Greatest Song Evah 7/26/24

Vacation Time

Quick note before proceeding with our regularly scheduled programming. I’m taking next week off from Tending the Herd. I realized that with the exception of an occasional off Monday following a holiday weekend, I haven’t taken any breaks from writing the newsletter. So, I’ll take next week off to recharge. I might pop in for a brief note if something big happens that’s worth commenting on, but if not, I’ll be back the first week in August.

Girl Of My Dreams

When Elvis Costello was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Elton John served as his presenter. At one point in his speech Elton mentioned that it was awfully cheeky for Declan McManus to make Elvis his stage name. What does that say about Peter Bramall? It’s absolutely ballsy to use Bram Tchaikovsky as his stage name. At least Costello could claim shared musical DNA with Elvis Presley. There were no musical similarities between Bram Tchaikovsky and the famed Russian composer Pyotr.

Bram Tchaikovsky the man and his eponymous band were purveyors of power pop. It’s somewhat surprising that such a hook-laden musical form has only enjoyed sporadic success on American Top 40 radio. But for some reason catchy tunes, tight harmonies, and riffs that are loud but not too loud only had intermittent moments in the sun. One such moment came around 1979-80, when some classics of the genre made a foothold. As an example, it was in this time frame when Nick Lowe had his sole American hit single. So too with Bram Tchaikovsky.

Girl Of My Dreams briefly scraped the bottom of Billboard’s Top 40, but that was enough to get a mention from Casey Kasem. This is a simply fantastic record; the opening guitar chords kick it in gear immediately, and it has the perfect driving drum beat along with impeccable vocal harmonies. The following may sound like I’m dropping shade, but I mean this as a high compliment. This record almost sounds like it was designed in a lab to create a paragon of power pop.

This song only peaked at #37 in the United States, and it didn’t leave much of a cultural footprint either. That makes it a bit of a lost classic; I would suspect that in 2024 it’s mostly aficionados who either recall the song or who can name the artist. I insist that it deserves to be remembered as one of the best records of its time. After all, a man needs something when he ain’t got nothing to hold onto.

Dems In Array

“I am not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” - Will Rogers

There’s a good reason why that quote has resonated so well for nearly a century. Dare I say that the party has actually gotten its s*** together this time?

I gotta say, the way all involved have handled Joe Biden’s withdrawal has been very impressive. I had so many mixed emotions following his debate performance. I knew that even if you accepted the assorted excuses/explanations for his poor showing, the damage was likely irreparable. At the same time, I’ve witnessed the Democratic circular firing squad enough times to know that any attempt to replace him at the head of the ticket would be the clusterf*** of all clusterf***s. That’s not what happened.

The actual sequence of events could not have been choreographed any better. I was one of those who thought the best timing for a formal withdrawal would have been shortly before you know who’s acceptance speech at the RNC. Stealing the spotlight would have driven him bonkers. It’s just as well that Biden did not; The Former Guy wound up rambling endlessly in a torrent of incoherence.

That set the stage for Biden to surprise everyone, Wolf Blitzer in particular, with a Sunday afternoon social media post. What was notable was that he let the initial shock set in & then waited about an hour or so to release a separate statement in which he threw his full support behind Kamala Harris. Others followed, but more importantly, not all at once.

The first to publicly announce their endorsements for Harris were mostly the handful of Dems whom most observers would have considered Harris’s chief rivals for the nomination. With all reasonable alternatives in unanimous agreement that they were fully behind Harris, it was only a matter of time for the remaining prominent Democrats to follow suit. But instead of a tsunami of endorsements, they came in drips and drabs. It seemed like every half hour a new alert would come stating “X has now endorsed Kamala Harris.” That not only served to keep the developing story prominent, but it has also been a constant demonstration of unity within the party. The last major domino standing fell last night with a late-night endorsement from Barack and Michelle Obama. This has been a master class of how to maintain a positive spin on the story.

As optimistic as I have been over the past 5 days, I’m also realistic enough to know that the election is still around 100 days away, which is an eternity. The enthusiasm within the party is off the charts, but it will eventually subside & we all need to keep our hands on the wheel. A lot can happen between now & then, and even though the GOP is currently flailing, eventually the attack dogs will be on the case and they will find ways to criticize Harris on issues more substantial than OMG, she actually laughs in public. On the other hand, now that Biden has dropped out the age and mental deterioration of the Republican nominee is all too apparent. Really, what is up with his Hannibal Lecter obsession? Plus, things such as the details of Project 2025 and JD Vance’s fixation on people without children are going to be a huge turnoff for the voters in swing states that will decide the election.

Presidential primary season is an odd time for most people. No matter how many candidates run, the winnowing process usually ends fairly early. I live in New York, and our primary takes place late on the calendar. I can count on one hand the number of times the race was still competitive by the time it’s my turn to cast a ballot. So, my reaction when candidates jump in the race is something to the effect of “oh, I like this person.” If they’re still running when it’s primary time in New York, great. In the early stages of the 2020 campaign Harris was in the top tier of my personal preferred candidates, so I was somewhat disappointed that she dropped out early. I was so pleased that Biden chose her as his running mate, and not just because she & I both wear Chucks. I am very happy and enthused that she will be the nominee with little drama attached, and I have all the confidence in the world that she will be able to fight back against any and all unwarranted attacks from the other side. As a bonus, she is young enough that there’s only a small chance that she will have a “how do you do, fellow kids?” moment of cringe.

The winning move will be to get her to appear on Hot Ones. “You call this spicy?”What the GOP needs to do is keep Vance away from the couches. (Seriously, the best part of the JD Vance couch rumor is that he and his ilk are such a bunch of weirdo freaks that the story almost seems plausible.) One final note: Be sure to pronounce her name correctly; it’s easy to do so. A couple days ago there was a mini-scandal when it appeared that Brian Kilmeade used the word “colored,” later insisting that he actually said “college.” I don’t want to get into another What Color Is The Dress debate, but this was undeniable. He clearly botched the pronunciation of Kamala. She has been in the public eye long enough that if you can’t be bothered to properly pronounce her name, you’re clearly making a choice and telling on yourself.

The Next Few Olympics

There was a long-time rhythm to the selection of an Olympic host city. After multiple potential cities complete the bribing process - my bad, I meant to say bidding process; and with the open levels of corruption in that organization I’m stunned that Bob Menendez was never a member of the IOC - a flashy announcement would be held 7 years before the Games in which the IOC president opened up an envelope to reveal the winner. That process has not existed for the last several cycles.

That is largely due to the fact that as the schedule of events has increased in size the Games have become so massive that there are few cities which have the capability of holding an Olympics. Athens was a perfect case in point. There was a keen interest in returning the Games to its ancestral home towards the end of the last century. Perhaps celebrate the centennial of the modern games with an Athens 1996? Or how about a millennial celebration at Athens 2000? The naysayers pointed out that as enticing as that sounded, modern Athens is much too small of a city to handle it. The city did finally host the 2004 Games, and did a reasonably well job, but it’s apparent that the Olympics will never again be staged in a city that small. It’s megalopolis or bust.

The Winter Games have a similar problem. For decades the ideal locales were small mountain villages, but the larger program of events requires locations with larger footprints. That’s why the 2022 Games were held in Beijing, which is no one’s idea of a classic winter wonderland.

As a result it’s no longer a multi city competition for an Olympics, it’s more a case of waiting to see who is willing & able. On the eve of the Paris Games the IOC announced the hosts for 2 future Olympic Games, one of which is as far in the future as 2034. That old 7 year rule is long gone. The next decade’s worth of Games are in the pipeline. The next two Summer Olympics will be Los Angeles 2028 & Brisbane 2032. The next 2 Winter Olympics are shared events. 2026 will be split between Cortina (a traditional mountain village where the 1956 Games were previously held) & Milan. The 2030 Games will be officially branded as the French Alps Games, spread across different Alpine resorts. The Games will then return to Salt Lake City in 2034; when they were first held there in 2002 it was at the time the largest city to host a Winter Games. Now an SLC sized city is almost the minimum that would be needed for a completely self-contained Winter Olympics.

The side benefit of all of this is that it will theoretically minimize the levels of IOC corruption. If there is little to no bidding process there is little need to lavish IOC members with lobster, champagne, and yacht trips. That leaves more for Clarence Thomas.

50 Years Ago - The Parallax View

The mid-1970’s were a hotbed for paranoid political thrillers. That post-Watergate era was a fertile time for a belief that there were cabals of secretive puppet masters pulling the strings & that normal folks were essentially powerless. Movies from this era were particularly nihilistic; even if the hero survived - which wasn’t always a given - the story would end with significant personal collateral damage. Heroes were frequently betrayed by people whom they thought they could trust, and there was often a heavy death toll among the lead character’s loved ones.

The Parallax View was one of the better examples of the form. I can’t speak too much about specific plot details without being too spoilery, but the basic story surrounded a political assassination. A Senator/Presidential candidate was shot to death in the opening moments, and the alleged shooter was quickly found & killed. Viewers soon saw that the suspect was a patsy; the real killer escaped.

Months later it had turned out that the few witnesses who saw the actual shooter had begun to die under mysterious circumstances. One of the last survivors was a TV reporter portrayed by Paula Prentiss. Before her eventual death she presented the evidence she had to her ex, a newspaper reporter portrayed by Warren Beatty.

This leads Beatty down the rabbit hole, as he continues to peel the layers off of that onion throughout the remainder of the movie. I’ll say no more; it was fascinating to watch him uncover conspiracy after conspiracy as he digs deeper. The centerpiece of the film was an incredibly tense sequence in which he realizes that there is a bomb on an airplane in which he is flying.

This movie was a great showcase for Warren Beatty. He is sometimes underrated as an actor; because he tends to underplay things and because he has portrayed more than his share of Lotharios, people sometimes tend to think that he’s simply playing himself and not really acting. That’s not the case here; he rarely let himself look as vulnerable as he does here. Plus, there is some serious That Guy Alert to be seen.

Closing Laughs

That’s all for now. Thanks as always for reading, and please feel free to share & spread the word. See everyone again on August 5th.