Patriot Realm

I am not a fan of baseball. I don't really even know the rules. I have never watched a game. But this 2016 offering on Netflix is almost worth the subscription. 

Let me tell you how I came to watch it. It was all because I tried to clean a fan.

About 2 and a half weeks ago, I was embarking on a spring clean of my unit. Part of this exercise in domestic duties was cleaning the ceiling fans. 

I am vertically challenged. A bit of a shorty. I make it in at a whisker over 5 foot 3 and, at 67 years young, am not exactly a poster girl for physical fitness or agility. In fact, I get vertigo on an escalator in a shopping centre.

So whatever induced me to stand on a chair to clean the fans will forever remain a mystery or, in my own words, a momentary lapse of reason.

Everything told me " don't do it. " The sane part of my brain said " you're going to regret this.. " but I did it anyway. 

I had managed to clean one and felt emboldened to attack the next. The next thing I knew I was on the floor, on my back with a fractured sacrum and a damaged shoulder. Cast, like a sheep, unable to move. As I lay there, the frequent lectures I have delivered to my Mum - aka Redhead - she who must be obeyed - rang in my ears. " Don't be a hero. Don't stand on a step ladder. Don't fall. "

It certainly wasn't the moment that David Gilmour sang about. 

Cutting a long story short, I have now been housebound and doped up on painkillers for nearly 3 weeks. I rely on a kindly onsite manager in my building to do a garbage run and I am on a first name basis with the home delivery guys.

My days are long and I spend my time negotiating between my bed and my computer chair. ( With the help of my late Dad's walking stick and a good deal of willpower.)

So I have been watching a lot of netflix. And I mean a LOT. 

I have learned a great deal in the past 18 days. 

Firstly, don't bother watching much made after about 2020. It is all woke crap. It is full of transgenders, homosexuals and dysfunctional people. Even the later Adam Sandler movies that were always a good way to while away a few light hearted hours are seemingly tainted with the latest equivalent of the fart joke... I find it tiresome and embarrassing to even try and watch the so called humour that they try and pass off as funny these days.

It is sad. Really sad. Entertainment is no longer entertainment. It is chocker block with warped messages, innuendo and worse, unsubtle illusions to normalising the abnormal. 

So it is that I spend my mornings propped up on pillows and swallowing painkillers ( can my one remaining kidney forgive me? ) and my afternoons and evenings propped up on pillows in bed watching netflix.

Which brings me back to the beginning: 

Last night, I stumbled on a documentary called " Brilliant Bastards of Baseball. " 

According to Rotten Tomatoes,  in 1973, baseball lover and actor Bing Russell, father of Kurt Russell, starts an independent, single-A team composed of players that no one else wanted.

It had to be better than watching women kissing women and men kissing men, right? 

Oh yes!

From the minute I started to watch it, I was in love. In love with the sheer normalcy of the story. The decency of the people. The way that so-called rebels and underachievers were able to do something because they loved it and because someone allowed them to do what they loved.

My late Uncle used to play softball and I thought of him as I watched. 

I thought of Israel Folau and how he was discarded by the " professional " Rugby Union in Australia for expounding his Christian beliefs.

 How the once great Wallabies have become a shadow of their once glorious selves because players are recruited for their talent, not their hearts or passion for the game. How teams are no longer made up of players with a sense of loyalty to their team, town, city, or country but more to their loyalty to money.

And it struck me that this erosion of passion, love of the game, love of the team, love of damned near everything these days.. has come down to power, control, and the almighty dollar.

Have our politicians not done the same thing? They are recruited because they toe the party line. They preach the message of the money and kow tow to their overlords to keep their jobs and sell out for 30 pieces of silver.

Hasn't our music become bland, generic and uninspired? Today, the likes of Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues, Bob Dylan... would they even get to cut a demo tape? 

Bing Russell, Kurt's father, took a leap of faith and allowed the different, enthusiastic, and passionate player to do what that player wanted to do: the best that he could in a field of dreams where the only limitation was their skill, their drive and their passion for the game.

Our controllers have bled the life force out of music, sport and politics. Out of communities and out of too many people. They have taken the power away from the fans. 

It struck me that Trump is almost like Bing Russell: he allows people to shine. To say and do what comes naturally. 

Some might say that homosexuals and transgenders are doing exactly that. Doing what comes naturally.

But I end this essay by saying that, without the fans, the Portland Mavericks would not have survived one season. 

Think on this the next time you watch a Trump Rally and a Joe Biden Rally.

In 2020, the controllers faked the ticket sales. But no one can fake the fans in the crowd. 

Even the controllers know that, if the Portland Mavericks had been " allowed " to have their fans speak, they would have won ( as Bill and Ted said in their most excellent adventure ) most triumphantly. 

I TRIED to stand on the chair. At least I gave it a shot. I didn't meekly accept defeat and, yes, I am battered, and a stupid bastard for trying to stand on a chair. 

But I learned that a fan can generate great energy from great heights and be careful when you try and clean them. Fans might gather a bit of dust but be careful when you mess with them. 

They can cut you down pretty quickly.