5 things on my mind: Don't lose faith in Jordan Walker, don't speed up on turning cars, and Liev Schreiber's legendary voice
Let's get into the goods as the work week prepares for its final lap.
If I’ve said it a hundred times, it may as well be 101. Time is absolutely, positively flying as we speak. The last 5 things dose came on Monday as the work week was just getting started, but now it’s over. Believe me, the body is burnt to a crisp and the brain battery has less than 20%, but I’m constantly amazed and saddened by how fast the days are moving.
I work 45 hours per week on the day job, getting there at six in the morning and making my way home shortly before four in the afternoon. Trucks are loaded before seven, and I’m sipping a cup of coffee #2 before my first stop. A residential neighborhood delivery route beginning is a lot like those adventure films you watched in the 1990s, but you sub in a landscaping truck blocking the road for the enemy.
Maybe it’s my need to impose my will, but I don’t get it. Can’t we all work together in order to achieve the greater good? In order to deliver to a house four houses up the road, I had to pull the air brake and use a two-wheeler to escort the plumbing supplies up the street. For some reason, I always feel like every neighbor is staring me down, because I took out a few branches on their decaying tree. Two trips. A couple fellas mowing and blowing rich people’s lawns didn’t seem to care, even smiling at one point. There’s a small part of me that wants to unleash some Reacher damage just about every day, but the smallness and smell of a prison cell and a mad wife help me push it down.
All this to say that time is so fleeting, even the hardships don’t seem as bad as they were in the moment. What we do in a day shouldn’t be forgotten, even if it sucked. In a delivery to the Wildwood zone of Clayton Road, I had to pull over just off the road next to a home, enough for Daytona 500 trainees to plow past me on their way to a job they hate and away from a home that may not be so sweet. But why not back the truck into their driveway? Good question, but it was shaped like one of those staircases that wraps around in circles.
I’m either scratching her drive badly and/or scratching the steps that adjourn each end of my truck. In the end, it’s FUBAR. It’s in these moments that people decide if they want to do this or not; get busy finishing the work, or hand it over to someone who wants that paycheck. I took the big, awkwardly shaped Onyx kit piece by piece down that drive. I sweated through a shirt, but felt good as the air conditioning blasted me after it was complete.
Time can move. It’s going to run. All we can do is make a living that leaves us proud and have some fun, like Bill Duke proclaimed in Predator. Here are a few other things on my mind.
Paywall incoming. Sorry, folks, but I can’t make it ALL free. Dog food is expensive, and I have three hungry bastards. Donate to my Coke Zero addiction below, and consume the rest of what is on my mind, including the Jordan Walker conundrum.
#5: Give Walker time to figure it out
Unless a team completely blows your socks off with an offer or Juan Soto wants to come to town, Walker stays. He may stay in Memphis for a while longer, but he has time. The kid’s 22 years old, struggling in his second MLB season. After an early collapse and comeback last year, hopes were high for the top prospect in John Mozeliak’s treasure chest. But baseball is hard, and many young hitters have been defeated by the adjustment game.
What’s that? It’s simple. A hitter comes up and surprises pitchers, making his own adjustments to better their offerings. However, the pitchers then make their own adjustments, tilting the table back in their favor. It’s up to Walker to make that next adjustment. He can’t hit groundballs, and blow our minds. He has to hit line drives. Power has to be unlocked. There’s time. Leave him down there until he’s ready.
#4: Condolences to the Tarasenko family
Former Blue Vladimir Tarasenko’s dad passed away. Maybe not the milk you wanted in your cherrios, but another reminder that our dads can’t stick around forever. Tarasenko is near me in age, and was very close to his father. I am as close to my dad as a 42-year-old son could be, and I fear the day he’s gone like an atomic bomb falling out of the sky. Father Time is undefeated, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to hit it with a pipe wrench.
Andrei Tarasenko, who worked as a development coach on a Russian hockey team, was only 56 years old at the time of his death. That’s too damn young to go, and too soon for a guy to lose his dad. Imagine being Vladimir right now. You just won your second Stanley Cup, but your dad is gone. I feel for the guy. Send him some strength tonight, because that’s an awful left hook from Father Time. Hug. Your. Dads. They’re not forever, even if they seem like everything that we can’t lose at the same time.
#3: Hello again, Matrix
Following Pulp Fiction in the “Back on the Big Screen” film series at Galleria 6 Cinemas is the Wachowskis action classic, The Matrix. It changed the genre like John Wick later changed and elevated it. Slow-motion, authentic kung-fu, and a trippy enough plot that it still throttles 25 years later. Keanu Reeves has been at the forefront of both action movements. He put in the time. When it comes to taking the red or blue pill, I’d take both.
After leaving the show last night, a few things were for certain: the action still stuns, Laurence Fishburne is cooler than cool, and 1999 Carrie Anne Moss may be the reason that cavemen chiseled on walls. The whole cast brings it, and the sequels were unnecessary. They could have stopped at one, and the effect would have been better two and a half decades later.
See for yourself. The Matrix plays at G6 Cinemas tonight at 9pm and Sunday evening as well. Since the public doesn’t like old fashioned new films like Horizon, audiences can still revisit the classics in other forms, back when films were allowed to be different and still thrive.
#2: The ultimate driver asshat move
Maybe we’ve discussed this before, or it could be another rant that needs to be composed. It’s one thing to speed, be a little erratic, and generally break 4-5 traffic rules per trip. You can pass by as just another driver by being bad these days. But the real mean souls out there speed up as you try to make a turn in front of them. Yanked out of their text thread and enlivened to go faster suddenly, they push it up 5-10 mph so you can make the turn in front of them closer.
Every time this occurs, a small part of me wants to slow down and see if they panic a little. Something to make them reconsider their decision. It’s simple, folks. Be nice out there, give way, let people in, stop being awful and strive to be better.
It sounds unreal to imagine, but a better driving world would be fantastic. Like the Cards making a trade for a big game pitcher, it most likely won’t happen.
#1: Liev’s golden voice
Late last night, I skimmed the streaming platforms and landed on Max. What Warner Brothers sold out still reads as HBO Max to me, and that includes a treasured sector of their entertainment vault called HBO Sports. That’s the best part of a dying breed of formerly strong television viewing pleasure, and a big reason for that is Liev Schreiber.
When he’s not acting his ass off in a versatile array of scripts, he’s reading from a script about a football team, classic sports game, or anything having to do with a sport. He records them on sets, at his home, or wherever there’s a soundproofed area. Lately, it’s his stellar work for Hard Knocks that showcases his indelible voice.
The same voice that I spent years NOT knowing it belonged to Schreiber is the main (only?) reason to tune in. Outside of the Super Bowl and whatever Pat Mahomes is doing, I generally don’t care about the NFL. But I love sports stories and a tale of underdogs, especially if the voice talking to me is provocative and all encompassing.
Everything that comes out of his mouth sounds prophetic, and worth remembering. Watching older 24/7 series about the Winter Classic and boxing matches hinged on those episode ending monologues where you’re getting as fired up as the players. That’s a powerful tool to have, and I love that Showtime never got in the way of Schreiber doing the work for their rival while he played Ray Donovan for seven seasons.
There aren’t many voices that would be worth watching a show about things you barely care about, and Schreiber is in that small group. When they are done building the statue for Michael Kenneth Williams, HBO should build one for Schreiber.
Time’s up, just like my stress level. What can I say? Life is hard, and that includes the adulting at work and at home. Anyone else just tired? Dog tired? I’m there. But as Jimmy Dugan said, it’s the hard that makes it great.
Enjoy the night. I’ll enjoy air conditioning.