Greatest Song Evah 11/8/24

Road To Nowhere

I choose each GSE a week ahead of time. I mention that because it’s sheer coincidence that this one comes up in this week of all weeks. It feels more timely than usual because David Byrne once described the song in the liner notes of an anthology in this way: “I wanted to write a song that presented a resigned, even joyful look at doom.” Ummm…

That’s a great way of looking at this selection, the lead single from Talking Heads’ Little Creatures album. The song feels like you want to sing it while you’re on a hayride, or maybe riding on the bed of a pickup truck with a jug band. Appropriately enough, among the instruments on this track are an accordion and a washboard. You’re having such a great time bopping along that it’s easy to forget that the phrase “road to nowhere” is inherently dark.

So what? It’s impossible to not want to join in with Byrne’s exhortations to come along and help him sing the song with all of those “hey heys.” All that, plus the gospel choir and this is one of the most infectious songs that the Talking Heads ever recorded. It’s alright, baby it’s alright.

312 Miles To A Cup

As the grueling NASCAR schedule draws to a close, the championship 4 drivers are set to go in the season finale Sunday in Phoenix. As a reminder, the entire field of drivers competes in the race, whichever of the championship 4 finishes highest is the 2024 cup champ.

The CliffsNotes version is that all 4 had their share of drama in making it to this phase. Joey Logano only advanced to the final 8 in the first place due to a penalty imposed on another driver, but he made the most of that second chance and won in Vegas. Tyler Reddick made a dramatic last lap pass of 2 drivers to win in Miami. Ryan Blaney had a more straightforward victory in Martinsville - although it took some great strategic calls to take that win - leaving only one spot available for a driver to advance on points.

William Byron prevailed, but his advancement involved some shenanigans from other drivers which were unfortunate. Long story short, in the closing laps all that Christopher Bell needed to do was either gain one position himself or have Byron lose one. The latter was more likely, because Byron was on older tires, causing his car to drive much more slowly than his pursuers. However, Byron and the two drivers directly behind him, Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon, were all driving Chevys and there were clearly instructions handed down to make sure that a Chevy advanced. The two trailing drivers did not attempt to pass Byron while also riding side by side, thus preventing another driver from being able to pass. On the other end, Bell drives a Toyota, and fellow Toyota Bubba Wallace conveniently felt a tire going down on the last lap and slowed down, allowing Bell to grab that position he needed.

However, Bell’s car got loose while making the pass and he hit the wall. He then proceeded to ride the wall around a turn, a maneuver that is illegal. After a long wait following the race’s completion, NASCAR penalized Bell 4 positions which was more than enough to allow Byron to advance. Post script: later in the week NASCAR assessed penalties on Chastain, Dillon, and Wallace. No action was taken on Byron; although he benefited from the tomfoolery he did not do anything wrong himself.

Of the 4 finalists, Blaney is attempting to win his second consecutive cup, Logano is looking for the third of his career, Byron and Reddick their first each. Reddick was my pick to win when the playoffs began, so I’m sticking with that. As is always the case with racing, anything can happen.

In Praise Of Bob Costas

Bob Costas has elaborated a bit on his reasoning as to why he is retiring from doing baseball play-by-play and it is not surprising. He recognizes that he is not always on top of his game anymore, and he had made the decision back in spring training that this year would be it. He will still continue to do studio work, but his days calling games are over.

In recent years the internet mob, particularly among younger people, has really come for both Costas and Al Michaels. Now simply because they are among two of the greatest to have ever done does not mean they are beyond reproach. It’s just a shame that many of their harshest critics are unfamiliar with their best work other than the random footage which pops up in historical montages. I don’t watch football anymore, so I can’t speak to the quality of Michaels’ current work, but I can say that Costas at times has shown signs of losing a step. It’s nothing terrible yet, beyond his tendencies to wax overly poetic at times over the sport’s past at the expense of the game he is actually working on, but the slippage is noticeable enough that it’s probably wisest that he is stepping aside now before his game declines further and more rapidly.

I find it ironic that younger viewers think of Bob Costas as a museum piece, as I clearly remember when he was the young gun in sports broadcasting. He wasn’t the first boomer in a national booth, but he still stood out from the pack. In an age in which seemingly every national voice was a stern older man donning the requisite network-issued blazer, here was a guy who looked like he barely shaved, whose cultural references were contemporary and who showed a keen sense of humor. David Letterman loved to use him in those anarchic early days of Late Night.

He showed from his earliest days that he was a broadcaster of substance. Yes, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of a broad range of sports - which he was at times a little too eager to display - but he also had a deep intellectual curiosity, which served him well as he branched out into hosting talk shows. I remain in awe of a running segment that was on his old HBO series On the Record with Bob Costas. The show had a segment that I believe was called 9 in 90. A famous person, whom Costas did not know about ahead of time, would come on stage and the two of them would briefly chat before the celeb would ask him a series of questions ranging from opinion to trivia that he would answer in the allotted time. It was truly impressive to be able to conduct a brief interview with zero preparation. True, these guests would be people that he already knew personally, so there weren’t any major curveballs thrown his way. Still, he made it look so easy.

Another thing I admired about him is that in his earliest days at NBC he was often branded as the heir apparent to Bryant Gumbel and he did follow in Gumbel’s footsteps in many ways. But think back to when Gumbel moved from NBC Sports to the Today Show. In the interviews he did at the time he spoke of how he didn’t feel like he wanted to do sports for the rest of his life, implying that it was beneath him. That was more apparent when he was the prime time host for NBC’s coverage of the Seoul Olympics. His on air demeanor was that of a man who was brought back to do sports under duress. Costas, by contrast, no matter what else he did in his career always understood that sports was where his bread was buttered and always stuck with his first love.

Kudos to Bob Costas for a spectacular career. We will continue to see him on our TV screens as a broadcaster emeritus, but he has certainly earned this semi-retirement.

The Modem Is Booting Up

Elwood Edwards died this week at the age of 74. You probably don’t recognize his name, but you have certainly heard his voice. An employee of a Cleveland television station, his wife worked at Quantum Computer Services and heard of plans to incorporate a voice into their newest software. She got Elwood to do those voiceovers for the company which would soon be renamed America Online. Yes, that is his voice you used to always hear saying “welcome,” “you’ve got mail,” and “goodbye.” His was a constant presence in our lives for so long; chances are you still have one of those starter discs buried in the back of a drawer somewhere. Millions of years in the future, when alien visitors scavenge the remnants of our civilization, they will find piles of those CD’s and assume that Edwards was Earth’s emperor.

SNL Preview

I have no clue as to how this week’s episode is going to look. After 2 consecutive cycles in which Dave Chappelle hosted the first post-election show, this time it’s up to Bill Burr to man the reins. Are Maya and friends going to return one last time, or will that be too sad? How does JAJ feel? Last week he gave off the vibe that he was more than happy to never again have to sit in that makeup chair for the application of the Trump prosthetics. And now, just like the rest of us, he is stuck with that man for another 4 years. Whatever course of action the show chooses to go with, this figures to be the first weekend that will give us an idea of what the bulk of the season is likely to look like.

The Oscar Mulligan - 1997

Best Picture - Titanic

Other Nominees - As Good As It Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential

1997 was another easy choice. The 4 runners-up in the race all had something to recommend, but this year the Academy made the correct decision. Titanic it is.

Not that the movie was flawless. Every scene with Billy Zane was eye-rolling. His character was so cartoonishly over the top that if there were railroad tracks on the ship he would have tied Kate Winslet to them. And Leo’s traveling companion constantly shouting “I love-a America!” in an implausible Italian accent felt like he accidentally wandered onto the set from a different movie.

Otherwise it had everything you would want from an Oscar movie. Has it left a long-standing cultural footprint? Yes. It inspired an all-timer of an Onion joke. Is it rewatchable? Yes. Are there memorable scenes and memorable characters? Yes and yes. Is it quotable? Have you seen the number of “I’m the king of the world” and “draw me like one of your French girls” memes? To this day people still debate over whether there was enough room on that floating door for Jack. James Cameron insists that his weight would have sunk the door, dooming both Jack and Rose. Fair enough, but let’s not also forget that if the crew members had not been so distracted watching Rose & Jack get busy one of them might have been able to spot the iceberg before it was too late. (That fact might not be historically accurate.)

All kidding aside about that Onion piece, there is something inherently cinematic about the sinking of the Titanic. Oops, should I have said SPOILER ALERT? The time from when the ship struck the iceberg to completely submerge was 2 hours and 40 minutes, so the sinking can be depicted in very close to real time. In addition, the development of the events gradually grew more intense. In that time it went from “no worries passengers, just put these life vests on as a precaution” to “the ship is doomed, abandon ship!” to “there aren’t enough lifeboats!” That lent enough time for the characters to demonstrate all sorts of bravery or cowardice or selflessness or resignation to fate.

This was also the movie which changed Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet from promising rising actors into super duper stars. There was a great reason for that. Their chemistry was obvious from the moment they met. The class conflict between the two could have easily been simple melodramatic cheese were it not for their skill.

Two last points. It’s a great contrast to also watch the 1958 British movie A Night To Remember. In that telling of the Titanic story, the main character was instead one of the ship’s chief officers. So there was no love story used as a framing device, but otherwise it shared many elements with the Cameron film: the portrayals of the assorted masters of the universe who were on board, the tragedy of the doomed passengers in steerage, the band sticking it out to the end. Second, at one point Neil deGrasse Tyson had pointed out that the skyline was inaccurate; the stars shown were not what would have been visible in that part of the world at that time of year. James Cameron being the perfectionist that he is, he re-edited to correctly reflect what the sky would have looked like. That level of obsession sounds a bit demented, but it’s all part of the James Cameron Experience.

Closing Laughs

Thanks again to all of you for being part of the Tending the Herd family. In times like these it’s great that we are all here to support each other. Please don’t forget to forward & share to anyone you know who would love it over here. Have a great weekend friends, and I will see you again on Monday.