What do you typically have for breakfast?

34. Have you ever fired a gun?

35. Have you ever tried archery?

36. Favorite clean word?

37. Favorite swear word?

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?

39. Do you have any scars?

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer?

41. Are you a good liar?

42. Are you a good judge of character?

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?

44. Do you have a strong accent?

45. What is your favorite accent?

46. What is your personality type?

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?

48. Can you curl your tongue?

49. Are you an innie or an outie?

50. Left or right handed?

51. Are you scared of spiders?

52. Favorite food?

53. Favorite foreign food?

54. Are you a clean or messy person?

55. Most used phrased?

56. Most used word?

57. How long does it take for you to get ready?

58. Do you have much of an ego?

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?

60. Do you talk to yourself?

61. Do you sing to yourself?

62. Are you a good singer?

63. Biggest Fear?

64. Are you a gossip?

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen?

66. Do you like long or short hair?

67. Can you name all 50 states of America?

68. Favorite school subject?

69. Extrovert or Introvert?

70. Have you ever been scuba diving?

71. What makes you nervous?

72. Are you scared of the dark?

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?

74. Are you ticklish?

75. Have you ever started a rumor?

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?

77. Have you ever drank underage?

78. Have you ever done drugs?

79. Who was your first real crush?

80. How many piercings do you have?

81. Can you roll your Rs?“

82. How fast can you type?

83. How fast can you run?

84. What color is your hair?

85. What color is your eyes?

86. What are you allergic to?

87. Do you keep a journal?

88. What do your parents do?

89. Do you like your age?

90. What makes you angry?

91. Do you like your own name?

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?

94. What are you strengths?

95. What are your weaknesses?

96. How did you get your name?

97. Were your ancestors royalty?

98. Do you have any scars?

99. Color of your bedspread?

100. Color of your room?

Oh- sorry, didn't see this til now.. Hoh boy here goes

Jess

17

January 3rd

Capricorn

Indigo

12

3 turtle doves, a fantail pigeon and 2 cats

Ohio

5'7

9

Good question, let's go with 4

Death and Skyrim

Hm.. I can draw and write sometimes

I can see auras and am an empath, so there's that

I have like 600 of those but I can go with Welcome Home by Radical Face

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Coraline

A couple of sweethearts (@theconfusedleo)

Sure

Eh not big on churches but I wouldn't really mind

Kind of? I can pull things from various faiths, but looking more into spiritual things

A few times

Nope

Kind of

Hm baths

Grey and blue

Nope

Not really

All kinds. From folk to heavy metal

Nope

On one, 3 others, and some stuffed animals

On my side, usually curled up

Pretty small

I don't usually have breakfast, but my go-to would be cereal

I have

No, and I really want to

Defenestration

FUCK

Don't remember, but I've gone at least 3 days

Yep

I don't think so

Depends on why I'm lying and what I'm lying about, but I can be

For the most part, yes

Kind of, I'm decent at French and German, and stereotyped British

Nope

German

If you mean the MBTI thing, I'm an INFP-T

A Legend of Zelda Hoodie and an Adidas one, don't remember actual price

Yep

Innie

Right

Only a bit

Crab legs

Schnitzel

An odd mix of both

Does "I'm having a stroke" count?

Babey

10-15 minutes, normally

Not really

Cronch

Sometimes

Yes

Nnnope, I've been told I'm good though

Being left alone with it not being my choice

Within reason

Not really sure, Hidden Figures was pretty good, if that counts

I, myself like having short hair. For other people I kinda like long, but either way is fine

Nope

Art

Introvert

No

Everything, but mostly conflict between people

It depends, but lately, yeah

Yeah, but if they don't want me to, I won't

Yeahhh very

Nope

Not really

I've had like one sip of wine, wasn't bad but drinking seems kinda scary

No that scary

Someone I went to school with freshman year

Just my ears

No

Pretty fast

Bold of you to assume I run

Brown, kinda red in the sun

Brown

Pine, maybe bees

Kinda, I forget to write in it

Parents? Pfffffft

I have mixed feelings but it's alright

It takes a lot for me to get angry, so I'll go with 10 years of lying and being generally terrible

My given name isn't too bad, and I like the name I use irl too, which is actually Alex

I haven't, but I like older European names

I don't really have a preference, maybe boy though

I'm a natural leader and very patient

I am stubborn and sensitive

Not really sure about my birth name, but the name Alex, I gave myself cause it's neutral, sounds close to my given name and is just nice

I don't think so

Yep again

Don't use a bedspread currently, but I have a blanked with a grey and brown wolf on it and a pink one with feathers

Basic off-white, couple of tapestries on the walls and several dream catchers.

I did it yeyy, here you go

[lovelyjujubean]

happy new year!! poppers are heard down the block mixed with loud cheers all bouncing off every 900 plus square foot walls, our celebration of life comes twice a year, our birthdays and when we are granted a renewal of 365 days.

martin luther king day and valentine’s day, love lost and found, lack of faith and support. the start and ending of something big, memorable, fulfilling.

you should be reminded on february and march 1st that on this day we are alive because of the ones no longer standing by our side. they fought to have a day of their own.

on daylight saving i lie in bed long enough not to notice that the time has changed, that now the sun must rush to rise sooner so that the moon can come from behind the hills

st patrick’s day, is all about luck and pots of gold located at the end of a rainbow. when i was a child i learned that there is no end to a rainbow, no leprechauns, free pots of gold, or anything able to give you anymore luck than you were born with, that is often seldom.

you are not alone. there is a people who love you, appreciate you, rely on your love and support existing. you are not alone. april fools day

april is a month full of a religious appreciation, there was a point when easter came around and my mother dolled me up for church, afterwards i went to my fathers for hotdogs and lays chips. religion was never something taken serious around me, god acted as someone to throw problems on, a wish and dream catcher of the sort.

on mother’s day my sister and i rush to make something creative for my mother, she deserves to know her love is not materialistic. that she is the root of me, the stem of my very being. when people look at us together they say we are twins, i am just a variation of 15 shades lighter. i can see my own suffering in her eyes.

juneteenth, the day of freedom. something that no one is ever granted full heartedly. june 19th is the day that white america was forced to see people of color as humans, juneteenth is the day they were allowed a fighting chance

happy fathers day, i found out that me and my sister izzy have gotten my father the same pair of flip flops for years. i learned i do not hold my father in my heart where he should be. he deserves some medal for always being there despite the way he thought i felt.

4th of july is full of fireworks that expand the size of ginormous clouds. i wonder what it would feel like to be placed in a firework container and shot into the sky. i hope i would turn out just as beautifully as the others. i hope i would go out in a bang.

boo. today is the day we collectively put on costumes and masks and distort ourselves. tell me are you more confident one day of the year or 364.

happy thanksgiving, i will feast like it’s our last meal. we will all sit on a long benched table, and discuss the end of the world

on december 25th i eat roast beef and stare out the window. i see a shadow, a ghost, a ball of light. an angel. i’m dying. they stare back. there is no one there. - juju

inspired by the fact i didn’t know there was so many holidays

[flightandsurvival]

Ayyyye.

General Womanhood

1. Do you like the color pink? I like a nice dusty rose. 

2. How easily do you cry? It depends. 

3. What food do you eat the most of when you’re sad? When I’m sad I eat a lot of pastries. 

4. How often do you experience boob sweat? Anytime that the humidity is over 40%.

5. What time of month is your time? I don’t have that anymore.

6. How moody are you when you are on your period? Not really. 

7. Have you ever thought you were pregnant because your period was late? Nope.

8. Have you ever been on the pill? Currently.  9. Have you ever thought about having children someday? What is your current opinion? I think about it from time to time. I’m not sure if I will have children one day or not.  10. Have you ever given birth? If not, would you ever want to? Nope, and I’m not sure.  11. How much do you like decorating for holidays? I don’t like decorating. At all.  12. How good of a cook do you consider yourself? Mediocre.  13. What is your favorite thing to cook? Stir fry.  14. Do you prefer cooking, baking, or both equally? Baking.  15. Can you sew? I can. It’s not pretty though.  16. How feminine do you consider yourself? I’m female. I don’t know... I’m regularly feminine.  17. Have you ever been told that you are too girly or feminine? No. 18. Do you consider yourself a feminist? Yes, absolutely.  19. How do you define “girl power”? Women supporting women.  20. How much of a neat freak are you? Not really much of a neat freak at all.  21. How you ever wished you were born a male? Nope.  22. Breastfeeding or formula? Whatever is best for the person breastfeeding.  23. What is your opinion of equal pay? I think that anyone, regardless of sex, gender, ability, etc., doing the same job with the same quality should be paid the same wages. I also think that all wages should meet the cost of living inflation.  24. What is one profession you think needs more women? I think that every profession needs more women. Women are wonderful.  25. Are you pro-life or pro-choice? I am heavily pro-choice.  26. Have you ever experienced any sexism? If so, please explain. Yes. Usually in microaggressions, sometimes in overt ways that are disguised as “humor”.  27. Have you ever been called a blabbermouth or a chatterbox? Lol, no. I’m fairly quiet. 

28. What is one thing about women you think most men don’t know? I’m not sure. This is a generalization I won’t make.  29. Is there anything you dislike about being a woman? No.  30. Complete this phrase: I’m so glad I am a woman because ______. Women are magic. 

LIFE EXPERIENCES:

31. Did you ever play with Barbie dolls as a child? Yup. 

32. Have you ever dotted lowercase Js and Is with hearts or smiley faces? Probably hearts. 

33. Have you ever been a Girl Scout? Nope. 

34. Have you ever been a ballerina? Nope. 

35. Have you ever been a cheerleader? Yes, my whole family was involved in cheerleading. 

36. Were you ever voted as homecoming or prom queen? No.

37. Have you ever hosted a sleepover? Many times. 

38. Do you belong to a sorority? Nope.

39. Have you ever kept a diary or a journal? I currently have a journal, good self-care. 

40. At what age did you get your first period? 12. 

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE:

41. What is the longest your hair has ever been? Would you ever grow it that long again? I think the longest has been low back. It’s getting there and I have no intentions of cutting it at the moment. 

42. Have you had a hairstyle above the eyebrows? I’ve had fringe. I’ve never had hair that short beyond the bald baby years. 

43. What hairstyle do you wear the most? Loose.

44. Have you ever died your hair? If so, how often? Many times, many weird colors, and whenever I am feeling the need for change. 

45. What is the heaviest you remember ever weighing? I’m truly at my heaviest now, 220lb. 

46. How muscular are you? I’m fairly muscular. I’m a strong lady. 

47. Do you have any piercings anywhere besides your earlobes? I had my nipples, nose, and lip pierced. Right now it’s just my ears. 

48. Do you have any tattoos? If you, where are they and what are they of? I’ve got a dragon (left shoulder blade), a dream catcher (low back), an unalome (nape), a lotus (sternum), and an elephant (left inner/upper arm). 

49. Do you like wearing lipstick or lip gloss? If so, how often do you wear them? I love a little matte lipstick. I wear it almost everyday unless it’s Winter. In Winter the SAD takes over and I don’t give a fuck about putting on makeup. 

50. How often do you paint your nails? Not often. 

51. Have you ever worn any fake nails? Yup. 

52. Have you ever worn fake eyelashes? Yes. 

53. How often do you shave or wax your legs? I shave my legs 2-3 times a week. 

54. How white are your teeth? Fairly white. 

55. Have you ever been told that you look like a certain celebrity? America Ferrera, Gina Rodriguez. Lol... I’m Chinese. 

56. How much do you look like your mother? Not much, I spent a lot of my childhood with people asking me if I was adopted. I’m not. 

57. How much do you look like your father? Very much so. We 100% look like father and daughter. 

58. What do you think is your best physical feature? My skin. I have great skin. I also have great hair. 

59. What do you think is your worst physical feature? My very fat upper arms. It makes it hard to find shirts that fit well. 

60. How good are you at communicating through facial expressions? Fairly good. 

FASHION STYLE: 61. What type of clothing do you own the most of? Workout leggings and t-shirts.  62. How big is your closet? Not big.  63. Have you ever looked through your closet and though “I have nothing to wear”? Literally always.  64. What is your favorite fashion brand? For Days, Torrid, Aerie.  65. Do you wear skirts and dresses at all? If so, how often? Yes, regularly.  66. What is your dress size? Large, 14.  67. What is the shortest length of skirts and dresses you are comfortable wearing? Finger tips.  68. How expensive was your prom dress? $500 69. What is the most expensive piece of clothing you currently own? I’m not sure.  70. Do you wear high heels or stilettos at all? If so, how often? I will not ever wear stilettos, but I definitely wear heels on the regular.  71. Have you ever worn high heels casually? Yes.  72. How often do you take an OOTD (outfit of the day) selfie? Not often enough.  73. Have you ever worn the exact same outfit from head to toe more than once? Yes.  74. How often do you wear a bra when out in public? Nearly always.  75. How often do you wear a bra when bumming it at home? Rarely.  76. When you get home from work, how soon does your bra typically come off? Within 10 minutes.  77. Have you ever carried a spare bra with you in your purse? No. 78. Which are you more likely to go without: A bra or panties? Panties.  79. Does it matter to you if your bra and panties match or not? I have never owned a matching set.  80. What type of underwear do you typically wear? Thongs during the day, full butt panties for bedtime.  81. How much of your underwear is white? Not many pairs.  82. Have you ever carried a spare pair of underwear with you in your purse? Not that I can recall. 83. Do you like eyeshadow? I do.  84. Do you like mascara? Yup.  85. How much makeup do you typically wear? Depends on how I’m feeling. Sometimes none, sometimes a little, sometimes a shit ton.  86. Have you every gone out in public without any makeup on? Yes. Often.  87. How much jewelry do you typically wear? The original jewelry put in when I got my rook pierced and 3 rings.  88. Is there any kind of jewelry you pretty much always wear? See previous answer.  89. Do you carry a purse at all? I have a backpack.  90. Do you like tube and halter tops? Not really.  91. Do you like crop tops? Sometimes.  92. Are you comfortable showing off a little cleavage? Yes.  93. One-piece swimsuits or bikinis? Either.  94. Does it matter to you if your bikini top matches the bottom? No. 

WEDDING CRAZE:

95. Have you ever been a bridesmaid? If so, how often? When I was little. Just once. 

96. Do you have any desires to get married? Nope. 

97. For how long have you thought about your wedding? Not long lol. 

98. How much of your wedding do you have planned out already? If I ever did choose to get married it would be done in the Fall, likely late September or early October. It would be at an apple orchid. That’s it. 

99. Would you rather have a big or a small wedding? Small as shit. 

100. Would you rather have a lot of bridesmaids or just a couple? Small handful. Sammy, Joanie, Brookie, Ellie. It’s a theme. 

101. Would you rather have an indoor or an outdoor wedding? Does the same go for the reception? Outdoor. Yes. 

DATING & RELATIONSHIPS:

102. What is your current relationship status? Single.

103. What is the longest relationship you’ve ever had? 14 months, very on and off though... Carter was a straight nine months. 

104. Do you consider yourself a hopeless romantic at all? Oh absolutely. I love love. I love caring for people, loving people, and connecting with people. 

105. Are you a virgin? If not, which gender did you lose your virginity to? Nope, a male. 

106. What personality trait are you most attracted to? Honesty. 

107. Have you ever been on a blind date? No.

108. Has anyone you know ever tried to set you up on a date? Yes. 

109. Do you use any dating apps? If so, have they ever worked out for you? I did until recently. They worked enough to go on dates, but nothing serious came out of it. 

110. Do you kiss on the first date? I would if it felt right. 

111. How often do guys hit on you? Lol, I am not someone who picks up on that. I need very direct cues. Example- a good friend and I hung out at my place, I truly believed we were just good friends hanging out. Then he straight up asked if I wanted to makeout and suddenly we were in my bed. 

112. Have women ever hit on you? Yes. 

114. Have you ever kissed another woman while sober? If so, did you like it? Yes. It was weird, I was young and it was my best friend at the time.

115. Have you ever dated another woman? No.

116. After how long of dating do you typically consider a relationship to be serious? It’s far more nuanced than that. If we’ve been together for a month but have spent every day together and are in constant contact, I’d say we’re relatively serious. If were together for four months but see each other like once a week and don’t keep in regular contact we’re not serious. 

117. Would you rather your lover give you chocolate, flowers, both, or something else? Flowers are nice. I’d probably be more excited with like a spontaneous trip to the MSPCA to play with the cats... but that’s just me. 

118. Are you friends with any of your exes? Nope. One ex cannot even be in the same room with me without a very heavy tension invading the space between- I’m not even sure why he was awful to me and I’m super over it lol. The other one I have no interactions with and truly I wish him well but I’d also be happy not running into him ever. 

119. Is sex before marriage wrong? Nope. Sex is only wrong if there isn’t consent. 

ENTERTAINMENT: 120. What celebrity do you most admire and why? I admire Amy Brenneman tremendously. She’s a wonderful actress, she’s a humanitarian, and she’s truly such a kind human. I was able to meet her, it was amazing.  121. Do you like romantic comedies? Do you have any favorites? I think they’re okay. No favorites.  122. Do you have a favorite romantic movie? No. I don’t really live movies. My adult ADHD is too real.  123. Who is your favorite Disney princess? Badass homie Mulan. Not just because she’s Chinese but because she’s the most badass. Also she isn’t actually a princess but she get lumped into that category. 

124. What is your favorite Disney song? All is Found from Frozen 2.  125. Do you watch The Bachelor or The Bachelorette? Nope, it is an uncomfortable concept.  126. Have you ever watched Sex & The City? Yup.  127. Have you ever watched any shows such as Project Runway or America’s Next Top Model? I loved ANTM as a kid. Mostly I liked the drama of the makeovers.  128. Do you like watching any beauty pageants such as Miss America? Nope.  129. Do you like watching the red carpet arrivals before award ceremonies? Nope.  130. Beyonce or Taylor Swift? Both.  131. Oprah Winfrey or Ellen DeGeneres? I don’t watch either but they’re both really great people. 

A PILE OF RANDOMNESS: 132. Are you named after anyone? No.  133. How many male friends do you have? A good amount.  134. Have you ever been considered the mother of your group of friends? Yes. 135. Have you ever called your friend friends your ‘girlfriends’? Yes.  136. Have you ever called a non-lover a term such as honey, babe, dear, or darling? Yes.  137. How many items do you own that are of a floral print design? Idk.  138. Have you ever scoffed at something because you thought it wasn’t feminine enough? No.  139. How healthy do you eat? Not the most healthy.  140. What is your preferred way to carry a purse: Clutched in your hand, on your elbow, or on your shoulder? On my back. I like backpacks.  141. Besides you phone, money, wallet, and keys, name five things you always have with you in your purse. Pen, notebook, chromebook, doTerra essential oil roll on, hand lotion.

142. Have you ever lost anything inside your purse? Yes.  143. Have you ever used your bra or your cleavage as a purse or a pocket? Yes.  144. Do you consider shopping a sport No.  145. Do you shop more in physical walk-in stores or online? Online.  146. What is the most amount of money you remember ever spending in one single shopping trip? Not sure.  147. How often do you have a girls’ night out? Nearly never. I’ve got course work, internship, and actual work. I only see my friends at work right now. 

148. Do you prefer coffee or tea? Both.  149. How polite do you consider yourself? Polite enough. 150. Can you do the splits? Nope. 151. Do you like doing any yoga? Yes.  152. Have you ever been told that you have cute handwriting? Yes. 

153. How well can you write in cursive? Well.  154. Have you ever successfully been on a diet? Yes.  155. Do you currently or have you ever belonged to a book club? I will have a book club after Spring break for work- I work at a school and one of my students asked to have a book club.  156. Have you ever talked yourself out of a driving ticket by using your looks? No.  157. Have you ever drunk a non-alcoholic beverage from a wine glass? Yes.  158. Do you prefer showers or baths? Baths, if the tub is big enough to have my boobs and knees and I have a bath bomb  159. Have you ever snorted while laughing? Yeah.  160. How strict are you about manners? I’m not “strict” about it, but general rule of thumb is don’t be a dick. 

[kaitieedoll]

150 Questions

1. Who was the last person you held hands with? My mom

2. Are you outgoing or shy? Shy

3. Who are you looking forward to seeing? I don’t know.

4. Are you easy to get along with? Not really.

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you? Yes.

6. What kind of people are you attracted to? People who are the perfect package - kind, sweet, smart and funny.

7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now? Yes.

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind? My boyfriend.

9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? Fuck no.

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? Again, my boyfriend.

11. What does the most recent text that you sent say? That is private.

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

Cry Baby by The Neighbourhood

Dead Girl Walking from Heathers the Musical

Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd

Electricity by Ashley Jana

Danny Don’t You Know by Ninja Sex Party

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair? Yes but only certain people.

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles? Yeah

15. What good thing happened this summer? Idk

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? Hopefully I’ll kiss him for the rest of my life.

17. Do you think there is life on other planets? Absolutely.

18. Do you still talk to your first crush? No

19. Do you like bubble baths? Yessss

20. Do you like your neighbors? One house

21. What are your bad habits? I bite my nails, pick my skin, crack my knuckles, don’t eat, binge, steal etc.

22. Where would you like to travel? New York City

23. Do you have trust issues? Yes

24. Favorite part of your daily routine? Sleep

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with? My belly or thighs, probably thighs.

26. What do you do when you wake up? Check my phone.

27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker? Lighter even though I’m pretty pale. I just love that aesthetic.

28. Who are you most comfortable around? I don’t know

29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up? I don’t have any exes.

30. Do you ever want to get married? Yes

31. Is your hair long enough for a pony tail? Technically

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with? Winona Ryder, Chris Hemsworth, all the Guardians of the Galaxy, either Fanning sister, Ryan Reynolds, Jenna Marbles and her boyfriend Julien, ¾ of the Try Guys, every member past and present of Game Grumps and Tom Holland

33. Spell your name with your chin. I*qa75 (That’s supposed to be Kait)

34. Do you play sports? What sports? No but I want to dance

35. Would you rather live without TV or music? TV

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them? No, I’m pretty straightforward about crushes.

37. What do you say during awkward silences? Nothing.

38. Describe your dream girl/guy? My boyfriend

39. What are your favorite stores to shop in? I love Target, Walmart and other stores like that.

40. What do you want to do after high school? Become a parent and a writer

41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? Depends

42. If you’re being extremely quiet what does it mean? I don’t know man

43. Do you smile at strangers? Sometimes!

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean? Neither

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning? I have no clue

46. What are you paranoid about? Everything.

47. Have you ever been high? Nope.

48. Have you ever been drunk? Tipsy but not drunk.

49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about? Nah

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore? Red

51. Ever wished you were someone else? Yes

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself? My hair length or weight

53. Favourite makeup brand? None I hate makeup.

54. Favourite store? Target

55. Favourite blog? I really loved imperfect-nights but that was my blog

56. Favourite colour? Red

57. Favourite food? Hot cheeto puffs

58. Last thing you ate? A greek salad

59. First thing you ate this morning? Dinner

60. Ever won a competition? For what? I won a reading contest once!

61. Been suspended/expelled? For what? Nope

62. Been arrested? For what? Nope

63. Ever been in love? Yes

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss? It was my first time seeing my boyfriend in years and it was super cute and awkward

65. Are you hungry right now? No

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends? I have no tumblr friends

67. Facebook or Twitter? Facebook

68. Twitter or Tumblr? Tumblr

69. Are you watching tv right now? No

70. Names of your bestfriends? Melissa

71. Craving something? What? HOT CHEETO PUFFS

72. What colour are your towels? Purple at my dad’s but orange at my mom’s

72. How many pillows do you sleep with? I have a lot but I don’t sleep with my head on them

73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? Yes

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have? A lot

75. Favourite animal? Polar bears or cats

76. What colour is your underwear? Pink

77. Chocolate or Vanilla? It really depends on the mood I’m in!

78. Favourite ice cream flavour? Cookies and Creme, Mint Chip, Cookie Dough, Chocolate Panda Paws and Chocolate Peanut Stampede are my favorites.

79. What colour shirt are you wearing? Grey

80. What colour pants? Black! They’re literally the comfiest leggings on planet earth! They’re from Charlotte Russe.

81. Favourite tv show? Dance Moms

82. Favourite movie? Heathers

83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2? Mean Girls

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street? Mean Girls

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls? Janis

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo? Pearl

87. First person you talked to today? Melissa, my best friend

88. Last person you talked to today? Ethan, my boyfriend

89. Name a person you hate? I don’t know, I dislike a lot of people but I don’t like saying names of people I hate

90. Name a person you love? Isabella, my sweet little niece.

91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now? No

92. In a fight with someone? No

93. How many sweatpants do you have? A lot but I wish I had more

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have? A lot as well but also wish I had more.

95. Last movie you watched? Love, Simon

96. Favourite actress? Winona Ryder

97. Favourite actor? Chris Pratt

98. Do you tan a lot? Never

99. Have any pets? Yes! My family has a cat named Hunter but I have a winter white dwarf hamster called Oreo Salinger

100. How are you feeling? I don’t know how I’m feeling

101. Do you type fast? Yes, very fast. I am a writer after all.

102. Do you regret anything from your past? No, mistakes make us who we are. The one thing I genuinely want to change is one time I told my niece, who was six months old and sick, I hated her because she sneezed in my face.

103. Can you spell well? Yes

104. Do you miss anyone from your past? My grandmothers, who have both passed

105. Ever been to a bonfire party? No

106. Ever broken someone’s heart? No

107. Have you ever been on a horse? I think?

108. What should you be doing? I don’t know

109. Is something irritating you right now? Nope

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt? Yes

111. Do you have trust issues? Yes

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of? My mom

113. What was your childhood nickname? Kaitie

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state? Yes! I’ve been to Pennsylvania twice now!

115. Do you play the Wii? Yeah

116. Are you listening to music right now? I wish, but I don’t know what to listen to so no

117. Do you like chicken noodle soup? Yeah

118. Do you like Chinese food? Yes but only shrimp egg rolls

119. Favourite book? The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

120. Are you afraid of the dark? Not unless I’m walking up a flight of stairs

121. Are you mean? Not really

122. Is cheating ever okay? No

123. Can you keep white shoes clean? I can’t keep anything clean

124. Do you believe in love at first sight? Yes

125. Do you believe in true love? Yes

126. Are you currently bored? Eh

127. What makes you happy? I don’t know

128. Would you change your name? No

129. What your zodiac sign? Gemini

130. Do you like subway? Yes

131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? I’m already with him

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? My boyfriend

133. Favourite lyrics right now? Danny don’t you know that everyone feels weird on the inside?

134. Can you count to one million? Probably but I never would

135. Dumbest lie you ever told? I don’t know

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed? Closed

137. How tall are you? 5’1 or 5’2

138. Curly or Straight hair? My hair is wavy

139. Brunette or Blonde? I’m blonde, naturally

140. Summer or Winter? Winter

141. Night or Day? Night

142. Favourite month? October, December and June

143. Are you a vegetarian? No

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate? Milk chocolate

145. Tea or Coffee? Both

146. Was today a good day? It’s been okay so far

147. Mars or Snickers? I’ve never had a Mars Bar but I hate Snickers so

148. What’s your favourite quote? Sometimes you have to look inside yourself and ask “What am I willing to put up with today?’ - Arin Hanson

149. Do you believe in ghosts? Yes

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page? Were they blind or something? - Girl Interrupted

[phooll123]

New top story from Time: ‘Craziness on a Daily Basis’: Michael Jordan’s White Sox Teammates Remember His 1994 Season

In late 1993, Chicago White Sox outfielder Michael Huff got a strange call from the team’s owner, Jerry Reinsdorf. “He said, ‘We want you to teach someone how to catch and throw a baseball,’” Huff remembers. When Huff asked who his student would be, Reinsdorf wouldn’t say.

It turned out to be Michael Jordan. Unbeknownst to not just the public but his future teammates, the retired three-time NBA champion wanted to give baseball a shot, despite not having played the sport in more than a decade, when he was in high school. For months, Huff, the trainer Herm Schneider and others quietly worked Jordan into baseball shape before he announced in February that he would be reporting to White Sox spring training. From there, Jordan played a season with the Birmingham Barons, the White Sox’ AA minor league team, and then in fall league with the Scottsdale Scorpions before coming out of retirement to return to the Bulls, amounting to one of the oddest sagas of his labyrinthian career.

This unexpected detour is covered in Sunday night’s episode of The Last Dance, the ESPN docuseries that has become a cultural phenomenon since its debut in April. In a socially distanced era in which sports and culture fans alike hunger for new entertainment, the show quickly became the most-watched documentary content in ESPN’s history, and has dredged up all sorts of micro-histories and controversies, from postgame handshake snubs to political endorsements to pitching quarters.

But Jordan’s short-lived baseball career stands out for its peculiarity. And while The Last Dance features interviews with coaches Terry Francona and Mike Barnett, it doesn’t include the voices of the Birmingham Baron players and trainers who spent nearly every day of 1994 alongside him, on long bus rides, late-night McDonalds runs and at scorching afternoon games. More than a quarter century later, TIME caught up with several of them to hear about their experiences.

“It’s like we were in a circus the whole summer,” Barons shortstop Glenn DiSarcina tells TIME. “It was craziness on a daily basis.”

‘Blisters on his hands’

In October 1993, Jordan announced his retirement from basketball after a tumultuous summer. He had just won his third championship, but had come under intense scrutiny for gambling during the playoffs, and he was grieving the death of his father James, who was murdered that July.

In The Last Dance, Jordan says that one of the last things his father had told him was to follow his childhood dream of becoming a baseball player. After his father’s death, Jordan needed an emotional reset, and he became even more motivated to fulfill his longtime ambition. He quietly told his plan to Jerry Reinsdorf, who was the owner of both the Bulls and the White Sox; the owner agreed to help him and gave his number to the longtime White Sox trainer Herm Schneider.

Without telling anyone else, Jordan and Schneider got to work the day after Thanksgiving to transform his basketball body into a baseball one. Weeks before he picked up a bat or a glove, Schneider had Jordan do weeks of weight lifting and conditioning to strengthen his shoulders, elbows and hands. “He was putting stresses on joints in a way he had never done, maybe other than high school,” Schneider says.

Once Jordan had bulked up, Huff and former White Sox slugger Bill Melton were recruited to teach Jordan baseball fundamentals in all-day training sessions at Comiskey Park and the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology. Huff initially bristled at Reinsdorf’s request. “As a backup outfielder, it was a little bit unnerving to have the chairman ask you to teach someone how to do your job,” Huff recalls. It didn’t help matters that Jordan’s baseball skills were raw. “It was pretty rough at the beginning,” Huff says. “He had basketball athleticism and basketball IQ, but there was really none of that baseball-wise.”

But Jordan quickly won over Huff and Schneider with his determination to learn and improve. They would often have to nearly drag him off the field after a long day of practicing his swing or chasing fly balls. “He would hit and hit and hit until literally there were blisters on his hands,” Schneider recalls. “They would be bleeding, and we’d have to patch them up.”

The Last Dance covers Jordan’s near-maniacal competitiveness, which sometimes bordered on bullying lesser Bulls players in order to motivate them during practice. But that winter, Huff says that Jordan asked to be on the opposite end of such pressure. “The first couple times when I sheepishly said, ‘Mike, that wasn’t very good, let’s do it again,” he would look at me and say, “It’s okay, Huffie. You can get more forceful if I’m doing it wrong.’ He very much humbled himself to say, ‘I am the low man on the totem pole,’” Huff says. “We got into a very quick rhythm of literally getting better week by week.”

During that time, Huff remembers asking Jordan why he was trying to become a baseball player. “He said that before his father passed away, he had said to him, ‘You might be the one person this decade that can truly do anything you want,” says Huff. “If there’s anything you want to do, promise me you’re going to do it.’”

Off balance

When Jordan reported to the White Sox spring training in Sarasota, Fla., a media circus followed. And while there was plenty of excitement, there was also a pervading skepticism. By this point, it was clear to everyone that Jordan lacked the skills to make it to the major leagues that year. In March, Sports Illustrated ran a scathing cover article—penned by future TIME senior writer Steve Wulf—about Jordan’s progress, re-dubbing him “Err Jordan.”

Jordan was placed in AA-ball, the third highest of the four minor league levels. Someone who hadn’t played baseball since high school—even if he’s the best basketball player in the world—should have started in rookie ball. In The Last Dance, Reinsdorf says that he would have started Jordan at a lower level, but rookie ball or A-ball lacked the media facilities to handle the crowds that would swarm around Jordan.

“AA is future major leaguers, plus guys that are throwing hard,” Chris Snopek, a third baseman on the Barons that year, says. “You gotta be really disciplined at the plate.”

If there was any resentment over the idea that Jordan’s celebrity status had allowed him to cut in line, it dissipated once he demonstrated his work ethic and attitude. “A lot of times, Michael was at the field before anybody, working on his swing. He would come to us for advice,” Snopek remembers.

Glenn DiSarcina says that the first time he met him, Jordan came up to him and called him by his nickname, “DiSar.” “I was totally caught off guard that he would know who I was before even meeting me,” says DiSarcina. “That showed he probably did his homework on some of the guys he would be playing with.”

  Courtesy Glenn DiSarcina Glenn DiSarcina, left, with Michael Jordan in 1994.

Jordan started off hot in April, at one point stringing together a 13-game hitting streak. But soon, opposing pitchers figured out that he was unable to hit curveballs and other off-speed pitches. His batting average sank. “At a certain point he could catch up to the fastball, but you saw him lunging a lot at breaking balls and being off-balance,” says DiSarcina, whose brother Gary is a 12-year MLB vet who now coaches third base for the New York Mets.

Mired at the bottom of a steep learning curve, Jordan worked even harder to learn the intricacies of the game. In The Last Dance, Barons hitting coach Mike Barnett recalls Jordan’s daily routine: “He would hit early in the day, then off the breaking ball machine, then come in after regular batting practice, hit some more before the game, and then would hit again after the game.”

“He was the bank”

Double-A baseball is far from glamorous. Teams travel by bus, not plane; they get dressed in shabby locker rooms, play in sweltering heat and subsist on fast food or hotel spreads. Jordan’s teammates, who were much younger and less financially stable than he was, say that he embraced the modest lifestyle. “He was one of us. He didn’t ask for special stuff—he did everything we did,” the catcher Chris Tremie says.

“It was unreal, going into a McDonalds at Huntsville at one in the morning, watching the workers behind the counter in total amazement as Michael Jordan orders a Big Mac,” DiSarcina says.

Jordan also eagerly participated in group activities, albeit sometimes to his own financial benefit. He was a notorious gambler, and DiSarcina learned of his prowess the hard way on an early road trip. “We had just gotten our meal money, which was probably $15-18 bucks a day. That meant a lot to guys like us,” he remembers. “Unfortunately, I handed it all to Michael when he was dealing blackjack on the bus ride. I never played with him again the rest of the summer.”

Over the course of the season, DiSarcina and others had plenty of opportunity to wager with Michael on all kinds of things. “He thought he’d win anything: pool, ping pong, cards,” Snopek remembers. “Whatever we were playing, he was the bank; he would always talk smack and mess with us. He’d play Yahtzee all the time with [manager Terry] Francona, trying to keep us up in the middle of the night when we were trying to travel 12 hours to Orlando.”

Jordan developed particular bonds with Francona—who was just four years older than him, and whose own relentless drive would lead him to win two World Series titles as the manager of the Boston Red Sox—and the catcher Rogelio Nunez. Nunez was from the Dominican Republic and was just learning English. Over ping pong marathons, Jordan pledged to give Nunez $100 for each new English word he learned. “By the end of the season, Nunie’s English was much better, he was richer, and Jordan was beating him in ping pong,” infielder Kenny Coleman told ESPN last year.

Of course, Jordan’s competitive nature extended to basketball. Huff says that during games of H-O-R-S-E, “the minute anybody got a letter up on him, it was a dunk, it was a shot none of us could do—he would quickly get ahead of us.”

Tremie remembers playing a game of basketball against Jordan in the middle of the season, in which he and three of the Barons’ better players matched up against Jordan and three coaches. “We were doing OK for a little while, and we had a chance to beat his team,” Tremie says. “But when it came close to the number we were playing for, he took over. We were all just on the court watching him: I’ll never forget how explosive he was, and with finesse, too.”

Meanwhile, the season was also enlivened by the huge interest Jordan drew everywhere he went. Snopek says that while a game might otherwise draw 1,000 fans, 10,000 would show up their games. “It was a miniature version of what we felt like the majors was going to be with the crowds and the media,” Snopek says. “He made it an incredible year.”

Lasting Impact

Bit by bit, Jordan improved his game. By the end of the season, his average had crept back up to .202; he had hit three home runs, driven in 51 runs and stolen 30 bases. Jordan then signed up for the fall league in Arizona, where he batted a respectable .252. Tremie was impressed by his progress: “He got better as an outfielder, more instinctual on the bases. He wasn’t as susceptible to breaking balls,” Tremie says.

DiSarcina says that if Jordan had entered baseball as a teenager, he could have made it to the majors. “Just seeing his professionalism and the way he improved that one summer—and knowing the athlete and the drive—no doubt if he came in at 18 or 19, he would have made the big leagues,” he says.

Snopek agrees. “If he played for two and a half or three years of baseball, just think about his athletic ability,” he says. “I’m not saying he would be George Springer—but I think because of his athleticism and his mind, he would have had a good shot to make it.”

In the spring of 1995, however, baseball was still mired in a strike. Jordan refused to cross the picket line to become a replacement player, and he instead went back to the Bulls, where he won three more championships and cemented his already widely-accepted status as the greatest basketball player ever. In Space Jam, filmed that year, Jordan lampooned his own baseball efforts, portraying himself as a gullible hack surrounded by yes-men.

But Jordan’s Barons teammates say his impact persisted long after the summer of 1994. “It was a blessing to me and our teammates just because of the exposure we had, even with the front office from the White Sox coming to our games,” Snopek says. The next year, Snopek was called up by the White Sox and would play in the majors for four seasons.

For Chris Tremie, it wasn’t Jordan’s triumphs on the diamond, but his attitude in the midst of failure that made the biggest impression. “I learned from him how to conduct yourself when things aren’t going well,�� he says. “To see his worth ethic, and really get after it after he had already accomplished so much, has always helped me in my career and life.” Tremie now works as a minor league field coordinator for the Cincinnati Reds.

Throughout the years, many have speculated that Jordan’s turn to baseball had a hidden nefarious element that had to do with getting secretly suspended by the NBA. DiSarcina doesn’t buy into the theory. “I think a lot of people thought it was a sham or a result of his gambling the year before,” he says. “From my perspective as a teammate, I honestly believe that he gave a hundred percent effort and wanted to be there. He worked as hard as anybody else I’ve ever seen in order to get better.”

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[standbyphoenix]

‘River on the Rise’ by Debra Blake for Vegetarian Times, March 1988 (Part II, final)

How the family took their vision to Hollywood dates back 10 years ago, to their final days in Venezuela. The family had little money when they left the religious community and River, along with his sister Rainbow, often took to the streets, restaurants, and even airport waiting areas to sing to people, entertaining them while trying to earn a dollar. River had been playing guitar since before he was 5 years old, and his talent became increasingly apparent to Arlyn and John. Back in the States, the family headed straight for Los Angeles, where Arlyn took a job at a broadcasting company to get the family's collective foot in Hollywood's door.

"We weren't going for the glamour or the fame of it all," Arlyn says. "We were going to take the kids' talent-which was so obvious-to us-and turn it into something and help make change at the same time. That's why we went."

Weren't they afraid that the kids wouldn't share their vision, or perhaps lose sight of it as the endless glittery parties began to welcome them, threatening to turn them into Hollywood brats?

"No," says Arlyn. "I knew they wouldn't get into the Hollywood scene. We had our own business to attend to, and it wasn't Hollywood. It was making change in the world."

River's business is making change, too. He's clear on that score. "If I didn't think I could be a part of a movement that could influence," he says, "and be a part of helping and change, if I couldn't help that through what I'm doing, I wouldn't do this. But I'm seeing that through this position-in this career, and where I have these magazine interviews- I can be an example, and I think that's important. In all the interviews I do, I say something about my being vegan. I don't want to come off as if I'm a savior. I'm only a very small part of anything, but I think it's important to be involved. I'm interested in meditation and finding spiritual fulfillment. But for me to just go off and devote my life to monkhood in the jungle would be ultimately abandoning the world, and the consciousness would be on a selfish level. I think I can do a lot more good for this planet if I am out there."

River is still young. Does he share his mother's confidence that he'll be able to withstand the pressures that Hollywood places on young people-pressures that make them grow up quickly, losing their dreams and ideals in the process?

"Being out there," River says slowly, looking around at the giant oak trees on the lawn, "you can go astray, and everything can be destroyed. I'm aware of that, but I don't think I'll get into that. Maybe I'm lucky; I'm not really attracted to all of that now. I think I'll be strong enough, but I do see there's that chance.

"You can't really make any plans about things like this, though. You go with the flow but still against the grain, not for the ego of it but for the belief of it. The only thing I have to show is how I live. The vegan thing is one of the main things. I'm a peaceful person; I think that's manifested through how I live. I don't start trouble. But time will tell."

River has moved around a lot over the years. He was born in Oregon, went with the family to South America as a young child, and has lived in countless California towns. He's traveled-sometimes with only part of the family-to different countries to film on location. Just before last Thanksgiving the whole family moved to Florida, where they now reside. They wanted to leave the Hollywood scene and revive ideals about living in the country.

Florida winter afternoons are warm, and River spends hours in the garage, hunched over his new 12-string guitar. His hands are square and strong, and after so many years they're used to playing the chords that sound good to him. He has the guitar plugged into an amplifier, and the rock rhythms echo out in the yard. He's not in school (he was privately tutored for most of his life), and he says he's not interested in working until the summer. These days he's mostly hanging around, traveling a bit, hoping a bass guitarist will read the signs he placed around the University of Florida campus. "Needed," the signs read. "Bass guitarist with young blood who's into progressive rock and roll, jazz. For demo recordings." River is looking for a buddy to jam with.

If he didn't have his acting career, River thinks he could be a musician. He's driven to it. "I love music," he says. "It's so much a part of me." The roster of his favorite musicians is long and eclectic; he's especially into early Squeeze and U2. But the rest of his list reads like the playlist of an early '70s FM station. "I like jazz, folk music, Bob Dylan. Older Bowie and old Roxy Music to fall asleep to. I like old Steely Dan music and some Pink Floyd. Old Led Zeppelin, too. The Beatles are my Bible; that goes without saying. And I like classical music."

Modern music disappoints River, and he doesn't like much of what's commercially produced. His tastes in books and movies also show that River has one foot in a different age. He sounds a little frustrated by that, and says things like "movies nowadays. ..books nowadays. .. music nowadays."

He doesn't see too many new movies, preferring witty, intelligent classic comedies, and he likes the great slapsticks. But his idealism comes through even here. "I haven't seen Cry Freedom [about Steven Biko, a martyred black South African], but it's top on my list for a real conscious movie. And I liked Brazil. I like intense movies. Did you ever see Brother Sun, Sister Moon? It's about St. Francis. I felt a rebirth after I saw that."

He doesn't find much time for reading, though he'd like to, but somehow he's picked up a lot of information on health and political issues. The novels he's read, or would like to read, are those that kids grew up on 15 and 20 years ago: Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, Richard Bach's Illusions, Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

As for his own movies, he's hot enough to be selective about the scripts he accepts, and he's been pretty happy with the results. "I feel no need to invest in a movie unless I have an incredible passion for it," he says. "And one that will not only be good for me but one I can be proud of-one that's a benefit to society. I always hope the movie will, if nothing else, be a part of good art and influence people in a good way."

Up to now, there's been no compromising in River's work, and he's not planning on changing his record. Even as a child, no commercials he ever made endorsed white bread, and when he was in Seven Brides, the family made sure he wouldn't have to go fishing or wear a coonskin cap.

River still chooses carefully, hoping the ideals he lives by will be reflected in the characters he plays. He liked his character of Chris Chambers in Stand by Me, directed by Rob Reiner. "Chris came off as a victim of the mentality of his town, but he was a good person. He was a great friend, he was loyal and he wasn't an idiot-not just a big dumb l2-year-old. He was a real sweet guy, smart and intelligent. A good character."

The last movie he worked on was Sidney Lumet's Running on Empty. (Lumet directed Dustin Hoffman in the Academy Award-winner Tootsie.) River plays the son of parents whose antimilitary activities have kept them on the run for years. River likes the character but sees him as a victim, too.

"In dramas, kids usually are victims, either to their parents or to society:' River explains. "I want to get away from that. It would be wonderful to see someone already in a clear-minded reality take it from there and maybe go beyond that, show what can happen."

He can't say precisely what kinds of films he'd like to do or what kind of work will draw him next. Theater would be interesting, perhaps, and possibly directing at some point. Unlike many actors, he's not even thinking about who he'd like to work with. "I would like to work with Rob Reiner again," he says, "Maybe just a cameo role in one of his movies. But for the most part I don't think like that. I figure that time will tell, and if it's right, I'll meet the right people and work with them at some point." Outwardly, River has few doubts about himself, as an individual and as a Phoenix family member. "I'm definitely an individual," he said. "I feel very secure as an individual. And I'm proud of my family and what we've done together. I'm a product of my family, just like everybody else. These are my roots.

"I just want to live my life. Acting is what I love to do, and it's worked out this way. I don't know if it's God's perfect plan or whatever, but for me, not only do I love it and get great satisfaction out of it, but also I can work my beliefs in. I'm free to believe in what I do, and I can share those beliefs with others. Not in a preaching way, not telling others, but just by what I do. I find that very fulfilling."

After lunch-tabouli, nori, blue corn chips, tofu omelet, tahini dressing-River and Rainbow, like older brother and sister in any family, take the family jeep to pick up the other kids from school. Back home, River runs into the yard to swing on the rope hung from one of the oaks. "Hey, look at this!" he yells. While Rainbow watches, River laughs, jumps high and grabs hold. 

A Phoenix on the rise.

[hellofastestnewsfan]

In late 1993, Chicago White Sox outfielder Michael Huff got a strange call from the team’s owner, Jerry Reinsdorf. “He said, ‘We want you to teach someone how to catch and throw a baseball,’” Huff remembers. When Huff asked who his student would be, Reinsdorf wouldn’t say.

It turned out to be Michael Jordan. Unbeknownst to not just the public but his future teammates, the retired three-time NBA champion wanted to give baseball a shot, despite not having played the sport in more than a decade, when he was in high school. For months, Huff, the trainer Herm Schneider and others quietly worked Jordan into baseball shape before he announced in February that he would be reporting to White Sox spring training. From there, Jordan played a season with the Birmingham Barons, the White Sox’ AA minor league team, and then in fall league with the Scottsdale Scorpions before coming out of retirement to return to the Bulls, amounting to one of the oddest sagas of his labyrinthian career.

This unexpected detour is covered in Sunday night’s episode of The Last Dance, the ESPN docuseries that has become a cultural phenomenon since its debut in April. In a socially distanced era in which sports and culture fans alike hunger for new entertainment, the show quickly became the most-watched documentary content in ESPN’s history, and has dredged up all sorts of micro-histories and controversies, from postgame handshake snubs to political endorsements to pitching quarters.

But Jordan’s short-lived baseball career stands out for its peculiarity. And while The Last Dance features interviews with coaches Terry Francona and Mike Barnett, it doesn’t include the voices of the Birmingham Baron players and trainers who spent nearly every day of 1994 alongside him, on long bus rides, late-night McDonalds runs and at scorching afternoon games. More than a quarter century later, TIME caught up with several of them to hear about their experiences.

“It’s like we were in a circus the whole summer,” Barons shortstop Glenn DiSarcina tells TIME. “It was craziness on a daily basis.”

‘Blisters on his hands’

In October 1993, Jordan announced his retirement from basketball after a tumultuous summer. He had just won his third championship, but had come under intense scrutiny for gambling during the playoffs, and he was grieving the death of his father James, who was murdered that July.

In The Last Dance, Jordan says that one of the last things his father had told him was to follow his childhood dream of becoming a baseball player. After his father’s death, Jordan needed an emotional reset, and he became even more motivated to fulfill his longtime ambition. He quietly told his plan to Jerry Reinsdorf, who was the owner of both the Bulls and the White Sox; the owner agreed to help him and gave his number to the longtime White Sox trainer Herm Schneider.

Without telling anyone else, Jordan and Schneider got to work the day after Thanksgiving to transform his basketball body into a baseball one. Weeks before he picked up a bat or a glove, Schneider had Jordan do weeks of weight lifting and conditioning to strengthen his shoulders, elbows and hands. “He was putting stresses on joints in a way he had never done, maybe other than high school,” Schneider says.

Once Jordan had bulked up, Huff and former White Sox slugger Bill Melton were recruited to teach Jordan baseball fundamentals in all-day training sessions at Comiskey Park and the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology. Huff initially bristled at Reinsdorf’s request. “As a backup outfielder, it was a little bit unnerving to have the chairman ask you to teach someone how to do your job,” Huff recalls. It didn’t help matters that Jordan’s baseball skills were raw. “It was pretty rough at the beginning,” Huff says. “He had basketball athleticism and basketball IQ, but there was really none of that baseball-wise.”

But Jordan quickly won over Huff and Schneider with his determination to learn and improve. They would often have to nearly drag him off the field after a long day of practicing his swing or chasing fly balls. “He would hit and hit and hit until literally there were blisters on his hands,” Schneider recalls. “They would be bleeding, and we’d have to patch them up.”

The Last Dance covers Jordan’s near-maniacal competitiveness, which sometimes bordered on bullying lesser Bulls players in order to motivate them during practice. But that winter, Huff says that Jordan asked to be on the opposite end of such pressure. “The first couple times when I sheepishly said, ‘Mike, that wasn’t very good, let’s do it again,” he would look at me and say, “It’s okay, Huffie. You can get more forceful if I’m doing it wrong.’ He very much humbled himself to say, ‘I am the low man on the totem pole,’” Huff says. “We got into a very quick rhythm of literally getting better week by week.”

During that time, Huff remembers asking Jordan why he was trying to become a baseball player. “He said that before his father passed away, he had said to him, ‘You might be the one person this decade that can truly do anything you want,” says Huff. “If there’s anything you want to do, promise me you’re going to do it.’”

Off balance

When Jordan reported to the White Sox spring training in Sarasota, Fla., a media circus followed. And while there was plenty of excitement, there was also a pervading skepticism. By this point, it was clear to everyone that Jordan lacked the skills to make it to the major leagues that year. In March, Sports Illustrated ran a scathing cover article—penned by future TIME senior writer Steve Wulf—about Jordan’s progress, re-dubbing him “Err Jordan.”

Jordan was placed in AA-ball, the third highest of the four minor league levels. Someone who hadn’t played baseball since high school—even if he’s the best basketball player in the world—should have started in rookie ball. In The Last Dance, Reinsdorf says that he would have started Jordan at a lower level, but rookie ball or A-ball lacked the media facilities to handle the crowds that would swarm around Jordan.

“AA is future major leaguers, plus guys that are throwing hard,” Chris Snopek, a third baseman on the Barons that year, says. “You gotta be really disciplined at the plate.”

If there was any resentment over the idea that Jordan’s celebrity status had allowed him to cut in line, it dissipated once he demonstrated his work ethic and attitude. “A lot of times, Michael was at the field before anybody, working on his swing. He would come to us for advice,” Snopek remembers.

Glenn DiSarcina says that the first time he met him, Jordan came up to him and called him by his nickname, “DiSar.” “I was totally caught off guard that he would know who I was before even meeting me,” says DiSarcina. “That showed he probably did his homework on some of the guys he would be playing with.”

  Courtesy Glenn DiSarcina Glenn DiSarcina, left, with Michael Jordan in 1994.

Jordan started off hot in April, at one point stringing together a 13-game hitting streak. But soon, opposing pitchers figured out that he was unable to hit curveballs and other off-speed pitches. His batting average sank. “At a certain point he could catch up to the fastball, but you saw him lunging a lot at breaking balls and being off-balance,” says DiSarcina, whose brother Gary is a 12-year MLB vet who now coaches third base for the New York Mets.

Mired at the bottom of a steep learning curve, Jordan worked even harder to learn the intricacies of the game. In The Last Dance, Barons hitting coach Mike Barnett recalls Jordan’s daily routine: “He would hit early in the day, then off the breaking ball machine, then come in after regular batting practice, hit some more before the game, and then would hit again after the game.”

“He was the bank”

Double-A baseball is far from glamorous. Teams travel by bus, not plane; they get dressed in shabby locker rooms, play in sweltering heat and subsist on fast food or hotel spreads. Jordan’s teammates, who were much younger and less financially stable than he was, say that he embraced the modest lifestyle. “He was one of us. He didn’t ask for special stuff—he did everything we did,” the catcher Chris Tremie says.

“It was unreal, going into a McDonalds at Huntsville at one in the morning, watching the workers behind the counter in total amazement as Michael Jordan orders a Big Mac,” DiSarcina says.

Jordan also eagerly participated in group activities, albeit sometimes to his own financial benefit. He was a notorious gambler, and DiSarcina learned of his prowess the hard way on an early road trip. “We had just gotten our meal money, which was probably $15-18 bucks a day. That meant a lot to guys like us,” he remembers. “Unfortunately, I handed it all to Michael when he was dealing blackjack on the bus ride. I never played with him again the rest of the summer.”

Over the course of the season, DiSarcina and others had plenty of opportunity to wager with Michael on all kinds of things. “He thought he’d win anything: pool, ping pong, cards,” Snopek remembers. “Whatever we were playing, he was the bank; he would always talk smack and mess with us. He’d play Yahtzee all the time with [manager Terry] Francona, trying to keep us up in the middle of the night when we were trying to travel 12 hours to Orlando.”

Jordan developed particular bonds with Francona—who was just four years older than him, and whose own relentless drive would lead him to win two World Series titles as the manager of the Boston Red Sox—and the catcher Rogelio Nunez. Nunez was from the Dominican Republic and was just learning English. Over ping pong marathons, Jordan pledged to give Nunez $100 for each new English word he learned. “By the end of the season, Nunie’s English was much better, he was richer, and Jordan was beating him in ping pong,” infielder Kenny Coleman told ESPN last year.

Of course, Jordan’s competitive nature extended to basketball. Huff says that during games of H-O-R-S-E, “the minute anybody got a letter up on him, it was a dunk, it was a shot none of us could do—he would quickly get ahead of us.”

Tremie remembers playing a game of basketball against Jordan in the middle of the season, in which he and three of the Barons’ better players matched up against Jordan and three coaches. “We were doing OK for a little while, and we had a chance to beat his team,” Tremie says. “But when it came close to the number we were playing for, he took over. We were all just on the court watching him: I’ll never forget how explosive he was, and with finesse, too.”

Meanwhile, the season was also enlivened by the huge interest Jordan drew everywhere he went. Snopek says that while a game might otherwise draw 1,000 fans, 10,000 would show up their games. “It was a miniature version of what we felt like the majors was going to be with the crowds and the media,” Snopek says. “He made it an incredible year.”

Lasting Impact

Bit by bit, Jordan improved his game. By the end of the season, his average had crept back up to .202; he had hit three home runs, driven in 51 runs and stolen 30 bases. Jordan then signed up for the fall league in Arizona, where he batted a respectable .252. Tremie was impressed by his progress: “He got better as an outfielder, more instinctual on the bases. He wasn’t as susceptible to breaking balls,” Tremie says.

DiSarcina says that if Jordan had entered baseball as a teenager, he could have made it to the majors. “Just seeing his professionalism and the way he improved that one summer—and knowing the athlete and the drive—no doubt if he came in at 18 or 19, he would have made the big leagues,” he says.

Snopek agrees. “If he played for two and a half or three years of baseball, just think about his athletic ability,” he says. “I’m not saying he would be George Springer—but I think because of his athleticism and his mind, he would have had a good shot to make it.”

In the spring of 1995, however, baseball was still mired in a strike. Jordan refused to cross the picket line to become a replacement player, and he instead went back to the Bulls, where he won three more championships and cemented his already widely-accepted status as the greatest basketball player ever. In Space Jam, filmed that year, Jordan lampooned his own baseball efforts, portraying himself as a gullible hack surrounded by yes-men.

But Jordan’s Barons teammates say his impact persisted long after the summer of 1994. “It was a blessing to me and our teammates just because of the exposure we had, even with the front office from the White Sox coming to our games,” Snopek says. The next year, Snopek was called up by the White Sox and would play in the majors for four seasons.

For Chris Tremie, it wasn’t Jordan’s triumphs on the diamond, but his attitude in the midst of failure that made the biggest impression. “I learned from him how to conduct yourself when things aren’t going well,” he says. “To see his worth ethic, and really get after it after he had already accomplished so much, has always helped me in my career and life.” Tremie now works as a minor league field coordinator for the Cincinnati Reds.

Throughout the years, many have speculated that Jordan’s turn to baseball had a hidden nefarious element that had to do with getting secretly suspended by the NBA. DiSarcina doesn’t buy into the theory. “I think a lot of people thought it was a sham or a result of his gambling the year before,” he says. “From my perspective as a teammate, I honestly believe that he gave a hundred percent effort and wanted to be there. He worked as hard as anybody else I’ve ever seen in order to get better.”

from TIME https://ift.tt/2WKzmyv

[newstechreviews]

In late 1993, Chicago White Sox outfielder Michael Huff got a strange call from the team’s owner, Jerry Reinsdorf. “He said, ‘We want you to teach someone how to catch and throw a baseball,’” Huff remembers. When Huff asked who his student would be, Reinsdorf wouldn’t say.

It turned out to be Michael Jordan. Unbeknownst to not just the public but his future teammates, the retired three-time NBA champion wanted to give baseball a shot, despite not having played the sport in more than a decade, when he was in high school. For months, Huff, the trainer Herm Schneider and others quietly worked Jordan into baseball shape before he announced in February that he would be reporting to White Sox spring training. From there, Jordan played a season with the Birmingham Barons, the White Sox’ AA minor league team, and then in fall league with the Scottsdale Scorpions before coming out of retirement to return to the Bulls, amounting to one of the oddest sagas of his labyrinthian career.

This unexpected detour is covered in Sunday night’s episode of The Last Dance, the ESPN docuseries that has become a cultural phenomenon since its debut in April. In a socially distanced era in which sports and culture fans alike hunger for new entertainment, the show quickly became the most-watched documentary content in ESPN’s history, and has dredged up all sorts of micro-histories and controversies, from postgame handshake snubs to political endorsements to pitching quarters.

But Jordan’s short-lived baseball career stands out for its peculiarity. And while The Last Dance features interviews with coaches Terry Francona and Mike Barnett, it doesn’t include the voices of the Birmingham Baron players and trainers who spent nearly every day of 1994 alongside him, on long bus rides, late-night McDonalds runs and at scorching afternoon games. More than a quarter century later, TIME caught up with several of them to hear about their experiences.

“It’s like we were in a circus the whole summer,” Barons shortstop Glenn DiSarcina tells TIME. “It was craziness on a daily basis.”

‘Blisters on his hands’

In October 1993, Jordan announced his retirement from basketball after a tumultuous summer. He had just won his third championship, but had come under intense scrutiny for gambling during the playoffs, and he was grieving the death of his father James, who was murdered that July.

In The Last Dance, Jordan says that one of the last things his father had told him was to follow his childhood dream of becoming a baseball player. After his father’s death, Jordan needed an emotional reset, and he became even more motivated to fulfill his longtime ambition. He quietly told his plan to Jerry Reinsdorf, who was the owner of both the Bulls and the White Sox; the owner agreed to help him and gave his number to the longtime White Sox trainer Herm Schneider.

Without telling anyone else, Jordan and Schneider got to work the day after Thanksgiving to transform his basketball body into a baseball one. Weeks before he picked up a bat or a glove, Schneider had Jordan do weeks of weight lifting and conditioning to strengthen his shoulders, elbows and hands. “He was putting stresses on joints in a way he had never done, maybe other than high school,” Schneider says.

Once Jordan had bulked up, Huff and former White Sox slugger Bill Melton were recruited to teach Jordan baseball fundamentals in all-day training sessions at Comiskey Park and the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology. Huff initially bristled at Reinsdorf’s request. “As a backup outfielder, it was a little bit unnerving to have the chairman ask you to teach someone how to do your job,” Huff recalls. It didn’t help matters that Jordan’s baseball skills were raw. “It was pretty rough at the beginning,” Huff says. “He had basketball athleticism and basketball IQ, but there was really none of that baseball-wise.”

But Jordan quickly won over Huff and Schneider with his determination to learn and improve. They would often have to nearly drag him off the field after a long day of practicing his swing or chasing fly balls. “He would hit and hit and hit until literally there were blisters on his hands,” Schneider recalls. “They would be bleeding, and we’d have to patch them up.”

The Last Dance covers Jordan’s near-maniacal competitiveness, which sometimes bordered on bullying lesser Bulls players in order to motivate them during practice. But that winter, Huff says that Jordan asked to be on the opposite end of such pressure. “The first couple times when I sheepishly said, ‘Mike, that wasn’t very good, let’s do it again,” he would look at me and say, “It’s okay, Huffie. You can get more forceful if I’m doing it wrong.’ He very much humbled himself to say, ‘I am the low man on the totem pole,’” Huff says. “We got into a very quick rhythm of literally getting better week by week.”

During that time, Huff remembers asking Jordan why he was trying to become a baseball player. “He said that before his father passed away, he had said to him, ‘You might be the one person this decade that can truly do anything you want,” says Huff. “If there’s anything you want to do, promise me you’re going to do it.’”

Off balance

When Jordan reported to the White Sox spring training in Sarasota, Fla., a media circus followed. And while there was plenty of excitement, there was also a pervading skepticism. By this point, it was clear to everyone that Jordan lacked the skills to make it to the major leagues that year. In March, Sports Illustrated ran a scathing cover article—penned by future TIME senior writer Steve Wulf—about Jordan’s progress, re-dubbing him “Err Jordan.”

Jordan was placed in AA-ball, the third highest of the four minor league levels. Someone who hadn’t played baseball since high school—even if he’s the best basketball player in the world—should have started in rookie ball. In The Last Dance, Reinsdorf says that he would have started Jordan at a lower level, but rookie ball or A-ball lacked the media facilities to handle the crowds that would swarm around Jordan.

“AA is future major leaguers, plus guys that are throwing hard,” Chris Snopek, a third baseman on the Barons that year, says. “You gotta be really disciplined at the plate.”

If there was any resentment over the idea that Jordan’s celebrity status had allowed him to cut in line, it dissipated once he demonstrated his work ethic and attitude. “A lot of times, Michael was at the field before anybody, working on his swing. He would come to us for advice,” Snopek remembers.

Glenn DiSarcina says that the first time he met him, Jordan came up to him and called him by his nickname, “DiSar.” “I was totally caught off guard that he would know who I was before even meeting me,” says DiSarcina. “That showed he probably did his homework on some of the guys he would be playing with.”

  Courtesy Glenn DiSarcina Glenn DiSarcina, left, with Michael Jordan in 1994.

Jordan started off hot in April, at one point stringing together a 13-game hitting streak. But soon, opposing pitchers figured out that he was unable to hit curveballs and other off-speed pitches. His batting average sank. “At a certain point he could catch up to the fastball, but you saw him lunging a lot at breaking balls and being off-balance,” says DiSarcina, whose brother Gary is a 12-year MLB vet who now coaches third base for the New York Mets.

Mired at the bottom of a steep learning curve, Jordan worked even harder to learn the intricacies of the game. In The Last Dance, Barons hitting coach Mike Barnett recalls Jordan’s daily routine: “He would hit early in the day, then off the breaking ball machine, then come in after regular batting practice, hit some more before the game, and then would hit again after the game.”

“He was the bank”

Double-A baseball is far from glamorous. Teams travel by bus, not plane; they get dressed in shabby locker rooms, play in sweltering heat and subsist on fast food or hotel spreads. Jordan’s teammates, who were much younger and less financially stable than he was, say that he embraced the modest lifestyle. “He was one of us. He didn’t ask for special stuff—he did everything we did,” the catcher Chris Tremie says.

“It was unreal, going into a McDonalds at Huntsville at one in the morning, watching the workers behind the counter in total amazement as Michael Jordan orders a Big Mac,” DiSarcina says.

Jordan also eagerly participated in group activities, albeit sometimes to his own financial benefit. He was a notorious gambler, and DiSarcina learned of his prowess the hard way on an early road trip. “We had just gotten our meal money, which was probably $15-18 bucks a day. That meant a lot to guys like us,” he remembers. “Unfortunately, I handed it all to Michael when he was dealing blackjack on the bus ride. I never played with him again the rest of the summer.”

Over the course of the season, DiSarcina and others had plenty of opportunity to wager with Michael on all kinds of things. “He thought he’d win anything: pool, ping pong, cards,” Snopek remembers. “Whatever we were playing, he was the bank; he would always talk smack and mess with us. He’d play Yahtzee all the time with [manager Terry] Francona, trying to keep us up in the middle of the night when we were trying to travel 12 hours to Orlando.”

Jordan developed particular bonds with Francona—who was just four years older than him, and whose own relentless drive would lead him to win two World Series titles as the manager of the Boston Red Sox—and the catcher Rogelio Nunez. Nunez was from the Dominican Republic and was just learning English. Over ping pong marathons, Jordan pledged to give Nunez $100 for each new English word he learned. “By the end of the season, Nunie’s English was much better, he was richer, and Jordan was beating him in ping pong,” infielder Kenny Coleman told ESPN last year.

Of course, Jordan’s competitive nature extended to basketball. Huff says that during games of H-O-R-S-E, “the minute anybody got a letter up on him, it was a dunk, it was a shot none of us could do—he would quickly get ahead of us.”

Tremie remembers playing a game of basketball against Jordan in the middle of the season, in which he and three of the Barons’ better players matched up against Jordan and three coaches. “We were doing OK for a little while, and we had a chance to beat his team,” Tremie says. “But when it came close to the number we were playing for, he took over. We were all just on the court watching him: I’ll never forget how explosive he was, and with finesse, too.”

Meanwhile, the season was also enlivened by the huge interest Jordan drew everywhere he went. Snopek says that while a game might otherwise draw 1,000 fans, 10,000 would show up their games. “It was a miniature version of what we felt like the majors was going to be with the crowds and the media,” Snopek says. “He made it an incredible year.”

Lasting Impact

Bit by bit, Jordan improved his game. By the end of the season, his average had crept back up to .202; he had hit three home runs, driven in 51 runs and stolen 30 bases. Jordan then signed up for the fall league in Arizona, where he batted a respectable .252. Tremie was impressed by his progress: “He got better as an outfielder, more instinctual on the bases. He wasn’t as susceptible to breaking balls,” Tremie says.

DiSarcina says that if Jordan had entered baseball as a teenager, he could have made it to the majors. “Just seeing his professionalism and the way he improved that one summer—and knowing the athlete and the drive—no doubt if he came in at 18 or 19, he would have made the big leagues,” he says.

Snopek agrees. “If he played for two and a half or three years of baseball, just think about his athletic ability,” he says. “I’m not saying he would be George Springer—but I think because of his athleticism and his mind, he would have had a good shot to make it.”

In the spring of 1995, however, baseball was still mired in a strike. Jordan refused to cross the picket line to become a replacement player, and he instead went back to the Bulls, where he won three more championships and cemented his already widely-accepted status as the greatest basketball player ever. In Space Jam, filmed that year, Jordan lampooned his own baseball efforts, portraying himself as a gullible hack surrounded by yes-men.

But Jordan’s Barons teammates say his impact persisted long after the summer of 1994. “It was a blessing to me and our teammates just because of the exposure we had, even with the front office from the White Sox coming to our games,” Snopek says. The next year, Snopek was called up by the White Sox and would play in the majors for four seasons.

For Chris Tremie, it wasn’t Jordan’s triumphs on the diamond, but his attitude in the midst of failure that made the biggest impression. “I learned from him how to conduct yourself when things aren’t going well,” he says. “To see his worth ethic, and really get after it after he had already accomplished so much, has always helped me in my career and life.” Tremie now works as a minor league field coordinator for the Cincinnati Reds.

Throughout the years, many have speculated that Jordan’s turn to baseball had a hidden nefarious element that had to do with getting secretly suspended by the NBA. DiSarcina doesn’t buy into the theory. “I think a lot of people thought it was a sham or a result of his gambling the year before,” he says. “From my perspective as a teammate, I honestly believe that he gave a hundred percent effort and wanted to be there. He worked as hard as anybody else I’ve ever seen in order to get better.”

[yahoo-roto-arcade-blog]

Bats now, pitching later: Pianow's 2018 LABR draft

Two Boston bashers were early picks in a recent expert draft (AP)

I’ve been playing fantasy baseball since the late 1980s, and while I don’t mass-market my strategies or try to make them into cute branding acronyms, I’ve always had two primary maxims I bring to any draft or auction table:

— Get hitting first, figure out the pitching later

— Draft or auction day is about acquiring value; worry about balance later

I drafted this week in the 15-team LABR mixed draft (5×5 scoring, two catchers), and my results weren’t overly popular with some of the pundits and peanut galleries. That’s not a concern to me; I’m not trying to make picks that will gain me favor with others or attract attention. I wasn’t going to force early picks on pitching and I probably made a mistake not taking at least one horse at the front of my rotation, but it’s a long season. I have time to move the pieces around.

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A light-pitching strategy has been my regular companion in the Yahoo Friends & Family League over the years, with regular success. I did something similar in Tout Mixed last year and it was a mess, though that’s as much because my offense tanked as much as my pitching did. This strategy isn’t as executable in LABR mixed because FAAB is capped at $100 and there are no zero bids, and I don’t know the trading windows as well as I do in my Yahoo turf. But anytime Fred Zinkie is in the room, you know trades will be made (granted, Zinkie trades usually wind up winning for Zinkie; caveat emptor).

Here’s an explanation of who I picked and why I picked them. If you want the full draft board, it’s viewable here.

• Mookie Betts, OF, Red Sox (1.09, 9th overall): Just had the worst season he’ll probably ever have in his 20s and was still a four-category stud. Batting average littered with flukiness; he’s a career .292 hitter. Strong lineup, favorable park. With an outfielder in tow, I will now lean infielders, at least as a tiebreak, for a few rounds.

• Anthony Rizzo, 1B, Cubs (2.07, 22nd overall): The steals could dry up at any time and he might be closer to batting-average neutral, but like Betts this is a player in a favorable offense, around peak age. I would have strongly considered Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor in this spot, they were both gone. And with five starting pitchers off the board, I wasn’t going to take an arm here.

• Anthony Rendon, 3B, Nationals (3.09, 39th overall): I didn’t pay attention to ADP prior to this draft — I don’t think we’re deep enough into draft season that it means much — but I probably took him a round early. Rendon is similar to my first two picks — a player in a strong lineup, in his prime years, who has a wide range of skills. Rendon is often mentioned as an injury risk, but he’s played 147 games or more in three of four seasons. (In retrospect, Jacob deGrom would have been a fine pick in this spot.)

• Jonathan Schoop, 2B, Orioles (4.07, 52nd overall): His 2017 breakout becomes a little less interesting when you consider the shape of baseball last year, but if Schoop winds up closer to the player he was in 2016, I still feel validated using an early pick on him. And like my first three picks, this is a player in his mid-20s, the sweet spot. (I came close to picking Justin Verlander here, but the “age 34” sign kept flashing and I backed off. Knowing what I know how, I take Verlander, secure an anchor.)

[2018 Fantasy Baseball rankings: Overall | H | P | C | 1B | 2B | 3B |SS | OF | SP | RP]

• Xander Bogaerts, SS, Red Sox (5.09, 69th overall): Playing hurt in the second half, his stats collapsed. But he’s just year removed from .294-115-21-89-13, and he’s buoyed by the same park and lineup that Betts is. Another player in his mid-20s. (Flying pitching continued to fly off the board and I didn’t consider Jose Quintana or Aaron Nola worthy of fifth-round picks, though I do like both of them. How do you make a profit that way?)

• Matt Carpenter, 1B, Cardinals (6.07, 82nd overall): I’ll admit I have a Carpenter problem, and I’m willing to write off last year’s mediocre season to injuries. But maybe he’s more injury prone than I care to accept. I think of the top four in the St. Louis lineup — Fowler, Pham, Carpenter, Ozuna — and I want a piece of it. Carpenter’s lovely position eligibility from last year doesn’t qualify now — you need 20 games in LABR, or five in-season — but maybe it will show up again. (Starting pitchers I passed up: Gerrit Cole, Dallas Keuchel — thought he might slip a little later — and Jake Arrieta, who’s moving in the wrong direction.)

• Adam Jones, OF, Orioles (7.09, 99th overall): After a couple of players coming off injury-dinged seasons, I balance out with a boring-but-durable veteran. No one is going to give you hipster cred when you pick this type of player, but many +EV fantasy moves are mundane in nature. (The only starting pitcher I missed in the 7-8 pocket is Michael Fulmer, who struck me as a major overdraft.)

• J.T. Realmuto, C, Marlins (8.07, 112th overall): He’s not insulated by a good lineup, though he could easily be traded at any point in the season. Two-catcher leagues are a pain in the neck when the league runs 15 teams, which is why I want some volume there. Another player parked into his prime, entering his age-27 season. I’d love it if he could steal 10-plus bases, but it’s hard to rely on that from a catcher.

• Mike Moustakas, 3B, Unsigned (9.09, 129th overall): It’s fun to dream of him in a favorable park, though the unexciting Royals loom as a logical return spot. I felt a strong gravitational pull to a pitcher, but look at who went after the Moose pick — Kyle Hendricks, Luke Weaver, David Price, not a sure thing in that mix. Moustakas is a rare power hitter who doesn’t strike out, and his pedigree long hinted that 2017’s breakout was possible. I’m focusing on best-bat-available here, not concerned with position overlap. I do need to address stolen bases at some point, though.

• Didi Gregorius, SS, Yankees (10.7, 142nd overall): Is it possible to be underrated and on a high-profile team like the Yankees? Gregorius makes a strong case. Another power-hitter who doesn’t strike out, and perhaps underrated in a room of SABR-leaning players because Gregorius doesn’t walk much. Entering his age-28 season — it’s not that young players can’t get hurt, but I love how young this roster is.

• Jay Bruce, OF, Mets (11.09, 159th overall pick): Much like the Jones pick, a boring veteran who is fairly easy to project. You can’t have enough power in today’s game. I am digging a hole in steals, though.

• Andrew Miller, RP, Indians (12.07, 172nd overall pick): I finally take a pitcher and it’s not a starter or a closer? Well, the sure-closer bets were dried up, and none of the starters were that enticing, and Miller at least gives me a first piece of building quality ratios. My likely starting staff is going to challenge those ratios, but maybe I can pair Miller with another ace reliever and treat that as a de-facto ace. Miller’s wins and saves were fairly light last year given that the Indians love to use him in high-leverage spots; I expect a modest bounce-back in that area, as unreliable as those stats can be.

• Michael Taylor, OF, Nationals (13.00, 189th overall pick): It’s hard to trust last year’s average given his free swinging, but he’s a power-speed option, his glove keeps him in the lineup, and this is another player tied to a strong supporting cast, even as he might slot near the bottom of the lineup. Entering his age-27 season.

• Julio Teheran, SP, Braves (14.07, 202nd overall pick): Maybe the new park spooked him, but he was excellent in 2014 and 2016 and useful in 2015. Still just 27. I know, he should be a middle-staff guy, not someone’s default No. 1. But the goal of a draft is to acquire value and not worry about balance. I have seven months to try to make this puzzle work.

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• Kevin Gausman, SP, Orioles (15.09, 219th overall pick): At this point, I’m just looking for plausible upside with my starting-pitcher dart throws. Maybe Gausman figured something out in the second half, when he had a 3.41 ERA and better than a strikeout per inning. Entering age-27 season.

• Avisail Garcia, OF, White Sox (16.07, 232nd overall pick): One of my favorite selections on the evening, a play that will commonly work in a room of smart people. Because very few SABR-leaning pundits will take Garcia’s 2017 breakout at face value, there’s a strong pull to make sure you’re not “the sucker” who pays for those stats. As a result, the fade often gets unreasonably strong, allowing someone to scoop up a tremendous bargain. Regression should never finish the conversation, it’s merely the start of the conversation. Garcia can give back a lot of last year and still make a profit for me. Entering age-27 season.

• Josh Harrison, 2B/3B, Pirates (17.09, 249th overall pick): Qualifies at two infield spots and maybe he’ll scoop up another in-season. A career .281 hitter with some pop and speed. The Pirates have become a somewhat-pedestrian roster as they move big names, which could screen some of their leftover values.

• Josh Hader, RP, Brewers (18.09, 262nd overall pick): It is often a mistake to go after last year’s non-closing heroes — the goal is often to find the next Hader or Chad Green or Chris Devenski, not chase last year’s emergence. But you see Hader’s 12.8 K/9 and electric stuff and it’s easy to fall in love. I am not sold on Corey Knebel as a closer, either, and the Brewers fancy themselves contenders — they probably won’t give Knebel an extended leash. But even if Hader never gets close to the ninth, I expect him to massage the ratios.

• Brad Ziegler, RP, Marlins (19.07, 279th overall pick): I can’t defend him as a ratios pick, but Ziggy might play the ninth in Miami — he’s the current favorite — and that has some value.

• Chris Iannetta, C, Rockies (20.07, 292nd overall pick): His contract suggests Colorado brought him back to be the primary starter. It often takes catchers a while to mature as offensive players; Iannetta climbed a level last year.

• Tanner Roark, SP, Nationals (21.09, 309th overall pick): As fluky as wins seem to be, I’ll take my chances on the teams expected to win 90-plus ballgames. And the NL East could be easy pickings, especially with Miami bottoming out. Like Teheran, Roark was excellent in 2014 and 2016. The floor is not sturdy here, but there’s enough upside to take a stab.

• Jake Odorizzi, SP, Rays (22.07, 322nd overall pick): Hasn’t been the most durable guy, but a career 3.83/1.22 pitcher this late makes sense. Obviously I want him to stick in the womb of Tampa Bay, all those cushy home starts, and maybe I’ll steer him from some of the jagged road assignments.

• Joakim Soria, RP, White Sox (23.09, 339th overall pick): One of the main contenders for the ninth inning in Chicago.

• Carl Edwards, RP, Cubs (24.07, 352nd overall pick): I’m not going to assume Brandon Morrow has a smooth takeoff as the Chicago closer. Edwards has the strikeout stuff to close; if he can improve the control, this could be a special pitcher. And if he winds up being a non-closing reliever, at least he’s on a winning team, leading to more potential collateral benefits.

• Raul Mondesi, 2B, Royals (25.09, 369th pick): He hasn’t hit in Kansas City, though it’s been a tiny sample. It’s too early (and convenient; heck, lazy) to conclude we know who he’ll be. Slashed .305/.340/.539 in Triple-A, with 13 homers and 21 steals over 85 games. This late, all you want is some plausible upside.

• Dustin Pedroia, 2B, Red Sox (26.07, 382nd pick): Category juice might be out the window, but always hits for a plus average. Obviously ticketed for the DL to start, which might be a feature, not a bug, this late in the draft — one free dip into the replacement pool.

[Salfino and Pianowski review the Mixed LABR draft on the Breakfast Table Podcast]

• Matt Shoemaker, SP, Angels (27.09, 399th pick): Health obviously a problem through his career, but when the splitter is right, the strikeout upside is appealing. A lottery ticket.

• Steve Cishek, RP, Cubs (28.09, 412nd pick): Another bet against Brandon Morrow in Chicago. Quietly got back on track in Tampa Bay last year (2.14/0.81), for whatever 24.2 innings means to you.

• Cameron Maybin, OF, Free Agent (29.7, 429th overall pick): Maybe he’ll sign with a club that needs to play him. Has some steals upside. Will be easy to cut in March or April if it doesn’t come together.

— Team Strengths: All the non-steal offensive categories, offensive depth, age, no weak field positions.

— Team Weaknesses: Everything related to pitching (Steve Gardner, unfortunately, won’t allow this to be a 5×0 league).

— What I need to do: Explore the pitcher market, and try to be early and proactive to possible breakouts. And not listen to the noise, especially from those not in the arena.

More baseball draft prep from Yahoo Fantasy Sports

[tanmath3-blog]

Richard Alan Long is a very kind man. He has a great sense of humor and always seems happy. He is a family man with twin girls. I can’t imagine how he gets any writing done. I can tell you he adores his family and loves to talk about them. He is passionate about his writing and wants to make sure his books are as perfect as they can be before he releases them. If you haven’t read his stories please pick one up and don’t forget to leave a review. Make sure to say hello to him and send him a friend request. Please help me welcome Richard Alan Long to Roadie Notes…….

  1. How old were you when you first wrote your first story?

I was always writing stories as far back as I can remember. When I was a kid it was these crappy comic strips based on the ‘Garbage Pail Kids’ which I was obsessed with. I’d draw them with marker pens and crayons. I wrote a whole series based on the characters. As a kid I obviously didn’t know the movie was considered the worst movie ever made, me and my friends thought it was awesome. We’d trade the cards at school which probably lead to me being a completest later in life. As I got older I’d write stories. Always had a good imagination. Although my teachers at school said I was a daydreamer. One day I wrote a poem. Teachers didn’t believe it was me. Kids came up and said ‘no way did you write that poem’ It got put in the school newspaper and I’d still get kids coming up stamping a finger into my chest saying ‘You didn’t write that!’ But I was always creative. I am an only child and like most only children I spent a lot of time alone, creating worlds with toys and drawings.

2. How many books have you written? Two novels, three novellas, fourteen plays, about sixteen short stories and hundreds of poems…getting them where they need to be is another story. Some are published and some I doubt will ever see the light of day but I like to look back over the old ones to see how much I’ve developed as a writer.

3. Anything you won’t write about? Not interested in torture porn and gore just for the sake of it. It has to fit in with the story. Story is number one for me. I like to go on a journey with characters. I don’t like books where characters are merely created just to be killed off in outlandish ways. That gets boring for me very quickly.

4. Tell me about you. Age (if you don’t mind answering), married, kids, do you have another job etc… I am married with two kids. Besides writing I’ve worked a spectrum of jobs. Mostly retail and hospitality. It gave me some great characters. At the moment though, being a stay at home dad and writer is the best job I could ask for.

5. What’s your favorite book you have written? I quite like ‘Words Apart’ I wrote it when I was young and it has a young person’s conviction and determination. I did a play over ten years ago. I wrote it, a mate directed it and some friends acted in it. It was a great time. Rehearsing and performing. We did it purely for the love of it. I remember all the plays in my region at the time were either comedies or Shakespeare and I wrote this play that was like a Stephen King book if David Lynch had directed it with the budget of a Troma movie. It was great working with such dedicated people, many I’m still friends with.

6. Who or what inspired you to write?

I think I was inspired by being told I couldn’t do it. School had told me I was better off leaving, my grades were awful and I felt completely useless and the education system reinforced that. If you segregate kids and tell them they are the bottom class, that the most they can ever achieve is a E grade then unfortunately at a young age you start to believe you are worthless. I remember one teacher used to shout at me as I walked into to school ‘Not be long before you can sign on the dole.’ So it made me think, especially at a young age that I was a failure and I was stupid. But the best advice I got was the school telling me to leave and go to college. I went to college and it was a joy. The lecturers knew how to nurture talent and get the best out of students. They made you feel like you mattered. In terms of writing and inspiration it came from a few different writers. The first book to truly inspire me to want to write was ‘Salem’s Lot’ by Stephen King. It is beautifully written. It is scary. I remember reading it late at night and I felt right there with Ben Mears when he’s exploring the Marsten house. It’s still to this day my favorite book. At college I started writing and studying plays and I was very inspired by Harold Pinter. I still am. He inspired me to write better dialogue. I love his plays. Everything appears normal and English but there is an oddness to it all. Off the top of my head some writers or books that made a massive difference and inspired me where ‘The Woman in White’ by Wilkie Collins. Collins had such a way of capturing human emotion. ‘Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger is another book I found inspirational. I read it and I was blown away. It is sublime. I think I read it in two sittings. Also I must mention William S Burroughs. I have read most of his books and I think he was a genius. So yeah I was a kid that got told I was thick and useless but I was reading William S. Burroughs and Wilkie Collins for fun without realizing I was actually self-educating myself.

7. What do you like to do for fun? When not writing and not looking after my family I enjoy playing Nintendo. I am a massive fan of the Legend of Zelda. Have been since day one when I used to play it with my late father. I’m a bit of a geek for Italian horror cinema but don’t get much chance to have Dario Argento marathons anymore with my kids in the house. Obviously I read. Loving Richard Chizmar’s work at the minute. I also and this is very rock n roll, but I have a favorite chair in my garden and I love a cup of tea on an evening and get the chance to just to sit and stop everything. To take a moment to think about my late parents, to remember the good times and too think about my friends. My dad passed away just over a year ago and the end was tough. It’s nice to just take a moment and remember the good moments we shared. On a lighter note I love a Monday night when the family goes to bed and I relax and watch the new Twin Peaks. David Lynch is my favorite director. The guy is a legend. I like music too, don’t go to gigs as much anymore. I’m still old school. Still buy my music on CD’s.

8. Any traditions you do when you finish a book? None. I just think…fuck me this is going to take some editing.

9. Where do you write? Quite or music? I generally write to music. Rock music or soundtracks. But when I’m second drafting or working over a scene I prefer silence.

10. Anything you would change about your writing? Not getting kicked out of school and being told I was a failure from every educational body at a young age might have helped. It took years for to meet people who had confidence in me and my writing. Advice for any writer. Find someone who believes in you. My wife has been a rock of support for me.

11. What is your dream? Famous writer? Don’t really think much in those terms. All I want is to make a living at it and hope I can entertain people. Everything else is a welcome bonus.

13. Pets? It’s a tough one. One of my daughters is terrified of dogs, cats, Kermit the Frog and anything that moves. Yet my other child is like Steve Irwin, grabbing any bug or slug and holding them close and saying ‘Hello cutie pie’ My wife wants a dog but I’m still undecided.

14. What’s your favorite thing about writing? Freedom. Freedom to just get lost in a story. That all its about at the end of the day. I suppose it’s not even about getting published. It’s a therapy. Some people take drugs, others drink. I write.

15. What is coming next for you? Preparing to release a novella ‘About A Witch’. I’ve got a few short stories due out too with different publishers. and then hopefully once they’ve done the rounds I’ll have a deal for a novel on the table. Also I’ve never collaborated with another writer before so hoping to work with someone soon.  ‘About a Witch’ is out soon as well as my work with Hellbound Books Publishing LLC 

  You can connect with Richard Alan Long here:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-dbs/author/ref=dbs_P_W_auth?_encoding=UTF8&author=Richard%20Alan%20Long&searchAlias=digital-text&asin=B00AKU2RS8

      Some of Richard Alan Long’s books:

  Getting personal with Richard Alan Long Richard Alan Long is a very kind man. He has a great sense of humor and always seems happy.

[yahoo-shutdown-corner-blog]

NFL draft profile: No. 10 — Alabama TE O.J. Howard, sorely underused two-way weapon

Alabama TE O.J. Howard 6-foot-6, 251 pounds

Key stat: Played in 46 games for the Crimson Tide but had 18.2 percent of his total college receiving production in two games — the 2015 and 2016 national title games, both against Clemson.

Alabama TE O.J. Howard is a surefire first-round pick and could be the first Senior Bowl player drafted this year. (AP)

The skinny: O’Terrius Jabari “O.J.” Howard was a ballyhooed recruit and roundly viewed as the top prep tight end when he gave up his baseball dreams (he was a draftable Major League Baseball prospect) and signed with Bama. Started five of the 14 games he played in as a true freshman and had a 52-yard TD against LSU. Also was a part-time starter in 2014 before breaking out as a junior in 2015. That season, Howard started all 15 games and earned MVP honors with a five-catch, 208-yard, two-TD effort in the national championship win over Clemson. Howard followed that up in 2016 as a Mackey Award finalist and again had a big game against Clemson (106 yards, TD) in the championship game vs. the Tigers.

Only six tight ends have been drafted in the top half of Round 1 over the past 20 years (Tony Gonzalez, Bubba Franks, Jeremy Shockey, Kellen Winslow, Vernon Davis and Eric Ebron), and Howard’s receiving production is right in line with all of them. Howard was invited to the Senior Bowl and was clearly one of the best players there. He also dominated in every athletic testing event at the NFL scouting combine except for the vertical jump, leading all tight ends in 10-yard split (1.52 seconds), 20-yard shuttle (4.16), 60-yard shuttle (11.46) and 3-cone drill (6.85).

Howard graduated with a degree in telecommunications and will turn 23 in November.

Best-suited destination: Ideally, the team that drafts Howard will utilize him the way the New England Patriots use Rob Gronkowski, the Kansas City Chiefs use Travis Kelce or the Carolina Panthers employ Greg Olsen. Teams that use a lot of two-TE sets such as the Philadelphia Eagles, Indianapolis Colts, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Arizona Cardinals, Tennessee Titans, New England Patriots and Minnesota Vikings also would be interested in Howard’s services. But really, there shouldn’t be a team in the NFL that couldn’t find good use for one of the best two-way prospects to come around at the position in recent years. Even teams that did not utilize the tight end often or effectively last season — such as the New York Jets, New York Giants, Denver Broncos or Miami Dolphins — should consider redesigning their offense to find a place for Howard in their system. The Cleveland Browns, who coached Howard at the Senior Bowl, certainly would know how to unleash Howard after his dominant week in Mobile.

Upside: Outstanding physical tools. Tremendous height, arm length and good hand size. Shredded, sculpted physique — 7.7 percent body fat — and terrific athleticism. Displayed home-run potential when utilized in passing game. Showed he could take short passes a long way. Long strider with good acceleration who runs better than many of the wide receivers in this class and is mo match for most linebackers in coverage. Averaged more than 15 yards per catch in his career — a terrific number for a tight end. This is an example of how Howard often was overlooked in the Bama offense — he’s wide open in the flat (top of the screen) against Kent State, but freshman QB Jalen Hurts opts to throw into tight coverage elsewhere:

Alabama TE O.J Howard routinely was overlooked in college, as he was here against Kent State. (Draftbreakdown.com)

Mismatch piece to stress defenses and, even if he’s not getting the ball, opening things up for others. Natural hands catcher with low drop rate. One NFL team charted Howard with a mere three drops over the past two seasons combined, against 83 receptions over that period. Catches ball in stride and looks fluid and natural doing it. Concentrates and can adjust to poorly thrown or tipped passes, of which there were many last season.

Star of Senior Bowl practices, almost uncoverable all week. Versatile — lined up in-line, attached to the line, flexed out, in the slot or on the wing in his career. Accomplished blocker in both run game and passing game. Asked to chip, wham and combo block against SEC defensive ends (even Texas A&M’s Myles Garrett, for example) and won a lot of those battles. Run game was designed with Howard as lead blocker for Hurts on many plays. Dominated blocking drills at scouting combine. Effective cut blocker but also can use his hands to lock out defenders. Takes a pro’s approach to the game. Never missed a game at Bama and never lost a fumble in his career. Clean medical history.

Downside: Didn’t dominate the way you’d expect against lesser competition. Only had seven touchdowns in 46 career games. Caught three or fewer passes in all but nine career games and had only two games with more than 81 yards receiving. Asked to run a very limited route tree and route runner in general requires refinement. Even in the two breakout receiving games vs. Clemson, Howard was the beneficiary of multiple blown coverages by the defense. Not a make-you-miss player with the ball in his hands. Appeared to struggle to get on the same page with Hurts at times on off-script plays, so developing a rapport with his quarterback will be key.

Can use work on his blocking to be as effective in the NFL, especially in his pass sets. Doesn’t barrel through and dominate people. More effective as a combo blocker and won’t be able to isolate against strong defensive ends one on one. Still could add lower-body strength and carry a little more bulk overall. Turned in surprisingly low vertical jump number (30 inches) that was lost amid other combine showcase results. Can coast at times. Possesses elite gifts but doesn’t always flash them. Players with his natural ability tend to dominate more than Howard did. Described by one scout as “a little pretty” in the way he plays. Was asked in more than one team interview whether he truly loved football.

Scouting hot take: “I’m aware of the production. I am not a stats guy, but we all know about it. I’m trying to think, has [Nick] Saban ever had a tight end put up big numbers? You talk to their staff and they don’t really have a good answer for you, because the tape shows him getting open when he got his chances. But I did assume after the [first title game against Clemson] that he would be unleashed. They just didn’t use him like that. I put some of that on them having a freshman quarterback who only could throw certain routes. But I also think it had to do with who was calling plays {Lane Kiffin].” — NFC scouting director

Player comp: A faster Tyler Eifert, without the health concerns.

Expected draft range: Top-15 pick

Previous profiles

Nos. 51-100: Here’s who just missed the cut No. 50: Indiana OG-C Dan Feeney No. 49: Iowa DB Desmond King No. 48: Vanderbilt LB Zach Cunningham No. 47: Wisconsin pass rusher T.J. Watt No. 46. Alabama pass rusher Tim Williams No. 45. Washington CB Sidney Jones No. 44. Alabama LB Ryan Anderson No. 43. Ohio State WR-RB Curtis Samuel No. 42. Florida DT Caleb Brantley No. 41. Connecticut DB Obi Melifonwu No. 40. USC CB-KR Adoree’ Jackson No. 39. Texas Tech QB Patrick Mahomes No. 38. Michigan State DL Malik McDowell No. 37: Ole Miss TE Evan Engram No. 36: Florida LB Jarrad Davis No. 35: Washington S Budda Baker No. 34: Oklahoma RB Joe Mixon No. 33: Alabama CB Marlon Humphrey No. 32: Florida CB Quincy Wilson No. 31: Tennessee RB Alvin Kamara No. 30: Michigan DB-RS Jabrill Peppers No. 29: Alabama OT Cam Robinson No. 28: Notre Dame QB DeShone Kizer No. 27: LSU CB Tre’Davious White No. 26: Missouri DE Charles Harris No. 25: UCLA pass rusher Takkarist McKinley No. 24: Michigan DE Taco Charlton No. 23: Wisconsin OT Ryan Ramczyk No. 22: Utah OT Garett Bolles No. 21: Western Kentucky OG-C Forrest Lamp No. 20: Florida State RB Dalvin Cook No. 19: Miami (Fla.) TE David Njoku No. 18: Tennessee DE Derek Barnett No. 17: Clemson QB Deshaun Watson No. 16: North Carolina QB Mitchell Trubisky No. 15: Washington WR John Ross No. 14: Clemson WR Mike Williams No. 13: Western Michigan WR Corey Davis No. 12: Temple LB Haason Reddick No. 11: Ohio State CB Gareon Conley

– – – – – – –

Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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[lifeofalanguagestudent]

In November last year, Jessie and I had promised to see each other in the new year of 2017, aiming for the end of March. In January I found myself on Flybe’s website booking a flight to Newquay airport in Cornwall after working out that it was cheaper to catch a train to Manchester Airport rather than drive myself [for five hours omg] or catch many trains for 7-8 hours with awkward journey times. I couldn’t believe I was going to go to Cornwall!

Soon enough, Sunday 2nd of April arrived and I was heading to Nottingham Train Station to catch the 11:44 train to Manchester Airport. Jessie moved down to Cornwall a year ago to pursue her dream of living in a place she has spent her life going on holiday to with her family and got a job at one of the local and top brand hotels in north Cornwall near Newquay. I admire her for making the move to somewhere new and taking on the challenges of adulthood face on. I boarded the little plane that would leap across the British isles to my destination and found myself considering the topic of adulthood and what it entails. I seem to keep coming across articles or things that talk about us ‘twentysomethings‘ and our lives here and now. Nevertheless, I let those thoughts dance away and attempt to emanate relaxed vibes instead.

At 17:30 I arrived at the tiniest little airport I’ve ever seen. It was one building the size of a town hall and the baggage reclaim was the size of a lounge in a standard semi-detached house. As I had no luggage, I was in arrivals in about 39 seconds. Wow. :D

Ten minutes later Jessie and I found each other and we were soon zooming down the winding country lanes talking about her car as it’s very similar to mine! Seat Mii / Skoda citigo cars are obviously the cool trend at the moment… :D

Mawgan Porth Beach, Cornwall

We stopped at Mawgan Porth beach, removed our shoes to feel the sand between our toes, and walked out towards the crashing waves and the sea beyond, sharing our most recent updates and tales. The water was rather icy and a bit of a surprise to our little toes but that couldn’t ruin the 360 view that surrounded us. The sun was low in the sky, warm light cascading down over the green coast that disappeared into the distance on both sides of where we were standing. It was one of those moments where no cameras are used, where you really take it in and experience it 100%.

Once back at the car, Jessie drove us to where she lives in St Eval and gave me a little tour of her three bedroom home that she shares with her 19 year old brother. I think if I lived with Harry, we would drive each other mad… Nonetheless, their house was lovely, cosy and the pet hamster was a cute extra housemate that loved to loudly chew the bars on its cage. In the evening we went to a

Polzeath Bay, Cornwall

pub by the famous beach in Polzeath called the Oyster Catcher for a drink and some light food. Given that I was by the sea, we decided to share two starters: moûles frites and prawn skewers. Yum.

I made it my challenge to eat as much seafood as possible during my forty-eight hours in this Cornish land. By hour four: we were back home, relaxed on the sofa, and planned for the next day…

At 10:45am, hour seventeen, we arrived at the Headland Hotel by Fistral Beach on the south side of Newquay for a relaxing few hours in the spa. We donned big plush dressing gowns and complimentary flip flops and made sure to make full use of the facilities. :D The swimming pool area had different shower areas, one had different settings such as “tropical storm” which douses you in cold water to eventually add hot water to give you a “refreshing” experience. My response to that was just pure shock at the water temperature. I hope I never get stuck in a real tropical storm… There was a relaxation room which was the best part of the spa facilities with big loungers, fluffy blankets with complimentary sweeties and tea. We had lunch at 13:30, hour twenty, and I kept to my challenge, having battered seafood, which meant I ticked squid, white fish and more prawns off my seafood checklist. Double yum.

Headland Hotel, near Fistral Beach

Headland Hotel, near Fistral Beach

Headland Hotel, near Fistral Beach

At 15:30, hour twenty-two,  we sadly gave back the robes and got back in the car to head to Padstow, the home of Rick Stein, which was a lovely little port dotted with shops and a panoramic view of a channel running inland from the sea. After ducking and diving into the little local surf shops, seeing three pasty shops sitting side-by-side [talk about competition, eh?], we decided to get scallops from Rick Stein’s take-away fish and chips place, go to Tesco for ingredients to make a salad and head home for a feast. My list of seafood eaten was going well, and I am so proud. I also feel like my body was thanking me for it as fish oils and omega 3 are good for us!

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By hour twenty-eight, the fresh sea air and good food had me in a sleeping slumber that I haven’t had in a long while… On Tuesday, we woke to a rather gloomy looking sky, but unperturbed headed out towards Port Isaac to the north. It is the site where the TV series Doc. Martin is filmed so I definitely had a picture in front of the Doctors house!

We had a lovely wander up through the narrow steep streets and admired the colourful houses that sit in the side of the sloping cliffs and those that are also standalone. We had lunch in a pub with a table looking out over the dock, and I finished my seafood list with a mackerel pâte and sourdough toast. Triple yum! 

We ended the trip as we started, walking onto Mawgan Porth beach, where the sun had once again broke through the clouds and lit up the blues in the sea and golds in the sand. 

Hour forty-seven: the little building that is Newquay Airport came into view. 

Although Jessie and I only ever manage to see each other a few times a year – if that – it is great to just settle straight into easy conversation and giggles. True friendship just makes the world go round. <3

And with that, my 48 hours in Cornwall have been the first mini-break with an adult touch involving spas, good food and wine. I hope I’ve given a good impression of the stray section of land that makes up the British Isle.

Thank you to Jess for a fantastic two days. Here’s to more adventures everyone! 

Xo. 

beaches and views: cornwall in 48 hours & a reunion In November last year, Jessie and I had promised to see each other in the new year of 2017, aiming for the end of March.

[phooll123]

In late 1993, Chicago White Sox outfielder Michael Huff got a strange call from the team’s owner, Jerry Reinsdorf. “He said, ‘We want you to teach someone how to catch and throw a baseball,’” Huff remembers. When Huff asked who his student would be, Reinsdorf wouldn’t say.

It turned out to be Michael Jordan. Unbeknownst to not just the public but his future teammates, the retired three-time NBA champion wanted to give baseball a shot, despite not having played the sport in more than a decade, when he was in high school. For months, Huff, the trainer Herm Schneider and others quietly worked Jordan into baseball shape before he announced in February that he would be reporting to White Sox spring training. From there, Jordan played a season with the Birmingham Barons, the White Sox’ AA minor league team, and then in fall league with the Scottsdale Scorpions before coming out of retirement to return to the Bulls, amounting to one of the oddest sagas of his labyrinthian career.

This unexpected detour is covered in Sunday night’s episode of The Last Dance, the ESPN docuseries that has become a cultural phenomenon since its debut in April. In a socially distanced era in which sports and culture fans alike hunger for new entertainment, the show quickly became the most-watched documentary content in ESPN’s history, and has dredged up all sorts of micro-histories and controversies, from postgame handshake snubs to political endorsements to pitching quarters.

But Jordan’s short-lived baseball career stands out for its peculiarity. And while The Last Dance features interviews with coaches Terry Francona and Mike Barnett, it doesn’t include the voices of the Birmingham Baron players and trainers who spent nearly every day of 1994 alongside him, on long bus rides, late-night McDonalds runs and at scorching afternoon games. More than a quarter century later, TIME caught up with several of them to hear about their experiences.

“It’s like we were in a circus the whole summer,” Barons shortstop Glenn DiSarcina tells TIME. “It was craziness on a daily basis.”

‘Blisters on his hands’

In October 1993, Jordan announced his retirement from basketball after a tumultuous summer. He had just won his third championship, but had come under intense scrutiny for gambling during the playoffs, and he was grieving the death of his father James, who was murdered that July.

In The Last Dance, Jordan says that one of the last things his father had told him was to follow his childhood dream of becoming a baseball player. After his father’s death, Jordan needed an emotional reset, and he became even more motivated to fulfill his longtime ambition. He quietly told his plan to Jerry Reinsdorf, who was the owner of both the Bulls and the White Sox; the owner agreed to help him and gave his number to the longtime White Sox trainer Herm Schneider.

Without telling anyone else, Jordan and Schneider got to work the day after Thanksgiving to transform his basketball body into a baseball one. Weeks before he picked up a bat or a glove, Schneider had Jordan do weeks of weight lifting and conditioning to strengthen his shoulders, elbows and hands. “He was putting stresses on joints in a way he had never done, maybe other than high school,” Schneider says.

Once Jordan had bulked up, Huff and former White Sox slugger Bill Melton were recruited to teach Jordan baseball fundamentals in all-day training sessions at Comiskey Park and the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology. Huff initially bristled at Reinsdorf’s request. “As a backup outfielder, it was a little bit unnerving to have the chairman ask you to teach someone how to do your job,” Huff recalls. It didn’t help matters that Jordan’s baseball skills were raw. “It was pretty rough at the beginning,” Huff says. “He had basketball athleticism and basketball IQ, but there was really none of that baseball-wise.”

But Jordan quickly won over Huff and Schneider with his determination to learn and improve. They would often have to nearly drag him off the field after a long day of practicing his swing or chasing fly balls. “He would hit and hit and hit until literally there were blisters on his hands,” Schneider recalls. “They would be bleeding, and we’d have to patch them up.”

The Last Dance covers Jordan’s near-maniacal competitiveness, which sometimes bordered on bullying lesser Bulls players in order to motivate them during practice. But that winter, Huff says that Jordan asked to be on the opposite end of such pressure. “The first couple times when I sheepishly said, ‘Mike, that wasn’t very good, let’s do it again,” he would look at me and say, “It’s okay, Huffie. You can get more forceful if I’m doing it wrong.’ He very much humbled himself to say, ‘I am the low man on the totem pole,’” Huff says. “We got into a very quick rhythm of literally getting better week by week.”

During that time, Huff remembers asking Jordan why he was trying to become a baseball player. “He said that before his father passed away, he had said to him, ‘You might be the one person this decade that can truly do anything you want,” says Huff. “If there’s anything you want to do, promise me you’re going to do it.’”

Off balance

When Jordan reported to the White Sox spring training in Sarasota, Fla., a media circus followed. And while there was plenty of excitement, there was also a pervading skepticism. By this point, it was clear to everyone that Jordan lacked the skills to make it to the major leagues that year. In March, Sports Illustrated ran a scathing cover article—penned by future TIME senior writer Steve Wulf—about Jordan’s progress, re-dubbing him “Err Jordan.”

Jordan was placed in AA-ball, the third highest of the four minor league levels. Someone who hadn’t played baseball since high school—even if he’s the best basketball player in the world—should have started in rookie ball. In The Last Dance, Reinsdorf says that he would have started Jordan at a lower level, but rookie ball or A-ball lacked the media facilities to handle the crowds that would swarm around Jordan.

“AA is future major leaguers, plus guys that are throwing hard,” Chris Snopek, a third baseman on the Barons that year, says. “You gotta be really disciplined at the plate.”

If there was any resentment over the idea that Jordan’s celebrity status had allowed him to cut in line, it dissipated once he demonstrated his work ethic and attitude. “A lot of times, Michael was at the field before anybody, working on his swing. He would come to us for advice,” Snopek remembers.

Glenn DiSarcina says that the first time he met him, Jordan came up to him and called him by his nickname, “DiSar.” “I was totally caught off guard that he would know who I was before even meeting me,” says DiSarcina. “That showed he probably did his homework on some of the guys he would be playing with.”

  Courtesy Glenn DiSarcina Glenn DiSarcina, left, with Michael Jordan in 1994.

Jordan started off hot in April, at one point stringing together a 13-game hitting streak. But soon, opposing pitchers figured out that he was unable to hit curveballs and other off-speed pitches. His batting average sank. “At a certain point he could catch up to the fastball, but you saw him lunging a lot at breaking balls and being off-balance,” says DiSarcina, whose brother Gary is a 12-year MLB vet who now coaches third base for the New York Mets.

Mired at the bottom of a steep learning curve, Jordan worked even harder to learn the intricacies of the game. In The Last Dance, Barons hitting coach Mike Barnett recalls Jordan’s daily routine: “He would hit early in the day, then off the breaking ball machine, then come in after regular batting practice, hit some more before the game, and then would hit again after the game.”

“He was the bank”

Double-A baseball is far from glamorous. Teams travel by bus, not plane; they get dressed in shabby locker rooms, play in sweltering heat and subsist on fast food or hotel spreads. Jordan’s teammates, who were much younger and less financially stable than he was, say that he embraced the modest lifestyle. “He was one of us. He didn’t ask for special stuff—he did everything we did,” the catcher Chris Tremie says.

“It was unreal, going into a McDonalds at Huntsville at one in the morning, watching the workers behind the counter in total amazement as Michael Jordan orders a Big Mac,” DiSarcina says.

Jordan also eagerly participated in group activities, albeit sometimes to his own financial benefit. He was a notorious gambler, and DiSarcina learned of his prowess the hard way on an early road trip. “We had just gotten our meal money, which was probably $15-18 bucks a day. That meant a lot to guys like us,” he remembers. “Unfortunately, I handed it all to Michael when he was dealing blackjack on the bus ride. I never played with him again the rest of the summer.”

Over the course of the season, DiSarcina and others had plenty of opportunity to wager with Michael on all kinds of things. “He thought he’d win anything: pool, ping pong, cards,” Snopek remembers. “Whatever we were playing, he was the bank; he would always talk smack and mess with us. He’d play Yahtzee all the time with [manager Terry] Francona, trying to keep us up in the middle of the night when we were trying to travel 12 hours to Orlando.”

Jordan developed particular bonds with Francona—who was just four years older than him, and whose own relentless drive would lead him to win two World Series titles as the manager of the Boston Red Sox—and the catcher Rogelio Nunez. Nunez was from the Dominican Republic and was just learning English. Over ping pong marathons, Jordan pledged to give Nunez $100 for each new English word he learned. “By the end of the season, Nunie’s English was much better, he was richer, and Jordan was beating him in ping pong,” infielder Kenny Coleman told ESPN last year.

Of course, Jordan’s competitive nature extended to basketball. Huff says that during games of H-O-R-S-E, “the minute anybody got a letter up on him, it was a dunk, it was a shot none of us could do—he would quickly get ahead of us.”

Tremie remembers playing a game of basketball against Jordan in the middle of the season, in which he and three of the Barons’ better players matched up against Jordan and three coaches. “We were doing OK for a little while, and we had a chance to beat his team,” Tremie says. “But when it came close to the number we were playing for, he took over. We were all just on the court watching him: I’ll never forget how explosive he was, and with finesse, too.”

Meanwhile, the season was also enlivened by the huge interest Jordan drew everywhere he went. Snopek says that while a game might otherwise draw 1,000 fans, 10,000 would show up their games. “It was a miniature version of what we felt like the majors was going to be with the crowds and the media,” Snopek says. “He made it an incredible year.”

Lasting Impact

Bit by bit, Jordan improved his game. By the end of the season, his average had crept back up to .202; he had hit three home runs, driven in 51 runs and stolen 30 bases. Jordan then signed up for the fall league in Arizona, where he batted a respectable .252. Tremie was impressed by his progress: “He got better as an outfielder, more instinctual on the bases. He wasn’t as susceptible to breaking balls,” Tremie says.

DiSarcina says that if Jordan had entered baseball as a teenager, he could have made it to the majors. “Just seeing his professionalism and the way he improved that one summer—and knowing the athlete and the drive—no doubt if he came in at 18 or 19, he would have made the big leagues,” he says.

Snopek agrees. “If he played for two and a half or three years of baseball, just think about his athletic ability,” he says. “I’m not saying he would be George Springer—but I think because of his athleticism and his mind, he would have had a good shot to make it.”

In the spring of 1995, however, baseball was still mired in a strike. Jordan refused to cross the picket line to become a replacement player, and he instead went back to the Bulls, where he won three more championships and cemented his already widely-accepted status as the greatest basketball player ever. In Space Jam, filmed that year, Jordan lampooned his own baseball efforts, portraying himself as a gullible hack surrounded by yes-men.

But Jordan’s Barons teammates say his impact persisted long after the summer of 1994. “It was a blessing to me and our teammates just because of the exposure we had, even with the front office from the White Sox coming to our games,” Snopek says. The next year, Snopek was called up by the White Sox and would play in the majors for four seasons.

For Chris Tremie, it wasn’t Jordan’s triumphs on the diamond, but his attitude in the midst of failure that made the biggest impression. “I learned from him how to conduct yourself when things aren’t going well,” he says. “To see his worth ethic, and really get after it after he had already accomplished so much, has always helped me in my career and life.” Tremie now works as a minor league field coordinator for the Cincinnati Reds.

Throughout the years, many have speculated that Jordan’s turn to baseball had a hidden nefarious element that had to do with getting secretly suspended by the NBA. DiSarcina doesn’t buy into the theory. “I think a lot of people thought it was a sham or a result of his gambling the year before,” he says. “From my perspective as a teammate, I honestly believe that he gave a hundred percent effort and wanted to be there. He worked as hard as anybody else I’ve ever seen in order to get better.”

[canaryatlaw]

Okay, so today was pretty cool. I got like, 4 hours of sleep before my alarm went off at 6:40 and I did successfully convince myself to get out of bed thankfully. My roommate never came home so her alarm was going off, but it wasn't loud or anything so I just shut it off. Got ready, ate breakfast, then went out to wait for the bus and it says it'll be here in one minute on the app.....and then it's gone. Just disappeared from the app entirely, next bus is in 20 minutes. What the fuck? Did I mention it's like 7:15 am and like 20 degrees out? Yeah, not cool. So I hang out at the bus stop for a little while longer because the app gets messed up sometimes (plan B would've had to have been get an uber if I wanted to meet my friend on time) and a few minutes later a bus is coming down the street with a different route than I've ever seen on that street before. Ooookay. But then he stops at the stop I'm at, which is only supposed to be for the 50 bus so I'm like okay....and the driver opens the doors and is like "oh this is the 50 bus!" and I'm just like.....okay! Haha willing to take it as odd as it may be. So I get on. I'm worried now though that I'll miss the second bus I was gonna take, I was supposed to have a like, 4 minute window between drop off and pick up, but now we're pushing time. So I get off at the stop, and as soon as the bus pulls away the other bus is waiting at the light on the other side of the street. This is like, not the first time this has happened to me in like that exact situation haha. I was kind of confused as to where the bus stop was at first but I figured it out so we were good to go. Just a bit west on that one, as I had already gone south as much as I needed. Dropped off under an overpass and walked like half a mile to my summer job friend's apartment where my spring break friend was staying overnight because she lives in the suburbs. This isn't the apartment I was at last night for the party, because that was the apartment of the other girl the party was for lol. So I let her know I'm outside and she comes out a few minutes later and we get going. Slight problem though, she left her glasses at the party apartment last night but that girl isn't answering her phone, but it's pretty close by and we have time so we drive by there and she tries to get buzzed in for like 5 minutes to no avail (I mean, it is like 8 am on a Saturday). So she assures me she can still actually see well enough to like drive and such haha and I assure her that I (mostly) believe her. We stop by McDonald's quickly and grab some breakfast sandwiches, then head to the site. We're going to a community center which is on the west side of Chicago. It's actually on the same street as my school, but further west. It essentially goes (moving east to west) loop (where my school is), west loop (where my church is), west side (where we are). The west loop is quite nice, but the west side is not so much, and that's where the schools are that my church supports on a regular basis. They do work with another community center not far from there but in another neighborhood that's quite nice as well. We didn't get into it but I had a feeling this one was Catholic run, being that they already had an association with my school and there was some stuff about the "Vincentian" mission which is a big thing at my school as far as catholic social justice goes (Vincent DePaul was a saint I think that the school's named after). But yeah, it was pretty nice. We get lead to this big gym that's been set up with different tables set up around the perimeter with different craft options and such, so they take us around and tell us what the deal is and then tell us we can pick wherever we want to go. There was a cute guy that joined us at one point I was hoping to get to work with, but he went to the dream catcher station but I know I'm so hopelessly unartistic that there was no chance I'd be able to do that, so I instead opted for the table next to them, which was the "slime" station, where we, you guessed it, made slime (which is apparently a big thing with the kids these days). So we have a huge thing of elmers glue and like 3 boxes of borax, and they're like "yeah we don't know the exact formula can you find out??" So I google it on my phone and it's pretty simple, just those two ingredients and water, so they get me a bucket of water and I make a test batch, and I immediately figure out this is going to be very, very messy. I was already trying to figure out just which steps I could actually let the kids do, I didn't want them to touch the borax because it is a chemical and I didn't want anyone to like get it on their skin and irritate it. So I ask for an empty bucket to put the leftover refuse water in, and a lot of paper towels haha which they come through with, along with two big bottles of red and blue food coloring. Alright, cool. At this point a few kids have begun trickling in, and one boy plants himself in a chair next to me and decides he's going to be my assistant, and I certainly wasn't going to refuse the help because I had the feeling things were going to get pretty crazy (spoiler alert: I was right). So we made another few test batches to try and get the formula right, but still kind of end up with leftover gross water, but whatever. So we work out a plan, each kid gets two bowls, and depending on how old they are they can either pour water from the pitcher into the 1/2 cup measurement and put it in the bowl or hold the 1/2 cup measure while I pour water into it and then pour it into the bowl. Trying to be as mess free as possible, but of course it still happened. I then gave them half a teaspoon of borax and handed them a spoon and asked them to stir. I then took the giant bottle of glue and the 1/4 cup measure and use that to put glue into the second bowl. I would've let the kids do this themselves, but the bottle of glue was like ridiculously heavy and I just did not see that going well. At this point if they wanted to add a color, red, blue, purple, or just plain white, they could add that to the glue, then add a 1/4 cup of water and mix it until it's homogenous (I obviously didn't use that word in explaining it) then pour that mixture into the water and borax one, and ta-da! You have instant slime that you just need to pull out of the water and you're good to go! Of course the elasticity and consistency of it varies depending on just how much of the different ingredients got into that batch, but most of it came out quite well. And it was very popular, we were swamped pretty much the whole time and I tried my best to clean as we went, but especially with the food coloring there was basically just a giant mess everywhere. It also didn't help that the food coloring came off on the kids hands when they were playing with it (someone didn't think that one through all the way). We had gloves for the actual process, but at some point those ran out and mine were so covered in dye it was cross contaminated other kids' stuff, so I had to abandon them and just get my hands really really stained with food coloring haha. By the end of the 2 and a half hours I was really tired, both from lack of sleep and just activity, so I was definitely ready to be done by the time we wrapped up. I did make a purple batch for myself to take home, but sadly the consistency didn't come out all that great. But we got lunch with everybody, hot dogs, then we all got in a circle and talked about MLK Jr. (because his was the MLK Jr peace rally) and such and ended in a very sweet prayer. At the end the boy who was helping me asked to take a picture with me, a that made me happy. He was a cute kid, very sweet. As everyone was dispersing we went upstairs with the director of the program and some girls from the program, ranging in age from like 14-28 and just talked about their experiences growing up in the neighborhood and the losses they've had to endure, and there were so many- dads, uncles, cousins, everyone had someone ripped away from them at the hands of violence. Just yesterday they had buried a 17 year old boy who was in the program and the cousin of one of the girls, who just made a few poor choices and his life was snuffed out just like that. And like, a lot of it they seemed kind of resigned to, just that this is their existence, and I thought that was so sad. The program is really helping keep them off the streets and propelled towards a successful future though, the oldest girl is going for her master's in social work and several others were either in college or in a charter high school. So it was definitely interesting to hear such perspectives on the issues within our city. After that we headed out, I waited for the bus for like 10 minutes and talked to a 1L that was waiting with me. Took that a bit east, then picked the 50 bus back up and rode that home, getting back around 3 o clock. I immediately got laundry started and turned on daredevil. Normally I would start reading today because it looks like that's how it will have to be this semester, but given we have Monday off (and no reading for the Monday scheduled class) the next two days should give me plenty of time to do so. So I mostly relaxed and did laundry. My roommate came home at some point and watched daredevil with me for a while, then after a few episodes (and 3 loads of laundry) she turned on a movie called John Wick I believe which I somewhat watched while making a full meal dinner for leftover purposes during the week. After that we watched a few episodes of chrisley knows best just because it is such an absurd and amusing show, and then we watched 400 days because we were talking about it and seemed like a good choice. I was much less on edge this time since I knew what to expect and I knew that ultimately it didn't really contain anything scary, so I definitely enjoyed it more this time around. And yeah, that was about it, and I got random different things done off my to do list while doing all of this. Tomorrow should be interesting, I'm gonna try really really hard to convince myself to get out of bed at 7:30 instead of my usual 9 so I can go to the 9:30 service instead of the 11. The reason is I'm signed up for the nursery at the 11, but I'm the only one signed up, and there's only one person signed up for the 12:30 after that, so if I'm in the nursery for the 11 I may end up staying for the 12:30 and miss the actual service, and being that I did that for like the two weeks prior to break and then was away for 3 Sundays I really want to be in the service because I honestly missed it so much. So I'm gonna try really really hard, but I know when discretion is involved to some extent I have like zero willpower when it comes to getting up in the morning....but again, I'm gonna try really really hard. Stay tuned for updates in the morning, lol. But until then. Goodnight mah people. Hope you had a lovely Saturday.