My Boring Telecast Has a First Name, it's O-S-C-A-R

As usual, the Oscars were a snoozefest. Chris Rock is getting raves for his hosting job, but I didn't think he was all that great. Funniest line (the only laugh-out-loud one, in fact): introducing presenter Renee Zellweger, Rock said she put on weight to play Bridget Jones and was going to put on even more weight to play Deacon Jones. And contrary to what others thought, I didn't find his line about Tim Robbins boring us with his politics hilarious, but maybe that's because I generally agree with Robbins' politics. I'm of the opinion that Steve Martin has been the best host in the last 10 years. Definitely not Whoopi.

As far as the awards, there wasn't much suspense, at least for me, because I correctly picked all of the major winners in an Oscar pool, save for the incorrect last-minute switch to Virginia Madsen over Cate Blanchett. I'm glad Million Dollar Baby won Best Picture; out of the three nominees I saw, Million Dollar Baby was the only great film. (Sideways and The Aviator were really good but fell short if you have to compare.) Oh, but one thing about The Aviator: The Beverly Hills plane crash sequence was amazing, certainly one of the most thrilling scenes in recent memory.

Still digging the iPod, though the shuffle is flummoxing me. Now, having a song in the iPod means I want to hear it, but the shuffle almost feeds on itself in a way. It'll play a Superchunk song, then it's like the shufflemaster says to himself/herself/itself, "Hey, I just played Superchunk, therefore I should play them again." And a lot of the same songs are being played again every time I return to the shuffle. I'm not really complaining too strenuously, but I'd like a tad more variety. You can rate songs and all that, but I don't know -- yet -- that I want to go to that trouble.

This morning's playlist:

Rainy Streets -- Superchunk
Getting Out From Under You -- Tommy Keene
Late-Century Dream -- Superchunk
Highwire Days -- Tommy Keene (see what I mean?)
Do You Know How Much You've Been Loved -- John Davis
Load -- Superdrag
Brinx Job -- Pavement
Length of Love -- Interpol
Naked Pilseners -- Portastatic
Theologians -- Wilco
Down in a Tube Station at Midnight -- The Jam

Total songs: 981

Queer Eye for the Cubs Guy

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a big "team apparel" guy. I do own three Cubs hats (one for games, one for softball and one to wear whenever) and roughly the same number of t-shirts. (My Sosa Lumber Company shirt is falling apart, an apt metaphor.) But I wouldn't be buried in the above monstrosity even if I had an entire Cubs-related wardrobe. I honestly hope I see someone wearing this at Wrigley this year, as I look forward to hearing the abuse rained down upon him. Interested parties looking to waste $370 can purchase the jacket here.

Though I suppose the ensemble might work for, say, an 80-year-old, longtime diehard fan. You could then say he should know better, but that can be countered with the fact that he's a Cubs fan, so he's obviously devoid of a certain wisdom. And, to be sure, ugly as it is, it beats face painting.

Not Feeling the Burnitz, Part Deux

Jeromy Burnitz, while surely trying to be humorous, didn't exactly get off to a good start yesterday after reporting to Cubs' camp. From the Sun-Times:

Burnitz won't be sprinting to right like (Sammy) Sosa and won't be entertaining the bleacher bums with constant chatter.

"I don't like wasting energy, and I've never really been fan-interactive,'' he said.

Very endearing. More quotes like that, combined with 120 K's, and the bleacher regulars will definitely get interactive with him.

Lame Lament

Wanted to note one thing, while I've been talking about iPods, top 10 lists, etc....

It's clear to anyone paying attention that I like rock and roll, particularly of the "indie" variety. I appreciate blues, jazz and, in particular, classical as art forms. However, I have no real urge to listen to them when I could be listening to someone like Tommy Keene. Oh, and I despise most hip hop/rap.

I realize this makes me somewhat of a philistine, and I accept it as my lot in life.

Hoop Dreams

The NBA All-Star Weekend is a good point, I suppose, to discuss my fantasy basketball team:

Festivus Miracles, World Basketball Association (Yahoo!), 7th Place, 46 points
As you can see, my team is mediocre. I've been as high as third place with 53 points, but I've fallen back to the pack in recent weeks. I didn't like my team as drafted, though I did do well in the first five rounds: Tracy McGrady, Jermaine O'Neal, Ben Wallace, Pau Gasol and Dwyane Wade. The latter two, I'm especially glad to have as they're two of my favorite players. (I bumped up Wade in my pre-draft rankings, and he's a freaking steal in the fifth round.) But with the exception of Emeka Okafor (whom I ended up dealing in a trade for Yao Ming), the rest of my draft was weak.

That's not to say that I haven't made mistakes with what I did have. Boy, have I made them. Needing assists and three-pointers, I dealt O'Neal while he was suspended for Carlos Arroyo and Jim Jackson. In short order, the dominoes fell: the final 10 games of O'Neal's suspension were lifted, and he played like a demon upon returning; Arroyo found himself benched in Utah before being traded to Detroit (long after I cut him); and Jackson never reported after being traded from Houston to New Orleans. Basically, I dealt one of the best big men in the league for squat. That deal will haunt me, though I don't know that it's had much effect on my overall performance. I also let hometown favorite Ben Gordon get away before he turned into a quality player.

I've made some other moves that turned out OK, like nabbing rebounding machine Joel Pryzbilla off the scrap heap and dealing ballhog Jamal Crawford for Jason "White Chocolate" Williams. And the Yao deal (Yao, Luke Ridnour and Quentin Richardson for Okafor, Jason Richardson and Vladimir Radmanovic) has been in my favor. But all things considered, it's been a disappointing season.

On a positive note, registration for baseball season began last week. Getting a live draft together, however, has been about as easy as arranging a summit meeting among world leaders.

Today's iPod playlist:

The Road Leads Where It’s Led – The Secret Machines
An Unmarketed Product – Guided By Voices
The Place I Love – The Jam
What If You Don't Fly – Superdrag
False Alarm – Sloan
Just Listen – Adam Schmitt
Lay Your Burden Down – John Davis
Soma – The Strokes
I Like You – Morrissey
Llama – Love Tractor
Country Club – Love Tractor


Total songs loaded: 698

WMJH in Chicago

Baby, if you've ever wondered, wondered whatever became of me...

OK, enough of that. But iPod madness continues; here's the first randomly generated playlist, heard on the bus and train on the way to work this a.m.:

Vegetable Man – The Soft Boys
Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard – Wilco
She Says – Superdrag
The Pilot's on the Wall – Centro-Matic
Half-Step – Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments
When I’m Lonely Again – Young Fresh Fellows
Me & The Wind – Doug Gillard
Landmarks (In My Mind) – Doug Gillard
Keeping Track – Superchunk
Revelations – Superchunk
Liquid Indian – Guided By Voices
California Songs – Local H
All the Lazy Dykes – Morrissey

Note the unintentional "two-fers" of Doug Gillard and Superchunk. I'm guessing that's a function of not having very many songs from which to choose. But does it matter, really? I'll take double shots of Gillard and the Chunk anytime.

Nobody Beats the Whizzinator

I'm rendered fairly speechless by The Whizzinator. What kind of life are you leading when you're so into pot, or whatever else, that you have to buy a phony penis through which to pass clean urine?

And in case you were wondering, yes, there's one for the ladies, too. Enjoy!

So I did finally get an iPod yesterday. Thanks to eBay, my new 4th generation 20-gig model cost me only $275, shipping included. It's been fun goofing around with it. I've even bought three songs from the iTunes store. I don't anticipate doing this often, but it will be good for picking up the odd single and/or stray compilation track.

Songs purchased today:

Beck, "E-Pro"
Wilco, "Just a Kid" (from the SpongeBob SquarePants soundtrack)
Minus 5, "I Was Drunk" (from the Alejandro Escovedo tribute record, Por Vida)

Total songs loaded into the iPod so far: 459

Grateful Trail of Dead

OK, so it's only February, but the early favorite for the top spot on the 2005 best-of list is Worlds Apart by ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead. This Austin band gets a little pretentious with the gothic/spooky CD packaging and some of the spoken word interludes interspersed throughout Worlds Apart -- I don't know much about their history, but I bet they went to art school -- but they've toned down their thrashy, slavish Sonic Youth moves on their last two records to great effect. (2002's Source Tages and Codes is nearly as good.) They've written a batch of songs that are propulsive and powerful along with being catchy as hell (not in a pop way, yet rather memorable).

The title track fairly jangles, for them, and the lyrics strike me as being pretty trenchant:

Random lost souls have asked me
"What's the future of rock'n'roll?"
I say "I don't know does it matter?"
This and that scene
They sound all the same to me
Neither much worse nor much better

We're so fucked these days
We don't know who to hate or who to praise
Yet we consider this our suffering and pain
When we're so privileged, a fact
We all forget about as
We go whinging all over the place

How we've laughed as they shoveled the ashes
Wrath hath soured
Blood and death, we will pay back the debt
For this candy store of ours

Look at those cunts on MTV
With their cars and cribs and rings and shit
Is that what being a celebrity means?
Look, boys and girls, here's BBC
See corpses, rapes, and amputees
What do you think now of the American dream?

And our soccer moms and dads
Who raised us brats on these TV ads
I know that they sleep at night
Their conscience is intact
They've convinced themselves of that
Giving money to Jesus Fucking H Christ

How they laughed as we shoveled the ashes
Of the twin towers
Blood and death, we will pay back the debt
For this candy store of ours

As a "professional" critic, I should do a better job describing them, but I don't feel up to it. Suffice to say, the record's great. Go get it. They're coming to Chicago April 22. Not sure if I'm going to venture out, as I understand their shows are often hit-and-miss messes of noise and trashed instruments. But as long as I can't get these songs out of my head, I might as well show up.

The Shammys

I won't go too in-depth on the annual nonsense that is (are?) the Grammy Awards, for two reasons: 1, I only watched about six minutes of the telecast and 2, Paul quite nicely recaps the silliness. But all you need to know is that a run-of-the-mill Ray Charles record took home eight of those damn statuettes. Had he not died, I doubt the record gets much attention.

I will say this, though: The tsunami-relief performance of the Beatles' "Across the Universe" was dreadful, Snore-ah Jones in particular. Even Stevie Wonder sounded terrible. Scott Weiland was clearly trying to ape David Bowie, and while he succeeded, it's a dubious achievement. It was mildly poignant, however, hearing/seeing Brian Wilson sing the "Nothing's going to change my world" chorus.

Oh, and the opening number was a disturbingly awful train wreck. Much like the Grammys are every year, I suppose.

Critical Mass

I'd previously posted my 2004 top 10, but here's the official version, courtesy of the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll. As usual, I had at least one record that no one else voted for; this year, there were three: Preston School of Industry, the Damnwells and Velvet Crush. I'm surprised at the first two in particular. I don't know what this means. Either I have really good taste, or I'm way out of the loop. Probably the latter.

My friend Eric wonders how many critics who voted for Kanye West really listen to him while at home. Good question. I'm not one of them.

Freddy's Not Dead

I've been besieged with requests (OK, just one) to discuss last night's Amazing Race finale, so here goes nothing...

Freddy and the loathsome Kendra were the victors, much to my chagrin. But as annoying as Kendra was the entire time, you have to give the duo credit for running a good, fair race. They always seemed to be near the top, and when they weren't, they made up for it the next leg. For me, the biggest kick of the episode was seeing the race conclude back here in Chicago. And the most humorous moment was when Freddy, after realizing their cab driver had no idea where Ping Tom Memorial Park was--I didn't, either, but I figured it was in Chinatown--flagged down a Chicago cop and asked them to lead them to the park due to an "emergency." Now, I suppose this isn't all that amusing on the surface, but if you've ever dealt with a Chicago cop, you'd laugh your ass off like I did. Freddy slinked away almost immediately after the cop sarcastically asked what kind of emergency it was.

The way it was edited, it looked like Kris and Jon showed up at the park at the same time as Freddy and Kendra, only to find a train blocking their path to the entrance. (Freddy and Kendra must've come in at a different entrance.) If that's the case, what a lousy way to lose, particularly for the nicest team. However, I think it may have been an editing trick, as I thought I heard the train signal well after Freddy and Kendra had crossed the finish line and Kendra was blathering on about Freddy being "worthy of having her children." Let's hope Freddy is aware of just how "lucky" he is to spawn some kids as annoying as their mom.

Marlee recaps some other reasons why Kendra is so detestable, so go to her blog and read them. I'll talk about Hayden and Aaron instead. Simply put, Hayden is an annoying shrew. I lost track of her "Aaron, come on!" exclamations (and its variant, "Come on, Aaron!") after about 23. She also had a number of crying jags and mental breakdowns, which caused them to essentially quit the race rather than finishing. Her reward for being a raging beotch? Aaron popped the question! Hey, more power to the guy--and I have to admit it was kind of a touching scene--but I think he's got his work cut out for him.

Other classic moment: Nancy Boy and Rebecca read the clue about having to eat a Gino's East pizza, and Nancy Boy whined, "I hope it's plain cheese." They get to the restaurant and again, "I hope it's plain cheese." Naturally, he exhibited some sissy disgust when he found out a Chicago deep-dish pizza is generally loaded with tomatoes on top: "I don't eat tomatoes." The money shot was seeing Nancy Boy choking down the tomatoes as if he was consuming live worms.

This season of The Amazing Race was full of unlikable people, and I guess that's part of its appeal. However, I'm not at all looking forward to past Survivor contestants Amber and "Boston" Rob (or, as I like to refer him, "Douchebag") compete when race #7 kicks off in three weeks. I will be rooting against them, to put it mildly.

No Fun League

So this is what's it come down to in our country: FOX approves of a semi-racy Super Bowl ad, then the NFL nixes a second showing of it after they find it borderline pornographic. The blame for this falls, inevitably, to Janet Jackson's boobie. Ridiculous.

The best commercials this year were the Fed Ex spot with Burt Reynolds getting kicked in the groin by a bear and the Career Builder one that used chimps armed with a whoopee cushion. Groin kicks and monkeys are comedy gold; I look forward to the day when we see a commercial with a chimp kicking another chimp in the nuts.

Probably the funniest post-Super Bowl footnote is that the Paul McCartney performance logged two calls to the FCC for it being boring. Why didn't I think of that?

iPod Sign Generator

I don't have an iPod yet, though I hope to shortly (I'm too busy obsessing over it to actually pull the trigger). However, when I do, I won't be having it engraved. Here's what it might look if I did.

Those Were the Days

Samurai Mike. The Punky QB. Sweetness. Mama's Boy Otis. The Fridge. On the eve of the Super Bowl (well, not technically the eve, but you get the idea), please enjoy this glorious video from a time when it was a joy to be a Bears fan. As opposed to now.

Speaking of video, check out this MasterCard/Red Sox parody. Pretty funny. But is a left nut too much to pay for your team winning the World Series? I'm not sure. Thanks to Hannan for the link.

Not Feeling the Burnitz

It appears as though the Cubs are making what I think is possibly a large mistake in signing Jeromy Burnitz to take over for Sammy Sosa in right field. Throw out his Coors (meaning Field, not beer)-inflated numbers from last season, and you've basically got a guy whose average years mimic the terrible year Sammy had in 2004. OK, not entirely true: If the Cubs get the Milwaukee version of Burnitz who averaged 30 HRs and 100 RBI and got on base at an acceptable clip from '97-01, maybe the signing isn't so bad. But is this any reason to get excited for this season? Not really.

I guess the only reason it isn't a mistake is that Sammy was lousy last year, so if Burnitz improves on Sammy's numbers, fine. I'd still prefer a hobbled Magglio Ordonez to Burnitz, but Ordonez and dickish agent Scott Boras are apparently content with fleecing the Tigers out some serious cash for five or so years. Funny how Maggs' alleged desire to play for the Cubs for a year, possibly at a discount, vanished once the Tigers started to toss out huge dollar figures.

So last night's episode of The Amazing Race was pretty anticlimactic, as it ended up being a non-elimination round. Four teams remain in contention heading into next week's finale: nice Kris and Jon; semi-hateful Hayden and Aaron (he's OK, she's whiny and bossy); pretty-hateful Freddy and Kendra (he's not too bad, she's ignorant and xenophobic); and extremely hateful Adam and Rebecca (both pain me to no end). The latter tandem has been taking turns berating one another the entire race; Adam, as Freddy amusingly pointed out, is a nancy boy, and Rebecca mindlessly waffles between being a raging bitch and an self-doubting shrew. (Of course, no hateful couple compares to Jonathan and Victoria, who apparently will be airing their marital issues soon on a primetime edition of Dr. Phil.)

I do have to give props to Adam and Rebecca, though, for this exchange last night during one of their race-associated tasks:

Adam (annoyed that Rebecca is feigning being nice after chopping off his balls most of the race): "Stop calling me Honey."

Rebecca: "All right, ass."

Good stuff.