In this very dark year – a historically horrendous year – there were some good things.

BEST HISTORICAL EVENT: THE ELECTION OF JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS

“Our long, national nightmare” is … moving into another phase. It’s going to be a rocky few weeks until January 20th, 2021. Trump plays golf and worries about Melania’s lack of magazine covers while unemployment benefits for millions expire and tens of thousands die. And he’s still stoking anger and mischief about the election he lost in a landslide.

There are going to be more pardons, more executions, more tantrums, more lies, and definitely more deaths. And it looks like some ambitious GOP senator is going to assist in contesting the election results on January 6th. More idiotic hijinks ahead.

But on January 20th, Joe Biden will become president, and the fumigation of the White House can begin. Adults will be in control of the Executive Branch once again. That’s a big plus.

But they – and the country – are facing huge problems: taming the Virus and saving the economy for the average American in a time of extreme racial strife. (Wall Street seems fine; it’s Main Street and the cities that are imploding.) And though Trump might not be in the Oval Office anymore, the GOP is still a major force, especially if the Democrats don’t take the two seats in the Georgia Senate run-offs. That’s going to be a tall order. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are terrible candidates – both caught profiteering (and lying) during a public health crisis – but they are running against a Jew and “Marxist” Black minister in a red state, so they might have a chance.

And even after the Inauguration, Fox News and the rest of Murdoch empire will still pump out Republican talking points. “HUNTER BIDEN!!! HUNTER BIDEN!!! HUNTER BIDEN!!!” (Fox and the New York might have temporarily inched away from Trump, but they are firmly in the extreme Right Wing and will do anything to cripple the Democrats efforts to do … well, anything.)

But at least this time, the good guys won. History will look back and not believe that we ever elected a man like Donald Trump. Of course, he lost by over three million votes to Hillary in 2016, winning only by the antiquated quirk that is the Electoral College, and he got his ass kicked by seven million votes in 2020.

But when the historians study the degradation of the Republican party, it’s not just Trump. The decline can be followed from Ronald Reagan to Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh to Tom Delay to Bill O’Reilly to the Tea Party to Sean Hannity to Sarah Palin to Newsmax to Fox and Friends and The Five and the Proud Boys and QAnon and who knows where this is going.

Trump spoke about imaginary “American carnage” in his one Inaugural Address (Remember George W. Bush’s comment to Hillary: “Well, that was some weird shit!”) … and now he is leaving actual American carnage in his wake.

This Christmas, lines at food banks across the nation stretched for miles. Since the summer, more than eight million Americans have dropped into poverty. More than half of our citizens don’t have a thousand dollars to cover an emergency. No savings. Too much debt. In dead-end, benefitless jobs. There’s been no raise in the minimum wage since 2009, and you know what’s happened to the Cost of Living since then. And who can live on $7.25 an hour anyway?? Forty hours a week at that rate is $290 a week – before taxes. A little more than $15,000 a year. Who can live on that?

No wonder there is such desperation and anger out there. For so many Americans, this is no longer any hope or way to plan for a brighter future. They’re stuck, treading water. A check three weeks from now -- $2,000 or $600 -- won’t undo the damage once it’s done. You can’t feed hungry stomachs from last week. Once a family is evicted, you can’t so easily “un-evict” them.

Trump’s legacy will be chaos and misery and, perhaps, violence. We’ll see what happens on January 6th … and afterwards.

Good luck to Biden and Harris. We have a chance to restore our national honor … and maybe save this country and the planet, too.

BEST CONCERT: YUJA WANG AT THE WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL

I’ve been seeing concerts my whole life. (I wonder what the actual number is: in the hundreds, for sure.) But early in this terrible year, I saw one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen: the brilliant young Chinese pianist YUJA WANG, in a solo recital. I’d seen her before, playing a newly commissioned John Adams concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but never in a program of her choosing.

It was a varied program of short pieces – no piece was longer than 11 minutes -- but what made the night so memorable is that Yuja played the selections in a random order. Before the music started, Yuja said in a recorded message, that she was going to play the pieces as she felt like playing them, not in the order printed in the program.

She urged us to just listen to the music, and her method worked. Freed from the tyranny of the program and personal preconceptions (“I like Chopin. How does she compare to Rubenstein? … I don’t like Berg … who the hell is Mompou??”), I could just listen to the music purely, with truly open ears. Under the spell of her playing, names of composers didn’t matter, eras and styles didn’t matter: it was all just transparent, magical sound.

Here is what she played (though I don’t recall the exact order):

Galuppi – Sonata No. 5 in C Major, I. Andante

Bach – Toccata in C minor, BWV 911

Brahms – Intermezzo in A minor, Op. 116, No. 2

Chopin – Mazurka in A minor, Op. 67, No. 4

Brahms – Intermezzo in C sharp minor, Op. 117, No. 3

Chopin – Mazurka in F Major, Op. 68, No. 3

Brahms – Romance in F Major, Op. 118, No. 5

Scriabin – Sonata No, 4

Ravel – Une Barque Sur L’Ocean

Berg – Piano Sonata, Op. 1

Mompou – “Secreto” from Impressiones Intimas

Scriabin – Sonata No. 5, Op. 53

Encores:

Prokofiev – Toccata, Op. 11

Schubert – “Gretchen Am Spinnrade”

Of course her playing was magnificent technically, but it was her emotional commitment to the music that put the evening into another realm. It doesn’t hurt that Yuja is physically beautiful and performs passionately.

It wasn’t just a concert: it was an experience.

(And I found out who Federico Mompou was.)

Some favorite Yuja links:

Yuja Wang plays Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1-- September 7, 2012 in Helskinki with Hannu Lintu conducting the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T55g8w51jyw

Yuja Wang -- Encores

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVMpgZZjKpI&t=1005s

Yuja Wang plays Encore Pieces

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVMpgZZjKpI&t=879s

Seven dynamic Yuja Wang endings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZyokBXgEJY

“Tea for Two” – Yuja out-tatums Art Tatum. (Her fifth encore of the night!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCUjdgdqE90

Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto #1 – This’ll knock your ears off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yue6Cb5OULM&t=232s

Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Piano Sonata No.29 in B-flat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAwRRLDpBVM

Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdKEUmFUMFg

BEST SPORTS: DODGERS AND LAKERS BOTH WIN CHAMPIONSHIPS

In this horrible year, two very good things happened: BOTH of my favorite teams – the Dodgers and the Lakers -- won championships. I hope they are not considered tarnished or asterisk titles. They played the same number of games, in the same conditions, as the other teams – and they won. Fair and square (shade thrown to the Houston Astros). The Dodgers especially deserved their title after coming so close for so many years, and being cheated along the way. Good for them, with a special nod to Clayton Kershaw, who performed well and got his name off that unfortunate list of Greatest Players Never to Win A Championship.

I actually had tickets for three Dodger games this season … all lost to the Virus. But I made up for it with hours in front of the television.

The Lakers didn’t have to wait more than thirty years between titles as the Dodgers did. But Laker fans are used to championships: 17 total, the last one in 2010 with Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Derek Fisher, and Ron Artest (once Metta World Peace, now Metta Sandiford-Artest.) This one was satisfying, watching LeBron James play for our side. His overall performance – playing all five positions when he has to – and dedication to excellence were astounding. The only thing missing was Kobe on the sidelines, cheering. Maybe he was.

Here was the most incredible play of the year: the Dodgers lose Game 4 of the World Series, committing TWO errors on the last play of the game, giving up the tying and winning runs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4qCFgzysF8

Thank goodness they won the Series, or we’d be talking about this play for years. (We will anyway.)

BEST NEW MUSIC: THE MAVERICKS – EN ESPANOL and JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT – REUNIONS

Confession: I mainly listen to old music. By far, my most-listened-to album of 2020 was Lucia Popp’s compilation of Mozart arias from 2008. (The beloved Slovak soprano died in 1993.)

But there was some new music I loved. THE MAVERICKS have been one of my favorite bands since the 1990s, and I think that Raul Malo is one of the greatest pop singers of all time (certainly, our time.) At most shows, Raul – of Cuban extraction – would sing a song in Spanish, and we would always say: he should do a whole album in Spanish. Well, the Mavericks finally did it: it’s called – get ready – EN ESPANOL. And it’s a killer. Raul’s vocals burn with passion. The band is tight and committed. It’s almost as good as a live Mavericks show.

Here’s a spicy taste – “Suspiro Azul” – in a live stream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbUtD1aKDl0

And for old times’ sake – some favorite Raul links

“Come Unto Me” – the Mavericks killing at the 2102 Americana Music Awards —

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiIzChCyB8s

The Mavericks on BBC-TV – “O What A Crying Shame” – their first hit – so young!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnRecIQsGEs

Raul sings the classic Cuban song “Siboney” – almost acapella

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTe8qTQ77Qc

Raul sings “Let It Be Me” with a full orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OULwTgPsQ6Y

The Mavericks’ full set from the 2015 Strawberry Festival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXmXAK16TU

Two hours of Raul solo – from Knuckleheads Garage in Kansas City – May 13, 2018 – Check out his “La Vie En Rose” at 1:10. Lots of goodies in this set. A magical “Stardust” at 1:51.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQkfXOIB8RM

For the past few years, JASON ISBELL has been making some of the most compelling music around. After a few solo efforts, his album this year – REUNIONS – was billed with his band: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (named after the psychiatric ward at a local Alabama hospital). I can’t really tell the difference: all his music is strong, brooding, opinionated, passionate, and played with heart.

Isbell is an ambitious artist. He feels for himself … and all damaged, uncertain Americans.

“Be afraid, be very afraid … Do it anyway!”

Here is some socially distanced Jason and his band, singing “Overseas” from REUNIONS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyhkMw824p0

And some old Jason links

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – “Cigarettes and Wine” live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc2WZr8oTW8

Jason Isbell – “COVER ME UP” – on Austin City Limits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaUCDqWzy1k

Jason Isbell – on CBS “Sunday Morning” – The Fall and Rise of Jason Isbell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqasKIuE3y8

“Elephant” – Jason’s masterpiece from SOUTHEASTERN about cancer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BMXs55yKZA

“Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” – Jason’s Stones cover – an encore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s7XxgR1KEE

Jason and wife Amanda Shires play IF WE WERE VAMPIRES – another heartbreak classic – from Austin City Limits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV7c8V5XLk8

Jason and band singing CODEINE – from 2011 – “’Cause one of her friends / Has taken her in / And given her codeine”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUedNbfQFSs

-- and – for the hell of it, the record, and my convenience --

my most-watched music of the year –

The Dixie Chicks (now just “The Chicks”) singing MISSISSIPPI, one of Bob Dylan’s greatest songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IoVshhawZQ

“My clothes are wet, tight on my skin / Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in”

BEST TIME: HANGING OUT WITH MY GRANDSONS

I don’t know how I would have survived this year without the love of my two grandsons Calder, just turned six, and Silas, one-and-a-half.

So many wonderful, pure moments: making them latkes at 5:30 in the AM … digging in the garden … playing with toys … drawing … throwing a frisbee back and forth … reading to them … playing them music and showing them my art books and my pop-up books and the trove of DK books we’ve bought for them … helping teach Calder how to ride a two-wheeler … playing hide-and-seek … teaching them things my mother and father taught me.

I guess I would have survived; I would have just been a lot unhappier and less hopeful.

As it is….

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