In which Bartlett's eats its heart out

Back when I was doing 4n6 Funnies, I had a working list of things overheard in the tab room. I have no reason not to present them here before they are lost to history.

"Bring us some waters. A couple of hundred. And some chips."

"You're right. We have no idea how to do prefs. Next time you tab and we'll sit in the judges' lounge all weekend eating jelly donuts."

"Give that sucker an 0-4 to judge." 

"It's only round 3." 

"Improvise."

"I know there's a button for that somewhere. I hope."

"My bus is going to turn into a pumpkin."

“Should we call 911?"

"The first ballot is in before the last one went out."

"Fine and replace. Then fine and fine again."

"You have. Fucked. This. Tournament."

In which we review a couple of shows, and someone else no longer reviews at all

Television: “Seven Dials” is a new three-part miniseries on Netflix, based on a novel by Agatha Christie. The showrunner is Chris Chibnall, known for, among other things, modern Dr. Who. So the pedigree is there, and it’s an okay show, if you like that sort of thing. I wouldn’t drop everything and rush to see it, but if you need a touch of Agatha in the night, it’ll be there for you. 

“Alpha House” was a short-lived series on Amazon Prime about a decade ago starring John Goodman as one of a group of senators sharing a house in D.C. It’s been in my queue for ages, and I finally gave in and watched a couple of episodes. It was okay, but I tossed it fairly quickly. Maybe it’s because “Veep” satisfied my need for comic Washingtonians. Or maybe it’s because Trump has satisfied my need for comic Washingtonians. Whichever, if you’re watching something and not really liking it, and you have a gazillion other shows at your disposal, why bother? IMDB rates it 7.5. I don’t. 

Books: The Washington Post’s Books Section is going the way of, well, just about every other books section (and for that matter, the Washington Post in general). This means that we are even further along in relying on celebrities, and/or algorithms based on what you’ve already read and which assume that that’s all you’ll ever want to read, and/or the aggregate of the teeming masses for information on what books to read. Once upon a time every magazine and newspaper in every middlesex village and town had book reviews. There were more book reviews than books. Now you’re pretty much on your own. The New Yorker is an okay source, but their reviews are usually enough that you don’t have to read it anymore. The NY Times is readable but hit or miss. Jacket blurbs from other writers are, at best, a little incestuous. If you’re lucky, a friend will recommend something (which is how I found the wonderful Kate Atkinson) but as often as not some other friend will recommend something else that makes you question the meaning of friendship. It’s not easy being a reader in the 21st Century.  

In which we get our money's worth from our streaming channels

Movies: “Blue Moon” isn’t really a movie; it’s a two-act play masquerading as a movie. In Act One, Lorenz Hart opines about the world, primarily in monologue. In Act Two, Lorenz Hart tries to regain his impossibly lost life, primarily in monologue. In the play as a whole, Lorenz Hart never stops talking except when his young crush earns her salary with what is primarily her monologue. On the stage, this would probably knock you out. On the screen, it mostly makes you wish it were on the stage. Ethan Hawke and Margaret Qualley are both great, and it’s fun to see a snooty young Stephen Sondheim trailing after a Ben Grimm-like Oscar Hammerstein, and so forth and so on, but none of that redeems its being in the wrong medium. Anyone looking for a DI, however, will have come to the right place. 

“The Materialists” made it into my queue because it had played at our local arthouse, and my assumption is always that if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I found it enjoyable, and a little surprising. Sometimes that’s exactly what one is looking for in an evening’s entertainment. For the record, I watched this during the State of the Union speech, but I do not applaud it because of what I could have been watching otherwise. I mean, “Plan 9 from Outer Space” or “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” would be better than any of Trump’s bull excrement, and should not be rated solely by that comparison.  

TV: “Bookish,” a series on PBS, is a second-tier British mystery but it’s certainly watchable. At least it’s not the curmudgeonly, whiskey-soaked veteran (and possibly retired) detective versus the young whippersnapper. It’s hard for mysteries to stand out these days, but his one, at least, is a bit different. You’ll recognize the lead actors, but you might have to consult IMDB to find out why. 

“Stranger Things”—I’ve now finished the whole series. I don’t want to say that I never really knew what was going on—let’s call that the plot's’ strategy—but I more than occasionally had no idea why anyone was doing whatever it was they were doing—let’s call that the plot's’ tactics. What’s appealing about the whole enterprise, and why I stuck with it over the years, was the characters. This is, in fact, often the reason one watches a show (or, for that matter, reads a book), because of the people, not because of the plot. It’s the people, and the way they affect us, that matters. Think of all the mysteries—series, TV shows, movies, or books—that you follow because you enjoy the detectives, not because you care whodunnit. Series TV, in general, succeeds when we just want to see those characters again, week after week. And so it was with “Stranger Things.” By the end, one got a little choked up as each character’s fate was resolved and their future set. In other words, the series did its job, despite whatever the hell was going on between Henry and that whatever-it-was, or whatever Sarah Connor was trying to do by capturing Eleven. Let it wash over you, and enjoy it as it comes. 

In which we discuss a nice point

Debate: Let’s say that a debater doesn’t show up for a round. What this usually means is that I’ll trundle down to the room to not see the missing person for myself. Satisfied about their no-show status, I’ll tell the judge and debater who have been sitting in the room for at least the last fifteen minutes that I will declare a forfeit for the no-show and give the yes-show debater a bye, and that we’ll do it on our end in tab and the judge can now go back to the lounge for more donuts. Then I’ll trundle back to the tab room, erase the judge from the round, and mark the bye/forfeit. Then I’ll probably check things out with the no-show’s coach. That is the orthodoxy of the situation. 

But here’s the thing. My original thinking on this was that the judge hadn’t actually heard anything, since no round had happened, so it made sense to remove them from the round so that they’d be clean for the yes-show debater later in the tournament. But after this happened last week at the Bronx, I began to have second thoughts. When I trundled into that room to not see the invisible debater, what I saw instead was two people who had sat together for at least a quarter of an hour and probably more. And in that time, regardless of how you would describe it, anything from icy silence to warm chitchat, these two had built up a relationship. Not much of a relationship I’ll grant you, but a relationship nonetheless. (I would add to this that I happened to know about this particular judge, who was a bit of a pedantic hard ass, although that doesn’t play into my ultimate thinking on the subject.) What I eventually came to decide was that it was better not to strike the judge. Who knows what happened in that one-on-one time? Yes, there may be one-on-one time in a normal round, when one team is way earlier than the other before the start time, but that is time the team that is present is polishing up and getting ready to speak. Once start time rolls around, the polishing is over, the yes-show debater looks up, and we’re into a twilight zone of—Who knows? The important question is, what is the judge thinking? They’re building up an animus against the no-show, sure, but are they also building up a subconscious animus against the yes-show, that lowly worm of a debater who’s making them sit there staring at the phonics lessons posters over teacher’s desk when they could be back eating donuts in the judge lounge? Or is the judge admiring the cut of the yes-show debater’s jib so much as to want to trade in their own kid for this one? As I said, who knows? Better, I think, now that I’ve reflected on it for a while, to eliminate any possible issues. Leave in the judge, eliminating any potential harm. Of course, this may or may not eliminate that judge from seeing that kid again in elims, depending on the tournament set-up, but that’s a different issue altogether. (Do you allow judges from prelims to judge them at all in elims? Do you limit it only to judges who have picked them up? There are options in tabroom. As it happens, there were no elimination rounds at the tournament in question, so that wasn't a point of contention.) 

In the end, leave the judge, take the cannoli. There’s a new orthodoxy. It happens.

Books (Kindle edition): I just finished Stacy Schiff’s biography of Samuel Adams. I’ve read more than my share of American history, but I have to admit that a lot of what I learned here was new to me. Adams did not prepare a written legacy for future generations, so in the normal run of learning about the Revolution, one tends to hear more about those who did. On top of this, as much as not, Adams was sort of a backroom kind of guy. He had his moments in the sun, but they were few and far between. You first think of him as organizing the Tea Party, and then maybe that’s about it. From this book, occasionally one wonders about the means Adams used to attain his ends, and even sometimes what those ends might have been. Biographies are at their most interesting when their subjects are presented in all their human complexity. We contain multitudes. A good biographer lets us know that their subject’s multitude exists, and that those multitudes cannot all be understood by others. Schiff is that sort of good biographer, and the book is highly recommended. 

Oh, and yes, Sam’s dad was a brewer. Sammy Junior did a bit of it himself, but I wouldn't say it was his day job.  

In which we’re all about music

This is a diverse set off my audit queue, with some things worth talking about.

It started with Box of Frogs, a spinoff group from the Yardbirds. (So was Led Zeppelin, originally named The New Yardbirds. Then again, Clapton was in the original Yardbirds, replaced by Jeff Beck. Something of a breeding ground, I’d say.) I don’t know how I found them—500 songs, I guess—but I probably don’t need to say after the description so far that they were right up my alley. I immediately grabbed a track off their debut album (they only produced a couple of albums) for my main rock playlist and then threw the album back into the main rotation. Definitely worth more than one listen.

Then, following orders from a young colleague of mine, I forced myself to listen to “The Life of a Showgirl.” There is absolutely nothing about this music that appeals to me, but I have tried to listen to Swift in the past, and I can say honestly that this was better than most of what I’ve heard from her before. But I don’t have much truck with synthesizers, drum machines, and voices that sound like every other voice out there these days. I was raised on pianos and drums and all the other instruments in the music store, and singers who were unique. Come to think of it, when the singers weren’t unique, they were, well, just there. Go back to the big bands. Ella stood out. So did a few others. Most were sort of interchangeable. And, of course, people played their damned instruments, sometimes to hell and back. (The same holds true for all my music, be it jazz or show tunes or rock.) There does not seem to be much of a premium on that sort of thing nowadays. Anyhow, I listened to this, and I can report that fact back to my young colleague, and I’ll never have to listen to Taylor Swift again. Unless, of course she preforms during…

…halftime at the Super Bowl was Bad Bunny, and this was my first introduction to him. I followed this with a listen to X 100PRE. I have to say, I definitely enjoyed the show, because it was like a trip to the tropics, but the music, not so much. I love lots of Latin music, especially Brazilian music going back to sambas and Bossa nova up to tropicalia (thank you, David Byrne), but Reggaeton just eludes me. It’s the rapping, I guess, which is absolutely a generational thing. I can live with that. And I think Mr. Bunny will also be able to live quite happily without my joining his fanbase. 

What came up next in the queue encapsulated what I was thinking about what had come before: Levon Helm’s first solo album. Here was somebody singing with a distinct voice full of personality, and it was Muscle Shoals folks playing behind him, and I can’t imagine anything further removed from Swift or Bunny, although I think both of them would happily link up with Muscle Shoals for the right project. These two are not the biggest performers in the world because they are not musicians. They are just not my musicians. 

OK boomer…

 

In which we just briefly catch up

Just a bit of catch-up today. 

Debate: It’s odd to have nothing going on this weekend. But then again, after Presidents’ Day, the season winds down around here. After the online Westchester Classic next week, we’re into elims season. As for the Westchester, once again I’ll be with Kaz and Janet (who should change her name to Janey to agree with auto co-wrecks) working LD and Policy. Catholic Charlie and Joe V will probably also be physically with us, running the local online NY Regional and District tournaments. Even Rick Franco-Bono might show up. Good company at least. So far all I’ve done is put together a live doc from the bits and pieces of the ODL live doc. No big deal. Meanwhile people are beginning to register for our CFL Grands tournament in a few weeks, where our league decides who is going to Finals in D.C. on Memorial Day weekend. I’ve already made my arrangements to be there, looking forward to a couple of extra days as a tourist in Trumpopolis. Hopefully I won't run into any celebrations of Trump's founding of the United States 250 years ago. (Is he really that old?)

Reading (audio division): Finished listening to Coates’s Between the World and Me. It took me a while to get to this, and I’m glad I went for the audio version. Coates narrates, so hearing him in literally his own voice is pretty powerful. Required reading, obviously, especially during the Trump Administration. 

Television: Finished watching “Bookish” on PBS. Enjoyable second-tier British mystery stuff. If there’s a second season, I’ll watch it. 

 

In which we explore the Bottom Line

I was listening to a Gene Clark album this morning. Clark was an original member of the Byrds. (There was also a Clarke, and later a pair of Parsons. Say what you will about their music, the Byrds were great at attracting performers who would later make rock historians pull their hair out.) The group broke up in 1973, having reached their apotheosis with 1968’s “Sweetheart of the Rodeo.” Some time after that, Clark got back together with Roger McQuinn for some performances, and I saw the pair live downtown at a club called the Bottom Line in Greenwich Village. Clark played a six-string and McQuinn played a twelve string, and they ran through a whole slew of their Byrds hits. I had always been a big Byrds fan, and still am, which is why I was catching up on Clark’s post-Byrd career this morning. Thinking about that concert brought me back quite a bit—that was in the 70s, when the club was already music ground zero for a lot of people. What the thought of it made me reminisce about was, of all things, Country Music magazine.

In the 70s I was an editor at Doubleday & Co. I started there as a lowly intern and slowly shuffled my way up to full Editor. I spent a decade at the place before moving to Reader’s Digest, which turned out to be a good move for me. In those Dday years I handled some interesting books, and worked with some interesting authors. At one point, I got involved with Country Music. I’ve talked about country music here in general before. In the 70s, country was transforming from a particular kind of music enjoyed by country fans into the mainstream of popular music overall. There was disco, there was the birth of hip hop, there was the end of the 60s guitar bands, and there was country emerging into and engulfing the mainstream. This wasn't any great insight on my part; all you had to do was pay attention. As an acquisitions editor, one of those people out there trying to find new books to publish, I got involved with Country Music. I worked with the magazine’s editor to put together proposals for a few things that ultimately would become a set of 3 oversized trade paperbacks on individual aspects of Country (one on Western swing, one on the Country outlaws like Waylon and Willie, and one I can’t remember), plus a big mother of a hardcover on the history of Country music overall. I remember that Nick Tosches was going to the the Outlaws book, Doug Green (AKA Ranger Doug of the Riders in the Sky group) would handle probably the Western book, or maybe the big history—I forget which. The magazine editor and I hit it off, and enjoyed the usual publishing lunches back then, and since he was a bona fide journalist, he had access to the Bottom Line, and we saw at least one show there together. It featured Link Wray (my ears are still ringing, but I was introduced to the song “Red Hot” which became an instant favorite), and the editor and I sat in the back with the other critics/writers, food and drinks comped because, well, Publishing. There may or may not have been other shows we saw together. 

The high point of my Country Music slash Bottom Line period was seeing Dolly Parton. She was, till this point, Country only. But her promoters were pushing her to the mainstream, and a gig at the Bottom Line in New York City was key to it. Critics outside of Nashville would hear her, many for the first time, opening all sorts of doors for her, and New York itself would welcome her in high City style with a big celebrity bash at Windows On the World at the top of the World Trade Center, marking her own entree into the world of big celebrity. And I was there. First, there was the show, where I, like many others, was introduced to her for the first time, discovering a whole batch of great music I’d never heard before. And then I was literally introduced to her at the restaurant; for a while there was talk of doing a biography, which is why I was there in the first place, with the intended author who had already gotten close to the singer. As it turned out, the party was the event of the social season. Everyone who was Anyone was there. I noted when Mick Jagger arrived that he didn’t enter the room, he made an Entrance. As probably the biggest star there, his coming pulled the spotlight away from the SNL folks who had gotten there earlier. Mick was noticeably tiny, which I hadn’t been aware of previously, and noticeably accompanied by a retinue that included some very obvious bodyguards. Around this point in the proceedings, the veal cutlet sandwich I had had for lunch decided to do its worst, and I had to beg out with a roaring case of food poisoning just as the party was getting going. Don’t you hate when that happens?

The denouement of all this was disappointing. The Powers that Be at Dday didn’t agree with me that Country was the coming thing, and I got no support for my proposed projects, including the Dolly book. One way or another everyone I had met and worked with at or through Country Music went on successfully to other things. So did I, for that matter. Meanwhile Country music went on successfully to subsume all of its roots and rule the pop roost to this day. We could have been in there at the beginning with some great books. 

So it goes.