Wednesday Newsletter
The 50 Game Update
About a week or so ago, I figured that this would be a good day for some sort of State Of the Mets report. We’re almost 1/3 of the way through the season, so enough time has passed that sample sizes are becoming more meaningful. I can’t do that without being overly nihilistic, this season has been so deflating that I could simply make my personal slogan for this year - The 2024 Mets: I Could Use A Hug. (Short version - they just cannot score runs. I still have confidence that Francisco Lindor will heat up, but Jeff McNeil’s slump has run for more than 200 games. It’s clear by now that this is who he is. The pitching staff gives up way too many walks, which means that the starters don’t go deep, which means that the bullpen is already looking a little gassed. Is it time to pull a page out of 2015 playbook & fire up the Kelly Johnson Bat Signal?)
As for the rest of the league, so much can happen between now and September; and we all know by now that Rob Manfred’s Piece Of Metal doesn’t necessarily go to the best team. It goes to the team that is playing best in October, which isn’t the same thing. With that out of the way, 5 teams have clearly separated themselves from the pack. The Braves, Dodgers, Orioles, Phillies, and Yankees are the class of the field so far.
Looking back at my preseason picks, boy did I underestimate Baltimore’s ability to build on their success from last year. Ornithology has been my great weakness this season; I thought highly of the Blue Jays and Cardinals. and both are making me look extremely foolish. I did think that both the Rangers and Diamondbacks would suffer from a bit of a World Series hangover, and that has been happening so far.
We are also already at the point in which begrudging respect goes to the 1962 Mets, 1899 Cleveland Spiders, 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, whichever club you choose as your avatar for historic futility. As inept as this year’s White Sox have been, they have proven how difficult it is to be that bad for an entire season. They went on a mini “hot” streak, so at this moment they are well above the paces of the aforementioned teams. Their places in infamy appear safe for another year.
Next Year’s Class?
With the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2024 all set & patiently awaiting the induction ceremony, it’s never too early to take a peek at next year’s potential honorees. FutureRockLegends.com has long been a valuable resource for all things Hall-related, and there is a section on the website which includes future eligibility dates for practically every artist that you could think of.
Two things upon looking at that: 1) next year’s list of first year eligibles is not particularly strong, and 2) Hall voters are only a couple of years away from needing to have the uncomfortable discussion about Kanye West. As to the first point, it’s evident that 2025 is going to be one of those catch-up years. Next year’s class figures to primarily consist of acts that have either been previously passed over or not considered before now.
The Hall does not release voting totals, but one note did come out shortly following this year’s class announcement. The reason that there were 8 inductees this year was that the artists with the 7th and 8th highest vote totals were so close that it made the most sense to include both, but there was a huge drop from #8 to #9. Because of that it’s unlikely that any artist from this year’s ballot will carry over to the next one.
That means I would strongly suspect that some of the more surprising omissions from the most recent ballots are likely to get a second look - Beck, Cyndi Lauper, the White Stripes, etc. I’m almost pleading the committee to argue for others that have shockingly not even been nominated to this point - OutKast, the B-52’s, Salt-N-Pepa. Was Warren Zevon one of those “let’s give him one chance” only nominees, or is there still hope? Or how about some other artists that were a major part of the 1990’s zeitgeist, yet I have rarely heard much chatter about their Hall chances - the Wu-Tang Clan, Smashing Pumpkins, Nas? What are the chances that the 2025 ballot will include exactly zero of the names that I just mentioned? That’s a big part of what is so maddening about the process; there are dozens upon dozens of deserving acts. It’s literally impossible to honor them all. (Yet another reason why I’m so irked about Foreigner & Frampton.)
50 Years Ago - The Groove Tube
Technically, The Groove Tube is a 1974 movie, but because it had multiple rereleases, it actually belongs to several different years. I myself saw it in the theater in 1977 as part of a double feature with The Kentucky Fried Movie. I can’t believe that an usher actually allowed me to see that one. It earned its R rating.
The Groove Tube was a series of sketches assembled into a movie. Part of the reason for its rereleases into theaters was the fact that it was a clear influence on early Saturday Night Live. The brainchild of former child actor turned underground comic Ken Shapiro, much of the material really pushed the envelope, not always in a good way. As an example, one sketch was a PSA concerning VD which featured a talking penis. No, it wasn’t a puppet. They actually drew a face on some dude’s member. Not every piece was quite that crass, but it gives you an idea of the tone. A better example, and one for which I’m a little more comfortable in sharing the clip, involved a TV clown reading erotic fiction to his audience of children. The production values demonstrate what the movie as a whole was like. The low lighting makes it seem like it was shot in somebody’s dingy basement, which it very well may have been.
There were two cast members who went on to bigger things in later years. The spotlight sketch in the movie was a lengthy one entitled The Dealers. It was a TV show parody about two drug pushers who had gotten their hands on a massive amount of weed. Over the course of the sketch, they wind up losing almost all of it. One of the two dealers was portrayed by a young Richard Belzer.
I mentioned the SNL influence - one of the other cast members in this movie was a pre-fame Chevy Chase. Interestingly enough, the movie also included a news show parody. The joke was that the camera still continued to run well after the anchor had signed off and he was stuck squirming uncomfortably in his anchor chair for an absurdly long time. Now, Chase was not the anchor, but the sign off line on the newscast was “good night & have a pleasant tomorrow” which was the same line that both Chase and Jane Curtin would use on Weekend Update.
I haven’t seen The Groove Tube since that initial viewing when I was a kid. Since much of the humor was predicated on shock value, I would hazard a guess that this movie has not aged well at all. Even back then it paled in comparison to the Kentucky Fried Movie, which I have rewatched since, and has its share of cringeworthy moments. There’s something to be said for the feeling that you’re getting away with something by seeing the movie equivalent of forbidden fruit. This movie was scatological in places, dopily offensive in others, sophomoric throughout. Yet it appeals to the stupid kid within each of us.
Endless Shrimp Are The New Avocado Toast
Now that Red Lobster is in grave trouble, people are attempting to shame their business plan. Sure, endless shrimp sounds like a classic loss leader, but did they not take standard American gluttony into account? We have a whole nation of Costanzas that are running the risk of forcing the ocean to run out of shrimp. Just like millennials’ inability to afford house ownership is due to a lot more than avocado toast consumption, so is the Red Lobster saga not quite that simple. We have enough recent examples of how private equity has damaged long running businesses. It might be a good idea to point at least a few fingers in that direction.
If the upcoming closures of several restaurants is the start of the death knell for Red Lobster it is far from the first chain of this type to suffer such a fate. I don’t believe I ever actually ate at a Red Lobster, but in my younger days my friends and I frequently dined at Beefsteak Charlie’s, and there are some noticeable similarities between the two. Red Lobster isn’t where you would go for top quality seafood, but Beefsteak Charlie’s wasn’t marketed to people with gourmet palates either. When you’re a college student with no money, would you really know or care about what a good steak is supposed to taste like? As long as it’s cheap & edible it’s all good, plus you get all the beer, wine or sangria you can drink. There was even a free shrimp and salad bar! They avoided the Red Lobster shrimp issue, because the shrimp they served was peel & eat. As enticing as unlimited free shrimp is, you can only peel so many before it turns tedious.
So, I have not come to bury Red Lobster, I have come to praise it. Each generation of young people with limited budgets will always have their own restaurant chain in which they can enjoy a fun, cheap night out with their friends. I can’t honestly say that I had “good” meals at Beefsteak Charlie’s, but I always had fun meals, and that is good in its own way.
Jim Otto
Hall Of Fame Oakland Raiders center Jim Otto died earlier this week at the age of 86. Known for his durability, he was also the poster child for the brutal toll that playing football takes on the human body long before the ongoing concern over head trauma developed.
Way back in 1985, HBO aired a documentary called Disposable Heroes: The Other Side Of Football. It dealt with the lingering orthopedic problems that so many former players have to deal with in their retirement years. The primary focus was on Jim Otto, and the daily agonizing process that he needed to go through simply to get out of bed in the morning, his body having been terribly battered from all those collisions. Look at that date again - 1985. That means that not only was he suffering terribly for years before this program was shot, but he lived with that pain for almost 40 additional years afterward.
Was it worth it? Athletes are wired differently than the rest of us are, so I would suspect that his answer was yes. There are a lot of reasons why I stopped watching football years ago, but the biggest one is that I just don’t feel right watching these men destroy themselves for my enjoyment. I get a real “are you not entertained?” vibe. (And if you’re asking why then do I enjoy racing, it’s that the assorted racing organizations are constantly improving the safety for both cars and tracks. You can only do so much for football. Players are going to continue to get larger and faster, which will only increase the intensity of the collisions.)
Otto was just a bit before my time, so the biggest eye opener for me was one of my favorite players as a young fan - Earl Campbell. He was a powerful runner, and NFL Films loves that footage of him dragging defenders on his back as fights for each yard. Playing with that intensity was naturally going to result in a short career; as great as he was he was finished by the time he turned 30. It was a sobering experience to see him only a few years later; hobbled, and barely able to move without difficulty. The reason why I loved watching him play was the exact reason why he deteriorated into having the physical condition of a septuagenarian while he was only in his late thirties.
That’s not even getting into the head injury issue. What finally broke me was wha happened to Junior Seau. It was a similar situation; I so admired the way he never took a play off, but he paid for it years later. As was the case with too many former football players, when he took his own life he intentionally shot himself in the chest so that his brain could be preserved for medical study.
I hope this doesn’t sound as if I’m being judgmental towards football fans. I know exactly why people love it so; it’s an exciting sport. I just find it too uncomfortable to enjoy.
Closing Laughs
That’s all for today. Have a terrific day everyone and let’s do this all over again on Friday.
