The truth of man lies not in the stars but in his soul

“The truth of man lies not in the stars but in his soul” every human being from the cradle to the grave, is being tested!
                                       II
Basketball coach Larry Brown, growing up in Long Beach High School, and metamorphosing in coach Frank McGire- DeaSmith’s varsity (Billy Cunningham) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“Everybody is being tested,” said coach and psychiatrist, Dean Smith, a father figure to  Michael Jordan,   “a second father”,)a immortal in the University’ lore.
                                              III
Coach Brown of Southern Methodist University was  chargedwith violating, bridging NCAA “March Madmess” by having an assistant coach aid and abet a Macdonald’s player of the year to shine in the SMU varsity Heavens and to acclimate the Texas conference SMU competed in.
                                    IV
How could this be? Larry Brown raised in Brooklyn, recruiting at the corrupting edge? Competing with a immoral edge over competing young minds, off a flavor of the schoolyard and playground. 
Unbelievable!....the barrio’s Lincoln High School, the cream cheese bandit recruiting ineligible non Latinos to win at all costs…remembering Honest Bill” Rosenblatt, LIU’s Jackie Goldsmith dumping games on point spreads.
                                      V
Following the Hall of Fame coach John Wooden of UCLA, why didn’t that heritage rub off on Larry Brown’s persona?
Didn’t the Dean Smith yesterdays rub off on Larry Brown? All that comroderie with the likes of Billy Crystal, a neighbor fromLong Beach..
                                      VI
The metamorphosis playing out on the court is not the marketplace front office.…the competition is simply an appearance of all the humans, untainted by  insidious ego trips,but the  appearance of what Dioniyius or Hamlet, in their odyssey swing through March Madness and the NCAAfirmament, regulating   the “testing” and the  rebounds of their surrogate father figure coaches. 
The kids buy into, during their years of “March Madness” eligibility.
                                          VI
Where else on our planet can young men and women play outtheir character
Your character is your fate” is accessible to devious young men in a culture where the need to win is at the apex of the University’s claim to notoriety,  addressing the needs of the young me to motivate..
                                          VII
A Hall of Fame immortal is the feat of character, the realization of the player’s dream, presiding over his sojourn of four years of competitive juices and passionate discipline..
Cheating doesn’t pay. It’s a outrage and sellout. Remember cheaters never prosper. Living with their lie.
                                     VII
“We are all underlings Horatio,” said Hamlet. “We are all being tested..If in doubt, give him the benefit of the doubt. Don’t call it out.”

September 29, 2015. The City that neversleeps.  

Whether Mandrake the Magician knew about Stephen Curry

Whether Mandrake the Magician knew about Stephen Curry in a double dribble tandem with his coach, Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors, the NBA Houdini (s), he knew being a father of a newborn daughter, he had to show Mandrake his own magic ,leading Steve Kerrs team to those heights of a pro basketball dynasty.
                                           II
Shades of the Bay area” quoteth Mandrake the Magician”…. the University of San Francisco and that duo of K.C. Jones and the 6 foot nine inch center Bill Russell made hoi poloi withRed Auerbach’s Boston Celtics…on their parquet floor musical weave into Eternity  and lore, folklore.……the stuff that legends are made. Wherever the cognoscenti ramp up basketball dreamers into NCAA college  and NBA continuity.
                                             III
As reality had it, Auerbach’s parents owned a delicatesn  andlater a dry cleaning store, Brooklyn’s Williamsburg.
A cast of Bill Sharman, Sam Jones, Tommy Heinsohn from the corners,  John Havlicek off the bench, Holy Cross’s Bob Cousyorchestrating the weave, bringing the pumpkin down, on a Ruasell rebound and pass..
Frank Ramsey and number six man Don Nelson rounded out the defensive rebounds. converting into a outlet pass or fast break, that broke the Harry Houdini Mandrake the Magician spoof of smoke, wide open. Into a fantastic metamorphosis….the time clock tickng, the player’s own cardiac beats boom booming ..
                                        IV                                    
But on television’s ABC network, Stephen Curry the Mandrake, orchestrated his dribbling, his two handed magic…switching hands, setting up his tee vee machinations, caught up in the magic of Curry’s new persona as a baby faced demon Richard Widmark...his most viable “swish”
                                        V
The Magician’s grin that breaks the defensive player’s back; the  screen by a teammate to get into his three point range from downtown .
A consummate diagnostic magician who puts the defenders into his spell…still a kid no one would suspect, abounded from the school playground….
“Elementary, my dear Mandrake.”
                                       VI
Modest Houdini demonstrated his guile for sandwiching two basketballs, as Magician’s 
Convening the Continent’s audience to a dribbling repartee that takes one’s breathe away.
Like his father, a Cro Magnom magicianhe taunts the opponent into anxiety…shoot? Pass? Drive? Shield?.Time out, construct a play?
                                         VII
Steve Kerr, the other twin soul of the Houdini- Mandrake the Magician duo …his Pacific Palisades High School gym.. owneagle eyed persona at  Palisades High , his father an administrator (President)_ at American University in Beirut, Lebanon, gunned down.
Lost to the Kerr’s Physical Education (football and track coach, Valley College, Van Nuys, Ca), by a assassin, the son going tothe University of Arizona for his own Houdini evolution.
Into Mozart’s basketball heaven….the Magic Flute. Of dribbling disguise ‘s and  switching keys, masked by schoolyard’s eternaldeception 
                                       VIII
Steve Kerr ‘s own Houdini brand of magic was  adopted by the ChicagBulls franchise and coach Phil Jackson, his alter ego ,Tex Winter inventing the triangle stratagem for the duo of Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen.
Kerr masterminding his three point shot heard around the Bulls offices. And the practice court in Lake Forest, Illinois.
                                    IX
In those interludes of basketball dreams , Steve Kerr found his way back to Northern California and the Golden StateWarriors..Mimic-ing his own coacheshigh school, college, NBA teams.
Phil Jackson, a long time number 6 man on the Knick bench, was elevated to the head honcho’s role,(director, operations) at the Madison Square Garden magical Harry Houdini basketball heaven..
“Steve come to the Big Apple” pleaded his vintage Knick and Chicago Bull magician.
                                        X
But Steve Kerr in his own Harry Houdini magic, knew he had Stephen Currydeclining the offer to stay with the Warriors.
Between Mandrake the Magician and Harry Houdini, the Kerr-Curry magic is but a metamorphosis, an incarnation of a transfusion of coaching nebula between  UCLA ‘s Wilbur Johnscoach, and his successor John Wooden..
Only one of four Hall of Fame players, who became Hall of Fame coach.
                                        XI
May the Ker Curry twin soul tandem renew its all court magic in the same breath as the pioneers that made the schoolyard mimicry, a foretaste of what life on the planet’s own playgroundcould be and become.
September 24, 2o015. The City that never sleeps.
                                           

The Holy Grail

The Holy Grail…a trip of 24 hours by  Pope Francis to the Big Apple and the United Nations, the Man from La Mancha, the Sheik of Araby, an elderly knothole kid from the foregone EbbetField bleachers……the  respectful soul searching denizens along the corridor of Champions, praying for a Holy blessing, a sanctuary of a quiet mindedness, and deliverance from agonizing stress here and abroad.
                                       II
How could a divinity of the Vatican, know that the Man from La Mancha, the Sheik of Araby, the senior citizen from the EbbetsField bleachers, a former knot hole kid, were subdued, waiting for the Pope’s open roof  Pope mobile 
to pass….catch a vaunted glimpse and a immortal memorable image. 
                                      III
A metamorphosis beyond Darwin’s voyage to the Galapagos Islands, wouldn’t you say.
raising of consciousness. A cyber space aura of connectivity to the Big Apple’s own evolution.…..
The homeless, the weary” dynamics comprising part of the masses, over the past century’s three wars and  Middle East Vietnam invasions.  .
But in this instance, the spiritual reality transcends the confetti blitz                                       upon Pope Francis and his caravan.
                                     IV
The Statute of Liberty held her torch high, revelers in Times Square played out dignified personas as they were in awe, at themiracle occurring in their midst.
The Sheik of Araby’s swagger was liberated from his once 5thgrade charismatic persona to become himself. 
The Man from La Mancha , his musical heritage andimagination brought down to Earth by the Papal pilgrimage ….two  lifetimes in the making.
                                   V
The hand of the smart phone and its apps, was quieted. Quality human beings were asserting themselves by recognizing a higher power, sanctifying their destinies.
With promise, optimism, good health  and humor. Seeing themselves in the mirror of a higher power, orchestrating his own Saint Peter’s Basilica, to bestow a lasting presence among millions of Big Apple denizens…. launching life preservers to stay afloat and grow.

”Praise the Lord ”
                                   VI
Remembering that moment in “Lost Horizon” Robert Riskin’s,(Bay RidgeBrooklyn) dialogue by Shangri-la’s 125 year oldHigh Llama.   “We have been waiting a long time for you, Mister Conway.”

September 19, 2015   The City that never sleeps.

“AGONIZING AGANIZING “

AGONIZING AGANIZING “  whispered Midwood High School’s Murray Eisenstadt, the school’s first tennis coach(Social Studies, Civics)  his wife Kappoe, as they watched the most celebrated Swiss player of all time, Roger Federerlose to the Serbia Novak Jokavitz, under the lights, in ae rain dela… his 6-4, 5--, 6-4, 6-4 four set loss, where he squandered four game changing points.
                                   II
Of all trhe celebrioties in attendance, the 90ish old Vic Seixasthe oldest living grand slam champion, of our own  spectator complimentary tickets at the Forest Hills, West tennis club,Queens.N.Y.
Here the agile Philadelphian in singles and doubles wth is alter ego Tony Trabert, rose to the top ten every season before World War2, the sneqk attack b the Japanese Zeros, vat Pearl Harbor., while a delegation vwas at the White House speaking the Dragon Lady’s peace be with you.
                                       III
The likes of Vic Seixas brought back vmem ories of his honed movements and finesse as his all court game was a versatileballet to see. In his all whites, relaxed state of minfd, he dismissed most of his opponents in the game ws still an am ateursport…no money ,trophies being the incentives for triumphing., his very anticipation in the chess play strokes,down the line,cross court, lobs, overheads, drop shots…
Plays like billy Talbert werein their personsa stock brokersGardnar Malloy of Coral Gables, from Florida’s Miami University (Doris Hart’s ) were aristocrats, self employed in what career no one ever knew….  Frank Shields in his impeccable long white trousers, Boby Riggs, Jack Kramer, Ted Olewine, Ted Schroeder, Pancho Gonzales, Pancho Segura, Wayne Sabi n ,Bitsy Grfant,. Long after Bill Tilden, Fred Perry, Baron Gottfried von Gram, Bunny Austin, Don Budge., the Aussies Harry Hopkins, John Bromwich and his partner Adrian Quist.
                                         IV
So before these legendary heroes akin Vic Seisas came back, returned to those yesterdays at Forest Hills, where he gained fame without an y notoriety for his sportsman like leadership persona, mnned court persona, his will to win motivating his all court tactics and image, moving forward.
                               IV
Those were the seventh heaven days grwin g up, every summer going to the Eastern Lawn Tennis Association Big Apple officefor the comps , the family’s Joel Adler, competing in the tournament with his long time nemesis Nathan “LeftyGoldstein of Brooklyn. 
His steadiness from the baseline, chasing down all Joel’s shots in their war of attrition, baseline duels from side to side inside and out, down the line, cross court in a war of attrition..(indoorArmories, Mammoth clay, Herby Titler’s clay, with Jake Javitz, later a N.Y. Senator, the Lincoln Terrace Park courts)
                                   V
So it was in this amateur climate Herby Flam. Leonard Steiner, Sidney Schwartz, Bob Willner, Sonny Fotre matured their teen age steady game into adroit pre college maturity.  
Cornell, graduate manager&coach Bill Ackerman’s UCLAteams, Tulane USC (the Falkenberg brothers, Bob and Tom,(their sister Jinx, courted by Howard Slim” Hughes, wshile he was into flying lessons at Santa Monica’s Cloverdale Airport)evolved their all court shot making., American trwist s …Hugh Stewart from San Gabriel….Pancho Gonzales from East Los Angeles.(Andre Agassi’s former brother in law)

                                      VI
The Eisenstadts were under th radar…celebrating 185 years of their birthdays” the coach and civics teacher 95, Kappioe a Tilden High School counselor 90…185 gala celebration  underthe four bridges in Williamsburg, their daughter Ellen, engineering the gala, in the open era….the thletes in their quest for fame and fortue as the Serena andVenus sisters or Pete Sampreas and Agassi- Steffi Graf in  their retirement six or seven  bck from today’s Rger Federer, age34, to bag another mojp”!..but doomed by the  newly married revitalized Serbianin those aforementioned rain delay four sets.
                                  VII
“Agonizing agonizing “ whispered retired  Midwood High School retired te3nnis coach,  95 year old Murray Eisenstadt to his wife 90 year old Kappie, in their 185 year birthday gala, under the four bridges.

Sepotember15, 2015  The City that never sleeps,
                                                                                     





What hath these streaks gone astray?

What hath these streaks gone astray?
                                  II
All things and stats being relative, where in the pantheon……    
Of the Stage’s pressure ….cooking a consecutive  day to day display of moneyed  ego trips over tumbling yesterdays in the performer’s mortal pursuit of Grand Slam immortality….
Establishing a new level of earth breaking epoch shatteringstatistics gone astray  on our cyber spaced out Grand Slamtennis  courts..             
                                   III
Therefore thus heretofore, the feminine interpretation of the Sultan of Swat, Serena Williamns, a tennis prodigy of Compton, California’s hatd courts, two victories shy of Steffi Graf’s thirty thrfee big time tournament victories on the Australia French Wimbledon U.S. Open Grand Slam tour, in Flushing Meadows, Queens, N.Y.…..
Her chase, pursuing Steffi Graf, losing her 3set semi final match to DaVinci “La Dolche Vita” Italian…no relation to Leonardo?..in a tight three setter semi final pursuit.
                                         IV
So the Sultan of Swat must go back to the boards As the pioneers of the charismatic tennis establishment say…Billy Jean Kings  UCLA’s Arthur Ashe stadium, to rediscover the joy and passion which brought her fame nd fortune in the first place.
                                    V
For her pursuit and chase to be denied,  “Steffi will be here Saturday”   bespeaks volumes of the crony authority at Flushing Meadows, failing to put into perspective how to assess the quality a thirty three feminine style Sultan of Swat cult, todominate a 33 year old baby faced Gigi” Italian player…never before gotten this far in a Grand Slam..
Her one handed backhand in the pantheon of two handed powserplayers brings back to mind the constancy of the “David and Goliath” analogy, the Flushing Meadow connoisseurs verbally groomed…in their analysis, arguing stats, pursuing their crisp tongue lashing of the Sultn of Swat’s “mirror”.
Serena Williams, the Compton, Calikfornia prodigy, pursuing her dream of dethroning Steffi Graf’s 33 Grand Slams into thtothe Guinness Book of Records.                                  
                                    VI
NO WAY JOSE!
                                   VII
Whatever the divinity, Serena Williams, a prodigy out of the hard courts of Compton, California could not get to her once instinctual extra gear as she had,  pursuing her streak…. two matches away..from establishing a transcending vision of what she, her sister Venus, and their father, Richard, their surrogate coach tossing used tennis balls in their ambition, overcoming their environmental limitations,(our North Long Beach at Lindberg Jr.High the Compton-L.A. Red cars) as they gained prestige, power, and acclaim in the Sultan of Swat’ family consciousness.  
Cleopatra in disguise, those Bill Tilden used tennis bals of  Darwinian metamorphosis to fame and fortune.
An ascension to what was once an all no moneyed amateurAlice Marble Althea Gibson purity.
                                    VIII
So with Lou Gehrig’s game playing steak..”I am the luckiest man on the face of this Earth”..Joe DiMaggio’s consecutive hitting streak of 54 gmes…….…..   
                                     IX
Ted Willikams coming back from two wars, setting his hitting record…  406 batting average… 
And then again Babe Ruth’s own 60 four baggers, to be broken by Roger Maris’s 61.
So in this celebrity ridden gage of press agents..all… was not to be…the father maestro Richard Willikams  not on  the Flushing Meadows “reality scene” to  give his moral and visible support to his feminine Sultan of Swat
Greta Garbo “I vant to be alone”s she raced off her to privacy of sharing Nadal’s own grinding loss two days earlier on thesecourts..
Of her fall from what was once her imperial grace .
                                         X
But for “cool and awesome” DaVinci from Italy, her drop shots, sliced one handed backhand, her true grit of Via Nomentana in Novella Roma, off the Via Veneto, the spectacular ascension and all consuming streak of Serena Williams, coming down to Earth, the Compton, California prodigy, realizes her  killer instinct has finally come to a  cease fire, at the hands of a Da Vinci divinitymasking her own mystique, and all courpresence… a prodigy gone stale in deuce and add out points (a few double faults on critical points)on her serve….her nerves gotr to her neurons and constancy of pressure to prove yourself by defeating your own quest, across the net….a “mirror” of what she once was.
                                   XI
“Don’t look back. You’ll see something gaining on you”..Satchel Paige, pitching in relief, for the Cleveland Indians.
September 12, 2015.The City that never sleeps.

What is playing out?

What is playing out?”asked the driver,his wheels stuck in traffic, in the middle of the George Washington Bridge, two way bullying bumper to bum per..stalled for hours, Highway Patrol, the State Troopers, unable to unsnarl the snarl  both ways between Fort Lee (the New Jersey Palisades) and the Big Apple.
                                      II
What seemed like a 21st century crisis of an  the  “They drive byNight”, the concurrent high stakes battle between the Democrats and the Republicans adds a priceless ingredient to the mix, for the lack of a better term…an undue advantage..high jinks bullying, wouldn’t you say?
                                III
For what was once a natural beauty as seen from the West Side Highjway, “the Palisades with its  natural beauty, bordering the Hudson River, reaps of a vision gone sour.
                               IV’
Could the traffic jatranslate into the machinations of Machiavelli “Politics”? UCLA’s Professor Chares Titus, Royce Hall, first floor..
Say it ain’t so?  A replica of the Watergate break in? 
Four plus decades ago. UCLA’s Erlichman and Halderman?(“PoliticsGold Key honors)
That small minded “plumbers” of yore, plotting a embarrassment at the Fort Lee entry vand exit on  the Palisades side, be used as a Huey Long debacle for a dchess move on the board of Governor Christie’s Port Authority poiticalappointments, conducive to undue influence.
Three of the alleged appointees going South, resigning their titled seats yesterday, in what has become a federal investigation by the U.S attorneys in what has become the George Washington fiasco, “the public be damned”.         
                                        V
“What hath opportunism become in thiscradle to the grave Verdi libretto…an opera wherein the rattle snakes in the animal world seek a political one-upmanship by throwing a monkey wrench into the flow of traffic on their “Waterloo  and S.P. Eagle’sBridge over the River Kwai”, starring Alec Guinness as the General, rebuilding the ancient (1943) bridge in his persona as the architect…. the toot toot theme of the River Kwai, the memorial tune repetitiveness  sounding out with withe jack hammers and steam shovels …..at S.P’s penthouse, in his pretentious retirement as the producer.
                                    VI
What was once seen as a Huey Long, Richard Nixon dastardly underhanded Machiavellian
blunder for an immediate political advantage at the expense of “the public be damned” seems out of wack in the context of the ebb and flow of the “Alibi Ike’s” metamorphosis, engulfing the whole planet, no less the denizens who cross the George Washington Bridge in their awakening hours and return in their dreamy nightmare…..”we want bread, daddy”
                                    VII
But for corporate America. An air line top brass to use their personas to gain favor one way or the other, adds a dimension to the cynic ism which roles they lay out… the electorate versus those who use their personas to gain an advantage on crossing a bridge to go to work!  in this stage of Darwinian electronics.
”Say it aint so, Ike”.
                                    VIII
Come the Revolution in cyber space, the apps cell phones tablets, the rattle snakes caught between the La Brea tar pits and the  George Washington Bridge public servants” witchcraft…. placed on the rack of wrath.
The Public be damned!”
September 11, 2015…The City that never sleeps, the Anniversary of 9/11 heroism, sacrifice and humility..o way bullying bumper to bum per..stalled for hours, Highway Patrol, the State Troopers, unable to unsnarl the snarl  both ways between Fort Lee (the New Jersey Palisades) and the Big Apple.
                                      II
What seemed like a 21st century crisis of an  the  “They drive byNight”, the concurrent high stakes battle between the Democrats and the Republicans adds a priceless ingredient to the mix, for the lack of a better term…an undue advantage..high jinks bullying, wouldn’t you say?
                                III
For what was once a natural beauty as seen from the West Side Highjway, “the Palisades with its  natural beauty, bordering the Hudson River, reaps of a vision gone sour.
                               IV’
Could the traffic jatranslate into the machinations of Machiavelli “Politics”? UCLA’s Professor Chares Titus, Royce Hall, first floor..
Say it ain’t so?  A replica of the Watergate break in? 
Four plus decades ago. UCLA’s Erlichman and Halderman?(“PoliticsGold Key honors)
That small minded “plumbers” of yore, plotting a embarrassment at the Fort Lee entry vand exit on  the Palisades side, be used as a Huey Long debacle for a dchess move on the board of Governor Christie’s Port Authority poiticalappointments, conducive to undue influence.
Three of the alleged appointees going South, resigning their titled seats yesterday, in what has become a federal investigation by the U.S attorneys in what has become the George Washington fiasco, “the public be damned”.         
                                        V
“What hath opportunism become in thiscradle to the grave Verdi libretto…an opera wherein the rattle snakes in the animal world seek a political one-upmanship by throwing a monkey wrench into the flow of traffic on their “Waterloo  and S.P. Eagle’sBridge over the River Kwai”, starring Alec Guinness as the General, rebuilding the ancient (1943) bridge in his persona as the architect…. the toot toot theme of the River Kwai, the memorial tune repetitiveness  sounding out with withe jack hammers and steam shovels …..at S.P’s penthouse, in his pretentious retirement as the producer.
                                    VI
What was once seen as a Huey Long, Richard Nixon dastardly underhanded Machiavellian
blunder for an immediate political advantage at the expense of “the public be damned” seems out of wack in the context of the ebb and flow of the “Alibi Ike’s” metamorphosis, engulfing the whole planet, no less the denizens who cross the George Washington Bridge in their awakening hours and return in their dreamy nightmare…..”we want bread, daddy”
                                    VII
But for corporate America. An air line top brass to use their personas to gain favor one way or the other, adds a dimension to the cynic ism which roles they lay out… the electorate versus those who use their personas to gain an advantage on crossing a bridge to go to work!  in this stage of Darwinian electronics.
”Say it aint so, Ike”.
                                    VIII
Come the Revolution in cyber space, the apps cell phones tablets, the rattle snakes caught between the La Brea tar pits and the  George Washington Bridge public servants” witchcraft…. placed on the rack of wrath.
The Public be damned!”
September 11, 2015…The City that never sleeps, the Anniversary of 9/11 heroism, sacrifice and humility..