Crosby, Stills and Nash

It's not every day that I come into contact with real honest-to-goodness icons, but this past Saturday night was just such an occasion. My wife and I went to see Crosby, Stills and Nash at the Dodge Theater in downtown Phoenix, and it was simply incredible.

There aren't a whole lot of performers left from the Woodstock nation. Hendrix and Joplin are long dead. Half of The Who is gone and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead has also moved on. Grace Slick and most of the members of Jefferson Airplane are still around, but how long has it been since they've performed together or created new music? Carlos Santana is still very much with us, but I don't know if he fits the description of being an icon. No, it seems to me that the only ones left are David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.

Watching these three legends Saturday, I couldn't help but think that it was a minor miracle that these guys are still with us. They looked awful, they tottered up to the stage, and they gave the appearance of being old, fragile men. Stephen Stills looks like the guy who comes in to service your cooling system. David Crosby said he recently lost 50 pounds, but he can obviously stand to lose another 50, and gives the impression that he has murdered far more of his brain cells than he has left. Graham Nash looks so weather-beaten and haggard (anyone still care to make the argument that recreational drugs are harmless?) that it seems amazing he is still alive.

But alive they are, and oh, those incredibly sweet voices are just as wondrous as ever. Backed by a serviceable, if not spectacular, band of drums, bass, and two keyboard players, CSN took the predominantly mature (I was actually one of the younger attendees) crowd back to the age of Woodstock, hippies, flower power, Vietnam, and protest songs. They started with "Marrakesh Express", followed by "Love the One You're With", followed by "Long Time Comin". I couldn't help but be transformed back to my childhood, when CSN, Deja Vu, and Four Way Street were three of my favorite albums, and I played them constantly. Crosby, Stills and Nash (with or without Neil Young) was the music of my youth, and Saturday night I felt like I was thirteen years old again. It was wonderful.

I had forgotten how versatile Graham Nash is. He played acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonica, and keyboards. I was surprised to see that he has become the de facto leader of the band, and I wondered if it had always been that way. His performance on "Cathedral" and "Our House" was extraordinary.

And I had forgotten how talented a lead guitarist Stephen Stills is. When you think of guitar players, no one thinks of Stephen Stills. But there he was, balding and paunchy, cranking out excellent leads and solos to go along with fine vocals.

And David Crosby? The poor guy has been such a constant news item due to his drug addiction, prison terms, and sperm donations that it has been easy to forget what a great singer/songwriter he is. His tremendous performance on "Almost Cut My Hair", that great ode to the '60's, was simply electrifying and his self-deprecating humor throughout the show was refreshing.

The real power of the group, forty years ago, as well as now, has always been their harmonies. The second half of the show began without the backing band, as Stills strummed a guitar while the three legends sang "You Don't Have to Cry" and "Helplessly Hoping." "Wooden Ships" was epic and stirring, while "Teach Your Children" was as tender and heart-warming as ever. There were some disappointments, ommissions like "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "Woodstock", but hey, they simply can't play everything. But what they did give us was simply joyous.

So much of my life these days is wrapped around making a living, connecting with my teenage children, putting my life back together, and trying to survive this hellish economy. It is oh so hard for me to remember what it used to be like, when I was young, idealistic and full of energy and enthusiasm. My childhood often seems like a blur, something that happened to someone else. But last Saturday night, I was transformed back to a time of bell bottoms, protest songs, youth and innocence. I felt young and alive again, with a goofy smile on my face as I sang along to all those great songs. I felt free, and happy. And that is why Crosby, Stills and Nash are icons, and legends. I'm so glad I was there Saturday night.

It Ain't Easy Being a Met Fan

I suppose the title of this post says it all. I've been a fan of the New York Mets my whole life, and sure, there have been some great moments, the legendary Miracle Mets of 1969 being the pantheon. There was also the '86 championship, and the Bobby Valentine teams that made it into the postseason in back to back years, and the "ya gotta believe" '73 National League champs, and some other nice years. There was the joy of watching the development of some future Hall of Famers like Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan, and the disappointment of seeing some other potential Hall of Famers crash and burn, like Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry.

For the most part, however, being a Met fan has been a long, painful experience. The team's history is littered with horrible trades (Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi is only one of many), young talent given up too soon (Amos Otis, Ken Singleton, Scott Kazmir), old talent coming to the team far too late in their careers (Mickey Lolich, Eddie Murray, Gil Hodges), poor management, and the ever-present domination of the cross-town Yankees. For the most part, the story of the Mets has been about underachievement and disappointment.

GM Omar Minaya was supposed to have changed all that. He hired Yankee favorite and local product Willie Randolph to be his manager. He persuaded Pedro Martinez to come to the Mets in a move that gave the organization credibility. He brought over Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado and Billy Wagner, and he added a good young nucleus (Jose Reyes, David Wright) to the veteran mix. They were the best team in baseball in 2006, dominated their division, and should have won it all. But somehow they were out-played by an inferior Cardinals team in the LCS, and those of us who have suffered with this team our entire lives will never forget the image of million dollar man Carlos Beltran looking at a called strike three in the bottom of the ninth of game seven with the bases loaded and two outs and the Mets down two runs to the Cardinals. Looking back, the team has never recovered from that moment.

Much has been written and said about last year's collapse. I've talked about it before on this blog, and I don't need to get into it again. As painful as the end of the '06 season may have been, nothing matched last year's humiliation. It was a new low for Met fans, just when we thought there could be no new low.

In retrospect, Willie Randolph probably should have been fired after the season. Of course, he wasn't to blame for the collapse, but he was to blame for being too blase about what happened. The team needed to be called out, screamed at, shaken and stirred. Willie doesn't do those kinds of things, and so the inevitable happened, and one of the worst (if not, the worst) collapses in baseball history resulted. The team basically needed an overhaul, at least at the top, and it didn't happen.

Which brings us to this year. To put it bluntly, the Mets have sucked. The pitching has been woefully inconsistent and the offense has been abysmal. The team is way too old, and it is clear that players like Carlos Delgado, Moises Alou, and Luis Castillo are finished. Carlos Beltran is a major disappointment, and will join a long list of players who have flourished elsewhere but bombed in New York (a list that is, of course, headed by Nolan Ryan, notice how that name keeps coming up in this post). Jose Reyes is losing his way and needs a fiery, young manager (former Met and current Twins manager Ron Gardenhire?) to kick his ass and get him motivated. It's been obvious, at least to me, for weeks now that Willie Randolph's days were numbered. I thought he'd get the axe after the team gave up the lead in all three games against the Diamondbacks last week and lost two out of three. But I was wrong about that.

No, the Mets' management had something different in store for Willie Randolph. It wouldn't be enough to merely fire him, they had to allow the team to go to Anaheim, allow Willie to win the first game of the series, and then fire him in the middle of the night (3 a.m. Eastern time) and then let the rest of the world find out by email. How petty. How chickenshit. Whose idea was this? Fred Wilpon's? Jeff Wilpon's? Omar Minaya's? Can you imagine Joan Payson doing something so cowardly? And not only was Willie fired in this manner, but Rick Peterson, the pitching coach who had done so much with John Maine and Oliver Perez, was also guillotined. Shameful.

No, it's never been easy being a Met fan, and I suppose it never will be. But today, in the wake of this disaster, it's just a little bit harder than ever before.

Making History

So here we are. The defining moment of the Baby Boom era. 145 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, we finally have a black man running for President on a major party ticket. And five months from now, we should have a pretty good idea of how far we have come as a nation, and how far we still have to go.

The ideal result would be for race to play no part whatsoever in the election, that people based their voting decision only on the platforms of the respective candidates. Of course, that is merely an "ideal", a fiction, a fantasy. For far too many voters, race will be the major factor in their decision to pull the lever.

I've said before on this blog that I don't believe this country is ready to elect a black man as President, especially one with a Muslim name. Nothing I've seen since has caused me to change my opinion. Obama's victory for the nomination seems, to me, more of an anti-Hillary thing than a clear mandate for Obama. The mere fact that Obama had to struggle through the entire primary schedule before he could declare victory is ominous. Not even his own party could decide on him until months of vicious, bloody campaigning finally took its toll. If it was so difficult to win his own party, how in the world can he possibly win the country?

The one thing I've heard no one talk about is whether it is even safe for Obama to make his run. Let's not forget this nation's history and legacy of assassination. We all know the names: John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, McKinley, Garfield, Lincoln. Is there some fanatic out there right now planning on pulling the trigger, and if so, can that person be stopped? Hopefully, we are past that point as a nation, but I wonder.

So, how does Obama get his message across to all the people out there who can't see past his skin color and his name? How does he relate to all the working class people struggling in this ever-failing economy? How does he get through to all those who believe he is an elitist, an intellectual with no understanding of what it means to be a common person? And finally, how does he convince the country that he is a better choice than John McCain?

John McCain is an American hero, a Vietnam War veteran, who survived a harrowing experience in a prisoner of war camp. McCain is baseball and apple pie, as close to a good old boy as any Presidential candidate can be. McCain is familiar and comfortable, Obama is an outsider to many Americans.

If Barack Obama is declaring victory the morning after Election Day this November, then I will finally believe that this nation has succeeded, that we will have fulfilled the promises of the Declaration of Indepence. Even if he loses, but the election is won on the issues, and not on the sole issue of race, then I will feel satisfied. No matter what, five months from now, we will get a clear view of who we are and where we go from here. Future generations will be watching what we do in the next five months. Hopefully, they will be proud of the legacy we leave.

Does it really matter who wins?

I'm talking about the Presidential election, of course. First, does it really matter who wins the Democratic nomination, and second, does it really matter who wins the election? Or am I a total moron for even posing the question?

Let's look at the Democratic nomination first. Many Democrats believe that there is a fundamental difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. To me, there seems to be more of a pragmatic world view that Hillary has that Obama does not. Obama is pretty much a novice to the world stage, which might not be such a bad thing, but it does give some concern. Both candidates have serious character flaws, not the least of which is Hillary's distance from being able to tell the truth. Truth be told, all things considered and following on the heels of what may turn out to be the worst Presidency in American History (although, in fairness, it's probably still a little too soon for George W to be considered the all-time worst, but it's not inconceiveable), I think either candidate would do fairly well. The problem is, I don't believe either is electable. Hillary Clinton is so thoroughly despised by so many people in so much of the country that I think she will be trounced by John McCain. Obama, on the other hand, would probably do a little better than Hillary, but there is no way that I can believe this nation is ready to elect a black man with a Muslim name as its president. No way in the world. So, it really doesn't matter, Hillary or Obama, both will probably get trounced by McCain.

So, does it matter if McCain wins? The easy answer is yes, of course, if McCain wins we will stay in Iraq for years, there will be conservatives appointed to the Supreme Court who will overrule Roe vs. Wade (I'm not so sure that's a bad thing---if Roe is overturned, doesn't that mean that the issue of reproductive rights reverts back to the individual states, and if so, isn't that where it should be in the first place?), and the economy will get even worse.

Oh really? How much worse can the economy get? Well, in theory, a lot worse. Sure, the price of gas has gone through the roof, the price of food and everything else has been going steadily up, and we are mired in a recession. But we're a long way from the Depression of the 30's, and unemployment does not seem to be unmanageably high. Would the Democratic candidate have some magical panacea to fix the economy that McCain does not possess? Isn't it true that no matter who wins the election, unless we lessen our dependence on foreign oil, the economic crisis will only get worse? It seems more like an American problem than a Democratic or Republican one.

Iraq? Well, both Democratic candidates say they will get us out of Iraq quickly, but what else would they be expected to say? I, for one, have a hard time believing it. I think we're stuck there for an indeterminate period of time, and no one, not Hillary, Barack or John McCain will be able to get us out quickly.

Social issues? Yes, there are significant differences between the Republicans and Democrats on most social issues. But McCain is viewed as a somewhat middle of the road conservative, while both Hillary and Obama are "conservative democrats," whatever the hell that means. Their views on social issues may seem divergent in theory, but in practice, probably not so much.

So, in this pivotal, critical election year of 2008, with the economy spiralling downward, a seemingly endless war going on overseas, social turmoil, and a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, does it really matter who will win the election? I don't know, I just don't know.