Rethinking Life's Many Choices

For the last several years, my softball jersey has sported the number 17 on the back (in honor of the great Mark Grace) and has been adorned with the name "Grasshopper". My team, Happy Hour, had the brilliant idea of putting drink names on backs of our jerseys. So instead of picking Harvey Wallbanger or Velvet Hammer #2... or any other overtly baseball-related name... I went with Grasshopper. I was playing centerfield at the time, so Grasshopper was sort of apt. I think the drink is made with creme de menth and is probably disgusting. But I didn't pick the name because of the beverage or its relation to playing the outfield. I chose it almost entirely because of David Carradine's character in the TV show Kung Fu.

Kwai Chang Caine (nicknamed "Grasshopper") was one of the great pulpy influences on my childhood formation of what it meant to be masculine and heroic. He represented integrity, fortitude, sacrifice, quiet intensity, and the mysterious, exotic powers granted to those who practice the extreme self-discipline of the Orient. He was a beacon of honor in a dusty land of outlaws and harsh realities. He was an idealist surviving in a land hellbent on crushing the nobility out of any man. His dignity was unflappable. He was my hero.



And now he's dead. Found naked in the closet of his Bangkok hotel room with shoestrings tied around his neck and genitals. Nice. Way to destroy my universe David. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the ridicule I'm going to face at softball this Sunday wearing my Grasshopper jersey.