Henry Miller wrote that. It took me years to agree. I wish I could write better. I've never really enjoyed it since I know I will never write as well as the people I've been reading forever. Whether it's great journalism or sportswriting….novels or short stories….music lyrics…and now, course blogs and on-line pieces, I've never had the gift for telling stories and making them pop from the page….to draw in a readers interest from the first sentence. Whether it was Joe Trimble opening his story on Don Larsen's World Series feat “The imperfect man pitched a perfect game yesterday”, or Ring Lardners famous lead in a story on a boxer, “Stanley Ketchel was twenty-four years old when he was fatally shot in the back by the common-law husband of the lady who was cooking his breakfast”, or Grantland Rice writing about college football in the 1920's, “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden”. Good writing makes you want to read more. My writing in high school and college was terrible….filling up those little blue booklets was like having blood drawn on a daily basis…you finally become weak just looking at them. I didn't write again for a long time. It wasnt until I was told that “blogging” was a new part of my job description that it became a “thing” in my life again. It's also a thing I do when I first arrive in the wee hours of the morning. I'm currently pounding this out at 3:20 am, like some aging Woodward or Bernstein trying to make deadline. The thing about blogging is that it doesnt go through the rigors of editing like most “good”writing does. It gets sent out into the ether most of the time, as it was written for better or worse. Someone once called journalism the “first draft of history”. So what would blogging be? I'm used to criticism for these pages…mostly for my political views which comes with the territory of being a liberal working for a right-wing media source. The ones that annoy me are the fevered responses telling me to “stick to sports”. As if every person can only be “one” thing. The idea that you can only be conversant or have something meaningful to say on only one topic is annoying and stupid. I don't respond to these “trolls”. It's pointless to argue with folks like this. So, I will write on…on whatever topic catches my fancy. As songwriter Steve Forbert once wrote “Howlin out words and bangin out chords”. Since I can't play guitar…this is what you get.
I mention all this because I stumbled on a piece of writing I wanted to share with you. Bill Lyon passed away this week. He was a newspaperman in Philadelphia covering sports and other topics for decades. But a good writer can write anything as this piece attests. Lyon, when diagnosed with alzheimers disease, decided to do what he does…write about it….
“Bill Lyon was as eloquent a voice of Philadelphia sports as any writer who ever lived. But his columns on his battle with Alzheimer’s disease were the most powerful work of his life.”-Jayson Stark
Read this amazing piece. Awe-inspiring writing by a great man. ”
https://twitter.com/phillysport/status/73989467687…
Other famous “first lines”. Do you recognize the books they come from”
” It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like.”
“The sky above the port was the color of television, turned to a dead channel”
All this happened, more or less.”
“It was a pleasure to burn”
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didnt know what I was doing in New York”
“In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together.”
1984-George Orwell
A Tale of two Cities- Charles Dickens
Catcher in the Rye- JD Salinger
The Necromancer-William Gibson
Slaughterhouse 5-Kurt Vonnegut
Farenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter-Carson McCullers
The new Brewers uniforms…what do you think?
The Doobie Brothers will unite with former frontman Michael McDonald for a 2020 North American tour celebrating the band's 50th anniversary
Giannis wore these last night….pretty cool looking…wonder how much they cost?
#Bucks
are 10-3 after a 115-101 win in Chicago. A 17-2 close 8 straight vs Bulls 7 straight in Chicago! Bucks have won 8 of 9! Hear the best plays from Ted Davis and Justin Garcia on the Bucks Statewide Radio Network
Justin Garcia recaps another Bucks road win in Chicago on a night where Giannis shined again. Get all the highlights from Ted Davis and hear from Donte Divincenzo after the win on the Bucks Radio Net
SoundCloud
The high school winter season begins tonight. I'll have the Wausau East girls basketball game as they host Mosinee…live at 7:15 on Foxsports Radio AM1390 & FM 93.9
SNL skewers the congressional impeachment hearings
Covers Of The Day (today is the date when Carl Perkins recorded Blue Suede Shoes in 1955. Here are a couple of hard rock covers.
Quotes Of The Day
For the second consecutive week, the U.S. Senate—under Senator Mitch McConnell’s control—didn’t vote on a SINGLE piece of legislation.
Senator McConnell:
Stop playing games.
Put the House-passed bipartisan, universal background checks bill up for a vote immediately.”-Chuck Schumer
“The irony is that it is only a matter of time until most who now attack “never Trumpers” will be claiming they were one all along. Their discarded uniforms will line the long road of retreat. “-Stuart Stevens
https://twitter.com/markhertling/status/1196196729…
“Amazon made $11,200,000,000 in profits last year. Its federal income tax bill: ZERO. It is simply not true that we cannot afford to invest in housing or health care or education.”-Bernie Sanders
“I can't believe we have to clarify this but the fact that you're incompetent at achieving your corrupt, illegal goal does not in fact mean that your actions are not corrupt and illegal”-Leah Greenberg
“Just a reminder that last week it was revealed that one of Trump's top advisers, Stephen Miller, bases his policy views on white nationalist websites and in response the White House did NOTHING”-Judd Legum
“What was said “behind the scenes” to
@senronjohnson
during his 4th of July trip to Russia that had him calling Russian interference in our election “overblown” when he returned?”-Forward
