The top 10 musicals of all-time
New Year's Eve can mean only one thing-- a list of the greatest movie musicals of all-time!
Lately, a rash of such lists has broken out online from a most unlikely source-- baseball writers. ESPN's
Keith Law and the Kansas City Star's
Joe Posnanski have both published lists. Time for me to get in on this.
My top 10 isn't packed with your standard fare. It's the best movie musicals-- not the best Broadway musicals adapted to the screen. I'm not a Rodgers and Hammerstein fan. Despite the brilliant Technicolor of their adaptations during the '50s and '60s ("Carousel," "Oklahoma," "The King and I," and "South Pacific," to name a few), their cheery optimism generally rings false for me, their social messages hamfisted and poorly-aged, and these films generally overproduced and often badly miscast. (Sinatra as Billy Bigelow in "Carousel" would have been killer.)
These aren't all for the kids, either. A great movie musical isn't required to be "rousing entertainment for the entire family" even if that's where the genre's marketing seems to lie. With one notable exception, none of these films are being produced today with great regularity by high school drama departments.
The top 10:
10) "Pennies From Heaven" 1981-- I
know you haven't seen this Steve Martin movie. It bombed upon its theatrical release when it was nothing like the preceding Martin vehicle "The Jerk." It had an unusual tone, marinated in melancholy and each character seemingly lost in his or her own dream. All of the songs were original Depression-era tunes lip-synched by the performers. It features
Christopher Walken hoofing it at his pre-Fatboy Slim best, and at its climax, Martin and Bernadette Peters have the stones to "Face the Music and Dance" in front of a theater screen featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and they're mirroring each step. Critic Pauline Kael called "Pennies From Heaven" "the most emotional movie musical" she had ever seen.
9) "Swing Time" 1936-- Many say this is Fred and Ginger's best collaboration. I say second best. Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields did the music, introducing, among other tunes, "A Fine Romance,"
"Pick Yourself Up," "Never Gonna Dance," and the Academy Award winner, that old Sinatra chestnut, "The Way You Look Tonight." "He gave her class, she gave him sex appeal," wrote one film historian about the Astaire/Rogers pairing. The dancing duo have yet to meet their match.
8) "My Fair Lady" 1964-- Professor Henry Higgins is so proper and snobbish that even by the end of this unusual romance opposite the recipient of his elocution lessons, Eliza Doolittle, there is no professed love, marriage, or consummation. He confesses in song only that he has "grown accustomed to her face." "My Fair Lady" has been called the perfect musical, and the film adaptation carries such arguable delight. It has all of Audrey Hepburn's charm that it can hold, even if few of her musical notes (she was dubbed by Marni Nixon). It's clever, glamorous, and well-paced.
I could have danced all night after seeing this one.
7) "A Hard Days Night" 1964-- I'm a card-carrying member of the Michael Jackson generation, but I had the unique opportunity to see
this exuberant film on the big screen during a revival in Des Moines about 10 years ago. It features John, Paul, George, and Ringo running about in semi-documentary style, being chased by crazed young ladies and generally enjoying their lives as break-out rock stars. AHDN served as the fans' original insight into the individual personalities of the four lads from Liverpool and simultaneously began the still-ongoing Great Depression for North American barber shops. Says Lord Ebert in his
Great Movies series, "Many critics attended the movie and prepared to condescend, but the movie could not be dismissed: It was so joyous and original that even the early reviews acknowledged it as something special. After more than three decades, it has not aged and is not dated; it stands outside its time, its genre and even rock. It is one of the great life-affirming landmarks of the movies." The movie is cultural revolution incarnate. I can't wait to find out which "Mad Men" character is the first to see it in Season 4 of the series next fall.
6) "Gold Diggers of 1933" 1933-- Hey guys, are you like me? Do you love the human female form? Then have I got the movie for you. Scantily-clad showgirls with long smiles and longer gams dancing merrily and provocatively for the morale of their country during the lowest point in its economic history. Not one girl. Or two. Or twenty. But
dozens and dozens, row after row on the Warner Brothers soundstage in flawless art deco and vulgar geometry. Hollywood's oppressive production code on morality has not yet descended, and Mervyn LeRoy and Busby Berkeley are intent on giving us all the greatest show on Earth. "We're in the Money" indeed. What does a girl have to do get a decent meal around here? And when does a good girl become a bad one? I'd like to know!
5) "Meet Me in St. Louis" 1944-- I can't help but think of this little favorite whenever I drive the western border neighborhood of Forest Park in St. Louis, amidst all of the stunning turn-of-the- century homes still standing. The structures were still in their infancy when the World's Fair came to town in 1904, inspiring the short story series that evolved into this musical masterpiece. Unlike many of its big-screen contemporaries, "Meet Me in St. Louis" was not adapted from the stage, which is probably why it fits the screen so snugly. Mr. Alonzo Smith is planning to move his middle-class family from the charming hamlet of St. Louis, Missouri to impersonal, far-off New York City, and his four daughters, ranging in age from Judy Garland to Oscar-winner Margaret O'Brien, dread the thought of leaving their Midwestern paradise. You're in tears by the time Garland's character, Esther, sadly warbles
"Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" to her kid sister, at the same time introducing that now-standard holiday tune to the world. Surprise, surprise, though. Dad changes his mind at the end, and hey, let's all go to the Fair!
4) "The Wizard of Oz" 1939-- I shouldn't have to call this one to your attention. From sepia to Technicolor to
that mystical someplace beyond the rainbow.
3) "Top Hat" 1935-- This is Fred and Ginger's best. Songs by Irving Berlin. Fred gliding about the sand-speckled floor above Ginger's bed in a hushed lullaby. The serenade and sidesteps of "A Lovely Day" during a rainstorm in the gazebo. And
the epic "Cheek to Cheek" finale. Oh no, they don't make movies like this one anymore, laments me and Jim Beattie, the forlorn gentleman who posted the clip above on YouTube.
2) "Cabaret" 1972-- Little Dorothy from Kansas/Esther Smith would give birth to a force of nature, and its name was
Liza! And Liza did a movie musical that served as the end of movie musicals essentially because it stripped away the sentiment, the wholesomeness, even the narrative concept under which characters break out unnaturally into song. "After Cabaret," wrote Pauline Kael at the time, "It should be a while before performers once again climb hills singing or a chorus breaks into song on a hayride." The film inspires arousal in its decadence and amorality, chills in its tale of the looming, unstoppable repression. Tomorrow may belong to the fascists, but tonight, a table's waiting, and what good's permitting some prophet of doom to wipe every smile away.
1) "Singin' in the Rain" 1952-- This one is indisputably the top. A charming and funny story about romance during the period of Hollywood's transition from silent to talking pictures. Corny to be sure, but with a wink about it. It's a movie that loves the movies. There are hilarious, acrobatic routines by Donald O'Connor. There's indefatigable Debbie Reynolds, and that great fullback of a dancer Gene Kelly in a film he co-directed and choreographed and that features him in what is possibly the medium's most iconic sequence (watched almost 2.5 million times on YouTube alone).
The scene stands on its own, but it's even more satisfying, trust me, when you watch the entire film and you have to wait an hour and 7 minutes to get to the umbrella and the moistened street curb. It's bliss. Watch it soon with the sun in your heart and ready for love.
The year of Michael
Last night's CBS telecast of the Kennedy Center Honors from Washington was a magnificent tribute to each of the five honorees-- Bruce Springsteen, Mel Brooks, Robert DeNiro, Grace Bumbry, and Dave Brubeck, but the sad thought crossed my mind midway through that we'll never get the chance to see Michael Jackson honored in such a fashion by his country.
A year of honoring Michael, though, ends with the online release this week of Spike Lee's
music video for "This Is It." It's heavy on images from the Jackson birthday tribute in Brooklyn's Prospect Park this fall and of the singer's hometown of Gary, Indiana. Very moving.
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Enjoy a
good spy story?
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Don't be surprised if Ralph Nader
jumps in to oppose Christopher Dodd during the Senator's re-election bid in 2010. Run, Ralph, run.
Hands off
Welcome back. Sorry for my absence. I was away from home for five days and it's difficult-- though not technically impossible-- for me to blog when I'm not at my desk in the apartment. I hope your Christmas weekend was better than it was for Charlie Sheen.
If you're looking for a bright light of human hope at the tail end of a holiday season marred by unemployment, war, crippling debt, snow and ice-covered roads, and fantasy football defeat-- at least seven of you suffer from this last one, I know-- then look no further than Iran, half a world away, where the Green Movement of opposition to the Ahmadinejad government threatens to transform the region and the world if the United States and Israel have the good sense not to punish the country with military strikes or crippling economic sanctions.
At least eight are dead in riots this week, and hundreds of dissidents have been imprisoned as the people take to the streets numbering in the thousands. The all-too-predictable saber-rattling in Washington is intended to assist the revolutionaries we all support, but even sanctions, and particularly attempts to cut off the gasoline supply to the country, carry the strong potential of politically strengthening the dictators in power. Sixty percent of Iranians favor the restoration of diplomatic relations between their country and the U.S., and it's
more diplomacy, not punitive measures however well-intentioned, that will aid in their cause.
Like the Velvet Revolution in Eastern Europe a generation ago, it's the resiliency and persistence of the people that will win the day. Citizens of the United States should stand in solidarity by demanding that our leaders keep from intervening. It's not about inaction or a refusal to take sides. Our collective voice should be heard in support of the revolutionary, but in a way that Iraq and Afghanistan were never allowed to be, the fight in Iran should be for the hearts and minds of the people, not for a perceived victory in Western military or economic strength. It's the Iranian people, and the people alone, that are showing today that they have the power to transform their repressive government into a democratic, secular one. When the people are already in the streets chanting "death to the dictator," displays of strength by an external power already notorious globally for its unwanted interventions can only prove to be a distraction.
Happy Holidays
The best of the season to all. I hope all of your holidays are good ones-- Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year's, Toyotathon.
I hope
David Letterman doesn't ruin your favorite.
Health care woes: The bill's gonna pass
Senate Democrats are thought to have the 60 votes they need now to sidestep a filibuster and pass a health care bill before the Christmas vacation. Vote #60 will come from former holdout, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, after one last set of legislative compromises. Majority leader Harry Reid agreed to allow states to ban public insurance coverage for abortions, to require all women and families to pay additional out-of-pocket for abortion insurance, and also to an increase in federal contributions to the expansion of Medicare as it applies only to the state of Nebraska.
Americans are about to become the recipients of what's being called the largest overhaul of health care policy for their country in a generation, and Democrats will be claiming victory next year in a collection of political campaigns near you, but what we'll be given in policy is light years from the single-payer health insurance or full-coverage-for-all system that is standard, and no longer even controversial, in nearly every other Western country. Single-payer was never even considered here. A clunky compromise wrapped tightly in insurance company subsidies, called the "public option," went down to defeat next, followed closely behind by the Medicare buy-in proposal for Americans aged 55-64. The concept of "Medicare for every American that wants it" was never proposed, even though 60 percent of Americans, many of them registered voters, want it. As we've grown accustomed to seeing over the last three decades, the United States Senate was a leading light of democratic compromise, the unique kind in which only one side is doing the compromising.
The United States Constitution provides legislative veto power only to the Chief Executive, but the later adoption of the right to filibuster in the Senate gives all 100 members of the Senate effective veto power as well over any and all proposed legislation. On this particular initiative, so-called "moderates" Nelson, Olympia Snowe, and Joe Lieberman became the brokers of power as they threatened to withhold their voting support if their demands for billion-dollar bailout funds to corporate insurance and pharmaceutical providers, in the form of forced purchases, were not met, and of course, these needless provisions cannot even accurately be called "bailouts," but simply "gifts," as the survival of the private insurance and pharmaceutical companies are not currently in jeopardy.
Why do liberals get this kind of government handed back to them in return for all of their sweat and activism exerted on behalf of their beloved country? Simple. They betray their values when it counts the most in favor of some sort of mythical pragmatism that is supposed to help the Democratic Party extend its influence among independent voters. They listen to and absorb internally the personal attacks against uncompromising public servants like Ralph Nader hurled by politicians on the take.
"Some of it has to do with broader questions of political power,"
Salon's Glenn Greenwald wrote Friday, "If progressives always announce that they are willing to accept whatever miniscule benefits are tossed at them (on the ground that it's better than nothing) and unfailingly support Democratic initiatives (on the ground that the GOP is worse), then they will (and should) always be ignored when it comes time to negotiate; nobody takes seriously the demands of those who announce they'll go along with whatever the final outcome is."
The boldest progressive in the Senate is Vermont's Bernie Sanders, and likewise this time, he's been the most outspoken
critic of the current bill. But where is he now? Firmly on board the Reid/Leiberman train, evidently. On Wednesday, he took the floor to propose-- for the very first time by anybody in the history of the chamber-- a single-payer health care amendment, but Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma forced the Senate clerk to read the entire 767-page amendment out loud, bringing the proceedings of the Senate to a halt. Sanders withdrew his initiative so that the body could resume its work.
That's your strategic difference in a nutshell. Sanders concedes on his amendment for fear that the time taken to force consideration will prevent passage of
a bad compromise bill in time for the Majority Leader's
self-imposed holiday legislative deadline. Nelson threatens to withhold his vote and walk away. Nelson, for his effort, gets concessions up the wazoo. Sanders gets called to the Capitol commissary to play checkers with Dennis Kucinich.
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Greenwald
believes there's an enormous divide in the Democratic Party based in the way that two factions view "corporatism" in America. This vast (and I believe, irreconcilable) difference was concealed
for eight years, he says, by a shared distaste for the presidency of George W. Bush. Now it's broken free to come to a head.
Greenwald writes, "I've honestly never understood how anyone could think that Obama was going to bring about some sort of "new" political approach or governing method when... what he practices -- politically and substantively -- is the Third Way, DLC, triangulating corporatism of the Clinton era, just re-packaged with some sleeker and more updated marketing. At its core, it seeks to use government power not to regulate, but to benefit and even merge with, large corporate interests, both for political power (those corporate interests, in return, then fund the Party and its campaigns) and for policy ends. It's devoted to empowering large corporations, letting them always get what they want from government, and extracting, at best, some very modest concessions in return...
"The health care bill is one of the most flagrant advancements of this corporatism yet, as it bizarrely forces millions of people to buy extremely inadequate products from the private health insurance industry -- regardless of whether they want it or, worse, whether they can afford it (even with some subsidies). In other words, it uses the power of government, the force of law, to give the greatest gift imaginable to this industry -- tens of millions of coerced customers, many of whom will be truly burdened by having to turn their money over to these corporations -- and is thus a truly extreme advancement of this corporatist model."
This leads back once more to a persistent theme of this blog: that the great philosophical divide in this country is definitely not Democrat/Republican, nor is it even liberal/conservative, but entrenched in the way in which people are willing to acquiesce to our corporate overlords. The true liberals are placed at the greatest political disadvantage, forced to make the difficult case that government exists in service to the people when currently the people have no power whatsoever within a framework that's been merged completely with the bidding of private corporations.
Clooney slept here
George Clooney's new movie "Up in the Air" was filmed largely in St. Louis. Here's
a Post-Dispatch story about city locations used in the film. Many of you will recognize them if you're a regular like I am at Cardinals games. There's the GenAmerica Building at 700 Market Street downtown (located between my favorite ballgame parking area and the old Bowling Hall of Fame), the Mansion House on 4th about midway between the stadium and the dome, and the Ballpark Hilton on South Broadway (formerly the Marriott), where all the visiting National League clubs and a smattering of Moellers used to bunk down back in the day.
The locations are St. Louis without
looking like St. Louis. No Gateway Arch. No Whitey Herzog. If you've seen the flick already, you probably couldn't even tell. She's a hell of an actor.
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Upon the series' 20th anniversary,
an expert on "The Simpsons" explains why it's among the most influential of all time, even though he "(doesn't) think it's funny anymore" and believes it dropped precipitously in quality a decade ago.
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Quote of the day: Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan president, in Copenhagen,
"If the climate was a bank, (the west) would have already saved it." Ohhh. Snap! Doctors, report to the '
burn' unit. We've got a group of imperial capitalists checking in.
Out with the filibuster
Iowa Senator Tom Harkin has begun hinting again that he may introduce legislation ending the practice of filibustering in that legislative body. "I think, if anything, this health care debate is showing the dangers of unlimited filibuster," he told reporters. "I think there's a reason for slowing things down... and getting the public aware of what's happening and maybe even to change public sentiment, but not to just absolutely stop something."
That's a confusing statement, and it would appear to be evidence that Harkin's basic intent would be to simply place procedural
limits on the use of the filibuster, a legislative maneuver that allows members of the chamber (usually of a minority party) to delay a vote indefinitely on a specific measure. The best idea I can think of would be to outlaw this undemocratic action-- the filibuster-- entirely. Since when are
supermajorities necessary to deliver the will of a democratic majority.
Routinely, the problem with any debate about the filibuster is overwhelmed by the issue of the moment. That issue of the current moment is health care reform, and Joe Lieberman, the Senator from Aetna, has threatened to filibuster the legislation making its way through the Senate if it includes a passage extending Medicare coverage to Americans aged 55-64. Rank-and-file Democrats despise Lieberman rather thoroughly by now, but even many of them are hesitant to remove the filibuster from their Senators' playbooks for fear of what would then happen when Republicans are once again in the majority.
Bullknockers. Right is right.
Support for the concept of the filibuster is predicated on the idea that the
majority will of the people is a dangerous thing when, in fact, the greatest threat to democracy is the tyranny of the
minority. Naturally, citizens of every political stripe can find both historical examples of times their ideas were helped by the filibuster and times they were hindered. Liberals can point to successful filibusters, for example, that blocked the appointment of conservative judicial appointees. For some, this helps to balance out, or make up for the current blockade to health care reform legislation. But let me tell you, overwhelmingly, it's been the tyranny of the minority that has held us back from progressive action over the years.
The most famous filibuster of all time- with due respect to Strom Thurmond reading from the phone book while obstructing a vote on the 1957 Civil Rights Act-- was a fictional one. It was the one delivered by Jimmy Stewart in the penultimate moment of Frank Capra's 1939 film "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington." In the film's narrative, Smith battles exhaustion to stay at the podium day and night fighting for a youth camp for the "Boy Rangers" to be built on land in his home state against the sinister actions of a dam-building scheme by other Senators on the take.
Capra's film certainly glorified the act of filibustering, though many people today have a terribly distorted recollection of the film otherwise. "Mr. Smith" is a much darker-themed and less wholesome story than people generally think of it today. On last viewing, I didn't find Smith's actions all that heroic at all. Consider that he hijacks one of the two uppermost chambers of the nation's entire legislative branch so that he might bring home a little pork for his home state. It's certainly a triumph for the individual fortunate enough to be resident in the halls of power, but not so much for any collective action required of the multitudes. The film was fortunately saved otherwise by its subversive depiction overall of widespread corruption in the Senate chamber. Years later, though, it's worth noting that filibustering no longer requires such dramatic action. Rule changes during the 1970s ushered in the filibuster that doesn't even require the filibusterer to continue speaking or to even remain in attendance.
As it is, the composition of the United States Senate is heinously undemocratic. It was a bullshit compromise to begin with, and a colossal goof of our founding documents, to have such a powerful legislative body comprised of two representatives from each state
regardless of the population of those states. The cherished principle of "one person, one vote" went out the window virtually from the start. The filibuster, which followed shortly after the founding of the Republic, was instituted to help protect the economic interests of Southern slaveholders, and has been used ever-increasingly during the generations following Emancipation to give the South and sparse regions of the West a disproportionate influence over Washington. We've been stricken with the cancerous tumor of a three-fifths supermajority government from Thomas Pinckney all the way through Jim Inhofe.
The Senate has suspended the filibuster at various times, as it has seen fit. In recent years, Republicans have used the threat of suspending the chamber rules-- the so-called "nuclear option"-- as a proverbial hammer to demand their way as a majority party. Democrats, conversely and characteristically, have routinely stuttered, then peed their pants. Lieberman, characteristic for him, has been on both sides of the debate during his tenure. In 1994, when Harkin last floated the idea of challenging the filibuster, Lieberman was a staunch supporter. Now he's the one threatening an historic obstruction.
Incidently, I have no alterior motive in advocating the banishment of the filibuster during the current health care debate. I
oppose the health care proposal in question for reasons I've laid out before on the blog. But I oppose the filibuster for the same reason that I oppose the equally-undemocratic Electoral College-- because it's a political device designed to arm minority interests and to perpetuate and deepen the American class system. It should also be clear to any spectator of our modern American "democracy" that arming one single politician with so much individual power is thrusting all of us into a very dangerous game, as so many of our representatives have proven themselves transparently self-serving and thoroughly corruptible.
Happy B'day, Mr. S
The Chairman was born 94 years ago today. The Sinatra family website has
exclusive video for the occasion, and Sirius Satellite Radio is paying tribute all weekend long on
Siriusly Sinatra. I'll be tributing soon at a karaoke club near you.
Happy birthday, Mr. Sinatra. We miss you terribly.
"Obama's Big Sellout"
Rolling Stone has just published
that Matt Taibbi piece on Barack Obama. You. Must. Read. It.
Snow day '09
My office is closed today, though it's my day off anyway so I'm the big loser this cycle. We're snowed in instead in central Iowa (by order of the DOT, whom I now obey without quarrel) with nothing more to do but count Tiger Woods' mistresses and blog.
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Are the tabloids even checking the evidence at this point, or does any woman with a professional headshot get a free headline?
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Wake me when Tiger scores with Lindsay Lohan.
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All evidence indicates that Iowa Senator Charles Grassley believes homosexuality should be
punishable by imprisonment and/or death.
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Top 10 films of the decade :
10. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
9. Talk to Her (2002)
8. Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
7. Up (2009)
6. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2002)
5. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
4. Mulholland Drive (2001)
3. Lost in Translation (2003)
2. Sideways (2004)
1. There Will Be Blood (2007)
Discuss.
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If you're still snowed in on Sunday, and even if you aren't, you won't want to miss Howard Zinn's "The People Speak" on the History Channel at 7 central, produced by Zinn, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore, and Anthony Arnove. The documentary is live performances of artists delivering the great songs and orations of the nation: Viggo Mortensen leading Shay's Rebellion, Kerry Washington channeling Sojourner Truth, and David Strathairn as Eugene Debs. Damon reads from John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," and Morgan Freeman from Frederick Douglass' "The Meaning of July Fourth for the American Negro." There are musical performances by Eddie Vedder, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. The presentation is inspired by Zinn's epic tome, "A People's History of the United States," first published in 1980, and somebody needs to TiVo this for me.
King Rat
The Cardinals' greatest skipper is headed to the Hall of Fame. Yes, there will be a plaque in Cooperstown beginning this summer that bears the name "Dorrel Norman Elvert 'Whitey' Herzog." "The White Rat" is the first Cardinals manager to go into the Hall of Fame since the late Billy Southworth last year. He'll become the 10th member of the Baseball Hall that has managed the Cardinals and its first member named Dorrel. His predecessors as field manager for the Birds, Joe Torre and Tony LaRussa, are locks for the Hall upon their retirement, which means that the Cardinals have had a Hall of Fame manager in their dugout for 42 of the last 45 years (chronologically: Schoendienst, 3 1/2 year drought 1977-1980, Herzog, Torre, LaRussa).
I'm terribly excited today. Whitey Herzog is
mein Deutsch bruder, a small-town Midwestern German like me caught up entirely in the game. His St. Louis teams of my 1980's youth are the reason I'm a Cardinals fan and a baseball fan today. He walked away from the dugout in his mid-50s, which left him without the longevity that many felt would be necessary for Hall enshrinement, but his teams in Kansas City and St. Louis had already, it seems, left an indelible mark on the game.
Many record-holders in baseball are unknown or uncelebrated. Some
records themselves are even unknown. For example, for years, nobody knew that it was the great Pete Rose who played in more
winning games than any player in history. How did we find out that Pete had that record? Because he told us. He did his own research. And wouldn't you know it, he was right. Somewhat similarly, Whitey Herzog has suggested that he might just own the record for most seasons as manager that broke a franchise's attendance record-- 9. That's all four years in KC-- 1976-1979, and then in St. Louis in 1982, '83, '85, '87, and '89. The guy only managed 13 complete seasons anywhere, and one of those was strike-shortened. So I'm counting 9 out of 12 on his percentage.
There's a simple reason for this-- Whitey's teams were thrilling to watch. They hustled, they stole bases, they played spectacular defense, they played intelligently. Hometown fans of Whitey's teams weren't just killing time at the ballpark. They were immersed in the action. The Rat was educating us. He didn't just manage the Cardinals ballclubs to three World Series in the 1980's, he simultaneously built the roster as general manager. And he might just be the only man in baseball history who rebounded a lackluster franchise, bringing it to championship glory, while
cutting payroll. After three AL Western Division Championships in Kansas City, he came to St. Louis and transformed the roster to fit the cavernous Busch Stadium and the results were electrifying.
It's easy to forget that St. Louis wasn't always the Baseball City, U.S.A. that it is today. Despite decades of championships going back to Lindbergh, there have been precarious times. They were almost squeezed out of town in favor of the Browns and Bill Veeck in the early '50s. Their greatest clubs had largely coincided with Depression-era crowds and World War II fan absenteeism. The team's revival of the 1960s lasted only as long as the great careers of Lou Brock and Bob Gibson began fading in the mid-'70s. If Mark McGwire is the Michael Jordan of the Cardinals' global reach around the world, then Whitey and his dazzling shortstop, Ozzie Smith, were certainly the Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
Herzog's front office exploits were almost the equal of his dugout. He was the director of the minor leagues for the Mets in the 1960s, putting together the young pitching talent that catapulted the '69 Champs. At the opposite end of his career, he went to work for Gene Autry in California, and redirected an organization renown for its dependence on free agent stars to one built on talented, drafted young stars like Tim Salmon, Garrett Anderson, and Jim Edmonds. His work for the Cowboy culminated in a World Championship in 2002.
And oh, how he can talk. A former competitor now dead hasn't "passed away," he's "on the other side of the grass." He can bullshit for hours, yet his directness is legendary. His mind as sharp as anybody's ever connected to the game. His good pal and card crony, the late Jack Buck, thought Herzog was the smartest man he ever met. Buck used to love telling the story about the time Whitey filled an entire pre-game interview radio slot with just one simple question from the host. It was in 1990, upon Herzog's 10 year anniversary with the Cardinals, Buck began with the comment, "Ten years, huh?" and Herzog followed with a year-by-year rundown of the club's exploits during his tenure along the lines of "...Then we lost Sutter to Ted Turner in 1985, but Jeff Lahti stepped in and we didn't blow a ninth-inning lead that season until Denkinger and Game 6 of the World Series... And then in '86." It was 10 minutes perfectly encapsulating Herzog's tenure with the club, and 20 years later, I've heard the interview replayed three different times on the Cardinals network during various rain delays.
Characteristic of the Rat's speech stylings were his comments today for the man he'll be enshrined with next summer-- long-time National League umpire Doug Harvey, a bit of a Herzog nemesis over the years. "I’m happy for him," Whitey said, "He was a conscientious guy. He hustled all the time. He looked good in his uniform. We both chew tobacco. He kicked me out more than anybody but it wasn’t over balls and strikes or fair and foul. It was always some other issue, like the weather. He was a good umpire but he was the worst weatherman I ever saw. It doesn’t matter who I go into the Hall of Fame with. Hell, I’d go in with the Devil. Not that Harvey’s the Devil."
Whitey's still pissed about a game Harvey refused to call for rain over two decades ago.
Today was some time in coming. Many observers felt that Herzog's solitary World Championship in 1982 may have been too little for him to receive the honor, but that puts a helluva weight to put on the shoulders of the umpire, Don Denkinger, that cost the Cards the championship in 1985. Whitey and Denkinger have become good pals over the years with the former umpire appearing at sports memorabilia shows in St. Louis and serving as guest speaker at a 20th anniversary dinner honoring the '85 team and benefiting a Herzog charity. Denkinger can sleep soundly tonight. And I hereby publicly forgive him.
An added bonus of today's announcement, for baseball fans everywhere, is that it means Whitey will have to deliver a speech in July in Cooperstown. It's bound to be a good one. As a fan, it will be a thrill for me right up there with
the time I met Whitey.
Congratulations, White Rat. Thanks for all the fun.
Happy 5th Anniversary
This blog turns 5 years old today, and I want to thank everybody who has taken time to read it, to comment, and/or to contribute during all that time. I fully recognize that "this thing of ours," to channel Tony Soprano, is a very small neighborhood in a large media landscape, but reaches a few people nevertheless and without compromise. We lay out what we think is important here, echo and promote important ideas and news sources elsewhere, engage in a hearty dialogue at times, and the sum of that is perhaps all that the blogosphere can and should be at its level best.
Readers can be confident that, at the very least, there's no hidden agenda here, no advertisers to appease, certainly no financial reward to be gained. For me, it's a creative outlet started at about the point I gave up work in the traditional news media, with all the tongue-biting and dissatisfaction that was involved with that.
At it's worst, the blog has included some unhealthy need by its principal author for external validation, as well as the promoter of some wrong ideas and opinions; but maybe at it's best, it's been an important, even necessary small ingredient in the wildly vast online media soup now required for a happy and healthy democracy-- its power only in being part of that something larger, like one of the infinitesimal number of painted dots in Seurat's
"A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."I'm terribly grateful again to everyone who reads this blog or devotes any time to it. Your feedback has had an enormous impact, to say the least, in the topics that are chosen and how it's presented. I'm extremely proud of what this is and I promise to keep it going.
We'll be back next with a recap of the voting results by the Veterans' Committee of the Baseball Hall of Fame, which will be announced for 2010 on Monday morning. As always, I hope it will be as fun to read and to think about for you as it will be for me to write.
It's even worse than you think
Rolling Stone's contributing editor Matt Taibbi is back this month with what might turn out to be the most important piece of American journalism since
the last time Taibbi wrote about the hijacking of the American financial system in the pages of the magazine two months ago.
In "Obama's Big Sellout," soon to be published by the magazine, Taibbi will detail how Wall Street demon hustlers Michael Froman, Robert Rubin, and Timothy Geithner were handed the keys to the Obama White House last year on November 5th, just one day after the election, and at the replacement cost of many of the progressive campaign activists who helped to get Obama elected. Taibbi's research will certainly uncover and detail that the Barack Obama of "Hope" and "Change" was a cardboard cutout and counterfeit presidential choice to make the Manchurian Candidate look like Mr. Smith.
Publication has been delayed by recent legislation being rushed through Congress, but on Rolling Stone's website, Taibbi
discusses his investigation on video.
The year of driving slowly
I completed my two-night and 8-hour Continuing Ed class at 10 o'clock last night as ordered by the state of Iowa's Department of Transportation, and thus begins my one full year on driving probation for my regrettable speeding offenses.
The class facilitator at Des Moines Area Community College, Ken Owens, was marvelously friendly and informative. (Turns out that he and I are both "blues" in the Real Colors personality test.) I met a lot of terrific people Wednesday and Thursday night in Ankeny. There was the charming mother of two (who was likewise a "blue"), another woman who worked for a local medical examiner, an independently-wealthy gentleman who used to work with my boss (we won't be sharing any of this with him, however), and a local Christian minister-- a younger guy who last night, upon being questioned about the contradiction between being a man of God and having broken a few of man's laws, uttered the epic line, "Sometimes, to do the Lord's work, you've gotta drive like the devil!"
The next year will not be a fun one for me. You'll see me outside my car as often as possible, and when I'm inside of it-- in the driver's seat-- I'll be observing the posted speed limits, minus five. I've learned a lot this week about our state's various moving violations, the differences between values, attitudes, and behaviors, the relationship between temperment and driving, and most importantly, that society at large can be the victim even when nobody else is.
Make way for me out there in the slow lane.
And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown
The Charlie Brown Christmas Special owns a special place in my heart. It's contained within the 1960's Peanuts DVD collection that has an honored place on my entertainment shelf at home, the program captivated an audience of gentle souls at Moeller Television Festival V, and Vince Guaraldi's jazz score kicks some proverbial ass.
Yesterday, superblogger Ken Levine published
the little known story of the advertising executive that fought for this unusual TV special 44 years ago this month, helping to launch it to its cultural greatness. The annual airing of the special was pre-empted tonight due to the President's speech, but it will air later this month on the Walt Disney network.
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In blogs past, I've referred to NBC television as the General Electric network, just as I just referred to the ABC network as Walt Disney (see above). We should always be acutely aware of who's writing the checks for our national news gatherers. There's a grand illusion in this country that we have media diversity. Indeed, there are hundreds of channels on the television (not on mine, but on those with better cable packages), and still just
six corporations(!) control roughly 80 percent of all media in the country.
I was just out of the shower this morning when that wanker Matt Lauer on the "Today" show introduced to the nation the couple that crashed the White House state dinner last week. "I feel the need to say this and ask this--" Lauer said, "Are you appearing here today in any way because of a financial deal that you have made with this network? Are we paying you for this appearance in any way?" No, came the resounding reply from both Mr. and Mrs. America.
Did the couple have a financial deal with "NBC"? No, they didn't, but
it turns out they did have one with Bravo, a network owned and operated by-- wait for it-- NBC Universal and General Electric.
Now I grant you that Matt Lauer is a newsman the way Shaquille O'Neal is
a police officer, but for grief's sake, he is
pretending to be one in the middle of national television. When I was going
into the bathroom 20 minutes earlier, he was interviewing Karl Rove. So thank the stars in heaven that we live in an era of internet muckrakers to call shenanigans on such slippery corporate behavior. Busted!
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I want to be fair with the President in regards to his Afghanistan speech tonight. I think it's great that he delivered it without the flight suit.
