We Are the Ghor
Happy July. This is the thirty-first issue of Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit — it’s just like all those other email newsletters, except its “feels like” temperature is ten degrees higher than the thermometer.
It’s 90 degrees out again, and my fevered brain has hot takes on all the most urgent news of the day like the disappointing reports of Iron Maiden’s 50th anniversary tour, the continued wretchedness of the post–2018 Red Sox’s front office, and the galaxy-bending brilliance of Andor Season 2. But unfortunately, our democracy remains on fire, and so writing coherently about anything at all is mostly impossible. This will have to do instead.
Making the best of it
Gonna be honest, my hopes for both the present and the future are dim these days. Humans are pretty smart and pretty dumb, in equal measure. All lizard brains, opposable thumbs, Shakespeare, and smelling our own farts. Smart enough to create nuclear bombs, dumb enough to use them.
If human history is a wheel that turns, then we’re definitely on a down cycle, possibly stuck in the muck — or, more likely, something much smellier. And at some point, we won’t be able to find clever ways to escape our own mistakes anymore. I had “climate change” on my bingo card of doom, but it looks like we skipped ahead to “elect an idiotic, fascist dickwad to be in charge of everything (twice)” instead.
On June 14, I went for a walk down Fifth Ave. along with everyone else. I was glad that we showed up — much better than if we hadn’t. But while others found hope in numbers, I did not. Funny signs and fraternity could lighten the drizzle, but could not lift the dread.
Red Sux, Part Deux
We get old. Things get old. People fail, that’s our curse. And so the stuff we cling to for comfort — out of nostalgia or whatever — eventually begin to let us down. George Lucas ruined Star Wars with the prequels. J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy screwed it up again with the sequels. None of us ever needed a backstory for Boba Fett — once the baddest bounty hunter in the galaxy — now just a pudgy dude completely lacking in mystery and who doesn’t quite fit into his armor anymore. All this is to say, our glory days fade. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a third-rate actor in a fourth-rate TV series.
And so it is with the Boston Red Sox. For the first time in a long time (maybe since the Bobby Valentine days), I can’t watch this team.
For me, the decline of Red Sox Nation began way back when management replaced longtime play-by-play announcer Don Orsillo. Even an extra-inning, late-night, West Coast stinker would be worth watching when Orsillo and Jerry Remy were in the NESN broadcast booth. Even when their mics were muted, they were a joy to have in your home.
The second unforgivable act was when the owners jettisoned Mookie Betts — a once-in-a-generation talent and, by all accounts, a top quality human being. The face of the franchise and a pillar of the community — traded away in a deal no one can explain, except to save a billionaire a few bucks.
And then they let Xander Bogaerts go, too.
And then they tried to make up for it by signing Rafael Devers, one of the most fun baseball players to watch, ever, to a very long, very big contract — which they succeeded in doing!
And then earlier this month, just as the team was starting to build some momentum on the season, they traded Raffy away, too. This is what’s known as strike three.
It’s weird when I agree with Boston Globe columnist/CHB Dan Shaughnessy — a Hall-of-Fame–worthy blowhard, even by Boston sports media standards. But I pretty much agreed with every word of his post-trade column and the one after that, too.
(In that second piece, Shaughnessy shares some of the emails he received from fans who have gotten drunk off the Red Sox front office’s spin campaign and then spewed the talking points back at him, in bile form:
My take is [Devers] was wholly unlikable as a whining $32 million player who refused to play the infield when needed. He’s unlikable so nobody cares … A bad apple like him needs to go … This is addition by subtraction. Hear Devers created bad vibes in the dugout/clubhouse … All my sports fanatic friends and family are celebrating Devers’s exit. We’re so happy to see him go, along with the $250 million he’s owed … Do you really want Anthony and Mayer to be in the locker room, listening to Devers sounding off? … Most of the times he hits when it doesn’t count that much … The franchise established the principle that no one is above the team … The Sox have rid themselves of a daily toxic anchor … The team is better today … Devers is a fat, out-of-shape, cheeks-bulging-with-tobacco, lackadaisical, uncaring slob … I never liked this guy, constantly spitting … I’m glad he’s gone. His manners were disgusting … The Sox unloaded a cancer on the team.
I know that paying mind to the vitriol of upset sports fans is the OG “don’t read the comments”, but it’s still hard to ignore how the tenor of those comments also resemble the current-day discourse beyond sports — with the racially tinged undertones, frothing overtones, very serious concerns about saving a billionaire’s money, and cretins carrying water for shills. I wonder what the Venn diagram of angry red hats and indignant Raffy detractors looks like.)
This ownership group saved the Red Sox — and, I’d say, more importantly — they saved Fenway Park. Those 2003 and 2004 Red Sox seasons are indelible — an all-time, unforgettable redemption arc that you could not dream of as a baseball fan, let alone hope to live to see. But I’d still take that lyric little bandbox over the championships. John Henry, Tom Werner, Larry Lucchino, and Co. didn’t just forego plans to build a new, modern park on the waterfront and restore Fenway, they turned it into what might be my favorite place on planet Earth.
But the franchise under this ownership group has finally lost its shine. With the ongoing enshittification of the team and the botched handling of their most fun player, the good times never felt so not good.
(Another aside: Red Sox beat writers will complain about the crowd singing along to “Sweet Caroline” while the home team is losing. But what else are the fans supposed to do when the ownership group, manager, coaching staff, and players all kind of stink? Flog themselves in their seats? Or maybe, just maybe, fans should be able to enjoy their day at the ballpark any way they can.)
Run For Your Lives
Apparently, to commemorate their 50th anniversary as one of the greatest metal bands ever, who have also put on some of the greatest stage shows ever, Iron Maiden have embarked on a worldwide tour where they traded all their fun props — like exploding laser bolts, full-scale Spitfires, larger-than-life Eddies, beautifully illustrated backdrops, and lots and lots of fire — for a bunch of video screens with crappy AI-generated imagery.🤮 I’m catching one their shows later this month.🫤
Here is a short list of things you used to be able to count on in life for the past two decades or so: the Red Sox fielding a competitive, fun team; Iron Maiden putting on a great live show; and the rule of law and the Constitution of the United States of America being upheld. I guess not so much anymore. Oh well!
Too bad, because I need to be able to turn to at least one of these things to distract me from the others.
Other rabbit holes
How can you not be romantic about baseball? Wilyer Abreu hit an inside-the-park home run and a grand slam in the same game: “He became the first Sox player since Pokey Reese in 2004 to homer by both leaving and staying in the yard in the same contest, and the first Sox to hit an inside-the-parker and over-the-fence grand slam in the same game since Jim Tabor on July 4, 1939.”
What’s your favourite colour? I remember seeing Living Colour at the Universal Amphitheater — around the time of their Time’s Up album — as the opening act for Primus. Or maybe it was a double-headliner bill? But anyway, everyone was clearly there to see Primus — and Living Colour totally blew them out of the water. They still rock. (But seriously, what is up with the between-song cheese puffs!)
I have friends everywhere. The original Star Wars trilogy was the defining mythology of my youth. Andor may occupy that same space, but for the adult me. Anyway, after watching (and rewatching) Season 2, I dove deep into the show’s making — read every piece of content fodder and watched every behind-the-scenes video I could find. A little hope, after all.
And that’s it for this month’s edition. Have a good one.
jf