The Indignant Wife and I like to go to SPACE, a music venue close to our home. We have seen great concerts there including our neighbor Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater, my friend Graham Parker, Glenn Tillbrook, and this weekend, we are going to see The English Beat. It is a great small venue to see music (and a 10 minute drive tops).
There is another reason to be proud of the club now. SPACE has canceled singer Michelle Shocked’s May 5 performance following reports of her anti-gay rant from a San Francisco stage last weekend. “After speaking with the promoter of that show about the nature of the remarks, it’s clear that this is no longer a show we’re willing to put our name on,” the club announced on its website and Facebook page, offering refunds to ticket-holders.
Reports from Sunday’s show at San Francisco’s Yoshi’s say Shocked, a born-again Christian, railed against gay marriage and told the crowd, “You can go on Twitter and say, ‘Michelle Shocked says God hates (anti-gay slur).’”
I’m not a Michelle Shocked fan and less of one when I heard about her rant and turn to fundamentalist Christianity. For the last time you bible-thumping bastards: your religion DOES NOT allow you to discriminate and belittle a group of people.
Good going SPACE!

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I am a proud Liberal. My politics skew VERY far Left. My heart bleeds as much as anyone’s. Also, I grew up in the Englewood community of Chicago, once a low-to-moderate income area which is now very poor and in many ways the equivalent of Bagdad in terms of violence.
As a result of my background, I believe in equal opportunity for all people; better education and job prospects for residents of the inner city; greater governmental jobs bills to train people to work on the antiquated infrastructure, schools and roads that have been allowed to deteriorate over the years. However, it isn’t just one way belief: I believe in legalizing drugs and spending the money on the “war on drugs” on rehab clinics rather than jail. Without the high profit motive, drugs have less impact. And I also believe in tough gun control laws that allow law-abiding people who want guns to have them, but no one else.
At a Toronto Film Festival screening years ago, I got to hear Canadian General Romeo Dalliare talk about his time as head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda in the 1990s and he made a comment that no one’s life is more important that any other, a sentiment that people forget because humans need to feel superior to other people, but causes murder, death, and war. Most of the time, I agree with this sentiment, but sometimes something happens that pushes that to the brink.
There is a lot of attention about violence in the city of Chicago especially in light of the murder of 15-year-old King College Prep High school student Hadiya Pendleton, who was gunned down near her school on January 3oth, just days after she participated in President Obama’s inauguration. A lot of that attention centers on my old neighborhood, partly, I think, to allow suburban white readers to hold on to their belief that African-Americans in the inner city are inhuman monsters. When discussed in my presence, I defend the residents of my old neighborhood talking about education, opportunities, all the things I mentioned above.
That said however, there are times when I am hard pressed to consider the humanity of some of these “people.” Yesterday, in Woodlawn, close to my old Englewood neighborhood, as her father had stopped his SUV to change her diaper, someone stepped up on the two and fired a weapon, shooting the man and 6-month-old Jonylah Watkins five times. The little girl died today, and in my heart, I am relieved that she can be hurt no more. Are there serious questions about the girl’s parents? Of course; Jonylah’s mother was shot in the leg while pregnant with her, and one must think that since he was targeted and shot multiple times, he was into something that made him a target. In other words, he was not an innocent bystander like Ms. Pendleton.
But, the piece of human excrement shot anyway including hitting the baby 5 times. It was too much damage for the baby and she died today. Pictures of a happy, smiling little girl are on the front pages of both Chicago newspapers today and she doesn’t look too different from pictures of the Indignant Children at the same age. I admit to have the same feeling I had after the Sandy Hook massacre.
I admit, to my shame, that I often feel no empathy or sympathy at gangbangers like this, and that I do start looking at them like inhuman filth – that all of them should be rounded up in an enclosed area of the city with no innocents, and allowed to murder each other, like in “Escape From New York.” They have mothers, fathers, girlfriends, even children of their own, and someone will say that they are misunderstood; products of broken homes and childhoods. However, as soon as the man who killed this baby started shooting, all the “backstory” makes no difference. That their “business,” “honor,” MUST be upheld, everyone else be damned, just let the bullets fly, has to be considered inhuman.
In the coming days, I have little doubt that this foul human will be identified; complete with the stereotypical nappy hair picture in the press, and he will get a life sentence for snuffing out Jonylah Watkins’ life. And there will be more marches, more ministers preaching and calling for prayer (which hasn’t done any good for the length of human existence when it came to having divine intervention to keep humans from killing each other) and more politics and the f#$king NRA who believes that the way forward is to have everyone armed so that the gun makers can make more money.
And we forget about this latest massacre until the next young life is snuffed out. To Tea Partiers and other Republicans, the African-Americans are sub-human and deserve to kill each other; to the NRA, put pictures of the killer everywhere to scare white people who live nowhere near Chicago that young black men are out to rob them and rape the women, and the only way to stop them is by having military style weapons with high capacity magazines. To Liberals like myself, the need for more resources is met with the argument of wasteful spending.
Meanwhile there is the comment of General Dalliere, and you think that he is right, and then you find a person shooting a baby and you have to wonder…

I looked up the word ignorant in an online dictionary and I got two very good definitions: lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact; and due to or showing lack of knowledge or training. To me, the definition was lacking one thing to adequately explain the term: a picture of ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.
Smith, a basketball “analyst” (really nothing more than a gossip monger and a little man who wishes he had the height/talent to play professional basketball, but most just talks a lot of s#$t), according to the Chicago Sun-Times downplayed the Chicago Blackhawks’ 23-game streak without an overtime loss because hockey has “ties.” Many in the media are making comparisons between the Hawks and the Miami Heat’s current 14-game streak, and I guess that bothers Smith. Of course, there are no “ties” in the NHL anymore since there is overtime and the shoot-out, but Smith is too stupid to look that up.
I guess the fact that an overtime or shootout loss counts as a point and a non-regulation loss makes someone who doesn’t know or appreciate the sport want to downplay the achievement. But people who know the sport (and of course, those of us who are Hawk fans or live in Chicago) are giving it the appropriate respect it does deserve. Plus, most fans like the added interest that the streak has brought to the whole sport; interest that was badly needed after the lockout that nearly cancelled the entire 2012-2013 season.
Of course, anything that doesn’t involve basketball or doesn’t conform to Smith’s world view is subject to question. Of course, Smith doesn’t know the game of hockey; I don’t think he can spell it, but like a yapping little dog, he is barking. Even though basketball, especially the NBA kind bores me to death, the players are great athletes, and should be considered as such. By the same token, I have always had distain for golf, but golfers have a skill and entertain people. (I am not going to get into the argument of whether they are athletes, however.)
But for anyone to suggest that one streak is not “important” and shouldn’t be comparable to the Heat (especially since Smith has spent most of his career kissing the ass of the current superstar of the moment – be it Kobe, or LeBron, or whomever), Smith yet again unleashes his ignorance on the broadcasting world. When I am in a conversation that I don’t understand, the best thing to do is to remain silent – maybe you’ll learn something, but listening is not Smith’s strong suit; belicose opinion is all he has.
I admit that one thing that angers me is when media sports people make mistakes. I’m not talking about the occasional slip like confusing a team name or something trivial; I’m talking about when someone makes a mistake of fact that they should know better or could easily have looked up. But there is nothing worse than a “commentator” showing his or her (but mostly men) complete ignorance of a subject and then going off on a rant (of course, this would include the entirety of Fox News). Since I still yearn to be a “talking head” on sports television, it angers me that some people have jobs that I could do much better than they could.
Finally, nothing embarrasses black people more than when an ignorant African-American is on television making us all look like idiots. (Chris Rock used the n-word for these types of people, but I’m not going there.) Stephen A. Smith’s whole career has been ignorant, loud, uninformed, and generally a waste of the audience’s time.
When will ESPN pull the plug on this cretin?

I’m not a fan of NASCAR by any means, but just a week removed from having positive PR of the first woman in history to hold the pole position at the Datona 500, NASCAR just can’t catch a break. According to the Sports Business Journal, the National Rifle Association has reached an agreement with Texas Motor Speedway to sponsor NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series race on April 13. This would be the first time the NRA has sponsored a race in the top series. Not surprisingly, however, this is not the first time the NRA has sponsored a NASCAR race. The association was the title sponsor for the NRA American Warrior 300 at Atlanta Motor Speedway last September, but that was for the second-tier Nationwide Series.
Muddying the sponsorship is the fact that NASCAR was working to raise support for the Newtown, Conn., families. Last month, NASCAR officials announced an effort to raise funds and awareness for the 20 children and six adults killed as part of a mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. NASCAR partnered with Swan Racing to put a Sandy Hook School Support Fund paint scheme on the No. 26 car driven by Michael Waltrip in the Daytona 500.
However, the good ‘ole boys don’t have any problem with it. ESPN.com quoted Bruton Smith, chairman of the group that owns Texas Motor Speedway, didn’t feel the agreement would be an issue and called the NRA a “great sponsor.” Smith said “It’s not a touchy issue at all. We’re at Texas. I guess if you want to find any state in the United States that is pro guns, Texas would be it. You have more hunters per capita in Texas than any place I know.”
We have to make the distinction that sponsorship agreements are made between companies and the track where the selected race will be taking place. So, the deal for the April 13 race, which will be called the NRA 500, is between the NRA and the Texas Motor Speedway, not NASCAR itself.
Still, I have always said that NASCAR is a place for people to release their inner (and outer) redneck. But it is harder for NASCAR to shed its image as being solely for redneck, dimwitted simpletons, when the tracks are signing deals like this one.

There were a series of radio commercials run several years ago with a tagline that I have made into my personal philosophy: “Life is too short to drink bad beer.” I believe in that saying, and now that I have the financial wherewithal to not have to drink cheap beer, I no longer do so.
One of the first casualties of my philosophies was Budweiser. “Alcoholic’s beer” is what we used to call it – beer with a kick and no taste is what I thought. Great if you’re a college student with little money, but it has been decades since I drank one (even when offered at parties).
But am I now wrong in calling it “alcoholic’s beer?” According to numerous media outlets, Beer drinkers in three U.S. states filed lawsuits accusing brewing giant Anheuser-Busch of watering down and mislabeling Budweiser, Michelob and other brands to cut costs.
The lawsuits, filed in the last week in California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, said the brewing giant cheated consumers by listing a higher alcohol content than the beers actually contained. Ten Anheuser-Busch products were named in the lawsuits: Budweiser, Michelob, Michelob Ultra, Bud Ice, Bud Light Platinum, Hurricane High Gravity Lager, King Cobra, Busch Ice, Natural Ice and Bud Light Lime.
What’s more is that, like the big tobacco suits (noted in films like “The Insider”), the plaintiffs have enlisted former employees at the company’s 13 breweries including some in high-level positions telling the same story: the excess water is added just before bottling and cuts the stated alcohol content by 3% to 8%, he said. Anheuser-Busch InBev called the claims “groundless” and said its beers fully comply with labeling laws.
On the serious side, this is what has gone so disastrously wrong with corporations in the 21st Century – cut any corner to save a few bucks. Toyota took liberties with people’s lives by installing defective brakes because the underlying lawsuits were less costly than actually installing the proper equipment. In this case, some poor bastard is paying for a beer with a certain alcohol level, but is getting cheated. What has happened to the attitude that if a customer pays for something he/she gets what they pay for? What happened to workmanship (such as it is in cheap beer)?
Finally, I admit to being a beer snob, so I have to ask, who buys Budweiser anymore, anyway? With the numerous microbreweries and especially the number of foreign beers with considerably higher alcohol content, as well as much more interesting tastes, does anyone drink the Anheuser-Busch brands anymore? I have read that the market share of the big brewers is falling, but what kind of mindset is there to save a nickel a bottle of beer by watering it down? If some poor bastard is drowning his sorrows, he should be able to drown them in the full power swill.

For work, my travels often take me to Boston where the locals are as rabidly behind the Red Sox as anywhere. (Case in point, a couple of years ago, with the Blackhawks playing the sixth and deciding game of their Stanley Cup Championship, most of the people in the bar were paying much more attention to a relatively meaningless spring Sox game.) Before last season though, I told my coworkers that the Red Sox were doomed because they had hired Bobby Valentine as their manager.
Valentine had last managed the New York Mets in the 1990s and when he got fired, he went to Japan to manage, and then was an ESPN analyst, but from all reports, Valentine was wacky, which was the reason no one had given him another job. His on-air comments often substantiated that view.
But the Red Sox front office knew better and hired Valentine, who proceeded to alienate the veterans, anger the media and fans, and worst of all, led the team to a 69-93 record, the team’s worst since 1965. The Red Sox brain trust decided that they had made a mistzke and fired Valentine.
Now Valentine might have still had the opportunity of being a major league manager someplace, but once again, his mouth has run with no brain power. Once again throwing his players under the proverbial bus, Valentine was quoted in today’s Chicago Tribune “Connie Mack wasn’t going to win with that team.”
Maybe not, but I don’t think any team could win with the obnoxious blowhard Bobby Valentine.

Everyone remembers the riot that ensued after the Boston Bruins defeated the Vancouver Canucks in the Stanley Cup Finals a couple of years ago, and here in Chicago, we feel that the Canucks are the cheapest NHL team this side of Raffi Torres. Who knew that boorish behavior is not limited to the big league club and it’s fans.
A pee-wee hockey coach from Vancouver suburb Richmond, BC has been sentenced to 15 days in jail for tripping a player during a postgame handshake. Martin Tremblay swept out the leg of an opposing player while the teams were going through the typical hockey ritual of lining up to shake hands after the game. Two players, a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old, fell to the ice. The move was caught on video and worked its way around the Internet.
The 48-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of assault in November. Provincial court Judge Patrick Chen gave Tremblay jail time, saying he wasn’t satisfied that time served in the community was enough to denounce or deter the man for his actions. Personally, I think the guy should be placed in the maximum security wing of the prison so that the bully can be bullied. Imagine the nerve of pushing around some kids?
Since the Indignant Children are both in ice skating classes, I have a lot of interaction with the hockey players and their parents, and fortunately, I haven’t seen any bad behavior. Which makes me wonder what makes the usually mellow Vancouver populace lose their minds over the sport?