Greatest Song Evah 4/14/23
Where The Streets Have No Name
I’m not sure if there was a more eagerly anticipated album from my college years than The Joshua Tree. The groundwork had already been laid, as The Unforgettable Fire came out early in my freshman year & I swear you could hear it coming out of virtually every dorm room on campus. That’s the album in which they graduated from MTV/college radio staples to major mainstream stardom. They cemented that over the next two and a half years, so that by the time With Or Without You came out in advance of the album release, even Top 40 radio was all over it.
And the full album more than lived up to all expectations, expanding on the signature production that Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno had developed on the previous release. This week’s selection opened the album perfectly, with that synth line gradually leading into The Edge’s echo laden guitar riff, finally exploding into the full band arrangement as Bono starts to sing. I was Assistant Music Director at my college station when the album came out, and although there were some mixed feelings as it seemed like we had lost one of “our” bands to the masses, there was no denying the disc was overflowing with banger after banger. We went around 6 or 7 tracks deep on this one.
After its release U2 went from being a big band to arguably the biggest band in the world. It’s worth noting the audacity of the video; I believe there may have been an earlier band that also filmed an impromptu rooftop concert before the police shut it down. That aping of the Beatles was an early sign that they would soon grow increasingly self important over the following years until rediscovering their sense of humor around the time of Achtung Baby. If I can channel my inner High Fidelity and revisit the scene in which Rob was asked to name his Top 5 Side 1 Track 1’s, this would be one of my first choices.
Checking In On Small Sample Size Theatre
It bears repeating that we’re still quite a ways away from drawing any reasonable conclusions from early season play. There’s no better example than that of Sandy Alcantara. He’s coming off of a Cy Young season & is generally considered to be one of the best pitchers in the game. In his second start of the year age he pitched a 3-hit shutout against the Twins, needing only 100 pitches to do so. (Because he threw exactly 100, it wasn’t technically a Maddux. Oh, so close.) Yet at the moment his season ERA is well above 5 & his WAR is O. Why? Because the Phillies rocked him in his third start. No need to panic, a few more starts & his stats should revert to normal.
Having said that, I am enjoying what I’ve seen so far from Tampa Bay. Not because I believe they’ll keep this pace up, they will eventually lose a game. Looking at the schedule, there are a couple of games in June that seem shaky. The leap forward that Wander Franco is working on is such a joy to watch. Because he missed so much time due to injury last year, he fell through the cracks to some extent and slipped out of the discussion of the game’s future superstars. Many people somehow already forgot how good he is & how good he promises to be. But so far he is raking, reminding everyone that he fully belongs to be included in that Soto/Vlad/Acuna category of brilliant young talents who figure to be the major stars of the next decade.
As it is, we will all need to shortly reconfigure the list of baseball’s greatest Francos which currently stands as such:
1) Julio
2) John
3) Giuseppe (iykyk)
4) Matt
5) Maikel
Another Milestone Season, Another Greatest Of List
Late in 2021 the NBA celebrated its 75th anniversary season by revealing its list of the 75 greatest players in league history. It actually turned out to be 76 names long. The league’s explanation was that after the voting there was a tie for the final slot, so rather than come up with some sort of tiebreaker they simply included both. That’s plausible, but I believe the more likely reason was that one of the men who had been on the earlier 50 greatest list had fallen short this go around, and rather than embarrass one man the league chose to grandfather everyone from the 50 greatest onto the 75 greatest. Nothing wrong with that; the purpose of an anniversary celebration such as this is to celebrate history and keeping alive the name of an early league legend who may otherwise slip through the cracks of history is an honorable endeavor.
This year is NASCAR’s 75th anniversary, and they already announced that every man who made the 50 Greatest Drivers list 25 years ago is automatically part of the 75 Greatest Drivers list. NASCAR will simply add 25 new names, which they started revealing late last week and will gradually do so over the next few weeks until all have been named. The one minor quibble I have with the way in which NASCAR honors its past is similar to the way they choose Hall of Fame recipients. The 75 greatest cover all of their series, not just the Cup series. I won’t disparage the qualifications of a great driver from the truck series or the Xfinity series; anyone who drives a race car for a living is a bigger badass than I can ever hope to be. It just feels like including a successful driver from a lower series implies that he is on par with a Cup driver. It’s as if MLB would include a great AAA hitter on a list of the all-time greats. Anyhoo, the final scroll of names will be completed by early May. Then it will be time to open up the debate to see who was left off that would be deserving. Sorry, sickos, but Dick Trickle has no shot.
When Is The Right Time To Step Aside?
Dianne Feinstein’s prolonged absence from the Senate grows increasingly newsworthy with each passing day. The calls for her to resign continue to get louder and louder and her reluctance to do so is somewhat damaging. Her inability to be physically present in the Judicial Committee means that the Democrats have been unable to approve judges. (She is taking steps to temporarily remove herself from that panel, but there’s no sign that she intends to leave the Senate.)
There have been plenty of whispers that she is no longer mentally capable of serving. I have no idea if she is as far gone as Strom Thurmond was at the end, but this continues to raise the question of at which point these men and women need to be realistic about their physical and mental abilities. Feinstein was 85 when she ran for her current term. There had to have been people trying to talk her out of it. Now, if she does need to step aside, or worse, Gavin Newsom is in an impossible situation. There are already multiple Democratic members of Congress who will be running for that seat next year. What can Newsom possibly do if he needs to choose a replacement for Feinstein? Whomever he chooses would then go into 2024 with a huge advantage. This all could have been easily avoided had she retired when she should have.
The first “this person is too old” campaign I can clearly remember was back in 1980, and it’s not the one you may be thinking of. Jacob Javits was running for re-election to the Senate, & at that point he had already been diagnosed with ALS. In the Republican primary, Al D’Amato had made a central point of his campaign the fact that Javits would be unlikely to survive a six-year term. I was only 14 years old in 1980, so my political beliefs were not yet fully formed, although even at that point I recognized that I had liberal leanings. But even at that young age I found D’Amato’s proclamations very tasteless. Of course, D’Amato went on to win both the primary and the general election, and he was also proven right as Javits did in fact pass away before what would have been the end of that term.
All of the blame for this need not entirely be laid at the feet of the candidates; voters bear some responsibility as well. This talking point will unfortunately be very prominent next year, as it is very likely that the Presidential election will come down to a race between an octogenarian incumbent and a septuagenarian challenger who himself is far from the picture of health. There will be a lot of discussion surrounding the health of both men as the campaign proceeds. Not looking forward to the sheer number of bad faith arguments we’re gonna have to sit through.
Get That Hepcat Out Of The Dugout
Michael Kay had to practically fan himself earlier this week when the camera showed a batboy in the Yankees dugout at a game in Cleveland who looked like he could be the bass player in a Kansas cover band. Someone wearing the Yankee uniform with (gasp!) facial hair and (horrors!) long hair! Egads! Of course, as Jay Jaffe pointed out on Twitter, batboys don’t travel with the team, the Guardians supply the batboy. But there’s no need to let inconvenient facts get in the way of a good rant.
I always get a kick out of seeing introductory press conferences for a former Yankee who has signed with a new team. Much more often they are wearing newly grown beards as they introduce themselves to their new team. It’s almost as if players don’t like the team’s restrictive grooming policy. It’s mind boggling that the team still stubbornly refuses to ease their harsh restrictions. I still maintain that there was only one scenario that would enable a team to come back from an 0-3 postseason deficit and that is a band of loose, self-described idiots mounting a nothing left to lose comeback against a team that’s all business and unable to relax. The 2004 celebration looked a lot like the 1980 Olympic hockey tournament, with the Yankees looking as stunned as the Soviet Red Army team. “This isn’t right. We can’t lose!”
To be fair, the franchise is not quite as corporate and buttoned down as they had been, but they still have too much of a “lighten up, Francis!” vibe. Guys, the world won’t end if a player has a beard. The Yankee Way brings back memories of my grammar school days in which the nuns would closely inspect us to make sure no hair was touching our collar. It’s OK to treat major league players like adults.
SNL Preview
On the heels of her first Oscar nomination Ana de Armas is making her initial appearance as show host. This makes her the 4th consecutive female host, which shouldn’t be notable but it is another welcome change from the show’s longtime issues in regards to gender. She falls in the “star having a major moment” category, as the show is capitalizing on her increased visibility and she she is likely using this as an opportunity to show more of her talents to the audience.
I’m not sure how this one is going to go. She’s got talent, but there is not much comedy in her filmography so far. Serious Actors have a mixed history, Russell Crowe’s hosting stint traumatized a nation. Knives Out shows that she can do lighthearted; live sketch comedy is something different entirely. I’ll go into this one feeling optimistic.
What About The Ides Of April?
I’ll say it, beware the Ides of April. In the meantime, thanks for reading and have a great weekend everybody.