With Nelson Mandela‘s passing, the world mourns the loss of an amazing man. It is hard to comprehend the changes that Mandela helped make in his lifetime. Back in 1985, while Mandela sat in prison and Artists Against Apartheid released the song “Sun City,” one could not have imagined that within a decade Mandela would be president of South Africa. RIP.
Aritsts Against Apartheid was founded by Steven Van Zandt (aka Miami Steve, aka Little Steven) and record producer Arthur Baker. Sun City was a resort in South Africa, and the song called on artists to refuse to play there until apartheid ended. The song and video features such artists as Run DMC, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Hall & Oates, Herbie Hancock, and Ringo Starr.
Only five years after the song’s release, Steven Van Zandt would appear on stage with Simple Minds, Chrissie Hynde, Lou Reed, and others, to sing “Sun City” at a tribute concert for Nelson Mandela at Wembley stadium. They were celebrating Mandela’s release from prison in early 1990.
Bono recently joined Glen Hansard, who was taping for Sirius/XM’s The Loft at The Living Room in New York. Together, the U2 frontman and the Once film star sang “The Auld Triangle.” The 1960’s song was written by the brothers Brendan and Dominic Behan for the play The Quare Fellow.
Hansard often plays “The Auld Triangle” on his own and with his band The Frames. Several Irish music artists like The Pogues, The Dubliners, and Dropkick Murphys have played the song. Bob Dylan and the Band also played the song during their recording of “The Basement Tapes” in 1967. Here is the latest take on this Irish classic from Hansard and Bono:
“The Auld Triangle,” which has gone on to a life of its own outside the play, opened the play set in a prison the day that a prisoner is set to be executed. The triangle in the song refers to a metal triangle that was banged to wake the inmates every morning at Mountjoy Prison in Ireland: “And that auld triangle went jingle-jangle / All along the banks of the Royal Canal.”
The play The Quare Fellow, which was loosely made into a 1962 movie with Patrick McGoohan, grapples with a number of social issues, including Ireland’s use of the death penalty at the time. Ireland has since abolished capital punishment.
2014 Bonus Version Update: “The Auld Triangle” appeared in the movie Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). In the movie, the song is performed by The Punch Brothers, Marcus Mumford, and Justin Timberlake. Below is a concert inspired by the movie, featuring The Punch Brothers and Marcus Mumford.
What do you think of the Hansard-Bono duet? Leave your two cents in the comments.
“This is your last chance, and I’m not talking about one of those Major League Baseball Steve Howe kind of last chances.” — Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun 33 1⁄3 (1994)
Baseball pitcher Steve Howe was born more than fifty years ago this month on March 10, 1958 in Pontiac, Michigan. He died several years ago at the age of 48 by the side of the road when his pickup drifted off the road and overturned at 5:55 a.m. on April 28, 2006.
Howe had been one of the best pitchers in baseball, with highs such as winning Rookie of the Year in 1980 and saving the clinching game of the 1981 World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers. But it was another kind of “high” that haunted his life, as drug addiction led him to be suspended from baseball multiple times. He was suspended for substance abuse problems seven times, including a “permanent” ban in 1992, although the ban was eventually overturned on appeal.
Howe dealt with addiction from a young age, and his cocaine use was his downfall in baseball. Many questioned how many chances one should get in baseball, leading to the above joke in Naked Gun 33 1/3.
Howe played for the Los Angeles Dodgers (1980–1983, 1985), the Minnesota Twins (1985), the Texas Rangers (1987), and ended his Major League Career with the New York Yankees (1991–1996). In the clip below, you can see a young Howe being introduced before the second game of the 1981 World Series at Yankee Stadium with the other Dodgers. It’s a moment of great success, even though the smiling Howe could not know that within a week he would win the fourth game of the series and be on the mound during the sixth game when his team became World Champions. (video starts at 5:05 where Howe is introduced.)
Howe also could not have known at that moment how drugs and suspensions would destroy his career. Despite his demons, though, he still had talent late in his career, serving as the Yankees’ closer in 1994 and earning 15 saves. But that was his last good year, and by June 1996 the Yankees released him. Two days after his release, authorities arrested him at the airport for having a loaded gun in his suitcase.
He tried for a comeback in 1997 playing with the Sioux Falls team of the independent Northern League. The comeback failed, and he ended up in Arizona owning an energy drink company. When he died, he was driving from Arizona to California to visit family.
I cannot help thinking of his last year playing baseball for the Sioux Falls Canaries. He must have known that his career was over and that his drug use had contributed to that. It already had been a few years since he was a Naked Gun joke. What kind of hope did he hold when he took the field in South Dakota night after night following his days wearing a Yankee uniform in New York City just a year earlier? During the next nine years before he was killed in a car crash did he look back on his time in Sioux Falls with regret or happy that he still tried?
As noted above, some argued that baseball gave him too many chances as it was. He had talent and opportunities that few get, so I understand the argument. But I wonder if we should impose limits on opportunities when life’s chances and opportunities always run out anyway. Life is cruel enough, so maybe we should not make it worse.
Howe played baseball for our amusement too, but by the time he had burned up his talent, fans and teams no longer needed him and he was left on his own. And, as U2 notes, “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own.” Sometimes you can’t make it with a little help either.
Do athletes get too many chances to make mistakes? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, and Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in the United States. Below are some recent stories related to the holiday. For more history on the holiday, as well as Stevie Wonder’s birthday song for the great man, check out thisChimesfreedom post on MLK Day.
– The National Park Service will correct a paraphrased quote on the Martin Luther King Day Jr. Memorial in Washington D.C. The chiseled quote is not only an inaccurate quote, but the change makes it sound like a boast: “”I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” King actually said in a 1968 speech, “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”
– Amnesty International considers what King would think about today’s criminal justice system and what he had to say about capital punishment.
– The Huffington Post collects a number of quotes from MLK. Hopefully these are more accurate than the one chiseled in stone on the memorial.
– Finally, below is a 2009 U2 performance of “MLK,” the final song song from their Unforgettable Fire (1984) album. Here, they use the song as a lead-in to their song “Walk On” from All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2002).
In this 2009 performance, U2 dedicates the songs to Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who for fifteen years was under house arrest in Burma to suppress her struggle for democratic freedoms. I think King would have been happy to share his song with her. I think he’d be even prouder to share his birthday weekend this year with Burma’s release of a large number of dissidents and the government signing a cease fire with rebels. Walk on.
The Guinness Book of World Records named Samuel L. Jackson as highest grossing actor of all time. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness.
