MLB Preview: How the NL West Will Be Won

Call it a hunch!

The Dodgers now outspend the Yankees, are the runaway favorites in the NL West, and a trendy pick to win the World Series. Haven’t I heard that somewhere before? Gonzalez, Ramirez, Puig, Ethier, and a healthy Matt Kemp–LA should hit a ton. Kershaw, Grienke, Billingsley, and Ryu can pitch and Jansen’s a proven closer. What could go wrong? Chemistry, for one. Which outfielder will sit? Crawford? Kemp? Can Puig and Beckett stay of trouble? Other than Kershaw, the staff is solid but inconsistent. Is Grienke an ace, or one of MLB’s chronic underachievers?  

Breaking news: Grienke left his first spring training start after three pitches. 

Baumgardner, Cain, Hudson, Lincecum, Vogelsong…. The Giants simply have too much pitching for 2013 to have been anything more than a fluke. Posey, Belt, Sandoval, Pagan, and Pence don’t match up with the Dodgers’ heavy hitters, but they’ll do. Sergio Roma as closer? I’ll withhold judgement for another year. As much as people talk of the Dodgers’ staff, the Giants have the potential to be better. You know what they say about good pitching versus good hitting…

The Rockies are the annual mystery team and this year is no different. We know that CarGo, Tulowitzi, and Cuddyer are pretty good, and that De La Rosa and Chacin are crafty pitchers. What we don’t know is anything else. Is Arnando the future at third base? Will Morneau stay healthy? Can an unproven closer (Brothers) do the job? Who comes after Chacin in the rotation? 

Breaking news: Chacin has had spring shoulder problems. This is very bad news for the Rox. 

The Diamondbacks are also a mystery team. Goldschmidt, Hill, Prado, and Trumbo are proven hitters, Cody Ross an occasional one. The staff has an innings eater in Arroyo, but he’s no ace. And neither is the maddeningly inconsistent McCarthy or the fragile Cahill. Corbin was the man last year. If he slumps… If things click properly, the D’Backs can make some noise, but they could go south faster than a D.C. conservative.

The Padres won’t suck this year, but they look to be a few years away from being contenders.  Quentin is the real deal and there are some nice prospects on this roster (Alonso, Gyorko, Cabrera). They also have a lot of garbage (like Venable and Maybin). The pitching staff is a very big question mark. Which Ian Kennedy and Josh Johnson will show up? And who are the rest of these guys? This is Headley’s year to prove if he’s an elite player, or just one that had good early press.

Prediction:

1. Giants: Total hunch; could be out to lunch

2. Dodgers: Proving again that money buys respectability, but not a brass ring.

3. Rockies: I’m betting things go well, but wouldn’t be shocked if the Rocks sink.

4. Padres: They surprise by escaping from the Lower Ring of Hades.

5. Diamondbacks: I don’t like their pitching staff at all. But if things go right...

Debra Cowan John Roberts: Folk Music for Real Folks

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Debra Cowan and John Roberts

Live at the Ashfield Community Hall

February 22, 2014

Hype and Flash have left the building, and that’s a good thing–a very good thing. Last Friday night, Debra Cowan and John Roberts reminded me of why I love folk music so much–it’s the ripping yarns, the sparse tunes, and the joy of singing along. It was a drear night weather-wise––warm enough to turn the entryway into muck and transform snow banks into fog, but cold enough for us to know we’d have to be careful later on when the melt turned to glaze. Translation: only a few dozen hearty souls ventured forth to what we in Western Massachusetts call a “hill town,” Ashfield being tucked into a crevice of the rolling Berkshires foothills. A small audience like that could have been dispiriting, but Cowan and Roberts deftly converted the hall into an extended living room.

Call it homespun at its very best. The duo dropped all pretenses and delivered the sort of performance that evoked the early Folk Revival days: a song swap with audience participation. Roberts, an English émigré, has been singing traditional music since the 1960s, and possesses a large repertoire of sea shanties, broadside ballads, pub tunes, and British traditional songs. (Think The Copper Family or Peter Bellamy.) What little Roberts has lost in voice power in the past six decades is more than compensated by his storytelling ability. Like a good shanachie, there’s a twinkle in his eye that suggests that some of what he’s telling you might be true. It’s always about the song when Roberts sings, and he backs himself with either the humble concertina or, on occasion, banjo.

Cowan provides the nightingale contrast to the Roberts’ spare voice. Her tones are strong, clear, and lovely. She admits that she loved Julie Andrews as a lass, but if you think you’re going to get a girly-girl, forget it! Hanging out in folk clubs, singing at Mystic Seaport, being involved with the musicians’ union, and cavorting with other musicians makes her as likely to belt out Ray Davies’ “Alcohol” as some frothy love song. Belt it out she will. Cowan plays guitar, but she often leaves it on the stage because, when you’ve got a voice like hers, that’s all you need. Nor is she timid about reworking old love songs, sea shanties, and ballads to give them feminist twists.

There’s no point in fixating on the set list, because it was fluid. A song about a rogue reminded the other of one about a pirate. And so it went. What impressed me most was the way Cowan and Roberts turned a small audience into a big chorale group by patiently teaching complicated (and often tongue-tying) choruses, mixing in familiar songs, and letting the audience sing to the point where my only critique of the evening was that I seldom heard their two-part harmonies over the din. Call it as billed––folk music as music for the folk. --Rob Weir

   

MLB Preview AL West: Cano Won't Make the Mariners Go

Rangers will knock the cover off the ball.

Seattle is the sexy pick because it overpaid for Robbie Cano, the season’s elite free agent. Pick ‘em as the Best of the West if you want, but it says here that it’s Texas, Oakland, and the rest.

Let’s start with the Mariners. Cano is a thoroughbred, but the M’s really need to sign someone like Nelson Cruz, or Cano will be in a barn with plow horses. Smoak is decent, Seager may be an ascendant third baseman, but will Hart hit in the AL? Felix the Great anchors the staff, but Iwakuma might start the year on the DL and there’s nothing but question marks after him. Cano will also miss Yankee Stadium’s short fences. This is a team headed by two superstars with not much to support them.

The Rangers should knock the horsehide off the yarn. Fielder, Andrus, Profar, Beltre, Rios… ridiculous! Choo will set the table. The question mark is pitching. Holland, Darvish, and…? Perez remains unproven and Harrison was riddled by injuries last year. Is Ogando a for-real starter, or a bullpen guy? Soria can close games, though.

The A’s ought to adopt the slogan: “The Power of Fundamentals.” Manager Bob Melvin manages to get high mileage out of guys who were in Pawtucket for much of their careers: Moss, Lowrie, Reddick, Crisp. Céspedes looks like he’s going to bust loose soon; look out when he does. But pitching is the real key to the A’s success: Parker, Griffin, Gray, Straily, and whomever else Billy Beane manages to unearth.

The best everyday lineup ought to belong to the Angels if Pujols and Hamilton pull their heads out of their behinds and give the magnificent Mike Trout the support he deserves. Add Freese and Kendrick and these guys will unravel the yarn left by Rangers’ hitters. Alas, once one gets past Weaver and Wilson, the pitching staff looks thinner than hobo stew. Frieri to close? I don’t think so. This team needs to score a lot of runs to win.

Everyone’s a hopeful for the Astros and fans simply need to understand that this is going to take a while. If you live more than 20 miles from Houston you’ve not heard of anyone in the starting lineup. Of their pitchers, you might recognize the names Feldman, Crain, Qualls, Albers, and Oberholtzer. Of these, only the last is worth being excited about. The kids are going to play, some of them will be good, and the Astros won’t lose 111 games again, but 95-100 is probable.

Predictions:

1. Rangers: Awesome lineup. If the pitching holds, this team wins.

2. A’s: If Rangers hurlers falter, Oakland wins another improbable NL West crown.

3. Angels: This team is like the Tigers of the 1980s. It will win and lose 7-5 games.  

4. Mariners: This doesn’t look like Yankee Stadium, Toto.

5. Astros: Youth and prayer. Both will be in abundance. 

PS--Nelson Cruz signed with the Orioles after this was prepared, so scratch that bat for the Mariners. 

Stop Whining––Not Everyone Can be Number One

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The picture says it all and it’s just another confirmation of how far the Olympics have strayed from the ideals laid down by Pierre de Coubertin, who spearheaded the revival of the modern games in 1896: “The important thing is not to win, but to take part.”  The official goal of the Olympics is “…building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport….” Still another observer noted that the “true Olympic spirit” is “found in the purest sense in those that come last.”

You’d not infer any of this from the above picture. What we see is a group of young American women weeping because they finished second. Granted, it was a tough overtime loss and that sports can be emotionally draining, but Julie Chu was among the few who expressed any gratitude at all for the silver medal hanging from her neck. She hastened to add, “We wanted to win a gold medal. We've been working for that for four years.” Newspapers used descriptors such as “heartbreaking” and “slip-up” to explain the U.S. loss. The photos came on the heels of Ashley Wagner’s rant about the radical subjectivity of ice-skating judges and her pronouncement that had been “gypped.” She finished a mere sixth.

Excuse me if I’ve no tears for someone who has just been crowned the second best hockey team in the world, or the sixth best skater. What? It’s your birthright to be the best? Where’s the praise for Canada, which won and which has proved to be the best for four Olympics in a row? What’s wrong with being number two? Where’s the love for the Russian woman who skated to gold? If, at the end of my career, I were voted the second, or even sixth best history professor of my generation, I’d turn cartwheels. I’d do the same if I were mentioned as among the best––really. Anywhere in the top third and I’ll be delighted.

I don’t want to sound heartless about the hockey team. Everybody wants to win, but my overwhelming reaction is to recoil from the subtexts of nationalism and entitlement. The Olympics have turned me off for several years now, and not just because of the mawkish sentimentalism of television “profiles” of competitors––though most of these would make a rendering plant worker gag. It’s the damned medal counts that get to me. Is the USA winning the Olympics? Did the US hockey team win? Impossible! There aren’t supposed to be any winners and losers among nations, only individuals. And, as de Coubertin said, we’re supposed to celebrate taking part, not winning. Somehow or other the thrill of competition has given way to the joylessness of judgment.

There’s another thing that bugs me about all of this: entitlement. The saying that hard work will be rewarded is one of those proverbs that are simultaneously true and a lie. I see this all the time in teaching. Students flood my office when they receive a “C” on a paper. The ones I cherish are those that don’t assume they’ve been “gypped” and want to know how they can improve; the ones who bug me are the ones who tell me that such a grade is “impossible” given “how hard I worked.” I know my role: support, encourage, instruct. I also know what I wish someone (not me!) would say to the second student: “I believe that you did your best, but your best is a "C." Ditto here. 

I agree with those who say that it’s better to encourage than to discourage, but as a society, we’ve gone way overboard with the self-esteem stuff. The bumper stickers actually say that “Every child is a honored child,” but we’ve come to read “honored” as “honors” and that’s just not right. Maybe the U.S. women lost because the Canadians are better––there’s no shame in that, ladies. You worked really hard, but you're not the best. Take your "A-" and be happy. And to Ashley Wagner I say, “Get over it, girl. This is how the world works. Sometimes you get judged subjectively.” Is it fair? If you want fairness, join a monastery.

Of course, we all know the real subtext: commercialism. Gold yields gold in advanced capitalist economies. No one who finishes sixth gets put on the Wheaties box. That’s a shame. Anyone who is that close to the top of a profession ought to be honored, even if they’ve not won honors. Still, nobody is entitled to win, cash in, or swagger. Go ahead and feel “gypped” if you want to, but don’t waste your time waiting for a Metaphorical Mother to come by with the Kleenex box.Woman up and congratulation the Canadians.

PS--Later today the Canadian men beat the U.S. men by 1-0. Now the U.S. plays for a bronze. But who cares? These guys are all professionals and shouldn't be in the Olympics in the first place. If you doubt my remarks about nationalism, explain to me why there are NHL All-Stars in Olympic uniforms.

Labor Reform We Need

Hard to imagine, but activists and scholars used to argue whether government should guarantee worker rights, or whether unions should win these by wresting them from recalcitrant employees. Remember labor unions? For the near future at least, American workers are better off using their ballot box power than waiting for unions to revive. Here are some badly needed labor reforms:

·      Affordable Healthcare for all Employees: I surely don’t mean Obamacare; I mean healthcare for all. No exemptions and no exceptions. If an employer doesn’t have enough capital to pay into healthcare accounts, he doesn’t have enough to be in business and won’t be around long anyhow. Enough with the small business blues; down with Big Companies shirking their moral duty.

·      Mandatory Breaks: Ban the working lunch. Now! For blue, pink, and white collars. Workers need breaks and working lunches are just an excuse to squeeze blood from an already blanched turnip. Study after study shows that rested workers are more productive. Companies such as Google are even setting up nap-pods for short rest breaks. Some New Zealand employers require two 20-minute tea breaks and a lunch hour daily. They get more done that way.

·      Mandatory Vacations: Far too many employees yield their vacation rights out of fear of retaliation. This is immoral. Some refuse to take time off because they think they’re irreplaceable. They are fools headed for an early grave. The Big Bad Government should simply mandate that vacations must be taken and that employers must force the reluctant to take them.  

·      Salaried Employees Bill of Rights: This is so overdue I’m shocked that no one’s talking about it. Wagner Act rights largely preclude salaried employees, many of whom routinely work 60-80 hour workweeks. That’s ridiculous. Employers should be required to adhere to their job descriptions, and these should be in line with Wagner Act guidelines. Private business is grinding salaried employees like cheap sausages. What a deal! Hire someone for a seemingly nice salary of, say, $50k per year and then make him or her do the job of two or three people. If the job can’t be done on the clock, hire more help.

·      Job Protection Act: Globalization has become an excuse to slash wages and line investor pockets. Pass a law that forbids employers from closing a profitable business and moving it to East Desperado so they can get even cheaper labor. They can choose to go out of business altogether, but they must offer that firm to an employees/new investor consortium at market value and cannot operate a competing business for 10 years.

·      Offshore Taxation Reform: There may be no bigger tax rip-off in all the land as the one that allows employers to move businesses offshore, take tax write-offs, and then import goods back into the USA while paying taxes in the host country. Time for some tariff reform. How about taxing the percentage of goods that U.S. firms make offshore and re-import? If Brand X boogies off to Botswana to make t-shirts, but sells 80% of those shirts in the USA, tax that 80%. And while we’re at it, end the loopholes that allow employers to write off relocation costs in the first place.

·      Usury Reform: By what perverse logic are banks allowed to charge working people 18% interest on credit cards, dun them for every banking service they use, but pay under 1% when workers actually save money (which banks use for investments)? How about a law that says lenders cannot charge more than three times what they pay in checking/savings/IRA account interest? Think that’s too low? What investment can you or I make that gives a 300% yield?

·      Pay and Windfall Profits Caps: CEOs make, on average, 273 times as much as their employees. Oil firms have suspended the rules of supply and demand in favor of what the market will bear. Insurance firms, hospitals, and colleges have upped rates many times above the official inflation rate. Enough! Since when did “piracy” and “reasonable profit” become synonyms? We need a percentage cap between top and bottom salaries, as well as on profits. Salary caps seem to work in most sports, so let's slap one on CEOs and investors. Anything above goes into a special social fund for infrastructure improvement. In essence, you can get rich, but not as rich as Croesus.

·      A Living Wage: Why is there even a debate over this? There is no economic, social, or moral justification for fulltime workers living in poverty. None. Mention “trickle-down economics” and go to hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200,000.

Can this happen? We could vote it in if we don’t let ourselves be distracted by BS social issues, or be swayed by fork-tongued demagogues. I don’t just mean Tea Party whack jobs. I don’t care if it’s a Republican or a Democrat–if that person isn’t talking about substantive ways to improve the lot of working people (not the Business Community, which is doing very well, thank you), then that person should not get our votes. We do have choices, whether it’s the Green Party on the left, or protectionist advocates on the right. (Think I’m kidding about the latter? Patrick Buchanan cares about workers more than most Democrats.) Let’s vote ourselves some bread and roses come November, and not be swayed by fakirs promising kind hearts and coronets.

Shauna Burns Album More New Age than Celtic

SHAUNA BURNS

Violet

Red Rock Music 7007

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I’m not sure if this is a bad album I like more than I should, or a really good one I like less than is warranted. Las Vegas-based singer Shauna Burns is often cited as a “Celtic folk rock” singer, but the out-of-fashion label “New Age” suits her best. She places her soprano in a mix of piano, harp, cello, guitar, and percussion akin to Celtic chanteuses such as Loreena McKennitt and Connie Dover, but with the moodiness of Tori Amos and the atmosphere-over-lyrics ethos of Enya. The album’s 14 songs are originals and there’s nothing particularly Celtic, folk, or rock about any of them. The songs that work well–the fragile “Orchid” and the understated “See Her Again”–do so because they are less orchestrated pieces and ring with honest emotion rather than enveloping us in a studio-enhanced aura. The album’s strongest track, “Portobello,” enchants because James Clark’s hand drums add a jumpy counter to the rain-like piano notes.

There are many beautiful soprano voices and Ms. Burns’ is among them. Alas, there are not many clear sopranos and she does not reside in that august company. The instrumental feel is lush and Burns simply can’t sing through, across, and above the mix like Loreena McKennitt. The songs are spiritual and mysterious, but you’ll experience this from the way the arrangements feel rather than the lyrics. (Good luck reading the latter, which are printed in 2-point cursive.) Like many of Enya’s projects, what we hear are vocalizations rather than vocals–impressionistic voice that creates soundscapes evocative of everywhere and nowhere. Violet is a lovely background album that impresses upon first listen, but like much New Age music, it doesn’t get better when we listen carefully. Don’t get me wrong; I like Enya and this album, but I have to be in the mood because mood is all they give us. Poetry? The universal human condition? These may be there, but there are too many layers and not enough articulation between delivery and reception. And there’s not an ounce of beat-down-boogie rock, so don't even look for it.  Violet is an album with a lot of shading, but not much color. --Rob Weir

Blue Jasmine Features Cate the Great + Woody the Has-Been

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BLUE JASMINE (2013)

Directed by Woody Allen

Sony Pictures Classics, 98 minutes, PG-13.

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Cate Blachett’s titular performance raises the only interesting question in Woody Allen’s latest film: Can a person win a Best Actress Oscar for starring in a putrid film? Make no mistake about it–this is a very bad film indeed. Woody Allen has been cranking out films like a latter-day Mack Sennett and, frankly, I wish he’d just stop–he hasn’t had anything to say for decades, yet he keeps saying it.

Jasmine has the world on a string–a very thin, frayed one as it turns out. She’s married to Hal (Alec Baldwin), a world-beater investor who lavishes her with furs, jewels, designer duds, a beachside mansion, a stepson, and the wherewithal to live as high-rolling New York socialite/charity maven. He even promises to help Jasmine’s working-class sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins) and her mechanic husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) invest windfall lottery winnings in ways that he promises will relieve their money worries forever. Who couldn’t see this coming? Hal is as shady as the rainforest, and as crooked as the tail of the pig he truly is. And when piggie Hal goes to the abattoir (federal penitentiary), Jasmine goes from riches to rags.

Pretty nice rags, though. To recover from her nervous breakdown and rebuild her life, Jasmine flees New York for San Francisco, where now-divorced Ginger lives with her two children. The new tenant she hoped for was her airheaded boyfriend Chili (Bobby Cannavale), not her condescending, pill-popping sister. In one of the film’s many continuity errors, Jasmine is supposed to be flat broke, but she always seems to have cash for taxis, restaurants, booze, and glamorous threads, the last of which she wears to her community college courses and beneath the smock she wears at her job as a dental office receptionist. Blanchett is terrific as a woman on the verge. She plays Jasmine with such icy calculation that we come to see her as Hal’s feminine counterpart–one who will either scheme her way to the top, or join him in an Icarus-like crash and burn. That is to say, Jasmine will either land a new Hal, or become one of those medicated street people who wander about talking to the air. Her performance is reminiscent of that of Gena Rowlands in the 1974 classic A Woman Under the Influence– a volcanic combination of sophistication and psychosis. 

I suspect that Allen was trying to show the values and worldview gaps between the haute bourgeoisie and the working class. The problem is simple: Donald Trump understands the working class better than Woody Allen. As a result, once Allen steps out of the world of cocktail parties, art openings, trendy restaurants, slinky dresses, and jazz bars–is he aware that any other types of music exist?–he doesn’t have the slightest idea how people talk, act, play, or work. As a result, his take on workaday schmoes is more insulting than Jasmine’s. Dr. Flicker’s (Michael Stuhlberg) attempt to grope Jasmine is ham-handed, creepy, and insulting to the dental profession. Allen also portrays Ginger as if she’s a trailer-park low-life ready to bed any guy who feeds her a line. (Her apartment, by the way, seems pretty nice for a woman who is supposedly working-class poor.) And are we supposed to believe that Chili has a heart of gold? He’d better have one, because Allen’s depiction of his mental acuity places Chili somewhere between a potted plant and a Labrador retriever.

Where will Jasmine end up–in Marin County, or San Francisco’s Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital? In a story this poorly told, not even Cate Blanchett can make me give a damn. And I say, no, to an Oscar for the same reason I don’t think a baseball player on a last-place team should get a Most Valuable Player award.Who needs the magnificent Cate to primp the feathers of a turkey?

Rob Weir