An NFL Jersey for a Boy

My 12 y/o son will enter the 7th grade this fall. He is an eclectic kid. He has a gift with animals (I'm hoping for a future vet). He loves all things sports (I explained he needs to work hard if he wants more reps as a CB on his football team). And he reads Stephen King (some, but not all, books have been approved).

He also has a big heart. Not so much on a day-to-day basis with his younger brother, or with us when we bark about his XBox activity, but with bigger issues in life. As an example, he asked Santa for a Pat Tillman jersey two years ago. Santa was happy to bring that. My kid wore that jersey to "Jersey Day" at our high school's basketball camp two years ago and won a prize. The varsity basketball coach gave a speech to the whole camp about that Tillman jersey. My son came home with a huge smile and we all shared in that happy memory.

In the last couple months, my son has absorbed all the news about social unrest/protests and has developed some firm opinions. This is tough because he's 12 and does not have much depth of experience to help frame his views. But that's the beauty of fervent youthful idealism. He's prone to having very big views without being able to give much context to them. But sometimes context doesn't matter. And what's right is what's right.

My son just asked us for a Colin Kaepernick jersey for his 13th birthday. I asked him why he wants that jersey and he gave a factual and lucid argument about Colin's rights to protest, and his belief in the cause Colin is/was supporting. I tested his rationale, and he had an appropriate response. And it really is that simple. He is aware of Colin's courage and strength of character and wants to support it.

My wife is a bit nervous about the purchase. She thinks it might invite unwanted comments. But we live in a very understanding town and he has a (relatively) charmed life in an upper middle class suburb with a ~99% white population. We are not south of the Mason-Dixon line and Trump signs are few and far between by us. The odds of an uncomfortable confrontation are low. But they are not zero. He may face verbal abuse from a bigot. He knows that, yet he still wants that jersey.

My son is no hero. But he wants one of his birthday gifts to relay a social justice statement to his community. And I'll accept that as an earnest first step forward towards adulthood.

Sometimes Life is Neat (Dallas/JFK Version)

Howdy gents. I'm back in the Dirty Jerz after a week in Texas and a week in California (9 hotel rooms over 10 nights for you scoring at home). Sports talk radio in Texas was insufferable from Rangers and Astros fans who looked past the woeful performance of the Longhorns, Cowboys and Texans. I'm glad to be back in NJ to hear the Vinnies from Ronkokoma and Joses from Ozone Park  talk Jets and Giants football. And Mets baseball, unfortunately.

Anyway, I was in Dallas for work from Wednesday afternoon to Friday afternoon about ten days ago. The first day was spent in the massive cow town known as Fort Worth. And before you ask, yes, the town is freaking out about TCU. After a busy day of meetings there, I arrived in downtown Dallas on Thursday afternoon. I had a few drinks with a colleague, who offered to drive me to my hotel. Unfortunately, I was staying in a ginormous Hyatt downtown (as opposed to the hip "Crescent area") because good hotels were jammed up for the upcoming Red River Shootout. Earlier that day, I pulled a map up to get the lay of the land around the hotel. Usually, I do it in a "what kind of mischief can I get into tonight near the hotel?" kinda mindset, but I was just curious where the place was. When I did this, I barely registered that the hotel was very close to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which is the building where a guy named Lee shot a guy named John a few years ago. A picture is below. The windows to the right on the top floor were where Lee did his evil deed.

So we'll fast-forward to 4:30 PM local time on Thursday. I'm riding shot-gun in my colleague's car, a few blocks from my hotel. Traffic is at a stand-still because James Franco is shooting a movie in the area. Spontaneously, fueled by two vodka tonics, I decide to get out of the car and lug my things to the Museum. I knew that it closed at 6 PM, but I thought I would sneak in an iota of culture instead of immediately finding a nearby bar to belly up to, as I'm prone to doing.

So I hop out of the car. In a navy suit. In 85 degree weather. Dragging a roller bag and a briefcase. And I start walking through some dusty street blocks. I make my way to the museum. They say it's $16 admission and I have a little over an hour until closing. I pay up, check my luggage at the baggage area, grab my audio headset and take the elevator up, mildly sweaty, slightly drunk, and ready to dive in to the event. Like many, I'm a part-time JFK conspiracy wonk.

The elevator opens and I start going through the place. It's very cool, giving context to that era of America, the Cold War, the political climate and the mood itself in Dallas that week (a sharply divided town struggling how much to support a lefty President visiting).

I saw a couple women crying as they looked at the Zapruder photos and listened to the audio broadcasts of JFK being shot. Eventually, I made my way to the legendary corner of the sixth floor. Behind glass, they left the location where Oswald fired from intact. It's eerie to look at, and a bunch of us in attendance quietly stared at it for a while.

I then decided to look out the window and immediately almost lost my shit. I saw a motorcade of 1960's convertibles, as well as men and women dressed in period-era garb and cameras everywhere. I just then realized that the James Franco movie was a JFK movie, and they were about to film the scene of JFK getting shot. And I was gonna watch it from the window next to the window Oswald shot from. About 20-30 of us crowded to the window. The actress playing Jackie was dressed exactly correctly - in pink. There below was the motorcade, ready to make the fateful left turn toward the highway.

A security person in the Museum was fervently reminding folks there was no photography allowed, and people were in varying stages of "fuck that" mode. I wasn't able to shoot much from up there, but I got a couple in as they started filming. The least bad of the bunch is below. The window I'm looking out is the one directly next to where Oswald did his sniping. You can see the black convertible (the security detail immediately behind JFK and Jackie) below.

As the filming ensued, the motorcade made the turn, and we could clearly see everything (there were some obstructing trees, but they were much smaller in 1963). All of a sudden, the sound of gunshots rang out. People screamed and dove to the ground. Policemen drew guns. The motorcade accelerated out of view. And a few dozen folks started pointing up at the sixth floor of the museum. Where I was standing. Here's what those extras looked like when they were chillaxing between takes.

It was one of the most surreal things I have experienced. I was five feet from where Oswald shot JFK, watching a movie recreate that exact scene. Of the tens of thousands of folks who visited the museum and looked out of those windows, how many saw that scene play out? And saw it play out with Daniel Desario as JFK, to boot?

I exited the museum after a few more minutes and started wandering around the building to see what was going on. I was still slightly drunk and towing luggage, but was less sweaty, for at least a couple minutes. That's how I got a lot of these rad shots! Turns out the director did a bunch of takes in the late afternoon, which may be due to the story's sci fi take on the events (find the plot summary to understand more). Here's a video I lazily shot:

I happily went to my hotel after a few minutes and didn't mind when I walked the wrong way and had to traverse a steep grassy embankment in a suit while dragging a roller to get to the hotel lobby. I ended my night by doing two hours of work and eventually bellying up to a bar to watch the Texans and Trojans choke. I felt rewarded by my spontaneous and uncharacteristic decision to chug some culture, instead of chugging some scotch (of course, I was chugging vodka while doing this).

After the fact, I found out it's actually a mini-series they're shooting, based on the Stephen King book 11/22/63: A Novel. Peruse it at your leisure if you want to dig into a story about assassination and time travel and the like.