Blog

Aaron Hernandez and the company he kept

April 17, 2015

Aaron Hernandez’s conviction on first-degree murder charges in the death of Odin Lloyd – the culmination of a horrifically violent year for the NFL – is more complex than you would think, my luncheon companion said.

At first glance, it would appear to be an open-and-shut case of the proverbial man who had everything and lost it. But this was no one-yard-line fumble in the Super Bowl. This was a one-yard-line fumble in the Super Bowl of life, the instance of a man who had a $40 million contract as a tight end with the New England Patriots and – Well, let’s call it as it is, shall we? – pissed it all away. When I think of the people I know with nothing or little whose lives would be transformed by a fraction of that money, I could weep.

But then there’s a lot about the Hernandez story to make you weep.

Partly it’s the cautionary tale of Being Careful of The Company You Keep – not just the company back in the ‘hood in Bristol, Conn. but the one you encounter up the food chain. It’s the story of a drug user with a hair-trigger temper and reflexes who must, of course, bear the ultimate responsibility for his actions. But it’s also a lesson in a system that protected a troubled high school and college athlete – rather than take the time and do the hard work of confronting his problems – because he was considered too talented (and potentially lucrative) to fail.

Former University of Florida Coach Urban Meyer led Hernandez in Bible study. Meyer also coached Tim Tebow. We knew Tim Tebow. Aaron Hernandez was no Tim Tebow. ...

Anne Boleyn and the games men play

March 16, 2015

One of the nuggets I gleaned from attending the Algonkian Writers’ Conference last December in Manhattan was that when it comes to historical romance, it’s the Tudors or bust.

It figures. Working backward, there was Elizabeth I, England’s greatest ruler; her sister, the pathetic, misguided “Bloody Mary”; their baby bro, Edward VI; and, of course, the daddy from Hell, Henry VIII, with those – count ’em – six wives. No dramatist could conjure such symmetrical marital disaster – Catherine of Aragon, annulled; Anne Boleyn, beheaded; Jane Seymour, dead in childbirth; Anne of Cleves, annulled; Katherine Howard, beheaded; and Catherine Parr, survived Henry, but wait, would remarry and, you guessed it, wind up dead in childbirth.

Historian David Starkey (“Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII”) once told me that of the half-dozen, Catherine of Aragon was the only one Henry ever really loved. But his quest for a son, for proof of his manhood and for liberation from papal Rome and the memory of his older brother, Arthur, who had been Catherine’s husband, drove him into the arms of the bewitching Anne Boleyn, linchpin of the six wives’ psychodrama. Did he use Anne to gain control of the Church in England or was he, as Starkey said, so in love with her that he was willing to renounce his role as Defender of the (Roman Catholic) Faith? Perhaps a bit of both?

Anne’s rise and fall is told through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell – the blacksmith’s son-turned-chancellor – in Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning novels “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies.” (She’s at work on the last book in the trilogy.) Naturally, PBS’ “Masterpiece” couldn’t resist. “Wolf Hall” (April 5 through May 10) dramatizes the first two books, with British theater star Mark Rylance as Cromwell, Damian Lewis (“Homeland”) as Henry and Claire Foy (“Little Dorrit”) as Anne. “Wolf Hall” – the title refers to rival Jane Seymour’s familial estate but suggests the den of wolves the Tudors were – is a daring conceit. For what makes men like Cromwell effective, their ability to manipulate and maneuver behind the scenes, is what can make them potentially boring front and center. (Imagine the story of Bill and Hillary Clinton told from the viewpoint of their accountant.) The beauty of the books and the miniseries is that we enter Cromwell’s mind to meet a man weary of and disgusted by the power games men play but unable to relinquish them. ...

For self and country

March 8, 2015

Well, thank goodness Davis Cup is back. Sports have been in a bit of a doldrums since the Super Duper Bowl and the Aussie Open. But the Cup – the men’s team competition, pitting nation against nation – has returned for another season, although as usual, the cast keeps changing.

Fed’s out this year, having added the Cup – the one trophy missing from his case – last year. On the other hand Nole’s back. And Andy, bless ’im, keeps rolling with it. Say what you want about Andy, but he’s one of the more consistent Cup players among the top 10.

The New York Times has written that the effect of this revolving door is that fans rarely get to see the marquee names in action against one another in Cup competition. That may be true, but I would argue that it doesn’t necessarily deprive the Cup of drama. Just when it looked like the Brits would walk along over us Yanks, the Bryans (Bob and Mike) took the doubles to keep American hopes alive for Sunday, March 8. And Novak Djokovic made a surprise doubles appearance for Serbia Saturday after winning his singles match a day earlier against Croatia. In the reverse-singles Sunday, he’s slated to face off against the player experts consider to be Baby Nole, “teen starlet” (that’s what CNN calls him) Borna Coric. Indeed, Nole teammate Viktor Troicki was supposed to be in the doubles match instead of Nole, but he was so drained from his five-set victory over Borna on Friday, that coach Bogdan Obradovic decided to go with Nole. ...

The explosiveness of touch

February 11, 2015

“What an altered world we live in,” Frank Bruni wrote in his Sunday New York Times’ column.

“What an advanced one. The man I love and I can be married in New York or 35 other states if we ever get organized enough, if we decide that we want public vows and a gaudy cake — I’m thinking devil’s food, for a host of reasons — to seal our commitment.

“I’m grateful for that. I’m stunned, really.

“And yet. When we’re walking down the street after a long dinner or a sad movie and he slips his hand in mine, I tense."

Funny he should mention that. In my upcoming novel “The Penalty for Holding,” New York Templars’ quarterback Quinn Novak and his lover, San Francisco Miners’ quarterback Tam Tarquin, sometimes touch accidentally in public. It always sends an erotic jolt through Quinn, and yet, to Quinn’s relief and dismay, they always pull quickly away. ...

The once and future king

January 26, 2015

The Greeks – who find themselves once again, or still, in economic straits – were scheduled to go to the polls Sunday, Jan. 25. So should it surprise you that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who is fighting for his political life, has been busy invoking the name of his country’s hero, Alexander the Great?

Samaras is among those stirred by the excavation in Amphipolis in the region of Macedonia. The site contains the remains of a woman, two men, an infant and someone who was cremated. While they were no doubt figures of importance, they may not be Olympias, mother of Alexander, and various relatives, and the site is certainly not the tomb of Alexander, who may be buried under a mosque in Egypt.

But the presumed lack of a direct connection to Alexander has not stopped Samaras from evoking the memory of a man who set out from Macedonia at age 20 and conquered the known world. Everyone loves a winner. ...

Of inflation – over and under – in the NFL

January 22, 2015

Well, it looks like we’re all set for a Super Duper Bowl between the deflated (literally) New England Patriots and the inflated (metaphorically) Seattle Seahawks.

First, the crafty – or should that be Kraft-y, after their owner Robert Kraft? – Pats, are apparently up to their old tricks, using deflated footballs in their blowout A.F. C. Championship win against the hapless Indianapolis Colts, who, let’s face it, don’t require cheating.

It was in 2007, that the Patriots – led by head coach Bill Belichick, alias the Emperor from “Star Wars,” it’s the hoodie – and quarterback Tom Brady, aka Darth Vader, were caught spying on, yes, the hapless New York Jets in an incident that has become known as Spygate. Nothing like stacking the deck. So they’re always suspect.

But wait, the NFL – which is so anal-retentive that it cares about Colin Kaepernick wearing his outlaw Beats headset on the podium – allows each team to play with its own footballs? Everybody gets to play with his own toys in the sandbox?

Speaking of kindergarten, we’ve learned that Aaron Rodgers likes to overinflate his balls, so to speak...

Chris Christie’s Cowboy love

January 11, 2015

The reemergence of the Dallas Cowboys – who play the Green Bay Packers today for the right to move on to the NFC Championship game next weekend – created some unforeseen levity once viewers spied Gov. Chris Christie hugging Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones after the team’s victory over the Detroit Lions.

“Spied” might be the wrong word. Gov. Krispy Kreme was sporting an orange sweater for the occasion, and let’s just say that orange isn’t always the new black. Indeed, though Christie described himself as a high school athlete at the time of Bridge-gate – to distinguish himself, I guess, from those “loser” henchmen who took the fall for the George Washington traffic scandal – his moment with Jones resembled nothing so much as the chubby kid trying to hang with the cool jocks. Altogether now singsong “Awk-ward.”

Christie – who has taken a lot of heat for his Cowboys’ allegiance – has been characteristically unbowed, leading the puckish New York Times columnist Gail Collins to remark that it’s “certainly the tough-talking, self-assured Chris Christie that all of us have come to know and, um, know.”

The real problem here is not that a New Jersey governor likes a Dallas team – that would hardly matter in a national election – but that the Cowboys own a company that was recently awarded a contract at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, overseen by Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. ...