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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
BCB After Dark: Might the Cubs need a Snake?
It's another Monday evening here at BCB After Dark: the coolest club for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come on in and join us. We're so glad to see you. There are still a few tables available. The show will start soon. Bring your own beverage. BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon. Advertisement The Cubs were off today. They're currently tied with the Mets for the best record in the National League. Last week I asked you about a proposed Cubs trade for Pirates ace Paul Skenes. The majority of 58 percent of you wouldn't do the deal that would cost the Cubs Matt Shaw, Cade Horton, Kevin Alcántara and Juan Tomas. I suppose that it's good that you wouldn't do the deal because I'm fairly confident the Pirates wouldn't do it either. Thus the problem with trading Skenes anywhere, at least at the moment. Here's the part with the music and the movies. You can skip that if you want. You won't hurt my feelings. Tonight we have a performance from the Polar Music Prize ceremony from last week. Herbie Hancock was one of the honorees and bassist Esperanza Spalding was there in Stockholm to honor him. There are a few performances to choose from, but I thought tonight we'd feature Spalding and Leo Genovese performing Joni Mitchell's 'Both Sides Now' in honor of Hancock's tribute to Mitchell album from 2007: River: The Joni Letters. Spalding and Genovese even sneak in a few notes from Hancock's 'Maiden Voyage' in this performance. Shockproof, the 1949 noir directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Cornel Wilde and Patricia Knight, is one of those movies that starts out so promising then fizzles into an incoherent mess. Even Sirk's direction, which is normally so obsessed with small details, seems to give up somewhere in the second half of the movie. The stars, Wilde and Knight, have little chemistry, which is ironic since the two were married to each other at the time they made the movie. (Although it may explain why they were divorced two years later.) The biggest reason to watch Shockproof is for students who want to trace the development of Sirk and the film's co-writer Samuel Fuller, who are starting to develop themes they would employ more successfully over the next decade. Advertisement Wilde stars as Griff Marat, a straight-arrow parole office who is assigned Jenny Marsh (Knight), who just got out of prison after serving five years for murder. Griff warns Jenny to stay straight and to stay away from Harry Wesson (John Baragrey), her mobster boyfriend whom she committed to murder for. Spoilers, I guess. Griff decides that Jenny needs to understand the simple pleasures of an honest life and introduces her to his family, including his blind mother (Esther Minciotti). Meanwhile, Harry has tracked Jenny down and makes plans for the two of them to run off together. Jenny apparently has some sort of loyalty to Harry because he waited for her while she was in prison. Although it seems like Harry was the reason that Jenny went to the big house in the first place, but they wisely leave the details mysterious. Of course, it's clear to everyone that Griff has fallen in love with Jenny and Jenny begins to feel the same for him. But Harry decides that Griff's infatuation with Jenny is an opportunity. Griff has political ambitions and even in the forties, parole officers really aren't supposed to be dating the parolees. So Harry tells Jenny to lead Griff on, seeing the opportunity for blackmail later. Advertisement This is the most interesting part of the film, where Jenny is torn between her affections for her straight-arrow parole office and her glamorous mobster boyfriend. This could be straight out of the luscious technicolor melodramas that Sirk would direct in the fifties. It's a simple love triangle. But this is also where the film goes off the rails. Jenny finally makes her decision to stick with Griff and dump Harry. But Harry won't go quietly and calls Griff in an attempt to blackmail him. But before Harry can get far into the call, Jenny apparently shoots him dead. Griff then loses it at this point, knowing that committing another killing is at least life in prison for Jenny and maybe the chair. So he decides that the two of them are going to go on the lam in a wild attempt to get to Mexico. Jenny thinks she should turn herself in, but Griff won't hear of it. They become celebrity fugitives on the front pages of the newspapers and on magazine covers. Griff starts stealing food and cars to keep one step ahead of the police. Oh, and it turns out that Harry isn't dead, just badly wounded. Still, Jenny shooting him would be enough to send her back to prison for life on the parole violation alone. End spoilers. The interesting twist here is that while Jenny is the femme fatale that drives Griff into a life of crime, she's an unwilling femme fatale. Rather than being manipulative like a normal femme fatale, Jenny is the one that is constantly being manipulated. In fact, she very much wants to turn herself in and for Griff to go back to being a parole officer, but Griff has gone nuts over her and throws himself into the life of crime, using the knowledge he's learned as a parole officer to keep the authorities from catching them. Advertisement The problem is that there seems to be very little reason for Griff to get this nutty for Jenny. I mean, she's beautiful and all, but she is also a convicted murderer out on parole. She doesn't seem to be the type of woman to throw your life away on—especially since she is specifically asking Griff not to and she was lying to him about not seeing Harry. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't too impressed with the chemistry between Wilde and Knight, even if they were married to each other in real life. Fuller and Sirk wanted to do this 'good guy goes bad' story, but I think they needed to do a better job of setting up the fatal seeds within Griff and giving him more reasons to fall in love with Jenny other than she's gorgeous. To be fair to Fuller, he had written a much better and more fitting ending, but screenwriter Helen Deutsch, at the direction of Columbia Pictures, had to tack on a rather nonsensical Hollywood ending on what could have been a dark classic. So don't necessarily blame the soon-to-be-great Fuller for the mess the second half of this film becomes. The unused ending might have just saved the film, because the first part of the film, with the love triangle, is pretty strong and if it had a punchier ending, we might have been able to forgive Griff's sudden and inexplicable descent into madness. I don't have a trailer for Shockproof, but heck, here's the entire movie. I assume the film is in the public domain because there are like half a dozen copies of the entire thing on YouTube. Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies. Advertisement It's no secret that the Cubs' biggest need at the moment is starting pitching. With Justin Steele out for the season and Shōta Imanaga still probably three weeks away from returning, the starting pitching is thin. It's pretty fortunate that the bullpen, something we once thought of as the team's biggest weakness back in April, has turned out to be one of the best in baseball in May. (The Athletic sub. req.) But if another starting pitcher goes down, well, there's not another Cade Horton to call on in Iowa. The Cubs rotation would be hurting bad if that happened. So picking up a starter should be team president Jed Hoyer's top priority at the trade deadline. Today, Jesse Rogers claimed that the Diamondbacks could be sellers at the deadline. The Diamondbacks have fallen on hard times since early April when they played the Cubs tough. They're three games below .500, eight games back of the Dodgers in the division and five games out of a Wild Card. Ace Corbin Burnes is out with an elbow injury and the team is holding their breath as to the upcoming results of an MRI. But the Snakes have two more right-handed starting pitchers who will both be free agents at the end up this upcoming season: Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen. Brett Taylor over at Bleacher Nation did a good job of summarizing up both Kelly and Gallen. Kelly is having the better season, although Gallen has the better career track record. Kelly is 36 already, a partial function of him not reaching the majors until he was 30. Kelly doesn't throw hard—his fastball comes in at around 92—but that's where he's always thrown. He's not losing any velocity as he ages. But he is throwing it less—only around 25 percent of the time these days. He throws his 88-mile-per-hour changeup almost as often as he throws the fastball and he works in a cutter, a slider and a curve. Advertisement This season, Kelly has a record of 5-2 with a 3.78 ERA. His underlying xFIP (expected fielding independent pitching) is even better at 3.49. He's still throwing strikes and getting swings and misses at the same rate he always has. Taylor makes a point that Kelly has made nine very good starts and three really bad one, which I think you can read either way. It should be noted that two of those three bad starts have been his last two starts. (The other one was at Yankee Stadium back in early April.) Gallen is the bigger name, of course, having been an All-Star and having finished the season with Cy Young Award votes three times, finishing as high as third in 2023. He also doesn't turn 30 until after the trade deadline, so he's a younger arm if that means anything to you. However, Gallen is having a crappy season. So far, he's 3-7 with a 5.54 ERA. His xFIP is a little better at 4.31, but it's still not good. Gallen's velocity is down a touch this year, but the bigger issue is his control: he's throwing fewer strikes and more balls. That means fewer strikeouts and more walks. He's also giving up more hard contact and he's giving up more fly balls. Still, Gallen is the guy that just two years ago finished third in Cy Young balloting and he wasn't a whole lot worse last year. If you think he's just someone in a funk that will snap out of it, there's a real chance for a bargain here. Advertisement I don't think either Kelly or Gallen would cost an arm and a leg in terms of prospects, since they are both in the last year of their deals. They'd be two-month rentals. (Hopefully three months with a long playoff run.) The Cubs wouldn't get either one for a bag of balls and cash, but they likely wouldn't need to part with a top-5 prospect either. I know that a lot of this is dependent on cost, but assuming the cost for Kelly and Gallen is roughly the same, which one would you rather the Cubs trade for? Do you go with the solid and unexciting older guy in Kelly, or would you rather go with the struggling former ace? (I actually think Gallen would cost more, but that might not be true if he continues to pitch as poorly as he has into July.) I will let you vote 'neither.' However, it's completely possible that these two pitchers are the best two starting pitchers on the market in July, especially if the Marlins decide to hang on to Ryan Weathers (and they certainly might as Weathers is not a free agent until after 2028). Advertisement Thank you for stopping by. We hope you enjoyed yourself. Please get home safely. Tell us if you need us to call a ride for you. Don't forget your card. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us tomorrow evening for more BCB After Dark. More from
Mint
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
Finding the music that you love
It is a visual that will stay with me for a long time: An abandoned music store, overgrown with plants and weeds, in the middle of a once beautiful and now ruined city; and at the centre of the scene, a pristine acoustic guitar leaning against a box, glowing with an almost ethereal light. A reminder of all that was once lovely and is now lost in this world reeling from a cruel apocalypse, but also, a symbol of hope and possibility. The Last of Us is that unusual zombie show that forces us to look deeper not just at the potential for cruelty in all of us—a lot of post-apocalyptic shows do that—but at the potential for beauty and love at the same time. In this scene, 19-year-old Ellie (played by Bella Ramsey) finds a guitar that has survived the end of the world as we know it in a music store in Seattle, or what was once Seattle, and starts idly strumming it. Eventually, she settles on a song she learnt from her foster father—a-ha's 1984 hit Take on Me. In her version, the original's synth-pop briskness has been stripped away, leaving behind the lovely bones of the song: a soothing melody, a plea for love, a playful serenade. I was familiar with the original Take on Me, of course, given that about 90% of my Spotify library is 1980s music. I had even heard the band's own acoustic version of the song. But this mellow, almost unbearably sweet rendition of it, weighted with meaning and context, has become an obsession in the weeks since this episode aired. I'm sure it's a fairly common experience, though always a special one, for a song that one has known—and even tepidly liked—to suddenly become extraordinary. Also read: The consumer longs for humanity in music, says YouTube's head of music I think a kind of alchemy happens when music is imbued with meaning and force once it becomes part of a powerful story. I remember feeling this way about Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now (performed by Judy Collins), played during the end credits of an especially poignant episode of Mad Men. Suddenly, the always beautiful song seemed to hold the answer to life itself, and I've never shaken off that feeling. Then there's Belinda Carlisle's Heaven is a Place on Earth, used to great ironic effect in the TV adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale. The discordant notes of the music that plays in the background as June, the protagonist, hums the song while watching over a fellow handmaid whose practically lifeless body is being preserved as a vessel for her unborn child felt especially eerie as I played it back just now. There is a woman in Georgia, US, in exactly the same position, in real life, today. There are more cheerful associations as well. How I Met Your Mother led me to some wonderful independent music, including songs by bands like Goldspot and Fort Atlantic that I wouldn't have paid much attention to if the algorithm had thrown them at me randomly. There's the jaunty Make Your Own Kind of Music by Cass Elliot, which became deliciously spooky and weird after being used in several episodes of Lost; Some thing Stupid in Better Call Saul, the popular love song transforming into an elegy for a dying relationship; Should I stay or should I Go and Running up that Hill in Stranger Things, where both songs become part of the narrative rather than briefly illuminating a moment. We are at the mercy of algorithms in so many aspects of our lives that it's easy to forget what it's like to serendipitously find something we love. It is also entirely possible that I watch way too many TV shows, but what can I say? Thank you for the music, I guess. Also read: Weekly planner: 6 events to beat the blues
Washington Post
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Two new reasons to revisit Joni Mitchell's remarkable catalogue
We sang Joni Mitchell's 'Both Sides Now' at my eighth-grade graduation in suburban New Jersey in 1971. It ruined the song for me for decades. That said, I have always loved Mitchell. Of course I have. My generation grew up to a soundtrack of 'Court and Spark,' 'Blue,' 'Ladies of the Canyon' and 'Hissing of Summer Lawns.' In recent years, I have played 'Chelsea Morning' at the start of every day, just to set the tone.
Express Tribune
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
FireAid LA benefit concert: Billie Eilish, Green Day, Lady Gaga & more unite for wildfire relief
FireAid LA brought together a powerhouse lineup at the Kia Forum and Intuit Dome in Inglewood to support relief efforts for the devastating wildfires that have claimed 29 lives and caused billions in damage. The benefit concert features performances from top artists, with proceeds going toward rebuilding communities and preventing future fire disasters across Southern California. Photo: Billie Eilish joined Green Day for a duet of "Last Night on Earth" (AP) Green Day opened the show with "Last Night on Earth," featuring a surprise duet with Billie Eilish. The band followed with 'Still Breathing' and their classic hit 'When I Come Around.' Billy Crystal, who lost his Pacific Palisades home in the fires, took the stage next, announcing a $1 million donation from U2. 'It will be ok. With your help around the country and here in the room, we'll laugh again,' Crystal reassured the crowd. Photo: Penny Lancaster and Rod Stewart arrive at the Fireaid benefit concert (AP) Samuel L. Jackson kicked off the second concert at the Intuit Dome, paying tribute to first responders before introducing Rod Stewart, who performed 'Forever Young.' Other artists taking the stage include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morissette, Pink, No Doubt, Joni Mitchell, The Black Crowes, Stephen Stills, John Mayer, and Stevie Nicks at the Kia Forum. Photo: Stephen Stills and Graham Nash perform "Teach Your Children" at the Fireaid benefit concert (AP) Meanwhile, the Intuit Dome lineup features Billie Eilish, Gracie Abrams, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Earth, Wind & Fire, Jelly Roll, Lil Baby, Olivia Rodrigo, Peso Pluma, Sting, Tate McRae, and Stevie Wonder. Photo: Anderson .Paak performs at the Fireaid benefit concert (AP) Dr. Dre and Sheila E. made surprise appearances, with Dr. Dre joining Anderson .Paak for 'California Love.' Photo: Joni Mitchell performed "Both Sides Now" (AP) Joni Mitchell delivered an emotional rendition of 'Both Sides Now,' while Graham Nash and Stephen Stills reunited for 'Teach Your Children.' Pink, addressing the audience, said, 'If you're hurting, I'm hurting with you. My heart is with you.' The concert is streaming live on Apple Music, Apple TV, Max, Peacock, KTLA+, Netflix/Tudum, Paramount+, and Prime Video. It is also being broadcast on 860 iHeartRadio stations. 'It's an honor to be here tonight,' said John Mayer before performing 'Gravity,' as the concert continued to inspire unity and resilience in the face of tragedy.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
FireAid benefit concert: Follow live performances
The wildfires that decimated parts of Los Angeles were historic in their devastation and cost. The FireAid benefit concert on Jan. 30 will go down in history not only because it features some of the biggest names in music taking the same stage, but for the message of hope and unity those artists spread. And, hopefully, their performances will raise a monumental sum to aid in recovery and rebuilding. So many musicians wanted to bring their spotlight to the cause, that what was initially set as a single event turned into dual concerts, both of which will be streamed for free on major streaming services, social media like YouTube and TikTok and broadcast stations. Performers at the newly opened Intuit Dome include Billie Eilish, Jelly Roll, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lil Baby, Olivia Rodrigo, Peso Pluma, Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Tate McRae and Earth, Wind & Fire. At L.A. landmark Kia Forum, Alanis Morissette, Graham Nash, Green Day, John Fogerty, Joni Mitchell, No Doubt, Pink, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stephen Stills, Stevie Nicks, the Black Crowes and John Mayer will perform. Contributions made to FireAid at will be distributed under the advisement of the Annenberg Foundation and all proceeds will go directly to the event's designated beneficiaries. Follow along as we take you inside the fundraiser concerts from inside the Intuit Dome. The Los Angeles-bred band, some of whose members lost homes in the fires, offered the apropos 'Time Spent in Los Angeles.' Following Dawes' ode to their hometown, frontman Taylor Goldsmith, who is married to singer/actress Mandy Moore, welcomed Stephen Stills and storied member of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers Mike Campbell to the stage. The whole crew ambled through 'For What It's Worth,' the Stills-penned Buffalo Springfield classic written during his time in the band. Stills and Campbell traded guitar licks during an extended outro to the '60s anti-war anthem. Another member of the folk-pop legends, Graham Nash, joined the team, giving a squeeze to 'my partner for many years,' Stills, as he walked to the microphone. 'Whenever Los Angeles gets into trouble, the musicians are right there and I'm proud to be one of them,' Nash said. With Stills at his right side, Nash strummed his guitar through a rendition of Crosby, Stills and Nash's 'Teach Your Children.' Sitting in her gilded throne in a black velvet pantsuit, black hat and sunglasses, the woman synonymous with Laurel Canyon music prompted goosebumps and teary eyes with a deeply felt 'Both Sides Now.' At 81, Mitchell's songs are imbued with the wisdom of age, and her reading of the lyric 'something's lost and something's gained in living every day,' augmented with tenor saxophone, was particularly poignant. The multitalented .Paak hit the drums for 'Put Me Thru,' his Koreatown hoodie showcasing his allegiance to the historic Los Angeles neighborhood. During the song, he and Sheila E. engaged in a drum-off, with the 67-year-old behind 'The Glamorous Life' high kicking atop her percussion setup. 'Our hearts go out to everyone,' Paak said. 'But as far as I'm concerned, this is one of the greatest nights in LA history.' .Paak and his soul-funk band bounced through 'Come Down,' leading the crowd in a wave-along, but The Forum audience really roared when Dr. Dre strolled out to 'Still D.R.E.' 'This year will be 40 years I'm in the business,' Dre told the crowd before a not-unexpected segue into Tupac Shakur's signature song, 'California Love,' Dre and .Paak simultaneously spitting rhymes while Sheila E. added a percussive undercurrent before tossing her cymbal stand across the stage. Green Day kicked off the Kia Forum FireAid show with a subdued version of 'Last Night on Earth.' As singer Billie Joe Armstrong, playing acoustic guitar, started the chorus of 'sending all my love to you,' Billie Eilish, wearing a striped polo and tie, walked out as a surprise (she is scheduled for the Intuit Dome show starting later). The two Billies shared the chorus in front of a backdrop of stirring photos of fire rescue efforts. Green Day's set also included 'Still Breathing' and the band's pop-punk favorite, 'When I Come Around,' featuring a blond Armstrong shouting out many of the California cities destroyed by the fires, including Altadena and Pacific Palisades. 'We are in this together,' he yelled. Sporting an 'I (Heart) LA' black T-shirt as she roamed the stage for 'Hand in My Pocket,' Morisette led the crowd in a singalong of her 1995 hit, waving her hands overhead in a peace sign to underscore the lyrics and playing harmonica throughout. 'The connections that have been born from this tragedy are deeply heartening,' she said, adding a thanks to first responders during the opening keyboard notes of 'Thank U.' In keeping with the song's title, the video screens behind the stage showed social media posts of people thanking firefighters for their efforts. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: FireAid concert performances: Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish inspire
