THE TOUR WINDS DOWN

My Dad tells me of this place he calls “The Secret City”. The Secret City doesn’t exist in one place–in fact, it exists in many places, all over the world. It is that wonderful store or restaurant that does something exceptionally well, something out of the ordinary, and is, of course, a secret to most of the world. Beanbender’s Beer Garden, featured in D. Manus Pinkwater’s Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death is such a place, albeit in literature and not life, and one I’ve been looking for all my life (as is the Snark Theater as well, and its all-night buffet of classic black and white films).

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on May 6, 2008
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BIG CITY IN A SMALL TOWN

I have a rather cantankerous connection with the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. By this I mean that I complain about the Hall and the Hall goes about its business ignoring curmudgeonly types like myself. I was a member for a very brief amount of time–maybe a year–when former President Dale Petroskey cancelled an appearance by Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, who were in town to promote the baseball film (and very good movie in general) Bull Durham. They were canned because of their outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq. So I quit the Hall. It was easy to do–their publications remain the zenith of pedantic writing, tedious essays that either extol the noble sport as a paragon of boyhood, patriotism, or mythology, which is exactly the crap I hate.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on May 5, 2008
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GOTHAM, DAY THREE

The great news: Detroit Tigers 8, New York Yankees 4.

That’s a sweep for my favorite nine. I was at last night’s game, an utterly miserable evening spent in the upper deck in right field (actually my favorite seats in any ballpark) as a driving mist made the bill on my cap drip onto my ruined scorecard. It also didn’t help that StubHub.com claimed that I was saving tons of money by purchasing a $45 ticket for $30, when it turns out that on that particular night those same $45 tickets were selling for $5. Yes, that’s five bucks. If there’s one thing I know it’s this: on the street or on the net, I have absolutely no luck whatsoever with scalpers. They get me every time.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on May 2, 2008
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GOTHAM

New York City. Like Chicago, I’m having a blast, but unfortunately like Chicago I and my little book can’t entice anyone to attend these readings. My agent, Paul Bresnick, was there, as was Walter Vatter, my publicist at Ivan R. Dee. And two other guys and a lady who I think was just using the back row to rest and read the stack of books she was carrying. Afterwards, she seemed to poke disdainfully at the table of my books in the back. Ah well.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on May 1, 2008
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CHICAGO

Every place looks pretty much the same when it’s raining endlessly. Minnesota and Wisconsin. Rural Illinois and the suburban wasteland of Chicago. Michigan. Ontario. Upstate New York. Flatlands, farms, industry, and all their trappings, from the barns to the truck stops to the smokestacks belching out what looks like more clouds, to the rest stops that all seem to serve the same awful coffee they’re now calling “gourmet”. Between two magical readings–both very different–and the suddenly strange landscape around Cooperstown, New York (where I’m now staying at the charming and low-key Mohican Motel), it’s been nothing but an endless, rainy drive with repeating landscapes.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on April 29, 2008
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FUNKY HIGHWAY 90/94

Driving through the buttery heart of Wisconsin in my rented Chevy Cobalt, dubbed “The Storm Trooper” by our neighbor Rachel (it’s as white and mildly menacing as the Star Wars jerks), I find myself jabbing at the scan button looking for music to keep me awake on this miserable, rainy drive. One can only listen to NPR for a limited amount of time. How much more analysis of the Pennsylvania primary can you digest, anyway? So I turn, as usual, to the vast wasteland of AM radio, in search of the oldies.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on April 24, 2008
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BATTER UP! THE TOUR BEGINS

What a long, strange trip it’s been: I started The End of Baseball in the summer of 2001. Ten drafts, thirty-four rejections later, and countless hours spent writing and researching the thing in the confines of my office and here we are–the book is published, and even better, people are reading it and I get the privilege of talking to readers in a bookstore. After many seasons of grim solitude, I can tell you that this is a wonderment.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on April 14, 2008
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THE ZOMBIES AREN’T FUN ANYMORE

When a teenage skateboarder named Alex (Gabe Nevins) accidentally kills a security guard, he can barely register any emotion. A child of moderate privilege, Alex goes to school, has a girlfriend, eats junk food … and is almost as much of a zombie as anything George A. Romero has ever conjured up. Only less appealing.

Paranoid Park is a grim, tedious and ultimately empty film from Oregon icon Gus Van Sant. Van Sant loves Alex, the camera barely leaving his angelic face, the rest of the world either blurred or blocked out entirely.

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on March 20, 2008
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THE DOCTOR IS FAR OUT

The famously verbose label on a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap is a throwback to the days of the medicine show. In dense blocks of small type that run north, south, east, and west, the label claims that the soap can cure athlete’s foot; eliminate dandruff; wash dishes, upholstery, automobiles, and babies; freshen laundry; serve as toothpaste or shaving lotion; and keep the heart healthy.

The copy promises spiritual cleansing as well, in a sort of oddball scripture called the “Moral ABC” that has at times invoked the teachings of Jesus, Rabbi Hillel, Mohammed, Gorbachev, and Mark Spitz. Filled with idiosyncratic capitalization, disorienting syntax, and copious exclamation points, these tiny tracts often conclude with a rousing “OK!”: “Enjoy body rub to stimulate body-mind-soul-spirit and teach the Essene Moral ABC uniting all free in the shepherd-astronomer Israel’s greatest All-One-God-Faith!” Buy the soap, clean yourself, save the world. OK!

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on November 30, 2007
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CONVERSATIONS REAL & IMAGINED: THE CAT WHO OUTLIVED CHRIST

Mary and Al Palusky with their ancient cat, Baby.“Baby” is thirty-seven years old. This is the claim of one Al Palusky, of Duluth, who considers the black, long-haired cat to be his best friend. This is not news to Al’s wife Mary. “When we were married Al’s priest told him that he couldn’t call Baby his best friend anymore,” she said. Al just shrugged and added, “It’s true, he’s still my best friend.”

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by Peter Schilling Jr. Posted on November 13, 2007
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