I ride the CTA train almost every weekday morning and afternoon these days. Usually, the train I ride in the morning involves this young guy, probably in his late 20s, who like to randomly give out times (your time now is 7:12!) during the trip to my stop and, just as we turn the corner to enter the Loop, he likes to welcome us to this train rush and wish us a happy day. Every Friday, however, he would go a step further and congratulate us on making it through the workweek and wish us all a nice weekend. You gotta like public transportation train drivers like those. They know their job suck and usually involves little pay and the occasional boredom, so ahe puts that frustration into mixing it up a bit and act like a little out of the ordinary, in a good way. I wish there were more public train conductors like him.
Anyways, the following were on my mind between Monday, February 21st and Thursday, February 24th:
- Rahm Emanuel is the new mayor of Chicago?!?! But...did they even bother counting the votes in the cemeteries yet? I KEED, I KEED! But, seriously, the fact that the early 21st Century political Al Swearengen was elected into the city's highest office isn't surprising, despite the fact that some people are startled. I mean, the guy was the Chief of Staff to Obama, the second most important position in the White House, and was the candidate that ran the most ads in the local channels by far (including the Bill Clinton endorsement ad which seemed to run every five minutes). The next person with this much publicity was Gery Chico, but once Emanuel was allowed back into the ballot late last month, you knew that his best hopes of winning was through getting an April runoff election.
- My three favorite postseasons in sports:
1. the NCAA tournament, because there isn't a single event in American sports that can probably compete with the event's first four days where 64 teams play 48 matches to decide the Sweet Sixteen.
2. the NHL playoffs, because sudden death overtimes that last hours at a time are always fantastic.
3. the NFL playoffs, for reasons that I believe I mentioned in my forty or so weekly NFL predictions post
s over the past two years.- Only in America...can Larry the Cable Guy can have a TV show called "Only in America."
- First the protests in the Middle East organized through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, then the city of Detroit collecting $50,000 in donations to create a Robocop statue, and now the news that fans of the long-cancelled show "Firefly" rallying around star Nathan Fillon's claims that he could buy the show and maybe create new episodes if he can just collect $300 million by actually launching websites rallying to help out in the cause. Yep, I guess you can say that the Internet is really being used to its full potential at this point.
- Speaking of Carmelo, it was funny seeing this trade situation lasting for months but the Deron Williams trade to New Jersey taking only a second a report. Overall, while I thought that the Nets gave up much
- Overall, I found the long awaited Carmelo Anthony trade which sent 'Melo and Chauncey Billups (a very underrated aspect of the deal as I feel that he's still a decent guard and one that can bring veteran experience and leadership come playoff time) among others to the Knicks in exchange for Danilo Galinari, Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov and 3 draft picks to Denver Tuesday afternoon a very decent deal for both teams. For the Knicks, it brings them the best available player in the market for the next eighteen or so months into their team while also another big name in the Garden (joining Amare Stoudemire), and an even bigger boost to this team's offense. Sure, New York probably won't come out of this as future winners of the Eastern Conference this season and possibly even makes them a worse Mike D'antoni coached-defense than the one that they had now (currently ranked second to last, slightly ahead of the Minnesota Timberwolves), but it does set them up nicely for the future, including as early as next season. As for the Nuggets, compared to the nothing that they would've received in the case of Anthony leaving the team for free agency in four months or so, it is a very positive trade for them as well. Plus, having three additional draft picks aren't necessarily a bad thing. But, yes, the Knicks really had the better hand of the deal.
- It's funny: a day after the Carmelo Anthony trade finally went down after months of speculation, the Deron Williams to the Nets trade happens and it's the most shocking transaction of the past year. Anyways, while I do believe that the Nets gave up a lot justa lo like the Knicks gave up for Anthony (though there are many NBA experts and scouts claiming Derrick Favors to be an early bust), anytime that you can get one of the best point guard in the leagues is a positive for any team. By the way, I found this to be a good redemption move for New Jersey owner Mikhail Prokhorov. For months, he has promised to build a dynasty in New Jersey only to end up losing the #1 pick in the 2010 lottery, losing Lebron James and any other free agent in the 2010 offseason market and then losing Carmelo Anthony despite months of talk with Denver and being hailed by many as the up and coming James Dolan. Now, all of a sudden, his team suddenly received Williams, and he at least earns some happy thoughts from Nets fans, if only for a while.
-Don't ask me why, but yesterday I spend nearly two hours looking through the list of the first 1000 #1 hits in Billboard's history and even listened to the two part, one hour long audio featuring five seconds clips of every song from the beginning (1958) to 1992. It was sort of a combination of having way too much time in my hands and just not wanting to do anything cooperative for my community and this planet. As someone whose earliest memory of popular music was "Mambo No.5" and "I Believe I Can Fly" (no, really), what particularly struck me was the fact that many great musicians and bands including Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Credence Clearwater Festival and Jimi Hendrix never ended up having a number one hit, whereas people or bands that I've honestly never heard of before reading the list like Roxette had around four or five. I guess this is a good sign for the future legacy of today's music. Some other quirky and pointless observations, simply because I feel like it:
*Apparently, in the '60s and '70s, almost anything that The Beatles or Diana Ross did would end up turning to gold. In their heyday, The Beatles would have somewhere around seven or eight #1 hits per year while the Supremes would have around 4 or 5 per year. And then, when The Beatles broke up in 1970, each of the four groupmembers wound up getting at least two number one singles (even Ringo Starr!). Same thing with Ross, who, after the Supremes broke up, ended having a bunch more #1 hits by herself.
**Is it just me, or do all of the #1 songs from '91 and '92 sound the same?
***1985 wasn't a great year for popular music, to say the least.
****Of all of the songs in Michael Jackson's collection to become Billboard #1 hits, you would figure that the iconic "Thriller" would be one of them, right? Well, it didn't. I was most surely surprised.
*****Kudos to artists like Stevie Wonder, John Lennon and even Janet Jackson who managed to have #1 hits in three separate decades. Now that really takes some musical talent.
******It's fun to look back at the decades and try to pinpoint where music from one decade started into the music mostly associated with that decade. For the '60s, it seems like The Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was the song, for the '70s, it was either Earth, Wind & Fire's "Shining Star" or Grand Funk's "Do the Locomotion", for the '80s, it was Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," for the '90s, I found New Kids on the Block's "Step by Step" to be the one and for the 2000s it's too hard to tell.
And there you have it! Now, last Thursday I gave a little hint that this might be the last Thursday random thoughts post for an indefinite amount of time. Well, guess what? I lied, temporarily at least. Just like you should expect a new random thoughts to come at ya this Monday, expect another one to arrive for at least another Thursday (the next one) just one more time. Until then, enjoy the end of workweek, and enjoy these tweets from the fake account of the city of Chicago's newly elected mayor:
http://twitter.com/MayorEmanuel/status/40225077538586624
http://twitter.com/MayorEmanuel/status/40231375529316352
http://twitter.com/MayorEmanuel/status/40250820117270528
http://twitter.com/MayorEmanuel/status/40404793025368064
I hope he puts that swearing into good use, like fighting corruption (ha!) or the city's public school debt. Good night!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
No comments:
Post a Comment