Blog Posts For: December 2008

Sometimes it seems like the music world is being swallowed whole by teen sensations or golden oldies trying to make a desperate comeback. Hanna Montana or Miley Cyrus (I am never quite sure which name is right to use) is always threatening to cause a stampede along with fellow Disney artists the Jonas Brothers. I am simply too old to appreciate Lil’ Wayne and I no longer have the pure volume of hormones pumping through my body to stomach Emo.

So it is New Years Eve and many blogs and sports shows will run programs celebrating the best of 2008. They will flash back to the New York Giants stunning the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. They will flash to the Phillies giving Philadelphia something to root for in Philadelphia. They will gush over the Boston Celtics victory and the NBA Finals with the Los Angeles Lakers. They might do something about the NHL, but so few fans know anything about the sport that the names on the back of the jerseys would be meaningless.

The key for every artist is to try and revel in the moment when things are good and recognize when to try and change their image when those times are coming to an end. Scarlett Johansson is trying to get past that whole sex symbol thing to no male fans delight (I expect to see Ryan Reynolds maimed anytime soon for ruining her). Britney Spears decided that she was not crazy and shrewdly owned the former image with her latest album Circus to mock herself and regain control of her image. Well, the Jonas Brothers are beginning to take a stand with poorly grown facial hair.

The sports world may be in bowl mold- the Super Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, The Orange Bowl, the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl-, but the MLB season is coming up much quicker than most fans realize. There are already grumblings of pitchers and catchers reporting for spring training. There is even a glorious global exhibition with the World Baseball Classic (WBC). Half of the top free agents are gone and teams are starting to scurry to pick up the role players that will make the difference between 80 and 90 wins with just a few more hits.

The new rumor around Popville is that ballad happy Coldplay could be further ruining their sincerity cred here in the States thanks to the willingness of Chris Martin to perform in a duo for Leona Lewis. Casual pop fans may not recognize the name, but Lewis is the Kelly Clarkson of the UK. She is the winner of the 2006 season of the British pop wannabe competition Factor X. She has also been nominated for three Grammy Awards and debuted at number one over here with her album Spirit.

The buzz for the next few weeks is going to be about the NFL Postseason. The pre-postseason, also known as the regular season, is over and the Dallas Cowboys and the Denver Broncos can relate. They have maverick quarterbacks (Tony Romo and Jay Cutler), susceptible defenses (Dallas gave up 365 points and Denver gave up 448), both have had problems with healthy running backs, and both played themselves out of the playoffs.

The final slate of NFL games is just an hour away and I am looking at the final three divisions up for grabs. Of these three, two of the postseason chases seem be bathed in pathetic mediocrity. Really, how could the Denver Broncos blow the lead in the AFC West? How could the Vikings fail to close out the NFC North when they have Adrian Peterson on their team?

The Jonas Brothers are apparently a truly good group. I am not talking about their music. I am not a teenage girl, so my appreciation for those mop tops and PG lyrics is somewhat lacking.

Christmas has to be David Stern’s favorite holiday. Baseball only has its fanatical fans counting down the days until pitchers and catchers report to their Florida or Arizona home (40 days). Football does not have any bowl games and the NFL does not dominate with a useless Detroit Lions game (their biggest game of the season is this Sunday, let’s here it, hell no 16 losses in a row).

About a third of the NBA season is over and the play of the draft class of 2008 has been impressively surprising. So far the competition for rookie of the year has been more than simply a little compelling.

This past weekend tickets for the latest Lil’ Wayne and Taylor Swift tours went on sale. While Lil’ Wayne is not country, despite his appearance at the Country Music Awards, he does have a common bond with Taylor Swift. The connection is not their pop appeal either.

I think the theme for this past weekend in the NFL was momentum. Teams with playoffs on their minds had a lot to gain and to lose this weekend. Some teams cemented their place at the top and others went along playing their way out of the playoffs. In these final weeks I have continued to be surprised by which teams have ended up as the Super Bowl favorites.

This week kicked off with an impressive win by the Indianapolis Colts. They clinched a playoff spot with a 31-24 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. Peyton Manning returned to Manning Classic and completed 29 of 34 attempts for 364 yards and threw three touchdowns. For all the fuss over Marvin Harrison being out it really had no effect on the game. Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark and Dominic Rhodes did plenty of damage. Rhodes did not do much on the ground, but when Peyton is on it matters much less that the Colts have no running game.

They say justice is blind. They also portray justice as a blindfolded woman holding a scale along with a sword. They do not say that justice is deaf and apparently she loses all control when an R&B artist croons.

I have come to the conclusion that no matter what Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni do this season for the New York Knicks, the mere existence of Stephon Marbury will confound them this season.

The entire state of Utah was apparently afraid that the Church of Latter Day Saints monetary contributions to raise public support for Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage, in California. Not since rumors that Donny and Marie Osmond were a little too close for comfort has the state had such a crisis.

Last season the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim were the favorite topic of just about every baseball commentator out there. They had a pitching staff that went six deep and they followed through and easily won the American League West. They then went out and flat disappointed going down in five games in the best-of-seven first round series with the Boston Red Sox.

Dave Matthews Band is heading back out onto the road in 2009 to promote its first album in four years. This is also the first time out on tour without saxophonist Leroi Moore passed away in August. The group has become a staple of the summer concert scene and was bound to keep touring. Moore was a founding member of DMB and will be have his place occupied by Jeff Coffin.

This week the NFL front office must be happy. Week 15’s slate of games ended with winners that are going to keep fans watching as two divisions are still far from settled and the wild card competition grew even more desperate.

Week 15 has already officially started. It started with the Bears outlasting the Saints in overtime in the battle of whose defense could be less effective down the stretch. Really, the most valuable players in that game had to be the turf for making any break away plays on the outside of the field impossible and the coin toss that kicked off the overtime. Whoever won that flip was going to take the ball down the field. It just so happened that the winner was the Bears. That and a huge pass interference make up call put the Bears in field goal range and ended the game.

Now I admit I am an anglophile. Everything from the British Isles seems better to me. I like the comedies, the movies, and the music almost immediately upon hearing it is from England. I think Guy Ritchie deserves half of Madonna’s fortune for letting her don an atrocious I do not know why I have such a cynicism about American everything (except sports, our football is the only football as far as I am concerned), but I do.

Yesterday I rambled on about the return of the NBA and the emerging talents and up and coming teams in the Eastern Conference. Today I am going to try and drill it into sports fans heads again, basketball is worth watching. Not March Madness basketball with a few hundred players under the age of 22 who will never see a professional court in their lifetime. No, real-life NBA basketball in the post-Jordan (Bulls era please) is again well worth everyone’s attention.

Anytime I think about concerts I think about how terribly wrong they can go. It does not matter if I like the music or not, everybody has different tastes and that is fine. I may not like to go to a Celine Dion concerts, but millions would. I may not like to attend a Metallica show, but a strong following would do just about anything to go. I just think about myself on stage and how I do not want to be in front of an audience that does not like me.

So why has the American sports fan continued to ignore the NBA? Yes, the game looked more like close-quarters hand-to-hand guerrilla warfare in the 1990s. Only Michael Jordan could carry the league then (and he did, to six championships).

In case you forgot, will.i.am, a fouding member of Black-Eyed Peas, won an Emmy for basically just dubbing some soft guitar strokes and celebrity over Obama’s momentous “Yes We Can” speech. Well, that was more than a few months ago and the hip hop artist, will.i.am not Obama, has decided he should probably ride somebody else’s coattails.

With the Oklahoma Sooners averaging 54 points a game and the Florida Gators averaging 45.2 points, I foresee the highest scoring BCS championship game in the system’s short history.

The Pop Princess may have opened the flood banks with the release of tour tickets to Circus: Starring Britney Spears, but the another member of pop diva royalty began to sell seats for a super tour. This super tour reunites the Elton John with the Piano Man, Billy Joel.

The NFL season now has three more weeks with the conclusion of Week 14 and the number of meaningful games with playoff implications is dwindling, though each of those contests intensity is rising exponentially. This is the reality for every American sport and it is both a exciting and a sad time, and looking at some of these scores many cities will have fans suffering through the winter with a case of Post-Season Stress Syndrome.

Four weeks remain until the end of the NFL season and while half of the divisions already have clear champions (the NFC East, NFC West, AFC South, and AFC West) the remaining divisions are beginning the dog fight for first place.

Perhaps in this age of troubled economic times it best to be green with greed at the theatre. Wicked has dominated musical theatre for the past five years. The latest box office totals from Playbill have the production as the top earner on Broadway again, pulling in $1.8 million and a full crowd during the last week of November. Now, Elphaba is sure to have company at the top. Shrek the Musical is set to officially open on December 14.

Every year in November college basketball seems to begin incognito. Sure ESPN tries to make the first few tourneys- the NIT, the Old Spice Classic, Coaches vs. Cancer – get some coverage, but nobody realizes that collegians are taking the court until December with the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.

I am not by any means a Britney Spears fan. I am also not generally a fan of the Today Show’s attempt to bring pop music to the A.M. I gotta say that despite all my prejudices I came away pretty impressed with her appearance this morning. Contrived? Yes. Up to par with her “Baby One More Time” dancing? No. But she looks pretty good and primed for a comeback.

As the first quarter of the NBA season approaches I am shocked by how little I apparently understand about professional basketball. I was sure there was simply too much talent, length, and ego in the Lakers front court for the team to run a cohesive offense. At 14-1, Los Angeles has completely made me disregard my prediction. I though I was being intelligent. I looked at the roster, looked at the names, and saw the heights. I over thought it and I was wrong.

First Lil’ Wayne says, jokingly (I am assuming), that the world is coming to an end. At the time Hilary Clinton, a woman according to rumors and pantsuit makers everywhere, and Barack Obama, an African-American, were the two front runners for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now Obama has become the president elect and I am not sure if he was joking.

Tennessee Titans (11-1) 47 – Detroit Lions (0-12) 10

I have one question, why does the NFL keep giving Detroit a spotlight game every year. The Lions have not had a winning record since 2000. Stop being an enabler. I understand that nobody saw the Titans as the best team in the AFC by Week 13, but still to put this marquee time slot in Detroit only proves to me that the NFL is an enabler. The game…well, the Titans ran, predictably, for nearly 300 yards and obviously trampled a city already hurting from the breakdown of the Big Three bailout.