5/24/2004
TEN RANDOM THOUGHTS #5
- If you’ve got a good non-chain bagel shop near you, support it. Bagelmakers need to be encouraged.
- This is my least-favorite time of the sports calendar: the NBA playoffs. Lakers, Lakers, Lakers. *yawn*
- And I’ll bet the NHL is just thrilled that the Stanley Cup finals will draw the massive Calgary and Tampa Bay markets. Actually, they won’t even draw the Tampa Bay market, since I doubt 1 out of every 10 people in Tampa even know they have a hockey team. But I’m sure all 950,000 people in Calgary will be watching, which should generate about $36 in TV revenue for the league. Still, you’d better watch, because next year, there probably won’t be any hockey at all. Unless ESPN 6 is showing the Wausau Walruses versus the Battle Creek Flakemakers, that is.
- The definition of high unintentional comedy: watching two people trolling each other on the typical Internet message board. There’s nothing quite like seeing how asinine people are will to be just in the hopes of inflaming another person. It’s like watching 14-year-olds trying to make crank phone calls, only without the intelligence.
- Michael Moore is a controversial political figure, and that will make many people (including me, probably) decide not to see Fahrenheit 9/11. And that’s fine; we’re all free to ignore political viewpoints with which we don’t agree. But do not interpret Fahrenheit 9/11’s victory at the Cannes Film Festival as Hollywood’s endorsement of his politics. Beyond the bluster, it must be remembered that Michael Moore is the only person in recent history who’s figured out how to make money-making documentaries. He is simply an excellent filmmaker. (And if you think that means I agree with his politics, you need to brush up on your reading comprehension.)
- Remember: feeding a stray cat is more or less a lifetime commitment.
- Oh, joy! Jim Rome’s on vacation this week! No more sentences which take three and a half minutes to complete. And maybe somebody will express an opinion more controversial than “Shaq is good.”
- Why do I listen to him anyway? Because nobody in this radio market has the guts to counterprogram with anything worth listening to. I got bored with Rush and his many imitators back in 1996.
- I’m working on my Big Ten football preview. I doubt I’ll post it before June sometime, but it’s time to start thinking about college football again. Well, for me, anyway.
- Pregnancy note: It is very possible to go from the “drinking water nauseates me” phase to the “I will eat anything that isn’t fighting back too hard” phase in less than 12 hours. I know; I’ve seen it happen.
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Blessed be the bagelmakers…
Comment by Kennedy — 5/24/2004 @ 11:59 am
Actually, hollywood doesn’t choose the cannes winner. And “excellent” is a stretch. Good is more like it.
Comment by Bryan — 5/24/2004 @ 12:14 pm
Bryan–
Re: Hollywood. I think that was Mark’s point.
Re: Michael Moore. We agree to disagree. :^) In my opinion, he certainly can be irritating, but he’s also thought-provoking.
Comment by Kennedy — 5/24/2004 @ 12:22 pm
Michael Moore
Mark at the Bemusement Park makes the claim:
… do not interpret Fahrenheit 9/11’s victory at the Cannes Film Festival as Hollywood’s endorsement of his politics. Beyond the bluster, it must be remembered that Michael Moore is the only person in re…
Trackback by Left Oblique — 5/24/2004 @ 4:04 pm
I guess you’re not a hockey fan. Just because Steve Yzerman or Joe Sakic isn’t in the finals doesn’t mean there won’t be any great games. It’s people like you who try to define the success of something by it’s market share that temporarily ruins it for the rest of us. Fortunately, at the drop of the puck tomorrow night, millions of people all over the world will be amazed at the greatness of the game. And that’s the point, the GAME. If you’re not impressed by the determination and speed of Martin St. Louis or the power and skill of Jarome Iginla, then you’re not a fan in the first place.
Don’t comment on something you know nothing about - it makes you look, well, insignificant (as far as your market value is concerned).
Do you realize how your comments insulted those in Calgary and Tampa? What if website popularity were based on the geographical location of the site? That would be stupid, right?
Comment by Eric — 5/24/2004 @ 5:35 pm
Bagel-related ethics question:
I remember when Einstein Bros. was just a nice little 6-location Kansas City outfit called Bagel & Bagel. Am I selling out to the man if I continue to eat their bagels?
And let’s not start on Chipotle……so good, but I feel so unclean after giving my money to the health-destroying McDonalds Corp….
Comment by Jim — 5/24/2004 @ 5:56 pm
Eric:
Why don’t you go back and read my post and let me know when you find the place where I said the Stanley Cup Finals are going to be full of boring, unwatchable hockey? Or where the people who do watch would be better off watching Everybody Loves Raymond reruns? I’ll wait here forever, because you’ll never find it.
What I said what that I’m certain the NHL, which as every hockey fan knows is in a bit of a bind right now, what with the lockout looming and threatening the entire 2004-2005 season, probably wishes it had teams in bigger markets playing in the finals, because that would most likely mean higher ratings. The games will be fine, and nobody needs to tell me that St. Louis and Iginla have been toiling in obscurity for years, along with most of the rest of their teammates.
Much as we’d like to believe that sports are above concerns of the marketplace, they’re not. Will it be great hockey? It probably will. Will lots of people be watching? I strongly doubt it. Are you going to let what some guy with a $5 website says about TV ratings affect your enjoyment of the Stanley Cup Finals? I hope not.
I don’t want every sport to be baseball or basketball, where the Lakers and Yankees are assumed to have a divine right to the finals every year (or at least 3 out of 4). All I said was that, all else being equal, the NHL would probably be a little happier with some bigger markets involved, and I defy you to prove otherwise.
New York and LA are provincial markets full of front-running fans. Their true-believer credentials are weak. Their sports media are spoiled toddlers. Their athletes are preening fops. And they drive pro sports in the US these days. If it were up to me, it wouldn’t be that way. But that’s what the advertisers like, and they’re the ones who bring us the sporting events we all love–whether we like it or not. They want eyeballs. They want the biggest piece of the biggest pie. Calgary doesn’t register to them. Tampa barely does. And the ad buyers are sitting in New York thinking, “Who’s going to watch these games full of nobody anybody’s heard of?”
You know and I know that they’re wrong, and that they don’t understand the sport. But they pay the bills. And so it goes.
Comment by Mark Hasty — 5/24/2004 @ 6:17 pm
Some interesting thoughts…but I disagree with your assessment of Moore as a “documentarian.”
Comment by david — 5/24/2004 @ 9:14 pm