Horrendous Predictions: MLB 2008

Before the start of every sporting season, I write down my predictions for where each team will finish and what each team’s record will be. I started doing this in high school when I was sitting through particularly boring classes (don’t look so innocent, Chemistry), and I’ve taken to filing them away to see at the end of the season how I did. The answer, invariably? Awful. I don’t know what I’m talking about, and, as of today, I’m going to not know what I’m talking about in a public form (so what’s new, you ask).

Throw your own ideas in, even if it’s just the two most important components of the season: the World Series champ and the Reds’ final record.

AL East

For years nothing changed. Yanks, Sox, Jays, Orioles, Rays, in that order. Now the Yankees have no pitching, the Jays are frisky, and the Orioles seem to have caught whatever the Nats have (now we know why Angelos was so keen to keep them away!).

Boston Red Sox, 100-62
Toronto Blue Jays, 94-68
New York Yankees, 91-71
Tampa Bay Rays, 78-84
Baltimore Orioles, 58-104

AL Central

Ever since the Lakers put together an all-star team to win the 2004 championship that they didn’t win, I’m skeptical of multiple huge deals in an offseason. Seems like the best teams make one big move, then patch up problem spots, which is why I’m not as big on the Tigers as most others will be. Besides, Michigan’s got some bad karma happening.

Cleveland Indians, 96-66
Detroit Tigers , 90-72
Minnesota Twins, 83-79
Kansas City Royals, 72-90
Chicago White Sox, 70-92

AL West

Addition by subtraction is waving goodbye to Bartolo Colon as he boards a plane to play for the BoSox. Congratulations, Angels, that’s worth three extra wins.

Anaheim Angels, 94-78
Seattle Mariners, 81-81
Oakland A’s, 78-84
Texas Rangers, 66-96

NL East

The Mets were a bad week away from winning this division last year, and they’ve added the best pitcher in baseball, so that should fix that. The Nationals and Marlins are Exhibits A and B for why MLB should adopt a European soccer-style relegation system.

New York Mets, 105-57
Philadelphia Phillies, 90-72
Atlanta Braves, 86-76
Florida Marlins, 68-94
Washington Nationals, 62-100

NL Central

The Cubs don’t look too bad, but history tells me that they don’t know how to have two good years in a row. And, as you can see, I’m expecting Big Things from the Reds this year. Some people maintain that Big Things from the Reds used to mean something greater than ‘finishing over .500.’ Those people are called grandparents.

Milwaukee Brewers, 88-74
Cincinnati Reds, 83-79
Chicago Cubs, 78-84
St. Louis Cardinals, 76-86
Pittsburgh Pirates, 72-90
Houston Astros, 64-98 (Who hates the Steroids Era more than this franchise?)

NL West

Isn’t it cute how Dodgers fans think they have a good team every year? Won’t it be especially cute to hear their profanity-laced tirades midway through the season when they realize that Joe Torre is a less effective manager than a statue of Joe Torre would be? (Apparently the statue wanted an incentives-heavy contract, so they went for the cheaper option)

Arizona Diamondbacks, 100-62
San Diego Padres, 94-68
Los Angeles Dodgers, 82-80
Colorado Rockies, 78-84
San Francisco Giants, 63-99 (Answer: This franchise.)

I’ll take the Angels over the Mets in the World Series. Prince Fielder wins NL MVP, while Manny Ramirez turns in his best year yet and wins AL MVP. NL Cy Young goes to Santana, and Francisco Liriano comes back with a vengeance to claim the AL Cy Young (there’s no way that will happen).

Jay Bruce plays 100 stellar games for the Reds, and Johnny Cueto wins 15 before Dusty Baker decides to pitch him three games in a row during a crucial September stretch, sending him to the Mark Prior Wing of What Might Have Been in the Hall of Dusty Baker Infamy off of I-65, just pass the off-ramp for Hell.

Flaming Tu(n)esday

I was devoted, in high school, to the jam band Phish. Just as with any scene, there were several rules I had to learn to follow to fit in as an authentic Phishhead. And perhaps no claim is as central to jam band fans as the belief that ‘[Insert Band Name Here]’s early stuff was much better than their recent albums, man. They sold out.’

I’m fairly suspicious of this sentiment now. It usually betrays a desire to display one’s knowledge and assert superiority over whomever else happens to be around. It’s coded speak for, ‘I’m a better fan than you because I was there first,’ and it probably isn’t new at all.  I’m sure there were haughty Austrians strutting about Vienna in the mid-19th century offering this sort of critique:  ‘Oh, you liebe the Grosse Fuge?  I guess that’s alright, but for my deutschmark, Luddy was never as gut after Eroica.’ This sort of subjectivity is certainly valid, of course, I just prefer that it be made obvious instead of dressed up as purely objective musical taste (as if such a thing could possibly exist).

Still, in discussing popular music, it’s important not to avoid an explanation just because it has been misused. It must be true that some musicians are better earlier in their careers than later. Two examples cross my mind, each with a different explanation.

Head Automatica released Decadence in 2004. It’s part straight rock, part electronica, and the album is high-energy with several gems.

Head Automatica – ‘Beating Heart Baby’ (Decadence)

Head Automatica – ‘Brooklyn is Burning’ (Decadence)

2006 brought the follow-up, ominously titled Popaganda. It was preceded by the single ‘Graduation Day,’ which, conveniently enough, dropped just in time for seniors everywhere to hear it and think, ‘Like, OMG! That would be such a perfect theme song for our graduation party!’

Head Automatica – ‘Graduation Day’ (Popaganda)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Head Automatica, Sellouts.

Kanye West is a different matter. His three albums steadily decline in quality, and his excuse is simple: he has a limited skill set, and he can’t meet the demand of multiple albums. He’s a creative producer and fierce self-promoter, but when it comes time to lay down some rhymes…yikes.

His first album, College Dropout, was a revelation. He oscillated among social critique, introspection, and party songs seamlessly, and the flow was acceptable with a few bright spots, like ‘Rollies and Porsches/they done drive me crazy/I can’t even pronounce nothin/man, pass that versace.’

Kaney West – ‘All Falls Down’ (The College Dropout) [exp]

Kanye West – ‘We Don’t Care’ (The College Dropout) [exp]

Then came Late Registration, and it was clear the Kan Man had some deficiencies. The first single was ‘Diamonds,’ where we learn that ‘it’s in a Black person’s soul to rock that gold.’ Nice, the self-conscious Conscience Rapper has nothing better for us than straight essentialism, and he punctuates it with a winceably repetitive falsetto hook at the end of each chorus: ‘Forevah evah, forevah evah, forevah evah, forevah evah.’

Kanye West – ‘Diamonds (from Sierra Leone)’ (Late Registration) [exp]

Still, Late Registration as a whole is worth the missteps, as proved by ‘Drive Slow’ and ‘Crack Music,’ the latter of which features a stirring spoken word coda from The Game and is probably Mr. West’s best song to date.

Kanye West – ‘Drive Slow’ (Late Registration) [exp]

Kanye West – ‘Crack Music’ (Late Registration) [exp]

Which brings us to Graduation. The album is much shorter than the previous two, which caused me to originally think that Kanye had figured out how to separate wheat from chaff and that we were in store for thirteen solid tracks.

Not so much. The beats are still formidable, and he shines brightest as a producer on his dancehall tracks, ‘Stronger’ and ‘Flashing Lights.’ The main problem is that Kanye never realized he’s a rapper of limited means, and his rhymes have only grown more audaciously horrific.

‘I Wonder’ includes the lines ‘And I’m back on my grind/A psychic read my lifeline/Told me in my lifetime/My name would help light up the Chicago skyline.’

Kanye West – ‘I Wonder’ (Graduation) [exp]

‘Barry Bonds’ sports possibly the least clever hook ever – ‘Here’s another hit, Barry Bonds’ – and assaults one’s sensibilities with this moment: ‘I’m insulted/You should go head/And bow so hard till your knees hit your forehead.’

Kanye West – ‘Barry Bonds’ (Graduation) [exp]

Sometimes musicians flame out. The trick is to identify it without rushing into the ‘Musicians Were Better Back Then’ trope.

I would like Tu(n)esday to be as interactive as possible, so feel free to suggest your own ideas of flameouts, as well as who you would like to defend that is often accused of having fallen off.

And, if you take nothing else from today’s post, take this: songs or albums that involve the word ‘graduation’ are the kiss of death.

Rollin with Phil’s Mom

It’s that time of year, when the flowers are blooming, the birds singing, and when a young man’s thoughts turn to…basketball. If you’re looking for an edge in your office pool, check out Phil’s Mom’s bracket that she revealed on the Tony Kornheiser Show on Wednesday.

Every year, Kornheiser has guests on during the week running up to the NCAA Tournament for the exclusive purpose of filling out brackets. It’s really a testament to the brilliance of his radio hosting skills that what would be dull and repetitive in another’s hands – guests picking brackets – becomes absolutely riveting radio when Mr. Tony does it.

Back when Kornheiser was on ESPN radio, he decided to have the mother of one of his producers, Phil Ceppaglia (also known until late 2007 as ‘Phil the Showkiller,’ so dubbed by Mr. Tony himself) make a bracket on the show. Notice how deftly Kornheiser is able to make a little bit of fun of Phil’s mom while also engaging her rather sweetly. My favorite exchange from this year:

TONY: Pittsburgh. That’s a reasonable choice. Do you know who also has Pittsburgh in the Final Four?

PHIL’S MOM: Who?

TONY: Bobby Knight.

PHIL’S MOM: [feigning recognition] Okay.

TONY: [knowing what the answer will be] Do you know who he is?

PHIL’S MOM: No.

TONY: [wryly] Okay.

Tony Kornheiser with Phil’s Mom 2008

Phil’s Mom’s one shining moment came in 2006, when she was the only person to put George Mason in the Final Four, followed by George Mason’s improbable run to the Final Four. Hence, the ‘I Roll with Phil’s Mom’ merchandising extravaganza.

Tony Kornheiser with Phil’s Mom 2006

Notice that, just as he does this year, Tony began the 2006 Phil’s Mom segment by asking her about the weather. Brilliant radio host, hopelessly old man.

Todd Rundgren Tu(n)esday

Hot Chip, a recent favorite of mine, dropped a new album, Made in the Dark a few weeks ago that includes the song ‘Shake a Fist.’

Hot Chip – ‘Shake a Fist’ (Made in the Dark)

The song is split into three parts, the first of which involves some singing, and the last of which is a fairly aggressive jam. In the middle is a classic sample of Todd Rundgren in all his glory. Rundgren was the Renaissance Man of the 1960s and 70s recording studio, playing a variety of instruments, singing all vocals, and tinkering with production knobs for the bulk of his 1972 Something/Anything?. The ‘Intro’ to Side 2 of Disk 1 is a tour around the studio with Rundgren as our guide. It’s the line, ‘Now if you have a pair of headphones, you better get ‘em out and get ‘em cranked up,’ that provides the bridge between the outer sections of ‘Shake a Fist.’

Todd Rundgren – ‘Intro’ (Something/Anything?)

The first time I heard this particular Rundgrenism was from the New Deal. The opening track from their eponymous debut album is constructed around a flattened and mechanized sample of (almost) the same words. The effect is to zoom Rundgren from an analog to digital world.

Of course, the New Deal problematize everything. First, they’re Canadian, so it’s always possible they’re joking. Second, they’re a group of live musicians who play electronica dance jams. Livetronica tends to critique and embrace technological progress all at once, producing the relentless thumping of bass-driven techno through the material liveness of people with instruments. In this case, the New Deal have taken the concept of ‘live technology’ far enough to have re-recorded Rundgren’s words (with a couple of telltale changes) themselves instead of just sampling his voice: it’s a ‘live sample.’ So, Is the New Deal praising or skewering the analog-ness of Rundgren?

The New Deal – ‘Back to the Middle’ (The New Deal)

Rushmore Rocket Limited with Royal Zissou

My favorite Wes Anderson movie is the one where one of the central characters spends much of the movie trying to buy happiness, only to find that a substantial amount of money often inhibits rather than enables happiness.

Which one is that, you ask?

You know – the one where a broken relationship between a child and a parent is uncovered but not fully resolved, even if all parties find some sort of peace with the imperfect.

Still not sure?

The one with Owen Wilson. It’s offbeat and funny, but it makes you feel a little uncomfortable at the same time.

Pointing out that Anderson can only sing one note is de rigueur for film criticism, but it’s worth noting that there’s still something quite enchanting about that note.

M. Night Shyamalan got old. Will Ferrell is getting old. But Wes Anderson seems new every time.

Perhaps because we’re a culture obsessed with money and happiness and the uneasy tension between the two, or perhaps because Anderson’s films are just far enough outside the mainstream that a generation of viewers obsessed with their parents can enjoy the films without the intrusion of the summer blockbuster crowds, or perhaps because we’re a culture obsessed with Owen Wilson, Anderson’s perfectly tuned note strikes a chord with his audience. The film itself represents only part of the final product: with Wes Anderson movies, the audience’s reception is foregrounded in a way that encourages and rewards the worrying of familiar themes.

Anderson has captured the frets of post-Gen Xers and presented them to us from a variety of angles. What makes his films successful is the combination of the broad generalizations that come with generational angst and the specific absurdities that enliven this material from one movie to the next.

Yes, the basic theme never changes, but I’m delighted by the particularity of each film. Whether it’s a lame joke about OR scrubs or the image of Bomber standing unmoving on a tennis court or the plaintive cry of ‘Stop including me!’ Anderson exhibits a real virtuosity for plumbing the mundane for its underlying surreality.

To complain about sameness is to miss the point. The joy of Anderson comes in the embrace of the oscillation between the broad themes and their particular instantiations from film to film.

The joy also comes in knowing he didn’t direct Signs…And that’s a lot of joy.

Introducing…Tu(n)esday

I’m rolling out a new weekly feature of the blog today. It’s called Tu(n)esday, and it’s fairly self-explanatory. On Tuesdays, I’ll post some songs and say a little something about them that may or may not be the following: insightful, wordy, worth reading.

I can’t promise much. The feature could end at any moment (it may be ending right now), and while my goal is really to put some songs up that I like and have been listening to or thinking about that you may like, as well, I can’t promise that I won’t start writing 1500 words a week and draining all of the fun out of this.

I can promise that you’ll find the songs in blue with an underline, so if you’re still reading, that’s on you.

For this week, we’ll start with an inexplicable moment on American Idol from last Tuesday night. Jason Castro (who I have no reason to believe isn’t a Very Nice Guy) whimpered his way through ‘Hallelujah,’ and Simon, who can usually be relied upon to point out when a singer has violated a song on stage, called the performance ‘brilliant.’ Full stop. Not ‘brilliantly flawed’ or ‘brilliantly horrendous.’ Just ‘brilliant.’ I can only assume that whatever Paula Abdul has is highly contagious and would advise Cowell to get his own table.

Caution: This video is not for the weak of heart or the strong of ear. Anyone who values breath control in a ballad should probably just skip to the next paragraph. I’m providing video footage to prove that he’s not actually running a marathon and smoking while singing, as the aural evidence would suggest. (Here are the judges’ comments; fast forward to 1:35.)

If you heard this song and felt like rescuing a self-destructive adolescent who gets credit for being hotter than she is from a drug overdose or a car wreck, it’s because the Jeff Buckley version of ‘Hallelujah’ has become the standard-bearer for televisual melodrama, thanks in part to its ability to motivate Ryan Atwood to almost show emotion. The song crept up a few times on the show, but probably most famously as the finale to Season 1, then as an accompaniment to Marissa’s death in Season 3, this time by Imogen Heap.

Jeff Buckley – ‘Hallelujah’

Of course, if hearing the song makes you want to snuggle up with a red dragon or become intimate with a green ogre, that’s because of Shrek’s use of John Cale’s version, which is the true progenitor of Buckley’s. But if you were to rush to the store to buy the Shrek soundtrack (and, really, who isn’t?), you would find a rendition by the One True Crooner:

Rufus Wainwright – ‘Hallelujah’

Cale infused the song with a plaintiveness that is mostly absent from Leonard Cohen’s original. Cohen’s is more of a production, with synths bubbling up from beneath his deeply intoned sprechstimme. Instead of ruminations, Cohen concocts an unsentimental mixture of accusation and defiance, punctuated in the chorus by the heavy accent the choir places on the final syllable of ‘Hallelujah,’ fashioning a sharp, caustic weapon that has been rounded off and blunted in the Cale and Buckley versions by their retreat from that last syllable. Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ shakes with an urgency completely missing from the later versions, and it is this emptiness that makes them perfect siphons for televisual interplay. Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’ assumes the emotional dimensions of its visual counterpart while fading in and out between dialogue rather seamlessly, whereas Cohen’s occupies too much of its own emotional space to adequately accompany the ins and outs of teen drama.

Leonard Cohen – ‘Hallelujah’

…And while we’re on music, don’t forget to check out my ‘Things I Like’ page in the right sidebar. I’ve tied a metaphorical bow around my ‘Music 2007′ page and have started adding to ‘Music 2008.’ Recommendations are welcomed, nay, encouraged.

Don’t Call It a Comeback…No, Seriously, Don’t Call It a Comeback

You know something? Not only are we going to New Hampshire…we’re going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico. [death metal soundtrack fades in; speaker's voice becomes more guttural] We’re going to California and Texas and New York! [gesticulating wildly] We’re going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington! And Michigan! And then we’re going to Washington, D.C., and take back the White House!! [pauses, arm cocked behind his head, as his presidential hopes flash before his eyes] Hyaw!!! (Howard Dean, 2004)

Sometimes something happens that is so unexpected that we can’t help ourselves. We talk about it incessantly, watch the clips several times on youtube, and become so enamored by the incident’s shiny surface that we find ourselves unable to look any deeper. We become mesmerized, and we tend to fall, lockstep, into the easiest analysis.

So Howard Dean became a raving lunatic in 2004, and Hillary Clinton managed ‘the greatest comeback in political history’ in New Hampshire in 2008 (Tim Russert on MSNBC, 8 January 2008).

Since 2000, we’ve learned time and again that the frenzy for immediate results and from-the-hip political analysis can yield unsavory election results, but we just can’t help ourselves. We prefer to have our races called on election night even when the voting difference is razor thin. We prefer to have our politicians concede an election immediately even when voting irregularities are streaming in from a swing state. We prefer to see an all day and all night barrage of Wacky Howard Dean’s Rowdy Roddy Piper speech. And we prefer to latch onto a weak sports metaphor to describe Clinton’s 2008 New Hampshire and Super Tuesday II experiences instead of considering the longer view.

The longer view, of course, is that the winner of a race can’t be said to have ‘come back’ when she begins with a 20 point lead and wins by 10 or 4. A candidate who wins two out of four states in one night can’t be said to have ‘come back’ when she begins the primary season as a shoe-in for the nomination and then, in mid-March, faces the challenge of having to pull in nearly every remaining superdelegate if she hopes to run in the general election.

But, ironically, the more time political analysts spend on television, the less analysis the viewing public actually sees.  The pressure to justify the existence of round-the-clock political primary coverage pushes otherwise intelligent people like Russert to choose the fantastical, mesmerizing, shiny-surfaced gloss instead of the sort of tempered analysis that would produce a broader understanding of the race.

But I’m not here to complain, or to make a very insightful point myself.  Politics and media coverage are entwined to the point that one can rarely tell which produces the other.  The task for us, as viewers and voters, is to do the work of unpacking all of the different parts of the primary process.  It’s just that that task can be quite challenging with all these shiny-surfaced distractions all around…

Hussein in the Membrane

The question has arisen recently as to how one can know when Obama’s middle name is being used appropriately or inappropriately.  I’m here to help.

If you’re listening to someone argue that underneath the rhetoric of this candidate lies a sinister man we know nothing about, and this person is using his middle name to imply that he’s in cahoots with Muslim terrorists, then his middle name is being invoked inappropriately.  This is an instance where someone is trying to appeal to our basest, most racist and xenophobic sides.

If you’re listening to someone who is trying to set up an elaborate joke whose punch line is ‘Gadolf Titler,’ this would qualify as appropriate.  The difference, of course, is that one guy wants you to be afraid of Obama, and the other guy wants to say ‘Titler’ on ABC.

Two further points:

1. I think some of the same tactics motivate the use of Clinton’s full name:  Hillary Rodham Clinton.  The idea of using her maiden name is to raise the specter of a bra-burning feminist (run for the hills!).

2. The upside of this is the continuing revelation that Obama is really difficult to attack.  Because nothing substantive sticks to him (yet), his opposition is left to resort to calling him by his name and hoping that does something.

But let’s face it, Barack Obama is your new bicycle.