Divers SUCK

No, not the scuba people or snorkeling enthusiasts...I'm talking about soccer divers. The World Cup began last week in Johannesburg, South Africa, and it seems not a day goes by wherein some idiot player tries to win a free kick or a penalty shot by faking a foul. Aside from deliberately handling the ball (like Thierry Henry did not too long ago), diving is probably the worst form of cheating in soccer ever devised. The idea's pretty simple: wait until you have the ball near the goal, then act like your opponent smashed into you by falling to the ground (arms up and outstretched for maximum dramatic effect) in mock pain. Refs often buy the act, and when they do, the cheating SOB is either awarded a free kick or a penalty shot, both of which can result in a goal.



Not all players get away with this crap, however. This photo shows Italy's Gilardino faking contact in the penalty area with the closest man (the other team's keeper) three feet away. In this case, the officials saw right through Gilardino's act and awarded him a yellow card for his trouble. Another Italian player on Milan's "Inter Milan" squad was even given a three-game suspension from play following a dive that resulted in a successful penalty kick. Unfortunately, though, most divers get away with murder, and the latest round of World Cup matches proved to be no exception. Portugal's Christiano Ronaldo, perhaps the most infamous faker of them all, won an (ineffective) free kick against Ivory Coast with a spectacular swan dive; the nearest Ivorian defender to Ronaldo was at least two yards away. Italy's matchup against France wasn't any better, despite the fact that Gilardino didn't seem tempted to go for the turf belly flop this time.


It is truly unfortunate that a few players seem content to ruin one of the world's most enjoyed games by cheating, and even more disturbing that the offenders always seem to play for the world's best soccer teams and international squads. That being said, however, there's one group of teams I've yet to see a dive from in any World Cup: the African teams. Ghana, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Cameroon...these guys always come into the tournament at the bottom of the ladder, and if anyone has motive to fool the ref, it's them. But they don't. They never have. It seems they have this crazy thing called "integrity", some odd, unknown compulsion that makes them prefer playing in the World Cup and losing to cheating in the World Cup and winning. Africa might be "third world" economically, but in terms of sportsmanship, they continue to outscore almost every opponent they face on the soccer field.

All about trapshooting

Chances are, you've probably never seen the object in this picture...at first glance, it looks kind of like a miniature frisbee. But to a certain group of fanatics, among whom I proudly count myself, this little orange thing is unmistakeable. It's the White Flyer AA, better known the world over as a clay target or "clay pigeon". These guys got their bird-related name because originally, they replaced live animals on the shooting range. In the old days, hunters and sport shooters would hone their skills practicing on real pigeons released from boxes. Someone would pull a string to open the box, the pigeon would fly out, and if the shooter was accurate, he would fire and bring the pigeon down with one shot. The problem with live bird shooting was, as one might expect, that it didn't go over too well with the general public. Outside of the English aristocracy, people saw the use of pigeons as inhumane and cruel, which prompted a nationwide search for a new target around the turn of the century. It was a rather daunting task: whatever they came up with would need to be unpredictable in its flight to simulate a flying pigeon, strong enough to stay together and yet frangible enough to break when shot with shotgun pellets. Innovative shooters first tried glass, then wax, before settling on a flat, frisbee-like clay projectile which has remained relatively unchanged since its inception.

Out of all the clay target disciples today (and all the goofy variations on them that people continue inventing!), American Trap most closely resembles the pigeon shooting competitions of the 1800s. It's quite simple in its setup: enclosed in a cinderblock "house" is a machine that throws clay targets at the shooter's command (usually the word "Pull!", another holdover from the live-bird days); the competitor uses a 12-gauge shotgun to try and break the thrown target. The catch is that the machine inside the house is constantly oscillating, moving back and forth and stopping at odd intervals on a 35-degree arc. In other words, when you call for a target, you know it is going somewhere away from you, but it is impossibly to know exactly where.

This is a standard trap field. The house is in the middle of the picture in the distance, and there are five "posts" in a semicircle 16 yards in back of the house. A typical round consists of 25 shots, with 5 at each post. At this particular field, the targets will always be traveling toward the trees, but since the target throwing machine (called a "trap") is hidden from view, shooters never know the exact direction.

See the sidewalk-looking things stretching into the foreground of the picture? Those aren't modern art, they're handicap markers. A typical trap tournament consists of 300 targets: 100 targes shot from the 16-yard line, 50 pair of "doubles" targets (where two clay targets are thrown simultaneously) also shot at 16 yards, and 100 targets that are "handicapped". The idea is to provide an equalizer in competition--better shooters stand further away from the traphouse to make their targets more difficult, while the less-accomplished shooters get to stand a bit close. No matter how much you stink, though, you can't get any closer than 20 yards in a handicap event, and the maximum distance is 27 yards. But even from the minimum distance, those 12 extra feet can make all the difference in the world. A specialized shotgun called an "undersingle" (which we'll get into later) can help take some of the sting out of handicap targets, but even with top-notch equipment, 100 targets from the back fence are anything but easy.

The Amateur Trapshooting Association, or ATA, governs and sanctions the discipline of trap in the United States. Their website, www.shootata.com, has much more information than I can give you here; you can even use their search engine function to find a club near you if you want to get started yourself. In conclusion, let me address one concern that always comes up with shooting sports: safety. Firearms tend to get a bad reputation because of idiotic people who misuse them, but in truth, you're much more likely to get injured in a car crash than you are from using a target shotgun. However, if you get involved in shooting sports, you must remember that while a shotgun is a tool when used properly (a bit like a golf club), it is also capable, unlike other tools, of causing lethal damage when misused. We'll cover safety in more detail later, but for now, I'll just say that shooters of all ages and abilities must always have respect for what they are using. Be safe and smart, and there won't be any problems; get careless, and you ruin everyone's day.

Post number 1

Welcome to the site. I'll start this thing off with a disclaimer: I'm about as good with computers as George W. Bush was with foreign policy, so if there are errors, typos, etc in this blog, you have my advance apologies! At least, unlike the latter case, there will be no casualties if something goes wrong here.



My name is Jake, and as the title of this blog implies, I've got three interests on which I'll write about, hopefully in an interesting enough manner. First off, my "sport" (and I can call it that, since it's been an Olympic event for some time now) involves using a 12-gauge shotgun to blast moving clay targets to pieces. Trap and Skeet, the two principal divisions of clay target shooting, both use a small orange clay "bird" thrown out of a house at high speed; the competitor's objective is simple: break the target. It sounds pretty easy, I'll admit, but as we'll understand later, it's anything but. Kreighoff wouldn't be able to sell their K-80 clay target shotguns for $20,000 and upwards if Skeet were easy to the point of boredom.



German Lieder, or art songs, are another passion of mine which I explored quite rigorously during my college years. Although I specialize in Lieder, I'm interested in all kinds of classical music, and plan to discuss certain pieces of music, upcoming performances of note, recordings, and my own adventures in the musical world. Music-related posts could cover any of these topics and more; it all depends on how things evolve.



Finally, we have our "fine feathered friends", better known as birds (or to New Yorkers, "rats with wings". Unfortunately, unless you're in Central Park, the most bird life you can expect in NYC is the Rock Dove, AKA Pigeon, Flying Bag of S---, etc etc). I've been a birder all my life and have always enjoyed a bit of amateur ornithology, except perhaps that one time when I was chased out of a marsh by a very angry Canada Goose. Lesson learned. More to the point, I've always enjoyed introducing other people to this life-long hobby, and am happy to answer questions about this and anything else I write about.



Apart from these three topics, I don't plan to restrict this blog's content to anything in particular. Stuff like philosophy, world events, and the good old-fashioned rant-n-rave is always fair game. If you would like me to write on something in particular, have bird questions or otherwise, let me know!



So who am I exacttly? Nobody of particular note. If you happened to navigate here expecting this to be the blog of someone in "People" Magazine or some other celebrity, you may very well be disappointed. My story's pretty simple...I did my undergraduate work at Bowdoin College in Maine, where I studied Spanish and philosophy. I also received the bulk of my voice training there. I'm a lifelong birder, music enthusiast, and clay target shooter (and contrary to the gun-owner stereotype, I'm also a democrat!) who simply decided to catalog a few of his adventures. Will this come back to bite me in the ass? Probably, but what the hell. :)

In my next installment, I'll explain a little bit about the clay target sports and the kind of equipment used to compete in them. Pages such as "about me" and "contact" will surface as I figure this system out--my computer seems to be jet set against fuctioning properly, which makes things difficult to say the least.

Finally, I will mention that the posts on this blog should be generally inoffensive and are not designed to incite anyone or anything, but that being said, what I write is my personal opinion and will not be censored for political correctness, pandering, appeasement, or (worst of all) kissing anyone's tuchus. If you disagree with anything written here, I welcome your comments and civil, academic debate. Argument is terrific, but keep it clean.