Song Sung Blue: Lou Waxman on Neil Diamond’s Gold

Lou was deep in the lower bins as is his wont and he came across Neil Diamond Gold (Recorded Live at the Troubadour)from 1970.  This is called finding a diamond in the rough.  People get all hot and bothered about Neil Diamond.  It is like Cher.  Or Bette Midler.  Or Barry Manilow.  Lou doesn’t get it.  Lou was reading an essay by Chuck Klosterman about Billy Joel and how he was uncool, and Chuck stated that Neil Diamond is so uncool he is cool.  Lou doesn’t know about that.  Lou has no thoughts or feelings about Neil Diamond at all.  He does know that at a bar at a certain time of night “Sweet Caroline” will come on and the bar will go crazy.  Lou hates that.  This is why Lou goes to bars in the morning.  First call not last call is best.  No customers.  No TV.  No music.  Just Lou and his beer.  And back in the day a book.  Nowadays his cell phone.  Sad about the cell phone.  Even Lou has been corrupted by technology.  Sitting at a bar scrolling through one’s phone.  Pathetic.  Lou should be better than that but like with his beer and his cigars, he is addicted to his cell phone.

“Sweet Caroline”!!!  People fucking love it.  It is song two on side two of Neil Diamond Gold and Lou is surprised Neil did not close with it.  Like with Neil generally, Lou has little time for “Sweet Caroline”.  Like the Orioles have John Denver’s “Country Boy”, the Boston Red Sox have Neil’s “Sweet Caroline” and Lou does have strong feelings about the Boston Red Sox.

It should be known that Lou does not watch sporting events.  He finds them borderline unwatchable.  The media powers that be make the games maddening.  Don’t get Lou started on the fact that you must subscribe to a million different streaming services to watch the games, but to be honest the actual product is not good either.  Too many commercials, no flow to the games due to instant reply, referees who hijack the games, and crappy commentary.  Lou is not an analytics guy and the games, like the leagues themselves, are operated like a corporation.  Lou is against global corporations, militarization, surveillance, and nationalism.  Professional sports are all of these.  As Zappa said, sport is politics for dumb people.  Lou is out.  That said Lou loves information and content.  That is how the media corporations get Lou under their thumb.  They flood him with information which Lou fells compelled to consume.  So, Lou will not watch a live sporting event, but he will listen to dozens of podcasts about sports and watch old sporting events on YouTube.  So, Lou is complicit.  They got their hooks in Lou.

Lou’s hatred of professional sports was not always the case.  Once upon a time, Lou was a Boston Red Sox fan.  This has nothing to do with the fact that Lou’s father lived in New England and all that sappy father tossing a ball in the front yard bullshit before going inside and watching the game with your Swanson Hungry Man dinner on the tray in front of the TV.  No, it is simple history.  Lou loves information, always has, and as a kid Lou loved baseball statistics.  As with everything, the nerds have destroyed the pleasures of sport statistics.  Nowadays batting average and wins don’t mean anything, but they did in the old days.  The new statistics in baseball along with the dominance of gambling now drive the narrative of sports and have poisoned Lou’s enjoyment of the games.  In the old days of Home Runs, RBIs, and batting average, the best baseball player of all-time in Lou’s eyes was Ted Williams.  The last man to hit .400 in a year.  As a very young kid interested in sports trivia and stats, Lou’s stepfather bet Lou that he did not know the last man to hit .400, the year and the average.  Ted Williams, .406 and 1941.  That was an easy $25.  

Ted Williams was a Boston Red Sox.  So, Lou was a Red Sox fan.  Lou also felt that Williams was one of the coolest guys around.  He sparred with the media, he stayed with one team his entire career, he inspired one of the greatest sports essays of all-time, John Updike’s “Hub Kid Bids Fans Adieu”, and he was not good, but great, at just about anything he attempted.  Besidesmanaging.  Did you know that Ted Williams is in the fishing hall of fame?  He helped popularize bonefish and tarpon as the ultimate in saltwater angling.  Like fishing for trout on a fly-rod in freshwater.  Williams was also an amazing fighter pilot in WWI and Korea. Williams lost about five years of his prime due to military service and no doubt would have held every hitting record there is, besides maybe hits, if he got those years back.  For Lou, Ted Williams was a god.

And best of all he was still an underdog.  Ted Williams, who was the best in the game, did not win anything.  He came close.  He sniffed it.  But he never won the World Series.  And neither did the Red Sox since the Curse of the Bambino.  Anybody can like the Yankees and Mickey Mantle.  Anybody can like Duke in college basketball or the Dallas Cowboys or Pittsburgh Steelers in football.  Or the Boston Celtics or the LA Lakers.  Anybody can like a winner.  But like with Neil Diamond, the cool uncool, it is fun to root for a loser.  Not a loser like the 1962 Mets or the 1972 Sixers.  Not historically bad teams, but teams that taste it and always break your heart.  The Brooklyn Dodgers.  The Buffalo Bills.  The Chicago Cubs.  Being fans of these teams build character.

For Lou’s entire formative years, which was the Boston Red Sox.  The heartbreak of 1975, 1978, the supreme devastation of 1986.  It goes on and on.  If Lou followed his premise here, his favorite Red Sox of his youth would have been Bill Buckner.  The goat.  And not in the Michael Jordan sense.  In the original Fred Merkle sense.  The true meaning of goat.  The goat with character.  Bill Buckner should be in the hall of fame, by the way.  He was an awesome hitter.  Injuries prevented him from getting 3,000 hits.  In 1986 his wheels were so bad that it is a miracle he ran out any hits at all.  Buckner’s misplay of Mookie Wilson’s slow roller was definitely Buckner’s fault, but he never should have been out there in the first place.  Buckner could not move!!

Lou would love to say that, perversely, Buckner was his favorite Red Sox, but that would not be true.  Lou loved the Chicken Man, Wade Boggs.  It comes down to statistics.  Boggs had some of the most interesting statistical years in terms of hitting at the time.  Like Rod Carew.  Another very cool customer.  Boggs reminded Lou of himself.  He did not care about the chicks loving the long ball. Lou just wanted to get hits.  In fourth grade, Lou played kickball during recess and no matter what Lou would go for a double.  The kick could be a dribbler to the pitcher and Lou would stretch it for a double.  Or the kick could go down the hill into the baseball field, a sure home run, and Lou would stop at second base.  Nothing but doubles.  The other kids would yell at Lou, but Lou loved base hits.  

Ty Cobb was like this.  Late in Cobb’s career, they made a big stink that Cobb could not hit home runs like Babe Ruth and that Ruth was god’s gift and all that shit.  Cobb replied that hitting home runs was child’s play and any fatso could do it.  Cobb promptly went out and hit three home runs in a game.  And Cobb was washed up.  Lou felt that Boggs could do that.  Or Tony Gwynn.  Lou dug Boggs then, but Lou loves Boggs even more now, since Lou knows that Boggs is one of the greatest beer drinkers of all time.  Boggs’ 107 is the beer drinkers .406.  He is up there with Andre the Giant and Oliver Reed.  If you ever find yourself bored and want a little entertainment, go to YouTube and type in Andre the Giant drinking stories.  It is unreal.  Then after you do that type in Oliver Reed drunk.  Oliver Reed boozed on a talk show is a good time for a few minutes.  What a fucking character!!

Boggs like Ted Williams never won anything with the Red Sox and things were good.  It was like with Lou’s favorite football team:  The Green Bay Packers.  The Packers had a storied history but all that was in the past.  Until Brett Favre changed everything, the Packers were a solid 8-8 every year.  Fuck Brett Farve and Aaron Rodgers.  Long live Lynn Dickey and Don Majkowski.  Similarly, fuck David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez.  Long live Jim Rice.  Fuck Tom Brady.  Long live Steve Grogan.  You see the trend here.  The uncool/cool became cool/cool and it all went to shit.  Books about the Red Sox winning.  The movies about the Red Sox winning.  The green hats.  The obnoxious Sully-come-lately fans and his girlfriend talking about apples.  The rise of Bill Simmons.  And, yes, “Sweet Caroline”.  This song only really became a thing when the Red Sox’s turned things around.  The bitch hooked on to a winner.  

So, fuck Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling.  Long live Bill Lee.  Pedro and Curt do not have a song about them.  The Spaceman does.  And it is by Warren Zevon!!  If Pedro and Curt got a song it would be by that poseur Bruce Springsteen who probably likes Bobby Hurley.  Long live the Fab Five.  Correct that, fuck the Fab Five.  Long live Antoine Joubert, Gary Grant, and Roy Tarpley.  RIP Roy.  And Michael Ray Richardson and Len Bias.  RIP David Thompson and John Lucas even though they are somehow still alive.  What Lou is saying is that the Red Sox can go to hell where they will have to listen to “Sweet Caroline” for eternity.  Good riddance.

Lou hates it all.  It is too easy.  The Red Sox?  It is like lovingThe Eagles or U2 as a band.  There is no soul there.  It is like listening to a corporation on your iPhone.  Looking at you, U2.  Where is the humanity?  Bill Buckner is human.  And god love him for that.

So, you can take your Neil Diamond Gold and shove it, because the uncool/cool “Sweet Caroline” is now cool/cool and everything has gone corporate and crap in sports.  This is Lou’s song sung blue and everybody knows it.  Now go order your Uber Eats and save $700 on your car insurance and place a bet on Draft Kings for the Red Sox to win the World Series.  And go fuck yourself.

Suggested Sites and Sounds:

Ted Williams Fishing:  Tarpon Fishing with Ted Williams (1960s)

Ouch!!  Still hurts!!:  Bill Buckner 1986 World Series Game 6 "Between the Legs"

Wade Boggs 107 Beers:  Could Wade Boggs Have Actually Drunk 107 Beers on 1 Flight?

Andre the Giant:  Legend:  Andre The Giant's Incredible Drinking Stories.

Oliver Reed Drunk:  80's Scandals - Ollie Reed Drunk on Aspel

Yuck:  Red Sox Fans Singing “Sweet Caroline” During 2018 World Series | Boston, MA | October 23, 2018

Bill Lee by Zevon:  Warren Zevon - Bill Lee - 4/18/1980 - Capitol Theatre (Official)

Roy Tarpley: What If?:  Roy Tarpley: The Most Accomplished Tragedy of the 1986 NBA Draft | FPP

— Lou Waxman