Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Major League Baseball : My Jilted Lover



Baseball is an honest game. 

It makes heroes out of men who fail most of the time and titans out of those who get it done when it counts. Errors are counted among its many stats and arguing is allowed… so long as you don't take it too far. Like anything real the game has obvious flaws, but on a good day in mid July you can watch nine players perform with such staggering efficiency that it almost seems choreographed.

My love affair started as most do… with a terrible shellacking I was not at all prepared for. 

The Toronto Blue Jays were in town to play the hometown Yankees and I was there! Live, In Color, On The First Base Line. A young boy of eight years really can't ask for more than that. My memories are sketchy on the details but vibrant for so many little things. 

I remember the stark contrast of the bright green grass and the almost water color sky. The smell of hot dogs and popcorn as loud jolts of music signaled ancient tribal traditions such as pounding out rhythms or yelling CHARGE! I remember the look on my fathers face as Donnie Baseball took his position. First Base. Instantly I could tell he was different then the others. He projected a calm understanding, unfazed by the spectacle that was going on all around him. I had a feeling he would do something special that day.

The Jays jumped out early. These were the days before Joe Torre, Derek Jeter, and Andy Pettitte would lead a renaissance deserving of the winningest franchise in the history of team sports. Within three innings the score was a lopsided Football game and I got my first taste of what losing does to enthusiasm. Fans headed for the exits in greater numbers as each inning passed and the feverish din surrounding the first pitch had been replaced with the dull hum you feel after a terrible argument at the dinner table.

That's when the magic happened.

Don Mattingly stepped to the plate and in a moment I could only describe as art, belted a colossal Home Run into the upper deck in right field. It made no impact on the final score, the loss was already in the bag. That didn't matter. It was the purpose with which Donnie stepped up to that plate, the lions will to give us something to cheer about that stayed with me. I had a smile on my face a mile wide that train ride back to Brooklyn. I was in love and it was pure.

Over the years I've been blessed to see over a hundred games at Yankee Stadium. Many of them classics. 

I was in the house with my estranged mother the day David Wells pitched his perfect game. I remember looking at my mom in the seventh inning… neither of us said a word. I thought to myself "any dame who knows to keep her mouth shut with Zeros On The Board can't be ALL bad". The healing had begun. 

Some games have a more individual significance such as seeing David Cone pitch for the last time (in a Red Sox uniform of all things!) or the night Barry Bonds finally passed Don Mattingly for the longest (and loudest) Home Run my eyes ever witnessed in my beloved ballpark. I was sitting on the third base line with Uncle Izzi, my most frequent companion at the House That Ruth Built, on my 15th birthday when Armando Benitez put a high heater in between Tino Martinez's shoulder blades inciting a full out war the likes of which I've not witnessed since. The sight of 6'8" reliever Grahm Loyd sprinting out from the bullpen to throw hands with a reserve first basemen is something special to behold. Bernie Williams would step to the plate following the fracas and on the first pitch deliver a game tying Home Run that still ranks as my favorite live sports experience.

Sadly over the last decade this stable of wonderful memories has been replaced with something seedy. A layer of dirt and grime has caked over the serene days of my youth. I've watched in horror as the Noble Titans I loved as a boy have been replaced by mouth breathing politicians. Speaking in polished sound bites, they give nothing as they take all they can get. I won't name any names… I'm sure you dear reader have a few lined up in your head already. I've steadily watched less and less as the years have gone by. It's easy to fall out of love with such greed and shameful buck passing. Yet in the back of my mind and deep in my heart I figured one day i'd return to my beautiful love and she'd take me strongly in her arms again, I would not remember feeling any of that terrible pain.

All that is over now.
No more dreaming.

Next season the MLB is outlawing collisions at Home Plate. Committing the most cardinal sin possible in sport… the removal of instinct. 

This is it… The Final Straw

All the hook slides in the world won't replace the sheer majesty of a split second decision in which the good of the many outweighs the safety of a man. It's a benevolent play full of self sacrifice. Loud, beautiful and telling of a teams desire to win. I have no room in my heart for a game that requires compromise. It is indeed time to move on.

All i'm left with now is Hockey, the last bastion of Team Sports. Try as the NHL might to water it down for the ESPN generation, Hockey remains a game in which grown men mercilessly grind each other to dust for seven games, knock teeth out with furious right hooks and when its all said and done, line up to shake hands… like men.

I'll miss you Baseball. You were my first love. You taught me everything I know about passion. Maybe we'll see each other on a crowded street sometime. You know me, always up for one last shag. Know that I'm always rooting for you and that I'm forever grateful.


But for now my darling this is truly goodbye.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Shock and Awe in the tabloid press

Good Evening. 

Today marks the start of a new era for this humble blog. Until now this space has been a sort of abstract personal journal. It's been A reference point for me on the journey through my own mind but that's all over now. 

This afternoon I spotted a headline published by the New York Post via Social Network "A Father dropped his toddler from a high-rise, jumps to his death". Chilling. I like most of us have sadly gotten used to the torrid pace with which shock and awe crosses our collective family in this fast forward tabloid information super culture. We've grown numb and unfazed by even the most horrid of tragedies. Can you name a victim of Sandy Hook? Are you still Boston Strong? I'm ashamed to admit it but on most days I wouldn't even stop to read such a disturbing article but today something was different. 

Maybe it was the pounding hangover or the aches and pains from two nights in a row of playing loud rock and roll music in distracted bars. Has all the Dr. Thompson and Bukowski of late given me opinionated dickhead muscles?  Perhaps the mornings throughly engaging conversation with a trusted friend had put me in a very humanistic place. Whatever the reason, I stopped to read… Then i clicked the link.

I was greeted with an image of shell shocked police, fire and ambulance workers all baring an expression that seemed to shout "is this real? What ARE we?" As I prepared to read the article a pop up add attempting to sell me a new Toyota covered the text. I moved frantically to try and close out the distraction but alas it was not to be. No "X's", no page resizing, nothing would remove this gross consumerism. I sat and stared at that image for a good ten minutes trying to make out some of the text creeping out from behind the ad, then in a sudden burst of horror I had a thought. "What if I just click the damn thing?"

You can probably see where this is going, once I was on line to meet the car of my dreams the article was presented. I closed the page and started typing. 

Its time to push back. If a place is set at the table for this kind of nonsense then there must be room for honest loving people to get A plate. I may still post art, stories and poetry in this space but from here on out it's whats on my mind, not in it that will occupy this space. My heart goes out to that child and even to his misguided father. This world is getting desperate, distant, cold and stale. We can do so much better. The time to start is now.

with blessings and love

danny axel

Sunday, September 29, 2013

a common ground


I run to you when my heart is scared
I hide when my mind is cold
I miss the air when I can't breathe
I hate the way it feels on my skin

I am an open book
Far too graphic 
not enough pictures

I count the miles in a memory
I laugh at the thought of time
I long for salvation
I am at my worst unkind

I am an open book
Dog eared pages
hard on the spine

I fall bastardly in love with life
I hurt inside
I want and want and need to want
I stay inside

I am an open book
Sleeveless, untitled
resting on a shelf 

I am my mothers eyes
I am my fathers worried mind
I am a savage heart
I am all shapes of life and death

I am an open book
A smell that fills your belly
a sentence read again


a sentence read again.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Advice For The Young At Heart.


It all comes down to Observers and Analyzers 

If Boy A meets Girl O - Natural fit
If Boy O meets Girl A - Patience will be required but fiery, the love will be
If Boy O meets Girl O - Remember to spice things up in the sack
If Boy A meets Girl A - Someone will be stepping out

Of course... none of this matters if you make your decisions aesthetically.

Friday, April 26, 2013

An open letter to all of us



You do not understand the world around you... 
neither do I. 
This is not the byproduct of a lack of care, will or understanding… 
it is simply unattainable under our current conditions.
This culture of ours makes it impossible to feel comfortable with certainty…
deny your thoughts, for they simply raise too many questions.

A window becomes poetry when the other side is unattainable 

Forgo these notions of comfort, a cold shower on a hot day…
mistakes are made to be learned from.
Light a candle for it's convenience…
be aware of the fire it starts.
A liberated thinker is far from isolation…
but far too inconvenient.

Family becomes apathetic in the face of dishonesty

Nurture the uncomfortable mind for it has far more to draw from than ghosts and insecurity.

Tell yourself you are more than the product of your experiences…
you are their offspring.
The future remains unwritten yet it keeps us all in mind. 

Remember your love and ask it for forgiveness when you stray…

we are all in this together

and I miss you most of all.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

The olympus cloud




I cannot disrupt your day. 
Nothing I say is meant to change your mind. 
Looking in the eye of your truth does not contain the blinding properties of earths yellow sun. 

Thursday, February 28, 2013

The Maturation Process


Rapid eye movement
very little doubt
Heavy handed and obvious
total faith, heartfelt
unmoved 
I seek redemption in love

If only to ask the question
I expect an answer
Forever is the moment that walks away
visible only in dark quiet memories
the kind you have alone
the one's that keep things from getting done

I've seen this room
I've walked this floor
I've never been alone in debt to silence

Friday, January 25, 2013

What The Mirror Reflects (Page 2)


A thought arrives in the form of realization.

There is no truth to be found in an "unrelated Incident"

She was barefoot, dancing in the morning light breaking through the old window shade. Turning, shaking, free of all doubt, They would all be judged against this moment. I knew it then, even as it was happening, a rare moment of clarity for a thoughtful mind. I think I wanted to keep her there, forever frozen in time. She became a sculpture living under glass, preserved but out of reach.

I thought of Her as I stood outside her window waiting for something to happen, knowing full well that nothing would. They can not all give you what you need. Nothing is as freeing or dammed as knowing. 

Existence is now your favorite song passing by in a car driven by someone you will never experience, someone you will never know… unless you shop at the same supermarket. 

I miss all of what I couldn't see in the moment between the past and future of a memory. During the time in which it was "happening" I was thinking of myself, weren't you? There were never any roads, or forks to give the illusion of choice. A train grinding on it's track does not stop to enjoy the scenery.