Most Overrated Sports Moment: Batter steps into the box. Pitcher cranks, works, throws. STEE-RIKE! Crowd yammers. Pitcher’s teammates chatter encouragement; his bench defames the batter, who disdainfully raises a single finger. Only one strike, he is saying. Takes three to get me out. Pitcher throws two balls. Then he catches the outside corner of the plate. STEE-RIKE TWO! Bench erupts at batter. You stink. Go home, ya big bum, ya. Batter raises two fingers. Two strikes, that’s all, he’s saying. And now the batter—are you ready?— he raises his bat, see, and majestically he points it out to the Wrigley Field center-field bleachers. Did you catch that? This is the World Series, third game, and the Babe, the Bambino, the Sultan of Swat, he’s pointing like the Statue of Liberty where he’s gonna put the next pitch.
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January 2011
Most Overrated Sex Symbol: Can the most overrated sex symbol of this or any other century be easier to choose? It’s Marilyn Monroe, of course. Her breathy, pneumatic charms always seemed like a parody of sex, a version of feminine allure designed with drag queens in mind. Of course, her basic appeal is obvious, and it’s not hard to see why she was doted on by that exemplary triumvirate of 1950s masculinity: Miller, DiMaggio, and Kennedy. But, please, at least spare me the absurdly exaggerated claims about her acting skills or her hidden intelligence! The woman put out, but she was hardly Helen of Troy. Most Underrated Sex Symbol: Underrated sex symbols are tougher. We all have our guilty pleasures—mine run the gamut from Louise Brooks to the guiltiest of all, Donna Reed. What could be more taboo than thinking of America’s perfect TV mom in that way? Yet working backward, it’s possible to discern the sexy babe lurking just below the domesticated surface.
Most Overrated Songwriter: It’s rare for writers of any kind to become overrated in this country, but it happens all the time to entertainers. Now that the singers allegedly write their own songs, it’s possible that they’re all overrated. Anyhow, no pure writer of tunes has ever come anywhere near it—not even Rodgershammerstein, who was such a comedown from Rodgershart, or Irving Berlin, who wrote at least ten underrated songs for every “White Christmas"—and precious few lyricists have either. Sammy Cahn may have overrated himself, and Irving Caesar gave the impression he’d written everything in the twenties instead of surprisingly little. But what Irving did write was “cherce,” as Spencer Tracy would have said. And Sammy at least deserves the title Burton Lane unofficially gave him of “our eighteenth best lyricist,” which is not such an insult as it sounds; the competition was dazzling. Most Underrated Songwriter:
Most Overrated Satirist: Oscar Wilde is by far the most overrated satirist of the last two hundred years. But in American history? This country has never been very welcoming to satire (as the mogul said, it’s what closes on Saturday night), so we aren’t likely to overrate satirists the way we are inclined, for instance, to overrate abstract expressionists and chili. The only American satirists famous and well regarded enough to be in danger of overratedness are Mark Twain, Carry Trudeau, and Tom Wolfe, all of whom are highly but correctly rated. “Most overrated American satirist” may be a null set, like “most flamboyantly gay NASCAR driver.” Okay, there is Andy Rooney. But he’s probably more overcompensated than overrated. Most Underrated Satirist:
Most Overrated Self-help Movement: The most overrated of them all sprang from academia in the early 1960s, with the idea that hallucinogenic drugs could turn anyone into a better person—a mystic, a philosopher, or even a god on a temporary basis. A handful of professors continually repeated such promises, but the most unexpected claim came from someone who was already a god, of sorts. In 1960, years before entertainers promoted drug use as a form of rebellion, Gary Grant gleefully told Good Housekeeping that LSD had turned him into a good husband. He only wished he’d used it sooner, so it said, next to an ad for chocolate chips. In that early hour of LSD, when refutations were still wobbly by comparison, Grant’s claim received terrific publicity (untempered by his statement in the same interview that he could hypnotize his teeth). The initial vogue in hallucinogens must have been steeply overrated as a selfhelp movement, considering that what it ushered in was a plague of selfdestruction. And two more divorces for Gary Grant.
James Forrestal. Why? He was a clinical paranoid schizophrenic who perverted some of the most cherished principles of this country in the name of his own unbelievably perverse conception of national security. Henry Stimson. He was a true statesman, not just an advocate for his department, and his contribution to the successful prosecution of World War II, like so many things in his life, has never been adequately appreciated.
Most Overrated Revolutionary War Hero: George Washington’s generals were the only Revolutionary War soldiers well enough known to achieve long-term hero status. Of those men, my candidate for most overrated is Horatio Gates, whose fame derived from the American victory at Saratoga. As Nathaniel Greene remarked, “The foundation of all the Northern success was laid long before [Gates’s] arrival there,” and Gates came “just in time to reap the laurels and rewards.” In other words, by the time Gates appeared to take charge of the Army, it was in shape to withstand and overcome the British, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Gen. Philip Schuyler and to mistakes made by Gen.John Burgoyne.
In my opinion it’s barbecue. I have never quite understood the mystique that surrounds this dish, which so often consists of charred, dry, and fatty meat slathered in a sauce that tastes mostly of ketchup. Salt cod, which was a kitchen staple in New England before the advent of the freezer. I think the inconvenience of its preparation (overnight soaking and much rinsing) along with the current phobia about salt have driven it out of favor, although it is still popular among people of Portuguese descent.
With a nod to Whitewater, I think it must be Sherman Adams and the vicuña coat. I have no doubt that the calls by “the” assistant to the President to the Federal Trade Commission in 1958 were favors for an old friend, Bernard Goldfine, but you can’t buy the Executive branch for a coat—though, as I recall, Adams got a Persian rug too. (Harry Vaughan and the deep freezers in 1949 are right up there.) That, I think, was Iran-contra. It was just too complicated to understand, too diffuse to explain or unravel. But I-C was a peek into the secret subgovernment of the Cold War. The U.S. government subofficially cultivated and supported simple-minded patriots and criminals, and torture, terrorism, and drugs all over the world. That’s the one that got away.