Greatest Song Evah 6/28/24

Paper Planes

The 2024 version of M.I.A. is someone whom you do not want to Google - she is literally selling tin foil hats - but in her heyday she was one of the most exciting artists in the biz, and her most commercially successful single was her best as well. Paper Planes is slightly uncharacteristic of most of her other work; she largely specializes in high energy dance tracks with lots of electronic flourishes, whereas this song is much more downtempo.

Built around a prominent sample from The Clash along with perfectly placed cash register and gunshot sound effects, this song is both satirical and heartfelt. The lyrics play upon many of the stereotypes people have about immigrants, more specifically an assumption that immigrants with brown skin must be criminals. That sadly makes the song as timely as it was when it was initially released back in 2008.

I love all of the little flourishes in this song. I mentioned the sound effects, but the children’s voices in the chorus add a lot as well. So does M.I.A.’s cadence. A British native who grew up in her parents’ native Sri Lanka, her voice has a certain mishmash of dialects and accents. I love the way she pronounces the word “bongs” for example. It sounds a bit off kilter, which is wonderful. I also always appreciate a good “I’ve got more ___ than ___” line in a rap song, so kudos to her for coming up with “I’ve got more records than the KGB.” Well played.

For a multitude of reasons it was always a certainty that M.I.A.’s US stardom would not last long, but the impact of this song has lasted, right down to the fact that it was sampled itself for an even bigger hit a few years later - the Jay-Z/T.I. collaboration Swagga Like Us, for which she joined them in a Grammy performance when she was nearly 9 months pregnant.

Welcome To the NBA

I have to say that I can’t remember an NBA Draft that I had less interest in than this year’s. Part of it is due to the fact that I severely cut down on the amount of regular season college basketball that I watched this year, so I am largely unfamiliar with many of the players chosen. Part of it is due to the fact that scouts have been almost unanimous is saying that is one of the weaker draft crops in some time. So, good for the 58 men who were selected over the past 2 days. Prove me wrong.

One thing we learned is that the French national team will be a force to be reckoned with for some time. 3 of the top 6 picks, including the first 2, are Frenchmen. None of them are on the roster for this year’s Olympics, but all that means is that there will be a continuing influx of young talent on that team. Team USA & Team France figure to have several memorable battles over the next few Olympic and World Cup tournaments.

As for the most notable 2nd round pick in this year’s draft, please don’t be too hard on Bronny James. I can’t imagine how much pressure comes with being the son of one of the 2 greatest players in league history. Would he have been better off staying in college a second year to improve his game, especially considering that he missed important developmental time while he was recovering from his cardiac incident? Probably, but then again, if you were in his shoes, would you risk another health scare? Better to jump right into the pros & strike while the iron is hot. Most pre-draft rankings had him somewhere in the mid 50’s, which so happened to be where the Lakers had a second round pick. That meant that he landed right around where scouts thought he should, but even if his selection was largely done to make his father happy, so what? Do you think the Bucks have kept Thanasis Antetokounmpo on their roster for 5 seasons & counting because they think he’s an irreplaceable role player?

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Stacks

I am a voracious reader, so there are a lot of writers on Substack whom I enjoy reading. I figure this would be a good time to share some of my favorite reads that can be found on this platform. Some of these are free, some are free with an option to pay, and some require paid subscriptions with one free edition per week.

I’ll start with the 2 Substacks that I try to read almost immediately upon receiving a notice that the writer has posted something new. Joe Posnanski just may be my favorite sportswriter, and his Joe Blogs is a consistently entertaining read. He is roughly the same age I am, and as a result we share many of the same, shall we say, obsessions. No joke, there have been at least 2 occasions in which I had an idea on a topic that I had been planning to write about, only to see that he wrote about the exact same thing before I had a chance to do so. That puts the kibosh on my plans; he is an infinitely better writer than I am, so there would no longer be any reason for me to proceed.

Molly Knight’s The Long Game is another great read. Her observations and her sense of humor are both spot on, and she conveys so well what it is that we as baseball fans love about the game. I would heartily recommend splurging for a paid subscription on her publication; she has created a wonderful community among her paid followers - twice weekly live chats, a weekly Zoom call, and a book club. Even better, she organized a meetup of her subscribers when she visited New York last month, at which I had a wonderful time. I will also say this - Molly is an Objectively Good Person. In our current times, we need to do all we can to allow good people to succeed.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has got a great Substack of his own. Going back to his playing days it was always clear that he is an exceptionally smart man, and that comes across in his Stack as well. He writes intelligently about a wide range of topics, and he also demonstrates an affinity for an eclectic mix of movies and music.

You can probably guess where I roll on the political spectrum, so the people whom I follow that write about politics have a liberal bent. Heather Cox Richardson does a nightly wrapup of some of the most important stories of the day. Kevin Kruse adds vital historical perspective to the issues. Aaron Rupar’s Public Notice uses a variety of writers, each with their own unique perspective. Margaret Sullivan’s American Crisis deals with media criticism, specifically focusing on the importance in this election of keeping a close eye on “the stakes, not the odds.” If you’re looking for something blunt & unvarnished, look no further than Are You F’ng Kidding Me? by Jo Jo From Jerz. The title of her Substack tells you that she has no f***s left to give.

There are also a few pop culture oriented newsletters that I recommend. Type click type from Brian Grubb is so wonderfully unique; no one else looks at things quite like he does. If you want keen insight on the Jardiance commercials, you’re in luck. I like the weekly What’s Alan Watching? newsletter from Rolling Stone TV critic Alan Sepinwall. Michael Ian Black has long been one of my favorite Twitter feeds, and his Substack has a similar vibe.

An old friend & colleague from my college radio days, John McDermott, has worked in media his entire professional life - terrestrial radio, satellite, and now podcasting. His Media Thoughts newsletter has a lot of inside baseball talk about the process, as well as some terrific anecdotes about his career. Certainly worth a read.

There are a few other Substacks that I read on a regular basis, but this is a good primer. Anyone else have any newsletters you read which are worth recommending?

Thank Goodness For YouTube

It seems appropriate that today I’m adding another entry in my streaming orphans feature, as the Grim Reaper Of The Internets has struck again. In yet another cost cutting, tax write-off scenario, Paramount has shuttered several websites in its portfolio and therefore scrubbed a tremendous amount of worthy material off of the web. The websites for MTV News, Comedy Central, and CMT are all gone, and with it, decades worth of content.

This hurts. As always you can find stray footage if you do a deep dive down a YouTube rabbit hole, but it’s a search and ye shall find thing. Otherwise the complete archive of The Colbert Report is gone. Except for the recent episodes that are on Paramount+, the archive of The Daily Show is gone. That, and so much more, is a real loss to our collective culture. In the never ending battle between art & commerce, commerce is always going to win, but why does it have to be such a one-sided battle?

The Streaming Orphans - Not Necessarily The News

Beginning with The Larry Sanders Show, HBO became known as the home of prestige TV, particularly during the “It’s not TV, it’s HBO” era. Much of the pre-Sanders HBO programming has faded from view with the exception of stray YouTube clips. It makes a certain amount of sense why HBO didn’t bother to maintain ownership of the older material, a lot of it was low rent.

Not Necessarily the News was one of those first generation HBO originals. It was a sketch series focusing almost entirely on current events, which is a major reason why there’s no rush for a streaming service to obtain its rights. I would suspect that there are not many people in 2024 eager to hear some good Caspar Weinberger jokes. NNTN’s signature trick was to take existing news footage and add in new audio to form the jokes. It was fairly mild satire, which is why I was very surprised to see some of the names on the writing staff. Merrill Markoe? Greg Daniels? Al Jean? Conan O’Brien? Damn, that’s a lot of talent.

In spite of its focus on the news - and its version of Weekend Update filled up the majority of the running time in each episode - if the show is remembered at all today it is due to the fact that it introduced the concept of the sniglet. A recurring premise presented by Rich Hall, a sniglet was any word that should be in the dictionary but isn’t. It introduced words for such things as the black sludge that forms on ketchup bottles, the act of mailing a letter & then opening the mail slot a second time to make sure it went through, and the act of pretending to read the message on a greeting card when all you really want to do is look at the amount on the check. Some of the content was sent in by viewers, and as you can see from the attached clip, sometimes a sniglet even caught on as an actual term.

All told, the show ran for 8 seasons on HBO. It was part of an era which also gave us the softcore porn of The Hitchhiker, the perpetual f***fest that was seen in Dream On, the intentionally over the top cartoonish violence of Tales From the Crypt, and whatever the hell First and Ten was. Each of these shows have their fans, and I still have a lot of affection for Tales From the Crypt. I wouldn’t call NNTN a great show, or say that it’s a tragedy that it’s not streamable, but it had its moments.

Closing Laughs

Hey everyone, it’s the weekend! Have a good one & I’ll see you all again on Monday. Don’t forget the sunscreen.