Flip the script

Those `Hate Has No Home Here’ signs have no home with me. Plus: flashing back 35+ years with reflections on Paul McCartney, Ticketmaster and the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

What’s your favorite four-letter word?

Maybe it’s “love.” Or, if you are a dedicated practitioner of foul language, perhaps a certain “f” word comes to mind.

OK, now, what about the other end of the spectrum: your least-favorite four-letter word?

For me, one that’s a strong contender is “hate.” It would be ironical or hypocritical—probably both—to declare that I hate “hate,” so let’s just say I’m glad on those days when I can go the entire 24 hours without seeing or hearing the word.

And then I encounter well-meaning stickers like this one (photo, at bottom) from last Saturday afternoon:

I understand the sentiment behind “Hate Has No Home Here.” It’s about acceptance and tolerance and inclusivity, wonderful stuff like that. I’m onboard!

But its spirit is all wrong.

It brings to mind the time, at a dinner party about 20 years ago, that a family friend was in a lather about how much hatefulness she perceived in a certain political figure. Her tone? Absolutely overflowing with hate. So, there it was: irony, hypocrisy.

Of course, as the bumper sticker above illustrates, there can be “righteous hatred”—hatred of all that’s wrong in the world. Injustice, racism, cruelty in its many forms.

But it feels so much more productive and beneficial—for me, and for anyone—to flip the script 180 degrees. Using that last paragraph as an example, it’s to love justice, to love others regardless of race, to be actively kind.

Bridgett was onboard with this different take on the “lives here” front — she shared this from a Facebook cover photo she created in 2017. Artist: Robin Phillips

It’s the difference between saying “don’t forget” and “do remember.” Given the fact that I have the dueling capacities to love and to hate, which emotion do I want to feed? Where do I want to put my focus? Our language is the vehicle for our emotions and our vision, so the words we employ are crucial.

So, about those “Hate Has No Home Here” signs that I see on bumper stickers, in front yards and on windows?

They have no home here.

Flashback, Part 1

My 57^th birthday this week, on Tuesday, included a few flashback moments.

First, I got in cyber-line for Paul McCartney concert tickets. The former Beatle is coming to Chicago in November and I had signed up a week earlier to get a text alert when the tickets went on sale.

Along with her mom and a few other friends, Bridgett and I enjoyed a great McCartney concert in 1990 at Soldier Field—he was fantastic, especially for someone, at 48, who was so ancient, I thought at the time. Early on, Bridgett’s mom declared she wouldn’t leave until Paul played “Hey Jude”; he obliged.

Thirty-five years later, I figured it would be nice to witness the legendary 83-year-old whippersnapper do his thing once more—before he actually gets old.

So there I was, in a queue on my smartphone Tuesday, and I noticed two things right away. First, I was over 180,000-something in line. And second, Ticketmaster had its price-gouging grip on the event.

Just the sight of the “T” word is a tad triggering to me, so I almost bounced off right away. Instead, I decided to give it the old college try, at least for a while, which meant updating my Ticketmaster password (from eons ago, apparently—I didn’t realize I even had one).

One sliver of solace at this juncture is that “Ticketmastersucks” was the bulk of my new password. I’d be surprised if that wasn’t embedded in hundreds, perhaps thousands of others’ passwords. After all, it’s an established fact that Ticketmaster does suck—there’s a Facebook group with that phrase, and even more importantly there's a long history of wrongdoing capped by a pending antitrust lawsuit filed against its parent company, Live Nation, by the U.S. Department of Justice (and joined by most states across the U.S.).

Eventually, what began as 99.99% likely gained confirmation: there were no tickets to be had, whether from a low of $40.60 to a high of $4,135.90

I’m willing to hand Sir Paul a significant chunk of cash directly to cover his and his road crew’s efforts. But going the rest of my life without forking over a penny to Ticketmaster—that’s one ingredient toward a life well lived.

Ticketmaster has no home here.

Flashback, Part 2

Sports, particularly watching football, basketball and baseball games, were a tie that bound me and my dad, and it’s been the same for me and my son, Zach.

That brings me to my second flashback from Tuesday. Watching the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, we saw an Athletics batter, Brent Rooker, hit a three-run home run in the seventh inning. The announcers noted that it was the first All-Star Game homer by an Athletic since Terry Steinbach did it in 1988.

I remember that Steinbach home run like it was 37 minutes ago—coming before my junior year of college, this was the only summer I lived with my dad in his Quincy, Mass. condo.

And on that evening in ’88, we watched the All-Star Game together—the only time I recall ever doing that.

Speaking of the All-Star Game, one tradition that I look forward to continuing is the swing-off, a mini-home run derby showdown that played out after the game was tied after nine innings. Each manager picked three players to take three swings apiece from easy tosses served up to them like a big fat steak on a platter.

It was the first time for such an unorthodox conclusion. But given the lateness of the hour and the game not having any meaning beyond bragging rights, I consider this approach superior to allowing the contest to end in a tie (which happened, controversially, in 2002, when they ran out of pitchers) or playing extra innings (which has occurred 13 times going back nearly a century).

Pretty cool, too, that all three of Kyle Schwarber’s swats went over the fence, the last one as he went down to his left knee.

Schwarber received the Most Valuable Player award for his clutch performance. If you missed the swing-off, check it out here: