Greatest Song Evah 2/16/24

Go Your Own Way

Oh to have been a fly on the wall during Fleetwood Mac’s heyday. The interpersonal dynamics among that bunch must have been something to behold. Imagine that you’re John McVie, and your soon to be ex-wife comes into the studio with a song she just wrote about the amazing sex that she’s having with the new guy she’s seeing, knowing that you will be fated to perform that song in every concert you ever play for the remainder of your career.

That’s nothing compared to the Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks relationship. During the Rumours era the two were constantly writing songs about the other, each one more bitter than the last. That’s what makes appreciating this week’s selection a bit uncomfortable. Nicks largely gave back as good as she got, but on the other hand she didn’t write a line as vicious (and uncalled for) as “shacking up’s all you want to do.”

Keeping that in mind, the song completely rocks. Buckingham at his best was a true wizard in the recording studio, and his touches are all over this one. The introductory guitar strums set an immediate vibe, and his blistering solo is one of the best examples of that type of smooth sound which was so prevalent at the time. This also provides perfect evidence as to how vital it is to have a great drummer. Mick Fleetwood produces steady fills and then adds an additional kick during the instrumental portions of the song. This track would not have anywhere near the same drive with a more pedestrian drummer.

It’s probably not necessary to know the precise ins and outs of the Buckingham/Nicks relationship to fully appreciate this song, but it helps. It could not have been easy for her to sing on a song that’s so biting; I suppose if you listen closely enough you can hear the anger in her vocals. I’m not sure if mainstream rock got any better than it did during Rumours era Fleetwood Mac. Go Your Own Way is a perfect example of why that is.

State Of the Union - 2024 Mets Edition

OK, pitchers & catchers have reported, and most position players are participating in workouts as well. Spring has sprung in the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues. With the Boras Four still available it’s tough to say that teams have their squads basically in place, but the Mets are unlikely to be in the market for any of those guys. So I can say that what the Mets currently have is what we get. How did the offseason go?

It was always a given that the club was going to use a quieter strategy this year. They did go all in on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but that was the exception. Once he chose to sign with the Dodgers, the Mets fully pivoted back to their original plan. I have seemingly contradictory reactions to that tactic.

I appreciate that fact that the organization is thinking long term. For too long plans seemingly changed drastically from year to year. You could make the argument that the same thing happened in this instance as well, but to me there is a subtle difference. By both words and action Steve Cohen is clearly following the Dodgers playbook. The goal is to build a deep enough minor league organization so that it creates an atmosphere of sustainable success on the big league level. Once it was clear that last year’s spending spree was not working, Cohen did not worry about the sunk costs. The team traded away several veterans, but more importantly, was able to get top shelf prospects back in return. That meant that the Mets were continuing to pay large portions of the salaries of the traded players, but Cohen could afford it. Contrast that with the Wilpons. Their refusal to give salary relief to their trade partners meant that they were only receiving a batch of Quad-A players in return.

That means that the 2024 Mets still have the highest payroll in the league, even though a lot of that is tied to players who are on other teams. But it also means that a minor league system that has been in the bottom third of the league is now firmly in the top half, and some evaluators even rank it top ten. That’s real progress and it bodes well for the future. However, I’m currently (mumble mumble) years old. I’m still young enough that I can deal with a gradual build, but I’m not so young that my patience is unlimited. I need as many of these prospects as possible to pay dividends, and I need them to do it quickly.

As for 2024, you can take this with a grain of salt, as I’m looking through a pair of hope springs eternal rose colored glasses. The mistake we as fans constantly make is focusing too much on which team “wins” the postseason. It’s important to have top line talent, but it’s never a good idea to be too top heavy. Championships are not won with players 1-12, they are won with the full 1-26. We know all too well what a crapshoot the current playoff format is. All you need to do is qualify & get hot at the right time. I’m realistic enough to know that as stands this roster lags well behind Atlanta and Philadelphia. I’m optimistic enough to believe that it looks like they could at least be good enough to be on the outskirts of the wild card race and therefore buyers at the trade deadline. If so, go for it.

They of course do need several things to work out right, but some of those things seem likely. In retrospect the biggest mistake the team made the previous offseason was to punt on building a deep bullpen. They chose to fill the last few spots with optionable arms that could shuttle back and forth between the majors and Triple-A. That backfired once Edwin Diaz suffered his injury; suddenly every veteran had to step up one level and as a result the younger pitchers were placed in higher profile roles and almost all of them were exposed as being not up to the task. This year’s pen looks deeper. The biggest needs on the offensive side are for Jeff McNeil to return to his expected level of production, for Starling Marte to be healthy enough that he can be a positive factor, and for Brett Baty or Mark Vientos - ideally both - to make the leap. As for the starting rotation? They need for Sean Manaea’s second half improvement last season to be real, and for Luis Severino to return to some semblance of what he was back when he was younger and healthier. Are all of these plausible? Probably not, but if enough pan out it will at least be a better season than last year’s was.

It’s The Guns, Stupid

This speaks volumes about how commonplace mass shootings are. The shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade occurred on the anniversary of the Parkland shooting. The tragedies are so frequent that they share dates. And we will play the same song and dance yet again. Nothing will be done. I’m tired of hearing about freedom. You know what freedom is? It’s the ability to live a normal life without fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A celebratory parade should be a shared moment of joy, not a scene of terror.

And I am tired of hearing the usual suspects point fingers at every potential cause except for the obvious one. Every country has people who suffer from mental illness. Every country watches the same movies and plays the same video games that we do. And yes, every country has people who get into arguments in a crowded public space. No other civilized country has the same easy access to weapons of destruction that we do. And spare me the rationalization that we hear when a mass shooting happens in a country with stricter gun laws. “See, it can happen anywhere.” Yes, an individual tragedy can happen anywhere. Here it’s practically a regularly scheduled event. For the thousandth time, we do not need to live like this. That we do is purely by choice.

One More Note On Caitlin Clark

As expected, last night Caitlin Clark became the all-time scoring leader in women’s college basketball. She went right to it, scoring Iowa’s first 8 points in the game to break the record. Appropriately enough, the historic point came on a looooooong 3. To put the cherry on the sundae, she finished the game with a personal career high of 49 points. I forget to mention one thing the other day when I discussed her impending record. Last weekend she also became only the 6th woman to register 1000 career assists. Think about that for a moment. Not only is she the most prolific scorer in history, but she is also one of the most prolific distributors that the sport has ever seen. That’s what you would call an offensive weapon.

TV Of the 21st Century - Louie

How to separate the artist from the art? That question has come up much more frequently in recent years, as society has much less of a tolerance for bad behavior from terrible men. It’s an even trickier needle to thread when the man in question produces work that has some autobiographical elements. Such is the case with Louis C.K. In his show he starred as a fictionalized version of himself. Is it possible to still enjoy the show, or to root for the main character, knowing full well just how icky he is in real life?

I bring this up because a lot of what made Louie a mold breaking show has now been memory wiped. In the later months of 2019 writers started putting together their best of the decade lists, and Louie was conspicuously left off of many of them. Not to excuse C.K.’s behavior in any way, but it’s still worth noting just how good his show was. He took full advantage of the freedoms that FX gave him.

FX has never confined its creators to 30 or 60 minute time slots. If a show runs longer, the network allows it to bleed over. That benefitted C.K. immensely. If he had a story idea that he needed more time to tell, FX gladly gave it to him. Conversely, he would not excessively pad things out if it could be fully told in 12 minutes or so. One of the better stories in the series involved a funeral he attended for an industry figure who was not particularly well liked. He bonded with one of the few fellow mourners, portrayed by Robin Williams. They meet up later on, which provided 2 talented comedic actors a chance to riff with each other. There was just enough story to fill half of an episode, and that’s all it got. After the first commercial break it simply moved on to something else.

As mentioned, the show told the story of a comedian named Louis C.K., loosely based on the star himself. Notably, the character in the show was nowhere near as successful as the real life man. It largely followed the basic template of shows starring stand up comics, showing how a comedian will often incorporate real life elements of their life into their act. The Louie TV character was a bit of a sad sack, and he was often depicted facing life’s hurdles, both small and large. It’s also worth pointing out that this was a true auteur work. He not only starred, but also produced, wrote, and edited every episode himself.

Several other comics also frequently appeared as fictional versions of themselves, not always in flattering manners. There was one famous cringeworthy scene in which Louie confronted Dane Cook over his reputation for stealing jokes. My favorite scene was one in which he was watching late night cable and saw an old stand up special featuring young comics in which he had appeared. He phoned Sarah Silverman, who was also in that special, and they bonded over watching their younger selves. Also in the show was Marc Maron, which reminded Louie that the two had a falling out years earlier, the reason for which he couldn’t remember. He spent the rest of the episode torturing himself over that, ultimately deciding to apologize to Maron. He went to Marone’s house to make the awkward “whatever happened years ago, let’s let bygones be bygones” apology. After a few uncomfortable moments Maron finally reminded Maron that he had made the exact same vague apology a few years earlier, pointing out that the last time he had cried.

Now, of course, knowing what we know about C.K., certain aspects of the show feel uncomfortable. He had a loving relationship with his two young daughters, and a respectable yet uneasy one with his ex-wife, portrayed by a pre-This Is Us Susan Kelechi Watson. At the time, it seemed like an odd joke to have a red headed man & an African-American woman produce 2 blond haired, blue eyed children. I’m not sure what to think of that now. In retrospect, the key recurring character was the one played by Pamela Segall. Her character was the one who would generally call out Louie when he was being an a-hole. At the time I felt that her character was a bit too mean spirited, but now I think that it was a replication of the dynamic that the real life Segall & C.K. had.

The long standing rumors of C.K.’s behavior turned out to be true. FX had the type of deal with him in which he could deliver new seasons at his own pace, but that relationship was immediately terminated, and streaming services scrubbed the majority of his material from their libraries. So now this show has essentially vanished, and the longer it has been gone, the quicker it fades from memory. Like I said, I’m conflicted over this. On one hand, screw Louis C.K. He deserves no sympathy, and he has not covered himself with glory in his comeback attempt. Rather than take personal responsibility and show remorse and penance, he is instead blaming everyone else. On the other hand, he has produced so much truly great work. I can not argue with anyone who feels that his indefensible acts forever tarnish their ability to appreciate his art. I do feel that it’s a shame that a terrific show has become collateral damage.

Originally aired on: FX

Currently streaming on: Currently nowhere; I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Closing Laughs

Time to close the curtain on yet another week. Have a great weekend everyone, and see you back here on Monday. I’ll save a seat for ya.