Roger Federer, comedian; Stephen A. Smith, blowhard; and goodbye (?), Donald Sterling

July 31, 2014

It’s been a sports moment of the good, the bad and the huh?

First, the good news to sweeten the disposition: A court ruled that Shelly Sterling can sell the Los Angeles Clippers to former Microsoft mogul Steve Ballmer, paving the way for the team to be treated more humanely, for Mrs. Sterling to get on with her life and for her husband, Donald, whose bigotry precipitated his ostracism from the NBA and the sale, to continue to be clueless. So all’s well that ends well – for now anyway, as I fear this isn’t the last we’ve heard from Mr. Not So Sterling.

Now for the bad: ESPN blabbermouth, uh, commentator Stephen A. Smith stated on a recent edition of “First Take” that women should do their best not to provoke their menfolk into domestic violence. (This after Baltimore Ravens’ running back Ray Rice received a two-game suspension for allegedly beating his fiancée, now wife, in a Las Vegas elevator.)

Smith, too, got a slap on the wrist, a week’s suspension after he apologized for failing to express himself properly. Look, this is not about a failure to communicate. It’s about a cultural mindset...

Rafanole rolls on

July 29, 2014

Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic just can’t quit each other.

There’s been some speculation in the blogosphere that the two are not as tight as they once were. But you’d never know it from their schedules. The pair are slated to play an exhibition as part of Arthur Ashe’s Kids’ Day at the USTA Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y. on Aug. 23 – two days before the start of the US Open, where they could meet up in the final.

In December, Rafanole – as the rivalry is affectionately known – sparks the exhibition season with team tennis on the 8th in Delhi. Rafa heads up the India Aces with Pete Sampras, Gael Monfils and Ana Ivanovic, among others, while Nole leads the UAE Falcons with Caroline Wozniacki, Goran Ivanisevic and Richard Gasquet. The other teams in the inaugural season of the International Premier Tennis League – which begins Nov. 28 in Manila and concludes in Dubai Dec. 15 – are the Serena Williams-led Singapore Slammers and the Maria Sharapova-starring Manila Mavericks. Clearly, tennis is trying to enhance its already international audience.

If you’ve never seen team tennis, it’s a lot of fun...

The write stuff

July 28, 2014

I met a young man on Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich, Conn. who asked me if I had a moment for gay rights. Why yes, I do, I said as I presented him with my card for “The Games Men Play” series and blog and told him about “Water Music,” the first novel in the series, about four gay athletes and how their professional rivalries color their personal relationships with one another.

I’m sure my sales pitch was not what he wanted to hear as he had one of his own. He was trying to sign up people for the Human Rights Campaign, which seeks equal rights for the LGBT community. Right now, he said, it’s still legal in 29 states to fire someone on the basis of homosexual orientation. That’s appalling, I thought.

But I didn’t sign his petition.

Are marriage and career incompatible?

July 28, 2014

celebrity couple. It was an enviable lifestyle for those yearning to be rich and famous, but McIlroy’s main motivation was to be remembered for his golf. So in May, with the wedding invitations on the way, he broke off the couple’s engagement.”

Let’s set aside the implication that marriage to Wozniacki would’ve necessarily produced a sort of Duke and Duchess of Windsor lifestyle, with the pair jet-setting from one party to another. And let’s leave off the devastation McIlroy’s last-minute exit caused Wozniacki – a subject I’ve blogged about before...

Today 6:30-8p @ Athleta Scarsdale – "Water Music" Reading and Book Signing by Georgette Gouveia

July 24, 2014

Sexy, smart and sporty, Athleta and "Water Music" go together. I'll be reading and signing "Water Music" at the Scarsdale Athleta this Thursday, July 24 from 6:30-8 p.m. Sip some drinks, do some shopping.

RSVP: 914-723-0961, sue_wald@stores.gap.com

Antigone at Grabovo

July 24, 2014

In one of the most moving of the Greek myths, the Theban princess Antigone is condemned to be buried alive for honoring the desecrated remains of her brother Polynices, an enemy of the people.

During the Nazi occupation of Paris, the French playwright Jean Anouilh presented his version of her story as a metaphor for the French resistance. But then, Antigone has always spoken powerfully to modern artists, as everything from the heroine of an opera to that of a comic book.

I thought of Antigone and all those Civil War Antigones – the Southern ladies who decorated the graves of the Union and Confederate soldiers alike, giving rise to the tradition we know as Decoration, or Memorial, Day – as I looked at the front page of the July 23rd edition of The New York Times.

Colin Kaepernick and the ambivalence of desire

July 21, 2014

San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kaepernick has a huge, new tattoo of a snake coiled around a rising, Michelangelo-esque hand grasping at dollar bills that riffs on “the money is the root of all evil” biblical theme, Katie Dowd writes on the SF Gate blog.

But St. Paul didn’t write that “money is the root of all evil.” He wrote that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” That’s something quite different and in keeping with a fascinating piece in The New York Times’ Sunday Review by Arthur C. Brooks, “Love People, Not Pleasure.”

Brooks contends that the pursuit of pleasure – money, fame, sex – is the root of unhappiness, which is pretty much the tenet of every major religion but particularly Buddhism and Christianity. They hold that nonattachment – which is vastly different from detachment – alone brings peace. Or as Jesus says, “for whosoever will save his life shall lose it.” That nonattachment – not so much an absence of desire, but an understanding of it – is real power, not the kind that comes from a scepter or an army but from within.