There are a lot of groaning White Sox fans this week as a result of the question as to whether the Sox would resign former designated hitter Jim Thome. Thome was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers at the trade deadline last year to give him a chance to win a title with that team. As we all know, that didn’t happen, and the aged slugger remains a free agent, and by all accounts, Thome is a great person, a great teammate and would like to return to his home state of Illinois.
Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen was quoted in the paper that there was no greater fan of Thome than himself other than Thome’s wife, but Guillen nixed the trade for good reason. The stated reason is that Guillen refused to guarantee that Thome would get a large number of at bats, but let’s be honest – if Guillen carries 12 pitchers, which he likes to do, after you get to the eight position players and at least one extra catcher, that leaves 3 roster spots. Thome, as terrific a player as he is and has been, can’t play the field anymore, and is a very slow runner.
The Sox have Mark Kotsay, Andruw Jones, and regular first baseman Paul Konerko who each can play the field, are a little bit faster runners than Thome, and can play the field – giving Guillen many more options, can give the regulars a day off, and can still keep their bats in the lineup. Today’s Tribune says that the White Sox will miss the big thumper in the lineup, and that is true, but I think that the Sox will generate more runs with better base running, than always counting on the home run.
In this case, the local newspapers got ahold of this story and made a mountain out of a molehill, but if you want the White Sox to have a better chance to win, sometimes a tough choice has to be made. I love Jim Thome as a player to – a class act by any criteria and a Hall of Famer, but he may not be best for this team.

The Huffington Post reported the other day that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in a recent interview warned that the financial markets could react negatively if Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke isn’t confirmed for a second term. Geithner suggested that the market would see a failed Bernanke confirmation as “very troubling,” but claimed that he was “very confident” Bernanke would receive enough Senate votes to win a second term. Who gives a good damn what Wall Street thinks? Yes, I know that there are very rich people who move their money like nomads among investments, but whenever there is “opinion” that moves the market, in a few days, the market returns to where it was when it declined.
This is not to say that I think Bernanke shouldn’t be reconfirmed (I think he should be), but all this scuttlebutt is silly. Are Wall Street analysts like little old ladies, reacting on rumor and ghosts? It appears that they do (and maybe a better analogy is that they are like deer trying to take a drink but scared that every little noice is a predator). But too many decisions in life are based on the skittish decisions of a few MBAs in trading rooms. I thought that you made an investment decision for the long term – believing in a company and staying with it; but that’s not today’s capitalism. Today, money flows like the tides moving around, never stopping. Sometimes, it moves like a tsunami in huge waves that crash and destroy all in their path.
The markets are led by people, and in general, people are greedy, mean-sprited, and generally suck. And that’s what’s running the world folks – any wonder why things are so F#$%ed up?

• Is there anyone more cursed than figure skater Nancy Kerrigan? Known best of course, for being knee-capped by a bodyguard for rival Tanya Harding, this week, her dad was beaten to death, apparently by her brother, who is being held in the murder. What a life this woman has had.
• Tim Tebow has a right to his opinion, but he should keep it to himself. Tebow is strongly Pro-life because his mother was told to consider aborting him as it was a troubled pregnancy. So, now Tebow appears in anti-abortion literature and commercials. Yes, I understand that you wouldn’t be here, but since you will probably never be poor, and you will certainly never ever be a woman, keep it to yourself.
• For those of you who took the time to read my complaint letter to Norm Winer, program director for WXRT, I was laughing this morning. When I got in the shower and turned on the radio about 5:20AM, the station was playing “Stepping Out” by Joe Jackson. I had complained that the only song that was played by Mr. Jackson was “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” Coincidence? Probably! Amusing? Definitely!

I must be a glutton for punishment. After having sent a letter via snail-mail to Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany complaining about the officials. I still haven’t received any response. But, as you will see in my letter, my ire came out when I was listening to WXRT in the shower the other morning and heard Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him” the only song, I believe they play of Mr. Jackson’s.
So, tilting at windmills again, I have decided to send the following letter to Norm Weiner, Program Director of WXRT:
Dear Mr. Winer,
I was listening to the station the other morning and I heard Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him.” I love Joe Jackson, but it appears to be the ONLY song that ever gets played by him. The same can be said for every artist that WXRT plays with the exception of course of The Beatles, whose almost entire catalog with the exception of the symphonic Yellow Submarine songs, are fair game, and of course, the Talking Heads. I can’t remember if it was Greg Kot or Jim DeRogadis who called XRT: a station just a few moments away from playing the Talking Heads at any time, and the station plays what, five songs from them?
In the 1990s, WXRT did the same thing – it was just the artists were different. In those days, it seemed like it was the Pretenders and Tom Petty every other song. It still makes me angry because I used to like these two artists; especially the Pretenders, who I saw live three times in their early days, twice with the original lineup. But now, I can’t listen to the Pretenders; XRT has ruined them for me. While Petty does not get played quite as often, the Talking Heads are always getting played. I now hate them, and they used to be one of my favorite bands of all time. One Friday not long ago, they were the Friday Feature artists and my wife, who is originally from Canada, asked “how is that different from every other day?”
I remember the days when it broadcasted only for a part of a day and had featured artists (and the old cards) every day, some of which included Beethoven and Mozart. It was a musical smorgasbord and it was quite good. Today, the only time we hear the actual potential of the station is during Saturday Morning Flashback. Why can’t the station be more like that (and I don’t mean the Flashback weekends)?
As you can tell, I am a long-time listener of the station and even went on three of the WXRT Excursions to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in the mid 1990s. I’ve known Tom Marker and Teri Hemmert for many years as a result of those trips, and I have communicated my frustrations about the station to Lin Brehmer through e-mail and on my blog site. All of them have been very nice, and are knowledgeable on the music. It makes me laugh when I read that the DJs are responsible for the playlist – I know them and the station would be far different if this were true. But they’re smart people – they have great jobs; make good money; and in this world, you do what you’re told to keep the job. I understand all of that. But with Joe Jackson’s one song getting played yet again, and despite having never received any response when I contacted you in the past, I just reached yet another boiling point and decided to try again.
I realize that the station is under corporate ownership and to a great extent, your hands are tied by “the suits” who apparently think they know what they’re doing, but really are just bean counters who continue to recycle “the conventional wisdom,” but while the station may have the attitude of being “like an old blanket – warm and comfortable and non threatening’ but I say that an old blanket also gets tattered and smelly and eventually thrown away. And with the state of radio, this puts WXRT in a particularly precarious position.
I listen to the station during the morning rush and at drive time and on the weekends, but my work blocks internet radio, and, to be honest, my iPod has much more diversity than the station. I realize that WXRT is limited in playing the same song twice per day, which is much less than other commercial stations, but how about REALLY opening up the playlist and say, not playing the same song for 3 days? A week? How about a non Talking Heads day? Could the station survive a Beatle free day? There’s more than enough music by artists old and new, why not take the station to a new level. You probably wouldn’t upset the current listenership, and who knows, you might get people who wrote WXRT off years ago to come back, and the younger demographic might tune in as well?
WXRT may be able to play 5,000 artists compared with the usual station, which has a list of say, 500. The problem is that you play the same three songs from those artists. I happen to be a big fan of Elvis Costello, for example, but how many times do I need to hear “Oliver’s Army” and “Alison?” Especially since he has a number of great albums/CDs from his early period (Trust, Get Happy), mid period (Spike, Brutal Youth) and recently (Delivery Man, Momofuku, Secret Profane & Sugarcane.). Usually when he has a new CD release we hear one song. And what about the other artists that helped WXRT build its reputation like Marshall Crenshaw or Graham Parker? They’re still out there, making good music. When I’ve asked Lin about it, he says “we’re playing it.” When? In the middle of the night? Since your demographic is decided older (I just turned 50 myself, and have two young children), I don’t get to hear it. Instead, I get the same mid tempo songs in endless repetition every day. Yes, there are some new songs and younger artists in the mix, but we only get that one song. I know that in the iPod world, singles are being purchased more than ever, but I believe that this is just a change in the delivery system – there were always singles, but FM radio was built on playing more than just “the hit single.” If WXRT is playing “more music” than anyone else, that must be in time played or number of artists played. It certainly isn’t in number of different songs.
In fact, The Drive’s “deep cuts” play more different types of music than WXRT. Q101 even surprises me occasionally – I heard the Sex Pistols the other day. They may have a more limited playlist than WXRT, but at least they are songs with some life in them. The other week I was surprised when Johnny Mars played Bram Tchikowsky’s “Girl of my Dreams.” I hadn’t heard that in a very long time. I admit that I was pleasantly surprised. Why can’t we be surprised more often in the daytime? It’s like my argument against most of Eric Clapton’s output since 1985 – just because I am old, doesn’t mean that the music I listen to has to be old.
Why do I care? Why don’t I just go somewhere else on the dial and leave WXRT to die in the wake of satellite radio, Q101, and my iPod? Because I have decades invested in listening to this station. At one time, they were the only station that played The Clash and U2 and Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson, the list goes on. Are you all handcuffed by the “Corporation,” or is the station content to be the rock equivalent of a Norman Rockwell painting?
While we listeners may have a time investment in our radio stations, the true investment comes from the shareholders of the corporation, people who know nothing and care less about music and its listeners, just as long as we are generating income. So, who cares if I stop listening? “Go to Q101, and hurry up,” could be your opinion. But I know scores of people like me, but just don’t complain – they don’t listen anymore. And the station, already calcified like a hardened artery, will stay the same until it dies.
One reason that I am so angry is that I have never gotten any response from the station, not even a photographed upraised middle finger. I guess station management is above discussions with their listenership; you only have to answer to the Corporation and the bottom line. It’s too bad, because this station can be so much better. And while I know that I will never win an XRT-VIP contest having said all of this, it’s worthwhile.
Sincerely,
Tony Fernandez

As always – loyal reader, I will let you know if I get any response.

Usually I take no opinion of casting choices in movies, particularly comic book adaptations. There was a ton of wailing when it was announced that Tim Burton had cast his “Beetlejuice” star Michael Keaton in “Batman,” but things worked out alright (I’d say better than alright). I also wanted people to take time to watch the film first before putting down Daniel Craig as James Bond, and he’s done a fine job. In other words, if there’s a good script and a decent director, good things will happen.
But too much meddling (probably from Marvel movie honcho Ari Arad, who doesn’t know what works but has come up lucky in having hits – mostly from the strength of the characters and directors – not his “leadership”), is probably the reason that it was announced that Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi would not be in the upcoming “Spider-Man 4.”
Now, I’ve never been the biggest Maguire fan, and I think he can be replaced, but Raimi is the reason the films have been any good and will be much harder to replace. I was lukewarm on the first film – as is the case with so many comic adaptations, the set up took too long and when the action came, the CGI wasn’t as smooth as it could have been. The second film was one of the best comic movies ever – the effects were much improved, and Doc Octopus was played perfectly by the great Alfred Molina, played with equal parts menace, intelligence, madness, and melancholy.
The sequel made tons of money, which meant more people who don’t have a clue, felt they could meddle in the making of the third film. Raimi wanted the Sandman to be the main villain, which would have shown the same potential for as much pathos as villainy, much as Doc Ock and the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe in the first film and in a cameo in the second). Instead the third film lost its focus on one villain, and Arad’s reported insistence on Venom as a villain was misguided. (Venom is a symbiotic alien that was popular when first introduced, but the one-dimensional character lost its popularity with most comic readers over the age of 14 {most of the comic reading public})
Reports say that Raimi wanted to have the Vulture played by the great John Malkovich as the villain for the next film, but Arad (and perhaps some of the clueless Disney folks who now own Marvel) wanted the Black Cat, a one-time girlfriend in the series but fairly lame and unimportant villain in the Spidey-mythos. Once again, “the suits” who have control of the purse –strings in a movie project, but who have no creative talent (and make Ed Wood look like Orson Welles if they had to make their own film) are intent on more villains (has no one learned from “Superman 3” or 4?). Again, the “Hollywood intelligence” (like military intelligence, both oxymorons) says we need bigger and better, which means more villains and less interest in character, which is what Raimi really brought out in the films (especially 2).
As I’ve said here before, when most comic fans see one of their characters turned into movies, we just hope that the film “won’t suck.” The producers say that the film will do for Spider-Man what “Batman Begins” did for the Caped Crusader. They use the words gritty and contemporary. Contemporary means a back to high school story; OK, that’s fine. But gritty is not Spider-Man – he’s more light hearted than Batman. Once again, the “suits” are trying to base a project on a past project that does not exactly fit, but that’s the overly simplistic mind set of these people. Let’s really keep our fingers are crossed this time.

There’s nothing like a natural disaster, particularly one in a location filled with dark-skinned people to bring out the bigots and idiots. This week’s earthquake in Haiti is a disaster that has and will bring an immeasurable amount of death, pain, disease, homelessness, and suffering to one of the poorest countries in the world.
Admittedly, the regimes of Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier and the corruption the two men inflicted on good faith efforts to help the people over the past several decades. Still, the fact that the people have not moved much past the country’s historically shady government is no excuse to deny aid now. (In actuality, Time Magazine reports that the earthquake comes at a time when actual progress was being made in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. The installation of a U.N. peacekeeping force and an international investment campaign headed by former President Bill Clinton had recently begun to calm and rebuild the Caribbean nation.)
But that’s not what the “religious bigot” Pat Robertson and ditto-moron Rush Limbaugh said after the catastrophe. Televangelist Robertson, always quick to blame diseases and disasters on the “sinful” nature of the people affected, said Haiti has been “cursed” as a result of a “pact to the devil.”
Robertson’s twisted mind took a twisted take on history, saying on “The 700 Club,” “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.”
Is he talking about voodoo? In actuality (according to Wikipedia) Haitain Vodou is “based upon a merging of the beliefs and practices of West African peoples, (mainly the Fon and Ewe), with Roman Catholic Christianity, which was brought about as African slaves were brought to Haiti in the 16th century and forced to convert to the religion of their owners, whilst they largely still followed their traditional African beliefs.” Can’t get much more Christian that the Catholic Church, can you, Pat?
Never one to keep his big fat mouth shut, the openly racist conservative Limbaugh started using the crisis to attack President Obama politically (actually, he would use anything to attack the president). On his radio show Limbaugh said the earthquake will play right into Obama’s hands by allowing him to play up his “compassionate” and “humanitarian” credentials, and that the President will use this crisis to “boost his credibility with the black community.” As a member of the black community, he doesn’t need any boosting – even his missteps are positives to me, and much better than the idiot we had in office before and his Darth Vader Vice President.
Limbaugh suggests that people send no more money to Haiti; we already do that by paying U.S. taxes. Of course, this gets the ditto-heads shaking their collective heads in agreement, although foreign aid is a miniscule percentage of U.S. budget.
As if that weren’t enough, Limbaugh also criticized the fact that the White House website has links to charitable organizations operating in Haiti. Limbaugh and a caller seemed to promote a conspiracy theory that finding these charities via the White House website puts your money at risk of not reaching Haitians. I guess the money would find its way to Obama’s reelection campaign in their limited world view.
A couple of times, I have had the privilege of being at films dealing with the horror of the genocide in Rwanda in 1993; both films (one a documentary; the other a docudrama) were from the perspective of Canadian General Romeo A. Dallaire, who was chosen to lead to U.N. peacekeeping forces in the country at that time. In fact, he tried to save as many lives as he could amidst the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis, but his hands were often tied by the rest of the world, who gave less than a damn about the dying people. Both times he attended the films in person and I’ll never forget what he said – no life is worth more than another. That is why even Bill Clinton is haunted by the world’s indifference and lack of support to stop the slaughter.
This is something that these two – Limbaugh and Robertson – should remember. In fact, Robertson, as a supposed minister who should have studied the Bible, should well know. But, like so many current Christians, they read only the Old Testament and conveniently ignore those thorny (no pun intended) quotes from Jesus about compassion, giving help to the poor, etc. But I’m sure that if it were a country comprised mostly of lighter skinned people, these two would be getting off of some of their considerable fortunes to help.
So, I’m sure that very soon, The Indignant Wife and I will be finding a charity to contribute for the people of Haiti. I’m sure that many of you will as well; and if you aren’t considering it, you should if you have extra. I’m not religious, but I think that compassion for one’s fellow man is a trait that should be nurtured. Whether you expect to be rewarded with a heavenly afterlife (like a carrot on a stick to a horse), or just because you would want help from people if an emergency happened to you; I believe that helping people, regardless of color, is essential to being a true human being.

In this troubled time when jobs are scarce (6.1 unemployed people for every open position) and people are nervous, in the unreal world of sports, jobs are plentiful and the usual football college and NFL coaching merry-go-round is in full swing…
Assistants are fired; new assistants step into their place, and of course, the jobs at the top are spinning faster than car tires at the Indy 500. First, I want to discuss Pete Carroll leaving USC, where he won 2 national championships and theoretically, could have coached forever for the head coaching job with the Seattle Seahawks. Carroll was by all accounts, a mediocre NFL coach – a 38-37 record, no playoff wins, but he was an excellent college coach. And, many great college coaches have faired poorly in the pro game – Steve Spurrier, John McKay, Bruce Davis, Lou Holtz – the list goes on and on. It’s obviously much easier to motivate a 19-year-old kid who gets no money to play than a 24-year-old millionaire. Not to mention the fact that the Seahawks suck and need a MAJOR overhaul. Their QB, Matt Hasselbeck, is 35-years-old and is on the downside of his career; they have bad offensive and defensive players and have had no direction since Mike Holmgren left one year ago.
In the old days, the money differential was such that college coaches had financial incentives to move to the pro sideline, but that’s not the story anymore, with multimillion contracts available at both levels. So why leave? Carroll gives the standard answer – “the challenge,” but perhaps he is “pulling a John Calipari” – leaving one school just before it gets on NCAA probation.
USC may be facing some NCAA problems: numerous allegations followed the admission of O.J. Mayo in to their basketball program; the school’s best football player of the last decade, Reggie Bush, reportedly took hundreds of thousands of dollars from an agent while in school. One of their running backs from last season, Joe McKnight, reportedly drove a Land Rover registered to another.
And maybe Carroll knew that time was out in L.A. This year’s team didn’t win the Pac 10 title, finished well out of national championship consideration, and with the chance of sanctions coming, perhaps the criminal saw the posse coming and decided to “get out of Dodge.”
This of course, leaves the mess to the next guy, unless you think that the NCAA will go easier on the school if there’s a new sheriff in town (OK- enough with the Old West analogies). So, just one year after taking the head coaching job at Tennessee; causing tension with Florida and (last, current, future?) head coach Urban Meyer; creating problems with SEC officials; and two years after being fired by Oakland Raiders’ owner Al Davis for insubordination, Lane Kiffin is replacing Carroll at USC.
Yes, Kiffin worked for Carroll at SC, and he is an admitted Carroll clone in many ways, but USC, already potentially under a microscope, and with challenges coming from the Carroll era, has hired a man with a lot of baggage.
A funny aside – Tennessee students reportedly rioted when they found out that Kiffen was leaving for California. Good to see the students have nothing better to do (like studying, going to class, perhaps) than sing “Old Rocky-Top” and care about the football team.
Reminds me of the University of Oklahoma President who said that he wanted a school “that his football team could be proud of.”