Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 361)

I just read a remarkable book that demands its own post.

The Real Hoosiers – Jack McCallum
McCallum, the longtime NBA writer for Sports Illustrated, dove into the history of the Indianapolis Crispus Attucks high school basketball teams of the mid–1950s, when Oscar Robertson starred there. Famously, Attucks lost to Milan in the first game of the State Finals in 1954. Milan beat Muncie Central that night for the championship. Their tournament run inspired the movie Hoosiers.[1]

The next two seasons, Attucks lost just a single game on their way to back-to-back state championships.

McCallum begins the book exploring that famous 1954 tournament, pointing out how many elements of the movie were only loosely based on fact, and showing how the historical record has been colored both by the movie and by misperceptions based on the movie. He spoke to Bobby Plump, the Milan star who hit the game winning shot in the championship game and upon who the character Jimmy Chitwood was somewhat based. Plump is a terrific interview and has never been shy about pointing out some of the inconsistencies of both the movie and how people consider those real teams.

The title has a double meaning, though. It’s not just about correcting some of the story about 1954, showing how Attucks was as big of an underdog story as Milan in some ways and that the Tigers upheld many of the hoary principles of Hoosier basketball as well as the rural, white teams did. It is also about examining what Indiana was like in the 1950s, particularly in how African Americans were treated. I had never heard this description before, but McCallum says that Indiana was/is sometimes called the “northern-most southern state, or southern-most northern state,” because of its record of race relations. In diving into that history, McCallum shows us that the “real Hoosiers” were people who were not only reluctant to give African Americans their inalienable rights as US citizens, but even deep into the 20th Century these same “Real Hoosiers” were working hard to keep laws on the books that were insanely racist. As McCallum sadly points out, some behaviors which were common 70 years ago and seem hopelessly retrograde are becoming common again today.[2]

Attucks was built to be the only Indianapolis high school open to Black students, ending what had been integrated schools in the city. It was constructed – and still stands – on the old west side of downtown, an area sometimes called Frog City or Frog Island, that was known for its extreme poverty and lack of basic services. Until the land was cleared for a massive building project in the late 1940s, and continues to today, there were regular outbreaks of cholera and more occasional ones of malaria in this part of town. Guess what demographic group was overwhelmingly forced into this area?

As the city began to clear out Frog Island, the Black families of the area were forced to move elsewhere.[3] But Attucks was still the only high school that their kids could attend. Of course, while the city promised a bussing service for these kids, the money was never allocated for it. Oscar Robertson, for one example, had to walk 24 blocks to school each day despite there being several public schools between his family’s new home and Attucks.[4]

I had never realized this, but McCallum points out how much of the physical history of Black people in Indianapolis has been wiped away. There is no 18th and Vine area, as in Kansas City, where the historical contributions of the Black community are celebrated. Any monuments to African Americans in Indy are scattered around town, just as the people they honor were forced to scatter.

Attucks was one of the few things Black Indianapolis residents could rally around. McCallum both begins and ends the book with a long list of Attucks graduates who went on to do great things, often as the first African Americans to penetrate a particular field. And for a few years in the 1950s, thanks to being home of one of the greatest players to ever step on a court, the Flying Tigers basketball team put Attucks on the map for the entire state.

The 1955 team was the first Indianapolis school to ever win the state championship. Remember, this was in the old, single class system. It only took 44 years for the biggest city in the state to conquer the tournament, which seems crazy. It was also the first all-Black team to win a state championship anywhere in the US.

And the 1956 team was the first Indiana team to ever go undefeated.[5] Ray Crowe, the Attucks coach, was a remarkable man who taught his players both to play basketball better than anyone else and how to comport themselves in a way that wouldn’t cause the team trouble given the era they played in. This book just came out last year, but McCallum was still able to talk to a large number of players on that team, teachers and administrators at the school, and several prominent players who faced the Tigers.

He did not speak with Robertson, who declined his requests. The Big O is a complex, sometimes difficult man, and he still holds a lot of painful memories of his time at Attucks. He was far ahead of his time, a huge guard that the offense ran through but who could also defend every spot on the court and still be the best rebounder. He was LeBron James 50 years before LeBron. Oscar also was arguably the most important player in leading NBA players to gain the right to free agency and control their own careers. He did this before Curt Flood sacrificed his career to challenge Major League Baseball’s reserve clause. For some reason, despite being a much better player, Robertson doesn’t get celebrated for this the way Flood does. Perhaps it is because Robertson was so good that the NBA couldn’t blackball him, thus his career didn’t end when he stood up for players’ rights.

Robertson’s history with the city and state remains strained. He is very much like Michael Jordan in that he never forgets or forgives a slight. He has bitter memories of how Attucks was treated after they won their first championship, which he believes was much more reserved compared to how the general public had celebrated Milan a year earlier. Several of his teammates say his memories aren’t accurate of what actually happened, and the newspaper record from the time shows that some of the things Robertson complained about were based on choices made within the Attucks/Black communities, not things that were forced upon them by the racist city council or governor.

It is hard to blame him, though, given the environment and age he grew up in. Because of all of this, while his name is still held in high esteem here, it always pops up a little later than you would expect when Hoosiers talk about great, local players. Some of that is because he left the state for Cincinnati when he went to college, shunning a recruiting pitch from IU, and stayed in Cincy after retiring from the NBA. When his name does come up, though, no one forgets what a unique and dominating player he was.

McCallum’s story is equal parts delightful, illuminating, engrossing, and maddening. Despite understanding our collective history, it is still depressing and deflating to know that the pre-Civil Rights era really wasn’t that long ago. My father-in-law is two years younger than Robertson, going to high school just a couple miles from Attucks. They are both in their mid–80s, but still, are alive and can speak to that era. And in many states, including northern states like Indiana, it was deep into the 1970s before real change came about. And, of course, our issues with race in this country never really go away, and in fact are being used more-and-more to inflame parts of the population and keep us divided.

Sports don’t solve these problems. But they can give people hope, something to ignore the realities they face daily for a little while, and create a shared pride for a community. That is exactly what Crispus Attucks did for African Americans in Indianapolis in the 1950s.

Beirut Station – Paul Vidich
I’ve read a couple of Vidich’s books and was luke warm on both, so had largely written his work off. His spy stories seemed reserved, dry, and emotionally complex in a way that I did not connect with. But I heard him on a podcast where his personality seemed the opposite of that, and read some good press for this book, so decided it was worth the shot.

I’m glad I didn’t give up on him.

The earlier books I read were both set during the early days of the Cold War, and I think that threat of nuclear apocalypse affected their tone. Here he sets his story in Beirut during the Israeli bombing campaign against Hezbollah in 2006. A joint US-Israeli group is working to assassinate a Hezbollah leader, but a young CIA agent calls off a near perfect shot at him when she sees that his young son is in the car with him. She is then tasked with finding a new way to target him, leveraging her relationship with his kids as their teacher. As a Lebanese-American she constantly feels unsure of where she belongs and who truly trusts her. She’s surrounded by representatives from various sides who have their own dueling interests. Soon she is in the midst of a battle between Hezbollah, Israel, and the US, never certain if any of them are interested in keeping her alive.

This book had some common elements to Vidich’s earlier ones. It was dark and complicated at times. The drama is carried more by internal strife and ruptured relationships than by raging gun battles. And we get deep inside his protagonist’s head. So perhaps it was just the more modern setting that helped me connect with it better. Maybe it was focusing on a modern woman that allowed him to add some heft to the story that was lacking in his severe, closed-off 1950s Cold War men.

Whatever it was, I really liked this book.

Saturday Night – Doug Hill & Jeff Weingrad
I’ve read James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales’ Live From New York oral history of Saturday Night Live that came out in 2015. Twice it was so good. There is also a new book about Lorne Michaels out that I am on the waitlist for.

But I had never read this book, originally published in 1985, about the early years of the show. I had heard about it often, but I believe it was out of print for several years. Fortunately my library not only had it, but had an ebook edition. I put it on hold the week of SNL50 and it came in this week.

This book is pretty exhaustive, most notably about the lead up to season one and then the first five seasons of the show, aka the first Michaels era. It does cover the disastrous 1980–81 season, then Dick Ebersol taking over and letting the considerable talents of Eddie Murphy carry it into the mid–80s. These next two eras get brushed over relatively quickly. And it ends with Michaels set to take over for the 1985–86 season.

There are tons of great stories in here. If you’re an SNL head you’ll know a lot of them, but as the original cast first took the air over 50 years ago, many of them have faded. Almost none of the stars or producers come out looking great. Everyone had their own ego and personality issues, which were often exacerbated by drug use. Really it was a reminder that TV stars are just like us, in that they have flaws and hangups and having fame and fortune doesn’t make those disappear. Especially in the pressure cooker of live television.

Also, this book answered some of my questions about the accuracy of the movie Saturday Night. There were clearly a lot of moments from throughout season one, and even beyond, that were rolled into that story about the show’s first night for effect.

Alias Emma – Ava Glass
To start, a crackling British spy caper.

Emma, a young agent in a secret department within the British secret service, is tasked with guiding the adult son of a former Russian agent to safety before a Russian death squad can liquidate him. The catch is the Russians have tapped into London’s security network and are able to track many of Emma’s movements. And they may have placed an agent at the top of the security service, preventing her from calling for help. This leads to a thrilling chase through the tunnels and underground rivers of the city. Naturally, when all seems lost things work out.

What I especially enjoyed about this book was how British it was. Not in the almost impenetrable way Mick Herron writes his Slow Horses series. But rather how it does not attempt to be an American thriller in any way. Emma doesn’t have a gun, nor do any of her fellow agents. When she does kill a Russian agent who attacked her, she is worried about what the man she is trying to protect will think of her. American spies never show remorse or self-consciousness about killing bad guys!

I also appreciated how Glass put little moments of sexual tension into the story, but never lets them boil over. It reminded me of the movie Out of Sight a little, and how there was that underlying tension between George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, but they never acted on it. Sometimes that is sexier than letting the characters give into their attraction to each other.

American Kingpin – Nick Bilton
I missed some things in the years I was concentrating on raising my kids, driving them around, coaching their teams, etc. It didn’t help that all that coincided with when I began paying far less attention to whatever the biggest news stories of the day were. Thus, somehow, I totally missed the whole Silk Road thing. I never knew a thing about it when it was an active presence on the Dark Web. I didn’t know a thing about the arrest and trial of its creator, Ross Ulbricht. Hell, I didn’t know that our current president had just pardoned Ulbricht a few days before I read a blurb about this book and checked it out.

So I was not prepared for what a wild ride the book would be. As always, you grain-of-salt parts of Bilton’s writing. But if even a fraction of what he writes is close to what really happened, this is an insane story. His brisk writing style turns it into a page-turner that feels more like a novel than an accounting of a criminal empire. The tedious, methodical way the Silk Road empire was investigated and then pulled apart by law enforcement was fascinating.

One thing that struck me about the book was how many characters, both Ulbricht and the people in various government agencies who chased and eventually caught him, hated authority. Agents in Homeland Security, the DEA, and the FBI all ignored their bosses’ commands because they didn’t feel like anyone should have authority over their actions. Ulbricht’s entire motivation was to advance his hyper-libertarian view that all drugs should be legal and the government had no right to tell people what they can and cannot put into their bodies.

What becomes obvious is that all of these people also rarely take responsibility for their actions. The law enforcement agents are seeking to protect Americans and bring a criminal to justice. Ulbricht is just helping people get the things they have a natural right to. The ends always justify the means with these people, and any harm that comes to others is regrettable, but not something they spend much time worrying about or feel responsible for. Free will and all that.

At its height, massive amounts of illegal drugs were delivered to people all over the world thanks to the Silk Road. There’s no telling how many overdoses were caused by it. How much crime was committed to pay for the drugs. How much other damage was done by people who used these drugs. Ulbricht was, indirectly, one of the biggest drug dealers in the world. Again, he received a presidential pardon about a month ago. In doing so, our Great Leader called the legitimate law enforcement agents who brought Ulbricht down “scum.” Remember all of that the next time he either rails against drug kingpins in other countries, yells about illegal drugs pouring into our country, or acts like he supports the police.

Creation Lake – Rachel Kushner
I had given up on Kushner books. I’ve read two of her previous novels. I enjoyed, but did not love, one; the other I found a bit tedious. This was on many Best Of lists last year, then I saw it recommended by two other people I trust, so I decided to give it a shot.

I’m regretting that decision.

This wasn’t terrible. The core story is about a disgraced former Federal agent who freelances for whoever will pay her to infiltrate protest groups. A different take on corporate espionage. In this case, she assimilates into a commune in rural France with a different mission: pushing them to turn their protest into an attack on a government minister her employers – who are never identified – want neutralized.

That all is kind of cool. What is less cool is how roughly half of the story is this agent reading through emails of the spiritual head of this agrarian rights group. Much of that dives back into the origins of man, where Homo Sapiens separated from Neanderthals, they from Homo Erectus, and so on. I may have that order wrong, but you get what I’m saying. There’s lots of stuff about caves and fossils and what not. Not the most engaging reading material.

The point of all that is to establish the group’s ideology, and the protagonist’s discovery that she models her life around similar principals. I just found it all, again, dull. My complaint about Kushner’s The Flamethrowers was that it was too artsy. This book gets into that same territory. Maybe I’m just not cut out for artsy novels.