The G.O.A.T

I’m something of a basketball fan. I’m not American, so I could support whoever I wanted when I was younger. There really was only one team, back then: The Chicago Bulls. I mean, there were loads of other teams but only one had Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman. Orlando Magic were pretty cool, and they had this new guy called Shaquille O’ Neil, who went on to do okay, but my heart belonged to the windy city.

I collected the cards. I wore the kit. I watched the games. It was exciting. But it was even more than that because, in Michael Jordan, you knew that you were watching something special.

Every day, I have something pop up on social media that is debating whether Michael Jordan or Lebron James is ‘The GOAT’. (In case you are not down with young person vernacular, this stands for Greatest Of All Time.) Honestly, it’s not even a debate. It’s Jordan. The stats alone tell you that but also take a look at his legacy. Look at the quality of the league back then. Watch him clutch when it seems like a game is lost. See hime make game-winning shot after game-winning shot. And while you are doing it, take a look around and tell me how many people are wearing Nike Air James trainers.

The GOAT.

This isn’t a post about sport, it’s about being the greatest. In sport, the statistics can really help but I think the very best have something that is unquantifiable. It’s more than just maths, it’s how it makes you feel.

In football, the debate rages on about Messi or Ronaldo being the GOAT. The pure athleticism of Ronaldo is astonishing – you won’t find guys 20 years younger who are in the same shape. He’s fast. He’s strong. He jumps higher than anybody. He scores goals with both feet and his head, from 6 years out and 35 yards out. That extra 2% he has above others sets him a world apart.

But then watching Messi, lollop around the field, walking a lot of the time, and still scoring a couple of goals in a world cup final has a kind of magic. Because when he has the ball at his feet, it’s like fucking poetry. It’s beautiful to watch. He doesn’t have the presence of Ronaldo because he’s about a foot shorter but the guy is like a ballet dancer when he laces up his football boots. (And he bangs the goals in. People talk about Haaland scoring 30-odd goals last season, in the 2011-2012 season, Messi scored 82.)

It’s more difficult with art, particularly writing, because JK Rowling might have the stats when it comes to sales but she’s not being compared to F Scott Fitzgerald. In 450 years, will people still be talking about The Prisoner of Azkaban in the same way we all know about Romeo and Juliet?

No. The answer is no.

Stephen King is something of an anomaly because he sells a shed load of books but he can also write. Many would argue that he’s the GOAT, but not me. (Even though I love his books.)

For me, I want a writer that loves words. I don’t mean in a verbose way - one doesn’t ever have to type ‘utilise’ because the word ‘use’ already exists and is enough. I’m talking about the writers who can say a lot without writing a lot of words. I’m talking about having a style and a voice. I’m talking about those writers that make you sit back and think, ‘Fuck, how good was that sentence?’’ (This is Hemingway for me, by the way.)

And what about painting. How do you decide who is the best painter. Is it how realistic their portraits are? Is it Rembrandt? Or is an artist who changed the face of the art form entirely? Is it Picasso? Or is it someone who is so expressive that we, the audience, can feel everything they felt, simply by viewing the direction of their brush strokes?

There is a certain confidence that comes with being the GOAT. It looks like arrogance, sometimes, but it’s not. It’s knowing that you have a talent but that talent is never enough. You have to work hard.

David Beckham would stay behind after football training with Man Utd and practise free kicks for half an hour. The talent was there, of course, but that hard work took him up a level, so that when England needed a goal to qualify for the world cup and it was the final seconds of the game, a free kick from 30 yards out always had the potential to go in. And it sounds stupid but I feel the same way whenever I watch the clip of that game against Greece.

I’m nervous, even though I know he scores, and I’m elated when it goes in.

Because witnessing greatness makes you feel.

He stepped up to that ball and thought, ‘I’m good enough to get this in from here.’ The world watching. A nation expectant. He knew how good he was.

Writers don’t, it seems. There’s a lot of doubt. I see it online and I hear it when I talk to other writers and, honestly, I don’t like it.

It’s okay to want to be the best writer. It’s even okay to think that you are the best. Especially if you have the talent, and even more so if you have the work ethic. If you think you are not good enough, you’ll never be good enough. I’m not talking about handing a book to an editor and thinking that it’s perfect, that collaboration is an important and humbling part of the process, I just think that the best way to approach a book is the way that Beckham approached that free kick.

Like Babe Ruth when he stepped up to the plate.

Like Ali when he entered the ring.

Like Tiger Woods every day that he woke up in the year 2000. He won the US Open by 15 shots that year. Pretty cool. But from 1997-2013, Woods was a combined 126 under par in all major championships. The second best player to have 90+ rounds of golf in that time frame is a guy called Steve Flesch who was 125 over par. 251 shots behind. Can I hear you say ‘GOAT’?

And what about music? The Beatles had a few hits, didn’t they? And so did Michael Jackson. There are artists who dominated entire decades. Mariah Carey sold some CDs in the 90s. But nobody is comparing her to Bob Dylan, for example.

For me, the GOAT is Joni Mitchell. Don’t even try to argue that a better break-up album than Blue has ever been written. If you can listen to that and not feel a sense of lost love, you have no heart.

Musically, she is accomplished. Open tunings on her guitar. She’s not too shabby on the piano. And she packs so much punch into her lyrics that they could be published as poetry books.

I love the way her voice changes over time from that almost shrill pitch of Ladies of The Canyon to the rasp that creeps in with Hejira. Her songs encapsulate the time - late 60/early 70s - and a place - LA’s canyon scene - and the mood of that era. Artists were suddenly more open to singing about their feelings. Sure, she tried some things with later albums. A little jazzy with Mingus. And Dog Eat Dog is more 80s than I want it to be. But she evolved.

She changed.

She had hits and she had misses.

And I’m not sure how long she has left but she is playing a couple of concerts in October. In LA. At the Hollywood Bowl. It will probably be the last time she ever plays live.

I can imagine her singing Edith and the Kingpin or Case Of You or Court and Spark, or thirty other songs that make me feel things in a way that only a GOAT can.

Six months ago, I got excited that she was going to play live for the first time in decades. I queued online and got myself a ticket to see her. Then I spent the next half year telling myself that I can’t really justify the notion of flying 11 hours to watch an old lady sing some songs in her, now, even deeper smoke-drenched voice.

Then, last night, I took the plunge and bought myself a return flight. And there are a hundred reasons that I should not have done this but there is also one reason that I have to. I get to witness greatness.