by Joey Trum

If any of you have been lucky enough to attend a sporting event in Oakland, be it a Raiders game, an A’s game, a Warriors game, or a gang fight, you know that it’s not exactly the family friendly, all-American, Budweiser and dot races display you’ve come to expect from sporting events in the USA. Between the drabness of the Coliseum and a suburban fan base more suited to being Giants fans, you understand that your experience at an Oakland sporting event will likely be defined by its rough and tumble quality (hitting the bong, passing the Jim Beam, and getting into fights in the parking lot before the game) and its lack of attendance.

So it was with this mindset that I attended the A’s-Tigers game on a Saturday in mid-April. Now, one other essential aspect of Oakland sporting events I forgot to mention, but one that can be personally verified by thousands, is the expansive security force/ hospitality staff keeping the peace at the Coliseum complex. For example, I was at a Raiders-Chargers game two seasons ago where I actually saw a Coliseum security guard use defensive tactics to disarm some cholo with a knife who was angry at some poor accountant-looking dude who was caught making a negative comment about the cholo’s girlfriend’s boobs (which she’d just flashed to our entire section). I’ve seen several other incidents in this vein, and with every one it’s always struck me how well-trained and well-coordinated the security force/ hospitality staff seems to be. Having some experience working in crisis management myself, I can recognize the training when it comes out, and I can definitively say that it far outstrips your typical sporting event usher making $8/hour plus all the nachos he can eat.

So anyway, back to the story from Saturday. I met up with some of my friends and some of their friends and some people I don’t know at the farthest end of the parking lot (under a gigantic sign for the upcoming movie Thor), and engaged in some if not all of the pregame rituals I described in the first paragraph. We played some whiffle ball and went inside around the second or third inning (I seemed to be the only person interested in actually going to the game and perhaps even aware that a game was going on), and of course found seats about two rows above the home bullpen on the first base side.

Now as I mentioned before, the A’s don’t draw very well. This isn’t news to anybody who’s followed major league baseball since the late 80’s, but it doesn’t fully hit you until you actually attend a game on a Saturday night and take in the full minor league atmosphere. Playing in a venue as large as the Coliseum doesn’t help, as you have to see the always classy 30,000-seat-large tarps covering entire decks of the stadium, but when you can hear the seagulls flapping their wings between pitches it feels a tad unsettling. However, one silver lining of this is the rare experience of the players on the field actually being able to hear your heckling. The beneficiary on this day was Tigers right fielder Ryan Raburn (Raaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyburn), who our section had succeeded (or at least believed had succeeded) in coaxing an error while fielding a routine single with runners on.

So this is time at an A’s game. The mascot is an elephant out of your worst nightmares , the security team outnumbers the audience, and they seem far more invested as well. Not a half-inning went by without someone from security walking up and down the steps, eyeballs darting in all directions, particularly at people’s feet. After a while, I noticed a system by which the eyeball darter would patrol for one period, then a guy on the field would approach the next (with perfect overlap), all the time flashing the classic ‘just lookin’ around’ attempt at looking inconspicuous (an attempt almost comicly undermined by his steely, “I’m so pissed at my old lady for sleeping with my brother” facial expression). But whatever, you gladly accept this heightened security considering the element, and you also reassure yourself with the belief that they’re so concerned with the big stuff (stabbings, meth overdoses, etc.) that they’re not going to bother you unless you do the same (indeed, one of those present in our party swore there’s a tacit allowance of weed-smoking in your seats at the Coliseum, something he didn’t attempt).

Alright, now here’s where the story gets strange, and where all these variables came to a head for me. Around the 6th inning I get up to use the bathroom, and to get something to eat for me and my friend. The weird thing about Coliseum concessions is that they have this sprawling, low-rent, outsourced beer pub thing going on. Aside from the typical generic Aramark hot dogs and orange snot nacho stands, there’s all these stands sponsored by random pseudo micro-brews (the kind owned by mega beverage corporations). For instance, there’s one stand with a “Red Hook” sign above it that’s just as generic as the regular stands but happens to have Red Hook on tap and has one semi-atypical item like “Carnitas sandwich” along with the regular botulism fare. Another has “Guinness” above it, another “Fat Tire,” etc. After a lengthy walk, I end up at one such stand where I get an Italian sausage dog, a hot link, and a beer for my friend. A weird aside about this stand. Instead of being the open mall food court type counter that most sporting event stands are, this one more resembled a check-cashing place. The food service people were behind a wall of reinforced glass, with the only opening being a tiny 1×1 sliding window, the type big enough to receive your food but small enough to ensure that you’d have to shout all your communications and duck your ear up close in order to hear the vendor’s.

So anyway, I’m heading back to my seat with two sausages on a tray in one hand and a cold beer filled to the brim in the other. Foolishly, I kept both dogs in their original paper containers instead of taking them out and bunching them next to each other on the tray, which caused a precarious balance, especially considering the unbalanced weight of the beer. I’m not sure if I bumped into anybody, but at one point I lost my balance and felt one of the hot dogs start to fall off the tray. I fell to my knee in an attempt to keep the balance, but the hot dog fell out of the bun and onto the ground. I quickly picked it up and put it back in the bun, figuring that I would either throw it away or dust it off and eat it myself. Either way, it was my folly so I was going to take the responsibility. However, after walking a few steps away I was approached by a man wearing all black and a headset in his ear.

“Sir, did you drop that hot dog?”

I shook my head and told him it was okay.

“Sir, did you drop that hot dog?”

I told him that I did, but it was no big deal and I tried to keep walking.

“Sir, come over here please.”

I appeal to him again, but I start to feel that things would be worse if I didn’t go. So he pulls me aside. As I go, I try to pick up the paper container to put it in the trash but he again stops me.

“We’ll have somebody get that.”

So I reluctantly go with him, and he looks me in the eye.

“Sir, where did you buy that hot dog?”

“Uhhhh.”

“Was it there?”

He points to the nearest stand, where a lady behind a cash register is signaling me.

“No.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Some place over there I guess.”

I point in the general direction I came from.

“Come with me sir. We’re going to get you a new hot dog.”

So I follow the man for a minute or so and then he stops and tells me to wait. He walks off, leaving me alone, then comes back 2 or 3 minutes later.

“I need to get the head of concessions,” he says, and he beckons me to follow.

So we continue walking and he again tells me to stop. I see him walk over to a lady, maybe 28, wearing an all-black polo shirt, all-black pants, and a headset to match his. The man cautiously approaches her, and waits patiently while she finishes talking to the 4 people at once she’s talking to. Finally, I see him give some spiel that involves pointing to me several times. She nods several times and points as well, before coming over to me.

“Sir, did you lose your hot dog?”

“It’s no big deal!” I say, trying to sound more emphatic, but also not wanting to end up in the coliseum’s sex dungeon.

“We’re going to get you a new hot dog.”

So she has me follow her, and then she goes up to some such stand and talks for a moment with the person behind the counter before going back to me.

“What type of hot dog was it?”

“Hot link.”

Her eyebrows raised at this information.

“I know where you got it,” and she quickly leads me to the one and only Saag’s Meats.

She walks up to the check-cashing window and I hear her tell the cashier to give her a hot link. The cashier says that she can’t give away free food.

“Do you know who I am?” she says, and I swear to the ghost of Al Davis that she said these exact words.

She continues yelling at the cashier before I see the cashier relent. Then the head of concessions walks back to me.

“Did you have onions and peppers on it?”

She goes back, gets my onions and peppers, then gives me my new hot link. While she was doing this, I had been looking around for a nearby garbage can to throw away the old dog. Seeing this, she reached for the dog and I give it to her without hesitation.

“I’ll dispose of that for you.”

I thank her in an exaggerated way, feigning that I am pleasantly surprised by their going the extra mile just to salvage my mistake. She barely acknowledges this, and quickly beelines to the nearest garbage can before marching off to other adventures.

I have rarely in my life been so careful as on the walk back to my seats. Something tells me they would not have been so “forgiving” the second time around.

CONFESSIONS OF A DARK HORSE

Chapter 1

December 23, 2009

I am sorry to say it, but as far as excitement over major holidays goes, Christmas isn’t really my thing.

I don’t have any objections to Christmas on religious or cultural grounds; in fact, I don’t really have any objections to Christmas at all. I think the protests by the sensibly secular in this great land of ours against the public celebration of Christmas are largely misguided expenditures of energy and emotion by basically well-meaning people who should put their earnest efforts into something of more practical value, like fighting world hunger or class divisions or economic disparity, or saving the rain forests.

Or, they can go fuck themselves, too. Whichever.

My vague disaffection with the holiday season is not based strictly on anti-commercialism, either. I don’t have a problem with the most of the “commercialization” of Christmas – in the generic sense, at least. In fact, I think the crassness of the season may well inadvertently reinforce the basic decency in most of us, and even cause us to consider, if briefly, moral values we might not think much about otherwise, at Christmas time, or any other time.

We go out shopping this time of year fight mind-numbing gridlock on the roads and the vehicular transgressions of other drivers in scary mall parking lots, and yet most of us seem to retain some basic good cheer; at least partly, I think, because we are reminded this time of year that it truly is better to give than to receive.

The tangled up traffic can promote road rage in some cases, but it also offers multiple opportunities to do something nice for a somebody – letting him or her cut in line; or yielding that parking spot you have been eyeing for five minutes and parking instead a half a block further away; or just holding open a door for some poor bastard loaded down with bags and packages.

The overcrowded stores we wade into are often stressful and irritating; but on the other hand, we cannot stay aloof in a crowded store for long, no matter how hard we might try. One cannot stand in a queue at Best Buy for two-and-a-half hours and not talk to one’s neighbors in line; and if they seem relatively bright and/or mentally stable, one might even get to know them a little bit, no matter who they are or what they look like. The neighborly conversation flows naturally, and even if the catalyst for it is simply to commiserate on the consistently shitty customer service one finds practically everywhere nowadays, you can only talk about that stuff for so long.  Pretty soon you end up talking about other things, the weather, things you have in common, etc. That is the fun part. I sometimes find even a superficial conversation with a stranger in a long, slow-moving line will lower the blood pressure a bit, even make me feel a little better about the world, and maybe myself, too.

If you are like me, you get a little head rush out of doing something nice for or being nice to someone you don’t know, for no good reason. It is a pleasant feeling of well-being that just may have something to do with this ‘Christmas cheer’ one hears about this time of year.

So, I guess I have a positive feeling about Christmas, mostly. It is just that there are some celebrated cultural touchstones regarding the Christmas holidays I feel like I must have missed out on somehow.

I don’t like Christmas music much, for one thing. Some people I know get almost rapturous in late November or early December when they break out the Christmas music for the first time, digging out some Mannheim Steamroller CDs, a Pat Boone cassette or two, and, way in the back of the cabinet there, a scratchy old Harry Belafonte LP that has a great version of “Little Drummer Boy” on it.

Personally, I am indifferent to most traditional yuletide music. There are some non-traditional Christmas songs I kind of like. John Prine’s “Christmas in Prison” comes to mind, or maybe Springsteen and Little Steven and the E-Streeters doing “Merry Christmas, Baby.” At a holiday get-together once, I was asked what my favorite Christmas song was, and I blurted out, “Stranger in a Strange Land”. That brought some vacant stares. “You know, the Leon Russell song.” More incomprehension.

Listen to the lyrics sometime, is all I can say.

**********

I don’t have strong nostalgic feelings for Christmases past as some seem to. I have good memories, but I think part of my problem has to do with growing up with not much extended family around who at least got along well enough to get together for the holidays. The concept of huge Norman Rockwell-ish family get-togethers, all of us sitting around the groaning board eating goose and brandied plums and bread pudding at Christmas-time does not resonate with me.

Probably another impediment to me connecting with the Christmas atmosphere is that I grew up in a sub-tropical climate. I have seen snow at Christmas exactly twice in my life, and I am sure people from snow country would have laughed at it, as it was mostly just a dusting. In fact, it was often warm and humid enough around Christmas time here to wear shorts and a T-shirt. When I was 14 we had a warm front come through off the Gulf of Mexico right before Christmas, 75-80 degrees and humid as hell, and in the course of helping get our house and grounds looking nice for holiday visitors, I actually had to go out and mow the fucking yard. . . because it was three days before Christmas, and the St. Augustine was still growing. I remember pushing this heavy old self-propelled Sears mower that didn’t self-propel around the yard, sweating my ass off, all the while singing, “Mow the (fucking) yard and trim the (goddamn) hedges/Fa la la la la, la la la la”.

So there you have it, the confessions of one Southeast Texas semi Grinch-like individual.

“When the baby looks around him
It’s such a sight to see
He shares a simple secret
With the wise man”

**********

Well, I exaggerate a little. I’m not really a Grinch. In fact, I am kind of looking forward to Christmas this year.

Ed Wade and company seem intent on low-keying their way through the holidays, so far opting to put money down for stocking stuffers, rather than spending on any big ticket items. But there is always the chance they will surprise us. When I was a kid we’d look at the Sears toy catalog, and I’d secretly wish for about 2/3 of what was on every page. Nowadays, I am more realistic. All I want is a quality #2 starter, another solid bat for the lineup, and someone, anyone, above run-of-the-mill to emerge at catcher. That’s not asking for too much, is it?

My kids are ridiculously cheerful this time of year, of course, and act a bit more respectful toward their old man and his requests of them than usual. No doubt they have an idea in mind of not screwing up their potential presents from their mom and I. Not perfectly altruistic on their part, but I’ll take it.

I will get to see some family in the next few days I don’t see as often as I’d like to. And, I’m supposed to be getting a Kindle™ for my birthday (Christmas Eve), so I am pretty stoked about that. . . So anyway, you know, this Christmas could turn out to be a pretty good one, after all. Maybe that is why I have been walking around the last few days humming that “do you hear what I hear?” song playing in my head.

I recall that after all the hassle and hustle and bustle, for a brief moment on Christmas morning there is usually a sort of lull; a quiet time between opening gifts around the tree in the living room, and moving on to the dining room to commence the chowing down. In that lull, that quiet time, is it possible that some perhaps supernatural knowledge may be bestowed upon one, if one is open enough and enough at peace with oneself and the world to receive it? If so, then maybe all the things having to do with Christmas, the secular and the religious, the ridiculous and the sublime, will be put in order in one’s mind, if just for a brief moment.

It may even be just possible, in the brief quiet, to hear a voice, but faintly; singing of what this season is really all about, and why it all still matters as much as it does.

”And the baby looks around him
And shares his bed of hay
With the burro in the palace of the king”

He’s a stranger in a strange land
Tell me why. . . “

**********

And so it is Christmas. No, the war ain’t over, but I think am going to celebrate a little anyway.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Feliz Navidad and Happy Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, and Ashura, and Happy New Year, too; to all of Whoopass Nation, and those beyond. . . to those within, and those without. Peace.

It does not matter who you are or what you look like or where you came from or what-all you believe in. You are my brother.

And, oh yeah, Peace on Earth, too. Maybe one day.

_________________________________________________

NOTE: Some of the various threads of this story began floating around in my head over a year ago, around the time I posted an article about George Bjorkman and myself here. Over the intervening months, I thought several times about sitting down and trying to pull everything together; but I never did, because A.) I knew it would be a lot of work and, B.) I feared some of it might be painful. I basically resigned myself to the idea this story would never be told in its entirety. No great loss, there.

Then Ike happened. Sitting around alone in the hot, almost dark every night for over a week (the family had evacuated to Rayne, LA), listening to the thrum of a generator creating just enough juice to run a refrigerator, a few lamps, and a few box fans; with enough left over to power up this old Dell Inspiron laptop/boat anchor I had sitting around, well, some force compelled me to sit down each night and go about lashing this thing all together.

So I did. It is a little dark in a few places, convoluted in a few others. If you decide to read it, keep the context and setting of when and where it was written in mind, and maybe it will make a little more sense. Or not.

Anyway, everything in it is factual – all this stuff happened. I might have altered an ancillary detail or two in the interest of flow, but that is it. I did change a few names, not so much to protect the innocent – I don’t know any of those, and certainly no one in this story is anything close to it. No, I changed them on the off chance one of the principals might come across this on the interwebs, and feel compelled to come after me, with the intention of kicking my ass.

So, in a way, I guess I am protecting the innocent. That being myself.

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