This column is scheduled to appear in the 3.15.06 issue of the Tribune & Georgian newspaper.
I am about to become an addict…again. I love this time of year, and this year is even better. For me, it’s a time of renewal and reaffirmation, combining two of my favorite non-arts events. How can we not pay homage to this duality of physical accomplishment – the commencement of March Madness (where real basketball is played by athletes that are still students [at least in part] and more than marginally devoted to team play) and the opening of Spring Training, where baseball is played for sport’s and opportunity’s sake. This year holds an added attraction for me since we are fully engulfed in the inaugural World Baseball Classic, which teeters on the brink between nationalistic pride and pure love of a game that transcends cultural and ethnic barriers. The WBC also offers us this incentive to watch: a chance to see multi-million dollar athletes play for free.
Between satellite TV’s March Madness package, XM radio’s wall to wall coverage of the WBC and MLB, MLB.com; ESPNnews, CBSsportsline.com, and my daily dose of print and online news, I am approaching addict status. The love of my life shakes her head and tolerates me like a governess monitoring the ultimately harmless antics of a spoiled charge. The level of phone calls, emails and text messages between father and sons expands with alarming regularity. (Last week, 30 minutes before going on stage, my youngest called me, anxious to find out if the US pulled out a last inning victory of team Canada in the first round of WBC play. They didn’t. However, there is a son with his priorities straight!)
Because of the focus of this column, I suppose, in my anticipation for the events of the next few weeks, I should attempt to make some connection to the arts. Luckily, my reading for this week took my rapidly into a story buried deep within the March13 issue of Sports Illustrated, beyond its sensational cover topic and its review of Tiger’s latest victory. In the table of contents, I was stunned to see a page-wide photo of Glen Davis, LSU’s 6’8”, 315 pound post player, in perfect ballet first position as he and seven dance partners execute a beautiful sauté or jump. I flipped to page 58 and there in a two-page photo spread is Davis, arms extended, smiling beautifully as he and his dancer friends soar gracefully above the dance floor. Turns out Davis, whose early life was chaotic and violence filled, sought out ballet in high school to be close to a girl he liked and remains a devotee still. His love of the arts extends back to middle school where he brought down the house during a talent show when, as a colossal sized sixth-grader wearing his grandmother’s wig, he channeled the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. Whatever his training or reasons, I think I am going to make LSU one of my underdog picks in the NCAA basketball tournament. I mean, how can you not root for a man this big that can willingly and happily execute a grand jeté?
Opportunities for this week and the future: Theatre Jacksonville’s “Silent Heroes,” about military pilot wives waiting for word of their possibly downed men, through Mar. 18; Marvin Hamlisch with JSO, TUC, Mar. 16-18, 8 p.m.; TV’s Sharon Gless and Richard Masur star in Neil Simon’s “Prisoner of Second Avenue,” UNF Fine Arts Center, March 18, 7:30 p.m.; Latin dance extravaganza “Forever Tango,” TUC, Mar. 19, 7 p.m.; remarkable string virtuosity by Irish players Celtic Woman, TUC, Mar. 30, 8 p.m.; 70s hit makers The Lettermen and The Association at the TUC, Mar. 31, 8 p.m.; Oceanfront Music Festival’s “Springing the Blues,” March 31-April 2, Seawalk Plaza, Jax Beach; The Great American Jazz Piano Competition at The Florida Theatre, April 6, 7 p.m.
3.15.06
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