Bermuda Shorts - James Patterson [1]
Something Out of Nothing
Foreword
Greg Wyshynski
“What is he looking at?” It was a question lingering on the brain in nearly every editorial meeting for the late, great SportsFan Magazine—a D.C.-based periodical that combined staunch sports fan advocacy with sublimely ridiculous sports coverage, symbolized by a logo that literally gave the reader a thumbs-in-the-ears, fingers-in-the-air raspberry.
The editorial staffers would sit in chairs of varying degrees of comfort, meeting agendas in our hands and earnest attempts to follow them in our hearts. James J. Patterson would be seated at the right hand of the Sonny Jurgensen photograph on the back wall of his cluttered office, behind an ancient desk whose surface was stacked with notions and whose drawers were jammed with reveries.
The meeting would go as planned: Story concepts thrown at the wall, cover stories suggested and then spiked, malleable deadlines established. Jimmy would participate as warranted, but he already had the next edition laid out in his mind before the meeting even began—something that allowed him time to pursue other interests as we yammered away.
“Seriously, what is he looking at?”
It could have been a computer screen filled with the vital political news of the day, or a just-discovered website that labeled particular geneses of flatulence.
It could have been an essay on God’s place in the modern world, or liner notes to Blood on the Tracks. (Jimmy would argue they’re one and the same.)
He could have been glancing out the window, wondering how much longer a suburban Maryland town would need a vacuum cleaner repair shop, or checking out the business end of a blonde scurrying inside the line of the crosswalk on her lunch break.
What was he looking at? Life. Love. Liberty. Libations. The lighthearted and the ludicrous, the lewd and the lamentable. He’d witnessed so much, consumed so much, that his mind couldn’t help but race to the next search for life’s fragile truths, or the next brief clarification of its mysteries.
His findings and philosophies, collected in these works, echo the words his band heard from countless radio program directors during their time making subversive politically incorrect (but surprisingly catchy) ditties: “There’s no category for you guys.”
This collection blissfully defies classification, which is a tribute to its impact and its scope. Vivid characters from his past teach him, guide him, frighten him, and entertain him, while doing the same for us. It’s an expedition through temples of the mind to temples of worship, blurring the boundaries of both when parrying with a friend’s curious intellect about concepts of faith.
He’s got faith in his own concepts, too. “Beauticide,” or the unwavering urge for humans to destroy things that are beautiful. “The Conjecture Chamber,” where dread and insecurities cloud rational thought after the loss of a compatriot. Becoming the unelected “mayor” of an upper deck section in a sports arena. Hurling all the toxic and destructive materials man creates into the smoldering center of our universe, turning the sun into a kind of cosmic incinerator. An idealistic world where, he writes, “boredom and cynicism are not mainstream expressions of cultural futility.”
Bermuda Shorts is where nostalgia, art, humor, and perennial skepticism combine in a search for meaning, where philosophy can be found kneeling in front of a haunted crucifix, amongst the vibrating stands in a temple of sports, or in a prolonged tête-à-tête over a bottle of Wild Turkey 101 on a road trip.
It’s about life: the whimsy of it, the losses that come with it, and the dutiful journey through it.
It’s what James J. Patterson has been looking at; it’s a vision that deserves to be shared.
Greg Wyshynski is the editor of Puck Daddy, a Yahoo! Sports hockey blog, and the author of Glow Pucks & 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History. He used to sit in meetings staring at Jimmy Patterson as features editor with SportsFan Magazine.
Acknowledgments
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