I wrote an article set in what's currently the future of the TL, mentioning the sometimes-alluded to Congolese War, about the ATL cousin of "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet:"
From Radio Revolution Online: "After Decades, a Congo War Mystery Hit Has Been Found"
By Leanne Alvarez
Published 25 March 2012
Personally I don't believe in the SIM theory, the lead singer of the band has contradicted himself on whether he knew the song or not, the type of synth in the song wouldn't have been available to them. That's what inspired the part of the article where The Culture is ruled out by the same discrepancy.
Personally I don't believe in the SIM theory, the lead singer of the band has contradicted himself on whether he knew the song or not, the type of synth in the song wouldn't have been available to them. That's what inspired the part of the article where The Culture is ruled out by the same discrepancy.
It's a Yamaha DX7, which has a very particular default sound setting (that you can hear in the MMS), and it came out after SIM did most of its work. That said, the MMS may be the work of one of the members of SIM who split off from the group and vanished from anyone's recollection.
A sequel of sorts inspired by Ravenclaw's piece on Red Emma, focusing on a different musical reflecting on American culture Assassins
Cast[1]
Marc Kudisch - The Proprietor
Neil Patrick Harris-The Balladeer/John Birch
Aaron Tveit- John Wilkes Booth
Denis O'Hare- Charles Guiteau
James Stacy Barbour- William Burke*
Catherine Tate- Mary Jo Donaldson*
Jeffrey Kuhn- James Jeffrey Lerman*
Mary Catherine Garrison- Claire L. Summers*
Alexander Gemignani- Mark John Johansson, "The Big Guy"*
Michael McShane- Robert B. Patterson
Alexandra Kukleva*- Revmira Malekova*[2]
Brandon Wardell- David Herold/William Luther Pierce
Song
"Everybody's Got The Right" – Proprietor and Assassins (save Birch)
"The Ballad of Booth" – Balladeer and Booth
"How I Saved the Premier" – Proprietor, Johansson and Ensemble
"They Took It From Us"- Burke and Patterson
"The Gun Song" – Burke, Booth, Guiteau and Donaldson
"The Ballad of Burke" – Balladeer and Ensemble
"Unworthy of Your Love" – Malekov and Summers
"The Ballad of Guiteau" – Guiteau and Balladeer
"Another National Anthem" – Balladeer and Assassins (save for Birch)
" April, 1940" – Birch and Assassins
"Something Just Broke" – Ensemble
"Everybody's Got The Right" (Reprise) – Assassins
Musical Review: "Assassins"
Alexandra Smirnova, Metropolis Arts Review, June 2007
When Assassins debuted in 1990, it was controversial, given its focus on assassins of both American Presidents and later Secretary Generals and Premiers. In fact, just a year after Revmira Malekov's bizarre assassination attempt, it was seen as somewhat scandalous, especially for a public theater project with music by Stephen Sondheim. Sean Cinneide, who led the famed "Cinneide Commission" to investigate the Nixon shooting[3], stated that he had "concerns" about a musical about assassins being publicly funded, but ultimately withdrew his objections after meeting with Sondheim.
The show's conceit is certainly unlike other productions: In some place beyond life and death, a Proprietor hosts a gaggle of Assassins from various points from American history, from both the Old Republic and the United Republics, and have them interact. From successful assassins like John Wilkes Booth to notorious failures like Mark Johansson, they all had snapped at some point and decided that they should take on the first amongst equals, whoever those may be.
Since its opening, however, it has not made much impact beyond its initial release, likely due to its initial mixed reception. However, it has garnered enough of a cult following to have an eventual Broadway debut this year. And it still packs a punch even after all these years.
The songs were always the highlight of the show, especially opening number "Everybody's Got the Right," "They Took It From Us" (where William Burke and Robert Patterson bond over their hatred of non-whites), and especially "Another National Anthem". Some songs are a bit more shaky, like "Unworthy of Your Love/The Harrys", where Summers and Malekova talk about their respective loves, which led to their attempted assassinations of Harry Haywood and Harry Belafonte (why the song is called "The Harrys"), though I don't know how being in Jaime Grump's[4] cult and being in love with a radical pacifist Cuban are similar. Summers was also not so much in love with Gumb as devoted to their ideals.
I feel that Donaldson(attempted assassin of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn) and Lerman (who notoriously failed to kill Coleman Young and tried to throw the bullets at him when he failed) are underutilized, largely forced to the background. Perhaps it's the similarity of their causes (though Donaldson was a left-communist and Lerman a right-communist), or their sheer failure.
But even with those lesser elements, the show manages to be very effective. The highlights include Tveit's Booth, McShane's Patterson (who is shown being influenced by the off-screen screeds of William Luther Pierce to take on Nixon, who Pierce called "a crypto-Jewish miscegenist"), Mark Johansson (whose obsession with Catcher in the Rye and attempted helicopter attack on Fred Hampton (which ended in a crash due to his inexperience and his death, not Hampton's) are documented in detail), and especially Harris' John Birch, who forms the center of the musical.
Despite Birch's own failure, the sheer mystery around him and his effect on history (Birch's assassination is sometimes called the end of the "First Cultural Revolution") leaves him with an aura, especially in "April, 1940," describing the circumstances of his attempted assassination and how it was the culmination of the very conflict of revolution and reaction that created the United Republics in the first place.
Despite some faulty elements, the musical still manages to be biting and timely, and will have you humming songs about cold blooded murder. Truly a recommendation if ever there was one.
[1] The actors are derived from the 2004 Broadway and 2014 West End casts of Assassins OTL, with some roles obviously changed.
[2] This character originated in a piece I wrote years ago, when I had a much looser sense of the TL. There, she was an American who defected to Cuba after falling in love with a deep cover Cuban agent. Now her trajectory is… much different.
[3] Established Robert B. Patterson acted alone, but motivated by William L. Pierce's rhetoric, leading to a nearly 15 year manhunt for Pierce. Spawned a great many conspiracy theories.
[4] Former Fantastik writer turned deranged cult leader in the 60's
I love this post! I was supposed to play Samuel Byck in a production of Assassins, but it was scheduled for May 2020, so obviously that didn't happen. I still wish I could've done it - the monologues are so much fun, and it would have been a fun role to do before I transitioned
I love this post! I was supposed to play Samuel Byck in a production of Assassins, but it was scheduled for May 2020, so obviously that didn't happen. I still wish I could've done it - the monologues are so much fun, and it would have been a fun role to do before I transitioned
I'm kinda interested in Donaldson and Lerman, since most of the other cases in this particular version are from the right from what I can tell?
It's sorta the case in Assassins, but you have Czolgosh as a big outlier (who of course didn't kill anyone ITTL, and is in fact one of the principal PODs. Meta.)
Most of the later ones kinda just want attention or are mentally ill.
Donaldson is a LeftCom who feels like the policies of Reed and Flynn are too reconciliatory towards capitalism. Lerman is a Hoxhaist/Stalinist who tries to kill Coleman Young right as his corruption scandal begins.
Baseball survived the Red May Revolution and blossomed to new heights as America's premier sporting event. In the aftermath of the 1933 Red May Revolution, efforts put forth by Commissioner John Pershing had led to the formal merger of the institutional American League and National League into one unified MLB. While the leagues would retain their names, they would be subordinate to the Central Committee for Professional Baseball and the MLB league office from that point forward.
The new soviet governments and Commissioner Pershing finally negotiated new access rights to the stadiums that had been built as part of the MLB's operations during the pre-revolutionary era, and the MLB took to the field again in the 1934 season. The limited desegregation that had occurred in the league in 1930 was continued as a sign of faith and dedication to the cause of antiracism and antibourgeoisie bigotry-- with the number of black players increasing exponentially. The two players who broke the colour barrier, Cool Papa Bell returned to play in his position of centerfielder for the Metropolis Giants in 1933, and would play twelve seasons in the newly-reestablished MLB before his retirement in 1946; Satchel Paige's career went even further, the pitcher appearing on the roster of four championship teams (1930 and 1939 Cardinals, 1940 Giants and 1955 Combrigs) before finishing his career with the MCA Celebration Jazz in 1966.
One of the most notable changes leading into the 1934 "soft reboot" of Major League Baseball was the rebranding of multiple teams to fit their host cities' new revolutionary billing. The Washington Senators, whose entire identity was predicated on Old Republic political billeting, were renamed to the Debs Defenders, an alliterative tribute to the revolutionary soldiers of the civil war.
Two teams from New York (Giants and Yankees) had the "New York" parts of their names changed to Metropolis, to reflect their status within the newly founded Metropolis Commune; while the Brooklyn Dodgers, due to their specific 'regional' status within the commune proper, retained their name. However, Major League Baseball's front office made the push to eventually move at least one team out of Metropolis by 1940... Teams of Major League Baseball in the 1934 season
American League
Boston Red Sox
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Indians
Detroit Tigers
Metropolis Yankees
Philadelphia Athletics
St. Louis Browns
Debs Defenders
National League
St. Louis Cardinals
Metropolis Giants
Chicago Cubs
Boston Braves
Pittsburgh Pirates
Brooklyn Dodgers
Philadelphia Phillies
Cincinnati Reds
The World Series Before the War
With this new, concrete structure to both leagues, things proceeded at an almost normal pace for the years leading up to the outbreak of the Great Revolutionary War.
In 1934, the first official season of play in the aftermath of the revolution, the Detroit Tigers won a closely contested seven-game series against the Cincinnati Reds, 4 games to 3.
In 1935, the Philadelphia Phillies stunned the Cleveland Indians 4 games to 2 to clinch their first post-revolution pennant.
The following year, the competition for the pennant took the name "The Battle for New York" as the Metropolis Yankees faced down and won a closely contested victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4 games to 2.
1937 saw the Giants sweep the Yankees 4 games to none in what is considered by many historians to be one of the most one-sided World Series appearances in modern baseball, in which the Giants outscored them 46-10.
1938 saw yet another sweep; this time the Detroit Tigers putting the Brooklyn Dodgers to bed in short-order, 4 to none.
In 1939, the final World Series played before Operation Teutonic was launched in 1940, saw the St. Louis Cardinals take home the pennant in a 5-game series against a reinvigorated high-flying Yankees offense.
Despite Operation Teutonic being launched in 1940, Major League Baseball proceeded with a season. The 1940 World Series saw the now-named San Francisco Giants taking the title from the now-named Debs Defenders, 4-3.
The Modern Age of Baseball Begins at Last -- the 1941 World Series and Beyond
By 1941, the league would look almost identical in structure to what it had eight years prior. However, there had been some notable changes to the structure of the league.
Beyond those initial 1933 moves to rebrand the Yankees, Giants and Senators (now Defenders), subsequent moves within Major League Baseball had led to efforts to remove 'bourgeoisie epithets' from the names of teams. The first salvo of these steps came in 1935, with the Boston Braves formally rebranding themselves the Boston Bees, a name chosen by democratic ballot by all currently-serving players of the team.
In 1939, after years of debate over which franchise would be sent to the West Coast as part of the effort to drum up support for the MLB, the Metropolis Giants were shipped west to become the San Francisco Giants.
In 1940, finally bowing to pressures put on them by Native American activists and several government officials concerned about the optics, Cleveland was obligated to rename their franchise. Their name change coincided with the start of Operation Teutonic and the outbreak of the Great Revolutionary War. Subsequently, Cleveland chose to take the name Combrigs in an attempt to stir up national sentiment and patriotism.
Also in 1940, the first of three Union-backed teams entered Major League Baseball. After a signed agreement between the United Meatpacking Collective and the National League, the UMC Green Bay Packers would throw the first pitch of their existence in the 1940 season. They would later be joined by the MCA Jazz and Hyperion LA later in the decade, in 1943 and 1947 respectively.
By the outbreak of the Great Revolutionary War, baseball was back to being a regular part of everyone's daily lives. The war's impact on it would be noticeable from the get go, with the first wartime World Series being held between two relatively small market teams, the Debs Defenders and San Francisco Giants, where the Giants would secure their first title on the West Coast in a tightly contested 4-3 series.
However, it was the 1941 World Series that really framed what life was like for baseball fans during the Great Revolutionary War. With manpower drained, many baseball players were hastily called up minor league players or men turned away from military service due to various medical issues that prevented them from serving in the WFRA, but not from playing ball.
Ultimately, the effects that these manpower shortages had on baseball can be seen in the final records of the two teams who made it to the Big Show. The Cleveland Combrigs limped into the World Series at 98-56, while the Reds made it to the game at 99-55, the first time since 1933 that both World Series contenders had a sub-100-win record; but certainly not the last.
As with the 1940 World Series, the 1941 World Series was broadcast across the entirety of the Communist International with localized commentary. In the UASR, the usual hosts of World Series broadcasts, Ted Husing and Ronald Reagan, provided the commentary in English-speaking regions, while local broadcasters assumed the role across Pan-America and the Soviet Union.
The 1941 World Series was also notable as being one of the first times that Red Guard militias were called up to serve as public security officials for a major sporting event, as part of an effort to deter saboteurs and other agents of fascism from causing problems at a sporting event attended by well over forty-thousand comrades.
Overview
Game 1
The first pitch of the 1941 World Series occurred at 18:48, with starting pitcher for the Combrigs pitcher Mateusz Iverson throwing a low-and-away ball to batter Gustav Kiermaier. Through two innings of play, neither team could manage to get a run on the board, with both Iverson and his counterpart on the Reds, Frank Davis pitching hitless innings.
In the bottom of the third, however, Combrig Lewis Edmunds got the first hit of the game, sending the ball into deep left field for a double. He would later become the first RBI of the game, as two batters later, Ezekiel Thomas would send an RBI double deep into right field. With this, the Combrigs would go up 1-0 on the Reds, a lead they would not surrender the rest of the game.
Early in the 4th, despite only giving up two hits to that point in the whole game, player-manager Ralph Gronchi controversially pulled Frank Davis.
In the bottom of the 8th, the last run of the game would be made with John Crewe first hitting a triple off a breaking ball that speared into centre field. The very next batter, Wilt Peterson, would hit a dropping RBI single that would bring Crewe home.
With a 2-0 victory, the Combrigs advanced to 1-0 in the series.
Game 2
Game 2 marked a greater offensive effort by both teams as they traded blows in the first inning of the game. In the top of the first, Nolan Thomas had the first base hit of the game after knocking a shallow ball into center field on a 3-2 pitch, and would later become the first run of the game after a Yancy Urbanus walk and a subsequent Francis Freeman RBI double.
However, the Combrigs struck back hard, with Wyatt Wilson hammering a two-run home run, bringing himself and Tyler Jackson home.
Not willing to be outdone, the Reds scored their own home-run in the top of the second, tying the game again.
The third, fourth and fifth innings were marked with silent bats and robust defense, as neither team could score a single run.
However, in the top of the sixth, the Reds finally orchestrated the go-ahead run, with Francis Freeman being sent home on a Pál Jackson RBI triple.
By the seventh inning stretch, the Reds were actually ahead of the Combrigs 3-2, and it seemed as if they may be able to tie the series and keep their aspirations for glory alive. However, pitcher Sebastian Thacker gave up a three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh inning, making the score 5-3 in favor of the Combrigs.
The Combrigs would put the game out of reach in the bottom of the 8th with a single run, scored by Andrew Corning off a Billy Franks RBI single. The game ended 6-3, with the Combrigs extending their series lead to 2-0.
Game 3
By the middle of the series, both teams were starting to come face-to-face with offensive stagnation. Game 3 was marked by all of the points scored occurring in the first inning, with the remaining eight being scoreless.
In the top of the first, the Combrigs scored two runs on an RBI double, and in the bottom of the first, the Reds scored on a Combrigs error which created an inside the park home run, their only hit of the day.
With this whimpering victory, the Combrigs extended their lead in the series 3-0.
Game 4
In perhaps one of the most captivating performances in recent memory, Steve Mercutio of the Reds pitched a no-hitter, freezing out the Combrigs in a devastating 1-0 game. The only score of the game came on an RBI double late in the 8th inning, securing for the Reds the victory, and giving them a glimmer of hope in mounting a comeback against the Combrigs.
With this victory, the Combrigs lead in the series shrank to 3-1.
Game 5
The final game of the series was tightly contested across the board, with each time scoring a single run in each inning through the fourth inning. With the game tied 4-4 going into the bottom of the 9th, Jack Hammerhead who had been forced to come off short rest due to bullpen injuries, and had been performing well since the middle of the 7th inning, pitched a ball that was driven deep into centerfield by the Combrigs, setting up for the walk-off run, ending the game and Cincinnati's World Series hopes.
With this game, the Combrigs won the 1941 World Series, 4 games to 1.
Composite Score
Looking Forward to Future Seasons
The 1941 season, and subsequent issues managed by the Major League office created some interesting rule changes for subsequent seasons.
Beginning with the 1942 season, three rules would be implemented or changed to fit the ever-changing reality of baseball. The first thing was that after years of gender and sex discrimination, Major League Baseball finally lifted a pre-revolution rule forbidding female players from participating in the league. The following season saw the first female player signed to a major club, Jackie Mitchell (SP) was first signed by the Chicago Spartacists for the 1942 season. She would be not only the first woman to play in Major League Baseball, but also the first woman to win a World Series (1944) and later the first female manager (1958). She would play for the Spartacists and Giants before her retirement from the league in 1953.
Second, as part of an effort to speed up play during extra innings, the MLB experimented with a rule that would mandate that at the start of every half-inning after the bottom of the ninth (seventh in doubleheader games), the team at-bat would begin with a runner at second base. Normal rules would then apply. Initial response to this rule-change was mixed, giving rise to the term Pershingball or Morty Mouse Extras which has persisted to this very day, often used as an epithet by fans of losing teams.
Thirdly, the lengthy distinction between the AL and NL, the presence of pitchers or designated hitters on the roster, was decided in the AL's favor. Starting in the 1942 season, the 'universal DH' rule was implemented, bringing both leagues into alignment on specific player roles.
Additionally, throughout the remainder of the war, two other teams would change their logos and names to appeal to nationalist sentiment and revolutionary fervor in the war against Germany and their fascist allies. In anticipation of the 1943 season, the Chicago White Sox collectively rebranded themselves to the Chicago Spartacists, while in 1946, the Detroit Tigers would take the name Tankers, in recognition of the role that Detroit's various automotive and mechanical collectives served in creating the tanks that were instrumental in the course of the war.
The growth of the league following the Great Revolutionary War would lead to some franchises being relocated to the West Coast, following the footsteps of the San Francisco Giants-- and would subsequently support a number of expansion franchises, leading to teams being raised from cities like Tampa, Denver, Phoenix, Seattle, among others. Teams of Major League Baseball after the 1941 season
Interesting! I do think it seems fun to force pitchers to actually try to hit the ball, but I can see why they'd adopt a Designated Hitter role not realizing the comedy gold they were missing.
Interesting! I do think it seems fun to force pitchers to actually try to hit the ball, but I can see why they'd adopt a Designated Hitter role not realizing the comedy gold they were missing.
nd would subsequently support a number of expansion franchises, leading to teams being raised from cities like Tampa, Denver, Phoenix, Seattle, among others
Actually, you may find that many franchises keep their historical names merely because I didn't bother to come up with new ones. That being said, there will be some differences...
I only know two things about baseball, the first being to never piss off somebody with a goat, but the second is that the madness of the Mariners transcends time and space and even the Terran Empire evil mirror versions of Seattle all still have the Mariners.
I only know two things about baseball, the first being to never piss off somebody with a goat, but the second is that the madness of the Mariners transcends time and space and even the Terran Empire evil mirror versions of Seattle all still have the Mariners.
The conditions created by the DotP and socialism are pretty barren ground for that sort of thing, and iirc the UK and France have never exactly been wellsprings of that particular brand of christianity.
I'd imagine there'd be some of the more... oddball faiths in Cuba, brought over by the White Americans, but given the largely Catholic population, I doubt they'll have much root among the common populace.
