Greatest Song Evah 4/12/24

Children’s Story

This week’s selection comes from one of the earliest major figures in hip-hop. Slick Rick was the featured rapper on Doug E. Fresh’s classic track The Show. He had a very distinctive style; he hit that sweet spot between rapping and singing, and his British accent gave him a very distinctive flow. He was so smooth, and there is no better example of that technique than in this song.

The hook is immediately recognizable, as Montell Jordan would sample it years later for his own huge hit This Is How We Do It. The content of the lyrics tells the tale of two young men who take the wrong path - it’s not funny, so don’t you dare laugh. That famous hook perfectly helps drive the narrative forward.. The song is also matter of factly non-judgemental; Rick has his own point of view - straight and narrow or your soul gets cast - yet at the same time he lets the listeners (and the nephews to whom he is telling the story) draw their own conclusions.

Unfortunately, he didn’t heed his own advice as he would soon find himself in legal trouble - along with a prolonged fight against potential deportation - following a firearms incident for which he pleaded self defense. He eventually prevailed, although it put a pause on his career at a crucial time. He never recovered, but later generations continue to point to him as a major influence. This song remains one of the high water marks from the early days of hip-hop.

Those Damn Elbows

The epidemic of pitching injuries in MLB is the classic boiling frog situation. Yes, we have been aware for some time that pitchers have been dropping like flies, but people generally looked at it as the cost of doing business until now, when everyone has simultaneously come to the conclusion that it’s untenable. The underlying problem is that there is no one singular reason; if there was one cause then the solution would be obvious. But since there is no shortage of factors that have created this crisis, fixing it is tricky. This (paywalled) article spells things out fairly well. But where do we go?

Baseball is dealing with the same issue that other sports do - players have gotten too good. Pitchers are exerting max effort with each pitch and the snapping motion that creates the movement on their pitches places stress on their elbows that the human body is not structured to handle. But they have to, major league hitters are too good. You tell a pitcher he needs to dial it back a bit and that results in him tossing meatballs. In addition, because there is this constant parade of relievers throwing 100+ with insane movement, the number of strikeouts skyrockets.

I’m not sure what the solution is. Deaden the baseball? Adjust the strike zone? Rethink training? The sport is essentially training every pitcher to be Usain Bolt, would it preserve arms if more were trained to be the equivalent of a middle distance runner instead? (As an aside, please don’t bring up the Why can’t more pitchers be like Nolan Ryan? argument. He was such an extreme outlier; if he could be easily replicated don’t you think it would have been done by now?) (While I’m adding parenthetical thoughts, I don’t buy the MLBPA’s belief that this is all due to the pitch clock. The injury epidemic was well underway years before the introduction of the clock. I do agree that as much as I love the new game pace, it was a bit premature to reduce the time even further this season. It would have been a better idea to wait a couple of years so that the league can examine the data to see if the clock does actually create an increase in injuries.)

The reason why the public sniping between the league and the union on this issue is so damaging is that time is not on their side. The current atmosphere is not sustainable; it does no one any good to see so many of the top stars out of action. The sport can never completely eliminate injuries; pitching is an unnatural activity. The best that can be done is to reduce the danger as much as possible; everyone needs to get their heads together and this needs to have started yesterday.

WTF, New York Post?

An evergreen headline. For some bizarre reason, that paper thought it would be hilarious to shame a 94 year old man. I have no desire to give them the clicks, so I’m not linking it, but on Wednesday they went viral for posting 2 photos of Gene Hackman, pointing out that he was wearing nearly identical clothes weeks apart.

Seriously, what was the point? (This isn’t crucial, but if you had shown me the photos and asked me to identify who it was, I would have never guessed Gene Hackman. He has largely remained out of the public eye following his retirement from acting. He looks nothing like he once did. Did I mention that he’s 94?) Two crucial points: First, observers noted that the 2 photos posted were in fact taken on the same day. Of course, he’s wearing the same clothes. Second, he is 94 and has enough of his faculties remaining that he’s able to run his own errands without assistance.

In the old supermarket tabloid days, you would constantly see “gotcha” front page photos of a glamorous actress taking out the trash cans sans makeup. Now that most of those publications are out of business that type of journalistic misanthropy is largely a thing of the past. You can still count on the Post to mock an elderly man minding his own business.

A Tale Of Two Exceptionally Creative Artists

I can point to 2 currently active artists who never fail to excite me; you are never sure in which direct they will turn from album to album. In a fortunate bit of timing new albums from each are coming out within a few weeks of each other.

The first is Beyoncé with her much anticipated country album. While it is true that much of the album does in fact lean in a country direction - and Willie Nelson & Dolly Parton both make cameos - the collection as a whole explores a much wider scope than that. She proves once again that she is a master craftswoman. It’s also impressive that she has taken 2 songs that have been covered as frequently as Blackbird & Jolene and has brought something new into each to make them seem fresh. It’s only April but it stands a good chance to be one of the very best releases of the year.

Also, next week brings the release of the newest album by St. Vincent. I always look so forward to her new work; she is the closest thing we have to a modern day David Bowie. With each release she creates a different persona and veers sharply from the sound she had made on her previous album. Her last album had a 1970’s vibe, what we’ve heard so far suggests a lot of experimentation with electronica. And regardless of anything else, the connecting element is her exceptional guitar work; she absolutely shreds.

Zach & The Frogman

I’m not going to take up space by talking about the death of You Know Who. Instead I will discuss a couple of lesser known people whose passings I would prefer to acknowledge.

Pat Zachry shared the National League Rookie of the Year award in 1976, which is even more impressive than it sounds, being that he was a member of the Cincinnati Reds. To have been a key contributor to one of the greatest teams in history, including starting & winning games in both the NLCS & the World Series, is quite an achievement. He would go on to be traded to the Mets the following season; yes, he was part of the return in the Tom Seaver trade. That is a terrible burden to place on a young pitcher, but he acquitted himself fairly well.

I was tall & lanky as a child, so I had a natural affinity for athletes that were similarly built. Even though he was 6’5”, he wasn’t a fastball pitcher, he was more of an off speed guy. He was good enough to make the All-Star Game in the 1978 season, but that year ended prematurely in what would have been a perfect LOLMets manner had Twitter existed then. He gave up a hit to Pete Rose in the game in which he tied the record for the longest hitting streak in NL history. When he was pulled from that game later on, he attempted to kick a helmet in frustration. He missed & instead kicked the cement dugout steps, breaking his toe & ending his season. He finished his career in 1985 with a W-L record just above .500 & an ERA+ just above 100. There’s no shame in any of that. Zachry died at the age of 71.

This week we also lost 1950’s R&B singer Clarence “Frogman” Henry. His nickname came from the fact that he could make his voice sound like, well, a frog. He had a big hit with Ain’t Got No Home, which was one of those great tracks that could have only come from New Orleans and has since become one of the most reliable needle drops from that era. A few years later he had another hit with I Don’t Know Why (But I Do.) He rarely performed outside of New Orleans in the last several decades of his life - I honestly did not even realize that he was still alive - but in his brief time in the national spotlight he gave us some of the most unique music ever made. Henry was 87, he had a voice, and he loved to sing.

The Streaming Orphans - Picket Fences

One of the bigger drawbacks of a show’s lack of availability is the danger of it becoming memory holed. It’s one thing for a show that was fairly low profile when it initially aired. But Picket Fences, which drifts further away from public awareness as time rolls on, was a big deal at the time. Not that it was a ratings hit, but it was an awards magnet. It won several of the more prestigious Emmys! It was the first solo success for producer David E. Kelley! It provided an early role for one of the finest actors of his time!

Set in the fictional town of Rome, Wisconsin, it shared some superficial DNA with the likes of Twin Peaks or Northern Exposure. Quirky characters and odd situations seem to have been drawn to this town. The stars were Tom Skerritt as the sheriff, and Kathy Baker as his wife & the town doctor. The often unusual crimes frequently inspired thoughtful discussions on social issues. One watchdog group had once described it as the most liberal show on television - it was meant as a criticism - but I felt that was an overly simple description. Yes, the arguments more often than not concluded in favor of the liberal side of an issue, but both sides were usually well presented, and the characters would often question their own beliefs before coming to the resolution.

The show was best known for its courtroom scenes, more specifically the theatrics of Fyvush Finkel as the flamboyant crusading defense attorney Douglas Wambaugh. Ray Walston’s Judge Bone was the arguably most patient man on television, but there was a lived-in professional relationship between the two. It was obvious that Bone had been dealing with these courtroom shenanigans for decades, yet there was still a noticeable respect between the two parties. Around halfway through the show’s 4 season run, a new DA was introduced, who found himself befuddled by what he was seeing; this character was portrayed by none other than a young Don Cheadle. He wasn’t the only future star in the cast; Skerritt’s oldest daughter was portrayed by a pre-Charmed Holly Marie Combs.

As I mentioned, Picket Fences was a regular presence at the Emmys. It won Best Drama twice, Kathy Baker won Best Lead Actress three times, and Finkel, Walston, and Leigh Taylor-Young each picked up at least one trophy for themselves. As is sometimes the case with shows not on any streaming service, you can find episodes on YouTube of varying quality. It’s worth a search, this was a great one.

SNL Preview

I’ve become convinced that Ryan Gosling is an elaborate practical joke that God is playing on the male population. It’s fine for one man to be that handsome. It’s fine for one man to be that talented. It’s fine for one man to be that charming. All 3 for the same man is just overkill.

If you’ve been reading me for long enough you probably know how I feel about excessive breaking on SNL, but for some reason it doesn’t bother me as much when Gosling does it. It feels to me like he’s taking the opportunity to cast away his Serious Actor side and indulge in his Playfully Silly side, channeling the muscles he used in The Nice Guys. Having said that, for me the memorable stuff he’s done in his past SNL stints have not come from his incessant giggling in the alien abduction sketches. Instead I liked the way he has brought his actorly vibes into sketches such as Papyrus, or the Christmas sketch where he & Vanessa Bayer obsessed over Santa. I’m hoping for more of that this weekend. Chris Stapleton is this week’s musical guest.

Closing Laughs

And that closes my Doogie Howser diary for another week. Have a great weekend everyone, and let’s do this again on Monday.