So as to do better later: the Beatles and "Three Cool Cats," T.S. Eliot being T.S. Eliot, streak done, sparrows, stairs

Thursday 7/23/26

I know they’re technically an invasive species—not like it’s their fault—but how can’t you be a fan of house sparrows? So full of resolve and good at hopping and neck-tilting and inquisitive looks.

Watched Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) again and am writing a piece on it now. It's playing at the Brattle next month, too, and hopefully I'll be able to get over there and see it on the big screen.

T.S. Eliot didn't write a lot of poetry. There aren't that many poems. Many of these writers once they "made it" spent their time being a persona, a venerated figure. Going around as that person rather than writing as that artist. I'd be the opposite. I'd write more knowing that it'd be in front of people. The only thing you'd hear from me would be in terms of things that fed into that art. The sit down talk about that art. Or the world. That which someone could write about. Study what was said.

Someone used AI to create a fake 1963 BBC version of the Beatles covering the Coasters' "Three Cool Cats." They made a fake intro with the presenter talking with George Harrison, and then put the drums from the 1963 version of "Solider of Love" atop the January 1, 1962 Decca audition version of "Three Cool Cats." This annoyed me. It's just stupid. People fell for it. Which wasn't what the person behind its creation was necessarily going for, but what's the point?

I hate inauthenticity. In everything. I hate inauthentic people. Inauthentic writing. I cannot abide anything but total authenticity. People have such a hard time being their authentic selves. Even having an authentic self. This has long been true. But now we're just making it harder and harder, such that espying authenticity feels like an impossibility or a miracle if it does happen. And it's not as if authenticity inspires authenticity, because when the tools aren't there--that is, we just don't have the mental and emotional and, yes, human means--the tools can't be fabricated. Those tools are cultivated over one's life, as is a way of being. Or means of changing. Or both.

What we tend to do instead is shun and not include, not welcome, not clap on the back and say, "Here he is!" in all the forms that takes, that person, because they make us uncomfortable in our knowledge that we can't be like that. People don't want the reminder. So, they remove whatever it is that's doing the reminding. Or do their part in placing it where it's less apt to be seen.

"Three Cool Cats" was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the most important songwriting team in rock and roll before the advent of Lennon and McCartney. The Coasters cut the song as the B-side to "Charlie Brown," which was also written by Leiber/Stroller. Pretty good single, eh?

The song has a wry, slice-of-life wisdom to it. You have these three guys without much money--they have have to share a candy bar--who think they're "all that" in the way that people who know they're not all that do. They see these three girls and start divvying them up conversationally amongst themselves. Like you would with objects.

But they're also not being too serious, because they're pipe dreaming in a way. They don't have a chance with these girls. These are guys who play the numbers game. Ask out enough girls, and some are sure to say yes. We don't know how it happens, exactly, but the guys are resoundingly shot down. They probably go back to hanging out and take their next available shot.

The teenage Beatles were a lot like this so the song probably spoke to them. It's a borderline novelty number but it doesn't cross that line, and it simultaneously could have bordered on the anthemic to the teenage Beatles. They trotted it out during the Get Back sessions, too, in January 1969.

The Red Sox' win streak came to an end last night with the second game of their doubleheader against the Orioles. Tough to take both ends of a doubleheader, especially when you have a guy starting one of those games who probably doesn't belong in the big leagues.

The Sox were in a quick 4-0 hole in the top of the first, and it could have been worse save that Bello came in in relief and halted the damage. He probably should have gotten the start, but if he'd been knocked around, you know how that would have played, and he is more effective, for whatever reason, coming in as the long man this year, and was excellent again in the role yesterday. But you got the sense that it was over then.

The 15-game win streak gave them a chance to save their season. They're currently in that last Wild Card spot. What you want to see now--and this is an important time for them--is 6 wins in the next 10 games. You want to see them play good baseball generally, rather than with their good play being the stuff of a streak. The streak saved your season, but don't let it be your season.

Because you get caught up in a streak. You're moving downhill, things are going your way. You're making them go your way, but there's a lot of momentum. The streak is over now. Let's see you continue to play some good baseball. I heard that Contreras and Gray addressed the team after the loss, and I would expect/hope that they said something along these lines.

Walked three miles, did 100 push-ups, and ran five circuits of stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument yesterday. Another soupy one. Dew point was 70 degrees as I went in. (The hallway windows were open and the stairs in my building were bedewed when I left for Charlestown.) The humidity pulls your stair-running life force right out of you. Not a good performance from me, but doing that abeyance thing I spoke of. Show up, hold the line, do the five so as to do better later.