#13: We Are Family -- Sister Sledge (1979)

1979 was the year that I became aware of sports. More importantly it was the year that I became aware of baseball. This is a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that I listened off and on that summer to the Cubs and Cardinals on the radio and was introduced to the wonderful voices of Jack Brickhouse and Jack Buck.

The curse, if you will, was Pittsburgh. In 1979, Pittsburgh was mired in a long slump as the steel mills and heavy industry, instrumental in building New York City (among others) completely fell apart along with much of the industrial Midwest. I knew of the Steelers, because new Iowa football coach Hayden Fry changed the Iowa Hawkeye football uniforms to reflect the best football team in the NFL.

 I think during a game of the week that summer (remember when they had those on TV?) I saw this man, twirling the bat in what looked like impossibly large hands.

Notice the hat. I wanted one. I had never seen anything like it. I asked my dad who this man was. He replied "That's Willie Stargell. They call him "Pops." It made no difference to me that this man was by that point a 39 year old first baseman with only three years left in a hall of fame career. It did not matter that in 1979 he was in the midst of the last year he would hit 30 home runs (he had done it 5 times before). Pops was named the MVP of the National League that year. He then hit .455 in the NL Championship series, driving in six runs in three games. Oh yeah, then the World Series, the first that I ever watched in full. All seven games. Pops didn't disappoint me then, hitting .400 for the series with 3 homers; seven of his 12 hits went for extra bases, and the Pirates came back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Orioles. One of my life's few regrets is that I never got to see him play, as he retired after the 1982 season. He died on Opening Day 2001. By the way, he handed out those stars for smart plays and good baseball.

Stargell picked this song to be the theme of that 1979 team because this is what they were. In today's sports talk shows and mental masturbation, we hear a lot about "teamwork", "spirit" and "heart". This team had it, but it also had damn good ballplayers. Stargell knew that, and pushed them to do great things. The lineup featured hall of famers in Stargell and pitcher Bert Blyleven, borderline hall of fame candidate Dave Parker (two time NL MVP). After losing to the Cubs 11-3 on August 9th, the Pirates won 34 of their last 50 games. Stargell led this team because he felt he had to; after the death of Roberto Clemente in 1972, this became his team. In the 1970s, the Pirates were the first team to field an all African American lineup. These guys played hard and played together.

Living life is fun and we've just begun
To get our share of the world's delights
(HIGH!) high hopes we have for the future
And our goal's in sight
(WE!) no we don't get depressed
Here's what we call our golden rule
Have faith in you and the things you do
You won't go wrong
This is our family Jewel

There were drugs. There were fights (at one point, Parker took to the field wearing a trash can. When asked, he said that he lost his glove and borrowed Phil Garner's). Once, when told by a reporter that Dave Parker said "he (Stargell) is the player I admire most" Stargell replied "Well, that's good. It used to be himself." Stargell led by example; if there was ever a team that won and lived on the emotion of one man, this is it. Need a hit? Pops would Provide.  In game 7 of the Series, Stargell homered off lefty Scott McGregor in the 6th to give the Bucs a 2-1 lead. When they needed him most, Pops went 4-5, driving in two of the four runs. In game 5, a must win, Stargell produced a sac fly to put the Pirates up 1-0 in the 6th.

 Led by Chuck Tanner, the Family had the best nicknames: Pops, Scrap Iron, Mad Dog, Cobra, The Hammer, Sangy, The Hit Man, The Candy Man, Teke (or Bones), Caveman and Buck (or Willie Stargell, Phil Garner, Bill Madlock, Dave Parker, John Milner, Manny Sanguillen, Mike Easler, John Candelaria, Kent Tekulve, Don Robinson and Grant Jackson).

I wanted to hit like Willie Stargell (even in batting cages, I windmill the bat around) and throw like Kent Tekulve. A very thin man (6'4, 180 lbs) who saved three games in the 1979 series, Tekulve was a "submariner".

When he retired, he was only one of two pitchers to appear in 1000 games in the majors. There are now 15. When I threw like him when I was a kid, my brother yelled at me and asked what was wrong with my arm "that I couldn't throw overhand".  I shouldn't have listened to him. I may have turned out to be a middling successful AA pitcher.

I owe this team a lot, as it made me a lifetime Pirates fan. I could not think of a better team to watch. Since 1979, they have not won a World Series. From 1990-92, they won their division but could not beat the Reds and Braves to get to the World Series. Until this year, they have not had a winning record for half of my life. But, they are my team. For a kid, the sight of a group of grown men charging out of a dugout labeled "The Family"  to the sound of this song seemed perfect. I actually thought all of these guys lived together in one huge house and drove together to the games. A psychologist could point to a hoary relationship between my own fractured family and this idealized one, but I call B.S. on that. I would not have remained if that was the case. Now, I wear my Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez shirts with pride, and really love the Forbes Field model I have on my desk. They are in the playoffs this year, the first time in 21 years I can watch my favorite team play in the postseason.

For my money, this team exemplifies what sports should be but almost never is. They represented a city down on its luck and gave them something good. They were Black, White and Latino working together. They produced under pressure. They were fun to watch. And they had an awesome theme song.

#12: 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins (1996)

Billy Corgan wrote this song as a description of his teenage years in the suburbia that surrounds Chicago. It is my considerate opinion that if you grew up in the Midwest you identify with this music video more than any other that has ever been made.

But that is not why it is on the list. It isn't Corgan's bald melon in the backseat. It isn't the cute blonde girl wearing what looks like a kilt. It isn't the cute blonde girl swimming around in a pool owned by some unknown neighbor of the house party where you are drinking warm beer from a plastic cup. It isn't even peeing and finding two people making out in the bathtub. I've seen one of those things, and it sure as hell didn't involve a cute blonde anywhere near a pool.

This song is a perfect comment on teenagerdom, beginning with the first word of the song: "Shakedown". A shakedown can be blackmail, a search of a person or a test of performance. For all of us, years spent as a teenager are a shakedown in every sense of the word.

When I heard this song the first time, I was 23 years old and on the verge of dropping out of the University of Iowa, two classes short of a BA. What BA you ask? A double major in History and Anthropology, with a minor in Religion thrown in for good measure. Why drop out? I no longer belonged there.

That we don't even care
As restless as we are
We feel the pull
In the Land of a Thousand Guilts

I wanted something more. I felt guilt, to be sure. It is my constant companion. The operative word is restless. Teenagers are restless, knowing that time is moving but they seem to be staying constant. This is a lie, obviously, but one you cannot see from the inside. It is what makes teenagers so interesting to teach and interact with. As an adult, you are infuriated by many of their actions but know what awaits them. As you try to share this knowledge, you get even more angry that they do not want it.

No apologies ever need be made

Being a teenager is a test of performance. High school does not determine ones life (far from it) but it helps determine your make up. Do you quit? Focus on one thing above all others? Move from friend to friend? Abandon those who no longer can help you move up the social ladder? Remain loyal to those who aren't cool? Strive to be something you are not? Listen more than you speak? Show contempt or empathy in the course of everyday drama? Within these questions lie the real person we are to become, and one or two people get to know that real person. If we are lucky, we remain in contact with them for the rest of our lives.

I know you, better than you fake it

We change constantly as people, but we are never so naked emotionally as when we are 14 or 15. In the most challenging times in our lives we go back to patterns established earlier. In 1996 I knew my time at the UI was exhausted. I dropped it and went on. I would never go back and change this, even though it delayed my "professional life" by several years. I would not change high school one bit either. Not because I was happy (for 90% of it I most certainly was not) or successful (I was pretty good) or was lucky enough to have a shared locker next to a beautiful girl (who is a beautiful woman now and also my wife) but because those four years allow us to search within and without ourselves for what is important. Not friends in the mean sense, or party, but a sense of community and belonging, no matter what group we find ourselves in.

Justine never knew the rules
Hung down with the freaks and ghouls

When I was 15 or 16 I realized that when I was comfortable with the people around me, that was where I should be. This is as close to a universal truth as is possible. The friends we have in high school stay with us, specters in the guise of the new demanding comparison to those we meet. As we form ourselves we determine what qualities of people are important. We shakedown others as we take ourselves out for the shakedown cruise of dances, kisses, sex, booze....a carnival of experience that serves as a bar of comparison for the rest of our lives. The first we always remember despite our best attempts to forget. Not because it is the best but because it is the introduction to emotion, power and life.

And we don't know
Just where our bones will rest
To dust
I guess
Forgotten and absorbed
To the earth below

 

#11: Foreplay/Long Time -- Boston (1976)

Yep, I went there.

While this song (and album in particular) comes into quite a bit of mocking from yours truly, it is chock full of jaw droppingly great riffs. Listen to Smokin' or Rock and Roll Band and see if your toes aren't a tappin'.

I remember the album cover vividly, as it was one of my brother's favorite albums. Bill moved back into live with us when I was about 6, bringing LPs an Playboys with him. LPs and Playboys in the hundreds. While this meant that my adolescence was chock full of good music and excellent wanking material, it also meant that I had to share space with a 23 year old who just had his heart broken. I remember the wedding. The blue 1970s tuxes, yours truly getting nervous, picking his nose and wiping the product in the palm of the best man, Randy. (Called "Funky" because his last name was Funk. Another in the long list of people in everyone's lives that you wish you could have got to know a little bit better). There was dancing and fighting on the part of my folks. I cut a damn good rug that night, to hear my grandma tell it. Then it all fell apart.

You see, Bill got divorced and moved back in. I am still not sure of the details, even though I do know that his former father in law helped to redesign our basement before he arrived so Bill had a place to sleep. It seems to me he would not have done that if the whole thing was Bill's fault.

This song IS Bill in 1980, right on down to the 1970s porn stache (and Bill could fucking rock one...he and I are the only two in the family who ever really could). Bill was 1970s good looking: long brown hair, tan, stache, funny, tight pants. He and I look quite a bit alike. Not to say that I am 1970s good looking (hell even 1870s good looking) but he could pull off the look.

Well I'm takin' my time, I'm just movin' along
You'll forget about me after I've been gone
And I take what I find, I don't want no more
It's just outside of your front door.

I can't help but think what he was feeling, listening in the basement on those headphones to those lyrics, two months after his wife had dumped him after roughly four months of marriage. Or perhaps he was dwelling on this:

Well I get so lonely when I am without you
But in my mind, deep in my mind,
I can't forget about you
Good times, and faces that remind me
I'm tryin' to forget your name and leave it all behind me
You're comin' back to find me

It is a cliché to say that one thing can ruin someone's life, but in my brother's case it is open and shut. Whatever happened between him and Shauna in the late 1970s in that house I stayed at twice (and had coffee cake in for the first time) took the soul out of the brother that I most identified with. Bill was much more of a father to me than my own father, as he was the male adult that I most wanted to impress and be accepted by. For the most part I succeeded, and I hope that he knew that and understood it when he died in 2010. I think he did. We shared looks and we shared sensibilities, much more so than anyone else who remains in the family. He never spoke about Shauna to me, perhaps because I was too young to understand what had happened. My brother lived with two other women in his time, and was very close to marrying both. He never did, and acted as if he purposefully sabotaged each relationship.

When he died, a lot of the myths surrounding my brother came crashing down. That 96 hour period was probably the hardest of my life, but is nothing compared to what Bill lived with for 30 years. I have an understanding of it through my own travails in the mental health department. He and I are the same in that we carry our pasts around in an ornate box that we open at the worst times when things are the best for us. When our backs are to the wall, we get pissed and fight.

There's a long road, I've gotta stay in time with
I've got to keep on chasin' that dream, though I may never find it
I'm always just behind it.