A Hero in August.
I am being a hero in a corrupt system.
Which is normal hero stuff.
I basically have three writings that are original and unique.
I have baseball, my notes to Gabriel and my letter to Chiara.
I could potentially post however it is just hero worship of myself potentially.
I have an idea of getting out there to drive to Lewis & Clark Lake.
My only concern is that this is more heroism on a larger scale.
After taking responsibility for the darkness for so long and having that turn into heroism maybe it is time to stop taking responsibility for darkness as an end since that end turns out now to be taking responsibility for heroism.
Now one choice to possibly stop being a hero is to drink alcohol.
Non-alcoholic beer versus beer.
What is worse?
Tobacco or drugs.
What is worse?
Strippers or dates.
What is worse?
Porn or girlfriends.
What is worse?
Staying in or going out.
What is worse?
Am I cut off from darkness?
The illuminator?
The potato of it all.
I suppose I need to take responsibility for heroism.
Good old Germany.
Good old Russia.
Good old France.
Good old England.
Good old Ireland.
Good old Australia.
Good old Canada.
Good old America.
Yes, I have three writings and an introduction.
It’s all clean copy.
Oh yeah—gar fishing..
Well.. let me tell you about baseball this summer.. hoho.
There is none of my illustrious lust to tangle into that tale. No this is sit down and actually think a little bit about what I am writing. Hmpf. Not sure if I like it.
Welp, the baseball is not my native sport.
Where I grew up baseball was for privileged people in the suburbs.
Basketball was standard and if one could afford the fees there was football available.
Baseball was first introduced to me, after I had moved my social circle away from the poorer side of town to one of the more affluent in Dundee, by a fellow graduate of Central high school. He told me that it was a very demanding sport by the sheer amount of games they played and how much they practiced.
Baseball always bore me to tears as a child and my only exposure was my father trying to get me to sit still through a minor league game and the social event of opening nights of the CWS at Rosenblat. I squirmed and complained and wandered off and eventually left early with my Dad disappointed. I became able to stomach professional baseball via Barry Bonds—home run after home run suddenly made baseball an accessible spectator sport to me. However Barry Bonds was the only exception and as it turns out juicing had something to with that.
I worked on the baseball field at UNO eventually and took care of softball as well. I was a decade and a half older so had the patience to sit through a game but still didn’t find much enjoyment. However I did find solace in the environment being calm and stable after a decade of tearing my life into tornado wreckage sized pieces by being a drunk wahoo.
Now I can sit down and watch a baseball game and genuinely enjoy it through a successive forced march through the Omaha/Lincoln sports universe. Also I have found that it is a great escape from the pressures of modern adult life and I understand how the game is played now but still don’t catch much of the nuance, technique or jargon.
I have about as much understanding as a clueless parent who has been watching their son’s games every night during the spring and summer seasons for two years straight. So it would be horrid for me to play the sports writer and tell the reader that the ball was thrown over here and then over there and there were strikes and outs and runs since that is about all I can recollect or could recognise.
It is interesting that I have a brain that can sit through Stormchasers, Huskers, Mavericks, corn belt league, Roncalli catholic regular season and legion league games for two to six years and only be able to say that sometimes the teams won more than other seasons. I do not know ball but I have started to be enthusiastic and engaged in the environment and view it as a lifesaver of order and good feeling from the chaos and dread of the world. I am a fan. However just about every game I have watched over the last six years I have been payed to watch. For the sake of justice and righteousness no one is paying me to write about it.
Still I do wish that baseball season would never end because it has no capacity to plunge me into ecclesiastical despair and delirious ecstasy like Cornhusker football or flood my subconscious with latent lust and desire like volleyball season or enflame my sense of dandyism as I giggle and laugh with enthusiastic feeling mirroring the high school girls on the softball field. Yes my emotional well being after finally stabilising through the sheer force of job security, stable cash flow and the homegrown feeling of baseball will be lit aflame through the passionate squeals and fierce play of high school and Cornhusker fall athletics. Alas, there is no sympathy for the Devil.
How can we go from fighting Afghanistan, to Iraq to Iran?
It is nation politics.
Here in America we do not have nation politics outside of foreign wars, economic policy, the Mexican border and the Great Lakes. We have no nation politics that touch on the national consciousness. To understand nation politics better I am studying Europe. For what South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming is to me is what Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia is to you.
I am surrounded by peace.
The last time any battle happened in Nebraska was in 1873 between 1000 Sioux and 350 Pawnee.
All of the other states have similar small skirmishes in the same time period being the last time a battle occurred.
The last time the USA mainland was invaded was 1812 by the Brits.
So to me— my neighbouring states include the Ozarks, the Rockies, the Black Hills and Badlands, and a football team called the Iowa Hawkeyes that we are horrible rivals of as Nebraska Cornhuskers.
What does it mean to be a Nebraskan?
I just told you, football.
We are a football team.
We have some cornfields, and other fields just like Iowa, Kansas and South Dakota and Missouri has some forests and Wyoming has some dirt, and Colorado has some mountains.
But ye Gods, you are surrounded by different war states. This is where all the wars happen. Look at all of those Eastern European countries on your tail. They look like they are pursuing you.
So it looks like Austria-Hungary dissolved after World War I and then Austria became a republic before going fascist and dominated by nazis into being its own country again after World War II.
I read a small book on the founding of Germany. Then Ferdinand and kaput goes the Kaiser and the Hapsburgs.
Even that is much more modern than anything to do with the Native Americans or Civil war here.
But I will study world war 2 and the Cold War to better understand what in the actual cold turkey sandwich we are up to in the Middle East.
Sincerely yours,
Jude McCoy.
PS-I never asked you if you thought any of this was interesting but you may of course tell me something interesting if you would like.
PSs- I did find one bit of info that gives us some kind of cultural tie.. it is the celts, looks like they went as far as Germany and Austria besides France, Spain and of course British isles.
Psss- I do find it fascinating that a veteran of World War II in a speech would say the words “Ich bin ein Berliner” to West Germany in 1963 during the Cold War after we had bombed the living hell out of it in 1945. But I digress, it’s all very treacherous studies and that must be why no one educates themselves for fun anymore. What are our shared interests?
Money, beauty, mountains, adventure, romance, nature, water, food..
I do not even know if you like history and politics but I do know you like economics and although they are not the same they are close in proximity.
What is the study of the future?
It is the applied studies of the past is it not?
Of course there is the present. 🎁
For style, I like dead guys—Twain, Hemingway, Harrison, Roosevelt.. but for facts I like dead guys.. there was an interesting sort of liberal in the 1950s that was basically a kind straight guy. Basically trying to present the facts compassionately. And the sixties and seventies happened much to their astonishment but they wrote through it all nonetheless. But for ideas, for ideas — we are going to have to go with the living.. there is a small group of guys I have found that can sit behind their words with responsibility, not be pessimistic and be original at the same time speaking in a way for everyone while maybe not being relevant to everyone— maybe you have your own ?? During COVID I found Steven Pinker who said everything is in fact all going much better than it ever has, which was encouraging, and Jordan Peterson who just generally cares for men who are losers.. which is a good group to care about, and another guy that I found somewhat recently Scott Galloway, this guy occupies a very interesting niche of just being a kind straight guy and therefore unique.. what a time to be alive—— but a very good one especially for HEALTH is Gabor Mate. This guy reminds me of Viggo Mortensen in the level of intentionality, compassion and awareness in the way he communicates. That is my men’s mental health Mt Rushmore in 2026.
I just want to drop you a line. I am not sure if it is helpful. It has to do with philosophy. Philosophy is the way that one thinks about the world. I see that you are very passionate about your community online. Many of the social issues that were present in America in the 1970s are still unresolved today. I read a bunch trying to understand some of these problems. If you ever have the time I would encourage you to checkout an author by the name of James Baldwin. I think he was queer but he was a gentleman and had said some very true things to say about the black experience in America. I have always read but one of the most inspiring to me to read more even if no one else in my circle read is Malcom X’s advice to the black community to empower itself through having a personal library. I am not talking down to you I just know there is a black Mt Rushmore out there in my mind of Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcom X and James Baldwin that is not my Mt Rushmore anymore than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, TDR, and Lincoln is yours. Taken out of context that sounds fucked up but from what you have written on Facebook about the disparities between blacks and whites in this town I think you would know what I mean. There are rappers and athletes but maybe you could fuck with an old head like James Baldwin. Besides that there are Greeks and Roman’s and I recently saw the Oddysey and that was good as well. I am not some philosophical guru or anything but I do find it an interesting avenue to explore life in that your average cat does not understand. There would be modern black thinkers that are speaking to the black community now but I wouldn’t know who they are but what I like to do is find old heads with good heads and then base the new cats off of how well they jive with the old heads I admire. Sorry for the bit of jive talking at the end here. I have seen quite a bit in a myriad of cultures and wish yall the best whether whites and other people get along or not. Much respect to what you are doing, have done and will do brother.
