I went to watch granddaughter Charlotte play basketball over the weekend. When the game first started, Charlotte played a pretty good defensive game but she seemed to be playing offense at a much lower pitch.
To back up. Charlotte is what we used to call a jock (your mother will explain that to you when you get older, Charlotte). She just likes sports: so much that she is playing basketball in the local Catholic Youth League.
That did not come from my side of the family. My parents were not jocks – the rumor was that my father had been a boxer at Cal but he went to Cal from about sixteen to almost nineteen and I never saw the killer instinct he would have needed to beat up on students who were older and, presumably, bigger – so I am going to stay with no jock. I am not a jock; I liked to to ski and hike and even some lightweight mountaineering but those were ways to get outside into the wild (or semi-wild). When I was young, in grammar school and then, later, highschool I played the required football and ran track and never particularly enjoyed it. My daughter, Samantha, ran the Bay to Breakers, a couple times – in informal costumes – but quit playing soccer way sooner than I would have liked. None of us had the intensity that Charlotte seems to channel.
Maybe it comes from Charlotte’s father. I don’t know.
Well, that’s not quite true, I don’t know, but I do have a theory and a hint lies in the word channel. I think the world is evolving, maybe not the whole world, but the elite West Coast world and probably the entire Western world (and elite Eastern world). Leisure is increasingly becoming busting your ass at sports just like it was in 750 BC Greece. When I was a kid, there were jocks and nerds, but now the nerds are the jocks.
Today’s mechanistic theory of life is that everything is physical. We are little, self contained machines, influenced only by our DNA strands. Even our minds are in our brains. There is alot of evidence that the mechanical theory is not true – or not complete – but it is the accepted dogma and most scientists, especially older scientists, are dedicated to guarding us against any heresy. Still, I don’t think that Charlotte’s athleticism and competitiveness only comes from her DNA, I think she is tuned into a new, different, world.
Watching Charlotte playing basketball, she seemed different from the Charlotte who was the star of the game the last time I watched her play Soccer. Here she was more hesitant, more willing to let someone else shoot. Watching, I began to think that this was a gift, she experienced being the star at Soccer and here she was able to experience being a supporting player. I don’t think her coach must have felt the same way because she pulled Charlotte out for a good part of the first half. When Charlotte came back, however, she started channeling her Reshanda Gray.
She started to charge and shoot and make baskets. Her team won 18 to 12 – these are little girls shooting at ten foot high baskets, 18-12 is a pretty high score – and she was the biggest scorer (at one time, I think Charlotte had scored as much as the entire other team). Standing there, in a Catholic Boy’s School gym, the noise so loud it was hard to talk, I kept thinking, Now where did that come from.
Watching the Giants beating the Kansas City Royals Sunday evening – listening to the Giants beating the Kansas City Royals on TV while doing stuff in the other room would be more accurate – I was struck by the differences in the sports coverage in F1 and Baseball, especially in coverage of the driver’s/player’s family and girlfriends. I know that alot of players wives and girlfriends – here in after referred to as WAGS – travel with the team in baseball, because I have sat near them at games. But the WAGs are almost never shown on television and I don’t think that I have ever seen coverage of, say, a first baseman’s parents during a game.
In F1, the WAGs and parents – and in Hamilton’s case, even his brother – are often shown (one father, driver Jenson Button’s, always wore a trademark pink shirt that was frequently remarked upon; after his father passed away, Jenson even changed his helmet color to pink in honor of his father). One of the reasons is the size, in Formula 1, there are only twenty-two drivers – eleven teams of two drivers each – so the drivers, especially the drivers on the most competitive teams, are covered in more detail than baseball. It is not unusual to see a driver hugging his WAG or family after a race, often when they still have their helmet on. I am not saying that one is better than the other, but the difference is striking.
This may be just be an excuse to post something on Lewis Hamilton who has won four races straight as of last weekend, but I will try to make it as un-Formula One-ish as possible. In Singapore, Hamilton’s car worked flawlessly while his teammate, Nico Rosberg, had a problem with his steering wheel wiring harness that knocked him out of the race.1 Since then, he has won two more races and is now leading in the Championship by 17 points. With three races still to go out of a total of nineteen, this has been an extraordinary season with more racing than any season I can remember. The primary characteristic of the season has been the unreliability of the fastest cars which has often forced drivers into high-risk racing. Both Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton have come from being impossibly far behind to win races. Hamilton, in particular, has driven more than several unforgettable races. After wandering through the wilderness, he is at the top of his career. As the season has gone on, I have become increasingly invested in Hamilton winning and, I think, it is for several reasons that are only slightly related.
Auto racing is expensive on almost every level and that is a major selection factor towards drivers with rich parents. Hamilton is an exception. He came from a family that was far from wealthy and, as racing became a bigger part of his life, it put big strains on the Hamilton family. Hamilton’s parents divorced and his mother didn’t or wouldn’t go to his races. When Hamilton first started racing, his dad was his racing engineer and manager.
Of course, as Hamilton started racing at higher levels he used professional racing engineers, but even when Hamilton started driving in Formula One at McLaren, his dad stayed on as his manager, A couple of years ago, maybe four, Hamilton fired his dad and hired an outside agency. It tore the family apart and his dad eventually sued for back pay.
Shortly thereafter, Hamilton left McLaren, the racing team that had given him his first Formula One job and a Championship. He moved to Mercedes Benz. Now Hamilton is leading the Driver’s World Championship and I think a good part of that is because he has become his own person. As painful as it was, Hamilton had to leave home to grow up.As an adult, he has reconciled with his family, not only his dad but also his mom. Hamilton put it best and I’ll end with a quote from him:
I just feel relaxed, all my family are a real positive beam of light for me at the weekend.
I spoke years ago, when my Dad was my manager, and said I couldn’t wait for the day when he was here just as my Dad. And that’s what you’re seeing. And that’s one of the greatest feelings, having him here. Since the first day I ever got in a kart – I remember the day of my first race – I created a handshake with him. I was eight years old and he was there. That’s one of the most special things. He said today it felt like I was eight years old again attending kart race, when he was watching me.
I don’t know what Dad thought when we started. I was good but I don’t know if he thought that in 20 years time we’d be winning the Singapore GP. I try to imagine his mentality, getting four jobs to get the money to get a crap kart together, to respray it or try to bend it back to shape because it was the oldest kart in world, trying to get some fuel because we had spent all the money on tyres. Going through all that to now be at the pinnacle of the sport, I’m hugely proud of my family, so it’s really cool for dad to be here. I’ve gotta stop there – I’m getting emotional!
1. As an aside, Formula One car steering wheels are complex and everything is controlled from by them, as the accompanying picture shows. When the wheel has a problem, it is a major problem.
1 BOOST: F1 cars have an electric-hybrid system known as KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) that regenerates braking energy, then boosts acceleration—at the push of a button—via an 80-hp electric motor. Another feature that increases speed is the movable rear wing that flattens to reduce drag. The wing is controlled by a foot pedal. 2 LAP TIME 3 HARVEST : Regulates the amount of energy “harvested” during braking. The regen system can alter the feel of the brakes, and because these guys drive with exacting precision, they’re picky about tactile feedback. This knob lets them customize. 4 DOWNSHIFT PADDLE 5 MIX: Adjusts the engine’s air—fuel mixture to balance power and fuel economy. F1 cars don’t refuel during a race, but economy is still vital—fuel adds weight. 6 BITE POINT: The race start is critical because the cars begin from a stop and the initial sprint is a prime overtaking opportunity. The bite point adjusts how the clutch engages as the drivers release the paddle, so they can execute a perfect launch. 7 BPF During practice starts, the driver uses the “bite point find” to record the clutch behavior. Engineers use the data to instruct the driver where to set the bite point dial. 8 CLUTCH PADDLE. 9 BBAL Displays the front—rear brake balance, a critical adjustment that drivers make to fine-tune the braking performance. Most passes are done in the braking zones. 10 REVERSE GEAR. 11 SHIFT LIGHTS. 12 LIMITER Restricts the car’s speed to the pit-lane limit, 62 mph. 13 ENGINE PARAMETERS. 14 UPSHIFT PADDLE. 15 TORQUE The 2.4-liter V8 revs to 18,000 rpm and delivers north of 700 hp. That’s a handful in a 1400-pound car, so the drivers use this knob to adjust the engine’s torque curve, depending on track conditions. 16 TYRE Teams use roughly half a dozen different tires that vary in construction and diameter. This dial tells the computer which tires are fitted so it can calculate wheel speed. 17 CLUTCH PADDLE. 8 DIFFERENTIAL Thanks to electronic controls, the characteristics of the rear differential can be tailored for corner entry, midpoint and exit—each with 12 settings. Frankly, we’re amazed that the drivers can detect such minute rear-end differences during cornering events that last for maybe a few seconds. But that’s why they’re paid millions.
I want to talk about how random life is, but first a story about two childhood friends that have become enemies, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.
Rosberg and Hamilton became friends racing go-karts in Europe as young teenagers. Although they came from very different backgrounds and didn’t meet until they started racing go-karts, Rosberg was born into European racing royalty and Hamilton is a Brit who grew up in a lower-middle-class suburb of London, they were both very good at racing and met when they started racing at the inter-European level. They are about the same age and they became friends even though they were so different.
Nico Rosberg is the son of Keke Rosberg, a Formula One Championship winning driver and Gesine Gleitsmann-Dengel, a German interpreter. He considers himself German – speaks fluent German, English, French and Italian – and grew up in Monaco. Lewis Hamilton is from a mixed race family that dissolved when he was two. He grew up with his mother and sisters and became very good at racing radio controlled model cars. Because of that, his father gave him a go-kart when he was six. When he was twelve, he moved in with his father to race. Nico looks like a Ralph Lauren ad and so does his wife, the daughter of a family friend he has known since childhood. Lewis favors a gangsta look, drives a purple Pagani Zonda, and has dated – seriously, off and on – an American, Nicole Scherzinger who Wikipedia identifies as the lead singer of The Pussycat Dolls, a burlesque troupe turned-recording act.
In the words of their boss, Toto Wolff, These boys have calibrated their whole life…to win the Drivers’ Championship in F1. And here they go – they are in the same car, competing against each other for that trophy and one is going to win and one is going to fail. This is a new experience for them – a difficult experience maybe.
I think – and I am far from the only one – that Lewis Hamilton is the best pure racecar driver in the world, but right now, Rosberg is leading in the championship even though Hamilton has won more races. That is because Hamilton has had an extraordinary string of bad luck. His Mercedes has had two race-ending mechanical problem and he had additional electrical problems in qualifying that forced him to start 16th and last for two races. He was forced out of the Belgium Grand Prix in an accident caused by Rosberg, and last week, in Italy, he had an electrical problem on the start. Out of the 12 races run so far, Hamilton has had problems beyond his control in seven of them and Rosberg has had problems in one.
It is easy to see a pattern here, but there isn’t any. It is easy to see a conspiracy of a German Team trying to help the German get the Championship, but I find it hard to believe they would pay Hamilton 32 million dollars a year not to finish races (and, when Hamilton doesn’t finish, his car doesn’t finish and Mercedes is also trying to win the Manufacturers Championship). Even people who don’t normally believe in conspiracy theories have a tendency to systematize random events.
When I was in college, I worked on several experiments with students watching Flat Worm Behavior. In an effort to get truly unbiased results, we assigned participants to different areas of the experiment on a random basis. Now, we can go on the web and get a random number generator, but then, in the olden days, we would use charts – for lack of a better descriptor – filled with lines of random numbers. Looking at the numbers, they often didn’t seem random. Often they would seem to have too many numbers that formed patterns or a chain of the same number that was too long to seem natural. That is the problem, true randomness has pseudo-patterns and we think of random as being patternless. True randomness often feels fake.
In the 2002 season, the Oakland A’s won the American League pennant with a season record of 103-59. That is a 64% winning average. but from August 14th to September 4th, the A’s won every game they played. They had a 20 game winning streak. No other team has done that since 1935 and before that 1916. If the A’s had their seasonal average during that period, they would have lost 7 games instead of having their streak. If somebody had been told to randomly list wins and losses so that the average was a 64% winning average, it is doubtful that they would have put a twenty game winning streak in the middle.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend sent me some information on 9-11 being a conspiracy. I am not much of a conspiracy buff because I think that life is much more random than people want to believe (although it has always amazed me that one of the most likely conspiracies – that of William J. Casey, then head of the CIA who was rendered incapable of speechand then died just hours before he was going to be questioned about Iran-Contra – has never gotten traction; if the head of the CIA can’t fake their own death, who can?).
We are pattern recognizing creatures, all animals are, and in the case of a huge catastrophe like The World Trade Center coming down, there are lots of random parts. We try to make all the random parts fit into a pattern and that often results in fantastical explanations but I am convinced that the only conspiracy was between al-Qaeda and the sorry, mislead souls, who flew those planes.
We have a DVR – which we often, mistakenly, call a Tivo – and we watch almost nothing live, guiltingly skipping past the commercials, so it was especially interesting to see the Super Bowl Commercials at Peter and Ophelia’s. I think I saw more commercials in three plus hours than I have seen all year, and I loved it. All the little stories done with such care. As an aside. I know that Ridley Scott and Spike Jonze got their starts doing commercials and I think Ingmar Bergman did also. End aside.
My favorite commercial was the Maserati ad with Quvenzhané Wallis. There were just so many things that I liked about it, the rift on Beasts of the Southern Wild, the parody of – homagé to? – the GlobalHue agency’s, Imported from Detroit, Chrysler ads, and then the shock that it was a Maserati ad. The New Yorker had it as one of the worst ads while Forbes said it was the best (proof of one of my mother’s sayings, de gustibus non est disputandum). One of the commercials that I didn’t particularly like was the SodaStream ad with Scarlett Johansson.
Scarlett Johansson has a quirky acting style, often she seems to be not quite there, sort of daffily stoned but very appealing; it worked perfectly in her. Among other things, I didn’t like Scarlett telling us how hot she is and that the ad would go viral because she was sucking on a straw (not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable in a prurient way). I didn’t believe that and didn’t really believe that the resulting soda would be any good, but, then, I don’t drink soda.
Later, as I started to read about the controversy over the ad, I began to think that the ad may have actually hurt SodaStream. The SodaStream machinery is made in a factory in the West bank, built on land reclaimed by Israel after it was confiscated from Palestinians, but I didn’t know that. I only know it now because of the controversy over the ad and Johansson. Johansson had been a Global Ambassador for Oxfam and Oxfam is very strongly against Israel’s West Bank policies. They asked her to leave Oxfam or SodaStream and she left Oxfam.
I have no insight as to why Scarlett Johansson left Oxfam, why she decided the way she did, but the dilemma itself is interesting . As an aside, she does have a Jewish mother and self identifies as being Jewish, she was probably not paid by Oxfam and paid handsomely by SodaStream, and Oxfam is the one who pressed the issue – my theory is that if someone says It’s either me or them, I’ll always go with them – so it might have been some combination of those three. End aside. Acting as a Global Ambassador for Oxfam works both ways; Oxfam gets more publicity when Scarlett Johansson visits Dadaab, Kenya – the largest refugee camp in the world – than they would if an unknown, non-celebrity, visited and Scarlett Johansson is shown as somebody who cares.
Much of Bono’s reputation is based on his work with organizations like Amnesty International and it is hard to believe that he would give that up to maintain his commercial relationship with Vuitton – for whom he and his wife have done ads – but Johansson gave up that part of her reputation. It was a very public decision and, in my imagination at least, she did not make it lightly. In the end, I find that a little sad.
Maserati team-mates Jose Froilan Gonzalez and Juan Manuel Fangio , British Grand Prix, Silverstone, July 18, 1953
Against all odds, Jose Froilan Gonzalez died a natural death on June 15th of this year in his home in Argentina. I say against all odds, because Gonzalez, on the left above and known as The Pampas Bull – I wonder why – raced Formula One cars when Formula One drivers were real men. Real men being a nice way to say men doing incredibly stupid things like driving an open car, in a polo shirt, without a seatbelt, wearing polo helmet, in the rain . Some wag said it was a time when drivers were fat and tires were skinny.
I went to watch granddaughter Charlotte play basketball over the weekend. When the game first started, Charlotte played a pretty good defensive game but she seemed to be playing offense at a much lower pitch.
