Seems Like I've Been Lost in Let's Remember - by Aaron Moeller
The A-Train Summer Concert Series rolled on Monday night with a performance by Billy Joel in the new Sears Centre in Chicago. Through her job, my girlfriend got us free seats in a company suite of the sparkling new arena, so not only was it my first Billy Joel concert, it was also my first time in a luxury suite. Most music, it turns out, even when you’re far from the stage without a dance floor, isn't half bad when you have leather seats and free edible perks (food and booze).
This was a fortuitous concert event for us to witness, you see, because Billy Joel and I go way back. Some of my earliest audio memories came via Mr. Joel as my brother and I would frequently spin Dad’s copy of Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits on the ol’ Moeller family turntable. (Blog contributor and cousin Nick Dee’s parents also contributed to this early exposure, as did blog reader and commenter, Dave L.) The first record in our vinyl collection was a Muppets record that consisted of the fuzzy, lovable felt characters singing radio hits from the '70s. I can't remember for sure, but either Rowlf the Dog or Floyd Pepper sang "New York State of Mind". Few retained memories from my life pre-date my hearing of this recording and if anyone can track down a copy of this for me on ebay (or wherever), I will send you a crisp clean five dollar bill. (That offer does not extend to you, Dad, if the record is still buried in your basement somewhere.)
"Prelude/Angry Young Man" kicked off the show and is the best song for Joel to show off his piano chops. That is one fast song, dude. Even though the Piano Man occasionally takes some shots for his credibility as a "rock star", one who’s a bit too suburban and lacking in hedonism, compared to his more debauchery-based brethren, this song is electric. If you’re from the old time Jerry Lee Lewis school that gives credence to the piano as an acceptable lead instrument for a rock and roll band, I still don’t think you’re going to do any better than this guy, or this song. The average rock critic over-romanticizes working class rock bands anyway. I have no problem giving a classically trained pianist a chance to define his own place in the rock world. Rock and roll, you may know, belongs to everyone.
Just the same, I think Joel’s always fared better when he doesn’t stray too far from his balladeer roots. When it comes to his ear for melody, I don’t think it’s a stretch to mention his name in the same breath as a Lennon/McCartney or a Brian Wilson. This concert, unfortunately, featured neither of my two favorites. "And So It Goes" and "Lullabye (Good Night, My Angel)" are undoubtedly two of the prettiest (and saddest) songs ever recorded. The second song of the show, "My Life", swipes it’s title from an Animals tune and is the kind of masterful, rollicking, catchy pop tune that Joel could once turn out in his sleep. (It was also the theme to the old Tom Hanks sitcom, "Bosom Buddies", and perhaps the
second song I remember hearing in my life.)
In the first bit of between-song banter with the audience, Joel introduced himself as "Billy’s dad" and told us that his son would be out in a little while. From his piano, he apologized to the crowd that had seats to the side of the stage that were forced to look at his back for part of the show. He commented that although they may notice he has less hair these days, he gets a lot more head. The Angry Young Man, it seems, has grown feisty. In interviews the last few years, Joel has been quick to minimize his own artistic output – sounding sometimes a bit defensive – and frequently commenting that he doesn’t put himself in the category of the greatest rockers. To paraphrase one quote I recall reading: "If I was a young kid who only knew of me from "We Didn’t Start the Fire" or "Big Shot", I wouldn’t like me either." To the full-house, all-ages crowd on this night, however, nobody was questioning his place in the Big Book of Rock. And let’s not forget he has rock star credentials: He has both fought substance abuse
and married/divorced a supermodel.
The early part of the show consisted of unheralded tunes from Joel’s earliest albums. Songs like "Everybody Loves You Now" and the instrumental "Root Beer Rag" mixed with a couple songs I never particularly cared for, "Ballad of Billy the Kid" and "The Entertainer". But there was also better-known fare like the aforementioned "New York State of Mind" and "Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)" which gave us all a ‘70s flashback-ack-ack-ack. Song intros and interludes also referenced "Beethoven’s 9th", "Rhapsody in Blue", and "The Magnificent Seven Theme". In one song slot, the audience was given the choice of hearing either "Summer, Highland Falls", "Vienna" (which was my vote because of its one time appearance in an episode of "Taxi"), or "Captain Jack", which was the overwhelming winner. I guess any song whose lyrics so clearly name check alcohol and masturbation is going to win any popularity contest.
The song "Zanzibar" from the
52nd Street album, brought a jazzy aura to the proceedings, featuring three horns. Multi-instrumentalists are the rule in Billy Joel’s band. Longtime members include Mark Rivera, former Springsteen-sidewoman Crystal Taliefero, and a guitar player whose name I don't know but whose face I recognized from old Billy Joel videos. For some reason, drummer Liberty DeVitto, who I saw a few years back in a late ‘90s incarnation of the Rascals, is no longer in the band. "Zanzibar" was also famous in the Moeller household for its lyric about Pete Rose: "Rose he's knows he's a credit to the game/But the Yankees grab the headlines every time." (I think Chris may have mentioned something about this East coast bias on Monday.) Now he's changed the line: "Rose he knows he'll never make the Hall of Fame..." Ouch.
Then the songs became familar for even the most casual fans. I sometimes forget it, but "An Innocent Man" is a helluva good song. Joel’s 58-year-old voice is surprisingly strong on its high notes. This song and its indelible melody is also the first piece of evidence I would admit in his defense should Joel ever be tried in court for not being a great lyric writer. "Don’t Ask Me Why" is a subtle pop masterpiece, maybe Joel’s best. "Always a Woman" is, of course, also set to a gorgeous melody, with a tight lyric, and was the biggest crowd sing-along to the point that it appeared in the night’s run of hits. "Keeping the Faith" is a fine bit of ‘80s radio pop, most noteworthy for its indisputable line, "It’s wonderful to be alive when the rock and roll plays". "River of Dreams" was never my favorite, as it always sounds like a rejected song from
The Lion King soundtrack, but it had a certain charm in this live setting.
The consensus highlight of the night may well have been when Joel’s roadie, dubbed Chain Saw, made an appearance on stage and gave an "American Idol"-inspired performance of AC/DC’s "Highway to Hell". Appearing as though he ate Bon Scott (my girlfriend’s line, not mine), the big guy lumbered back and forth across the stage as the piano disappeared beneath the floor and Joel’s guitar made its first appearance.
"We Didn’t Start the Fire" found thousands trying to sing along and only a few passably succeeding. This song, I’ve learned, is utterly reviled in many rock circles. But its uncommitted politics and never-specified message aside, if you derive any enjoyment at all from singing along to radio songs, there is something undeniably satisfying about the way these rhymes and the alliteration of its lyrics roll off the tongue. I could go fifty years without hearing it, but still guarantee I could complete the line "Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, Heavy Metal..."
"Big Shot" and "It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me" brought the crowd up from their (mostly) non-leather seats and found Joel twirling his microphone stand, tossing it high in the air like he was leading a parade, then repeatedly extending it into the first few rows of the crowd for some more audience participation. Joel’s a fantastic old school entertainer and this is an inspired way to make sure you never get bored with performing your own back catalog. Then came the crash of a window breaking and the end of the main set - "You May Be Right". Turn out the lights. Don’t try to save me.
Leading off the encores, "Only the Good Die Young" again brought the horns down to the front of the stage. Then came another personal favorite, "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant". I'm an easy ticket sale to any number of musical acts, but in my day job I'm a Bruce Springsteen fan, so I’m a sucker for a song like this. It’s this sort of epic story-song, following young, doe-eyed romantics through the trials and travails of American existence by way of heartbreaking piano melodies that damn near brings me to tears every time it reaches its inevitable emotional climax. And it's just as true if I'm listening on my car radio as when I’m in a room with 10,000 of my closest friends.
Then, finally – the closer was no surprise. Springsteen has "Born to Run", the Stones have "Satisfaction", Ronnie Spector has "Be My Baby", and Dylan has "Like a Rolling Stone", but is there another artist not only identified with, but positively
defined by a song as Billy Joel is with "Piano Man"? At this point, even in older men's clothes, we’re all pretty sure how it goes.
Eleven years of free drinks, and other observations
Superblogger Ken Levine, former staff writer for "M*A*S*H" and "Cheers," is
at it again with a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the series about the bar "where everybody knows your name." In retrospect, that phone behind the bar really did move around a lot.
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I received a web link by e-mail this weekend for
the trailer of the Norway, Iowa baseball movie, "The Final Season," due in theaters this summer. The players' uniforms look dandy, but having lived on the margins of the movie's true-life tale in 1991, I don't recollect quite that many Ashton Kutcher haircuts. The Tigers look more like the Bad News Bears, circa 1976.
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During my lunch break this afternoon, I purchased that "WKRP in Cincinnati- Season 1" DVD I've been pimping on this site for so long. Will publish my evaluation soon. I was pleased to find my favorite performer, Frank Bonner/"Herb Tarlek," listed on two episode commentaries. An opportunity to catch up with him is worth the 30 bucks alone.
Randy Salas of the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune has show creator Hugh Wilson's reaction to the whole licensed music debacle, and frankly, hearing his perspective has me feeling a mite better.
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I found a new picture of baseball star Oscar Gamble's hair from the mid-1970s. (See post-before-last for initial reference.)
Enjoy.---
Moeller TV Listings: Don't miss an extraordinary journalist's
return to the tube this week. A Bill Moyers' special, "Buying the War," airs on PBS Wednesday night at 8pm central. (Check local listings.) Then, it's the return edition of "Bill Moyers Journal" Friday at 8.
The 5 most overrated moments in baseball history
You know how sometimes a little something will burrow its way under your skin and stay there for 13 years? Such it is with Ken Burns' 1994 PBS documentary "Baseball." What a terrific subject he had, and what a skilled filmmaker Burns is. His use of images, his pacing, and his alternating sense of drama and humor are so affecting, and yet the whole project was hideously imperfect-- so provincial in favor of New York City and Boston, and so handcuffed in its sensibilities towards those of the Baby Boomers.
I've been re-watching the mini-series for, I think, the fourth time this weekend, drawn to it again by the anniversary of Jackie Robinson's major league debut, and the recent championships of the Cardinals and the long-suffering Red Sox and White Sox. In "Baseball," author Roger Angell champions the old adage-- "Baseball is not life and death, but the Red Sox are"-- and no truer words have ever been spoken. One cannot live and breathe the sport
in the abstract, only through the day-to-day struggles of a favorite ballclub, and Burns, unfortunately, picked his three or four favorite teams-- or the three or four favorites of his collaborators-- to the exclusion of all the rest. I've always thought it was a good thing Burns named his next project "The West," because "Baseball" could have easily been called "The East."
You won't hear about the Waner Brothers or Harmon Killebrew or Harry Caray or "The Field of Dreams" in the 1,500 minute marathon documentary. Equal time against the almighty Yankees amounts to hilariously over-congratulatory attention for Ted Williams and the Red Sox. We get constant updates on their franchise after 1918 despite playing in only three more World Series and losing them all. Meanwhile, Burns glosses over great clubs like the 1929-1931 Philadelphia Athletics and the Cardinals franchise that produced nine National League pennants and six World Championships between 1926 and 1946. We meet the man who supposedly introduced hot dogs to baseball ballparks in Brooklyn, but we get nothing of St. Louis club owner Chris von der Ahe, who many others claim actually introduced the ballpark staple, and who
most certainly introduced beer to the ballpark, as well as the concept of a World Series.
The focus on African-American baseball is Burns' greatest achievement, but after the game is integrated in his narrative, he dusts past recognition even of black stars who played outside the Northeast like Ernie Banks, Larry Doby, and Frank Robinson. He vilifies nearly every National League team and city outside of the Big Apple for their early treatment of Jackie Robinson, but completely ignores the fact that the Yankees and Red Sox were two of the last three big-league teams to integrate. The pennant-winning "Bums" of Brooklyn in 1941 are judged worthy of a 20-minute featurette, but the Philadelphia "Whiz Kids" of 1950 and the "Go-Go (White) Sox" of 1959 never existed. The towering playing careers of Stan Musial and Pete Rose receive less attention than that of Mario Cuomo.
The decade of the 1950s, in which the New York Yankees, Giants, or Dodgers were in the World Series every year, is presented as baseball's most exciting. Burns' cast of mostly 50-something talking heads, like Angell, Billy Crystal, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, and author Doris Kearns Goodwin wax nostalgic for their idealized childhoods on the street-ball avenues of the five boroughs, but meanwhile we get background footage of half-empty ballparks in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Descriptions of a three-team city "turned on" by baseball don't match the later reports of the clubs' dwindling attendance, and the Giants' and Dodgers' subsequent decisions in 1957 to bail for California. Their departures from the northeastern seaboard are handled with the solemnity of the deaths of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, but the departures of the Braves from Boston, the Athletics from Philadelphia, and the Browns from St. Louis are mere footnotes.
After Bill Mazeroski wins the 1960 Fall Classic for Pittsburgh with baseball's first-ever Game 7 walk-off home run against the Yankees, there's not a single Pirates fan on film to recount that magnificent afternoon, perhaps the greatest in baseball history. Instead, we get sob stories from Crystal and Gould, and sour grapes from Mickey Mantle, who calls that Series the only one in his career in which he thought the best team lost.
My favorite spin might be the description of the 1946 World Series between the Cardinals and the Red Sox, in the only Fall Classic that the BoSox' Ted Williams would ever appear. Articles in "The Sporting News" from that season reveal common comparisons by the public between Ted Williams and All-World slugger Stan Musial, but as Burns would have it-- Williams was arguably the greatest hitter of all-time, second to only Ruth, and the Cardinals would win in seven due only to an infield defensive shift employed against Williams and "an
uncharacteristic (my italics) burst of hitting" for their part. It was
only (my sarcasm) the third World Championship in five years for Musial and the Cards, but here, they're reduced to Williams' lucky foils, and Musial's name doesn't even get mentioned in the narrative until the early 1960s when the three-time MVP, seven-time batting champion, and 24-time All-Star is wrapping up his career as the all-time National League leader in games, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, and total bases.
Watching Ken Burns and his cronies try to convince us of the supremacy of their east coast heroes got me to thinking about the most overrated moments in baseball history. They're rather easy to pick out-- they're the moments that have more to do with how they made a certain Brahmin segment of the population feel about themselves than with their actual impact on greater America, and they all took place east of the Hudson River. At the outset, I will say that this is
not a parochial assault on that region of the country, however. Many great individual baseball achievements have taken place in New York and Boston that cannot be overstated, the biggest of which are Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, Christy Matthewson's three complete game shutouts for the Giants in the 1905 Series, and most of the others having to do with Babe Ruth.
The Babe is indisputably the greatest player of all-time. When he retired from the game, his 714 career home runs was more than twice that of his nearest all-time competitor, and even if you were to give me the name of a subsequent slugger that could match Ruth's offensive output relative to his peers-- and it's highly doubtful that you could-- I must then ask that you get back to me after that batsman has
pitched 29 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings in the World Series.
Now, the most overrated moments--
#5- Reggie Jackson hitting three home runs in a World Series game (1977)
This is a fine achievement, but hardly worthy of awarding Jackson the label "Mr. October," a New York media creation. Cardinals outfielder Willie McGee hit two home runs in a WS game in 1982, took one away leaping over the fence with his glove, and made two other fantastic catches. That's a better single game for my money, but he did it in Milwaukee's County Stadium, rather than the House that Ruth Built, so I'm the only person you've ever heard talk about it. "Mr. October" could better be Cardinals Hall-of-Famer Lou Brock. He's the all-time World Series leader in batting-- a .391 average with 34 hits, 16 runs, and 14 stolen bases in 21 games, but then we don't name candy bars after our players either.
#4- Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak (1941)
This was an
extraordinary achievement. Probability research tells us it will never be matched. The only thing is: Who cares? It's meaningless, a statistical oddity. Was DiMaggio any hotter from mid-May to mid-July of '41 than Sammy Sosa was when he was at his home run-pounding best during the same two month stretch of 1998? DiMaggio's batting average was only .408 during the streak. Hefty for sure, but Ted Williams batted .406 for that
entire season. The Cardinals' Rogers Hornsby nearly averaged .400 during a
five-year span from 1921-1925. I would put DiMaggio's feat in the same category as I would Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no-hitters for Cincy in 1938, a record that will also never be broken. The latter achievement, however, didn't even garner a mention in Ken Burns' film.
#3- Anything associated with Mickey Mantle (1951-present)
This goes for DiMaggio too: Be wary of any superlatives out of the Media Capital of the World that begin with the disclaimer that you have to have seen it to appreciate it. It is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE that DiMaggio "never had to dive for a ball" in the outfield. No fielder is so graceful that they can just glide to the ball and never have to dive. If DiMaggio never dove for a ball, then he wasn't hustling. Period. We found out later how afraid "Joltin' Joe" was to look bad on the diamond. His "old-world" marital ideas and petty jealosies wrecked his relationship with Marilyn, and in retirement, he refused to appear at Yankee Stadium unless he was introduced as "the greatest living player." In retrospect, the biggest mistake a slugger like Musial made was marrying his high school sweetheart instead of Lana Turner. Maybe if he'd wed a starlet, he'd be remembered as "elegant" and "classy," rather than simply "dependable," the phrase used by Burns to describe "The Man." Same goes for Mantle as DiMaggio. I saw Mark McGwire play. There's no way Mantle hit the ball further than he did. The Mick had fewer lifetime hits than "no-hit" Hall-of-Famer Ozzie Smith, and Mantle's physical decline, according to Burns, began when he tripped over a drainage pipe in right field. If the Cardinals had drafted the Oklahoma native, he'd probably be remembered today as a countrified clutz, not the "greatest physical specimen ever to play the sport" and perhaps its greatest idol. Vince Coleman, another athlete thought by some to be the sport's all-time fastest, got rolled by a rain tarp 22 years ago, and he's still a punch-line.
#2- Willie Mays' over-the-shoulder catch against the Indians in the 1954 World Series.
Cleveland pitcher Bob Feller said it best in "Baseball" when he recalled that the Indians knew Mays had the catch all the way. Burns should have warned Bob Costas that he would be running footage of the famous catch behind the broadcaster's contradicting words as he described Mays ' brilliance in the film. We can all see that Mays did not have to run that far or that fast to catch the ball, and even had time to pound his glove with his other hand to signal his teammates that he had a beat on it. This was a guy who used the basket catch throughout two decades and more in the big leagues, and thought nothing of making a showy catch. More power to him, but you'll see a dozen plays a year on par with that catch. I'm reminded again of Willie McGee's catch in the Suds Series in 1982, leaping back-handed on the run against an eight-foot high wall. Wow-- matching Reggie Jackson's and Willie Mays' greatest achievements all in one game. I'll bet you're surprised you've never heard of it.
#1- Carlton Fisk's 12th inning home run in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.
Absolutely meaningless. The Red Sox, in case in you didn't hear, lost Game 7 to Cincinnati, and wouldn't win a World Series for another 29 years. Highlights of Fisk waving the ball fair on his way to first base is equal time for Red Sox fans on baseball clip reels. It's easy to begrudge the Yankees the fawning media attention they're afforded, but at least they have 26 Championships to wave in your face. The Red Sox are just a shitty franchise that, despite some recent, well-financed success, have still won just one World Series championship in 88 years. Fisk's home run is reminiscent of the one Albert Pujols hit off Brad Lidge in the 2005 NLCS, and oh, how I wish
that blast had counted for more, but all it did was delay a series defeat by one game. Also, Pujols' blow came with two on, two out, and the Cardinals trailing by two runs, not in a tie-game that would have continued regardless, and his 500-foot moon shot to left-center over the train tracks at Minute Maid Park didn't have to be waved fair.
The four hour virus
The World Champion Cardinals are playing at Wrigley Field this afternoon and I'll be damned if I didn't come down sick and have to leave work early. Also it's 71 degrees and sunny, with a light breeze blowing. Do you think anyone suspected?
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Emmy-winning sportscaster and St. Louisan Bob Costas spoke in Des Moines last night.
This is the
Des Moines Register's recap. If you aren't up on your Costas minutiae, he does, to this day, carry a 1958 Mickey Mantle baseball card in his wallet, as he proved last night. But what wasn't revealed in the Register story is that he also carries
this Oscar Gamble card from 1975.
That Yogi Berra line Costas used is indeed a great one:
Berra being asked about three streakers running across the field during an exhibition game the night before. Were they men or women? "I couldn't tell. They had bags on their heads."---
Bernie Miklasz
chronicles the full history of managers Lou Piniella and Tony LaRussa in today's
St. Louis Post-Dispatch.---
More "Sopranos": Slate's Timothy Noah and Jeffrey Goldberg are keeping an on-line correspondence throughout the HBO series' final season. Might want to put
this link in with your favorites for the next couple months.
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NBC news anchor Brian Williams
explains his bosses' decision to broadcast the video images mailed to them by Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho. I'm not convinced. The assailant's fevered ramblings provide no insight into the man or his actions. He was an individual who was severely deranged, and his actions had already delivered that verdict.
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I don't want to get too radical on this topic, but Cho was allowed to purchase a gun despite being deemed mentally-ill and "an imminent danger" to himself and others by a Virginia magistrate as recently as a year and a half ago. That is absolutely insane.
A once-prestigious award
The Pulitzer Prize winners for 2007
have been announced, and I'm proud to say that Columbia University's prize board has almost pulled itself into the new millennium with its guidelines for journalism achievement. Eligibility was extended this year from U.S. newspapers to U.S. newspapers
and the full range of their on-line journalism, including databases, blogs, interactive graphics and still or video images. Still not eligible, however, are the thousands of news-oriented blogs and websites unaffiliated with a newspaper.
It's particularly sad considering how badly "the old gray ladies" now lag behind independent and citizen on-line reporters not only in investigating and uncovering important stories, but in following up and holding a focus on the stories that come to light. I'm expecting a change in the guidelines before next year, and I'll be nominating myself for last week's investigative piece on
Hank Aaron's link to steroids. Where is the mainstream media on this story?!
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In the realm of interactive graphics,
this little item may be worthy of the Pulitzer. In honor of "The Sopranos" final season, it's the Mafia Name Generator. Simply type in your first and last names and the device spits out your new street handle. Consider it a gift from Christopher "The Butcher" Moeller.
Jackie Robinson and the rabble-rousers
This is an extraordinary day to celebrate the life of Jackie Robinson. Yesterday marked the 60th anniversary of Robinson's debut as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, breaking the longtime ban on African-American players in Major League Baseball, but today provides an opportunity for us to honor Jackie for all the extraordinary things he accomplished
after breaking baseball's color barrier.
Like Martin Luther King, Jr., perhaps the only man that can claim a larger impact than Robinson on improving race relations in the United States, many pundits prefer to remember and embrace only a sanitized, non-threatening memory of an American hero. We're readily reminded of Dr. King's bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, his speech at the National Mall in Washington, and the marches he led throughout the South for racial justice. His legacy becomes more controversial, however, although equally vital, when we begin acknowledging that the obstacles to his dream are still with us today, not simply ghosts with attack dogs and water hoses from old black and white news reels.
King's beliefs about racial equality were tied directly to his thoughts about
economic justice, for one cannot exist without the other. Voting rights for blacks and the end of desegregation in the 1960s was not the end-all and be-all of the struggle. He once famously said of our disparities in economic opportunity: "In America, we have socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor." King advocated a government compensatory program in the '60s providing $50 billion over 10 years to all disadvantaged groups.
The marches initiated by King were not limited to the South. He led rallies against unfair housing laws in Chicago and other Northern cities, and its worth remembering that the marchers faced dangerous public opposition there as well. He vehemently opposed the war in Vietnam, going so far as to label the U.S. "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world," and lamenting "individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries."
It puts me in the mind of Will Ferrell's race car driver "Ricky Bobby" in the comic film "Taladega Nights," who, in his nightly prayers, always remembers to thank "
the little baby Jesus," the least complicated version of the Christian messiah. In marketing a hero, one cannot be allowed to endanger the nation's entrenched economic stratification or to strike any fear in the hearts of skittish corporate sponsors. We wind up with whitewashed versions of the truth.
Jackie Robinson was not just a ballplayer who kept his head down, played hard and endured terrific taunts and threats on the ball diamond. He didn't succeed by keeping his mouth shut and doing what he was told, though we're often painted a picture of a man who never fought back, an obedient former Army soldier who was chosen by the Dodgers because he could best follow the advice given by team president Branch Rickey. Robinson didn't physically fight back the first year, but he was immediately a tough competitor and heroically stubborn-- then a loud critic of many of the game's policies, and persistent in those criticisms. In a very short time, before his 1949 MVP season, Robinson had actually became very animated as a player, confronting fans, teammates, opponents, and umpires.
Robinson had stood trial and faced court-martial for insubordination during his military service in the early '40s, after refusing to move to the back of a segregated military bus. (He was found innocent and honorably discharged.) The event preceeded Rosa Parks' action by a decade, and helped lead also to the desegregation of the armed services. It was only one of the first in a long line of occasions in which Jackie would put the betterment of humanity above his own personal interest, and it shouldn't be forgotten now, particularly during an era in which we still hear claims that the military is the wrong place for social experimentation.
After his playing debut in 1947 and that extraordinary rookie campaign, Robinson never lost sight of the role he-- and all of us-- are cast to play. That's the reason I think April 16th is such a great day to honor him. He became empowered as a member of the league. He was sharply critical of the slow pace of integration in the game, as well as outside of it, and he became a very public political activist after his retirement in 1957,
sending correspondence to Presidents and engaging himself fully in the Civil Rights movement, marching with King, defending Malcolm X, and serving as a newspaper columnist and a key figure in the black-owned Freedom Bank.
It's a sorer subject with baseball today, but Robinson also committed himself to righting the economic injustices in the game, becoming, first, in 1971, one of only four baseball men to testify in court on behalf of Curt Flood when Flood challenged the sport's reserve clause, which bound a player to one team for life. Then at the 1972 World Series, when a near-death Robinson was invited to speak on the field upon the 25th Anniversary of his debut season, he only relectantly agreed, then used the occasion to chastise the league and its clubs for failing to have ever hired a black manager. Within two years, African-American Frank Robinson (unrelated) was named manager of the Cleveland Indians.
Like Dr. King, I believe that if Jackie Robinson were alive today, he'd be enormously frustrated by the lack of progress in America in racial and economic fairness. Social advancement always depends upon rabble-rousers to awaken the general populace. This past week, we've seen and heard a lot of public resentment against a pair of modern-day rabble-rousers, Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, over their roles in the Don Imus radio and television firings. The chief complaint against the two men has always been that they're in search of personal publicity. But that's nothing new. King and Robinson both faced the same charges. They may both be paper saints today, lionized and rendered nearly artificial in death, but in life, they were dangerous activist threats to the political and financial establishments. They were not well-liked. But as Robinson once said, "I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... all I ask is that you respect me as a human being."
The Big 6-0
Happy Birthday, Mr. Letterman, and 60 more! Your biggest fan wishes you health, happiness, and Drew Barrymore back atop your desk.
What amounts to my official Don Imus post
The Don Imus affair might be the hardest topic I've ever tried to write about on this website. Several rough drafts of the post you're reading now found their way to blogger heaven earlier tonight. There are so many diatribe-inducing aspects of the story that I can almost understand why the national news media has blown it completely out of proportion-- an aspect in itself, I guess.
It's simpler just to post some disconnected thoughts, and let them linger in cyberspace...
1) Viacom and General Electric... er, that is CBS and MSNBC.. are your typical sniveling cowards of the corporate world. They backed Imus for years despite a series of racist, sexist, and homophobic statements on par with these concerning the Rutgers University women's basketball team. It's ironic that this story only blew up big at all after MSNBC failed to punish Imus at the outset. Company execs tried to pin the responsibility for Imus on CBS, which originates the show on radio, as if NBC has been donating the profits of that simulcast back to Viacom all these years. That delay gave Jesse Jackson time to make the issue a larger and more important one about the network itself, which features NO black hosts on its 24 hour format. This story is
absolutely a story about serial abuse.
2) If you suspect you'll be missing the Don Imus-type of thought-provoking comments, you'll want to know that you can still enjoy the talents of Rush Limbaugh on your radio and Glenn Beck on both radio and television. They'll only lose their jobs if they repeat Imus' mistake of trying to expand their audience beyond the hate wing of the Republican Party.
3) The first sponsor to drop from Imus was Proctor & Gamble, but take it from a former radio commercial scheduler, that announcement was a pretty meaningless development. We used to get network schedules with instructions not to place P&G ads "during any controversial programs." Their list of controversial shows included pretty much every national show I had heard of, including the entire Air America schedule. Except Paul Harvey I guess. A Profile in Courage.
4) Any Imus-related losses in corporate revenue being reported by GE's television networks are utter bullshit-- intended to project distance between Imus and his corporate pimps. GE began maneuvers to recoup losses on Tuesday by sending Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera out on "Today" to promote the hell out of the story, and casting the corporation as "concerned" and "responsible" before amputating their infected limb. It's all Don Imus, you understand, not NBC.
5) Don't let Imus' regulars off the hook either. Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and James Carville will all have to find a new venue to hock their books. They were always at the I-Man's side to lend a chuckle.
6) It's a shame this story buried news of the death of author Kurt Vonnegut, a man who
truly knew how to be funny and provocative. Imus was just your all-too-common disc jockey/lowlife who tried to cover a lack of wit and talent by pandering to our worst instincts.
Bags, Robbie, and Hammerin' Hank
The baseball season is off to a terrific start. The Cardinals have been busy digging themselves out of their early 0-3 hole, and their ace Chris Carpenter's landed himself on the disabled list, but the pitching rotation shows promise otherwise, and there have been some fun ballgames all around the big leagues. To what to do you suppose we owe Fox Sports' decision to stop waiting until after Memorial Day to begin airings of the Saturday Game of the Week?
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The Cardinals should feel privileged to have been the visiting club at Jeff Bagwell Day at Houston's Minute Maid Park. The Astros honored their former firstbaseman Friday night, and that guy was always a class act. On the Cards' TV broadcast that night, "Bags" said some really nice things about the St. Louis organization and their fans. It's fantastic not to have to watch Cardinals pitchers try to get him out anymore, but the teams' rivalry will never be quite the same.
Bagwell's a sure Hall of Famer, and his induction will be one of the next significant exposures of hypocritical Hall voting. The slugger has never been linked with steroids in any conceivable way, but his career as a renowned slugger completely overlaps "the steroid era." He's never tested positive for an illegal substance, but nor have Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa. Are our self-important baseball scribes just going to assume Bagwell was always clean, because they like him personally, like they did with Cal Ripken Jr.? Will the long-time Astros thumper wind up getting a Hall pass simply because his public profile in 2005 wasn't considered great enough to warrant a Congressional subpoena?
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If I were a big league ballplayer: I would request to wear Jackie Robinson's uniform #42 on the anniversary of the pioneer's Major League debut April 15th. Kudos to the Cardinals, Phillies, and a couple other clubs on their decisions to have their entire roster wear Robinson's old number on Sunday. Why do you have to be a black player to wear #42? Jackie Robinson's achievements belong to all of us. That will look so cool on television when all the Cardinals are wearing the same uniform. They should put his name on their backs as well. Why not? This is the team's best idea since
the bratzel. Also, the union should call on players to wear Curt Flood's #21 every June 19th, the date in 1972 that the Supreme Court denied the outfielder's request for free agency. Flood's personal and professional sacrifice for the sake of today's players was unparalleled.
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It'll be a bush-league move by Hank Aaron if he's not in attendance later this summer when Barry Bonds breaks his all-time home run record. "I'd probably fly to West Palm Beach to play golf," Aaron was quoted as saying in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitutional, "It has nothing to do with anybody, other than I had enough of it. I don't want to be around that sort of thing anymore. I just want to be at peace with myself. I don't want to answer questions. It's going to be a no-win situation for me anyway. If I go, people are going to say, 'Well, he went because of this.' If I don't go, they'll say whatever. I'll just let them make up their own minds."
And make up their minds, they surely will. It's a slap in the face to a ballplayer that Aaron should know is every bit his equal. It's called sportsmanship. But you can bet Aaron's former boss in Milwaukee, current MLB commissioner Bud Selig, won't be among those speaking publicly. Acting on behalf of the league, the man perhaps
most responsible for the "anything-goes" attitude towards steroids in baseball for two decades and more will throw Bonds willingly to the media dogs.
For Hank Aaron, sidestepping controversy is nothing new. In 1970, he criticized the aforementioned Curt Flood for Flood's decision to challenge baseball's reserve clause, binding a player to one team for life. Aaron sided with well-established stars of the time like Carl Yastremski and Harmon Killebrew
against Flood, saying specifically that other players were "left out in the cold" by Flood's decision to sue baseball, and that they "should have been consulted." Shortly after his comments, Aaron signed a two-year contract with Atlanta for the then-monumental sum of $250,000.
You may also recall a story from two years ago about former MLB pitcher Tom House. The hurler admitted to using steroids as far back as the 1960s, and said that the use of performance-enhancers was widespread among his teammates and opponents-- including the use of amphetamines, Human Growth Hormone, and "whatever steroid they could find." (Another House quote from April of '05: "We were doing steroids they wouldn't give to horses.") Before this public confession, House was probably best known for catching Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th home run in the Braves' bullpen in 1974. He was Aaron's teammate for four years, and as a member of the same organization, would have shared six training camps.
According to Rep. Henry Waxman's opening statement at the Congressional steroid hearings in 2005, the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce first investigated drugs and professional sports in 1973. The baseball commissioner at the time, the late Bowie Kuhn, worked to squash the publicity surrounding the episode because a certain slugger was closing in on Babe Ruth's hallowed home run record. Might steroids be the reason Aaron was able to hit 40 home runs in just 120 games and 392 at-bats in 1973 at the age of 39? Might this be the reason the all-time home run king has "tired" of answering questions about Bonds and steroids?
The latest oil slick
When a person opens up a wallet, pocketbook, or purse and hands over a sum of money, they're usually expecting to get something in return. If they expect nothing, it's called charity. And there is no charity in political fundraising.
First quarter financial figures came out last week, and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama led the way on the Democratic side, with John Edwards a few paces behind. Nearly doubling the overall totals of the top tier Republican candidates, the party was cast as a momentary victor by the national news media, which covers political campaigns as it would an auto or horse race-- to be decided by raised money, achieved media exposure, and the absence of any major verbal faux pas on the stump, not as a campaign of specific ideas.
Aside from the fact that the lead horse, Hillary Clinton, shifted millions from her Senate re-election war chest into her presidential campaign to pad her numbers, the most-strikingly absent element of the reportage was regarding where the money has come from and what it may be buying. Arianna Huffington
reported yesterday on the Senate Democrats who have worked to crush the Democratic House majority's attempt to stop a $10 billion cash windfall for Big Oil on drilling leases. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Diane Feinstein of California say, instead, there needs to be a bureaucratic overhaul on leases that would be backed by the Bush Administration, losing touch with the fact that the Administration itself is but a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Oil. The oil industry spent $72.5 million lobbying Congress last year, and according to Huffington, Bingaman received a larger piece of that contribution pie than any other Democrat in the Senate.
"These pols," writes Huffington, "are the political equivalent of Carmela Soprano-- enjoying the spoils while denying the dirty business that makes the spoils possible. On second thought, at least Carmela allows a moment of doubt to creep in now and then. Do our politicians?"
And now it's the Democrats who are
leading the way in making President Bush's destructive tax cuts permanent, and specifically for those with incomes over $50,000. What differences are left between the two parties? Few, other than the segment of the population they attempt to flatter with their hollow rhetoric.
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By the way, it was a killer first episode of "The Sopranos" last night. It seems the final season will not be a disappointment. I'm watching soap operas though this afternoon, before the Cards game at Pittsburgh, and it dawns on me that "Sopranos" creator David Chase dropped the ball in never casting Susan Lucci in his series. That woman is still as gorgeous as ever. Tony would never be able to resist her, and we would have a difficult time faulting him for his weakness.
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Comedian Bill Maher is consistently correct, and always entertaining, but he's wrong that Democratic presidential candidates like Barack Obama and John Edwards reinforce the "pussy" smear against the party by refusing to participate in a televised debate on Fox News. There's simply not a meaningful chance of winning over a segment of the voting population that supports George W. Bush in even greater numbers than does the group that would outlaw the teaching of evolution in public schools. Fox News is the engine that
propelled "Bush/Cheney Inc." into the White House. It fueled the Congressional backing of their full agenda, and it continues to push it forward with a whitewashing of the devastation in Iraq and CEO Rupert Murdoch's financial support for Hillary Clinton, the Democrats' least principled and most polarizing primary candidate.
There's a myth of equal time during live televised debates. The panelists set the agenda, answers are limited to brief and meaningless soundbites, and other network commentators, besides the panelist(s), are allowed to spin the results in the immediate aftermath. In this case, to demean and slander. News organizations can only succeed behind the claim and public confidence of impartiality. This is the reason the Air America radio network has been doomed from the start. Soft-core Democrats legitimized Fox News from its infancy, and progressives are still paying a severe price for their doing so. Holding a televised debate on Fox News is not the equivalent of going into the other team's ballpark in sports and winning a road game, as Maher and others would suggest. It's the equivalent of walking into a casino and putting a large wager up against the house. Fighting a losing battle in the face of thorough and long-term devastation in return for a brief and empty display of political courage is not a winning campaign strategy, it's our policy in Iraq.
I Can Tell You Who To Sock It To - by Aaron Moeller
I slept most of today after getting back from Chicago early Friday morning. The reason for the road trip was a last minute decision to catch Rock and Roll Hall of Famers and the world’s best and longest serving funk band, The Isley Brothers, who performed at the Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, Indiana on Thursday.
Let me tell you this: These guys, despite 50 years of acclaim and numerous hits, are strangely the best-kept secret in the history of pop music.
The Star Plaza Theatre is in a suburban interstate community, right off I-65 eight miles from Gary, Indiana and this Thursday gig was an added performance due to the high ticket sales for the original Friday show, which is going on as I write this. Thursday night’s show was only about half full. Buying online Wednesday morning, $60 got me a ticket only fifteen or so rows from the stage. The Isleys have had a resurgence of late, due to collaborations with some of hip-hop’s finest, so, contrary to what many of you may guess, I was far from the youngest person in attendance. (I also wasn’t the whitest, but it was close.)
Along with Lil Mann, a teenage kid who was the winner of Chicago Idol, Angela Winbush, a singer/songwriter who wrote tunes for numerous R&B performers in the 80s, was the opening act. Winbush has the extra cache of being the ex-wife of Ronald Isley, the lead singer of the headliners. Winbush’s sultry performance included giving a lap dance to an audience member, before she triumphantly announced her age of 52 to the audience. The sexy, lighthearted performance than turned to a message of hope, faith and forgiveness as she announced she’s a four-year survivor of ovarian cancer and pleaded for women to get yearly checkups. Then she took everybody to church. The closing gospel numbers had everybody on their feet and shouting, and the call-and-response interaction with the audience didn’t fade as the headliners soon took the stage.
Two of the original Isley Brothers have passed away, a couple others have retired to the church, but
the two brothers that remain more than succeed in carrying the banner forward. Ronald Isley, the lead singer and one of the most distinct and recognizable vocalists in popular music history, remains the voice of the band. The other remaining Isley is little brother Ernie, who was just eight years old when the Isleys first hit the charts with the original "Shout (Parts 1 & 2)" in the late 1950s. Ernie is the guitar wiz who, with brother Marvin on bass, took over the band’s leadership role in ’69 and ushered in the band’s second phase, moving from successful vocal group to hard-charging funk band, setting the stage for all the Kool and the Gangs, Commodores, and Earth, Wind and Fires that followed in their wake.
The funk on this night started with Ernie Isley on-stage in familiar head rag, open shirt and using his teeth to rip off one of the most familiar guitar licks in rhythm and blues music. Ronald hit the stage in white suit and pimp cane, singing "Who’s That Lady?" The voice has weakened just a bit, but at 65, Ronald still miraculously hits those high notes consistently. He still has a killer falsetto, even though he occasionally backs off certain notes, giving the sense that he’s pacing himself for a long show. The even more familiar opening chords, accompanied by distinctive keyboard and saxophone, brought the greatest funk of them all – "It’s Your Thing".
Then the hits kept coming. "Take Me to the Next Phase" is a 70’s dance floor milestone and kept asses up from their seats, then "Twist and Shout" made its inevitable appearance, but in a throbbing pulse incarnation, as part of a funk jam medley. Three sexy young dancers made various appearances in increasingly skimpier outfits, from flowing see-through dresses to short-skirted disco outfits and afro wigs. While the aural experience stayed consistently fast-paced, rich and full-bodied, the dancers managed to sustain the visual aesthetic of the show. It was like watching that "Lady Marmalade" video from a couple of years ago for a solid hour. There were ballads mixed in too. "Groove with You", "Make Me Say It Again, Girl", and "Harvest for the World" – all from their 70s heydey.
The Isleys’ reputation would be secure by itself if only for having sung the original "Twist and Shout", but let’s not forget their even earlier, equally legendary "Shout (Parts 1 & 2)", as ubiquitous a song as there is in our culture. The dancing girls returned in choir robes and then Ronald kicked in with the famous call to worship, "Welllllllll.... you know you make me want to SHOUT...!!!" The house lights flashed on, the rafters shook and the details of the next five or so minutes after that are still a little fuzzy. Pandemonium.
Somehow things settled back down, however, and when it came time to introduce the band and Ernie in particular, Ronald told the story of the Isleys’ parents wanting young Ernie to go to law school, but he insisted on following his older brothers into the music business. The story served as an intro for two songs that best showcase Ernie’s guitar playing - the space-age slow jam, "Voyage to Atlantis", and the familiar strains of the family take on Seals and Crofts’ "Summer Breeze", which was the highlight of the night. (The Isleys have charted with a number of covers. On this night, they also performed their memorable rendition of Todd Rundgren’s "Hello, It’s Me", but unfortunately, didn’t play Stephen Stills’ "Love the One You’re With", made famous by my solo vocal performances singing along with the car radio.)
Let us always remember that the direct line between the virtuoso guitar playing that extends from Jimi Hendrix to Prince goes through the singular talent of Ernest Isley. In the early 60s, a young Jimi Hendrix was the touring guitar player in the Isley Brothers’ band and even lived in their family home. Any rock and roll aficionado can romantically envision a 12-year-old Ernie Isley learning at the knee of the master and even see the behind-the-head and playing-with-the-teeth style as a lasting homage to Hendrix. (For some reason, Ernie Isley never makes anybody’s list of great rock and roll guitarists. Funk-era guitarists, it seems, don’t get much attention from the sorts of people who make those lists.)
The dancers reappeared after the Ernie Isley-showcase in black tuxedos to match Ronald’s outfit change. This began the portion of the show dedicated to Ronald’s "Mr. Biggs" persona, his gangster alter-ego that originated in R. Kelly videos and favors hip-hop- spiced slow jamz. Number one R&B hits and the frequently sampled "Between the Sheets", "Footsteps in the Dark", "Down Low (Nobody Has to Know)" and last year’s "Just Came Here to Chill" found Mr. Biggs handing out roses and sweat-stained handkerchiefs to the ladies down front. He introduced "For the Love of You" as his favorite song. Good call. It’s mine, too.
The show concluded with the girls dancing in what are surely the sexiest camouflage outfits in the history of the world for the classic "Fight the Power", the Isleys’ original tune and the blueprint for the landmark rap recording by Public Enemy. The song segued into the band jamming on some familiar James Brown riffs. "We dedicate everything we do to him," Ronald had said from the stage. Brown
is, of course, the only other artist who comes close to the Isley Brothers in covering the sheer breadth of black music history... and the Isleys have had considerably more original material and success in the hip-hop era, otherwise known as the last 20 years.
The Isleys, besides being pre-Beatles R&B giants, have been blowing off doors since before JFK was president, through the Black Power/funk generation, through the disco era, through to the present. Among the originators of the "quiet storm" genre, their
Body Kiss album of original songs from just three years ago, their first Def Jam label release, debuted at number one on the pop charts.
I kept my Isley Brothers CDs spinning in the car on the late drive home and believe me, put on that music and you won’t have any trouble staying awake either. I arrived back in Cedar Rapids at three in the morning. I was still wide awake at four.
An ancient historian smiling in his grave --Nick Dee
Pay close attention, fans of prehistory (and I know all of you are!).
The NY Times on Tuesday summed up the results of a study published by The American Journal of Human Genetics which may end a 2,500 year old debate about the origins of the Etruscan people of Italy. Ever since our friend Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, claimed that the Etruscans had Middle-eastern origins (modern-day West Turkey, to be exact), more conservative historians and nearly all archaeologists have rejected the notion, citing the scarcity of physical evidence for mass movements of peoples. But scientists have now entered the debate, with far more than strong opinions. They've got DNA testing, and when they sampled the DNA of rural villagers in ancient, isolated communities in rural Tuscany (modern-day Etruria), they discovered that their DNA was unlike that of all other Italians, but nearly identical to modern-day Syrians and other mideastern peoples.
So what?
Well, we all know that it was Rome that, through military might, political genius, and dumb luck, brought civilization to all those parts of Europe which didn't have it already (probably the ancestors of anyone reading this). Since Italians are distant cousins of the Celts and are Indo-European, it always appeared that European civilization (our civilization) was a European creation. We've always known (even the Romans knew it) that Roman culture borrowed heavily from Etruscan culture, but never thought much of it. After all, how could quirky old Herodotus know something that an infinitely logical archaeologist doesn't? Well, he did. All evidence now point to Roman civilization, and thus Western Civilization, being a largely near-Eastern product.
This revalation will probably startle very few Americans. But Italians, and especially Romans, people who historically have derived much pride from their Etruscan descent, will no doubt watch the story unfold further, as Ancient scholars (my professor among them) begin to rethink some of the most basic assumptions about the movement and ancient peoples.
Maybe when I go to Rome in June of 2008, I will have learned enough Italian to ask what they think of all this. If they care at all.
(btw: I have also completed my profile)
'Twas the Thursday before The Sopranos
The final season of "The Sopranos" begins Sunday night on HBO with the first of nine fresh episodes. Critics have seen the first two, and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive. All things Soprano: Salon's Heather Havrilesky highlights Tony Soprano's
"Day of Reckoning." (Site pass required.) Marvin Kitman unveils his North Jersey episode-viewing club,
"The Sopranos Asphalt Paving and Literary Society." The LA Times speculates about whether Tony will
live or die. New York Magazine enjoys
Edie Falco. And talent agencies take out
full page ads in industry mags to congratulate their "Sopranos" clients.
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Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Tom Shales hasn't weighed in yet on "the family," but during my search, I found
his appreciation for Larry "Bud" Melman.
Quick Comment - by Aaron Moeller
Hey Chris Moeller Archive readers, I finally got around to filling out my profile on the right hand side of the page. There are no surprises, I know.
Now that I've literally "raised my profile" on this site, Chris will again have to re-think the name.
