something about the lunch table

One day, this kid at our high school lunch table, Patrick, started talking about a Geto Boys album, “Grip It! On That Other Level,” and about Bushwick Bill, one of the rap group’s members. Patrick had us laughing as he mimicked Bushwick—“Fawk ‘em up like a gawd-dāmm caw crash!” I went out and bought the album, which was already several years old, on cassette. Bushwick sounded just like Patrick said—“You gawd-dāmm parrents awe trippin’, gimme sum madat shet ya’ been sniffin’!” But the album was no joke, especially the Scarface-driven songs “Scarface” and “Life in the Fast Lane.”

 

something about Skip Bayless’ “God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys”

Long before he was a clicks-generator for ESPN, Skip Bayless was a well-regarded, award-winning journalist. He started at The Miami Herald, moved on to the Los Angeles Times, then, in the late 1970s, moved to Dallas to be lead sports columnist covering America’s Team during the Cowboys' peak celebrity.

In 1989, after several years' of writing Cowboys columns, Bayless tried to cash in and published God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys. The book streaks through the times and personnel behind the Cowboys’ rise to national prominence, the team’s decades-long winning run, and the organization’s disillusioning decline and cold-turkey break with legendary coach Tom Landry.

God's Coach is not flattering for Landry or the organization. Influential general manger Tex Schramm, the team's front office, and some big-name former players all get sacked in Bayless’ book. And he describes Landry—"the man in the funny hat," as was affectionately known—as a deeply religious man coaching in a corrupt organization, withholding emotionally to keep players working for his approval, and, eventually, getting passed by as the game evolved and times changed.

I enjoyed reading parts of God's Coach, including the opinions of Landry's great assistant coaches and some long-forgotten background bits on former players. Plus, Bayless' sport-column-writing style, with its dumb wit and constant motion, works well in longform here. But, overall, I found the book distasteful largely because Bayless engages in a lot of suggestion and innuendo, frequently framing accusations as questions. Bayless' premise—that Landry the man was not as good as Landry the legend—is a straw man. Did anyone in 1989 believe Landry and the Cowboys were perfect? No. But many believed that the iconic coach deserved respect.

Bayless does not know the meaning of the word.

Finding someone with a bad word to say about the Cowboys will never be a problem—especially when the team is down, like it was in '89. But Landry and the organization did not have a losing season from 1966 to 1986. And, in that time, the Cowboys won 13 division titles and made five Super Bowl appearances, winning twice.

The team owner, Bum Bright (who was losing a bundle in the savings and loan crisis at the time), sold the team to a 40-something Jerry Jones for $140 million in 1989, and Landry was fired after 29 seasons. Bayless writes that Bright and Schramm intended to fire Landry whether or not the team was sold. I do not doubt that they would have looked for a way to offer Landry a dignified exit; and I need not doubt that Jerry Jones was one key source for the book. Many Cowboys fans still associate Jones with Landry's undignified dismissal.

Hats off to Tom Landry.

Note: Landry was 6’2” and fit as hell his whole life. He wore a suit on the sidelines, but, in practice, he was poppin' in t-shirts and shorts. The man died in 2000.

an opinion of Judge Alcee L. Hastings, 5 January 1989

 "I don't think judges need to be timid people."

 

something about "The Sweet Hereafter" by Russell Banks

I am a fan of the 1997 film, Affliction. In that film, Nick Nolte and James Coburn deliver rich performances depicting stricken men. The film is based on a book, published in 1989, by Russel Banks. Seeking other works by Banks, I found The Sweet Hereafter, which was published in 1991.

The Sweet Hereafter is divided into a series of first-person narrations of a fatal school bus crash and the devastation it brings on lives in a small town in rural Upstate New York. Most of the children on the bus die, but a few survive, along with the bus driver and a father whose daily commute follows the bus route. Lawyers, news media, and deep pain visit the town in the aftermath. The narratives are focused and contained, and the stories never get entangled. A gritty, emotional realism characterized by resignation imbues the novel—a feeling that is also prominent in the film adaptation of Affliction. This was a very good read.


Notes: 

The Sweet Hereafter is loosely based on an actual bus crash in Alton, Texas.
 
The film Affliction was directed by Paul Schrader and costarred Sissy Spacek and Willem Dafoe, who, as one would expect, were also great. I have always particularly enjoyed this short exchange in the film:

Rolfe Whitehouse (Dafoe): I was always careful around Pop. I was a careful child. And I'm a careful adult. But at least I was never afflicted with that man's anger.
Wade Whitehouse (Nolte): That's what you think.