Steven Rubio's Online Life

good samaritan

I lost my camera at the Giants game on Wednesday. Lost and Found just contacted me … someone turned it in, and it’ll be there for me to pick up.

Now back to your regularly-scheduled programming.

random friday, 1974 edition: barry white, “you’re the first, the last, my everything”

Yesterday, I complained about how Glee uses music, so it’s a nice trick of the random shuffle that Barry White shows up today. I’m not a big fan of White, but his music was important to a television show that, like Glee, made a lot of use of music, and split the audience between those who found it adorable and those who found it cloying. I’m speaking, of course, of Ally McBeal.

Ally McBeal ran for five seasons, beginning in the fall of 1997, and was an instant “water-cooler” program (nowadays it would be a Twitter favorite), although its ratings weren’t all that high. It was a very quirky show … the title character was watching her biological clock, and would often hallucinate the “Dancing Baby” that was an Internet hit at the time. The law firm where Ally worked had a unisex bathroom where characters would meet to converse and further the plot. Everyone had their little … well, I hate to use the word “quirk” again, but there’s no better way to describe the lawyer with a fetish for the neck skin of an older woman, or the judge who liked to examine the teeth of people in his courtroom, or … you get the idea.

Ally McBeal made frequent use of music. Some of it served as a soundtrack, but there was also a local bar where everyone met after work … at this bar, Vonda Shepard sang r&b covers, and occasionally one or more of the cast would climb onstage to belt out a number (in particular, Lisa Nicole Carson and Jane Krakowski were legitimately fine singers).

So, why am I going on at length about Ally McBeal, when the topic is supposed to be Barry White? John Cage, a partner at the law firm, had a lot of his own quirks … one of them was a Barry White fixation. He used that fixation in a positive way, channeling his inner White in order to gather strength in public. “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” was the go-to song, leading to the famous Barry White Dance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQN1COeI75E

This culminated in an episode with the gang at the bar for John’s birthday, when his girlfriend gave him the ultimate present:

What was it about Barry White that made him the perfect fantasy for a show about post-boomer yuppie lawyers? While White had been in the music business for many years, he really broke out when “Love’s Theme” hit #1 in 1974. An instrumental credited to The Love Unlimited Orchestra, it featured a large orchestra and a wah-wah guitar, sounding a bit like Mantovani gone disco. It was somehow both harmless and irresistible. White spent most of the remainder of the 70s cranking out one hit after another.

His voice sounded like sex … not fucking, though, more like a nice long evening that culminated in lovemaking. There was nothing dangerous in White’s vocals, which probably contributed to his enormous crossover appeal. He also became famous for his “raps,” long spoken introductions that set the romantic stage for what was to follow. “You’re the First” was a classic example, with White’s smooth bass voice asserting:

We got it together, didn't we? We definitely got our thing together, don't we, baby? Isn't that nice? I mean really, when you really sit and think about it, isn't it really really nice? I can easily feel myself slipping more and more away to that simple world of our own. Nobody but you and me. We got it together, baby.

Amazingly, “You’re the First” started out as a country song written by Peter Radcliffe twenty-one years earlier. White changed the lyrics, gave it disco instrumentation, and voila! A #1 hit!

White went down easy (I’m not sure if I mean that as a double entendre or not). You could ignore him, but he was hard to hate. He came by his crossover appeal honestly. When he was 11 years old, he played on Jesse Belvin’s hit, “Goodnight My Love.” In the mid-60s, he was an A&R man for the Bobby Fuller Four. Then he moved into songwriting and production. He was a career music biz man who finally starting singing his own songs.

And I still haven’t figured out why he was the right choice for Ally McBeal. Or The Simpsons, for that matter … he appeared in three episodes of that show, as well. There was something about Barry White that made you think he could easily be turned into an object of ridicule … only it always turned out you didn’t want to make fun of him after all. When you first saw your geeky friend doing The Barry White Dance, you thought he was, well, geeky. Then you found yourself tapping your toe. Then you joined in the dance. You couldn’t help yourself.

And you never know who’ll show up when the Maestro’s in town:

glee is back

Heather Havrilesky seems to think the show has gone downhill since we last saw it, but it looks like the same show to me. (Although, in fairness to Havrilesky, part of her criticism is that the show is stuck in a rut, so that “the same show” is the problem, not the solution.)

But when I say it seems like the same show, I don’t mean that in a positive way. What bothered me before continues to bother me now. Last December, I wrote:

I think the message of the show is supposed to be that we all have our talents that make us special, no matter where we fit on the high-school hierarchy of coolness. But the songs tell a different story: success is available to anyone with access to auto-tune. It is a rare song that isn’t produced into sterility. At one point during this week’s episode, cheating glee club sponsors are chastised because “if you’d let them just go out and perform, they might have been great, without cheating.” But every time Lea Michele belts one out (and she’s a fine singer and actress), she’s auto-tuned so excessively that you wonder why the show’s producers don’t let her perform “without cheating.” It’s as if they don’t trust their own cast.

Well, surprise surprise. The first song of last night’s episode was “Hello, I Love You.” Cory Monteith opens his mouth, and out comes … Auto-Tune (sorry for the non-U.S. readers, this comes from Hulu):

Listening to it again, I have a feeling the band is auto-tuned as well.

A performance of “Highway to Hell” was wrong-headed in its own way, although the weapon was the same. To start with, who thought it was a good idea to have a high-school glee club perform “Highway to Hell” while flames burst into the air? Hey Satan, paid my dues, indeed. This is a song that teenagers play really loud on their car stereos while riding down the road on a Saturday night, convinced of their immortality. It’s not a song a glee club sings as they prepare for regionals. And this isn’t just any metal song, it’s Bon Scott’s anthem … a year after AC/DC recorded the song, Scott was dead from “acute alcohol poisoning” leading to “death by misadventure.” Rock on, glee club.

Of course, Scott was known as one of rock and roll’s most feral vocalists … one imagines a producer trying to auto-tune Scott and finally giving up in dismay. AC/DC understood the importance of Scott’s voice … when they replaced him, they dug up Brian Johnson, who sounded remarkably like Scott. Doesn’t that sound like a perfect choice for a Glee Auto-Tune Special? Sure enough, the lead singer belts it out, Broadway-style, while the Auto-Sheen makes it slick enough for mass consumption.

I don’t have the heart to post that clip, so here’s the Bon Scott-era AC/DC performing “Highway to Hell”:

It’s not that the Glee version is bad, it’s that it’s wrong. I’m not much of a fan of AC/DC, or of Bon Scott, but anyone who listens to “Highway to Hell” and thinks it would make a great song for a glee club just wasn’t listening in the first place. And that’s how Glee treats music … all of the songs are flattened until one is as good as another … the songs don’t matter, so who cares if the kids are singing about going to hell in a puddle of drunken vomit?

It should be noted that what was good about Glee in the past is still good now. There are some terrific singers in the cast (not that the producers ever let them sing unadorned), Jane Lynch is Jane Lynch (although they’ve made her so one-dimensional even she is becoming tired), and for some reason I can’t identify, Dianna Agron’s face always looks interesting, and I find myself looking for her when she’s in the background of a scene. Glee is like Freaks and Geeks with music, but if Freaks and Geeks gets an “A” for its presentation of high-school life, Glee is only a “B.” And I just don’t know how much more of the music I can take.

politics, clay davis style

the buzzword is “nooks and crannies”

My apologies to those who aren’t baseball fans, but it’s hard to write about much else this week. We took in three games on the first home stand of the new season, and each offered something different.

The home opener on Friday went 13 innings, the longest home opener in San Francisco Giants history (lasting 4 hours and 1 minute). It went extra innings because Edgar Renteria hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game … it finally ended when Aaron Rowand hit a dramatic ground ball to the outfield grass in left field and slid headfirst (and theatrically) across first to clinch the win.

The second game I went to was Sunday, where, remarkably, the rain delay was longer that that record-setting opener. The game started more than four hours late due to rain … we stuck it out, and were rewarded with another Giants win.

Today, as if to give us a different kind of reward, the Giants took only 2 hours and 8 minutes to post a victory. This game also had an unnecessary but thoroughly entertaining slide, this time from Aubrey Huff. Huff, an aging slugger who is about as slow as you’d imagine an aging slugger might be, had been concerned that no matter how hard he hit the ball at China Basin, he couldn’t get it out of the park. So this time, he tried something different. He clubbed a long fly into the deepest part of the park … the rightfielder misjudged it, running well past where the ball was about to land … the ball hit the fence and took an odd bounce (if it’s possible for any bounce off of that bizarre wall to be called “odd”) in the opposite direction from where the fielder had run to … the second baseman had to come out and get the ball, by which time Huff had himself an inside-the-park homer that concluded when Huff emulated his moniker by huffing and puffing his way to the plate, where Mark DeRosa was telling him to slide, baby, slide! So he slid, although he didn’t need to … a throw never even came to the plate.

So, in three days, we saw game-tying homers and game-winning infield hits, we saw one pitcher strike out ten and another strike out eleven, we saw a four-hour game, a four-hour rain delay, and a game that took little more than two hours. We saw three Giants wins. And it’s only April 14.

Here, at least until it gets taken down, are four different takes on Huff’s memorable at-bat, the TV and radio calls from both the Giants and the Pirates:

treme series premiere

There was a sad moment as Treme began, when I realized David Mills would never know what we thought of the show on which he worked so hard. But Treme looks to be a series that won’t turn a blind eye to suffering and sorrow, but which will also celebrate hope and perseverance, and so, with a tip of our cap to the Undercover Black Man, we move onwards.

A lot has been made about how inscrutable some aspects of the show will seem to people unfamiliar with New Orleans culture, and, of course, others are worried that Treme will get that culture “wrong.” I can’t speak to the latter, although most of the New Orleans natives I’ve read think the show gets it as right as it can. But the essence of the series looks to be its characters, and there are plenty of universal connections an audience can make with these people. Which isn’t to say they are stock characters … they have New Orleans in their bones, you don’t for a second think it would be the same in another city. Which is to say that Treme is as much New Orleans as The Wire was Baltimore. All I know is, I welcome having these characters visit my home over the next few months.

There is no use singling out anyone, since we’re just getting to know the characters, but the ensemble acting is superb, as is to be expected. I guess I’d give a special shout out to Khandi Alexander, who is never less than terrific, but the whole cast shines.

Look, I am fanboy and can’t be trusted. For me, after one episode, Treme is already the best show currently on television, and I have confidence it will maintain its quality. I will note that some might find it slow, but that’s their problem. If you avoided The Wire, no matter how good everyone said it was, because of the violence, give Treme a try. Actually, you should be watching Treme in any case. Grade for series opener: A.

god is a giants fan, which i guess makes us job

Today was the tenth anniversary of the first game at the Giants’ ballpark at China Basin, and a celebration was planned, with many of the players on that 2000 team in attendance. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate, it rained steadily for several hours, and all we got of the ex-players was interviews on the big TV screen that we couldn’t hear well enough to enjoy. I can still remember that first game, and at the time, I thought that while it was a joy to be finally rid of Candlestick, what really made a ballpark was history, and so at that moment, Candlestick was the “better” park because it was full of history, while the new park’s history was in the future. For me, the first real highlight that kicked off the New History came in Game Two of the best-of-five playoff against the Mets at the end of the 2000 season.

The Giants had won the first game, but the Mets took a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth in game two. The Giants put two men on, and J.T. Snow came in to pinch-hit. He hit one down the right field line that barely made it over the fence to tie the game. It was the first pinch homer of Snow’s career, and it began the China Basin era. Now the park had some history.

Sadly, if not surprisingly for long-time Giants fans, the glory surrounding Snow’s homer was short-lived. The Mets won the game in the tenth, then won Game Three in New York in an excruciating contest that finished when Benny Agbayani hit a walkoff homer in the bottom of the 13th (the only post-season home run of Agbayani’s career), and coasted in Game Four behind a one-hitter from Bobby Jones, ending the Giants’ season.

Today’s game wasn’t exactly historic, but it will be long remembered by those of us who stuck it out until the very end. Neal and I arrived early, around noontime, so we wouldn’t miss out on the pregame ceremonies honoring the 2000 Giants, but we knew the weather was going to be a problem … reports had it raining pretty much constantly all day and all night, with thunder and high winds tossed in for good measure. At 12:30 we were told a rain delay was official … the ceremony never happened. We proceeded to sit through a 4 hour and 9 minute rain delay (“what did you DO for four hours?” my wife asked later), until finally, at a little before quarter past five, the game began. Tim Lincecum gave up a first-inning homer but nothing more, and struck out ten batters in seven innings. The Giants took the lead in the sixth inning, and Pablo Sandoval put it away with a 400-foot blast in the 8th.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing came at the end of the game. The rain had mostly held off during the playing of the game itself, with a brief few moments of sunshine and a pretty rainbow to add to the charm. But as the game ended, something happened that is impossible to describe, because no one will believe it. One happy fan was prompted to say that we now had proof that God was a Giants fan. Jeremy Affeldt struck out Matt Diaz, game over, crowd shouted joyfully … and immediately (no exaggeration), a downpour began that was the hardest rain of the entire day. Apparently, God waited until the Giants’ win was in the bag before opening the heavens once again.

opening day 2010

Apparently it was the longest opening home game in San Francisco Giants history, 13 innings, 4 hours and 1 minute. Did it feel long? Well, yeah … with all the pre-game hoopla, they didn’t even start playing until after 1:30. And when the Giants came up in the bottom of the 9th trailing by two runs, I assumed we’d be on the road soon after seeing the home team lose. But then red-hot Edgar Renteria hit a 2-run homer, and while the Panda’s subsequent at-bat took a bit of the glow off (it might have been the worst AB I’d ever seen him have … he wanted to duplicate Renteria’s feat so much that he was swinging wildly as a bunch of crappy pitches), it was fun to see the Giants back in the game. I don’t know that I’d describe the next 3 1/2 innings as fun … this wasn’t a great game, it was a decent game with great high points. But the ending sure was a blast. Jose Uribe drew a rare walk, stole second and went to third on a bad throw, and then came home with two outs when Aaron Rowand squibbed one to deep short and beat the throw to first.

Some thoughts on the experience … it was weird not sitting in the seats I’d held for the last ten years. Our seats today weren’t all that bad … they were the definition of nosebleed, only one row from the top, but we were between home and third and the view was fine. The best new ballpark feature came when Sara wondered where the new food offerings might be. I called up the Giants website on my Pre, and there was a page with pulldown menus … you told it where you were sitting and what you were looking for, and it would reply with something like “the closest garlic fries are on the upper deck, behind Section 322.”

Again, the seats weren’t the best, but neither were they the worst, and since I’m now free of my previous seats, I can sit wherever I want, which means for the rest of the games we’ll attend this month, we’ll be in the lower deck behind the Giants dugout. In the meantime, Opening Day #31 is in the books.

random friday, 1973 edition: new york dolls, “personality crisis”

Sometimes, an artist announces themselves and presages their future with the opening cut from their debut album. Think of “Blitzkrieg Bop” from the first Ramones album, or Bruce Springsteen and “Blinded by the Light,” “Welcome to the Jungle” and Patti Smith’s “Gloria” and “I Can’t Live Without My Radio.”

“Personality Crisis” is one of those songs.

Just as the first line of “Blitzkrieg Bop” defined the Ramones (“HEY! HO! LET’S GO!”), so did the beginning of “Personality Crisis” define the Dolls:

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHOOO! YEAH YEAH YEAH! NONONONONONONONO!”

I suppose the Dolls were one of those “sum is greater than the parts” bands. Even though they were a mess and couldn’t stay together for more than a few years, they somehow fit together. Robert Christgau described them perfectly in an early piece on the band:

"People have the wrong idea about us," says Arthur Kane, bassist of the New York Dolls. I strain to hear what will come next, for altogether Arthur is a big guy, standing well over six feet in his platform heels, he speaks in a barely audible lisping murmur. "They think we're a bunch of transsexual junkies or something."

Of course, Arthur, that's a ridiculous notion. Although you are wearing red lipstick and a New York Rangers jersey-minidress over white tights. And David Johnasen will tie up his arm and inject himself with an imaginary hypodermic while singing "Looking for a Kiss" at Kenny's Castaways tonight. And Syl Sylvain will look like the strutting image of Liza Minnelli in Cabaret at the Mercer tomorrow. And Billy Murcia, your first drummer, died in what is called a drug-related incident while the band was overwhelming England last fall. Transsexual junkies? What a calumny.

As for their musicianship, well, Christgau describes the first meeting of Kane and Johnny Thunders:

"I hear you play guitar," Thunders said. "I play bass."

"I'm not too good," Kane replied.

"Well, neither am I," said Thunders.

In one of the best personnel moves any band ever made, Kane and Thunders switched instruments. Yes, the sum is greater than the parts, and yes, David Johansen’s abilities as a front man and songwriter were crucial to the band’s lasting success, and yes, Johansen and Sylvain can be the only original members still touring as the New York Dolls and it sounds right … yes to all of that, but Johnny Thunders’ guitar is what took the Dolls to the next level. He played as if he didn’t know where the next note was coming from, and sure, it might even have been the “wrong” note, but that hardly mattered when those notes careened their way across one song after another. Thunders’ guitar playing was unpredictable, not to say dangerous, and it made all the difference. Later in the 70s, when the band had broken up and Syl was part of the band in Johansen’s solo move, they’d play the old songs and the new band was “better” than the Dolls, the guitarists were “better” than Johnny. But the sound was not the same, not the same at all. I once tried to explain to a friend why Thunders was such a seminal guitarist, and she couldn’t understand why someone who lacked the technical wizardry of the “best” players could be seminal, or even good. Well, compare the version of “Personality Crisis” above with this one, by Johansen with Syl and the new, faceless band. The guitarist knows his hot licks, but he’s no Johnny Thunders, and he always knows where the next note is coming from:

What makes the Dolls’ two albums great to this day, in the end, is the songs. “When I say I’m in love, you’d best believe I’m in love, L-U-V.” “Uh, how do you call your lover boy? Trash!” “Do you think that you could make it with Frankenstein?”

You can tell a lot about a band by the covers they choose … in the Dolls’ case, the only limit seemed to be David Johansen’s record collection. On their first album they covered Bo Diddley. For Too Much Too Soon, they corralled Shadow Martin, most famous for his work with the Shangri-Las, as producer. They covered Gamble and Huff and Sonny Boy Williamson, “Stranded in the Jungle” and “Bad Detective.” And they finished with their own “Human Being”:

And if I'm acting like a king
I said well, I'm a human being
And if I want too many things
Don't you know, well
I'm a human being
If I've got to dream
Baby baby baby, I'm a human being
And when it gets a bit obscene (WHOO! WHOO! WHOO!)
I'm a human being!

They’re still doing it to this day:

(As a coda, I suppose I should say something about Malcolm McLaren, who died this week, and who managed the Dolls for a short while at the end of their run in the 70s. It’s safe to say I am not a fan of McLaren, nor am I convinced his influence was good for the music. But perhaps I should let it go. Sylvain Sylvain said that his friend Malcolm “always had a great sense of humour, he always had a smile on his face. He would cheer you up if you were down.” And even John Lydon was kind, saying “Above all else he was an entertainer and I will miss him, and so should you.”)

But I can’t leave it with McLaren. So in his honor, I’ll recall a different ad campaign, from before he was the Doll's’ manager. I’m relying on memory here, and memory is an untrustworthy thing, but as I recall, when their first album was released, they had a print ad with a picture of the album cover and the tag line, “You’re gonna like ‘em, whether you like it or not.” Here’s that album cover:

opening day trivia/memories

Today will be my 31st-consecutive Opening Day. My first was on April 17, 1980 … I had a broken foot, which hadn’t stopped me from visiting the mosh pit at a Ramones concert five days earlier. On that first opening day, Jimmy Carter was President, Jerry Brown was Governor of California. I was 26 years old … my kids were 4 and 2. Bengie Molina was 5 years old … Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain wouldn’t be born for another 4 years. The #1 song in America was “Call Me” by Blondie. The big movie released in America that week was ffolkes, with Roger Moore as a “misogynistic but dedicated frogman.”

Today is my third April 9 opener, and the second opener against the Braves. Here’s a brief look at those three previous games, for the sole purpose of sticking some fun names into the post.

April 9, 1981: The Giants opened the season at home against the Padres, and you could say I started my Opening Day tradition, since it was my second opener, which means it was the first time I could say “hey, I do this every year!” The Padres had future Hall-of-Famer Ozzie Smith and future Giant Terry Kennedy, along with Juan Bonilla making his major-league debut … the Giants countered with future Hall-of-Famer Joe Morgan. The starting pitchers were ex-Giant John Curtis and Vida Blue. The pitchers were in charge for most of the game. Gene Richards scored in the first for San Diego by leading off with a single, stealing second base, advancing to third on a foul popout, and coming home on a wild pitch. It was the only run Vida would allow. The Giants tied it in the bottom of the 7th on a two-out single and stolen base by Larry Herndon and a pinch-hit single by Jim Wohlford. The game remained tied until the 12th inning, when Al Holland came in to pitch. Three singles, two walks and one passed ball later, it was 4-1 Padres, which is how it ended.

April 9, 1985: The Padres again. This was the first game for new manager Jim Davenport. The Padres had future Hall-of-Famer Tony Gwynn, future Giants manager Bruce Bochy, and future Giants coach Tim Flannery. The pitchers were LaMarr Hoyt and Atlee Hammaker. Doug Harvey was behind the plate. The Giants took a 3-2 lead into the 9th, but the Padres loaded the bases with no one out. Scott Garrelts came in and got a double play, but a run scored to tie the game. Vida Blue, back after a year’s suspension, came in to get the lefty Terry Kennedy. In the bottom of the 9th, Chris Brown singled home Jeffrey Leonard, giving the Giants a 4-3 win.

April 6, 2006: After their first losing season in 9 years, the Giants took on the Braves after splitting two games in San Diego. The Braves’ SS was current Giant Edgar Renteria … the Giants’ lineup included Lance Niekro and Mike Matheny. Noah Lowry went up against Jorge Sosa. Lowry held off the Braves in the first inning, and retired the first two batters in the second, then left with a back injury. He didn’t pitch again for a month. Sosa walked Barry Bonds intentionally on two occasions, the second in a third inning that decided the game, as the Giants put up 6 runs on their way to a 6-4 victory. Jeff Fassero got the win, Tim Worrell the save.