Wednesday, October 16

It's just about 3 weeks before elections; Trump's running mate Vance is said to be coming to our town tomorrow, and all the Trumpees are excited.  Lots of Republicans are far from delighted, but many of them will vote for Trump, even if not all of them do.  Many of them are cold, calculating businessmen (and wives of businessmen), and they watch, and listen to Trump, shaking their heads, no doubt.  But he's their man, and what are they to do?  They'll hold their noses and vote for him. 

The flood of junk mail is overwhelming, especially, I guess, in homes where they're registered Democrats or Republicans, asking for money, and for what?  To pay for yet more junk mail, and TV advertising.  I hardly ever turn on the TV these days. 

Meanwhile, i'm thoroughly confused as to what's happening to Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever.  There are rumors that Clark has given up basketball and is going in for golf, that she's heading out to play basketball in Europe, that the Fever has been asked to sign up free agents, whatever they are.  And Facebook has signed me up as a Caitlin Clark fan, without asking me.  Now I get asked to 'like' Caitlin pics a dozen times a day.  Things are seriously getting out of hand. 

OMG.  Now that I have been kidnapped by this pretended CC fan club, I'm getting to see a lot of sports griping, and it's ugly.  Caitlin seems to serenely go on her merry way, but all sorts of athletes are seriously grumbling, saying they should be given more money!  (I don't know whether it's the athletes themselves, or some people who have maintained web pages, supposedly on their behalf.)

Sports writers write the most atrocious English—probably many of them were too impatient to stay in school and learn to write—and a lot of the writing is illogical and ill tempered, and arrogant.  Caitlin was very humble, and took all the blows she suffered with patience and grace.  If she ever decides that she can't take all this crap lying down (I hope that never, never, never happens), it will be a sad day for all of us.  In contrast to all the athletes who feel slighted by the huge pay packets that Caitlin is being offered ("I'm worth more than she is!"), I don't believe Caitlin has actually demanded big bucks. 

Well, a happy October to all of you, and now that Halloween is truly close (unlike before, when the stores were getting excited over nothing) we can go out and decorate our fronts of houses with pumpkins (and little witches on brooms),

Kay

Once Again: Goldie Hawn!

I'm so relieved that Goldie Hawn is old enough to be my grandmother—if she had really tried—otherwise I would have spent so much time dreaming about her!  I just saw a photo of her somewhere, and that has derailed me, as always!

This is her in 1964.  I think her eyes are the dreamiest ever, but when she smiles ...

 

Strikes Twice

Well, I'll be damned!

One of my favorite pieces of writing is Jane, and it's a story about a girl who takes up glamour photography just to keep body and soul together, and then falls in love with two of her models.  For some reason, I had trouble finishing the story off, and let an episode take over the entire story line, which sort of staggered off into the sunset!

This detour—which sort of hijacked the story—centers around an actress called Lisa Love, and Jane—the main character—is hired as a makeup artist for a film that Lisa is in.   Only, it turns out that the producers think it would be a great idea to introduce a lesbian romance between Lisa's character and another character in the movie. 

Well, I was just re-reading a book I had bought some time ago, with the title Not in the Script , and the exact same plot twist is there!  Now I have to wonder: did I borrow the plot twist from this book, or did I invent it independently?

Money Ruins Everything

Caitlin Clark was an Iowa kid, who lived to play basketball, and was amazingly good at it.  She played when she was in college, at the University of Iowa, and the team were the regional basketball champions. 

Then Caitlin was scouted out by the Indiana Fever (a professional basketball team), and joined them for the 2024 season. 

At first, she focused mainly on getting hoops from whereever she was on the court whenever she got possession, and the team only did moderately well, or actually, quite poorly.  Then, by some magic, the team began to do better; they put together moves that involved several of the players in combination, and began winning games.  After the Olympic break, the Fever came roaring back, and began to get the big reputation. 

Ɓut there were lots of challenges to those who claimed that Caitlin was instrumental in the team's improved playing.  There were initially challenges to Caitlin's value from rivals within the team; it was said that the media was ignoring senior players who had put in years of service to the team, in favor of this rookie who was the big sensation from college.  There were remarks that the media loved Caitlin mostly because she was White, in contrast to most of the other players. 

Meanwhile, the statisticians were pointing out that the WNBA was making millions of dollars more from ticket sales and TV ratings than they had ever done before, and were ascribing it to Caitlin's presence; people wanted to watch Caitlin play, they declared.  The league, and the Fever, were rolling in money that they had earned since Caitlin had joined the league.  That seemed to clinch the argument: Caitlin was making money for the WNBA, and the Fever.

At this point, I was thoroughly frustrated.  It seemed to me—being unfamiliar with the way things are valued in sports—that this attitude cheapened Caitlin's value as a team player, but there was no sign that Caitlin herself was disappointed. 

Meanwhile, the athletic bean-counters were gleefully estimating how much more money Caitlin was going to make the Fever and the WNBA over the season, once they had got into the playoffs. 

But the Fever was eliminated in the first round.  And an entirely expected—to me, anyway—consequence was that the Caitlin fans stopped watching the Fever games, stopped attending the playoffs, and stopped watching the women's basketball sportscasters, and all the organizations that depended on TV ratings started losing money. 

At first, I was quite amused.  Well, there you go, I thought to myself, Caitlin may not be as great a player as we thought, but once she stops playing, the WNBA sure loses a lot of real money. 

Well, it's not money that they had already earned; it was money that they were hoping to earn.  It was chickens they had counted that hadn't been hatched yet.  But it seemed to me that a lot of professional sports is about estimating unhatched chickens.

So Our Girl's Run This Year Is Done

Caitlin Clark, who was drafted by the Indiana  Fever right out of college, managed to get into the playoffs with her team, but got knocked out in the early rounds, and won't play again until April.

I didn't know enough about how the sport goes, to know how Caitlin played with the team, or how they changed their team play so that some of the senior players began to contribute strongly; or how their opposing teams managed to build defenses.  But lots of Fever fans weren't really expecting them to get into the playoffs at all, and were delighted that they did. 

As I said, I don't know enough about the game to comment on the supposed rough play that Caitlin was subjected to.  If there was a race aspect to the bullying (if there was bullying in the first place) that has to be eliminated. 

[Added later:  The story I was told is that a Connecticut player, who was wearing extended fingernails, poked Caitlin in the eye, thus ruining her vision temporarily—or possibly permanently.  One of Caitlin's greatest skills is the ability to sink baskets from far outside the conventional shooting range.  After the incident, Caitlin's percentage was reported to have plummeted.  The Fever lost that game, and—as we know, they were eliminated from the playoffs.]

 I love these two girls!

Kay

P.S. [Added on 10/2]:  The season—for the Fever, at any rate—being over, and the head of the Fever organization having retired, Caitlin is being interviewed by all sorts of journalists and news men.  In every case, Caitlin says just the most loving, and caring, and diplomatic thing that one can imagine, always giving credit to others, to the team, and to the coaches, and even to opposing teams. 

A lot of that is her upbringing.  I was brought up by parents who insisted on kind and gracious behavior, but Caitlin goes way, way beyond that sort of habitual courtesy.  Her gratitude seems genuine and heartfelt.  I'm running out of words to describe the sort of exemplary person that Caitlin is.  The entire team is becoming thoughtful and well-spoken, though I refrain from ascribing that phenomenon to Caitlin's influence.  In contrast, some—not all, but a few—of the women in opposing teams seem to make a point of being rough in their speech, as if to say: don't expect us to sugar-coat what we say, like Caitlin's B.S.

DA Just Shocked Me

Most of you know, by now, that Kay (Hemlock) Brown is a completely made-up name, and that image of me on this page is just a made-up picture, though it is pretty close.   These days, with AI art and everything, people probably have a pretty good handle on the facts when I say that my ID Pic is mostly me. 

But imagine my surprise, when I was going through the gallery of a new member on DA, and I saw several nude images that looked very much like me!!!   I know they only look like me,  because I never had nude Pics taken of me in my life, but—you know—the shock is quite real. 

I usually like to put up some sort of photo or image with each post.  But today, I'm resisting the temptation with all my might, because the last thing I want is fake nudes of me on the Web.

TO be honest, this girl looks a lot more beautiful than me, certainly a lot more shapely.  I'm not going to say any more about her. 

Kay

Why DA is sometimes Disappointing

Every day I put in a few minutes on DeviantArt—DA, which has become like taking an early morning stroll, for me.  My state of mind when I close it down ïs often different from one day to the next. 

Most of the guys who post art on the site, are posting fantasies: fantasy women which populate their Manga stories, or their video games. 

I'm imagining fantasy protagonists, too, but I need girls who are more than just decorative!  I can imagine a lot of these DA women standing around, looking encouragingly at the guys, —and maybe the girls.  But I'm looking for a girl who would join me in an adventure!  Take charge, some of the time; be a real participant!

A lot of the images depict intense girls, who seem preoccupied with their looks—especially if their hair has been done up in a fancy style.  Girls wearing complicated clothes, are not so bad; girls like to wear something weird every now and then; that's fine.  But those images of high-maintenance girls are such a waste of time!