Category: Uncategorized
Leaving the post office yesterday, I stopped into the old newsstand. The new owner had gotten rid of many of the out-of-town and foreign newspapers - the things that you can read online and that give a newsstand class. But he'd added books, including a section devoted to local authors.
Neither of my two books was there. True, I don't write very often about South Florida, and when I do, I do so critically. But not as critically as people who litter the landscape with corpses. I guess portraying South Florida as a playground for killers is acceptable because it's fiction, while my digs at the place as a cultural wasteland are not (fiction or acceptable). Or perhaps, because they're nonfiction, they're simply unread.
I asked the owner how business was. He said there was a problem because many of his customers saw the store as a place to buy their lottery tickets. He had tried to get them interested in books, but without success.
No, what I write is definitely not fiction.
I'm a little disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm with which South Florida has greeted the news of LeBron James' decision to play for the Heat.
Sure, the evening of the announcement it was news, but if you stayed tuned for sports you still heard the Marlins score. The Marlins! Today is the second straight day that LeBron's name does not appear on the front page of the Herald. Yesterday, the cover was devoted to a soccer team!! From Spain!!!!
People, we're not talking about just anybody here; we're talking about a BASKETBALL PLAYER! A man who can put a ball into a basket - from many different locations!! If close enough to the basket, he can actually stuff it in!! Not only that, with his long arms he can keep other people from putting it in!
I hope this helps South Floridians grasp the magnitude of this moment. We should cover the Bank of America building with his image. We should give him Vizcaya as his new home. We should pay proper homage to the king with a little renaming: The LeBron Expressway. LeBron International Airport. LeBronglades National Park. Or, at least nearby, a little fruit stand called "LeBron is Here."
Oh, to be a free agent instead of a freelancer.
Note to my mother: Mom, to read my Nashville story, click here: http://www.worldhum.com/features/tom-swick/how-high-was-the-water-mama-20100706/
Last Friday evening I was at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, the famous club for singer-songwriters. Four men - two with guitars, two in front of keyboards - sat facing each other in the middle of the room, and took turns presenting their music. Food and drinks were served to the audience, but no one talked during a song.
It was a bit like a reading at a book fair, when authors on a panel read excerpts from their books, or poets read their poems. The men at the Bluebird were more versatile than writers, being able to write songs, play instruments, and sing. But spreading their talents around so freely seemed to distract them from the writing; it is astonishing what cliches you can get away with when you accompany them with a guitar.
There are other advantages to being a songwriter. The odds of having a hit are probably just as great as those of netting a bestseller, but composing a song takes a lot less time than writing a book. And once they become hits, songs, unlike books, are in the atmosphere, unavoidable. You have to go out and buy Infinite Jest, but you can hear - many of us have - "Achy Breaky Heart" without meaning to.
There was an air of expectation outside Feijao com Arroz that one usually doesn't associate with a strip mall parking lot. After pulling into one of the few remaining spaces, I walked past a Brazilian grocery store and a Brazilian dentist to the restaurant.
It was an hour before game time, but there was already a line at the entrance. A middle-aged woman in a blue tank-top said something to me in Portuguese, to which I replied "Nao falo Portuguese." "Where are you from?" she asked. "Originally, New Jersey," I said. "But I like Brazil." "You sit with us," she said. "I have a friend who's coming," I said. "He can sit with us too."
Julietta and her daughter Melissa and I paid $10 for ten coupons, which would go toward our meals, and walked to our table under a ceiling strung with green and yellow flags. Three big screens covered the walls; three TVs hung behind the bar - all tuned, naturally, to the Brazilian pregame show.
Soon Julietta's girlfriends arrived, as did my friend John, with his friend Apollonario. We ordered caipirinhas. There is something to be said for being a freelance writer. Or a Brazilian.
The first half was frustrating: no goals and no food. At one point the commentary was interrupted by an announcement that illegally parked cars would be towed. Melissa looked out the window and noticed that her car was blocked. As she went out to investigate, her mother said: "She's American. She worries about everything."
During halftime, the kitchen got cranking. In the second half, so did the Brazilian offense. At the first goal - scored from an unbelievable angle - the entire restaurant erupted in joy, people - many of them in yellow soccer jerseys - rising from their seats and clapping their hands. A jubilant, unified, long-awaited explosion.
After the match - Brazil 2, North Korea 1 - a band took the stage and played samba. A few people left, back to the real world, a few people danced. Julietta invited us all to her house on Sunday for feijoada and the match against the Ivory Coast.
