Feeling Fine

So, while reading about Alex Rodriguez all over the place and seeing images of his face from his interview with Peter Gammons time and again, all of the "all is lost" discourse has a certain R.E.M. song running through my mind for the second time in a month.

Then, while watching the video for "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," I couldn't help but wonder what ever came of the kid in the video. Well, his name is Noah Ray and here's one account of what happened in his life post-video. Wouldn't some really cool project be to document the lives of people who have made these kinds of appearances and then fallen from the national popular culture consciousness? I'm sure I can make a link to scholarship in there somewhere ...

Of course, my next question is, "What ever happened to the dog in the video?" Given the typical dog's life expetancy, I'm sure he's long since passed away, and as one who finds endless room in my heart for so many dogs, I'm so often so sad that they don't live as long as people. This is certainly one of those cases. He's so cute, especially when he puts his paw on the kid in the video. What a much more pleasing image that is than A-Rod's "sorry" mug (pun entirely intentional)! As even President Obama is using language that channels an "End of the World" kind of vibe, I must say I do feel fine, because the only world that's ending in this ongoing saga of performance-enhacing drugs in Major League Baseball is an idyllic world that many have believed in, but that never really existed in the first place. Baseball is still baseball and it's still enjoyable. So, I've still got that ... and good music (like R.E.M.) and dogs ... and so much more ...