Leonard Cohen -- "The Captain" (1984)

Now the Captain called me to his bed
He fumbled for my hand
"Take these silver bars," he said
"I'm giving you command." 

I don't remember the last time I watched a Yankees playoff or World Series game from beginning to end.  (Cicero said that "A man of courage is also full of faith," but  my lack of courage is not because I lack faith in the Yankees.  It's because I know that in the short run, the better team doesn't always win.)

I almost never watch their opponents bat.  After all, bad things can happen when the other team is at bat.

I sometimes will watch the other team bat in the 9th when the Yankees have the lead and Mariano Rivera comes in to close the game out.  (I do have faith in Rivera, every though even he has failed at times in the past.  It would be an insult to his steadfastness not to believe in him.)  However, Rivera's been out almost all year due to a freak knee injury, so I haven't watched many 9th innings this season.

Mariano Rivera (May 3, 2012)

Last night I turned on the TV in time to see the Yankees come to bat in the 9th, down 4-0 against the Detroit Tigers.

First, Ichiro Suzuki hit a two-run homer.  (Suzuki will turn 39 next week.  He's 5' 11", weighs 170 pounds, and has hit only 104 home runs in 8723 major-league at-bats.)

A few minutes later, Raul Ibanez stepped to the plate with two outs and a man on first.  The 40-year-old Ibanez had hit a game-tying home run in the 9th inning Wednesday night, and then won that game with another home run in the 12th.  I couldn't help but cross my fingers and hope for yet another game-saving blast, despite knowing how ridiculously long the odds of that happening were.

Raul Ibanez ties the game in the 9th

To quote Matthew 8:26, "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?"  Ibanez hit one into the right-field seats, and the game was tied.  Mirabile dictu.  

I found the courage to watch the Tigers bat in the 1oth and 11th, and it didn't hurt too badly -- they were dispatched relatively quickly.  The Yankees put men on base in both innings but couldn't push a run across in either one.

My courage failed me at that point, so I turned the TV off.  When I turned it back on a few minutes later, hoping to see the Yankees at bat with the score still tied, I saw a sight even more horrific than the sight of Mariano Rivera lying in the outfield after tearing his ACL on May 3.

I saw Derek Jeter -- the longest-serving captain in Yankees history, and the man who is by far the most significant contributor to the unprecedented success they have had since he joined the team --  lying in the in the infield dirt in the top of the 12th inning.  

Walt Whitman's words describe the emotions of all Yankee fans at that moment:

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up -- for you the flag is flung -- for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths -- for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning . . .

But our captain was unable to stand up, unable to walk off the field under his own power.

Earlier in the game, Jeter had collected his 200th postseason hit, which is an all-time record.  (No one else in baseball history has more than 128.)  He also is the leader in career postseason runs, doubles, and triples.  

Jeter's not a big home-run hitter, but he's hit homers more frequently in the postseason than in the regular season.  His postseason batting average, on-base average, and slugging percentage are virtually identical to his regular season numbers -- despite the added pressure of the playoffs and World Series, and despite the fact that your playoff opponents almost always have better pitchers than the average team.

Derek Jeter was a 22-year-old rookie shortstop when the Yankees went to the World Series for the first time in a long time in 1996.  (He hit .361 in the postseason that year.  He was hitting .364 in the postseason this year at age 38.)  It's now 16 seasons later, and the Yankees have been in the postseason 15 of those 16 years, thanks largely to his efforts.

Derek Jeter with Cal Ripken in 1996

Jeter started every single one of the Yankees' 158 playoff and World Series games since 1996.  He fractured his ankle in the 12th inning last night, so that streak is over.

I wish Raul Ibanez had struck out in the 9th.  If he had, the Captain would be making his 159th consecutive playoff start tonight.

By the way, the Yankees ended up losing after Jeter was helped off the field last night.  That was the least of it.

I can't overstate my affection and admiration for the way Derek Jeter plays baseball and the way he lives his life.  My son Peter was a Jeter fan from the time he was old enough to be a baseball fan.  Here's a picture of him in a Jeter jersey just before I took him to Yankee Stadium for the first time in 2003:

It took me a little longer to understand what made the captain so special.  But I finally got it.

Larry David gets it, too:

Here's Leonard Cohen's "The Captain," from his 1984 album, Various Positions.  Famed critic Robert Christgau called this song "as rich and twisted" as anything Cohen had written to date.  I don't know Cohen's oeuvre like Christgau does, so I have to take his word for it -- assuming he's correct, the song is a fitting choice for today:

Click here to buy "The Captain":

Anjani – "Blue Alert" (2006)

There's perfume burning in the air

Bits of beauty everywhere

Shrapnel flying

Soldier, hit the dirt

This is the 58th song I've written about in the blog.  I'm capable of investing a great deal of symbolic significance in something small – like the fact that I'm 58 years old and this is my 58th blog post.  As far as its content goes, it doesn't particularly matter that this is my 58th post.  But I like having a hook to hang each post on, no matter how trivial or arbitrary that hook may be.

Just so you're prepared, this is going to be different from most of my other little essays.  Don't expect a lot of pretty pictures or videos – it's mostly just words and music.  We'll head back to Cape Cod in a couple of days, but (with apologies to the Talking Heads), this post ain't no vacation . . . it ain't no bike ride . . . it ain't no foolin' around. 

*     *     *     *     *

Anjani Thomas in blue

I think I first heard "Blue Alert" a few days before last Christmas.  (There's a chance I heard it a year or two before that, but if I did, I wasn't really listening.  There would have been no reason to pay attention to it.)

There's a story there, of course – isn't there always a story? – usually a long story, and a story that meanders from side to side and doubles back on itself a few times before it gets to the point.  So I will spare you the story for the time being.  Whether that story will have a happy ending isn't clear.  (The odds are certainly against it, but you never know.)

This is a song with the power to absolutely paralyze me – not physically, of course, just emotionally.  I don't really enjoy listening to this song – it's not exactly fun – but when it pops up on my iPod, I'm compelled to do so.  

It works as a poem, but it works much better as a song.  And this performance is really perfect.

There's an interesting story behind this song.  You're probably familiar with the Leonard Cohen song, "Suzanne" – "Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river," etc. – which was first recorded by Judy Collins and has since been covered by a long list of well-known performers.  (When I was in high school, every girl I knew who owned an acoustic guitar knew how to play "Suzanne," along with "Parsely, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.")  

Cohen is a very creative and complicated fellow.  He published his first book of poetry in 1956 (he was 22) and his first novel in 1963.  He's an observant Jew, but was ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk after spending several years in a Buddhist monastery.  He hung out with Andy Warhol in the 1960's, and he once appeared in a "Miami Vice" episode.  His songs have been featured in movies ranging from McCabe and Mrs. Miller to Natural Born Killers to Shrek.

Click here to the opening of Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller, featuring Cohen's song, "The Stranger."  (I haven't seen that movie in years, and I had forgotten this bittersweet little song was part of it.)

Anjani and Leonard Cohen

Anjani Thomas, who usually goes by her first name, is a singer and keyboard player who began to work with Cohen in 1984.  At some point, they moved in together and have remained a couple.  One day, she began looking through his notebooks and files, and found many unpublished lines and verses that intrigued her.  Together, she and Cohen turned some of those scraps into songs – including "Blue Alert," which is the first track on her solo 2006 album of the same name, and which features 10 songs the couple jointly created.

Click here to read a New York Times article about all this.

*     *     *     *     *

It's not my usual approach, but rather than limiting myself to two or three lines, I'm going to give you all the lyrics to "Blue Alert," with my comments dropped in here and there in parentheses.  (Copyright law be damned.)  I'm not going to attempt to explain or analyze every line, and I'm not going to do any research into what others have said about the lyrics.  I don't plan to say very much, but I will probably end up saying a quite a bit – that's my usual modus operandi.  

I don't mind if you ignore my comments and just read the lyrics and listen to the music.  The song speaks for itself much more eloquently than I can speak for it.

There's perfume burning in the air

Bits of beauty everywhere

Shrapnel flying

Soldier hit the dirt

I have no idea which lines or words came from Cohen, and which came from Anjani.  Cohen is responsible for the basic skeleton of the song, we know, which may explain why its voice is male – despite the fact that a female is singing it in this recording.  Assuming I'm correct, it's a man who initially notices the smell of perfume and sees the "bits of beauty everywhere" – but suddenly realizes there are bombs exploding and shrapnel flying.  He doesn't know exactly what the hell has gone haywire, but he does know that things are FUBAR and he'd better take cover.  Of course, there's no guarantee that hitting the dirt will save his ass, but it seems like the wiser course. 

She comes so close

You feel her then

She tells you "No," and "No" again

Your lip is cut on the edge of her pleated skirt

Blue alert

He's in trouble now – serious trouble.  This isn't going to be pretty.  Forget about yellow alerts, or even red alerts – the blue alert is the one you should really fear.

Visions of her drawing near

Arise, abide, and disappear

You try to slow it down

It doesn't work

Things are happening a little too fast for our narrator, it seems.  Fasten your seatbelts, pal -- it's going to be a bumpy ride.  ("Arise, abide, and disappear" is a masterful line, I think.)

It's just another night I guess

All tangled up in nakedness

You even touch yourself

You're such a flirt

Blue alert

"This is more like it," our narrator is probably thinking to himself.  "Tangled up in nakedness" sounds pretty good, right?  Except she's touching herself, not him -- and flirting isn't really much fun if that's all there is.

You know how nights like this begin

The kind of knot your heart gets in

Any way you turn

Is going to hurt

That's right, it's going to be one of those nights.  Not fun – not fun at all.  Your heart's not the only thing that's in a knot – your brain and your tongue are in knots as well, and most of all, your stomach is in a knot.

She breaks the rules so you can see

She's wilder than you'll ever be

You talk religion 

But she won't convert

You've lost control of the situation, buddy -- assuming you ever had any control in the first place, which is doubtful.  She's not going to play by your rules or anyone else's, for that matter.  You'll play by her rules, and you'll have to convert to her religion.  

To put it crudely, you'll suck on it and you'll like it.  Take it or leave it – it don't make no nevermind to her.  

Her body's twenty stories high

You try to look away, you try

But all you want to do 

Is get there first

Blue alert

If he cut his lip on her pleated skirt, he must have been on his knees at the time.  She's looming larger and larger in his eyes and in his mind and in his soul, and he knows the only smart thing to do is to look away.  But he's not that smart, and he's not that strong.

You know how nights like this begin

The kind of knot your heart gets in

Any way you turn

Is going to hurt

Yes, yes, YES – he's very aware of all that.  You said it once already.  Why do you have to keep repeating it?

There's perfume burning in the air

Bits of beauty everywhere

Shrapnel flying

Soldier hit the dirt

Blue alert

We end up back at the beginning.  What began with perfume and beauty has suddenly turned into flying shrapnel.  If he hits the dirt, perhaps he can crawl to safety.  But it will be safety sans the perfume and the beauty – such a life is hardly worth living, is it?  So maybe he will attempt to advance despite the shrapnel . . . try to beat the odds.  More likely, of course, he'll end up crawling away in defeat.  The only difference will be that he won't crawl away in one piece – he'll be bleeding from a thousand wounds.

Click here to listen to Anjani Thomas's recording of "Blue Alert."

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.