There’s a famous episode of “Seinfeld” where George is driving down the street and he ends up running over a bunch of pigeons. He blames the pigeons for breaking the social contract established between the birds and the good people of New York—we look the other way when they shit on everything as long as they agree to always get out of our way.
The episode is hilarious because we’ve all been there a thousand times before. You’re walking directly at a pigeon flinging some bread around on the sidewalk and then the pigeon flutters away, allowing you to continue on your path. It’s just the way things go, which is why it’s so funny later in the episode when Costanza tests the theory again while walking through the park and he ends up stomping some poor birds.
I’ve been thinking about this episode a lot lately. OK, “a lot” is an understatement. I’ve been completely obsessing over it since a horrible thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago…. I kicked a rat.
I had just gotten off of work and was walking to the subway. As I was minding my own business a rat emerged from the bag of garbage he had been dining in to scurry across the sidewalk, and without breaking stride, I punted the little bastard with my right foot. He flew about four feet in the air before landing with a small thud. After laying on his side for a second, he let out the tiniest little yelp, looked in my direction, then proceeded about his business, none the worse for wear.
I, on the other hand, was completely devastated. I had just kicked a rat. I kicked a disgusting, plague-carrying vermin.
Two emotions took over my brain within seconds of booting that little bastard—incredulity and panic. Firstly, I was absolutely incredulous that such a thing even happened. People don’t kick rats on their evening commute, it simply doesn’t happen. But here I was, head down and on my way to the train after a fairly unsatisfactory day at Ye Olde Tattoo Journalism Factory, and a rat walked right into my path, only to feel the wrath of my size 11 black Vans UltraRange Rapidweld. This wouldn’t have happened if this idiotic city chose to build some fucking alleys instead of normalizing the practice of dumping all waste on the sidewalk three to five days a week.
And as I wondered just how in the world such a fate had befallen me, the panic set in. I kicked a rat. Where does one go from there? Do I have to burn my shoe? Do I need to get a tetanus shot or maybe a large dose of Cipro? Should I just drop out of society completely to hide my shame?
It was at this time that I did the only reasonable thing a person could do—facetimed my fiancee. With what can best be described as “a serious case of crazy eyes,” I recounted my encounter with the rodent blow-by-blow. I kept repeating, “I kicked a rat,” as if it were a mantra. What else was there to say?
I kicked a rat and I’ll never be the same again.
Song to Rock Out To
Car Crash by IDLES
I had the immense pleasure of going to see IDLES a couple of weeks back. I had interviewed their singer, Joe Talbot, a few weeks prior and I was at the show along with a photographer to shoot some portraits as well as their live performance. It was my first indoor show in almost two years and it was pure insanity. Being surrounded by hundreds of sweaty folks as we collectively lost our minds to an amazing band was even more of a rejuvenating feeling than I had anticipated. IDLES are absolutely tremendous to see live and their upcoming album is insanely good. This is the latest single off of it. There’s something so raw and visceral about this song. Play it loud and let the feeling hit you in the chest.
I know this is a wholly unoriginal thought, but goddamn can music be a life-affirming experience.
More Gratuitous Self Promotion!
I just wanted to include a couple of things that I’ve been working on lately that I was proud of. First off, this article I wrote profiling Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast. Like me, she suffered the loss of her mother and was profoundly affected by it. Unlike me, she wrote an amazing book about the experience, Crying in H Mart. I was afraid to read it at first, picking at old wounds and all, but it ended up being one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. Zauner and I grieve very similarly so instead of opening those old wounds, it reassured me that everything I had been through was normal. Or at least normal for the two of us, and that’s enough for me. I love how this article came out, so if you want to read even more of my nonsense, you can find the article here.
We’ve also been doing a video series at work called Heavily Inked. It’s a slightly serious look at what it means to be heavily tattooed. Instead of the usual, “Yo, sick ink, who’s the artist” stuff we often do, this is more introspective as we ask people about their life journey, etc. It sounds a little cheesy, but I’ve been having fun with it and I think we’ve made some pretty damn good videos. With a shoutout to Sarah for editing and Jamie for shooting them, I just wanted to share one of them.
Charlie’s History Corner/Sports Rant
The Atlanta Braves won the World Series last week. Some people were happy about this. Others were not. I, for one, was ecstatic. Not because I wanted the Braves to win the World Series (which I did not desire), not because I wanted the Astros to lose (which I kind of did, but I really didn’t care). No, my joy stems from the perfect storm created by the Atlanta franchise winning it all—an ideal opportunity to go on a sports rant that also involves a history rant. Few are able to get on both soapboxes at all, let alone both at the same time, but I believe that I have what it takes, just like Deion Sanders!
*Takes large chug of coffee and clears throat obnoxiously *
The Atlanta Braves represent everything I despise about sports team ownership today. Please note that for the duration of this diatribe I will cast no ill will towards the players on the team. I find most of them to be delightful, pearl necklaces and all, so kudos to them.
But those players have an employer. And in my humble opinion that employer (a conglomerate called Liberty Media, a way less convenient villain than, let’s say, the Steinbrenners) is horrid. In my opinion there are three actions they have done that have set them within my crosshairs, so let’s go over them in order of repugnance.
3. They bilked taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars
It’s amazing that we’ve gotten to the point where a multi-billion dollar company strong-arming a community into picking up the tab for their brand new stadium no longer raises too many eyebrows. I’m one of the last people that will consistently rally against this nonsense, but that’s what it is, complete nonsense. The economical impact a stadium brings to a community is negligible. They do not provide thousands of well-paying jobs or bring in hundreds of millions of tourist dollars each year as owners will always argue every time they feel like getting something for free. Rick Paulas wrote a phenomenal article in The Atlantic debunking this myth with far greater accuracy and detail than I could even hope to bring to the subject, please give it a read.
When the Atlanta Braves decided to become the Ten Miles Away From Atlanta in Cumberland, Ga, Braves they made the move in the sketchiest way possible. They struck a secret deal with Cobb County for $400 million in financing coming directly from taxpayers. Then when they brought the proposal up for a vote in a “public” hearing, opponents of the plan were prevented from airing their concerns before it was approved unanimously. To add insult to injury, once the deal was done, ownership was brazen about how they had to craft a secret deal so that there wouldn’t be public backlash against it. Very cool.
So instead of funding schools or maintaining infrastructure, all of that money went to build a brand new stadium for the billionaire owners. And let’s not forget that Turner Field was built in 1996, it wasn’t a crumbling relic of a bygone era, it just needed a little extra work put into it. Ownership put in about the same amount of money as they would have put into renovations at Turner Field but thanks to a generous handout from Cobb County, they got a whole new stadium.
As much as these deals infuriate me, the financing isn’t the part of the move that enrages me the most. That would be…
2. Moving the team out of the city whose name it proudly wears on its chest
If you’re going to claim to be from Atlanta, play your damn games in Atlanta. Say what you will about the complete farce that was the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, but at least they were straightforward about their identity.
There are a myriad of reasons a team may cite for a move to the suburbs—land to build a bigger stadium, ample parking, avoiding the taxes found in the big, bad city—but all of that is almost always window dressing. Covering up the real reason the team wants to move—to make things “more accessible” for the more affluent members of their fanbase.
Ownership spoke about how the new stadium would be an economic boom to the new location out one corner of their mouth, while trashing the poor neighborhood Turner Field resided in out the other. How could Turner Field be in a dangerous neighborhood if it was blessing the same locale with abundant jobs and tourist dollars? This was disingenuous rhetoric from the start.
When a team moves to the suburbs they often move from an area with diverse demographics into a much whiter area. In doing so they also move away from public transportation that allowed those without cars or without the means to pay exorbitant parking fees to easily attend games. In moving teams end up losing and alienating many of their fans. I’m not talking about the people sitting in the $250 seats with wait staff bringing them Heinikens. I’m talking about the people who sneak out of work early to grab a couple beers right down the street before sitting in the upper deck, the fans who have made seeing the team part of their daily routine. The kind of people who don’t mind paying a little extra in rent if it means they get to live next door to where their favorite team spends 81 nights a year.
Over time, they will lose touch with the very lifeblood of the city that animated the team, that gave the team their identity, and that’s a shame. But there’s a much more troubling part of the team’s identity that we need to discuss…
1. The name, the logo and the fucking chop
It’s 2021. Thousands of people shouldn’t be getting together to wave racist totems for a baseball team. Period.
I grew up during the 1980s, which means that just about every single Atlanta Braves game was on TBS. Hell, when the A’s started putting many of their games on the pay network SportsChannel, I’m pretty sure I watched more Braves games each year despite being about 15 miles away from Oakland and 3,000ish miles from Atlanta. Plus I had some family there. So when I was sent a foam tomahawk in 1991 it seemed pretty cool.
In high school I was in marching band, playing percussion because I’m obviously that type of knucklehead. Our mascot was the Redskins (a fact that I found absurdly racist and despise to this day) and as such we would also play the tomahawk chop. And I admit that it’s a really catchy tune and super fun to play, especially on drums.
Of course, thinking a foam tomahawk is cool and enjoying playing a song means nothing when it comes to the morality of it. What I was enjoying at the time was without a doubt racist, I know that, and I’ll never do that shit again. I learned my lesson.
That’s part of what being a good person is. You acknowledge you made a mistake, you fix it, you learn from it and you do everything in your power not to repeat it. This is why the ownership of the Atlanta team is so reprehensible in my opinion—they know what they’re doing is racist, have admitted it’s racist and keep on doing it. They even invited the Orange One to come do the racism in the stadium so the stupidity can continue in perpetuity.
In 2019, St. Louis Cardinals reliever Ryan Helsley spoke out against the chant. Helsley, a member of the Cherokee Nation, told reporters that the chant “depicts [Native Americans] in this kind of caveman-type people way who aren’t intellectual. They are a lot more than that.” The team issued out the typical PR nonsense about how they take the matter seriously and respect the community. They even went as far as saying that they would phase out the chant. And then the long winter happened, a winter that was even longer for baseball fans thanks to the pandemic, and the Braves returned to business as normal. During the playoff run the chant was as loud as ever, both when it was coming from fans and when the music was piped in over the PA system.
In my book, that’s some scumbag shit. It’s not that hard to change the name and logo. I suggest calling them the Flames (like a certain hockey team that used to call Atlanta home) or the Shermans, both names taken from my favorite piece of Atlanta history. But they won’t do that. They’re going to keep hanging on to this idea that the name was created as a way to honor native traditions… but what if it wasn’t?
The team was not named the Braves to honor Native Americans. It was named that because the honor of the Boston-based team had ties to the infamous (and infamously corrupt) political machine known as Tammany Hall. In Boston the team went through a series of different names. They were the Red Caps, the Red Stockings (but not the Red Sox, mind you), the Doves, the Rustlers and the Beaneaters. But they were never very good. They needed to change their luck, so why not change their name again.
In 1912 the president of the club decided to call the team the Braves to honor the owner’s relationship with New York’s Tammany Hall.
So, if the team really wants to honor their history why not change the name to do so properly. Now, I don’t see a team called “The Tammanys” selling a lot of jerseys. But the political machine had a lot of nicknames and not all of them had ties to Native Americans. They were also called “The Tigers.” And while Tigers is taken, why not the Bengals? Or Thundercats? Or just Cats? People like cats, for some reason, so I don’t see why people wouldn’t embrace the change. And, unlike the current moniker, it actually pays homage to the team’s heritage.
That’s it! Thank you so much for subscribing to Moronitude! I know it’s been a while, so this one got a bit long. We’ll be back very soon to discuss the existential horror I endured earlier today and will continue to endure on Friday—JURY DUTY. Until then, try not to kick any rodents. It’s gross.