| It’s a cruel, cruel summer,
Leaving me here on my own
-Bananarama
(Bananarama had a hit summer single in 1983 with their song Cruel Summer, not to be confused with Taylor Swift's song of the same name, just FYI.)
Summer 2024 was cruel.
Want an example?
Think of summer as an automobile, like a nondescript used car. Maybe it has a barely noticeable dent on the front bumper. Maybe it’s a minivan. Maybe it’s a Maserati. It doesn’t matter.
If summer 2024 was an automobile, it just got pulled over and issued a speeding ticket.
See what I mean? If cruelty is causing pain and suffering without feeling any concern about it, isn’t that what summer does? It comes and then it’s gone. And just when you settle into a summer routine, BOOM! Labor Day! It gives you a temporary taste of everything that is critical to life: love, music, fun, sun, and… TIME.
Part of that assessment is personal. It comes from my schedule these past three months – flying back and forth from my house on Long Beach Island, New Jersey to Juneau, Alaska (one of two non-contiguous states for you cartographers) every-other-week! Those are 18-hour travel days from my place to Juneau, the biggest city in southeast Alaska … which, it turns out, was named for a prospector. (Hmmm… the Wi-Fi password at my hotel is prospector … coincidence?!).
That kind of touring has consequences, one of which is a complete loss of sleep cycles and circadian rhythms, resulting in what felt like I was trying to keep up with America’s Gold-Medal-winning sprinter Aaliyah Robinson.
(She, at age 18 (!!!), took the planet by storm in Paris, winning the 2024 Olympics 200 meter race with a new world record time of 21.28 seconds. She defines “rising star,” hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, and she captured the hearts of millions with her electrifying speed and humble demeanor.)
The Olympics were definitely one of the highlights for the season.
How ‘bout the continued dominance of gymnast Simone Biles, who is now age 27 (How is that possible? She was just a teenager a minute ago!) adding two more gold medals to her already impressive collection. She cemented her status as one of the greatest athletes of all time this summer, and I am glad I got to catch glimpses of her skill, displayed on big-screen TVs in airports here and there.
TEAM USA earned 40 Gold Medals, which is impressive. Moreover, it was fun watching all the athletes, from all the nations, competing and representing their countries. I was surprised to see breakdancing as an event, but it is a precisely honed skill as I learned. So be it! My first thought, as someone who saw breakdancing in its infancy, was: “Hey! Where is the cardboard?”
(Update: I guess it didn’t go that well. They are saying there will be no breakdancing in 2028.)
My only suggestion to the IOC and the good hosts in Paris, is that some of the opening ceremonies might have been more sensitive. Some were considered tactless and controversial – such as the recreation of The Last Supper and the beheading of Marie Antoinette. (Now I’m being told that no heads were actually lost, but still….).
That said, here’s an idea! With the world economy in its current state, particularly in the host nation of France, wouldn’t some “broke dancers,” outfitted with shabby suits and worn shoes, created by the world’s foremost fashion designers right there in Paris, have been more appropriate?
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Taylor Swift had her “Eras Tour” concert canceled after threats of violence in Austria at the beginning of August. One of her biggest hits she performs on tour is “Cruel Summer,” and the lyric that stands out - at least to me - is:
But ooh, whoa, oh
It’s a cruel summer with you…
Those words have pointed, piercing, poignant meaning for fans of The Chicago White Sox, a franchise that has seen its fair share of infamy over the past 105 years.
Forget the 1959 World Series loss to the LA Dodgers; ignore the Bill Veeck years (“sliding shorts” anyone?); forget what can only be called the “most forgettable World Series Winning Team” EVER - the 2005 champs, who enjoyed incredibly short-lived acknowledgement for their accomplishment, almost as if it never happened (apologies to Sox fans - YOU DESERVE BETTER!); and please, let’s not rehash the 1919 Black Sox scandal, with poor “Shoeless Joe Jackson” and the sleazy Chick Gandil. Go ahead and Google it if you have to know. What I’m referring to now is the hapless Chicago White Sox of 2024.
If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, then what transpired in Paris for TEAM USA and the record-setting number of Olympic medals won, the White Sox are the definition of “reaction.” By the middle of this month they had already set a franchise record for LOSSES. They were at 96 defeats WITH MORE THAN A MONTH OF GAMES TO PLAY! Their inability to hit, pitch and field a baseball is matched only by the inept chaos in the front office, where the revolving door of managers and executives spins like the ‘pinwheel of death’ on all those computer screens that appeared across planet earth during the “Crowdstrike Global Cyber Breach” this summer.
(Full disclosure: I am a Chicago Cubs fan. So there’s that. But in my defense, I love those “SOUTHSIDE” jerseys the White Sox wear for their Monday home games.)
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I’ve toured and played too many outdoor music venues to name, which is still the case some five decades into my humble little “career.” Add theaters and clubs and concert halls, and I’m tuned in (consciously or not) to the music universe and what used to be called “the summer single.”
You know what I mean: a particular song that becomes a “hit” sometime in early June and gets endless airplay for years. That paradigm has changed with streaming services, because in summer 2024 music ‘runs like water.’ Everywhere I went it seemed like I heard “I Had Some Help,” a song by Morgan Wallen (he’s a country artist) and Post Malone (he’s not). No, I do not have this on my current playlist. I’m just saying I heard it all the time these past three months.
Summer does have one undeniable redeeming quality, a saving grace as it were. It applies to The Chicago White Sox and all the music artists who hoped the “track” they released in late April would be the “hit of the summer.” It applies to vacationers and lifeguards and yacht club sailors and camp counselors and you and me and all the small-time comedians flying to-and-from wherever-they-go for work.
Summer will come again.
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