In-brain soundtrack: “Bark at the Moon,” Ozzy Osbourne
Can check: Maple cinnamon latte, hot (Zeke’s, Washington D.C.)
Free legal advice: I can’t condone a citizen’s arrest, but there’s probably nothing wrong with standing on your side of the property line and shooting your neighbor’s fireworks with a garden hose
. . .
When I was a kid — and I mean, like, six years old — my recently divorced mother distracted me and my sister each morning by playing a VHS copy of “Jaws” while she made breakfast. By the time I started second grade, I’d seen Robert Shaw bitten in half probably 50 times — and I could give you 30 seconds about the USS Indianapolis.
In addition to traumatizing children in exchange for a single mother’s moment of peace, “Jaws” can tell us a lot about America.
First of all, the whole thing revolves around the Fourth of July. Second of all, the backdrop is a story of a poorly dressed politician prioritizing The Economy™ over keeping his constituents outside of sharks’ stomachs. (He gets re-elected.) Third, you’ve got a trauma-racked war veteran with very little to show for his nation’s gratitude aside from PTSD. And last but not least, you’ve got a climactic explosion that leads to cheers and a downpour of innards — along with the retrospective realization that the whole thing is gonna repeat itself over (“Jaws 3-D”) and over (“Jaws: The Revenge”) and over again.
“Jaws” took guts, and I’m not talking about Robert Shaw anymore. Even in mid-1970s America (no longer an innocent babe of a nation), rolling out a movie full of underwater blood eruptions and a child getting eaten (a CHILD!! getting eaten!!) was one hell of a business decision. For God’s sake, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” still had TV’s highest ratings. And suddenly, down at the cineplex you’ve got a half-eaten coed covered in crabs.
But I digress. The point is that “Jaws” is good, and in all likelihood, AMC is already playing it around the clock. Your 6-year-old’s future therapist will thank you for the business.
. . .
Speaking of half-eaten carcasses wasting in the summer sun, my beloved Atlanta Braves are halfway through this accursed season. Until this past weekend’s showing against the Phillies (in which the Braves scored one or fewer runs in two of three games), I still nursed an irrational hope that Atlanta could slide into the last wild card. The Phillies series jerked me out of it. Heading into tonight, the Braves are 38-45. Realistically, they’d need to finish the season with 90 wins to have a serious chance at the playoffs, which would mean winning 52 of their last 81 games — which isn’t realistic at all.
I’m fine with cutting bait on 2025, but unless they want to preemptively light next season on fire too, the Braves have to figure out what the hell is going on with Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II — the former of whom is statistically the worst hitting second baseman in baseball, and the latter of whom hasn’t walked since May 18. (Neither of those is a joke.)
None of this could be happening in a worse year. In no other year of my life did I greet more eagerly the arrival of spring and the haunting ambient music filling FanDuel Network’s commercial breaks. This, I told myself, would be the year when baseball does that party trick where it distracts us each night while the whole world outside the stadium burns. In this, of all godforsaken years, the Braves lose two of three at home against Colorado. Bart Giamatti was too optimistic.
Each time the Braves have sucked during my lifetime, there was less on the line. The 1980s? I had “Thundercats” on VHS and “Ninja Gaiden” on Nintendo, sheltering me beyond the reach of Russ Nixon’s leadership. Even during the Fredi Gonzalez era, things weren’t so bad: even if the Braves weren’t having good seasons, “Game of Thrones” was. But now it’s 2025, and Uncle Benjen ain’t walking through that door. There’s a better chance of Clarence Thomas paying for his own seat upgrade this summer than the Braves finishing .500.
It’s an unfamiliar experience to be so familiar now with 2026’s top draft prospects, one of whom plays ball in central Mississippi and the other near Hattiesburg. (“What were you doing in Hattiesburg?”) Maybe I’ll go see them play in the spring. Nothing creepy at all about a grown man trudging through the next nine months by looking forward to watching a 17-year-old in knee-high socks.
. . .
A few scattered musings:
The Scottish Open and the Open Championship, constituting the best two-week stretch of golf on the calendar, are within sight. Make sure you’ve got a reliable coffee maker.
My backyard garden is exploding. The cucumber plants have been in the ground for less than two weeks, and by the time the holiday weekend ends, they’ll be as big as that monster octopus thing that nearly killed Frodo outside the doors of Moria. The heat is getting to the tomatoes, but the peppers smell blood in the water, and the new pumpkin seedlings seem to be holding their own. At my current production rate, I shouldn’t need more than 70 or 80 years for the garden to pay for itself.
I’m reading Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, and after musing whether Bobby Kennedy still would’ve been shot if he’d lost the 1968 California primary, Thompson wrote: “Assassins, like politicians and journalists, are not attracted to losers.” Read that a few times and sit with it for a minute. I think Hunter would’ve done pretty well in 2025.
. . .
If you’re shooting fireworks in your yard, then you’re part of the problem. Get a hobby that doesn’t involve pissing off your entire neighborhood. Happy Fourth!