Because these made me laugh, and because I haven’t put together an entire post lately, I’m posting these from an email I got today for easier viewing.
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Kellogg, U.S. Swimming, and the Phelpsdude.
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Though I can’t quite get myself to listen to them very long, yesterday the guys on WMVP 1000 were talking ‘Guy movies.’ I must give them credit where it is due.
I was able to hang in and listen to them for almost fifteen minutes, talking about guy movies, along with some sports. I just had to make my own list, and look, it’s Wednesday night, I guess that determines how many I will pick.
My criteria is such, though I’m trying to spread the time out, these are mostly for my age group, for a change. I feel like I usually write as if I’m 19, and these are movies that guys like. You bring them up at the bar, and most of the Guys I know like and know them, probably can even shoot out a quote from them.
- Braveheart - Facepaint, underdogs, backstabbers, and someone who managed to give ‘the man’ some trouble, before he. uh, got his guts strung out in front of him. I’m not much of a History buff, but this made me a little bit of one.
- Shawshank Redemption- Morgan Freeman as the ultimate narrator and the guys in Shawshank prison, don’t scan through the channel, or you will end up watching the rest.
Top Gun - Don’t give me any shit about the volleyball game, this is just good fun. With the hot chick, the cool pilots, and Jets. I sweear I still go into exams clutching imaginary dog tags and saying “Talk to me, Goose.”- Goodfella’s - A mob movie for the mob movie tourist. You don’t have to be able to recite the Godfather to like this movie, but if you can, this is even better. Ray Liotta hit his peak here, unfortunately, it was about his second movie. After this, the sneering gets a little old.
Animal House - The American Pie franchise is a weak sister to this classic, that everyone knows a line from, and I really wish there ‘was’ a Senator Blutarsky.- Major League - Funny baseball, with the stage props of a real sports movie. That coaches voice, like two old oak branches rubbing together. [click to continue…]
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There is good news for those that enjoy their Chicago Sports Talk, the Monsters are back, and it won’t take long to remember why you loved them the first time.
Dan and Mike are back!!
It can be argued that Dan Jiggetts and Mike North are responsible for my one time near addiction to Sports radio, I couldn’t get enough, and after what seems like forever, I remember why.
It is captured in their new TV/Web Cast show, “Monsters in the Morning“. After missing all of the first week, thinking that it was just a television show, I checked it out on Comcast Monday, and there found out that you could also listen to it online, and I am fully back.
The TV Show has it’s flaws, but some of them seemed to clear up even from the first week to the episode I watched. In many ways, these types of flaws are endearing, reminding us that this is new territory for these guys. The set and the sometimes primitive production remind me of the old WGN days. I swear that at some times, they are channelling Ray Rayner, the WGN Icon that any 40ish person from the Chicago area will remember.
Jiggetts and North bring a checmistry to the microphone, and camera that will get them by glitches in production. They may be crude, and I am not sure why they have to have thoe HUGE microphones in front of them, but they aren’t boring.
I heard their show described the first week as being a little aimless, as if they were just having breakfast with the sound on, but it didn’t feel like that when I watched Monday, and as an audio broadcast, it is far ahead of what evfen Mike was doing before he left the Score last year.
The Monsters are better than any incarnation of the two with someone else, the Mike North Zoo, Dan Jiggetts with Doug Buffone, etc. , always fell short, though I listened to North’s show in the morning more often than not. Jigs is his bookend. He’s not quite as edgy, or out of control, he’s having fun.
Mike North’s other stints have used guys like Fred Huebner was not a decent foil, or even his wife Bebe, who was fine for a while, but nobody could really go the distance with him.
His producer, and now weather/traffic girl/ Comic relief, can’t control him. She can only try to maintain him, but it ends up being the same as it was on radio, and visibly demonstrated with her running over to him on air with a can of hairspray that did not really change anything. Somehow, Jigs being there makes it work. Maybe it is from Mike looking across the desk at the enormous, and seemingly growing mass of a man that is parrying his remarks, maybe Mike’s just grown up, but it is working now like it hasn’t for a long time.
There is finally radio to look forward to on the air in the morning in Chicago.
I was a little disappointed that Dan McNeil wasn’t on Mike’s show Monday, but he did mention him early in the broadcast, expressing his condolences and wishing him luck. McNeil may or may not have a tough road ahead, but if I were the Score, before someone finds a way to put the Monsters on the airwaves too, I would bring McNeil back, right over those burnt bridges from when he left to WMVP.
I am possibly giving the Score executives more credit than they deserve for thinking they might do something so smart. McNeil has been kicking their offered competition’s ass in ratings since he left, until they simply gave up and let his old partner, Terry Boers turn the Score afternoons into a disgrace. It is amazing to me that while the legendary voices of Chicago radio are being let go, that howling ape still has a job, he must work cheap.
Score executives, go get Dan McNeil, tell him he doesn;t have to work with Boers, ever, and let him take back the foothold that the national station gained with him. His old show already sounds like every other sports radio show, as if 3 college room mates were just talking crap for three hours. He was the hand that stirred that drink, get him back.
In McNeil’s column in the Sun Times this week, he takes his firing in stride, and promises to be back by spring. I hope he comes back as strong as the Monsters have.
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In my post, Zack and Mary Made a Flop? I professed that possibly Kevin Smith would be disappointed about the performance of his movie, but that in the end, he can just put it with the other movies he made, know that he didn’t lose money for anyone, and move on.
After two Podcasts, Smodcast 68 and Smodcast 69 , “The Talking Cure, Parts 1 and 2, I knownthat I severely underestimated how hard he took it, but in the end, saw what he saw about the entire experience. In the end, he made a successful movie, that made people money, and the end product is what he wanted to be shown. He did it his way, and his way apparently leads to $30 million+ grosses while other corporate machine generated movies can make more for what can only be considered less of a movie.
Kevin and Scott Mosier, camped out at Kevin’s house a month after the movie opening, when they are both finally able
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
to talk about it, use Smodcast as a therapists couch, and spend three hours being funny and slicing and dicing what happened to their movie and why it fell short of their expectations. In terms of listening quality, think of it as an extended guest stint on Letterman’s couch. You don’t have to pay attention to every bit, but it’s worth having on as background. That’s pretty much what Smodcasts always are, and that’s why I tune in.
In the end, Kevin will keep making movies, someday, surely, one will pop, and it will probably be one that he won’t expect much out of, that’s the way it usually goes. In the meantime, Zack and MAry and it’s ilk will be watched by myself, and about $30M/10 = 3 million others that went to the movies. On another note, they should include the concessions for Kevin’s movies, because I bet there are a lot more sold for his movies that the others.
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- Chicago Sun-Times - WMVP Cuts McNeil Loose
- Tribune - WMVP Ousts longtime Host McNeil
- Meta4worldZ - Mike North on Mc, Jurko, Harry
As of late, I’d finally started listening to the afternoon show that McNeil ran, and found him to be the last of the truly entertaining, genuine radio hosts in Sports Radio. I really enjoyed his visit with Mike North after North was shown the door at the Score, and was surprised and happy with his candor as they talked about old times at the Score, and recent times.
That WMVP would let him go, citing financial times and wanting to move in a new direction, is nothing short of telling the Chicago Sports Radio listeners, “screw you, you’ll get cheap, or you’ll get the generic national radio feed, and you’ll like it.”
“We’re looking to try some new things in the afternoon, and given the economic climate, we feel like this is the right time to do it,” - WMVP boss Jim Pastor
I don’t buy it. This guy helped ESPN get a foot hold in a town that had no use for them before, and the minute they see a chance, they dump him. I can picture the execs in their offices this last year, as big Chicago names fell off
- Image via Wikipedia
the dial, Mike North, then Steve Dahl, and a few others, have been pushed aside, declining revenues being cited as the issue. All of them, including McNeil, had some time left on their contracts, though North only had a month.
My afternoon drives home are going to be less fun now, or maybe just less full of sports. I can’t help but wish that maybe these outcast radio jocks, without any more outlets for their voices, might find a way to band together, get on a low profile station bandwidth, and build a station of their own, sort of like McNeil, North, and Jiggetts did with the Score, back in the 90’s. They are all fat and rich, maybe they don’t have the hugner for it anymore, but it would be interesting, and I’d find them.
North and Jiggetts, of course, are now on their own 3 hour talk show, which I have not had occasion to watch or listen to. but all reviews so far have not been good. That’s ok, they might have the luxury of learning as they go in the situation they are in. I am tuning in tom orrow since I’m home, and might even write up something about it.
As far as McNeil goes, I’m just sorry he won’t be on the radio, at least for the time being. I liked the mix he had, after not liking the mix before when he was with Terry Boers, the most boring, annoying, selfish man on the planet. McNeil used to have his moments with Boers too, but they were scattered, and he often came off as arrogant. Lately, he comes off as simply enjoying his job, and the world around him.
I’m sure he will continue in that course, despite this curveball.
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Jay Mariotti, may you continue to suck very visibly.
That’s about all I can muster so far as good to say regarding Jay Mariotti and my experience with him. Okay, one other thing, when I was in Arizona and you were “briefly” on ESPN radio and the only voice that spoke glowingly of the Cubs, I liked him.
Since I’ve been back in Illinois, not so much. Do I / did I, regularly read his column, no, but I did read it once in a while. Like him or hate him, the guy can bring up some good points and pose a valid argument. On the other hand, he spends a lot of time picking scabs and prolonging petty arguments, as well as some blatant back-stabbing, as I wrote about before when Mike North lost his job.
I’m not the only one to dislike Jay Mariotti, and have no illusions that my complaining about him just adds to his Buzz ratings, but there can not be enough people pointing out his tactics. In his first column:
Now hear this: I’m a bit too busy to hate bloggers or, really, anyone but terrorists and certain Illinois politicians. I just think they should be writing about Steve Smith, not Stephen A. Smith.
Okay Jay, point taken, but You hear this, you are not unaccountable. I am, because I am nothing, just a ‘blogger’ and not a very prolific one at that, but there are a lot of us. We are part of your argument for moving away from print, don’t discount us, or your readers.
Jay spends the last column taking shots at Charles Barkley for his recent DUI and offensive behavior which was reported along with it. This is where he fails as a columnist. I don’t claim to be a professional, but he is, and he gets paid like one. Lately, his columns have been nothing but vendetta’s, and he glazes over the fact that he got to go to China for the Olympics on the Sun-Times dime, and they might only have two or three left, and came back to quit on them, then used his first column in a new venue to skewer them.
He says that he left millions on the table with the Sun-Times, and I say, there must be a whole lot of this story that is not getting told. I think that if he is planning on replacing that money with income from AOL and many more millions coming from the web market, that he should have paid attention. Money appears and disappears from the internet table faster than a rolling tide, and it almost never ends up in the hands of pure writers.
Like Jay, AOL is a survivor, but you have tom wonder how much they have left, and if they truly think that people will forget how long they squeezed them for a weak product and come back just because they opened up the doors to the rest of the world, finally. AOL was a good starting point for me as a place to begin experiencing what the internet could ofer, but it is Soooo 90’s now, and not seeming to make any particularly great leaps forward.
I’ve got to wonder at the thought process that took Jay to AOL, and if he’s telling the real story. Maybe he’s right, maybe he jumped off a sinking boat, but maybe it is the last ‘tic of this roach as he and his new compadre’s swirl down the drain.
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- Hated Columnist Finds Job On Internet Thingamajig [Jay Mariotti]
- Charles Barkley: DUI Caused By Oral Sex?
- Charles Barkley Leaves the TNT Network
- It’s Morning In America: Jay Mariotti Debuts At AOL Sports [Jay Mariotti] (deadspin.com)
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Today, on my RSS feed, got a picture of this Puppy, named Chupa
Chupa the Mixed Breed
A lifetime or two ago, when I was a minor editor on the AOL Short Stories Board, we were asked to pick a name for our “Offical’ Editor name, which would be tagged as NOVL _____.
My first choice was NOVL Chupa. Mainly because I had been reading about El Chupa Cabra a little bit, and was working on a short story about them. I guess I could have figured out what Chupa meant then, or maybe I even did, but I didn’t really care. To me, it sounded cool, and for some time, I judged and responded to stories as NOVL Chupa.
Then the Powers that were in AOL sent me an email, stating that it had been pointed out that Chupa meant “To Suck” in Spanish, and NOVL “To Suck” sounded a little offensive. Oops, my fault, they asked me to pick another name, and I pickled the simplest, possibly most innocuous name ever, Cub. Again, probably because it was Spring and that is what I am thinking, Cubs Cubs Cubs Cubs. That one stuck for several years, in fact until I quit working there. Now this dog has my old name.
I’m guessing his mom and dad aren’t hispanic.
Some Links back to the old AOL Short Stories Days:
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For over three months now, the entire Holiday season, as well as preliminary attempts during the summer between stories about the gas-gouging Oil companies, the retail industry has been crying poor.
Aided by the major news organizations, the retail stores have managed to even take over news broadcasts with news of their impending low sales. Meanwhile, crows are showing up at stores in mobs, killing one porr Wal-Mart worker, and I can’t remember doing any type of Christmas shopping this year that didn’t mean waiting in long lines and elbowing around crowds in every aisle. I know merchandise is moving, because the shleves kept chaning between visits. At some point you have to wonder about their actual position.
In one cycle through any of the cable news channels, at least one feature is about the low prices, sounding as much like an ad as a report. A “Retail Financial Expert” is saying that retailers are wantng to get back to
Image by Soctech via Flickr
normal pricing. Again, maybe the profit margin they are used to enjoying needs to be adjusted.
I’m becoming cynical in my old age, but there’s no ignoring the feeling that they are manipulating this all to their advantage.
Will I feel guilty about writing this next year if as many stores close as are projected? Nah. Frankly, I haven’t really noticed the 200,000 that they say closed this year already, past the normal attrition of retail stores.
The ultimate insult was a quote I heard today about consumers needing to be retrained to buy again. Isn’t learning to spend within your means a good thing?
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I thought of this last weekend, and was saving it for a Thursday Thirteen, but all of sudden, it is Friday, see how that happens, and I have broken new ground in creating something completely new, instead of the drab Old Thursday Thirteens I copied from others and wrote myself(once). Behold, a Friday Fourteen, considering the subject matter, coming up with another idiot for this list will not be a problem.
1. Cedric Benson- The idiot who inspired this entire list, after his tirade about the year that Matt Forte is having:
“He is having a great year, but when I see the highlights, I see holes,” Benson told NFL.com’s Thomas George. “I see them using him in the slot, something they didn’t do with me. If I was there right now with the holes I see, I probably would have 1,800 yards. I definitely would have 1,500. I congratulate him on all of his success. He is taking advantage.”
Hey idiot! The amazing thing about the “holes” he is running through is that he doesn’t trip on the white lines like you did every time. AND, he manages to get by better tacklers than the girl that took you down and handcuffed you on your boat last summer.Honestly, I watched you trip on the three yard line last year, and you were as open as anyone could be. I could have run out there, gotten the handoff and run back into the endzone from my endzone seat in the 67th row. You are not even close to the same level as Matt Forte. The line was actually better last year than they are this year. The one who has a beef as a comparison is Anthony Thomas, A-Train, who is almost matched up with Forte in stats for his rookie year, short only in the receiving area. We can only hope that Forte doesn’t go off the tracks next year like Thomas did the rest of his career.
2. Scottie Pippen - I know, I know, 6 Championships and all, but this guy seemed to loathe Chicago the entire time he was here, and for our part, we sort of loathed him back. On the court, I quickly became a fan of his after he was drafted, but over the years, through rumors of his behavior( No tippin’ Pippen), to the guns charges, and the refusing to go in during a playoff game against the Knicks, Scottie wore out his welcome and nobody was sorry to see him move on.
Sorry Scottie, Michael was better, and you should thank him for allowing you to complement him as perfectly as you did. He may not have done it without you, but there is NO WAY you could have done it without him.
3. Sammy Sosa - Although, in this hilarious internet meme, Adolf Hitler bemoans the loss of Sosa - ” At least he hit the Fucking Ball!”, among other things. I was tired of Sammy by the end of his last season, when he walked out of the game, leaving his teammates to badmouth him and destroy his boom box. The Garrett Morriss, “Baseball been very good to me,” bit was funny, but wore thin. His me-first attitude and love of the camera got old as well. Sammy jumped the shark when he came back from Japan and tried to add a bow at the plate after a homer to his repertoire.
4. Mark Prior - Talk about wasted potential, this guy was supposed to be the next Tom Seaver, he had perfect mechanics, the scouts said, through pinpoint fastballs in the mid-90’s, and then the other shoe dropped. Mark Prior is soft, soft soft. This guy will miss a day pitching for something that wouldn’t even warrant a time out in a tee ball game. [click to continue…]
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