Paradise Experienced

Six Lines is excited to present an exclusive article by Milwaukee Brewers reliever Ray King. Despite the intense pressure he's under given the current playoff push, King has been able to step back and consider the situation in which he has found himself. Just yesterday, whilst visiting Houston, he even stepped back too far, finding himself in the perfect position for an opposing fan to dump beer on his head. Unperturbed by this moment in what he calls "the time-base continuum," King went back to his seat in the bullpen to *ahem* pen for us his musings on the present, the future, and whatever comes after.
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On the Hopes of the Barleymen
By Ray "The Philosopher" King

As I sit here observing the outfield grass - grass that has been molded, weaved, and ridged in a checkerboard design, announcing to all who may soar overhead that yes, this is baseball - I realize things. These things are profound; dare I say it, they are beyond the minds of most men I have the good fortune of sharing this bench with. I will be hurt for saying this, I know. And I deserve whatever pain this truth entails, for I have hurt my teammates by questioning their being. It doesn't matter. Calling my coworkers idiots is something I have always been fated to do. Just as nature has led me to be a relief pitcher, so has it also led me to be an arrogant academic. I am what is known by those in the know as a "cereb-realist". I understand what is real, I process it, and I relay it to those who are less informed. That is why I am writing to you, dear reader. You are less informed. Yes, it would appear you are less informed on most things.

Notice where I am in relation to "the box."

In any case, as I continue to stare at the outfield grass, I wonder, "What would happen if the grounds crew simply let the grass grow? What if this patch of land were left to its own device, sans fertilizer, sans human protection from weeds? What would grow here?" The opportunity-cost of cutting the grass can really never be known. It's possible that this area of land, if unattended, would provide the breeding ground for a new breed of grass - a grass, perhaps, which could cure cancer. More intriguingly, the cross-pollination of weed, grass, and baseball player sweat could give rise to a species which would straddle the oft-unapproached line of flora vs. fauna.

Being a black athlete, I possess the inherent ability to challenge "sanctified" borders. Predictive geneticists may already have rejected my proposal of a man-plant hybrid under the pretense that "such a creature would live only in a state of utter, unapologetic, photosynthetic pain." Yet I know that the only pretense at hand is the one that supposes my proposal wasn't rejected racially. Here I do not speak of the black race, but rather of the race of baseball players. Not once have our biological hypotheses, developed over innings and innings of contemplation, actually been considered by the science community. This is an affront to history, and, more accurately, this is a risk history may not survive.

Still, I concede that any understanding of risk must be specified as an unknown variable. Economists attempt to convince us that there is a tangible quality to opportunity-cost, but I have already proven there is not. People worry that my Brewers will not make the playoffs. I, on the other hand, worry that we will. It is never counterintuitive to wish against one's own success. The limited definition we have of success in the present may in fact prevent greater happiness in the future. We cannot know. One path may lead to utopia; the other to dystopia. Or they may all lead to the local strip club, where a girl named Misty pretends to be impressed that you're an athlete. Oh Misty, I should have known you named yourself after misfortune.

Again I look at the grass, where I see that a tiny ant has somehow found his way to the tip of a blade. An amazing achievement indeed. Here, in this most pesticidal of environments, an ant has managed to not only break the stadium's defense; she has managed to secure a pulpit from which to proclaim her progress. This is, it would seem, a step forward and away from beer, all enfolded in one mighty soul.

In a second, the groundskeeper spots the intruder. A spray bottle is sprayed, and the ant falls back to the earth. Motionless. Dead. Forever. What seemed to be the peak of success was gone like that (snap). A paradise experienced proved to be nothing more than a paradise lost.

Are the playoffs the peak of the blade of grass I'm climbing? Or are the playoffs the earths towards which I'm being hurtled? Of course, I cannot know. All I can do is pitch.

Like Jean Grey

We here at Six Lines would like to apologize for any delay you might have noticed in this blog over the past few months. Some of our other business ventures hit hard times over the summer and we were forced to dedicate all of our resources elsewhere. Those of you affected the most - specifically those of you looking for the Six Lines kangaroo prevention kit - please know that we are attempting to expand our services beyond the greater Des Moines area. Our strategy intended for the cheap storage costs of Iowa to counterbalance the jetfuel costs of America/Australia commerce, but, come on, summer gas prices, am I right?

The best apology, though, cannot be said in words. Rather, it must be provided in the form of an Emmy liveblog. Unfortunately, all of our regular staffers missed the Emmys, but freelance writer Erik Ballston wants us to tell you that he "nailed them." He also wants us to publish his liveblog ex post facto, which we can't legally do until our lawyers are available for contracting and Latin translating. We can, however, review his findings as if they were an academic study in the autumn issue of International Relations. Yet because that would be super-boring and too abstract to attract the audience we need to attract the funds we desperately need, we're instead just reviewing it as we would any freelance submission - by giving it to an intern.

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Hey, so Erik Ballston watched the Emmys. He sat down with food and stuff and people were like "Who are you wearing?" - not to him, cuz he was just watching it at home on his television - to celebs and stuff. Erik doesn't mention what kind of TV he has, but I assume it's an upper-end, non-high-def set. He's a freelance writer who's contacted a nearly defunct company for work, so no way can he afford the good stuff. No man in their right mind would watch this year's Emmys without some picture quality, though. The 59th annual Emmys are all about quality pictures. Hmm Erik doesn't mention what anniversary of the Emmys this is, like I just did (59). The lack of a detail as important as that in a liveblog is discouraging. It's not hard to see why Erik isn't finding the kind of work he'd like to.

Right around 6 PM the show starts. Erik says Seacrest is "in his element," which he then compares to an element in the halogen family... Do we have an aspiring Dennis Miller on our hands? Unfortunately Erik lacks the relevance and, dare I say it, coherence of Miller. Not that Miller's any more than a name anymore. His passive aggressive "posit a political opinion, then laugh as if any other opinion would be absurd" method is frustrating and non-productive, kind of like Ballston's review of Ray Romano's Emmy intro. An excerpt: "Romano, in a second, reminds us about the kind of old-fashioned silliness missing from today's complex programming. This is funny. This is silly. This is America. Giggle." I'm not going to lie, Ballston encouraged me to actually google Romano's intro. What a mistake that was. I haven't seen anything that insipid since walking in on my in-laws having a talk on the fine points of being annoying and living nextdoor.

Wait a second, why did Ballston start watching the show at 6? Gods, he lives in Mountain Time. Thank the lords of Kobol there isn't anything in affirmative action law about hiring oxygen-deprived hillfolk. The rest of this crap might as well be scanned through. Uhh Rainn Wilson comes on stage, leaves. Old guy talks about the West. Middle-aged guy wins. Girls wear low-cut shirts... and more low-cut shirts then for the rest of the liveblog. Ugh, Freelance writers need to realize that sometimes you just gotta crack one out to get your mind back on the paper at hand. This paragraph alone is costing me over 2 boxes of tissue.

The Sopranos wins. Erik says, "I hope you enjoved (sic) my liveblog as much I've enjoyed the Soprano family over the past few seasons. Meadow's rack is awesome. Bada bing." Hmm. Overall, this stuff is decent for the local AA chapter's monthly newsletter, but I'd rather die of cirrhosis than read it again.

That is how you do Dennis Miller.

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Thanks in advance for accepting our apology. To reemphasize our commitment once more before leaving you again, we'd like to announce here and now a new Six Lines product. If the experiences of this summer and the Emmys taught us anything, it is that investing in television is a no-miss opportunity. Thus, with the expectation that it will be bought as a midseason replacement, we present to you Midnight the Detective - a gritty, detective documusical in no need of a theme song. The theme, citizens, is already upon us.