Rape culture and the games men (and women) play

June 13, 2014

OK, so he didn’t do it – which was apparent early on in the story.

But now its official: Colin Kaepernick, fellow San Francisco 49er Quinton Patton and Seattle Seahawk Richard Lockette won’t be charged with sexual assault in an April incident involving a woman who had had a brief affair with Colin.

She visited Lockette in Miami, where he, Patton and Colin were training together, in the hope that her “relationship” with Colin would be rekindled. Then things got “Exorcist”-style crazy in Lockette’s hotel room, Colin split and the woman wound up in the hospital claiming that she may have been sexually assaulted.

May have been, might’ve been – that didn’t stop TMZ from portraying Colin as one knife short of Jack the Ripper.

TMZ’s reporting – I use the term as loosely as possible – is just one problem in a culture that has such a cavalier attitude toward rape and in which men and women leave themselves vulnerable to “he said, she said.”

Why, for instance, would a young woman go to a hotel room where only men were present, men who were said to be drinking and smoking pot? Sounds like a 911 call waiting to happen. But then, she was apparently trying to turn a one-night stand into a meaningful relationship even though Colin had cut off contact with her last year when she claimed she was pregnant as an April Fool’s joke. Some joke. Then she tried to cry rape. It’s an insult to the men, women and children who have suffered such a heinous act and those who have been falsely imprisoned because of it.

Let’s be clear, however: Colin and company may be innocent of a crime but they are hardly blameless here.

The Clippers deal and what the market will bear

June 2, 2014

Why is everybody up in arms about sports nut Steve Ballmer buying the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion?The team, people say, is worth $750 million at best. It’s all about the television rights jacking up the price in the second biggest market, others say.

I say it’s only about one thing – what the market will bear. It’s like the art market. (Or the stock market.) You pay $95 million for a Van Gogh, it’s worth $95 million. Now is a Van Gogh worth $95 million? Actually, I’d have to say that since he was a great artist – a great dead artist who can’t make any more paintings – then a Van Gogh is priceless. But we don’t live in a world of aesthetics. We live in a world of insurance policies – so much if your roof is damaged, so much if your windshield is cracked. Everything has its price, which is not the same as its value.

When love only means zero

May 30, 2014

You have to feel for Caroline Wozniacki and not just because she lost in the first round of the French Open, although that’s certainly tough.

But she no doubt lost, because she was dumped recently by her fiancé Rory McElroy – over the phone no less, he having gone on to win some important golf tournament. (I know: The phrase “important golf tournament” is certainly oxymoronic.)

The axiom is that when the going gets tough, the tough transcend, and that has certainly always been my attitude. When faced with any crisis, tragedy or disappointment, I always redouble my efforts professionally, as have many athletes ranging from McElroy to tennis great Martina Navratilova. Indeed, the idea of the team “winning one for the Gipper” and Pagliacci laughing on the outside for an audience even as he cries on the inside are such time-worn traditions in our culture that they’ve become clichés.

But there are times when the heart can’t transcend, because it’s so heavy or so broken. I remember when Nole got trounced by Rafa in the finals in Monte Carlo after learning that his grandfather had died.

On ‘Words and Pictures’ – and words and pictures at The Lionheart Gallery

May 21, 2014

We’re all patterns in the universe, swimmer Daniel Reiner-Kahn reasons in my new novel “Water Music.” But sometimes it’s only when we’re at the end of a journey – maybe even life’s journey – that we understand how the strands came together. At other times, we recognize how the strands fit as they’re being woven.

Last week, I had an onstage conversation with film critic Marshall Fine at the Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck, N.Y. about the relationship between language and images after a screening of “Words and Pictures,” which opens this Friday, May 23. It’s the story of a tempestuous rivalry between a prickly artist (Juliette Binoche) and a showoff writer (Clive Owen). Four days later, the writer (me) and the artist (David Hutchinson) came together more happily at a reading from “Water Music” at The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge. After, I opened up the floor for a discussion about David’s paintings and drawings there, which are based on the perverse writings of Jean Genet.

First, a few words about “Words and Pictures,” a rather contrived but nonetheless absorbing movie about a love-hate relationship that sparks a contest between the artist’s students and the writer’s. It occurred to me after that the only arena in which men and women compete is the intellectual one.