The Friday... A-HA!

Dear readers and fans and loyal people everywhere who love me,

We at JBB World HQ are going to take a quick break for the holidaze, but we wanted to leave you with a special, appropriately glorious treat.

My trusty editors fought fiercely against this week's selection. They said, But Jacky Boss, you can't lust after an entire group as your One True Man Love. We let you get away with Wham because we knew your affections focused on George Michael alone. But enough is enough! We're tired of this. Just find a One True Man Love so we can get on with our lives!

Oline arched her witchy brows in scorn while Croftie did major lips of disapproval.

And I looked at them with my fatherly gaze and said in my gentlest Jacky Boss tones: Silly girls, you've been in the ivory tower too long. You don't remember. You don't remember that you wanted to live in this video. You made all your Barbies re-enact this video. And you were not alone. Everyone you knew wanted to be that Debbie... ahem... Deborah Gibson clone in that diner. So, silly girls, while I may not have found my One True Man Love this week, I have found something better. For this is the video of the post-collegiate, pre-professional twenty-something experience. A-ha

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For the Love of Sport

Some time ago, my Bombshell came into JBB World HQ lamenting her lack of sportsy knowledge. As she perched on Trusty Editor Oline’s desk reapplying her red lipstick and fluffing her leopard-print skirt, my Bombshell asked in exasperation: “Who the hell can teach me about this sports stuff?” Trusty Editor Croftie leaned over and whispered to Trusty Editor Oline: “Le Jock!”

Thus, for one night and one night only, Jack Black’s Body brought together Jack Black’s Bombshell and Jack Black’s Jock for an epic meeting at a quaint French restaurant, where the pair talked bats and balls until the wee hours of the morning, as my Trusty Editors hid in the corner scribbling as fast as they could.

[Curtain up.]

Bombshell: So, dear Jock.

Jack's Jock: Yes, lovely Bombshell?

Bombshell: (leaning in over her crêpe, her baby blue eyes opened wide) I’ve decided that I need to understand a bit more about sports. Because… well, my boy tells me that he thinks the life of a bombshell is kind of pricey. What with my bombtastic clothes and such. But he’s so into sports, and I just read in the paper some baseball team just spent more than $100 million on a pitcher named Dicey J, or something like that. So, just what is it with the wide world of sports? How can one guy be worth so much money?

Jack's Jock: (cracking his knuckles in excitement) Well, my dear… let us start with this “Dicey J.” Or rather Daisuke Matsuzaka (Dice-uh-kay Mat-soo-Zah-kah). People in Boston, where the Red Sox just picked him up, are buying tee shirts with a pair of dice and the letter K on them for simplicity’s sake. But in one of the more difficult contract negotiations in the world of sports, Daisuke was bought out of his contract from a Japanese baseball team, the Seibu Lions. Fifty-one million dollars of that went to pay the team for releasing him. Daisuke will get the remainder over the next six years. Which is a lot… but is certainly not the most expensive contract in baseball.

Bombshell: But why choose this guy from Japan?

Jack's Jock: He’s a legend there. His win/lose record is extremely impressive. He’s got at least four different pitches to trip up batters. It’s a gamble, but Seattle did the same thing years ago when they picked up Ichiro Suzuki from a Japanese team, and he’s been their star player ever since.

Bombshell: OK, Jock. I think I see what you mean about Dice-K. But I’m still not sure I understand what the big deal is about this baseball thing. What about those “Play-Offs” that had me in a tizzy? Men all over this city were strangely emotional. The Bombshell does not enjoy being ignorant of what’s happening in the sphere of men. What’s worse, I felt completely unequipped to deal with this, because—well, Jock—I don’t know anything about “sports.”

Jack's Jock: Those play-offs had me in whatever the burly, manly version of a tizzy is, too. A man-tizzy? A manizzy? Yes... a manizzy. Not out of confusion, but because it was the World Series, baby! A series so big it only happens every October! Which I know sounds often, since it’s annual—but just come along with me on that one. So yeah... emotions were running high.

Bombshell: (blinks eagerly and bounces in her seat with anticipation) But I still have questions, Jock, a lot of them. That whole week, my boyfriend wouldn’t let me wear red. Why was that, Jock?

Jock: Your beau was likely having you swear off red because he's a Tigers boy... and his team was playing the Cardinals of St. Louis—who are always draped in red—for THE ring. The World Series ring.

Bombshell: And why ever is it called the World Series? It’s really just the American Series, right? Or will the winner go on to play the Tokyo Blowfish or the Vienna Spatzels?

Jock: Well, this World Series doesn’t actually involve the entire world. But there is a real World Series: the World Baseball Classic. Players from all over the world participate, so that one’s a real contest from teams all over the globe. However, Major League American baseball has become very much an international affair. You can start by going back to our good and expensive friend Daisuke. And from there, just look at the rosters of all the MLB teams: Ichiro Suzuki, David "Big Papi" Ortiz, Edgar Renteria, Bobby Abreu, Chien-Ming Wang, Adam Loewen—he's Canadian, but it counts, Carlos Guillen... You get where I'm going. America invented baseball and athletes come from all over the world to play on our turf. And when we have our World Series, the world watches, Bombsy!

Bombshell: Here's another question for you, Jock: If a team is good, why all this shuffling around and trading of players? I mean, if you've got a full house, why give away your best cards?

Jock: (put his fingers to his temples and squints across the table) It’s all a matter of contracts and trades and prospects and such. Players sign different agreements for different amounts of money for different lengths of times. Their contracts can be sold to other teams for “young guns” in the bullpen, or fresh blood in the infield. Only a perfect team with perfect chemistry can carry you all the way to the World Series.

Bombshell: Do managers and coaches change every year, too? Where’s the continuity?

Jock: Contracts for managers and coaches are deliberated in much the same way. It’s all about contracts, contracts, contracts. So much of sports is about the team’s President & CEO, not the team’s coach. Your Epsteins & Steinbrenners. The corporation or private businessman footing the bill.

Bombshell: It's all a little promiscuous if you ask me...

Jock: It’s a dirty business of Benjamins to back the big buck bonds each body in every band of ball players bears.

Bombshell: Dirty, indeed.

Jock: But sometimes buying talent isn’t all there is to it. Look at the Yankees. They have some of the best talent in baseball and bought the incredible Bobby Abreu this season to bolster their post-season chances. But it still wasn’t enough. So much of managing a team and putting the right players together is a gamble.

Bombshell: (pauses in thought) I suppose I can understand the draw of baseball, even from afar... The lazy summer afternoons and sunflower seeds. It’s all rather romantic. But what about this football business, Mr. Jock? What is so interesting about a bunch of enormous men running up and down a field for hours on end? What are they doing out there?

Jock: My Bombshell, students of war can answer this one. But since we don’t have any of those around at the moment, I’ll do my best. Football is essentially a war on a battlefield. But rather than acquiring land and conquering the enemy’s army, you’re moving a ball downfield.

Bombshell: Ok, I can give you the war analogy. But I hear that football’s a "complicated and intricate" game, and I just don’t get it. What’s so complicated about moving a ball down a field? What’s so intricate about men running into each other?

Jock: Yes, the offensive and defensive lines do seem to just run into each other. But there really is so much intricacy to what you see in a football game. It’s a test of strength and skill. Can you protect your quarterback? Can you work the ball through the line or pass it successfully downfield? As the defense, can you force a loss of yards? Can you get the sack? The fumble? Getting the ball downfield isn’t just scoring. They do look to be just running back and forth. But what’s really happening here is a clash of brains and brawn.

Bombshell: But what’s the intrigue of football? Is it the cheerleaders? Take a moment and extol the fabulousness of football for the Bombshell, if you will. Tell me what all the fuss is about. I just don’t get it, Jock!

Jock: It’s totally the cheerleaders. No, actually, it’s the players, not the ladies, who create the intrigue. Every man will tell you that when we were boys, football players seemed almost like superheroes. Because they’re covered in shoulder pads and helmets, they can take massive hits and often get up unhurt and keep playing. And this way, we don’t feel bad when a game’s over because no one’s actually killing anyone. What you’re seeing on the football field each week is men reliving the Romanesque clash of warriors.

Bombshell: But I know plenty of ladies who watch football. What’s in it for them?

Jock: Maybe they just like all the muscles and tight pants.

Bombshell: I know I do! But not even those muscles and delightfully tight pants can keep me interested for an entire game. If I’m going to date a sports fan, I want to appreciate more than just the players’ physiques. I want to know what’s going on. My fella tells me this season isn't over until APRIL! Basketball and hockey are going now, too, and I’ve got so much to learn! Just in case I get stuck down at Seamus McDunlay's Pub watching the football, give me a crash course of useful terminology, would ya? And throw in some wickedly expert terms too. So far all I have is "Run the Buttonhook!" "Pound the Ball!" and "Sack!" That last one's my favorite. How often does a girl get to yell "sack" in public?

Jock: Well first and foremost, let me say I don't think any man can actually resist a woman screaming, "Pound the ball!" Yowzah! But if you want a bit more, be willing to discuss the benefit of a two-point conversion—this is when the team runs the ball back into the end zone instead of kicking the extra point after a touchdown. Go to the website of your boy’s team, and read a little bit about the quarterback. Check his regular season win/lose record.

Bombshell: That sounds like a good idea. I do want to be, you know, like..."supportive" of his love of the game, so I’ll learn all I can. But I don’t actually want to have to give up my life to sports… Jock, how to I wrangle my tiger away from the television without creating resentment?

Jock: Bombsy, my girl... it's really all about balance. If one of the biggest games of the seasons is on, realize the boy will be much happier the next time he sees you if he got to watch his game, whether his team won or lost. But if there's something major going down, like your sister's wedding or your grandmother made a home-cooked meal just for him, and he just keeps saying, "Baby, the game is on!" Well, then just inform him that tonight he can go to bed, not with you, but with Neil Everett and Scott Van Pelt—the boys from ESPN's SportsCenter.

Bombshell: It's funny you should say that, because Scott Van Pelt IS my boyfriend. Small world.

Jock: Oh my God! Can I meet him?

[Curtain down.]

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Meet Miss Fitz

Miss Fitz ('Mis Ph!-'fitts) is a post-collegiate, pre-professional twenty-something freelance photographer living and working in Calgary, Canada. She enjoys dancing, drawing, bombshellism and shenanigans. She will shoot you.

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The Doll's House

Photographs By Miss Fitz

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And Now... A Word From Our Sponsors

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The Friday... Swayze?

Maybe yes, but most likely um.... no.

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A Brosef At War

By The Germanatrix


My brother is coming home from Iraq in less than a month. He, and everyone around him, cannot quite believe it, and just writing the words “my brother is coming home” feels like I’m jinxing the whole thing. In case you were wondering what it’s like to have a close family member involved in this bullshit war, it feels like your heart took human form and decided the first thing it would do is play chicken. On a NASCAR racetrack. During a race. Without a car.

It sucks.

I won’t even try to convey what my brother has been through, because I can’t even begin to imagine it. You can watch movies and read books, but how can you possibly understand what it’s like to fear for your life 24/7? What it’s like to see people die right in front of you, ripped from an existence that by all rights they were supposed to enjoy for a very long time.

My brother had to collect and identify the body parts of his friend. He doesn’t want his family to ever go through something like that. For good reason – it’s a completely fucked up thing to have to live through. And yet, how many families, how many friends have had to claim the bodies of their dead? How many soldiers do we have over there? 100,000 and counting? So many of these brave soldiers are killed or live through their friends and comrades being killed, only to return to a society that didn’t want them there in the first place, and has no real concept of the hell they’ve been through.

In many ways, this war is a private one – the only people who really feel the effects of it (in this country, anyway) are those who have someone over there. If you’re lucky enough not to know anyone in the military, this war is about as relevant to you as an episode of Lost. A bit depressing at times, compelling, infuriatingly stupid, perhaps, but you can get on with your life without really thinking about it until it pops up again on TV or in the newspaper.

Even for me, my brother’s ordeal was on the periphery of my life. During most of the year that my brother’s been at war, I was in Germany. Everything was sparkly and new and difficult, and it’s easier to ignore your worries when Prague is only 30 euros away.

That is, until you get emails like this:

4/18/06

I don't know what to say, this has been one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. That day the captain and I attended a local town council meeting. After that meeting we joked around outside for a couple minutes before he left with one of our sections and I left with the civil affairs guys. I arrived back at Taji to see our commo guy running around the squadron TOC area. Barely pausing he yelled to me, "Ghost 6 is hit."

No way, not him, I just saw him... it must have been another vehicle in the section... I'm sure it was like all the other IEDs that have blown on us, some paint chips, cracked glass, flat tires, some bullshit... well, if it was his vehicle, I'm sure he's fine, I mean it's Ghost 6, they can't hurt him, nothing can stop him... what came out was, "What?" He paused just long enough to say, "Ghost 6 is hit, he's unconscious." I don't know if he went into the building we were by or if he stood there or if a spaceship came down and snatched him up, I was running for the TOC before he finished the last word.

I was greeted with worried faces and fear. Before I knew it, I had dragged one of the TOC guys out of the chair by the radio and was sitting in it, holding the hand mic, listening to the guys on the scene react. I've never heard pure anger and rage and hate before, but it sounds like gunshots, diesel engines, and yelling. The captain’s gunner had taken some cuts to the face and a piece of shrapnel the size of your thumb had hit his throat protector, without that piece of kevlar his throat would have been ripped out.

He and the captain's driver had been dazed by the blast, but they came out of it to the sight of the captain slumped over, unconscious, bleeding out of his mouth and nose. In seconds they had gotten his 230 lb frame with 70 lbs of gear out of the vehicle. The medic arrived and provided first aid while the gunner and driver joined the rest of the section in returning fire to some guys in a nearby trash dump that shot at them after the blast. The medevac bird arrived pretty quickly, and they drove the captain to the LZ on a litter on the hood of a humvee.

He was off to the Combat Surgical Hospital with the squadron commander quicker than we had ever practiced. Talking to the medics, it seemed like the captain would be okay. He would be back, or at least be there when we got home. The section arrived back on Taji with his gunner, driver, and vehicle within two hours of the IED strike, they brought all his gear in the TOC while the gunner and driver were treated for their injuries. I spent the next three hours cleaning the blood off of his leader's book, a big binder full of important papers in document protectors, and the two pictures he carried of his 6-month old son in a zip-loc bag.

After that I went to the gym, worked out, and beat the shit out of the punching bag. Right before I was done I got a call saying there was a meeting of all COs in the SCO's office. It was then that he told us the captain had passed away. The impact of whatever had come through the Humvee and hit his kevlar had caused too much damage, even though it didn't penetrate.

I can't put into words what came next. He was my best friend here on Taji. He has a son that he really only got a month with, if that. He's got a young wife back home. He was getting out so that he could be with his son as he grew up. He had just finished a CD for his wife's birthday. He was just joking with me this morning. No way, not him.

I was CO for a couple hours. Long enough to gather all the soldiers in the troop and tell them, platoon by platoon, that their commander was dead. I've never seen men so tough cry so hard. Every heart in the troop broke that night.

We all admired him, loved him, would have done anything for him. He was all you could ever ask for and so much more. They brought in another captain from within the squadron, a good guy for sure.

The troop is pretty messed up. They're angry, sad, pissed, torn up inside, and full of rage. We all carry the cards that the captain’s wife gave us when we deployed. They have a picture of the captain holding his son and it says "something worth fighting for." Well, we're going to fight. Jonathan will never meet his father, will never know what a great person he was, all because we can't fight this war the way we need to. No more.

In the meantime, we will always carry this with us. We will randomly think we see the captain for the rest of our lives. We will suddenly become silent while others laugh and joke because something reminded us of him. We'll never be the same because we lost our friend.

How do you respond to this? I didn’t even know my brother could write this way. I’m not only mourning this man I’ve never met, but the effect his death had on so many people—some of them now dead too. How does that quote go? “The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation?” It sounds good, but war is so varied in its influences and effects that its opposite can best be summarized as life. War is so unnatural and grotesque, so anathema to human existence, that I don’t understand how it could so often be considered the only possible solution to our problems

When it comes down to it, I don’t even care about the political ramifications of this war. I don’t care how our conduct in Iraq and on the world stage in terms of foreign policy will affect our country’s future. I just want my brother back. I want him to come home without these kinds of experiences and the trauma they have permanently inflicted in his life. He says that he doesn’t think he’s changed much, but it simply isn’t possible for him to stay the same. Even if he hadn’t been in the army, my brother would have signed up and gone to Iraq because it would have been the right thing to do. That’s just the kind of guy he is.

I could mention how fucked up it is for Bush and his passel of assholes to manipulate the post-9/11 public sentiment to wage this pointless war, but I’m trying to keep politics out of it.

The reality of the situation is this: We’ve got a whole new generation of men and women out there with a shared trauma that sooner or later is going to be dismissed just like the suffering endured by the Vietnam vets. They will most likely be told to get over it, and themselves, and to move on. Maybe some of them will.

But to this day, a lot of Vietnam veterans can’t hear fireworks without flinching because it sounds too much like gunfire. This is what life is like for a whole new group of veterans now. And it’s sad that no one will know or care but those who suffered with them.

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Meet 1st Degree Birns

Birns ('B&rnz) is a post-post-collegiate, premi-professional post-twenty-something governmental fancy pants living and working in The Vag. She is the lead singer, manager, roadie, and publicist for a minimum of twelve fake bands. Birns is a very busy and important person. Her emails kick ass.

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Mailbag

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And Now... A Word From Our Sponsors

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The Friday... Hall & Oates?

Dear Daryl Hall and John Oates,
You're so svelte and straight-laced. And I like to wear stretchy pants. I'm afraid it just wouldn't work out, boys.
XOxOxXOXOXXOXOXOXxoxOXOoxXOXxXXX!
Jables

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"Look Up, And Swear You'll Never Forget"

Oline On The Aftermath
JFK died on a hot Friday afternoon. The Friday before Thanksgiving. He met with supporters in the rain that morning and shook hands. He teased that it took his wife longer to get ready than most people, but then she always looked better. He had specifically asked her to wear the pink Chanel suit so she’d show up the hoity-toity, new-monied Dallas dames. He joked at a pancake breakfast that no one cared what he or Lyndon Johnson wore. That the only person anyone wanted to see was Jackie.

It was ridiculously sunny and Jackie kept slipping on her sunglasses, much to JFK’s annoyance. The last words he said to her: Jackie, take off the glasses. Then, either a bunch of conspiring, cross-dressing, homosexual loons rocking some unforgiveably bad hair killed the President (if you believe Oliver Stone) or Lee Harvey Oswald leaned out the window of the School Book Depository and made three good, not implausibly lucky, shots.

John Kennedy died on November 22, 1963. We all know that, but we forget how huge it was. Because now, it really isn’t that huge. In retrospect, we know JFK died and we know the country endured. And knowing that, the death of JFK seems less cataclysmic than it did the day after.

It seems less cataclysmic now because the most shocking result of his death— the way it was heralded to the world through continuous media coverage—has become routine. We’ve been subjected to 24-hour news all our lives. We’re used to stories that unfold all day long, for days on end.

Remember 9/11? Unless you’re under the age of five, undoubtedly you do. For three weeks after 9/11, VH1 and MTV played mournful music non-stop. There were no commercials. Only hours and hours of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” and U2’s “One.” And the occasional screening of a video hastily assembled by the group Live, which featured Ground Zero coverage and seemed anathema to the healing process the melancholy music video barrage was supposed to foster. I thought this was beyond bizarre, but I couldn’t tear myself away, simply because it was so novel. In my lifetime, there had never been a tragedy so great that even the music video channels could not go on. For the first time, I got a sense of that weekend in November 1963.

JFK had personified the dreams of an entire generation and his murder was unilaterally stunning. It was a national nightmare. He won the presidency by one percent of one percentage point, yet after his death, 78% of Americans would claim to have voted for him. But it wasn’t the violence of his death so much as the media’s coverage of it that became JFK’s lasting legacy.

There was no 24-hour news in 1963. News programming ran on the networks in the morning, at noon, and in the evening at six and ten. But when JFK was killed, the networks interrupted the soaps and ran breaking news non-stop. For four days.

This had never happened. It was shocking.

It was the first time in history when people watched a major news event unfolding live on television. The first time they watched television even though nothing new was unfolding. Even though they were just watching the same tape they’d seen twenty times in the hour before. People stopped on the street, in the stores, in their homes and they watched.

The assassination was televised. While the Zapruder film was not shown in its entirety until the mid-1970s, within days it was filtering through the media (with the most graphic frames, in which the President’s head literally shatters, edited out). There was no shortage of footage of JFK arriving in Dallas and riding in the motorcade. His final moments played again and again, the President blithely off to meet his murderer.

The post-assassination information trickled into the media with astonishing haste. UPI reporters in the President’s motorcade began filing their reports over police radios as the motorcade sped toward Parkland Hospital. The photographer who took the famous picture of a bloodstained Jaqueline Kennedy standing alongside Lyndon Johnson as he took the Oath of Office aboard Air Force One had the photograph in the hands of television producers by the time Jacqueline Kennedy had landed at Andrews Air Force Base. There, viewers saw the former First Lady for themselves, her skirt and stockings and shoes still caked in the President’s blood. In her grief, she blamed all Americans. “Let them see what they have done,” she said.

They saw it all.

They saw Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald as he was being transferred from the Dallas jail. They saw the murderer of their President murdered on live television fifteen minutes before they watched the cataflaque carrying the President’s coffin begin its journey to the Capitol Rotunda. The entirety of Monday was devoted to JFK’s funeral service and burial. In between official events, the networks continually ran retrospectives of the President’s life, interviews with the mourners who lined the streets of the cortege route, and reports gauging the international mood. The entire world had stood still and was watching.

We now take for granted our inclusion in the private dramas of public figures, but that was not the case in November 1963. The public did not expect to be so thoroughly included, but when given the opportunity, they remained glued to their television sets to be sure they saw everything. Ironically, it was Jacqueline Kennedy, the most private of celebrities, who insisted that they must see what had been done so they might know what they had lost.

Due to the drama of having news presented for days on end, those who watched would never forget the death of the President, the passage of power, the state funeral, the international grief. It would be crass to brand this as entertainment, but to some degree it was. People did not leave their homes for four days. The networks scored topshelf ratings.

We’re accustomed to this now. We watch the news as it’s breaking, cry a little, and wash the dishes. It seldom stops us in our tracks. Very rarely does the news change the way in which we interact with the media. But the coverage in the wake of JFK’s death did just that.

There is nothing new about tragedy. The only modern twist is the manner in which it is transmitted. For it is in times of great tragedy, when we are drawn into the global experience through grief or horror or shame, that we come closest to being there.When Abraham Lincoln died, it took weeks— in some cases months— for word to spread across the country. Within a minute of President Kennedy’s assassination, a UPI reporter had seized the police radio and the entire world knew what was happening.

The news is so often a bombardment of greed, stupidity, and small personal disasters that legitimate tragedy on a grand scale is the only thing that really hits us. It blows in out of nowhere and knocks us off our feet and it changes the way we think. To an extent, JFK’s greatest legacy is the way in which he was memorialized on television: the riderless horse, the sound of the drums, JFK Jr.’s salute, the eternal flame. A man whose reign barely eclipsed 1,000 days, the fallen leader was swathed in media-created mythology in less than a fortnight. And, in the end, it is the myth that we will never forget.

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Jack's Jock's Jot

One hundred and seven years. Try to think of something non-tangible that has lasted one hundred and seven years. That’s hard enough. Now try to think of a sports rivalry that has lasted one hundred and seven years. The only one I can think of that comes close is my beloved Boston Red Sox and the dreaded New York Yankees.

But the collegiate football teams of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland and the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York have been playing each other for– you guessed it – one hundred and seven years. And over this century and seven years, the two teams have been rather evenly matched. Navy have won fifty-one games, the Army have won forty-nine, and the pair have tied seven times.

The Jock and his family have made a tradition out of this game. This year was my third straight to be in attendance.
Military service in the Navy and United States Marine Corps (many don’t know – the Marines are actually part of the Navy) is a long-running tradition in my family. It’s become one of my favorite traditions for the Family du Jock.

The rivalry runs deep for the Army Cadets and the Navy Midshipmen. “Go Navy, Beat Army!” and “Go Army, Sink Navy!”
can be heard all over the stadium. The phrases are said all school year long at the two prestigious schools. Even the weight plates in the Navy weight room are stamped with the phrase "Beat Army". At the game, in between plays and during halftime “spirit videos” from both schools are shown. They’re quite often hilarious. Servicemen and women stationed all over the world are shown on the screen touting their team spirit. Come to think of it, we actually had a “Go Army” and a “Go Navy” cheer shown to us from the International Space Station. And on the line in the whole thing… bragging rights. The chance for one year to say, “We won!” “We beat you!” “We’re better!”

But what’s so special about this rivalry is that it really stays on the field. When it comes down to it, the two teams are really all part of the same military. They serve the same America and answer to the same Commander-in-Chief. And after the game is over the school songs of the losing team and then the winning team are played and sung. The winning team stands alongside the losing team and faces the losing academy students. The losing team accompanies the winning team, facing their students. It is a show of mutual respect and solidarity.

It is a game of brother against brother. Friend becomes foe for four quarters. But at the end of it all, the teams march together again. It is the oldest and classiest rivalry in the world of sport. The point – the soldiers and midshipmen of these two teams are more than good sportsmen. They remind us what the best part of sports really is – to play solely for the love of the game. Go Army! Go Navy!

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In Which Christopher Castle Is Thrust Into the World

An Original Work of Fiction
By Croftie

Professor H was a melancholy man of unusual proportions. Overdressed for spring in a gray, flannel suit and a felt hat, he was more melancholy than usual as he wandered beneath the trees looking for a patch of shade. Students congregated in groups across the courtyard. Some chattered in the sun like self-important parakeets. Others squinted industriously as sunlight slanted off the pages of their books. Professor H paused to examine the grass next to a tree root. Deciding it was not dry enough for his taste, he sighed and moved on, skirting the students cautiously, unwilling to intrude upon their repose. He had wandered into youth’s domain– the sun, the shade, and the picnics all reserved for men and women who tossed themselves fervently onto wet patches and anthills. Although uncomfortably aware that he was trespassing, he was eager to be close to innocence and ignorance of worldly concerns– like death.

As a professor of these same men and women, he was daily reminded of his own mortality, an inconvenience only somewhat relieved by the fact that their presence furnished him with a cozy, cluttered office. The pride of his academic life, the office was by no means large. Its diminutive size suited him just fine because the close quarters condensed his belongings, lending him the pleasing appearance of affluence. Books were crammed lengthwise, sideways, all ways into the bookcases. They clustered in heaps in the corner, in stacks under the window, and in trails along the walls.

The desk was buried beneath shifting dunes of lined paper. This beachy landscape was composed of his poetry, for which he was known as the Greatest Living Poet in the English Language. In no particular order, the poems spilled from drawers, across the telephone, and over a coffee mug that had been lost for two months.

Professor H never threw anything away. He kept every book and every copy of every manuscript he had ever written. He saved his students’ term papers as relics of their haunting naïveté. They were from a time when young people hunted a single word by lamplight through long, sleepless evenings. A time before their love of poetry was corrupted by the language of the real world: canned slogans, Internet jargon, and popular fiction.
College is a time of anxiety and innocent arrogance, he mused, stepping over sleeping bodies. On some, this age never draws to a close; they are caught forever in a glimmering society of self-importance. The belief that their occupations have significance is a force necessary to survival¬. Human life¬– such a fragile thing!– is secured by a delusion of grandeur. We must believe that the world might shatter around us if our pen slips or a word is committed out of place. We must believe we are important, or we might very well go mad.

Pondering the meaning of life, Professor H grew very sad. His shoulders stooped as lines of poetry pressed down upon him. Most distressing was his knowledge that his thoughts were unoriginal. Philosophers and poets far greater than him made their livings exploring the delusions and illusions of humanity, but they still held a certain fascination. How extraordinary, he thought, that we choose to ignore such a simple reality. We consciously thrust the knowledge of our own unimportance into the far reaches of our minds. Nevertheless, our innate knowledge of it drives our very existence with desperation, constantly reaffirmed by the fragility of mankind, and the inescapable devastation of time.

But these are not the things that students think about. Professor H frowned beneath the budding trees. Oh, to be young again, with life coursing through a body unhindered by grave thoughts. Heavy with philosophy, his domed brow lowered against the breeze. Professor H sighed as if his ancient heart would crack.

“Professor H, Sir!” A voice rang out across the courtyard and feet skidded on the gravel behind him. Professor H rushed towards the English building, his suit jacket growing tighter and warmer with every harried breath. This, of all days, was the one on which to avoid students. Graduation morning– when misty-eyed fledglings rushed at him from across the campus to pay their last regards, to profess their undying appreciation for his mentorship, to acquire his personal address for continued communication. They sought him as if it were his last afternoon on earth, and with each word of gratitude, accompanied by damp and mournful expressions, he died again and again, with each confrontation.

“Professor H,” the voice grew anxious. A student, come to pay his respects to a dying man. Wrapt in melancholia and warm flannel, Professor H was in no mood to be grieved over. He loosened his tie and quickened his pace, anticipating the cozy office and leather chair. Just as he reached the door, a body came hurtling between himself and his sanctuary.

“I’ve found you.” The body said, quite unnecessarily.

“So you have.” Professor H sighed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Castle.” The body now had a name: Christopher Castle. Defeated, Professor H turned down the lake path as Christopher Castle trotted beside him. Although curmudgeonly, Professor H was a kind man at heart, and proffered a gentle word to his pupil.

“Congratulations, Mr. Castle. Our acquaintance is coming to a close. What will you do now, with the rest of your life?” Christopher smiled down at his beloved professor. He stood tall, clear-eyed, handsome, and rosy with the flush of youth upon him.

“What do you mean?” Christopher laughed. “I’m not going anywhere.” Professor H was generally a patient man, but he had drowned himself so thoroughly in bitterness towards young people on this afternoon that even the slightest ridicule could not be endured. Irritation reddened his cheeks, as did tomatoes, spicy foods, wind, and exercise. He steadied his voice before replying.

“Please, don’t mock an old man.” He barked, and turned back towards the college. Christopher looked after Professor H in confusion. How had he offended his mentor? What had he said? In fact, he didn’t remember saying much more than ‘hello.’

“Professor,” he chased after the shambling figure, “I truly do not understand. I’m sorry to have upset you– I really am– but I don’t understand why you are angry.” Professor H looked Christopher up and down. He studied his student’s damp and woeful expression, and found it was sincere.

“Why are you wearing those robes?” he asked.

“These?” Christopher plucked at his black gown, and made a little hop. His robes twirled around him. “For the celebration.” He said. “I had a letter that I should be fitted for robes, so I did. Isn’t there a celebration today?” Professor H sighed. His students were often very strange and he had learned to take their peculiarities in stride. He had, after all, suffered four years of Thomas Quip, who refused to read books, and preferred to write his papers on what he thought the book should be about. Despite the miserable grades he received, Thomas Quip continued to take every one of Professor H’s courses, each semester for the entirety of his college career. “After all,” he had said, “It’s not about the grades; it’s about the literature.” Upon graduation day, Thomas Quip thanked Professor H for introducing him to so many great masterpieces.

“Prometheus Unbound was my favorite,” he said, “Those erotic scenes are simply astounding. My goodness, what an uplifting tale.” That day, Professor H admitted, as a graduation gift, that Thomas Quip’s version was far more interesting than Shelley’s.

But Christopher Castle was not as imaginative as Thomas, nor as irritating. He was mild and hardworking, and Professor H liked him better than many of his students, which is why he continued this odd conversation.

“Today is the graduation ceremony, Mr. Castle. That means you will be graduating from this university. You will be given your diploma and sent on your way, to make a life for yourself in the world.” Christopher grew pale as this knowledge invaded his simple world.

“Nobody ever told me,” he said, horrified, “That I would have to leave school.” His voice broke into a sob, “To leave the university! Oh, why would I even wish to do that? Oh, Professor, please excuse me– there must be some mistake.” Christopher fled down the lake path, his black robes flapping behind him like great, mournful wings. Professor H looked after him, shaking his head.

“Poor child.” He murmured. And for the first time in a long time, he was glad that old age held few surprises.


Eminent political author T.J. Emmet Jr. winked reassuringly at the students ranged before him in rows of black. He knew his speech well; it was the same one he had given at every graduation ceremony for fifteen years. He was amazed that no one had caught on yet. But then, he mourned, as he smiled out into the crowd of young men and women, no one much listens to graduation speakers, anyway. He was not even listening to himself. What could he say that was new and inspiring? He was a politician– he knew intimately the misery of the world and it was not his job to be uplifting. He was leaving for Africa the next morning, and would be giving the same speech to the African youth committee. He would change the words slightly, of course, substituting “Graduates of this fine university” to “Troubled youth of this rich desert land.” It had gone very well in Afghanistan.

Christopher Castle was not listening to the speech, either. He had somehow found himself swept along with crowds of other students, across the football field. Blinded by the hot stadium lights, he had struggled against the crowd, but was shoved inevitably forward, closer and closer to the stage, further and further from the life he knew. How had this happened? He stared up at T.J. Emmet Jr., trying in vain to make sense of his words. So it was true, he was leaving school. This was to be his final afternoon in academia. What was he to do now? His life stretched blankly before him. Christopher had read about Life, but it had always seemed to belong to someone else.

He had glimpsed his parents high up in the audience as the throng carried him along. Waving vigorously, his father peered down at him through a pair of binoculars. His mother, elegant in white, held a bunch of roses in her lap. Were they celebrating, or mourning? He was not sure. Christopher touched his decorative hat. He had thought it was a strange shape, and he still did not understand why it was square and flat. Perhaps these are the hats one wears beyond the school gates. The outside world suddenly seemed alien and frightening– a place where people wear robes and peculiar chapeaux.

Christopher Castle had never been one to dwell too long on misfortune. He dried his eyes and lifted his chin. If he must leave school, then he must. And he would succeed in life as he had succeeded at education. He sat up straighter and strained to understand the words of T.J. Emmet Jr.

The venerable speaker, at this very moment, also returned his attention to his speech as it came to a close. This was his favorite part, a rhetorical masterpiece, written originally for the Appalachian foot soldiers preparing for battle with mountain peasant tribes.

“Oh, harried peoples preparing bravely for death, remark to one another upon the quality of life for which you battle today. You may very well perish– be prepared. You may very well slaughter another man– be proud. You may lose an eye or a leg– do not grieve for them, for they are mere trivialities in the steady march of time. The world may not miss you, nor society mourn your passing, but that should not hinder your crusade.” He paused to measure his effect upon the crowd. Some students listened with true enthusiasm– these would go on to become our country’s politicians and economists. The rest of their faces betrayed confusion, desperation, or lines of sleep. Many of these would likely rise to power as janitors and telemarketers. T.J. Emmet Jr. hated telemarketers.

“Come to me, o’ heathens, and renounce your evil ways.” T.J. Emmet Jr. had once been occupied as a religious zealot; in his political career, he had been pleased to discover that some rhetoric was convenient for various and sundry occasions. He lowered his voice, noting which students leaned forward in their seats. These, he would approach later. “We must drive out the rebellious factions and crush them before their authority spreads. For the influence of petty men travels wide and deep and dangerous. O, sinners, beware.” He glared into the video monitors, and the local news station projected his terrible gaze throughout the airwaves.

“Our youths are armed and seek you out to where you hide, quivering in holes carved into the dirt. You cannot squat there long, for we shall hunt you, and with burning sticks, drive you forth into the light.” He turned back to the students and winked. “This is the day for which you were born. This is the day you choose life over death, and death over defeat. There can be no defeat for you, which leaves only victory, or death. What, then, is the point of your meager lives, if not to go out into the world and conquer it? Bend your foes beneath your foot, crack their ribs with gnashing teeth, and tear their flesh with sweeping fists. This is not a time for pity! If there be cowards among you, cast them out and tighten your ranks. There is no room here for the weak, the spineless, or the sympathetic. Launch yourselves into the mountains, men, and slaughter those who stand in your way, those who idle, those who resist, and those who fight back.” Shouts rose from the sea of black robes. Students stabbed the air with rolled parchments. They were ready– the young politicians, the economists, the budding managers– they heard T.J. Emmet Jr. and no one had ever made more sense. They pounded the earth with their feet.

Energized by the crowd, T.J. Emmet Jr. felt a rush of inspiration, and gave free reign to his rhetorical prowess. He suddenly found the very ending he had labored to devise through years of laborious speech-writing courses. It came out, unannounced, unbidden, unhindered.

“That said,” he paused, seeking silence, “death is not becoming to youth. It causes grotesqueries of the soul and mockeries of the spirit. Do not allow the travesties of life to mark your smooth brows with stains of blood. You are the victors, the conquerors, the future CEOs. Go, then, to battle. Go, then, into life with banners blazing and hearts warm with courage. If this is a battle to the death, this, then, is life!” he flung his head back, and his arms wide. The stomping students leapt from their seats, seething with bloodlust, crowding the stage, brandishing their diplomas before them. Those who remained behind, Christopher Castle among them, twiddled their thumbs and sighed.

Smiling, winking, waving, T.J. Emmet Jr. stepped off the podium as flat-board caps rained in clumsy arcs across the football field and two thousand voices rose in despair.


All was silent in the great hall. The curtains hung in heavy folds across the stage, and the chandeliers were dark. Light filtered through stain-glass, shifting from green to gold to red as various saints were touched by the sunlight. Christopher eased the doors closed behind him, and walked down the aisle for the last time, passing between the benches that had stood there since the school was built, so many decades before.

He knelt at the foot of the stage. High above him, at the top of the curtain, three bronze busts watched over the empty hall. The fathers of academia, Shakespeare gazed out from the center, Edison from the left, Benjamin Franklin from the right. For decades, they had serenely witnessed thousands of students cross the threshold out into the sunlit square, and close the doors behind them. Perched above the velvet curtain, the fathers never knew what happened to those who passed beyond their gates.

Christopher searched their faces for guidance, as so many had before him, but found only an unwavering serenity. Suddenly feeling foolish, he turned away and prepared himself for the leave-taking. The fathers watched in silence as yet another lost student crossed the hall, and opened the doors. Christopher brushed off his cap, and switched his tassel from one side of the mortarboard to the other. This, then, was Life!


He took a great breath, closed his eyes, and strode solemnly through the hallowed college gates and into the world, where he was promptly struck by a passing car. Here began Christopher’s advent into what T.J. Emmet Jr. solemnly called the “Real World.”

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