Mysteries we don't quite understand.....

  I’m starting to wonder about things again and when I wonder about things… well….. Stuff seems to come out of my head.  On this day, the twenty ninth of July, in the mid tenure of my thirty fifth year of life, in the year 2013, I am wondering about the nature of bloodlines and the various destinies they send us off on that obstacle course known as life.  How do some of us grow up to conquer the world and amass great wealth and privilege?  How do some of us kind of schlep along trying to desperately to unlock the doors to the dreams and or the life that they want?  I’m a schlepper, I know that.  I’m a schelepper with a love life that is akin to all the neurosis of a Woody Allen film.  I generally hate the human race and I have not the energy, coming off a rather painful end to a long term relationship, to go to the old romantic lumber yard and build myself another romantic house.  I was in a long term relationship but now I don’t want another relationship because I just want the unsophisticated simplicity of sex without connection.  Where do these contradictions come from?  Was I born with them or did I pick them up somewhere along the way?  My love affair with food, now that I get it.  I love food it because it was my mother’s favorite parental panacea.  And I hate food because I resembled a young John Candy during my adolescence.  That and the fact that my male parental unit took daily notes on my caloric intake when I was a wee youngin.  But where did the fucked up part of my psyche come from?  Did I inherit it or did it manifest itself during that strange McInerney like abyss known as my twenties.  I actually enjoyed the world when I was drugging and boozing, if you can believe that.  And then I met a good woman and I got sober and I turned into a fucking misanthrope of epic proportions; I settled into my Shrek like existence if you will.  I just wanted to be on my swamp with my Fiona.  But then Fiona went away and I ended up having meaningless sex with a woman who thinks/thought she was gay.  Maybe it’s not my wiring at all.  Maybe I was just born a selfish self entitled prick and I just grew larger.  I can accept this, in light of the fact that I’ve known for awhile that I am, for all intensive purposes, an insufferable lush of the highest order.  Maybe I shouldn’t examine things so much.  Maybe I just be grateful for the handful of women who actually want to sleep with me and the few members of the human race who can actually tolerate me for more than a nanosecond at a time.  I’d tell you I’m a really loveable chap but why bullshit you good people.  I am the proverbial porcupine.  I poke, therefore, I am.  A few people have been jabbed by my quills and are still speaking to me and a few unfriended me on facebook and took the road of not acknowledging my existence.  And then I walked along the desert with my quills up and after a few moments of reflection, I decided I was to apathetic to actually give a flying fuck.  So there it is, the mystery continues.  Where oh where did this miserable lush spring from?  Why is he afraid of intimacy and why does he swear like a Mafioso?  Was this my destiny when I sailed out of the womb or did I build this long and winding road myself?

The Friday Rant.....

It’s been a long week so with your permission, I’d like to rant for a bit.  Can you tell me how in god’s name an entire city goes bankrupt?  What is this, Robocop?  An entire city, the city of Detroit to be exact, went bankrupt ladies and gentlemen.  Think about that for a minute.  I’ve heard of mismanagement but this takes the proverbial cake.  Being a resident of the land of Lincoln, I wonder if my great state isn’t too far from filing for bankruptcy itself.  The current leadership has borrowed itself into oblivion and has managed to drive the state’s credit rating right into the toilet.  But inept leadership and financial ineptitude is one thing.  But Detroit, a major American city, is about to go through the process of protecting itself from its creditors.  I wonder though, what exactly does Detroit have to sell to try and satisfy its obligations?  Does an organization like OCP (I know another Robocop reference) come in and privatize an entire city?  Can you imagine it?  An entire North American City being owned outright by a corporate entity of some sort.  I want to laugh but it just sounds too damn Orwellian in a way.

  And while Detroit is bankrupt and the state of Illinois is struggling to fund its pensions…… guess what Governor Closeau….. Er…. Quinn….. Found money for?  Drum roll…….. A new airport near Peotone.  (Clap clap.)  So let me get this straight Mister Quinn.  There’s no money in the till to keep the mentally ill under a protective flag or operate schools but there IS, miraculously, a tidy sum in the Abe Lincoln rainy day fund to bankroll a new airport.  What is it with this city and this state and Airports?  The former Mayor of The City Chicago, Rich Daley, went through heaven and earth to get an airport built near O’Hare.  Hell, he even had a cemetery uprooted to make sure nothing stood in the way of his baby.  How many airports do we need in this city anyway?  Isn’t the Airline industry struggling for profitability these days?  Yet there’s Pat Quinn, Illinois court jester, babbling about jobs and financial panaceas.  I’d be angry if I didn’t have a finally turned fertilizer detector.  With Daley it was solar power.  Solar power was going to be a financial panacea.  Nope.  Then it was the airport expansion at O’Hare.  Last time I checked, the new runways being constructed out there were being profiled on some local news station as poor constructed death traps   I’m in favor of a casino in Illinois but now I’m picturing some Bugsyesque saga unfolding.  Imagine it…. A big glittering palace in the middle of nowhere that’s all dressed up with nowhere to go.  And I imagine the press conferences as Governor Quinn tries to explain, as only he can, why yet another so called panacea has ultimately become an expensive tax write off for the people of Illinois.  Think I’m being cynical?  Remember what state the state of Illinois is.  It’s the land of promises and panaceas and miscalculations.  It’s the land of opposite thinking.  That is to say, if your elected officials in the land of Lincoln say that some project or plan or scheme will benefit the taxpayers, you can be sure that it won’t.  When an elected official in Illinois tells you, the taxpayer, that the sky isn’t falling, your best instincts are to find shelter as quickly as possible.

  And finally… a word for Alderman Tom Tunney.  Tom?  Mister Tunney?  OK.  Look, Mister Tunney.   Let me give you a line from one of my favorite David Mamet films.  Mister Tunney…. I think it’s about time you went to your room.   Good night America.  Resist Tyranny!!!  Toot!!! Toot!!!

The rebooting syndrome....

There is one Jim Belushi film that I like and wouldn’t you know it, Hollywood is going to reboot it in 2014.  Now some reboots I can understand.  Total Recall rebooted its premise and its cast and traded up, in my view, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was replaced by Collin Farrell.  But the About Last Night reboot troubles because it’s based on a screenplay that was based on a stage play by David Mamet.  This begs the question, how do improve on the work of David Mamet?  Better yet, why reboot the one film where you can actually watch Jim Belushi present himself as an actor without wanting to gauge your eyes out?   Is there such a lack of ideas in Hollywood than someone thought it would actually be a good idea to a take a film by the late John Cassavetes and replace the extremely talented Gena Rowlands with er…. Sharon Stone.  Not only Sharon Stone but her faux Brooklyn accent to boot.  There’s actually talk of rebooting Raging Bull.  Yes, Raging Bull.  The same principle applies to the film I just mentioned, as it does to Scorsese’s epic bio about former pugilist Jake Lamotta.  How do you get any better than Martin friggin Scorsese?  But should this lack of ingenuity and or cinematic smarts surprise you?  Hollywood is the place that spends billions of dollars trying to bring TV shows with a niche following to the big screen.  Often times the result is a box office dud with the fallout of a Chernobyl blast.  And if it isn’t Hollywood trying to constantly rewrite itself, someone is trying to make a musical production out of whatever film struck their fancy way back when.  The latest one to get the musical treatment is Flashdance.  What’s next, some Broadway producer decides to make a musical out of every sex comedy ever made.  I wonder what the premise of the Flashdance musical will be.  Will the actress in the Jennifer Beals role break out into song at some point while holding a welding torch?  In case you’re not as fossilized  as I am, the main character in Flashdance was a welder who had aspirations of being a dancer.  Myself, I want to see Scarface the musical.  I want to hear musical numbers like “F*** The Diaz Brothers” and “Don’t you ever f*** me Tony.”  You can make a musical revue out of the scene where poor Omar Suarez gets hung from a chopper after Tony’s future drug partner, Alex Sosa, finds out he’s a rat.  I’ve got rhythm….. I’ve got ya yo…. Who could ask for anything more?  I fear that this epidemic in Hollywood of rebooting films will spread to other aspects of our culture as well.  Someday the literary world will find itself short on ideas and someone will say…. Let’s do what they do in Hollywood.  And voila…. Someone is commissioned to reboot literary classics like a Farewell to Arms.  I can imagine that brainstorming session now.  Make it happier, maybe Hemmingway finds the chick he loved and they reconcile.  And maybe she doesn’t kick the bucket after all.  Why stop there?  Why not commission a fledgling writer to reboot War and Peace in print or perhaps Moby Dick?  I say, let’s not stop at books and films in terms of rebooting.  Let the rebooting begin in the art world too.  Give me some watercolors and a few days of training and I’ll do those painting just as good as Pablo P did them way back when.

England.... we REALLY need to talk......

I don’t mean to harp on the birth of the royal baby or the next dictator of England or whatever he will be called by that travelling circus of wealth and privilege he was born into but have the commoners in England lost their friggin minds?  I wake up from my pre shift slumber to see video of a few citizens of England popping champagne in a pub honor of an occasion that will not enrich their lives in any meaningful way.  These people even brought a horse into the mix.  Yes, a horse.  Apparently, the horse was dubbed the unofficial royal mascot of royal baby gate or Kategate or whatever the hell else you want to call this sad spectacle.   Let me talk to you for a second, good citizens of London and the UK at large.  It’s a baby.  That means that it pees and poops and pukes and does all the things that other babies do.  Except this baby will probably grow up to be a prince that half of England will be bitching about when it takes its rightful place on the throne as a full grown adult.  This situation is so absurd that it begs to be satirized on an absolutely unmerciful level.  In America it’s even worse.  NBC and its enquirer like news magazine aka Today, spent sixty minutes on what the hell the royal baby would be named.  Sixty minutes, ladies and gentlemen.  One whole hour.  And how many friggin royal historians do our television networks employ anyway?   We had three or four on FNC and there was one on the Today Show.  If we’re going to have meaningless coverage of a ridiculously banal spectacle why wasn’t Ryan Seacrest dubbed as a royal historian for this here occasion?  Why not have Ryan Seacrest interview the horse and get his thoughts on the royal birth.  Now that’s great television, ladies and gentlemen.  Seriously though, I’m worried about the collective IQ of our planet when we the birth of a celebrity baby we will only know from afar sends everyone into a collective tizzy.  Are we that disconnected?  Are we that desperate, as a society that we have to delude ourselves into thinking that we actually matter to someone in the public eye?  What does it say about our media when Nelson Mandela’s health crisis gets less coverage than this ridiculous spectacle in England?  I bet you anything that when Nelson Mandela leaves the planet he’ll be lucky to get five minutes on The Today Show because god bless em, they have to spend time telling us about us the latest fashion trends and which celebrities are currently dating one another.   Do you realize that Corey Monteith’s overdose got more coverage than Nelson Mandela’s health scare?   Eh, Mandela only spent twenty seven years in prison.  He only represents things like courage and dignity and sheer resolve.  But damn it, the world at large needs to hear Lea Michele’s thoughts on the death of her co star on Glee.  And we need to know there’s a heroin epidemic amongst the younger stars in Hollywood.  This is in spite of the fact that Hollywood has always had a drug epidemic of some kind.  Oh how we forgot young River Phoenix or Brad Renfro, just to name a few.  Good night America.  Resist Tyranny!!!  Toot!!!  Toot!!!

Home Runs... Peds.... and the smell of politics.....

  At  exactly seven am I heard some host on the CBS Sports Radio network deliver an insipid commentary about how Ryan Braun destroyed the concept of sports idols for young baseball fans everywhere.  Excuse me while I grab my vomit bag and then my tiny fiddle.  You know my feelings about idols and role models; there are no none.  Idols and role models DO NOT EXIST.  They're a myth, a spook story, something to drive ticket sales or profit margins or ratings needles or what have you.  I don't think, in my heart of hearts, that Ryan Braun's suspension will suddenly having young baseball fans turning their backs on America's past time.  And if some kid is sitting there weeping about how let down they feel by Ryan Braun then you know what;  it's their parents fault for not schooling them on how oh so un pretty this here world can be.  So this is the media spin for today.  Ryan Braun has broken the hearts of young baseball fans all across America and Bud Selig is suddenly being viewed as some Wyatt Earp like character with a white hat on.  Let's be clear here.  Selig was ALLOWED to suspend Ryan Braun by the MLBPA.  That's the difference here.  The MLBPA recognized that they needed to look like they were serious about steroids in MLB and they recognized that Bud Selig needed some good PR during the twilight of his tenure as the commissioner of America's Pastime.  Put two and two together and voila.... Ryan Braun is suspended for the remainder of the 2013 baseball season.  Did you notice that Selig went after the easiest mark here?  The Brewers are out of contention and who would be grudge Selig for suspending a superstar who was already seen by most of the baseball watching public as a dishonest, smug, pariah.  Suspending Ryan Braun wasn't about making a stand to clean up the game.  It was about politics and horse trading.  Would Selig dare suspend someone from say, the Red Sox, if Ryan Braun played for them?  Is Selig going to take the same steps to suspend Matt Kemp if Kemp is found to have violated the league policy on steroids?  I doubt it.  If more suspensions come down in bread and butter markets like say Los Angeles, it will be because the MLBPA will once again allow Bud Selig to once again look like an efficient leader of a billion dollar a year enterprise.  If Selig and the MLBPA were really the guys in the white hats, they would've stepped in and stopped the post strike renaissance in its tracks.  You know what the Ryan Braun suspension is?  It's a chance for Ryan Braun to do the press tour and perfect his mea culpas and it's a chance for Bud Selig and the MLBPA to stand triumphantly in front of every available camera as they shovel more fertilizer about the steroid era in baseball being eradicated forever.  The truth is, Braun will be back in 2014 and the fans will be there cheering him on and no one will be the wiser.  And then as the storm clouds of this so called day of recognizing finally pass you can be sure of one thing; there will be more guys like Braun who will try to beat the system.  And for every bio gensysis that gets shut down, there will be another one bound to pop up at some point.  There will be always be guys looking for an edge and there will be always doctors and or practitioners who will put the almighty dollar ahead of medical and or moral ethics.  If the players have proven one thing, it's the simple fact that they are a lot more creative and a lot more devious than Bud Selig can even imagine.  My money is on Bartolo Colon being suspended before Matt Kemp is.  Why damage the franchise that is the economic apple of Bud Selig's crooked eye when you once again punish a small market operation like Oakland?  Let's face it, Oakland doesn't move the economic needle like Los Angeles does.  Ah, the smell of hot dogs and apple pie and good old fashioned politics.  God bless you mister Selig.

The Royal Baby is born... and this American doesn't give a rat's ass.....

  Good people of England, let me ask you one thing?  Why do you honestly care about the birth of a privileged royal baby that will have access to more of life's perks than you ever will?  And why are you, good citizens of the UK, taking to twitter to shout that Kate Middleton had a boy.  It was quite a sight; Londoners great and small holding up their I phones and their smartphones as they anxiously eyed twitter feeds.  And why?  Because they wanted to be the first ones to announce to the world the news that Katie Middleton had finally given birth.  Don't you people have jobs?  Don't you people have lives?  What is it about the nature of celebrity that reduces us to drooling fools?  Better yet, what is the end game for anyone standing outside waiting for the future Queen of England to give birth to a kid who will grow up in a protective cocoon designed to protect him or her from the unwashed masses.  The very same unwashed masses who were part of a rather embarrassing public spectacle of twittering and gawking.  Good people of England, there is no end game for you.  Go the hell home.  Go to your jobs, spend time with your loved ones.  The Royals don't give a rat's ass about you.  I'm sorry but it's true.  Call me cynical if you will, I won't be begrudge you.  But know this.  I know my station in my life and I know that I will never led a life of excess and privilege unless I somehow grow a horseshoe up my ass and said horseshoe leads me to a winning lottery ticket worth a gazillion dollars.  And I'm smart enough to know that sitting outside on a humid August day waiting for some celebrity to have a baby won't do anything to help change my station in life.  Let's face reality here.  Kate Middleton is going to recover in a first class hospital and then she and her new arrival are going home to a palace.  And where are you,mister and misses Londoner going after the ogle fest is over?  You're going back to your life as a mortal.  You're going back to your life of riding the subway and paying bills and dreaming of better days as you navigate the ebb and flow of the rat race at large.  So put your cameras down and shut off your twitter feeds and go read a book or something.  Make yourself productive citizens of the planet and stop the gawking and the slobbering.  Good night America and good night England.

The cruel romanticism of baseball.......

I had never seen a minor league game until me and my guy headed down the road to that mystical place called Geneva Illinois.  Geneva Illinois, the home of Fifth Third Bank Ballpark and the Kane County Cougars.  Having observed the flawed and oddly romantic baseball aura of single A baseball, I came away with the following thoughts.  On a hot summer day in Geneva Illinois, there was veteran hurler Scott Baker toeing the rubber.  Baker, signed to a deal by the parent team of the Cougars, the Chicago Cubs, was making his case to be added to the major league roster at some point.  The first pitch was seventy one and the next few pitches topped out at around 75 and 77 miles per hour respectively.  Pitch four was subsequently crushed as were pitches nine and ten and eleven and twelve.  Amidst the carnival like atmosphere that only minor league baseball can bring and amidst the kid friendly activities and the bells and whistles there was the painful reality of a career in its twilight.  And for every Scott Baker and every career seemingly reaching its twilight, there is that player who you can’t help but keep your eyes on.   On this night this, that player was Albert Almora, the Cubs number two pick in last year’s draft.  Almora is still a pup but he possesses the instincts both defensively and offensively that had me and my friend nodding in agreement that he wouldn’t be in Geneva for very long.  And for every Albert Almora, there’s a center fielder hitting just above his weight.  A center fielder who takes routes to fly balls that make him look like he’s on skates.   Then there’s the tweeners.  The guys like Dan Vogelbach; a Bambino looking first baseman with a Kirby Puckett like frame.  There are guys like Rock Shoulders; full of potential but not quite enough to add up to anything but a journeyman like career in the back roads of places like Geneva and Beloit and so on.  But what of the ones like that center field with the slow bat and the collective fielding instincts of a scared rabbit?  When does the day come when realizes his particular athletic station in life?  Does he improve or does he simply chase a dream while remaining stagnant at the beginning stages of pro baseball?  Does he become one of those Crash Davis like hero’s; the ones bouncing about in the independent leagues in hopes of milking a few more days in that glorious orb of sunshine known as baseball.  Watching Scott Baker leave the mound after two and two thirds innings and six runs allowed, I had to wonder what was going through his mind.  Had he seen his baseball mortality before him?  It’s that sad and tragically romantic aspect of baseball that I was talking about before.  Pitchers burst onto the scene like comets and we think they can do anything; we think they are superhuman somehow.  And suddenly, on a hot night in a place called Geneva, we’re watching them trying to will their arms to recapture the glory of their baseball beginnings.  It’s funny.  In Wrigley, I would’ve booed Scott Baker.  In that little hamlet known as Geneva, in the parallel baseball universe of single A baseball, I mourn the passing of time and the sunset of an MLB career.

The Friday Rant,.....

  It’s been a long week so with your permission, I’d like to rant for a bit.  Can you please tell why the Emmy’s are recognizing reality shows as pillars of small screen excellence?  What level of excellence does a reality show actually reach during its given shelf life?   What’s next, the Emmy panel starts nominating any who can walk and talk in front of a camera successfully?  What is it with this trend of stripping everything down to its lowest point?  We have Shakespeare to go and books written for people who can just about spell their own names.  Everyday people refrain about the lost generation that doesn’t take an interest in reading and then we reduce the art of enjoying a book to something akin to ordering a meal ala carte on line.  Nominating Ryan Seacrest for an Emmy is like having Miley Cyrus perform at the Met.   Not to be besmirch the merits of the most quaffed metro sexual of our time, but does anyone really marvel at Ryan Seacrest and his broadcasting excellence when he’s introducing the next cater walling karaoke singer on “American Idol?”   The Emmy’s are essentially bestowing an award on Ryan Seacrest for a being cognitive pitch man.

  If you haven’t heard, people are up in arms about Rolling Stone editor Jann Werner putting one of the Boston Marathon bombers on the cover in lieu of a piece about how this particular young man came to carry out acts of terror in Boston.  Let me say this.  Rolling Stone is simply trying to make sense of why this young did what he did.  Rolling Stone is simply putting a name with a face; they’re simply giving you the who and the why.  It’s not like they’re defending this young man’s deadly course of action.   It’s called Journalism and Journalism is about reporting on what’s topical for the purpose of enlightening a given audience.  Those people who are running around accusing Rolling Stone of milking a tragedy for headlines and a bump in readership have obviously been asleep for the past month or so.  This tragedy became a catch phrase and a t shirt and god knows what else in the days after it went down and you know what?   Everyone on the eastern seaboard and across the nation ate it up with a spoon.  Yet, Rolling Stone is suddenly the one with the agenda?   How many times did MLB, in the days after the tragedy, stock their website with stories about “Boston Strong.”   Rolling Stone suddenly has the agenda but there wasn’t five minutes that went by when some sporting team in Boston wasn’t using the Boston Marathon tragedy as a bumper stick of some sort or a rallying cry of some sort.

  Finally…….  I want to call out Yankee fans.  You have the nerve to call up talk radio in New York and complain because your team isn’t winning the division.  You ingrates were given a billion dollar palace to enjoy your beloved Yankees in and what do I see when yet another game Yankee game is shoved down my pie hole in my home market of Chicago?  I see empty seats.  Yankee fans don’t have any reason to be apathetic; it’s absurd I tell you.  Look at what you have Yankee nation.  You have a multibillion dollar palace with every amenity you could ever want.  You have an ownership group that spends obscene amounts of money in the name of winning championships and yet you ingrates stay home.  I’m a Cub fan, why don’t you live my baseball existence for awhile.  My team has won’t a championship since electricity was invented and I get to watch games with a concrete slab in front of my line of sight.   Yankee nation, you’ve had guys like Sabathia and Jackson and Petite walk through your hallowed baseball halls over the years.  You know who I grew up watching in Cub land?  I grew up watching Candy Maldonado and Jeff Blauser and Dave Smith and the human torch known as Mel Rojas.  You’ve watched October baseball with nothing buy joy over in Yankee land.  Me?  I got to watch my team blow a trip to the World Series…… TWICE.  Your former owner was a tiger and a capitalist at heart.  You know who ran my ball club for x amount of years, a soul less corporate entity called Tribune Company.  Before Tribune Company my Cubs were run by a frugal business magnet named PK Wrigley who didn’t know a damn thing about baseball.  My team couldn’t even play night games until 1988.  Why?  Because the financial albatross aka Wrigley Field had no friggin lights in it until that time.  You have a second generation Steinbrenner running your team.  You know who Bud Selig sold my team to after some Gordon Gecko wanna be became owner and bankrupted the parent company?  He sold my team to Fredo from the Godfather.  Resist Tyranny!!!  Toot!!! Toot!!!!

The emperor strikes back.......

  I’m going to give you the hard truth Cub nation...  Tom Tunney, the Alderman of the 44^th Ward doesn’t want the Wrigley Field renovation project to succeed on ANY level.  If you think I’m painting Tunney with a broad brush then get a load of Tunney’s latest effort to torpedo the Wrigley renovation project.  Apparently, Alderman Tunney wants the Cubs to do away with a Pedestrian Bridge over that would connect a proposed new hotel at Clark and Addison.  Tunney has also ordered the Cubs to move the entrance for the proposed new hotel off of Patterson Avenue.  Apparently, Patterson avenue is a sacred residential block and god forbid that Tunney’s constituents in Wrigleyville should have to look at a hotel that’s tied to the very economic landmark that has increased property values for everyone in Wrigleyville for oh so many years.  For the first time the Cubs point people on the renovation project are showing their frustration with Alderman Tunney’s refusal to deal with Wrigleyville’s most lucrative entity in good faith.  Here’s an excerpt from a Tribune article detailing Alderman Tunney’s latest effort to put the screws to the Cubs and their plans to modernize Wrigley.

  Cubs officials have stood by their proposal, pointing out that the Ricketts family is not seeking public financing for the project and arguing that entitles the team to wide latitude on specific facets of the construction.

“Every single asset we’re seeking has value to the Cubs and potential partners,” Cubs spokesman Julian Green said in an email Wednesday. “And we understand better than anyone every part of this project has to be done responsibly with the safety of our neighbors, fans and visitors in mind. Like always, we’re continuing talks with Alderman Tunney and the City.”

  It’s good to see that the Cubs have finally had enough.  The time for placating Alderman Tunney has come and gone.  I could understand Alderman Tunney being picky about certain aspects of the renovation project if it was being backed by public funding.  The Ricketts family has done nothing but meet Tom Tunney half way and what has it gotten them?  Tom Tunney continues to paint himself as a Churchill like figure defending his fiefdom from a neighborhood invasion by a soulless foe determined to change the fabric of a residential neighborhood in the name of the almighty dollar.  I WISH the Cubs had that kind of power.  I wish they had the leverage to send Tim Tunney to his room and rebuild the ballpark any darn way they wanted to.  Mayor Emanuel, it’s time for you to take a stand here.  It’s time to knock Tom Tunney down off of his soapbox once and for all.  It’s time for the contract on the Wrigley renovation to be signed off on.  It’s time for the Ricketts family and their point people to look this Aldermanic bully in the eye in the name of getting what they need and what they ultimately want.  Let’s be real here.  Tom Tunney is merely protecting a precious voting bloc within his little residential kingdom.  The thing is, Alderman Tunney isn’t Churchill and he isn’t Jimmy Stewart in “Mister Smith Goes to Washington.”  He’s not a do gooder or a crusader; he’s a fly in the ointment.  You know what Tom Tunney is?   He’s a politician, no more and no less.  Tom Tunney is the emperor who likes to hear the sound of his own voice when he’s making proclamations.  And I’m sure, if he does ultimately derail the renovation project and the Cubs decide to leave the only home they’ve ever known, he’ll be front and center leading a lynch mob towards the corporate offices of the Cubs.  And I’d bet anything, that if the Cubs ARE forced to move, Tunney will spin the story as one of corporate greed; of a once thriving neighborhood being punished for doing what’s right.  The Cubs owe Tom Tunney nothing and they owe Wrigleyville nothing.  If anyone is owed anything it’s the Cubs.  Without Wrigley Field, Wrigleyville is just another niche area struggling for an identity.  It’s up to you Mayor Emanuel.  It’s up to you.

Time to retire the MLB All Star Game... for its own good....

     I’m going to say something harsh here.  If I were ruling the baseball kingdom, I would do away with the All Star Game entirely.  Why not just have a three day layoff and then reward the best players in the game of baseball with a nice cash incentive slash performance bonus for being recognized as a top performer in their respective league.  MLB network can play footage of those black and white All Star Games all they want to in the name of stoking the fire of baseball nostalgia.  That’s not the game of baseball anymore.  It’s not guys going all out and risking life and limb for the pride of their respective league.  That all ended when economics became intertwined in the very fabric of major league baseball itself.  Baseball players these days are high paid commodities and rather precious ones at that.  So what sense does it make to have someone like say, Andrea McCutcheon, risk life and limb in what is essentially an exhibition game?   Come on folks, the Tigers aren’t going to let Justin Verlander do anything more than tip his cap and satisfy the requirement for a little star power to make Fox feel like there nvestment in this pomp and meaningless circumstance is worthwhile.  Look, let’s just see the MLB All Star game for what it is.  It’s a chance to make more money on obscenely expensive seats for an overblown promotional spectacle.  It’s a chance for MLB to make millions of dollars on the merchandise swag that often accompanies the mid summer spectacle.  If the modern players of today are bemoaned for not going all out, can you really blame them?  Let’s be real here, the MLB All Star game is a zero sum event.   It can’t be anything but a lose lose proposition when the hottest player on the Baltimore Orioles, Chris Davis, injures his hand during the home run derby.  Does it really make ANY sense to have  the most valuable players on their collective teams, risk injury by trying to tomahawk a ball into oblivion just so Commissioner Selig can crow about how he’s rescued the national past time from the dark ages of the steroid era and the ghosts of labor stoppages past and present.  The NHL All Star game is about a sport that can’t get out of its own way; a sport that wants to be loved and admired outside of its niche of die hard hockey loyalists.  The Pro Bowl is all about feeding the appetite of a nation that can’t get enough of a sport whose popularity has never been higher.  And what is the MLB All Star game all about?  It’s about smoke and mirrors and pageantry designed to distract everyone from the fact that baseball is a sport plagued by financial inequality within its very fraternity.  The MLB All Star game is Bud Selig’s chance to look official before Bio Genesis comes back into the fold and Selig once again has to address how or why no one fears his crackdown on performance enhancing drugs.  The MLB All Star game is Bud Selig’s moment of Zen before he tries and once again fails to bring some semblance of order to a game populated by obscenely paid mercs taking whatever substanceS they can get their hands on to keep their edge.  Not five minutes after Mariano Rivera’s final and rather magical All Star appearance was being gobbled up by the Eastern Seaboard Programming Network like a bunch of headline starved fan boys, word came down that Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez and all of the others in the Bio Genesis case probably won’t be punished until next season if they appeal.  Send in the jesters and all hail the King Selig and his MLB infomercial known as the All Star Game.

Changing the world.... one broken window at a time.....

  I'm curious.  When did we become such an angry society at large?  A few years ago, fans of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team expressed their dismay with their team squandering a chance to win the Stanley Cup by trying to tear down their home city piece by piece and block by block.  In LA, after the Rodney King verdict, angry protesters decided to answer an obvious injustice by committing acts of physical violence against anyone who crossed their paths.  They also looted any particular business within their line of sight.  Now comes word that a group of protesters took it upon themselves to try and disrupt traffic during a march over the George Zimmerman acquittal.  And while one group was trying to disrupt traffic, the other half of the mob went on a looting spree,  Does anyone in this society actually THINK before they act anymore?  Did any of these people ever stop to think that looting businesses and disrupting traffic won't change anything that's happened.  I can't put my finger on it.  Is it out and out selfishness or self centered ness or is it simply a need to be seen with this current generation?  I think the greatest example of mis guided thinking was the occupy wall street movement.  Did those people actually think they were being heard by the fat cats they were rallying against?  There was marching and protesting and slogans and human barricades and in the end, nothing changed.  The poor are still poor, the rich are still rich, and the banks continue to get baled out.  We had people shouting in effigy to protest the war in Iraq and there were Dubya masks and pretty signs with words damming the former president on all levels.  In the end, what happened?  Dubya got re-elected, the war continued, American blood continued to be shed, and the band of war played on.  You know what elicited the most change?  A bunch of people calmly going to the voting box in 2008 and letting their voices be heard.  We didn't have to break windows or loot to let everyone know that we were an unhappy electorate.  We found the man we wanted in Barack Obama and we voted him into office.  Here's what I'm saying here.  Put down your signs people.  Stop acting so damn infantile and stop lashing out at straw people in the hope of vetting your anger at things you can't change.  You want to change the world?  Great.  Then start by embracing that often under appreciated aspect of our very liberties known as voting.  Voting is a hell of lot better than causing mass chaos or howling at the moon in vain.

Time for a pause.....

I think I need to step away from the television for a bit and just sink a bit deeper into my writing. I say this in deference to the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case. Hearing the news of George Zimmerman’s acquittal late Saturday night, I was a powder keg of emotion and emotion as we all know, tends to cloud one’s judgment. I was going to post something Saturday night but I resisted my originally impulse because I didn’t want to sound like every other raw nerved amateur DA who wanted George Zimmerman’s head on a collective stick. Having cleared my head for a day or two, I think I can see this particular case without the tunnel vision that I seemed to be suffering from when news of the not guilty verdict rang through the internet and all other forms of social media. This case is a tragedy, plain and simple. A young life was lost and somewhere, however vindicated he may feel, George Zimmerman will be haunted, on some levels, by the life he took. I say that not as a member of some lynching mob posse but as someone trying desperately to see through the clouds. Someone said that the Trayvon Martin tragedy should be looked upon with extra scrutiny so that it doesn’t ever happen again. I hate to be the bearing of pessimistic tidings, but it will probably happen again. It will happen again because we are a fractured nation. If we couldn’t admit it then, we can certainly admit it now. You see it everyday when families have to bury their children because they took a bullet in some senseless turf battle on the other side of the city. You see it every day when corporately funded charter schools pop up in white areas and kids on the south and west sides have to walk through gang territory to get some semblance of an education. You call it pandering, I call it truth. We are a fractured nation, a divided nation. The word equality is often tossed around, but what does equality mean? It’s a buzzword for the media, it’s a classic maguffin. To quote a line from David Mamet’s “The Spanish Prisoner” “I know what I’m looking at, even though I don’t think I know what it is. But I think I’ll know it when I see it.” Race relations in America are the ultimate David Mamet maguffin. Race relations are the “process” that young Joe (Campbell Scott) carries around with him. He knows not what power he carries or what the power represents, but he’s under the illusion that whatever he’s holding will give him all the answers to whatever he thinks he’s seeking. I guess what I’m saying is, the races are not going to sit around the camp fire and hold hands and sing kum ba yah like some hippie utopia. I think the best we can do is try to embrace our differences and find a common ground somewhere in the middle. In the end, I hope that we as a people can learn to heal in the wake of Trayvon Martins’ death. If anything good can come out of his life being lost, maybe it’s a round of self examination on all sides. Let’s all put down the torches. Let’s all stop throwing mud at Trayvon for what past he may have had. Let’s stop making leaps to paint George Zimmerman as some Bronson like outlaw with an urge to kill outside of his own race. People, let’s just a breath. People, let’s just take a pause.

I'm not clinically depressed... I'm just an a** h***

It’s been a long week, so with your permission I’d like to rant or do something akin to it. First off, I’m not clinically depressed. In the simplest of terms, I just think I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m an asshole. I think embracing the fact that I’m an asshole is therapy in its own right. It’s rather liberating I think. Before I thank the academy for this breakthrough, I’d like to thank my dear old step dad. Thank you dearest step dad for measuring my food intake when I looked like an adolescent version of John Candy ala “Wagons East.” Thank you step dad. Thank you dearest step dad for making me terribly afraid of food at large. With every calorie indulgence, I see your mug and I see that horrid picture of my fat adolescent self cradling a Big Mac. Thank you dearest step dad for calling the love of my life a “coke head” and thank you for making me so miserable that I wallowed, post college, with my thumb up my ass like some vagabond out of a Kerouac novel. Kerouac is good, he wrote “On the Road.” Trust me here, the reference makes sense if you read “On the Road.” But I’m an asshole and you maybe you can’t trust an asshole with a literary compass. Fuck, I’m rambling again. Oh yeah, my step dad. Thank you for pointing out my hang overs and my cocaine addicted weight loss after you spent half of my existence telling me I was fat and worthless. Moving on….. Thank you to all of the fucking pretty people in that one horse suburb I called home once upon a time. Thank you for fucking torturing me when I was pretty much an insult comic’s wet dream. Thanks to you and your fucking clique, I pretty much detest and or mistrust all but a few members of the human race. Thank you. Thank you; you petty little shits. And thank you Facebook for leading me to one of these inhuman little trolls by pure happenstance. Nothing brings your existence into a clearer light than being shown a picture of a smiling faced little shit, now all grown up, who took great pains to mine your imperfections for a few yucks. It’s alright, I blocked the fucker. With these two instances alone, I have accepted the fact that I’m a damaged asshole with a penchant for unavailable women and an ego made of mush. And…. this is big….. I have accepted my life doppelganger. I am, fittingly, the Crash Davis of life. I am, now and forever, the career minor league catcher full of piss and vinegar and semi wisdom. I accept the fact that I am a raving pain in the ass and thanks to the serenity prayer, I accept the fact that I can’t change that. To try and be anything but a misanthrope would be like taking a fish out of its natural habitat. I am, now and forever, a misanthrope. I am a misanthropic career minor leaguer who had the privilege of having sex with an absolutely beautiful woman who I accidentally sent to the land of lesbianism. I am an asshole, ladies and gentlemen. I am, Crash Davis. My life is an antiquated minor league ballpark, a sea of potential and the gorks that simply didn’t fall. I will never make it to Yankee Stadium or “The Show” and I will never look like anything out of central casting. More likely, I’ll probably play the heel like character actor JT Walsh used That’s my kind of guy. Danish eating, chain smoking, portrayer of heavies on the big screen. I won’t mention that he had a grabber one day and died, that’s a bit of a downer. Resist Tyranny!!! Toot!!! Toot!!!!

I've been Quinned and I've had enough.....

Have you had enough mister and misses citizen of Illinois? Have you had enough of Pat Quinn to properly legislate as Governor of a state that was once on solid ground financially under the blue flag of the GOP? A state, since it turned Democrat has been hemorrhaging red ink by the boat load. First it was Rob Blagojevich’s misguided initiatives and now its Pat Quinn’s Larry Fine like tenure and misguided moralism that have the state of Illinois running on fumes. I know, Mike Madigan has a hand in this too. I would agree. But if you flip that particular coin, all roads lead back to Pat Quinn as a politically weak leader who seems to have the innate to create chaos wherever he goes. And when he’s not creating chaos or helplessly trying to dig himself out of the hole he and the state are in ala Larry Fine in a Three Stooges short, he’s inflicting a mis guided sense of morality on a state that needs both strong leadership and or solutions in the worst way. In a time of financial crisis, Quinn refuses to give a potentially mutil billion dollar deal for a casino stall because, quote, “he’s afraid of the element it will attract.” Pat Quinn is the proud man, who, when offered a parachute, refuses to take it on principle. Except, the Casino deal wasn’t only a political parachute for Quinn himself. No, it was a parachute for the citizens of Illinois to finally see daylight in a tunnel full of flowing red ink. Funny thing, I always thought that governing was about making tough choices. According to Pat Quinn logic, your revenue streams, wherever they come from, won’t be feasible until they leave you with the ability to function with a clear conscience. It shouldn’t be the casino revenue that pokes at Quinn’s conscience. Rather it should be, the squandering of resources and the fact that he’d turn his back on the mentally ill than accept a revenue source, i.e. the Casino package, with unsavory layers. Mister Quinn, we don’t have time for morality. Your time is up. Your time was up when you proved that you were unable to unite your own party, fractured as it is, to simply do what it was supposed to do; legislate. Your political clock hit zero when you decided to give the citizens of Illinois the green light to arm themselves. This, in spite of the fact, that Quinn’s fellow Democrat, the current mayor of Chicago, refuses to restaff the Chicago Police force to an acceptable level. This is your time, Mister and Misses Illinois. Take back your state. Go to the ballot and start the dominos rolling by telling Governor Quinn that you’ve had enough. Or maybe it takes more day care centers for working families being slashed. Or maybe it takes more mental health services for the poor being jettisoned. Or maybe, mister and misses Illinois, it will take someone being gunned down in a bar or a restaurant to wake you from your slumber. As Sam Jackson said in “Pulp Fiction” “You want to play blind man, you go right ahead. My eyes are wide f****** open.”

Building a better heaven...

I was skyping with a dear friend the other day and she asked me what my vision of heaven would look like. Interesting question indeed. My utopia would look like any one of my favorite theaters. The walls would be lined with film posters from all the eras of film. It would be a place where time would stand still and time wouldn’t be as fleeting. To know me is to know that me being in an Eden full of cinema is not that big of a stretch. To me, being in a cinema with time on my hands is akin to “heaven.” To me, seeing the poster boards for all the upcoming releases relegates me to being a kid on Christmas morning again. But my Eden isn’t only about films. For me, my Eden has a bit more simplistic in nature. It’s the glow of the outfield grass at Wrigley as night settles down upon it. It’s riding in a car with the woman I was madly in love with down I 90 and watching her sleep as we officially left Chicago behind. It’s the thrill of seeing a new city for the first time in ages, of getting to know the names of streets in a big wide unexplored space. It’s watching a dear friend blossom into everything I knew she could be and watching her settle rather nicely into the skin she was meant to be in. Shut up Jules, I know I’m being corny. Moving on. My heaven, if I could recreate it would be the moment where I knew that I was in love; when I knew that I wanted to be with this particular woman and that nothing else mattered. It just so happened that this moment occurred at Wrigley Field. It was a night game and as day became night, the outfield grass seemed to illuminate and pop somehow. And all I could think of, as I watched this beautiful woman sitting next to me was….. For the love of god please don’t screw this up somehow. I know, you’re confusing heaven and sentimentality you’re saying. Maybe, but for an old misanthrope like me there’s nothing like having the pleasure of loving someone you have no earthly business being with. There’s nothing more perfect or utopian, if you will, then feeling like the world has been shrunk to its most comfortable point; that everything, in that space of time, seems to make perfect sense. Oh Catherine, what I wouldn’t give for one of those stupid arguments we usually had about compliments and the merits of them. What I wouldn’t give to hear your voice or to hear you laugh one more time.

Glorious Midnight

   Directed by Richard Linklater

  Written by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke

  Ethan Hawke                             Jessie
  Julie Delpy                                Celine

  I won't lie.  The write ups taking Richard Linklater's "Before Midnight" to task for being a bit talky are true.  There are moments sprinkled throughout the film in which you want to yell "cut" because Richard Linklater seems to enamored with the characters he helped to create in Jessie and Celine.  Nothing is more indicative of this then the scene between Jessie (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) in the last act when Celine finally expresses her disenchantment with her seemingly fairy tale romance.  Again, there could've been a point where director Richard Linklater could've yelled cut.  There's a point where Celine walks out the door and you feel like the scene has reached its pitch.  And then she comes back and she walks out and she comes back until the scene feels like its belaboring its point about the mounting friction between Jessie and Celine.  But for all of his seeming inability to let go of Jessie and Celine, Linklater handles the last sequence of the film rather beautifully with nothing more than a slow pan out.  Indeed, the ending sequence of the film is beautiful in its own way; a slow pan out on Jessie and Celine in mid conversation.  You have to applaud director Richard Linklater for resisting the urge not to wrap everything in a neat little package like one of those cutesy rom coms.  But he knows, like we do, that Celine and Jessie deserve better than a director or a screenplay looking for easy solutions.

  Plot:  Eighteen years ago Jessie (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) met on a train in Europe.  A few years later, they reconnected in Paris after vowing to find one another again at some point.  Before Midnight opens with Jessie and Celine as a married couple trying to navigate the pitfalls of a relationship slowly starting to show its age.  Jessie has used his love affair with Celine and the subsequent beginning of it as a path to live his dream as a writer, much to Celine's dismay.  Also complicating matters is Jessie's ex wife in Chicago and the joint custody issue that has him thinking about uprooting his life with Celine to be closer to his son.  This isn't exactly what Celine wants to hear, since her dream job is calling her in Paris.  I'll stop there, you can decipher the rest of the plot on your own.

  I've heard certain reviews that have called out "Before Midnight" for not being truly about anything; for being a pretentious artistic vanity exercise.  I would say, it's not nearly as pretentious as the second film, "Before Sunset."  If anything, "Before Midnight" is about moments.  Moments like the speech that one of the older dinner guests makes at the party to welcome Celine and Jesse.  If you've ever loved someone oh so deeply or you've ever lost someone, the words in that speech can't help but to touch your heart on some level.  What I've enjoyed about the three films Linklater and Hawke and Delpy have done together is their unwillingness to talk down to the audience at any point.  This is more than evident by the fact that the screenplay by Hawke, Delpy, and Linklater, doesn't treat the simmering tension between Celine and Jessie with the "blinking light" approach that most other films would ultimately take.  The difference between a film like "Before Midnight" and every other recycled rom com about a fraying relationship is the fact that Jessie and Celine aren't plot points.  They aren't positioned to feel certain things at certain points at the whim of the plot.  It's beautiful and almost tragic in a way, watching the familiarity that both Jessie and Celine have with one another turn inward on it self as it threatens to divide them.  I can't say this is the best of the film of the year but it's darn close.  What it is is a testament to thoughtful writing.  What it is, is a brave film that wants to be about SOMETHING.  For all of the naysayers, I ask you this?  How can you look down upon a film that actually takes the time to care about its characters and actually KNOW its characters.  The film isn't slow because of vanity and or artistic pretension.  It's a measured character study and sometimes, you just have to slow down to see the good stuff.

Flawed Steel

 Henry Cavill                                Kal El/Superman/Clarke Kent
 Amy Adams                                Lois Lane
 Laurence Fishburne                     Perry White
 Michael Shannon                         General Zod
 Russell Crowe                             Jor El



  Directed By Zach Synder.  Written by David S Goyer.  Screen story by David S Goyer and Christopher Nolan.

  Here's the good news about "Man Of Steel."  It's not a horrendously inept mess like "Superman Returns" was.  In other words, I didn't walk out of "Man Of Steel" wishing death to the Superman franchise as a whole.  Here's the caveat though.  When or if Warner Brothers signs on for the next Superman flick, I would beg of them to hire Christopher Nolan as a director and co writer.  You know, the same hats he wore when masterfully resurrected Batman from the ashes of Tim Burton's empty headed artistry and Joel Schumacher's nauseating campiness.  Believe me when I say, "Man Of Steel" sure could've used Nolan's guiding hand in the directors chair.  This is more than apparent during the second act, when director Zach Snyder seems to lose control of the premise in a blur of inflated CGI and high tech gadgetry.  This is the portion of the film, the second act, where both Zod and Los Lane appear and then disappear and basically function as lost castaways waiting to be rescued.  It's as if director Zach Snyder couldn't grasp the concept of actually having to work with living breathing actors and not the CGI based minions he surrounded Gerard Butler with in "300."  The fundamental problem here is that there's not enough Christopher Nolan and there's way to much Zach Snyder here.  The Nolan touches, subtle as they are, make you salivate as to what kind of film this could've been if Nolan was the head chef in the creative kitchen.  The opening sequence in which General Zod (Michael Shannon) bum rushes the Krypton counsel in lieu of a bloody insurrection made me smile because of its gritty realism ala the party scene with the Joker in the Dark Knight.  The Nolan touches are more than evident in this scene and a rather powerful sequence in the final act in which Superman is pushed to his breaking point and forced to take drastic action to save his adopted planet from ruin.

  Plot:  Superman's home planet of Krypton is facing a dire situation in terms of its very survival.  You see, the leaders of Krypton have somehow squandered all of their natural resources and their very planet has become unstable.  The council of Krypton has chosen to let the crisis resolve itself but Superman's father, Jor El (Russell Crowe) believes that the key to Krypton's survival is to send his naturally born son, Kal El aka Superman to earth with something called the codec.  The codec will enable Superman to recreate Krypton on earth if he so chooses.  Enter, Kal El's fellow Kryptonian, General Zod (Michael Shannon.)  Zod wants to use the codec to save Krypton in its current planetary form and stages a coup to take over the council and seize the codec from Jor-El.  In the end,  Zod is banished to a punishment akin to cryostasis for the crimes of treason and the son of Jor El aka Superman eventually settles into an existence on earth in which he struggles to understand where he comes from and who he truly is.  I'll stop there, you can decipher the rest of the plot on your own.

  I've directed most of my ire so far at director Zach Synder but I have some angst regarding David S Goyer's screenplay.  It seems like the pattern with Goyer and the other writers who have tried to resurrect Superman is their inability to charter their own course as far as the story goes.  Nothing is more indicative of this then the last scene of the film, an obvious bone being thrown to the Superman films that came before.  My question is, why spend millions upon million of dollars to have a screenwriter as talented as David S Goyer basically mine the same elements.  The plot line with Lois Lane (Amy Adams) starts out promising but then Goyer's screenplay reduces Lois to the same doe eyed observer she was in the previous Superman films.  Maybe the problem with the concept of Superman is that there really isn't any place to go in terms of breathing life into the premise itself.  For every attempt Goyer's screenplay makes to try and tell Superman's story without all the action related bells and whistles, there's a sequence in which Goyer gives the audience what he thinks we want.  See Superman sprint to save a burning oil tanker after we get a voice over from Superman's human alter ego, Clarke Kent, bemoaning his preference to be an anonymous mortal.  As much as I hoped that Nolan's presence as Executive Producer would bring new twists and turns, this is a pretty much by the numbers super hero flick with a few sprinkles of Nolan like sensibilities bubbling to the surface.  Unfortunately, this is Zach Synder's show and at 145 minutes, it could use some trimming in the final act.  Not for nothing, but how many times can you watch Superman and Zod attack one another during the final showdown.  Snyder's attempts to pacify the audience by framing both Zod and Superman as super human attack missiles ripping through the Metropolis skyline wears thin after about ten minutes of which not for earth being can top this in terms of overall smack down related damage inflicted.  I will say this for Snyder, at least he's smart enough to do away with the gawking oblivious denizens of Metropolis when Zod comes to earth for the big throw down with Superman.  That's new I guess.

  Grade C plus.  Star Rating:  Two and one half

All Star Games.... like lipstick on a pig...

I’ll be the first one to go on record as saying that I don’t give a rat’s ass about the MLB All Star game or any other All Star games for that matter.  I am amused when the sporting media complains that All Star games in all shapes and sizes aren’t taken seriously.  The object of these spectacles is to get people salivating over a big name athletes whose name is front and center on the marquee.  Said athlete tips their caps and then retires to the safety of the nearest dugout or bench.  And you, Mister And Misses Sucker, sit there and wonder how Selig duped you yet again.  Can you imagine the Washington Nationals throwing Steven Strasburg, injury prone as he’s been, in an All Star game without any form of restrictions?  Me neither, because it’s never going to happen.  The economics of the sports we loved have changed and players are precious commodities to be invested in.  With that in mind, don’t expect to go to Citi Field and see anything more than an exhibition game with just enough effort to satisfy the masses who paid to see the latest NL/AL Tussle.  Do you honestly expect NFL players to smack each other around at full speed when they’re essentially on a paid holiday with nothing to lose?  If you’re in Honolulu, do you really want to see guys getting stretchered off of the field?  I actually think commissioner Goodell was right to tinker with the idea of taking away the NFL Pro Bowl.  You’re asking NFL players worth millions of dollars to the respective teams to smack each other into oblivion for no purpose what so ever.   Even if Goddell shot down an edict like Thunderbolt demanding full contact action without limits in a pro bowl, the fans in Honolulu or wherever it’s being held would ultimately get ripped off.  They’d get ripped off because you can be certain that no marquee NFL’ers   would risk their careers to help the NFL justify the fact that it snookered one of its broadcast partners into ponying up for the broadcast rights to a nothing game.  Get used to it sports fans, you’re never going to get the likes of Pete Rose bowling over some dude to capture an All Star flag for his respective league.  And you’re not going to have regular season intensity in an NFL Pro Bowl; not as long as a respective owner’s profit margin is at stake.  Perhaps if Bud Selig and Roger Goodell weren’t so busy listening to the sound of their own voices, they’d understand this.  All Star games are unwatchable, especially one that puts a halt to a very long MLB season.  So if the A’s or the Pirates shock the world and reach the series this year, guess what?  Every ounce of sweat and determination those teams put forth to gain home field advantage in the series is null and void.  Why?  Because Bud Selig and Fox are in business together and Fox wants eyeballs on its all star game that it’s paying rights fees for.  And as long as is Selig is beholden to the his broadcast partners, he’s still going to try and put lipstick on this mutil million dollar pig known as the MLB All Star game.

The Friday Rant

  It’s been a long week so with your permission, I’m going to rant for a bit.  I want to know how I came to love a team like the Chicago Cubs in spite of the fact that most of the fandom I share an allegiance with is baseball stupid at best.   I want to know when listening became optional and the thought of actually hiring shrewd baseball men to do what profitable and competitive baseball organizations do became a cause for all north side baseball fans to curl up in a ball of delusional idiocy.  Theo and Jed are trying to save us from our torturous past Cub nation.  Yet, you call up radio stations and you beg and plead for arguably the smartest baseball men ever hired in Cub land to emulate the plan of old Daddy Warbucks aka Jim Hendry.  I have a proposition for the members of Cub nation who lack any semblance of baseball acumen.  You know who you are.  You’re the frat boy with the backwards cap who sings that stupid Steve Goodman song after a meaningless win in mid September.  You’re the idiot who runs to get food during a pitchers duel.  You’re the void who makes me have to stand up every five minutes when all I want to do is watch the grand old game that I love.  Let’s not kid ourselves, this is an era of great change in Cub land and no one has time to stop the bus and explain to the remedial baseball section of Cub what moves are being made and why they’re being made.  Oh ye baseball stupid, Annex yourselves from my baseball presence.  Drink and be oblivious somewhere else my albatrosses.  (Pause)

  Moving on.  I want this city to stop giving its detractors what they want.  No more pandering-self serving championship parades, no more anchors interviewing drunk fools who stumbled into a bar after a bender and decided to become a fan of whatever local team is popular.  No more anchors wearing jerseys and no more live shots of sauced up hooligans whooping and hollering.  This is the city I grew up and we’re better than that.  We’re better than people camping out at for a spot to see a fireworks spectacular at an antiquated tinder box like Navy Pier.  They’re fireworks people.  They go boom and they make noise and they throw off pretty colors.  Do we need our local news outlets panning over a scene of some family from out of town protecting their coveted fireworks related fiefdom with lawn chairs and coolers?  They’re pyrotechnics for god sake.  We’ve seen fireworks before and I’m sure we’ve all been woken up by some clown shooting them off outside our windows while we’ve tried to sleep.  I want my city to grow up and I don’t want to listen to drunken hockey players pander to a bunch of sweaty meat heads.   The next time the Hawks win the cup, let’s just have Rocky Wirtz write a nice letter of thank you to Blackhawk Nation and be done with it.  Resist Tyranny!!!  Go A’s!!!! TOOT!!! TOOT!!!

Time for some brain food

  I guess I am a product of being introduced to an age of film that started in 1984 with a flimsy wooden transmitter and something called ON TV.  Before my six year old eyes were bloody, F bomb fueled delights like "Scarface."  Then I advanced in age and it was stuff like "The Bad Lieutenant" with Harvey Keitel moaning and wailing and sucking up as many substances as humanly possible in a ninety minute span.  My point is, I think I'm a film watching child of F bombs and breasts and violence of the highest order.  I'm sitting there watching a Hollywood classic called "Treasure of Sierra Madre" and I'm almost going through withdrawals because Bogey's demise is handled in such a clean and non nihilistic way.  I wanted blood damn it, I wanted something straight out of Paul Verhoeven's "Robocop" where the gang of thugs unload on poor Murphy (Peter Weller) until one of the guys quips that he's out of ammo.  I guess the only way to break this cycle is to go cold turkey and wean myself on the classic era of cinema for awhile.  No more stylized Quentin Tarantino bloodbaths, no more torture porn flicks masquerade as horror films.  Yes Eli Roth, I'm talking to you.  No more bad guys doing CGI flips with unlimited rounds, no more exploding kill shots.  It's time to embrace my classic film roots.  More Bogey and Bacall, more classic cinema like "Casablanca" and "The Big Sleep."  I need to embrace my classic cinema watching self, I need to get used to film technology of the 60's like cinemascope.  I need to retrain my brain to embrace films in eras where special effects were primitive at best.  If I can enjoy a 007 special featuring the great Sean Connery being flanked by laughably antiquated special effects, then I think there's hope.  I bow at your feet Bogey.  I bow at your feet Jimmy Cagney.  It's time for more indie brain food and more documentaries and more history books.  I need to get to know historical figures like my guy Abe Lincoln a bit more.  The time for all things junk food needs to stop.  No more crap like "Fifty Shades of Gray" and no more crap like "Message in a Bottle."   No more F Bombs for awhile, just brain food and stuff that's good for my soul.  I'm changing my ways.... right after I finish watching an ultra violent revenge tale with plenty of foul language and fabulous CGI effects and gorgeously modern cinematography.  Good night America.

The day of the stupid and the hypocritical....

  On a day when I have to listen to the baseball stupid scratch their heads over the trades of a fifth starter and a reliever on the decline, in comes Bill Burr with a podcast rant about the letter that The Blackhawks organization sent off to the Bruins organization after the Hawks won the cup.  Now, I actually found Burr's rant kind of funny.  Actually I thought it was hilarious.  What I took offense to was Bill Burr calling out the Blackhawks and the City Of Chicago for being both condescending and disingenuous.  Burr went on to say that the letter, written by the Blackhawks organization was "all about them and not about the Bruins."  Oh really Mister Burr.  You want to call people out for being self serving when you're talking about Boston, one of THE most self serving cities on the planet.  Is this not the same city that turned a marathon bombing into a catch phrase for the national media to eat up with a spoon?  If I'm not mistaken Mister Burr, the coverage of the tragedy in Boston wasn't about the victims who has lost their lives or the fact that someone had attacked us again.  It was about.... BOSTON.  Boston lifted up MLB and Boston lifted baseball to new heights in the wake of a tragedy and Boston brought back baseball and united the masses in tragedy.  How self serving can you get Mister Burr.  Yet, you're calling out the Blackhawks for writing a letter of thanks to the Bruins for a great Stanley Cup Final and being a worthy opponent.  I bet you'd be ranting on your pod cast about Chicago reaching and grasping for headlines and being exploitive about a tragedy in their city if they had their minions running around chanting "Chicago Strong."  I bet if the Bruins had won the cup and sent that letter to the Blackhawks, you and rest of the opportunists in bean town wouldn't hesitate to tie that letter into some sickening siliquoy about patriotism and the magic time when people went boom and Boston gave the world a lesson in unity and outright clicheism of the highest order.  Just celebrate your clichés Mister Burr like the rest of Boston does.  Go to Fenway Park and watch your hometown heroes maneuver towards the nearest camera like trained seals to exploit yet another horrific tragedy.  Chicago is disingenuous but your city couldn't wait to parade its wounded in front of the camera to give the media a catchphrase to run with.  You're what we call in the Midwest Mister Burr, an east coast hypocrite.

New England needs prospective......

  You can call me desensitized and I won't begrudge you.  I watch the coverage of former NFL standout Aaron Hernandez being involved in possibly three murders and I'm just numb.  I guess I don't have the energy, like some fans do, to bemoan the fact that the Patriots possibly had a murderer sitting on their roster.  How many times did the fans in Chicago roast former General Manager Jerry Angelo over the coals for passing on guys on Draft day with characters issues similar to Aaron Hernandez.  I know I was at the front of the mob lighting up Angelo for passing on wide receiver Percy Harvin because he was busted for marijuana use on more than a few occasions during his tenure at Florida.  What I'm saying is, we can't have it both ways.  We can't ask our favorite teams to throw caution to the wind for the sake of a win at all costs mentality and then kavetch about it when that same mentality produces a case like Aaron Hernandez.  Unless the Patriots had a crystal ball and or a link inside Hernandez' head, they couldn't have predicted that the man that they developed into a pro football player would be callous enough to take three lives without batting an eye.  There are people who are taking the the Patriots to task for not cutting Hernandez after he supposedly threatened team mate Wes Welker by telling him, quote, "I'll take you out."  Unless the Patriots were clairvoyant there was no way they could've known what path Hernandez was potentially on.  If they had cut Hernandez that day, you could be certain that most of the fan base in New England would've questioned Belichick and the entire organization for not overlooking a minor transgression in the name of winning football.  I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not shocked and I'm not outraged by the fact that another NFL'er has crossed the line into darkness; just like I'm not surprised when ANY athlete in any other sport crosses that line.  If Hernandez was a bad guy then it stands to reason that him putting on that Patriots jersey wasn't going to change that in any way shape or form.   I'm sad for the families that Hernandez impacted with his acts of selfish machismo fueled violence but I'm not sad for the NFL or for sports in general.  Sports will go on, football will go on.  Football will go on and probably there will be another Aaron Hernandez down the road somewhere.  Dealing with human beings is the ultimate crap shoot.  They cheat, they steal, they do things that defy belief and sometimes.... they act impulsively and cross the line into becoming felons and or murderers.  I'm asking all NFL.sports fans to save the outrage.  You're not going to stop watching the NFL because of what's going on in New England.  Aaron Hernandez is going to be dealt with accordingly and the wheel of sports will roll on.  The stench of Aaron Hernandez crimes will fade and the bliss of winning football will make every Patriot supporter a potential amnesiac.  It's just the way it goes.