2002-03-26
First game, Coaching, Oscars., posted at 12:13 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com It's Tuesday, and I have so many papers to grade before spring break starts on Thursday that I can't even see straight. Tonight, I'm thinking about going to a coffeehouse right after I leave practice and staying there until they're all done. We'll see, though.I do have enough time to give a few quick updates, though. I'm not very good at prioritizing...
***
Our first baseball game was yesterday. We played in the southern part of the city, in an area I've never been before. What a shithole it was! Broken beer bottles were everywhere, the grass was overgrown, and there was graffiti on the fence. It was right under an overpass, so it was difficult to yell across the field over the roar of the traffic. I've never seen baseball played at such a place, and I later learned it was Al Kaline's old stomping grounds. Very sad. The field overlooked the harbor, and it definitely had potential to be beautiful.
We won. It was cold as hell, and we did our best to lose it, but we won. We were winning 14-5 going into the bottom of the last inning, and ended up winning by just two. The last inning was a nail biter; at least, I would have bit my nails if I could have felt my hands.
It was loads of fun to coach at first base, though. Every time someone got on base, I'd shake his hand, remind him how many outs there were, and whisper in his ear about the pitcher's move over to first. It never got old. I got yelled at once by the umpire for stepping onto the field during play. Oops. I was definitely getting into it. I can't wait until we can start playing when it's nice out.
***
The rest of the weekend was fun. I realized on Sunday that I had gone out for four nights in a row - Thursday night for a couple of drinks with Nick and Randy, Friday night for a night of debauchery at Looney's, both of which I wrote about already. Saturday was okay. My friend Mike from DC came to visit along with his roommate, and we had a guy's night out in the Fell's Point area. It was pretty fun. I was the DD that night. On Sunday, I met up with Nick, Teri, and Randy for the Maryland basketball game, which was exciting. I drank only diet coke on sunday, so it's not as though I went nuts all four days, but it was definitely a fun weekend. I didn't spend much time grading papers, though, which is why I'm behind.
Over the weekend, I began to fantasize about what it would be like to have a "Nine to five" job that didn't have to come home with me. Heck, it sometimes seems like it would be great to be a math teacher, someone who didn't have to spend all his free time grading essays. Nick is saying it all the time, that he can't believe how much I have to grade and doesn't know how I do it.
Coaching has caused me to fall behind the most. I'm not quite sure how other coaches do it. It's definitely something I've never considered before. Luckily, it's become the favorite part of my day - and that's without any pay, so that'll just be like gravy when it starts to come.
***
I enjoyed the Oscars for the most part. It was boring, but that's unavoidable in a four hour long show.
What I liked:
Halle Berry's win over Sissy Spacek. She definitely deserved it.
The speeches by Sydney Potier and Robert Redford. Both were excellent.
John Goodman and Randy Newman duetting.
Randy Newman's self-deprecating speech.
The emotion of Halle Berry's speech.
The opening of Denzel Washington's speech, which seemed to puncture the somewhat self-importance of Halle's.
The fact that Potier thanked a bunch of white people for taking chances on him, as well as for other Black actors paving the way for him. I can't imagine a racecard player like Spike Lee to acknowledge that when he finally gets his Oscar due.
Whoopi Goldberg, for the most part. Her entrance was fantastic.
Jennifer Connelly's deserved win.
Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.
What I didn't like:
Gosford Park winning over the much more-deserved Memento or The Royal Tenenbaums for best screenplay.
Denzel's win was not deserved. Yeah, he deserved it for Malcolm X. Yeah, Russell Crowe won it last year. But his performance was better - so what if he won already. (I'd have still gone with Will Smith, though).
Jim Broadbent? What the hell?
Faith Hill's cheesy song performance.
Most of the middle two hours.
Julia Roberts hogging Denzel's moment by hanging on him. Random fact I read in Newsweek: Did you know that Denzel refused to kiss Julia in A Pelican Brief because it would offend his African American fans? Yup. Can you imagine a white actor saying that about kissing a Black actor, the fuss it would cause?
Whoopi Goldberg saying "child" after a bunch of her punchlines.