These are, uh, five of my favorite things: third edition

What The World Needs Now, Chili Crunch, Mountain Mike, Grammys, Marvin & The Band

Another short-form “favorite things” post. Brevity isn’t my strong suit, but let’s see where we land.

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1. RIP Burt Bacharach

   

   Photo By Martin Mills

   The songs of legend Burt Bacharach initially found me via my mom’s love for Dionne Warwick (a perfect singer in general, but uniquely suited for Bacharach’s intricate and acrobatic melodies) and The Carpenters¹’ “Close To You.” Years later, in my teens, my cousins and I were asked/forced to sing a words-changed-to-fit-the-event version of Bacharach’s “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again” and “Do You Know The Way To San Jose?” (changed to the much-easier-to-sing Do You Know The Way To Petaluma²?) at my aunt’s wedding. In my songwriting mid-20s, I became obsessed with Bacharach’s “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” as sung in Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid by BJ Thomas³. I loved (and still love) the playful phrasing of the melody, the melancholy and hope inherent in the play between the chord progression and melody. Later on, I’d be more into Bacharach’s “God Give Me Strength” (his collaboration with Elvis Costello) or Aretha’s iconic “Say A Little Prayer.” Bacharach’s complexity (melodically, rhythmically, etc) never made its way into my songs. I’m just not clever or brainy or sophisticated enough. But there’s no denying what an imprinting figure he was in the history of pop music.
   

2. Momofuku’s Chili Crunch

   

   While I have my own reservations/worries/theories about David Chang transforming into Ratatouille’s Chef Gusteau⁴, I was delighted to find this delicious chili crunch at my local Harmon’s grocery store. I use it all the time to add a little spice and crunch—to a pot roast, to stew, to eggs⁵, whatever.
   

3. RIP The Mike Conley Era

   

   Photo by Joe Murphy

   In sportsfandom, you often find yourself doing all kinds of mental gymnastics to trick yourself into rooting for absolute knuckleheads. We’ve all done it⁶. So when you can root for a) players who are genuinely good people, b) who you’ve admired for their entire careers, and c) have still got something in the tank, you gotta relish it. I loved Mike Conley when he played for the Grizzlies (same with Ricky Rubio in his first stint with the Wolves) and was ecstatic when he became a Jazzman. He’s smart and steady and unflappable (has never gotten a technical foul in his 16 seasons). Some injury bad luck (and personality clashes) derailed what could’ve been and, now, it’s a new era⁷ in Jazz fandom—and not just because of the Day-Glo yellow jerseys. But, in the words of Burt Bacharach, there’ll always be something there to remind me.
   

4. Grammys
   I wax and wane, as far as the Grammys go. Like a lot of things, I tend to like them when they confirm my biases/tastes and then ignore (or bash) them when they don’t. I once even possessed enough temerity⁸ to think I might one day get one. Dreamers dream, I guess. But it’s an awful long way from total obscurity and songs that don’t break 1000 streams to, well, the Land of Beyoncés. Getting back to the actual Grammys and not my shortcomings/hangups, it turns out the year I decided not to tune in at all, the Grammys recognized two absolutely wonderful surprises: Madison Cunningham’s Revealer as Best Folk Album and American treasure Bonnie Raitt’s simple and gorgeous “Just Like That⁹” as Song of the Year¹⁰. Both are magical and worth listening to. I’ve put them at the top of my ongoing Favorite Songs Lately playlist. (←that’s the Spotify link. Here’s the Apple Music link.) Maybe I’d better tune in next year.
   

5. JUST ONE SONG
   I feel genuine, soul-deep joy every time I hear The Band’s cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Don’t Do It.” Part of it is just the undeniable groove. Part of it is Levon Helm’s fiery vocal. Part of it is the horn section. Part of it is the funky, bouncy organ part. Part of it is the piano part in the verse that starts, “Go down to the river…” Part of it is coming out of the horn breakdown when the whole thing stops for “My biggest mistake was loving you too much” and then the whole thing slams back in. So, the whole song. But part of it is also remembering that my friend Pat was the one who recommended it to me in the first place and thinking about how I miss getting recommendations from him. And another part is remembering getting to sing it with a bunch of friends on the Rooftop one 4th of July ages ago.
   

1. Just a quick shout-out to one of the best concerts I saw in 2022: Joshua James & Julianne Brough sitting across from each other at June Audio playing the songs of the Carpenters for a blissful, pop-perfect 35 minutes.

2. Even Bacharach himself would’ve been challenged trying to crowd that many syllables in. (My uncle-to-be was from Petaluma, California.)

3. The same guy who sings…. “Hooked On A Feeling”?!?! (But not the “Oooga Chaka” version.) And, just to follow the tangent, did you know that “Hooked On A Feeling” was written by the same guy (Mark James) who wrote “Suspicious Minds” and “Always On My Mind”? Not bad when you’ve got Elvis and Willie covering your songs…

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5. Am I rich and that’s why I can afford to eat eggs in this economy? No. I just needed something to go with my caviar/foie gras hash.

6. The person I wanted to root for the least ever? Grayson Allen. It took every trick my mind had to get me even kind of over the immense cognitive dissonance of rooting for his knuckleheaditude. The day the Jazz got rid of him was heavenly. I could breathe again. (Then they temporarily traded for Patrick Beverley, only to hot potato him over to the Lakers, thank goodness.)

7. Who had money on Jordan Clarkson being the last Jazzman standing from this era? Not me, as much as I love him.

8. naïveté? arrogance? other?

9. Bonnie’s song’s streams increased 6700% after her win, over Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Adele, Harry Styles, Kendrick, Lizzo, Steve Lacy, GAYLE, DJ Khaled, no less. I mean how many of those artists were even born when Bonnie Raitt won her first Grammy? Not Steve Lacy (b. 1998), Harry (b. 1994), or GAYLE (b. 2004). But yes to DJ Khaled (b. 1975), yes to Beyonce (b. 1981) yes to Kendrick Lamar (b. 1987), yes to Lizzo and Adele (b. 1988) barely to T-Swift (b. 1989).
So maybe the more impressive question would’ve been “how many of those artists were even 10 years old when Raitt won her first Grammy?” And the answer would’ve been one (DJ Khaled). And you would’ve been like, “whooooa.”

10. There’s something really special about a folk song like this one winning. So many songs in the 2020s are trying to be hyper-universal, to appeal to everyone. Meanwhile, Bonnie Raitt writes a song based on a hyper-specific set of circumstances (SPOILER: a mother hearing her son’s heartbeat again in the chest of the man who received the heart after her son died) and we feel it. Somehow telling the truth gets us.